Jerry in Lutherville, Maryland, was reading a 2018 biography of Nelson Algren, author of The Man with the Golden Arm, that mentions a group in the 1930s that were described as hipsters or hepsters. In the 1930s, the word hipster applied to a jazz...
The adjective stentorian, meaning “extremely loud,” comes from the name of brazen-voiced Stentor, a Greek herald in The Iliad, whose voice was said to be as powerful as that of 50 men. The noun and verb mentor come from The Odyssey. In that Greek...
Mark from Newport News, Virginia, says his mother, who grew up in Fancy Farm, Kentucky, often used a puzzling phrase. To ask how close he was to completing a task, she’d say what sounded like How much do you like? In parts of the Southern United...
Summer reading recommendations! Martha loves A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader, a beautifully illustrated anthology of letters from well-known writers and others celebrating reading. The book is edited by Maria Popovic of Brainpickings...
You may have heard the advice that to build your vocabulary you should read, read, and then read some more – and make sure to include a wide variety of publications. But what if you just don’t have that kind of time? Martha and Grant show how to...
Mark Twain and Helen Keller enjoyed a close, enduring friendship. When he learned that she was mortified was accused of plagiarism, he sent her a fond letter as touching as it was reassuring. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Mark...