Here's a riddle: "Nature requires five, custom gives seven, laziness takes nine, and wickedness eleven." Think you know the answer? You'll find it in this week's episode, in which Grant and Martha discuss this and other brain-busters. Also: how did the phrase "going commando" come to be slang for "going without underwear"? And which word is correct: "orient" or "orientate"?
This episode first aired October 25, 2008. Listen here:
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To go commando means to "go without underwear." But why "commando"? An Indiana listener says the term came up in conversation with her husband after one of them had a near-wardrobe malfunction. She mercifully leaves the rest to the imagination, but still wonders about the term. Grant says its popularity zoomed after a popular episode of "Friends." Watch the clips here: part one, part two.
A woman who grew up in India says she was baffled when someone with aching feet complained, "My dogs are barking." The answer may lie in a jocular rhyme.
Martha is baffled when Grant shares another riddle involving "four stiff standers, two lookers, and one switchbox." Can you figure out the answer?
To-ga! To-ga! To-ga! John Chaneski's latest quiz, "Classics Class," has the hosts rooting around for the ancient Greek and Latin origins of English words.
Those who commute coast-to-coast are "bicoastals." But what do you call someone who commutes along the same coast—between, say, Miami and New York? A woman who now travels regularly between Northern and Southern California to visit the grandchildren wonders what to call herself. She's already considered and nixed "bipolar." The hosts try to come up with other suggestions.
Remember when no one ever thought about adding the suffix "-gate" to a word to indicate a scandal? Now there's Troopergate, Travelgate, Monicagate, Cameragate, Sandwichgate, and of course, the mother of all gates, Watergate. Grant talks about the flood of "-gate" words inspired by that scandal from the 1970s.
An Atlanta listener seeks clarification about the difference between may and might. Might "may" be used to express a possibility, or is "might" a better choice?
In this week's slang quiz, a member of the National Puzzlers' League from Somerville, Massachusetts tries to guess the meaning of bottle room and shred, the latter as used in the context of snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing.
Do you cringe when you hear the words orientate and disorientate? A copy editor in Waldoboro, Maine does. She'd rather hear "orient" and "disorient." The hosts weigh in on that extra syllable.
They were the last words Abraham Lincoln heard before John Wilkes Booth assassinated him: "Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside-out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap!" Booth knew that this line from the play Our American Cousin would get a big laugh, so he chose that moment to pull the trigger. A Wisconsin listener wants to know the meaning and origin of that curious word, "sockdologizing." If you want to read the whole play, which has some silly wordplay and a dopey riddle or two, it's online at Project Gutenberg.
Does one take preventive or preventative measures? A caller in Ocean Beach, California who just graduated from an exercise science program wants to know which of these terms describes what she's been studying.
Here's a little explanation and clarification for the Chinese slang "sea turtle" mentioned in this episode.
The word is in fact a popular Mainland Chinese slang that's widely known in Taiwan but not locally adopted, at least not by Taiwanese who live in Taiwan.
It came about because the Chinese shorthand for "oversea returnee" is homophonous with the word for "sea turtle," and both words begin with the Chinese word/character for "sea," hence. 🙂
... But what do you call someone who commutes along the same coast—between, say, Miami and New York? ...
The seasonal New York (or New England) to Miami traveler is often called a "snowbird".
I was reminded during the episode of a song written in Cockney rhyming slang by the late British eccentric and genius, Vivian Stanshall. He is sorely missed.
Ginger Geezer
Geezer, wot a ginger geezer,
I nearly had a seizure,
When I clocked him in the Frog.Spruced up in me piccolo,
me tifter and me daisys,
Bowling down the rubba with me cherry china fido.
I rolled an oily rag,
Me cherry bread and cheesed
You won't adam wot I sees:Some geezer, an ooly ginger geezer,
A geezer wiv a hooter I suppose -
I really had to rabbit an' pork to this geezer,
Itie-ice-cream freezer,
Ginger geezer, sees-ya around.
Re sockdologizing:
There's a wonderfully humorous and suspenseful children's book, Winter Cottage, in which some children and their father are whiling away the winter in a borrowed house. Father entertains the children by making wonderful pancakes for breakfast in three sizes: sockdollagers, golwhollickers and whales (which cover the whole plate).
Now I know where the author got sockdollager, which I thought was just a made-up nonsense word!