Listener K.C. Gandee, a whitewater rafting guide from Bethel, Maine, tipped us off to lingo from his world. Dead-sticking is when the guide is doing all the paddling and no one else is. A lily dipper is someone who barely paddles while everyone else...
If English isn’t your first language, there are lots of ways to learn it, such as memorizing Barack Obama’s speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention. Martha and Grant talk about some of the unusual ways foreigners are learning to speak English...
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 up the...
hang iron v. phr.— «During snowstorms in Portland, Ore., before Christmas, Kelley had to chain up, or “hang iron” as he calls it. “It takes two hours to hang my iron.”» —“Road closures make a costly wait for truckers” by Julie...
trucking n.— «Investigations late last year found the commercial boats had been fishing off one part of Stewart Island and then reporting the catch as having been made in another area. The ministry says its analysis of the first suspicious trip...
run wild v. phr.— «His usual workweek is a five-day, four-night route around California or the Southwest—”running wild” in Wal-Mart trucker parlance—delivering goods to stores, used pallets to warehouses and manufacturers” merchandise to...
