Butter No Parsnips

On the hunt for some fun facts to bring to the office? Search no more, because this week, Kyle and Emily bring you the longest non-technical word you’ll find in a dictionary: floccinaucinihilipilification. Our hosts begin by exploring a few fancy British boarding schools and their history. They talk about the life of an average schoolboy of Eton College. And Kyle reveals that these boys, knee deep...

Emily and Kyle are joined by science communicator, worm-enthusiast, and SciShow Tangents co-host Ceri Riley. Together they look at the science of randomness, as they explore the tricky yet versatile word stochastic. The trio looks at this word’s older uses in Greek and Latin, particularly by a few well-known mathematicians bearing the name Bernoulli. But they also discover this word’s travel throu...

It’s the 100th episode of Butter No Parsnips and what better way to celebrate than poring over the sacred Lexiconicon while Seth has his back turned. And that’s just what Emily and Kyle did when, in the middle of their secretive studies, they found the notably numerable word ‘centiloquium.’ In order to get his ancient text back, Seth must first learn all of that which Kyle and Emily discovered whi...

CORRECTION: Alex was mistaken when telling the story about Ruben Gotay. While still a true story, he was actually explaining Jordany Valdespin's career. Kyle and Emily are joined by Alex Corigliano , co-host of the podcast dedicated to the New York Mets, the Mets Legends Cast . Emily takes everyone out to the ball game to chat about the meaning and origin of the word fungo. Our intrepid explor...

Emily and Kyle go back to school and chat with author, purveyor of grammar and writing tips, and host of the Grammar Bee at your next corporate event, Ellen Jovin ! Jovin talks about her passion for language–going all the way back to sentence diagramming in her school days, and continuing into co-founding a company teaching courses in writing and speech in the corporate sphere. That passion reache...

Kyle and Emily jump from modern song writing to classical composing, as they explore the distinctly musical word appoggiatura. They talk about appoggiatura’s roots in Italian and beyond. Its meaning was originally related to ‘support,’ but the word later came to be associated with embellishments in classical music. Kyle tells Emily about the techniques of Baroque musicians like Bach and Handel. Ky...

What might Eloise Bridgerton and Eloise at the Plaza have in common? Aside from a name, Emily and Kyle learn that both can be described by this week’s word, hoyden! Our hosts discuss the many theories surrounding this word: a Dutch origin, a connection to pagan heathens and unkempt heaths, and even a religious connotation. Emily talks about the history of “hoity-toity,” while Kyle tells us why we...

This week, our hosts chat about families of all kinds--biological and marital, real and mythical, loving and… strained, as they explore the history of the word privign. Kyle reveals some little-known Latin words that came before modern words like “stepson” and “stepdaughter.” He talks about how these step- words became common, and what a “stepmom” or “stepdad” might have once meant. But to show us...

This week, Emily stumps Kyle with a word whose spelling and pronunciation defy all expectations… umquhile. Emily reveals umquhile’s many definitions, including everything from “late” to “sometimes” to “eventually.” She keeps Kyle in suspense about the word’s spelling for a while, starting with a dive into the um- prefix and its use in British mythology. After a brief quest with a knight from King...

Kyle and Emily trek around the world, and through the wetlands, as they wade into the history of the word vlei. Our hosts begin with this word’s journey through valleys in the Netherlands and swamps in South Africa. They talk about some of the impacts of Dutch colonialism, and the formation of the South African language Afrikaans. Kyle spins beautiful tales about places where there’s a lake for ha...

Emily takes Kyle from the ocean to the sky this week with the seafaring (and spacefaring) word dunsel. With three potential etymologies, the duo takes a brief stay in a Dutch origin before expanding ever outward to those glorious and historical ships of yore, paintings of which have left viewers with eternal questions such as, “What do all those sails even do?” Which lead to completely indeciphera...

Kyle grabs the doorknob with his tongue this week to let Emily into the world of the word fomite. And if you’re still around after reading that sentence, then you’ll have no fear of what follows as Kyle decides to plunge us all head first into the subject of disease transmission. Not before, of course, introducing us to that household name Girolamo Fracastoro who was among the first to fathom the...

Kyle and Emily are taken on another journey through some misused and abused punctuation—this time with a particularly Y2K bent. They sit down with the founder of the “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks Bethany Keeley-Jonker to discuss blogging, the internet of the aughts, and quotation marks used for emphasis(?) From the quilt of niche blogs stitched together with subjects such as the use of l...

Emily calls out to Kyle like a songbird this week to introduce him to the amply avian word roup. Soaring through the word’s Scottish and English uses, Emily shows Kyle the “roups”. From those simple nothing phrases upon which we force alliteration to roup’s somewhat mysterious origins, Kyle discovers just what kind of grave difference the definite article can make. Emily takes us briefly down memo...

This week, Kyle and Emily sit down with renowned psycholinguist Jean Berko Gleason to talk about wugs, wuggies, zibmen, and what they mean for child psychology. They discuss the Wug Test , and what it can tell us about how a child, toddler, or even baby progresses in language development. They talk about what this test has meant for early childhood education and our understanding of early learning...

Emily and Kyle answer the biggest questions of the cosmos, as they discuss the meaning and origin of the word ylem. Our hosts talk about how this word relates to matter and the elements, both in the works of Aristotle and other ancient thinkers, and in the Periodic Table. They chat about some quirks of grammar and pronunciation, but then they dig into the real cosmic center of this episode. Always...

Pack your bags and grab some snacks, because this week Kyle and Emily are going on a literal road trip through the meaning and origin of the word macadam. This eponym leads our hosts back to the life of one John McAdam, a man involved with Long Island history, the American Revolution, the Scottish highway system, and most of all civil engineering. Kyle and Emily reveal how McAdam paved the way (pu...

Looking for some gift ideas to say thank you to your delivery person? You’re in luck, cause this week Emily and Kyle are discussing the meaning and origin of the word cumshaw. Our hosts spend some time getting to know Hokkien, a Chinese language variety from the area around Xiamen. They chat about what makes this variety different from others like Mandarin and Cantonese, and its beginnings as a tr...

In this episode, Kyle and Emily discuss the meaning and origin of the word jactitation. No cap. …Okay, maybe a little cap. They talk about the roots of this word, how it evolved from meanings like throw or scatter, to meanings like boast or brag. And this leads them to a fascinating dive into the history of the letter J, and its relation to the letter I. But the real meat and potatoes of this epis...

Gather ‘round y’all, because this week Kyle and Emily are chatting with Bob McCalden, Chairman of the Apostrophe Protection Society . Our hosts talk with McCalden about how to write with this oft-misused piece of punctuation correctly. They discuss the apostrophe in possessives and contractions, as well as some more elusive cases of English grammar. McCalden also shares his thoughts on some other...

Take a trip through the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of censorship, as Emily and Kyle discuss the meaning and origin of the word bowdlerize. They begin by talking about the family name from which this word derives. That takes them on a deep dive into a time which was very concerned with being family-friendly. Our hosts talk about the Regency and Victorian eras, when modesty and morality were...

Take a load off and put your cares aside, because today Kyle and Emily are talking about the meaning and origin of the word cark. Our hosts dig into some etymology and talk about cark’s roots in French, Latin, and more. They talk about the many meanings and pronunciations this little word has traveled through, varying from physical weight or labor to mental stress or worry. They also talk about th...

Poetry lovers are either gonna love or hate this one, because Seth takes Kyle and Emily on a journey through the meaning and origin of the word flarf. Our hosts travel back to the early 00s internet, and see the emergence of a rather avant garde form of poetry. They read a poem or two from this new genre, talk about how Google plays into their creation, and discuss the divisive impact these poems...

This week, Emily and Kyle discuss the meaning and origin of the word accismus. They’re too polite to say it themselves, but really they’d love for you to listen. Our hosts dive into the Ancient Greek arts of speech and rhetoric. They look at the origin of irony, and a classic comedic scene between Hercules and one of the Greek gods. And they look at that most polite form of irony, saying ‘no thank...

Get ready for a sinfully good episode that is sure to get you out of a bad mood, because Kyle and Emily are discussing the meaning and origin of the word peccant. They talk about this word’s first appearances in texts from Ancient Greece. They explore its meanings from wicked to corrupt to unhealthy, as well as its connection to another modern word. But the bulk of our hosts’ conversation this wee...