French Word-A-Day

I've been meaning for some time now to blog about an e-newsletter that's always a delight: Kristin Espinasse's French Word-A-Day. They're beautiful little dispatches from a soi-disant "former desert rat" from the United States who's lived in France for many years. They're a great way to pick up a few words and phrases every day -- not to mention a slice of life in the French countryside. Her book, Words in a French Life, is a collection of many of those vignettes from her adventures as an ex-pat.

Today's entry is a lovely tribute to the man voted the third greatest Frenchman, after de Gaulle and Pasteur. Check it out.

Welcome, WFPL Listeners!

A big welcome to those of you listening to "A Way with Words" in Louisville, Kentucky. The NPR affiliate there, WFPL, serving Kentucky and Southern Indiana, recently added our show to its lineup at 7 p.m. on Sunday nights. It's especially nice to be on the airwaves in my hometown of Louisville, where everyone already knows what a "hot brown" is. (Oddly enough, they don't seem to have those here in California.) Anyway, welcome, ya'll! I look forward to hearing lots of great Kentuckiana callers on our show.

Oh, and BTW....

Check out the newly redesigned "A Way with Words" website!

(Don't you think this would make a great ad on the side of a bus?)

Audio Hors D'Oeuvres

The all-new "A Way with Words" officially debuts this weekend!

And if you JUST CAN'T STAND the wait, you can always tune in to the chat that Grant and I had yesterday with Tom Fudge on KPBS's live public-affairs show, "These Days." Grant joined us from New York, and gave Tom a sneak peak at our new quiz, "Slang THIS!" So check it out. (Unless, of course, you already know what "jibbing" means.)

Oh, and....

Grant and I are featured today by the good folks over at Visual Thesaurus. The interviews themselves (which require a subscription to read) should be up for a while. The site also features interviews with many luminaries in the language world, including David Crystal and Geoff Pullum.

Get Ready, Get Set . . .

I haven't posted much lately. That's because we here at "A Way with Words" have been on the run, getting ready to kick off our brand-new season this coming Saturday, January 20. My new co-host, Grant Barrett, was out here in California for a few days last week, and we had a blast getting ready for our first show. I'm really excited about it.

Btw, if I posted something every time Grant was in the news talking about language, I wouldn't have time to do much else. But I will point out that he was recently holding forth in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the American Dialect Society's "Word of the Year" vote.

And you may have caught Grant this past Sunday in the New York Times, where "On Language" columnist William Safire referred to him as "the lexicographer Grant Barrett."

Which reminds me: Shouldn't there be a word for the point at which one becomes a "the"? I've been waiting to be referred to in print as "the sultry radio host Martha Barnette." Hasn't happened yet. But I suppose there's still time.