34 - OzCLO 2021: 2 Cool 4 School

1188 turns

• linkBen Ainslie - I'll just play some filler music for everyone.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Would you, please?
• linkDaniel Midgley - music box
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Hehehe.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That was so cute that it actually did the opposite.It made the thoughts leave my head.
• linkBen Ainslie - laughs
• linkDaniel Midgley - That is the worst think music, but also the prettiest thing music I've ever heard.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Because Language theme
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hello, and welcome to this episode of Because Language, a show about linguistics, the science of language.My name is Daniel Midgley.Let's meet the team.She's a linguist, she's a former quizmaster.Now, she's a contestant.It's Hedvig Skirgård.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yay.Yes, and this episode we're doing the OzCLO again, and I'm competing instead of being Quizmaster.I am worried and nervous.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm so pumped I get to be on a team with Hedvig, not with stupid Daniel.This is going to be so great.
• linkDaniel Midgley - He garnered silver in last year's OzCLO Because Language Quiz Challenge, and now he's back to claim the gold.
• linkBen Ainslie - I've got gold in my eyes and I care about nothing else.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's Ben Ainslie.Well, we'll see how that goes.Hello, you two.Thank you for being here.
• linkBen Ainslie - Our pleasure.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Always fun.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, today is our annual-- I hope it's going to be an annual thing.Our annual OzCLO quiz thing where OzCLO is the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad.It's one of many contests where high school students solve linguistic problems to gain an awareness of linguistics and to compete against other teams.It's heaps of fun, it's educational.We love it.We want to further it, do whatever we can.So, that's going to be later on in our show.
• linkBen Ainslie - But before we do that, we find out what's going on in the world of linguistics in the week gone past.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Before we do that, our last episode was a bonus episode for patrons about the kerfuffle over the humidity and tone paper that lay burning like an underground coal fire all these many years and then burst into life because of a tweet by Decolonial Atlas.Old animosities were laid bare, old wounds refreshed.Stuff we thought had gone under the bridge had clearly not.We discussed it, as well as the implications for linguistics, what should we do.Our next bonus episode is going to be a Journal Club episode all the latest research, brought to you the best we can without actually reading the articles.Just kidding.Sometimes, we did.Make sure and be a patron so you can hear bonus episodes the moment they come out, you can hang with us on Discord, you can get merch, depending on your level.And of course, you can support the show.We are BecauseLangPod on Patreon, and thanks to all our patrons for making this show possible.
• linkBen Ainslie - So, what's in the news?Go.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.Well, we always like to keep track of racist brand names when they get a change, and there has been a new sports team.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, who's changed this time?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.This is in the land of the United States of America, is it not?
• linkDaniel Midgley - It is.This story was suggested to us by Bob on Discord, Diego on Patreon, and Cheyenne on Facebook.
• linkBen Ainslie - Wow, we got it from three different channels.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.It's Cleveland's baseball team.
• linkBen Ainslie - The Cleveland, what was their former name?
• linkDaniel Midgley - They were the Indians.and they had that silly mascot with the grin.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, okay.Yep, I remember.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yep.
• linkBen Ainslie - Like the really cartoony one.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Sorry.What sport do they play again?
• linkBen Ainslie - Baseball.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Baseball?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Baseball.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - They are changing their name from the Indians to the Guardians after the 2021 season.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay, that’s cool.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yay.I heard they named themselves that after some statues, is that right?
• linkDaniel Midgley - That is correct.If you look at the Hope Memorial Bridge, which connects downtown to Ohio city, I've never been here, but it's flanked by these enormous stone statues that are standing against these beautiful art deco pillars.They're really gorgeous, and they are known as the Guardians of Traffic.So, the name is inspired by them.Also, the team's logo is inspired by the art deco flanges that are on the bridge.It's very cool.
• linkBen Ainslie - Does this mean then that they have abandoned even tangential association with indigenous First Nation peoples, like it's just a whole different thing now?Or, are the Guardians vaguely sort of indigenous-y?
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm not a Cleveland native, but I wasn't able to detect any traces of indigenousness in the statues or the name or anything associated.I think they're steering a bit clearer.
• linkBen Ainslie - Just a total rebrand.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Rebrand.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - If I knew anything about baseball, this would be the bit where I was just like, “Hopefully, it'll let them play better too,” because sports ball.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Maybe it'll just make them play better by not having to have this discussion again and again, because I know they've been having this discussion for several years now.So, maybe just having their team and their players being able to focus on the game instead of the silly names that someone picked for them a long time ago, that sounds that should make for better sports ball.
• linkDaniel Midgley - If the Utah basketball team can call themselves the Jazz, then we can put up with all kinds of changes and incongruities and all that sort of stuff.
• linkBen Ainslie - That is a very dumb name for a team.It's true.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, they bought the New Orleans team.It made sense then.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, right.Yeah, that does make a lot more sense.laughs
• linkDaniel Midgley - I was alive for that, too.Oh, my goodness.
• linkBen Ainslie - Elder Gen-Xer.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh.This next story is about cave paintings.It was suggested by Diego on Patreon and Nikoli on Discord.
• linkBen Ainslie - What have we got?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Mm, cave paintings.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, if you go to the Gargas cave in France, you'll see cave paintings from tens of thousands of years ago, about 30,000 to 35,000 years ago.Now, we know that people had language then, but they didn't have writing.They were homo sapiens.They were just after the Neanderthals.This cave art has handprints or the outlines of handprints because you put your hand against the wall and then you blow paint on your hand and it leaves--
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, so they're like hand voids almost.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Hand turkeys.
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - They are, which I understand-- I mean, we made them in school as well.And Americans I know make them, but is when you take your hand on a piece of paper and you trace that line of your head.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, I remember that.Well, I had not made that association but thank you.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hand turkeys.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, I think that's beautiful.I don't think that pulls them down or anything.It just shows-- Yeah, no, I think it's great.It's beautiful.
• linkBen Ainslie - What you're trying to do is elevate childhood hand turkeys to the level of like, truly breathtaking cave art rather than bringing cave art down to the level of kindergarten.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, exactly.This isn't, by the way, my observation.It's actually John Green said it on The Anthropocene Reviewed, he made the same connection.He did a whole episode where he goes into the details of it.But I'm not going to do that, because I want to know more why we're talking about cave paintings.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, because some of the hands are missing some fingers.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.Well, that's not in that year, life seemed pretty tough for hunter-gatherers.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Maybe.But it may not be that so many people were walking around missing fingers.It could be another reason.
• linkBen Ainslie - Huh.They were hiding their finger underneath their hand when they blew the paint.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But why would they do that?
• linkBen Ainslie - That's what I can't quite figure out.Maybe it signified status or role or something in some way?
• linkDaniel Midgley - A team from the French National Center for Scientific Research, the acronym is the important letters backwards, Because French, they think it might be a kind of a signed language.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.crosstalkI like it.
• linkBen Ainslie - I can't believe we didn't think of that.
• linklaughter
• linkBen Ainslie - We're linguistic podcast, what else would we be talking about?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Now, the question is, why would they think that?There are a couple of reasons.Number one, the most common sign that you find-- there are a bunch of these tokens with fingers that are not depicted.The most common sign is all the fingers down, thumb out.Having that many fingers missing?Come on.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, like a sideways, okay, thumbs up.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.Also, there are some ways of placing your hands that are kind of easy to make and there are some that are hard.For example, the all fingers in thumb out, that's a one on the difficulty scale of maybe one to five.And they did make a difficulty scale based on the arrangement of muscles.If you do the horns of metal, horns of metal.crosstalkThat’s pretty easy.
• linkBen Ainslie - Metal horns, index finger and pinky finger.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Index finger, pinky finger, thumb out, but that might be a two on the difficulty scale, and that appears sometimes as well.Now, some ways of placing your hands are really, really hard.See, if you can even do this one.I can't.Put all your fingers in except for ring finger.I can't do it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, I know this.I've tried this before, it's really difficult because the joints are such that your ring finger, so that's the finger next to the right or the left of your pinky, it's connected in a funny way to your middle finger.We call it the long finger because it has to be the longest.You can't physically do it easily.You can't hold that.If you want to do a rude gesture with only that finger, it's almost impossible.I'm trying to do it now, and I can't even raise it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.The magician, Doug Henning, could do it.His dexterity was legendary.
• linkBen Ainslie - Wow.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And that one, that's a five on the difficulty scale and it never occurs on these cave paintings.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, so are we thinking that this is vaguely following the rules of spoken linguistics where really, really, really hard stuff to say happens comparatively much less of the time and really easy thing to say it happens all the time.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, if it's super hard, then they're not going to be using that as any kind of signal.Or try this one, all the rest of your fingers out, except for bend your middle finger, put middle finger in, and pinky in.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, my God.That's the same thing.It's this ring finger.I swear, it's something about the anatomy, it's joined up to-- It's just-- I'm trying.Oh, my God.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.And you can feel it in the forearm when you try and force it.When youcrosstalkup, you can feel it down below your wrist.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.Oh, I feel so bad.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's a four on the difficulty scale and it never occurred in these cave paintings, nothing above a two in difficulty.So, they might have used these signals when they needed to be quiet, like when they were hunting.In fact, lots of people do that today.And then, they sprayed these signals on the walls of the cave.
• linkBen Ainslie - Interesting.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What do you think?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I like it.
• linkBen Ainslie - I mean we know, for instance, I can only speak in the Australian Indigenous languages context, but that signed languages and adjacently signed components of the language is a super common feature for indigenous languages here in Australia, correct?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.
• linkBen Ainslie - It stands to reason, if it's here, there's no reason why it wouldn't be in other times and places.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's right.
• linkBen Ainslie - So, yeah, I can see how you would iconographically render elements of this signed part of your language onto a wall.I mean, that plays for me.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.I mean the jump from spoken language to written representation is a really big jump, because speech doesn't look like anything.But signed languages do look like something, and we can represent them visually.So, if this is right, then the first instance of writing or something like writing wouldn't be archaic Sumerian from 5000 years ago, but these signs from 30,000 years ago.That's super interesting.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That’s super cool.
• linkBen Ainslie - That is super-duper interesting.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I like that.That was really cool.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, let's go on.Peppa Pig effect.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, no.Oh, my God.Are we really?
• linkDaniel Midgley - We really are.
• linkBen Ainslie - I know where this story is going.
• linkDaniel Midgley - crosstalk
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Where is it going?
• linkBen Ainslie - This story came up so many times in my newsfeed, and because this story is what I call Boomer Love Story.This is the kind of story that boomers just froth at the mouthful.This story goes, here in Australia, we have a children's television show that is very, very popular called Bluey.Now, I stan this show just as hard as anyone else who is a parent.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Me too, big time.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm on the right track here, by the way, right, Daniel?Don't just let me carry on.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay, good.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You're doing good.
• linkBen Ainslie - Bluey is so universally adored here in Australia that in the rarest of incidences, an Australian media product is actually getting quite popular outside of Australia.It doesn't normally go that way, normally goes the other way.We get everyone else's pop culture and we love that.But apparently, Bluey is doing very well in other markets, markets such as the United States.Where apparently, certain younglings are starting to speak in an Australian accent to a certain degree and use certain Australian slang, such as most notably in all of the headlines I saw for the boomers in Australia, dunny.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Dunny.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Dunny?
• linkDaniel Midgley - There was a really good episode about language where they talked about dunny.I recommend everyone watch that one.
• linkBen Ainslie - Dunny means toilet.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Thank you.
• linkDaniel Midgley - laughsIt's related to dung.That's where it comes from, diminutive of dung.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, okay.Yeah, fair enough.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Also, kids calling breakfast “brekkie.” Okay, that's the story.Is it plausible?Is there an epidemic of Australian accents sweeping the USA?
• linkBen Ainslie - Categorically no.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I believe so, because I get accents from my podcasts.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Do you?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I think I do.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We do know that accent-wise, you're very malleable.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.Hedvig, you are the most porous person I have ever met for accents in my life.
• linkchuckles
• linkBen Ainslie - You are the worst possible benchmark for this question.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Or the best.
• linkBen Ainslie - Maybe.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I can't believe it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - Can I guess what happened?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, what happened, Ben?
• linkBen Ainslie - I suspect that the kid of some journalist in the States said a thing once or twice, and they were like, “Ha-ha.Isn't this cute?” And they wrote probably a relatively innocuous story about it.Then, a journalist in Australia was like, “Bloody too right.This will make all of the 50- to 65-year-old, boring suburban market of Australia just click on this link a bunch of times.I'm going to write heaps of stories about seppo kids with Aussie accents.” And it's not a thing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Dang, Ben, I think you got this article right.I noticed that the coverage of the Bluey effect in 2021 is much smaller than the Peppa effect as it was covered in 2019.There were stories about the Peppa effect everywhere, but the Bluey effect is, as far as I can tell, down to one interview with an ABC presenter in Melbourne and a real estate agent in Massachusetts.That's about it.
• linkBen Ainslie - By the way, I just want to state, people listen to thisonomatopoeiamedia article.I didn't click on any of these articles.If it hasn't been made clear to you, I despise this kind of journalism, as just the worst lowest form of just boring, boring news.I didn't know any of this.I was just able to guess all of this, because this is how dumb and predictable this stuff is.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But, but, but, Ben, it doesn't do any harm, and it makes people feel good.It's wholesome.It's maybe it's boring, that’s its worst crime.And maybe it's not entirely true, but it doesn't do any harm and it is cozy.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's talk about the plausibility.I don't think it's very plausible that kids are acquiring British or Australian accents from Peppa Pig or Bluey.Parents and caregivers have a much bigger impact than television.As we often say in socio, people talk like the people near them, not like the people on TV.But on the other hand, lexically, I can see them picking up words.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, exactly.You're saying that accent is pronunciation and lexicon is not accent?
• linkDaniel Midgley - That is kind of what I'm getting to, yes.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.Fair enough, I guess.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Not systematically, but for individual words.For example, my four-year-old daughter loves Go Jetters.And there was a show about geezers, and I'm like, “Geezers?What are they talking about?” It was geysers what I say in my US English, but she started saying geezers, because it's a UK show.That's what she heard.Input is input.If a child is going to pack on 10 words a day, they've got to get it from somewhere.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, totally.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, exactly.So, picking up some vocab, reasonable.Changing their pronunciation of words they already know, less plausible.Is that what you're saying?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, and causing widespread societal accent change, very, very implausible.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, just impossible.Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The more interesting aspect for me is the moral panic aspect, which hasn't shown up just yet, but we're keeping an eye on it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Finally, in the news, there's a new podcast in town, with some old friends.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ooh.Ooh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Do you know this one?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I do.I just wanted to sound surprised because I'm so excited about it, and I don't know how to sound excited without sounding surprised.
• linkBen Ainslie - chuckles
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm excited about it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - laughs
• linkBen Ainslie - What's the new podcast?I don't know about this.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's the Spectacular Vernacular podcast.It's a new language podcast from Slate to replace Lexicon Valley, which John McWhorter took independent.This one, Spectacular Vernacular, has our three-time guests Ben Zimmer and Nicole Holliday.Yes, they finally have their own podcast.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, good for them.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That's amazing.
• linkBen Ainslie - Welcome to the linguistic podcast family.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.Maybe that's the thing as well.If we have guests on for long enough, they get their own podcasts.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, obviously.“We're bored of talking to Daniel, Ben, and Hedvig.Let's get our own podcast.” But it is fun, they talked to John Linnell, from They Might Be Giants about his album all in Latin, which is Roman songs.And there's even a wordplay bit at the end because Ben Zimmer does crosswords, and they even put out the call, “If you want to play on air with us, then send us an email.” So, I wondered maybe, are you two busy later or maybe we could send them an email?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, cool.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.Wait, so are you doing crosswords on air?
• linkDaniel Midgley - So, the last one was hypervocalic words.Words with all the five vowels and potentially in order.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.Okay.Can I roster in Steve for this?Because he's really good at the Will Shortz crosswords in The New York Times.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - He's got that kind of reign, and I don't.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.Hedvig, you're out, Steve is in.Just kidding.Spectacular Vernacular, check it out on Slate.And there'll be a link on our blog, talkthetalkpodcast.com.chucklesbecauselanguage.com.
• linkBen Ainslie - Nice one.Good catch.
• linkBen Ainslie - music
• linkDaniel Midgley - We are back, and with us now is a whole bunch of great people working on a great project, the Annual OzCLO Competition, which is short for the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad.So, let's meet the people that we are talking to.First of all, I want to start with Elisabeth Mayer.Elisabeth, hello.Great to have you.Thanks for coming.
• linkElisabeth - Hello, Daniel and everyone, and thanks for inviting me.
• linkDaniel Midgley - This is your second time around.
• linkElisabeth - This is my second time around.That's right.
• linkchuckles
• linkElisabeth - Do you want to know something about OzCLO?
• linkDaniel Midgley - I would love to hear something about OzCLO.
• linkElisabeth - Well, the abbreviation is the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad.It is a state and a national competition for secondary students for years 9 to 12.And it's fun and engaging, and it's all about cracking the code of an unknown language, logic, deduction, problem solving, lateral thinking, and teamwork.In reality, what it does, it introduces students to language puzzles from which they can learn about the richness on diversity and systematic nature of language while exercising natural logic and reasoning skills in a very fun way.Typical problems, for example, would be deciphering Roman script, translating tasks involving morphological and syntactic analysis, and computational linguistic tasks, searching for phonological rules, pattern recognition, and linguistic reconstruction.
• linkElisabeth - If you want to get an idea or better idea of what I'm talking about, you can visit our website, ozclo.org.au.And you can download a preparation package and look at all the puzzles that are up there and start having fun.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It is a lot of fun.What are some of the best things that you think OzCLO accomplishes?
• linkElisabeth - It's a great gateway to bring the students to linguistics.For example, in Melbourne, there are, I think, courses in your 9 to 12 about linguistics, and that is possibly the only state that actually has courses on linguistics.Getting students into studying linguistics and from there into becoming teachers or becoming linguists and going on fieldwork and researching the fantastic languages in the world, wherever they are, like I'm going to the Amazon whenever I can just to talk to the people there and learn about how they speak, that will be great.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That is great.We are also joined by the wonderful teacher and students from Melbourne Girls Grammar School.We have with us English teacher at Melbourne Girls Grammar School and OzCLO coach, Victoria Papaioannou, and our extremely successful OzCLO students, Chelsea Hinh, Jessica Li, Rosie Nguyen, and Audrey Choi.Hello, let's start with you, Victoria.Hello, thank you for getting this together.You're the teacher that steered this crew.
• linkVictoria - Thanks, Daniel.Yes, I am.I've organized OzCLO for a couple of years now at the school and got a lovely team of four who made it to the finals this year.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What?What is it that keeps you going on this?Why are you so keen on OzCLO?
• linkVictoria - I teach English language, which is the linguistic stream of the VC English and have always just loved languages.Seeing students get involved and get really passionate and fiery when they're competing in teams at school has been really enjoyable.We started the first year with a very small team of, I think, only four students, and this year we had 32 compete, I'm pretty sure--crosstalk
• linkDaniel Midgley - Whoa.chucklesThat's huge.
• linkVictoria - That's kept me going.It's just seeing that kids are interested, and when you offer those opportunities, they just go for it and love it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Wow.Well, thank you for what you do.I'm going to go to our students, Chelsea, Audrey, Jessica, Rosie, what was the experience like for you?Audrey, you want to start us off?
• linkAudrey - To be honest, at the beginning, it was very relaxed because a lot of people were doing it.I think this is the first year that we actually did it, because obviously last year, when we first entered the seniors’ program and got the opportunity to do it, we couldn't because of lockdown and everything.So, when we first did it this year, it was a big event, and we all gathered in one space, lots of students.So, it was really fun, honestly, to begin with.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Were the puzzles hard?
• linkAudrey - Yes, definitely.
• linkPerson - Don't tell me about it.
• linkPerson - No comment.
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - Do any of you have any plans to keep going with linguistics?Was this the thing that maybe got you onto it or maybe not?Jessica, what do you think?
• linkJessica - Actually, yeah.This competition was actually my first introduction to linguistics, the actual subject of it.I kind of had an understanding of it, but I wasn't really super, super interested into it until now.So, this competition has really opened my eyes up to other studies that I might be taking to the future.I've also studied a few languages since I was young, Chinese and Vietnamese as well.All of these combined together has really just opened my eyes as this might be a future career path that I may want to take.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Awesome.Wow.Chelsea, what do you got?
• linkChelsea - Yeah, actually, for the first semester of school, I actually picked an English language elective.That was my first taster of linguistics.And then, this linguistic competition came along, and I hadn't heard anything about it until this year.So, yeah, it was just really exciting.I guess you could say I was just completely thrown headfirst into the world of linguistics.But after the first taste, I definitely want to continue.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Awesome.What do you say, Rosie?
• linkRosie - Honestly, it was pretty much a very similar experience for me as well.OzCLO was really the first linguistics challenge competition thing that I had ever done, and it was really fun.I didn't really see it as a competition.I just saw it as an opportunity to have a bit of fun with my friends, and we've gone pretty far.So, I'm pretty happy with that.
• linkBen Ainslie - My favorite kind of humble flex.Like, “I wasn't even like trying to win.I just want to have a good time, but it turns out that I just destroyed the competition anyways.Like pretty cool, pretty cool.”
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, you were finalists, you were second in the junior competition, which is really quite an accomplishment given that there were so many teams working on this.So, congratulations.We are also joined by Henry Wu, our quizmaster.Henry, what's your role in this?
• linkHenry Wu - Hello, hello.I've been involved in OzCLO for a long time now.I represent the life cycle of the OzCLO participant, because I started off as a participant at school in 2015 and 2016.I got to go to the International Linguistics Olympiad in 2016.Since I graduated high school, I then went into organizing OzCLO.I've been helping out with the organization for the last four years now, I guess, and met all these amazing linguists in my linguistics education university, like Hedvig and Elisabeth.And now, I'm running this quiz.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, you are.laughsThe apexchucklesof the lifecycle, and it's going to be a good one.We've got four different rounds, and this will test your mettle not against only each other, but against Ben and Hedvig.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yachuckles-yay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - chucklesThey are formidable.
• linkBen Ainslie - crosstalkYeah, they're a thing in one way or another.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I invigilated the IOL individual round in Germany this year.And I had a look at the problems and I had exactly the same time as the competitors, six hours, I had nothing else to do and sit there and look at them and make sure they weren't cheating, which-
• linkBen Ainslie - -is boring, is so boring.Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I looked at the problems and I was like, “I don't-- I can't-- I-- Okay.” I remember when my brain was able to do this.I'm able to do other kinds of linguistics, but that was a rough problem set, that was difficult.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And you're a professional linguist.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And I'm a professional linguist.
• linkBen Ainslie - There's a little Dr right in front of your name that is specifically about linguistics, and you were still looking at the questions and be like, “Oh, dear-- Oh, no.”
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.No, definitely.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.We need some team names.So, perhaps in chat, why don't you talk to each other?Ben and Hedvig have a secret audio channel.And you can find out what you want to call yourselves.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hedvig, can you still hear me?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I can hear you.Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Excellent.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - crosstalkI can hear both of you.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, what a good start.
• linkchuckles
• linkBen Ainslie - Ooh, maybe that should be our team name.We can be like Daniel, Ben, and Hedvig.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - laughs
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Let's do something-- You had white man tears last time.Let's do something-- Do you count as millennial?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes, technically, just.I'm an elder millennial.Are you also an elder millennial?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm millennial.Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.But you're like an older one, but we're not that far apart in age.crosstalkYeah, exactly.You're definitely an elder millennial.Let's just be the Elder Millennials.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, we're ready to come back.
• linkBen Ainslie - We have decided Daniel, that team Hedvig-Ben shall be known and must be known by all participants as the Elder Millennials.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And so you shall be.How close are you to Generation Y?
• linkBen Ainslie - Me?Very far.laughsNot very close at all.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, right.Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm right down the other end of that little generational bracket.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.Okay, cool.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I had to do algebra in my head to calculate my age.
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - muttering calculations under breath
• linkBen Ainslie - Carry the one.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I keep forgetting if it's 2020 or 2021.I feel like those two years are like the same.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's been like an 18-month fugue state of time.Yeah, fair enough.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Chelsea and Audrey, have you got a name for us?
• linkPerson - Yeah.In tribute to one of the questions that we did in the Nationals Round of OzCLO, our team name is going to be Latvian Winnie the Pooh, where Jess and I had to translate Winnie the Pooh into Latvian, and we've never done that before.So, yeah.
• linkJessica - We're so traumatized from that experience.
• linklaughter
• linkBen Ainslie - I don't know about anyone else but the picture that I conjure up, the evocative image of Latvian Winnie the Pooh, having traveled through Latvia, is just one of those super off-brand Soviet Era Western like knockoff1s, like Winnie the Pooh but just with two little dots for eyes, and just like hair.
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - Every character'sunintelligible 00:29:54.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It's great Soviet children's television.
• linkBen Ainslie - laughs
• linkDaniel Midgley - Like Worker and Parasite.I love that one.laughsSimpsons callback.Okay, let's go to Jessica and Rosie.What do you want your team name to be?
• linkPerson - A bit of background, before this little podcast recording session, I'll tell you as we moved forward, assumed that we were going to be a team before and so we had a little bit of a discussion on team names, and we had come up with the Wizards of OzCLO.
• linkchuckles
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, damn.
• linkPerson - In honor of that, we have decided to call ourselves The Better Dorothy and Toto.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.
• linkPerson - I’ll be Toto.crosstalk
• linkBen Ainslie - I like it.No stolen valor here, but still shade being thrown.I approve.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The Better Dorothy and Toto.Okay, terrific.Great.We've got names.All right, it's time for round one.This one's the warm-up round.Henry, do you want to get us started?
• linkHenry Wu - Yeah, I just want to say it's called the warm-up round in tribute to the last OzCLO quiz in which Hedvig made a warm-up round where the points actually counted.So, the same way, these points do count.It's one point for each--crosstalk
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - Starting cold.All right, let's do it.
• linkHenry Wu - Okay, so the first question is, the Stories feature on Instagram was launched in which year?It's multiple choice.A.2016.B.2017, C.2018.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, go ahead and mute yourselves, if you wish.Let's drop into chat.Ben and Hedvig, you can discuss on your secret audio channel that nobody else can hear.
• linkBen Ainslie - I don't know-- contain your surprise.I don't use Instagram stories.I feel like it was-
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Recent.
• linkBen Ainslie - No, I was going to go the other way.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I use Instagram.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I use Instagram and I feel like Instagram Stories was only introduced to combat Snapchat.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - When Snapchat became a thing, Instagram got Instagram Stories.
• linkBen Ainslie - When do we feel like-- I feel Snapchat has been around for a while now though.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But it only got-- So, what was it?
• linkBen Ainslie - Not with the little one.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - 2017, 2018, 2016?
• linkBen Ainslie - '16, '17 or '18.Okay.Should we split the difference and say '17?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I agree with that.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ready.
• linkPerson - Okay, we're ready too.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Was it 2016, 2017, or 2018?I'm going to go with the Elder Millennials first.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We think it's 2017.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Let's hear from Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
• linkchuckles
• linkPerson - I think it's 2016.
• linkDaniel Midgley - 2016 is your guess.And the Better Dorothy and Toto?
• linkPerson - We also said 2016.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Well, Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - The correct answer is 2016.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's one point for Latvian Winnie the Pooh and the Better Dorothy and Toto.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's fine.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The only way I can explain this is that when you're older, years tend to blend together and that's all I'm going to say about that.Question two.
• linkHenry Wu - Which of the following pairs of plants do not belong to the same family?We're talking about genetic family here.Is it, A, cherry trees and roses.B, water lilies and lotuses.Or, C, legumes and wattle plant.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We're trying to find the two that do not belong to the same family.Okay, drop into chat.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I feel like it's water lilies and lotuses.
• linkBen Ainslie - I was about to say the same thing.It seems such a trick question, doesn't it?Because you would think that they are the exact same family.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But then again, wattle is Australian.
• linkBen Ainslie - Or, is Henry doing a cunning double-reverse-blind kind of thing.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, he might.Is wattle only in Australia?
• linkBen Ainslie - I don't think so.I think-crosstalk
• linkPerson - Can you repeat the last one again?
• linkHenry Wu - Yeah, legumes and wattle.Legumes like the vegetable.
• linkPerson - Yeah, thank you.
• linkBen Ainslie - Legumes are nitrogen fixing, which is their key characteristic.They take nitrogen from the atmosphere and fix it in the soil.I'm just trying to remember if wattles do as well.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I just know that I'm a vegetarian, and I should eat a lot of legumes because they contain protein.
• linkDaniel Midgley - crosstalk-ready, come on back.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm going to say, I think, water lily.We both thought it.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - This is fun, being on the competing side.Last time, I was on the quizmaster side.Now, I'm like, “Oh, this is a different side.” I like it.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's the same with Dungeons & Dragons, right?DMing can be really engaging, but it's just so tiring, but being a player is just heaps of fun because you could just kick back and be like, “Hmm, I'm going to do this now.”
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I'm still having fun.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, thanks, Daniel, for taking it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - chucklesOkay, let's hear from The Better Dorothy and Toto.
• linkPerson - We still haven't really decided, but I guess we'll go with the third one, legumes and wattle.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Legumes and wattle is your answer.Latvian Winnie the Pooh?
• linkPerson - We thought cherry and rose because wattle and legumes somehow seemed a little bit too obvious because they're both interesting.
• linkDaniel Midgley - They sound different, so they must be the same.According to the rule of quiz night perversity.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yep.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Right.Okay.And Elder Millennials?
• linkBen Ainslie - Greatly, we have split the difference exactly.So, we've got three teams three answers.We went with lotuses and water lilies because we think that Henry is a cunning quizmaster who has deliberately dropped some deliberately similar-seeming things which are actually not related at all.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.Let's see if this holds.Henry, what you got?
• linkHenry Wu - Well, Ben has hit the nail on the head.The answer is the water lilies and lotuses, which are--
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes, darn, so heavy.So heavy.And let this be a lesson to everyone, metagaming is absolutely a valid strategy to do.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But you can be double bluffing as well.That's the difficult part.
• linkBen Ainslie - Actually, Henry, just so you know, like inside baseball, we actually specifically immediately both went, “We think Henry is doing a thing where blah, blah, blah, blah.” But then, we both also immediately went to, "Hang on, he could be doing a double psych out, like switcheroo."
• linkHenry Wu - This is just a warm-up round.
• linkcrosstalk
• linkchuckles
• linkDaniel Midgley - It doesn't get hard ball until later.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Fair enough.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.Okay, so that's a point for the Elder Millennials.Let's go on to number three, Henry.
• linkHenry Wu - The third question, hopefully it's quite an easy one, and it's which city will hold the 2024 Olympic Games?Is it Los Angeles, Paris, or Brisbane?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.Los Angeles, Paris, or Brisbane, 2024 Olympic Games.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Why did he say this was easy?Is it Brisbane?
• linkBen Ainslie - It's Los Angeles.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.All right.laughs
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ben's back.
• linkBen Ainslie - I've realized, Daniel.This is like you would think that person who was, A, teacher, and B, on a podcast that's supposed to be like engaging and entertaining would not necessarily be super competitive.But just then when I had my microphone muted, but Hedvig and I could like talk to each other, I started moving my face behind the microphone so I can't lipread.
• linklaughter
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, not that they would, but I'm still just like, “Ooh.crosstalkThere's a cunning advantage.”
• linkDaniel Midgley - Number one, lipreading is hard.Number two, when it's your birthday, I'm going to invent a quiz night where everyone pretends to get them wrong, and all the questions are easy just so that you will have a great time.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, that’s evil.I love it.Lipreading, I would put to you, sir, is not hard when you have established that there is only three possible options.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ah, yes, of course.As is brain scanning for that matter.Okay, let's start with Latvian Winnie the Pooh, do you have an answer?
• linkPerson - Yes.I think it's Brisbane, so we just went Paris.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, Paris is your answer.Let's go to the Elder Millennials.
• linkBen Ainslie - We went with Los Angeles.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmmkay.And The Better Dorothy and Toto?
• linkPerson - We went Paris.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Paris it is.And, Henry, answer, please?
• linkHenry Wu - And the correct answer is Paris.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, I was so certain.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wait, what?
• linkBen Ainslie - Is Los Angeles the one after that?
• linkHenry Wu - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Argh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Los Angeles again, really?Okay.Very good.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, my God.
• linkHenry Wu - And they were awarded the same year, which makes it more confusing.
• linkBen Ainslie - Dang it.
• linkHenry Wu - They were awarded at the same time, the two consecutive Olympiads.
• linkBen Ainslie - Sorry, Hedvig, I came into that one strong.I was like, “It's Los Angeles.No contest.”
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, Ben just told me, “Oh, it's this,” and I was like, “Oh, okay, all right.Fair enough.”
• linkDaniel Midgley - laughs
• linkHenry Wu - Sorry.Sorry.Stupid, stupid, stupid.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Don't worry.It's still anybody's game.That was round one.And so far, Latvian Winnie the Pooh and The Better Dorothy and Toto have twice the score that the Elder Millennials do.Let's go on, round two.Henry, take us there.
• linkHenry Wu - Round two, I've called Off Brand IOL.These are questions which take IOL questions as their starting points, but do not necessarily require IOL knowledge to solve trivia that's IOL flavored.
• linkBen Ainslie - I love this.Henry, you're my favorite.Please give us more points.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That’s very good.
• linkHenry Wu - Right.This round is two points per correct answer.We've raised the stakes.Question one, problem one in the 2007 contest held in St.Petersburg in Russia was about Braille.The tactile writing system consisting of raised dots arranged in rectangular cells, devised by the Frenchman, Louis Braille, originally for transcribing French orthography.But when did he invent the system?Was it 1724, 1824, or 1924?
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's one of the 24s, but when did Louis Braille invent the Braille system?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay, I think it's either '17 or '18.It's old.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yep.I agree, and because the way Henry worded the question was like, when did this guy originally come up with the thing that was not originally for deaf people, like the way to transcribe orthography.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Exactly.1724, they invented a lot of stuff related to the French Revolution.
• linkBen Ainslie - That's what I was thinking, but-
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That’s around about that time.
• linkBen Ainslie - -people too busy murdering everyone and liberating things to do--
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But they also were, like, “We're going to make a new calendar,” and meh, meh, meh.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.I reckon '17 then.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think so.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's the French though.There probably was another revolution at 1827 as well.chuckles
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wait, what year-- French Revolution is 1714?
• linkBen Ainslie - I would not know.I was not educated in mainland Europe.So, we did not learn those things.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - What?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, no, everyone just--
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It's likecrosstalkwas like-- Oh, yeah, mm, French Revolution, maybe not sure.
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, the French were classically his enemies.So, that makes sense.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.Okay, now I would guess 1724, yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Give me a hoy when you're back.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.When was Braille invented?Was it 1724, 1824, or 1924?We are back to the Elder Millennials.What do you got?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We think it's 1724.We think it's to do with-- I'm not going to say the reason because that then--crosstalk
• linkBen Ainslie - No, I think we should say that we look dumb if we're wrong and we look hell smart if we're right.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.I think it's right about the time when they started inventing all this stuff related to the French Revolution.They made a calendar.They just turned everything upside down.Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Heady days.We go to Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
• linkPerson - We said 1824.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, any particular reason?If you don't want to say, that's fine, if it'll give things away.
• linkPerson - We just wanted to go somewhere in the middle.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.The enlightened centrist approach.Very good.Okay, and now we're going to The Better Dorothy and Toto.
• linkPerson - Oh, yeah, we went 1824 as well.I guess--
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, no.
• linkPerson - No, it was a complete guess.1724 just seemed a bit early and 1924 seemed a bit late, so.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - You know what’s funny?Is that Hedvig and Ben had the correct reasoning, but they didn’t know the answer.
• linkBen Ainslie - But they're wrong.groans
• linkHenry Wu - The French Revolution happened at the end of the 18th century, and so the correct answer is 1824.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, yeah, it's 1789.
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - But you look hell smart.
• linkBen Ainslie - You know the worst part?Hedvig looked at me, I was just like, “Yeah, the year French Revolution was--” I just shot back to her straightaway.“Well, I wasn't educated in mainland Europe, so we don't focus on those things, because we're just likecrosstalkthe countryside." By the way, Hedvig speaks French, just throwing it out there.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I know.It was 1700s, but yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, dear.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Well, things are looking grim for the Elder Millennials, but let's go on to question two.
• linkBen Ainslie - In so many more ways than one, but yes, itcrosstalkto.
• linkBen Ainslie - chuckles
• linkHenry Wu - Okay, question two.Problem three in the 2009 contest held in Wrocław in Poland was about a certain tradition associated with Burmese names.What is this tradition?Is it, A, certain sounds are considered masculine or feminine, and thus avoided on opposite gender names?B, names are given beginning with certain letters based on the day of the week on which the child is born.Or, C, names get longer the more children a mother has so the eldest born has short name?
• linkBen Ainslie - I want all of these to be true, because they're all awesome.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Just run those past us again, Henry, if you would?
• linkHenry Wu - Yes.A, certain sounds masculine, feminine and thus avoided on opposite gender names.B, names are given beginning with certain letters based on the day of the week on which the child is born.C, the names get longer the more children a mother has.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I like all of these.Let's see what you think.Drop into chat.I'm going to start with Latvian Winnie the Pooh.Did you think it was because certain sounds are considered masculine and feminine, and thus avoided an opposite gender names?Is it based on the day of the week where the child is born?Or more children equals longer and longer names?
• linkPerson - We ended up going the last one that more children equals longer names.Honestly, because I'm the third sibling, so that would be really cool if that was me.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Like a Pokémon, right?
• linkPerson - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Morecrosstalkequals longer name.Okay, cool.Let's go with The Better Dorothy and Toto.
• linkPerson - We said feminine and masculine, just because a lot of languages do change-- the wording of certain things change depending on gender.So, yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.Yep, very commonly used strategy.Okay.And Elder Millennials?
• linkBen Ainslie - We also discussed the idea of names being a little bit different based on gender sounds, but actually, Hedvig, reckons, she's on this one, the doctor in front of her name has come to the fore, and she reckons that, and I'm throwing you completely under the bus if we get this wrong, Hedvig.laughs
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I don't reckon anything.I was at the Olympiad and I remember this.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I feel bad, Henry, but we can test if the Elder really is true in our team name, because I could also be remembering it wrong.It's completely possible.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, totally.So, wecrosstalkdays of the week.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, days of the week.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, what is it, Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - It is indeed days of the week.I hadn't considered that Hedvig might have been at one of these.
• linklaughter
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, I feel bad now.Oh, I shouldn't have said it.Oh, no.
• linkBen Ainslie - I thought it was interesting that you were outing that you were just explicitly cheating on this question.chuckles
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Sorry.Sorry.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm putting your two points in a parenthesis.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Also, we are really losing, Ben.
• linklaughter
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I can't remember my age.So, if I can remember an IOL question from many years ago, I feel that’s some sort of feat.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Right, it's fair game.You're operating with something of, in a sporting context, a handicap.So, you need to take the points where you can get them.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - laughsYes.
• linkPerson - Honestly, we thought that was the least plausible answer.
• linklaughter
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It is a weird one.
• linkHenry Wu - To be fair, it was a very tricky question.And I'm sure that all three of these traditions existed a whole bunch of different cultures, but the days of the week is actually associated with astrology.So, it's like auspicious days that people associated with.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I just loved the idea of somebody saying, “Well, here are my seven children, Maden, Taden, Waden, Thaden, Fraden and Saden and Saden." Does that mean one was born on Saturday, the other was Sunday?No, they're twins.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm interested Daniel, that you went with the 'aden' suffix of names as well, because in teaching circles, and I don't know, Victoria, if you want to agree with this or not, but everyone whose name is or ends in 'aden' is a bad person.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - What?
• linkDaniel Midgley - I knew entire families, they were Aiden, Braden, Caden and Jaden and Hayden.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ben, you can't ask that of a teacher.
• linkVictoria - Can't comment with a girl school.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, fair enough.That was, by the way, an incredibly diplomatic evasion.I think you have a strong future in politics.
• linkchuckles
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's now go on to question three, if you would, Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - Okay.The third question is, the team problem at the 2014 contest held in Beijing in China featured an Armenian translation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.But how many languages has the document been officially translated into?Is it 329, 429, or 529?
• linkDaniel Midgley - A hundred languages is a lot.That's a good spread.How many languages has the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights been translated into, 329, 429 or 529?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - This isn't the kind of-- I did a blog post that, I think, Henry has read, which is the most into translated things, and Declaration of Human Rights is really high up there.Bible is really high up, and then it's like Pinocchio is one of the highest fictional ones.crosstalkAnd I am fairly sure it's actually 329, because they do it for the major languages of the countries, and there's like 100 and--
• linkBen Ainslie - You'd have every member nation, which is like 180 something.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, exactly.I think it's 193 with South Sudan or something like that.But then, it's like how many plus ones do they do, because even if they do--
• linkBen Ainslie - A plus one for every single one of them, that would get you up into the 429 just about if you do plus one and change.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.A lot of countries-
• linkBen Ainslie - Don’t have a plus one.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - -don't have major-- like Iceland won't have a major other language.
• linkBen Ainslie - True.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And if they would, it would probably be English or Swedish or Norwegian, which already would be translated.
• linkBen Ainslie - Do you think they've translated-- because this is not a long document, right?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, it's super short.
• linkBen Ainslie - Would they have translated it into a bunch of indigenous languages, like in Australia, for example, do you think?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - They would have translated into some, I think.I know that Omniglot, you can get it for a lot of languages.
• linkDaniel Midgley - When you're ready, just come back, give us a horn.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay, 400.
• linkBen Ainslie - You want to go with the 429?Your initial thing was 329.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Something in my gut tells me 329.
• linkBen Ainslie - Let's go with 329.Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.All right.Let's do that.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ready.
• linkPerson - We're also ready.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We're back to the Elder Millennials.How many languages has the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights been translated into?
• linkBen Ainslie - So, is it my turn to explain our reasoning on this one, Hedvig?Okay.We thought that with 190 something and change member nations, if we did like a plus one for maybe a bit over half of those nations, that will get us close to 329.So, that's what we've stuck with.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Good.Okay.Let's see.Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
• linkPerson - Okay, I'm not very sure anymore because, originally, we were just thinking, there are a lot of languages in the world, somewhere upwards of 6000, 7000.So surely, it would be a high number.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Be courageous, stick with your instinct.What did you have?
• linkPerson - Okay.Originally, we said that we'd go 529 just because there are so many languages in the world.Hopefully, they tried to accommodate most of them.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What's this originally stuff?If you could, would you change now?
• linkPerson - We might have gone 429.Just because it's somewhere in the middle.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, you can't.
• linkDaniel Midgley - chuckles
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's go on to The Better Dorothy and Toto.
• linkPerson - Our answer is 329.Same reasoning as--
• linkBen Ainslie - The Elder Millennials.
• linkPerson - Yep.Sorry.
• linklaughter
• linkBen Ainslie - We are what we are.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.Take us there, Henry.
• linkHenry Wu - Well, Audrey's reasoning was completely right.It's actually 529.
• linkBen Ainslie - Argh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ah, wow.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hey, Hedvig-
• linkDaniel Midgley - You’ve got to believe in yourself.
• linkBen Ainslie - -we're really bad at this.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I know.
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - I think you might be doing worse than Ben and I did last year.No, no, no, you're doing great.It's super close.There's like one or two points spread, don't worry.
• linkBen Ainslie - How's the implication there?Ouch.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Still anybody's game.Question four.
• linkHenry Wu - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think we only have two points, Ben.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, you’ve got three.
• linkBen Ainslie - But some of those are in parentheses.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No,chucklesit can becrosstalkpoints.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, no, so we’ve got two points for that one.Sorry.
• linkBen Ainslie - laughs
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's three points for Ben and Hedvig, four points for Jessica and Rosie, and six points for Chelsea and Audrey.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, snap.crosstalk
• linkDaniel Midgley - Half as many, Ben and Hedvig.Henry, take us to number four.
• linkHenry Wu - Okay, question four.The IOL has been held three times in Bulgaria, making it the country that has hosted the contest most frequently.Which of these languages is Bulgarian most closely related to?Closely related to in the sense that English is more closely related to German and French because the split in the family tree between English and German happened more recently than English, German versus French.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.And the answers?
• linkHenry Wu - A, Macedonian.B, Greek.C, Romanian.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Which of these languages is Bulgarian most closely related to, Macedonian, Greek, or Romanian?Drop into chat, make a choice.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hedvig, come on.Now, this is where the doctor in front of your name--
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It's Macedonian.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I know it is.It's a Southeast Slavic language.Greek isn't Slavic, and Albanian isn't Slavic.
• linkBen Ainslie - He didn't say Albanian.He said Romanian.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Romanian.Romanian is romance.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It's related to French and Romany stuff.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It's Macedonian.I'm sorry.I think it's better to chitchat to have-- I was recently actually perusing the Indo-European tree for funsies.
• linkBen Ainslie - At least when we come back, can you please say that in exactly that way and delivery it incrosstalkvoice.“I was recently perusing the Indo-European family tree for funsies.”
• linkHedvig Skirgård - chucklesBecause I remember thinking that-- because it's like Serbian, Slovenian, Croatian, you know they're Slavic.And Macedonian, you could think that it's related to Greek.
• linkBen Ainslie - I would have assumed it was.Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It's not, I'm pretty sure.
• linkDaniel Midgley - When you're ready.
• linkBen Ainslie - We are ready, Daniel, and Hedvig has a delightful anecdote to share when she gives the answer.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's begin with The Better Dorothy and Toto.What you got?Which one's most closely related to Bulgarian?
• linkPerson - This one is kind of my call because we were kind of guessing here, but I think because South Slavic languages, so I'm thinking Macedonian.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, we have a guess for Macedonian.Elder Millennials?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, yes, that’s us.I almost forgot our name.See, I can't remember stuff.I'm a useless contestant.I was going to say I can cheat as much as I like, but I'm not going to cheat.We also think is Macedonian.I was perusing the Indo-European tree recently, and I was looking at Bulgarian, and I'm pretty sure Macedonian was not far from it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, and now we head over to Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
• linkPerson - Okay, our sense of geography is pretty terrible.So, this is complete guess here, going off pure instinct, and we said Romania.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm, that's going to give you some points if you're right.Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - Well, I'm glad that Jessica actually gave even though a name of a branch.This is absolutely correct.The correct answer is Macedonian.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Very good.
• linkBen Ainslie - Evening up the scores.I like it.It's anyone's game.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - We're nipping at their heels, folks.We're going to take them down.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Five, six, and six.Last question for this round.
• linkHenry Wu - Question five.The team problem at the 2019 contest held in Yongin in South Korea was about the scoring system in the sport of rhythmic gymnastics.But how many rhythmic gymnasts representing Australia are in Tokyo at the moment competing in the Olympic Games?
• linkBen Ainslie - What?What?
• linklaughter
• linkBen Ainslie - What?
• linkHenry Wu - And for this question, everyone will guess the number and the person who has the closest will win.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Just weird question.I have recently learned that in the Olympics, you have replacement.So, like the entire troupe?
• linkHenry Wu - Yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - Including replacements.Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right, off you go.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I said that.That was really smart, but that doesn't bring me any more knowledge.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm going to say Australia spends a disgusting amount of money on their sporting programs.This we know.I think the number is going to be relatively high, but I don't know what relatively high is.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - 20, because in the group gymnastics, there's five or six of them onstage.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm thinking this group for rhythmic gymnastics as opposed to the other kind, I'm going to say 20 to 30 including replacements.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - My guess was also 20.So, shall we say 25?
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay, split the difference.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Elder Millennials are ready.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Latvian Winnie the Pooh, your answer, please.
• linkPerson - Okay, we weren't exactly sure how many would actually be there, because I've watched it yesterday.It seems like there are only four people, but there are different types of gymnastics.So, we're going to go 10 just as an even number.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Gotcha.Okay, Better Dorothy and Toto.
• linkPerson - Some time a few weeks ago, I was watching a random gymnastics video.There were four on the main team and there are a few others who were just there.So, okay, cool.Jess is just having last-minute panic.
• linklaughter
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Fair enough.
• linkPerson - We're going to go 11 because we're like that.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Very good.
• linkBen Ainslie - crosstalk-system, we may well have erred here.Our logic was Australia spends a disgusting amount of money on our sporting program.So, it's going to be way higher than you would think it is, and we went with 25.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Henry, who got it?
• linkHenry Wu - laughsOkay.The people who actually watched this event will have a distinct advantage obviously, but the correct answer is six.
• linkBen Ainslie - No.
• linklaughter
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, dear.Oh no.Latvian Winnie the Pooh, although off-brand children's entertainment is destroying the competition.
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - At the end of round two, we have Ben and Hedvig, the Elder Millennials at five.We've got Jessica and Rosie, The Better Dorothy and Toto on six, and Chelsea and Audrey, Latvian Winnie the Pooh, on eight, still in lead.Elisabeth and Victoria, how do you think you'd be doing on this?
• linkElisabeth - I definitely have a few guesses in there.laughsBut--
• linkVictoria - Guesses.Yes, I got this last one right.
• linkElisabeth - I thought six for the last one though randomly.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh.crosstalk
• linkVictoria - Me too.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Wow, you should be a team.Okay, let's move on to round three.Henry, take us in.
• linkHenry Wu - Okay.Round three, we're back in the realm of linguistics family.I've called this Generational Talking for--
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, no.
• linkHenry Wu - Named after an undescribed TV program, which is about the different generations contesting their knowledge.This round will involve a list of four words and all had their first use recorded in print in the same decade, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.And you have to guess the correct decade for three points.Just as an example, the four words, dead name, twerking, neurodivergence, and the verb 'to zoom', all appeared in the 2010s for the first time.That's how the game works.The first question, radio gene, as in the biological gene.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah, not the pants.
• linkHenry Wu - Not the pants, singular gene.
• linklaughter
• linkHenry Wu - Radio gene racism, and the courtesy title Ms.M-S.And it's multiple choice.Is it, A, the 1880s?B, the 1900s?Or, C, the 1920s?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Radio gene, racism, and Ms.Was it the 1880s, 1900s, or 1920s?Drop into chat.Make your choice.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ben, Marie Curie got the Nobel Prize twice for radioactivity in the 1920s.
• linkBen Ainslie - Radio is older than that thought.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Exactly.That's what I'm saying, so it can't be 1920s.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay, good.We're on the same page.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I don't know.I'm feeling 1880s, I don't know why.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, I'm a little bit torn on this one as well.Gene is throwing me a little bit as well because I feel like that might be later.I don't know.Genes.When did we figure out genes because gene is so tiny.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - 1880s is when-- I don’t know.
• linkBen Ainslie - Microscopy.Okay, we're ready.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Great.
• linkPerson - We’re also ready.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Latvian Winnie the Pooh, did these words appear in 1880s, 1900s or 1920s?
• linkPerson - We're just going to go the 1880s, because we think that's around where the radio was invented and maybe feminism might have started coming in.So, yeah, that's our reasoning.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Sounds good.Dorothy and Toto?
• linkPerson - Yeah.We were also thinking about when the radio was invented like lightwaves and physics homework has really drilled into me, but the radio was invented in 1895.I'm pretty sure it would have appeared after the 1880s.So, it would have been 1900s.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The Elder Millennials?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Pesky youngsters with their homework and knowledge.
• linkBen Ainslie - Is it your turn, Hedvig?I think it is.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, we also guessed 1880, but just because we felt like it, I think.laughsOur reasoning wasn’t that good compared to theirs.laughs
• linkBen Ainslie - We really got old people in the question.with accent"I feel it in ma bones, it's the 1880s, for sure.”
• linkDaniel Midgley - chuckles
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.I thought it's got to be long before Marie Curie.That was the only thought I had.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - Right.Well, you can't argue with the science.And Jessica is exactly right when the radio was invented, and so the answer is the 1900s.
• linkBen Ainslie - Argh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well done.
• linkBen Ainslie - Nicely done, team.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - The 19 Noughties.
• linkBen Ainslie - laughs
• linkAudrey - Can't believe you remembered that date.
• linkDaniel Midgley - laughs
• linkPerson - Because it's really drilled into me, Choi, okay?
• linkBen Ainslie - I just have this image of a really stern physics teacher and being like, “Every single one of you remember this day, it's a day that lives in infamy.”
• linkDaniel Midgley - Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - Question two, the acronym TV, role model, DJ, again, the acronym, and the word “acronym” itself.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, wow.
• linkHenry Wu - Wast it in the 1920s, the 1930s, or the 1940s.
• linkDaniel Midgley - TV, role model, DJ or acronym?Was it the 20s, 30s, or 40s?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - TVs aren't really kicking around until the 40s, right?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, I think so.Television, TV.DJ.Also, I want to just make a point, when it comes to two-letter abbreviations, are they initialisms or acronyms?Because acronyms are the ones that you say is a word, like NASA or whatever?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.Initialisms can be pronounced--
• linkBen Ainslie - Like the OECD is an initialism, not an acronym.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.And it should be the initials.Well, there are technically abbreviations that don't have you initials like OzCLO, as in O and Z, which isn't really--
• linkBen Ainslie - So, we're going with the 40s?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Anyway, for this feature, in 40s, is that what we say?
• linkBen Ainslie - We are ready.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's start with The Better Dorothy and Toto.When did we see these words for the first time?
• linkPerson - We picked the 1930s just purely based off feelings, I guess.Random guess.chuckles
• linkDaniel Midgley - They're never wrong.Elder Millennials.
• linkBen Ainslie - We went with the 40s this time around, thinking that TV in particular is fairly recent and especially its initialization might have been even a little bit lagging after the original sort of invention.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Latvian Winnie the Pooh?
• linkPerson - We went 30s mainly because we thought the 20s was a bit early, and because going the middle is always a good option.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.Okay, Henry.
• linkBen Ainslie - Come on, Henry, do it for me, mate.
• linkHenry Wu - There is a correct answer amongst us.And it's actually Hedvig and Ben.It was the 1940s.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.And that’s three points, am I right?
• linkHenry Wu - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.That’s three.
• linkBen Ainslie - Threecrosstalkpoints.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.I like the system with points for the rounds, like third round, three points.
• linkBen Ainslie - Can I ask a linguistics question of everyone in the room?Is TV and DJ an acronym or an initialism?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Or both?
• linkVictoria - I would call them initialisms.
• linkPerson - The acronyms are when the initial spells out a word.
• linkBen Ainslie - Right, like NASA or whatever, something like that.But have we gotten to the point now where it is like T-E-E-V-E-E in some instances?And at that point does it become an acronym as well as an issue?
• linkVictoria - I guess if it's written out in that way.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.In Swedish, you wrote it out T-E-V-E.
• linkVictoria - Oh, right.Yeah.I guess that's like okay.O-K-A-Y.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, it's funny, isn't it?It's only the two letter ones that seem to get that special nether region treatment.
• linkVictoria - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Interestingly, I've seen fewer and fewer people care about the difference between initialism and acronym.That doesn't seem to matter to too many people anymore, except for clever people who ring me up on Thursday mornings on the ABC.
• linkBen Ainslie - chuckles
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And your cohost, Ben.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.
• linkVictoria - Preference between lol and LOL.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That’s a goodcrosstalkVictoria.Thank you.crosstalklol and LOL.Who says LOL?
• linkVictoria - Yeah, I don't know.chuckles
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's move on.
• linkHenry Wu - Okay, question three.The words are robot, recycle, totalitarian, and penicillin.Is it the 1910s, the 1920s, or the 1930s?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, robot, recycle, totalitarian, penicillin.Was it the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s?Make a choice.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think it's all, and I know robot is from robota in Slavic languages, which means to work.But that doesn't really help.
• linkBen Ainslie - I know robot's pretty old.I think penicillin is your-
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Penicillin is pretty old.
• linkBen Ainslie - -is your marker here, right?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Because we did not have antibiotics widely available in World War I, correct?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, wow.That's impressive knowledge.So, you're thinking 1920s?
• linkBen Ainslie - I think so.I feel like yeah, that we didn't have broad antibiotic-crosstalk
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - That’s going to be my guess.I feel we also had words instead of robot earlier than robot, like we probably had automaton was a word that we had earlier, and that sort of thing.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, what's it called?
• linkBen Ainslie - No, but I like that no one else can hear youlaughsrun now.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Something-something Turk.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, Mechanical Turk.Yeah, which we probably shouldn't say because I feel that's probably bad now.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Probably is.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay, I think we're ready, Daniel.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We are taking this one first to Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
• linkPerson - Our reasoning behind this was regarding penicillin.It was discovered, I think, at the end of the 1920s or something around there.So, if the word origin was a bit later than that, I'm guessing 1930s, so that’s our reasoning.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.1930s.And let's go with Better Dorothy and Toto.
• linkPerson - Actually, that was the same reasoning as well.We're thinking, penicillin was around 1930s
• linkDaniel Midgley - in a whisperThese people know stuff.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ooh, this is interesting, though.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes, scary.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Elder Millennials.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We were thinking 1920s for similar reasons but just that we thought penicillin was invented earlier.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, hey, Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - Right.Well, Hedvig and Ben are correct.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.
• linkHenry Wu - It's the 1920s.
• linkDaniel Midgley - laughs
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.Oh, I feel so good about this.I felt so smart when I was like, “Hey, Hedvig.I don't think penicillin was broadly available in World War I, but I don't think it was as late as the 1930s.” Yeah, oh, I feel so clever right now, so good.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You are terribly clever.And now, let's go to question four.
• linkHenry Wu - Question four.The words are the adjective 'linguistic', the word 'restaurant', sodium, and the verb 'signal'.
• linkBen Ainslie - Can I ask a clarifying question, Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - Please.
• linkBen Ainslie - Because you pronounced 'restaurant' in a French accent just then.
• linkHenry Wu - Did I?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.What was that all about?
• linkBen Ainslie - Do you mean restaurant in usage in French or in English usage?
• linkHenry Wu - No, this is English.
• linkBen Ainslie - Just clarifying.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Linguistic, the adjective.Restaurant, there.Sodium.And the verb, signal-- Oh, have you read thecrosstalkyears--
• linkHenry Wu - Yep.The options are, the 1800s, the 1850s or the 1900s.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, nice wide spread there for linguistic, restaurant, sodium and the verb, signal, 1800, 1850s or 1900s.Which one is it, make the call?
• linkBen Ainslie - I feel we can say conclusively, it's not the 1900s
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - That's too late.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I agree.Sodium feels like so many alchemists kicking around the 1800s.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, that'scrosstalksodium seems like old.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - crosstalk-impact was sodium.
• linkBen Ainslie - Sodium seems one of those fundamental ones that they would have discovered super early on.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Restaurants.For the longest time in human history, there weren’t restaurants, right?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.You’d go to an inn or something.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - If you are a rich person, you'd just get food cooked for you at home.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.100%.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Period.
• linkBen Ainslie - So, are you thinking 1850s then?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I don't know.Maybe, yeah.Maybe 1800s.What was the other words?Linguistic.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hang on, let's think about the era of the French Enlightenment and that sort of thing.That was late 18th century, early 19th century, when people were sitting at cafes and discussing philosophy and all that.Does that mean restaurants would have been around roughly the same time?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I would guess so.
• linkBen Ainslie - So, we want to go 1800s?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Let’s go with 1800s.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - When you're ready, let's bring it back.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hedvig, you explain the reasoning on this one.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We're done.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - I think everyone's done.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, great.
• linkBen Ainslie - chuckles
• linkDaniel Midgley - So, let's start with the Elder Millennials.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, we were thinking the 1800s.And we were thinking that it's like the Enlightenment era, and everyone's sitting outside cafes talking about the meaning of life and morality.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And sodium, very good.Latvian Winnie the Pooh?
• linkPerson - Similar with Jess’ physics reasoning earlier.We are kind of less educated than Jess, but we know that the periodic table was somewhere in between 1850 and 1900.We're just going to go with the 1850s.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, very good.And Better Dorothy and Toto?
• linkPerson - We were also thinking 1850s but for significantly less smart reasons.We were just like restaurant, what other word would you use for restaurant, like a food shop?
• linkBen Ainslie - laughs
• linkPerson - laughs
• linkcrosstalk
• linkPerson - Really, yeah.I was just trying to squeeze something out, but nothing came out.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Eating house.
• linklaughs
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Inn.
• linkBen Ainslie - Food hall.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, it's got legs, that term.All right.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So, what was your guess?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, same guess.
• linkPerson - Oh, yeah, 1850s.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - This could be us made in the shade here, Hedvig, if we get this one right, and those two get it wrong again.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - Well, again, there is a correct answer amongst the three teams.
• linkPerson - He said A.It's a singular--laughs
• linkDaniel Midgley - laughsGives it away, doesn’t it?
• linkHenry Wu - The answer is the 1800s.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - chuckles
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ben, we are so much better at this round than any other round.I don’t know what that says about us.
• linkBen Ainslie - High-fiving a thousand angels right now.Ah, this is so good.
• linkHenry Wu - I like the reasoning about the periodic table, but you have to remember that a lot of the elements were discovered before the periodic table was invented.
• linkBen Ainslie - This was actually a thing that-
• linkPerson - Yeah, that’s true.
• linkBen Ainslie - -Hedvig and I discussed.We reckoned that kooky sort of like polymath type of-
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Alchemist.
• linkBen Ainslie - -people without their eyebrows had found sodium fairly early on in the process.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, this means that at the end of round three, Latvian Winnie the Pooh is on eight points, The Better Dorothy and Toto is on nine.And the Elder Millennials, Ben and Hedvig have rocketed to the top at 14 points.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, yes.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, that round.Hey.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's still anybody's game though.Remember, this round, our final round is a heavy hitter.There's a lot of points here.So, don't get too comfy.
• linkBen Ainslie - They like to tease us on TikTok, but us old timey, not old, semi-old people are holding our own.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I like how we're in our 30s and we're like, “We're old.”
• linkBen Ainslie - Because do you know how many times I get called boomer by teenagers, Hedvig?It happens to me at least three times a week.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wow.
• linkBen Ainslie - That’s so unfair.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But you're not even Generation X.
• linkBen Ainslie - I know.There was an entire generation between my generation and the boomer generation and still to teenage eyes, a lot of the time, they're just like, “Yo, okay, Boomer, shut up.”
• linkDaniel Midgley - Don't worry, we're used to getting ignored.
• linkBen Ainslie - laughs
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Are you technically Boomer?No, you're not, Daniel, you're Generation X.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, I'm an early X.crosstalk
• linkBen Ainslie - An Elder Xer.
• linkDaniel Midgley - An Elder Xer.All right.This is our final round.Henry, take us in.
• linkHenry Wu - Right.This round, round four, the last round is called “Not in the Family.” The last round, we looked at when words came into English, and now we're going to look at where words come from in English.
• linkBen Ainslie - Fun.Oh, this is so good.
• linkHenry Wu - What we're going to do is try to guess the language of ultimate origin for a bunch of English loanwords, ultimate origin as in as far back as we can go.
• linkBen Ainslie - Proto-Indo-European.I win, we're done, let's go.
• linkHenry Wu - Actually, I don't know if this will be a hint, but these languages are not Indo-European, and so that's why the round is called “Not in the Family.”
• linkBen Ainslie - That's good.I like that.
• linkHenry Wu - It's a bit of an interesting structure.Okay, how this is going to work is that there'll be four words, and I'm going to give them to one at a time as hints, and you get more points, the fewer hints you get.So, if you can guess it from the first word straightaway you get a whole bunch of points.
• linkBen Ainslie - And we knock ourselves out if we guess, I assume.
• linkHenry Wu - Yes, exactly.This is going to require a bit of trust.So, you're going to have to-- at each word, I guess Daniel will ask, who would want to--
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yup.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Lock in.
• linkHenry Wu - And you can't change after you--
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Now, let's see what the scoring is.The scoring is, if you managed to nail it on the first clue, you get 10 points.
• linkBen Ainslie - 10?
• linkDaniel Midgley - 10.
• linkBen Ainslie - Good God.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - 10?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Because it's hard.If you need two to do it, you drop down to five points.If you need that third clue, you drop down to two.And if you get all four clues, then it's one point, but one point is still important.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wow.
• linkDaniel Midgley - So, there's a bit of risk, but a better reward.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That's a slope.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, yes.
• linkHenry Wu - Yeah, it's a bonanza round.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.This is question one.Henry, will you please give us the first word from this language?
• linkHenry Wu - Okay.The first word is the word 'zero'.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Now, what you got to do is drop into chat.See, if you want to guess after just hearing only this word, or decide if you're going to roll it over.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hedvig.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, my God.I was just wondering, can you really guess once per question?
• linkHenry Wu - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - If you're just trying to guess after the first word, then that was your guess.You don't get to guess again.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And all the words are from the same language?
• linkHenry Wu - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Correct for this question.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Drop into chat.Decide if you think you know it, how confident you are.And are you going to take your shot after this one clue?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I feel unsure.I know that I'm pretty sure English got the concept of zero from Arabic, algebra, and stuff.
• linkBen Ainslie - From the golden age of Arabic Enlightenment.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But I don't know if we got the word 'zero'.Arabic is not Indo-European, so that’s--
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, that's exactly what I was about to say.We haven't immediately gone to Indo-European language, so that's a good start.
• linkHenry Wu - I'm not encouraging gambling, but if you are behind, this is a good chance to pick up points.
• linkBen Ainslie - chuckles
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's true.
• linkBen Ainslie - Do we want to just try and cement our win right now with one big bold move?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Why don't we play a little bit more cautiously?I don't think we should lock in now.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.I'm writing us down and if we've cost ourselves 10 points, because I reckon, we should say proto-Semitic.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, no, I think Henry's going to mean Arabic broadly, if it is Arabic.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Please don't tell me what you think the language is.All I want to know is if you want to take your shot after hearing this one clue, but don't tell me what you think the language is.Does anybody want to take their shot and commit to an answer now?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We don't want to.
• linkBen Ainslie - We don't know.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Any other teams?
• linkAudrey - I think Chelsea and I are going to do it.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - This is bold.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wow.
• linkDaniel Midgley - If you don't mind, since you got nothing else to do for this round, send me what you think the answer is in chat.Only to me, not to all the teams.
• linkBen Ainslie - Can I ask a clarifying question of Henry?
• linkHenry Wu - Yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - Basically, are we looking to go as far sort of back in time along the linguistic family tree to find the original precursor language, or are we just looking for the actual extant language where this word came from?
• linkHenry Wu - An extant language?Not like proto-proto, whatever, whatever.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.Okay, cool.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Well, since we have one team committing.Let's go on to our next clue.Henry, if you please?
• linkHenry Wu - Okay.The second clue, and if you get it, you're going to have five points, is the word 'alcove'.For those who don't know, an alcove is a recessed part of a wall in a room.
• linkBen Ainslie - I feel like--
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That makes me think Arabic.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, that's exactly.Do we want to commit, Hedvig?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think so.I'm pretty sure--
• linkBen Ainslie - I reckon Audrey and Chelsea have got it right as well, by the way.I reckon they guessed Arabic for the same reason we did.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Hmm.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.Do you want to be cautious?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.If I'm going to play fair, then I think it's what we said.
• linkBen Ainslie - We are ready.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.All right.Is there anybody who wants to commit to after hearing these two clues?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Take your shot.
• linkBen Ainslie - We will.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We do.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Very good.Would you please send me in chat, what you think the language is, but, don’t, of course, say it out loud.
• linkPerson - We're majorly regretting committing right now.But you know,chucklescrosstalkcould gamble.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, now it's time for our third clue.And this one is only for The Better Dorothy and Toto.For Jessica and Rosie.
• linkHenry Wu - Yeah, so the third clue is the word 'alcohol'.
• linkBen Ainslie - Do we regret our decision now?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - Not yet.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Alcohol, alcove, algorithm, algebra.
• linkPerson - I think we’ve got it.Do we just say it out loud now or do we still text it?
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, why don't you go ahead and say it?The other teams have texted to me or messaged.
• linkPerson - This was all over thechucklesplace.I'm pretty sure it's Arabic, just based off the last word, alcohol.I think it's Arabic.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.What do you what do you know about that one?You've heard that one before?
• linkPerson - Yeah, I probably heard it somewhere in a fun fact sort of thing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.Okay.Ben and Hedvig also said Arabic, and Chelsey and Audrey also said Arabic.Henry?
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, no.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - gasps
• linkHenry Wu - They took a risk and it paid off.crosstalkIt's Arabic.
• linklaughter
• linkBen Ainslie - Hedvig?
• linkPerson - crosstalk-so much.laughs
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Very exciting.
• linkHenry Wu - So, just to give a rundown of what these words come from--
• linkBen Ainslie - What was the last word, by the way?Can we ask what the last word was going to be?
• linkHenry Wu - It was algebra.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.Is that true that they're all like alcohol, algebra, alcove, or at least like an article or something?
• linkHenry Wu - Yes.So, many words have been borrowed from Arabic with the definite article 'al', which means “the” basically.Algebra, alcohol, alcove, and the word 'zero' is from the word 'sifr', which means empty.t's actually a semantic loan from Sanskrit “śūnya,” because the medieval Arab world got the idea of zero notation from India.So śūnya in Sanskrit means empty--
• linkPerson - No, wait.I actually said India as the first--laughsI thought zero came from India.
• linkDaniel Midgley - chucklesvery nice.
• linkPerson - We just thought that the Arabic seemed kind of smart, and they're very old.So that was basically it.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm regretting not rolling the dice.
• linkDaniel Midgley - My favorite Arabic 'al' word is for the fruit that they had called al-birqūq.It worked its way into English, apricot, which means that the 'bir' turned into a 'pri', and that's another example of R-metathesis where the “R” changes places just like with mascarpone and comfortable.All right.Good job.
• linkBen Ainslie - Score check, how much did that pull them into line?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, so Better Dorothy and Toto is on 11.Ben and Hedvig on 19, and Latvian Winnie the Pooh, 18 big, big points.Okay, it's time for what I think is going to be our final question.The format is the same.Henry, let us in here.
• linkHenry Wu - Right.The first clue is the word “agar.” That's the stuff that they put on petri dishes.It's made of algae.Agar, A-G-A-R.
• linkDaniel Midgley - How confident are you that you know what language this is?Drop into chat.Make your decision and then let me know if you're ready to commit.
• linkBen Ainslie - I do not feel confident out of the gate the way I did with zero.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, me neither.I was going to say Korean, they're mad for seaweed.
• linkBen Ainslie - I feel this is Greek or something.This feels a Greek-y kind of word.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think none of them are Indo-European, and Greek is Indo-European.
• linkBen Ainslie - Sorry.Korean, yeah?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We're not confident enough to lock in.
• linkBen Ainslie - It does not sound Japanese.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Also, Korean, I don't think are loving that R at the end.Agar.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, true.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It could have been agar and-crosstalk
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, true.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm not sure.I don't think we should lock in.
• linkBen Ainslie - No, I'm not confident.Okay, we are not confident and not locking in and answering.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Very good.Any other team is ready to commit?
• linkAudrey - I think Chelsea and I are going to commit again.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, wow.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wow.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, my gosh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - crosstalk-gamblers.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, Audrey and Chelsea.Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
• linkPerson - We're also committed.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, my gosh.Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wow.What did they know that we don't know?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, this could be all kinds of ways.All right.In that case, would you please send me your answer in chat, and Ben and Hedvig, get ready for your next clue.
• linkHenry Wu - Okay, so the next clue is the word 'cockatoo', the bird.Cockatoo.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah, what?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ben, go to mute.Agar and cockatoo from the same language?
• linkBen Ainslie - How is that?Gee willikers, Hedvig.I don't know what this could possibly be.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Too late, Audrey.
• linkPerson - crosstalk- Chelsea.chuckles
• linkPerson - You definitely tried to change, didn't you?
• linkBen Ainslie - Jeez, I can't-- I cannot--
• linkPerson - If it makes you feel any better, Audrey, we're also freaking out over here.
• linkAudrey - Yeah, we did complete 360 when he just said cockatoo.
• linkPerson - Yeah, we justcrosstalklike, “Oh, I think, it's the other one.”
• linkchuckles
• linkHedvig Skirgård - What about Thai?I'm just saying.
• linkBen Ainslie - Thai.
• linkHenry Wu - Why do I feel nervous?
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - You kind of tensed up a little bit.
• linkBen Ainslie - But is there cockatoos anywhere but Australia?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I know I'm confused as well.But the word could come from somewhere else.No, not really.Malay?
• linkPerson - I saw her math board.
• linkBen Ainslie - Indonesian?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, one of like-- Bahasa or something.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.I'm still not feeling confident on this, to be honest.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, me neither.I want another one.
• linkBen Ainslie - We politely think that Henry is a monster for putting the word 'cockatoo' after the word 'agar' and have no idea and would like a third clue, please.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Are you ready to commit?
• linkBen Ainslie - Negative.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - No, not at all.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.
• linkBen Ainslie - We are less ready to commit after the second word than we would have been at the first.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, we were more sure at the first one.
• linkHenry Wu - Well, the third one is actually also sort of animal themed.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Evil.
• linkHenry Wu - And it's the animal, 'pangolin'.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.Don't forget to mute yourself first, Hedvig.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You can go ahead and discuss openly because the other teams have sent me their answer.
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, should we do that?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Pangolin is a thing in Indonesia.
• linkBen Ainslie - The pangolin, is it?I thought it was in South America.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - South Am-- Ah-- Oh.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hang on.Should we have a discussion so that everyone can laugh at us?I've unmuted myself.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay, all right.We're going to have a discussion in general.We're really, really confused.We were maybe it's some sort of Bahasa, like Indonesian, Malay.And then we're like, maybe this Korean, now we're like, somewhere in South America.We're really all over the place.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, I could have sworn the Pangolin was a South American animal and the cockatoo is like an Australian animal and--onomatopoeia
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I thought pangolins were a thing in South Africa.We're really doing-- we just need something for Europe and North America, and then we've done all continents.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I really just thought that cockatoo was supposed to be imitative, like all birds.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.I don't know.I still-- Argh.I could take a guess, but that's all it would be at this point.I have no idea.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - If you think South America, then it's going to be one of Quechuas.But that's where we get the chocolate and those things, not--
• linkBen Ainslie - It's also worth remembering, Hedvig, and this does happen decade to decade, every now and then, I could be wrong about where the pangolin comes from.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Where there are pangolins and also people who are really into seaweed.That's my hard-- There are a lot of weird animals in Wallacea in Indonesia, so if we say Bahasa, then we cover like 30 different languages, what do you think?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hey, no fair.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.I think we need the final clue, to be honest, even if it gives us one point.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I think so too.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's a language whose name means language.Okay.What's our-- No, just kidding.What's our last clue?
• linkHenry Wu - So, the last clue, probably the one that everyone is looking for, is another animal and it's the orangutan.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, okay.Then, it is some sort of Indonesian, Malay, one of them, because orang means person, utan means forest.It's people from the forest, but God knows which one of all the things.
• linkBen Ainslie - There are a lot of languages there.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Let's just say Indonesian and hope that he gives it to us.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Even though that's also really broad.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, that thing was created in -- Yeah, Indonesian.Sure.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.We're going to say Indonesian.If it's Malay, I won't have a point, at least or one point.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Henry, would we say that Malay and Indonesian are equivalent terms?Whether this is right or wrong, can we say that they're equivalent?Would you give the same point to both?
• linkHenry Wu - Uh, hypothetically, yes, I would.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, that doesn't sound promising at all.laughs
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, let's treat it as equivalent.So, you've all functionally guessed the same answer, because both Latvian Winnie the Pooh and The Better Dorothy and Toto have said Malay, and immediately regretted their decision.Hmm.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, I really hope we're all wrong.I really hope we're all wrong.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That means if you're all wrong, then it's Elder Millennials on 19, Latvian Winnie the Pooh on 18, and The Better Dorothy and Toto on 11.But if you all got it right, then, well, it's Latvian Winnie the Pooh in first place on 28.It's The Better Dorothy and Toto in second place on 21.And Ben and Hedvig in last place, the Elder Millennials on 20.This depends on whether you got it right or wrong.Henry?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - My lord.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Did they get it right?
• linkHenry Wu - Let me just say, I am very, very impressed by the goal to guess-
• linkDaniel Midgley - The audacity.
• linkHenry Wu - -on agar.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Me too.
• linkHenry Wu - For that alone, congratulations.And I can say that the correct answer is indeed Malay.
• linkBen Ainslie - groans
• linkDaniel Midgley - laughs
• linkPerson - -amazing.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We went from first place to last place.
• linkChelsea - Literally, my only logic was that agar-agar is in a lot of Malaysian desserts, because agar-agar I know.
• linkPerson - Yeah, that was me, too.Agar-agar is Malaysian.I was like, “I think I'm pretty sure.”
• linkChelsea - Yeah, I was just relying on Audrey's extensive watching of MasterChef to get us through this, and I'm happy to say it did.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, wow.
• linklaughter
• linkPerson - What a game changer.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ben and Hedvig, the Elder Millennials, strolling into last place on 20.We've got The Better Dorothy and Toto in second place on 21.And props to Latvian Winnie the Pooh taking the game at 28 big points, big ups for all of you.Thank you for playing.
• linkBen Ainslie - Bravo.
• linkDaniel Midgley - How does it feel?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - The boldness to guess so early in both times, I'm very impressed with your knowledge.But most of all, I'm impressed with the pure goal, like the-- What’s it called?It's not the same as chutzpah.The bravery, it's very impressive.
• linkBen Ainslie - Look, I've been told explicitly, I wasn't allowed to swear in this, but if I was right now, I have some choice words about these individuals right here and what they were willing to just put on the line.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - There's a good word in Australian.
• linkPerson - Honestly, I've watched The Chase like so many nights, and every time I just want the contestant to take the top offer, and they never do.So, you know what, this is just my equivalent, just take the gamble and go big.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And you did so well of it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Chelsea and Audrey, congratulations on your win.Jessica and Rosie congratulations as well
• linkPerson - That was thrilling.I'm sitting down, but that I've worked up a sweat.
• linklaughter
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, you know who really won today?Science.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, boo, boo.Boo you and your generalist.As losers, I can say that forget about science, I wanted to win.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Was the real prize the friends we made along the way?
• linkBen Ainslie - No.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - The real prize is winning, Daniel.
• linklaughter
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We didn't.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And you didn't.But Audrey Choi, Chelsea Hinh, Jessica Li, and Rosie Nguyen, thank you so much for playing with us.
• linkPerson - Thank you so much for having us.
• linkPerson - Thank you.
• linkPerson - It was really fun.Yeah.
• linkPerson - Yeah.That's really funny.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Victoria Papaioannou and Dr.Elisabeth Mayer, thank you for being here.
• linkVictoria - Thanks for having us.
• linkElisabeth - Same here.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Elisabeth, if there's a linguistically minded teacher or person or just listener who wants to help with OzCLO, NACLO, or the other linguistic olympiads along the way, you've mentioned that there are games that they can play on the website, and we'll have a link to that on our blog becauselanguage.com.What else could someone do if they wanted to help the cause?
• linkElisabeth - They could simply steer every young person they know towards the webpage, for example.I think that would be a really good idea.Just make it known around, include all their friends and everyone, but specifically the young people.That would be really good, because I think they would love it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, it happens all too often that people only discover the linguistic olympiad when they're in their senior year, or even some people like me, only when they finished high school.I never got to compete in the Olympiad because no one told me about it while I was in high school.So, tell a friend about it.This goes actually for all of our international listeners as well, because there are national olympians all over the globe.There's probably one in the country you're listening in.So, tell them that linguistic olympiads are a thing and that they should go look their local one up.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Henry, thank you so much for being such a great quizmaster and writing such fiendishly devious questions.
• linkHenry Wu - I immensely enjoyed trying to create the most complex and interesting, language tangential, let's say, questions.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, that's--
• linkDaniel Midgley - Language adjacent.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, I love that.
• linkchuckles
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ben and Hedvig, thanks.Thanks for playing.There's always next year.
• linkBen Ainslie - Our pleasure.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - music
• linkDaniel Midgley - Good job, you guys.GG.
• linkBen Ainslie - F this.F you.F everyone.That's all I have to say without swearing.
• linkchuckles
• linkDaniel Midgley - Good quiz though.I really enjoyed those questions.
• linkBen Ainslie - That was heaps of fun.I thought all those teams did such great work, especially right at the end there where they destroyed us.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I was very impressed by the narrative of it all.The teams went from very few points to very many points.Henry designed a very fun, exciting quiz.
• linkBen Ainslie - Absolutely.All the hallmarks of a really good boardgame.A dynamic game where the lead can change at any moment based on how well people perform.Of course, I hate it because they changed on me from winning to losing.But other than that, yeah, great.Just great.Loved it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, it was awesome.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But now, it's time for Word of the Week.Hedvig, I think you've got the first word.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes, I have the first Word of the Week.It is Teflon-kandidaten.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.
• linkBen Ainslie - Teflon candidate.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes, exactly.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I think I know what this is.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Do you?This word comes to us from German, but it also occurs in Swedish as Teflon-politiker.So, what do you think it means?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I've been hearing about this for a really long time.But Ben, you've got this right, you're across--
• linkBen Ainslie - I don't know.The funniest thing is the way I relate to this word is that there was a person who I worked with once upon a time who famously other people would describe as like a Teflon employee, no matter how sort of like mediocrely this particular individual performed, just nothing stuck and they just always seem to just keep on truckin'.So that's what, and then I heard the word candidate.So, I was like, “Oh, okay, like that, but for a politician.”
• linkDaniel Midgley - But what is this doing in German?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, in German, particularly right now, there's an election going on.And the CDU, so the Christian Democratic Party, which is the biggest party here in Germany, their candidate for Chancellor position, Armin Laschet, has for a long time been called the Teflon Candidate, because whatever scandals or whatever missteps he does, doesn't seem to stick to him.However, recently, things seem to be sticking more.So, he's been in the news as the Teflon Candidate who's no longer a Teflon Candidate.And it has the same use in Swedish except we just say Teflon-Politicians.I think you can compound it with whatever you like.Teflon employee sounds reasonable as well.But, yeah, I've seen it a lot in the German news this week.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, well.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hedvig, did you just say that the Christian Democratic Party is the biggest party in Germany?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - Really?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Wow.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Are they terrible?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, Angela Merkel is their chancellor.European politics, Christian Democrats.
• linkBen Ainslie - But hang on.There's a guy who's competing internally against Merkel or is she just stepping down?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Merkel is resigning.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay, fair enough.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'll bring European News.“Angela Merkel is resigning as Chancellor of Germany.And there is currently an election going on.” And, yeah, the Christian Democrats is the largest party.There's also CSU, which is the Christian Democrats, but only in Bavaria.They have a mutually exclusive agreement that the National Party will not campaign in Bavaria, and the Bavarian party will not campaign outside of Bavaria.It's very strange.They're in a weird union.There's lots of other parties going on.Christian Democrats is a thing that exists in Europe minus UK.We have them in Sweden, they have them in France, they're a thing.
• linkBen Ainslie - Are they a centrist left party?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - They're centrist right, I would say.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, the term Teflon President first appeared in English in 1983, because Democratic Congresswoman, Patricia Schroeder, of Colorado, sort of coined it.Reagan was a terrible but popular president and nothing-- it's not really true that nothing stuck to him.His popularity did go up and down with the unemployment rate, and then it really created after Iran-Contra.So, things really did stick to him, but he had this aura of invincibility.When things failed to go badly for him, Democrats really hated that.So, he got the name Teflon President.
• linkBen Ainslie - Next word.
• linkDaniel Midgley - This one was suggested by Rhian on Discord.I'll just read this.This is from the BBC.“A record number of people who've come into contact with an infected person are self-isolating, most of them having been pinged by the National Health Service contact tracing app.It's called a 'pingdemic.'”
• linkBen Ainslie - Pingdemic, I like it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Also, been spotted in Swedish publications, at least.That's what I heard.Hedvig, have you seen this around?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, I haven't but I've noticed online that I use ping a lot more than other people.Like if there's something on Twitter or Facebook and I want to tag someone, I'll go, “Ping, Ben Ainslie.”
• linkDaniel Midgley - I do that too.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'll write the word 'ping'.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Also, that is the only word in the text if I'm trying to get someone's reaction, and they haven't responded quickly.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And it comes from the term, like how you measure speed and networks.You say ping time because you send a message and then ping and then you get pong back.
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, hang on.Don't we need to go a bit further back in the etymological chain though, because that's not where it originated.It was submariners who used it first, weren't they?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.Don’t know.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's check though.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.I believe the networking terminology was borrowed from the navy, because in submarines when you want to locate adversaries, you send out an echolocation ping and you literally listen for thepong.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I was watching Das Boot in the last few months.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, so good.
• linkBen Ainslie - Series or the original?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - The old movie.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, man.What a film.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, terrifying.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, what a film.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, it looks like the meaning that Ben is referring to dates from about 1943.But according to etymonline, the Online Etymology Dictionary, it originally in 1835, referred to the sound of a bullet whistling through the air or striking something sharplyping.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, so I guess, it was in submariner terms, you would hear the ping and they called it a ping because it's onomatopoeic, just ping was for like bullets in the 1800s.So, I think the networking guys deliberately knowingly borrowed it from submariners.Submariners just used it because that's the word we used for the sound of something going ping.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Our friend,unintelligible [01:40:59on Discord comments, “Not going to lie, NGL, I kind of hate it as a word.It's just trying to shift the blame for everyone needing to self-isolate on to the app for pinging people, instead of recognizing the fact that it's pinging people because everyone's catching COVID.But, hey, interesting new word, at least, LOL.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I agree.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's good.I agree.Finally, HODL.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.Hodl gang, hodl gang, hodl gang.Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hodl gang?I haven't seen that one.But what domain are we talking?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Did you not know there's a series of rap music associated with cryptocurrencies?
• linkchuckles
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, God.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, no.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, Jesus.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - chucklesAnd people talk about being in the Hodl Gang.Yeah, I know about this.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It started as a misspelling like pwn, or own, prwn and snek but it means?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It means to hold on to your cryptocurrencies, even though times are rough.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yep, or stock.I've seen it in terms of stock a lot of times.
• linkBen Ainslie - So, like weathering the storm kind of thing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, pretty much.This was exciting to trace because I took it back to the-- this wasn't too hard.It goes back to a forum on Bitcoin talk.The post was “I AM HODLING.” This is in 2013, someone named GameKyuubi.“I AM HODLING.” And then they go on to say, “I typed that title twice, because I knew it was wrong the first time, still wrong, w/e,” whatever.So, it was cool to see the origin of that term 'hodl' is still out there.And it's--
• linkBen Ainslie - crosstalk-it's an authentic typo etymology as well.That is unambiguously-- Yep, I stuffed that up, but whatever.Keeping it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, lately, people have tried to give it a backronym, people say, “Oh, no, it really stands for,” and people do this all the time, stands for, “Hold on for dear life,” hodl.
• linkBen Ainslie - That’s a fun backronym, but yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's a fun backronym but it's just a comical misspelling.And so, if you hold on to your stocks, you are hodling.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah, those are fun ones.I like that.That somewhat solves the burn of losing so awfully in the last question.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Teflon-kandidaten, pingdemic and HODL are Words of the Week.Thanks, everybody.
• linkDaniel Midgley - music
• linkHedvig Skirgård - If you're enjoying the show, and you want to tell us how amazing we are, or if you heard us mispronounce or say anything wrong, we don't care.If you just want to talk to us, we like being talked to.You can give us questions, comments, feedback, say hi, you can get in touch with us on all the places we are BecauseLangPod on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon, Patreon, TikTok, Clubhouse, and Substack.You can also send us a good old-fashioned email at hello@becauselanguage.com.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And if you did enjoy the show, and you want to tell someone else about it, we'd really appreciate that because that's how people find things these days.No one cares about Twitter sponsoring or inserting things into your feed.It's about personal contact, isn't it all?So, please tell a friend about us if you can and if you like the show.This is something, for example, that Dustman of the podcast, Sandman Stories, does.He very bravely recommends it to people on Twitter.It would also be really cool if you left us a review, most importantly on iTunes Store where we exist as Because Language.Even if you listen to us on another app, you can log into iTunes from somewhere else and leave us a review.That'd be really cool of you, because that helps us in the rankings and that lets other people know about the show.Doing all those things will help people find us.
• linkBen Ainslie - Another way you can help us is by becoming one of our amazing patrons who support the show.Because of our patrons we can make episodes and release them for free, without any of those hell, annoying ads.We can also, and this is one of my personal favorite things that we do with patron money, make transcripts not only so that our show is accessible to people who can't hear, but also, so that if you ever want to, you can go through and search for that one thing we said that one time in that one episode, that's what transcripts do.And thank you to Maya Klein of Voicing Words who transcribes all of our shows/apologies to Maya Klein of Voicing Words who transcribes all of our shows.
• linkchuckles
• linkBen Ainslie - Now finally, here are some of our top patrons.They areinhales deeplyDustin, Termy, Chris B, Chris L, Matt, Whitney, Damien, JoAnna, Helen, Bob, Jack, Kitty, Lord Mortis, Elías, Erica, Michael, Larry, Binh, Kristofer, Andy, Maj, James, Nigel, Kate, Jen, Nasrin, River, Nikoli, Ayesha, Moe, Steele, Andrew, Manú, James-- Ah, I took a breath.Rodger, Rhian, Jonathan, Colleen, glyph, Ignacio, Kevin, Jeff, Dave H, Andy from Logophilius, and now Samantha!Thanks to all of our patrons for your support!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Our theme music has been written and performed by Drew Krapljanov, a member of Ryan Beno and Didion's Bible.Thanks for listening.We'll see you next time, Because Language.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's so funny to watch this on Zoom, because you can see when our competitors are furiously conversing, not because you see them talking, but because you see them looking down very intently.
• linklaughter