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Short Stuff: Nouns of assemblage... assemble! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh Clark,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and this is short stuff.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: There's a hairness of podcasters working together right now. I
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  Speaker 1: wonder what. Yeah, I had a feeling that was coming.
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  Speaker 1: I just didn't know what you're gonna use. What would
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  Speaker 1: you have said? I don't know. I have no idea.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't think about it enough. But I will say this,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I didn't either. I know you're just you're quick with it.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm dim. No. I love this stuff so much.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: For a second I thought we were talking about fall grog. No.
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  Speaker 1: I love this stuff. I love words, as you know.
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  Speaker 1: I love um, etymology, etymology, entomology, etymology, etymology, I love
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  Speaker 1: where they come from. I love everything about the nouns
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  Speaker 1: of assemblage, which is what we're talking about, which is
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  Speaker 1: if you've ever heard a Murder of crows or a
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  Speaker 1: Harry a Harness of podcasters, a Harry of Henderson Inderson's,
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  Speaker 1: that's called a noun of assemblage, which is a great
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  Speaker 1: band name. And I know I say that a lot,
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  Speaker 1: but that really is a great band name. The nouns
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  Speaker 1: of assemblage. I think so, Yeah, but what would it
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  Speaker 1: be that feels like sort of shoe gaze nineties to me? Okay, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I was gonna say like kind of yeah, yeah, nouns
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  Speaker 1: of assemblage opening for slow dive exactly. But that's what
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: we're talking about here, um, and we're gonna talk about
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  Speaker 1: a lot of the specific ones, but also the story
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  Speaker 1: of how these came about. For the most part. Yeah,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: it turns out that there was a book that came
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  Speaker 1: out in fourteen eighties six um that kicked off this
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: kind of craze that lasted a little while that basically said, hey,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: you know how there's no such thing as teenagers are
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  Speaker 1: college yet. Well, we're going to foreshead all that by
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  Speaker 1: coming up with some word gags with the Book of St. Alban's,
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  Speaker 1: which um is basically a gentleman's guide to things like hunting,
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  Speaker 1: dog breeds, heraldry, sporting, just that kind of like falconry
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  Speaker 1: falconry with that that kind of like fifteenth century like
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  Speaker 1: guide to manliness is basically what it was. Yeah, man,
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  Speaker 1: I want to copy of this. I looked online to
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  Speaker 1: buy one. Um. It's it's not affordable, but they do
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  Speaker 1: have a they do have a PDF, okay there, because
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  Speaker 1: my first thought was, Man, I'm gonna buy one of
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: these incentives to John Hodgman, like he would totally appreciate this.
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  Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, I might just print and bind the
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  Speaker 1: PDF and send to him instead. Like, I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: I think Hodgement would appreciate it. I don't think it
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  Speaker 1: would sink into him that you would like taken out
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  Speaker 1: a second mortgage on your house that buy him that book?
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  Speaker 1: You know, not gonna happen. I think the PDF is
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  Speaker 1: going to be just fine. Yeah, So we said nounds
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  Speaker 1: of assemblage. They can also be called terms of venery,
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  Speaker 1: and they're linked to Norman cult. Sure. Um a lot
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  Speaker 1: of them came about from hunting and things like fishing
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  Speaker 1: in falconry that we're talking about, right, Like venery actually
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  Speaker 1: means hunting, yeah, and that that Middle English. It also
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  Speaker 1: means sex in Middle English, which is a weird combo
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  Speaker 1: if you think about it, Like, what kind of venry
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  Speaker 1: are you asking me for now? Exactly we're gonna be
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  Speaker 1: hunting foxes or hunting foxes? They say both. Well, this
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  Speaker 1: book has a lot of stuff in it, but there
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  Speaker 1: is a chapter called uh and this is four eight
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  Speaker 1: six so there's a lot of wise where you would
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  Speaker 1: see eyes like Chaucer style. So the Companies of beast,
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  Speaker 1: Ease and Foulis, which is a great, great chapter title,
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  Speaker 1: and they basically it sounds like a bunch of dudes
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  Speaker 1: in the fourteen hundreds sat around, drank a lot of
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  Speaker 1: booze and had a good old time making up these
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  Speaker 1: nouns of assemblage rights, which is really cute in a way.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of cuteness to the fact
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  Speaker 1: that that this was ever like a big deal. But
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  Speaker 1: some of the things that we talked about today, like
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  Speaker 1: a host of angels or shock of corn, or a
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  Speaker 1: panel of judges, like all of those come from, if
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  Speaker 1: not this book, the little kind of trend in making
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  Speaker 1: up nouns of assemblage that the book kicked off. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so you've got a sleuth of bears, a skulk of foxes.
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  Speaker 1: It also tells you a little bit about the time
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  Speaker 1: and that both women and geese were gaggles. But if
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  Speaker 1: you have a group of wives, a group of married
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  Speaker 1: women together there and impatience of wives or noon patients
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  Speaker 1: in Middle English seems kind of Dutch to me, But
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  Speaker 1: I guess they're both derived from Germanic writers were a
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  Speaker 1: worship of writers, so they clearly thought a lot about
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  Speaker 1: their own talents. Um, congregation of church goers, a staff
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  Speaker 1: of employees. All those kind of came from this whole thing.
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  Speaker 1: So there was like a lot of words that we
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  Speaker 1: we came up with or that was that that the
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  Speaker 1: this book put out or the trend came up with
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  Speaker 1: that we still used today. But because they were terms
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  Speaker 1: of venery, it was mostly meant um for animals. So
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  Speaker 1: like the fact that humans were showing up in here
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  Speaker 1: at all was meant to be kind of like a joke,
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  Speaker 1: like a bit of satire, because the terms were meant
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  Speaker 1: to be nouns of assemblage for animals specifically. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: I think it became sort of a just popular trend
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  Speaker 1: period outside of this book, and younger people started making
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  Speaker 1: these things up, and it just became a bit of
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  Speaker 1: a fad for a little while it did. It was
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  Speaker 1: kind of like, um, it was like stuffing yourself into
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  Speaker 1: foam booths fifteenth century style. That's right, You want to
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  Speaker 1: take a break real quick, and then we'll just come
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  Speaker 1: back and say some more of these because it's a
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  Speaker 1: lot of fun to do. Agreed, okay, alright, started off chuck.
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  Speaker 1: All right, we'll go to birds. Uh, there are a
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  Speaker 1: lot of them for birds, because they hunted birds and
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  Speaker 1: birds are everywhere, so that's where we get murder of crows.
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  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the more common ones. That
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  Speaker 1: people know, an unkindness of ravens, which I had heard before,
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  Speaker 1: and that they kind of make a point here in
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  Speaker 1: this Household Works article that it really indicates, like the
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  Speaker 1: gaggo of women and geese is how they felt about
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  Speaker 1: these things. So murder and unkindness for these two birds
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  Speaker 1: that people don't really like. Where you'll have a charm
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of finches because they're super cute. That's one of my favorites.
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  Speaker 1: It's a good one. There's also a college of cardinals,
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  Speaker 1: which for some reason to me is really evocative, Like
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  Speaker 1: it really brings to mind a bright red cardinal for
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  Speaker 1: some reason. So I like that one. Yeah, I think
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  Speaker 1: that's kind of part of it. You know, it's supposed
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  Speaker 1: to really be evocative too, although some of them are
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  Speaker 1: clearly jokey um, a mustering of storks who knows, but
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  Speaker 1: it's worth mentioning, right, There's one that c. S. Lewis
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  Speaker 1: Coin that's actually now considered in dictionaries as the proper
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: way to say a group of owls that's a parliament. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's pretty cool too. Yeah, way to go, Cee s Lewis.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Let me see here, you've got insects, swarm of bees
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  Speaker 1: is stuck around. There are not a ton of downs
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  Speaker 1: of assemblage for insects though, business of flies, which I'd
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  Speaker 1: never heard of. If you have a bunch of lights,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: what's it called a flock of lice? Which is that's
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  Speaker 1: just creepy. Yeah. I think they should have gone with
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  Speaker 1: a beard of bees, yeah, instead of a swarm. And
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  Speaker 1: then there's some of the cutest ones are are reserved
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  Speaker 1: for baby versions of our pets, domesticated animals, like a
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  Speaker 1: kindle of kittens. I looked up the puppies one. Are
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  Speaker 1: you ready for this? It's a pitle of puppies And
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  Speaker 1: because you think it is, I'm glad I know that
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  Speaker 1: now because I often tell the story of when I
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  Speaker 1: got my dog who was no longer with this, Buckley.
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  Speaker 1: I went to the shelter and there was a pile
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  Speaker 1: of puppies all together in a little ball, and he's
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  Speaker 1: the only one who peeled away from that pital and
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  Speaker 1: came over to me. So I was like, you're the one.
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  Speaker 1: You're the one. But now I know a pitle of puppies.
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  Speaker 1: That's great. Agreed, it is pretty great. Um what else, Chuck?
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  Speaker 1: There's wild animals, a pride of lions, a wisdom of wombats,
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  Speaker 1: which I had not heard before. Yeah, I mean, you've
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  Speaker 1: also got dogs. A pack of dogs was one, but
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  Speaker 1: dogs had a bunch of them because dogs were pets
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  Speaker 1: and they were hunting friends, and so they were You
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  Speaker 1: could have a kinnel of dogs, a pack of dogs,
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  Speaker 1: a cry or a mute of dogs. Yeah, those were
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  Speaker 1: just the hunting hounds in particular. There's also gang legion,
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  Speaker 1: a meat of dogs. Yeah, a meat of dog. It
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  Speaker 1: sounds like they're up to something, you know. Yeah. And
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  Speaker 1: although you may have a kindle of kittens, once those
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  Speaker 1: kittens grow up, they become a clouder of and that's
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  Speaker 1: clo w d e r of cats, a clouder of cats,
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  Speaker 1: which is better than a chowder of cats. Really, God,
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  Speaker 1: I said some of the wild animals already. But the
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  Speaker 1: uh if you notice, the flies group was called the
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  Speaker 1: business of flies. There's also a business of ferrets. And
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  Speaker 1: really it makes a lot of sense because it's business
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  Speaker 1: is derived from business, like something that's busy and moving
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  Speaker 1: about and everything, which really does apply to both a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of flies and a bunch of ferrets too. So
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  Speaker 1: some of these work kind of right on. A gam
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  Speaker 1: of whales seems a little out of the blue. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: A prickle of hedgehogs makes sense. A bloat of hippos
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  Speaker 1: makes sense. But what about an obstinate an obstinacy of buffalo, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that makes sense. They they're kind of immovable, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I guess, so, So I say, I propose that we
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: stopped for now, but we start a spinoff podcast where
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  Speaker 1: every episode we just spend an hour saying these things. Okay, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and if you want to ever go on Jeopardy, I
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: would recommend memorizing all of them. Yeah, agreed, agreed. Uh,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: And if you want to know more about these, you
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: can go onto how stuff works dot com and look
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: up this really great article. And uh, since we said
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: that everybody short stuff is out. Stuff you should know
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radios. How Stuff Works. For
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart radio, visit the iHeart Radio
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