The original co-host of 'A Way With Words' had a special ear for the way we pronounce — and mispronounce — the English language
Charles Harrington Elster, a writer who turned a love of the English language into a career that included the public radio show “A Way With Words” and a dozen books about pronunciation, vocabulary and style, died Wednesday at his home in Kensington. He was 65.By his own admission, Elster was “a man seduced by the sound of syllables and caught in the web of words,” but he wasn’t stuffy about it. His works were for everyday people, and punctuated often by humor.
He went to Yale University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in American Studies in 1981. Yale is also where he met his future wife, who told him after graduation that she wanted to return to her hometown, San Diego. In 1998, he and fellow logophile Richard Lederer began co-hosting “A Way With Words” on KPBS-FM, a weekly show that featured questions from listeners about vocabulary, etymology, puns, grammar, anagrams and other wordplay.
Losing the show didn’t mean losing his voice. Elster narrated audio books and appeared on other radio programs around the country. He also served on the San Diego city Board of Library Commissioners as it worked toward the new Central Library that opened in 2013.
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