Think of a breakfast muffin with sausage and egg.

Yep, that's the one.

You can see it, can you?

Deep in your mind.

Sausage, egg, cheese, muffin.

I don't even need to say its name, do I?

Breakfast, done properly.

Served until 11 a.m.

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.

I had the great good fortune recently to join some friends for a concert by the San Diego Symphony.

And what made this evening really special is that the concert was outdoors at the new

Radyshell at Jacobs Park, which is this spectacular new venue right there on San Diego

Bay. And thanks to the Shell's design and the state-of-the-art acoustic system, the sound was also

just stunning. In fact, Grant, the acoustics were so good that at

intermission, we sought out the sound engineers to check out their board. And the symphony's audio

director was sitting there, and he had a score that he follows during the whole performance.

And that's because he's responsible for creating what he called the cocktail

effect. And so, of course, I got all excited to learn a new term, because when you're in a crowded

setting and everybody's talking, you can still tune in to what somebody near you is saying because

your brain lets you focus on the sound of that one person and you filter out all the

...