Last week, Mike M. sent us an email asking us for help. He wrote, I’ve been reading a lot of technical literature recently, but I need a break. Can you recommend a book that uses puns or word plays. Something light. Of course, there’s...
How do you pronounce garage? Does it rhyme with “barrage,” or do you say it like the British so it rhymes with “carriage”? The variations abound, and they all work. This is part of a complete episode.
Which is the better term, recurrence or reoccurrence? A look at the corpus of American literature confirms that recurrence is far and away the more commonly used word denoting “something that occurs more than once.” This is part of a...
Get out your umbrellas — it’s raining pitchforks and … bullfrogs? This week, it’s odd expressions that mean “a heavy downpour.” Also, holistic vs. wholistic, recurrence vs. reoccurrence, flash drive vs. thumb drive...
If what you’re going to say isn’t more beautiful than silence, don’t say it. Martha shares this proverb, translated from the original Arabic. This is part of a complete episode.
Why do some puns strike us as clever, while others are plain old groaners? Martha and Grant puzzle over this question. Also, the difference between baggage and luggage, a royal word quiz, the “egg” in egg on, what to call someone who...