9. The Space Between
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman
4.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2015
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
I know this is a show about words, but forget the words for a moment; look at the spaces between the words. Without the spaces, the words would be nigh incomprehensible. Dr Kate Wiles explains the history of the space.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the illusionist, in which I, Helen Zoltzman, milk the others of language. |
| 0:09.7 | Coming up in today's show. |
| 0:11.7 | Oh, let's hear that again. |
| 0:15.7 | What does it mean? |
| 0:17.4 | Find out, imminently. |
| 0:19.1 | Let's limber up for this episode with a little light word history. |
| 0:23.7 | I know you're being kept awake night after night wandering why there is disgruntled, but |
| 0:28.9 | no gruntled. |
| 0:30.3 | The word disgruntled is not built from the same blocks as a pair of words like discontent |
| 0:35.2 | and content, or disagree and agree, where the disc suggests a kind of negative action. |
| 0:41.1 | The disc in disgruntled is actually an intensifier, meaning extremely gruntled, gruntled being |
| 0:47.6 | from a now obsolete verb meaning grumble or soul. |
| 0:51.0 | Alright, peddence, yes, now gruntled is in the dictionary itself as a backformation |
| 0:56.3 | of disgruntled thanks to PG Witthouse using it in his 1938 novel, The Code of the Worsters. |
| 1:05.8 | On with the show. |
| 1:11.4 | Illusionist is a show about words, but today's episode isn't looking at words themselves, |
| 1:17.0 | but what's on either side of them? |
| 1:19.0 | That is, nothingness. |
| 1:21.6 | If it weren't for the absence of words, the words themselves would be rather incomprehensible |
| 1:26.2 | how would you know where one word ends and the next begins without the space between. |
| 1:32.0 | Since the spaces serve such a crucial function in language, I was pretty astonished to discover |
| 1:37.2 | they are a lot younger than language itself, so to guide me on a journey through space, |
... |
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