NPR Podcasts

NPR: Hourly News Summary Podcast Five minutes of NPR news, updated hourly. NPR Hourly Newscast [7 Oct 2008 at 5:13am] A brief update of the top news of the hour Listen

NPR: Second Stage Podcast Discover the best in new and breakout bands on Second Stage, NPR Music's showcase for great unknown artists. Plushgun: 'Just Impolite' [6 Oct 2008 at 6:04pm] In early 2007, singer and songwriter Daniel Ingala began writing and recording catchy, synth-driven pop music in his New York City apartment. He soon took on the moniker Plushgun, and uploaded his first song, "Just Impolite," to his MySpace page. The track quickly found an online audience, drawing more than a half-million page visits and thousands of new fans. Listen Dark Captain Light Captain: 'Walls' [3 Oct 2008 at 6:13pm] East London's Dark Captain Light Captain is preparing to release its full-length debut, Miracle Kicker, later this month, but in the meantime listeners can get a taste of the band's whispy, experimental folk style with the four-song Circles EP. Listen Dan Dyer: 'Love Chain' [2 Oct 2008 at 6:10pm] For his follow-up to 2004's Of What Lies Beneath, Austin, TX resident Dan Dyer draws from gospel, Bossa Nova and even ragtime for a contemporary homage of pulsating grooves. His selt-titled sophomore release, which dropped in late August, begins with the soulful "Love Chain," featuring members of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church Choir backing Dyer's own Stevie Wonder-inspired tenor. It's a passionate and stunning opener, showcasing much of the musical styles Dyer grew up on. Listen The Curse Of Company: 'I Have A Simple Life' [1 Oct 2008 at 9:23pm] Australia's The Curse of Company is the union of several musicians known primarily for their roles in other projects, including David Wiley Rennick of Dappled Cities. The band's first release, Leo Magnets Joins a Gang is a hazy, ethereal soundtrack for a rainy day. Listen Perhapst: 'Harbour' [30 Sep 2008 at 9:20pm] John Moen, best known as drummer for Portland, Oregon's The Decemberists, steps into the spotlight with his side project, Perhapst. On Perhapst's self-titled debut, Moen sings and performs most of the quirky, 1960s-influenced pop music himself, with the notable exception of a guest spot by Stephen Malkmus on guitar. Listen Liz Durrett: 'You Live Alone' [29 Sep 2008 at 8:02pm] Liz Durrett is finally stepping out of her shell on her third and latest album, Outside Our Gates. Known for her sparse and somber Southern folk music, the Athens, Ga.-based musician has put together a release that still has plenty of gloom but is now balanced by over a dozen guest musicians, including her uncle, Vic Chesnutt. Listen Ant Neely: 'Scratch Redux' [27 Sep 2008 at 12:16am] Musician and composer Ant Neely is an advocate of literally spreading his music around the world. A member of the electronic band Subthunk, Neely has turned the release of his first solo album, Not Fit For Human Consumption, into a global experiment by leaving copies of the CD in public locations for people to find, copy, and then leave someplace else. With the help of those who find the CDs, Neely is tracking the movement of his album on his Web site. One disc made its way from England to Brazil while another hopped around the U.K. before landing in Africa. Listen Michael Knight: 'Dumbshow' [25 Sep 2008 at 6:13pm] I'm Not Entirely Clear How I Ended Up Like This, the latest album from Berlin-based Michael Knight, is a jumble of unexpected twists. For starters, Michael Knight is not a person but rather a large collective of musicians fronted by lead singer Richard Murphy. Then there's the fact that I'm Not Entirely Clear How I Ended Up Like This is a two-disc release, with its second disc featuring instrumental-only versions of all the songs on the first. Listen Kira Lynn Cain: 'White As A Dove' [24 Sep 2008 at 6:14pm] The cover art for Kira Lynn Cain's debut, The Ideal Hunter, depicts the San Francisco-based chanteuse bearing an uncanny resemblance to 1940s actress Veronica Lake. That, along with the dark background and bright red block lettering of the album's name, makes the artwork seem more like a film noir poster than a CD sleeve. The design choices make sense after listening to The Ideal Hunter, which begins with the haunting song "White as a Dove." The track features eerie cello strokes layered with piano and an occasional, ominous drum beat lurking beneath Cain's breathy vocals. Listen The Invasion: 'The Madness' [23 Sep 2008 at 9:23pm] Have a listen to The Invasion's debut album, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Madness, and you might be inclined to wonder which part of England the rock quartet is from. Yet despite similarities to Radiohead and Muse, the band actually hails from Nampa, Idaho. Listen Jared Mees And The Grown Children: 'Bees' [22 Sep 2008 at 9:24pm] Until recently, Portland, Oregon-based musician Jared Mees had no band to call his own. But for his sophomore album, Caffeine, Alcohol, Sunshine Money, Mees gathered over a dozen musicians, known as The Grown Children, to formally back him in his quirky pop endeavor. Listen Ed Laurie: 'Meanwhile In The Park" [19 Sep 2008 at 6:13pm] British singer-songwriter Ed Laurie is one of the many musicians who's benefited from the limitless possibilities of Internet exposure. After making his music available on his MySpace page, Laurie was courted by an iTunes executive who then helped the Londoner with the online release of his seven-song debut, Meanwhile in the Park Listen Marching Band: 'Feel Good About It' [18 Sep 2008 at 9:24pm] If The Shins played music after popping Prozac, they might come up with something similar to Spark Large, the full-length debut from the Swedish duo Marching Band. Musicians Erik Sunberg and Jacob Lind have created an album that is brimming with breezy pop songs, perfect for a rise-and-shine playlist or one final summer road trip. Listen The Awkward Stage: 'The Sun Goes Down On Girlsville' [17 Sep 2008 at 6:14pm] Listen to Slimming Mirrors, Flattering Lights, the sophomore release from Vancouver, B.C.'s The Awkward Stage, and it's obvious the pop band weaves an overarching theme through each track. Though the songs on the album vary stylistically — its three gentle instrumental interludes contrast greatly with an energized song like "Hey, Modern School Girl," driven by its drum beat and guitar riffs — they all offer a glimpse into what life is like for those who didn't leave their awkward stage behind in junior high and are still determining their worth. Listen Emiliana Torrini: 'Fireheads' [16 Sep 2008 at 6:13pm] Icelandic acts like Bjork and Sigur Ros have earned the Nordic nation a reputation for strange, elfin rock. Folk-pop singer Emiliana Torrini, who grew up just outside of Reykjavik, hopes to change that. On her latest CD, Me and Armini, Torinni draws from a refreshing hodgepodge of influences. Listen Jaymay: 'Blue Skies' [15 Sep 2008 at 9:26pm] Jaymay has been called a folk artist and she cites Bob Dylan among her influences. But her music is richer and more unpredictable than traditional folk singers. Jaymay's debut album, Autumn Fallin', is a collection of charmingly heartbroken songs that mix bluesy-folk and pop. She's got a soulful voice that compliments heartfelt lyrics with a complex and layered mix of instrumentation. Listen PAS/CAL: 'Oh Honey We're Ridiculous' [12 Sep 2008 at 6:15pm] Long-time fans of Detroit, Michigan-based PAS/CAL have certainly had to be patient over the years. Although the pop band, led by songwriter Casimer Pascal, released its first EP in 2002, its full-length debut came out only this past July. But the intriguingly titled I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke & Laura has turned out to be more than worth the 6-year wait. Listen Don Chambers And Goat: 'Friar's Lantern' [11 Sep 2008 at 6:13pm] The Southern Gothic story-songs of country-rock singer Don Chambers hobble down lonely dirt roads, kicking up dust past ghost-town trailer parks, rusty littered yards and long-abandoned backwoods graveyards. On Zebulon, his latest CD recorded with the band Goat, Chambers serves up dark tales of hardship in the deep South. Listen Benji Hughes: 'Waiting For An Invitation' [10 Sep 2008 at 6:05pm] Predictable music is usually the most forgettable. Fortunately for electro-funk artist Benji Hughes, his debut double CD, A Love Extreme, struts with enough ear candy and lyrical surprises to make it one of the year's most memorable releases. Listen Arborea: 'Black Mountain Road' [9 Sep 2008 at 9:25pm] Shanti and Buck Curran, who write and record under the name Arborea, are pitched as a husband-and-wife folk duo from Maine, but there's very little in their songs that resembles traditional roots music. Arborea is mostly an experimental album, with the Currans bowing and plucking their stringed instruments to create spacey, ambient drones. Listen

NPR: Books Podcast NPR book reviews, news and author interviews -- for people who love to read. The best of Morning Edition, All Things Considered and other award-winning NPR programs. NPR Books October 2, 2008 [2 Oct 2008 at 3:31am] 1) Rick Wartzman's new book, "Obscene in the Extreme" tells the story of Kern County, California's attempt to ban John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" from its libraries; 2) In "State By State: A Panoramic Portrait of America" writers attempt to capture the soul of each state; 3) Chris Gardner, the author of the memoir "The Pursuit of HappYness" on the current crisis on Wall Street Listen NPR Books September 29, 2008 [29 Sep 2008 at 2:08pm] 1) "The Great Outdoor Fight" is a new book by Chris Onstad, creator of the Achewood web comic strip; 2) Pioneering African-American actress Diahann Carroll's new memoir is called "The Legs Are the Last to Go"; 3) Audiobooks that are scuttled by the wrong voice narration; 4) Joe Eszterhas of "Showgirls" and "Basic Instinct" fame discusses his book "Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith", which he wrote as he battled throat cancer Listen NPR Books September 25, 2008 [25 Sep 2008 at 10:01am] 1) Alan Cheuse reviews "The Wasted Vigil" - a post 9/11 novel by Nadeem Aslam, set in Afghanistan; 2) American journalist Sarah Lyall's field guide to the British is called "The Anglo Files"; 3) Three books about the hidden life of suburban males: "Ordinary People," "Independence Day," and "Project X"; 4) Susan Stamberg speaks with actor Robert Wagner about his new memoir "Pieces of My Heart" Listen NPR Books September 22, 2008 [22 Sep 2008 at 10:43am] 1) Author Salman Rushdie recommends "Cosmicomics" by Italo Calvino for "You Must Read This"; 2) Marilynne Robinson revisits the setting and characters of her Pulitzer prize-winning novel "Gilead" in her new book, "Home"; 3) Poet and author E. Ethelbert Miller's new memoir "In the Fifth Inning" tells of baseball and secrecy; 4) "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series will continue - with the next book to be written by "Artemis Fowl" author Eoin Colfer; 5) Tim Reid and Tom Dreesen write of their years as a comedy team in the 60s and 70s in "Tim and Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White" Listen NPR Books September 18, 2008 [18 Sep 2008 at 12:22pm] 1) An appreciation of David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky, who says the author of "Infinite Jest" created a 'new style and a new comedy'; 2) Audiotapes of Agatha Christie offer a glimpse of the creator of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot; 3) "The Forever War" by Dexter Filkins describes the time he's spent in Iraq, covering the war for the New York Times; 4) Philip Roth's latest novel "Indignation"; 5) "You Must Remember This" is a history of Warner Brothers by Richard Schickel, who gives Renee Montagne a studio tour Listen NPR Books September 15, 2008 [15 Sep 2008 at 2:14pm] 1) Writer David Foster Wallace has committed suicide - the author of "Infinite Jest" was 46 years old; 2) Bob Woodward's "The War Within" is his fourth look inside the White House of George W. Bush; 3) Daniel Mendelsohn has a new collection of critical essays called "How Beautiful It Is, and How Easily It Can Be Broken"; 4) The publishing world and fans alike are using movie-style trailers to hype books; 5) Our "3 Books" series continues with recommendations for political novels; 6) "ChefMD's Big Book of Culinary Medicine" by John La Puma shows how eating the right foods can improve your health; Listen NPR Books September 11, 2008 [11 Sep 2008 at 3:25pm] 1) In "How Does It Feel to Be Part of the Problem?" Moustafa Bayoumi writes of the experiences of young muslims in post-9/11 America; 2) Curtis Sittenfeld recommends three non-chick lit books written by smart women; 3) "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" is the memoir of literary forger Lee Israel - who sold phony letters 'by' Noel Coward, Dorothy Parker, and Lillian Hellman; 4) Meghan McCain has a new book for children: "My Dad, John McCain" Listen NPR Books September 8, 2008 [8 Sep 2008 at 12:46pm] 1) "The Jewel of Medina" has found a new publisher. The controversial historical novel was dropped by Random House over concerns it would be offensive to muslims; 2) Matthew Kneale writes about a family in trouble, with the voice of a nine-year-old narrator for his novel "When We Were Romans"; 3) "Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba" by NPR's Tom Gjelten traces the rum company's fraught history with Cuba's political system; 4) A new book and CD, "Jim Copp, Will You Tell Me a Story?" introduces a new generation of young readers to records made for children beginning in the 1950s Listen NPR Books September 5, 2008 [5 Sep 2008 at 1:35pm] 1) Author Brad Meltzer on his novel "The Book of Lies" which tells the story behind the creation of Superman; 2) Alan Cheuse reviews two mysteries - "A Common Ordinary Murder" by Donald Pfarrer, and "Black & White and Dead All Over" by John Darnton; 3) A literary revival in Russia is fueled by authoritarianism; 4) Two memoirs about bi-polar disorder: David Lovelace's "Scattershot" tells the story of how manic depression runs in his family, and Terri Cheney's "Manic" looks at her experiences with the condition Listen NPR Books September 2, 2008 [2 Sep 2008 at 12:54pm] 1) In "The Sorrows of an American", novelist Siri Hustvedt was inspired by the story of her father's life in Depression-era Minnesota; 2) Jacqueline Carey's novel "It's a Crime" takes a comical look at the cooked books of Enron-like companies, and their aftermath; 3) Kaylene Johnson, biographer of presumptive Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin; 4) Is "The Catcher In The Rye" still relevant for today's high school students?; 5) Fictional homicides at a New Jersey karaoke bar in Terry O'Brien's collection of stories called "Murderoke!" Listen

NPR: This I Believe Podcast Americans from all walks of life describe their core personal beliefs. One of the most popular NPR series ever. Caring Makes Us Human [29 Sep 2008 at 5:37pm] When a scruffy cat wandered into the prison yard at a Michigan correctional facility, Troy Chapman says the little orange stray disrupted the tough code of prison culture. Chapman, who was convicted of murder in 1985, says the cat reminded him that everyone wants to be needed. Listen I Am Capable Of More Than I Think I Am [22 Sep 2008 at 4:34pm] When prenatal tests revealed his soon-to-be-born daughter would have Down syndrome, English professor Gregg Rogers feared he wouldn't be able to handle the responsibility. Now, three years later, Rogers realizes that what he once feared has become his salvation. Listen

alt.NPR: Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything TOE is an ongoing attempt at understanding the many diverse and seemingly unrelated threads that make up human experience. Host and creator Benjamen Walker employs monologues, drama, telephone conversations, interviews, reported pieces and investigative fiction in this ongoing adventure. New TOE series - WORK! [6 Mar 2007 at 9:14pm] This week TOE kicks off an all new series, our old friend Peter Choyce even makes an appearance. WORK part 1. Listen... Listen Torture, ticking time bombs, and the American way [26 Feb 2007 at 7:23pm] I finally broke down and watched Michael Winterbottom's The Road To Guantanamo the other night. As cynical as I am, I still find it astonishing that this place remains open and that there are those who still justify its... Listen Fall conspiracies - le finale [7 Nov 2006 at 4:41am] Here is the last installment of a running story about the truth behind 9-11 and who is really running our country. It absolutely terrifies me how much of this program (that Chris B and I put together in 2003)... Listen Fall Conspiracies part deux [26 Oct 2006 at 3:23am] Listen.... Listen Fall Conspiracies [19 Oct 2006 at 3:41pm] As your host heads out to China and Hong Kong in pursuit of TOE's next series of programs, we are going to play a bit of catch up and run a three part series of pieces from a program... Listen TOE 33 - Darth Vader [11 Oct 2006 at 10:49am] This is another expanded piece from one of the TOE radio shows - but I thought I should put it up in all its glory. This was made almost 5 years ago by myself with Sean Cole - its... Listen The bugs, the bugs [30 Sep 2006 at 7:40pm] This week we are running an expanded version of a story from TOE's radio days - Landlord Mitch and the Cockroaches. Its pretty much bugs, bugs, bugs all the time here at TOE now. Check out this post on... Listen AIS: The Observer Effect (The Final Chapter) [21 Sep 2006 at 2:09am] This week our Adventures in Surveillance series comes to a close, with more of a wimper than a bang. Thanks this week to Chris B, Wikipedia, Ajda, and Meredith and of course Werner Heisenberg. Listen... Listen TOE - sex and the internets [11 Sep 2006 at 9:44pm] With the promised ultimate finale for our Adventures in Surveillance series already a week late - it has been decided that I should just post something from the archives so as to keep the angry hoards at bay. So,... Listen PENULTIMATE AIS: A midget Walks Into A Bar... [1 Sep 2006 at 6:22pm] A Chinese midget walks into a bar and climbs up on the stool next to TOE's DC coorespondant Chris B jumpstarting our penultimate instalment of Adventures in Surveillance. If you have been listening since the beginning you will recall... Listen

A Way with Words A Way with Words is a lively hour-long public radio show about language, on the air since 1998. Co-hosts Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett delve into word histories, solve grammar disputes, give and answer quizzes, and take calls from listeners around the world who vent their peeves. And, of course, they answer linguistic and lexical questions that that language-lovers have long wondered about. Language Headlines (minicast) - 6 Oct. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [5 Oct 2008 at 11:02pm] The world of politics tops this week's language headlines, including an explanation of the Bradley effect, and the ongoing debate over bilingual education. Also, what does the word fubsy mean? Grant has the answer, and reports about a new favorite blog described as 'LOLcats for smart people.' Ever since it started looking like Barack Obama was more than a long shot for his party's nomination, pollsters, and pundits have been talking about the 'Bradley effect.' It's when polls show a black political candidate way out in front. And yet, when the votes are cast, the black candidate barely wins or doesn't even win at all. As William Safire writes in the New York Times, the expression comes from Tom Bradley's loss of the governorship of California in 1982. Then, polls predicted that he would win, but, in fact, he lost by a small margin. Many people felt that Bradley, who was black, lost because hidden racists wouldn't admit to pollsters their true intentions. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/magazine/28wwln-safire-t.html Also in the campaign coverage is an ongoing discussion of bilingual education. Is it better to teach immigrant children only in English or should we teach them in a language they already know? http://tinyurl.com/5xrt93 That's the premise of a debate on the New York Times Education Watch blog. The presidential candidate's views come under some scrutiny by a couple of experts, but most interesting are the reader comments. One wrote, 'I am struck by how much the debate about the quantity of English in the classroom quickly devolves from a sensible search for the best strategy, to an ideological war that produces some very silly teaching strategies.' Speaking of campaigns, ever heard of the word fubsy? Well, British dictionary publisher Collins is threatening to cut that and other archaic words from its dictionaries. It's mainly a public relations effort, but they've succeeded in bringing out the word-lovers to nominate and mull favorite archaic words of their own. Fubsy, by the way, means 'short and stout.' http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4798835.ece http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1847038,00.html And finally, it's the latest in a long line of many similar sites, but a new favorite blog is Wordsplosion. There you'll find photographs of English gone wrong. Like the grocery store sign that says 'dairy choices.' And under that it says 'cheese and cheese.' http://www.wordsplosion.com -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Never Bolt Your Door with A Boiled Carrot - 6 Oct. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [5 Oct 2008 at 11:01pm] Proverbs pack great truths into a few well-chosen words, no matter which language you speak. Check out this one from Belize: 'Don't call the alligator a big-mouth till you have crossed the river.' And this truism from Zanzibar: 'When two elephants tussle, it's the grass that suffers.' Martha and Grant discuss a new paremiography--a collection of proverbs--from around the world. A woman from Cape Cod is looking for a polite word that means the current wife of my ex-husband. She's thinking about 'cur-wife,' but somehow that doesn't quite work. Neither does the phrase 'that poor woman.' The hosts try to help her come up with other possibilities. 'It's raining, it's pouring.' But what exactly is the 'it' that's doing all that raining and pouring? This question from a caller prompts Grant to explain what linguists mean when they talk about the 'weather it.' Hint: It depends on what the meaning of 'it' is. Your eyetooth is located directly beneath your eye. But is that why they're called eyeteeth? A Boston caller would give her eyeteeth to know. Okay, not really, but she did want an answer to this question. Quiz Guy John Chaneski invites Grant and Martha to busta rhyme with a word puzzle called Rhyme Groups. You've seen people indicate emphasis by putting a period after each of several words, and capitalizing the first letter of each word. A Michigan listener wonders how this stylistic trick arose. Her question was prompted by this description of French model-turned-presidential-spouse Carla Bruni: 'She's got a cashmere voice and a killer body. Plays decent guitar and writes her own lyrics. Can hold her own with queens and statesmen. She. Must. Be. Stopped.' Jealous much? Do you want to get down? Ask that in parts of Louisiana, and people know you're not inquiring whether they care to dance, you're asking if they want to get out of a car. A former Louisianan who grew up using the expression that way wonders if it's French-inspired. The hosts proceed to use the phrase 'get down' so much they end up with a dreadful K.C. and the Sunshine Band earworm. Which is correct for describing a close family resemblance: spittin' image or spit and image? Grant and Martha discuss the possible origins of these expressions, including a recent hypothesis that's sure to surprise. In this week's episode of Slang This!, Dave Dickerson from the National Puzzlers' League tries to guess the meaning of the terms cowboy up and money bomb. If you've used the word sickly too many times in a paragraph and need a synonym, there's always dauncy, also spelled donsie and dauncy. Grant explains the origin of this queasy-sounding word. A Navy man stationed in Hawaii phones to settle a dispute over the difference between acronyms and initialisms. Here's hoping he didn't go AWOL to make the call. Is English is going to hell in the proverbial handbasket? A Wisconsin grandmother thinks so, particularly because of all the ums and you knows she hears in everyday speech. The hosts discuss these so-called disfluencies, including how to avoid them and how to keep other people's disfluencies from grating on your nerves. We leave you with a couple other proverbs translated into English. They're from David Crystal's paremiography, As They Say in Zanzibar: Proverbs are like butterflies; some are caught and some fly away. (Germany) Teachers open the door; you enter by yourself. (China) -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Regional Food Names: When Is a Milkshake Not a Milkshake? Minicast - 29 Sept.... by words@waywordradio.org [28 Sep 2008 at 11:02pm] Regional Food Names: When Is a Milkshake Not a Milkshake? We asked you to tell us about odd regional food names, and boy did you oblige! Martha reads some of your letters about whoopie pies, hot tamales, pretzel salad, and coolers, plus the frappe vs. milkshake controversy. Welcome to another minicast of A Way with Words. I'm Martha Barnette. A while back, we talked about how the name of a particular food that you grew up with might be utterly mystifying to someone from another part of the country. Grant described the pork steaks that he ate all the time in Missouri, and I talked about how my family in Louisville ate Benedictine, a mix of cucumber and cream cheese. We asked you for other examples. What came through loud and clear was this: You don't have to be in a foreign country to be baffled by the local menu. We heard from Cindy in San Diego who told us about the culinary culture shock of moving from Michigan to Boston. When she and her husband ordered a milk shake there, she was surprised when 'what we got was milk with chocolate syrup - as watery as, well, chocolate milk! We were really confused. Then we described to the waitress what we thought we had ordered, and she exclaimed in a heavy Boston accent, 'Oh, you want a frappe!' Cindy went on to say: 'The other thing we found in Boston and nowhere else in the country was a confection called a Whoopie Pie - two chocolate cookie/cakelike disks filled in between with a white cream or icing in the center. Whatever store in Boston we happened to be, or at a bakery, there were the Whoopie Pies in all their glory. Never have seen these anywhere else in the country and if I ask people here in San Diego where I could get some Whoopie Pies, they'd just look at me cross-eyed.' Well, Cindy, that sounds a lot like what we in the South call 'Moon Pies.' Although if I ever need a stage name or nom de plume, I'm going to give serious thought to calling myself 'Whoopie Pie.' Or how about this one: Have you ever eaten 'pretzel salad'? I sure haven't - never even heard of it. But a listener named Michael tells us that pretzel salad is lime jello with carrots and pretzels mixed into it. 'It's mostly an East Coast thing,' he says. Hmmmm, another reason I'm glad I live in California. Mary wrote from Sheboygan, Michigan to say that when she first moved there 30 years ago, she noticed that the school lunch one day was 'hot tamales.' Mary writes, 'I was astounded that Sheboygan was so diverse that the school lunch for every child in the district was tamales. Later that day I discovered that what Sheboyganites call hot tamales are what I called barbecue and what other folks call sloppy joes. She adds: 'Sheboygan has many unique words for things including coolers, also known as 'popsicles.'' Finally, we also heard from you about food names that families invent and use among themselves. Take Mary of Lower Lake, California. She wrote to tell us about 'Hairy Arm Hot Dogs.' When she was growing up in Troy, New York, she recalls, the family would say, 'Hey, want to go for a Hairy Arm?' They'd troop off to the local hot dog stand with excitement. 'The origin of the name Hairy Arm,' she writes, 'came from how the stand's owner's practice of lining hot dogs up the length of his forearm while he dressed them with relish, onions, etc. Sometimes a hair from his arm would get on the hot dog.' You know, I can just picture that. Anyway, that's all for this minicast. Call us any time with your questions and comments about regional dialects, family sayings, grammar, slang, word origins, you name it. The number's 1-877-929-9673. Or send your emails to words@waywordradio.org. If you just can't wait to chat about language, join the party at our discussion forum. That's at waywordradio.org/discussion. Thanks for tuning in. For A Way with Words, I'm Martha Barnette. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen The Txting Db8 - 29 Sept. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [28 Sep 2008 at 11:01pm] OMG, text messaging! It's destroying the English language, corrupting young minds, turning us into a nation of illiterates. It's probably shrinking the ozone layer, too. Or is it? In his new book, 'Txting: The Gr8 Db8,' author David Crystal offers a different perspective. The book's surprising message is one which linguists have shared for years: Far from obliterating literacy, texting may actually improve it. So put that in your message header and send it! The French phrase 'au jus' means with sauce, which is why it drives some diners to distraction when a menu lists beef with 'au jus sauce.' A Wisconsin listener calls to say this phrase sets her teeth on edge. The hosts order up an answer fresh from the 'Waiter, There's a Redundancy in My Soup!' Department. In medical parlance, your big toe is your 'hallux.' But what about the other four? Do they have anatomical names as well? A San Diego man who hurt the toe next to his big toe is tired of referring to his injured digit as 'the toe next to my big toe,' and wants the proper medical term. How does 'porcellus domi' grab you? Prehensily? Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents a letter-shaving game called 'Curtailments.' In this game, Grant and Martha leave everything on the floor. A caller from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, was puzzled when she moved there and locals asked, 'What's your name from home?' meaning, 'What's your maiden name?' The community has a strong Polish heritage, and she wonders if there's a connection. It's a good hunch, and Martha explains why. Say you have a particularly rambunctious child. Okay, a little hellion. Is it proper to describe the little devil as a 'holy terror'? Or might it be more correct and more logical to call him an 'unholy terror'? A Los Angeles caller thinks it's the latter. If you've flown from Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport recently, you may have noticed an odd but official-looking sign that reads: 'RECOMBOBULATION AREA.' A caller from Madison was discombobulated to see it, then started wondering about the roots of such words. See if it does the same for you here: http://tinyurl.com/4mc8dm The real problem with texting isn't how it affects language, but what it does to social interaction. Is there anything more annoying when you're trying to have a conversation than watching your companion's eyes flitting to his phone when he sees that a text message just arrived? The hosts discuss the need for a new text-messaging etiquette. Let's say that you're getting 'diesel therapy' at 'o-dark-thirty.' What are you getting and when are you getting it? A New Jersey contestant from the National Puzzlers' League learns the meaning of these terms in this week's slang quiz. What do you call a word made from a blend of two other words, like 'motel' from 'motor' and 'hotel'? A listener says his term for them is 'Reese's Peanut Butter Cup words,' after the old commercial: 'You got chocolate in my peanut butter! You got peanut butter in my chocolate!' But he wonders if there's another, more established term. The hosts introduce him to the word 'portmanteau.' When it comes to text messaging and its effect on English, the linguistic apocalypse is not nigh. Quite the contrary, in fact. Grant talks about some eye-opening research about text-messaging and teen literacy. That's all for this week. L8r! -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Antipodes and Grooks Minicast - 22 Sept. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [22 Sep 2008 at 1:06pm] A listener in Brazil challenges Martha's pronunciation of the odd English word antipodes. Their email exchange leads Martha to muse about a favorite collection of poems, where she first encountered this word. ... Recently on our show, I made a linguistic boo-boo. Did you catch it? We were talking about the word 'podium.' A listener named Joel called to say that the word 'podium' originally denoted something you stand on. But more and more, people are using it to mean something you 'stand behind.' Joel was none too happy about that. I told him he was right about the roots of the word 'podium,' even though its meaning has changed. M: I feel your pain Joel. Absolutely, podium comes from ultimately from a Greek word meaning 'foot.' G: Yeah, but that doesn't mean -- M: Hear me out. Hear me out! It's like podiatrist, the doctor who looks after your feet. It's like antipodes, the people on the other side of the world from us, exactly. There's a big old foot in that word. J: There sure is! Did you catch my mistake? One of our listeners in Brazil did. Luciano emailed from Sao Paolo to say I'd mispronounced that word for people on the other side of world. A-n-t-i-p-o-d-e-s, he wrote, isn't pronounced 'ANN-ti-poads.' It's 'ann-TIP-uh-dees.' - he's right! 'Ann-TIP-uh-dees' means, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it: 'Those who dwell directly opposite to each other on the globe, so that the soles of their feet are, as it were, planted against each other.' It's a poetic word, 'ann-TIP-uh-dees,' those Greek roots conjuring an image of people standing sole to sole, yet separated by an entire planet. The English word 'ann-TIP-uh-dees' was originally plural in form, referring to lots of people. The singular version, 'ANN-tih-poad,' came only later, by a process linguists call back-formation. In any case, my only excuse for mispronouncing the word is this: In elementary school, I'd seen that singular form, 'ANN-tih-pode,' and just assumed that the plural would naturally be 'ANN-ti-podes.' You may be wondering why an elementary-school kid would run into the word 'antipode' at all. Let me tell you about a book of poems that I just love. It's called 'Grooks' by Piet Hein. If you're not familiar with it, you're in for a treat. Hein was a 20th-century Danish scientist, poet, and designer. He was always trying to bridge the gap between art and science, which is probably why he counted among his close friends both Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin. He also wrote short, insightful poems in Danish, English, and another passion of his, Esperanto. Here's a pithy poem called 'Problems': Problems worthy of attack Prove their worth By hitting back. Nuff said. Here's one that he called 'A Psychological Tip': Whenever you're called on to make up your mind, And you're hampered by not having any, The best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find, Is simply by spinning a penny. No - not so that chance shall decide the affair While you're passively standing there moping; But the moment the penny is up in the air, You suddenly know what you're hoping. I tell you, I've used that tip more times than I can count. And finally, the poem that introduced me to the word 'antipode.' It will steadily shrink, our earthly abode, until antipode stands upon antipode. Then, soles together, the planet gone, we'll know the ground that we rest upon. The book is called 'Grooks' by Piet Hein. Here are some more examples of his poems. http://www.chat.carleton.ca/~tcstewar/grooks/grooks.html --- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Moonbats and Wingnuts - 22 Sept. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [21 Sep 2008 at 11:01pm] Here's a bit of political slang now making the rounds: sleepover. No, we're not talking about another pol caught with his pants down. We're talking about spending the night with, well, a voting machine. In this week's episode, we examine this and other examples of political language. You call the repairman to fix a balky garage door, but when he gets there, it inexplicably works. You summon a plumber, only to find that when he arrives, your toilet's no longer leaking--and you're out $150. Or you discover that somewhere between your home and the doctor's office, your kid's sore throat miraculously healed. A caller in Traverse City, Michigan, is tearing her hair out over this phenomenon, which she calls 'phixophobia.' But, she asks, might there be an even better word for the way inanimate objects seem to conspire against us? We think so: resistentialism. Great Scott! You've heard the expression. But who was Scott and why was he so great? Or was he an impressive Scotsman? Martha and Grant can't say for sure, although the evidence points toward a Civil War soldier who happened to go by that name. Our hosts bandy about some more political slang terms and explain their meaning and origin. Or did you already know the difference between a moonbat and a wingnut? Quiz Guy John Chaneski strikes up the band, begins the beguine, and treats Martha and Grant to musical quiz. Warning: Songs may be sung. Not to worry, though--all three have promised to keep their day jobs. If someone handed you something and told you to stick it in your jockey box, where would you put it? A Baltimore caller who grew up in Utah says when he used this term on a road trip with a friend, his pal was flummoxed. Is jockey box an expression peculiar to one part of the country? Is that oh-so-handy sticky stuff called 'duct tape' or 'duck tape'? An Emmy-nominated filmmaker is wondering, specifically because he has to instruct narrators to be careful to avoid running together a T sound at the end of a word with the T sound at the beginning of a word. And that has him further wondering if such elision of consonants has created other terms. We offer him an answer and a glass of ice tea. Or would that be iced tea? It's Obamarama time! We discuss the growing number of plays on the name of the Democratic presidential candidate. A North Carolina pediatrician is this week's contestant for an animal-themed version of our slang quiz. He tries to figure out the meaning of dead cat bounce and pigeon pair. A caller's question about the word wonky, in the sense of askew, leads to a broader question: What makes a word slang, anyway? Why do we say something is jet black? Does it have to do with the color of a 747's exhaust? Or skid marks on the runway? Or something else entirely? We provide a color with a mineralogical answer. A listener phones with his pet restaurant peeve: When your waiter ask, 'Are you working on that?' Martha and Grant agree and pile on with gusto. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Maverick and Gobbledygook Minicast - 15 Sept. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [14 Sep 2008 at 11:02pm] Mmmmmaverick. Maverick, Maverick, Maverick. Maverick, Maverick, Maverick, Maverick. Maverick. Is it just my imagination, or are we hearing this word a whole LOT more lately? You usually hear it applied a politician who's staunchly independent and stubbornly non-conformist. But where'd we get an odd word like this? The answer involves a Texas political dynasty that added not one, but two, familiar words to English. Samuel Augustus Maverick was 19th-century Texas lawyer who went into politics. He was elected mayor of San Antonio in 1839 and later served in the Texas State Legislature. He also speculated in land deals. And he owned cattle, which he kept on a 385,000-acre ranch. In those days, cattlemen didn't always fence in their land, which meant their animals often roamed free. So, ranchers branded their cattle to prevent theft, and resolve disputes over ownership. Well, all the ranchers, that is, except for Samuel Maverick. Maverick was notorious for refusing to brand his own livestock. So whenever his neighbors saw an animal without a brand, especially a calf that had strayed from its mother, they'd say things like, 'Oh, that must be a Maverick.' Maverick told people he considered branding cruelty to animals. Skeptics, though, charged that by refusing to brand his animals, Maverick could then lay claim to any unbranded cattle as his own. Over the years, this term for a 'stray, unmarked calf' also came to apply to any kind of strong-willed nonconformist, particularly a politician not 'branded' by special interests. And the linguistic legacy of this Texas family goes even further. The Mavericks can take credit for yet another familiar English word that involves politics: That word is gobbledygook. Ggggobbledygook, gobbledygook, gobbledygook, gobbledy--well, you get the picture. Anyway, it turns out that Samuel Maverick's grandson, Maury Maverick, also went into politics, eventually serving in the U.S. Congress. A folksy, plainspoken Texan, Maury Maverick was appalled by the fog of stuffy, obfuscatory, bureaucratic language that hangs over and permeates Washington. In 1944, he penned an official memo to his colleagues and subordinates, urging them to speak and write in plain English. The memo read in part: 'Stay off the gobbledygook language. It only fouls people up. For Lord's sake, be short and say what you're talking about... Anyone using the words 'activation' and 'implementation' will be shot!' Talk about a real Maverick. Congressman Maverick later said he wasn't sure why the crazy word gobbledygook popped into his mind at just that moment. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'I was thinking of the old bearded turkey gobbler back in Texas who was always gobbledy-gobblin' and struttin' with ludicrous pomposity. At the end of this gobble there was a sort of â 'gook.'' In any case, both 'gobbledygook' and 'maverick' turned out to be way too useful to be forgotten. Both found their way into dictionaries--and onto the front page, especially in this election year. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Usage, grammar, spelling, punctuation, slang, old sayings, other languages, speech, writing, you name it. Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web Listen Pwned Prose, Stat! - 15 Sept. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [14 Sep 2008 at 11:01pm] When you get to the end of a wonderful book, your first impulse is to tell someone else about it. In this week's episode, Martha and Grant discuss what they've been reading and the delights of great prose. An Illinois man recalls that as a kid, he used to mix fountain drinks of every flavor into a concoction he and his friends called a 'suicide.' He wonders if anyone else calls them that. Why a 'suicide'? Because it looks and tastes like poison? It started as a typo for 'own,' now it's entrenched in online slang. A Kentucky caller is curious about 'pwn.' It rhymes with 'own' and means 'to defeat' or 'to triumph over.' Our hosts talk about a special meaning of 'own' in the computer-gaming world. Quiz Guy John Chaneski is Havana good time with Martha and Grant on an round-the-world 'International Puzzle Hunt' that will leave you Beijing for more. You seem to hear it on all the television hospital dramas: 'stat!' A physician says she knows it means 'immediately,' but she doesn't know its origins. Quick! Is there a Latin expert in the house? A San Diego fisherman notes that he hears mariners talk about 'snotty weather.' 'Snotty?' Is it the kind that gives you the sniffles? Or is does it cop an attitude? Do you ever stare at a word so long that you think it's mispellllled? Even though it isn't? Your dialectal duo hunt up a word for that phenomenon. Grant and Martha reveal what books are on their own nightstands, waiting to be read. Just the top of the stacks, natch, because there are just too many. This week's 'Slang This!' contestant tries to guess the meaning of the terms 'liver rounds' and 'put the bite on someone.' An Indianapolis woman who grew up in the South says that when her slip was showing, her father used to say, 'Who do you think you are, Miss Astor'?' Martha shares other euphemisms for slips showing. If someone sidles up to you and says, 'Pssssst! Mrs. White is out of jail,' it's time to check your hemline. You can tell someone's an 'A Way with Words' listener when they confess to lying awake at night wondering about questions like, 'Are the words 'fillet' and 'flay' etymologically related?' A Minnesotan has been observing his infant babbling, and wonders if words like 'mama' and 'papa' arise from sounds that babies naturally make anyway. Are there some words or sounds that are instinctive? Or do they only learn them from their parents? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Usage, grammar, spelling, punctuation, slang, old sayings, other languages, speech, writing, you name it. Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web Listen Lackabookaphobia? Minicast - 8 Sept. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [7 Sep 2008 at 11:02pm] Some people wouldn't be caught without the season's latest fashions, and others never leave home without their asthma inhaler. But for some of us, what strikes fear into our hearts is the thought of being caught without a book. Jeanie in Wisconsin has that kind of passion for audiobooks and calls to ask Martha and Grant to give her a name for her condition. If you have an idea for what this fear should be called, tell us about it! -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen The Secret Language of Families - 8 Sept. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [7 Sep 2008 at 11:01pm] [This episode first aired January 19th, 2008.] Does your family use a special word you've never heard anywhere else? A funny name for 'the heel of a loaf of bread,' perhaps, or for 'visiting relatives who won't leave.' In this week's episode, Martha and Grant discuss 'family words,' and Martha reveals the story behind her own family's secret word, 'fubby.' Why do we say that someone who's pregnant is 'knocked up'? The hit movie starring Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen has a caller wondering about this term. A man whose last name is McCoy wants a definitive answer about the origin of the expression 'the real McCoy.' He's been told it comes from the name of turn-of-the-century boxing champ Kid McCoy. Is that really the case? A Michigander wants to know about the difference between 'titled' and 'entitled.' She'd assumed that a book is 'titled' Gone with The Wind and a person is 'entitled' to compensation for something. Grant and Martha explain it's a little more complicated than that. Quiz Guy Greg Pliska presents a quiz about 'False Plurals,' based on the old riddle: What plural word becomes singular when you put the letter 's' at the end of it? (Hint: Think of a brand of tennis racket, as well as the former name of a musical artist before he changed it back again.) Quick, which is faster? Something that happens 'instantly' or that happens 'instantaneously'? A caller wants to know if there's any difference between the two. A Brazilian has been researching why actors use the unlikely expression 'break a leg' to wish each other well before going on stage. He suspects it's a borrowing of a German phrase that means, 'May you break your neck and your leg,' but he's not sure. A caller who lived in the Bay Area during the 1960s remembers using the word 'loosecap' to describe someone who's 'not playing with a full deck.' He wonders if he and his friends are the only ones to use it, as in, 'Don't be such a loosecap!' This week's 'Slang This!' contestant tries to decipher the slang phrases 'dance at two weddings' and 'put the big pot in the little pot.' She also shares her own favorite slang terms for 'crumb crusher,' 'rug rat' and 'ankle biter.' By the way, you can read Grant's essay about slang terms for small children, 'Sprogs in a Poop Factory,' here. His column about language appears every two weeks in The Malaysia Star newspaper. A caller fears that the term 'Indian giver' is politically incorrect, and wants an alternative to teach her children. A Princeton University student wonders if his school can lay claim to being the first to apply the Latin word 'campus' to the grounds of an institution of higher learning. By the way, if you want to read about more family words, check out Paul Dickson's book, 'Family Words: A Dictionary of the Secret Language of Families.' Here's hoping all of you are happy fubbies! -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Pair o' Docs Paradox Minicast - 1 Sept. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [31 Aug 2008 at 11:02pm] A caller from Imperial Beach, California has a punctuation question: Dr. Tei Fu Chen and his wife, Dr. Oi Lin Chen own and operate a large, multinational herbal food company. In company literature, the two doctors are referred to in several ways. The caller wants to know which is the best choice. Which of the following would you pick, and why? 1. The owners, Doctors Chens, are experts in the field. 2.  The owners, Doctor Chens, are experts in the field. 3.  The owners, Doctors Chen, are experts in the field. 4.  The owners, the Doctors Chen, are experts in the field. See if your answer agrees with the one Martha and Grant decided on. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen See A Man About A Horse -1 Sept. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [31 Aug 2008 at 11:01pm] [This episode first aired January 12th and 13th, 2008.] In this week's episode, Martha and Grant discuss not-to-be-believed articles about language from the satirical newspaper The Onion, including one headlined 'Underfunded Schools Forced to Cut Past Tense from Language Programs.' By the way, did you ever notice how ONION is ZO-ZO if you tilt your head to the right? A caller has a friendly disagreement with a pal: Is the expression 'tide me over' or 'tie me over'? Hint: The answer she gets should tide her over. If a dictator dictates, and an aviator aviates, then does a commentator 'commentate'? A caller complains that this last word gives him the willies. Does an alligator alligate? A middle-schooler who's reading 'Anne of Green Gables' is puzzled by a mention of 'breakfast, dinner, and supper.' She wants to know if the words 'dinner' and 'lunch' really interchangeable. The fur flies when Greg Pliska unleashes a word puzzle involving the names of animals. Also speaking of animals, an immigrant from India recounts his confusion the first time he heard the expression 'I'm going to go see a man about a horse.' How in did that become a euphemism for 'I'm going to go to the bathroom'? A former West Virginian reports that she grew up hearing a strange word: 'charny.' In her part of the country, she says, it means 'dirty' or 'filthy,' and she always heard it pronounced 'chee-YAR-nee.' This week's Slang This! contestant, a comic-book illustrator from Providence, R.I., tries to guess the meaning of the expressions 'hat-catcher' and 'to go shucks.' What IS the longest word in the English language? 'Antidisestablishmentarianism'? 'Floccinaucinihilipilification'? Or 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,' maybe? Martha and Grant discuss such sesquipedalian contenders for the title of Longest English Word. Where do you put those exclamation points and question marksâdo they go inside or outside the quotation marks? Can you say, 'We have the answer!'? Confused about whether 'biweekly' means 'twice a week' or 'twice a month'? Martha rants about why the using the words 'biweekly' and 'bimonthly' at all is a bad idea, period. Grant shares listener email about the origin and meaning of the term 'g-job.' ---- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAYâWORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Language Headlines Minicast- 25 August 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [24 Aug 2008 at 11:02pm] Grant has the latest headlines from the world of language, including the debate over the name of the home of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Is 'Beijing' pronounced 'bay-JING' or 'bay-ZHING'? Also, a recent court decision concerning an offense that's coming to be known as 'Talking While Spanish.' And what's the origin of the phrase 'the skinny'? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Insegrevious Paratereseomaniacs - 25 Aug. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [24 Aug 2008 at 11:01pm] [This episode first aired December 8th and 9th, 2007.] This week Martha and Grant honor winners of the Ig Nobel Prizes, those wacky awards for weird academic research and they help a caller decipher a puzzling word from a personals ad: what does 'paratereseomaniac' mean? A electronic teenager repellent? An alarm clock that runs away from you to make you'll wake up? Yep, it's the Ig Nobel Prizes, those awards for academic research that first makes you laugh and then makes you think. Martha and Grant honor this year's winners for linguistics and literature. A caller shares colorful expressions from her Texas-born mother, including 'turkey tail' and 'I'm gonna snatch you bald-headed.' She also wonders why her mother says' bread and butter' every time they're walking together and an object in their path makes them step to either side of it. A pair of business partners disagree whether to use one word, 'website,' or or two words, 'Web site.' Greg Pliska presents a groaner of a quiz about world capitals. Let's just put it this way: the number of puns in this quiz will be Dublin exponentially. A former resident of Buffalo, New York, puzzles over a strange word in a 12-year-old personals ad. What exactly is a 'paratereseomaniac' with extensive knowledge of osculation'? A former Navy man has a pet peeve about using the word 'utilize' instead of 'use.' Did Gary Owen invent the word 'insegrevious'? And is there a category for words that can mean anything you want them to? This week's 'Slang This!' contestant learns the difference between a 'trailer queen' and 'soup spitter.' A wife seeks consolation because her husband always implores her to 'drive safe' instead of 'drive safely.' Martha says if he really loves her, he'll use an adverb. Grant says it's a message of love, so maybe the '-ly' doesn't matter so much.   You may have learned that an 'estuary' is where a river meets the sea, but a reference librarian asks whether she should eschew estuary as a word for the confluence of freshwater bodies. Martha and Grant tide her over with some more information. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAYâWORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen When is a Bell Pepper a Mango? Minicast - 17 Aug. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [16 Aug 2008 at 11:02pm] When is a mango not a mango? Why, when it's a bell pepper, of course! An Indiana listener says she and her Kentucky in-laws have entirely different names for this vegetable. She wants to know why, so we help her sort it out. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Word Jocks, Lettered in Language - 17 Aug. 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [16 Aug 2008 at 11:01pm] [This episode originally aired Dec. 1, 2007.] Pass the Gatorade! Martha and Grant work up a sweat this week as they tackle a sports quiz and lob vocabulary questions back and forth. They also settle a family dispute about the pronunciation of 'eco-friendly' and unlock the etymology of 'skeleton key.' Do you know what a 'rampike' is? Or a 'colobus'? Martha and Grant test each other's knowledge of ten-dollars words with the online quiz at FreeRice.com. A reader of Anthony Bourdain's 'Kitchen Confidential' thinks the book is snarky--but what does 'snarky' really mean? A husband and wife ask for wisdom about a long-running dispute: Is it 'last-stitch effort' or 'last-ditch effort'? To great effect, your unaffected radio hosts explain the difference between 'affect' and 'effect.' Greg Pliska's quiz about terms from football, curling, and other sports leaves Martha and Grant winded but wanting more. How do you pronounce 'eco,' as in 'eco-friendly'? Is it 'EE-koe' or 'EK-koe'? A seller of environmentally friendly products learns whether she can tell her teenage son to go spread his pronunciation in the garden. A Wisconsinite hopes to unlock the question, 'Why do we call it a skeleton key?' A caller in Texas stirs up a spat over whether it's ever grammatically correct to say 'between you and I'--even though Shakespeare did it. This week's 'Slang This!' contestant guesses what the terms 'tape bomb' and 'pixie money' mean. Improvised explosive devices made out of cassette tapes? We don't think so. Finally, if you release a collection of music on compact disc, can you still call it a 'record' or an 'album'? Or is it just a CD? A musician from Indiana wants an answer. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Language Headlines - 11 August 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [11 Aug 2008 at 8:31am] Grant dishes up the latest language headlines from around the world. Oh, what a difference a letter can make! The Moscow Times reports this week that Tatyana Tetyorkina was stripped of her Russian citizenship because a government clerk's typewriter was missing a single letter. Instead, a  different vowel was used, making her Teterkina rather than Tetyorkina--and making who she said she was and who her papers said she was disagree. Public outcry over the matter has since caused her citizenship to be reinstated, but Tatyana is still pursuing it in the Russian courts. In Slate magazine, Eugene Volokh takes a look at names that are so weird that they were brought before the courts. There's the nine-year-old New Zealand girl named Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii. Yes, that's the entire name. There's someone named They T-H-E-Y, there's Darren Lloyd Bean, spelled Darren Q-X Bean, and more Santa Clauses than a Santa Claus convention. Caroline Winter fills in for William Safire in the New York Times Magazine, where she discusses why we capitalize the pronoun 'I.' She says, in short, that a lowercase I is hard to see on the page, but an uppercase I is a cinch to read. She suggests, just for a little self-humbling, that we capitalize you, Y-O-U, instead. Also in the New York Times, Nicholson Baker gives a favorable review to Ammon Shea's book, Reading the OED, in which he spent an entire year reading the print version of the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Baker calls the book 'oddly inspiring' and says, 'The effect of this book on me was to make me like Ammon Shea and, briefly, to hate English.' Finally, dictionary editor Erin McKean asks in the Boston Globe why people use a word and then sheepishly wonder if it is really a word. She writes, 'Whenever I see 'not a real word' used to stigmatize what is (usually) a perfectly cromulent word, I wonder why the writer felt the need to hang a big sign reading 'I am not confident about my writing' on it. What do they imagine the penalty is for using an 'unreal' word? A ticket from the Dictionary Police?' Cromulent, by the way, is a made-up word from The Simpsons. It means good or fine. Okay, fine. That's all for this week's language headlines. You can find links to all of these stories on the discussion forum of A Way with Words, public radio's weekly call-in show about language. Find it at waywordradio.org. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Give It the Old College Slang - 11 August 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [11 Aug 2008 at 8:08am] [This episode originally aired May 17, 2008.] If someone calls you 'dibby,' should you be flattered or insulted? You'd know if you were in college a century ago--it's outdated college slang! Also, we are 'voluntold' to play a word puzzle about Unknown Superheroes!  What do we call it when new inventions or ideas change the name of something old? It used to be that the word 'guitar' was sufficient, but now we regularly distinguish between an 'acoustic guitar' and an 'electric guitar.' Same for television, a word that sufficed until we started saying 'color television' to distinguish it from the earlier black-and-white version. What's the word for such terms? We know you can't wait: it's 'retronym.' A Cincinnati man says that at the non-profit where he works, he often hears the word 'voluntold.' It comes up when someone is volunteered by someone else to do some task, rather than volunteering themselves. Does this term for 'involuntary volunteering' have military origins? 'You're the apple of my eye' is an ancient term of endearment. Martha explains the connections between apples, eyes, and other precious things. We share a listener's email about 'nicknames for the city of Vancouver, Canada.' How about ' Word-couver'? Quiz Guy John Chaneski is a huge fan of comic books featuring superheroes like 'Superman and Spiderman.' Lo and behold, John claims he's discovered a whole treasure trove of 'Heretofore Unnamed Superheroes,' and invites us to guess their names. What do you call the doughty superhero who can take any food item that is past its expiration date, send it back through time, and make it edible again? Need a clue? His mild-mannered alter ego is in his first year at NYU. An Oakland man is curious about a queasy-making phrase: 'a face that could gag a maggot off a gutwagon.' What's a 'gutwagon'? How's it used? Why is it used? Yech! 'Go fly a kite!' A caller from Washington, D.C. wonders whose kite is getting flown and why. Naturally, we have some ideas! A San Diego caller says he's noticed that his high-school grandson and his buddies habitually 'refer to each other only by their last names,' but his granddaughter says she and her own friends never do. Is this just a teenage guy thing? The book that Grant recommends here is A Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address by Leslie Dunkling. Martha shares the oodles of listeners' emails responding to a caller seeking 'a better word than retiree' to describe himself and his wife. How about 'pre-tiree'? Or 'jubilant'? This week's Slang This! contestant is from Boston. She shares a slang phrase making the rounds among her friends at MIT: 'find your pants.' She then tries to guess the meaning of the slang term 'boilover' and the obscure word 'nycthemeron.' Is it 'toward or towards'? 'Forward or forwards'? Do they differ in American English and British English? A Seattle listener wants to know. A California caller is puzzled as to why 'the prefix un-' seems to function in two entirely different ways in the terms 'undone' and 'unmarried.' If you were raised in North Dakota like our caller, you might wonder about a phrase you heard growing up: 'It's a horse a piece.' It means something like 'six of one, half a dozen of the other.' She is curious about the origin of the horse phrase and whether it's a regional expression. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAYâWORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Name That Accent Minicast - 3 August 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [3 Aug 2008 at 11:02pm] For true word nerds, it's a guilty pleasure. You meet a stranger, and you find yourself listening closely to that person's way of speaking as you try to guess the accent. Martha and Grant confess they play "Name That Accent" all the time in the privacy of their own heads. Recently though, a listener phoned to challenge them to guess where she'd grown up based on her accent. See if you can figure it out! -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Coinkydinks and Big Boxes - 04 August 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [3 Aug 2008 at 11:01pm] We all misspeak from time to time, but how about when we mangle words on purpose? Do you ever say 'fambly' instead of family, 'perazackly' for exactly, or 'coinkydink' for coincidence? When Grant recently wrote a newspaper column about saying things wrong on purpose, the response was enormous. Why is it that many people find such wordplay hard to resist? We consider this question and share their own favorite examples. A Pennsylvania minister is curious about a phrase her family uses: 'by way of Robin Hood's barn' or 'around Robin Hood's barn,' meaning a long, circuitous route. How do you pronounce the architectural term 'beaux arts'? (Yep, Grant accidentally left of the final S when he spelled the term on the air.) Is it pronounced 'boh-ZART,' 'boh-ART,' 'boh-ZAR,' or 'boh-ZARTS'? We settle a dispute between a New Jersey woman and her nephew. Martha shares the winners of a contest for Best Book Titles of the Year. Or would that be Oddest Book Titles of the Year? Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents a puzzle in which we remove the first letter of a phrase to yield another with a different meaning. Try one: originally it was a boxing film starring Robert De Niro. Now it describes a head of cattle that's perhaps getting on in years. A Wisconsin woman is trying to remember 'a term for paths in the grass created by pedestrians taking shortcuts.' Grant has an answer for her, straight from the jargon of urban planning professionals. The caller also wants 'recommendations for a good thesaurus.' The hosts' response may surprise you. A caller is curious about a slang term she hears from her friends in the military. The word is 'Jody,' and it means someone who steals a soldier's girlfriend. Grant tells the colorful story behind this bit of military slang, as well as the songs it inspired. Here's a sample of Jody calls from the Vietnam war and from the Korean War. Grant and Martha share more intentional mispronunciations, including 'tar-ZHAY' instead of Target. This week's Slang This! contestant is not just any word nerd. She's Dorothea Gillim, creator of the animated PBS series WordGirl. Dorothea tries to guess the meaning of the odd terms 'pelican crossing' and 'zanjero.' The new season of WordGirl starts Monday, May 26th, and airs Mondays through Fridays. What is 'janky'? A Chattanooga caller uses it describe something inferior or bad. A Wisconsin man wonders about the use of the term 'big box store' to denote the stores of big retail chains like Wal-Mart. Is 'big box' a reference to the size and shape of the stores, or the fact that they sell huge appliances that come in, well, big boxes? Here's a silly song from JibJab about bix box stores. A Pittsburgh man is bothered by people who would say someone wrote an 'outraged letter.' Can a letter really be angry and indignant or is it really the writer who's upset? Martha answers his question and seizes the opportunity to talk about the four-syllable word, 'hypallage.' ... Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org/. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Index v. Indice Minicast - 28 July 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [27 Jul 2008 at 11:02pm] A caller has client who uses what sounds like a strange, three-syllable word: indice. The caller knows that the plural of index is indices. But, he wonders...indice? And should he talk about it with his client? ... Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org/. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Put a Snap on the Grouch Bag - 28 July 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [27 Jul 2008 at 11:01pm] This episode first aired May 5, 2008. ... Have you ever eaten a 'Benedictine sandwich'? Or savored a juicy 'pork steak'? What's a favorite dish you grew up with that may be mystifying to someone from another part of the country? Also, what does it mean to tell someone to 'put a snap on the grouch bag'? A rugby referee from Indiana calls to ask if his sport is the origin of the word 'touchdown' as it is used in American football. How do you pronounce the word 'patronize'? Is one pronunciation used if you say 'Don't patronize me!' and another one if you say 'We patronize local businesses'? Why do we say political campaigns that are in a 'dead heat'? Why 'dead' and why 'heat'? We play bingo on the air with Quiz Guy John Chaneski. His motives are not B9! A woman who went to school in New Orleans reports she was startled the first time she heard residents of the Crescent City talk about 'making groceries' rather than buying them. Grant explains the French origins of that expression. A listener who recently played in a Boggle tournament wants to know why we speak of 'seeding' such a competition. The German word 'uber' has found a place in American English. A New Jersey man says he and his colleagues find it to be more versatile than a Swiss Army knife, as in, 'He is uber in the middle of that situation,' 'That was an uber meeting,' and 'You guys are the language ubers.' An Indianapolis caller wants to know about curious expression she heard from her Aunt Harriet: 'put a snap on the grouch bag.' You would think it means 'Stop complaining!' but she says it refers to making sure your valuables are secure. What's the grudge? Martha and Grant discuss more regional food terms. If you order 'Albany beef' in upstate New York, for example, don't be surprised if you're served fish. This week's Slang This! contestant grapples with the slang terms 'squish' and 'optempo.' What's the trouble with using the expression 'drink the Kool-Aid' to connote blind, unquestioning obedience to a politician? A caller is bothered by the grisly origin of the phrase--a reference to the 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana--and thinks it's being used inaccurately, in any case. A caller is curious about the odd expression 'to who laid the rail,' which is used to mean, among other things, 'thoroughly, completely, excessively.' ... Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org/. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Small Talk, the Word Game Minicast - 21 July 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [20 Jul 2008 at 11:02pm] Puzzle Guys John Chaneski and Greg Pliska team up to make double trouble for Martha and Grant. The four divide into teams, and the object of the game is to make your partner guess words from a list. The only catch? All of the clues have to be one syllable only. It's tougher than you think! --- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Word Encounters of the First Kind - 21 July 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [20 Jul 2008 at 11:01pm] [This episode first aired April 12, 2008.] There's a frisson you get when you meet a word for the first time--feeling pleasantly stumped in between wondering, 'What the heck does that mean?' and hurrying off to find out. Martha and Grant talk about some terms that had just that effect on them: 'ucalegon' and 'cacoethes scribendi.' A recent college graduate from Portland, Oregon, calls to ask about a term popular on her campus. She and her classmates use 'sketchy' to mean 'creepy, shady, possibly dangerous,' as in 'a sketchy part of town' or 'that sketchy guy over there.' Grant and Martha discuss this term and how it lends itself to such variations as 'Sketchyville' and 'Sketchy McSketcherson.' In San Diego, a man says increasingly he hears the phrase 'down the pike' at work but suspects it was originally 'down the pipe.' Martha discusses another word she happily tripped over in the dictionary: 'spanghew.' Quiz Guy John Chaneski tries to stump the hosts with a puzzle called 'Cryptic Crosswords.' How about this one: 'Do-re-mi-fa follower + sneaker feature = comfort.'? Why are cave explorers called 'spelunkers'? How do you pronounce the word? A naturalist at Mystery Cave in Minnesota wants to know and in return she tells us how to 'tell a stalactite from a stalagmite.' A listener from Texas heard an NPR report from Asia in which an interpreter translated a speaker's words into English as 'a whole new ball game.' He wants to know if that's a literal translation from an Asian language, and if so, is it a reference to baseball or some other sport? Grant shares a strange word from the fringes of English: 'mofussil.' This week's 'Slang This!' contestant is asked to guess the meanings of the slang terms 'gauge' and 'head-up.' A California caller is curious about the words 'Shia' and 'Shiite.' Is there difference between them or are they interchangeable? A Michigan woman working a study-abroad program at a large university is bemused by the many applicants who write that they want to study overseas so they can be 'submerged in the culture.' She thinks there's a difference between 'immersed' and 'submerged' but wants to be sure. Are more and more people talking about 'standing behind a podium?' A San Diegan says the traditional rule has been that one stands behind a lectern and stands on a podium. Has this traditional rule changed? --- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Emoticons Minicast - 14 July 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [13 Jul 2008 at 11:02pm] A listener has a question about emoticons, those little sideways symbols you type to suggest emotions in informal electronic writing. You know, like using a colon, dash, and a capital P to stick out your tongue like this :-P or using a colon, dash, and small letter d to say 'Yum!' :-d But if you're going to toss emoticons into your prose, the caller asks, how in the world do you punctuate them? --- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC. Listen Nicknames Give Me the Heebie-Jeebies and the Vapors - 14 July 2008 by words@waywordradio.org [13 Jul 2008 at 11:01pm] [This episode originally aired April 5, 2008.] Everybody has a nickname, and there's usually a story to go with it. Martha and Grant reveal their own nicknames and the stories behind them. Also, is the expression 'heebie-jeebies' anti-Semitic? And is there a better word than 'retiree' for someone who moves on from a job late in life? Speaking of nicknames, the word 'nickname' has an interesting etymology. It's an example of a word formed by what linguists call 'misdivision.' More here. If you have a nickname you'd like to share (and hey, let's keep it clean, folks!), tell us about it in our discussion forum! On to our callers: A cantor from a synagogue in Nyack, New York, says she's fond of the expression 'the heebie-jeebies' but recently began worrying that it might be anti-Semitic. Did the term 'heebie-jeebies' originate as a slur against Jews? By the way, the hosts mention a cartoon with the earliest known use of the term. An adult caller from Phoenix is stung by the memory of losing an elementary school spelling bee when he misspelled the word 'dilemma.' He insists that his teachers taught him that the word contains a silent 'n.' After all these years, he's still trying to find out whether 'dilemna' is an acceptable spelling. Recently we discussed the lack of a word in English for the act of trying to do in your offline life something you can only do on a computer, like expecting spellcheck to kick in if you're scribbling a grocery list, for example. The hosts share suggestions emailed by listeners. How about 'e-flex'? Or might 'deja undo' do? Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents a puzzle about homophones, in this case, words that sound just like participles that have lost