Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they...
Gossip goes by many names: the poop, the scoop, the lowdown, the dope, the scuttlebutt, the 411, the grapes, the gore, and hot tea. Plus, John Donne’s love poems are among the greatest in the English language, even as they’re famously...
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...
The Detroit Free Press reported recently that a man invented and trying to popularize a term for nieces and nephews, although it’s clear that the word sofralia has an uphill battle. English doesn’t have a specific, fixed term for those...
What’s the right way to pronounce gyros? Have you ever heard of feeling poozley? Called something great a blinger? Use the expression one-off to mean a “one-time thing”?
A woman who grew up in Detroit remembers her mother saying, “This one’s going to be a real blinger!” whenever a big storm was coming. What exactly is a blinger? This is part of a complete episode.