Greetings, friends, and be welcomed to another newsletter from A Way with Words, public radio's show about words and language and how we use them. Riddles flew through the air during this past weekend's show, as we shared some riddles from...
Martha is baffled when Grant shares another riddle involving “four stiff standers, two lookers, two crookers, and one switchbox.” Can you figure out the answer? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Guess the Animal...
The answer to the riddle “Nature requires five, custom gives seven, laziness takes nine, and wickedness eleven” is hours of sleep a night. It comes from a collection of riddles gathered from Black schoolchildren in New Orleans and printed in early...
They were the last words Abraham Lincoln heard before John Wilkes Booth assassinated him: “Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside-out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap!” Booth knew that this line from the play Our American...
Quiz Guy Greg Pliska presents a quiz about “False Plurals,” based on the old riddle: What plural word becomes singular when you put the letter “s” at the end of it? (Hint: Think of a brand of tennis racket, as well as the...
Greetings, wanderers, and welcome home. This past weekend on A Way with Words we wrestled with "commentate," "tie me over" vs. "tide me over," long words, and "biweekly" vs. "semiweekly." We also...