Tagignorance

Episode 1469

Gone to Seed

This week on A Way with Words: Restaurant jargon, military slang, and modern Greek turns of phrase. • Some restaurants now advertise that they sell “clean” sandwiches. But that doesn’t mean they’re condiment-free or the...

Ignorance Gone to Seed

The phrase ignorance gone to seed invokes an agricultural metaphor. Picture a field that is so far gone it’s no longer flowering and is now beyond the point of further cultivation. This is part of a complete episode.

Immappacy

Another word of the year candidate is immappacy, which is formed by analogy with “innumeracy,” and means the inability to understand maps. This is part of a complete episode.

lift

lift  n.— «One consulting firm he knew of lost a bid to help an airline modernize its ticketing process when it revealed its ignorance of the term “lift,” common parlance in the industry for tickets.» —“Not-So-Small...

Happy New Year

Greetings, oh wordy ones! We're on vacation, so this past weekend's broadcast was a repeat--uh, "encore presentation"--that originally aired December 2nd and 3rd. It's the one in which we geek-out over...