Lindsay from San Diego asked about a word for the typographical symbols that stand in for profanity, like @#$%!^*)!&!. The term is grawlix. Cartoonist Mort Walker included it in his humorous book Lexicon of Comicana, where he catalogued visual...
Whoa, hey! It's another newsletter from Martha and Grant, hosts of "A Way with Words." How's your handwriting? Penmanship is one of the things we talked about on our latest episode, as well as "creaky voice" (kind of the...
post-grafitti n.— «The term “Street Art” usually refers to more visual art than more traditionally text-based graffiti, though the two often overlap. This is sometimes called post-graffiti. In an effort to divorce it from its more illicit...
hooker n.— «They take great pride in rug hooking.…Indeed, members of the Tarheel Ruggers Guild, who presently happen to be all women, unabashedly refer to themselves as “hookers,” nicknamed for the action of hooking wool...
Salutations, Earthlings. Take me to your podcast! This week a caller sends us off on a slang-infested trip about saying fast good-byes. Listen as we blow pop, popcorn, and taco stands by way of author Jim Harrison, the comic strip Funky...
A caller sends Grant and Martha off on a slang-infested trip about ways of saying a fast good-bye. Listen as they blow pop, popcorn, and taco stands by way of author Jim Harrison, the comic strip Funky Winkerbean, and a Warhol hanger-on. Transcript...