Today we have an abbreviated Perman proper noun- Kirsch. It is short for Kirschwasser.

Kirschwasser is an alcoholic spirit made from black cherries. Kirschwasser literally means cherry water.

I use it when I make cheese fondue. It adds a hint of sweetness to the mild cheeses and the dry wine.

Today’s word is audacity. I choose it for two reasons. One, it is a good word. Two, it is the answer to a question I got last week from Vlad – how do I record my podcasts?

First the word. Audacity is a noun that means boldness or confidence, often with a negative connotation. “Can you believe the audacity of that brick layer? Telling me, the architect, how to design this house.”

The word originates from the Latin audacis, audax and audere. All of which relate to bravery or boldness.

Now to answer Vlad’s question. I use Audacity, an open source, cross platform multi-track audio editor and recorder. Obviously the name is a play on the word audio. I record most of my podcasts on my 12 inch Apple PowerBook with a USB headset mic from Logitech. Occasionally I use Audacity on my Windows XP machine with the same headset or with a desktop USB mic. I don’t use any filters but I do try to get a quiet room and I usually normalize my voice track after recording.

I like Audacity because it is multi track so I can easily shift the intro and outro music and any clips I add play. A couple other pluses are it is free, it is cross platform so I can open my recording project on my mac or windows machine and best of all it has unlimited undo’s so if you make a mistake editing you don’t have to freak out.

Today’s word is a -onym word, a word that ends in -onym. -Onym words usually describe words or are related to names and words. Such as homonym, synonym.

I have collected tons of these -onym words and I trying to figure out the best way to make a podcast or maybe ten podcasts out of them.

For now let’s just look at today’s -onym word, eponym. An eponym is a name that is derived from a person’s name. For example the element Einsteinium is an eponym. It is named after Albert Einstein.

An eponym can also be the person for whom something is named. If podcasting was called CurryCasting then Adam would be an eponym. I guess with Curry Castle he is an eponym anyhow.

A few years ago the band R.E.M. release a hit album named Eponymous. Which I guess is a play on the common Self Titled Album title.

Thank you Robert (“dont poke the Internet with a pencil”) Cooper. I appreciate you pointing out my RSS typo. Check our Robert’s site devoted the free and open source operating system known as Linux at http://www.screaming-penguin.com.

Today I have two words for you. Flotsam and jetsam. Both are nouns and both describe stuff that had been thrown into the ocean from a boat.

Flotsam is, broadly, floating debris or a collection of miscellaneous stuff. Technically, it is stuff that has fallen off a boat, either cargo or wreckage. Flotsam can also be used to describe a population of emigrants or castaways. Flotsam can be traced back to various Old English, Old French and Germanic words meaning float.

Jetsam on the other hand is cargo or ship parts that have been deliberately thrown over board, jettisoned. Usually to lighten the ship’s load in a time of distress.

In 1992 thousands of rubber ducks were washed off the deck of a cargo ship. Since then the ducks have been tracked all over the world by scientist to study the effects of ocean currents.

P.S. Jon Udell has posted a tool for creating bookmarklets that allow you to search your local library for a book you have found at Amazon. For example you come across a book at Amazon.com and you are wondering if your library has it. Click on the bookmarklet and it will look the book up at your local library. To build a bookmarlet for your local library visit Jon’s site.

I also want to thank Ian Olsen-Clark for creating one that works with my local library in Denver Colorado. If you need a bookmarklet for Denver’s Public Library of for Ian’s local library, Chicago Public Library visit Ian’s site- theboxfactory.com.