Whoever wrote “The Book of Love” neglected to include the handy emoticon <3, which looks like a heart if you turn your head sideways. Grant and Martha talk about how that bit of affectionate shorthand can function as a verb, and about the antiquated words for “kiss,” osculate and exosculate.

This episode first aired February 13, 2010. Listen here:

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A Houston woman says her family makes fun of her for saying “waste not, want not.” Does this proverb make literal sense?

BTDubs, a San Diego caller notices that more of her co-workers are talking in text, saying things like “BRB” instead of “Be right back” or “JK” instead of “Just kidding!” Is it a passing fad, or a new way of speaking?

Mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah… MmmmmWAH! Martha shares the German verb that means to plant one last kiss in a series of them.

Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a fill-in-the-blank limerick puzzle, including:

There was once a coed named Clapper
In psychology class quite a napper.
But her Freudian dreams
Were so classic it seems
That now she’s a __________________.

“I feel more like I do now than I did a while ago.” The hosts discuss that and other examples of self-referential humor, like “Before I begin speaking, I’d like to say something.”

A woman having an affair with a married man is a mistress. So what’s the word for an unmarried man who’s having an affair with a married woman? Consort? Leman?

Martha shares the famous passage from the poem by Catullus that begins, “Give me a thousand kisses…” Grant reads an excerpt from the 1883 volume, “The Love Poems of Louis Barnaval,” by Charles de Kay.

What’s the difference between a second cousin and a cousin once removed? Here’s a helpful chart from Genealogy.com.

What did the boy volcano say to the girl volcano?

A caller from Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, wonders about the origin of “knock on wood.” The hosts do, too. More about the unusual language of Ocracoke here.

What’s a scissorbill? A bird? A hog? And how did its name get transferred to refer to anyone who’s lazy or ineffectual?