[audio clip of Ron Foreman asking for the word redingote]

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I didn't feel I could do an episode on the word redingote.nbsp; For one thing I already did an episode just thi...

[In an audio clip Joseph Thornley asks for the phrase social media.]

People often quip "the media medium is the message."nbsp; It's such a wise thing to say, but I've never quite understood it.

I just spent a moment reading explanations of what it's supposed to mean and although they make sense I st...

Money makes the world go round and cash is king.nbsp; The word cash appeared in English right around the time of Shakespeare, and he, being right on top of this language thing, used it.

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Here I go again. [audio clip from Lynn Crymble]

I mean here I go again including a word that I might not get away with calling a common word.

I'd actually never heard of the word zaftig until I was looking for words for my book on words to do with the body.nbsp; There are a shortage of body words th...

The cantaloupe melon gets its name from its brush with the pope.

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It is thought that cantaloupes originally were cultivated in Armenia before being brought and grown in a...

A guppy is a little fish.nbsp; This little fish is named after a person, although there seem to have been a few errors along the way.

The Oxford English Dictionary reports that Robert John Lechmere Guppy was a clergyman.nbsp; Here's a pic of old Lechmere, as he was known, and you can see that it wou...

This is a re podcast of an episode that first aired July 18 2005.

I didn't want to just recycle the same old stuff so I took a look to see if there had been any changes in the meaning or relevance of the word over the past three years...

JD Ahmanson asked about the word scale because

it can mean to climb up a cliff

it can mean a device for showing how much something weighs, or

it can refer to the outside of a fish.

The short answer is polysemy...

The other day I needed to reshevel my office.

It's not often I want to suggest a new word, but I like this one.

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A felon is a crook.nbsp; A felony is a serious crime.

It seems that in true legal jargon felony is still current terminology for Americans, but has been replaced by new legal jargon in other countries.

If the crime isn't serious enough to be called a felony, then it is a misdemeanor...