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What's in a pet's name? Martha and Grant swap stories about how they came up with names for their dogs. Also this week: Have you ever been called a stump-jumper? How about a snicklefritz? And what's the last word in the dictionary? Depending on which dictionary you consult, it might be zythum, zyzzyva, zyxomma, or zyxt.
This episode first aired February 27, 2010. Listen here:
[audio:http://feeds.waywordradio.org/~r/awwwpodcast/~5/_WKQwv4N3j8/110131-AWWW-sufficiently-suffonsified.mp3%5DDownload the MP3 here (24.9 MB).
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Sometimes the process of naming a pet takes a while. The hosts talk about how their dogs' names evolved.
A native Japanese speaker is mystified by the expression happy as a clam. In Japanese, she says, if you had a good night's sleep you might say you slept like a clam or slept like mud. So why do English speakers think clams are content?
What's the very last word in the dictionary? Depending on which dictionary you're using, you may see zythum, zyzzyva, zyxomma, or zyxt.
This week's word puzzle from Quiz Guy Greg Pliska involves taking a word, adding an "i" to the beginning, as if creating an Apple product, to get an entirely new word. For instance: "This is how Steve Jobs begins a card game."
A caller from Princeton, Texas, remembers that after a satisfying meal, her late father used to push back from the table and say, "I am sufficiently suffonsified. Anything more would be purely obnoxious to my taste. No thank you." What heck did he mean by that? Discoveries about the expression and all its variants can be found in the article "Among the Old Words" by now-deceased Dictionary of American Regional English editor Frederic G. Cassidy, published in American Speech, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Winter, 1980), pp. 295-297.
A Vermonter says he's sometimes called a stump-jumper. Should he be flattered or insulted?
Martha shares a couple of Tom Swifties, those funny sentences that make great punny use of adverbs, like "'My bicycle wheel is damaged,' Tom said outspokenly."
Why do we say that someone who's happy is in hog heaven?
Martha tells the story behind the term Tom Swifty. Grant shares some more funny examples from the A Way with Words discussion forum.
Gradoo is a word for something undesirable, the kind of thing you'd rather scrape off your shoe. A man who grew up in Louisiana wonders about the term, which he heard from both English and Cajun French speakers.
Someone who says, "I'll be there directly," may not necessarily get there right away. How did the meaning of "directly" change in some parts of the country to mean "by and by"?
"You little snickelfritz!" An Indiana man says his mother used to call him that when she meant "You little rascal!" Although the term's meaning has changed over time, its original meaning was a bit naughty.
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Grant Barrett said:
Sometimes the process of naming a pet takes a while. The hosts talk about how their dogs' names evolved.
Inspired by Dorothy Parker naming her parrot Onan (because he spills his seed on the ground), I'd like to get a cat and name it "Nature".
[beat]
Because it abhors the vacuum.
gradoo - in the figurative sense as well. In a park in Atlanta, two men were walking in front of me deep in converesation. Suddenly one pushed the other to the side. His friend looked startled until the first pointed to the dog droppings he had almost stepped in: "Campaign promises!"
(Someone once said politicians are like diapers: they should be changed often... and for the same reason.)
I took almost two months to name my dog after finding him (and not finding his original owners). "Jeffrey" is Old French for "divinely peaceful" and that fits him quite well. (Some friends thought it was an unusual name for a dog, but I said I was not going to name him one of those stupid pet nicknames, then have to stand on the front porch and call out, "Come here, Doodles!")
... Although at home he does get called just about every variation that comes to mind: Jeffrey, Jeffer, Jeff, Jeffy, Jeffonavich, Jeffersoniah, J-dog (he likes that as his "street name"), etc.
... Well, he's 15 now but just as quiet and content as ever. I have his photo at http://sapphire.indstate.edu/~pgallagher/images/dogs/jdog-holly-4x6-crop.jpg if you want to see his handsome face.
johng423 said:
I was not going to name him one of those stupid pet nicknames, then have to stand on the front porch and call out, "Come here, Doodles!"
When I was very small, our cat had three kittens, all female. I named them Tessie, Lessie and Gurp.
My parents found homes for the other two and kept Gurp.
For years thereafter, at feeding time, my mother would stand outside the kitchen door calling out in a loud, clear voice: "GURP! GURP!"
It's a wonder the authorities never came to take her away.
My dog's name is Kuroko: Kuro for black in Japanese (as in Kurosawa, the famous director) and ko because she's a she. Nearly every Japanese woman has a "ko" at the end of her name (Yoko, Maiko, Saiko, etc.), and it means small or child (I think). I thought since she has a black coat, and since blackie was probably too silly, why not?
Being enamored of mythology at the time, when I went to the shelter looking for a dog, I had a list of mythological names in hand as well as a list of words in other languages for "dog", "friend", etc. (on-line dictionaries are so cool!)
A puppy picked me and as I was driving us home I had her in an open-topped box right behind me. While driving, I was talking to her and trying out various names from the list. When I said "Callisto" she stuck her head over the top of the box and licked my ear. So she not only picked me, she picked her name.
Prokdoc said:
My dog's name is Kuroko: Kuro for black in Japanese (as in Kurosawa, the famous director) and ko because she's a she. Nearly every Japanese woman has a "ko" at the end of her name (Yoko, Maiko, Saiko, etc.), and it means small or child (I think). I thought since she has a black coat, and since blackie was probably too silly, why not?
I may have already mentioned the twin feral cats who occasionally sleep on my patio, the ones I've taken to calling McDonnell and Douglas.
They're both jet black.
Regarding Tom Swiftys: One thing you didn't mention is that Tom Swift's name lives on not only in puns, but in police departments, every time someone uses a TASER. The word is today a trademark of Taser International Inc., but stood originally for "Thomas A Swift Electric Rifle", which predates the formation of the company and refers to the same Tom Swift. For a cover shot of the original 1911 book, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift_and_His_Electric_Rifle .
-Henry
snicklefritz... I have not listened to the show yet (I listen via podcast), but I too am originally from Indiana and we always used the term by saying, "I'm going to give you a snicklefritz", and then proceed to blow on the child's tummy (as you would do as a teenager to make a flatulence noise on your upper arm). I never heard of any "naughty" meanings. I always thought it was another of those variations on my German heritage. For example, we always used "gesundheit" when someone sneezed...
Your show is wonderful!!
Michael
Someone who says, "I'll be there directly," may not necessarily get there right away. How did the meaning of "directly" change in some parts of the country to mean "by and by"?
Here in Cornwall (UK) directly, usually spelled and pronounced "dreckly" is considered to be the equivalent of mañana, but without the sense of urgency. Is the area the caller came from noted for Cornish settlers?
mlw said:
snicklefritz... I have not listened to the show yet (I listen via podcast), but I too am originally from Indiana and we always used the term by saying, "I'm going to give you a snicklefritz", and then proceed to blow on the child's tummy (as you would do as a teenager to make a flatulence noise on your upper arm). I never heard of any "naughty" meanings. I always thought it was another of those variations on my German heritage. For example, we always used "gesundheit" when someone sneezed...
Your show is wonderful!!
Michael
First thing that comes to mind when I hear stumpjumper is the mountain bike model made by Specialized. Ever spotted a stumpjumper riding a Stumpjumper? 😉
About "gras d'eau"… I'm thinking about another possibility. I've heard a French word, crade, here in Switzerland that has pretty much the same meaning as the caller gave to this one. People say "C'est crade" to mean "That's gross" or "yucky". I haven't seen it written down (will have to ask, now I'm curious!).
Anyway, a quick google brought up this page from a French dictionary, which lists several variations, among them "cradot" and "crado". Maybe that might have carried over to Cajun French?
(Here's another dictionary entry for crade with some variations that could work for "gradoo".)
A caller from Princeton, Texas, remembers that after a satisfying meal, her late father used to push back from the table and say, "I am sufficiently suffonsified. Anything more would be purely obnoxious to my taste.
I wanted to share my family's version of this saying: I have had elegant sufficiency, more would be superfluous abundancy. It was interesting to learn about the origins.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
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