The first of two podcasts this week includes a special message to A Way with Words podcast listeners. Also, Martha answers a listener’s email about the term sea change. Or is it C change?
A retired Air Force officer says he’s never wondered until recently why the button that pilots push to drop bombs is called the pickle button, and to “pickle off” the bomb means to drop it. This is part of a complete episode.
A Lawrenceville, Georgia, woman wonders: If chalkboards go the way of the buggy whip, what simile will replace the expression “nails on a chalkboard”? This is part of a complete episode.
This week’s word puzzle from Quiz Guy Greg Pliska involves taking a word, adding an “i” to the beginning, as if creating an Apple product, to get an entirely new word. For instance: “This is how Steve Jobs begins a card game...
What’s the correct pronunciation of crayon? Is it cray-on? Cran? Crown? Here’s a dialect survey map that shows the distribution of these pronunciations. This is part of a complete episode.
Grant talks about the new slang term, zaprudering, as in “The fanboys get off on zaprudering the invite to the Apple product-release press conference.” This is part of a complete episode.