Have you noticed that you can’t order ‘coffee’ these days. You have to select from a seemingly endless list of options from flat white to short black. Jonar speaks with Bruce and Phil about the language we use. For example, what is cold hard cash? What does ‘yours truly’ mean? To listen to an excerpt from the radio broadcast, click on the green arrow below.
[audio:3aw_observations_about_names.mp3]
Here is a transcript of the audio file.
Host: Jonar Nader what are your observations this week?
Jonar Nader: Well I was wondering, don’t you think it’s funny when they say come and buy this product and then they say we’ll give you $3000 cash back?
Host: They do, it’s an incentive.
Jonar Nader: Well why don’t they say don’t give us the $3000 in the first place. But there are people who find these things attractive and these days.
Notice you can’t just buy things that are ABSORBENT, they are SUPER ABSORBENT.
Host: they are too
Jonar Nader: I mean how much more water will they pick up, we have no idea! Also nothing is made with FIBRE, it is made with MICROfibre as if we know what that is!
Host: Have you noticed when you buy bread it either has Calcium in it, or iron, it’s high fibre- you can’t just get bread any more. Same with milk, what do you want skim milk, light milk, fat free milk. How about coffee, Lattè, black, white, flat black, flat white, skinny milk, short.
Jonar Nader: Yes, and what is cold hard cash? Have I asked you that question before? How is it cold and how is it Hard? Is that in the days before notes when it was all coins?
When you are watching something like the Burt Newton show and a chef comes on and they say put SOME salt ‘a little bit not too much’, so how much is that?
What about the gestures we use; in the good old days we used to dial a number not press a number so if someone is gesturing from across the hall to say I’ll dial you they’ll say I’ll call you holding their pinkie to their mouth and the thumb to their ear, but in the good ol days that wasn’t possible.
Host: No cause it was a great big Bakalite job.
Jonar Nader: Someone asked me what have you been doing and I gestured that I’ve been writing a lot cause I’m working on another book so I gestured my fingers on an imaginary keyboard, well in the good ol days when authors only used the pen and quill they would have had a different gesture. Today kids use SMS and they are very thumb dextrous so kids press their thumb to their top finger to say give me a call.
Host :Why is it when you say what is the time you point at your wrist?
Jonar Nader: Yes. You know in concert halls they have these chairs that when you stand up it immediately flaps back, how would that work for a Mexican wave of a thousand people, they would have all these compensation cases.
What about when you are standing at a water cooler with someone and you say goodbye after a long conversation. There is always one more point to be made. They always turn around and say ‘and by the way…’, there is never a clean cut goodbye.
And what does ‘yours truly’ mean? Truly what? Truly honest?
Host: Well it means that you can trust me.
Jonar Nader: I know but I don’t trust anyone who says you can trust me. You were speaking about the girl Haley, I came across her CD she is a little wonder. I saw her give a command performance and it reminded me that I absolutely hate it when singers hold a big fat microphone in front of their face and you can’t see their lips or mouth which is all part of the appeal. They do this on Australian idol and you think, ‘move it away’. With all the technology in the world today, isn’t there a microphone that can pick up beyond 3 inches from your face?
Do you get suggestive hunger? You are watching something; you are not hungry at all, yet the moment you see it you think, ‘oh yes, I’d like some’.
Host: I agree you get hungry if you are watching people in a movie and they are sitting there having something to eat. You immediately get hungry, and I know someone who is a heavy smoker and when he sees someone light up on the screen he dashes outside to have one.
Jonar Nader: So could there be a link there that our obesity and our increasing weight as a society has something to do with the masses of ads we keep seeing
Host: Could be , when you see a Hungry Jacks commercial you start drooling.
Jonar Nader: Yes and what about people who play ‘the price is right’ and those kind of shows, but they never actually play it; it is always the audience telling them what to do. I mean you are up there make a decision, but they can never make a decision. What about when someone is about to insult you and they begin with, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way but…’, I mean the moment they say that you know you are in for something.
Host: or they say look I don’t want to be critical and you say forget it I don’t want to know I’m walking away.
Jonar Nader: or what is the actual and official protocol when receiving a gift? People always ask ‘shall I open it now?’ When should I open it?
Host: That’s right , I’d rather not open it in front of you in case I don’t like it and I show my disappointment.
Jonar Nader: But some people give you a gift so they can see your face.
Finally, you know I do so much work with people overseas so I always say Mr Jonar Nader because Jonar is not a common name, just in case they don’t know if I am male of female. I have on my email list a Lane Stevenson; is that a male or female? I could not work it out? what about the person who signs their work K L Jones?
Host: I hate that you don’t know how to address them, and what about people who greet you by saying, ‘what do you know?’ Oh nothing much what do you know?
Jonar Nader: How about strange names like Lynn Anderson.
Host: It’s female.
Jonar Nader: Well it isn’t, I know a Lynn Anderson person who is a man and in fact I got told off when I kept writing dear Ms Anderson.
Host: Alright Jonar you should bring a book out on observation.
Jonar Nader: I’ve got so many.
Host: I think they are wonderful thank you Jonar.
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