Discussion Forum (Archived)
Guest
Have you ever eaten a Benedictine sandwich? Or savored a juicy pork steak? What's a favorite dish you grew up with that may be mystifying to someone from another part of the country? Also, what does it mean to tell someone to put a snap on the grouch bag?
Audio for download or listening online will be available Monday, May 5th. To be automatically notified when audio is available, subscribe to the podcast using iTunes or another podcatching program.
A rugby referee from Indiana calls to ask if his sport is the origin of the word touchdown as it is used in American football.
How do you pronounce the word patronize? Is one pronunciation used if you say “Don't patronize me!” and another one if you say “We patronize local businesses”?
Why do we say political campaigns that are in a dead heat? Why dead and why heat?
We play bingo on the air with Quiz Guy John Chaneski. His motives are not B9!
A woman who went to school in New Orleans reports she was startled the first time she heard residents of the Crescent City talk about making groceries rather than buying them. Grant explains the French origins of that expression.
A listener who recently played in a Boggle tournament wants to know why we speak of seeding such a competition.
The German word über has found a place in American English. A New Jersey man says he and his colleagues find it to be more versatile than a Swiss Army knife, as in, “He is uber in the middle of that situation,” “That was an uber meeting,” and “You guys are the language ubers.”
An Indianapolis caller wants to know about curious expression she heard from her Aunt Harriet: put a snap on the grouch bag. You would think it means “Stop complaining!” but she says it refers to making sure your valuables are secure. What's the grudge?
Martha and Grant discuss more regional food terms. If you order Albany beef in upstate New York, for example, don't be surprised if you're served fish.
This week's Slang This! contestant grapples with the slang terms squish and optempo.
What's the trouble with using the expression drink the Kool-Aid to connote blind, unquestioning obedience to a politician? A caller is bothered by the grisly origin of the phrase—a reference to the 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana—and thinks it's being used inaccurately, in any case.
A caller is curious about the odd expression to who laid the rail, which is used to mean, among other things, “thoroughly, completely, excessively.” You can see Grant's work on the term at the Double-Tongued Dictionary.
What's the trouble with using the expression drink the Kool-Aid to connote blind, unquestioning obedience to a politician? A caller is bothered by the grisly origin of the phrase—a reference to the 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana—and thinks it's being used inaccurately, in any case.
The interwebs notwithstanding, I don't think "drink the Kool-Aid" refers to Jim Jones' killer kool-aid, but to Ken Kesey's Kool-Aid as popularized by Tom Wolfe's 1968 book "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". See for a quote from the book.
To drink the Kool-Aid means to embrace the program, get with the program, wholeheartedly join in. Drinking Ken Kesey's Kool-Aid happens at the beginning of the bus ride. The acid trip enlightens the drinker as to the effects of "tripping". You can't understand until you "drink the Kool-Aid". Jim Jones' Kool-Aid was at the end of the trip and signaled grisly death. That is not how the phrase is used.
You two missed the boat on this one.
Kent, did you read the quote you're linking to? It's a literal use of “drink,” not a figurative one. It does not antedate the earliest known *figurative* use of the phrase “drink the Kool-aid” in print (or variants), which is the meaning we are discussing on the show. The earliest known print use is from 1987.
The quote from the Wolfe book on page 278 shows that the use there is literal and not figurative, and, therefore does not apply. The full quote is about the various actual experiences of people drinking the Kool-Aid LSD mix. The ellipses here are in the original:
“There was one girl who was wrestling with God. She was with friends, and I think she was all right after a few hours. There was one man who became completely withdrawn…I want to say catatonic, because we tried to bring him out of it, and could make contact at all…he was sort of a friend of mine, and I had some responsibility fo getting him back to town…he had a previous history of mental hospitals, lack of contact with reality, etc., and when I realized what had happened, I begged him not to drink the Kool-Aid, but he did…and it was very bad. These are the only two people I know of who did have bad experiences, but I'm sure I wasn't in contact with everyone.”
Every Thursday when my kids have a late start day at school, we go to the local coffee shop and play Uber Uno until school starts. What's Uber Uno? Why, it's a mixed up deck of about 3 or 4 incomplete sets of Uno cards. But being "Uber" it's bigger than normal, and reversals and draw cards are played more randomly and more frequently and therefore the game lasts three times as long.
So - that is what we call it Uber Uno.
Hey, speaking of weirdly named regional dishes, I just learned about the spiedies in Binghamton, NY.
Here's the rest of the story on "to who laid the rail."
Your caller heard the phrase as he grew up in Des Moines. Grant mentioned that most people heard the phrase from the mayor in "The Music Man."
"The Music Man" is the work of Meredith Wilson...from Iowa.
He set it in River City, a fictionalized version of his home town, Mason City.
Perhaps "to who laid the rail" was popular in Iowa in the early half of the 20th century.
Since I am interested in anything related to food I asked my visitors from Louisville about Benedictine sandwiches. I learned the following useful facts:
- One runs the cucumber through the food processor before mixing it with the cream cheese. The resulting spread is fairly smooth.
- When one buys Benedictine spread at the store it is a pale green color due to added food coloring.
- A Benedictine sandwich is greatly improved by the addition of crumbled crisp bacon.
Grant offered the opinion that as a non-athlete (OK, a nerd) he would never fit as a rugby referee ... but the whole discussion reminded me of a conversation I had some years ago with a PhD scientist in the UK, an avid rugby player, who described for me the contrast between rugby and soccer ("football" over there, but let's use "soccer" for clarity here): "Soccer," he said, "is a gentle sport played by ruffians; rugby is a rough sport, but played by gentlemen."
So, Grant, perhaps, as a cultured gentleman, you would suit the bill just fine.
>>>>>When one buys Benedictine spread at the store it is a pale green color due to added food coloring.
Peter, you're right about that. I spent my childhood actively avoiding Benedictine because it just looked so weird. But it's pretty tasty eatin'. Never had it with bacon, although I can see how that would appeal to carnivores.
Hi, This show made me thinks of a few things I'd like to share.
One regarding regional food names, my friend's mother called Bar-B-que sandwiches or sloppy joes....Taverns. I think you may have mentioned this once. They lived in
northwest Iowa. I had never heard it before and no where else.
Also, local names for things...when going to college at UW-Madison the ATM's had names on the front of them spelled T.Y.M.E. for "take your money everywhere". I assume the bank or some one had them named that. So naturally, when we needed money you would say "I need to get to the TYME machine (pronounced time). When we moved to Eugene, OR and said where was the T.Y.M.E. machine, you can imagine the looks we received.
Last thing, the man who played "slang this" said his slang was "chewy or chuey"
for a self-induced wedgie. I think that the word "chewy" would better describe this event- when you are chewing caramel or candy like a Starburst and a piece of it gets stuck between your teeth and you really have to work to get it out.
Thanks for the great shows- I plan my walks with the dogs around them on Sunday mornings.
Thanks for these, Jill. I grew up with sloppy joes in KY -- just ground beef with seasonings spilling over the sides of a hamburger bun. Definitely lived up to their names! That's my main memory, the soggy bun. Tasty, but I hated out it disintegrated so quickly. Was that what yours was like?
And I never heard that about T.Y.M.E. machines. Surprising that didn't catch on, don't you think?
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
1 Guest(s)