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Playlist: Diana Prince's Portfolio

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Big Picture Science (Series)

Produced by Big Picture Science

Most recent piece in this series:

When the Moon Hits Your Eye

From Big Picture Science | Part of the Big Picture Science series | 54:00

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The Great North American Solar Eclipse will trace a path of shadow across Mexico and 13 U.S. States on April 8th. Phil Plait, also known as The Bad Astronomer, joins the show for an extended interview covering a wide-range of topics, such as his excitement about the eclipse, the Pentagon’s most recent UFO report, and some of the most persistent moon landing conspiracy theories.

Guest:

Phil Plait – aka the Bad Astronomer, former astronomer on Hubble, teacher, lecturer, and debunker of conspiracy theories. He is also the author of a new book “Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer’s Guide to the Universe.”

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

A Way with Words (Series)

Produced by A Way with Words

Most recent piece in this series:

Off the Turnip Truck (#1532)

From A Way with Words | Part of the A Way with Words series | 54:00

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The new book Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language is a smart, engaging, introduction to language and linguistics in general. It's also rich with insights about how we communicate online. With verve, wit, and nerdy delight, linguist Gretchen McCulloch demonstrates that the internet isn't at all destroying language. Instead, language in the digital age has forked into formal and informal versions, and the addition of emojis adds a whole new layer of nuance.
Nadine in San Antonio, Texas, disagrees with her boyfriend, who insists that the word surprise suggests something inherently good, so it's impossible to call something a bad surprise. A quick look at data from the Brigham Young University corpora of English-language, however, shows that he's wrong. The word surprise keeps company with plenty of negative words in English, such as nasty, unpleasant, and yes, bad. 
If you're mafted, then you're exhausted -- especially if it's due to heat, crowds, or exertion. Mafted is a Britishism, and its origin is unknown. 
Sam from St. Paul, Minnesota, says his dad often used the expressions Do you think I just fell off the turnip truck? and I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, meaning "I'm not naive" or "Do you think I was born yesterday?" Turnips have long been associated with supposedly unsophisticated rustic folk, and the phrase fall off the turnip truck conjures an image of country bumpkins piling into the back of a truck to bring their crop to market in the big city. During his years on The Tonight Show, TV talk-show host Johnny Carson often used this alliterative phrase. 
Quiz Guy John Chaneski has crafted a puzzle about cocktails with rhyming names. For example, in Jackson or Biloxi, you might be served a libation inspired by the long-haired subculture of the 1960s. What drink would that be?
Sherry from Green Bay, Wisconsin, remembers that whenever she balked at doing a chore as a kid, her grandmother would say If ifs and ands were pots and pans, a tinker would have no trade. Her grandmother was suggesting that merely paying lip service to something doesn't get the task done. Another version goes If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there'd be no work for tinkers' hands. A still longer version:  
If wishes were horses, then beggars could ride / If turnips were watches, I'd wear one by my side / If ifs and ands were pots and pans / There would be no work for tinkers. Dandy Don Meredith often recited a similar a somewhat similar phrase about wishful thinking that involved candied nuts. 
The term fair game, meaning someone or something that's a legitimate target for criticism derives from old laws governing the hunting of wildlife.
Amber in Mansfield, Texas, has a friend from London, England. After she moved to the States, the friend was surprised to find that when she's conversing with strangers from the United States, they'll drop in stereotypical British terms like Right-o or Cheerio! and even shift their accent to sound more like her. Why do people mimic other people's accents? Some of this behavior may simply be thoughtlessness, but it could also be an earnest, if awkward, attempt to communicate. 
Paul in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, has long been mystified by the title Commander-in-chief. Why, he wonders, isn't it Commander and chief? The title Commander-in-chief is a vestige of French military titles, specifically the construction en chef, which denotes the top officer. The same construction appears in the title Editor-in-chief. The French term, in turn, goes back to Latin caput, or "head," and a relative of capital.
In baseball lingo, to dial 8 is to hit a home run. According to The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, the expression arose back when traveling baseball players had to dial the number 8 on a motel phone in order to begin a long-distance call.
It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people disagreed over the best word to use when answering the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell, for example, advocated answering with  Ahoy!, while Thomas Edison argued for Hello. As linguist Gretchen McCullough says in her excellent new book Because Internet, this disagreement is worth remembering when we think about how other forms of greeting are evolving. Today older speakers of English might hesitate to greet someone with Hey, but younger people tend to be perfectly comfortable with it. 
A high-school teacher in Los Angeles, California, says many of his teaching colleagues have different opinions about how to handle profanity among teenagers. The simplest solution is to prohibit all taboo language in the classroom, but acknowledge that the rules will likely differ in other contexts.
A listener who grew up in Ukraine recalls that her family always referred to chicken drumsticks by a name that translates as Bush's legs. This jocular term refers to an agreement between U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev struck in 1990, during a time of scarcity in the Soviet Union. The agreement called for frozen chicken to be sent from the United States to help stock empty store shelves. Years earlier, under the Lend-Lease program, powdered eggs sent to Russia came to be known by a Russian name that translates as Roosevelt's eggs. 
Elizabeth from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, wonders why some people say Charlie's dead to indicate to someone that her slip is showing. No one knows which Charlie this expression refers to. Similar euphemisms include It's snowing down south, Your Monday is longer than your Tuesday, and You have a Ph.D. 
 
This episode is hosted by Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette.

WNYC's Fishko Files (Series)

Produced by WNYC

Most recent piece in this series:

WNYC's Fishko Files: Sviatoslav Richter

From WNYC | Part of the WNYC's Fishko Files series | 07:12

Saraflat_medium_small Sviatoslav Richter, born March 20 1915, was a pianistic phenomenon, whose broad musical range was backed up by dazzling technique. On the 100th anniversary of his birth, WNYC's Sara Fishko considers his musical gifts as well as his unconventional life.  With guests Michael Kimmelman (NY Times critic, pianist and sometime music writer), pianist Vladimir Viardo, and the late pianist and music critic Harris Goldsmith.

*The excerpts from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition"  are from Richter's live recording made in Sofia, Bulgaria, on February 25, 1958 

Latin Perspective - Latin Jazz Hour (weekly) (Series)

Produced by Tony Vasquez

Most recent piece in this series:

Latin Jazz Perspective (R-8)

From Tony Vasquez | Part of the Latin Perspective - Latin Jazz Hour (weekly) series | 59:00

10484912_949603348389055_2440999915117302154_n_small A 1 hour weekly radio show featuring the best in classic and contemporary Latin Jazz Music hosted by 19 year veteran Tony Vasquez.