Carpe Diem (episode #1688)

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 ladies and gentlemen, horses and mules, cross eyed mosquitoes and bowl legged ants, I am here to tell you something I know absolutely nothing about.

Woah, woah, woah, woah.

We’re gonna have zero listeners, Martha.

Well, no, no.

That was the opening bit of doggerel that was making the rounds in The United States during the 1930s.

And there were lots of different versions of this, all of which had to do with this sort of pseudo sophisticated speech.

And we’ve heard a lot of different versions of this over the years as listeners have written and called to share them with us.

A listener named Patrick shared one that continues, get this, I come before you to stand behind you to tell you about something I know nothing about.

Next Tuesday, the day after Friday, there will not be a meeting held at the town hall.

Admission is free, so pay at the door, pull up a chair, and sit on the floor.

When the meeting starts, exit.

It’s just, you know, this I mean, you can just imagine dads, you know, memorizing this and Yeah, trying to memorizing it just and sharing it with every news new victim.

Absolutely.

All the kids and grandkids and cousins and second cousins and tenth cousins and so forth.

Here’s somebody who hasn’t heard it yet.

We’ll put all the versions we found on our website at waywordradio.org.

But we’d love to hear the bits of nonsense verse and doggerel that have passed along in your family.

Call or text toll free from The US and Canada, (877-929-9673, or email wordswaywardradio dot org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Maggie.

I’m calling from Washington, DC.

Hi, Maggie.

Welcome to the program.

What’s up?

Thank you so much.

I’m calling because I was just thinking of my best friend, from college who is from Eastern North Carolina, and something that she used to say whenever we would see, like, a dog, you know, in the hot North Carolina summers or whatever.

The dog would be, like, panting pretty much, and she would say something like, oh, that dog’s hassling in her southern accent.

And I always wondered what she meant by that.

So one day I asked her, and she said, oh, that’s just what we say for panting.

And I was like, what are you talking about?

Who’s we?

She’s like, I don’t know.

I’m our family.

So sure enough, we called up her brother who’s a vet, and we’re like, hey, Wes.

What do you call a dog that is, you know, its tongue is hanging out and it’s really hot?

He was like, oh, well, that means the dog is panting.

Or he said, if you want the southern term, the dog is hassling.

So it wasn’t just Hailey, but it is her family.

Mhmm.

And they’re from Eastern North Carolina.

And I guess I just I was wondering what what that meant.

My initial thought was that it was like a onomatopoeia.

Like, I guess I guess you could say a dog that’s, like, panting really hard kinda sounds like it’s making a, like, a hissing sound almost, but I feel like that’s kind of stretched.

So that’s why I called in.

Was just really curious about it.

Just to be clear, when you said vet, you meant veterinarian for the brother.

Exactly.

Yeah.

He’s a vet.

Yep.

Yep.

Gotcha.

Okay.

This is very interesting.

So hassle, h a s s l e, looks like the other word, meaning to unknown Exactly, or to exactly.

The hassle that you’re talking about when a dog is, you know, panting, it does have to do with the sound of it.

There are lots of different, words that, that have this sound and connote this idea.

For example, in the nineteenth century in Southeast England, there was the word hustle, h u s s l e, which meant to wheeze or to breathe noisily.

But there are even older forms of this word that that go back to Scotland.

The other hassle, we’re not really sure of, of that origin if you’re talking about somebody who’s harassing you.

Some dictionaries will tell you it’s a combination of hustle and harass, and some think it’s related to that, term that you mentioned involving animals.

So it’s a little bit complicated, but there are lots of different versions of this, aren’t there, Grant?

Yeah, yeah.

Back to the seventeen hundreds and, and Scott’s dialect and in Northern England, many of them showing the connection to Louise through their spelling.

You’ll almost always get an H or WH at the beginning, and then a vowel or a schwa, maybe a long e or a long o, and then a double s or a double z.

And then usually an -le, and that -le suffix is, frequentative, which means it indicates a repetitive act.

So it’s kind of like the word ‘whees’ with the l e added on the end.

So the bottom line is that, your friend and your friend’s family are not at all the only people who have noticed this, this phenomenon and given it a similar sounding name.

Sometimes you will see people that say, Oh, yeah, this is a US Southern thing.

But you will also find it in Canada.

And, most of the citations in the dictionary American regional language for it are from New England.

So it’s far more widespread than just The US South.

Wow, that’s so interesting.

Yeah.

And of course, as we said, it comes back to from from The UK and Scotland back in the day, three hundred years ago.

That’s super cool.

Wow.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for calling.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

I’m I’m really excited.

It’s awesome.

Take care yourself.

We’re glad to have you.

Appreciate it.

Right, thank you.

Take care.

If you want to ask a question about language, we’ll give you a hassle free answer.

Just email us wordswaywardradio dot org.

Grant, I’ve had a wonderful time lately learning about pottery from a British TV show called The Great Pottery Throwdown.

It’s sort of like the British baking show in that, there are all these really talented people who are competing.

But you’ve learned so much about pottery and you really come to appreciate it.

But of course, I’m also learning a lot of great British idioms that I didn’t know before.

So I’m getting a real kick out of this reality show.

And one of the expressions that I recently learned came up during an episode where they were trying to make tiles, you know, clay and somebody made a joke about, Well, I guess you’re going to have a night on the tiles.

And I thought, What in the world are they talking about?

Have you ever heard this?

A night on What is this?

A junk in the bar bathroom or a junk in the club bathroom?

That’s what I thought.

But I looked it up, and apparently a night on the tiles is a late, lively night out, you know, involving pubs and parties and dancing and, you know, maybe a regrettable decision or two.

But the tiles in question here are not tiles on the bathroom floor.

It’s rooftop tiles.

It’s the image of cats roaming and yowling.

Oh, I see.

You know, having romantic adventures.

Catting about.

Yes, catting about.

Having a night on the tiles.

Well, let me just warn you that if it’s like The Great British Baking Show, skip the Mexican themed episodes.

Yes, yes.

Skip that one.

And actually, I would start with season three because I just like people a lot better.

Well, I will tune in and learn a lot about British idioms and pottery language.

Whatever you’re watching, whatever you’re reading, it’s giving you new language.

You can share your favorites with us.

Email wordswaywardradio dot org.

¡Hi!

You have A Way with Words!

Hey, my name’s Dylan.

I’m calling from Charlottesville, Virginia.

I was, recently rock climbing with my brother and some of his friends at his bachelor party, and they had a lot of new words.

And the one that I caught was most interesting to me was they called some other climbers gumbies.

Sounded like they’ve you know, I I’m not a climber.

I’m a skateboarder.

So gumbies kind of sounded to me like, you know, kooks or posers.

Mhmm.

It was what they were seem to be using it like, but I’m not sure really where it’s from or or really what it means.

Oh, yeah.

It’s funny that you should connect those gumbies and kooks because they do represent two or three different kinds of worlds.

And but at slang, they kind of do address this notion of the noob or the beginner or the overconfident, participant, somebody who whose skills don’t really match their ambition, if you know what I mean.

Yeah.

So tell us aboutso you’re from the skateboarding world, so you use kooks.

Does that sound like a kook to you?

What Ihow I described it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, somebody who’s overconfident and then, you know, maybe plays up how good they are, dresses more than they skate.

Oh, yeah.

They wear the gear.

Right.

It so the cool thing about kook is that it comes from surfing.

There’s like a lot of skateboarding things since skateboarding was made popular by California surfers.

So, some of that long standing surf language is still used today in skateboarding.

And in surfing kook pretty much has the same definition, although it’s, it changes a little bit from here to there.

And sometimes, the kooks are just anybody who doesn’t surf, not necessarily the newbies trying to surf.

And it’s got an unknown origin, Could be from Hawaiian, word meaning poop, or it could be from a shortening of cuckoo, meaning crazy.

And it might have been reinforced by Ed Cookie Burns from the TV show 77 Sunstrip, but we just don’t really know.

Yeah, just up the road from us in Cardiff, California, there’s the Cardiff kook.

It’s this famous statue of this guy on a surfboard.

Yeah, and they always decorate it seasonally.

But Gumby, also, we do know more about Gumby, Gumby from climbing, and you will find a good entry for that in Matt Samet’s climbing dictionary, which is kind of like the reference for climbing Samet, s a m e t.

And it comes from this 1950s, 60s animated character who is kind of vaguely human shaped, but in his manner was kind of a gee whiz golly kind of wholesome kid.

And he’s constantly getting to scrapes, but wholesome scrapes, you know, like eating too much or falling off a ladder when trying to rescue a cat, things like that.

I think it really didn’t come from the show directly.

It came from Eddie Murphy during a parody of Gumby on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, where he just kind of does Gumby as as a a behind the scenes character rather than as, like, the kind of goofy animated face that you would see in animated shorts.

So it’s a he kind of doesn’t really have kind of a lot of self awareness.

Yeah.

And his sidekick I remember this show.

And his sidekick was Poke.

A horse named Poke.

Yeah.

I was gonna say that that’s what I would be if I were rock climbing.

I’d be poke a poke.

So, yeah, so Gumpy gumpy has a long history, at least forty years in the climbing world.

Wow.

That’s a long time to have that slang.

Poop goes back to about the nineteen twenties.

So quite a ways.

Where were they using it in the nineteen twenties?

Surfing.

Yeah.

Surfing’s been around you can find surfing being talked about in periodicals from the late 1800s.

Surfing has been a thing in Hawaii, of course, forever, but then made it into other countries and cultures by the late 1800s, especially United States and Australia.

Well, Dylan, thank you so much for calling.

Absolutely.

Thanks for answering my question.

I hope you all have a great rest of your day.

Thanks, Dylan.

Take care.

You too.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

-huh.

Bye.

Brent, suppose I said to you, Hey, I’d join you for dinner, but I’m completely oofless.

What would I be saying?

I have no idea.

Without legs?

No car?

Somebody stole your tires?

No, oofless is an old British slang word that means temporarily short of money.

Oh, gotcha.

Oofless, right.

Yeah.

And it comes from ooftesh, which is a Yiddish derived term for cash placed on the table.

It’s from German auftisch on the table, especially regarding money that’s put down as stakes in a card game.

So if you’re oofless, you don’t have any cash on you.

You’re skint.

You’re skint.

Exactly.

Email us wordswaywardradio dot org.

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 guy who looks like he’s ready to be the new James Bond.

It’s our quiz guy, John Czynecki.

Yeah.

Let me take off my fedora and and my tuxedo.

I’ll leave the tuxedo on.

But let’s move on to the quiz.

This week, I’m not sure why, but lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Greece.

So many of our words come from Greek, but a lot of them have gone through many changes.

I wonder if we could just go back to the beginning and take some words, not from Greek, but from the Greek alphabet.

For example, here’s a clue.

I’ve had this toga for ages, but this other one is brand blank.

The answer would be New.

New.

That’s a Greek letter.

As in the Greek letter, new, in u.

Right.

Now, on this one, there will be some massaging of the pronunciation on a few of them.

Well, let’s set sail.

Here we go.

Their moussaka is so good I blank plate of it every day for a week.

Beta.

Yeah.

I ate a plate of it every day for a week.

Moussaka.

Good.

I asked Homer what he thought about the new movie, and he said, I’m going to blank lawyers on them.

So Sigma.

Sick sigma lawyers on sigma lawyers on them.

Yes.

I tried to string the hero’s bow, but after trying and trying, it was blank naught.

Oh, alpha naught.

It was alpha naught.

Yes.

Oh my god.

Very good.

Odysseus’ shipmates did their best, but let’s face it.

They were blank, rotten hand.

Oh, delta.

I see.

Gosh.

Oh, I see.

I was thinking of extra human hands.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

Oh, oh, gross.

Rotten hands.

I you know, I was thinking about the the pig claymation.

Got it.

Got it.

My family has never been to Athens, but blank, arrange a trip.

IOTA?

IOTA.

IOTA.

Arrange a trip to Athens.

You know, it’s a great spa, but try to avoid the blank extras like fancy meals.

Oh.

Oh, the upsell on?

The upsell on extras like fancy meals.

Oh, gosh.

Hooray.

We got through it.

We somehow made it, and hardly any of us died.

I think the broccolis are removing the deal they put on the table for you to become the new bond.

I’m just Oh, no.

My martinis.

Where am I gonna get my martinis?

Athens will always be there for you, John.

Thank you so much for We’ll this always have Pareas.

Okay.

Thank you, guys.

Great quiz.

Thanks, John.

We’ll talk to you next week.

John, that was genius.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Talk to you next time.

Bye bye.

Wow.

Well, John really gave our brains a workout, and you can too.

Just give us a call to talk about any aspect of language whatsoever.

The number is (877-929-9673.

And you can also email us wordswaywardradio dot o r g.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Becca from Corinth, Texas.

How are y’all?

Hi, Becca.

Doing great.

What can we do for you?

So, growing up, I always heard to appreciate things because they won’t last forever.

And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve really kind of played with that feeling.

I used to live in Colorado.

I would go hiking in the mountains, walking along the trails.

It was the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived.

And I had this feeling of, I know that I’m appreciating this the most that I can, and still I know that it’s going to go away.

What do I do with that?

It was almost like a homesickness for a place that I hadn’t left yet.

Like preemptive nostalgia because I knew that I did not have the capacity to appreciate it anymore.

So what was I supposed to do with that?

Does that make any sense?

Absolutely.

Although it’s heavy stuff, Becca.

That’s heavy I’m not telling you what can I say?

No, no, it says a lot about you that this is on your mind.

Just said something that rang a bell for me.

You talked about, what did you phrase it?

Something about nostalgia?

Yeah, like homes is nostalgia.

There is a Jorge Luis Borges poem translates into English as nostalgia for the present.

And it’s such…

It’s very short, but it’s exactly what you’re talking about.

There’s one line in particular that translates as sharing the now as one partakes of music or the taste of fruit.

And it’s about that all of these things are passing.

Music is passing.

The taste of fruit is only momentary.

And, I mean, of course, this genius poet, Borges, of course, he got there before the rest of us, right?

But I just think about nostalgia for the present.

The title of the poem is exactly what you’re talking about.

Maybe, maybe it’s not as neat, as tidy as a single word, but I think it works.

Yeah.

I’m wondering about, what was the phrase you used in terms of homesickness?

Homesick for a place I haven’t left yet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that is absolutely gorgeous.

I feel like I’ve heard people talk about that in terms of climate, you know, that sort of anticipatory climate grief, you know?

Homesickness for a place you haven’t left yet.

And I’m also thinking, I mean, maybe you’re familiar with the German phrase from Goethe’s tragic play Faust.

It’s one of the most famous phrases in German literature that goes, which means a stay while, oh beautiful moment.

It’s it’s this moment where you just don’t want things to end.

But you know they will.

Yeah.

But you know that they Yeah.

A lot people.

Yeah.

It was kind of this, I felt very…

My emotions felt very inferior because I was like, if appreciation was enough to keep things from feeling sad when they’re gone, like, that would just solve everything, right?

But it’s just, it’s not enough.

You can appreciate and appreciate, but it still goes away.

Some of what we’re talking about is savoring, but it doesn’t capture the other part of it, which is knowing that it will go away.

So I’m thinking about the word poignancy, p o I g n a n c y.

Although it’s a little bleached by overuse and misuse, and it’s got a lot of very flexible meanings depending on the context.

Its original sense was to be sharp with feelings, and it comes from a word in French meaning to pierce.

So it’s about, not just very moving and deeply affecting things, but about the ones that cause these, about having these sharp feelings, you know?

And often sadness is a part of poignancy, and regret and a lot of these other gentle negative emotions.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Man, see, I love I…

When I write, I don’t write about happy stuff.

Like writing about sad stuff because that is what I want to examine.

I don’t need to, like, hold the happiness up to the light and play with it.

Like, I just wanna live that.

But the sad feelings and the deep feelings, I really enjoy dissecting them and understanding where they come from and why.

So I appreciate y’all.

Becca, let me give you one more thing before we go.

Researcher Christine Bacho, that’s k r y s t I n e, b a t c h o.

She works in behavioral and she has something I believe she’s the one who first called it anticipatory nostalgia.

Feeling exactly what you’re talking about.

This feeling of missing or longing for the present while it’s still unfolding.

While it’s happening.

But I think if you Google her work, you’ll come up with some, perhaps a little academic and scientific, but you’ll come up with some stuff that may inspire you and your own writing.

And Becca, I’m sure you’re going to inspire lots of people to call with their terms for this, whether it’s in English or another language, because I think we can all relate to this.

And we’d appreciate better, more and better ways to talk about it.

Yes.

I love that.

I’m so open to that.

I thank y’all so much for what you do.

You’ve gotten me through so many road trips and really just been like a a little virtual friend when I felt very alone.

Thank you for Oh, gosh.

That’s that’s really sweet.

And, Becca, if you end up writing a poem about this, we’d love to read it.

Or whatever you end up writing it.

I have written a poem about it, actually.

I have one.

Oh, awesome.

You have to send it.

Becca, keep thinking deep thoughts that you’re doing the world a good a good thing.

Yeah, we love that.

And y’all keep doing what you’re doing too.

Thank you so much.

Bye bye.

Take care.

Yes.

Bye bye.

There’s so many other words for this feeling in so many languages.

A lot of people have tackled this from a million different angles.

But we know that you, our listeners, you read a lot and you might have something we haven’t thought of.

So by all means, share it.

You can send it to us an email, wordswaywardradio dot org.

If you have less than exemplary handwriting, you might apologize to people for your chicken scratching, but you could also apologize for your griffinage.

Oh, griffinage.

I hear a little French in there.

You do indeed.

Yes, it has nothing to do with the mythical beast that’s spelled g r I f f I n.

Gryffinage has an o instead of that second I.

And you’re right, it comes from the French griffonner, which means to scribble or scrawl, and it’s possibly related to the word for claw, grief.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

G r I f f o n a g e, griffonage.

You know, we love to hear your favorite words.

It’s the basic entry point to understanding language.

So let’s start there.

Share your favorite words by phone.

Call or text toll free (877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Christiane calling from Brunswick in Germany.

That’s amazing.

What part of the country are you in?

In the Northern part of Germany.

Gotcha.

I have a question, and it is about a saying that was quite much used in my family when I was younger.

And it is called in German den Block gehen, den Pudding gehen, which translates to English as walking around the pudding and which means nothing more or less than just taking a little walk around your block or around your area.

So I was wondering, does anybody where you are or around the world who’s listening to this podcast also know this idiom, the saying?

So say it in German for us again?

Den pudding gehen.

Den pudding gehen.

And this means to walk around the pudding and we’re talking about – yeah.

U d d I n g.

This is a word borrowed from English.

Yeah, well, it is quite well widespread in German also.

Yeah, it was it was borrowed from English about three hundred years ago, but it was a different food form.

It was more of a savory dish and not, not a sweet when, when it was part.

Yeah.

And so, at the top of the call, when you said you were from Northern Germany, that made sense to me because this expression is kind of specific to the North and Northwest of Germany, including places like Bremen and Hamburg.

Okay.

And, when we look into the history of it, that’s pretty much the only place in the world, that part of Germany, kind of north and Northwest, that uses this particular construction to talk about going around the block or to walk around as to walk around the pudding.

No other country that I know of hasn’t.

None of the nearby ones.

Not in Denmark, not in The Netherlands, certainly not in English.

And so the verb sometimes changes.

Like, people will say, use a verb meaning to drive, like if you’re in your car, you might say, I mean, driving But more than that meaning’s a little different, right?

That’s kind of maybe you’re looking for parking or you have to take a detour.

Mhmm.

Yeah.

Right.

-huh.

I know that too.

Yes.

And so when we’re talking about a pudding, we’re talking about what in English we call, blanc mange, which is a word we borrowed from French, or, like, a flan.

So this is a a round dessert made of gelatin and, like, milk and sugar, maybe some fruits.

Yeah.

So the comparison is like this physical comparison of that is kind of like the building or buildings that you would walk around when you were on the street.

It’s kind like a metaphor for space.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But Okay.

That’s quite interesting.

It is.

I don’t know if you Googled this, but that particular part of Germany is known for the manufacture of pudding.

And the fellow who invented pudding powder in Germany is from near there.

And Yeah.

Yeah.

And the earliest uses that I find of this expression from 1938 are all from Bremen.

But it’s just a really interesting expression, but it is a local one.

I don’t think you’re going to find…

We’ll ask our listeners, but I don’t think you’re going find anybody else in the world who says it except for Germans from that part of Germany.

Yeah, great.

That was interesting, really.

Yeah.

It is.

Thank you for helping us introduce this to all of our listeners.

It’s a I love these local expressions.

This is why we’re doing this.

Yeah.

Feel free to.

Feel free to.

Take care now.

We appreciate your time.

Okay.

All right.

Yep.

Bye bye.

I like it very much.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

You can reach us from anywhere in the world.

Just go to waywordradio.org/contact and you’ll find lots of different ways to do that.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Katherine Hoffman from Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Hey, Katherine.

What can we do for you today?

I’ve long been curious about my grandmother.

She was kind of an unknown to us.

We don’t know who her parents were.

She was in an orphanage.

She kinda had a bad life, and she wasn’t a real pleasant person.

But one of the highlights of my relationship with her was I have this memory of her standing next to me.

I must have been about five or six.

We lived in Galesburg, Illinois, and a horse with the wagon was coming by.

It was a white horse.

I don’t know what the wagon was delivering or why there was a horse and wagon in in the early nineteen fifties, but it was passing her big house.

And she stood there with my sister and I, and she told us to say this phrase and use our hands.

And it was lucky lucky white horse, ding ding ding.

And we were supposed to take our left hand and our thumb and, lick it and put it in our the palm of our right hand each time we said ding ding ding.

And, apparently, that was supposed to give us good luck, I guess.

And I’m hoping that you all can tell me the origin of that and also maybe help me with the mystery of my grandmother and what place she was from because we don’t we know very little about her, and she didn’t share a lot during her life.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, did it work?

Did you get the luck?

I don’t know.

I guess everyone has had lots of good and some not so good luck.

Right?

Yeah.

That’s true.

But I I just want to say, ding, ding, ding, you are onto something here.

Your memory is solid, Katherine.

You you really…

Because other people have very similar folklore in their lives, and it’s been recorded in various folklore journals and books over over, maybe the last hundred years ago.

So there are a lot of different versions of this.

Sometimes people extend the little the little recitation.

So it goes lucky lucky white horse ding dong day, whatever I wish, bring me today.

Or Oh my lucky lucky white horse, lucky lucky Lee, lucky lucky white horse, bring your luck to me.

But a lot of them do also involve, like, spitting in your hand or licking a finger and smacking your hands against each other or or pressing your thumb or your finger in your hand, where you’ve moist moistened it.

And and sometimes you have to see 11 white horses before you get the lock, and not just one.

But I want to tell you, Katherine, the thing that is so amazing about this to me is that the idea of a white horse is lucky goes back to the ancients.

The ancient Greeks had many different allusions in their writing to the value and the preciousness and the sacredness of a white horse.

And the Babylonian Talmud, which is from around fifteen hundred years ago, has a line in it that translates from the Hebrew as one who sees a white horse in a dream, regardless of whether the horse was walking or running.

It is a good omen for him.

Wow.

I wondered if it were, like, more common for people of a certain ethnic background.

We don’t know anything about my grandmother’s background, and that’s what I was hoping too, that not just I would learn about the origin of the phrase, how curious it was, but also if maybe it would give me a clue to my grandmother’s where she was born.

Now, we don’t even know what her original last name was.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really give us any clues to that.

I think if there’s something for you to take away about this bit of folklore is that she plugged you in to a 2000 year old folklore tradition, and that’s kind of amazing.

It is.

It’s very amazing.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, our pleasure.

You too, Karen.

Thank you for sharing your memory with us.

We appreciate it.

Bye bye.

Stay put.

We’ll be right back to Untangle the Web of English.

Listening to A Way with Words that show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

The Latin expression carpe diem is often translated as seize the day, and you see this on t shirts and mugs and tea towels, and it’s this advice to go out there and seize the day, you know, grab every opportunity.

Yeah.

Take, take what the day has to offer and don’t pass it by.

Right.

But what’s really interesting about the carpe in carpe diem is that it can also mean to pluck or harvest.

And actually, the roots of this Latin saying lie in an agricultural metaphor that’s actually quite lovely and very calming.

It it appears in a brief Latin poem by the ancient poet Horus, and the poem addresses this woman who’s trying to find out what fate has in store for her.

And the poet basically says, yeah, don’t try to figure it out.

Forget the fortune tellers.

The gods don’t want us to know.

Don’t worry, be happy, basically.

Or, you know, as the poet puts it, don’t worry about whether Jupiter gives us other winters or whether this is our last.

And then he goes on to reassure her with the imagery of a vineyard.

He says, Be wise, strain the wine, and cut back hope into a small space.

In other words, prune your hopes the way you would prune a growing vine.

And then the last line is where the carpe diem comes in.

Carpe diem qua minimum credula postero.

Harvest the day or pluck the day and leave as little as possible for tomorrow.

I just think that’s so lovely.

And there’s more about this in a new book called Phrased and Confused, The Curious Meaning of Timeless Quotations by Ellie Bernstein.

And it’s it’s a light fun book about, the literary context and cultural histories behind familiar sayings like that.

And I really like what Bernstein has to say about those two different senses of carpe diem.

He writes, In the popular version, we’re encouraged to max out every pleasure and shake down every opportunity.

In the lesser known one, we’re invited to sit back, relax, and enjoy the moment.

It’s a matter, he says, not so much the grabbing of bulls by their horns as the teasing of grapes off their stems.

And you can see this if you compare across a number of English dictionaries.

You can see that only a few of them include that important follow-up, which is, yes, take the pleasures that the day offers, but without concern for the future.

That’s kind of the key part that is often lost in people using Carpe DMRT towels, which I’ve never seen, by the way.

Oh, I have?

You haven’t been in the same shop I I was decorating my kitchen wrong, I guess.

I don’t have Latin phrases all over Martha.

That must be a you thing.

We will link to Ellie Bernstein’s book Phrased and Confused on our website at waywordradio.org, where you can also find all of our past episodes and a dozen ways to reach us.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Diane from Wilmington, North Carolina.

Hey Diane, we’re glad to have you.

What are you calling us about today?

Well, I’m a bridge player, and I have an expression one of my friends uses that I’m hoping you can tell me how it came to be.

When it’s a one-sided game with one pair getting all the good cards, the explanation is you must be sitting with the bathtub.

I had never heard this before, so, of course, I googled.

And AI says it’s a superstition that originated in the Midwest but had no further insight.

And my friend Helen from New Hampshire speculated that it stemmed from a time when people had a bathtub in their kitchen, but that doesn’t really explain what it has to do with getting winning cards.

Well, I’m glad you didn’t trust AI and called us instead because it can it can definitely lead And you I’m interested in the construction of that phrase.

So it’s not sitting in the bathtub.

This person has clothes on and they’re sitting with it.

Is that right?

Yes, sitting with it, as in, you know, sitting parallel, I guess, with the side of the bathtub.

-huh.

Yeah, this is, you know, it kind of pops up, Diane, out of the blue in the late 1940s, and it starts to show up in the bridge columns of newspapers.

Remember when you could actually read about the car game bridge in the newspaper?

It was a thing.

Yes, back in the day.

Yeah.

And, and it’s immediately associated with Bridge, but also later becomes associated with Yukar and even peanutle.

It connects with these north, south, east, west descriptions descriptions in Bridge.

In that game, North, South, and East, West refer to your relationship with the player who you’re playing with, right?

Your partner.

Correct.

Yeah.

And so, and a lot of the mentions of sitting with the bathtub, and there’s other phrasings for this, but they talk about being aligned north, south, east, west.

So people will, would apparently after a while, in a joking fashion, almost always not taking it very seriously, try to position themselves or the table so they and their partner were aligned with wherever the bathroom was anywhere in the house.

And it wasn’t from the time when people were likely to have bathtubs in the same room they were playing cars.

I mean, they could have, but just wasn’t likely.

Right.

And sometimes you’ll see people not talk about the lining with the bathtub being parallel with the bathtub, but with the floorboards or the grain of the floorboards.

And so after the late nineteen forties, it starts to show up almost always as a little joking aside and rule books and collections of folklore, and it never really gets fully explained.

And I have never seen anyone explain why you want to be in line with the bathtub except, like a lot of games, card games tend to have a lot of folklore associated with, like these superstitions, which nobody really admits to believing, but you do the needful anyway just in case.

Rich has always intimidated the heck out of me.

I’m really impressed that you do it.

Yeah.

I’m glad to see it’s still thriving.

You know, it’s kind of peaked.

It had its heyday, but I know that there are communities of people who still love to play, and it’s still a quite it’s a great deal of teamwork and and mental vigor.

Oh, definitely.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

No.

It is a fun game, and it’s a challenging game.

But, I’ll have to just pay attention to whether I’m sitting with the bathtub from now on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That’s what we know.

Thank you, Diane.

We really appreciate it.

Pass that on to your team.

That’s right.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Bye bye.

Bye.

Call or email us.

The number is (877-929-9673, or send an email to wordswaywardradio dot org.

There’s an old expression in Australia and New Zealand, and that’s to get off your bike.

And that means to lose your temper or become worked up.

So don’t get off your bike means to calm down or don’t fly off the handle.

And as I said, it’s an old expression.

I know we have a lot of listeners in those countries, and I would love to hear if, don’t get off your bike is still in use.

Here’s a wonderful example from 1924.

It ran in a newspaper in Melbourne.

It’s a joke.

It goes, Jones has bought a piano when Joe, his neighbor, calls out, bet you won’t keep that long.

Next day, a van was at Jones’ house carrying out the piano when the neighbor called out, what did I tell you?

And Jones replies, don’t get off your bike.

I’m just going to my music lesson.

I love the idea that someone is carting a piano back and forth from their music lessons.

That’s so ridiculous.

We’d love to hear your local Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, it’s Andy Larson.

I’m calling from, Fairbanks.

Hey, Andy.

Oh, at Fairbanks, Alaska.

I love Fairbanks.

What’s going on?

I have a story that happened a while back at a football camp, a high school football camp.

I wanted to share it with you guys because I thought you would find some interest in it.

Sure.

One of the coaches that was helping us said, I got a creek in my neck.

And I said, a creek in your neck?

I’ve always called it a creek.

He goes, no.

I called it creek.

And he was from Missouri, and I asked a few other people in different parts of the country whether they went with creek or creek, and the general consensus was creek creek.

Sorry.

But he said it’s creek in his book.

So I just thought you might find some interest in that.

And he referred to it as, like, creaky, like, c r e a k y, like a creakiness.

Oh, I see.

So he’s got a little reinterpretation to kinda make it make sense.

Yeah.

But I always thought the crick was the the common phrase when your neck’s kinda kinked up or has a crick.

Yeah, yeah, you’re right, Andy.

In North America, in North American English, crick, c r I c k, is the usual form to say I have a crick in my neck.

There’s also a crook in one’s neck, c r o o k.

It’s considerably less common though, although it’s widespread enough that it can’t be dismissed.

And then, some people say a kink in one’s neck, K I N K.

Then if you’re in, if you’re in The UK and The United Kingdom, they’ll say a rick, which is either spelled r I c k or w r I c k.

And all of these words have a zillion forms and they’re quite aged.

They’re they go back quite a ways.

It looks like crook probably is imitative, meaning it imitates the sound of your neck cracking, you know, when those joints are finally released and you get that moment.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And crook comes from the shape of things like a shepherd’s crook.

So people imagine in their minds that they have, a bent neck, you know, with a kind of a hooky shape or a wavy shape.

And it’s easy for those twos to get past and forth, but crook doesn’t come from crook directly.

It doesn’t look like Now, creek isn’t a common version of that.

That pronunciation just isn’t a thing, really.

I suspect that he probably, though, also calls the watercourse a creek, c r e e k, a creek because that is common, sprinkled throughout The United States.

So the guy wasn’t wrong.

It was just that his version was much, less common.

Yeah.

I would say it’s not the ideal choice.

Okay.

That’s why I thought I was interested, and you guys would have a good story to go with it.

You guys, though.

I could see how it could happen, though.

If he does, like I said, call it a little water course a a crick instead of a creek.

So maybe there’s some, some loaning happening there from one pronunciation to the other.

But it isn’t something that any of the reference works have recorded, as far as I know.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, cricking your neck.

Oh, thanks for clarifying.

Yeah.

Here’s here’s to a good back.

Yes.

Alright.

Thank you.

Alright.

Take care, Andy.

Yep.

Well, we’re always collecting examples of pranks played on newbies, especially in the military.

And we got some from Caracast, who lives in Lemon Grove, California.

She said that when she was in the Marine Corps in communication electronics, newbies were told to go get a bucket of frequency grease or go get a 100 yards of flight line, flight line being the designated area on an airfield where the aircraft are parked.

Gotcha.

That one I’ve heard before, but I’ve not heard the bucket of frequency grease.

Oh, that’s a good one.

That’s solid.

And these are harmless pranks.

This isn’t kind of vicious body injury hazing.

No, just very, very puzzling for a while.

Well, help us unpuzzle your language mysteries.

You can call us toll free.

(877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, I’m in Jacksonville, Florida, and my name is Cissy Bear, C I S S Y, Bear, b e a r.

Hi, Sissy.

Welcome to the program.

What’s up?

Thank you.

Well, I’m very curious about this word kerfuffle, and I’ve used it forever.

Don’t remember where I even heard it in originally.

And, so that’s what I’d like to know about this word, kerfuffle.

My definition would be a dust up.

It’s like there’s a dust up either way.

Can I tell you a very quick, funny story?

We can I tell you something about kerfuffle that’s very strange?

Yes.

We just met just this past week, we had family in from, Nebraska that we had never met.

The oldest was in her fifties, a teacher, and then her first one of her daughters, one of many, many people in the family.

She’s a teacher.

She told me the first word she writes on the board is her favorite word to encourage her class to consider a word that they consider, a favorite.

And what was the word?

Curfuffle.

I almost fell over.

Oh, that’s cool.

So the both of you had a thing to bond, a language to bond about right away.

Isn’t that weird?

That’s cool.

That’s wonderful.

Martha has never been in a dust up or kerfuffle her whole life, but I think she knows some stuff about it.

Okay.

Well, I think it is what it sounds like.

It’s a dust up, you know?

Yeah.

Dust up is a wonderful word for it, Sissy.

I mean, it’s kind of an informal word that means something like, you know, a fuss or a commotion or a minor uproar.

It’s not that terrible.

But its origin is Scottish.

It actually comes from the Scots word kerfuffle, c u r f u f f l e, which in turn is thought to be related to a much older word in Scottish Gaelic, car, c a r meaning to turn or bend or twist, plus fuffle, which is a Scots word that means to disorder or ruffle.

And so there were early versions of this word in Scotland like carfuffle and curfuffle, c u r f u f f l e, and curfuffle, and it just meant to disarrange or throw into confusion.

Like, you could kerfuffle somebody’s hair, you know, just to tease them or their clothing.

And the modern kerfuffle, k e r f u f f l e, didn’t come around in English usage until the early twentieth century.

It’s maybe influenced by words like kraplunk and krathump.

Yeah, that cart prefix is pretty interesting because when it’s used that way on a root like fufl, f u f f l e, it becomes emphatic and it kind of loses some of the idea of twisting or bending.

And so it just means more of whatever it’s attached to.

In this case, it means more, more disorder, more chaos.

Okay, okay.

But still kind of mild.

Mild, yeah.

It’s not the other way, right?

But the humble is something you can handle.

It’s not like a disaster which you may not be able to handle.

Yeah, that’s a great way to put it.

Right.

Well, thank you so much for sharing with us, call us again sometime.

All right?

You take care now.

And stay out of those kerfuffles.

All right.

Take care now.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

No more Dust Stops.

Bye bye.

All righty.

Bye.

Toll free in The US and Canada, (877-929-9673.

Well, Grant, we’ve all heard the expression don’t mess with Texas, right?

You see it on bumper stickers and belt buckles or political speeches.

You hear it all the time, right?

Mhmm.

Yeah.

Even now, it’s for for a long time, right?

Yeah.

And it’s easy to assume that it’s some kind of tough guy catch phrase.

But you mentioned that it’s been around for a long time, and and the fact is that it’s been around for more than forty years.

And it started out as a slogan to get people to stop littering because back in the nineteen eighties, the Texas Department of Transportation was trying to stop roadside littering, which was costing taxpayers something like $20,000,000 a year to clean up.

And so they started this campaign called Don’t Mess With Texas.

And supposedly within five years, they’d reduced litter on the highways by 72%.

And I learned this from the new book, Phrased and The Curious Meaning of Timeless Quotations.

It’s by Ellie Bernstein.

We will link to that book on the website, and you’re free to mess with us.

Toll free, call or text from Canada and The US.

(877-929-9673.

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, to and waystoreachus.org If you have a language, thought, question, the toll free line is always open in The US and Canada.

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Thanks for listening.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Until next time, goodbye.

So long.