Antimetabole, from Greek words meaning “turning about in the opposite direction,” is the rhetorical turn in “When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” where the same words come back in reverse order. Bascom in Redding, California, collects...
Is that a winklehawk in your pants? A listener shares this word for those L-shaped rips in your trousers, from an old Dutch term for “a carpenter’s L-shaped tool.” And Grant has a new favorite term, motherwit, meaning “the...
The term like a tree full of owls describes someone’s appearance. What does it mean, exactly? And why owls? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Tree Full of Owls” Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Sonia...
yo-yo skiing n.— «Last night, the bus driver asked us where we lived, which led to a lively conversation about skiing, his many ski visits to Snowmass (which he enjoyed), his condo at Snowbird in Utah and what he referred to as “yo-yo...
Pass the Gatorade! Martha and Grant work up a sweat in this episode as they tackle a sports quiz and lob vocabulary questions back and forth. They also settle a family dispute about the pronunciation of eco-friendly and unlock the etymology of...
A husband and wife ask for wisdom about a long-running dispute: Is it last-stitch effort or last-ditch effort? This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Last-Stitch Effort or Last-Ditch Effort: Which Is Correct?” Hello, you have...