Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over
Episode: Never Bolt Your Door with A Boiled Carrot - 14 Sept. 2009
Description: [This episode first aired October 4, 2008.] Proverbs pack great truths into a few well-chosen words, no matter which language you speak. Check out this one from Belize: 'Don't call the alligator a big-mouth till you have crossed the river.' And this truism from Zanzibar: 'When two elephants tussle, it's the grass that suffers.' Martha and Grant discuss a new paremiography--a collection of proverbs--from around the world. A woman from Cape Cod is looking for a polite word that means the current wife of my ex-husband. She's thinking about 'cur-wife,' but somehow that doesn't...