Rodrigo in Tucson, Arizona, shares a funny story about immigrating to the United States from Mexico in the 1990s and picking up the English exclamation gee whiz! from a book published in the 1940s. What’s the origin of this slang phrase? Minced...
For many of us, religious liturgy provides the words we need for life’s major milestones. But what if you don’t ascribe to any particular religion? In her uplifting new book, The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of...
The Japanese neologism taipa refers to the level of satisfaction gained compared with the time spent. You might increase taipa, for example, by listening to an audiobook at twice the normal speed. Taipa derives from the Japanese words taimu...
A middle-schooler in Waukesha, Wisconsin, wonders why the word island contains the letter S, and why is it pronounced with a long I and no S sound? In Old English, this word for dry land surrounded by water was igland, coming from words that mean...
How do you organize the books on your shelf? Author Jane Smiley has developed a method that fellow book lovers will appreciate. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Some Large Book Piles Have Their Own Climates” You’re listening to A...
On the game show Um, Actually, the host reads out a series of supposed facts about various geeky subjects, and contestants must interject with the correct information, prefacing their answers with the phrase Um, Actually. That’s the inspiration for...