A Problem Squared - 070 = Speaking Profanities and Lettered Localities

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

  In this episode... 📣 Which words sound rude in other languages? ✏️ Which letters go where most often? 🛩 And some any aeroplane-autobahn business! Tony has give us some fantastic Maths Decor. Platonic Solid doorknobs and how to make them: https://ko-fi.com/s/642d70ef7f A couple of brilliant listeners gave us some great more information on emergency landings on the Autobahn. You can find links to that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_strip and here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notlandeplatz_auf_Stra%C3%9Fe#Autobahn-Behelfslandepl%C3%A4tze. You can find a selection of highway and Autobahn landings captured on camera here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj1diDwW8WWUj8vYdlo3kIBUPzxfedn_n You can now subscript to I'm A Wizard on Spotify! If you want to do that, here are instructions on how to integrate Patreon on Spotify on the app: https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-gb/articles/17201706786573-Listen-to-Patreon-exclusive-audios-on-Spotify More news about the Discord is COMING SOON!

Hello, Bec Hill here. Before we begin this episode, just a couple of notes. Firstly, we're aware that this is one week late. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, we weren't able to bring it out last week. However, the next episode will be coming out next Monday as scheduled. So don't worry. Thank you for your patience. And there are a few rude words in this one. So please bear that in mind if listening with children. Hello and welcome to A Problem Squared, the problem-solving podcast which can be described as heating up, on fire, and boom shakalaka.

Were you restricted solely to expressions from the 1993 arcade video game NBA Jam? I'm Matt Parker, comedian, mathematician, and a person who puts up a brick. I like cuboids, and one of my most popular YouTube videos was me balancing bricks. So there you go. I'm joined by my co-host, writer, comedian, performer, and from downtown Adelaide, it's Beck Hill. Hey, I'm not sure what theme you're using. I think I made it pretty clear. Did you not play the 1990s video game NBA Jam? I think the only basketball game I remember playing was on the Seagram Master System 2.

Oh dear. And it was like with mummies and werewolves or something. I have never heard of that game in my life. I reckon it came out probably around the same time as Teen Wolf and they were trying to like. Ah, capitalize on someone from horror plays basketball. I've solved my own problem. What is it?

It was called Basketball Nightmare. Nice. With that problem solved, we can move on to in this episode... I'll be solving the problem of what words should you avoid using in other languages, in case they're a little bit rude. I've worked out which

letters go where most often. And we've got some any other basketball-is-ness. You got that one in at the buzzer. That's nothing but net. So, Bec, how have you been? I'm good. I'm good.

I hosted QED. Oh, you did? Yes. The other weekend, the Skeptics Convention. How'd it go? Which, it's a fun thing to tell people isn't it i had a few friends where i was like oh i was hosting a skeptic conference on the weekend and they're like i doubt that yeah it's always like oh were you yeah yeah yeah yeah i did so um they they use

skeptics sort of in the in the original meaning the true the traditional sense in that it's like applying proper science and getting experts to weigh in on stuff, as opposed to skeptics who are like, don't take vaccinations. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It's more a popular science conference. Yes.

I did open it up by saying, welcome to the annual meeting of the Flat Earthers Society, and then pretended to check my notes and go, sorry, that's next week. La, la, la, la. Laugh, sohoy. Laugh, laugh. There you go. Yeah.

No, it was great. It was so much fun. I learned so much and I met some incredible people. Lots who listen to this podcast. Say hello. Good. Hello, everyone. Hello, if you're listening.

Yeah, I had a great time. I hosted QEDCon years ago. I would have to look up when it was. Um, yeah, I had a great time. I hosted QEDCon years ago. I would have to look up when it was. I suspect it was like eight years ago. Yeah. It was lots of people, lots of crossovers of people that we know. So that was very fun.

Also, I mentioned this briefly before. I was auctioning off my artwork. Did a piece of art. charity and for the Samaritans and it raised 360 quid, which is not too shabby. Yeah. It's nice. So I don't know who won it, but if you're a listener of ours, thank you. That's a very generous amount. It definitely wasn't me.

I did not hilariously buy your artwork. It was a legitimate sale. I'll have to get some artwork that's specific for you. How about you? How have you been? Oh, goodness. I went to North Carolina. That was a lot of fun.

You did? Oh, that's why you're going for a basketball game themed thing. That's why, because I was there for basketball reasons. Oh, that's why you're going for a basketball game themed thing. That's why, because I was there for basketball reasons. Yes, that's why I took. So in the video game NBA Jam, the announcer says dumb things. And so all the things I was saying were the quotes from NBA Jam. But I was in North Carolina to go to Charlotte for two key basketball reasons. One was Davidson College has a pretty big basketball

program. If people are familiar with the NBA and current players, Steph Curry, Stephen Curry went to Davidson. We weren't sure if I'd be able to get in, but my mate who does sports analytics has a friend at the Hornets, at the Charlotte Hornets, which is the NBA team. He's like, hey, we might be able to get you in to have a little look at their facilities and chat about how they use stats and numbers in basketball. Which I also saw that their newest sponsor is Mr. Beast. Yes, I was there. Because we tried to film on their practice court

and their PR people, the press people were like they were really caging like that's weird and we had a chat with people were there and they're like oh we were we're in the process of negotiating a youtuber being the new like emblem sponsor on the jerseys which i think was announced like yesterday at the time of recording yeah and they were like so we didn't want to have like any youtuber conflict of interest and i was like well who is it and they're like i'm mr beast i'm like i think jimmy's gonna be okay with you having the math guy come and talk stats i don't think that's gonna disrupt his feastables or whatever snack promotion. But he's from North Carolina, so it kind of makes sense.

How do you feel about the fact that we've gone from corporations sponsoring YouTubers to YouTubers sponsoring corporations? I think it's very funny. I've not seen any of the details other than what I found out when I was chatting to the people at the Hornets. I think it's hilarious. I like the fact that through crowdfunding and support and kind of these... I know MrBeast is a whole enterprise unto themselves, but I still like the fact it's kind of grassroots support enabling ridiculous large-scale things yeah i'm very aware there's a cynical reading where it's just a way to get good marketing and make money off his

audience but i also think it's very funny i like it oh i feel like mr beast is the the the opposite of Elon Musk. Oh, it's okay. Either that, or he's like early Elon Musk. I, from my limited interactions, he's a pretty solid individual. I don't know if I told you this back, but I'm going to say a sentence and everyone needs to wait until the end of the sentence before they decide how impressed they are.

Because it really, it goes soaring up and then comes crashing down. So I just want to be ready okay so while i was over there doing my basketball filming i met michael jordan's brother is that the name that's the end of the sentence i wasn't sure because that's still quite impressive and then i was like It could go further You could say Michael Jordan's brother's Hairdresser Yeah exactly Yeah yeah Nope

Just straight up Larry Jordan Yeah So Michael Jordan Was a Large Owner of The Charlotte Hornets And is now

A much smaller Minority owner But His brother Is still involved In Some of the Behind the scenes

Running In terms of like You know Training, training and recruitment and stuff. And so he was around the offices when we were in. So we popped in and said hi. That's amazing. Yeah, it was very cool. I had a huge amount of fun wandering around the Hornets facilities. Isn't it funny how you were trying to get hold of like professional football players, like soccer players?

Yeah. Yep. And that's been tricky but you live in this country whereas you could go to the states and meet michael jordan's brother brother yeah so so what beck's referring to is i will be filming at liverpool football club but they have stipulated i can only be there to meet their sports analytics people when it's guaranteed there will be no players around. So we had to pick a date. It's coming up. We're doing it in like about another

week and a half from now when I forget why, but there's like an international game or something's happening and it's guaranteed there'll be no players anywhere near the facility. So we're allowed it. Whereas for the NBA, they're like, oh, come on in. And then the person there that we were chatting to showing us around, we'd be like, oh, come on in. And then the person there that we were chatting to, showing us around, would be like, oh, just poke my head in the locker room to make sure none of the players are getting changed before you come in. And he goes, oh, no, we're clear.

Come on in. Amazing. He's like, oh, we can't go in the weights room because there's some players in there doing their thing. It's totally different. It's just like, come on in. I mean, people might say that's because of the different places in the leagues for the

Liverpool Football Club versus the Charlotte Hornets. But I can just say the Charlotte Hornets are very welcoming and friendly and very happy to show me around. They sound awesome. Also, while you were over there, I went to the Hachette Publishers Annual Party. And Dan Treiber, no such thing as a fish fame, friend of the show now, slash enemy. I think I've heard of him. He and I ended up making the most of their free sparkling wine.

And then I was walking home quite late at night. So I started texting you guys because I knew you and Trent from Cosmic Shambles Network were over there at the same time and I knew that you would be awake. And so I was like, well, I'll speak to them while I go home. And I'm like, we're the only people in a time zone that are still awake. And she's like, oh yeah. And if something happens to me, you'll be like,

it's not like Bech to suddenly stop talking. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But Trent was telling me that he was very disappointed that there was a really good Indian restaurant just over the road from the stadium or court, whatever you call it. Yeah. And, um, they didn't have a special called the, the Stephen Curry. He was, he was very disappointing.

This is in Davidson. He's like, there's gotta be a Stephen Curry curry. You'd think so. You'd think so. Missed opportunity. The best thing that happened on that trip though was the second day working with the basketball program at davidson the assistant coach was like oh hey um what shoe size are you i'm like uh 12 i was like wait here and he comes back with

a pair of shoes for me he's like i'm sorry the smallest size we had was 13 what a weird question to ask what a weird question he's like oh bye and then i like wikipedia came back with a pair of shoes for me he's like i'm sorry the smallest size we had was 13 what a weird question to ask what a weird question he's like oh bye and then i like came back with a pair of rollerblades yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah he just updated your wiki i'm like i love that what ah for free um i um uh yeah they give me a pair of steph curry, but because Stephan was born on Pi Day on March 14, they were limited edition Pi Day versions of Steph's shoes. And so if you look very closely, there are the digits of Pi run down the heel pull on the back of the shoe. Like it's real subtle. Did they get them made for you? No, no, they exist as a thing.

They already have a Pi Day Jordan. They had a Pi, the number Pi themed basketball shoe. And it took them until day two to realize maybe they should hook me up with a pair because I am the other middle of that Venn diagram. You're the only one in the middle of that Venn diagram. I'm in. I'm like, who are these made for?

Yeah. Math themed basketball shoes. He's like, that'll be 12,000 pounds. Thanks. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a good investment because I'm already thinking, oh, what are they going to do next Pi Day?

Like they've now got a customer for life. So, I mean, well played. Like they've now got a customer for life. So, I mean, well played. Our first problem comes from someone who has declared their name is David. And so-called David went to the problem posing page at a problem squared.com. And they typed in their problem, went straight into our database. And Beck is going to try and solve it.

They said there is a story about a product named Mist Stick. Mist, like the suspension of water droplets in the air, M-I-S-T, and stick, spelt like stick. And they say there's a story that Mist Stick did not sell well in Germany because mist is a German word for excrement, a swear word specifically. Wow. I can see why that didn't sell. So they want to know what other words are common words in one language but are rude or profane in a different language.

I guess they're doing some market research before they misname a product that becomes offensive in a foreign market. So, Bec, you've looked into this. Yeah, and it's not the only product that becomes offensive in a foreign market. So Beck, you've looked into this. Yeah. And it's not the, it's not the only product that's been offensive in other markets. I can think of one. What's the one that you know?

I don't know if it's real or it's made up. Go on. I heard that when they translated Coca-Cola into Mandarin, which is, I guess, maybe it maybe just Chinese script. They went phonetic and they translated Coca-Cola into bite the wax tadpole, which is not necessarily offensive, but it is a weird sentence. It sounds a little bit like a euphemism, doesn't it? Bite the wax tadpole. I think that's real.

That didn't come in my research, but I guess that's because it's not specifically rude. And I was very much looking for rude things. Yeah. I mean, this is really playing to your skill set. Yes. Yeah. So in terms of products, you know, the website Wix. It's like electronics and stuff.

You build websites on it. It's like Squarespace. Oh, yes. Neither of whom sponsor this podcast. Nope. Oh, yes. Neither of whom sponsor this podcast. Nope.

Wix in Germany apparently is slang for pleasuring oneself. Oh, dang. It's very similar to a similar W word that we have in English. Got it. So, yeah. So they actually capitalized on that by doing an ad campaign where they were asking people when was the last time they they wixed they wixed much to the the amusement of the public there's also one that peter mcglattery sent me the film barbie oh yeah do you remember the advertising do you remember any of the

advertising around it i do not i dodge advertising like that scene in The Matrix where Neo is dodging bullets? I mean, I refuse to watch trailers, which has served me well. Okay. But it's hard for me to dodge advertising. They had the catchphrase on all the posters that says, she can do everything, he's just Ken. But in French, Ken is slang for intercourse. Oh.

So the way when it was translated, it sounds like saying she knows how to do everything. He just knows how to do sex. Wow. Very different film. I'm trying to say this in like the most PG way possible. I'm about to say. I started doing it and I was like, oh, this is terrible. You've taken a real challenge on to do a family-friendly,

hilarious tour of inappropriately named products slash advertising. But that made me laugh a lot. There's some arguments going on about whether anyone would have known, you know, knowingly made that choice and lent into the buzz or whether it was a genuine mistake. Because you've got, you're at the moment having some of your videos translated into Mandarin, aren't you?

Have you had any interesting translation issues, Matt? Yeah. So, um, stand up masters on Billy Billy. I don't think we've, we've not had translation issues with Billy Billy. I don't think we've not had translation issues with Billy Billy. We have had the show I do with Helen Arney, who people may know as the headline act at this year's QEDCon, and Steve Mould, who I believe also dabbles in some YouTube work now these days.

We do a thing called Festival of the Spoken Nerds, which, because we're lazy, we often use the acronym FOTSN, or Initialism F-O-t-s-n for festival the spoken nerd but apparently fotzen is very close to a german swear word and so some germans very early on found that very funny and we're like why is that so funny they're like it's not it's a very rude word in german so we now are careful to not ever like read the acronym out as FOTS and we always are spoken nerds like the short version to avoid to avoid up offending foreign audiences interesting well yeah my my mom um used to because my husband's scottish gav scottish as some some folks know uh so he has a scottish accent and my mom likes to sometimes try and affect a Scottish accent

because that's what people do culturally sensitive yeah yeah I mean we've had a fair share of it over here oh god it happened to me like two days ago yeah it happened to me at immigration when I first moved over here that's so weird the guy was like he what'd he say he said to me you come from the land down under like he sang it as I was going. The guy was like, what did he say? He said to me, you come from the land down under. Like he sang it as I was going through. And I was like, yep, that's me. And it's not like, he must have loads of Aussies go through. Yeah. He must sing that all the time. Nah, I often have people just shouting like neighbor's quotes. That's how they get into the accent. What's a neighbor's quote? Give me a quote from neighbors.

Flaming galah. I don't know. They wash right over me. No, that's home and away. Is that home and away? Yeah, home and away has all the quotes. I'm sure there were some neighbors ones. Lucy was there, so she could translate for me from neighbors back to regular English. Yeah.

Well, my mom likes to affect a Scottish accent. And so she'll say, so she'll say fud instead of food. Oh, I have some delicious fud. But in Scotland, if you're going to do a Scottish accent, it's more like fid. Like it's almost F-I-D rather than F-U-D. You sort of don't even mention the vowel. Do you want some fid? But my, uh, my husband found this very funny when he met her because in Scotland, My husband found this very funny when he met her because in Scotland, FUD, F-U-D, is slang for vagina, basically. Oh, right.

Yes. So, and we told my mum this and said, don't say FUD. Just so you know. Because she'll write it out as well in text form. Oh, really? Because she thinks she's being all funny. Yeah. Yeah.

And he was like, tell your mum to stop saying FUD. Oh, goodness. She listens to the show. She's going to be mortified that I've added her in this. And then we said to her, you should stop using that. It's slang. And she was like, oh, I don't have a dirty mind. It's everyone else. I don't mind.

I'm going to keep using it. So I was like, well, you've been warned. Well, okay. Very good. Mildly related, my mum's full name is Judith But she goes by Judy And we were in Indonesia for a while When I was younger

And there were Judy in I think it was Indonesian I don't think it was Javanese I think it was the Indonesian language It was like slang or meant gambler And so She had to When we were in Indonesia,

had to go by Judith as opposed to her preferred Judy, just because Judy meant gambler, like not in a positive way. Not like, what a gambler, but like, you know, problem gambler. And was she one? If she was, she was keeping it, you know, under control. Oh, well, it's not really a problem gambler, is it? It's not a problem gambler, it's an efficient gambler. Efficient gambler. That's an oxymoron isn't it yeah uh we did have some some other people responding um julie not judy i should say um said that their mother is finnish and their father's

polish so the word pronounced pasca refers to easter in, but in Finnish means excrement. Oh. In the same way that like German mist probably does. You know what I'm learning from this? I'm learning that there are a lot of words that mean poo. I think that's the takeaway here. I feel like you could turn any word into poo. My theory is any word you think of, there's a language in which it means poo.

That's my conjecture. Oh, yeah. Got a couple of other products that had to change their names. Yeah. Buttery Biscuit Baz on Twitter. No kidding. Yeah. Said Foden Trucks, F-O-D-E-N, had to change their name in Portugal because Foden is Portuguese

for intercourse again. Of course. For a is Portuguese for intercourse again. Of course. For a swear word for intercourse. And the Vauxhall Nova didn't sell in Spain because in Spanish, Nova means doesn't go. Oh, that's just a bad slogan. Yeah. Apparently, chat GPT in French sounds a little bit like

je pétis, which in French means I farted. Or cat, I farted, or cat I farted. Fuba on Twitter said they told their French girlfriend's mom that they don't like processed food as it has too many preservatives. Perfectly normal sentence. They thought they were saying preservatives. Preservatives. But they're sort of preservatives. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correct.

But it's spelt very similarly. Right. And it means condom. I mean, that's a valid reason to dislike processed food. Yeah. Yeah. If I found them in that, I wouldn't want it either. Yeah.

We did have a couple of reminders that obviously the word fanny has a double meaning. The meaning you have in the UK and Australia is very different to as it is in the States. Hence bum bag versus fanny pack. Yes. Yeah. And which is funny because you tend to wear a bum bag on your front. Now, I guess in the past you would wear it sat just above your bum. I guess so.

Or your fanny if you're American. But you tend to wear them on the front. There you go. Not sure why it's called. I guess because you can't really say it's a fud bag. It's not really on the front either. Hugo Bollmer said a classic anecdote from the 1960s about Dutch PM Joseph Lunds meeting John F. Kennedy.

John F. Kennedy said, so what do you do in your spare time? And the Dutch prime minister said, I fuck horses, F-O-K, which means to breed. Oh, to breed horses. Yeah. JFK said, pardon? And they said, yes, pardon.

Pardon means horses. Ah, that's everything aligned perfectly in that conversation. Yes. Here's some others. Siri sounds a bit like shiri in Japanese, which means butt. Hey, butt. What's the weather today? Also cool.

How will you say like cool? Sounds a bit like cool, C-U-L, which means butt in French and Catalan. That's great. Cookie. Sounds like kuki. That's K-U-K-I in Hungarian, which means small penis. It comes from the word kukak, which means worm. Oh, okay.

Checks out. Payday, as in, you know, waiting for payday when you'll get paid for your job. Sounds like payday, which is... Isn't it a confectionary as well? Yes, it is, yeah. It sounds like payday, P-E-I-D-E-I in Portuguese, which means farted.

The farted confectionary. Yeah. I got some money when I farted. Oh, I can't pay you back now. I have to wait until Iectionary. Yeah. I got some money when I farted. Oh, I can't pay you back now. I have to wait until I farted. Yeah. Do you want some foreign words that sound rude in English? I don't know if we can use them in the podcast, but let's give it a go.

Clatter fart. Clatter fart. Yeah. Actually, this is a little bit of a cheat because it's not from a foreign language. It's from a Tudor dictionary from the 1500s. Defines a clatter fart as someone who is a gossip or blabber mouth. What a clatter fart. You know what I love when I'm having scones or scones.

What do you like when you're having scones or scones? I like to cover it with jam and a ton of slag room. It's a Dutch word for whipped cream. So first of all, you put on an old man and then... Sorry, grub? Grub? Yeah, gruber. So if you had strawberries and cream, it's old man and slag room. Nice. Have you got any... there are loads of others out there. They're very good, but probably not, not safe for, I feel like you've,

you've skirted the line. Anyone listening in public. Yes. I've tried very hard to, to, to tread that line. Well, my theory that any word or expression in some language means poo.

I have had a look at all the phrases from NBA Jam to find the ones that sound the most like they could be talking about poo. We got up, uh, puts up a brick. Puts up a brick. Nice. He's on fire. Monster jam. Does that count? Yeah. Oh, I did a monster jam. Monster jam. Yeah. There you go. Boom shakalaka. I don't know why that doesn't work. It just made me laugh. I mean, you said all these in the intro i know there aren't that many i think basketball terms are very just general basketball terms are very good for it i had a friend once referred to the moments where you do a poo but when you wipe that there's it's clean you know you don't have to you know every now and then you'll be like what uh they they refer to that as nothing but net nothing but net well

done yeah you don't want one off the backboard is what i'm saying i do like to play a game sometimes i'll finish this if anyone's um trying to keep themselves busy in the future on car journeys what you do is you try and think of words for like poo or butt or something, but starting with each letter of the alphabet and you sort of go around in a circle. So for A, you might say like ass and B you've got butt or bum, but then you have to start getting like,

I think cool was butt. It was cool, but this game gets easier with foreign languages. Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. Everyone can play that game. And look, I'm sure there's loads of people who are

like, you didn't say these words or you've missed this out. Yeah, how about that? Do you know what? That's when our Discord slash Reddit will come in handy. We'll talk about that more in any other business. Any other buttness. In any other buttness. Oh my goodness.

Well, I feel like you have found some other common words in one language that are rude. Ask the orifice buttness. This is a serious podcast, Beck. We solve serious problems. So I'm going to give you a ding dong for achieving. Finding words can sound a bit rude if you're not careful. Thank you. You're welcome.

This next problem is for Matt, and it hasn't come through the problem posing page, and there is no name. It has not, no. It says, do more words start with the letter K or have it as the fourth letter? There you go. Big problem. That's a good question. Now, I'll provide context in a moment, but I thought we'd just start with the question. So what do you think? Do more letters

start with K or have it as the fourth letter? I mean, my immediate thought is to, is to say the fourth letter. Cause you think of all the CK words, but actually there can't be that many CK words. I mean, there will be a lot. Because I guess, I mean, we get into that wordle territory like we've gone to in the past. I can't think of any words that, English words that have K as a fourth letter that don't have C prior to it. Not off the top of my head. So I, I'm going to say start with. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's a very common response so this question came up i was watching a talk by someone named arthur about how our experiences as a human can mean that we don't always make the correct decision because we're quite you know subjective and we're influenced by context and we don't always perceive things as being completely accurate. And so it was a very interesting talk about how humans make decisions and what influences those decisions for the rational or for irrational. And this was an example of which do you, just from your experience, think is the most common position for the letter K. And it turns out it appears in the fourth position of a word 32% more than when it appears in the first position.

Whoa. Yeah. So for every three words that start with a K, there are four which have it in the fourth position. Tell you what, if you give me a letter, I'll give you a word that has K in the fourth position. What would you like? Q. Oh, it's going to be difficult, don't you?

Let me know. P. What I've actually done is I've just printed, I've got them all on a spreadsheet. I've got to scroll down to Q. Quake. Quake. Oh, so we're, right. Do you know what?

Because I'm, see, now I feel like this is cheating because I. What? Quake has Q as. No, no, you're right. Quake has K in the fourth position. Okay. And I see what's happened here is because I've made the assumption that K is the fourth letter.

We were talking about four letter words. Ah, no. Have as many letters as you want. And that's all on me. At no point does it say as the fourth letter. I guess I just assumed that it was meant to be

as the last letter in a four letter word. But I just made that assumption myself. There is nothing that suggested that. I wonder if any listeners made that assumption or if they like you just made specifically fourth letter. Quokka. Yeah. I would have definitely said as the fourth letter if I had remembered that the words could be longer than four letters. Would you like another one then?

Sure. Is the letter G more likely to be the first letter or the third letter in a word? The first letter or the third letter? Yeah, I'm mixing it up. English. I'm struggling to think of many. I guess like egg. Egg. So while Beck is thinking of G words, the point here is we tend to notice the first letter more. Algebra. And words are kind of categorized by their first letter. So we tend to find the first letters of words more memorable. And it's hard for humans to subjectively remember just off the top of your head or to think about how often letters appear in other positions. And we tend

to say first is the most likely. Yeah. I think with this one, I'm going to say word starting with G because I feel like G as a third letter is less common. You are correct. It appears in the third position, 81.6% as often as it does in the first position. That's still a lot more than I thought. It's still a lot. I picked one that was close. So Arthur gave this talk and afterwards I was chatting to Arthur and I was like, oh, how much more likely is it to find K in the fourth position?

And he's like, actually, I don't know. I just know it's more, more frequent. And then we're like silent for a second. Yeah. And I'm like, well, I wonder which letter has the most dominant position where it is in a word compared to, let's say, the starting position. And then Arthur said, I reckon I could write some terrible Python code to work that out. And I was like, that's exactly what I would do. You guys are speaking the same language. Guess what I did, Beck.'s exactly what I would do. You guys speak the same language.

Guess what I did, Beck. Yeah, we wrote some bad. So we had, we're both like, I'm like, well, you know, I can't do that for a while because I'm writing a book. I'm very busy at the moment. Have you ever made the joke that you speak Python and then go, You know, I never have. And if I ever do, I'll give you a call and let you know.

Beck, you won't believe it. It finally happened. I said that joke you said. Yeah. And I've been fired. But it's terrible, Python. Yeah. So it has to be a bad impression of the snake.

There it is. That would be great at playing the trumpet. See, now that That's some content that I have to make isn't it Just gotta dub over some stock footage of snakes With rasping noises I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna post it We'll link to it in socials afterwards

Wow you're committed Yeah now I have to do it Holding myself accountable So later that night Because I was in London Spent a bunch of time working on the book I have to do it. It's holding myself accountable. Yoit. Go yoit. So later that night, because I was in London, saw the talk, spent a bunch of time working on the book,

had another meeting. I was on the train on the way home. I got sick of working on my book and I was like, I've still got that file with 370,000 words because we did the word, all five words with 25 letters. I was like,

oh, I've still got all that stuff on my laptop. And so I just quickly adjusted the code. And so it goes through all 370,000 words and analyzes which letters are in which positions and then spits it all back out again. So I can now tell you that there are 12 letters which are more common to be the first letter of a word. And the other 14 are more likely to be in the word. Overwhelmingly likely to be the second letter in the word. Wow. Yeah. So I then...

Can I guess some of the words that's... Yeah. Do you have any questions? Because basically I've just got a lot of data now. I've just been looking at it, just answering my own curious questions. If you've got any questions about letters in a word, let me know. No. Good.

No, I just. No, no, no. Well, what I want to know is I'm going to guess what the 12 letters are. I want to see if I can guess it. Okay. Right. So I'm going to go with S. See how many in a row you can get. If there's anything I learnt from our trying to find a long word, a lot of them started with S. Yeah, turns out S is the most common

starting letter in a word in English. I was surprised. Wow! S is it. Like if you're going to start an English word, S. In fact, do you want to hear the word where each letter is just the most common letter to be in that position? Yeah. The word, the most average word in English, if every letter is just the most common letter to be in that position, is C. S, E. Wait, hang on. C.

C. S-E Wait, hang on C-C-C Now those end ones were all Ys Right Then it gets a bit funky at the end Alan How long is this word? How many letters does it have? It's like 20 Is it 29? Is it Strong's?

It's out there with the best of them 29, 29 letters Strong's letters There you go The word in the wild What are the chances? C, oh no, it is multiple syllables I think you'd struggle

It starts with one syllable Then it ends with Alan, yeah In your findings, did you find that There is a position that Letters tend to be in the most? Yeah, so overwhelmingly, like 12 letters really want to be the first letter in a word. So they're all fighting for that. There are then, one, two, three, four.

There are then nine letters that really want to be the second letter. There's three that love being the third letter. A single letter wants to be fourth. that's K as previously established. Are you saying that K is the most common fourth letter? No, K is the letter with the highest preference for being the fourth letter in a word. How is that different from what I said? That's different from what you said because if you, okay, so if you took all the words and looked at what the most common fourth letter is, it's the letter E because there are just a lot of E's. There are more E's than K's.

E's are everywhere. If you only look at words with the letter K in them and say, where is the K likely to be? The K is most likely to be in the fourth position. I see. K is the only letter which its most common position is the fourth position. So what do you want to do?

The K is never happier than being the fourth letter. Yeah. Would you like to hear a word where every letter is as happy as it can be? Sure. Dark. So D, D loves being the first letter in a word. That's its happiest place.

A loves being the second letter in a word. Doesn't get happier than when it's the second letter. R loves being the third letter in a word. And K, as established, loves being the fourth letter in a word. So dark. Every letter is happy with its location. They're all in their most common place to be in a word. Milk, every letter in milk is where it wants to be.

That's cute. So to clarify, you're saying that it's the preference for that individual letter for where it likes to be in a word. Not the letter that appears most in that position. Because the letter that appears most in that position is S for the first letter and then E for the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth positions. I guess we're boring. You know, if Wordle did take words that aren't real, you could start with C and you're more likely to get some green got them in the right place marks yes okay so in the chat i've just given you every letter in terms of its favorite place to be so at the beginning are all letters that want to be the first letter in the word and then you've got all those that want to

be the second letter in the word and then there's only three that want to be the third letter. L, R, and T, if people are playing along at home. So in alphabetical order, it spells balx. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you just take the lowest rank one of each one, balx. Although Zed's an exception. That wants to be the eighth letter in the word. Yeah, I was going to say. That's interesting.

I think that's because Americans use it like between an I and an E to mean eyes. Okay. Give me a starting letter of a word beck uh b for beck b for beck so the following words start with b and have z in the eighth position balconize balladize balsamize barbarize baromets oh that's a bit different. Basher Bazook. What? Basher Bazook.

Huh. Bedlamize. Berlinize. Besqueeze. Oh, that's the best one. Besqueeze. That's amazing. Besqueeze.

Yeah. Besqueeze. I besqueeze unto you. I besqueeze unto you. The letter Z Yeah So my code, I can tell it a letter and a position And it will kick out every word that has that letter and that position There are 1776 words that have Z in the 8th position

Incredible Well I have one more question Matt Yeah What was the talk about again? Yeah, this is totally unrelated to the talk. It's how easily I can get distracted solving a problem that's not a problem when I'm meant to be writing a book. I mean, the actual answer is just K is 30%.

Let me get the exact number in front of me. I meant what was the talk about that you originally got the problem from that beats me well matt i'm i'm impressed it's a problem literally no one posed not even the person who said it because they were like two of us contemplated the problem and it was a race to whoever had free time first to write some terrible Python code. Yeah. Well, I'm sure that our thousands of entries on the database waiting to be solved are thrilled by that. Look, I'm teasing you. I'm teasing you. I'm sure they're besqueezed with excitement. That's still very impressive.

And I know it is because i wonder things like that but they stop at me wondering them and then i don't really go further yeah and you've proved that you are very clever that's not true i'm able to write some terrible code i've got a new problem i want to find out if there is any real life applications for this piece of code that you've written. Nope. Deliberately so. Well, I'm going to look, I would give it a ding. You did say that K wants to be the fourth letter, but I think a dink.

I'm going to give you a dink. That's pretty close to everything being in the right place. D's happy. I's happy. N. N's a little off. But barely. In Australia, to give someone a dink or a dinky is a bit like, what do they call it here?

You sit on the handlebars or you... Yeah, you carry them on like... Like handlebarring. So yeah, N's pretty close. N is also a big fan of the third position. It does prefer the second, but it's pretty happy. The third position is its second favorite place to be. So I think dink, dink's a good word. Dink, dink. Dink, dink. Now it is time for AOB, which normally stands for any other business, but now it stands for Autobahn because that, that seems to be the theme in our any other business this time

beck people have autobahn related opinions yes not just opinions but i would argue corrections oh what have they got to say look i'm not above admitting when i have failed the listener. Right. So in episode 069, our previous episode, someone asked whether it would be possible to fly a plane along the autobahn. And I very, very confidently said no. And what was the basis of your argument, just for people who missed? I found, well, I found that it was the autobahn is limited to certain types of vehicles and i also looked up the uh takeoff speed of various planes if they hit certain speeds on the autobahn then they would just take off so they wouldn't be driving along it they'd just be flying above it. Right. There are various corrections for what I said.

So, Johans wrote in, said, great episode once again. Thank you, Johans. However, I have something to add about the flying on the Autobahn thing. While I don't doubt that under normal circumstances, it is not allowed to take your plane for a spin on the Autobahn in Germany, I also know there are quite a number of sections where it could be legal. What? These sections are prepared for transformation into emergency landing strips during wartime. Right, so if war breaks out, you can land your plane on the autobahn.

Yeah, so actually a listener called David went into this a bit further and said it is possible technically and legally to take off and land airplanes on certain parts of German autobahns if you are a military pilot and the circumstances require it. Right. The so-called, now I'm going to definitely say this incorrectly. Oh, wow. I've just seen that word. I can't wait. There are so-called autobahn behelfslandeplatz. I've definitely mispronounced that. Z is definitely way further than eighth in that word.

It does start with B. Behelfslandeplatz, which are basically stretches of the highway that are built in a way they can easily be converted into an airfield if required, i.e. during war. You can find a list of those in the German Wikipedia. I'll provide a link, which we'll pop in the show notes. de.wikipedia.org. Yes. You were over on the en.wikipedia.org. Unfortunately, the English version of said article does not feature the list,

but simply says they exist. When I was a child, my dad showed one to me when we were driving on it. However, that memory resonated with your latest episode. When I now read up on it, I found some facts worth mentioning. The famous, at least in Germany, the famous US Ramstein Air Base, which I guess is where the band... Ramstein. Ramstein Air Base seems to have been built upon one such airstrip.

Also, there was a NATO exercise called Highway 84, which took place on one of those German highway strips in obviously 1984. I said, thanks for your great podcast and work. Not sure if I should now continue watching footage of planes starting and landing on highways. They have provided a YouTube link if anyone would like to watch this.

A link? It's a playlist. So we'll put that in the show notes as well. David, absolutely phenomenal work there and your hands as well. Thank you very much. We did also hear from Mike who pulled me up on the other point that I made. Oh my goodness. Who said, I'm sorry to do this, but I have a slight correction for you regarding the

latest episode. I fly a Cessna 152, very similar to the 150 I mentioned. Oh, Mike's brought receipts. Yeah. And I wanted to clarify something. The takeoff speed of an aircraft is not the speed at which the aircraft will take off on its own. What? It's the speed at which the pilot should pull back on the control column,

rotating the aircraft in order to take off. So the takeoff is optional. Yeah, if the pilot keeps their hands off the control column, the aircraft won't take off until it is going at approximately the normal cruising speed of the aircraft. Around 150 kilometers an hour for a Cessna 150. And by pushing forward on the control column, they'll be able to get the aircraft all the way to its top speed without it leaving the ground. As a side note, if either of you two...

Oh, sorry, I won't put that in. Yeah, no, no, no. I'll do that last sentence one more time for you, Lauren. And by pushing forward on the control column, they'll be able to get the aircraft all the way to its top speed without it leaving the ground. Because you're just flying down into the ground as you fly across. Well, you're just driving it.

You're driving it. You're using the plane like a spoiler. Yeah. Yeah, so you're not like tilting it for it to physically catch the air, I guess. Egg on my face. That's what it is. You got corrected. I did.

And do you know what? I love it. I love it. This is so useful. And this is also why people should keep tuning back to the show, because if you had listened to one episode, you might be walking around telling people that you can't take a plane on the Autobahn saying, Beck Hill told me you can't. She didn't mention any exceptions for military pilots in circumstances that require it.

Yeah. So, you know, as a continued listener, you only learn more and more. Well, you know what I love about... Even if it's unlearning some stuff I taught you. That's just as important. But I find it very funny that your or any other business was three people telling you about a technical mistake in what you said last time. And mine is Tony here.

Tony's saying they've they've made some printable platonic solid doorknobs so oh for the for the maths related decor yeah so i was having a problem about making your house more mathsy from a decor sense and i mentioned how i'd always wanted like number doorknobs on a cupboard and we mentioned other shapes and so tony's made platonic solid uh doorknobs i'm just going we mentioned other shapes and so tony's may platonic solid uh doorknobs i'm just going to open them up now have a little look yep yeah they've um i've got a certain vibe about them but we'll uh oh yeah they do have a vibe they do there's certain adult toy vibe if i say i, I think it would be very uncomfortable.

I'm not one to judge. All I'm saying is... They're very cool. Could you explain what platonic solid... I mean, I'm looking at them, but I guess it's to do with plates, because all I could think originally was this is ones you would give to your friends and not a lover. Exactly. Although, despite what they look like so platonic solid is a shape where all the faces on the 3d shape are identical and they're all regular shapes as in they've all got the same length edges and the same angles inside them so platonic solids are shapes which are very consistent all the edges are very consistent. All the edges are the same length. All the corners are the same number of degrees. All the vertices, which is like the 3D corners, are all identical. So these are super, super regular shapes. And now you can print them

out as handles for a cupboard. 3D print, I should say. You wouldn't have much luck if you tried to put this onto. There is a link to it as well. We'll pop it in the show notes and you can make a little donation to Tony. Put them up on his Ko-fi. Is that how you pronounce that? Ko-fi. Ko-fi. You can donate from zero or more euros and you can get the STL file to print out these doorknobs.

You know, I have a friend who has a 3D printer and as you know, because I'm very busy right now, I've decided it's the perfect time to redecorate my bedroom. Why I say bedroom, my room, my study. And I just bought a bunch of plain wooden doorknobs from online so i could just paint them but now i kind of i'm kind of tempted to get some platonic solid doorknobs i think you should do it i'm gonna i'm gonna hold out for the archimedean solid doorknobs uh i feel like that's a very funny joke it's not it's not i just, I'm literally naming the next type of shape along after platonic solids. It's the Archimedean solids.

So you've got Plato and Archimedes. Plato is arguably funnier because like you said, it sounds like plate. So if you did it on the cupboard in the kitchen, it'd be very funny. Oh, that is fun. Yeah. Like a mead, meadies. Maybe if you've got like mead glasses or something, I don't know. Yeah.

Yeah. That common. That common utensil. Yes, we all have mead cups. Actually, you say that, I literally do. There, see, see. It was given to me when I did that Animator Z podcast and we did a Vikings anime show and when we finished up, they gave us customized Viking mugs to drink meat out of. You should put them in the Archimedean door handled cupboard.

Yeah, I should. So I mentioned at the top of the episode that I hosted at QEDCon and met a lot of listeners there. And quite a few of them listen with their kids. So their kids are big fans. Please forgive us for some of the words that we said in this one. So I thought perhaps, seeing as we don't specifically cater for a younger audience, but maybe it'd be nice to do a one-off episode where we do.

Oh. So. Okay. I was chatting to Miles at the conference. to do a one-off episode where we do. Oh. So. Okay. I was chatting to Miles at the conference, shout out to Miles, who was saying that his son has a problem he wants to pose. And I thought,

I wonder if there's anyone else with kids who want to pose a problem to us. Yeah. We can do our best to solve it in an understandable way. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So are they going to submit these via the problem posing page at a problem squared.com? Yeah. So if there's, if anyone's kids have a problem, they want to pose to us, they can send it on there.

If you, if they want to record themselves asking us the problem, then you might need to upload it. Exception for children only. To something. And then, uh, you know, copy and paste the link when you're entering it into the promposing page. Can you give us your child's age? Yes, child's age, child's name, pronouns. There might be quite a lot. So I'm not sure if we'll be able to answer all of them.

Nope. In one episode, but we'll give it a go. Give it a go. And don't be a hilarious adult and put in like so-and-so age 43. Like the genuine kids. Kids questions only. Maybe mention kids episodes somewhere in there so that we can

differentiate from the other problems people are sending us. Another bit of business. We have a Discord server. Another bit of business. We have a Discord server up and running. And already there's a vote that it should be called a problem disquared the squared the disquared server hmm anyway we will link to the subreddit and the discord server in the show notes yeah it's a good place to put youtube links

for planes taking off and landing on highways and there's a final bit of any other business from Libby, who was responding to something we talked about in episode 054, where we were talking about rulers. We sort of had an argument about whether you could do a ruler that only had one or two marks on there. And then I was saying, well, you could just get one that you fold on every centimeter line and not make a mark on any of them. And then you've got a very compact ruler.

You get a Constantina ruler. Yeah. Yeah. And Libby said, when I was in primary school, I had a ruler that was like a chain with each inch being a separate block that you could fold. They said, although it was horrifically impractical as when you drew a line, there was a dip every time you got to the next inch. Which I would argue just makes counting the inches easier. Yeah. That's true.

I kind of love that. It's always baked in. Well, since that episode, we haven't been in person. But I, well, no, sorry. We have been in person since then. We have. So it's been a while since we've recorded in person. The next episode we will be recording in person again.

So I haven't had a chance to show you something that I managed to find in sainsbury's my local supermarket oh this little oh it's a ruler yep showing a little ruler little 15 centimeter ruler oh my what it folds out into a full 30 centimeters yeah but now look at all those notches so many notches oh yeah it's not solving your problem but it solves my problem yeah that's nice it's a hinged ruler and it means if you want to draw an angle in between zero and 180 legitimately used it as a set square i what i do is i line it up on the corner of my table to make sure it's right angled. Right. And then I, and then I use it. And then transfer that angle over.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I feel like it could have, if it had a locking mechanism, that would have been better. It's missing. It's missing. Um, it should have, uh, numbers and angles on the inside of it. You'd need a protractor somehow so you could line it up.

But I'm well chuffed. It's a very cool ruler. Yeah. Cooler. Butter. Cooler. Butter. Thank you so much to everyone for listening to this episode of A Problem Squared. And particularly, thank you, thank you to our Patreon supporters who make this whole operation possible. Without them, we wouldn't be able to buy a bucket.

Another NBA Jam line there. Oh, I thought you were talking about pooping. No, can't buy a bucket. I considered using that in the poop section, but I saved it for the Patreon section. Now, if you go to patreon.com slash a problem squared, you can also help support us and you get the bonus episode of I'm a Wizard and a reminder to our Patreon supporters,

if you wish to be a wizard and sending us in and send us in a wizard offer, you can record that as a voice note and you can email it in and we will do our best. And we will then decide if we wish to accept or return your kind wizard offer. More details on our Patreon page. And every episode we thank three people at random. So I put all the Patreons in the spreadsheet, gave it a good shuffle. And this time we'd like to thank Neil Fraser or Neil Fraser. Philip Adolf.

Philip, Philip is a spare P. Philip Adolf. Giovanni Faccio. Faccio. Giovanni Faccio Facco? Faccio Giovanni Facco And if you are a Patreon supporter

you can now link your Patreon account with your Spotify account and listen to the bonus I'm a Wizard episodes on Spotify Hooray! More frictionless than ever. Thank you for your patience.

Yeah, we've now got that. There is a how-to on how to connect those so you can get started. Thank you so much for listening to A Problem Squared. I'm Matt Parker. The other voice was Beck Hill. And finally, to put a nail in the coffin, our producer, Lauren Armstrong Carter.

Bec, if you want to guess how many dice are in the jar, I'll give you a higher or lower this time. Ooh. All right. Yep. I can't even remember higher or lower this time. Ooh. All right. Yep. I can't even remember what I said last time. I'm going to say 273. Higher. All right.

Thank you. Well, next time I'll be in person. Next time. I can actually try and do some working out. You can look at the jar. Yeah. I can look at the jar. Also, Matt, I was meant to mention this last episode, but I heard what you

said about Cheezles being better than Twisties. What? I gotta go. I was gonna say, I think I agree. Controversial. There's just not enough Cheezles brand stuff out there. It's true. I don't know. Every time I have them, I think I've twisted myself out. Yeah, well,

if anyone was going to achieve A state of being twisted out It was going to be you, Bec A cheese