The new book Chaucer’s Tale by Paul Strohm describes the cramped, noisy, smelly place in which Chaucer wrote, which got us thinking about the particular environmental preferences we all have for getting serious writing done. This is part of a...
For language lovers, it’s like New Year’s, Fourth of July, and the Super Bowl all rolled into one: The brand-new online edition of the Dictionary of American Regional English. Martha and Grant explain what all the fuss is about. Plus, the debate...
Thanks to the fatberg-a 15-ton blob of fat and grease found in a London sewer-the -berg suffix lives on. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Fatberg” You know I should have mentioned this word on the air at the time it happened, but...
Did you ever walk in a crocodile? In Britain, a crocodile can be “a group of children walking two by two in a long file.” The phrase came up in an interview with the stylist Vidal Sassoon, who, as a child in London walked in a crocodile to school...
Ho, ho, ho! In this week's episode, we discuss whether the term "Oriental" is offensive. We also talk about "not one iota," "take a gander," "learning curve," and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious...
Is the term “Oriental” offensive? Where do we get the phrase “not one iota”? Why do we tell someone to “take a gander”? And who coined the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?