You're Saying It Wrong

Get ready for some (barely) controlled chaos as we look at phrases that seem to contradict themselves, and others that just get under our skin.

We dip back into the mailbag to answer some listener questions, including one about a famous nonsense phrase.

This week: The thrilling conclusion of one of the most deceptively difficult spelling tests you're ever likely to come across.

Kathy and Ross give Fletcher one of the most deceptively difficult spelling tests you're ever likely to see.

This week, we're looking at words with literary origins. You may not know this, but sometimes writers just make words up.

1985 may not seem like a long time ago, but people back then had some pretty different ideas about how to speak "properly."

What does the stock market have to do with piracy in the West Indies? The Dutch, of course! (Really!)

The plural of thief is thieves, so why isn't the plural of chief chieves? And as the old woman once said, where are the beeves??? On today's show, we tackle the tricky nuance of plurals and synonyms that aren't actually synonyms.

We return to our series looking at the most enigmatic, evil words ever found on the SAT.

We're talking about some words of the season as the temperatures have fortunately turned for the better and allergies unfortunately have not.

Today we're taking a trip back into the past — past tense, past participles... When we try to tell someone about something that already happened, it can be trickier than we might think.

We celebrate our 200th episode (!) by taking a trip back in time to look at some words that popped up 200 years ago.

Put on your best evening wear, we're getting fancy! Or maybe we're just getting stuffy. This week we're looking at language that's grammatically correct, but that sounds like you're just trying to impress.

We answer listeners' most burning language questions, including one about how the letter "R" seems to disappear and reappear in the strangest places, and about whether or not anything can ever be called "epic" ever again.

Latin may be a dead language, but it sure seems to come up a lot! This week, we'll look at some common Latin phrases that we think we understand, but that we may not get quite right.

We return to our series looking at the most devilish words ever found on the SAT.

We celebrate the season by looking at some winter-related idioms.

We've tackled the differences between American and British English, but let's not forget Canadians also have a language of their own.

The year is 1066: William the Conqueror lands upon the shores of England and changes the course of the English language forever. So what does that mean for us?

We take a look at some modern-day idioms, where they came from, and what they could possibly mean.

We look at a list of words people want to banish in this new year. Some of them we agree with, some of them we won't let go without a fight!

We continue our alphabetical trip through the most challenging words from the SAT.

We'll run through the various dictionaries' selections for the words of the year and offer up a few of our own.

What could be more fun for the holidays than digging into the bizarre world of Latin and Greek plurals? Nothing! That's what!

We wade into the social media wars as we take a look at some of the most common language mistakes people make when they're posting online.

We hit a number of language-related topics this week, kicked off by a listener question about what the heck a participle actually is.

This week, Kathy and Ross quiz Fletcher on words that are surprising relatives– and some that are surprisingly not.

We look at some names of famous people that, when you pronounce them correctly, can let people know you're an expert... or a snob.

The letter of the week is "B," as we move on to the second part in our series looking at the hardest words on the SAT.

This week, we're here to help you relax a little bit by telling you that some of those little language mistakes that raise your blood pressure might not actually be mistakes.

With the U.S. election upon us, Kathy and Ross quiz Fletcher on the pronunciation and origins of some words related to our democratic process.

Just in time for Halloween, we're talking about some of the creepy parts of the language world, including ghost words and some horrifying hyphens.

We're looking at the differences between what people in Italy call their food and what they call it in one very specific place in the world (here's a hint: Tony Soprano has a lot to say about this).

We return to one of our favorite topics: mistakes that aren't really mistakes, even though a whole lot of people will tell you they're mistakes.

A Merriam-Webster poll sets off our conversation today as we make our picks for the most overrated word, the most underrated word, the most pleasant word to say, and a number of other mosts, bests, and worsts.

There are a whole lot of things you can say when someone thanks you for something... But what do they all really mean?

We continue our fascination with rules we don't know we know with a look at the importance of where we put the stress when we say words out loud.

Jump in your estate car and head to the chemist, this week we're looking at some British equivalents of American English words.

The letter of the day is "A"! We're getting you (or your kids) ready for the SATs with some tricky vocabulary from the beginning of the alphabet.

Must, could, should, shall, might, may... We dig into the weird, wiggly, weaselly world of modal verbs.

Grab your swimsuit! Or your bathing suit. That's up to you. We're heading to the beach for a look at the language of tides, waves, and other things beachy.

With Charli XCX sparking a summer phenomenon, we take a look at the nature of slang: who uses it, why we use it, and how we need to be very careful with it.

Today we look at words that came from other words even though we think the second word should have come first.

Today, we look at language rules that are rules sometimes, and rules that don't make sense. Well, they make some sense. Whatever. They're rules, anyway.

With the world's greatest sporting event upon us, we look at the origins of some sports-related words.

A listener question prompts us to think about words like rehabilitate, revamp, and nonplussed, and whether we can be plussed about habilitating and vamping, or if we're just talking nonsense.

This week, we're talking ambiguous words and ambiguous phrases– sometimes we think we know what we're saying and sometimes we're really wrong.

Latin may be dead, but we still use it every day. This week we look at some common Latin phrases and what they actually mean.

We know what a berry is, we know what a cranberry is, but what the heck is a "cran?" We enter the sometimes murky world of the cranberry morpheme...

As we head into summer, we'll take a look back to see if we can remember what we've learned over the past year.

After this year's thrilling spell-off in the National Spelling Bee, we try to tease out the definitions of some of the words that won the contest.