Word Up! - 17 Jan. 2011

SUMMARY

What would you serve a plumber who comes over for dinner? How about ... leeks? The hosts play a word game called "What Would You Serve?" Also, how can you correct someone's grammar without ruining a new relationship? And is there an easy way to remember the difference between who and whom?

FULL DETAILS

What would you serve a plumber for dinner? How about leeks? (We didn't say it had to be appetizing.) What would you serve a jeweler? Carats. Martha and Grant play the "What Would You Serve?" game.

A Little Rock, Ark., caller has been going out with a Chinese woman. Her English is pretty good, but he wonders about the most polite way to correct a minor grammar mistake without ruining a new relationship.

What's the origin of the expressions "Word!" and "Word up!"? Grant shares a theory from the book "Black Talk" by Geneva Smitherman.

http://bit.ly/gLhqdo

By the way, here's that 1980's-era song "Word Up."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZjAantupsA

What would you serve a chronic procrastinator? Ketchup. What would you serve a fertility specialist? Eggplant. Martha serves up those and others.

Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a quiz based on news events of the last several months, all in limerick form.

A woman in Gainesville, Fla., says her father and his partner have an ongoing Scrabble feud over rebeheaded. Is it a word?

"Anymore, I play golf instead of tennis." Grant explains that this grammatical construction is known as the "positive anymore."

What would you serve to people separated by six degrees? Bacon!

A sign-language interpreter found herself translating the word doldrums. She wonders if it has to do the area of the ocean known by that name.

What would you serve a group of musicians and cardiologists? How about beets?

Martha shares some collective nouns sent in by listeners in response to a recent show on the topic.

http://www.waywordradio.org/roberta-of-flax/

What does nonplussed mean, exactly? Does it mean "unflappable" or "at a loss." Martha and Grant disagree about its use.

Is there some kind of snappy jingle for knowing when to use who and whom?

Grant shares some familiar proverbs that supposedly arose from African-American English. The book he mentions is Proverbs, by Wolfgang Mieder.

http://bit.ly/dQVxmQ

Need a word for "lover of the underdog"? It's infracaninophile.

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