Memory, Aging, and the Lingering 'Anyways'

1133. This week, crossword pro Natan Last talks about his book "Across the Universe." We look at the technical and cultural differences between American and British puzzle styles and the secrets that will surprise you about how clues are written and edited. We also look at "crosswordese," the long submission process for the “New York Times,” and the AI that won a human crossword tournament.

1132. This week, in honor of Dictionary.com choosing "6-7" as its Word of the Year, we look at the origin of other number phrases: "23 skidoo" and "at sixes and sevens."

1131. This week, we talk with ‘Science' magazine senior writer Abigail Eisenstadt about her team's year-long experiment testing ChatGPT's ability to summarize research papers. We look at their methodology, the limitations they realized, and their main finding: that AI could “transcribe” scientific studies but failed to “translate” them with context.

1130. This week, we look at words related to elections, and then I help you remember the difference between "home in" and "hone in" with a tip that includes a shocking historical tidbit about spiders.

1129. This week, we talk with Ben Zimmer about the linguistic detective work of antedating words — finding earlier usages than those published in dictionaries. We look at the surprising origins of "Ms.," "scallywag," and the baseball history of "jazz."