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There are nearly 7,000 languages in the world today, and by some estimates, they're dying off at the rate of one every week. What's lost when a language dies? Martha and Grant discuss that question and efforts to record some endangered languages before they die out completely.
A caller named Holly confesses that there's a word that practically makes her break out in hives every time she hears it. Grant assures her she's not alone in her aversion to the word—Holly, cover your eyes—”moist.” Grant and Martha discuss the psychological aversion some people have to certain common terms.
Is there a word that makes you shudder in disgust? Unload in our discussion forum.
Discuss this episode here.
An Indianapolis woman calls to say she a great first date with a doctor, but was horrified to hear him suggest they meet at an “expresso” shop. She asks for dating advice: Should she correct the guy, keep quiet about this mispronunciation, or just hope he never orders espresso again? Would you go out on a second date with someone who orders a cup of “EX-presso”?
A California man says that he thinks he is increasingly hearing locutions like “50 is the new 30? and “pink is the new black” and “blogs are the new resumé.” He's curious about the origin of this “X is the new Y” formula.
You may recall earnestly singing “Kumbaya” around a campfire. But a caller observes that the title of this folk song has taken on a new, more negative meaning. Grant and Martha discuss the new connotations of “Kumbaya,” especially as used in politically conservative circles.
Puzzle Guy Greg Pliska presents a puzzle about William Snakespeare—you know, the great playwright whose works are just one letter different from those of his better-known fellow writer, William Shakespeare. It was Snakespeare, for example, who wrote that gripping prison drama, “Romeo and Joliet.”
Grant talks about a Jack Hitt article on dying languages in the New York Times, which points out that sometimes “the last living speaker” of a language…isn't.
A caller named Brian wonders whether a co-worker was right to correct him for saying that something minor was “of tertiary concern.” Does “tertiary” literally mean “third,” or can it be used to mean more generally “peripheral” or “not so important”?
A Milwaukee man is mystified about the use of the word “née” in his grandmother's obituary.
A “Slang This!” contestant guesses at the meaning of the slang terms “faux po” and “pole tax.”
A caller is curious about the colloquial expression “it has a catch in its getalong.” She used it to describe the family's faulty car. Her husband complained the phrase was too imprecise. Grant and Martha discuss this and similar expressions, like “hitch in its getalong” and “hitch in its giddyup.”
A California caller is puzzling over the expression “have your cake and eat it, too.” Shouldn't it be “eat your cake and have it, too”?
Grant tells the story of Eliezer Ben Yehuda, who revived the use of Hebrew outside of religious contexts. In 1850, no one spoke Hebrew as an everyday household language; now it's spoken by more than 5 million people.
That's all until next week! May your getalong keep getting along.
Very interesting to hear a person have such an intense aversion to 'moist' - and a Facebook group? WOW.
Funny thing is my favorite words are 'moist' and 'nubbin'. I'm not a big fan of 'moister' - I'll say 'more moist'. It's a sound thing for me.
Maybe it's like black licorice which I also love. Maybe 'moist' is a word that polarizes people. Hmmmm.
About Hebrew as a revived language:
You've almost got it right. It's not just that Hebrew was not spoken in the home "for millennia" before 1948, Hebrew was not spoken outside of Temple and prayer EVER before 1948, other than a few words that escaped into Yiddish (such as mishpacha - family) and presumably Ladino. Ancient "Hebrews" spoke Aramaic at home.
There was some controversy about adopting Hebrew as the language of Israel because of this, with Orthodox Jews complaining about the dilution of the Holiness of the tongue by taking it out of the Temple.
The dialect of Hebrew chosen was the Sephardic dialect, whose pronunciations differ slightly from the Ashkenasi dialect, causing immigrants from Europe to adapt to the local variety.
Ladino is to Spanish what Yiddish is to German. Knowing what we know about Spanish Jews, it is not surprising that there are only a handful of Ladino speakers left - literally.
My own prediction is that with Hebrew being spoken in Israel, Yiddish may well go the way of Ladino in a few generations, despite its deep cultural roots.
But I am by no means a real expert on this. Talk to your local Rabbi.
Our colleagues at the blog Language Log have done a good bit of information-gathering about the phenomenon of "word aversion," including aversion to "moist." See their work here.
Here's where you can join the Facebook group I HATE the word MOIST.
I'm fine with the word "moist," but, for reasons I can't really explain, I can't stand the word "skills." It could be that I just don't like the sound of it, or, since I started realizing I hated this word in high school, it might've been because of all those people constantly telling us how this or that would give you some sort of "skills" for college or the workplace, and they seemed to have some sort of fetish for that word, so perhaps it stems from that overuse, too. I remember wanting to scream, "What's wrong with something like 'talents' or 'abilities'?!" To this day, I can literally tolerate fingernails on a chalkboard much more easily than hearing the word "skills." [Shudder]
Grant Barrett said:
Our colleagues at the blog Language Log have done a good bit of information-gathering about the phenomenon of “word aversion,” including aversion to “moist.” See their work here.
Here's where you can join the Facebook group I HATE the word MOIST.
I had a friend who not only said "eXpresso", but also "supposubly", "li-berry", and wrote the word "our" as "are".
"Are House, is a very very very fine House."
She was a friend of convenience back at that age when preferring the combination of Peanut Butter and Bannannas was enough to be BFF (Best Friends Forever)
I'm quite alright with "moist" as well, and I have an "I can't stand hearing that word" word as well. Mine is "body." It just seems like a dirty word to me. I cringe every time I hear it, no matter the context!
Felix the Black Cat said:
I'm fine with the word “moist,” but, for reasons I can't really explain, I can't stand the word “skills.” I remember wanting to scream, “What's wrong with something like ‘talents' or ‘abilities'?!” To this day, I can literally tolerate fingernails on a chalkboard much more easily than hearing the word “skills.” [Shudder]
"Expresso" makes me sad on the inside too! Although I would try to talk myself out of holding it against an otherwise reasonable person. It's not like he chronically confuses their and they're, which is definitely reason to end a relationship!
Also- I was interested in the "have your cake and eat it too" question. I have heard that the word "have" is meant in the sense of "eat", as in "I am going to have pizza for lunch" (which is a sense of that word that we use all the time but would probably never think of abstractly). Therefore, the saying means that you can't eat your cake, and eat it too...
Not sure if that interpretation has any general currency.
Anne said:
I was interested in the “have your cake and eat it too” question. I have heard that the word “have” is meant in the sense of “eat”, as in “I am going to have pizza for lunch” (which is a sense of that word that we use all the time but would probably never think of abstractly). Therefore, the saying means that you can't eat your cake, and eat it too…Not sure if that interpretation has any general currency.
The use of "have" in the saying doesn't simply mean "possess" or "eat." It means "to keep (unchanged or unharmed)." It means to keep your cake in perfect uncut, uneaten condition as well as to eat it and enjoy its flavor—which, of course, is impossible. You can only do one or the other.
You can see this in one of the variants cited by the Oxford English Dictionary from 1815: "Our own government also…having got their cake, want both to eat it and keep it."
Anne said:
Also- I was interested in the “have your cake and eat it too” question. I have heard that the word “have” is meant in the sense of “eat”…
Not sure if that interpretation has any general currency.
I can't speak to currency, but I remember as a child understanding "have" as "eat" and being puzzled by “have your cake and eat it too.”
I once wrote about a linguist who is recording the remnants of dying languages in the Amazon. He is also trying to work back to the original mother language of the region. The piece first appeared in Science magazine. See http://www.brazilmax.com/news.cfm/tborigem/pl_amazon/id/13.
As soon as I heard Grant's spelling of faux-po, I guessed what it was, even before Grant gave the choices. Being a German speaker, what I heard before Grant spelled the word was "Vopo" (short for Volkspolizei and pronounced "fo-po"). The Vopo was the state police force in the old German Democratic Republic and an expression still recognized by most Germans. A logical German pun to denote a fake policeman would be fauxpo. Could it be that this expression originated in Germany?
It's possible, Mike, but if there is a relationship, "Vopo" isn't the origin of "po-po" or "faux-po." The chain of slang is pretty clear here: po-po, meaning "police" and from which faux-po is derived, is slang dating to at least as early as 1990. That's the year of German reunification. As far as I can tell, "faux-po" didn't appear until last year.
Separate co-creation of a clipping of "police" into "po" is the most likely explanation. There's no evidence in the written record that I can find that supports "Vopo" as having been the father to "po-po" or "faux-po." It may have come first but that is by no means sufficient to call it the source of the latter two slang terms. "Po-po" appears to have been coined independently from "Vopo" and first appears in the language of young black men in California.
None of the military slang books (or general slang books, even) that I have include "Vo Po" or "VOPO" or "vopo," which suggests that it was not common language to American soldiers and would mean that transmission back stateside would be very difficult, if not impossible. I do find it on the Internet and in a few books, but it is almost exclusively used by Germans or English-speakers discussing Germans who used the term.
To the doctor who went on the date with that woman from Indianapolis:
Lucky you! Can you imagine? If you hadn't mispronounced "espresso", you might have even married someone that petty and controlling. Whew! You dodged that bullet!
Some people don't understand that most relationships require compromise. In this online era, people think they can just keep clicking through personal ads and find Mr. or Ms. 100%. Life ain't like that (yeah, I said ain't, oh yeah I did). This doctor feller could have been wonderful in so many other ways. His inability to pronounce one particular word in no way impacts his capacity to love and care for another human being. And which is more important in the long run?
I was a little disappointed in Martha for not pointing this out. Grant seemed to get it (kinda sorta).
So Doc, if this woman calls back to invite you on a second date so she can put you through your paces and make you run some grammar gauntlet, please take my advice:
RUN... AWAY!!
Grammar Gauntlet! I may have to steal that, lister!
Well, I think the caller had a sense of humor about the whole thing, and I doubt she'd drop such a seemingly fine catch as that fellow unless there were some other issues. But I do think Grant zeroed in on the most important point, which was that the pronunciation question might be an opportunity for her to explore how the guy responds to being challenged.
I don't think any single word should be some kind of make-or-break dating shibboleth. Unless, of course, you belong to that anti-moist Facebook group.
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