You pick up what you think a glass of water and take a sip, but it turns out to be Sprite. What’s the word for that sensation when you’re expecting one thing and taste something else? Also, slang from college campuses, like ratchet and dime piece...
You’re at a social gathering and meet someone you’d like to know better. What do you ask to get a real conversation going? Some people lead with “What do you do?,” while others avoid talking about work entirely. Still others ask, “Where’d you go to...
Attention Sue Grafton fans: A is for Amusing might be a good title for this week’s puzzle from Quiz Guy John Chaneski. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “”A” is for Amusing Word Game” You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha...
The term Melungeon, applied to a group of people in Southeastern Appalachia marked by swarthy skin and dark eyes, has been used disparagingly in the past. But Melungeons themselves reclaimed that name in the 1960s. The Melungeon Heritage website...
Kevin Whitebaum of Oberlin, Ohio, has a favorite sentence from P.D. James’s A Taste for Death: “The original tenants had been replaced by the transients of the city, the peripatetic young, sharing three to a room; unmarried mothers sharing social...
In a previous episode, we came upon a word mystery in a 1947 menu from Jackson, Mississippi, that mentions tang. The mystery has been solved! It wasn’t the drink, and it wasn’t the fish; it was Cudahy Tang, one of over a hundred knockoff brands of...