In this special edition of "A Way with Words," listeners share their candidates for new additions to the English language, and old words they'd like to see picked up and dusted off. Among them, whingeing, polkadodge, sluffle, fortnight, ken, corpsetoe, and thank-you-ma'am. NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz pays a visit and presents an anagram quiz.

Say, wouldn't things sound different if people started using the word say instead of hey at the beginning of a sentence? Martha makes the case for reviving this old-fashioned use of the word.

A woman in Fairbanks, Alaska uses greebles to denote those bits of detritus left in your pockets after you take out everything else. She's also searching for a good word for the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow. The hosts offer two obsolete words, ere-yesterday and overmorrow. They also throw in perendinate, "to postpone until the day after tomorrow."

You know that little dance you do on a crowded sidewalk when you and another person are trying to sidestep each other? A San Diego listener thinks that should be called a slidle. Martha offers polkadodge. Also, the action of squeezing past a row of people in a movie theater? The listener calls that a sluffle.

A New Mexico caller wants to revive the word ken, meaning "perception" or "understanding." She also bemoans the fact that Americans rarely use the term fortnight for "two weeks."

Martha notes that a commenter on the "A Way with Words" Facebook page wants to popularize the words bumbershoot and fiddlesticks.

http://facebook.com/waywordradio

NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz stops by with a game featuring anagrams of slang terms.

Martha suggests replacing the term speed hump with thank-you-ma'am, an old term for a bump in the road that causes passengers' heads to nod as if nodding with gratitude.

The verb to whinge, meaning "to complain annoyingly," is heard far more often in Britain than in the United States. A Louisville, Ky., woman thinks it deserves wider use.

Grant explains his fondness for the huffy expression Well, I never! He also talks about corpsetoe, a handy way to refer to the ice-cold tootsies of one's bedmate.

In this special edition of "A Way with Words," listeners share their candidates for new additions to the English language, and old words they'd like to see picked up and dusted off. Among them, whingeing, polkadodge, sluffle, fortnight, ken, corpsetoe, and thank-you-ma'am. NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz pays a visit and presents an anagram quiz.

Say, wouldn't things sound different if people started using the word say instead of hey at the beginning of a sentence? Martha makes the case for reviving this old-fashioned use of the word.

A woman in Fairbanks, Alaska uses greebles to denote those bits of detritus left in your pockets after you take out everything else. She's also searching for a good word for the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow. The hosts offer two obsolete words, ere-yesterday and overmorrow. They also throw in perendinate, "to postpone until the day after tomorrow."

You know that little dance you do on a crowded sidewalk when you and another person are trying to sidestep each other? A San Diego listener thinks that should be called a slidle. Martha offers polkadodge. Also, the action of squeezing past a row of people in a movie theater? The listener calls that a sluffle.

A New Mexico caller wants to revive the word ken, meaning "perception" or "understanding." She also bemoans the fact that Americans rarely use the term fortnight for "two weeks."

Martha notes that a commenter on the "A Way with Words" Facebook page wants to popularize the words bumbershoot and fiddlesticks.

http://facebook.com/waywordradio

NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz stops by with a game featuring anagrams of slang terms.

Martha suggests replacing the term speed hump with thank-you-ma'am, an old term for a bump in the road that causes passengers' heads to nod as if nodding with gratitude.

The verb to whinge, meaning "to complain annoyingly," is heard far more often in Britain than in the United States. A Louisville, Ky., woman thinks it deserves wider use.

Grant explains his fondness for the huffy expression Well, I never! He also talks about corpsetoe, a handy way to refer to the ice-cold tootsies of one's bedmate.