The Word Nerds

Howard Chang and Dave Shepherd tell some tall tales about myth, legend, and language.

Dave encourages listeners to digg our podcast (see the sidebar on the right side of our main blog page) and to visit the Word Nerds Forum to participate in the thread about this show. (2:52)

Myth and legend: Why do they exist? What kinds of stories are they? (4:06)

Music bumper from “Natural Man” by Lil Ed & the Blues Imperials (22:26)

Myth and language: words that come from mythology (22:51)

Song: “Mythical Frederick” by Tom Smith (26:05)

Rude word of the week: “bullshit” (28:05)

Music bumper from “Tell Me a Bedtime Story” by the Jay Lawrence Trio (32:26)

Hidden mythological etymologies (”hidden mythetymologies”) (33:14)

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network and IODA Promonet

Theme music by Kick the Cat

Closing music from “Grapes” by Evan Stone

time: 41:02

size: 37.6 Mb

rating: PG-13 (The Rude Word is probably ruder than middle-school kids should be tossing around in the hallways–at least at this moment in history.)

Download “Tell Me a Bedtime Story” (mp3)
from “Thermal Strut”
by Jay Lawrence Trio
OA2 Records

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Howard Chang and Dave Shepherd are in a massive hurry to talk about speed.

Dave responds to feedback (2:08)

• Jesse Thorn of The Sound of Young America sent us a copy of Sky Maul: Happy Crap You Can Buy From a Plane, by Kasper Hauser.
• Voicemail from Kristin of The Manic Mommies
• Our forum is now spam-free! Come talk to us and each other!
• At the time of recording, our web host had a problem with iTunes. But that problem is fixed now (December 23, 2006).

The pace of life, the speed of thought, and the speed of speech (5:41)

Music bumper from “Speedbaby” by The Gentlemen (18:05)

Words and phrases about speed and acceleration (18:39)

Song: “I Run Faster Than You Can” by Faris Nourallah (24:50)

Rude word of the week: “slow” (26:58)

Music bumper from “Things Happen Fast” by Fuzzy Logic (30:29)

Slowing down (31:08)

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network and IODA Promonet

Theme music by Kick the Cat

Closing music from “Grapes” by Evan Stone

time: 37:07
size: 34 Mb

rating: PG (The Rude Word is only mildly insulting, but we refer briefly to the contents of spam messages on our forum.)

Download “I Run Faster Than You Can” (mp3)
from “King Of Sweden”
by Faris Nourallah
Western Vinyl

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• Stream from RealNetworks / Rhapsody

 

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Dave Shepherd and Howard Chang talk about derivatives–words that come from other words and how we came to love them.

The derivation of “derivative” (2:42)

How we became infatuated with derivatives (5:17)

Music bumper from “Court of Greedy Kings,” by Val Davis (11:07)

Word Power through derivatives (”plant that seed, watch it grow”) (11:23)

Song: “Carbon Copy” by Sister Machine Gun (21:34)

Rude word of the week: “rip-off” (24:52)

Music bumper from “Melancolica” by Mauricio Cuburu (33:00)

“Challenge words” for our listeners – use your knowledge of root words to post your best guestimates on our blog (33:36)

• anthropomorphic
• euphonious
• hecatonstylon

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network

Theme music by Kick the Cat

Closing music from “Grapes” by Evan Stone

time: 40:02
size: 36.7 Mb (We’ve gone back to a higher bitrate to improve our sound a bit.)
rating: PG (Our featured song has a brief allusion to drinking.)

 

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Dave Shepherd, Barbara Shepherd, and Howard Chang talk about their summer reading. (2:14)

Dave’s recent favorites:

• The Word Nerds Discussion forum
• Online fora related to magic
• The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
• Baseball as America, by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
• Dai Vernon: A Biography, by David Ben
• The Secret Art of Magic, by Eric Evans and Nowlin Craver

Barbara’s summer reading:

• The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman
• Winter Wheat, by Mildred Walker
• The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

Howard’s books of summer:

• Skipping Towards Gomorrah, by Dan Savage
• A Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman
• The Students Are Watching, by Theodore R. Sizer

Music bumper from “The Beach 1969″ by Paul (11:56)

The functions of summer reading (12:33)

Song: “Summer Rain,” by COMEG (19:42)

Rude word of the week: “pulp” (23:15)

Music bumper from “Perfect Summer” by COMEG (28:08)

Social networking through reading (28:46)

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network

Theme music by Kick the Cat

Closing music from “Grapes” by Evan Stone

time: 35:51
size: 24.6 Mb

rating: PG-13 (We actually don’t make any rude references; however, Howard talks about the Dan Savage column “Savage Love,” which is really only appropriate for adults.)

Tags: language, books

 

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Dave Shepherd, Howard Shepherd, and Howard Chang talk about endings–of conversations, relationships, jobs, etc. (NOT of podcasts; we are not leaving!)

Linguistic cues for endings (1:56)

Music bumper from “My Living Will,” by The Finale (10:05)

Non-verbal and non-oral cues: body language, “the thin envelope” (10:50)

Song: “Last to Leave,” by Hot Rod Cadets (17:49)

Rude word of the week: “unflushable” (21:26)

Music bumper from “Go Away” by Poptart Monkeys (22:36)

Technological changes in the way we end things (23:09)

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network

Theme music by Kick the Cat

Closing music from “Grapes” by Evan Stone

time: 32:18
size: 22.2 Mb

rating: PG (A young child should not really be using our Rude Word to designate a person.)

Tags: language, endings

 

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Dave Shepherd, Howard Shepherd, and Howard Chang ponder a plethora of orotund expressions. That means they are talking about extravagant ways of expressing yourself. (Thanks to Michael Buchko for the topic suggestion.)

What we mean by fustian language: pompous, bombastic ways of saying very little by using a lot of syllables; some quotations from fustian speakers and writers (1:54)

Music bumper from by “Fancy Prance” by Itchie Cat (13:04)

Our favorite fustian terms (13:35)

Song: “Confused,” by Natalie Brown (20:50)

Rude word of the week: “windbag” (24:54)

Music bumper from “Winter Wind,” by Jon Schmidt (27:08)

Why is fustian language sometimes unavoidable? (27:56)

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network

Theme music by Kick the Cat

time: 35:51
size: 24.6 Mb

rating: PG (Not especially rude, but full of very challenging words.)

Tags: language, fustian

 

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Dave Shepherd, Howard Shepherd, and Howard Chang talk about jokes and humor. (What a bunch of chuckleheads!)

The philosophical underpinnings of humor (2:01)

Music bumper from by “The Corner of Sacco and Vanzetti” by Shibboleth (11:20)

Categories of humor (11:57)

Song: “Inside Joke,” by Little Thom (22:51)

Rude word of the week: “bombing” (or shall we say, this segment is bombing this week?) (27:23)

Music bumper from “Make Me Understand,” by Matt Thorpe (29:31)

What makes something funny? Perspective and delivery (30:12)

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network

Theme music by Kick the Cat

time: 36:12
size: 24.9 Mb

rating: PG-13 (We discuss some provocative sexual and religious aspects of joke humor, and our song has a few mildly rude words.)

Tags: language, jokes, humor

 

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Dave Shepherd, Howard Shepherd, and Howard Chang discuss the rules, etiquette, and media of everyday conversations.

Various ways the Word Nerds audience can converse with us, and with each other (1:59)

Face-to-face conversation (4:59)

Music bumper from by “Conversations” by Saurab Bhargava (14:43)

Conversing on the telephone (15:21)

Song: “Cool Conversation,” by Dminor (20:51)

Rude word of the week: “loudmouth” (25:13)

Music bumper from “Done Talking,” by George Hrab (26:56)

Email, IM, and Internet conversation (27:14)

Music courtesy of The Podsafe Music Network

Theme music by Kick the Cat

time: 38:30
size: 26.5 Mb

rating: PG-13 (We discuss the conversational conventions of sexual intimacy.)

Tags: language, conversation

 

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