In deafening workplaces, like sawmills and factories, workers develop their own elaborate sign language to discuss everything from how their weekend went to when the boss is on his way. Plus, English speakers borrowed the words lieutenant and...
How do you pronounce the name Carnegie? The Scottish industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, pronounced it with an accent on the second syllable, as his namesake the Carnegie Corporation of New York takes pains to make clear. Good luck...
Hello, language-lover — A Way with Words an independent nonprofit production, which means it doesn’t get financial support from any radio network or government agency. We do the show ourselves, from top to bottom. We make it, we ship it. We...
This week, a special treat: NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz stops by with a quiz about slang and anagrams.
domainer n.— «New York City domain dispute attorney, Karen Bernstein, says that domain industry professionals (affectionately known as “domainers”) are being hammered by meritless domain disputes and should lobby the Internet...
gross room technician n.— «Grant became a deiner/ gross room technician at Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp), a company which offers diagnostic testing. “A deiner or a gross room technician is just another term for autopsy...