Dave from Indianapolis asks about toodles, the informal goodbye he learned from his aunt and now uses despite raised eyebrows. The word is a shortened form of toodle-oo or toodaloo, and it has been around for more than a century as a form of leave...
Ping, as in ping me, meaning “contact me,” comes from the onomatopoeic ping we get from technology such as sonar. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Ping” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Nadia...
The idiom dead on, meaning “precisely,” might sound morbid, but it makes sense. It’s a reference to the fact that death is certain and absolute. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Dead On” Hello, you...
A calliope — that organ often found on steamboats or at circuses — ends like Penelope, not cantaloupe. The word originally comes from the Greek muse of eloquence and epic poetry, though the sound of a calliope today is associated more with carnival...
As composer and writer H.I. Phillips has observed, Oratory is the art of making deep noises from the chest sound like important messages from the brain. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Art of Oratory” Here’s...
If something’s clean as a whistle, that doesn’t mean it’s shiny and spotless like a silver whistle in a referee’s mouth. The idiom refers to a whistling sound: That piercing noise is super-bright and finely edged on the ear...
