Old College Try - 16 January 2023

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

A Way with Words

Language Learning, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In just seconds, online text generators and chatbots can produce whole paragraphs of sophisticated prose. But what do advances in artificial intelligence mean for writers? What is lost and what’s gained when machine-writing replaces the work humans have always struggled to produce? Plus, the story behind the phrase the old college try. It goes back to the early days of baseball! And: a clever poem to get you through the long winter months. Also, have beef, cut your water off, a brain teaser about common bonds, inside baseball, South Cack and South Cackalacky, the Ukrainian word for “umbrella,” kiss-me-quick and dippity-do, and the pits. 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/contact. Be a part of the show: call 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; worldwide, call or text/SMS +1 (619) 800-4443. Email words@waywordradio.org. Twitter @wayword. 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.
0:04.4	I'm Grant Barrett.
0:06.0	And I'm Martha Barnett. If you are now trudging through the bleak mid-winter,
0:11.2	I have a poem for you. It's called Namanic.
0:15.2	30 days, half September, April, June, and November, unless a leap year is its fate,
0:21.8	February, half 28. All the rest have three days more,
0:27.5	excepting January, which have 6,184.
0:37.5	How true is that? That's by Brian Bilston, who has hundreds of thousands of followers on
0:43.2	social media because he's incredibly prolific, and he writes a lot of witty poems like that.
0:48.4	And that's from his new book called Days Like These.
0:52.3	Oh yeah, I follow him on social media as well, mainly because there's such an uplift
0:57.2	every time I see it. He's a poet in the Shell Silverstein model where
1:03.6	there's multiple layers. There's the funny layer, there's the thoughtful layer,
1:07.0	and then there's like, how did he do that layer?
1:09.1	Right, right. That's a great way to describe it. Yeah, they sneak up on you sometimes.
1:14.0	The Away With Words is about language, and we open the phone lines to you every week.
1:18.2	877-929-9673 is toll-free in the United States and Canada,
1:23.4	and you can send a email from anywhere in the world, words at waywardradio.org.
1:28.4	Hey there, you have a way with words.
1:30.5	Hi, this is Nikki Hamer, and I'm calling from Massachusetts.
1:35.4	Let me start with this. I have a beef with beef.
1:39.3	You're a vegetarian? No, I'm not.
	...

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