Cody, who lives in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, wonders: If someone is hungry, you feed them, but is there a single word for what you do for someone who’s thirsty? In other words, eat is to feed as drink is to what? A single word isn’t necessarily any better than a phrase or compound, but we look into it anyway. English apparently lacks a single word for the act of slaking someone else’s thirst. The fanciful verb embeverage has been suggested but hasn’t caught on. This is part of a complete episode.
Episode Archives
Cabin Fever (episode #1547) 04/21/2020: The adjectives canine and feline refer to dogs and cats. But how does English address other groups of animals? Plus, cabin fever has been around... [more]
Singing Sand (episode #1546) 04/06/2020: Cat hair may be something you brush off, but cat hair is also a slang term that means "money." In the same way, cat beer... [more]
Baby's Breath (episode #1545) 03/23/2020: Have you ever googled your own name and found someone else who goes by the very same moniker? There's a word for that: googleganger. Plus,... [more]
Hog on Ice (episode #1544) 03/09/2020: One secret to writing well is … there is no secret! There's no substitute for simply sitting down day after day to practice the craft... [more]
Goody Two-Shoes (episode #1543) 02/24/2020: She sells seashells by the seashore. Who is the she in this tongue twister? Some claim it's the young Mary Anning, who went on to... [more]
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