Unless you’ve been hiding out in a galaxy far, far away, you know that this is an election year. Grant and Martha talk about current political slang. Ever hear of glass pockets? Or horseracism? Is there an etymological connection between...
Happy Memorial Day to our American listeners and salubrious salutations to everybody else! It's another newsletter from A Way with Words. We're starting the summer season, so this past weekend's show was an "encore presentation...
goldfishing n.— «The day I am in the studio, the report on the opposition’s activities features just one politician talking in an interview. But you don’t hear his words. He is, in TV parlance, goldfishing: you can see his lips move but...
An upstate New York listener of Italian descent is curious about two favorite expressions: “fuggeddabouddit” and “bada-bing, bada-boom.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Bada-Bing, Bada-Boom”...
ecoball n.— «Dangerous toxins are leaching into the soil—perhaps the water supply as well—from piles of rubbish which have littered the area for years. The waste is compacted into what are euphemistically called “ecoballs.”...
Gini index n.— «The Census Bureau measures income disparity through an established method called the Gini index—named after Italian statistician Corrado Gini. The index measures the gap among incomes of all households.» —“Income gap...