Re-posted from 2006 I worked for more than a decade as a consultant so I'm sensitive to jokes like A consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time, and then keeps your watch. Well, I would be sensitive if I hadn't gotten paid to hear

This episode re-run from 2006 Anatoly Liberman has a blog going called "the Oxford Etymologist"nbsp; I was reading one of his pieces that talked about the antiquity of some words and how the older they get, the more silly it becomes to try to pin a speci

Repeat episode from 2006 In 1993 the entry for "hassle" in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English gave the word a meaning close to "fight." For me though, hassle means more inconvenience than fisticuffs and I seem to be supported in this by mos

First aired March, 2006 When I go out in the winter I wear my winter boots.nbsp; When I was a little kid my dad wore overshoes.nbsp; They were a kind of rubber outer boot that he zipped or clipped up over his dress shoes.nbsp; They were also called galos

Originally posted March 2006 Ferret's are very popular pets.nbsp; I looked at urbanditionary to find not definitions of some slang use of the word ferret, but a bunch of entries by enthusiastic pet owners extolling the virtues of their animals. Still, p

Orignially posted March 2006 Yesterday I touched on the word "match" when I said that a strike anywhere match was once called a Lucifer. This got me wondering why a match was called a match. Of course there are two matches.nbsp; My wife and I are a goo

Originally posted March 2006 Do you find it odd that the Devil's Dictionary does not have an entry for Lucifer? I mean isn't Lucifer a synonym for Satan? When I check most of the dictionaries that's what it says. Except of course for the Oxford Englis

The word "bye-bye" is a duplication of "bye" and both are more likely to be used between people who are very closemdash;say members of a familymdash;than between more formally related people. It's easier to imagine heads of state parting with "goodbye" t

Originally issued February 2006 In the olden days when people wrote to each other on pieces of paper they would often sign off with "sincerely" or "yours truly." These formalities above the signature have a name; the "subscription" which makes sense bec

Originally posted February 21, 2006 From time to time on the radio I hear some investigating officer in a news clip talking about a crime suspect and calling him a gentleman. Seems to me the guy they're holding on suspicion of assault, or worse, is anyt