Super Fast Podcast: Recent Episodes
Cube Whidden
This podcast is dedicated to giving you a tidbit of useless information each day in an extremely short format.
When someone habitually speaks and puts the English question intonation on every declarative sentence. It sounds like this (?). Every declaration becomes a question (?). You can't really tell what is a question and what is a declaration of fact (?).
Have you ever heard someone talk and it sounds like they've exhausted all of their breath, they're a lot deeper than they should be and their voice creaks and rattles along usually accompanied by elongating their words? It sounds like something this until you sound like you can't talk anymore, but you just keep going on and on (do vocal fry). This is called vocal fry.
The name in French could be rendered in English as Pancakes Suzy. Suzette is the diminutive of Suzanne in French. It is disputed exactly where this dish originated or who the Suzy really is.
If you've never had Crêpes Suzette I do recommend trying it. It is relatively easy to make at home. A crepe is simply an unleavened rich pancake of sorts. You then carmelize sugar and butter with some orange juice and zest. You fill the crepes with this glaze, but you fold them in quarters not like a burrito. You then pour a little grand marnier over them or some other orange-based liquor and light them on fire carefully when serving for effect. The flames will die out when the alcohol burns out and you're left with this wonderful orange-flavored dessert.
George Washington wrote this tiny little book called Decent Behaviour. It lists 110 things to do and not to do in the company of others. You could read the book in less than 10 minutes. He says some interesting things for the time, some of it comes off these days more humorous than instructive.
As I stood there in line another passenger was ripping the face off of a Delta employee because of his flight being canceled. What could she do? She was calm and apologetic.
A pet peeve of mine is this ubiquitous use by the kids these days of the term, "literally." They use it when it seems they aren't making a distinction between something figurative and something literal.
Let's start with synecdoche because it's easier to understand. What if I said to you, I just bought a new set of wheels. This could mean that you bought a new set of tires, but very often what you mean is that you bought a new car. This is synecdoche. You are using one part of the object to describe the whole thing so synecdoche is a part for the whole.
Who wouldn't want a movie about a brain surgeon, rock star, martial arts gunslinging scientist, inventor. It's so absurd it instantly became a cult-classic.
I love E.B. White's Elements of Style. It is a style manual for writing, but I love to read it for fun.
I can't tell you how many times I've tried to read The Portrait of a Lady. I get 100 pages in and throw it across the room. I'm bored stiff.
The answer to the question how do children learn language is not as simple as you might think. Linguists have theories about child language acquisition, but they fall short.