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

“What has a head like a cat, feet like a cat, a tail like a cat, but isn’t a cat?” Answer: a kitten! A 1948 children’s joke book has lots of these to share with kids. Plus: an easy explanation for the difference between immigrate with an i, and emigrate with an e. And: The ancient Greeks revered storks for the way they cared for each other. They even had a legal requirement called the Stork Law, w...

In Japan, if you want to order a corndog, you ask for an Amerikan doggu (アメリカンドッグ). These types of coinages are called wasei-eigo , or “Japanese-made English,” and there are lots of them. Plus, there’s an atmospheric optical phenomenon that looks somewhat like the aurora borealis, but has a much friendlier name. Scientists refer to these ribbons of color as … Steve. And: need a synonym for...

Book recommendations and the art of apology. Martha and Grant share some good reads, including an opinionated romp through English grammar, a Spanish-language adventure novel, an account of 19th-century dictionary wars, and a gorgeously illustrated book of letters to young readers. Plus, what’s the best language for conveying a heartfelt apology? Ideally, an apology won’t be the end of a conversat...

If you’re in a book club, how do you decide what books to read? There are lots of different ways, depending on your group’s goals. And is it ever wise to correct someone who mispronounces a word? Sometimes you have to decide if it’s better to be right–or simply get along. Plus, some research suggests that when presented with photos from nature, humans naturally focus on animals instead of plants....

The edge of the Grand Canyon. A remote mountaintop. A medieval cathedral. Some places are so mystical you feel like you’re close to another dimension of space and time. There’s a term for such locales: thin places. And: did you ever go tick-tacking a few nights before Halloween? It’s pranks like tapping ominously on windows without being caught or tossing corn kernels all over a front porch. Also,...

Your first name is very personal, but what if you don’t like it? For some people, changing their name works out great but for others it may create more problems than it solves. And: at least three towns in the U.S. were christened with names formed by spelling a word backward. There’s a name for such names: they’re called ananyms. Plus, the Iowa town with a curious name: What Cheer. And: a brain g...

What do you call a segment of an orange? These juicy pieces of fruit go by lots of different names, including section, wedge, and carpel. But they’re also called pegs or even pigs! The stringy parts of a banana also have a surprising name. Also, we need a word to describe that productive period of wakefulness in the middle of the night before falling back into “second sleep.” And: anagrams that ma...

The autocomplete function on your phone comes in handy, of course. But is it changing the way we write and how linguists study language? Also, suppose you could invite any two authors, living or dead, to dinner. Who’s on your guest list and why? Plus, anchors aweigh! The slang of sailors includes the kind of BOSS you’d better dodge, a barn you sail into, and the difference between the Baja ha-ha a...

How do actors bring Shakespeare’s lines to life so that modern audiences immediately understand the text? One way is to emphasize the names of people and places at certain points. That technique is called billboarding. And: Anyone for an alphabet game? A pangram is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. There’s the one about the quick, brown fox, of course. But there’s a...

If you skip wearing underwear, you’re said to be going commando. This bit of slang originated during the Vietnam War, when U.S. commandos had compelling reasons to do without that particular piece of clothing. Plus, Watergate salad is a mixture of pistachio pudding with whipped cream and pineapple. This dish was popularized in the 1970s, but what does it have anything to do with the scandal that b...

Stunt performers in movies have their own jargon for talking about their dangerous work. In New York City, the slang term brick means “cold,” and dumb brick means “really cold.” Plus: the East and Central African tradition that distinguishes between ancestors who remain alive in living memory and those who have receded into the vast ocean of history. In this sense, all of us are moving toward the...

Crossword puzzles are a marvelous mental workout. A delightful new book about them shares plenty of crossword lore and puzzle-solving tips. Also, performers who tell each other break a leg aren’t really hoping someone gets hurt. The phrase stems from an old superstition that involves saying the opposite of what you really wish. And: is conversate a real word? You bet it is! Prepare for some seriou...

We asked for your thoughts about whether cursive writing should be taught in schools — and many of you replied with a resounding "Yes!" You said cursive helps develop fine motor skills, improves mental focus, and lets you read old handtoodlewritten letters and other documents. Also in this episode: finding your way to a more nuanced understanding of language. The more you know about linguistic div...

Secret signals on the job: Waitresses at some 19th-century restaurants ensured speedy drink service by communicating with a non-verbal code. One server took orders, then placed each customer’s cup to indicate exactly what the customer wanted. A second server could then whisk right in and serve the right beverage without asking. Also, the term highway robbery goes back to the 1600s, when armed robb...

If someone urges you to spill the tea, they probably don’t want you tipping over a hot beverage. Originally, the tea here was the letter T, as in “truth.” To spill the T means to “pass along truthful information.” Plus, we’re serving up some delicious Italian idioms involving food. The Italian phrase that literally translates “eat the soup or jump out the window” means “take it or leave it,” and a...

When you had sleepovers as a child, what did you call the makeshift beds you made on the floor? In some places, you call those bedclothes and blankets a pallet. This word comes from an old term for “straw.” And: What’s the story behind the bedtime admonition “Sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite”? Plus, when grownups are talking about sex or money, they may remind each other that “little pi...

During the late 19th and early 20th century, thousands of volunteers helped crowdsource the Oxford English Dictionary. This venerable reference work includes citations sent in by inventors, eccentrics, scientists and educators, an Arctic explorer–even the owner of the world’s largest collection of pornography. A lively new book tells their stories. Plus, a healthcare worker finds herself adopting...

Jacuzzi and silhouette are eponyms — that is, they derive from the names of people. An Italian immigrant to California invented the bubbly hot tub called a jacuzzi. And the word silhouette commemorates a penny-pinching treasury secretary who lasted only a few months in office and was associated with these shadow portraits. Also, if the words strubbly, briggling, and wabashing aren’t already in you...

The emotional appeal of handwriting and the emotional reveal of animal phrases. Should children be taught cursive writing in school, or is their time better spent studying other things? A handwritten note and a typed one may use the very same words, but handwritten version may seem much more intimate. Plus, English is full of grisly expressions about animals, such as there’s more than one way to s...

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 somet...

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 pr...

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. pretent...

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. • Als...

If your last name is Cook or Smith, your ancestors probably worked in those professions. But what if your last name is Pope? Or Abbott? And if you have enough food for Coxey’s army, you have more than enough to go around. The phrase refers to protesters marching on Washington more than a century ago. Plus, some people say pizza bones are the best parts of the pie! Also, biweekly, shichimencho, piz...

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 Kor...