It’s the news from your friends at “A Way with Words”! In our latest episode, we discussed “pore” vs. “pour,” “you’re” vs. “your,” “West Coast” vs. “Eastern seaboard,” African-American proverbs, the word “sanction,” and Faulknerian adjectives...
In a previous episode, we wondered how U-turn might translate in different languages. One listener explains that in Hebrew, drivers make a horseshoe or a hoof-turn. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Hoof-Turns” Quite a while back we...
Martha shares more clever collective plant names, including a “mommy of poppies.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Mommy of Poppies” We were talking earlier about collective nouns for plants. Oh, you’ve got more? I have plucked a...
A listener asks: “Does the phrase ‘snap, crackle, and pop’ need a cereal comma?” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Snap, Crackle, Pop” Digging through the email bag here, Grant, we got something from Mark J. Drodowski in Templeton...
Need to type something in Linear B or Mayan? Want to make Japanese emoticons? Now you can. Grant explains why the release of Unicode 6 has many typescript aficionados doing the happy dance. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Unicode...
Guess what! Or would that be Guess what? A Honolulu listener asks about the right way to punctuate this interjection. Should you use an exclamation mark or a question mark? How about an interrobang or a pronequark? This is part of a complete episode...