In the acclaimed podcast S-town, journalist Brian Reed notes that sundials often bear haunting inscriptions about the brevity of life and the passage of time. Some 1,682 of them are collected in The Book of Sun-Dials, originally published in 1872 by...
In baseball, a two-o’clock hitter is one who hits well in batting practice, but not during the game. It used to be that games traditionally started at 3 p.m., with batting practice an hour before. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...
Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski offers a quiz called Take-Offs. For each clue, remove the first letter of a word to get the second (or third) word in the puzzle. For example, in the first chapter of Moby Dick, Ishmael had to screw up his courage and join...
The story behind the word ignoramus is big fun. It involves a bumbling lawyer, a six-hour farce from the 17th century, and a Latin legal term. See? Big fun. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Origin of Ignoramus” Hello, you have A...
yes-and v.—Gloss: To agree to all ideas, act upon them, and embellish them. Note: A staple of improvisational acting. «They stayed for over an hour and completely yes-anded everything we threw at them. There were moments where it felt like we...
Beep-boop-beep! It's another newsletter from "A Way with Words." This weekend we had a row over the death of the subjunctive, listened with curiosity to a Texan talking about "help your plate," fell in love with...
