“You knucklehead!” Where’d we get an epithet like that? Grant tells the story about the wartime cartoon that helped popularize the term. Check out the adventures of R.F. Knucklehead in LIFE magazine. More about cartoons used for...
Grab some popcorn, slip into a folding seat, and you’re ready to watch the coming attractions. But if they’re shown before the main feature, why in the world are movie previews called trailers? Enjoy these old movie trailers at Turner...
Is there a word for @#$%!^*)!&!, those typographical symbols standing in for profanity? There is indeed. It’s grawlix—not to be confused with jarns, quimps, nittles, lucaflects, or plewds. For more on such terms, check out Mort...
Whoa, hey! It's another newsletter from Martha and Grant, hosts of "A Way with Words." How's your handwriting? Penmanship is one of the things we talked about on our latest episode, as well as "creaky voice" (kind of the...
hooker n.— «They take great pride in rug hooking.…Indeed, members of the Tarheel Ruggers Guild, who presently happen to be all women, unabashedly refer to themselves as “hookers,” nicknamed for the action of hooking wool...
Salutations, Earthlings. Take me to your podcast! This week a caller sends us off on a slang-infested trip about saying fast good-byes. Listen as we blow pop, popcorn, and taco stands by way of author Jim Harrison, the comic strip Funky...