A man in San Clemente, California, and his friends are debating the term for when a substance you are smoking for pleasure is all used up. Is the bowl cashed or cacked? In this case, both terms work. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
When an Austrian candy maker needed a name for his new line of mints, he took the first, middle, and last letters of the German word pfefferminz, or “peppermint,” to form the brand name PEZ. He later marketed the candies as an alternative for...
Smoking cigars is sometimes known as herfing, and a herf is a lively gathering of like-minded puffers. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Herfing” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, Grant and Martha. This is Blake in Indianapolis...
What exactly is dope? Over time, it’s meant marijuana, heroin, steroids, butter, coffee, drugs given to racehorses, and myriad other substances affecting the recipient in some excitable way. The term didn’t come to mean marijuana until the ’40s, and...
A pipe dream is “an unobtainable hope” or “an unrealistic fantasy.” The term originates from the idea of opium pipes and the strange dreams one might incur while high on opium. Back in the 1890s when the term first showed up, opium pipes were a bit...
Remember Tom Swifties, those puns where the adverb matches the quote? How about this one: “I love reading Moby-Dick,” Tom said superficially. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “More Tom Swifties” Grant, I come to you as a supplicant...
