It’s hard to remember how to spell the names of some cities. Tallahassee, Florida, for example. Then there are towns with very few letters to remember. Y, a tiny town in northern France, has only two main streets, which come together to form...
In Norway, the idiom pling i bollen, or literally, “a pinging sound in a bowl,” describes someone “empty-headed” or “stupid.” This is part of a complete episode.
In Norway, a popular bit of advice translates as “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.” It’s sometimes given as “Det finst ikkje dårleg vêr, berre dårlege klede” and the idiom is also used in...
Some people proudly embrace the label cancer survivor, while others feel that’s not quite the right word. Is there a better term for someone who’s battled cancer? Writers and listeners share the best sentence they’ve read all day...
In an earlier episode, we discussed linguistic false friends, those words in foreign languages that look like familiar English words, but mean something quite different. Martha reads an email response from a listener who learned the hard way that in...
lean forward v. phr.— «The green light from the U.S. government on a Final Assembly and Check Out line is an example that the U.S. government is leaning forward to address Italy’s aspirations for technology transfer.» —“JSF Partners...