As new political terms seem to appear constantly, it is no surprise that linguists are examining these words. A Way with Words is a lively hour-long public radio show about language, on the air since 1998. Author Martha Barnette and dictionary editor Grant Barrett take calls about slang, grammar, old sayings, word origins, regional dialects, family expressions, and speaking and writing well.
In this show excerpt, the hosts discuss some of these new additions to our political vocabulary.
Co-host Martha Barnette has a
background in Latin and ancient Greek. She is the author of three books on word origins, including Ladyfingers & Nun’s Tummies: A Lighthearted Look at How Foods Got Their Names (1997), which was chosen by the Los Angeles Times for its “100 Best Books of the Year” list. Her other etymological books are A Garden of Words (1992) and Dog Days and Dandelions (2003). Martha holds a degree in English from Vassar College, did graduate
work in classical languages at the University of Kentucky, and studied
Spanish in Costa Rica at the ILISA School. She’s worked as a reporter
for the Washington Post, an editorial writer for the Louisville Courier-Journal, and as a medical reporter for the Louisville Times. Her first book, The Bill Schroeder Story (1987),
chronicled the ordeal of the world’s longest-living artificial heart
patient. Her articles have appeared in numerous publications, from the New York Times to Bark. Co-host Grant Barrett is an American lexicographer and
dictionary editor specializing in slang and new words. Whether he’s
scouring obscure corners of the Internet, mining electronic databases,
or digging through the library stacks, Grant ferrets out new and
surprising terms that make our language colorful. He’s the compiler and
editor of the Official Dictionary of Unofficial English (2006, McGraw-Hill) and of the Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang (2004, Oxford University Press), and is well-known for his award-winning online Double-Tongued Dictionary, which tracks slang, jargon, and neologisms from the fringes of English. He serves as vice president of the American Dialect Society,
an academic organization devoted since 1889 to the study of English in
North America. He also contributes to the “Among the New Words” column
of the society’s journal American Speech,
is a member of the journal’s editorial board, and helps organize the
society’s annual “word of the year” vote. He is a member of the Dictionary Society of North America and the Linguistic Society of America. Grant holds a degree in French from Columbia University and has studied at the Université Paris Diderot.
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