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contains explicit language. I'm Stephen Mechaff and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, the Abstract Noun Edition. It's Wednesday, December 25th, 2013. On today's show, we decided to change things up a little bit. We decided to talk about language, the highly evolved, complex medium underlying all-conscious reflection, or as we like to think of it on this show,

a hot sack of bullshit. So in departing from the usual format of the show, or maybe we're just

reaching deeper into the hot sack, we thought we would talk about words. Joining me today is

Slate's deputy editor Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. And of course, our Slate's film critic,

Dana. Stevens. Hey, Dana. Okay, so course, us, Slate's film critic, Danny. And, Steven's. Hey, Dana. Hey.

Okay, so this is an utter folly in honor of Christmas and in hopes that little elves will appear out of nowhere.

I think, Danny, you just said this and structure the show for us.

But we're imposing for the benefit of the elf.

We're doing a kind of vague structure in which we're going to break the

conversation up into three distinct parts.

The first is vocabulary.

The second is conversation.

And the third is voice.

Julia Turner, I think of you as our fearless leader.

Therefore, I will pin responsibility for this debacle squarely on you.

I'm happy to take responsibility. Excellent. To tell me why we are talking about language. Yeah,

I'll explain. Well, pragmatically, this show will air on Christmas Day and we don't intend to tape on

...