Hello. Today, we're going to play a game, and it's called Diction Dash, where you guess the true meaning or origin of a word.

See, for months, you have sent us words that you want us to cover on the show, and for months, we have shamefully ignored them.

And over time, the list has grown to over 200 words, an insurmountable

lexical mountain. And so today, with the help of our friends and coworkers at Science Friday,

we are tackling 2.5% of the beast, aka five words. You're welcome. I'm Johanna Mayer and this is Diction Dash. All right, let's get into it. First up, radio producer Kathleen Davis. Hi, Kathleen. Hi, Johanna. What listener selected word did you choose? So I'm feeling ready for summer.

Me too.

So I'm bringing you a word that will probably elicit some warm weather feelings.

I am here for it.

So are you familiar with the dandelion?

I am very familiar with the dandelion.

Yeah, it's a wildflower.

Just a side note, there are actually a lot

of species of dandelions all over the world, but the ones that we are most familiar with in North

America were actually introduced from Europe, and then they just spread and spread, which they're

very good at doing. So the dandelion has this big yellow flower head.

And then at the end of its life cycle, it turns into a whole bunch of seeds that float away in the wind.

They're white and fuzzy.

And at least for me, an important part of my childhood was blowing those seeds into the wind and spreading weeds into my parents' backyard.

Absolutely. I have very clear memories of doing this. Of course. So if we split up the word

dandelion, there's a part of this word that's a pretty obvious allusion to an animal, right?

The lion part, I'm guessing. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I want you to guess what the remaining part of this

etymology refers to, so the dandy part. So I have a quick quiz for you. Okay. I want you to guess

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