Minnewisowa n.— Note: Similar to FLOHPA from the 2004 election. «The visits, the 11th and 12th to Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa in just over a month by Obama, John McCain and their running mates, were the latest evidence of just how...
If you were raised in North Dakota like our caller, you might wonder about a phrase you heard growing up: “It’s a horse apiece.” It means something like “six of one, half a dozen of the other.” She is curious about the...
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. Transcript of...
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...
off-ramp n.— «Authors of the initiative recognized the flaw and, during the campaign to pass the measure, agreed to make improvements if it passed. After it passed, Xcel Energy and the initiative backers worked with state legislators to...
backing heads n.— «Her most recent job was “backing heads,” scraping meat from between the vertebrae.» —“A Medical Mystery Unfolds in Minnesota” by Denise Grady in Austin, Minnesota New York Times Feb. 5...