Auctioning Meals à la Ding

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

You know when you’re at a restaurant and the server brings everyone’s meal out of the kitchen, but it’s not clear who ordered what and the server has to say, well, who has the ravioli?

Yeah.

Well, there’s an informal term for that in the restaurant business. Servers call that auctioning.

Oh, how about that?

Huh. Yeah.

Yeah, because it is like they’re auctioning the food, you know.

Right, right.

As a patron, I get a second chance to take food I didn’t order.

No, I would never do that.

That one’s mine, yeah.

And if your meal is delayed because that person who took your order forgot about it, that’s called a pocket ticket.

And one more little bit of restaurant lingo that I learned recently is if your food gets sent back because it’s cold, somebody might be told that that’s a job for Chef Mike.

Oh, microwave.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Which is also called, if you’re heating something up in the microwave, you’re cooking it a la ding.

Yeah.

Often, if it has to go back in a pan, it’ll just say, refire, right?

Or something like that.

Yeah.

That’s cool, Martha.

I love all this lingo.

Where is this coming from?

Well, I got all that and more from the new book, Shots Significa, a miscellany of secret languages.

Now, Schott’s is spelled S-C-H-O-T-T because it’s by a guy named Ben Schott.

And I will be talking about more of the things in that book later in the show.

Oh, I know his work very well.

I’m so interested in this, Martha.

Nothing like digging deep into the lingo cultures of the world.

And if you’d like to dig deep into the lingo of your household or your workplace or something you’ve been reading, we’d like to talk to you.

You can call or text toll-free in the U.S. and Canada, 877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.