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PODCAST

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

Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett. Produced by Stefanie Levine.

Fun conversation with callers from all over about new words, old sayings, slang, family expressions, word histories, linguistics, dialects, word games, books, literature, writing, and more. Be on the show with author/journalist Martha Barnette and linguist/lexicographer Grant Barrett. Share your thoughts, questions, and stories: https://waywordradio.org/contact or words@waywordradio.org. In the US and Canada, call or text 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free 24/7. Send a voice note or message via

society & culture language learning

All Episodes

53:45

Gilded Age - 25 March 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/03/25

In her sumptuous new memoir, Jamaican writer Safiya Sinclair describes her escape from a difficult childhood ruled by her tyrannical father. For Sinclair, poetry became a lifeline. Plus: that fizzy chocolate drink called an egg cream contains neither eggs nor cream — but why? And what do you call a cute dimple in someone’s chin? A listener calls it a chimple. Also, arrested sternutation, nonplussed, slatch, the Gruen effect, tinker, barnburner, up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, and how lakes are

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53:45

Loaded For Bear (Rebroadcast) - 18 March 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/03/18

One way to make your new business look trendy is to use two nouns separated by an ampersand, like Peach & Creature or Rainstorm & Egg or … just about any other two-word combination. A tongue-in-cheek website will generate names like that for you. And: In the traditions of several African countries, names for babies are often inspired by conditions at the time of their birth, like a period of grief or wedding festivities, or the baby’s position when leaving the womb. In Zambia, for example, some

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53:45

Bronx Cheer - 11 March 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/03/11

What’s the best thing to say to someone who is grieving? Choosing the right words is far less important than just showing up. Also, a family from Russia shares their recipe for something they call hot tamales, that are very un-Mexican. And: if someone’s trying to be philosophical about a situation, they might say sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. Plus, horsengoggling, a fragrant 16th-century simile, might as well, can’t dance, a puzzle about cryptic crosswords, Trevlac,

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53:45

Mrs. Astor's Horse (Rebroadcast) - 4 March 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/03/04

“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, which mandated that Greek adults look after their elderly parents. Much later, the same idea inspired a

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53:45

Ghost Runner - 26 February 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/02/26

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 the word “conspicuous”? There’s always kenspeckle . Also, nitnoy , faire la grasse matinée , sunday-to-meeting

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53:45

At First Blush (Rebroadcast) - 19 February 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/02/19

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 conversation. Rather, it will be the beginning of one. Plus, a brain-busting word quiz, snow job, clean as a

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53:45

Sweet Spot - 12 February 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/02/12

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. Botanists even have a term for this tendency: plant blindness. Also, tight as a drum, a funny quiz about

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53:45

Gift Horse (Rebroadcast) - 5 February 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/02/05

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, horses run throughout our language, a relic of when these animals were much more commonplace in

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53:45

Had the Radish (Rebroadcast) - 29 January 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/01/29

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 game involving kangaroo words, had the radish, landed up vs. ended up, who struck John, English on a

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53:45

Orange Pigs - 22 January 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/01/22

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 make a statement. The letters in the word “listen,” l-i-s-t-e-n, can be rearranged to form the word

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53:45

Abso-Bloomin-Lutely (Rebroadcast) - 15 January 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/01/15

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 and the Baja Bash. All that, and a brain game about body parts, conked out and zonked out, synonyms for

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53:45

Niblings and Nieflings (Rebroadcast) - 8 January 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/01/08

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 whole world of others, including pangrams about Brexit, emoji, and a pop singer behaving, well, badly

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53:45

Book Moth - 1 January 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2024/01/01

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 brought down a president? Also: The practice of blurring out images or text in ads or movies helps avoid

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53:45

Kite in a Phonebooth (Rebroadcast) - 25 December 2023

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2023/12/25

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 past, not away from it. And, the Indiana town that was named incorrectly because of a bureaucratic

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53:45

Takes All Kinds - 18 December 2023

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2023/12/18

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 serious conversating about this very useful term. Plus, the origin of quesadilla, kill two birds with one

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53:45

Strawberry Moon (Rebroadcast) - 11 December 2023

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2023/12/11

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 diversity, the more you embrace those differences rather than criticize them. And a brain game using

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53:45

Highway Robbery - 4 December 2023

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2023/12/04

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 robbers stopped carriages traveling out of town and ordered occupants to turn over their valuables. And what

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53:45

Spill the Tea (Rebroadcast) - 27 November 2023

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2023/11/27

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 phrase that translates as “we don’t fry with water around here” means “we don’t do things halfway.”

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53:45

Dirty Laundry (Rebroadcast) - 20 November 2023

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2023/11/20

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 pitchers have big ears.” It’s a reference to the ear-shaped handle on a jug, and the knack kids have for

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53:45

Strong Coffee - 13 November 2023

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers... ·

2023/11/13

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 the accent of her patients. And: golf terms that make their way into everyday language,

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