You know those words whose meanings never seem to stick in your mind, no matter how many times you flip back to the dictionary? Martha wrestles with the term atavistic, meaning “the tendency to revert to ancestral characteristics.” She now remembers...
A unicycle enthusiast wonders if his unicycle can be properly called a bike. To avoid the four-syllable mouthful, the unicycle community (yes, there is one) sometimes calls it a uni, but for the general public, the term “bike” works. Martha reveals...
Ever thought about getting that novel published? Apparently, others have too, and some of their queries are less than persuasive for the admittedly grumpy literary agent who writes the blog SlushPile Hell. He posts some of the more colorful queries...
The adjectives frenetic and frantic arise from the same linguistic root, but have slightly different meanings. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Frenetic vs. Frantic” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello. Hi, who’s this? This is...
Whether it’s bytes of data or intergalactic distances, humans are accumulating ever more massive amounts of data. But how do we use language to describe such mind-bogglingly huge numbers? There’s mega, as in mega-millions, and giga, as in gigabytes...
A caller who grew up in Arkansas says his mother used a colorful expression instead of “mind your own business,” which was “tend to your own rat-killing.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Tend Your Own Rat-Killing” Hello, you have...
