Home » hour

Taghour

Episode 1610

Big Dog

If you’re ever near a sundial, step closer and look for a message. Many sundials bear haunting, poetic inscriptions about the brevity of life. Plus, language development in toddlers: why and how little ones pick up the exclamation Uh-oh! And a...

Episode 1455

Sunny-Side Up

Baseball has a language all its own: On the diamond, a snow cone isn’t what you think it is, and three blind mice has nothing to do with nursery rhymes. And how do you describe someone who works at home while employed by a company in another...

Two-O’Clock Hitter

In baseball, a two-o’clock hitter is one who hits well in batting practice, but not during the game. It used to be that games traditionally started at 3 p.m., with batting practice an hour before. This is part of a complete episode.

Take-Offs Word Quiz

Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski offers a quiz called Take-Offs. For each clue, remove the first letter of a word to get the second (or third) word in the puzzle. For example, in the first chapter of Moby Dick, Ishmael had to screw up his courage and join...

Origin of Ignoramus

The story behind the word ignoramus is big fun. It involves a bumbling lawyer, a six-hour farce from the 17th century, and a Latin legal term. See? Big fun. This is part of a complete episode.

Recent posts