After our discussion about dictionaries being the books most requested by those who are incarcerated, a former prison inmate calls to report that dictionaries are so popular in prison in part because they’re used to settle debates in Scrabble...
Dana in Reno, Nevada, wants a word for that moment when you’re playing cards or a board game and you draw what would have been the perfect card or tile for the previous turn you played. She suggests post-perfect pickup. Might there be others...
An aglu, also spelled agloo, is a seal’s breathing hole in a sheet of ice. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Aglu or Agloo” Grant, I have a word I know you need if you don’t have it already. Okay, agglue, a-g...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski brings a quiz based on what editors for the Oxford English Dictionary say are the 100 Most Common Words in English. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Most Common Words Quiz” You’re listening...
If you’re serious about writing a memoir, what topics should you include, and what can you leave out? And how honest can you really be about the other people in your life? Some of America’s leading memoirists wrote things they lived to...
Scrabblepoor means “extremely poor,” conjuring the image of farmers having to scrape together a living by literally scratching at the dirt. The word hardscrabble is more commonly used to describe such grinding poverty. This is part of a...