Salon magazine writer Andi Zeisler likens the em-dash to black licorice: ”Those who like it love it; those who don’t will loudly and repeatedly let you know.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Black Licorice of Punctuation” You...
The now-extinct Tocharian languages were spoken in western China in the latter half of the first millennium CE. We have only fragments of written texts in these languages, but here’s part of a Tocharian love poem that conveys emotions that echo...
A Los Angeles, California, listener shares the following pangram, a succinct but understandable statement that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet: A quick fox jumps high / Vexing birds, zigzag winds fly / Haikus trap words, why? This is part of...
In 1944, an Italian scientist discovered a drug that he later named for his wife. His wife’s name was Marguerite, but she went by Rita — which is why this now familiar drug is known as Ritalin. Plus, a poem about churning butter shows how a writer...
With memorable phrases like coagulated sunlight and gilded gravel, poem “Churning Day” by Seamus Heaney is a fine example of how poets can draw out astonishing beauty from the most mundane of tasks — in this case, churning butter. This is part of a...
Iranian-American poet Solmaz Sharif once observed that “The duty of the writer…is to remind us that we will die. And that we aren’t dead yet.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Duty of the Writer” I really appreciated this quotation...
