((PKG))  WORD MUSEUM    
((TRT:  05:42)) 
((Topic Banner:  A World of Words))  
((Reporter/Producer:  Marsha James))
((Camera/Editor:  Philip Alexiou))  
((Map:  Washington, D.C.))    
((Main characters:  1 female))  
((NATS)) 
Hey there.  Step up to the mic and say hello.  
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
Hello.  
((NATS)) 
Hello and welcome to Planet Word.  
Hello.  Yo.  Hi there.  
You’re standing in front of about 1000 words.  
((NATS)) 
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
I'm Ann Friedman.  I'm the founder and CEO of Planet Word, 
a new museum of words and language in Washington D.C.   
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
From an early age, grew up loving to read, grew up being 
really interested in words and foreign languages.  And that's 
why I started investigating the idea of creating a museum of 
words and language.  
((NATS)) 
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
Being able to occupy the Franklin School, it’s a National 
Historic Landmark, as the home for Planet Word…..  
((Courtesy:  Planet Word/Long Story Short Media))   
We like to call ourselves the world's first voice-activated 
museum.  So, we have lots of voice recognition technology, 
but we also have motion activation.  
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
We have places throughout the museum where just by 
scooting in on a chair, the exhibit begins or by laying a book 
in a special holder, you will trigger projection technology.  
((NATS)) 
There's a character called the Once-ler and the Once-ler is 
essentially us and what we're doing to the planet.   
((NATS)) 
((Courtesy:  Planet Word/Long Story Short Media))   
The iconic scenes from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 
have captivated audiences for generations.  
“Off with their heads!”  “Oh dear! Oh dear!”  
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
We have these paintbrushes and you can basically dip one 
of these high tech paintbrushes in a word palette and paint 
the scenery  
((Courtesy:  Planet Word/Long Story Short Media)) 
around you on the walls with that word.   
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
When I dip my brush in that word, what's going to happen?  
You know, let me see.  And I bet when you do that, you are 
never going to forget that word.  It's going to be sunk into 
your conscience.  
((NATS/MUSIC))  
((Courtesy:  Planet Word/Long Story Short Media))   
A subject we call cooking.  Everything is a wheel, turning 
and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it and bugs 
and fish and wood thrush, too.   
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
Jokes.  What makes them funny?  You know, it's those 
((Courtesy:  Planet Word/Long Story Short Media))   
homophones and double entendres.  
((NATS)) 
((Courtesy:  Planet Word/Long Story Short Media))   
Oh, come on.  Come on.  
That was not close to funny.  
A little laugh?  
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
We've had fantastic programs that are reaching a much 
larger audience.  People from all around the U.S. and even 
in other countries who can listen and enjoy our virtual 
programs. 
((NATS:  Ann Friedman and others)) 
((Courtesy:  Planet Word/Long Story Short Media))   
Ni hao. 
Ni hao.  My name is Yaro.  I'm from China and my first 
language is Mandarin.  
You can see on the globe.  China is lighting up. 
…...people speak it.  
Habari.  I'm Doreen.  I’m from Tanzania and I speak Swahili. 
((NATS/MUSIC)) 
((Courtesy:  Planet Word/Long Story Short Media))   
I speak Icelandic.  I speak Amharic, Hindi, Korean, 
Hawaiian, Farsi.  And I speak Hebrew.  
Shalom. 
Shalom.  
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
The Word Wall is telling the story of where do words come 
from in the English language.  How did they get into English?  
And there are many ways that words enter our language.   
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
In fact, the exhibit designer and I came up with 24 ways that 
words enter English, but we settled on about eight important 
ways that are represented by the Word Wall and the story it 
tells. 
((NATS)) 
English has thousands of words we don't use that much.  
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
So, that's words that came in from war, and from the Vikings, 
and then in 1066 and the Norman Conquest.  Words that we 
borrow from other languages. 
((NATS)) 
Part of the story of English is the story of violence, warfare, 
conquest and lots of it.  
It all started when Germanic tribes sailed to what’s now 
England and conquered the people who lived there.   
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
You know, I was, I was a reading and writing teacher and I 
think I was pretty successful at that.  But like I said, test 
scores in language arts have been stagnating for years.  
How could we try to reverse these negative trends?  
And the idea that came to me was through informal learning. 
That's what happens at museums.  You make learning fun.  
You have big spaces.   
You can attract celebrities,  
((Courtesy:  Planet Word/Long Story Short Media))   
all sorts of things that a person can't do on their own or a 
teacher can't do on his or her own in a school classroom.   
((Ann Friedman, Founder and CEO, Planet Word)) 
So, I felt like having a museum allowed me the space and 
the influence and then, sort of, national attention that, 
maybe, would make reading and language and words cool 
again.   
((NATS))