Greetings, wanderers, and welcome home. This past weekend on A Way with Words we wrestled with "commentate," "tie me over" vs. "tide me over," long words, and "biweekly" vs. "semiweekly." We also...
Nominations for Word of the Year 2007 In this episode, Grant offers peek at some expressions he’s nominating for the American Dialect Society’s Word of the Year vote in January. Will it be “w00t,”...
An American cartographer for the United Nations reports that he and his British wife disagree over whether lollygolly is a real word that means “to dawdle.” Martha and Grant show the mapmaker where to draw the line. This is part of a...
sweater on the rail n.— «Hustling doesn’t merely involve the players at the table. There was a rogue’s gallery of “stakehorses” (financial backers), “sweaters on the rail” (side bettors) and “nits” (kibitzers). As the gambling spigot has...
smeet v.— «The first time members of the leading online virtual world got together for the face-to-face reality of the Second Life Community Convention, it was a lexicographer’s dream. “People actually coined a new phrase: ‘Nice to...
In June, Grant attended the biennial meeting of the Dictionary Society of North America. One of the highlights was the New Word Open Mic where anybody was invited to step up to the microphone and submit a new word they had coined or found. Grant was...