What games first made you realize that words and letters make great playthings? Martha describes puzzling, as a child, over the odd combination of letters, F-U-N-E-X, until she finally figured out the joke. Grant talks about discovering anagrams as...
Grant shares more crash blossoms including “Dr. Ruth to talk about sex with newspaper editors.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Dr. Ruth Crash Blossom” Martha, here’s another crash blossom for you...
hamdemic n.—Gloss: A joking name for the swine flu pandemic. «As a responsible newspaper in serious times—when the world is threatened by climate change, economic collapse and what we are steadfastly refusing to describe as a...
Lee from Philadelphia’s green Amazon parrot is named Alexander Hamilton, not Polly, but strangers still greet him with Polly want a cracker? The joke is old: Poll was a nickname for parrots as far back as the 1600s, and by 1848 the cracker line was...
dayscrapping n.— «I even learned a new word the other day from our friends at Outsell: “dayscrapping,” which refers to the practice some daily newspapers have adopted of publishing or delivering papers only on certain days...
What’s the nickname for your hometown newspaper? Do share by emailing us. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Newspaper Nicknames” Martha, we were talking earlier about nicknames. There is a whole other category of...

