When you’re distracted by trying to get the perfect photo at a wedding or fiddling with your camera during a solar eclipse, you’re missing out on some of the experience itself. There’s a term for this: It’s called...
In response to our discussion about pangrams, a listener in Bishop, California, offers a 59-letter one: Funk revival jazz band played exciting three-quarter tempo waltzes. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Pangram Jazz...
Books were rare treasures in the Middle Ages, painstakingly copied out by hand. So how to protect them from theft? Scribes sometimes added a curse to the first page of those books that was supposed to keep thieves away — and some were as vicious as...
One way to make your new business look trendy is to use two nouns separated by an ampersand, like Peach & Creature or Rainstorm & Egg or … just about any other two-word combination. A tongue-in-cheek website will generate names like...
Our discussion about pangrams inspired this one from a listener: Quickly vacuuming six juicy blobs of cheese whiz is definitely a very messy proposition. Indeed. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Cheesy Pangram” We are...
The edge of the Grand Canyon. A remote mountaintop. A medieval cathedral. Some places are so mystical you feel like you’re close to another dimension of space and time. There’s a term for such locales: thin places. And: did you ever go...

