Sailor's Delight (rebroadcast) - 21 March 2011

[This episode first aired March 6, 2010.]

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning." Martha talks about this weather proverb, which has been around in one form or another since ancient times. Grant shares a favorite weather word: slatch http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/slatch. Also this week: Is there a better alternative to the word "mentee"? What's "pooflapoo pie"?

A Dallas listener and her boss have a dispute. The boss says the staff should get "on the stick." The caller and her co-workers say the correct phrase is "on the ball." Grant gives her an answer, then suggests a third option used in Hawaii: "on the kinipopo." http://bit.ly/bHw1F6

What's the best term for "someone who's being mentored"? A woman in a mentoring program at church thinks the word "mentee sounds like "manatee." She's hoping for an alternative.

Grant shares another weather-related word from Britain: parky.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=57638

Quiz Guy John Chaneski offers a puzzle in honor of the hosts' initials. Every clue prompts a two-word answer beginning with the letters M and B or G and B. For example: "Paper or plastic?"

A caller named Todd says that when people meet him for the first time, they sometimes call him Scott, even if he's wearing a nametag with his real name on it. It's happened too many times to be a coincidence, he says, and wonders if there's something about the double letters that registers the wrong name in people's minds. Why do we get other people's names wrong?

Whip up a big batch of pistachio pudding, then add pineapple, walnuts, Cool Whip, and marshmallow bits, and what do you have? A Los Angeles woman says her grandmother used to make a dish with those ingredients that she called "pooflapoo pie." Is that just her family's name for it, or do other people refer to it that way? Other people call it "Watergate salad" or "ambrosia."

Have trouble remembering the difference between stalagtites and stalagmites? Martha shares a mnemonic that will help.

A police officer says that the prosecutor edits out the word "that" from the reports he submits, as in, "The subject stated that he met the co-defendant at a party." Is the word "that" necessary here? Martha and Grant disagree. Also, the cop also has a brain-teaser for the hosts: Can you use the word "that" five times consecutively in a sentence correctly?

The hosts talk about the tricks they use to remember how to spell certain words.

Why do we say that someone finely attired is "dressed to the nines"?

A woman says that when playing hide-and-seek with a small child, her mother-in-law says "peep-eye"!" instead of "peekaboo"!" Is that usage limited to certain parts of the country? And where do they say "pee-bo"!"?

Grant talks about two other weather-related terms, "frontogenesis" and "aeromancy."

When comparing one item with the rest of the items in a group, "which is better: more or most"?

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