Amy Nicholson
speaker
471 appearances
63 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Jun 2025
Amy Nicholson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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You know, I was told a long time ago that it's impolite to correct someone's pronunciation. But we're going to do it anyway. Hi and welcome. Thank you for listening to this episode of Something You Should Know. Probably all of us mispronounce some words. In fact, sometimes so many people mispronounce words that the new mispronunciation becomes the norm.
But we're going to set the record straight, and then you can either pronounce them correctly or mispronounce them, but at least you'll know. And here's the perfect example of one I will never pronounce correctly. Seuss, as in Dr. Seuss. Almost everyone says Seuss, but one of his college friends made a rhyme to teach you the right way to pronounce it.
You're wrong as the deuce, and you shouldn't rejoice. If you're calling him soos, he pronounces it sois. Sois? Dr. Sois? I don't know. Kibosh. That's the pronunciation, but some people say kibosh. The accent is on the first syllable, kibosh. Celtic. An initial hard K sound is the standard, but according to linguists, the S sound, as in Celtic, goes back to the 17th century.
Still, the preferred and official pronunciation is Celtic, but since it would sound ridiculous to talk about the Boston Celtics, you get a pass when you talk about the Boston Celtics. There is a word that when you read it, it looks like it should be pronounced comp-troller. That's the money person in a business, the comp-troller.
But the correct pronunciation is controller, like there's an N in there, and the P-T is silent. Cash, as in C-A-C-H-E. Somehow, I guess it just sounds more elegant to say cachet, but the word sounds just like the money, cash. Chicanery. It's a word meaning deception by trickery, and it is easy to mispronounce. The beginning sound is not the typical C-H sound. It's an S-H sound.
Chicanery, as in Chicago. Affluent. The stress on this word is supposed to be on the first syllable. Affluent. But stressing the second syllable became very mainstream back in the 80s, and dictionaries started validating that pronunciation. Affluent. But technically, it is affluent. And niche.
When the word was borrowed from the French in the 17th century, it quickly turned from niche to niche in English. But in the 20th century, more people embraced the more French pronunciation and decided to pronounce it niche. But according to most dictionaries, both are correct. And that is something you should know. So you have your electronic devices, right?
You have a phone, maybe a laptop, a tablet, perhaps a smartwatch or a Fitbit, whatever else. And other than the day-to-day wear and tear on those devices, what is the one thing that will instantly and permanently ruin them? Liquid. You spill coffee on your laptop, goodbye. You drop your phone in the toilet or accidentally take it into the pool, goodbye. Or in my case, the hot tub.
That's the end of that. You can try to repair it, but even if it works again, it never seems to work like it used to. And then there's that thing about putting it in rice. I've heard that it works. I've heard that it doesn't work. And then I've also heard it's bad for your phone.
Death by liquid is such a common occurrence for personal electronics that I bet it's happened to you or someone you know. So why can't these devices be made water-resistant? I mean, the people who make watches figured out how to do that a long time ago. This is actually a really interesting topic that I'd never thought much about before, but you know who has, is Rachel Plotnick.
She is an historian and cultural theorist whose research and teachings focus on information, communication, and media technologies. She's author of a book called License to Spill, where dry devices meet liquid lives. Rachel was here a while ago talking about...
pushing buttons and now she's here to talk about this hi rachel welcome back thank you so much glad to be here so when i first saw this rachel i i thought How is this an issue?
Because my sense is the reason that my devices are not waterproof or water resistant is they don't need to be because it's my responsibility, my personal responsibility to take care of and protect my very expensive and sensitive electronic equipment. That's my job, not the job of the guy who made it.
And then what's interesting, as I thought about it more, but isn't it interesting that you don't have to ask too many people, and you will hear a story of phone in the toilet, phone in the hot tub, phone in the pool, phone in the washing machine.
So it happens a lot, and so you would think, well, okay, maybe that's a feature that they ought to build into this if that's possible, because it happens frequently, right?
And so what's the answer if you ask the people that make the phones and the devices, why aren't these waterproof? My guess would be because that would cost an awful lot of money. That's not our job. I mean, I don't know what they would say, but has it ever come up? And what do they say if it has?
What is the difference between something being waterproof and water resistant? I've always felt like, you know, we'll call it water resistant. So if something happens and water gets into it, we didn't say it was waterproof. It's just like we try to keep the water out.
I also was thinking as I saw this, because it's such an interesting topic to discuss, because, you know, as we said in the beginning, people think, well, that's my job to make sure it doesn't fall in the toilet. So that's why it isn't. But phones are also not fire resistant or heat resistant. In fact, if your phone gets hot, it stops working. So, I mean, the phone can't be indestructible.
Well, you know, I'm not one of those people that gets a new phone every time one comes out. I've had my phone for a long time. But I have been amazed how many times I have dropped it, kicked it, whatever, and it works fine. It does seem to some extent... pretty indestructible except for the water thing, the fire thing, you know, the extremes.
But day-to-day wear and tear, phones seem to be able to handle that pretty well.
Showing 121–140 of 471 · page 7 of 24
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