Paul from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, spent his first 30 years in Minnesota, so Wisconsin friends sometimes call him a mud duck. In that border-rivalry setting, it’s usually a good-natured jab at Minnesotans, much like cheesehead for Wisconsinites. Among...
The Bangladeshi idiom translated as oiling your mustache in anticipation of the jackfruit tree bearing fruit roughly matches English don’t count your chickens before they hatch. The image depends on cultural context: jackfruit is juicy, a mustache...
Ho, ho, ho! In this week's episode, we discuss whether the term "Oriental" is offensive. We also talk about "not one iota," "take a gander," "learning curve," and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious...
A woman from upstate New York says her stepfather used to keep small dishes in various rooms to collect small odds and ends like paper clips and rubber bands. He called them culch piles. Martha has the story on this term. This is part of a complete...
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 quizzes Martha about some odd terms: three sisters garden, weak-hand draw, and strimmer. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Three Sisters Garden” You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette...
