WEBVTT - Invented Words, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.720 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.720 welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.920 Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be discussing a 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:19.919 linguistic subject, some linguistic inventions. And I thought it would 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.640 be a good idea to begin with some good malapropisms. 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.799 I love a good malapropism, and we're of course not 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.880 above coining one here and there ourselves on the show sometimes. 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:33.400 Uh So, what's a malapropism before we get into our 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:39.760 favorite examples. It's the usually unintentionally humorous misuse or distortion 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.040 of a word or phrase. So usually it's a word 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.800 or phrase that sounds like what you mean to say, 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.440 but is not what you mean to say. For example, 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.080 Jesus healing the leopards. That's a great one. Yeah, they're 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.600 often used to comedic effect, like you, like you mentioned 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.920 and uh sometimes you'll see the latter. This idea of 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:02.280 it being a phrase defined is a malla for like 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:06.280 a metaphor. Also it sounds delicious, right though we have 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:09.440 to stress that malafor itself is an invented word and 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:12.959 potentially uh and I'll appropism in and of itself. Oh, 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:15.600 I can see that, like somebody was trying to say malapropism, 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:19.040 but they got confused and said malaf right, or or 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:21.240 they just intentionally did it. And we'll get into some 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:23.040 of the more intentional acts of this as we go. 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:28.760 The Sopranos is a great source of very memorable malapropisms. 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.759 I like when there's part where Christopher Multa Santi talks 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:35.520 about creating a little dysentery in the ranks, which that 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.280 one reminds me of one about scientology, the the idea 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:44.640 that l Ron Hubbard had the philosophy of diuretics. But 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.760 there's another one in the Sopranos where the character Little 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.920 Carmines he's talking about seeing in the horror movie and 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:55.160 he says it juxtaposes the sacred in the propane. Or 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.320 there's a part where Tony describes his mom as an 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:02.480 alba core around my neck. Oh, instead of an albatross. 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:04.960 Very good. This is more of a phrase. But I 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.800 instantly thought of the of The Big Lebowski when he's 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.840 he points out the Jackie Treehorn treats objects like women. Um, 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.440 the code of the Corner Brothers paint with this sort 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.440 of brush a lot in their dialogue. I was reading 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:20.960 a little bit about this lip. Basically I was looking 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:25.200 for some more examples of of of malapropisms in the 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:29.040 Coen Brothers work, and I ran across this Senses of 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.680 Cinema post by Paul Coughland from several years back, and 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:35.200 he described the Cohen Brothers use of dialogue as quote 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:40.320 the dialogue of wonderful inarticulacy. That's about right. Yeah. Now, 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.639 you'll also another place you see a lot of malapropism 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.360 is that you'll see it sometimes used as part of 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:51.639 racial stereotypes. One example that comes to mind, and you 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:55.400 see this listed on various like trope websites, is the 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.520 Fisher Stevens role in the Short Circuits movies. I've never 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.480 seen Short Circuit. Well it's probably alright, there's no reason 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:04.440 to go back to these, but these were a force 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.960 movies about about a robot, like they become self aware 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.120 and it has like a laser cannon on its shoulder 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.440 and it's like a puppet. Does it do cute robot malapropisms? No, 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:19.239 it doesn't. But Fisher Stevens plays Um, an Indian scientist, 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.000 uh and and he's this this uh, you know this 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.440 this uh, this accent, and he's he just busts out 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:28.920 a number of these and ultimately, you know it's it's 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.120 kind of like this idea, the comedic racial stereotype of 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.359 someone who doesn't have a great grasp on the English 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.240 language and therefore stumbles into all of these. That's unfortunately, 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.080 but the use of melopropisms in fiction does go way 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.760 way back. Like Shakespeare used malapropisms a lot. The character 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.440 of Dogberry and Much Ado about Nothing famously delivers a 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:51.720 bunch of these and their grades. So Dogberry is this 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.240 incompetent night constable and he's supposed to be I think 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:59.000 a satire on the amateur police forces of Elizabethan times, 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.360 and a lot of the humor comes through and him 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:05.120 giving confused orders like um, he when he's trying to 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.040 get one of his deputies to apprehend all vagrants, but 0:04:08.080 --> 0:04:11.200 instead he says, you are to comprehend all vagram men 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:14.840 um and he he tells them to be vigetant. I 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.960 beseech you uh. And then there's a great part later 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.400 where he claims that a bad dude will be condemned 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:25.599 into everlasting redemption. Well, there's a. There's fun to be 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.520 had with with with malopropisms, right, because you can sort 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.799 of you can have your character fumble into something saying 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.880 something a little more articulate than I mean to it. Times. Yes, yeah, 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:40.479 that's interesting, Like the idea of everlasting redemption is sort 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.039 of a cool metaphor, even though he just is screwing 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.640 up words. But after this character. Actually, since sometime in 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.400 the nineteenth century, malapropisms have also been known as dog 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.440 barry is ums. There was another one I came across 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:55.400 that I'd never read before. But this is from the 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.200 real world. So former Texas Governor and U. S. Energy 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.840 Secretary Rick Perry. He's famous for the for saying the 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:07.160 oops when he couldn't remember something. But also, um, that's 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:11.080 not what I was bringing up. On August there was 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.120 an article in the Texas Tribune by John Reynolds that 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.360 reported that Perry had been speaking to a crowd and 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.400 at this event, he told the crowd, quote, we need 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:22.960 to look at the states, which are the lavatories of 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:28.200 innovation and democracy. Uh yeah, so what what with that? 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:30.159 If we were to take that literally, like, what would 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.560 that even mean? Uh? I think that's the other thing. 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:34.159 The part of it too, is like, even if they're 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.680 not quite accidentally profound, we can't help a puzzle over 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:42.080 it because it will inject a bizarre metaphor mental image 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.160 into our head and then we're just forced to wrestle 0:05:44.200 --> 0:05:46.320 with it. Right now, there are also just lots of 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.440 these people making regular everyday speech. We probably do them 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.760 all the time. Everybody does them. One of my favorites 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:53.760 I ran across was the idea of all the people 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.599 who died in the blue Bonnet plague. Uh see. I 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:59.560 saw that in the notes, and I didn't even get 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.240 it until said it out loud now, and that that 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:04.320 points out an interesting thing, which is that there there 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.360 are multiple different ways that people put together malapropisms. Like 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.839 I was reading a paper by the linguist Arnold Mzuki 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.520 on classical malapropisms, and Swiki points out that lots of 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.080 malapropisms are just approximations that come out of our mouths 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.440 due to the tip of the tongue effect. This is 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:23.640 something we've talked about on Stuff to Blow your Mind before. 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:25.800 You can go back and find our episode on that 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.799 if you google it, I'm sure, but the short version 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.679 is you are failing to call the correct word from memory, 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:37.400 and by accident you employ a similar sounding word instead. 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.160 You can often hear this, especially in people who may 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:42.440 have been having a bit of alcohol to drink. Like 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.239 Often words that get swapped start with the same letters 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.040 or sounds, like you know, uh, this database is a 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:52.640 vast suppository of information. I guess actually that wouldn't start 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:54.560 with the same sound, but you know, you know what 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.960 I mean. But other times malapropisms have more unique ideologies. 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:02.920 For example, when somebody learns a word or phrase by 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.159 mishearing it and then never corrects their original misimpression. I 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:09.560 know this has happened multiple times in my life. Blue 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.000 bonnet plague would probably be a good example here. It 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:16.760 suggests that somebody heard somebody talking about the bubonic plague 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.920 but misheard how they pronounced it, and then just never 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.280 got corrected on that. Yeah, I think we can all 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.080 relate to that. We all have examples of that in 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.600 our our own life. Totally. But while malpropisms are themselves 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.080 a normal part of speech, they go back into the 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.640 mist of history. Everybody does them, and everybody's been doing 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.880 them for thousands of years. Probably the name we use 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.480 for them has a very distinct origin in history, and 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.680 that origin lies with an Irish satirist playwright and politician 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:49.200 named Richard Brinsley Sheridan who lived from seventeen fifty one 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.680 to eighteen sixteen. Sheridan wrote a number of successful comedies, 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:58.080 but his seventeen seventy five play called The Rivals introduced 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:02.440 the world to a character named Mrs Malaprop, whom another 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:06.960 character says is infamous for delivering words quote so ingeniously 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:13.400 misapplied without being mispronounced. So, for example, Mrs Malaprop calls 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:18.160 one other character the very pineapple of politeness, and at 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.320 another point she refers to an allegory lying on the 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:23.840 banks of the nile, which we should point out gets 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:27.440 it wrong twice because the nile has crocodiles, not alligators. 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.640 Oh I didn't even get that one at first. Allegory 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.400 and alligators. Okay, I think that joke works better on 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.120 people who are less obsessed with crocodilians than you and I. 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:39.880 Uh so. So it seems that most usage of the 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.520 term malapropism in English actually dates back to this character 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:47.400 in a late eighteenth century Irish play. Maybe all usage 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.360 of it, but of course the name Mrs malaprop is 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:54.839 built out of existing words borrowed from other languages, like uh, 0:08:54.880 --> 0:09:00.000 there's the there's this expression malapropos, meaning inappropriate, originally from 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.440 the French, where it would mean something like out of 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.040 place or a miss. But from the name of this 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:07.760 character we now get the label that we use specifically 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:12.840 for malapropisms, words used wrong in this way. And so 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.199 today we wanted to look at the phenomenon of invented 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.920 words like the word malapropism. There are tons of words 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.040 like this, you know. There there are some words that 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.800 enter the lexicon from works of fiction or mythology. There 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.320 are words that enter through deliberate coinage where somebody is 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:33.239 trying to create a term for a previously unnamed concept. 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.320 There are words that enter their changes in technology and 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.640 science and culture. And we wanted to talk about some 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.240 of our favorite stories of these words and explore how 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.679 they differ from other types of words. What what does 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.959 it take to invent a successful word and are there 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:52.920 any parallels to the invention of a successful piece of technology. Yeah, 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.599 it's it's a fascinating topic because it's, you know, the 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:59.319 world of language. It is a world that is invented, 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:03.040 like all wor words are essentially invented. Um. Well, I 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:04.920 don't know if I agree with you there, because they 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:07.920 all do come from human brains. But I would say 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.719 maybe some words could be thought of more like features 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:15.560 of the human body, that maybe they just emerged from 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:18.800 us at some point in history without us trying to 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.319 find a word for something. That's true. The more the 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.719 sort of primal roots of language, which will be discussing. 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:28.160 But but still it's it's it's unlike most of the 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:29.959 other topics we've done. I don't know if we've done 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.760 a linguistic episode of invention yet, have we? I don't 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:37.360 know that there are obviously linguistic inventions. All Right, we're 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.160 gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back. 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:47.000 All right, We're back, all right. So we'd like to 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.560 start by asking what came before? Uh? And I guess 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:52.520 in this case we would have to ask where do 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.240 words usually come from when they're not being deliberately coined 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.480 or invented by somebody. We know that most words are 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:05.160 not deliberate inventions. Obviously, the the deep origins of language 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.480 that's a massive and complicated subject, limited in large part 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.400 to inform speculations since we don't have physical evidence to 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.480 to discover or to refer to. You know, spoken words 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:19.520 don't leave fossils. Uh, And it's it's too big to 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:23.000 address at length today. But by setting linguistics within the 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.280 timeline of history, especially with the help of written sources, 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.080 we can learn a lot about how languages change over 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:33.400 time and about where words come from. And one thing 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:36.680 that I think is extremely interesting is that many scholars 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:42.360 have noticed important parallels between the evolution of languages and 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:47.120 the evolution of species. In biology, there are important differences 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.480 as well, But just to mention one of these similarities, 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.720 like the living organisms on Earth, many of Earth's languages 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:59.200 show signs of having a common ancestor. We can show 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.079 signs of common ancestry and all living things on Earth 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.560 by comparing similarities in the genes and observing how those 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:10.120 genes change over time through evolution. Likewise, we can observe 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:15.000 similarities in some words and formations that many languages separated 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.920 over vast distances, seem to share, and observe how those 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:23.079 pronunciations and semantics change over time. And in fact, the 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:25.600 kind of strange thing is that it was obvious that 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:30.480 languages evolve over time from common ancestors. Before it was 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.880 obvious that plants and animals do this because you know, 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:37.800 it was obvious because linguists could track these changes through 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.439 written sources from history. They could see for themselves how 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.839 words and usages and whole languages morphed over the centuries. 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.840 Charles Darwin actually wrote in The Descent of Man, quote 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.920 the formation of different languages and of distinct species, and 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.760 the proofs that both have been developed through the gradual 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.880 process are curiously parallel. I was reading a good article 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.160 about this by John whit Field in Plos Biology from 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.880 two thousand and eight called across the Curious parallel of 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:10.040 language and species evolution and uh so Whitfield's writing about 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.040 this subject and uh In addition to common ancestry and 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.520 changes to words and genes over time, another parallel that 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.680 Whitfield points out is that quote, their most important components 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:25.240 show the least variation. In biology, this means that genes, 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:28.960 such as those involved in the machinery of protein synthesis, 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:32.040 so basically something every organism has to do all the time, 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.720 change so slowly that they can be used to discern 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.440 the relationships of groups that diverged hundreds of millions of 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:44.319 years ago. Likewise, the most commonly used words, such as 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:49.400 numbers and pronouns, changed the most slowly. Yeah, I thought 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:51.960 that was really interesting. I mean, other words, you can 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.720 find other words that seem to persist in fairly stable 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.280 forms over long periods of time, and they very often 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.679 are common words. You know, words like for family relationships, 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:06.319 words for things like mother and father, and uh for 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.200 you know, things that would be referred to very often 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.959 in everyday speech. The whereas it's the more specific terms 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:19.160 that may go extinct over time right or face dramatic substitutions. 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.840 Uh So, Today more than half of the world's population 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.720 speaks a language that shares as a common ancestor and 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:31.680 extinct language called Indo European. One fun example I was 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.800 reading about in a Nautilus article from last year by 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.720 Sevinga Norkiya Zova was about the word honey. So, of course, 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.960 the word honey is honey in English. In Sanskrit it's madhu, 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.800 in Russian it's meod. And to bring it back to English, 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.240 we have mead, an alcoholic drink made out of honey. 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.400 In Sanskrit, Russian, and even in English you've got these 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:58.120 links that you know, words are still basically very similar. 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:03.040 Another interest in fact from that article, UH, a professor 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.960 of linguistics at New York University named Gregory Guy talks 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.840 about the word locks, which in English, of course means 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.160 you know, smoked salmon, you'd have your bagel with locks. 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:16.600 But apparently locks is basically the same word as it 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.760 was in proto into European eight thousand years ago, where 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.680 it was probably pronounced locks and it meant salmon like 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.320 eight thousand years ago. It's interesting to the way both 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:29.960 of these examples are foods. There are things that are 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:33.400 concepts that that that are for things that we we 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.000 not only conceive of, but we actually take into our body. 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.600 We have such a complete sensory understanding of them. Yeah, 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:42.920 that's an interesting point to things that would have been 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:48.160 delicious from ancient times. But anyway, based on this biological analogy, 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:50.920 I want to use an analogy for the purpose of 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.880 the rest of this episode, which is basically biological evolution 0:15:55.200 --> 0:16:00.400 versus genetic engineering. Most new words that enter all language 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.160 do so through a process more akin to biological evolution. 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:10.160 They somehow arise naturally among speakers rather than as you know, 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:14.680 genetically engineered. You know, we we created a giant scorpion 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.040 as a government weapon or something, you know, the great 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:21.160 b movie plot. Um than these genetic engineering projects, and 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.160 and those would be more akin to what we're ultimately 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.600 going to focus on the attempts to create a new 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:30.520 word on purpose. But let's focus on the biological evolution 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:35.160 version first. So when language is evolved naturally, what happens 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.840 at the word to word level? Where do new words 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.880 come from if nobody is trying to coin them on purpose? Well, 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.280 of course, on our show we've we've discussed plenty of 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.800 times if you're looking to invent something new, you can 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:50.800 always just steal something which has already been invented. And yeah, 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.440 most inventions are just stealing ideas from other people. Uh, 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.280 and or maybe making a very slight modification. So a 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:03.600 very common source of new word is borrowing from existing languages. Yeah, 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.560 and these are also known as loan words. Uh. And 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.159 one one fun example of this, or at least I 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:11.640 find it fun. I don't know your your mileage may vary, 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:16.359 but um, earworm is one at all? Here? Well well, 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:20.760 well I'm just kidding. That's that's great. Wrong, earworms are 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:24.480 an example of this. Now it's technically a calic that's 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:26.879 suspelled c A l q u E, which is a 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.479 specialized version of this in which the original word in 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.280 another language is is. It's not just a matter of 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:36.119 taking the say that the German word for something and 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:40.760 using it. It's directly translating it literal, literally word for word. 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.879 Other examples of this would be brainwashing or Adam's apple. 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.640 But with earworm it stems from the German or verm, 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:54.639 which may have originated with German operetta composer Paul Linkey, 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:58.439 but didn't enter the popular lexicon um until like the 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:02.040 early two thousands. Prior to all of this, or verms 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:06.800 were insects of the order uh dermap tira. Ear wigs 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.679 probably named because well, there's one theory is that they 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.240 have the their hind wings are kind of ear like. 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:14.840 If you fold them out, they kind of look like 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.080 a human ear. But the more likely explanation is that 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.080 you have this old wives tale about them crawling into 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.560 human ears and laying eggs inside your brain, which of 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.200 course becomes part of the idea of like, what is 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.440 a song you hear and you can't get it out? 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:31.480 Of your head. It is kind of like a small 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.040 insect that has crawled in through your ear into your brain. 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:38.080 It's like those things in con Yeah exactly, but really, 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.600 your wigs don't do this, right, No, No, there's no 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.040 I think they will, uh from based on the research 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.320 I was looking at, I think they will occasionally you 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.560 can get one in your ear. I would refer back 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:51.960 to our stuff to Blow your mind episode which I 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:56.639 think will be rerunning soon, about insects crawling inside of 0:18:56.640 --> 0:19:00.480 body cavities. It happens, it can happen, but not not 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.520 to the degree that wives tales would have you believe. 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:05.879 And not eggs in the brain. No, no eggs in 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:08.120 the brain. We need another phrase, by the way, that's 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.240 a that's an unfortunate phrase because who knows our wives 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:15.080 really saying this? Yeah, it is. It is sexist terminology. 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.520 Let's just say old folk beliefs and hearsay old starship 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:24.359 captain's tales. Um So. English itself is actually composed of 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:27.119 a huge number of words borrowed from other languages. And 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:31.840 it's not just interesting terms like earworm right. Tons of 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:37.080 everyday terminology is descended from words that were borrowed into English. 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:41.560 Hundreds of years ago. English originally was a West Germanic language, 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:43.600 and and these roots or where we get a lot 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.440 of the origins of common basic short words that still 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.719 exist in English today. But tons of other words in 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:53.720 English come from other languages. So here's one that I 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.280 was just thinking about. What do you call the album 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.119 Black Sabbath by the band Black Sabbath, on which the 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:01.920 song black Sabba it appears. It sounds like a trick question. 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:08.080 I think the answer is Black Sabbath. It's the eponymous album, right, yeah, eponymous, 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.359 But of course eponymous, that's a that's a word taken 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.600 directly from words in Greek. So that's like a Greek 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.520 loan word. In English, it means to give one's name 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:21.680 to um. And in a way, it's funny to try 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.080 to list words in English borrowed from other languages, because 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.000 it would make more sense, really to try to list 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:31.560 the words not borrowed from other languages, descending directly from 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:35.880 Germanic roots, because the vast majority of English words at 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.600 this point are borrowed. By some estimates, borrowed words make 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.200 up about eighty percent or more of the language, and 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.400 some of these words have been borrowed for a very 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.480 long time. Many came from languages like French and Latin 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:51.760 hundreds of years ago. The big point of linguistic cross 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.280 pollination here is the Norman conquest of England in the 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:59.480 eleventh century, where Norman French suddenly became the language of 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:03.159 government into the ruling class in England. And so this 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:05.919 legacy still exists in English today, where you have tons 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:10.080 of words having multiple synonyms for the same concept. Uh. 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.600 And you have a kind of like every day version 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.600 of the word that comes from Old English, and then 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.960 a more formal or official sounding version of the word 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:22.360 that comes from the French. So like a holdover from 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.199 a time when both languages had to exist together at 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.199 the same time and the same heads and off the 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:32.200 same lips. Yeah, and then the French derivative ones were 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:34.800 generally the ones in power, the ones with money, and 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.679 the ones with administrative authority. So uh, you get like 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.360 buy and purchase by from the old English, purchase from 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:46.240 the old French, where you've got dead versus deceased, dead 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.560 from the Old English, deceased from the old French. Where 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.000 you've got wild from the Old English versus savage from 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:55.639 the old French. But that's a wonderful point about the 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:59.520 idea that that or more of the language is just 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:02.119 word that come from other languages. It it kind of 0:22:02.119 --> 0:22:05.840 creates this stone soup sort of scenario for English itself, 0:22:05.880 --> 0:22:08.800 like what what is there that is not something that 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.480 was brought in to bulk up the recipe. Yeah, that's 0:22:12.480 --> 0:22:14.840 a great metaphor. But then ultimately, I mean it gets 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:19.240 complicated because both Old English and Old French or Indo 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:23.400 European languages meaning that so while you know, modern English 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.959 has all these words that come from the French lineage 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:30.920 of language development, ultimately both languages are thought to come 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:34.560 from this hypothetical language a long time ago into European. 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.480 So they split off, they formed different lineages, they formed 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.520 different words that descended from each other, and then at 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:44.640 some point in history they crossed and then entered each other. 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:46.760 It's kind of like a scenario where if you have 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:49.679 like two films that come out and it both essentially 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.520 retellings of the Odyssey or the retaellings of Baiwol or 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:54.879 what have you, like, that's the that's in the genes 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:56.800 of the thing. And then but then one sort of 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:02.440 steals from the other, uh like that. So another common 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.080 source of words ending up in the language is words 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:08.919 derived from proper nouns. Something that was once the proper 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:11.920 name of a person or a place gets drafted into 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:16.080 a common word or phrase. An example here would be platonic. 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:19.920 Think of a platonic relationship. Now, once this was understood 0:23:19.920 --> 0:23:23.359