Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchIrish Names Are My Pet Piamh
A listener email prompts us to try to get a handle on Irish spellings and pronunciations. It doesn't go well!
4 months, 2 weeks ago
An E-Prime Cut of Beef
What happens when you remove an entire verb from the English language? Chaos! Well, not quite. But it used to cause Kathy quite a bit of consternatio…
4 months, 3 weeks ago
In the Heighths
We tackle a few listener emails about some unusual pet peeves, including people tacking an extra sound on the end of the word "height," and another w…
5 months ago
Petty Pet Peeves for Persnickety Pedants
We'll dive into some common mistakes and pet peeves we have regarding the literary world, and then Kathy and Ross challenge Fletcher to another round…
5 months, 1 week ago
The Graham Cracker Rule of 'Those Ones'
Pet peeves, grammar groaners, and other language catastrophes are on the agenda this week, as we come up with a rock-solid rule grammatical rule that…
5 months, 2 weeks ago
The Secret of -nym
Homonyms, synonyms, antonyms... we'll look at some "wordly" similarities and differences, and explore the vague space in between.
5 months, 3 weeks ago
It's Summertime, and the Etymology is... Questionable
We'll look at the surprising origins of some common summer-related words, phrases, and idioms.
5 months, 4 weeks ago
American History Needs a Little Copy Editing
We'll look at some questionable language decisions the American Founding Fathers made when writing some of the country's most important documents.
6 months ago
Suffix Fight!
Collectable or collectible? Why is it a computer and not a computor? Or is it? We look at the confusing and sometimes (seemingly) chaotic world of su…
6 months, 1 week ago
The Debatables
When we disagree about what a word means or how to pronounce it, how do we know who's right and who's wrong? And what if we're both right?
6 months, 2 weeks ago