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lmr 06/17/2005What fun! Word trivia and goodies on podcast.
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Episodes
- red-tape - podictionary 875
(2mb)
Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:01:14 +0000
The first person to write the phrase down was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Later a woman knocked at his door and asked "Is this the house where Longfellow was born?" He said that it was not. She asked "Did he die here?" He answered "Not yet." - litter - podictionary 874 (2mb)
Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:01:27 +0000
The French word for "bed" is lit, which had earlier been litere in Old French. The reason a cat has a litter of kittens is because she gives birth to them all in one bed. - pandemonium - podictionary 873 (2mb)
Thu, 09 Oct 2008 04:01:56 +0000
The financial markets of late might be seen as a place where pandemonium rules. In actual fact things are a little more hopeful than that for two etymological reasons. - sofa - podictionary 872 (2mb)
Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:01:25 +0000
Why would anyone have ever called a sofa a chesterfield? - dregs - podictionary 871 (2mb)
Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:01:51 +0000
The word dregs came to English from Old Norse and appears first in 1300. Already though the lowly nature of dregs had extended the meaning of the word to include other undesirable things. There in the same document?a religious poem?dregs shows up both meaning the muck at the bottom of your drink, and also feces. - alibi - podictionary 870 (2mb)
Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:01:30 +0000
The series Law is a bottomless pit was certainly framed in a legal environment and so it should be no surprise that the legal term alibi moved from legal Latin to English with the assistance of this pamphlet. - amethyst - podictionary 869 (2mb)
Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:01:49 +0000
An amethyst is a purple kind of gemstone. It's a grapey kind of purple. It's this color that lead to its name. - pavilion - podictionary 867 (2mb)
Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:01:46 +0000
pavilion was army slang, the tents being named for the look of the door flaps tied up and back on either side resembling a butterfly's wings. - betray - podictionary 866 (2mb)
Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:01:07 +0000
"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." - butterfly - podictionary 865 (2mb)
Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:01:00 +0000
Someone I know and love told me with much confidence that the word butterfly came about because some king or other tended to get his merds wixed up - seal - podictionary 864 (2mb)
Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:01:22 +0000
Today’s podictionary word brought to you by GoToMeeting. Try it free for 30 days by following the link www.gotomeeting.com/podcast Archibald Primrose was Prime Minister of England for a short time near the end of the reign of Queen Victoria. He didn’t have a very easy time of it as Prime Minister and he is quoted as [...] - echo - podictionary 862 (2mb)
Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:01:53 +0000
This episode brought to you by my book on the words we use for our bodies: Carnal Knowledge - A Navel Gazer’s Dictionary of Anatomy, Etymology, and Trivia available at bookstores or online. For more information please visit www.navelgazersdictionary.com All the dictionaries agree that the word echo came to English from Latin and that Latin got [...] - bittersweet - podictionary 861 (2mb)
Tue, 23 Sep 2008 04:01:43 +0000
how highly would you value any recommendations given to you by a guy who dressed in animal skins, lived in a broken-open grave, ate only after dark, and drank only the muddy swamp water that surrounded his pitiful home - rocket - podictionary 860 (3mb)
Mon, 22 Sep 2008 04:01:16 +0000
It is believed that rockets were invented in China more than 1000 years ago. I instantly thought of fireworks in this context but it appears that before rockets were used for fireworks and joyous entertainment, they were used for killing people and war. This tradition continued as Europeans adopted the technology 600 or 700 years ago. The things [...] - menial - podictionary 859 (2mb)
Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:01:51 +0000
it was the lowly nature of the household work that attached itself to the word before the word could get out of the house and be attached to lowly work elsewhere - marathon - podictionary 858 (2mb)
Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:01:14 +0000
a marathon is a race modeled after a guy who ran until he dropped dead - jock - podictionary 857 (2mb)
Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:01:39 +0000
Since this was a rude word at first it must have softened in its power to offend by the time it was used to help designate an athletic supporter. Since what is offensive at the dinner table is sometimes the lingua franca of the locker room, one might suspect this as a route toward this word's gentrification. - zenith - podictionary 856 (2mb)
Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:01:38 +0000
Today’s podictionary word brought to you by GoToMeeting. Try it free for 30 days by following the link www.gotomeeting.com/podcast In actual fact I began this episode in response to a subscriber who was interested in me looking into the word nadir. I’ll get to the connection in a minute but I figured more people would recognize the [...] - torch - podictionary 855 (2mb)
Mon, 15 Sep 2008 04:01:46 +0000
The name given to this burning source of illumination came from the way it was made. - bewilder - podictionary 854 (2mb)
Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:01:19 +0000
Bewilder literally means "to cause to be wildered." But what does it mean if you are "wildered" I hear you asking. It means you are "lost in a pathless place" as if in the wild.
