With your support, 2021 will be a pivotal year for A Way with Words. With your help, and by tightening our budget, through 2019 and 2020, we’ve managed to weather the pandemic while still increasing listenership both on the radio and by podcast. So...
Books for sale, books for free, and wisdom passed down through the ages. Libraries aren’t just repositories for books — they’re often a great place to find gently used volumes for sale. Or you can always visit a “little free library” — a...
Since the 1930’s the term “punch list” has referred to a list of things to do, or a list of problems to fix. Although there are many proposed explanations for the origin of this term, none is definitive. This is part of a complete episode...
A teacher in Oakley, Vermont, noted a curious construction among his students while teaching in Maine. They would say things like “We’re all going to the party, and so isn’t he” or “I like to play basketball, and so doesn’t he.” Primarily heard in...
What English-speakers call speed bumps or sleeping policemen go by different names in various parts of the Spanish-speaking world. In Argentina, traffic is slowed by lomos de burro, or “burro’s backs.” In Puerto Rico that bump in the road is a...
A simile is a rhetorical device that describes by comparing two different things or ideas using the word like or as. But what makes a good simile? The 1910 book Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases, by Yale public-speaking instructor Grenville Kleiser...
