Blue-Bird for an Easy Sale and Corpsing for Laughing on Set

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

And I’m Martha Barnette, and it’s time for another round of Slang This.

Today’s contestant is Deborah Brownow from Manhattan Beach, California.

Deborah, are you there?

I’m here.

How are you doing?

I’m shaking in my boots.

Oh, well, don’t. Don’t. Let me introduce you to Grant here. He’ll calm you down.

Hi, Grant.

I’ll save you from Martha. I won’t let the band hit you.

So, Deborah, do you have a favorite slang expression you’d like to share with us?

Well, you know, it’s funny.

I heard one just yesterday that was entirely new to me, and I was convinced that I was much too old for slang and really didn’t know any good ones, but now I think I’m going to adopt this.

It’s the expression, are you boning out on me, which means are you bagging, are you leaving?

And I heard this from the mother of a teenager, and apparently it’s used for almost any situation, but particularly in parties like, as in, dude, you’re not boning out already, are you?

Wow.

I’ve never heard that.

Have you, Grant?

Of course you have.

No, I haven’t.

It just makes me think of gutting fish.

Ew.

Ew.

Well, Grant, you must be excited.

I mean, aren’t you excited?

About boning out?

I’m actually making a note.

Hold on a second.

Let me write this down.

I’m hoping that I won’t need to bone out of here before the game is done.

Oh, I’m sure you won’t.

I’m sure you won’t.

No, you’ll be fine.

You’ll be absolutely fine.

I think actually the stuff I’m giving you today is going to be a little easier than boning out.

Oh, good.

Are you ready?

All right.

Let me tell you how we play. Grant’s going to give you a slang term, and then he’s going to present you with three possible examples of how it might be used. And only one of them is real. The other two are bogus.

So, Debra, your job will be to tell us which example is the real thing. Okay. Three choices, one answer, and I will be standing by if you need a lifeline, okay?

Oh, good.

All right, Grant, take it away. Here we go.

The first term today is bluebird. That’s two words hyphenated. B-L-U-E hyphen B-I-R-D, bluebird.

Okay.

And the first clue is… You hand-wringing little bluebirds think you’ve got it tough. A little PX Judy at 5 a.m. And you’re writing letters home to mama.

Poor little bluebirds.

Okay.

The second clue.

On my first day is an encyclopedia salesman. I made two bluebirds. They were easy pickings because they called me instead of me calling them, and I trotted the sales forms right over.

And the third clue.

The badger’s newborn bluebirds crowded around their mother, chirping to attract her attention. Each had silky blue-black fur and four little pink paws.

Aww.

So, three clues for bluebird.

Is a bluebird A, a derogatory name for a complaining soldier? Is it B, an easy sail? Or is it C, the offspring of badgers?

All right, well, I’m going to eliminate C.

Oh, you see, you’ve been hitting it all there. They’re so cute. I know, they’re so cute. But it seems like badgers would have their own offspring names that wouldn’t have to do with birds.

So somehow I think it’s A.

It sounds like sort of a derogatory thing.

It’s because of the passion with which I read that clue, right? It was so authentic.

Are you sure you want to go with A? I can’t imagine.

I mean, I guess I don’t know. I don’t know my birds well enough to know why a bluebird would be associated with easy picking.

Although, maybe it has to do with the whole worms and things. What about the bluebird of happiness?

Maybe, you know? Oh.

Okay, maybe we need to, because that would make a salesman happy, wouldn’t it?

If I say B, you’re going to question me again, aren’t you? No, actually, because I’ve gone too long and my producer is probably screaming in the booth.

Okay. All right, so let’s go with B. It is indeed B.

Miracles is miraculous. No, yes, it’s B. Deborah.

And the thing is, Martha’s clue, she’s right on target. Actually, I’m pretty sure, although the thing with this term is, as far as I know, it’s not in any other slang dictionary except the one that I do.

But the thing is, bluebird, meaning happiness, one way or the other, connoting happiness, dates back to the early 1900s.

And the way I think this makes the most sense to people is if you think about a bluebird just flying in the window.

And so these sails just kind of like show up. Right.

You don’t have to work for them at all. They’re just, boom, there they are, and it’s money in your pocket.

All right, here we go. Ready for number two? Sure.

The next term is corpsing, C-O-R-P-S-I-N-G, corpsing.

And the first clue is, we had to do 60 takes of the scene because Ricky kept corpsing so loudly that you could hear his stifled guffaws on the boom mic.

He finally got serious and we wrapped the scene. Okay.

The second clue. The key to corpsing is to not lose your cool as you lie there on the tracks waiting for the next train.

The winner is the last one to leap out of its path. Okay, that’s a little macabre.

All right. And the third clue, the older ROTC men held a little corpsing ceremony in which I was forced to walk across campus in a straight line,

never stopping until I encountered an immovable object. Then I could only go around it when told.

So those are your three clues. Is it A, laughing uncontrollably during the filming of a movie or television show?

Is it B, playing a game of chicken on the railroad tracks, or is it C, a type of hazing practiced by members of the Reserve Officer Training Corps?

I’m going to say C. It sounds like a hazing word. I’m sorry. It is. It’s A, but you’re too bad.

I’m kidding. No, it’s A. Think about this.

You’re in a scene. There are like 100 crew members all around you. There are cameras, hot lights.

You’re supposed to be the dead body, but all you can do is laugh. That’s corpsing.

That’s exactly where corpsing comes from. I used Ricky in the example because Ricky Gervais of the British version of The Office

and the very well-known podcast and a bunch of, you know, whatever, very funny guy, British fellow, he’s known for that.

Apparently he can bust up an entire set and just like just ruin hours of filming on end. Oh, really?

Yeah. That’s so funny. Debra, you did a great job.

Thank you so much for playing with us today, Debra. It was wonderful. Thank you.

It was great fun. Hey, listen, we’re going to send you a copy of Grant’s book, The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang.

Oh, I’m so excited. Yeah. It’s just in time.

In time for? For, you know, that election thing that’s happening in the next year or so.

Oh, yeah, right. My children and I will make good use of it. Excellent. Great.

And everyone else, if you’d like to join our slang quiz on the air, the number is 1-877-929-WORD,

or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org. Be sure to include all of your phone numbers and your favorite slang word.