Almost Up to Possible

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You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. Several years ago, I was a part of a team that put together the first

Edition of the Oxford American Writers Thesaurus. Have you seen this, Martha?

Yeah, great volume. I didn’t know you were involved, though.

I was. I was responsible for working with the writers who contributed usage notes.

Oh, my God. You’re a rock star.

No, it was just an editor’s job.

Though I did get to work with poet David Lehman, the very garrulous and talkative Simon Winchester, Zadie Smith, and David Foster Wallace.

You got to work with them?

We had a big group meeting where we all sat around and talked about what was going to be in the thesaurus.

I’ve been looking at the second edition of this thesaurus because it’s still amusing to me to thumb through it and look for the word notes signed DFW.

That’s David Foster Wallace.

And as you know, Dave recently died.

And if you go through there, you’ll see something special.

You’ll see what was so amazing about him.

For example, if you go to the entry for that, you’ll see that, of course, he includes a footnote and a usage note.

He wrote,

And when I read things like that, I begin to understand that he understood what was important about language.

It is fun.

I should see more of this in usage guides.

I want less didactic pounding of heads against rocks, you know?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

There’s another one at the entry for if, IF.

And notice, both of these are really ordinary words.

He hasn’t gone for the exceptional stuff.

He hasn’t gone for the FAQs.

He’s just gone for that and if.

But at if, he writes,

From experience born of repeated personal humiliation,

I can tell you that there are two main ways to mess up with if

And make your writing look weak.

He’s talking about his own humiliation.

How rare is it for someone to offer grammar advice

In light of their own personal failures?

It’s almost non-existent, right?

The world of grammar mavens is always about the grammar maven being invincible and perfect.

But not if you’re David Foster Wallace.

He understood that an entry point into understanding grammar and usage and language

Is to make sure that everyone understands that we all make mistakes,

Even the best and brightest like DFW.

How wonderful.

And that’s right there in a thesaurus.

Who would have thought that you could find that kind of stuff?

Exactly.

And it encourages me and actually makes me laugh just a little bit inside.

I think about the people who will use this thesaurus over the coming decades and will be influenced by him and his genius.

It’s very comforting.

Yeah.

What a loss.

Call us to tell us about someone who’s left behind an influence on you in terms of language, about the way you understand words, the way you write and speak.

Maybe it was a writer or a teacher.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-Wayword.

Or you can email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello. Hi, my name is Casey. I’m from Zionsville, Indiana. How are you?

Super, Casey. You sound excited.

I’m told I’m naturally caffeinated.

That’s great.

Yeah. So I had a question. Of course, there was probably maybe five minutes where pundits weren’t talking on television within the last month to year.

And I kept hearing a phrase or a sentence used over and over again, both ways.

And I want to know which one is right.

I’ve heard people say that this is a historic event or that it is an historic event, a-n.

I just wanted to know which one was correct, because if you said another H word, like hyper,

To say that she is a hyper person, I would assume that that would be correct,

As opposed to she is an hyper person.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You’re exactly right, Casey.

Yay!

Okay, so in speeches and pundits and all of those people, they’ve been saying A-N.

So it’s just kind of been a little bit more verbally comfortable, I guess, to say A-N.

Well, it’s interesting, isn’t it?

It doesn’t sound comfortable to me.

It sounds kind of awkward to say an-historical.

That’s what I thought.

Yeah, or an-historic.

I think it sounds a little bit pretentious.

And you’re right that that’s the traditional rule.

You wouldn’t say, my dad used to be an hippie, right?

Or I’m going to throw an hissy fit over this point of grammar.

You wouldn’t say that.

And the same pattern applies here.

I don’t know what it is about the word historic that makes people just want to throw that rule out the window.

What do you guys think?

There’s been a lot of bad advice given that you can actually find in the lesser grade of grammar manuals and usage manuals,

People recommending that you say an historic or an historical, even though it is patently and completely wrong.

When John McCain gave his concession speech, he was wrong.

Mm—

That’s what I thought.

Yeah, now you will hear an historic more often across the pond in Britain, but that’s because a lot of times you don’t hear the beginning H, right?

But that’s the key.

If you’re not pronouncing the H, fine.

Go ahead and say A-N.

If you are pronouncing the H, it should only be A.

Oh, okay.

That’s the rule.

And the difficulty here is that sometimes we have a tendency in the United States to pronounce the H more often.

But we do swallow it in the same way that the Brits do on occasion.

And so you kind of have to listen carefully.

Are they saying the H or are they not?

An historic event, they’re swallowing the H.

An historic event, they are not swallowing the H.

But in any case, you’re right.

It’s A and then the word historic.

All right. Well, that solves it. Thank you both very much.

You’re welcome. Thanks for calling, Casey.

Have a great day.

All right. You too. Bye-bye.

Bye.

I think we should go on an humanitarian mission to eradicate this usage.

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

The number is 1-877-929-9673 or send us an email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Mickey from Iowa, and I had a question from years ago when I was a teenager.

This would have been 1969 or so, and my grandmother from Colorado was visiting, and I came down

The stairs wearing a miniskirt, and her eyes got very big, and she said, oh, my land, that

Skirt is almost up to possible.

And she laughed and laughed.

And I’m wondering what that means.

Possible is used as a noun there.

I think I can infer what it means.

Yeah, I don’t know if I really want to know.

And are some girls probable or impossible?

Trust me, they are.

Some girls are very impossible.

A friend of mine theorized that years ago women would not take baths every day

Because you had to go to so much work heating the water and hauling it in.

So they would wash as best they could while fully clothed,

And they would wash down from the neck as far as possible under their dresses

And wash up underneath as far as possible.

I don’t know if that has anything to do with it or not.

Why is this ringing a vague bell?

I think that kind of misrepresents history, though.

You think?

I think that people did not bathe as frequently, but when they did bathe, they did tend to do a full-body bathe.

How do you know that, Grant?

From reading diaries from the Civil War earlier.

Oh, of course.

People talk pretty plainly about this stuff.

We think of the older generations as being more prudish, but in fact, a lot of times they were more matter-of-fact about the body than we are.

It was just the body.

There wasn’t anything mysterious about it.

But to go back to the possible, is it possible that calling a skirt almost up to possible meant that it was possible just to see?

It didn’t mean that the girl was possibly easy.

Oh.

Well, that’s possible.

It might be possible to see her panties or something.

Oh.

Interesting.

I haven’t heard that as a phrase before.

I haven’t heard it then.

It’s rare enough that I’m looking here, I find one use of it.

Really?

It’s in an awkward place on the Internet that I don’t want to point anyone.

My grandmother was pretty prudish.

I was going to say, not your grandmother, huh?

So did you get sent back up the stairs?

No, I didn’t because maybe if I were her daughter I would have been, but I wasn’t.

Of course I thought, well, Grandma’s just in another century.

This is modern times and this is the way everybody dresses

And she shouldn’t be commenting on what I’m wearing, but I didn’t say anything.

Of course.

So your question about this is,

Is it unique to your grandma?

What does it mean?

What are you looking for?

And is possible a noun,

I think was part of your question.

Oh, was that your question?

That’s part of it, yeah.

Well, no, it’s still an adjective here.

It’s still an adjective.

It’s doing the job of an adjective.

I don’t think there’s a part on the body

Called the possible.

I hope not.

Not on my body.

I think this is such a colorful expression that I’m going to have to take this up as soon as I have a daughter.

Oh, is that right?

Okay.

Yeah.

I’ll save it.

I’ll save it for when I have a daughter.

Yeah, and you know what?

I think we’re going to start hearing it a lot more because our producer is waving at me and saying she’s going to be using it with her teenage daughter.

Oh, good, good.

Well, thank you so much for your call, Mickey.

Great.

Well, thanks a lot.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

You know, I like those vague phrases like that.

Yeah, I mean, in a way it’s so vague, but in a way it’s so specific.

Right, because you understand immediately, even though it’s vague, it’s a perfect euphemism.

Perfect euphemism.

Give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-wayword.

Or you can email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

A couple of people called and wrote in to respond to our discussion of go commando, which means to forego wearing underwear under one’s clothing.

You remember that one, Martha?

Oh, certainly do.

I said that it likely came from having to be tough like a military commando because you have to be tough to endure the kind of chafing that you would get if you aren’t wearing underpants.

And presumably are wearing jeans or some other kinds of pants.

Right. Real men don’t wear underpants.

Something like that. That was our argument.

But a couple of people, actually more than a few people, wrote to say otherwise.

And a typical response was the one we got from Bob Potter of Allentown, Wisconsin.

And he wrote, I first heard the term when I was in the infantry in Vietnam in 1969.

The Army issued boxer shorts.

In the heat and humidity, plus the rain in the rice paddies, we were constantly wet.

So he goes on to say the boxer shorts tended to soak up moisture to keep the moisture,

And then it would be like wearing a wet diaper.

And he says soon after he got in country, he was beginning to chafe badly, and a buddy suggested that he go commando.

So, for the rest of his tour, he didn’t wear undershorts at all.

He went commando.

And he says it was a great relief.

It was actually more awkward and uncomfortable and more chafing to wear the wet boxer shorts than it was to go without.

How interesting.

I still have questions about this because I wanted to know, don’t your outer pants hold moisture?

Don’t they chafe as well?

And I guess the difference is that the outer pants are thicker fabric and they’re not going to bunch up and they’re going to stay away from sensitive regions, so to speak, right?

Yeah, yeah.

There are those seams, but we won’t go into that.

Well, we love these reports about language used in the wild.

Tell us your experiences.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or you can email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Next up, we’re going to rock your word with a word puzzle.

Stay tuned.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And joining us now is our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hello, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

How are you guys?

What are you doing over there?

What am I doing over here?

I’m just emerging from my cave after a long nap, so I’m getting the sleep out of my eyes.

It’s okay.

Yeah, the antelope are migrating.

Give a call, the pull towards them.

It’s the 17-year Chaneski.

That’s me.

Rudex.

I’m a little rusty.

Let’s just work it out.

I’ve got a little quiz for you guys.

What do you say we do it?

All right.

Here it is.

I have appropriated today’s puzzle theme from a category on a popular game show.

You do not have to answer it in the form of a question, by the way.

I’ll give you several clues to a word.

That word will contain the letters S-U-B in order.

Okay?

Okay.

It’s very simple.

For example, if I said to swap one thing for another or we’d say substitute.

Substitute, right, or a stand-in for an absent teacher.

I’ll give you a couple of clues if you need it.

Okay.

Substitute.

Someone substituting for another person.

Well, that sounds easy.

Where’s the catch?

Yeah.

I’ll make up a catch halfway through, and then, boy, will we all be surprised, including me.

Okay, here we go.

You are not allowed to do this to many New York City apartments.

Sub-let.

Sub-let.

Sub-let.

Sub-let.

Sub-let.

Sub-let.

Sub-let.

Sub-let.

That’s what I was going to say.

Both.

Sub-let is correct, Martha.

Very good.

You also can’t submerge them, by the way.

Just in case.

Just in case.

Sub-vent.

But if you rent out a rental that you rent, you are sub-letting.

That’s what I meant to say.

I don’t know what I was saying.

You said sub-vent.

No, no, no.

I didn’t know that’s a word.

All right.

Here’s the next one.

This word is used to describe protons, neutrons, quarks, photons, or neutrinos.

Subatomic particles.

That’s two words.

Yes.

Well, no, I was, subatomic would have been fine.

Oh, okay.

Got you.

But yes, they are subatomic particles.

This adjective, pizza, describes a message pizza embedded in another medium pizza

Designed to pass below the limits pizza of the mind’s perception pizza.

Hey, you want to go to Ray’s later?

Whoa.

So subtext or subconscious?

No, I’ll give you a further clue.

Subliminal.

That’s it.

Subliminal pizza.

Now, at 6’5″, I never rent one of these.

Wait, you’re 6’5″?

I am 6’5″.

No, I’m 6’5″, so I never rent one of these.

Something that makes you taller.

A sub…

No, this is a category in which you’ll find the Toyota Yaris, the Honda Fit, the Chevy

The Aveo.

Right.

And the subcompact.

Subcompact is correct.

Basically, it describes an automobile with between 85 and 95 cubic square feet of interior volume.

Oh, I knew that.

And I take up like, you know, like 45 square feet of interior volume.

45 square feet.

I’m huge.

I’m sitting here with Orca.

Can you shove over a little bit?

Thank you.

Here’s the next one.

A perpetrator might become this through the actions of a police officer.

Or this word could describe what the decor of your bedroom might be if you use muted colors.

Oh, I see.

Subdued.

Subdued is right.

I was thinking suburban.

Yes.

A perpetrator might be suburban.

I was thinking of a bedroom, you know.

Oh, sure, sure.

Okay.

Never mind.

This word is a direction in music, meaning immediately or suddenly.

Is it something like subito?

It is subito.

Very good.

I was going to say, where’s that Pliska guy?

I knew you were going to say that, and we didn’t need him.

Let’s let your geek flag fly.

In a 1960s cartoon theme song, this comic book character is described as an exotically neurotic and aquatic superhero.

Wow.

Submariner.

Yes, the Submariner, right.

Submariner.

I’ll tell you something though.

He just reads the scripts.

Yeah, for 15 years I thought it was Submariner.

I was saying Submariner in my head.

Luckily, I overheard someone say Submariner.

I didn’t know that it should be Submariner.

But you just couldn’t help yourself.

There are people who say Submariner, right?

Sure.

I’m not alone in that, really?

No, no, no.

I don’t think so.

I was hoping our listeners would write and say, hey, yeah, me too.

I thought it was Submariner too.

He was one of the first superheroes.

He debuted in 1939.

Sure.

And the first comic book antihero.

Okay, here’s our last one.

This word describes the minimum amount of resources needed.

For example, your wages may be just enough to allow you to live.

So they are called?

Subsistence.

That’s right.

Subsistence wages.

Well, that’s my quiz.

Well, thanks for your quiz.

You’re a man of substance.

Well, thanks as always.

I feel like we did okay on that one.

You did great.

And the next one’s going to be harder, right?

Yes, I will.

All right.

If you want to talk about words and language and how we use them,

Or any aspect of language, call us, 1-877-929-9673.

You can also email us to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Suzanne Taylor calling from New York City.

Well, hi, Suzanne. How are you doing?

I’m well, thanks.

I have a question for you guys having to do with a word that I have been reading

That seemed to be timely given the recent election.

I have been reading The Duchess,

The book on which the recent movie starring Keira Knightley, I guess, is based.

And there is an awful lot of talk in this book about the Duchess canvassing for her favorite political candidate, I guess, for the Whig party, in her case, in England.

And it’s the word canvas with two S’s at the end, and they use it in many different contexts.

They talk about her and her friends being canvassers.

They talk about them going out canvassing.

They talk about all sorts of things having to do with canvassing.

And I was reading it in the last week and the week before and during all this election stuff

And thought to myself, well, I guess they’re still doing canvassing,

But I wonder where the word canvassing comes from

And what does it have to do with the other kinds of canvas that I’m aware of,

Like ship’s canvas and painter’s canvas, and are they connected in any way?

So I thought I’d call you.

It’s a really good question.

And the answer is a little bit tricky.

I’m not sure we understand it completely.

I can tell you about the connection between canvas, the noun, and the verb, though.

The word canvas itself, the cloth that you mentioned, which is made out of either flax or cotton or hemp,

Goes back to a Latin word for hemp that will be familiar to some of our listeners.

It’s cannabis.

Okay.

So we get the word canvas from cannabis in Latin.

Now, that’s where it starts to get tricky because if you look at the earliest definitions of canvas, like back as far back as 1508, the idea is to toss somebody in a canvas sheet.

You know, people holding the sheet at the four corners and lifting it so people go flying up in the air.

Like as a game, not as a safety for a fireman’s net.

Exactly.

As a game or punishing somebody.

Punishment.

Yeah.

Okay.

But my sense is that it sort of went from jostling and shaking something up because early, early on in the 1500s, you see people talking about canvassing scripture or canvassing somebody’s words.

And I think the idea is sort of jostling and shaking up to see what’s really there.

And I can see how that might have been extended metaphorically to mean sort of going out into the community to see what’s there politically.

Does that work for you, Grant?

I mean, I know there’s another explanation that might be the case.

The other explanation seems more likely to me, and it’s that canvas was used to sift.

You can see how you might sift through, say, flour or sand or something to get the big objects out of it.

And I think that there’s something to be said for the metaphorical uses of sifting through ideas and looking for the good ones

Or sifting through your thoughts and trying to make sense of them that might easily have gone from a literal use of sift,

Referring to the canvas to a metaphorical use of sift.

Yeah, so traditionally people used canvas as a sift,

Sort of like a coffee filter or something.

Wow.

Etymology is a bit of an art rather than a science,

So they all have their opinions,

And they sound so authoritative when you read them.

You’re like, oh, that must be it.

And then you go to another dictionary,

And they sound authoritative.

You’re like, wait a second, these don’t agree.

The difficulty that they all have, Suzanne,

Is that none of them have successfully explained

How the idea, either using the canvas

For the game of throwing people about or for sifting came to be used in a political sense

To mean go door to door to solicit votes.

There’s a kind of a weird idea that if you go door to door, you are exposing your candidate’s

Ideas to the potential voter and they are doing the sifting through the ideas to decide

If they want to vote for that person.

And I end that on a high questioning note because I’m not certain that that’s right.

I don’t know.

I kind of like the idea of putting a candidate on a canvas and tossing them up in the air and just seeing how they do.

Seeing how they fare.

Yeah.

You know, we should elect our presidents that way.

I think we should.

It would be a lot less trouble.

Yeah, a lot cheaper.

Instead of two years of campaigning, we could do it in like about 10 minutes.

And for about 10 bucks.

It’d be great.

Definitely save money.

That’s great.

Yeah.

Well, Suzanne, thanks for an interesting question.

Sure.

Thank you.

That was a fascinating and unexpected answer.

I’d love to hear that.

Great.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you’ve got a puzzle and you want something to solve, Martha’s the one to call.

I’ll just make a muddle of it.

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

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, Grant and hey, Martha.

This is Mark Corley from Redmond, Washington.

Hey, Mark.

Hi, Mark.

I’m certainly a big fan of the show.

And there was a word I heard once where it described someone’s name who was, you know, which was related to their job.

And I’ve got a little bit of background.

I had this great guy work for me named Michael Hooker.

And at one point I said, hey, Michael, now what’s the origin of your family name?

And he said, oh, a hooker is an assistant to a Thatcher.

A Thatcher, you know, makes roofs or whatever we call a roof in the old days.

And a hooker sort of had a little function to help build it.

And this past week, or I guess it was a week or two ago, I saw an obituary for a man named William Headline,

Who was this veteran broadcaster from CNN or helped start CNN.

And it just reminded me, you know, what are the odds of some guy named Mr. Headline,

Who is in the newspaper business or in the media business?

That’s great. I miss that.

So there’s some historical connection, people’s names were, you know, Mr. Hammer the carpenter or Mr. Carpenter, who was a carpenter in the old days, or your name came from a city.

But today that’s pretty unusual.

Is there a word that describes someone whose name is related to their work?

Yes, there is.

Yes, there’s at least one name.

There’s actually several different names for somebody whose name is accidentally related to their work.

Okay, I’m ready to be edified.

Edified and educated.

Okay. The most common one is aptronym.

Sometimes the R is left out and it’s called an aptonym.

So it’s A-P-T-R-O-N-Y-M or A-P-T-O-N-Y-M.

And it was originally coined in the 1920s or 30s by a famous newspaper columnist named F.P.A. Or Franklin P. Adams.

And kind of it’s just continued from there.

Every time someone thinks they’ve discovered this phenomenon, they give it a new name.

Columnist Herb Cain, C-A-E-N,

He called them name freaks.

I think I like aptronym better than name freak.

I agree.

I like the version without the R, though.

I don’t understand why the R is in there.

I think aptonym works for me.

But, you know, Herb Cain,

He collected things like the piano teacher

Whose name was, supposedly, seriously,

Patience Scales.

Oh, no!

And he also describes a glad-handing bank president

By the name of, I kid you not,

Furman Grip.

F-I-R-M-I-N-G-R-Y-P.

I’ve been going back through all the old podcasts.

Love your show.

So thank you for all the interesting tidbits

That I learn every week.

Well, it’s our pleasure, Mark.

Thank you so much.

Okay, take care.

All right, you too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you have a question about language,

You know where to call,

1-877-929-9673,

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, we got an email from a guy named Robert who lives in Eurifereburg of Brooklyn.

And he wrote us with a riddle that he said that he solved in seventh grade.

And he wrote the riddle out, and I was going crazy because, number one,

He solved it in seventh grade, and I couldn’t think of the answer at all.

So I had to write him and ask him for it.

Here it is.

See if you can figure it out on the fly.

There was a man in jail who was being watched by a lone warden.

Someone came to visit one day and then left shortly thereafter.

This was the exchange between the warden and the prisoner.

The warden said, who was that visitor?

And the prisoner said, brothers and sisters, have I none, but this man’s father is my father’s son.

Brothers and sisters, have I none, but this man’s father is my father’s son.

That was his grandfather.

I don’t know.

I have no idea.

Who was it?

The answer is the prisoner’s son.

The prisoner says this man’s father.

Oh, of course.

There we go.

Yeah.

I still don’t quite get it, but that’s the answer.

Okay.

Well, if you’ve got your stumpers, send them along, 1-877-929-9673,

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Colleen calling from Bowling Green, Ohio.

Hi, Colleen. How are you doing?

I have a question for you about my partner and I, we’re both women,

And we’re thinking about having a baby.

And I’m okay with mom. I want to go by mom.

But she’s looking for something else, something that a baby will be able to distinguish me from her.

Because you can’t both be mom, right?

I mean, we could.

I know that some people have done, like, Mama Colleen and Mama Sheena would be the two of us, but she doesn’t like that.

Yeah, the lesbian couples that I know, that’s the way that some of them do it.

Yeah.

Yeah, or on the L word, Mama T and Mama B.

Right, there we go.

Yeah, on the L word, yeah.

Yeah.

But she doesn’t like Mama S. She doesn’t think it sounds good.

Mama S. -huh. What’s her name?

Sheena.

Sheena.

What about, and did she try on all the different other words for mama or mother or mommy?

Well, she speaks Russian and Spanish, but both of those sound similar to mom, mama.

So she’s looking for something that is easily distinguishable.

Well, Colleen, yeah, it’s tricky because one of you will be the biological mother

And the other one will be the non-biological parents.

Well, unless they adopt.

Well, yeah, what are you going to do?

She’s going to be the biological mother.

Oh, she’s going to be the biological mother.

Right.

Yeah, a lot of friends in my circle go by mommy and mama or something very similar, but the kids seem to understand that.

Yeah.

Russian, Spanish, English.

There’s so many options to choose from in all three languages, right?

Yeah, well, we saw a bunch of people in the online community that are using baba,

Which I guess means father in a lot of different languages.

I think it actually means mother in one or two as well, but yeah.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah, because the sounds tend to occasionally switch roles.

B is often, Bs and Ps are often with the father, but not always.

And M is often with the mother, but not always.

Yeah, you know, Colleen, the friends that I’ve talked to about this say,

You know, don’t sweat it too much because the kids probably will come up with something.

So that, you know, I have friends whose kids call their parents Mama and Gigi or Mama and

Didi. And it just sort of sort of evolved sort of like the names for grandparents do. I mean,

I called my grandparents on one side, grandmother and grandfather. And on the other side, it was

Mama and Papa. Well, this is a bit of a puzzle. How would you feel if we threw this out

To our community to see if they could come up with something for you? Oh, I would love to hear

Back from anybody. Oh, great. We have at least nine months, right?

Yes, more than that. Okay. Because you’re still

Talking about possibly having a baby, right? Right, yes. Okay, well, let’s see what people say

Because I’m sure more and more couples are grappling with this and it’d be good to hear what they have

To say about that. So community, here we are. Listeners, what should

Two mothers of the same child call themselves? Or

For that matter, two fathers? It’s interesting either way. And also would be interested

To hear how you decided whether you’re homosexual or heterosexual,

What your child should call you.

You can send us an email to words@waywordradio.org

Or give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

Colleen, best of luck to you and Sheena.

Thank you very much.

Okay, bye-bye.

Thank you. Take care of yourself.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Next on A Way with Words, get ready to test your slang savvy.

Support for A Way with Words comes from Random House,

Publisher of Origins of the Species, Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language,

By Patricia T. O’Connor and Stuart Kellerman.

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. And it’s time for our weekly slang challenge,

Where we try to stump a member of the National Puzzlers League.

Today’s contestant is Lorraine Lampert from New York City.

Come on down.

Hello, Lorraine.

Hello.

Hello, everyone.

Both of you.

Everyone.

No, all of us.

Everybody out there.

The world is listening to you.

What do you do in New York City, Lorraine?

I am an actress.

I’m an actor, singer, dancer.

And I also work at an investment banking firm.

Good Lord.

Now, I understand.

Correct me if I’m wrong that you were in a production based on the American Girl dolls.

Yes, I was in the American Girl’s review, and I was also in Biddy Bear’s matinee at the American Girl place in New York City.

Oh, my gosh.

So you’re really a celebrity in some circles.

I suppose.

If you’re 10, you know who Lorraine is, right?

Sure thing.

Yes, you know they were 10 when they saw the show.

Lorraine, what’s your favorite slang term?

Okay, I have a good one here.

Totes.

What?

Totes.

It’s short for totally.

Sure, totes, T-O-T-E-S.

I started hearing the word totes for totally in 98 when I was at Emerson College,

And everyone there said it, and I assumed that it was a slang that was really taking the nation by storm.

And then I’ve asked around in the last few days, and a lot of people haven’t even heard it before.

Well, now, educate me here.

How would you use totes in a sentence?

Okay.

Like, I am totes going to see the new Stephen Sondheim show at the public theater.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

So it’s just a substitute for totally then.

-huh.

But it sounds cooler.

Yeah.

Well, it’s a clipping.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s another instance of shortening.

All right.

All right.

Well, here’s how we play.

Let’s see how you do with our quiz.

I’ll give you a sentence with a blank in it with two possible answers.

Only one is correct.

In case you need a lifeline, Martha is standing by.

I’m right here.

Okay.

I’m totes here.

Okay, I’m totes with you.

All right.

Well, it just so happens that these two questions are both medically related, all right?

Sure, I’ll just draw on that time when I was just playing one on TV.

There we go.

All right, here we go.

Here’s the first sentence.

Doctor, you’d better get down here.

All the nurses and interns are waiting for you to show off the blank.

They’ve never seen anything like it.

So are they waiting for the doctor to show off the A, the psilisoma, or B, the fascinoma?

And fascinoma is spelled F-A-S-C-I-N-O-M-A.

The psilisoma or the fascinoma?

Yes.

And how is psilisoma spelled?

S-I-L-L-Y-S-O-M-A, like it sounds.

Oh, my goodness.

So, fascinoma is F-A-S-C-I-N-O-M-A?

That’s right.

F as in Frank.

Well, fascinoma sounds fascinating.

Mm—

And psilisoma definitely sounds silly.

Mm—

Either way, I think I’d want to look at it.

That’s true.

I’m going to go ahead and I think, what do you think, Martha?

I think fascinoma.

Yes, I’m leaning toward that.

That sounds more medical.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

That is correct.

Oh, right.

Oh, I passed the medical test.

It’s a jokey slang term.

Your license is in the mail.

It’s a jokey slang medical term for a fascinating case.

Oh.

Right.

All right, let’s try another one.

This one’s a little harder, maybe a little more fun, all right?

I can’t imagine one more fun than that.

How can it be more fun than silly drama?

Right.

Holy, smells like they’ll need more than a bedpan.

That blank is not only going to take new sheets, it may very well call for a brand new bed.

That blank is not only going to take new sheets, it may very well call for a brand new bed.

Is it A, a code brown, or B, a happy meal?

Happy meal was the second one?

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

Well, that’s very messy.

I think Code Brown and Happy Meal are mutually exclusive.

I don’t…

I think Code Brown’s connotation right off the bat is telling me that that is the answer to this very possibly disgusting picture.

Lorena, I hope you’ll forgive me for being a little dense, but what connotation do you mean?

Well, I think it sounds rather scatological.

Yes, indeed.

So are you choosing Code Brown?

I think so.

He could be trying to throw us off, though.

You know?

I mean, I rose to that code brown bait, too.

You did?

Oh, I don’t know.

The catfish like it, too.

They’re always hanging around the sewer outflow.

Oh, man.

All right.

So A is your answer, then, code brown?

I’m going with code brown.

All right.

That is also correct.

Nicely done.

And you’re right.

The brown was the giveaway that it’s scatological.

A code brown is a slang term for a patient’s bowel incontinence, the worst kind.

So the kind that lights up the radars across the hospital, you know?

Oh, did we even need a definition?

Well, you know, we’re adults here.

We can giggle a little bit, right?

Speak for yourself.

Lauren, thank you so much for playing with us today.

This was very nice.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

Thank you.

Now you can really play one on TV, huh?

I’m all prepared.

Right, you got the language.

Yeah, well, don’t let me write.

I’ve got the terminology down.

Yeah, don’t let me write the script.

You’ll be fired in no time.

Bye-bye, Lauren.

Thank you for playing.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Yeah, congrats.

Thanks.

Well, if you have a question for us about words, language, grammar, slang, code,

Why not give us a call?

The number 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.

Hi, this is Maggie Winchell from Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

Hi, Maggie.

Hi, Maggie.

What’s your language question today, Maggie?

My question is about a term that I used as a child, go-aheads.

Go-aheads.

Right.

Go-aheads?

It’s a term that we used for what is now called flip-flops.

Mm—

And when I grew up, I didn’t realize it was actually go-aheads, two words.

I thought it was just one term.

Go-aheads.

Right.

But it’s go-aheads because you cannot walk backwards in those shoes.

-huh.

-huh.

Now, Maggie, I have to ask, where did you grow up?

I grew up in Dubuque, Iowa.

But it’s a term that my mother brought to us.

She grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Minnesota.

And where was your family in the 1940s?

My oldest sisters were born in San Diego.

My dad was in the service.

And one was born in Hawaii.

Ding, ding, ding.

There we go.

Wait, who was born in Hawaii?

Third oldest, fourth oldest sister.

There we go. There we have the connection.

Yep, yep.

What’s that?

Well, it’s quite common in Hawaii and also in California to call these things go-aheads,

Or at least it has been historically.

Yeah, some people still do, and it’s because of the large Japanese-American communities in both places.

This term tends to come out of Japan.

It’s especially common historically among servicemen who served in Japan or in the Far East.

Oh.

And it’s referred to over the years either to Zoris.

Do you know this word, Z-O-R-I-S?

No, Z-O-R-I-S.

These are thongs or flip-flops, depending on your term, usually made out of straw or grass or reeds.

The soles were also straw grass or reeds, although sometimes they were wood,

And sometimes they referred to the getta, which is the traditional wooden-soled Japanese sandal.

You’ve probably seen these in these historical movies about Japan, the women kind of hobbling around in these wooden shoes.

But they called them go-aheads for exactly the reason that you’re saying, because you can only move forward in them.

If you try to walk backwards, you’re going to find yourself barefoot.

Right.

Doesn’t work well.

But I asked about the 1940s because that’s when it first starts appearing in some war memoirs and historical memoirs by soldiers who served in the Far East.

And you start to see it show up in fashion columns in American newspapers in Los Angeles in the 1950s where they talk about things like capri pants and other kinds of summer clothes or beach clothes.

I have to confess, though, I never heard the term until in the last few years.

I’ve never heard, you know, it’ll fly out of my mouth without thinking, and people around me have no clue to what I am referring.

That’s always a fun experience, isn’t it?

Yeah.

But so here’s the connection, and the connection is that your family and you, or you, picked it up probably either from your father through his connections in the service or from being in Hawaii.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, thank you.

That’s interesting.

All right.

Thanks for bringing that up.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, we love asking these where did I get it and what does it mean questions.

If you’ve got one, the number to call is 1-877-929-9673.

You can also send us email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

This is Terry from Jamestown, New York.

Hiya, Terry. What’s going on in Jamestown?

My question is this, and actually I have five children.

It came from one of my five children when they were younger.

You have a pair of gloves, and there’s two of them.

You have a pair of shoes, and there’s two of them.

You have a pair of socks, and there’s two of them.

But you have a pair of jeans, and there’s only one pair.

-huh.

Was this one of these questions that they asked right before you were putting them to bed just to keep you up?

Make you stay a little longer?

Most likely.

But I always thought that was a good question, and children are very inquisitive

And probably think deeper into things than we do.

Mm-and ask some of the hardest questions.

Yes, and they don’t let you just go off with no answer.

You really have to have an answer for them.

That’s right, so you had to track us down.

I had to track you down.

Okay, genes.

Well, let’s see what we can do on this.

Let’s start all the way back in Italy and go with Pantaloon.

You’re familiar with Pantaloon, right?

Yes, sir.

And Pantaloon actually was originally a character from the Italian commedia dell’arte.

It’s a foolish old man who wears pantaloons.

And these are these big baggy kind of billowy pants, right?

And so we have a plural with pantaloons.

I don’t know why that plural was there.

I’m not sure, but I believe it’s a natural thing to do

When you’re referring to the type of clothing worn by a person.

So this man was known, this character was known for wearing the pantaloon,

And they became known as pantaloons in English.

So there’s some transfer there from Italian into English.

We shortened it in English further to pants.

We kept the S and we kept the plural, right?

When you look at a pair of pants, there are two legs.

And so it’s not completely out of the question that it could be a plural item, right?

Indeed.

Yeah, and same for underpants, right?

That’s right.

Yep, exactly.

Yeah, you’re right.

And panties, for that matter.

And these all descend from that original word pantaloon.

Now hold that thought for a second, and let’s talk about the history of the word gene.

The word jean ultimately comes from Genoa in Italy, which is a town where this particular fabric was created, right?

And the word became corrupted over time into jean, G-E-A-N.

And jean described the fabric, this kind of cotton, fustian they call it, made of flax or wool.

And in our recent history, most often colored indigo or blue.

And when this particular fabric was used to make pants in the American West, it seemed natural, I believe, and this is my theory,

And I think there are a few sources that will back me up on this,

To also contain the plural and to call them jeans.

That is, they were made from the fabric jean, they wore a kind of pants,

Therefore they became jeans or blue jeans.

Same as Levi’s, I guess.

Yeah, you’re right.

I never thought about that before.

So how does that sound?

I hadn’t either.

Does that sound plausible?

That sounds very plausible. It sure does.

Well, Terry, thank you so much for your call.

We’re glad that you’re listening there in the cold north.

We hope to keep you warm at least for an hour a week.

All right. I appreciate that. And you guys take care of yourselves.

Okay. You too. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you’ve got a question about clothing or, well, anything at all related to language, slang, usage, grammar, a complaint, a peeve,

Something you heard on the radio or watched on the television that just doesn’t sit right with your speech-o-meter, give us a call.

That’s 1-877-929-9673.

The email address is words@waywordradio.org.

These days I’m often asked what books I recommend to give as gifts.

And there’s one on my shelf that I keep giving over and over and over again.

And that book is Idiom’s Delight.

It’s by Suzanne Brock.

And it’s a book that gives you a little bit of different perspective on ideas.

For example, we say it’s raining cats and dogs.

In Spain, it comes down in jugs.

In French, it comes down in ropes.

And there are lots of wonderful idioms.

Like in Spanish, there’s one that translates as, even if you dress a monkey in silk, it’s still a monkey.

Does that sound sort of familiar when you think of lipstick on a pig?

Sure.

Yeah.

Sure, absolutely.

And the book is Idioms Delight by?

Suzanne Brock.

Suzanne Brock.

Sounds like a delight.

Yeah, yeah.

You have to dig around on the Internet to find it.

I’m not sure it’s in those brick-and-mortar bookstores anymore.

But, again, I can get my hands on it on the Internet, and I highly recommend it.

Well, I get asked that question all the time, too.

What books would I recommend?

What do I buy somebody?

And you know what I’ve started recommending since I became a father?

It’s children’s books.

Oh, yeah.

Because if you go to the store, there’s a wide variety of books,

And you’re kind of at sea there if you’ve never bought children’s books before.

You’re not quite sure what’s going to work for the kid.

You think anything with colorful pictures might do,

Or if it’s got bright lights in it or sparkly pages or something.

That’s just not the case.

The kids like the same things, fortunately, that we like

Because you read them so often that you tend to memorize the whole thing without really trying, you know?

Sure. So what do you recommend?

My favorite books to read to my son are the ones written by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Jane Chapman.

The first one that we read, and still the favorite one, is Bear Snores On.

Bear Snores On?

Mm-It’s about a bear and his woodland friends.

Can I read some of it to you?

Please.

All right. Here’s a little bit of the beginning.

In a cave in the woods, in its deep, dark lair, through the long, cold winter, sleeps a great brown bear.

Cuddled in a heap, with his eyes shut tight, he sleeps through the day, he sleeps through the night.

The cold winds howl, and the night sounds growl, but the bear snores on.

And it goes on like this.

I love that.

It’s not too difficult.

It’s easy on the eyes and the brain.

The pictures are beautiful.

And the story is both simple and complex.

That is, there’s enough there for the youngest child to get engaged with,

And then a child that’s a couple years older will still be engaged.

And the poetry, and it is poetry, is sophisticated.

It’s got a careful use of alliteration and clever compounding.

I’m going to read you one more stanza.

This is actually the next stanza.

An itty-bitty mouse pitter-pat tiptoe creep crawls in the cave from the fluff of cold snow.

See what she did there?

Pitter-pat tiptoe creep crawls.

She turned creep crawls into a compound verb, right?

She made something new there.

And it works. It works because of the alliteration, because that is what a mouse does when it comes in from the snow, you know.

And all of the books written by Karma Wilson are like this.

That’s a wonderfully musical book.

I wasn’t thinking so much about the compound verb, but the tippy-toe, tap-tap, and the rhythm of it is very musical, too.

Yeah. Did you notice when I said the night sounds growl, that I growled at growl?

Yeah.

The book lends itself to that.

The book lends itself to she chooses the right verbs and she chooses the right adjectives so that she leads your voice where it needs to go in order to make the story more interesting.

So there’s a whole cult of these books.

What are they called again?

They’re all about Bear.

She has some others that aren’t about Bear, but there’s Bear Wants More and Bear Feels Scared.

There’s five or six of these.

The author is Karma Wilson and the illustrator is Jane Chapman.

I highly recommend them.

They have them in big books, chapter books kind of, and then small little board books.

Nice.

Yeah, good stuff.

Well, if you’d like to talk about books, writing, words, call us.

The number’s 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-Wayword.

Or you can email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Or buzz by our discussion forum and chat with your fellow book lovers.

That address is waywordradio.org slash discussion.

That’s our show for this week.

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If you didn’t get on the air today, you can leave us a message at any time at 1-877-929-9673.

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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 Conan produced it.

We’ve had production help this week from Michael Bagdazian and Josette Herdell.

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

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

So long.

Ciao.

And oh, if we ever part, then that might break my heart.

So if you like pajamas and I like pajamas, I’ll wear pajamas and give up pajamas.

For we know we need each other, so we better call the calling off all.

Let’s call the whole thing off.