Hi! In the latest episode of “A Way with Words,” it’s the day jobs of famous writers. We also discuss Eskimo kisses, the Puerto Rican treat called a “limber,” how “fail” became a noun, “I’m...
In Philadelphia, the expression the big mahoff, means “a bigshot,” as in “Who do you think you are, the big mahoff?” But just what is a mahoff? This is part of a complete episode.
It’s a brand-new season of A Way with Words! Grant has big news, too: He’s used up his last Metrocard, packed up his belongings, and moved to the Left Coast. He reports on some features of California language there that are already...
A Philadelphia listener has a Yiddish twist on an old palindrome: “Unable I was ere I saw Elba, nu?” This is part of a complete episode.
zap n.— «Following the 1969 Stonewall riots, as the nascent gay rights movement became increasingly combative, a gay Philadelphia teenager initiated his own guerrilla war aimed at television, including the CBS Evening News. Mark Segal...
Pugetopolis n.— «Pugetopolis is a term boosters use to express the ambitions of creating a massive city that will extend from Olympia to Bellingham, and cynics and critics—and what I like to think of as reasonable people—think of...