The Psychology of Brand Loyalty & The Strange History of Everyday Words

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Something You Should Know
Host: Mike Carruthers
Guests: Michael Aaron Flicker (Consumer Behavior & Branding Expert), Martha Barnett (Linguist, "Away with Words")
Original Air Date: November 17, 2025
Main Theme:
This episode dives deep into two fascinating areas:

1. The Psychology of Brand Loyalty – exploring why we gravitate toward certain brands and the science behind their stickiness, with behavioral science expert Michael Aaron Flicker.
2. The Strange History of Everyday Words – uncovering the quirks, origins, and evolution of language with linguist and author Martha Barnett.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. The Psychology of Brand Loyalty

Guest: Michael Aaron Flicker, Author of Hacking the Human Mind

Elevator Safety Kickoff (03:21–04:50)

• Brief, reassuring opener debunks fears of falling elevators by referencing MIT engineering research and elevator statistics.
  • "You're standing in one of the safest places you could possibly be. And that is something you should know." (04:50, Mike Carruthers)

Why We Default to Certain Brands (06:22–07:55)

• Strong brands are shaped by leaders who position themselves powerfully in our minds, sometimes instinctively or via behavioral science.
  • "Great brands are led by great strategists, great CEOs, CMOs, and they come up with a way to position the brand in the minds of buyers that's really effective." (06:42, Michael Aaron Flicker)

Amazon Prime and the 'Sunk Cost Fallacy' (07:23–09:20)

• Amazon’s Prime leverages the sunk cost fallacy: once people pay the annual fee, they’re more loyal and spend more—even when cheaper options exist.
  • "It's not necessarily rational. ... That desire to want to be consistent with my past behavior may not be rational. It's more emotionally driven." (09:02, Michael Aaron Flicker)
• Being the first (first-mover advantage) confers greater authenticity.

Goal Dilution Effect: Five Guys vs. McDonald's (10:27–12:59)

• Five Guys found success by focusing their menu: burgers & fries, no chicken or salads. Simplicity builds trust ("We do one thing really, really well").
• Behavioral Insight ("Goal Dilution Effect"): If something claims too many benefits, it’s less believable than just one.
  • "If you say that you’re good at many things, it is less believable than if you say you’re only good at one thing." (11:16, Michael Aaron Flicker)
• Example: people rate tomatoes as more effective at preventing cancer if that’s the only benefit offered (University of Chicago study).

Apple and the Power of Concreteness (12:59–16:11)

• Steve Jobs’ legendary "1,000 songs in your pocket" is more persuasive than technical jargon—vivid, concrete messaging improves recall and emotional impact.
  • "What Steve Jobs and Apple took advantage of...was this idea of concreteness. And we become more graspable, more emotionally resident when we use concrete phrases rather than abstract ones." (13:24, Michael Aaron Flicker)
• Memorable taglines: “Red Bull gives you wings,” “Taste the Rainbow,” “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand”—all concrete images.
  • "If you can picture something in your head...you are much more likely to hang on to that thought." (14:45, Michael Aaron Flicker)

Why Brands Abandon Iconic Taglines (19:36–20:45)

• Marketers tire of their own effective campaigns before customers do; driven by career motives or boredom, not necessarily consumer fatigue.
  • "There are humans in these marketing teams...and those humans...get tired of the campaigns before the consumers get tired of them." (19:40, Michael Aaron Flicker)

Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte: Nostalgia & Scarcity (20:45–23:35)

• The Pumpkin Spice Latte’s magic: nostalgia, seasonal anticipation, and intentional scarcity (only available a few months/year) amplify emotional connection and willingness to pay more.
  • "If you can get people to reach into their memory, you can get them to think nostalgically about the past...they are less price sensitive to you." (21:18, Michael Aaron Flicker)
  • "By making it intentionally scarce...they create this sense that if you want it, you gotta get it now." (22:48, Michael Aaron Flicker)

Foreign Branding and Power of Words (23:35–26:50)

• Many brands evoke foreignness as shorthand for quality or fashion (e.g., Häagen-Dazs, Super Dry, “venti” at Starbucks).
• A single word can shift perception dramatically (“smashed” in a car accident gives a higher speed estimate than “contacted”).
  • "A lot of power in this idea of naming and the power of words." (26:45, Michael Aaron Flicker)

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II. The Strange History of Everyday Words

Guest: Martha Barnett, Linguist & Author

Embracing Language Evolution & Variation (29:45–32:03)

• Barnett, the child of an English teacher, has shifted from prescriptivism to celebrating the diversity of English.
  • "There are a lot of different pronunciations that are perfectly valid." (31:01, Martha Barnett)
• Regional quirks (“needs washed,” “cat needs let out”) trace to linguistic history (Scots/Irish immigration).

Gaps in English & Vocabulary Envy (32:03–33:23)

• Some words in other languages (Portuguese “saudade”) capture nuanced ideas lacking in English.
  • "If all the languages gave a party, English would be the one...saying, are you going to eat that? Because it picks up words from all over the world." (33:00, Martha Barnett)
• English borrows liberally to fill lexical gaps.

The Problem with Terms like “Girlfriend” and “Senior Citizen” (33:23–36:15)

• Some words don’t “fit” (e.g., calling an 85-year-old’s romantic partner a “girlfriend”) and efforts to coin alternatives (“welderly,” “seasoned citizen”) rarely succeed.
  • "What you want to see in words, that the way that words stick around is when they bubble up naturally and they just sort of... bubble up without you really noticing. Like the word selfie, for example." (35:39, Martha Barnett)

Surprising Etymologies

• Cocktail (36:21–37:50): From a term for mixed-breed horses with docked tails (“cock’s tail”)—adulterated, like early mixed drinks.
• Mellifluous (37:59–38:45): From Latin, literally “flowing with honey.”
• Algorithm (45:42–46:52): From Alhwarismi, a 9th-century Baghdad mathematician, Latinized to “algoritmi.”
• Silhouette (46:52–48:11): Named for a cost-cutting French finance minister, Etienne de Silhouette—the cheap outline portraits mirrored his unpopular frugality.

The Fluid, Democratic Nature of Language (48:11–50:06)

• English is always evolving; change is faster now due to media and the internet (e.g., “skibidi”).
• “Rules” are often arbitrary—splitting infinitives or ending sentences with prepositions is fine.
  • "Language is always changing. ... You are perfectly justified in splitting an infinitive. William Shatner was perfectly justified in saying 'to boldly go.'" (44:24, Martha Barnett)

Dialects, Family Words, and Linguistic Playfulness

• Regional words, family coinages ("the havinit" for "cabinet"), and “famalect” make language personal and playful.
  • "Everybody has a story about language...words that people like to talk about that are in their famillect." (40:38, Martha Barnett)
• Moving between regions or countries (“tump” in Kentucky) reveals English’s rich diversity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Brand Loyalty:
  "If you say that you’re good at many things, it is less believable than if you say you’re only good at one thing."
  — Michael Aaron Flicker [11:16]

• On Why Taglines Disappear:
  "Those humans that work in these jobs, they get tired of the campaigns before the consumers get tired of them."
  — Michael Aaron Flicker [19:40]

• On Scarcity:
  "By making it intentionally scarce...they create this sense that if you want it, you gotta get it now."
  — Michael Aaron Flicker [22:48]

• On Word Creation:
  "What you want to see in words...is when they bubble up naturally...Like the word selfie, for example."
  — Martha Barnett [35:39]

• On the English Language’s Evolving Nature:
  "Language is always changing. ...You are perfectly justified in splitting an infinitive."
  — Martha Barnett [44:24]

• On English’s Borrowing:
  "If all the languages gave a party, English would be the one...saying, are you going to eat that? Because it picks up words from all over the world."
  — Martha Barnett [33:00]

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Timestamps: Important Segments

• 03:21 – Elevator safety myth-busting
• 06:22–09:20 – The psychology behind Amazon Prime and brand stickiness
• 10:27–12:59 – Five Guys, simplicity, and the ‘goal dilution effect’
• 12:59–16:11 – Apple, the power of concreteness, and memorable messaging
• 19:36 – Why brands abandon classic taglines
• 20:45–23:35 – Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte and manufactured nostalgia/scarcity
• 23:35–26:50 – Impact of ‘foreign’ branding and word choices
• 29:45–32:03 – Language variation and regional quirks
• 33:23–36:15 – Invented words vs. those that “bubble up”
• 36:37–37:50 – “Cocktail” etymology
• 37:59–38:45 – “Mellifluous” etymology
• 40:38–42:26 – Family words, dialect surprises, and “tump”
• 45:42–46:52 – “Algorithm” etymology
• 46:52–48:11 – “Silhouette” origins
• 48:11–50:06 – English language change, modern slang, and prescriptive vs. descriptive rules

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a fascinating blend of behavioral science and linguistic curiosity. Listeners learn not only why they find themselves spending more at their favorite brands, but also why certain words and phrases just stick—and how language, like branding, is an ever-evolving expression of our collective habits and stories.

Recommended for: Anyone intrigued by what shapes our brand choices, language habits, or the hidden science behind everyday decision-making and conversation.

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Transcript

[Martha Barnett]

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[Mike Carruthers]

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[Michael Aaron Flicker]

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[Mike Carruthers]

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[Michael Aaron Flicker]

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[Martha Barnett]

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[Mike Carruthers]

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[Martha Barnett]

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[Mike Carruthers]

Today on something you should know. Just how safe are elevators? Do accidents happen then? The strategies major brands use to earn our loyalty.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

Like Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte was a winner for Starbucks from the first year they launched it. It took a lot of courage for them as a brand to turn it off. And you could imagine that if Pumpkin Spice Latte could be bought in May, would it be as exc.

[Mike Carruthers]

Also, why your grocery store moves things around Just when you learn where everything is and where do words come from? And why do some stick around and others fade away?

[Martha Barnett]

The way that words stick around is when they bubble up naturally without you really noticing. Like the word selfie, for example. It's such a useful word. And we didn't have that word, you know, 30 or 40 years ago.

[Mike Carruthers]

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[Michael Aaron Flicker]

Something you should know, fascinating intel, the.

[Mike Carruthers]

World'S top experts and practical advice you.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

Can use in your life today.

[Mike Carruthers]

Something you should know with Mike Carruthers. You know, I'll bet there isn't a person alive who has ridden in an elevator and not wondered, well, what if the cable snapped? What if this thing went into free fall? Well, that is the question we're going to begin with today on this episode of Something youg Should Know. Hi and welcome. I'm Micah Ruthers and well, here's the good news. First of all, the chances of you riding in an elevator and the cable snapping and the car going into freefall is almost zero. In fact, there's only one case of a free falling elevator caused by a snapped cable. It happened in 1945 when a B25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building. The elevator plunged 75 floors and incredibly, the woman inside survived. What happened was the broken cable coiled beneath the car acting like a spring and cushioned the fall when the elevator hit it. Engineers at MIT later calculated that if you ever found yourself in a falling elevator, your best chance of survival would be to lie flat on your back in the center of the floor. That spreads the impact evenly across your body. But the reality is almost all elevator related injuries and deaths, and there's about 30 of them a year, they're all because of door malfunctions or maintenance accidents that not falling elevator cars. And when you compare the risks, you're 60 times more likely to die on a staircase and 15 times more likely to be hurt on an escalator than in an elevator. So the next time those elevator doors close and you feel that little bit of anxiety, you can relax. Because statistically speaking, you're standing in one of the safest places you could possibly be. And that is something you should know. So every day you buy from certain businesses and stores and restaurants and you don't buy from plenty of other ones. You choose where to spend your money. But why? Why do so many people default to Amazon when they want to buy something? Why are some restaurants packed and others sit empty? Why does Apple have customers who'd never dream of switching brands? The answer lies in behavioral science, the subtle forces that shape our decisions without us even noticing. My guest, Michael Aaron Flicker, has spent his career studying exactly that. He's an entrepreneur, founder of the Consumer Behavior Lab, and he is a regular contributor to Fast Company. He's author of a book Called Hacking the Human the Behavioral science secrets behind 17 of the world's Best Brands. Hi Michael, welcome to Something youg Should Know.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Mike Carruthers]

So I have thought about this topic many times. Why do people, why do I choose certain stores, certain brands, certain restaurants and not choose others? And we'll get into some specific brands that are quite fascinating, but generally speaking, what's going on here?

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

So it's our contention that great brands are led by great strategists, great CEOs, CMOs, and they come up with a way to position the brand in the minds of buyers that's really effective. Sometimes they may know the behavioral science underpinnings of why that's the case, but many times they just are uniquely good at getting us to feel a certain way and then want to buy a certain product. Behavioral science helps us understand why that might be what maybe gave them a leg up that maybe they knew about or maybe they didn't.

[Mike Carruthers]

So an example of what you just said that comes to my mind is Amazon and how people just kind of default when they want to buy something to buy it on Amazon. And I'm a prime customer and we buy a lot of things on Amazon in this house, but I think a lot of it is that. And you talk about this, the sunk cost fallacy that I'd like you to explain where if you're a prime member, you've already paid for the shipping so you might as well use Amazon.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

The story of Amazon prime is documented and his executive leadership team was very worried that offering free two day shipping could absolutely be abused by customers and drive massive financial disruption. They were worried that it could bankrupt the company by giving such a good offer away for one fixed fee. And so when we talked about some people that just have this amazing insight into humanity, the credit goes to Jeff Bezos who said I just believe if we give them this offer, it will really increase their love of Amazon, increase their use of Amazon. And he was right. Today approximately 83% of US households shop on Amazon and Amazon prime shoppers spend, they spend a one time upfront fee of $139. And then wanting to be consistent with having now invested that upfront fee, they are coming back to the brand more and more. And what the data shows is not only do they come back, they spend more than their non prime counterparts. So it's a really a win for Amazon to have them made this investment and then come back and shop and spend more because of it.

[Mike Carruthers]

So if the prime strategy is so effective for Amazon Why aren't more retailers using it?

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

You know, it's an interesting question. Walmart, I believe, now has two day free shipping. So finally they've gotten to the spot where they're matching the service. But there is something about being a first mover in a category that gives you authenticity in a way. Replicating other success sometimes falls short. We call what Amazon has really established here the sunk cost fallacy because it's not necessarily rational. Meaning I spent this money for my Amazon prime membership, but it could be less expensive at Walmart and yet I still buy it at Amazon. That desire to want to be consistent with my past behavior may not be rational. It's more emotionally driven by, but it is how we act. And it's really a very interesting topic to observe how humans actually behave.

[Mike Carruthers]

Talk about the goal dilution effect and five guys, because it's reminiscent to me of McDonald's in some ways. Where back in the early days of McDonald's there wasn't a big menu, it was just a couple of things. Isn't that kind of the same thing?

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

It sure is. But let me set the stage for everybody. It's 1986, and founder Jerry Morrell is walking down the Maryland boardwalk with his four sons. And so the four sons and Jerry become the original five guys. And they're walking on this boardwalk and they notice that only one food stand has a massive line and its name was Thrasher Fries. Lots of food shops, lots of options. Only one with this massive line. And Jerry comes up with the insight, I wonder if that's because they only do one thing and they do one thing really, really well. They make French fries. And because of that, with that Insight, he starts Five Guys. And today they have 1800 stores. They do a $1.6 billion in sales. And they still are basically a burger and fry joint. They do no chicken, they do no salads, they do no ice cream. And they're tapping into what you raised, which is the gold dilution effect. And it's this very counterintuitive insight in behavioral science that if you say that you're good at many things, it is less believable than if you say you're only good at one thing. And the academic study for this comes from University of Chicago 2007. We have a study where we're asking participants to say if they believe eating tomatoes would be effective at one goal, preventing cancer. And then another group says, how effective would eating tomatoes be at two goals, preventing cancer and helping stop eye degeneration. People rate eating tomatoes as 12% more effective at preventing cancer when it was given as the only benefit compared to when it was listed with other benefits. It's not logical, but we as humans are more confident when we're presented with just one advantage. And of course, this has lots of insights and effects, not just for brand marketers, but for us as buyers and for us as humans that communicate with one another.

[Mike Carruthers]

Let's talk about Apple, because Apple has an extraordinary devoted customer base like no other. I mean, people love that brand.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

Why Apple has done an encyclopedia's worth of things right to make its brand so successful. When you think about some of the most creative uses of behavioral science that Apple has ever taken advantage of, there's a very clear moment when they first launched the ipod. When Steve Jobs got up on stage, he stood there, he looked out at the crowd and he pulled the ipod out of his pocket and he said, Imagine 1000 songs in your pocket. And that was revolutionary in that moment because other companies had MP3 players, but the predominant way you spoke about them was five megabytes of storage, high fidelity audio, how many hours of battery life. And what Steve Jobs and Apple took advantage of in that moment was this idea of concreteness. And we become more graspable, more emotionally resident when we use concrete phrases rather than abstract ones. The behavioral science behind this is really quite interesting. It's 1972. Ian Begg @ the University of Western Ontario recruits students, and he reads them two word phrases. He reads them 20. I'll just give you a few examples, Mike. Impossible amount, rusty engine, white horse, subtle fault. And he challenges the participants. Listen to those phrases and now write down all that you can remember. And on average, of the 22 word phrases he read, they could recall 23% of the terms. Now, that's interesting. But what was striking was that only 9% of the terms were abstract phrases like impossible amount versus concrete terms like white horse were 36% recalled. That's a fourfold difference. And what Beg argues is that vision is one of our most powerful senses. So if you can picture something in your head like a white horse or a rusty engine, you are much more likely to hang on to that thought and insert it into your mind. And if you think of amazing brands today, Red Bull, it gives you wings. Eminem, it melts in your mouth, not in your hand. Skittles, Taste the Rainbow, Maxwell House, Good to the last drop. These are taglines that you can imagine. They're concrete and it imprints a vision in your brain. And because of that, they're much more likely to stand out and much more likely to be remembered.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, I want to ask you about a couple of those because some of them aren't around anymore and I wonder why. I'm speaking with Michael Aaron Flicker. He's author of the book Hacking the Human Mind. The Behavioral science secrets behind 17 of the world's Best Brands it's time for Black Friday. Dell Technologies biggest sale of the year. That's right, you'll find huge savings on select Dell PCs like the Dell 16 plus with Intel Core Ultra processors and with built in advanced AI features, it's the PC that helps you do more faster. From smarter multitasking to extended battery life, these PCs get the busy work done so you can focus on what matters most to you, plus earn Dell rewards and enjoy many other benefits like free shipping, expert support, price match guarantee and flexible financing options. They also have the biggest deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC, improving the way you work, play and connect. Whether you just started holiday shopping or you're just finishing up, these PCs and accessories make perfect gifts for everyone on your list. Shop [e-mail] deals and don't miss out. That's Dell.com deals we frequently talk here about AI and how to use it. And I've just started using something that you need to know about called Notion. Now. If you've ever felt like there just aren't enough hours in the day, you've got notes here, projects there, emails everywhere. You're going to love what Notion has built. It's called the Notion Agent and it's like having another version of you that actually finishes your work. Here's how I use it. After I finish an interview or a meeting, my Notion Agent reads through the notes, pulls out the action items and then puts them in the right pages inside Notion. It even tags teammates automatically, which means I can focus on creative work instead of chasing details. Notion brings all your notes, docs and projects into one connected space that just works. It's seamless, flexible, powerful, and it's actually fun to use. With AI built right in, you spend less time switching between tools and more time creating great work. And now with Notion Agent, your AI doesn't just help with work, it finishes it. Try Notion now with notion [e-mail] something that's all lowercase letters notion.com something to try your new AI teammate notion agent today and when you use our link, you're supporting our show notion.com something so Michael, you mentioned like M&M's melts in your mouth, not in your Hand Maxwell House Coffee Good to the Last drop. People remember those, but they don't use them anymore. I don't think. I don't think they use them. And they clearly stuck in people's minds. So why don't they use them anymore?

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

You know, you're getting to a very critical part of brand marketing that you may not expect if you are just a normal buyer or a normal consumer. And that's that there are humans in these marketing teams and those humans that work in these jobs, they get tired of the campaigns before the consumers get tired of them. And sometimes human nature is they get tired of them even when they're still effective. And people want to be recognized in their corporate jobs. They want to get raises and promotions. And it's much more exciting to say let's change the tagline or let's change the ad campaign than saying, Maxwell House Coffee Good to the last drop was a great tagline for 40 years. Let's continue it as your new CMO. I say let's continue it for its 41st year. You can imagine the pressure on white collar workers to try to change and innovate. And I agree with you, Mike. I don't know if it was because it was any less effective than the day they started.

[Mike Carruthers]

I'd like to talk about Starbucks pumpkin latte. And I don't know if they're the ones that sort of started this whole pumpkin latte pumpkin spice thing.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

It might be.

[Mike Carruthers]

Yes, but tell that story because. Well, go ahead and tell that story.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

So we're really interested in Starbucks pumpkin spice latte for exactly the reason that Mike, you just said, which is that there seems to be an incredible emotional attachment to. To PSL Pumpkin spice latte. And the question is, why is there such an attachment? And what we really, as we looked at it and we thought about it, there's something emotional that happens with this holiday feeling this time, that once a year it comes around that there's going to be holidays and it brings up a sense of happiness, a sense of nostalgia. And there's lots of behavioral science academic studies that show that if you can get people to reach into their memory, you can get them to think nostalgically about the past. They A, have more of a positive view of you. But listen to this, B, they are less price sensitive to you. So if you can get that nostalgic feeling evoked in people, they will literally spend more money on your brand.

[Mike Carruthers]

How big a part of that whole pumpkin spice thing is the fact that it's only around for A short time.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

Scarcity is a very powerful human emotion. And when you feel there's only so much of it, it can drive outsized reaction in your own mind, therefore outsized action in the world. And so Pumpkin Spice Latte was a winner for Starbucks from the first year they launched. Took a lot of courage for them as a brand to turn it off. And you could imagine that if Pumpkin Spice Latte could be bought in May, if you could buy it all year, you would have to wonder, would it be as exciting? Would it conjure up nostalgia that creates brand affinity and reduces your price sensitivity if it was available all year. So by making it intentionally scarce, by taking it off the menu for almost 10 months of the year, they create this sense that if you want it, you got to get it now. And that then helps reinforce the change of season and the nostalgia that you feel.

[Mike Carruthers]

Briefly want to ask you, because it's kind of a legend in the sense that I think it's. Well, it's fairly old anyway, is Haagen Dazs. There was this idea that it came out and I remember people saying that that's not even a real word and it doesn't mean anything and it's really an American company. But for whatever reason it took off and what was going on there.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

Foreign branding has been used by lots of brands, even when it's not where they're really from. Take Super Dry, Super Dry, Very popular clothing brand, uses Japanese style lettering, but it's actually from the United Kingdom or the word, or the brand. Atari was the word in Japanese to mean to hit for a target, but it was actually made in Sunnyvale, California. So even Starbucks, which we talked about, by the way, uses lots of Italian sounding names. Espresso, macchiato, Americano, but even venti grande, trenta. These are all meant to imply Italian lineage, even though they're not Italian. But what's so interesting about us as humans is that just the use of the word Trente, just the use of the word Atari implies so much. Two academics, Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer 1974, are really interested if they can show the impact of a single word on how we feel. They bring a number of study participants together and they show them a clip, clip of a car crash. And everybody sees the same clip of the car crash. And the challenge is to estimate how fast the cars were moving when the accident occurred. Simple enough, straightforward enough. But here's the twist. In the experiment, they change the word, only one verb in the question. They ask about how fast were the cars going when they a contacted the wall, B hit the wall, C bumped the wall, how about collide it with the wall? Or how about smash the wall? Those that heard the word how fast was the car going when it contacted the wall? Guess 31.8 miles per hour. Whereas those that were asked how fast was the car going when it smashed the wall, they guess 40 miles an hour. An hour? Actually 40.5. There's a 27% increase in their estimate of the speed by just changing one word. And that has real impact for brands. For us, when we work interpersonally with people, even think about the impact on the legal system, one change of a word when there's a lawyer asking a question of a witness can really change the way they feel and how they respond. So a lot of power in this idea of naming and the power of words.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, I always enjoy these peek behind the curtain discussions that reveal things about why we buy what we buy and why certain companies are more successful. I've been speaking with Michael Aaron Flicker. He is the founder of the Consumer Behavior Lab and author of the book Hacking the Human the Behavioral science secrets behind 17 of the world's Best Brands. There's a link to his book at Amazon in the show notes. Hey Michael, this was great. Fascinating. Good stuff.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

Well, thanks so much for having me on. This was really a pleasure to chat.

[Mike Carruthers]

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[Martha Barnett]

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[Mike Carruthers]

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[Martha Barnett]

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[Mike Carruthers]

Our language is what connects us, but it also divides us. We have rules for spelling and grammar and pronunciation.

[Martha Barnett]

But.

[Mike Carruthers]

But who made up the rules? And who says those rules can't evolve? Is there really just one correct English? Or do all the variations that we hear every day have their own kind of beauty? My guest, Martha Barnett, has spent her career exploring the quirks and creativity of the English language. She's co host of the radio show and podcast Away with Words, and she's author of a book called Friends with Words Adventures in Language Land. Hi Martha, welcome to something you should know.

[Martha Barnett]

Hey, thanks for having me, Mike.

[Mike Carruthers]

So I guess we need to know where you stand on all of this. Are you a stickler for proper English, or do you embrace all these variations on English as part of the language? Where do you fall?

[Martha Barnett]

Well, that's a really good question because I am an English teacher's kid, and when my beloved mother would hear something mispronounced or misspoken in her class, she would walk to the chalkboard and take her fingernails and put them at the top and drag them all the way down and say, that's what this sounds like to me. But you know, over the years, I've learned that there are often good reasons for this or that pronunciation. That first of all, that there are a lot of different pronunciations that are perfectly valid. They're actually, I think, think something like 20 different pronunciations of the word water just in the United States. You know, you have water in Philadelphia and water in other parts of the country. And well, think about, for example, we used to get a lot of calls about the expression needs washed. You know, the car needs washed. And I'd have somebody say, you know, I just had a new co worker move to town and he always says, the cat needs let out or the baby needs picked up. And that's a very vestige of Scots and Irish immigration because you'll hear this in eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and it's a kind of linguistic fossil.

[Mike Carruthers]

I sometimes wonder, and I imagine people who speak other languages wonder about their language, if the language is adequate in the sense that there are some things where it's kind of hard to find the words. There aren't really exact words to describe what you want to say. It seems sometimes, and I wonder if that's true in other languages.

[Martha Barnett]

It's not as if English is inadequate in expressing ideas. I mean, you can use a lot of words to express an idea, more or less. But, you know, you think about a Portuguese word like saudade, which means a kind of homesickness, but it's got all these layers of meaning that we don't have in English. And I think that I have a certain envy about that word because it just, it connotes so much more than I think you can say in English with just the word homesickness. But I suspect that Portuguese speakers probably have the same feeling about English. You know, English is this rich, rich vocabulary. I like to say that if all the languages gave a party, English would be the one going around and looking at everybody's plate and saying, are you going to eat that? Because it picks up words from all over the world.

[Mike Carruthers]

But there are words like boyfriend and girlfriend, which we use. Like when my dad was 85, he had a girlfriend. And it just, you know, it doesn't seem right. It's like, you know, teenagers have girlfriends but 85 year olds don't have. I mean, there's no better word, though.

[Martha Barnett]

You're exactly right, Mike. And this is a perpetual problem. I mean, everybody I've talked to about this question is frustrated. You know, it's really hard to come up with that right word because paramour doesn't really do it. There's an old word, leman, L, E, M a N, which means a lover. But, you know, it's hard to impose a word like that that doesn't arise naturally for people because that one's old and obsolete. And I'm not aware of a word like that. I mean, it's the same thing with senior citizen. That's a question that comes up all the time. You know, is there a better word for being an older person? I still haven't settled on what I want to call myself.

[Mike Carruthers]

Yeah, but that's another good one because that's a horrible term, senior citizen. It says nothing and it Means nothing. And it conjures up images of some old decrepit, sick, sickly. It doesn't. You're right. It's just so inadequate.

[Martha Barnett]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, think about elderly. That somehow seems fragile to me. I've seen recently people have been suggesting welderly. If you're in good shape and you are taking good care of yourself, you're welderly.

[Mike Carruthers]

No, it's not gonna work.

[Martha Barnett]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Because these self conscious coinages like seasoned citizen or vintage citizen, I mean it's just, you know, it's manufactured, it's imposed by somebody el. What you want to see in words, that the way that words stick around is when they bubble up naturally and they just sort of, sort of bubble up without your really noticing. Like the word selfie, for example. It's such a useful word. And we didn't have that word, you know, 30 or 40 years ago, but it just kind of began to be used sort of unselfconsciously. You know, somebody. We didn't have a language academy that said, okay, everybody's going to use the word so selfie now to describe this term. But yeah, if you ever hear of a better word than senior citizen, which just makes me shudder, I would love to hear it.

[Mike Carruthers]

Some people say, but that's the problem. If somebody comes up with a word, it's gonna be too clever, like seasons, it is gonna be too forced and no one's gonna like it.

[Martha Barnett]

Right. So I guess we just have to grow into that word and see how we keep describing ourselves.

[Mike Carruthers]

So quick, turn here and change. But I'm curious, since you study this so much, like what are a couple of words that have really interesting origins that I probably don't know?

[Martha Barnett]

Well, one of my favorites is the word cocktail. Because you might be surprised to learn that the word cocktail probably comes from an old use of the word cocktail referring to a kind of horse. Because it used to be that people would dock horses tails, you know, if they were just a. A mixed breed working horse, not a thoroughbred, they might dock the tail and the tail would sort of stick up like a cock's tail, like a rooster's tail. And so people would refer to these kinds of horses with docked tails as cocktails. And around the same time in the early 1800s, people were thinking about mixed drinks as this new thing. It was kind of adulterated. You know, why would you add ingredients to a perfectly good whiskey or perfectly good spirit? And people consider those mixed drinks adulterated and impure. And so people started referring to these These mixed drinks, the same way they referred to these horses that were not thoroughbreds. So they referred to these mixed drinks as cocktails.

[Mike Carruthers]

Wow. Well, I've never heard that before. What's another one? What's another word that the origin is? Something I probably never heard before.

[Martha Barnett]

Well, I'm struck, of course, by your voice. It's mellifluous. And by that I mean it's beautiful. It's got this beautiful sound to it. And we use the word mellifluous to describe something that's. That's sweet sounding or just beautiful. And it turns out that the word mellifluous comes from two Latin words that literally mean flowing with honey. The mel in mellifluous comes from the word for honey that you also see in the French word for honey and the Spanish word for honey. All these languages are connected. And then the fluis in mellifluous has to do with flowing. It's a relative of fluent and flowing.

[Mike Carruthers]

One of the things that I find annoying about English is sometimes there are words that it's kind of the word you have to use and it's really hard to pronounce. In fact, just did an interview the other day with someone talking about anthropomorphism, and every time I say it, I screw it up. It's like, couldn't there be an easier word?

[Martha Barnett]

Well, yeah, that's one of those single words that has a big meaning. I mean, you could say instead of anthropomorphism, you could say applying human qualities to something else, like an animal or something. Right. But we have these handy words in English that come from Greek and Latin that you hear, for example, in medicine as well. All these really long words. But you're talking about the actual pronunciation of the word, right? Not like reading it in.

[Mike Carruthers]

Yeah, actually saying it out loud should be easier because this is my native language.

[Martha Barnett]

You should.

[Mike Carruthers]

You would think it would be fairly easy to say, but that's a tricky word to say. And in fact, even the guy who wrote the book said when he did the audiobook, he screwed it up like every third time.

[Martha Barnett]

Yeah, I can understand that. Yeah. I had the same experience reading my audiobook. I thought it wasn't going to take time and it took a good 23 hours to record it.

[Mike Carruthers]

Oh, I would imagine your book would have taken forever because there's so many words in here that I've never heard of. Well, no, there actually aren't that many. What do you find that people tell you they're fascinated by the language either because they Heard you talk about it, or they've always been fascinated or things that bubble up that I might be interested in hearing.

[Martha Barnett]

Everybody has a story about language, you know, whether it's your little kid who adorably mispronounced a word back in the day and your family just latches onto it and keeps talking about it, keeps using that word. I'm thinking of a little kid who kept talking about something in the havin it and the family was saying what the havinit. And they finally realized the kid was saying cabinet. And they just kept saying that word, even though the kid kept getting older and older and understood the meaning of cabinet. So there are words that people like to talk about that are in their famillect. That is the language, the individual language of a family.

[Mike Carruthers]

I mean, we have that in our family and it always comes or seemingly comes from the child. The child will say something incorrectly or try to say something and then somehow it's clever or it's cute and it sticks. And we have those words. I imagine everybody has those words.

[Martha Barnett]

Yeah, I think they do. And you're right. It's often the child, and sometimes it's even a couple between the two of you. You'll mishear something that your partner says and then you just adopt that. It's so hilarious. And I think another thing that really catches people's ears is regional dialects. You know, you grow up with a term and you've used it your whole life and then you move to another part of the country and people just. I call these conversations conversations. I call them two headed conversations where people say, I moved across country, I use this term and people looked at me like I had two heads. I mean, that happened to me. I grew up in Kentucky and that happened to me with the word tump. Do you know the word tump?

[Mike Carruthers]

Spell it. T u m p. No, never heard it.

[Martha Barnett]

Gosh, yeah. I mean, my entire childhood I knew the word tump, as in don't tump over the canoe, don't tump over that glass of water. And then I went to school in upstate New York and I said that to somebody once, don't tump that over. And everybody laughed at me. Nobody had any idea what I was saying. But I'm telling you that your listeners in the south are going to know the word tump.

[Mike Carruthers]

Yeah, well, that is interesting. And I had that similar experience when I was 12 and moved to England and talked American. And they looked at me like I was talking a foreign language because so many of the words I use, they Don't. And many of the words they use, I don't. So it's just differences.

[Martha Barnett]

Oh yeah. Well that must have been a really enriching experience though. I mean, every day you're probably learning new words and phrases, right?

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, I was, but I was also saying, well, why are they. I remember this English teacher, I was reading out loud to the class and the word came up, vase. And she said, no, no, no, no, it's vase. I said, no, not where I'm from, lady, it's vase. And she said, no, it's vase. And we had to agree to disagree.

[Martha Barnett]

Well, exactly. And they say of England and America that, you know, they're two countries separated by a common language. But I like to think of languages as this great diverse, just wealth of different ways of speaking and different ways of pronouncing things. I mean, if you look in dictionaries, you'll see both of those pronunciations. Vase and vas. And vase as well, you know, I mean, some people put a Z sound in there. So you know, language is really personal, but it's really important to, if you're going to correct somebody's grammar to make sure that you're right. Because some of those rules that you were taught as a kid aren't really valid rules when it comes to linguistics. You know, some of those so called rules of grammar even that my English teacher mother taught me are just arbitrary things that were imposed by 17th and 18th century grammarians who were trying to fit the swollen foot of English into the too tight shoes of Latin grammar. So you are perfectly justified in splitting an infinitive. William Shatner was perfectly justified in saying to boldly go. Because in Latin you can't split an infinitive. In Latin the infinitive is one word. So it's just silly to say that you can't do that in English. And the same thing I should say with ending a sentence with a preposition. If anybody tells you otherwise, just tell them that's nonsense. Up with which you will not put.

[Mike Carruthers]

I'm not going to say that. So what's a word that has a weird origin or just an origin that is very obscure that nobody knows?

[Martha Barnett]

Well, the term algorithm is really interesting. It is a very modern word, of course, but it goes all the way back to the 9th century when Baghdad was this international center of learning for scholars. And there was a guy there who did some amazing things with algebra and blew the minds of European mathematicians with some of the things that he came up with. And his name was Alhwarismi. And when they translated his work into Latin, it was Latinized as algoritmi. And that's the source of our English word algorithm, which is, of course, a set of step by step instructions for solving a problem or completing a task. So the word algorithm, you know, it's on everybody's tongue these days, but it goes all the way back to the 9th century.

[Mike Carruthers]

But so much of that time between the 9th century and now, it wasn't used very much. But now it's used all the time.

[Martha Barnett]

Exactly. And that's what happens a lot of times with words, is they get re appropriated and given different meanings.

[Mike Carruthers]

Talk about silhouette. I like that one.

[Martha Barnett]

Oh, that's a wonderful one. Yes. Silhouette goes back to 1759, when France's newly appointed Minister of Finance was doing all this budget cutting. I mean, he was very unpopular because he just went in there and was cutting people's pensions. He put a tax on windows, for example. He put a tax on trouser cuffs. I mean, he was really, really doing every bit of cost cut that he could do. And his name was Etienne de Silhouette. And he was so unpopular that he got thrown out of office after just eight months. And about the same time, there were these kinds of portraits that became very popular that were just, you know, just a. Well, a silhouette, a little shadow rather than an expensive painting. You know, you would just trace around the shadow of a person's head and that would be their portrait. And so those became fashionable. And this was around the time that Silhouette was thrown out of office. And so these portraits that were just simple black and white things were called silhouettes after him.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, I find it interesting that when we talk about language, we talk about the English language as a fairly static thing. Yes, words come and go now and again, but English is English. But it really changes a lot more than people realize.

[Martha Barnett]

Definitely. Language is always changing. It's always evolving. I mean, the English language has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, and it certainly sounded different in the time of Beowulf. You know, is the beginning of Beowulf. And we don't talk that way now. It's kind of unintelligible. And every 500 to 1,000 years, you know, language turns over. It's hard to understand English as it was spoken hundreds of years ago. And that's going to be the case hundreds of years from now. But, yeah, language is always changing. I would say that it's changing faster now because of the Internet and mass media and mass media culture, because you can just see slang terms pop up, up so quickly now, like skibidi. You know, I don't know if you've heard youngsters talking about skibidi. That was a term that kind of has a bunch of different meanings. Skibidi is kind of a Swiss army knife of a word that can mean really good or really bad. And it comes from this online series that involves, you know, a guy's head in a toilet. And I won't go into all that, but that just got added to the Cambridge dictionary, which kind of surprises me because, because that word has not been around very long. And so we're always watching language change like that and I think it's changing faster because of the Internet and because we're all cross pollinating each other's language every day.

[Mike Carruthers]

Well, you know, it's so interesting. When you go to English class in school, it's presented as this, you know, this is English. It's very formal. These are the rules. You must follow these rules. But in real life, the way English seems to work, it's all these influences crashing into each other and evolving and changing the language in a way that's so fascinating. I've been speaking with Martha Barnett, who is co host of the radio show and podcast Away with Words and author of the book Friends with Adventures in Language Land. And there's a link to her podcast and the book in the show notes. Martha, thank you so much. Have you ever walked into your favorite supermarket grocery store and noticed that everything's changed? They've moved everything. I already got to know where everything was and now it's somewhere else. Well, why do they do that? Oftentimes it's done on purpose. Because if you don't know where things are anymore, well, you'll end up up spending more time in the store looking for them. And more time to browse means more chances to tempt you into buying things. Here are a few other ways that stores get you to spend money. 10 for $10 sounds like a great deal. However, usually you get the same savings even if you only buy one. And a grocery store survey found that people bought more items when they saw 10 for 10 deals versus 5 for $5 deals and 1 for $1 deals. Bigger carts. Shopping carts have gotten bigger, so you put more things in it. Research found that when the size of a cart doubled, consumers bought 40% more. And then there's the old eye level trick. Items that are placed at eye level on the shelves tend to be more expensive name brand goods, which are the products the supermarket wants you to buy. So it's always good to check the shelves that are a little higher and a little lower. And that is something you should know. Something you can do. A small act of kindness that would be greatly appreciated would be to share this podcast. It helps build our audience and keep this podcast going. It's the best thing you can do to support this podcast and there's most likely a share button on the app that you're using to listen to this. It's really easy to do and tell your friends thanks. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thank you for listening to something you should know and Doug, Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[Michael Aaron Flicker]

Limu is that guy with the banana binoculars watching us.

[Mike Carruthers]

Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Very unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. Affiliates excludes Massachusetts. The Infinite Monkey Cage returns imminently. I am Robert Ince and I'm sat next to Brian Cox, who has so much to tell you about what's on the new series. Primarily eels. And what else that it was fascinating. The eels. But we're not just doing eels, are we? We're doing a bit with it. Brain computer interfaces, timekeeping, fusion, monkey business, cloud science of the North Pole and eels. Did I mention the eels? Is this ever since you bought that timeshare underneath the Sargasso sea?

[Martha Barnett]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.