If you think a Troll is an ogre from northern European mythology, a beast under the bridge, you'd be missing half the story. It's about so much more. It's also about big boulders that litter the Scandinavian countryside, Chrissy Teigen, eBay, Reddit and those cute little plastic toys we collected in the 80s that will make someone rich one day.

Mainly we'll talk about internet trolls because they're all around us.

Plus Creative Cursing from Around The World takes us to Serbia.

Join me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/saywhatthepodcast

Please share and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app including Apple and Spotify - it makes it easier for others to find the show.

Produced by Jo Vraca. You can find my books on Amazon

Sound engineering and original music by Jeff Willis. You can find his tunes on Spotify and iTunes

Additional music thanks to https://uppbeat.io

War, pandemics, politics, soap, cigarettes – it’s all propaganda. Whether it’s coming from the left or the right, your party or the opposition, coke or pepsi, propaganda rules our lives.

The father of public relations, Edward Bernays, tells us as early as 1928 that we are governed and molded, our tastes formed, by nameless people. He also tells us that we need a greater power, whether a government or business, to tell us how to live our lives. And he should know as he created the infamous “Torches of Freedom” cigarette ad aimed at convincing women to take up smoking as a feminist act of defiance at a time when smoking, for women, was improper. And the feminists ate it up. Why my sisters!

Propaganda, from Themistocles in 480BCE to pamphlet bombs, we have farmers and Catholic Cardenals to thank for the world’s origins, but Edward Bernays, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump for what it means today.

Plus Creative Cursing from Around The World takes us to South Africa.

Join me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/saywhatthepodcast

Please share and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app including Apple and Spotify - it makes it easier for others to find the show.

Produced by Jo Vraca. You can find my books on Amazon
Sound engineering and original music by Jeff Willis. You can find his tunes on Spotify and iTunes
Additional music thanks to https://uppbeat.io

To investigate the word "Hoax", we need to talk about magicians and the Catholic liturgy.

This episode is about a fake word, in a way. A made up word. But what is true, is that people have been hoaxing the public for centuries. Whether is the story of a woman who gave birth to rabbits, the Fiji Mermaid, or Balloon Boy, why are people so gullible or is it just our psychology that makes us want to believe? Well I've consulted the media, history books and dictionaries to find out.

In this episode:

Hocus Pocus Junior: The Anatomie of Legerdemain: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34375/34375-h/34375-h.htm
Museum of Hoaxes: http://hoaxes.org/
Cottingly Fairies: https://bit.ly/3thNtM7
Feejee Mermaid: https://bit.ly/3IuWAzc
The Heene Boyz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVbV_Sis99o&t=15s

Join me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/saywhatthepodcast

Please share and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app including Apple and Spotify - it makes it easier for others to find the show.

Produced by Jo Vraca. You can find my books on Amazon
Sound engineering and original music by Jeff Willis. You can find his tunes on Spotify and iTunes
Additional music thanks to https://uppbeat.io

How did such a nice word that we use to mean sweet and polite, also come to be an insult for some? Well, today's word, nice, started out as a pretty mean word, actually.

Depending on your circle of influence, you might want someone to call you nice, because it’s a compliment. Like, you know those 16 year old girls who attend Purity Balls with their dads where they commit to remaining a virgin until marriage?

But if you’re a satanist, or even an artist, you might be outraged if someone uses it to refer to you or your work.

And really, Nice was a real downer in Old English. To be called nice wasn't nice.

Because Nice is one of the most poly-semus words I’ve come across – and that’s just a fancy way of saying a word that has multiple meanings.

So from drug smugglers, nun's hens, the first English dictionary with a ridiculously long title and Sex and the City, let's have a look at the rather complicated history of a tiny word.

PS. I'm launching a new segment today - Naught Words from Around the World.

Show notes:
Do Nice Guys Finish Last? https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/201405/do-nice-guys-really-finish-last
UnCommon Ground Magazine What Was Happening Before ‘Just Be Nice Feminism’? https://uncommongroundmedia.com/just-be-nice-feminism-part-i/

Join me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/saywhatthepodcast

Please share and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app including Apple and Spotify - it makes it easier for others to find the show.

Produced by Jo Vraca. You can find my books on Amazon
Sound engineering and original music by Jeff Willis. You can find his tunes on Spotify and iTunes
Additional music thanks to https://uppbeat.io

Many years ago, I found a series of videos on YouTube of people making miniature food. Actual food like a burger, the size of a coin, sushi no bigger than a pebble. To make this food, faceless people use working miniature kitchens and utensils to prepare and cook the meals. It’s food for Barbie and Ken. And this food is edible.

Many years ago, I found a series of videos on youtube of people making miniature food. Actual food like a burger, the size of a coin, sushi no bigger than a pebble. To make this food, faceless people use working miniature kitchens and utensils to prepare and cook the meals. It’s food for Barbie and Ken. And this food is edible.

Chances are, even if you haven’t gone out of your way to watch or listen to ASMR, you have experienced it without even realising.

It’s the whispering by Amelie in the classic French movie, and when she plunges her hands into sacks of dry beans at the market. It’s Diane Weiss applying makeup to Edward Scissorhands, gentle brushing and stroking. It’s the silent rustle of linen and silk fabric and of charcoal pencil against canvas in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. And it’s Bob Ross in The Joy of Painting – everything - the brush strokes, his soothing voice, his concentration.

ASMR can be defined as a combination of positive feelings, relaxation and a distinct, static-like tingling sensation on the skin.

Let's see if you feel it!

Show notes:
Miniature food videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDOzBO85qKQ
“Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR): a flow-like mental state”: https://peerj.com/articles/851/
Is ASMR Real - Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-asmr-real-or-just-a-pseudoscience/
SAS ASMR: https://www.youtube.com/c/SASASMR
Reddit ASMR Poll: https://www.reddit.com/r/asmr/comments/sbd6mt/question_do_you_prefer_asmr_audio_video_or_both/

Join me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/saywhatthepodcast

Please share and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app including Apple and Spotify - it makes it easier for others to find the show.

Or find your favourite listening app HERE
Sound engineering and original music by Jeff Willis. You can find his tunes on Spotify and iTunes
Produced by Jo Vraca. You can find my books on Amazon

When you think of hysteria, what comes to mind? Melancholia, anxiety, frigidity. It’s a problem that can be solved, says Doctor Dalrymple from the Netflix feel good movie, Hysteria.

Until 1952, female hysteria was a valid diagnosis for women exhibiting the following symptoms: insomnia, anxiety, shortness of breath, sexual desire, frigidity or lack of sexual desire, irritability, fainting, a general air of independence, raucous behaviour and even infertility. Holy cow! I must have hysteria!

In today's episode I'll talk about the first hysteric, the Queen of Hysterics Blanche Wittman, wandering uteruses, excorcisms, Freud (of course), the Salem Witch Trials, and mass hysteria including the War of the Worlds alien invasion, meowing nuns and the dancing epidemic.

And did I mention polenta poultices? Oh, and Trump...

And I'll ask if we should just retire the word.

Join me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/saywhatthepodcast

Please share and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app including Apple and Spotify - it makes it easier for others to find the show.

Or find your favourite listening app HERE

Sound engineering and original music by Jeff Willis. You can find his tunes on Spotify and iTunes

Produced by Jo Vraca. You can find my books on Amazon

Resolutions

Each and every year I buy a diary and I make a resolution to use it ALL YEAR. This is my year. I say that every year.

And each and every year, I will stop using it, I will even stop thinking about it, before February is though.

Because, let’s face it, resolutions are the worst way to start the year. They only lead to disappointment and “I knew its”.

Why do we even make new year’s resolutions at all, especially when we know we’ll break them? Who the hell started this most delusional of traditions?

According to Gallop, more than 80% of people who make New Year’s resolutions will abandon them by mid-February. And yet we still make them, and are still shocked and disappointed when, not only have we stopped working on them, we actually forget all about them.

References:
Google Maps 2012 New Year's Resolutions Map - https://archive.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/resolutions
New Yorker - Why we make resolutions and why they fail - https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/why-we-make-resolutions-and-why-they-fail

Join me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/saywhatthepodcast

Please share and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app including Apple and Spotify - it makes it easier for others to find the show.

Or find your favourite listening app HERE

Sound engineering and original music by Jeff Willis. You can find his tunes on Spotify and iTunes

Produced by Jo Vraca. You can find my books on Amazon

It’s almost Christmas so there’s no better time of the year to have a look at the words we use once a year with abandon.

From Eggnog to Kris Kringle, Santa's Elves to Decking the Halls with Holly, where did these words, and their traditions come from?

Let’s swig on a flagon of eggnog and bring in the yuletide cheer with the inaugural Say What Christmas episode.

Join me on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/saywhatthepodcast

Please share and leave us a review on your favourite podcast app including Apple - it makes it easier for others to find the show.

Or find your favourite listening app HERE

Sound engineering and original music by Jeff Willis. You can find his tunes on Spotify and iTunes

Produced by Jo Vraca. You can find my books on Amazon