Forty Eleven Zillion (Rebroadcast) - 14 July 2025
This week on "A Way with Words": When there's no evening meal planned at home, what do you call that scramble to cobble together your own dinner? Some...
Mystery Date (Rebroadcast) - 7 July 2025
A librarian opens a book and finds a mysterious invitation scribbled on the back of a business card. Another discovers a child's letter to the Tooth F...
Eat My Hat - 30 June 2025
Have you lived in your home so long that you don’t notice its flaws? In Sweden, they have a name for this condition: It’s hemmablind—literally, “home ...
Sour Pickle (Rebroadcast) - 23 June 2025
You know that Yogi Berra quote about how Nobody ever comes here; it's too crowded? Actually, the first person to use this was actress Suzanne Ridgeway...
Straight and Narrow - 16 June 2025
English spelling is a hot mess, even for native speakers. But as a new book shows, would-be spelling reformers, including Benjamin Franklin and Theodo...
Not My Circus (Rebroadcast) - 9 June 2025
Throwing cheese and shaky cheese are two very different things. In baseball, hard cheese refers to a powerful fastball, and probably comes from a simi...
The Other Shoe - 2 June 2025
So you think you can spell? Youngsters in modern spelling bees are expected to memorize a wide range of words, from chemical processes to names of rar...
Scooter Pooting (Rebroadcast) - 26 May 2025
Old. Elderly. Senior. Why are we so uncomfortable when we talk about reaching a certain point in life? An 82-year-old seeks a more positive term to de...
Bean Counting - 19 May 2025
In the 1920’s, Americans were warned of a new danger sweeping across the country. This menace that harmed people’s health, ruined minds, and threatene...
Gold Dance (Rebroadcast) - 12 May 20256
People who hunt treasure with metal detectors have a lingo all their own. Canslaw means the shreds of aluminum cans left after a lawnmower ran over th...