A listener in Plaza, North Dakota, says he tried to signal some teenagers to lower their car window by moving his fist in a circle, but since they grew up with push-button window controls, they didn’t understand the gesture. What’s the...
For the book lover on your gift list, Grant recommends the mix of magic and science in All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders. He also likes the work of Firoozeh Dumas: It Ain’t So Awful Falafel, about an Iranian teenage girl living...
Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski sorts out the hosts with a puzzle about book categories on Amazon.com. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Book Categories Puzzle” You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about...
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...
How old is the typical library patron? Grant shares a study that says Americans ages 16-29 are considered more likely to read actual printed library books and search the databases, and to spend more time at the libraries themselves. This is part of...
Skeuomorphs are aesthetic elements of design that no longer correlate with their original function. Computer software is full of skeuomorphs. For example, the save button that we’re all used to is a picture of a floppy disk. But then, who uses...