Post edited 6:45AM – Nov-09-11 by Grant Barrett

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Why do auctioneers talk so fast? Martha and Grant discuss the rapid-fire speech of auctioneers, and how it gets you to bid higher. Also, why so many books have ridiculously long titles, where you'd have sonker for dessert, and an appreciation of that children's classic, "The Phantom Tollbooth." Plus, "different from" vs. "different than," the origin of suss out, words that apparently entered English in 1937, and the many names for those little gray bugs that roll up into a ball.

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What do you call those little gray bugs that roll up into a ball? They go by lots of names: roly poly bugs, potato bugs, sow bugs, chiggypigs, dillo seeds, basketball bugs, bowling-ball bugs, and wood lice, to name a few.

If you're wondering why we capitalize the letter "I" when we don't capitalize the first letters of other pronouns, the answer's simple. It's easier to read. Martha recommends a book offering a detailed history of every letter of the alphabet. It's Language Visible: Unraveling the Mystery of the Alphabet from A to Z, by David Sacks.

Why do auctioneers talk so fast? The hosts say it's partly to put you into a trance, partly to increase the sense of urgency, and partly to sell off lots of items in a short amount of time. More details in an article in Slate magazine. You can learn some of the basics of auctioneering from videos on YouTube.

On wordorigins.org, etymologist Dave Wilton is going through the Oxford English Dictionary year by year to find the earliest citations for various words, which offer an unusual linguistic glimpse into that particular year. The year 1937, for example, is the first in which we see the terms "four-by-four," "cliffhanger," and "iffy."

Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a puzzle called "Double Dog Dare."

Why are some book titles so incredibly long? A caller complains about book-title inflation, usually consisting of a shorter title followed by a colon and a longer subtitle that seems to sound important and ends with the words "and What To Do About It." Grant explains that such extra-long book titles are one form of search optimization by publishers and marketing departments. The more searchable keywords in the title, the more copies sold.

Which is correct: "different from" or "different than"? Martha explains that the grammatically correct choice is almost always different from.

Martha plays another round of the Books With A Letter Missing game.

A caller in Hamburg, Germany, wants to know where we got the term laundry list. Grant explains that it derives from a time when people of a certain class sent their laundry out to be cleaned. It's usually associated with a collection of things that are routine or involve drudgery or something negative. Funny how no one ever offers a laundry list of compliments.

More words that entered the language around 1937: "Spam," "telecast," and "whoops."

The Phantom Tollbooth, the beloved children's book by Norman Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, turns 50 this year. There are two new 50th anniversary editions of the book. As Adam Gopnik notes in a New Yorker magazine article, the book is the closest thing American literature has to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

Martha shares her favorite passage from the book, a description of various kinds of silence.

Care for another helping of sonker? That's another name for deep-dish cobbler.

There's a Sonker Festival each year in Surry County, North Carolina, one of the few places where you'll hear this regional term.

More words that entered the lexicon around 1937: Yiddish "bupkes," meaning "nothing," and "zaftig" meaning "plump," "soft," or "juicy."

What does the term suss out mean? It's often heard in police and journalistic jargon, and means to "take a forensic approach to finding out an answer." It probably derives from the verb "suspect."

Quisquillious describes something that's trashy or worthless. It derives from the Latin for "rubbish."

In the movie Avatar, the characters battle over a rare and valuable mineral called unobtanium. A mechanical engineer says he had a hard time getting into the movie because in his world, the word unobtanium means something different.

Martha quotes Steve Martin's aphorism about language: "Some people have a way with words. Some people not have way."

… Read the original blog post.

Post edited 3:11PM – Nov-15-11 by Glenn

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Gemma said:

Similarly, I was jarred by the discussion, the previous week, of ways to tell the time. Both "ten of five" and "ten till five" sound alien to me. I would understand "till", but I might need to double check "ten of five" before relying on it. In Britain it'd be "ten to five."

Decades ago, I encountered a charming British couple on the street in London. They asked me for the time. I told them it was a quarter of 5. They were very confused, and repeated "quarter of five" several times. Their confusion confused me. Finally, the young man said to the young lady "I think he means quarter till five." At which point his partner brightened and thanked me very much.

Since then I have used till instead of of. I am mildly alarmed that you would find till alien. Must I now retrain again?

Post edited 5:23PM – Nov-15-11 by Glenn

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While I am reluctant to suggest a rationale for prepositions — it is a fool's errand — I can point out several contexts in which "of" is used to discuss distance from a reference point. Specifically, "of" precedes the point of reference. Some examples of physical distance:
He made it to within 10 yards of the finish line.
The library is 1 mile east of the town square.

To discuss temporal distance from a reference point — of course, before and after are the only alternatives here:
You must have received no moving violations within a year of your application.

None of these uses demand a meaning of before. Nonetheless they seem semantically close to the time telling use.
It is a quarter of five.

Finally, here is the entry for "of" in the online American Heritage dictionary. The time telling use is worthy of its own entry (definition 17).
http://education.yahoo.com/ref…..y/entry/of