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Who was that masked man? Was it the Barefoot Bandit, the Mummy Bandit, or perhaps the Botox Bandit? Or maybe it was the Bad-Breath Bandit? The hosts discuss the wacky names that law enforcement officers give to suspects. Also, what's a pickle button? Why do we say "be there or be square"? And what does the word seditty mean in the African-American community?
This episode first aired May 8, 2010.
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Descriptive Criminal Names
A news story about the Ho-Hum Bandit has Grant musing about the odd names that law enforcement officers give to criminals at large, usually based on their appearance or behavior, like the Barefoot Bandit, the Mummy Bandit. Or how about the Bad Breath Bandit?
Be There or Be Square
Where do we get the phrase "be there or be square"?
Slang Term "Seditty"
What's seditty? Many African-Americans use this term, also spelled saddidy, to mean "stuck-up." A caller's heard it all his life, and is curious about the word.
"I Never Was" Riddle
Grant has a riddle: "I never was, am always to be, no one ever saw me or ever will, and yet I am the confidence of all to live and breathe on this terrestrial ball. What am I?"
Odd Man Out Puzzle
Quiz Guy Greg Pliska offers a colorful variation on his ever-popular "Odd Man Out" puzzle. In this series, for example, which one doesn't belong: Imperial, Shasta, Kings, and Orange.
Sunglade
A caller from the coastal town of La Jolla, California, is sure he's heard a word for bright pools of silver light that form on the surface of the ocean when sunbeams poke down through cloud cover. Albedo, maybe? Coruscation? How about sunglade?
Abyssinia! Ethiopia!
Why in the world would two people part from each other saying, "Abyssinia!" "Ethiopia!"? The hosts clear up the mystery.
Listener Longest Word Riddle
Martha shares a puzzle sent in by a listener: "What's the longest word typed on the left hand's half of the keyboard?" Hint: It's the plural of a now-outmoded occupational term.
Lagniappe
A lagniappe is a little something extra that a merchant might toss in for a customer, like a complimentary ball-point pen. What's the origin of that word?
Commercial Categories for Literature
Grant argues that new commercial categories of literature, which include poop fiction, chick lit, K-mart realism, and tart noir resemble the kind of fracturing that already occurred in the music world. Here's the blog entry that got him started.
Couple, Few, and Several
What exactly do you mean when you use the words couple, few, and several? Do they conjure specific numbers? The hosts disagree.
Pickle Off
A retired Air Force officer says he's never wondered until recently why the button that pilots push to drop bombs is called the pickle button, and to "pickle off" the bomb means to drop it.
Beginning and End Riddle
Grant reveals another riddle: It's the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place. What is it?
Stupider vs. More Stupid
A Scrabble game sparks a debate between a college student and her English-teacher sister. Which is correct: stupider or more stupid?
This episode is hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, and produced by Stefanie Levine.
Photo by Maik Meid. Used under a Creative Commons license.
Where do we get the phrase be there or be square?
Not sure about this exact phrase but I heard that "square" comes from the 18th century when the style of shoe went, rather suddenly, from the square-toed single last style to the pointed-toe style made with right and left feet. Those who refused to change (or could not afford to) were unfashionable "Squares".
Grant Barrett said:
Why in the world would two people part from each other saying, "Abyssinia!" "Ethiopia!"? The hosts clear up the mystery.
In my family, when we parted, we said "Well, as they say in Africa ... Abyssinia!"
This discussion reminded me of words my father, a psychology professor, used to use with me and my little brother. He would say, "I can do (whatever) before you can say tachistoscopic episkatister." Of course we never could say tachistoscopic episkatister no matter how much time you gave us, so he always won this challenge.
I was in college before I found out what a tachistoscope or an episkatister was, or how to spell either one. Do you know what a tachistoscopic episkatister is?
Grant Barrett said:
Martha shares a puzzle sent in by a listener: "What's the longest word typed on the left hand's half of the keyboard?" Hint: It's the plural of a now-outmoded occupational term.
I used to work with a woman named Barbara Stewart. She made a big show out of taking her right hand completely off the keyboard before typing her full name.
For the other hand, I once constructed a fanciful "right-hand shopping list" of items such as hippo milk, onion pulp, pumpkin hull oil. That, and the sentence on opium poppy, in my opinion, you'll unpin my pink nylon kimono.
Grant argues that new commercial categories of literature, which include poop fiction, chick lit, K-mart realism, and tart noir resemble the kind of fracturing that already occurred in the music world. Here's the blog entry that got him started.
They left out "housewife porn", aka "bodice-rippers".
What exactly do you mean when you use the words couple, few, and several? Do they conjure specific numbers? The hosts disagree.
When I was about nine years old, I asked someone exactly what the phrase "room temperature" meant and was told "72 degrees Fahrenheit". Ever since, I've been unable to associate the term with any other number.
Regarding the sunlight phenomena you spoke of I would like to add to the moonglade list the word "alpenglow"
When the sun is setting or rising and you get one of those very red ones the light can be reflected off of low clouds onto the mountain causing the snow to look orange.
Quite spectacular. Only have seen once on the west side of the Wasatach range heading south from Ogden after a ski trip to Jackson.
Grant Barrett said:
What exactly do you mean when you use the words couple, few, and several? Do they conjure specific numbers? The hosts disagree.
I was arguing with the radio this weekend (I'm sure my wife found me a bit, well, off my rocker) but this conversation was driving me nuts!
It's the difference between the terms "quantitative" and "qualitative". Or, perhaps, between left brain and right brain personalities. I'm sure that you and I are both left brain people, but these are right brain terms.
1, 2, 3, and 4 are all quantitative. They don't tell you how good or bad something is, they just tell you how many.
Several and few are qualitative: they are also relative to the subject matter being described.
A "few" of something is just that: a lesser amount. It is significant (in that a "few less" or a "few more" is noticeably different from an original size) but it is not significant in that it almost doesn't matter. That's what's being conveyed: that while there is an appreciable amount, a few is qualitatively of little significance.
"Several", on the other hand, is a term that is describing much more significance in a quantity.
The whole point of the two terms is that the number associated with them is completely irrelevant independently and is only relevant in context.
For example, "trapped in the landslide, the hiker was killed when several large rocks struck his body."
Were there 2, 3, or 15 rocks? It doesn't matter: the point was that the amount was more than adequate to kill the hiker.
On the other hand, "while only a few rocks hit the hiker, he was unable to survive the blows" could describe the exact same scene,
Were there 2, 3, or 15 rocks? It doesn't matter: the point was that the amount seemed small enough to survive, yet obviously the results were not as expected.
In my opinion, trying to identify "few" or "several" with specific numbers is like trying to answer "How beautiful the Mona Lisa?" with a number.
Now, that being said, a "couple" is two. It doesn't really fit in with the other terms 🙂
"Many" on the other hand seems to me to be synonymous with "several".
re: seditty
I wonder if seditty is actually an anglicization of the French ça dité? Something about the sound of it made me check my old French lessons, and I found that means "that known as," which may have been a polite way of saying something else. Or would that be a not polite way of not saying something else?
I think in more modern terms, a girl/woman who acts snobbish and superior - especially to a spurned boy - might be referred to as a 'beeyotch" (but I'm likely 15 years out-of-date on that). Instead of using such an antisocial word, you'd use an allusion, "she's a 'what is called a...'" leaving off the obvious conclusion. Guessing that the meaning of that became obvious, someone clever translated it into French, which was then anglicized to further mask what was actually being said.
Voila! Ça dité is now seditty.
Pure speculation, but perhaps that will give Grant something to look up in his spare time.
imajoebob said:
re: seditty
I wonder if seditty is actually an anglicization of the French ça dité?
Welcome to the discussion.
Your speculation seems unlikely to me. The French dire is not an -er verb, and has no such form as dité. The past participle is dit, without the -é. I can find no record of the verb dire ever having such a form, or of the fixed expression you mention. Can you refer me to some textbook, dictionary, or reference book?
Grant Barrett said:
A lagniappe is a little something extra that a merchant might toss in for a customer, like a complimentary ball-point pen. What's the origin of that word?
Grant mentioned this word originated from Quechua. In Chile we use the word "yapa" with pretty much exactly the same meaning: a little something extra you give the customer. I wonder if it comes from the same root.
Regarding the pools of light on water caused by sunbeams through cloud cover. I don't know the word the caller was looking for, but "sunglade" seems the most reasonable and poetic. If it isn't a word, it should be. I also wanted to share a word that I first heard in a photography class for the sunbeams themselves in this situation - "God light" - though the beams don't have to be shining on water for it to apply. Used in a sentence - "Nice God light you captured in that photo of the mountain!"
Elysia said:
Regarding the pools of light on water caused by sunbeams through cloud cover. I don't know the word the caller was looking for, but "sunglade" seems the most reasonable and poetic. If it isn't a word, it should be. I also wanted to share a word that I first heard in a photography class for the sunbeams themselves in this situation - "God light" - though the beams don't have to be shining on water for it to apply. Used in a sentence - "Nice God light you captured in that photo of the mountain!"
The sunbeams themselves are called "crepuscular rays," and I'm somewhat surprised that there isn't a form of crepuscular which has been adopted for what goes on when the rays meet land or water...
Lee said:
The sunbeams themselves are called "crepuscular rays," and I'm somewhat surprised that there isn't a form of crepuscular which has been adopted for what goes on when the rays meet land or water…
My thoughts travel to the lyrics of a song from the Broadway musical version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which describes the lunar analog of this phenomenon, Grant's moonglade. This particular song is quite funny, but starts out as romantically as one could hope.
Look at the way the moon behaves. / Look at the way she paints a silver ribbon on the waves / Leading directly to me and you. / Nothing is too wonderful to be true.
From "Nothing Is Too Wonderful to Be True," Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Music and lyrics: David Yazbek
Sigh.
When the sunbeams are small enough (like when they make it to the ground from gaps in the leaves of a tree), the circular patches are actually images of the sun. The leaves essentially make up a multi-pinhole camera. The patches turn to crescents when there is an eclipse of the sun. It is really neat.
Emmett
A Scrabble game sparks a debate between a college student and her English-teacher sister. Which is correct: stupider or more stupid?
I guess I grew up hearing lots of "That's the stupidest thing I ever heard" or "I've never met anyone stupider than you." Stupider and stupidest seem quite natural.
To me the interesting forms that always sound like a joke are wronger and wrongest, but I find them in some dictionaries, especially those of the Webster persuasion. I find it interesting that I cannot find righter or rightest in those same dictionaries.
Perhaps, compared to other forms it just sounds stupider or wronger.
Last summer I had the delightful experience of performing in a musical comedy, First Friday, by local (Homer, AK) playwright and artist Shirley Timmreck, who celebrates her ninetieth birthday this month. The play is one of several that she has written based on her memories of growing up in New Orleans in the 1920s and 1930s. One of the characters repeatedly annoys her friends by parting from them with a hearty "Abyssinia!"
Peter Norton
Homer, Alaska
Elysia said:
Regarding the pools of light on water caused by sunbeams through cloud cover. I don't know the word the caller was looking for, but "sunglade" seems the most reasonable and poetic. If it isn't a word, it should be. I also wanted to share a word that I first heard in a photography class for the sunbeams themselves in this situation - "God light" - though the beams don't have to be shining on water for it to apply. Used in a sentence - "Nice God light you captured in that photo of the mountain!"
What you call "god light" is also known as the devil's smiles. This one I first came upon in The Word Museum by Jeffrey Kacirk. It's a wonderful book of words and phrases that are being lost to the English language.
I find myself using "stupidest" in all seriousness (as in, the stupidest thing I've ever heard), but would not use stupider unless I were being deliberately silly, I think.
I was hoping the Ethiopia! phrase might've been another parting phrase, but couldn't come up with anything. We'll think over ya? Similarly, my family uses numerous replacement phrases for common words, like "horse pistol" for hospital, I'm "tortoised" (tiredest), but also several (meaning more than 6) vegetable-related re-phrasings, like "not necess-celery" (to which might be replied, "yes, necess-celery") and "corn-prende?" ...
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