Mike from Manchester, Connecticut, asks about wet behind the ears, meaning inexperienced, and wonders if it has to do with milk trickling behind a nursing baby’s ear. Probably not. A more likely explanation, made clear by Charles Earl Funk of Funk...
Pickle, baboon, cupcake, snorkel, pumpkin, Kalamazoo—let’s face it, some words are just plain funny. But what makes some words funnier than others? Martha and Grant consider this question with an assist from Neil Simon’s play (and movie) The...
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: “There are some patients...
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. Transcript of “Do What?” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is...
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 informal...
Lee from Philadelphia’s green Amazon parrot is named Alexander Hamilton, not Polly, but strangers still greet him with Polly want a cracker? The joke is old: Poll was a nickname for parrots as far back as the 1600s, and by 1848 the cracker line was...
