It’s a grammatical question that trips up even the best writers sometimes: Is it who or whom? A physician says he likes the sentiment in a colleague’s email signature, but he’s not sure it’s 100% grammatical. The sentence:...
Ever been met with a quizzical look and the question, “Do what?” The hosts discuss this dialectal equivalent of “How’s that?” or “Come again?” This is part of a complete episode.
pooled spray n.— Note: Describes the same event as this citation for spray. «Mr Obama’s team, however, said that there never had been plans for anything but only a pooled spray, in which a handful of journalists pose questions in a more...
A man who owns a parrot says that when people see his bird, they invariably ask the question “Polly wanna cracker?” He wonders about the origin of that psittacine phrase, meaning parrot-like. One of the earliest uses of the phrase so far...
strolling supper n.— «I “get” the fact that a “strolling supper” is another term for “buffet,” but I have a question: what happens if the “strolling” supper gets up and leaves...
You can tell someone’s an A Way with Words listener when they confess to lying awake at night wondering about questions like, “Are the words fillet and flay etymologically related?” This is part of a complete episode.