Here’s a riddle: What flies when it’s born, lies when it’s alive, and runs when it’s dead? This is part of a complete episode.
The term white-livered, like lily-livered, can describe someone timid. But an old folk tradition, once common in the South, associates having a white liver or white spots on one’s liver with an insatiable sexual appetite. The terms white...
The idiom dead on, meaning “precisely,” might sound morbid, but it makes sense. It’s a reference to the fact that death is certain and absolute. This is part of a complete episode.
C-r-r-r-r-reeeeeeeeaaaaaak! Last weekend, we reached into the AWWW vault and pulled out an oldie but goodie, featuring “death eatin’ a cracker walkin’ backwards,” “graveyard shift,” “saved by the...
Digital timepieces may be changing the way we talk, at least a little. There’s Bob o’clock (8:08), Big o’clock (8:19), and even Pi o’clock. Also this week, what do you call that gesture with your fingers when you want to make...
First, a big welcome to our new listeners in Waco, Texas, where we'll be the public-radio airwaves there starting Sunday night at 9 on 103.3 FM, Waco NPR! If your local public radio station still doesn't air "A Way with Words,"...