By Jingo - 23 January 2012

<p>SHOW SUMMARY<br /><br />If your friend says she's coming to town "Sunday week," exactly when should you expect to see her? And what do you call those typographical symbols that cartoonists use in place of profanity? Martha and Grant have the answer. Plus grass widows, the linguistic phenomenon called creaky voice, the difference between insure and ensure, the roots of the term jingoism and what it means if someone warns You don't believe fat meat is greasy. Also, is it okay to make a noun out of a verb?<br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />Researchers have found that stress is a leading cause of plewds--you know, those drops of sweat popping off the foreheads of nervous cartoon characters. That's one of several cartooning terms coined by Mort Walker, creator of the Beetle Bailey comic strip. Martha and Grant discuss this and other coinages from The Lexicon of Comicana. <br /><br />http://www.mortwalker.com/books7.html<br /><br />If someone's coming to town Sunday week, when exactly should you expect them? This Scots-Irish term means "a week after the coming day mentioned." <br /><br />What are those symbols cartoonists use in place of profanity? They're called grawlixes--good to know for the next time you play "Comic Strip Trope or Pokemon?"<br /><br />Is it okay to make a verb out of a noun? Yes! It's estimated that twenty percent of English verbs started as nouns. Just think of the head-to-toe mnemonic: you can head off a problem, face a situation, nose around, shoulder responsibility, elbow your way into something, stomach a problem, foot the bill, or toe the line. <br /><br />http://madshakespeare.com/2010/08/sunday-funnies-verbing-weirds-language/<br /><br />http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/anthony-gardner/youve-been-verbed<br /><br />Squeans are the little starbursts or circles surrounding a cartoon character's head to signify intoxication or dizziness.<br /><br />Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a puzzle called Categories. The challenge is to find the common thread that unites seemingly unrelated th