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Herd of Turtles (Rebroadcast) - 3 November 2025
Some college students are using the word loyalty as a synonym for monogamy. Are the meanings of these words now shifting? Plus, a biologist discovers a new species of bat, then names it after a poet …
Published on 11 hours ago
Chow Line - 27 October 2025
Does language acquisition correspond with being ambidextrous? A woman notices her polyglot husband takes notes with his right hand for certain languages, then switches to his left for other ones. And…
Published on 1 week ago
Big as a Breadbox - 20 October 2025
The Hawaiian word aloha is both a greeting and a goodbye, as well as a profound acknowledgement of the oneness with all living things. Plus, what’s a lemur ball? A new book will leave you marveling o…
Published on 2 weeks ago
Mittens in Moonlight (Rebroadcast) - 13 October 2025
Need a slang term that can replace just about any noun? Try chumpie. If you’re from Philadelphia, you may already know this handy placeholder word. And there’s Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhat…
Published on 3 weeks ago
Diamond Dust (Rebroadcast) - 6 October 2025
Diamond dust, tapioca snow, and sugar icebergs — a 1955 glossary of arctic and subarctic terms describes the environment in ways that sound poetic. And a mom says her son is dating someone who’s non-…
Published on 4 weeks ago
Brass Tacks - 29 September 2025
Why would some Spanish speakers use adaptations of certain English words when perfectly good Spanish words for the same thing already exist? Plus, handy terms in a dictionary of the Sussex dialect fr…
Published on 1 month ago
Sleepy Winks (Rebroadcast) - 22 September 2025
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful …
Published on 1 month, 1 week ago
Cat Bristle - 15 September 2025
How do social media algorithms shape the way we communicate? A new book argues that the competition for clicks is changing the way we speak and write, from the so-called “YouTube accent” to the surpr…
Published on 1 month, 2 weeks ago
Made from Scratch (Rebroadcast) - 8 September 2025
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and pr…
Published on 1 month, 3 weeks ago
Good Egg, Bad Apple - 1 September 2025
If you like to use emojis, you have some 3800 to choose from—and the organization that approves them is about to announce even more. But do we really need a purple splatter emoji? Or one that looks l…
Published on 2 months ago