Getting Down & Wordy

Today we see what was the most popular song from exactly 100 years ago in 1923. And wow, it's weird. But it's nicely rooted in the history and culture of the time and tells us a lot about ethnicity, comedy, and the precarious fate of the banana at the time. So we dive into all that. Additionally we give you the history and etymology of banana of course. And we talk about its relation to comedy and why 'bananas' means crazy, and so on. In Eurovision, we discuss the top 6 funniest Eurovision songs of all time. I won't tell you which ones though, you'll have to listen to found out. This week's featured ad is for the podcast Fuck My Work Life. You can find them anywhere you get podcasts or here: https://linktr.ee/fmwlpod You can find lots of other great podcasts on our network at podmoth.network

Today we discuss Hannah's favorite song so she'll stop suggesting we do an episode about it every week. We talk about the pop culture of movie monsters that it arose from, and the pop culture of songs about dance crazes. We explain the origin of the word monster and what words it's related to. And we explore the history of the idea of a monster. Where did it begin, and how has it evolved over time. Additionally we discuss some of the class Universal monsters. In Eurovision, we talk about Austria's 2023 song "Who the Hell is Edgar?" by Salena and Teya. One of us loves it, one of us is very underwhelmed by it. This week's featured podcast ad is for the Doe Identify podcast. You can find them anywhere you get podcasts or at this link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-doe-identify-podcast/id1544009777 You can find us, them, and lots of other great podcasts at our network, podmoth.network

Today we discuss charisma and its little Scrappy Doo-esque sidekick rizz! What does it mean, where'd it come from? What's the story of charisma? Why do we say charisma in Dungeons & Dragons and not like "persuasiveness" or something? And while we're talking about Dungeons & Dragons, what slang terms could we come up with for the other D&D stats? We also discuss what is the deal with "ch". Why do we pronounce it three different ways (like k, ch, and sh)? We're talking about CHArisma, so of course for Eurovision we have to talk about "Cha Cha Cha"! The song from Finland by Käärijä, the man so nice, he dotted his a's twice. This week's featured ad is for the podcast Anything Bones. Find them anywhere you listen to podcasts or at this link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/anything-bones/id1536352309 You can find us, them, and lots of other great podcasts at our network podmoth.network

We talk about how men talk! And we talk about how Matchbox Twenty talk with "Push" the surprisingly controversial song about pushing women around. Will I have some research about it? Well, I will. Well, I will. As we did with the feminine genderlect episode, we have a couple interesting lists of words that men are more likely to know than women. Additionally, we talk about various researchers' takes on the notion, including Otto Jesperson who claims that English is a very manly language. Find out why he says so. In Eurovision we discuss Italy's 2023 offering "Due Vite" by Marco Mengoni. Lots of crazy poetic language in that song like the moon exploding. Do we get to the bottom of it? No we do not. But we do talk about Italian hangover cures. This episodes featured ad is the podcast Bad Acts. You can find them here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bad-acts-a-true-crime-podcast/id1538464479 You can find lots of other great pocasts including ours at podmoth.network

This week we talk about barbie - the movie and the doll and the song "Barbie Girl" by Aqua. And as you'd expect we're pairing that with a girly language topic. We're talking about how women talk. Is it different from how men talk? Or is that a myth? How do you perform femininity in language? What are the conceptions and misconceptions, and what is the reality? In Eurovision world, we discuss Czechia's 2023 offering "My Sister's Crown" by Vesna. Hannah tells us about this really wild Czechian myth featuring a famous detective of all things. Our featured ad this episode is the podcast Beyond the Shadows. You can find them here: https://open.spotify.com/show/6hgfTsx24MjcxaopQNURyX?si=4d1f8d9dfc4c4e15 Find lots of other great podcasts at our network, podmoth.network

Today we welcome special guest, Youtube star Rob Watts of the Robwords English language show. He joins us to talk about the definitely real UK rappers Pete & Bas. And we reveal the true story behind their whole deal (hoax? how dare you!). Then we talk about some of the differences between UK and US English that you definitely don't already know about. I'm telling you. There are some really surprising differences in pronunciation and word choice beyond the stuff everyone already knows like "aluminum/aluminium". For Eurovision, of course we talk about UK 2023, Mae Muller's "I Wrote a Song", to which Rob said "I wish she hadn't." This week's episode's featured ad is Crime & Spirits. Find them here: https://linktr.ee/crimeandspiritspodcast Find us and lots of other great podcasts at podmoth.network And find Robwords on youtube, tiktok, and lots of other platforms by searching robwords Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/@RobWords

Today we talk about Ice Spice, whose appearance on the scene has been so meteoric she hasn't even had time to make enough songs to fill an album yet. Is she an industry plant? Is that really a thing? Do Hannah and Russell know enough famous zoomers to stuntcast a new Spice Girls? And we discuss the word mood itself, its etymology and how it's used now in contemporary culture. Additionally, to the dismay of everyone probably, we discuss grammatical mood for a hefty portion of the podcast. But then we talk about mood rings! In Eurovision, we discuss Poland's offering "Solo" by Blanca. It did pretty good, but is that bad? Many Polish music fans think so. Also we discuss the giant free music festival in Poland, Pol' and Rock. Today's featured podcast ad is My Second Self and I. You can find them anywhere you get podcasts or at https://open.spotify.com/show/3pzH0fR9c5jqIV404VuAAM?si=a189ce0b59bc4241&nd=1 You can find us, them, and lots of other great podcasts in the Podmoth network at podmoth.network And special thanks to Feedspot for featuring our podcast on the list of top ten best etymology podcasts. You can find out about many other great podcasts at https://blog.feedspot.com/etymology_podcasts/

Today we're joined by Lowell Hobbs the lead singer of post-punk band Tongues of Fire to discuss the language of spiciness. We talk about the history of spicy food, the different kinds of spiciness, and how different languages have adapted words to describe the relatively recent introduction of capsaicin to their cultures. For Eurovision, we talk about Australia's 2023 song "Promise" by Voyager. Find Tongues of Fire on instagram @tongues.of.fire or their website https://tonguesofire.com/ You can of course generally find their music on most platforms including youtube and spotify. Check them out! They're great! This week's ad is the podcast Supernatural Sisters. Find them here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/supernatural-sisters/id1485420916 Find lots of other great podcasts at our podcast network podmoth.network

Michael Colby, from the podcast Jack Billings Presents: Haunted Apartment Complex, stops by to fanboy out with Russell over Yeah Yeah Yeahs . . while Hannah sits there awkwardly and probably thinks about Dungeons & Dragons or something. And we discuss the dialect-y origins of their band name. Then we talk about all the things that we say that hark back to a simpler, flatter earth (like 'edge of the world'). Surprisingly, a flat earth is in a lot of ways a very new idea, and not something people believed for most of recorded history. For Eurovision, we discuss Moldova's 2023 offering, Pasha Parfeni's "Soarele şi Luna", like we're at our own little three person burning man. And we learn some Moldovan idioms. Find the Haunted Apartment Complex podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jack-billings-presents-haunted-apartment-complex/id1572711048 Today's ad is The Ugly Radio. You can find them here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ugly-radio/id1515895095 Find us, these podcasts, and many others at our podcast network at podmoth.network

We discuss the culture's complex and changing perceptions of Vanilla Ice, a rapper who there are lots of reasons to dislike, but maybe everyone's being a little too mean? His real story will suprise you. Will it make you like him more? Well.... No.... Then we talk about "gangway", a word which somehow we all intuitively know is kind of nautical and piratey, but where are we even encountering this word? In cartoons? In one extraordinarily popular rap song? And's what's with "gang"? Where did this word come from? Also other nautical idioms which we don't realize are nautical! For Eurovision, we talk about Malta's 2023 offering "Dance (Our Own Party)" by The Busker. And we discuss some REALLY GOOD Maltese sayings, such at "the heat that farts". This week's ad is for the podcast Saturdays are for the Ghouls. You can find them here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/saturdays-are-for-the-ghouls/id1570983561 Find lots of other great podcasts on our network at podmoth.network

Today we excitedly interview Puppy Songs creator and musical genius Matt Hobbs, and together we all talk about how humans talk to pets, whether pets understand or not, and how pets communicate with us. We discuss pet voices. Child-parent relationships as models for interspecies relations - do they go in both directions? I mean like, does my cat think of me as her son? Should I give her a mother's day gift? How many words does the average dog know? Who is a good boy? Et cetera! In Eurovision talk, we discuss Lithuania's "Stay" by Monika Linkyte. Turns out Matt Hobbs has a lot of deep and insightful things to say about this. Wow, it's really different when someone who actually knows something about music talks about a song! You can find Matt Hobbs' awesome songs about his dogs and the dogs of others, and songs not about dogs at all, on just about every platform, including Tiktok, Spotify, and Youtube, by searching "puppy songs". Or you can go to his website: https://www.puppysongs.com/ Our ad this week is Cryptid Cocktail Party. Find them here: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cryptidcocktail And find lots of other great podcasts on our podcast network: https://podmoth.network/

Check out these clips from some of the podcasts on our network! You can find them by simply searching the name of the podcast on your podcast listening platform, or by going to podmoth.network

Today we talk about the number 1 most played karaoke song of all time (?) "Before He Cheats", and struggle to say something thoughtful about country music, a genre we know even less about than usual. We talk about the wild history of the expression "Souped Up", from safe crackers boiling dynamite to race horses taking the most cruel and disturbing drugs imaginable. Hannah tries and fails to teach Russell about consommes. And we talk about the history of soup in general. Also, supper vs. dinner! In Eurovision we finally discuss Ukraine's 2023 offering, "Heart of Steel" by Tvorchi, a song which improves, a little, after repeated listens over the course of a year. Today's ad is Speak of the Devil. You can find them here: https://linktr.ee/speakofthedevil Find loads of other great podcasts at our podcast network, podmoth.network

We talk about Karol G, who made a song that Hannah actually liked (a rare phenomenon) even while saying repeatedly that she doesn't have an ear for spanish, whatever that means! We discuss "affirmative language", words like "yes", and in Spanish "si". Some alternatives like aye, roger, yeppers, uh-huh, nodding.... Is nodding an instinctive action? Darwin thought so. We'll tell you all about it. And did you know that many languages do not have a word for yes? In Eurovision we discuss our favorites and other thoughts on all the contestants ahead of the contest which will have already happened by now for you listeners. This episode's ad is the Moustachio Podcastio. You can find them here or anywhere you get podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-moustachioed-podcastio/id1516217740 Find lots of other great podcasts at our podcast network at podmoth.network

We talk the origins and evolution of "slime" from unassuming mucus to cool guy best friend. DnD oozes. Young Thug's singing voice. RICO. And in Eurovision, we talk about the big 5's songs - Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and UK. This week's ad is Memento Mori. Find this podcast at https://mementomoripod.buzzsprout.com/ You can find tons of other great podcasts on our network at podmoth.network

Today we discuss Meghan Trainor's new song "Made You Look". That's right, Mrs. Spy Kid herself (she married a Spy Kid). Is the song kind of good or really bad? We also talk about "make" and other delexical verbs like take get do have go . . . Those verbs that get used to mean anything such that you can make a product, but you can also make a bed, make up with someone, make do, make a mistake, and on and on. For Eurovision we talk about all the Scandinavian countries' entries this year. Our featured ad on this episode is The Lost Signal podcast. You can find them here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lost-signal-podcast/id1465964518 Find lots of other great podcasts on our podcast network at podmoth.network

This is the first episode of our new format. We've decided to stop talking about music, and from now on we will talk about fruits and their etymology and history instead. Today we'll taste some varieties of apples, kumquats, goldberries, pineberries, horned melons, and starfruit. As for Eurovision, we're going to talk about the documentary released about the 2020 Eurovision competition, which is called Eurovision: Story of Fire Saga. This week's ad is for the podcast Jack Billings Presents: Haunted Apartment Complex. You can find them here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jack-billings-presents-haunted-apartment-complex/id1572711048 Find many other great podcasts at our podcast network at podmoth.network.

** AUDIO QUALITY ADVISORY ** There's some trouble with Russell's recording in this episode. He may be a little tough to hear. Today we talk Taylor Swift's song Anti-Hero. We talk about anti-heros and the etymology of the word hero, and we discuss linguistic bleaching, the way that words fade in strength over time. In Eurovision, we talk about the Baltic countries' entries. This episode's featured ad is the podcast Freaky Fridays.  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/freaky-fridays/id1553779633 You can find them and tons of other great podcasts at podmoth.network.

Today we talk about Waka Flocka Flame's hit song "Hard in da Paint". What does hard in the paint mean and where did it originate? For that matter where did the word paint come from? We discuss some other basketball idioms in every speech. Then we do a March Madness style tournment bracket of the last 16 Eurovision winners. We choose our winner. If you want to choose your winner, you can find our list here, but I really recommend watching them as videos so you can see the performances. The Eurovision winners: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37oFqgOIxPgROzktxA1oKv?si=4fdea437aac54282 This episode's featured ad is Fuck My Work Life. You can find them here https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/f-k-my-work-life/id1555824690

We talk about Sam Smith (who Russell stupidly misgenders like a hundred times, sorry listeners!), Kim Petras, LGBT and transgender stuff of course, and the etymology of body shop and specificly the word body. We look at some songs about other kinds of shops and Hannah tries to guess if they're sexual or not. And for Eurovision we talk about some of the songs that have been chosen for 2023 thus far, including Albania and Israel.  Our featured ad this week is Doe Identify Podcast. You can find them here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-doe-identify-podcast/id1544009777 Find lots of other great podcasts on our network Podmoth.network