Podcasts about twts

Alls our listener wanted to know is what's going on with the “alls” in “alls I know.”

Technically, not everyone you buy real estate from is a realtor.

The summer sped by and the car sped off, but perhaps we speeded up the process.

A bare-faced lie may also be bald. Sometimes, it may even be bold.

It doesn't seem like coming up with a response to "thank you" should be that complicated. When you think about it though, there are a lot of options.

Even for speakers who feel solid about the distinction between "lie" and "lay," they may lose that distinction when "low" is added to the mix.

All right, last week, we got distracted by the versatility of "all right." This week, we look at why spelling it as one word, "alright," makes some people really mad.

All right, all right. It's time for us to start talking about whether "alright" is all right.

Wait, wait, don't tell me I can't wait on things.

While now we may think of being a bookworm as a positive trait, that hasn't always been the case.

Social media has made a couple of longstanding English verbs work or mean differently.

If you want to pronounce "homage" to a tee, it may depend what you mean.

As we live our lives, there's some new slang words that can help us narrate it as we go. That is, if we're in a demographic that allows us to use slang credibly.

We don't all agree on whether or not we should correct the phrasing "whether or not."

We can talk about sending emails back and forth. But why does it sound odd to talk about sending them forth and back?

Given that “tuna” is a fish, some may find it unnecessary to call out that fact out in the compound “tuna fish.” For others, “fish” may be an important distinction.

You can be prone to do something, whether you're lying down or not.

There's evidence of a new peeve arising. This one is focused on “training” as a countable noun.

Lots of people don't like the redundancy in "irregardless." However, no one's fussy about the redundancy in a phrase like "a friend of mine."

An ouster can be an act of ousting, or it can be the one who does the ousting. But we seem to have opted for one of those meanings over the other.

At this point, we can manifest our dream future, a good grade on a exam, or even a parking spot.

Currying favor has everything to do with flattery and horses, and nothing to do with food.

There's a children's rhyme that involves liars and pants on fire and various types of wires. Now, we can say things are “pants on fire” false.

If you worry about if or whether you should use "if" or "whether" in exactly this construction, you're not alone.

It's been really dreary and so icy outside lately. It's awfully tempting to wear super cozy clothes and use lots of intensifiers.

Badgers live underground and are nocturnal, so we don't see them running around all that often. Somehow though, they're associated with a negative, annoying verb.

The year 2023 is officially in the record books. As part of taking stock, the members of the American Dialect Society met to consider what we've all been up to linguistically.

Many of us were taught the rule that we shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition, and honestly this is a rule we should be asking questions about.

It's undeniable that "Tupperware" has become a generic catch-all for plastic containers, regardless of shape, size, or brand. Not everyone likes this.

When you stop to think about a verb like "batten," you may be struck by just how few objects it can take.

Sometimes something you think is a slip or a mistake, perhaps a product of happenstance, is not that.

Rails are thin, and so are rakes and pencils and many other things.

While talking about sheep as a flock may sound unremarkable, a murder of crows sounds much more playful.

Gross food is disgusting, but a gross error may not be. And our gross income is something else entirely.

Very few of us are enamored with, of, or by potholes. If you're among the aforementioned few, we'd like a word.

There's all the variation in pronunciation that we don't judge, and then there's the relatively small percentage of variation out there that we do judge.

We physically lug around luggage and baggage at the airport. Metaphorically though, we're carrying around baggage.

Wordies are the skilled birdwatchers of language.

A near miss doesn't hit anything, as opposed to a near miss hitting something but almost or nearly missing it.

"In the meantime" is a good phrase to use when you're talking about the time between two events. But can you leave out "in the" and just say "meantime?"

When an English-speaking U.S. or British audience is unhappy, they will often express their unhappiness by yelling “boo” as opposed to, for instance, “moo.”

Depending where you live, the thought of football season might conjure images of shin guards and knee socks or helmets and shoulder pads.

If you've been watching the U.S. Open tennis tournament during the last couple of weeks, you've probably been hearing a lot of “love” and “let.” But where did those terms come from?

"Nonplussed" is one of those words that historically doesn't have a particularly complicated meaning, but it's one that people frequently misuse.

When we inquire about something, one could argue that it doesn't really matter if we inquire with an "i" or enquire with an "e."

The phrase “without further ado” has itself been unable to escape ado. In other words, there's been some to-do about it.

If you mention my verbiage, it's no longer clear if I should be insulted.

If you have more than one head waiter at a restaurant, you run into a funny spelling question in English.

Coaches, referees and gym teachers are probably better authorities than we are, but we've got a feeling that whistles probably aren't very clean.

“Off” isn't just an insect repellant. It's a versatile word that might not look like much, but it's amazing how many different ways we use it.