Say! Fellas and gals, here's another newsletter from A Way with Words. This past weekend we reran a crowd-pleasing episode from earlier this year, in which we discussed "suicide sodas," how to politely tell someone her slip is...
Feel like having a little “hair of the dog”? Grant and Martha explain what dog hair has to do with hangover cures. And what do you call it when random objects form a recognizable image, like a cloud resembling a bunny, or the image of Elvis in...
“A fish stinks from the head down.” When an Indianapolis woman is quoted saying that, she’s accused of calling someone a stinky fish. She says she wasn’t speaking literally, insisting that this is a turn of phrase that means...
ping-ponging n.— «Asked about “ping-ponging,” a phrase used to describe how hospitals and insurers negotiate payment over the course of months, without letting consumers in on the secret ping-pong match until they’re stuck with bills they...
Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents a puzzle called “Blank the Blank” or “Verb the Noun,” about three-word phrases with a “the” in the middle. It’s harder than you might think, so play along and see if you can...
How about the phrase “saddle my nag”? No, this phrase isn’t some obscure bit of jargon from world of finance. It’s an expression familiar to Aussie schoolchildren. Martha explains what it means. This is part of a complete...