Tall Drink of Water (episode #1663)

Why is it harder to talk if we don’t move our hands? Even when we’re talking on the phone we feel the need to gesture to aid communication. A new book offers a look at the relatively new field of gesture studies. And: Ever wonder why we describe the American flag as “red, white, and blue?” Why not “blue, white, and red?” Plus, everyone should have a hellbox for tossing their discards! But where exactly would you find one? Also: a tall glass of water, since dirt was young, since King Hatchet was a hammer, since Hector was a pup, a brain teaser about multiple letters, sold down the river, an alliterative drinking game, upper-case vs. lower-case, how to pronounce pecan, and lots more.

This episode first aired August 16, 2025

Getting a Grip on Why We Gesture While Talking

 The new book Gesture: A Slim Guide (Bookshop|Amazon) by linguist Lauren Gawne includes some fascinating studies about the movements that accompany spoken or signed language. In one, participants were asked to learn rules of a game, then explain those rules to someone else they were going to play the game with, either a teammate or competitor. Each time the people giving the instructions used pretty much the same words, and made about the same number of gestures. The key difference? Their gestures were smaller when explaining the rules to a potential opponent, suggesting they didn’t want to be as clear or emphatic.

A Hankering for Fixing To

 Jill from Maryville, Missouri, and her 11-year-old son Ryan are wondering about the phrases I have a hankering to do something and I’m fixing to do something. Growing up in East Central Nebraska, Jill heard family and friends use them synonymously. Fixing to indicates being about to do something, while hankering has to do more with desiring to do something.

Eight Egotistical Egotists Eating Eggs and Other Cumulative Tales

 Heidi from Reno, Nevada, shares a bar game in which players take turns trying to recite by memory the increasingly long concatenation of phrases one fat hen, a couple of ducks, three brown bear, four running hare, five fickle female, six simple Simon, seven Siamese sailors sucking swans, eight egotistical egotists eating eggs, nine nymphating nymphs nibbling on a gnat’s nucleus, and ten Turkish tykes swiftly sailing down the Suwannee River while singing “Auld Lang Syne.” It’s an example of what folklorists call a cumulative tale or a formula tale, the most famous of which include “The Twelve Days of Christmas" and “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.” Serving as parlor games since the 1920s, such tales have served as screening tests for radio announcers. Similar sayings with alliterative accumulation include modern versions, such as Ten two-tone ten-ton transcontinental tanker trucks with tandem trailers traveling from Tyler, Texas, to Tallahassee, Tennessee, trucking twelve tanks of Texaco two-test Techroline on twenty-two tires with terrible treads.

Upper-Case, Lower-Case, and the Hellbox

 The terms upper-case and lower-case to designate the size of letters stem from printer’s slang from the days of typesetting. Since they used small letters most of the time, so they were kept in a case that was lower, and therefore more easily accessible. Less frequently used capital letters went in the upper case. Jumbled pieces of damaged or discarded type, were tossed into what printers called a hellbox, and left for apprentices to carry and sort through.

Three of a Kind, Four of a Kind Word Game

 Quiz Guy John Chaneski calls this week’s puzzle “Three of a Kind, Four of a Kind,” but it has nothing to do with cards. The challenge is to find words that have either three occurrences of a letter or four. For example, if the letter in question is B, what’s a word that has three instances of it, and what’s one that has four? Hint: One of them denotes something that doesn’t stop until it pops, and the other appears in the song “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?”

Why We Don't Wave the "Blue, White, and Red"

  Why do we speak of the red, white, and blue when discussing the American flag? Why not blue, white, and red or white, red, and blue? A couple of reasons: The color order lodged in the language thanks in part to the patriotic song from the 1840s, “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean.” The phrase red, white, and blue follows a trochaic pattern which has a pleasing rhythm. The staying power of this phrase is reinforced by what’s called hendiatris, from ancient Greek for “one through three,” a rhetorical device where an idea is strengthened when expressed as a triad, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

"I Put Back My Head and Howled"

 A Louisiana listener shares a favorite passage from Laurie Lee’s memoir Cider with Rosie (Bookshop|Amazon), about his boyhood in post-World-War II England. An extract is here and contains the passage:“For the first time in my life I was out of the sight of humans. For the first time in my life I was alone in a world whose behavior I could neither predict nor fathom: a world of birds that squealed, of plants that stank, of insects that sprang about without warning. I was lost and I did not expect to be found again. I put back my head and howled, and the sun hit me smartly on the face, like a bully.”

Anyway vs. Anyways

 Guy in Appleton, Wisconsin, asks which is correct: anyways or anyway?

Its Intriguing History Gives "Pecan" Those Different Pronunciations.

 How do you pronounce pecan? Is it pee-KAHN or PEE-kan? And why are there different pronunciations of the name of this nut? The word pecan was borrowed into English more than once, and from numerous Native American languages that had variations on the word (sometimes meaning just "nut" and not specifically "pecan"). So not only were various versions of the name for this hard-shelled nut borrowed from indigenous languages, they also migrated into English in different ways — picked up by the French, for example, as well as speakers of Spanish borrowing it from the French and the Native Americans, and the English borrowing it from the French in Louisiana. The pee-KAHN pronunciation is generally more common in the South. Elsewhere, you may hear PEE-kan or pee-KAN. Some people say that the word pecan is pronounced differently depending on whether it’s eaten raw or baked in a pie, but there’s no solid historical reason behind that idea. And, yes, we've heard the joke about the can under the bed at night.

Why Do We Gesture When Talking, Even When Nobody Else Can See Us?

 Why is it harder to talk if we don't gesture? Why do we still move our hands if we're talking on the phone but the other person can't see us? Such questions are tackled in the new book Gesture: A Slim Guide (Bookshop|Amazon), a sort of survey course of the state of gesture studies. The author, linguist Lauren Gawne of Latrobe University in Melbourne, Australia, is also cohost, along with internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch, of the Lingthusiasm podcast, an entertaining, informative show that all about, as they put it, “what’s neat about linguistics.”

"Sold Down the River" is Tied to Terrible Deeds

 A moving visit to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, and the nearby Freedom Monument Sculpture Park there on the banks of the Alabama River, prompts a Massachusetts woman to reflect on the history of slavery in the United States and the phrase sold down the river. Although today sold down the river may simply mean “betrayed,” the phrase first appears with reference to selling those who were enslaved and sending them down the Mississippi River to labor under even harsher conditions than farther north. The terrorizing threat of being sold down the river is referenced in such books as Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The Sweet Reluctance of Pages

 A memorable commencement speech by author Kurt Vonnegut celebrates books and “the sweet reluctance of their pages when you turn them with your sensitive fingertips.”

Expressions Meaning "For a Long Time"

 Ron in Gloverville, South Carolina, wonders about the phrase since hatchet was hammer, which some use to mean “for a long period of time,” as in My family has lived here since hatchet was hammer. Another phrase he’s heard indicating the same thing is since goat was calf. Since Hector was a pup, since Methuselah was a boy, since Christ was a corporal, since dirt was young, or since dirt was rock. The version involving a hatchet and hammer is currently used in several Caribbean countries, but usually in the form of since King Hatchet was a hammer. One of the earliest uses of the phrase is from New Zealand in the late 19th century. It may well be that the phrase was much more widespread but has since fallen out of use.

Well, Aren't You a Tall Drink of Water?

 If you’re described as a tall drink of water, or a a tall glass of water that’s a good thing. It suggests, especially for men, that you’re good-looking. A little more than a century ago, that phrase suggested a person was bland and boring, but it’s much more positive now.

This episode is hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, and produced by Stefanie Levine.

Photo by Kurman Communications LLC. Used and modified under a Creative Commons license.

Books Mentioned in the Episode

Music Used in the Episode