Katie, an 11-year-old in Tallahassee, Florida, asks about I swanee, a phrase her grandfather from the mountains of Virginia used when he was frustrated but did not want to swear. The mild oath, also heard as I’ll swanny and shortened to I’ll swan...
Someone should write a love letter to a new book called Letters of Note. It’s a splendid collection of all kinds of correspondence through the ages: Elvis Presley fans writing to the president, children making suggestions to famous cartoonists, a...
Hey, friends! This past weekend, we re-aired an episode you may have missed. Among other things, we talked anatomical eponyms in medicine, such as Achilles heel and fallopian tubes, which are being phased out; litotes, which use negatives to say...