Libfixes, Diving Boards, and Generosity

 Word of the Episode: Libfix

Definition: A “libfix” is a liberated suffix—when part of a word (often mistaken as a suffix) gets reanalyzed and reused as a suffix for other words.

• Examples:
  • -gate (from Watergate): now used to mean “scandal” (e.g., Pizzagate, Elsagate).
  • -core (from hardcore): extended to music genres or aesthetics (metalcore, cottagecore, tropicore in Animal Crossing).
  • -holic (from alcoholic): becomes workaholic, shopaholic.
  • -cation (from vacation): staycation, workcation.
  • -punk (from cyberpunk): steampunk, dieselpunk, etc.
• Etymology: Libfix = “liberated suffix.” Differs from a normal suffix since it wasn’t originally a suffix but part of a fuller word, later “liberated” and reused.

Life Updates & Topics

• Busy Fall Schedule: School, Cub Scouts, pool duties.
• Pool Management Issue:
  • Community pool requires a lifeguard if the diving board is installed.
  • Volunteers (including hosts) now manage a daily routine: install board after school, remove it at night, reinstall next afternoon.
  • A bit taxing, but lifeguards are mostly teens with limited availability.
  • They agreed to extend the pool season through September with a lighter schedule (lifeguards only on weekends).
  • Confusion often arises between “the board” (diving board) and “the board” (volunteer board members).
• Cub Scouts Popcorn Fundraising:
  • Parents handling coordination after the original volunteer stepped away.
  • Tedious process: tracking online/offline sales, money, inventory.
  • Kids learning communication, confidence, and perseverance.
  • Anecdotes:
    • A child received a $100 donation that “made their year.”
    • Their own youngest lost 2 teeth in one day, prompting a Tooth Fairy dilemma (kids value two $1 bills over a single $5 bill).
    • Scouts sometimes value donations more than sales; one donor even purchased a popcorn bag just to give it directly to the child.

Closing Thoughts

• Language Takeaway: Libfixes shape much of modern slang, aesthetics, and genre naming.
• Life Takeaway: Volunteer work (pool duties, Scouts) and small acts of generosity make outsized impacts.
• Episode was kept shorter than usual due to their busy lives, but they promise more typical-length conversations when time allows.

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Any views expressed on this podcast are those solely of the hosts and is for entertainment purposes only. None of the content is medical advice or financial advice.

Special thanks to Tim Wright aka CoLD SToRAGE for his permission to use the song Operatique.

Transcript

I Hate Talking: 0:29

Welcome to episode 73 of I Hate Talking. Hi everyone. Now I still did not successfully find the word that was from 2 episodes ago, maybe 3 episodes ago, that we were gonna have as our word or phrase of the episode, and at this point I think I've given up. OK, but if you, our listeners do encounter a particular word that Either of us use during an episode that you think would be an interesting word to dive into the specific definition and etymology, that is something that you can suggest through a comment, email, or text, but for this particular episode, we will be talking about a word called lib fix. OK? So, this describes words that are used as a suffix. In a particular word and then that latter half of the compound word is reanalyze or reuse as a suffix for other words. So the example given here is a word for aesthetics or scandals, and those words respectively are core and gait. Wait, what? So think of things like hardcore or other words that end in core. OK, so the suffix came from an original word that had that prefix and suffix combined. And then that word core became used as an aesthetic for other words. But you're saying that. Core and gate. I'm confused at what you said, that doesn't make sense. I get the concept of like a suffix, the ending of a word, but I don't get what core and gate have to do with it. Well, they're both separate examples, so core being the first example, gate being the second example where that will be something that describes a scandal, so like Watergate, Pizza Gate, Elsa Gate, those are. Suffixes that are reused from that original word, which maybe is the original was Watergate. I'm not sure. To me, but like colloquially, we use it as scandal. Like we know that means scandal. Yes, as a suffix for when that word gate is added to the end of whatever the subject. I thought you were saying that gate was the suffix of scandal, and I was like, that does not make sense. That's not true. That's true, yes, so I was trying to describe two different examples from this particular post that I saw, core and gate. I see. I thought you said that core and gate were the suffix of scandal, and I was confused. OK, I'm with you now. So the word lib fix has other examples, so some of the Examples given here are burger, not exactly sure how that would be used as a suffix. Obviously we have a hamburger, but I guess if you have other things that are mashed together in like a sandwich style, then it's a burger cation, so like vacation and then you have staycation. Holi is a pretty common one I think, which you would have words like alcoholic that is then transcribed into things like workaholic or things like that. So all those usages of a suffix that came from some original word that are then used for suffixes in other words that are, to use the technical term reanalyzed, but essentially means reused or used in another way, that particular -- thing is called a lib -- fix. Oh, OK. And lib fix does not really have that complicated of an etymology because it itself is two words that were shortened and mashed together. And it came from the phrase liberated suffix. So what makes them different than a regular suffix? Because they are used in a way that is not necessarily their original intent. So I think Watergate is the prime example of that where that was that particular scandal and then other scandals are the subject matter or topic plus gate to describe that thing. And I think the same could be argued for like cation, that is like vacation. And then that's used in staycation or other things like that. OK. So I thought that was an interesting word or phrase, lib fix, maybe one that we don't run into, but you actually may run into the use of liberated suffixes in everyday language, and now you know what to call it. Yeah, I'll probably end up calling it Madlibs because that's what I keep thinking about. And it's not that dissimilar from Madlibs, I suppose. So that is our word or phrase of the episode, Lib fix, and we can continue on a variety of topics. I think we pretty well covered our Chicago trip and some of the things that we discussed last time with self-care versus self-indulgence. So anything to springboard off of that or go a completely different direction. I don't think there's been any scandals recently. I don't know. I haven't listened to the news in a while. I don't suppose so. And I don't know if there's been any core functions. That we've participated in. No, I mean, school starting, Cub Scouts started. The pools continuing. Well, there you go. So it sounds like that is a pretty hardcore schedule that we have to maintain. Mhm. Especially the pool schedule. So tell our listeners about what we are doing for our pool this month and hopefully not next month. -- Are you talking about the diving -- board? I am talking about the diving board. OK, so I am not an expert on pools, so this may not be a thing in other places of the world or even in other states. But for our state, the rule is, we have a diving board. If the diving board is on installed, we have to have a lifeguard present and on shift. If we take the diving board off, we can do swim at your own risk. And not have a lifeguard. So, school's back in session. Most of our lifeguards are teenagers. They are super busy with school and other extracurriculars, so we have way less lifeguards. So, we are going every day when school ends and installing the diving board, so that a lifeguard can work, and I mean, I guess theoretically a lifeguard can work without the diving board, but it's a lot more fun to have one. And then every night we go back and take it off, and in the morning return to open the pool without a diving board so that people can swim at their own risk, and then we return in the afternoon to install it again. Every weekday. Yes, it hasn't been that hard, but it's just another mental load thing. It's just another thing you have to do. We have to be there at such and such time. And again, we're volunteers. This is not paid at all. The lifeguards are paid, but we're not. So it's just out of the generosity of our hearts that we do this. Indeed, so maybe we should figure out a better schedule next year because it is, like you said, not entirely too taxing, but it is. A daily activity that takes time and you have to remember to do it and get there at the right time and so on and so forth. Right. And we just agreed today to continue on for September. Usually we close on Labor Day. And it's warm still here. It's starting to cool off, but it is still warm enough in the September to swim during the day, not at night. So we agreed to do it, but I did agree to only lifeguards on the weekends, because I'm not going to do all of September going there 2 or 3 times a day. So, they did agree to that, the rest of the board, and they did say that they'd help a little bit more, do some stuff. So I'm not there so many times a day. Indeed, and sometimes I get confused when you talk about the board because so often the diving board is the subject of discussion, but then at other times it is quite literally the board members. Right, I guess I don't think about it because I know which one I'm talking about, but yes, the pool is community ran and community owned. And it's ran by board members that are all volunteers. So, yes, we call them the board, but then also there's the diving board. And that's the biggest part of my job is lifeguards and the diving board and cleaning and stuff, so, I can see your confusion, even though I always know which board I'm talking about. Indeed. And then I suppose the other thing that we're busy with, like you said, is Cub Scouts and in Cub Scouts, the first few months of the school year are popcorn fundraising. And that has been more work than we expected earlier in the year because our person that was the original volunteer is no longer volunteering. But I suppose that's a whole another story, but for the current time being, you and I are doing the majority of the fundraising coordination. Right? The other day, several people thanked me for doing it, like, oh, thank you for being the popcorn kernel is kind of a fun way, what we call them. And I very quickly first said, I'm not the popcorn kernel. It's a, a community effort here. We're all pitching in, and I keep reiterating that cause I want more people to help. So it's very time consuming and it's hard because we have inventory and, you know, we have to track the scouts, all the different scouts and their money, like what they're doing online and stuff. So it is time-consuming at least and tedious. Yes, and popped popcorn inside a poly bag, mylar bag style packaging is not the most easy thing to transport either. No, it takes up so much room too. And the amount of times different people have tried to sit on boxes of it and like get, you can't sit on that. You're gonna bust the bags. But it's fine. It's only for a little while. And y'all, if you see scouts, not even necessarily ours, but just in general, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, anything, and they're in front of Home Depot or places like that, y'all should just give them at least 5 bucks because it makes their day. They're so happy. That's true. They have not learned necessarily the exact value of money, but someday they will. And I guess supposedly through this process, they may learn a little bit about that. Yeah, I think they're learning more and I mean, it's teaching them to look at people in the eye and talk clearly and advocate for yourself is kind of points of why we stand in front of stores and sell. Indeed, and there was one particular scout that got a $100 bill donation, and that made their year, I think. Yeah, that's huge, that's so cool. I would love to one day be able to do that kind of thing. How cool would that be? Well, hopefully our podcasting career takes off and we'll be able to do that someday maybe. But you're talking about not understanding the value of money. It reminded me of our youngest lost his 1st and 2nd tooth in the same day. And did we talk about this already? I don't think so. OK. And I'm usually the tooth fairy, but you had the privilege of assisting the tooth fairy that day. And in your wallet, you had a 5, and you're like, I'll just put that in. I was like, no, because he doesn't understand that a 5 is more money than we normally would give. He's gonna see one bill and think he got gypped for two teeth. And so we had to scrounge up another $1 cause he would have been happier with 2 $1 bills than 15 because he lost two teeth. Precisely. So we did give the 1 and the $5 and then indicated that the 5 was for the first tooth so as not to have him expect $5 for every tooth. No, I'd get very expensive. Yeah, I think that's what, like when we're people are donating or buying, the kids, a lot of them, the younger ones are more impressed at a couple of dollars than a $20. Even though as adults, we're like, oh, the 20 really helps the pack way better, it's fun to see how excited they are. Yeah, and sometimes they actually are more excited about donations than selling product. We have one of our kids likes to eat it too. He self funds because he tries to get money to buy his own popcorn to eat. That he does. There was someone else we're talking about generosity. This didn't happen to our kid, it was a friend. But I guess somebody came up to him and asked, What's your favorite kind? And that's a very common question. People are like, What's the most popular? What do you like best? And he told them, and then the person bought it for him and opened it and gave it to him. And this year? Yeah, that just happened the other day, so the parent was telling me, so how cool is that? Like that's even that's fun if they don't want to eat it themselves to buy it for the kid. Yes, that is a good methodology as well, if you don't wanna actually consume the product but still want to support in some form or fashion. So, obviously we have a lot of things going on, so we'll probably keep this episode a bit shorter and maybe we'll be inspired to do back to our normal length of episodes in the near future or maybe we'll still be busy and just do shorter episodes, but. We'll find out. Now one thing before we do wrap up, I did want to return to the core as the lib fix because I did not have any very good examples besides hardcore. So I did a little bit of research on that and it seems like this particular term typically originated as the lib fix with description of music genres. So things like metal core, grindcore, Death core in terms of the musical aesthetic that is described by whatever that thing is. And then apparently in Animal Crossing, it's also a thing because there's actually the different quote unquote biomes that are described in Animal Crossing such as Tropicore, which is the tropical core of Animal Crossing biome for that particular thing. And then another particular lib fix that also has to do with entertainment, particularly movies is punk. So supposedly that originally came from cyberpunk. And then there's other things like steampunk, diesel punk, atom punk, and things of that nature that came from those particular stories and movies that described some sort of dystopian society and then that punk lib fix became used for other things in that same type of genre description. OK. So hopefully that was enlightening and you either learn something about lib fixes or generosity or all the crazy things that we do in our lives so that people can use a diving board. Yes. So from your friends at I hate Talking, until next time, remember, it is only through talking that we begin the journey to understanding.