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A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over

Good Juju (Rebroadcast) - 15 April 2013

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over

A Way with Words

Language Learning, Society & Culture, Education

4.62.3K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2013

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Imagine a time when heroin was marketed for the whole family. It really happened! Also, how Twitter, M&M’s, and Hallmark cards got their names. Plus, restaurant slang, bad juju, having a wild hair, cutting to the quick, and use vs. utilize.  Hear hundreds of free episodes and learn more on the A Way with Words website: ⁠https://waywordradio.org⁠. Be a part of the show: call or text ⁠1 (877) 929-9673⁠ toll-free in the United States and Canada; elsewhere in the world, call or text ⁠+1 619 800 4443⁠. Send voice notes or messages via ⁠WhatsApp 16198004443.⁠ Email ⁠words@waywordradio.org⁠. 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

At Accardo, you'll save 25% on your first shop and get free delivery, which means if you were to buy a four cheese pizza, you'd basically be getting one of the cheeses for free.

0:10.1

Save and splurge at Accardo, the online supermarket.

0:12.9

Geographical and other restrictions. Min spend £60 on charge to apply. Discound available on food, new customers only.

0:17.6

Max saving £20.000. Terms at Accato.com. On May 16th, join Martha and Me as we go to Dallas, Texas,

0:24.6

to the Lakewood Theater for a live event.

0:27.2

In conjunction with Aberg Center,

0:28.8

a literacy organization and K-E-R-A.

0:31.4

You can get tickets and more information at abergcenter.org.

0:35.4

That's A-B-E-R-G Center.org. 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. Grant, you and I often invite folks to contact our show on Twitter, right? But if it hadn't been for a twist of lexical fate, we'd be inviting them to contact us on jitter. On jitter. On jitter. Because that's what the service was going to be called, either jitter or Twitch. And co-founder Jack Dorsey has said that they were looking for a name that evoked what the service did. And of course, in the early days, they would get a text message. And every time that would happen, their phone would buzz or jitter or twitch. they do that table dance, right? The phone kind of just bounces all over the table. Exactly. So they started nosing around in the dictionary looking for a word that was close to Twitch. And they came across Twitter and, of course, that perfectly encapsulated what they were doing, sending out those short bursts of information. So if that product name hadn't gone through an evolution, we would all be jeeting. Jeeting. Jeeting. Sure. No. Or jittering. Sounds wrong. And you know, the parent company at the time was called Odeo, and Twitter was an offshoot of Odeo. Right. So it could be like Yodi-O-Ling or something like that. I don't know. That's great. Audioly.

1:46.3

Boy, I'm glad they chose Twitter.

1:49.0

But, you know, a great place to find out about product names is the blog by our friend Nancy Friedman.

1:54.4

It's called Frida Nancy, which is a great name in itself because it comes from an old word that means chirping or creaking.

2:00.7

You know, Frida Nancy, Nancy Friedman. And she's got great stuff on there all the time of it. itself because it comes from an old word that means chirping or creaking.

2:02.6

You know, Fritta Nancy, Nancy Friedman.

2:07.2

And she's got great stuff on there all the time about brand names and how products get their names.

2:09.0

So we'll link to that from our website.

2:16.4

And the best stuff that she does is when she finds these terrible names of products and reports about how bad they are.

2:19.1

Everybody likes a bad review more than good review, right? Fun for the whole family. 8779-9-6673. Words at Wayward Radio.org. Hello, you have a way with words. Hi. This is Lindsay from New York, and I had a question for you guys. Hi, Lindsay, welcome. What is it? Last week, I was hanging out with some friends, and I said that I had gotten a wild hair and decided to do something.

2:41.2

And everyone I was with kind of looked at me like I had three heads all of a sudden.

2:47.1

And, you know, it came out that they actually had no idea what I was talking about.

2:52.0

Now, I'm from the South, and I was hanging out with people that are – one was Southern, and one was from New York originally.

3:00.1

So it's a wide group of people, but nobody had heard of this before.

...

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