Does your family use a special word you’ve never heard anywhere else? A funny name for “the heel of a loaf of bread,” perhaps, or for “visiting relatives who won’t leave.” In this week’s episode, Martha and...
A middle-schooler who’s reading Anne of Green Gables is puzzled by a mention of “breakfast, dinner, and supper.” She wants to know if the words “dinner” and “lunch” really interchangeable. This is part of a...
What IS the longest word in the English language? “Antidisestablishmentarianism”? “Floccinaucinihilipilification”? Or “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,” maybe? Martha and Grant discuss such...
Confused about whether biweekly means “twice a week” or “twice a month”? Martha rants about why the using the words “biweekly” and “bimonthly” at all is a bad idea, period. This is part of a complete...
Greg Pliska adds an apt and all-round admirably appealing appraisal of alliterative ability. Meaning, our Puzzle Guy presents a quiz about words that start with the same letters. May we just say that Greg gives great game? This is part of a complete...
In this episode, Grant offers a peek at some expressions he’s nominating for the American Dialect Society’s 2007 Word of the Year vote in January, 2008. Will it be w00t, subprime, or something else? You can also check out Grant’s...