A Texas listener recounts an ongoing debate in her family’s kitchen over the exact definition of the word spatula. Is it the kitchen tool used to spread icing and level measuring cups? Something you use to flip a pancake? That item with the...
Quiz Guy Greg Pliska shares a puzzle in verse, challenging the hosts to fill in the blanks with words that differ by just one letter. Like this: “I never count ___ when I’m going to ___; that method does not work for me. Right around...
After typing Are you shining me on? Wendy in Aloha, Oregon, wondered whether shine might carry the same sting as an offensive racial slur. In this use, to shine someone on means to bluff, delude, fool, or sometimes ignore, and it appears to be...
The English language has no shortage of words that mean nonsensical talk, including one that’s piqued a listener’s curiosity: How did flannel come to mean “empty chatter” or “hot air,” as in “Don’t...
For tech-savvy types, saying “ping me,” meaning “contact me,” is as natural as grabbing a snack while waiting for your computer to boot up. The hosts disagree about whether the verb ping has already moved into common parlance...
Oh, that gives me agita! A Connecticut native says her Midwestern colleagues office were flabbergasted to encounter this expression, which she’s known all her life. Grant and Martha discuss this word for “upset” and its likely...