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Study Up For 'Think': The Plural Of Cyclops

A Way With Words

How do words and their meanings color our experience with possibility and how does our changing language keep us learning? Perhaps no two people think about this more than Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette, hosts of “A Way With Words.” The pair joins Think host Krys Boyd at 1 p.m., and they'll stick around for an event at the Lakewood Theater Thursday.

On a recently aired episode, Grant and Martha explored a couple Southern phrases worth keeping:

Gone pecan: If someone’s gone pecan, they’re doomed, defeated, and down on their luck. This idiom, common in New Orleans, probably caught on because of its rhyme. High lonesome:  A slang word for being drunk. i.e., "He's gone out on another high lonesome."

(Executive producer/host Jeff Whittington points out that "high lonesome" is also a kind of high-tenor harmony used by country acts like the Louvin Brothers. More in this Paste piece.)

You can indulge these and find out what else "road warrior" means in the podcast.

Listen to Think from noon to 2 p.m., Monday through Thursday, on KERA 90.1 or stream the show at kera.org.Find out more about Thursday's event at Lakewood Theatre - a benefit for the Aberg Center for Literacy -here.

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Lyndsay Knecht is assistant producer for Think.