Takes the Cake (Rebroadcast) - 7 September 2026
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...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & Podcasts
Society & Culture
A Way with Words — language, linguistics, and callers from all over
A fun weekly radio show about language seen through culture, history, and family. Co-hosts Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett talk with callers who have questions and stories about linguistic...
Episodes
20 of 986 episodes
Secret Code - 31 August 2026
“Are we ready to order yet?” Why do restaurant servers use the word “we” when they’re not eating with you or helping you pay the bill? And a...
Blessing Box (Rebroadcast) - 24 August 2026
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 f...
Apple Turnover - 17 August 2026
Critters, co-workers, and clothes: What do you call your favorite mixed-breed dog? There are Heinz 57 mutts and Texas brown dogs in the U.S....
Fair Dinkum (Rebroadcast) - 10 August 2026
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...
Wired for Sound - 3 August 2026
If someone tells you it’s flisky or flobby outside, do you need to take an umbrella? A new book about England’s soggy climate includes 188 t...
By a Landslide (Rebroadcast) - 27 July 2026
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 t...
Mischief Night - 20 July 2026
What’s up with ketchup? The shifting history and spelling of the name of this condiment. For centuries, ketchup was a fishy sauce originatin...
Big Dog (Rebroadcast) - 13 July 2026
If you’re ever near a sundial, step closer and look for a message. Many sundials bear haunting, poetic inscriptions about the brevity of lif...
Cheese Toasties - 6 July 2026
If you mistype something, that’s a typo. But what do you call it when your voice-to-text program mistypes as you’re dictating? Is that a mic...
Hot Gossip (Rebroadcast) - 29 June 2026
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, Jo...
Flash in the Pan - 22 June 2026
It’s the ultimate road trip: A father and son retrace the journey of Odysseus and find a way to navigate their relationship. Plus, the story...
In the Ballpark (Rebroadcast) - 15 June 2026
Novelist Charles Dickens and the musician Prince were very different types of artists, but they also had a lot in common. A new book chronic...
Outer Space - 8 June 2026
A writer stumbles upon a tiny, motionless creature on a country road and, against all good advice, takes it home. The resulting memoir, Rais...
Stub Your Toe (Rebroadcast) - 1 June 2026
Advice about college essays from the winner of a top prize for children’s literature: Kelly Barnhill encourages teens to write about experie...
Snookums and Snicklefritz (Rebroadcast) - 25 May 2026
A new book about how animals perceive their environment reveals immense worlds beyond our own. A bee can see ultraviolet light, catfish have...
If Grandma Had Wheels (Rebroadcast) - 18 May 2026
While compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, lexicographer James Murray exchanged hundreds of letters a week with authors, advisors, and v...
Match Game - 11 May 2026
Why do speakers of the same language have different accents? A lively new book called Why We Talk Funny offers a linguist’s look at how and...
Touch Grass (Rebroadcast) - 4 May 2026
High school students in Alabama share some favorite slang terms. If someone tells you to touch grass, they’re telling you to get a reality c...
Catch My Drift - 27 April 2026
If you work in tech support, you might use snarky slang for problems caused by computer users themselves. There’s the acronym PEBCAK, for ex...