The calls and e-mails keep coming in about Scotts being called Todds and Todds being called Scotts. One listener left a voicemail about a christening where the priest called the baby by its oddly common misnomer. Another listener by the name of...
You know those dull sports clichés like “We came to play” and “He left it all on the field”? They’re called bromides. The hosts explain the connection between the tired platitude and the sedative called potassium...
Martha shares a puzzle sent in by a listener: “What’s the longest word typed on the left hand’s half of the keyboard?” Hint: It’s the plural of a now-outmoded occupational term. This is part of a complete episode.
A Woodbridge, Connecticut, caller tells the story of coming across the following definition for jungftak in Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary (1943): “n. A Persian bird, the male of which had only one wing, on the right side...
A dogsledder in Vermont wonders why he and his fellow mushers direct their furry packs by shouting gee for “right” and haw for “left.” This is part of a complete episode.
Did you learn the vowels as “a,” “e,” “i,” “o,” “u,” and sometimes “y” and “w”? A caller who was taught that in second grade was left wondering: When and where does...