Mental Fries/Vocal Floss

Megan and Carrie talk to Erin McCarthy,  Editor-in-Chief of Mental Floss, about her new book (with the Mental Floss team), Mental Floss Curious Compendium of Wonderful Words: A Miscellany of Obscure Terms, Bizarre Phrases & Surprising Etymologies

• Silver Lining of pandemic 

Chapters

• 6:07 Interview with Erin McCarthy

Transcript

Megan Figueroa: Hi, and welcome to the Vocal Fries Podcast, the podcast about linguistic discrimination.

Carrie Gillon: I'm Carrie Gillon.

Megan: I'm Megan Figueroa.

Carrie: We just recorded the whole intro except that I was not recording somehow. So, now we've to do it all again, so take two.

Megan: Hashtag podcast life. Happy anniversary.

Carrie: Yes. Happy anniversary. We made it six years. Crazy.

Megan: Six years. I'm just so proud of us going along with this Indie podcast. We probably could have sold out a long time ago.

Carrie: The conversation has an article that was sent to us by one of our Patreon supporters, so just a reminder, you can support us at patreon.com/vocalfries pod.

Megan: Yes. We appreciate you so much, all of you.

Carrie: It helps us a lot. Anyway, so Diego Diaz sent to us and he also said something along the lines of, "Oh, Megan will be really happy about this." A silver lining from the pandemic. How lockdowns helped kids learn the languages their parents speak. 

Megan: This is chill inducing for me because this is basically why I became a linguist. I wanted so badly to understand why people can start out speaking a language and then it disappears, what I thought of disappearing or you start out speaking a language, you learn another language, and then you don't teach your child that language that you started off with, which is my case. It's all kind of related to what happens when kids get to school. And to hear that, in the pandemic when the kids weren't actually going into school and in this school culture, they were learning and starting to speak their languages of their home. It was sticking because they were spending time with other speakers of that language. 

Carrie: Yeah. They were spending more time with their parents and siblings. 

Megan: Yeah. 

Carrie: They would be able to speak that home language,

Megan: Right. Yeah. Absolutely, and not immediately when they start, at least in the US when they start public school or whatever school, exposed to school culture, that's very, very like rooted in Monolingualism. It didn't have to be, but that's the way that our country went for lots of reasons, xenophobia, racism, all of that. But yeah, no, so once they get to school, kids are so smart and they realize what's happening. They realize that English is the language they need to speak to basically survive, to make friends to do all of that.

Carrie: Yeah. I mean they perceive it as the cool language.

Megan: Yeah. 

Carrie: Yeah. Their peers are speaking it.

Megan: Yeah. Most of their peers are speaking it. I went to a school that was over 90% Latinx and most of my peers were speaking English, and most of my peers were Mexican-American too. A lot of Mexican-Americans by the third generation are speaking English exclusively. So, even if you are around, other kids that are culturally like you, the culture has shifted so the language is gone. Yeah, kids know that English is the ticket. 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Megan: Yeah, even if their parents speak Spanish or whatever other language.

Carrie: Whenever I think about these things, I'm always like, "Well, they're going to speak English no matter what."

Megan: Yeah. 

Carrie: It's the language around them. They're going to get it basically for free. 

Megan: Yeah. 

Carrie: Not the literacy side, but like the spoken side. So, we don't need to panic about it, them learning it, they will learn it. 

Megan: Right. 

Carrie: But of course that's moral panic about it all the time.

Megan: Yes. This moral panic as these moral panics, has moral panics tend to be, is like rooted in the foundation is sinking. It's not a sturdy foundation of why you would think that, like you need to panic about children learning English. They are going to get it for free. Like you said, it's the language in the home that's at risk.

Carrie: Yeah.

Megan: It's at risk because we put it at risk by this culture that we live in. 

Carrie: Yes, entirely our fault, well, our society's fault. That these languages are at risk in any shape or form.

Megan: Yeah, absolutely.

Carrie: We definitely train our children to think about language in a certain way, which is really harmful. Then we carry it as adults, we carry it forward, the message that we've learned unless we unlearn them, which is the whole point of this podcast.

Megan: Exactly. Yeah. Well, this is a very good advertisement for the podcast. Yes.

Carrie: Our own podcast. Our own episode is an advertisement for the podcast. Yes.

Megan: Exactly. Yes. Share this episode with someone who is not listening so that it can be a true advertisement. Well, I'm just so glad to hear of this silver lining. People were so worried about kids not going into actual school, but we didn't think about the kind of things that we could be grateful for in those moments. Like spending more time with family if you're able to do that. 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Megan: Something like this, like having more time to learn and to speak and more opportunities to learn and to speak the home language. Yeah.

Carrie: Yeah, to be become like really bilingual, which is a good thing.

Megan: Yeah, absolutely. It is a good thing and we need to stop thinking it's not a good thing and it's a good thing for everyone.

Carrie: Yeah. It's just a good thing. And we should treat it that way.

Megan: We should.

Carrie: Anyway, we have a really interesting episode today.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: Super fun talking about words.

Megan: Love words.

Carrie: Phrases and etymologies, et cetera.

Megan: Yes. It's another book episode. I just love books. I love books about language and words and all of of that. Yeah.

Carrie: Yeah. It's a fun one.

Megan: It's a fun one. So, enjoy.

Carrie: Enjoy.

Megan: Today we are so excited to have Erin McCarthy who is the editor-in-chief of MentalFloss.com, host of The List Show and Throwback on YouTube, editor of Mental Floss's book The Curious Reader and producer of the History Vs. podcast. Her work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Town and Country Parents and Esquire. It is my great pleasure to say that there is a new fun book out that we're here to talk with Erin about Mental Floss: The Curious Compendium of Wonderful words, A Miscellany of Obscure Terms, Bizarre Phrases & Surprising Etymologies. Thank you so much for being here, Erin. 

Carrie: Yeah, thank you.

Erin McCarthy: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited.

Megan: I'm so excited about this. I just telling Carrie I've been reading Mental Floss forever, I think the length of the articles are perfect. It's like you get a hit of knowledge and the perfect amount of words.

Erin: Yes, our whole mission is to teach our readers something with every single thing that we publish. I often say that like "We want our readers to be the smartest person at a party and then if they're at a party with a nuclear physicist, okay, maybe they're not the smartest, but at least they're the most interesting." They're going to be able to talk about a little bit of everything. So, I love that you're a big fan and that you're a reader.

Megan: Oh, yeah. I got to say that as someone with a PhD, it does not make you interesting, it's not something that comes with the degree. No, I totally get that. Also, that's what the name of the outlet is supposed to make you think of, I assume, right? Mental Floss. Yeah. I don't know. This is why we have a podcast too and why Carrie and I are so into Cycom is that this stuff is really interesting. Like linguistics is so interesting, we want more people to get into it, but so many linguists are not interesting and I mean that like with love, it's just different way of communicating.

Erin: It really is, like we want to make sure that we're communicating things in a way that anyone can understand. So, often if a linguist is pitching me, I will say, "Talk to me like I'm five." Because some of this stuff, it's like right over my head. But I'm very much a layperson, like not a linguist, which I feel is important to say when talking about this book. But I also just, because you brought up the name Mental Floss, learned something new the other day. I was editing a list of slang terms from the 1930s and I think that Will and Mangesh who co-founded Mental Floss were thinking more about the pun of flossing your brain or whatever. But apparently floss was also a slang term from the 1930s for like bragging about stuff. So, it's like, "Oh, you can brag about your mental acuity," that can also mean...

Megan: Of course, they knew that. I'm sure.

Erin: They may have. I haven't actually spoken with them about it, but I just found that out the other day and I was like, "Oh, that's something I'm going to be storing away in the old noggin to talk about later. Yeah.

Megan: I thought you were going to say it was like a dance.

Carrie: Well, there is a dance move, right? 

Erin: There is, I can't do it. It's called flossing and it's like you move your arms in a very particular way, like around your body while moving your hips and like "I can't do it."

Carrie: Cheaty does it on, on a good place.

Megan: Oh, okay. That's flossing. Yes, of course. Okay.

Carrie: Yeah. I can technically do it but don't look good at doing it, so I'll not do it in public.

Megan: Have you done it in front of a mirror to...

Carrie: No. 

Megan: Are you being hard on yourself? I think you look great. I don't know.

Carrie: I have other moves that are better.

Megan: Yes. Anyways, why did you want to compile and write this book and why now?

Erin: Yeah, so the language vertical has been a part of Mental Flosses DNA since at least I joined all the way back in 2012. So, for as long as I've been with Mental Floss and it's one of our most popular verticals, we're covering fun old fashioned slang terms and like the origins of phrases that come flying out of our mouths that make us pause and go, "Wait, why do we say that?" Then getting into all kinds of like use this word, not that word or like explaining grammar rules to our readers as well and why the English language is the way it is? Because I think we can all agree, it can be weird. We had this just like plethora, is plethora the right word I want to use? We have a lot of content. 

Megan:  Yeah, plethora.

Carrie: Yes, that works.

Erin: We had all this stuff, it's one thing that we particularly get really excited about and end up talking about a lot. So, it just felt like a really good fit for a book, especially when you consider that it's also one of our most popular verticals. We took a lot of the stuff from the site and then we also came up with a number of news stories to pop in there. So, there are things that are exclusive to the book and yeah, I'm actually surprised it didn't occur to us sooner. I don't know why, we've done books on our literary and book content and our entertainment content and this one was right under our noses so we're thrilled. I think like partially too, there's a lot of enthusiasm for word games right now, like Wordle and I mean enthusiasm for Scrabble has been around for decades so that's nothing new. But I do think right now there's a lot of enthusiasm for just word stuff in general. So, it felt like the right time. 

Megan: Yeah. When I was thinking about and why now I was just like, "This is exactly as you said, surprising that they haven't done this before." Because I feel like every time someone shares like an article actually click on that's about words, it's Mental Floss, it's a Mental Floss article because so many other outlets don't do it right and I'll just say that and Carrie's nodding her head she knows. I'm going to skip ahead a question that we had because you said you're not a linguist, but I think it's clear that you consult linguists and I wonder is there anyone on staff that's a linguist or is it linguists reaching out to you? There's an example from the book where you talk about the 10 most common, what is it?

Erin: Commonly misused words, right? 

Megan: Yes. This book is descriptivist from my reading and you write language isn't static, it evolves over time with words taking on new meanings based on common usage, whether correct or not. That's clearly a descriptiveness approach in how we view language and I wonder about the linguistics connection.

Erin: Yeah, there are no linguists on staff. We're all just in enthusiasts and I think we are very much in favor of the descriptivist way that language is used. I think we'll probably talk a little bit more about that as we go. So we have some freelance writers who are linguists who are experts and we will reach out to linguists if we feel like we need something explained to us that we're not finding just in our research. But at our hearts we're just enthusiasts and we're pulling from a lot of different sources as well, like in the course of our research. So, none of it happens in a vacuum and that's something else I should bring up, my name is on the book. But it was very much a team effort and I think that there are people on the staff who are much smarter about like grammar rules than I'll ever be. Maybe because they came out of school a little bit more recently than I did, so it's all still fresh in their very young minds. They're young and supple minds. 

Megan: Yes.

Erin: But yeah, it was a team effort. Just want to give a shout out to the team because they're incredible. Oh, man, I think language is fascinating, of course, so old time slang terms are kind of my jam. I'm just obsessed with them. That part of it is always really fun. But also I think there's power to language, right? Looking into the origins of words and how they've evolved over time, it can be a really interesting and informative process. I think for me just being curious about those things is what it comes down to. But yes, of course, old time slang is like the jam. Like one of my favorite Victorian phrases is "Got the morbs." 

Carrie: Oh yeah. 

Erin: Which is describes temporary melancholy is very evocative and then I also love, and this is the thing too, like our coverage runs the gamut from like,"Oh, hey, here's some phrases that you use that probably have racist origins." So, maybe you won't want to use those anymore to, "Hey, are you looking for a new slang term for fart? Here's a list of 30 different words you can use. So, we're really a little bit all over the place, but I think that's kind of what makes it fun and keeps it interesting.

Carrie: I do love it, I've got the Morbs. I don't remember when I first read that, but I was like, "That is so perfect." That's exactly how I feel right now.

Erin: It's so good

Megan: I love it. I'm going to start using that. It shows you that like clipping words like Morbs is something that we've been doing...

Erin: Forever. 

Megan: Yeah. Like all of these things that we do to words to create phrases and all these things, it's like...

Carrie: "It's a Morphin time."

Megan: Oh, my God. Is that like a meme or something or did you just make that up?

Carrie: Oh, it's a meme. It's a meme when Morbius came out it nevermind the whole thing.

Erin: Because I was just thinking that it's like Morphin time, like the Power Rangers,

Carrie: It probably was influenced by that, yeah.

Erin: Yes. But Morpheus was a surprise. It was not a great movie. If we're going to talk about movie opinions.

Carrie: I never saw it, looked terrible.

Erin: It's not great but like it's a very specific type of movie where if you're looking for a good bad movie, it would be one of my picks because it's just kind of outlandish and I feel like some of the people involved understood exactly the kind of movie that they were making.

Carrie: Right. I love that actually when people actually know what they're doing somehow it's like, "Yeah, it's tasty."

Erin: Yes, good stuff.

Carrie: You gave us your favorite old time slang term. What about your favorite word?

Megan: You had to be expecting this question. I feel like your face tells me that you weren't, but also that you must have.

Erin: Well, I did put one of my favorites in the back of the book and it's kerfuffle that is mine. But sometimes I will say kerfluffle, which is a word that I wish existed. 

Carrie: Well, it does now. 

Erin: It does now. Do you know what I mean? 

Megan: I feel like that's like a low key egg corn. 

Erin: Could be.

Megan: Because fluffy or fluffle or what do you think Carrie? What is it like you're thinking of other words?

Carrie: I wouldn't call that an egg corn, but more of a flip of the tongue. I don't know. I don't know what...

Megan: Yeah, because I feel like you're pulling from fluffy, right? Probably, it's in your head.

Erin: Yeah, I'm thinking about cats.

Megan: Right. Always

Erin: I'm pulling from...

Megan: Always. Yes

Erin: All day every day. It always goes back to the cats.

Megan: Yes.

Carrie: How about obscure term?

Erin: Oh, boy, let me think. 

Carrie: This one you might not have expected.

Erin: No, I definitely have one. Hold on, let me just pull up, so I wrote the alphabet of obscure terms in the beginning. So, you think I have one right off the top of my head but I don't but I will tell you. Oh, okay, bespattered is one of my favorites. It's like another term for something spattered with mud. But like it sounds so much more poetic to say that you're be spattered with mud. So, I really like that one and Jig and Bob is also really funny because it's just like Thingamabob, but it's Jig and Bob and Thingamabob can sometimes be used to refer to a person but Jig and Bob isn't. So, those are the kinds of fun things that you will learn when you read this. But yeah, bespattered is my fave.

Megan: Okay. Actually, let me ask you first, what is your favorite surprising etymology?

Erin: Oh, okay. I was particularly thrilled with the etymology for close but no cigar in terms of a phrase because I feel like it's a really good example of something that we use all the time and maybe have never thought about where it comes from but it comes from carnival games, which when you think about it makes a lot of sense. Like back in the day when you were on the Midway and you were trying to win a prize through one of those games which are always rigged in the house's favor if maybe you hit a couple of things but didn't get all of them. I guess I should back up and say the prizes at that point in time were not like cute stuffed animals or like goldfish, it was a cigar and so if you didn't win, the operator of the game would say close but no cigar, so it makes sense but it wasn't something that I knew before we started working on this, that's one of my faves and I think it's appropriate for summer.

Carrie: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, our equivalent to the state fair is about to start next month.

Megan: Yeah, we have ours a little bit later because it's hot as fuck here. Here in the desert. Yes. My favorite surprising etymology, I just have to bring this up because Carrie will like it too is clue. 

Erin: Oh, yeah. 

Megan: It says the word clue is a variant of clew. A word for a ball of yarn or thread and it comes to us from middle and old English. The ball of yarn in question is a handy method for finding your way out of a labyrinth as Greek mythologies Theseus did after killing the Minotaur. I love it. Yarn is a big, big factor in my life.

Erin: Are you a big crocheter?

Megan: I weave.

Erin: Okay, that's awesome.

Megan: Yeah. Carrie is knitting right now, right? Or crocheting? 

Carrie: I'm not doing either at this exact moment. I just have to weave in the ends of this baby blanket that I just finished.

Megan: Oh, is it for your nephew?

Carrie: No, my nephew is not a baby, he's about to enter kindergarten.

Megan: it's a baby. Yeah, so those are the kind of fun things, every page I was like "What? Cool. Awesome." Or like, Aargh, what?" There are all sorts I guess like running the gamut, all of the feelings while reading this, which is good.

Erin: I love that. Yeah, we definitely wanted it to be like fun and informative and give you little surprises everywhere.

Megan: Something to bring up at a cocktail party. Right? Or at your book club. It'll be fun anywhere.

Erin: A hundred percent.

Megan: You talked about obscure terms that you liked. I wonder what does it mean when it says like obsolete or rare next to a word in the dictionary and what do you think about that when you see it?

Erin: Yeah, to me, when I see it it's like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I'm like "Ah, I want to learn more about that." Also, one of the coolest things about the Oxford English Dictionary's website I just have to say is they have this thing when you're putting in the definition it says loss for words and you can click it and it'll bring up like different words for you to click on. I spent so much time on that website just like going down the rabbit hole of just fun words. But so yeah, when you're seeing something rare, obsolete, it just means it's fallen out of usage like we're not seeing it in texts. People probably aren't using it in conversations much anymore. So, for me, I do hear that little bell in my head like, "Ah, this is fodder for something." We could write a story about this or include it in a piece. I love those words because again, like I often find that the words of the past were so much more delightful. I don't know what it is. They're just, a lot of them are much more whimsical than the words that we're using today.

Megan: What's whimsical and damning.

Erin: Some of them are not so good for sure. 

Megan: Yeah.

Erin: Yeah, a lot of them are very cute or fun to use. Another one of my favorite obscure terms is actually an insult. It's slugabed, which is basically a person who stays in bed late and I have to say I'm a slugabed.

Megan: Yeah, me too.

Erin: You can't drag me out to bed on the weekends. I would love to stay there.

Megan: Right. Well, thank you for being here by the way, on a weekend.

Erin: It's like two o'clock if I'm not out of bed by two o'clock on the weekend. I don't know. But yeah like love, love my bed. So, that's a fun one. It's supposed to be an insult but like, it's a badge I wear with pride. A girl needs her rest.

Carrie: Seriously, there's way too many things going on in the world. Let me just at least rest my brain.

Megan: Exactly. We can floss it and we can also rest it. Right?

Carrie: There's definitely time for both.

Megan: Yeah, I was thinking because what my favorite word for some reason or I guess my favorite verb is to smite. 

Erin: Ooh. 

Megan: This is why I said or damning because I feel like there's just these I guess it's probably religious.

Carrie: Probably. I know how many times it's in the Old Testament.

Megan: I have like an amazingly low amount of knowledge about the Bible.

Carrie: Didn't you go to church?

Megan: No. Oh, no. Okay. No. The only time I went to church was like for my cousin's baptisms and stuff and weddings where you have to go through mass but I didn't understand what they were saying so. 

Carrie: Okay, fair enough. 

Megan: Yeah but smite and so I was just looking it up and the OED as we call it the Oxford English Dictionary and it's not rare, obsolete. That's good. There is a rare, of course, obsolete usages of it, but I'm glad to know that it's still being used. I don't read it very often or hear people, but probably because I don't go to church. I don't don't know.

Carrie: I mean I would say definitely is used in church but I don't know, it's maybe slightly less than medium average use. I don't know. It's like I still hear it for sure. 

Erin: I feel like people probably aren't smiting things.

Carrie: Absolutely.

Erin: Maybe at some point it will become obscure or rare or obsolete, but not if we keep using it. 

Megan: Right. Because guess what Smote comes from that Somot. Yeah, I just love the word so much. I actually, you'll like this Erin, I had in 9th grade, my English teacher was amazing and our big project was we had to go to the library and get the OED actual, like open the OED, find one word and write 1000 words on it.

Erin: What an incredible project. 

Megan: She was a linguist or entomologist. Yeah, I chose the word maverick before it was cool or made uncool.

Erin: Depending on how you look at it.

Megan: She gave me this when I graduated with my master's, a little Shakespeare bus.

Erin: Oh, I love it, it's a very nice looking one too. He's very handsome in that one.

Megan: Yeah, apparently from Japan. 

Erin: Ooh.

Carrie: I also have an OED story. I don't remember one of the old school online dating sites and this guy, we were having a fight over a meeting of a word, which why? Why? I don't know. I went to the OED to tell him, "No it really means this." He was like, "Oh, that's only for British speakers of English." I was like, "No, it isn't." I think I ended the conversation there like, "Why am I having this fight?"

Erin: Yeah. It's like, "I don't know if this is going to work out." 

Carrie: Oh, definitely not. Why am I wasting my time? 

Erin: Right. Oh, my gosh.

Carrie: I was like, "I don't know." 2010, I think.

Erin: There should be a dating app for Log Files. That would be.

Carrie: Oh, yes.

Megan: Yes. That'd be fun.

Erin: Such a cool dating app.

Megan: It would be.

Carrie: Yeah.

Erin: Let's make it happen. 

Carrie: Let's make it happen.

Erin: I don't know how to build an app.

Carrie: No, me either. But we probably know somebody. Somebody knows somebody who can help us. 

Erin: Yes.

Megan: Yeah, exactly. That sounds lucrative, I'm just saying. 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Megan: Fun. But here's...

Carrie: Continuing on with favorites. 

Megan: Yeah. What's your favorite collective now, and for a group of animals or anything? What's your favorite collective now?

Erin: Ooh, this is so hard.

Carrie: This one's hard for me too.

Erin: There are so many good ones. All right. Hold on. Let me just...

Megan: I have an easy favorite. It's an unkindness of ravens.

Erin: Oh, yeah.

Megan: Although that's not really group, it's two of them.

Erin: Oh, let's see. I think a dazzle of zebras is pretty good.

Megan: That's fun. 

Carrie: Ooh.

Erin: It fits. 

Megan: It does.

Carrie: Yeah. 

Megan: Yeah.

Erin: Fits the animal.

Megan: Yeah, a little razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. I always think of zebras and a bow tie. 

Erin: Yeah.

Megan:. When I hear a razzle or a dazzle of Zebras...

Erin: Doesn't just make you want to do jazz hands?

Megan: I guess that's why like maybe I'm imagining like there's a jazz room or I don't know. But yes, a little bow tie.

Erin: I love that. But I also think a destruction of cats is pretty good. 

Megan: I've never heard that.

Carrie: That is too true.

Erin: Well, it's apparently only for feral cats. If you're looking at domesticated cats, it's a clowder, which also is just like, I don't know, like a clowder. I like the way it sounds, but a destruction of cats, it just feels really apt because they're pushing things off of tables. My cat threw up on my suitcase that I had left out for her to lay on the other night. So, she's just like destructive and yet we love them.

Carrie: Oh, yeah. Little baby hooligans.

Megan: They are.

Erin: I don't know about you, but that sound that they make when they are about to hack up a hairball, I could be dead and a cat could make that noise and I would rise from the grave. I swear to God.

Megan: Yes. It's funny.

Erin: It's just like you hear it happening and you're like, "Bam, I'm up."

Carrie: I gotta take this cat off of my bed. They're not doing it here.

Erin: Oh, my God. hat would be a good alarm clock. 

Carrie: Yeah, it's worked a couple of times for me for sure.

Megan: What's an egg corn? Do you have any favorites?

Erin: Ooh, okay, so an egg corn, it's a word or a phrase that has essentially been misheard, right? So, a common phrase that has been misheard or reinterpreted in a different way. So, for me, I think take for granted is a really fun one. The correct phrase using air quotes there is take for granted. But I think probably the one that I use or that I'm constantly thinking about myself is free rein. If I'm writing it out, I'm always like, "Wait, I always have to pause and think, is that rein or reign? It is rein, it's horses not kings but I always have to think about it.

Carrie: Yeah, I would have to think about that too. I don't write it enough to think about it but I would, I'd have to stop.

Erin: But you know what? I also find, and I don't know, maybe there's some sort of linguistic reason for this, but I find I have to stop and do that a lot anymore because I find that I'm like taking in like spelling errors all the time and sometimes I will actually spell words the way they sound. Like the other day I spelled garden, guarden. I was like, "no, go back."

Megan: Well, it's English spelling is just a racket.

Erin: It's true. Like Noah Webster and Theodore Roosevelt were really onto something when they were like maybe we should simplify this stuff.

Megan: Right. Carrie, Linguist-Linguist. Did you just hear her say a lot anymore?

Carrie: I heard her say positive anymore. Yes.

Megan: Yes. Sorry.

Carrie: It's not the a lot that's interesting. It's the anymore in a positive context. Yeah.

Megan: A lot anymore. Okay.

Erin: I love it. 

Carrie: Yeah, for me, I can only use it. Well, we call them negative polarity items, so I can only use it in these like specialized contexts. So, generally negative like he doesn't go grocery shopping anymore.

Erin: Yeah.

Carrie: Yeah. But you have positive anymore and then always breaks my brain, every single time.

Megan: I know. I saw Carrie's face and I was like, "Oh, she heard it too.

Erin: Yeah. I love that. 

Carrie: Is that a regional thing? 

Erin: Yes. 

Carrie: Where are you from, Erin?

Erin: I grew up in Pennsylvania and I live in New York now, so Northeast baby.

Megan: Yeah, Northeast would be a place where it would be.

Carrie: Yeah, it's definitely there but it's bigger than that but yes. Yeah, it is regional. 

Megan: Yeah.

Erin: Another one that I have to stop and think about now that I never had to stop and think about before is sneak peek because people so often misspell it spell peak.

Megan: Oh, God. 

Carrie: Oh, yeah. 

Megan: Right. It's peek.

Erin: Actually, a former editor had this whole sort of thing where she would see it and she'd see them as spelling and she would think about this like mountain with eyes on it, like looking off to the side. Now, I'm always like, "No, it's not the sneaky peak." This is the jokes that we have in the in Mental Floss that she like literally once drew a little illustration. That's what I think of in my head when when I make that mistake and then have to go back and catch myself and go back and fix it.

Megan: Yeah, your job sounds a lot more fun than. 

Carrie: A lot of other people. 

Megan: A lot of other people's, yeah.

Erin: It's very true. I think obviously I'm biased but I think Mental Floss is the best place in the world because if you're a curious person you really do just kind of get to follow that thread wherever it leads. I feel very fortunate, very lucky. 

Megan: Well, you've been with them for a while, right?

Erin: Yeah. I think 11 years, basically.

Megan: I associate your name with Mental Floss. Again, very exciting to meet you. Yeah.

Erin: Not to take away from everyone that helped compile the book and everything. 

Erin: Yeah. No, it's fine. At this point, I feel like it's like part of who I am for real. It's not surprising to me that I'm everywhere so that doesn't help

Megan: A few more questions came up for me when I was reading this, or a few more thoughts, so you mentioned Wordle as maybe a good time right now to bring up things because everyone's getting into Word games and people that maybe hadn't played any sort of Word game before. I don't do any Word games because I tend to be terrible at them.

Erin: Really?

Megan: Yeah, right now, how you're surprised a lot of people tend to be surprised about it, but I'm terrible at Scrabble and I also am a big fan of Poe. So will you tell us the connection between Scrabble and Poe?

Erin: Yes, this is really surprising and I think maybe something that people don't know but so back in the day and by back in the day, I mean like in the 40s or something, Alfred Butts was unemployed and he was reading Poe's story called the Gold-Bug and in that story there's a character that calculates the popularity of English letters. There's a cipher that's based on the popularity of letters in the English language. So, Poe came up with this like order of popularity, which he didn't get quite right, but it sort of set off this light bulb in Butts's his head and because he was unemployed and he was studying games at the time, he had some time on his hands. So, what he ended up doing was creating his own ranking. He was going through newspapers like the New York Times and the New York Carols and counting the percentage of letters or whatever, which to me, I just do not have the patience for that kind of thing so it blows my mind a little bit. 

Yeah, he went through and he counted how many times all the letters were used and then he created this little grid. When I say a little grid, it's complicated. You can actually go on Wikipedia and they have it there and it's like it's complicated. So, then he came up with his own calculation for the frequency of letters used in the English language and then he made up a game based on that and initially he called it Lexicon and then he called it Crisscross words. Then he brought on a business partner who was like, "Here are a few changes I'd make and you know what? Why don't we call it instead of Crisscross words, let's call it Scrabble." The game actually wasn't initially very popular, but it was picked up by Macy's because I guess the chairman of the store saw it on vacation or something in the early 50s and he was like, "Hey, this is a fun game." So, he ordered all of these sets for his stores and it just took off from there. Now, it's something that we are all obsessed with.

Megan: I think it's funny because I'm like, "Yeah, I get how it wouldn't have been popular at first because like I was like, how is this a game?" But I think it's probably because I'm just like hurt that I'm not great at it. But it's like a strategy game. It's not just like you have to be a word nerd. There's so much strategy to it. Like knowing the two letter were like all of these things. 

Carrie: Yeah, and trying to get the big numbers, the high value letters on the triple scores and stuff like that.

Megan: Which would be the opposite of their frequency. 

Carrie: Yeah. The less frequent when he did this grid.

Erin: Yeah, it is a strategy grid, but I also think there's a fair amount of luck involved, right? Because it is based on like what you end up pulling out of the bag and that's kind of what makes it fun. I'm good at Scrabble but I'm not like playing with a strategy. So, maybe it's more luck for me than it is for other people who are literally thinking about what the highest scoring words are. I'm just like, "What can I possibly spell with this combination of letters that I pulled out of the bag." But I really enjoy it, it's a nice mental exercise. Wordle I enjoy a little bit less because I find that I don't have the patience for it. I think there's something about it being on a computer that makes me where I'm like, "I can't." Like that to me requires more strategic thinking or more careful consideration than Scrabble does, maybe.

Megan: No words with friends for you, you weren't into that?

Erin: I played it, but not a lot. Sometimes like if my husband and I are on like a long train ride or something, we'll pull out the Scrabble. But I think it is more for me, I enjoy it and maybe it's also because I'm staring at a screen all day long and I just don't want to do that all the time. But yeah, like I much prefer the physical game to anything online.

Carrie: I actually liked playing word with friends and scrabulous back in the day. I do still play Wordle every day, but it's like, well, part of my nighttime ritual, I like do that and then...

Erin: You wind down.

Carrie: Yeah. A little Sudoku. Yeah, I don't know. I find it relaxing, but I'm a weirdo.

Megan: She is.

Carrie: Changing gears completely, why do people hate the word moist so much?

Erin: Oh, my gosh. It's funny because I don't necessarily hate the word moist. I definitely have words that I think set me off for the same reasons though. So, just to give some context, people do really hate this word. Way back in 2012, BuzzFeed published this post about how it was the worst word ever and like 4 million people looked at it and then the New Yorker did this survey where they were essentially like if there's one word that you could scrub from the English language entirely, what would it be? Moist was like at the top of the list, so researchers noticed this and they were curious, like why is this a thing? They decided to look into it and what they found was that around 20% of the group that they studied was averse to the word moist. It didn't really have anything to do with the way that it sounds. People blamed it on the way that it sounds. They were like, "It sounds gross." But then there are words that sounds similar like foist that don't elicit that same kind of like. "Ugh," reaction. So, what the researchers determined was that whether or not people realized it, they hated the word because of its association to like bodily fluids and sex essentially. People found the word particularly offensive when it was used with positive words like paradise. Like if a moist paradise, I guess that does sound gross and then sexual words. But if you're calling a cake moist, you want your cake to be moist essentially, right? It didn't set people off in the same way essentially. Apparently, the younger and more neurotic the study participants were the more strongly they hated moist. There are reasons, but it's really interesting.

Megan: These are in the US? It was done in the US? 

Erin: Yeah. 

Megan: Because I feel like we are particularly prudish because our media and for younger people to be offended by moist. I guess it's just like a puritan society kind of thing.

Erin: I don't know, it's really weird. But for me the word that sets me off is slit.

Megan: Oh.

Erin: Argh.

Megan: Interesting. Yeah.

Erin: Argh. I don't know.

Megan: Yeah, I can see that.

Erin: I don't like it. Maybe, it's for the same reasons. It both sounds gross to me and I guess, you could associate it with sex in some way, but like, I don't know, it just something about it just makes me want to crawl out of my own skin. 

Carrie: I don't think I have a word like this. Do you Megan? 

Megan: No, I don't. Maybe linguistics has just like taken it out me because I overthink things or I'm just like "Argh." It's just because it's taboo topic and that's why people don't like certain word, I've rationalized myself out of it. But I can see slit too, like being related to slice and I hate blood. I could think of like also that, like when you said slit, I kind of immediately thought of blood for some reason. So

Carrie: Oh, I went the other direction. I went the sex.

Megan: Oh, did you? 

Carrie: Yeah. Well, that's I can see.

Erin: The other day I was talking about the double slit experiment, which is like a physics thing and the whole time I was just like, "I want to die."

Megan: That's so funny because yeah, so it's a good thing you're not a physicist because you have to be able to talk about that, a lot.

Erin: Just like this, I hate this so much.

Megan: Funny. 

Erin: Yeah.

Megan: Oh, my God. 

Erin: Funny. 

Megan: I have been like saying how funny so often during this right now, I don't know why, I think it's because I've been watching Bob's Burgers and Linda Belcher always says like, "This is so fun." Or like,  instead of just enjoying herself and I was like, "Is this what I'm doing right now? Am I like in." I've been thinking a lot about Linda Belcher or something. But anyway, sorry about that. I just just noticed I was being annoying.

Erin: I didn't notice it at all.

Megan: Okay. Great. I'm glad that I made you pay attention and now you'll not think about it at all when I say it.

Carrie:. No, not at all. 

Megan: Switching gears again, because this is what the book does to us.

Erin: Yes. 

Megan: In a fun way. What would people be surprised to know about gaslight, the origins of gaslight?

Erin: Yeah, so obviously it's a word that's used very much very often these days. You might think, or people might assume that it's like a newer word, but it's actually pretty old. It comes from this play called Gaslight from 1938, which was then like turned into a movie in the 40s. The plot is essentially a woman whose husband is convincing her that she's going insane, he's gaslighting her and it's called Gaslight because in the play there are gaslights in their house that flicker to, as a visual representation of her kind of descent into insanity. So, that's where it originated and then by 1956 it was like part of our everyday conversation or maybe not everyday conversation, but people were using it much in the same way that they're using it today. But it's definitely had a resurgence recently.

Megan: Right. I think it's good to know where these words that or phrases that we're using come from. Also, just kind of to like protect against misuse because I think what's going to happen is the same that happened with, woke going to.

Carrie: It's already being misused. 

Megan: What happened with woke was worse because like that was skunks kind of on purpose, right? Because it's like from the black community and so therefore it is not to be respected and so therefore we're going to actively turn it into a bad word with gaslight. I think it's more just like this semantic shift and more naturally happened. It wasn't on purpose.

Carrie: Oh really? You don't think so?

Megan: I don't think so. 

Megan: I thought there are people that are using gaslight in the same way that they're using woke. I've heard men say things or written things like, "I'm being gaslit right now, aren't I?" 

Erin: They're gaslighting us about the meaning of gaslight. 

Carrie: Exactly. That doesn't necessarily mean that they don't think that it has a meaning. They're just saying that meaning is silly, whereas with woke, I really do think it's a bit of a different thing. Yeah.

Megan: Well, I think it's just different because of the appropriation too. Like that just like sets it apart. But I would just like to say that yes, let's hold onto gaslight as what it truly is and not be us turned off by people being assholes. 

Carrie: Well, The way that people are misusing it is in some ways are just equivocating it to lying and it's not just merely lying, right? It's a certain kind of lying, but I don't think that's like malicious change, it's just like they're just using it in a broader sense. 

Erin: Yeah.

Megan: Okay. Maybe they're just a few assholes using it maliciously, but I've seen it. 

Carrie: Well, they're using every word maliciously. 

Megan: When you're in assholes.

Erin: Yeah. 

Carrie: They're just using language, maliciously.

Erin: Everything can be weaponized. 

Megan: Yes. Absolutely. 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Megan: Oh, so I had a question just because this is how I read things like you have blockbuster, it's like a fun word to know the history about, which can you tell us about the history? I wonder if you also know about the real estate racist use of Blockbuster too, and if it was purposeful to not include that?

Erin: I think I learned about it after the fact. So, this happens all the time, I'll do further reading and then I'm like, "Oh, my God, there's a thing I could have included." I can't remember why I was reading about redlining and things like that recently, but I was editing something and I was fact checking it so it came up as part of that and I was like, "Oh, hey." So, not a purposeful emission, just like I wasn't aware of it.

Megan: What did you include? What is a blockbuster?

Erin: Yeah, so these days we consider a blockbuster a hit movie, that's how people used it. But it was initially used to describe like actual bombs, that were used during World War II that could destroy an entire city block. Then it sort of evolved from there to mean something that was kind of shocking and then Hollywood took it and was like, we're going to use it to describe these movies that are big hits.

Carrie: Jaws was the first one they used it with.

Erin: I think Jaws was, yeah. Or one of the first, if not the first. That's the other fun thing about like coining versus first recorded usage versus whatever. But yeah, one of the first was Jaws.

Megan: Right. Then the block busting, and that's related to real estate is these racist terrible practices by real estate agents that it's to induce panic to get white owners to sell to marginalized people, to racialized people. They would do things like pay black women to go walk through a neighborhood with a baby and a stroller to think that, these are the people that you're living next to kind of thing,

Erin: Right. They would get the white people to sell at a deflated price, right? Then jack the price up when they were selling to marginalized groups. Yeah. That made me remember I was editing a piece about Lorraine Hansberry whose father bought a house in an all white community, and they had a restrictive covenant that basically said, "Black people are not allowed to live here." They actually went all the way up to the Supreme Court with the case that challenged that and won, that's where I first heard about it. I was like, "Oh."

Megan: Yeah. No, it's fun though, right? Not that practice, but coming to new usages of words and all this, the possibilities, you never know when you're going to come into a new use of a word and that's exciting.

Erin: Yeah, it is. Sometimes it's fun, but sometimes it's interesting. I think particularly about this usage, what's interesting about it is that it's teaching us about history beyond etymology. We're learning about something through a word about our own history, our own horrific history through a word.

Megan: Well that's a really great way to like sum up. 

Carrie: Yeah. I was just going to ask like, "What do you want our listeners to know about your book?" But honestly that was...

Megan: Yeah. 

Carrie: I mean, a really good thing to end on.

Megan: It was, please, is there any final words that you have?

Erin: I think there is a little bit of maybe etymological whiplash that happens in the book, but I think in the best way, you're going to learn not just about the fun origins of words and the fun etymologies of words, but you're going to learn about some of the darker sides of language as well. None of it is to like, "Well, actually anybody." But it's just to teach people about where the words and the phrases and the language that we use come from. Because as I mentioned in the intro to the book, I really believe that words have power and the more that we know, the more knowledge we have, the better equipped we are to speak more carefully and build a more inclusive world. So, in addition to the fun stuff, we're also trying to be more inclusive with this book as well.

Megan: It's a lovely compendium. It surely is.

Erin: Thank you.

Megan: It was great to meet you. So, glad you came on to speak with us and we leave our listeners always with one final message. Don't be an asshole. 

Cassie: Don't be an asshole.

Erin: Really the only advice you need, right?.

Megan: Exactly. Thank you.

Carrie: Thank you so much.

Megan: Okay, so this month we would like to thank Robert Englebretson. 

Carrie: Oh, Robert. Wait, I'm sorry. Rongle. Thank you, Rongle. 

Megan: Yes, Rongle, thank you. Our guest of our previous episode is now a supporter, so thank you very much.

Carrie: Thank you.

Megan: Also thank you to Josh Fannie.

Carrie: Thank you, Josh. I really appreciate it.

Megan: Yeah.

Carrie: Oh, grateful to all of our patrons.

Megan: Yes, as me too.

Carrie: Where can they go to join Patreon or to join our Patreon?

Megan: Yes. www.patreon.com/vocalfriespod, and you'll get access to bonus episodes at the $5 a month level. You can get stickers at the three dollar level or above and there's a mug also at the $15 a month level.

Carrie: It's a good looking mug.

Megan: It's nice. You can also just test it out for seven days free. 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Megan: You get access to the bonus episodes and just see if you like it. 

Carrie: Yeah, there's a ton at this point. 

Megan: 60 something. 

Carrie: Yeah. 

Megan: Yeah. All right, well thank you and we'll see you all next month. 

Carrie: Thank you. The Vocal Fries podcast is produced by me, Carrie Gillon. Theme music by Nick Granun. You can find us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Vocal fries pod. You can email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com and our website is vocalfriespod.com.

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