Why does the term vegetarian cause so much confusion? Some people assume it means avoiding red meat but still eating chicken. And is there a term for a vegetarian who also eats fish and poultry? Plus, screwball comedies from the 1930s mix slapstick...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski takes inspiration for this week’s puzzle from cartoonist Nathan W. Pyle and his aliens from Strange Planet (Bookshop|Amazon), whose ultra-literal phrasing makes familiar experiences sound oddly technical and new. For example...
Nikki in Charlotte, North Carolina, shares the story of a man who casually told passersby You dropped your pocket, prompting them to check for something that wasn’t there in the first place. That silly saying reminds her of playing pool and trying...
A profile in The New Yorker of writer Patricia Lockwood, author of Will There Ever Be Another You (Bookshop|Amazon) opens by saying she has “the impish verve and provocative guilelessness of a peeing cupid,” a description the quirky author herself...
The crossword clue is “bread machine?” The answer has three letters. What is it? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Bread Machine?” You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. My name is Grant...
The adjective corny describes someone or something “unsophisticated” or “naive.” This sense of corny goes back at least as far as the 1920s. Seed catalogs of the time often contained bits of goofy jokes and broad humor described as corny. In...