voice writing n.— «In the US, court reporters have abandoned stenotype machines, whose keyboards use chord-like combinations to represent sounds, for a technique called voice writing. The “writer”—really a speaker—repeats...
Humorist Roy Blount Jr. sits down with Grant for a conversation about the controversy over writers’ rights, the Amazon Kindle 2, Roy’s recent book, Alphabet Juice, “sonicky” words, and noodling for catfish. He also clears up...
silent stinker n.— «“There’s a filing deadline when legislative sponsors can propose new legislation,” said Harper. “In order to get around the filing deadline, they can file a shell bill, which is like a placeholder, that they can fill...
A few episodes back, Grant and Martha discussed what linguists call “creaky voice.” Many of you wrote to ask for more examples of this curious speech trait. This is part of a complete episode.
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...
One of the Olsen twins does it, some public radio hosts do it, and at least one former U.S. president does it. Grant describes the curious speech trait linguists call “creaky voice.” This is part of a complete episode.