HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Did you know that, Samin, that my nickname for Helen is 'Pizza’?
SAMIN NOSRAT: What? Because of all the Z's?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Because I once told Helen about this atrocious pamphlet that I read at the train station when I was in college. It was for some kind of like - I think it was called student advantage. Do you remember the student advantage card? There was a pamphlet for student advantage card, and they were trying to say like how useful it could be. And they're like, "Everybody knows students need a few extra bucks, whether it's to do laundry, buy some books, or just grab a slice of 'za!" And I had never heard that before, 'za, apostrophe Z A, and I was looking and I was like, "Are they trying to say pizza? They're abbreviating pizza? This is how cool kids say pizza. What is this?" And I felt so offended that they were trying to market, at me, a student, using this kind of language. And I told Helen about this, and then immediately after that she was doing a Reddit AMA and, and I think I went in there and I asked her if she was really hiding the fact that Helen Zaltzman was short for Helen Pizzaltzman.
HZ: Yes, my family shortened it when they moved to an Anglophone country.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, so now I just call her 'Pizza' for short. Naturally.
HZ: I just think an abbreviation where you understand less what the thing was is not a good one. I suppose you are saving a whole syllable which is half of the effort.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Plus you sound SO cool and SO with it, calling it just 'za.
HZ: And you must be very busy person not to be able to do the full 'pizza'.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: You're a student, you've got skateboarding to do.

ALIE WARD: Carrie Studard wants to know: “Are there any synonyms for the most hated word, ‘moist’?”

HZ: Moist. Do you hate the word ‘moist’?

ALIE WARD: At this point, it's an underdog. You know what I mean? Like, can moist live? Can it just do its business? I don't hate it.

HZ: It's fine.

ALIE WARD: I don't hate it. I tend to think of dew or grass more than I think of...

HZ: Well, that's a lovely form of moisture. I suppose the people who hate it are maybe thinking of bodily crevices. And that's their prejudice showing.

ALIE WARD: Yes, it is.

HZ: Yeah. Because other words like ‘damp’ - I mean, if you're moist from the rain, like a raincoat. Damp. Is that better? Is that worse? A bodily crevice could also be damp.

ALIE WARD: Sure. I feel like moist has a certain heat to it that damp lacks.

HZ: A steaminess rather than chilliness. It's good that we're figuring these things out.