After crossing the International Date Line, Alison from Riverside, California, wonders if there’s a word for losing an entire day when traveling between time zones. We suggest déjà noon and groundhogging, and offer a little ditty about time:...
Cool your jets, meaning calm down or take it easy, was already older than Kurt from Utah’s mid-1970s childhood near Edwards Air Force Base. The trail points back to the 1950s TV serial Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, whose rocket-age slang included plug...
The adjective gadarene means headlong or precipitate, as in a gadarene rush to pass questionable legislation. It comes from a New Testament story about Jesus in the land of the Gadarenes, where demons are cast out of a possessed man and enter a herd...
For the book lover on your gift list, Grant recommends the mix of magic and science in All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. He also likes the work of Firoozeh Dumas: It Ain’t So Awful Falafel, about an Iranian teenage girl living...
Martha reads Walt Whitman’s poem “On the Beach at Night, Alone.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Walt Whitman, “On the Beach at Night, Alone”” You’re listening to A Way with Words...
Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski sorts out the hosts with a puzzle about book categories on Amazon.com. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Book Categories Puzzle” You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about...