Chickens give more than eggs, meat, and feathers—they give language!
In a 1936 episode of Jack Benny’s radio show, a woman says that her father sprained his ankle the night before while truckin’. This has an A Way with Words listener confused; she thought trucking was a term from the 1970s. Grant clears...
facet block n.— «What kind of shot did Drew get? “Just basically, it’s called a “facet block,” it has a little cortisone in it,” Drew said. “[I] had an epidural last year a couple of times, and neither one of...
Here’s a riddle: “Nature requires five, custom gives seven, laziness takes nine, and wickedness eleven.” Think you know the answer? You’ll find it in this week’s episode, in which Grant and Martha discuss this and other...
This past weekend on "A Way with Words," we mulled over whether part of the recession-busting bailouts the government is proposing should be targeted at reviving the Federal Writers' Project of the 1930s. Get a taste of that, and...
skweee n.— «I had been making skweee for a while and everything was sort of on and popping and bubbling, like it still feels, and Harmönia was compiling their second 12 inch release. So I decided to make a track dedicated to this “brand...

