The Kong in the name of the 1933 movie King Kong, probably alludes to the Congo in Africa, the home of gorillas. Previous movies used a form of that name as well; Kongorilla, for example. In the 1950s, the English name of the Japanese movie monster Godzilla was adapted from its Japanese name, Gojira (ゴジラ), a combination of gorira (ゴリラ), meaning “gorilla,” and kujira (鯨), meaning “whale.” The combining form -zilla, which now appears in terms such as bridezilla and groomzilla, is sometimes called a cran morpheme, meaning that the -zilla element contains some of the original idea of a large monster or savage beast, but is not really etymologically related. This is part of a complete episode.
After our conversation about towns with extremely short names, many listeners wrote to tell us about Why, Arizona. Others pointed out that there are towns called Ely in Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada. Other super-short appellations include Rye, New...
Debbie from Crawfordsville, Florida, says that when she and her husband reach an impasse while working on something, they’ll say Let’s grok about it, which they use to mean “Let’s think about it.” Grok was coined by...
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