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Podcast: A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over
Episode: A Louse in a Wrestling Jacket - 4 Oct. 2010
Description: A California college student is campaigning for international scientific authorities to adopt the slang term hella- as an official prefix indicating a huge number. Will he succeed? Also, how to pronounce niche, the regional terms doppick and nixie, the origins of towheaded and frenetic, and a phrase familiar to many African-Americans, but little-known outside that community: I couldn't buy a louse in a wrestling jacket....Whether it's bytes of data or intergalactic distances, humans are accumulating ever more massive amounts of data. But how do we use language to describe such mind-bogglingly huge numbers...