scareware n.— «Scareware is a term for applications that find fictitious malware on a user’s computer and then try to trick the user into purchasing unnecessary and fraudulent anti-malware software or services. Scareware relies on social...
Fellow wordivas and wordudes, This week on A Way with Words we start a brand-new season! To celebrate, we noodled with anagrams, including the one in the title of this episode. Listen here. Also on the show: A New York City schoolteacher asks...
A Way with Words is starting a brand-new season! Find out what a motorcyclist wears to keep from getting sunburned– is it a do-rag or a dew-rag? A listener wonders “Why is an undesirable task called a g-job?” Martha shares a trick...
trick lit n.— «Trick Lit is the term for a chick lit novel that pretends to be something else, hoping to rope people in with an interesting premise. 30 pages later, you discover that you were deceived, that it’s just another piece of...
ghosting n.—Gloss: leaving candy at someone’s door, knocking, and then running away before they answer. «In Delafield, Wis., a suburb of Milwaukee, a practice called ghosting is all the rage. In the two weeks leading up to...
o-beer-time n.— Note: Seems to be similar to “beer o’clock” and “beer thirty,” which also mean “an instance of, or an occasion suitable for, drinking.” «It was already understood that the crowd in...