A woman having an affair with a married man is a mistress. So what’s the word for an unmarried man who’s having an affair with a married woman? Consort? Leman? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Male Mistress” Hello, we have A Way...
In this week’s episode: Just how far back could you go and still understand the English people were speaking? We crank up our trusty time machine to find out. Hint: You’d probably have a tough time getting around in the eighth century, when English...
Martha tries to unravel the tangled etymological web that connects gossamer, spiders, geese, and warm weather in a late autumn.
A caller has client who uses what sounds like a strange, three-syllable word: indice. The caller knows that the plural of index is indices. But, he wonders…indice? And should he talk about it with his client?
A San Diego woman who’s homeschooling her children wonders if there’s a formula that explains why nouns like teacher and writer end in “er,” while others, like professor and conductor, end in “or.” She suspects it has to do with whether the words...
If you’re still wondering about how far back in time you could go and still understand the English spoken then, check out written and audio excerpts from the poem Beowulf. Also, this NPR report in which host Robert Siegel gets a lesson in...