Inspired by the biological process of cell division, Quiz Guy John Chaneski came up with a puzzle in which a vowel inside a word divides into two, as in the words cot and coot. If E and Oare the only vowels that might replicate, guess what pair of...
If you catch your blue jeans on a nail, you may find yourself with a winklehawk. This term, adapted into English from Dutch, means “an L-shaped tear in a piece of fabric.” And: What’s your relationship with the books on your...
If you’re ever near a sundial, step closer and look for a message. Many sundials bear haunting, poetic inscriptions about the brevity of life. Plus, language development in toddlers: why and how little ones pick up the exclamation Uh-oh! And a...
An Iowa listener says her father was known for being laconic. When the family tried to draw him out by asking his opinion, he’d often respond with the observation Well, I think it takes a big dog to weigh a ton, suggesting something along the...
Andrew from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, recalls a phrase his grandmother used: You’ve got to eat a peck of dirt before you die. A peck is a unit of dry measure equal to a quarter of a bushel. Peck is also a term of approximate measure, as in to...
A Twitter user shares a heart-melting observation about his eight-year-old’s habit of reading under the covers at night. This is part of a complete episode.
