Jim in Sacramento, California, was reading The Good Detective (Bookshop|Amazon) by John McMahon, when he came across a description of the Georgia countryside as flatter than a gander’s arch. Just how flat was it, and what’s a gander’s arch? This is...
Sue from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, wants help regarding a dispute with her husband about terms they use in a pickup sport like softball and you don’t have enough players to field a full-size team. If you get onto second base but then have to go back...
Laura in Tucson grew up hearing her West Virginia grandmother use tight as a tick for a room packed with people, and wondered whether it referred to a blood-swollen tick or the tick of a clock. It’s the blood-fed tick, whose body can become taut and...
If you’re talking about plans to make contact with someone, do you say you’re going to touch base or touch bases with them? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Touch Base vs. Touch Bases” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, how are...
A Delaware listener wonders about her grandparents’ use of the phrase I beg your pardon, which sounds a bit old-fashioned to her and her peers. Her grandparents were prim and proper, and used this expression whenever they felt slighted or...
Why do we write the word I as a capital letter when using it to refer to ourselves? Is English the only language that capitalizes the first person singular pronoun? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Why is the Pronoun “I”...
