Catch My Drift (episode #1679)

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.

Not long ago, we had a conversation about unusual ways of answering the phone, and Grant, we are still hearing from listeners about it.

Apparently, people only joke when they answer the phone. I don’t think anyone takes it seriously, or maybe I’m just imagining things.

Our inbox says otherwise. It’s true. What happened to professionalism?

Maureen Overhannon in Brewster, Massachusetts, told us that a young man who worked for her husband used to pick up the phone and just say, on the phone, “I’m busy. I’m on the phone with you.”

And then we heard from April Dahl, who said, “I have birds.” When I call a friend, he answers, “call, call.”

And apparently this guy tailors his answers to whatever animals he knows the person lives with. So I guess, you know, he’d call you and say, “meow.”

Right, right. Oh, that’s a really good one. I love that.

And then I think my favorite is Galen Watts in Green Bank, West Virginia, emailed us to say that sometimes when answering his landline phone, he’ll use his radio voice and say, “hello, you’re on the air.”

I’m going to start doing that. Hello, you’re on the air.

And then he says, if they sound confused, he’ll add, “please turn your radio down.”

Well, turn your radio up. We’ve got another hour of fun stuff about language and linguistics coming your way.

You can be a part of it. Call us toll free 877-929-9673 or take a little more time and put in an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Hi there. My name is Kira.

Hey, Kira. Where are you calling us from?

I’m from Evansville, but I’m currently in Chicago.

What’s on your mind today?

So I was calling in because I heard a little bit of a phrase from a coworker of mine a little while ago, and I wanted to hear some input on it.

It took me a little bit to understand and fully grasp.

So I work in phone repair, phone sales, phone service, and I had a customer come in who was a little belligerent, a little confused.

And I tried to get through it, but the customer was just not having it.

So I ended up passing him off to a buddy of mine.

About 15 minutes later, customer leaves, seemed to be in a better mood.

I looked at my coworker and I said, “what was going on there?”

And he said, “oh, it was a ID10T issue.”

And I said, “huh?”

And he said, “write it down and get back to me.”

And so I wrote it down and I had a good giggle about it.

But I just want some more input on that, where that comes from or any sort of history you guys may know on it.

ID10T error.

So you figured out that it spells what?

It sounds idiotic.

Yeah, because the 10 looks like an I-O, so I-D-I-O-T.

And so basically it’s saying it’s the user’s fault.

Not a thing you would say in front of the user, though.

No, he waited until he had already left the store.

It was humorous, in my opinion.

Well, you know, Kira, I worked in information technology for a long time, and I knew this, too.

It’s part of the folklore of the computer field, particularly on the support side, where users will come to you all worked up, like you said, and not realize that the problem is with something that they’re doing and not the machinery or the technology at all.

And this particular one I love because it demonstrates something really important.

Back before we had a computer in pretty much every house, before we all had smartphones, the military had them.

So a lot of this old language like this goes back to the military.

And so you can find a bunch of different spellings of this.

Sometimes it’s ID10Tango.

And also sometimes it’s used as hazing language.

Like back in the day, they would tell somebody, “yeah, I need you to go get me some of the ID10T forms.”

And so we can fill those out.

And there’s no such thing as ID10T.

And so this is before the World Wide Web when there was an internet, but not a World Wide Web.

And this is like BitNet and Usenet and things like that.

So it’s got some years on it.

And there’s a few more of these that they use in the military that are very similar.

So they look, when you write them out or when you say them in a particular way, like typical military jargon.

And it takes you a second like you did to puzzle it out.

So here’s one.

If I tell you to go fetch a Red Bravo Alpha 1100 November with the string attachment, what am I telling you to get?

That’s a Red Bravo Alpha 1100 November with a string attachment.

I can’t picture it.

I’m telling you to go get a balloon.

Another one is you would tell the newbies, particularly in the Navy, to look out for low-flying GU-11s and B-1RDs.

GU-11, B-1RD.

Goals and birds.

I wish I had a piece of paper in front of me.

Goals and birds.

Goals and birds.

Look out for low-flying goals and birds.

So there’s a ton of this stuff.

I mean, military humor is just this kind of, you know, in the face of what could be one of the worst days of their lives or one of the worst events for a nation, which is to go to war.

They find dark humor and they find ways to josh and tease each other to kind of bring the overall mood and temperature back to an even keel.

And it’s this kind of language is really important for that.

I just love that it’s so witty and dry.

Yeah.

There’s not a lot of depth to it, but it’s also genius at the same time.

Yeah.

Well, that’s humanity for you.

Another famous one that is still used today in technology circles, I don’t know that this one comes to the military, but I would not be surprised, is you would just write on a ticket that you closed when somebody filed a problem ticket, you would just write P-E-B-C-A-K.

I know that one.

Problem exists between keyboard and chair?

Between chair and keyboard.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, I’m going to start using that one.

It’s pretty much like the ID10 error.

Oh, wow.

Similar, but not enough that you could guess it just by reading it.

Yeah, yeah.

You’d have to know.

You’d have to be a little more inside to get that one.

But it’s definitely part of the folklore of the tech world.

And, again, you know, the military had computers and computer systems, computer networks long before they showed up in everyday households.

And so they developed this kind of language before it even reached most offices or most businesses.

That’s awesome.

Thank you so much for teaching me a little bit more about the lore behind it and some more fun phrases to throw around the workplace.

Yeah, thanks for giving me one.

ID 10T, I like that.

ID 10T, thank you so much.

You take care of yourself now, all right?

Have fun in Chicago.

Thank you, you too.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Call or text us anytime, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Julie and I’m calling from Fort Pierce, Florida. How are you?

Oh, super. Thanks for calling, Julie. What’s up?

So I just wanted to call in. I’m a longtime listener and I do have a phrase that was a favorite of my mother’s.

It’s kind of unique in the sense that not a whole lot of people in my family remember her saying it, but I sure do.

And I’m in my 50s now and I use it all of the time.

So I know I got it from her, just not sure where she got it from.

The phrase is, it’s hotter than Billy Blue Blazes.

Hotter than Billy Blue Blazes.

So is she talking about food or spicy wings?

What is she talking about?

So she would specifically use it in the instance of like if we’re outside or at the pool or when my daughter was younger, she’s 22 now.

But when she would visit us here in Florida or even when we would visit her in Texas and it was a hot summer day or hot spring day, she would just say, “whew, it’s hotter than Billy Blue blazes out.”

Oh, I love it.

Martha, we know something about this one, don’t we?

Yeah, yeah.

And have you heard people say things like it’s hot as blazes without the Billy Blue?

I have heard that.

So I thought it must be connected some way.

We see as far back as the early 19th century that blazes is a euphemism for hell.

And, you know, if you’re talking about something that’s really intense, you might talk about blue blazes.

And if you’re angry, you might go blue blazes or say, what in blue blazes?

But your mother had that Billy in there, too.

That’s really interesting, right?

It is.

And I have to tell you, if you knew her personality in her way, she had to make it cute.

Oh.

You know?

But it’s not unique to her, though, right, Martha?

No.

No, not at all.

Many people have said Billy Blue Blazes.

They sure have.

And interestingly, they’ve also said colder than Billy Blue Blazes.

It’s just an even more intense version.

So you might say colder than Billy Blue Blazes or angrier than Billy Blue Blazes.

And it’s not as if there was a particular person named Billy who inspired this.

I think the earliest mention of Billy Blue Blazes I ever saw was in an 1885 newspaper in England where it was talking about dog racing.

And this dog named Billy Blue Blazes lost to another dog named Tommy Rot.

So that’s actually a really good clue because that shows us if the dog had that name, that saying was probably already making the rounds even if we can’t find it in print before then.

Exactly. Today, I think it sort of softens the idea of blue blazes. I don’t know.

Well, it sure does. Now that I know what it means, what it’s referring to, makes me feel like, wow, what a really neat connection.

And just real quick, I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but my mom has Alzheimer’s.

And so this is one little phrase that I feel really connected to her with because she doesn’t say a whole lot anymore.

And so thank you for explaining it to me.

Oh, that’s wonderful.

It’s kind of a fun connection I have to her.

Now my own daughter says it.

Oh, that’s lovely.

Well, and here you are carrying on the tradition.

We appreciate it, Julie.

That’s right.

Thank you so much for explaining it to me.

I appreciate it.

Take care of yourself, all right?

You too.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Take care, Julie.

Bye-bye.

Okay, bye-bye.

You can call us or text us toll-free in the U.S. and Canada, 877-929-9673.

If you look through small town newspapers, particularly from the early 20th century, you see the tiniest things reported in the newspapers, right?

So charming.

Yeah, who attended the church supper and what was served or whose relatives are visiting from out of town.

And I found a funny little couple of paragraphs in the Harrisburg Telegraph, that’s in Pennsylvania, from 1916.

And the editors were talking about how every now and then some practical joker tries to get something in the newspaper that’s not really real.

And they decided that the one that they got that week was so funny that they put it in anyway.

And it goes like this.

Miss Lena Genster, age 35, of 1245 Anxious Avenue, held a party in honor of her cousin, Miss Pearl Button. The evening was spent in sewing buttons on ice cream and old maid’s refreshments as fried ice and stewed bees knees were served to the guests. Maggie Zine, Lena ginster idowano i’m alone ella vader and then some guys artificial beneficial count de pennies and ray zore these remind me of the garbage patch kid stickers that were such a big deal when i was a kid all these punny names yeah um like the supposed book called um going to the bathroom by Willie Make It and Betty Don’t.

Well, we love it when you share your little comedy gyms with us.

Wherever you found it, send it to words@waywordradio.org.

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 Martha Barnette.

I’m Grant Barrett, and coming in here with clown shoes and a big red nose, it’s our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Well, honk, honk, you guys.

It’s me again.

There’s nothing funny about being a clown, let me tell you.

All right, let’s do a quiz, and this week the quiz is called, I call it change groups.

In this quiz, I’ll give you three words, and they all belong to the same category group.

For instance, let’s say fruits.

A single letter has been changed in each of the three words.

So as per the example fruits, you might hear apply, tango, gropes.

And the words would be apple, right?

Go ahead.

And then the other two.

Yeah, apple, mango, grapes.

Yes, very good.

Apple, mango, grapes.

Now, first try to, you know, suss out the members of the category and then guess the group category.

And then, you know.

All right.

So you want us to say the name of the category and then say what they’re really supposed to be.

Well, probably the easiest way to get the category is to try to figure out what one or two of the words in the group are substituting for.

Ah, good, Tim.

Thank you for that.

Okay?

Good.

Okay, here we go.

One letter different.

Yes, exactly.

And it could be the first letter.

It could be the last letter.

It could be one in the middle.

It doesn’t matter.

Here we go.

Grout, tuba, shirk.

I think these are fish.

They are fish.

Now, what kind of fish are they?

Trout, tuna, and shark.

Yes, trout, tuba, and shark.

Well done.

Off to a swimming start.

Slickers, twit, pounds.

Slickers, twit, pounds.

P-O-U-N-D-S.

Yes.

Okay, so I’m guessing it’s candy.

Candies is correct.

You’ve got Snickers and Mounds, and what’s the one in the middle?

Twit.

Twix.

Twix, yes.

Very good.

I was very excited to find to get one right.

Way to go, you Twix.

All right, here’s another one.

Picky, thump, sing.

Oh.

It’s the fingers.

So ring, thumb, and pinky.

Yes, ring, thumb, and pinky.

Very good.

Here’s the next one.

Tip, sold, solver.

Tip, sold, solver.

This is when you buy the answers from John before we record this.

Meet me in the back alley.

Okay, I’m going to guess these are metals.

They are metals.

So you got tin, gold, and silver.

Tin, gold, and silver.

Very good, Martha.

Well done.

One, two, three.

Congrats.

I appreciate that you tell us we did well even when we didn’t.

It’s good for my psyche.

You do.

That’s right.

Well, we’re sending you back to the circus, John.

Thank you so much for sharing your genius with us.

Thank you.

Where’s my unicycle?

That’s the same one I’ve used several times here.

Where is that unicycle?

All right.

We’ll talk to you next week, John.

Bye, guys.

Talk to you then.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you want to talk about any form of wordplay or language at all, we’d love to hear from you.

877-929-9673.

That’s toll-free in the U.S. and Canada.

Or you can send us an email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello. My name is Cammie. I’m based in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.

And I had a question about a phrase that my mom always said, and so I always said it.

And that is just the phrase, if you catch my drift.

And we, I use this usually when I’m sort of implying something sort of like a nudge nudge kind of phrase. And I was writing it in an email the other day, and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe the person that I was writing to maybe hadn’t seen that phrase or, you know, my family is kind of notorious for making up phrases, and then I think they’re ubiquitous and use them in conversation and people look at me like, what are you talking about?

So I got to thinking, like, where did this come from?

Is this a nautical term?

Like, what is this actually, what’s the origin of this phrase?

So catch my drift.

I’m just imagining maybe there are young kids present, and you’re trying to insinuate something adult.

So to the other person, you’re like, you catch my drift, so you don’t have to explain it in detail.

Yes.

Yeah.

You’re definitely insinuating something.

I think we’re catching your drift, too, Cammie.

I think we are catching it.

Yeah, we’re catching your drift.

And yeah, it’s really tempting to think of it as a nautical term because so many terms in English come from nautical language.

But what’s really interesting about the expression, if you catch my drift, is the fact that drift is a linguistic relative of drive.

They both come from the same ancient Germanic root that means to push along.

And by the 16th century in English, the word drift could mean something that a person is driving at, their purpose or their intention.

So then drift came to signify the meaning, like the drift of your argument or the drift of your story.

And then by the early 19th century, we see phrases like to catch someone’s drift or to get the drift, meaning that you’re understanding what the person is saying, even if the person doesn’t say it explicitly.

So when I say I see what you’re driving at, that’s directly related to I’m catching your drift.

I’m catching your drift, Grant, yes.

How about that?

Right. It’s like a vocal or linguistic wink.

That’s a great way to put it. Can I borrow that?

Yes, absolutely.

Linguistic wink. I like that.

So we could have used drift in this kind of figurative way as far back as the 1500s, but here we are 500 years later still using it that way.

I love that so much.

I really appreciate all of your backstory on this phrase.

It’s something that I just never thought of.

It was something I’ve always used.

It’s nice to know that I’m driving at something real.

There you go.

Thanks for your call, Kami.

We appreciate it.

Thanks for having me on the show.

Yeah, be well.

Bye-bye.

Take care, Kami.

Bye-bye.

Well, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Say lots more on our toll-free line 877-929-9673 or on our website at waywordradio.org.

I always love it when I’m looking through the dictionary and I just stumble across a word I’ve never seen before and I quickly add it to my own vocabulary. This time the term is wordpecker.

All right. So it’s wordpecker, W-O-R-D-P-E-C-K-E-R.

Right. There’s a hyphen in the middle of it.

And it’s defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a person who trifles or plays with or quibbles over words.

And I think we’re all wordpeckers here.

Well, yeah, but I think that I hear a notion of pedant in there, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Not necessarily, but I’m looking at some of the old citations for it.

And one of them is a punster, one who plays upon words.

Well, take your two index fingers or your two thumbs and get up that phone and call or text toll free 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, how’s it going?

This is Laith Harris from Lexington County, South Carolina.

Well, welcome to the show, Laith.

We’re glad to have you.

What’s on your mind?

Well, I have a word that I’d like for you guys to expound on.

My favorite uncle was from Western North Carolina, just out of the Appalachian Mountain Range in Western North Carolina.

Served from time in the Seabees during the Second World War in the Philippines.

Was a cutter grinder by trade.

But when we would walk around him and greet him at the age of maybe 14 or 15, this would have been in about 1965-ish, he would always ask us how our girlfriends were, and he would use a word, Jing Flutie. He’d say, hey, what’s your Jing Flutie doing today?

So I use that with my daughters. I’ve never heard anybody else use the word before.

One of my granddaughters has a boyfriend, and I asked her about her Jing Flutie, and she challenged me on it. I said, what does that mean?

So I thought you guys would be the source to come to to see what’s going on.

Laith, any idea how to spell that?

Or is it one word or two words or three?

I have no idea.

This is all oral history.

Okay.

All right.

Some ideas here.

And the main one is that Floogies, that’s F-L-O-O-G-I-E-S, or with a Y in the singular, has long been a synonym for floozy.

F-L-O-O-Z-Y.

But before you get up in arms about it, know that floozy wasn’t always a big insult.

Sometimes it just meant somebody who went their own way.

Maybe they were a little messy and maybe a little unfashionable, but they weren’t sexually promiscuous or anything like that.

It did eventually get that meaning.

But Floogie as a synonym for floozy has existed for probably the 1930s, since the 1930s.

And there was a real moment in the development of Floogie as a term because there was a 1938 song called The Flatfoot Floogie with the Floy Floy by Slim Guy Lard and Sam Stewart.

I don’t know if that’s how you say Guy Lard, but it’s G-I-L-L-A-R-D.

And apparently, as the story goes, their record company wanted them to change the name because originally it was Flatfoot Floozy.

And by that time, Floozy could be seen to mean prostitute or somebody who slept around.

And that song became a huge hit, Flatfoot Floogie.

It was number two on the Billboard charts.

It was covered many times over the decades after the 1930s by a number of famous singers and musicians.

And so that’s kind of really put Floogie out there as a term for people to pick up.

The big question for us is, though, if we accept the idea that Floogie means Floozy, is what is the gene doing?

And I really think it’s just a reference originally to this new post-war casualness of dress of the younger set where they would wear jeans as a fashionable item.

And it certainly happened before World War II.

It certainly did.

But after the war, it was even more pronounced.

This idea that jeans were okay in pretty much any environment.

Okay.

Well, I get that.

I thank you for that.

I want to add one little piece of it.

On the gene, there’s a G on the end, so it was always a Jing Floogie.

Oh, really? A Jing Floogie?

Yeah.

I did not hear that.

Oh, this is a whole…

I’m sorry about that.

I still don’t have any instances, known instances of somebody saying Jing Floogie.

But that doesn’t mean that our audience, which spreads from coast to coast in North America, they may come back to us with some new information.

That’s always the nice thing about the folks who listen.

They’ve got some stuff that we don’t have.

Crowdsourcing is wonderful.

My wife, she said, well, I think it has to do with gin floozy.

Gin floozy.

So, you know, maybe a gal that goes her own way but drinks a little too much gin.

Yeah.

Somebody that I met, somebody I met at the bar or something like that.

I think your wife is a smart woman, but you probably knew that already.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

It’s something worth investigating, and I’ll make a note here to look and see if I can find examples of gin floozy or gin floogie being used that way.

That’s a real strong hypothesis.

Awesome.

Well, thanks very much.

This has been a lot of fun.

We really enjoy your show an awful lot.

It’s our pleasure, Leigh.

Thank you for spending time with us today.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Call or text 877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha.

Hi, Grant.

I’m very excited to be on with you guys.

My name is Isabella and I’m calling from Marquette, Michigan.

Okay, welcome.

Welcome from Marquette.

Glad to have you.

What’s up?

What’s on your mind today?

Oh, well, I’ve actually been a listener for a long time.

I was listening to an old episode.

I think it was called Naked as a Jaybird, in which a woman from the South describes the word chat.

And she’s referring to mining runoff that kind of turns into gravel and little rocks.

And I just kind of perked up when I heard that because I was like, that’s not what we call it.

Up here, we call that slag.

And slag is usually just odd-looking rocks.

Usually, if you’re walking along Lake Superior and you’re looking at different rocks, you’ll notice some really odd-shaped ones.

Some of them are either really full of holes or they’re like a suspicious green color.

Or sometimes you’ll think you found an agate and you’ll look at the quartz banding and it’s all kind of jagged and it looks like two rocks like fused together.

So I call those slaggates.

Nice.

And if you go further up the Keweenaw, usually you find these bigger rocks that are definitely slag.

They kind of have holes in them and almost looks like eyes all over them.

So I call those space potatoes.

I don’t know if anyone else uses that, but it’s a lovely term.

Yeah, just a few people probably.

Space potato.

And so am I hearing a question there or you just wanted to share your new words?

Oh, well, I do have a question because the only other time I’ve actually heard the word slag was, I think, in like a British show or movie or something where it was kind of used as like an insult or something like he’s a slag or slagging off. And I never really thought about it before. So I was just wondering, what’s the etymology and origin of that word? And how did it come into where I live in the UP to refer to like mining runoff rocks?

Yeah, it’s a bit of a mess just because the word slag in its various forms is so old. And also its form is so simple. It’s such a simple word. And when these two things happen, we tend to find a lot of crossed wires and overlapping paths, and it’s not necessarily a clear story. But it does seem that slag, interestingly, is related to the word slay, S-L-A-Y, in the sense of kill, because they share a common Germanic root having to do with hammering and forging, that is, taking tools and beating something. You know, slag comes from mining and smelting and forging where there’s a lot of beading of metals. And actually, slag may be related to the sledge in sledgehammer and the slot, S-L-A-U-G-H-T, in slaughter and onslaught. But again, not necessarily 100% clear, but it looks like it. And of course, there are a ton of language change processes that happen over many centuries. But it does go back really before English was English. And there’s an early transformation of the early form of the word where it goes from the idea of hitting to the sparks or pieces that fly off when you’re hitting, like when you’re hitting metal. And so we see that slag’s meaning has adjusted related to, again, forging and mining and smelting a lot over the many centuries. It’s not always been one thing.

Oh, yeah. I was thinking of the word slough off and slack, kind of like the idea of things sliding down the mining shaft. But it sounds like it’s more about the striking part of it.

I think both of those are etymologically unrelated. But interestingly, so you mentioned the British slag, one which is an insult usually for a woman of saying that she has low sexual morals. It may be related because slag is a type of rubbish or waste. And that is the kind of thing that you might say about somebody that you didn’t respect. But on the other hand, there’s a Scots slag. It means a clumsy person or thing or a heavy person. And that actually could be the origin. The other thing you mentioned, to slag someone off, it means to denigrate or insult them. That’s also not used really in North America. But its origins, as murky as they are, may be related to some Scandinavian language having to do with drenching. That is, even a heavy swell at sea, there’s negatives that could indicate that somebody is being abused by an onslaught of some force and power.

Hmm. Oh, interesting.

So you work in the mining industry or just know it because you live up there?

No, I just know it because there’s a lot of history of copper and iron mining in the UP, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in case anyone didn’t know. I think there still is, actually. I have a regular correspondent, Luke, who’s an electrician for a mining company, who texts me every time the show is on the air there. So, hi, Luke. I’m sure a lot of them listen to it during work.

Oh, you take care now, right?

Yeah, thanks so much for having me on, guys. They really appreciate the show. So a big miigwech to you, which is Anishinaabe for thank you.

Oh, it’s our pleasure. We appreciate it.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Yep, bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye.

Here’s another funny way to answer the phone. We heard from Lanny Nielsen in Fort Collins, Colorado. And she writes, I have a friend who lived in St. Thomas in the 70s, and she told me there was a man who had a lot of cranky customers. So he would just answer the phone, talk to me nicely.

Oh, yeah. That’s good advice in general. Talk to me nicely.

Yeah. But I’m imagining it said in a threatening tone. Talk to me nicely. Talk to us nicely or any way you please. 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.

In an earlier episode, we talked about Anglo-Saxon poetry and its use of kennings. Those are those poetic compounds that substitute for simple nouns, like, you know, whale road for ocean or sky candle for sun. Or word hoard for dictionary or vocabulary.

Yes, yes, yes, the words that are tucked inside of you. And there was another word that we mentioned, which was brimgist, which literally translates as sea guest, but it means sailor. After we talked about that word, one of our listeners got to thinking about the idea of how the sea is an alien environment for humans, how a mariner is literally a guest of the sea. And he’s a poet. His name is Paul Holler. He lives outside of Chicago. And he was inspired to write a poem along these lines, and it has some nice echoes of Anglo-Saxon poetry, which, as you know, has a lot of alliteration and repetition. And I asked if I could share it, and he said okay. So here it is. It’s called Sea Guest by Paul Holler.

There’s something about the sound, the crash of the waves offshore, the roll and the royal, and the whisper of a wave’s ending that draws the sea guest to where the sea begins. There’s something about the way the birds glide through the warp and weft, and the way the seals cross from sea to sand and back again, working time in wide circles and space in small ellipses, that draws the sea guest to where the sea begins. There’s something about the way it looks when he closes his eyes and takes the bird’s woven sail in his hands and hues a driftwood hull and sets a tall and true mast and crosses from sand to sea. And the birds soar on sails like his own. And a seal rises up with a face like his own. And dives and circles and soars in a firmament like his own. And the waves beneath his feet flow and pulse with his own heart. And there’s something about the quiet when he opens his eyes and the others are far away. He stands unmoving on the line where the sea begins because the others are of the sea and he is a mere guest.

Martha, that is so perfect. I read it as well online and knew we had to share on the show.

I’m so glad that you did. We will share the link to Paul Holler’s poem online. That’s H-O-L-L-E-R. And if you’ve got some poetry or a book or something you’ve created that you’re really proud of, Martha and I will absolutely take a look at it. You can send it to words@waywordradio.org or tell us about it by text or phone toll-free 877-929-9673.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Chelsea from Louisville, Kentucky.

Hey, Chelsea from Louisville, what’s up?

Well, I was calling because my husband and I have had, I wouldn’t say it’s a disagreement, but maybe a difference of opinion on how to pronounce the word antenna. It’s not a word we use that frequently anymore with, you know, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and everything. But we’re of an age where we grew up with antennas on our TVs and on our cars. And he has always called it an antenna. And I don’t know where he got that from.

He doesn’t either?

No. He said that that’s the way his family always said it, and he believes it’s the right way to pronounce it. So just because it’s kind of hard to hear the difference sometimes in radio and podcast, spell the different versions for us, how you might write them out phonetically.

So the way I say it, antenna, A-N-T-E-N, like the number 10, uh, U-H. Antenna. And he says it antenna, like an, like an apple, and then tan, like I was just at the beach and I’ve got a great tan. And then.

And Chelsea, is he from Louisville as well?

He’s from Louisville and I am actually not. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago.

Okay. This last Martha zeroed right in on the really important point. There’s something about his southern heritage and his southern linguistic heritage, which may lean him towards saying antenna instead of antenna. And here’s a couple things to say. First of all, he’s not the only one. There are other people online who talk about that pronunciation in their own language.

Let me ask you another question. Does he also say cement and police and insurance? Putting the stress on the first syllable, he does.

Yeah, as well as umbrella.

Umbrella, yes.

Another great one.

Good.

When you represented a speech, you didn’t say that he said antenna. But I’m wondering if he doesn’t stress that first syllable.

You know what? I think that he does. And I think that it’s so unnatural for me to do it that it was hard for me to reproduce it.

You just called your husband unnatural, I’m telling.

Okay, so what we’ve done here is we’ve narrowed this down. So first of all, that stressing of the first syllable in some words that in other dialects of English, they don’t stress the first syllable, is a well-known feature of some parts of the Southern English dialect map. So he kind of fits really nicely into this well-known feature of the Southern U.S. English dialect.

But the other thing that happens, there’s a physical thing that happens to the vowels in our mouth when certain conditions happen. For example, that double N in antenna is somewhat nasal for most people, and it can affect the sound of the preceding vowel. So in linguistic terms, we would say the vowel lowers to the near open front unrounded vowel, ah, before the alveolar nasal consonant, eh. Something like that.

Love it.

But the other thing that’s happening is that first stressed syllable can pull the vowel that follows it in a different direction than the speaker intends or usually would say. So stressing ant in the first part of the ant-tana may take that second vowel and turn it more like an A and less like an E. It’s a physical, mechanical thing happening in the mouth. It’s not about intelligence or education or anything like that. It’s just a function of how the mouth and all the voice parts inside that produce speech behave.

Well, Chelsea, what we’ve done here is confirmed that your husband has some reasons for saying antenna. He’s not necessarily wrong. He just speaks a different dialect than you do. But we appreciate you sharing this with us and give our best to your husband.

All right.

Thanks so much.

All right.

Take care.

Good talking with you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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

In English, we express regret with the rhyming phrase shoulda, woulda, coulda. You know, I should have done this. I would have done this.

Yeah.

But in German, there’s also a nice rhyming phrase to express the same idea. It goes, hette, hette, farakette. And it means, you know, it’s pointless now to wish that something else had happened. But what’s so great about this phrase is that if you translate it literally, it’s would have, would have a bicycle chain. Would have, would have a bicycle chain. Just because they rhyme, right?

Right.

Yeah, we do the same thing in English sometimes, I think, where we’ll just throw in a word because it rhymes, not because it’s important.

Exactly.

Well, don’t say what a shoulda coulda when you thought about a question that you really needed to get our opinion on. Try it now. 877-929-9673.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. This is Wendy Shang from Falls Church, Virginia. How are you?

Hi, Wendy. I’m doing great, and I’m delighted to have you here, as is Grant. What’s on your mind today?

I know it’s called A Way with Words, but I have a question about a gesture that I’m hoping you would help me out with.

Yep.

We’ll loop that in. We’ll include that to communication. How about that?

Okay.

You have a way of communication, though. It just doesn’t roll off the tongue.

I was wondering, so you know that gesture we use for shame, shame, where you use your two index fingers and it looks like you’re peeling a carrot almost?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That’s a good description. I was like, where did this come from? Where did we get this idea that that gesture means shame, shame?

What’s interesting is this gesture has sometimes been called scrubbing carrots, but in German. Because there’s a very similar gesture in Germany and Austria and maybe Wales that looks very much like this. But it’s more about insulting someone or to say, you know, it’s a negative gesture to make disforge someone. It’s not necessarily about trying to make them feel shame for their actions or words.

So there’s a book called Body Talk by Desmond Morris, and he’s an ethnologist. And he calls the one we’re talking about, the shame, shame gesture, the four fingers rub. And he calls the German, Austrian, Welsh one, the four fingers scrape. But they’re very similar. And I believe that the North American version that we’re talking about comes from the European version.

Okay.

And that’s F-O-R-E, right?

F-O-R-E, four fingers. And it’s very important to say that this gesture isn’t universal. It pretty much only exists in North America the way that we use it to mean shame.

So I looked into this, dug around. I can find references to this gesture going back at least to the early 1900s. And what’s interesting to me in the world of child language, you know, in the world of children’s folklore, there are also things that you say that go along with it. Like, for example, Abbasiki. And I don’t know what it means or where it comes from, but it was recorded in Virginia and South Carolina. But A-B-A-S-I-C-K-Y, you might say Abbasiki, Abbasiki, and do that whittling motion with your fingers.

And then in Philly, and I don’t know if this is still used anymore, but folks in the older generations may still remember this. They would say cisper, S-I-S-P-E-R, or cisper shame, cisper shame, shishper shame, and do the same gesture. And that comes from an older expression, hiss for shame, like you hiss when you show disapproval of a performance or something that someone said.

So this gesture probably comes from Europe, and it probably originally was an insult, but in the United States, it means shame on you.

Do you think maybe like the sound, maybe that was supposed to sound like hissing, like when you scrape a carrot or you’re sharpening something, it’s like a hiss?

Maybe, but I think the best guesses that I’ve ever seen, and it’s all guesses because this is not the kind of thing that people are likely to put into print very often, is that it’s directly related to the idea of pointing the finger of shame.

Oh, pointing, okay.

So you are literally sharpening the point of the finger of shame.

Ah.

And finger of shame is an expression. That’s a lexicalized item in English. We talk about pointing the finger of shame.

You know, I haven’t used this gesture since elementary school. And I don’t see adults doing it now, but I remember in elementary school, it was more like the idea of getting a whipping. Oh, interesting.

Well, I will say this, and Martha, I don’t know if you dug in our email on this, but a number of our listeners over the years have asked about this expression and joined it with a sound that is mysterious. And this is when you say, when somebody does something that gets them in trouble, say, in a classroom. Or, and you do the finger gesture, the shame, shame gesture.

So children’s folklore is one of my favorite things in the world. So I’m, of course, naturally happy to bring it back to that. But anyway, that’s what we know, Wendy.

Thank you so much. I really enjoy your show so much. I’m so glad to be part of it.

Yeah, it’s our pleasure. Thank you. Call us again sometime.

All right. Thank you.

Okay.

Sounds good. Take care. Bye.

Bye.

Bye. Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Brian calling from Manda, North Dakota. Hey, Brian, we’re glad to have you. What’s up?

My mom always had a saying and I was really curious about the origin of the saying. Just to give a little context, she died six years ago at the age of 95. So she was a young adult during World War II, which kind of makes sense with the saying that she used to say. And she would always say if someone would leave abruptly or really fast, she would say that they took off like a ruptured duck.

Like a ruptured duck?

Like a ruptured duck.

R-U-P-T-U-R-E-D-D-U-C-K, ruptured duck.

R-U-P-T-U-R-E-D, yes, ruptured duck.

So quick or sudden, did she ever use it when people left kind of like in a mess or in a hurry or kind of clumsily?

Well, just in a hurry.

It’s just like, oh, they were supposed to leave at this time, but they left, you know, I mean, really fast.

Okay.

It sounds terrible.

Abruptly, yeah.

So I think people’s eyes and ears are lighting up across our listenership because there are so many different ways to take this.

The first thing we have to talk about is that there’s a very well-known emblem of an eagle that was, you probably saw this if you Googled it, on a military discharge emblem used in World War II.

That was jokingly called a ruptured duck.

We’re not 100% sure, but I have some theories.

One of the theories is the way the emblem looks is one of the wings is kind of under the circle of the logo.

And so he looks—

That’s what it looks like, yeah.

And he’s a little chubby too.

Like he says, his feathers are a little too fluffed up.

He just, there’s something weird about the guy.

So jokingly calling an eagle a duck is 100% within military humor.

That’s exactly the kind of thing they would do.

And we have many examples of that happening, of the eagle in a variety of U.S. military logos being called a duck or something other than an eagle.

But what’s really interesting, before that symbol was called the ruptured duck and, you, it existed.

The term ruptured duck already existed as far back as the very early 1900s, many decades before, and almost always used humorously.

For example, there’s a story about it being one of those things that they would haze college students to go hunt for.

You know, go find a ruptured duck, which, of course, you don’t know what that is or if it exists, so you never come back with anything.

And you’ll find it, and this is probably the key connector here to the war and the military, you’ll find it in flying uses.

And this is probably where we get to take off like a ruptured duck because almost always it was not a soaring, beautiful trip.

We’re talking about planes that barely make it off the ground or when something goes bad right off the bat.

These awkward moments that are inevitably going to happen when people are learning to fly or in the military theater actually facing combat.

Well, and I know because she was a young adult during World War II, that’s kind of where I thought the origin from that saying came from and definitely makes sense.

That’s one of the few sayings I could probably say out loud in public with what she came up with.

A lady of some color then.

Yeah, exactly.

We appreciate your call, Brian.

Thanks for talking with us today.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

We got an email from Linda Bedine.

She’s one of those folks who travels around in an RV.

And she wrote, I enjoy your podcast immensely, listening as I drive around the country chasing 70.

All right.

Lay it out for me.

What are we talking about here?

Well, chasing 70, she says, is what full-time RVers do.

Driving around the country trying to get to areas that are 70 degrees.

Oh, okay.

I get that.

Although 72 is a little better, but I get it.

Well, Linda also says that when she’s not chasing 70, she’s in southeast Michigan in her sticks and bricks.

Oh, the home.

Yeah.

Sticks and bricks instead of on the road.

That’s cool.

Right, right.

So much RV language.

We’ll have to do more of that another time.

Let’s do it.

Whatever you do in your free time when you’re traveling to the country, I know there’s lingo attached to it.

I know you’ve got a personal internal glossary.

Well, spill it for us.

You can tell us an email, words@waywordradio.org, or use social media on our website, 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 Way with 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 non-profit’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.