un progetto Fondazione Circolo dei lettori
e Città di Torino – Assessorato al Commercio.

Giuseppe Culicchia, Elena Varvello, Enrica Tesio e Fabio Geda conducono il pubblico fra i quartieri, le strade, i mercati, i profumi e i sapori della città. Quattro incontri, da settembre a dicembre, in cui attraverso le storie personali, la letteratura, le parole e le immagini si va alla scoperta di una città vivace, aperta e innovativa.
Il ciclo di appuntamenti è inserito nell’iniziativa Torino Compra Vicino a sostegno dei negozi di vicinato e dell’economia di prossimità promossa da Città di Torino con il supporto di Camera di commercio di Torino in collaborazione con Ascom Torino e Confesercenti Torino.

Attività locali, botteghe storiche, negozi di quartiere: sono i luoghi dove tante e tanti torinesi trovano ogni giorno qualità, esperienza, un rapporto personale. Sono spazi di tradizione e di innovazione, una ricchezza insostituibile per il tessuto economico e sociale di tutta la città.
Per valorizzare questa ricchezza la Città ha istituito un Albo del Commercio di Prossimità di Interesse Collettivo rivolto agli esercizi di vicinato di particolare valore per individuare spazi storici e imprese meritevoli da coinvolgere in iniziative di visibilità e sostegno, all’interno di un più ampio impegno contro l’impoverimento commerciale.

A spasso per Torino con… è la cornice ideale per raccontare una città fatta di piccoli gesti e grandi passioni che animano giorno dopo giorno le vie e le piazze della città, dal centro ai vari quartieri, anche grazie a negozi e locali, simbolo di qualità, esperienza e attenzione.

A spasso per Torino con... Giuseppe Culicchia - Porta Palazzo e il Balon

An Arkansas listener is puzzled when a neighbor notes that the weather turned off cold. This expression is part of a long-standing American dialect tradition that includes come off cold, come off hot, or turned off pretty. Such phrases show up across the U.S., and are attested as early as the 1840s. The broader sense of come off meaning “to turn out,” or “to result” is even older. http://waywordradio.org

1670-Caller-Chalice-Off-Cold

A former resident of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, wonders why the English spoken there sounds distinct from both New Orleans English and Cajun English. It’s a combination of factors, including vowel lengthening common to the broader Southern dialect, a bit of influence from Cajun French vocabulary, and the process linguists call leveling, in which speakers unconsciously smooth out distinctive features of dialect to align with local norms. http://waywordradio.org

1670-Caller-Chris-Baton-Rouge-Accent

A listener from Indianapolis asks about the word chiffarobe meaning “a heavy wooden cabinet that combines hanging space with drawers.” The term is a blend of the French word chiffonier—originally a “rag-gatherer” used to store small personal items—and English wardrobe. Many furniture terms in English trace back to French, particularly names for elegant or specialized pieces, including armoire, bureau, commode, and chaise longue. http://waywordradio.org

1670-Caller-Judy-Chiffarobe

A San Diego, California, listener has observed that some advertising slogans that omit articles, such as Get iPhone 14 Pro or Do what’s best for Baby. The phrasing is intentional. Advertising often relies on a compressed, headline-like style that treats a product name as if it were unique, almost like a proper noun. Removing articles creates a sleeker rhythm and positions the item as iconic rather than ordinary, so iPhone or Baby in these phrases feels elevated and universal rather than tied to a single device or child. In the 1938 film Bringing Up Baby, the Baby being brought up is a leopard. Geoffrey Leech’s 1966 book English in Advertising addresses this topic. http://waywordradio.org

1670-Caller-Shannon-Omiting-Articles-In-Advertising

Terry from Franklin, Indiana, recalls a moment of confusion when she was working on a horse farm in south-central Pennsylvania. She asked a co-worker, "Are we going to let the stallions out today?" The co-worker responded, "No, they're already in." Terry says the conversation devolved into “Who's On First?” routine, because Terry didn’t understand that in that part of the United States, where the dialect is heavily influenced by German, let can mean “leave.” Other expressions heard in that area include leave the horse go or leave the book sit, all reflecting the multiple meanings of the German verb lassen. http://waywordradio.org

1670-Caller-Terry-Let

The rare adjective finifugal describes someone “averse to endings” or “wishing something could go on forever,” whether it’s a book, a beloved TV series, a podcast, or anything else you don’t want to end. It comes from Latin finis, “end,” and fuga, “flight.” http://waywordradio.org

1670-Finifugal

Ekphrasis is the literary device of depicting a visual work with a verbal description. A new anthology, Ensnaring the Moment: On the Intersection of Poetry and Photography, gathers the ekphrastic poetry of more than 100 poets writing specifically in response to photographs. Edited by art critic Leah Ollman, this collection treats poems as gateways into images, and images as doorways into memory. In the poem “Things that Lose by Being Photographed” by Rebecca Lindenberg succinctly conjures a winter scene with moonlight sugaring snow, two people dancing slowly, and a penny-colored dog shifting paws in the cold—a moment captured in a photograph that becomes a tender meditation on ordinary beauty. This poem is shared with permission of the poet. http://waywordradio.org

1670-Lex-Bag-Ensnaring-The-Moment

A Southern California resort for nudists—or naturists, as some prefer to be called—had a recent change of management, and residents received a notice that the place will now become a textile park. The word textile is often used in that community as an adjective to distinguish between those who prefer clothing and those who make a habit of going without. http://waywordradio.org

1670-Textile

As long as there has been photographic and video imagery, there have been manipulated videos and photos. But only in the last decade or so have the public become aware of what are known as “deepfakes”, computer or AI generated fake images, often of celebrities. The spread of deepfake imagery raises questions about truth and authenticity online – can we still trust what we see on screen?

To discuss deepfakes, and the idea of trust and authenticity in the digital sphere more broadly, the Phelan US Centre spoke to Dr Gili Vidan, Assistant Professor of Information Science at Cornell University’s Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Avan Fata.

Further reading and resources

•	Robert Chesney & Danielle K. Citron, Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge for Privacy, Democracy, and National Security,107 California Law Review 1753 (2019).
•	Habgood-Coote, Joshua (2023). Deepfakes and the epistemic apocalypse. Synthese 201 (3):1-23.

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LSE: The Ballpark | AI and deepfakes with Dr Gili Vidan

Promuove e produce cultura, tutti i giorni, per tutti, nelle sue tre sedi – Torino, Novara e Rivoli – con rassegne e festival. Un progetto di Regione Piemonte

A spasso per Torino con... Giuseppe Culicchia - Porta Palazzo e il Balon

Fondazione Circolo dei lettori

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