Coast is Clear (episode #1470)

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.

Grant, I have a joke for you.

Yes, please.

Ask me if I’m a tree.

Are you a tree?

No.

Is this more anti-wits jokes?

Yes.

The anti-jokes?

The German anti-jokes.

Okay.

Yes, this is an example of an anti-joke.

We talked about these a couple of weeks ago, which opened the floodgates.

Oh, yes.

And we got all of these jokes.

Email, phone calls, Facebook group, everywhere.

And that one about the tree came from Aaron in Indianapolis, but we got a ton of these.

Did you enjoy them?

Yes, I did, actually.

People’s enthusiasm is pretty clear, particularly the ones they’ve been holding onto for a very long time, and I can’t wait to share.

Well, yes, exactly.

We got another one from Ray Carlberg in San Diego, and he was talking about the fact that when he heard us talking about these things, he was instantly transported back to childhood.

He said, I could clearly remember this exchange with my sister.

She would have been in high school, and I was in fifth or sixth grade.

And the gist of the joke is, what’s the difference between a duck?

And the answer is a pencil, because a vest has no sleeves.

And Ray writes, it was amazing to have this memory come back so clearly after all these years, decades really.

What strikes me most is remembering the instant when I switched from being the whiny, impatient victim, if you will, to the anticipation of perpetrating this new, completely off-the-wall kind of joke telling on my friends.

And I think that’s some of the joy of these things is that you get that the joke is completely stupid.

And then the next thing you do is think of the next person you want to tell.

Yeah.

Many things are like that.

Practical jokes are like that, too.

Right.

Right.

Who’s next?

Yeah.

OK.

I’ve got flour on my face and in my hair, but I can’t wait to do this to somebody else.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So I may have another anti-wits.

Just one or 50.

Later in the show, I may bring up another one or two.

Well, you know, we talk about everything related to language.

Jokes are part of it.

Words and books and speaking and writing and things that someone said and half memories and full memories and anything related to communication.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

And go to our website at waywordradio.org.

Hi there.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha.

This is George from Elgin, Illinois.

Hey, George.

Welcome to the show.

I’d be interested in a comment from you folks on a conversation I had with my sister about six months ago.

We were talking about Mexican restaurants in the area, and I commented to her that my wife and I are real fond of one in particular because of the great guacamole they have.

And she got a funny look on her face, and I said, okay, what’s going on?

She said, it’s guacamole.

You don’t say guacamole unless you’re in Mexico.

And I said, what?

I said, you’ve got to be kidding.

I thought maybe this was a joke and I was waiting for the punchline, but it turned out she was dead serious.

And it’s been bugging me ever since.

My daughter-in-law is from Mexico, so the next day I called her up.

She said, I’ve never heard of guacamole, so I figured I’d call the experts.

No, your sister is the one who said it’s supposed to be pronounced guacamole?

Yes.

Where did she get that idea?

Yeah, I want to know.

I have no idea.

I asked her, I said, I’ve never heard that.

I mean, I’m not a kid.

I’m 67 years old.

I said, I’ve never heard anyone say guacamole.

I said, I know there’s mole sauce.

Is that mole as well?

Nobody would eat it if it was called mole sauce.

I know.

It sounds like whack-a-mole.

Yeah.

Which is something completely different.

Did she explain her reasoning why she thought it should be pronounced guacamole?

No, she just apparently said she knows that in Mexico it’s guacamole, and anywhere else in this country it’s guacamole.

So I got to get to the bottom of it.

It’s just kind of festering with me.

Oh, boy.

So I could see we’ve actually talked about this on the show and got a huge, wonderful response from people where we talked about intentionally mispronouncing words.

But clearly she’s not intentionally mispronouncing this in a way to be funny.

She’s intentionally mispronouncing because she thinks she’s over applying logic.

She’s trying to over apply.

Well, you’ve corrected me.

Yeah, well, maybe that’s it.

Maybe she just wants to one up her brother.

But she’s wrong.

She’s wrong.

Let’s just get that out of the way.

Her pronunciation is incorrect.

Now, are Americans pronouncing the word exactly as Mexicans do?

No, but it’s close.

You know, it’s about as close as you can.

It’s kind of semi-Anglicized.

And we don’t fully Anglicize foreign words when we borrow them.

I think of things like coup d’etat, where we retain a fairly decent approximation of the original French.

Some words we do fully Anglicize, but this word has been with us for centuries.

And it’s every dictionary that you check, even going back into the Spanish language dictionaries, the pronunciation is very akin to guacamole.

And the English dictionaries, every single English dictionary.

I mean, what dictionary is she using?

Oh, I don’t know if she used a dictionary or not, but she was just adamant that I was pronouncing it incorrectly, and I just could not believe what I was hearing because I’ve never heard anyone except her say guacamole.

I wonder if she says hyperbole instead of hyperbole.

Could be. I don’t know.

But it looks like I may have won this one.

No, you did, clearly and thoroughly.

And so she owes you Mexican food every weekend for the rest of your life.

That’s right.

Maybe she’s just pulling your leg really hard.

Yeah, is she a deep joker?

I thought about that, but I don’t think so.

I’m going to give her a chance to redeem herself.

My birthday’s next week.

I’m going to make her take me to a Mexican restaurant for some guacamole.

And make her order it using that pronunciation.

That’s right.

That’d be great.

Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. And I’m going to chalk one up for me.

Thanks, George. Let us know, by the way, if she insists. And if she wants to call with her point of view, you give her our number. All right.

That’s a great idea. I will suggest that if I get too much argument.

There you go. Buen provecho.

Take care now.

Thank you much.

Okay. Bye-bye.

Bye.

You know, I didn’t want to bring it up, but we should talk about the etymology of guacamole.

Oh, yeah, sure.

Yeah.

Go for it.

Well, it comes from Nahuatl.

Nahuatl.

Yep.

And the Aztec’s word for avocado, which means literally testicle fruit.

Nice.

And the mole is sauce, so it’s testicle fruit sauce.

Nice.

And did you know that historically there has been guacamole with something different in Cuba?

No.

It was a chopped up avocado with vinegar and a few spices, eaten more like a salad and not like a sauce.

Oh, no kidding.

Interesting, right?

That sounds delicious.

It does sound really good, doesn’t it?

Road trip.

Food words.

877-929-9673.

I learned a new term at a conference for judges and lawyers where I was a speaker.

And that term is elbow clerk.

Elbow clerk.

So this is a clerk who works directly in the judge’s chambers.

It’s kind of like imagine them at the elbow of the judge.

Oh, that’s nice.

Kind of like the dog’s body who’s always present for whatever needs to be done.

But elbow clerk, cool, right?

I like that.

And now I’m going to get all the lawyers saying, well, actually, there’s a little more nuance.

Here’s a 40-page paper that I wrote.

And I’m like, okay, I’ll read that.

Send that to me right away.

And meanwhile, there are probably kids all over the country who are saying, well, I want to be an elbow clerk when I grow up.

Isn’t it funny?

Because you could easily misunderstand what an elbow clerk is, right?

I’ve counted all the elbows.

We’re full up.

We’ve got 100% of all elbows accounted for.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Nan.

I’m calling from Vancouver, Washington.

Welcome to the show.

What’s going on?

Thank you.

At my house, my husband and I are always coming up with, now where did that word come from, or why do we say that thing? And it’s really great. I have a list inside my phone that I keep a list of words for A Way with Words to call you and ask you about.

So do we. And the one that came up is the coast is clear. And we’re just like, well, why do we say that? And I think that what we mean when we say the coast is clear is you can sneak by now without being seen or whoever you don’t want to see you won’t see you at that moment. It’s safe. That sort of thing.

Where did you run into it this time? Watching some heist movie or something?

Yeah, probably. I don’t know. We say it ourselves all the time. When you’re trying to sneak cookies past the kids? Sneak out without waking up the kids or that sort of thing. Coast is clear, Martha. Go ahead.

Yeah. Well, it’s a term that’s been around for hundreds of years and literally, apparently, has to do with the coast of a country. Like where the land meets water.

Yeah, where the land meets water. And we’re not really sure if it had to do with pirates and smugglers who were talking about the coast being clear so that they could come onto the land or if it had to do with watching out for ships that were coming in, you know, invaders.

I see. So in one way, a smuggler or a pirate wants to make sure not to run up against the Navy or military of some kind, right? They don’t want to be observed. Being clear of the coast also just means being out of danger from running aground or running up against submerged rocks and that kind of thing, right?

It could be that, yeah. If you’re headed outward.

Yeah, or yeah, if you’re headed outward and there’s no one there to impede you. Coast is clear.

Okay.

Yeah. There’s a similar expression in Spanish, no hay moros en la costa. There are no moors on the coast.

Exactly. And that’s been around for probably longer. Since the 1200s, right?

Right. At least.

Yeah. Wow. And you still hear that today, or hay moros en la costa. Like somebody comes to a party and you’re alerting your friend that there are people that you don’t want to run into.

Yeah.

Yeah, given the history of Spain.

Oh, that’s so interesting.

Yeah. Well, that’s great, and I will share that with my husband. Thank you so very much for your phone call.

Yeah, call us about that list that you have. We’d love to hear more questions.

Oh, I got a list.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Okay, you guys, have a good day.

Take care.

And hi to your husband.

Bye.

I will.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you have a list of words that you’d like to ask us about, call us and ask us about one, 877-929-9673, or send it an email to words@waywordradio.org.

We’re forever being asked about the practice of starting a sentence with the word so.

Right. People are saying, I’m hearing it more and more. And this prompted Ian from Nashville to call us and leave us a voicemail. He said, I have a really prominent example that comes to mind for me in my experience as a church-going person. I hear this a ton as a lead-in to prayers, especially public prayers, whether it’s a worship leader or a pastor is praying in front of a group.

And it often does have this sort of, we’re wrapping this up, or I’m recapping what has been said already. But to start a prayer with, so God, we blah, blah, blah from there, I just hear that all the time. And I just thought I’d throw that bit of data into the sentence, initial so conversation. I thought that was really interesting that it’s used to start prayers in church.

The term that I always heard when I was growing up in a Southern Baptist church was just. Just when you’re informally praying, you would say, just, just, Lord Jesus, just. Just give us, just help us.

Yeah, just help us. And we just ask. And I just thought that was really interesting.

Yeah, so it’s doing that discourse job of providing the continuation of thought or, as he was saying, the summary of thought, right?

Yes. And that’s the question that we get is when it comes up in interviews where the interviewer asks a question and the interviewee responds with a sentence beginning with, so.

Right. The reason that we did X is, you know, and that is a particular subject that has flagged people’s attention repeatedly over the last 10 years.

Yes. And I can see concluding a sermon or concluding a little.

Interesting.

Yeah, discussion.

That’s a nice addition to the conversation.

I know, right? If you want to know more about Sentence Initial So, since we haven’t fully talked about here, there are at least two separate times we’ve talked about on the show before, and you can find those on our website at waywordradio.org.

This radio show is about language examined through family, history, and culture. Stay with us.

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

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re joined by our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

Hey, John.

What’s up, dude?

Hi.

Well, you know, I was talking about names with a friend of mine the other day. As a person with an uncommon last name, I’m always looking for some way to make it into an actual word so that people will be familiar with it. But some people are lucky. Their names are already words.

For example, if I asked you, is the comedian who was one of the three amigos vertically challenged? You could interpret that as, is Martin short?

-huh.

Right?

Right.

So I’ll give you a clue, which you can paraphrase into a short question that will include the name of a famous person. Bear in mind, some of these are phonetic, so they may not be spelled the same.

So question style answers a la Jeopardy, right?

Oh, a Jeopardy.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. Later there are statement ones. We’ll do some question ones first. Here we go.

Is the singer-songwriter of Shake It Off able to move quickly?

Shake it off.

Is Taylor Swift.

Is Taylor Swift, yes.

I imagine she could move a little bit.

Let’s see. Here’s the next one.

Has the author of The Importance of Being Earnest lost control of himself?

Is Oscar Wilde.

Yes.

Now, does the star of Top Gun sail about in a boat for fun?

Does Tom Cruise?

Does Tom Cruise or does he cruise?

Imagine sometimes he does.

Is an English theoretical physicist going around trying to sell trinkets?

What?

An English theoretical physicist going around selling trinkets?

Is Stephen Hawking.

Yes.

How much money can you make?

Just talking about physics.

Did the man who preceded James Buchanan as president perforate earlobes or noses so as to insert jewelry?

It was Franklin Pierce.

Does Franklin Pierce.

Did Franklin Pierce.

Yeah, he’s not around anymore.

We can assume he’s not around anymore.

And what are we inserting in the holes?

Jewelry or what?

Jewelry.

You can insert whatever you like.

It’s a free country.

Can you imagine a president with like an ear gauge?

Yes.

Right.

Now, the actor who starred in Body Heat and Kiss of the Spider Woman, is he okay?

Does William hurt?

Is he all right?

William, give us a call.

Everybody hurts.

Speaking of actors, when Gladiator won Best Picture, did its star openly celebrate?

Did Russell Crowe.

Yes, he probably did because he also won Best Actor for that.

So he probably, very likely, he’d find achievement.

Yeah.

Tell me the truth.

That Argentinian footballer who plays for FC Barcelona.

Is he a bit of a slob?

Is he messy?

Is he messy?

Yes, is Lionel Messi?

Now, the following answers will not be questions. They’ll be statements, okay?

Or sentences.

What does the gravelly-voiced singer-songwriter of Downtown Train and Jersey Girl do when he’s online at Trader Joe’s?

Tom Waits.

Tom Waits.

I think he’s a Whole Foods kind of guy, but yeah.

Yeah, probably Whole Foods.

Will the current Prime Minister of the UK attend the G8 Summit this year?

Theresa May.

She may.

Yeah, sure.

Theresa May.

Very good.

Okay.

And that’s it for now, guys.

You were fantastic.

Nicely done.

Good job.

Thank you very much.

That was fun.

Thank you.

Fun with puns.

Grant can bear it.

Yes.

Whoa.

Whoa.

So we don’t just do silly word quizzes.

We talk about everything related to the language, how we speak, write, and how we do them well.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org and talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Gabby. I’m calling from San Diego.

Hi, Gabby. Welcome to the show.

I had a quick question about the word smitten. I’m not familiar with the history or origin of the word, and I had it as a vanity plate. I lived in New Hampshire. I guess it’s the highest per capita number of, you know, self-designed license plates in the U.S. And I wasn’t sure if you could provide me with any extra insight on that word. I thought it sounded kind of contemporary, but I think it’s kind of an older word.

Smitten. Smitten as in S-M-I-T-T-E-N?

Correct.

Cool. And Gabby, what do you like about the word smitten?

I just kind of like the sound of it. It sounds kind of like kitten or, I don’t know, it sounds almost jargon-like in that, you know, we abbreviate a lot of words ending in ing to I’m running late or, you know, other words that would normally end in ing. But obviously this is not one of those words. It just sounds kind of contemporary, but I know that it has this, you know, older history to it.

Yeah, yeah, much older. It’s a very, very old word. And it’s simply the past participle of the verb to smite.

Interesting. I never knew that.

Yeah, yeah, which is a word you see all the time in the King James Bible, you know, smite your enemies. If you’re smitten, then you’re struck in the same way that smiting somebody is striking them or beating them. So you’re figuratively struck.

I wouldn’t have thought it would be sort of such an aggressive origin. That’s interesting.

Yeah, well, we have a lot of words in English that are really positive words that have to do with beating or striking. Something is striking. Somebody’s strikingly beautiful. Or don’t that beat all. Don’t that beat all. Or the term larapin, which you’ll hear in parts of the West, that means really good. And it comes from a Dutch word that means to beat or strike. Like that’s larapin, good pie.

Yeah, but like bite and bitten, smite and smitten. Is smite as attractive to you as smitten?

Not nearly, not nearly. I usually tend to have a negative connotation with the word to smite, you know, to smite someone. But smitten just seems cute and kind of ephemeral and, yeah, almost like you have a crush on someone, you know, not to be fully in love with someone. But, yeah, I just thought it was kind of more of a lighthearted word, but it turns out it’s not quite that.

Yeah, originally it wasn’t quite that, but for hundreds of years, smitten has meant to be struck with passion or emotion. And what I like about the word is that it just, it sounds so complete to me. If you’re smitten, you are just completely in love with, enamored with whatever you’re talking about.

Yeah, so I see it as a really positive word, too. So if we see you driving around San Diego, and will there be a license plate that has smitten on it?

I tried to, I just registered my plate about six months ago, and it was not available, at least not in the traditional spelling. So I’m contemplating maybe getting a license plate that’s abbreviated in some way with letters slightly different. But I don’t know, I’m kind of a traditionalist and would prefer to just use the full smitten. So maybe someone will eventually not use it, and I’ll be able to use it again in the future.

Yeah.

Good question. Sounds like there’s someone out there who shares your feelings.

Yeah, definitely. Smitten with the word smitten.

Thanks a lot for calling.

Thank you so much. Have a great afternoon.

All right. Take care.

All right. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

We heard from Eloise Stripling in San Antonio, Texas, who has taught at the Defense Language Institute English Language Center at Lackland Air Force Base. And she said one of her favorite parts about that job has been hearing different idioms from people from around the world who come there to study. And she said that one of her favorites is one that’s sort of equivalent to, in English, we talk about the pot calling the kettle black. But she learned from one of her Spanish-speaking students the expression, El conejo gritando orejon, which means the rabbit hollering big ears.

Isn’t that great?

That’s great, yeah. I just picture this rabbit just yelling big ears. You’ve got big ears. El conejo gritando orejon. I love it.

Hit us up on Twitter @wayword.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi. This is Debbie Frail.

Hi, Debbie. Where are you calling us from?

Marquette, Michigan. Welcome to the show, Debbie. What’s on your mind?

Well, I’m wondering why I get in trouble for my daughters for saying, where are you at? And you want to know why you get in trouble?

Oh, yeah. They always are correcting me, and I still do it. But they tell me it’s redundant. It’s the way everybody talks. I mean, I understand what they’re saying, but it’s the way we say it. So I want to know where you’re at.

So you’re saying, where are you at, or where are you at, or both?

Both. I noticed, though, they say something that I think is redundant. Do you want to come with? They missed something there.

Let’s focus on where you’re at for a second. So where are you at? So what’s happening? You’re on the phone with them and trying to figure out whether or not they’re going to make it to your lunch date or something like that?

Yeah, how old are they?

21, 24, 18. And so, yes, so there’ll be noise in the background. And I’ll say, well, where are you at?

Right.

Right. There’s a lot to say on this. I do want to agree with you on one part of this. Lots of people say this. This is incredibly colloquial. It’s widespread across the United States. It’s far more common in some parts of the country than others, such as the South and the Great Lakes region, but it exists everywhere.

Another thing to say about this, we are divided on this, whether or not some people will permit the words to come out of their mouths in that order and whether or not they won’t. There was a survey done in 2003, and they asked people, would you say where are you at to mean where are you? And 34% said yes, 36% said no, and the rest said I can use it in certain contexts about asking for progress, like progress towards a destination or progress towards a goal. But they wouldn’t use it to mean where are you at this particular moment, like where physically in the world do you stand or where do you exist? And so that kind of shows you right there like a three-way division of people who won’t use it, who will use it, and people who make kind of this fine distinction on when they won’t use it.

So that said, just know that like there’s no one perfect answer for this, at least in terms of common idiomatic American English. I think the problem that people have with this sometimes is that it ends in a preposition. Do your daughters ever bring that up?

They always do.

Yeah, and that’s an old bugaboo that’s a fake rule that should never exist in English and should never be taught. The other complaint that people have is when you say, where are you at? You’re leaving out the verb.

Right, but her daughter’s complaint is that it’s excessive, that it’s a pleonism, that you don’t need the at there.

Well, you do. Where are you? So here’s the thing about the at. Here’s the thing. It is actually doing a job. The at can actually make the question more specific. For example, if I call you on the phone and I say, where are you? You might say, I’m on the train. But if I say, where are you at? You’re like, I’m in Houston. I’m on the train in Houston. You might get more specific. Does that make sense?

I never thought about that.

Is that the way you use it?

No, both ways, really, I do. And I’m thinking sometimes it’s for a location. I want them to pinpoint a location for me. But I would say something. Let’s just say this. The hammer, I’m looking in the garage for the hammer. And say, well, where’s the hammer at?

I think you’re falling in this nice case here.

Where sometimes when you say, where are you at?

You actually are seeking clarity.

And adding the at does give a more specific question that solicits more specific answers.

And this is something that linguists have studied.

And it’s well chronicled.

And there’s a very clear division.

When we analyze conversation and text, we do see that that’s actually happening.

However, there are other cases where that at is redundant and you do not need it.

But to separate them out as a speaker may be difficult to do.

So you’re defaulting to including the at, and that’s just your mode of speech.

Yeah.

I would say that if you were trying to speak formal English in a court or to an elected official or to, you know, the head of your church or something, that maybe saying where you at would be taken as too informal, and you need to think about saying where are you.

Well, isn’t that interesting?

Because I notice when I’m in a formal setting like that, I don’t use it.

Oh.

My brain just goes there not to use it.

Is that right?

Yeah, it is.

I’ve noticed that myself.

So you’re already understanding the circumstances when it’s okay and when it’s not okay.

That said, this is messy.

I would say your daughters shouldn’t correct you.

That’s my opinion on this.

And I think if it bothers you that they do correct you, you can either ask them to stop or you can just stop saying where you’re at.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care.

And you know what? If they want to push back, we welcome their call, too.

Yeah, hi to your daughter.

Oh, I’m sure they will.

I know they are, and I’m glad they do.

All right. Take care now.

Well, you know where we are.

Bye.

Yes. Thank you.

I guess the summary is to simply say that it’s uneducated speech does not come close to approaching the complexity of that particular sentence.

That’s a good way to put it.

There is a lot more to be said, and that at does do a job in some cases.

I never thought about that, honestly.

Most people don’t have the linguistic background to determine whether or not it’s doing a job, so maybe it’s best to avoid saying, where are you at?

But it does sometimes do a job.

Do you have a family dispute about a word or phrase?

Call us about at 877-929-9673 or send it an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, you remember that conversation we had a few episodes ago about fudging your age using different forms of…

Yeah, jokey stuff so you don’t have to admit the real number.

Right, right.

And we got another example of that from Doug Clark here in San Diego who writes, on my last big birthday, I told people I had turned 21 in Celsius.

What about Kelvin?

I really don’t mind being 70, but I couldn’t resist.

And 70 Fahrenheit is pretty close to 21 in Celsius.

I like that.

877-929-9673.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Brian from Dallas calling.

Hello, Brian. Welcome.

Hi, Brian. What’s up?

I work in theater, and we’ve got tons of jargon specific to working in my field.

But just the other day I was walking down the street with a friend of mine, and I mentioned that a show that we were about to do is a two-hander.

And she didn’t know what that meant.

And I said, oh, it’s just a play with two people in it.

At which point she asked, why is it called that?

And I did not have an answer.

So I was curious if you guys knew.

We’ve done a lot of one-person shows, but I never call that a one-hander.

So that’s my question.

So a two-hander, tell me if I’m wrong.

It’s not just two people, but it’s two people who are kind of diametrically opposed.

Right? There’s an element of separation or distance between them, like they’re very different characters or they’re at very different places in their lives or something like that. Isn’t there?

Often like there’s like a black and whiteness about it?

Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s, you know, the principal conflict revolves around how those people interact.

Right. Is it going to be reconciliation or war all the way down, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So the hand part of that is the interesting part.

We know the two obviously just means two people.

The hand part refers to people in theater.

As far back as the 1500s, a hand was somebody who worked in theater, either on the stage or writing the works or behind the scenes as part of the crew.

It’s very similar to seafaring, where you say all hands on deck.

It’s that same kind of hand.

And the reason we use hand to mean a whole person is something called metonymy in linguistics, where the smaller part of something stands in for the larger whole.

So a hand being a whole person is a great example of metonymy.

We do this in a bunch of other, how many faces were there, right? Or we mean, how many people were there? We don’t actually mean did they take off their face and put it in the chair, but—

Yeah, let’s do a nose count.

Yeah, let’s do a nose count. Let’s do a head count, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

We also have three-hander, which is a little different, but it’s still three people operating primarily alone on the stage together in a variety of different ways.

So what’s Riverdance?

Forty-hander?

A forty-hander, yeah.

A stomper?

Isn’t it the variety language for a dance show?

A stomper-hofer.

Maybe that’s it.

There you go.

Yeah, that clears up that whole hand issue, and I guess it’s very similar to a stage hand.

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah, it’s the same hand.

Yeah.

We’ve kind of just moved that to crew members as opposed to actors.

A hand would be a person working on the stage as opposed to an actor who’s working on a stage but in a very different way.

Yeah, that’s it. It’s as simple as that.

A two-hander, by the way, if you can catch it done really well between primo actors, is a real special treat because you’re so immersed in these stellar performances.

There’s something, I don’t know what it is, it’s kind of like sitting in a cafe next to lovers or something where they’re hashing it all out.

It’s just one of the thrilling experiences of theater, in my opinion.

Yeah, absolutely.

It’s two people who are very exposed.

Yeah, the honesty and the rawness of having to get up there and be alone and not having very few crutches.

Yeah.

Brian, thank you so much for your call.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Have a good one.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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Why we say what we say. Stick around for more of A Way with Words.

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.

I had somebody ask me last week about the term to go on and on like Tennyson’s brook.

Do you know this expression?

It means to talk and talk and talk, just go on incessantly.

And so I did some digging around, and it’s a reference to a wonderful poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson called The Brook.

The Brook.

I’d love to share it with you.

Yes, please.

I had to look up a couple of words in it.

Coot, which is a kind of bird, and hern, which is like a heron.

And one of the reasons I really like this poem is because of the sound of it.

Think about a brook.

I chatter over stony ways in little sharps and trebles.

I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret by many a field and fallow.

And many a fairy foreland set with willow weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter as I flow to join the brimming river.

For men may come and men may go, but I go on forever.

I wind about and in and out with here a blossom sailing and here and there a lusty trout and here and there a grayling and here and there a foamy flake upon me as I travel with many a silvery water break above the golden gravel and draw them all along and flow to join the brimming river for men may come and men may go but I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots. I slide by hazel covers. I move the sweet forget-me-nots that grow for happy lovers. I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance among my skimming swallows. I make the netted sunbeam dance against my sandy shallows. I murmur under moon and stars in brambly wildernesses. I linger by my shingly bars. I loiter round my cresses. And out again I curve and flow to join the brimming river for men may come and men may go but I go on forever.

There’s so many things I love about that poem Grant and it’s given us the phrase to go on and on like Tennyson’s brook. I have never heard that phrase before. I love that poem because of the sound to me it just sounds like brooks I’ve hiked alongside and the other thing is that it’s sort of a metaphor for life you know it starts out real bubbly and and full of energy and toward the end it’s kind of swirly and, you know, like a life winding down.

Now, you defined a couple words related to birds at the beginning, but there were two more that leapt out at me. Thorpe. Thorpe, right, which means village or hamlet. And then grayling, which is a kind of fish. Yes. Go online and read it for yourself. The Brook by Alfred Lord Tennyson. And in the meantime, call us with your language questions, 877-929-9673.

Hi, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Lindsay calling from Coronado, California. Hiya, Lindsay. Welcome to the show. What’s up? What can we do for you? Yeah, I had a question come up. I was in a group Facebook chat with some friends, and I was trying to track what kind of plans we had made. So I used the expression, I’ve lost the bubble. We have young children, so some of the women in the group thought I was referring to playing with bubbles, but I just thought it was a common phrase. That I’ve lost the bubble. You know, what’s going on? What’s the plan?

Any military people in your background? I’m a veteran, and some of the people in the group are veterans or spouses of Navy. So I thought it might be a Navy terminology because there are, you know, inclinometers and other sort of old nautical equipment that have bubbles in them. That’s right. That’s exactly right. Did you serve on a submarine? No, I was on a surface ship. But yeah, the inclinometer, which is the name for this meter on submarines that shows the angle at which they’re diving, right? And then there are similar devices, similar gauges on airplanes that show whether or not they’re flying at the horizon, flying level, basically. And in both of these kinds of transport, you need these so that you don’t crash.

And it turns out if you go back at least the 1950s, probably earlier, you will find to lose the bubble to mean, you know, I’ve lost control of the ship. And then later, even now, it’s extrapolated. And when you lose the bubble, generally, it means you lose the overall picture of a situation. Like aircraft control people, they need to kind of keep all this data and all of these planes and everything that’s happened in their minds. And if they can’t do that, then they’ve lost kind of this overall picture. And you will find this come up in management books. You’ll find this come up in military theory books where they talk about a commander’s need to stay on the bubble or to keep the bubble.

So is it a literal bubble, like a carpenter’s level? Yeah. Think of a carpenter’s level like a spirit level that’s got the bubble that floats back and forth in a liquid. And if it’s between these two guidelines, then that means that you’re level. It’s kind of like that. I mean, obviously, they’re more sophisticated than that on the more sophisticated machines, but generally like that. That makes sense. So you lost the bubble. Yeah. Okay. But you’re saying your friends didn’t catch that reference or they didn’t understand what you were saying?

Yeah. And I meant it more in the loss of situational awareness sense. But then I just didn’t know where it originated. And maybe it’s something that was passed down because I have, you know, more veterans in my family. Yeah, that would explain it. That was just something I was used to. But I do see it show up in business theory books and business management courses and that sort of thing. I do find it popping up outside the military now. But it definitely started with aircraft and then not long after with submarines and then became kind of a figurative use over the following decades.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Yeah. How about that, Lindsay? Your instincts were right on. All right. Thanks so much for your call. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

So one of these books, Trapped in the Net by Gene Rochlin, he says, those who man the combat operations centers of U.S. Navy ships use the term having the bubble to indicate that they have been able to construct and maintain the cognitive map that allows them to integrate such diverse inputs as combat status, information flows from sensors and remote observations, and real-time status from various weapons. I mean, we’re talking like that kind of mental presence of being in the zone so that you don’t even have to consciously think about it. You just know. Keeping that bubble right between.

Another thing they talk about, it reminds me very much of writing, like writing books and your need to get in that zone. And they talk about the overlap between two different kinds of managers so that the bubble can be passed from manager to manager. And when you write books or you write something complicated, you know how hard it is to get back into the writing later after you’ve put it aside? You need that ramp up time. Oh, yeah. If an email interrupts you or you put it away for a few weeks. That, to me, what they’re describing here in this larger situational awareness, very much feels like losing the bubble when your attention is, the attention bubble is popped, so to speak.

I should say, by the way, there are many other terms related to being on the bubble, but they’re not this one. And there’s some from sports and how teams are ranked or being in a precarious situation or precarious ranking. But those are a different kind of bubble related to more like actually being perched on top of a bubble of soapy. Yeah, something fragile, yeah. Very interesting. Well, that’s a military term that should see wider use, I think. Yeah, it probably will fall into those lists of most hated jargon, though, after a while.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s useful now, but after a while it will just seem irritating. Was there a term you were talking about with your friends and they didn’t know what it meant? Give us a call about it, 877-929-9673, or send it in email to words@waywordradio.org. Here’s a bit of Aussie slang I ran across recently. Okay. 50K south of whoop-whoop. Does that mean boondocks? Yes. 50K south of whoop-whoop. Yes. Is whoop-whoop actually a place? I think it’s a fictitious place. Okay, there’s not a real whoop-whoop in Australia? Yeah. I would like to live in a place called whoop-whoop. I know, wouldn’t you? So if he lives 50K south of whoop-whoop, it means he’s really far away. That’s really far away.

We’ll take your questions and calls and comments, 877-929-9673. Hello, welcome to Way With Words. Hello. Hi, who’s this? This is Patricia. I’m calling from Crescent City, California. Hi, Patricia. At the Redwood Coast. Oh, nice. Pretty stuff over there, right? It’s beautiful. Well, I was looking at my Facebook a while back and saw that one of my friends had posted that her little boy who was teething was being a fuss bucket. And I thought, wait, that’s not the right word. It’s supposed to be fuss budget because my mom had always said fuss budget. And then I thought, well, but fuss bucket makes a lot more sense. So that’s when I decided to call you guys and find out the true story. Interesting.

And what did you understand fuss bucket to mean?

Well, that he was being really fussy.

I guess that he had a bucket full of fuss with him.

Yeah, so you thought that that made more sense than fuss budget, which you’d heard all your life.

Right.

Yeah, that’s so interesting because actually they both make a whole lot of sense.

Because budget is an old word that means a purse or a pouch.

Or in Appalachia, a budget is a bundle or a package.

And it comes from an old French word that means like a leather bag.

So a fuss budget is somebody that’s just a big container that’s spilling over with fussiness.

Bag full of fuss.

Bag full of fuss.

So I can see where a fuss bucket would be a reasonable variation of that, not only because it sounds the same, but because it’s the same idea.

And there have been also, around the turn of the 20th century, there were terms like fuss pot and fuss box.

Again, something, you know, like a walking container of fussiness.

Now, fuss budget dates back to at least as early as 1870, which most dictionaries won’t tell you.

They have a much later date, so it’s at least that early.

But there’s an older expression to open one’s budget.

Did you run across this, Martha?

Sure, yeah.

And that dates to the 1500s, and it means to speak your piece or say what’s on your mind.

Right.

There are newspapers that have the commercial name Budget, the Salem Budget or something like that.

And it’s the idea, again, of containing something or opening your budget is unlocking your word horde, as they used to say.

It’s speaking your piece, as you say.

But the fuss budget is the actual term. Fuss bucket is incredibly rare.

It’s rare.

And I think it’s just a misspeak or maybe mislearned.

Yeah, I would say mislearned. But it makes sense.

Yeah.

And it sounds really similar.

Yeah. How’s it?

Well, thank you. That clarifies it a lot.

And maybe in the distant future, we’ll be hearing fuss bucket more because budget doesn’t make sense to us anymore.

That’s right.

We’ve lost that etymological connection, haven’t we?

Yeah, that’s a good point.

Thank you so much for your call, Patricia.

Really appreciate it.

Well, thank you guys for talking to me.

Have a great day.

Take care.

Bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

The final thing I wanted to say on this, this is one of the few words, fuss budget, that I remember where I learned it.

Oh, yeah?

Charles Schultz, peanuts, right?

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

One character called, I think it was Lucy being called the fuss budget.

Oh, that’s right.

See, I remember it because I was always called a fussbudgetist.

Oh, were you?

I mean, my mother loved calling me Little Miss Fussbudget.

But yeah, Lucy was known as a fussbudgetist, as I recall.

Yeah, very particular and opinionated, right?

Opinionated, for sure.

And that doggone football.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

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And join us on our Facebook group where there’s thousands of people just like you talking about language.

Because I am such a nerd, Grant, I sent a text yesterday with the word clinomania in it.

To whom?

I actually did.

To a friend of mine who was having a really hard time getting out of bed.

I bet your personal dictionary on your phone had a fun time with that word.

It went through just fine.

Is this the mania for the comic Robert Klein?

This is people who really love his work?

No, the clino part comes from ancient words that have to do with leaning or lying down.

Oh, sure, like incline.

Yeah, exactly, or recline.

Exactly, so clino mania is a fancy word for not being able to get out of bed.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you like lying down, mania for lying down.

Yes, exactly.

And the other word for that is dysania, which comes from words that mean, you know, just bad trouble, bad grief.

Bad grief.

Oh, yeah.

Clinomania.

Yeah.

But I like that.

Now I have a word for, I guess the other word in my case is pre-caffeinated.

Pre-caffeinated.

You need one of those like Rube Goldberg setups that just drips it in your mouth while you’re still in bed.

I do.

I don’t care what.

A pull chain and it kind of dumps down you like a smell from the roof.

Exactly.

I don’t care what the caffeine delivery system is, just as long as it gets in there.

You need a dog to train to bring you.

Here’s the beans.

Believe me, I tried.

Little paws, push it up into your mouth.

Yep, a good cure for Klinomania.

877-929-9673.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Austin.

I’m from Owensboro, Kentucky.

How are you guys doing?

Doing well.

How are you?

All right, all right.

How are things going in western Kentucky there?

A nice sunny day.

Pretty relaxing, really, right now.

Okay.

What can we help with?

My friend, he bought him a car, and I was asking him how his car is and everything,

And he told me, he goes, well, Bob, I think I bought a lemon.

And he kind of threw me off when he was referring his car to a lemon there.

So I was kind of hoping you guys could tell me where that had come from

And exactly about it there on that question.

Austin, what kind of car was it?

It was just a van.

He bought him a little minivan.

So he bought a minivan, and it’s not operating like he wants it to.

Right. He called it a lemon.

There’s an old meaning of lemon from the 1860s that meant a sourpuss,

Or somebody who is of a bad disposition.

And that’s the first use that we can find in the etymological world of language meaning something negative.

And it’s not long after that lemon starts to be used repeatedly to refer to a person who is foolish or disappointing.

Right after that, it starts to be used for something that is a disappointment, such as a machine that is broke or a promise that was broken or something that doesn’t go or operate as intended.

And it’s not long after that, when that narrows down a little bit and we find lemon being specifically used for an automobile that doesn’t run as it’s supposed to.

Okay.

And so it’s this really nice progression that we can see in the written record over the decades of it moving just to referring to a sourpuss, to somebody who’s foolish, to a foolish decision, to a disappointing event, to something that’s broken, to a car that doesn’t operate like it’s supposed to.

Oh, that’s awesome. How far back to say that word?

Well, the sourpuss meaning of it goes back to the 1860s.

Okay. Wow. That’s pretty neat, guys.

Yeah, and there’s the same idea in German, too.

Citrone means a lemon.

And they use that to refer to a car that, you know, leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, basically, which sounds like is what happened to your friend.

Yeah, right, yeah.

And the automobile use of it goes back to at least the 1920s, probably older.

That’s awesome, guys.

Really appreciate it.

But it often refers to, it’s funny, in the written record, lemon is often kind of a scam by the car dealer where the unsuspecting customer buys a car that is broken and the dealer knows that it’s broken but doesn’t tell them.

Whereas I know that in modern usage, we often say a lemon is just a car that doesn’t run well or a car that habitually doesn’t run well.

Like it continues to have problems.

So, Austin, what do you think your friend’s going to do?

I guess you’re just going to drive it until it falls apart.

Well, I’m sorry to hear that.

Please send our sympathies to him.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

Oh, thank you.

It’s awesome.

Take care.

Bye, Austin.

See you.

Give us a call about anything related to language or slang or jargon or where a thing comes from or why you say it or what you think other people should say.

877-929-9673.

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Our toll-free line is always open, so leave us a message at 877-929-9673 and we’ll take a listen.

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Grant and I are out to change the way we listen and think about language, and you’re making it happen.

Thanks also to senior producer Stefanie Levine, director and editor Tim Felten, director Colin Tedeschi, and production assistant Emma Kelman in San Diego.

In New York, we thank quiz guide John Chaneski, and that master of keeping it real, Paul Ruist at Argo Studios.

A Way with Words is an independent production of Wayword, Inc.

From the Recording Arts Center at Studio West in San Diego, I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

So long.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.