Great episode. Got me hooked from the start.
I quit relentlessly if the author doesn't talk to me 1/4 way into the book. And doing this in store with coffees in spare times takes care of any vague guilts economic or intellectual or whatever. The unfamiliar authors I weed first by the book covers- contrary to the old wisdom, the jacket designs are great tell of what you are getting. The stores are wonderful places that may soon be gone with the wind.
When the caller asked about "whatnot" my heart leapt. At last, Grant and Martha have the opportunity to blast this incredibly annoying verbal tic. Imagine my disappointment when they said it was just an somewhat informal version of etcetera. The dictionary may agree with them but I think that in common use it's simply tacked on to the end of sentences which don't contain a proper list. It functions as a space filler kind of like "ya' know". The Urban Dictionary says it's a more "hip-hop" way of saying etcetera. I agree that it is most common in black speech but the first person who I can remember using it in this way was a white guy I worked with nearly 30 years ago. It has only become more common since then. I wince every time I hear it.
I hear and see it often, even in plural whatnots. Yes I agree with Grant and Martha who sound like they are ok with it.
Whatnot can be a mild challenge, like 'you name it!', meaning the things I am talking about are so numerous and inclusive that whatever you can think of, of course within reasons, I've got.
On the scale of vulgar to proper, I'll rate these 3 at about the same point, 3/4 to proper-- whatnot, you name it, and what have you.
Nancy Pearl, a librarian who has her show on books at KUOW, once talked about the rule of 100. You deduce your current age from 100 and the result is the number of pages you read before you decide whether you want to go on with the book or not. Which means that when you reach the age of 100, you can judge a book by its cover.