Book Moth (episode #1628)

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. Grant, you and I have both been called bookworms before. Do you mind that term?

Being called a worm? No, I don’t take offense. The image of burrowing into a book, that’s exactly me.

Right. Yeah. Just just loving books so much and just just working through them page by page like a little worm in a library, just just devouring what’s there.

I love the term to bookworm. And it’s interesting to me that many other languages use the image of a worm devouring a book to refer to people who love reading and love libraries.

In Hungarian and Estonian, the image is a book moth, which is also kind of lovely.

And in Indonesia, the term for somebody who really loves books translates as book flea or book louse.

In Spanish, if you love books, you’re a raton de biblioteca.

Oh, it’s the same as one of the French ones, a rat de biblioteca, library rat.

Oh, there you go.

But they also have one I really love, which is Ink Drinker.

Bufa d’Ancla.

Ink Drinker.

Somebody who’s drinking the ink.

But I have to say, I like the Indonesian one, the flea, the book flea.

The idea of hopping from book to book.

Sometimes that’s what we are more than bookworms, right?

You’re like, this is not really catching me.

I’m going to hop over to this one.

Martha and I would love it if you would spill a little ink our way.

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Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Christine in Charleston, South Carolina.

Welcome, Christine. What can we do for you?

I swim daily, and I was in the ladies’ locker room, and I overheard in the changing cubicle next to me,

Apparently someone, a woman had had worn her street clothes over her bathing suit.

Come.

She swam and then she had forgotten to bring any undergarments.

So she thinks she sounded mortified by that.

And she said, oh, and I don’t know who she was.

I never did see her.

She said, you know, and so she kind of worked it out aloud.

And she said, I guess I’ll have to go home commando.

And I said, you know, she didn’t know who I was.

I was in the adjacent cubicle.

And I thought about that and I said, what does that mean?

Does that mean nude or without support or what?

And she didn’t answer me.

And then eventually I said, do you know?

And she said no.

So I never did find out and I couldn’t find anything.

This is a former military economy here.

And I just couldn’t find the answer.

Where does commando come from vis-a-vis for getting your undergarments?

Oh, yeah.

So it’s going commando.

The military town is possibly a connection to it being something that was in her vocabulary,

If she’s been around long enough.

To go commando, yeah, it means to go without your underwear, just to free wheel it, you know.

And it probably comes from the military.

The last time we talked about this on the show,

We got a lot of really great emails from our listeners and phone calls and,

And many of them with military experience and including Marine officers and

Navy SEALs.

And they said that underwear can twist or bunch up or chafe during extreme

Drills or exercise or when you’re out in the field or, you know,

On missions because of sweat and humidity in the climate.

And so it often is better not to have them on because they can be a

Distraction or they can make you uncomfortable or make it hard to be as, you know, ambulatory

Or as flexible as you need to be.

Especially in jungles and humid climates, you can prevent jungle rot and other things

That can happen in your nether places when there’s too much humidity.

So that’s the use of it.

But why commando?

Why not commando?

Because it was supposedly, and this I heard from numerous people in several branches of

The military, many of them claiming to know this term from the Vietnam War. It was the commandos

Who figured this out. They were the ones most likely to be out there really exerting themselves.

And kind of getting the wisdom of the field and bringing it back to the camp. So it was the people who were paid to do the toughest jobs. So to go commando, it just came from the commandos, this wisdom. Doing as they did. Yeah. But so is commando a rank or what is that? In Italian, it’s from the verb meaning to command, to order. These are people who are ordered to go on a specific mission for a specific purpose. So a group of people, usually specialized skills, are sent out to do a specific job and then come back.

Well, that’s it. That’s true. One of our listeners, Sean, who I think might be here in San Diego, he said he went through special forces training in the 80s, and the older soldiers passed down the advice to him and the other newbies to wear running shorts rather than underwear because of this problem.

Interesting.

So we find it as far back as the 1970s.

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, that’s very interesting.

Thank you very much.

I love these things, but I love your show. It’s really great.

Oh, our pleasure.

Thank you for joining us, Christine.

My pleasure.

Take care of yourself.

Bye now.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, my name’s Doug. I’m in Tucson, Arizona.

Hey, Doug in Tucson. How you doing?

I found the hill I’m willing to die upon.

What is that hill?

Oh, dear. Better be good.

Ensure versus ensure. They’re spelled identical. The first one begins with an I as in India, and the second one begins with an E as in Echo, so I-N-S-U-R-E or E-N-S-U-R-E.

Okay, Doug, you’ve got to tell us why you feel so strongly about these two words and what you think they mean.

Okay, so first of all, I recognize clearly I could just look it up online and find the answer myself, but I just wanted to talk to you guys because this is way more fun.

Yeah, absolutely.

For sure.

So as far as what I think they mean, it’s easier to explain ensure because ensure means that you’re going to make certain that something is going to happen. For instance, I am going to ensure that my dog goes for a walk this afternoon. I’m not going to ensure that she’s going to go for a walk this afternoon, i.e. I’m not going to pay a third-party company to monetarily make certain that that happens.

I don’t know how to define ensure with an I very well, other than you pay somebody money and then they make certain if your house has something go through the roof, the roof gets repaired. They help you cover financial risk.

Exactly.

I insured my house. I insured my car.

So, Doug, what brought this to mind, all this insurer versus insurer stuff?

Oh, it’s been a pet peeve of mine for decades. Oh, the number of emails and mostly emails, mostly things that people write in a casual manner. I don’t write professionally. If I’m writing an email, yeah, it’s professional, but that’s not my job. It’s just communication.

So it’s not a strong need to be super professional and literature and that kind of thing and written communication. I work with extremely intelligent people. But, you know, a lot of the guys that I work with, you know, they didn’t get college degrees in literature and all this. And they constantly misuse insure and insure. And it drives me absolutely bonkers.

Oh, dear, Doug. But wouldn’t you agree there’s a lot of overlap between those two? I mean, you know, for hundreds of years, they were simply spelling variants. It wasn’t until about the 19th century that some self-appointed grammarians decided that we really must differentiate between the two.

But don’t you find yourself naturally using ensure sometimes instead of ensure for making sure something’s going to happen?

No, but I think that’s because my mother was a self-appointed grammarian. She instilled in you all these things. She was the kind of woman who would tell me that I should never say the word often because the T is always silent.

Incorrect.

Oh, dear. That’s another one.

Well, Doug, I hope that we can help you now that you’ve vented a little bit, that you will not have to die on a hill.

And that you will be comfortable and put this peeve to rest and move forward with your life and love your actual animal instead of your pretend peeve animal.

Right.

Your actual pet.

Yes, exactly.

She needs more walks.

Every time you want to pee, take your dog for a walk.

Absolutely.

So just to clarify, because I genuinely didn’t have the question.

So historically, the two were connected, and it was really only, you know, 100, 150, whatever years ago that somebody was like, no, we have to differentiate between the two?

Yeah.

Right.

Pretty much.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, we can assure you that you don’t have to worry about this.

Here we go. What’s the origin? I mean, I love getting origins from Martha.

Well, what’s the origin? Ensure, ensure? And now you have me curious about usure. Are they all related?

Right. Well, they all have to do with making sure. And again, that’s what I mean. There’s just so much overlap.

Doug, before we go, I just want to let you know that the sure and assure and ensure and ensure is related to the words like secure and security.

They all come ultimately from the Latin word meaning safe, securis.

Oh, okay.

Sort of like the company you always see, securita.

Exactly.

Oh.

So take care of yourself.

Be well.

Yeah.

Don’t die on a hill.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Thank you so much, Grandma.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

We assure you that if you call us and leave a voicemail, we will listen to it.

And you can rest assured that if you send us an email, we will read it.

words@waywordradio.org, 1-877-929-9673, which is toll free in the United States and all of Canada.

Sometimes you may be watching a documentary or reality TV show.

And you’ll notice that a portion of what you’re seeing has been blurred or obscured like a label or a recognizable logo.

Like maybe the Apple logo on a Mac laptop is kind of blurred or products on a grocery shelf.

And I was delighted to learn what the term for that is.

You probably already know it, Grant.

I did know it at one point, but I can’t recall it now.

What is it?

Greeking.

Oh, yeah.

Greek text.

It comes from Greek text.

Yes, yes.

And the whole idea there is from the idea of it’s Greek to me, supposedly.

You’ll see this in books where perhaps they have a live screenshot showing you how to do something.

And there are parts of the interface that you don’t need to know about because they might confuse you.

So they will Greek out the rest of the image so that you don’t see it.

Right, right.

And in TV, it’s a way of avoiding giving away free advertising or keeping sponsors happy.

Because maybe your sponsor makes another product that competes with the one that you’re Greeking out.

Yeah.

You might see this on some sites that require you to log in or to have a paid account in order to read their product,

Where it looks like it’s lines of text, but it’s not actually letters.

That’s Greek text.

Right.

I was so excited to learn that.

Our lines are wide open.

1-877-929-9673.

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 we’re joined by a man wearing clam diggers and holding a basket of showfish, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

He’s our quiz guy.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

You know, speaking of such a vision, it’s been a while since I arranged an attack on your dignity by having you make animal noises.

We’ve done this before.

Let’s fix that.

Let’s do it again.

I’m going to give you a clue.

Yeah, yeah.

I’ll give you a clue to a word that begins with a sound that an animal makes.

For example, if I said, I asked the dog what part of a loudspeaker is designed to produce low-frequency sounds,

And she answered, woof, woofer.

Got it?

Oh, yes, of course.

So you’ll answer with the animal sound first, and then the word that begins with the animal sound.

Here we go.

Start out pretty simple, and the words will get a little longer.

Here’s the first one.

I asked the chick, you’re an animal, but what do we call human beings in general or considered collectively?

Peep. People.

Very good. Peep. Peep. Peep. Peep. People.

I asked the dog, what’s that series of black lines that a scanner reads to determine the price of an item at the supermarket?

Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark. Barcode.

Bark, bark code is exactly right.

I asked the cow, what’s that strong whiskey distilled from corn mash?

You know, the one that’s produced and sold illegally.

Moonshine.

Moonshine is correct.

I asked the dove, what do you call those knee length trousers that are cut very wide so that they resemble a skirt?

Koolots.

Coolatz is exactly right.

I asked the crow, what is an act or agency that produces an effect?

Now, just because two things are correlated, it doesn’t imply this.

Cause.

Cause or causation.

Yes, very good.

Cause.

I asked the sheep, what’s that mythological snake-like dragon that can kill you just by looking at you?

Basilisk.

It’s a list, yes.

I don’t think you guys want any dignity.

I don’t think you care.

Oh, John, you’re giving us credit, frankly.

That’s true.

I asked the kitty cat, what’s that fancy word for extremely generous?

It comes from the Latin word for gift or duty or service.

And the cat refused to tell you.

No, walked away.

Cats don’t, they don’t play that.

Tail in the air, headed for the other room.

Mew, munificent.

Oh, nice.

Munificent.

Yeah.

I asked the owl, what do you call a gathering at which folk singers entertain, often with the audience joining in?

Hoo!

Hootenanny.

Hootenanny is correct.

Very nice.

Finally, I asked the fox, what does the fox say?

Ring, ring, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Because apparently that’s what a fox says.

It never gets old, really.

That song actually has a lot of life left in it.

Shout out to Elvis.

Love that group.

They’re so good.

All right.

And you guys, again, I love you guys just as much because you were fantastic with your performances.

Very good.

Oh, what does the fish say?

The fish says, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Thank you so much.

And if you’d like to join in the fun on A Way with Words, give us a call, 877-929-9673,

Or send your stories about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Oh, hi. This is Chuba from Sammamish, Washington.

Welcome to the show. What can we do for you today?

Yeah, my question is about the word brinjo.

And this is another word for eggplant, I suppose.

So specifically when speaking in English, when talking in English, we would always refer to eggplant as brinjal.

It’s spelled B-R-I-N-J-A-L.

And the word for it in Indian languages is all very, very different and is nowhere close to Brinjal.

I’ve always thought that it was from the British.

And lo and behold, I found out that the Brits call it Auberjain.

So where do you think this word came from?

And it is so prevalent, almost, it looks like it’s prevalent only in India.

Oh, this is very interesting.

So just to recap here, we’re talking about eggplant or aubergine.

And in Indian English, you say brinjal, B-R-I-N-J-A-L.

Yes.

You know, in one of my reference works, this is the CRC,

World Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants by Umberto Quattrochi.

He has 116 different words for eggplants in India and all the variety of the language.

And a bunch of them are very similar to brinjal.

And this might really surprise you, but aubergine and brinjal come from the same source.

They’re both modifications of an older word.

They have the same root.

They are connected.

So it starts with Sanskrit, as is often the case, where there was a word referring to eggplant that referenced its ability to stop flatulence.

And that was borrowed then from Sanskrit into Persian and then to Arabic and then into Portuguese.

And the Portuguese brought this word or a form of it back to India, back to the subcontinent, where it was readopted to refer to eggplant.

So even though it started in the Sanskrit-speaking world, it traveled around the Middle East and into Europe and then came back.

And so you will find forms of the word in almost every Indian language, except for, I think, Sinhala.

Yeah, yeah. Because I know of at least three or four different Indian words from different languages referring to the plant.

Yeah, yeah. So there’s a ton. Many of them are connected. Even in Italian, the word is melanzana, which means mad apple. But even that is ultimately a phonetic modification of this same word where the M and the B kind of traded places.

And in the Caribbean, there was, I don’t know if it’s much used today, but the word was modified to sound like brown jolly, the color brown and the happiness jolly.

And it’s just, this word has traveled the world over about a thousand years.

But it really wasn’t until the Portuguese brought this plant to Europe in the Middle Ages that it really then began to spread to the rest of the world and take its name with it.

Interesting. Oh my goodness.

I never thought it had such a huge history behind it.

Thousands of years. Unbelievable.

One thousand at least, because Sanskrit is a very old language.

Yeah, that’s right.

And eggplant does originally come from the Indian subcontinent.

Okay.

That’s really, really interesting.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care of yourself and call us again sometime, all right?

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, we are delighted to talk to you about whatever words happen in your language, whether it’s English or not, and we’ll see if we can get to the bottom of its histories.

They’re often more connected than you think.

877-929-9673 is toll-free in the United States and Canada.

We had a voicemail from Judith Leonard who said that when she was a little girl and she injured herself, stubbed her toe, or scraped her knee, her grandmother would comfort her by saying, oh, don’t worry, it’ll be a pig’s foot in the morning.

Oh, that’s helpful.

There’s so many things that are great about that.

You know, I mean, it just stops the kids short, right?

Right, right.

And maybe they’re intrigued. Maybe they want to see if that will happen.

I didn’t think about that.

I just think it would be so disconcerting.

But I did a little digging, and this is apparently quite common, especially in northern England and Liverpool.

Very nice.

Don’t worry. It’ll be a pig’s foot in the morning.

If you’ve got a special thing that they say out your way when somebody falls and scrapes a knee, we’d love to hear it.

877-929-9673 or tell us on social media.

There are a lot of ways to reach us.

You can find them all on our website at waywordradio.org.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hey there, this is Edward Graves.

How are you?

I’m calling from Atlanta, Georgia.

Hi, Edward. Welcome.

So it sounds really silly, but I know everybody in my world uses blah, blah, blah, but nobody knows why or where it came from.

It’s just kind of a filler.

So I wanted to know what the entomology of blah, blah, blah was.

Blah, blah, blah.

And how do you use it?

When do you say blah, blah, blah?

You know, so I guess it’s just one of those fillers, you know, in casual conversation.

And, you know, I’m not sure exactly why I use it, but no one seems to argue with me.

I’ll just say, you know, hey, blah, blah, blah.

So you might say it when you don’t want to explain something in full and you’re sure that they understand.

Like, well, she said to take the left and then a right and then go past the Walmart, blah, blah, blah.

So you don’t want to explain the rest of the directions.

That’s exactly right.

Okay.

But blah alone, I’m guessing it’s for you like it’s for everyone else, behaves differently when you say just one blah.

So I think if I’m using it in the correct context, it just sort of means bland, perhaps?

Yeah, exactly.

Plain, ordinary humdrum.

Yeah, feeling blah.

Oh, yeah, or having the blahs, which is feeling like kind of a malaise, an overwhelming indifference to your obligations and to life in general.

Great.

I think that what’s happening here, this is the best guess that I have, and this is what other linguists have speculated as well, is that it’s more or less an imitation of the way people speak English without words being articulated.

English kind of sounds like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it’s probably also influenced by blab, B-L-A-B, which just means to kind of talk without any kind of self-control.

Oh, wow.

And you will actually find blab, blab, blab used in just the same way we say blah, blah, blah from more than 120 years ago before blah, blah, blah.

Wow.

Yeah.

And so you can have blah alone. You can have two blas and you can have three blas.

And they’re each just a little different.

The two blah, blah is almost the same as the three blah, blah, blah, but it’s just a little more specific.

It’s so weird to see it in print and discern that.

Interestingly enough, it’s also used in French and German, but it’s not clear which language gave it to the other one.

So it could have originated in French, German, or English, but all three of these languages, at the very least, and probably more European languages, also use it in exactly the same way, just to kind of replace long text that you don’t want to say or repeat.

And I’m careful not to use it.

I work in an environment that’s very culturally diverse, and I’m always aware that not everybody understands what we say as Americans.

Oh, it’s such an idiomatic language, isn’t it?

It’s such a full of pitfalls for people who are learning English.

Well, great. Thank you.

I feel empowered now.

So just one blah, please.

Yeah.

Empowered to do what, Edward?

Well, now, I mean, blah, blah, blah.

I feel like I should find a way to actually complete a thought.

Right, right.

Or just put a sentence ending punctuation there and just not say blah, blah, blah.

It can be rude, particularly if you’re saying it in response to somebody telling you something you don’t want to hear.

I need you to clean your room, blah, blah, blah.

Well, I didn’t really think about it like that.

But yeah, that makes sense.

I’m sure if my son were to tell me the same thing, I’d have a feeling about it.

I was thinking of my own son.

Well, yeah, Edward, I’m thinking of an English teacher I used to have who would jump all over us if we used etc.

She said that was lazy, you know, and maybe blah, blah, blah.

Some people consider that the same thing, you know.

Say what you mean, as you were suggesting.

Yeah, it seems like a good life moment to kind of be more specific, particularly in the workplace.

Edward, thank you so much for your time with us.

We really appreciate it.

Yeah, great question.

Thank you for taking my call, guys.

All right.

Be well.

Take care.

877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant.

This is Nate Varnardot.

I’m calling from North Carolina.

Hi, Nate. Welcome to the show.

Hello, Nate.

Hi, Martha.

Hi.

What’s up?

Growing up, my grandparents on my mom’s side lived in New Hampshire, and we would take visits up there for big holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

And during a meal, especially when I was younger, I may not be finishing all my food, and my grandpa Hack would always say, you better get outside of that.

And I’ve never heard anyone since, besides my immediate family, use that phrase.

And I’d like to know more about it.

To get outside of that, he meant you better eat that?

Yeah, you better get outside of that turkey.

Are you going to get outside of those mashed potatoes?

Sometimes it was a question.

Okay. So to get outside of food means, to what do you mean?

Put your body on the outside of it. In other words, put it inside of you.

I don’t think it literally means that. It doesn’t mean embrace it.

That was how I always interpreted it as a child. I mean, maybe that’s not the right meaning, but…

Hold the entire turkey to your chest, son.

Well, I think it was more, no, no, I think he meant, you know, my helping of whatever it was.

It needs to be inside of my body instead of outside of it, which would then put my body on the outside of said food.

Yeah, exactly.

Once you’ve eaten it, you are technically on the outside of whatever you’ve eaten.

Exactly. yeah

And I mean, I still use this phrase, although I’ve changed it a little sometimes.

I say you better get around that to my daughter.

But essentially, yeah, it’s the same meaning.

And I get funny looks from her and my wife.

Yeah, I think that’s pretty much it, Nate.

Get outside of that meal so that it’s inside of you.

And sometimes the expression is climb outside of that or get on the outside of.

And it’s been around, what, since the 1860s or so in both the UK and the United States.

You can get outside of a meal or get outside of a square meal.

I’ve seen references to you’ve got to get outside of a supper, you know, because you’re hungry and you’re looking around.

In fact, I’m looking at a newspaper from 1868 in Pennsylvania that says,

There once was a conjurer who professed his ability to get into a quart bottle.

But we know a conjurer who can do a trick worth two of that.

He can get outside of a quart bottle by putting himself around the insides of it.

So it’s not like climbing into a bottle.

It’s pouring the bottle’s contents into you.

So we’re looking at 150 years history of this odd expression, meaning to eat or to drink.

Is it mainly in New England?

Or I know you said in the UK as well.

Is it still used anywhere?

Yeah, it’s current, actually.

You’ll still hear it.

It’s never been all that common.

But yeah, you still occasionally find that.

I think it’s kind of perpetuated by fiction as much as anything.

It kind of goes along with this old-fashioned mode of speech that you might find in certain kinds of novels.

Yeah.

Here’s a newspaper ad from 1904.

Get outside of a fish supper with hot rolls.

I could go for that right now.

Oh, yeah, me too.

Yeah, I was just thinking of catfish and cornbread, actually.

Got plenty of that here in North Carolina for sure.

Well, that’s fantastic and fascinating, and I can’t wait to tell my mom about it.

So thank you so much.

All right, take care.

Please do.

Bye-bye.

Y’all have a good one.

Bye-bye.

Share your memories of the expressions you learned from your family with us.

We would love to talk to you about it.

877-929-9673.

We’d love hearing from our Canadian callers.

That’s a toll-free number that works in both the U.S. and Canada.

Lots of exciting news in the world of astronomy.

And one thing that I’ve been struck by is the fact that astronomers have spotted nearly 150 objects way out in space.

And they’re baffled because these objects are too small to be called stars.

But they can’t be called planets either because they don’t orbit a star.

And they’re all about the size of Jupiter.

But given what we know, these things simply should not exist.

And I was delighted to learn the other day that they’re calling these mystery items Jupiter Mass Binary Objects.

And the acronym for that is JUMBOs.

That’s a fantastic name for them.

So well done.

My stars.

That’s delightful.

My stars.

We are on social media and we love to chat with you.

You can find all of our social media accounts and the ways to reach us on our website at waywordradio.org.

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.

Grant, I know you’re a big reader.

I’m wondering what you have on your bedside table these days.

I am a bookworm, a big one.

My son and I are currently working our way through two of Brandon Sanderson’s series.

I finished his Stormlight Archive, and I’m now in the sixth book of his Mistborn series.

But today, I really wanted to talk about these two books I read written by Rebecca Ross.

This is a duology of A River Enchanted and Fire Endless.

These are set on the imaginary Scottish island of Cadence,

And Ross weaves a tale of magic and intrigue and of deep-rooted legend.

There are tragic events from two centuries ago that have split the island into east and west,

With tartan-clad clans claiming each side and doing battle when the lines between the sides is crossed.

It’s just woven through with all this Scottish myth and legend while still being a fairytale place.

And so in the first book, A River Enchanted, the character Jack Tamerlan comes back from the mainland after 10 years.

And as he becomes reacquainted with the island’s people and culture, we learn about its ancestral spirits and secrets where music has power and the wind carries gossip and stories.

Very, very exciting.

One of those secrets is that spirits won’t say what they know about the young girls that have gone missing.

So it’s kind of a mystery plus fantasy fiction.

At sequel, A Fire Endless builds upon this foundational folklore and then ignites their narrative with a lot more intensity and twist where islanders have to defend themselves against the spirit world and each other.

It’s all really interesting stuff.

I do read a lot of, you know, Pulitzer winners and Booker Prize winners and also rands from both lists.

But I also enjoy this kind of genre fiction just because it’s always wonderful to sit down after a tired day and take pleasure in a world that somebody’s created.

It sounds incredibly rich and colorful.

Yeah, Rebecca Ross has just breathed life into the Scottish lore that she’s borrowed and modified.

And it’s just this vivid world.

And the overlap with the real world is seamless.

It’s really well done.

And I love the specificity of the geography as well.

I’d love to get over to Scotland.

And that sounds like a great thing to read in the meantime.

Yeah, the island is imaginary.

But of course, there are plenty of wonderful Scottish islands in the Hebrides.

Well, give me that title again.

So this is the duology by Rebecca Ross,

A River Enchanted, and A Fire Endless.

We’ll put links to those titles on our website, and we’d love to know what you’re reading.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your favorite reads to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, Martha and Grant.

My name is Caleb.

I’m calling from Monterey, California.

My wife and I met about a decade ago in college, and pretty early on I found out that she was half-Egyptian,

And I was excited to tell her, oh, you know what, when I was about 10 or 11, I actually lived in Egypt for a couple of months.

I didn’t know at the time, but apparently she sort of internally rolled her eyes a little bit about that.

And it was, you know, time went on.

We dated, got engaged, married, and several years into marriage, she kind of came out and said, you know what, I love you, but you’ve been telling people you lived in Egypt, and I just don’t think you did.

I think what you did, it basically amounts to an extended visit, and it’s time to put my foot down.

And I was kind of shocked about that and amused, but I disagreed.

And so we asked friends and colleagues and family over the years sort of what they thought with no real clear outcome.

So it’s time finally to take it to the authorities and get some advice here.

Oh, wow.

So the question is, you were in Egypt for a couple months when you were 11.

Yeah, two and a half months.

Two and a half months.

And you say you lived there.

That’s your verb.

And she says you stayed there.

That’s her verb.

Visit or stay somewhere like that.

Yeah.

Okay.

We both have our points.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Caleb, we’d like to hear your points.

My stance is, you know, we had our own apartment.

You know, we received mail.

We had several overnight trips within Egypt and kind of came back home afterward, celebrated major holidays, you know, attended a church, had a membership at a sports club.

All this sort of daily minutiae that I feel like adds up to living there.

Okay.

So the question is, what does it mean to live someplace?

When can you say that you’ve lived there?

This is complicated by the fact that stay has a long history in English of being used to mean to reside or to dwell.

And so this is all complicated by words having more than one meaning.

And if we focus too much on a single meaning for a word, we often lose sight of the larger understanding.

And I think that’s what’s happening here with your wife and you.

She has a much more philosophical take on it.

What’s her take?

Yeah.

Sure.

So her perspective is it has to have a pretty specific intent, which apparently my family and I did not meet.

Which is kind of that while it wasn’t a vacation to live someplace, you have to sort of start a new chapter in your life, move the center of your life to a new place, try to find your community and the sense of belonging.

And that really wasn’t what we were doing there.

Did you keep a residence back in your home country, which I assume was in the United States?

Yeah, yeah.

So we were, I believe, I don’t know exactly if it was a child, but on a tourist visa.

So we weren’t permanent residents or anything, but I still feel like it adds up.

This is so interesting to me, Caleb, because I’m thinking about I visited Alaska not too long ago.

And people said you didn’t live in Alaska until you’d gone through all four seasons.

So if I had stayed there for six months, they would have said, no, you don’t live here.

And I’m also thinking about this was when you were 10 and 11.

It’s making me realize that when I was two and three years old, our family lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, because my father was on sabbatical.

And I never think of myself as somebody who lived in Massachusetts.

I don’t.

He was on sabbatical years later when I was 14 in Florida.

And then I felt like I lived in Florida.

But I’m wondering, is age an element there or is it the temporary nature of your stay there?

If you’re deployed in the military for a year to Germany, would you say you lived in Germany?

I think I would.

Or if you’re a student someplace abroad, you know.

Yeah, right, right.

So two months in Egypt when you’re 10?

I don’t know.

What do you think, Grant?

I think that both parties here have a really good case.

I think the confusion can be solved where Caleb can say that he was in Egypt and use a different verb.

Not stayed because he doesn’t agree with that and not lived because his wife doesn’t agree with that.

Yeah, maybe it’s just you spent some time in.

So when you’re having a conversation, you’re talking about how much you love Egyptian food or whatever it is, and you say, oh, yeah, I spent some time in Egypt when I was 11, and that’s when I learned to love whatever.

And maybe that gets the point across without getting anybody’s feathers ruffled.

Caleb, I have a feeling that a lot of our listeners are going to want to weigh in on this and weigh in on the amount of time maybe it takes to stay someplace or other factors that might affect whether you say I lived in that place or I stayed there.

Well, thank you very much.

We’re both fans of the show.

So it was a pleasure.

All right.

Take care.

Thanks, Caleb.

Yeah, send us your thoughts about Stay vs. Live.

The email address is words@waywordradio.org.

Tell us about your time in other countries and the language you learned there and whether or not you technically stayed or technically lived.

After a whale dies, it often floats up to the surface for a while.

And there it’s scavenged by seabirds and sharks.

And then eventually it starts to slowly sink.

And when it reaches the ocean floor, it’s called a whale fall.

And there it provides this sudden and huge source of food for the creatures of the deep.

You know, there’s not necessarily a whole lot of food there.

And all of a sudden, there’s an immense amount of it.

And I just think that’s such a lovely term for sort of the circle of life, you know.

Yeah, and a whale fall.

It’s to imagine this immense creature succumbing to anything just seems impossible.

Doesn’t it?

Yeah.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is James from South Carolina.

Hey, James.

Welcome.

What’s up?

Well, I want to ask about a dish that was made by my great-grandmother.

We used to get together, have dinners, breakfast every Sunday.

And one of the things she made around the holidays, I’m really interested where it came from.

So maybe you’ve had it before.

I’ll kind of describe it and then say what it was called.

But it’s basically a pistachio pudding mixed with whipped cream and pineapple.

And what she called this was Watergate salad.

And that name always confused me.

I don’t think it has anything to do with the Watergate scandal.

But I’ve just always wondered, where does that come from?

I remember it well.

It’s fantastic.

So you serve it cold, and I don’t know, it’s just really sweet, creamy.

It’s very easy to eat too much.

I’ll put it that way.

I have to tell you, I loathe it.

I cannot stand it, partly because I don’t like whipped cream, believe it or not.

But Watergate salad is the worst.

It’s the worst.

It’s terrible.

Not for James.

Not for James.

It’s not for me, though.

It’s not meant for me.

It’s meant for you, James, and you can have it all.

I respect that, and I appreciate that.

It sounds refreshing.

Martha, you didn’t know Watergate salad from family get-togethers?

No, we never had that, but it sounds quite refreshing.

Well, growing up in Missouri, this would show up on family gatherings all the time, 70s and 80s, which is kind of the heyday.

Is that about when you remember having it, James, 70s, 80s?

No.

So my great-grandmother, she was around 80 when she made this for us.

And I was a young man, maybe 20.

I’m 34 years old now.

So this was like in the 90s.

Oh, so she was still making the 90s.

Okay.

Yeah, the Watergate salad shows up right at Watergate.

It is named after it, but as you say, has nothing to do with it.

You’ll find that happens again and again with food items where people will take the name of a famous person or a famous event and name their food item after it just to kind of give it some sparkle, some cachet.

And although this wasn’t a really sparkling event in American history, Watergate did the same thing.

There were more than a few dishes named after it, including Watergate cake.

But the recipes vary.

The canonical version of Watergate salad is pistachio pudding.

But, you know, that’s hard to find.

So a lot of people would just substitute lime jello or any flavor of gelatin, which was green, just to give it the same color, the green color that the pistachio pudding would have given it.

Wow.

For those who are listening from other countries or are too young to remember, Watergate was when five men were arrested for breaking into and planting listening devices in the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate Hotel.

Although at the time, I think it was called the Watergate Apartments.

This is in June of 1972.

And then two years later, it eventually led to the resignation of President Nixon on national television.

So it was a really big deal.

You know, I’m reminded of the origin of baked Alaska.

That also had to do with current events because it was invented supposedly in 1867 to honor the acquisition of Alaska from the Russian Empire the year earlier that year.

Okay.

So that’s another example.

Yeah.

That derived from current events.

But Grant, I’m also thinking about a call we got eons ago from a woman who was asking about Pooflopoo pie.

Yep.

Do you remember that?

I was headed that direction.

Yeah.

So that is another name.

Well, Pooflopoo pie can be Watergate salad, but it’s also used for other dishes.

Watergate salad itself is sometimes just called the green stuff or Shut the Gate Salad or Green Goop or Green Goddess or Green Fluff or Mean Green.

So it has a lot of names, and they don’t all reference the scandal of the 1970s.

Well, very cool.

Thank you guys for taking the time to answer my question.

I appreciate it.

Sure.

Happy to help.

Thanks for calling.

Take care, James.

I want to try this stuff, James.

I’m going to find it someplace.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Definitely try it.

Okay.

Call us with your food words or what’s.

877-929-9673.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Amber from Charlotte, North Carolina.

I am a child of the 90s, and I grew up in rural Appalachia, for context, in Western North Carolina.

And so the Spice Girls were really big, and so my dream was platform shoes.

So I got platform shoes for my birthday one year and tried to wear them all over, and I was just so bad with them, as any preteen is.

And so my dad and my mom would, you know, I would be walking around and they would say, oh, you’re coming through the house with those clodhoppers on.

Or like, oh, like, go take those clodhoppers off so you could actually, like, go do this chore or something.

And I, you know, could garner the meaning of the word roughly based on the context.

And my husband and I listen to your show all the time.

So I decided to call them and ask.

I don’t think I’d ever thought of the Spice Girls platform shoes as being clodhoppers, but I get it.

I get it.

So why do we call them clodhoppers?

You are literally wearing them when you hop over clods,

The clods being clumps of earth.

They originally come from an insulting term used for country folk,

Rustics or rubes, unsophisticated people not from the city,

Where they were called a clodhopper.

It was a way of putting them down and saying that they were uncouth.

So the shoes that they wore tended to be sturdy boots or sturdy shoes or even clogged c-l-l-g and

We’ll get to that in a second that is pretty much why they’re called cloth hoppers a farmer

Is somebody who hops over cloths as they do their work and I kind of like that it’s being used you

Know as a clunky shoe by someone who traditionally would have been you know called the insult version

Of that because my dad was a farmer.

We grew up pretty rural.

There wasn’t a lot around.

So it’s really interesting to hear it in a different context, and it makes me want to

Use it more just so that the context stays the clunky shoe.

Yeah, it is insulting to call somebody a cloud hopper.

You’ll find it in old newspapers for several hundred years, going back to the 1600s, actually,

Where a lot of times people will call their political opponents cloud hopper.

You know, basically intimating that they weren’t educated enough or sophisticated enough to understand the nuances of the current situation and to just bow out.

But I can see extending that term to those platform shoes because there’s something about the sound of that word.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

You can just hear it.

Well, that takes us to the word clog, which is probably related.

In the English dialect dictionary, there’s some evidence that there might be, I don’t know, word confusion or word play.

Because clod, C-L-O-D, in UK English dialects could mean minors’ shoes,

Shoes worn by minors.

And it likely comes from the word clog,

Which is a sturdy work shoe with heavy soles,

Often made out of wood or heavy leather.

Back to the 1830s.

And Amber, I’ve got one more etymological thing for you, if you’re ready.

Yeah, yeah, please.

It’s related to the word klutz, K-L-U-T-Z,

Which came into English through Yiddish from a German word meaning block or lump, especially wood.

So basically, klutz is also related to clod.

So you could be a klutzhopper.

No, that doesn’t work.

But basically, klutz is a synonym of blockhead, meaning somebody whose head is like a block of wood.

That’s fascinating.

Amber, thank you so much for your time and your question.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

All right. Take care.

Our team includes senior producer Stefanie Levine, engineer and editor Tim Felten, and quiz guide John Chaneski.

We’d love to hear from you, no matter where you are in the world. Go to waywordradio.org contact.

Subscribe to the podcast, hear hundreds of past episodes, and get the newsletter at waywordradio.org.

Whenever you have a language story or question, our toll-free line is open in the U.S. and Canada.

1-877-929-9673.

Or send your thoughts to words@waywordradio.org.

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

A nonprofit supported by listeners and organizations who are changing the way the world talks about language.

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.