If you’re serious about writing a memoir, what topics should you include, and what can you leave out? And how honest can you really be about the other people in your life? Some of America’s leading memoirists wrote things they lived to...
Britain’s new polar research ship is named RSS Sir David Attenborough, even though an online vote overwhelmingly chose the name Boaty McBoatface. Versions of this playful construction go back at least as far as a 1987 episode of the television...
How dry is it? In the middle of a drought, you might answer that question is “So dry the trees are bribing the dogs.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Drought Humor” I was talking to a Texan about how dry...
In the late 19th century, Wisconsin newspaperman George Wilbur Peck wrote a series of columns about a fictional boy who was the personification of mischief. The popular character inspired stage and movie adaptations, and the term “Peck’s...
If you’re having difficulty parsing the meaning of the word defugalty, or difugalty, the joke’s on you. It’s just a goofy play on difficulty, one that’s popular with grandparents. This is part of a complete episode...
A chemist who spent years working in the pharmaceutical industry sent us an amusing sendup of corporatespeak that begins, “It is what it is, so let’s all reach out and circle the wagons…” Although his jargon-laden riff wonderfully...