We’ve talked before about those abbreviated baths that one listener refers to as a Georgia bath. Listeners showered us with calls about more names for those abbreviated cleanups, including birdbaths and kitty baths. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Birdbaths and Kitty Baths”
If 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.
A couple of weeks ago, we put the call out to you to find out what you call an abbreviated bath. That’s the kind of bath where you just sort of stand there and sponge off in the key parts.
Yeah, the important places.
Yeah, yeah.
And Grant, I don’t know what it says about our listeners, but we got a ton of responses.
Ooh, do tell.
Well, we heard from Nancy K. Kemp from Cairo, Georgia, who said, if you don’t have time for an actual bath or shower, a quick splash of water, a quicker rub down with a wet cloth, soap optional, and a spritz of something that smells better than you did, that’s what we call taking a bird bath.
Bird bath. That makes a lot of sense.
We heard bird bath from a lot of people, including Samadi Jones from Tallahassee, who said her friend from Alabama calls it a bird bath. And she says, when I asked what it was, he told me to imagine someone splashing and fluffing around a little, but not really getting clean.
And I have some more for you.
Sarah Corey wrote to say that her mom always called the quickie bath a cat bath.
And I like this one, too, from Adelaide Young. She’s from Ramona, California. She says she grew up in San Diego in the 40s and 50s, and they had a pedestal bathroom sink. And Adelaide writes, my mother would give me a kitty bath and call me her frog in a thimble.
Oh, that’s sweet.
Isn’t that nice?
That’s super sweet.
Thank you for taking me on a trip down memory lane. A frog in a thimble.
Well, if you take a bath and you give it a weird name, give us a call, 877-929-9673. Or if the details are just too salacious to speak aloud, send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
