Pickle, baboon, cupcake, snorkel, pumpkin, Kalamazoo—let’s face it, some words are just plain funny. But what makes some words funnier than others? Martha and Grant consider this question with an assist from Neil Simon’s play (and movie)...
A husband and wife have a long-running dispute over whether the word scissors is singular or plural. Is it a scissors or a pair of scissors? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A Scissors vs. A Pair of Scissors” Hello, you...
A listener in Brazil challenges Martha’s pronunciation of the odd English word antipodes. Their email exchange leads Martha to muse about a favorite collection of poems, where she first encountered this word.
David in Port Washington, Wisconsin, wonders why English capitalizes the first-person singular pronoun I, but not me, we, or us. The usual explanation is practical rather than psychological: a lone lowercase i, especially before the dot became...
Quiz Guy Greg Pliska presents a quiz about “False Plurals,” based on the old riddle: What plural word becomes singular when you put the letter “s” at the end of it? (Hint: Think of a brand of tennis racket, as well as the...
Yo, listeners! There’s another online-only podcast from “A Way with Words.” This time, Grant answers questions about the word “agio” from a fellow in Kamloops—learn more about that name, too—and he responds to reader...