If people are on warmly congenial terms, they’re said to “get on like a house on fire.” Yet an Irishwoman says when she uses this expression in the U.S., she often gets puzzled looks. Is the expression that unusual? This is part of...
You may have used the expression, “Nobody here but us chickens!” Would you still use it if you knew its origins lie in a racist joke from the turn of the 20th century? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Nobody Here...
We play bingo on the air with Quiz Guy John Chaneski. His motives are not B9! This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Bingo Lingo Word Quiz” You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette. And I’m...
Puzzle Guy Greg Pliska presents a puzzle about William Sn akespeare—you know, the great playwright whose works are just one letter different from those of his better-known fellow writer, William Shakespeare. It was Snakespeare, for example, who...
A caller who lived in the Bay Area during the 1960s remembers using the word loosecap to describe someone who’s “not playing with a full deck.” He wonders if he and his friends are the only ones to use it, as in, “Don’t...
A reader of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential thinks the book is snarky—but what does snarky really mean? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Snarky, Narky, and the Nose-in-the-Air Family of Sn-Words” Hi, you...