A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over
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A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over
Fun conversation with callers from all over about new words, old sayings, slang, family expressions, word histories, linguistics, dialects, word games, books, literature, writing, and more. Be on the show with author/journalist Martha Barnette and linguist/lexicographer Grant Barrett. Share your tho...
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Mittens in Moonlight (Rebroadcast) - 13 October 2025
Need a slang term that can replace just about any noun? Try chumpie. If you're from Philadelphia, you may already know this handy placeholder word. An...
Diamond Dust (Rebroadcast) - 6 October 2025
Diamond dust, tapioca snow, and sugar icebergs -- a 1955 glossary of arctic and subarctic terms describes the environment in ways that sound poetic. A...
Brass Tacks - 29 September 2025
Why would some Spanish speakers use adaptations of certain English words when perfectly good Spanish words for the same thing already exist? Plus, han...
Sleepy Winks (Rebroadcast) - 22 September 2025
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton's best-known novel. Today the annual Bul...
Cat Bristle - 15 September 2025
How do social media algorithms shape the way we communicate? A new book argues that the competition for clicks is changing the way we speak and write,...
Made from Scratch (Rebroadcast) - 8 September 2025
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha's savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who...
Good Egg, Bad Apple - 1 September 2025
If you like to use emojis, you have some 3800 to choose from—and the organization that approves them is about to announce even more. But do we really...
Salad Days (Rebroadcast) - 25 August 2025
A documentary film called My Beautiful Stutter follows youngsters at a summer camp specifically for stutterers. It’s a place for finding acceptance, s...
Tall Drink of Water - 18 August 2025
Why is it harder to talk if we don’t move our hands? Even when we’re talking on the phone we feel the need to gesture to aid communication. A new book...
Your Imaginary Boyfriend (Rebroadcast) - 11 August 2025
We use the term Milky Way for that glowing arc across the sky. But how people picture it varies from culture to culture. In Sweden, that starry band g...
Mox Nix - 4 August 2025
You might be surprised to learn that a “hoosier” isn’t necessarily from Indiana. Around the St. Louis, Missouri, area, the term hoosier has a whole ot...
Beefed It (Rebroadcast) - 28 July 2025
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining...
Imaginary Friends - 21 July 2025
Alright, alright, alright! How do some catchphrases become part of the larger vernacular—to the point where people don’t always know the original refe...
Forty Eleven Zillion (Rebroadcast) - 14 July 2025
When there’s no evening meal planned at home, what do you call that scramble to cobble together your own dinner? Some people apply acronyms like YOYO ...
Mystery Date (Rebroadcast) - 7 July 2025
A librarian opens a book and finds a mysterious invitation scribbled on the back of a business card. Another discovers a child’s letter to the Tooth F...
Eat My Hat - 30 June 2025
Have you lived in your home so long that you don’t notice its flaws? In Sweden, they have a name for this condition: It’s hemmablind—literally, “home...
Sour Pickle (Rebroadcast) - 23 June 2025
You know that Yogi Berra quote about how Nobody ever comes here; it’s too crowded? Actually, the first person to use this was actress Suzanne Ridgeway...
Straight and Narrow - 16 June 2025
English spelling is a hot mess, even for native speakers. But as a new book shows, would-be spelling reformers, including Benjamin Franklin and Theodo...
Not My Circus (Rebroadcast) - 9 June 2025
Throwing cheese and shaky cheese are two very different things. In baseball, hard cheese refers to a powerful fastball, and probably comes from a simi...
The Other Shoe - 2 June 2025
So you think you can spell? Youngsters in modern spelling bees are expected to memorize a wide range of words, from chemical processes to names of rar...
Scooter Pooting (Rebroadcast) - 26 May 2025
Old. Elderly. Senior. Why are we so uncomfortable when we talk about reaching a certain point in life? An 82-year-old seeks a more positive term to de...
Bean Counting - 19 May 2025
In the 1920’s, Americans were warned of a new danger sweeping across the country. This menace that harmed people’s health, ruined minds, and threatene...
Gold Dance (Rebroadcast) - 12 May 20256
People who hunt treasure with metal detectors have a lingo all their own. Canslaw means the shreds of aluminum cans left after a lawnmower ran over th...
Honor Bright - 5 May 2025
A baby’s first word is often a cherished milestone, but some cultures pay more attention to other firsts, like a baby’s first laugh. A fascinating new...
By a Long Shot (Rebroadcast) - 28 April 2025
Imagine telling someone how to get to your home, but without using the name of your street, or any other street within ten miles. Could you do it? We...
Real Corker - 21 April 2025
Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital is a sensuous, exhilarating meditation about the strangeness of life on a space station, with its mix of tedious tasks...
When Pigs Fly (Rebroadcast) - 14 April 2025
Don’t move my cheese! It’s a phrase middle managers use to talk about adapting to change in the workplace. Plus, the origin story of the name William,...
Cool Beans (Rebroadcast) - 7 April 2025
If you speak a second or third language, you may remember the first time you dreamed in that new tongue. But does this milestone mean you’re actually...
A Cool Million - 31 March 2025
So many books and so little time—it’s a challenge to choose what to read next! It helps to remember that so-called “reading mortality” is a fact of li...
Love Bites (Rebroadcast) - 24 March 2025
The word filibuster has a long and colorful history, going back to the days when pirates roamed the high seas. Today it refers to hijacking a piece of...
Wicked Good - 17 March 2025
To grok something means “to understand it completely.” The word grok comes from a language spoken on the planet Mars—well, at least according to the s...
Lasagna Hog (Rebroadcast) - 10 March 2025
Understanding the varieties of conversational styles can mean the difference between feeling you’re understood and being insulted. “High-involvement”...
Kiss the Cow (Rebroadcast) - 3 March 2025
An anadrome is a word that forms a whole new word when you spell it backwards. For example, the word “stressed” spelled backwards is “desserts.” Some...
Smack Dab - 24 February 2025
A flashlight emits a steady beam of light. So what’s the flash part of that word about? Also, if you’re a nervous Nellie, you’re skittish and indecisi...
Lead on Macduff (Rebroadcast) - 17 February 2025
For rock climbers, skiers, and other outdoor enthusiasts, the word send has taken on a whole new meaning. You might cheer on a fellow snowboarder with...
Holy Toledo - 10 February 2025
In 1944, an Italian scientist discovered a drug that he later named for his wife. His wife’s name was Marguerite, but she went by Rita — which is why...
Tribble Trouble (Rebroadcast) - 3 February 2025
In Cockney rhyming slang, apples and pears is a synonym for "stairs," and dustbin lids means kids. Plus, sniglets are clever coinages for things we do...
Ring-Tailed Tooter (Rebroadcast) - 27 January 2025
National Book Award winner Barry Lopez had wise advice for young writers. First, read widely and follow your curiosity. Second, travel or learn a fore...
Potato Wagon - 20 January 2025
Thunderstorms might sound scary, but playful explanations for all those booms can help reassure little ones: How about the potato wagon’s rolling over...
What the Blazes (Rebroadcast) - 13 January 2025
What kind of book do people ask for most often in prison? Romance novels? No. The Bible? No. The most requested books by far are … dictionaries! A num...