Speaker 1: Hello, Puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, the Wasavi in
Speaker 1: your Sushi Puzzle Platter. I am your host, A J. Jacobs,
Speaker 1: and today's guest is the great Erica Okrant linguist, journalist, author,
Speaker 1: all around brilliant word nerd and I mean that in
Speaker 1: the most positive way. Welcome Erica.
Speaker 2: Hi, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1: We are delighted to have you. I'm a fan of
Speaker 1: your books. Your most recent one is called highly Irregular,
Speaker 1: Why tough through and dow don't rhyme and other oddities
Speaker 1: of the English language. Is that right? Is that your
Speaker 1: most recent or did I miss one?
Speaker 2: Yes? Yeah, right, that is the most recent, and yes,
Speaker 2: so many oddities.
Speaker 1: It is the craziest language. It is nuts. And in
Speaker 1: short you talk about many reasons, but one of them
Speaker 1: is it's like it's a frankin language. It's just a
Speaker 1: cobble together. Is that right? Is that a big reason?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's so many different influences in the history and
Speaker 2: and really lots of languages have that. All languages have
Speaker 2: history have layers, but English has some particularly disruptive ones.
Speaker 2: And yeah, usually the answer is history. When you find
Speaker 2: one of those weird things you can. You can't really
Speaker 2: explain it logically, but you can explain it, So that's
Speaker 2: what I try to do.
Speaker 1: There is a reason, not a logical one, but a
Speaker 1: historical one. And I will tell you the title why
Speaker 1: tough through and do don't rhyme? I mean, you could
Speaker 1: have gone on. It could have taken up the whole
Speaker 1: page because you could have included cough, thought hiccup like
Speaker 1: some people spell coeough. That's the old way. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it is just and lesslie confusing.
Speaker 2: It's a mess. I have a lot of sympathy for
Speaker 2: children trying to learn to spell and anyone trying to
Speaker 2: learn to spell right.
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 1: The good part is that it is great for puzzles
Speaker 1: because without the insanity it might be hard to do
Speaker 1: all of the homonyms and puns and wordplay, which brings
Speaker 1: us to today's puzzle. This puzzle is based on what
Speaker 1: you mentioned in your title, which are I rhymes. So these,
Speaker 1: as you know, are words that look like they should rhyme,
Speaker 1: but don't like dough and tough. So for instance this puzzle,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a clue and the answer
Speaker 1: will be a two word phrase that looks like it
Speaker 1: should rhyme, but does not. So if I said uncooked
Speaker 1: bread that is hard to chew, it would be tough dough.
Speaker 1: So not all of them are going to be about
Speaker 1: your title. But are you ready for or other I rhymes?
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna have to close my eyes to
Speaker 2: picture these things.
Speaker 1: But okay, let's go good. And if you're listening while driving,
Speaker 1: please don't do that. But let's go with sixty minute
Speaker 1: sightseeing trip. What is the two word phrase that does
Speaker 1: not rhyme?
Speaker 2: Okay, so sixty minutes is an hour. It's not gonna
Speaker 2: sound like that. So a tour an hour tour exactly?
Speaker 3: You got it.
Speaker 1: And it looks like it should rhyme because they're both,
Speaker 1: oh you are, but they do not. All right, speaking
Speaker 1: of evil, that's the way I consider the spelling evil
Speaker 1: spirit in a yellow citrus fruit.
Speaker 2: Okay, yellow citrus fruit has got to be a lemon,
Speaker 2: so i'll start with that.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be. Aren't there some like citrons
Speaker 1: and weird ones? But you happen to be right?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well I'm going over the simplest thing and then ah, okay,
Speaker 2: a demon lemon.
Speaker 1: Demon lemon exactly, or a lemon demon. How about a
Speaker 1: circular injury.
Speaker 2: A circular injury. Okay, injury is a is a hurt,
Speaker 2: A round around wound.
Speaker 1: Around wound exactly. How about a beneficial inundation A beneficial
Speaker 1: I can use big words like that with you because
Speaker 1: you're a professional leader.
Speaker 2: Beneficial it's very good. Yeah. Wait, what's the second part
Speaker 2: a benefit inundation? Inundation? Okay? An inundation is a flood,
Speaker 2: A good flood. I feel like it's coming in at
Speaker 2: the very last second.
Speaker 1: You're you're doing it. You have me fooled. I thought
Speaker 1: you had it from the start. Okay. What about a
Speaker 1: phantom that cannot find its way home? The poor law?
Speaker 1: Oh I almost said it.
Speaker 2: I kind of said, a phantom is a ghost, yes,
Speaker 2: and a ghost is that can't find its way a
Speaker 2: lost a lost ghost exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you didn't hear me say part of the
Speaker 1: word law, or maybe you did, but actually that you
Speaker 1: mentioned the word ghost I think in your book because
Speaker 1: it should be ghost ghost, and it was I believe
Speaker 1: some sort of Flemish typesetting error. What was the deal
Speaker 1: behind ghost?
Speaker 2: Why there was never a There's never an h sound
Speaker 2: in that word. It was never a ghost.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was ghost was the kind of old English source
Speaker 2: of it. And the typesetters who were from who spoke Flemish,
Speaker 2: they their word was gheast with a g h as
Speaker 2: a lot of those kind of Dutch Flemish lineguages use,
Speaker 2: and they their word for ghost had that in there,
Speaker 2: and they put it into the English word just out
Speaker 2: of habit because they were doing the type setting. And
Speaker 2: that word showed up a lot in texts because it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's in the Bible and it's the holy
Speaker 2: ghost and it's got That was some of the things
Speaker 2: that got printed a lot the earliest, and when you
Speaker 2: see something in print a lot, you get used to
Speaker 2: seeing it that way and it's really hard to change
Speaker 2: it later. So yeah, we're.
Speaker 1: Stuck with that ghost basically a typo that has become
Speaker 1: legit interesting. All right, let me give you two more.
Speaker 1: This is a guffaw from your female child, a guffaw
Speaker 1: from your female child.
Speaker 2: A guffa from a female child, daughter, yes, and laughter,
Speaker 2: laughter from your daughter.
Speaker 1: Laughter from your daughter, exactly. And that is one of
Speaker 1: those that gh turning into an F. Just quickly, where
Speaker 1: did where did the GHF thing? What's going on?
Speaker 2: Well, it drifted in different ways all around the island
Speaker 2: of Great Britain, and it was being pronounced as pronunciation
Speaker 2: was moving, people were deciding how to write during that time.
Speaker 2: It wasn't set yet, and so it got written some
Speaker 2: ways here some ways. There different pronunciations, the same spellings,
Speaker 2: and it just ended up that way. And the sounds
Speaker 2: is kind of similar. They both come from this huh.
Speaker 2: That's what the gh originally stood for. So huh can
Speaker 2: become fuh, or it can drop out altogether, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it gets kept as the f sometimes it's gone. But
Speaker 2: it all started from that huh.
Speaker 1: So originally it was pronounced like doctor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And if you look at German, it's still
Speaker 2: that way. In German you can see that sound usually
Speaker 2: in the you know enough, the daughter totter. It's usually
Speaker 2: you can see. If there's a g h in English,
Speaker 2: it's probably got that sound in another Germanic language.
Speaker 1: So well, I think you're very nice and sound alike,
Speaker 1: because to me, they are totally different. So I blame
Speaker 1: the people more, all right. Last one, how about an
Speaker 1: explosive device hidden inside a tool that you use to
Speaker 1: part your hair? An explosive device hidden inside a tool
Speaker 1: you might use to part your hair.
Speaker 2: Part your hair with the comb, and and that would
Speaker 2: be a bomb, a bomb comb. I was looking tomb somehow,
Speaker 2: which gives you another one.
Speaker 1: There you go, well, well well done, love it as expected.
Speaker 1: You are a word aficionado. Thank you, Erica. Where can
Speaker 1: people read more of your work? There's your great book,
Speaker 1: the most recent one. But you've got other stuff going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got well, highly irregular, and I've got various
Speaker 2: publications about word things on the web and a YouTube
Speaker 2: page where we do live drawing of these kinds of
Speaker 2: questions about English whiteboard videos on my YouTube page, which
Speaker 2: is just my name, Eric Okrant. So check that out.
Speaker 1: And since this was about pronunciation and spelling, I do
Speaker 1: have to bring up your name is spelled a r Ika,
Speaker 1: but I believe it's pronounced more like Erica instead of Aurica.
Speaker 1: So was that where your parents trying to to get
Speaker 1: you ready for a life in linguistics?
Speaker 2: I think so. I don't know if it was intentional,
Speaker 2: but definitely going through life with I have two names
Speaker 2: that are difficult to spell and pronounce them that I
Speaker 2: always have to explain, and it's given me acute awareness
Speaker 2: of spelling and the misleading. This misleading roads that can
Speaker 2: take you down. So yeah, I guess I guess I
Speaker 2: can thank them for that.
Speaker 1: Indeed, well, before we wrap up, we have a puzzle
Speaker 1: for the puzzlers at home, actually two, since they're so short,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you two I rhymes. One is
Speaker 1: actor Connery Levi's, So the Levi's owned by actor whose
Speaker 1: last name is Connery. And this is what you say
Speaker 1: if someone misplaces red flowers for Valentine's Day. You will
Speaker 1: get the answer to those on the next episode. And
Speaker 1: please don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler podcast. Tell
Speaker 1: your friends, tell your acquaintances and everyone in between, and
Speaker 1: we will meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles
Speaker 1: that will puzzle you puzzlingly.
Speaker 3: Hey, puzzlers, this is Greg Pliska up from the Puzzle
Speaker 3: Lab with the extra credit answer from our previous episode.
Speaker 3: We brought back our favorite krone the Letters, which we
Speaker 3: played with Adam Felber, and your extra credit clue was
Speaker 3: a term meaning only partly correct, which turns into a
Speaker 3: fear of the computer. In two thousand and one. That's
Speaker 3: the computer in two thousand and one. A space odyssey,
Speaker 3: and the answer is half right or how fright? Fear
Speaker 3: of how the computer in that movie, We're not afraid
Speaker 3: of Howl or any other computers. Here at the Puzzler,
Speaker 3: we make all our puzzlers by hand. Come play with
Speaker 3: us again next time.