Silence exists in more than one form. In his book Speaking and Language: Defence of Poetry, Paul Goodman eloquently evokes several of them. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Forms of Silence” You’re listening to A Way with Words...
Hyperbolic Headlines Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity!!!! Or maybe not. You’ve seen those breathless headlines on the internet, like “You Won’t Believe What This 7-year-old Said to The President!” They’re supposed to lure you to another...
A Wisconsin listener says that when her body gets an involuntary, inexplicable shudder, she says “A goose walked over my grave.” An early version of the saying, “There’s somebody walking over my grave!” appears in a 1738 book by Jonathan Swift, A...
The elevator doors close, and there’s that awkward silence while you and your fellow passengers wait for the doors to reopen. Is there a word for that silence? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Elevator Silence” Hi there, you have A...
The Phantom Tollbooth, the beloved children’s book by Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, turns 50 this year. There are two new 50th anniversary editions of the book. As Adam Gopnik notes in a New Yorker magazine article, the book is the...
A proverb translated from Arabic sets a demanding standard for speech: “If what you’re going to say isn’t more beautiful than silence, don’t say it.” The saying treats silence as something a comment has to improve upon if it is to be spoken at all...