Podcasts about William Safire

Send us a textThere is nothing we will do that will be more impressive in the eyes of God than serving Him and others, even if we traveled to the moon and back.Galatians 5:13You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.Remaster of Episode 26, originally aired on September 18, 2019.Support the show

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. This week we're looking at the history of space travel, including the 60th anniversary of the first ever space-walk by Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. Also, the speech that would have been given if the Apollo 11 astronauts didn't make their way back from the moon; the founding of the European Space Agency and how Brazil came back from tragedy to launch their fist successful rocket. The Sky at Night's Dr Ezzy Pearson joins us to tell us about the history of robot's in space and the Soviet Union's exploration of Venus. Contributors: Archive of Alexei Leonov – the first man to walk in space Dr Ezzy Pearson – Features Editor for the BBC's Sky at Night magazine Felix Palmerio – engineer for Brazil's space programme Archive of William Safire – speechwriter for US President Richard Nixon Bill Holland – former historian for NASA Andrea Amaldi – grandson of Edoardo Amaldi, one of the founding fathers of the European Space Agency(Photo: Alexei Leonov on his first space walk in 1965. Credit: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

“Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.”These are the opening lines of the 'In Event of Moon Disaster' speech, written in 1969 in case the moon landing astronauts did not make it home.They were composed by President Richard Nixon's speechwriter, William Safire, who died in 2009, at the age of 79.The speech continued: “These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.”Using archive from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and NASA, Vicky Farncombe tells the story of “the speech that never was”.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic' and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy's Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they've had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America's occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.(Photo: Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin on the moon. Credit: Getty Images)

Send us a textTaegan Goddard is the founder and editor of Political Wire, one of the most widely-read political news sites over the last 25+ years. He created Political Wire in the late 1990s after stints as a Senate staffer on Capitol Hill and several years in state government in his home state of Connecticut. In this conversation, he talks his own development as a rabid political junkie, setting out early goals in the public and private sector, both encouraging and disheartening stints in government, why he decided against running for office, and starting Political Wire initially as a hobby - which has now grown into a site that is a regular stop for 10+ million readers a month. To become a paid subscriber to Political Wire to see additional content and no ads, click here.IN THIS EPISODEGrowing up as a young political junkie in Hartford, CT...Taegan runs across an early version of the internet in the 1980s...The British politician who had an important important on the structure of Taegan's life...Important lessons working for the Senate Banking Chair, Michigan Democrat Don Riegle, on Capitol Hill...Highs and lows of working for Governor Lowell Weicker and others in CT state government...Why time working in state government made Taegan forgo an early desire to run for office himself...The core lesson of his book for elected officials, You Won, Now What?, that stands the test of time...The origin story of the Political Wire news website, which goes back 3+ decades...When Taegan realized Political Wire had found an audience and developed staying power...How Taegan has maintained and grown his audience in the tumultuous space of internet political sites...Taegan's sense of how important and history-making our current era of politics is...Taegan's most effective work tool & favorite non-political website...AND Spiro Agnew, David Bradley, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton's best friend, Congressional Quarterly, Charlie Cook, Al D'Amato, dark horse campaigns, the Federal Reserve Board, Joe Ganim, Newt Gingrich, Michael Heseltine, the Keating 5, John Kerry, Merck, nattering nabobs, The New Republic, Ross Perot, reader freakouts, Robert Redford, Chris Riback, Joe Rogan, Stu Rothenberg, John Rowland, William Safire, Ben Thompson, Chuck Todd, Donald Trump, the Wall Street Journal, yellow legal pads...& more!

Originally Recorded October 22nd, 2024About Tevi Troy: https://tevitroy.org/about/ Check out Tevi's City Journal tribute to William Safire, titled The Must-Read Columnist: https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-must-read-columnist This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit musicallyspeaking.substack.com

1969 - El 16 de julio Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin y Michael Collins despegan en el Apolo 11 desde Cabo Cañaveral con dirección a la luna. Pero… ¿y si algo sale mal? En ese escenario se pone William Safire, redactor de discursos presidenciales, quien en pleno viaje de la aeronave envía una carta a H.R Haldeman, jefe de gabinete de Richard Nixon, con el discurso que deberá leer el presidente si la misión fracasa. Un espacio de Bárbara Espejo.

In this episode you discover the true meaning and origin of the phrase, "Rule of Thumb". One discovery I made as I investigated the origin of this phrase is - despite popular belief - in reality it has NOTHING to do with the myth that English law allowed a man to beat his wife with a rod no thicker than his thumb.---Information sources:"The meaning and origin of the expression: Rule of thumb". "The Phrase Finder" online. Link: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/rule-of-thumb.html"On Language; Misrule of Thumb" by William Safire, January 25, 1998; "New York Times". Link: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/25/magazine/on-language-misrule-of-thumb.html#---Host:Stephen Carter - Website for this and other shows: https://StressReliefRadio.com - Email: CarterMethod@gmail.comListen to previous episodes of this show at either https://StressReliefRadio.com or https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/history-of-everyday-sayings--4209899Follow the "History of Everyday Sayings" wherever you get your podcasts.---Technical information:Recorded with Hindenburg Pro. Edits with TwistedWave, Audacity, Hush, and Levelator. Final edits and rendering with Hindenburg Pro. Microphone: SE Dynacaster DCM8.

Thanks for joining me. I have been away for a while but am glad to be back with you. While I was gone, my website has had a facelift. Check out GaryCrow.net to see how the update went. I have been thinking about what's true and how we can ever know. Although I don't personally have any certainty, I did come across this 3 Dose Truth strategy and thought you might appreciate it. It's just something to consider. Give it a couple of minutes and come to your own conclusion. In these days of fake news and intentional misinformation, it's easy to wonder if anything we read or hear is true. Maybe even more alarming is our inability to know who to believe, who to trust. And of course, that is the point of fake news and misinformation. The goal is not so much to get us to believe false this or untrue that as it is to fuel mistrust and doubt: mistrust of our political leaders and doubt about the intentions and motivations that underpin our government and institutions. In The Fine Art of Baloney Detection, Carl Sagan was definitely on point when he counseled, "Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along." It's harsh but certainly self-evident that "If you don't control your mind, someone else will." John Allston points out the obvious, but it has gotten to where even the obvious is suspect. In testimony to this sad state of affairs, William Safire advises, "Never assume the obvious is true." At the extreme, we get to where we mistrust what we hear, what we see, what we think; and if the insidious erosion of trust persists, we come to distrust our personal judgment and our self-confidence falters. There is an antidote for this insidious erosion of trust, but I doubt that many would think it is an easy medicine to swallow. The first dose is to give up our reliance on group-think. "Don't think you're on the right road just because it's a well-beaten path." I don't know who said that first and doubt that it matters much. The value is in being reminded that we are responsible for what we think, what we believe, and just because lots of well-meaning folks have signed onto the trip does not make it okay for us to thoughtlessly follow. Anatole France assures us that "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." It's also true that if fifty million people think or do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. It's up to us to guard against being just another one of the fools. The second dose serving as an antidote for this insidious erosion of trust is to give up on our habitual reliance on simply accepting the perspectives, views and opinions of people with the loudest voices or the most followers. Let it suffice to remind us of Buddha's advice, "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it — even if I have said it — unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." The third dose is perhaps the hardest to swallow. Grace Hopper argued that "The most damaging phrase in the language is, it's always been done that way." Variations on the point are mental crutches such as "I've always thought…," or "I've always believed…, " or "Everyone knows…." The notion is that once I think or believe anything, that's the way it is forever. Granted, it's being consistent; but as Bernard Berenson cautioned, "Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." Or perhaps you prefer George Bernard Shaw's take, "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." Even so, Glen Beaman has a point, "Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking...

Thanks for joining me. I have been away for a while but am glad to be back with you. While I was gone, my website has had a facelift. Check out GaryCrow.net to see how the update went. I have been thinking about what's true and how we can ever know. Although I don't personally have any certainty, I did come across this 3 Dose Truth strategy and thought you might appreciate it. It's just something to consider. Give it a couple of minutes and come to your own conclusion. In these days of fake news and intentional misinformation, it's easy to wonder if anything we read or hear is true. Maybe even more alarming is our inability to know who to believe, who to trust. And of course, that is the point of fake news and misinformation. The goal is not so much to get us to believe false this or untrue that as it is to fuel mistrust and doubt: mistrust of our political leaders and doubt about the intentions and motivations that underpin our government and institutions. In The Fine Art of Baloney Detection, Carl Sagan was definitely on point when he counseled, "Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along." It's harsh but certainly self-evident that "If you don't control your mind, someone else will." John Allston points out the obvious, but it has gotten to where even the obvious is suspect. In testimony to this sad state of affairs, William Safire advises, "Never assume the obvious is true." At the extreme, we get to where we mistrust what we hear, what we see, what we think; and if the insidious erosion of trust persists, we come to distrust our personal judgment and our self-confidence falters. There is an antidote for this insidious erosion of trust, but I doubt that many would think it is an easy medicine to swallow. The first dose is to give up our reliance on group-think. "Don't think you're on the right road just because it's a well-beaten path." I don't know who said that first and doubt that it matters much. The value is in being reminded that we are responsible for what we think, what we believe, and just because lots of well-meaning folks have signed onto the trip does not make it okay for us to thoughtlessly follow. Anatole France assures us that "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." It's also true that if fifty million people think or do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. It's up to us to guard against being just another one of the fools. The second dose serving as an antidote for this insidious erosion of trust is to give up on our habitual reliance on simply accepting the perspectives, views and opinions of people with the loudest voices or the most followers. Let it suffice to remind us of Buddha's advice, "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it — even if I have said it — unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." The third dose is perhaps the hardest to swallow. Grace Hopper argued that "The most damaging phrase in the language is, it's always been done that way." Variations on the point are mental crutches such as "I've always thought…," or "I've always believed…, " or "Everyone knows…." The notion is that once I think or believe anything, that's the way it is forever. Granted, it's being consistent; but as Bernard Berenson cautioned, "Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." Or perhaps you prefer George Bernard Shaw's take, "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." Even so, Glen Beaman has a point, "Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking...

Finally, Rep. Adam Schiff has been held accountable for his serial lies to the American people, the costly investigations and impeachments they encouraged and the abuse of the power entrusted to him as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee that enabled both.  As the late William Safire famously said of Hillary Clinton, Schiff is a “congenital liar.” His earlier removal from the Intel Committee and now his censure by the full House of Representatives fall far short of the expulsion such an utter lack of integrity actually warrants.  But it is the least Congress can do and encourages hope for more of the same with respect to others in government – like Messrs. Biden, Garland and Majorkas – who have similarly betrayed the public trust by abusing their offices and the oath to support and defend the Constitution they took upon entering them.  This is Frank Gaffney.

Meg recalls the reign, the reveal, and the rebound of Vanessa Williams, Miss America 1984. Jessica revisits and breaks down the teen culture of coffee shops and diners.Please check out our website, follow us on Instagram, on Facebook, and...WRITE US A REVIEW HEREWe'd LOVE to hear from you! Let us know if you have any ideas for stories HEREThank you for listening!Love,Meg and Jessica

It has been called “The Greatest Speech Never Given.”  Drafted as a contingency plan for President Richard Nixon on the occasion of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the memo entitled "In Event of Moon Disaster" is inarguably a better piece of writing than any of the presidential remarks actually delivered on that day.  Penned by White House speechwriter William Safire, today it is hailed as a work of rhetorical and poetic genius. It has inspired major Hollywood features, played a central role in moon landing anniversary observances, and even been used as a tool to educate information consumers on the dangers posed by deepfake technology. And yet from July 20, 1969 until its rediscovery in 1999, this striking piece of American history remained buried in obscurity, its brilliance unrecognized among the millions of pages of documents archived from the Nixon administration. So in this episode of the Lead Balloon podcast, we will track the path of the "Greatest Speech Never Given," from William Safire's desk, to Nixon's Chief of Staff, to its disappearance from and re-emergence in the national discourse. Dwight Chapin, who served as Deputy Assistant to President Nixon and helped plan the Public Relations strategy for the moon landing, will tell us more about his colleague Bill Safire, and how they positioned the moon landing from a strategic communication context. Joe Lopez, the Vice President of Marketing and Communications for the Richard Nixon Foundation, will discuss the memo's rediscovery and display in the Nixon Presidential Library. And Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund, co-directors of the viral Emmy-winning short film “In Event of Moon Disaster,” will discuss their decision to reimagine the remarks by using deepfake technology to synthesize a video of Richard Nixon actually delivering the momentous speech. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's Talmud pages, Nedarim 5 and 6, warn us that if you don't speak your mind clearly, it's like you never spoke your mind at all. But how to speak and write well? How to make sure we're always understood? For advice, we turn to an unearthed gem, a 1978 commencement speech by the late William Safire, Richard Nixon's speechwriter and longtime columnist for The New York Times. What advice does he have on how to make sure we're never misunderstood? Listen and find out. Take One is a Tablet Studios production. The show is hosted by Liel Leibovitz, and is produced and edited by Darone Ruskay and Quinn Waller. Our team also includes Stephanie Butnick, Josh Kross, Mark Oppenheimer, Sara Fredman Aeder, Robert Scaramuccia, and Tanya Singer.  Check out all of Tablet's podcasts at tabletmag.com/podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Columny” was William Safire's word for the craft of column-writing (he also called it “the column dodge”). Steve Chapman has been an outstanding columnist for more than 40 years—mainly with the Chicago Tribune. He has now retired. Bill Buckley published the first piece that Chapman ever got paid for. Chapman thought about leaving the check […]

“Columny” was William Safire's word for the craft of column-writing (he also called it “the column dodge”). Steve Chapman has been an outstanding columnist for more than 40 years—mainly with the Chicago Tribune. He has now retired. Bill Buckley published the first piece that Chapman ever got paid for. Chapman thought about leaving the check uncashed—maybe he should have it framed? Source

“Columny” was William Safire’s word for the craft of column-writing (he also called it “the column dodge”). Steve Chapman has been an outstanding columnist for more than 40 years—mainly with the Chicago Tribune. He has now retired. Bill Buckley published the first piece that Chapman ever got paid for. Chapman thought about leaving the check uncashed—maybe he should have it framed? Source

The late, great New York Times columnist and pundit William Safire once observed, correctly, that Hillary Clinton is a “congenital liar.” Turns out Joe Biden is similarly afflicted. A notorious plagiarist, Biden has been reflexively untruthful about virtually everything – including his determination to unite America, the state of our economy, “MAGA Republicans” being “enemies of the state,” and his insistence that the Chinese Communists “are not bad folks.” While Joe Biden and his friends frequently accuse others of engaging in “the Big Lie” – the practice of dissembling so colossally and repeatedly that people believe it – his own, serial dissembling qualifies him as the Big Liar. The latest example came on Sunday's “60 Minutes,” during which President Biden declared, “There's not a single thing that I've observed at all that would affect me or the United States relative to my son Hunter.” Honestly?   This is Frank Gaffney.

Women's Rights Speeches are Still Powerful Today This week, I'm sharing a book I was recently gifted from a friend called Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History, selected and introduced by William Safire.    This incredible collection has all kinds of talks ranging from patriotic speeches to tributes to debates to commencement addresses and everything in between!   And this episode will be the first in a series where I share with you some of these groundbreaking talks, starting with three powerful women's rights speeches — rights we are still fighting for in 2022.   In this episode, we'll explore: A speech given by suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton given in 1868 at the Women's Suffrage Convention in Washington A speech given by evangelist Sojourner Truth in 1843 in New York City A speech given by women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony given in 1872 after she attempted to vote in the presidential election Why these women's rights speeches are still so important and resonate today More from Tricia  Download my FREE Ebook: 7 Step Formula for Fearless Speaking  Explore my content and follow me on YouTube Follow me on Instagram  Connect with me on Facebook  Connect with me on LinkedIn  Visit my website at TriciaBrouk.com 

As the Apollo 11 astronauts hurtled towards the moon on July 18th, 1969, members of the Nixon administration realized they should probably make a contingency plan. If the astronauts didn't make it – or, even more horrible, if they made it to the moon and crashed and had no way to get back to earth – Richard Nixon would have to address the nation. That haunting speech was written but fortunately was never delivered. But you can go to the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City and watch Nixon somberly reciting those words. It looks like real historic footage, but it's fake. Artists Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund used the text of the original address and media manipulation techniques like machine learning to create the synthetic Nixon for a film called In Event of Moon Disaster. It anchors an exhibit called Deepfake: Unstable Evidence on Screen. In this episode, Panetta and Burgund discuss how they created In Event of Moon Disaster as a way to highlight various misinformation techniques, the changing literacy of the general public towards media manipulation, and the effectiveness of misinformation in the museum medium. Topics and Notes 00:00 Intro 00:15 July 18th, 1969 00:40 The Safire Memo (https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf) 01:38 Clip From In Event of Moon Disaster (https://moondisaster.org) 02:30 Nixon's Telephone Call (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_8tawnlwr8) 03:00 What is Deepfake? 03:30 Halsey Burgund (https://halseyburgund.com) 04:06 Francesca Panetta (https://www.francescapanetta.com/about/) 04:30 How They Did It 04:50 Why This Speech? 06:02 Deepfake: Unstable Evidence on Screen at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City (https://movingimage.us/event/deepfake-unstable-evidence-on-screen/) 07:05 Misinformation By Editing 09:53 Misinformation and Medium 10:23 Museums as Trustworthy Institutions (https://www.museumarchipelago.com/71) 11:27 What Would a “Deepfake Museum Gallery” Look Like? 13:43 In Event of Moon Disaster (https://moondisaster.org) 14:00 Outro | Join Club Archipelago

1969- El 16 de julio Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin y Michael Collins despegan en el Apolo 11 desde Cabo Cañaveral con dirección a la luna. Pero…¿y si algo sale mal? En ese escenario se pone William Safire, redactor de discursos presidenciales, quien en pleno viaje de la aeronave envía una carta a H.R Haldeman, jefe de gabinete de Richard Nixon, con el discurso que deberá leer el presidente si la misión fracasa. En la voz, Bárbara Espejo.

This show features Harley McDonald-Eckersall from Animal Rebellion on the role of individual veganism and system change within the animal movement.  Links for the show: Find out more about Animal Rebellion here: https://animalrebellion.org/ This show builds on the themes covered on our previous episode: 1 in 3 People Support Plant-Based Diets – Progress for the Vegan Movement! https://www.3cr.org.au/freedomofspecies/episode-202104041300/1-3-people-support-plant-based-diets-%E2%80%93-progress-vegan-movement Please fill out our survey for Freedom of Species listeners! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeRAIRBPZ7ptOfuhJ8Nd_9JGBrBijPXMoAvsOSfBOZGqRryKA/viewform The phrase carbon footprint received “its biggest boost in 2005 through an enormous BP media campaign on the carbon footprint” – from William Safire in The New York Times magazine:  https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/magazine/17wwln-safire-t.html The world’s top five meat and dairy corporations are already responsible for more emissions than ExxonMobil, Shell or BP – from Josh Gabbatiss in the Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/meat-dairy-industry-greenhouse-gas-emissions-fossil-fuels-oil-pollution-iatp-grain-a8451871.html  Music/clips: Adam Ruins Everything – Going Green: 'The Corporate Conspiracy to Blame You for Their Trash': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koqNm_TgOZk Shoreline and Nervus ‘Meat Free Youth’: https://shorelineband.com/meat-free-youth/ MARINA ‘Purge the Poison’: https://marina.lnk.to/PurgeThePoisonID

After reflecting on The Dispatch’s interview with former President George W. Bush this week, David and Sarah discuss Justice Stephen Breyer’s controversial pronunciation of the word “amicus,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Second Amendment jurisprudence, and Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion in Niz-Chavez v. Garland, Attorney General. Stay tuned to hear our hosts chat about Supreme Court oral arguments for a First Amendment lawsuit involving a high school cheerleader.   Show Notes: -Out of Many, One: Portraits of America's Immigrants  by George W. Bush -George W. Bush Paints E Pluribus Unum on the Dispatch Podcast -“When a Justice Needs a Friend” by William Safire in the New York Times -Heller v. District of Columbia -Niz-Chavez v. Garland, Attorney General -Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. Supreme Court oral arguments -Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District -Morse v. Frederick -French Press: “How an Angry Cheerleader Could Help Cancel Cancel Culture” by David French in The Dispatch -Harper v. Poway Unified School District -Dariano v. Morgan Hill Unified School District -Saxe v. State College Area School District See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 While we are regularly reminded that they nailed Socrates for corrupting the youth, we do sometimes feel obliged to enlighten the younger members of our audience as to the origins of some of the bluer material in our repertoire. This song, for example — which we got from a 1934 recording by a couple of our heroes, Tampa Red and Georgia Tom — isn’t about what you might think it’s about. Don’t worry! The “dead cat” in the title isn’t Mittens or Fluffy. It’s about fishing. No, really. The Flood’s crack research department looked into this, oh, 10 or 12 years ago and learned — from no less an authority than the late, great word guru William Safire, writing in The New York Times — that the phase "dead cat on the line" appears to refer to a dead catfish on a trotline, evidence that a lazy fisherman hasn’t been checking his poles. In other words, the song’s just saying, look out, now — something's fishy...

“Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.” -William Safire. Interesting fact about the mental effect of cliches on a reader's mind! Infographic discussed today: http://www.bestinfographics.co/amazing-facts-about-writing-and-the-brain-infographic/ Join the author conversation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/inkauthors/ Learn more about YDWH and catch up on old episodes: www.yourdailywritinghabit.com

Trump and the fraud story......Georgia runoff too close to call......."A Christmas Carol" 1843....William Safire (1929-2009).....The end of the USSR 1991.....Wright brothers fly 1903....Battle of The Bulge 1944......and other stories....... Please check our blog or follow me on Twitter. See Carlos Guedes' schedule.......

This week, R&B talk puzzles, representation, and inclusivity with Michelle McGhee, author of "Who's In the Crossword?" (pudding.cool/2020/11/crossword). We have a new contest puzzle (you can download it at https://bit.ly/fmi271con), and you should check out our twice-weekly Twitch stream at https://www.twitch.tv/nextdoorcomics on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 4pm PT / 7pm ET. Stuff to click: The DaroCaro Pixar Puzzle Hunt starts on December 4. Join our team! Find us on Slack, especially to talk turkey about the Pixar hunt, and any other group events we put together. https://bit.ly/fmislack William Safire orders two Whoppers Junior If you get bored, write something for the Fill Me In wiki. And if you're feeling philanthropic, donate to our Patreon. Do you enjoy our show? Actually, it doesn't matter! Please consider leaving us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. This will help new listeners find our show, and you'll be inducted into the Quintuple Decker Turkey Club. Drop us a note or a Tweet or a postcard or a phone call — we'd love to hear from you. Helpful links: Apple Podcasts link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fill-me-in/id1364379980 Google Play link:https://player.fm/series/fill-me-in-2151002 RSS feed: http://bemoresmarter.libsyn.com/rss Contact us: Email (fmi@bemoresmarter.com) / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Google Voice (315-510-9892) We're putting these words here to help with search engine optimization. We don't think it will work, but you probably haven't read this far, so it doesn't matter: baseball, crossword, crosswords, etymology, game, hunt, movies, musicals, mystery, oscar, pizza, puzzle, puzzles, soup, trivia, words

While he is recognized as one of film's best-known tough guys, Robert Davi has been winning the respect and admiration of fans, critics and fellow artists with his expressive singing. His album, Davi Sings Sinatra: On The Road To Romance, produced by the legendary Phil Ramone, catapulted its way into Billboard magazine's top ten (#6) traditional jazz chart. While Davi Sings Sinatra: On the Road to Romance and his dynamic performances may have surprised some of his fans, Davi's love of music and entertaining began at an early age. At 15, he won First Place in the prestigious New York State School Music Association Solo Competition. As a young adult, he studied under several top vocal teachers including the legendary Tito Gobbi, Dan Ferro of Juilliard, Samuel Margolis (who taught Robert Merrill) and renowned vocal coach Gary Catona. From the memorable villain, Colombian drug lord Frank Sanchez, in the Bond film "License to Kill" (voted one of the top Bond villains of all time) to his stand-out performances in "The Goonies," "Die Hard," "Kill the Irishman," "The Iceman" and many other films to the respected series "Profiler" and "Stargate: Atlantis," Davi has appeared in over 100 movies and many television programs. He has garnered praise from critics, directors and co-stars, including Steven Spielberg, Richard Donner, Blake Edwards, John McTiernan, and Paul Verhoeven. He has acted opposite Marlon Brando, Roberto Benigni, Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood, Benicio Del Toro, Danny Glover, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans, James Franco, and Val Kilmer, among others. GQ Magazine has compared him to silver screen classics Robert Mitchum and Lee Marvin. His tough exterior masks an inner sensitivity, which he has brought to his roles as a Palestinian terrorist in the award-winning TV movie, "Terrorist on Trial: The United States vs. Salim Ajami," and in memorable appearances in "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "Without a Trace," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Criminal Minds" and many more. In 2007, Davi produced, directed co-wrote and starred in "The Dukes," the story of a successful Doo Wop group who falls on hard times. At the Monte Carlo Festival of Comedy, Davi was awarded Best First-Time Director and Best Screenplay for the film and he was the only first-time director in the Premiere Section of the International Rome Film Festival, with films by Sean Penn, Robert Redford, Sidney Lumet and Julie Taymor. Hailing from Astoria, Queens, NY, Davi attended Hofstra University on a drama scholarship. He moved to Manhattan to study with legendary acting coach Stella Adler, who became his mentor. He subsequently became a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, studying with acting teacher Lee Strasberg and also studied under Sandra Seacat, Larry Moss, Milton Katselas, Martin Landau, Mala Powers, and George Shdanoff, the creative partner and collaborator with the influential Michael Chekhov. His first screen appearance was opposite Frank Sinatra in the telefilm, "Contract on Cherry Street." Besides working in music, film and television, and raising his five children, four dogs, and two cats, Davi is an active supporter of The Dream Foundation, Exceptional Children's Foundation, Heart of a Child Foundation, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Youth Foundation, The Humane Society of the United States, Heart of a Horse, NIAF, The Order 'Sons of Italy' in America (OSIA), and UNICO National. Since its inception in 1998, Davi has been the National Spokesperson for i-Safe America, which is regarded by many internet experts as the most complete internet safety program in the country and is available in grades K- 12 in all 50 U.S. states. Davi has received numerous awards for career achievement and community involvement, including the George M. Estabrook Distinguished Service Award from the Hofstra University Alumni Association (past recipients include Francis Ford Coppola and William Safire). He has received the FBI's Man of the Year Award in Los Angeles and was also named KNX radio's "Citizen of the Week" for saving a young girl from a fire in her home. Other public service awards include the Sons of Italy's Royal Court of the Golden Lion Award and the 2004 STEP Award (Science, Technology and Education Partnership), whose past recipients include Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 2007, Davi received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Italian Board of Governors in New York, and in 2008, he received the Italo-Americano Award from the Capri-Hollywood Festival. In 2011, Davi was awarded the "Military Order of the Purple Heart" (MOPH) Special Recognition Award for dedication and service honoring America's service members and veterans. In 2015, Davi appeared in a music video for Bob Dylan's recording of "The Night They Called It a Day" from Dylan's album Shadows in the Night, , a collection of songs which had been recorded by Frank Sinatra. Rolling Stone suggested that Davi's role in the video may have been a nod towards Davi's having made his acting debut alongside Sinatra in the crime film "Contract on Cherry Street," and Davi's release of his own album of Sinatra covers.

While he is recognized as one of film's best-known tough guys, Robert Davi has been winning the respect and admiration of fans, critics and fellow artists with his expressive singing. His album, Davi Sings Sinatra: On The Road To Romance, produced by the legendary Phil Ramone, catapulted its way into Billboard magazine's top ten (#6) traditional jazz chart. While Davi Sings Sinatra: On the Road to Romance and his dynamic performances may have surprised some of his fans, Davi's love of music and entertaining began at an early age. At 15, he won First Place in the prestigious New York State School Music Association Solo Competition. As a young adult, he studied under several top vocal teachers including the legendary Tito Gobbi, Dan Ferro of Juilliard, Samuel Margolis (who taught Robert Merrill) and renowned vocal coach Gary Catona. From the memorable villain, Colombian drug lord Frank Sanchez, in the Bond film "License to Kill" (voted one of the top Bond villains of all time) to his stand-out performances in "The Goonies," "Die Hard," "Kill the Irishman," "The Iceman" and many other films to the respected series "Profiler" and "Stargate: Atlantis," Davi has appeared in over 100 movies and many television programs. He has garnered praise from critics, directors and co-stars, including Steven Spielberg, Richard Donner, Blake Edwards, John McTiernan, and Paul Verhoeven. He has acted opposite Marlon Brando, Roberto Benigni, Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood, Benicio Del Toro, Danny Glover, Michael Shannon, Chris Evans, James Franco, and Val Kilmer, among others. GQ Magazine has compared him to silver screen classics Robert Mitchum and Lee Marvin. His tough exterior masks an inner sensitivity, which he has brought to his roles as a Palestinian terrorist in the award-winning TV movie, "Terrorist on Trial: The United States vs. Salim Ajami," and in memorable appearances in "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "Without a Trace," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Criminal Minds" and many more. In 2007, Davi produced, directed co-wrote and starred in "The Dukes," the story of a successful Doo Wop group who falls on hard times. At the Monte Carlo Festival of Comedy, Davi was awarded Best First-Time Director and Best Screenplay for the film and he was the only first-time director in the Premiere Section of the International Rome Film Festival, with films by Sean Penn, Robert Redford, Sidney Lumet and Julie Taymor. Hailing from Astoria, Queens, NY, Davi attended Hofstra University on a drama scholarship. He moved to Manhattan to study with legendary acting coach Stella Adler, who became his mentor. He subsequently became a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, studying with acting teacher Lee Strasberg and also studied under Sandra Seacat, Larry Moss, Milton Katselas, Martin Landau, Mala Powers, and George Shdanoff, the creative partner and collaborator with the influential Michael Chekhov. His first screen appearance was opposite Frank Sinatra in the telefilm, "Contract on Cherry Street." Besides working in music, film and television, and raising his five children, four dogs, and two cats, Davi is an active supporter of The Dream Foundation, Exceptional Children's Foundation, Heart of a Child Foundation, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Youth Foundation, The Humane Society of the United States, Heart of a Horse, NIAF, The Order 'Sons of Italy' in America (OSIA), and UNICO National. Since its inception in 1998, Davi has been the National Spokesperson for i-Safe America, which is regarded by many internet experts as the most complete internet safety program in the country and is available in grades K- 12 in all 50 U.S. states. Davi has received numerous awards for career achievement and community involvement, including the George M. Estabrook Distinguished Service Award from the Hofstra University Alumni Association (past recipients include Francis Ford Coppola and William Safire). He has received the FBI's Man of the Year Award in Los Angeles and was also named KNX radio's "Citizen of the Week" for saving a young girl from a fire in her home. Other public service awards include the Sons of Italy's Royal Court of the Golden Lion Award and the 2004 STEP Award (Science, Technology and Education Partnership), whose past recipients include Arnold Schwarzenegger. In 2007, Davi received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Italian Board of Governors in New York, and in 2008, he received the Italo-Americano Award from the Capri-Hollywood Festival. In 2011, Davi was awarded the "Military Order of the Purple Heart" (MOPH) Special Recognition Award for dedication and service honoring America's service members and veterans. In 2015, Davi appeared in a music video for Bob Dylan's recording of "The Night They Called It a Day" from Dylan's album Shadows in the Night, , a collection of songs which had been recorded by Frank Sinatra. Rolling Stone suggested that Davi's role in the video may have been a nod towards Davi's having made his acting debut alongside Sinatra in the crime film "Contract on Cherry Street," and Davi's release of his own album of Sinatra covers.

In this episode, Dr. Bob has a wonderful and very meaningful conversation with Rabbi Steve Leder. They talk about the true meaning of the Sabbath, the importance of having one rest day every week and the positive impact it can have on your family and your life. This is absolutely a must listen episode. After receiving his degree in writing and graduating Cum Laude from Northwestern University, and time studying at Trinity College, Oxford University, Rabbi Leder received a Master's Degree in Hebrew Letters in 1986 and Rabbinical Ordination in 1987 from Hebrew Union College. He currently serves as the Senior Rabbi of Wilshire Boulevard Temple, a prestigious synagogue in Los Angeles with two campuses and 2,400 families. Rabbi Leder is currently concluding his 225 million dollar campaign to develop the congregation's historic urban campus encompassing an entire city block. The campus is soon to include a new building by Pritzker Prize winning architect Rem Koolhaas. In addition to his many duties at Wilshire Boulevard Temple Rabbi Leder taught Homiletics for 13 years at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles. He is a regular contributor and guest on The Today Show, writes regularly for TIME, Foxnews.com, Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper, contributed a chapter to Charles Barkley's book Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man?, and has published essays in Town and Country, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and the Los Angeles Jewish Journal where his Torah commentaries were read weekly by over 50,000 people. His sermon on capital punishment was included in an award winning episode of The West Wing. Rabbi Leder received the Louis Rappaport Award for Excellence in Commentary by the American Jewish Press Association and the Kovler Award from the Religious Action Center in Washington D.C. for his work in African American/Jewish dialogue and in 2012 presented twice at the Aspen Ideas Festival. In the New York Times, William Safire called Rabbi Leder's first book The Extraordinary Nature of Ordinary Things “uplifting.” Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein said he “is everything we search for in a modern wise man; learned, kind, funny, and non-judgmental, he offers remarkably healing guidance.” Rabbi Leder's second book More Money Than God: Living a Rich Life Without Losing Your Soul received critical and media attention including feature articles in the New York Times, Town and Country and appearances on ABC's Politically Incorrect, NPR, and CBS This Morning. His third book More Beautiful Than Before; How Suffering Transforms Us was reached #4 on Amazon's overall best sellers list in its first week. It remains a best seller in several categories and has been translated into Korean and Chinese. More Beautiful Than Before has helped tens of thousands of people suffering from emotional or physical pain and continues to receive prestigious media attention including CBS This Morning, The Talk, The Steve Harvey Show, and four appearances on NBC's Today Show. He is now at work on his next book The Beauty of What Remains; What Death Teaches Us About Life, to be published by Penguin Random House in the spring of 2021. Newsweek Magazine twice named him one of the ten most influential rabbis in America but most important to Steve is being Betsy's husband and Aaron and Hannah's dad. He is also a Jew who likes to fish. Go figure. How to contact Rabbi Steve Leder: Website: http://steveleder.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/steve_leder Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steve_leder/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RabbiSteveLeder/ How to contact Dr. Bob: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChztMVtPCLJkiXvv7H5tpDQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drroberthamilton/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bob.hamilton.1656 Seven Secrets Of The Newborn website: https://7secretsofthenewborn.com/ Website: https://roberthamiltonmd.com/ Pacific Ocean Pediatrics: http://www.pacificoceanpediatrics.com/

Visit our website BeautifulIllusions.org for a complete set of show notes and links to almost everything discussed in this episodeSelected References:2:15 - Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (Wikipedia entry on Frankenstein)2:25 - Google image search for Frankenstein (and for Herman Munster)4:20 - The movie The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) was the sequel to Frankenstein (1931), and featured Boris Karloff in the now iconic depiction of Frankenstein’s  Monster 6:04 - See “Frankenstein Reflects the Hopes and Fears of Every Scientific Era” (The Atlantic, 2017) or  “The Horror Story that Haunts Science” (Science, 2018)6:19 - See “How Franken- Lurched It’s Way Into Our Lexicon” (Slate, 2017) and “The Way We Live Now: 8-13-00: On Language; Franken-” (New York Times, 2000) - According to late journalist William Safire, writing in his “On Language” column for the New York Times, the first noted use of the prefix Franken- was in 1992 by Boston College English professor Paul Lewis, who, in a letter to the New York Times commenting on an op-ed piece regarding bioengineered crops, ''If they want to sell us Frankenfood, perhaps it's time to gather the villagers, light some torches and head to the castle.'' Since then the prefix- has caught on and become shorthand for human efforts to interfere with nature, especially where genetic modification is concerned, and it is almost always used in a pejorative sense.7:52 - See the famous “It’s Alive” scene from the 1931 version of Frankenstein19:43 - See “AI Has Arrived, And That Really Worries The World’s Brightest Minds” (Wired, 2015) or “An Open Letter: Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence” or “Benefits & Risks of Artificial Intelligence” from the Future of Life Institute25:17 - Cultural memes - “In this broad sense, a meme can be thought of as an idea which often carries symbolic meaning, that becomes a fad and spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas that can be transmitted from one mind to another through various means, and seem to, for better or for worse, evolve over time. The word meme itself was originally coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene.”40:25 - See “Our fiction addiction: Why humans need stories” (BBC, 2018)43:29 - See “The Arctic” section of the Mary Shelley Wiki and “Literature’s Arctic Obsession” (The New Yorker, 2017) 57:38 - See “Hollywood's Portrayals of Science and Scientists Are Ridiculous” (Scientific American, 2019), “The Impact of Science Fiction Film on Student Understanding of Science” (Journal of Science Education and Technology, 2006), or “What the public thinks it knows about science” (National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2003)1:00:32 - Quote from The Big Picture by Sean Carroll: “The pressing, human questions we have about our lives depend directly on our attitudes toward the universe at a deeper level. For many people, those attitudes are adopted rather informally from the surrounding culture, rather than arising out of rigorous personal reflection. Each new generation of people doesn’t invent the rules of living from scratch; we inherit ideas and values that have evolved over vast stretches of time. At the moment, the dominant image of the world remains one in which human life is cosmically special and significant, something more than mere matter in motion. We need to do better at reconciling how we talk about life’s meaning with what we know about the scientific image of our universe.”This episode was recorded in January 2020The “Beautiful Illusions Theme” was performed by Darron Vigliotti (guitar) and Joseph Vigliotti (drums), and was written and recorded by Darron Vigliotti

William Safire's "I Led the Pigeons to the Flag"

ABOUT THIS EPISODE Concerns about Donald Trump's fitness to serve as U.S. President have motivated many people to advocate for the invocation of the 25th Amendment, particularly Section 4. Those who have engaged in such advocacy--and I've done it--seem to believe that effectively invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment could be a way to remove Trump from office. But my guest--Brian Kalt of the Michigan State University College of Law--makes a case that we're wrong. LINKS --Brian Kalt's MSU profile (https://www.law.msu.edu/faculty_staff/profile.php?prof=44) --Unable: The Law, Politics, and Limits of Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment (by Brian Kalt) (https://www.amazon.com/Unable-Politics-Section-Twenty-Fifth-Amendment/dp/0190083190) --"President Trump is unfit for this crisis. Period." (by Jennifer Senior, at The New York Times) (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/opinion/trump-corona-cdc.html) --"Bayh aide not surprised 25th Amendment hasn't removed a president" (by Maureen Groppe, at The Indianapolis Star) (https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/14/bayh-aide-not-surprised-25th-amendment-hasnt-removed-president/639442001/) --_Full Disclosure: A Novel _(by William Safire) (https://www.amazon.com/Full-disclosure-novel-William-Safire/dp/0385121156) Special Guest: Brian Kalt.

Quizmasters Lee and Marc are joined by Seth to ask and answer each other’s favorite trivia questions. Quiz categories include Woodstock, Political Terminology, U.S. History, Corporate Logos, Lord Of The Rings, 80’s Music, Predators of the Animal Kingdom, World War II, Taglines, Medical Terminology, and Horror Movies. Round One WOODSTOCK - What was the name of the farm on which Woodstock took place? POLITICAL TERMINOLOGY - According to William Safire’s Political Dictionary, the “active use of the president’s prestige and high visibility to inspire or moralize” is known as the President’s what? U.S. HISTORY - Which of the first 48 states to join the U.S., was the last to ratify the 19th amendment, which recognized a woman’s right to vote? U.S. HISTORY - O.S.S., the predecessor of the C.I.A., is an initialism that stands for what? LORD OF THE RINGS - Excluding Gandalf the Grey, who is the oldest member of the Fellowship of the Rings? CORPORATE LOGOS - Which entertainment brand's logo was refreshed in Nov. of 2019 by reducing the design to a single color mark, but maintaining the logo's signature shield? TRAGEDIES - The Station nightclub fire of 2003, that led to the death of over 100 concert-goers, including guitarist Ty Longley, occurred during a performance by which band? 80’s MUSIC - Which classic rock singer shares a name with a 18th century hunting enthusiast? Missed Corrections “On Episode 88: Monkey Buskers, around 25:48, Lee mentioned that he thought Ellen Page was motion captured for the role of Ellie in The Last Of Us 2013 video game. Well, it was actually actress Ashley Johnson, who was also the speaking voice for Ellie in the game. Ellen Page WAS motion captured (and her exact likeness used) for the main character, Jodie, in another PlayStation exclusive game that same year called Beyond: Two Souls. The cordyceps fungus Marc asked about was actually the fungus that inspired The Last of Us' fictional zombie infection. ("What if cordyceps, but people") But I must inform Marc that it was, in fact, David Attenborough, not Richard, who narrated the BBC special: Cordyceps: Attack of the Killer Fungi.” - Mo “Remember when I was trying to give an example of a thing that older people don’t know much about and I said “MARINA DEL REY”?! - Erin “What is the difference between bugs and insects? True bugs have a stylet (a mouth shaped like a straw) that they use to suck juices from plants.” - Lee Round Two 60’s MUSIC - Performed by The Byrds, what famous folk singer wrote the song “Turn, Turn, Turn”? LITERATURE - Who wrote The Count of Monté Cristo? PREDATORS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM - What kind of fish spits the brackish water of its habitat towards its insect prey, knocking them prone to the surface to be eaten? WORLD WAR II - What does the “D” in “D-Day” stand for? TAGLINES - Which laundry detergent was known for the tagline “Ring around the collar”? MEDICAL TERMS - Derived from a Greek word for "rushing down", what medical condition shares its name with a word that refers to a large waterfall, or in medieval times a portcullis or window grating? Final Questions HORROR MOVIES - Nigerian visual artist Bolaji Badejo’s only film credit was portraying an unwelcome guest in what 1979 film? HORROR MOVIES - What is the name of the sole survivor of a terraforming station, a small girl, in Aliens? HORROR MOVIES - The movie Freddy vs. Jason is what number sequel in each franchise? ARTISTS - Which French artist and sculptor, a contemporary of Cezanne and Van Gogh, spent the last decade of his life making artwork inspired by Polynesian culture? Weekly Wrap Up #279 - Palace Pub and Wine Bar - Trivia Netwon John - 87 pts. #280 - No. 3 Craft Brews and Beer Bar - As You Wish - 70 pts. Upcoming LIVE Know Nonsense Trivia Challenges March 9nd, 2020 – Know Nonsense Trivia Challenge #281 @ Palace Pub and Wine Bar in Cape Coral, FL. with free bottles of wine for our round winners. Categories for the quiz will include and more. The Meat Cottage will be on site serving up authentic German cuisine. March 12th Know Nonsense Trivia Challenge #282 @ No. 3 Craft Brews and Beer Bar in Cape Coral, FL. Categories for the quiz will include and more. March 28th, 2020 - Get ready for Quizmania - Wrestling Trivia @ No. 3. We’ll be entering the world of the squared circle, covering all decades, eras and promotions, including the history of professional wrestling, the titles, controversies and catch phrases, famous finishers, tag teams, stables and families, behind the scenes, lost moves, goofs, wrestlecrap and more. It’s QUIZMANIA: The Know Nonsense Trivia Challenge: Pro-Wrestling Edition - March 28th 2020 at No 3 Craft Brews and Beer Bar in Cape Coral, also from 6-8pm. You can find out more information about that and all of our live events online at KnowNonsenseTrivia.com All of the Know Nonsense events are free to play and you can win prizes after every round. Thank you Thanks to our supporters on Patreon. Thank you, Quizdaddies – Dylan, Tommy (The Electric Mud) and Tim (Pat's Garden Service) Thank you, Team Captains – David, Rachael, Aaron, Kristen & Fletcher Thank you, Proverbial Lightkeepers – Manu, Mo, Matthew, Nicole, Luc, Hank, Justin, Cooper, Elyse, Sarah, Brina, Karly, Kristopher, Josh, Gil, Shaun, Lucas and Max Thank you, Rumplesnailtskins – We Do Stuff, Mike S.,Kenya, Jeff, Eric, Steven, Efren, Mike J., Mike C. If you'd like to support the podcast and gain access to bonus content, please visit http://theknowno.com and click "Support." Special Guest: Seth.

Since the time of the Roman Empire, the fourth estate has been celebrated as a pillar of democracy, a guardian of the separation of powers and a systemic counterbalance of the natural propensity of power to corrupt. But in a challenge to the American system of checks and balances, it has become a recurrent theme of the daily news cycle for President Trump and his allies to marshal their base under the banner of “Fake News” and to accuse journalists of being “enemies of the people,” a phrase with grim historical roots dating to Joseph Stalin and The Terror of the Jacobin dictatorship of the 1700s. All presidents spar with the press. Richard Nixon pioneered the depiction of the media as liberal bogeymen, “nattering nabobs of negativism” in immortal phrase of William Safire, an administration speech writer who later became famous as a New York Times columnist. But a president schooled in the ways of entertainment sleight-of-hand has mutated what was an accepted parlor trick to rally conservatives into a full-blown assault on the American press. The administration has stopped holding regular press briefings and when it does pass out information, it frequently lies; Trump himself has been documented telling more than 10,000 lies, reporters now do their jobs in an unprecedented climate of intimidation and fear. Many are bullied or harassed — online or in real life. And in Annapolis, a man with a gun walked into a newsroom and slaughtered five staffers. In response, the Main Stream Media has galvanized a range of norm shattering strategies as the spearhead of civil society. Once defined by its fierce independence, the press has banded together in collective solidarity, publishing mass editorials. Breaking with tradition, it has done away with diplomatic double speak in calling out mendacity and tries to confront falsehoods with an army of fact-checkers charged with defending delegitimized facts. Jim Acosta, one of President Trump's chief whipping boys in his war against the press, is joining MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhle to discuss the trials, tribulations and constitutional imperatives of covering The White House as a headliner of the October 27 Conversations On the Green, "Working Without A Net: On Air In The Age Of Trump."

Cut Throat Finches Releases  “In Event of Moon Disaster” and I was able to speak with Sean all about the single. The new album takes inspiration and is named after a speech written by William Safire for President Richard Nixon intended for members of Apollo 11 to use in case they didn’t return from their venture to the moon. In the late 1990s, author James Mann found the speech while doing research for a book. 

It was perhaps that most daunting speech of William Safire’s career. In the summer of 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were preparing to walk on the moon .. and the entire world would be watching.Safire was the speechwriter for then-president Richard Nixon, and it was his job to write a speech that would capture the attention of the nation and ease the anxiety of the moment.However, the speech that Safire undoubtedly wrestled over wasn’t one that President Nixon delivered on national television. In fact, it wasn’t delivered at all. Safire’s speech was written in case of disaster; in case something went wrong with the moon landing and the astronauts were not able to make it back to earth. And it never saw the light of day until 1999, on the 30th anniversary of the moon landing.In Galatians (5:13), Paul writes “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”The work that we do for the kingdom, whether it is known to many or only to God, is the most important work that we will do on the earth. We, as Christians, are called to serve others, to share the Good News of Jesus, and to shower others with the love of God.It can be hard work. It can be time-consuming. And like Safire’s speech, it can be daunting. But there is nothing we will do that will be more impressive in the eyes of God than serving Him and others, even if we traveled to the moon and back.

Fifty years ago today was a glorious day for all mankind. Sure, we put some guys on the moon. That was kinda cool. But for listeners of This is the President, it’s an even more special day. Because once man had landed on the moon and walked on the surface, what was the next step? A phone call from the president, of course! Which, naturally, leads us to the most long distance presidential telephone call in history. It all happened on July 20, 1969, a few minutes before 12AM Eastern Daylight Time. Nixon was introduced to the astronauts by CAPCOM (Capsule Commander - like the NASA terms?) Bruce McCandless II. The call was short and, in all honesty, not the most exciting call we’ve ever had on the show but for the sake of history and completeness, we feel like it had to be done. As we mention in the podcast, there was a “contingency plan” prepared in case the astronauts never made it back from the moon. First they would call the astronaut’s wives, then NASA would shut off all the communications to the trapped astronauts and then the president would read a speech written by White House staffer William Safire that you can hear in the video on our site. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the longest distance presidential telephone call you will ever hear. ALSO ON THE SHOW - Harmon and Scott discuss some of the latest diatribes from the current president, Harmon revisits his Trump impression and a plane tries to land on Harmon’s balcony.

The world watched on July 20, 1969, as Apollo 11 safely landed men on the moon.  How might have things been different if that day had not seen a successful landing of the Eagle or if Armstrong and Aldrin were stranded with no hope of return?Theme Music: Conquer by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.comBenedict Cumberbatch reads William Safire's Moon landings letter- Newsnighthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfVjNBff3xYWebsite:www.aforkintimepodcast.comE-Mail:aforkintimepodcast@gmail.comYou can follow A Fork In Time on….Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aforkintimeTwitter: @AFITPodcastPinterest: www.pinterest.com/aforkintimeIf you enjoy the podcast, you can help by supporting us via Patreon.https://www.patreon.com/aforkintimeSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/aforkintime)

Our story was inspired by a real contingency speech written in 1969 by William Safire for Richard Nixon titled “In Event of Moon Disaster." It was the most listened-to piece on PRX in 2010, and the winner of the 2010 Mark Time Gold Award for Best Science Fiction Audio. Your next stops on the Destination Moon podcrawl: The Flight Deck Podcast GeekWire Sound Effect Stuff You Missed in History Class

Our story was inspired by a real contingency speech written in 1969 by William Safire for Richard Nixon titled “In Event of Moon Disaster." It was the most listened-to piece on PRX in 2010, and the winner of the 2010 Mark Time Gold Award for Best Science Fiction Audio. Your next stops on the Destination Moon podcrawl: The Flight Deck Podcast GeekWire Sound Effect Stuff You Missed in History Class

Our story was inspired by a real contingency speech written in 1969 by William Safire for Richard Nixon titled “In Event of Moon Disaster." It was the most listened-to piece on PRX in 2010, and the winner of the 2010 Mark Time Gold Award for Best Science Fiction Audio. Your next stops on the Destination Moon podcrawl: The Flight Deck Podcast GeekWire Sound Effect Stuff You Missed in History Class

In these days of fake news and intentional misinformation, it's easy to wonder if anything we read or hear is true. Maybe even more alarming is our inability to know who to believe, who to trust. And of course, that is the point of fake news and misinformation. The goal is not so much to get us to believe false this or untrue that as it is to fuel mistrust and doubt: mistrust of our political leaders and doubt about the intentions and motivations that underpin our government and institutions. In The Fine Art of Baloney Detection, Carl Sagan was definitely on point when he counseled, "Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along." It's harsh but certainly self-evident that "If you don't control your mind, someone else will." John Allston points out the obvious, but it has gotten to where even the obvious is suspect. In testimony to this sad state of affairs, William Safire advises, "Never assume the obvious is true." At the extreme, we get to where we mistrust what we hear, what we see, what we think; and if the insidious erosion of trust persists, we come to distrust our personal judgment and our self-confidence falters. There is an antidote for this insidious erosion of trust, but I doubt that many would think it is an easy medicine to swallow. The first dose is to give up our reliance on group-think. "Don't think you're on the right road just because it's a well-beaten path." I don't know who said that first and doubt that it matters much. The value is in being reminded that we are responsible for what we think, what we believe, and just because lots of well-meaning folks have signed onto the trip does not make it okay for us to thoughtlessly follow. Anatole France assures us that "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." It's also true that if fifty million people think or do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. It's up to us to guard against being just another one of the fools. The second dose serving as an antidote for this insidious erosion of trust is to give up on our habitual reliance on simply accepting the perspectives, views and opinions of people with the loudest voices or the most followers. Let it suffice to remind us of Buddha's advice, "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it — even if I have said it — unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." The third dose is perhaps the hardest to swallow. Grace Hopper argued that "The most damaging phrase in the language is, it's always been done that way." Variations on the point are mental crutches such as "I've always thought…," or "I've always believed…, " or "Everyone knows…." The notion is that once I think or believe anything, that's the way it is forever. Granted, it's being consistent; but as Bernard Berenson cautioned, "Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." Or perhaps you prefer George Bernard Shaw's take, "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." Even so, Glen Beaman has a point, "Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow." Unless you are content being pulled along by others, there is nothing for it but to take your medicine - all three doses - the only antidote to insidious group-think.

In these days of fake news and intentional misinformation, it's easy to wonder if anything we read or hear is true. Maybe even more alarming is our inability to know who to believe, who to trust. And of course, that is the point of fake news and misinformation. The goal is not so much to get us to believe false this or untrue that as it is to fuel mistrust and doubt: mistrust of our political leaders and doubt about the intentions and motivations that underpin our government and institutions. In The Fine Art of Baloney Detection, Carl Sagan was definitely on point when he counseled, "Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along." It's harsh but certainly self-evident that "If you don't control your mind, someone else will." John Allston points out the obvious, but it has gotten to where even the obvious is suspect. In testimony to this sad state of affairs, William Safire advises, "Never assume the obvious is true." At the extreme, we get to where we mistrust what we hear, what we see, what we think; and if the insidious erosion of trust persists, we come to distrust our personal judgment and our self-confidence falters. There is an antidote for this insidious erosion of trust, but I doubt that many would think it is an easy medicine to swallow. The first dose is to give up our reliance on group-think. "Don't think you're on the right road just because it's a well-beaten path." I don't know who said that first and doubt that it matters much. The value is in being reminded that we are responsible for what we think, what we believe, and just because lots of well-meaning folks have signed onto the trip does not make it okay for us to thoughtlessly follow. Anatole France assures us that "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." It's also true that if fifty million people think or do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. It's up to us to guard against being just another one of the fools. The second dose serving as an antidote for this insidious erosion of trust is to give up on our habitual reliance on simply accepting the perspectives, views and opinions of people with the loudest voices or the most followers. Let it suffice to remind us of Buddha's advice, "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it — even if I have said it — unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." The third dose is perhaps the hardest to swallow. Grace Hopper argued that "The most damaging phrase in the language is, it's always been done that way." Variations on the point are mental crutches such as "I've always thought…," or "I've always believed…, " or "Everyone knows…." The notion is that once I think or believe anything, that's the way it is forever. Granted, it's being consistent; but as Bernard Berenson cautioned, "Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." Or perhaps you prefer George Bernard Shaw's take, "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." Even so, Glen Beaman has a point, "Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow." Unless you are content being pulled along by others, there is nothing for it but to take your medicine - all three doses - the only antidote to insidious group-think.

In these days of fake news and intentional misinformation, it's easy to wonder if anything we read or hear is true. Maybe even more alarming is our inability to know who to believe, who to trust. And of course, that is the point of fake news and misinformation. The goal is not so much to get us to believe false this or untrue that as it is to fuel mistrust and doubt: mistrust of our political leaders and doubt about the intentions and motivations that underpin our government and institutions. In The Fine Art of Baloney Detection, Carl Sagan was definitely on point when he counseled, "Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us — and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along." It's harsh but certainly self-evident that "If you don't control your mind, someone else will." John Allston points out the obvious, but it has gotten to where even the obvious is suspect. In testimony to this sad state of affairs, William Safire advises, "Never assume the obvious is true." At the extreme, we get to where we mistrust what we hear, what we see, what we think; and if the insidious erosion of trust persists, we come to distrust our personal judgment and our self-confidence falters. There is an antidote for this insidious erosion of trust, but I doubt that many would think it is an easy medicine to swallow. The first dose is to give up our reliance on group-think. "Don't think you're on the right road just because it's a well-beaten path." I don't know who said that first and doubt that it matters much. The value is in being reminded that we are responsible for what we think, what we believe, and just because lots of well-meaning folks have signed onto the trip does not make it okay for us to thoughtlessly follow. Anatole France assures us that "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." It's also true that if fifty million people think or do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. It's up to us to guard against being just another one of the fools. The second dose serving as an antidote for this insidious erosion of trust is to give up on our habitual reliance on simply accepting the perspectives, views and opinions of people with the loudest voices or the most followers. Let it suffice to remind us of Buddha's advice, "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it — even if I have said it — unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." The third dose is perhaps the hardest to swallow. Grace Hopper argued that "The most damaging phrase in the language is, it's always been done that way." Variations on the point are mental crutches such as "I've always thought…," or "I've always believed…, " or "Everyone knows…." The notion is that once I think or believe anything, that's the way it is forever. Granted, it's being consistent; but as Bernard Berenson cautioned, "Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." Or perhaps you prefer George Bernard Shaw's take, "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." Even so, Glen Beaman has a point, "Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow." Unless you are content being pulled along by others, there is nothing for it but to take your medicine - all three doses - the only antidote to insidious group-think.

My guest today is Keith Rabois, the Managing Director at Khosla Ventures. At Khosla, Keith focuses on the consumer internet, education, enterprise, financial services, and digital health.    Keith has had a front-seat to Silicon Valley history. He’s had five bosses in his career: Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, Jack Dorsey, and Vinod Khosla.    In this episode, we talk about the lessons of sports from the San Francisco 49ers to the Oakland A’s. Keith shares a story from his first week at PayPal, where he went on a run with Peter Thiel, which sparked his hiring philosophy. Then, we talk about the future of education, how to find undiscovered talent in society, the power of accumulating advantages, and how to raise the level of ambition in society. Keith has built more billion dollar companies than just about anybody on Planet Earth, and all that wisdom shines through in our conversation.       SUBSCRIBE TO MY “MONDAY MUSINGS” NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP WITH THE PODCAST.     LINKS:   Find Keith online: Twitter Linkedin Khosla Ventures page Wiki page   People mentioned: Peter Thiel Max Levchin Reed Hoffman Jack Dorsey Vinod Khosla Bill Walsh Blake Masters Elon Musk Erik Torenberg Bill Thompson William Safire Pat Riley Jerry Garcia   Books mentioned: The Score Takes Care of Itself Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History The Winner Within   Other mentions:   Khosla Ventures   Square Stripe Opendoor Zillow Stratechery Aggregation Theory   SHOW TOPICS   1:32 - Outlining the book, The Score Takes Care of Itself and its significance for entrepreneurs. “Rather than focusing on the score, focus on the process and the rest takes care of itself.” Also detailing Bill Walsh, the underlying infrastructure that he built, and the philosophy that successful companies like Square and Apple have used.   4:41 - Leadership lessons that can be learned from sports and the insights that Keith learned from Peter Thiel in the past on evaluating people and on building great companies. Pairing yourself with people that cover your blind spots and weaknesses.     9:20 - Emulating companies like Apple, Amazon, and Tesla rather than companies like Google or Facebook. The problem with people choosing the easier path in building companies and detailing building things from the ground up rather than inheriting other companies infrastructures.   12:28 - Thoughts on people who are naive about markets doing better than those who have more experience and know the markets. Hiring people who have expertise to jump the learning curve that comes with starting successful companies.   15:43 - Ways to accelerate learning and jump learning curves. Reading (primarily books and printed materials), find experts and constantly inquire, and using experts to find the right path to take. How Keith began venturing into real estate and him detailing his journey with it.   21:28 - Keith on using Twitter and his experience with finding a specific thread on China, then meeting the author of the thread. Examples of writing insightful things online and the potential in doing so. Finding people and breaking through to clutter with original content.   26:07 - Detailing accumulating advantages with companies and the effects of them. A few examples of what accumulating advantages may be within companies. A bit on accumulating advantage at the individual level, as well.   32:08 - What Keith has learned from being a bit of a Silicon Valley historian and why conference room names are predominantly Silicon Valley names. Also, a bit on why you would want to understand the history of Silicon Valley and the history of successful companies. Reading less short-form content and long-form content. Being a voracious reader.   36:35 - A musical example of being aware of things in the past and learning from tradition. Mixing original sparks with tradition. Learning more so you can better interpret information. For example, artists seeing ten-times more in a museum than an average person would.   42:47 - Keith describing the process of speech-writing and comparing it with coding. Also detailing what makes certain speeches stand out from others. William Safire’s book on great speeches, Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History.   45:30 - Creating ambition and the fluctuation of ambition over time. Discussing ambition more, spending time with the five most ambitious people you know, and believing that things are possible. Keith’s experience with ambition while growing up and his experiences with moving into tech. Specializing in your strengths and surrounding yourself with complimentary people.   52:28 - Becoming the only person in the world that does what you do and detailing this concept. Where he learned the concept and how Keith describes this for himself.   56:22 - What Keith has learned about organization and productivity that scales down to an individual level. Allocation of time and under-valuing your time. Detailing how the number one predictor of success is knowing how to efficiently allocate your time and how to get the most output out of that time. SUBSCRIBE TO MY “MONDAY MUSINGS” NEWSLETTER TO KEEP UP WITH THE PODCAST.

Torie and Marc are joined in studio by Jeanne McManus, David Aldridge and Michael Kornheiser and they spend some time talking about the late great William Safire (who would have been celebrating a birthday this week), as well as some pairing up of Christmas songs and great books. Then ESPN's Tim Kurkjian sits in to talk about his three baseball books, and share some incredible stories from his over three decades of covering baseball, and they close out with some book recommendations you'd need if you were stuck on a deserted island.

Charles Harrington Elster is a writer, broadcaster, and logophile — a lover of words. His books include Tooth and Nail and Test of Time, vocabulary-building novels for high school students preparing to take the college entrance exams; There’s a Word for It, a lighthearted look at unusual — and unusually useful — words; What in the Word? The Accidents of Style: Good Advice on How Not to Write Badly; and The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations, which the late William Safire of The New York Times hailed as "the best survey of the spoken field in years." Charlie has been talking about language on the radio since 1985. He has been interviewed on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, Weekend Edition, and All Things Considered and been a guest on hundreds of radio shows around the country. He is currently a guest on the Mandy Connell Show on 850 KOA-AM Denver the third Thursday of each month (please check the Events page for more details). In 1998 he cofounded A Way with Words, a weekly public radio talk show on language, and cohosted it until 2004. Charlie is also a voice talent with 30 years of audio narration experience. Charlie was born in Queens, New York, in 1957 and was educated in the New York City public schools, at Buxton School in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and at Yale, where he earned a B.A. cum laude in 1981. He lives in San Diego, California. This is a copyrighted, trademarked podcast owned solely by the Authors on the Air Global Radio. Visit Thorne & Cross: alistaircross.com and tamarathorne.com

Welcome to Fiat Lex, a podcast about dictionaries by people who write them! Yes, really. Meet Kory and Steve, your intrepid and nerdy lexicographer-hosts who will give you the drudge's-eye view of English and dictionaries in all their weirdness. In our first episode, we: - blow your minds by telling you that "the dictionary" doesn't exist;- talk about how new words get into dictionaries (not by petition, so STOP ASKING) and how that's not as straightforward a process as you would think; - explain how lexicographers find new words, which sometimes involves beer and diapers;- touch on how words get taken out of dictionaries, and how that's not as straightforward a process as you would think, either. Assuming you think about such things. (Who are we kidding here?) BONUS FEATURES!- Kory spells a word aloud correctly, which will probs never happen again;- Steve channels Chumley the Walrus and then goes right into fancy linguist talk about velars and coronals;- Tennessee represents! TRANSCRIPT BELOW ----more---- Steve:   Hi, I'm Steve Kleinedler Kory:     and I'm Kory Stamper. Steve:   Welcome to Fiat Lex, Kory:     a podcast about dictionaries by people who write dictionaries. Steve:   We're so glad you're here listening to us talk about this. So we've been thinking about doing this for while. Kory:     Yeah, and we just want to give you a little intro. What's the whole point of doing a podcast about dictionaries? Well, dictionaries have lots of interesting information in them and everyone uses them. Steve:   And who are we, you might be wondering? Why should you be listening to us as opposed to anyone who has a concrete thought about anything under the sun? Kory and I have both worked on a dictionaries for several years. I was on staff with the American Heritage Dictionary for over 20 years, Kory:     and I was on the staff of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries for over 20 years. Gosh, we've probably got 50 years of editing experience between us. Steve:   Yeah. Especially if you count all the stuff we did beforehand. I worked on a lot of dictionaries for a company that was called National Textbook Company that has since had been eaten and subsumed by other media conglomerates. They might be part of Tronc now for all I know. Kory:     TRONNNC Steve:   The Tribune group. And my background is I have a degree in linguistics. I took a lexicography course at Northwestern and I started getting freelance work from my professor after I graduated, and one thing led to another, as they say. Kory:     And I have no degree in linguistics. I have a degree in medieval studies and I fell into this job-- literally, almost tripped on a newspaper which had the want-ad for the Merriam Webster position. Steve:   Well, medieval studies though, are hugely important in this field from the standpoint of etymology or just understanding how words work. Kory:     Yeah, that's true. There are a lot of medievalists in dictionary companies. We could run our own Ren Faire. Steve:   Yes. And that ties in also--we have both written books. I have written a English textbook called "Is English changing?" published by Routledge and the Linguistic Society of America, Kory:     And I have written a not-textbook, regular-book, called "Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries," which is out in paperback this year. Steve:   And in that book you can find out how Kory literally tripped over a newspaper and ended up in the position that she did. Kory:     So to speak. All right, so again, dictionaries. What are they? Why are they? Who uses them? Who cares? Steve:   Everyone uses them to some extent, whether-- Even though people may not use print ones as much as people used to, certainly people look up words all the time, whether they enter terminology into a search bar or look it up in print. That content comes from somewhere. Kory:     And we are the people who write that content. One of the questions we get all the time and we thought would be a great question to address today in our inaugural podcast, is how words get into the dictionaries that you use Steve:   and how they get out of them. Kory:     Yes. Yeah. Let's talk about--let's talk about how words move in and out. Steve:   Well, it's important to note that some people-- you hear people refer to "The Dictionary" as if there were only one in one authority, kind of like the Bible--which is also laughable because there's multiple versions of the Bible as well. Dictionaries are still in the process of being written, compiled, dictionary entries are being drafted, edited, written, and existing ones change over time. Kory:     Yeah. And not only do they change, but different dictionaries serve different purposes. So different definitions are going to look different depending on who the audience is, who's--which companies writing those dictionaries. You know, Steve and I wrote for different dictionary companies though everyone assumes that we wrote "The Dictionary." Steve:   Everyone also assumes that we're constantly at war. Kory:     We're not, we're buddies. Steve:   We are. We're friends. Kory:     Yay, friends forever! Steve:   And as Kory mentioned, there are different audiences for dictionaries, not just different companies. So you could, for example--there are several different legal dictionaries out there and they are going to take a more ingrained approach to the legal defining than a general purpose dictionary will. And you will find all sorts of dictionaries. Slang dictionaries, for example. Kory:     Yep. So, so with that in mind, we'll just talk about general dictionaries, which are dictionaries that we've both worked on. So how do words get into the dictionary? Steve:   The answer is not whimsy. Kory:     Sadly. So quit asking me to put your damn word in the dictionary Steve:   Oh, actually: we're talking about how words don't get put in dictionaries, but a good way to not get a word included in a dictionary is to write to a dictionary company and say, "Hey, I invented this word," or "I think we should add this word." Even if you are a third grader who writes a very cute, plaintive letter. Sorry, but that's not how it works. Kory:     Those are the worst letters, too, because we have to write back and say "no,: which is, you know...I mean. Steve:   Who wants to to shatter the dreams of a third grader? Kory:     Yeah. We are basically just autonomous thesauruses, but we still do have feelings. We don't like hurting other people's feelings. The way that words get in generally is through usage. Not usage as in, like, "I'm writing a dictionary and I've used the word now in print once, and so, enter it," but sort of sustained and widespread usage. And, generally, written usage, which is kind of a bugbear, but that's what we got. Steve:   It also depends on the kind of word: you know, what realm it is, what category it falls into. Some words--and these are in the vast minority--have a very easy path. So if you are a scientist who has a synthesized a new chemical element, you and your team get to name that, and as long as the governing board approves it, that's the name. And you know what? In it goes, because the people in charge said so. So tennessine, for example, which was synthesized by researchers in several universities in the state of Tennessee, [they] named element 117 that. And uh, there you go. That's all you need. Kory:     Tennessine? Steve:   Tennessine. Kory:     T-e-n-n-e-s-s-i-n-e? How do you spell it? Steve:   [Chumley the Walrus voice] That's right, Charlie. Kory:     [laughter] The amazing thing is that I just spelled that aloud, and I can't actually spell aloud. Steve:   And that was a Chumley the Walrus imitation. I'm dating myself there. [Chumley the Walrus voice] Sorry, Tennessee. Kory:     Alright, so usage. I said "written usage" and this is a bugbear. But the reason that we use written usage is it's a standard way that we can do it. So why don't we take spoken usage? Because that's actually that's how words get created first, is usually in speech. They usually don't get written down first. Steve:   The words that are used in the spoken vernacular are completely 100 percent valid. And there are outfits out there that track this type of thing. Corpuses, which are large collections of words. There's some corpuses that compile a written documentation and other ones that compile samples of recorded speech. Dictionaries, however, tend to focus on words that have been written. Generally, but not always, and more so in the past than now. Not just written, but from edited sources. Kory:     Yeah. Edited, prose sources. So poetry doesn't really count, because you can use a word with a really nonstandard meaning in poetry--or with no meaning in poetry, you can just use it for sound. But the part of the reason that's difficult is because we now have access to more transcripts of spoken English, and the problem with that as a lexicographer is, it's really actually hard to transcribe a word you've never heard before from speech into print. You can misspell it, you can mishear it. You can not understand the context. So. That's one of the reasons why we focus on written, edited English. Though the "edited," even that's kind of going away these days. Steve:   More and more, you will see references to things in blog posts which aren't always edited, or even, you know, the comment section, or that kind of thing. And as to the spoken ones, you can phonological determine the phonemes that are used. But if you were transcribing-- it's the same problem that newspaper journalists have in quoting people. Usually the quoted English in newspaper articles is written out in standard English. Even though when you speak informally, you're changing the velar "-ng" at the ends of words like "going" to the coronal "-n," like "going" to "goin'", and you're probably not going to write "g-o-i-n-apostrophe" in most examples of written transcriptions. However, that is what is being said. So, would you include that? Would you not? In the past when you had the finite print page, that limited what you could put into a book. Especially when there's a regular phonological change like that velar to coronal nasal pattern that I mentioned. Kory:     Right. So the other thing that's interesting about this is, this is how all words get in, and the way that you find new words to put into the dictionary has also--I think it's changed over even the last 10 years. Steve:   Absolutely. In the past, when I first started, you had boxes and boxes of note cards on which someone had dutifully typed or printed out and pasted onto that note card, a usage of that word, also known as a "citation." But even in the nineties when I started, that shoe box of cards was already supplemented with returns from what we call a KWIC concordance. This program that overlays on top of a large corpus. You can search on a specific word and it will show you every instance of that word with five or 10 or 12 words, whatever you decide on either side of it, to get some context by it. So even in the nineties--and before then, I just wasn't working before then-- you're juggling these cards and these citations in your concordance. Kory:     But even the way that we got citations I think has changed. It used to be--so at Merriam Webster, it used to be that all of the editors read for at least an hour, maybe two hours a day. We had a source list that was a list of magazines, journals, books--not just journals and magazines, but trade journals, specialty journals. And we would go through as an editorial floor and divvy stuff up and say, "You're going to be the one who's reading _National Review_ and _The Nation_, and you would read-- I mean, ideally you read every issue that got delivered to you, and you read looking specifically for words that caught your eye, which were generally new words or new uses of old words. And that's how we used to get citations. This was before these, these big corpora were available. I mean, not just available for purchase, but just available, period. Steve:   The first edition of the American Heritage Dictionary back in the sixties used a corpus called the Brown Corpus, from Brown University. But in addition to these collected citations. So corpus material had always been used. However, editors still read in the manner Kory described and collected citations well into the mid-2000s, by which time, you know, much like every other corporation in the world, outside pressures meant more people were doing more things. And that was one thing that, because information was so much more easily obtainable, reading time for markup decreased over the years. But it wasn't just books or periodicals that you were assigned to. I remember once when we were discussing what the proper plural of "pierogi" is--is "pierogi" a plural? You know, those little Polish potato dumplings? Is the singular "pierog," which is what it would be in various Slavic languages, but not in English? I took a box of Mrs. T's Pierogies and cut the carton and pasted that onto a note card as citational evidence. And you will find in the files, not just handwritten stuff from way back when or, taped or glue- on photocopies. But sometimes you will find like portions of boxes or whatnot appended to these note cards. Kory:     Oh yeah. I used to bring in things. At Merriam Webster, we had a filing cabinet where you put all of your marked materials, and we had a typists room--these poor women, their whole job was to type up citations and put them in our database and put them on cards. And I remember one day coming in--it was really early, early on in my time--coming in and someone had put like a Lean Cuisine box in the marking pile, and I went to go throw it away because I thought it was trash, and I saw someone had marked it. And then I went crazy. I think I've marked beer bottles and left them there. I remember marking diaper boxes when my kids were little. People mark menus, take-out menus-- Steve:   What's with the focus on food that we're all marking? Kory:     I'm really hungry. Yeah. Steve:   Speaking of those poor women, we had a poor intern in the early 2000s--for some reason we had our main citation file, but there was also a separate one that had been started for a separate purpose. And it was annoying because you'd always had to check in two places. So over the course of three summers with three different interns, they had to alphabetize this smaller set of cards into the main ones--which, not only putting it in the right place, but then that of course forces everything back. Kory:     Right. Steve:   So it was, for three summers, this is basically what a college student did. Kory:     That's life skills right there. I'm sure that's worth some kind of college credit. Steve:   Yeah. And so through examining these citations, you find evidence of how long a word might have been used, how widespread it is. We generally don't enter terms that are hyper-specific to one, you know, one occupation or one location. It's a general purpose dictionary. So there's usually some type of general frequency. By the time a specialized term has also reached the general public, that's one indication that it's time to go in. Kory:     Yeah. And I think the rate at which some specialized terms sort of become widespread is different. So I remember, both "AIDS" and "SARS" got into Merriam-Webster dictionaries really quickly, because it was, just sort of--all of that evidence was there right away. You knew that these were syndromes and diseases that were not going to go away. Steve:   Ditto with us for "Zika." Kory:     Yep. But the other thing that's really interesting is that, when you've got sort of this big body of words in front of you, you also see these really weird patterns of usage. Like, sometimes you'll have a word show up in print once every couple of years or once every five or 10 years, and then boom. And other times you have a word that shows up and booms right away, and then drops out of use really quickly. And particularly in the old days, when everything was dead-tree publishing, you couldn't justify entering a term that was brand-new unless you could justify that it was going to be around for another 10 years, because that was the lifecycle of a dictionary revision. And I mean, it sounds ridiculous, but in print publishing, you can't afford two or three lines on a page for a word that is just not going to be common in five years. Steve:   It's this test of ephemerality that used to be very important. Of course, nowadays you can just add a term online, and it won't necessarily make it into print. I remember one of the very last words we entered for the fourth edition of the American Heritage College Dictionary was "dotcom," and it was, this was still in the late '90s. It was, I think, right before or during the bubble. It was probably a little sooner than we normally might have, but it was like, "all right, this is now or never. This word is probably going to stick around." In that case, it's like, let's err on the side of caution and put it in. But even at that point, the writing was on the wall, as they say. Kory:     Yeah. And often, I mean, I don't know if it was like this for you, but I often found whenever we did revisions and we started looking through the citational evidence, I would always find more and more and more words to enter. And then you have to do this very weird--you have to get very choosy in weird ways. Steve:   Or, if you're working on a printing--and again, this refers back to the day of... Did I just use "refer back" right? Is someone going to ding me on that? Kory:     Sure, I don't care. Steve:   I don't care either. Ding me if you want. Kory:     Sense two! Sense two of "ding." Steve:   yes. Uh--what were we talking about? Referring back? What am I referring back to? Kory:     To print. Steve:   Oh, right. So if you're doing a new printing and, say, someone has died and you have to "open that page" to fix the death date, then you can go anywhere on that page! It's like, "oh, I can add this, I can add this." So just by the sheer alphabetic accident of where the word falls, it's like, "This page is open, I can insert this word." Whereas if it was spelled slightly different and fell on a different page, you might not have been able to do that. Kory:     Right. And which kind of--so, this underscores something that's really interesting too about dictionaries: that nobody realizes dictionaries are a commercial proposition. Everything is driven by how much will it cost, how much time will it take, will we recoup our expenses? And that's just, you know, that just doesn't happen very much with language. Steve:   Here's an anecdote. The fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary was in full color. Kory:     oh ho ho Steve:   Which of course was expensive, but one thing it did: because the headword was in its own color, it meant that you didn't have to reverse-indent the entry. Kory:     Ooooh. Steve:   And because of that, the entries could be flush on the left margin, which gained us, like, two characters for every line of an entry after the first line. The Savings in space by getting those extra two characters aligned was one of the things that offset the cost of going into color. But of course, then we ate it up by just cramming that much more into it. The amount of space--I mean, when people...And this ties into our next bit about how do words come out of a dictionary (and the short answer is, not often), when we talked about all the new words that were added to the Fifth Edition that weren't in the Fourth Edition, and people said, "Where'd the space come from, it's the same length?" A lot of it was interesting design choices. Oh-- I'm sorry, that was between the Third and the Fourth. The fact that you didn't have to take up that space for the indent saved us, you know, allowed us to keep thousands of words. I mean, when you, look at two characters per line, over 2000 pages, that really adds up. Kory:     And you know, when people ask about getting a word into the dictionary, one of the other parts of the commercial bit that no one realizes is that, you know, we are _never going to be caught up_ with getting words into the dictionary. We are always, always, always behind, always having to make these weird editorial choices that are half-based on, is this page going to be open? Or if you're going online, even, how many people can we get on staff who are going to be able to do this kind of defining quickly? And then we need to have someone proofread it, and we have to have someone copy edit it, and then the pronunciation editor needs to go through it, and then the etymologist need to go through it. It's not just me farting around at my laptop saying, "I'm going to enter the word 'CRISPR' today!" That doesn't happen. It still needs to go through, you know, anywhere from five to 10 other sets of eyes before it makes it online. Steve:   "CRISPR" the gene editing? Kory:     Oh yeah. Naturally. Steve:   Shout out to Carl Zimmer. We can tweet at him after this podcast now. Kory:     So, so that's how words get in. It's through written usage. That's not historically always been how it is. The earliest English dictionary, the word lists were just sort of... In the 1600s and early 1700s, they were mostly just words that the single author thought of. So whatever they thought was worth entering, whatever they thought was worth studying. So early dictionaries were hard-word dictionaries mostly, and they were written mostly by wealthy white dudes. Steve:   And then, we're, of course, talking about living languages. If you are writing a dictionary of a dead language, it is possible to include every word. Because, you know, again, I always go back to Tocharian B. We know what words were used and unless there's another archaeological find where they find more inscriptions, the words that we have are the words that are there. And so you can have that finite list. Kory, how do words come out of a dictionary? Kory:     With difficulty. So I don't know what the criteria at American Heritage is, but generally speaking, once a ,word gets into the dictionary, people keep using that word or people feel like they now have license to use that word more. They feel like the word has been made official even though that is not at all what the dictionary does. Steve:   And like you said earlier, just that test for ephemerality. Because we're not adding words until we think they're going to stick around, there's, there's less chance of a word having to come out because it hasn't stuck. And you never know when it's going to come back to life. Kory:     Oh God. "Snollygoster"! Steve:   Oh yeah--you do "snollygoster" and then I'll do mine. Kory:     "Snollygoster!" So very quickly, the way that we determine whether a word is eligible to be removed from the dictionary at Merriam-Webster is, you need to prove that it has had no significant historical written usage, and that it has no current written usage. And that's within a timeframe of, it really depends, but I think when we were doing the Collegiate, we were aiming for 50 years of no written use. Which, that's actually impossible to find now that everything is digitized. Now you can go on Google Books and you can find one dude in 1956 who has used this word consistently in every article he's written and...so now it breaks it. So, actually, we enter far more words than we end up taking out. And when we do take words out, it has to be well considered. Enter "snollygoster." So "snollygoster" is a word that's a noun, it refers to a shrewd or unprincipled person. And it was removed from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate dictionary for the 10th edition, I believe. So that would have been '93. And at that point, you know, they reviewed the evidence and said, eh, has a lot of use back in the forties and fifties, but not really much since. And we need the space. You always need the space. So they pulled it out and then it turns out that William Safire _really_ loved the word "snollygoster" and began using it in his columns. And then Bill O'Reilly_really, really_ loved "snollygoster" and began using it on his TV shows. And so for the 11th edition, pretty recently, we had to put "snollygoster" back in, because now people are using it again. Steve:   And the example I like to use about the danger of removing words: in the late nineties when we were finishing up work on the Fifth Edition and we needed space on this one page, we talked about dropping the sense of "chad" associated with punch cards. Because usually when we do drop things for space, they tend to be geographical entries that are suburbs of Los Angeles or Chicago or something that's encyclopedic information. The space is much better used for a vocabulary word. But obsolescent technology is-- Kory:     Oh yeah, that's a big one-- Steve:   It's a fertile ground for possible deletions. And we almost deleted "chad." And then I remembered when it was going back and forth among the editors, I remembered that there were still some states that used punch cards for voting, and we're like, oh, well we should keep it in then. And lo and behold, one year later, right after the book came out, uh, _Florida_. And it's good that we kept it in, because suddenly "chad" was on everyone's lips. Kory:     Yeah. Hanging chads, pregnant chads-- Steve:   all those chads. Oh Chad. Kory:     _Chad._ Steve:   So, it's about that time. We hope that you have found this entertaining. Kory:     Yeah. And if you want to tweet at us, you can tweet at us. We are @FiatLexPodcast, F-I-A-T-L-E-X podcast. One of us will answer you. If you have things you want to hear on the podcast, let us know. Actually,both of these questions, how do words get in and how do words get taken out, were suggested by faithful Twitter followers. Steve:   Don't tweet at us that "FiatLex" is combining Greek and Latin. We know that and we'll talk about that in a later podcast. Kory:     Yeah, you'll have to get over that. So thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Steve:   Bye.  

Free of columny, as William Safire called it, Thomas Sowell is writing books — as he always has, to be sure. His latest is “Discrimination and Disparities.” It does what Sowell books, and columns, always do. It teaches you important things. With Jay, Sowell talks about human diversity. He talks about equality of opportunity and equality of results. (Two very different things.) He talks about the... Source

Join me, Trans activist Callie Wright (@gaytheistcallie) and Jason Liggi (@liggi - our cis-het white male perspective) for a Panel discussion on Trans issues. ---- Cisgender: denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex. Here are some links mentioned in the discussion: re: trans-abled issues http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/625680.stm http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/becoming-disabled-by-choice-not-chance-transabled-people-feel-like-impostors-in-their-fully-working-bodies More info on the singular They: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they "The earliest attempt to create gender-neutral pronouns dates back to 1792, when Scottish economist James Anderson advocated for an indeterminate pronoun "ou".[61]” "In the second half of the 20th century, people expressed more widespread concern at the use of sexist and male-oriented language.[64] This included criticism of the use of man as a generic term to include men and women and of the use of he to refer to any human, regardless of sex (social gender).[65] It was argued that he could not sensibly be used as a generic pronoun understood to include men and women. William Safire in his On Language column in The New York Times approved of the use of generic he, mentioning the mnemonic phrase "the male embraces the female.[66] C. Badendyck from Brooklyn wrote to the New York Times in a reply: "The average American needs the small routines of getting ready for work. As he shaves or blow-dries his hair or pulls on his panty-hose, he is easing himself by small stages into the demands of the day." — C. Badendyck, New York Times (1985),[67] as quoted by Miller and Swift.[68] By 1980, the movement had gained wide support, and many organizations, including most publishers, had issued guidelines on the use of gender-neutral language.[64]” "Are Jordan Peterson's claims about bill c-16 correct?" http://torontoist.com/2016/12/are-jordan-petersons-claims-about-bill-c-16-correct/ Milo on Real Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lImHh7fqrQo Milo on the Overtime Panel with Larry Wilmore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cDLflyQ8TA Check out Gaytheist Manifesto here : https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/gaytheist-manifesto/id975995209?mt=2 Suuport Polite Conversations here: https://www.patreon.com/nicemangos Leave iTunes Reviews here!: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/polite-conversations/id1086199663?mt=2

In 1897, Swedish patent engineer S.A. Andrée set out in a quixotic bid to reach the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon, departing from Norway with two companions and hoping to drift over the top of the world and come down somewhere in the Bering Strait. Instead the expedition vanished. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll learn what happened to the Eagle and its three brave passengers, and consider the role of hindsight in the writing of history. We'll also learn what the White House planned to do if Neil Armstrong became stranded on the moon, and puzzle over why seeing a plane flying upside down would impact a woman's job. Sources for our segment on S.A. Andrée's attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon: Henri Lachambre and Alexis Machuron, Andrée and His Balloon, 1898. George Palmer Putnam, Andrée: The Record of a Tragic Adventure, 1930. Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geology, Andrée's Story, 1930. Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geology, The Andrée Diaries, 1931. Alec Wilkinson, The Ice Balloon: S.A. Andrée and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration, 2011. Here's the Eagle after its downfall, as recorded by Nils Strindberg's cartographic camera. Even if he'd succeeded, Andrée's bid would have tested the limits of balloon flight: 750 miles separated Spitzbergen from the pole, and the three men would have had to cross another thousand miles to reach the Bering Strait. To get to the pole and then safely back to land in almost any direction would have meant traveling 1,500 miles aloft, and a balloon must travel almost always directly to leeward. Here's the eulogy that William Safire prepared for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in the event they became stranded on the moon in July 1969: Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown. In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind. The last line is an allusion to Rupert Brooke's 1914 poem "The Soldier": If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener David White, who sent these related links (warning -- they spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!

You've been reading a book but you're just not into it. How do you quit it, guilt-free? How do you break up with a book? Also, what do you ask for when you go through the grocery checkout line: bag, sack, or something else? Plus, brung vs. brought, a swim swim, cuddywifters, pinstriped cookie-pushers, a road trip word game, and more.FULL DETAILSHow do you know if it's time to break up with a book? You've into the book 50, maybe a 100 pages, but you're just not into it. Is there something wrong with quitting before the end? Tell us where you draw the line.Let's say an expression you use really bothers your friends or coworkers. Maybe you end sentences with whatnot or etcetera, or you use um as a placeholder, and you want to stop doing it. Here's a tip: Enlist someone you trust, and have them police you, calling your attention to it every time you use that verbal crutch. It should cure you pretty quickly.A while ago, we played a game involving aptronyms, those monikers that really fit their owners. For example, picture a guy holding a shovel standing next to a hole. His name might be Doug. But a Tennessee listener wrote to suggest another answer: the guy with the shovel might just as well be called Barry. Have a better aptronym to share?If you say something's going downhill, does that mean things are getting better or worse? Here's the rule: if something's going downhill, it's getting worse, but if things are all downhill from here, they're getting better.Remember Tom Swifties, those puns where the adverb matches the quote? How about this one: "I love reading Moby-Dick," Tom said superficially.Our Puzzle Master John Chaneski has a game that should last through your longest road trip. It's a variation of “20 Questions” called “Animal, Mineral or Vegetable. “He gives you a word, and you have to find the animal, mineral or vegetable embedded in it. For example, which of those three things is contained in the word "soaking"?Mike from Irving, Texas, has a co-worker who regularly uses brung instead of brought. Is it okay to say "he brung something"? Although the word brung isn't standard English, this dialectal variant has existed alongside brought for centuries. It appears in the informal phrase dance with the one what brung you (or who brung you or that brung you), which suggests the importance of being loyal.“No bucks, no Buck Rogers,” made popular by the 1983 film The Right Stuff, has seen a renaissance in usage among pilots. That is, if you don't pay them what they believe they're worth, they're not going to fly.We got a call from Sarah in Dresden, Germany, who's applying to work for the State Department as foreign service officer. She was curious about an article that contained the term pinstriped cookie-pusher. According to William Safire's Political Dictionary, this bit of derogatory slang came into use in the 1920s to refer to diplomats who were perceived as soft or even effeminate. These men in pinstriped suits would attend receptions at embassies where they'd push cookies instead of paper.If a waiter marks your date as a WW, you know you're in for a pricey bottle of wine. The wine whales, as they're called, take their name from the Vegas whale: those folks who play big at the tables, to the tune of hundreds of thousands or even millions.Will, a listener from South Burlington, Vermont, says he always considered willy nilly to be his own special phrase. But he's realized over the years that its original meaning has been replaced. What was originated as will I, nill I or will he, nill he -- that is, with or without the will of someone -- has come to mean "haphazard." This transformation likely has to do with its rhyme.If someone's a cuddywifter, are they a) a wine snob, b) left-handed, or c) a circus clown? Folks in Scotland and Northern England refer to left-handed people as cuddywifters, along with a host of other terms.After re-reading Stephen Crane's short story The Open Boat, Martha is reminded of one of Crane's poems about perspective, known as A man saw a ball of gold in the sky.If someone asks for their groceries in a bag, does that mean they want paper or plastic? For Jean-Patrick in Dallas, Texas, has had plenty of experience bagging groceries, and says his customers use the term bag specifically to mean the paper kind. We don't have evidence that there are different names for these containers in different parts of the country, but we'd love to hear from our listeners on this one.When someone's going for a swim swim, it means they're doing it for real, laps and all. If they're going to a party, that's probably going to be more sedate than a party party. These are examples of what linguists call contrastive focus reduplication, in which we emphasize a term by reusing it, rather than tacking on another adjective. For example, you might just like someone, but then again you maybe you like like them.When it comes to marriage, you've got to work with your OH—that is, your other half. Lexicographers for the Oxford English Dictionary are tracking this initialism, as well as DH, or dear husband, for possible inclusion in future editions.I liked to died when that ol' toad-strangler crashed through the veranda! The Southernism liked to, also known as the counterfactual liketa, derives from the sense of like meaning "nearly." If you have some favorite regional language, please share it with us.One of Kentucky's finest, Wendell Berry, wrote this in his poem "The Real Work": "It may be that when we no longer know what to do/ we have come to our real work." Indeed, a smooth life is often a boring life.This episode was hosted by Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette, and produced by Stefanie Levine.....Support for A Way with Words comes from The Ken Blanchard Companies, celebrating 35 years of making a leadership difference with Situational Leadership II, the leadership model designed to boost effectiveness, impact, and employee engagement. More about how Blanchard can help your executives and organizational leaders at kenblanchard.com/leadership.--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2014, Wayword LLC.

You've been reading a book but you're just not into it. How do you quit it, guilt-free? How do you break up with a book? Also, what do you ask for when you go through the grocery checkout line: bag, sack, or something else? Plus, brung vs. brought, a swim swim, cuddywifters, pinstriped cookie-pushers, a road trip word game, and more.FULL DETAILSHow do you know if it's time to break up with a book? You've into the book 50, maybe a 100 pages, but you're just not into it. Is there something wrong with quitting before the end? Tell us where you draw the line.Let's say an expression you use really bothers your friends or coworkers. Maybe you end sentences with whatnot or etcetera, or you use um as a placeholder, and you want to stop doing it. Here's a tip: Enlist someone you trust, and have them police you, calling your attention to it every time you use that verbal crutch. It should cure you pretty quickly.A while ago, we played a game involving aptronyms, those monikers that really fit their owners. For example, picture a guy holding a shovel standing next to a hole. His name might be Doug. But a Tennessee listener wrote to suggest another answer: the guy with the shovel might just as well be called Barry. Have a better aptronym to share?If you say something's going downhill, does that mean things are getting better or worse? Here's the rule: if something's going downhill, it's getting worse, but if things are all downhill from here, they're getting better.Remember Tom Swifties, those puns where the adverb matches the quote? How about this one: "I love reading Moby-Dick," Tom said superficially.Our Puzzle Master John Chaneski has a game that should last through your longest road trip. It's a variation of “20 Questions” called “Animal, Mineral or Vegetable. “He gives you a word, and you have to find the animal, mineral or vegetable embedded in it. For example, which of those three things is contained in the word "soaking"?Mike from Irving, Texas, has a co-worker who regularly uses brung instead of brought. Is it okay to say "he brung something"? Although the word brung isn't standard English, this dialectal variant has existed alongside brought for centuries. It appears in the informal phrase dance with the one what brung you (or who brung you or that brung you), which suggests the importance of being loyal.“No bucks, no Buck Rogers,” made popular by the 1983 film The Right Stuff, has seen a renaissance in usage among pilots. That is, if you don't pay them what they believe they're worth, they're not going to fly.We got a call from Sarah in Dresden, Germany, who's applying to work for the State Department as foreign service officer. She was curious about an article that contained the term pinstriped cookie-pusher. According to William Safire's Political Dictionary, this bit of derogatory slang came into use in the 1920s to refer to diplomats who were perceived as soft or even effeminate. These men in pinstriped suits would attend receptions at embassies where they'd push cookies instead of paper.If a waiter marks your date as a WW, you know you're in for a pricey bottle of wine. The wine whales, as they're called, take their name from the Vegas whale: those folks who play big at the tables, to the tune of hundreds of thousands or even millions.Will, a listener from South Burlington, Vermont, says he always considered willy nilly to be his own special phrase. But he's realized over the years that its original meaning has been replaced. What was originated as will I, nill I or will he, nill he -- that is, with or without the will of someone -- has come to mean "haphazard." This transformation likely has to do with its rhyme.If someone's a cuddywifter, are they a) a wine snob, b) left-handed, or c) a circus clown? Folks in Scotland and Northern England refer to left-handed people as cuddywifters, along with a host of other terms.After re-reading Stephen Crane's short story The Open Boat, Martha is reminded of one of Crane's poems about perspective, known as A man saw a ball of gold in the sky.If someone asks for their groceries in a bag, does that mean they want paper or plastic? For Jean-Patrick in Dallas, Texas, has had plenty of experience bagging groceries, and says his customers use the term bag specifically to mean the paper kind. We don't have evidence that there are different names for these containers in different parts of the country, but we'd love to hear from our listeners on this one.When someone's going for a swim swim, it means they're doing it for real, laps and all. If they're going to a party, that's probably going to be more sedate than a party party. These are examples of what linguists call contrastive focus reduplication, in which we emphasize a term by reusing it, rather than tacking on another adjective. For example, you might just like someone, but then again you maybe you like like them.When it comes to marriage, you've got to work with your OH—that is, your other half. Lexicographers for the Oxford English Dictionary are tracking this initialism, as well as DH, or dear husband, for possible inclusion in future editions.I liked to died when that ol' toad-strangler crashed through the veranda! The Southernism liked to, also known as the counterfactual liketa, derives from the sense of like meaning "nearly." If you have some favorite regional language, please share it with us.One of Kentucky's finest, Wendell Berry, wrote this in his poem "The Real Work": "It may be that when we no longer know what to do/ we have come to our real work." Indeed, a smooth life is often a boring life.This episode was hosted by Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette, and produced by Stefanie Levine.....Support for AWWW comes from The Ken Blanchard Companies, who mission since 1979 has been to unleash the power and potential of people and organizations everywhere. More about Ken Blanchard's leadership development solutions at kenblanchard.com/leadership.And from National University, which invites you to change your future today. More at http://www.nu.edu/.--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2013, Wayword LLC.

You've been reading a book but you're just not into it. How do you quit it, guilt-free? How do you break up with a book? Also, what do you ask for when you go through the grocery checkout line: bag, sack, or something else? Plus, brung vs. brought, a swim swim, cuddywifters, pinstriped cookie-pushers, a road trip word game, and more.FULL DETAILSHow do you know if it's time to break up with a book? You've into the book 50, maybe a 100 pages, but you're just not into it. Is there something wrong with quitting before the end? Tell us where you draw the line.Let's say an expression you use really bothers your friends or coworkers. Maybe you end sentences with whatnot or etcetera, or you use um as a placeholder, and you want to stop doing it. Here's a tip: Enlist someone you trust, and have them police you, calling your attention to it every time you use that verbal crutch. It should cure you pretty quickly.A while ago, we played a game involving aptronyms, those monikers that really fit their owners. For example, picture a guy holding a shovel standing next to a hole. His name might be Doug. But a Tennessee listener wrote to suggest another answer: the guy with the shovel might just as well be called Barry. Have a better aptronym to share?If you say something's going downhill, does that mean things are getting better or worse? Here's the rule: if something's going downhill, it's getting worse, but if things are all downhill from here, they're getting better.Remember Tom Swifties, those puns where the adverb matches the quote? How about this one: "I love reading Moby-Dick," Tom said superficially.Our Puzzle Master John Chaneski has a game that should last through your longest road trip. It's a variation of “20 Questions” called “Animal, Mineral or Vegetable. “He gives you a word, and you have to find the animal, mineral or vegetable embedded in it. For example, which of those three things is contained in the word "soaking"?Mike from Irving, Texas, has a co-worker who regularly uses brung instead of brought. Is it okay to say "he brung something"? Although the word brung isn't standard English, this dialectal variant has existed alongside brought for centuries. It appears in the informal phrase dance with the one what brung you (or who brung you or that brung you), which suggests the importance of being loyal.“No bucks, no Buck Rogers,” made popular by the 1983 film The Right Stuff, has seen a renaissance in usage among pilots. That is, if you don't pay them what they believe they're worth, they're not going to fly.We got a call from Sarah in Dresden, Germany, who's applying to work for the State Department as foreign service officer. She was curious about an article that contained the term pinstriped cookie-pusher. According to William Safire's Political Dictionary, this bit of derogatory slang came into use in the 1920s to refer to diplomats who were perceived as soft or even effeminate. These men in pinstriped suits would attend receptions at embassies where they'd push cookies instead of paper.If a waiter marks your date as a WW, you know you're in for a pricey bottle of wine. The wine whales, as they're called, take their name from the Vegas whale: those folks who play big at the tables, to the tune of hundreds of thousands or even millions.Will, a listener from South Burlington, Vermont, says he always considered willy nilly to be his own special phrase. But he's realized over the years that its original meaning has been replaced. What was originated as will I, nill I or will he, nill he -- that is, with or without the will of someone -- has come to mean "haphazard." This transformation likely has to do with its rhyme.If someone's a cuddywifter, are they a) a wine snob, b) left-handed, or c) a circus clown? Folks in Scotland and Northern England refer to left-handed people as cuddywifters, along with a host of other terms.After re-reading Stephen Crane's short story The Open Boat, Martha is reminded of one of Crane's poems about perspective, known as A man saw a ball of gold in the sky.If someone asks for their groceries in a bag, does that mean they want paper or plastic? For Jean-Patrick in Dallas, Texas, has had plenty of experience bagging groceries, and says his customers use the term bag specifically to mean the paper kind. We don't have evidence that there are different names for these containers in different parts of the country, but we'd love to hear from our listeners on this one.When someone's going for a swim swim, it means they're doing it for real, laps and all. If they're going to a party, that's probably going to be more sedate than a party party. These are examples of what linguists call contrastive focus reduplication, in which we emphasize a term by reusing it, rather than tacking on another adjective. For example, you might just like someone, but then again you maybe you like like them.When it comes to marriage, you've got to work with your OH—that is, your other half. Lexicographers for the Oxford English Dictionary are tracking this initialism, as well as DH, or dear husband, for possible inclusion in future editions.I liked to died when that ol' toad-strangler crashed through the veranda! The Southernism liked to, also known as the counterfactual liketa, derives from the sense of like meaning "nearly." If you have some favorite regional language, please share it with us.One of Kentucky's finest, Wendell Berry, wrote this in his poem "The Real Work": "It may be that when we no longer know what to do/ we have come to our real work." Indeed, a smooth life is often a boring life.This episode was hosted by Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette, and produced by Stefanie Levine.....Support for AWWW comes from The Ken Blanchard Companies, who mission since 1979 has been to unleash the power and potential of people and organizations everywhere. More about Ken Blanchard's leadership development solutions at kenblanchard.com/leadership.And from National University, which invites you to change your future today. More at http://www.nu.edu/.--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2012, Wayword LLC.

Do you ever wonder why the almost-human characters that appear in video games can seem downright creepy? That disturbing sensation is called "the uncanny valley." Speaking of creepy, do you know someone with a morbid fear of clowns? There's a term for that, too. Why do politicians suspend a campaign instead of just ending it? How is it that the sentence Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo actually makes sense? Plus, onomatopoeia for the digital age, a magic word quiz, and the kippie bags and vaporwakes you'll find in the airport security line.FULL DETAILSWhat is it about lifelike robots and the humanoid characters in movies like The Polar Express that feels so disturbing? Robotics scientist Masahiro Mori dubbed this phenomenon the uncanny valley. It's evident with movies like The Polar Express. There are lots of interesting articles explaining this creepy sensation in Slate http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/gaming/2004/06/the_undead_zone.html, Wired, http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/19/uncanny-valley-tested, and on the NPR blog. http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/01/20/145504032/story-telling-and-the-uncanny-valleyWhen selling a house, the last thing you want is to take a bath--or, for that matter, a haircut. The first of these refers to getting cleaned out of money. The second is an allusion to the idea of being left with just two bits, or 25 cents.Be careful with that lazy man's load! http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Grose-VulgarTongue/l/lazy-mans-load.html That's the oversize armful you carry when you're transporting things and take too much to avoid making another trip.Why do politicians say they're going to suspend a campaign? Aren't they really just ending it? Under Federal Election Commission funding regulations, politicians can continue to collect money for paying off campaign fees well after an election, so long as their campaign is just suspended. William Safire's Political Dictionary http://books.google.com/books/about/Safire_s_political_dictionary.html?id=c4UoX6-Sv1AC remains the best reference for such political terminology.Would you prefer a low, six-figure salary or a low six-figure salary? With the comma, there are two independent modifiers for the salary; it's six figures and by the speaker's standards, it's low. Without the comma, it's simply less than $500,000. Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a magical puzzle, the answers to which contain the word magic. For example, a motel sign in the '70s might have included the enticement Magic Fingers, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a proponent of the literary genre Magic Realism. How do you spell the exclamation that rhymes with the word "woe"? Is it woah or whoa? http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2009/04/whoa-and-woah.html The correct spelling in the United States is whoa, but when words are primarily translated orally, spelling often varies.If you're as happy as if someone were throwing pork at you, you're pretty darn happy. And if something is higher than a cat's back, it's pretty darn high. Post-9/11, we've heard a lot of new jargon pertaining to travel and security. An example is vaporwake, that term for the airborne trail we leave consisting of our natural scent, perfumes, and the odor of any drugs or weapons we may be carrying. Another example of Transportation Safety Administration terminology: puffer machine, the device that's used to read your vaporwake by blowing a puff of air on you.Why don't nouns have gender in English they way they do in Spanish, French, or German? http://www.quora.com/Why-dont-nouns-in-English-have-gender Before the Middle English period, nouns in English were either masculine, feminine, or neuter. Over time, however, we've moved away from the semantically arbitrary practice of assigning genders to objects that have none. In other words, the linguistic notion of grammatical gender is completely different from biological and social notion of natural gender. Kippie bags, named after the former TSA head Kip Hawley, are those quart-sized bags we put toiletries in when going through airport security.Grant has collected some modern onomatopoeia for the technological age. Try untz, for the beat in dance music, or wub, for the common dubstep sound. Pew pew! works for lasers, and beep, for a computer's beep, is a modern classic.Can you describe a price as cheap or expensive, or are those words properly applied to the item for sale, rather than the price? Across all registers of language, both variants are appropriate.Absenteeism is a problem in the workplace, but so is presenteeism. That's when people who should stay home to nurse a cold or flu insist on coming in to work, risking a turn for the worse or infecting everyone around them.When it comes to words like reckon, is it true that Southerners preserve the Queen's English? For the most part, reckon has its own meanings between the continents, and the more common English spoken in the South is actually of the Scotch or Irish varieties.What do you call a fear of clowns? Coulrophobia, from the ancient Greek term for "one who walks on stilts." Perhaps coulrophobia is a creepy cousin of the uncanny valley. This article from Scientific American offers further explanation. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/2011/10/31/cant-sleepclown-will-eat-me-why-are-we-afraid-of-clowns/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2nK_qmvJ7AHow many buffaloes can you fit in a sentence? Eight? How about 40? The sentence Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo is a staple of introductory linguistics classes, because it's a great illustration of polysemy, in which one word can have several different meanings. In this case, example, buffalo can be a noun, a verb, an adjective, and a proper noun. It makes more sense to think of it this way: "Buffalo-origin bison that other Buffalo bison intimidate, themselves bully Buffalo bison." ....Support for A Way with Words comes from National University, which invites you to change your future today. Learn more at nu.edu. http://nu.eduWe're also grateful for support from The University of San Diego. Since 1949, USD has been on a mission not only to prepare students for the world, but also to change it. Learn more about the college and five schools of this nationally ranked, independent Catholic university at sandiego.edu. http://sandiego.edu--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2012, Wayword LLC.

Do you ever wonder why the almost-human characters that appear in video games can seem downright creepy? That disturbing sensation is called "the uncanny valley." Speaking of creepy, do you know someone with a morbid fear of clowns? There's a term for that, too. Why do politicians suspend a campaign instead of just ending it? How is it that the sentence Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo actually makes sense? Plus, onomatopoeia for the digital age, a magic word quiz, and the kippie bags and vaporwakes you'll find in the airport security line.FULL DETAILSWhat is it about lifelike robots and the humanoid characters in movies like The Polar Express that feels so disturbing? Robotics scientist Masahiro Mori dubbed this phenomenon the uncanny valley. It's evident with movies like The Polar Express. There are lots of interesting articles explaining this creepy sensation in Slate http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/gaming/2004/06/the_undead_zone.html, Wired, http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-07/19/uncanny-valley-tested, and on the NPR blog. http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/01/20/145504032/story-telling-and-the-uncanny-valleyWhen selling a house, the last thing you want is to take a bath--or, for that matter, a haircut. The first of these refers to getting cleaned out of money. The second is an allusion to the idea of being left with just two bits, or 25 cents.Be careful with that lazy man's load! http://www.fromoldbooks.org/Grose-VulgarTongue/l/lazy-mans-load.html That's the oversize armful you carry when you're transporting things and take too much to avoid making another trip.Why do politicians say they're going to suspend a campaign? Aren't they really just ending it? Under Federal Election Commission funding regulations, politicians can continue to collect money for paying off campaign fees well after an election, so long as their campaign is just suspended. William Safire's Political Dictionary http://books.google.com/books/about/Safire_s_political_dictionary.html?id=c4UoX6-Sv1AC remains the best reference for such political terminology.Would you prefer a low, six-figure salary or a low six-figure salary? With the comma, there are two independent modifiers for the salary; it's six figures and by the speaker's standards, it's low. Without the comma, it's simply less than $500,000. Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a magical puzzle, the answers to which contain the word magic. For example, a motel sign in the '70s might have included the enticement Magic Fingers, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a proponent of the literary genre Magic Realism. How do you spell the exclamation that rhymes with the word "woe"? Is it woah or whoa? http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2009/04/whoa-and-woah.html The correct spelling in the United States is whoa, but when words are primarily translated orally, spelling often varies.If you're as happy as if someone were throwing pork at you, you're pretty darn happy. And if something is higher than a cat's back, it's pretty darn high. Post-9/11, we've heard a lot of new jargon pertaining to travel and security. An example is vaporwake, that term for the airborne trail we leave consisting of our natural scent, perfumes, and the odor of any drugs or weapons we may be carrying. Another example of Transportation Safety Administration terminology: puffer machine, the device that's used to read your vaporwake by blowing a puff of air on you.Why don't nouns have gender in English they way they do in Spanish, French, or German? http://www.quora.com/Why-dont-nouns-in-English-have-gender Before the Middle English period, nouns in English were either masculine, feminine, or neuter. Over time, however, we've moved away from the semantically arbitrary practice of assigning genders to objects that have none. In other words, the linguistic notion of grammatical gender is completely different from biological and social notion of natural gender. Kippie bags, named after the former TSA head Kip Hawley, are those quart-sized bags we put toiletries in when going through airport security.Grant has collected some modern onomatopoeia for the technological age. Try untz, for the beat in dance music, or wub, for the common dubstep sound. Pew pew! works for lasers, and beep, for a computer's beep, is a modern classic.Can you describe a price as cheap or expensive, or are those words properly applied to the item for sale, rather than the price? Across all registers of language, both variants are appropriate.Absenteeism is a problem in the workplace, but so is presenteeism. That's when people who should stay home to nurse a cold or flu insist on coming in to work, risking a turn for the worse or infecting everyone around them.When it comes to words like reckon, is it true that Southerners preserve the Queen's English? For the most part, reckon has its own meanings between the continents, and the more common English spoken in the South is actually of the Scotch or Irish varieties.What do you call a fear of clowns? Coulrophobia, from the ancient Greek term for "one who walks on stilts." Perhaps coulrophobia is a creepy cousin of the uncanny valley. This article from Scientific American offers further explanation. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/2011/10/31/cant-sleepclown-will-eat-me-why-are-we-afraid-of-clowns/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2nK_qmvJ7AHow many buffaloes can you fit in a sentence? Eight? How about 40? The sentence Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo is a staple of introductory linguistics classes, because it's a great illustration of polysemy, in which one word can have several different meanings. In this case, example, buffalo can be a noun, a verb, an adjective, and a proper noun. It makes more sense to think of it this way: "Buffalo-origin bison that other Buffalo bison intimidate, themselves bully Buffalo bison." ....Support for A Way with Words comes from National University, which invites you to change your future today. Learn more at nu.edu. http://nu.eduWe're also grateful for support from The University of San Diego. Since 1949, USD has been on a mission not only to prepare students for the world, but also to change it. Learn more about the college and five schools of this nationally ranked, independent Catholic university at sandiego.edu. http://sandiego.edu--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2012, Wayword LLC.

Episode #1: Moon Graffiti. In our pilot episode, we imagine what may have happened if the Apollo 11 mission ended in tragedy. Featuring performances by Matt Evans, Ed Herbsman, and John Ottavino. Inspired by a real contingency speech written in 1969 by William Safire for Richard Nixon titled “In Event of Moon Disaster."

Episode #1: Moon Graffiti. In our pilot episode, we imagine what may have happened if the Apollo 11 mission ended in tragedy. Featuring performances by Matt Evans, Ed Herbsman, and John Ottavino. Inspired by a real contingency speech written in 1969 by William Safire for Richard Nixon titled “In Event of Moon Disaster."

Episode #1: Moon Graffiti. In our pilot episode, we imagine what may have happened if the Apollo 11 mission ended in tragedy. Featuring performances by Matt Evans, Ed Herbsman, and John Ottavino. Inspired by a real contingency speech written in 1969 by William Safire for Richard Nixon titled “In Event of Moon Disaster."

Grant dishes up the latest language headlines from around the world.Oh, what a difference a letter can make! The Moscow Times reports this week that Tatyana Tetyorkina was stripped of her Russian citizenship because a government clerk's typewriter was missing a single letter. Instead, a  different vowel was used, making her Teterkina rather than Tetyorkina--and making who she said she was and who her papers said she was disagree. Public outcry over the matter has since caused her citizenship to be reinstated, but Tatyana is still pursuing it in the Russian courts.In Slate magazine, Eugene Volokh takes a look at names that are so weird that they were brought before the courts. There's the nine-year-old New Zealand girl named Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii. Yes, that's the entire name. There's someone named They T-H-E-Y, there's Darren Lloyd Bean, spelled Darren Q-X Bean, and more Santa Clauses than a Santa Claus convention.Caroline Winter fills in for William Safire in the New York Times Magazine, where she discusses why we capitalize the pronoun 'I.' She says, in short, that a lowercase I is hard to see on the page, but an uppercase I is a cinch to read. She suggests, just for a little self-humbling, that we capitalize you, Y-O-U, instead.Also in the New York Times, Nicholson Baker gives a favorable review to Ammon Shea's book, Reading the OED, in which he spent an entire year reading the print version of the second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Baker calls the book 'oddly inspiring' and says, 'The effect of this book on me was to make me like Ammon Shea and, briefly, to hate English.'Finally, dictionary editor Erin McKean asks in the Boston Globe why people use a word and then sheepishly wonder if it is really a word. She writes, 'Whenever I see 'not a real word' used to stigmatize what is (usually) a perfectly cromulent word, I wonder why the writer felt the need to hang a big sign reading 'I am not confident about my writing' on it. What do they imagine the penalty is for using an 'unreal' word? A ticket from the Dictionary Police?' Cromulent, by the way, is a made-up word from The Simpsons. It means good or fine.Okay, fine. That's all for this week's language headlines. You can find links to all of these stories on the discussion forum of A Way with Words, public radio's weekly call-in show about language. Find it at waywordradio.org.--Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.

Martin Bright on UN spying & Barry Lando on William Safire's errors. The post Counterspin – March 5, 2004 appeared first on KPFA.

A profile of Francis Perkins, the first woman cabinet officer in America, and columnist William Safire's grim evaluation of President Reagan's plan for the mounting US deficit.

US columnist William Safire satirises what Thatcher's election victory will mean for Britain. The sound quality on this recording is variable/poor. This archive edition of Letter from America was recorded by one of two listeners, who between them taped and labelled over 650 Letter From America programmes from 1973 to 1989. It was restored by the BBC in 2014.