In this episode, Amy thumbs through a variety of definitions of “tab” (18:30 – with a side-trip into the story of “tag” at 34:20) and Ryan tries not to get ambushed by “fear” (41:40).
Also, thanks to new Patreon supporter, Laurel (0:55) and to Luca for (1:30) for transcribing a couple of our early episodes!!
We also talk about a guy who doesn’t speak/know Scots writing the bulk of Scots Wikipedia (4:30).
Here’s the “Acronymphomania” article Amy talked about.
Lexitecture is a podcast about words. In each episode, a Canadian (Ryan) and a Scot (Amy) each present their current favourite word and talk about its origins, current use, and try to puzzle out how it may have gone from A to B. If you love thinking and talking about words, word origins, or just random bits of head-scratching language trivia, this may be the show for you!
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Your discussion of how “fear” originated as a an external thing (sudden attack or danger), not the emotion itself, got me thinking about how we moderns are so attuned to the language of emotion. It reminds me of the shifting focus in literature from external drama to internal drama, from traditional tales (plot-oriented) through early modern theater (becoming more character-oriented) to the novel (increasingly more internal and emotion-focused).
It reminded me, too, of an episode from the podcast “Radiolab” called “Words,” in which they describe the way a community of Nicaraguan deaf children who hadn’t been taught sign language generated their own simple sign language, and how the next generation of children refined that language to make it better able to describe nuanced abstractions and mental states.
My 12th graders have been noticing how the fairy tales we study speak so matter-of-factly about ghastly events, and how little the tales say about characters’ feelings. I plan to use this etymology to illustrate the way discourse often moves over time from the concrete to the abstract.
Thanks so much for your podcast generally and this episode in particular. As an American listener, I’m charmed by the subtle exoticism of Ryan’s accent and the blazing exoticism of Amy’s. Your curiosity and enthusiasm and friendly digressions make the podcast fun as well as enlightening.
I love that story about the development of Nicaraguan sign language!
Thanks so much for the kind words – glad you’re enjoying all our various levels of exoticism!