A Walk Spoiled But Our Lie is Good

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You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

The latest linguistic fad sweeping Japan is trying to master English by studying the speeches of Barack Obama.

Grant, you know, there’s a collection of his speeches that’s a runaway bestseller in that country.

And there’s one enterprising English teacher who offers a six-month program based entirely on Barack Obama’s 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention.

He breaks the speech down into 120 units and you have to finish each one before you can progress through the program.

It’s wild.

Sounds like a lot of work.

Yeah, but it’s this craze in Japan now.

Martha, that reminds me of the crazy English fad in China.

Did you see that New Yorker article from last year?

I saw it.

I haven’t read it.

Tell me about it.

There’s a fellow by the name of Li Yang who has for a couple decades now been leading these, I guess you’d call them, massive classes.

They’re almost like rallies for English where, you know, it’s not a classroom with a chalkboard and textbooks and everybody kind of quiet.

He’ll do things like stand up on chairs.

They have a picture and they’ll stand up on the chair and shout.

And everyone in the audience repeats after him and it’s more like motivational speaking about English speaking.

It’s kind of weird.

So they quote in the article he’s shouting at the top of his lungs “I” and the crowd shouts “I” back and he says, “Would like to take your temperature.”

Because he’s, you know, that crowd is doctors.

He’s teaching doctors how to speak English.

And it’s crazy.

He’s made a mint off of it.

It’s a big phenomenon.

Of course in the run up to the Olympics, which of course now are over, there was this mandate in China for so many people to learn English and this was one of the ways that they were doing it.

Well, it’s crazy the way people learn English, isn’t it, from other countries?

Yeah, you know, there are so many places where rote memorization is a technique that they believe in and there are other places where they don’t believe in that at all.

And of course there’s always the living dictionary approach.

You know what that is.

The long-haired dictionary approach?

Yeah, it’s where you take a lover who speaks the language and go from there.

Very handy.

You get a great accent at least.

Your vocabulary might not be that big, but your accent can get really good if you’re learning through pillow talk.

That’s true.

Well, if you want to tell us how you learn English best or any language, give us a call at 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Rob from Burlington, Wisconsin.

Hi, Rob.

Hi, Rob.

What’s going on?

Hey, same old thing.

I’m actually in the hangar building an airplane right now.

Oh, I see.

So you’re a pilot.

That’s right.

Interesting.

Well, why are you calling us?

Well, I’m also an aviation history buff, and for years I’ve been flying a long time.

I’ve never really figured out where the term “Roger Wilco” comes from.

Now, I know what it means.

It means I understand and I will comply.

That’s the “Wilco” part.

And we really don’t use “Wilco” anymore, but we say “Roger” all the time, meaning I understand.

But I’ve got a guess at where it comes from.

All right.

But I really haven’t pinned it down.

My guess is a lot of the letters we say over the radio sound alike, like B, C, D, D, E, and T.

So we spell it out a phonetic alphabet, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta.

I’m guessing that in the earlier years that alphabet was different, Adam, Baker, Charlie, David, maybe, and R may have been Roger.

But boy, that is as far as I can go.

Why do you use R for “I understand”?

I don’t know.

Yeah, that’s exactly right.

That is exactly right.

And you’re right.

It was the early days.

As far back as the 1920s, you can find any number of these alphabets.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the Navy had one.

The British Armed Forces had another.

There were some used by the ham radio operators or whatever the equivalent was at the time.

Abel, Baker, Charlie, Dog was one of the first kind of sequences in one of those alphabets.

But the R is kind of a double abbreviation.

So R was a Roger, so you would say Roger to indicate R, which stood for “received.”

Oh, very good.

So it’s kind of a secondhand way.

It’s a double substitution.

It’s kind of a double abbreviation.

It took quite a while, decades, for these alphabets to be synchronized and all become the same.

The one that you listed, it was Alpha, say it again please, Alpha…

Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, aviation one.

Yeah, the modern one actually is now international.

As you well know, the language of flying is English, and so most pilots around the world will know that one, at least if they fly internationally.

Now tell me something.

I understand that Roger Wilco is redundant, and you wouldn’t say it anyway.

Oh, you would say, “Roger, I understand or I’ve received it.”

“Wilco” means “I will comply.

I will do what you ask.”

But if you’re saying “Wilco,” it automatically, implicitly in there contains the idea that you did receive the message.

Right.

I received it, and I guess you could disagree and say, “Oh, no, I won’t do that.”

Yeah.

“No, Wilco.”

“No, Wilco.

No, won’t go.”

Yeah.

But so “Wilco” you almost never, never hear.

Sometimes, singly, if it’s a casual situation, you’ll hear it on the radio.

Some will just throw out a “Wilco.”

Well, Rob, I would say “over and out,” but that’s a no-no too in aviation.

Isn’t that correct?

Over and out, we don’t really say anymore.

On occasion, we’ll say “over,” but never “over and out.”

Yeah.

Yeah, I once got called to task for saying “over and out.”

So I won’t say that.

But it’s been great talking with you.

Oh, you too, and thank you so much for a great show.

You guys do a great job.

Okay.

Thank you so much, Rob.

Glad to hear it.

All right.

Clear skies and tail winds to you.

Well, all right.

Same to you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, you know, I’ve collected a few aviation terms here and there over the years, never systematically, but that sounds like a gold mine to me.

I’m watching you fan yourself in my mind.

One that we didn’t mention is the way that pilots say “nine” as “niner,” and it’s exactly what Rob was saying.

It sounds too much like “five” unless you add that second syllable on the end.

So you don’t say “nine,” you say “niner.”

Yeah, it’s fascinating to learn that.

And “Romeo” was also used for “R” in the past, right?

Right.

Actually, “Romeo” is currently the word for “R” in the standard alphabet.

I’ll tell you what, Martha, I’d love to take calls from anybody who’s got a great store of language about their own professions.

Yes, yes, yes, please.

Interesting words, the kinds of things they just want to tell us.

Please.

You can send it to words@waywordradio.org, or you can give us a call at 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hello.

Hi.

Who’s this?

This is Barb Anderson.

Hi, Barb.

How are you doing?

Well, thank you.

How are you?

Super duper.

Where are you calling from?

Scottsdale, Arizona.

Alright.

Scottsdale.

What’s happening in Scottsdale?

Well, I was going through Yuma on the way back from San Diego one day, and you guys suggested we call if we had any questions or issues that we had with the English language.

And so I thought, my big pet peeve is people who say, “I’m going golfing.”

Now, I, being a golfer, always thought you were supposed to say, “I’m going to play golf,” not, “I’m going golfing.”

I thought golf was a word that needed that helper bird to play, play golf.

We don’t say we’re going footballing.

We don’t say we’re going basketballing.

But we do say we’re going bowling.

So I don’t know.

I’ve debated it, and everybody says, “I’m crazy,” but I think I’m right.

I may be wrong, but I doubt it.

Everybody says you’re crazy.

What do your fellow golfers say?

It goes both ways.

I mean, I hear some people say, “Yeah, you’re right.”

I say, “I’m going to go play golf,” and then other people say, “No, I’m going to go golfing.”

And I’m like, “Ugh, it just grates on me.”

That’s interesting.

It never occurred to me as a non-golfer.

I had no idea.

Now, this isn’t a fierce debate.

Well, I make it a debate.

I take it upon myself to make it a debate.

Well, Barb, I find this so interesting because I have run into this question before, because there are some people for whom saying going golfing is like running your fingernails down the blackboard.

That’s what it feels like to me, right?

Really?

So Barb is not alone in this?

Not at all, and for the reasons that she said.

We don’t say, “I’m going canasta-ing,” or anything like that.

And in fact, I did read an interview with a copy editor for Golf Digest magazine, and she said rarely, rarely, rarely do they use the term “golfing” in that magazine.

She thought that it seemed — especially among older golfers — now, I’m not making any assumptions about you, Barb.

Well, you can.

It’s okay.

Okay.

How about more experienced golfers tend to, say, play golf?

And she was saying that it seems that a lot of the younger players tend to say golfing.

Well, Barb, if it makes you feel any better, I actually took my question to a woman who won the LPGA US Open three times.

Wow, and her age would be?

I’m not sure what her age would be.

It’s probably around mine.

But I asked her about this because I was really curious.

She said it just means that they’re interested in what you’re doing, but they’re not really part of the culture.

So I thought that was really — Oh, I love that.

Does that make sense to you?

Yes.

So if you’re really on the inside track, then you say, “I’m going to go play golf.”

But if you’re a wannabe, you’re going golfing.

I think that that is how a lot of the more experienced golfers feel.

And as I said, Golf Digest rarely uses that word.

So it’s interesting.

It’s kind of the mark of — I’ll tell you, though, this is definitely one of those things that I’ve never heard of.

I’m interested in the fact that there might be a dispute here.

And I think your culture explanation is right on the money, Martha.

I think there may be something to that.

So I’m definitely going to keep my eyes peeled for more information about — Is it insiders only who say play golf and outsiders say golfing?

It’s interesting.

I would love to hear from your fellow golfers and see what they have to say about it.

So thanks for bringing this up.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care.

Talk to you guys later.

Bye-bye.

Well, golfers do tell.

Let’s find out.

Give us a call at 1-877-929-9673.

Send us an e-mail to words@waywordradio.org or drop a message into our discussion forum at waywordradio.org/discussion.

Here’s something you’ll love, Martha.

There’s a great book on the Internet Archive that you should see.

It’s called Intensifying Similes in English, which I know is a really boring title.

Oh, but the movie was great.

Really?

There was a movie.

Who did it?

Ingmar Bergman, right?

It was a Bollywood production.

No, it wasn’t.

I say that because the author of this book, which was published in 1918, was a Swede, T. Hilding Svartengren.

It’s great.

He’s gone through English basically for his doctoral dissertation and drawn out similes from a massive quantity of literature.

And he’s uncovered some gems that I think that you should start using.

I’ll wait and see if they catch on, and then I’ll follow your lead, okay?

Okay.

All right.

So if someone’s not that bright, you would say they’re sharp as the corner of a round table, meaning not that bright at all.

-huh.

Okay.

Or you could say that a sad person is pulling a face as long as a fiddle.

Oh, that is sad.

Or you could say somebody who is blunt-spoken is as stunt as a hammer.

Stunt.

Yeah, stunt.

It’s just another way of saying blunt.

Okay.

No, you don’t like that one?

Not as much as the long-faced fiddle.

Well, okay.

The book, again, is Intensifying Similes in English, which can be found at nocharge@archive.org.

Yeah, it sounds like fun.

I’ll have to check it out.

Well, if you’d like to talk with us about similes, metaphors, or other turns of phrase, give us a call at the numbers 1-877-9299-673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Stump the radio host.

Here comes a word puzzle.

Stay with us.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette, and we’re joined once again by our quiz guy, Greg Pliska.

Hiya, Greg.

Howdy, Greg.

Hello, Martha.

Hello, Grant.

Greg, what do you have for us?

I have a puzzle, one of my favorite puzzle types, the Odd One Out puzzle.

Mmm.

The title itself is an example of the kind of puzzle it is because one word in that title doesn’t belong.

Odd One Out puzzle.

Okay, so this is like the Sesame Street song.

Yes.

Okay.

One of these things is not like the others.

Okay.

Which one doesn’t belong?

Okay.

So is that something to do with the spelling or the meaning of pronunciation or any of those?

It could be any of those.

I think in today’s puzzles, I have no meaning-based ones.

So it’s all going to be about spelling or lexicography in some way, something…

Some kind of structure, syntax, sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Morphology.

Morphology would be the word I was looking for.

So in that title, Odd One Out puzzle, which one does not belong?

Well, puzzle because it doesn’t begin with an O.

Puzzle is the Odd One Out.

It doesn’t begin with an O.

And it’s not three letters.

And it’s also six letters long, yes.

Oh, okay.

That’s it.

It might be useful to write these down so you can look at them while you’re working.

Okay.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

So everybody grab a pencil.

And in most cases, the Odd One Out will have the opposite property of the ones that are in.

Okay.

Or as close to opposite as I can get.

Okay.

So here’s your first one.

Dove, job, polish, and sum.

How are you spelling sum?

S-O-M-E.

Good question, though.

Dove, job.

I would say…

There’s…

Go ahead.

There’s…

Dove could be dove, job could be job, polish could be polish.

And sum can’t be pronounced differently.

Exactly.

So it can only be sum, S-U-M.

Right.

It could be it’s a homophone of another word spelled differently.

Right.

But you can’t change the O sound to a long O and get another word.

No, right.

Sum, it doesn’t really work.

Okay, how about this one?

Almost, biopsy, chintz, C-H-I-N-T-Z, and sponge.

Good gracious.

Almost, biopsy, chintz, and sponge.

Look at the first three words.

What letters do they start with?

A-B-C.

I see.

So sponge is not in the alphabetical order?

Well, specifically, look at the alphabetical… What’s going on with alphabetical order here?

So sponge is the odd one out.

Is that what you’re saying?

Sponge is the odd one out.

But why?

Because it should be dunge.

No, there’s something… There’s a property about the words that has to do with alphabetical order.

If you spell them, A-L-M-O-S-T…

Oh, I see.

All the letters in the word are in alphabetical order.

They’re in alphabetical order, except in sponge, in which case they’re in reverse alphabetical order.

I see.

So they’re not necessarily one right after the other, but they…

But they are alphabetical.

Very interesting.

Yeah, very good.

Oh, wow.

Well, you gave me the answer.

So congratulations, Greg.

You’re doing very well.

I gotta keep you guys on your toes.

This one’s tough.

Here’s another step for you.

Decade, dismay, margin, and novice.

Am I saying something about Latin here?

I hope not.

Decade…

I see that three of these contain either the word for a month or abbreviation for a month.

May and dismay, M-A-R and margin, and N-O-V and novice.

In December, yeah.

Oh, I see.

Three of them contain the abbreviations for a month and one contains the full name for a month.

Correct, and the abbreviations are at the beginning of the word.

And the full name is at the end.

There we go.

Okay, that makes sense.

I tried to put April, A-P-R, at the end, but that’s just so much harder.

Yeah, not a lot of words in there.

It’s an April.

How about one more, Greg?

Okay, I’ll give you one more.

Here you go.

Attorney general, city state, court martial, and passerby.

That’s a lot of writing, I realize.

It’s the way you pluralize these.

Yes.

Attorney general, court martial, and passerby are all pluralized on the first part of the compound.

So it’s attorneys general, courts martial, and passerby, but city state is pluralized on the last part of the compound, so it’s city state.

Exactly.

Very well, well sussed out.

Nice work.

Wow, Greg.

This was a tough one, but I have to say, I like the tough ones.

I’m trying to keep you happy.

You are.

Believe me, we’re ecstatic, Greg.

Yeah, a little mind-bending.

That was really hard.

These are always tough.

I think they’re much easier when you look at them than they are when you hear them, but you guys do a great job.

Oh, Greg, that was fun.

Thank you.

Thanks again for having me.

Well, if you’d like to talk about grammar, slang, punctuation, or words and how we use them, this is the place, and the number to call is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yeah, hi guys, this is Steve from Dallas.

Hi, Steve.

What’s up?

A friend of mine and I were talking about the word “yo,” and it came up recently in the last 10 years or so in pop culture.

“Hey, yo” has a, I guess, a slang expression.

And I am from the New York area of a Jewish background, and he is actually black from Canada, so I was really kind of put off when he said, “Hey, the origin of ‘yo’ is actually from the Lower East Side in the New York area about the turn of the century,” and figured that you guys may have some insight on that.

So your friend said this.

My friend said this, yes.

And you’re about how old?

How old is he?

I’m about 38.

Okay.

My dad, who was a bit older for a dad for someone who was, I’m 38, was actually born in 1926.

After we had this conversation, I remember hearing my dad say “yo” a lot, and then thought, “Well, you know what? Maybe there is some truth that it played into the, you know, like, Jewish culture at the turn of the century.”

And your friend, he was from Canada.

He grew up in Canada.

He’s a bit of a pop culture person, hip-hop.

And he actually grew up in a Jewish suburb in Toronto.

So he was kind of, like, knowledgeable about some of the same things that I was.

Obviously, we come from certainly, you know, like, backgrounds that vary, but, yeah, he was the one who I’m talking about that.

It’s really interesting to hear that.

It’s not a theory that I know, which is why it’s interesting.

And there has been a little bit of work done on “yo,” and I know all the major historical dictionaries have some treatment of it.

It’s not an origin story that I’ve ever heard that had ever come out.

Really?

But here’s some background that kind of might explain why somebody might think that.

Okay.

As far back as the 1930s, we have in the written record instances of “yo” being used, for example, in roll calls in the military.

There are books about life in the army, for example, where they go through the list of all these guys, and one says “yes” and the other one says “yeah,” and the next one says “yo” when their name is called, right?

Interesting.

And so you’ll still find that today.

You’ll even see that in modern classrooms.

Kids sometimes, as a goof or a joke, will just say “yo” when the teacher calls their name.

That’s true, yeah.

Or “present.”

Or “present,” yeah.

It’s a strictly roll call thing.

But the history of “yo” is so complex because it’s such a simple word that I don’t think that we could even say that that’s the origin of it.

For example, in the printed record, we see it being used as a greeting as far back as the 1950s.

Really?

We see it appear a little bit later in the “yo Vinny” stereotype, which is a lot of- Yes, totally.

Yeah, for a lot of people, that’s why they think it’s associated with New York, because they know “yo Vinny” from all these stereotypes that have been- Welcome back, Carter.

Yeah, sure.

Vinny Barbarino.

For true or not, I’m not going to say- I don’t know.

I don’t know enough about it, but let’s just say it’s a stereotype, and for a lot of people, it’s fixed in their minds as if it’s true.

And then we have the “yo” in hip hop, which also, as far as I know, also came out of New York.

Very rich history here.

But it’s no coincidence that all of these stories, including the one your friend told you, come from New York.

Because this has been, for more than 100 years, kind of a gateway for all American culture.

Let me ask you, the use of “yo” by your father, is this just a greeting of “yo”?

Like, “Yo, Steve, what’s up?”

Is it that kind of “yo”?

No, it was more to get someone’s attention.

“Hey, yo! Over here!”

“Yo, yo, yo! Stop the truck, stop the truck!”

That kind of “yo,” right?

My dad was an old Jewish guy.

He didn’t exactly do it that way.

Right, okay.

“Hey, yo!”

It was more like that.

Okay.

But that kind of use of “yo” is even older than all of the “yos” that we’ve been talking about.

Okay.

It’s been hundreds of years.

Really?

The “yo” used to catch people’s attention or to, say, goad a person to do something, or even an animal to do something, say, if you’re hunting or working on a farm.

That kind of “yo” goes back easily to the 1600s.

Really?

Maybe even older.

Yeah, because it’s a short, simple utterance.

Really, a single thing is happening there.

And those kinds of things come naturally and pass easily from person to person.

Interesting.

So not specifically Yiddish or anything like that, necessarily?

No.

There’s nothing in any of the reference work that I’ve ever seen that connects this to Yiddish.

But, you know, I’m always open to new evidence and can talk to you.

Seriously.

That’s fantastic.

If you talk to your friend about this and he says, “You know, I’ve got a book that he should read,” let me know.

I’d love to read it.

Okay, fantastic, guys.

Thank you so much.

Okay, thanks, Steve.

You’re welcome, Steve.

Thank you for calling.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Oh, Martha, as you can hear, this is always an interesting topic, because it plugs into so many places in American history.

What are we talking about?

We’re talking about the stereotype of Italian New Yorkers, we’re talking about hip-hop, we’re talking about the military, we’re talking about the Jewish quarter in the Lower East Side of New York, right?

Love it.

Love it.

It’s great.

It’s super-duper.

Well, if you’ve got a question about something that you heard was true but you’re just not sure, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-9299673, or you can send your language questions to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Grace Rom.

Hi, Grace, what are you calling?

I’m calling from Tyler, Texas.

Tyler, Texas.

How are things in Tyler?

They’re wonderful today.

Super.

Glad to hear it.

Well, what’s on your mind, Grace?

Well, I have a question about the proper usage of the word “lay” and “lie,” and even worse than that is I can never remember what time to use what word.

So do you have any helpful tips?

Oh, Grace, there are millions of people who are standing up and cheering, saying, “Thank you for asking that question. I’ve been wondering that too.”

Wait, this question’s about “lie” and “lay,” as in, you know, lying down, laying down?

Right, right.

Well, if you go to see a counselor or a therapist, and I don’t mean the psychiatric kind, but like a physical therapist, should they say, “Please lie down on my table” or “Please lay down on my table”?

-huh, -huh.

Well, the answer is “Please lie down on my table,” and I can tell you an easy way to remember this.

Good.

For the present tense of “lie” and “lay,” I want you to remember it by thinking about the vowel sounds of these words, okay?

“Lie” means to repose or recline.

“I lie on the table.”

Oh, good.

Recline and lie.

I can do that.

Right, great.

And then “lay,” think about the fact that “lay” means to place, so you place a book on the table.

Okay.

Or you lay a book on the table.

Does that make sense?

Any object, a pen, anything.

Right.

Okay.

Right.

But then yesterday, what did I do?

You’re getting into the past tense now, and that gets tricky.

You’re right, that gets tricky because in the past tense, “lie” is sort of a liar.

The word “lie” is a liar because the past tense of “lie” tries to fake you out because it’s “lay.”

Yesterday, you lay on the table.

Today…

Not “layed” or “lain,” “I lay.”

Correct.

Yesterday, you lay on the table.

Today, you lie on the table.

Okay.

Does that make sense?

It makes sense.

Usually, these things come to me easily.

My mother was an English graduate, and they sound bad in my ear if it’s not correct, but it’s still hard to recognize how the past tense especially should sound.

Well, you’re absolutely right, and you know what we’re going to do, Grace, to help you out and help out the other millions of listeners who have this same question?

We’re just going to make them both the same.

Can we do that?

I don’t know if we have the power to do that.

Who do we call to fix that?

But I tell you what we should do, Grant.

I think that we should put on our website, waywordradio.org, a chart that has those different tenses and uses of “lie” and “lay” because sometimes you just have to see it visually.

And I think we could just put a little chart, put little dotted lines around it so, Grace, you could clip it out and tape it to your computer or better yet, laminate it and carry it around in your wallet.

It won’t take long, and then I’ll be able to remember it, I’m sure.

I don’t remember, maybe the third grade we studied there?

It probably is in their text right now, but that would be a great idea.

Okay, let’s do that.

A little refresher always helps, right?

Yes, thank you so much.

Martha, you make it, I’ll post it, all right?

Okay, great.

You got it.

All right, thank you, bye-bye.

So the past tense of “lie” is “lay,” and the past tense of “lay” is?

“Layed.”

And then “lane” comes in?

I have “lane” on the table for days, and I’m tired of that.

And I have “layed” books on the table every day this week.

Yeah, so we’re going to post that chart on our website, that’s waywordradio.org, and in the meantime, if you have a question about language, you can call us.

The number is 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Stacey from Boulder, Colorado.

Well, hello Stacey, what’s going on?

I have a question about the phrase “nick of the woods,” as in, “How are things in your neck of the woods?”

I was just wondering where that came from and what is “nick.”

How are you spelling that?

I don’t know, because I’ve never actually seen it written down, or just heard it.

I would guess N-I-C-K.

-ha!

Interesting, interesting.

And why were you wondering about this?

Do you live in the woods, or…?

No, it was probably just because I was listening to your show and it put me in a pensive sort of frame of mood, and…

And then you fell asleep?

I wonder where that came from.

Well, yeah, actually the phrase is “neck of the woods,” not “nick.”

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

N-E-C-K.

Yeah, “neck of the woods,” and it just refers to a projection in the woods, you know, like we use the word “neck” to describe anything that’s sort of long and projecting, you know, like the neck of a bottle, neck of a violin, and, you know, forests aren’t symmetrical necessarily.

They have projections and irregularities, and the phrase “neck of the woods” has been used for centuries now.

You also see “neck of a meadow” or “neck of land,” that kind of thing, to describe topographical features.

It used to be, in this country, in, say, the 19th century, you could talk about people being in a particular “neck of the woods,” specifically meaning part of a wooded area, and then later it just came to mean any settlement in a wooded area.

But it’s kind of fossilized right now.

Yeah.

It’s fossilized as “neck of the woods.”

We don’t really that often say or hear or see “neck of anything else” used in that way, do we?

Right.

Exactly.

It’s kind of jokingly rustic.

I mean, I might talk about, Grant, how are things going in your “neck of the woods,” but it’s New York City.

There’s the ramble in Central Park.

Does that count?

I don’t think so.

The woods of skyscrapers.

Yeah.

Yeah, there we go.

Sure, the forest of the city, the steel and the glass and the towers and stone, sure.

So, Stacey, does that help?

It’s “neck” and not “nick.”

Yeah, it does, but good to know.

Thank you.

All right.

You’re welcome.

Thanks for calling, Stacey.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

We’d love to take your questions about language.

Is there something that has you confused?

Did you hear it one way but you found out it’s another?

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Martha, do you know the poem by John Gay called “A New Song of New Similes”?

No.

It’s superb, and I’ll just read the first part of it to you, and then you can go Google it.

The first part goes, My passion is as mustard strong, I sit all sober sad, drunk as a piper all day long, or like a March Hare mad.

Nice.

Oh, that has me grinning like a mule eating briars.

Well, if you have a phrase you’d like to share with us, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

That’s slang this and more of your calls.

That’s next on A Way with Words.

Support for A Way with Words comes from National Geographic Books, publisher of I’m Not Hanging Noodles from Your Ears, a collection of intriguing idioms from around the world by Jag Bala.

Learn more at shopng.com/noodles.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

It’s time for slang this, the game where we try to stump a member of the National Puzzlers League.

Today’s contestant is the president of the National Puzzlers League.

That’s Guy Jacobson from Bridgewater, New Jersey.

Hi, Guy.

Hello, Guy.

How you doing?

Hello.

Hello, Martha.

Hello, Grant.

Hiya.

Is it powerful being the president of the NPL?

Oh, it’s awesome.

But, you know, with great power comes great responsibility.

The million dollar bonuses, what do you do with those?

Well, since we took the bailout package, my salary has been cut down to half a million.

And when the Sunday Times comes, you get to do the puzzle first?

Yes, I do.

In fact, I get to do all the puzzles first.

Well, hey, Guy, do you have a favorite slang term for us?

Yes, I do.

But it’s a little bit blue.

I hope that’s all right.

All the better.

It’s a term for farting.

And the term is painting the elevator.

I’ve heard of peeling the paint, but painting the elevator?

Here’s the story I heard that went along with it.

What happens is if you enter an elevator by yourself and you happen to pass gas, then, you know, Murphy’s Law will tell you that inevitably someone will get out on the very next floor.

Yes, someone very attractive, right?

Well, probably, yes.

And they will look at you a little bit funny.

You know, they’ll scrunch up their nose and they’ll look at you and then you’ll have to think of some kind of excuse.

So you say, “They must be painting the elevator.”

And then they roll their eyes, of course.

And the great thing about this expression is that you can use it sort of as a code word if your family knows about it.

So, you know, you’re in a car and you’re driving along and you say, “Who painted the elevator?”

That’s what I love about this show.

News you can use.

Well, let’s see how you do on our slang quiz.

I’m going to give you a clue that describes one of two possible slang words or phrases, but only one of them is correct.

If you need help, just badger Martha and she will rise to the occasion.

I always do.

Okay.

Here we go.

Here’s the first one.

In 1926, Variety magazine, that’s the insider’s journal of Hollywood, wrote, “A fighter with round heels along Cauliflower Alley was a dame on rockers in another circle.”

What slang term were they talking about?

Is it A, pogey, or B, pushover?

So the sentence again is, “A fighter with round heels along Cauliflower Alley was a dame on rockers in another circle.”

Well, I mean, I’m going to have to do a little double thing here, and pushover is too obvious.

You wouldn’t have asked if it was pushover, so I’m going to go with pogey.

I don’t know.

Do not try to get in my mind.

I don’t know.

It’s dangerous in there.

It’s dangerous.

Pogey is spelled P-O-G-U-E-Y, and pushover of course is P-U-S-H-O-V-E-R.

All right, well, I’m going to stick with my guns and my feelings here, because if it was simply pushover, you wouldn’t have asked the question about it.

Game theory is a great thing to study in school, because the answer is actually pushover.

It is pushover.

Oh, dear.

Yeah, it was an easy one.

I gave you an easy one.

It was a real pushover.

Variety magazine is known for this really stilted style of writing where they coin new words in practically every sentence, and sometimes it takes you a minute or two to kind of suss out what they intend, and so I thought that sentence might be just enough to make a pretty simple question more difficult.

But a pushover is both a boxer who has a glass chin, that is, one who’s easy to beat, and a woman of easy virtue.

The idea is that either one of them needs just a nudge, and they’ll fall over into the position that you want them.

Okay.

It’s kind of crude, I know, but it’s not my slang.

I didn’t invent it.

A cauliflower alley, by the way, is a slang name of the boxing circuit.

Sure, like cauliflower ear, right?

Yeah, exactly, back in the day.

Okay.

All right, guys, let’s try another one and see how you do on this one.

In American English, we might call something lame, cheesy, or tacky if it was poorly made, unstylish, or just vulgar, but in the United Kingdom, you could also call it what since the 1960s?

Is it A, noodles, N-O-O-D-L-E-S, or B, naff, N-A-F-F?

Well, I’ve heard naff used, but I’m not sure I remember what it means.

Again, I think that’s probably what it is.

I think naff is.

I’m going to go with naff.

That’s right, exactly right.

Where did you hear it?

I don’t remember.

Maybe on Monty Python or somewhere.

Yeah, it’s been around long enough that you will find it in plenty of movies and books, and even though it’s a little old-fashioned, it’s kind of groovy in the United States.

People will still use it with the full awareness that it’s a little old-fashioned.

I first ran into it about 15 or 20 years ago in South America, and it’s a very useful term.

I like the F word in that you can do all sorts of things to it and make it all sorts of parts of speech and kind of put it to work.

Well, naff an A.

Well, Guy, thank you for playing.

It’s quite a pleasure.

Likewise.

It was fun.

Okay.

Thanks, Guy.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you have a question for us about words, language, grammar, slang, or maybe even bad language, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD.

Or you can send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Karen from La Mirada.

Well, welcome to the show.

What are you calling about?

Well, I have a question on the expression “trucking.”

I’ve been listening to some Jack Benny radio shows, and in a 1936 episode, I’m quite sure that I heard one of the characters say that she needed to take care of her father because the night before he had sprained his ankle trucking.

And when I heard it, I did a double-take because I was so surprised because I thought that was a 1970s expression.

Yeah, I’m picturing the R. Crumb guy spraining his ankle while he’s trucking.

Trucking.

T-R-U-C-K-I-N-G.

Trucking.

That’s what I think I heard.

Okay.

Trucking.

Here’s the thing.

Trucking was a dance craze.

Oh, okay.

Who was the character?

Was it Dennis?

It was Mary Livingston.

Right.

So Jack Benny’s female partner on the air.

So she’s taking care of her father because he’s been trucking, and so the joke is that he was out doing the hip new dance craze.

And so it’s obvious we’re imagining a kind of senior person who doesn’t have any agility and probably doesn’t have the legs for it anymore.

That just makes me laugh there.

Yeah, exactly.

So trucking is a really interesting backstory.

I won’t get too far into it, but it started in 1935.

It’s probably in Harlem.

Most people agree, although the person who came up with it has long been in dispute.

You can read the black newspapers of the day all arguing endlessly about who deserves the credit for starting this dance craze.

The trucking dance craze was so popular that by the end of 1935 and early 1936, some form of trucking was being done in all of the Broadway reviews.

It would be the kind of thing that dance instructors would be hired to teach young girls in Park Avenue so they could do it at their debutante balls.

Who knew?

Who knew?

But this was a period at which dance crazes were a way that you sold songs, actually because you sold them by the singles.

And it was a way that you packed the clubs when your band toured.

So you would try to start a dance craze, you’d have a song to go along with it, and then you’d hope there’d be some kind of synergy there, reinforcement.

People would buy your music and come see your shows.

Oh, man.

Now I’m dying to know what trucking looks like.

Right.

That’s my question.

I dug a description up here while we were talking here.

Listen to this.

Tell me if this makes any sense.

One journalist described it as a fast-moving, shoulder-lifting, knee-action dance that makes the performer resemble a jumping jack.

He called it a “highly jazzical strut,” and this is in 1935.

More specifically, you hold your head high.

Do this while I’m talking about it.

I am, I am.

Hold your head high, kind of look up.

Lift your left shoulder above the right, and then put the right one down, as if there’s a heavy load on the right.

Sway your back so that your torso is further back than your legs, and then do, as he puts it, “a merry shuffling of the arms and legs and feet.”

And so you keep this tilted position, kind of shuffle along, and then some versions of it say that you point your right index finger upward.

I’m just reporting.

I’m just reporting what was in the newspapers at the time.

And the interesting thing is, not only were there a lot of, there was a lot of argument about who came up with it, but there were a lot of false origin stories, and maybe one of them was true, I don’t know, but one of them, which was published in Esquire magazine in 1936, claims that the trucking dance came from watching the stevedores pushing heavy luggage on the trucks, you know, the wheeled dollies, on the wharves of New York.

But trucking, that’s what Mary Livingston was talking about.

She was talking about her aged father out there doing a crazy dance on the floor.

Oh, that’s so interesting.

Well, thank you so much.

You’re welcome, and I’m glad to have another old-time radio listener come on the air with us.

Oh, I recommend them to everybody.

It makes me laugh every day.

It’s a goldmine of stuff when you realize that there are decades and decades of this stuff just waiting for you.

Mm-mm—

But you listen to A Way with Words, too.

Right.

Oh, definitely.

Same genre, huh?

Well, it’s maybe more interesting.

Maybe.

There we go.

A Way with Words is more interesting.

Oh, yes.

Well, I don’t know about Jack made.

I can’t compete with that kind of talent.

Well, you’ve got good writing, too.

Aw, thanks.

You guys do a good job.

Thank you.

Thanks for calling, Karen.

Thank you.

Bye-bye, Karen.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Well, if you’ve got a question about something you heard in an old radio show, a movie, book, or whatever, and you can’t make sense of it, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or put it in an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Dan from San Diego.

Hi, Dan.

Well, hello, Dan.

What’s going on?

Dan, not too much.

My wife and I were watching Two and a Half Men on TV, and John Cryer’s character says to his son, “Don’t sass me,” when the kid was talking back to him.

My wife and I kind of thought of each other that that’s such a strange statement, and what does “sass” really mean?

And we tried to look that up, and we found it in the Oxford English Dictionary as impudence.

And it suggested that the origins were from “sass,” but we looked at each other after and we were like, “Who would ever sass somebody?”

Sure.

There’s a mental picture for you.

Exactly.

Yeah.

This is a great example of the subtle ways in which language changes.

The verb probably springs from the use of “sauce,” the noun, which refers metaphorically to something that adds sting or bite to what you do or say, the same way that a sauce might add flavor or zest to your food, right?

Right.

There’s a noun “sauce” and the verb “sauce” kind of like working hand in hand there, basically taking the same role, but a different part of speech there.

And so it’s a direct reference to the food.

It’s a direct reference to, I think, making something spicy.

So if I’m sassing you, I’m kind of putting vigor and energy and zest into our conversation by like kind of raising the bar a little bit, kind of like provoking you, right, with my impudence and my insolence and my petulance.

Sort of adding a little Tabasco to the conversation.

Yeah, yeah.

So it’s really a direct reference to the food, and “sauce” becomes “sass” simply by a normal vowel change.

It’s kind of just a dialect pronunciation.

“Sass” is a dialect pronunciation of “sauce.”

That’s it.

And so somebody who’s sassy, then, is somebody who’s saucy.

Yes, except with “sassy” and “saucy” we’ve kind of had the two words diverge, their meanings have forked over the centuries, so that “saucy” tends to also have these undertones of flagrant sexuality, where “sassy” doesn’t.

Oh.

Did you guys get that far in the OED?

No, we didn’t get that far at all.

You went back to Two and a Half Men.

I was going to say, when you hit the flagrant sexuality part, usually you have to move to another room of the house.

Yeah.

I’m not sure I’m going to use this with my kid in the future now.

How’s that?

Did it work for you, Dan?

It did very well.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for calling, Dan.

Okay, bye-bye.

All right, bye-bye.

Anyway, if you have a saucy question for us, give us a call.

The number’s 1-877-929-9673, or you can email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Martha, here’s a simile for you, a little unusual, but if you know somebody who’s always ready for a fight, you could describe them as fond of a raw place as a blue bottle.

Now, a blue bottle is a type of fly that tries to lay its eggs in the open sores of livestock.

So somebody who is as fond of a raw place as a blue bottle is somebody that’s always going to try to get under your skin, literally.

Oh, that’s great.

That’s great.

And I should also mention, if you want something more modern, there’s a book by Marty Grothe, that’s how you say it, G-R-O-T-H-E, called “I Never Met a Four I Didn’t Like.”

So it’s kind of the opposite side of similes.

Oh, and he’s the chiasmus guy, right?

I think so, yes indeed.

Well, if you’d like to talk with us about language, give us a call.

The number’s 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi!

Hello, who is this?

This is Brittany, I’m from San Diego.

Hiya, Brittany.

Hi, Brittany!

Hi, how are you guys doing?

Great.

Okay, well my question is actually a little strange.

My dad’s side of the family comes from Arizona, and they’re from Phoenix, and they’re from Tucson.

And instead of saying “wash,” it’s spelled W-A-S-H, they say the word “wash.”

And they use it in all different contexts, the washing machine, the washer hand.

And I was just really curious as to where that came from and why.

-huh, in Arizona.

Are they originally from Tucson?

You know, I think they are, and I know some of them are from Phoenix as well, but yeah, they originally hail from Arizona.

So, pronouncing W-A-S-H like “warsh,” huh?

It kind of sounds like you have a mouthful of marbles, huh?

It sounds like you have a mouthful of marbles?

Yeah.

Warsh?

Yeah, “warsh.”

Is that the only word that they say that way?

You know, it is, and I actually, I’ve been listening to them recently to see if they pronounce anything else that way, but it’s only “warsh.”

Mm-maybe you should serve them butternut squash and see if they say “squarsh.”

Because some people who say “warsh” do say “squarsh.”

Dude, I’ve never heard “squarsh” before.

I’ve only heard “warsh.”

Yeah, well, that’s just one of the weird things about this “warsh” pronunciation.

It’s perfectly natural to a lot of speakers in what we call the Midland dialect, which is a broadly defined area, Pennsylvania, west across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, down into the Appalachians, and then spreading westward.

So, I wonder if it made it all the way to Arizona with your family.

Yeah, I was just really curious because, you know, I thought it was normal my whole life, and then I was corrected by a friend’s parents that are on tenors, though.

So you grew up saying “warsh” as well.

Yeah, I definitely said “warsh” quite a few times.

Well, Brittany, if it makes you feel any better, it does have a name.

It’s called either the intrusive “r” or the epi—… “epi-thentic.”

I can’t even say it!

That’s all right, I do that all the time.

Some of these words are only meant to be read, not to be spoken.

Yeah, it’s an example of “epenthesis,” which is the insertion of a consonant there.

And it’s really weird, and linguists have kind of puzzled over this, and the best explanation I’ve heard is just basically that your tongue sort of anticipates that “sh” sound, and then it kind of curls a little bit.

“Warsh.”

But some of that is happening, though.

The pronunciation is transmitted the same that other dialect features are transmitted, right?

Yeah, sure.

So it’s not that each person is coming up with this pronunciation on their own.

They’re learning it from their family, as you noticed.

Yeah, exactly.

In this area, there’s a lot of Scots-Irish influence, and some people think that maybe that has something to do with the intrusive “r” in “wash.”

Oh, okay.

“Warsh.”

We always say, “Be proud of your dialect.”

Have you changed the way that you say “w-a-s-h”?

You know, I have, because I was really embarrassed when I got corrected, and they actually spelled it out for me and said, “Look, there’s no ‘r’ in there.”

Had you thought about that before?

You know, I had, yeah.

But English is so fraught with words that don’t sound like they look, that it shouldn’t surprise anyone to come across another one, right?

Exactly.

Yeah, well…

Thank you so much, Brittany.

Thank you.

All right, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

“Warsh.”

I don’t have that.

I have a few family members who say that, but it’s not one that I picked up from my family.

Yeah, I didn’t either, although there were some people in Louisville who said “wash.”

It was really weird.

It’s funny that some of the “wash-sayers,” the “wash” speakers, don’t hear it in their own voices.

Yeah, well, Brittany didn’t.

Yeah, they don’t know that it sounds that way to other people.

A lot of accents and a lot of dialect features are like that.

We don’t know that they’re strange until someone else points them out.

Tell us about the thing that your family says that’s so embarrassing. 1-877-929-9673, or send it secretly in email to words@waywordradio.org.

That’s our show for this week.

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Stefanie Levine is our senior producer.

Our technical director and editor is Tim Felten.

Tim also engineered our theme music.

Kurt Konin produced it.

We’ve had production help this week from Michael Bagdasian and Josette Hurdell.

From Studio West in San Diego, I’m Martha Barnette.

And from the Argo Network in New York City, I’m Grant Barrett.

Ciao luego.

Buh-bye. [music] [BLANK_AUDIO]