Truth and Beauty (Rebroadcast)

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

🗓️ 30 March 2020

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Malamute, kayak, and parka are just some of the words that have found their way into English from the language of indigenous people in northern climes. • In the 1970s, some scientists argued that two quarks should be called truth and beauty. • The many layers of words and worlds we invoke when we describe someone as the apple of my eye. • To have brass on one’s face, frozen statues, good craic, prepone, agathism and agathokakological, and the positive use of I don’t care. 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.
0:03.4	I'm Grant Barrett. And I'm Martha Barnett. The other day I was part of a panel discussion at the University of
0:10.0	San Diego and the topic was language and beauty and I learned something fascinating
0:15.9	in the course of researching my remarks I went to Merriam-Webster online and I looked up the word
0:21.8	beauty and of course you see all the kinds of definition. online and I looked up the word beauty.
0:22.5	And of course, you see all the kinds of definitions
0:25.4	that you would expect having to do with physical appearance
0:28.3	or something graceful and ornamental, that kind of thing.
0:32.2	But the fifth definition, the last definition
0:35.4	they had on there, they had simply the word bottom
0:39.3	as a definition for beauty.
0:41.2	Bottom, do you have any idea what that has to do with?
0:44.0	No, there's some bells are ringing in my head, but I can't nail them down.
0:49.7	Is this a term for the people to make barrels?
0:53.0	No, I don't know.
0:55.0	It's not about a human bottom.
0:57.0	No, it's not about a human bottom.
0:59.0	It's about physics.
1:00.0	Okay.
1:01.0	In the 1970s,
1:03.0	physics had predicted the existence of two quarks.
1:07.0	Is this coming back to you?
	...

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