In the episode, Grant mentions repeating buffalo for emphasis when questioning whether someone meant shaggy cow. A postdoc in the lab next door to my graduate lab had a related story.
He moved from back east to Rolla, Missouri, and went to change to a Missouri driver license. In the pre-911 days, they just asked where one was born and he responded, "Cuba." The officer started to write down, "Cuba, Missouri" as it is familiar since it is only about 40 miles away. The postdoc said, "No. Cuba." The officer then questioned, "You mean, 'Cuba Cuba'?"
Yes, he was born in Cuba a year or two before Castro took over. He and his family were some of the early refugees.
We thought it was funny.
Emmett
I agree with the caller who opposed calling prices cheap or expensive rather than high or low. People who respect language should use it precisely.
The expression "lazy man's load" was new to me, but I remember my father saying that lazy people end up working the hardest.
LTW (lowly tech writer)
Haircut: I have encountered the "two bits" somewhat frequently of late, but I learned it as "six bits" - which in turn was too old for my 1933 birth. Do you have dates for these two uses? Also, is that nickel graphic one of the notorious "three-legged buffalo" errors from 1936 or '7 Denver mint?
Reckon: I think WW-II put an end to the "pure" regional dialects, long before electronics totally scrambled them. As late as the 1930s, Elizabethan (the first) constructions were common in the Big Thicket (southeastern Texas) and rural Hill Country (originally German land grant from Spain, Fredericksburg to New Braunsfels) had a rural patois which used English, German, and Spanish in the same sentence, but in a consistent grammatical way. All disappeared now.
Buffalo: Aside from my insistence that buffaloes come in Cape and Water, and do not apply to bison and weisent, I am furious with Martha for the "had" example. I was eager to finish the pod so I could add it here.
Still, another great program. I only recently (mid February) discovered the program and am going through the archives on a one a day basis (more than one for minis). I am now up to 2009. However, I could not get AG 31, S 9, MR 29, Je 2, and S 22. Is there any chance of them being recovered and posted again, or are they like Clementine, lost and gone forever? Dreadful sorry.
Prices are usually free, unless you have to pay for a quotation.
From Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass:
"The name of the song is called 'Haddocks' Eyes.'"
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel interested.
"No, you don't understand," the knight said, looking a little vexed. "That's what the name is called. The name really is "The Aged Aged Man."
During the short discussion on modern onomatopeias there was a focus on the word "yoink." Grant referenced Scooby Doo, but my mind went straight to The Simpsons. I knew that I had heard it many times on the show and found a website where they have actually recorded "The Yoink List." I know they didn't coin this term, but I believe that Homer and the others have definitely helped get this term into popular use.
http://www.snpp.com/guides/yoinks.html
Melville