Leah, a nine-year-old from Argyle, Texas, heard her mother answer a question with “No, no, no, absolutely yes.” Why did her mother seem to give contradicting answers at the same time? Short answer: there are two things going on: the surface meaning...
Awfully might seem like an awful choice for a positive adverb, as in awfully talented, but it makes sense given the history of awful. Once intended to mean “filled with awe,” it’s now a general intensifier. The process of semantic weakening has...
Ciao! In this week's archive episode: If your family has guests over, how do you warn each other if one of you has a stray crumb on the face? Some families do so with the surreptitious code phrase, "There's a gazelle on the lawn."...
Welcome to another newsletter from "A Way with Words"! Where the heck have we been? Working on a brand-new season, that's where. It starts this coming weekend. That's right--brand-new episodes, chock full of languagey goodness...
It's time again for a newsletter from A Way with Words, public radio's program about words, language, and how we use them. This past weekend we plundered the Australian National Dictionary, which is now available in full online, by sharing...
