The stunning play “Our Lady of Kibeho”, set in Rwanda, includes some powerful East African proverbs gathered by playwright Katori Hall, such as “A flea can bother a lion, but a lion cannot bother a flea,” and “When two...
The first occasion when a new mother sees company after having a baby is called the upsitting. But upsitting in certain cultures is also used to describe a courtship ritual where two people on either sides of a thin partition get to flirt with each...
We often hear that English is going to hell in a handbasket. Actually, though, linguistic handwringing about sinking standards and sloppy speech has been going on for centuries – at least as far back as the 1300’s! And: language also...
Learning that fat meat is greasy, which means learning something the hard way, is a common idiom used almost exclusively in the African-American community, and refers to a juicy cut of the pig called fatmeat. Linguist Geneva Smitherman has a great...
Writers and where they do their best creative work. A new book on Geoffrey Chaucer describes the dark, cramped, smelly room where he wrote his early work. Which raises the question: What kind of space do you need to produce your best writing...
It’s the news from your friends at “A Way with Words”! In our latest episode, we discussed “pore” vs. “pour,” “you’re” vs. “your,” “West Coast” vs. “Eastern...