Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski offers a quiz called Take-Offs. For each clue, remove the first letter of a word to get the second (or third) word in the puzzle. For example, in the first chapter of Moby Dick, Ishmael had to screw up his courage and join...
What do you say when you answer the telephone? On the NPR science blog, “Krulwich Wonders,” Robert Krulwich notes that hello did not become a standard greeting until the Edison Company recommended the word as a proper phone greeting. Before that...
This week, a special treat: NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz stops by with a quiz about slang and anagrams.
The first of two podcasts this week includes a special message to A Way with Words podcast listeners. Also, Martha answers a listener’s email about the term sea change. Or is it C change?
A listener from Texas heard an NPR report from Asia in which an interpreter translated a speaker’s words into English as “a whole new ball game.” He wants to know if that’s a literal translation from an Asian language, and if so, is it a reference...
belly button n.— «Hakim was a negotiator for the arms for hostages deal and as his embarrassed testimony revealed, he also had a hand in setting up a secret account to provide for the family of the ring leader of the operation, an account with a...
