Light-hearted conversation with callers from all over about new words, old sayings, slang, family ex
This week on A Way with Words: Restaurant jargon, military slang, and modern Greek turns of phrase.
Hundreds of years ago, the word girl didn’t necessarily mean a female child — in the 14th and 15th c
This week: Do you ever find yourself less-than-specific about your age? Listeners share some of thei
Sensuous words and terms of endearment. Think of a beautiful word. Now, is it simply the word’s soun
How often do you hear the words campaign and political in the same breath? Oddly enough, 19th-centur
Choosing language that helps resolve interpersonal conflict. Sometimes a question is really just a v
A wingnut is a handy, stabilizing piece of hardware. So why is it a pejorative term for those of a c
The words we choose can change attitudes — and change lives. A swing-dance instructor has switched t
Wrapping up 2016 with words from the past year and some newsy limericks. Bigly and Brexit were on lo
In 2007, the public media organization that created A Way with Words h
Brand names, children’s games, and the etiquette of phone conversations. Those clever plastic PEZ di
The language and melodies of military marching songs connect grown children with their parents who s
When does a word’s past make it too sensitive to use in the present? In contra dancing, there’s a pa
Novelist Charles Dickens created many unforgettable characters, but he’s also responsible for coinin
If you want to be a better writer, try skipping today’s bestsellers, and read one from the 1930’s in
Baseball has a language all its own: On the diamond, a snow cone isn’t what you think it is, and thr
A caller with a 25-year-old parrot wonders: How much language do birds really understand? Plus, Knoc
Victorian slang and a modern controversy over language and gender. In the early 1900’s, a door-knock
When writing textbooks about slavery, which words best reflect its cold, hard reality? Some historia
To transmit information during wartime, various industries used to encode their messages letter by l
