Jeff from Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, wants to know if he’s wrong to say, I’m going over Martha’s house, meaning “I’m going over to Martha’s house.” He’s always left out the word to from that phrase. His wife argues that he’s implying that he’s...
If you’re an empty nester, you’ve probably wondered about a term for one’s grown offspring. Do you use the term adult children? How about kid-ults? Since the 1960’s, the term has also been used in the marketing and advertising world. There, kid-ults...
Martha describes a funny linguistic misunderstanding she had while trying to read Harry Potter in Spanish. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Harry Potter en Español” Grant, we were talking earlier in the show about that point in...
A woman from Cape Cod is looking for a polite word that means the current wife of my ex-husband. She’s thinking about cur-wife, but somehow that doesn’t quite work. Neither does the phrase “that poor woman.” The hosts try to help her come up with...
A listener in York, England wonders about the word grockles, a derogatory term for tourists. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Grockles” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, Martha. This is Jared, who lives near York, England, but...
squeefully
adv.— «It was, in the parlance of the fandom, “squeefully” exciting.» —“Visiting the set of ‘Harry Potter’ (part 1)” by Cheeser Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator May 22, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
