The poetic Spanish phrase “nadie te quita lo bailado” expresses the idea that once you’ve made a memory, you’ll always have it, no matter what. Literally, it translates as “no one can take away what you’ve danced...
What’s your favorite schoolyard rhyme? Maybe it’s the singsong taunt that goes, “Girls go to college to get more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider.” Or the romantic standby about two lovebirds sitting in a...
When speakers of foreign languages try to adapt their own idioms into English, the results can be poetic, if not downright puzzling. A Dallas listener shares some favorite examples from his Italian-born wife, including “I can put my hand to...
Hip-hop is high art. If you don’t understand that, you’re missing out on some of the best poetry being created today. Grant talks about the new book by English professor Adam Bradley called Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-Hop.
The expression “over yonder” isn’t just the stuff of Carole King songs and old-timey hymns. To many Southerners, it’s everyday English. The hosts discuss this poetic-sounding turn of phrase. This is part of a complete episode.
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.