“You look like the wreck of the Hesperus!” It means you look “disheveled, ragged, dirty, hung over, or otherwise less than your best.” It may sound like an odd phrase, but it made perfect sense to generations of schoolchildren familiar with this...
For 341 years, the poets laureate of Britain have all been male. That just changed with the appointment of Britain’s new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. Her work has been described as “dealing with the darkest turmoil and the lightest minutiae of...
Grant reads a few lines from a favorite poem: “A New Song of New Similes by John Gay. It also appears in the front of the book Intensifying Similes in English. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A New Song of New Similes” Martha, do...
A listener in Brazil challenges Martha’s pronunciation of the odd English word antipodes. Their email exchange leads Martha to muse about a favorite collection of poems, where she first encountered this word.
Blessing Way n.— «The Blessing Way has been adapted as an alternative baby shower for spiritual moms in recent years. This is much less commercial and much more personal, intimate way to honor the blessed event of a birth. During Blessing Way...
humpty n.— «Well, while we’re doing this media love-in, I believe cricinfo’s Will Luke is dying for what the twentysomethings call “a bit of humpty.” So if there are any ladies out there who want to keep it real with cricket commentary’s most...