Some business owners give their establishments names like “Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe.” What most people don’t realize is that the letter Y in this case is a vestige of a letter we no longer use, and has a “th” sound. More...
Janie in Gainesville, Florida, remembers her grandmother Othella Mae Hatfield’s Appalachian version of an old anti-wishing proverb: “Wish in one hand and tacky in the other, and tell me which one gets full first.” Tacky here is probably a family...
Is it ever correct to refer to a mustache as a plural? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Plural of Mustache” Howdy, you got A Way with Words. Hi, this is Jennifer from Carlsbad. Hi, Jennifer. Hi, Jennifer. What’s...
A Chicago man says he was caught up short when he caught himself writing the words “a whole nother.” Is nother really a word? The book Grant recommends on the topic is Everything You Know about English is Wrong, by Bill Brohaugh. This is...
In this week’s episode: Just how far back could you go and still understand the English people were speaking? We crank up our trusty time machine to find out. Hint: You’d probably have a tough time getting around in the eighth century...
A caller wonders why some versions of the Lord’s Prayer include the phrase “forgive us our trespasses,” while others substitute the word “debt.”