71 - You're Welcome, English!

1009 turns

• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, my god.Okay.We are derailed before hitting any point in our run sheet.
• linkBen Ainslie - That's true.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I believe that the preshow chatter serves a purpose.Like um and uh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Are we ready?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm going to just be quiet.
• linkBen Ainslie - Me, too.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's begin.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Because Language theme
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hello, and welcome to this very special LingFest23 episode of Because Language.A show about linguistics, the science of language.My name is Daniel Midgley.Let's meet the team!He's known around here as the Dice Man.Raka taka taka taka!
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkDaniel Midgley - But unfortunately…
• linkBen Ainslie - laughsOh, god.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Love it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - …he doesn't know why because he doesn't have a memory that lasts two shows back.
• linkBen Ainslie - No.That's absolutely accurate.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's a reference to whether you say ee-ither or eye-ther and it's just random.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, I see.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That bonus episode.
• linkBen Ainslie - I thought it was an oblique reference to the obscure, terrible, like, '80s book, The Dice Man?that was just a morally repugnant story about a guy who lived his life that way.Which is not inaccurate, also, I guess.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I think I've read that.It's Ben Ainslie.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hellooo.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And:even if no Zoomer ever thought she was cool, she is still undeniably and perpetually cool.LAUGHTERIt's Hedvig Skirgård.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeeeaah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeeeaah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Dig that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.I'm…
• linkDaniel Midgley - And hello to…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Hmm.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.No, no, forge ahead, Hedvig.You're the one.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, I was just going to talk bullshit.That’s fine!LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - We'll have plenty of chances for that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.No, it's going to happen.Don't worry about it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Hello to everyone joining us on Zoom.You are our wonderful patrons who give us ideas, who give us financial support.You make it possible to keep the show going, paying our bills, and you are the reason why the regular episodes are free for everyone.So, thanks for being here.This is a chance to have fun.We're going to do something really special, and that is we're going to be voting on tricky language issues.Our votes from this episode will be binding on all English users for all time because that's how language works.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.No one elected us.We were summoned by a higher being.And…that's it.The higher being, being Daniel.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Do you remember the last one of these that we did?It was a couple of years ago.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I did!I do.Yeah yeah yeah.We decided lots of stuff.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, me too.Me too.Me too.Yeah, for sure.It was really good.I really liked it.I have a memory of it.It's a really strong memory.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, I enjoyed it.I just remember discussing back and forth a lot.Now, I don't always recall which one won,LAUGHTERbut I recall having a good time.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I'll tell you.We decided in that episode that when you turn the aircon "down", the room gets…
• linkBen Ainslie - Warmer.
• linkDaniel Midgley - …warmer.
• linkBen Ainslie - Good.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We determined that fish were indeed wet.
• linkBen Ainslie - Obviously.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And water is wet.
• linkBen Ainslie - Obviously.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We decided that if a test was deceptively simple, it was…easy or hard?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Easy.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hard.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It was easy.That's what we decided.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay, well, that's obviously wrong because I don't agree with it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, that's too bad, because you were there.You could have said something at the time.
• linkBen Ainslie - I almost certainly did at length.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Pretty sure he did, yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Actually, I think you did, yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ad nauseam.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We decided that if something happened "biweekly", it was not every two weeks, but it was twice a week.
• linkBen Ainslie - Obviously.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It was close.Oh, and we decided that if it's Saturday and you say next Monday, then it's Monday week.But if it's Saturday and I say, "Let's get together next Friday," then it's the coming Friday.It's like four or five days is like some kind of "next" limit.You can't say it's the next one before when it's two or three days;it has to be six or seven.Okay…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I'm with that one.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ben looks with disapproval!Ben doesn't like this one.
• linkBen Ainslie - I protest.LAUGHSI protest.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, we have new topics to argue about.
• linkBen AinslieDaniel Midgley - Yes!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, we do.
• linkBen Ainslie - Good.And argue I shall.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But first!Lead us in, Ben.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, yup.Show notes.That's the thing.Hold on, one second.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, you just have to do the thing that you do where you lead me in.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, okay, cool.I can…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - We say, "What’s going on?" And the…
• linkBen Ainslie - Let's Hedvig have a crack.She's been doing the show for, I don’t know, years now.I reckon she's up to the task.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - No…
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, Daniel thinks I'm not.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, my god.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And I honestly think I'm not.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Acting!
• linkBen Ainslie - I think we just found one of Daniel's, like, ASD-adjacent icks, because that was deep.That ran deep in his soul.He was just like, "I don't want that.I don't want that at all."
• linkDaniel Midgley - Was that convincing?You bought that?Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, yeah yeah yeah.That's what you were doing, Daniel.Good cover.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, no!That was real.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I want to hear it.I want Hedvig.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, I accept that I'm not good at everything.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That's fine.
• linkBen Ainslie - I don't think that's actually what's being reflected here!I think Daniel just has a completely irrational aversion immediately in his soul to that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hedvig, take it.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hey, Daniel, what's been going on in the world of linguistics in the week gone past?
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, I don't want you.I want Hedvig.Do it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - PAUSENo.LAUGHTERSorry.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Augh.This is mutiny!Fine.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hey, Daniel.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes?No!No.
• linkBen Ainslie - What the bloody hell has been going on in the world of linguistics?Tell me!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Give it to Kitty!
• linkBen Ainslie - Tell me the news, you bastard!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, fuck it.Okay, this one was suggested by Rhian and it's about Australian money.So this is going to have a lot of breadth.It seems that King Charles will not appear on the new Australian $5 note.It's not a five-pound note either.Take that, monarchists.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHTER
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Fair enough.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The worst person in Australian politics, whose name is…
• linkBen Ainslie - Peter Dutton, I'm going with.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Thank you.Very good.
• linkBen Ainslie - Good.There's competition, by the way.I don't feel like that's a lock.I feel like we could definitely throw some other names forward, but.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - There's a famous Queenslander woman that maybe…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, that one.That one.Time could have been that we could have said Christopher Pyne, of all things.Remember those days?
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah.Everyone's favorite mummy.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yep.But no, Peter Dutton.He said, "It was another attack on our systems, on our society, and our institutions." To which I say, "Challenge accepted."
• linkBen Ainslie - Can I profess a ignorance around how, like, money works when famous royals die?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well…
• linkBen Ainslie - Can someone just run me through what's happening in England, first of all.Like, do they just change all their money?
• linkDaniel Midgley - There's a new sheriff in town.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - From the time that it happens, they just start printing different money?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, they're printing money all the time.
• linkBen Ainslie - That I understand.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And then, they change the design.And then the old money, as long as it's within a certain period, is still valid currency.Yes, I think it is.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes, that I all get.What I'm asking is, have they immediately, like the day Prince Charles took the throne, did all the new everything that's getting stamped and printed now have his visage on the back?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, first of all, the corrie-bobs are in May.It hasn't happened yet.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Corrie-bob?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Coronation.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Coronation.Oh, my god.Oh, no.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hang on a second.Who the fuck is in charge?My understanding is, like, the queen who died, she went up a tree a princess and came down a queen, because her dad died.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, anybody want to jump in and tell us who's in charge right now?
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, obviously, I chose the wrong words.The royals aren't in charge.Who is the king or queen at the moment?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Is it the king consort?
• linkAnnie - He's officially the king, but he hasn't been coronated yet.He officially became our king immediately.
• linkBen Ainslie - Right.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Thank you, Annie.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hang on, do we tie the money to the coronation?Is that how this wor…?This is very odd.
• linkAnnie - I've heard that there's a lot of money coming out that's going to still be the queen for quite a while, because those plans have been in the works for a long time.And I actually am not sure when the king's money would come out, but I think we can be prepared to have queen money for quite a while.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And in Australia, we're also going to have queen money for quite a while.There won't be a change for quite a bit.That needs to be planned and things.However, it looks like we are going to have, not an Aboriginal person, but rather an Aboriginal theme.That's according to the head of the RBA, the Reserve Bank.
• linkBen Ainslie - Wait, as in instead of the king or the queen?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Correct.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - King Charles won't be on there.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Maybe like artwork or something?
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah, cool cool cool cool cool.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, something like that.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay, so we buried the lede on that one because you said King Charles isn't going to be on it.I assumed Lizzie was just going to keep rocking the pearls.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, right.No, not really.
• linkBen Ainslie - Wicked!That's great news.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Here's how this usually works.The queen usually ends up on the lowest denomination note, and she was on the paper $1 note, but that got discontinued in 1984 and moved over to coins.So then, the five-dollar note became the lowest one and so the five-dollar note got her picture on it in 1992.
• linkBen Ainslie - Wicked.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But now, we're going to not have Prince/King Charles on the money.I think that's huge.I think that not having the monarchy on our money, that's kind of bigger than when Triple J decided not to have the Hottest 100 vote on Australia Day, January 26th, I think.
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, okay, you picked a similarly not-huge thing though.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I think they're both huge!I think these are the things that move things.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ugh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, I think they are symptoms of things that have already moved, and I think Australians don't use cash that much.So, very few people are going to notice any shift.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That’s…that's another really good point.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, well, that's…I think that’s the crucial thing, like, this thing is how I paid for everything for ages.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Who's gonna see that?
• linkAnnie - Very slight correction.We will still have King Charles on our money.He'll just be on the coins.
• linkDaniel Midgley - On the coins, yes.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, okay!
• linkAnnie - The design is still being finalised.It will get printed sometime in the middle of this year, they say.
• linkBen Ainslie - Boo.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I forgot about coins.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But again, who is going to see that?Probably not a lot of people, right?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Fewer and fewer of us.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes, I think it's diminishing, but to say that we all don't use money is probably a bit of an exaggeration.There's still a lot of people who pay in cash.I know, because I stand behind them in lines for things at shops and I'm like, "Argh," as they count it out.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSGood point.Let's go on.This next story is suggested by Diego.Diego, are you here, by chance?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Diego doesn't look like he's here.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Diego doesn't look like he's here.All right.By the way, just to go back, PharaohKatt saysin chat, "Australians in general don't like Charlie." This is what I wanted to say.Hedvig and I were having a discussion.I said, "When the Queen dies, what's going to happen?" I thought that maybe this would be the impetus to heave over into a republic and Hedvig, as I remember you were saying, "I think everyone's probably going to give Charles a chance.He's been at it for so long…"
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, it's going to be like, "Oh, he's new on the job.He waited for such a long time.We don't want to pull the rug out of him as he just got there."
• linkDaniel Midgley - And I think this is evidence that we are, in fact actually aiming for a major monarchist rug pull.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But it might be a slow…
• linkBen Ainslie - I dunno.Nah, I disagree.I think, Daniel, you are profoundly discounting Australian…If it isn't like, don't-fucking-muck-with-it-ism.Like, Australians are just so deeply like, "Ah, man.It's not causing me any fucking problems.Let's just leave it alone, eh?" Like, that's just We're so lazy.We're such a lazy people.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Are you saying that we're a bunch of affluent, comfortable, middle-class conservatives?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.We've already got one referendum this year, when referendums are so rare and a big deal anyway.I can't see a republican referendum coming down the pike.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What's the referendum this year?
• linkBen Ainslie - On Indigenous voice in Parliament.Oh, Daniel.DANIEL!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ah, we've got to focus on that.Slipped my mind.Oh, at least I know how I'm voting on that one.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, well, true.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's move on.
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, you don’t how you'd vote on a r…?Anyway.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Anyway is the right answer.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Suggested by Diego, this one is about the Amorite language, which was not one that I was really aware of because it's so ancient and was possibly even not considered to be a language for lack of evidence.But there's an article in Live Science by Tom Metcalfe about some clay tablets covered in what looks like cuneiform discovered in Iraq, about 4000 years old.And the article calls it a Rosetta Stone.Let's dig back into our memory.What's the Rosetta Stone?
• linkBen Ainslie - That was a piece of rock that was discovered, like, somewhere in the Middle East, and it had three different languages on it.From memory, it had Greek, cuneiform, and Egyptian?Nope.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You got two out of three.Hedvig?
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We got Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphics.What was the third?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Sumerian?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Nope.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Akkadian.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Now it's going to be one of those things where it's got a synonym and I say no to the synonym, which is actually correct.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Demotic.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, shhhh…!Oh.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkDaniel Midgley - Sorry, I got to move things along here.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Heather guessed Coptic.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, it's demotic, a version that was spoken by the people.It had the same thing written in three languages.So they were able to go back and forth and say, "Well, if these all say the same thing and Egyptian hieroglyphics look like this, then we can decipher Egyptian." And they did.Well, this is kind of like a Rosetta Stone as well, because this has Akkadian, which we can read, and it has a language known as Amorite.And the Live Science article has a bit of an email from Dr Manfred Krebernik and Dr Andrew R.George who say that, "Our knowledge of Amorite was so pitiful that some experts doubted whether there was such a language at all." It is similar to Hebrew, but the writing predates Hebrew because it is cuneiform, where you would take kind of a piece of wood, a reed…
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, like a corner of a stick.You make little liney things.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's it.You just press it into the clay.So it's really exciting to find this, and it contains lots of ceremonial language, it contains phrases, it contains some poetry.It's a pretty cool find.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That is really cool.
• linkBen Ainslie - That is really neat.Where was Akkadia?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Where was Akkadia?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I know this!I know this!
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkBen Ainslie - "I can do that.I can do that."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Akkadia was a kingdom in what we sometimes call Mesopotamia, which is the land between two rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, in largely what we think of today as modern Iraq.Akkadia was next to Sumer and was sort of…interacted with Sumer.As far as I know, Akkadian and Akkadian culture is considered to be Semitic, right?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mm-hmm.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah?
• linkDaniel Midgley - The writing actually has a lot to do with Hebrew.It looks a lot like Hebrew.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.So it's like related to Hebrew and Arabic, etc.Whereas Sumer, we don't know where the eff they came from.If you are interested, there is a great episode…
• linkBen Ainslie - WHISPERINGAliens.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, there are all these things about that they came from the water, da, da, da.It's really cool.The great pod, Fall of Civilizations, has an episode.What's that episode called?I forget which one it is, but they have a great episode on it and it's like really cool.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Now, I have to find it and stick it in our show notes, That's becauselanguage.com.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I will find it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's okay, don't find it now.Oh, hey, cats are cruising around.Anybody have a cat?Bring them into shot.We'll feature them.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Did you not see the cat earlier?My cat?
• linkDaniel Midgley - My screen is…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I pulled out the mic because she was purring really loudly.
• linkBen Ainslie - I saw Cement.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I did.I saw Cement.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So cute, kyoot.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, so in our last episode, we mentioned a couple of language finds, which nobody's heard yet because I haven't edited it yet, but this is another one, so it's really cool.And then, we've got our last news item from Joe via email, and Aristemo also suggested this story.Joe says, "I'm a regular listener to your podcast and it's always wonderful.A friend shared this news story on a private Discord, and, well, it provides a disheartening example of how messing up with language can serve to increase social injustice."
• linkDaniel Midgley - What's the story?Well, according to an article in Alaska Public, there was a typhoon, Typhoon Merbok, which caused a lot of destruction in Alaska.And the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, hired a company based in California to translate some information into two languages:Iñupiaq, and Yugtun which is also known as Central Yupik.When the translations came back and they were given to the people as a way of telling them, "Here's how to get help," it actually just contained gibberish.It was basically text copied and pasted and rearranged from an old book from the 1940s.Some of the sample text was, "Your husband is a polar bear, skinny.Tomorrow, he will go hunting very early and will bring nothing."
• linkBen Ainslie - Ouch.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Joe says, "I mean, FEMA releasing word salad, even in the wrong script, as instructions for people harmed by recent floods to apply for aid.It beggars belief, if I'm honest, how many layers of due diligence have to fail at FEMA for this to be the result?Anyway, I thought you might like the opportunity to rake them over the coals a bit.I hope you folks are well and safe.Thanks again for such an informative and hilarious podcast." No, thank you, Joe.
• linkBen Ainslie - I have a question.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, Ben?
• linkBen Ainslie - I want to put Hedvig on the spot.Can I do that?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - All right.Hedvig, you get a call from someone at your school, and basically that call is like, "Hey, someone from MSF has just got in touch with us, Médecins Sans Frontières.They're going to do a thing in Samoa, but they're really struggling to get hold of anyone who, like, can do any translation work.You were the person that I thought of who could help them out." Now, you as a linguist who has familiarity with that language and connections, what do you do?How do you help this aid organisation translate important stuff?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I would reach out to people I know in Samoa who are native speakers and who know it much, much, much, much better than me, and I would specifically ask MSF if there's payment or if it's a volunteer thing.And then, I would reach out to my network and find someone that…I know two native Samoan linguists who would do a better job than me, for example.CHUCKLESYeah.I would never try to do it myself.
• linkBen Ainslie - Thank you.Sorry to put you on the spot.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But I would help.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah yeah yeah.Sorry to put you on the spot, but basically my question was…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, this kind of thing has happened to me.
• linkBen Ainslie - yeah.Absolutely.So, why would FEMA not do that?LAUGHSWhy would they not just get in touch?
• linkDaniel Midgley - They trusted the agency called Accent on Languages, a California company.They didn't go to anybody in Alaska.They went to California.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Maybe they thought that that company would do that, right?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Right.I suppose rightly so, right?because if a company who proffers to do these services fucks something up this badly, they're not going to get a lot more work.But then, I guess my question is, why would the company have fucked it this badly?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - They're overconfident tech bros.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, well.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The head of the company said, "Okay, we fired the people who are responsible for this.We're not using those translators again." It goes through different layers.So FEMA talks to the translation company, and then the company hires people that they think will do a good job, but *they* don't have knowledge of the language.So, the fuck-up can happen on many different levels, and…well, that's what we get.It's basically the equivalent of when there's somebody who's hired to be the sign language interpreter, but they're just making it up.We've seen a couple of stories like that, and it just falls down sometimes.It's horrible.But it just goes to show that adequate translation is not just a language issue.It is a social justice issue.It is a health issue.It's an education issue.Some of the speakers of the languages were punished at school for speaking their language, and so having garbage presented to them instead of good information kind of really opens up some old wounds.So, multiple levels of verification would really help.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right, it's time to play Related or Not.In this game, we give you two words, and you have to guess if they are related etymologically, or if the similarity between them is merely coincidental.
• linkBen Ainslie - I love this.Only when I beat Hedvig, but I love it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We all had a lot of fun playing Yeah-No or No-Yeah with the good people at the Oxford English Dictionary, but that sponsorship has run its course.But we still like the game.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But we like the game.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm torn on whether I should go back to, like, viciously mocking them…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Don't…don't!
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkBen Ainslie - I know the hand's no longer feeding us, so I can bite it now, but maybe it'll feed us again.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But do you want to?They're a dictionary.Like,CHUCKLESwhy do you need to bite them?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.You know what?And "dick's" right there in the name…!Sorry, had to, right there.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ben loved you, OED!He would have cut a bitch.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHSI really would have.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Anyway, Related or Not, it's a fun game.And if we get sponsored by another dictionary, we'll just use them for it.
• linkBen Ainslie - Absolutely.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We'll…Get in touch and we might consider it.but for now, we're going to pull our etymological information from a…wide range of sources.So!Here's this round and everybody else feel free to play along.If you are doing ARCHITECTURE and you're an ARCHITECT, one of the things that you might design is an ARCH.But are they related or not?ARCH and ARCHITECTURE, related or not?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, so Ben and Hedvig, I'm going to ask you whether you think yes or no and your reasons, and then I'm going to invite people to unmute and give their guesses as well.No sneaky looking things up yet.
• linkBen Ainslie - Mm.Hedvig says yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - ARCH and ARCHITECTURE.
• linkBen Ainslie - I also say yes.Hedders, do you want to give your reason first?Because you got in there with a thumbs-up real bloody quick.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Um.I don't know, it's just like…
• linkBen Ainslie - Well,LAUGHSthen, you can shut up, I've got an idea!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, go ahead.Arches are really important, was all I was going to say.So, like, it's important to design them.
• linkBen Ainslie - I've got a slightly more detailed guess, I guess.That doesn't mean it's accurate though.I'm thinking a lot of our words for shit like ARCHITECTURE comes from the phase in English, I should say, that phase of, like, Christendom where we were just frothing on the classical world, right?Where, like, the greatest thing you could possibly be was a thinker from Ancient Greece or whatever.So, I'm thinking that architecture probably as a word and being an architect as an idea, probably bubbled around in like the 1500s, 1600s when everyone just had a massive hard-on for Greek classicism.And because of that, they look back at that time and were like, "Oh, arches were like the things." The fucking Roman aqueducts and all that sort of shit, like always arch based.Domes and all that kind of stuff.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Loved their arches.Loved their arches.
• linkBen Ainslie - Loved it.Froth on the arches.So, I'm thinking that's the link, basically.They looked back and were like, "Well, those cats were amazing, and we love them for everything, and they were mad for arches, so we'll call it architecture."
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, anybody else?We've got two yesses.Who says no and maybe not?We're getting a lot of yesses in chat.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I have one more argument for yes, but I want to hear an argument for a no.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I do too!LAUGHSCome on, somebody.
• linkBen Ainslie - Gonna be really good if it is no, because we're all going to look like doofuses.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.Nobody wants to put it out there, so I will give you the answer in three, two, one.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, everyone's guessed.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The answer is arch…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ooh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What?What?I got an ooh from Hedvig.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Annie is guessing no.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Annie is the lone no?Is she the only one guessing no?All right, "I stand alone." Annie, you are correct.They are not related.
• linkDaniel Midgley - GASPS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, upset.So, the word ARCH comes from Latin, ARCUS, a bow.But in ARCHITECTURE, the ARCHI- doesn't have anything to do with a bow.It means chief or master, that's Latin.Which is why you can have an archduke or an archdeacon.Also, unrelated to the archey arches, it's from a master or a chief.The TEKTON part means builder or carpenter.So, an archi-tect is a master builder.How about that?
• linkBen Ainslie - There were go.Annie…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Wow.
• linkBen Ainslie - …with the win.She's got a very nice tabby cat and she's definitely smarter than all of us.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.Now, in the Discord, I asked people, "Did you have any that you wanted to try?" Now is a good time to unmute and lay it on us.You can stump us all.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm stroking my chin provocatively.
• linkDaniel Midgley - PharaohKatt.
• linkPharaohKatt - There's one that I was actually curious about, so that's why I'm using this one.If you have a GRAVE that you dig in the ground, or you think something is GRAVE, as in important…
• linkBen Ainslie - Significant.
• linkPharaohKatt - …or significant.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Grave insult.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Serious.Yes.
• linkPharaohKatt - Are those two things related or not?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oooh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - This is a guess, but I'm saying yes because things that are…graves are deep and also a grave is a serious matter, so I do think that they would be related.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm going to pull an Annie.I'm going to go a no.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, contrarian.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yup.It seemed to work for her, so I'm gonna give it a crack.LAUGHTERMy guess is that grave, as in the seriousness thing, as opposed to the hole in the ground where you stick dead people, I think that might be a shifted loanword, like "grav" from some other kind of language.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.And, Hedvig, what's your guess?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Not really sure, but I'm also like Laura thinking about accent grave.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I am too.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Which my French teacher always said that because accent grave goes from up to down if you think left to right.She always said we should imagine a shovel in a grave to remember.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSOh, very nice.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That's how I remember it.It is sort of same in Swedish, like, grav, a grave.and "This person is gravely underrated," "grav underskattad."
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, that’s a strong…umm…yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - They look exactly the same, but is that just because of the same reason that they're the same in English?I think they're related, but I'm feeling doubtful.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkDITTE - In Danish, we say GROV not GRAV.It's just like ROUGH instead of…I haven't thought if it's related, but it might well be.Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, GROFT, like coarse?
• linkDITTE - Yeah, course.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.Like "groft salt" (coarse salt).
• linkDITTE - Hmm.I haven’t thought if that’s related.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think that's different.But that's a good point.That's a good point.
• linkPharaohKatt - Would you like the answer?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, I think I'm ready.
• linkBen Ainslie - Very much.
• linkPharaohKatt - They are not related!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Argh!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - GASPS
• linkBen Ainslie - Fuck yes!Get some!Come on.
• linkDaniel Midgley - My goodness.
• linkPharaohKatt - Both of them have Proto-Indo-European roots, which is probably why they're very similar across multiple Proto-Indo-European languages.Yet, GRAVE as in the digging of a grave, comes from a word "grav" to cut or scrape.So, that's that digging motion.And GRAVE, as in heavy, comes from another word, which I cannot pronounce because it's got like D-H in it somewhere,CHUCKLESbut it means something that is heavy physically.So these two words are unrelated and just sound very similar.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Dang.
• linkBen Ainslie - Wonder then if that's why the piece of armor is called GREAVES.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Don’t know that one.
• linkPharaohKatt - That is a good question.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But Ben Not The Host One is asking, is that the same word GROOVE?And it does.It appears it goes— as well —back to the Proto-Indo-European root, *ghrebh-, to dig or to bury or to scratch, which is exactly where we see the grave that you dig come from.So, GROOVE and GRAVE are related, but GRAVE and GRAVE aren't.Ha!
• linkBen Ainslie - When I shuffle off this mortal coil, I expect all of you to gather around my groove.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSYour groove.You don't know where your groove is yet, do you?I don't think I'll have a groove.Anybody got one more?I think we have time for one more.Then it's time to vote.
• linkPharaohKatt - I thought Laura had one.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, Laura, you want to…
• linkBen Ainslie - Laura just answered my question.Thank you, Laura.GREAVES comes from French for shin.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Laura does have one though.All right.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.She did have one.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh!Laura had one as well!Oh, my god, Laura.Look at you go, you're, like, busier than a beaver!Answering my question, having one of your own.Let's hear it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Legend.Lay it on us, Laura.Boom.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ah, okay.Laura says TAMBOURINE and TAM-O'-SHANTER.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The hat.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I don't know what a tam-o'-shanter is.
• linkBen Ainslie - Neither do I.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Apparently, it's a hat.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's a hat.Mhm.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay, I'm just going to Google tam…because I know what a tambourine is.It's that round thing that goes ding, ding in, like, indie pop bands.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm also going to google tam-o'-shanter.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And I'm going to look up tam-o'-shanter.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I don't think they're related.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, it's a hat.I can try and describe it.It's…
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's a Scottish hat.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, exactly.It's the thing that you imagine Scottish people wearing when they play golf.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Little ball on the top.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah, yes.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Sort of like a beret or a cap.
• linkBen Ainslie - I'm going to do the best one of these that I can to describe, and I reckon this will get a lot of people.It's what Genie from Aladdin wears when he turns himself into a Scottish dog to do the Laddie gag.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mhm.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.It is exactly that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - PharaohKatt has a putative similarity between the roundness of the tam and the roundness of the tambourine.Hmmmmm.Like those are the only two things that are round.
• linkBen Ainslie - I reckon this one is related.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Nah, I'm not.I'm not.Total coincidence.
• linkBen Ainslie - Total coincidence?All right.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think they're related.I think they're related.
• linkBen Ainslie - Let's do it, come on.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSOkay.I'm going on my own here.
• linkBen Ainslie - Now, we have got right here one of the rarest of all things.Ben and Hedvig in unison and we could potentially defeat Daniel, which would be just the best thing ever.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's always two of you against me.It's always the two of you.All right.Okay, Laura, we're ready.Put your bets.
• linkBen Ainslie - What have we got?
• linkDaniel Midgley - We're waiting for the chat to come through.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, Laura's already written.
• linkDaniel Midgley - There we go.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No?Yes?No?Yes?Uh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - "Completely different.But I like the tam-o'-shanter etymology, which is why I shared it." Yay!I win!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I won this one.
• linkBen Ainslie - Boo.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Booo.
• linkBen Ainslie - This is fucking bullshit.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But good job, Laura.That was a good…That was a good…
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHS
• linkBen Ainslie - Laura, that was great.I am booing Daniel.If in doubt, always know I'm booing Daniel.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I value your hatred.No.What is it?Tam-o'-shanter.Tam from a man.It's a man's name.Tom of shanter.Of course it would be.Okay.And then the tambourine is, I remember things like timbrel or tambo…Oh, the tamborin, the -IN is diminutive.It's a small drum.It's a small tambour.A small timbrel.Very cool.I love this game.But now!
• linkBECAUSE LANGUAGE MUSIC
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's time to solve the world's problems.So…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's do it.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah, by arguing a lot.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.We're going to try to keep it fairly brisk.So, let's get it goin'.Here we go.Number one."I had to walk 10 kilometers there and back.How far away is the place?Is it 5 kilometers?10 kilometers?Or 20 kilometers?" Make your votes now.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I've voted.
• linkDaniel Midgley - There are 11 of us.We've got seven votes.Okay.Does anybody have a reason why they think it might be that way?
• linkBen Ainslie - I feel like it needs a comma.
• linkDaniel Midgley - A comma?
• linkBen Ainslie - I had to walk 10 kilometers there— comma —and back.If the comma was there, it would mean 10 kilometers either way.Without the comma, I feel like it means 5 kilometers either way.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Anybody else got any other reasonings?
• linkDITTE - I think I'd expect someone to specify that they meant in total.I understand it as with the comma they mentioned it.Unless people were specifying, I mean, all in all.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkPharaohKatt - I expect it to mean all in all.I would expect it to be 5 kilometers because if you go 10 kilometers there and back, there's an AND there.And I add those together.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Try to not go mathematical about it, but just go by your feels.If I said, "Oh, man, I had to walk 10 kilometers there and back."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - What if PharaohKatt's feelings are math?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Then that is fine.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Like, I agree with her.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHSI feel math.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHSI'm married to one!Like, you know.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, well, it's time to close off the poll.Let's see how we went.It turns out that it's 50-50.No help at all.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, but Daniel, you didn't vote.And I didn't vote.
• linkDaniel Midgley - …Why didn't you vote?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I voted.
• linkBen Ainslie - Because I can't vote.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Why can't you vote?
• linkBen Ainslie - Because you have made me a cohost of the session.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, I suppose…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - He made me too, and I can vote.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, I didn't.I just made you possible to record.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, exactly.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh.
• linkBen Ainslie - Clearly, Animal-Farm style, all the animals are equal.Some are just more equal than others.
• linkDaniel Midgley - There it is, 50-50.
• linkBen Ainslie - But Daniel, that means you and I can decide this thing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We can duke it out.What do you say, Ben?
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, why don't you tell me where you sit?What do your feels say, Daniel?
• linkDaniel Midgley - I think…Ten kilometers.I just feel like it's 10 kilometers because 10 has a salience.I don't feel like I'm doubling it if I say 10 kilometers.I feel like that's one way and then you go back.So, yeah, I think you're right.I think the comma really does make a difference, because if I say there— comma —that's 10, and back, which is a separate thing.Then it would be 20.
• linkBen Ainslie - You think the place is 5 kilometers away and this person has traveled 10 kilometers in total, correct?
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, I think it's 10 kilometers away.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, he thinks the other way.Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Do I?Mmm.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - You think it's 10 kilometers away, that's what you just said, Daniel.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, but I might change my mind as I talk about it more.
• linkBen Ainslie - Then why were you saying 20?You crazy man.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, well, we're just going to do the next one.
• linkBen Ainslie - Fair enough.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And it's this.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.I was looking forward to a decision.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Sorry.
• linkBen Ainslie - I think Daniel cast the tie-breaking vote.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But I don't remember what I said.It's stressful.
• linkBen Ainslie - You absolute buffoon.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, that's just how it goes."I substituted oil for butter." Does that mean I added oil, not butter?Or does it mean I added butter, not oil?
• linkBen Ainslie - "I substituted oil for butter."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm just going with my gut but…Mmm.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I have a feeling that this one's going to be a little bit easier.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yep.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, me too.
• linkBen Ainslie - People are making the right choice here.I agree.Democracy has a place, for this moment.
• linkDaniel Midgley - As long as it's what you like.Okay, cool.LAUGHTEREveryone thinks that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - PharaohKatt just said, my gut changed his mind twice, and I feel that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, I do too.Let's close off the vote.And what have we got?Just about everyone thinks…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Most people…yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Go ahead, Hedvig, be the narrator.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Most people voted that the thing that was added to the pot was oil instead of butter.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Well, now it's time for the next one.Doot.
• linkBen Ainslie - Just to be clear as well, whilst I completely agree semantically with what we've decided — cooking wise?No.Butter.No, let's cook in that butter, it's delicious.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Depends on if it's brownies or something.Anyway, let's go on to the next one."I often mistake Steven for John." "I often mistake Steven for John." What does that mean?Does that mean I think it's Steven, but it's really John, or I think it's John, but it's really Steven?Or could it be either?I'll give you some silence so that you can achieve mental clarity."I often mistake Steven for John."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, yeah.Silence, you said, and I needed it.I was looking at the text and you kept talking and I was like, "It's not helping."
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm shutting up now.This is me shutting up.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Shut up.Shut your trap.
• linkCHUCKLES
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.No.No.I had…No.Ssshut.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Not enough time?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, it's not enough time!Just be quiet for a moment longer.
• linkBen Ainslie - Come on , Hedders.Come on, mate.This is one of the few times that we have done a show at a time where you're supposed to be, like, good times.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You're at your peak.This is like noon for you.Okay, I'm going to cl…oh, we've only got we've got a few…a couple more people who need to vote.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay, I put my headphones back on so I can hear you again.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkDaniel Midgley - Ben, I think I'm going to make you not a cohost so that you can vote.
• linkBen Ainslie - Arg.Okay, cool.Yeah, fair enough.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I can record, but I'm not…Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You're not a cohost.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - All good.All good.All good.
• linkBen Ainslie - By the way, I would vote for the thing that's like winning here.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You would?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Regardless of what that is.
• linkBen Ainslie - No no no, as in I agree with the people on this one.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, let's see it.Doot!When I mistake Steven for John, I think it's John, but it's really Steven.Isn't this a funny one?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It is.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That it should be like…you think this would be so straightforward, but it's not.Why do we get hung up on this one?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think the "for," it was the same with the boil…and oil and…the boil and utter.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.I feel like there's just a tongue twister for your brain here, that's all."I often mistake Steven for John," and then you've got to read through the two answers.I think it's Steven, but it's really John.I think it's John, but it's really Steven.It's like, "Wait, fucking…which one's the subject, which one's the object?Fucking I don't know."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Exactly.
• linkDaniel Midgley - All right, let the record show that 80% of us say that if you mistake Steven for John, you think it's John, but it's really Steven.MISTAKE is one of those…Let me just see if I have any notes on this one.
• linkBen Ainslie - Like, MISTAKE is a synonym for CONFUSE here, right?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.By the way, you can see all of the results for these things on our website, becauselanguage.com.Just look for Episode 71.Okay, this one was given to us by Diego.This is a couple here."The area was restricted to locals." What does that mean?Does that mean locals couldn't go to the area?Or does it mean only locals could go to the area?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I voted.
• linkBen Ainslie - I would have voted.Ooh.Interesting.Interesting.Interesting.Interesting.Interesting.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So maybe we should clarify that Daniel and Ben I can, but they can see the vote ticking up on the different options, whereas the rest of us plebes can just vote and then wait.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkHedvig Skirgård - BACKGROUND SOUND
• linkHedvig Skirgård - What was that sound?
• linkBen Ainslie - Did you all just hear that?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes, I heard that.That was a very loud door or something.
• linkBen Ainslie - That's someoneLAUGHSdriving past my building.Clearly has one of those novelty car horns likeIMITATES A NOVELTY CAR HORN
• linkDaniel Midgley - Good old Perth, huh?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, I'm going to close it off here.Most people said, "Only locals can go to the area." Okay, fair enough.
• linkBen Ainslie - But there's a problem here.RESTRICTED is an auto-antonym.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, yeah.You mean a contronym?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, it's like SANCTION.It can mean the opposite thing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Trying to stop being host and clear my head here.So, RESTRICTED.It's restricted, meaning you can't…who are we restricting?Are we restricting them or are we restricting everyone else?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, who's the other in the situation?
• linkDaniel Midgley - What's the TO doing?That's interesting.Okay, let's go on then to part B of this.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, god.It continues!
• linkDaniel Midgley - "The area was restricted to photographers." Same sentence.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That one's weird.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I've just taken LOCALS, and I've added PHOTOGRAPHERS.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That one is harder because I want to vote the way I did previously, which is that only photographers could go to the area.But the fact that it's photographers makes me think they weren't allowed there because photographers are the kind of people you want to forbid from going somewhere so they don't take pictures.
• linkBen Ainslie - Now, but if you wanted to do it so that it was "for photographers," then that's what you'd say, the area was restricted for photographers.
• linkDaniel Midgley - For photographers.Prepositions.Aren't they mysterious?Mmm, alright.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - They are.It reminds me of, like, when I was listening to that QAnon podcast about the vote count and wherever it was, they had such problems with the press and the protesters that the police took the parking lot, divided and was like, "Okay, press can stand over here, and QAnon folks can stand over there.And like, don't interact with each other because you just keep fighting."
• linkBen Ainslie - Never the twain shall meet.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And they called it a "Free Speech Zone."
• linkDaniel Midgley - I remember that during the George Bush years and not liking it, but I can see how it might be in the public interest to keep protesters and journalists apart.Hmm.Let's finish this poll.And I'm really surprised by this, actually.I thought of it as photographers couldn't go to the area, but most people thought only photographers could go to the area.It's a bit more balanced, whereas I think the last time, most people thought that if the locals were…if it was restricted to locals, only the locals could go.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Well, I think it's a one-vote difference, because before it was 78-22, and now it's 75-25.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, so we swung one person.Okay, that's cool.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I think so.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I was going with Hedvig's logic because we know about photographers, and they might be the sort of person that you might want to restrict from an area.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But then I thought about the parking lot, so I actually voted that it was only for photographers.
• linkBen Ainslie - And like, I think the Other Ben might have said there's plenty of circumstances where you need to put a little zone for photographers as well.In fact, I would argue there's probably more of those than not.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.What I like about this one is that real-world knowledge can sometimes guide interpretation.So, for example, what's the sentence?"The police arrested the protesters because they feared violence." Who's THEY?
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, yeah, yeah.yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The police."The police arrested the protesters because they advocated violence." Now, THEY isn't the police at all.It's the protesters.Likely, anyway.So, we have real-world knowledge, and that influences our choice of how pronouns lock on to antecedents, which is super interesting.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's go on to the next one.Oh, I love this one."Floyd and the chickens are outside." Is Floyd a chicken?Your choices are, "Floyd is a chicken," "Floyd is definitely not a chicken," or, "Floyd might be a chicken."
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - "Floyd and the chickens are outside."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - This one's clear.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSShe says.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - This one is really clear.Yeah.If anyone doesn't vote like me…LAUGHTERthis is like a way of pragmatics, that's just how jokes…jokes are built around this premise.Right?This is a comedy.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - You say that in a very uncomedic fashion.You're being, dare I say, quite German about it,in a German accent"Zis is comedy.Zis is how comedy works."
• linkDaniel Midgley - Germans are hilarious, by the way.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Honestly, I'm getting so in touch with my German…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Germans are hilarious.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Aaah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No?
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Not everyone needs to be funny.I listen to a lot of comedy, and I rarely laugh out loud and I like to analyse comedy and I know what that makes me, but I don't care.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's all right!That's fine.You be yourself.All right, we're going to end this poll.The answers are, "Floyd is definitely not a chicken." Which is strange, because then think about the band.I say band loosely, Alvin and the Chipmunks.Alvin is definitely a chipmunk!
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, okay, but hang on.Hang on.What you're keying into there is a very specific example that hearkens back to a naming convention for bands only.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Aah, yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - So-and-So and the Dooby-dees, and…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Diana Ross & the Supremes?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, just all that sort of shit.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Is Diana Ross a Supreme?
• linkDaniel Midgley - I don’t know.
• linkBen Ainslie - Are we saying that Diana Ross is not supreme?I find that hard to imagine!
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, I'm talking about whether or not she is a Supreme.I know that she's THE Supreme, but I'm not sure if she's A Supreme.Anyway, there was a funny tweet on this by my Twitter pal, Q.Pheevr, who said…just pulling that up.
• linkBen Ainslie - Josie is a pussy cat.That's absolutely true, Kitty.Thank you.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Q.Pheevr says, "Either definite plurals don't always denote maximal sets, or they should have been called Alvin and the OTHER Chipmunks." Maximal sets means they don't need to describe every single item in the set they refer to.So, if I run into the house and I say, "The chickens have gotten loose," it doesn't necessarily mean that every last one of them has gotten loose.Especially if I'm in a hurry and I need to say something fast, as I would be if the chickens had gotten loose.
• linkBen Ainslie - As well as Floyd.
• linkDaniel Midgley - As well as Floyd,LAUGHSwho may or may not…be a chicken!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Floyd is a duck.
• linkBen Ainslie - I feel like…Yep, so, I was going with duck, or Floyd is a particularly stupid dog, like an indoor dog that occasionally gets outside and then it causes absolute fucking mayhem because it's just messing with shit that it has no business messing with.
• linkDaniel Midgley - My partner said that maybe Floyd was a rooster, and I thought, well, that's interesting because then Floyd would be…whoever Floyd is in this group, it has to be salient in some way, going back to our discussion with Mark Ellison.Has to be salient either in being an extraordinary chicken or not being a chicken at all somehow.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes, I agree with that.Isn't it, by the way, wild that CHICKEN denotes the age range of this animal at its, like, teenage years.Right?Like a chick is baby, chicken is teenage, and an adult is a hen.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, hang on.No, no, no, whoa, whoa.I was under the impression…
• linkDaniel Midgley - We've got words all across the lifespan.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Kitty's shaking her head.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hang on.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - Chicken.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - Chicken.Chicken.Hang on.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Chicken.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hang on.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Bok.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - Chicken, my understanding was, was the stand in for, like, peafowl, is it not?
• linkDaniel Midgley - I mean, it kind of is, like a chicken…
• linkBen Ainslie - Right?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Might be both.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Like roosters…
• linkBen Ainslie - As in, like, what word do we use to refer to the species, if not chicken?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Roosters could be chickens.But chickens can't be roosters.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes, they can.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I think it's a cow-cow scenario, that it's both.The species is a chicken, and the teenagers are chickens.
• linkBen Ainslie - Laura is like, "Hang on, peafowl are a whole another thing." I know they are, Laura, but what I mean is, there's peacocks and there's peahens, but the species is peafowl.And I thought chicken was the version of peafowl.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes, but sometimes in this, it happens that the species is cow, the female is a cow, and the male is a bull.Like, we have that thing which is annoying and it happens.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Lion versus lioness.Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.I feel like, Hedvig, you can probably let go of chicken being a word for a teenage chook, because I don't think anybody uses that anymore.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.Either way, regardless of the name, we humans mostly eat teenage chickens.That is still true, I'm pretty sure, which is something you can think about next time.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, because that's true for most animals that we eat though.We don't let them get particularly old because then they get tough.
• linkDaniel Midgley - This is taking us into markedness theory, where one animal is allowed to stand…usually, it's the male.Like, if you see a bunch of lions and lionesses, you say, "Oh, look at all those lions." But if you see a bunch of lions, you wouldn't say, "Hey, look at those lionesses." It doesn't go in the other direction.And usually, it's the female of the species that's marked.Like, peahens are marked, but peacocks aren't.So, peacocks can stand for both.Except in one case that I'm aware of, and that's where the male is marked, and that's a WIDOWER.Widows are kind of unmarked, and that's the female.But a widower is a male, and that's the marked one.So, that's a case where it's flipped.
• linkBen Ainslie - What?What?What?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - How?
• linkBen Ainslie - What?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - The marked one is BULL.
• linkBen Ainslie - Is a widow and a widower an animal that I'm not familiar with, or are you just referring to people whose spouses have died?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, he's talking about, like…
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm referring to humans.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - …male and female stuff in general.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, I'm referring to males and females.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, I see.Sorry.I get you.I get you.I get you.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - In general.And I say…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oftentimes, the male word can stand in for all, but this is what…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Cow.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, cows.Cows can be bulls, but not all bulls can be cows.Maybe I'm just dumb and…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So, the female is unmarked.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Aaah, okay.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Because the other ones are bulls.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Cow.Yeah, you're right.Okay.Gee, is there a pattern here?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Thank you!
• linkBen Ainslie - I think it's true for some animals, mostly ones we probably eat, where the most important one is the lady one.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, because rooster's marked.That's right.It flips back and forth.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And the ones we don't eat dogs, it's often the male one that's the unmarked, I think the ones that we use for hunting or stuff like that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I need to do more work on this.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Anyway, does anyone else here…Can you do a poll for me, Daniel?Because my grandma was convinced that all dogs are male and all cats are sort of female, and we had a female dog.
• linkBen Ainslie - Sorry, sorry.Can we just go back a step?Was your grandmother honestly convinced that those species of animals…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But just conceptually.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, it's just that, to her, dogs conceptually were male, and cats were conceptually female.So, if she saw a cat or dog she didn't know, she would assume…I agree it should be 50/50, but we had, for example, female dog, she would call her HE all the time.
• linkBen Ainslie - Right.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - She'd be like, "Does he need water?" or something.And we'd be like, "Yes.SHE could be great with a bowl of water."
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's like when little kids say, "I think of the number seven as a girl," or something.
• linkBen Ainslie - Right.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Or like math is red.Everyone agrees math is red.Annie has something to say.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes.Okay, let's go onto our next…Sorry, Annie?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, I want a poll, and Annie has something to say.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I don't want to do the poll.Please?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes, please.
• linkAnnie - I think there's terms for if a cow has been castrated and not…like a heifer is a female cow that has never had a baby, I'm not sure what…maybe it's a cow after it's had a baby.A castrated bull is a steer, and an uncastrated male cow is a bull.Yeah, there's a ton of words.Just want to add some terminology.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree.It's like that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, it's time for another mind blow.Here we go.
• linkBen Ainslie - Do it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - How many holes does a straw have?
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, god.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Haven't we done this one before?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Nope!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - You sure?
• linkBen Ainslie - No.No.No!I can see what you fucking lunatics are voting.Jesus.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSOkay, that one filled up kind of quickly, actually.
• linkBen Ainslie - Unbelievable.
• linkDaniel Midgley - But we still got a couple of…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.That one's way easier.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, clearly not, because most people got it wrong.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I'd like to hear your reasoning here.Let's end the poll, because I think most people have finished.Here we go.The answer for all time:A straw has one hole.It's one hole.
• linkBen Ainslie - Does not have one hole.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Goes all the way through.
• linkBen Ainslie - No, it does not.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Tell me your reasoning, Ben, while I get the next poll ready.
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, geez, I don't know, Daniel.Perhaps because I can pinch the top of the straw at the top hole and close it off at that hole and leave the second hole open, clearly meaning there's two fucking holes in the thing!Jesus!Come on, people!Where is your head at?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay, Ben.
• linkBen Ainslie - God!
• linkDaniel Midgley - He's got a point.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Does a hole need too have…Like, does a hole go through something, or is a…
• linkBen Ainslie - An opening is a hole.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What even is a hole?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay, all right.Exactly.So, for example, your ear…
• linkBen Ainslie - What you guys have all described as a hole is a tube.Quite a long, thin one at that!
• linkDaniel Midgley - A straw is a tube.It doesn't have a tube.
• linkBen Ainslie - No, it…GROANS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - You're a tube.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, yes, I am!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Actually, humans are tubes!And I love thinking about it!It's so good to think about.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I am a tube!Yep.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - From your mouth to your anus, there is a tube…
• linkBen Ainslie - Correct.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And you are, geometrically speaking, just a cylinder with some fancy bits and bobs.
• linkBen Ainslie - I would describe us more as a donut, to be honest.
• linkDaniel Midgley - A torus, yes.
• linkBen Ainslie - Quite a disgusting fleshy one, yeah.And here's the one that really fucks with me.I only learned this recently.All that shit on the inside, that internal bit, the inside of the donut that is a human being?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Is the outside!
• linkBen Ainslie - Is external tissue!What?Our gut is external.Fuck!Jesus.That just…When I learned that, I was like, "Well, everything is a lie.All knowledge is meaningless."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I love it.
• linkBen Ainslie - I never accepted postmodernism until that moment.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Is a straw a donut?
• linkBen Ainslie - No.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Thank you.
• linkBen Ainslie - Don't be stupid, Daniel.All right, just stop it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, I'm going to stop that one.Let's go on to the next one.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - How do you spell CYLINDER?
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - C-Y-L.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I do have to say that there was a funny story.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, Grammarly is helping me.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I asked this question to my three-year-old, my youngest daughter.I said, "How many holes does a straw have?" And with her three-year-old brain, she said, "One.No, two!"LAUGHSShe just paused and said in a panic.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Poor little…
• linkBen Ainslie - See?See?Proof.Proof.
• linkDaniel Midgley - The interesting thing about this question is that we don't always conceptualise all the aspects of an object.We just sort of pick it up and use it and classify it at the moment of use.So, for example, my five-year-old said, "Whenever we go outside, we're touching the sky." And my three-year-old said, "How?" Then there was a pause and I said, "We touch the air."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No!
• linkDaniel Midgley - My five-year-old said, "Yeah, air is sky."
• linkBen Ainslie - Wrong.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Air is sky.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, no, no, no, no.
• linkBen Ainslie - No.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Why not?
• linkBen Ainslie - You don't touch the sky until you get in a plane or a hot air balloon, Daniel.Come on.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yep.Barely then.
• linkDaniel Midgley - If I throw something up, it goes into the sky.I threw it up in the sky.
• linkBen Ainslie - Nope.Oh, okay.If you get like one of those vortexes, one of those cool footballs that does the whistley sounds, got a tail on it, yes.Other than that, no.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I can throw a rock into the sky.
• linkBen Ainslie - Nnngch.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And it's not even that high.
• linkBen Ainslie - What's next?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - There's a really good YouTube channel called Philosophy Tube which discusses some of this stuff.That's where I'll leave it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - We'll put that in our show notes.And now, it's time for the next one.Is everyone having fun?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Mm-hmm.
• linkBen Ainslie - I am.
• linkDaniel Midgley - This one comes to us from River.Which side of the bed is the left-hand side, and which is the right-hand side?Is it:it's the left-hand side as you look at it from the foot of the bed?It's the left-hand side as you're lying in bed?
• linkBen Ainslie - Guys, guys, no, no, no.Argh.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm glad I made you the host so that you can see the full horror.
• linkBen Ainslie - So I can just…yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - As it transpires.
• linkBen Ainslie - Watch my dreams crumble.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Noooo.Oh, this was a topic you weren't even aware of five seconds ago.Now, it's like your whole being.
• linkBen Ainslie - I care about it very much.I've got a strong answer for this one.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - And everyone seems to agree with me as well.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, let's share the results:It's the left-hand side as you're lying in bed.I would agree.Because who matters here?It's the person in bed.
• linkBen Ainslie - but.But.Yeah, sure, fine.But this is why we have stage left and stage right.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Precisely.
• linkBen Ainslie - So we just say bed left and bed right.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Bed left and bed right.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But which one of those two is bed left?
• linkBen Ainslie - So.It is the left side of the bed as you lie in it, much as stage left is the left side of the stage as you stand upon it and face the audience because to the people on the stage or on the bed, that's the direction that matters.But!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - You just made it worse.
• linkBen Ainslie - If you don't specify with bed left or bed right, then it's however you're looking at it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I have a suggestion that is better than that.
• linkBen Ainslie - I don't think that’s possible.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Because I think that’s a trash suggestion.Okay.So, hear me out.Your organs are not symmetrical in your body.Okay?
• linkBen Ainslie - CHUCKLESSure, okay.Well, some of them are, but sure.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Some of them are, but like the liver for example.
• linkBen Ainslie - Like, the kidneys are, the lungs are, and you know.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - The liver is not.
• linkBen Ainslie - No.Fair enough.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Continue.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And the way your intestinal system, most of us have it such that, if you are feeling nauseous, it is better for you to lie on your left side, so with your right shoulder up than the other way around.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - DANIEL & BEN:Mhm.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So I think about this when I sleep because I have noticed that this matters.Sometimes, I turn around the other way and then, I'm like, "No, this is better." So why don't we just call it…what's the first bit?Your stomach.Right?So like, if you lie on your left side…LAUGHSbear with me here.
• linkBen Ainslie - You are on the ragged edge of my patience on this one.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Shut up.You are on the stomach side because your stomach is down.
• linkBen Ainslie - That is fucking nonsense.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.I would have to know.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.Stomach side and non-stomach side of the bed.
• linkBen Ainslie - That is absolute bunk!What the fuck?No!
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm just impressed that you have a magic wand with which you can bestow this knowledge upon other people.That's amazing.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh my…Stomach side and not-stomach side?If this is you at full speed at 2 in the afternoon, I'm glad we get you at 8 in the morning normally!
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm just saying, next time anyone on this call is feeling a bit nauseous or something…because you could have them flipped in your body as well.So just try and feel which one is best, because one is going to like the way…no, the way that bile and acids work in your stomach, one is going to make you feel worse.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I have heard this.
• linkBen Ainslie - That's fine if what you wanted to do was like, "Hey, everyone.By the way, here's a nice fact about how you can feel better." How this has anything to do with the cardinal directions of beddom I fail to see.LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - This does tie into other aspects of language, though.For example, when we're talking about metaphors of time, we can be either ego-focused or object-focused.So, we can be ego-focused, like we're moving toward the weekend, where we're going into next month, we're going into March.Or, we can be object-focused, we can say, "Oh, Christmas is coming," and we're stationary, so we could be moving or it could be moving.So, there's parallels in our metaphors of motion as well.
• linkBen Ainslie - Next.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's move on to the next one."Carol Jameson is the namesake of Carol Evans." I gave last names to make this question a little easier.I hope it works.What follows from this statement?Carol Jameson was named after Carol Evans?Carol Evans was named after Carol Jameson?Could be either, or they both just happened to have the same name."Carol Jameson is the namesake of Carol Evans." Who was named after whom or neither?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, I got it.
• linkBen Ainslie - I think I got it.But everyone's got it wrong.LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - What did you think, Ben?
• linkBen Ainslie - Like, surely, NAMESAKE…independent of what the democratic process reveals, surely NAMESAKE just has a definition, right?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Mmm, this is semantics.
• linkBen Ainslie - But.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hold on, hold the phone.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You're going to look it up in a dictionary, Ben, but I've done this.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - GASPSReally?Why are people wrong?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Carol Evans was named after Carol Jameson.So, Carol Evans is the younger person.What people are saying here, 60%, is that Carol Jameson is an older person, say, had the name first, and they are the namesake.Carol Evans comes along, gets the name of her namesake, Carol Jameson.Okay, so let's talk about this one…
• linkBen Ainslie - No.
• linkDaniel Midgley - …because it's got an unexpected twist to it here.By the way, I got inspiration from the Layman's Linguist who ran a poll on this.And when the Layman's Linguist did a poll, it ran 35% to 40% between our first two answers.So I looked this up in the OED, and it says here, "A namesake is a person who or thing which has the same name as another." It does not specify the direction at all.And in fact, then they…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.That's what I voted.
• linkBen Ainslie - No, but the sentence does.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You mean the Carol sentence?
• linkBen Ainslie - Of!Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Otherwise, you might not say THE by the way, it might say A.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I will tell you that if you look in the OED and you see that definition, which is pretty bidirectional, and then you look at the examples that they cite, it's back and forth.Sometimes the namesake is described as the older thing that gave it the name, and then sometimes it's the younger thing.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Can I ask Ditte, if in Danish, we also have NAMNE?
• linkDITTE - What did you say?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - NAMNE, like, "That person is my namne."
• linkDITTE - Nej.(No.)
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Nej?Okay.Yeah, in Swedish, we just have a word that means like a namer, like a namey.
• linkDITTE - No, I don't think we have.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, okay.
• linkDITTE - We would just say, "She's named after me," or, "She happens to have the same name as me," or something like that, I think.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Interesting.
• linkDITTE - We might say about someone with the same name, "She's my name sister or name brother," or something like that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ah, there we go.
• linkDaniel Midgley - What does that mean though?Does that mean that one person was named after another, or they just happen to have the same name?
• linkDITTE - I think it just means they haven't…Well, I think it could be all of them, really.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, okay.All right.It's one of those things that is kind of vague.Let's go on to…we're almost there, we're coming up to our last ones.I feel good about how this is going.PharaohKatt gave us this one, after a toot from Colin the Mathmo, "I just about caught the train."
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, my god.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Does that mean they caught the train, or they missed the train?"I just about caught the train."
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, thank god.Oh, thank god.Thank you, Jesus.Thank you, democracy.Thank you, people in our chatroom.This makes me feel a lot better.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - You made Ben feel good and that's what matters here.Okay, nine of us have voted.Number 10.Okay, I am going to end this now— doot —and I'm going to share it."They missed the train." This is kind of what I would say, because if I just about fell over, I didn't fall over, I failed to do the thing.However!Apparently some British sports commentators are starting to use "just about did the thing" to mean they managed to do the thing successfully, but by the slimmest possible margin.Isn't that a fascinating…?
• linkBen Ainslie - I don’t care for that at all.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That is exactly how I voted and that is what I care for entirely.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, is that right?Wow.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Because we can all handle more ambiguity.
• linkBen Ainslie - Ugh.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - To me, I looked at that.The previous things were like mind tongue twisters.This was not at all that for me.I was like, "Yeah, they caught the train."
• linkBen Ainslie - That just is wrong!You are wrong!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay, if I say, "I just caught the train."?
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Successful.
• linkBen Ainslie - Correct.
• linkDaniel Midgley - And recently.
• linkBen Ainslie - It's almost like adding that extra word changes the meaning of the sentence in the way…
• linkDaniel Midgley - Whaaat?
• linkBen Ainslie - …that words work.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm just checking how insane you are.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's true though.When you put words next to other words, you can get some strange chemical reactions.All right, we are going to go to our last one.And it is one also from PharaohKatt.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I think this one's easy, but it's still fascinating, nonetheless."Do you mind pushing in that chair?" "Yes."
• linkBen Ainslie - Ah, yes.We've all been here where you have to clarify, like, "Hey, baby, did you want me to turn on the thing?" "No." Like, yeah, yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Like negative questions."Aren't you ready yet?" "Yes."
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, negative questions just always.You feel like when you ask one, you feel like a doofus for having asked it because you've now obliged the person to do the little mental roundabout as they're like, "Yeah, but no.But yes, but no."
• linkDaniel Midgley - I can see that there are some people who haven't answered yet and maybe aren't sure what their answer is going to be."Do you mind pushing in that chair?" "Yes." "Do you mind pushing in that chair?" "No."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, I don't mind.No, I won't do it.Yeah.
• linkDITTE - If I ask someone that and they say yes, unless they look particularly mean, then I'd assume they were going to push the chair.But I would also be thinking you should answer no then!
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHS
• linkDITTE - To answer that they mean yes because…
• linkBen Ainslie - It's one of those funny ones as well.Like, my response to this is like, "Do you mind pushing in that chair?" "Yes." If a person genuinely minds pushing in the chair, certainly in Australia, you then have to apologise because we're, like, overapologisers.So, you've got to be like, "Yes, actually, I'm sorry, I do mind.I'm waiting for a friend." But you have to present it as if you've basically murdered one of their children and now have to drag their body through the street with them watching.It's so silly.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Mhm.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Now, there's an image!It is funny though.One thing I noticed in my research is that when you have a dispreferred answer— and this is pretty well known —there's a pause.There's a hesitation."Do you mind pushing in that chair?" "Yeeess," as in, "Yes, I do mind." Or if they say, "Sure," which functionally means yes.So our answers…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - GASPSI just saw the results!
• linkDaniel Midgley - The results are:I'll do it, to the tune of 71%.Were you surprised?Was that a surprise?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I was surprised it wasn't 100%.Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I don't know.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I think the answer here is that it depends.It depends on pauses, it depends on…
• linkBen Ainslie - It depends on tone and time and…yeah.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It does.
• linkBen Ainslie - And there are people from cultures that I have experienced where a very abrupt "yes" will mean, "Yes, I do mind, I'm not going to do it." I'm thinking Israelis, French people,LAUGHSsome Scandi people can be super super direct.Like, if you ask them a question of, like, "Do you mind pushing in that chair?" They'll just be like,IN A SCANDINAVIAN ACCENT"Yah." And then, they'll be like, "I'm not doing it."
• linkDaniel Midgley - And then, you got to do the thing where you say, "When you say yes, do you mean…" Argh.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - But it's also probably in answer to the fact that the way you phrase that question in those cultures is:"Push in that chair." It's not supposed to be a question.You made it a question.Now, everyone's weirded out.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, totally.If you ask a funny little weird question, they'll just be like, "That was dumb.You didn't give me an instruction."
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah, exactly.It's like, "What are you up to?"
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, I noticed for the longest time that my two young daughters would do something very strange when I would ask them negative questions like, "Don't you want to go?" They would say yes, which means, "Yes, I don't want to go." They would do it in a way that I think of as Japanese, because I learned that.And they would just do it over and over again.It was just so disorienting, I had to realise…I noticed it every time they did it, and they've stopped now.So, it's really interesting and funny.
• linkBen Ainslie - You beat it out of them.Good boy, good boy.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Thank you for voting, thank you for your answers, and thank you for putting up with me having to do copy and paste polls on the fly.I appreciate that I wasn't quite fully on.But let me just say there's a lesson here, and that is that semantics is underspecified.Semantics is underspecified.The meaning of words is underspecified.We use words to get us part of the way there.But then, as we've seen in our examples, we use context and we use real-world knowledge and we use our knowledge of the people and we use guesses about their intentions and whether they're going to push them, whether they look like they're in chair pushing mode.We use all those things to fill in the blanks.That means that language is ambiguous, and we often have to clarify.But that's not usually a problem because disambiguation is a human superpower, we're really good at sorting it out.And then, we get an added bonus, and that is that words and phrases can double duty depending on situations that we are good at reading.Are you happy with the way things went, Ben?
• linkBen Ainslie - Uhhh.I mean, I'll forget this in two episodes anyway, so it's all G.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.Well, be sure to listen back like I do and then edit the transcript.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And then, be mad again.
• linkBen Ainslie - Then, you'll remember everything.Yes.Then, you can die mad about it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yeah.Just be angry again.
• linkBen Ainslie - And then I'll remember nei-ther option either.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hmm.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Hmm.
• linkBecause Language music
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's move on to our Words of the Week.This one was suggested by Lisa and it's HARD LAUNCH.The quote is, "Lizzo hard launches her boyfriend…" This is our second Lizzo Word of the Week."Lizzo hard launches her boyfriend on social media ahead of the 2023 Grammy Awards." I would have thought that she shot him out of a cannon, but that's not what it means in terms of a hard launch.What does this mean?Do you want to guess?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It is the opposite of a SOFT LAUNCH.So, there used to just be LAUNCH and then there was soft launch, which was when you spread it to some people and then some people and you let it trickle instead of being like pew pew pew!Pew pew pew!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Kaboom!Boyfriend!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Which is a thing.There's been so many soft launches that now it's like…well, Lizzo was like:"Public announcement!TRUMPET SOUNDEveryone, I got boyfriend.Here he is.Here's what he looks like.Isn't he gorgeous?" And yeah, that's a hard launch.I like hard launch.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's a hard launch.
• linkBen Ainslie - I would like to imagine there was actual fanfare, like literal ranks of soldiers with those funny long trumpets with flags hanging off the ends of the trumpets, doing like a fullMAKES TRUMPET SOUNDS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Now, that's a hard launch.And then, you take a bottle and, like, break it over his head like he's a ship or something.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkDaniel Midgley - The term SOFT LAUNCH and HARD LAUNCH date from 1978, they refer to missiles.A SOFT LAUNCH is where it is, the missile is nonexplosively ejected before an engine is ignited.And a HARD LAUNCH is when it is ignited while it's still in the launch assembly.
• linkBen Ainslie - How fascinating.And it's moved over into the business world.
• linkDaniel Midgley - By 1985, it was extended to marketing.So, there's the history of SOFT LAUNCH and HARD LAUNCH and now we're seeing it applied to boyfriends.How awesome.
• linkBen Ainslie - How fascinating.
• linkDaniel Midgley - This one is suggested by Liz.It's a combining form.I love the combining forms.-GRAM.Liz says, "I heard the term HORRENDOGRAM today, used to describe a particularly complicated diagram in a corporate PowerPoint presentation." Horrendogram."I love it and thought it could be a Word of the Week.Might also generate a broader discussion about the -GRAM or -OGRAM combining form.For example, SPAGHETTIGRAM, similar to HORRENDOGRAM, and the very old fashioned and slightly different GORILLAGRAM."
• linkBen Ainslie - What?
• linkDaniel Midgley - What?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Gorillagram?Wait, what?Also, why aren't these GRAPHs?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, the GORILLAGRAM is because it borrows not from DIAGRAM, but from TELEGRAM.Anybody know what I'm talking about?
• linkBen Ainslie - No.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, I see.I googled it.
• linkBen Ainslie - I know what's about to happen here, Daniel.This is going to be like when you talked about how you went to libraries with, like, reference cards.You're about to be fucking old, aren't you?
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's just one of those '80s things.Go ahead, Hedvig.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yep.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - So, Ben and everyone else, do you know of the concept of the singing telegram?
• linkBen Ainslie - I do not.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No????
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, actually…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It is a thing that occurs in American movies and TV show and probably not in real life.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yeah, sorry, I just realised.I'm thinking back to when I was a kid and I watched bad SNL, like, comedy movies, and someone shows up at your door and you're like,SINGS"Hello, this is your singing telegram," that kind of thing?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Yes.So, imagine that, but the person is wearing a gorilla costume.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's a gorillagram.
• linkBen Ainslie - Aha.Was that a thing that happened or was that a joke?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Still is.You can still send someone a gorillagram.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - gorillagram.com.au exists.And I know your address, Ben.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, gee…Hey, man, we've got multiple barriers to entry to this place.Daniel's house, on the other hand, wide open.Leaks like a sieve.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That is true!
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's why waiting until I know that you're at a restaurant.You'll be at a restaurant.Valentine's Day is coming.I'm going to put out the troops.Actually, you know what it reminds me of?It reminds me of the movie, Brazil, where the protagonist, Sam, is at home and his mother sends a singing telegram, and she gives a really ear-splitting invitation to a party.And then, there's an awkward silence and she says, "It's reply paid." And he says, "Oh, okay.Um…Two, three, four.SINGSMother, I am afraid that I…" She says, "No, you don't have to sing."LAUGHSOne of my favorite scenes.
• linkBen Ainslie - Annie makes a good point, which I also agreed with.I thought the -GRAM would have been linked to Instagram.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Instagram.Yep.For sure.
• linkBen Ainslie - I would have thought Flexogram or Striveagram or something like that would be a thing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I've certainly never heard that.I wonder, has anybody else taken gram from Instagram and started using that as a combining form?Anyone heard this?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, but I thought when you said gorillagram, that it was a zoo who was posting a lot of pictures of gorillas.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Wow.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Or like a gorilla sanctuary or something.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It was like, "Oh, we're on gorillagram."
• linkDaniel Midgley - I mean, CAM is used that way a lot.Gorillacam.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay, so hang on.I feel we've got to do the digging in.Where does the "gram" in telegram come from?Not Graham Bell, surely.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, no, no, no.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Writing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's Greek.Writing.Is graph and gram one of those alternating pairs that are pretty much just the same thing.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, I thought so.Oh, then what's a gramophone?Colleen just said.Gramophone is like writing sound because you make it in the…I'm…I'm wildly guessing.
• linkBen Ainslie - With the grooves.With the grooves.From the ancient GREBH.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Or the graves.Yeah, so it is…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Does anyone want to hear testimonials from gorillagram.com.au?
• linkBen Ainslie - I don't.
• linkDaniel Midgley - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - Thank you, no.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Glyph has suggested POV, but it's used for second-person shots, and I had trouble understanding what that was, except that Tiger Webb referenced it at LingComm.What is this, Hedvig?Help me.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Okay, so Ben and I, your local TikTok correspondents, here reporting to duty.
• linkBen Ainslie - Hello.
• linkDaniel Midgley - They're on TikTok, so I don't have to!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - POV is also a thing on YouTube.Do you remember when I was talking about POV playlist?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yes, I do remember that.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - POV playlists are things where it's like:Imagine that you're in a 1930s veranda and you can hear the mosquitoes and there's some music in the background.And POV stands for point of view.There are also creepy ones where it's like:Imagine that this guy's your boyfriend and he's feeding your chicken soup, and then there's an ASMR guy being like,WHISPERING"Hello, sweetie.Do you wantunintelligible [01:20:02?"
• linkBen Ainslie - That is not something any of us needs.Horrific.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.There's a whole genre of this.Ranging from more or less erotic.Some of them…There's a lot of weird ones.
• linkBen Ainslie - Stop it.Stop it.I'm cutting you off right there.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You said "you're on a veranda in the '30s"".That does sound like second person.Is that what we're talking about?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No, it's like as if the video you're viewing is from your point of view.Right?When the creepy boyfriend is like, "Would you like chicken soup?", he's looking at camera being…
• linkBen Ainslie - No, I get what Daniel is asking though, is semantically what it does mean from a literary perspective is a second-person existence.Right?Like, you have to imagine…you put yourself into another space and place.Like, when they say point of view, they do not mean a literal point of view because that would be literally the things you see.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah.And let me just read something that Tiger Webb, our pal, the ABC language guy.He said this at a LingComm23 panel, and he said, "POV has changed meaning on TikTok to no longer mean what you're seeing from a point of view, but rather a general scene.That's a cool language change."
• linkBen Ainslie - But the younger generation just kind of erroneously have used POV because I think they grew up hearing POV a lot in the various media that they consumed.And they're like, "Ah, POV, you're, like, on a swampy bayou, and there's, like, banjos twingy-twanging in the background, and you can hear the gators rumbling," blah, blah, blah.What they actually mean is like, "Please imagine the following thing." Not like, "I literally think that you are seeing the view." Yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - BEN NOT THE HOST ONE:There has been a shift in TikToks.If you've seen a standard TikTok video with an overlaid caption, originally, you'd see like, "POV you come home and your girlfriend's mad at you," or something and then the video would be of someone pretending to be your girlfriend.So, it was like a first-person video in that.
• linkBen Ainslie - Like a literal POV shot, point of view shot from a technical perspective.
• linkBen Ainslie - BEN NOT THE HOST ONE:Now, you see videos that are captioned like, "POV, you're with your friends and doing a bunch of stuff." The "you" in there is actually in the video.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay, okay, I think we found the shift.Thank you, Ben.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Ben Not the Host One, I think, is on my side of all of this?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yup.Okay.That augmented my understanding.Thank you very much.So that is actually a really interesting shift…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That's a new thing.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Similar to the way that a selfie doesn't have to be of yourself anymore.People have reported that some people are coming up to them and saying, "Could you take a selfie of us?", and the person taking the photo wouldn't even be in there at all.So, there's a lot of shift going on with the language of film and photo, as you would expect with the speed of the medium.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Let's finish up with the last one:MUMMY, suggested by Diego.Museums are shifting away from calling mummies.Instead, they are starting to say things like "a mummified person" as a way of approaching the whole thing with a bit of sensitivity and tact, realising that this was a person who lived and who cared about their body, had certain beliefs and ideas.So, a mummified person.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Makes perfect sense.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I think so too.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It also makes sense because the word MUMMY particularly in American culture and cartoons from the '50s and '60s in cereal boxes is like a monster the same way that you could be a yeti or something else.
• linkBen Ainslie - Or a werewolf or something.Yeah.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - A werewolf.Whereas that's not what mummies are.They're people.Yeah, totally makes sense.
• linkBen Ainslie - Corpses, in fact!
• linkDaniel Midgley - Yeah!Just staying away from that whole '50s schlocky B movie thing, which is present for…no disrespect to Brendan Fraser.All right, so what we got?We've got HARD LAUNCH, we've got combining form -GRAM, POV, and MUMMY, our Words of the Week.As far as comments, everyone who's listening, I am seeing your emails, but I'm terribly snowed under because I've just been to a conference and there's episodes and things.So, let me dig out slowly and I will be reading your things out.
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm going to say a big thank you to everybody who suggested things for this episode.Thank you for coming and voting.Thanks to Dustin of Sandman Stories who still recommends us to everyone, the team at SpeechDocs who transcribes all the words, and most of all, you, our lovely patrons who give us so much support and make it possible to keep the show going.Thank you all for being here.Oh, what's that music?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - IMITATES MCDONALD'S TUNE
• linkDaniel Midgley - I'm pretending there's music.
• linkBen Ainslie - Oh, right.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hedvig, why don’t you give us a…
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm making the McDonald's tune for some reason.LAUGHS
• linkDaniel Midgley - Okay.
• linkBen Ainslie - Wait, also, can I just ask, were you making the Australian McDonald's tune?Does McDonald's do that little jingle in other countries?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - McDonald's made this jingle, like, 15 years ago and it's in every country.
• linkBen Ainslie - Okay.I haven't traveled internationally in a long time, okay?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Well, we're just getting rid of that and putting in our end theme instead.That's enough of that.
• linkDaniel Midgley - LONG PAUSE
• linkBen Ainslie - WHISPERINGHedvig, go.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hedvig, I think I got you first.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, shit.Sorry, I got so distracted by Maccas.Ah, da-da-da, scrolling scrolling scrolling.I am first.This is fun.If you like the show, which hopefully you do if you listen to this far, or if you're hate listeners, a download is a download, I don't care.But if you do listen and you did like us, feel free to do some things to support our show.We like making this show and we hope you like it too.If you do, here are some things.You can follow us on all the social places, we are @becauselangpod.You can also leave us a message on SpeakPipe on our website, becauselanguage.com.You can send us an old-fashioned email and Daniel will get to it when he has time.It is hello@becauselanguage.com.You can tell a friend about us.That's always a great way of learning about new podcasts.You can leave us a review in any of the places where you can leave a review.So, whatever podcast app you use, you can usually leave a review.iTunes is the place a lot of people go, but I can also recommend Podchaser.Just a website that collects reviews from lots of different places.We do have a new review from Chris.
• linkDaniel Midgley - You don't have to read it if you don't want to.Have you read this?
• linkHedvig Skirgård - With the title, "Undeniably excellent.Undeniably infuriating."
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes.Yes!
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Which is, I think the vibe.
• linkBen Ainslie - And then what I love underneath that:five stars.
• linkCHUCKLES
• linkHedvig Skirgård - LAUGHSI am reading ahead now.You want me to read this out?
• linkDaniel Midgley - We don't have to if it's…if you feel like you're being x-rayed, we don't have to do it.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - No.
• linkBen Ainslie - Can I read it?
• linkDaniel Midgley - Go ahead, Ben.
• linkBen Ainslie - Because I have a feeling I feature, "I listen/have listened to seeming all the linguistic podcasts and BL is top tier.It features a truly wide variety of topics, a pleasing blend of the irreverent and the intellectual and fascinating guests.That said, you will have to learn to live with one of the most frustrating trios of hosts out there.One is dependably excellent, and obviously thinks about the audience.One is incredibly bright, but often equally painfully smug.And the last, sometimes affected brashness does little to conceal the brittle girders of his fragile ego."WHISPERSThat’s me."But truly, the excellence is more than worth learning to live with the bad, and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in language, linguistics, and words.Just as I do to everyone else whose ear I can bend." I love that review so much.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It's beautiful.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's from someone who likes us!
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - That’s from someone who likes us.Can we just say who is who?
• linkBen Ainslie - Just to engage in therapy talk for a second, I feel incredibly seen right now.I feel incredibly witnessed.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Thanks, Chris.Five stars is five stars.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Five stars is five stars.Can we just…so "dependently excellent, obviously thinks about the audience" is Daniel.
• linkBen Ainslie - Daniel, obviously.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - "Incredibly bright but often equally painfully smug" is me.
• linkBen Ainslie - Yes, that's definitely you.
• linkDaniel Midgley - That's you.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I love it.
• linkBen Ainslie - And the— and I quote —"Sometimes affected brashness, which does little to conceal the brittle girders of his fragile ego." Oh, gee willikers.
• linkDaniel Midgley - He's got your number.
• linkBen Ainslie - My name is Ben.I'll be here all week.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Oh, my god.I love it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - More like these, please.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I love it.More like this.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• linkBen Ainslie - If anyone is still listening at this point in the show— and good on you if you are —I defy you to leave us a five-star complimentary but viciously honest attack review.That'd be so good.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Just slash away!Hmm.Go ahead, Ben, it's your turn.
• linkBen Ainslie - Also, if you want to be above and beyond Chris's magnificent pros about my qualities, you can become a patron.You'll get bonus episodes.You can hang out with us on Discord.Chris, join us on Discord.You can attack me in…well, not in person, but at least in a quicker turnaround than that review was, and I will enjoy it just as much.You will also be making it possible though if you become a patron to have us transcribe the show by the wonderful, wonderful people at SpeechDocs, who every single goddamn show have to listen to my prattering on, guarding my fragile ego and somehow turn it into a Word document.And I always applaud their efforts.
• linkBen Ainslie - A shoutout to our top patrons.TAKES A DEEP BREATHIztin, Termy, Elías, Matt, Whitney, Helen, Jack, PharaohKatt, Lord Mortis, gramaryen, Larry, Kristofer, Andy B, James, Nigel, Meredith, Kate, Nasrin, Joanna, Ayesha, Moe, Steele, Margareth, Manú, Rodger, Rhian, Colleen, Ignacio, Sonic Snejhog, Kevin, Jeff, Andy from Logophilius, Stan, Kathy, Rach, Cheyenne, Felicity, Amir, Canny Archer, O Tim, Alyssa, Chris.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - You can do it.You can do it.You can do it.
• linkDaniel Midgley - He did it.I can't believe it.
• linkBen Ainslie - And our newest patron at the Listener Level, Meng.Shit.CHUCKLES
• linkDaniel Midgley - No, you got through the list.That's fine.Thanks to all our wonderful patrons.Our theme music has been written and performed by Drew Krapljanov, who's a member of Ryan Beno and a member of Didion's Bible.Thanks for listening.We'll catch you on the flippity-flop.Because Language.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Wow.Thanks, everybody, for being here.Anybody want to wave?Let's wave.Thanks for sticking with us.Did you have fun?
• linkDaniel Midgley - BOOP
• linkDaniel Midgley - If there's anything that you'd like to tweet or toot, you can tweet or toot it with the #LingFest23, because this is a Ling Fest jam.Yay.LingFest.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - I'm going to go to Twitter.I have accidentally…When I ty-type…when I twiped…when I…
• linkDaniel Midgley - LAUGHSThat's typing something on Twitter, folks.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - When I go to Twitter, and I type in the URL, in my web browser, I type out Twitter, it doesn't go to twitter.com.It defaults to another page on Twitter, which is about an underwater sharknado that we covered before.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Oh, that's right.
• linkBen Ainslie - Wicked.
• linkHedvig Skirgård - And because I happen to go to that one every time, my browser is just like, "Oh, you love that page.When you write Twitter, that is where you want to go."
• linkDaniel Midgley - "Do you want me to make that your start page?""
• linkHedvig Skirgård - It's essentially my start page on Twitter, is "NASA footage shows an underwater Sharknado home to mutant fish has erupted."
• linkBen Ainslie - I wonder if we need to come up with or perhaps there already is one, the name or the word or the description for when you're profoundly lazy and you keep going to the wrong URL to get you to the right URL.Do other people do that?Yeah, exactly what Hedvig just described.You go to that one bizarre, deeply buried link and then you go, "Oh, yeah, and then I've got to click on the homepage and get back to where I actually want to go."
• linkDaniel Midgley - Because I don't know how to do it for reals.
• linkBen Ainslie - Well, because bookmarks would obviously make me a Boomer, so I'm not going to mess with those.So instead, I just type in the first few letters of a URL, go to that thing, then go to the next step.
• linkDaniel Midgley - It's that kind of talk that causes unrest.
• linkLAUGHTER
• linkBen Ainslie - Critique from the crowd.
• linkDaniel Midgley - Hedvig, have you pasted the link to the sharknado tweet so that we can make that our homepage now?Because I will.
• linkBen Ainslie - LAUGHS
• linkHedvig Skirgård - Um, yeah.
• linkTranscript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription