The 2 Best A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over Podcast Episodes
1) Loaded For Bear - 16 September 2019
One way to make your new business look trendy is to use two nouns separated by an ampersand, like Peach & Creature or Rainstorm & Egg or ... just about any other two-word combination. A tongue-in-chee...Show More
2) There's Something About A Way with Words... - 14 September 2016
Please donate to A Way With Words. Visit http://waywordradio.org for more info. Thanks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
3) Pushing the Envelope (Rebroadcast) - 29 December 2025
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 th...Show More
4) Safe as Houses - 22 December 2025
Temperature blankets are a visual and tactile mirror of the day’s weather. Knitters use specific shades of yarn to match daily temperatures, creating a colorful, cozy record of weather across time. Pl...Show More
5) Minicast Bonus: Cocktail
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant look into the myriad stories behind the word cocktail. Does the drink name come from feathers? Horses? Something up a horse’s rump? It’s a wei...Show More
6) Potatoes and Point - 15 December 2025
If there’s a logophile on your gift list, you have lots of choices—including a new trivia game for language lovers and a murder mystery for the word-obsessed. Plus, if someone calls you a schmoozer, s...Show More
7) Minicast Bonus: Down Bucket
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant step into the historic streets of Marblehead, Massachusetts, where the simple cry of “Down bucket!” could serve as a kind of local password. A...Show More
8) Primary Colors (Rebroadcast) - 8 December 2025
Centuries ago, monks who took a vow of silence still had to communicate about routine matters, from gardening to equipment repair. So they developed their own sign language, with hundreds of gestures ...Show More
9) Minicast Bonus: Picketwire
In this bonus A Way with Words minicast, Martha and Grant explore the ways foreign place names transform on official maps and in local slang. Discover the stories behind names like “Picketwire” and “K...Show More
10) Drop in the Bucket - 1 December 2025
A sumptuous new collection of poems about specific photographs shows how the moment in time captured by camera can inspire a verbal work of art as well. Also, why do we say that a quarterback got sack...Show More