Radio and podcasting

Radio is a craft with a language that goes the whole way with it: la escaleta is the running order, el corte the piece of recorded sound played in, la cola the sentence that gets you out again. Towards the end of the list stands el episodio piloto, and that piloto is a word English keeps splitting up. It is the person flying the plane and the first episode of a series — both « pilot ». But it is also the small flame or lamp that shows a machine is on, which English calls « the pilot light » and only for flames; the red one on the dashboard is « the warning light », and the one at the back of a car is « the tail light ». And el piso piloto is the flat a developer furnishes so buyers can walk through it: « the show home ». One Spanish noun for whatever goes first and shows the way.