⚡️MINI: A dictionary professional reveals the real meaning behind 'spilling the tea'

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
My Heart podcasts, hear more kids podcasts, playlists, and listen
live on the Free Hard.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
It's Woody Analysis in the studio, our junior producer, she
posed a great question.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yes, who proof freads to the dictionary? We all want
to know? Okay, sorry, Cargo, who is it? Just to
break that down a little bit, are you saying that
who makes sure there are no typos in the dictionary?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
No?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, I guess typos as well, but more specifically, specifically,
how do we know the exact definition?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
It definite would change as well from dictionary to dictionary exactly.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Y Oxford might have one definition for drink.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
That's the word we.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
Keep want to drink because I have my drink bottle
with me.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Smart, but you know I'm going to stop you guys
having a stab in the dark because we have got
an expert on with it. Sue Butler AO is a
lexicographer at large who joins U right now. This is
her specialty, Sue about the dot com dot you Sue,
please please.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
I'll take that as a drum roll for the dictionary
goal the scene to enlighten you all. Yes, there is
a distinction between proofreading and writing the dictionary. Proof reading
has its own hazards. The first edition of the Dictionary
ended up with a lot of birds with white underpants

(01:26):
which had to be corrected to white underparts, and an
elk that was closely related to the mouth, and people
always new strange things happened in zoology, but this did
seem slightly buzzks. But of course it turned out to
be the moose through reading. Proof reading is a special problem.

(01:51):
We'll put that to one side and go back to
what makes the dictionary correct. And we all regard the
dictionary from when we grow up. It's the thing that
you look to. It's always right.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
The dictionary is always right.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
People goes to solve arguments over more than me, all
that sort of stuff, But who makes it right. I
wish there was a sort of god of dictionaries, and
I wish that was me, because I would then have
just been able to write the Dictionary as I thought
it ought to be done, without having to consult anyone
else at all, and it would all happen a lot faster.

(02:25):
But in fact, the dictionary is just the collective wisdom
of the community about the words they use and what
they mean. So what you have to do is go
and find evidence for the way in which word is
being used, and if it's being used in a new way,
then you find evidence for that. So tea, for example,

(02:45):
we all know the cup of tea, but how does
that relate to you're so tea or I clocked her tea?
This is getting pretty wild, as it turns out, the
tea in that instance is the capital T.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Some of the young kids say that they're spilling the tea,
which means that they're talking about gossip. What the point is, So,
at what point does that that's a metaphor into the dictionary?
Does that ever enter the dictionary? Would you ever say,
like tea can be used to spread gossip?

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Yes, as I said, it's actually the capital letter T,
standing for truth. So what's the T is? What's the truth?

Speaker 1 (03:29):
That's where that comes from.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, And then some clever person rewrote capital letter T
as tea, and then some clever person says, Okay, that's
like pouring a cup of tea, so fill the thing.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
Really a huge pain in the ass for you guys
to keep up with these whipper snappers exchanging rapid dialogue
over the tiktoks and whatnot and bastardizing the use of
these words, Well, we would.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Prefer to regard it as amusing and entertaining and exhibiting
a wild love of language and word place.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
I mean, I'm hearing the passion for words. It's just
oozing out of you. I'm so interested. What is your
favorite word?

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Oh well, it happens to me that you know the
word that I'm working on at the moment. Chat is
my favorite word at the moment, as in hey chat,
what are we going to do this afternoon? Chat? As
in chat room?

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Which one is the greatest dictionary? We've mentioned a few
of them that are going around, of course Quarry Okay, why.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Do you think that's Well, it's the greatest dictionary for
Australians and as you rightly said, there are different editors
who are responsible for each English fascinating.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
So it's been so lovely to meet you. Thank you
so much for all your all your insights. Sue Butler
dot com dot You're going to learn more about some
of the beautiful work that she does with words.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
Thanks sir,