Book Moth - 1 January 2024

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A Way with Words

Language Learning, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

If you skip wearing underwear, you’re said to be going commando. This bit of slang originated during the Vietnam War, when U.S. commandos had compelling reasons to do without that particular piece of clothing. Plus, Watergate salad is a mixture of pistachio pudding with whipped cream and pineapple. This dish was popularized in the 1970s, but what does it have anything to do with the scandal that brought down a president? Also: The practice of blurring out images or text in ads or movies helps avoid giving free advertising to a sponsor’s competitor. This strategy is called greeking, but why? The answer is Greek to us! All that, and buveur d’encre, clodhopper, a wild and wooly quiz, fantasy fiction, insure vs. ensure, live vs. stay, get outside of a meal,green goop, mean green, whale fall, and the long and winding etymological route of a name for “eggplant,” brinjal. 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/contact. Be a part of the show: call 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; worldwide, call or text/SMS +1 (619) 800-4443. Email words@waywordradio.org. Twitter @wayword. 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 he used it.
0:04.1	I'm Grant Barrett.
0:05.1	And I'm Martha Barnett.
0:07.1	Grant, you and I have both been called bookworms before.
0:10.7	Do you mind that term?
0:12.1	Being called a worm?
0:14.0	No, I don't take offense.
0:16.0	The image of burrowing into a book.
0:20.0	That's exactly me.
0:22.0	Right, yeah, just loving books so much and just just working through them page by page like a little worm in a library just just devouring what's there. I love the term too, Book Worm, and it's interesting to me that many
0:38.8	other languages use the image of a worm devouring a book to refer to people who love reading and love
0:47.2	libraries. In Hungarian and Estonian the image is a book moth which is also kind of lovely and The
0:55.0	the image is a book moth which is also kind of lovely and in Indonesia the term for somebody who really loves books
0:59.0	translates as book flea or book louse. In Spanish, if you love books, you're a raton de biblioteca.
1:08.4	Oh, it's the same as one of the French ones, a rheivliatek, library rat.
1:13.3	Oh, but they also have one I really love, which is Inc.
1:17.0	Drinker, Booth dankra, Inc.
1:19.6	Drinker, somebody who's drinking the ink.
1:21.4	But I have to say I like the Indonesian one, the
1:23.3	flea, the book flea, the idea of hopping from book to book. Sometimes that's what
1:28.7	we are more than bookworms, right? You're like, ah, it's not really catching me. I'm going to hop over to this one.
1:34.0	Martha and I would love it if you would spit a little ink hour away, send us an email to
	...

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