That Old-Book Smell (Rebroadcast) - 29 December 2014

<p>This week on "A Way with Words": You walk into a used bookstore, or pull down an old volume at the library, and there it is: The smell of old books. If you detect notes of vanilla in that intoxicating scent, there's a reason. Also, why some people think the word awesome is overused, why comic sans serif is a font almost universally reviled, and the origin of the phrase around Robin Hood's barn. Plus, chuck it vs. chunk it, sharing out, the dummy it, intellectual jokes, and the answers some parents give when a kid asks one too many questions. As in, "Daddy, what's that?" "Why, it's a wiggly-woggler for grinding smoke!"<br /><br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />Nothing like that old-book smell. And if you open up an old volume and think you detect notes of vanilla, there's a good reason. That intoxicating scent is the result of lignin, a chemical compound in plants used for making paper. It has a molecular structure similar to that of vanilla.<br /><br />"Grandpa, what's that?" A caller says that when she asked her grandfather one too many questions, he'd give her the fanciful answer  That's a dingbat off of a wiffem dilly that you grind smoke with. It's one of several things parents say to deflect questions from inquisitive children. Similar phrases include a wigwam for a water-windmill for grinding smoke, a weegee for grinding smoke, and a wiggly-woggler for grinding smoke.<br /><br />Is there a word for a word that doesn't fit its own definition? For example, verb is a noun, and monosyllabic is polysyllabic. Come to think of it, why is it so hard to remember how to spell mnemonic?<br /><br />A truck driver in Tucson, Arizona, has a dispute with her boyfriend: If you toss something out, do you chuck it or chunk it?<br /><br />Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me? That's one answer to the question: What's the most intellectual joke you know?  http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1h1cyg/whats_the_most_intellectual_joke_you_know/<br /><br />Quiz Guy John Chaneski offers a quiz with punning clues from s