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)
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Natalie
“Whatever” (mp3)
from “Rock Me”
(Bright Pink Music)
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More On This Album
Hello, my fellow podcasting pedants! I enjoy your podcast immensely, not only for the incomparable topic but also for its very personable and eloquent hosts.
I just wanted to let you guys know that on the “Thank You” page for your survey, the word “audience” is misspelled (it’s written “audeince”). Also, is the phrase “So, what are you waiting for?” on said webpage grammatically correct? I believe it should be “For what are you waiting?”.
Thanks, you guys are awesome!
Thanks for the comment, Phil.
The survey is actually the property of Wizzard Media. We just link to it, because Wizzard is our hosting service and ad agency. I’ll try to remember to let them know about the misspelled “audience.” However, the question “So, what are you waiting for?” is really how at least 95% of the population of fluent English speakers would say that, so I think I’ll leave that one alone!
Hi Dave,
congratulations on this informative show. As you have touched upon this topic, please do a whole episode on diplomatic language.
Greetings from Vienna, Austria
As the German that I am I’d like to correct you, “to run”/”laufen” has roughly the same amount of various meanings in german as in english – “running nose”/”laufende Nase” just as well. Only the synonym of “laufen”, which is “rennen”, couldn’t be used that way. You might have thought of that since “running” and “rennen” are pretty homonymous (”gehen” by the way means either “to go” or “to walk”, not “to run”).
Best wishes from Bavaria, Germany.