Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...
The game of baseball has alway inspired colorful commentary. Sometimes that means using familiar words in unfamiliar ways. The word stuff, for example, can refer to a pitcher’s repertoire, to the spin on a ball, or what happens to the ball...
Kevin, a longtime vegetarian in St. Louis, Missouri, queasily recounts how he accidentally ordered sweetbreads in a fancy restaurant, thinking they were some kind of deep-fried bread, only to discover that it’s a kind of meat — a thymus gland...
If you think they refer to umbrellas as bumbershoots in the UK, think again. The word bumbershoot actually originated in the United States! In Britain, it’s prolly a brolly. • Also: snow-grooming language, more than one way to say bagel...
A woman in Fairbanks, Alaska, says she’s been described as strong like ox, smart like streetcar. Is that a compliment? Other variations include strong like bull and smart like tractor or smart like dump truck. The phrase strong like bull was...
From a certain point of view, re-running episodes is like putting on a favorite pair of jeans. But this past weekend we pulled on our favorite tutus and re-aired “Why Do Girls Wear Pink?” It’s the one where Grant recites a few...