134: True Colour (with Kory Stamper)

0:00Are you getting rid of all those recordings? Am I getting rid of them? No, I don't think I am. I think there's a big folder with hundreds of my audio just sitting there. Massive WAV files just sitting there. They're not that massive. I just do a thing where like every couple of years, I'm like, hmm, I seem to be running out of room. Maybe I should clear some stuff. No, no. I'll buy another two terabyte solid state drive. Oh, nice. And now I've got like four of those just sitting there, just beavering away.

0:30Coming away.

0:32We have a lot of external hard drive. We have a spreadsheet to organize our external hard drives. Wow. You could like take all of your drives and make like a RAID network or something. You could take all of your drives and then hack them and make them make like cool music. Like... Daniel and I are the same kind of broken. Isn't that interesting?

1:16Hello and welcome to Because Language, a show about linguistics, the science of language. I'm Daniel Midgley. Let's meet the team. First up, it's Ben Ainslie. Hello, Ben Ainslie. Hello. So tell me your spiciest take on color, because that's the subject of this episode. I'm not sure if I have a spicy color take. The closest I've got for you, Daniel, is I don't know if you're aware of this. On the day that we are recording this episode, it is the Hindu Holy Festival day today.

1:49Like today. And I went to do my workout in the park across the road from my house. And there is a thousands of persons, strong, holy festival, rave, color event taking place. So just by virtue of doing some push-ups on the grass, I have partaken in the color festival. So that was really neat and really fun. Thank you. Also, we have Hedvig Hurgard. Hedvig. Hello. Do you have a spicy take on color? A spicy take on color? Well, this week I had the blue dress color illusion explained to me.

2:20Had you not come across it before? The whole blue and black? Oh, okay. No, no. I had come across the blue dress on the internet that people argued is white and gold versus blue and black. Sure, sure, sure. And what I had not fully grasped was like how, what is the reason for it? Oh, like the scientific color science that was going on there? Yes, and that boggled my mind and it made me think in general about the fact that I've heard before, which is that like color is, color exists as photons that like hit your eye and stuff and bounce off things.

2:53But you also have like assumptions yourself about what color things are. And the first time you see something, whatever color you think that thing is, then it's very hard to change. So like if someone has like a gray sweater and you see them in a greenish light and you think it's green, you could see it in a blue light later and it definitely doesn't look green. But you'll, in your head, you'll be like, oh, that's the green sweater they wore last time. So there's like a weird anchoring bias that happens. Yeah. And I think that's, I don't know if that's my spicy take, but it, but it, it really, yeah, color, it's just nonsense, isn't it?

3:30Like, can we take like just one second for anyone who hasn't fallen down the rabbit hole of color science, like what is it? Hicksunt Draconis, right? Like be very careful because color is bonkers. It's so crazy. Like when you first discover there's additive color and subtractive color and you're like, oh, wow, that's a lot more complicated than I thought. And then you dig into the like math and physics and science of that.

4:04And it's just, you so quickly get into territory. We're like, I need a doctorate to understand.

4:11That's going to be a theme of our episode today. It's, it's nonsense and it's mind boggling, but it's also like what everyone who's cited, like, that's what we, we look at things all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's so much information. It's what we do all the time. Yeah, like the, the boxes in my peripheral vision up there are, they look red to me, but that's not because I'm seeing red. I don't have any color vision in my peripheral vision. There's nothing there. It's just that my brain is reminding me that's red. Like it kept a little track of those boxes.

4:42And even when I'm not looking at them, there's no red appearing to them to me. Brain says that's red. This is, okay, so this honestly is like the never ending packet of Tim Tams or something, because that, the fact that we don't see color in our peripheral vision, that's a new piece of color information for me. Like it never ends. There is always deeper to fall. I've been trying to catch things, like I've been trying to like introduce things into my peripheral vision that are a certain color to see if I will track them as gray until they come into the middle.

5:12But the problem is, it's very hard to surprise yourself. Yeah, you can't, one can't tickle oneself. You can fool oneself, but you can't surprise yourself. Okay, so my hot take on color is that indigo is a scam and it doesn't belong in the rainbow or the mnemonic. I've always thought this. I've always thought in like Roy G. Biv, like there's essentially like a whole third of Roy G. Biv that is kind of one color, which is purple. Exactly. What's going on is Isaac Newton had mystical ideas about the number seven.

5:46And because he was the one who was writing about color so much, he said, I'm just going to slide indigo in there. Indigo is really important. It's dye stuff. You know, we need it. Are you being serious? Like he was a magical thinker as well as being an absolute genius. He was. He was both. Oh, that's really common though. Oh, okay. People are complicated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And here I was thinking he was just very smart. Yeah, well, he was both, you know. Okay. Now that I've read this and researched this for this episode, I find that it's not actually as spicy as I thought. Isaac Asimov once said,

6:17It is customary to list indigo as a color lying between blue and violet, but it has never seemed to me that indigo is worth the dignity of being considered a separate color. To my eyes, it seems merely deep blue. Now, can we, I want to, because I can see, I can see Hedwig gearing up. All right. So I want to just. Okay. What do you think? What do you think? What are you going to, what am I going to say? I want to very quickly state that indigo, if we are talking about color from the perspective of like a painter or a person who decorates interiors or does design or something, indigo absolutely deserves its own name and all that kind of stuff, right?

6:51Like if we're talking about color to the degree where there's like burnt sienna and oxblood and all that kind of stuff, indigo 100%. But when we're talking about the gradations of like the color spectrum, indigo does not deserve a place on that podium. And I feel like Hedwig was gearing up to being like, it was, it's so different. It was so different. It's so different. I think I know what she's going to say. Yeah. I think Daniel knows what I'm going to say. I don't think Ben knows what I'm going to say, which, which. Daniel, what am I going to say? We know each other very well, which is a marker of good kinship.

7:22We also know certain facts well, I think. Okay. So lay it on us. Come on. No, Daniel says what I'm going to say and I'm going to see what it is. Well, I thought you were going to say something like, there aren't seven colors, but there aren't six colors either. Different languages carve up the color map different ways. Yes. And in particular, Russian famously does two different entire words for light and dark blue, which sort of in some of these map onto what people are saying is blue and indigo. Because I would argue that orange and yellow barely deserve to be distinguished.

7:56Madness. So madness. Madness in English. Madness in English. I mean, three primary colors, three secondary colors, six shouldn't be Roy G. Biv. It should be Roy G. Bip. Blue, purple. But Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel. Are we doing that thing? I saw a great TikTok recently and I realized we have not yet begun the show and we are going for a new world record of just like faffing about. But are we doing the thing? I saw a great TikTok recently where it's just like, try in your head replacing the phrase

8:30music theory with Western musical tradition circa 1500 whenever you're talking about music, right? And are we doing the same thing for color right now? Absolutely.

8:44Absolutely. Yeah. So let's, we shall bear this in mind. I have a feeling that this show is going to be one big game of like, oh, fuck, there goes another assumption about color. Maybe, maybe. Because we're talking colors in this episode. Ben, I'm going to ask you, if you were writing a dictionary entry for blue, how would you define blue? Oh, don't make me do the mask. This was easy, Ben. Then, okay, okay, a dictionary, a dictionary entry for the color blue would be, um, well,

9:20you could go wavelength, right? You could, you could say, um, a, is the perceived color of light, which, uh, uh, vibrates? No. Which has a wavelength of a certain range. I don't know what blue is off the top of my head. Is it like 700 kilohertz or something? I do not know. Okay. Um, micrometers or something like, you know, it'd be micrometers, wouldn't it? Um, that's one way to do it. That's one way. But what an unsatisfying way to do it, right?

9:50Because that doesn't actually give a person any information whatsoever. So then my brain would say, okay, do you then say things that are very typically blue, like the sea or the sky or something like that, or like a blue jay or whatever, or a superb fairy wren if you were here in Western Australia? I have a decorative plate with superb fairy wrens. This a pretty. So you got two things here. You go mathematical or you start listing objects. That would work. Yep. Or, or you could start describing it in terms of other colors, but blue's hard.

10:23Like you can do that with cerulean, but not necessarily with blue. Right. You get like the primaries get really tricky. Right. Um, also if you describe things in the world, that's really not very helpful for people who don't have vision, uh, famously. Well, for this episode, we're having someone who writes dictionaries and who has a lot of knowledge about this history, especially as it pertains to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It's Corey Stamper and her new book is True Color. It's the story of how this attempt to define colors was taking place against a larger effort

10:57to say what color even was. And at the same time, there was an effort to standardize color largely as a result of the war effort. Because if you ordered olive drab uniforms from Germany and from Italy, you might get totally different colors and that might be a problem. So colors at this time were beginning to be a hot topic for dictionaries and for everyone. And we're going to be talking to Corey about it. This is very exciting. I am very keen to find out more. I actually, it's one of those things. I think, I don't think, Daniel, I could ever go and be a font nerd the way you are.

11:31But I think, I fear, I am afeard that were I left alone to my own devices, I could potentially become a color nerd. You might. You might. Yeah. You know, we're rocketing through this year and that means that pretty soon we'll be starting up some live shows in addition to bonus episodes, in addition to normal episodes, in addition to Discord access, in addition to the good feeling that comes from supporting your favorite language podcast. So I'd just like to make a special invitation to you to join us as have our latest patrons.

12:05You know what I'm doing? I'm taking them out of the back end of the show. I'm sticking them up right here. Yeah. You know what? Oh, that's cute. That's one of those, that's like the upside down fridge. Why the flip have we not been doing that from the start? Exactly. So I'd like to say a big happy thank you to our latest patrons at the friend level, Hannah, and our newest free patrons, Miff, Stuart W, Greg 17, Moda Di Bere, which is a podcast about drinking and language. Hi, Rose. How's it going? And Torsten. You can join us. That's patreon.com slash because lang pod.

12:38Bam. Well, now that we have congratulated just the coolest cats in town, what's going on in the news? It's time to play good thing or bad thing because something's been going on in New Zealand. Oh, no. Oh, no. That's normally such a unified source of good things. Why? Well, here's the news. A bill has been put forward in New Zealand Parliament to make English an official language of New Zealand. And here's the text of the bill. It says, English is an official language of New Zealand.

13:13Okay. That's the wording. Oh, and this is the question. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Now, there is a policy statement. Legislative recognition of the status of English as an official language will not affect the status or use of Te Reo Maori and New Zealand Sign Language as the two other official languages of New Zealand. Okay. Oh, are they going to be like at the same level as English or are they going to be official minority languages? Well, let's talk about official in New Zealand.

13:43So, Te Reo Maori is an official language of New Zealand since 1987. Okay. So, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Yep. I feel like we've got... So, whenever we do language law stories, I think we need to do a little bit of a reminder about how, speaking of the standardization of color, how, like, not standardized this is, right? So, like, different countries can say different things in different ways and they can mean very different things. So, this is a bill that wants to make English an official language of New Zealand.

14:15So, then the first question becomes, did it already have official languages, which you've just answered. It had Te Reo as an official language. Did it have any other official languages prior to this point? New Zealand Sign Language, which has been official since 2006. And those were the only two? Well, this is where things get a little bit gnarly. Okay. The question is, is English an official language of New Zealand? It is considered one of the three official languages, but it is de facto official, which

14:48I guess means it's widely considered official, but no one voted for it. And this bill would make it officially official, for reals. So, for example, there's probably somewhere stated that law texts should be in English. They probably have some sort of policy or convention that the things that goes on in the parliament should happen primarily in English and that the written record of what happens in parliament should be in English, which is one of the things often official does.

15:20I think it just happens. Interesting. Right. Like, it's the case of, like, when something is so obvious and you're swimming in the water, you don't feel the need to state that that's the way it is. So, if that's the case, then is this either just, like, a small little mission to make something explicit that was implicit, or is this some sort of dog whistle thing? That was the question. It can't help but be a dog whistle, right? Like, the only possible reason you would bring this up is for that reason.

15:51What I think is actually really adorable, if I'm being completely honest, is that this is, I'm inferring, New Zealand's version of, like, cranky right-wing politics, and it's the mildest thing ever. Like, it's so chill because it's basically being like, oh, well, bloody hell, English should be an official language as well as the two minority languages that we've actually already acknowledged illegally. And this won't change that, of course, but we want a place too.

16:23Like, it's actually very adorably conservative compared to, like, the insanity we are seeing elsewhere in the world. This just seems fucking quaint by comparison. An older time. And it's the kind of thing that might sound reasonable to most people. Um, but this discussion needs to be viewed in the light of the implicit narratives and presuppositions. What are they? Conservatives are in power in New Zealand? Am I wrong in thinking that? Oh, this is something I should know, and I don't right now.

16:54I think, I think the Conservative Party is New Zealand Parliament. Let's see if I can infer what the colours mean from this little diagram. Yeah, nationals. Nationals are the ruling party. Just for info, this legislation is being proposed by the nationals and by New Zealand First. I was going to bring up New Zealand First, which, if you had to guess what kind of politics they're into, do you want to guess?

17:26I just know that anybody who supports an English language bill is going to be right-wing. That's just, without even knowing the name of the party. I know you're Australian, and you have, like, a very, like, little big brother relationship to New Zealand, and you were like, this is so cute and stuff, but, like, New Zealand First is very open. They are New Zealand, sorry, when I say they. New Zealand is struggling with many of the same issues that Australia is struggling with and that other places are struggling with. It's a weird time politically, though, right, because we look to America where the Conservatives

18:03have not only one power, but are engaged in a, like, salted earth campaign of control and command and just, like, a level of fascistic exercise that we have not seen in a really long time. Like, it makes Margaret Thatcher look not as intense, and she was a very intense human being. And then, meanwhile, in Australia, we are seeing, so what Hedwig is alluding to is that in Australia,

18:34for those outside of Australia, we have a actually quite burgeoning ultra-right movement happening in Australia, but that is happening within the context of our Conservative parties getting annihilated nearly across the board in every state and federal election we've had for a while. Like, the most recent federal election in Australia was a, I don't even know, like, decimated doesn't actually feel like enough of a word, right? Because that means killing one in ten. Like, they got. No, it doesn't.

19:06Obliterated. Obliterated, yeah. The Liberal Party in Western Australia got so few votes that they had to disincorporate as an entity.

19:18And that's very similar to what's happening in a lot of Europe as well. That's happening to the party called the Liberals in Sweden right now. It's not fully decimated, but it's happening in Germany to a certain extent. So, it's a common story across what we might describe as the European or Western world or whatever we want to call it. But what I suspect Hedwig was alluding to is there is actually a really big danger there. So, it feels really good that, like, quote-unquote progressive parties, although I'm sure this is true in Europe as well as Australia, progressive is actually a very generous term for what ends

19:51up being a very centre-right system of, like, left government.

19:56They can rest on their laurels now, content to be like, yay, we won really handily. And meanwhile, some really awful and concerning things are, like, growing in the shadows. And so, these New Zealand first in New Zealand, one nation in Australia are growing in power and popularity. And the implications in the, like, five to ten-year timeline are very worrying. Because if they do become the new conservative face of our politics, then there is going to

20:28be something really yucky that we will have to contend with for decades. Yep. For sure. And the survival strategy of a lot of these sort of classical conservative parties is to enter into coalitions with the further right. So, that's what is currently the ruling parties in Sweden. And it is maybe, if I don't know enough about New Zealand politics, but the nationals and New Zealand first together suggesting that English is going to be an official language does smell

20:59a little bit of that. It's not the, I'll openly say, I don't think it's the worst thing. They could suggest if English is already a de facto language. And this is what I meant by being kind of quaint. Yeah. But it is clearly some sort of dog whistle. You're right. It is not the most concerning thing, but it takes place against a concerning backdrop. And it does reveal some narratives. Like, why would you need to enshrine English as an official language when it's the de facto

21:30official language? Well, this reveals a belief that whatever the current status of English is in New Zealand, it's not enough. And that's why it needs this kind of protective status. Well, why would you think that unless you were doing something a bit dog-whistly? I mean, English is spoken in New Zealand by 96% of the population, and yet 96% isn't enough? What would be enough? So there are some really good articles. There's one by Sidney Wong, Andrea Kalud, and Jessen James in The Conversation, link in

22:04the show notes for this episode, where they argue that a better use of resources, instead of trying to pass this, would be focusing on the threat to heritage languages, which have non-dominant status. We're seeing more languages being spoken, not less. And so that's one thing that we should be working on, is preserving heritage languages. Maybe also working on helping the process of learning English become easier and more fair. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I can recommend, so the New Zealand, I forget which ministry it is, but do these

22:35beautiful weeks every year. So they have Samoan Language Week, Tonga Language Week, Tokilaoan Language Week, and other language weeks all throughout the year. And they do little, like, promotional campaigns. People do little episodes in different languages, and it's really cute. You know, no matter what country you're in, you should be paying attention when people try to do this kind of English official thing. Who's promoting it, and who are they trying to benefit? And this isn't getting any better when we look over at China, which is our next news story given to us by Diego.

23:07This is in the Tibetan Review. They're having, currently, the 14th National People's Congress, opened on March 5th. It says, the law will require ethnic minorities to use Mandarin Chinese as their main language of instruction, overturning decades-old policies that date back to the era of Mao Zedong. See, now this is some proper authoritarianism, right? When I said this seems quaint in the previous story, I'm like, yeah, this is what heavy-handed language policy looks like. Yep. Can you guess what they're appealing to in an effort to stomp out other minority languages?

23:43Take a guess. What are they appealing to? Other than nationalism? How are they selling it? Are they saying that these poor minorities can't go to university otherwise? Something like that? Also, by the way, do we think that there are communities that, I suspect that they're already feeling the pressure from Han Chinese. Oh, it's happening. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I feel like this is, yeah.

24:15So, I'm guessing that was a no, because Daniel wasn't like, ding, ding, ding. I'm going to guess that it's like, if they don't speak Mandarin, they're a burden on the state, and we have to expend resources. It's not even that specific. It's really vague. So, first of all, it's forging a sense of community in the Chinese nation. Okay. It's a national. Yeah, yeah, yeah. National unity, right?

24:45Yeah. And, in fact, the legislation also threatens people and organizations, quote, who engage in acts that undermine national unity and progress or incite separatism. What's special here is that the People's Republic of China has had explicit policies for quite a long time that, at least on paper, seem to value and highlight the cultural diversity within China. China is a really big country. And if you look at, like, the central west, yes, there are a lot of people who speak Mandarin

25:18and are Han Chinese, but especially as you get further, or sorry, if you look east, if you get further west, you get a lot of different people who live in that really big country. And for a while, that was like a source of pride with, like, these 55 recognized ethnic minorities and, like, a lot of, like, the national news outlets will be like, oh, this cultural group is celebrating this festival. Look at their beautiful clothes. And, like, showcasing that to the world to be like, look at us. We are, like, diverse, and yet we are unified.

25:49And isn't that beautiful? That's, um, can I be weird and, that's surprising to hear. Like, I, that is not something that I was aware of as a feature of, like, Chinese civic unity. I had, I had assumed it was, like, we are Chinese. Chinese is this. And, like, stuff that deviates from that is not necessarily, so, I'm, I'm. I think it's been going on at the same time. Okay. No, no, no, I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm, like, I welcome this information. I just, the, to the outside, to the stupid white outsider's perspective, what I pick up

26:24on mostly is this, this sense of unity. So, it's interesting to know that from the inside, there is actually this sense of at least a modicum of celebration of diversity.

26:37Well, whenever I've seen it, it seems very, it seems quite put on and, like, Performative. Right, okay. And paper thin. But it's been a source of, like, marketing, branding as, like, this is a way that we are different from the U.S. or something that, like, we, blah, blah, blah, blah, something like that. Now, someone who's, like, an expert on Chinese cultural history will point out how I'm wrong, but it's at least been a part of some of the branding for a while. And it has been, like Daniel said, like, it has been inscribed in law that there are 55

27:10ethnic minorities with a right to their culture and language for a really long time. Okay. And so, maybe in practice, that hasn't really been the way people's lived experience. So, maybe this is another case of policy updating to what is actually happening. Um, but it is, it is noteworthy that they want to change it on paper as well. Mm-hmm. Well, let's just finish up with a story from James. You know how, in some places, when you dial up an official service, like a government service,

27:42it says, press one for English. For Spanish, for example, press two. Sure. Well, this story takes us to Washington State, where, when you call the Washington State Department of Licensing, and you press two for Spanish, here's what you get. Oh, no. Oh, I'm so worried. Thank you for calling the Department of Licensing Customer Support Center. For assistance with scheduling a driver licensing office appointment, cancelling an existing appointment, or questions about an upcoming appointment,

28:13please press uno. Oh, no. Please press uno. I was, yeah, please press uno. Uno or uno, I didn't hear, but, um, that's nice. There was one Spanish word. Oh, that. One more than B, Bruce Lee. Suddenly, I understand Spanish. I'm either really good at Spanish, or something happened just then. Oh, no. That's very funny. Yep. It's funny if you don't only speak Spanish, in which case it's very unfunny. The story was broken by Washington resident Maya Edwards, and there's a story in the Associated

28:47Press. She says, it was hilarious to us in the moment because it was so absurd. But at the same time, it has real accessibility issues for people who call in every day and need to speak in a different language other than English. It's been taken down. The agency has since apologized and says that it fixed the problem. But it's another example of, presumably, AI slop that has made its way into government services. I just think how much water was used for that bad solution. Sorry. I'm saying it's AI because I don't think that they got a person to say, hey, we need

29:22something in Spanish. Could you please do that? Sure. I can do that. I don't think an AI would do that either. I think if you ask one of these large language models to translate something into Spanish. So you reckon this is, do you think this is a case of like, oh, no worries, Steve, I know a lady. And then just like, lady goes rogue. Yeah. No. No. There's no way. I don't talk to large language models with speech.

29:53So I don't know what they do. Let's lay this out here, right? Okay. One way or another, a breathtaking lack of checking took place here. Because whether it was AI or it was someone getting like old Mrs. Sanchez or whatever to do this, it's who, who, who puts a thing to a public facing phone distro, which presumably handles thousands of calls, right?

30:25Like every single day, thousands and thousands and thousands of calls. Like what's the population of Washington, Daniel, off the top of your head? Millions. Yeah. It'd be, it'd be somewhere between like what? Three and five million people. Three or five million. About. And, and for those. I hear a quiz. Yeah. Fat checkers. There you go, Sandvick. Thank you. Washington State? Yes. Yes, please. And in a place like America, even in, you know, we know Seattle's really cool and groovy and you can get around without a car, but in every other part of Washington, you need a car to be an adult.

30:57Seven. Eight. Eight. Eight million. Eight million. That's a lot. Seattle's big. So to put a thing out on a call system that handles potentially eight million citizens worth of inquiry calls and licensing centers get slammed. Like, I'm sorry, I don't care where you live. Anytime you call a licensing center, you are waiting, right? Because there are so many calls. Sorry, I know I'm ranting, but the idea, the idea you would put a thing on this system without checking it is mind boggling.

31:28So whether it was AI or like someone's shitty white fucking Spanish teacher from high school or whatever, this is appalling. The story is in the AP that this is an AI voice. They don't say why they think it's an AI voice. Maybe there's an assumption going on there. I would like to know more, but I would love to see how this gets out. Oh my gosh. I would love to know what sad intern type human who got handballed this gig, just fronting up in front of some cameras and being like, oh yeah, I'm thinking about it now.

32:02Oh, I can see how it wasn't a very good idea. Sorry. Steven! Yeah. Or is it, my kindest idea is they were like, we need a Spanish person to say this. They got a Spanish speaker. They didn't tell them what they were supposed to do. They gave them the text on paper in English and said like, can you read this out? Thinking they're obviously going to know that we want them to say it in Spanish. They said it the way they did and no one texted it.

32:35In a situation as baffling as this, that is the best answer I've been provided so far. Like that's the closest I could come. It's not a great solution, but it's certainly less bad than the others we've had. Well, I would love to know more than this. I guess we're playing a game of slop or not, but I vote slop. What do you vote, Ben? Yeah, I'm thinking AI is involved. The sticky sloppy fingers just are involved in some way, some way. It's got to be. I don't think so. So I don't think an AI would do that.

33:08I think it would be. She's taking the outside chance. Okay. Remember, Hedwig, AI is only as good. Well, not even, but AI can only be as good as we prompt. And if some doofus was doing some bad prompting.

33:23Yeah. No, that's possible. I'm going to go against the stream. I'm contrarian. Okay. Okay. We may never know. We may never know. Daniel, you're on the case. Okay, I'll be on the case, but that's the news. And now it's time for everyone's favorite game, related or not. You little boo. Do these words share a root?

33:44Or are they merely false friends?

33:54This is entomology.

33:58Done on the fly to no serious ends. Related or not. There we go. That's very cute. Did he say entomology? No. Etymology. I think. Everyone write in and tell me if you thought Camden said etymology or entomology. Because entomology, I believe, is the study of insects. It is. Yeah. But that was Camden.

34:28And now this is also Camden bringing us, on SpeakPipe, the magic of SpeakPipe, bringing us a pair of words. Are you ready? Hey, gang. This is Camden Parks calling from Illinois. I've got a couple of words for you. And there's troll, T-R-O-L-L, by which I mean you get in a boat, you go slowly out onto the lake, and you pull a line behind you, usually at some depth, in the hopes of catching a big

35:03old bass or walleye, and then there's trawl, in which you get in a boat, and you go out onto the ocean, pulling a big old net behind you, under, you know, usually at some depth, and you're hoping to pull up a whole bunch of fish. Trawl and trawl. Are those two related? Thank you much. Goodbye. I feel a setup, Camden. This seems sus.

35:34Well, can we first establish that it is in this moment, right now today, that I learned that it's not called trawling when you drag a lure behind a boat. I have spent my entire life thinking that that action is still called trawling. Not called trawling. It's trawling. And you know what? I'm throwing in an extra. What about a troll? The fantasy creature. Oh, no. I swear we've done that one before. I swear. Okay. Have we? Ooh. I'm trawl, trawl, trawl, trawl.

36:05Well, let's just focus on trawling. The two methods of fishing, trawling, dragging a line through the water, and trawling. I might have the troll, trawl merger. On a second. No. Hang on a second. What?

36:21I'm about to have my mind blown wide open. I know, right? Does this mean that people who intentionally rage bait other people online are called trolls, not because they behave like a nasty, awful beast, but because they are trying to lure people? Yes. Yes. Correct. Because they're throwing out baits. It may be a combination of both. We're not sure. It's okay, Ellis. I'm just having a moment because I've learned some new information.

36:54I was so upset that I drew my child from across the apartment. Admittedly, the apartment is about seven steps across, but still. It's very smart. Still. Yeah, but Minecraft is a very powerful thrall.

37:10In fact, I would even say it might be a bit of a thrill. Stop it. All of you. I cannot handle any more, okay? Okay, okay, okay. One mind blow per episode is what I can comfortably accommodate. Oh, you're wrong. Have you ever heard something like, oh, a trolling behind her was her child? No. See, perhaps I've always heard that as trailing. Right. Sorry. Yes. So, this is where I think there are, I think, yeah, I think trailing comes in.

37:42Okay. Focus. Focus, people. Let's focus on troll and troll, the two methods of fishing. I'm going to go related. I can go first. You're related, huh? Sorry, Daniel. My bad. No, no, you go ahead. Yeah, I think just the mouth sounds are so similar. I'm basically going related because I spent my entire life thinking they were one word. So, I'm just desperately hoping that my lived experience is reflective of the reality of

38:12what's happened here. There's that phrase again. My lived experience? Yep. Okay. Okay, cool. I'll go next. First, I'm going to say not related, and I'll tell you why. There was one thing that tipped me. There's a Christmas carol, which uses the word troll. You know the one? No. No. Troll the ancient jewel-tied carol. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Never once knew that that word was there. And why is it there? What is it doing? Well, to troll, I know this because I looked it up a long, long time ago for a Christmas

38:47thing. To troll is to roll. You roll the song along maybe in a round, which is another round thing that rolls around. So, I can see how trolling in a boat is like rolling along, and I just feel like trolling is going to be that little bit different. Okay, interesting. Headers, what do you got? Fun fact, as my other fun fact, besides that there are lots of languages in the world, and one of them does this, is my other thing that comes up more later or not, which is

39:17something, something Swedish, something, something, which is that tralla is like when you go like, shah-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do, you're tralla. Tralla, who did that too? That's the act of doing that. Tralla, exactly. So, that sounds like what you just said about the carols. I think that Camden wouldn't pose this question unless they weren't related. I think he's been out around the waters and learned these two words weren't related and think it's really fun. You're metagaming. Or possibly. Exactly. Or he's metagaming us. Which means that thinking about what Camden thinks is basically useless.

39:51We have got a hit-to-miss ratio of exactly zero on this. Like, we've metagames so many times and we never come up winning or losing definitively. Wait, let's get started! It's like a Steve Moffat character arc. Like, people are just, like, flipping and you're just like, well, I no longer know anyone's intentions. It's useless.

40:13Thrall, troll. I'm going to say not related, but I don't feel strongly about it. I don't think the ogre is related to either. I don't either. I don't think so. Okay. Well, so Hedwig and I both said not related. Ben says related. And the answer is they're not related. They're not. So, troll means to drag. And, by the way, it is related to the singing in a full rolling voice.

40:43And they're just singing or rolling around or trundling about. And that's what you're doing when you're dragging a line. However, troll comes from Latin tractus, like extract. When you pull something out. What? Or intractable. Can't be drawn. Like tractor beam. Yeah, but how the fuck did a W get in there? That's an interesting question, actually. That W is just standing out like a sore thumb.

41:14Well, Ws are just like a way in English of modifying vowels. It's not. They don't mean anything. I love how spicy and low-key offensive that take is. Like, your W is a garbage letter that doesn't do anything. Well, I don't even think we can blame French for this one because there's no W.

41:36No. Not this time. It's pure English nonsense. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Well, so, one for us, Hedvig. And now, Hedvig, this one comes from you. I pulled this one from you on the Discord. So, what I do for full is that I collect these from my friends at Friday Beers, and I don't look up the answer. Ah, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. So, if Daniel has also not looked up the answer, then I need five minutes to look up the answer. No, I have looked up the answer, but I wrote my impressions first.

42:09Okay. But I just want to know on the record that I also probably don't know what the right answer is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good to know. I'm actually guessing. Especially considering the question was initially brought up when you were a few sheets to the wind as well, which can make even, you know. Well, it's also just like, I ask people, like, what do you guys think would be like fun pairs to have a relate or not? And then they say stuff, and I'm like, great. And then I type it into Discord, and then I forget about it. And do you remember the words that you typed in this time? No, because I sense in several, I believe. I think it's infinite.

42:39Infantry, elephant, and another one. It was French enfant. Oh, yeah, yeah. French word for child. So, the words are infant, infantry, elephant, and enfant. Okay. Wow. That's a lot. There's a lot of possible answers to this, right? Like, the different pairs that might be related and stuff. How can we simplify this? Can we just have, like, three possible, like... Let's say one's the odd one out. So, infant and enfant, I think, are clearly related, right?

43:12Like, clearly, we, as English, as a language, was like, oh, all of these fancy French ruling people keep calling their babies enfant. Oh, I guess it must be an infant then.

43:24So, those two seem very clearly related to me. Right. The question is, is it infantry or elephant? I'm thinking infantry is related. Something about, like, little toy soldiers or something like that. So, I'm going elephant is the odd one out. I agree. But I'm having trouble deciding what the infantry has to do with it. It's not a baby tree, right? It's an infant. Oh, stop it. That was a terrible dad joke. What do you think, Hedwig?

43:55I, and I swear I haven't looked it up, I think that it has to do with being able to walk. Okay.

44:03Infantry are... The walking soldiers. Yeah, they're the ones who aren't on horses in an army. Yep. And I think an infant is, like, when they stop just, like, purely lying around and turning their head. And they're actually, like, moving around a little bit. This is, I'm liking this. I hate my answer now. This is, this is, so this is, I swear this is not me looking up. This is me looking up Latin classes from the heavy brain. And that makes me think that enfant is the odd one out.

44:40Elephants, big old legs. Walking thing. Big walking guy. Does it change your answer if I tell you that the word infant comes from infans, meaning unable to speak? Oh, shit. That probably means it's not related to enfant. Fuck. God damn it.

45:01How willing are we to accept that the information that Daniel has could, in fact, be wrong? That's what, that's what I want. I think that, oh, oh, this is pre-Daniel Revealing Answers, Daniel. Yes, it is. Just reading my notes. I thought maybe the soldiers were children or considered to be, like, children in some way. Oh, because they were, like, lower class or lower importance people. But I didn't go farther than that. So you're sticking with it, heavy? Yeah, I'm sticking with enfant being in the odd one out. Okay, I'm sticking with elephant.

45:33I'm going, I'm going for it. The odd one out is elephant. Yeah. Which comes from Greek elephas, which means just, it's the word for elephant, or it's also the word for ivory. Wait, wait, wait. What? I don't, I don't find that answer very satisfying, Daniel. Why not? Because we don't, we often don't stop the word chain with, like, it was the word for elephant. Well, I'm sorry, but it just, it just was. And it doesn't go back to, like, the speaking thing, which is what infant means.

46:05So enfant and infant are the same word. Okay. And then infantry, the word was chosen because they weren't the cavalry who had a lot of experience. They'd probably be older. They were just foot soldiers. They were young. The original word was a youth, because infant went from a baby who couldn't speak to a young person. And that's the way that meaning jumps. So elephant. Infantry literally translates to group of young people. Group of babies. There's a storm of babies going across the, destroying and pillaging with their binkies in their mouths.

46:39It's just so interesting to me that, like, it's not just that it's related. It's like the whole word, infant, is right there in it. And I just chacked an R-Y at the end. Yep. Didn't take very long to get there at all. Yeah. Okay. Last one. Quick one. Clandestine. Does it have anything to do with a clan? With destiny, neither or both?

47:01Clandestine. I could see both. Maybe a family was going to do something secret. No, I'm thinking neither. Unrelated. I'm feeling clandestine is just smacks of romance, right? Clandestine or something like that. Yeah. Whereas clan, it feels a lot more guttural and hard, like I'm feeling like a Norse or a Germanic, like clan came, feels that, feels more that.

47:32Destiny, on the other hand. It's giving you tremors. Unclear, but I'm going unrelated. Okay, Hedvig. Clandestine. I don't think it's related to destiny, but I do think it's related to clan because I think they're both secret things. Oh, dang it. Okay, I said neither, and now it's time to put cards on the table. So, the word clan, let's start off with clan because that one comes from, it's Gaelic, clan, it eventually, this is weird.

48:09Edamon Line says that it comes ultimately from Latin planta, which is offshoot. That, clan and planta, that's very interesting. That sounds odd. Like a branch of a family tree. Oh, okay. Yes, that makes sense. Okay, very good. However, Latin clandestinos is the root of clandestine, and here they've got clam meaning secretly from Latin celare to hide. Different word.

48:40It's not clan, it's not destined, neither one related.

48:44Ben, I'd say you did pretty well. Did you get all three of those? No, I got the first one wrong. Oh, the first one was wrong. Yeah, troll and troll. Little note there. This is a note from Gareth. You remember the last time we did wake, to wake up and wake the funeral original? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep. Gareth says, unless I misunderstood, perfectly plausible, I have to disagree with your assessment of wake, verb meaning to not sleep, and wake, noun meaning a gathering to watch a corpse overnight. I believe these two are etymologically related, both springing from the Proto-Indo-European

49:16root, weg, compare the modern German word, wachen, which means both to wake and to watch, respectfully, yours, Gareth. All right, so... Have we said that Proto-Indo-European is off the cards for this game? I feel like we have. No. We have said no such thing. Okay. What? That's the... Our best case scenario is that Daniel tells us, if it's Indo-European languages, the Proto-Indo-European Yeah, that's the fallback, right? And you know what? He's right. I can't argue with the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction.

49:48Actually, you can, but I won't. I think what I was thinking was that the path was, like, super indirect. The wake-up version arose from a convergence of two different words, but the wake that you attend was from a different Old English word. And at the time, I thought that was different enough. But I suppose if we go back far enough, they do go back to the same Proto-Indo-European word, which would have meant something like a state of wakefulness. So, thank you, Gareth, and I'm rewarding retrospective points. Wait, wait, wait. So, do I get points? Because I don't... Yeah. Yeah, what did we... Well, that depends on what we said, and I don't know yet, because I haven't...

50:21I didn't go back and review. I'm too embarrassed. Okay. But thank you, Gareth, for keeping us solid. Very much so. And any time that we find out that Daniel was wrong is a very good day. Yes, indeed.

50:38We are speaking with one of our favorite people, lexicographer and author of True Color, the strange and spectacular quest to define color from azure to zinc pink. It's Kori Stamper. Hey, Kori. Hey, Daniel. How are you? Good. It's good to see you again. It's been a while. It's good to see you. Yeah, it has been a while. It was episode 18, Swearing Time. That's right. Yeah.

51:08Remember? I do remember. Less cuss words in this book, sadly. So if people want their cuss word filled, they'll have to go back to episode 18. Well, that's just a skill issue, is what that is. That's true. Now, this is your third time with us, and that means that you are an honorary co-host and you get to crash any episode you want. Woo-hoo! Great. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that'll be fun. All right. Well, you're writing about color. Has color had a fascination for you, and why?

51:40It only had a fascination for me through dictionaries in a weird way. So in 2010, I was working at Merriam-Webster, and Merriam-Webster was rewriting their unabridged dictionary. And I was responsible for checking to make sure that all of the entries were, you know, rendering okay on the website.