A listener shares a funny childhood misunderstanding: Her four-year-old kept referring to something in the have-in-it. It took a while before she realized the word he meant was cabinet. The family got such a kick out of the boy’s logic that...
If you vouch for something, you guarantee that what you’re saying is true. In the early 14th century, vouch was a transitive verb that meant “to summon into court to prove a title.” Vouch was adapted into English from an Old French...
After our conversation about the word nickname, a listener shares the story of a guy who earned the nickname Blister because he always “shows up when the work is done.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of ““Blister”...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski is puzzling over one-word compound synonyms. For example, in the sentence While pretty, the bouquet was dominated by a rather large starblossom, the word starblossom might clue what tall plant that many associate with Vincent...
Calley from Bowling Green, Kentucky, wonders about the word zonked, meaning “exhausted.” Like the word conk, as in conked out, meaning “fast asleep,” zonk originally had to do with a blow to the head. This is part of a...
A palindrome reads the same backward and forward letter by letter, as in taco cat, nurses run, and a nut for a jar of tuna. Word-unit palindromes work by words instead: the sequence of words reverses, even if the letters do not. Examples include You...