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Podcast: A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over
Episode: The Thought Plickens (rebroadcast) - 3 Jan. 2010
Description: [This episode first aired February 6, 2010.]If you're inappropriately focused on the minutiae of a project instead of the bigger picture, you're said to be "bike-shedding." Grant talks about that modern slang term and Martha discusses a word that goes way back in time, right back to "In the beginning," in fact. The word is "tohubohu," and it means a "mess" or "confusion."Grant and Martha discuss a new term, "bike-shedding," and an old one, "tohubohu."Where'd we get the term "swan song"? A caller says this expression came up in conversation just before...