While vacationing on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, a listener encountered an Australian who used the term skylarking to mean “horsing around.” The verb to skylark goes back hundreds of years and once referred to racing through the...
How about some wind pudding with a dollop of air sauce? What’s in a tavern sandwich? Do pregnant women really crave pickles and ice cream? Grant and Martha dig in to colorful language from the world of food. Plus, ever think of publishing a...
If you’re driving and need to turn 180 degrees, you make a U-turn. But what do you make if you speak a language that doesn’t include the letter “U”? If you’re a Hindi speaker, what do you call wearing a V-neck sweater...
You’d be forgiven for wondering if eavesdropping derives from the idea of would-be spies slipping and falling from the eaves of a house. But it doesn’t. This is part of a complete episode.
This week’s “Slang This!” contestant from the National Puzzlers’ League tries to pick out the real slang terms from a puzzle that includes the expressions beagle-chased, green-shifted, kiln-fired, and shovel-ready. This is...
Martha and Grant discuss some other Word of the Year candidates, including hockey mom and hypermiling. This is part of a complete episode.