“If you come to a fork in the road… take it!” Baseball legend Yogi Berra was famous for such head-scratching observations. What most people don’t realize, though, is that the former Yankees star often wasn’t the first...
If everyone on the planet spoke a single language, wouldn’t that make life a whole lot easier? For that matter, is a common world language even possible? Maybe for a minute or so—until new words and phrases start springing up. Also, did you...
Hellooooo, nurse! We have two recent brand-new episodes to share, plus some language news, along with a bit about what’s going on with us. First, on the show this past weekend we talked about eponyms, jo-jo potatoes, dog breed mashups, the...
Hello, language-lovers — This past weekend’s episode is a delicious re-airing of a show from last spring, tackling great catchprases, Fibber McGee drawers, autocorrected text messages, annoying verbal fillers (“um”) and a...
What does it mean to gronk the data? A listener from the medical device business wonders about the techie word “gronk,” which first popped up in Robert Heinlein’s 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land. Grant also mentions Jeff...
How can the word friend possibly describe both the people you went to school with and the people to whom you are connected through Facebook and MySpace? Are friends on the social sites really friends? Is there a better word to describe someone who...