In this week's episode, we go from hip-hop to a public television show about the intra- and inter-class conflicts in a British manor house. We also talk about "flupgrades," what you might call it when a software update...
How much humor and personality can you pack into a 140-character update? A lot, it turns out. Martha and Grant talk about funny Twitter feeds. Also this week, the origins of skosh and “can’t hold a candle,” why dragonflies are...
Where’d we get the expression “You bet your sweet bippy!”? It’s from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, a zany television show from the late 1960s. The word bippy, by the way, means “butt.” The phrase “You...
Our multi-talented Quiz Guy Greg Pliska, served as musical composer for the television documentary Flying Monsters 3-D. That experience inspired him to create a puzzle using phrases that have the same letter appearing three times in a row. For...
“Imitation is the sincerest form of television,” said the radio comedian Fred Allen. Listeners are invited to share their favorite modern proverbs like this one, as well as their favorite classics. This is part of a complete episode.
Pity the poor typeface designer, always seeing anachronisms in movies and television. Imagine how painful it must be watching a World War II movie only to see a document printed in Snell Roundhand Bold, a font invented in 1972. Here’s typeface...