Pushing the Envelope (Rebroadcast) - 29 December 2025
Sure, there’s winter, spring, summer, and fall. But the seasons in between have even more poetic names. In Alaska, greenup describes a sudden, dramati...
Safe as Houses - 22 December 2025
Temperature blankets are a visual and tactile mirror of the day’s weather. Knitters use specific shades of yarn to match daily temperatures, creating ...
Minicast Bonus: Cocktail
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant look into the myriad stories behind the word cocktail. Does the drink name come from feather...
Potatoes and Point - 15 December 2025
If there’s a logophile on your gift list, you have lots of choices, including a new trivia game for language-lovers and a murder mystery for the word-...
Minicast Bonus: Down Bucket
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant step into the historic streets of Marblehead, Massachusetts, where the simple cry of “Down b...
Primary Colors (Rebroadcast) - 8 December 2025
Centuries ago, monks who took a vow of silence developed their own hand signs, with hundreds of gestures, that are still in use today. Plus, how do sp...
Minicast Bonus: Picketwire
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant explore the ways foreign place names transform on official maps and in local slang. Discover...
Drop in the Bucket - 1 December 2025
A sumptuous new collection of poems about specific photographs shows how the moment in time captured by camera can inspire a verbal work of art as wel...
Deep Fried Air (Rebroadcast) - 24 November 2025
Eels, orts, and Wordle! Sweden awarded its most prestigious literary award to a book about . . . eels. The Book of Eels reveals the mysterious life cy...
No Bones - 17 November 2025
Whippoorwills, bob whites, and chickadees. How do we decide the names of birds and what to call their calls? Plus, the last syllables of Arkansas and ...