A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over

Latest Episodes:

Deviled Eggs - 14 September 2020 Sep 14, 2020

Show notes

Some TV commercials launch catchphrases that stick around long after the original ads. The exclamation Good stuff, Maynard! is still a compliment almost 40 years after it was used in a commercial for Malt-O-Meal hot cereal. And: what do you call that room where the whole family gathers? The family room? The den? The TV room? Names for that part of a home go in and out of fashion. Also, if you’re suffering from writer’s block, try going easy on yourself for a while. Sometimes a writer’s imagination needs to lie fallow in order to become fertile again. Plus, a trivia test about domain names, criminently and other minced oaths, pure-D vs. pure-T, deviled eggs vs. dressed eggs, pixelated vs. pixilated, how to pronounce aegis, and I got the Motts!

Read full show notes, hear hundreds of free episodes, send your thoughts and questions, and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org/. Email words@waywordradio.org. Twitter @wayword. Our listener phone line 1 (877) 929-9673 is toll-free in the United States and Canada. Elsewhere in the world, call +1 (619) 800-4443; charges may apply. From anywhere, text/SMS +1 (619) 567-9673. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hair On Your Tongue (Rebroadcast) - 7 September 2020 Sep 07, 2020

Show notes

If you speak both German and Spanish, you may find yourself reaching for a German word instead of a Spanish one, and vice versa. This puzzling experience is so common among polyglots that linguists have a name for it. • The best writers create luscious, long sentences using the same principles that make for a musician’s melodious phrasing or a tightrope walker’s measured steps. • Want to say something is wild and crazy in Norwegian? You can use a slang phrase that translates as “That’s totally Texas!” • Plus happenstance, underwear euphemisms, pooh-pooh, scrappy, fret, gedunk, tartar sauce, antejentacular, the many ways to pronounce the word experiment, a fun word quiz, and lots more.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Play It By Ear - 31 August 2020 Aug 31, 2020

Show notes

How does social context shape our perception of language? When hiking the Appalachian Trail, a young woman from Wyoming found that fellow hikers assumed she was from another country, not only because of how she spoke, but also how she looked. Sometimes our perception of other people’s accents have more to do with social context than with any real dialect features. And: did you ever wonder if there was a punctuation mark to indicate sarcasm? You’re not alone! There are lots of creative solutions. Finally, there’s a term in music to describe someone who is a professional whistler. That word is “puccalo.” Stay tuned for a tune as a puccalo shows off her craft. Plus play it by ear vs. play it by year, trash vs. garbage, carriwitchet, langiappe, puccalo, sartalics, a confounding brain teaser about compound synonyms, and more.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Train of Thought (Rebroadcast) - 24 August 2020 Aug 24, 2020

Show notes

Chances are you recognize the expressions Judgment Day and root of all evil as phrases from the Bible. There are many others, such as the powers that be and bottomless pit, which both first appeared in scripture. • There’s a term for when the language of a minority is adopted by the majority. When, for example, expressions from drag culture and hip-hop go mainstream, they’re said to have covert prestige. • The language of proxemics: how architects design spaces to bring people together or help them keep their distance. • Segway vs. segue, part and parcel, Land of Nod, hue and cry, on the razzle, train of thought, and a special Swedish word for a special place of refuge.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Moon Palace - 17 August 2020 Aug 17, 2020

Show notes

What happens in a classroom of refugee and immigrant youngsters learning English? Their fresh approach to language can result in remarkable poetry — some of which is collected in the anthology England: Poems from a School. Also, new language among healthcare professionals: the term cohorting describes the act of grouping patients with COVID-19 in designated facilities. But what’s the word for reintegrating them into the general patient population after treatment. Decohorting, maybe? Finally, who can resist all those independent bookstores with tantalizing names like Moon Palace and Mysterious Galaxy? Also, black-hearted buzzard, nesh, livid, muckle, Fiddler’s Green, come go home with us, a confounding puzzle about words containing the letters C-O-N, and more.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Space Cadet (Rebroadcast) - 10 August 2020 Aug 10, 2020

Show notes

We have books for language-lovers and recommendations for history buffs. • How did the word boondoggle come to denote a wasteful project? The answer involves the Boy Scouts, a baby, a craft project, and a city council meeting. • Instead of reversing just individual letters, some palindromes are sentences with reversed word order. • Also squeaky clean, dad, icebox, search it up, pretend vs. pretentious, toe-counting rhymes, comb the giraffe, a Korean song about carrots, a word game, and more.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howling Fantods (Rebroadcast) - 3 August 2020 Aug 03, 2020

Show notes

Are there words and phrases that you misunderstood for an embarrassingly long time? Maybe you thought that money laundering literally meant washing drug-laced dollar bills, or that AM radio stations only broadcast in the morning? • A moving new memoir by Kansas writer Sarah Smarsh touches on the connection between vocabulary and class. • The inventive language of writer David Foster Wallace. • Also ilk, how to pronounce Gemini, fart in a mitten, greebles, make over, sploot, to boot, a brainteaser, and a whole lot more.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cherry Bombs - 26 July 2020 Jul 27, 2020

Show notes

An ornithologist says there’s a growing movement to change the name of a pink-footed bird currently called the flesh-footed shearwater. The movement reflects a growing understanding that using flesh-colored for “pink” fails to acknowledge the full range of human skin color. Plus, is hooligan an anti-Irish slur? Some people might perceive it that way, but originally the word itself simply referred to the name of a particular gang in London. Finally, book recommendations to keep our minds and hearts full: Joan Didion essays and a novel by Affrilachian poet Crystal Wilkinson. Plus, cherry bumps, al fresco, en plein air, frivol, logy, pigeon-toed vs. duck-footed, hankering, unbolted, a socially distanced brain game, and who licked the red off of your candy?

Hear hundreds of free episodes and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org. Be a part of the show: call or text 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; elsewhere in the world, call or text +1 619 800 4443. Send voice notes or messages via WhatsApp 16198004443. Email words@waywordradio.org. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bottled Sunshine (Rebroadcast) - 20 July 2020 Jul 20, 2020

Show notes

If you catch your blue jeans on a nail, you may find yourself with a winklehawk. This term, adapted into English from Dutch, means “an L-shaped tear in a piece of fabric.” And: What’s your relationship with the books on your shelves? Do the ones you haven’t read yet make you feel guilty — or inspired? Plus, we’re all used to fairy tales that start with the words “Once upon a time.” Not so with Korean folktales, which sometimes begin with the beguiling phrase “In the old days, when tigers used to smoke…” Plus, excelsior, oxtercog, wharfinger, minuend, awesome vs. awful, googly moogly, and eating crackers in bed.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Queen Bee - 13 July 2020 Jul 13, 2020

Show notes

An artist asks strangers to write haiku about the pandemic and gets back poetic, poignant glimpses of life under lockdown. Plus, the new book Queenspotting features the colorful language of beekeeping! Bees tell each other about a good source of nectar by doing a waggle dance, and when a queen bee is ready to mate, she flies around followed by a drone comet. Also, do you refer to that savory red stuff dripped over your pasta as sauce? Or gravy? And: a brain teaser about homographs, dog a door, granny beads, skinnymalink, embrangle, euphemisms for urination and defecation, dry up and bust, I’m gonna cloud up and rain all over you, and more.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

A Way with Words – language, linguistics, and callers from all over

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected