OzCLO is the Australian Computational and Linguistic Olympiad. It gets students together to compete and solve linguistic problems. It’s also a gateway to further linguistic study.
We’ve brought some of the winning students to compete in a linguistic quiz with Ben and Hedvig. Will it go well for them?
Our guests this time
- English teacher and OzCLO coach Victoria Papaioannou
Contestants and students of Melbourne Girls Grammar School
- Audrey Choi
- Chelsea Hinh
- Jessica Li
- Rosie Nguyen
OzCLO organisers
- Dr Elisabeth Meyer
- OzCLO Institutional Memory and Quiz Host Henry Wu
Listen to this episode
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Become a Patron!Show notes
Cleveland changing name from Indians to Guardians after 2021 season
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31868331/cleveland-changing-name-indians-guardians
Cave Paintings May Depict Ice Age Sign Language | Inside Science
https://www.insidescience.org/news/cave-paintings-may-depict-ice-age-sign-language
Gravettian hand stencils as sign language formatives – Archive ouverte HAL
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03181202
‘For real life?!’: Bluey is giving American kids Aussie accents – Breakfast – ABC Radio
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/melbourne/programs/breakfast/aussie-accents-bluey/13463514
Telling porkies: no, Peppa Pig is not giving American kids British accents
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/feb/14/peppa-pig-american-children-british-accents
Having a go: US parents say Peppa Pig is giving their kids British accents
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/jul/19/peppa-pig-american-kids-british-accents
Spectacular Vernacular podcast.
https://slate.com/podcasts/spectacular-vernacular
OzCLO – The Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad
https://ozclo.org.au/
Reagan, Obama and the Myth of the Teflon Presidency – Presidential Power
https://sites.middlebury.edu/presidentialpower/2011/02/08/reagan-obama-and-the-myth-of-the-teflon-presidency/
Die Skandale von CDU-Chef Armin Laschet: Das Ende des Teflon-Kandidaten
https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/parteien/id_90430104/die-skandale-von-cdu-chef-armin-laschet-das-ende-des-teflon-kandidaten.html
What’s a ‘Pingdemic’ and Why Is the U.K. Having One? – The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/whats-a-pingdemic-and-why-is-the-uk-having-one/2021/08/02/df6e3c24-f3ac-11eb-a636-18cac59a98dc_story.html
Covid: England facing weeks of ‘pingdemic’ disruption to services and food supply
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/23/england-facing-weeks-of-pingdemic-disruption-to-services-and-food-supply
‘Hodl’ ‘Stonks’ ‘To The Moon’: Your Guide to Internet Crypto-Slang
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/hodl-stonks-to-the-moon-your-guide-into-internet-crypto-slang-3946820.html
‘HODL,’ ‘whale’ and 5 other cryptocurrency slang terms explained
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/23/what-hodl-whale-and-other-cryptocurrency-slang-terms-mean.html
HODL | Binance Academy
https://academy.binance.com/en/glossary/hodl
I AM HODLING
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=375643.0
Transcript
Ben: I’ll just play some filler music for everyone.
Daniel: Would you, please?
[music box]
Hedvig: Hehehe.
Daniel: That was so cute that it actually did the opposite. It made the thoughts leave my head.
Ben: [laughs]
Daniel: That is the worst think music, but also the prettiest thing music I’ve ever heard.
[Because Language theme]
Daniel: Hello, and welcome to this episode of Because Language, a show about linguistics, the science of language. My name is Daniel Midgley. Let’s meet the team. She’s a linguist, she’s a former quizmaster. Now, she’s a contestant. It’s Hedvig Skirgård.
Hedvig: Yay. Yes, and this episode we’re doing the OzCLO again, and I’m competing instead of being Quizmaster. I am worried and nervous.
Ben: I’m so pumped I get to be on a team with Hedvig, not with stupid Daniel. This is going to be so great.
Daniel: He garnered silver in last year’s OzCLO Because Language Quiz Challenge, and now he’s back to claim the gold.
Ben: I’ve got gold in my eyes and I care about nothing else.
Daniel: It’s Ben Ainslie. Well, we’ll see how that goes. Hello, you two. Thank you for being here.
Ben: Our pleasure.
Hedvig: Always fun.
Daniel: Yes, today is our annual– I hope it’s going to be an annual thing. Our annual OzCLO quiz thing where OzCLO is the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad. It’s one of many contests where high school students solve linguistic problems to gain an awareness of linguistics and to compete against other teams. It’s heaps of fun, it’s educational. We love it. We want to further it, do whatever we can. So, that’s going to be later on in our show.
Ben: But before we do that, we find out what’s going on in the world of linguistics in the week gone past.
Daniel: Before we do that, our last episode was a bonus episode for patrons about the kerfuffle over the humidity and tone paper that lay burning like an underground coal fire all these many years and then burst into life because of a tweet by Decolonial Atlas. Old animosities were laid bare, old wounds refreshed. Stuff we thought had gone under the bridge had clearly not. We discussed it, as well as the implications for linguistics, what should we do. Our next bonus episode is going to be a Journal Club episode all the latest research, brought to you the best we can without actually reading the articles. Just kidding. Sometimes, we did. Make sure and be a patron so you can hear bonus episodes the moment they come out, you can hang with us on Discord, you can get merch, depending on your level. And of course, you can support the show. We are BecauseLangPod on Patreon, and thanks to all our patrons for making this show possible.
Ben: So, what’s in the news? Go.
Daniel: All right. Well, we always like to keep track of racist brand names when they get a change, and there has been a new sports team.
Ben: Oh, who’s changed this time?
Hedvig: Yes. This is in the land of the United States of America, is it not?
Daniel: It is. This story was suggested to us by Bob on Discord, Diego on Patreon, and Cheyenne on Facebook.
Ben: Wow, we got it from three different channels.
Daniel: Yeah. It’s Cleveland’s baseball team.
Ben: The Cleveland, what was their former name?
Daniel: They were the Indians. and they had that silly mascot with the grin.
Ben: Oh, okay. Yep, I remember.
Hedvig: Yep.
Ben: Like the really cartoony one.
Daniel: Yeah.
Hedvig: Sorry. What sport do they play again?
Ben: Baseball.
Hedvig: Baseball?
Daniel: Baseball.
Hedvig: Okay.
Daniel: They are changing their name from the Indians to the Guardians after the 2021 season.
Ben: Okay, that’s cool.
Hedvig: Yay. I heard they named themselves that after some statues, is that right?
Daniel: That is correct. If you look at the Hope Memorial Bridge, which connects downtown to Ohio city, I’ve never been here, but it’s flanked by these enormous stone statues that are standing against these beautiful art deco pillars. They’re really gorgeous, and they are known as the Guardians of Traffic. So, the name is inspired by them. Also, the team’s logo is inspired by the art deco flanges that are on the bridge. It’s very cool.
Ben: Does this mean then that they have abandoned even tangential association with indigenous First Nation peoples, like it’s just a whole different thing now? Or, are the Guardians vaguely sort of indigenous-y?
Daniel: I’m not a Cleveland native, but I wasn’t able to detect any traces of indigenousness in the statues or the name or anything associated. I think they’re steering a bit clearer.
Ben: Just a total rebrand.
Daniel: Rebrand.
Hedvig: Yeah.
Ben: If I knew anything about baseball, this would be the bit where I was just like, “Hopefully, it’ll let them play better too,” because sports ball.
Hedvig: Maybe it’ll just make them play better by not having to have this discussion again and again, because I know they’ve been having this discussion for several years now. So, maybe just having their team and their players being able to focus on the game instead of the silly names that someone picked for them a long time ago, that sounds that should make for better sports ball.
Daniel: If the Utah basketball team can call themselves the Jazz, then we can put up with all kinds of changes and incongruities and all that sort of stuff.
Ben: That is a very dumb name for a team. It’s true.
Daniel: Well, they bought the New Orleans team. It made sense then.
Ben: Oh, right. Yeah, that does make a lot more sense. [laughs]
Daniel: I was alive for that, too. Oh, my goodness.
Ben: Elder Gen-Xer.
Daniel: Oh. This next story is about cave paintings. It was suggested by Diego on Patreon and Nikoli on Discord.
Ben: What have we got?
Hedvig: Mm, cave paintings.
Daniel: Well, if you go to the Gargas cave in France, you’ll see cave paintings from tens of thousands of years ago, about 30,000 to 35,000 years ago. Now, we know that people had language then, but they didn’t have writing. They were homo sapiens. They were just after the Neanderthals. This cave art has handprints or the outlines of handprints because you put your hand against the wall and then you blow paint on your hand and it leaves–
Ben: Yeah, so they’re like hand voids almost.
Daniel: Yeah.
Hedvig: Hand turkeys.
[laughter]
Daniel: Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble.
Hedvig: They are, which I understand– I mean, we made them in school as well. And Americans I know make them, but is when you take your hand on a piece of paper and you trace that line of your head.
Daniel: Yeah, I remember that. Well, I had not made that association but thank you.
Ben: Hand turkeys.
Hedvig: No, I think that’s beautiful. I don’t think that pulls them down or anything. It just shows– Yeah, no, I think it’s great. It’s beautiful.
Ben: What you’re trying to do is elevate childhood hand turkeys to the level of like, truly breathtaking cave art rather than bringing cave art down to the level of kindergarten.
Hedvig: Yeah, exactly. This isn’t, by the way, my observation. It’s actually John Green said it on The Anthropocene Reviewed, he made the same connection. He did a whole episode where he goes into the details of it. But I’m not going to do that, because I want to know more why we’re talking about cave paintings.
Daniel: Well, because some of the hands are missing some fingers.
Ben: Okay. Well, that’s not in that year, life seemed pretty tough for hunter-gatherers.
Daniel: Maybe. But it may not be that so many people were walking around missing fingers. It could be another reason.
Ben: Huh. They were hiding their finger underneath their hand when they blew the paint.
Daniel: But why would they do that?
Ben: That’s what I can’t quite figure out. Maybe it signified status or role or something in some way?
Daniel: A team from the French National Center for Scientific Research, the acronym is the important letters backwards, Because French, they think it might be a kind of a signed language.
Ben: Oh.
Hedvig: Oh. [crosstalk] I like it.
Ben: I can’t believe we didn’t think of that.
[laughter]
Ben: We’re linguistic podcast, what else would we be talking about?
Daniel: Now, the question is, why would they think that? There are a couple of reasons. Number one, the most common sign that you find– there are a bunch of these tokens with fingers that are not depicted. The most common sign is all the fingers down, thumb out. Having that many fingers missing? Come on.
Hedvig: Oh, like a sideways, okay, thumbs up.
Daniel: Yeah. Also, there are some ways of placing your hands that are kind of easy to make and there are some that are hard. For example, the all fingers in thumb out, that’s a one on the difficulty scale of maybe one to five. And they did make a difficulty scale based on the arrangement of muscles. If you do the horns of metal, horns of metal. [crosstalk] That’s pretty easy.
Ben: Metal horns, index finger and pinky finger.
Daniel: Index finger, pinky finger, thumb out, but that might be a two on the difficulty scale, and that appears sometimes as well. Now, some ways of placing your hands are really, really hard. See, if you can even do this one. I can’t. Put all your fingers in except for ring finger. I can’t do it.
Hedvig: Oh, I know this. I’ve tried this before, it’s really difficult because the joints are such that your ring finger, so that’s the finger next to the right or the left of your pinky, it’s connected in a funny way to your middle finger. We call it the long finger because it has to be the longest. You can’t physically do it easily. You can’t hold that. If you want to do a rude gesture with only that finger, it’s almost impossible. I’m trying to do it now, and I can’t even raise it.
Daniel: Yeah. The magician, Doug Henning, could do it. His dexterity was legendary.
Ben: Wow.
Daniel: And that one, that’s a five on the difficulty scale and it never occurs on these cave paintings.
Ben: Oh, so are we thinking that this is vaguely following the rules of spoken linguistics where really, really, really hard stuff to say happens comparatively much less of the time and really easy thing to say it happens all the time.
Daniel: Yeah, if it’s super hard, then they’re not going to be using that as any kind of signal. Or try this one, all the rest of your fingers out, except for bend your middle finger, put middle finger in, and pinky in.
Hedvig: Oh, my God. That’s the same thing. It’s this ring finger. I swear, it’s something about the anatomy, it’s joined up to– It’s just– I’m trying. Oh, my God.
Ben: Yeah. And you can feel it in the forearm when you try and force it. When you [crosstalk] up, you can feel it down below your wrist.
Hedvig: Yeah. Oh, I feel so bad.
Daniel: That’s a four on the difficulty scale and it never occurred in these cave paintings, nothing above a two in difficulty. So, they might have used these signals when they needed to be quiet, like when they were hunting. In fact, lots of people do that today. And then, they sprayed these signals on the walls of the cave.
Ben: Interesting.
Daniel: What do you think?
Hedvig: I like it.
Ben: I mean we know, for instance, I can only speak in the Australian Indigenous languages context, but that signed languages and adjacently signed components of the language is a super common feature for indigenous languages here in Australia, correct?
Daniel: Mm-hmm.
Ben: It stands to reason, if it’s here, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t be in other times and places.
Daniel: That’s right.
Ben: So, yeah, I can see how you would iconographically render elements of this signed part of your language onto a wall. I mean, that plays for me.
Daniel: Yeah. I mean the jump from spoken language to written representation is a really big jump, because speech doesn’t look like anything. But signed languages do look like something, and we can represent them visually. So, if this is right, then the first instance of writing or something like writing wouldn’t be archaic Sumerian from 5000 years ago, but these signs from 30,000 years ago. That’s super interesting.
Hedvig: That’s super cool.
Ben: That is super-duper interesting.
Hedvig: I like that. That was really cool.
Daniel: Yeah, let’s go on. Peppa Pig effect.
Hedvig: Oh.
Ben: Oh, no. Oh, my God. Are we really?
Daniel: We really are.
Ben: I know where this story is going.
Daniel: [crosstalk]
Hedvig: Where is it going?
Ben: This story came up so many times in my newsfeed, and because this story is what I call Boomer Love Story. This is the kind of story that boomers just froth at the mouthful. This story goes, here in Australia, we have a children’s television show that is very, very popular called Bluey. Now, I stan this show just as hard as anyone else who is a parent.
Daniel: Me too, big time.
Ben: I’m on the right track here, by the way, right, Daniel? Don’t just let me carry on.
Daniel: Yes.
Ben: Okay, good.
Daniel: You’re doing good.
Ben: Bluey is so universally adored here in Australia that in the rarest of incidences, an Australian media product is actually getting quite popular outside of Australia. It doesn’t normally go that way, normally goes the other way. We get everyone else’s pop culture and we love that. But apparently, Bluey is doing very well in other markets, markets such as the United States. Where apparently, certain younglings are starting to speak in an Australian accent to a certain degree and use certain Australian slang, such as most notably in all of the headlines I saw for the boomers in Australia, dunny.
Daniel: Dunny.
Hedvig: Dunny?
Daniel: There was a really good episode about language where they talked about dunny. I recommend everyone watch that one.
Ben: Dunny means toilet.
Hedvig: Thank you.
Daniel: [laughs] It’s related to dung. That’s where it comes from, diminutive of dung.
Hedvig: Oh, okay. Yeah, fair enough.
Daniel: Also, kids calling breakfast “brekkie.” Okay, that’s the story. Is it plausible? Is there an epidemic of Australian accents sweeping the USA?
Ben: Categorically no.
Hedvig: I believe so, because I get accents from my podcasts.
Daniel: Do you?
Hedvig: Yeah, I think I do.
Daniel: We do know that accent-wise, you’re very malleable.
Ben: Yeah. Hedvig, you are the most porous person I have ever met for accents in my life.
[chuckles]
Ben: You are the worst possible benchmark for this question.
Daniel: Or the best.
Ben: Maybe.
Hedvig: Yeah, I can’t believe it.
Daniel: Okay.
Ben: Can I guess what happened?
Daniel: Well, what happened, Ben?
Ben: I suspect that the kid of some journalist in the States said a thing once or twice, and they were like, “Ha-ha. Isn’t this cute?” And they wrote probably a relatively innocuous story about it. Then, a journalist in Australia was like, “Bloody too right. This will make all of the 50- to 65-year-old, boring suburban market of Australia just click on this link a bunch of times. I’m going to write heaps of stories about seppo kids with Aussie accents.” And it’s not a thing.
Daniel: Dang, Ben, I think you got this article right. I noticed that the coverage of the Bluey effect in 2021 is much smaller than the Peppa effect as it was covered in 2019. There were stories about the Peppa effect everywhere, but the Bluey effect is, as far as I can tell, down to one interview with an ABC presenter in Melbourne and a real estate agent in Massachusetts. That’s about it.
Ben: By the way, I just want to state, people listen to this [onomatopoeia] media article. I didn’t click on any of these articles. If it hasn’t been made clear to you, I despise this kind of journalism, as just the worst lowest form of just boring, boring news. I didn’t know any of this. I was just able to guess all of this, because this is how dumb and predictable this stuff is.
Hedvig: But, but, but, Ben, it doesn’t do any harm, and it makes people feel good. It’s wholesome. It’s maybe it’s boring, that’s its worst crime. And maybe it’s not entirely true, but it doesn’t do any harm and it is cozy.
Daniel: Let’s talk about the plausibility. I don’t think it’s very plausible that kids are acquiring British or Australian accents from Peppa Pig or Bluey. Parents and caregivers have a much bigger impact than television. As we often say in socio, people talk like the people near them, not like the people on TV. But on the other hand, lexically, I can see them picking up words.
Hedvig: Yeah, exactly. You’re saying that accent is pronunciation and lexicon is not accent?
Daniel: That is kind of what I’m getting to, yes.
Hedvig: Okay. Fair enough, I guess.
Daniel: Not systematically, but for individual words. For example, my four-year-old daughter loves Go Jetters. And there was a show about geezers, and I’m like, “Geezers? What are they talking about?” It was geysers what I say in my US English, but she started saying geezers, because it’s a UK show. That’s what she heard. Input is input. If a child is going to pack on 10 words a day, they’ve got to get it from somewhere.
Ben: Yeah, totally.
Hedvig: Yeah, exactly. So, picking up some vocab, reasonable. Changing their pronunciation of words they already know, less plausible. Is that what you’re saying?
Daniel: Yeah, and causing widespread societal accent change, very, very implausible.
Ben: Yeah, just impossible. Yeah.
Daniel: The more interesting aspect for me is the moral panic aspect, which hasn’t shown up just yet, but we’re keeping an eye on it.
Finally, in the news, there’s a new podcast in town, with some old friends.
Hedvig: Ooh. Ooh.
Daniel: Do you know this one?
Hedvig: I do. I just wanted to sound surprised because I’m so excited about it, and I don’t know how to sound excited without sounding surprised.
Ben: [chuckles]
Daniel: I’m excited about it.
Hedvig: [laughs]
Ben: What’s the new podcast? I don’t know about this.
Daniel: It’s the Spectacular Vernacular podcast. It’s a new language podcast from Slate to replace Lexicon Valley, which John McWhorter took independent. This one, Spectacular Vernacular, has our three-time guests Ben Zimmer and Nicole Holliday. Yes, they finally have their own podcast.
Ben: Oh, good for them.
Daniel: Yeah.
Hedvig: That’s amazing.
Ben: Welcome to the linguistic podcast family.
Hedvig: Yeah. Maybe that’s the thing as well. If we have guests on for long enough, they get their own podcasts.
Daniel: Yes, obviously. “We’re bored of talking to Daniel, Ben, and Hedvig. Let’s get our own podcast.” But it is fun, they talked to John Linnell, from They Might Be Giants about his album all in Latin, which is Roman songs. And there’s even a wordplay bit at the end because Ben Zimmer does crosswords, and they even put out the call, “If you want to play on air with us, then send us an email.” So, I wondered maybe, are you two busy later or maybe we could send them an email?
Ben: Yeah, cool.
Hedvig: Yeah. Wait, so are you doing crosswords on air?
Daniel: So, the last one was hypervocalic words. Words with all the five vowels and potentially in order.
Hedvig: Oh. Okay. Can I roster in Steve for this? Because he’s really good at the Will Shortz crosswords in The New York Times.
Daniel: Okay.
Hedvig: He’s got that kind of reign, and I don’t.
Daniel: All right. Hedvig, you’re out, Steve is in. Just kidding. Spectacular Vernacular, check it out on Slate. And there’ll be a link on our blog, talkthetalkpodcast.com. [chuckles] becauselanguage.com.
Ben: Nice one. Good catch.
[music]
Daniel: We are back, and with us now is a whole bunch of great people working on a great project, the Annual OzCLO Competition, which is short for the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad. So, let’s meet the people that we are talking to. First of all, I want to start with Elisabeth Mayer. Elisabeth, hello. Great to have you. Thanks for coming.
Elisabeth: Hello, Daniel and everyone, and thanks for inviting me.
Daniel: This is your second time around.
Elisabeth: This is my second time around. That’s right.
[chuckles]
Elisabeth: Do you want to know something about OzCLO?
Daniel: I would love to hear something about OzCLO.
Elisabeth: Well, the abbreviation is the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad. It is a state and a national competition for secondary students for years 9 to 12. And it’s fun and engaging, and it’s all about cracking the code of an unknown language, logic, deduction, problem solving, lateral thinking, and teamwork. In reality, what it does, it introduces students to language puzzles from which they can learn about the richness on diversity and systematic nature of language while exercising natural logic and reasoning skills in a very fun way. Typical problems, for example, would be deciphering Roman script, translating tasks involving morphological and syntactic analysis, and computational linguistic tasks, searching for phonological rules, pattern recognition, and linguistic reconstruction.
If you want to get an idea or better idea of what I’m talking about, you can visit our website, ozclo.org.au. And you can download a preparation package and look at all the puzzles that are up there and start having fun.
Daniel: It is a lot of fun. What are some of the best things that you think OzCLO accomplishes?
Elisabeth: It’s a great gateway to bring the students to linguistics. For example, in Melbourne, there are, I think, courses in your 9 to 12 about linguistics, and that is possibly the only state that actually has courses on linguistics. Getting students into studying linguistics and from there into becoming teachers or becoming linguists and going on fieldwork and researching the fantastic languages in the world, wherever they are, like I’m going to the Amazon whenever I can just to talk to the people there and learn about how they speak, that will be great.
Daniel: That is great. We are also joined by the wonderful teacher and students from Melbourne Girls Grammar School. We have with us English teacher at Melbourne Girls Grammar School and OzCLO coach, Victoria Papaioannou, and our extremely successful OzCLO students, Chelsea Hinh, Jessica Li, Rosie Nguyen, and Audrey Choi. Hello, let’s start with you, Victoria. Hello, thank you for getting this together. You’re the teacher that steered this crew.
Victoria: Thanks, Daniel. Yes, I am. I’ve organized OzCLO for a couple of years now at the school and got a lovely team of four who made it to the finals this year.
Daniel: What? What is it that keeps you going on this? Why are you so keen on OzCLO?
Victoria: I teach English language, which is the linguistic stream of the VC English and have always just loved languages. Seeing students get involved and get really passionate and fiery when they’re competing in teams at school has been really enjoyable. We started the first year with a very small team of, I think, only four students, and this year we had 32 compete, I’m pretty sure– [crosstalk]
Daniel: Whoa. [chuckles] That’s huge.
Victoria: That’s kept me going. It’s just seeing that kids are interested, and when you offer those opportunities, they just go for it and love it.
Daniel: Wow. Well, thank you for what you do. I’m going to go to our students, Chelsea, Audrey, Jessica, Rosie, what was the experience like for you? Audrey, you want to start us off?
Audrey: To be honest, at the beginning, it was very relaxed because a lot of people were doing it. I think this is the first year that we actually did it, because obviously last year, when we first entered the seniors’ program and got the opportunity to do it, we couldn’t because of lockdown and everything. So, when we first did it this year, it was a big event, and we all gathered in one space, lots of students. So, it was really fun, honestly, to begin with.
Daniel: Were the puzzles hard?
Audrey: Yes, definitely.
Person: Don’t tell me about it.
Person: No comment.
[laughter]
Daniel: Do any of you have any plans to keep going with linguistics? Was this the thing that maybe got you onto it or maybe not? Jessica, what do you think?
Jessica: Actually, yeah. This competition was actually my first introduction to linguistics, the actual subject of it. I kind of had an understanding of it, but I wasn’t really super, super interested into it until now. So, this competition has really opened my eyes up to other studies that I might be taking to the future. I’ve also studied a few languages since I was young, Chinese and Vietnamese as well. All of these combined together has really just opened my eyes as this might be a future career path that I may want to take.
Daniel: Awesome. Wow. Chelsea, what do you got?
Chelsea: Yeah, actually, for the first semester of school, I actually picked an English language elective. That was my first taster of linguistics. And then, this linguistic competition came along, and I hadn’t heard anything about it until this year. So, yeah, it was just really exciting. I guess you could say I was just completely thrown headfirst into the world of linguistics. But after the first taste, I definitely want to continue.
Daniel: Awesome. What do you say, Rosie?
Rosie: Honestly, it was pretty much a very similar experience for me as well. OzCLO was really the first linguistics challenge competition thing that I had ever done, and it was really fun. I didn’t really see it as a competition. I just saw it as an opportunity to have a bit of fun with my friends, and we’ve gone pretty far. So, I’m pretty happy with that.
Ben: My favorite kind of humble flex. Like, “I wasn’t even like trying to win. I just want to have a good time, but it turns out that I just destroyed the competition anyways. Like pretty cool, pretty cool.”
[laughter]
Daniel: Well, you were finalists, you were second in the junior competition, which is really quite an accomplishment given that there were so many teams working on this. So, congratulations. We are also joined by Henry Wu, our quizmaster. Henry, what’s your role in this?
Henry: Hello, hello. I’ve been involved in OzCLO for a long time now. I represent the life cycle of the OzCLO participant, because I started off as a participant at school in 2015 and 2016. I got to go to the International Linguistics Olympiad in 2016. Since I graduated high school, I then went into organizing OzCLO. I’ve been helping out with the organization for the last four years now, I guess, and met all these amazing linguists in my linguistics education university, like Hedvig and Elisabeth. And now, I’m running this quiz.
Daniel: Yes, you are. [laughs] The apex [chuckles] of the lifecycle, and it’s going to be a good one. We’ve got four different rounds, and this will test your mettle not against only each other, but against Ben and Hedvig.
Ben: Ya-[chuckles]-yay.
Daniel: [chuckles] They are formidable.
Ben: [crosstalk] Yeah, they’re a thing in one way or another.
Hedvig: I invigilated the IOL individual round in Germany this year. And I had a look at the problems and I had exactly the same time as the competitors, six hours, I had nothing else to do and sit there and look at them and make sure they weren’t cheating, which-
Ben: -is boring, is so boring. Yeah.
Hedvig: I looked at the problems and I was like, “I don’t– I can’t– I– Okay.” I remember when my brain was able to do this. I’m able to do other kinds of linguistics, but that was a rough problem set, that was difficult.
Daniel: And you’re a professional linguist.
Hedvig: And I’m a professional linguist.
Ben: There’s a little Dr right in front of your name that is specifically about linguistics, and you were still looking at the questions and be like, “Oh, dear– Oh, no.”
Hedvig: Yeah. No, definitely.
Daniel: All right. We need some team names. So, perhaps in chat, why don’t you talk to each other? Ben and Hedvig have a secret audio channel. And you can find out what you want to call yourselves.
Ben: Hedvig, can you still hear me?
Hedvig: I can hear you. Yeah.
Ben: Excellent.
Hedvig: [crosstalk] I can hear both of you.
Ben: Oh, what a good start.
[chuckles]
Ben: Ooh, maybe that should be our team name. We can be like Daniel, Ben, and Hedvig.
Hedvig: No.
Ben: [laughs]
Hedvig: Let’s do something– You had white man tears last time. Let’s do something– Do you count as millennial?
Ben: Yes, technically, just. I’m an elder millennial. Are you also an elder millennial?
Hedvig: I’m millennial. Yeah.
Ben: Yeah. But you’re like an older one, but we’re not that far apart in age. [crosstalk] Yeah, exactly. You’re definitely an elder millennial. Let’s just be the Elder Millennials.
Hedvig: Yes.
Ben: Okay.
Daniel: Okay, we’re ready to come back.
Ben: We have decided Daniel, that team Hedvig-Ben shall be known and must be known by all participants as the Elder Millennials.
Daniel: And so you shall be. How close are you to Generation Y?
Ben: Me? Very far. [laughs] Not very close at all.
Daniel: Oh, right. Okay.
Ben: I’m right down the other end of that little generational bracket.
Daniel: Yeah. Okay, cool.
Hedvig: I had to do algebra in my head to calculate my age.
[laughter]
Daniel: [muttering calculations under breath]
Ben: Carry the one.
Hedvig: I keep forgetting if it’s 2020 or 2021. I feel like those two years are like the same.
Ben: It’s been like an 18-month fugue state of time. Yeah, fair enough.
Daniel: Chelsea and Audrey, have you got a name for us?
Person: Yeah. In tribute to one of the questions that we did in the Nationals Round of OzCLO, our team name is going to be Latvian Winnie the Pooh, where Jess and I had to translate Winnie the Pooh into Latvian, and we’ve never done that before. So, yeah.
Jessica: We’re so traumatized from that experience.
[laughter]
Ben: I don’t know about anyone else but the picture that I conjure up, the evocative image of Latvian Winnie the Pooh, having traveled through Latvia, is just one of those super off-brand Soviet Era Western like knockoff1s, like Winnie the Pooh but just with two little dots for eyes, and just like hair.
[laughter]
Daniel: Every character’s [unintelligible 00:29:54].
Hedvig: It’s great Soviet children’s television.
Ben: [laughs]
Daniel: Like Worker and Parasite. I love that one. [laughs] Simpsons callback. Okay, let’s go to Jessica and Rosie. What do you want your team name to be?
Person: A bit of background, before this little podcast recording session, I’ll tell you as we moved forward, assumed that we were going to be a team before and so we had a little bit of a discussion on team names, and we had come up with the Wizards of OzCLO.
[chuckles]
Ben: Oh, damn.
Person: In honor of that, we have decided to call ourselves The Better Dorothy and Toto.
Ben: Oh.
Person: I’ll be Toto. [crosstalk]
Ben: I like it. No stolen valor here, but still shade being thrown. I approve.
Daniel: The Better Dorothy and Toto. Okay, terrific. Great. We’ve got names. All right, it’s time for round one. This one’s the warm-up round. Henry, do you want to get us started?
Henry: Yeah, I just want to say it’s called the warm-up round in tribute to the last OzCLO quiz in which Hedvig made a warm-up round where the points actually counted. So, the same way, these points do count. It’s one point for each– [crosstalk]
[laughter]
Daniel: Okay.
Ben: Starting cold. All right, let’s do it.
Henry: Okay, so the first question is, the Stories feature on Instagram was launched in which year? It’s multiple choice. A. 2016. B. 2017, C. 2018.
Daniel: Okay, go ahead and mute yourselves, if you wish. Let’s drop into chat. Ben and Hedvig, you can discuss on your secret audio channel that nobody else can hear.
Ben: I don’t know– contain your surprise. I don’t use Instagram stories. I feel like it was-
Hedvig: Recent.
Ben: No, I was going to go the other way.
Hedvig: I use Instagram.
Ben: Okay.
Hedvig: I use Instagram and I feel like Instagram Stories was only introduced to combat Snapchat.
Ben: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say.
Hedvig: When Snapchat became a thing, Instagram got Instagram Stories.
Ben: When do we feel like– I feel Snapchat has been around for a while now though.
Hedvig: But it only got– So, what was it?
Ben: Not with the little one.
Hedvig: 2017, 2018, 2016?
Ben: ’16, ’17 or ’18. Okay. Should we split the difference and say ’17?
Hedvig: Yeah.
Ben: Okay.
Hedvig: I agree with that.
Ben: Ready.
Person: Okay, we’re ready too.
Daniel: Okay. Was it 2016, 2017, or 2018? I’m going to go with the Elder Millennials first.
Hedvig: We think it’s 2017.
Daniel: Okay. Let’s hear from Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
[chuckles]
Person: I think it’s 2016.
Daniel: 2016 is your guess. And the Better Dorothy and Toto?
Person: We also said 2016.
Daniel: Okay. Well, Henry?
Henry: The correct answer is 2016.
Daniel: That’s one point for Latvian Winnie the Pooh and the Better Dorothy and Toto.
Ben: It’s fine.
Daniel: The only way I can explain this is that when you’re older, years tend to blend together and that’s all I’m going to say about that. Question two.
Henry: Which of the following pairs of plants do not belong to the same family? We’re talking about genetic family here. Is it, A, cherry trees and roses. B, water lilies and lotuses. Or, C, legumes and wattle plant.
Daniel: We’re trying to find the two that do not belong to the same family. Okay, drop into chat.
Hedvig: I feel like it’s water lilies and lotuses.
Ben: I was about to say the same thing. It seems such a trick question, doesn’t it? Because you would think that they are the exact same family.
Hedvig: But then again, wattle is Australian.
Ben: Or, is Henry doing a cunning double-reverse-blind kind of thing.
Hedvig: Yeah, he might. Is wattle only in Australia?
Ben: I don’t think so. I think–[crosstalk]
Person: Can you repeat the last one again?
Henry: Yeah, legumes and wattle. Legumes like the vegetable.
Person: Yeah, thank you.
Ben: Legumes are nitrogen fixing, which is their key characteristic. They take nitrogen from the atmosphere and fix it in the soil. I’m just trying to remember if wattles do as well.
Hedvig: I just know that I’m a vegetarian, and I should eat a lot of legumes because they contain protein.
Daniel: [crosstalk] -ready, come on back.
Hedvig: I’m going to say, I think, water lily. We both thought it.
Ben: Yeah.
Hedvig: This is fun, being on the competing side. Last time, I was on the quizmaster side. Now, I’m like, “Oh, this is a different side.” I like it.
Ben: It’s the same with Dungeons & Dragons, right? DMing can be really engaging, but it’s just so tiring, but being a player is just heaps of fun because you could just kick back and be like, “Hmm, I’m going to do this now.”
Daniel: Well, I’m still having fun.
Hedvig: Yeah, thanks, Daniel, for taking it.
Daniel: [chuckles] Okay, let’s hear from The Better Dorothy and Toto.
Person: We still haven’t really decided, but I guess we’ll go with the third one, legumes and wattle.
Daniel: Legumes and wattle is your answer. Latvian Winnie the Pooh?
Person: We thought cherry and rose because wattle and legumes somehow seemed a little bit too obvious because they’re both interesting.
Daniel: They sound different, so they must be the same. According to the rule of quiz night perversity.
Ben: Yep.
Daniel: Right. Okay. And Elder Millennials?
Ben: Greatly, we have split the difference exactly. So, we’ve got three teams three answers. We went with lotuses and water lilies because we think that Henry is a cunning quizmaster who has deliberately dropped some deliberately similar-seeming things which are actually not related at all.
Daniel: Hmm. Let’s see if this holds. Henry, what you got?
Henry: Well, Ben has hit the nail on the head. The answer is the water lilies and lotuses, which are–
Ben: Yes, darn, so heavy. So heavy. And let this be a lesson to everyone, metagaming is absolutely a valid strategy to do.
Hedvig: But you can be double bluffing as well. That’s the difficult part.
Ben: Actually, Henry, just so you know, like inside baseball, we actually specifically immediately both went, “We think Henry is doing a thing where blah, blah, blah, blah.” But then, we both also immediately went to, “Hang on, he could be doing a double psych out, like switcheroo.”
Henry: This is just a warm-up round.
[crosstalk]
[chuckles]
Daniel: It doesn’t get hard ball until later.
Hedvig: Fair enough.
Daniel: Hmm. Okay, so that’s a point for the Elder Millennials. Let’s go on to number three, Henry.
Henry: The third question, hopefully it’s quite an easy one, and it’s which city will hold the 2024 Olympic Games? Is it Los Angeles, Paris, or Brisbane?
Daniel: Mm-hmm. Los Angeles, Paris, or Brisbane, 2024 Olympic Games.
Hedvig: Why did he say this was easy? Is it Brisbane?
Ben: It’s Los Angeles.
Hedvig: Okay. All right. [laughs]
Daniel: Ben’s back.
Ben: I’ve realized, Daniel. This is like you would think that person who was, A, teacher, and B, on a podcast that’s supposed to be like engaging and entertaining would not necessarily be super competitive. But just then when I had my microphone muted, but Hedvig and I could like talk to each other, I started moving my face behind the microphone so I can’t lipread.
[laughter]
Ben: Well, not that they would, but I’m still just like, “Ooh. [crosstalk] There’s a cunning advantage.”
Daniel: Number one, lipreading is hard. Number two, when it’s your birthday, I’m going to invent a quiz night where everyone pretends to get them wrong, and all the questions are easy just so that you will have a great time.
Ben: Oh, that’s evil. I love it. Lipreading, I would put to you, sir, is not hard when you have established that there is only three possible options.
Daniel: Ah, yes, of course. As is brain scanning for that matter. Okay, let’s start with Latvian Winnie the Pooh, do you have an answer?
Person: Yes. I think it’s Brisbane, so we just went Paris.
Daniel: Okay, Paris is your answer. Let’s go to the Elder Millennials.
Ben: We went with Los Angeles.
Daniel: Hmmkay. And The Better Dorothy and Toto?
Person: We went Paris.
Daniel: Paris it is. And, Henry, answer, please?
Henry: And the correct answer is Paris.
Ben: Oh, I was so certain.
Hedvig: Wait, what?
Ben: Is Los Angeles the one after that?
Henry: Yeah.
Ben: Argh.
Daniel: Los Angeles again, really? Okay. Very good.
Hedvig: Oh, my God.
Henry: And they were awarded the same year, which makes it more confusing.
Ben: Dang it.
Henry: They were awarded at the same time, the two consecutive Olympiads.
Ben: Sorry, Hedvig, I came into that one strong. I was like, “It’s Los Angeles. No contest.”
Hedvig: Yeah, Ben just told me, “Oh, it’s this,” and I was like, “Oh, okay, all right. Fair enough.”
Daniel: [laughs]
Henry: Sorry. Sorry. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Daniel: Don’t worry. It’s still anybody’s game. That was round one. And so far, Latvian Winnie the Pooh and The Better Dorothy and Toto have twice the score that the Elder Millennials do. Let’s go on, round two. Henry, take us there.
Henry: Round two, I’ve called Off Brand IOL. These are questions which take IOL questions as their starting points, but do not necessarily require IOL knowledge to solve trivia that’s IOL flavored.
Ben: I love this. Henry, you’re my favorite. Please give us more points.
Hedvig: That’s very good.
Henry: Right. This round is two points per correct answer. We’ve raised the stakes. Question one, problem one in the 2007 contest held in St. Petersburg in Russia was about Braille. The tactile writing system consisting of raised dots arranged in rectangular cells, devised by the Frenchman, Louis Braille, originally for transcribing French orthography. But when did he invent the system? Was it 1724, 1824, or 1924?
Daniel: That’s one of the 24s, but when did Louis Braille invent the Braille system?
Hedvig: Okay, I think it’s either ’17 or ’18. It’s old.
Ben: Yep. I agree, and because the way Henry worded the question was like, when did this guy originally come up with the thing that was not originally for deaf people, like the way to transcribe orthography.
Hedvig: Exactly. 1724, they invented a lot of stuff related to the French Revolution.
Ben: That’s what I was thinking, but-
Hedvig: That’s around about that time.
Ben: -people too busy murdering everyone and liberating things to do–
Hedvig: But they also were, like, “We’re going to make a new calendar,” and meh, meh, meh.
Ben: Okay. I reckon ’17 then.
Hedvig: I think so.
Ben: It’s the French though. There probably was another revolution at 1827 as well. [chuckles]
Hedvig: Wait, what year– French Revolution is 1714?
Ben: I would not know. I was not educated in mainland Europe. So, we did not learn those things.
Hedvig: What?
Ben: Yeah, no, everyone just–
Hedvig: It’s like [crosstalk] was like– Oh, yeah, mm, French Revolution, maybe not sure.
Ben: Well, the French were classically his enemies. So, that makes sense.
Hedvig: Yeah. Okay, now I would guess 1724, yeah.
Daniel: Give me a hoy when you’re back.
Hedvig: Okay.
Daniel: Okay. When was Braille invented? Was it 1724, 1824, or 1924? We are back to the Elder Millennials. What do you got?
Hedvig: We think it’s 1724. We think it’s to do with– I’m not going to say the reason because that then– [crosstalk]
Ben: No, I think we should say that we look dumb if we’re wrong and we look hell smart if we’re right.
Hedvig: Oh. I think it’s right about the time when they started inventing all this stuff related to the French Revolution. They made a calendar. They just turned everything upside down. Yeah.
Daniel: Heady days. We go to Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
Person: We said 1824.
Daniel: Okay, any particular reason? If you don’t want to say, that’s fine, if it’ll give things away.
Person: We just wanted to go somewhere in the middle.
Daniel: Mm-hmm. The enlightened centrist approach. Very good. Okay, and now we’re going to The Better Dorothy and Toto.
Person: Oh, yeah, we went 1824 as well. I guess–
Ben: Oh, no.
Person: No, it was a complete guess. 1724 just seemed a bit early and 1924 seemed a bit late, so.
Daniel: Mm-hmm. Henry?
Henry: You know what’s funny? Is that Hedvig and Ben had the correct reasoning, but they didn’t know the answer.
Ben: But they’re wrong. [groans]
Henry: The French Revolution happened at the end of the 18th century, and so the correct answer is 1824.
Hedvig: Oh, yeah, it’s 1789.
[laughter]
Daniel: But you look hell smart.
Ben: You know the worst part? Hedvig looked at me, I was just like, “Yeah, the year French Revolution was–” I just shot back to her straightaway. “Well, I wasn’t educated in mainland Europe, so we don’t focus on those things, because we’re just like [crosstalk] the countryside.” By the way, Hedvig speaks French, just throwing it out there.
Hedvig: I know. It was 1700s, but yeah.
Ben: Oh, dear.
Daniel: Okay. Well, things are looking grim for the Elder Millennials, but let’s go on to question two.
Ben: In so many more ways than one, but yes, it [crosstalk] to.
[chuckles]
Henry: Okay, question two. Problem three in the 2009 contest held in Wrocław in Poland was about a certain tradition associated with Burmese names. What is this tradition? Is it, A, certain sounds are considered masculine or feminine, and thus avoided on opposite gender names? B, names are given beginning with certain letters based on the day of the week on which the child is born. Or, C, names get longer the more children a mother has so the eldest born has short name?
Ben: I want all of these to be true, because they’re all awesome.
Hedvig: Yeah.
Daniel: Just run those past us again, Henry, if you would?
Henry: Yes. A, certain sounds masculine, feminine and thus avoided on opposite gender names. B, names are given beginning with certain letters based on the day of the week on which the child is born. C, the names get longer the more children a mother has.
Daniel: I like all of these. Let’s see what you think. Drop into chat. I’m going to start with Latvian Winnie the Pooh. Did you think it was because certain sounds are considered masculine and feminine, and thus avoided an opposite gender names? Is it based on the day of the week where the child is born? Or more children equals longer and longer names?
Person: We ended up going the last one that more children equals longer names. Honestly, because I’m the third sibling, so that would be really cool if that was me.
Daniel: Like a Pokémon, right?
Person: Yeah.
Daniel: More [crosstalk] equals longer name. Okay, cool. Let’s go with The Better Dorothy and Toto.
Person: We said feminine and masculine, just because a lot of languages do change– the wording of certain things change depending on gender. So, yeah.
Daniel: Mm-hmm. Yep, very commonly used strategy. Okay. And Elder Millennials?
Ben: We also discussed the idea of names being a little bit different based on gender sounds, but actually, Hedvig, reckons, she’s on this one, the doctor in front of her name has come to the fore, and she reckons that, and I’m throwing you completely under the bus if we get this wrong, Hedvig. [laughs]
Hedvig: I don’t reckon anything. I was at the Olympiad and I remember this.
Ben: Oh.
Hedvig: I feel bad, Henry, but we can test if the Elder really is true in our team name, because I could also be remembering it wrong. It’s completely possible.
Ben: Yeah, totally. So, we [crosstalk] days of the week.
Hedvig: Yeah, days of the week.
Daniel: Okay, what is it, Henry?
Henry: It is indeed days of the week. I hadn’t considered that Hedvig might have been at one of these.
[laughter]
Hedvig: Oh, I feel bad now. Oh, I shouldn’t have said it. Oh, no.
Ben: I thought it was interesting that you were outing that you were just explicitly cheating on this question. [chuckles]
Hedvig: Sorry. Sorry.
Daniel: I’m putting your two points in a parenthesis.
Hedvig: Also, we are really losing, Ben.
[laughter]
Hedvig: I can’t remember my age. So, if I can remember an IOL question from many years ago, I feel that’s some sort of feat.
Daniel: Right, it’s fair game. You’re operating with something of, in a sporting context, a handicap. So, you need to take the points where you can get them.
Hedvig: [laughs] Yes.
Person: Honestly, we thought that was the least plausible answer.
[laughter]
Hedvig: It is a weird one.
Henry: To be fair, it was a very tricky question. And I’m sure that all three of these traditions existed a whole bunch of different cultures, but the days of the week is actually associated with astrology. So, it’s like auspicious days that people associated with.
Daniel: I just loved the idea of somebody saying, “Well, here are my seven children, Maden, Taden, Waden, Thaden, Fraden and Saden and Saden.” Does that mean one was born on Saturday, the other was Sunday? No, they’re twins.
Ben: I’m interested Daniel, that you went with the ‘aden’ suffix of names as well, because in teaching circles, and I don’t know, Victoria, if you want to agree with this or not, but everyone whose name is or ends in ‘aden’ is a bad person.
Hedvig: What?
Daniel: I knew entire families, they were Aiden, Braden, Caden and Jaden and Hayden.
Hedvig: Ben, you can’t ask that of a teacher.
Victoria: Can’t comment with a girl school.
Ben: Oh, fair enough. That was, by the way, an incredibly diplomatic evasion. I think you have a strong future in politics.
[chuckles]
Daniel: Let’s now go on to question three, if you would, Henry?
Henry: Okay. The third question is, the team problem at the 2014 contest held in Beijing in China featured an Armenian translation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But how many languages has the document been officially translated into? Is it 329, 429, or 529?
Daniel: A hundred languages is a lot. That’s a good spread. How many languages has the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights been translated into, 329, 429 or 529?
Hedvig: This isn’t the kind of– I did a blog post that, I think, Henry has read, which is the most into translated things, and Declaration of Human Rights is really high up there. Bible is really high up, and then it’s like Pinocchio is one of the highest fictional ones. [crosstalk] And I am fairly sure it’s actually 329, because they do it for the major languages of the countries, and there’s like 100 and–
Ben: You’d have every member nation, which is like 180 something.
Hedvig: Yeah, exactly. I think it’s 193 with South Sudan or something like that. But then, it’s like how many plus ones do they do, because even if they do–
Ben: A plus one for every single one of them, that would get you up into the 429 just about if you do plus one and change.
Hedvig: Yeah. A lot of countries-
Ben: Don’t have a plus one.
Hedvig: -don’t have major– like Iceland won’t have a major other language.
Ben: True.
Hedvig: And if they would, it would probably be English or Swedish or Norwegian, which already would be translated.
Ben: Do you think they’ve translated– because this is not a long document, right?
Hedvig: No, it’s super short.
Ben: Would they have translated it into a bunch of indigenous languages, like in Australia, for example, do you think?
Hedvig: They would have translated into some, I think. I know that Omniglot, you can get it for a lot of languages.
Daniel: When you’re ready, just come back, give us a horn.
Hedvig: Okay, 400.
Ben: You want to go with the 429? Your initial thing was 329.
Hedvig: Something in my gut tells me 329.
Ben: Let’s go with 329. Okay.
Hedvig: Okay. All right. Let’s do that.
Ben: Ready.
Person: We’re also ready.
Daniel: We’re back to the Elder Millennials. How many languages has the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights been translated into?
Ben: So, is it my turn to explain our reasoning on this one, Hedvig? Okay. We thought that with 190 something and change member nations, if we did like a plus one for maybe a bit over half of those nations, that will get us close to 329. So, that’s what we’ve stuck with.
Daniel: Good. Okay. Let’s see. Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
Person: Okay, I’m not very sure anymore because, originally, we were just thinking, there are a lot of languages in the world, somewhere upwards of 6000, 7000. So surely, it would be a high number.
Daniel: Be courageous, stick with your instinct. What did you have?
Person: Okay. Originally, we said that we’d go 529 just because there are so many languages in the world. Hopefully, they tried to accommodate most of them.
Daniel: What’s this originally stuff? If you could, would you change now?
Person: We might have gone 429. Just because it’s somewhere in the middle.
Daniel: Well, you can’t.
[chuckles]
Daniel: Let’s go on to The Better Dorothy and Toto.
Person: Our answer is 329. Same reasoning as–
Ben: The Elder Millennials.
Person: Yep. Sorry.
[laughter]
Ben: We are what we are.
Daniel: All right. Take us there, Henry.
Henry: Well, Audrey’s reasoning was completely right. It’s actually 529.
Ben: Argh.
Hedvig: Ah, wow.
Ben: Hey, Hedvig-
Daniel: You’ve got to believe in yourself.
Ben: -we’re really bad at this.
Hedvig: I know.
[laughter]
Daniel: I think you might be doing worse than Ben and I did last year. No, no, no, you’re doing great. It’s super close. There’s like one or two points spread, don’t worry.
Ben: How’s the implication there? Ouch.
Daniel: Still anybody’s game. Question four.
Henry: Okay.
Hedvig: I think we only have two points, Ben.
Daniel: No, you’ve got three.
Ben: But some of those are in parentheses.
Daniel: No, [chuckles] it can be [crosstalk] points.
Hedvig: Oh, no, so we’ve got two points for that one. Sorry.
Ben: [laughs]
Hedvig: Yeah.
Daniel: It’s three points for Ben and Hedvig, four points for Jessica and Rosie, and six points for Chelsea and Audrey.
Ben: Oh, snap. [crosstalk]
Daniel: Half as many, Ben and Hedvig. Henry, take us to number four.
Henry: Okay, question four. The IOL has been held three times in Bulgaria, making it the country that has hosted the contest most frequently. Which of these languages is Bulgarian most closely related to? Closely related to in the sense that English is more closely related to German and French because the split in the family tree between English and German happened more recently than English, German versus French.
Daniel: Okay. And the answers?
Henry: A, Macedonian. B, Greek. C, Romanian.
Daniel: Which of these languages is Bulgarian most closely related to, Macedonian, Greek, or Romanian? Drop into chat, make a choice.
Ben: Hedvig, come on. Now, this is where the doctor in front of your name–
Hedvig: It’s Macedonian.
Ben: Okay.
Hedvig: I know it is. It’s a Southeast Slavic language. Greek isn’t Slavic, and Albanian isn’t Slavic.
Ben: He didn’t say Albanian. He said Romanian.
Hedvig: Romanian. Romanian is romance.
Ben: Okay.
Hedvig: It’s related to French and Romany stuff.
Ben: Okay.
Hedvig: It’s Macedonian. I’m sorry. I think it’s better to chitchat to have– I was recently actually perusing the Indo-European tree for funsies.
Ben: At least when we come back, can you please say that in exactly that way and delivery it in [crosstalk] voice. “I was recently perusing the Indo-European family tree for funsies.”
Hedvig: [chuckles] Because I remember thinking that– because it’s like Serbian, Slovenian, Croatian, you know they’re Slavic. And Macedonian, you could think that it’s related to Greek.
Ben: I would have assumed it was. Yeah.
Hedvig: It’s not, I’m pretty sure.
Daniel: When you’re ready.
Ben: We are ready, Daniel, and Hedvig has a delightful anecdote to share when she gives the answer.
Daniel: Let’s begin with The Better Dorothy and Toto. What you got? Which one’s most closely related to Bulgarian?
Person: This one is kind of my call because we were kind of guessing here, but I think because South Slavic languages, so I’m thinking Macedonian.
Daniel: Okay, we have a guess for Macedonian. Elder Millennials?
Hedvig: Oh, yes, that’s us. I almost forgot our name. See, I can’t remember stuff. I’m a useless contestant. I was going to say I can cheat as much as I like, but I’m not going to cheat. We also think is Macedonian. I was perusing the Indo-European tree recently, and I was looking at Bulgarian, and I’m pretty sure Macedonian was not far from it.
Daniel: Okay, and now we head over to Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
Person: Okay, our sense of geography is pretty terrible. So, this is complete guess here, going off pure instinct, and we said Romania.
Daniel: Hmm, that’s going to give you some points if you’re right. Henry?
Henry: Well, I’m glad that Jessica actually gave even though a name of a branch. This is absolutely correct. The correct answer is Macedonian.
Ben: Yes.
Daniel: Very good.
Ben: Evening up the scores. I like it. It’s anyone’s game.
Daniel: Mm-hmm.
Hedvig: Yes.
Ben: We’re nipping at their heels, folks. We’re going to take them down.
Daniel: Five, six, and six. Last question for this round.
Henry: Question five. The team problem at the 2019 contest held in Yongin in South Korea was about the scoring system in the sport of rhythmic gymnastics. But how many rhythmic gymnasts representing Australia are in Tokyo at the moment competing in the Olympic Games?
Ben: What? What?
[laughter]
Ben: What?
Henry: And for this question, everyone will guess the number and the person who has the closest will win.
Hedvig: Just weird question. I have recently learned that in the Olympics, you have replacement. So, like the entire troupe?
Henry: Yes.
Ben: Including replacements. Okay.
Daniel: All right, off you go.
Hedvig: I said that. That was really smart, but that doesn’t bring me any more knowledge.
Ben: I’m going to say Australia spends a disgusting amount of money on their sporting programs. This we know. I think the number is going to be relatively high, but I don’t know what relatively high is.
Hedvig: 20, because in the group gymnastics, there’s five or six of them onstage.
Ben: I’m thinking this group for rhythmic gymnastics as opposed to the other kind, I’m going to say 20 to 30 including replacements.
Hedvig: My guess was also 20. So, shall we say 25?
Ben: Okay, split the difference.
Hedvig: Yeah.
Ben: Elder Millennials are ready.
Daniel: Latvian Winnie the Pooh, your answer, please.
Person: Okay, we weren’t exactly sure how many would actually be there, because I’ve watched it yesterday. It seems like there are only four people, but there are different types of gymnastics. So, we’re going to go 10 just as an even number.
Daniel: Gotcha. Okay, Better Dorothy and Toto.
Person: Some time a few weeks ago, I was watching a random gymnastics video. There were four on the main team and there are a few others who were just there. So, okay, cool. Jess is just having last-minute panic.
[laughter]
Hedvig: Fair enough.
Person: We’re going to go 11 because we’re like that.
Ben: Oh. Okay.
Daniel: Very good.
Ben: [crosstalk] -system, we may well have erred here. Our logic was Australia spends a disgusting amount of money on our sporting program. So, it’s going to be way higher than you would think it is, and we went with 25.
Daniel: Okay. Henry, who got it?
Henry: [laughs] Okay. The people who actually watched this event will have a distinct advantage obviously, but the correct answer is six.
Ben: No.
[laughter]
Ben: Oh, dear. Oh no. Latvian Winnie the Pooh, although off-brand children’s entertainment is destroying the competition.
[laughter]
Daniel: At the end of round two, we have Ben and Hedvig, the Elder Millennials at five. We’ve got Jessica and Rosie, The Better Dorothy and Toto on six, and Chelsea and Audrey, Latvian Winnie the Pooh, on eight, still in lead. Elisabeth and Victoria, how do you think you’d be doing on this?
Elisabeth: I definitely have a few guesses in there. [laughs] But–
Victoria: Guesses. Yes, I got this last one right.
Elisabeth: I thought six for the last one though randomly.
Daniel: Oh. [crosstalk]
Victoria: Me too.
Daniel: Wow, you should be a team. Okay, let’s move on to round three. Henry, take us in.
Henry: Okay. Round three, we’re back in the realm of linguistics family. I’ve called this Generational Talking for–
Ben: Oh, no.
Henry: Named after an undescribed TV program, which is about the different generations contesting their knowledge. This round will involve a list of four words and all had their first use recorded in print in the same decade, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. And you have to guess the correct decade for three points. Just as an example, the four words, dead name, twerking, neurodivergence, and the verb ‘to zoom’, all appeared in the 2010s for the first time. That’s how the game works. The first question, radio gene, as in the biological gene.
Ben: Ah, not the pants.
Henry: Not the pants, singular gene.
[laughter]
Henry: Radio gene racism, and the courtesy title Ms. M-S. And it’s multiple choice. Is it, A, the 1880s? B, the 1900s? Or, C, the 1920s?
Daniel: Radio gene, racism, and Ms. Was it the 1880s, 1900s, or 1920s? Drop into chat. Make your choice.
Hedvig: Ben, Marie Curie got the Nobel Prize twice for radioactivity in the 1920s.
Ben: Radio is older than that thought.
Hedvig: Exactly. That’s what I’m saying, so it can’t be 1920s.
Ben: Okay, good. We’re on the same page.
Hedvig: I don’t know. I’m feeling 1880s, I don’t know why.
Ben: Yeah, I’m a little bit torn on this one as well. Gene is throwing me a little bit as well because I feel like that might be later. I don’t know. Genes. When did we figure out genes because gene is so tiny.
Hedvig: 1880s is when– I don’t know.
Ben: Microscopy. Okay, we’re ready.
Hedvig: Yeah.
Daniel: Great.
Person: We’re also ready.
Daniel: Latvian Winnie the Pooh, did these words appear in 1880s, 1900s or 1920s?
Person: We’re just going to go the 1880s, because we think that’s around where the radio was invented and maybe feminism might have started coming in. So, yeah, that’s our reasoning.
Daniel: Sounds good. Dorothy and Toto?
Person: Yeah. We were also thinking about when the radio was invented like lightwaves and physics homework has really drilled into me, but the radio was invented in 1895. I’m pretty sure it would have appeared after the 1880s. So, it would have been 1900s.
Daniel: The Elder Millennials?
Hedvig: Pesky youngsters with their homework and knowledge.
Ben: Is it your turn, Hedvig? I think it is.
Hedvig: Well, we also guessed 1880, but just because we felt like it, I think. [laughs] Our reasoning wasn’t that good compared to theirs. [laughs]
Ben: We really got old people in the question. [with accent] “I feel it in ma bones, it’s the 1880s, for sure.”
Daniel: [chuckles]
Hedvig: Yeah. I thought it’s got to be long before Marie Curie. That was the only thought I had.
Daniel: Okay, Henry?
Henry: Right. Well, you can’t argue with the science. And Jessica is exactly right when the radio was invented, and so the answer is the 1900s.
Ben: Argh.
Daniel: Well done.
Ben: Nicely done, team.
Hedvig: The 19 Noughties.
Ben: [laughs]
Audrey: Can’t believe you remembered that date.
Daniel: [laughs]
Person: Because it’s really drilled into me, Choi, okay?
Ben: I just have this image of a really stern physics teacher and being like, “Every single one of you remember this day, it’s a day that lives in infamy.”
Daniel: Henry?
Henry: Question two, the acronym TV, role model, DJ, again, the acronym, and the word “acronym” itself.
Daniel: Hmm.
Hedvig: Oh, wow.
Henry: Wast it in the 1920s, the 1930s, or the 1940s.
Daniel: TV, role model, DJ or acronym? Was it the 20s, 30s, or 40s?
Hedvig: TVs aren’t really kicking around until the 40s, right?
Ben: Yeah, I think so. Television, TV. DJ. Also, I want to just make a point, when it comes to two-letter abbreviations, are they initialisms or acronyms? Because acronyms are the ones that you say is a word, like NASA or whatever?
Hedvig: Yeah. Initialisms can be pronounced–
Ben: Like the OECD is an initialism, not an acronym.
Hedvig: Yes. And it should be the initials. Well, there are technically abbreviations that don’t have you initials like OzCLO, as in O and Z, which isn’t really–
Ben: So, we’re going with the 40s?
Hedvig: Anyway, for this feature, in 40s, is that what we say?
Ben: We are ready.
Hedvig: Okay.
Daniel: Let’s start with The Better Dorothy and Toto. When did we see these words for the first time?
Person: We picked the 1930s just purely based off feelings, I guess. Random guess. [chuckles]
Daniel: They’re never wrong. Elder Millennials.
Ben: We went with the 40s this time around, thinking that TV in particular is fairly recent and especially its initialization might have been even a little bit lagging after the original sort of invention.
Daniel: Latvian Winnie the Pooh?
Person: We went 30s mainly because we thought the 20s was a bit early, and because going the middle is always a good option.
Daniel: Mm-hmm. Okay, Henry.
Ben: Come on, Henry, do it for me, mate.
Henry: There is a correct answer amongst us. And it’s actually Hedvig and Ben. It was the 1940s.
Ben: Yes.
Hedvig: Yes. And that’s three points, am I right?
Henry: Yes.
Daniel: Mm-hmm. That’s three.
Ben: Three [crosstalk] points.
Hedvig: Yes. I like the system with points for the rounds, like third round, three points.
Ben: Can I ask a linguistics question of everyone in the room? Is TV and DJ an acronym or an initialism?
Hedvig: Or both?
Victoria: I would call them initialisms.
Person: The acronyms are when the initial spells out a word.
Ben: Right, like NASA or whatever, something like that. But have we gotten to the point now where it is like T-E-E-V-E-E in some instances? And at that point does it become an acronym as well as an issue?
Victoria: I guess if it’s written out in that way.
Daniel: Mm-hmm.
Hedvig: Yeah. In Swedish, you wrote it out T-E-V-E.
Victoria: Oh, right. Yeah. I guess that’s like okay. O-K-A-Y.
Ben: Yeah, it’s funny, isn’t it? It’s only the two letter ones that seem to get that special nether region treatment.
Victoria: Yes.
Daniel: Interestingly, I’ve seen fewer and fewer people care about the difference between initialism and acronym. That doesn’t seem to matter to too many people anymore, except for clever people who ring me up on Thursday mornings on the ABC.
Ben: [chuckles]
Hedvig: And your cohost, Ben.
Ben: Yes.
Victoria: Preference between lol and LOL.
Ben: Oh.
Hedvig: That’s a good [crosstalk] Victoria. Thank you. [crosstalk] lol and LOL. Who says LOL?
Victoria: Yeah, I don’t know. [chuckles]
Daniel: Let’s move on.
Henry: Okay, question three. The words are robot, recycle, totalitarian, and penicillin. Is it the 1910s, the 1920s, or the 1930s?
Daniel: Okay, robot, recycle, totalitarian, penicillin. Was it the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s? Make a choice.
Hedvig: I think it’s all, and I know robot is from robota in Slavic languages, which means to work. But that doesn’t really help.
Ben: I know robot’s pretty old. I think penicillin is your-
Hedvig: Penicillin is pretty old.
Ben: -is your marker here, right?
Hedvig: Yeah.
Ben: Because we did not have antibiotics widely available in World War I, correct?
Hedvig: Oh, wow. That’s impressive knowledge. So, you’re thinking 1920s?
Ben: I think so. I feel like yeah, that we didn’t have broad antibiotic–[crosstalk]
Hedvig: Yeah.
Ben: That’s going to be my guess. I feel we also had words instead of robot earlier than robot, like we probably had automaton was a word that we had earlier, and that sort of thing.
Hedvig: Oh, what’s it called?
Ben: No, but I like that no one else can hear you [laughs] run now.
Hedvig: Something-something Turk.
Ben: Oh, Mechanical Turk. Yeah, which we probably shouldn’t say because I feel that’s probably bad now.
Hedvig: Probably is.
Ben: Okay, I think we’re ready, Daniel.
Daniel: We are taking this one first to Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
Person: Our reasoning behind this was regarding penicillin. It was discovered, I think, at the end of the 1920s or something around there. So, if the word origin was a bit later than that, I’m guessing 1930s, so that’s our reasoning.
Daniel: Okay. 1930s. And let’s go with Better Dorothy and Toto.
Person: Actually, that was the same reasoning as well. We’re thinking, penicillin was around 1930s
Daniel: [in a whisper] These people know stuff.
Ben: Ooh, this is interesting, though.
Hedvig: Yes, scary.
Daniel: Elder Millennials.
Hedvig: We were thinking 1920s for similar reasons but just that we thought penicillin was invented earlier.
Daniel: Well, hey, Henry?
Henry: Right. Well, Hedvig and Ben are correct.
Ben: Yes.
Henry: It’s the 1920s.
Daniel: [laughs]
Ben: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, I feel so good about this. I felt so smart when I was like, “Hey, Hedvig. I don’t think penicillin was broadly available in World War I, but I don’t think it was as late as the 1930s.” Yeah, oh, I feel so clever right now, so good.
Daniel: You are terribly clever. And now, let’s go to question four.
Henry: Question four. The words are the adjective ‘linguistic’, the word ‘restaurant’, sodium, and the verb ‘signal’.
Ben: Can I ask a clarifying question, Henry?
Henry: Please.
Ben: Because you pronounced ‘restaurant’ in a French accent just then.
Henry: Did I?
Daniel: Yeah. What was that all about?
Ben: Do you mean restaurant in usage in French or in English usage?
Henry: No, this is English.
Ben: Just clarifying.
Daniel: Linguistic, the adjective. Restaurant, there. Sodium. And the verb, signal– Oh, have you read the [crosstalk] years–
Henry: Yep. The options are, the 1800s, the 1850s or the 1900s.
Daniel: Oh, nice wide spread there for linguistic, restaurant, sodium and the verb, signal, 1800, 1850s or 1900s. Which one is it, make the call?
Ben: I feel we can say conclusively, it’s not the 1900s
Hedvig: Yes.
Ben: That’s too late.
Hedvig: I agree. Sodium feels like so many alchemists kicking around the 1800s.
Ben: Yeah, that’s [crosstalk] sodium seems like old.
Hedvig: [crosstalk] -impact was sodium.
Ben: Sodium seems one of those fundamental ones that they would have discovered super early on.
Hedvig: Restaurants. For the longest time in human history, there weren’t restaurants, right?
Ben: Yeah. You’d go to an inn or something.
Hedvig: If you are a rich person, you’d just get food cooked for you at home.
Ben: Yeah. 100%.
Hedvig: Period.
Ben: So, are you thinking 1850s then?
Hedvig: I don’t know. Maybe, yeah. Maybe 1800s. What was the other words? Linguistic.
Ben: Hang on, let’s think about the era of the French Enlightenment and that sort of thing. That was late 18th century, early 19th century, when people were sitting at cafes and discussing philosophy and all that. Does that mean restaurants would have been around roughly the same time?
Hedvig: Yeah, I would guess so.
Ben: So, we want to go 1800s?
Hedvig: Let’s go with 1800s.
Ben: Okay.
Hedvig: Yeah.
Daniel: When you’re ready, let’s bring it back.
Ben: Hedvig, you explain the reasoning on this one.
Hedvig: We’re done.
Daniel: Okay.
Ben: I think everyone’s done.
Daniel: Okay, great.
Ben: [chuckles]
Daniel: So, let’s start with the Elder Millennials.
Hedvig: Well, we were thinking the 1800s. And we were thinking that it’s like the Enlightenment era, and everyone’s sitting outside cafes talking about the meaning of life and morality.
Daniel: And sodium, very good. Latvian Winnie the Pooh?
Person: Similar with Jess’ physics reasoning earlier. We are kind of less educated than Jess, but we know that the periodic table was somewhere in between 1850 and 1900. We’re just going to go with the 1850s.
Daniel: Okay, very good. And Better Dorothy and Toto?
Person: We were also thinking 1850s but for significantly less smart reasons. We were just like restaurant, what other word would you use for restaurant, like a food shop?
Ben: [laughs]
Person: [laughs]
[crosstalk]
Person: Really, yeah. I was just trying to squeeze something out, but nothing came out.
Daniel: Eating house.
[laughs]
Hedvig: Inn.
Ben: Food hall.
Daniel: Yeah, it’s got legs, that term. All right.
Hedvig: So, what was your guess?
Daniel: Oh, same guess.
Person: Oh, yeah, 1850s.
Daniel: Yeah.
Hedvig: Oh, okay.
Ben: This could be us made in the shade here, Hedvig, if we get this one right, and those two get it wrong again.
Hedvig: Yeah.
Daniel: Henry?
Henry: Well, again, there is a correct answer amongst the three teams.
Person: He said A. It’s a singular– [laughs]
Daniel: [laughs] Gives it away, doesn’t it?
Henry: The answer is the 1800s.
Ben: Yes.
Daniel: [chuckles]
Hedvig: Ben, we are so much better at this round than any other round. I don’t know what that says about us.
Ben: High-fiving a thousand angels right now. Ah, this is so good.
Henry: I like the reasoning about the periodic table, but you have to remember that a lot of the elements were discovered before the periodic table was invented.
Ben: This was actually a thing that-
Person: Yeah, that’s true.
Ben: -Hedvig and I discussed. We reckoned that kooky sort of like polymath type of-
Hedvig: Alchemist.
Ben: -people without their eyebrows had found sodium fairly early on in the process.
Daniel: Well, this means that at the end of round three, Latvian Winnie the Pooh is on eight points, The Better Dorothy and Toto is on nine. And the Elder Millennials, Ben and Hedvig have rocketed to the top at 14 points.
Ben: Oh, yes.
Hedvig: Yeah, that round. Hey.
Daniel: It’s still anybody’s game though. Remember, this round, our final round is a heavy hitter. There’s a lot of points here. So, don’t get too comfy.
Ben: They like to tease us on TikTok, but us old timey, not old, semi-old people are holding our own.
Hedvig: I like how we’re in our 30s and we’re like, “We’re old.”
Ben: Because do you know how many times I get called boomer by teenagers, Hedvig? It happens to me at least three times a week.
Hedvig: Wow.
Ben: That’s so unfair.
Hedvig: But you’re not even Generation X.
Ben: I know. There was an entire generation between my generation and the boomer generation and still to teenage eyes, a lot of the time, they’re just like, “Yo, okay, Boomer, shut up.”
Daniel: Don’t worry, we’re used to getting ignored.
Ben: [laughs]
Hedvig: Are you technically Boomer? No, you’re not, Daniel, you’re Generation X.
Daniel: No, I’m an early X. [crosstalk]
Ben: An Elder Xer.
Daniel: An Elder Xer. All right. This is our final round. Henry, take us in.
Henry: Right. This round, round four, the last round is called “Not in the Family.” The last round, we looked at when words came into English, and now we’re going to look at where words come from in English.
Ben: Fun. Oh, this is so good.
Henry: What we’re going to do is try to guess the language of ultimate origin for a bunch of English loanwords, ultimate origin as in as far back as we can go.
Ben: Proto-Indo-European. I win, we’re done, let’s go.
Henry: Actually, I don’t know if this will be a hint, but these languages are not Indo-European, and so that’s why the round is called “Not in the Family.”
Ben: That’s good. I like that.
Henry: It’s a bit of an interesting structure. Okay, how this is going to work is that there’ll be four words, and I’m going to give them to one at a time as hints, and you get more points, the fewer hints you get. So, if you can guess it from the first word straightaway you get a whole bunch of points.
Ben: And we knock ourselves out if we guess, I assume.
Henry: Yes, exactly. This is going to require a bit of trust. So, you’re going to have to– at each word, I guess Daniel will ask, who would want to–
Daniel: Yup.
Hedvig: Lock in.
Henry: And you can’t change after you–
Ben: Okay.
Daniel: Okay. Now, let’s see what the scoring is. The scoring is, if you managed to nail it on the first clue, you get 10 points.
Ben: 10?
Daniel: 10.
Ben: Good God.
Hedvig: 10?
Daniel: Because it’s hard. If you need two to do it, you drop down to five points. If you need that third clue, you drop down to two. And if you get all four clues, then it’s one point, but one point is still important.
Hedvig: Wow.
Daniel: So, there’s a bit of risk, but a better reward.
Hedvig: That’s a slope.
Daniel: Oh, yes.
Henry: Yeah, it’s a bonanza round.
Daniel: Okay. This is question one. Henry, will you please give us the first word from this language?
Henry: Okay. The first word is the word ‘zero’.
Daniel: Now, what you got to do is drop into chat. See, if you want to guess after just hearing only this word, or decide if you’re going to roll it over.
Ben: Hedvig.
Hedvig: Oh, my God. I was just wondering, can you really guess once per question?
Henry: Yes.
Daniel: If you’re just trying to guess after the first word, then that was your guess. You don’t get to guess again.
Hedvig: And all the words are from the same language?
Henry: Yes.
Daniel: Correct for this question.
Hedvig: Okay.
Daniel: Drop into chat. Decide if you think you know it, how confident you are. And are you going to take your shot after this one clue?
Hedvig: I feel unsure. I know that I’m pretty sure English got the concept of zero from Arabic, algebra, and stuff.
Ben: From the golden age of Arabic Enlightenment.
Hedvig: But I don’t know if we got the word ‘zero’. Arabic is not Indo-European, so that’s–
Ben: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was about to say. We haven’t immediately gone to Indo-European language, so that’s a good start.
Henry: I’m not encouraging gambling, but if you are behind, this is a good chance to pick up points.
Ben: [chuckles]
Daniel: That’s true.
Ben: Do we want to just try and cement our win right now with one big bold move?
Hedvig: Why don’t we play a little bit more cautiously? I don’t think we should lock in now.
Ben: Okay. I’m writing us down and if we’ve cost ourselves 10 points, because I reckon, we should say proto-Semitic.
Hedvig: Oh, no, I think Henry’s going to mean Arabic broadly, if it is Arabic.
Daniel: Okay. Please don’t tell me what you think the language is. All I want to know is if you want to take your shot after hearing this one clue, but don’t tell me what you think the language is. Does anybody want to take their shot and commit to an answer now?
Hedvig: We don’t want to.
Ben: We don’t know.
Daniel: Okay. Any other teams?
Audrey: I think Chelsea and I are going to do it.
Ben: Oh.
Daniel: Okay.
Ben: This is bold.
Hedvig: Wow.
Daniel: If you don’t mind, since you got nothing else to do for this round, send me what you think the answer is in chat. Only to me, not to all the teams.
Ben: Can I ask a clarifying question of Henry?
Henry: Yes.
Ben: Basically, are we looking to go as far sort of back in time along the linguistic family tree to find the original precursor language, or are we just looking for the actual extant language where this word came from?
Henry: An extant language? Not like proto-proto, whatever, whatever.
Ben: Yeah. Okay, cool.
Daniel: Okay. Well, since we have one team committing. Let’s go on to our next clue. Henry, if you please?
Henry: Okay. The second clue, and if you get it, you’re going to have five points, is the word ‘alcove’. For those who don’t know, an alcove is a recessed part of a wall in a room.
Ben: I feel like–
Hedvig: That makes me think Arabic.
Ben: Yeah, that’s exactly. Do we want to commit, Hedvig?
Hedvig: I think so. I’m pretty sure–
Ben: I reckon Audrey and Chelsea have got it right as well, by the way. I reckon they guessed Arabic for the same reason we did.
Hedvig: Hmm.
Ben: Okay. Do you want to be cautious?
Hedvig: No. If I’m going to play fair, then I think it’s what we said.
Ben: We are ready.
Daniel: Okay. All right. Is there anybody who wants to commit to after hearing these two clues?
Hedvig: Yes.
Daniel: Take your shot.
Ben: We will.
Hedvig: We do.
Daniel: Okay. Very good. Would you please send me in chat, what you think the language is, but, don’t, of course, say it out loud.
Person: We’re majorly regretting committing right now. But you know, [chuckles] [crosstalk] could gamble.
Daniel: Okay, now it’s time for our third clue. And this one is only for The Better Dorothy and Toto. For Jessica and Rosie.
Henry: Yeah, so the third clue is the word ‘alcohol’.
Ben: Do we regret our decision now?
Hedvig: No.
Ben: Not yet.
Hedvig: Alcohol, alcove, algorithm, algebra.
Person: I think we’ve got it. Do we just say it out loud now or do we still text it?
Daniel: No, why don’t you go ahead and say it? The other teams have texted to me or messaged.
Person: This was all over the [chuckles] place. I’m pretty sure it’s Arabic, just based off the last word, alcohol. I think it’s Arabic.
Daniel: Mm-hmm. What do you what do you know about that one? You’ve heard that one before?
Person: Yeah, I probably heard it somewhere in a fun fact sort of thing.
Daniel: Yeah. Okay. Ben and Hedvig also said Arabic, and Chelsey and Audrey also said Arabic. Henry?
Ben: Oh, no.
Hedvig: [gasps]
Henry: They took a risk and it paid off. [crosstalk] It’s Arabic.
[laughter]
Ben: Hedvig?
Person: [crosstalk] -so much. [laughs]
Hedvig: No.
Daniel: Very exciting.
Henry: So, just to give a rundown of what these words come from–
Ben: What was the last word, by the way? Can we ask what the last word was going to be?
Henry: It was algebra.
Ben: Okay.
Hedvig: Yeah. Is that true that they’re all like alcohol, algebra, alcove, or at least like an article or something?
Henry: Yes. So, many words have been borrowed from Arabic with the definite article ‘al’, which means “the” basically. Algebra, alcohol, alcove, and the word ‘zero’ is from the word ‘sifr’, which means empty. t’s actually a semantic loan from Sanskrit “śūnya,” because the medieval Arab world got the idea of zero notation from India. So śūnya in Sanskrit means empty–
Person: No, wait. I actually said India as the first– [laughs] I thought zero came from India.
Daniel: [chuckles] very nice.
Person: We just thought that the Arabic seemed kind of smart, and they’re very old. So that was basically it.
Ben: I’m regretting not rolling the dice.
Daniel: My favorite Arabic ‘al’ word is for the fruit that they had called al-birqūq. It worked its way into English, apricot, which means that the ‘bir’ turned into a ‘pri’, and that’s another example of R-metathesis where the “R” changes places just like with mascarpone and comfortable. All right. Good job.
Ben: Score check, how much did that pull them into line?
Daniel: Okay, so Better Dorothy and Toto is on 11. Ben and Hedvig on 19, and Latvian Winnie the Pooh, 18 big, big points. Okay, it’s time for what I think is going to be our final question. The format is the same. Henry, let us in here.
Henry: Right. The first clue is the word “agar.” That’s the stuff that they put on petri dishes. It’s made of algae. Agar, A-G-A-R.
Daniel: How confident are you that you know what language this is? Drop into chat. Make your decision and then let me know if you’re ready to commit.
Ben: I do not feel confident out of the gate the way I did with zero.
Hedvig: No, me neither. I was going to say Korean, they’re mad for seaweed.
Ben: I feel this is Greek or something. This feels a Greek-y kind of word.
Hedvig: I think none of them are Indo-European, and Greek is Indo-European.
Ben: Sorry. Korean, yeah?
Hedvig: We’re not confident enough to lock in.
Ben: It does not sound Japanese.
Hedvig: Also, Korean, I don’t think are loving that R at the end. Agar.
Ben: Yeah, true.
Hedvig: It could have been agar and–[crosstalk]
Ben: Yeah, true.
Hedvig: I’m not sure. I don’t think we should lock in.
Ben: No, I’m not confident. Okay, we are not confident and not locking in and answering.
Daniel: Very good. Any other team is ready to commit?
Audrey: I think Chelsea and I are going to commit again.
Daniel: Ah.
Ben: Oh, wow.
Hedvig: Wow.
Daniel: Oh, my gosh.
Hedvig: [crosstalk] -gamblers.
Daniel: Okay, Audrey and Chelsea. Latvian Winnie the Pooh.
Person: We’re also committed.
Hedvig: Oh.
Daniel: Oh, my gosh. Okay.
Hedvig: Wow. What did they know that we don’t know?
Daniel: Oh, this could be all kinds of ways. All right. In that case, would you please send me your answer in chat, and Ben and Hedvig, get ready for your next clue.
Henry: Okay, so the next clue is the word ‘cockatoo’, the bird. Cockatoo.
Ben: Ah, what?
Hedvig: Ben, go to mute. Agar and cockatoo from the same language?
Ben: How is that? Gee willikers, Hedvig. I don’t know what this could possibly be.
Daniel: Too late, Audrey.
Person: [crosstalk] – Chelsea. [chuckles]
Person: You definitely tried to change, didn’t you?
Ben: Jeez, I can’t– I cannot–
Person: If it makes you feel any better, Audrey, we’re also freaking out over here.
Audrey: Yeah, we did complete 360 when he just said cockatoo.
Person: Yeah, we just [crosstalk] like, “Oh, I think, it’s the other one.”
[chuckles]
Hedvig: What about Thai? I’m just saying.
Ben: Thai.
Henry: Why do I feel nervous?
[laughter]
Daniel: You kind of tensed up a little bit.
Ben: But is there cockatoos anywhere but Australia?
Hedvig: I know I’m confused as well. But the word could come from somewhere else. No, not really. Malay?
Person: I saw her math board.
Ben: Indonesian?
Hedvig: Yeah, one of like– Bahasa or something.
Ben: Oh. I’m still not feeling confident on this, to be honest.
Hedvig: No, me neither. I want another one.
Ben: We politely think that Henry is a monster for putting the word ‘cockatoo’ after the word ‘agar’ and have no idea and would like a third clue, please.
Daniel: Are you ready to commit?
Ben: Negative.
Hedvig: No.
Ben: No, not at all.
Daniel: All right.
Ben: We are less ready to commit after the second word than we would have been at the first.
Hedvig: Yeah, we were more sure at the first one.
Henry: Well, the third one is actually also sort of animal themed.
Daniel: Evil.
Henry: And it’s the animal, ‘pangolin’.
Ben: Okay. Don’t forget to mute yourself first, Hedvig.
Daniel: You can go ahead and discuss openly because the other teams have sent me their answer.
Ben: Well, should we do that?
Hedvig: Pangolin is a thing in Indonesia.
Ben: The pangolin, is it? I thought it was in South America.
Hedvig: South Am– Ah– Oh.
Ben: Hang on. Should we have a discussion so that everyone can laugh at us? I’ve unmuted myself.
Hedvig: Okay, all right. We’re going to have a discussion in general. We’re really, really confused. We were maybe it’s some sort of Bahasa, like Indonesian, Malay. And then we’re like, maybe this Korean, now we’re like, somewhere in South America. We’re really all over the place.
Ben: Yeah, I could have sworn the Pangolin was a South American animal and the cockatoo is like an Australian animal and– [onomatopoeia]
Hedvig: I thought pangolins were a thing in South Africa. We’re really doing– we just need something for Europe and North America, and then we’ve done all continents.
Daniel: I really just thought that cockatoo was supposed to be imitative, like all birds.
Ben: Okay. I don’t know. I still– Argh. I could take a guess, but that’s all it would be at this point. I have no idea.
Hedvig: If you think South America, then it’s going to be one of Quechuas. But that’s where we get the chocolate and those things, not–
Ben: It’s also worth remembering, Hedvig, and this does happen decade to decade, every now and then, I could be wrong about where the pangolin comes from.
Hedvig: Where there are pangolins and also people who are really into seaweed. That’s my hard– There are a lot of weird animals in Wallacea in Indonesia, so if we say Bahasa, then we cover like 30 different languages, what do you think?
Daniel: Hey, no fair.
Ben: Okay. I think we need the final clue, to be honest, even if it gives us one point.
Hedvig: Yeah, I think so too.
Daniel: It’s a language whose name means language. Okay. What’s our– No, just kidding. What’s our last clue?
Henry: So, the last clue, probably the one that everyone is looking for, is another animal and it’s the orangutan.
Ben: Oh.
Hedvig: Oh, okay. Then, it is some sort of Indonesian, Malay, one of them, because orang means person, utan means forest. It’s people from the forest, but God knows which one of all the things.
Ben: There are a lot of languages there.
Hedvig: Let’s just say Indonesian and hope that he gives it to us.
Ben: Okay.
Hedvig: Even though that’s also really broad.
Ben: Yeah, that thing was created in — Yeah, Indonesian. Sure.
Hedvig: Yeah. We’re going to say Indonesian. If it’s Malay, I won’t have a point, at least or one point.
Daniel: Henry, would we say that Malay and Indonesian are equivalent terms? Whether this is right or wrong, can we say that they’re equivalent? Would you give the same point to both?
Henry: Uh, hypothetically, yes, I would.
Ben: Oh, that doesn’t sound promising at all. [laughs]
Daniel: Okay, let’s treat it as equivalent. So, you’ve all functionally guessed the same answer, because both Latvian Winnie the Pooh and The Better Dorothy and Toto have said Malay, and immediately regretted their decision. Hmm.
Ben: Oh, I really hope we’re all wrong. I really hope we’re all wrong.
Daniel: That means if you’re all wrong, then it’s Elder Millennials on 19, Latvian Winnie the Pooh on 18, and The Better Dorothy and Toto on 11. But if you all got it right, then, well, it’s Latvian Winnie the Pooh in first place on 28. It’s The Better Dorothy and Toto in second place on 21. And Ben and Hedvig in last place, the Elder Millennials on 20. This depends on whether you got it right or wrong. Henry?
Hedvig: My lord.
Daniel: Did they get it right?
Henry: Let me just say, I am very, very impressed by the goal to guess-
Daniel: The audacity.
Henry: -on agar.
Hedvig: Me too.
Henry: For that alone, congratulations. And I can say that the correct answer is indeed Malay.
Ben: [groans]
Daniel: [laughs]
Person: -amazing.
Hedvig: We went from first place to last place.
Chelsea: Literally, my only logic was that agar-agar is in a lot of Malaysian desserts, because agar-agar I know.
Person: Yeah, that was me, too. Agar-agar is Malaysian. I was like, “I think I’m pretty sure.”
Chelsea: Yeah, I was just relying on Audrey’s extensive watching of MasterChef to get us through this, and I’m happy to say it did.
Ben: Oh, wow.
[laughter]
Person: What a game changer.
Daniel: Ben and Hedvig, the Elder Millennials, strolling into last place on 20. We’ve got The Better Dorothy and Toto in second place on 21. And props to Latvian Winnie the Pooh taking the game at 28 big points, big ups for all of you. Thank you for playing.
Ben: Bravo.
Daniel: How does it feel?
Hedvig: The boldness to guess so early in both times, I’m very impressed with your knowledge. But most of all, I’m impressed with the pure goal, like the– What’s it called? It’s not the same as chutzpah. The bravery, it’s very impressive.
Ben: Look, I’ve been told explicitly, I wasn’t allowed to swear in this, but if I was right now, I have some choice words about these individuals right here and what they were willing to just put on the line.
Hedvig: There’s a good word in Australian.
Person: Honestly, I’ve watched The Chase like so many nights, and every time I just want the contestant to take the top offer, and they never do. So, you know what, this is just my equivalent, just take the gamble and go big.
Hedvig: And you did so well of it.
Daniel: Chelsea and Audrey, congratulations on your win. Jessica and Rosie congratulations as well
Person: That was thrilling. I’m sitting down, but that I’ve worked up a sweat.
[laughter]
Daniel: Well, you know who really won today? Science.
Ben: Oh, boo, boo. Boo you and your generalist. As losers, I can say that forget about science, I wanted to win.
Hedvig: Yeah.
Daniel: Was the real prize the friends we made along the way?
Ben: No.
Hedvig: No.
Ben: The real prize is winning, Daniel.
[laughter]
Hedvig: We didn’t.
Daniel: And you didn’t. But Audrey Choi, Chelsea Hinh, Jessica Li, and Rosie Nguyen, thank you so much for playing with us.
Person: Thank you so much for having us.
Person: Thank you.
Person: It was really fun. Yeah.
Person: Yeah. That’s really funny.
Daniel: Victoria Papaioannou and Dr. Elisabeth Mayer, thank you for being here.
Victoria: Thanks for having us.
Elisabeth: Same here.
Daniel: Elisabeth, if there’s a linguistically minded teacher or person or just listener who wants to help with OzCLO, NACLO, or the other linguistic olympiads along the way, you’ve mentioned that there are games that they can play on the website, and we’ll have a link to that on our blog becauselanguage.com. What else could someone do if they wanted to help the cause?
Elisabeth: They could simply steer every young person they know towards the webpage, for example. I think that would be a really good idea. Just make it known around, include all their friends and everyone, but specifically the young people. That would be really good, because I think they would love it.
Hedvig: Yeah, it happens all too often that people only discover the linguistic olympiad when they’re in their senior year, or even some people like me, only when they finished high school. I never got to compete in the Olympiad because no one told me about it while I was in high school. So, tell a friend about it. This goes actually for all of our international listeners as well, because there are national olympians all over the globe. There’s probably one in the country you’re listening in. So, tell them that linguistic olympiads are a thing and that they should go look their local one up.
Daniel: Henry, thank you so much for being such a great quizmaster and writing such fiendishly devious questions.
Henry: I immensely enjoyed trying to create the most complex and interesting, language tangential, let’s say, questions.
Ben: Oh, that’s–
Daniel: Language adjacent.
Ben: Yeah, I love that.
[chuckles]
Daniel: Ben and Hedvig, thanks. Thanks for playing. There’s always next year.
Ben: Our pleasure.
Hedvig: Yeah.
[music]
Daniel: Good job, you guys. GG.
Ben: F this. F you. F everyone. That’s all I have to say without swearing.
[chuckles]
Daniel: Good quiz though. I really enjoyed those questions.
Ben: That was heaps of fun. I thought all those teams did such great work, especially right at the end there where they destroyed us.
Daniel: Ah.
Hedvig: Yeah, I was very impressed by the narrative of it all. The teams went from very few points to very many points. Henry designed a very fun, exciting quiz.
Ben: Absolutely. All the hallmarks of a really good boardgame. A dynamic game where the lead can change at any moment based on how well people perform. Of course, I hate it because they changed on me from winning to losing. But other than that, yeah, great. Just great. Loved it.
Hedvig: Yeah, it was awesome.
Daniel: But now, it’s time for Word of the Week. Hedvig, I think you’ve got the first word.
Hedvig: Yes, I have the first Word of the Week. It is Teflon-kandidaten.
Daniel: Hmm.
Ben: Teflon candidate.
Hedvig: Yes, exactly.
Ben: Yes.
Daniel: I think I know what this is.
Hedvig: Do you? This word comes to us from German, but it also occurs in Swedish as Teflon-politiker. So, what do you think it means?
Daniel: Well, I’ve been hearing about this for a really long time. But Ben, you’ve got this right, you’re across–
Ben: I don’t know. The funniest thing is the way I relate to this word is that there was a person who I worked with once upon a time who famously other people would describe as like a Teflon employee, no matter how sort of like mediocrely this particular individual performed, just nothing stuck and they just always seem to just keep on truckin’. So that’s what, and then I heard the word candidate. So, I was like, “Oh, okay, like that, but for a politician.”
Daniel: But what is this doing in German?
Hedvig: Well, in German, particularly right now, there’s an election going on. And the CDU, so the Christian Democratic Party, which is the biggest party here in Germany, their candidate for Chancellor position, Armin Laschet, has for a long time been called the Teflon Candidate, because whatever scandals or whatever missteps he does, doesn’t seem to stick to him. However, recently, things seem to be sticking more. So, he’s been in the news as the Teflon Candidate who’s no longer a Teflon Candidate. And it has the same use in Swedish except we just say Teflon-Politicians. I think you can compound it with whatever you like. Teflon employee sounds reasonable as well. But, yeah, I’ve seen it a lot in the German news this week.
Daniel: Well, well.
Ben: Hedvig, did you just say that the Christian Democratic Party is the biggest party in Germany?
Hedvig: Yes.
Ben: Really?
Daniel: Wow.
Hedvig: Yes.
Daniel: Are they terrible?
Hedvig: Well, Angela Merkel is their chancellor. European politics, Christian Democrats.
Ben: But hang on. There’s a guy who’s competing internally against Merkel or is she just stepping down?
Hedvig: Merkel is resigning.
Ben: Okay, fair enough.
Hedvig: I’ll bring European News. “Angela Merkel is resigning as Chancellor of Germany. And there is currently an election going on.” And, yeah, the Christian Democrats is the largest party. There’s also CSU, which is the Christian Democrats, but only in Bavaria. They have a mutually exclusive agreement that the National Party will not campaign in Bavaria, and the Bavarian party will not campaign outside of Bavaria. It’s very strange. They’re in a weird union. There’s lots of other parties going on. Christian Democrats is a thing that exists in Europe minus UK. We have them in Sweden, they have them in France, they’re a thing.
Ben: Are they a centrist left party?
Hedvig: They’re centrist right, I would say.
Ben: Okay.
Daniel: Well, the term Teflon President first appeared in English in 1983, because Democratic Congresswoman, Patricia Schroeder, of Colorado, sort of coined it. Reagan was a terrible but popular president and nothing– it’s not really true that nothing stuck to him. His popularity did go up and down with the unemployment rate, and then it really created after Iran-Contra. So, things really did stick to him, but he had this aura of invincibility. When things failed to go badly for him, Democrats really hated that. So, he got the name Teflon President.
Ben: Next word.
Daniel: This one was suggested by Rhian on Discord. I’ll just read this. This is from the BBC. “A record number of people who’ve come into contact with an infected person are self-isolating, most of them having been pinged by the National Health Service contact tracing app. It’s called a ‘pingdemic.’”
Ben: Pingdemic, I like it.
Daniel: Also, been spotted in Swedish publications, at least. That’s what I heard. Hedvig, have you seen this around?
Hedvig: No, I haven’t but I’ve noticed online that I use ping a lot more than other people. Like if there’s something on Twitter or Facebook and I want to tag someone, I’ll go, “Ping, Ben Ainslie.”
Daniel: I do that too.
Hedvig: I’ll write the word ‘ping’.
Daniel: Also, that is the only word in the text if I’m trying to get someone’s reaction, and they haven’t responded quickly.
Hedvig: And it comes from the term, like how you measure speed and networks. You say ping time because you send a message and then ping and then you get pong back.
Ben: Well, hang on. Don’t we need to go a bit further back in the etymological chain though, because that’s not where it originated. It was submariners who used it first, weren’t they?
Hedvig: Oh. Don’t know.
Daniel: Let’s check though.
Ben: Yeah. I believe the networking terminology was borrowed from the navy, because in submarines when you want to locate adversaries, you send out an echolocation ping and you literally listen for the [pong].
Hedvig: I was watching Das Boot in the last few months.
Daniel: Oh, so good.
Ben: Series or the original?
Hedvig: The old movie.
Ben: Oh, man. What a film.
Hedvig: Yeah, terrifying.
Ben: Yeah, what a film.
Daniel: Well, it looks like the meaning that Ben is referring to dates from about 1943. But according to etymonline, the Online Etymology Dictionary, it originally in 1835, referred to the sound of a bullet whistling through the air or striking something sharply [ping].
Ben: Yeah, so I guess, it was in submariner terms, you would hear the ping and they called it a ping because it’s onomatopoeic, just ping was for like bullets in the 1800s. So, I think the networking guys deliberately knowingly borrowed it from submariners. Submariners just used it because that’s the word we used for the sound of something going ping.
Daniel: Our friend, [unintelligible [01:40:59] on Discord comments, “Not going to lie, NGL, I kind of hate it as a word. It’s just trying to shift the blame for everyone needing to self-isolate on to the app for pinging people, instead of recognizing the fact that it’s pinging people because everyone’s catching COVID. But, hey, interesting new word, at least, LOL.
Hedvig: I agree.
Daniel: That’s good. I agree. Finally, HODL.
Hedvig: Yes. Hodl gang, hodl gang, hodl gang. Yeah.
Daniel: Hodl gang? I haven’t seen that one. But what domain are we talking?
Hedvig: Did you not know there’s a series of rap music associated with cryptocurrencies?
[chuckles]
Ben: Oh, God.
Daniel: Oh, no.
Ben: Oh, Jesus.
Hedvig: [chuckles] And people talk about being in the Hodl Gang. Yeah, I know about this.
Daniel: It started as a misspelling like pwn, or own, prwn and snek but it means?
Hedvig: It means to hold on to your cryptocurrencies, even though times are rough.
Daniel: Yep, or stock. I’ve seen it in terms of stock a lot of times.
Ben: So, like weathering the storm kind of thing.
Daniel: Yeah, pretty much. This was exciting to trace because I took it back to the– this wasn’t too hard. It goes back to a forum on Bitcoin talk. The post was “I AM HODLING.” This is in 2013, someone named GameKyuubi. “I AM HODLING.” And then they go on to say, “I typed that title twice, because I knew it was wrong the first time, still wrong, w/e,” whatever. So, it was cool to see the origin of that term ‘hodl’ is still out there. And it’s–
Ben: [crosstalk] -it’s an authentic typo etymology as well. That is unambiguously– Yep, I stuffed that up, but whatever. Keeping it.
Daniel: Well, lately, people have tried to give it a backronym, people say, “Oh, no, it really stands for,” and people do this all the time, stands for, “Hold on for dear life,” hodl.
Ben: That’s a fun backronym, but yeah.
Daniel: It’s a fun backronym but it’s just a comical misspelling. And so, if you hold on to your stocks, you are hodling.
Ben: Ah, those are fun ones. I like that. That somewhat solves the burn of losing so awfully in the last question.
Daniel: Teflon-kandidaten, pingdemic and HODL are Words of the Week. Thanks, everybody.
[music]
Hedvig: If you’re enjoying the show, and you want to tell us how amazing we are, or if you heard us mispronounce or say anything wrong, we don’t care. If you just want to talk to us, we like being talked to. You can give us questions, comments, feedback, say hi, you can get in touch with us on all the places we are BecauseLangPod on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon, Patreon, TikTok, Clubhouse, and Substack. You can also send us a good old-fashioned email at hello@becauselanguage.com.
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[chuckles]
Ben: Now finally, here are some of our top patrons. They are [inhales deeply] Dustin, Termy, Chris B, Chris L, Matt, Whitney, Damien, JoAnna, Helen, Bob, Jack, Kitty, Lord Mortis, Elías, Erica, Michael, Larry, Binh, Kristofer, Andy, Maj, James, Nigel, Kate, Jen, Nasrin, River, Nikoli, Ayesha, Moe, Steele, Andrew, Manú, James — ah, I took a breath — Rodger, Rhian, Jonathan, Colleen, glyph, Ignacio, Kevin, Jeff, Dave H, Andy from Logophilius, and now Samantha! Thanks to all of our patrons for your support!
Daniel: Our theme music has been written and performed by Drew Krapljanov, a member of Ryan Beno and Didion’s Bible. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time. Because Language.
Ben: It’s so funny to watch this on Zoom, because you can see when our competitors are furiously conversing, not because you see them talking, but because you see them looking down very intently.
[laughter]