Gift Horse (Rebroadcast) - 28 December 2020

If you work in tech support, you might use snarky slang for problems caused by computer users themselves. There’s the acronym PEBCAK, for example, which stands for Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard. And: a lush poem about the sea inspired by kennings, those riddle-like co ...  Show more

There are word nerds, and then there’s the woman who set up a folding chair on sidewalks throughout the country, cheerfully dispensing tips about grammar. She recounts her adventures in a new book. And the story of the brilliant pioneer of computing language whose name lives on i ...  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