368: Poetry (with Pete Swanton)

Poetry isn’t (just) enjoyable, it can be useful.

It can help us with language learning and memorisation, and help us in historical linguistics. And even computers are getting into poetry generation, probably because they want to learn the secret of human coolness.

We’re snapping our fingers (instead of applauding) on this episode of Talk the Talk.

Listen to this episode

Download this episode

You can listen to all the episodes of Talk the Talk by pasting this URL into your podlistener.

http://danielmidgley.com/talkthetalk/talk_classic.xml

Promo

TtT promo 2019-06-18 with Tom Reynolds: Limericks

Chris Strolin is the creator of the OEDILF: The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form. We’re reading some of his definitions ahead of the show.

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/27721588

Indigenous Australian Word of the Week (IA-WoW): thinawan

Emu in the sky
(source: Barnaby Norris, through ABC Science)

In honour of the UN declaring 2019 the Year of Indigenous Languages, we will be sharing words from Indigenous Australian languages.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that episodes of this show may contain voices or names of deceased persons.

This weeks IA-WoW is thinawan (alt spelling: dinawan), meaning “emu” in Gamilaraay. It comes to us from ANU Astrophysics student Pete Swanton who has shared words with us from his language. The term can both refer to emus here on earth, but also the large emu that can be seen in the Milky Way.

You can listen to more Gamilaraay language on the Gambay language map and learn more about it through Glottolog and AUSTLANG. If you live in Canberra, you can even study Gamilaraay at ANU.

Leave That In!

Leave That In! (fka Cutting Room Floor) 368: Poetry

Poetry alert: We do clerihews, and you’re gonna love them.

Also, many questions. What even IS poetry? How do they harvest cranberries? What’s an iamb, and is it in fact an iamb?

And then Hedvig drops a poem on us that just might change our minds about poetry. Maybe. Because it’s not very poetic.

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/27859224

Patreon supporters

We’re very grateful for the support from our burgeoning community of patrons, including

Carolin
Chris
dcctor woh
Jerry
Lyssa
Nicki
Termy

Ann
Elías
Helen
Jack
Matt
Michael
Sabrina

You’re helping us to keep the talk happening!

We’re Because Language now, and you can become a Patreon supporter!
Depending on your level, you can get bonus episodes, mailouts, shoutouts, come to live episodes, and of course have membership in our Discord community.

Become a Patron!

Show notes

Hong Kongers alarmed by Google translation gaffe – Tech News | The Star Online
https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2019/06/14/hong-kongers-alarmed-by-google-translation-gaffe/

Tongues on the EDGE: language preservation priorities based on threat and lexical distinctiveness | Royal Society Open Science
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.171218

Australia’s first astronomers | Beginner’s Guide to the Night Sky (ABC Science)
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/07/27/2632463.htm

Aboriginal astronomers see emu in sky | News in Science (ABC Science)
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/07/27/2632463.htm

Yi et al: Automatic Poetry Generation with Mutual Reinforcement Learning (PDF)
https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/D18-1353

Translated Chinese Poetry: One Hundred Quatrains by the Tang Poets
http://www.shigeku.org/xlib/lingshidao/hanshi/quatrain.htm

Original Pronunciation | The production or performance of works from earlier periods of English spoken in original pronunciation
http://originalpronunciation.com/

Man Hopes to Define Every English Word with a Limerick
https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/man-hopes-to-define-every-english-word-with-a-limerick/4275786.html

OEDILF – The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form
https://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php

Edward Lear, Book of Nonsense 11-20
https://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/BoN/bon020.html

World Wide Words: Limerick
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-lim1.htm

Is the limerick a Limerick invention?
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/is-the-limerick-a-limerick-invention-1.3196974

Shadow Poetry – Poetry Types – Clerihew
http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/clerihew.html

Home – Your Plastic Diet
https://yourplasticdiet.org/

People told they are ‘eating a credit card’ every week in new WWF campaign | The Drum
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/06/13/people-told-they-are-eating-credit-card-every-week-new-wwf-campaign

Humans consume the equivalent of a credit card worth of plastic every week: Report – ABC News
https://abcnews.go.com/US/humans-consume-equivalent-credit-card-worth-plastic-week/story?id=63687144

The Department of Energy is calling fossil fuels “molecules of freedom” and “freedom gas”
https://slate.com/business/2019/05/freedom-gas-molecules-of-freedom-department-of-energy.html

US rebrands fossil fuels as “molecules of freedom” | SBS News
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/us-rebrands-fossil-fuels-as-molecules-of-freedom

“Freedom Gas”: The Trump Administration’s Ridiculous New Plan to Rebrand Fossil Fuels | Mother Jones
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/05/freedom-gas-the-trump-administrations-ridiculous-new-plan-to-rebrand-fossil-fuels/