You're Saying It Wrong

Sometimes what we say or write can be grammatically correct but still make no sense whatsoever. Come along with us down this winding road...

Now that we're out of summer, it's finally cooled down enough for us to go outside to check the mailbox! We tackle some listener questions and pet peeves, and we take a look at a bizarre new phrase that's entered the language.

We continue on with our look at the newest words that have been added to dictionaries, and Kathy offers an enormous mea culpa.

Hot off the presses (or whatever the internet is... cyberpresses?), we look at the newest entries into Dictionary.com!

This week, we look at some of those nitpicky little grammar traps that sometimes trip us up.

With the kids headed back to school, Kathy and Ross decided to challenge Fletcher (former two-time district spelling bee runner-up) to a spelling bee!

It's hot! Still. And why mess with a good thing? We heat up a little more with a quiz about summer-related words!

Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia... England... a lot of places have tough to pronounce names for Americans, and our listeners aren't letting us forget it. It's time for a global road trip!

Having been bamboozled by Kathy and Ross in the previous episode, Fletcher resolves to get at one question right this time around. Don't hold your breath, Fletch.

With the words we use in English coming from so many different languages, Kathy and Ross challenge Fletcher to a quiz about word origins. And somehow we end up talking about both bazookas and grenades, so things escalate quickly.

Kathy and Ross try to stump Fletcher with some tricky grammar questions, including a long, confusing trip through collective nouns.

This time, we're taking a trip through some of the most commonly mispronounced places in the good ol' USA. Hop in! Things might get a little bumpy...

Hey there, guy, grab a plate of meat and join us as we look at some everyday words that have REALLY changed their meanings over time!

A listener question forces us to take a hard look at how we use prepositions, including whether we do things "by" accident or "on" accident, and Fletcher asks why we can't just do things "by" purpose.

We've been a little bit cranky lately, so we thought we'd dig up some big-sounding words we're actually fond of. How deliquescent! (wait, that's not right...)

Having tried to wrap our heads around the world of academic language, we now take a stab at trying to untangle the meaning of phrases bureaucracies and corporations produce as they try to sound fancy (and avoid legal trouble).

A listener question prompts us to try to translate some nearly impenetrable examples of academic writing.

We head back to the mailbag to answer some listener questions, including one about the origins of "woke," and another about the power of the bossy R.

We continue to look back at some words from Kathy and Ross' book "That Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means", and we start to wonder if words actually have any meaning at all.

We revisit Kathy and Ross' 2018 book That Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means (now out on audiobook!) and some of the words they wrote about that still give them trouble.

A lot of slang words only last a year or two, but others stick around. We take a look at some that have stood the test of time, and it turns out a bunch of them are older than we realize.

The old people try their hand at sussing out the meanings of Gen Z slang words, although we all remain skeptical that actual people in Gen Z use any of these words. Groovy!

It's an episode we look forward to each January, as we take a look back at the most mispronounced words of the previous year. Even the dinosaurs said one of these wrong!

Kathy and Ross take major issue with various choices for words of the year for 2022. What makes for a good word of the year? Can anyone please our experts?

While recording the audio versions of their books, Kathy and Ross discover there are words they've written about that they STILL say wrong, even after all these years.