Buttons on Ice Cream (episode #1678)

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

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

You know how if you’re in a supermarket and you’re looking in the meat case, you’ll often see what looks like fake grass or green fringe tucked between the steaks and the chops?

Yes, and I always think to myself, you’re not fooling anyone. That’s not real.

But yeah, it’s got a zigzag pattern on it, right? And vertical lines in parallel.

Yeah, yeah, or a grid, sort of.

A grid.

Yeah, and it sort of looks like, you know, fringy or, you know, like fake grass.

Like pinky shears have been taken to some green plastic.

Perfect, yes, yes.

Well, there is a name for those green strips, and they’re not just there for decoration.

The story goes that in the 1950s, a grocery store chain had a problem, and under their bright lights, those cuts of meat looked washed out and pale.

So the company brought in a color consultant who suggested that they paint the back of their meat case green.

And that’s because green and red are complementary colors.

So when they’re next to each other, the color of the meat pops visually and looks fresher.

And sure enough, it worked.

And actually, for the same reason, butchers have been garnishing with parsley for years.

And in supermarkets today, the parsley has been replaced by these artificial parsley runners.

That’s what they’re called.

Parsley runners.

That sounds like somebody’s like stage name or like drag name, parsley runner.

Right.

Or their club that goes jogging on Saturdays.

Yeah, exactly.

And I learned about the work of that color consultant from a new book about the history of how dictionaries have come to define colors.

The book is called True Color and is by a dictionary editor whom we both know, Kory Stamper.

Yeah, Kory’s been a lexicographer that is a maker of dictionaries for decades.

And she comes to the subject with a lot of wit and charm.

But she also gets down deep into the details of just how these magical books called dictionaries are put together.

Yeah, and I want to talk about that later on in the show.

We’d love to hear from you, your questions, thoughts, ideas, and stories about anything related to language, old sayings, expressions, slang, new words, books, literature, writing, poetry, you name it.

Call or text toll-free from the United States and Canada, 877-929-9673, or go to our website at waywordradio.org and find our email address and lots of ways to talk to us on social media.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Daniel Kruth, and I’m calling from Gardnerville, Nevada.

Well, what’s on your mind?

My aunt always used this phrase where if somebody left the word so hanging out there, she would interject with, so a button on your underwear. And I’m just wondering where that came from.

Okay. Run this bias again. So somebody’s just kind of has a lingering unfinished thought with the word so, and then she says…

Yeah, so if she was asking you a question or me a question and I just didn’t quite have an answer about it, and I would kind of be muddling over it and be like, so, and she would just interject, sew a button on your underwear.

If it were me, I would have a lot of buttons on my underwear.

Because I do that all the time.

Yeah, it was pretty frequent when I was a kid.

Okay, and Daniel, what would happen next then?

Usually she would just laugh.

Okay.

And I would be sitting there perplexed, like, what the heck is Kathy talking about? What am I supposed to do?

Martha, these rejoinders are very common, right?

These things that you say when somebody leaves you this awkward opening in a conversation.

So, yeah.

Daniel, I’m wondering if you’ve heard any other versions of this.

Honestly, no.

I’ve never heard any other versions of it.

And I haven’t heard anyone but her do it.

Oh, really?

Okay, maybe it’s not as common as it used to be, Martha.

Well, Grant and I have heard a lot of these over the years.

A lot of different versions of it from listeners who’ve written in and called in with versions like, sew a button on an ice cube or sew a button on tuna fish.

As Grant suggested, it’s just one of these funny rejoinders.

It’s sort of like, you know, a kid might start a conversation with hay.

And, you know, the dad joke is hay is for horses.

Grass is cheaper.

Straw is free.

Marry a farmer and you have all three.

Or somebody hesitates after well, and somebody says that’s a deep subject for such a shallow mind.

Yeah.

Adrienne in San Diego sent us a message saying that her parents would say, sew buttons on your old man’s pants.

And Christina also in Southern California told us her dad would always say, sew buttons on your butt, that’s what.

That one’s good.

And we also have sewing buttons on eggs or Easter eggs or on a wooden duck or sew buttons on a balloon and then you’ll have a blast and variations on that.

And sewing buttons on your vest or your T-shirt and other clothes.

A brick wall.

Brick wall, yeah.

And then also sew, sew, suck your toe.

And a really long one.

Somebody says sew, and then you say, sew buttons.

Buttons are made of brass.

Buttons keep your child from falling off your, rhymes with brass.

So not just in your family, Daniel, at all.

No, not at all.

No, not at all, clearly.

But, yeah, it’s usually just this idea that kind of for parents or the older generation to nudge the younger generation towards, you know, complete expression, full thought, kind of not leaving things hanging.

It’s also just kind of the intergenerational teasing that is so ordinary.

Yeah.

Well, another version of this, too, is when a kid keeps pestering a parent to tell them what they’re doing.

You know, you can say, oh, I’m just sewing buttons on underwear.

I’m sewing buttons on ice cream.

And the kids are like, what?

Wow.

When you put it that way, it totally tracks for what Kathy was trying to say to me when I was young.

Was she a teasing sort?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

So, Daniel, we’ve added to your collection now.

Definitely.

There’s a lot of those, and I look forward to using them on all of my friends.

Yeah.

Excellent.

All right.

You take care now.

All right.

Thank you.

You too as well.

I really appreciate this.

Yeah.

Our pleasure, Daniel.

Sure, Daniel.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

So if you want to talk about language, you can email us words@waywordradio.org or call or text 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Mark Pittman.

I’m from Maine, but I’m calling from Greenville, South Carolina.

I heard something really weird on an NPR podcast, and I couldn’t find the answer on your Way With Words website.

Okay.

What did you hear?

I was listening to a news podcast about the New START treaty and talking about the nuclear weapons program and all.

And one of the researchers said, that’s where we get, it’s the nuclear weapons program where we get the term more bang for your buck.

The host didn’t seem to know that.

The other reporter didn’t seem to know that.

And I had that same sort of joy of discovery that I have listening to Away With The Words.

I was like, oh, wow, that’s where it comes from.

But it didn’t really sit true.

And then even more so since I couldn’t find it on your website.

Okay.

Yeah, bang for your buck.

So to frame that differently, can we tell you more about bang for your buck and the U.S. Nuclear program?

Yeah, would that give more bang for the buck for this call?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And sometimes it’s bang for a buck or bang for the buck or other constructions.

But generally Bang’s in there and Buck is in there.

It is somewhat associated in its first print appearances with the U.S. Nuclear program, but it’s more like it came from the U.S. Military in general.

Post-World War II, the term was floating around Washington, and then it was picked up by the press.

And so we see it in two key articles in the news media in December of 1953, first in the New York Times, and then in the newspaper column by Washington insider Stuart Alsop, A-L-S-O-P.

And both of these pieces were talking about this kind of post-war change happening across the U.S. Military, and they called it the New Look U.S. Military.

And it involved things like substantial troop cuts, an increased reliance on the Air Force, and a commitment to nuclear weapons.

The Air Force and the nuclear weapons kind of went together because that’s how they were thinking about delivering these weapons to the enemy, so they’d need to rise.

And so in the first article, it’s just mentioned once, but Stuart Alsop used this expression, bang for a buck or bang for the buck, numerous times in this one article.

And that article, because it was a syndicated column, was widely reprinted.

And he had a lot of influence.

And people outside the Beltway picked it up.

And he attributed just the concept of bigger bang for a buck to military plans by Admiral Arthur Radford.

And so we don’t know for sure that Radford is the one who coined it.

But certainly this idea of getting more for your money, which is what it means, did come out of the U.S. Military and did involve, among other things, more reliance on atomic weapons or nuclear weapons.

My goodness. So it’s really a new phrase.

Yeah, it’s new. Yeah, 1950s.

Although the different parts of it, bang and buck, both have a much longer history.

Buck meaning dollar, possibly going back to the use of buckskins as a kind of a barter item in the frontier days.

And bang actually meaning a hammering or a beating goes back to Old Norse.

So it’s a very old word in English.

And being used as an onomatopoeia for the sound of an explosion, too, is also very old.

Any kind of weapons discharge, but often, you know, of course, gunpowder discharge, or you could use bang to represent that, or even just the falling of a chair on the floor could be a bang.

Wow. Well, that’s fascinating. I’m really glad the person was accurate.

Yeah, yeah.

It’s amazing how one person can also have such impact in the Kitta column to add a whole new phrase.

Yeah. And Mark, you know, the thing about that interface is that interface between the Washington insiders in the press and the huge structure and bureaucracy of the U.S. Government and the U.S. Military.

You often see that, that these terms that have floated around for quite a while inside the bureaucracy of governments and military leave those niches through the press.

Maybe less common now since the press seems to be fracturing and declining, but it used to be really common that that’s how they would leave.

And it’s possible that term floated around ever since nuclear weapons were an option during the Truman era.

Wow. Well, I was hoping it wasn’t related to nuclear bombs and weapons, but I’m glad to know where it comes from. That’s great.

Well, Mark, thank you so much for calling.

Thank you both for making language so fun to learn about. I’m really glad my wife pointed me to you guys years ago.

Our pleasure. We appreciate it.

Excellent.

Take care now.

Bye now.

Bye-bye.

If you call us to talk about language, you’re sure to get bang for your buck, 877-929-9673.

In Russian, if you’re talking about something that’s near and seemingly within reach, but you still can’t obtain or change it, there’s a great expression that translates as, your elbow is close, but you can’t bite it.

Oh, yeah. I saw one recently that was something about a horse trying to lick its ear.

Similar.

Oh, there you go.

But it’s about the impossibility of something, you know, kind of a pig’s fly saying.

Yeah, so close, right?

Yeah.

The world is filled with odd sayings.

Talk about them here, 877-929-9673.

Stay put.

We’ll be right back to untangle the web of English.

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

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And making his way across the room, doing a very silly walk, it’s John Chaneski.

That was a very silly name for a very silly walk.

So I’m going to keep it going.

I got my Johns mixed up.

That’s right.

Now, people ask me all the time, where do you come up with the ideas for these puzzles?

This one actually really did come from real life, something that happened to me.

You guys know I have two college-age boys living at home with me.

And the first day of the new semester, they were snowed out, so they had remote classes. I was listening in to some of their classes from the next room, and I just, I did not understand what they were studying. Maybe it’s because they were in the other room, or maybe it’s because I’m old and I can’t hear to it. They mystified me.

For example, I heard, in this course, we’ll be studying strife and all its adversity.

I later learned I was listening to a biology course. Strife turned out to be life, and adversity turned out to be diversity.

Okay, I see where you’re going with this.

I just couldn’t hear too well.

So this is about your old man ears and the actual classes your kids are actually taking.

Yes.

Okay.

And some classes they’re not actually taking.

Okay, I see.

They’re only taking three or four courses.

So that’s where you’ve extended the truth a little bit.

Weekend, got the quiz ideas.

You can have a little fun.

In quiz world, this is what’s happening.

Yeah.

Let’s listen in on a few other classes and see what the kids are studying these days.

Now, you don’t have to know what every word stands for in these descriptions to get a general sense, and you don’t have to tell me what each word represents.

Let’s try this one.

Okay.

In this course, we will look at many forms of chart across vultures and mind myriads.

Okay.

So the last part is time period, and vultures is cultures?

What was that first word, char?

Chart.

Chart.

Is it art?

It’s art history, yes.

Many forms of chart across vultures and my myriads.

Art history.

I’m writing that book.

There you go.

That’s a pitch right there for the sci-fi of the century.

I love it.

In this course, we’ll examine groovy mystery.

Movie history.

It’s a room full of film buffs.

Film studies.

We’ll also study its query.

We’ll study film Britishism and maybe some boutiques.

Okay.

Theory, criticism, and…

That’s right, techniques.

Techniques, gotcha.

In this course, we’ll look at human sea saviors and creationships.

Human sea saviors and creationships.

Oh.

Behaviors and relationships?

Yes.

Okay, so it’s psychology.

Or sociology?

It’s sociology, yes.

Sociology, well done.

Very good.

Relationships, that’s what you have with the person in your pottery class.

That’s good.

Once you get that thing and it’s not the way you want it, you just throw it on the ground and you’ve created chips.

There you go.

Finally, in this course, we’ll study Truman Gang Bridge.

Human language.

Yeah, we’ll study its pluxler, its junction, its envelopment.

Pluxler?

Pluxler.

It’s structure.

There’s no rhyme for structure.

I think my hearing’s going.

Yeah, I’m like, this is all too real.

What’s funny about this?

On that note, I’ve got to get back to school and study up my whatever English is when you can’t hear it too well.

It’s called a visit to the hearing aid.

Costco’s got them on sale.

Yeah, I’ll do it.

Cha-ching.

Thanks so much, John. That was amazing.

Thank you.

There’s a magical number, toll-free, call or text in Canada or the United States.

You’ve heard it before. Here it is again, 877-929-9673.

Open 24 hours a day.

Or find all of our past episodes and lots of ways to talk to us on our website at waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Nancy and I’m calling you from New Haven, Connecticut.

Hello, Nancy. Welcome to the show. What’s up?

I’ve become fascinated and kind of curious about the word liminal.

And I wanted to hear what the two of you had to say about it.

I was unfamiliar with this word until maybe like a year or so ago.

And then I felt like I started hearing it and I liked the sound of it.

And I looked it up and I think I understand what it’s about, but I feel like I’ve been hearing it everywhere.

And reading about it, and it seemed new to me.

I have a pretty good vocabulary, so it piqued my interest.

And that’s why I wanted to call and see what you had to say.

All right, so liminal, L-I-M-I-N-A-L, liminal?

That’s right, that’s right.

Where are you seeing this? Where are you coming across this?

I listen to NPR a lot, and I also listen to podcasts.

And I feel like I’m hearing it when people are being interviewed or on a panel and they’re talking about what’s happening in the world or where we are, things like that.

And I also feel like I’ve been reading it, too, in magazines, you know, that have like long form journalism.

Yeah. And what’s your sense of its meaning?

Well, I think it means it’s sort of like an in-between space.

I mean, I’m wondering if part of the root of it is limbo, like the same thing as limbo.

And so it’s in between. I think about like freshwater and ocean water and that place in the middle that’s maybe brackish, that’s sort of in between.

And it has like a mysterious quality to it.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

The word liminal comes from the Latin word for threshold, which is limen, L-I-M-E-N.

And I think it’s a beautiful word, liminal.

You know, it just sounds smarter than just saying in between.

You know, this is liminal.

Why is it so evocatively different than subliminal?

Subliminal seems suspicious and doubtful, and liminal sounds possible and opportunistic.

Interesting, right?

I hadn’t even thought about that.

Yeah.

But the good news, Nancy, is that you’re not imagining it.

If you look at a corpus of news writing, you know, a collection of news writing, we see its use rising significantly around 2021 and then particularly in the last couple of years.

And another thing that you might have noticed is people talking about liminal spaces.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And this is partly an Internet aesthetic of there was a time starting around 2019 where people started posting pictures of things like spaces devoid of people, like deserted classrooms or auditoriums or hotel corridors or on TikTok and Tumblr and Reddit.

That sort of capture images that sort of capture this moment of betweenness, you know, buildings that are in use, but at the moment they’re not fully occupied or not fully abandoned either.

And, you know, they describe those as liminal spaces.

But, you know, it just sounds better, I think, than in-between space.

I love the word. I love saying it. And you’re right.

It’s one of those words that you say it and it sort of takes you somewhere in between, I guess.

But, yeah.

And it’s definitely a word of the last 30 years or so as well.

If we look back as far as the 1880s, it’s little used except maybe in the 20s and 30s when people are writing about psychology and psychoanalysis.

And then it really starts to burst forward in the 1980s and 90s and certainly the 2000s the most.

And you know, Nancy, another thing I love about the word liminal is the way it looks.

You know, it’s got those, you know what I’m talking about?

Yes.

I was, I wrote, I wrote that down to say to you, but then I thought, I don’t know where the two L’s are at the end and they’re tall, but like that, like it’s a definite place.

And then you feel like you’re in between them with all the short letters in the middle.

So yeah, I do know what you mean.

Oh, good.

It’s not just you.

Thank you so much, Nancy, for your call.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

We’d love to hear the words that you’re coming across and just want to explore a little bit.

Martha and I dig it.

And you can dig us toll-free.

Call or text 877-929-9673.

Or find lots of ways to talk to us on our website at waywordradio.org.

Grant, I came across a word from the 1600s that I think deserves reviving.

And that word is mirabiliary.

Mirabiliary.

I could guess based on the root parts of that, but I don’t really know what that means.

Well, let me spell it for you first.

It’s M-I-R-A-B-I-L-I-A-R-Y.

Mirabiliary.

Are we looking?

Mira has something to do with look, maybe?

I’m not really sure.

Yeah, it has to do with the idea of marveling and marvels.

And a Mirabiliary is a person who deals in marvels or a collector of marvelous things.

And I think you and I are both Mirabiliarys.

Yeah, and all of our listeners who are Mirabiliarys can call or text toll-free 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, hello. I’m Stacey Amaral. I live in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

I had this experience as a child with the words that my grandfather used that nobody in the world, in our family or any place else, knew where they came from.

So I thought, oh, you all may know.

Why?

Yes.

So my grandparents had a little store in New York in the city, and they worked six days a week.

They worked really hard.

And so on Sundays, that was the only day off, and my grandfather would clean the apartment and then take us out so my grandma could rest.

And before he took us out, he would say the following.

He’d say, now, don’t come up off the place.

Don’t be a come-upper.

I just clean.

And we’d say, what do you mean, come-up?

What’s a come-upper?

So I’ve gotten to ask about that word as a noun and as a verb.

As a noun and as a verb.

And so tell us a little bit about your grandfather.

So he was born in a small town in Russia, either Russia or Ukraine.

It kept moving around.

Or Belarus and Ukraine.

And he came to the country as a little boy.

He grew up in the Lower East Side.

So his English, he spoke English okay.

Had a little bit of an accent.

But that’s who he was.

He was a great guy.

But that was a word we had never heard before.

And nobody else knows.

Yeah, I can see why it’s a little bit of a puzzle.

You’ve called us about this a few times, and I’ve listened to the voicemails, and so I’ve done some digging on this, Stacey.

Oh, good.

I think I have an answer for you, but I wouldn’t say I’m 100% on it.

I don’t think it’s Yiddish.

I don’t think it’s Russian.

I actually think it’s English, pronounced with a little bit of an accent, especially a New York accent, where R is at the ends of the word to not to be pronounced, the lack of vercticity, as they call it.

And I think the word is come upper, C-O-M-E-U-P-P-E-R.

And this means someone who aspires, is on a fast track, they’re full of ideas and energy, a parvenu or nouveau riche, somebody who’s going places.

And sometimes they’re also just called a comer or a coming person.

They’re coming into their own, they’re progressing towards a goal or success.

Oh, okay.

And part of the reason that I think this is that in Jewish culture, including and kind of ensconced in the Yiddish language, are a bunch of sayings about how it’s okay to aspire a little bit.

It’s okay to have a little bit of, you know, idea of getting ahead of others, but not too much.

You know, don’t become the tall poppy, as they say.

Don’t become the one crab sticking out of the barrel.

And so there’s expressions like better a new millionaire than a bankrupt one or better a well-raised goat than a well-raised pig or better to be a risen spirit than a risen fool.

Oh, I never would have thought that because we thought it meant don’t make a mess.

Well, he may have modified it for his own amusing.

But I think what he was going after was these comeuppers or people full of ideas and energy who were always up to something.

They’re always got their hands in something, right?

So what he’s basically saying is don’t start any new projects in this clean house that I just, you know, that I just straightened.

Right.

Don’t get any ideas.

It’s just an hour.

Yeah, don’t get any ideas.

Don’t get ahead of yourself.

Okay.

All right.

Wow.

That’s a whole new take on it.

Because in Spanish, which is another language I speak, it’s like, no te pasa.

Don’t pass yourself, you know.

Don’t get ahead of yourself, as we would say in English.

Yeah, don’t get ahead of yourself.

Wow.

I am so thrilled.

Yeah, so I love your show, and I recommend it to all the people I know who speak all kinds of languages.

I teach ESL, so people really want to understand language, theirs and other people’s, so it’s perfect.

And I thank you for your hard work.

You’re welcome.

That’s how we feel as well, Stacey.

You take care of yourself now.

All right.

Well, thanks.

Yeah, be well.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

We do save all of your messages and you can leave them at 877-929-9673, whether you’re in the U.S. or Canada.

And if you’re somewhere else in the world, we have a WhatsApp line and you can find that on our website at waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Anne from Philadelphia.

Hello, Anne in Philadelphia. Welcome to the show. What’s up?

Thank you. And thanks for taking my question.

I’ve been curious about a phrase that I’ve actually used in the past and confused people by, and then I confused myself.

And the phrase is, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good or something like that.

And like, I don’t know, like 20 years or so ago, I was talking to my partner.

I used it.

I thought appropriately.

She was perplexed.

And I just have been thinking about it since, like what my interpretation of it is versus what other people say it means and in what context it’s used.

So the expression again is?

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.

And in the example that you’re talking about, what was going on where you thought that was an appropriate saying?

Right. And I was actually trying, I have, it’s pretty vague, my memory of the situation.

But I think I meant to be communicating that it’s only truly ill winds that do nobody good, that usually events or circumstances or changes bring about good to somebody.

So I kind of imagine like a sailing analogy or something like that, where there’s winds.

Some people will be blown off course. Others will be speeded up.

So we kind of like to say good comes out of almost every situation.

That’s what I think in that moment, what I meant to be saying.

Yeah, I think that’s a pretty good summary of it.

I think usually the version that you’ll see, for example, in dictionaries is it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, which is pretty close to what you were saying.

But, you know, those negatives and the ill meaning bad and nobody any good is a little bit confusing.

I think the modern meaning most often is what you were suggesting, that even a bad event usually benefits somebody.

Somebody gets something out of it.

So there’s a silver lining if you look hard enough.

Yeah.

Right.

That’s what I—okay.

So it is actually what I thought.

It is, I guess, a complex kind of communication.

But what you—good.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

One dictionary says that you can describe an unfortunate event as an ill wind if somebody benefits from it.

And the example they give is, but it’s an ill wind.

I recovered and married one of my nurses from the hospital.

Nice.

That’s a good wind.

Yeah, and there’s a version of this expression which goes back at least to the 16th century.

There’s a version of it that’s used to incredibly powerful effect in Shakespeare.

Oh, yeah.

In Henry VI, Part 3, in the middle of this bloody civil war, a soldier brings in a body and says, ill blows the wind that profits nobody.

And what he means is that there’s always somebody who’s going to get something from something terrible.

And he thinks this corpse may have money on him.

And then he turns the face and realizes that the man he’s killed is his father.

That’s pure Shakespeare right there.

Yeah, right?

Right?

Talk about a tragedy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you’re using it correctly.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

It’s been good to hear kind of the full context of it.

So I appreciate your taking the time.

We appreciate the question, Anne.

Thanks for calling.

Okay.

Okay.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Toll free in the United States and Canada. Call or text 877-929-9673.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. You know, I’ll never forget many years ago, flipping through a print edition of Webster’s third new international dictionary, when my eyes fell on the entry for the term geranium lake. Have you ever heard that?

Geranium Lake. Who is she when she’s at home?

Yeah, I was thinking, what in the world? I have to see what this means.

And the dictionary said that Geranium Lake is a vivid red that is lighter and slightly yellower and stronger than apple red, yellower, lighter and stronger than carmine, and bluer, lighter and stronger than scarlet, also called spark.

Wow, there’s a lot to chew on there.

I think I better just go to the paint store to figure that one out.

But wait, there’s more.

Below that, there was an entry for geranium red, which was said to have several characteristics, including being slightly lighter than Goya.

Wow.

Whoever wrote those definitions had a great day.

I don’t know that they’re doing the dictionary user much service, though, Martha.

Where are you going with this?

Well, that’s what I was thinking.

You know, how in the world is this useful?

Well, I finally got some answers this week thanks to a new book by Corey Stamper.

It’s called True Color, the Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color from Azure to Zinc Pink.

Now, Grant, there is a lot of history packed into this book, as you know, because in the early 20th century, as Americans were moving into a world of mass production, color had to be something that you could specify on paper and reproduce in a factory or rely on in a lab or a supply chain.

For example, pharmacists needed to be able to distinguish between similarly colored powders and potions, and the military needed standard colors for its equipment.

And in the meantime, the science of what’s called colorimetry, or the practice of determining and specifying colors was becoming ever more sophisticated.

So these poor lexicographers were tasked with defining color for the dictionary, and that left them wrestling with what seemed like these powerful opposing forces, what Stamper calls the democratic chaos of language and the curated precision of science.

So her book is a very deep dive into all of that struggle, along with a lot of the personalities involved, many of whom you’ll find are quite colorful themselves.

Corey Stamper, that’s K-O-R-Y-S-T-A-M-P-E-R. Corey Stamper is the author of True Color, and I know that she is a charming and funny writer because I’ve read some of the book myself.

We’ll link to it on the website at waywordradio.org. Martha and I would love to hear what you’re reading and you think we should read too. Call or text toll-free 877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Annette calling from Utah.

Hey, Annette, welcome to the show. What’s on your mind today?

So as a child of a linguist, you can usually figure things out, but this is one that stunk me, and I thought Martha and Fred can help me figure it out.

Child of a linguist, a dangerous, dangerous connection.

You must have had an interesting childhood.

Oh, yes. I did not know that discussing etymology over the dinner table is not normal.

What?

No, it’s normal in my house.

What?

A great childhood, really, truly.

So my mother is an immigrant.

She was born and raised in Helsinki, Finland.

Okay.

And my paternal grandmother was also an immigrant.

Her family immigrated from Germany to Idaho when she was just an infant.

And so she didn’t remember Germany, but she grew up speaking German in the home and then learned English in the community and school.

So the story that has me stumped is my mother talked about a time when she was speaking to then her mother-in-law, my grandmother, about some illness that my grandmother had as a child.

And apparently, according to my mom, grandma said that it was the German disease.

And my mother, being relatively newly immigrated herself, thought, oh, maybe I don’t know English as well as I thought.

What is that?

Tried to figure it out.

Couldn’t find anything, of course, in English that would explain that.

So she thought, well, I wonder if, you know, my grandmother had heard this term at home in German and then as an adult just translated it to English and didn’t know that’s not how we say it in English.

So my mom said that she had looked it up in some German dictionary and lo and behold, it’s rickets or something like that.

Like a nutritional deficiency.

I have tried searching it.

Can’t find anything to corroborate that.

No Deutsch anything.

And so I’m wondering, is it a German thing? Is it an Idaho regionalism? Is my mother remembering the whole thing wrong?

Hopefully you guys can have an answer for me.

So just to get this straight,

Your Finnish mother heard this from your German-speaking,

Her German-speaking mother-in-law?

Yes.

Okay, gotcha.

Yeah, this is super interesting.

And you were opening up a whole can of worms, Annette.

And how old was the person when they had the German disease?

I got the impression that she was quite young.

But this conversation happened in the late 60s before I was born.

Yeah.

So what are we talking?

Yeah.

Pre-adulthood?

Yes.

Okay.

It would have been a childhood thing.

And you’re going to understand why I asked.

It’s because the affliction that’s most often called the German disease is syphilis.

So if she was a kid, she probably did not have syphilis.

No.

And this is in English, mind you.

But there’s another disease, and the flu was sometimes called the German disease, rightly or wrongly.

It’s like we called it the Spanish flu because the Spanish were more open about the fact that this disease was roaming their country,

That they had this epidemic.

And so it’d be called the Spanish flu,

Even though it’s not really from there.

And so there’s this whole thing that happens

Throughout the world in every country

Where you blame your neighbor.

And so just to go back to syphilis,

It was called the German disease by the French.

The Italians called it the French sickness.

The French called it the Neapolitan disease

From Napoli, Italy.

English called it the French pox

And the Neapolitan bone ache.

And we just go on and on.

The Dutch blamed the Spanish, the Polish blamed the Germans, the Russians blamed the Polish.

And in India, they blamed Portugal.

In Japan, they blamed Portugal and China.

And in Muslim Turkey, they blamed all of Christianity.

So it’s just, and these are the names that this disease took.

And you can almost track the progress of syphilis through the world by these names.

That is hilarious.

Yeah, basically most people seem to think that it first appeared in a serious way in parts of Italy, among the maritime crowd, the sailors.

So more than likely, if she was a child, what she caught was the flu.

However, it’s possible that when she said the German disease, she meant German measles for rubella, although people don’t usually call it the German disease.

Yeah, that occurred to me as well.

I don’t have any indication anywhere that something was called the germ disease that involved rickets.

I just, I don’t have no information on that at all.

Yeah.

And I couldn’t find anything either.

So that didn’t seem right to me.

But again, that’s why I called.

Yeah, there we go.

Well, I think you’re on the right track and you just needed confirmation and we’re happy to give it to you.

Yeah, we’re glad you called.

Thank you so much.

That was fascinating.

Yeah, our pleasure.

Take care of yourself, Annette.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

877-929-9673

We had a listener tell us that they heard a newscaster say,

Keep it between the mustard and mayo.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is about the paint on the road.

Exactly, yeah.

We’ve got yellow paint and white paint.

Right, exactly.

And I think it was on a foggy day or a snowy day.

And the newscaster was saying, keep it between the mustard and the mayo, between the yellow line and the white line.

You can email us words@waywordradio.org or call or text toll free 877-929-9673.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, I’m Amir Ross.

Amir?

Yes, how are you?

Hi, I’m doing well. Where are you calling us from, Amir?

Chicago, Illinois.

Well, great. What’s on your mind today?

Yes. So I’ve had this word around me growing up in New York, which was brolic.

My dad said a lot and me and my brothers used to use it, but I don’t really know where it’s from.

And what kind of context would you use the term brolic?

So usually in reference to like another person, like a person who’s yoked or like really muscled up.

Not to mess with them because they probably went in a fight.

Yoked.

Yeah, we’ve talked about yoked.

So super ripped, swole maybe even, right?

Very muscular.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And so your dad used it in New York City,

And I guess you use it now too?

I do.

Okay.

And did your dad, have you ever asked him about it

Or discussed it with him?

Just said it was kind of a word he used around his neighborhood.

He grew up in the Farragut Projects in Brooklyn.

And so it was really relevant when going from one neighborhood to the next, kind of seeing who to look out for.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So sometimes it’s not just about muscle.

It’s about being tough in appearance or ready to fight.

Exactly.

Yeah, okay.

So I love that it has this New York City connection for you because as far as we, meaning people who study language, know, that’s where it comes from.

Notorious B.I.G. Biggie Smalls used it in his Long Kiss Goodnight album, which was released after his death.

And he rhymes it with alcoholic, brolic alcoholic.

And from then on, we see it appear again and again.

And that was a huge album.

So it had a lot of influence.

And so we see it again and again and again, often from New York rappers and emcees.

But also later, of course, throughout all of the United States.

And at some point, it started to be used in the weightlifting scene.

So I believe, and so do others, that it jumped from hip-hop, which is a lot of young men,

To lifting and that sort of thing, or body development, body shaping, body sculpting,

Through exercise and diet, to other young men who do that.

So B-R-O-L-I-C is usually how it’s spelled.

But you know, Amir, I wanted to share one curious coincidence with you.

So in English, we think it may have come from the word bro, you know, short for brother,

Means that you’re very much a bro and you’ve got the physical archetype.

Some people think it might come from Dragon Ball Z.

You can find all kinds of articles online about the character Brawley,

But the timing doesn’t work out for the release of that show in the United States,

Although there’s much argument about whether or not people in New York City were watching Dragon Ball Z on illegal tapes or DVDs, which you could buy on the street.

I definitely know I was.

But it’s still super iffy. The connection there is kind of rough. We’re not 100% sure.

But curiously, in France, there is also the term brolic, also in hip-hop, also very slangy, also appearing almost exactly to the same year.

But in France, it has the meaning of being strapped, as they say in American English saying, which means you’ve got a gun.

So because Brolic is backslang or verlin, which is the word, more or less the word caliber, like a caliber of a weapon pronounced backward.

So it’s just, I don’t think that either one is the source of the other, like the French didn’t give it to the English language and English language didn’t give it to the French speakers.

But it is so curious to me that these two words that are about presenting different kinds of masculinity are pronounced the same and spelled the same.

Although the one in French has a lot of different other spellings.

Too cool.

Yeah, there’s a ton of stuff here.

It’s just the strangest thing.

Slang is so hard to get to the bottom of.

But you nailed the key parts, I think, when you first told us about your history with it.

New York City, the projects, and then we can add in hip-hop.

Biggie Smalls is a popularizer.

And then we know quite a bit more about it.

Very cool.

Funny enough, I’m talking from my office gym right now.

So I think I’ve got work to be done.

Are you ripped and yoked, Amira?

Yeah, you must be.

Just inspiring.

Yeah, there we go.

Always working, always perfecting, right?

Keep hydrating.

Hydrate or die.

Take care.

That’s right.

Hydrate or die-drate.

If there’s a word or phrase you’re wondering about,

Call us 877-929-9673.

Hi there.

You have A Way with Words.

Hello.

My name is Morgan.

I’m calling from Los Angeles.

So my question is, I had a cold recently and I went to text my mom and my sister that I

Was feeling dingy, which is a word that my mom has always used for that sort of off balance

Out of it feeling you get when you’re sick sometimes.

And when I typed it, I started overthinking it like, well, this is, this looks exactly

Like the word dingy, like unclean, which got me thinking, is it spelled dingy, D-I-N-G-H-I,

Like the boat? And also, why have I never heard anyone else use this word before?

So I went and looked online, because obviously I love words, and I couldn’t find anything.

I texted my mom, told her it’s a mystery, and I asked where she got it, and she said, I think a lot of folks my age use that to say they feel dizzy and muddleheaded.

So I’m really curious about where this came from.

Yeah. Oh, this is such an interesting mystery because it’s, I don’t even know how to break into this, but a couple of dictionaries have entries that are close, but not quite the way you’re talking about it.

And I think this might be a shortcoming of the dictionary. So the Oxford English Dictionary and the Dictionary of American Regional English both have entries where there’s dinghy.

One of the meanings is foolish, silly, crazy, mad, insane.

And I think those are close to what you’re talking about, that woozy, out-of-it feeling.

But they’re not quite right.

But if we go to Internet Archive and search the books there, which I often do when I’m doing language research, you can see people using it in the same way that you and your mom do.

So there’s a football player talking about feeling dingy because of a concussion.

That sounds the same to me.

How interesting.

Yeah.

So I’ve never heard of a word that you can find so many references to its usage, but it’s not actually captured in that definition anywhere.

And I think it’s got some relationship, although it’s really hard to piece out, to dingbat and ding-a-ling and ding-dong, which are often all three pejorative, referring to somebody who’s ditzy.

But the ditzyness is this idea of being a little unsettled in the head, being out of sorts or not a clear thinker.

So I think this is the relationship here between dinghy, those three terms, and it has nothing at all to do with the boat, the dinghy, and nothing at all to do with something being dingy, which means being not clean or pure.

Or being dinged, unless you get a concussion.

Well, I think the being dinged is related to ding-a-ling and ding-dong because those are about striking a medal.

Oh, well, there you go.

Yeah.

But my question then to you is, we always said it dingy, not dingy, with a hard G.

Right. Yeah, that’s how I’m saying it. It might just be hard on the line to hear it.

Gotcha.

But it’s not dingy, right? When something is dingy, meaning it’s been soiled so that the white is no longer clean.

I think if the dictionary spent some more effort on finding citations on this, they would probably revise their definitions to be more in line with the way you and your mom use the word dinghy.

I very much appreciate the background. I’ll have to share it with her.

Yeah.

Well, thanks so much.

Yeah, take care.

That sounds like you’re feeling better.

I am feeling better. Thank you so much.

No longer dinghy.

No more dinghy.

And not dingy either.

Not dingy.

Take care of yourself.

All right.

Take care.

Bye.

Toll-free in the U.S. and Canada, 877-929-9673, or email us words@waywordradio.org.

A Way with Words senior producer is Stefanie Levine.

Tim Felten is our engineer and editor, and John Chaneski is our quiz master.

Go to waywordradio.org for all of our past episodes, podcast links, and ways to reach us.

If you have a language thought or question, the toll-free line is always open in the U.S. and Canada.

1-877-929-9673.

A Wayword Words is an independent nonprofit production of Wayword, Inc.

It’s supported by listeners and organizations who are changing the way the world talks about language.

Although we’re not a part of NPR, we thank NPR stations throughout the United States that carry the show.

And special thanks to our nonprofit’s volunteer board, Michael Breslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Merrill Perlman, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidenwurm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. Until next time, goodbye.

So long.