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Words with Kel Richards – 12th June · Words with Kel Richards

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Soundly and now on Night's Words with Cal Richards. Yes
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: here he is the great man Kel Richards. Of course,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: lyrics and words is what you're about. And of course
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: we were just talking about this is I think he
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: said it was his favorite song, Yes he did.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: There was an interview clip I saw as part of
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: one of the obituaries, and the interviewer said, what's your
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: favorite beach boy song? And he said, California Girls.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we have a winner yet. Trish, Hello,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Trish Hello, what was it?
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: It's the way they.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Kids, It's the way they kiss, they keep their boyfriends
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: warm at night. Trish. You hang on there because you
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: have got yourself the fantastic price my friends at Miselle
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent, he owned, often more affordable than foreign substitutes.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Whatever's on the menu at your place. Remember flavor starts
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: with Miselle quality. You can taste get the John Stanley
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: mister McGoo mug as well. And I think we might
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: just just a little bit of this though, because it's
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: a beautifully cray song.
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  Speaker 2: Yes please.
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  Speaker 1: Mike Love sings the first part and then Brian comes
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  Speaker 1: in with the chorus.
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  Speaker 4: Here it is well these girls are here by really
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: those Stars be Aware and the Sun Girls with the
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: We they knocked me out when I'm where spotters filling
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: make you feel off, and the nother Girls.
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  Speaker 1: With the Way is thinking the same. What a good song,
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  Speaker 1: Just a magnificent song.
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  Speaker 2: It is a great song. I mean, I speak for
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: the baby boomers, but that was when songs were really
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: fabulous in the sixties. We had people like Brian Wilson working,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and we had Paul Simon, and we had Lennon and McCartney.
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  Speaker 2: It was a great era for those songs.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think he's up there with mates, so
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  Speaker 1: I think it's going to last anyway. That's just my view.
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  Speaker 1: One three one eight seven three is the number words
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  Speaker 1: and language Now. Kell's website is oswordsoz words dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot au. You can go to that website. It's got
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  Speaker 1: fantastic links to Kell's books, all of the wonderful publications
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: he often references here. Plus you can subscribe to his
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: daily newsletter as well. And if you've got a question
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: for Kell, you can do it on the line one
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: three one eight seven three and talk with him directly,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: or you can get on the text line zero for
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: six zero eight seven three eight seven three so one
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: mystery unregistered entry from the Eastern Suburbs is one one
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: hundred million dollar powerball jackpot tonight in the Eastern Suburbs
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: of Sydney.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Okay, So.
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  Speaker 1: Look, you're not you don't buy lottery tickets to you.
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  Speaker 2: I know I can tell no, no, no no. If
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  Speaker 2: I had, that would have been the one I've made.
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  Speaker 1: But what I'm saying, so if you if you you're
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: going to a newsagent whatever, and you can buy a
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: ticket and it's not registered, you put it in your wallet,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: and if you're not registered as a player or doing
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: it online, that ticket is sitting somewhere and it's worth
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars.
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  Speaker 2: So you've got to be very very careful of that
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  Speaker 2: physical thing.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, it's always intrigued me that if because I used
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: to buy the tickets just like that and put them
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: in the wallet and check them later on. And I've
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: always wondered if you had a win like that, you'd
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  Speaker 1: probably carefully put it in tissue paper, put it inside
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a book and then carefully go to the car, drive
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: it about thirty k's an hour to wherever you've got
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: to take.
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  Speaker 2: It, wouldn't you, Well, you'd certainly make sure you didn't
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: put it in the jacket going to the dry cleaners.
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  Speaker 1: Well exactly now seven three. I've got any questions for
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  Speaker 1: kel at all. But your word of the week, it's
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: often more than one word, and it is this week.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, fifth column. So if you've got a group of people,
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  Speaker 2: maybe a secret group of people inside an organization, so
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: while you're attacking it from the outside, there white adding
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  Speaker 2: it away, it's called having a fifth column. It's quite
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: a common expression these days. And I wondered why five
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  Speaker 2: I mean, why fifth column? I discovered it comes from
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  Speaker 2: the Spanish Civil War. One of General Franco's generals, General
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  Speaker 2: Emil Mohler, had Madrid surrounded by four columns of infantry
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  Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty six, and he boasted he had a
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  Speaker 2: fifth column of citizens inside the city who would rise
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  Speaker 2: up and support him when he attacks, hence the expression
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  Speaker 2: fifth column. So I was puzzled.
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  Speaker 1: Now I found out, you've found out. Now we had
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  Speaker 1: a really interesting one last week, which we put into
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the mixers. Often comes through with potentially one of those
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  Speaker 1: made up expressions in a specific family. You've looked into
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: this one, have you yes?
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  Speaker 2: For crying down the sink. Someone said her mother used
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  Speaker 2: to say for crying down the sink, and I hadn't
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  Speaker 2: heard it before, so I've had to do some digging.
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  Speaker 2: It turns out it is yet another of those softened blasphemies.
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  Speaker 2: You know how often we come across these things. The
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  Speaker 2: first half of the twentieth century was very sensitive to
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  Speaker 2: this sort of thing. This comes from early in the
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  Speaker 2: twentieth century. Now, I'll tell you what the blasphemy is,
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  Speaker 2: which I think is quite offensive. So I'm saying it
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  Speaker 2: just to.
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  Speaker 1: Explain to you.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm going to say the words even though they're offensive.
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  Speaker 2: The words are for Christ's sake, and to soften that,
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  Speaker 2: they made it for crying down the sink. Really, Okay,
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  Speaker 2: that's where it came from.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, because a lot of people say for Christ's sake,
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  Speaker 1: but a lot of people do find the defensive. So
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  Speaker 1: that's for crying down the sink is a variation of.
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  Speaker 2: It's wanting to say that without saying.
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  Speaker 1: It right, because we can actually go through a few
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  Speaker 1: of those, and part of it, though, it does mean
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  Speaker 1: you've then got a reference what they actually are. Yes, yes, right,
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  Speaker 1: So with any of those, you've got to try and
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  Speaker 1: work out whether there's some terrible blasphony that matches it,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe that's the clue. Yep.
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  Speaker 2: And as you and I have discussed quite often on
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  Speaker 2: this program, there was a period where people were really
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  Speaker 2: sensitive to that, and so it happened a lot, quite
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  Speaker 2: a lot of familiar expressions started that way, and then
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  Speaker 2: we forgot that's where they came from. They simply became
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  Speaker 2: familiar daily idioms.
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  Speaker 1: Fascinating, all right, So for crying down the sink, wonderful, right,
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  Speaker 1: very good, And I hope our listener who brought that
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  Speaker 1: up last week, we did say we'd look into it. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: that is terrific.
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  Speaker 2: So if you're listening, we promised. We've kept our promise.
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  Speaker 1: Now in terms of your mouth gob, you're talking about
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  Speaker 1: someone sent it here, you know, I yeah, shut your gob.
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  Speaker 1: Your mouth is a gob.
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  Speaker 2: My memory is this is quite old. This goes back
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  Speaker 2: a long way. I'm not sure exactly how many years.
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  Speaker 2: I think it goes back to like thirteen fourteen hundred's
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  Speaker 2: a long way of fifteen hundred something like that. It
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  Speaker 2: originally accord into the Oxford database. It goes back to
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  Speaker 2: Scottish Gaelic and in Irish. It started off meaning either
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  Speaker 2: the mouth or the beak of a bird.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: And it's simply the Gaelic word for mouth. So it
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  Speaker 2: turned up in Irish Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic, and particularly
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  Speaker 2: from Scottish Gaelic, it came south of the border and
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  Speaker 2: became part of the English language.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now I'm going to ask you. You said thirteen
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fourteen hundred. Yes, So you go back and
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  Speaker 1: have a look at the original books where this stuff's written,
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  Speaker 1: where it originally comes from. You see where it comes from. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: Now do those books give you an idea of how
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  Speaker 1: they are pronounced to what the Because this is why
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  Speaker 1: I've always been curious about about what accents would have
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  Speaker 1: been used, what those people would have sounded like when
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  Speaker 1: they were using the language.
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  Speaker 2: It's a very good question. Before the days of sound recording,
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  Speaker 2: so that's before the eighteen nineties, we can't say for
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  Speaker 2: certain what people sounded like, but there are a number
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  Speaker 2: of clues that just written language will give us. For example,
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  Speaker 2: if you look at poetry, if one thing rhymes with another,
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  Speaker 2: then it's clear that that gives you a guide to
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  Speaker 2: how the pronunciation was. And people sometimes would write about
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  Speaker 2: or report on the way people sounded. When there were
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  Speaker 2: some English people who came out to Australia in the
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  Speaker 2: first half around the middle of the eighteen hundreds, and
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  Speaker 2: they commented on what they heard as the Australian accent.
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  Speaker 2: The interesting thing is what they said was it's the
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  Speaker 2: purest form of English on earth, and the reason was
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  Speaker 2: it had no elements of English regional dialect in it.
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  Speaker 2: They had all been flattened out because people had come
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  Speaker 2: from every part of England, all the dialects had come
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  Speaker 2: here and to be understood to each other. People consciously
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  Speaker 2: very early in the piece started flattening them, and with
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  Speaker 2: their children that process went on further, so the dialects
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  Speaker 2: got flattened out. And in fact, my own guess is
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  Speaker 2: probably if you talked to an Australian in the eighteen
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  Speaker 2: forties eighteen fifties, they would have sounded very much the
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  Speaker 2: way you and I sound now.
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  Speaker 1: So I always had this intrigue, and I talk about
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  Speaker 1: if we get a Dolori back to the future and
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  Speaker 1: go back somewhere, and you could go back and go
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  Speaker 1: back to night in eighty until John Lennon to Duck
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  Speaker 1: and we'd still had him. Stuff like that but I'd
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  Speaker 1: love I reckon the joy of going all the way
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  Speaker 1: back and listening to what people were talking about in
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  Speaker 1: those years. You'll rise at light up. You'd love it.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, we've only got these clues, as I say, but
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  Speaker 2: when you're going back to certain periods, there are a
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  Speaker 2: lot of clues. So there's a Welsh born linguist, a
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  Speaker 2: Manday David Crystal. Professor David Crystal is a very very
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  Speaker 2: clever man. And in Shakespeare's day, if you'd listen to
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  Speaker 2: them speaking English, it would have sounded a bit german
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: So the prop and he actually taught the Shakespearean company
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: that plays in the Globe Theater in London how to
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: do one of Shakespeare's plays in his pronunciation, and they
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  Speaker 2: did a whole play. Now, I am told by the
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: reviewers he went to see it. I wasn't there. I
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  Speaker 2: didn't say it. I have been there to see plays,
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  Speaker 2: but not that one that when you started hearing it
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  Speaker 2: it sounded really odd. But after you've been listening for
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  Speaker 2: about ten minutes it started to make sense to you.
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  Speaker 2: But it did sound more Germanic than modern English does.
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  Speaker 1: Wow. Very interesting really.
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  Speaker 2: So they can work out a lot about the sounds
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  Speaker 2: from the past.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: People online will get to your calls, texts, emails with
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: kel Richards. It's our word clinic here at twenty three
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: minutes past ten. It has been a busy night and
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: we are keeping across all the breaking news happening around
• 10:36
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• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the news coming through from this dreadful plane crash in
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: India are Madabad. This is a big city in India
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: and this Air India plane it's a seven eight to
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: seven Dreamliner, so it's a very it's a big plane.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: It's used right around the world and it was heading
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: to Gatwick in the UK. Now they are saying that
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: all the people on board have died. Now, just after
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: this happened, we described what we saw on the people
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: have taken images. The plane was up in the air
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: for about eight minutes. It took off, didn't get very
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: high and you could see it was struggling to get
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: any height. And as you look at it. You can
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: only imagine the pilots struggling to try and get the
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: nose up. It kept going down and down. They didn't
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: show the No one shown the images of the actual crash,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: but you then see this massive plume of smoke, and
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the conclusion I think when you pull that together, would
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: be it would be very, very difficult for anyone to
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: have survived that. They're also talking though, of what they're
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: describing of some sort of either medical hostel or college
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: where there were medical staff, doctors that may have been
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: living there. Whether they were in there, they're trying to
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: work it out. It's a disaster, but they are saying
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: at this stage that they haven't found any survivors, whether
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: they're got people on the ground they're trying to There
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: are people who are missing from that area where the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: doctors were as well. It's a dreadful, dreadful tragedy. And
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: there are one hundred and sixty nine Indian citizens. Is
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: talking about more than fifty British citizens that was going
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: to Gatwick airports and people from Portugal Canada. So we'll
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: let you know what's happening there. But that's the latest.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: They are now saying no survivors.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: It's pretty sad, it's pretty awful, and no surprise, I.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Think seven three is our number. Let's just get to
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: a couple of callers here. We're talking words and language
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: with Kel Richards. Robin's with us. Hello, Robin, Yes.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: I can John and Kel. I don't know if you've
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: seen this man on TV. He polls a sign up
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: with Jesus and is the Way the Truth and alife
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: and down the opera house and the police come along
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: and everything, and they're laying down the law to him
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: that he's done allowed to do it. And he said,
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: now I'm going to stand on my dig.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's not going to move. I'm standing here,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: you're not going to move me. And and the term
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: he years was I'm going to stand on my dig?
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Is that right?
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, all right? And they couldn't understand that they could
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: stand on what?
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, I you know what I think. I
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: think he was using his own abbreviation of stand on
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: my dignity. That's my guess.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I understand what that means. If you said that to.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Me, I'm going to stand on my dig In Australia,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: dig I don't think it actually applies to a piece
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: of land. Maybe you did in the gold Fields during
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: the gold Rushes. But my best guess is I think
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: he was actually saying I've seen the clip you're talking about,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I know what you're talking about, and I'm pretty sure
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: he's saying, I'm going to stand on my dignity. That's
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: what he means, and that's his own abbreviation of that.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I think I'll say that you knew exactly what he
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: was saying that. Yeah, thank you, Robin. That's an interesting one.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: That's a good one.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Make a note of that, Kelch You never know, they
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: could be good. Follow up with those ones now, George.
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: Hello, George Today, John gaikl tragic news there in India,
• 15:08
  Speaker 6: very sad. But he's a topical one, John. I know
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: you keep on top of all the international sporting news,
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: and you know that Australian manager Ange Costa Coogo has
• 15:18
  Speaker 6: been sacked by Tottenham Hotspar in the UK and the
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: UK press have so the two years that Andrew's been
• 15:26
  Speaker 6: in charge of Tottenham, they've been having a field day
• 15:29
  Speaker 6: with the way he expresses himself and Ange uses the
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: word mate more than your average Australian does these days,
• 15:38
  Speaker 6: and they've been focusing on that endlessly, the fact that
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: he uses the word mate mate all the time, and
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: I don't know both of you have dealt with this
• 15:48
  Speaker 6: over the years. It's a pretty obvious one. But I
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: was wondering whether the word mate in the Australian vernacular
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: has come from the naval term, you know, the naval
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: ranking of first mate, second mate, boss mate. Is that
• 16:03
  Speaker 6: where it comes from.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think. So it goes back to the
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: old idea that mate means a friend, a companion, which
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: is which is older than the navy that's recorded from
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: thirteen eighty, So back in thirteen eight eighty, mate was
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: being used to mean a companion and a friend. So
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: it's that's the oldest version of meaning of the word,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: and it's had that meaning in the English language for
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: a long time for a range of historical reasons. That word,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: which is definitely English, I mean, it's very old English,
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: and we didn't invent it, was used here a lot,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: and certainly by the end of the eighteen hundreds it
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: was being used by Henry Henry Lawson and we've we've
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: appropriated it. And part of the reason for that is
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: because this was seen as being a hostile environment. So
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: you didn't go anywhere on your own because it was dangerous.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: You didn't do a job on your own because it
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: was dangerous. You needed a mate, right that. And diggers
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: on the goldfields needed a mate. So in the bush
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: on the gold fields you needed a mate, You needed
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: a friend, a companion. That was the word we adopted,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: and it's become our word, and we had we we
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: we've found lots of ways to use it. For example,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: John and I keep saying, when you forget someone's name,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: it's really easy to say mate, mate, it's so good
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: to see you again.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, Georgie, you think we think it's it's We kind
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: of think it's an Australian word, don't we.
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: We do, But but the British actually use it a lot.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Mate.
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: They don't actually emphasize it like we do. We go
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: may we stretch it out?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, there's there was a period probably in the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: eighties and nineties when Labor Party factionalism and the right
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: wing of the Labor Party. Remember there's a book called
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Mates Yes, and that was you'd say may. It was
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: like a that was almost like they send themselves up.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: So there are two things. One is the pronunciation, and yes,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: our pronunciation is just The other thing is frequency what
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: a lot. What linguists do when they're doing research, they
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: research the frequency of the word, how often in ten
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: thousand words this one turns up and or one hundred
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: thousand words or whatever. I would think the frequency in
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Australia would be much higher. So if the frequency in
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Britain would say three hundred per per one hundred thousand
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: words in Australia would be double that, I would think
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: that would be. I haven't seen the frequency studies. It's
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: just me guessing based on what I know about the
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: way the English speak and the way we speak.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Very interesting, all right, thank you, George. Very good. That
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: one kritz is softened blasphemy.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: John says it is, and yes, if you'll go back.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: In time, he tell last year Ferdinand not to drive
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: to the hospital in Sarajevo in nineteen fourteen. Then Gothic
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: comes from German that.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, yeah, yeah. The word Gothic refers originally to
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: the Goths, and the Goths were a savage people who
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: raided from the north, so that in fact, the Goths
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: were Germanic people, and Gothic has been applied to lots
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: of things. Why the word has spread so widely, I'm
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: not sure. But you know there's a style of architecture
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: which is Gothic.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, now one of our people here and I think
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: he's not being smart. There's a few people try to
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: be smart on the text line not sorry to hear
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: about you. Drag us tonight always wanted to wine. Rugby
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: and rugby league they call a try a try.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: It started out because by getting the ball over the
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: line that allowed you to kick for goal. It didn't
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: actually in the very early days of rugby played at
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the school rugby before it became a big game, the
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: rule was you got the ball over the line that
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: gave you the right to kick for goal. So what
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: you were trying, what you were doing is you were
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: you were going to try to kick for goal. You've
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: won a try. You've won the right to kick for goal.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: You've won a try try. That's right.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: So you've won a try, which is the right to
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: try and kick a goal.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: And the irony of all that, if we talk about
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: different codes, is that if a try, you've got to
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: get the ball on the ground, yes, over the line,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: that's right. In American football, You've just got to break
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: that line above the line. So if you break that line.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: So they don't have to touch the ground.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: And it's called a touchdown.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's incredible.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Anyway, now let me go here we go? Oh, Cole says,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: what's happened to the word? Who? Even supposedly educated people
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: on the media now use that. So I think he's saying,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of the context here.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: If you talk about all the people that were at
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: the event as an incorrect and look, you're absolutely right.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: That applies to things. Who applies to people? It's a
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: very simple rule. But you have to remember that for
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: forty years, our education system failed to teach grammar to stick.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I'm told they've gone back to teaching, and I certainly
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: hope that's the case, but for forty years they did not.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: So there's a whole generation who were failed by the
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: education system. Someone deserves to be punished for this. It's
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: a really terrible thing they did. So when you're hearing
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: people use that when referring to people rather than things,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: what you are hearing is ignorance, sheer ignorance.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Right, he's busting a puffoo valve here is I Well,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I love thee. Is that the puff foo valve? Is
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that the old expression.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Puffl valve yes, a pooful valve yes.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Expression that one like that one. Well, let's take a break,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: come back in the moment, because look, you're going to
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: be away for a couple of weeks. Kel you're getting,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you're getting.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I'm happy to tell people, Yes, I'm having a total
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: knee replacement. So my right knee is not going to
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: be a knee anymore. It's going to be a little machine.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: And you've prepared, You've been preparing for weeks.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: You've told me. There's getting yourself ready, preparing, getting yourself
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: you know, doing exercises, getting the muscles around it ready.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Going to physiotherapy and doing a lot of work because
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: you've got to and the muscles around where the surgery is.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: And they'll take out my decrepit ney that doesn't work
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: properly anymore and causes a lot of pain, and they
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: will put in something made of titanium. So when I
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: come back next, I will be titanium.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Man, titanium man, and I expect.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: My own Marvel comic.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Before the way. If you, of course, in some cases
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: you might be this. You might literally be the six
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: million dollar man depend because these things do cost oh yeah,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: but anyway, that's something ahead of us. And that's why
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: you won't be here for the next couple of weeks,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: because you'll be recovering from your surgery. Indeed, so if
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: you've got a question for Kel, you've got about twenty
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: two minutes left and you'll or you'll have to wad
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: another three weeks. Yes, seven three is the number now,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: twenty two minutes to eleven, sixteen to eleven. We're talking
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: words in language here with mister Kel Richards. Don't forget
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: his website oswords dot com dot au. Some of the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: questions that have come in these are emails. And I
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: remember we used to have Nevill Ran would say, let
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: me just say this Barrier. Farrell would often say, look,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: the reality is so they'd say something yes, yeah, while
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: they were getting themselves together in terms of their thoughts.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: So this is one that never sent in. I would say,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: while they get what they're going to say, and he says,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Penny Wong.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Says a lot, and I understand his irritation. It is,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: as you said, a padding phrase, so that they're just
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: throwing out words while their brain works on what's coming next.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: And his real irritation is, why would you say I
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: would say, just say it, don't say I would say
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: this is a good idea. Just say this is a
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: good idea. That's why it's irritating himself. All the padded
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: padding phrases around. He's right, it is one of the
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: most irritating. And if you ever come across a politician
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: who doesn't use padding phrases, I think it makes them
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: very effective. Then I was thinking about the speech of
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: just into namper Juper Price. One of the things that
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: makes her so effective is what they call a retail
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: politician is she doesn't use a lot of those padding phrases. Interesting,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: she just gets into it.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Because I thought about see I think or mister rand
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah, he got, well, let me just say this,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: that's right. And Barry Farrell used to say, look, the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: reality is at the end of the day, and that
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: gives you about three seconds to formulate what you are
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: going to say, because.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: Some politicians will even say things like, look, that's a
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: good question, and that is a padding phrase. And Joe
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Bio Competition used to say, don't you worry about that,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: don't you worry about that? And it was basically again
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: padding until he got to where he wanted to talk about.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: We mentioned earlier about Answpasta Cogla getting the sack. I
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: think we have done this before, but the termolology of
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: someone getting the.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Sack goes back to the days when workers tradesmen would
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: take their tools to work in a bag in a sack,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: and they would leave them there at the factory or
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: the job worksite, whatever, And if the tradesman got the sack,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: he picked up his sack of tools and took it. Basically,
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: the boss walked over and said, there you are, there's
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: your tools, off you go. He gave him the sack.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: My grandmother used to say with my grandfather Fred, because
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: he was a very argumentative man, and he was a tradesman.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: He cast in cast iron. He used to make the
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: sand moles for cast iron. He was very good at
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: it apparently, but he lost a lot of jobs because
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: he was so argumentative and difficulty. She said, I used
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: to dread it when your grandfather walked down the street
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: with his tools, because I knew he'd got the sack.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: He got the sack very good one of my friends.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: One of my friends exclude, and this person's raising the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: term disclude as wanting to talk to someone as opposed
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to exclude. What's his The well, I haven't heard it before.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: It's new on me. I went to the Oxford Dictionary
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: database and disclude is there. It's a very old word,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: comes from a Latin source word, and it means basically
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: to separate. So if you're discluding this from that, this
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: is discluded from our collection. It means to set apart,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: to separate.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Exclude my is putting something me.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: It exclude means to remove and it suggests removing completely
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: X out of the place. But if you're keeping things
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: but separating them, it is disclude. But it is such
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: an unfamiliar word. If you use it, no one we'll
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: understand what you're saying.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Paul asked about time immemorial, time immemorial.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Time immemorial is actually interesting. The phrase had to be
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: coined at some point, and it turns out time immemorial
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: refers to a particular time in English history. It refused
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: to it refers we know to very distant time, that
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: sort of thing that no one has any knowledge or
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: memory of. But it came into custom in the English
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: language in the Statute of Westminster of twelve seventy five.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: And in that statute it gives a date anything before
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: the sixth of June eleven eighty nine, which was the
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: accession of Richard the First. There is no legal memory
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: of what common law was before that date.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, look abdall is on the line of
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: the question for you on the on the open lane.
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: Hello, Abdol, Yeah, Hi, I's got a question regarding you
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: a dollar sign. So it's like a for example, he's
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: saying ten dollars.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: So that dollar sign is like s of the dollar sign?
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: Yep, yeah, the dollar side. So why is not the
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: key like a two?
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Time?
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Can I tell you that I did actually look this
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: up and research it about twenty five years ago, and
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I haven't written about it for twenty five years, and
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: I can't remember. So when I come back first night,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: back three weeks from tonight, will I will give you
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: the history of the dollar sign.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: We'll just let's take a break, because with that line
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: through the is was that one stage we did one?
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: In America?
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Did America? America always started off doing two, but quite often,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: particularly in advertising, reduced it to one. So they have
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: either one or two.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: They either one or two, but we've always had the two.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: All right, come back in a moment. Ten minutes to eleven.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: We're talking words in language with Kel Richards. At seven
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: minutes to eleven, just a few minutes left. Reminded to you,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Kel Richards won't be with us for a couple of weeks.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: But Kel, what have you got?
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: I had a quick look through what I've got in
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: my computer. There are about eight different theories as to
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: where the dollar sign came from. The one that is
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: most preferred by most experts. It started out as a
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Spanish peso, so the S was for Spanish and the
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: line through it was originally a P for peso. The
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Americans had a thing called the Coinage Act, and the
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: coiny jack said the value of a Spanish milled dollar
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: will be the value of our currency. So it was
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: a Spanish peso which the value of the American currency
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: was set on back in the seventeen hundreds.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Now it's most interesting because I do remember one little
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: bit of trivia I remember from the early nineteen sixties
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: was that the then Prime Minister Robert Menzies he wanted
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: to call when we went when we went, decimal changed
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: from the pound. He wanted to call the dollar the royal.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Right now, I've always remembered that because it was obviously
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: didn't fly, and they went with dollar. But was it
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: going to be what was the symbol for the royal
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: going to be?
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Well, they never got around to coming up a crown
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: or something or well, who knows, but they never got
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: around to that. And once don'tber calling it an ostral
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: a U S t ra l. But everyone pointed out
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: that when you put the indefinite article in front of it,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: it becomes a nostril, which I've got a good name
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: for a currency, So they dropped that one. At the time,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: there was a quite famous an answer working at the
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: ABC named Martin Royal, and he was he was presenting
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: a program and they mentioned the fact that there was
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: this push to call the currency a royal, and he said,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: that's very kind of them. Why couldn't they have called
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: it a dibble?
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Dibble, that's right, Martin Royal, James Dibble, very very good. Look.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Someone sent me this meg a packet of.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Poo tickets, pack a packa pow ticket.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Packa poo tickets talking about when everything's gone to custoards.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: An old expression, a pack of Pooh ticket is used
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: to describe anything which is really untidy, like scribbled writing.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I can remember my teacher standing over my desk and saying,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: Richard's that book looks like a packa Pooh ticket. And
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: the reason is it comes from a Chinese gambling game.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: And in this Chinese gambling game there were slips of
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: paper with Chinese characters on them, and of course Australians
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: couldn't read the Chinese characters. They just looked like scribble.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: So that's what a packapoo tick could look like. And
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: if your place was really untidy and messy and scribbly,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: then there was like a packupoo ticket, all right? Well,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: and can I just say the original Cantonese name for
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: a packapoo ticket means something like white dove choice. And
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: they had a trained no white pigeon choice. They had
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: a trained white pigeon which would pick a number out
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: of a bowl to find the winner.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Isn't that good? All right? So look, we learned something
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: here every night tonight. We learned quite a few things. Oswords,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: that's oz words, dot com, dot a USY website. You
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: can keep in touch with the Kel via his website.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: Next week we'll be doing the CEO sleep out from outdoors.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: You won't be here Kell because you're getting your knee done.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: You'll be away for a couple of weeks yep.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: But I'll still have my laptop on my lap when
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: I'm laid up, so you can still get in touch.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: With me through the website. We'll see you, then thank you,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: then bye.