by Peggy Robin
Do you need more podcasts in your life? Of course you do! Podcasts keep you informed, entertained, in the know. Unlike radio and TV, you can listen whenever and wherever you like. Podcasts are the only reason I can do 40-50 minutes of exercise straight, without going nuts from boredom. They're also good while gardening, on long car drives (especially if you're driving solo!) or on public transit.
Best of all, plenty of good ones are free!
But not all podcasts are created equal. A podcast, to serve its purpose (which is to keep your mind occupied while you're doing some boring or repetitive task -- something that doesn't need your full attention) -- can't be too intense, too serious, or stressful. That is to say, it's not going to make you stop in your tracks while the treadmill is going and fall off and hurt yourself. You may like a true-life crime story with a schocker of an ending -- but it's not the thing to have playing when you're slicing your vegetables with a sharp knife.
I think I have discovered the perfect podcast. It's called "A Way with Words" It's "the show about language and how we use it" with hosts and linguists Grant Barret and Martha Barnett.
Here's why I recommend it:
Each episode stands on its own (no need to follow a story from week to week)
- Lots of fascinating trivia - I always learn something but it doesn't matter if I don't retain it.
- The episodes don't get dated, so you can listen to one from several years ago, and it's just as good as one from last week.
- The hosts do their homework - they are always well prepared
- The hosts are both SO NICE. When they take questions from callers, no matter how silly the question, they treat their guests with respect.
- It's often really funny. That's because any language -- but especially English -- is full of odd quirks, opportunities for punning and comic misunderstandings. This show is full of 'em.
Here's just one example: The little button on top of a baseball cap is called a squatcho or a squatchee. In the same episode in which I learned this little gem, there was a caller with a Boston/Cape Cawd accent -- a wicked strong one. But there's never any mockery of the way she talks. To the contrary, the hosts urge her to be proud of her regional accent. If you'd like to hear her, go to Episode #1665 Cat Bristle.
I just finished exercising to the episode called Sleepy Winks (Episode #1584) - which goes into a long discussion of what people called those little gritty things that collect at the corners of your eyes when you wake up in the morning. A caller said his Hungarian grandmother always called them "cheepa" (which is spelled "csipa" in Hungarian and means "gooey stuff." In German they're called "augenbutter" -- that is, “eye butter.” The Portuguese call them "remela," which may derive from the word mel, meaning “honey.” There are lots of different English terms, including sleepy buds, dozy dust, sleepy winks, and eye boogers. The medical term is hardened periocular discharge. Aren't you glad to know all that? I sure am!
Of course, I'd be perfectly fine if I never learned any of this. It has absolutely no practical value in my life. But that's part of its charm. I can listen while doing something that I need to do, while learning things I don't need to know.
No....I take that back. Here's a word I learned today that perfectly describes something in my everyday life. It's called a wuzzle. It's a word for a tangle of rope, cable, or electrical cord. It's not a new, made-up term, our language hosts tell us -- it's been around a long time, used at least as early as the mid-19th centery
Here's the amazing wuzzle in my house:
Apparently, de-wuzzle is also a word, meaning to untangle...but I'm not going to be doing this anytime soon! I have time to listen to podcasts, but nowhere near time enough to deal with this mess!
------------------
Still Life with Robin is posted on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local, usually on Saturdays, but occasionally on Sundays.
No comments:
Post a Comment