Country Mile (episode #1691)

Listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

The other day, somebody mentioned a fly in the ointment, and then she stopped and said, wait.

What what does that even mean, a fly in the ointment.

Right.

Because we just pass along these idioms and colloquialisms, and we don’t necessarily examine them even if we know what they mean.

Yes.

And I got all excited because, of course, I had to go dig up the etymology of this, and it’s really fascinating.

It comes from the book of Ecclesiastes.

In the King James version of the Bible, it reads, dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor.

So doth a little folly, him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor.

In other words, one little thing can ruin your reputation.

It doesn’t have to be a big thing.

You know?

One moment.

Vivid than the way we use it today.

We just talk about unwanted matter in our circumstance or or our concoction, but, really, it’s talking about rotten stench interfering with our our concoction.

Yes.

And the rotten stench here is key because in ancient times, ointment didn’t necessarily mean medicine the way we think of it today.

Ointment could also be a perfumed cosmetic or a scented oil.

Right.

The oil that you might do on, like, chapped dry feet.

Right?

Yes.

A sign of respect or tribute.

Right.

Or, you know, put something behind your ear because it smells good.

You know, a dead fly or two is gonna stink up a whole vial of perfume.

So that’s the idea.

And then it was only in the eighteenth century that English speakers started using the specific phrase fly in the ointment to mean that small thing that messes up a good situation.

But, Grant, you and I both love it when somebody asks us a question and then just sends us off on a lexical treasure hunt like that.

And you know what?

They can totally control our behaviors by saying their language questions to us to email words@waywordradio.org Handleless like marionettes in The US and Canada, call or text toll-free, (877-929-9673.

Hi there.

You have A Way with Words.

Hello.

This is Jamal.

How are you?

Jamal, I’m doing well.

And yourself?

I’m doing great.

I’m at wonderful sunny day here in South Carolina.

We’re glad to have you, Jamal.

What’s on your mind today?

So I used to get dropped off early in the morning.

My mom was a school teacher, and I’d be there with a football waiting for the boys to come in elementary school to play.

And the guys would eventually come, and it’d be five on five, and we will play football.

Now, originally, I was from Pennsylvania, but here I am finding myself in first grade in Chicago, in elementary school, playing on the South Side Chicago with these boys.

And we would all line up in a row, and we kick the ball off or we throw the ball off.

But they would all chant at the same time.

Wannay.

And I’m wondering, like, how does everybody know that, first of all?

And in different areas of Chicago, it was not just for that one little community.

Yeah.

All of the boys knew this as the word, like a colloquial term, to go, to again for us?

Run.

Got it.

Everybody would go.

There’s there’s some musicality to it for sure.

And so all the other places that you lived beside Chicago, you had never heard that?

Never heard that before.

Ok.

Alright.

And you know what?

It’s a…

It’s this weird remnant.

This it’s this weird relic or remnant from other children’s games, not from football exactly.

And so what that is is a form of the word warning, w a r n I n g.

And so when you say it loud, full full…

Fully throated and, you know, with some kind of music to it, it kinda gets corrupted a little bit.

You’ll even see it spelled sometimes in print as w a r n e y.

And what it was was this thing that you would shout, basically to say the game is…

The game has commenced.

Like, you know, the game is afoot.

It’s all starting now.

And it was particularly associated with certain kinds of games that are more or less a form of tag, where there’s a person who’s it and they have to hold their hands clasped together, and their goal is to not unclasp them and there’s certain kinds of things that happen if you capture them or they capture you.

So there’s all these complicated rules for that game, and there’s a bunch of other games that had it as well.

Again, you start up by basically saying, everybody ready?

Warning.

Meaning, we’re starting now, and I’m it, and I’m now allowed to chase you because I have given you the warning.

You know, it’s interesting.

I took my father to the hospital the other day.

He was just gonna see his regular physician.

Mhmm.

And he has Alzheimer’s.

He’s 84 years old, and I told him the whole scenario.

And do you know what he said to us?

What?

He was like, warning.

He said warning.

Oh, he knew it.

How about that?

My mother my mother and I looked at him, and we we we laughed.

You you doubt him to know what you’re saying.

But my dad is originally from Chicago.

So honey.

Would know.

Yeah.

Well, there was a time when that was far more common.

I’m I’m interested to hear if it’s still common in Chicago.

Yeah.

And if you’ve got a a father who’s 84, you’re probably not a spring chicken yourself.

So who knows if the kids today still use it.

But…

Well, you never know.

You never know.

But you know, it was it was…

There’s records of it in various collections of children’s games in The US and Canada and different mentions over the years since the eighteen sixties of that being used as a shout before games.

How about A shout before games.

Yes.

And here I thought it was from some militarized combat for warn…

You know, warn You know, in children play, sometimes it is like war.

Yeah.

But, Jamal, there we go.

Your your dad knew the answer.

We’ve confirmed it.

You’ve got you’ve got a solution locked in.

Amazing.

Well, thank you so much for figuring that out.

And here I thought it was the colloquial term for let’s go, one, two, three, go.

You know?

Nope.

Nope.

A good guess, but nope.

But, Jamal, I will give some time and best wishes to to your dad as well.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate that.

Yeah.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Well, how did they talk out your way?

What’s what’s the word or phrase that you used and everybody looked at you like you had two heads?

Give us call and talk about it.

(877-929-9673.

Hi there.

You have A Way with Words.

Actually, I have a very good way with words.

My name is Frederick Thomas.

I am a born and raised Philadelphian, and I’m a playwright.

So I have lots of words.

Oh, boy.

Goodness.

Yes.

Well, what words are on your mind today?

The three words that I called in about are down the shore, which is a strange way of getting to the beach.

The Philadelphians and Eastern Pennsylvanians, anybody who goes to the beach in Jersey, Pennsylvania, and a little bit of Delaware, we don’t go to the beach.

We go down the shore.

Mhmm.

And I discovered that this is not…

It’s not really a silly…

It’s not really a nationwide thing, and we have so much coastline.

And what I was curious about was, does anybody else in the country go down the shore before they go to the beach?

And I…

No.

No.

They they don’t, Freida.

They absolutely don’t.

There’s nobody else in The United States except for the part of the country that you name.

So that’s Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, parts of Delaware where people are more likely to say down the shore meaning go to the beach.

Let me ask you for some clarification.

Because it’s not in the reference works that talk about this.

When you say go to the beach, do you mean to the beach towns or actually to the sand and water?

Or both?

What I mean is is your final destination to town?

Are you actually gonna go get your feet wet?

A friend of mine said, well, the conversation for him usually goes like this.

I’m going down the shore this weekend.

Oh, what beach are you going to?

Because everybody has their own beach.

Yeah.

So it…

It’s really more about the shore region of that part of the country than it is specifically to the sand and water.

Is that what I’m thinking about?

But then my friend Sydney said, well, before you can go to the beach, you do have to go down the shore and change your clothes and get into your bathing tooth and carry the chair and the umbrella and walk and walk.

It’s back up on cold drinks.

So there’s a little…

And I discovered this.

I didn’t even know that it wasn’t a a nationwide No.

It it is.

I will say there is a little bit of Canada that uses something similar, but, course, they don’t mean go to the shore.

When they say down the shore in Newfoundland and Labrador, they don’t mean, of course, New Jersey or, you know, any of the beaches near there.

Oh, no.

They’re talking about…

But they do say down the shore according to my reference works in part of…

In in Newfoundland and Labrador in part of No.

Ok.

Referring to their own coastal area, and they’re literally talking about, like, going along the coast rather than literally going to the beach and swimming or or sunbathing.

In Maryland, they go down the ocean.

Down the ocean.

Down down?

It usually sounds like…

Oh.

Down ocean with a y?

Yes.

It sounds like Downey.

But…

They’re going Downey Ocean.

But, Frida, the explanation is two things.

One is the Eastern part of the country, especially the big cities, have been around a lot longer than the rest of the country.

So they’ve had a chance to develop their own regional variations.

And then once they develop, there’s a fierce local pride in the way that people talk.

They kind of start to recognize, oh, this is what we say here.

And then they just say it more.

And so kind of is a self reinforcing loop of the thing we say is the thing we say.

So down the shores is one of many examples of that where people kinda know, oh, if I if I live here, this is what I say, you know, and I’m gonna I’m gonna fit in and say this.

But Freida, I wanna say thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Bye.

Have a wonderful day.

You too.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Toll free in The US and Canada, (877-929-9673.

Harlan Messenger of Arlington, Virginia wrote to us with this observation.

He says, no matter how carefully you try to transfer something in the kitchen from a pan to a plate or a plate to a container or chocolate chips to the mixer, there’s gonna be at least one piece that spills onto the counter or the floor.

There’s gotta be a word for that.

Oh, I love that.

I bet in smelting and mining and other metalwork industries, they have names for that.

Right?

Would you call that slag?

What would you call that?

Kitchen slag.

Something like that?

I don’t know.

But I’m sure people have household word to that.

What is that?

No matter how careful you are.

Yeah.

Crumbs or powder or something ends up on the floor and you’re, wait a second.

I was as careful as I could be.

Why do I have to sweet it?

Yeah.

The only thing I could think of was maybe paying the transfer tax.

Oh, yeah.

But there’s…

But there’s of course also the finger tax.

Like, you know, he’s gotta sample the sweet.

Right?

A little bit of icing, a little bit of batter, one or two chocolate chips.

They don’t make it into the bowl’ they make it into your mouth.

Well, yeah.

But is that called a finger tax?

I didn’t know that.

Well, I don’t know what it’s called.

Be.

But I know our listeners will have words for it.

Or text toll free (877-929-9673.

Stay put.

We’ll be right back to Untangle the Web of English.

John Chanezki.

I understand.

Boobu.

I’m teasing your brains.

Oh, what do you have for us, John?

You know, they say a word to the wise is enough.

But what if you’re just naturally loquacious and your listener wants a little more information?

That’s why I’ve come up with something I call addages with ad spelled a d d,’ cause we’re gonna add things.

I’m gonna over overexplain to you a common saying or a piece of advice using overwrought vocabulary, and you’ll tell me the original saying.

So this is the will actually word quiz.

Exactly.

Yeah.

For example, if I said effortless materialization, effortless dematerialization, you would say Easy come.

Easy go.

Easy come.

Easy go.

Very good.

Yes.

We’re off and running.

So let’s begin this quiz.

Adges.

It’s possible to direct an aqueous ferris cabalus to a hydration location, but it is not possible to compel it to hydrate.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

Exactly.

Granted, these are not gonna be hard.

It’s just more of a question.

How after I begin will you pick up on the answer?

Well, I was stuck on the Ferris and started thinking about railroads and iron horses and then I see.

You’re too smart for this.

It is not recommended that those who own or rent a domicile principally constructed of a transparent amorphous solid should cast about compressed minerals.

Good advice.

Those who live in plexiglass would not throw stones’ they’ll bounce right back at you.

Even worse than glass, plexiglass’ cause you’ll just come back at you.

Right?

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

How about this one?

This is good advice.

A gratis midday meal is mythical.

Ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

Those are just things…

This one’s actually shorter than the original.

A gratis midday meal is mythical.

I like it.

Should something not be in need of repair, it is recommended that you make no repairs.

It ain’t broke.

Don’t fix it.

Very good.

Yes.

Ain’t broke.

Don’t fix it.

It sounds so much like a poorly translated instructions in something to order a problem like T-Moo.

That’s…

A vessel under observation will not at any time reach the rapid phase transition of liquid to gas.

A watched pot never boils.

Yes.

A lot more words than needed there.

Avians of similar plumage convene concertedly.

Yes.

They do.

Birds of a feather flock together.

Yes.

They do.

By necessity, all affairs that are excellent reach a conclusion.

Every good thing must end, and so must we.

All good things must come to an end just like this quiz.

Well done, guys.

Well, thank you for all that wonderful advice, John.

That was very edifying.

We know you’ve got those language puzzles that you’ve been sitting on.

Let Martha and me solve’ for you.

Call or text toll-free in The US and Canada.

(877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

I’m Joe, and I’m calling from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Hi, Joe.

Welcome to the program.

What’s up?

Hey.

I had a question for you guys about a word that we used in college, And this is something that I’ve found…

I went to maritime college, so studying to to work on ships when you graduate.

It’s a word that I think is only used at maritime colleges.

I’m not sure about that.

But the word is pony.

And we use pony to describe a practice test or if you had, like, an old copy of a test from a year prior, you’d say, oh, did you study the pony?

Did you get a copy of the pony?

I’ve never heard of anyone from, like, a normal college using this word, but everyone from from the maritime colleges knows and uses this word.

That’s so interesting.

So we’re talking about p o n y, like the horse.

Yeah.

I don’t even know how it’s spelled, honestly.

I don’t know if it’s n I e or n y.

I don’t know.

And so It was a…

It’s a verbal word.

You know?

Is that…

So with the Maritime Academy, is that the only place that you encountered it in your schooling?

Yes.

So I went to the US Merchant Marine Academy, but there’s actually seven maritime academies in America where you go and you graduate with a Coast Guard license and a and a bachelor’s degree after four years.

But everyone in the in the industry kinda knows and uses the word.

Mhmm.

But I’ve never heard it used anywhere else.

And when I reference it to, like, anyone who’s not, you know, a maritime person, they look at you like you’re crazy.

Well, rest easy, Joe,’ I know we can answer this one.

Yeah.

This is so interesting because, Joe, this is a real old student slang sense of the word pony, p o n y.

But it’s much older and broader than the US maritime academies.

It turns out that it’s as old as the nineteenth century in British school slang.

A pony was a literal translation or a summary of a text that was used as a shortcut or or a study aid, you know, something that you could use to to crib.

And sometimes these were called ponies.

Sometimes they were called a horse or a trot.

And the idea in all of those cases appears to be essentially that instead of doing the intellectual walking yourself, you’re riding on this thing that’s taking you there and and making it easy.

So instead of plotting, you’re racing around the track at high speed.

No.

That’s so funny because we would ask, hey.

Did you study?

And some people would just go, now I’m…

I do think I’m just gonna ride the pony on this one.

Oh, nice.

Hopefully, the pony hit.

Nice.

And, Martha, did you see that the linguist and Connie Ebely, who recorded college slang for decades in North Carolina, found it being called automobiles.

Modernized for the modern age to…

But exactly the same concept.

It’s like this crib sheet.

Sometimes it’s pure out cheating where you’ve got a paper up your sleeve and sometimes it’s just you have the answers or the exam in advance.

Yeah.

Exactly.

An automobile or a bicycle.

Bicycle.

Yeah.

That’s the other one.

So two hundred years back to the eighteen twenties at least.

I’ve got one more very cool thing for you that you’re gonna appreciate, Joe.

About five years ago…

I’m looking through our email here.

About five years ago, we got an email from a guy named Rob Kright, and he says he graduated from a merchant marine engineering school in the early nineteen eighties.

And he says, to us, a pony was a copy of the test given to previous classes.

And so they used the word pony where he went to school.

He doesn’t say which school, but he also adds that on many Yeah.

On many occasions, the instructor knew there was a pony out there.

So he would throw in little gremlins in the test to trick unwary Right.

Changing one number.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you did you find that as well?

Yes.

They would.

They would they would have very similar questions, but they would change little details.

So you…

But if, you know, if you had the pony, you knew what the test was gonna look like, and that was the important thing.

But, Joe, that’s what we know about pony.

A long…

Two hundred years of history, eighteen twenties at least.

Used to be broader now.

It’s more specific, but it’s still obviously got a legacy in the merchant the merchant maritime schooling.

Yeah.

I wonder if they still use it over in The UK or not.

Good question.

Well, our British listeners our British listeners will surely let us know.

Thank you so much for sharing with us.

We really appreciate it.

Thanks for answering that.

It’s really interesting, You take care now.

Bye-bye.

Alright.

Bye.

Joe.

You know, you think a term is this idle little flimsy thing that is just used in passing.

But when you really look into it, so often, it’s got a deeper history that connects to other parts of of history and culture and other societies.

And we love talking about that kind of language here on the show.

Bring yours to us.

You can call or text toll free, (877-929-9673 in The US and Canada.

Gina Bradshaw from Harvest, Alabama emailed us with a question.

I’ve heard the phrase just dessert many times, and in my mind, thought it was spelled d e s e r t, as in someone getting the dessert or treat they deserved good or bad.

But I recently read the phrase and noticed it was spelled d e s e r t, like an arid place with little precipitation.

Have I been mentally spelling this wrong my whole life?

Well, Gina can relax and not worry about it because that is an incredibly common confusion.

A lot of people aren’t quite sure what that dessert is in there in the middle.

Is it the food?

Is it a dry place?

Is it something else?

It is what you deserve.

It’s…

Yeah.

The word des…

Dessert is a very old noun that means something deserved.

It comes from French, from a French word that means to deserve.

So when we have our just desserts, we…

If there is justice in the world, we are getting what we deserve.

So it’s a third word, a third dessert.

That’s right.

And the dessert, that means what you have after dinner comes from a different French word That means to clear the table.

Oh, like to deservice, basically, to take everything off.

Because that’s what you traditionally would do in a more, you know, sophisticated meal environment.

Take off the main plates and maybe bring out the cognac and some sweets at the end.

Right.

Right.

So it’s a very understandable confusion.

But, yeah, Just Desserts has one s in the middle.

Boy, English is confusing, but it is a heck of a lot of fun to sort out.

That’s what Martha and I are here for, not just English, but any language you wanna toss at us.

We’ll give it a go.

Call or text toll free in The US and Canada.

(877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

My name is Diana Stafford, and I’m in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Oh, well, it’s nice to talk with you.

What’s what’s on your mind today?

Several weeks ago, I scraped my leg against a chair and just the very front part of my leg.

And when my daughters asked me what had happened, I said, I barked my shin.

And these are two daughters who are well educated and well read, and they both said, I’ve never heard that expression before.

So I thought maybe you people would help me figure out where that came from.

Oh, and how old are they that they didn’t know the expression?

They’re in…

They’re both in their fifties.

Fifties.

Wow.

I’m just kinda surprised.

Martha, is this an expression that you know if you’re walking around in the dark and you you bang an ankle on the Bark table.

Shin.

Yeah.

You know, I never used it growing up.

I only learned it when I started working with language much much later.

Yeah.

It’s got a…

It’s not quite archaic, I wouldn’t say, but it’s certainly a little fossilized.’

Cause what’s happening here is we don’t really use barked that way very often.

And this is the verb bark, meaning to remove or peel back or to scrape something.

Like you might do with the actual bark of a tree, which is what it’s referring to.

So barking something may mean taking the bark off of it and that’s kind of what you’re doing if you injure yourself enough to peel back the skin.

And then shin, of course, is just this another name for a particular body part down there at the lower leg.

And together, they’re just…

It’s kind of a set expression, colloquialized and lexicalized and set and it goes back at least to the early eighteen teens.

And one of my favorite early uses of it that I could find is from a story called…

A newspaper article called The Miseries of Brooklyn from 1825, and it…

It’s got all these things that are terrible about living in Brooklyn, New York.

And one of them is treading on the hoops and poles in front of a Cooper’s shop and thereby barking your shins.

Ouch.

And I just love the the hoops and poles for a Cooper shop.

It’s such a picture of another era.

Right?

Like, two hundred years ago, we just…

There aren’t many Cooper shops left Yeah.

To go barking your shins by.

Yeah.

I was confused the first time I ran across this expression because I thought of, you know, barking aloud in pain, but it’s a different kind of bark.

Yeah.

And it…

They’re not etymological connected.

The barking of a dog and the bark of a tree just…

It’s like so many other, you know, hom…

Homonyms or homographs in English.

It’s just a coincidence that they’re the same.

So…

Yeah.

It’s nothing to do with dogs.

So, Diana, a teachable moment with your dog.

Although, I know we’re gonna get calls from people in emails going like, but what about…

What…

My dogs are hurting me.

Yeah.

That’s different, and it’s not related, but ok.

Right.

I know it’s feet, but it’s not related to this bark.

Well, Diana, thank you so much for calling with this question.

Alright.

Thank you.

Bye.

Enjoy your show.

Thank you.

Thanks.

(877-929-9673.

You know when you get up in the middle of the night and you stub your toe or you bark your shin on something and you say something that that’s a little off color, I guess.

Mhmm.

Absolutely.

Something that you want only the cats to hear.

Right.

Or maybe you step in something cold that the cats That the cat has left you.

Yeah.

But worse, warm.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

You get that emotional release from saying something that’s a little bit indecent.

You know, there’s a word for that.

One medical itself?

Yeah.

One medical dictionary defines it as emotional release gained by uttering indecent or filthy words.

The word is lalakisia.

Wow.

Say that again.

Spell that out for us.

It’s l a l o c h e z I a.

And the lallow here is from the Greek lalia, meaning speech, like glossalia Mhmm.

Which is speech.

I was connecting that in my head.

There we go.

There we go.

What’s the word one more time?

Lalakesia.

Lalakesia, those things you utter in the darkness when you’ve stubbed your toe.

Gotcha.

A little off color, not very polite.

Speaking of not very polite, the comes from the Greek word meaning to poop.

Oh, gotcha.

Well, whatever you’re doing right now, daytime or nighttime in the dark or not, call or text toll-free, (877-929-9673.

Hi.

You have A Way with Words.

Yeah.

This is Mark Cross, and I’m in Reno, Nevada.

Well, welcome to the show, Mark.

What can we do for you?

Thank you.

Every year, our golf club has a member member guest tournament, and one of the things they do is they hand out something called a pigeon sheet.

And on that pigeon sheet, you record all the people that you make wagers with, you know, by team.

Mhmm.

And then at the end of the tournament, you go down and, you know, you pay or collect money from each of the people that you made wagers with.

And after one of those tournaments, we were all sitting around and, you know, licking our wounds and stuff.

And we…

Nobody knew where a pigeon sheet came from.

And I tried to do a Google search, and it didn’t yield me much.

And it’s interesting because on the way home, I happen to be listening to your program after the tournament.

So I just thought, well, what the heck?

I called in and so here we are.

Yeah.

Let me ask you, Mark.

So when you’re golfing, do you ever have that kind of fellow golfer who has far more confidence in their abilities than they should?

The person who’s, like, all ego and no skill.

Yeah.

Of course.

There’s majority of golfers, you know, are pretty good people, but there there are plenty of guys like that that have former confidence and skill.

Yeah.

Those are the ones I like those are the ones I like to place my wagers with on the pigeon sheet.

There we go.

And that’s it.

That’s what I was looking for because those people are known as pigeons and have been for five hundred years.

People who think that they’re gonna get ahead or beat the system or who are just easy marks for other people are known as pigeons.

And so the pigeon sheet really is just a tally tally of a lot of easy marks.

That’s why it’s called that.

Because Okay.

A lot of money…

You know how it is.

A lot of money can change hands on the course or at at a golf club.

Like, there’s a great deal of cash moving from person to person.

And so you you couldn’t really get taken if you…

If you’re not careful and if you have too much confidence in your abilities.

Yeah.

And that’s what we…

That we kinda thought that, but then, you know, everybody on there is not a pigeon.

Right?

No.

But, I mean, that’s kind of the big joke of it, right, is that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re what…

You’re what’s known as the pigeon hunter as they used to call them, the person who grows up finding the marks.

Traditional gamblers who look for the easy marks were known as pigeon hunters.

But you don’t necessarily know at the start of a given tournament whether or you’re gonna be the pigeon by the end of the day.

Right.

Particularly at our amateur level.

You know?

Well, Mark, we wish you the best of luck out there on the greens.

Don’t be the mark, the fish, the patty, or the pigeon.

Got it.

I’m gonna be the eagle and the birdie.

There we go.

Fly like an eagle, sorta like a hawk.

Alright, Mark.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Alright.

Thanks a lot.

Yeah.

Sure.

Alrighty.

Bye-bye.

Alright.

Bye-bye.

Email us if you like to talk about language words at waywordradio dot o r g.

It’s the bouncy house for language.

Listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Not long ago, we had a conversation with Sid in Dallas, Texas.

He’s the guy who works at an animal shelter where the staff refers to their many large tan mixed breed dogs as either Texas brown dogs or TBDs.

You remember that one, Grant?

I do.

Yeah.

These beautiful muts where you don’t care very much.

They’re not purebreds’ they’re just so lovable.

And we had a lot of responses to this including, you know, old standards like Hines fifty seven and the ones that’s just a little rarer like Duke’s Mixture, which we’ve talked about in other capacities on the show.

And of course, the one from Hawaii, which caught me by surprise’ it reminded me of a musical group that I liked.

A musical group?

Yeah.

Poy Dog, p o I, is what they call a mixed breed mutt in Hawaii.

And in the nineteen eighties, there was a a big college act called poi dog pondering that did all the touring and we were all in love with.

Oh, no kidding.

Yeah.

Lovely music.

And they call’ poi dogs because, traditionally, they were fed with a mash of poi, which is that mashed fermented taro root that’s Mhmm.

You know, cheaper to feed your dog than than meat.

And it is funny how many of the names of these mixed breed dogs as, you know, for example, in The Caribbean, potcakes has to do with what you feed them, and it is often the the scraps or remains or whatever’s left behind when the human meal is cooked or eaten.

Exactly.

And there are also versions of names that have to do with traffic.

Oh.

In in Denmark, there are a couple of creative names for muts.

They can be called a Gedeclus, which is a street intersection, which sort of makes sense.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

All these heritage lines coming together.

Exactly.

Or even more so, which is a roundabout.

Know?

I’m just picturing all these these things.

Way is the genetics gonna go?

We have no idea.

Or you can get a little more naughty and talk about a holy heck, which is a hole in the hedge.

Oh, so the idea as with…

When the dogs were having relations, so to speak, they didn’t know necessarily who they were having relations with hidden by the hedge.

Right.

Right.

They were on the other side.

And of traffic, one of our listeners said they called their dogs ladies and gentlemen of the curb.

Oh, yeah.

We had a few of those that we…

I think we might have talked about last time in in The Caribbean and South America where they…

Different forms of street dog, but only made a little more elaborate to make them sound like these auspicious and very elite breeds.

Yes.

Yes.

But if none of those quite fit Mhmm.

Kate in Olympia Washington sent us one more, which I really liked, which is canardly, because you canardly tell what kind of dog that is.

Yeah.

It reminds me of the bits of dogs, the bits of this and the bits of that.

Well, we’re still taking those wonderful names that you call your mutt dogs that you love so much.

Send your photos of the dog and what you call’ to us by email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hi.

This is Vida from Rochester, New York.

Hey, Vida.

Welcome to the show.

What can we do for you today?

My husband keeps using the expression a country mile, and it…

He uses it so frequently that I thought, oh my god.

I gotta find the origin of that expression.

You know?’

Cause it’s been around for a long time, and I’ve heard people use it, and I think it just means, like, a long ways.

But, you know, I’m just curious as to the origin of it.

So if he’s giving someone directions, he might say, oh, yeah.

Go about a country mile and then make a left.

Yep.

Yep.

That’s it.

That’s it.

Yeah.

This one’s got a long history.

This goes back at least three hundred years to The United Kingdom.

And it’s almost always been this approximate distance, you know?

And it and it comes from a couple different things.

One is because we don’t, you know, we don’t actually measure distances all that often.

Right?

We don’t always know exactly how far something is to the to the inch or to the foot.

And so we estimate.

But the one interesting notion here is that a country mile is a little longer, even if it is an actual mile, because it takes you longer to drive it because the roads are bumpier.

Maybe they’re unpaved or they’re…

They go…

They’re more…

They’re curvier.

You know?

A country road maybe isn’t as sleek in a straight as a as a city road.

Yeah.

I was gonna say I spent the week in Southeast England earlier this year, and I would look at the map and, you know, it say this town is 10 miles away, but the roads are so curvy that, you know, half an hour later, we’re driving to this town.

Right.

It’s 10 miles away.

And there were lots of variations on this, Vija.

I don’t know if you or your husband know these, but sometimes you’ll hear an Irish mile or a Welsh mile and now…

Or a Scotts mile.

But what’s interesting with these is sometimes the confusion about what a mile is is because there were different standards of measurement.

Like, back in the day, the English had one distance that was a mile, the Irish had another, and the Scots had a third.

And so, it, you know, it was kind of like, which mile are we talking about?

Who knows?

It’s, you know, it’s a country mile.

It’s somewhere in the mix of the three of these distances is how far it is.

Although, there other ones, like I think the Welsh Mile was just a vague distance, like a country mile as well.

There’s a Kentish Mile named after the County Of Kent.

So a lot of different of these approximate distances.

But let me ask you, do you or your husband follow baseball at all?

Baseball?

Yeah.

No.

‘ Cause it’s a favorite of baseball announcers.

They’ll talk about, yeah.

He hit that a country mile.

Up it goes.

That’s a home run or whatever.

But they’ll talk about a ball that goes very far, but they’ll talk about it going a country mile.

Or they’ll say things like missed by a country mile or that, you know, that pitch wasn’t within a country mile of the plate.

So sometimes it’s about exaggerating a distance to make seem more extreme than it is.

-huh.

I I I guess that would be my understanding that it would be an exaggeration of distance.

Ok.

But it’s it’s such a common expression.

You know, people will use it frequently.

And it’s like, where’d that come from?

You know, my girlfriend is sitting next to me.

Yeah.

She has a question.

Can she ask?

Yeah.

Sure.

Fire away.

Hi.

I’m Stephanie from Georgia, and I’m up here visiting because I used to live up here, and I’m here for a week.

But you keep talking about the word mile.

I don’t know where that actually came from because United Kingdom is in kilometers.

And when I’ve been there, the driving, it’s always kilometers, and yet you’re talking about the word mile, which I always thought was an American word and not an English word even though we’re basically from there.

Oh, you know, it’s an English system or it used to be, but they joined the entire rest of the world except for The US and adopting the metric system.

We are stuck in our old fashioned ways in this country.

So they they still talk about miles in England even though they use kilometers.

They’ll still…

Certainly in colloquial expressions, but before it entered into English, was a Latin word, meaning thousand and it referred to a Roman measurement of a thousand paces.

So it’s it’s gone quite the distance from from from Rome to London to to The United States.

Several country miles.

It sure is.

That makes a lot of sense.

It does make a lot of sense.

Well, Stephanie, enjoy your time there.

I know that’s a beautiful country.

And, Vita, thank you so much for your question.

We really appreciate it.

Ok.

Thank you.

Thank you for selling the mystery.

Mhmm.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

You can send us a text or leave us a voice mail anytime.

(877-929-9673.

You know that casual meal you throw together when you can’t be bothered to cook?

You just put out some cheese and crackers and maybe cold cuts and olives and grapes and just whatever is handy in the fridge.

Dinner, they call that.

Right.

You you know, in Britain, that’s called picky bits.

Picky bits.

And it reminds me so much of one of those words that we learned from our listeners about when nobody cooks for anybody else and you have to make do in the kitchen on your own and it’s called get your Roni.

Oh, yeah.

Instead of a macaroni.

Well, get your phony and call us.

(877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Eric calling from the small town of Monroe, New Hampshire up in Northern New Hampshire.

So you’re thinking about language, and you figured you’d give us a call from Monroe.

What is your topic?

What are you thinking about today?

What the word I was calling about is the word muckle, m u c k l e.

Mhmm.

And my brothers and sisters, we used it a lot when we were growing up.

This is back in the the seventies.

And I I I guess I thought that everybody knew what it was or everybody used it.

But I…

I’ve since found out as I’m talking to folks that most people never heard of it.

But we used it quite a bit.

I had two older brothers, and so whenever I would annoy them, they would say something like, you know, if you don’t cut it out, I’m gonna muffle you.

We just, you know, so we just talk about people getting muffled and and things of that sort.

And and what it what it meant to us was it was kind of like…

It sounds bad, I guess, bad.

You know, sort of knocking them down and and holding them down for a bit.

That’s sort of what we we meant by behavior.

Yeah.

That…

That’s another thing.

The muckled one.

You were always the mucklee…

You were always the mucklee.

Bottom of the pile.

Well, it’s very interesting that you’re in New Hampshire because this expression is especially associated with New Hampshire and Maine and parts of Massachusetts in the sense that you’re talking about to grab or seize or tackle somebody and hold on tight, hold them down.

But you might also muckle onto a rope or, you know, muckle onto the end of a couch that you’re lifting.

Have you ever heard that use?

I have not.

Yeah.

So I I could see that connection.

So since muckling is about grabbing or that’s kinda what you’re doing to each other if you’re wrestling.

You’re at your brothers.

Right?

Yeah.

That’s that’s that’s true.

It was a two part Grappling.

I guess it was a tackle and then holding.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You might muckle somebody down or metaphorically, you might muckle on to an idea.

Mhmm.

Particularly in New England, it…

You can also use muckle to mean work hard or to struggle or or to bother or or putter.

You might muckle around, which means you’re lingering behind somebody or fiddling with things or just making a nuisance of yourself.

And another thing that’s really interesting about this term is that for more than a century, muckle has been used in the military as kind of a joking mispronunciation of muscle or, you know, some people say muscle.

So to muckle through in the military was to keep going just through sheer effort.

So the origin of muckle, though, is is a little bit of a muddle.

We’re not really sure of the origin.

It might be influenced by a much older word in Scots or Northern England, muckle, which means large, great, or much.

In fact, we had a few years ago on the show, a guy called us from New Hampshire and said that somebody from Scotland was visiting him and was talking about his big dog and said, oh, you have a fine muckle beast.

Got it.

But we’re not sure that that’s related to the kind of muckle that you seem to experience a lot, which was, you know, tackling somebody and holding him down.

Grabbing, seizing.

But I do wanted to add two things to this, Martha.

One is, I like the origin theory that it comes from to muck.

Meaning, to work or to work hard as in you…

Obviously, from agriculture where you muck out a stall, but then later becoming more general to mean any kind of hard work.

‘ you’re just doing this thing with a lot of force and energy.

But the other thing is, my my favorite manifestation of to muckle onto someone is to kiss them.

Think of a passionate embrace where you’re…

It looks like you’re grappling.

You have seized each other for a pucker.

Now there.

That that could be an interesting use of the word.

So muckle in a pucker.

Yep.

Yeah.

So you’ll see muckle on, muckle to it, muckle into it, muckle a hold, muckle on to, lots of different forms.

Thanks for sharing with us because it’s always nice to get that other data point.

I mean, I know you said you used it when you were a kid, but I would call this still vibrant and alive language that we should hang on to.

Alright.

Great.

Well, I’ll have to…

I’m not sure I’m gonna muckle anybody, but maybe The next you’re in the ABL store, you try to get it Alright.

On the Well, thank thank you so much.

Thanks, Eric.

Thanks so much.

Take care of yourself.

Okay.

Bye bye.

Bye bye.

Muckle onto that phone and call us.

(877-929-9673.

Grant, you know how in English we’ll say the cobbler’s children always go barefoot?

Mhmm.

Yeah.

It means that people don’t take care of the things at home even if they take care of them for others.

Professionally.

Yes.

Exactly.

I’d recently learned that there’s a Spanish equivalent that translates as, in the blacksmith’s house, a wooden knife.

Oh, nice.

Isn’t that nice?

That’s very funny.

I wonder if that applies to bookish people.

Right?

You work in a library but have no books at home.

I don’t know how that works.

I kinda doubt that’s the case.

That’s very much.

I don’t know any library that fits that at all.

We love to hear the saying as an expression that you learn or have learned over your lives or from your reading.

Call or text toll-free in The US and Canada, (877-929-9673, or email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hi.

You have A Way with Words.

Yes.

This is Lynn from Philadelphia.

Growing up, my mother would say to us, put your shoes on, Lucy.

Don’t you know you’re in the city?

I have no idea of the origin, and neither does my older sister who’s 90.

Well, Lynn, what kind of situation would you be in where she would be telling you to put on your shoes and calling you Lucy?

Well, probably, I wasn’t getting dressed for wherever we were going.

Oh, ok.

Mhmm.

Yeah.

Parents will use whatever lever they can to get their kids moving.

You know what?

You you might be surprised, Lynn, to find out that this comes from a popular song from the nineteen forties, originally.

It was copyrighted in the mid nineteen forties, and then it was recorded by a ton of artists and had varying success over the years, and was kind of like a stage favorite of certain acts.

There’s a fellow by the name of Robert Clary, who later appeared on the TV show Hogan’s Heroes, who did a version of it, and he’s probably the one who first made it famous.

I don’t know if you remember that TV show.

But if you know Yeah.

British singers, the British legend, Petula Clark, it was her first recording at age 16.

So it’s got a quite a bit of history.

I think the song is kind of sacred and insipid, but the part of the lyrics that are relevant to what your mother used to say to you are, put your shoes on Lucy.

Don’t you know you’re in the city?

Put shoes on, Lucy.

Oh, it’s really such a pity.

Lucy can’t go barefoot wherever she goes.

She loves to feel the wiggle of her toes.

But it it really is just this, like, this little nothing of a song.

But I could see if you…

It’s catchy, so I could see it really sticking in the brain so that you could call it up later when needed.

Well, what was sort of ironic was we weren’t in the city, we were on a farm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think the the key part here is to get your butt moving.

Yes.

That was that was really a part of it.

I was bad.

So, Lynn, did it work?

Usually, there were five of us, so you had leeway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can just always put somebody else in front of your pants, and they’ll get all the grief.

Well, Lynn, that’s what we know.

It’s an echo of an old song that’s been around since the forties.

My older sister said she sort of heard it as music but couldn’t remember.

So that’s the origin.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Go to YouTube and look for those words, put your shoes on Lucy, and you’ll find a ton of versions of it, including of the very first recordings from the nineteen forties.

Okay.

You did my work for me.

Yeah.

Lynn, you take care of yourself now.

Okay?

Alright.

Thank you very much.

You love the show.

Take care now.

Bye.

Love the show.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Alright.

Bye.

Bye, Lynn.

Bye bye.

Away With Word senior producer is Stefanie Levine.

Tim Felten is our engineer and editor, and John Schensky is our quizmaster.

Go to waywordradio.org for all of our past episodes, podcast links, and ways to reach us.

If you have a language thought or question, the toll free line is always open in The US and Canada.

877-929-9673.

A Wayword Words is an independent nonprofit production of Wayword Inc.

It’s supported by listeners and organizations who are changing the way the world talks about language.

Although we’re not a part of NPR, we thank NPR stations throughout The United States carry the show.

And special thanks to our nonprofits volunteer board, Michael Bresslauer, Josh Eckles, Clare Grotting, Merrill Perlman, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidworm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Until next time, goodbye.

So long.