The Good Words Podcast episode transcript - UPROARIOUS (encore version)
Lynn: Salutations, logophiles! Lynn Hickernell here. What follows is an encore version of the Good Words Podcast episode about the word, "uproarious," featuring audio that has been updated and fixed. Enjoy!
Lynn: The unabridged Oxford English Dictionary contains over [extreme echo effect] two hundred thousand words! Yet the average American adult only knows about one-tenth of this total number of words, and regularly uses only about half of those. This podcast is dedicated to the pursuit of using words better, and using better words. This is the Good Words Podcast.
Chipmunk voice: Earpetizer! It's like an appetizer for your ears.
[music: "Good Words" by Miss Lynn]
Lynn: Salutations, logophiles. Welcome to one more bonus earpetizer episode of the Good Words Podcast with me, Miss Lynn.
Computerized voices: Uproarious.
Lynn: "Uproarious" has several commonly used meanings, which are related yet distinct from one another. An "uproar" is a noisy disturbance, so "uproarious" can mean loud and hectic. But it can also mean that something is extremely funny, evoking boisterous laughter. This passage from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol uses the word to describe the noise made by a group of active children, but also the laughter that their activity elicits in the adults present. Just prior to this scene, the Spirit of Christmas Past has shown Ebenezer Scrooge the moment from his youth when his fiancee, Belle, breaks off their engagement. Now the Spirit has taken Scrooge to a scene some years later, where an older Belle is gathered with her family.
Elizabeth Klett: "They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly."
Lily: The Good Words Podcast.
Lynn: People have consistently told me that they enjoyed the riddles that are featured in every episode from the first series of The Good Words Podcast. Several listeners wanted to share jokes that they had heard or invented themselves. And so, it is my pleasure to present a very special, hopefully uproarious, bonus edition of:
Many voices: GET IT?!?!?
Oliver: What does Godzilla eat for dinner? A restaurant!
Marty: What has four eyes, but can't see? Mississippi.
Ellie: I know a funny poem. Apples, apples/Watch them toss/If you drop one/Applesauce!
[adult and child voices laughing]
Ben: A man walked into a bar. What does he say?
Lynn: Ow?
Ben: Yes. Duh, 'cause . . . Bang! Ouch.
Lynn: Bong-g-g-g-g-g-g!
Charlie: What do you get when you cross a doctor with an owl? Doctor Who!
[owl hooting sound effect]
Ruby: Where does a cauliflower go on vacation? Cauli-fornia!
[chipmunk laughing sound effect]
Fred: How do you get Pikachu onto a bus? Poke-him-on!
Lynn: Did you make that up?
Fred: Yeah.
Oliver: How do you make a tissue dance? Put a little boogie in it!
[sneezing sound effect]
Ellie: What's a pirate's favorite letter?
Lynn: Arrrrrrrrrrrr!
Ellie: The "C"!
Lynn: Ooooooooh!
[adults and child voices laughing]
Bronwen: I like that one, 'cause everybody thinks they know the answer.
Andy: Yeah. Exactly.
Lynn: That's right. It's good!
Ben: A bear walks into a bar. He asks the waiter, "I would like some beer. And . . . some meat, please." And then, the waiter asks, "Why the long paws?"
[single "Heh!"]
Marty: Why didn't the vampire's wife not go to bed? Because she was coffin.
Zoe: Knock knock. Who's there? Umbrella. Umbrella who? Umbrella . . . umbrella cookie! Ha ha ha ha ha!
Lynn: Wow. Umbrella cookie?
Zoe: [sighs]
Robot voice: Good Words Podcast.
Lynn: Just one more auditory morsel in this earpetizer, and that is our concluding poem, The Bells of Shandon read by the marvelous Una Clancy. I thank all the contributors to this episode: Zoe, Una, Tara, Ruby, Oliver, Marty, Lily, Fred, Ellie, Charlie, Ben, Bronwen, Andy, the GWP Partners, who support this podcast financially on Patreon, and you for listening. The passage from A Christmas Carol was read for Librivox by Elizabeth Klett, and you can read the passage, link to the full audio, and find lots of other ancillary materials in the show notes for this episode at GoodWordsPodcast.com. Until the next episode, keep listening and talking about what astonishes you, infuriates you, frightens you, and what you find uproarious! And as long as you tell the truth with kindness, the things you say will be good words. Bye for now!
[music: "Good Words" by Miss Lynn]
Una Clancy:
[music: "Church Bell Celebration" by Doug Maxwell]
With deep affection and recollection
I often think of the Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would, in days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle their magic spells.
On this I ponder, where’er I wander,
And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee,
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the river Lee.
I have heard bells chiming full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine;
While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate,
But all their music spoke nought to thine;
For memory, dwelling on each proud swelling
Of the belfry knelling its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
I have heard bells tolling “old Adrian’s mole” in,
Their thunder rolling from the Vatican,
With cymbals glorious, swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets of Notre Dame;
But thy sounds were sweeter than the dome of Peter
Flings o’er the Tiber, pealing solemnly.
Oh! the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of River Lee.
There’s a bell in Moscow, while on tower and Kiosk, O!
In St. Sophia the Turkman gets,
And loud in the air calls men to prayer
From the tapering summit of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom I freely grant ’em,
But there’s an anthem more dear to me:
’Tis the bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.