Beside Myself (Rebroadcast) - 29 March 2021

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over

A Way with Words

Language Learning, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The new Downton Abbey movie is a luscious treat for fans of the public-television period piece, but how accurate is the script when it comes to the vocabulary of the early 20th century? It may be jarring to hear the word swag, but it was already at least 100 years old. And no, it's not an acronym. Also, a historian of science sets out to write a book to celebrate semicolons — and ends up transforming her views about language. Plus, one teacher's creative solution to teen profanity in the classroom. Two words for you: moo cow. Also, demonyms, semicolons, neke neke, a brain teaser about the Greek alphabet, go-aheads, zoris, how to pronounce zoology, and everything's duck but the bill. Read full show notes, hear hundreds of free episodes, send your thoughts and questions, and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org/. Email words@waywordradio.org. Twitter @wayword. Our listener phone line 1 (877) 929-9673 is toll-free in the United States and Canada. Elsewhere in the world, call +1 (619) 800-4443; charges may apply. From anywhere, text/SMS +1 (619) 567-9673. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a way with words, the show about language and how we use it.
0:03.8	I'm Grant Barrett. And I'm Martha Barnett. A few weeks ago we had that call from Dean. He's a
0:09.3	teacher in LA and he wanted to know what our thoughts were about handling teen profanity in the
0:16.0	classroom. Right. Or on campus anywhere. Yes. And we heard from a lot of listeners about that.
0:22.0	And I wanted to share this email from Judy Heights, who lives here in San Diego. She wrote,
0:27.2	I taught high school for years. The rules across campus for language were to say the least variable.
0:33.8	I quickly realized that high schoolers can be lawyers when it comes to negotiating rules.
0:39.4	And I think any parent of a teen or a middle schooler. So she decided to talk with them about how
0:48.4	words themselves aren't inherently bad, but in a context they have meaning and people associate
0:54.3	different feelings with them. And then she said, I said if they wanted to curse in my class,
0:59.6	they had two choices. I gave them a list of curses from Shakespeare. Or I told them they could
1:04.8	shout, moo cow. And as you can imagine, moo cow was the hit. Kids would get mad, start to curse
1:14.7	and yell, moo cow. Then instead of being mad, they would start to laugh. You cannot stay mad while
1:20.0	yelling moo cow. She said, I knew I was succeeding when I had kids come into class snickering saying
1:26.8	someone had yelled moo cow in another class and all the kids laughed and the teacher was confused.
1:33.6	She said the best part was nobody got into trouble. That's right. Avoided the whole question and
1:38.4	didn't have to play rules lawyer with the kids. Exactly. Can you imagine every single day 35
1:44.3	of kids, every single one of lawyer, one of the challenges, every single rule. Yeah.
1:50.2	High school litigation. No, thank you. No thanks. No thanks.
1:53.7	Moo cow. Moo cow. Well, we know you solve this problem in your own way either at home or school.
1:58.9	Hey, maybe the workplace. How do you deal with profanity small and large? It's kind of safe and not
2:04.8	safe at all. We're just still taking your calls and your emails about that. 877-929-673.
	...

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