[inaudible conversations] good morning. Good morning. I would like to welcome you all to word salad or word solid. My name is josh wheeler, im the director of the Thomas Jefferson protection of the Free Expression and the sponsor of this Mornings Program. Its a source of great pride for us at the Thomas Jefferson center that we have been involved in every one of the 23 virginia festival of books in one way or another. Often, you only think about free speech when you think about speech we dont like that we hate actually, but we forget sometimes that free speech also allows us the great kind of expression that we can find in the arts and science everywhere. Its the height that can only be achieved when we are free to explore any idea seen or subject and thats why we are so proud to be part of the festival, virginia festival book, where else is there a better example or examples of the heights that can be reached by virtue of having free speech where authors can work out any fear of retribution. Todays program, i think, is going to be a lot of fun but i have a few housekeeping details beforehand to read and first is this is the virginia festival of good as you all know which is brought to you by the Virginia Foundation for humanities, please, if you would please silence your cell phones, if you would like to tweet us va book 2017, they have me read that every year and every year i have no idea what that means. [laughter] so please dont ask me how to do it. We would like to thank the city of charlottesville for providing this venue for todays event and want to welcome all of our viewers on cspan and charlottesville own tv 10. At tend of this program or the last part of this program we will have q a from the audience and we ask that you please wait for a microphone to be brought to you so that you can be recorded for our audience at home. This festival is free of charge and but its not free of cost. Please remember to go online to go back and pick up a giving envelope from the desk and support your festival so we can continue to bring it for many more years. Please also fill out your program evaluations. These provide useful information that helps keep the festival free and open to the public, you can fill out a paper evaluation before you leave or complete it online at vabook. Org survey. Im going read a few of these, if one is if you like to give us your favorite own personal or your nomination for the American Dialect Society word of the year and we will take the nominations and provide them and explain a little bit more about what this program what the word of the year program is. Let me tell you about our authors. There are two wordsmith. Since 1981 allan has studied whose members study not just dialect but english in north america, he has written seven books on language including the one that tells you how you can predict whether a new word can become part of the language and most recently he has written the subject of todays book from to selfie. Youre going to really enjoy that. Before the Book Oxford University press published the book about okay, the improbable story of americas greatest word. [laughter] and it should be noticed that just this past thursday march 23rd was okay day. [laughter] 178th birthday of americas, in fact, the worlds greatest word. In his day job, allan is an english professor at Mcmurray College in illinois. First we will turn on how people misuse words and how we add words to the dictionary and for that part of the program we are going to hear from robert rubin. It gives me great pleasure and Great Depression to introduce robert to you. [laughter] i will explain why. Robert is actually an old friend, there are very few people i can say this about that ive known. Robert and i have known each other for over 55 years. That gives me great pleasure. It also depresses me greatly that i can say i have known somebody for 55 years, we are both sons of College Professors and we grew up on the same College Campus running around in our little superman and batman costumes and it wasnt at halloween. [laughter] robert has grown up to be a fine young man. Hes an editor, editor of poet, teacher, writer that lives near raleigh, north carolina, five books include a memoir of hiking the entire link to have appalachian trail and most recently going to hell in a hen basket. He is a longtime punster and aficionado and delight today share parrels of wisdom. I would like to introduce the program with robert rubin. [applause] honored to be part of a Program Sponsored by freedom of speech. My book is about people for people that are too free about speech sometimes. [laughter] im delighted to be on the program. Im a word nerd from a long time back and love sort of the mistakes that people make and we all make them. [laughter] not quite right. We all make malapropisms. One example is going to hell in a hen basket. When you think about it, it could just be well be going to hell in a hand basket. The basket i suppose is to carry eggs. Who knew. Has been discovered by lipping wises linguists and its called an egg corn. [laughter] the linguist discovered these because he said my neighbor keeps saying egg corn, what do you think about that . Acorn is shaped like an egg if you take off the cap so it might as well be an acorn. There are abundant and there are all sorts of fans of egg corns that collected these things. That was sort of the heart of the book but there are a lot of malapopism. Im excited about this program and im ready to cut to the cheese. [laughter] lets have a few of these that i also happen to be and i lust rater illustrator was having fun. This one is a grain of salt. [laughter] if you take it from a grain of salt, we can move on if there. This is an example. One that makes perfect sense. Double axel. An axel goes around, the jump and they go around and they jump but its actually named after a guy named axle. Some norweian. An example of a true egg corn. [laughter] particular kind of mouthwash, perhaps. All my drawings have a chicken in them by the way. Which came first the chicken or the egg corn. [laughter] bear knuckle fighting. You see these a lot. Thousands and thousands of usage. You can put a perm like bear knuckle fighting and see how many thousands of usage google turns up and its really amazing. They are delightful and sort of fun thing that people do with language not intentionally sometimes and sometimes intentionally. [laughter] i exercise my demons all of the time and in fact, sort of doing that today. [laughter] it makes some sense, i suppose, perfect nonsense that you would exercise your demons or you could exorcise them. The experience was jarring or jawdropping and get combined in into a phrase like jardropping and that actually is starting to overcome jawdropping as the most common usage. Thats actually happening with a lot of the malapropisms. Lets hone in on the subject. When you think about it, that doesnt make sense, you hone a knife and so you could hone your skills as a speaker or you could hone on a topic, one or the other. Honing on is becoming more common. [laughter] and this makes sense a bowl in the china shop, of course, youre going to find a bowl in a china shop. [laughter] now, this one i like, busting tables. It makes perfect sense. At the beginning of the meal somebody sets the table and at the end of the meal somebody busts the table. Part of the joy of learning about these words has been learning about their history, for instance, busting comes from the idea around the turn of the 20th century, the beginning of the 20th century, somebody who bust the table was called an omnibus because they carried everything away and thats where busting comes from. I like busting tables. Im a buster at the restaurant. [laughter] and then we all describe our cadillac converter. I could use a cadillac right about now. This one from a 58caddy to a 58vw. It makes lot of sense, a word from latin word. But in the sense, clusterphobia is fear of being in a close space. That makes sense too. If youre a real word nerd, you like this one because the oxford comma is a controversial subject and after hearing after long lectures you fall into an oxford coma so i particularly appreciate this one. A french prowler. Dunkin doughnuts offers a french curler. Crawler. This is an example of a french crawler. [laughter] here is one that makes perfect sense. A curtesy call or and a courtesy call. [laughter] we dont have wash boards very often these days. Most of us have washing machines, so they reference to a wash board with wash board stomach has lost on a lot of people. Everybody does have dashboards in their car. Dash board stomach is perfectly understandable although i would think its sort of hard to fit the Steering Wheel under your shirt. Now, duck tape is a really interesting one. Notice that it says duck tape back there. Believe it or not that was originally a malapropism and the original word was ducktape, fabric tape made out of cotton duck fabric and they started adding a rubberized content and so people started calling it duck tape which was a malapr malapropism. Thats the original name for this stuff. Its interesting how malapropism and acorn become part of the language. Theres history of words that have become standard usage. An elementary canal. [laughter] this is an example of a young man who has something on his elementary canal. We will leave that one where it is. The flamingo dance, right, this was kind of cool. This was a twoway malapropism. We all know about the flamingo dance. You speak spanish, flamengo is the name for flamingo, it became flamingo dance and now turned it back to original meaning. I like i love that when they do these little journeys like this, meanings of words, all right, this one is a game of thrones reference. Gunhoe. A try in world war ii, a unit of marines adopted meaning work hard basically. From chinese and people who got excited about fighting were known as gunho. That makes a perfect connection to guns and gunho. Thats eminent danger. It is a pretty intimate experience and the experience of being in intimate danger makes perfect nonsense, i think. This one is sort of fun. Nautical miles. We are going 12 knots, abbreviation for nautical miles per hour. It makes sense but thats not what we say. Now, this one i like. [laughter] we are on the lamb. To lamb was originally a word that meant to beat, you lamb Something Like lamb based or you would lamb or lame a horse by beating it. But i dont know if we are going to beat our poor lambs to death when we are trying to make our get away. I dont think a lamb would be a good get away vehicle. The marsh pit. [laughter] it does get a little swampy in there when everybody is dancing around and slamming against each other. It was originally called the slam pit and then a mash pit and then became a marsh pit and marsh pit, mash is sort of a new england pronunsuation of marsh. Who know knows . That one has yet to be defined. This one i got from dinner with my mother and i and how is im going to make my garden grow. That would be a vegetable melody. [laughter] dinner on tray. On the tray. There it is. What more can you say. Now, the micellin might need a new devise. The rest of us need neumonic device. Rearing its ugly head. A ring bear. [laughter] usually acute little teddy bear boy at the wedding, could be something else. This is ability my favorite. [laughter] bringing your chickens home to roast. Getting roasted chicken confused with roosting chickens is i suppose sort of natural. I like to think of the chickens having a celebrity roast with each other. [laughter] and this one is a little biblical im afraid. A sliver of cake here. Here we have the serpent offering apple cake to eve. But a slidder of cake rather than a slither of cake. Statute miles, a road marked with statutes. Roman had mile posts, some of them could be statutes. Fairy tail, that one makes sense. Fairies and mermaids in my mind at least. Toeheaded child. [laughter] some wards have lost their meaning. We dont do much we dont the spun flax is known as tow, they were towheaded. Now it makes sense, you see a kid with a buzz cut. I think it makes perfect nonsense. And tow the line. This is a favorite, favorite. I always test all of my College Students on how they spell tow the line. Usually most of them spell it with the w. Navel sailers putting their toes on a line for inspection. You tow the line, youre doing the work. Win turbine. [laughter] i dont think i need to comment on that. Finally, my last example is ultraviolet light. [laughter] i think lighting is the perfect good example of ultraviolet light. That concludes my presentation on the the powerpoint but i will be happy to talk about these words that i love and mistakes that i love with you further on in the program. [applause] were any of you like me as we are going along laughing, laughing, and im going, wait, whats wrong with that . [laughter] it reminded me of one of my favorite jobs i was talking to my boss and i was talking about how the other department wouldnt listen to us and i said, its like theyre turning a blind ear to us. Anyway, well, thank you, robert. Now i could turn our program over to how some of the malaprops become part of the english language, they become the accepted use, for that we have the perfect person to talk about how new words are formed or how words become part to each generation and form their own words and i would like to turn this over to allan at this point, words of the generations. [applause] yes. Now, i need to mention that every one of the words that robert brought up is a candidate for being a proper word of the english language and the reason that its a candidate is that language is not logical but conventional, that is we say a particular word not because we have logically that we are going to be saying that word, but because thats what weve heard use for that particular point and now and then somebody forgets a large group of people forget that it once was a different way or a number of very good examples that robert gave us and one of the other things about language is that there is that every living language is always changing, if you find a language that is truly unchanging, if youve ever had a teacher or editor say we are not accepting any changes in the english language, if you have the only language that doesnt change is a dead language and as long as its living, we have lots of things. I am going to mention im here because how a book is called generations. They make this absurd claim that every generation of americans, every group give or take a few years they adjust this way and that and everyone born within that generation has the same attitudes and responses to the world around them and to other people as everyone else in that generation and all of a sudden at the end of 20 years theres a click or something and the next generation comes up and it seems ridiculous but i decided to test it out by writing a book about it, taking generations and seeing were there particular words that go with the generation that ones that they invented or one that belongs to them. The most recent again railings, this is widely accepted as a notion by all kinds of pundits is the millennials. I hear them every day in my classroom. My favorite word for the millennials is selfie because a selfie is all truistic selfishness, part of millennials, they truly believe that putting a picture of themselves on the internet is going to make the world a better place. [laughter] one second. [laughter] by gosh, after a while you tend to believe it. So thats what my book is about. Thats just one aspect of words that ive been studying and another thing that ive studied is this okay which happens to be americas greatest word and the worlds greatest word because you can, for example, if you go to a country where you and another person dont share any languages, you can projectically converse by saying okay to each other, okay is also the american philosophy of can do or prague pramatism. It may not be perfect but it will do. It was in 1839 on saturday the 23rd of march, boston morning posted in newspaper had been published things with abbreviations and okay was given in the period and was explained as all correct. Of course, for those people in boston they were hungry for some kind of humor they read the paper they probably knew that it does not given with o and k not correct and would you call it a malapropmism. Sounds like a deliberate punned. By the end of next year it was everywhere included, okay clubs for the election of martin, reelection as president , he lost to William Henry harrison whose slogan was log cabin and cider and sometimes the electorate liked log cab inand cabin and cider better. The new words are specially interesting. American Dialect Society starting in 1990 every year has been choosing a word of the year and i thought we might do a little bit, i will explain how we do it. The American Dialect Society is a small group of people who study american english but we meet together with the Linguistic Society of america which is a much group of people that are professional linguists and every january we meet, we look back on the Previous Year and we ask which word or words which word was the most important defining word of the Previous Year. Kind of like Time Magazine has a person of the year. We have words of the year so we accept nominations throughout the year and some of you have been writing nominations on the paper that have been handed out and you will have your opportunity to do more and then what we do is first of all, we have a nominating session, kind of like a nominating convention for a Political Party where we win all through the possible candidates, then we have a final vote the next day where it turns out about 300 people show up and theyre all qualified to vote as long as they experienced american english during the past year which most of them have. [laughter] and that qualifies them as experts for this and then the question is which word or words is the most goes best with that particular year. Ive been in charge of this for sometime and my own requests have gone the wrong way but its a democracy but what we to is allow speeches when we come to a particular word we have the nominations mentioned and then everyone in the audience is invite today give a 30 second speech, not a 32 indeed, but a speech and theres a vote by show of hands because this is not science, this is just fun. [laughter] and also if you if you want to stand up for a particular word you should show convictions by raising your hand. We get the nominations and vote on it and then we announce to the world what the word of the year is. Now it happens that since 1990 we were the first but strangely enough others, other dictions like oxford and Miriam Webster have chosen their words of the year which are different from ours. We are not only the first but voted on last word of the year. Every else has come out as word of the year. We consider ourselves our last and most important. Thats how that works. Youre invited, the American Dialect Society actually has a website and if you can spell american dialect and not put any periods in between or any fancy typeography. You will find and thats not orgy, no, its just org. [laughter] you lock for words of the year nominations and you click on this and directly send them in but im also going to take the ones that are nominated here and take them to our headquarters which is actually my office and [laughter] and then we will make sure that they get introduced. Now, of course, words of the year 2017 as you are aware the year is not entirely over yet but we already have thanks to the wonderful goings on in washington we already have wonderful selection of possible candidates and i should mention that although we call it word of the year, this is word in its larger definition that is a unit of meaning so we have had prefixes, sentences, hashtags ending up as the word of the year. I would like to think that in the year 2000 we voted on word of the year which was, i think, that was y2k and also voted of the word of the decade which, i think, was e, the prefix e. Word of the century and word of the millennium. The word of the century was sass jazz, a wonderful word of the century and american word and the word of the millennium was sht, in old times it didnt begin with is s h sound. She got her independence around the year 1100 or 1200 and influence from scan and scandanavian. [laughter] i wondered why is it that some new words are durable and some drop out. I came up with a five qualities that make for permanent addition to the vocabulary and they go by the letters fugey, the word is used, its the unobtrusiveness. If you come across a word that you know its a new word you are resistance to using it, whether it be funny but im not going to use it. D is diversity of levels and e is endurance of the concept, some things like well, for example, something that doesnt exist much anymore. You can take those things and figure out how how the current new words are going to last and maybe thats even better than trying to figure out whether the current new political figures in washington are going last. Anyhow, at whatever time you like, time for questions. [applause] thank you. I promise we are going leave plenty of time for questions from the audience because of often every time, in fact, that ive done one of these your questions are far better than mine. But i would like to ask one question which isnt mine but one of the volunteers who is in cable asked me this to pass on and i think its an excellent question and its and we still talk about it a little bit but i would like for you to respond to it, the focus on Mornings Program is words being added and new ways of using language, its also relevant to, i think, consider words that have been dropped from from our language that we dont hear anymore and how what that means, what that represents, i guess, in terms of our section of the world and how we connect to the world and its a very challenging question because its a word thats widely use and the thing that it describes isnt something thats obsolete and why doesnt it stay on and its somehow society or people move onto a different way of discussing it and ought to predict that. I think i will let robert answer that. [laughter] well, as far as malapropisms go, in terms of researching malapropisms is finding words that echo the meaning. Old languages, dead languages like latin, they are there by definition dead and then we bring them back, so we say Something Like latin phrase. And so its an example of a word the meaning of the phrase has died and gets a new meaning because reduction and absurd sound like they ought to be paired. One more thing, theres Something Like a Million Words in english, two million and they are all not covered in the dictionaries and it is very hard to tell whether a word is really in general use or is not. You cant just say, well, its not in the dictionary and therefore you can want use it. Thats a picture of adam and eve sitting around and saying, hmm, i wish there was a dictionary here and they eventually go and hmm and points there and point there and they can begin to speak that way. Most of us dont learn our languages by going to the dictionary. Are there words that have robert i think youve answered this but words that have dropped out of usage only then later or another generation to make a comeback. Robert, you mentioned probably some that have come back as malaprops but there are words that were died to one generation and skipped the next one and then came back . Well, thats a tough one. None come to mind right offhand. I have to look through my book, but the maybe allan can can help me there. Well, im also i know that there are lots of good examples and i dont have them in my head at the moment. [laughter] another question, this i do know is true, but how much we live in a time of change where change is the norm, but it hasnt always been that way and it seems to me that there are so many words that are added to our culture because of technological change and i guess what do you have some early examples of of that where maybe at a time when change wasnt as as quick as it seems to be today but some of the earlier examples where Technology Added words to our lexicon . Well, i was looking at a malapropism, somebody who is standing on a peddle stool. Peddle stool was actually an old device used for piano playing. So thats an old word that that was in the dictionary and its now forgotten pretty much and we get it mixed up with pedestal. I dont know whether the fact that it was a real word may be used as malaprop or not. One of the things that i can think of with the development of computers is that decades ago a couple of decades ago we were recalling them machines and machine language and so on and now things with computers we tend to call devices. Thats kind of reviving devices for a use that we havent had before. Im not sure how long ago we started using devices but now everything is a device. Also phrases that have sort of a specialized vocabulary thats back in the day of sailing ships, you would weigh anchor, weigh. Anchors away. Now we say throw the anchor away. It was anchors away. That doesnt make any sense. Its an old usage that sort of echos in our subconscious, i think, and we apply it to a new situation. My father used to often refer to could you get some im going what . My brothers and sisters we had no idea what he was talking about but apparently that was an early day for kind of margarin, is that right . How many remember [laughter] i say that to my kids now and it means something completely different than what they were talking about. Try dialing the phone. [laughter] thats true. We asked the audience and we passed out forms and i hope that even if we havent, we havent gotten them up here that if you have a favorite malaprop or a nomination for word of the year that you might fill it out and turn it in and i will pass them onto robert and allan but i thought we might just read a few right now and then open up to questions from the audience or if you want offer some more additions to to these two categories. One thats getting a lot of a lot of nominations is alternate facts. I think we can and probably in your next addition edition of the book have to have a whole chapter devote today our most recent president. He seems to be i dont say on any partisan grounds. The center is a Nonpartisan Organization and im actually crediting him with adding to our language, enriching the language, bigly. One is big league, the way trump thinks of it but bigly can be an adverb from big, depending so it goes both ways and i think he still uses it. A couple of nominations for word of the year that do, i think, demonstrate a partisan view, impeach. [laughter] not my nomination. Somebody elses. Fake news right up there with alternate facts. Trumpster and fake news and haters. I hear that a lot with my kids. Dope, thats dope. Thats an interesting category that words where their mean asking completely the opposite of what i remember my bad went from being bad to good. Oh, thats bad. Now its dope, thats dope. I hear woke, he enlightened, woke. I dont know. [laughter] trumpism. What about ism, what about the other guy, i see. This is a category i want to ask, robert you mentioned about because im guilty of these all of the time. Its a specific kind of malaprop isnt it when you get the lyrics to a song incorrect. [laughter] i always get the listen to a van morrison song about gunning down the old man with radio. I could never figure that out and i saw the lyrics and it was going down in the old mine with the radio. [laughter] example of a song where you get the lyrics mixed up. Famous old poem about lady mondegreen who was actually a story of a young man who got involved in the dual and layed him on the green. [laughter] thats what that is. We have a few of those, one from elton john song. Hold me closer tinny dancer. A lot of people think its hold me closer tony danza. [laughter] from jimmy, purple hays, excuse me while i kiss the sky. Some people apparently think its excuse me while i kiss this guy. [laughter] and then theres others. Music smooth the savage breasts. [laughter] i guess that could be true too. Very good one. Rather than my reading, im sure you folks have a few more and i would like to entertain audience questions or malaprops or nominations for word of the century. This gentleman, please wait for the microphone to get to you because remember we have folks at home and i think we will have time to get to most people. Im not sure its working. Okay. You hardly see a newspaper article these days without seeing the word [inaudible] my reaction fault with what . [inaudible] [laughter] i guess im been curious how Something Like that gets started . It seems to be a fan word at least in the journalism industry and i see it every day, whoa, two years ago you sell tom saw the world and now its everywhere. And theyll be making wasnt will make a statement and another will make a similar statement, not just in writing but also in speaking. Somehow fraud seems a little heavy. Theres also a matter of headlines, headline writers love short words so theres words in head lions that headline that is youll see frequently but never in ordinary conversation. I will try to make it so you dont have to run back and forth. She played mrs. Maloprop so i wonder if you want to talk about the origin of malaprop itself . Sure. It goes back to shakespeare. He made the mistakes that we all laugh at and then there was no word for it, though, you thought he was a moron. About a 175 years later the play writer richard wrote a play called the rivals and there was a woman in that play named mrs. Malaprop who misused language amazingly and its still hilarious but at the time there was no word for it either but she was this was such a big hit that those those mistakes became nonas malapropiate and thats where they got the labels from. One class looking at another class because of mistake in words and the modern malapropism because we all make that we dont have time to look them all up. We sometimes just repeat them. Of course, malaprop is specially good because mal means bad and prop means appropriate. [laughter] so you put that together and it describes it too. Probably getting the word wrong and probably getting everything wrong on this but bolderrism. I guess so. You define it for me and you tell me if its what i think it is. A fellow named bowler. My favorite text oh, my gosh, i cant even think of where somebody is warning athelo does samona, hes falsely telling athelo that his love is being unfaithful to him and the line from shakespeare shes playing the trumpet from your bed. Shes playing the trumpet in your bed. [laughter] i believe thats true but anyway. Yes, sir. I like the idea of adding body words so we can call that boglerism. They would put all the naughty words in the back of the book so students would read the back of the book first. My wife and i were traveling and we saw the three young guys and one of them had a tshirt and caught my eye and said no dope is dope. And i sat there and i pondered it, no drugs are good, the way i read it. Theres two or three ways to get it but no drugs is a good thing and so as we left we happen to cross paths with this guy and i turn to the guy wearing the guy and said, dude, that was a dope shirt and all of them go, thank you, sir. [laughter] we are coming around this way. Hi, i wonder if you could help me with this word, the word meme. What exactly does that mean, i have googled it and still dont understand it. Well known biologist richard invent that had word and invented it as equivalent of a gene, a gene passes along hereditary traits. This is a word that passes along an idea, a meme and thats his original meaning of it and its come to mean in the language sort of ideas that get passed in the internet. The cat with the thats saying, i cant have cheeseburger or Something Like that, you know, funny cat picture that gets passed along the millions and millions of people. Its called a meme now and talks about that particularly that internet use but the original meaning of it was its an idea that basically has selfperpetuates. Two questions for robert, first one is why a chicken, but the second one is the other languages led themselves to malapropisms, the other languages french german have the same hazard, same pothole that is people can fall into. Im im afraid that im not in a position to comment on that one. But image they do. The english has become you get all the worldenglish terms that get added into it and and they get picked up by standard english so i dont know what to say about the other languages. Why a chicken . I guess the idea of egg corns just generated the chicken for me. Tell us some reap worded of the year recent words of the year. The most recent was Dumpster Fire, which is Dumpster Fire. That wasnt my favorite was bigly, but Dumpster Fire referring to sort of a kind of a calamity, but not the end of the world. In the Current Administration is a Dumpster Fire. Yes, excellent. And then a couple years ago oh, before that we had the word they, on thegrounds its at last being accepted as a reference for a singular noun. So, lets see. The student got theyre hat and supposedly thats been accepted nowdays where it wasnt before. Im a little skeptical whether this is changed that way but thats what the vote was. And then a couple years earlier, hash tag was the order of the year. Now we have a category of hash tag of the year. Around the year 1999 or 2000, y2k was the word of the year. Everybody was sure there would be a computer Dumpster Fire going on. Ive got to ask, im looking semi colon. The actual semi colon. Well, semi colon was not word of the year. Is ink or something you do on your skin. Youre talking to the wrong person. You know some hob has a semi colon inked. Somebody who has contemplated suicide and the sentence is continued. Anybody else . Yes. And then right here in middle. Hello. Everything is described today contribute to the vitality of usefulness of the language but are there on occasion changes to the language that are destructive . Or unhelpful . I would say there are always changes. Some are for the better, some for the worse, and also the case that there are always some users of a language at any particular stage who are good at and it some who are not and often we look back on, say, 50 years ago and think people used to all know how to write well and speak well, and what happens is that the good writing of 50 or 60 years ago is preserved and the bad is forgotten, and so its always the end of the world is coming because were now allowing they to be used as a singular. I tend to think theres a the damaging part is the antiintellectualism that comes with some of it. That something that you must be stuck up our awful i you worried about meaning of words. I think thats more damaging than any particular word. Right here in the middle. Yall have both mentioned with latin in the language but would you i know that they have eave week a ride quo show that inningly radio show does the news in latin and have new words could you say its more of a theyre still adding new words for common ideas such as email and other Technology Advancements . But this is also kind of in connection with the fact of the recent Margaret Attwood item on which she has her madeup latin phrase she uses in there. Could you basically say that latin is resuscitated or that because no one uses it on a regular basis . Wife say that latin is a complicated case because it has been used by the Catholic Church all along, so it hasnt been which is not quite the same as classical latin so further revival nowdays but they always do having thises for new words for new things. Hebrew is another language that had become unspoken mostly and now its National Language of israel. What is the phrase were talking about, say, england and the united states, its two countries separated bay common language . Have you looked explored the idea of worded where we have the same word but it connotes a different either evokes a different emotion or different meaning and one country versus in the other . I had a friend who went to england and he went into a store and he asked for wanted the buy a pair of khaki pants, and the clerk looked at him, and it turns out that khaki in england means like a baby is khaki. [coughing] he said oh, you many karki pants. So thats one of pronunciation. [inaudible] yes, good. I suppose it would be cocky trousers. I was very lucky enough, my father was an academic and took his sabbath tall in england sabbath cath and sabbatical and my first day in school, i was insecure and i was the only american because they put us in an english school, to have he best experience, which was great. The person sitting to my right, taking notes and made a mistake and he says, excuse me, mate, can i borrow your rubber . And im hearing, can i borrow your condom. My first was, do you need it now, and secondly, borrow . No. You can have it if i had one, its yours to keep. But theres a whole host of other words that i had to learn almost another language. Jumper, biscuit is a cookie. Not a question. Just wanted to share a few things. I love soonerrisms and you could do a whole show on that. May i sew you to your sheets. Ive word in Record Stores my whole life and once a customer came in ask asked do you have a song called indian night . And i said, well, can you give me any lyrics in n he said, i can feel it coming indiana night. And it was i can feel it comping in the night. I want to say a couple words more of thanks to everyone who makes this possible. One is our volunteers. The program couldnt be down [applause] about them. They really do a fantastic job. Id also like to thank our booksellers who are here to any of you would like to purchase either of these very entertaining books. And again, thanking cspan and the local channel ten news, and to allen and robert for presenting a very interesting, very entertaining and im sure theyll be around to talk with us informally if youd like and you might be able to prevail on them to sign a copy of the book if you purchase it. Please join me in thanking our two speakers for a wonderful presentation. [applause] thank you to all you and please good out and exercise your rights. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] there are very good writers and 50 years from now you look back and forget the ones who didnt write as well. So i think that english is really good writeing. I guess my question really is, is there much transformation in the universe of prepositions or is it mow set in stone that other literary essentials. Good writers get away with [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] any one special . [inaudible conversations] [you have been listening to an author discussion about the english lange from the virginia festival of the book. The festival is now in its 23rd yesterday and held in charlottesville, virginia. In an hour the next author panel will discuss nuclear war, first, heres a look the other nonfiction authors and book wes have covered recently on booktv. Booktv tapes hubs of author programs throughout the country all year long. Heres a look at some of the events we are covering this week. Merchandise, well be the American Enterprise institute in washington, dc where yale law professor peter shuck will examine five ircan debate throughout the country poverty, immigration, affirmative action, campaign finance, and religious objections to gay marriage transgender rights. That night will re be the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco where a political sat rhys, pj orourke, will discuss the 2016 president ial election. On tuesday we head south to Thomas Jefferson monticello where Western State history trail we argue that thomas eversend was a political radical. On thursday well be in austin, texas, at book people book store where major marry jennings haiger who will recall her tours in afghan with the air New Hampshire guard and her effort to eliminate the Ground Combat discussion policy for women. On friday the National Constitution center in philadelphia. Jeffrey stone will prove provide a history of expects the accumulates on sunday, anny jacobson will join us to discuss her books and take your questions live on our in depth program. Thats a look at some of the programs booktv will be covering this week. Many of these events are open to the public. Look for them to air in the near future on booktv on cspan2. I dont know i have called myself that but i feel like we like to call you that. When i started a year ago, immediately there was a lot of visibility around the job and the fact i was black, was a woman, that i was younger than my predecessors had been when they took the job, and i think it was really energizing for everybody to see there was an opening up and a change the National Book foundation, and so i think because there was so much energy it felt like a real a yell Good Opportunity to use the platform that we were receiving, to just try to change the conversation about books. What we do, the primary function of the National Book foundation, is to present the National Book award which is about he can about excellence and the best books published in america and thats not all books. Its a very specific set of books. But in order to get people to care about that night in november and the 20 books that we honor and the four books that win, there has to be a strong and robust and excited generation or population of people who care about books at large. So we had to start by saying, youre invited. Books are amazing, and i think that because i love books and there are a huge part of my life and always have been and im so blown away by every author i get to spend time with in this role issue think trying to share that thump enthusiasm and remind people im not special issue just like books and we can all be that person and it make mid life better and could make other peoples lives greater and happier and smarter and bigger and just a Good Opportunity to say, come on, come join me, and that turns into ambassador for books. Just believe in them. Dont think were. I think its a wonderful, thriving, world full of writers and readers and book sellers and librarians and we are doing so fine. Can you give me a sense of its february. What is your year look like so far . So, ive been traveling around a lot and i think one thing is that were in the tom Book Foundation and were not inside Baseball Foundation and that means actually showing in california or mississippi or minnesota or anyplace where readers are. Theres been a lot of travel. But the beginning of the year is when i try to convince a lot of very fancy writers to for very little money and almost no thanks to read hundreds of book and decide what the National Book award is. So im picking judges. So my predecessor called me and said this is why im a tough person because every year all of my heroes look at me and tell me, hell no. When i ask them to be a judge for the National Book award. How are you . Im not done yet. I still have four or five slots to go. So thats what is happening now and im thinking about the awards and then we also do other stuff besides the National Book award. So, we Just Announced a program where well be giving away, thanks to several large publisher, hundred thousand books and so 300,000 books and were gating ready to make that happen. So theres buildup, and our audit, my favorite part. Every year nonprofits are audited and a person comes into your office and you pay them a lot of money to come and harass you for a week and ask you for tiny pieces of paper that were surely lost and thats been a part of my 2017. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv tv. Org. Heres a look at some books being pressured this week. Fox news bill oreilly weigh inside on americas Cultural Divide in old school. John farrell, chronicles the political career of president Richmond Nixon in richmond incomeson the low. Angie jay comeson offers a history of u. S. Fell generals agencies in phenomena. She will join us live on sunday, april 2nd. Former florida congressman recounts his experiences running for and them resigning from office. Also be published, 14 exonerated inmates share theyre stories of Wrongful Conviction justice did Laura Caldwell and leslie clinker in anatomy of innocence. Historian, recalls the leadup to lenins bolshevik revolution in lenin on the train. Former policy advice and speech write are for bill clinton, eric lue, talks about youre more powerful than you think. These title ares in book stores and watch for the authors on booktv on cspan2. The reason the picture of blue bird is here is i lived in the states for five years and the last two years was in rhode island, which is where they grow lots of blueberries and im from man chester in england. We dont have blueberries. We just dont have them. We do now. Its oninternational shipping so i was excited by the concept of blueberries and i always made lots of jam, like preserves, as a kid. I thought it would be great to take home bright blue bluebers so i went tower berry picking pg and you into all know when you go fruit picking in england, if you ever come to britain, you have to suffer for fruit picking because you have to bend down and hurt your book, get scratched to pieces you have is easy in this country. Blueberry picking is like cheating. You can the fall into to i selected gallons because youre in america, has to the gallons im not prejudiced and you make the jam, and i waited for this blue jam to and im sure you have made blueberry jam and thats doesnt happen you let the boiling process happen, you put what you put in starts blue, what comes out is bright pink, which is weird. And its not blue. I wanted blueberries. Blue. So i took it home and told everybody was black berry jam. Its wrong. So, six months later when i was back in the uk, i had a friend who directed history documentaries and he was making a documentary about wise women and the 16th good 17th 17th centuries and there are quite these women were sort of one or two in every village, the midwives, dealt with people who are ill and picked up the pieces and doing useful jobs and so its a little knowledge but they wrote things down. They were systemic. And said things that keep coming up and im sure its in there obviously not testing for witchcraft which is what they thought they were doing. Maybe theres something going on. So, a few things he showed me. One was that there was a thing that said if you boil the first water of the morning, which is urine and it goes to through all the colors of i rainbow somebody someone is bewitched. And one of those things was that if you take pink tour of its one of these bright colorful flower wes get a lot in the summer. You probably get them here. Its and you put it on someones skin it changes color. Then they are bewitched. And i went and had to think about this. It turns out that the very ebina the bright purple and red petals, and they the pigments that make them, those bright colors are chemicals they con in logs of things. Red cabbage and the bright vegetable pigments are in this class, and they really didnt think the interesting thing is that act as ph educator. If youre bored, get in red cabbage, boil it. Throw the cabbage away. Its the water that is interesting. Put it on things because is changes color, and if you put is on something alkaline it goes blue and if yellow and green and acid things it goes red. So it depends on the pan you boil it in. So a huge range of colors, and so i worked out that the your sweat can change ph depending on what you have didnt doing, right, eating or your genetics, and so after as i pit tincture of verbina boiled in water on my skip wouldnt change color but if i do it coming back from a run, then the change color. So i reckon what the wise women were testing for was a ph dater and just testing the ph peoples sweat. So we did this whole tv segment about that. Then i remembered the blueberries because then if you make jam, when you make blueberry jam what goes in into pan is blew berries and water and sugar and limon sues. The reason its bright pink is that its basically the entire thing is litmus paper for the lemon juice. So i didnt have they chance of having blue blueberry jam. It was worth it. Oh, thats why i was doomed to fail. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. On november 9th, you posted for me many politics politics ae customer who were looking forward to the election of hillary clinton, this is a surreal, terribly disappointing moment. It will take time to comprehend and apple a new political reality, time for the shock, pain and worry of today to ease. Why was that up on your book stores blog post