Kevin in Lakewood, California, was riding his unicycle on a bike path when a girl yelled, “I want your bike,” and he let bike stand. Even though bike is shortened from bicycle, dictionary definitions can be broad enough for any foot-powered wheeled...
Why do we have piggy banks instead of any other kind of farm animal banks? In Scotland and Northern England, a kind of Middle Ages earthenware container called pygg. Today we fill our piggs, or piggy banks, with coins. This is part of a complete...
A Dallas man says his father, who served in Vietnam, signed letters back home to the family with the phrase “don’t take any wooden nickels.” The hosts explain that this expression means “don’t let anyone swindle you...
Does an avid reader pore or pour over a book? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Pore vs. Pour” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, my name is Sheila. I live in Indianapolis. Hi, Sheila. Welcome to the program. Thank...
Charlie, an SAT prep teacher in Santa Cruz, California, reports that local high-schoolers are using legit not just in the older sense of “genuine” or “acceptable,” but to mean “cool”: That’s legit. One student even uses it as a stand-in for an...
If you get hold of some bad sushi for lunch, you’ll wind up feeling poozley. A caller whose in-laws use poozley insists they must have made it up. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Poozley” Hi, you have A Way with...
