A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over

By Hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett. Produced by Stefanie Levine.

Society & Culture Education

What's A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over about?

Light-hearted conversation with callers from all over about new words, old sayings, slang, family expressions, language change and varieties, as well as word histories, linguistics, regional dialects, word games, grammar, books, literature, writing, and more.
Be a part of the show with author/journalist Martha Barnette and linguist/lexicographer Grant Barrett. Share your language thoughts, questions, and stories: https://waywordradio.org/contact or [email protected].

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Highway Robbery - 4 Decembe...

12.04.2023

Secret signals on the job: Waitresses at some 19th-century restaurants ensured speedy drink service by communicating with a non-verbal code. One server took orders, then placed each customer's cup to indicate exactly what the customer wanted. A second server could ...

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over episodes:

12.04.2023 Highway Robbery - 4 December 2023 Secret signals on the job: Waitresses at some 19th-century restaurants ensured speedy drink service by communicating with a non-verbal code. One server took orders, then placed each customer's cup to indicate exactly what the customer wanted. A second server could ...
11.27.2023 Spill the Tea (Rebroadcast) - 27 November 2023 If someone urges you to spill the tea, they probably don’t want you tipping over a hot beverage. Originally, the tea here was the letter T, as in “truth.” To spill the T means to “pass along truthful information.” Plus, ...
11.20.2023 Dirty Laundry (Rebroadcast) - 20 November 2023 When you had sleepovers as a child, what did you call the makeshift beds you made on the floor? In some places, you call those bedclothes and blankets a pallet. This word comes from an old term for “straw.” And: ...
11.13.2023 Strong Coffee - 13 November 2023 During the late 19th and early 20th century, thousands of volunteers helped crowdsource the Oxford English Dictionary. This venerable reference work includes citations sent in by inventors, eccentrics, scientists and educators, an Arctic explorer–even the owner of the world’s largest ...
11.06.2023 Keep Your Powder Dry (Rebroadcast) - 6 November 2023 Jacuzzi and silhouette are eponyms — that is, they derive from the names of people. An Italian immigrant to California invented the bubbly hot tub called a jacuzzi. And the word silhouette commemorates a penny-pinching treasury secretary who lasted only ...
10.30.2023 One-Armed Paper Hanger (Rebroadcast) - 30 October 2023 The emotional appeal of handwriting and the emotional reveal of animal phrases. Should children be taught cursive writing in school, or is their time better spent studying other things? A handwritten note and a typed one may use the very ...
10.23.2023 Hair on Your Tongue (Rebroadcast) - 23 October 2023 If you speak both German and Spanish, you may find yourself reaching for a German word instead of a Spanish one, and vice versa. This puzzling experience is so common among polyglots that linguists have a name for it. • ...
10.16.2023 Train of Thought (Rebroadcast) - 16 October 2023 Chances are you recognize the expressions Judgment Day and root of all evil as phrases from the Bible. There are many others, such as the powers that be and bottomless pit, which both first appeared in scripture. • There’s a ...
10.09.2023 Space Cadet (Rebroadcast) - 9 October 2023 We have books for language-lovers and recommendations for history buffs. • How did the word boondoggle come to denote a wasteful project? The answer involves the Boy Scouts, a baby, a craft project, and a city council meeting. • Instead ...
10.02.2023 Howling Fantods (Rebroadcast) - 2 October 2023 Are there words and phrases that you misunderstood for an embarrassingly long time? Maybe you thought that money laundering literally meant washing drug-laced dollar bills, or that AM radio stations only broadcast in the morning? • A moving new memoir ...
09.25.2023 Pizza Bones - 25 September 2023 If your last name is Cook or Smith, your ancestors probably worked in those professions. But what if your last name is Pope? Or Abbott? And if you have enough food for Coxey’s army, you have more than enough to ...
09.18.2023 Bottled Sunshine (Rebroadcast) - 18 September 2023 If you catch your blue jeans on a nail, you may find yourself with a winklehawk. This term, adapted into English from Dutch, means “an L-shaped tear in a piece of fabric.” And: What’s your relationship with the books on ...
09.11.2023 Endless Summer - 11 September 2023 Surf’s up! When surfers describe the waves as going gangbusters, it’s a great time out on the water. But why that word? Plus, a thesaurus of flavors serves up delicious writing about the taste of foods and spices. And speaking ...
09.04.2023 Care Package (Rebroadcast) - 4 September 2023 Sending someone a care package shows you care, of course. But the first care packages were boxes of food and personal items for survivors of World War II. They were from the Committee for American Remittances to Europe, the acronym ...
08.28.2023 Cootie Shot (Rebroadcast) - 28 August 2023 Perfect sentences and slang that tickles your mind! A new book of writing advice says a good sentence “imposes a logic on the world’s weirdness” and pares away options for meaning, word by word. • Your musician friend may refer ...
08.21.2023 Sticky Wicket - 21 August 2023 Is listening to an audiobook for a book club somehow “cheating”? Is there no substitute for engaging with the printed page, or do audiobooks adds a whole new dimension? Plus, a mocktail os an artisanal beverage without alcohol. Is there ...
08.14.2023 Ding Ding Man (Rebroadcast) - 14 August 2023 In 1803, a shy British pharmacist wrote a pamphlet that made him a reluctant celebrity. The reason? He proposed a revolutionary new system for classifying clouds — with Latin names we still use today, like cumulus, cirrus, and stratus. Also: ...
08.07.2023 Gleam in Your Eye - 7 August 2023 A remarkable new documentary explores the world of amateur and professional mermaiding and the language bubbling up within it. Some mermaiding enthusiasts greet each other with a friendly "Shello!" Plus, an adoptee wonders what to call the biological parents he ...
07.31.2023 Take Tea for the Fever (Rebroadcast) - 31 July 2023 Silence comes in lots of different forms. In fact, says writer Paul Goodman, there are several kinds: There's the noisy silence of "resentment and self-recrimination," and the helpful, participatory silence of actively listening to someone speak. Plus, the strange story ...
07.24.2023 Alligator Mouth - 24 July 2023 Kinbank is a new database that illustrates the global diversity of family terms. English, for example, specifies sibling relationships with just one of two terms: sister or brother. But most other languages have even more specific terms. In Japanese, for ...
07.17.2023 Sun Dog (Rebroadcast) - 17 July 2023 A clever pun can make the difference between a so-so phrase and a memorable one. The phrase “the last straw” refers to an old fable about too many items in a load, but it takes on a whole new meaning ...
07.10.2023 High Jinks - 10 July 2023 For many people, religion provides language and rituals for key milestones in life, from births to weddings to funerals. But what if you don’t ascribe to any particular religion? What words do you use to mark those moments? An uplifting ...
07.03.2023 Oh For Cute (Rebroadcast) - 3 July 2023 A stereotype is a preconceived notion about a person or group. Originally, though, the word stereotype referred to a printing device used to produce lots of identical copies. • The link between tiny mythical creatures called trolls and modern-day mischief-makers. ...
06.26.2023 Coinkydink (Rebroadcast) - 26 June 2023 Sometimes it’s a challenge to give a book a chance: How many pages should you read before deciding it’s not worth your time? There’s a new formula to help with that decision — and it’s all based on your age. ...
06.19.2023 Spinning Cookies - 19 June 2023 A book of photographs and essays by famous writers celebrates libraries — and the librarians who changed their lives. Plus cutting doughnuts, spinning cookies, and pulling brodies: There are lots of ways to talk about spinning a car in circles ...
06.12.2023 Up Your Alley (Rebroadcast) - 12 June 2023 Book recommendations, including a collection of short stories inspired by dictionaries, and a techno-thriller for teens. Or, how about novels with an upbeat message? Publishers call this genre up lit. Plus, a clergyman ponders an arresting phrase in the book ...
06.05.2023 Just Skylarking - 5 June 2023 The art of the invitation can be tricky. An inviter’s idea of invitation may be taken by an invitee as merely mentioning an event while they’re nearby. One such a misunderstanding went on for months! Plus, George Saunders, winner of ...
05.29.2023 Piping Hot (Rebroadcast) - 29 May 2023 The game of baseball has alway inspired colorful commentary. Sometimes that means using familiar words in unfamiliar ways. The word stuff, for example, can refer to a pitcher’s repertoire, to the spin on a ball, or what happens to the ...
05.22.2023 Folding Money - 22 May 2023 Barbara Kingsolver’s book Demon Copperhead is a retelling of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield set in today’s Appalachia. Martha shares memories of a long-ago visit to Kingsolver’s family farm in Virginia, where they discussed many of the same issues covered in ...
05.15.2023 Mimeographs and Dittos (Rebroadcast) - 15 May 2023 How colors got their names, and a strange way to write. The terms blue and orange arrived in English via French, so why didn’t we also adapt the French for black and white? • Not every example of writing goes ...
05.08.2023 Takes the Cake - 8 May 2023 What do you call a long sandwich filled with lots of ingredients? Whether you call it a sub, a hoagie, a grinder, or something else entirely depends on where you’re from. And: Martha’s visit to an Alaskan reindeer ranch reveals ...
05.01.2023 Truth and Beauty (Rebroadcast) - 1 May 2023 Malamute, kayak, and parka are just some of the words that have found their way into English from the language of indigenous people in northern climes. • In the 1970s, some scientists argued that two quarks should be called truth ...
04.24.2023 Dessert Stomach (Rebroadcast) - 24 April 2023 Funny cat videos and cute online photos inspire equally adorable slang terms we use to talk about them. • Also, when a salamander is not a salamander, the story of an Italian term for a dish towel used halfway across ...
04.17.2023 Blessing Box - 17 April 2023 Is there such a thing as a “neutral” accent, and if so what does it sound like? And that quirk in the way southern Californians talk about freeways. They’ll say things like take the 405 and get on the 8. ...
04.10.2023 Cool Your Soup (Rebroadcast) - 10 April 2023 According to Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe, it’s important to master the basics of writing, but there comes a time when you have to strike out on your own and teach yourself. Also: Spanish idioms involving food, a conversation about the ...
04.05.2023 Cats and Dogs - 5 April 2023 It’s cats and dogs, and a few other critters, too. Animals prowl around inside several English words, including sleuth, which was originally sleuth-hound, a synonym for bloodhound. Plus, the language we use with our pets and the ways they communicate ...
04.03.2023 Fair Dinkum - 3 April 2023 A magnificent new book celebrates the richness and diversity of 450 years of written and spoken English in what is now the United States. It’s called The People’s Tongue, and it’s a sumptuous collection of essays, letters, poems, lyrics, and ...
03.27.2023 Put on the Dog (Rebroadcast) - 27 March 2023 Why isn’t “you’re welcome” the default response to “thank you” for everyone? Plus lies that kids tell, Philadelphia lawyer, cowbelly, skutch, mind-bottling vs. mind-boggling, tsundoku, infanticipating, noisy piece of cheese, a word game, and lots more. Read full show notes, ...
03.20.2023 Excuse the Hogs (Rebroadcast) - 20 March 2023 When a teenager went a week without talking as part of a school project, he noticed a surprising side effect: Instead of rehearsing a response to what other people were saying to him, he was focused on listening — and ...
03.13.2023 By a Landslide - 13 March 2023 How do you transform ancient Chinese script for use in the modern age? English uses a keyboard with just 26 letters, but the first Chinese typewriter looked like a small table under a huge disk with more than 4,000 characters. ...
03.06.2023 All That and a Bag of Chips (Rebroadcast) - 6 March 2023 We tend to take the index of a book for granted, but centuries ago, these helpful lists were viewed with suspicion. Some even worried that indexes would harm reading comprehension! A witty new book tells the story. Plus, the Latin ...
02.27.2023 Big Dog - 27 February 2023 If you’re ever near a sundial, step closer and look for a message. Many sundials bear haunting, poetic inscriptions about the brevity of life. Plus, language development in toddlers: why and how little ones pick up the exclamation Uh-oh! And ...
02.20.2023 Familiar Strangers (Rebroadcast) - 20 February 2023 If you take up texting and social media late in life, there’s a lot to learn! A twenty-something wants advice getting her dad up to speed on memes, Instagram, and animated images. Plus, when you’re on a long road trip, ...
02.12.2023 Hot Gossip - 13 February 2023 Gossip goes by many names: the poop, the scoop, the lowdown, the dope, the scuttlebutt, the 411, the grapes, the gore, and hot tea. Plus, John Donne’s love poems are among the greatest in the English language, even as they’re ...
02.06.2023 Word Hoard (Rebroadcast) - 6 February 2023 Ever wonder what medieval England looked and sounded like? In Old English, the word hord meant "treasure" and your wordhord was the treasure of words locked up inside you. A delightful new book uses the language of that period to ...
01.30.2023 In the Ballpark - 30 January 2023 Novelist Charles Dickens and the musician Prince were very different types of artists, but they also had a lot in common. A new book chronicling their extraordinary careers becomes a larger meditation on perfectionism and creativity itself. Plus, the military ...
01.23.2023 You Talk Like a Sausage (Rebroadcast) - 23 January 2023 Do you refer to your dog or cat as “somebody”? As in: When you love somebody that much, you don’t mind if they slobber. In other words, is your pet a somebody or a something? Also, for centuries, there was ...
01.16.2023 Old College Try - 16 January 2023 In just seconds, online text generators and chatbots can produce whole paragraphs of sophisticated prose. But what do advances in artificial intelligence mean for writers? What is lost and what’s gained when machine-writing replaces the work humans have always struggled ...
01.09.2023 Pushing the Envelope (Rebroadcast) - 9 January 2023 Sure, there’s winter, spring, summer, and fall. But the seasons in between have even more poetic names. In Alaska, greenup describes a sudden, dramatic burst of green after a long, dark winter. And there are many, many terms for a ...
01.02.2023 Primary Colors (Rebroadcast) - 2 January 2023 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 speakers of different languages distinguish similar shades and tints of colors such as ...

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