What a difference pronunciation makes! The United States has a Department of Defense, and an individual might take classes in self-defense. So why do football and basketball coaches say they're proud of their . . . "DEE-fence?" Linguists have a theory about why. Also, some funny limericks to help you learn obscure words, and what you will and won't find on a desert island. Plus, kennings, cobwebs, crestfallen, catillate, cataglossism, and more.

FULL DETAILS

Do you think dictionaries of obsolete words with definitions in limerick form are cool? If you're annuent—meaning “nodding”—we'll take that as a "yes." You'll find lots of them at The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form, also known as OEDILF.

Sheep-dipping is a business term for when employees are made to drink the Kool-Aid, often at tedious briefings or sales seminars they're forced to attend.

As the OEDILF notes, exspuition's an old word for spitting, which you can do either standing or sitting.

We have a Department of Defense, and football teams have a defense, and chances are you don't pronounce those terms the same way. It likely has to do with sportscasters emphasizing of- and de- to differentiate the offensive and defensive sides of teams, and that's how the emphases took hold.

Put a plate of milk in front of a cat, and you know that cat will catillate.

Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game that changes Venn diagrams to zen diagrams.

Bespoke, as in bespoke tailored clothing, comes from an old word meaning
"spoken for"—to bespeak means to request or order a good or service.

What could sound more romantic than French kissing? Perhaps its archaic synonym, cataglossism. Here's a limerick to help you remember this word.

Most high schoolers hear the bell ring, and they know it's time for next period. But some students simply refer to each class as first bell, second bell, and so on. What did you call each class period?

Steer clear of the flu. You'll groan on wet sheets. You will mew.

When the crest of a rooster's comb falls down toward their beak, they appear sad, or crestfallen.

Dubbing someone a knight by tapping their shoulder with a sword is a venerable tradition, but that didn't stop a wag from mocking it in limerick form with a groaner of a pun.

Kennings are compound words that have metaphorical meanings, such as whale-road meaning "sea." They're often found in Anglo-Saxon poetry, such as The Seafarer and Beowulf, but there are modern ones as well, such as rugrats for "small children."

Why steal something insignificant when you can brodie it? This slang term means basically the same thing.

Cunctator is just a lesser-known term for a procrastinator—one that happens to fit into a funny limerick.

Cobwebs are the same thing as spiderwebs, and they get their name from the old English term coppe, meaning "spider," which turns up in The Hobbit in a poem about an attercop.

Many desert islands don't look like a desert at all. They're lush and green. That's because the term reflects the old sense of desert meaning "wild and uninhabited."

This episode was hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett.

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