131: Words of the Week of the Year 2025 (live with friends)

0:00I am, and this is yet another thing where you are just going to be like, why are you even alive, Ben Ainsley? But I loathe karaoke and singing out loud, like with the passion of a thousand, thousand, thousand suns. Oh, wow. That's so interesting. I didn't know that about you. What made you be a Grinch? Why are you like this? Some of us in this world sing so badly. Oh, that is no hindrance. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

0:32So you're doing the thing where you're just like, it's fun to sing bad. But what I am here to say to you is that there are people in this world who can sing so badly that it pushes through that like fun to be bad barrier. And it goes all the way around to just. That is a skill issue when it comes to like engagement and passion. Yeah, you're selling it. You're not selling it enough. No, no, no. I've seen the look. I've seen the look. Look, and it's the look. And this is what the look is, right? The look looks like this.

1:03I will see a person look to the other person and just kind of do this thing of like, do we? That's so rude. I feel bad for you guys for having such judgmental and rude friends. I've never found out how rude my friends are because I'm actually quite a good singer. Oh, my God. Hello and welcome to this live end of year episode of Because Language, a show about linguistics,

1:46the science of language. I'm Daniel Midgley. Let's meet the team. First up, linguist and researcher Hedvig Kregaard. Hedvig, would you rather have a dirty soda or a micro retirement? Um, fuck, what's a dirty soda? We did this earlier. A micro retirement. A micro retirement for sure. Wait, micro time was a bad, it's a funny word for unemployment, right? It was like taking time off or it's what we used to call a holiday.

2:14Before we broke ourselves. I would love a micro retirement. Yes, that sounds very nice. Yeah. Okay. And your dirty soda is, it's like a creamer in there, maybe some coconut stuff. Oh, yes. I remember now. Yes, yes, yes. Popular and Mormon soda. I've tried that. It's not that bad.

2:32Not that bad is what we're going for here, huh? Okay. No. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. And we also have media studies teacher and all around great guy and karaoke expert, Ben Ainsley. Ben, would you rather be an AI vegan or a protest frog? What's your fancy? Ooh. I know, right? That's a toughie. I think the protest frog edges it out because, geez louise, the inflatable frog costume is

3:03just the cutest. It's just so darned cute. And I've just, deep down, underneath my, you know, callous exterior, I just want to be a cutie patootie. You are, Ben. You are. You didn't even see me in my costume. I can lend you the costume if you'd like. I look forward to wearing something that is no doubt 17 sizes too big for me. I really thought the protest frog would do better. I really did. I did. It was a bit endangered. All right. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.

3:34For this episode, we're joined by our friends and listeners. We're counting down our words of the week of the year and everyone's words of the year. We love the WODIs. They remind us that language is alive and that language creation and language change are constant and ongoing. Those are the lessons that I get from the words of the year. Am I off base here? Or is that about right? No, I think that's a good point. I mostly just hate the acronym WODI because it's bleh. WODI. Bleh. This year, I'm going to be excited about seeing things that aren't nouns.

4:07I think word of the year generally tend to be dominated by nouns because there are new concepts and new things. And I want to see new verbs minimally or maybe new other things. But I don't think I will see that much. But we'll see how we go. It's the constructions for me. I know everything is a construction, but like the multi-word constructions and the phrasal templates, I'm all about those phrasal templates. And I love the combining forms. And we've got a few here on this episode. So... That is close as words get to memes, really.

4:37I think that's why you like them. Yeah, that's a good point. That's such a funny way of phrasing it. No, that's good. Yeah, because they're templates and you can slot different things in. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. But also, they're a conspiracy on the part of Big Dictionary to sell more dictionaries. Just because the word big dick is in there, it makes me laugh. I'm sorry. I'm not a very smart man. No, it's 5 a.m. here in Perth. You get automatic.

5:09You can say whatever you want. This is before my beach swim, Daniel. This is tough. This has been before dark, before light. Okay. If you're listening to the audio version of this episode, there's also a video version on YouTube where you're going to see our listeners' very amusing chat messages scrolling on by. Hey, if you are already on video, why don't you smash the like button so more people will see us? Now, to our dear patrons who are here with us, everybody in the Zoom room, you're here at our live show because you're a patron. Thank you for being patrons. We hope you're enjoying. The bonuses, like live shows, bonus episodes, Discord access, I'm having a lot of fun with

5:44it. But if you're listening or watching and you're not a patron, even a free one, we'd love to have you on board. Come see us at patreon.com slash becauselangpod. All right. We ready to get to the words? Let's do it.

5:58Let's start with words from other language bodies, like dictionaries and word groups, not just in English, but all over the world. We'll start with dictionary.com and their word of the year was, everybody together, six, seven. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Yeah. I've come around on six, seven. That's because you're punk rock, man. Well, it's part of my general contrarian streak that if like the majority of people don't like it, I'm like, but then someone pointed out that like, it's a fun rhythm thing that

6:33not everything else is, which I think is fun. It's a bit like badger badger or something like it's a six, seven. It's like it has, it's more, it's not six, seven, right? It has a musical quality. Yeah. That's fun to me. James in chat has just pointed out that the Atlantic did an article about how six, seven is uncool now because of the olds. It's the article. We'll slap it up on the show notes. It's Ian Bogost in the Atlantic. It's called six, seven is six feet under grownups killed it.

7:03I'll just read a quote from it. Six, seven is just a lasso looped by fate around two adjacent integers on the number line. It hides no secret payload of violence, sex, sacrilege, or anything whatsoever. This emptiness surely helped six, sevens rise. Hearing it might irritate parents or teachers, but that irritation has no cause and therefore merits no reproach. Yeah. It's, I often, when, when kids at school ask like what my favorite food is, I, I often say

7:33that, um, pho, Vietnamese beef noodle soup is, is my favorite food for this simple principle that the price to deliciousness ratio is really tough to beat because it's just so very cheap. Most of the places you go and it's so very tasty. And I think, I feel like six, seven is that, but in annoyance to a genuine menace, like the most annoyance to the least genuine menace of anything in the world. It's just, it's so benign and yet so annoying.

8:05Does it not fall into a similar category to like, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, which there's like, there's a melody repetitive thing, not just like words, which is fun and annoying, extra annoying. Well, people have pointed out that it, everyone can do it. It's, it leaves no one out. I've seen, like, I got a couple of young alphas at home, the generation alpha, the oldest you can be is 15. So 15 and younger as of this recording, December, 2025.

8:36And it, it leaves nobody out. It's something that everybody can participate in. It's very inclusive. But I think the thing that I love about it, and I just kind of realized this, it's like seeing generation alpha come into their own as a group. Yeah, it's their first thing. It's their first thing. And we're going to see a lot of things from this generation, but, you know. God help us if this is, if this is the standard. You all forgot Skibbity? Oh, true. Yeah, but. I feel like that's generation Zed.

9:06I don't feel like that's an alpha thing. I would, I would put that together. But do you know what I would say, Hedvig, is I reckon that's a one-two punch. Like, as Skibbity waned, 6-7 came in. And I feel like almost, almost to fill the, the, the, the Cold War power vacuum that was Skibbity. Maybe. That left it behind. Maybe. Maybe I'm wrong about the timing, but I feel like this is, we're, we're really seeing them doing their own thing that we don't get and that we didn't create. And I, I love that for them.

9:38It's the mighty boosh of them. Yes, one episode of which I have watched. Let's see, the dictionary.com also mentioned bro-ligarchy. That was one of theirs. An oligarchy is a system of government or society ruled by few people. And when those people are tech bros who have gotten control, well, that's fairly bad. Let's move on to Colin's Dictionary, who were the next out the gate. Theirs was vibe coding.

10:08How do you think you do a bit of vibe coding? Excuse me? You have done a bit of vibe coding or you're, I thought you were an enthusiastic vibe coder. Sometimes talk to large language models about debugging my code, but I don't let it code for me, if that makes sense. Okay.

10:27Does it qualify as vibe coding? Oh no. What I've got in my head now is a, is a mental image of, and it's completely unfair and I'm sure not accurate, but is you just like pounding the keyboard the way like a toddler might when it's put in front of them by like a parent to like keep them busy and then, and then giving that to like ChatGPT and being like, what's wrong with my code?

10:53And then it just does it. So sometimes things break in unexpected ways and you can throw through stack overflow and documentation and things. Or you can create a large language model who did that for you. Now this is my like only use keys in my life really for generative AI and I already feel uncomfortable with that.

11:19So yeah, but Daniel, I don't, vibe coding is like a very derogatory term. I know, I know. Yeah. So here's the definition, the use of artificial intelligence prompted by natural language to write computer code. There's a note. The term was popularized by Andrej Karpathy, former director of AI at Tesla, founding engineer at OpenAI to describe how AI enables creative output while he could quote, forget that the code even exists. Yeah. You're going to forget that it exists until it's debugging time, right?

11:50Yeah. You will remember. So the thing that it's sort of good at is small localized problems. You have a couple of lines of code, something unexpected has happened. It spots like, oh, this function actually expects this to be that. That it can kind of solve. What it's bad at is anything sort of larger than that. So what happens when you have multiple scripts, multiple modules, you're trying to query large databases and you want to build a cohesive infrastructure. That's what I understand they're not always very good at. Okay. I have very, very limited experience with coding.

12:23Um, but yet again, it just sounds like the best use case in this particular instance sounds like the best use case in nearly all of these instances, which is a highly educated and well trained person can use this tool effectively to help them. And outside of that, it's just like either wildly ineffective or wildly dangerous because the person can't find any of the things that are just like glaringly terrible and obvious and not good. And you just make a house of cards where one like tiny little piece can fall out and then

12:56the whole thing's cooked. Software is already like that when humans code. So like adding AI to code it, it doesn't really help. Once again, we have a situation where the problems caused by AI are also problems that we've always kind of had. Please don't use it for large projects. It is a good use case in some ways because you can check the output and when you can check, that's better than not being able to check. They also mentioned aura farming, the deliberate cultivation of a distinctive and charismatic

13:26persona. Good on you, Collins, for using aura. We had aura as one of ours, but we didn't really get aura farming, which is one of my favorite kinds of farming, second only to engagement farming. Here was a fun one. I had to explain that to my partner who lectures in medicine at the Universidad because she's now, she's moved to universities and she is a mentor or lecturing to undergrads. So they are humans that I like hand off, essentially, and she acquires them just not one year,

14:01one summer later. And she's very surprised and overwhelmed by how young an 18-year-old is. I think she's been out of that loop for quite a long time. So she will come home. She's like, what's aura farming? I'm like, ah, yes, child. Take a seat by the fireplace. Grandpa will tell you a story. But can you explain it to me again? Because it sounds just like performing coolness. It is. It is. 100%. That's what it is. Yeah. And what is, I mean, what's the prop?

14:35Maybe I'm dumb. There's no problem. Aura farming is just a thing that exists. And it's like one of those, someone made fetch happen, right? Someone found a new word for a thing that people have done for a long, long, long, long time, which is try and cultivate status. Manufacture your coolness. Okay. I mean, I don't want people on the public incident to know when I'm uncool. Like, I think it kind of makes sense. You have the worst possible hobby you could have because you just sit and talk and people

15:07listen.

15:09I think I'm cool most of the time, baby. I think I'm less cool in conversations with my friends. I agree, Hedwig. When you find yourself having to say, cool, that's usually a sign that a person is very cool.

15:25Okay. All right. I just put a poll up. Is Hedwig cool? React. Oh, no. Oh, dear. Mm-hmm. Hi. I'm, this is my own kind of, I'm Hedwig Aura farming, like on your behalf. Let's go on. McQuarrie. AI slop was their word of the year chosen by a committee, a good committee as well. A select committee. The Economist picked it too. Let's see. AI slop. There was a lot of us in the Discord who wanted to put it as one of the words, which

15:58of course you, you could have, and it would have won if it got enough votes. AI slop was one of our, it was our second place word last year, which means that we weren't wrong. We were just like early, but early, unfortunately, as with investing, early is wrong. Yeah. There you go. But it's a good one. They also chose Clanker, an artificial intelligence driven robot, which completes tasks that are

16:28normally, it's a robot. It's a derogatory term for a robot. That's a weirdly, like talking about Gen Alpha, that is a weirdly niche Gen Alpha thing. So I don't know if you know the legacy of Clanker, Daniel, but it's essentially Star Wars' N-word, the droids. Yep. And so it's risen in popularity because I think Gen Alpha boys, predominantly, are like, ooh, I'm going to do a wink, wink, nudge, nudge with my friends. And I'm kind of like sort of saying the N-word, but like none of the normies will get it.

17:04It's, that's a, yeah, wow, that's a deep cut. Yeah. Okay. Gee. I'm sure that one's in the historical dictionary of sci-fi. And I feel like one day when they do gain something like intelligence or sentience, if that ever happens, we'll be called upon to answer for these slurs that we make. You got a lot of movies about robots taking over the world. Okay, fine. Also, welcome our insect overlords. Also, one of Macquarie's words was medical misogyny. Entrenched prejudice against women in the context of medical treatment and knowledge, especially in the area of reproductive health.

17:39Not taking women's concerns seriously or being dismissive of certain conditions. Was there some big Australian news stories that I missed about this? Like, because we are aware that this is a thing, but I usually, words of the year usually have some sort of, I don't know, like this, this, I have not come across this this year. That's an interesting one. I haven't either. This was the first time I've heard it, but still, I'm willing to recognize it as an ongoing serious problem.

18:10Absolutely. Well, it's also, I mean, it's, you don't need to be explained what it means, medical misogyny. You can just look at the parts and you're like, oh, it's very certainly this. It's that thing that we know. Yeah. Whereas some of the other words are like, you need their, I would say, newer in that sense as words. I feel like when it's a committee that chooses the words, they want to do a thing, like they want to make a statement. Whereas when it's listener driven, then it, there's less pressure that way.

18:43Okay. When it's listener driven, I think there's also more of a Bodie, my Boakface pull to just do silly stuff. The silliness, the playfulness. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see. Oxford. We're going on to Oxford. They had three choices. Biohack was one of them, Aura Farming, and Rage Bait. 30,000 people made their votes and the winner was Rage Bait. Online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage so that it drives engagement.

19:16Let's talk about Rage Bait for a second because we, we have had anger tainment as one of our words a while ago. And as a public linguist, it's something that I often, that I'm often trying to get tempted into it by producers who really just want to fill time and get engagement. And boy, you can get a lot of engagement by saying, what's your least favorite word? What's that term you hate? Blah, blah, blah. And people just pile in. Why is it always, we talked about this before, why is it always moist in English?

19:48Yeah, because. Moist is. Some sort of weird meme. No, yes. Sorry. Yeah. I put moist alongside, and I'm so sorry to the room and to the wider listening public, but I'm just going to be really like quite rude for a second. Um, the hating moist is as boring and just utterly devoid of personality as having strong opinions about pineapple on pizza. Like it's one of these like weird shibboleths that, that like where a person is just like, oh my God, you have pineapple on pizza.

20:23I have been taught that it's okay to like super hate on this. So now I can have like one slightly not very controversial opinion that I'll hold really strongly. And it's just like, dude, it's like, it's whatever, like fucking sweet and sour. Okay. Sure. Bad. Good. Who cares? Same thing with moist. People like, oh, don't say that word. And I'm like, Stacy, if you can tell me a more appropriate word to describe a well put together cake, I'd love to hear it. We have, we have covered and voiced a bunch of times, including the fact that in Swedish people do the same thing to fuchtig.

20:59Fuchtig. Yeah. Yeah. Even though it sounds nothing like it. It's some sort of weird. It's just, I don't know. Anyway, I got to say, I got to tell a story. I have, uh, I have a family relation who always, when I see him, I don't see him often, but when I do, he kind of gives me a little newsy thing that he's thinking about. He tests me out on a thing that he thinks is interesting to see how I'll react, which is, I guess is nice. He's like, what about, what do you think about this thing that I saw in my newsfeed?

21:30And I think it was something like men not being allowed to work at, at childcare centers or something like that. Some kind of misogyny against men or something like that. Oh, okay. And misandry. And I said, and I said, I haven't seen the story, but that's rage, babe, bro. Don't fall for it. And it's just designed to make you angry. If it's designed to make you angry, it's not good. And that goes for language too. They'll try to get me into stories like that sometimes on radio stations. And I always decline because it's not, you know, you want me to hate on language.

22:02You think it's harmless because we're hating on language, but that's somebody's language. And so rage bait is not really where we want to go. Okay. Cambridge dictionary. Their word of the year was, and I thought they were all pretty good until we got to here. Parasocial. You don't like parasocial? I like parasocial. I just don't feel like it's, I think it was the word of the, it was a digital word of the year for the American Dialect Society back in 2021.

22:34It was nominated then. Oh, so you're like, it's over the hill. I feel like it is. What's, I don't know why, chat. But it's that staying power. Like now that, now that you're right, like parasocial has been around for a really long time. And as podcasters who also listen to podcasts, we think about parasocial things a lot, right? Um, and I think it's interesting that it has had staying power. And I think that says something about the kind of content and entertainment we're using across multiple channels.

23:05So I like, uh, Dustin is just like, I like parasocial. Don't you like it? My dear friend, Daniel.

23:14Yeah. I will, I will say that, that Sandman is just that kind of friend to me. Um, no, I think I, I reckon, yeah, maybe, maybe as a word of the year, no, but what was the, what was the word of the year, either last year or the year before that I just hated, Daniel? Like a real flash in the pan, like Mimi, there was, oh, there was something. Was it Aussie? Yeah. In what form? No, I think it might've been Aussie as a productive form. And for me, parasocial is like the exact opposite of that, right?

23:45Like it's not sexy and it's not like fun or anything, but it is actually probably really, really, really keyed into something that's quite profound socially for us and culturally. Like this is here to stay as not just as a word, but as like a phenomenon within our society. Um, so I think that's probably why it's kind of rearing its head again. I think, yeah, media has this thing. When you see people, our reptile brain goes, friend.

24:15And so it's kind of, it's an exploit, just like generative AI text as an exploit. That's a human. Oh God. When you see people in media, it's like, that's somebody I know. If, if not friend, why friend sounding? Then you don't want to see what Dustin just posted in the chat. Let's, let's make up the word that Ben will just hate the most.

24:37The Australian National Dictionary Centre didn't have a word this year, but that's okay because they're picking themselves up and keeping going and they still exist thanks to an anonymous donor. And that's the important thing. We love you, A-N-D-C. We'll see you next year. The Canadian, now we're going Canadian. Canadian National Dictionary had, this was pointed out by Aria Flame way back in March and James, the Canadian word of the year is maple wash, which washing was our word last year.

25:09Okay. That's a good one. I like this. I think I can guess this. Go ahead. To, to sort of perhaps somewhat underhandedly give the impression that something is like super Canadian to rebrand it as like, really like, oh, look how maple it is, eh? I don't know. That was terrible. Sorry. Sorry Canadians. Pretty good Canadian accent there, Ben. Mm-hmm. Excellent. That's correct. It's like slapping a maple leaf on your product when you actually didn't make it in Canada and haven't for a super long time.

25:43Isn't it, isn't it also connected to the, there was a, there was that thing with the Americano and the, do you guys remember what I'm talking about? I remember the Canadiano and that was one of ours this year. Yes. But that wasn't maple washing. That's just like a freedom cabbage. Like that's, that's just saying fuck you to the US. That's different from maple washing. There are lots of ways to say fuck you to the US. Like not going there. Yeah. This, uh, the original toot that I could find on Mastodon was from Ian K. Rogers.

26:14I'll have a link on the show notes. I'm going to start calling this maple turfing. Fuck US goods pretending to be Canadian. Campbell's Soup sold in Canada now has a maple leaf on the label. Their website has had a maple leaf next to their logo since October, 2023. Campbell's has not had Canadian manufacturing since 2018 when they shut down their last Canadian plant. He called it, uh, maple turfing, which is interesting. There's a strong resemblance between turfing and washing, I think. We've got some competing forms here. I think washing is better because turfing is, has to do with grassroots movement.

26:46And you can't say that Campbell's Soup can design as a grassroots movement. There's a subtle difference. They're both deceptive, but they are different things. Okay. Other languages besides English. Japan. Japan's word of the year, as announced on Nihon.com. Yoku Nana. Is, here it is. Haraitai, haraitai, haraitai, haraitai, haraitai mairimasu. Which means, I pledge to work, work, work, work, work. Spoken by the new prime minister, Takaichi Sanai.

27:18Who has been criticized for stating that she intends to, quote, do away with work-life balance. That's in translation, that quote. It's coming up against a, a, a feeling that we don't need to break ourselves against the machine and that there needs to be a work-life balance. So. I just, I'm, wow. If you were to ask me one nation that just categorically doesn't currently have work-life balance, Japan would be really high on that list. Historically.

27:48I wonder, though. I haven't been there. I haven't been in touch with Japanese culture for a while. Is this changing? This is what, no, but this is what assailing a dominant cultural artifact looks like, right? When something is as well entrenched as like salaryman culture and just like working yourself to a bone the way the Japanese work culture is set up, even the slightest attempt or approach to assail that edifice is going to meet the, you know, like the, the powers that be are going

28:18to be like, absolutely fucking not like a beaver with running water. They just absolutely can't stand it. This is why we have to fight power because power never retreats willingly of any kind. I'm surprised that this was a thing a politician said. I thought that, I thought that you could be against work-life balance in practice as a politician, but I thought it would be unpopular to say it because you still want people to like vote for you. No, it's a conservative dog whistle, right?

28:50So, um, working yourself to death, I I'm speaking sort of a little bit out of pocket here, but I, I presume working yourself to death is one of the artifacts of what it is to be quote unquote real Japanese or truly Japanese. Like this is, this is what we do. This is who we are. Um, and so this, this new prime minister is a, is a lady prime minister. And I think that is relevant to this discussion. I'm not just saying that arbitrarily because much as Margaret Thatcher had the cover of

29:22womanhood to sort of drape actually like truly insane, full on conservatism in, in, in the, the sort of the, the cloth of femininity. I think there's a little bit of that going on here as well. This is like a Japanese woman who's like, you know, I'm a mother. So like if I'm okay with working myself to death, everyone should be also a word. Actually, this is the kanji of the year from coconut on our discord. Kanji of the year is bear. And, uh, I think this is most often pronounced as kuma.

29:57At least animals are sometimes done in katakana. That special script that is a little bit different and syllable by syllable, but there is a kanji for bear. And the reason is because there have been some increasingly dangerous encroachments by wild bears into human communities around Japan and they have made the news. So bear is... When I went to, um, Japan, we stayed in rural Japan and I went for a bit of a wander and I came across an electric fence for bears. Uh, and when I say an electric fence, I literally just mean like a wire strung across like the,

30:31the, the ground. Um, but yeah, I was just like, Oh, what's this? Oh my, oh my. Not, it's, it's not a lethal thing. Like, like, I don't think you get to make electric fences lethal pretty much anywhere in the world because that would just be horrendously dangerous, but much like, much like me, I think the bear touches it and goes, Oh fuck. I'm not going there. Yeah. Okay. German help me Hedvig.

31:01Yes. I clicked on, um, the list here. So it's, uh, KI era. Oh, KI. Oh, how do you pronounce it? So it's, it's AI era. AI era. It's, uh, Kunst, um, how is it? Kunstliche. Kunstliche. Kunstliche. So artificial intelligence era is, uh, the number one. I think that's just, that's quite self-explanatory. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a theme. That's what it says on the tin. Yep. I noticed, however, the German youth words of the year, they're the most fun.

31:32They're voted on by lots and lots of young people. There were three. The big one was das Kreise. Das Kreise. Yes. I saw this. Are you hearing this? It was in some of my group chats. No, I'm absolutely not. But I also don't spend any time with any German young people. But you're still cool. I wouldn't, um, uh, but I, I, I'm confused by that, that company. That's a discourse particle. You're saying it's like something you say when somebody tells a big story and you're like, wow, that's, that's wild.

32:04Or, huh, how about that? But is it sarcastic? Yeah. It doesn't, no, it doesn't have to be. It can, in my understanding. Because the way you said it sounded incredibly rude and sarcastic.

32:16That's crazy. My understanding is that it's got, so help me out, German people who have familiar with this, uh, familiarity with this saying, but it's kind of like, huh, that's, that's interesting. Oh, wow. I think, I, I mean, I think we do this in English, right? Like. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it's hugely complicated. And it doesn't have to be a wild story. It can just be a comprehension check slash verbal cue. Yeah. Okay. Like, like, I, I, I keep going, I'm passing up my turn kind of thing.

32:47Yes. A little bit like what we've had earlier, like chopped and cooked. It just gets milder over time. Okay. Okay. The other two were gunen, the verb to gun, which, you know, nice to see that coming up. Okay. Lovely. Yeah. And then. Do you want to explain what that is, Daniel? Uh, let's see if it pops up later. Okay. There we go. Ooh. There's. Look at, what a showman, folks. Just, just peppering that anticipation. Came up with that on the fly.

33:19And my favorite one was chext do. Am I saying that right, Hedvig? Chext do? Chext do? Chext do? Uh, so, so it's the verb check conjugated for second person singular. Chext do. That's it. Which I have never heard. So I don't know what it means. But I can guess. Are we saying check as in like the place or check as in you should check something? Check as in, um, I check something. Okay. Yeah. It's the way of saying, do you understand or do you get me?

33:49Yeah. Okay. Uh, it's, it would be like saying, do you dig or. Okay. You dig. Yeah. Okay. You know what I mean? It's a, it's a, you know what I mean? It's a, it's a discourse pragmatic marker and it's a very useful one. It's comprehension checks. That's fun. Sorry, Sam, man. No, I'm not edging gooning, but you know, I feel. Let me just say also, we are looking forward to a word of the year, a WOTI vote that hasn't happened yet. And that is the American Dialect Society WOTI from 2025, which is a, the oldest one of these,

34:21the oldest word of the year vote and one of the biggest voted on by language lovers. We'll try to have some experts on when we come back in February to talk about the words of the year there. All right. And now I think it's time to do some Related or Not. Our theme comes from Stee, who made. Oh, yes. We've heard the short one from Stee and that was awesome. But now it's time for the long version.

34:51Get out your lighters, everybody. Let's hear it. I got a question about etymology. I can't give it a name. My tongue and tonic and toned and benignin. All counted the same. Seems to me they got a vague similarity. Can someone please help me out? Heard some folks talking loud on the radio.

35:26Got something to prove. They try to answer this new kind of question. I can get in the groove. Yeah. I think they're gonna help me out. They seem really cool or are they just false friends? Nice. Time to play to the words that I say Live together in a family tree No or yes, are you brave enough to guess Stay together on the count of three

35:57I got an answer here But it isn't so clear I need a minute, just bear with me Because our words are all that we've got Time now to find out, related or not Cause our words are all that we've got Time now to find out, related or not Related or not

36:29One more Related or not Oh, Steve, the fourth because language person Hedwig, tell us about the creation of that Were you present at the birth?

36:55No, what happened was Everyone else was sending in jingles And he plays and writes music So I was like, you should do one And I think Daniel would like that And then he, just a few days later Sent me the audio files That's all that happened I'm not involved in that process So good But I'm very proud Yeah, it's great You can tell him from me So much better than Coldplay Better than Coldplay Really worked on that chorus I could tell So much better Let's get to our first one

37:26This one is from our friend Arjun A student Here we go Don't vote until you've heard You know, both sides here How have I not thought of this one before? Wink and blink You know? They're heard of the same kind of action They rhyme But there might be some traps here Okay, my guess was Yes, obviously Okay That was my intuition That, like, straight away Just, like, landed in my eyeballs

37:58And I was like Yeah, surely Surely I think this might be Bates Ooh And also And Dita can confirm If it's the same in Danish But Wink is, like, to wave your hand Ah Quickly? Or is it a quick wave? No, like Yeah Yeah, it's a short wave It's a fast movement Yeah I just checked my brain

38:29So I feel like maybe that means something I don't know The problem is that The words for wink and blink in Swedish Are vinka och blinka Which also sound really similar So, like Yeah But at least the meaning is a slight difference So I'm going to be contrarian And say, no, they're not related Okay, it's time for you to vote All you dear listeners The votes are rolling in But there's still We still don't have Oh, yeah They're climbing up there

38:59You know, it could be It could be an onomatopoeia thing You know, that they Oh They grow together That noise that our eyes make The noise that we attribute to our eyes Well, I don't know Let me try Does it make a noise? No There is a tiny noise sometimes It might be like one decibel Yeah You can all try it out How to get a whole room full of people Just like I feel like the straining of the muscles in my face

39:32Is making a larger sound in my ears Than the blinking If that makes sense Can anyone bear down on their muscles in their head And cause a rumbling sound? Yes I can do that What? Yep Oh, I can hear like a straining sound Is that the rumbling? You hear like a Low frequency bass noise Okay, we have We have some votes We're going to end this poll And let's share the results Looks like 20% of people said they were related 80%

40:03Not related You people are going to be geniuses If you get this right Now, we think of blinking As using that reflex To close and open our eyes quickly But it has As Hedwig mentioned It's meant a lot of things over the years Like just glancing Or looking quickly Or even moving quickly So that's blinking It didn't actually mean To You know To that reflex Until quite late Then there's wink I also remember that To wink Used to mean To close both eyes

40:34Or even to cover your eyes Like a blindfold Which is why When you are Hood-winked You've been Blinded Because somebody's put a hood Over your head And so that's That makes sense Where that word comes from Okay We only see from One It's a super old word As we can see by all the Germanic reflexes there Reflex But One We start seeing it meaning To wink One eye Only Only since the 1300s Well These words Seem to be Not

41:05Related To each other You Savvy folk Yep You absolute Bastards We have the smartest listeners Blink comes from Old English Blickan To shine Or to glitter And wink is from Old English Winkian To close one's eyes But they don't They go back to Different words And they may have Grown together Because they Are semantically related Or just For onomatopoeia reasons Daniel Can I This has made me Think of one To table For later discussion

41:36Interesting Ripple And wrinkle Ooh Okay It's on the record Let's go to our Second one This one is from Sullivan Who says Hello I've been listening To your podcast For a few years now It's definitely One of my favorites My boyfriend Sent me this text About the words Gossip And gospel And I thought It might make An issue Later Than that Boyfriend says I just made The linguistic Connection between The gospels In the bible And the word Gossip

42:06I'm guessing There's probably A root word Meaning to talk About someone else In there somewhere So I guess The gospels Are sort of like Holy gossip About a friend And mentor I thought that I thought that was neat It would also be neat If the similarity Between the two words Was a coincidence Thank you for all you do You bring a lot of joy Into my life That's that's Sullivan saying that To us Not the boyfriend Saying it To them End quote End quote And so Here we go Gospel and gossip Now I don't want to focus On the pell

42:36And the sip part Because I think We could say Those are pretty obviously Maybe from different sources But what about the goss What about the goss Are the two gosses Related So let's hear Your answers I want to throw A third thing in here Just because Why the fuck not Goss hawk The animal You mean like a Goss hawk So not just a kind of Thing that looks a bit Like a goose I don't think

43:08That's where the goss From goss hawk Comes from No So I would be Yeah I'd be Interested if If the Maybe a goss hawk Screeches In a In a particular way And that's In some way Related to talking This is just a pure Ben Ainslie Silliness But yeah I'm going related Okay Or it's related to Gosling Oh True Yeah okay Maybe Okay And whatever Gosling Yeah Okay Shut up Ben You're just making

43:39Dita mentions The etymology Of gossip Has come up Before Either on here Or somewhere else I've seen This is a fairly Well known Etymology I thought a lot Of people Would sort of Have run into Gossip Before I haven't Well my problem Is I don't keep Up to date On like English etymology Really I just used To cheat Of knowing Other languages And I can't Think of anything Maybe I'm just Not thinking Hard enough But I can't think Of anything Gives me nothing Here I can't think Of anything I think I've Had this one In a course

44:09On language Change And historical