Earth song- Tenor (Frank Ticheli)

Carrie Ann and her cousin Danielle from Minneapolis, Minnesota, wonder about the pronunciation of the word rhetoric. Is the stress on the first syllable or the second? http://waywordradio.org

1656-Caller-Carrie-Ann-Rhetoric

Emily in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is married to a native Dutch speaker, who points out that they buy groceries in a store, so why doesn't grocery denote just one of those items and not the store where they're sold. Originally, the French word grosserie referred to "wholesale goods"; it's a relative of English gross, meaning "large" or "a large quantity." French grosserie eventually led to English grocer, "the seller of those goods." Later, grocery was applied the profession of selling such items. Three centuries later, grocery came to refer to the store itself, and in the early 20th century, people began using the word groceries to refer to the items being sold from a grocery. The word groceries is what's called a plurale tantem, which refers to words that exist mainly in the plural form, such as scissors, pants, and eyeglasses. http://waywordradio.org

1656-Caller-Emily-Groceries

In parts of Appalachia, the expression give someone down the road means "to reprimand" someone or "tell someone to get lost." In Ireland, to give someone down the banks has a somewhat similar meaning, apparently referring to pushing that person into a peat bog. http://waywordradio.org

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Mark in Bismarck, North Dakota, spent years as a sailor, and wonders about the term sea painter, meaning "a rope attached to a lifeboat." Why painter? The word may derive from Middle French pendeur meaning "a kind of rope," literally, something that suspends, from pendre, meaning "to hang," a relative of such "hanging" words as pendant, pendulum, pending, and pendulous. The word painter took on the meaning of "a rope for hanging a boat on a ship." Metaphorically, to slip the painter or to cut the painter means "to break free." http://waywordradio.org

1656-Caller-Mark-Sea-Painter

Is Murphy's Law, or the idea that "anything that can go wrong will go wrong" a slur against the Irish? http://waywordradio.org

1656-Caller-Maureen-Murphy's-Law

Rosalind from Montgomery, Alabama, says her mother used to scold her for acting like a starnadle fool. The more common version of this term is starnated fool, a term that appears particular to Black English, and appears in the work of such writers as Kiese Laymon, who includes it in his memoir about growing up Black in Mississippi, Heavy (Bookshop|Amazon).
The word's origin is unclear, although it might have evolved from stark naked. http://waywordradio.org

1656-Caller-Rosalind-Starnadle-Fool

A Winter Dictionary (Bookshop|Amazon) by Paul Anthony Jones includes some words to lift your spirits. The verb whicken involves the lengthening of days in springtime, a variant of quicken, meaning "come to life." Another word, breard, is an old term that means "the first shoots of a plant visible above the earth." Jones is also a big fan of the uplifting word respair. http://waywordradio.org

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The new book Bye Bye I Love You: The Story of Our First and Last Words (Bookshop|Amazon) by linguist Michael Erard is a deeply researched, often intensely personal exploration of the ways people communicate at both the beginning and end of life. http://waywordradio.org

1656-Lex-Bag-Bye-Bye-I-Love-You

Quiz Guy John Chaneski's puzzle this week involves Pig Latin, a.k.a. Ig-pay Atin-lay. One of two answers to each clue is a regular English word, and the other is its Pig Latin version. For example, what regular English word and its Pig Latin version are suggested by the definitions "having started and in progress" and "a feeling of surprise mixed with admiration"? http://waywordradio.org

1656-Word-Quiz-Pig-Latin

in February 2025 the Phelan US Centre spoke to Michael Latner, Professor of Political Science at California Polytechnic State University and Director of Research on Democratic Reform at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School.   

They discussed the recent history of voting rights and the state of democracy in America in 2025.  

This episode was produced by Chris Gilson and Luke Digweed.   

Further reading and resources 

Keena, A., Latner, M., McGann, A.J.M. and Smith, C.A. (2021). Gerrymandering the States. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108995849  

The Guinier Project at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute - https://charleshamiltonhouston.org/events/a-convening-race-reform-and-multiracial-democracy/  

Earth song- Tenor (Frank Ticheli)

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