Tiger Tail - 20 January 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

🗓️ 20 January 2020

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You may have a favorite word in English, but what about your favorite in another language? The Spanish term ojalá is especially handy for expressing hopefulness and derives from Arabic for "God willing." In Trinidad, if you want to ask friends to hang out with you, invite them to go liming. Nobody's sure about this word's origin, although it may indeed have to do with the tart green fruit. And: a story about a traveler who finds that children in Siberia use different words to say the sound an animal makes. English speakers imitate a rooster with cock-a-doodle-doo, but in Siberia, children learn to say something that sounds like "koh-kock-a-REE!" The sounds we attribute to other creatures vary from language to language, even if they're all the same to the animals. Plus, a brain teaser about subtracting letters, saditty, bundu, potpie, the famous bubbler, words misheard, the plural of squash, a poem about slowing down and paying attention, and a whole lot 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	You're listening to Away With Words, the show about language and how we use it.
0:03.5	I'm Grant Barrett.
0:04.5	And I'm Martha Barnett.
0:06.0	Grant, you and I are often asked what our favorite word is.
0:09.0	Yes.
0:10.0	And I like to throw out Malifluis and preposterous.
0:13.6	But I realize that I'm usually throwing out words in English.
0:17.8	And maybe it's time we shared words in different languages.
0:21.0	So what's your ancient Greek one? Oh gosh, there's...
0:25.0	I know you're not ready for that.
0:27.0	Sorry.
0:28.0	Well, in Spanish, the word Oh, Hala is a wonderful word.
0:32.0	Yes. It's from the Arabic and it roughly means the same as
0:34.7	inshala, hopefully or if God wills it. And I love it because it demonstrates that
0:39.2	Spanish isn't that pure Latin language that sometimes it's people English speakers think that it is right
0:44.4	yes it's got all this influence from Arabic it's absolutely this rich history yeah yeah
0:50.6	and the other thing I love about ohjala is that it's followed by the
0:54.0	subjunctive, which we use so rarely in English and it's used a whole lot more in
0:58.2	Spanish. Yeah, so Ojala... Oh, Hala, that can't do a sera algo.
1:05.0	Right, and so it suggests the possibility of doing something you could do that.
1:09.0	Yeah, yeah.
1:10.0	Yeah.
	...

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