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A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over

Mrs. Astor's Horse (Rebroadcast) - 4 March 2024

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over

A Way with Words

Education, Language Learning, Society & Culture

4.62.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“What has a head like a cat, feet like a cat, a tail like a cat, but isn’t a cat?” Answer: a kitten! A 1948 children’s joke book has lots of these to share with kids. Plus: an easy explanation for the difference between immigrate with an i, and emigrate with an e. And: The ancient Greeks revered storks for the way they cared for each other. They even had a legal requirement called the Stork Law, which mandated that Greek adults look after their elderly parents. Much later, the same idea inspired a rare English word that means “reciprocal love between children and parents.” All that, plus a brain-busting quiz about scrambled words, Mrs. Astor’s pet horse, dissimilation when pronouncing the word forward, tap ’er light, allopreening, raise the window down, why we call a zipper a fly, and lots more. Please fill out our listener survey! It will help us understand you, our audience, which helps make the show better! https://gum.fm/words Read full show notes, hear hundreds of free episodes, send your thoughts and questions, and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org/contact. Be a part of the show: call 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; worldwide, call or text/SMS +1 (619) 800-4443. Email [email protected]. Twitter @wayword. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to Away with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I'm Grant Barrett.

0:04.5

And I'm Martha Barnett. Okay, I'm thinking of an animal. It has a head like a cat, feet like a cat, a tail like a cat. It's not a cat, a cat, but it's not a cat.

0:14.5

Oh, it's not a cat.

0:16.1

What is it?

0:17.1

A caterpillar?

0:19.5

I don't know.

0:21.1

I don't know what?

0:22.1

A kitten. Oh oh of course that's from a

0:26.1

course that's from a book called a rocket in my pocket the rhymes and chance of young

0:31.1

Americans is from 1948 and I found it on archive.org which as you know is a great resource

0:37.3

of all kinds of books that you can check out in digital format yeah

0:40.9

thousands of them yeah it's super cool. I got another riddle or two for you and they're a lot harder.

0:46.7

I had real trouble with them.

0:49.2

Red and blue and delicate green, the king can't catch it and neither can the queen.

0:54.0

Pull it in the room and you can catch it soon. Answer this riddle by tomorrow at noon.

1:00.0

Wow. Is that bees or the wind?

1:05.0

Your guesses are better than mine.

1:08.0

I couldn't figure it out.

1:10.0

It's a rainbow.

1:11.0

Catch it in a prism, right?

1:12.8

Catch it in a prism.

1:13.8

Okay, nice, okay, that makes a lot of sense.

...

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