Safe as Houses - 22 December 2025

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A Way with Words

Language Learning, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 December 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Temperature blankets are a visual and tactile mirror of the day’s weather. Knitters use specific shades of yarn to match daily temperatures, creating a colorful, cozy record of weather across time. Plus, a new book chronicles the history and uncertain future of modern dictionaries. And: try replacing the term bucket list with bliss list. It’s a great strategy to help you focus on finding joy in small, meaningful moments every single day. Also, your epidermis is showing, a puzzle about funny pronunciations, efficacy vs. effectiveness, voiceless labial-velar approximants, gig economy, the meaning of 73 among ham radio operators, go gunnybags, to Elmer someone, the historical present, and better than snuff, but not near as dusty. Hear hundreds of free episodes and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org. Be a part of the show: call or text 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; elsewhere in the world, call or text +1 619 800 4443. Send voice notes or messages via WhatsApp 16198004443. Email [email protected]. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Shopify. With Shopify, 2026 is the year you make it happen. It gives you the tools to build your dream store, online and in person. Plus with marketing built in, it'll help you reach exactly who you need to. Join the millions who've already made the leap, like Jim Shark and all birds, and ring in the new year with Shopify.
0:23.4	Sign up for your £1 per month trial at Shopify.com.uk.
0:27.7	You are listening to Away with Words, the show about language, and how we use it.
0:34.1	I'm Martha Barnett.
0:35.3	And I'm Grant Barrett.
0:36.8	One of the expressions I've been sharing when you and I do live
0:40.4	presentations before audiences is temperature blanket, also known as a weather blanket. And I can't
0:47.7	believe the response I've been getting. People love these terms. Yeah, I love them too.
0:53.3	I didn't know them before you started talking about them in these presentations.
0:58.0	What I learned from you is that this is like a knitted blanket, or it could be a scarf,
1:03.0	where the colors of each row represent the weather on that particular day in that particular place.
1:10.0	So it's like a diary and yarn, you know,
1:12.5	different blues for cool and different reds for warmth and so on. Yeah, so you end up with this
1:18.1	long garment, maybe a scarf or a blanket with these striations. It kind of blends from one
1:24.1	color into another and shows the weather across a stretch of time. And they're just
1:29.1	the gorgeous, gorgeous documents. And I love talking about them because they're such a lovely
1:35.5	way to store information. For me, they go hand in hand with Kippu, the knotted cord record
1:43.2	keeping of the Inca or the marshalese stick charts,
1:47.3	those navigation tools used to map the ocean.
1:51.2	Oh yeah, yeah, just like that.
1:53.1	Yeah, but I've discovered it goes much deeper, Martha.
1:56.2	It does?
	...

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