Ahoy! In this week’s brand-spankin’-new episode: Great gifts for language lovers, nerds vs. geeks, “tow the line” vs. “toe the line,” the slang term “poutrage,” and the crust in the corners of your...
What did Shakespeare’s plays sound like in his day? An acting teacher with an interest in dialects wants to know how researchers reconstruct Elizabethan speech. This is part of a complete episode.
Some speakers of American English use the word whenever to refer to a single event, as in “whenever Abraham Lincoln died.” This locution is a vestige of Scots-Irish speech. This is part of a complete episode.
Howdy, long time no chat! It's another newsletter from A Way with Words. Well, there are big goings-on here. Besides Martha and Grant gearing up for a season of brand-new shows, Grant just finished a 3000-mile move from New York to...
Why are the names of cars so unimaginative? Grant argues that auto manufacturers might take inspiration from ornithology to build a better car name. (Then again, would you be any less aggravated if you were rear-ended by a lazuli bunting?) Also this...
Sure, there’s Grandma and Grampa, but there’s also Gammy, Bumpy, Dadoo, Gre-Gre, Kiki, Kerkel, Monga, Nee-Nee, Pots, Rah-Rah and Woo-Woo. Martha and Grant talk about the endlessly inventive names grandchildren call their grandparents...