You might do nothing. You might do zilch. But if you do bugger all, you’re really doing the minimum.

But wait — how did the phrase bugger all become a negative, in the complete absence of any negative words?

There are larger forces at work here, and Dr Isabelle Burke joins us to explain them on this episode of Talk the Talk.

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Promo

TtT promo 2019-09-17 with Tom Reynolds: Champing at the Bit

Is it champing or chomping at the bit? And Daniel makes Tom guess the word that forms the basis of the episode. 

Also, horses with dog mouths: not aesthetic.

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/30028408

Leave That In!

Leave That In! 378: Bugger

CARE and GIVE A FUCK are synonymous for negative sentences, but what about questions? Daniel turns to data from a track by the Streets.

Rosellas / twenty-eights. Which are the invasive pest? Clearly people from Canberra.

When a man buys a computer, he does it in a manly way. Do it suddenly. Speak to no one about it.

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/30145391

Thoughts on “378: Bugger All”

Daniel here, starting a new feature. We’ll see if I can keep it up. I thought you might like to read some thoughts I had on the episodes just past, so I’m going to start writing them down. I’m calling this feature: Reflections. (Sensitive piano music).

No, I am definitely not calling it that.

Our last episode was with Izzy Burke, and it was great fun. So many good bits, but I think my favourite was the bit about supermarket shame, and why we like self-checkout.

I also loved the bit where Hedvig and Izzy were unloading the facts about English negation! That stuff is so fascinating. I’m actually preparing a tutorial exercise about how my two-year-old (almost three) daughter is going through her acquisition of negation. Here are some items. You can make of this what you will.

  • 23 months No sit down chair.
  • 23 months No read it.
  • 23 months Bath. No shower.
  • 26 months No. It’s not a lawnmower.
  • 26 months This computer’s not working. 
  • 26 months Daddy! You don’t need breakfast! It’s lunchtime!
  • 26 months I can’t see anyone. 
  • 27 months Are you not coming?
  • 30 months Did the TV moved? Yes, it did moved. 
  • 30 months I didn’t mean to hit you.
  • 30 months This one not works. A toy.
  • 31 months It fall down and breaked. 

Anyhow, the other bit I liked was during the news, at about 9m30s. The name of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is a bit of a running joke for us. We can’t help but snicker a bit. 

So for this time, I said something like “This comes from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences… or PNAS.”

And of course Ben giggles, but you can also hear Izzy laughing! And that’s how we knew she was one of us.

This has been “Reflections”. 

🎹.

Also at https://www.patreon.com/posts/30104213

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Show notes

You’re Saying It Wrong! Chomping vs. Champing
https://www.portablepress.com/blog/2014/04/chomping-vs-champing/

Cyclops (n.) | Etymonline
https://www.etymonline.com/word/cyclops

Largest-ever ancient-DNA study illuminates millennia of South and Central Asian prehistory — ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190905145348.htm

Is Ancient DNA Research Revealing New Truths — or Falling Into Old Traps? – The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/magazine/ancient-dna-paleogenomics.html

Birds string together meaningless sounds to make ‘words’ — ScienceDaily
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190909160109.htm

Chestnut-crowned babbler calls are composed of meaningless shared building blocks | PNAS
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/09/05/1819513116

Chestnut-crowned Babbler | BIRDS in BACKYARDS
http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Pomatostomus-ruficeps

Australian Birds – bird song / bird calls – by Graeme Chapman, ornithologist
https://www.graemechapman.com.au/library/sounds.php?c=3&p=83

Indigenous Australian Word of the Week from Marcelle Riley
nan koort djurapin (nan wirrn djurapin)
My heart is happy
Noongar language of Western Australia

Old Bailey Corpus
http://fedora.clarin-d.uni-saarland.de/oldbailey/

Burridge & Burke: Bugger in the (Old) Bailey: did taboo negators undergo a mini-Jespersen Cycle? (PDF)
https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/plus/s/ELnQdHHDcD6ZJVi

Jespersen’s Cycle – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jespersen%27s_Cycle

‘Giving a Rat’s’ about Negation: The Jespersen Cycle in Modern Australian English: Australian Journal of Linguistics: Vol 34, No 4
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07268602.2014.929085?journalCode=cajl20

Strelluf: Anymore, It’s on Twitter: Positive Anymore, American Regional Dialects, and Polarity Licensing In Tweets
https://read.dukeupress.edu/american-speech/article/94/3/313/138692/Anymore-Its-on-TwitterPositive-Anymore-American

The meaning and origin of the expression: Willy-nilly
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/willy-nilly.html

nosh – Wiktionary
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nosh

Urban Dictionary: nosh
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nosh

JPMorgan Creates ‘Volfefe’ Index to Track Trump Tweet Impact – Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/jpmorgan-creates-volfefe-index-to-track-trump-tweet-impact

Why Self-Checkout Is And Has Always Been The Worst | Gizmodo Australia
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2019/03/why-self-checkout-is-and-has-always-been-the-worst/

Shadow work – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_work

What is Voldemorting? The social media trend we all need to know about
https://mediaverse.com.au/voldemorting-social-media-trend/

Transcript

We’re working our way back through the archives. If you think we should prioritise a transcript of this episode, let us know!