Linguistic Fossils Reveal Cultural Memory and Language Evolution

Key Quotes

"And like and like fart spray and like glitter glitter i have seen it yeah yeah i i don't know that the the blue one that's making the rounds right now is real i think that's ai generated oh you think so i there's something uncanny about that to me i don't i don't believe it well there then this feeds into my my point because of the i don't know 20 or so videos i've seen almost all of them are running to a tesla i wonder if that's a social commentary on behalf of the person that made it or if that's just a function of the prompt maybe maybe but i i definitely have wondered of the authenticity of them because i don't know like they the person steals the package it blows up and then it's almost like a dramatic and then sometimes they argue back with the person that blew it up and like if that happened to me yelling at the ring camera or something yeah or something i would run i just get out as quickly as possible because who knows what's next who knows what the thing's gonna do i wonder about the authenticity of some of that yeah and if it's not ai generated at least it's staged staged okay sure yeah yeah"

Paul questions the authenticity of viral videos depicting package theft bait traps, suggesting some may be AI-generated or staged. He notes the recurring presence of Teslas in these videos, pondering if it's intentional social commentary or a prompt artifact. Paul expresses skepticism about the reality of these scenarios, particularly the reactions of the "thieves."

"Apparently if you were a millennial or older when you start a video you pause then you begin talking and gen alpha or gen z or whoever the ones that are skibbidy toilet ris no cap bro for for real on god yeah those people think that what we do is weird they think that's a bizarre way to start a video with a pause with a pause apparently it's not necessary any longer because technology has become so trustworthy when it tells you it's recording you just begin yeah there's no delay anymore and that that to me i think is is a decent sort of segue into what we're here to talk about today but before we get into that smiley's back yes by popular demand that's right and by popular demand we'd really just mean we wanted you back that's fair i'll take that we really i needed some speaker stands for my i'm running sound air quotes for the soccer banquet tonight and i looked in the basement and i didn't have any speaker stands in fact horse another popular guest of ours that has them and instead of driving to georgetown i said hey smiley what are you doing tomorrow it got me can can we abuse and use your friendship yeah but it's like you know can can i inconvenience you by doing this but at the same time we can do this really cool thing and come on the podcast"

Paul explains the "millennial pause," a habit of pausing before speaking at the start of videos common among millennials and older generations. He contrasts this with younger generations who begin speaking immediately, attributing the shift to increased trust in recording technology. Paul then humorously transitions to welcoming Smiley back to the podcast, framing it as a favor in exchange for borrowing speaker stands.

"yes and you had a couple of examples let's let's dive right in on that yes what were my examples again um one was uh tape like i tape something the other day which is of course obsolete nobody tapes anything in these days you you know you record and you or by extension of that then i guess the film industry none of that's on film anymore yeah you don't film anything anymore i guess some of the some of the quirky directors will use film as kind of a gimmick but nobody really films anything anymore could we also say then if we're just staying in that domain for a second photograph uh yeah i guess a photograph is like an actual process of paper and film yeah you don't develop film anymore it's already sort of there i guess you i don't know what do you do you uh you take a digital digital picture image they call it images these days the the tape too reminds me of two of mine one is footage if you have footage of something it's literally was measured in feet right so now but now we use the term footage to just mean you know just a piece of video or something and i guess rewind the tape isn't really rewind and general because you're winding the tape on a spool and now it's just scrubbing digitally backwards or forwards through the timeline"

Paul introduces the concept of linguistic fossilization with the example of "tape." He notes that while people still say they "tape" something, the physical act of using tape for recording is obsolete, replaced by digital recording. Paul extends this to the film industry, where actual film is rarely used, and photography, which no longer involves developing physical film. He also points out that "footage" and "rewind" are terms that persist despite the underlying technology changing.

"well but if you're like watching i don't know a game or something you can rewind but you're not winding anything but the process is still the same and that you're going backwards but you don't say i'm going backwards on i'm digitally going backwards digitally reversing to rewatch this touchdown play we should probably put some context here too we're all roughly the same age i'm gonna say at this point but uh i'm thinking about my my kids listen to some of these terms they're going to just take it for granted of what it means right and maybe sometimes not even think so i'm trying to think of some of the older terms i've got on the list there are some that you know i wasn't familiar with the old thing mind your ps and qs was was a thing where uh i guess when you were like making uh i'm thinking of a newspaper print they were actually taking tiles and putting them on right a p and the q would have looked the same i thought i'd heard that that was pints and quarts and i don't know what that meant exactly but it was some sort of a reference to measurements or make sure it's correct i don't have no idea if that's true that's just i've always thought pints and qs meant pints and quarts and i wonder if that's similar to like a backronym where someone comes up with something after the fact to try to explain it redcon redcon backronym but yeah that's that's a good point i'm not sure i mean the ps and qs make sense of course ai is what taught me"

Paul discusses the term "rewind," explaining that while the action of winding tape is obsolete, the concept of moving backward through media to rewatch something persists. He then introduces the phrase "mind your ps and qs," exploring its potential origins in printing or measurements. Paul notes that younger generations might not question the meaning of these phrases, taking them for granted.

"well and i guess if we're gonna stick with letters how about dot the eyes and cross the ts right when you'