A caller with a 25-year-old parrot wonders: How much language do birds really understand? Plus, Knock-knock. Who’s there? Boo. Well… you can guess the rest. But there was a time when these goofy jokes were a brand-new craze sweeping the nation...
Why do we say someone has a cold when we say someone else has the flu, and another person has croup? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “A Cold, The Flu” Hi, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Anne. I’m calling...
The English language includes several words deriving from Arabic, such as coffee, sugar, and giraffe. Another is ghoul, which comes from an Arabic term for a “shapeshifting demon.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
When wine drinkers swirl their glass and watch those streaks coming down, they say they’re looking at the legs. But the German term kirchenfenster, meaning “church windows,” makes a great substitute because of the arches of church...
If a lady is no better than she ought to be, her sexual morals may be in question. The saying, recently popularized by the BBC program Downton Abbey, is what’s known as a charientism, or a bit of sugar-coated snark. By the way, if you’d...
There’s nothing like some joe with cow and sand in the morning. That would be “coffee with milk and sugar” in World War II naval slang. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Joe with Cow and Sand” Hey Grant...