Max from La Jolla, California, named his beloved rescue dog Snaggletooth. A snaggletooth is “a broken tooth” or “a tooth projects beyond the mouth.” It’s from the same linguistic root as snag, originally “a tree...
How many different ways are there to say you have a baby on the way? You can say you’re pregnant, great with child, clucky, awkward, eating for two, lumpy, or swallowed a pumpkin seed? • The story behind the word...
The rarely used English noun list, meaning desire or craving, is entirely different from the word list that denotes a series of things. The little-used meaning is at the root of the term listless, which in its original sense meant a lack of desire...
What’s the difference between hand grenades and pomegranates? Not much when you think about their shape and the fact that they’re both packed tightly with small things, which is why both share a linguistic root with the word granular...
The adjectives frenetic and frantic arise from the same linguistic root, but have slightly different meanings. This is part of a complete episode.
A caller wonders if the Spanish and Arabic articles el and al spring from the same linguistic root. This is part of a complete episode.