Following up on conversation about words for weak coffee, Carol in Wilmington, North Carolina reports that her mother-in-law’s term for strong, boiling-hot coffee is punished water. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Water in a Dunce...
Some medical facilities use a secret code when the staff needs assistance to handle an unruly or agitated visitor. When the message Paging Dr. Armstrong goes out over the speaker system, it’s a call for this kind of help. This is part of a complete...
Will remembers coming home from kindergarten sure his class had gone to a pepper alley, though the school event was almost certainly a pep rally. Oddly enough, pepper alley is a real old slang expression: in 19th-century boxing, to be in pepper...
A listener shares a tongue twister he learned at the age of five: Theophilus Thistle sifter, while sifting a sieve of unsifted thistles, thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb. Another version goes If Theophilus Thistle, the...
Remember when teenagers used to sit by the phone, waiting for it to ring? Now ask teenagers if they do anything but text. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Texting vs. Calling” You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about...
As they say in Wasika, Minnesota, “If I don’t see you in the future, I’ll see you in the pasture.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Minnesota Expression” Jim Rohde from Minneapolis left us a voicemail saying folks in his hometown...
