Who is Chester Drawers?

Even though you’re listening to this on podcast and not on the air, you can still call our toll-free number 877-929-9673, and you can still send us email to words@waywordradio.org, and you can still find us online at waywordradio.org.

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Writing is really hard work. If you’re going to do it well, you need focus, you need passion, you need solitude, and you need lots and lots and lots of practice.

So it’s surprising to learn just how many of the greatest writers in the English language actually had to work other jobs when they were writing.

I mean, it’s really amazing, Grant.

And I’ve been reading about this in a new book by our friend Jack Lynch, who’s written about Samuel Johnson and lexicography and the history of lexicography.

He’s got a new book out that’s called Don’t Quit Your Day Job.

And it’s about famous people in history who had day jobs while they were doing other things.

And I really enjoyed it.

It’s a light, easy read.

But a lot of the people that he talks about in the book, like, for example, Vladimir Nabokov was a highly regarded lepidopterist.

You know, he was head for a while of the Butterfly and Moth Division of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Awesome.

Isn’t that great?

What a fantastic contrast that is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, he was quite the scientist.

Faulkner was a postal clerk.

And so was Anthony Trollope, by the way.

And everyone always talks about Einstein when this comes up.

He was a patent clerk.

Right.

But it made me think about, even if you’re not a great writer, how did your jobs growing up affect the way that you write and see the world?

So the stuff that you did as a child, right?

Like I was a newspaper boy.

That’s where I got the newspaper habit, reading the paper as I was folding them up to deliver them that day.

Oh, yeah.

Interesting.

Does your day job influence the way you write?

We’d love to hear about it.

Call us, 1-877-929-9673.

And you can also call us if you want to talk about grammar, slang, punctuation, word origins, family phrases, and sayings.

Or email us. That address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you?

Great, who’s this?

This is Vic from Indianapolis.

Hi, Vic. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Vic.

Hi, great to be on.

What can we help you with?

I’ve ran into a word that is kind of bugging me.

Sort of a new way of saying I’m getting you something or I’m working on that, and it’s the word efforting.

What? Efforting? Okay, you have to give us an example, Vic.

Well, I work in media. I work at a newspaper, and a colleague sent me an email telling me that he had some reporters efforting a photo.

Oh, Lord have mercy.

I see you’re big fans, too.

Yeah, and then we had another editor send a question to one of my bosses saying, are we efforting this?

You know, are we efforting something?

Wow, interesting.

And you love the word, clearly.

Oh, geez, it’s horrible.

He loves it as much as I do.

And what should they have said instead?

Well, you know, getting, or are you working on this, or something like that, don’t you think?

Whoa.

Do you find that a lot of your coworkers are using this?

No, a couple.

And so you speak to them?

Oh, go ahead.

Well, no, I haven’t really talked to the folks who have used it.

I’ve just sort of, I guess, made fun of them, and now I’m calling you.

Made fun of them in private.

Now they know what you think through the magic of radio.

Yeah, no kidding.

Well, I’ve got to tell you, Vic, I’ve heard it before, and it’s got a long history.

It doesn’t make me like it anymore.

Whoa.

You know, I think, ironically, Vic, efforting sounds like such a lazy word.

It’s like you can’t put in the effort to come up with a better word.

Wow.

Efforting.

Efforting.

Nice.

That’s a good point.

She’s brandishing a meat cleaver as she talks.

I am.

I just…

Certainly a lot of nouns start out as verbs in English and vice versa.

Right.

It’s a natural part of word growth, word change.

Vic and Grant, are you bothered by texting?

No, not really.

Some people are, but I’m not.

What about you, Vic?

No, no, no.

And I don’t mind the slang you see on text and all that.

Right.

Abbreviations.

It’s fine.

What about accessing?

Sure, fine.

Grant’s fine.

Are you on the fence about accessing?

You know, I think I’m okay with that.

I mean, I think it’s okay.

Okay.

Friending?

Yeah, sure.

I’m okay with that.

Totally fine, yeah.

Gifting?

Yeah, fine with gifting.

Gifting?

Giving’s better because the word is, both words, why not?

You’re giving it.

But gifting does have its specific uses that aren’t the same as giving.

So, yeah, gifting can work.

I’ve seen some other words that I think are kind of cousins to efforting.

Okay, let’s hear them.

Like, you know, in the business world, you might see somebody say utilize instead of use.

Oh, yeah.

And then skill set is a way of saying, you know, these are my skills.

But these days they don’t even say skill set.

They say your bucket.

Your bucket?

Yeah, your bucket.

Okay.

That’s new to me, by the way.

Yeah, that’s new to me too.

But it’s sort of like modality.

What in the heck is a modality?

Love it.

Love it.

I love that word.

Does it mean anything specific?

Yeah, exactly.

The point is you can put any meaning you want on it.

And efforting is kind of the same thing.

It’s like I’m not a fan of efforting, and you’re probably right that it’s lazy.

But what I love about it is they allow you to believe whatever you want about what they are and are not doing.

You could be efforting a photo because all you did was ask the guy in the chair next to you if he had one.

Oh, I like that.

You could be efforting the photo because you went to Getty Images and paid $10,000 for the rights to the best photo ever, right?

There’s a lot of different ways to be efforting.

And so I think it allows any kind of definition of that word to work.

So it’s probably because you’re not really doing your job.

I don’t know.

I’m just reading too much into this.

So efforting is a word for the Dilbert age, right?

But look, Google it.

Google the heck out of efforting and media uses.

It actually looks like it might be a term of art in media, particularly broadcast media.

That would be different.

Have you heard it that way, Vic?

I mean…

You know, not really.

I mean, and working in media, I run across some of the jargon.

I mean, there’s plenty, like in any business.

Sure.

Yeah, yeah.

But efforting’s not one that I’ve heard, you know?

A lot of the old stuff like Spike or, you know…

Oh, sure.

I love that stuff.

CQ and stuff.

Those are great.

Your instincts are good here.

It’s to be avoided.

I would definitely take it out of your own vocabulary and learn how to cock a silent eyebrow at your coworkers when they use it.

We’ll do.

Just effort that, will you?

Thank you both so much.

Our pleasure.

Okay, bye-bye.

Call again.

Bye-bye.

Have a good day.

Bye.

Efforting users anonymous.

I would like to hear from the people who use that word and are proud of it.

What?

Crickets.

Crickets?

Crickets because everybody who uses the word efforting is too lazy to write us or call us?

Look, let’s not automatically call it lazy.

Let’s just say it’s a poor choice.

I’m calling it lazy.

Oh, okay.

Efforting.

Unless there’s some specific meaning that I don’t know because you and I in business jargon, we’re okay with specific meanings, right?

So we want to hear from you. 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

Effort us an email. Is that the way you say it? I don’t even know.

words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, I’m Kathy. I’m calling from Marshfield, Wisconsin.

Hi, Kathy. Welcome.

Thank you.

What would you like to talk with us about?

Well, my father and his fellow bus drivers in the 1950s and 60s in Racine, Wisconsin, had a very interesting way of pronouncing the word S-C-H-E-D-U-L-E.

And I’m just wondering if that was perhaps their own local version of the pronunciation or whether it has some history behind it.

What did they say?

Skidooly.

Skidooly?

Skidooly?

Mm—

Did they say this in an official way or was it jocular fashion or was there some kind of tone to it?

It’s how they referred to their routes, maintaining, keeping to their skidooly.

Keeping to their skidooly.

And so were they school bus drivers or were they regular bus drivers?

City bus drivers.

City bus drivers.

Okay.

And did you ever talk to him about it?

Did you ever say, hey, you’re putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable?

No, but my father always had a great love for words,

And he was a crossword puzzle fiend,

And he just had this wonderful connection with words,

And I don’t know if this was his idea or whether,

Because I heard all of the bus drivers using it.

-huh, so it caught on.

And when they’re using it, they would just say it in ordinary English

Without a wink or a nudge, without a giggle or a laugh,

Without any kind of remarking upon it at all,

They would just say,

I’m going to adjust my schedule this week

So I can have some time to go off to the lake.

Correct.

Did you have the impression that it was maybe

An intentional corruption of scheduling?

Well, I knew it referred to their schedule,

And I know that the British pronunciation is schedule.

Although the younger generation is starting to pronounce it like the Americans.

But not like the Americans in Racine, Wisconsin.

Correct.

I have never heard that, Kathy.

I really have never heard anyone say skidooly,

And I can only assume that it was some kind of big group joke.

Do you think that’s the case?

It’s possible.

It’s possible.

Were they a lively bunch with a lot of food jokers?

They were an extremely lively bunch.

Members of the Moose Lodge of the Order of the Beer or what have you?

Yeah, so maybe they were just goofing.

I’ve never heard Skidooly.

I like it.

Why not?

It’s got an E on the end, right?

Yeah.

And now my father was of German heritage, so that may have, and many of the bus drivers were as well,

So that may have some effect on it as well.

That’s possible.

German.

I don’t know the German word for Skidooly.

You know, I wonder if there are any of our listeners in Wisconsin who have heard this from,

Because, you know, the show is broadcast all across Wisconsin.

I wonder if anyone else can pop us an email and let us know if they’ve heard this pronunciation,

Even from non-bus drivers, a skadooly as a way of saying schedule.

That’s really interesting to me.

I like it.

Give us a ring, 1-877-929-9673, or say so in email to words@waywordradio.org.

Kathy, thank you so much for your call.

If we find anything out, we’ll be sure to let you know.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

A fantastic article has been Making the Rounds.

This is from Vanity Fair.

It’s kind of a day in the life of the president.

It’s just talking about the realities of being president and all the compromises and work that you have to do.

Of the country?

Of the country, of course.

Not a job I’ve held yet, so it was kind of nice to see them talk about it.

There’s a ton of great language in there.

One of the words that they talked about is a stakeout.

A stakeout is, I guess this is when a meeting breaks up and the reporters are kind of all just hanging out there waiting to buttonhole the officials.

That’s a stakeout.

Interesting, right?

Another one that’s in the article is the morning gaggle.

This is the morning press briefing of all the reporters just to find out what happened overnight.

Great stuff.

And then another one is, it’s a full lid.

A full lid.

This is when the White House has no more public statements, announcements, nominations, or activities.

I’m quoting from the Vanity Fair article here.

Anyway, just a ton of interesting stuff in there.

Besides telling you a little bit more about how this country operates, we’ll link to that on the website.

If you’ve got something about language that you want to share, 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

Or find us on Facebook.

Look for Wayword Radio.

More of A Way with Words is coming at you, including a word puzzle.

Stick around.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And we’re joined by our quiz guy.

John Chaneski.

Hello, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

How did you like that intro?

Is that all right?

That was terrific.

I’m wondering, are you okay?

Do we need to get you a mint or something?

She did the bells.

I did the whistles.

That’s good.

Teamwork.

I love it.

I’m the dog.

She’s the pony.

This is the Dog and Pony Show.

Welcome.

Where does that leave me?

I’m afraid to ask.

I don’t know.

Well, you’re the quiz master.

You’re supposed to have something really difficult that makes us look stupid.

-oh.

Here it comes.

I’ll see what I can do.

You know, I’m always on the cusp of new and exciting innovations in puzzledom.

I’ve created a word search puzzle that you can solve on the radio.

No.

Yes.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

It’s a variation on a word search puzzle, so to speak.

Okay.

It’s very simple.

I’ll give you a word, a long word.

Somewhere within that word, either forwards or backwards, will be hidden another word.

Your job is to figure out what that word is.

I’ll give you a category for the hidden word.

Okay.

Okay.

For example, if I gave you the category radio show topic and the clue swordsmanship, the answer would be?

Words.

Words.

Very good.

The word words is hidden in swordsmanship.

Okay.

All right.

Here we go.

Now, you may need a pen or a pencil for this one.

Write the longer word down.

It’ll help you figure it out.

Okay?

Okay.

All right.

Here we go.

Here’s the first one.

A U.S. State capital, and the word is exhausting.

Austin.

Austin.

Oh, very good.

Getting right in there.

Good.

The second one, a world capital, rubbernecking.

Rubbernecking.

Bern.

Bern.

Oh, very good.

Very good.

Nice.

Bern, Switzerland.

Here’s the next one.

Another world capital, familiarize.

I’m going to write it in capitals and see if that happens.

Oh, forward and backward.

That’s probably.

Forward or backwards.

Oh, it can go backwards?

Yeah, yeah.

Lima.

Issyria.

Lima.

Yes, Lima’s correct.

Lima, Peru.

Very good.

Here’s one for a sign of the zodiac.

The word is shoelaces.

Shoelaces.

Leo.

Leo.

Very good.

Okay.

This next one is a flower.

Metrosexual.

Rose.

Rose.

Very good.

Oh, wow.

Very good.

Metrosexual.

For some reason, I was going straight to trying to find the backward ones.

Me too.

He’s a crafty dude.

That’s right.

I’m waiting for a diagonal one.

That’s the next step.

You’ve got to get into the laboratory and work on diagonals now and up and down.

The next one is a home appliance, and the word is minorities.

Iron.

Iron.

Very good.

Oh, very good.

One, two, three.

Got it.

Good to see you.

Okay.

Now we’re looking for a celebrity, and the word is non-observant.

Oh, no.

Bono.

Bono.

Bono.

Very good.

Simultaneous, I’ll give you that.

That’s good.

The next, we’re looking for a musical instrument, and the word is recollections.

Cello.

Cello.

Right.

Very good.

Very good.

One, two, three.

Coming down to the wire here, looking for a woman’s name, and the word is primaries.

Mary.

Marie.

Marie, yes.

Good.

Marie.

Finally, you know how we love to do sports here.

An NBA team.

Inconsistently.

An NBA team.

Nets.

The Nets.

New Jersey Nets.

You guys were fantastic.

On the very first ever radio word search puzzle.

I like that.

I want to take you to the doctor’s office with me.

You know how people are always doing those things.

Next week it’ll be go fish on the air.

Hey, thank you, Martha.

Thanks, Grant.

Thanks, John.

If you have a question about wordplay or language or grammar or slang, regional dialects,

Call us 1-877-929-9673

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yeah, hello.

This is Stacey Amaral from Worcester, Mass.

Well, hi, Stacey.

Welcome to the program.

Hi, Stacey.

Hi, thanks.

I’m really excited to be on the show.

I’ve been enjoying listening to you.

Oh, super duper.

What can we do for you?

Well, there’s a word that I know

That I’ve known for a long time,

And the word is limbed.

We say in Spanish, limbed.

It looks in English like you write it as limber.

But what it is, it’s a kind of dessert treat, an icy treat, kind of like Italian ices or gelato.

But it’s made often with coconut.

And mostly it’s made by people in their houses and they sell it on the street.

Where is this made?

In Puerto Rico.

Is that where you’re from?

No, I’m from here, but I have family and people back and forth from New York to Worcester to Puerto Rico to all over.

And the word is L-I-M-B-E-R.

Okay, very good.

It looks like Limber, but it’s pronounced Limber.

It’s Limber.

And nobody knows where that name came from.

I ask everybody.

I don’t know.

Some people say it came from Lindbergh, you know, the aviator.

Right.

It’s not a Spanish word.

And only in Puerto Rico do they use that word for this particular…

Well, you know, I have seen several different stories about it possibly being related to Charles Lindbergh.

And Stacey, you know that he went to Puerto Rico in 1928?

No, I didn’t know that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, if you go back and put yourself in that time, 1927, he flies across the Atlantic.

And this is huge.

I once read something by a female aviator from that time who said, you know, nobody was paying attention to us.

We were trying to draw attention to aviation and nobody was paying attention to us.

But then he flies across the Atlantic and she said at that time it was bigger than the moon landing.

I mean, my grandparents, people talked about it to me.

I mean, I’m not that old, but, you know, they talked about when that happened.

Yeah, yeah, it was huge.

And the next year, he made this tour of the countries down there in the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico in 1928.

And I’ve seen several stories, one of which is that he hopped off the plane there in San Juan.

And people came up to him with this delicious dessert.

And he said, what is it?

And they were so excited to meet him that they couldn’t think of a name for it.

So they called it the Limber after him.

But that’s just one story, Stacey.

There are several. Another one is that, you know, he was of Swedish descent and kind of reserved.

And there was a saying that somebody was frio como Lindbergh.

I think he would be. Also, he was very conservative.

So, right. So I think people there would have seen him like that.

He was standoffish then is what you’re saying. And so the warm reception that he received was in contrast to his own behavior.

Right, right.

Did he respond happily to the warm reception?

I think so, but in his own way.

There’s one story that he was expected to give out roses to everybody, which I guess is a practice at Carnival there.

Right, right.

But he wouldn’t do it, supposedly.

So that’s one story.

But the other story that, if it’s related to Lindbergh, makes sense to me is it was a huge event.

And I could just see people capitalizing on that, the people who were selling these things.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

Well, people would.

I mean, you know, because in Puerto Rico in that time, it was very poor.

So if you had a good market, people would have come out.

So Lindbergh was famous enough that they would take this icy treat, which already existed, and just rebrand it or rename it, right?

All right.

That makes sense.

That’s my hunch.

The other thing that I’m thinking about, Stacey, is you know the verb lamber?

Yeah, I like to lick, yes?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I’m wondering if maybe there’s a can…

There’s some influence there between the two.

Maybe, but, you know, nobody, Spanish-speaking people, nobody has ever said that.

They only say either limber from limber or I don’t know.

Stacey, you’re making us hungry.

Yeah, well, you should try.

They’re very good.

Okay, well, we’ll keep enjoying the show.

Thank you for sharing with us today.

All right, thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hi, who’s this?

Hi, Chip.

I’m calling from Huntington Beach, California.

Huntington Beach, California.

Well, welcome to the program.

Hello, Chip.

Thank you.

Hi.

What’s on your mind?

Well, I have a question about, I’m intrigued by the way my 15-year-old daughter and her friends are using words like jargon compared to the way we did.

And the word that I’m currently trying to understand her use of is fail, F-A-I-L.

-huh.

And she uses it, like, all the time.

If, like, for example, she’s trying to, you know, figure out chopsticks and some rice falls between the bowl in her mouth, she says, oh, I failed.

Or if, and she and her friends are, you know, pretty good students.

So if she gets a B on a test that she thought she was going to get an A on, she’d say, oh, I failed.

Oh, wow.

When I was growing up, that would have been an F for a D, not a B, you know.

Right, right.

Right.

Can I give you a quick example that she told me?

Yes, please.

This was classic.

And they use it to each other, not necessarily about themselves.

So she said if she was walking across campus with a load of books and one fell off, you know, with her friends, she would say, oh, I fail.

And then if she bent over to pick up the book and all of them fell, you know, making a big mess, one of her friends would say, no, that’s an epic fail.

Yeah.

So I just am really curious.

The words they use in common conversation, they’re great kids.

They don’t really use profanity or anything.

But the words that they use in terms of slang seem to be kind of extreme or final or maybe a little competitive or something.

It doesn’t seem to be reflected in their relationships.

But I just wondered if maybe that’s a trend in jargon, especially among young people or whatever.

It’s definitely a trend.

I think slang is what we’re talking about more than jargon, though.

Jargon being more for the workplace.

Epic and epic fail are peaking.

Maybe even past their peak as slang words used by young folks.

I think I included in my New York Times words of the year list a few years ago as just standouts just by how popular they were and how common they were and being used in headlines.

There’s even a trend of taking photographs of some accident or something strange happening like an overloaded truck, you know, where the bed of the truck is touching the ground and putting the word fail in big block letters across the top of it.

So, yeah, they’re definitely in touch with a larger stream of slang that has spread through the United States.

Yeah, Chip, you might enjoy Fail Blog.

I think that’s the name that you go there.

It’s really funny.

Some of it’s kind of risque, but it’s a lot of photographs of fails now that fail has sort of become a noun.

And they’re labeled fail.

Like here’s one.

I’m looking online.

It says, this is from a text.

It says, the statistics show that 100% of the people who were bitten by a snake were close to it.

And they have in big letters, fail.

Yeah, because it’s often used as an interjection rather than using, just simply insert it into the conversation where, you know, somebody trips and falls and you shout gleefully, fail, or something like that.

The other thing that you said which really interests me is that she uses it for things as simple as dropping a little rice when she’s using chopsticks.

And that probably represents a kind of what’s called semantic bleaching.

Semantic bleaching.

Right. B-L-E-A-C-H-I-N-G, just like the stuff you use in the washing machine.

Yeah, or every six weeks, some of us.

So this is the stuff. It took me a second.

I have very little hair, so let me do it.

So this means that we take a word that has a fairly harsh definition or a harsh connotation, and it softens over time.

So a failure isn’t really a fail.

A fail is something different than a failure.

It’s some minor disappointment or some kind of you have defeated yourself.

Often these fails don’t represent a competition, and they don’t represent some kind of ranking.

They simply mean you did something really terribly when you’re expected to do much better.

Oh, okay.

Well, thanks for that report from the field.

And we welcome more reports from the field.

If you’ve got them, send us some e-mail, Chip, sometime, and let us know what she’s talking about now.

All right.

Thank you very much.

This has been fun.

Take care.

Our pleasure.

Thank you for calling.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

1-877-929-9673 is the phone number, or you can email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

A few weeks ago on the show, we were talking about linguistic false friends, those words in other languages that look like English words but mean something completely different.

You know, like the word mist in German means dung or manure.

So you don’t want to be drinking Canadian mist there.

We got over on our Facebook page, Wayword Radio on Facebook.

We got a message from Carlos who says, my family is from Latvia.

And I always think it funny when I see Vista Computing Systems or Vista Vision or Vista Overlook and others,

Because in Latvian, vista means chicken.

The chicken overlook.

I love that.

If you’d like to share a linguistic false friend, call us 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Mark from San Diego.

Hi, Mark.

Hi, Mark. Welcome to the program.

Thank you.

What’s going on?

Not too much. I just had a question, as you might guess, about grammar and word usage.

Okay.

So my question relates to the show Mad Men.

I was watching a few weeks back when one of the characters said, keep me in the loop.

And that caught my ear because while the phrase is pretty ubiquitous in today’s business parlance,

It seemed a little out of place for the early to mid-1960s.

So the question would essentially be, when did In the Loop enter our common business parlance,

And was it even around in the 1960s?

Okay, so are you one of those folks who watch the show and look for anachronisms?

Yeah, just whatever might be out of place for the period it set in.

Yeah, because they do claim that they are on target when it comes to the historical accuracy of the show, right?

Right.

Yeah, I think they work very hard at it.

Yeah, there are always going to be mistakes, but I think they do a pretty good job.

Yeah, I think so.

So, in the loop caught your ear.

Indeed.

Which season were you watching, and what year is it supposedly in the show?

Well, it was this current season, so they’ve already gone full-time to their new agency.

So I think we’re getting into 1964 and 1965 by that time.

Okay, great, great.

In the Loop could have been in their vocabulary in 1964 or 65.

Okay.

In the Loop came into mainstream English through aviation engineering.

There was a period in the early 1960s, late 1950s,

Where the big discussion of aviation is how much control should a pilot cede to the computer.

Like, if you put it on autopilot, what is the role for the pilot?

And there was even in a Canadian journal at the time,

Somebody had this fabulous rant that ends with the lines,

Keep the pilot in the loop, put not your trust in electronic boxes.

We need human operators on the job.

And so it’s funny to read the journals of the time because they’re just talking.

They really believe that airplanes are this close to being completely run by computers so that the pilot’s almost not necessary.

Of course, we never completely have gone that far.

But it was a big discussion at the time.

And so at least as early as 1968, In the Loop begins to appear in mainstream popular texts outside of aviation engineering.

So I suspect that it was probably out there in the language even earlier than that.

I just simply haven’t found those uses.

That’s very interesting.

I didn’t expect to hear the aviation component tied in.

That’s very interesting.

Well, it’s really surprising.

If you know anything about electronics, a loop is a very important part of all electronic circuits.

And so when they talk about the loop, they literally mean the electronic slash machine slash human loop.

How all of these systems, and that is treating the human pilot as a system, couple together to do the job at hand.

And that makes perfect sense even in today’s usage because it really means that you want to be kept informed or kept abreast of something.

Primarily, especially in the context of the scene in the show,

If other people are doing the bulk of the work

And you just want to stay informed as much as possible.

Right. Exactly.

Yep, exactly right.

Exactly. So it sounds like they got in just under the wire.

Yeah, just under the wire.

I think we’ll mark that one as okay.

That’s just fine for them to use in the loop.

Okay, I think so. Thanks for answering the question.

Thanks for calling us, Mark.

Yeah, appreciate it.

Sure, bye-bye.

Have you caught Don Draper in an anachronism?

Let us know about it.

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We’ll be right back with more of your calls.

That’s next on A Way with Words.

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You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Martha, one of the great pleasures in doing what we do is hanging around with the American Dialect Society crowd.

I’m thinking specifically of the email list, ADSL, which is, you know, is kind of a chaotic form of discussion about language and trends in English and, you know, things we say what we do.

Yeah.

That kind of stuff.

Very current.

One of the things that they’re talking about now, Garson O’Toole brought this up because there’s a section in the Yale Book of Quotations called this Modern Proverbs.

Not a stitch in time saves nine, not that sort of thing, but things like the one attributed to William Gibson.

The future is already here.

It’s just not evenly distributed.

And so it’s these expressions that we have in the modern world that demonstrate how we look at the modern world, not how we look at, say, the historical world.

Like a stitch in time saves nine is archaic and weird.

Right, right.

Make hay while the sun shines.

I mean, how many people make hay anymore, right?

It still works.

We kind of understand it, but it’s not relevant to us.

But there’s a bunch of these here.

I love this one.

Sacred cows make the best hamburger.

And by modern, we mean probably since 1900, definitely since World War II,

And somehow kind of rejecting that haughty demeanor of the past

And really kind of just getting down to the nuts and bolts of the modern way of life.

But we have a casualness about popular discourse now that we did not have 100 years ago.

It has something to do with that.

A few more.

Put your money where your mouth is is relatively new, probably from the 1910s.

Is it?

Yeah, that’s not a bad one, right?

And an incredible amount of use in that.

I think that’s even been a slogan for commercial products.

Here’s another one that I love.

Life is just one damn thing after another.

That is true.

So is history.

But that’s the thing about an aphorism like this or a modern proverb.

They have a basic truth.

And then the longer you think about them, the more true they seem.

Yeah.

And you start to peel back the layers and begin to like guess at other possible meanings that are related to the surface one.

Right.

That’s kind of what a proverb aphorism is about.

Anyway, just I thought I’d share those.

If you’ve got some modern proverb that you’d like to share with us, send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Or leave them on our voicemail at 1-877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Ryan from San Diego.

Hi, Ryan. Welcome to the program.

I had a question.

My five-year-old son the other night, we were putting him to bed,

And we were doing the normal routine of giving kisses,

And we did Eskimo kisses,

And he asked me how that word came about and what it really meant.

So what I went ahead and told him was I wasn’t really sure, but that I thought that because it was cold where the Eskimos were, that when they were to kiss like we would, that their lips would stick together.

So I wasn’t sure what the real definition was.

And so the other day I was traveling and heard the show and I thought I would call in with my question.

To make sure you were right.

Was your kid buying it?

He was buying it, actually.

He thought it was kind of funny, but it was late at night and he was tired, so he wasn’t sure.

But I didn’t know the answer and he’s five, so I thought I would follow through.

Right. And you don’t have opportunities to get that cold here in San Diego.

No, I just remembered the movie A Christmas Story when the kid touched his tongue to the pole and it froze.

Oh, yeah, don’t want to do that.

Well, there’s sort of something like what we think of as an Eskimo kiss.

And people in that part of the world have something they call a kunik, which is more like pressing your nose and upper lip up against somebody.

Like I’m sure when your son was little and you would hold him, you would press your nose and upper lip, you know, into his cheek or the side of his head.

Because babies smell so good.

Yeah, because they smell so good.

You know, just take a real big whiff.

Right?

You did that when he was little.

So, yeah, that’s the practice that people noticed, particularly when a movie came out in the 1920s called Nanook of the North, which was a documentary about life in, I think, Alaska.

It was definitely in this hemisphere among the Inuit, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And that practice was shown there.

And I think from that, people got the idea that that was, quote, unquote, an Eskimo kiss.

But it’s not really because it’s so cold.

It’s an adaptation of that really intimate greeting that you see also in the Maori of New Zealand.

They have something kind of similar called the hongi, which literally means shared breath, which I love.

You sort of put your forehead and nose together with the other person, and you share a breath for a second.

Yeah, it’s sort of a beautiful greeting.

We sure don’t have that here.

So does that make sense?

Yeah, it does make sense because we were kind of going along the lines of butterfly kisses and Eskimo kisses.

That’s why he was asking that.

So now I know I can clarify with him what it is and tell him that Daddy was wrong.

Won’t be the first time.

Yeah, take it from Grant.

It won’t be the first time or the last one.

Well, I appreciate your time today.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks, Ryan.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Word origins, language puzzles, things that you heard said and things that you want to say but don’t know how, give us a call 1-877-929-9673 or put it all in email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Patricia Claflin in Carmel, Indiana.

Hi, Patricia.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you.

I have a question about a cowboy song that I remember as a child back in the 1930s.

I used to love it.

I used to sing along.

And I heard it again recently on Prairie Home Companion.

And I still have this question.

What does it mean when they said we’re riding to Montana to throw the hula hand?

I wondered what was the hula hand and where were they throwing it?

And could you only do it in Montana?

How did the song go?

I can’t sing it.

Oh, come now.

It’s just the three of us.

Something about, I don’t know, get along little doggies or something.

And that was the line.

And I used to sing along then.

I don’t remember the words anymore.

Get me Garrison on the phone.

Let’s have him sing it for us.

They actually played it a few weeks ago.

And I was reminded that I wondered what that meant.

Do you have any idea?

Well, I’m interested that you say hoolahan.

Because when I’ve heard it sung, like the magnificent version that Johnny Cash does or Woody Guthrie, they say Julian.

How does that go, Martha?

I knew you were going to.

Somebody’s going to sing for me.

Okay, well, I’ll just go here to YouTube and I’ll get Johnny to sing it for us.

How about that?

That would be great.

We’ll link to that on the website.

Maybe it was Julian.

Julian.

As a child, I thought it was Julian.

Yeah, well, that’s how it’s spelled.

It looks that way, H-O-U-L-I-H-A-N.

Okay.

And I can tell you that a hoolian or a hoolahan is simply a kind of roping technique.

It’s a real simple, efficient kind of toss of the rope.

So I’m going to…

Yeah, it makes sense, right?

Yeah.

I wonder why they were looking forward to that.

Why they were looking forward to that.

Well, the other thing to say about that is that Throw the Houlihan became, or Houlihan, however you pronounce it, became an expression that meant to have a rip-roaring good time, paint the town red.

But in this song, the one you’re talking about, about old paint and rope and cattle and all that, I don’t think of it as a boisterous song.

Do you?

The way you sang it, did it seem boisterous?

Not really.

It just seemed mysterious.

Yeah, mysterious.

Well, I tell you what, Patricia, how about if we link on our website, waywordradio.org, to a couple of these versions of the song, Johnny Cash and maybe Woody Guthrie.

Well, that would be fun.

It’s a sweet song.

It is.

Don’t you think?

Yeah.

Yes.

All right.

Thank you for answering that question that I’ve had for 75 years.

75 years?

Yes.

Wow.

Well, here’s to another 75 years.

Call us then with your new question, all right?

I’ll do that.

Thank you, Patricia.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Yeah, Grant, we didn’t even mention the name of that song.

It’s I Ride in Old Paint.

Oh, nice.

We’ll link to that song and the lyrics on our website.

You can find us at waywordradio.org.

If you’ve got a question about language, slang, grammar, usage, pronunciation, or something funny someone once said to you, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send it an email to words@waywordradio.org.

I ride in old paint.

I lead an old dance.

I’m off to Montana.

Want to throw the hooliard.

Speaking of linguistic false friends, those words that look like they are English words in other languages but really aren’t.

You know, a few weeks ago we were talking about the popular detergent in the Middle East that’s spelled B-A-R-F.

Barf.

Barf.

Looks like barf.

Well, the word looks like barf.

The detergent is white because the Farsi word for snow is spelled that way.

If you romanize it.

If you romanize it.

But quite a few speakers of Farsi wrote and phoned to tell us that it’s not pronounced barf, it’s pronounced barf.

So it’s not really washing your clothes in barf, it’s washing your clothes in barf.

Yeah, but so much humor depends on willfully misunderstanding, doesn’t it?

Yes, especially for Americans.

So my apologies, Khalima Amnun, and merci for correcting us.

We always like your corrections, 1-877-929-9673.

And we appreciate it when you call us up short or when you email us, words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jessica LaFan from Madison, Wisconsin.

Hello, Jessica.

Hi, Jessica. Welcome to the program.

Hi, thank you.

So I have a question regarding the phrase chest of drawers.

There’s a little bit of a story here.

A couple years ago, my best friend had written down Chester drawers on a sheet of paper when making a list of things for her house.

And her husband, who is my husband’s best friend, had told him, like teasing her about it.

And then in return, my husband was telling me about it.

Oh, you won’t believe what she did, and laughing.

And I’m like, okay, so what is it?

Right, right, you didn’t know.

I didn’t know.

And he’s like, oh, stop it, you’re just teasing.

And I’m like, no, really.

I said, so it’s not Chester drawers?

And he’s like, no, it’s Chester of drawers.

And he’s like, what could you have possibly thought that they were, you know, what that means?

I’m like, honestly, I never put any thought into it.

Maybe Chester’s her lover or something.

I was like, well, maybe it’s a type of furniture.

You know, we have got all these different styles of furniture.

And I’m like, I just assumed it was a style of furniture.

So my question is, is this a common misconception of the phrase?

You’re in Wisconsin right now, right?

Yes.

Where are you from originally?

I am from the St. Louis, Missouri area.

Oh, hello.

I was born there.

And your female friend who was the one who wrote it down, where is she from?

She is from the same area.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, St. Louis is an odd place because, no, genuinely,

Because linguistically, it’s a little bit of an island, and it’s got some weird characteristics of the South, some weird characteristics of the Great Lakes region, and some weird characteristics of the Midlands or the Midwest.

And so it’s just like an odd little bubble there.

But in any case, you are not alone.

There are two fantastic papers written by my colleague, Allison Burkett. That’s B-U-R-K-E-T-T-E.

On the subject of the wide variety of names for the piece of furniture, which is generally, and there are a lot of different configurations, and she has pictures of a piece of wooden furniture about waist high, made out of, again, made out of wood.

Maybe three drawers, one, two, three, stacked on top of one another, handles on the drawers. That’s what you’re talking about, right?

Yes.

And sometimes it’s more like a vertical one. Maybe it’s about shoulder high or about chest high, but in general.

And there’s a ton of these responses. She analyzed these surveys that were done across the country where this question was a fairly standard question.

What do you call a piece of furniture that looks like X? And she got all these answers.

And it turns out a number of people think that chest of drawers is properly called Chester drawers. C-H-E-S-T-E-R, drawers.

It’s really interesting to me because it shows that the word was transmitted through the mouth to the ear and that people weren’t learning it from print and they weren’t learning it from Ikea catalogs and they weren’t learning it from going to Sears to shop to decorate their house.

It tended to be passed along with the furniture from grandparents to parents to children. Really interesting stuff.

So the basic conclusion of this is that this particular furniture is a mainstay of American home decorating and has a dozen or 15 different common names.

I did know people in southern Indiana who wrote Chester drawers that way. And I thought they were joking the first time I saw it.

And it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t a capital C either. I was thinking, well, maybe they think it’s some, you know, English thing, you know, British Chesterfield or something like that.

But it’s just Chester with a small c drawers, right?

Yep.

So some people call these bureaus and chests, and some people call them drawers. So it’s the word drawer pronounced as if there’s no last syllable there.

So D-R-A-W-S, drawers. Just a ton of different names here.

And, of course, there’s also, do you have a wardrobe in your house?

I don’t currently, but I have had one in the past. Would you call it a chiffer robe or an armoire or a closet or a cedar robe or any of those?

Armoires is probably the most common.

Okay, brilliant. Because that’s another one that people have a lot of names for.

In any case, these are two long articles. They’re kind of academic, but they’re incredibly fun.

The pictures really help a lot. And we’re going to post links to these on our website because it’s too much to relate here in this call.

But, Jessica, the bottom line is you’re not alone. It’s okay. The people who are complaining can back off.

Anyway, Jessica, I hope we’ve helped a little bit.

Yes, thank you so much.

Sure. Take care. Bye-bye.

Grant, I’ll say this article is lively. Not only do they use the expression Chester drawers and chest of drawers and chest on frame.

I mean, this stuff is pretty hot. There’s one called Bachelor Chest. I’m getting an image there.

And then there’s one called Chest on Chest. This is getting – I’ve got to put this down. I’ve got to put this down.

Call us 1-877-929-9673 or send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.

And if you just can’t wait, come visit us on Facebook. We’re there under Wayword Radio.

Grant, I finally did it. Four years living in San Diego and I finally decided to take a surf lesson. I couldn’t stand it any longer.

Oh, really? How long do you stay aboard?

Let me just say that I will never listen to the song Wipe Out in the same way again. It has a whole new meaning for me now.

Martha and Neoprene. Very interesting. It’s hot, but it is hard as heck to get that wetsuit on and off.

I tell you, that’s a workout right there. And Grant, it just reminded me that one of the things I really love about trying something new that other people are passionate about is that you pick up so much great lingo.

I was really excited to be around people who were, you know, saying just perfectly casually. They were talking about tombstoning and pearling and aggro grommet surfer dudes.

And they could pull that off. I tried pulling it off, but it didn’t work very well.

After class, I said to the instructor, let’s go get some grunts. Because I’d seen in a dictionary that grunts meant food.

But apparently not in this particular Southern California dialect. What do they call food?

Well, she said, grunts? What are you talking about? And she said, oh, you mean grinds or grindage.

So I thoroughly embarrassed myself. Apparently some parts of the world, they say grunts. You’ll catch up.

My question is, at your age, which is not all that old, are you still a grommet because you’re a newbie? Or is that only for the young newbies?

I’m a Betty.

Oh, I see. That’s like a hottie, right?

Yeah.

Okay, that’s good. Well, I don’t know if I am or not, but I think I’m a confirmed boogie boarder, actually.

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Things have come to a pretty pass. That’s our show for this week.

If you didn’t get on the air today, you can leave us a message anytime. The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or email us. That address is words@waywordradio.org.

You can stay in touch with us all week by following us on Twitter. We’re there under the username Wayword.

Stefanie Levine is our senior producer. Our technical director and editor is Tim Felten.

We’ve had production help this week from Josette Hurdell and Jennifer Powell. From Studio West in San Diego, I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. So long. Take care.

And neither, neither, unless call the whole thing off. Yes, you like potato, and I like potato.

You like tomato, and I like tomato. Potato, potato, tomato, tomato. Let’s call the whole thing off.

But oh, if we call the whole thing off. Support for A Way with Words comes from National University, where flexible online classes let you earn your degree or credential on your schedule.

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