630 - Who Wrote the ABC Song? Shark Idioms!
Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers.
Mignon Fogarty, Inc.
4.5 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 19 July 2018
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, we talk about who wrote the alphabet song that helps people learn their ABCs, and we investigate six silly idioms about sharks. #SharkWeek
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This week I have a tidbit about the alphabet song and an honor of the upcoming TV Extravaganza |
| 0:14.5 | Shark Week. |
| 0:15.8 | I have a meaty middle about shark idioms. |
| 0:19.6 | As we were making the bonus episode about Schoolhouse Rock for Stitcher Premium subscribers |
| 0:24.0 | a few weeks ago, I started thinking about how effective music is for helping you remember |
| 0:29.6 | things. |
| 0:31.0 | For example, some boys in my high school chemistry class made up a song about Avogadro's |
| 0:36.0 | number. |
| 0:37.5 | Just now I had to look up what the number actually is and why we needed to know it for chemistry. |
| 0:43.6 | It's the number of units in one mole of any substance. |
| 0:46.8 | Thanks Google. |
| 0:48.2 | But because of that song, I can still tell you off the top of my head that 6.02 x 10 to |
| 0:54.8 | the 23rd is Avogadro's number. |
| 0:57.9 | Thanks music. |
| 0:59.6 | So with all that on my mind, I couldn't resist this tidbit by Rachel Dwyer about the |
| 1:04.2 | origin of the alphabet song. |
| 1:07.3 | Hendrix, age 6 from Dunsboro, Western Australia, asked who made the ABC song. |
| 1:15.6 | A common answer to this question is that the ABC song was first copyrighted under the |
| 1:21.2 | title The Schoolmaster in 1834 by an American man named Charles Bradley. |
| 1:28.4 | You can see the original sheet music and lyrics on the Library of Congress website. |
| 1:33.5 | And I'll post a link to it on the transcript of this podcast at quickandirtytips.com. |
| 1:38.9 | But the history of this famous song goes back a little further than that. |
... |
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