This week it’s butterflies, belly flowers, plot bunnies, foxes, and cuckoos. Also, writing advice from Mark Twain and a wonderful bit of prose from Sara Pennypacker’s book Pax. And are there word origins? Well, does a duck swim? We’ll...
Decisions by dictionary editors, wacky wordplay, and Walt Whitman’s soaring verse. How do lexicographers decide which historical figures deserve a mention or perhaps even an illustration in the dictionary? The answer changes with the times. •...
Pax! is what Matthew in Dallas, Texas, remembers shouting as a boy in Nairobi when a game of tag needed to pause for a loose shoelace or a fall, often with crossed fingers to make the truce visible. The word is Latin for peace, and in playground use...
Pax, by Sara Pennypacker, follows a boy who raises a fox from the time it’s very young and then has to release it. Pennypacker spent time observing fox behavior and speaking with biologists about how foxes communicate, research that shapes the...
Man-eating spiders! Martha tells a charming story about how illustrators and authors work together when they make children’s books. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Man-eating Spiders” I was talking earlier about my...
Howdy! Ever hear questions that are really veiled criticism, or apologies that are actually excuses? That, and more, in our latest episode: language for resolving personal conflict, in like Flynn, gradoo, Irish pennants, champing, and a silly rule...