Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

I once told my coworker (who was wearing a bee costume for Halloween) that she was looking very apian. I think she might have gotten offended.

And I thought I was safe because she said she had a degree in entomology.

Luke: I think I subconsciously use the same mnemonic.

Some years ago I was listening to Schickele Mix.   At the end of the show Peter Schickele summed up by saying this had been an episode concerning music composed in the pentatonic scale, a word referring to the intense, "pent-up" emotions conveyed by such music.   While he was explicating, the phone by his mic rang.   Flustered, he answered it on the air; judging by his apologies, his boss had called to berate him for his poor research.   After he hung up, Mr Schickele retracted his definition; apparently, he said, "pentatonic" comes from the Greek word ("penta-") for "five", because there are five notes to the octave in that scale.   "It seems there must have been a bug in my entomology", he finished up, thus making me happy for a week.

Same here[Luke] … entomology = ANTomology. That's my mnemonic too.

Bob and all, regarding the pentatonic scale, I have to share this YouTube link featuring classic improvisation artist Bobby McFerrin. I sense that lovers of words are also lovers of music. Turns out the pentatonic scale has some deep cross-cultural neural connections. Amazing performance, and a great demo of how our brains come already wired for certain things.