Some medical facilities use a secret code when the staff needs assistance to handle an unruly or agitated visitor. When the message Paging Dr. Armstrong goes out over the speaker system, it’s a call for this kind of help. This is part of a...
You dream of writing the great American novel, but to make ends meet, you spend your days writing boring corporate reports. There’s a difference between writing for love and writing for a living — or is there? Does a heyday have anything to do...
Did your teacher ever make you write a sentence over and over as punishment? That task is called a pensum. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Pensum” At the beginning of every opening credit scene to The Simpsons, Bart...
What in the Sam Hill?! It's another newsletter from A Way with Words. Oh, man, when we have fun on the air, we have it in spades, buckets, and buttloads. This past weekend we took a quick look at whether old-fashioned fairy tales are too...
rake bit n.— «“The Rake Bit”: Something that’s funny, goes on too long so it’s not funny, then goes on so long that it becomes INCREDIBLY funny. Goes under a couple different names, but of writers my age, this seems to be the most...