Today’s Podcast

Today we have a word that describes words- acronym. An acronym, like most words that end in -nym or -onym, describes a word or a name. An acronym is a word formed by the initial letters of a longer term. My favorite example is laser. Laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.

It is important to contrast an acronym with an abbreviation. An abbreviation, like IBM or ADR is not pronounced as a word. Each individual letter is pronounced.

Some good acronyms include Radar, Nato and Opec.

Acronym comes from the combination of the Greek akron and onoma. Akron means tip or end and onoma mean name.
A interesting modern acronym phenomenon is the recursive acronym. In a recursive acronym one of the words that makes up the initials is the acronym. Gnu, the popular linux flavor is a well known example. Gnu stands for Gnu is Not Unix. I suspect the most recognized recursive acronym is VISA. What Visa is a recursive acronym? I know. I was surprised too. Visa is the VISA International Service Association.

You can look up most acronyms at:

• AcronymFinder.com
• Acronyma.com

Both are great sites for research and browsing the amazing variety of acronyms and abbreviations.

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Today I have a word that was inspired by a photo taken by Will Simpson of PalousePhotography.com. When you are back at your computer be sure to take a look at the beautiful photo titled “Palouse Morning on Linville Road.”

Today’s word is Palouse. It is a proper noun. It both the name of a river that flwos through north western Idaho and south eastern Washington state. It flows west into the Snake River. Palouse is also the name of the fertile hilly region in the same region.
I have never heard of this region but Will’s beautiful photo made me want to visit.
Will also shared with me an interesting fact- the Palouse was home to the Nez Perce tribe. The Nez Perce are credited with developing the Appaloosa horse. Originally the Nez Perse breed was called a Palouse horse. Eventually the name evolved to Appaloosa. So I guess we get two words for today.

I first came across Will’s podcast when he suggested the word abracadabra. Unfortunately Will hasn’t been podcasting lately, but his photos and earlier podcasts are available at PalousePhotography.org.

A final note about Will: He is an artist living in Moscow Idaho. You can see some incredible examples of his wood working at kestrelcreek.com.

Happy Independence Day!

A few word from the founding fathers of the United States.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and
equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.

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Today’s word is a request from a long time ago and country far away- Germany. Lockstep was requested by Nicole from Useful Sounds.

Lockstep is a noun. It can be a way of acting in complete uniformity with someone or something else. A boy who follows his older brother around and imitates everything the brother does could be describe as being in lockstep with his brother. It can also be an specific inflexible process. Such as the rules for arming a nuclear weapon. I don’t know the rules but I suspect they must be followed to the letter.

Although I couldn’t find an etymology of lockstep I will hazard a guess. I think it comes from military training were solider must march so close together their steps and legs appear locked together.

An idiom with a presumably similar etymolgy but opposite meaning is “to march to a different drum.” For more information on this idiom and many others check out Robert Diem’s The Daily Idiom podcast.

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Today’s word is actually just initials. They are A.D.R.. And they have been haunting me for years now. When I see a movie at the theater I like to stay and watch the credits. I think it is interesting to see how many people it takes to make a movie and what interesting jobs they have. Like a gaffer, a best boy or the second assistant to Ms. Jolie’s hairdresser.

Now ADR always comes up with all the audio related jobs, but I have never figured out what they stand for. Well they stand for Automatic Dialogue Replacement. The ADR editor is the person who is responsible for rerecording the dialog tracks in a movie. This is usually done when the original scene was recorded with too much background noise. The actors watch the film and their lips while rerecording their dialog.

This editing it is also done to change the actual dialog or inflection of a line. In these cases the scene probably can’t reveal the actors lips moving to the wrong line.

Next time you are at the movies take an extra five minutes and read the names people who made the movie and see who the A.D.R. editor was.

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