You're listening to Away with Words, the show about language, and how we use it.

I'm Grant Barrett.

And I'm Martha Barnett. The new movie Dream Horse tells a true story that takes place in a tiny

Welsh village. On a whim, the local bartender, played by Tony Colette, dreams of breeding a

championship race horse. So she buys a mare and she persuades her neighbors to chip in with a

little money each week to support her efforts. Now, a horse like that is a long shot to win anything,

but you can imagine why there's a movie about this true story. Because they lose, right?

Well, Grant, you'll just have to see it. It's pretty predictable, but if you do see this movie,

you may wonder about a word that turns up when the local townsfolk meet for the first time to decide

whether to go for this seemingly impossible goal. Eventually, they all agree that they're not

doing this for any prize money. They're doing it for the whole. And if you go to look up the word

whole in the dictionary, you may have trouble finding it, but here's the key. Here's what you have

to remember. This story takes place in Wales, and the word they're using is spelled H-W-Y-L

Nice. W is a vowel. W as a vowel, as you see in Welsh. The term is hard to define, but I looked

it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, and the definition there was, an emotional quality which

inspires and sustains impassioned eloquence. Also, the fervor of emotion characteristic of

gatherings of Welsh people. Grant, I can't wait to go to Wales. I want to experience

oil. Oh, that's lovely. I want to watch that movie. I saw a trailer for it. I'm like, yeah,

it looks predictable, but I like a bunch of the actors in it. The scenery looked great. I like

horses. I love Tony Collette. Sure. Right. Right. Damien Lewis. Damien Lewis is easy on the eyes.

One more bit of good news about this word is that I checked you can use it in Scrabble H-W-Y-L

in Welsh. And a great word when people say, well, what about W? Is it a vowel? Yes, it is.

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