There’s a frisson you get when you meet a word for the first time—feeling pleasantly stumped in between wondering, “What the heck does that mean?” and hurrying off to find out. Martha and Grant talk about some terms that had just...
cleanout n.— «Salvation comes in the form of large cleansing cool winds that sweep in from the northwest. But as luck would have it, Rochester is the last to benefit from Mother Nature’s air freshener. After pushing through Detroit Lakes...
50-state car n.— «Many of the cars that are produced today are called 50-state cars: they don’t have an EPA version and a California version. In other words, the vehicle meets the strictest standard that’s out there, whether it’s EPA for...
Why are cave explorers called spelunkers? How do you pronounce the word? A naturalist at Mystery Cave in Minnesota wants to know and in return she tells us how to tell a stalactite from a stalagmite. This is part of a complete episode.
Welcome to another newsletter from A Way with Words, public radio's lively language show! Next week's show will be brand new, but this past weekend's show was a juicy repeat in which we talked about the demise of the typewriter, surfing...
horse teeth floater n.— «Chris Johnson just wants to float horse teeth again, and he’s getting help from the Minnesota chapter of the Institute for Justice. The group filed a lawsuit last week against the Minnesota Board of Veterinary...