If you look at a Wisconsin map, you might notice that a lot of town and place names start with ‘W-A-U’. We talk to two experts about the linguistic reasons why and the name origins in indigenous languages. And, we take a look at the impact the Peanuts cartoon strip had on American pop culture. These conversations are part of a holiday broadcast from interviews that happened earlier in 2020.
Featured in this Show
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The Mark The Peanuts Comic Strip Left On America
Cartoonist Charles Schulz created more than 18,000 daily comic strips about Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang. To mark the 70th anniversary of his creation, we look at how the comics affected people’s lives and American pop culture, as well as what they can teach us about life.
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We talk to a pair of Wisconsin professors — including linguistics professor and a native Ojibwe speaker — about the commonalities and differences among place names in Wisconsin that contain “wau.”
This segment was inspired by an audience question as part of the WHYsconsin project. Submit your question at wpr.org/WHYsconsin and we might answer it in a future story.
Episode Credits
- Rob Ferrett Host
- Sarah Hopefl Technical Director
- Bill Martens Producer
- Tim Peterson Producer
- Andrew Blauner Guest
- Monica Macaulay Guest
- Brian McInnes Guest
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