Just for fun

Just for fun: Download and listen to “Fry’s English Delight: The Complete Series,” an audiobook of a four-part series on BBC Radio 4 hosted by Stephen Fry (pictured). The audiobook is available on iTunes.*

In this series, the erudite and amusing Mr. Fry interviews experts on puns, metaphors, quotations, and clichés. These experts are also erudite and amusing.

We learn why we like bad puns; we meet metaphors with disputed histories; we hear a compiler admitting that he inserts his own quotations among the famous ones; and we are told the story of “the world's first self-cancelling cliché.”

The Takeaway: If you like discussions of language for the sake of language, you will enjoy this audiobook.

Happy New Year!

*I have no financial interest in the sales of this product.