Blue Dolphin (episode #1634)

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.

If you need an English word that means to lick a plate, and you might sometime, there is one. It’s catilate. C-A-T-I-L-L-A-T-E. It means to lick a plate. And it doesn’t come from the word cat. It comes from a Latin word that means a small plate. Or say you want to refer to somebody who never laughs. There’s a word for that too. It’s agelastic. It’s like A-G and then elastic. And you don’t hear those words very often or maybe at all, but they’re words included in a dictionary compiled by lexicographer Henry Cochran, which was published in 1623. And he came up with all these weird sounding Latin and Greek based words, but he’s also credited with at least the first recorded use of words like girlishness and immigrate and cremation. He may not have coined those words, but he invented a lot of other ones. They’re what we call inkhorn terms, and that’s a reference to inkhorns carried by 14th century scribes. They kept their ink in a little bottle made out of an animal horn, and people like Henry Cockerham showed off their bloated, fancy words like catalate and agelastic by lifting Latin and Greek words and just cramming them into English. And his dictionary is fun reading, but some of those words are a little silly.

Yeah, there’s one that makes the rounds on social media pretty regularly. That’s latibulate, which is to hide yourself in a corner, or as he writes it, privily, to hide oneself in a corner. I like that, privily. And it comes from the Latin word latibulum, which is a hiding place or a den. Strangely, someone later also coined the word latibulize, which means to retire into a hiding place or to retreat for the winter. So he wasn’t the only one to mess around with Latin and see what they could do.

Interesting. Yeah. And it’s related to the word latent. You know, something’s latent, it’s hidden. But I do like the idea of latibulate. A lot of times I want to latibulate.

Yeah, not just in the corner, but like, what’s the furthest spot from everyone else?

Well, we talk about all kinds of words on this show, and we would love to talk with you. 877-929-9673 or send your emails about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kylie calling from Seattle, Washington.

Hello, Kylie. Welcome to the show.

Well, I am an elementary school teacher here in Seattle, Washington. Sorry if you can hear kids in the background. Part of the job. Yeah, and we actually had a question. I actually grew up in a small town in California, and whenever we were playing hide and seek as a kid and the last kid was still hidden, we had a saying for saying like come on out, you’ve won hide and seek. And we would always yell, olly olly oxen free. And I remember being a kid and feeling like I didn’t really understand what they were saying or what it meant, but this was kind of our saying. And then recently I was out at recess with my students and I heard one of them say, olly olly oxen free. And I was like, whoa, that’s so interesting. I should call both of you and see if you knew where that came from or kind of the origin of the saying.

Yeah. You have any ideas about that?

Are you picturing the cows coming home?

Exactly. We always talked about how maybe the oxen are kind of running across the field. We weren’t sure.

Yeah, well, there are lots of different versions of this. And of course, children have played this game forever, probably all throughout history. We know for sure that kids played it in Shakespeare’s time. As a teacher, you’ll appreciate the fact that back in Shakespeare’s time, hide-and-go-seek was called all hid, and in fact, in Love’s Labor’s Lost, one of the characters says, all hid, all hid in old infant’s play. And over time, it became known as hide and seek. To make a long story short, the expression olly olly oxen free that you were using is commonly used in California, but it’s a variant of another expression, olly olly outs in free. That means everybody who’s in hiding can come out now. They can all, you know, come in. Olly olly outs in free. And of course, this kind of thing is passed along, you know, from child to child, transmitted orally. So it’s not something that was written down and codified. So sort of like a game of telephone, you get different versions of that. So gosh, there’s so many different versions of this. There’s your version. There’s Alzi Alzi oxen free or Ali Ali oops in free or Ali Ali opes in free, Ali Ali oats in free. So there are lots of different versions of this.

Yeah, I think the Dictionary of American Regional English has more than 30 versions of it.

Oh my gosh, that’s fascinating. My kids are going to love this. My favorite is it must be used in the Scandinavian settled parts of the country, which is Olly Olly Olsen free. And your version fits very closely with what we see in the dictionary in terms of California. So it’s interesting that it’s up in Washington as well.

So that’s what your kids use?

Yeah.

And it was funny because we had a conversation about that I was going to call both of you up.

And another thing, I don’t say that. I say Olly Olly income free.

Yeah, everyone’s got their own thing, but that’s the nature of this kind of folklore, this kind of stuff that gets transmitted across the generations. It’s malleable, it’s changeable, and I love it. That’s the beautiful thing about language.

Well, Kylie, I’m so glad that you’re talking about this sort of stuff with your students, and they’re getting that excitement as well. You sound like somebody who can transmit this kind of excitement to your kids, and maybe they’ll keep it and grow up with it and transmit it themselves.

Oh, I hope so.

Would you mind if they said hello before we say goodbye today?

Oh, no, not at all.

We’d love it.

We’d love it.

Okay, great. They’re so excited to meet all of you. So, folks, do you want to say hello?

Yes!

Okay, say hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Thank you both so much.

My pleasure.

All right. Congratulations on your being an educator. You’re doing the hard work, and we appreciate it.

Thank you. We listen to you every week, so thanks so much.

All right. Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

If you’re an educator and you’ve come across something cool about language, talk to us about it. 877-929-9673. Whether you’re in Alaska or Cancun or Seattle or Toronto, we’d love to hear from you. You can also email us, words@waywordradio.org.

Hi. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. This is Seanette Good from Atlanta, Georgia.

Hey, Seanette.

Hi, thank you for taking my call. I have something I’d like to share with you today, see if you can help me find a solution.

Happy to try.

Okay, so I’m not calling today to find out the origins of a word, but to find a word. I have often said that a word has a certain taste. And I think what I really mean by that is how it feels as you’re saying the word. So some words just seem to kind of dance out of your mouth while others just kind of stumble and just fall out. So the way that a word as it is being formed in your mouth and then is presented to the world can either feel very pleasant, like a creamy cheesecake, or it can feel very awkward and unpleasant, like for me, the texture of oatmeal. So that feel of the word and whether that is considered pleasant or not. Is there a word in existence for that?

Oh, I love these descriptions. Cheesecake versus oatmeal.

Yeah, there are several answers. I’m glad that we can help you. This has been poets have found an answer for this and so have linguists. Some people who think about language a lot from two different directions have come up with solutions for this very question. And one of the words they’ve borrowed comes from the food world, where when people are trying to describe food, which is actually rather difficult, it’s difficult to talk about food, which is why, you know, it’s easy to make fun of the way that

Wine lovers talk about the taste of wine or foodies talk about how they enjoy a meal because describing taste is difficult. Describing the texture of food is difficult. But one of the words they use is mouthfeel. Like you might talk about the mouthfeel of a good beer or a good wine, and it’s about the body of it. It’s about the way that it sits in your mouth, on your tongue, or the way it touches your palate. Or if you’re talking about the mouthfeel of a cut of meat, does it leave a layer of fat on your teeth? Or does it chew well? Or you might talk about a food that’s spicy level. Does it leave a spicy heat? Or does it have a kind of chemical coolness like cucumber does or yogurt can or garlic can, you know. So all of these things are mouthfeel.

Does that feel like a word that is what you’re talking about? It does. The imagery is very similar to what it feels like for words that are pleasant. Words such as shenanigans feels a whole lot better coming out than the word rural. So the mouthfeel definitely is a better description than taste, as I’m not swallowing and ingesting these words, but instead put them out into the world.

So on a more technical level, poets and linguists have a kind of an umbrella term that they use to talk about this, and it’s called phonesthetics. It’s P-H-O-N-A-E-S-T-H-E-T-I-C-S, phonesthetics. And phonesthetics is about that. It’s about the aesthetic properties of sound, and particularly in poetry. It’s about how we react to hearing or speaking language. And we do have connotations. Sometimes it’s about, well, let me put it a different way.

I don’t know if you have children, but if you’ve ever discussed with a partner or somebody who’s going to have kids about naming a child, you often have these very impulsive and emotional responses to names, and you don’t know why. Sometimes you say, well, there was a mean kid in kindergarten, and I’m not naming my child because I know a mean kid who had that name. But sometimes you don’t know why a name doesn’t feel right to you. And sometimes you don’t know why a name feels great to you. And that’s phonoaesthetic sometimes.

And we also can talk about euphony, E-U-P-H-O-N-Y. That’s about a word being harmonious and pleasant. If it has euphony, it is a delight to hear. I’m thinking about in French, you know, when a sommelier talks about wine, they talk about le bouche. You know, the bouche, the mouth. And by that, they mean the mouth feel or the taste. Yeah, the taste and the body.

And, Seanette, when Grant asked you about how that sounded to you, now I’m thinking about ear feel. Is ear feel different from mouth feel? See, I think it’s not just how it sounds, but it’s the formation of the word, whether it’s a soft word or whether it’s graceful. Yes. Shannette, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for helping me out here with these words today. I’ll take that with me. All right. Bye-bye. Y’all have a great day. Take care. Bye-bye.

What are the words that feel amazing coming out of your mouth? Share them with us. 877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org. More about what you say and why you say it. Stick around for more of A Way with Words. You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Martha Barnette. And I’m Grant Barrett. And just back from the Cockney Spelling Bee where he was sweeping up all the dropped letters, it’s our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Oh, hi, guys. They keep me so busy at that Cockney Spelling Bee. That’s why I go there. A lot of work available. You know, I recently saw a video by filmmaker Matt Busey in which he takes the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz and rearranges the entire film so all the words are in alphabetical order. That is, he cuts and edits it. So every instance of every word, including articles, are together and in order. It’s called Of Oz the Wizard. And of course, after the opening credits, the first 35 seconds is just dozens of clips of characters saying or eh. And that’s followed by and aye. Until about four minutes and 45, we get about followed by above. And this continues all the way through the movie till the last alphabetical word in The Wizard of Oz, when the Tin Man sings the word zipper. And of course, the final title card, final title card reads, and the. Alphabetical order, can you believe it?

Naturally, I wonder what would happen if we were to unleash Matt Busey on other works of art, other movies, books, TV shows, and at least the titles, at least. For example, if the National Anthem of the United States were organized the same way, the title would be Banner Star Spangled The. Got it? Mm— Alphabetical order. Good. I’ll hint a work or a phrase, and you tell me the alphabetical title. You might need a pencil for this, though if you want to challenge yourself, do it in your head. We’ll start easy with three-word phrases. And yes, articles count. Okay? Here we go. Okay.

This 1967 Faye Dunaway Warren Beatty film classic about two bank robbers starts off the alphabetization pretty neatly. Clyde and Bonnie. And Bonnie Clyde. Martha said it non-alphabetized. What was it, Grant? And Bonnie Clyde. And Bonnie Clyde. Yes. A, B, C. Very good. Oh, oh, we have to alphabetize the letters? The title, the words, the words in the title. Oh my gosh. Okay. All right.

Now, if you’re ever on the London Underground, you’re likely to hear this warning to watch where you’re going. Gap mind the. Gap mind the. Yes, gap mind the. Very good. Gap mind the. Prince plays all the instruments on this 1984 song, which was his very first Billboard No. 1 hit, and is alphabetically back to front. Cry Doves When. Cry Doves When. Very good. This is what it sounds like. Cry Doves When. Very good. Let’s move on to four-word titles and phrases.

This 1959 Billy Wilder comedy features Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis all wearing dresses. Its title responds to a statement about how jazz might be appreciated by a select few. Oh, let’s see. Hot it like some. Hot it like some. Yes, some like it hot. Very good. This four-word rhyming phrase is often said to those on their way out. It prominently features a reptile. Oh, goodness. Okay. Alligator, later, see you. Alligator, later, see you. See you later, alligator. Nicely done.

You guys were fantastic. That was great. Oh, amazing, John, that was. I sound like Yoda. And we’ll talk to you next time. Thank you so much. Really appreciate the quiz. Care take. Bye-bye. Join us in our mental workout here. Call us to talk about any aspect of language whatsoever. 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello, this is Lorraine from Syracuse, New York. Hey, Lorraine, welcome to the show. What can we do for you? Well, thank you. You know, I’ve been trying to break the habit myself of saying you know constantly. Now, it’s a particular problem I have, but I’ve noticed that often with many other folks too, I was listening to an Ivy League professor speaking for half an hour on a radio show, and I counted 17 times that you know was used.

So if you have any suggestions about how I can stop saying, you know, automatically, then that would be great. Another, I’ll mention this too, I was concerned about the use of having said that. These are many unnecessary phrases that we use quite often, having said that. So do you have any suggestions about how to break the habit of many of these unnecessary phrases? Well, the best way to stop these, and they’re called disfluencies, is to speak less. That’s a great suggestion. Oh, I like that.

But I just want to, one thing I want to say to make you feel a little better is just know that everybody uses, everybody has these to one degree or another. We have these crutches that we rely on. These things that we say when we don’t know quite what to say. These connectors maybe between thoughts that kind of fill the pause. Yes. And so just relax a little bit and that will help a little bit. But the best advice I’ve seen from everyone can be summarized in three main points. One, be prepared by knowing your topic and what you’re going to say. Two, don’t speak a thought until it is fully formed.

And three, use pauses like you use words because they’re just as important.

And if you have to hold the floor with filler words, then you don’t really know what you’re going to say.

So go back to point number one, which is be prepared by knowing your topic and what you’re going to say.

So a lot of it is really about even when it’s not a formal moment, even if it’s just a casual, you know, chat in the grocery aisle, just take a second.

Just take a second.

I think that that take a second recommendation is a really good one.

And it’s an interesting exercise because, as Grant says, we all want to fill that space.

In ancient art, it’s called horror vacui, where every little bit of a surface is decorated with something.

But you don’t have to do that.

You know, you could.

Boop.

There I go.

I said, you know.

Right.

I think probably Toastmasters organization would have a little comment about that.

If a person trying to learn to give speeches said it too often, they would comment on that.

They absolutely would. Toastmasters can help you.

It’s a supportive, helpful organization.

They have chapters of all sorts sponsored by companies or churches and other organizations.

And a lot of people find it to be really useful to go there and not say, oh, like I do.

Oh, well, I really appreciate your input.

I just love the show, and I love language, and I really enjoy the words we take from other languages and cultures.

And it’s just a terrific show.

Thank you very much.

Take care of yourself and call us again sometime.

Bye-bye.

Well, thank you.

Bye-bye.

Tell us how you solve the problem of disfluencies.

How do you avoid saying and and you know and right when you speak?

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

We heard from Paula Egan Wright in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She’s a teacher and she says,

I always start my elementary music classes with a sharing circle. Last week, I asked three-year-olds what they would do differently if they were the school principal.

One little girl, wishing it were warmer, were on the high prairie at 6,000 feet where it snows a lot, said she’d put in a sandy beach on the playground and the girls could all wear zucchinis.

I’m imagining wearing them on your fingertips like you would, you know, putting little holes in there.

Kind of like the hot dog fingers in that movie.

Everything, everywhere, all at once.

You can take your zucchini fingers and dial us, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Gene Williams.

I’m calling from the Badlands of South Dakota.

Welcome to the show, Gene.

What’s up?

Hi, Gene.

Well, my grandmother used to have a saying that I was wondering what the origins of it were.

Whenever we were talking about needing to get a drink or something, she always would say,

Well, cold water is the cup that cheers away away the bowl.

And my mother said she thought that had something to do with possibly the Women’s Christian Temperance Union that my grandmother belonged to back in the early 20s or something.

But anyway, that was the first thing.

And then the second part of this question, I guess, is my wife, she doesn’t, when we go out, she usually wants to order water.

And we’ve gotten into the habit of ordering a blue dolphin neat.

And that’s just water with no ice.

And I was wondering if blue dolphin is something that is known as a non-alcoholic, just water, if that is a common phrase that is used throughout the country or not.

Well, let’s address that last one first.

I don’t know that, and I don’t think that’s in any of my slang dictionaries, but it’s possible.

Is blue dolphin a brand of water, perhaps?

I know there are a bunch of slang terms for water, like windmill cocktail or city coke or fish broth or Adam’s Ale.

You could say, give me one on the city, meaning city water.

Neptune’s daughter.

Those are all those.

And there’s probably more that I’m forgetting.

But I’ve never heard blue dolphin neat.

That’s a good one.

I’ll have to add that to my list.

Blue dolphin neat.

I haven’t heard that either.

So you pop into a restaurant and ask for a blue dolphin neat and they know what you’re talking about?

Yeah, that’s the question.

Quite a few of the establishments that we go to, they do seem to know.

Maybe they just pick up on the idea that it’s, yeah, that looks like probably what they want or something.

So I don’t know.

And so the other expression, this was your grandmother and she would say, what was it now?

She would say, cold water is the cup that cheers away, away the bowl.

I think your mother was right. That is exactly part of a temperance saying.

The temperance movement had a number of rhymes and songs.

And that last part in particular, away the bowl, has belonged to rhymes and songs that have been used since at least the 1830s to talk about giving up alcohol.

There was one, for example, from 1837. I’ll just read a couple lines to you. It goes something like,

Neglected duties rise in fearful sad array. Up to its brim, I will be wise. I’ve cast the bowl away.

And the bowl here means the drinking bowl. The bowl, a long time ago, many centuries ago, came to stand for its contents.

And it almost always referred to alcoholic contents or even in a larger context, the revelry and the hijinks that would ensue when you got drunk or tipsy from drinking the contents of that bowl.

What’s funny is I’m looking at the sheet music for that last one that you mentioned.

And it looks like a drinking song.

Oh, so the water is the cup that the way away the bowl.

I wonder if they put temperance lyrics to an old drinking song.

That’s what I’m wondering.

It just seems like it would lend itself to swinging a mug and great foamy art.

So that’s what we know.

Gene, what do you think?

I appreciate all of the information.

It gives me a little bit better understanding.

I thought my mother was probably right, but I’m glad that you’re able to clear up that that’s where that came from.

So thank you, and thank you for the other suggestions as far as different types of cocktails that are city water and the such.

Yeah.

Ask for Adam’s Ale and see what you get.

All right.

Well, thank you, folks.

All right.

Take care of yourself and be well.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Good afternoon.

This is Dr. Charles DeVant up in the mountains of North Carolina in a little town called Blowing Rock.

Well, hello, Dr. DeVant.

It’s nice to talk to you.

Welcome to the show.

Well, I had a couple of questions, and one is that the mountains up here,

We have Scotch-Irish families that go back to the 1600s or so,

And they have some interesting medical terms, or terms for medical conditions anyway, that I thought I would pass on.

Two of them are easy to decipher, and the other one I really can’t.

They tend to describe, if something is painful, they may say they have a misery.

Like I’ve got a misery in my jaw if it’s a tooth or a misery in my back if it is, you know, something back there.

Sometimes the miseries turn out to be risins, which I guess I would spell R-I-S-I-N-G, a swelling up.

You know, and that’s usually, a risin is usually an abscess.

And so that I can decipher.

But sometimes the abscess starts as a pone, P-O-N-E, or they’ll have a pone in their neck or a pone under their arm.

You know, and that’s a lump or a cyst or something like that.

But I have no idea how we get pone from cyst or lymph gland.

Oh, I’m so glad you asked about this because it’s really interesting.

The word pone, in terms of a rise in or a swelling, comes from a Native American language.

It comes from a similar sounding word in Virginia Algonquian language, and the word translates as something like bread or baked.

And so it’s like, you know, corn pone.

It’s shaped sort of like a little loaf.

Okay, that makes sense.

And I’m interested, too, that you brought up the expression risin.

We once had a call from a doctor in Alabama who said that he had a patient who said, I got a risin in my leader.

Did you ever have anybody say that?

Very similar, yeah.

They’ll come in, and, you know, any place that you’ve got a cyst, be it on your back or your rear end or something, you know, it swells up, and they’ll describe it as a rosin. And usually a rosin will get drained.

Well, you must hear some wonderful language in that part of the country.

Oh, we have fun anyway, for sure. Up here in the mountains, we tend to append A, the letter A, particularly to verbs. You know, the song, she’ll be coming around the mountain is frequently sung as she’ll be a-coming around the mountain. Or people will say, he must have been a-going 90 miles an hour when he hit the tree. Or the neighbors had a party the other night and they were a-hooting and a-hollering until 3 o’clock in the morning.

What part of speech is that little a that gets tucked on to things?

Well, it used to be a preposition like at, a-t, or on, o-n. But it resolved over the centuries into just a. And the American dialects that use it got it from much earlier British varieties of English. And so in the past, you might have said, I’m at going. And I know that sounds weird, but it means you are continuously going. It’s about the progressive form of the verb. This is something that is ongoing.

You can also use it to form what are called adverbial complements by affixing the to an adjective. And it’s incredibly, it used to be more common, but it is really rapidly disappearing. It was formerly used throughout Appalachia and the U.S. South by both whites and blacks, but it’s becoming something of a historical artifact at this point.

Yeah, up here, occasionally people will still say they are afeared of something instead of afraid of something. So we are in the Appalachian Mountains, so that makes good sense.

Doctor, we want to thank you so much for sharing these stories with us. We really appreciate it. And think of us next time you’re hiking in the mountains.

I will think of you every time. Take care.

All right, you be well now. Well, unless you’ve got a rising in your leader, you can give us a call. Reach for that telephone, 877-929-9673. It’s toll-free in the mountains of North Carolina and all over Canada and the United States.

This show is about language seen through the lens of family, history, and culture. Stick around for more. 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.

Werner Herzog, the acclaimed German filmmaker, is known for such documentaries as Grizzly Man, which was about a conservationist who spent time with bears in the wild. And Herzog’s new memoir has a title that’s every bit as idiosyncratic as his career. It’s called Every Man for Himself and God Against All.

And this memoir is striking to me in that Herzog is somebody who becomes deeply passionate about lots of weird esoteric subjects, like, for example, a guy who would spend his time with grizzly bears. And when Herzog gets passionate about a topic, he simply goes out and makes a movie about it. For example, when he becomes obsessed with the question of how you might transport a steamship up a hill in the Peruvian jungle, that becomes his movie Fitzcarraldo.

Herzog is also fascinated with what he calls the limits of language. And you can see that in his 1976 documentary, which is about how fast auctioneers can talk. It’s called How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck? And you can find it on YouTube. It’s less than an hour long, but it’s pretty interesting.

But I bring this up because Herzog is also passionate about the Oxford English Dictionary. He calls it one of mankind’s greatest cultural achievements. And he writes, for me, it is the book of books, the one I would take to a desert island. It is inexhaustible, a miracle. And he goes on to describe a visit with Oliver Sacks. That’s the neurologist and author of Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. And I think anybody who loves words will appreciate this part.

He writes, the first time I visited Oliver Sacks on Ward’s Island, northeast of Manhattan, I had mislaid the house number, but knew the name of the little street. It was evening, wintertime. The slightly sloping street was icy. I parked and tiptoed along the icy pavement, looking into every lit up home. None of the windows had curtains. Through one window, I saw a man sprawled on a sofa with one of the hefty volumes of the OED propped on his chest. I knew that had to be him, and so it was. Our first subject was the dictionary. For him as well, it was the book of books.

Isn’t that lovely?

That’s amazing. First of all, that is totally a New York pastime. Werner Herzog is a New Yorker at heart because that’s what you do in the evenings. You kind of peek in windows just to see what your neighbors are like.

Oh, I thought you meant reading the OED.

And also having weird neighbors.

Yes, that’s also very New York. But yeah, that kind of understanding that a dictionary is an encapsulation of the human experience, that’s a truth. That’s a fundamental truth. And if you see somebody sprawled on a sofa with a print version of the OED, you know they’ve got to be a kindred spirit.

Thank you for sharing that passage, Martha. That book again is?

That book again is Werner Herzog’s memoir, Every Man for Himself and God Against All. We’ll link to that from our website. We’d love to hear what you’re reading. Martha and I are always interested in. There’s a little more room on the bedside table for maybe a couple more books. 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there. This is Skip in Gainesville, Florida.

Hello, Skip. Welcome to the show.

Well, thank you. What’s on your mind today?

Well, it wasn’t really a question so much as an observation about a word that I found interesting, the word pan. That started years ago when I used to crew on sailboats and was sitting around with some other sailors, and we were discussing radio protocols. I’m sure everyone knows Mayday Mayday, which is the urgent call, but there’s also two other radio calls that are of a lower-grade urgency, Securite, which is just announcing some danger or risk people should look out for, but then the other one is pan, done three times, pan, pan, pan.

Well, the discussion was, is it pronounced pan, pan, pan, or pon, pon, pon? The group that said pon said this is derived from the French word pon, which means breakdown. The pan group said that it was derived from an acronym, possible assistance needed. So, you know, we discussed that for a while and noticed that the Coast Guard usually said pond. But then we started talking about the word and how many different meanings that we could think of for the word pan.

Obviously, the cooking utensil and any similar pan type thing like a pan on a set of scales or pan for gold or in an old flintlock, there was a pan for the powder. But then also to pan as in you criticize or not like a movie. And then from video, when you’re sweeping a camera horizontally like a panorama. And then an all-inclusive term like Pan American. And then, of course, there’s the God Pan. And I think we found a few more. So I wondered if you had any additional meanings for the word pan.

Yeah. I mean, everything you said is right about pan, pan, pan or pon, pon, pon. I’ve heard it pronounced both ways, but you’re right that it does come from a French word, pon, that means a breakdown or a mechanical failure. And you’re right that it’s a call of urgency, but not distress. Like you’re lost or you need help and it’s an urgent situation, but there’s no immediate danger to anybody or to the craft you’re on.

And then let’s see, you mentioned the pan on a flintlock. You know, that gives us flash in the pan. Did you know that? If a flintlock misfires?

Yes. Yeah, the little pan on a flintlock is where you put your gunpowder. And so if there’s a flash in the pan, it just flashes, but it doesn’t actually fire.

And then let’s see, what were the other pans you mentioned? There’s frying pan, which comes from a really, really old, old, old word that just means something like iron vessel, as far as we know. It’s, you know, way back there in the mists of history.

And what’s interesting is that if you’re panning a show, you know, like a theatrical production, apparently that comes from the idea of putting somebody on the pan, like putting them on a frying pan.

You know, you put them on the frying pan and then you roast them.

You’re saying really negative things about them.

And then let’s see, you mentioned panorama comes from Greek words that mean all sight or all spectacle.

And the pan in panorama is not related to the god Pan.

He was a satyr that carried on in the woods and fields and in ancient Greece.

And he caused a lot of mysterious sounds, you know, playing his flute and things like that.

And Pan caused a lot of fear with these mysterious noises.

And that’s where we get panic.

If you’re panicking about something.

Oh, really?

Wow.

So many origins for similar words.

That’s quite interesting.

And what about the term like when it’s used in an all-inclusive like Pan-American, which is across America?

Right.

That’s the same idea.

That comes from a Greek stem, pan, that means all.

So panorama is all vision or all sight and Pan-American or Pan-African.

It’s the whole continent or the whole set of continents.

Well, we had a fun discussion.

We sat around for quite a while talking about Pan.

And I kind of remember that evening from many years ago.

A fascinating word.

Skip, I want to leave you with one more fact before you go.

The original thing we talked about, the Pan, Pan, Pan, or Pan, Pan, Pan, that on Pan, which means out of service or malfunction in French, originally came from sailing. The pan was a part of a sail in the 16th century. So the pan originally did refer to ships in distress, and then later in French referred to anything in distress, and then later referred to anything malfunctioning or out of service. So it’s got a long history, but started in sailing, and here we are still using it for sailing.

You got to call us again sometime, Skip.

Well, great. I can pick up a few more. I love playing with the English language. It’s so fascinating. I love your show. Thank you very much. Take care of yourself. Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye now. Well, you’ve been sitting around with your friends talking about this word and that, and it’s time to call us and talk with us about it. 877-929-9673, or send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, I just learned the term warbler neck.

Apparently this is a dreaded affliction among people who spend a lot of time watching warblers.

You mean like watching opera divas?

Like opera divas perched in a tree?

What are we talking about here?

From the orchestra pit?

No, warblers, the birds, tend to spend a lot of time up in the treetops.

And I learned that from a wonderful book called Better Living Through Birding. Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World. It’s by Christian Cooper, who now has a TV show about birding.

Oh, that sounds so good.

I love birding.

Birding is fantastic.

It always rewards you.

And apparently linguistically rewards you as well.

Very much so.

And I think you would love this book because he’s so passionate about his topic.

I mean, he’s passionate about other things like Marvel Comics and his history of gay activism, but also birdwatching.

And I’ve learned so much. And I actually walk around the world differently because I listen for birds in a way that I never did before.

877-929-9673. Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. This is Mary Schaefer in Newark, Delaware.

Well, listen, I was watching the movie Maestro about Leonard Bernstein.

And I noticed in one scene the Leonard Bernstein character said, I misread the room.

And I’m like, wait a second. I have not heard read the room until, I’m just guessing, like 10 years.

But I even looked it up. That scene was set in the 60s. And I’m like, did they do that on purpose? Did read the room? Has it been around longer than I thought? And so I thought I would ask.

So set the scene for us in the movie. It’s Leonard Bernstein, the composer and conductor. It’s the 1960s. What is happening in the scene?

Yeah, he and his wife are talking about a crucial issue.

It looks like maybe like a country home, and they’re by the pool, and they’re talking about this issue, and he just said, I misread the room, you know, sort of regrettably.

Meaning?

I misunderstood the situation, or I misread the situation.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

So there was something happening in there and he didn’t intuit what was going on.

He did not perceive the realities.

Well, he claimed he did not.

He claimed it.

He claimed he did not.

We’ll take his word for it.

And so for you to read the room means to be able to look at a situation and understand what’s going on.

Right.

Okay. And your concern is that the screenwriters maybe put modern words in his mouth that he couldn’t have said.

I don’t know. It just made me think about it because I’ve noticed it in other situations in books or films where they said something. And I’m like, I don’t think that fits this era. And so it just made me ask.

So my question for you is, in an enterprise which is all about faking reality, which is Hollywood, why are you expecting accurate historical language?

No kidding.

Well, I did consider, you know, maybe they’re making it, you know, relatable or approachable for, you know, the current audience.

Right.

Right?

Yeah.

But it did make me wonder about read the room and how long it’s been around.

Yeah.

So it’s just an excuse to get on the horn with Martha and Grant, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, it’s a fair question.

So let’s put a picture on this then.

So read the room exactly. It at least goes back to 1973, to put an exact date on it.

But there is a but there, which is there are other things that you can read that are like rooms.

For example, you could read an audience as far back as 1899 with exactly that same connotation.

The Oxford English Dictionary has a definition which they, it’s in the particular stuffiness of the Oxford English Dictionary, goes to assess precisely any indications or clues given out by a location, situation, etc. in order to decide on a course of action, basically to read a room.

Right.

And their earliest dates go back to the 1920s.

But like I said, I found it, to read an audience, go back to 1899.

And it’s always about performers or singers or musicians or speakers, comedians, those kinds of people, their ability to get in front of a crowd and figure out the mood or temperament of the crowd.

And I feel like that’s the same idea as read the room, even if we’re not using exactly the same language as read the room.

Right.

So the question is, do you insist on it be exactly the same word for word read the room?

Do I insist?

Yeah, you personally, Mary.

No, I don’t. I just really wanted someone to talk to about this.

Oh, here we are.

Here you are. Yeah.

No, I’m okay with that. I just wanted to see what somebody else who would know what I was talking about, what they thought about it.

So the other thing to say is when lexicographers, that’s people who compile and edit dictionaries, look at language and we find in first use of a term, say 1973 in this case, we can pretty much bet we haven’t found the first use.

We suspect every time that there’s an earlier use out there that it’s simply either A, we haven’t found it yet, or B, we’ll never find it, but it probably existed and is now missing.

And you can pretty much assume that you could stretch it out 10 years earlier.

So to answer your original question, could Leonard Bernstein in the 1960s have said, I misread the room?

If I found a citation from 1973, then the answer is yes.

Yeah.

I’ll go with that.

That’s reasonable to me.

Anyway, Mary, thank you so much for your call.

Call us again sometime.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Did you see something in a book or a movie and you just can’t stop thinking about that particular word or phrase?

Give us a call and talk about it. 877-929-9673 or send us an email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

We’ve talked before about the words don and doff, and that’s D-O-N and D-O-F-F. Those are what firefighters do with their equipment. And we don our gay apparel in the Christmas carol.

Right, and those words come from do on and do off. But I recently learned that there’s also the word doubt, D-O-U-T. And you use the word doubt when you’re talking about putting out a fire.

Oh, so you do out.

Yes, yes. You doubt it or you doubt it out. You hear that particularly in Wyoming. How about that? That’s a new one for me. I love it that there’s a set of these three words that are constructed the same way.

There’s something really pleasing about having that set. It’s kind of like salt shaker, pepper shaker, and then, I don’t know, cinnamon sugar shaker. If you come across a really pleasing set of words, share them with us.

877-929-9673. Toll free, United States and Canada. Our team includes senior producer Stefanie Levine, engineer and editor Tim Felten, and quiz guide John Chaneski.

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Special thanks to Michael Breslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidenwurm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. Until next time, goodbye.

Bye.

Bye.