When you get to the end of a wonderful book, your first impulse is to tell someone else about it. In this week's episode, Martha and Grant discuss what they've been reading and the delights of great prose.
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[audio: http://feeds.waywordradio.org/~r/awwwpodcast/~5/392857398/080915-AWWW-pwned-prose-stat.mp3 ]
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An Illinois man recalls that as a kid, he used to mix fountain drinks of every flavor into a concoction he and his friends called a suicide. He wonders if anyone else calls them that. Why a suicide? Because it looks and tastes like poison?
It started as a typo for “own,†now it's entrenched in online slang. A Kentucky caller is curious about pwn. It rhymes with “own†and means “to defeat†or “to triumph over.†Our hosts talk about a special meaning of “own†in the computer-gaming world.
Quiz Guy John Chaneski is Havana good time with Martha and Grant on an round-the-world International Puzzle Hunt that will leave you Beijing for more.
You seem to hear it on all the television hospital dramas: “stat!†A physician says she knows it means “immediately,†but she doesn't know its origins. Quick! Is there a Latin expert in the house?
A San Diego fisherman notes that he hears mariners talk about snotty weather. “Snotty?†Is it the kind that gives you the sniffles? Or does it cop an attitude?
Do you ever stare at a word so long that you think it's mispellllled? Even though it isn't? Your dialectal duo hunt up a word for that phenomenon.
Grant and Martha reveal what books are on their own nightstands, waiting to be read. Just the top of the stacks, natch, because there are just too many.
This week's “Slang This!†contestant tries to guess the meaning of the terms liver rounds and put the bite on someone.
An Indianapolis woman who grew up in the South says that when her slip was showing, her father used to say, “Who do you think you are, Miss Astor?†Martha shares other euphemisms for slips showing. If someone sidles up to you and says, “Pssssst! Mrs. White is out of jail,†it's time to check your hemline.
You can tell someone's an A Way with Words listener when they confess to lying awake at night wondering about questions like, “Are the words fillet and flay etymologically related?â€
A Minnesotan has been observing his infant babbling, and wonders if words like “mama†and “papa†arise from sounds that babies naturally make anyway. Are there some words or sounds that are instinctive? Or do babies only learn them from their parents?
About the infant babbling and the words for Mama and Dada, my husband and I arrived at an additional theory. When infants are unhappy and need comforted, they make m-m-m-m sounds. When infants are happy and playing, they make d-d-d-d sounds. Since Mothers traditionally provide comfort or are the one helping the baby who is unhappy, the m-m-m babbling or "Ma-ma" got assigned to the female parent role. Likewise, since Fathers traditionally spend more time with the infant while it is happy and in a general good mood, the d-d-d babbling or "Da-Da" got assigned to the male parent role. THis would explain why it is fairly consistent across many languages and cultures that the m sound goes with the female "name" and the d sound goes with the male name.
“PWN†is a term used by pubescent and teenage male players of on on line MMO video games, the “language†is commonly referred to as “L337 (i.e., “leetâ€) talk.†The same kids who use “teh†instead of spelling in correctly (â€theâ€) are speaking “L337.†The exact definition for “pwn†is “power owned.†You may be interested to know that many gaming guilds (on line MMO game fraternity/sorority-like groups), have banned the use of L337 talk by its members.
Hello,
in the latest "Slang This!" a woman who grew up in Minnesota said there was a term used there (ish/isch ?) that was similar in meaning to ick. It sounded a lot like a term in Swedish (I'm Swedish), that term is: usch! This term is used not only as a spoken reaction to something icky but also about bad weather, for example, among other things.
So I thought: Minnesota, many Swedes emigrated there (10% of present day people have Swedish ancestry there according to Wikipedia), then maybe it's the same word.
Great show, keep it up!
Cheers
Jesper
When I was in high school, the girls had a skirt for winter uniform and a dress for summer. The expression I heard girls telling each other to indicate a slip showing was "Charley's dead."