Hey-o! It's another newsletter from A Way with Words This past weekend's show was completely new. We tackled the expression "put a snap on the grouch bag," how to pronounce "patronize," and the rise of the German word...
Have you ever eaten a Benedictine sandwich? Or savored a juicy pork steak? What’s a favorite dish you grew up with that may be mystifying to someone from another part of the country? This is part of a complete episode.
What’s the trouble with using the expression “drink the Kool-Aid” to connote blind, unquestioning obedience to a politician? A caller is bothered by the grisly origin of the phrase—a reference to the 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown...
Salut, superfriends! It's another newsletter from A Way with Words. This week's episode was a re-run, one that we particularly liked because it has the famed "dinner vs. supper" call, which is still generating buckets of mail...
beer tie n.— «Talk to pub landlords and one of the most insistent complaints is something called the “beer tie.” It means that not only must they pay rent to the PubCo that owns their premises—they must buy all their beer from...
hardbone n.— «It didn’t take long to see that the rib tips of one carcass had turned from cartilage to bone—indicating the animal was at least 4 years old, a “hardbone” in meat-locker parlance.» —“What’s the Beef? Making...