Slang Quiz with David Pogue

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. It’s time for our slang quiz.

And if you’re a fan of high-tech gadgets, you’re probably also a fan of today’s contestant.

David Pogue is the technology columnist for the New York Times.

He’s assured us he won’t be Googling the answers while we play, although I suppose he just might be tweeting as we speak.

David, welcome to A Way with Words.

Thank you.

What’s the latest gadget you’re playing with?

Oh, well, I’m looking at a new cell phone from Palm that doubles as a pocket Wi-Fi hotspot.

So wherever you go, you’re in the middle of a wireless hotspot.

Nice.

Well, David, we always ask our contestants for their favorite slang term, and we’d love to know yours, something from the tech industry maybe?

Yeah.

Well, my latest favorite is nonversation, and that’s when two people are in the same meeting together, but they are conversing via text message or instant message surreptitiously.

So no one else in the room is aware that they’re communicating.

So they call that a nonversation.

Oh, sure, yeah, the back-channel conversations.

Sure, definitely know all about those.

Let’s move on to the slang quiz.

David, you know a great deal about the gadgets of the modern age, but today we’re going to find out what you know about the gadgets of another age.

I have three archaic devices.

I’ll give you a short description and some possible answers.

Your job is to figure out which is the true description of the device.

If you need help, Martha will be standing by.

Here’s number one.

A letter is delivered to the Times 100 years late.

It looks like information about a gadget, so the Times mailroom sends it on to you.

Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of seawater damage, and the only word you can read is planktonocrit.

That’s P-L-A-N-K-T-O-N-O-K-R-I-T, planktonocrit.

What was it?

Was it A, a children’s microorganism farm, the sea monkeys of the 1890s?

Was it B, a centrifuge that separates plankton from water?

Or was it C, a new formula for cement made from live plankton cultures and newsprint?

I wish I could say it’s a sea creature that says one thing but does another.

Like a hypocrite.

Oh, very nice. Very nice.

Well, I have no idea, but I’ll say C, the cement.

No, it’s the centrifuge that separates plankton from water.

Yeah, I thought that might be a little too difficult, but I was hoping there’s a root there.

The K-R-I-T root is the same one that’s in criterion and critic.

It comes from Greek, and it means more or less judge or even umpire.

In other words, the device is judging or sorting the plankton.

It just spins it around, and then you can analyze the diet of oysters or whatever.

That’s what they used it for back in the day.

Why would you do that?

Science knows no bounds.

I don’t know, actually.

I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m playing Scrabble.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that’s like a 100-point word, I think.

All right, let’s try another one.

We’ve got three total of these.

Here’s number two.

In 2008, the website for the magazine Make, M-A-K-E, featured instructions for building a pre-cinema device called a phenakistoscope or phenakistoscope, depending.

If you build a phenakistoscope or a phenakistoscope, what would you see?

And that’s P-H-E-N-A-K-I-S-T-O-S-C-O-P-E.

Phenakistoscope.

Is it A, a movie camera lens array that is filled with pure liquid nicotine?

Is it B, a room-sized backlit lava lamp?

Or is it C, a spinning disc that animates a series of pictures so they look like they’re moving?

Oh my gosh.

My son got one of those last things, but that was called a praxinoscope, I believe.

I’m going to go with B.

B? A room-sized backlit lava lamp?

No, no.

That’s something Make would make.

Make is a magazine for a do-it-yourself nerd who like to build things.

Fantastic stuff.

You think it’s the room-sized backlit lava lamp?

I’m just going to throw that out, yeah.

Well, no, it was C.

It was C.

It was the one that was close to the device that your son got.

You’ve seen them, the running horse, the person on the velocipede, the scampering dog.

It’s a paper disc with a bunch of slightly different pictures around the sides, separated by vertical slits.

And then you spin it, and you look through it a certain way, and the magic is made.

It animates.

Okay, well, I’m going to have to challenge the judges here.

I’ve got the box in my hand.

It came from a scientific catalog for kids.

It’s called Animation Praxinoscope, P-R-A-S-I-N-O.

And that is exactly what it is.

It comes with the horse, and then it comes with some blank ones where you can draw your own panels.

Very good.

Yes, that is exactly.

That’s another name for the device.

It has more than one name.

Oh, wow.

How could something so obscure have more than one name?

There are two other devices that are almost exactly the same, the Thaumatrope and the Zoetrope.

And those are more names still.

You know, this is a science, again, knows no bounds in the coining and the neologizing.

Your evil knows no bounds.

It’s true, Mr. Pogue.

All right.

Here’s number three.

You’re visiting Lower Slobovia, which, as we all know, is a backwards country.

They’re particularly behind on health care.

A doctor there wants to use a sphygmograph on you.

That’s S-P-H-Y-G-M-O-G-R-A-P-H, sphygmograph on.

What is he trying to measure?

Is it A, your hairline, B, your pulse rate, or C, your ability to carry a tune?

Okay, I’ve been saying B, B, B, but this one has got to be B.

This has got to be your pulse rate.

So the choices are ability to carry a tune, pulse rate, and what was the first one?

Your hairline. Measure your hairline.

Yeah, no, it was blood pressure.

Yes, indeed. Well, it’s your pulse rate.

And it’s this crazy-looking device that clamps to your wrist, and it looks like the kind of thing that goes with a shot of truth serum.

You know, like in a Bond movie, this is the thing that they put on Sean Connery, so he’ll tell them where the gold is hidden.

And sphygmos is Greek for pulse, and it works on that same principle as a phonograph, which is every time your veins or your skin pulses as the blood passes through it, it moves a little needle on a piece of paper.

Well, a sphygmomanometer is a blood pressure cuff.

There we go.

I was going to say that I’m married to a doctor, so for once, that information.

I know the blood pressure cuff is a sphygmanometer, so that one I didn’t.

Very good.

David, thank you so much for playing along with us today.

This was good fun.

Thanks, David, and good luck at Scrabble.

Thanks.

I appreciate it.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, if you’re puzzling over linguistic mystery, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or email us.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.