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Pirate radio (W3)

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Pirate (n.)
Meaning "one who takes another's work without permission" first recorded 1701; sense of "unlicensed radio broadcaster" is from 1913. The verb is first recorded 1570s. From the Greek peirates, Latin Pirata meaning brigand.
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"Pirate radio" is illegal or unregulated radio transmission. Its etymology can be traced to the unlicensed nature of the transmission, but historically there has been occasional but notable use of sea vessels - fitting the most common perception of a pirate - as broadcasting bases. The term is most commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for entertainment or political purposes, but is also sometimes used for illegal two-way radio operation. Rules and regulations vary widely from country to country. In the United States and many European countries, many types of radio licenses exist, and often the term "pirate radio" generally describes the unlicensed broadcast of FM radio, AM radio, or short wave signals over a wide range.
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Radio
Radius (W3)

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radio-locator.com
Radio Station Search Engine

Welcome to Radio-Locator.com, the most trusted radio station search engine on the Internet. We have links to over 15,000 radio stations' web pages and over 10,200 stations' audio streams from radio stations in the U.S. and around the world.

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Tain't Funny, McGee (W3)

Fibber McGee and Molly - Middle America humor, crazy overstuffed closet, great line, "Taint Funny McGee."

Fibber McGee and Molly Long running radio show on NBC starring Jim Jordan as Fibber McGee, a small-town blowhard (with a closet that usually brought forth mountains of junk when opened) and his long-suffering wife Molly (played by Marian Jordan, his real-life wife). Arthur Q. Bryan, the voice of Elmer Fudd, was a supporting player on this show, which also spawned a spinoff based on the Great Gildersleeve character played by Hal Peary.

A number of characters and catch-phrases from this show found their way into WB cartoons, including Taint Funny McGee, I Betcha, Myrt the telephone operator, Gildersleeve, the Old Timer (Taint the way I heerd it, Johnny!) and others.

On the Fibber McGee and Molly radio show, this phrase was used by Molly (Marian Jordan) to deflate Fibber McGee (Jim Jordan) after Fibber has told one of his stale jokes. The phrase is used by Daffy Duck on a sign in Daffy Duck and Egghead (Avery, 1938) after Egghead tries to capture Daffy with a wind-up female decoy, and in an slide put in by the Management in Holiday Highlights (Avery, 1940) after an April Fools Day gag has been pulled.

"Tain't funny, McGee": This is a catchline from the old radio comedy series Fibber McGee and Molly, very popular in the 1940s.

Jim Jordan (1896-1988) played Fibber McGee; his wife Marian (1918-1961) played Molly. The series ran on NBC from 1935 to 1959.

A well-known running gag on the show had Fibber opening the closet to get something and all kinds of old junk falling out. This offered a great opportunity for the radio sound-effects people.

Fibber McGee usually played a bumbling husband to his smarter wife Molly (the usual sitcom stereotypes). Fibber would usually utter awful puns or make wisecracks about his current trouble-plagued situation and Molly with her Irish brogue would react to those puns by saying "Tain't funny, McGee!"

'Taint Funny, McGee

During the golden years of radio, one of the most popular shows was Fibber McGee and Molly. Toward the end of each episode, the husband would make some wisecrack about a bad situation. His wife, Molly, would always answer: "'Taint funny, McGee." Many situations Libertarians see today could fit that mold, and that is what this column will report.

Steven Sass

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VOA (W3)

About Us
The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is an international multimedia broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA broadcasts approximately 1,500 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of 123 million people.
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waywordradio.org
A Way with Words

A public radio program about language examined through history, culture, and family.

About A Way with Words

A Way with Words is an upbeat and lively hour-long public radio show about language examined through history, culture, and family. Co-hosts Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett talk with callers from around the world about slang, grammar, old sayings, word origins, regional dialects, family expressions, and speaking and writing well. They settle disputes, play word quizzes, and discuss language news and controversies. The show is heard by more than a quarter-million listeners each week over the air and by podcast.
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Here you’ll find full episodes of public radio’s A Way with Words, heard on NPR stations around the United States. Looking for something you heard on the show? Try the search page.

These are discrete parts, or segments, of whole episodes.

Currently viewing the category: "Newsletter"

Tag Index

Radio host, public speaker, lexicographer, journalist

I’m Grant Barrett, co-host of the nationwide public radio show "A Way with Words", compiler of the "Official Dictionary of Unofficial English" and the "Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang", an officer of the "American Dialect Society", and a public speaker, emcee, and host at public and private events of all sorts and sizes

Learn a New Word

A few hundred of my favorite words and their origins.

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Surhone, Lambert M. (Herausgeber)
Timpledon, Miriam T. (Herausgeber)
Marseken, Susan F. (Herausgeber)
Pirate radio