Artist Alan Nakagawa’s project involving haikus about social distancing includes a funny take on just how blurred boundaries can become while under lockdown. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Another Lockdown Haiku” I was sharing...
Kristin in San Clemente, California, wonders why actors in old movies often hang up the phone without saying goodbye. It’s not just old movies! In fact, you can watch supercuts of lots of modern movies where the same thing happens. Although this...
In a passage from How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education, Scott Newstok, a professor at Rhodes College, offers an apt description of class letting out and students wandering about while focused on their phones. This is...
There are three words in the English language that sound like too. So how do you indicate in writing how word should be pronounced? IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) to the rescue! This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “How to Write...
A wingnut is a handy, stabilizing piece of hardware. So why is it a pejorative term for those of a certain political persuasion? Also, is there something wrong with the phrase committed suicide? Some say that the word commit is a painful reminder...
A woman in Hudson, New York, says her boyfriend, who grew up on Long Island, uses the expression call out sick, meaning “to phone an employer to say you’re not coming to work because you’re ill.” But she uses the phrase call in sick to mean the very...