Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett. Produced by Stefanie Levine.
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Fun conversation with callers from all over about new words, old sayings, slang, family expressions, word histories, linguistics, dialects, word games, books, literature, writing, and more.Be on the show with author/journalist Martha Barnette and linguist/lexicographer Grant Barrett. Share your thoughts, questions, and stories: https://waywordradio.org/contact or [email protected]. In the US and Canada, call or text 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free 24/7. Send a voice note or message via WhatsApp, 16198004443. From everywhere, call or text +1 (619) 800-4443. Past episodes, show notes, full search, more: https://waywordradio.org.A Way with Words is listener-supported! https://waywordradio.org/d…
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Everyday words become historical evidence as Martha Barnett and Grant Barrett connect callers' curiosities to older customs, texts, technologies, and communities.
A Way with Words turns everyday speech into a record of how people lived, worked, joked, and made sense of their surroundings. Martha Barnett and Grant Barrett build episodes around callers' questions, tracing expressions through changing usage while keeping family coinages and…
Shredded cans get called 'can-slaw,' and suddenly you're listening for words in every errand.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A carved post-office saying opens into Herodotus, workplace codes, and family language with easy call-in charm.
A Way with Words follows everyday language back into cultural memory, with one especially neat turn starting outside Penn Station. A host notices the grand inscription on the James Farley post office, expects Latin, and then learns that the familiar courier motto comes through a…
Fake parsley and a favorite word show how ordinary things can carry hidden design and history.
A Way with Words turns a strip of fake parsley in the supermarket meat case into a tidy lesson in retail staging. The episode follows the garnish back to a 1950s grocery-store fix, when bright case lights made meat look pale and a color consultant suggested green backing to…
A visual racehorse puzzle opens into the odd logic of everyday greetings.
A page of numerals and letters turns a language puzzle into a tidy little mystery. Rob McHill, an Australian listener in Cairns, Queensland, shares a poem he learned from his grandfather, and the first pass makes the racehorse lines sound like nonsense.
Seasonal word history and a sly AI styling joke make language feel personal, public, and alive.
A Way With Words frames language as lived history, moving from spring vocabulary to a modern debate over how initials look on the page. Martha Barnett and Grant Barrett spend time with wiccan, a verb tied to lengthening spring days, and braired, the first shoots showing above…
A Welsh word and the uncertain trail from hipped to hype turn language history into compact detective work.
Dream Horse gives this single-episode review a tidy way into a larger language question. The Welsh word hwyl sits at the center, carried by the story of a bartender in a small Welsh village who persuades neighbors to back a long-shot racehorse.
A crossword clue opens into language history, regional usage, and sayings.
The episode folds a crossword clue, a regional word for a vacuum cleaner, and a string of sayings and proverbs into a compact lesson in how everyday speech keeps old histories alive.
Metal-detecting slang and quote-marking become a warm, careful lesson in language.
Metal-detecting slang opens the episode into a quiet study of how language works in daily life. Terms like coinball, nighthawk, can-slaw, and gold get room to feel odd, vivid, and useful, while the hosts keep the tone warm and unforced.
Pinball slang and phatic speech meet in a warm, sly look at the social work language does.
A Way With Words draws a neat line from pinball jargon such as drain, gobble hole, and live catch to the quieter work of phatic speech. Grant Barrett and Martha Barnett move from game-room slang to the small social phrases that keep conversation easy, and the episode handles…
Héctor and Beto dissect Mexican grammar, slang, and news in native-speed Spanish conversations.
This episode explores the linguistic term 'bus bunching' and related jargon for when multiple public transit vehicles cluster together due to delays, discussing its causes and transportation analysis.
This episode explores unique Newfoundland dialect terms for everyday objects and meals, as shared by a local resident.
The hosts discuss various expressions about sweating across different languages and cultures, blending humor with linguistic insights.
This episode explores ditloids, a type of word puzzle that uses numerals and initial letters to represent phrases, discussing their origins and examples.
This episode explores the slang term 'knobbly monster' and the concept of elegant variation in writing, discussing creative ways to avoid repetition in language.
This episode explores colorful international phrases describing stingy people, such as having a crocodile in the pocket in Argentina or sea urchins in France.
The hosts introduce a wordplay challenge inspired by Johnny Carson's comedy routine, inviting listeners to create humorous sentences using the format 'X was so Y that Z'.
This episode discusses how biologist Robert Baker named a newly discovered leaf-nosed bat species after poet Nikki Giovanni as a tribute to her work.
This episode explores lesser-known terms for transitional seasons, such as 'stick season' and 'mud season', based on listener feedback and historical language insights.
This episode explores colorful phrases from various languages that express skepticism or disbelief, such as Spanish's 'tell me one about cowboys' and Tagalog's 'making a rope out of sand'.
This episode explores the concept of temperature blankets as creative records of weather patterns, connecting them to historical data-keeping methods like the Inca's Kipu and the Tempestry Project's standardized historical weather tapestries.
This episode explores humorous and ironic family sayings about having fun, followed by a caller discussing Southern idioms and cultural differences in language with his Midwestern wife.
This episode explores the origins and usage of the phrase 'here we go, laughing and scratching' through listener stories and historical references.
This episode explores informal restaurant terminology like 'auctioning' and 'Chef Mike' while introducing a new book about secret languages.
The hosts discuss how to apologize to other drivers after making a mistake on the road, exploring verbal and non-verbal methods like exaggerated facial expressions and American Sign Language.
This episode explores the phrase 'add oil,' a Hong Kong English expression of encouragement recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary, tracing its origins to Cantonese.
This minicast explores the traditional Marblehead, Massachusetts greeting 'down bucket' and its historical origins, along with other local vocabulary and phrases.
This episode explores various creative phrases people use to describe nights when family members prepare their own meals instead of eating together.
A short distance turns into a word story.
The hosts discuss listeners' favorite opening lines from books, including examples from Jaws and The Knife of Never Letting Go, while inviting more submissions.
The hosts discuss interesting words like 'avahi' (a woolly lemur) and 'saltigrade' (adapted to leaping, used for spiders), inspired by Martha's experience as a pronouncer for a regional spelling bee.
This episode explores obscure words like 'glorgi' and 'pothery' to describe hot, humid weather, discussing their origins and usage.
This episode explores the poetic and historical names for chemical compounds used by alchemists and scientists, discussing Oliver Sacks' book 'Uncle Tungsten' and Antoine Lavoisier's systematic naming reforms.
This episode explores colorful expressions of skepticism across different languages, such as 'when pigs fly' in English and similar idioms in Tagalog, Hungarian, and European languages, while also taking a caller's question about dating conventions.
This episode of A Way With Words discusses a humorous Facebook thread where people mispronounce English words to sound like Greek gods, exploring language quirks and listener contributions.
This episode explores the term 'binfluencer', a British neologism referring to someone who leads their neighborhood in proper recycling practices or promotes recycling and minimalism.
This episode discusses newly added Irish English words to the Oxford English Dictionary, exploring their meanings and origins.
This minicast explores the uncertain origins of the word 'cocktail', debunking popular myths and presenting two horse-related theories based on historical research from 1806.
This episode of A Way With Words features book recommendations for word lovers, including a murder mystery by etymologist Susie Dent that blends lexicography with crime-solving.
This episode explores unusual and memorable phrases people use when answering the telephone, featuring listener stories about unique greetings from different regions and generations.
This episode explores RV-related slang terms like 'stinky slinky,' 'gasser,' and 'PUP camper' through a casual conversation and a listener call-in.
This minicast explores the folk etymology behind how the Purgatoire River in Colorado became known as Picket Wire through linguistic transformations from Spanish to French to English.
This episode explores the term 'stinge watching,' which describes deliberately spacing out TV viewing to prolong enjoyment, with hosts sharing personal examples and discussing its connection to language and entertainment habits.
This episode explores the extinct Tocharian languages, featuring a translated love poem and discussing their connection to English through Proto-Indo-European.
This episode explores the Japanese expression 'mika bosu' (three-day monk) to describe people who enthusiastically start projects or purchases but quickly lose interest, sparked by a listener question about words for using items for unintended purposes.
This episode of A Way With Words features hosts Grant and Martha discussing humorous listener-submitted puns about what various professionals would plant, based on wordplay related to their fields.
This episode shares a heartwarming story about a volunteer finding a child's handwritten note to the Tooth Fairy in a donated library book and hoping to return it to the now-adult author.
This episode explains the Abilene Paradox through a story about a family's miserable trip to Abilene, Texas, illustrating how groups can make decisions that nobody actually wants.
Hosts Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette explore diverse language questions from callers, including the origins of 'bean counter,' the dialect word 'swarp,' regional terms for vacuum cleaners, labeling nuances for non-alcoholic drinks, and terminology for found object art.
This episode features callers discussing language quirks, including regional dialects like 'hankerin' vs 'fixin'', the history of phrases such as 'sold down the river', and fun segments on gestures and spelling quizzes.
A Way with Words hosts Grant Barrett and Martha Barnett open by browsing a 19th-century Sussex dialect dictionary, sharing charming finds like the word beaver for an eleven o'clock lunch and the ladybug being called Bishop Barnaby.
This episode explores various language topics through caller interactions, including the Shakespearean origin of 'salad days', the etymology of 'burrito' linked to pack animals, and regional terms like 'pencil colors' in Louisiana.
Grant Barrett and Martha Barnett field calls from listeners about language curiosities in this rebroadcast episode.
Hosts Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett discuss emoji, with Martha expressing an unpopular opinion against new ones, while Grant explains the existing 3,800+ emoji and upcoming releases by the Unicode Consortium, exploring language evolution and digital communication.
This episode explores the linguistic origins and usage of the word 'frunk' as a portmanteau for 'front trunk' in electric vehicles, discussing its acceptance among designers and potential cultural variations.
A caller's question turns on the word bum.
Influencer speech opens the door.
A Way with Words linguists Grant Barrett and Martha Barnett celebrate the rich vocabulary of metal detecting, including coinball for a dirt chunk containing coins, can-slaw for shredded aluminum from a lawnmowed can, nighthawk for illegal night detectors, and gold dance for the jig performed upon finding gold.
Hosts Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette engage with callers on diverse language topics, including a Hungarian term for eye crust, the physics difference between engine and motor, a spelling feud in a van group, the evolving meaning of brainstorm, and a child's mix-up of capital letters and cities.
Humpty 12 gets its turn at the table.
Hosts discuss the inscription on a post office building and its historical origins, exploring language and classical references.
A call-in show exploring language, word histories, and linguistics with expert hosts.
The hosts discuss a clever poem that mixes numerals and letters, exploring how numbers can be names or counts.
Hosts discuss uplifting spring-related words 'wiccan' and 'braired' from a winter dictionary, exploring their meanings and origins.
The hosts discuss the Welsh word 'Hwyl' and its meaning, prompted by the movie Dream Horse.
The hosts discuss workplace slang from a ski patrol listener, including terms like escargot, boilerplate, and death cookies.
The hosts discuss false friends in language, using examples like Welsh 'plant' meaning children, Spanish 'fastidioso' meaning annoying, and German 'Gift' meaning poison.
This episode explores how accents can change during isolation in Antarctica and introduces new vocabulary used by researchers.
The hosts discuss the origin of the candy bar name Snickers, named after a horse, and explore other candy bar name stories.
This episode explores obscure English words like 'catalate' and 'agelastic' from a 1623 dictionary, discussing their origins and the practice of coining inkhorn terms.