April 14, 2021 • 13 mins
Chuck loves palindromes. So much that his very name is one. Oh wait...
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck. And I said hello with a silent h
at the end, which means I just said something in palindrome.
I love palindromes, as it turns out, Yeah, I do too,
and I think it's fat. The one that gets me
is when somebody's like, this number is a palindrome. I
(00:25):
just wrote it out. I don't get that, like that
doesn't count. Maybe if it's a date or something that
you don't have any control over, then yeah, be a palindrome.
But just anybody who's into numbers that are palindromes, be quiet,
Be quiet, once and for all. Yeah, I'm glad you
said that, because this article, even from how stuff works
dot com, says some numbers are palindromes, like one eight
zero zero eight one right, like that, I just wrote
(00:48):
out any number exactly. That's how we're talking about. We're
not going to give another breath to that stupidness. Instead,
we're gonna talk about real palindromes, which is a word,
a phrase, a poem. Even as we'll see um that
can be said the same forwards or backwards. And apparently
it comes from a little bit of Greek who like
(01:10):
the palindromes. Yes, the word palin means back or again,
and dromos means running or moving, so it's a word
or phrase that's running back on itself. And I'm even
gonna go so far for me as to say I
only like palindromes that are literal, the letters backwards and forwards,
(01:31):
like they make the case in here, like some phrases
like night after night. I'm like, now, well, we'll talk
about that in a second. Okay, okay, I prefer that
as well. I like the I like the the letters
back and forth, and that's that. But I will say
my eyes were open to that by this article. Fair enough,
So the first palindrome, like I said, the Greeks liked it. Actually,
(01:55):
it turns out the Romans did. But the Romans model
a lot of their society, if not all of it,
on the ancient Greeks, so it's possible they ripped them off,
and that the Romans just happened to be the first
ones to mention it. But the first palindrome comes from
seventy c. E Um and it's in Latin. Chuck, do
you want to take a crack at it? Storrepo tenant
(02:16):
opera rotas, you just turned me into a tree. It
doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what it's saying in Latin,
like we Americans say all Latin, like we're in a
Harry Potter movie. Yeah, like Evil Dead Klatto verata, that's
(02:37):
a Day to the Earth. It's still, Yes, it is.
It's the Evil Dead, my friend. Then they stole it
from the Day of the Earth, said still, because that
is the I don't even remember what it was. Yeah,
that's from the Day of the Earth's still, I promise. Well,
then they ganked it in Evil Dead, which is better.
I think it was more in homage probably, Okay, but
(03:00):
to hear it come out of Bruce Campbell's mouth, is
that's the money shot. I mean, they really went off
the rails on those movies. Yeah, they're making another one,
I think when I don't know, like a Bruce Campbell one,
like a sequel to Army of Dark's Boy, that's going
to be great. You can't wait. Okay, So what did
that um? That palindrome you said mean it means the
(03:21):
sower Rabo holds the wheel with effort, or the sower
Arabo leads with his hands with his hand the plow.
Nothing that matters at all to any of us alive today.
But I'm sure back in the day the Romans were
like that is everyone really spoke to me, you know
what I mean. But it goes to show that, like
word play has been around for almost as long as words.
(03:46):
You know, yeah and chuck, um, it wasn't just the
ancient Romans who were into it, that that love of
it has survived. And I say we pick up with
the modern day after taking a short break. What do
you think let's do it? Okay, all right, we're back
(04:22):
by modern day of course, I mean the sixteen thirties. Yeah.
The first mention of palindromes in English is in Camden's
Remains by John philipot from six. Palindrums are those where
the syllables are same backward and forward. So all blatta
at alba see new me in mounis very nice, which
(04:47):
means secluded but pure. Give me my fee and I
warrant you free, okay, which is great that you have
a palindrome that also rhymes, because that's not necessarily part
and parcel with it. Um. Philip HoTT was just showing off.
But you'll note that he's an English speaker and he
(05:08):
wrote an English speaking book, Camden's Remains, but it was
still in Latin, hence the whole clattoo verada tone to
Chuck's reading of it. It's not until seventeen o six
that we find the first written English palindrome in an
English dictionary called the New World of Words or Universal
English Dictionary. And this is as follows, lewd did I live?
(05:33):
And evil did I dwell? Yeah, there's there's a couple
of problems with it. One, they had to drop off
the second l and dwell to make it the reverse
of lud. And then there's also the whole and in
the middle of it, which does not part of a palindrome.
It's not a palindrome itself, and it kind of screws
up the whole palindrome. But because it was the beginning
(05:56):
of the eighteenth century, everybody kind of chose to overlook
the and part. That's right. Uh, then we can skip
the part about numbers being palindromes because that's just rage inducing. Well, no,
the date makes sense, so one is a palindrome. January
was a palindrome day fourth mentioning you know, we'll take that,
but give me your eye opening with the thing like
(06:19):
night after night, which just sort of makes me mad too.
So there's a there's a really neat poem that I
hadn't heard of until um I ran across it in
this article by James A. Linden called Doppelganger, and it
is itself a palindrome like where you can actually um
read it from. You could go to the very end
(06:40):
and read it, or you can go to the beginning
to read it, and it's going to be the same.
So you don't read the actual words, but like the
word itself backwards, but you read the order of the
words backwards and forwards, and the whole thing hinges on.
Um the phrase night after night, which is pretty a
pretty awesome poem to tell you the truth. Let me
(07:02):
just read you the middle part where it hinges, and
I think you'll be properly blown away. Okay. I puzzled
over it, hiding alone, watching the woman as she neared
the gate. He came and I saw him crouching, night
after night. Night after night he came, and I saw
him crouching, watching the woman as she neared the gate.
I puzzled over it, hiding alone, and it's just like
(07:24):
the poem starts out and then it gets to night
after night and then goes back. It's like it's swings
on a hinge. It's really neat. I like it. I
like it too. It's not one of your perfect, proper
palin drums or anything, but it's still pretty cool. So
here's my thing is, I started kind of diving into
this online and found out that there a is a
(07:45):
documentary called The Palindromists, which I didn't watch, but I
did watch the trailer, which was fun enough and kind
of gave me enough inside in two minutes. That sounds
like a crew that Hodgeman would hang out with, probably
so um. But it covered in part the Palindrome Championships,
which is basically where they get palindrome enthusiast together at
(08:07):
a hotel ballroom and they say, you've got nine. They
have three constraints. They didn't mention the constraints in the trailer. Uh,
you have ninety minutes to write out original palindromes and
then the audience alive audience votes and weird Owl is
in it. He's a palindromist. Um. Uh. Danika mckeller Winnie
from one of years is one. You know she wrote
(08:29):
like a science or no, a math book. Well do
you know what? She also wrote? What tons of UFO snot?
What is that? It's a palindrome? Oh that's a good one. Okay,
weird al wrote this one Suzy rat in a sanitary zoo.
That's so Dana wins so far. My deal with these
(08:52):
is once I started kind of seeing this community is
not only do I love a palindrome, but I like
an original one that someone can invent that kind of
makes sense and it's not just a collection of words
like do geese? See god? Yeah, that makes sense? It does. Uh.
Here was another one from the documentary Gerda Boston's i
(09:15):
Q is not so bad? Reg h, that's a good one. Wow,
who'ss that? Just a contestant? No one famous Lloyd Benson. Sure, okay,
let's see how about um I got another one? Uh
go deliver a dare vile dog. That's a good one.
It doesn't make sense, but it's pretty great. Well, and
(09:38):
by makes sense. It just it's a sentence and not
just a collection of words. What about don't nod it's perfect?
Or taco cat the classic taco cat. Taco cats good
or there's another one with the cat too. Was it
a car or a cat? I saw, that's a good one.
I've got another one from that trailer. Mr owl ate my,
(10:00):
it'll worm. Okay, what else? And then go hang a salami?
I'm a lasagna hog. Who's this? That? That was a
guy named John A g Um but just the sheer joy.
These these are sort of like um uh crossword puzzle enthusiasts,
like just people who really get into words. Uh. And
(10:21):
I just couldn't get enough of it. I'm gonna try
and find the whole documentary. UM. I did see in
February two two there was a computer scientist named Peter
Norvig who used a computer program to break the record
for the quote longest Balandrume sentence, which was seventeen thousand
plus words. It's just a computer program putting together a
bunch of words. Oh yeah, that doesn't count. And I see,
(10:43):
I see, yeah, that's but they said that he's the
world record holder. And I was like, come on, man,
maybe in the future, but you know, John A. G
By the way, is um children's book author a beloved
one according to the Penguin Random House website. Very cool.
I also found. The longest word is a Finnish palindrome,
(11:05):
which has I think nineteen letters. S ai you well,
I can't say it. Uh sapua kibikw ps. You just
converted me back into a boy. It's a dealer in
lie apparently, so okay, a lie seller, yeah, I think
(11:28):
so okay. Um. One last thing. Um always talked about
this guy that she dated that used to mess with people,
and Um whenever palindromes came up, he'd said, yeah, my
favorite one is Penis sniper and just wait for them
to like go over in their head and they'd be like, wait,
this is not a palindrome, but you're sitting there thinking exactly. Yeah.
(11:48):
I think this last one was pretty funny to me
just because it was well. Two of them, to me,
are very funny because they're so basic. One is Stella
won no wallets, m M. It's a big wallet competition.
And then this guy's like clearly a citrus street vendor.
No lemon, no melon. But I like that one too.
(12:11):
It's um. The word melon itself has a nice round
feeling to it. I love the word melon yeah, and
lemon too, just because it's evocative of that beautiful color too. Yeah,
that might be my favorite one. Now. No lemon, no melon, Yeah,
but I like how you say it as well. No lemon,
no melon, that's right, only pineapple. So we could probably
(12:32):
see here for the next two hours doing they should
we just cut this short. Well, we'll stop recording and
then you and I have just continue to do it
on our right, all right, all right, Well to the
rest of you, See you guys later. Because short stuff
is that stuff you should know is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(12:54):
listen to your favorite shows.
Hello, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck. And I said hello with a silent h
at the end, which means I just said something in palindrome.
I love palindromes, as it turns out, Yeah, I do too,
and I think it's fat. The one that gets me
is when somebody's like, this number is a palindrome. I
(00:25):
just wrote it out. I don't get that, like that
doesn't count. Maybe if it's a date or something that
you don't have any control over, then yeah, be a palindrome.
But just anybody who's into numbers that are palindromes, be quiet,
Be quiet, once and for all. Yeah, I'm glad you
said that, because this article, even from how stuff works
dot com, says some numbers are palindromes, like one eight
zero zero eight one right, like that, I just wrote
(00:48):
out any number exactly. That's how we're talking about. We're
not going to give another breath to that stupidness. Instead,
we're gonna talk about real palindromes, which is a word,
a phrase, a poem. Even as we'll see um that
can be said the same forwards or backwards. And apparently
it comes from a little bit of Greek who like
(01:10):
the palindromes. Yes, the word palin means back or again,
and dromos means running or moving, so it's a word
or phrase that's running back on itself. And I'm even
gonna go so far for me as to say I
only like palindromes that are literal, the letters backwards and forwards,
(01:31):
like they make the case in here, like some phrases
like night after night. I'm like, now, well, we'll talk
about that in a second. Okay, okay, I prefer that
as well. I like the I like the the letters
back and forth, and that's that. But I will say
my eyes were open to that by this article. Fair enough,
So the first palindrome, like I said, the Greeks liked it. Actually,
(01:55):
it turns out the Romans did. But the Romans model
a lot of their society, if not all of it,
on the ancient Greeks, so it's possible they ripped them off,
and that the Romans just happened to be the first
ones to mention it. But the first palindrome comes from
seventy c. E Um and it's in Latin. Chuck, do
you want to take a crack at it? Storrepo tenant
(02:16):
opera rotas, you just turned me into a tree. It
doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what it's saying in Latin,
like we Americans say all Latin, like we're in a
Harry Potter movie. Yeah, like Evil Dead Klatto verata, that's
(02:37):
a Day to the Earth. It's still, Yes, it is.
It's the Evil Dead, my friend. Then they stole it
from the Day of the Earth, said still, because that
is the I don't even remember what it was. Yeah,
that's from the Day of the Earth's still, I promise. Well,
then they ganked it in Evil Dead, which is better.
I think it was more in homage probably, Okay, but
(03:00):
to hear it come out of Bruce Campbell's mouth, is
that's the money shot. I mean, they really went off
the rails on those movies. Yeah, they're making another one,
I think when I don't know, like a Bruce Campbell one,
like a sequel to Army of Dark's Boy, that's going
to be great. You can't wait. Okay, So what did
that um? That palindrome you said mean it means the
(03:21):
sower Rabo holds the wheel with effort, or the sower
Arabo leads with his hands with his hand the plow.
Nothing that matters at all to any of us alive today.
But I'm sure back in the day the Romans were
like that is everyone really spoke to me, you know
what I mean. But it goes to show that, like
word play has been around for almost as long as words.
(03:46):
You know, yeah and chuck, um, it wasn't just the
ancient Romans who were into it, that that love of
it has survived. And I say we pick up with
the modern day after taking a short break. What do
you think let's do it? Okay, all right, we're back
(04:22):
by modern day of course, I mean the sixteen thirties. Yeah.
The first mention of palindromes in English is in Camden's
Remains by John philipot from six. Palindrums are those where
the syllables are same backward and forward. So all blatta
at alba see new me in mounis very nice, which
(04:47):
means secluded but pure. Give me my fee and I
warrant you free, okay, which is great that you have
a palindrome that also rhymes, because that's not necessarily part
and parcel with it. Um. Philip HoTT was just showing off.
But you'll note that he's an English speaker and he
(05:08):
wrote an English speaking book, Camden's Remains, but it was
still in Latin, hence the whole clattoo verada tone to
Chuck's reading of it. It's not until seventeen o six
that we find the first written English palindrome in an
English dictionary called the New World of Words or Universal
English Dictionary. And this is as follows, lewd did I live?
(05:33):
And evil did I dwell? Yeah, there's there's a couple
of problems with it. One, they had to drop off
the second l and dwell to make it the reverse
of lud. And then there's also the whole and in
the middle of it, which does not part of a palindrome.
It's not a palindrome itself, and it kind of screws
up the whole palindrome. But because it was the beginning
(05:56):
of the eighteenth century, everybody kind of chose to overlook
the and part. That's right. Uh, then we can skip
the part about numbers being palindromes because that's just rage inducing. Well, no,
the date makes sense, so one is a palindrome. January
was a palindrome day fourth mentioning you know, we'll take that,
but give me your eye opening with the thing like
(06:19):
night after night, which just sort of makes me mad too.
So there's a there's a really neat poem that I
hadn't heard of until um I ran across it in
this article by James A. Linden called Doppelganger, and it
is itself a palindrome like where you can actually um
read it from. You could go to the very end
(06:40):
and read it, or you can go to the beginning
to read it, and it's going to be the same.
So you don't read the actual words, but like the
word itself backwards, but you read the order of the
words backwards and forwards, and the whole thing hinges on.
Um the phrase night after night, which is pretty a
pretty awesome poem to tell you the truth. Let me
(07:02):
just read you the middle part where it hinges, and
I think you'll be properly blown away. Okay. I puzzled
over it, hiding alone, watching the woman as she neared
the gate. He came and I saw him crouching, night
after night. Night after night he came, and I saw
him crouching, watching the woman as she neared the gate.
I puzzled over it, hiding alone, and it's just like
(07:24):
the poem starts out and then it gets to night
after night and then goes back. It's like it's swings
on a hinge. It's really neat. I like it. I
like it too. It's not one of your perfect, proper
palin drums or anything, but it's still pretty cool. So
here's my thing is, I started kind of diving into
this online and found out that there a is a
(07:45):
documentary called The Palindromists, which I didn't watch, but I
did watch the trailer, which was fun enough and kind
of gave me enough inside in two minutes. That sounds
like a crew that Hodgeman would hang out with, probably
so um. But it covered in part the Palindrome Championships,
which is basically where they get palindrome enthusiast together at
(08:07):
a hotel ballroom and they say, you've got nine. They
have three constraints. They didn't mention the constraints in the trailer. Uh,
you have ninety minutes to write out original palindromes and
then the audience alive audience votes and weird Owl is
in it. He's a palindromist. Um. Uh. Danika mckeller Winnie
from one of years is one. You know she wrote
(08:29):
like a science or no, a math book. Well do
you know what? She also wrote? What tons of UFO snot?
What is that? It's a palindrome? Oh that's a good one. Okay,
weird al wrote this one Suzy rat in a sanitary zoo.
That's so Dana wins so far. My deal with these
(08:52):
is once I started kind of seeing this community is
not only do I love a palindrome, but I like
an original one that someone can invent that kind of
makes sense and it's not just a collection of words
like do geese? See god? Yeah, that makes sense? It does. Uh.
Here was another one from the documentary Gerda Boston's i
(09:15):
Q is not so bad? Reg h, that's a good one. Wow,
who'ss that? Just a contestant? No one famous Lloyd Benson. Sure, okay,
let's see how about um I got another one? Uh
go deliver a dare vile dog. That's a good one.
It doesn't make sense, but it's pretty great. Well, and
(09:38):
by makes sense. It just it's a sentence and not
just a collection of words. What about don't nod it's perfect?
Or taco cat the classic taco cat. Taco cats good
or there's another one with the cat too. Was it
a car or a cat? I saw, that's a good one.
I've got another one from that trailer. Mr owl ate my,
(10:00):
it'll worm. Okay, what else? And then go hang a salami?
I'm a lasagna hog. Who's this? That? That was a
guy named John A g Um but just the sheer joy.
These these are sort of like um uh crossword puzzle enthusiasts,
like just people who really get into words. Uh. And
(10:21):
I just couldn't get enough of it. I'm gonna try
and find the whole documentary. UM. I did see in
February two two there was a computer scientist named Peter
Norvig who used a computer program to break the record
for the quote longest Balandrume sentence, which was seventeen thousand
plus words. It's just a computer program putting together a
bunch of words. Oh yeah, that doesn't count. And I see,
(10:43):
I see, yeah, that's but they said that he's the
world record holder. And I was like, come on, man,
maybe in the future, but you know, John A. G
By the way, is um children's book author a beloved
one according to the Penguin Random House website. Very cool.
I also found. The longest word is a Finnish palindrome,
(11:05):
which has I think nineteen letters. S ai you well,
I can't say it. Uh sapua kibikw ps. You just
converted me back into a boy. It's a dealer in
lie apparently, so okay, a lie seller, yeah, I think
(11:28):
so okay. Um. One last thing. Um always talked about
this guy that she dated that used to mess with people,
and Um whenever palindromes came up, he'd said, yeah, my
favorite one is Penis sniper and just wait for them
to like go over in their head and they'd be like, wait,
this is not a palindrome, but you're sitting there thinking exactly. Yeah.
(11:48):
I think this last one was pretty funny to me
just because it was well. Two of them, to me,
are very funny because they're so basic. One is Stella
won no wallets, m M. It's a big wallet competition.
And then this guy's like clearly a citrus street vendor.
No lemon, no melon. But I like that one too.
(12:11):
It's um. The word melon itself has a nice round
feeling to it. I love the word melon yeah, and
lemon too, just because it's evocative of that beautiful color too. Yeah,
that might be my favorite one. Now. No lemon, no melon, Yeah,
but I like how you say it as well. No lemon,
no melon, that's right, only pineapple. So we could probably
(12:32):
see here for the next two hours doing they should
we just cut this short. Well, we'll stop recording and
then you and I have just continue to do it
on our right, all right, all right, Well to the
rest of you, See you guys later. Because short stuff
is that stuff you should know is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(12:54):
listen to your favorite shows.
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