On a busy day in the emergency room, Alisa of Dallas, Texas, told an efficient colleague that she was really humming, meaning it as a compliment. Her colleague took offense, maintaining that humming meant “smelly.” Since the 18th century, English...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski pairs of words in which the last sound of the first word is the same as the first sound of the second word. You might call it a kind of “portmanteau-verload.” For example, what’s this harves John keeps hearing about? It’s...
Creature comforts, meaning “material comforts,” may sound like a newfangled term, but it goes back at least as far as the 1640s. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Those Old Familiar Creature Comforts” The other day, somebody...
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...
The word hoosegow means jail, and derives from the Spanish word for tribunal, juzgado. In some dialects of Spanish, the D sound is not pronounced. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Juzgado > Hoosegow” Hello, you have A Way with...
A young woman from Portland, Oregon, seeks a noun to denote something fake or otherwise dubious. She doesn’t want an obvious swear word, but also doesn’t like the ones she found in the thesaurus. She thinks malarkey, poppycock, and flim-flam sound...