This happened again in the last edition with the subject prosody. That word, to begin with, is for me a term I have to look up, but did not need to as it was so well explained on the show. Prosody is about how we 'sing' our language; how we make pauses, emphasis, intonations and all such methods that make natural language sound natural, as opposed to computer voices, for example, that even today, still, sound very artificial.
It is also with prosody, that show hosts Dave and Barbara discussed the metrum and various rhythmic schemes in poetry. I remember this stuff from high school and at the time it sounded all so artificial, over the top and far out. I have grown up by now and I got the sympathetic and less threatening introduction by Dave, and this allowed me to open up and not only get stuff like iambic verse, but also recognize and appreciate it. Now that is The Word Nerds for you!
Previous reviews of TWN on this blog:
Rhetoric,
Silence and Speechlessness,
Religious Words,
Nicknames,
Public Speaking.
