What in Tarnation - 29 August 2022

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

🗓️ 29 August 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Language is always evolving, and that’s also true for American Sign Language. A century ago, the sign for “telephone” was one fist below your mouth and the other at your ear, as if you’re holding an old-fashioned candlestick phone. Now you can sign “phone” with a one-handed gesture. Plus, colorful restaurant slang from the hit TV show The Bear inspires a quiz about the language of the kitchen. And looking for a new way to say “It’s hot outside”? How about “It’s glorgy [GLOR-ghee] out there!” Plus, pothery, laugh to see a pudding crawl, capitalizing the first-person pronoun, silver thaw, the devil’s beating his wife, diaeresis, trema, brogans, barge it, Las conejas están pariendo, claggy, janky, mafting, a brain teaser about restaurant slang, and more. Hear hundreds of free episodes and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org. Be a part of the show: call or text 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; elsewhere in the world, call or text +1 619 800 4443. Send voice notes or messages via WhatsApp 16198004443. Email words@waywordradio.org. 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	It's time to explore. This is your opportunity to discover what's out there for you
0:04.6	and realise what you are made to do. It's time to achieve, learn more, realise your potential
0:10.6	and become who you are made to be. It's time to create, make new friendships, discover
0:16.2	new passions and become the best version of you. It's time to discover Oxford Brooks University.
0:23.9	Join us on an open day. Visit OxfordBrooks.ac.uk to find out more.
0:30.1	You're listening to Away with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
0:34.4	I'm Grant Barrett. And I'm Martha Barnett. Well, it seems everybody's talking about the weather,
0:39.7	particularly in places that are really hot. And I've been tired of seeing the same things over and
0:46.0	over, but I've found a couple of handy new words that I'm going to start using. One of them is
0:51.7	from the Scottish National Dictionary, and it's obsolete, but I think it's high time to bring it back.
0:56.7	That word is Glorgy. G-L-O-R-G-Y. Glorgy. Glorgy. Glorgy. This sounds like a Scandinavian
1:05.8	alcoholic drink that the Vikings had. This is what they feed. This is what they serve you in
1:10.0	Valhalla, right? That might help you cool off. Glorgy. When the weather is glorgy, because
1:15.3	glorgy means sultry, and the Scottish National Dictionary says it's applied to a warm, suffocating day
1:22.7	with a darkened sun. So it was a glorgy simmers afternoon. Probably comes from an old word meaning
1:29.3	soft mud. And the other word that I really love is pottery, P-O-T-H-E-R-Y, pottery. It means
1:37.5	humid, sultry, or close. It's an English dialectal term, and I really like it. It's pottery out
1:44.0	there. It's too pottery to do anything. You keep using the word sultry, but this isn't the sexy
1:48.9	sultry, is it? No, no, no. This is the sweltering sultry. In fact, I think those two words are
1:54.6	etymologically related, sweltering and sultry. Yeah, yeah. It's about the heat sultry. That's where
2:00.8	they have their connection lies. Well, you're reminding me that when the heat comes on, we look
2:05.7	forward to the cooler months. And there's a rhyming calendar put together by the Irish English
	...

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