Bite the Wax Tadpole - 24 March 2008

(This episode first aired December 15, 2007.)<br/><br/>In this episode, Martha and Grant discuss advertising slogans and product names supposedly botched in translation.<br/><br/>'Biting the Wax Tadpole'? It's the wacky title of a new book by language enthusiast Elizabeth Little which has Martha and Grant talking about whether Coca-Cola and Chevrolet ran into cultural translation problems when selling products abroad. Did the Chevy Nova really sell poorly in Latin America because 'No va' means 'don't go' in Spanish?<br/><br/>A caller wants help understanding a phrase he saw in 'Sports Illustrated': 'enough money to burn a wet dog.'<br/><br/>Other callers have weird words on their minds, including 'biffy' (meaning 'toilet') and 'gedunk' (meaning 'ice cream' or 'a snack bar' where you might buy sweets).<br/><br/>Greg Pliska has a quiz about chemical names that should exist but don't.<br/><br/>A caller asks about how lakes get named and we talk about a lake with a 45-letter Indian name that may or may not translate as, 'You fish on your side, I fish on my side and nobody fishes in the middle.' It's Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg.<br/><br/>A caller from Indiana wonders if the T9 text-messaging function has led to the term 'book' being a new term for 'cool.'<br/><br/>This week's slang contestant learns about the slang terms 'bluebird' and 'corpsing.'<br/><br/>A New York caller is incensed by the verb 'incent' and a California listener is puzzled when his Southern relatives observe that his new baby is 'fixing to tune up' whenever she's about to start crying.<br/><br/>A caller from San Diego has a friendly disagreement with friends about the phrase bald-faced lie v. bold-faced lie.<br/><br/>----<br/><br/>Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.(This episode first aired December 15, 2007.)<br/><br/>In this epis