After our conversation about sisu, the distinctively Finnish term for “intestinal fortitude,” a listener of Finnish heritage from northern Wisconsin emails to illustrate the Finns’ understanding the word. Sisu, he says, requires more than just...
A Vermont caller feels the word awesome is overused to the point of being almost meaningless. There’s a term for that. It’s called semantic weakening. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Semantic Weakening of Awesome” Hi, you have A...
Word nerd Ammon Shea quit his job as a furniture mover in New York City to spend an entire year reading the entire Oxford English Dictionary. The result, in addition to eyestrain, headaches, and skeptics’ puzzlement, was Shea’s new book, Reading the...
personal Everest n.— «We awoke at dawn resembling damp tramps but feeling as if we had climbed a personal Everest of endurance…well maybe a Pen y Fan. Gordon Brown has his opinions on what defines courage. In my book, it’s spending a night in a...