Chow Line (episode #1668)  

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.

We heard from Carol Ann Hefferton, who was born and raised in Newfoundland and lives there today.

And she wanted to share some words from her part of the world that might be surprising to everybody else.

One of the terms is bridge.

She points out that a bridge or a brudge in Newfoundland doesn’t have to be over water.

She uses it for her patio or deck.

How about that?

Yeah, so it’s spelled the same way, B-R-I-D-G-E.

Yep, yep.

So you might invite somebody to come out on the bridge for a yarn.

And you might do that when it’s duckish, which means it’s twilight.

And so you’re inviting somebody out on the porch.

That’s super interesting.

What else did she have?

Well, she notes that in Newfoundland, a porch is not the front steps.

It’s not the stoop.

It’s a room attached to the house, usually at the back, often next to the kitchen, that’s used either for storage or she says it’s what other people might call a mudroom.

She calls that a porch.

Oh, that’s cool.

I can get that.

I can get on board that.

Yeah, the porch does kind of tend to be a mudroom even when it’s outside the house.

Right, right.

That’s where you leave those muddy boots.

And one more I’ll share with you right now is that she says that their daily meals are breakfast, midday dinner, and evening supper.

Any food outside these is a lunch.

Not lunch, a lunch.

Okay.

Yeah, the whole supper versus dinner thing is so varied across all of North America and the United Kingdom.

Yeah.

Let’s not go there.

Yeah, but I did want to go to lunch because she points out that it’s a light snack that’s eaten just outside of those other three meals.

And in fact, you can have a bed lunch.

That’s a little snack right before bedtime.

That’s called a bed lunch.

How about that?

It reminds me of workplaces where the law mandates that you be given a lunch when you work certain hours.

But even if you’re on the overnight shift and you’re eating it at 3 a.m., they still call it a lunch.

That’s your lunch.

Yeah.

Well, I got a couple more to share later in the show, but I just thought those were really cool.

Thank you, Carol.

That’s cool.

You know, we are heard in Canada by Canadians, and we’d love to hear from you.

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

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Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha.

This is Jennifer. I’m calling you from beautiful Cape Cod in Massachusetts. I teach yoga on the

Beach every morning, and we’ve sort of been having fun lately in class coming up with all the words

That we know that describe our backside. And we’ve come up with, I think, 21 words. And the one that

Really is curious to me is badonkadonk. I mean, I know what a badonkadonk is, but I have no idea

Where that comes from.

Okay, so people are doing downward dogs

And you’re adjusting their badonkadonks?

Something like that.

Yeah, I want them to firm up their buttocks,

Which is one of the 21 words that we use.

Push and derriere and rear end, gotcha.

Exactly, yeah.

Dump truck, I got dump truck from two different guys.

Right. And dump truck, like badonkadonk, is for a particularly, how should we put this, curvaceous and pronounced rear end.

Aha!

Yeah. So badonkadonk, you’re not going to believe this. It’s 25-year-old slang, at least.

Really?

Yeah. There were a couple of songs. Well, there was one in 2001 by Keith Murray that featured LL Cool J and Ludacris that uses the word.

The line is something like, goodness, gracious, good God almighty, you got a badonkadonk girl.

Don’t hurt nobody.

Oh, that’s awesome.

And then Missy Elliott, whom I love, Missy Elliott.

Missy’s got a song called Work It.

And she does a version of it as well.

She says, you think you can handle this badonkadonk.

Oh, my God.

I love it.

Okay.

So a robust, curvaceous back side.

But eventually, it quickly, because it’s such fun slang, it quickly left hip hop and Black English and entered the mainstream American culture.

And in 2005, there was a huge country music hit called Honky Tonk Badonkadonk by Trace Adkins.

I mean, people who love Calabagian bottoms, they know no limits, right?

It’s all types.

Oh, my God.

I love it. That’s even better than anything that I had imagined myself.

Well, Jennifer, can I tell you something else?

The night that my wife and I first kissed, we were at a language conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico,

Sitting around with a bunch of linguists and lexicographers in a bar, and we were doing the same thing.

We came up with a bunch of words for derriere, rear end, hiney, tushy.

Yeah, same thing.

Oh, my God, I love it.

That’s one of the things I remember about this night.

These people with doctorates, incredibly brilliant linguists and lexicographers,

Sitting around coming up with words for butt.

That’s what you remember from that night?

Well, it was at the bar, you know.

It was after the conference, after the meetings had ended,

And you’re catching up with each other and getting the news.

And that was the night I first kissed my wife, yeah,

The woman who had become my wife.

I love it.

Oh, God.

Well, thank you so much for taking my call.

I’m a huge fan of the show.

I just love it.

Oh, that’s nice.

Well, thank you.

And have fun out there on the beach.

I haven’t been to Cape Cod since 1983, but my memory of it is very strong.

It is beautiful.

Anytime you want to come, you’ll find me at Chatham Lighthouse Beach.

Every morning at 7.30.

I’ll bring my workout clothes.

Okay, great.

Thank you both so very much.

Take care of yourself.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I’m glad we got all that cleared up.

And if you’ve got a question about language that you need to have cleared up,

Call us anytime, day or night, 877-929-9673, and you can leave a message.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Liam calling from San Francisco.

Well, we are glad that you called.

What’s on your mind?

Well, I am calling with a phrase that I’ve heard a good bit.

Seems like maybe a little bit more commonly recently.

Maybe a social media thing. But anyway, the phrase is woo-woo. And in my understanding,

It’s an adjective that you can apply it to a person or maybe an activity. And it kind of

Means that something is a little bit kooky or out there or kind of has some maybe kind of

Hippie or spiritual connotations. So you might say, for example, I don’t know, that someone’s

A little bit woo-woo if, say, they’re really into acupuncture or maybe they are, you know,

They, I don’t know, believe they can communicate with ghosts or something like that. So maybe it

Could be a little bit pejorative or it could just be kind of a funny, you know, an appellation to

Indicate that someone kind of lives their life in a distinctive way. So anyway, that’s what I got.

Yeah, that’s good. That sounds like a very solid description, don’t you think, Martha?

Yeah, I do. I mean, the idea of, you know, a belief or system that’s maybe highly questionable or irrational or unscientific or not reality based.

Although I have to say, if you believe in acupuncture, I guess I’m woo woo because I feel like I’ve had some help from acupuncture.

Yeah, and that’s what I was going to say. I think that for me, it’s maybe a little bit less saying that something is irrational or highlighting the kind of non-scientific nature of it. I think it’s, and maybe it might be even kind of a self-acknowledgement. I’ve heard people say things on social media like, my most woo-woo belief is X.

And then they describe some kind of slightly out there belief they have about the world or the universe.

But it’s kind of in a very, I don’t know, kind of a knowing way.

You’re like, yeah, I know this might sound a little bit weird, but it’s something that helps me exist in the world or whatever.

So anyway, I guess I don’t have a hugely negative connotation.

Kind of self-aware and self-description.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, it’s interesting, Liam, this term has not been around all that long.

I mean, we see it in the 1980s and 1990s in the way that you and I are talking about it and Grant.

But before that, in the early 1970s, sometimes it would be used to mean somebody who’s not exactly in their right mind, you know, woo-woo that way.

And it’s almost as if, you know, how you make that motion with your finger on the side of your head to describe somebody like that.

It’s almost like that.

But as far as we know, the term woo-woo itself has to do with those eerie sounds that ghosts supposedly make, you know, those sort of moaning, ghostly sounds.

Well, I think the two things I’m maybe most interested in hearing about are, first, whether there’s any kind of particular first usage or origin that’s noteworthy.

And then second, whether it seems to be getting any more popular in the last few years, because I feel like I started hearing it a lot on social media in the last couple of years.

That’s a good one.

Well, as I said, in the early 1970s, we do see a citation of it in the sense of being not in your right mind from a science fiction writer who describes somebody who’s nuts and out of her skull and real woo-woo, you know.

But it’s not really a flagship first use in such a way that it was like an influential speaker or a bestselling book or something like that.

Right.

But I would say you might have a little bit of the recency illusion happening there, Liam, where it seems like it’s more frequent, but it isn’t.

I will note that I did an entry for this in one of my books, which came out in 2006.

So at the time, it was unusual enough that putting it in my book of French English seemed to make sense.

Oh, interesting.

I definitely think that all the so-called expertise on TikTok of people giving these unsubstantiated medical points of view often fall into the category of woo or woo.

Maybe it’s just a little more salient in the world then, and that’s what makes it appear more common.

Right.

Humans are by their, I think by instinct, suspicious.

And so woo kind of builds into that idea that somebody else’s belief system is woo-woo and mine is religion.

Right.

Sure.

Yeah, that’s an interesting point. Well, I meant to tell you guys what when I the occasion for my calling you hearing this was I, you know, I’ve heard it before, but I hadn’t really made note of it.

But I was listening to a wonderful podcast with a rabbi from a Jewish community slash meditation center over in Berkeley.

And he was talking about how his congregation is a little bit woo-woo, but in a very kind of, you know, knowing and friendly way.

Interesting.

That sounds like a perfect use of it. Good illustration.

Liam, thank you for sharing with us and thanks for your call. Call us again sometime, all right?

I certainly will. Thank you. Have a good one, guys.

Be well.

Great to talk with you.

Nice to talk to you, too.

877-929-9673 is toll-free in the United States and Canada, 24 hours a day.

You can also find all of our past episodes and more than a dozen ways to reach us on our website at waywordradio.org.

Here’s another word from Newfoundland that I am borrowing.

It’s Buddy What’s-His-Name.

Is it like Joe Blow or when you don’t know somebody’s name and you just kind of toss in a placeholder?

Yes, yes.

I collect those, and the one that I’ve been using lately is What’s-Her-Bucket, but I like Buddy What’s-His-Name.

Oh, I like both.

What’s-Her-Bucket, yeah.

That’s really cool.

Well, what’s in your language bucket?

Call us, text us, toll free, 877-929-9673.

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

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And coming in the door, waving semaphore flags, spelling out, help me, it’s our quiz guy, John Janiski.

I think the Beatles got their idea from me.

I’m just going to say it.

You’re legendary.

Had to be you.

I’m perfectly fine.

Let me put these flags down.

I like to think a little of your language expertise has rubbed off on me.

Sometimes people will ask me things like, is this a real word?

And, of course, I’m happy to say if it’s a series of sounds that officially get an idea across to anyone else, it’s a word.

Except for spooktacular.

That’s not a word.

Every year on Halloween, it’s spooktacular this.

No, that’s not a word.

I know a lot of newspaper ads that would disagree.

I know.

Now, in that vein, vein, spooky, get it?

I know you know that a person who was bitten by a werewolf becomes a werewolf.

But did you know that a werewolf that is bitten by a nurse practitioner becomes a care wolf?

Oh.

No, I didn’t know that.

It’s true.

It’s as true as anything else.

Now, I want you to identify for me the following wolves.

Ready?

Okay.

Okay.

If a werewolf is bitten by a stunt performer, like Evel Knievel, it takes on any challenge and becomes a…

Darewolf.

Darewolf.

A darewolf.

That’s my middle name, Darewolf.

I saw it on your driver’s license that time.

That’s a nice one.

If a werewolf is bitten by a nerd, maybe one from the 1950s, it becomes instantly out of step with the culture and becomes a…

Squarewolf.

Squarewolf.

Squarewolf.

You make that little sign with your fingers.

Squarewolf.

If a werewolf is bitten by a nudist, well, you know, he avoids textiles, and no surprise here, it becomes a…

Derriere wolf.

Derriere wolf.

A bear wolf, I think is what you’re looking for.

Bear wolf, yes.

It’s spelled B-A-R-E wolf.

There’s B-E-A-R wolf.

It’s probably a…

Never mind.

Now, of course, it’s always good to have an extra werewolf as backup, because in that case, you have what’s called…

A spare wolf.

Spare wolf, yes.

If a werewolf is bitten by a nepo baby,

Well, it’s set for life with that sweet inheritance.

It becomes an…

Air wolf.

An air wolf.

A-T-I-R, not the TV show.

Not the TV show.

Not the helicopter, no.

These last few add a little bit syllabically, okay?

Maybe the worst of the wolves.

If a werewolf is bitten by a salesman,

It’ll try to sell you annual vacations at a resort.

It’s a hard sell, but it becomes a…

Timeshare wolf.

Timeshare wolf.

Oh, nice.

Oh, get away from those.

Finally, if a werewolf is bitten by an IT guy,

It instantly gains the ability to code in C++

And becomes a…

A software wolf?

A software wolf, yes.

Oh, goodness.

Now, by the way, if anyone out there is looking for a fun group costume,

The previous answers are all available.

But, you know, give me some credit.

Be a fair wolf.

I’m starting to change in ways that feel a little weird,

So I’m going to get on my Semaphore bike and get out of here.

Before you become an on-the-air wolf.

An on-the-air wolf.

Oh, nice.

And if you want to talk about any aspect of language whatsoever,

You know where wolf to call, 877-929-9673,

Or send your thoughts to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kristen.

I’m calling you from central Wisconsin.

All right.

Well, what’s on your mind today?

I’m kind of a curiosity about my husband’s linguistic abilities.

He speaks really five languages fluently

And several others that he sort of dabbles in.

Wow.

Three of them he has no memory of learning. He learned them very young.

Warani Indian, which is a Native American language in South America where he grew up,

As well as Spanish and Portuguese. He also speaks Italian and then German and then finally English.

What prompted me to call in is he also is Jewish, but where he grew up in Paraguay, South America, being Jewish was not something that was practiced.

So he never really learned much beyond liturgical Hebrews.

When we were raising our daughter, he said, let’s have her in Jewish day school.

We were meeting with the rabbi and several other parents in preparation for that.

And he was taking notes, as we all were, as the rabbi was talking.

And the rabbi’s using English words and Hebrew words off and on.

And we’re all taking notes.

And myself and a couple other people in the room started to notice that he kept switching the pen in his hand.

Left, right, left, right, left, right.

Like, weirdly so.

And I looked down as he was doing it and realized that when a thought would come to him in Spanish or Wairani, he would write it down with his left hand.

As a thought would come to him in English or he was writing down a word he wanted to know in Hebrew or something, he would write it with his right hand.

Yeah.

Afterwards, myself and a lady from across the room was like, why are you, what’s going on?

And I showed her the paper and we were both like, he said, I was not switching hands.

What are you talking about?

We’re like, no, you were.

You wrote this with your left hand, this with your right hand.

And he was not really conscious of doing it.

But it was definitely the, I don’t know what you want to call them, the hardcore language.

Warani Spanish was with his left and the English and Hebrew was with his right hand.

Let me ask you, so he’s ambidextrous?

He is ambidextrous, yes.

When he plays soccer, any sports, he’s equally left and right-handed.

When he had surgery on his shoulder, he could write just as well with his left hand.

Okay, yeah, that’s probably an important part of this.

Just to kind of zero in on, I think the key thing here is that handedness, as we call it,

That ability to switch from the right to the left doesn’t really map onto switching hemispheres for

Language. So your husband’s switching based on the language is more likely due to task switching

And previous experience when he learned the languages. I think it’s really crucial here,

The point that you made that Hebrew and English are the last languages that he’s learned out of

The ones he knows best, right? Correct. And so they are done with the right hand. And so that

Seems to be a habit more than anything to do with the language control of the brain.

So for most people, language processing happens in the left hemisphere. There’s a

Couple key areas there. Broca’s area, which is about speech production and grammar, and Wernicke’s

Area, which is critical for comprehension. 15% of people, it’s the other way. It’s on the right side

Of the brain. But even people who are ambidextrous tend to have this, you know, all the language

Processing happens on one side of the brain, but it doesn’t necessarily map to which hand they use,

Even if they’re ambidextrous. So we’re talking about what really is at play here is probably

Muscle memory. He wrote with his right hand when he learned those languages and the motor control

That goes with that.

And then the languages that have deeper memory traces

Are with the left hand.

That makes sense because I’ve always suspected

That he might be naturally left-handed.

Yeah.

But he was forced to be right-handed.

That is an excellent point.

So that would have been when he was older

After he learned those original languages.

Kristen, that is such a great point

Because so often people who are left-handed

Are made to feel bad about it

Or they feel bad on their own

Since most other people are right-handed.

And they do their best to work with that right hand.

Sometimes people become very good at it.

And they appear ambidextrous, but actually they’re left-handed

With some learned skills on the right.

But the brain is complex.

There might be subconscious connections there

Where he prefers one hand over the other

Because he associates it with one language or the other.

But the brain is so complex, we can’t 100% say for sure

That there isn’t some hemispheric activation happening here, but probably not.

Oh, interesting.

Well, and I was also curious, too, about, like, he was a soldier for a large part of his life

And was deployed in Iraq when we were married.

And when he would call when he was very tired, like out in the field, you know,

Not sleeping for almost a day or whatever, he would call and he would be speaking in Spanish,

Sometimes in Guarani.

And I would tell him, I do speak Spanish, but not Guarani.

And so when he would get going in Guarani, I’d have to say,

I don’t understand you. What are you saying?

And he would say, is the signal not good?

Oh, he wouldn’t even realize which language he was speaking to you.

He had no idea he was speaking. He thought he was speaking English.

But that’s kind of lovely in a way that his comfort with you is so great

That he falls back to the languages of the cradle, as they’re sometimes called.

Oh, well, I’ll have to remind him of that.

But one thing to look for as the two of you get older

Is he may find himself going back to those cradle languages

And enjoying the sound and the feel of them.

And you might find yourselves looking for, you know,

Entertainment books and movies and television in Paraguayan Spanish

So that he can kind of relive that.

It often happens as we get older, that first language starts to reassert itself.

Well, that makes sense.

Okay, that’s good to know.

Thank you.

But I want to say also, you may be the first person we’ve talked to on this show ever

Who knew somebody who spoke Guarani and mentioned it.

Yeah.

Really?

Well, there are not a lot of people, especially the U.S., that speak it.

There are some, but yeah, it’s definitely, it’s a beautiful language.

Yeah, it’s spoken in Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina. Where else?

A little bit in Bolivia, but primarily there.

That’s where the Indians that are native there are from.

And interestingly, Paraguay is the only country in any of the Americas where it’s a Native American language.

It has survived so well and so strongly that it is one of the official languages of the country.

That’s really interesting. Yeah, I should check that out. That’s amazing.

Well, you have been a delight to talk to. It has just been super interesting.

Give your husband a squeeze for us because we’re both jealous of somebody who can speak that many languages.

Yeah, we are. Love to hear from him sometime.

Yeah, yeah. He’s welcome to call us with interesting Warnie phrases or whatever.

Oh, there are lots of them.

All right. You take care now, all right?

Yes. Very interesting language.

So, yes, thank you so much.

That actually answers that long-held wondering of mine, what is going on?

So thank you.

All right.

Be well.

Bye-bye.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

People who write about wine are known for really evocative prose, but what I’m realizing is that the same is true of people who write about whiskey.

Check out this example from bourbon expert Susan Riegler, who was writing for American Whiskey Magazine, and she was describing the nose, palate, and finish of various sips.

Nose. Very sweet, like juicy fruit chewing gum. Some light brown sugar and taffy candy. No discernible spices on the nose.

Palate. Brown sugar leads with some apple peel and light cinnamon following. Eventually a light note of roasted almonds asserts itself.

Finish. The flavors all dash away quickly as though trying to make sure they don’t overstay their welcome.

Isn’t that, I mean, that’s kind of evocative, right?

Oh, that’s lovely. And she must have a heck of a set of taste buds and a heck of a sniffer, right?

Because they work together.

When they talk about these notes and, you know, say a strawberry, I have had a fair amount of wine in my time and I’ve never noticed those things.

Oh, I know. Freshly mown grass and leather.

Yeah, I must have the dullest sense of smell.

Yeah. Here’s another example that I really like that I think you’ll appreciate.

For another sample of whiskey, she wrote,

Nose, a veritable forest of oak trees with a bit of apple peel and some pecans dropping through the branches.

Oh, that is so nice. She must have a great time writing this stuff, right?

It’s literally poetry. I’m not even saying approximately poetry. I’m saying it actually is poetry.

I think you’re right. And just to find different ways to write about,

I mean, to me, it seems like the same thing, you know?

Yeah, it must be a struggle, but here we have evidence that she has found her path.

Yes. Yes, indeed.

Martha and I enjoy sharing great snippets of interesting writing with you,

And we love it when you do it with us.

You can share the snippets of your favorite writing, 877-929-9673.

That’s toll-free.

Text or call in the United States or Canada, or email them to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, Grant. How are you?

I’m doing well. Who are you? Where are you calling from?

My name’s Jeremy Robinson. I’m calling from Van Buren, Arkansas.

I have a question about two words that sometimes I use interchangeably.

It’s orchard and grove.

Okay, so my question is, what’s the difference between orchard and grove?

So you could say, oh, I have an apple orchard, or is it correct to say I have an apple grove?

Or can you interchange those words?

Right.

And then, so apple grove and orange orchard?

Orchard.

Yeah, like an orchard.

Like, can you, is one of those words used for just one thing?

Or can you interchange them?

This is a great question.

I love this question.

Jeremy, this is a really good question.

How did you come up with this?

You were, like, standing in the produce section with a fruit in each hand?

I was driving down the road, honestly, with a friend.

And for some reason, we were having a conversation.

So he’s from India.

And we were just having a conversation about, we had driven by a Mexican restaurant.

And it said La Huerta.

And I told him, I was like, oh, that means like orchard in Spanish.

And so he was just like, and it just kind of popped up.

And I was just like, well, you could say this or you could say that.

And he’s just like, oh.

And then I was like, I don’t know.

I don’t know.

Yeah, well, there is some overlap there between the meaning of the two words.

Apple orchard is the term that you’re going to hear most often.

You’re not going to hear orange orchard very much.

It’s far, far outnumbered by orange grove and apple orchard.

And the difference is that an orchard is something that’s deliberately planted with the goal of harvesting fruit or nuts.

You know, they’re even rows of trees.

And a grove is a small group of trees that’s sometimes planted, but not necessarily for agricultural purposes.

It might be ornamental or it might have additional meaning attached.

You know, there’s kind of a sense of the sacred with some groves.

You know, today you talk about the academic world as being the groves of academe.

And that goes all the way back to the sacred olive groves outside of Athens where Plato taught.

So the bottom line is that every orchard is a grove, but not every grove is an orchard.

And I’m so glad that you brought up the word huerta in Spanish because that may well be related to the word orchard, actually.

Because it may go back to the Latin word hortus, which means garden and is a relative of horticulture.

So the Spanish word is h-u-e-r-t-a, huerta.

Yeah.

Yeah, huerta.

So orchard may come from Latin words that mean garden.

So it sounds a little clearer to me, but it sounds like you can say apple grove and you can say orange orchard, but most people don’t.

I haven’t looked this up, but let me ask you both.

Where do almonds as a nut fit?

Are they almond groves or almond orchards?

Oh, wow.

That’s a good question.

We should know this.

I know we have almond growers as listeners.

We’re going to find out.

Oh, an orchard.

Yeah, people, I hope that lots of people call in and just be like, well, I use this for this and I use this for that.

Yeah, language is particular and people are particular about their language.

So who knows?

But, Jeremy, I love the question.

And call us again sometime.

We’d love to hear from you.

Oh, I will.

All right.

Well, thank you, guys.

Thank you, Martha.

Thank you, Grant.

Yeah, be well, dude.

Have a wonderful day.

Bye-bye.

You too.

All right, bye.

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

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And Grant, I have a little puzzle for you.

All right.

What do the following three proper names have in common?

They are Vanessa, Pamela, and Cedric.

Are they recent innovations, recently invented?

Relatively so.

Are they all from authors, famous authors, coined for characters in their books and then taken by the public?

Well, so much for my puzzle.

Yes.

Okay.

Vanessa was invented by Jonathan Swift.

He invented this name for his lover, Esther Van Homrick, who was an Irish woman of Dutch descent.

And so he took the Van from Van Homrick and the Essa from her first name, Esther.

And he wrote a poem about the two of them.

And Vanessa was sort of a thinly disguised name.

Oh, that’s lovely.

Now, Cedric, that’s new.

For some reason, I thought that was like ancient Celtic or something.

Well, interesting.

You say that because apparently we have Sir Walter Scott to thank for Cedric because in his novel Ivanhoe, he introduced the character of Cedric the Saxon, which apparently was either a misunderstanding or an alteration of the much older Anglo-Saxon name Cerdic, C-E-R-D-I-C.

So he either got it wrong or he just tweaked it a little bit.

Yeah. So Sir Walter Scott. I mean, there was a point at which every school kid read Ivanhoe. So it’s no wonder that name became considered absolutely ordinary. I mean, it’s special, but you know what I mean? Like one of the many names you could choose for your children.

Yes, yes, Cedric. The second name was Pamela, and that was invented by the 16th century poet Sir Philip Sidney for a pastoral romance where he writes about two princes who disguise themselves and travel through the lovely countryside and fall in love with princesses, one of whom was named Pamela, possibly formed from Greek for all honey, but we don’t know that.

But it has a lot of intrigue, you know, and mistaken identity, and it goes on and on.

But apparently Pamela comes from that poem.

It underscores something that’s very important with names is that they’re unusual until they’re not.

They feel like Johnny-come-lately names or Susie-come-lately names until they’ve been used for centuries.

Then you’re like, well, they’ve always been here, but it’s just not.

You know, Nevaeh, heaven backwards, is becoming regular.

It’s not unusual anymore.

Yes, that’s a really good point.

Well, gosh, so much for my puzzle.

That’s all I can say.

Martha, you and I have been at this too long.

Maybe so.

We do love to hear your challenges and your difficult questions about language and poetry.

And, of course, we love to talk about names.

You can try us on any topic related to language, toll-free, 877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

And find all the ways to reach us on our website and social media at waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jeff Price.

I’m calling you from Mattapoisett, Massachusetts.

Mattapoisett, Massachusetts.

I think you’re our first Mattapoisett, Massachusetts caller.

What’s up?

I have been wondering about a word that was certainly part of my language when I was working for the Baltimore Sun.

It was always in a political context.

The word was Muldoons.

So Muldoons, M-U-L-D-O-O-N-S, Muldoons.

And so these, it’s particular to Baltimore politics, right?

Well, it’s certainly, yes.

I think, you know, I may have heard it elsewhere.

I don’t think that it is exclusive to Baltimore, but…

So the news is that it is exclusive to Baltimore.

Like even close cities, like D.C. Didn’t use them, didn’t use the word Muldoon.

And the guy who popularized the term and may even have coined it was Frank Kent, who had a column called The Game of Politics or The Great Game of Politics and then a book based on those columns that came out in 1925.

But as far back as 1920, he used the term in The Baltimore Sun.

He used it all the time, like column after column.

And the way he described it was very close to what you said.

Muldoon was the person in a precinct or ward with the largest extended family, either biological or borrowed.

And so they had the ability to deliver a block of votes.

And so a political boss would be the Supreme Muldoon through that concept of extended family.

And so that family then would be rewarded with appointments or easy-to-win election spots.

Yeah, I think that survived long after Frank Kent, who, even though I worked for the Baltimore Sun for 35 years, he was gone by the time I got there.

Yeah, yeah. You will find it well into the 80s and 90s, but often just as a historical term. But I think your notion about it being the Irish machine, meaning the Irish-controlled political arm of the local government, is probably spot on because Muldoon can be an Irish name and is often an Irish name. And there are any number of Muldoons in the Baltimore area over the last 150 years.

You mean people actually named Muldoon?

People actually named Muldoon, and some of them quite famous.

There was a guy who ran a famous boxing club, William Muldoon.

He was a famous Greco-Roman wrestler, and he had this training center for athletes where he trained boxers like John L. Sullivan.

Oh, my God.

He was a bigwig. And Billy Muldoon, as he was known, would take you under his wing and tell you what to do to succeed as a boxer.

And it’s possible that Billy Muldoon could even be the origin of it because he had his fingers in everything.

Yeah, yeah. Boy, when I was doing some research on this, I came across a column that was written about 30 years ago by actually a guy who worked for me when I was state editor, Bill Zorzi.

And he said, he described it as a system that counted on the Bohoys, B apostrophe H-O-Y-S,

As the Bostas’ trusted followers.

They deployed the Muldoons, which Sorzi describes as the foot soldiers who work the polls,

Their pockets stuffed with walk-around money, corralling the masses, handing out ballots and voting, sometimes early and often.

Yeah, so I’m not surprised.

The big majority of every legislature in the 1920s supposedly were Muldoons.

These are people who owed their position to the machine.

Well, Jeff, I got to say, I love the messiness of local politics.

But I also love the language that comes out of it.

And we want to thank you.

35 years at the Sun must have shown you some stuff,

And I’m glad that you shared some of it with us.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, I could go on about it forever.

All right, well, you take care now, and thanks for calling, all right?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you for taking my call.

Our pleasure.

Sure thing.

Be well.

Bye-bye now.

Bye-bye.

Did you know you can leave us a message anytime, 877-929-9673?

I promised another Newfoundland word or two, and this is another from Carol Han Hefferton,

Who said that dunch, the word dunch, do you know what this word means, Grant?

It’s the meal between dinner and lunch.

Well, it might be for some people, but she says it’s how your rear end feels after sitting too

Long. And I looked it up in a couple of dictionaries. And indeed, they say, without

Feeling in some part of the body caused by a stoppage in blood circulation.

Oh, I’m borrowing this. Thank you. Because my son and I both have this problem. We can’t sit

On the flat ground for more than a minute or two before our buttocks grow numb.

Well, there you go. You would say I was dunch from sitting on the ground.

Definitely was dunch.

And what’s also fun is that dunch is a term that also refers to dumplings made with flour and water only or really heavy bread.

So you might say my bread is right dunch.

Or my dumplings are dunch from sitting on the ground.

Oh, we love to hear the local language from anywhere in the world, any language, any dialect.

Call us or text us 877-929-9673.

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hello, how are you guys?

Super duper. Who’s this and where are you?

I’m in Des Moines, Iowa right now visiting a brother.

Okay, and your name?

Mike.

Mike Langle.

Mike, welcome to the show. What’s on your mind?

So, I’m from Lamar’s, Iowa. It’s northwest Iowa.

You know, wherever I’ve traveled, nobody else has ever recognized this term to mean what it does in Lamar’s.

The word is tavern.

Most people guess it as a bar or watering hole.

But in Lamar’s and maybe the surrounding Plymouth County area, it’s a loose meat sandwich.

It’s what it’s known mostly as throughout the U.S.

Yeah.

You know what I’m talking about then?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And does it have red sauce or no?

No sauce at all.

Okay.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

And so your question is, what is up with that?

Why do people look at me?

Weird when I say it. Yeah, I get anything from, you know, strange looks of curiosity to questions

Like, how do you have a tavern? Are you eating this building? What? Exactly. Have you guys been

Able to come up with anything on that? Oh, yeah, we sure have. Back in the 1920s, there was a guy

Named David Heglin, who began serving something like it at what turned out to be the Ye Olde

Tavern in Sioux City. And a few years later, after his death, another guy, Abe Khaled,

Bought it and perfected the recipe for tavern sandwiches. And so if you’re from that area,

You know that this is sort of a, it’s sort of like a sloppy joe, but a little drier and neater.

Is that the way you might describe it?

Yeah, absolutely.

It’s just minced burger, but no sauce added usually.

Maybe a little onion or something like that cooked along with it.

But yeah.

And not in a patty.

It’s literally like scoops of gravel-sized beef.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Which is why some people call these loose meat sandwiches or spoon burgers.

There were similar sandwiches sold around the same time, including Maid Rites.

The other. Yep. Yeah. And those are from Muscatine, Iowa, not long after David Heglin came up with the tavern.

Right. Right. There was a guy named Fred Angel who was making those also in the 1920s.

And then he franchised Maidwright. And so you often hear people call these Maidwrights.

And there are even more names for these, like Charlie Boy, Tasty and Big T.

But the term tavern, yeah, it does trip up a lot of people.

Just because it just sounds not quite right.

It’s kind of like the cold drink called a cabinet in Rhode Island where you’re like, wait, that’s not a food item.

How are you putting that in your body?

Yeah, right? Have a cabinet with your tavern.

Right. That would get the same look from me as I get when I use the term tavern.

Exactly.

In Missouri, where my family is from, they have a small chain called Crumbly Burger, which is exactly the same kind of sandwich.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And they’re good.

But I really think you have to toast the buns so that they’re a little firmer and that the meat doesn’t soak too far into the bun.

Gotcha.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, that’s not common with the tavern.

I mean, one local restaurant in Lamar’s, Bob’s Drive-In, serves a really good one.

So if you guys are ever up in that area, I highly recommend you stop in.

All right.

Food recommendations are always welcome.

I wasn’t plugging them either.

No, no, no.

She sounded just like a food fan in general.

We’ll take it.

Yeah, yeah.

Mike, it’s been a delight.

Thank you for calling.

Appreciate it.

Thank you guys for looking into that.

That solves an age-old problem.

Yeah.

Now I have an answer.

Yep.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

You can find all of our past episodes and more than a dozen ways to reach us on our website at waywordradio.org.

Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Allison. I’m calling in from Redwood City, California.

I am calling because I’m actually originally from New York City.

My family is Jewish and way back all Yiddish speaking.

And there’s a word that I’ve heard around my family, which is zorbit.

And it’s a word that is used like if you press your mouth against usually like somebody’s

Like stomach or neck and you blow and it makes a funny sound.

And so it was always like something we did in our family.

And I didn’t realize that other people didn’t know what that was.

And I was calling to see if you guys could help me figure it out.

How would you spell zorbit?

I would spell it Z-O-R-B-I-T.

Nice.

Okay.

We can definitely help you.

So just to be clear here, this is the kind of thing that when you see one of those perfect little round baby bellies, you have to blow a raspberry on it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And make them giggle, right?

Just try to get that laughing baby thing going.

Definitely.

And it was also used like as like a, oh, I’m going to get you like when you were kids, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Favorite game.

That kind of thing, too. Yeah.

You know, it’s not Yiddish, as far as I know.

And we actually know something about the date in which it was popularized, although it may be a little bit earlier than that.

And that date is December 5th, 1985, when it appeared on an episode of The Cosby Show called Claire’s Toe.

And at the time, The Cosby Show was this big cultural force, despite whatever has happened since with Bill Cosby.

At the time, it was a really big deal for something to enter the mainstream through TV.

And there’s this scene where Cliff Huxtable, played by Bill Cosby, is talking with Rudy, one of the young kids.

And they’re preparing for a spelling bee.

And Rudy says, what does Z-R-B-T-T spell?

And Cliff Huxtable says, Zerbit spell?

And he says, you know what I think a Zerbit is?

I just remembered.

A Zerbit is this.

And then he blows a raspberry on Rudy.

He does a Zerbet.

And so the way they spell it on the show is Z-R-B-T-T with no E.

But after that, most people started spelling it as Zerbert, Z-R-B-E-R-T,

Which actually turns out to be an ancient spelling of the word sherbert, you know, the icy treat.

But unrelated.

And so it’s, you know, it’s a form of blowing a raspberry or the Bronx cheer on a belly or on bare skin.

Lots of different names for it.

Wow.

Yeah.

So I believe as a long time until things went awry, I was used to be a longtime fan of Bill Cosby.

And I believe I have heard it in some of his standup routines before the Cosby show, because a lot of the material from his standup routines was recycled into the show, you know, and developed for a sitcom.

Right.

Wow.

I would not have expected that.

Well, thank you guys so much.

Yeah, our pleasure.

Give us another call sometime, Allison.

Sounds good.

I appreciate you guys.

Yeah, we appreciate you.

Thanks, Allison.

All right.

Have a good one.

Such a great word.

Because it sounds like the thing that it is.

It’s very monomaniac.

Exactly.

Call us with your language question, 877-929-9673.

We had a message from Ernest Pemberton who wanted to tell us about hazing newbies in the Army.

He says that when he served in the Army, they would send newbies to go get 100 foot of chow line.

100 feet of chow line.

So the chow line is where you stand when you’re waiting to get your tray filled in the mess hall.

Right. Can you imagine running around looking for 100 feet of that?

We love to hear your linguistic and language anecdotes and stories.

Toll free, call or text 877-929-9673.

A Way with Words senior producer is Stefanie Levine.

Tim Felten is our engineer and editor.

And John Chaneski is our quiz master.

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

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

1-877-929-9673.

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

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

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

And special thanks to our nonprofit’s volunteer board.

Michael Breslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Merrill Perlman, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidenwurm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening. I’m Grant Barrett.

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

So long.