Flop Sweat (Rebroadcast) - 12 August 2019

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A Way with Words

Language Learning, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 August 2019

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Gerrymandering draws political boundaries to tip elections towards certain political parties. Originally, the word was pronounced “GARY-mandering” with a hard “g.” But why? And why did it change? • Mark Twain and Helen Keller had a devoted friendship. When he heard accusations that she’d plagiarized a story, Twain wrote Keller a fond letter assuring her that there’s nothing new under the sun. • A well-crafted subject line makes email more efficient. One that contains just the word “Question” is almost as useless as no subject line at all. • Plus, flop sweat, vintage clothing, the solfège system, on line vs. in line, groaking, the Hawaiian fish dish called poke, and around the gool. 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 Away with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
0:03.6	I'm Grant Barrett.
0:04.6	And I'm Martha Barnett.
0:06.2	Every once in a while I'll find out that a word that I think I've understood all this time
0:11.6	I had wrong, a word or a phrase phrase and the term that I'm thinking about this time that I just learned about is flop sweat.
0:18.4	Flop sweat. Yeah. What did you think? I thought it was a flop sweat was when you're really, really sweating and it's so much that the drops are just gigantic and they're just flopping off of it.
0:29.0	Oh, but then you figured out? I figured out that that's not the case do you know what it really is when you're
0:36.2	Nervous about a situation right right? Let's say that you're going up before the Supreme Court. You've never been there before now 100% sure about your case.
0:43.7	I don't know, but a flop sweat is a sweat that breaks out in times of tension.
0:47.0	Right, but why is it called a flop sweat?
0:49.0	That I don't know.
0:50.0	Well, this is really cool.
0:51.5	It comes from the world of theater and the fear that your production is going to flop.
0:57.6	Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. I never stopped to think about why flop?
1:02.4	Right, yeah. There's that famous scene in broadcast news where Albert Brooks's character is just yeah
1:08.3	He breaks out into a flop sweat, but but yeah I've traced it back as far back as the 1940s when it was still used in quotes and it was used in the theater to talk about actors or producers or writers who were just terrified on say opening night oh my
1:26.2	God is this going to be a flop or not it's that we all know that feeling yes
1:30.5	is this big thing that is the is the proposal I'm going to be accepted? Will she say yes? Am I going to get the job?
1:37.0	And we all know at least I think so and I'm wondering if our listeners have this experience when you think you know what a word means and then you know
1:47.0	You're a lot older and you realize oh I didn't understand that term at all
1:50.4	It's interesting how often a misunderstanding of a word though is still operational.
1:54.5	Like you still kind of get by even though you don't fully know the dimensions of it.
	...

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