The Word Nerds

Barbara Shepherd returns for the second week as a guest Nerd. She and Dave Shepherd respond to an email from Fred Chalfant about Barbara’s grandmother’s name. (2:52)

Dave and Barbara, who are both musicians, talk about the importance of music in their lives. (4:23)

Music bumper from “Tonight” by Zach Ashton (9:11)

What music does to language: poetry, songs, musical theater, education (9:38)

Song: “Singing to Me,” by Robin Stine (14:39)

Rude word of the week: “tone deaf” (18:09)

Promo for The Sound of Young America (21:23)

The special language of music: re-purposed words in English and musical vocabulary in Italian (22:04)

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network

Theme music by Kick the Cat

time: 31:04
size: 21.3 Mb

rating: G (We talk about singing to our children when they were very young. Aw! Isn’t that sweet?)

Tags: language, linguistics, barbara, music