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This week: whether cotton-pickin' is racist, unintentionally funny headlines, a holiday-song quiz from John Chaneski, whether enormity can simply mean "enormous," how a person can be such a pill, and pandiculation. It's good stuff, Maynard!
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There's nothing like an oddly phrased headline to brighten your day. How about "Actor Sent to Jail for Not Finishing Sentence"? Or "Queen Mary Having Bottom Scraped"? Same for signs that make you do a double take, like "Senior Citizens! Buy One, Get One Free." A San Diego caller shares a couple of her favorite oddly worded signs, and the hosts mention a few of their own.
If someone's driving you bonkers, you'd be forgiven for grumbling, "He's such a pill!" But why a pill?
Did Grandpa ever enthuse about Grandma's cooking with the words "Good stuff, Maynard!" A Waukesha, Wisconsin caller remembers his own grandfather doing that, and wants to know how this expression came about.
In an earlier episode, we discussed the slang term sketchy, meaning "creepy" or "alarming" or "suspicious." Grant shares an email from a listener suggesting a link to the world of amphetamine users.
Quiz Guy John Chaneski stops by with a quiz about superlatives. Naturally, his name for the quiz is Best. Puzzle. Ever.
Your brother-in-law the motormouth beats around the bush for so long about something that in exasperation you tell him to "cut to the chase." The hosts explain the Hollywood roots of this phrase.
When Barack Obama intoned, "I do not underestimate the enormity of the task ahead," some grammar sticklers recoiled. Pointing to the word's roots, they insist that enormity means not "large," but "out of the ordinary." A caller who's been following a heated online dispute about this word asks the hosts for a verdict. They give the president-elect a pass.
Remember when Bugs Bunny used to say, "Now wait just a cotton-pickin' minute!"? A caller wants to know if cotton-pickin' has racist overtones.
In an earlier episode, we discussed whether there's a word for "a drawn-out leave-taking"—when, say, a friend says "goodbye" but keeps thinking of "one more thing" to say before exiting. Martha suggested the term doorknob-hanging. Several listeners wrote to say that physicians commonly use the terms getting doorknobbed and doorknob question to mean something similar.
This week's "Slang This!" contestant, from Cold Spring, Kentucky, tries to tease out the real slang words from the fake ones. Rubber-bands or herkies? An executive handle or a producer's button?
In certain parts of the South, a small, impromptu gift is variously known by the sibilant synonyms sirsee, surcy, searcy, or circe. A South Carolina woman who's heard the word all her life is baffled as to where it came from.
Uh-oh. Your credit card's missing. As you frantically search for it, your mind fast-forwards through the bad things that could happen if it's been stolen. Then, to your enormous relief, you find the card. Is there a specific word for the immense relief you feel when something you've dreaded doesn't happen?
On the QT means "surreptitiously" or "hush-hush." Why the letters? Are they an abbreviation?
Martha talks about a favorite Latin-based word: pandiculation. It's a term that means "the stretching that accompanies yawning."
By the way, for more strangely worded signs, check out The Bad Sign Brigade on Flickr. For amusing headlines and unfortunate journalistic locutions, we recommend the "Sic!" section of Michael Quinion's newsletter, available from his site, World Wide Words.
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A side conversation about our "cotton-pickin'" call is going on at the BrewBoard.
I was stunned to hear your episode via the podcast. My family nickname has been Sussie all my life. There are members of my extended family who don't even know my real name! I was named this because I am the youngest female born to a family with previously 5 boys.
I was told this was a Cherokee word. I guess we got our roots mixed up there.
Still, I thought this was just a "my family" thing. Thanks for the episode. I'm still floored hearing my name out there like that!
My wife is from the Mississippi Delta. She uses the word "happy" the same way you're using the word sirsee or lagniappe. I assume this is a family word, as everyone in her family uses it the same way and I have never heard it used by others. She doesn't know of anyone else in the Delta that uses it either.
Grant Barrett said:
A side conversation about our “cotton-pickin'†call is going on at the BrewBoard.
Well, it looks like they've moved on. I'll just say this...
The idea of linking "cotton-pickin'" to race springs from short-sighted American guilt. People picked cotton (and tobacco) before slavery crossed the ocean.
Ever notice how most of these terms are things you wouldn't want to do? It is hard work to go picking most things. Cotton is one of the worst. Nor do we want to do disgusting or stupid acts, like sucking rocks. (Yes, rocks!)
Hey guys,
Sorry about such a late post. I am going back and re-listening to the podcasts.
I noticed that your caller on this show was from Cincinatti. His favorite phrase was "Jeezle Pete" and that is the way he spelled it the podcast.
I'm from Pittsburgh, we always knew this phrase as "Jeez Oh Pete" and it sounded like that was the way Martha pronounced it.
Can you guys expand on this a little more?
Thanks
Great Show.
Shawn
I'm with jopa123 on the guest's favorite slang — in fact I'm really surprised it wasn't mentioned in the summary so I thus traipsed right to the forum as soon as I heard him spell it so strangely: I've always known it to be "Jeez Oh Pete" and never "Jeezle Pete" and suspect the guest has never actually seen it written and just suspected that's the way it's commonly spelled. It sounded like Martha attempted to politely correct the guest by pronouncing it as it is more commonly known, without suggesting directly that his version needed correction =P I'm from Texas and would know immediately what you meant if you said it, but I have no idea where I picked it up, as I have no relatives nor have ever been from even in the vicinity of New England.
Speaking of "cut to the chase," there's an aspect about the show that has been grating on my nerves, and occurs several times in this episode.. There's a moment of dead air (another lovely phrase) just after the caller introduces themselves when Martha or Grant practically need to slap the caller and demand WHY ARE YOU CALLING US because of the long pause as if the caller believes something must be said before they continue with their question. I used to be a security alarm dispatcher, and regularly we would talk to the same people on the phone, such as a cleaning crew person entering an off-site secured building overnight, who would need to give name and codeword credentials for that location when we called after the system there was disarmed at a weird hour.. and a few of them would pause and wait for you to ask every bit you needed to know even thought they already knew good-and-well what was going to be asked after having dealt with us repeatedly. Others would just rattled off, "Billy McBillson with Cleany McCompany, codeword Apple, in for 3 hours," and get to work. There was always those same few you practically had to reach through the phone and strangle them to say anything: "Name? / Uh.. Jerry. / *SIGH* Last name? / McJerrison. / Codeword? / Uh.. Pizza. / How long will you be in? / Uh.. oh, let's see.. um.. four hours tonight. / *CLICK*" We always called to get that same information, every single time, but just some people needed to be prompted before they would budge.
Sometimes we would hang up with them and scowl at the other dispatchers, or you could tell on the expression of another dispatcher's face that this was what we called a "new every time" person (meaning, as if the person we called had recently been hired that wasn't familiar with the routine would naturally be curious as to why we were calling, except that the we had spoken with the person on so many occasions that it should be absurdly obvious by now what needs to be said). Every time Grant or Martha says, "Well hello there — what's the reason for your call?" or "What can we do for ya?" I wish that section had been edited out or compressed so that the caller's question immediately follows their introduction without having to deal with eye-rolling pleasantries. I must wonder if many of your callers have never listened to a radio program before or picked up on that there is a time-pressure element and that drawing out the call on fake-laugh greetings is to be avoided =)
In this instance "cotton pickin'" is being used as an oath, like goldarned, or it's more explicit root. It's a socially acceptable way of cursing without using an identified curse word. The reason cotton pickin' is chosen as a substitute is because of the nature of the work. Picking cotton is horrible, hot, miserable, back-breaking work, and someone tasked with doing it might honestly question if they have been damned by the Lord above. So, in this case, "C.P." is just a substitute for "G.D." and doesn't cause the delicate Southern belles to swoon.
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