SWU FM Podcast

Dave Harvey - 06 February 2024

SWU FM Podcast 

Dave Harvey - 05 March 2024

Dave Harvey - 02 April 2024

The expression You look like death eating on a Nab means "You look terrible." It's a humorous elaboration of the idea of death, which refers to death consuming a dry, salty, peanut-butter-filled snack made by the Nabisco company. The more common phrase is You look like death eating a cracker. Variations include like death on toast and the simile Ralph Ellison used in Invisible Man (Bookshop|Amazon), like death eating a sandwich. http://waywordradio.org

1635-Caller-Ollie-Death-On-A-Nab

Journalist Bianca Bosker infiltrated the world of contemporary art and wrote about it in her book Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See (Bookshop|Amazon), often with hilarious results. She describes the lexicon of art curators, whose language is peppered with such words as indexicality, iconicity, and durational, and observes,"Art devotees spoke like they were trapped in dictionaries and being forced to chew their way out." http://waywordradio.org

1635-Contemporary-Art-Jargon

After an international team of scientists and staffers spent six months at a research station in Antarctica, their accents changed ever so slightly, according to an acoustic analysis by German researchers. The slang terms they shared include dingle, which described "clear weather," as in a dingle day, and electric soup, meaning "fortified wine." http://waywordradio.org

1635-Intro-Electric-Soup

What's the difference between ethics and morality? Between a proverb and an adage? Eli Burnstein's Dictionary of Fine Distinctions: Nuances, Niceties and Subtle Shades of Meaning ​​(Bookshop|Amazon) helps readers distinguish between such things. Linguist Anne Curzan's Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words (Bookshop|Amazon) is a helpful, highly readable summary for anyone who wants to understand how linguists think about language. http://waywordradio.org

1635-Lex-Bag-Book-Recommendations

Smoko is slang for "a cigarette break." It's used in Australia and also at a British research station in Antarctica. http://waywordradio.org

1635-Smoko

Stravenue is a portmanteau of street and avenue, and is used in Tucson, Arizona, to refer to a diagonal road between east-west streets and north-south avenues. Similarly, a stroad is a combination of street and road. http://waywordradio.org

1635-Stravenue

Quiz Guy John Chaneski has crafted a quiz involving a polysyllabic word followed by another word that repeats the last of those syllables twice. For example, suppose the clue is: "When playing a simple game with a toddler, it's a real faux pas to forget to reveal your face again." What's a five-syllable term for that kind of mistake? http://waywordradio.org

1635-Word-Quiz-Repeats

Em ở thành Sơn chạy giặc về 
Tôi từ chinh chiến cũng ra đi 
Cách biệt bao lần quê Bất Bạt 
Chiều xanh không thấy bóng Ba Vì 

Vừng trán em vương trời quê hương 
Mắt em dìu dịu buồn Tây Phương 
Tôi thấy xứ Đoài mây trắng lắm 
Em có bao giờ em nhớ thương 

Từ độ thu về hoang bóng giặc 
Điêu tàn thôi lại nối điêu tàn 
Đất đá ong khô nhiều ngấn lệ 
Em có bao giờ lệ chứa chan 

Mẹ tôi em có gặp đâu không 
Những xác già nua ngập cánh đồng 
Tôi cũng có thằng em còn bé dại 
Bao nhiêu rồi xác trẻ trôi sông 

Đôi mắt người Sơn Tây 
U uẩn chiều lưu lạc 
Buồn viễn xứ khôn khuây 

Cho nhẹ lòng nhớ thương 
Em mơ cùng ta nhé 
Bóng ngày mai quê hương 
Đường hoa khô ráo lệ 

Bao giờ trở lại đồng Bương Cấn 
Về núi Sài Sơn ngắm lúa vàng 
Sông Đáy chậm nguồn quanh phủ quốc 
Sáo diều khuya khoắt thổi đêm trăng 

Bao giờ tôi gặp em lần nữa 
Ngày ấy thanh bình chắc nở hoa 
Đã hết sắc mầu chinh chiến cũ 
Còn có bao giờ em nhớ ta

Đôi mắt người Sơn Tây- Ngâm Thơ Trần Thiện Tùng

Ton Phi

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