A Tallahassee caller wonders about the name for terms that are capitalized in the middle, like MasterCard and FedEx. Grant explains that they’re commonly called CamelCase, not to be confused with Studly Caps. This is part of a complete episode.
This week’s language headlines include the publication of new slang dictionary, and an entire book devoted to that tiny piece of punctuation, the period, and a tip-off about audio recordings of famous authors whose voices would otherwise be...
Welcome to another edition of the A Way with Words newsletter. What was college slang like 100 years ago? That's what we talked about on the air this past weekend. We also talked about "go fly a kite," nicknames for Vancouver, and why...
Welcome to another newsletter from A Way with Words! This past weekend we celebrated National Grammar Day (again): We also discussed "booby trap," played a quiz based on "snowclones," and talked about the word "piker."...
Welcome to another newsletter from A Way with Words! This week's minicast, available only online, is about the Yiddish expression "hak mir nisht ken tshaynik." It's what you say to somebody who's annoying you with a lot of talk...
An adult caller from Phoenix is stung by the memory of losing an elementary school spelling bee when he misspelled the word dilemma. He insists that his teachers taught him that the word contains a silent “n.” After all these years...