The wittily named Index, A History of The by Dennis Duncan (Bookshop|Amazon) is a comprehensive and engaging history of that part of books most of us take for granted. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Index, A History of The”...
If you’ve ever sent a really important email and only later caught an embarrassing misspelling right there in the message header, there’s no longer any need to blame yourself. Blame Tutivillis, the medieval demon who introduced errors into writing...
Brian in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, reports hearing an older person talk about getting the receipt for a dish, using the word receipt in the same way that others might use the word recipe. The use of receipt as a synonym for recipe, as in “a set of...
After our discussion about dictionaries being the books most requested by those who are incarcerated, a former prison inmate calls to report that dictionaries are so popular in prison in part because they’re used to settle debates in Scrabble games...
Novelist Jodi Picoult has some no-nonsense advice for writers who just can’t seem to get started. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Picoult Writing Advice” If you’re having trouble getting going on a writing project, here’s some...
Barry Lopez was the author of Arctic Dreams (Bookshop|Amazon),winner of the National Book Award, and the editor, along with his wife Debra Gwartney, of Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape (Bookshop|Amazon). In the introduction to his...