A Utah listener recalls a story about her German-speaking mother-in-law referring to a childhood illness as the German disease. In English, the term most commonly referred to syphilis, a disease that different cultures blamed on their neighbors with...
A Montana farmer says his dad used to warn against catching the epizooty. In 1872, an epizootic respiratory disease among horses nearly brought the United States to a standstill. The word epizootic is modeled on the Greek word epidemic, from Greek...
Rebecca in Austin, Texas, wonders why the terms cold sore and fever blister describe pretty much the same thing. Also, why do we say we have a cold, but we have the flu? The word flu comes from the Italian word for influence, influenza, and is a...
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...
Why do we say someone has a cold when we say someone else has the flu, and another person has croup? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A Cold, The Flu” Hi, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Anne. I’m calling...
Steer clear of the flu. You’ll groan on wet sheets. You will mew. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Flu Limerick” All right, so I’ve been digging around in the Omnificent English Dictionary in limerick form...
