Kathy Petras & Ross Petras

Sad to hear of Leonard Lopate’s death. We always enjoyed his wit (and execrable puns) -- and always loved being on his show talking about language. We’ll miss him.

An anti-vax conspiracy theorist fell for an obviously fake Latin translation of AstraZeneca, and got owned to the stars and back Back in 2021, Nebraska-based chiropracter Dr(?) Ben Tapper was one of the Center for Countering Digital Hate’s Disinformation Dozen – a group of people responsible at that time for sharing two thirds ...

Proof that we should consider putting Latin back in the curriculum.

www.thepoke.com/2025/05/15/a...

Phonetic spelling at its phinest, nez pah?

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

It's the 200th episode of You're Saying It Wrong ... and we (Kathy, Ross, and @fletcherpowell.bsky.social ) still have a lot to discuss. This week, it's a look at words that are just about 200 years old. Wow, talk about your coincidences!
www.kmuw.org/podcast/your...

@acesediting.bsky.social, challenge accepted: a haiku for National Grammar Day, dedicated to my favorite copy editing pet peeve.

"Use the comma splice
at your peril, however
periods are good."

#ACES #GrammarDay

Mailbag Day! 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 call...

This week, we answer more listener questions. What's with the r's popping up in non-r words like idear and warsh and such. And why is something as easy as pie? It's a fine how do you do! Yes, we talk about how do you do too -- with @fletcherpowell.bsky.social, of course! www.kmuw.org/podcast/your...

Enough With the Latin Already! 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.

Got Nero on your mind? Or just wondering what certain oft-used Latin phrases mean (we're looking at you, sui generis!)? Have we got a YSIW episode for you! Et tu @fletcherpowell.bsky.social ? www.kmuw.org/podcast/your...

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

You're older and wiser these days, right? BUT ... could you do decently on the SAT if you had to take it right now? This week, we're up to the Ds on those pesky SAT words we all know how to spell and define ... don't we? (Yes, we're looking at you, @fletcherpowell.bsky.social !) bit.ly/3QkcLFe

Romance is in the air! Move over, Wuthering Heights.

-ed versus -t

Yesterday's blog post on a slew of past tense forms and whether they're different in American and British English (perhaps not as much as some might think!)

separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2025/02/ed-v...

We'll Never Give You the Cold Shoulder We celebrate the season by looking at some winter-related idioms.

Baby, it’s cold outside! So let’s talk COLD!!! COLD things like shoulders and feet and thin ice and such … Yup, on this week’s You’re Saying It Wrong, we’re looking at winter-related idioms. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg …
@fletcherpowell.bsky.social www.kmuw.org/podcast/your...

Yeah, we dig, and we love! In the course of doing work on 50s slang, ran across this quote from Peter Lawford, member of the so-called Rat Pack along with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, etc.

“Like, we were getting off the boat the other day in Le Havre, and this French dame comes up to me and says, ‘Etes-vous un Rat?’' She's asking me, am I a Rat? I don't dig. Then I dig. She's asking me about the Rat Pack, you dig? But there's no word in French for Rat Pack, you dig?”

In the course of looking for something completely different, we ran across this old but still vitally important newspaper correction. www.nytimes.com/2015/06/08/p...

AI helps researchers read ancient scroll burned to a crisp in Vesuvius eruption Writing on PHerc. 172 papyrus, found at Roman mansion in Herculaneum, revealed after 3D X-rays and software competition

Okay, sometimes AI isn't that bad. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

YouTube video by Josh Johnson (Some of) Trump’s Wildest Executive Orders Explained

Move over Who's On First!

youtu.be/0-FWOKzWpXU

As someone who studied Arabic, surprised that I, R, didn’t know that tariff -- a word too much in the news, comes from the ta'rif, the verbal noun from arafa, to know. I do know one thing, not wild about tariffs!

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

Let’s speak Canadian, eh? This week, in answer to a listener e-mail, we’re talking about that specific kind of English from the Great White North. Get your double double, take off your toque and give it a listen! With @fletcherpowell.bsky.social
www.kmuw.org/podcast/your...

Works for Fridays too!

Trump Admin Deletes Video Explaining Grammatical Concept of Pronouns in War Against DEI Github is also revealing a widespread, scattershot effort to nuke not only "DEI" but things that have nothing to do with it.

You can't make these things up ... www.404media.co/trump-admin-...

So is it rescission or recision? Or even recission — which appears in a definition on the Legal Information Institute at Cornell (right before they also spell it rescission). Arrgh. @merriam-webster.com @dictionarycom — can you help us out here? What’s the most common spelling today?

Then there’s an alternate spelling, recision, with a broader peak—from 1977 to 1983 —followed by a similar, even more pronounced, collapse.

Well, we found that there was an act in 1933 that allowed stock purchasers the right to rescind transactions due to fraud, and, in 1977, the US proposed rescinding funds for international security assistance. But other dates also had major instances of rescissions.

Got curious about the White House press secretary’s use of the word rescission yesterday. It’s odd. There were two high and brief peaks of the word on Google Ngram (an admittedly unscientific source) in 1933 and 1977. Both peaks were four to five times higher than usage currently. Wonder why?

The Norman Conquest of the English Language 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?

Let’s talk — or should we say converse? Yes, a Norman and an Old English word for the same idea … which is this week’s topic: how Norman words poured into the English language and won the "sounds classier" sweepstakes. @fletcherpowell.bsky.social www.kmuw.org/podcast/your...

Pretty ambiguous, eh?

Our entire show has been seven years of me unlearning language rules that aren’t really rules. If I can do it, anyone can!

Word of the Year: Kindness wins children's 2024 vote

UK Children's #WotY2024 is KINDNESS

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Could you pass a Cambridge English exam from 1913? Three teachers sat - and failed - the first Cambridge English exam 112 years ago. How would you do?

A couple of these are a little debatable to us (one in particular) but things have changed in 112 years!

Sure enough, there are still some Latinists out there. A few hours later:
“CORRECTION: The headline was amended to change the Latin plural “exeunt” to the singular “exit” as it is one individual, not many who is exiting the stage. “