Something You Should Know - Why Businesses Charge Sneaky Fees & Where Slang Comes From

Starting point is 00:00:00 Metro Links and Cross Links are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Today on Something You Should Know, how many times have you washed your hands in your life and you're still probably not doing it right? We'll fix that, plus the problem and frustration with fees.

Starting point is 00:00:40 There are fees on top of everything, and they're getting bigger. People have this experience all the time. I've bought tickets to New York Yankees games where the fees were higher than the price of the ticket. I think this is really important because in a market economy, there's nothing more important than an honest price tag. How else can you comparison shop? Plus, is there really discrimination against overweight people in the workplace? We'll explore that and slang.

Starting point is 00:01:09 Where does it come from, and why does some slang stay with us for so long? The word cool would be a great example. It's such an easy word, yet has really lasted longer than just about anything. We're now 60 years into cool and it has never faded. All this today on Something You Should Know. Mama, look at me. I'm going really fast. I just got my license. Can I borrow the car, please, Mom?

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Starting point is 00:01:55 Visit Intact.ca or talk to your broker. Conditions apply. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome. I'd like to remind you from time to time that if you ever want to get a hold of me or have something to say, you can always reach me by email. I read every email I get. I get a lot

Starting point is 00:02:22 of them, but I read them all. And my email address is mike at somethingyoushouldknow.net. We start today with washing your hands, because you've been washing your hands and been told to wash your hands ever since you were little, but there's still a good chance that you are not doing it correctly. And with cold and flu season around the corner, it's really important to wash your hands the right way. Here are some things you're probably doing. You don't wash long enough. A Michigan State University study found that 95% of people

Starting point is 00:02:53 don't wash hands long enough to effectively kill germs, which is 20 seconds of scrubbing with soap and water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You skip the nooks and crannies. If you just rub soap between your palms and then rinse and call it a day, your hands are still dirty. Germs love to hide under fingernails and in the pockets between fingers, so you should scrub these areas every time you wash.

Starting point is 00:03:21 You're probably not drying thoroughly. The most diligent hand-washing techniques are worthless if you skimp on the drying. Leaving the restroom with still damp hands can make it easier to pick up germy microbes from the neck surface that you touch. You think you need hot water. Despite widespread belief that you need hot water

Starting point is 00:03:42 to kill hand germs, lukewarm or cold water will do just fine. And that is something you should know. I'm one of those people who hates paying fees. I mean, not that anybody really likes paying fees, but I just find it extremely irritating when I look at my cell phone bill and I see all the stupid little fees and surcharges and taxes.

Starting point is 00:04:09 I also hate paying ATM fees. I'll drive miles to avoid that. I don't like paying baggage fees on airlines, and I particularly hate paying penalty fees if I occasionally make a mistake and pay a bill a day late. Another guy who hates fees probably more than me is Bob Sullivan. Bob has been railing against businesses who charge these nasty little fees. He's author of a book called Gotcha Capitalism, How Hidden Fees Rip You Off Every Day and What You Can Do About It. Hey, Bob. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Starting point is 00:04:44 So let me start with my latest fee story that got me irritated. And that was, I went to buy concert tickets, and you had to buy them through Ticketmaster. And so the ticket was $68 per ticket. But then after you go to pay, it turns out there's an access fee, whatever that is, because I figured the ticket gives me access. So why do I need to pay an access fee? And I think there was like a venue fee and then there was a service charge. And so the $68 ticket ended up being close to $90 or maybe it was even more, $100. And I thought, why? Why can't

Starting point is 00:05:26 they just say the price of the ticket is $90 and all the fees are included? And, you know, I know this is a concert ticket. It's not a necessity like a utility, but still, it's so irritating. Well, it may not be a utility, but it is a monopoly, right? What were your other choices to buy that concert ticket? Well, exactly, because it even said on the website, you cannot come to the box office and buy a ticket. Right, right. And this is really my problem with all of these things. And by the way, Ticketmaster, lots of folks call it Ticket Bastard, because of this frustration, it annoys everybody. If I could just back up for a second, one of the main principles of this gotcha capitalism that I write about is called the

Starting point is 00:06:12 death of the price tag. And it's exactly what you just experienced. And by the way, this is fairly unique here in the United States. So you promised a price for something, but then by the time you get out the door, the price, and it's not just a dollar or two. In your case, it was 50% more. People have this experience all the time. I've bought tickets to New York Yankees games where the fees were higher than the price of the ticket. First of all, that's just frustrating on its face, right? That's annoying.

Starting point is 00:06:38 Maybe it's a little more than annoying. It's not going to kill you. But I think this is really important because in a market economy, there's nothing more important than an honest price tag. How else can you comparison shop? How else can you do all the things that consumers and businesses are supposed to do in order for that fight that you have where you bargain and everything's above board? That's how markets are supposed to work. But when price tags are meaningless, well now, who wins in the fierce competition of the marketplace? Companies that cheat the most, companies that deceive the most,

Starting point is 00:07:10 companies with the highest fees. That's bad. It's frustrating for you on an individual basis, but I argue that this is really bad for the economy. But there must be a reason, like in the case of Ticketmaster, there must be a reason, because as you say, everybody is irritated by how they tack on the fees at the end. There must be a reason they do it that way. If we went to Ticketmaster and asked them, what would they say? Why do they do it? What's their reasoning? Because they can. They do it because they have this monopoly power. And that's really the problem for me. Something that I've begun to examine much more in the last 10 years or so that I've been writing about all of these things is I think people like

Starting point is 00:07:52 me always butt up against folks who say that they believe in free markets, you know. And so, like, my answer to a lot of things is, hey, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau should get involved and should limit the fees they can charge or say they can't charge fees at all or whatnot. And other folks will say, no, no, no, let the free market take care of this. If we do, consumers will eventually get so upset that Ticketmaster will have to lower its prices. And a properly functioning economy, that would be true. But a properly functioning economy would suggest that you had seven, eight, nine, ten places that you could go for buying tickets. And one company would say, you know, it's $5 to print out your ticket.

Starting point is 00:08:29 There's a printed home fee in a lot of these situations. I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like the printer ink is enough. We're going to charge you to not send you a ticket. That's right, that's right, yeah. In fact, in some cases it's cheaper to mail you the ticket because nobody wants mail anymore. But there's no competition. There's nobody else saying, hey, our printed home fee is only $2. So you don't have a choice. So we live in this crazy market right now where, think about all the products you get. Something

Starting point is 00:08:58 like 25% of Americans only have one choice for an internet provider. If you're lucky, you have two or three cell phone providers who work in your home and in your workplace. But in most products that we have, we have these duopolies or triopolies. So there's very little competition. And that's the reason that all this occurs. Back to your original question, Ticketmaster does this because it can. Well, maybe, but I suspect there's some psychology to this as well. It's that upfront pricing problem that I know hotels have tried, where they tell people the total price of the room, including all the taxes and fees, and their sales go down because people want a cheaper hotel

Starting point is 00:09:37 room. So they'll go book a cheaper hotel room that then adds on those taxes and fees, and it's the same price or more, but people think they got a cheaper hotel room, and that's probably sort of what's going on here. Let me tell you another very similar story. Every Valentine's Day, we have to buy flowers for the people that we love. I'm sorry, I mean, we get to buy flowers for the people that we love. And you see this flurry of ads for bouquets for $29.99, and there's literally no way for you to buy flowers And you see this flurry of ads for bouquets for $29.99.

Starting point is 00:10:15 And there is literally no way for you to buy flowers for anything less than $50 out the door by the time there's a delivery fee and a service charge and the delivery on Saturday charge and all of that. And these companies know exactly what they're doing. Another one of the things I'd like to talk about is that they've hacked consumers. They know exactly what price point will get your attention. Something under $30 is going to make you go to a website. You fill in all these forms. You fill out the lovely card. You enter your credit card. And it's not until six screens in that they say, oh, by the way, it's actually double the price that you thought it was. And by now you've wasted all that time. What are you going to do? Back out, try it at another site where you probably think that's going to happen. So just as you said with Ticketmaster, you just give in and you do it.

Starting point is 00:10:50 But if the original price were higher, a certain percentage wouldn't be tempted to go through the process. So they've hacked you. They know exactly what your pain points are. And they toy with them. So it's really bait and switch. It's just where they're baiting you with a low price and then go, oh, but really, if you want the ticket, it's $90. It is bait and switch. And I think it shouldn't be illegal. I mean, I think a simple way to fix all of this would be to pass regulations.

Starting point is 00:11:17 States could do it. Federal government could do it, saying price tags have to be price tags. Anyone who's traveled in most of Europe know that when there's a price on something, it includes sales tax even, for example. So there's no confusion around that. But let me tell you a sad story as to why this persists. StubHub, which is sort of a ticket master competitor, it's an aftermarket ticket sales place, but similar markets. They actually tried upfront pricing a few years ago and it's exactly what you said the price you see on the first screen is the price you pay out the door and they stuck with it for a good year i give them credit but they found out that it was a losing proposition for the company because

Starting point is 00:11:55 everybody else wasn't doing that and so people would see you know an upfront price of 25 dollars but some other site had it for 17 so they would switch to the other site, even though the aftercharges made the ultimate price more. And this is the real tragedy of our marketplace right now. Companies cannot afford to be honest about their prices. If you're the one company that goes out there and says, we're going to be upfront, you lose. So I think one of the areas where people get most upset about fees is bank fees, ATM fees, overdraft charges, bounce check charges. And I heard somebody say something that really resonated with me because they were talking about how much money banks make from fees like this for

Starting point is 00:12:40 overcharge fees and credit card overdraft, whatever the penalty fee is, that if you're a business whose profitability depends on the mistakes of your customers, you have a flawed business model. And yet that's exactly the business model for a lot of banks. Yes, I believe this fully. There's plenty of examples in electronics, for example, where rebates for cheap electronics are still a big deal. And the terms in the rebate world are breakage and slippage. And there are entire companies that would make no money if it

Starting point is 00:13:19 weren't for the breakage and slippage among rebates, meaning people forget the forms or they're rejected for some silly reason. So their whole business model is this ripoff model. And that's actually true for a lot of products right now. If it weren't for the overage charges for things like coffee or bags, plenty of airlines wouldn't be profitable, for example. A lot of companies, their entire structure is around these tricky fees. Think about what really happens,

Starting point is 00:13:45 right? So an airline changes its business model where it only makes money based on these fees. Consumers get screwed for a while. Slowly but surely, there's a learning curve. They get better at it. And so all that airline revenue dries up as people learn to shove more things into their carry-on bags. So they have a bad quarter. Then what do they do? They add another fee for carry-on bags. And it's this game that goes back and forth. It's exhausting for consumers. But again, it's bad for the economy because instead of competing on the quality of the core product, now they're just competing on all of this creative fee nonsense. We're talking about fees and all the other little ways businesses try to squeeze

Starting point is 00:14:22 nickels and dimes out of you. And my guest is Bob Sullivan. Bob is the author of the book, Gotcha Capitalism, and he is also host of the podcast series, Breach. This is an ad for better help. Welcome to the world. Please read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you, and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy.

Starting point is 00:14:53 Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit BetterHelp.com to learn more. That's BetterHelp.com. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations. Hey. No, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick?

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Starting point is 00:15:47 and the bank has to take money from my savings account and move it to my checking account to cover a check, it doesn't cost $20 or $30 or whatever the charge is to do that. It doesn't cost them that. Right. This is the gotcha part of gotcha capitalism. So your balance falls below the required $500 for six hours, one month, and they charge you a $12 service fee for that month. So the punishment doesn't fit the crime. This is one of the other core tenets of this sort of

Starting point is 00:16:18 anti-consumer world that we live in right now, where when you make a mistake, it's almost like you've given up all your rights. Go ahead and try to appeal that cascading $30 overdraft fee that occurs six times because there was one mistake at an ATM that you made. So you borrow $20 and it can cost you $90 to pay it back. There's a kind of a debtor's prison mentality still to this day in the States. And so if you make a mistake as a consumer, you know, an honest mistake, a small one, it's almost like there's no limit to how much you'll be punished for that mistake. And that's another thing that really frustrates people.

Starting point is 00:16:54 But oftentimes, my experience is, because I've heard advice from people like you in the past, that when there is the occasional mistake at the bank, if you call, and, you know, it'll take you 15 minutes to actually talk to a person, but if you call, you can usually get it waived once in a while. That's true, yeah. And I think this is one of the big takeaway from this conversation.

Starting point is 00:17:18 If people don't get anything else, I'm just the world's biggest believer in complaining and asking. A lot of companies put up these small barriers and they know that people are busy and distracted and trying to raise their kids or make it to carpool or soccer practice or whatever, and they don't have time. And so they assume that you won't complain or you won't even just ask. And I know it seems like a lot of trouble, but man, if you spend 15 minutes on the phone and you save yourself $30, that's like $120 an hour job.

Starting point is 00:17:48 And it's absolutely worth it. And one of the suggestions I make to people is set aside a day a month, a lunch hour, the first Friday of every month, whatever it is, and use that time to chase after this spare money that's lying around. And it really will make sense to you. And by the way, it feels awfully good, too, when you do get one of those fees waived or you get some money back. Well, sometimes I take my revenge. If I feel a company's being really unreasonable and they're taking money from me and I have no recourse, if I have the time, I'll waste theirs because it just, it feels right. If they're going to take $30 from me, then I'm going to make them work for it. Make them have some pain. So I completely agree. I'm

Starting point is 00:18:32 so glad you said that. I say all the time that complaining is like voting. And, and even if you don't get the result you want in that moment, you've still registered your problem. You've still taken a customer service agents, you know, 10 minutes on the phone. There's a cost for them. So you literally have caused them a cost. And if no one does that, then the company will get away with it forever. If thousands of people do it, like voting, they might actually have to change their business model because it will cost them too much. So complaining is like voting. Always complain. But in general, there's not a whole lot you can do about the fees on your cell phone bill or your cable bill or your home phone bill.

Starting point is 00:19:09 I mean, the fees are the fees. They're government fees often and taxes. And they are what they are. Yeah, that's true a lot. Although, you know, there are situations where you can look around. One of my favorite things to do, especially with pay television, for example, where most folks have at least two options, is to, before you call to complain, look at the ads for the competitor and have it in front of you and call up and say, you know, look, this is like

Starting point is 00:19:37 the moment when you're at the car dealership and you threaten to get up and walk out halfway through a sale. Suddenly the salesperson has this conversion, we're like, oh no, don't walk out the door, I'll work with you. You know, call up the cable company or the DirecTV satellite company and say, look, I've got an ad right in front of me for this price. You know, you either match it or at least work with me or I'm out the door. And now the important thing is when you make a threat like that, you have to mean it. You have to be willing to do that.

Starting point is 00:20:04 But if oftentimes when you make a, when you, you have to mean it. You have to be willing to do that. But oftentimes when you make a, you know, that's just a bargain. You're driving a hard bargain, and you will get some results. And again, not all the time, but it's worth trying. Lots of people have lots of success doing that. Often when people want to argue about these things, their assumption is that they should get somebody on the phone and immediately say, let me speak to your manager. Is that a good tactic? You know, the word is sort of out on speaking to the manager. It did used to work years ago. Now, obviously, companies have figured that one out.

Starting point is 00:20:35 And, you know, they will often just switch you to another person or whatnot if you're insistent. It is a worthwhile question, however, to ask. Let me just back up a minute. One thing that I think a lot of people forget when they complain is to simply ask what it is they want. People sometimes just feel like venting, and that's lovely, but you should vent to your friends. When you call a company, have a result you want. So this happened. You charged me $35. I request a waiver for the $35. So make it up front what you want. The second thing to do is if you get any pushback, say, honest question, do you have the ability to waive this fee? Because

Starting point is 00:21:12 many frontline workers will not. So rather than ask for a manager, who knows what that means, say, I really need to speak to someone who has the authority to waive this fee. And that actually can sometimes work much better. Yeah, that's a great idea. I always figured that when you ask for a manager, that they just like snicker and give you the guy sitting next to them. They just change their voice on the front. Hi, this is Bob Sullivan's boss. I know Bob's kind of annoying, isn't he? You sound a lot like that other guy, but... Just older and like a little, maybe a little more overweight. don't know but at least there's comfort in numbers that this obviously irritates everyone and it's nice to hear that everyone is

Starting point is 00:21:51 as upset about this as i am no i've traded on that for a long time frankly in my journalism career um i am often the first person people have communicated who write back to them or who will listen to their complaints and by the way i, I love hearing, I know this is crazy, I love hearing from people when they have complaints. I'm very odd, but nothing makes me happier in the morning when I wake up and there's four emails from someone complaining about a new service line charge at an ISP on the West Coast, because I feel like I'm on the leading edge and I can do something about it. So go ahead and write to me. But I'm often the first person who listens and cares. And so the fact that you even can commiserate with other people who are frustrated about this, that alone is worthwhile. What happened at the beginning of this podcast

Starting point is 00:22:35 happens to me every time I get on an airplane or I'm in a room for a while. Bob, you write about hidden fees. Let me tell you what happened to me. It really pissed me off. And I like that. I do think people need to vent and get it out. I do think that that's helpful. You know, I remember a time when I was younger and perhaps more naive, and I used to think when I would get the, you know, your call is very important to us, or, you know, well, let me transfer you to another department, or why are they making it so hard to speak to a human being?

Starting point is 00:23:07 They really should know that how frustrating this is. They know exactly how frustrating this is. This is all deliberate. They know exactly what they're doing, but they're putting up barriers. They're making it hard so they can make more money. That's right. That's right. So, but it's more than

Starting point is 00:23:25 deliberate. I think that the biggest insight I've gained in the last 10 years since I started really writing about this is that there are supercomputers at all of these large companies that run the numbers constantly. And I'm not exaggerating to say that you and I and everybody listening, we have all been hacked. In fact, one term I heard recently is that we've all been programmed. They know exactly what color entices us. They know to the penny what price point entices us. Companies like Amazon actually change their prices based on our web browsing habits and what they know about us. And so you are the solitary consumer who, again, is busy and distracted, and you're fighting against millions of dollars of research.

Starting point is 00:24:07 And you've been poked and prodded. They use applied behavioral sciences against you, all of these tools, to just get you to pay a little bit more. And people get huge bonuses at these companies when they discover that this font makes you pay more than that font or whatnot. So it's a really tough fight. You're up against something that's more than deliberate. I mean, this is big data against little people, and it's a very, very tough fight. Well, it's really eye-opening. And like I said, it's good to know, at least, that we're all in

Starting point is 00:24:35 this together, that everybody has the same frustrations, and maybe collectively we can do something. My guest has been Bob Sullivan, and if you would like to find out more, he's got a book called Gotcha Capitalism. There's a link to his book in the show notes. And his website, if you want to learn more, is bobsullivan.net. And check out his podcast. It's the story of the guy who hacked Yahoo and stole lots of people's information and went to prison for it.

Starting point is 00:25:03 The name of the podcast is Breach, and you'll find it wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for being here, Bob. Hey, thanks, Mike. It's been a pleasure. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation

Starting point is 00:25:31 includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. People who listen to Something You should know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson, discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars.

Starting point is 00:26:26 Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Slang has always interested me because I wonder, where does it come from? Who starts it? How come some of it lasts and other slang comes and goes? In some cases, I think maybe slang fills a hole in the language, that there isn't a word in English that fits for that situation at that time, so somebody makes it up, and it sticks.

Starting point is 00:27:09 Tom Dalzell is somebody who's been fascinated with slang. He's written several books about it, including The Rutledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang in Unconventional English. Hey Tom, so what is your working definition of slang? What does a word have to do or be to be considered slang in your eyes? Well, slang in general is informal language, a language that lowers the formality of a conversation and establishes, for want of a better word, tribe membership. We are members of the same subculture, counterculture, culture, tribe.

Starting point is 00:27:56 So the mere use of the word identifies you as a group marker. And where does it come from? Well, it comes from lots of different places. Young people tend to be very inventive about slang. People who are breaking the rules of life, whether it's criminal or simply a vice or a sin, tend to be very creative about language. People who are being oppressed, prisoners or racial minorities or enlisted soldiers tend to be very inventive about slang, but it bubbles up. And it seems that some of it sticks, some of it lasts a long time, and some of it falls away. Most of it falls away.

Starting point is 00:28:36 Some sticks. I mean, the word cool would be a great example that ever since it came into vogue in 1947 or 1948 has never really dropped off the charts. It's really had a long run. There's another class that's really interesting. It's words that have intense popularity that disappear for 20, 30 years and reappear. The word groovy would be one of those that had enjoyed huge popularity in the 1940s and had completely died away by the time it came back in the early 60s. Is that common, that kind of cycle? It's common enough to comment on it. A lot of the words from early hip-hop in the 1980s,

Starting point is 00:29:20 you'll find in Cab Calloway's slang dictionaries from 1938 to 1942, some of the biggest words from early hip-hop, fly would be an example for something that's fashionable or excellent, you'll find in big use in the late 30s. What really fascinates me about slang is, is how does it get there? I mean, what is the timeline? Is it that one person makes up a word and starts to use it, but what's the evolution that gets it into everybody's mouth? It's just hard to imagine that one person can come up with a word and it catches on. Although that's probably true. I can give you a few examples where we know who started the word.

Starting point is 00:30:06 The rap group E-40 was the first to use the word Skrilla for money, and that caught on. Herb Cain, the columnist in the San Francisco Chronicle, was the first to use the word beatnik. That caught on. But actually, I think that you're right, that it's often several people launching at the same time and then there's also a very interesting relationship between art and reality the screenwriters who wrote

Starting point is 00:30:34 Clueless had a tremendous ear and so the as if and the whatever and the whatever with the thumb and the finger showing a W obviously they'd heard that from kids somewhere, but then it takes on a huge life because it's art imitating life, and then life imitates art.

Starting point is 00:30:53 Well, sure, and I would imagine that media plays a big role in this. I mean, if a certain word gets put into a column or a TV show or whatever that people hear and start to use, that that gives a word a big boost. It certainly plays a role in spreading it. And in different generations, it's different media. If you're looking at the slang of teenagers from the 1920s, you're going to be looking probably the media that spread it the most were comics.

Starting point is 00:31:22 And then came radio, then came the influence of movies and television, and now the Internet. But, yeah, the media has also had the role somewhat of homogenizing slang and globalizing it. If you look at slang in the United States in the 1940s, before there was great national mass media, you'll see marked regional differences in slang and dialect. And over the years, they have really faded away to where they're occasionally you'll find a word or an expression that really is regional. Wicked as an intensifier, meaning very, it's wicked cold, it's wicked hot. It's still mostly heard in New England.

Starting point is 00:32:01 But generally speaking, the media has homogenized slang. Do you know, do other languages have or allow for slang to come in like it does in English and really become prominent or not? I can't tell you about languages from undeveloped countries, but certainly in developed countries, yes. And it all kind of works the same in those languages as it does in English? Yes, it does. Even within the English-speaking world, you will see a huge difference in character between Australia on the one hand and the Caribbean and the United States and the UK and Ireland. But it's all the same purpose, which is the lowering formality and

Starting point is 00:32:45 establishing the, being a group marker. So off the top of your head, can you just mention a few slang words or expressions that you find particularly interesting, for whatever reason, just to illustrate what you're talking about? I'll mention two words that really interest me. I've already mentioned one, cool. It's such an easy word, yet has really lasted on its face longer than just about anything. I mean, we're now 60 years into cool, and it has never faded. Another word that really interests me is the word hip. And throughout the 20th century, it has evolved. In the first decade of the 20th century, one heard the word hip and hep a lot. And there are 20 or 25 urban legends about where the word came from. I

Starting point is 00:33:41 don't think anybody knows. And then you turned to the hip cat and the hep cat. Then came the hipster. Then there was a first generation of hippies, which were jazz lovers in the 1950s. Then came the hippies, the flower children of the 1960s, and then came hip hop. So this one base word, hip, has worked through the entire 20th century evolving, and it's still here right in the middle of us with hip-hop. I mean, this absolutely fascinates me. Well, it's interesting, words like cool, for example. I mean, it's not a made-up word. Cool is part of the English language, has been for a long time, and it means cool as in temperature. Yet when it's used as a slang word, it means something entirely different.

Starting point is 00:34:27 Is that pretty common? One thing that slang often does is it is the world upside down, where good is bad and bad is good. So something that's ill or sick or bad are all good. Square started off meaning a good, honest, outstanding citizen, and now it's a pejorative. You know, somebody who's out of step, socially inept is a square. So the original meaning is still there.

Starting point is 00:34:58 Now, often, slang is nothing more than standard English that's given attitude. The word awesome, perfectly good standard English. But in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, for example, that was probably its jump into mainstream slang, just with attitude punched into that word. So the word remains, and the meaning is the same, but it becomes slang by the pronunciation. The word dude is kind of like that. I mean, the word dude has an original meaning, but now it's

Starting point is 00:35:33 used as, you know, just addressing people. Dude, hey dude. Hey dude. And just by saying it that way and in that context, it takes on an entirely different, almost a benign meaning, because really anybody can be a dude. So talk a little more about how these words evolve. Usually a word makes a journey from good to bad. And I'm not really judging, but sort of the bad meaning sticks. But to say that something sucks, when I went to high school in the late 1960s, the only question would have been, if you used the word suck, the only question would have been suspension or expulsion.

Starting point is 00:36:18 And now there's absolutely no taboo whatsoever. And I think that that's watching a journey out of taboo is really interesting. What's the origin of Sucks? I mean, is there an interesting story, or is it the likely sexual reference? The original connotation was sexual, and that's what made it taboo. And I think that anybody under the age of at least 35 would be shocked to learn that, because they've heard it in such a sanitized, non-taboo way. Well, I remember a time when people didn't say just suck, it was suck this or suck that. And then somehow it just got shortened to plain old suck,

Starting point is 00:37:06 and in shortening it, it became less offensive. But when words like cool, which is kind of the standard bearer of slang, when words like cool become so acceptable and so accepted and so commonly used, doesn't it fall out of the slang hall of fame and just become a plain old English word? It will always be in the hall of fame of slang, but there certainly are words that become so commonly used that they no longer have that group marker function. I'll tell you a story about a word that started off as intentionally invented slang. And in the late 1920s, an East Coast newspaper created a contest for come up with the best word to describe somebody who ignores prohibition laws. And two

Starting point is 00:37:52 different people won the prize for coming up with the same word, which was scofflaw. And we still use it now, mostly with parking violators. But there was a word where clearly two different people thought it up in response to the same contest. and it was a very slangy word at first, and now it's completely passed into the informal, or not even so informal, into create a word for something, or do they just happen? Somebody spontaneously says something and it becomes slang? I think that there are people who sit around and will try to come up with a catchphrase or a slang word, and I don't think that those last very long. I think that it is an unconscious coining that somehow catches on. Another example, there are words that just sound good to young people. Humongous shows up in the late 1960s

Starting point is 00:38:54 for the first time and actually is still used fairly commonly, along with ginormous now. But it's just a word that sounded good when heard. And a word can lie dormant. Bodacious would be one that you'll find in the diaries of Davy Crockett from the 1830s. It may or may not have been actually written by Davy Crockett, but they're in the diaries from the 1930s, generally spelled Bardacious. And you'll find it in comic strips from Little Abner once in a while, but then it's Officer and a Gentleman, 1982, where the word really takes off. You know, I'd say that a large,

Starting point is 00:39:33 certainly a majority of the words that are in any slang dictionary are words where the slang sense was imputed to standard English rather than coming up with a new word, a humongous or a ginormous. Who would have thought that when the word ghetto started to be used for ghetto hoops, for big earrings, or that's so ghetto, who would have thought that ghetto would have been turned around into almost praise? But it did. I'll tell you, slang is a wonderful window into a culture or a subculture. If you want to understand the subculture of surfers,

Starting point is 00:40:18 pick up a surfing dictionary, Trevor Crawley's Surfinary, and by just browsing through the language, the culture comes screaming out. And that is the great attraction to me, is the popular culture, the joy of life, the pride in one's tribe that slang speaks to. Well, like you, I'm also interested in language, and what I've noticed is that because slang is not part of the, quote, English language, the purists don't like it, they think that, you know, slang is ruining our language, it isn't talked about that much.

Starting point is 00:41:00 It's not really part of the curriculum of language, because in some sense it kind of doesn't belong, and yet here it is. And so I think it's fascinating to talk about. Tom Dalzell has been my guest. He's written several books about language, including the Rutledge Dictionary of Modern Slang and Unconventional English, and you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Tom. I've talked before on previous episodes about the fact that there are actually benefits to being slightly overweight, that you don't have to be a perfect physical specimen in order to be healthy. But one place where being overweight has no benefit is in the workplace, and that is because overweight people are often discriminated against.

Starting point is 00:41:48 In a study led by a professor at the Wharton School of Business, it became clear that obese job applicants were assumed to be significantly less competent simply because they were overweight. Even more interesting was that this was true even if the person doing the hiring was overweight as well. Overweight people also earn less money. Overweight white women seem to be the most affected by weight bias. In their case, a difference of 64 pounds translates to a 9% decrease in wages. In most places, weight discrimination is not illegal. In fact, in the U.S., weight discrimination is legal in 49 of the 50 states.

Starting point is 00:42:33 Michigan is the only one that bans it. And while there's no magic solution, just being aware that weight discrimination exists can help people get past their bias and focus on the individual instead. And that is something you should know. If you enjoyed this episode of the podcast, remember there are 200 plus other episodes in the catalog that I invite you to listen to anytime you like. They're all there wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening

Starting point is 00:43:05 today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love top 10 lists? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore. There is nothing we don't cover on our show. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed. I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle, what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures

Starting point is 00:43:45 and lower pitched in cooler temperatures? You got this. No, I didn't. Don't believe that. About a witch coming true? Well, I didn't either. Of course, I'm just a cicada. I'm crying. I'm so sorry. You win that one. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning. A fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new

Starting point is 00:44:29 friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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