Remember those children's classics, the Velveteen Rabbi and The Little Price? The Twitterverse is abound with these books with a letter missing. And it turns out there's some pimping going on in our hospitals, but it's not what you'd think. Grant and Martha clear up the plead vs pleaded debate, touch on the use of product, and trace the history of shambles. Plus, a word puzzle with nursery rhymes, a map of regional grammar, and plenty of crazy vocab, from popinjays to the tee na na!FULL DETAILSThere's a Twitter meme going around for books with a letter missing from the title. You can find them through the hashtag #bookswithalettermissing. Can't wait to read that romp about the sand-covered South, A Confederacy of Dunes. http://huff.to/q9I0Ra We usually brandish a weapon, or some object we can wave about. But the definition of brandish can be stretched to include more figurative types of weapons or objects (e.g. seductive body parts).What does shambles mean? If your house is in shambles, it's a mess, but before the 1920s, the word shambles referred to a butcher's bloody bench.What is a popinjay? Literally a parrot, this term is often used in a military context to refer to a vain or conceited officer with a Napoleon complex. And a bandbox boy? That once commonly referred to an officer who gave excessive attention to his grooming and dress. It's a reference to "the box used to transport uniforms."Our Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a game of Name That Nursery Rhyme. The catch is, the text has been run through the translation site Babelfish. What happens when Little Bo Peep and Humpty Dumpty go from English to Spanish to Chinese and back again?What's the past tense of plead? Is it pleaded or pled? Within the legal profession, pleaded is preferred. But in our common vernacular, we tend to use the less traditional pled. If something's right on the tee na na, it's just perfect. This phrase from New Orleans has popped up in myriad songs from the region. One interview with the musician Dr. John suggests that tee na na refers to the rear end, or tuchis. Martha speculates that tee na na may have to do with the phrase to a tee. http://n.pr/cUbhzzLots of people have tweeted their own examples with the #bookswithalettermissing hashtag. Take, for example, that famous guide to Jewish sensuality, The Oy of Sex.http://bit.ly/nqdFWkhttp://bit.ly/qneRsFWhat's the origin of the phrase God willing and the creek don't rise? It has to do with travel; back when wagons rode on low gravel roads, you couldn't pass if the creek level was high. Regional grammar can be just as rich and diverse as regional vocabulary. The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project has picked up on all the variations in American English usage and plotted them on a Google Map. Turns out that double modals and the positive anymore are popping up all over the country.http://bit.ly/ocY6dkDid your hairstylist recommend you use product? Is your company moving product this quarter? The term product is in vogue, mainly for the purpose of simplification. Why do department stores label their infants' section Baby instead of Babies,' a la Men's or Women's? For one, the Baby department includes more than just clothes; they've got strollers and cribs and pacifiers. Also, the baby of the family has a unique singular identity, unlike the rest of the kids.Where do we get the expression more than you can shake a stick at? It probably just derives from counting. Imagine herdsmen bringing in their cattle or sheep at the end of the day, pointing with a stick in order to do a headcount. Another #bookswithalettermissing joke: Have you read the book about how 99 cent stores are changing the way we shop in America? It's called The Little Price.Pimping med students is a common practice in hospitals. But not that kind of pimping; the term pimp, likely from the German pumpfrage, meaning "pump question," refers to the method of tough quizzing that doctors put their young residents through. It generally straddles the border between rigorous initiation and plain bullying.http://bit.ly/orBACVhttp://bit.ly/rdyrMshttp://nyti.ms/7evgWiYou know that book missing a letter about the young Southern woman finding peace in a storm? It's called One With the Wind....Support for A Way with Words comes from National University http://www.nu.edu/, which invites you to change your future today. More at nu.edu.We’re also grateful for support from the University of San Diego http://www.sandiego.edu. Since 1949, USD has been on a mission not only to prepare students for the world, but also to change it. 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