0:04

Hello, and welcome to the short Stuff.

0:07

I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. And I said hello

0:10

with a silent h at the end, which

0:12

means I just said something in palindrome.

0:16

I love palindromes, as it turns out, Yeah,

0:20

I do too, and I think it's fat. The

0:22

one that gets me is when somebody's like, this number

0:24

is a palindrome. I just wrote it out. I

0:26

don't get that, like that doesn't count. Maybe if

0:29

it's a date or something that you don't have any control

0:31

over, then yeah, be a palindrome. But just

0:34

anybody who's into numbers that are palindromes,

0:36

be quiet, Be quiet, once and for

0:38

all. Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because

0:40

this article, even from how stuff works dot

0:42

com, says some numbers are palindromes,

0:44

like one eight zero zero eight one

0:47

right, like that, I just wrote out

0:49

any number exactly. That's

0:53

how we're talking about. We're not going to give another breath

0:55

to that stupidness. Instead, we're

0:57

gonna talk about real palindromes, which

0:59

is a word, a phrase, a poem. Even

1:01

as we'll see um that can be

1:04

said the same forwards

1:06

or backwards. And apparently

1:08

it comes from a little bit of Greek who

1:10

like the palindromes. Yes,

1:13

the word palin means

1:15

back or again, and dromos

1:18

means running or moving, so it's a word or

1:20

phrase that's running back on itself. And

1:23

I'm even gonna go so far for me as

1:26

to say I only like palindromes that are

1:29

literal, the letters backwards

1:31

and forwards, like they make the case

1:33

in here, like some phrases like night after night.

1:36

I'm like, now, well,

1:38

we'll talk about that in a second. Okay, okay,

1:40

I prefer that as well. I like the I like

1:43

the the letters back

1:45

and forth, and that's that. But I

1:47

will say my eyes were open to that by

1:49

this article. Fair enough, So

1:51

the first palindrome, like I said, the Greeks

1:54

liked it. Actually, it turns out the Romans

1:57

did. But the Romans model a lot of their society,

1:59

if not all of it, on the ancient Greeks,

2:01

so it's possible they ripped them off, and that the

2:03

Romans just happened to be the first ones to mention

2:06

it. But the first palindrome comes from

2:08

seventy c. E Um

2:10

and it's in Latin. Chuck, do you want to take

2:12

a crack at it? Storrepo

2:15

tenant opera rotas,

2:20

you just turned me into a tree.

2:26

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what it's

2:28

saying in Latin, like we Americans

2:30

say all Latin, like we're in a

2:32

Harry Potter movie. Yeah, like Evil

2:34

Dead Klatto verata, that's

2:37

a Day to the Earth. It's still,

2:40

Yes, it is. It's the Evil Dead,

2:43

my friend. Then they stole it from the Day

2:45

of the Earth, said still, because that is the I

2:48

don't even remember what it was. Yeah,

2:51

that's from the Day of the Earth's still, I promise.

2:54

Well, then they ganked it in Evil Dead,

2:56

which is better. I think it was more in homage probably,

2:59

Okay, but to hear it come out of Bruce

3:01

Campbell's mouth, is that's the money shot.

3:04

I mean, they really went off the rails on those movies.

3:07

Yeah, they're making another one, I think when

3:10

I don't know, like a Bruce Campbell one, like a sequel

3:12

to Army of Dark's Boy, that's going to be

3:14

great. You can't wait. Okay,

3:16

So what did that um? That

3:19

palindrome you said mean it means

3:21

the sower Rabo holds the wheel

3:23

with effort, or the sower Arabo

3:25

leads with his hands with

3:28

his hand the plow. Nothing

3:30

that matters at all to any of us

3:32

alive today. But I'm sure back in the day

3:35

the Romans were like that is everyone

3:37

really spoke to me, you know what I mean. But

3:39

it goes to show that, like word play

3:41

has been around for almost

3:44

as long as words. You

3:46

know, yeah and

3:48

chuck, um, it wasn't just the ancient Romans

3:51

who were into it, that that love

3:53

of it has survived. And I say we

3:56

pick up with the modern day after taking

3:58

a short break. What do you think let's do it? Okay,

4:21

all right, we're back by modern day of course,

4:23

I mean the sixteen thirties. Yeah.

4:28

The first mention of palindromes in English is in

4:30

Camden's Remains by

4:32

John philipot from six.

4:36

Palindrums are those where the syllables are same backward

4:38

and forward. So all blatta

4:41

at alba see new

4:43

me in mounis very

4:46

nice, which means secluded

4:49

but pure. Give me my

4:51

fee and I warrant you free,

4:56

okay, which is great that you have a palindrome

4:58

that also rhymes, because that's not necessarily

5:01

part and parcel with it. Um.

5:04

Philip HoTT was just showing off. But you'll

5:06

note that he's an English speaker and he

5:08

wrote an English speaking book, Camden's

5:10

Remains, but it was still in Latin,

5:14

hence the whole clattoo verada tone

5:16

to Chuck's reading of it. It's

5:18

not until seventeen o six that we find

5:20

the first written English

5:22

palindrome in an English

5:24

dictionary called the New World of Words

5:27

or Universal English Dictionary. And

5:30

this is as follows, lewd

5:32

did I live? And evil did I

5:35

dwell? Yeah,

5:37

there's there's a couple of problems with it. One, they

5:39

had to drop off the second l and dwell

5:42

to make it the reverse of lud.

5:45

And then there's also the whole and in

5:48

the middle of it, which does not part

5:50

of a palindrome. It's not a palindrome itself,

5:52

and it kind of screws up the whole palindrome. But

5:55

because it was the beginning of the eighteenth

5:57

century, everybody kind of chose to overlook the and

5:59

part. That's right. Uh,

6:01

then we can skip the part about numbers being

6:03

palindromes because that's just rage

6:05

inducing. Well, no, the date makes

6:07

sense, so one is

6:09

a palindrome. January was

6:12

a palindrome day fourth mentioning

6:14

you know, we'll take that, but give me your

6:17

eye opening with the thing like night after

6:19

night, which just sort of makes me mad too. So

6:22

there's a there's a really neat poem

6:24

that I hadn't heard of until um I ran across

6:26

it in this article by James A. Linden

6:29

called Doppelganger, and

6:32

it is itself a palindrome

6:34

like where you can actually um

6:38

read it from. You could go to the very

6:40

end and read it, or you can go to

6:42

the beginning to read it, and it's going to be the

6:44

same. So you don't read the actual words,

6:47

but like the word itself backwards,

6:49

but you read the order of the words backwards

6:52

and forwards, and the whole thing hinges

6:55

on. Um the phrase

6:57

night after night, which is pretty

6:59

a pretty awesome poem to tell you

7:01

the truth. Let me just read you the middle

7:03

part where it hinges, and I think you'll be properly

7:06

blown away. Okay. I

7:08

puzzled over it, hiding alone, watching

7:10

the woman as she neared the gate. He came

7:13

and I saw him crouching, night after

7:15

night. Night after night he came,

7:17

and I saw him crouching, watching the woman

7:19

as she neared the gate. I puzzled over

7:21

it, hiding alone, and it's just like

7:24

the poem starts out and then it

7:26

gets to night after night and then goes back. It's

7:29

like it's swings on a hinge.

7:31

It's really neat. I like it. I like

7:33

it too. It's not one of your perfect,

7:35

proper palin drums or anything, but it's still pretty

7:38

cool. So here's my thing is, I

7:40

started kind of diving into this online and

7:42

found out that there a

7:44

is a documentary called The Palindromists,

7:48

which I didn't watch, but I did watch the trailer, which

7:50

was fun enough and kind of gave me enough

7:53

inside in two minutes. That sounds like a crew

7:55

that Hodgeman would hang out with, probably

7:58

so um. But it

8:00

covered in part the

8:02

Palindrome Championships, which

8:05

is basically where they get palindrome enthusiast together

8:07

at a hotel ballroom and they

8:09

say, you've got nine. They have three constraints.

8:11

They didn't mention the constraints in the trailer. Uh,

8:13

you have ninety minutes to write

8:16

out original palindromes and then

8:18

the audience alive audience votes and

8:21

weird Owl is in it. He's a palindromist.

8:24

Um. Uh. Danika mckeller

8:26

Winnie from one of years is one. You

8:28

know she wrote like a science or no, a

8:31

math book. Well

8:33

do you know what? She also wrote? What tons

8:36

of UFO snot? What

8:39

is that? It's a palindrome? Oh

8:41

that's a good one. Okay, weird

8:43

al wrote this one Suzy rat

8:45

in a sanitary zoo.

8:48

That's so Dana

8:50

wins so far. My deal with these is

8:52

once I started kind of seeing this community

8:54

is not only do I love

8:56

a palindrome, but I like an original one that

8:59

someone can invent that kind of

9:01

makes sense and it's not just a

9:03

collection of words like

9:05

do geese? See god? Yeah,

9:08

that makes sense? It does. Uh.

9:11

Here was another one from the documentary Gerda

9:14

Boston's i Q is not so

9:17

bad? Reg h, that's

9:19

a good one. Wow, who'ss that? Just

9:22

a contestant? No one famous Lloyd

9:24

Benson. Sure, okay,

9:27

let's see how about um I got another one?

9:30

Uh go deliver a dare vile

9:32

dog. That's a good one. It

9:35

doesn't make sense, but it's pretty great. Well,

9:37

and by makes sense. It just it's

9:40

a sentence and not just a collection of words. What

9:42

about don't nod it's

9:44

perfect? Or taco cat the classic

9:47

taco cat. Taco cats good or

9:49

there's another one with the cat too. Was

9:51

it a car or a cat? I saw,

9:54

that's a good one. I've

9:56

got another one from that trailer. Mr

9:58

owl ate my, it'll worm.

10:01

Okay, what else? And then go

10:03

hang a salami? I'm a lasagna

10:06

hog. Who's

10:08

this? That? That was a guy named

10:10

John A g Um but just the sheer

10:13

joy. These these are sort of

10:15

like um uh crossword

10:17

puzzle enthusiasts, like just people who really get into

10:19

words. Uh. And I just couldn't

10:21

get enough of it. I'm gonna try and find the whole documentary.

10:24

UM. I did see in February two

10:27

two there was a computer scientist named Peter Norvig

10:29

who used a computer program to break

10:31

the record for the quote longest Balandrume

10:34

sentence, which was seventeen

10:36

thousand plus words. It's

10:38

just a computer program putting together a bunch of

10:41

words. Oh yeah, that doesn't count. And I

10:43

see, I see, yeah, that's but they said that

10:45

he's the world record holder. And I was like, come on, man,

10:48

maybe in the future, but you know, John

10:52

A. G By the way, is um children's

10:54

book author a

10:56

beloved one according to the Penguin Random

10:59

House website. Very cool. I also

11:01

found. The longest word is a Finnish

11:03

palindrome, which has

11:05

I think nineteen letters. S ai

11:09

you well, I can't say it. Uh

11:12

sapua kibikw ps.

11:16

You just converted me back into a boy.

11:18

It's a dealer in lie apparently,

11:22

so okay,

11:25

a lie seller, yeah,

11:27

I think so okay. Um.

11:30

One last thing. Um always talked

11:32

about this guy that she dated that used to

11:34

mess with people, and Um whenever

11:36

palindromes came up, he'd said, yeah, my favorite one

11:38

is Penis sniper and just wait

11:40

for them to like go over in their head and they'd

11:42

be like, wait, this is not a palindrome, but you're

11:44

sitting there thinking exactly.

11:47

Yeah. I think this last one

11:49

was pretty funny to me just because it was well.

11:52

Two of them, to me, are very funny because they're so

11:54

basic. One is Stella

11:58

won no wallets, m

12:00

M. It's a big wallet competition.

12:03

And then this guy's like clearly a citrus

12:05

street vendor. No lemon,

12:08

no melon. But I like

12:10

that one too. It's um. The

12:12

word melon itself has a nice round

12:14

feeling to it. I love the word melon yeah,

12:17

and lemon too, just because it's evocative of

12:19

that beautiful color too. Yeah, that

12:21

might be my favorite one. Now. No lemon,

12:23

no melon, Yeah, but I like how you

12:25

say it as well. No lemon, no melon,

12:28

that's right, only pineapple. So

12:31

we could probably see here for the next two hours

12:33

doing they should we just cut this short. Well,

12:36

we'll stop recording and then you and I have just continue

12:38

to do it on our right, all right, all right, Well to

12:40

the rest of you, See you guys later. Because short stuff

12:42

is that stuff

12:47

you should know is a production of I Heart Radio.

12:49

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