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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish.
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This is Doug Johnson. On our program today:
We answer a question about American slang …
We listen to what music played on a Steinway piano sounds like…
And we report about a rare and foul smelling plant.
Mister Stinky
HOST:
Crowds of people recently visited a garden center in Florida tosee a rare plant put on a show. This Amorphophallus titanum[a-more-fo-FAIL-us TIE-tan-um) plant grows in the rain forests ofSumatra, Indonesia. People there call it a “corpse flower,” since itsmells like something died. Shep O’Neal tells us about it.
ANNCR:
Workers and visitors at the Fairchild Tropical Garden in CoralGables, in the Miami area, call the plant “Mister Stinky.” Manyvisitors held their noses when they gathered near. But some stayedclose for hours to watch it bloom. Scientists say very few of itskind have ever flowered in the United States.
Mister Stinky first developed ayellowish green flower. It looked like a bell that had been turnedover. This flower grew to a height of more than two meters withinthree weeks. The Amorphophallus titanum flower is often called theworld’s largest flower. But experts say it is really a collection ofmany smaller ones. The flower lives only about two or three days.
The garden let the public know that Mister Stinky was about toflower for the third time since it went on show in June ofnineteen-ninety-eight. Garden expert Craig Allen says the smellresults from chemicals that heat the flower. These chemicals inviteinsects to provide pollen to the flower.
Some plants, like orchids, have pleasant smells that get bees andother insects to pollinate them. But Mister Allen says that in therainforest, the stinky plant might have to invite an insect from faraway. A strong smell is a much better way to appeal to a carrionbeetle, which looks for dead animals. Since that, as Mister Allensays, is pretty much what Mister Stinky smells like.
In August of nineteen-ninety-nine, thousands of people smelled anAmorphorphallus titanum in California. The plant flowered at theHuntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino. The following spring,scientists at the garden produced seeds from the plant.
As far as we know, Germany holds the record for the biggestsmelly flower. Earlier this month, thousands of people saw anAmorphophallus titanum flower at the University of Bonn. It measuredabout two- and-one-half meters.
Slang
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from China. Zhang Luiasks about slang.
Slang is language that is different from the kind of speech thatwe are taught in school. Slang expresses ideas using new terms, orgives new meanings to old ones. One expert says good slang uses veryfew words to communicate a lot of meaning. Dictionaries say no issure where the word “slang” itself came from, but some say it datesback to the seventeen-hundreds.
American slang is born in the everyday speech of differentgroups. Television, movies and radio spread the new words orexpressions to other groups. For example, black culture has giventhe language expressions such as to “bad mouth,” meaning tocriticize someone. Teenage culture produces a lot of slang words,too. One is “mallie,” a person who spends a lot of time in shoppingmalls. People in business also have created slang expressions. Oneexample is “red eye,” an all-night airplane flight from coast tocoast.
Most slang words disappear after a time. The phrase “right on,”for example, was often used in the nineteen-sixties and seventies tomean “that is correct” or “I agree.” Not many people use it thesedays.
In nineteen-ninety-four, University of Tennessee professorJonathan Lighter published the first book in a series called theHistorical Dictionary of American Slang. It gave the meaning ofslang words that start with the letter A through the letter G.
Three years later, he publishedthe second book. It begins with H and ends with O. It containsten-thousand entries. These include slang terms that use names. Someare very unusual. One example is “Monet,” after the French painterClaude Monet. The word describes someone who looks good from faraway but is not as good looking up close. The book also includesthree pages of slang that use the name “Joe.” “Joe Lunchpail” is aworking man. “Joe Sad” is someone who has no friends.
Random House published the first two books. Now Oxford UniversityPress has taken over the project. It plans to publish two more booksto complete the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. The nextone is expected in two-thousand-six.
Steinway And Sons
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HOST:
That is pianist Arthur Rubenstein playing Schumann’s “Arabeske”on a Steinway piano. Steinway and Sons is one of the most famousmakers of pianos in the world.
The company is celebrating its one-hundred-fiftieth birthday thisyear. It is offering free tours of its factory in New York andholding special concerts at Carnegie Hall. It is also working withother companies to celebrate the anniversary. For example, theSteiff North America company is creating a toy to be known as Henrythe Steinway Bear. Steve Ember tells us about Steinway and Sons.
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The story really begins three-hundred years ago in Italy whenBartolomeo Cristofori invented the piano. The story of Steinway andSons begins in Seesen, Germany, in the eighteen-hundreds. HeinrichSteinwig owned a company that produced musical instruments. He andhis family moved to the United States in eighteen-fifty. Heinrichchanged his last name to Steinway to make it sound more American.
The family started its own business in eighteen-fifty-three. Itwas an immediate success. Steinway and Sons won prizes at World’sFairs for its new piano designs and sound. The company developedtechnical changes in the piano. In eighteen-seventy-five, TheodoreSteinway created the modern grand piano.
William Steinway helped establish the company’s fame. He broughtpianists to the United States to play concerts on Steinway grandpianos. Since then, many famous piano performers have usedSteinways. One of the most famous is Vladimir Horowitz. Here heplays a Steinway in a recording of Chopin’s Polonaise.
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Today, Steinway produces about five-thousand pianos a year. Thecompany says more than one-thousand concert pianists use Steinwaypianos. These include Van Cliburn, Harry Connick Junior, Billy Joel,Diana Krall, James Levine, and Randy Newman. We leave you now withanother of these Steinway artists, Roger Williams. Here, he plays”Autumn Leaves.”
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HOST:
This is Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.
This program was written by Nancy Steinbach and Jerilyn Watson.Our studio engineer was Roy Benson. And the producer was PaulThompson.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radiomagazine in Special English.