A caller with a 25-year-old parrot wonders: How much language do birds really understand? Plus, Knock-knock. Who’s there? Boo. Well… you can guess the rest. But there was a time when these goofy jokes were a brand-new craze sweeping the nation...
Sneaky contract lingo, advice for writing well, and preserving a dying language. Say you’re scrolling through an online transaction where you’re asked to read the “Terms and Conditions.” Do you actually read them or just check the box and move on...
Quiz guy John Chaneski shares limericks about things people were talking about in 2015. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Hot Topics of 2015 Limerick Game” You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use...
It’s the Up Goer Five Challenge! Try to describe something complex using only the thousand most common words in English. It’s a useful mental exercise that’s harder than you might think. Also, if you want to make a room dark, you might turn off the...
The word chow, as in chow hall or chow down, goes back to the British presence in Chinese ports during the 1700s. Chow chow was a pidgin term referring to a mixed dish of various foods, namely whatever was on hand. The joke was that it often...
New York seems to have a doguero on every street corner. Grant shares this Spanglish term for “a hot dog vendor.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Doguero” Here in San Diego, we often find that Spanish and English are mixing in...