Jeff from Columbus, Indiana, asks about his father’s use of the expression “not one iota” to mean “not one bit.” An iota is the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet, and ancient Greek speakers used the word for something exceedingly tiny. The...
Sean, a public affairs officer at Camp Pendleton, California, asks about gyrene, an old slang term for a Marine. The word appears in print as early as the 1890s. Although a doubtful popular theory derives it from GI plus marine, the Historical...
A listener in Dallas, Texas, asks about frenetic, a word he heard from a business-school professor, and how it differs from frantic. Both adjectives trace back to a Greek root meaning “brain” or “mind,” also found in words such as frenzy and...
A gracious good morning to you! In this week's archive episode, we savor the pleasure of reading poetry aloud -- specifically the poems in "Essential Pleasures," the recent anthology of ear-pleasing poems gathered by U.S...
Um, are you, like, one of those people who, get, like, really annoyed, by, you know, like, lots of filler words in, you know, like, conversation? If it’s any comfort, there’s a great term for this. Can you say embololalia?
This week, it’s backhanded phrases, those snarky remarks that come sugar-coated in politeness, like “How nice for you,” “Oh, interesting!,” and the mother of all thinly veiled criticism, “Bless her heart.”...