Podcasts about Oxford English Dictionary

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her novels which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry during the Regency era. She had a great influence on the first Oxford English Dictionary published in 1928 and is quoted over 1,600 times. For Further Reading: The queen of modern slang: Jane Austen is revealed to have coined phrases we use everyday Jane Austen Jane Austen: A Life This month, we’re talking about Word Weavers — people who coined terms, popularized words, and even created entirely new languages. These activists, writers, artists, and scholars used language to shape ideas and give voice to experiences that once had no name. History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should. Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures. Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Sara Schleede, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, Luci Jones, Abbey Delk, Adrien Behn, Alyia Yates, Vanessa Handy, Melia Agudelo, and Joia Putnoi. Special thanks to Shira Atkins. Follow Wonder Media Network: Website Instagram Twitter See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dive into the vibrant and complex world of Singlish! In this episode, we explore the fascinating journey of Singapore's unique creole language, from its colonial roots to its modern-day status as a symbol of national identity. We unpack the debates surrounding Singlish, from the "Speak Good English Movement" to its recognition in the Oxford English Dictionary, and examine its role in fostering community and navigating globalization. Join us as we decipher the lingo, discuss its cultural significance, and consider its future in Singapore's ever-evolving linguistic landscape. Can lah, you won't want to miss this one!

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 10, 2025 is: uncanny • un-KAN-ee • adjective Uncanny is typically used to describe something that is strange or unusual in a way that is surprising or difficult to understand. It can also describe something that seems to have a supernatural character or origin. // The child has an uncanny ability to recognize streets and locations she's seen only once or twice before. // The lights suddenly flickered, and we were both overcome with an eerie, uncanny feeling. See the entry > Examples: "... as Nelson Moultrie walked through the cemetery and observed trees growing in ways that resemble the shapes of people, like one that bore an uncanny resemblance to a pair of legs, she said she's already felt the presence of the people buried there." — Laura Liebman, The Post & Courier (Charleston, South Carolina), 21 Mar. 2025 Did you know? Uncanny describes that which unsettles us, such as disquieting observations, or mysterious situations and circumstances. Strip the word of its prefix, though, and you're left with canny, a word that can be used as a synonym for clever and prudent. While canny and uncanny don't appear to be antonyms, they both come from an early Scots word canny meaning "free from risk; wise, prudent, cautious." And in Scots, canny has for centuries had a secondary meaning more similar to that of its mysterious cousin: the Oxford English Dictionary defines a sense of the word used chiefly in negative constructions (e.g., “not canny”) to describe what is not safe to be involved with, or more broadly, what is not in accordance with what is right or natural, as in "the idea is not canny." Rather uncanny.

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

What is the definition of "soul" ? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "emotional or intellectual energy or intensity". Well that certainly sums it up for me. "The Soul Explosion" is all about sharing the tunes and the music that I love with a wider audience. The aim is to cover a wide range of musical genres, from soul, boogie, modern soul, northern soul, rare groove, jazz, funk, soulful garage, gospel, jazz-funk, old skool hip-hop, motown, disco and everything in between. Whatever you hear on "The Soul Explosion" has one thing in common - every single track is a CHOOON (no fillers) !! Hope you enjoy listening as much as I will playing for you

Episode: 1358 William Minor helping us to understand language from an insane asylum.  Today, a great dictionary and an asylum for the criminally insane.

fWotD Episode 2904: Bæddel and bædling Welcome to Featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia’s finest articles.The featured article for Thursday, 17 April 2025 is Bæddel and bædling.Bæddel ([ˈbæd.del]; BAD-dell) and bædling ([ˈbæd.liŋɡ]; BAD-ling) are Old English terms referring to non-normative sexual or gender categories. Occurring in a small number of medieval glossaries and penitentials (guides for religious penance), the exact meaning of the terms (and their distinction, if any) are debated by scholars. Both terms are often connected to effeminacy and adultery. Bæddel is glossed as "hermaphrodite" and a "man of both sexes" in its two extant glosses, both from the same glossary, while bædling is often glossed with terms associated with effeminacy and softness. The Oxford English Dictionary, citing the philologist Julius Zupitza, supports bæddel as the etymological root of the English adjective bad, although various scholars propose alternative origins, including a shared root with both bæddel and bædling.The Old English translation of the medieval penitential Paenitentiale Theodori distinguishes men and bædlings as separate categories of person; it describes men having sex with other men or with bædlings as separate offences, and states that bædlings must atone for having sex with other bædlings. The term may have included people assigned female at birth who took on masculine social roles or referred to intersex people. Gender non-normative burials from the period have been associated with the term, and scholars have suggested that bædlings could represent a third gender outside the gender binary or a form of gender nonconformity in Anglo-Saxon society. The 11th century English Antwerp Glossary associates bæddel with the uniquely attested wæpenwifestre ([ˈwæːpnˌwiː.ves.tre] WAPN-wee-ves-tre), seemingly denoting a woman with a phallus or phallic masculinity.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:15 UTC on Thursday, 17 April 2025.For the full current version of the article, see Bæddel and bædling on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm long-form Danielle.

We're all across the pros & cons of using drugs like Ozempic for weight loss, but what about the side effects? Turns out there's a recently discovered side effect that affects women way more than it does men. Plus, from rizz to gigil, we're unpacking new additions to the Oxford English Dictionary. And in today's headlines two men have been arrested after they allegedly took loaded guns into the MCG for an AFL match last night; Underworld figure Tony Mokbel will find out if he can leave prison on bail today; Abbie Chatfield has been cleared of any breaches of the Electoral Act; Trump fires National Security Council officials after he met with far right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer Mamamia Votes Survey click here THE END BITS Support independent women's media Check out The Quicky Instagram here Tell us what's important to you this election: Take the Mamamia Votes survey here GET IN TOUCH Share your story, feedback, or dilemma! Send us a voice note or email us at thequicky@mamamia.com.au CREDITS Hosts: Taylah Strano & Claire Murphy Guests: Erin Docherty, Mamamia's Beauty & Lifestyle Editor Executive Producer: Taylah Strano Audio Producer: Lu Hill Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Anne follows up on the progress with "steek", ways to keep your yarn safe from moths--backed by experts!--and offers a bit of commentary on the loss of Joann stores. Links to Things Mentioned in the Episode If you were not able to attend The Myths That Shape! you can watch it on YouTube. To read the news article about the inclusion of the Shetland Lace definition of steek being added to the Oxford English Dictionary, visit the posts on Facebook and Instagram.  You can also go back and listen to episode 113 to hear about the entire process of getting the definition of steek updated to include the Shetland Lace usage! Sheila McGregor's Traditional Fair Isle Knitting The Vogue Knitting interview with Alice Starmore Find the links to scientificly backed articles about moth protection here. Find Mandy Moore on Ravelry and Instagram. You can also listen to an interview I had with Mandy back in episode 69.  Keep your eye out for information about this year's Shetland Hogmanay Box by following I Thought I Knew How on Instagram or Facebook, or hop over to the website to join the mailing list! I'll be at the Woolly Good Gathering in a few days! I hope to see you there! Music The music from this episode was two songs from Ben Bostick: "The Myth of Translation" and "Sweet Thursday." Between those two was Sleeping Ghost with "Afro Summer."

'Blaa', 'Spice Bag', and 'Class' are just some of the Irish words and terms that have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. But what else needs to be in there? Daithi O'Shea is making a case for shkelp! Hit play now to hear the full episode.

In our news wrap Saturday, suspected U.S. airstrikes hit Houthi rebels in Yemen, southern Texas is getting a much-needed break from torrential downpours that caused flooding, a judge ruled against the dismantling of Voice of America, Elon Musk is shifting ownership of the social media platform X, and the Oxford English Dictionary added dozens of new words to its pages. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Nuacht Mhall. Príomhscéalta na seachtaine, léite go mall.*Inniu an naoú lá is fiche de mhí an Mhárta. Is mise Gwyneth Nic Aidicín Ní Loingsigh.Tá staid éígeandála i bhfeidhm i Maenmar tar éís crith talún a tharla Dé hAoine. Ceaptar go bhfuil na céadta daoine básaithe ach níl uimhir chruinn ar fáíl is a leanann oibríocht tarrtháile. Tharla dhá chrith tar éis a chéile agus tá eagla ar dhaoine go mbeadh iarchreathanna le teacht. Bhí eipealár an chreatha talún i ngar do na cathracha Sagaing agus Mandalay, braitheadh na creathanna ar fud na tíre agus chomh fada leis an tSín agus an Téalainn. Thit foirgneamh neamh-críochnaithe in Bangkok agus tá 81 oibrí ar iarraidh ann. Tá teannas polaitiúil i Maenmar ó tharla coup in 2021, tá smacht ag an rialtas ar na meáin agus an idirlíon sa tír agus tá sé deacair eolas a fháil mar thoradh air sin.Tá focal Gaeilge agus roinnt focail ó Béarla na hÉireann i measc na bhfocal nua in uasdátú an fhoclóra cháiliúil an Oxford English Dictionary i mbliana. Tá an focal “ludraman” - litriú Béarla den fhocal liúdramán, le fáil san uasdátú, an míniú atá tugtha air ná “a lazy, unproductive, or stupid person (esp. a man)". Tá samplaí úsáide den fhocal luaite ón úrscéal Ulysses agus roinnt sean-nuachtáin. Tá an focal ar fáil i bhfoclóir Gaeilge le fada anois ach i bhfoclóir agus úsáid nua-aimseartha tá an míniú "amadán" i bhfad níos coitianta ná "leisceoir". I measc na bhfocal a n-airítear ó Béarla na hÉireann tá “blaa”, “class”, “debs”, “mineral”, “morto”, “spice bag” agus “acting the maggot”.Tá imní ar an Rialtas agus eacnamaithe Éireannacha faoi tháillí atá fógartha ag Donald Trump ar tháirgí cogaisíochta, agus an tionchar a mbeadh acu ar thionscal agus ar gheilleagar na hÉireann. Ní bheidh sonraí cinnte ar fáil go dtí an 2ú Aibreán ach dúirt Trump cheana go mbeidh táillí de 25% ar dhrugaí ag teacht isteach i Stáit Aontaithe Mheiriceá. Déanann Éire easportú de luach 72 billiún Euro go Meiriceá agus baineann táirgí cogaisíochta le 58 billiún Euro den mhéid sin. Tá cáin chorparáide an-íseal in Éirinn, ag 15%, a mhealann comhlachtaí domhanda móra isteach. Is pointe conspóide é an Cháin Chorporáide íseal ach deir an ESRI go bhfuil ról tábhachtach ag an ioncam ón gcáin sin san Airgeadas Poiblí agus go mbeidh torthaí dona ann má chailltear é.*Léirithe ag Conradh na Gaeilge i Londain. Tá an script ar fáil i d'aip phodchraolta.*GLUAISstaid éigeandála - state of emergencyoibríocht tarrtháile - rescue operationiarchreathanna - aftershocksleisceoir - lazy persontáirgí cogaisíochta - pharmaceutical productscáin chorparáide - corporation tax

In our news wrap Saturday, suspected U.S. airstrikes hit Houthi rebels in Yemen, southern Texas is getting a much-needed break from torrential downpours that caused flooding, a judge ruled against the dismantling of Voice of America, Elon Musk is shifting ownership of the social media platform X, and the Oxford English Dictionary added dozens of new words to its pages. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

A massive 7.7-magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar and Thailand today, killing dozens of people in both countries. Also, former US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns discusses the implications of the world's shifting geopolitical situation. And, Israel strikes southern Beirut in Lebanon saying it targeted a Hezbollah drone storage facility. Plus, a new borrowed word in the Oxford English Dictionary that describes a feeling so intense you can't help but have a physical reaction to it.Listen to today's Music Heard on Air. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Minister Darren Jones sorry for comparing benefits to pocket money Sutton Hoo helmet may actually come from Denmark, archaeologist suggests Gigil, alamak among new words in Oxford English Dictionary Numb and humiliated Why Chinas football dream lies in tatters Ask for Angela Daughter wants more to be done to protect women Hundreds lose life savings in whisky barrel scam Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal could run dry in days, operators warn Scottish govenrment minister Christina McKelvie dies aged 57 Trump announces 25 tariffs on car imports to US Journalist at centre of Trumps Signal chat scandal speaks to BBC

The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, has said the United States is no longer a reliable partner after President Donald Trump imposed 25% tariffs on car imports. Rahul Tandon speaks to businesses in both the US and Canada. China's biggest company, Tencent Holdings, has made more than a billion-dollar investment in a new spin-off company of the French gaming giant Ubisoft, which owns franchises including Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six.And if you speak a language other than English, are there terms that English just doesn't have or can't do justice to? Well, the Oxford English Dictionary feels your pain, and so it's incorporating "loan words" – words that would be coined as "untranslatable". We will be joined throughout the programme by two guests on opposite sides of the world – Dante Disparte, Head of Policy at the Libra Association, who is in Washington, and Sushma Ramachandran, an independent business journalist and columnist for The Tribune, who is in Delhi, India.

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Scottish govenrment minister Christina McKelvie dies aged 57 Numb and humiliated Why Chinas football dream lies in tatters Hundreds lose life savings in whisky barrel scam Journalist at centre of Trumps Signal chat scandal speaks to BBC Sutton Hoo helmet may actually come from Denmark, archaeologist suggests Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal could run dry in days, operators warn Ask for Angela Daughter wants more to be done to protect women Minister Darren Jones sorry for comparing benefits to pocket money Trump announces 25 tariffs on car imports to US Gigil, alamak among new words in Oxford English Dictionary

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Trump announces 25 tariffs on car imports to US Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal could run dry in days, operators warn Numb and humiliated Why Chinas football dream lies in tatters Scottish govenrment minister Christina McKelvie dies aged 57 Minister Darren Jones sorry for comparing benefits to pocket money Sutton Hoo helmet may actually come from Denmark, archaeologist suggests Hundreds lose life savings in whisky barrel scam Ask for Angela Daughter wants more to be done to protect women Journalist at centre of Trumps Signal chat scandal speaks to BBC Gigil, alamak among new words in Oxford English Dictionary

The European Union urges every household to put together a 72-hour emergency kit, a Conservative MP calls on Ireland to join the Commonwealth and spicebag and morto are added to the Oxford English Dictionary.Journalist Lise Hand and Dion Fanning, co-host of the Free State podcast, join The Last Word to discuss the week's trending stories. Catch the full chat by pressing the 'Play' button page!

Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Journalist at centre of Trumps Signal chat scandal speaks to BBC Gigil, alamak among new words in Oxford English Dictionary Hundreds lose life savings in whisky barrel scam Trump announces 25 tariffs on car imports to US Sutton Hoo helmet may actually come from Denmark, archaeologist suggests Scottish govenrment minister Christina McKelvie dies aged 57 Ask for Angela Daughter wants more to be done to protect women Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal could run dry in days, operators warn Minister Darren Jones sorry for comparing benefits to pocket money Numb and humiliated Why Chinas football dream lies in tatters

Language necessarily evolves to accommodate new ideas, new concepts and new cultural paradigms.But, what happens when a word exists in one language, but not another?There are lots of so-called ‘untranslatable' words in English, and some Irish ones have been added to the latest version of the Oxford English Dictionary.Fiona McPherson is Senior Editor at the Oxford English Dictionary and joins Seán to discuss.

The Oxford English Dictionary has announced that multiple ‘Irishishms' will be added to its next edition. This includes the spice bag, debs and blaa! What do you think of these additions, and what other Irish words should be included?Henry McKean has been asking the public, and joins Kieran to discuss.

Fiona McPherson, Senior Editor at the Oxford English Dictionary, told Oliver about the Irish words that have been included in the latest update of the Oxford English Dictionary.

【欢迎订阅】每天早上5:30，准时更新。【阅读原文】标题:Have humans passed peak brain power?Data across countries and ages reveal a growing struggle to concentrate, and declining verbal and numerical reasoning正文：What is intelligence? This may sound like a straightforward question with a straightforward answer — the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a capacity to understand” — but that definition itself raises an increasingly relevant question in the modern world. What happens if the extent to which we can practically apply that capacity is diminishing? Evidence is mounting that something exactly like this has been happening to the human intellect over the past decade or so.知识点 ：straightforward adj. /ˌstreɪtˈfɔːrwərd/easy to understand or simple. 简单的，直接的e.g. The instructions are straightforward and easy to follow. 这些说明简单易懂。获取外刊的完整原文以及精讲笔记，请关注微信公众号「早安英文」，回复“外刊”即可。更多有意思的英语干货等着你！【节目介绍】《早安英文-每日外刊精读》，带你精读最新外刊，了解国际最热事件：分析语法结构，拆解长难句，最接地气的翻译，还有重点词汇讲解。所有选题均来自于《经济学人》《纽约时报》《华尔街日报》《华盛顿邮报》《大西洋月刊》《科学杂志》《国家地理》等国际一线外刊。【适合谁听】1、关注时事热点新闻，想要学习最新最潮流英文表达的英文学习者2、任何想通过地道英文提高听、说、读、写能力的英文学习者3、想快速掌握表达，有出国学习和旅游计划的英语爱好者4、参加各类英语考试的应试者（如大学英语四六级、托福雅思、考研等）【你将获得】1、超过1000篇外刊精读课程，拓展丰富语言表达和文化背景2、逐词、逐句精确讲解，系统掌握英语词汇、听力、阅读和语法3、每期内附学习笔记，包含全文注释、长难句解析、疑难语法点等，帮助扫除阅读障碍。

Audio from the 2024 Charleston Conference Leadership Interview Series. Heather Staines, Senior Strategy Consultant, Delta Think interviews Richard Charkin, Founder, Mensch Publishing. Richard is a veteran of the publishing industry. In this conversation, Heather and Richard discuss his early years in publishing, and the changes he has witnessed throughout his 50 years working in the industry,  the most noticeable being the rise of women in leadership roles, which is also the subject of a recent book he has written.  Richard also shares his experiences working with the Oxford English Dictionary on a digitization project in the 80's, modernizing the dictionary, integrating vast amounts of data, and making it more accessible.  He also talks about global publishing, working with some high profile individuals, and also working with startups like Biomednet, the first social network for scientists in 1995. He emphasizes the importance of startups in driving innovation, as large corporations often struggle to innovate. He highlights his role in launching Crossref, which revolutionized linking references to original articles, and his current work with startups like Shimmer AI. Richard reflects on the role of libraries in his life, recalling how he frequently used public libraries during his school years, and he appreciates how libraries helped him immerse himself in his academic passions. Video of the Interview is available at: https://youtu.be/KAYS1ogdjD8 Social Media: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherstaines/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-charkin-b0b4a4189/ Twitter: Keywords:    #Startups #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #ProfessionalDevelopment #Entrepreneurship #TechInPublishing #Academic Development #LibrarianJourney #LibraryEducation #InformationAccess #OxfordEnglishDictionary #LibraryCommunity #libraries #librarians #librarycareer, #libraryschool #librarylove #LibraryScience #PublishingPerspectives #academic #AcademicPublishing #scholcomm #ScholarlyCommunication #research #learning #learnon #information #leaders #leadership #2024ChsConf #publishing #LibrariesAndPublishers #libraryissues #libraryneeds #librarychallenges #libraryconference #podcast  #LeadershipInterview

Speaking of watching your Ps and Qs, when taking up the way of Zen meditation, it may seem all too easy to get things backward. In fact, according to the great Zen ancestors, getting it wrong is a natural and necessary part of the process, expressed as "Fall down seven times, get up eight," apparently an old Chinese saying adopted by Master Dogen. He also said that hitting the bullseye depends upon the 100 prior misses. So we are inevitably immersed in trial and error. In considering Buddha's original teaching in the First Sermon — outlining the Four Noble Truths, including the Eightfold Path — one aspect is often overlooked. Along with the fact that they consist of a description of reality and a prescription for practice, respectively, they also include four admonitions, or instructions for how to approach implementing them. I think of these as the four "charges," one accompanying each of the Noble Truths, namely: 4 CHARGESExistence of dukkha - (we are to fully) UnderstandOrigin of dukkha - () AbandonCessation of dukkha - () RealizePath to cessation of dukkha - () Follow The translator's choice of "understand" in this context seems woefully inadequate, given that even Buddha himself pointed out that what he realized was beyond understanding, in any ordinary sense of the word. But setting aside the semantics, let's consider all four commands as outlining a process of assimilating and acting upon Buddha's teaching. We are to fully understand, or comprehend, the existence of suffering in this world. We are to abandon its main source, or origin, namely our own craving. We are to realize the cessation of suffering, hopefully in this lifetime. And we are to follow the Path in our daily actions, so that everything we do becomes the path. And thus, as Buddha taught in the Lotus Sutra, widely regarded as his last teaching, there is actually no separate Path, if everything is the path. We are on this path whether we know it or not. And, of course, we do not necessarily engage the process in the order implied by the sequencing of the sentence. In fact, we begin at the end, with the Eightfold Path. It, too, is usually laid out in reverse order of its implementation: Right wisdom: view and thought; right conduct: speech, action and livelihood; and right discipline: effort, mindfulness and meditation. Again, we begin at the end, with meditation, which leads to mindfulness and greater effort, which affect our conduct, and so on, leading eventually to right wisdom of understanding and worldview. Or so we hope. But when we consider the difficulty of what Buddha did, and is asking us to do, it seems impossible on the surface — as do the Precepts, when considered as literal and absolute. So we are left with the prospect of figuring out what these directives actually mean, and how they might be accomplished, by contemplating them in meditation, which brings us full circle to where Buddha realized these truths, on the cushion. In Zen meditation, we are encouraged to give up our reliance on the ability of the discriminating mind to analyze and understand, and instead to trust our intuition to come to an insight into reality that is not accessible to reason alone, what Master Dogen referred to as "non-thinking": neither thinking, as such, nor notthinking. So we are to find the sweet spot, the balance between these two aspects of our original mind. In light of this attitude adjustment to the way we ordinarily approach problem-solving, let me suggest another analogy to clarify the long and broad teachings of Buddha's tongue. P's & Q's of ZenKeying off of this common trope, engage with me in an experiment in semantics that may hopefully shed some light on buddha-dharma. Setting aside the "Qs" for now, I propose that we can frame the basics of Buddhism in alliterative form, as a collection of words beginning with P, or more precisely, "Pr," which turns out to be a substantial set of considerations to be assimilated before ("pre-") setting a course of action: • Premises & Principles• Predilections & Proclivities • Prescriptions & Practices• Promises & Predictions Premises & PrinciplesBuddhism, and for that matter any body of teaching, is based on a set of premises, defined as: ... a previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a conclusion: if the premise is true, then the conclusion must be true. Another pr word pops up in the definition: proposition, which has a less definitive connotation, being a mere proposal, than a premise, which indicates a more settled basis. Premises, when proven out by experimentation or sheer experience, may become principles, much as hypotheses become theories (and with enough evidence, laws, or precepts) of the profession under consideration, such as science; or, well, law. Predilections & ProclivitiesHowever, Buddhism — dealing as it does with fallible human nature — also takes into account our predilections, proclivities, and predispositions, as well as any pertinent preconceptions we may be harboring. These words, too, have definitions and synonyms that often reflect each other, such as predisposition and predilection, i.e. sharing similar connotations of preference and propensity. Prescriptions & PracticesWhen it comes to taking action based on the premises and principles laid out in Zen's teachings, and in light of the weaknesses of our predilections and proclivities, semantic hair-splitting does not help much, except perhaps to illustrate the subtlety of the task of discerning which prescriptions and practices might prove to be most productive for following the Zen Way under the present predicament in which we find ourselves. The default mode of action prescribed in Zen is meditation, of course, but many of the practices surrounding and supporting it raise issues of protocols in a starkly different social and cultural environment than that in which the ancestors found themselves. This is the key challenge of propagating Zen today, in a context of over-choice on every level of society. Promises & Predictions The promise of Zen, however, remains the same, no matter the situational causes and conditions surrounding our life and practice. Success in penetrating the koan of existence, while not predictable, may be predicated upon the simple formula of sitting still enough, upright enough, for long enough that the effects of zazen begin to manifest. Buddha predicted the future buddhahood of many of his followers, including his cousin Devadatta, who reputedly tried repeatedly to assassinate the great sage. AfterwordThis familiar "Ps & Qs" phrase came to mind while mulling over the design of Buddha's initial teachings, and after reading Ben Connelly's excellent commentary on "Vasubandhu's Three Natures." The first page that comes up from an internet search on Ps and Qs tells us that the phrase can be traced back to the 1779 Oxford English Dictionary. The most plausible origin, of several possible provenances, is that it refers to early typography, where "p" and "q" were likely to be mistaken, one for the other, when setting lead type. This factoid comes from a site hosted by The Guardian that you may want to check out if you are interested in the origin of words and phrases (etymology), semantic enigmas, and the evolution of language in general In our next segment we will continue delving deeper into the design intent of Zen's teachings and their implications for living in times of increasing uncertainty. Other than death and taxes, the beneficial effects of Zen and zazen are one of the few things that are certain in life. But that does not mean that we should take them for granted. We have to put in the work, making "effort without aiming at it as Master Dogen prescribes. Please plan to join our new online and onsite practice opportunities for 2025. My new Thursday evening Advanced Workshop, in particular, is designed to take a deep dive into the more subtle secrets of Zen and the details of zazen.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for February 13, 2025 is: gallant • GAL-unt • adjective Someone or something described as gallant is very courageous and brave. Gallant is also sometimes used to mean “large and impressive” (as in “a gallant ship”), or to describe someone who has or shows politeness and respect for women. // Though they failed to reach the summit, the mountaineering team made a gallant attempt. See the entry > Examples: “He turned to go, and was promptly whacked across the backside by Miss Chokfi. ‘Ouch?' he said. ‘What was that for?' She was standing up very straight and gallant, though it still left her a foot and a half shorter than him, with the office stapler ready by her hand. ‘That was for not stopping him,' she said. ‘Was there anything else you need?' ‘Not a thing,' said Barrow, and tipped his hat to her.” — Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz: A Novel, 2024 Did you know? If you're familiar with the long-running comic strip “Goofus and Gallant,” created by Garry Cleveland Myers and published in the monthly children's magazine Highlights, you likely have a particularly good sense of the meaning of the adjective gallant. In the comic, the character of Goofus demonstrates to young readers all sorts of bad habits and behaviors, while Gallant provides examples of proper conduct and comportment when in circumstances similar to those of his ill-mannered counterpart. The characters' names were, of course, chosen with purpose. We record several different senses of gallant and all are compliments. Someone described as gallant may be smartly dressed, courteous and chivalrous, or valiant and brave. Goofus, bless his heart, is none of these things (while we do not define the adjective goofus, the Oxford English Dictionary does: “stupid, foolish”). Perhaps ironically, gallant comes from the Middle French verb galer, meaning “to squander in pleasures”; such squandering is something Goofus is likely to do, and Gallant never would.

Is workplace stress just about long hours? Not quite. Brian and Marcus Lagré unpack the real equation behind stress—how pressure, complexity, and security interact—and why your team’s performance depends on getting the balance right. Overview In this episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast, Brian Milner sits down with Marcus Lagré, product organization coach and author of The Stress Equation, to break down the science of workplace stress. They explore the differences between mental and emotional stress, how pressure and complexity impact teams, and why security in the workplace is a game-changer for performance. Marcus shares research-backed insights on interruptions, stress contagion, and how leaders can create an environment where teams thrive without burning out. References and resources mentioned in the show: Marcus Lagré The Stress Equation by Marcus Lagré Certified ScrumMaster® Training and Scrum Certification Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum and Agile Training Schedule Subscribe to the Agile Mentors Podcast Join the Agile Mentors Community Want to get involved? This show is designed for you, and we’d love your input. Enjoyed what you heard today? Please leave a rating and a review. It really helps, and we read every single one. Got an Agile subject you’d like us to discuss or a question that needs an answer? Share your thoughts with us at podcast@mountaingoatsoftware.com This episode’s presenters are: Brian Milner is SVP of coaching and training at Mountain Goat Software. He's passionate about making a difference in people's day-to-day work, influenced by his own experience of transitioning to Scrum and seeing improvements in work/life balance, honesty, respect, and the quality of work. Marcus Lagré is an author, speaker, and consultant with 20 years of experience in software development, from small-team Scrum to massive 50+ team LeSS transformations. Creator of The Stress Equation, he helps organizations tackle workplace stress systematically, ensuring teams thrive under pressure without burning out. Auto-generated Transcript: Brian Milner (00:00) Welcome in Agile Mentors. We're back for another episode of the Agile Mentors Podcast. I'm here as I usually am, Brian Milner. And today we have with us a really special guest, Marcus LeGray is with us. Welcome in, Marcus. Marcus Lagre (00:13) Thanks, Brian, pleasure to be here. Brian Milner (00:15) We were saying before that I'm actually kind of butchering or Americanizing his last name. Marcus Lagre (00:20) Nah, Americanizing, yes, but butchering, no. I wouldn't say that. Brian Milner (00:24) So I'm gonna give you a chance to set the record straight. Why don't you tell us the actually the correct pronunciation? Because I probably can't do it. Marcus Lagre (00:31) Well, my... I would say La Gré, but that's with a Swedish southern accent and not even most Swedes do that, so... Brian Milner (00:34) Okay. OK. Do the Swedish people look on people in the South like we do here in America? Like they're kind of more laid back and slower and... That's funny. OK. Well, we have Marcus on because, first of all, Marcus is a product organization coach. He's an author. He's a speaker. Marcus Lagre (00:48) Yeah, yeah, I would I would say so I would I would say so yeah Brian Milner (01:03) And he has a really great book that we wanted to kind of dive into the topic of here. Because in this day and age, this is a really important topic, but his book is called The Stress Equation. So you can kind of see where we might be going there with that. Well, so let's dive in. Let's talk about that a little bit. And I think probably a good place to start would be, how would you define then stress, when you, if we're talking about stress and the stress equation, how do you define stress? Marcus Lagre (01:30) I usually use the definition of stress because I let's start like this. I think that most people have like a too narrow perspective of what stress is. Like most people probably see it as working long hours and you know, spending a lot of time at work, but it doesn't necessarily have to. And there's this definition of stress from the Oxford English Dictionary that I found really well that stress is the result of, of, of, emotional or mental strain due to adverse or demanding circumstances. So yeah, so there's differences there. And I think that most people, if you're not in a very toxic environment, you don't suffer from emotional stress a lot at work, but mental strain is probably what we're looking at most often. Brian Milner (02:04) Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I wouldn't discount that entirely. I think that there's probably a lot of people out there that have the emotional strain of a bad boss or manager or something like that, right? But yeah, hopefully, you know, hopefully you're right that the majority might not be, you know, dealing with that. It might be more of the mental side of this. So what is mental stress then? What is a mental strain? Marcus Lagre (02:38) Well, mental strain is usually diversified by saying like emotional strain is like the stress from being like in a toxic environment, for example, which is more common than it should be. But mental strain is more of the when you have too much of a mental load, like you're trying to solve a complex problem, like you have high cognitive load in order to solve it, or you need to Brian Milner (02:48) Hmm. Marcus Lagre (03:03) Well, it's also related to cognitive load that you have a lot of context switching. So you need to change information in your working memory quite often and a lot. And that can lead to mental strain. And the problem with mental strain, as I see it in white collar worker or knowledge workers, is that most of us are, we like mental challenges. We like puzzles, we like solving problems. So we're not great at identifying when a mental challenge becomes a mental strain for us. We're used to just pushing on. we try to just, you know, it's just something that I haven't figured out yet. If I push myself just a little harder, I'll crack it. Yeah. Brian Milner (03:42) Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. We do like puzzles. We do like challenges. I I know one of the popular things here in the US is the escape room kind of thing. I don't know if you guys have that there as well, but we actually pay people in our free time to give us puzzles and challenges that for fun, we'll go and put ourselves under some mental duress and try to figure out. So I think you're right. there is part of us that really wants to do that. Well, if that's true, then the other side of that is, shouldn't we all be under some kind of mental stress then, since work is challenging and complex and hopefully. Marcus Lagre (04:20) Well, yeah, I mean, not all stress is bad. So I usually say that the stress that we feel at work usually comes from two different sources. So this is the equation. Like the mental strain comes from the complexity that we need to, now that we need to handle. Either the complexity of the problem that we need to solve, or if we're working in, the complexity could also be like the frustration of working in an inefficient organization. That could be part of the complexity. Brian Milner (04:23) Yeah. Marcus Lagre (04:46) So I usually say that pressure is our sense of urgency. The pressure comes from our sense of urgency in order to finish the work that we're, the task that we have at hand or whatever it is that we're trying to solve. And the complexity is whatever makes it harder for us to actually finish that work. So to relate back to what you were saying, shouldn't we be under some kind of stress? Yes, we should. If we don't have any sense of urgency, we're probably not delivering at all. And if there's zero complexity in what we're doing, That should probably be an automated task long ago. We will probably suffer from severe boredom if there's zero complexity in what we're doing. Brian Milner (05:25) Yeah, I always, you know, this comes up sometimes in classes where, I think, you know, I want to find those people who are under zero pressure at work, because I've never been in that situation. I've never had any kind of boss or organization that was like, just take as long as you need. It doesn't matter. There's always some pressure and some places it's more than others and some places it's extreme. But yeah, I think you're right. There's a right amount of pressure. that can be applied. Marcus Lagre (05:48) And there's also constructive stress. I usually diversify like constructive stress is when you try to achieve something because if you're under a lot of pressure solving something very complex, there's also pleasure in actually solving it. So there's some kind of release in the end. But if you're constantly under a lot of pressure or... Brian Milner (05:51) Hmm. Marcus Lagre (06:09) I usually say that the pressure usually comes from things like how we set deadlines, how we handle our backlog. So if you have two short deadlines, then you're under negative stress or unconstructive stress, or we have an ever-expanding backlog. We can never finish everything in this backlog. have no way of saying no to things. They just keep piling on. That's unconstructive stress, but... Brian Milner (06:30) Yeah. Marcus Lagre (06:34) A sense of urgency to reach like a goal? That's more of positive kind of stress. Brian Milner (06:39) Yeah. Yeah. I I've heard, my boss, Mike Cohn talk about before how scrum has just the right amount of pressure that it's, it's not, you know, it's, it's not the kind of, when we think about commitment and stuff inside of a sprint, it's not the kind of thing of, you're going to lose your job if you don't make this sprint commitment. But it is kind of, you know, my, my word is on the line. My name is on the line. And if I don't deliver. I'm letting down my team, I'm letting down those around me. So that's way he describes it. It's kind of just the right amount of pressure that's kind of baked into the way Scrum works. I've always liked that. I've always thought that's kind of a good take on that. So we're kind of in these pressure cookers a little bit, right? We've got pressure and sometimes more than others and we do need some kind of pressure. So we have some sense of urgency in what we're doing. How does this align with our Agile Manifesto kind of ideal of working at a sustainable pace? Is the pressure going to crack us under trying to keep a sustainable pace? And what if we don't have any say over the amount of pressure we have? Marcus Lagre (07:46) Well, if you don't have any say, then I usually say that the pressure isn't a force of nature, that it usually stems from someone's decisions. And if we don't have a say in it, then we can't influence that pressure really as a team maybe. But from a leadership perspective, if you put unlimited pressure on the team, you're gonna see decreasing results anyway. It's not... constructive, you're going to burn your people, you're going to lose, worst case, lose them from the company, either because they change jobs or because they burn out and they have to go on sick leave. So and that's going to cost you in the end. But also that you're going to see either a lot more well, as I said, either a lot of people leaving or people doing quite quitting. That's that's what's going to be because once caring about your own performance becomes dangerous, people are gonna put in the bare minimum. That's the people you're gonna keep. Brian Milner (08:41) Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure there's lots of research baked into this and you've probably crossed a lot of different studies and things that have kind of jumped out at you. And to me, that's always one of the things that's the most interesting when I dive into a topic like this and go really, you know, kind of knee deep into it. what, was there any kind of research that you stumbled upon as you were preparing for this or, you know, creating this book? that really kind of surprised you or that you found extremely interesting? Any studies out there around the effects of stress that kind of shocked you even maybe? Marcus Lagre (09:18) I wouldn't say shocked, but one thing that surprised me was that there was this study that showed, because I talk in the book about complexity, and I mentioned earlier that if you need to change the information in your working memory a lot, that leads to mental strain. But there were actually studies that showed that interruptions in work does not lower the quality of the work. It does, however, increase the sense of stress. But it doesn't necessarily lower the quality of work, which was something that I was absolutely convinced it would. However, there was a correlation between how far if you got interrupted, if it was on topic, so to speak, so that you didn't have to throw everything out of your working memory, then the quality level was still on par with what you would have seen if you weren't interrupted. However, Brian Milner (09:48) Yeah. Marcus Lagre (10:06) if it was something that was diametrically different to what you were actually doing, then yes, the quality would also drop. But I actually thought there would be like a clear correlation between interruptions and lower quality of work. And it wasn't. Brian Milner (10:20) Yeah. So it's not, I mean, what I'm hearing is it's not necessarily the interruption itself. It's the content of the interruption. And if the interruption is, you know, taking you wildly off track from your thought process, that's higher stress kind of a reaction to it. And that leads to more problems. But if it's, if it's an interruption that's near in the same area of what it is you're working on and thinking about, then it's not as hard to get back to it. Less stress, less, let's kind of end result effect, right? Marcus Lagre (10:52) Yeah, there's less mental strain in that scenario. However, you do often feel like you're less efficient, that you get less joy out of what you're doing if you get constantly interrupted, and that the workload is heavier than it actually is. So there's negative sides to getting interrupted a lot, but as long as it's sort of on topic, as you say, it's not really that harmful. Brian Milner (10:54) Okay. Yeah. Well, I know you do a lot of work with organizations and with leaders and organizations. And I know one of the difficult things, difficult kind of parts of having these conversations with leadership is trying to help them to understand the importance and kind of the impact and why this is important in a business sense to them. Not just that, you know, the way I phrase it in classes, it's not just that it makes you a better person, right? which there's value in that. not negating that being a good person is bad. I'm just saying from a business sense, oftentimes leaders want more than just saying, yeah, I'm a better human by doing that, but is it better for the business? So how do you have that conversation with leaders, with organizations to say, this is actually an important thing to focus on. This makes an impact on your business. Marcus Lagre (12:07) usually the challenge is to get leaders to understand that they are also affected by this. Because a lot of the challenges I see in organizations is that I come in and I usually do like an analysis of the organizations, ask around, do interviews and analyze everything. And what I come up with is rarely news to the leadership. They have seen the same thing. The problem is that they never had the time to just sit down and figure things out because they're constantly rushing between meetings. They're constantly rushing to do various budgets, updates, stuff like this, just keeping the mill going. So I usually say that they're too operationally occupied to take a look at the strategic goals and the strategic direction that they need to be going in for the business to run smoothly over a period of time. And so I usually tell them that the most important thing that you can get yourself is like an hour, at least every week that you just sit on your rear end and just contemplate things. I usually use a different word than rear end when I tell them this, just to drive the point home. But yeah, they need to find time. where they can just like no phone, no computer, just sit down for an hour and let whatever enters your head, enter your head because otherwise you will never figure this out. And you don't have to pay people like me premium to come in and tell you things that you are actually clever enough to figure out yourself. Brian Milner (13:41) Right, right. Yeah, so that's so interesting. So it's hard to convince them that stress plays a big impact on their work. I hadn't really thought of it from that perspective, but that's a great point to make. If you can help them understand the impact it has on their work, maybe it's an easier conversation than to say the impact it has on your teams or on your employees' work. Yeah. Marcus Lagre (14:06) I have never, mean, stress is contagious and it ripples down. If you have a really stressed out management, you're gonna have stress in the rest of the organization as well, like on the floor and in your teams. That's just a given, I would say. Brian Milner (14:11) Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, so I'm following along. I think this is good. So we're talking about how you kind of explain this a little bit more to leaders and help them understand the impact. What about when you get one of those leaders who's just, and I know I've had these before where they're kind of more old school and they look at things and think, you know, you... Well, on your graph of pressure, right? They're much more leaning towards the higher pressure side to place on employees because they take that attitude of, you know, the old phrase that we all hate, work expands to fill the time allowed or whatever that thing is, right? How do you convince that person that, you know, there's an okay amount, but you're kind of really skewing it to the high end and this is now going to have an adverse effect? Marcus Lagre (15:00) yeah, yeah, Brian Milner (15:12) on what you're ultimately trying to do. Marcus Lagre (15:14) My usual angle of attack is to address the complexity of the part of the equation. I probably can't get them to understand or accept that they're applying too much pressure, but what they're actually trying to achieve is to get more output. I mean, that's the goal of their actions. And so I try to get them to understand the complexity that their teams are working under and try to get them to understand that you need to reduce this in order to free up more time and mental bandwidth for output. And that's usually a better way forward than trying to get them to accept that you only get so far with a whip. Once you've whipped one time too many, people are going to just stop caring. Brian Milner (16:02) Yeah. Yeah, you can't come back and use that tool over and over again. It's going to have kind of the opposite effect that you're hoping it will have eventually, right? Marcus Lagre (16:14) People are going to start telling you about problems, for example, because these people are usually the same people who don't want to hear about problems. Don't tell me about problems, tell me your solutions kind of attitude. And I usually get them to understand that you have absolutely no idea what the problems of this organization is, because people are afraid to tell you. Brian Milner (16:22) Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's such a huge point, I think, for leaders to kind of soak in and understand. If you have that culture, if you are generating that culture of fear in the organization of, don't come to me with problems, only come to me with solutions, then you're right. You're absolutely right. You're closing yourself off. And you're kind of establishing the norm that if there is an issue, The last thing to do is to raise it, to let people know about it, live with it, right? Just kind of exist with a status quo. If there's a problem, then you just have to learn to live with the problem. Marcus Lagre (17:09) Live with the problem or game the system so the problem isn't apparent. Brian Milner (17:13) Right, right. So back to the equation then. So your equation here, pressure times complexity over security. I don't know what we've talked much about security so far. So how does that come into play when you calculate this kind of pressure equation, stress equation? Marcus Lagre (17:25) Bye! Yeah, well, we kind of touched on it now, like with leaders who act in a way that lowers the security or the sense of security. So I define security as the freedom from fear at work. And psychological safety is one part of that. But it's also that you feel that you have... I'm sort of reluctant to use the words servant leadership anymore because there's sort of... sort of become a tainted word in some ways. People see it as a passive leadership style, which is not really, I don't quite agree with that, but security is in essence that you are able to take high pressure and high complexity if you feel that you have the management in your back, that you're taking it on as a team, that you're not alone with all of that pressure and all of that complexity, but you have people around you who you can rely on and ask for help. If you have that, then your security is higher and then you can take more pressure, you can take more complexity without burning out. Brian Milner (18:32) Yeah, yeah, that makes complete sense because if I have the kind of that sense of security that I'm not at risk, I don't feel like I'm being put in a position to fail so that I'm now in danger, but I've been given difficult problems because I have been trusted to conquer them. I've been trusted and empowered to kind of overcome them. That's such a different approach and mindset from an employee standpoint than, my gosh, I got to do this or I'm going to get fired. Marcus Lagre (19:05) Exactly, there's probably, management has probably let me know that we understand, we're handing you like a really tough thing to solve. if you need anything, if you need any resources, if you need any extra help, just ask us for it and we'll solve it. And in that situation, you're a lot more likely to... be able to get into that without burning out simply because you know that I have the management backing me up. Brian Milner (19:37) if I'm one of those employees who's under a high pressure environment, and I don't really feel like I have the power or authority to make that change, what can I do about it? Marcus Lagre (19:50) I mean, the thing that you can do is to change what I usually, one of the reasons why I wrote this book is that stress is one of the leading causes of mental illness and sick leave in our line of work, which is software. So if something is the leading cause of a problem, it's probably systemic, it's not individual. So one of the most important thing, that you can do is to identify what in the system is causing the stress in me, because ultimately stress is a subjective feeling. it manifests itself in people, but you can get the tools to identify what in the system is causing the stress in me. that can be quite a relief to not put that... I mean, put additional pressure on yourself by thinking that you're the one who's bad at your job or you're the one who don't have the correct coping mechanisms for the situation. The situation might actually be insane. Brian Milner (20:51) Yeah. Yeah, it's that subjective nature, I think, that is kind of a variable that I would throw into this equation. It's sort of like, I know one of the things I found really fascinating in kind of the earlier history of Agile and the idea of a sustainable pace was originally there was kind of talk about saying, using words like, no one should work more than 40 hours a week. But then that got changed to sustainable pace because of the realization that for some people 40 hours was too much and for other people 40 hours was not enough. And so that idea of sustainable pace was, it's individual, it's different to different people and that's part of what we got to do is know ourselves enough to know, hey, I'm kind of slipping beyond that point where I can sustain this indefinitely. Marcus Lagre (21:37) Yeah, and I think that's one of the myths that I want to bust a little bit is that, you know, it's not about 40 hours. It's not about the hours. I mean, there are some people who can work 60, 80 hours without burning out. So it's not the hours. It's something else. You know, so it's the end of the... Maybe it's the pressure that we have too much pressure. Maybe it's that we have too high complexity in combination with pressure. Maybe it's that we are in a toxic environment. So it's like how much mental energy do I need to handle the context that I'm in? That's. Brian Milner (22:13) It's almost like there needs to be kind of this balance between those three things that you've got to, one thing might go a little higher, but the others then have to drop a little bit so that it kind of equals out, right? Marcus Lagre (22:22) Yeah. That's what I, like, I always say that if you want to put high pressure on your teams, on your organization, you have to reduce the complexity because you can't do both at the same time. Those are the two variables that increases the stress. But then as we mentioned, like feeling of security is the lowering factor. So you always do well working with Brian Milner (22:38) Yeah. Marcus Lagre (22:46) the sense of security within your teams and working with your culture and making sure that toxic behavior is simply not acceptable in this organization, for example. And so that's always, you always get a reduced level of stress from that kind of work. But as I said, if you have high complexity and you put too high pressure on something, it's gonna break sooner or later. You're either gonna break your people or you're gonna break your product. because you're going to reduce the quality of the work because you have to stress through everything. And quite frankly, I don't care about your product. You're free to break it if you want to, but breaking people, that's just not okay. Brian Milner (23:18) Ha ha. Yeah, now we're back to being a good human, right? mean, these are humans. They're not AI programs, at least not yet. And they have lives. the more that you, like you're talking about, the more that you increase that pressure on them or decrease their sense of security, the less complexity they can handle. And you know, You have diminishing returns on your employees, on their productivity. Marcus Lagre (23:48) It is unsound business. Brian Milner (23:50) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, this is fascinating. I really appreciate you coming on and talking about this. Again, for anyone listening, if this topic is interesting to you, highly recommend you check out the book, The Stress Equation by Marcus Le Gray, even though that's not actually the way to say the name. it's L-A-G-R-E, just so everyone knows. I don't want you to struggle searching for it if you're looking for it. We will put the links to it in the show notes for this episode so that you don't miss out if you're trying to contact Marcus or you want to know more about the book. We'll make sure you find a way to do it. So Marcus, I really appreciate you coming on. This has been a fascinating topic and I appreciate you sharing your wisdom, your research and your knowledge on this with us. Marcus Lagre (24:31) The pleasure was all mine, Brian.

The other day I went to check in on my 10-year-old during her screentime. She was playing Goat Simulator on her Switch. She was also watching Gravity Falls on her iPad. Other times she just watches people play video games. I get it. It's my role, to not understand my kids' media habits. And, as a parent, it's also my job to worry about my kids' screentime. Maybe you don't worry. Maybe you're at one end of the spectrum or the other – like either have at it, kids! Or you set limits with the iron fist of nurturing boundaries. But most of us, I think, can't help but worry about what it does to their attention spans to be streaming TV while playing a video game. My 10-year-old does have limits on screens. For my teenager, the limits eroded over the years. I really don't know how much to worry about it. I want them to get outside, talk to real people, look at the sky, touch trees, experience the wonder and boredom of the analog world. But I'm not trying to be a Luddite. Maybe I've never been that into video games, but I realize they can offer rich, complex narrative experiences. And, you know, fun. I hear people like that, too.There might even be things that video games offer that are just too hard to access in the contemporary world otherwise. I don't know, the adrenaline rush of being chased by a wild boar. Quests to find treasure, even if in reality it was about potable water rather than a chest of gold. Or to prove yourself to a community. I'm trying to acknowledge the value of video games, but clearly I'm still a little skeptical about their importance for humanity. And yes, I do realize I'm saying all this on a podcast. Side note, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “podcast” first appeared in English in 2004. Decades after video games. I just want my kids to spend more time outside.Anyway. In the midst of all this, I heard about someone who's working on video games to support girls. That's great. And she's also working on video games for another group that hasn't traditionally had games made for them.In the video for her company, Parrot Concepts, she hesitates before saying what they're trying to solve is a…problem. But she goes ahead and says it. And defends it. By the end of our conversation, I was ready to agree. There's a real problem, and video games for parrots are going to help.CreditsInner States is produced and edited by me, Alex Chambers. Our associate producer is Dom Heyob. Our master of social media is Jillian Blackburn. Our intern is Karl Templeton. We get support from Eoban Binder, Natalie Ingalls, LuAnn Johnson, Sam Schemenauer, Payton Whaley, Lisa Robbin Young and Kayte Young. Our Executive Producer is Eric Bolstridge.Our theme song is by Amy Oelsner and Justin Vollmar. We have additional music from the artists at Universal Production Music.I also want to give a shoutout to Lydia Norton and Betsy Leija. Their interview with Patricia on the IU Media School's I'm No Expert podcast is how I found out about her love of parrots and parrot games.

Bradford Morrow is the author of 10 novels, as well as short stories, children's books, essays, anthologies, and illustrated books. He is also the founder and editor of the literary journal Conjunctions, which has been in publication since 1981. Professor Morrow has taught literature at Bard College for 35 years. His latest is The Forger's Requiem. It's the third in a trilogy, following The Forgers and The Forger's Daughter. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about these novels, as well as his techniques for reading like a writer, his work at Conjunctions, his use of journals for novel-writing, his writing routine, his love of the Oxford English Dictionary, and so much more. For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds upon hundreds of past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We've stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you'll find to an album's worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at writersonwritingpodcast@gmail.com. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on January 9, 2025) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Host: Marrie Stone Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

The Oxford English Dictionary announced its word of the year at the end of 2024: brain rot. The term relates to the supposedly negative effects of consuming social media content, but it struck a chord more widely with many of us who feel we just don't have the mental capacity we once did. Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, has been studying our waning attention spans for 20 years. She tells Madeleine Finlay why she believes our powers of concentration are not beyond rescue, and reveals her top tips for finding focus. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

Humans probably started fermenting things on purpose by about 10,000 BCE. But when did they start discussing the aftereffects that come from drinking too much? Research: · Beringer, Guy. “Brunch: a plea.” Harper's Weekly, 1895. https://archive.org/details/archive_charlyj_001 · Bishop-Stall, Shaughnessy. “Hung Over: The Morning After and One Man’s Quest for the Cure.” Penguin Books. 2018. · Bishop-Stall, Shaughnessy. “Weird Hangover Cures Through the Ages.” Lit Hub. 11/20/2018. https://lithub.com/weird-hangover-cures-through-the-ages/ · Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham. “The reader's handbook of allusions, references, plots and stories; with two appendices;.” https://archive.org/details/readershandb00brew/page/957/ · Danovich, Tove. “The Weird and Wonderful History of Hangover Cures.” 12/31/2015. https://www.eater.com/2015/12/31/10690384/hangover-cure-history · Dean, Sam. “How to Say 'Hangover' in French, German, Finnish, and Many Other Languages.” Bon Appetit. 12/28/2012. https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/how-to-say-hangover-in-french-german-finnish-and-many-other-languages · Frazer, Sir James George. “The Golden Bough : a study of magic and religion.” https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3623/3623-h/3623-h.htm#c3section1 · “'Hair of the Dog that Bit you' in Dog, N. (1), Sense P.6.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, September 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/6646229330. · “Hangover, N., Sense 2.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3221323975. · Hanson, David J. “Historical evolution of alcohol consumption in society.” From Alcohol: Science, Policy and Public Health. Peter Boyle, ed. Oxford University Press. 2013. · “Jag, N. (2), Sense 1.c.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3217891040. · MacDonald, James. “The Weird Ways Humans Have Tried Curing Hangovers.” JSTOR Daily. 1/25/2016. https://daily.jstor.org/weird-ways-humans-tried-curing-hangovers/ · Nasser, Mervat. “Psychiatry in Ancient Egypt.” Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Vol. 11. December 1987. · Office of Communications, Princeton University. “Desires for fatty foods and alcohol share a chemical trigger.” 12/15/2004. https://pr.princeton.edu/news/04/q4/1215-galanin.htm · O'Reilly, Jean. “No convincing scientific evidence that hangover cures work, according to new research.” Via EurekAlert. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/938938 · Paulsen, Frank M. “A Hair of the Dog and Some Other Hangover Cures from Popular Tradition.” The Journal of American Folklore , Apr. - Jun., 1961, Vol. 74, No. 292 (Apr. - Jun., 1961). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/537784 · Pittler, Max, et al. “Interventions For Preventing Or Treating Alcohol Hangover: Systematic Review Of Randomised Controlled Trials.” BMJ: British Medical Journal , Dec. 24 - 31, 2005, Vol. 331, No. 7531 (Dec. 24 - 31, 2005). https://www.jstor.org/stable/25455748 · Shears, Jonathon. “The Hangover: A Literary & Cultural History.” Liverpool University Press. 2020. Suddath, Claire. “A Brief History of Hangovers.” Time. 1/1/2009. https://time.com/3958046/history-of-hangovers/ · Van Huygen, Meg. “15 Historical Hangover Cures.” Mental Floss. 12/30/2016. · Weinberg, Caroline. “The Science of Hangovers.” Eater. 12/31/2015. https://www.eater.com/drinks/2015/12/31/10685644/hangover-cures-how-to-prevent-hungover · Wills, Matthew. “Treating Wounds With Magic.” JSTOR Daily. 9/14/2019. https://daily.jstor.org/treating-wounds-with-magic/ · Wurdz, Gideon. “The Foolish Dictionary: An Exhausting Work of Reference to Un-certain English Words, Their Origin, Meaning, Legitimate and Illegitimate Use, Confused by a Few Pictures.” Robinson, Luce Company. 1904. https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=71QYAAAAYAAJ&rdid=book-71QYAAAAYAAJ&rdot=1 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are few books in the world that most people have heard of. There are even fewer so recognizable that are 500,000 words long.That's right, we're talking about the dictionary.The Oxford English Dictionary is the longest English variant of its kind in the world. But many of those who made significant contributions to its creation went unknown for years — until now. These included hundreds of women, people without formal educations, and patients in mental institutions.In other words, the people who helped make the OED were as diverse as the words in it. We discuss how the Oxford English Dictionary came to be and how our relationship to the dictionary has changed.Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to this podcast. Have questions? Connect with us. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The mullet, the love-to-hate-it hairstyle, is as associated with the 1980's as Ronald Reagan, junk bonds, and breakdancing. But in at least one major way, we are suffering from a collective case of false memory syndrome. In this episode we track the rise and fall of the mullet, and also the lexical quandary at its heart: Who named the mullet? We learn how David Bowie, hockey players, the Oxford English Dictionary, the Beastie Boys, a mysterious Reddit user named Topsmate, and a group called Annoy Club all played a part in the strange history of the mullet. Some of the voices you'll hear in this episode include proud mullet-wearer Lauren Wright, amateur mullet-sleuth Oskar Sigvardsson, writer, market researcher, and 1980's hockey teenager John Warner, head of product for Oxford Languages Katherine Connor Martin, and novelist and Grand Royal contributor Warren Fahy. This episode was produced by Willa Paskin and Benjamin Frisch. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Disclosure in Podcast Description: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond's yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond's YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The mullet, the love-to-hate-it hairstyle, is as associated with the 1980's as Ronald Reagan, junk bonds, and breakdancing. But in at least one major way, we are suffering from a collective case of false memory syndrome. In this episode we track the rise and fall of the mullet, and also the lexical quandary at its heart: Who named the mullet? We learn how David Bowie, hockey players, the Oxford English Dictionary, the Beastie Boys, a mysterious Reddit user named Topsmate, and a group called Annoy Club all played a part in the strange history of the mullet. Some of the voices you'll hear in this episode include proud mullet-wearer Lauren Wright, amateur mullet-sleuth Oskar Sigvardsson, writer, market researcher, and 1980's hockey teenager John Warner, head of product for Oxford Languages Katherine Connor Martin, and novelist and Grand Royal contributor Warren Fahy. This episode was produced by Willa Paskin and Benjamin Frisch. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Disclosure in Podcast Description: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond's yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond's YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The mullet, the love-to-hate-it hairstyle, is as associated with the 1980's as Ronald Reagan, junk bonds, and breakdancing. But in at least one major way, we are suffering from a collective case of false memory syndrome. In this episode we track the rise and fall of the mullet, and also the lexical quandary at its heart: Who named the mullet? We learn how David Bowie, hockey players, the Oxford English Dictionary, the Beastie Boys, a mysterious Reddit user named Topsmate, and a group called Annoy Club all played a part in the strange history of the mullet. Some of the voices you'll hear in this episode include proud mullet-wearer Lauren Wright, amateur mullet-sleuth Oskar Sigvardsson, writer, market researcher, and 1980's hockey teenager John Warner, head of product for Oxford Languages Katherine Connor Martin, and novelist and Grand Royal contributor Warren Fahy. This episode was produced by Willa Paskin and Benjamin Frisch. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you'll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Disclosure in Podcast Description: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond's yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond's YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1031. This week, Fiona McPherson from the Oxford English Dictionary talks about the latest “beer” words added to the OED, from “boozeroo” to “beerage.” We discuss how these words are chosen, the fascinating history behind them, and why some have surprising origins. Fiona also explains how digital resources have transformed lexicography and shares why the OED preserves every word in the language, even obsolete ones.