A television journalist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, wants a generic term for “house of worship” to use in place of the word church in news reports. Synagogue, temple, sanctuary, and mosque are all too specific. What’s a fitting alternative? This is...
Billennials, or bilingual millennials, is a new term being bandied about by marketers and television programmers who’ve realized that young Americans who grew up in Spanish-speaking homes don’t necessarily care for the traditional telenovela style...
We got a call from Nan Sterman, host of the public television gardening show A Growing Passion, who writes so much about plants that she’s looking for some alternatives to the verb “to plant.” But what to say if you don’t want to sound pretentious...
The term biz bag, meaning a bag to stuff your discarded items in, comes from an old commercial for Biz stain-removing detergent. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Biz Bag” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, Grant and Martha. This...
Hinky, or hincty, is a term going back to the 1920’s that has meant both “snobbish” and “haughty,” or, more commonly, suspicious. A police officer from Grove City, Pennsylvania, calls to say his older colleagues often use the word to describe...
If you’ve ever had the experience of casting a dream film or TV episode in your head—say, putting Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller, both of whom play Sherlock Holmes on TV, in the same show together—that imaginary scenario comes from your...