Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! — "HTDE: The Breakfast Rule"

Original Air Date: March 4, 2026
Host: Peter Sagal (NPR)
Notable Participants: Mike Danforth, Ian Chillag, Lorna White (Technical Director), Mary Norris (The New Yorker), Keith Houston (punctuation historian), Mark Davis (Unicode Consortium)

Episode Overview

This episode of NPR’s Wait Wait... Don’t Tell Me! centers on "The Breakfast Rule": the internal guideline used by the team to determine whether potentially gross or off-putting content should make it onto the air—especially when listeners might be eating. The hosts share real examples of lines they’ve drawn in editing, discuss grammar predicaments involving unique names, and take a delightfully wonky dive into how new punctuation could come into existence.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Inside "The Breakfast Rule" (00:16 – 07:28)

• Definition:
  The "breakfast rule" is a litmus test used by the Wait Wait production team: if content would gross you out during breakfast, it's probably too much for broadcast.
• Lorna White’s Role:
  Lorna is described as the show’s "last line of defense" for questionable content.
  "I'm comfortable with being the mom of the show." — Lorna White (00:45)
• Colonoscopy Comedy:
  The panel listens back to a past comedy segment about colonoscopies and discusses what aired and what was cut. A recurring joke—"salad coming out of your butt"—was deemed too visual for the air.
• Debate Over Edits:
  Some panelists would have kept the content, but Lorna confirms it crossed the breakfast rule.
  "Salad coming out of your butt. It's a little too visual." — Ian (05:23)

Memorable Quotes:

• "I had no idea how it all fit in there." — Peter Sagal on colonoscopy prep (03:35)
• "Salad coming out of your butt. That is too much." — Mike (06:48)
• "If you're dating someone and you can't eat breakfast without being disgusted by the thought of them, I think it's time to break up." — Ian (07:03)

Notable Moment:

• Running joke: Panel repeatedly (and gleefully) says "salad coming out of your butt," both celebrating and violating their own breakfast rule (06:45–07:03).

2. Listener Question: Unique Names & Grammar Headaches (09:53–17:10)

• Listener Submission:
  Autumns (pronounced "Autumn's," with an apostrophe-s as part of her legal first name) asks what to do about the inherent possessive in her name—how does one make something belong to her (e.g., "Autumn's car")?
• Family Naming Backstory:
  Her name, Autumn’s Hope, comes from her dad’s aversion to "hippie" names.
• The Grammar Challenge:
  Discussion with guest Mary Norris ("Comma Queen" of The New Yorker) and editor Ann Goldstein, who both struggle with the double possessive.
  "As a name, her name is a possessive... That seems like a mistake." — Mary Norris (13:05)
• Consensus:
  Anything goes—no formal rules—but double apostrophe-s is generally just "worse."
  "You can drive yourself crazy with this stuff." — Mary Norris (14:12)

Notable Moment:

• Mary Norris’ playful wrestling with the past tense of "spring" as the hosts try to "spring" a question on her (16:32–16:46).

3. The Punctuation Conundrum: Could Autumns Get Her Own Mark? (17:10–23:37)

• Punctuation History:
  Keith Houston explains the centuries it takes for new punctuation marks to become standardized, the story of the exclamation point, and role of the Unicode Consortium. "If you want to be able to type it on anyone's computer... you have to convince the Unicode Consortium that it's a good idea." — Keith Houston (19:22)
• Path to Unicode:
  Mark Davis (co-founder of Unicode Consortium) is called in. He explains that nearly all new characters require broad, demonstrated usage to be considered for encoding. "There are very few character emergencies that we've had." — Mark Davis (22:17)
• Exceptions:
  Examples where the process was expedited: new currency symbols and era names for Japanese emperors.
  "If she became the emperor of Japan, she could get her symbol into unicode." — Mark Davis (23:32)

Notable and Amusing Quotes:

• "The person in charge of exclamation marks and question marks is named Mark. I think that's an amazing thing that's happened." — Ian (21:03)
• "That would be very hard to do... the chief issue is that you have to really show a lot of usage." — Mark Davis (21:56)

4. What Did We Learn? Reflections, Jokes, and Show Wrap (23:42–25:21)

• The hosts reflect on:
  • Naming creativity in an age of abundant keyboard options (24:16)
  • Digestive metaphors for editing (25:14)
  • The hazards of leaving too vivid an image in the listeners’ minds "The reason I agreed with the decision to cut Negeen's joke is that the image in my head was actual salad in its leafy form..." — Peter Sagal (25:04)

Important Timestamps

• Breakfast Rule Explained: 00:16–01:31
• Colonoscopy Comedy ("diarrhea vacation"): 02:12–03:55
• What Got Cut ("salad coming out of your butt"): 04:24–06:48
• Listener "Autumns" calls in: 09:53–12:22
• Mary Norris on apostrophe conundrums: 13:05–16:21
• The Unicode Process explained: 17:10–21:26
• Mark Davis on Unicode emergencies: 21:26–23:37
• Panel reflection and wrap-up: 23:42–25:21

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• "My diarrhea vacation." — Quoted from The New York Times article, recounted by Peter Sagal (03:33)
• "Salad coming out of your butt. I think I would have kept that if I were editing it." — Mike (06:11)
• "That seems like a mistake." — Mary Norris on the name "Autumn's" (13:14)
• "If she became the emperor of Japan... she could get her symbol into unicode." — Mark Davis (23:28)

Episode Takeaways

• The "breakfast rule" is a practical—and often very funny—production safeguard against gross-out moments in public radio.
• Unique names with possessive punctuation pose surprising challenges in grammar and daily life.
• Creating new punctuation marks is a long, difficult, and bureaucratic process... unless you become emperor.
• A running thread of self-aware, meta-humor reinforces the show’s tone: smart, silly, and a little irreverent.

This episode is a must-listen for comedy fans, grammar nerds, and anyone who’s ever wondered how public radio tiptoes around bodily functions and the boundaries of taste—especially before noon.