Mandatory Sentencing Guidelines

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm your summertime, fun-time guest bailiff, Monty Belmonte, and we are in chambers this week to clear the docket.

In the summertime, when the weather is cold and the fog won't go away and you're feeling very old, it's the summertime here at WUE.

Are you in Maine?

How'd I do, Joel?

Pretty good.

Who did that song?

Joe Bird and the Field Hippies?

No.

Who does that song?

Mongo Jerry.

Mungo

Jerry.

Of course.

Mungo Jerry.

Not only did I channel a weirdly named artist, but of course, Joel Mann had that name on the tip of his tongue here at WERU in Maine.

And over there through my screen is my friend Monty Belmonte, your summertime, fun time guest bailiff.

in the studios of New England Public Media there in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.

How are you, Monty?

I'm doing really well.

Thank you.

Glad to be back with you.

It is the summer now.

It is really the summer.

Yeah.

I am in Maine.

Joel is across the board from me.

You are there in your new, still new digs at New England Public Media.

For those who don't know, Monty has moved on from WRSI of the River, still a great radio station.

Yes, indeed.

No longer has to get up at 2 o'clock in the morning every morning and instead does a wonderful afternoon daily show on New England Public Media called, say it again, The Notorious 413.

The delicious 413.

The fabulous.

The fantabulous.

The grandiloquent 413.

I love these.

That's all a 413, of course, being the area code there.

And Joel, it's just such a thrill to be here with you at WERU.

We're going to be recording a lot because,

well, I mean, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but

Jesse Thorne and I are going to go on tour this fall.

So we're going to be banking a lot of episodes up here at WERU.

But because we have a special guest today, also from the New England area, I'm going to chat with you a little later on, Joel, because we don't have a lot of time to chat.

But

only today are we lucky enough to have Emily Brewster back to the show, a longtime friend of the court, senior editor and lexicographer at Merriam-Webster, and a fellow resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

It's Emily.

Hi, Emily.

How are you?

Hello.

I'm doing well.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

I'm doing really well because you're here.

Thank you very much for joining us again.

You are still in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, correct?

Yes or no?

I am.

Yes.

And are you a Commonwealthian

by birth?

No.

I'm a Pittsburgher by birth.

No, I'm actually

just by childhood time, right?

I'm actually a New Yorker by birth.

You've been all over in some big cities.

You grew up in Pittsburgh.

I've told this story before, but the one time I was in Pittsburgh, or one of two times I was in Pittsburgh, I came out of the hotel to go do a show and

the elevator opened and there were these two broy dudes who got out.

And one of them said to the other, Are you ready to go see Falling Water dude?

Falling Water, of course, being the

Frank Lloyd Wright, very famous Frank Lloyd Wright house outside of Pittsburgh.

Yeah.

So you ready?

Hey, bro, you ready to go see Falling Water?

He goes, Bro, I was born ready to see Falling Water.

Two very broy architecture dudes.

Kind of lovely.

But now you live in Western Massachusetts,

which is where we first met.

And you've been on the show before.

For those who don't know, I will say it again.

Emily is a senior editor and lexicographer at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Company.

What is a lexicographer?

That's a word that needs defining.

Merriam-Webster defines a lexicographer as what, Emily?

A person who writes and edits dictionaries.

Person who writes and edits dictionaries.

And those of you who don't remember, Emily discovered a new word.

That's not exactly how you say it.

You realize there was a usage of a word that was not documented in the dictionary, and that word was/slash is.

Uh, I mean, that's just one.

It happens all the time.

It's just, it's, it is, it is a, it is a significant part of the job.

It's just, just finding these little, these little missing, uh, these little lacunee in the dictionary, things, words that have not been covered yet, but that are in use.

But yes, uh.

Yeah.

Uh, the letter A, pronounced uh, not the letter, not the word uh, like uh,

the letter A as in uh, as in

a very pleased John Hodgman welcomed Emily to the show.

Would that be the correct usage?

Yeah, not the documentary.

Yes, yes.

So the uh there in that case tells tells your listener that you are not always very pleased, right?

Because if it were the very pleased, then you just might be continually pleased, like just pleased all the time, just going about in a state of great pleasure.

An intuitively insightful Emily Brewster concluded that John Hodgman is not always pleased.

It's true.

But I'm very pleased now because, as in the past, Emily is going to help us sort through your language disputes, your grammar disputes, your phrasing disputes, your pronunciation disputes.

I'm mispronouncing that.

Your usage disputes.

You sent in your harsh words about words to the court, and we're going to settle them with a special docket today that we are calling, I came up with this today, mandatory sentencing guidelines.

I love it.

Yeah, that's good.

Like that?

Yes.

Come up with that today, man.

Put that in the dictionary.

And Monty, you're going to help us by guest bailiffing.

And we're all going to drink cheap beer and sit by a pool.

So it's summertime.

Let's go.

Let's get through this word docket.

Here's something from Allison in New York, New York.

My fiancé, Zach, uses the word what as a relative pronoun in place of which or that.

For example, he'll say, I decided not to go into the store.

What was too crowded?

Or I'm packing a jacket, what has a hood?

His brother also makes this mistake.

I presume it's something they learned growing up.

I don't think it's a regionalism.

They are from the Boston area, whereas I was raised in the great city of San Francisco.

I don't want to be an insufferable petant, but I can't stand it when he does this.

Please order that Zach make all reasonable efforts to correct this error.

So, ah, wow.

Have you ever heard of this, Joel?

No.

No.

I'm packing a jacket.

What has a hood?

Allison also sent in some evidence in the form of text messages.

So this is not just a spoken speech pattern, but Zach uses it in writing as well, such as, this is Allison to Zach.

How about you?

How was lunch?

And Zach replies, lunch was fine.

Fast, thank goodness, which I totally...

I totally appreciate.

Yeah.

And then Zach goes on to say, it has been fine.

I was doing so much outreach today.

What is so exhausting?

And

later, Zach says, we took some good walks today.

I actually had a great day.

It was pretty low-key.

What was nice?

Then in a little bit, I'll see Adam and Max.

First of all, I just have to, I have to, I'm completely with Zach on this one.

A fast lunch is good.

Fast lunch is good.

Lunch didn't take too long.

But as a native of the Commonwealth, Monty, and as a resident of the Commonwealth, Emily,

and Joel, where are you from originally?

Virginia.

Virginia,

different Commonwealth.

But I lived in Cape Cod for a while.

There you go.

Has anyone ever heard a person in the Boston area saying it was pretty low-key, what was nice, or I'm wearing a jacket, what has a hood?

Never.

Monty?

Never.

Unless.

But I mean, this doesn't have anything to do with Boston.

What if I said like this?

I decided not to go into the store.

What was too crowded?

That's what it sounds like to me.

Like they're speaking with a cockney accent.

It feels a little cockney.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a little cocked up is what I'm saying.

I'm familiar with it from a friend from Colorado who says this

construction sometimes.

Colorado.

Well,

tell me what you think about this construction.

Is it, as Allison says, a mistake?

Well, no.

So this construction is at least 450 years years old and a slightly different version of it with a pronoun as an antecedent instead of a noun phrase.

That's 800, like at least 820 years old.

So the Dictionary of American Regional English has evidence of this just in the US.

I don't even know about what they're doing on the other side of the pond.

From Maine to Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Nevada, Hawaii.

Emily Dickinson used it in a poem.

No, sorry.

Actually, it was a letter.

She used it in a letter.

So that means even, you know, even more natural speech, even more natural language than something that she is slaved over.

So it's definitely dialectal.

And it was, you know, apparently in Emily Dickinson's dialect.

You know, it's safely dialectical.

It's not standard English, but that doesn't mean it's bad.

And of course,

we do not believe in prescriptive grammar here.

on the Judge John Hodgman podcast any more than I imagine the Merriam-Webster dictionary does.

I'm very glad to know that.

I mean, I wouldn't be here otherwise.

I know.

Well, I look, I appreciate it.

For example,

by prescriptive grammar and usage, we mean to say, this is the correct way to say things.

This is the correct way to do it, which is often tied into various sort of mechanisms of class and discrimination.

And

we choose instead a descriptive approach, which is to say,

These are the ways people say things.

What is just fine most of the time?

For example, the Merriam-Webster dictionary refers to a hot dog as a sandwich.

I can describe that error and not get upset

because certainly there is some wiggle room there.

I know that we have this difference of opinion vis-a-vis hot dogs and sandwich-ness, me and the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and yet we can both agree to disagree and be fine with it.

There is not a mistake there.

In this case, there are really two possibilities.

One is that Zach and his brother were raised hearing this kind of a construction.

And because it's such a basic kind of construction, they just assimilated it into their natural speech and have not really considered,

or until recently, apparently, until maybe until who knows how often Zach has been, has been confronted about his unusual speech.

Yeah, they don't know which is wrong with them.

But what's possible is that they learned this from childhood.

You know, who knows why constructions like this fall out of use, but they are maintained by family groups, really, and by sometimes larger groups also.

So it's possible that it's that.

The other option is that this is an affectation that Zach and his brother have decided to adopt.

And if they've decided to adopt it, then I think it's reasonable to ask that

he stop.

But I think it's also really unlikely that it's an affectation.

It seems more likely that it's just this quirky element of her ostensibly beloved partner.

And

it's just a feature of his idiolect.

And

she can accept it.

And ideally, she would find it charming.

That's my opinion.

You know, I'm glad you said that because a lot of people know I only ever love, ostensibly.

I love

you

i'm glad you take such a firm stance against uh affectation though uh emily brewster that's i agree with you if this is a put-on like imagine monte belmonte doing that terrible cockney accent all the time that would be something where an authority would have to step in and prevent him from doing that affectation Oh, well, and actually, I didn't mean that you should make him stop doing the affectation if it's an affectation, just that she could ask that reasonably.

But, you know, I'm not really

a fear on the power of the court.

So I defer to you on that.

What if we mandate that he does use a cockney accent all the time?

What with this strange affectation?

Just go for it, full ball.

What was nice when I spoke?

I want to know, Allison, why you have not investigated this further.

I will say that I am very curious because while it is not standard English, nor is it particularly typical for any of the speech ways that I have ever heard in New England, Although, of course, Emily, you say there's documented usage in Maine, and obviously it's a big part of Amherst, Massachusetts lingo.

That's where Emily Dickinson

wrote her poems and letters, what were very good, honestly.

So

I am curious if this is a, you say, Allison, that this is not a regionalism, but I would encourage, and indeed I would demand, that you investigate and ask your ostensibly beloved Zach

where this is coming from.

And

not because it's anything particularly wrong, so long as he is understandable and comprehensible to you,

but because I want to know.

I would like to know.

Zach and your brother, you need to make account for yourself and why you say what in this way.

And if it is affected, I would like to know that too.

Where are you cribbing it from?

What are you trying to get away with?

Or which are you trying to get away with?

This is the kind of stuff that I'm very curious about.

So I will pass judgment insofar as saying, yes, Allison, you may not want to be an insufferable pedant, but it comes naturally to you.

And I will not judge Zach for speaking, quote-unquote, non-standard English.

particularly if it's just an authentic regionalism that you haven't explored yet.

But I am curious to know whether this is an affectation.

And if it is, then I agree with Emily Brewster.

We can go ahead and ask Zach to knock it off.

Knock it off?

Is that what we say?

Why did I say aft?

Yeah.

And ask Zach to knock it on, which is how I say knock it off.

All right, let's hear another one.

Here's a case from Kimberly in San Marcos, California.

My friend Rob and I disagree on what to call events that happen every year.

We agree the first such event should be called the inaugural event.

But what comes next?

Rob says that the next time the event occurs, that it should be called the first annual event.

I maintain that when the second event occurs, the inaugural event retroactively becomes the first annual.

Thus, the second event is the second annual.

Who is right?

Well, first of all, this all feels very abstract to me because I don't know what the event is.

So Monty,

Emily, Joel, I'm very proud to announce that today is the inaugural reading of this letter.

I will read this letter

every year on or about early July.

And this is the inaugural reading of it.

And so next time,

Emily Brewster,

would next year's reading of the letter be the first annual reading of the letter or the second annual reading of the letter?

It would be the second one.

It would be the second annual reading of the letter.

Yeah.

Here's what's going on syntactically.

We have the word event and it's it's being modified by two adjectives.

If we go to, you know, first annual event, second annual event.

But both of those adjectives modify the noun event.

It's not like

first or second doesn't modify annual.

It modifies the word event.

So the first event, the first annual event, if the event is not the first one, then it can't be called the first

one.

But let me, let me see, let me let me put this to the test a little bit.

Monty, you do a march, right?

Yes, I do.

Tell me about the march that you do.

It is a ridiculous publicity stunt fundraiser to raise money and awareness for the food bank of Western Mass, where I push and

raising money for the food bank.

What a

ostensibly ridiculous thing to do.

The ostensibly ridiculous part is I push a shopping cart 43 miles over the course of two days from Springfield, Massachusetts to Greenfield, Massachusetts.

That's the ridiculous part.

The wonderful part is a community coming together to donate lots of money to make sure people have enough to eat.

All throughout the whole region, the whole defemistrible 413.

Yes, although I have not gone to Berkshire County yet.

I got to figure that out.

Okay.

So, when was the first time you did this?

What was 14 years ago, I believe?

Are you answering in the form of a question?

This is in jeopardy.

This will be the 14th

annual one coming up this November.

So 14th time I have been doing it this November, yeah.

So I think that makes it 14 years ago that I did.

I don't count the first one as the first annual Monty's March.

Now I do, but I would never have said that back then.

I would have said the first ever or inaugural?

The inaugural.

So the second time you did it is the second annual.

Yes.

Correct.

But thus making the first one,

the inaugural, the first annual.

It's like there was no World War I until there was World War II.

That's a good, that's a good thing.

I guess they needed a sequel.

Everything needs a sequel these days.

I guess so.

But Emily Brewster, let me, so that works, right?

That conforms with your understanding and your answer, right, Emily Brewster?

It does.

It's very confusing.

Yeah.

But what about this?

Let's say I get...

married.

Well, Joel, your daughter just got married.

That's right.

About a year ago in Paris, France.

Paris, France.

Now, that was what I would call your daughter's inaugural marriage.

Correct.

So that was just about a year ago, and maybe exactly a year ago.

I don't want to know the date because I do not have a gift for her or you.

She'll be disappointed.

But

the year...

commemoration of the first year of marriage is the first anniversary in this case.

Correct.

And the first anniversary gift is what joel

do you know the traditional first anniversary gift no monty emily paper paper paper yeah these are the these are them in order you ready for this paper cotton leather

linen

wood

and then the sixth anniversary hot dog

Seventh anniversary,

sandwich, because they're not the same thing.

Eighth, Kung Pao Chicken.

Oh, by the way, these are the new modern Judge John Hodgman anniversary gifts.

Sorry if that wasn't clear to you.

Where does money come in?

Well,

let's see.

The eighth is Kung Pao Chicken.

The ninth is a complete set of ALF trading cards from Put This On Shop, which are pretty valuable.

Yeah.

Then the 10th is Eggnog and Fanta.

The 11th is

Eggnog and Moxie.

The 12th is a gallon of scallops, 12th wedding anniversary.

You get out of a gallon of scallops.

And the 13th, and

this is very special.

The 13th is the Mitsubishi Delica Japanese Adventure Van anniversary.

Because Jesse Thorne really likes a Mitsubishi Delica Japanese adventure van.

And do you know that by

this fall when we go on tour, it will be the 13th anniversary of this podcast?

Wow.

So if you're listening and you're coming on to see us on tour this fall, please remember, make sure to bring a Mitsubishi delica as a gift.

And also it has to be full of It's It Ice Cream Sandwiches.

And yeah, that's what's going on.

The 15th is a cranky Shetland pony.

The 16th is a living room-sized jellyfish tank.

The 17th is a Canadian pizza franchise, a whole franchise,

a national franchise.

The 18th, you'll like this, Emily.

It's a bat house and a bat house.

That is to say, a bat house where bats can live on the side of a house, and also a house that is infested with bats in honor of our bat brothers episode.

Plus, you get a complimentary dictionary for the smashing of bats.

That was the bat control method used by the...

Could there also be a bath house included?

Just to...

Yeah, that's just another H.

Yeah.

A bath house is terrific.

Yeah.

And then

I think we're now at the at the 18th anniversary, you get lunch with Richard Kind, the actor Richard Kind.

That's your gift, which is actually not very challenging to get.

You just call them.

They'll show up.

19th, you get a Mr.

Peanut jump scare.

You get scared by someone wearing a Mr.

Peanut costume, and that person is Richard Kind.

And the 20th anniversary

for your daughter, when she reaches her 20th anniversary,

I'm sure we'll both be alive to celebrate it.

Yeah, you hope.

Get separate bedrooms for the bride and groom, finally.

They get to sleep in separate rooms.

But Emily, what's the difference between

a first anniversary and a first annual event, right?

Because

if the second Monty's March is the second annual, but the year commemoration of a wedding is the first anniversary,

I guess what's different is a commemoration versus a repeat, a repetition of the event, would you say?

Yeah, I mean, an event is a single thing that happens, and an anniversary is necessarily, by definition, a repeat, right?

It is a marking of something that has already happened.

Here's my wish to your daughter, Joel.

Okay.

I wish that her marriage be a single thing that happens and that there be only one of them that we honor with a gallon of scallops when the time is right.

We all do.

Amen.

We're going to take a quick break to hear from this week's partners.

We will be back with Emily Brewster from Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Words, What is Good,

Monty Belmonte, and Joel Mann, and meet John Hodgman on the Judge John Hodgman podcast in just a moment.

Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

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Let them know Jesse and John sent you.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

This week, we are clearing the docket.

I'm Summertime Funtime, guest Bailiff Monte Belmonte, and we're here with Judge John Hodgman, of course, Joel Mann, and Emily Brewster from Merriam-Webster.

Our dictionary right down the street from where I am right now in Springfield, Massachusetts.

That's right.

It's a Springfield joint, isn't it?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary.

It is.

When I think of Springfield, I, of course, think of the Basketball Hall of Fame, Dr.

Seuss, and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Yeah.

Indian motorcycles, Friendly's ice cream, lots of good stuff.

Oh, let's not talk about any of that.

Volleyball too?

Oh, no, no, no.

Volleyball is Holyoke, right?

Volleyball.

Holyoke is the birthplace of volleyball.

Yeah.

They used to signplace.

Yeah, almost all of their like faxes back in the day when I had a morning radio show and I would get faxes from the city of Holyoke about parking bans.

They all said on them.

Holyoke, birthplace of volleyball.

Maine is the birthplace of the famous sport of plugging up leaks in your basement.

Does it get really competitive up there?

Yeah, well, it's more person against nature than person against person.

It's been very cold and wet here.

But we're working on keeping things dry.

So

what's this next case we got here, Monty?

Here's a case from Adam Adam in Verona, Wisconsin.

I have a dispute with my sisters, April and Jessica, about the word since.

When someone uses the phrase, X is the best something since Y, I believe the speaker is making a tacit

component between the two.

Yeah.

Very correct.

I'm always saying X is the best something since Y.

Right.

Go on.

I apologize.

No, no worries.

They believe the speaker is making a tacit comparison between the two.

They deem the former to be superior.

My sisters say that using since in that phrase does not suggest comparison between the two endpoints.

It's simply defining a time period.

I think we need Merriam-Webster to weigh in on the case.

Merriam-Webster is the.

Is it Synektoche?

If I were to refer to Emily Brewster as Merriam-Webster, would that be a Synectoche?

I believe so.

I'm asking Merriam-Webster.

There's actually some overlap in the use of Synectoche and metonymy, but yes, Synectoche is the more precise term.

Oh, I was saying, I was more on the synecdoche side of things than metonymy.

Yes.

Beautiful.

Merriam-Webster, I have a question for you.

Emily, did you understand the question that Adam was posing?

Yes.

Yes.

What do you have to say about it?

Well,

when we say that, you know, X is the best something since Y, it's very clear that a comparison is being made.

So Adam is right about that.

But the new item, I I think, is either equal to or about equal to or better than.

So I think he's wrong about it being clearly superior.

So if you were to say, for example, you know, this is the best Judge John Hodgman episode since the last one about language, it doesn't mean that this one is better than that one.

In truth, the phrase really is just good at denigrating everything that's come between.

I mean, isn't it marking a point in time to a degree?

Like if I I say

this new upgraded voice over internet protocol telephone line installed in WERU is so clear and so smooth compared to the janky copper wires that were being used in years past, it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Now, there is no comparison between VoIP and sliced bread.

It just means to say this is the best thing that happened to be invented since sliced bread was invented, no?

Yes, but is it saying that it is better than the sliced bread?

I don't see, I don't think it is.

I agree with you, Emily.

I think that it's simply saying, remember how awesome it was when sliced bread came along and we were so excited?

Well, guess what?

I'm excited about something new and it's happening now.

And it's called VoIP.

But Adam's dispute makes it seem like the former is superior, meaning that sliced bread is better than the bread.

Stop saying the former is superior.

I'm simply quoting.

All right, let's unpack this sentence one more time.

I'm a dispute with April and Jessica.

When someone uses the phrase X is the best something since Y, I believe the speaker is making a comparison between the two.

I took out tacit there.

I took out tacit, Adam.

Too many words.

You didn't need that.

The speaker deems the former to be superior.

The latter would be Y, the former would be X.

Right.

So that is saying

that, right.

So that is saying that VoIP is better than sliced bread.

And that I will not say.

I will not say that that's true.

If it is sliced bread, really good, actually.

Well, it's true.

Oh, no.

You're right, Emma.

I mean, what if you put a hot dog on it?

I don't want.

Joel Mann's daughter's former

husband is ex.

I'm about to put a hot dog on a piece of bread.

Why don't you put a worm on a hook the way you're trying to bait me into this argument?

You started it for sure.

I was not coming here planning to talk about hot dogs at all or sandwiches.

No, no, no, no.

We're not talking about it.

We're not talking about it.

It's It's terrific.

It's terrific.

Hot dogs are great.

I think there's some complexity to this particular phrase, right?

It can either be used to compare things that are alike, like in my example, or things that are very unalike.

And I think that the function differs when, depending on whether two things are alike or two things are dramatically different.

So you're saying the answer is kind of Adam's a little bit right and April and Jessica are a little bit right.

It depends on what we call usage and context.

I think so.

Yeah.

Because the sliced bread thing really is a celebration of ingenuity.

Whether or not you think sliced bread is so hot.

And you know what?

I'm going to be honest with you, Joel.

VoIP is better than sliced bread now that I think about it.

It could be sliced sourdough.

Yeah, but I mean, when you think about the fact that I'm talking to my friends.

Emily and Monty,

and I'm in a room, and they're in Massachusetts, and I'm in a room with you in Maine, and I can see pictures of them crystal clear because of the internet.

Now, we all know that the internet is destroying civilization,

but this is still pretty cool.

And I'd rather slice my own bread than never get to see Monty Belmonte's smiling face on my teleconferencing program again.

Oh, shit.

Here's my ruling.

I'm going to rule in favor of April and Jessica.

For the most part, there is a comparison, but it is not necessarily a comparison of value or superiority.

And I'm going to rule against Adam because even as I say that, I'm not sure which one of you holds what position because your letter was very confusing to me.

And I didn't, I'm sorry about that.

And I'm going to say this, sliced bread,

quoth Jesse Thorne, hang it up, sliced bread.

We don't need you.

We need a new gold standard of comparison.

I mean, I think that sliced bread was a huge innovation for its time and was

a big increase in convenience for hardworking parents trying to shove peanut butter and jelly into the grubby hands of their offspring.

But I would say this is the best thing since VoIP.

Today is the inaugural time that VoIP has become the new gold standard

for replacing sliced bread.

What about, do we have anything from Janice in Toronto, perhaps?

We sure do.

Janice writes, I have a dispute with anyone who says something is addicting instead of addictive.

I know it is a futile venture to police how people speak and have zero desire to do so.

Really?

Zero desire?

Seems like you're writing me a letter.

It sure does.

I just want someone to agree with me in truth.

So,

Janice, I understand.

And Paul and Toledo posed a similar question about the distinction between toward and towards,

two words that are just a little bit different.

And there's some dispute over which, if either of them is quote unquote, correct.

And Paul goes on to say, I also am vexed as to how I grew up with utmost when I am now faced with the daily reality of upmost.

Oh, yeah.

I've never heard upmost before in my life.

Of the utmost importance?

Have you ever heard that, Joel?

Never.

Never.

Monty?

No.

Emily, maybe we're hearing a neologism.

No, no, it's not a neologism.

You've heard

something being of the utmost importance?

Well, I have, but also upmost, before people were kind of making upmost do the job that utmost traditionally does, upmost is a word meaning uppermost.

Like, you know, you're going to sleep on the upmost bunk tonight.

Right.

Yes, of course.

That's where all only children sleep.

All only children have bunk beds, and they always sleep on the top bunk just

to lord it over everybody who has to share their parents' love and also to represent the horrible absence of siblinghood beneath them as they fall into slumber.

Upmost is a word, Paul.

Upmost also sounds like something someone would say in a in an elevator that's stuck, as I once got stuck in an elevator in Toledo.

That's the only thing I can think of when I think of Toledo, Paul.

I'm sorry.

I wish I had better associations with Toledo.

I'm sure it's a terrific town.

So let's talk about it.

Addicting versus addictive versus toward versus towards versus utmost versus utmost.

What do you have to say about these

not-so-classic pairings?

Well, I mean, there are three very different cases to my mind.

So I think that Janice doesn't have as much to worry about as she thinks she does because addictive is so far and away more common.

than the word addicting.

But they're both fully established.

The word addicting dates to like the 1930s.

Addictive is a late 19th century word.

And

they're both used.

They're both perfectly fine.

Even medical professionals will use the word addicting to describe true physical addiction.

But addictive is so much more.

common, even in kind of informal uses, like you know, so addictive is more common than so addicting, for example.

So there is like anecdotal evidence that that addicting is the word that you should choose when it's like a, you know, it's an inclination that you're indulging.

And that addictive is what is the, is the word, the proper word for the compulsive chronic need.

That the substance itself automatically has an addictive quality.

That's how it...

That's how it scans to my ear, that the substance, let's say

scallops that you eat by the gallonful.

Like a scallop is addictive if it means you eat one, you're probably going to get addicted to that scallop.

Whereas I feel like addicting means

it's very tasty

and

I might develop a behavior of eating more scallops than I should, but there's nothing chemical in the scallops that is causing me to suffer scallop withdrawal.

when I don't eat a gallon a day.

I'm trying to describe Joel, who's suffering with this.

This is actually an intervention, Joel.

Is that a distinction that I am inventing in the moment, or is there anything there, Emily Brewster, would you say?

I think that's a distinction that you are not alone in making, but it is not inherent to the word's actual meaning.

Either way.

Addictive is older than addicting, at least in terms of its citation, present citation.

Okay.

All right.

So, Janice, take it easy.

You know, don't, don't, you know, it's, you know, it tends to be a little bit addicting?

Correcting people's language

gives you a real high.

Believe me, I know I'm a recovered prescriptivist.

It gives me a little high to say, Mil, you're saying it wrong.

Look at me.

Look at me polishing a shiny apple on my cardigan in college.

Yeah, don't get addicted to correcting other people.

What about Tord and Tords?

Are those interchangeable?

Yeah.

Those are also interchangeable.

They're both about a thousand years old, more than a thousand years old, more like 1,200 years old.

both of them so not one i mean you know obviously if there was one that was distinctly older than the other then a petant might make an argument like well this is the new one because a uh you know case a was used in the 1500s and case b didn't come around until the 1600s or whatever but this is one where they they go back pretty much interchangeably for as long as we have written record, it sounds like.

Yes, that's right.

And that argument that something is better because it's older is spurious anyway, right?

Like that's that's a garbage argument, right?

Like, who cares which one's older, which one does the job better?

But in this case, they both

go back to the very beginning of the English language.

And that that that word, that W-A-R-D,

also obviously goes back to the same time period.

And there are a whole bunch of other words that also allow both forms.

So, you know, forwards, backwards, forward, backward, inward, outward, inwards, outwards.

All of of those have been in use for a thousand years.

They're just, they're all, they're all out there doing, doing their thing, and some speakers prefer one and some prefer another.

It's weird that English allows this, or more specifically, it's weird that English in old English times allowed it, because back then they had these, you know, the case endings were like a complex part of the English language.

Case endings were very important and they changed according to an, you know, whether it was an adjective or what case of the sentence it was.

And still, the language allowed this variation in these words.

I want to posit a theory that

backwards was originally backwards, but then they got rid of the S because back then S's were Fs, and it was hard to say and write backwards.

You know what I mean?

I think I'm probably

interesting theory.

Speculative etymology is one of my favorite things to do, too.

I think I'm right.

I think it was because of witches that they got rid of the S.

They thought that the S looked like an F, and because of witches in Old English time, they were like, we're going to persecute it.

Remove it.

But when you talk about Old English, it seems to me like Old English didn't have any rules whatsoever.

Oh, it had way more rules.

It really did.

I mean, it used to be much more like modern German than it is now.

And so it would matter if something was in the accusative case or in the dative case, and adjectives and nouns would take endings the way that they do in German.

So when did we shed that kind of

Teutonic self-policing?

I mean, it was really before Middle English that that had mostly fallen away because by the time Chaucer was writing, that stuff was kind of, it was like, you know, for the most part gone, which is what made it possible for English to adopt so many words into it from French.

Right?

It didn't matter.

You didn't have to conjugate them.

You didn't have to worry about what endings they took.

You just threw the word into the language and used it.

And that magpie nature of the English language is one of the things that makes it so difficult to learn and yet so fun to use and play around with, I think, personally.

All the loanwords that we have stolen for that reason,

I think it's terrifics, is what I would say.

I'd add an S to it.

That's how strongly I feel about it.

I do have one more thing to say about toward and towards.

Please.

And that is that in British English, they really like the S.

They like it.

So in England, you would say towards more often often than you might say toward.

Yeah.

It's untoward to say toward

in England.

Right.

And why are you saying it?

Why aren't you saying it in your

it's untoward to say toward, governor?

What with all the S's that have been milling about?

Oh my God.

I feel like Dick Van Dykes.

I'm like a one-man band over here.

I like how your elbows come into play when you do that accent.

I wish Elysius could see

that while he's speaking, Monty is holding an imaginary chimney sweep in one hand and

he's walking around with a pair of cymbals between his knees at the same time.

You're lucky that it's my elbows, with it being a cockney accent.

Oh, boy.

Though we may agree, finally, that language is what is used, not is what you are instructed to use.

Let's instruct Monty, no more puns for the rest of the show, if you don't mind.

Oh, dang it.

All right.

Do as much as you want, of course.

Thank you.

Upmost, of course, means uppermost, as in the bunk bed that we talked about earlier, Emily.

What is the origin of the word utmost?

Because I don't see a lot of uts in the English language typically.

I do with pretzels.

Look, they don't sponsor us.

They're never going to come around.

I still love, was it the taste of the summer for me?

And frankly, this is pretty addicting and addictive.

Uts special dark pretzels dipped in hell of a good onion dip.

Those are my store, my brand name combos

for

a cold afternoon on a pebbly beach in Maine.

But Emily, do you happen to know the etymology of utmost?

Yeah, it's again, it traces back to, it dates to Old English.

The ut was originally an adverb pronounced oot that meant out.

Oh, the outmost.

Yeah.

Is it the same root of the word utter?

Not utter as in a cow, but utter, like the utter gall?

No, no, it's not.

This particle, this word particle does not exist in very many words that are still used.

I am, I found exactly one.

And

what is it?

It is.

Well.

Oh, no, no, no, no, wait, wait a minute.

This is a perfect opportunity.

We'll reveal that after a break.

It's an incredible, incredible tease opportunity when we come back Emily Brewster will reveal the one other word in the English language that uses the term ut or ut meaning out but first let's take a little break

you know we've been doing my brother my brother me for 15 years and

maybe you stopped listening for a while maybe you never listen and you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years i know where this has ended up but no no, you would be wrong.

We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing.

Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works.

The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother, my brother, and me.

We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

And if not, we just leave it out back.

goes rotten.

So check it out on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined.

No, no, no.

It's good news as well.

There is is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Love.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Monty, we're taking a break from Clearing the Docket, Mandatory Sentencing Guidelines.

Let's talk about what we have coming up.

I'll tell you, Monty, I mentioned it at the top of the show, very, very excited to say that the Judge John Hodgman podcast is going on tour, and this is a big one.

We are going not only around the country more than ever before,

dates forthcoming, watch this space for details, but also over the seas to the London Podcast Festival.

We're returning to the London Podcast Festival on Friday, September 15th and Saturday, September 16th.

Information and tickets are available now via the maximumfund.org events page.

Just go to maximumfund.org slash events.

We're doing two big shows while we're in London for the podcast festival.

I can say on some authority that Jesse Thorne will also be there.

We'll be doing a live Jordan Jesse go during the same festival.

It's a wonderful time.

We haven't been there since 2017.

We cannot wait to go back.

And does that mean we're going to do some more shows overseas?

I can't say for sure, but the answer is yes, we will.

And we'll be announcing those shows as well as all of our other dates very soon.

So as I say, listen to this space for details.

And meanwhile, send us your London beefs.

You know what they have over there, the beef eaters.

You know what I mean?

The beef eaters are the ones who wear the hats and make the gin and guard the Tower of London.

That's what we are.

We need your beefs.

We need your beefs to survive.

We need your disputes.

We need your arguments.

We need your fights.

We need all of your disputes, particularly if you're living in the London area or can be there during September, because we are putting on a show, the one I was just talking to you about.

So please send in your London beefs so we can eat them right up at maximumfun.org slash JJ H O.

Monty, what's going on with you out there in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts?

I've got my new radio show.

I've jumped ship from my beloved WRSI 939 the river and started an afternoon daily, at least Monday through Friday, talk show with my co-host, Khaleese Smith, called The Fabulous 413, where we try to talk to as many interesting people about the interesting things that are happening in the four counties of Western Mass.

And it's also a podcast that people can subscribe to wherever podcasts are available called the Fabulous 413.

And listen, I have a question for you.

When you're living and loving life there in Western Massachusetts, specifically in the area around Turner's Falls,

I know that you love to go see a show or host a show at the Shea Theater, which is a wonderful place to go.

But when you get thirsty or you want a little snack, where do you slake your thirst or satisfy or sate your hunger?

I can't tell you how many times after an event at the Shea, we've crossed the street and shut down my favorite neighborhood bar called the Rendezvous.

The Rendezvous in Turner's Falls.

I've enjoyed many a drink and snack there, as well as

I've done some shows there.

And

if it's not clear, I highly recommend it.

Emily, what do you think about the rendezvous?

Yes or no?

Yes, absolutely.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

It was a completely unbiased opinion, correct?

Completely unbiased opinion, having been one of the three owners for 15 years now.

So yes, unbiased.

Oh, I had no idea.

What?

And do you have some events at the rendezvous as well?

Some live events still?

Oh, yes, all the time.

We've got bingo, we've got quiz nights, we've got live music frequently.

Where would one go to find out what events are coming up and where the rendezvous is and how to get there and how to meet up with a friend and truly have a rendezvous there?

Yes.

Thevoo.net is the website, also on Instagram and on the Facebook, etc.

That's thevoo.net, T-H-E-V-O-O.net.

And you ever have a jazz trio come and play?

Yes.

Oh, really?

Well, why don't you fire them and hire a different one?

I'm recommending the Night and Day Jazz Trio, right, Joel?

That's right.

The Pentagoet every Tuesday, 5 to 8.

That's the Pentagoet Inn in Castine, Maine, 5 to 8 p.m.

Live jazz on the porch with Joel Mann, the main man, Joel Mann, laying down bass.

And if you're listening to this, it's probably the beginning of your summer.

But you'll be playing every Tuesday?

Every Tuesday until

sometime in October.

So you've got plenty of time to get thee to Castine and get Thee to the Pentagoet Inn.

And hear some wonderful live jazz and say hello to the main man, himself, Joel Mann.

And you are also on Instagram, right?

Yes.

Yes, I am.

The main man.

T-H-E-M-A-I-N-E-M-A-N-N.

Correct.

All right.

I think that's everything we need to know about where to go, what to eat, and what to listen to.

Let's get back to the docket.

Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

I'm Monty Belmonte.

We're here with Emily Brewster from Merriam-Webster, and I am filled with utter delight, or the utmost delight, to find out what other word in English uses ut

besides the pretzels.

Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Okay.

I am.

I'm on the edge of my seat.

Yeah.

Are you on the oot, the oot of your seat?

I'm on the oot of my seat.

Now, this is a word that just rolls off the tongue so easily.

All right, the word is oot fang thief.

Can you use it in a sentence?

Not really.

I really can't.

It's defined as the right of a lord under medieval English law to try in his manorial court a thief or other felon dwelling in his manor, but caught outside it.

So the oot means out, fangen is the past participle of phone, meaning to seize or capture, and the thief is just thief.

And the thief is just thief.

Yeah.

Now this word is pretty obscure, but here's the thing.

It's actually a more obscure variant of outfang thief.

So utfong thief is even rarer than outfang thief.

Yeah, no, I mean, I know what outfong thief is, totally, although I don't know how to.

How do you spell?

What is the word or the word particle after oot or out that you were saying?

Because I don't know how to spell it, I can't picture it in my mind.

F-A-N-G, like a dog's fangs.

Utfang thief.

Yeah.

It's my new band name.

There's got to be a psychedelic band called Utfang Thief.

Uh-oh.

Uh-oh.

Ut-oh.

I mean, all the other UT words that

all the other

UT words that don't have a double T are the, the U says its name, right?

It's like utility, utopia, utensil.

We are not used to saying ut at the beginning of a word.

We just are not.

Yeah, that's right.

You.

It's mostly you.

I want to say utmost from now on.

And I'm placing the utmost important.

It would be a natural thing for the language to make this shift completely, but it has not happened.

Utmost is still definitely the favored pronunciation of this word.

Utmost is not going anywhere immediately, but it would kind of make sense for it to switch over to Utmost.

Why don't we go into the next case?

Here's a case from Gabriel.

I have a dispute with the word onomatopoeia.

I'm told that in other languages, idea phones exist as a word category.

These are words that sound like they're meaning similar to onomatopoeia.

But in English, we don't have that category.

I would like the Honorable Judge John Hodgman to order onomatopoeia to include idea phone as a category.

I would further request that grandiloquent can be the first inclusion in the idea phone category so that I don't have to run for political office in order to make it so.

Hmm.

Like the grandiloquent 413.

That's right.

I know what an onomatopoeia is.

That is a word

that

sounds like what it is describing, which the easiest version of it is like a dog.

You say

a dog barks because when a dog makes that sound, it often sounds like bark, bark, bark.

Or there was one time

when I was on the Jonathan Colton cruise and we got off in Loreto, Mexico for an excursion.

I was walking down the street and there was a dog behind a fence.

And that dog did not go bark, bark, bark.

I swear to you, the dog went, Mark,

mark,

mark.

But of course, anomatopoeia are subjective as well, because as I learned reading

the Herger comic books featuring the boy reporter slash adventurer Tantin, a.k.a.

Tin Tin, when his dog Snowy barks, he doesn't go mark, mark, mark.

He goes, woo.

Which I guess is what they think dogs sound like in France.

You were in France, Joel.

Did you ever hear a dog go, woo-wah?

No, nope.

How does a French dog bark?

I have no idea.

Never heard a French dog bark?

No.

Actually, I haven't.

Woo-ah.

That's what it sounds like, I guess.

In some Spanish-speaking countries, dogs say gua, guao.

Guow, guao.

And of course, bow, wow is an onomatopoeia describing, I guess, that sound that dogs make when they go, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, when they're pathetically begging.

Sorry, dogs.

I've heard that in France, the ducks say qua, qua.

Qua, qua.

But Emily Brewster, what is an ideophone?

I've never heard of this term before.

Have you?

It's like voice over internet protocol.

It's got all sorts of ideas that you can use, but using the internet over the phone.

All right.

I now am going to make wordplay illegal again.

Okay.

I opened the door, you walked through it, and we have an actual expert here.

So let's turn it back over to married webster aka emily brewster

thank you john an idiophone is an onomonopoeic element that functions as part of a distinct word class and it's especially common in some african languages english is not really it we're not an idiophonic language but we do have some idiophonic elements so for example words that refer or that mean small often have an e or i vowel sound in them like teeny weenie, itsy bitsy, what a cute little bb.

You know, the smaller the baby is, you call it, you're more likely to call it a bb instead of a baby.

So the sound of the word and the pitch of the word conveys a meaning or a feeling that the hearer recognizes, even though it is not imitating a sound, right?

Like teeny weenie has a little bit of a feeling of smallness to it.

Yes, yes.

And not pitch, really.

I know I was using my pitch in describing that, but an idiophone is specifically the sound.

And the sounds correlate to ideas in idiophones.

So we also have this in, if you think about words for things that are slimy or smushy, right?

Like there's so many words to start with SM and SL that are like slush and slippery and slick.

Yeah, we're going to get a lot of letters from the mesophonics out there, but the slug, slug, yeah, it sounds like that a little bit.

I was really curious about this letter.

The letter writer,

Gabriel, his dispute is actually with the word onomanopoeia.

Right.

Which is, I mean, I didn't know that people could bring cases to Judge John Hodgman

to actually settle matters with words.

Normally,

I would not allow it.

Normally, our cases are between

two distinct human parties, not with words or concepts.

I don't even allow people to bring disputes against themselves.

But

I like talking about onomatopoeias, and it was an interesting subject to me.

So I made an excuse this time, the way I made an excuse

to let Monty do wordplay again.

And that was a mistake that I made.

So Gabriel, don't make me regret this.

Well, I like this very much.

You might also like to know another rare related word, and that is if you have a word that is exhibiting onomatopoeia or that is onomatopoeic, you can call it an onomatope.

Ooh.

Onomatope?

Yeah, that's terrific.

That's a great name for a dog.

Onomatope is second only to hambone.

It's a good name for a dog.

Whoa, whoa.

Hey, onomatope, come on over here.

Whoa, whoa.

Well, in the case of Gabriel versus Onomanopoeia, I say.

Sorry to spit all over your brand new board here at W-E-R-U.

Yeah, exactly.

We really are in a new time.

But

yeah, Gabriel, you don't win.

I love the idea of idiophones, and I can sort of see the argument that you're making for grandiloquent, because I guess it's, I mean, it's really subjective, Emily Brewster.

But would you say that grandiloquent as a word conveys, I don't know what to say, just in its sound,

a sense of grandiloquence?

Yes or no?

Is that an idea phone, would you say?

I think it has it has hints of that.

I don't feel like I'm an authority enough on idiophones in particular because English doesn't really have very many of them to say.

Right.

It truly is.

The authority on them is a linguist named Mark Dingamansa, and he's Dutch, so he would know for sure.

But it is true that we've got grandiloquent.

His name gave me the feeling of Dutch, that's for sure.

Definitely

idiophonic name.

But there's also loquacious

and also sesquipedalian.

You know, there are words that actually evoke

their meanings through

the very existence of the word itself, it seems.

I hope sesquipedalian means incredible confusion on my part, because that's the feeling that it evoked in me.

It just means very long.

It traces back to a Latin phrase meaning a foot and a half.

So a sesquipedalian word is a word that's like approximately a foot and a half long.

It's a long word describing a long length of words.

Yeah.

A long length.

Oh, okay, I like that.

I'm going to let you try out grandiloquent,

Gabriel, but onomatopoeia, there's no argument with onomatopoeia.

Onomatopoeia is,

you can't have a dispute with that word, A, because it's a word and B.

It's a terrific class of words.

We've talked before about how farts around the world all have the same sound no matter what language you're talking in.

It's usually put, put, or brap.

But I didn't know, I was doing my own little research on this,

that for obvious reasons, snoring, the words that describe snoring are pretty common and have a lot to do with each other.

So, for example, in Afrikaans, snoring is snork.

And in Azerbaijani, it's zor.

And in Danish, it's snork as well.

And in

Estonian, it's nor.

You know, these are onomatopoeias.

They describe the sound that they're.

The words imitate the sound that they are trying to describe.

But I was very surprised.

that while most

nations and language groups have maybe one or two words for snore,

the Basque people

in what we now know as Spain have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen onomopeas for snore, including korunga, koroka, koronga, coronka, corrox, coroxca, korun, korunka, pzz, rukru, ruru, ru, ziri, ziri, zoro, zoro, zoro, zuru, zuran, zuruza, and Zzz.

That's five Zs.

That is fun.

I want to know more about the snoring culture of the Basque people

and why they got so many.

Maybe they just have a genetic palate difference that makes their snoring much more diverse than mine, which is really just

like cartoon snoring.

They make excellent cider there.

I'll tell you that.

Maybe they just take excellent naps as well after they've had their excellent cider.

You know,

I've never been to that part of the world.

I'd like to there.

Hey,

you say you're from Virginia originally, Joel?

Yep.

Where's McLean, Virginia?

That's where I'm from.

Really?

Yeah.

Whoa.

Because

we have a dispute from Kurt in McLean, Virginia.

Oh, Kurt, yeah.

Kurt says, I have a dispute with my wonderful, brilliant 16-year-old daughter, Sophia.

Sophia insists that the abbreviation spelled B-R-O-S should be pronounced Bros.

I respectfully but vehemently disagree.

It should be brothers.

This disagreement ignites phonetic dissonance in our family whenever the Super Marios, Warners, Smashes, or other famous male siblings of this world make an appearance.

Thank you kindly for your consideration.

So, in other words, Sophia wants to say the name of the game is Super Mario Bros.

Whereas Kurt wants to say the name of the game is Super Mario Brothers.

Do you have any thoughts on this, Emily Brewster?

Well, I mean, there's an argument for either one, right?

We don't say ulbs for pounds.

We say pounds, L-B-S, right?

But we do say MR

for MR, period.

So.

Oh, that's true.

The pronunciations of abbreviations are just subject to change like any other linguistic form.

Well,

let's do this specific ruling then.

Super Mario Bros or Super Mario Brothers.

We'll go around the horn.

Joel, brothers or bros?

Brothers.

Monty?

Super Mario Brothers.

Emily Brewster?

Brothers, but I think it's only generational.

Well, do you think that there are kids out there saying Super Mario Bros and they're okay?

Well, yeah.

Well, look, kids these days, I know this is supposed to be a descriptivist language episode, but I'm getting pretty prescriptivist around this.

I don't know about this.

I think the old way of doing things is the correct way.

I've been around longer and therefore I'm more correct.

Warner Bros or Brothers?

Warner Bros or Brothers?

Joel.

Definitely brothers.

Monty.

Warner Brothers.

Emily, you're going to hold the line.

It could be either.

Brothers for me personally, but not no.

Yes.

No.

Same, same thing.

Same thing.

Generational.

All right.

I'll put this one to you.

What about the famous adult swim cartoon, Venture Brothers or Venture Bros?

Joel?

I have no knowledge.

You have no knowledge of the venture?

Yes, so I can't make it.

Okay.

I have to recuse myself.

You're going to recuse yourself on the basis of cultural ignorance.

Right.

I understand.

Monty?

Venture.

I would do the same.

That's not a judgment.

I'm just.

I'm Venture Brothers.

Emily, what would you say?

Yes, same.

Venture Brothers.

Yes.

Well, it so happens that the co-creator of Venture Brothers is a person named Jackson Public, a.k.a.

Chris McCulloch, whom I bothered via text while he was on his vacation this morning at 5 a.m.

Luckily, he was another country, so I reached him at a reasonable hour and I said, even though it is spelled venture bros, do you say venture bros or venture brothers?

And according to the co-creator, and I'm sure that his co-creator Doc Hammer would support him, it is venture brothers.

Now, does it matter that the creator of a thing says this is how you pronounce it?

Of course not.

I went to Yale for comparative literature.

I know the author is dead.

I know the author intent is meaningless.

I know that we all die and what we leave behind are only texts to be interpreted and reinterpreted by 16-year-olds like Sophia, who are going to last far long, far beyond my own gallon of scallops anniversary on this planet.

I get it.

But for now, I'm just going to say Venture Brothers because it's a really good show, Joel.

You should watch it, Venture Brothers.

Okay.

And

the very, very last bit of it is coming out.

You know, it ran for seven seasons on Adult Swim.

Very funny cartoon.

And

I'm just doing this as a plug now at this point.

Yeah, I'm not allowed to watch cartoons.

Not allowed to watch cartoons?

I'm giving you special dispensation.

Monty,

open the wordplay floodgates.

We're also going to open the cartoon Floodgates for Joel.

Has he not watched Dicktown starring none other than Judge John Hodgman?

Yeah, didn't you watch Dick Town starring John Hodgman and David Reese?

Is that on Hulu?

Well, I can't say because I'm on the right school strike, so I'm not supposed to promote things, but factually, yes.

Yes, I don't watch any television since the strike.

And this is also a fact, and I'm just describing.

This is not prescriptive, this is descriptive.

Venture Brothers, Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart, the final film of Venture Brothers Adventures, is available July 21st, digitally, and on Blu-ray, July 25th.

It is wonderful.

It is a wonderful end to a wonderful piece of art, which you should check out.

Sophia, it's called Venture Brothers.

Sophia.

Not bros.

These are not bros.

They're brothers.

And

it's got a lot of voice talent in it, including my last trip in the rodeo as Snoopy.

Didn't you, not Snoopy the Dog, didn't you ever watch any peanuts cartoons, Joel?

Just in the comic strips.

Is there something

he flips them together from different newspapers from different days previous?

Are you part of a sect that doesn't consider moving moving uh drawn images to be uh sacrilegious?

I did watch that when I was a young kid, but since I got married, my wife, Michelle, wonderful, wonderful woman, never let me watch The Simpsons.

Oh, really?

Yeah, so that's kind of culty.

Yeah, there was a time, there was a time when The Simpsons were kind of controversial, yeah.

And I had and I had my mom and dad saying, I'm not sure you should be watching that.

Yep, um, but then, but then I grew up, Joel, maybe you should try it anyway.

Emily Brewster, do you like cartoons?

Do you have any cartoons you want to recommend since we're talking about cartoons?

And I just put in a shameless plug for the Venture Brothers.

No, no, I'm not really allowed to recommend cartoons.

Oh, wow.

All right, Emily.

You're not watching cartoons.

What's the next project for you over there at Merriam-Webster?

You're going to find another word?

Yes, finding words all the time.

Yes.

I took care of Yeet.

Felt good about Yeet.

That's old.

What What else have I been working on?

I don't know.

You know, new word, new day, new day, new word.

All the words.

I love it.

We need more of them.

The answer is always is more words and more speech, and we'll all enjoy talking to each other.

Monty, is the docket clear?

The docket is clear, Judge John Hodgman.

That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman.

Judge John Hodgman was created by Jesse Thorne.

and John Hodgman.

Our producer is Jennifer Marmer.

We're on Instagram at John Hodgman.

Follow us there for evidence and other photos from the show and check out the Maximum Fun subreddit to discuss this episode at maximum fun.reddit.com.

And it is officially summer here in the court of Judge John Hodgman.

You can hear it in the sound of the rollicking docket.

We are looking for your summertime disputes.

You have any disputes regarding summer camp or going to the beach?

What beach you like to go to?

What side of a peninsula do you prefer to beach on?

What's the best beach in Virginia?

Virginia Beach.

Virginia Beach.

It's right there in the name.

Do you have any disputes about summer school?

Either summer school, the concept, or the movie Summer School starring Mark Harmon?

What about Summer Rolls or Midsomar, the movie Midsomar?

Dispute over that?

Donna Summer.

This is indisputably one of the greatest, Donna Summer.

But if you're Gabriel out there and you want to take a swing at Onomatopoeia and Donna Summer, two of the greatest things in the world,

by all means, send it in.

Everything gets a fair hearing.

Maximumfund.org/slash JJHO.

Summertime disputes are on the docket.

And of course, we're eager to hear about all of your disputes on any subject.

No case is too small.

No case is too big.

Some cases are too medium.

But you know what?

Why don't you let me decide?

Send it in.

And I always enjoy receiving your letters.

So send them all into maximumfund.org slash JJHO.

Monty, Emily, Joel, thank you very much.

We'll We'll talk to you all again soon, and you too, listener on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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