Ever wonder what medieval England looked and sounded like? In Old English, the word hord meant “treasure” and your wordhord was the treasure of words locked up inside you. A delightful new book uses the language of that period to create...
A Vermont listener says that if she has to be absent from work due to illness, she would call in sick. Her twenty-something daughters, however, use the phrase call out sick. Is this a generational difference, or a regional one, and is one more...
In this episode, books for word lovers, from a collection of curious words to some fun with Farsi. • Some people yell “Geronimo!” when they jump out of an airplane, but why? • We call something that heats air a heater, so why do we call...
If you’re living with a chronic illness or disability, you often have to ration your physical and mental energy. And if that illness isn’t readily apparent to others, it can be hard to explain how debilitating that process can be. On her...
A wingnut is a handy, stabilizing piece of hardware. So why is it a pejorative term for those of a certain political persuasion? Also, is there something wrong with the phrase committed suicide? Some say that the word commit is a painful reminder...
A woman in Hudson, New York, says her boyfriend, who grew up on Long Island, uses the expression call out sick, meaning “to phone an employer to say you’re not coming to work because you’re ill.” But she uses the phrase call...