Sharpen those pencils! Martha and Grant are doing crosswords puzzles on the air again, preparing for their appearance with NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in New York City at the end of the month.
An Atlanta native wants to know why she and her fellow Southerners grew up using the word “plum,” as in “plum tuckered out.” Martha explains the connection between that kind of “plum” and “plumbers.”
Which is the correct form: “driver license,” “drivers' license,” or “driver's license”?
An Austin teenager wants to know why we refer to a girl who behaves boyishly as a “tomboy.”
This week's “Slang This!” contestant tries to guess the meaning of the terms “beano” (no, not the anti-gas treatment) and “macing” (no, not the stinging defensive spray).
A teacher discusses whether the correct form is “feel bad” or “feel badly.” By the way, the Latin proverb Martha mentions here is, “Qui docet, discet.”
Why do we use a capital letter “I” for the first person singular pronoun, but don't capitalize any other pronouns?
A caller from Maine says she was taught to say “bunny, bunny” at the first of each month for good luck. Then she met someone who says “rabbit, rabbit” for the same reason. What's the superstition behind these lagomorphic locutions?
In honor of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents a puzzle about—what else?—crossed words. He has invited listeners to submit their own single crossers to quizguys@waywordradio.org. A single crosser is two related words that share only a single letter. The most elegant ones will be both long and from a fairly tight category.
A caller wants to know why those deep-fried balls of cornmeal and spices are called “hush puppies.”
An ESL teacher puzzles over how to explain to his students the proper pronunciation of the word “route.” He asks whether the pronunciation “root” has been “routed” by “rowt.”
A caller is curious about an expression her father liked to use “off in the giggleweeds.” What's a giggleweed? And no, he didn't mean marijuana.
More next week. Notice how we didn't say, “Well, weed better be going”?
Hi:
I'm a proponent of "driving license," since I also have a "fishing license" and a "hunting license." It's a license to do the activity named....
Hi, Heather -- I hadn't even thought of that, but it's a good suggestion that we're now hearing in our email as well!
I had a friend in college who always used to refer to her "motor vehicle license." She said it was a subtle reminder to herself and others that it really was a license to operate a huge piece of heavy machinery at high speeds, and one should always take care to operate it with that in mind.
Bad vs Badly --
Thanks, Kim, for bringing up such a thorny pair.
Grant, I completely agree that the sensing, feeling, emotion adverbs are different. To me, they should be treated more akin to "be", which is unique in its position in English. If I say, "I am bad," bad is an adjective describing me, not an adverb describing how I am (a bad existence?).
Similarly, if I say "I feel bad" vs "I feel badly", I completely agree that in the second case "badly" is a fine adverb describing my feeling mechanism. However, I would assert that the first case is more like "be", where "bad" describes me. It's more of an adjective than an adverb, and thus the "-ly" difference is perfectly understandable.
I haven't seen this described in any authoritative work, though perhaps Grant & Martha, having read wider in the subject, may have. But, as an English speaker just trying, like everyone else, to invent retroactively the rules for why it might make sense, this makes sense to me.
Having just solved the world's problems, or at least the adverbial feeling ones, there's one other usage that makes me feel bad.
Just when I get them to say "badly" for true adverbial situations, my kids tell me, "I have to go to the bathroom really badly!"
For my daughter, I don't worry. But for my sons, it has been a continual battle. I don't WANT them to use the bathroom badly!
Somehow, there are two verbs there, though the second is only implied -- I have feelings, and I have to do something, and the adverb applies to the feelings even though I'm only speaking about doing something. UGH!
I've been working on them to say, "I badly have to go to the bathroom." But when they're in that state, grammar isn't on their minds.
And then there's, "I have to go really bad!" I can't even wrap my mind around that one ...
... unless it comes full circle, and "badly" would apply to how you go, and "bad" is the unspoken "feel" adjective!
FUBAR vs foobar.
In addition to the acronym FUBAR, there's the metasyntactic variable "foobar" which, along with foo and bar, is often used in computer programming as an all-purpose variable name.
I've gotten many a dirty look when calling something foobar and the listener hears it as FUBAR.