Recycling companies discourage what they call wish-cycling. That’s when people err on the side of tossing a questionable item in the recycling bin, like a foil lid from a cup of yogurt or some other material that they hope is recyclable. Those...
The longer the description of an item on a menu, the more expensive it’ll likely be. In The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu, Stanford University linguist Dan Jurafsky shows that with each extra letter in a menu description, the...
So you think you hate puns? Wait until you hear this item from a Singapore newspaper about a Japanese banking crisis. This is part of a complete episode.
Can you describe a price as cheap or expensive, or are those words only properly applied to the item for sale, rather than the price? This is part of a complete episode.
Martha has a follow-up to an earlier call about why hairstylists advise clients to use product on their hair. At least in the food business, product often refers to the item before it’s ready for consumption. For example, coffee grounds might...
When comparing one item with the rest of the items in a group, which is better: more or most? This is part of a complete episode.