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In this episode, a listener says his friend Harold like to do social phoning while driving, so he's invented a term for mindless calling while in the car. And no, it's not “car-pe diem.” Also, Martha and Grant also discuss the rules of the road games “padiddle” and “slug bug.”
Maybe you know it as "perdiddle," but a Wisconsinite shares memories of playing “padiddle.” You need at least two people in a car, an oncoming vehicle with a headlight out, and, depending on which version of the game you play, you need to be prepared for kissing, punching, ceiling-thwacking, beer-buying, or stripping. Grant describes the Volkswagen-inspired of another road-trip game, "slug bug.”
A listener from Falmouth, Maine disagrees with his Canadian friends about how to pronounce the word “aunt.” He says it shouldn't sound like the name of the insect. But is that the way most people pronounce this word for your mother's sister?
A Hoosier says her friends tease her about the way she says “doofitty” when she can't think of the right word for something. Grant and Martha discuss the long list of linguistic placeholders, including “whatchamacallit,” “doodad,” “deely-bobber,” “doowanger,” “doojigger,” “doohickey,” “thingamabob,” “thingummy,” “thingum,” and “thingy.”
A California man remembers going to the neighborhood bakery back home in Illinois and ordering “bismarcks.” But these days he rarely hears this term for “jelly doughnut,” and wonders about its origin.
This week's Slang This! contestant guesses at the meaning of the slang expressions “wigs on the green” and “fake and bake.”
Grant and Martha read emails from listeners with suggested explanations as to how the term “biffy” came to mean “portable toilet.”
They also discuss listener's own stories about saying “bread and butter” when companions step around an obstacle that divides them. Popeye does that little “bread and butter” step about 5:47 into this clip that Martha was talking about.
We also promised words for the experience of noticing a word for the first time and then feeling like you're seeing it everywhere. Here are a few: diegogarcity, the recency Illusion, and the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.
A retired professor wants to know if Latin grammar holds any clues about whether a female professor is properly addressed as “professor emeritus” or “professor emerita.”
Finally, a woman who grew up playing “Duck, Duck, Goose” is surprised to hear that her niece and nephew play “Duck, Duck, Gray Duck” at their preschool in Minnesota. The hosts take a gander at regional variations of this children's game.
And with that, we're ducking out of here until next week.
Grant Barrett said:
In this episode, a listener says his friend Harold like to do social phoning while driving, so he's invented a term for mindless calling while in the car. And no, it's not “car-pe diem.”
Here are some more suggestions:
triplipflipping (my favorite, but it wouldn't catch on),
motormouthing, roadphoning, car-yakking, jawriding,
DWJ ("driving while jabbering").
And here are two more, with apologies to Tom and Ray:
cartalking (talking while driving)
click-clacking (texting while driving)
Regarding "bismarcks": After listening to the show today, in which a listener was describing the jelly doughnuts known as bismarcks, I was in the kitchen and happened to be using my Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator. The decorator includes a Bismarck Tip, with instructions: "Use to easily fill bismarcks and eclairs". There is an illustration of a pastry being filled. Looks a lot like a jelly doughnut! Interesting coincidence that I came across this on the day your listener called in with his word, and I will also note that Pampered Chef headquarters are in Addison, Illinois!
On the Bismark tip, it comes up during this audio clip, which investigates another sweet roll mystery the "Persian":
http://archives.cbc.ca/IDCC-1-69-1371-14381/life_society/canadian_food/
I grew up in central Wisconsin in the 60's and recall my mother (of German heritage) calling an icing and chopped nut covered roll a "Persian".
She also called what is commonly known as a "Long John" a "Chicago". I wonder if "Chicago" is tied somehow to Chicago politician "Long" John Wentworth -- who had some interesting dining habits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wentworth_(mayor)
It is amazing how difficult it is to find a solid source for this bakery related info on the web. The loss of many small independant bakeries ("Hostessification") probably plays a large "roll".
Grant Barrett said:
Steve, who says doughnuts have to have holes? [snip]
Grant,
Well... Perhaps this is a regional thing, but I think it's those guys who stand out in street intersections, around here, once a year passing out cardboard do(ugh)nuts [*with holes*] on do(ugh)nut day. You don't see any of them without holes, do ya?
Also, there's the Salvation Army, or was it the Red Cross who started the whole thing during WWI or was it WWII.
Then there's the standard "the dictionary does not determine what is and is not correct; it is a reflection of usage" argument.
And then... And then... Why do(ugh)"nut" instead of do(ugh)"ring", or do(ugh)torus, or something [ for the ones *with* holes, whatever you call them].
Besides, with the human propensity to name EVERYTHING [not to mention the whole (sic) purpose of your radio program], there absolutely has to be a name to differentiate between holed and holeless, no?
And, although we're not supposed to begin a sentence with 'and' or 'but', since we have Bismarck, long John, Persian, Danish, Sweet Roll, and and a host, or is it hostest, of others, the holed seem to need (sic) a distinguished name of their own.
So, I'm thinkin' do(gh)nut is j u s t right.
Regards, from the heartland, Steve
(;-)
P.S. I just remembered. I don't recall hearing if anyone mentioned the self-contradicting twist "Away With Words"
And Steve: Not to mention that when you order a bunch of doughnut holes, they're not holes at all, right?
And while we're at it: How many times does one get to say "toroidal" in everyday conversation? Thanks for the opportunity!
Regarding the discussion of the word "aunt," I've ALWAYS heard it with the 'u' actually pronounced, at least in actual face-to-face conversation in MN & WI, and not as a homophone of the name for the hill-building insect. I'm frankly flabbergasted to hear that the silent-'u' pronunciation is considered "standard." At what point do enough people get something wrong to make it "right"? Is truth up for a majority vote now? Why isn't the word "ain't" considered to be standard, then? Why is "aunt" still spelled with a 'u'? We use "aluminum" in America instead of the British spelling "aluminium," since we don't pronounce that final 'i' anymore. So, why is that 'u' ignored so often, or why is it still there if we're not going to pronounce it? It seems to me that we should either pronounce it, or get rid of it altogether.
Or am I just an old math major who is constantly being driven crazy by all the illogical inconsistencies of language?
Dear Martha and Grant,
As a former resident of Windom, Minnesota, I'd like to share with you that as a small child, the use of "gray duck" was usually used as a fake in a game of duck-duck-goose. You'd walk around the circle, calling out duck, duck, duck, and then g-g-g-g-gray duck, to make the other kids think that you were about to say g-g-g-g-g-goose. The "guh" sound was meant to rile the other kids, so they didn't know what to expect.
Also, on the Bismarck/jelly doughnut discussion, we had another term for that item in Minnesota- a Bavarian Creme. I always associated a Bismarck and/or Bavarian Creme as being filled with custard creme, as opposed to jelly doughnuts, which contained jelly. Scandanavians know their dessert pastries. I was really disappointed recently when a ordered a Bismarck near my in-laws house on the Long Beach Peninsula of Washington, and it was filled with Jello pudding- bleh!
Thanks for the great podcast,
Brian Bartel
Felix, I'm an old English major and those logical inconsistences drive me crazy as well! (And mind you, that's not an Old English major, although I did enjoy the year of it I had in college.)
And you're right that over time, standards change. We're just not there yet with "awnt" in Standard English, although as we mentioned on the air, it's certainly standard in some dialects.
Dear Way:
Subj: Technology driven neologism.
Heard the bit Saturday about the need for a word to describe celyakking while driving.
How about another term for just plain inappropriate celyakking behavior: when someone feels compelled to invade the personal sound space of others in order to spew celludrivel into an electronic ego extension device, this could be called cellurudeness.
Then there is the inane practice of filling one's moments of solitude with trivial yak to avoid any feeling of actually being; cellutherapy might do.
Back to the point; driving while in any way distracted is highly risky behavior, one might call it cellurisky if it involves the cell phone.
I suggest that celyakking, cellurude, cellurisk, celludrivel, and cellutherapy might be useful additions to our gargantuan and ever-growing language. After all, we are comfortable with gozinta and blog, are we not?
Tom Haglund
Loreto, BCS, Mexico
On the topic of padiddles, the name of that other game isn't Slug Bug, it's Punch Buggy, at least in my car. Now, for a reverse padiddle, I've taken to using padassle, but not in front of my mother.
Oh. and another thing while I'm here...
My father had and Aunt Nancy who was from the mid-west. She married a California man and they ended up in Connecticut. She was very particular that her title sounded like the insect, not that strange local pronunciation the other folks nearby seemed to prefer. Besides, Ant Nancy has a much better rhyme to it.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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