Randy from Live Oak, Florida, remembers a man in Central Florida who often added a few words to a simple sentence of explanation, usually thing ‘ere or thing like that and all. That might just reflect his own habitual way of speaking. Entertainer...
Creature comforts, meaning “material comforts,” may sound like a newfangled term, but it goes back at least as far as the 1640s. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Those Old Familiar Creature Comforts” The other day, somebody...
Six-year-old Aya in Virginia asks about the expression high and dry. Her family member had worried about some relatives in the path of a storm, and phoned to ask if they were high and dry. This puzzled Aya because she had heard that it’s a bad thing...
When something’s just the beatin’est (or beatingest or beatenist), that means it’s splendid, or puzzling. The term is most commonly heard in the South and South Midlands of the United States. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
The idiom “to cut off your nose to spite your face” has been attributed to a Medieval nun who described women cutting off their noses to look unattractive and thus preserve their chastity. Whether that story is true, cutting off someone’s nose was a...
Father Dominic from Chicago wonders when “It’s a thing” became, well, a thing. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “It’s a Thing” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Father Dominic calling from Chicago. Father Dominic from...