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Up To Date

Pulling Up The Roots Of Words

Ever wonder where the word hornswoggle comes from? How about doubloon?

On Monday's Up to Date, we'll pull up the roots on some forgotten-yet-delightful words—and a few insults— from eras past as we talk with author Lesley M.M. Blume about her book, Let's Bring Back: The Lost Language Edition.

Lesley M. M. Blume is an author, journalist, and cultural observer based in New York City. She began her career at The Jordan Times in Amman and Cronkite Productions in New York City. She later became an off-air reporter and researcher for ABC News Nightline with Ted Koppel in Washington, D.C., where she helped cover the historic presidential election in 2000, the 9/11 attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a myriad of other events and topics.   Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Vogue, Slate, The Daily Beast, The Wall Street Journal and Departures magazine. She co-created and served as founding editor of The Window, Barneys New York’s online fashion and culture magazine, and is also The Huffington Post‘s longtime contributing style editor.   Her previous books include others in the Let’s Bring Back series, It Happened Here, Modern Fairies, Dwarves, Goblins, and Other Nasties, The Wondrous Journals of Wendell Wellington Wiggins and Tennyson.   She studied history at Williams College, Oxford University, and Cambridge University, where she was a Herchel Smith scholar.

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When I host Up To Date each morning at 9, my aim is to engage the community in conversations about the Kansas City area’s challenges, hopes and opportunities. I try to ask the questions that listeners want answered about the day’s most pressing issues and provide a place for residents to engage directly with newsmakers. Reach me at steve@kcur.org or on Twitter @stevekraske.