Stephanie in Green Bay, Wisconsin, was puzzled when a colleague used the expression like grabbing a wolf by the ears to describe an impossible task. Like the idiom to have a tiger by the tail, it suggests the paralyzing difficulty of having hold of...
A San Diego, California, man says a colleague jokingly greets him with “What’s cookin’ good lookin’?” It’s a version of a question popularized by a Hank Williams song that goes “Hey, good-lookin’, whatcha got cookin’...
The usage of the word me vs. I will always be a point of debate. Grant and Martha contend that language works in the service of culture, and thus, there will always be informal settings where the words me and I are slung around interchangeably. Then...
Anagrams, rebuses, cryptograms — Martha and Grant swap stories about the games that first made them realize that playing with words and letters can be fun. Also this week, what’s a jitney supper and where do you eat graveyard stew? The hosts...
In high school, no one thinks twice about cheering for the Fighting Trojans or the Tigers. But what about the Hickman Kewpies? Or the Maryville Spoofhounds? Martha and Grant talk about some of the odder names for school athletic teams. Also, in this...
An office worker in Indianapolis is mystified when a British colleague sends an email telling her to hang fire. It has to do with faulty firearms. This is part of a complete episode.
