Greetings from radioland! It's another newsletter from "A Way with Words." This week was a brand-new episode, featuring a word quiz with *both* of our quiz guys, plus discussions of overuse of exclamation marks, bogarting, rattling...
Here’s a riddle: “Nature requires five, custom gives seven, laziness takes nine, and wickedness eleven.” Think you know the answer? You’ll find it in this week’s episode, in which Grant and Martha discuss this and other...
Remember when no one ever thought about adding the suffix “-gate” to a word to indicate a scandal? Now there’s Troopergate, Travelgate, Monicagate, Cameragate, Sandwichgate, and of course, the mother of all gates, Watergate. Grant...
donut economy n.— «Economists now refer to the US as having a “donut economy”- it is hollowed at the center, heavily reliant on cheap imports from China, excessive military spending and a corrupted stock market to drive it. The US...
pull leather v. phr.— «But Molinas was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1975, three months after I had lunch with him at the Playboy Club. As they say in Texas, Molinas “pulled leather on the mob” in Vegas by refusing to pay his...
shortfalling n.— «While Democrats in Congress have vowed to investigate the findings, Bush said “the IG report, which justly made issue of FBI shortfallings, also made it clear that these letters were important to the security of...