The boiled rice dish known as congee does congeal when cooled to make a kind of porridge, but those two words aren’t related. Congeal is related to French congelé, the past participle of French congeler, “to freeze.” Congeal and congeler share a...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski’s puzzle is inspired by the popular letter-guessing game Wordle, specifically that next-to-last guess before the real answer is found. For example, if the penultimate guess is WAIST, which two letters might be switched to form...
A lexical lagniappe at a gas pump leads to a discussion of the word serendipity, coined by 18th-century writer Horace Walpole. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Gas Station Serendipity” I was caught off guard the other day when I...
A Toronto, Canada, caller wonders how a notice that an employee is being fired ever came to be known as a pink slip. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Employee Pink Slip” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello, this is Claude from...
A bunch of English words actually take from the names of old places: peach comes from Persia, bungalow refers to a house “of the Bengal type,” and laconic refers to the region of Sparta famous as a place where people valued speech that was brief and...
longy n.— «The Manx Cat is a tail less breed of cat, but there are a few variations. Some have a hollow where the tail should be, they’re called “rumpies.” Others have the beginnings of a tail, they’re called “risers.” Those with a slightly longer...