How do you pronounce this word that means someone’s strong suit? Like fort or fortay? And what does it have to do with fencing?
Who was that masked man? Was it the Barefoot Bandit, the Mummy Bandit, or perhaps the Botox Bandit? Or maybe it was the Bad-Breath Bandit? The hosts discuss the wacky names that law enforcement officers give to suspects. Also, what’s a pickle...
Grant talks about his daily work as a lexicographer. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Lexicography Work” You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett. And I’m Martha Barnette. A while back...
What’s the right way to pronounce gyros? Have you ever heard of feeling poozley? Called something great a blinger? Use the expression one-off to mean a “one-time thing”?
Elizabeth in Princeton, Texas, remembers her late father, who grew up in Snowflake, Arizona, finishing a meal with “I am sufficiently suffonsified. Anything more would be purely obnoxious to my taste. No thank you.” The mock-grand phrase means he...
You know that grammatical “rule” about not ending a sentence with a preposition? Well, who ever decided finishing off a sentence like that is a bad thing? (Personally, we think it’s one of the silliest things anyone ever came up...