Awkward Turtle

[MUSIC] >> You’re listening to A Way with Words, I’m Grant Barrett.

>> And I’m Martha Barnette.

You might think of slang as a flash in the pan, words that are here today and completely outdated tomorrow.

Sometimes those slang surprises you.

Take the word cool.

Would you believe that people were using the word cool to mean good or excellent all the way back in the 1930s?

It’s not so new.

And if you think about it, what’s even more surprising is that right now, a whole new generation of kids use this slang word in pretty much the same way that it’s been used for 75 years.

You’ll find that and much more in a new collection of campus slang gathered in the past year and edited by UCLA linguistics professor Pamela Monroe.

Grant, you’ve seen this, of course.

>> Yeah, this is the sixth edition of the book.

It’s been published here regularly since 1991.

And the great thing about this is it’s a perfect snapshot of youth language.

It’s one of the few places you can go to get a pretty good summary of what the college kids are saying.

And while some of this language is, of course, particular to the UCLA campus, a lot of it is universal.

And as you were saying, it’s older than you think.

For example, they still use mooch in a slangy way.

And that goes back- >> That’s super old, right?

>> 150 years old, yeah.

And newer stuff like hater and hella, stuff that has 10 or 15 years under its belt.

I mean, these kids are using slang that was coined before they were born.

And that’s interesting, right?

Cuz we think of slang as being a passing thing.

Dimebag, they still use dimebag to mean a $10 bag of marijuana.

Although I imagine they’re getting less for their $10 than they used to get.

>> Yeah, well, there is a lot of sex, drugs, and rock and roll in the collection of slang there.

>> Well, of course, and it’s not just because they’re college students, it’s because they’re human, right?

These are things that interest us as humans.

There are a few that are new to me that I thought were worth pointing out.

I’ve never heard B-E-E-Z-Y to refer to a woman.

Though its history goes back through numerous editions of this book.

And tender or tendaroni, meaning a nice looking person, is another one that’s new to me.

>> Tenderoni.

>> Yeah, a tender is somebody who’s appealing, dates back to at least 1991.

Really interesting stuff here.

I should say that this book, when you talk about it, it sounds like some big august publication.

But it’s a petite publication, it’s very academic in the front matter and kind of informal in its production.

For me as a lexicographer, somebody who studies slang and new words, this is valuable because I can put this on my shelf and I know that I’ve got a pretty accurate representation of how people spoke in the late 2000s.

>> Yeah, well, I think it’s good for your nightstand too as well.

I mean, it’s a lot of fun, it’s pretty cool.

And we’re gonna tell you how to get a copy of the book.

Just go to our website, that’s waywordradio.org.

And if you wanna talk about slang or dictionaries or grammar, regional dialects, weird family sayings, you can always call 1-877-929-9673.

That number again is 1-877-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

>> Hello, you have A Way with Words.

>> Hi, Martha and Grant, this is Grace from Burlington, Vermont.

>> Well, hello, Grace, welcome.

>> Hi, Grace, welcome to the show.

>> Thank you.

>> What’s going on in Burlington?

>> Well, I was wondering if you could tell me about the word horseradish.

>> What would you like to know about it?

>> Where did it come from?

My husband brought one home this summer and we’ve used the jarred stuff before, but I’d never actually seen one.

And suddenly I felt like I know where the word comes from.

>> Oh, yeah?

>> Yeah, well, he disagrees.

But I think it’s because the horseradish itself is shaped much like a horse’s appendage.

And perhaps my mind is in the gutter, but I thought perhaps that’s where it comes from.

So I was hoping you could enlighten us.

>> This is a root vegetable, right?

>> Yes, I think so.

I haven’t seen it growing, but it is very tuber-like.

>> Okay, and your idea is that it’s called that because it looks like the member of a horse, an equine member, so to speak.

>> Exactly.

>> Fortunately, we don’t have to talk about that anymore because that’s actually not the origin of the word.

>> Oh, you’re disappointed.

>> But you do have a dirty mind.

We can confirm that for you.

>> And your husband should feel blessed because of that.

But no, actually, there are a number of food-related words, interesting enough, that all have the horse in there somewhere.

And it generally means a rough, crude, or large kind of thing.

So if you have horse parsley, it’s a rough, crude kind of parsley, or horse nettle, that kind of thing.

And the horseradish is the same thing because we have other kinds of radishes that are, you know, more petite and prim and stuff.

And they’re just not as like — it’s kind of brutish-looking root, isn’t it?

It’s like rough and stuff.

Yeah, it doesn’t have the smooth exterior of, say, a red radish.

>> Well, how big is it, Grace?

I mean, I guess now that you mentioned it, I’ve only seen it in the jar all chopped up.

>> The one we had was maybe about a foot tall.

>> Oh, wow.

>> Yeah, it was big.

>> What are you cooking with that?

>> We didn’t.

It sort of sat in the fridge and shriveled up, and then we composted it.

>> Oh, well, I guess that’s not a bad life for a radish, I guess.

I don’t care for horseradish myself.

But you know, if you get a chance, just a little bit of shaving of horseradish, not too much, on top of perfectly ordinary pasta will do amazing things with it.

>> Really?

>> And some dishes, not like drinks, but like some food dishes where they call for lemon zest, use just a little bit of scraping of horseradish instead, and you’ll also find that works.

>> Oh, that’s a good idea.

>> Yeah, that’s going to take a long time, though, with a foot-long horseradish.

>> Well, you know, that sounds like a community, that’s not a family-sized vegetable, that’s a community-sized vegetable.

You need to share that with the neighbors.

>> Okay.

>> Well, now, Grant, the idea of horse being large, like a horseradish being a really large one, is that the same idea that we see in, say, horse pill, you know, when you take one of those giant pills that you can hardly get down?

>> Yeah, because if you’ve seen a horse pill, a horse pill is big.

They’re monstrously huge.

>> Yeah.

>> They look like a loaf of bread.

I mean, I’m exaggerating, but they’re really big.

There is one theory that, apparently, in German, there’s a, and I’m not even going to try to pronounce this word, which one of the dialects of German has a word that also means mare’s radish for this exact same vegetable, and so there’s the idea that this is related to horses that actually exists in other languages.

So although I speak with firmness and I speak with conviction about the fact that this does not have anything to do with a horse appendage, we do find that, at least in one other language, that vegetable is connected to horses, so for what that’s worth.

>> And it’s probably not that they eat them.

It’s probably just the size or the roughness of them, huh?

>> I don’t think these have ever been typical horse fodder.

They’re just too hard to cultivate.

>> Okay.

Well, Grace, you do sound disappointed that it’s not, that your theory didn’t pan out.

>> Well, I like to be right, and it would’ve been a fun sort of etymological origin, but thank you.

I do appreciate knowing the answer.

>> Sure.

>> All right.

Well, thanks for calling, Grace.

Best of luck.

>> Thank you.

You too.

>> Bye-bye.

>> All right.

Bye-bye.

>> Bye-bye.

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

That’s 1-877-Wayword, W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

>> Hi.

This is Jimmy Alford.

>> Where are you calling us from?

>> Denton, Texas.

>> Well, welcome to the program, Jimmy.

>> I’m a big Scrabble freak.

I’ve been playing it, you know, nearly all my life, and one of the words that I’ve always used to get out of a particular situation is ZARF, Z-A-R-F.

And the only place I’ve ever seen it is in Scrabble.

And I know the meaning of it, it’s supposed to be a middle cup holder, but it just doesn’t sound like English to me.

I don’t know where the word comes from, and that’s why I called in about it.

>> ZARF.

Yeah, it sounds almost more like something you’d see in a comic book when somebody hits somebody, you know, punches them out.

ZARF.

>> Absolutely.

>> Z-A-R-F, right?

>> Yes, Z-A-R-F.

The only time I’ve ever used it is on the Scrabble board.

And, really, I mean, it’s part of, you know, it’s a good strategy to use it.

I’m kind of a strategic player, and it ends with an F, so you can block other players from playing off the end of it, you know, and things like that.

It’s just a great word, but, you know, I always get challenged.

You know, all these people are like, “That’s not a real word, it doesn’t sound like a real word.”

And I’m kind of at a loss of tone, you know, where it comes from.

>> All right.

Well, we can help you with that, definitely.

So the word is Z-A-R-F, and you said it means a cup holder, which is a good general definition of it.

>> A metal cup holder.

>> A metal cup holder, that’s right.

Another spelling of it is Z-U-R-F.

And this word comes to English from Arabic, and we borrowed it as early as 1800.

You can find it first written in English in that year in a listing of, talking about metals being sold from Germany to Greece, and I’m quoting here from the document, it says, “As being manufactured into Zarfs, a species of saucers, which are made to use for the support of coffee cups.”

And so this word is widespread in Arabic and Turkish and Persian.

I think it even appears in some of the North Indian languages, certainly the languages of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

You’ll also find it in some parts of Greece, traditionally, so it’s great.

It’s a historical word because it maps almost perfectly to the outer reaches of the Ottoman Empire.

>> I love it.

>> It’s a great word for that purpose.

Notice the definition that I mentioned there, something about a saucer.

It’s depending on the culture you’re in, it takes different forms.

So it’s not just a cup holder, sometimes it’s a very ornate silver or brass kind of container which you set your cup containing the scalding coffee in because it’s for those like really tiny little cups of coffee that you might drink, about the size of an espresso, maybe a little larger.

And in some dialects, it’s used just to mean any vessel or container, and it can even mean a container of time.

>> What do you mean a container of time?

>> Like the outer dimensions of a period of time is the zarf for that time.

>> Well, now, I like the idea of expanding the meaning of this.

In fact, I’m thinking when I go into Starbucks and the coffee comes in that really hot cup and they put the little jacket on it, why do we call it a zarf?

>> Instead of calling it a cozy, why not?

That would totally work, wouldn’t it?

>> Yes.

Jimmy, what do you think?

>> Absolutely.

That sounds like a great use of the word to get it to a little bit more mainstream.

>> Yeah.

>> And also, you know, it sounds, I mean, you know, for me, it’s more of a manly sounding word than cozy, you know.

I’d rather put my beer in a zarf than a cozy.

>> Yeah, or a koozie.

>> Yeah, or a koozie.

So there you go.

>> I like that.

Putting your beer in a zarf.

>> Yes.

>> You’re our kind of guy.

>> Yeah, you know.

>> You’re a big nerd and you like to play with words.

>> Absolutely.

I’m a big nerd who’s also a big guy, so.

>> Okay.

There we go.

>> I like it.

Drink it out of there.

>> Well, there you go.

>> Manly zarf.

>> So you use zarf freely.

By the way, thank you for alerting me to that word.

I wasn’t quite aware, but it does have special scrabble properties, doesn’t it?

>> Yes.

>> Well, Jimmy, thank you so much.

>> Well, thank you.

You have a good day.

>> Bye-bye.

>> What a nice, great — I can totally see why people think that’s fake.

It sounds like a made-up planet or some, like, science fiction novels.

>> Right.

I’m the planet zarf.

>> Yeah.

>> Right.

>> Well, we have a question about a word that you encountered that doesn’t seem quite real.

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send us an e-mail to words@waywordradio.org.

>> Grant, we got this question from Neil in Boston.

What word is an anagram of itself?

Do you have any idea?

>> What word is anagram?

>> Is this a trick question, so it’s an anagram of the word itself?

>> Yes.

Yes.

The word is stifle.

>> Stifle.

>> Stifle is an anagram of itself.

>> Genius.

I love those words.

It’s half about the meaning and half about the letters.

>> Got to love them.

Well, if you have a puzzle for us, a riddle, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an e-mail to words@waywordradio.org.

>> Stay tuned for a word puzzle.

What’s next as A Way with Words continues.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

>> And I’m Martha Barnette.

And joining us now is our quiz guide, John Chonesky.

John, what ho?

>> What ho?

I’m ho.

I’m right here.

And ho.

>> And are you?

>> Hi ho.

Hi ho.

Hey ho.

>> Hi ho.

It’s off to work we go.

And no, here’s a quiz.

No, it’s — let’s say hi and how you guys doing?

>> What have you been reading lately, John?

What’s on your bedside table?

>> You know, it’s funny you should mention that.

I have right in front of me now Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

>> Seriously.

>> Really?

>> Yeah.

>> Come on.

>> I’m trying to fill in some holes in my experience that I haven’t — I’ve never read Pride and Prejudice.

I just finished Love in the Time of Cholera.

>> Okay.

>> Great stories.

>> Yeah.

And they’re both just fantastic.

>> John, what do you have for us?

>> What do I have for you?

I have a really nice little quiz for you.

As evidenced by the fact that I’m, you know, reading books, I enjoy learning about new things.

I much enjoy learning about places and things that go by common names but actually have official names.

For example, here’s one that most people do know.

The monument called Liberty Enlightening the World is popularly known as what?

>> The Statue of Liberty.

>> That’s right.

Statue of Liberty.

Now, I’ll give you the official names of some places and things along with some clues and you tell me what they are popularly known as.

How’s that?

>> Ooh.

>> Wow.

Sounds exciting.

>> Okay.

>> Good.

We’ll start with some easy ones.

Here’s the first.

The Academy Awards of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

>> Really?

That’s what they call the Oscars?

>> That’s the official name of the Oscars, yes.

>> That’s awesome.

>> You can see why they shortened it to Oscars, yeah.

Here’s another.

The Great Bell of the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster.

>> Wow.

For real.

That’s Big Ben?

>> That’s Big Ben, yes.

The bell is actually Big Ben but commonly people refer to the clock tower and the clock.

>> Yeah.

That’s what it sounds like.

>> That’s Big Ben, right.

Here’s the next one.

The Volstead Act.

>> Prohibition.

>> Prohibition, right, right.

And similarly, if I refer to the Strategic Defense Initiative.

>> Star Wars.

>> Star Wars is right, yeah.

I also like to think of these as ways to really be a jerk around people.

You know, if you really want to say like, well, yes, I’ve studied the Volstead Act instead of, you know, prohibition.

You can just use the more formal term.

>> Don’t you think Grant and I need tips on that?

>> Well, no.

Yeah.

There might be somebody out there.

How about this?

This is more of a medical one.

Abdominoplasty.

>> Lipo?

>> No.

Not lipo.

>> Stomach stapling.

>> Stomach stapling is a little less but it’s more commonly known as…

>> Gastric bypass?

>> No.

No.

It’s actually not stomach stapling.

It’s…

>> Banding?

>> No.

It’s not inside.

It’s more…

>> More outside?

Tummy tuck?

>> It’s a tummy tuck, right?

>> Oh, there we go.

>> Very good.

Abdominoplasty.

>> Yeah.

Stomach stapling is inside.

That’s right.

Okay.

They’re both inside.

Inside?

Outside?

What are you talking about?

They’re both inside.

They’re both outside.

These next ones are a little more challenging, I hope.

Rapa Nui.

>> Rapa Nui?

Was that the animated film with the little mouse?

No.

>> Yeah.

No.

It’s an island, isn’t it?

>> Yes, it is.

>> Oh.

>> I don’t know which one, though.

>> Oh.

>> I’ll give you a hint.

This island was named by Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen on a Sunday in 1722.

>> Must be something Domingo then.

>> Yeah.

Easter Island.

>> Easter Island is right.

Rapa Nui.

Easter Island.

>> I’ll go Domingo.

>> I thought it was appropriate to talk about an island with big heads considering the three of us.

>> Yeah.

Right.

>> Yeah.

Here’s the next one.

Naval Support Facility Thurmont.

>> Thurmont?

>> What’s that last word?

Is that a place?

>> It’s a name.

T-H-U-R-M-O-N-T.

Thurmont.

Or Thurmont.

>> Oh, man.

And there are going to be all these Navy people who are just screaming at the radar.

>> Yeah, they know.

>> They’re part of their world.

It’s not part of mine, though.

I don’t know, John.

I have no idea.

>> Well, what’s a famous name?

>> Is it NORAD?

>> I’ll give you a little hint.

Let’s just say you were the President of the United States and you wanted to go away for a few days, you might go to Naval Support Facility Thurmont.

>> Camp David?

>> Camp David.

That’s right.

>> Oh, how about that?

That’s a good one.

>> Who knew?

How did you find all this stuff?

>> Got us good with that one, John.

>> Well.

Okay.

Here’s the next one.

The more popular name for sildenafil citrate.

>> Oh, Viagra?

>> Viagra.

Very good.

Boy, you were right on that one, Grant.

>> How’d you know that one?

>> Because I worked for a company when Viagra was — before it was even launched that was doing the advanced marketing on it.

>> Really?

>> Wow.

>> Did you come up with the name Viagra?

>> I did not.

No.

Actually, for a long time, most of the people on the inside — >> As it were. >> — pronounced it differently.

They did not pronounce it as Viagra.

>> What did they say?

Are you allowed to say?

>> They said it like Jay Leno still says it, which is Viagra or Viagra or stuff like that.

>> All right.

So here’s the last one.

Can you tell me the more popular name of arrangement and gray and black number one, the artist’s mother?

>> Yeah, that’s Whistler’s mother, right?

>> Whistler’s mother, yeah.

>> That’s Whistler’s mother, right.

This icon of American art is rarely seen in the U.S. As it is owned by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

>> I’ve got one for you.

>> Yeah.

>> It’s pretty simple, I think.

Car allowance rebate system.

>> That’s a — what did they call it again?

Cash for clunkers?

>> Yeah, that’s right.

>> Cash for clunkers, although now I think they’ve passed some little resolution saying that Cash for Clunkers counts as being the official name of the program.

>> Okay, guys, I’m going to Rapa Nui.

I’ll see you later.

>> All right.

>> Bye-bye.

>> Well, if you want to talk about language, call us, 1-877-929-9673.

>> That’s 1-877-Wayword, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org. Sign up today.

>> Hello, you have A Way with Words.

>> Hi, this is Kyle in Salt Lake City.

>> Hi, Kyle, welcome to the program.

>> Thank you.

>> What can we do you for?

This is a question that I wasn’t sure about.

Whenever she does something by mistake, she said it was done on accident, and I’d always heard the phrase as by accident, and so I was going to correct her, but then I realized that when we do something intentionally, we say we did it on purpose, and that got me thinking about, you know, whether we could use on purpose, by purpose, on accident, by accident, and then I also got thinking about why we even use the words on and by to begin with.

>> Wow, you’ve been busy.

And then you had to take a nap in the lie down.

>> Exactly.

>> Cold compress on your forehead.

>> Hey, Kyle, how old is your daughter?

>> She’s 13.

>> -huh.

This is great.

Isn’t it, Grant?

>> Yeah, yeah.

It totally fits the pattern, right?

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle, this may seem like a trivial question, but it’s actually something that gets linguists very excited.

>> Oh.

>> Here’s the deal, Kyle.

This is a great example of language changing between generations right under our noses.

I just love this.

The reason we’re so excited about this is that there has been some research done recently about this.

There’s a linguist at Indiana State University, Leslie Barrett, who noticed that her daughter and her daughter’s cousin did the same thing that you’re describing.

They said that happened on accident.

And she started looking around and she started researching this, and what she found doing surveys all around the country was that on accident is more prevalent if you’re 10 years old or younger, that either on or by is common between the ages of 10 and 35, and if you’re over 35, you almost always say by accident.

So what is going on?

>> Yeah, really.

>> Kyle, this is called age grading, and age grading is when something actually can be clearly defined according to a peer group, almost always marked by age, sometimes marked by other things, but by age is the best indicator.

And the transformation that’s happening here is so significant that we get the emails from people who are kind of like Leslie Barrett before she did her research.

They’re saying, “Wait a second, I’ve got like six or seven emails here that I can find right away and probably more that we’ve received over the years about this.”

They’re like, “Wait a second.

I don’t say this.

My husband doesn’t say this.

Nobody I know except my children say this.

What’s happening here?

Is this test wrong?”

And this is kind of where you’re headed, right?

>> Right, right.

>> Now, do your daughter’s peers say that, her classmates or friends?

>> I haven’t heard her friends say that, but I have an eight-year-old son who I noticed.

After I noticed my daughter saying it, I noticed my son saying it.

>> -huh.

So Kyle, I guess the bottom line is that if you’re over 35, you’re almost certainly gonna use by accident, and if you’re younger than 35, you’re gonna use one or the other on accident or by accident.

And if you’re really young, you’ll almost certainly use on accident, and the weird thing is that we don’t know why.

>> That is interesting.

Great.

>> And Kyle, you see why this gets us so excited.

>> Yes.

Yes, I do.

And that’s fascinating.

>> Well, thank you for calling.

I hope we helped.

>> Well, thank you very much.

>> Okay.

>> Bye-bye.

>> Thanks, Kyle.

Bye-bye.

>> Good-bye.

>> Are your kids talking funny?

Let us know about it.

1-877-929-9673.

>> Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

>> Hi.

This is Kara.

>> Yeah.

>> I’m calling from Kittery Point, Maine.

>> Well, Kara, what are you thinking about there in Kittery?

>> Well, I have a question for you that it’s something that I’ve wondered for a long time now.

But when I was, I don’t know, maybe 14 years old, I at night would read a little bit of the dictionary.

>> Oh, you’re one of those.

>> When I was lying in bed.

>> No, I was just thinking, you’re one of those.

>> No, she’s one of us.

Great.

>> I don’t think that was really typical behavior of me as a teenager, but I did at least have a phase or a period of time where I did that most nights.

>> Oh, just a phase.

>> And I remember finding a word that meant to read by candlelight.

And I feel like it actually said to read late into the night by candlelight, but I think I might have added that part.

And now it’s been so long that I, you know, it crosses my mind now and then, but I almost feel like, did I make that up or because I don’t remember the word, I just remember the definition.

>> Mm—

And you did it.

>> So can you help me?

>> Yes.

>> I think we can.

This is like a movie, isn’t it?

>> Yes, there is such a word.

I didn’t make it up.

>> No, you didn’t make it up.

How about this word?

See if this word rings a bell, lucubrate, L-U-C-U-B-R-A-T-E.

>> Well, that would make sense because I probably would not have remembered that word.

>> Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah.

>> I mean, that’s kind of an unusual word.

>> Yeah, I’ve never heard anyone use it actually, but you know what, the thing is, I was reading the dictionary late at night one time too when I was a teenager and came across that word.

>> You’re kidding.

>> No, no.

>> How many people are out there that this is teenager?

>> Two.

>> You found that word and that is what it means to read by candlelight?

>> Yeah, it comes from the Latin lucubrate, which means to work at night by candlelight and the L-U-C in there is related to a lot of words involving light like lucid and elucidate.

And lucubrate originally meant to work by candlelight and it came over time to me sort of right in the scholarly fashion and it’s also sort of over time it took on sort of a joking sense too of being a little too-too in your writing, just overworked writing, writing that’s so overworked that you stayed up all night writing it.

>> Yeah, the word lucubration itself could be called what’s known as an “ink horn” term, which means it’s a word used by people to show off their intellectual abilities.

>> Right.

People like you and me, Kara.

>> If I didn’t like words as much, I could have just let it go a long time ago, but it stuck with me so I’m so glad to finally know what that was and I have to write it down as soon as I get off the phone or I might forget again.

>> Good idea.

Lucubrate.

L-U-C-U-B-R-A-T-E.

Lucubrate.

>> Thank you.

>> All right, Kara.

Happy reading.

>> All right, thanks.

Bye-bye.

>> Thanks for calling.

>> If you’ve been lucubrating and come across a term that you’re not sure about, give us a call at 1-877-9299673 or email us at that address, words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, I’m looking at this collection of slang from UCLA, and one of the expressions that intrigues me here is “awkward turtle.”

Have you heard this?

>> I’ve heard it, but I don’t know very much about it.

>> It’s interesting to me.

I mean, you say it in an awkward situation, and it’s accompanied by a hand gesture, which involves, according to this, one hand placed palm down on the back of the other hand and both outstretched thumbs wiggling.

I guess it’s like a turtle on its back or something, but I don’t know what it sounds like.

I guess that’s what it looks like.

>> Oh, well, that I do know.

I’ve heard it, but people usually say, “Awkward turtle,” like that.

>> Oh, really?

When somebody commits a faux pas, it’s awkward turtle.

>> Yeah, it’s kind of the same sing-songy tone that you use when you say, “Too much information.”

There’s a few things in English that we say that way.

>> I like that.

I’m going to try that, but I’m afraid I’m going to get the hand gesture wrong.

>> Well, Martha, it is something for the young people.

>> Yeah, that’s true, for the youngins.

>> Yeah, I don’t know.

It’s completely outside my experience.

It’s definitely people who are 10, 15, even 20 years younger than me using it.

>> Well, if you want to tell us how to make an awkward turtle, give us a call, or if you want to talk about any other kind of slang.

The number is 1-877-9299673, or send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.

>> Hello, you have A Way with Words.

>> Hi, how are you doing?

>> Hi, doing fine.

Who’s this?

>> This is Ryan, calling from Orange County, California.

>> Hi, Ryan.

Welcome.

>> Well, what can we do for you?

>> We’re just talking about handwriting and just different styles and whatnot, and it led me to think about jumping down south with my girlfriend from Orange County, San Diego, and was called in to basically make the comment that my mother, my father, both left-handed, both were forced to write right-handed growing up, and I went to school and whatnot.

And my dad was kind of — they got off that track when my dad wouldn’t really comply with the request.

My mom was forced with tying her hand behind her back, hiding right-handed, and she still does to this day.

>> Oh, my gosh.

Wow.

>> They literally tied her hand behind her back.

They physically tied her hand behind her back.

>> Oh, my gosh.

>> In her school.

So — >> This is a public school?

>> Yeah.

It actually was in Lemon Grove in San Diego County, which I thought she was schooled mostly in Idaho, so I learned a lot myself.

And my dad tried to do the same thing.

It didn’t really work out, but my mom is still to this day right-handed.

>> Does she do anything with her left hand?

>> Yeah.

She ethos-handed.

She golfs left-handed.

She does all of her sports.

She was a college athlete and did all of her sports left-handed.

>> And Ryan, what does her handwriting look like?

>> It’s unique, to say the least.

I don’t have some background in terms of phrases used, but it’s actually loopy and it’s large.

I mean, she probably can’t write in a single-line college paper if life depended on it.

I mean, she has these big letters, very exaggerated curves and whatnot, so — >> You know, that happened with my grandmother, too.

She was forced to write right-handed when she was clearly left-handed, and I have never seen handwriting ever like hers.

I mean, as you said, it’s unique.

I’d know it anywhere.

I loved seeing it on those checks that came in with the birthday cards every time.

It made it a little more special.

>> There’s a number of books that I can recommend.

One of them I’ll mention right away is Handwriting in America, a cultural history by Tamara Thornton.

Just a great, good summary.

Goes very much into this kind of thing.

The handedness really comes into play here and also talks about the methods by which we force people to write like us, and it’s very funny.

Handwriting behaves like language.

We expect people to write like us, and certainly in schools, it’s a place where they enforce a very strict — second, third, fourth, whatever grades — they enforce a very strict alphabet.

You must start your letter at this point on the page and finish it here, that sort of thing.

>> Do you think this still occurred in this day and age when it was more prevalent a few years ago, I would imagine?

>> That’s right, yeah.

It was more prevalent a couple generations ago.

It does still happen here.

You’ll still find it in parochial schools.

>> Really?

>> Yeah, definitely.

It still happens, and there are a lot of old myths about handwriting and handedness that aren’t true.

People will sometimes tell you that to be left-handed indicates that you’re — well, good or bad.

They’ll say that means that you’re more likely to commit mischief, or they’ll say you’re more likely to be brilliant.

Both of these things are statistically shown to be false.

In the Middle East, for example, even in France, they practically beat left-handedness out of you.

And in the Middle East, it’s different, because there’s a hand you eat with, and there’s a hand you do your business with.

And so there’s other cultural reasons for it there.

Do you know the word that means “written towards the left”?

>> I do not.

>> Levo graphic.

L-E-V-O-G-R-A-P-H-I-C.

Levo graphic.

>> Oh, “levo” from Latin, “liwus,” meaning “left.”

>> Yeah.

Exactly.

>> I didn’t know that.

Well, thanks a lot, Ryan.

Thanks for calling.

>> Thank you very much.

>> All right.

Bye-bye.

>> Take care.

Bye.

>> If you’ve got something you’d like to tell us about your family, something to do with the language, handwriting’s language-related, right?

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

Pronunciation, spelling, grammar, old sayings, jokes, riddles, laughter, that kind of thing.

>> Bring ’em on.

>> Bring ’em on.

1-877-929-9673.

>> Or send an e-mail to words@waywordradio.org.

>> By the way, isn’t hyperbole just the best thing ever?

More from “A Way with Words” coming up.

>> You’re listening to “A Way with Words.”

I’m Martha Barnette.

>> And I’m Grant Barrett.

Last year on the program, we talked about David Crystal’s book, “Texting the Great Debate.”

In this book, David laid out the idea that the new language that was occurring online in text messages and instant messaging and e-mail and Twitters and tweets and so forth, that these kinds of modes of writing and transmitting information weren’t harming the language at all.

And in fact, that they represented a new way of expression that was just as valid as any other way we’ve expressed ourself in long form or short form, aloud or in print.

And here’s another study that we find that says exactly the same thing.

Andrea Lunsford of Stanford University has done a study of Stanford students, a longitudinal study, over a series of years, in which she examined their kinds of writing, online and off, for classwork and not for classwork, and discovered, as she puts it, that we are in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization.

In other words, she feels like all of this extra writing that young people are doing, and by young, let’s say, college age and younger, is helping them, that it’s encouraging their ability to express themselves and to communicate and to write better English, write more thoroughly, to speak more precisely, and to say what they mean, and to say it in the way that it suits the audience.

And I think, Martha, the reason I bring this up is because it confirms something that I’ve encountered repeatedly, which is even though you tell people this, they tend to disallow it.

And I was reading Wired magazine where Clive Thompson wrote an article about the Lunsford study for Stanford, and almost all of the comments ignore the evidence.

Almost all of the comments say that can’t possibly be true, or it’s counter to my experience that today’s kids are stupid, and somehow that they’re lacking in the intellectual strength of the prior generations.

And my response to that, and you’ve probably heard this before, and forgive me, Martha, but I’m going to say it again, my response to that is if you believe that the kids today are stupider, you’re considering the wrong kids.

You’re comparing the best of your generation with the worst of this one, because today’s kids, they’re fantastically brilliant.

They’re so smart, I can’t even believe it.

I don’t know where those kids were when I was growing up, but I didn’t know them.

And frankly, the best of this generation is the best of any generation, as far as I can tell.

Okay, maybe they don’t suit your idea of great and good and strong, or maybe their idea of being great at communicating online doesn’t match with sitting down with a quill pen and an ink bottle and scrubbing something out on parchment.

It’s a different kind of literacy, but they write more per day, seriously, I kid you not, than previous generations wrote in a year.

They write astonishing quantities of information, thousands of words a day.

It is true.

It is true, and it’s really hard for people to swallow that.

It’s like a big horse pill.

People just, and the media love to grab onto that story and just run with it.

The idea that texting is making kids stupid.

I mentioned the Clive Thompson article in Wired.

His closing line is a great summary of this idea here.

The kids know their audience.

They know who to write for.

They know how to write academic papers.

It’s true.

You have to teach them.

We all had to learn.

We all had to learn that the kind of stuff that we would write in the back of the yearbook wasn’t the same kind of stuff that you would write at the top of a paper or that you would put in an essay that was going to give you your final grade for a class.

We all had to learn that, right?

Well, yeah, and I think that’s really key, because as I understand it, studies show that kids do know how to code switch from one way of speaking and writing to another, right?

You rarely see, for example, the word “late” spelled with the numeral “ate” in an academic paper, right?

In a school paper.

No, and if you do see it, it’s an exception.

It’s not the rule, and it’s a rare exception.

Clive Thompson puts it this way.

What today’s young people know is that knowing who you’re writing for and why you’re writing might be the most crucial factor of all.

We’ll post links to the Lunsford study on our website, as well as a link to the Clive Thompson’s article in Wired magazine, which has a pretty good summary of it.

And if you’ve got comments about the way young people speak and write today, do let us know.

Dissenters, welcome.

The number’s 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAY-WORD, or you can send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, there.

Hey, who’s this?

Hi, this is John from Minneapolis.

Hi, John.

Welcome to the program.

Hi, John.

Hi, there.

Thanks.

I’m originally from Rhode Island, and in Rhode Island, we use the word “bubbler” to mean a water fountain.

Or as we say in Rhode Island, a bub-blah.

Bub-blah.

Bub-blah.

And it’s used throughout the state.

And when I moved to Massachusetts, I lived in Boston for a couple of years, and people didn’t really know what it was in Massachusetts.

And then when I moved, so I just thought of it as one of those Rhode Island-only words.

And I moved to Minnesota in 1994, and at the time, people here didn’t know what it was.

But when I visited Wisconsin, people there knew what it was.

And so I was trying to figure out why Wisconsin would know what the word means, but none of the states in between or in Minnesota would know what it means.

And so my question is kind of a threefold question.

The first is, where was the word originally coined?

And I’m told that it was in Wisconsin by the company that made the water fountains for schools, but I’m not sure that’s correct.

And then, if so, how did it make its way to Rhode Island without making its way through any of the other states in between?

And then, are there other states between Rhode Island and Wisconsin that actually use this word?

Great questions.

And you’re right that, apparently, one of the earliest references appears to be from the Kohler Company.

I guess there’s a Kohler, Wisconsin there?

Okay.

And K-O-H-L-E-R, I think I have a Kohler toilet, as a matter of fact.

Oh, sure.

I think that, yeah.

I think they make plumbing supplies.

Yeah.

But back in 1915 or so, they introduced a bubbling valve that made little water fountains bubble.

What year?

That way.

Early 1900s.

I think 1914, 1915, something like that.

Okay.

Yeah, because I find some uses of it in 1914 from Pennsylvania.

Now, that’s interesting.

Yeah.

Because I know that they’ve done a lot of research on this at the Dictionary of American Regional English.

And what they’ve found is that the marketing area for the Kohler Company in eastern Wisconsin in 1915 almost exactly matches where the word “bubbler” was used then.

And then, yeah, what happened?

Was there some kind of linguistic catapult that shot it all the way over to Rhode Island?

The truth is we don’t know.

And there are a couple of theories about it that maybe it just sort of died out in between Rhode Island and in Wisconsin.

And it’s complicated, too, by the fact that in Portland, Oregon, I think it was called the Benson Bubbler.

I think somebody adapted that.

And so you’ll find it in Portland, Oregon, too.

So it’s one of these odd words.

I mostly associate it with Wisconsin, but I know in Rhode Island and part of Massachusetts and a few other places in between, you’ll hear it, but mostly concentrated in those places.

And it is a mystery.

Interesting.

When I moved out of Rhode Island, people looked at me like I was very strange when I set in.

When I moved to, I just sort of resigned to the fact that it was a Rhode Island word.

And then all of a sudden I met someone from Wisconsin who used it and I thought, “Wait a minute.”

You said, “Brother!”

Yeah, exactly.

My cousin.

So, yeah, well, that’s good to know, I think.

I mean, it still doesn’t explain how the states in between don’t use it, but I guess we’ll never know.

Well, unless we have some big linguistic discovery, but it’s something that’s puzzled professionals.

That’s all I can tell you.

Well, thank you very much.

That’s good to know.

All right.

Thank you so much for calling us, John.

Sure.

Have a nice day.

Okay.

Thanks.

You too.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

If you have a question about an odd word, give us a call.

Call us at 1-800-967-3 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Shelby Garcia.

Hi, Shelby.

Welcome to the program.

Where are you calling from?

Midlothian.

Where?

Midlothian.

People always have to ask me to say that twice.

What state is that?

It’s in Texas, and it’s actually south of Dallas.

So what’s going on down there in Midlothian?

Well, actually, my dad and I were very curious about the word ignoramus.

My father’s last name, my maiden name is actually Ramos, but in this area, very country area, they pronounce it ramus.

Naturally, yeah, he was always teased.

I think he actually said they used to call him igna in school.

And so with that negative connotation, we were just kind of curious, really, where that word came from and what it means exactly, because I’ve only heard it used negatively, so I’m just curious.

They called him igna ramus.

Yeah, it’s really ramus if you pronounce it correctly because it’s a Spanish lesson.

Sure.

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, you and your dad can tell people that the story behind this word is actually really interesting.

And it involves a Latin word, which is, of course, related to Spanish, and it involves a comedy from the 17th century.

So here’s the deal, ignoramus in Latin is we are ignorant.

And it used to be in the English judicial system that if a grand jury didn’t have enough evidence to indict somebody, they would write that on the back of the brief.

They would say ignoramus, meaning we don’t know if there’s enough evidence to convict somebody.

Okay.

So it’s sort of the Latin way of saying, “I don’t know.”

And in 1615, there was a guy named George Ruggal who decided to make fun of lawyers.

And he wrote a farce that was called ignoramus.

And the lead character in it was a lawyer.

And that’s what they called him, ignoramus, or ignoramus.

I don’t know how they were pronouncing it back.

I heard it pronounced both ways.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, they were pronouncing it one way or the other back in the 17th century, but it was this play that was mostly in Latin.

It had some English, and it must have been a real knee slapper because it went on for six hours.

So anyway, I don’t know if that’s any comfort, but the fact is that this word ignoramus does have sort of a long and illustrious history.

I mean, it’s kind of interesting, isn’t it, that it comes from Latin?

It does mean a dummy, though.

It does mean a dummy.

It’s never been used in a nice way, and not since it left legal circles.

Yeah.

I know.

I’m not sure it’s that much comfort.

Well, it’s very funny.

It’s okay.

It’s good to know anyway, because I’ve never…

And I wasn’t able to find much on the Internet, so that’s good.

Thank you for that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Internet has holes.

We try to fill them.

Yes.

Well, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

We enjoy your show a lot.

Thank you.

Glad to hear it, Shelby.

Thanks for calling.

Thank you so much.

Clearly, you’re not an ignoramus.

No.

I would hope not.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’d like a version of a word, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

And don’t forget that you can follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/Wayword.

Sure, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but will giving vegetables different names encourage preschoolers to eat more of them?

Well, it turns out a professor at Cornell University actually got money to study this very question with a group of four-year-olds.

It seems that in this study, 186 children were given regular carrots for lunch, and then the next day, they were given carrots that were renamed X-ray vision carrots.

And on that day, the kids ate twice as many, and the same thing proved true for power peas, dinosaur broccoli trees, and tomato bursts, further proving that language is powerful.

Grant, does that work with you and your kid?

It does actually work with my son.

My son is about two and a half, and if you feed him stuff at the table, he won’t eat it.

But if you say, “Oh, here’s a snack,” and put the exact same thing in a bowl and set it next to him off of the table, he’ll eat it, just because he understands that snack is somehow special and the meal at the table isn’t.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you could have gotten grant money to research this even further with your kid.

Let me get on that.

Okay.

Call us with your questions about language, 1-877-929-9673, or send them to us by email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant.

This is Matt in San Diego calling.

Hey, Matt.

Welcome to the show.

Hi, Matt.

Hey, Martha.

Hi, what’s up?

Well, I have questions relating to the letter and the vowel W, and my question goes way back to second grade, where I can remember my second grade teacher explaining that the vowels are A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y and W, and then she went through and, of course, she gave us examples for all those things, except for W, and then she just sort of said, “Well, and W doesn’t happen very often,” and I remember as a federal kid going, “Well, that doesn’t work for me.

Give me an example,” and she never did.

And then, if you fast forward in my life about 13 or 14 years, I’m in college and I’m taking a geology class, and the professor is talking about glaciers and landforms, and he says, “Well, here’s this particular feature, and it’s called a coom, C-W-M,” and that was my first example of a word that uses W as a vowel.

Oh, wow.

So, you stood up in class and just screamed, “Eureka!”

Pretty much.

Yeah, and have you run into any others?

You know, I mentioned this to a friend, and I can’t remember the word now, but there was another word that they mentioned that was a musical instrument, and it started with K-W, and I can’t recall, but I did happen to look up in my geologic dictionary, because I ended up proceeding in geology, because that was such an incredible experience.

I just decided I had to study geology.

Because of coom?

No.

Because of running across the word “coom”?

I say that tongue-in-cheek.

Oh, okay.

All right.

But anyways, I did look it up in my geologic dictionary, and it happens to be a Welsh word, and this musical instrument that starts with K-W also was a Welsh word, so I do know that much, but it just strikes me as kind of a funny letter in that it’s W, was it really two U’s?

What’s going on with that?

What is up with W?

Yeah.

The letter.

Exactly.

Right.

Well, yeah, and the other word that you’re thinking of is “cruth,” and I haven’t seen it.

Grant, have you seen it spelled with a K?

I’ve seen it spelled with a C.

C-R-W-T-H, which is some kind of Celtic instrument.

As you said.

Yeah.

So I can see why you were sort of disappointed in your teacher that she would say this.

And actually, I never had a teacher like that growing up that said W was sometimes a vowel.

Did they say that to you, Grant?

No.

I learned that as an adult.

Where did you go to school, Matt?

In Los Angeles, L.A.

Unified School District.

And from what I understand from my friends, I don’t think they teach W as a vowel to kids currently.

Yeah.

I think that’s such a tiny corollary.

I can’t imagine teaching that to second-graders.

I could see why I would be left out because it’s a little more complicated than the other vowels.

Right.

Except for these foreign words.

And let’s face it, these Welsh words aren’t fully adopted in English.

We have alternate spellings of “cum,” for example, that are more common.

But W only acts as a vowel if it’s with other vowels in regular English words.

Right.

This is a thing that your second-grade teacher probably didn’t bother to explain, probably didn’t want to go into, the fact that W forms a diphthong with other vowels.

So that diphthong meaning when you have two vowels together and it forms an entirely different sound.

Right.

Like, for example, you have the letters B-O and then you add a W to it and it makes that O sound completely different, right?

Right.

Or C-O and you add the W and it makes that O sound different.

You go from “co” to “cow” and the W is sort of a vowel-like sound there.

Right.

So, yes, as Grant said, those oddball Welsh words are just kind of borrowing.

So that’s not really what she was talking about.

But I wonder if your teacher even knew what she was talking about.

Right.

If it was just something she was parodying out of a book.

Could well be.

Yeah.

Well, Matt, I hope we’ve helped with W.

Absolutely.

Thanks, guys.

All right.

Bye-bye.

If you have a question about something your second-grade teacher told you and never explained fully, about language, give us a call at 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

That’s our show for this week.

If you didn’t get on the air today, you can leave us a message anytime.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or email us.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.

Or drop by “A Way with Words” online.

You can chat with fellow word lovers by going to waywordradio.org/discussion.

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 Josette Hurdell and Jennifer Powell.

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

And from San Francisco, I’m Grant Barrett.

Thanks to Paula and Cora for engineering our show from the studios of KQED Radio.

Hoda fes.

Bye-bye.

You say neither, and I say neither, either, either, neither, neither, let’s call the whole thing off.

You like potato, and I like potato, you like tomato, and I like tomato, potato, potato, tomato, tomato, let’s call the whole thing off.

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