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

A Way with Words, a radio show and podcast about language and linguistics.

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Not Those Thongs (full episode)
Guest
21
2012/05/04 - 2:42am

Where English is involved I could not spot a   'tongue-in-cheek' if it licked me in the face, let alone even feigning one myself. The phrase should be something like 'would be no less observant of solar phenomena on the mountainsides than on the ground.'

Now, it seems your argument, based on the conjecture it is, is double-edged, because, see, it's when resting comfortably on the ground that one is most well disposed to contemplating the mountainsides.

hippogriff
37 Posts
(Offline)
22
2012/07/28 - 8:09pm

I distinctly remember Jerry Colonna macronize(?) both o. He also referred to himself as a bargain counter tenor, leaving it to the audience where the hyphen went. Made at least one record as a good Chicago-style jazz trombonist. I distinctly counted at least one time in It Might As Well Be Spring with six syllables for spring. I still miss him.

The blind hog reference escapes me; hogs hunt primarily by scent, not sight - as any truffle collector can testify.

Woofmarks are made by children too. Is there a different set of terms for them?

Christian Blood not intentional: Neither was that of Governor James Hoggs' daughter, Ima. It came from a novel they liked.

Washboard pavement still has currency. It differs from corduroy in that the latter is built that way (logs crossway to the road) while washboard is caused by a coincidence of speed and shock recovery moving and pounding an asphalt pavement in the summer time making the tires hit the same spot each time.

Robert B: A tree growing horizontal on a cliff will grow vertical in a short distance. Alpenhorns are made from them, cut in half, hollowed, and glued back together, thus the curve at the bell.

Guest
23
2012/07/28 - 9:51pm

hippogriff said

Robert B: A tree growing horizontal on a cliff will grow vertical in a short distance. Alpenhorns are made from them, cut in half, hollowed, and glued back together, thus the curve at the bell.

There are images of long horizontal trees out of cliffs that don't turn up. I can't upload or link. You can google them plenty.

Guest
24
2012/07/29 - 11:47am

You know, I've often wished there was a "delete" or "cancel" option too. I've often decided, halfway through composing a post or response, that I didn't want to (for whatever reason). But the way it's set up, you're kinda forced to go through with it.

Maybe this is a feature Grant could just turn on?

Raffee
Iran
238 Posts
(Offline)
25
2012/07/30 - 11:33am

Why is it that some episode, like this one, have, or at least are sometimes shown to have, a size twice as much as the other episodes but the same time length? It's bugging that it takes twice as much time to download them. Wish you, Grant, could do something.

Grant Barrett
San Diego, California
1532 Posts
(Offline)
26
2012/07/30 - 11:44am

Heimhenge, there's a cancel button right next to the "submit reply" button below the comment text area.

Rafee, would you give links to the files in question? I believe the answer is that at one point we increased the playback quality. Rebroadcast episodes may be encoded using the older quality settings, so they will be smaller than more recent episodes, which have been encoded using higher quality settings.

Guest
27
2012/07/30 - 1:09pm

Duh ... don't know how I missed that. Maybe that was one of the recent forum format changes? Sorry about the false alarm. I see that "cancel" button now as I compose this reply.

Raffee
Iran
238 Posts
(Offline)
28
2012/07/31 - 3:27am

Unfortunately, the only one I can tell is this latest episode since I listened to them a while ago and don't remember which episodes they were, but believe they weren't more than two.

Guest
29
2012/07/31 - 4:42am

Grant Barrett said
there's a cancel button right next to the "submit reply" button

I was looking for 'cancel' after submitting, which is not available.
I do understand backing out should not be allowed after someone has posted after you. But as long as yours is still the newest, it would be nice to have 'cancel,' no?
As it is, the best you can do is go back in and blank out the post you don't want people to see.

Guest
30
2012/07/31 - 10:00am

Good point, RobertB. It would be nice to have an option like that after posting.

And is it just me, or is anyone else getting cryptic greetings on the main page before logging in. Like just this morning, it called me "Jackie" (Welcome back ... etc.)

Most of the time, it calls me by my correct name. Not sure how it "knows" who I am before I log in. Probably some kind of IP address look-up, or something equivalent.

Grant Barrett
San Diego, California
1532 Posts
(Offline)
31
2012/07/31 - 10:10am

When a site starts allowing comments to be deleted, then a lot of problems of continuity and comprehension arise because it allows folks to deny what they've written or it means that responses to that comment are now non sequiturs.

Understanding that we all like to fix our typos, I have chosen to allow posts to be edited in this forum. Many forums do not allow comments to be edited -- something which used to be the case here, as -- but as our community is well-behaved (and always quickly reports spammers), we're giving post-editing a shot. It does allow one to delete the entire contents of a comment, but at least its evident that there *was* a comment there. It also allows one to change one's own words completely, to anything at all. I've seen this be a problem elsewhere. Should it ever be a problem here, we'll have to disable post-editing forever.

If you really feel like one of your comments should be deleted completely -- a bad paste job, nobody has responded yet anyway, whatever -- send me a private message through the forum software or in email and I'll take a look.

Heimhenge, the software stores a cookie matched to your login name. Sounds like it's not working properly! I'll disable that feature and report the bug.

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