2008 August Archive at The Word Nerds

Linguistic tics: Friends, this week Howard Shepherd and Dave Shepherd sort of, you know, explore little linguistic tics, right?

Paralinguistic vs. linguistic tics (1:59)

Causes of linguistic tics; tics as style identifiers; some classic linguist tics (5:32)

Music bumper from “Telepop” by The Jerrys (16:35)

Linguistic tics in languages other than English (17:15)

Song: “Uh Huh-Oh No” by Anne Summers (21:16)

Rude Word of the Week: “dingbat” (23:58)

Music bumper from “Road to Rhodes” by Scott Helm. (28:35)

Some uses of linguistic tics (29:18)

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network and the Ioda Promonet

Theme music by Kick the Cat

time: 35:32

size: 32.6 Mb

rating: PG (Our song has a couple of mildly suggestive moments.)

Anne Summers
“Uh-Huh, Oh-No” (mp3)
from “Very Classy”
(Beatville Records)

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Ambiguity: Barbara Shepherd and Dave Shepherd try very hard to figure out exactly what each other means, as they explore the topic of ambiguity.

Thanks to Paul L., Smaran D., Mary M., Michelle M., Dolores B., and Peter D. for PayPal donations (1:52)

Emails from Paul L., Adam R., Maria C., and Anne J. Also, Evan Stone, who composed and played our closing theme music, played in Beijing for the Olympic marathon. (2:53)

Ambiguity defined: “Capability of being understood in two or more ways; double or dubious signification, ambiguousness.” Synonyms of ambiguous: enigmatic, equivocal, indeterminate, obscure, vague, unintelligible, dubious, double-entendre, ambivalent, uncertain (8:34)

Structural ambiguity: syntactic ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, and misinterpretation (such as mondegreens) (12:53)

Music bumper from “Whatever Stupid” by Ben Thomas (18:20)

Intentional ambiguity (19:11)

Song: “Whatever” by Natalie (25:21)

Rude Word of the Week: “whatever” (29:14)

Music bumper from “Telepop” by The Jerrys. (32:36)

Amusing intentional ambiguities: double entendres, jokes for adults buried in children’s shows (as done by Soupy Sales), and the mighty Groucho Marx (33:23)

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network and Ioda Promonet

Theme music by Kick the Cat

Closing theme from “Grapes” by Evan Stone

time: 41:03

size: 37.6 Mb

rating: PG (Our song has a rude word for “poop,” and we talk about sexual double-entendres.)

Ben Thomas
“Whatever Stupid” (mp3)
from “The Mystagogue”
(Origin Records)