Hi, all! Our most recent episode is a favorite archive edition: "A Roberta of Flax," with funny collective nouns for plants, plus the game "Telephone," the use of "whenever" with reference to a one-time event, and...
When someone admiringly called a woman “outspoken,” Dorothy Parker is said to have cynically replied, “Outspoken by whom?” Well, according to quoteinvestigator.com, the line pre-dates Parker’s quip. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Is it really possible to change your style of speaking so that you stop using the verbal fillers um and you know? Yes, you can. Martha relates her experience with dialect-coach-to-the-stars Sam Chwat. He was adamant that by catching ourselves every...
This week: whether cotton-pickin’ is racist, unintentionally funny headlines, whether enormity can simply mean “enormous,” how a person can be “such a pill,” and pandiculation. “It’s good stuff, Maynard...
For 341 years, the poets laureate of Britain have all been male. That just changed with the appointment of Britain’s new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. Her work has been described as “dealing with the darkest turmoil and the lightest...
hip pocketing n.— «Robinson says she was led into fake auditions only to be sexually propositioned, a practice known as “hip pocketing.”» —“B.C. model suing Hollywood agency for alleged assault” by Andrew...