Science Friday Presents: Science Diction

Science Diction

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Friday, Society & Culture, Science, Origin, Culture, Words, History, Word, Language

4.8 • 610 Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2020

⏱️ 2 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From the people who make Science Friday, we bring you Science Diction, a bite-sized podcast about words—and the science stories behind them. Hosted by SciFri producer and self-proclaimed word nerd Johanna Mayer, each episode of Science Diction digs into the origin of a single word or phrase, and, with the help of historians, authors, etymologists, and scientists, reveals a surprising science connection. For example, did you know the origin of the word meme has more to do with evolutionary biology than lolcats? Here's a sneak peek!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, so you know the word meme. I have this friend of a friend who insists on pronouncing the word
0:07.8	mem. It's totally insufferable, but I have to give those to them. It actually kind of makes
0:16.8	sense because meme comes from the Greek word mimema, which means to imitate. And we use that
0:24.9	word all the time to talk about these things that we see spreading around online. Lollcats,
0:30.6	the distracted boyfriend, is this a pigeon? But when we first started using the word meme,
0:36.8	it had nothing to do with the internet.
0:39.9	The word's been around since the 70s, and it came from an evolutionary biologist.
0:45.8	But you don't usually hear about that link.
0:49.5	I've always found this kind of unsatisfying because it's like, how did this concept in social science research
0:55.4	suddenly become the name of an internet cultural phenomenon? Like, how did it cross over?
0:59.8	Meme history and the evolution of language? Oh yeah, we're going there. Science Diction is a new
1:05.8	podcast all about words like these, and the science stories tucked away within them. It's hosted by me,
1:12.0	Johanna Mayer, and it's coming to you from Science Friday and WNYC Studios on March 10th.
1:17.8	If you like your etymology with the side of science, science diction is the show for you.
1:23.6	Find us wherever you get your podcasts.

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