If you have seven oranges in one hand and six in the other, what have you got? “Really big hands”–and a really bad joke. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Big Hands, Bad Joke” You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about...
There’s a proper noun out there that rhymes with orange, and it’s The Blorenge, a hill in Wales. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Rhymes with Orange” Grant, I was so excited this week to learn about a prominent hill in southeast...
Dan Henderson of Sunnyvale, California, sent us a great cartoon of two guys at a bar. One says to the other, “Explain to me how comparing apples and oranges is fruitless?” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Fruitless” Dan Henderson...
Which came first, orange the color or orange the fruit? And what’s a busman’s holiday? Martha and Grant talk about bumbershoots, brollies, nursery rhymes, and alternatives to the word unicycle. Plus, an app-inspired quiz, favorite oxymorons, and the...
Everyone knows about Tang as that orange kick in a glass, but could it also be an entree? A listener from Plano, Texas, found an elderly relative’s plan for family meals from 1947, which lists “tang with molasses” as a main course. If you’ve heard...
What came first, the color orange or the fruit? The original term is Sanskrit and refers to the fruit. As the fruit traveled west, the word came with it. Grant notes that, like the terms for parts of the body, the names of colors travel very well in...