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Episode 1504

Up Your Alley

Book recommendations, including a collection of short stories inspired by dictionaries, and a techno-thriller for teens. Or, how about novels with an upbeat message? Publishers call this genre up lit. Plus, a clergyman ponders an arresting phrase in...

Cultural Cringe

The term cultural cringe refers to a tendency to regard one’s own culture as inferior to that of another. This is part of a complete episode.

How We Roll

If you’re serious about writing a memoir, what topics should you include, and what can you leave out? And how honest can you really be about the other people in your life? Some of America’s leading memoirists wrote things they lived to...

Lawnmower Parents

“Helicopter parents” are so named because of their tendency to hover over their children’s lives. A Kentucky listener who made an initial college visit with her son reports two variations that she learned from staffers:...

Episode 1397

Hard Words Are Hard

The SAT is changing things up, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Just because words like membranous are no longer in the verbal section doesn’t mean kids aren’t learning important vocabulary. And speaking of useful terms...

Atavistic Words

You know those words whose meanings never seem to stick in your mind, no matter how many times you flip back to the dictionary? Martha wrestles with the term atavistic, meaning “the tendency to revert to ancestral characteristics.” She...

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