Why Do Auctioneers Talk So Fast? - 7 November 2011

<p>SUMMARY<br /><br />Why do auctioneers talk so fast?  Martha and Grant discuss the rapid-fire speech of auctioneers, and how it gets you to bid higher. Also, why so many books have ridiculously long titles, where you'd have sonker for dessert, and an appreciation of that children's classic, "The Phantom Tollbooth." Plus, different from vs. different than, the origin of suss out, words that apparently entered English in 1937, and the many names for those little gray bugs that roll up into a ball.<br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />What do you call those little gray bugs that roll up into a ball? They go by lots of names: roly poly bugs, potato bugs, sow bugs, chiggypigs, dillo seeds, basketball bugs, bowling-ball bugs, and wood lice, to name a few.<br /><br />If you're wondering why we capitalize the letter "I" when we don't capitalize the first letters of other pronouns, the answer's simple. It's easier to read. Martha recommends a book offering a detailed history of every letter of the alphabet. It's Language Visible: Unraveling the Mystery of the Alphabet from A to Z, by David Sacks.<br /><br />http://www.alphabet-history.com/work1.htm<br /><br />Why do auctioneers talk so fast? The hosts say it's partly to put you into a trance, partly to increase the sense of urgency, and partly to sell off lots of items in a short amount of time. More details in an article in Slate magazine. You can learn some of the basics of auctioneering from videos on YouTube.<br /><br />http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/11/why_do_auctioneers_talk_like_that.html<br /><br />http://www.aristocratservices.com/The_Auctioneers_Chant.html<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCr96VtvS80<br /><br />Over on wordorigins.org, etymologist Dave Wilton is going through the Oxford English Dictionary year by year to find the earliest citations for various words, which offer an unusual linguistic glimpse into that particular year. The year 1937, for example, is the first in which we see the terms four-by-four, cliffha