G’day TRC’ers! On this week’s show, Pat takes a look at a recent U.S. government report to give us an update on Conversion Therapy. Cristina goes down under to investigate whether the Australian accent was influenced by their drunk forefathers. Finally, Adam applies the scientific method to see if vampires could get drunk from drinking a drunk person’s blood.
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Conversion Therapy
U.S Report On Conversion Therapy
Live Science: Conversion Therapy
Wikipedia: Legal Status Of Conversion Therapy In The US
Conversion Therapy Legal In Canada
Manitoba Bans Conversion Therapy
Did Booze Influence The Australian Accent?
The Age: Australia, we need to talk about the way we speak
YouTube: Guinness World Record for Longest Vocal Note (2005-2009)
Mashable: Australians don’t speak with a drawl because of a drunken past, experts say
CNN: Is the Australian accent due to booze, mate?
Crikey: Beware of speech experts bearing science
News: Australian accent moulded by booze — and we’ve become inarticulate because of it
The Guardian: The ‘drunken Aussie accent theory’ is another slur on our rich use of English
The Daily Mail: Australian language developed because early settlers were often drunk
The Telegraph: ‘Lazy’ Australian accent caused by ‘alcoholic slur’ of heavy-drinking early settlers
Huff Post: Drunk Settlers To Blame For Aussie Accent, Lecturer Says
Australian Voices History of accent change
Crikey: A reply from Dean Frenkel
Study: Bavarian Archive for Speech Signals
Vampires Drunk On Blood?
Could you get drunk from drinking a drunk person’s blood?
Vampires: Can vampires get drunk by drinking (a lot of) the blood of someone who is? – Quora
Adam couldn’t name any literary examples of vampires getting drunk by drinking blood of drunks.
Spider Robinson in his Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon books (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan%27s_Crosstime_Saloon) had a vampire character who would do exactly that.
G’day Cristina, I enjoyed your story about the Aussie accent. A couple of points. Kathy Lette is pronounced Cathy Let, she is an author and sometimes satirist who attained fame with her book, “Puberty Blues”. She currently resides in England.
I’m almost certain her reference to Australians mumbling because of flies was an example of her having a laugh at the expense of non-Australians. Or to use the vernacular, “taking the piss” i.e. pulling your leg, teasing, playing a joke et cetera.
Yes, the flies can be bad in the summertime but I suspect there are plenty of other places in the world where that is the case where no Australian accent can be heard. Keep up the good work. I hope you guys get a chance to visit Oz one day.
It appears that Adam has finally jumped the shark (while Christine just keeps getting better) with his last two moronic reports:
First there was the pointless “Science of Gremlins” (TRC373) in which he blathered on for 17 minutes — yes, more than a quarter of an hour — about fictional characters that have no connection with “checking reality.” I realize one person’s blathering is another person’s fascination with a subject, but really, what does this have to do with the show’s mission?
Then, in TRC374, we were subjected to almost 11 minutes of pointless speculation about whether vampires can get drunk from vampiring a drunk person. The shame is that there was an actual informative, serious and useful section toward the end of the vampire blatherfest about women’s breast milk. In journalism, they call that “burying the lede” — though it’s not clear whether Adam was really building to the breast milk point or just added that in as a secondary point of interest. Of course it’s fun sometimes to bring in fictional characters or silly ideas in order to introduce a more serious subject. If Adam had started off with a joke about the vampires, for about 30 seconds, say, and then transitioned to what should have been the real topic, that could have been both entertaining and effective.
It was almost insulting to hear him dismiss one of the strawman theories about vampire physiology…as though we know enough about mythical vampires to debunk any kind of theory about their physiology!
In a phrase from Brian Keith Dalton, it’s like asking if fairies prefer ranch-style or Thousand Island dressing.
C’mon TRC’ers (great website)…don’t regress to the old days of nerding-out, stepping on each other’s punch lines and giggling like 7-year-old schoolboys at dog poo on someone’s shoes. Keep the fun you guys are good at, but we can do without self-indulgent 17-minute geekathons.