Newsletter for May 12, 2008 | Discussion Forum | A Way with Words
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Newsletter for May 12, 2008

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7:04AM
May-15-08


Grant Barrett

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Brooklyn, New York

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Welcome to another newsletter from A Way with Words!

This newsletter was originally supposed to go out on Monday, May 12th, but our service provider had a snafu and the messages disappeared into the ether. There are a lot of creatures on planets near Alpha Centauri scratching their heads right now.

This past weekend we had a rollicking good time on the air as we talked about words we mispronounce on purpose, “around Robin Hood’s barn,” the military slang term “jody,” and “big box stores.”

Listen here:

http://waywordradio.org/coinkydinks/

Talking about words we say wrong on purpose sprung from a newspaper column Grant wrote:

http://waywordradio.org/sayingitwrong/

Well-known blogger Jason Kottke, and many others, took up the idea in their blogs and lots of people admitted that they, too, said things in a goofy way just for the fun of it. More than 200 comments about it are here:

http://www.kottke.org/remainder/08/04/15376.html

Our colleague Ben Zimmer pointed to an article where this phenomenon was discussed in 1932:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005524.html

This week Martha talked about weird book titles, like “I Was Tortured By the Pygmy Love Queen.” More examples:

http://thebookseller.com/news/53656-oddest-book-titles-prize-shortlist-announced.html

We also talked about “Jody cadences” used in the military. Find out what a Jody cadence looks like:

http://tinyurl.com/3zog92
http://tinyurl.com/3umd4w

The producer of the PBS children’s show “Wordgirl” played our slang quiz. The show starts its new season May 26th and goes daily instead of weekly. Get the word:

http://pbskids.org/wordgirl/

Finally, we leave you with this silly video from JibJab. It’s about “big box stores.”

http://www.jibjab.com/originals/big_box_mart

Best wishes,

Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett
Co-hosts of A Way with Words
http://waywordradio.org

Call or write with your language questions 24 hours a day:
(877) WAY-WORD
(877) 929-9673
words@waywordradio.org

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