WEBVTT - Ideophones: How does this word feel? 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.200 Works dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.400 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.680 and today I want to start with a question. This 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:21.840 is gonna be one of those questions where you gaze 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:24.360 deep into your own belly, and if you ask it 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.000 out loud, you might annoy certain people around you. But 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:29.800 I promise you it's actually interesting once you give it 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.120 serious thought. And the question is is you take a 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:35.840 look at your hand and you think, why the heck 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:40.159 is this call to hand? Think about the sounds you 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.320 make with your mouth when you say the word hand, 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:46.279 or the marks you make on a page when you 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.199 spell the word, or even or in say like American 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:51.760 Sign language or another sign language, the gestures you would 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.520 make to signal the concept of a hand. Somehow, those 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:57.520 sounds you make with your mouth, or the marks you 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.440 make on the page, or the gestures cause other people's 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.800 brains to call up the concept of one of these 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.440 five legged meat spiders that's attached to the end of 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.640 our wrists. And in fact, I often think about this, 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.920 that one of the really creepy and astonishing things that 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.600 we usually just forget to notice about ourselves and our 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.160 bodies and our brains. And the power of language is 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:24.800 that in most cases, you are completely powerless to resist 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.800 the conjuring power of a word. You ever think about this, like, 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.880 unless you have some kind of unusual neurological condition, If 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:36.000 you understand the language I'm speaking, and I say a 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:39.160 giant crocodile crawling up the side of the Eiffel Tower 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.240 with a bouquet of roses in its mouth, you will 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:45.839 have no choice but to envision or at least understand 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:48.680 the concept of what I just said. Words have so 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.400 much power over your brain that most people, most of 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.240 the time can't even turn off their understanding of them 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.880 if they want to. We live in a world where like, 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:02.080 particular patterns of mouth, sounds, and marks on a page 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.520 are literally a way of controlling the contents of somebody 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.520 else's mind. Yeah, which were which? When you think of 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.280 it that way, it makes total sense that some people 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:12.880 are like, hey, I would prefer you not use a 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.480 bunch of vulgar language around me, you know, um would, 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.040 which I have always found it sometimes weird, And say 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.480 an office environment where uh, you know, certain individuals will 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:24.520 feel like, you know, they need to use a lot 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.000 of vulgarity when they're talking. But you're really in many 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:31.360 times taking like particularly vulgar images, and you were forcing 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.480 them into everybody's mind around you, and it's perfectly reasonable 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.960 to say no, thank you. Yeah. I'm of two minds 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:39.840 about this. I mean, on one hand, I I do 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.280 definitely have a strong sort of innate anti censorship streak. 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.760 But then on the other hand, I recognize that, like, yeah, 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.880 anybody who says, like, what's the big deal is just words? 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.280 That is really underselling the power of words. Words are 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:57.919 like one of the most powerful things in the universe. Yeah, 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.160 But to think about like just the casual way that 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:05.119 that that you can summon uh imagery with the word uh. 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:07.560 You brought up hand And I was thinking, all right, 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:09.040 what does some other kind of tape Like I basically 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.280 tried to understand the idea by breaking the idea, Like, 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.040 what's another important concept or notable concept to me involving 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.480 hand or something? You know? And uh, I thought, Okay, 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.520 but we have the movie Dark City where you have 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.160 the character of Mr. Hand that's Richard O'Brien. Yeah, yeah, 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:27.720 plays one of the strangers but but now that I 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.280 think about it, like, that's a great example of how 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:34.200 you can just call this character Mr. Hand and in 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.080 thinking about him looking at him, you also end up 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.800 contemplating what a hand is and what a hand does 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.240 in the form of the hand, and kind of melding 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.920 it with the idea of a shadowy individual. Absolutely, and 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:49.360 this is why, you know, metaphors and poetry and everything 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.200 are so powerful. It's like you when you use one 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:55.640 word to describe a thing that it doesn't isn't directly 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:58.400 assigned for you. You cause all this kind of like 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:01.440 cross linking within the brain that is often very evocative 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.800 and exciting. Yeah, Like if you say, introduced a character 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.600 in a work and his name was Dr Chainsaw, Right 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.880 that way that that brings there is a number of 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.800 conflicts arise, and I can't help it. Then try and 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.680 imagine who Dr Chainsaw is. That's funny. But what you say, 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.599 I think is more thoughtful and profound than than you 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.919 might realize at first glance. Well, we'll think about this 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:25.240 more as we go. Okay, So a lot of times 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.360 when we ask this question, like why do we call 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.800 a hand a hand? Why is that the sound we 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:31.520 make with our mouths, or the you know, H, A 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:33.680 and D, the marks on a page. Where does that 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:37.560 word come from? We're usually asking a historical question that 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.800 can have a relatively straightforward answer. Right. This is the 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:43.560 domain of etymologies, and we do this all the time 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:45.839 on the show. Right. We talk about some concept or 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.200 some character from myth and legend, and we break down 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.159 what their name means, where it comes from, right, and you. 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:54.160 You can do this with most words, like you can 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.120 trace it back through older versions of languages. One example 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.200 we've mentioned on the show before that I really enjoy 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:04.280 is how obsolete scientific hypotheses that are we know aren't 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:07.800 true anymore, or sometimes still included in our language. The 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.320 words we use for things. Take the English word malaria. 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:12.960 I mean, you know, this is a word for a 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.520 certain disease is caused by a protozoan parasite. But malaria 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:21.000 comes from the Italian words mal and area, meaning bad air. 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:26.440 So the name we use for this disease incorporates miasthma theory, 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.680 which proposed that diseases were caused by exposure to foul 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.080 smelling vapors that emanated from the Earth, or from planets, 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.520 or from things like rotting carrion. Did we do an 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.680 episode of miasma theory? Oh, yeah, we did. Yeah, it 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.720 was earlier. I think maybe it was last year. Uh. 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.840 And we talked in the episode about how the word malaria, 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.760 so it reflects miasma theory, this incorrect understanding of where 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.360 diseases come from from before germ theory took hold. And 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.960 the fact that even the French physician Charles Louis Alfonse 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.160 lover On, who discovered the fact that malaria was caused 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.520 by a parasitic organism in the blood, he hated the 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.640 word malaria. He didn't like that because he considered it unscientific. 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:10.440 So instead he recommended the term uh palladisma, which essentially 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:14.600 means like marsh or swamp fever or swamp disease, and 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:18.120 this is still the French word for the disease. So anyway, 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.599 many words can be tracked back through the history of 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.160 evolving languages like this, and in fact pretty much all 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.800 words can. But you can only follow this trail so 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.680 far because if you go back far enough, you run 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.599 out of ways to track words as straightforward cases of 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.480 evolving species or adoption from other languages, like at some 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:41.720 point words had to be created for things and concepts 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:46.000 that had no explicit word before and no analogies to 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.800 draw from, so that once you get back to like 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:51.680 the initial case, you have to wonder, how did this happen? 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.440 How is a word born? And does a word inherently 0:06:55.560 --> 0:06:59.159 mean anything? Why did the speakers of the earliest words 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.800 pick one set of mouth sounds for hand and a 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.960 different set of mouth sounds for tree and a different 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.799 set of mouth sounds for mother. What do these sounds 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.400 mean anything? And if they do mean anything, what do 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.600 they mean interesting? So, I mean we're kind of dealing 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.840 with some of the same properties that we've discussed on 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.640 the show, and that we were regarding, say the evolution 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:26.400 of Chinese characters, where they in their very primitive origins 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.800 they were essentially tiny pictures of what you were talking about, 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:35.120 uh And then as they evolved they become more eleguent 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:39.200 in design, more abstract, uh not, and then sometimes it's 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:41.920 abstract and meaning as well. But but certainly they no 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.240 longer look exactly like the thing, like the word for, 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.040 you know, for a person is no longer looks like 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:50.160 a tiny person that sort of thing. So we might 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:54.320 be we're particially talking about the same thing with words themselves, 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.600 Like how if you trace it back far enough, do 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.200 you have simply a word is a sound for a thing. 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.120 It's not even a word yet, it's just the sound 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:04.840 for the thing. And then how did we get that sound? 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:07.480 How did you decide that that is the sound for 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.320 that thing. Yeah, it's a fascinating question, and I want 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:12.080 to go ahead and say we're not going to answer 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.480 this question today. I mean their whole this is a 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.240 whole field of study about the origins of language, where 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.160 it came from. You know, we could write whole books 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:21.480 on the subject, and I am sure we will revisit 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:23.600 this in the future. But we wanted to look at 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.880 one specific strange class of word today and and some 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.520 some lighted sheds on what words are and how we 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.640 how we use language. So a minute ago we asked 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.520 that idea of like do sounds inherently mean anything in 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:40.960 in the a lexigraphic sense? And one of the key 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.840 ideas of modern linguistic theory is that the answer to 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.200 that question is no. That the signs we use to 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.960 refer to concepts, so like the sounds you make with 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.560 your mouth, or the markings you make on a page 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.600 when you're indicating a concept like hand or mother or 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:00.280 something like that. These signs are arbitrary. They do not 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.720 have inherent meaning, and they're arbitrarily associated with the concepts 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.160 they call to mind. So to quote from the Swiss 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:11.360 semiotician and linguist Ferdinand de Sajur, who is often cited 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.440 as like the founder of the modern study of linguistics, quote, 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:19.360 the bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.720 Since I mean by sign the whole that results from 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:26.160 the associating of the signifier with the signified, I can 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:30.720 simply say the linguistic sign is arbitrary. The idea of 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.960 sister is not linked by any inner relationship to the 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:39.240 succession of sounds. Uh. And then he spells out the 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.760 French for sister sir, which serves as its signifier in French. 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.440 That it could be represented equally by just any other 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.440 sequence is proved by differences among languages and by the 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:56.480 very existence of different languages. The signified OX has as 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.680 its signifier Boff on one side of the border is 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:03.880 in the French Frox is boff and OX on the other. 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.920 And so we know, like we know today that to 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:12.280 some extent what as here says here must be true, right, 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:15.199 at least to some extent, because of course, words are 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:19.520 not fixed in sound or in visual notation. Words evolve 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.160 over time where it's come to mean different things. They 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.240 come to be pronounced differently, often in multiple stages that 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:27.439 we can track through history. Right. I mean a recent 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:29.880 example of this on our show, trying to figure out 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.800 what puppy meant a form of insult in in in 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.880 ages prior Oh yeah, we're apparently Isaac Newton called this 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.280 guy he was harassing a puppy. Were like, what the 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.240 heck does that mean? But apparently it means like a 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:45.800 fop Like it's the same word basically means the same thing, 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.280 except in certain contexts, and then that has changed over time. 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.840 But those those minor differences we can acknowledge between, say 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:55.760 like early modern English and the English of today, can 0:10:55.800 --> 0:11:00.679 become radical differences over longer periods of time. But might say, well, 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.960 wait a minute, doesn't the widespread literacy of the world 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.840 and the printing press changed all this. Aren't words fixed 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.920 once they're in print, obviously, They're not like just read 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.320 a play of Shakespeare or something else from the early 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.679 modern period, and compare that to the language of modern English. 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.040 This is just a few hundred years ago. This is 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.960 not that long ago. But you'll find tons of words 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.720 that have changed in meaning, spelling, connotation, or have simply 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.280 disappeared from everyday use. If you doubt this, I will 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:33.439 bet you forty ferkins of post it and barm on it. Yeah. 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:37.200 Or just try and read say the obbit yeah, to 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.080 to to to a child, and you're gonna run across 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.079 certain words where it's like, oh, well this just meant 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.120 uh that you know, now, this is a slur word, 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.839 but in its original context that Tolkien was using, he's 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:51.480 talking about a bundle of sticks. Another writer might be 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.480 using the word and they're talking about a cigarette or something. 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.559 So that the words can change sometimes for the worst. Oh, 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:01.960 that's absolutely true. In fact, I was just thinking about this. 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.199 Even happens, you know, with with letters. Have you ever 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:08.319 read the early seventeenth century poem The Flee by John Dunn, 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.280 who it's probably been a long time, you know done. 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:14.720 Was a great poet. I mean he wrote great like 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.360 devotional poetry, but he also wrote like seduction poetry. The 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:22.440 flea is just absolutely nasty it's a poem where he's 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:27.280 essentially begging for sex by making this questionable recourse to 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.760 the idea that if a flea bites two different people, 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:35.480 they've basically slept together already, and so they might as 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.160 well not resist any temptation. He says, quote Mark, but 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:42.120 this flee and Mark, in this how little that which 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.280 thou deniest me is it sucked me first and now 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.760 sucks thee And in this flee our two bloods mingled 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.760 be Yeah, he's he's really stretching, I think with that one. Yeah, 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.319 what a creep. But then it's even funnier if you 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:58.320 read it in older printed versions where s is making 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.520 the s sound don't look like they do today. Back 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.080 then they looked like a modern lower case F. So 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.080 so this would have impacted the words suck or sucked. Yes, 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.160 it would have become a much more by modern standings 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.000 vulgar term. That this is already I think, a pretty 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.600 nasty poem. It just gets a slight nastiness upgrade. But then, 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:19.920 in the same way that concepts are described by different 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.600 words across time, obviously they're also described by different words 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.600 at the same time between different languages. So the Basque 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.679 word for hand is escua, and the Melee word for 0:13:30.800 --> 0:13:34.320 hand is tongue gun and so forth. So obviously the 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.680 concept of hand is in no way intrinsically linked to 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.240 the English H sound or the D consonant or anything 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:44.720 like that. This does seem to be truly arbitrary, and 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:46.640 part of that is that the hand does not make 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.800 a sound. You know. Well it can of course, but yeah, 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.559 it doesn't inherently make a sound. And that's a good 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:54.920 thing to point out, because while I think it's it's 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.960 pretty much inarguable that that sazure is correct in many 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:02.360 cases that, like most word in most languages, don't have 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:04.719 any inherent link between the sound you make with your 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.320 mouth and what the word means. There were some words 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:11.600 that inarguably do How about the word cockadoodle do? Oh, yeah, 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:13.760 this is a great one. Uh. This is always a 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:18.040 fun exercise anytime you travel somewhere where they speak a 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:21.320 different language, or even if they speak just a variant 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:24.440 of your own language, asked them what sound a rooster makes, 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.720 and the uh, it's always going to be some variation 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:31.400 of the same sound, but at times with surprising variety, 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:35.280 and exactly how that sound is realized in language. Oh yeah, 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.040 I love this, like it looking at different languages words 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.600 for like what a dog does, Like the dog doesn't 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.480 bark in every language, but in pretty much every language. 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.160 Whatever word they've got for what a dog sound is, 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:49.400 you can hear it. You're like, oh, yeah, that that's 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:51.880 what a dog sounds like. Yeah. David Saderis has a 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:53.920 fun bit where he talks about this, and I believe 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.440 it was a Christmas essay called six Day Black Men 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:02.560 about it mainly dealing with variations in the Santa Claus tradition, 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:07.000 the title referring to certain European traditions in which Santa 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:11.640 is attended by by personal slaves with black skin. But 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:13.840 he also talks a little bit about, you know, variations 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:18.480 in how people say what the rooster says. Man, it 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.840 is shocking how disturbing some of those Santa traditions are. 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.040 Oh yeah, it gets dark, but it is. It's the holidays, 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:27.600 you know. I guess it's supposed to be dark and weird. 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.240 But I got another word for you, one of my favorites. PLoP. Oh, PLoP, 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:33.560 that's a good one. It's the sound that a drop 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:35.840 makes when it hits another body. Of water. So if 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.280 you drop falls into a bucket, it plumps. So I 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:40.120 was thinking it's also the sound of a cat throwing 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.800 up on the hardwoods. That's probably the context I encounter 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:46.480 more often. Like you hear that PLoP, you know you're 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:48.600 cleaning up something, Well, you'd think it would be like 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:50.720 a splat, but no, it is a very polite sounding 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.680 kind of PLoP, which belies how gross it's going to be. 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.640 But yeah. So these are known as onomatopeia in English, 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.720 the words that make a sound that's close to the 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:04.360 sound of the concept being named. Uh so, like the 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.320 noun naming a rooster's called the cockadoodle do obviously is 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.520 meant to sound like the call itself. Same thing with plot, 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:12.120 it's meant to sound like with the concept you're talking about. 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.440 And you know, automotopia for some reason or just great 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.520 fun to say. Usually I love like glug, that's a 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:26.160 glug glug hiss, that's an automotopia. Quack oink, squeak toot 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.200 toot is a fun one, yeah, kind of yeah, burp 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.240 is perhaps one as well. What do you think about Yeah, 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:34.680 I think that could be an automotopia. Yeah, now I 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.280 think some of these could probably be false on amotopia, 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:39.800 where uh, I don't know, I sure, but if you 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.280 like looked up the etymology, you could find that they're 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.840 derived from some other word in history that doesn't actually sounds. 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.360 It's just a coincidence. But a lot of them clearly 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.560 are on Amotopia, like they're the word comes from the sound. 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.200 The thing makes I wonder about the How about the 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.800 sounds that are the words that flash on the screen 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:00.160 when Batman punches somebody? Yeah, you know, are those uh 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:05.959 what we talk about? Is that a case of automatopeia? Biffe, biff, biff, etcetera. 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:12.320 How about plink plunk, ploop, PLoP, slash, splash, Yeah, those 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:14.359 are those? Are those all seem pretty solid? I noticed 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:16.600 how a lot of English on a moatopia. Maybe this 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:18.399 is just because they're the words I could think of, 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:20.040 but it seems to me like a lot of them 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:24.119 are sounds for sounds that animals make, or words for 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:28.080 what water does or what happens in water. Another one 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.240 great one is twinkle. Wait a minute, did you catch 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:35.040 me there? It's a trick? I think, did you notice 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:37.600 that twinkle? And when I very first said it did 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.040 you think, yeah, that's a good one too. I probably 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.440 would have thought that that's a good on a mootopeia. 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.760 Pale stars twinkle in the night sky. What do you 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:50.040 hear when you envision that sentence. I hear a twinkling. Yeah, 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:54.600 I I picture stars twinkling, almost in a cinematic sense, 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:58.000 like twinkling more than they actually appear to twinkle in 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:00.159 the night sky. But there's a little almost on a 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:04.160 bell sound that goes with the word, don't you think, uh? 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.200 Like I think about when William Wordsworth rights continuous as 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.040 the stars that shine and twinkle on the Milky Way. 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.120 Of course he's he's talking about flowers. He's talking about daffodils, 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:16.800 and he's comparing them to stars by the way they 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.720 move back and forth in the breeze. He says, ten 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.800 thousand I saw at a glance tossing their heads in 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.840 sprightly dance. Here's another one you might have heard before, 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:29.840 Twinkle twinkle, little star that you have. That's another another 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.240 famous version, which, by the way, here's a mind blower 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.280 for at least some listeners out there. I didn't, you know, 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:37.560 I didn't realize until the last couple of years that 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:40.600 it's the same song as the ABC song with just 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:44.000 different lyrics. Try that out for size. I gotta pick 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.600 my jaw up off the ground. I don't think I've 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:48.320 ever heard of that. I never know one ever made. 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.240 I never made that connection before. But then I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:53.720 if you yeah, that's exactly the same song. Did you 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.639 know that London Bridge is Falling Down is the same 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:01.919 tune as that classic old English full crime, Happy, Happy Halloween, 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:07.879 Halloween Halloween silver Shamrock. Yes, there there is that. You know. 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.040 One that's a less conventional use of twinkle that I 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:13.760 really like is in Walt Whitman. He's got a poem 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:15.960 about a shuttering locomotive. I think it's called Like to 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.040 a Locomotive in Winter, where he says thy knitted frame, 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.760 thy springs in valves, the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels. 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:28.199 But the weirdness is twinkle feels like an automotopia to me, 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.959 it feels exactly like PLoP or or ploop or quack. 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.800 But it's not an ont amotopeia. I mean, we know that, 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:38.840 like the stars don't make a sound, but part of 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:42.080 me rebels. Of course, twinkles an automotopea. It really feels 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:45.040 like one twinkle twinkle is the sound that stars make 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.399 when their brightness fluctuates. And of course that isn't true, 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.680 but I I just know it's true, even though it's 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.720 not that stars don't make a sound, and yet that's 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.159 the sound they make. And I believe the sense of 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.560 the false on amotopeia of twinkle is even sort of 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.080 suggested in the way the word is used in some 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:07.639 rhymed poetry, like writers seem to sense a deeper parallel 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:11.200 between twinkle and a true on amotopia word, like in 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.359 ed garlan pose poem The Bells. Oh that's a great one. 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:16.800 Do you want to read it? Oh? Sure? Here the 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.160 sledges with the bells, silver bells, what a world of merriment. 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.159 Their melody fore tells how they twinkle, tinkle, tinkle in 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:26.120 the icy air of night, while the stars that oversprinkle 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.840 all the heavens seemed to twinkle with a crystalline delight. 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:32.160 So yeah, tinkle is like the anomotopia of the bells. 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.720 But then the stars also twinkle, as if that's like 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:39.680 the same thing. Fun fact. Folk singer phil oaks Uh 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.200 it was one of probably many people to set pose 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:44.679 poem to music. Oh, I don't think I've heard the 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.440 fun little folk song. What a world of merriment their 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:50.879 melody foretells, you know, it's a fun little tune. Cool 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.560 to look that up. But anyway, I like the idea 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:55.680 here that if a word is, like we were talking 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.199 about earlier, like a form of mind control, it's a 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:02.280 way of just with without a person's consent, controlling the 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:05.920 contents of their brain. Twinkle is a form of mind 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.439 control that drives us to believe. In a contradiction, the 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:13.359 word is like an automatopeic simulacrum. It's an attempt to 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:16.520 copy a thing that does not exist, the sound of 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:20.240 a bright light varying in intensity. And I just wonder 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:22.800 why do we feel this so deeply? I mean, maybe 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:25.159 everybody else doesn't feel it as strongly as I do, 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:27.920 but I feel like this is probably a common sensation. Yeah, 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:30.400 I'm trying to think of any that that resonate particularly 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.679 strongly with me. I guess sometimes there's a very strong 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:38.760 word for like various facial expressions, you know, And we 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:42.520