Eat The Grindstone (Rebroadcast) - 2 May 2016

<p>The books we love as children may influence our careers more than we realize. As a child, Martha was fascinated with stories of cracking codes, and Grant loved books with glossaries--not that far from the kind of work they do today. A caller named Nancy credits her long career in medicine to a children's book called Nurse Nancy. Also, ever traveled to England and ended up incorporating British phrases into your own vocabulary? You're feeling "the chameleon effect." And you know when you return to your car and take a moment before leaving to check your phone messages? What do you call that? Plus, a Dial-a-Joke word quiz, baffie slippers, bacon collar, the power of rhyme, and Shakespeare's First Folio goes on tour.<br /> <br /> FULL DETAILS<br /> <br /> Would you rather write in a language with no punctuation or without the use of similes or metaphors? Grant and Martha agree that texting has proven our ability to get a point across without periods or commas. On the other hand, sometimes an idea just needs to be expressed with a metaphor.<br /> <br /> An American who worked as an au pair in Italy found that children there didn't seem to react so positively to fun sayings like, "No way, Jose" or "Ready, Freddie?" Yet some research suggests we're primed to love rhyme.<br /> <br /> Office workers in Richmond, Virginia, are having a dispute: Is the appliance that makes the coffee a coffee pot or a coffee maker? This is a classic case of synecdoche, where a single part—like the pot that holds the hot coffee—is used to refer to the whole object.<br /> <br /> When you forget to put those plastic stays in your collar before you wash a dress shirt, the curled-up result is what some folks call bacon collar.<br /> <br /> In honor of the old Dial-a-Joke phone line, Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game called Blank-a-Blank, with clues to different terms that have the letter a sandwiched between two dashes.<br /> <br /> If someone has biffed it, they've fallen down and embarrassed themselves.<br /> <br /> Cat face is a cute way t