Gift Horse (Rebroadcast) - 28 December 2020

This week on A Way with Words: Language is always evolving, and that's also true for American Sign Language. A century ago, the sign for "telephone" was one fist below your mouth and the other at your ear, as if you're holding an old-fashioned candlestick phone. Now you can sign ...  Show more

Why does the term vegetarian cause so much confusion? Some people assume it means avoiding red meat but still eating chicken. And is there a term for a vegetarian who also eats fish and poultry? Plus, screwball comedies from the 1930s mix slapstick humor and clever dialogue. But ...  Show more

Courntey Maum is not only a talented writer, but an experienced Horse Girl. Today she shares some of the important life lessons she’s learned from riding horses. Her latest book is all about her relationship with horses and is called The Year Of The Horses. This is an excerpt of ...  Show more

Fed up with mice pilfering their grain, farmers in the ancient Middle East turn to a new ally. In early modern Essex, a witch’s familiar is blamed for the murder of her husband. The world’s first cat lady is found living in Victorian London. And a diplomatic mission to Egypt goes ...  Show more

In this week's episode, we're exploring the fun topic of animals, except we're not learning simple animal words or noises they make. This is more advanced.We'll be looking at a few animal idioms, expressions and phrasal verbs that you can use in your daily life. Native speakers u ...  Show more

The Tennessee Walking Horse has a natural gait that's famously smooth. And, if trained in a certain way, it can perform a walk that's even more spectacular, called the Big Lick. But, there's a secret behind how, exactly, these horses are trained to do the crowd-pleasing step they ...  Show more