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| With Mom, who is responsible for my language-nerdiness. She is also a pianist. |
I nearly misspoke (miswrote?) just now, when I was about to call this post "Mashup-Makin' Time", trying to be cool and hip and preserve my youth as long as possible by using Glee-speak. Then I googled "mashup", because I'm a giant nerd. Here is what I discovered: according to the interwebs, the word mashup actually refers to an electronic mix of two (or more) pre-recorded songs. It is not a clever arrangement of parts of two or more songs cobbled together cleverly (we hope) and live. No, that would be a medley. They are two different things.
You know what I love about the English language? That it has so many words that we can distinguish between a mashup and a medley. You know what else? I love that it is a living language, flexible and constantly evolving. So I could be pedantic and correct people when they refer to a medley as a mashup, or I could just be cool and hip and go with the flow. Anyhow, I surmise that "medley" comes from the same root as "muddle" (meaning to mash, as mint leaves with simple syrup in the bottom of a glass). Furthermore, I surmise that 1) I need a drink that involves muddling and 2) my language-nerd mom (who deserves the blame/credit for this tangent) is going to fact-check the etymology of the words medley and muddle.
I'm hedging, really. I should be working on my Oscar medley right now, since the only time I have to record it is tomorrow around noon. I almost gave it up earlier today. My heart's not really in this particular Wish anymore, I thought. I should use my time for other things. Then, just for the heck of it, I started noodling around with the Oscar songs for a few minutes before I had to leave for rehearsal. And of course it was fun and satisfying for my nerdy brain to experiment with muddling (ha) these songs together. So I'm going to do it, and tomorrow around noon I'm going to B.S. a medley for my videocamera for my next vlog entry.
Know what else I love about English? How nouns can be verbs. Like hedge. And noodle. And B.S.
You know what I love about the English language? That it has so many words that we can distinguish between a mashup and a medley. You know what else? I love that it is a living language, flexible and constantly evolving. So I could be pedantic and correct people when they refer to a medley as a mashup, or I could just be cool and hip and go with the flow. Anyhow, I surmise that "medley" comes from the same root as "muddle" (meaning to mash, as mint leaves with simple syrup in the bottom of a glass). Furthermore, I surmise that 1) I need a drink that involves muddling and 2) my language-nerd mom (who deserves the blame/credit for this tangent) is going to fact-check the etymology of the words medley and muddle.
I'm hedging, really. I should be working on my Oscar medley right now, since the only time I have to record it is tomorrow around noon. I almost gave it up earlier today. My heart's not really in this particular Wish anymore, I thought. I should use my time for other things. Then, just for the heck of it, I started noodling around with the Oscar songs for a few minutes before I had to leave for rehearsal. And of course it was fun and satisfying for my nerdy brain to experiment with muddling (ha) these songs together. So I'm going to do it, and tomorrow around noon I'm going to B.S. a medley for my videocamera for my next vlog entry.
Know what else I love about English? How nouns can be verbs. Like hedge. And noodle. And B.S.
So what you're saying is... your noodling may eventually produce a muddly, right?
ReplyDeleteNoodle on, sweet princess!
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