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Special

This is a special edition of podictionary in which I’m going to give you a little glimpse behind the scenes and explain a few changes that are coming up.

After that I’ll include a bonus etymology.

History

Podictionary has been around for about 4½ years now but it hasn’t always been a blog and email subscription.

The name “podictionary” was chosen because I was “podcasting the dictionary” and for more than half of its existence podictionary was available in audio format only.

It is still the case that there are more listeners to podictionary than readers of podictionary.

Most listeners picked up the show with the iPod software iTunes that automatically downloads each episode to their iPod or iPhone.

I was lucky enough to have started podcasting before Apple included podcasts in their iTunes store and so as an early entrant I got quite good exposure.

Because the majority of podictionary subscribers are listeners I’ve got an iPhone app in the works as well (I’ll let you know when that’s released).

When I began posting transcripts of the show it meant that podictionary started to get delivered to people in three different ways:

• as email;
• as audio via podcast; and
• by stumbling across podictionary in a Google search

(actually there’s RSS too but most people don’t know about RSS)

These new ways mean I’ve gained a whole new readership audience. That audience continues to grow. Thank you.

Sponsorship Sustains Podictionary

Originally the podcast was intended to promote my first book but podictionary has become much more than that.

It is fun and I plan to keep doing it, but it is a good thing that it has grown to be more than a promotion vehicle because I can assure you that as a vehicle to drive book sales it couldn’t stand on its own.

I’ve experimented with sponsors and Google advertising and what I’ve found is that the listening audience pays the freight.

I have recently removed all advertising from the email because it doesn’t add up to anything anyway.

If it were not for the sponsors who pay per download of the audio file I don’t think I could justify the time it takes to put podictionary together every day.

So for all of you who’ve sent me messages saying you wanted to support podictionary with PayPal donations or something, the message is clear; if you like what you’re reading I would hope you’d like to listen to it even more.

As the creator of podictionary I get paid for having listeners but I don’t get paid for having readers (funny old world isn’t it?).

The fact that podictionary started out as a spoken product and not a written product explains why you’ll all too often find spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors here.

I’ve given a lot of attention to producing clean sound but an editor has never been in the picture for podictionary.

And yet I’d never dream of producing a book without several layers of editorial support.

I suppose if podictionary generated ten times the revenue that it does I would hire an editor. I’m sure it could do nothing but good.

Since you’ve been so patient as to stand all that rambling, here is  the etymology: This one is for the word yacht.

Etymology of the Word Yacht

I think to most people the word yacht evokes some sense of luxury.

Unknown luxury for most of us because although we can pretty easily walk through the lobby of a swanky hotel, it is pretty rare that we get aboard someone’s yacht.

The only yacht I’ve ever been on is The Royal Yacht Britannia. I wasn’t a guest of Queen Elizabeth or Prince Charles. The Royal Yacht Britannia is retired as a royal yacht and is now a tourist attraction tied up in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first use of the word yacht in English to 1557 and says it meant “a light fast-sailing ship, in early use especially for the conveyance of royal or other important persons.”

So it may be this long-term association with royalty that gives the word yacht its patina of luxury.

Then again it may be the price of the things.

Yacht is alternately defined as a hole in the sea into which one pours money.

Money is at the root of the etymology of yacht too because originally it wasn’t royalty that were cruising around in the ancestors of yachts but pirates.

Yacht is spelled so strangely because it comes from a Germanic word that English speakers had a hard time rendering. Jaghtschip is traced by some dictionaries to Dutch and by other dictionaries to Norwegian.

The literal meaning of jaghtschip is “hunting ship” or “chasing ship” and these were the kinds of ships most useful to pirates.

Like so many words jaghtschip was abbreviated to jaght back in either Dutch or Norwegian before being picked up by English.

Although some royal figures have indeed acted like pirates the reason a yacht became associated with royalty was likely not because it could be used to rob other ships. Instead, I think it was the speed of the things was what was attractive. Not only did royal or other important persons wish to be able to get away from chasing ships, there is prestige in a fast vessel.

One last thing about the Royal Yacht Britannia: having seen the bed the Queen slept in I can tell you that what is sold as a queen sized bed isn’t. At least on board Britannia the real Queen slept in a single.

Survey

Finally, with respect to advertising within podcasts, a couple of groups are running a survey. You can get to that at either

www.takethesurvey.com/rawvoice

or

www.takethesurvey.com/wizzard

Rawvoice is kind of like my agent that finds advertisers for podcasters and Wizzard is where I host my files (in fact both companies do both things). The other group involved is the Association for Downloadable Media.

The survey is supposed to take about 10 minutes and explores listener preferences in ad style, delivery and placement.

Thanks for putting up with this unusual post.