After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
It’s hard to remember how to spell the names of some cities. Tallahassee, Florida, for example. Then there are towns with very few letters to remember. Y, a tiny town in northern France, has only two main streets, which come together to form the...
If you pronounce short-lived with a long i, you’re saying it correctly– at least by the standards of the 1600’s. Today it’s far more commonly pronounced with a short i, though both pronunciations are acceptable. This is part of a complete episode...
Although a few sticklers cling to the traditional pronunciation of short-lived with a long i, the vast majority of Americans now pronounce short-lived with a short i. Long live the latter, we say. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Martha and Grant share some of their latest guilty-pleasure reading from Twitter feeds that show just how much meaning can be compressed into 140 characters. Cases in point: @veryshortstory and @GRAMMARHULK. This is part of a complete episode...
takt time n.— «Toyota has made the difficult call to reduce output by slowing production through short-term shutdowns, eliminating overtime, and slowing the line (or lengthening the takt time, in manufacturing parlance).» —“Weakened Links” by...

