Beat the Band (episode #1431)

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 that feeling when you’re on a plane or a train or a bus and other people are boarding?

And you’re sitting there and you really, really, really hope the seat next to you doesn’t get taken?

You know that feeling, Grant.

And do you have little strategies or behaviors that you use to keep people off the seat?

I do the same thing they say to defend against some animals.

I make myself look big.

I put my arms akimbo, kind of like puff up a little bit, sit up straight.

And people are like, oh, I don’t want to sit next to that guy.

He’s hogging her.

That guy.

Try to look sweaty.

There are words for those kinds of behaviors.

Oh, there are.

Yes.

What are they?

Well, they’re brand new words, actually.

Oh, okay.

And they are really clever words that are part of a new ad campaign by the Irish rail system.

It’s called Give Up Your Seat.

And they’ve done this really clever thing where if you’re sitting on a train there, you can look up and there are these beautiful signs and they look like beautiful dictionary entries, one word per sign.

So, for example, here’s one.

Frummaging.

And it says verb, frummaging.

The act of faking a rummage in one’s bag for something that does not exist.

Fromagers have also been known to place their bag on the seat beside them so as to deter any potential neighbors.

Oh, that totally is what people… I don’t do that.

I know that move.

You don’t fromage?

No.

And the thing is, it allows you to avoid eye contact.

Exactly.

There’s that.

And then here’s another one.

Snoofing.

Snoofing?

You know what snoofing is?

That’s the practice of feigning a dormant state or spoofing a snooze in order to avoid any interaction with other passengers,

least of all having to relinquish one’s seat.

I don’t do that one.

Never that one either.

You’ve never snooved.

No, and snoofers, I call them on it because I’m like, oh, he’s sleeping.

He won’t mind if I scoot him over.

Well, I just thought this was a brilliant ad campaign for give up your seat.

That’s great, right?

They’ve got a hashtag, give up your seat.

And we have Ellen Garrett of Oberlin, Ohio, to thank for calling this to our attention.

She just got back from Ireland, and these signs are all over the train cars,

and I’ll share some more later in the show.

I bet those hang on.

And they become really negative and pejorative fast.

We’d love to hear from all you fromagers and snoofers out there.

Call us 877-929-9673 with your language question or send it to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Aaron West.

I’m calling from Northern California in Crescent City.

I have a question here that perhaps you guys are the only ones who can answer.

And it’s been really bugging me for a while now.

You see, here in Crescent City, I review garage sales for the newspaper here.

Oh, my gosh.

You’re like Yelp for garage sales.

I’m imagining Rotten Tomatoes, but instead of tomatoes, he uses stained mattresses.

Yeah, there’s a lot of stained mattresses out there, actually.

I even got one for free.

So I have this problem, however, and that’s when I’m reviewing the garage sale,

post-garage sale, and I’m writing about it, I’ve become, like, when I say garage sale a lot,

and when I’m talking about garage sales, which is basically the only conversations I have,

I can say, oh, yeah, we went yard selling, we went garage selling, a garage seller, that sort of thing.

But when I’m writing it in the review, it’s a little more difficult because it’s hard to make the distinction

between someone who is garage selling,

garage selling,

like, are they having a garage sale?

Are they shopping at garage sales?

What are they doing, right?

I mean, and do you distinguish

between the ones who are serious about it

and the ones who are just,

this is a neighbor.

I’ll just check out their stuff

and learn things about my neighbor.

Oh, I can definitely,

I can smell those guys for sure, definitely.

Because I do that.

When there’s garage sales down the street,

I go, I’m not interested in their junk,

like, I’m like, oh, so that’s what you’re into.

Are you one of those people?

Yeah, you peruse.

And do you go, you know, they say the garage sale starts at 8, but people show up at 6 a.m.

Are you one of those?

Does that happen?

Oh, the early bird.

Does that happen up there where you are, Aaron?

Oh, it happens everywhere, all around us.

Yeah, I even did a special edition of the garage sale review specifically focused on early birds and their cutthroat tactics.

Really?

Nice.

One guy told me that he was chased out of a church with a broom because he’d arrived too early.

It’s scary out there.

Aaron, is your publication online?

Because this sounds like something I want to read every morning with my coffee.

Thegaragesalereview.com.

All right.

We’re checking it out, dude.

And you know what?

I don’t even know if we have…

Check it out, man.

But let’s zero on the language thing here.

Your problem is, what do you call a person…

What is a person doing when they go to one of these sales, right?

That’s kind of your question?

Right.

Because you can say, oh, yeah, I went garage selling, right?

Selling, S-E-L-L?

I guess so.

But then also when I’m writing it and when I’m talking about it in maybe a chat online or something, people will say garage sailing, like they’re sailing a boat perhaps.

Or they’ll also say garage selling, garage sailors, garage sellers.

And it’s just really ambiguous.

And in the end, I’ve been relegated to writing garage sale shopping or garage sale proprietor.

I can throw something in here that might add a little bit of clarity to what we’re talking about.

There is a vowel merger taking place in this part of the country that you’re talking about,

where sale, S-A-L-E, and sell, S-E-L-L, sound a lot alike.

And that’s part of your confusion.

So garage sale.

That definitely plays into it, Grant.

Garage sale could be garage sale or garage sell.

As the leader of your field is like the top dog in the garage sale review industry.

Because clearly you are.

I can just tell by talking to you.

I’m going to do warm my heart.

You’re the Roger Ebert of garage sales.

Yes.

You’re in a position to create the lingo that everyone else uses.

That’s true.

Use your power.

That’s true.

Just come up with something that works for you.

Yes.

And just stick to it.

Yes.

Be like Walter Winchell.

He used to do this.

I was going to say, just like variety.

Yeah, variety.

They set some of the lingo in Hollywood on like an 80-year lifespan.

They just invented it on the spur of the moment because their headline was too long, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

I like garage saling.

I really appreciate this advice.

I really appreciate it.

I just didn’t want to tread on any toes by just throwing some terms out there, you know.

But now that I’ve been given permission by you guys, I feel like I can move forward.

Oh, man, you own it.

In return, though, Aaron, I only want one thing.

I am on a long-term quest for tablespoon-sized slotted spoons.

Slotted spoons that are the size.

What was the size?

Tablespoons.

So they’re basically a tablespoon, but they’re slotted.

I want these for serving like, you know, like wet fruit in a bowl.

So the liquid are, you know, vegetables with water.

So the water drains off.

I can’t find them.

So in return for giving you this great advice, because it’s really solid.

I know that it is.

I want slotted spoons if you find them.

Okay.

And if you find a Hello Kitty humidifier, that’s what I want.

Hello Kitty humidifier and a slotted spoon.

Yeah.

A tablespoon size, not the big ones.

I will keep my eyes open.

Okay.

Aaron, do me a favor.

Send us a link to your website.

We’ll try to make sure the whole world knows about it.

And let us know if any of the terms you come up with stick, all right?

Definitely I will.

Thank you, guys.

I listen all the time.

It’s a great show.

Thank you.

This is like one of the all-time favorite calls already.

Back at you.

Oh, that’s very exciting.

Guys, I will look for your spoons and your humidifiers for the rest of my life until I find them.

Don’t worry.

Okay, right on.

I’ll contact you when I get them.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Take it easy.

Bye-bye.

You too.

Who knew there was a thing?

Who knew?

Who knew?

Now, I have to say, I love the terms garage sailing and yard sailing.

I’ve heard people, yard sailors, use that.

And I just, I love the image of sort of flying along on a magic carpet, you know, down the block.

Yeah, it’s got some of the sunny blue sky aspects of a sloop on the harbor, right, with your lover or something like that, right?

I think it’s no surprise that all this show is ostensibly about words and language.

Original language are woven into literally everything.

It’s life.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Or talk about it on our really active Facebook group.

Just look for A Way with Words.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Rick Howell calling from Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

Hi, Rick. Welcome to the show.

Hello, Rick. What can we do for you?

Well, I was wondering, my grandmother used to have a saying, and I don’t know if it was she made it up or if it’s bigger than that.

Anyway, she used to say sometimes that you look like the wreck of the Hespers.

And when she said that, it was usually if you look kind of a little tattered and torn maybe, and like you’d been through a battle or something.

And I didn’t know if she made that up or if it was based on something historical.

-huh, the wreck of the Hespers, did you say? How would you spell that?

I don’t know, actually.

I just heard her say it, but I think it’s like H-E-S-P-E-R-S.

At least that’s how I heard it.

There’s something to it.

There is something to it.

She didn’t have the name of the wreck exactly right.

Oh, okay.

The name of the wreck is the Hesperus, H-E-S-P-E-R-U-S, Hesperus.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Okay.

And if you look that up, it’s a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow back in 1842.

He published this poem.

And it’s a poem about a terrible, terrible shipwreck, about a captain who takes his daughter to sea.

And the boat gets just busted to smithereens by a storm.

And she’s lashed to the mast and drifting in the water, dying.

And it’s horrible.

And all this stuff washes up on shore.

And it’s just, I mean, if you look like the wreck of the Hesperus, you look pretty bad.

Yeah, it’s all written on, he wrote this based on the blizzard of 1839 off the coast of Massachusetts, where something like 20 ships foundered and 40 some odd lives were lost.

It was a really big deal at the time.

Apparently there wasn’t really a Hesperus.

He may have combined a few names and a few facts together to make one story.

But this is the kind of poem, not this day and age, but there was a time where this is what you would memorize in class, in school.

This is the poem that you would have to present at the end of the year during the, you know, your equivalent of the finals or when the parents came to see what you’d been studying.

Right, right. PTA night or something like that.

Yeah, something like that.

Hands behind your back reciting it, you know.

Exactly. Up on the stage.

And, yeah, the language is simple enough and the story is dramatic enough.

I mean, it’s really sort of disaster literature.

It’s pretty gripping.

Wow, we must have looked awful when she said that to us.

Apparently so.

Yeah, there’s been a little bit of amelioration of what it means to look like the wreck of the Hesperas.

Wow.

Thanks, Rick.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Take care now.

Take care, yeah.

All right.

Appreciate it.

Bye-bye, Rick.

It includes such brilliant parts as this.

Oh, Father, I see a gleaming light.

Oh, say, what may it be?

But the Father answered never a word.

A frozen corpse was he.

Oh, oh.

But, you know, if you’re an elementary school kid, that’s pretty cool, right?

Yeah, yeah.

This is your roadside accident to look at.

You’re a looky-loo for this poem, right?

19th century looky-loos, yes.

Slowly driving by.

It’s a little melodramatic, though, right?

I read it, and it makes my heart race.

It is out of copyright.

You can find the full version of The Wreck of the Hesperus all over the Internet.

Yes, with beautiful illustrations.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Yes.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Your questions, our answers.

It’s all about learning how to listen to language.

Stay with us.

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.

And joining us on the line from New York City is our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Hi, Martha. Hi, Grant.

What’s up, bud?

Well, I have a puzzle for you guys that has to do with a movie this week.

Oh.

A movie this week.

A movie, right.

Do you know the name Jack Waltz?

W-O-L-T-Z.

Jack Waltz.

Is that familiar to you?

Was he in Glorious Bastards?

No.

No?

Oh, you’re thinking of Christoph Waltz.

Yes, that’s what I’m thinking of.

He’s great, but no.

Jack Waltz is a film character.

In the classic film The Godfather, Jack Waltz was the studio executive who refused to cast Vito Corleone’s godson, Johnny Fontaine, in a movie that would revive his career.

Now, when Johnny asks his godfather if he can help, the Don says, I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.

Okay.

Right?

One of the most famous lines in movies.

In this puzzle, we’re going to take another look at that classic movie line.

Now, all writing is rewriting.

Suppose Mario Puzo went through a few versions of that line.

In one, Don Corleone offers to share his outlook on different issues of the day.

So he says, I’ll make him an offer to share my views.

It just rhymes.

It rhymes with refuse.

So these are all going to rhyme?

Is that it?

Yes.

The first part is always the same.

I’ll make him an offer.

The second part will end with a rhyme of refuse.

Okay.

Let’s try.

And we have to do the Cullion voice.

I would appreciate that, yes.

Gotcha.

In this version, the Don offers to take Waltz down to Mississippi and Louisiana to hear some melancholic music.

I’ll make him an offer to hear the blues.

Oh, good, good, good.

That’s not a very good Corleone.

I’m sorry, Brandon.

That’s excellent.

Please, at least as good as mine, that’s for sure.

In one version that’s perhaps a little too on the nose, the Don offers to hit him so hard it leaves a mark.

I’ll make him an offer that leaves a bruise.

Yes.

An offer that leaves a bruise.

Perhaps Waltz would be receptive to a six-day, seven-night stay on board a luxurious ship.

I’ll make him an offer to take a cruise.

Take a cruise.

That sounds more like a Long Island mother.

I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.

Never write, never call.

Put the cigarette down and tell him to come on a cruise.

Now Vito Corleone knew a lot of powerful people in Hollywood.

Maybe he could hook Waltz up with a famous aviator and director?

I’ll make him an offer with Howard Hughes.

To meet Howard Hughes, very good.

That one could actually have worked.

It might.

If he’s in Hollywood, Waltz was probably a member of the Friars Club.

Perhaps Corleone could take care of any fees involved in such a thing?

I’ll make him an offer to pay his dues.

I think that would be a very nice gesture.

I’ve got to put the cotton padding in my cheeks to really get the voice right.

It helps.

Yeah, grab some tissues or something.

Now, a horse’s head is one thing, but suppose Corleone threatens to color the guy yellowish-green.

Making him offer to change his hues.

That’s pretty cool.

To make him chartreuse.

Oh, make him chartreuse.

To make him chartreuse, yes.

Of course, a fancy studio executive like him could probably be bribed by a fancy pair of loafers.

Make him an offer of a new pair of shoes.

A new pair of shoes.

Hopefully not concrete.

You guys were fantastic at this Corleone quiz.

Yeah, that’s it.

Okay.

Thanks, John.

Thanks, John.

Thank you, guys.

I’ll see you at the movies.

All right.

Bye.

877-929-9673.

Send all your words and language, thoughts, and questions to words@waywordradio.org.

Talk to us on Twitter under the handle Wayword, W-A-Y-W-O-R-D, and join the really lively conversation at our Facebook group.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Good morning.

This is Sandy calling from Pacific Grove, California.

Hi, Sandy. Welcome.

Hi. Yes.

Well, my husband and I saw the word buried written, and it occurred to us that we always pronounce it like raspberry. And when we read it, it looks like buried. Buried. And is there a correct way or an incorrect way, and does anybody ever actually pronounce it buried?

Oh, boy. You’ve opened a can of buries here. Last question for us. Yes, people do say buried. Just go to Pennsylvania. There’ll be lots of them. Go to Maryland. Go to Maryland. And is there a correct way? Well, you know how we are in this show. We believe in variation, and we think variation in English is normal. So there is a common pronunciation, and then there’s a less common one. But there’s a really interesting story about why there’s more than one pronunciation. Do you want to hear it?

Yes, I’d love to. So the Old English word was spelled B-Y-R-G-A-N. It was pronounced something like burrion. And so as this word in the United Kingdom spread around, there came about a bunch of regional pronunciations, different vowels happening here. And eventually it started to be sounding like burry or berry or beery, something like that. And at the same time the pronunciations were shifting, we also had the spellings were shifting, and there became standardization of both later. But what happened was the pronunciation standardized in a way that didn’t necessarily match with the spelling standardization. So you end up with B-U-R-Y for most people in the UK and the US is pronounced berry. Berry, right. It’s not quite like B-E-R-R-Y, like the fruit, but it’s very close to it. However, those other pronunciation traditions did not die out. And when those people settled in the United States and other parts of the English-speaking world, they brought that particular pronunciation with them, which is why in Maryland and Pennsylvania you can sometimes still hear it. And they have a long-standing historical connection to those old dialect traditions in the United Kingdom. It’s not like they’ve all independently decided, oh, we’re going to pronounce it like it looks.

Right, right. Well, that’s interesting because we moved from Maryland, and I thought I was sure that I had heard it a lot more, and now I don’t hear it at all.

Oh, yeah, there you go. Yes, and my daughter moved up to Canada, and she was pronouncing it buried, and I asked her, I said, do you say bury? And she said, I don’t think I do. And she asked people up in Canada, and they all say bury. So now she says bury.

That’s interesting, because I spend a lot of time around someone from Maryland, and I now say bury, even though I used to say bury. And there are parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and a little bit of Maryland, parts of Delaware, where they might say Murray instead of Mary. Like Merry Christmas, and they might say American instead of American, and furry instead of fairy. I mean, I’m kind of over-exaggerating the different pronunciations so you can hear it. But it’s really interesting, like a nice pocket to very consistent dialect speech there. That particular difference has been studied for at least 100 years. So, Sandy, you’re not wrong.

Yeah, not wrong. Right, right. But a good reason that they should be different. Like we always say on the show, there’s more than one way to say things. The most common one is going to get you in the least trouble. But the other one’s fine if that’s all you have.

Right. Yes, yes. Okay, well, thank you very much. Very interesting.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your information. Bye-bye.

Okay, bye-bye, Sandy. We love that diversity in English. We’d love to hear what you’ve noticed, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email. The address is words@waywordradio.org.

I have another neologism from the Irish Railways Give Up Your Seat campaign. These signs that are on the trains that describe behaviors that you might use to keep somebody off the seat next to you. Here’s one. It’s a noun. A mobile phony. A mobile phony is somebody who’s exploiting one’s mobile phone in a fraudulent manner by engaging in a fake phone conversation, avoiding any obligation to give up their seat.

I’m sorry. I was on this call. Can you repeat that? I was just doing something over here on my phone talking to somebody else. But I get it. I know those people. I’ve been that person, I’m afraid. I’ve seen women do it at night when they have the phone conversation, real or imagined, because they’re not sure if I’m dangerous or not.

You betcha. You betcha. I know you’re not dangerous. I’m a stranger. If I’m a stranger, you don’t know. I’m a big guy.

That’s true. Right in the dark street. That’s true. I am guilty. I’m a mobile phony. But on the train, do you do it? On the subway?

Yes. You do. You’re a terrible person, Martha Barnette.

What? If I ever see you on the subway. I want the seat next to me is what I want. And I want you to call us on your mobile phone, 877-929-9673.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi. This is Brian in Wyoming.

Brian in Wyoming. Hi, Brian. Welcome to the show.

Thanks, Grant. Let me tell you what my question was. The other day, a friend and I were saddling up to get off and do a rather dangerous, dirty job, and I said to him, well, once more into the breach. He had never heard the phrase. I got started thinking you don’t hear it very much. If anything, these days you hear it as a security breach, an information breach. And I just wondered if you guys knew the origins of that, like the breach of an artillery piece or the breach of a pistol or rifle?

Yeah, they’re all the same. They’re all referred to a gap. That’s it. It’s a space between two things or one thing that has a space in it, including a breach birth, actually. But the particular phrase that you’re talking about comes from a Shakespeare play, Henry V. There’s a rousing scene where the troops are basically being rallied. There’s a couple interpretations of this, but I’m going with the rousing scene part. And the line is something like, once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, close the wall up with our English dead. So basically he’s saying like either he’s like either get in there and fight or we’re just going to block them with our dead bodies.

Great. I had thought possibly maybe Wellington at Trafalgar or something, too. But yeah, that’s neat. Shakespeare.

Yeah, this whole passage. Henry V is actually a really accessible play. And there’s much of this that reflects, even today, kind of the political intrigues of any major world government. It’s funny how much he nailed the push and pull of what kind of war are we fighting here anyway? The fight over the kinds of battles that we lead. Nothing changes, I guess.

No, no. What was the dirty work that you were doing when you thought about this once more onto the breach?

I work in the oil fields. I drive a water truck in the oil patch.

Oh, I see. Wow, yeah, that could… So if you get out here in the middle of the night in the blizzard sometime, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

No, thanks. Send me pictures. That’s enough. It’s all yours. I’ll be in San Diego. Thank you so much for your call, Brian. Really appreciate it.

Thanks very much. All right. Take care now.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Once more into the breach. It’s hair-raising. It really is. I mean, read the little bit that comes before. I just dig that up. Google Once More Under the Breach. All of Shakespeare is online for free. In peace, there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger.

Oh, indeed. Indeed. It’s good, right?

Oh, yeah. There’s a wonderful Kenneth Branagh film.

Yeah. Well, he’s outstanding. One of the best Shakespeareans that we have alive, right?

Yeah. Bloody, bloody movie. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard, favored rage. Good.

Yeah, it’s good stuff. It’s good.

877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.

Scartle.

Myrtle.

We’re doing a word game, right?

No, I was just… I was sharing a word with you. I was having a word with you.

I’ll just put that in my pocket.

Yeah.

You can call us with questions.

No, did you have more to say about that?

I did.

The word scartle.

Scartle.

Is one of my new favorites.

Is this what a crab does on the sand when it’s too hot?

Interesting. Sort of scartling a lot like scuttling.

I don’t know. Yeah, something like that. I don’t know.

It’s an old Scots word that means to scrape together what little bit of money you have.

I think of scartling to go to the laundromat back in the day.

The pennies, the coins that fell into the couch cushions, that sort of thing.

Right, right. And you carry them in your hand.

It goes back to an old word that’s related to scratch.

And it was formed by metathesis, flipping the letters.

Scartle.

The consonant switching around there.

Scartle.

Yeah, I scartle the bits of change that end up between the two seats in the car, and the bits of change that are in the zip pocket of your backpack.

Yeah, yeah.

You’ve scartled all that, and you’re going to go to the vending machine or something.

877-929-9673 is the number to call to talk about language, or send your questions to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Colin Peacock from London, Ontario.

Welcome to the show.

What’s up?

Hi.

Well, I was at a pub a couple weeks ago, and we were talking about celebrities that we’ve, you know, liked, and the conversation had sort of turned to people we’d started to dislike over the past couple years because of stuff they’d said on Twitter or social media or projects they’d been funding, stuff like that.

And, you know, with people like Bill Cosby and people like that in media right now, it’s, you know, there’s this sensation sometimes of, you know, you have somebody that you like and respect and you have this feeling of falling out of love with these celebrities.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You sort of feel like it’s a matter of time almost.

So every single person will let you down.

Yeah, exactly.

Like, I really like Chris Pratt right now, but I have this anxiety around like, you know, at some point I think he’s going to say something.

Yeah.

He’s going to be emboldened by his celebrity and play the dark, deep thoughts.

Yeah, exactly.

So what I was kind of wondering and what the table had been wondering at the time was like, is there a term for this?

The way we, you know, like celebrities and then fall out of love with them.

Isn’t it very much the way that you feel eventually that your parents aren’t the great gods that you first thought them to be?

That’s a really good comparison.

Yeah.

I mean, sometimes you go back into falling back into respect.

I won’t say love is not quite the word, but you go back into respecting them when you’re older and you start to understand the difficulties they were in when having kids, careers, bills, that stuff.

But Bill Cosby is a big one for me.

I loved his stuff as a kid.

And now I’m horrified by what I’m reading and hearing.

I know.

I’m like, wait a second.

I thought he was the funny, grandfatherly, fatherly type.

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

So if we were going to coin a term, I think Cusbeed is just, it’s too easy.

Yeah.

Jelloid, I don’t think so.

But he wasn’t the first, though.

No, well, no.

I mean, let’s go back to King David.

Hey, let’s talk about clay feet, you know.

There’s a notion of betrayal here, but it’s not that you have a personal relationship with these celebrities.

Right, Colin?

Yeah, there’s that.

Yeah, I would say that.

It’s different if it’s a mentor, say a college professor that you looked up to and they later, you know, don’t approve the grant application that you wanted or don’t pick you for the special position or that sort of thing.

That’s a different kind of feeling betrayed than a celebrity who’d never heard of you that hasn’t held up to their public image.

Sports figures do this all the time, don’t they?

Yeah, I think so.

Well, yeah, sports figures.

That’s another one.

So a term for that, for that disillusionment is what you’re talking about.

Yeah, exactly.

So disillusionment plus disappointment.

You’re being let down.

It’s quite a come down.

Did your fellow drinkers in the pub come up with anything?

We weren’t able to come up with anything at the time.

Nothing clever anyway.

We do have a lot of clever listeners, I bet, who would like to weigh in on this.

With no shortage of opinions and access to email.

What’s the one word, verb, noun, adjective, something that you could use for a situation where a celebrity has not lived up to their perfect public image, where they’ve done something so horrific that you have to stop respecting them, consuming their works, or even thinking about them?

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Colin, we’ll see what we get, all right?

Great. Thank you.

Yeah, sure. Thanks for calling. Really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot, Colin.

Here is another made-up word that you’ll see on trains in Ireland now as part of the give up your seat campaign, trying to nudge people to be generous by letting people sit on the seat next to them. I guess they’re pretty crowded trains there. This term is a verb. It’s goggle bluffing. And it means to subtly avert one’s eyes or bluff the direction of one’s goggles, usually committing to a line of sight that avoids eye contact with any passenger in desperate need of a seat.

Have you not done that?

Have we not all been there?

Oh, probably.

Oh, I am so busted.

I’ve done all of these things.

But sometimes it depends on the person.

I mean, on the subways in New York, like when the person comes in who clearly hasn’t bathed in a while and they’ve got nine bags of things.

Yeah.

But don’t they need a seat?

They probably need a seat more than you do.

They do.

But you goggle bluff.

Sometimes.

I’m a bad man.

Well, what is it?

The thing is, all of these terms come back to the fact that when you make eye contact with a human being, you are giving them a gift of your attention.

You are.

And you are suggesting that you are willing to deal with them.

And so much of this is an avoidance of that eye contact, that basic human interaction that says, I acknowledge you.

Isn’t that communication in its basic form, right?

Indeed, which is what we talk about on this show.

So call us 877-929-9673.

On the way, more conversation about what we say and how we say it.

Stay tuned.

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

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Grant, I’ve been dictionary diving again.

Backstroke and the letter M or something?

Yep, yep.

Big jackknife right into the letter U.

The letter U.

Yep.

And what did you find?

I found the coolest word, upsitting.

Okay, let me guess.

Okay.

Somebody has died and you’re sitting up with them at night.

Good guess, but no.

What is it?

No. Well, the archaic use of it back as far as the 16th century is, upsitting is the first time a woman sits up to receive company after having a baby, after her period of confinement. Isn’t that nice?

This is when we were more formal about these things.

Yeah.

Rather than seeing she has a baby on Monday and goes to yoga on Tuesday.

Exactly. Yes. It was more of an occasion.

And sometimes, you know, people would bring a lot of food and there would be a feast.

So she’s got the beautiful motherly glow, the sweet little new baby nearby.

Or maybe the postpartum blues.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

But it’s an occasion.

And I love the notion of it being an occasion.

You would attend an upsitting or get invited to an upsitting.

Yes.

Yes.

Or that day would have been her upsitting.

And there’s one more use of upsitting that really fascinated me.

This has to do with a type of dating practice among the Boers in South Africa in the 1800s.

I can’t even think.

Is this where you sit with the one you’re wooing in public sight of the parents of the chaperone or something?

More or less.

You’re very, very close.

Well, let me just read you this description from a book by William Charles Baldwin.

He published this in 1863.

It’s called African Hunting from Natal to the Zambezi.

And he has this description of upsitting in that part of the world.

He writes,

If you admire anyone in particular,

You take the first opportunity that presents itself of asking her to upsit.

Should this be accorded,

When the old people and all the rest of the household have retired,

A curtain frequently being all the partition between the sitting and the bedrooms,

The chosen one again appears with a candle,

Short or long, according as she fancies you or otherwise.

And remains as long as that burns, all conversation being carried on in whispers,

And the fair one being obliged to sit very close and talk very low

For fear of disturbing the inmates on the other side of the curtain.

So the candle, long candle means I really like you.

Short candle means, yeah.

Stick around, dude.

And then the guy is in charge of making sure that the candle is always trimmed,

That it doesn’t flicker or flare, get into a draft,

Because as soon as the candle goes out, he’s got to leave.

Isn’t that great?

That’s great.

Yeah, and Baldwin writes,

I’ve been present, stretched on the floor on a blanket, asleep apparently, no doubt,

When two upsittings have been going on at opposite corners of a large room.

All still is the grave, but the subdued whisperings of the happy pears.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, and it sounds really romantic.

Doesn’t it?

Today we would probably say, I’ve only got 20% charge on my phone.

I can’t stay long.

That’s the equivalent of the short candle, right?

Exactly. You were supposed to bring a phone charger, dude.

That’s nice. Dictionary diving has rewards.

Dictionary diving, right?

877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.

Talk to us on Twitter at WayWord and find us on Facebook. Just look for A Way with Words.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Max from Dallas.

Hello, Max. How are you doing?

Hey, Max.

My wife and I recently had a discussion on teeter-totter versus seesaw.

And she believes that it’s teeter-totter all day long, and I grew up with seesaw,

And we’ve been bickering back and forth ever since.

So hopefully you guys can settle this one once and for all.

I love this.

I do, too.

I bet she’s not from Texas.

No.

Actually, I’m from New Jersey, and she’s from Ohio.

Oh.

Interesting.

And you say, which one do you say?

I say seesaw.

And I just have this great mental picture, Max, of you and your wife on a seesaw or a teeter-totter going up and down,

Having this discussion about whether it’s seesaw or teeter-totter.

Absolutely.

We’ve asked everybody we know, including my wife’s 80-year-old grandmother, and it’s been crazy.

Okay, and what does she say?

Her grandmother says teeter-totter.

And she’s from Ohio also?

She is.

Very interesting, because this really does sort of seesaw back and forth in terms of the location where people say different things.

I mean, usually, in general, you see teeter-totter more across the northern part of the country.

Yeah, the west and the northwest and northern plains states, that sort of thing.

Exactly. And then seesaw is through the south.

I mean, if you look at maps of where these two terms are used, I mean, it sort of looks like a teeter-totter in a way.

I mean, because, you know, like half and half.

Most of Texas says seesaw or used to before the big influx of people from other parts of the country.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I can tell you growing up in Kentucky, I said seesaw, but I remember people every once in a while, these interlopers would come to our elementary school.

They’re firing ways.

Yeah, these new students from the north.

And to me, teeter-totter sounded so pretentious.

I’m looking at this wonderful map, these two maps in the Dictionary of American Regional English.

And I’m originally from Missouri, and it is well known as a state with some linguistic ambiguities and conflicts.

And sure enough, you can see by the map, it’s half seesaw and half teeter-totter.

I grew up with both.

I mean, clearly both.

Like, no, there was never any real understanding that one was better than the other.

Yeah, I believe seesaw is much older than teeter-totter.

And you know, those aren’t the only ones, Max.

There’s a ton of terms.

When the folks, the editors, the lexicographers, the Dictionary of American Regional English

Did their survey where they went around the country with these little vans and tape recorders in the 1960s and 70s,

They asked the question about what people called this particular playground device,

And I think there’s something like 30 or 40 responses.

So, Max, you’re both right.

You both owe each other a kiss and a dinner and dishes.

Okay, I can do that.

I think you need to hit a playground, you know, just for old times’ sake.

Yeah.

And you get on the—

Just for old times’ sake, get on the old seesaw or Peter Totter.

And do the childhood dream, finally, now that you’re an adult and you can do whatever you like,

Of launching the other person into space.

That’s what we always tried.

It never really worked like the cartoons.

I can do that.

Cool, Max.

Thanks for calling.

Really appreciate it.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Cheers, Matt.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Yep.

Bye-bye.

You know, we’re talking about the Dictionary of American Regional English a lot on this show.

Yes, we do.

This is one of those cases where you can’t get this information with this kind of clarity anywhere else.

Yeah, yeah.

And it’s a real thing.

It’s right there in black and white.

It’s a genuine thing.

It shows, it indicates things like settlement patterns and the way that language spreads among people who are like each other.

Migration, yes.

Yeah, it’s pretty cool.

877-929-9673.

Grant, I came across a cool hiking term the other day that I think you’ll appreciate.

It’s ledge out.

No guesses here.

What is that?

Okay.

You might talk about a hiker being ledged out.

In fact, I was reading a report of a hiker who got ledged out in one of the state parks here.

And that has to do with the fact that when you’re trained to do wilderness backpacking,

One of the things you’re trained to do is to look back frequently when you’re hiking

So that you know what the trail looks like from the opposite direction.

And if you forget to do that and you sort of lose track of where you are and are not paying attention,

Sometimes if you’re trying to get someplace, you can go down and down and down a mountain

And start to slide over rocks and slide over ledges to get to the next level.

But if you’re not continually looking back, you might just get yourself too far down a ledge so that you can’t get back up.

What do you do when you get ledged out?

Shout for your friends?

You do.

Get on the phone?

Yeah, you call the rescue people.

And I found that a fascinating term, but I also found it fascinating metaphorically.

Isn’t that just a great notion that you need to keep looking back and paying attention to where you are or you’ll get ledged out?

So just to be clear here, you are allowing gravity to let you slip down a distance that is impossible for you to climb back up.

Thank you.

That’s exactly what I’m trying to say.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, I can see that.

That sounds like the stuff of nightmares, doesn’t it?

Yeah, it definitely does.

Yeah, but it happens.

Down in a hole.

It happens.

Down in a well, basically.

Yeah.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Try us on Twitter at Wayword and find us on Facebook.

Look for A Way with Words.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, it’s Robert Brown from Encinitas.

Hey, Robert, how you doing?

I’m doing great.

How are you all doing?

All right.

Wonderful.

What’s on your mind?

What are you thinking about?

Well, it’s a saying called a told last or a TL.

Told last?

Like T-O-L-D?

Told last.

T-O-L-D.

Last.

L-A-S-T.

And one day my wife came home and said to me, I have a TL for you.

And I asked, what’s a TL?

She answered it meant told last and proceeded to tell me that it was a compliment made to her about me from a mutual friend, or it could be anyone.

And that I, therefore, would be the one who was told last.

And I replied, why would I be told last?

And she replied, because if you repeat it, you’re bragging.

I asked her, is this a family mythology type thing, or is it a broader thing?

And she didn’t know.

And so I’m just wondering, what’s with a TL?

Well, Robert, let me ask you, where are the two of you from?

Well, she was born in Berkeley, and I was born in the Central Valley, a little town called Hanford.

Okay, so you’re both Californians.

Correct.

Yeah, that actually sounds like a variant of a more common term, which is trade last, which has the same initials, TL.

And it’s exactly as you described it.

Somebody, say, gives Grant a compliment.

And so then I come to Grant and I say, Grant, I have a compliment for you.

But he has to tell me a compliment about me first.

Oh, I see.

So you trade compliments.

Are these real things?

Are these things that you…

Yeah.

You just invent them to make each other feel good.

I mean, it was a real compliment in your case, right, Robert?

Yes, it was.

But I didn’t have to trade it for anything.

Oh, you didn’t?

She just went ahead and told you?

Yeah.

And she called it a told last.

And she said it was just something that they had in their family.

-huh.

-huh.

You know?

Interestingly enough, it’s not just in the family.

It goes back to at least the 1880s, 1890s.

It may have arisen among schoolgirls.

It sounds like a kind of schoolgirl thing to do.

But Rudyard Kipling used this expression.

He used the expression trade last.

And I think told last is a variant of that.

Until last comes up now and again.

Yeah.

It’s pretty widespread, though.

We find it popping up all across the country.

Really, it’s long past its heyday, though.

At this point, it’s a historical curiosity, mostly.

Yeah.

It’s kind of a fun practice, though.

I’m wondering what the compliment was.

Can you share it with us?

It’s been, I mean, this was 40 years ago.

Oh, okay.

So I’ve been waiting 40 years to find out.

Whoa.

What?

I’m a patient person.

Apparently so, Robert.

But Rudyard Kipling’s a pretty good, you know, I mean, that’s a good reference.

I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, he used it at least a couple of times in his work.

Yeah, so great long tradition.

Thank you, Robert, for the call.

Really appreciate it.

Okay, thank you so much.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Okay, bye-bye.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Try us on Twitter at WayWord and find us on Facebook.

Just look for A Way with Words.

On an earlier show, we were talking about conversational openers, how to start a conversation with people and dig a little bit deeper than just the weather.

We got some suggestions from listeners.

Beverly in Vermont says that the question she uses is, what keeps you busy?

Which I really like.

What keeps you busy?

What keeps you busy?

Yeah, because that way, you know, if the person feels self-conscious about his or her work or not having work, what keeps you busy?

So job, hobby, family, outings, whatever.

Yeah, it gives the listener a lot of discretion.

And we also heard from Tracy who suggested saying, are you from whatever the place is?

Because these days people are from all over.

Places are such a melting pot.

Yeah, that always worked in New York.

It always works here in San Diego.

That always worked in the Bay Area when I lived there.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Are you from San Francisco?

Yeah.

They’re like, no, but I spent a year in them.

Exactly.

And then there’s a story.

And you find out why they moved and who came with them and where they’re living.

Pretty soon you’re looking for a way out, right?

No, no.

Not necessarily.

I’m talkative.

This is a show about language and human communication.

Give us a call at 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Claudia, and I’m calling from Gardnerville, Nevada.

Hey, Claudia, welcome.

Hi, how are you doing?

I’m good, thank you.

Great. Well, Claudia, what’s on your mind?

My mom, who’s passed away about six years ago, she used to always say something to me,

And it’s always confused me, and I thought maybe you guys could help me out with it.

I’ll try.

So when I was a kid, if something was happening that was big, say there was a big snowstorm,

She would always say, it is snowing to beat the band.

And I thought that was interesting, but then it could be used in many different ways.

It could be, she was running to beat the band, or they were driving to beat the band.

And I never understood what the band reference was and why that would be used in that way.

And I was wondering if you had any ideas.

Yeah, that is a crazy reference, isn’t it?

I feel sorry for people who are learning English because what in the world to beat the band?

Beat the band.

I came thinking of a marching band, and I was like, that is not very fast.

That’s true. They don’t move very quickly.

Here’s the thing about the band. It’s about the noise they make, not the speed at which they march.

And so originally, it looks like the historical record is pretty clear on this.

Late 1800s, we start to see uses that pop up where it’s usually somebody shouting to beat the band

Or singing to beat the band or talking to beat the band, meaning they are so loud

That they’re overcoming the music that’s being made.

And then it becomes metaphorical pretty quickly.

And so anything can beat the band usually as a kind of positive.

Like he was dressed to beat the band or the store sold out all of its goods to beat the band or something like that.

And that’s where we are today.

That’s why you can have somebody running full out to beat the band and not have it really to do with the band being fast or slow.

That makes total sense.

Well, thank you for clearing that up for me.

Yeah, sure.

Glad to have you on the show.

Thanks for calling.

Thank you.

Take care now.

All right.

Have a great day.

Bye, Claudia.

Bye-bye.

I know we have a lot of people listening to the show who are learning English as a second language or perfecting English as a second language.

Or third or fourth.

Or third or fourth.

And I just want to apologize.

On behalf of the English language.

And it’s terrible idioms and how utterly opaque they are.

I’m sorry.

Of course, maybe they’re as charmed as we are by idioms in other languages.

But that one, that would be so opaque.

Yeah, it would be.

You know, when you first look at it.

And even once you know the etymology, you’re still like, all right, but it still sounds weird.

But I’m thinking, too, of maybe you had more experience with bands, with marching back in that period.

Well, we’re not necessarily even talking marching band.

It just might be the band playing in the quarter at a dance.

It could just be the band playing at some kind of public ceremony where the mayor is about to speak.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah, and you’re having to shout over to be heard.

Yeah.

This is a show about words and language and how we use them and why.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

A word we might want to be tracking is millennials.

Did you run across this one?

Millennials?

Millennials.

Millennials.

What are millennials?

Well, we had millennials.

Millennials who eat blinis?

No, they’re millennials who are bilingual.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Bilingual, but millennial.

Yeah.

Millennials.

And broadcasters in particular are starting to court the millennial market.

These are the millennials who are bilingual, but they’re gravitating away from the telenovelas, the brassy stuff.

They were raised on things like Full House and Family Matters and all of that.

So they’re trying to find programming that fits that demographic.

Millennials.

As the Spanish-speaking audience isn’t just Spanish-speaking.

It’s second, third, fourth, fifth generation people who belong to the culture but don’t necessarily have the language.

Really interesting.

877-929-9673.

Want more of A Way with Words?

Listen to years of past episodes at waywordradio.org

Or find the show in any podcast app or iTunes.

The toll-free line is always open,

So leave a message at 877-929-9673

And we’ll take a listen.

We love to get your messages at words@waywordradio.org.

Or hit us up on Twitter @wayword

And look for us on Facebook.

This program would not be possible without you.

Martha and I are out to change the way we listen and think about language

And you’re making it happen.

Thanks also to senior producer Stefanie Levine

And director and editor Tim Felten in San Diego.

In New York, we thank production wizard James Ramsey,

Quiz guy John Chaneski.

And that master of keeping it real, Paul Ruist at Argo Studios.

A Way with Words is an independent production of Wayword, Inc.

From the Track Recording Center at Studio West in San Diego, I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

So long.