Space Cadet (Rebroadcast) - 10 August 2020

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

🗓️ 10 August 2020

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We have books for language-lovers and recommendations for history buffs. • How did the word boondoggle come to denote a wasteful project? The answer involves the Boy Scouts, a baby, a craft project, and a city council meeting. • Instead of reversing just individual letters, some palindromes are sentences with reversed word order. • Also squeaky clean, dad, icebox, search it up, pretend vs. pretentious, toe-counting rhymes, comb the giraffe, a Korean song about carrots, a word game, and more. 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	Hey, it's Martha, with a special announcement. I hope you'll join Grant and me for a special video event in support of Wayward Inc, the nonprofit that brings you this show.
0:10.0	It's Thursday, August 27th, 7 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 4 PM Pacific.
0:16.0	Plan to take a break from whatever you're doing that day, sit back and enjoy the kind of chat that Grant and I have when the microphone isn't on.
0:24.8	We'll have some nerdy conversation about words and books, of course,
0:28.3	but also a bit about our home lives, our pets,
0:31.0	our pastimes, and more. This video event is free but you do have to register
0:36.5	so sign up now while you're thinking about it. Go to wayward radio dot
0:41.0	O-R-G slash Lemonade.
0:43.2	See you on the 27th.
0:46.1	Away With Words is funded in large part by donations from worldwide
0:49.7	podcast listeners like you.
0:51.7	Go to Weward Radio.org slash Go to wayward radio.org
0:53.4	slash donate to keep new episodes coming. Thank you.
0:56.6	You're listening to a way with words, the show about language and how we use it.
1:00.8	I'm Grant Barrett.
1:01.8	And I'm Martha Barnett. We all have had the experience of doing work that's tedious or pointless and
1:08.3	the French have a wonderful term for that that translates as combing the giraffe. You know this one?
1:15.0	Parnier la Giraffe, which refers to the idea of doing something that's just, you know.
1:21.0	Right, how do you get up there got to get the latter he's not
1:23.7	going to stand still he doesn't care very much he's not helping I learned that
1:29.2	from a new book by Canadian author Mark Abley it It's called Watch Your Tongue, What Our Everyday Sayings and Idioms Figuratively
1:36.7	mean. And Mark is from Canada. He's the author of Spoken Here, Travels Among Threat threatened languages, which I really loved.
	...

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