Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

The dated term "jingoism" denotes a kind of belligerent nationalism but the word's roots lie in an old English drinking-house song that was popular during wartime. Speaking of fightin’ words, the expression "out the side of your neck" came up in a feud between Kanye West and Wiz Khalifa—and let's just say the phrase is hardly complimentary. Also, a German publishing company has declared that the top slang term among that country's youth is a name for someone who's completely absorbed in his cell phone. That word is…smombie! And if you're guessing that smombie comes from "zombie," you're right. Plus, thaw vs. unthaw, dinner vs. supper, groundhog vs. whistle pig, riddles galore, speed bumps and sleeping policemen, pirooting around, and kick into touch.

This episode first aired March 26, 2016.

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[Image Can Not Be Found] One Word Riddle
This two-syllable word has five letters. If you remove letters from it one by one, its pronunciation is still the same.

[Image Can Not Be Found] Thaw vs. Unthaw
A husband and wife have a heated dispute. The topic? Whether thaw and unthaw mean the same thing.

[Image Can Not Be Found] Spanish-Language Speed Bumps
What English-speakers call speed bumps or sleeping policemen go by different names in various parts of the Spanish-speaking world. In Argentina, traffic is slowed by lomos de burro, or "burro's backs." In Puerto Rico that bump in the road is a muerto, or "dead person." In Mexico, those things are called topes, a word that's probably onomatopoetic.

[Image Can Not Be Found] Root, little pig, or die
A St. Petersburg, Florida, listener says when she used to ask her mother what was for dinner, her mom's answer was often "root, little pig, or die," meaning "You'll have to fend for yourself." The more common version of the expression, root, hog, or die, goes all the way back to the memoirs of Davy Crockett, published in 1834. It refers to a time when hogs weren't fenced in and had to find most of their own food.

[Image Can Not Be Found] German Words of the Year
The German publisher Langenscheidt declared smombie as the Youth Word of the Year for 2015. A portmanteau of the German borrowings smartphone and zombie, Smombie denotes someone so absorbed in their small, glowing screen that they're oblivious to the rest of the world. Runner-up words included merkeln, "to do nothing" or "to decide nothing"—a reference to Chancellor Angela Merkel's deliberate decision-making style—and Maulpesto, or "halitosis"—literally, "mouth pesto."

[Image Can Not Be Found] P Word Quiz
Puzzle Person John Chaneski proffers problems pertaining to the letter P. What alliterative term, for example, also means "wet blanket"?

[Image Can Not Be Found] Take the Longcut
A San Antonio, Texas, caller wonders: What's a good word for a shortcut that ends up taking much longer than the recommended route? You might call the opposite of a shortcut a longcut, or perhaps even a longpaste. But there's also the joking faux-Latinate term circumbendibus, first used in 17th-century England to mean "a roundabout process."

[Image Can Not Be Found] Another Riddle
A listener from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, sent us this riddle: I begin at the end. I am constant but never the same. I am frequently captured but never possessed. What am I?

[Image Can Not Be Found] Jingo and Jingoism
Jingoism, or "extreme nationalism," derives from a drinking-hall song popular in the 1870's, with the belligerent refrain: "We don't want to fight but by jingo if we do / We've got the ships, we've got the men, and got the money too / We've fought the Bear before and while we're Britons true / The Russians shall not have Constantinople." The term jingo came to denote "fervent patriot espousing an aggressive foreign policy."

[Image Can Not Be Found] Kick into Touch
In rugby and soccer to kick into touch means to "kick a ball out of play." The phrase by extension is used in British English mean to "take some kind of action so that a decision is postponed" or otherwise get rid of a problem.

[Image Can Not Be Found] Talk Out the Side of Your Neck
A Twitter beef between Kanye West and Wiz Khalifa has a listener wondering about the phrase talk out the side of one's neck, meaning to "talk trash about someone." It's simply a variation of talking out of the side of one's mouth.

[Image Can Not Be Found] Double Jinx
When they happen to say the same word at the very same time, many children play a version of the jinx game that ends with the declaration, "You owe me a Coke!" Martha shares an old version from the Ozarks that ends with a different line: "What goes up the chimney? Smoke!"

[Image Can Not Be Found] Auntie
Many listeners responded to our conversation about the use of the term auntie to refer to an older woman who is not a blood relative. It turns out that throughout much of Africa, Asia, as well as among Native Americans, the word auntie, or its equivalent in another language, is commonly used as a term of respect for an older woman who is close to one's family but not related by blood. The same holds true with uncle for older men.

[Image Can Not Be Found] Supper vs. Dinner
A Las Vegas, Nevada, listener says her South Dakota-born mother always refers to supper as the last meal of the day and dinner as the largest meal of the day. It's caused some confusion in the family. Linguist Bert Vaux has produced dialect maps of the United States showing that in fact quite a bit of variation in the meaning of these terms depending on which part of the country you're from.

[Image Can Not Be Found] Number One Riddle
How do you make the number one disappear? (You can do it if you add a letter.)

[Image Can Not Be Found] Whistle Pig Critter
Whistle pig, woodchuck, and groundhog are all terms for a type of large squirrel, or marmot, found in the United States. The name whistle pig, common in Appalachia, is a jocular reference to the sound they make.

[Image Can Not Be Found] Boxes to Bag Groceries
On our Facebook group, a listener posted a photo of a doubletake-worthy sign. in her local grocery, which reads, "We Now Offer Boxes to Bag Your Groceries."

[Image Can Not Be Found] Pirooting
Pirooting around can mean "whirling around," as well as "prowling" or "nosing around." This expression is most commonly heard in the American South and Southwest. Piroot is most likely a variant of pirouette and is probably influenced by root, as in root around. Similarly, rootle is a dialectal term that means to "root around" or "poke about."

[Image Can Not Be Found] House Gravity
What do you call that force that keeps you lounging on the couch rather than get up the energy to go outdoors? A listener calls it house gravity.

This episode is hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, and produced by Stefanie Levine.

Photo by Marilyn McCoy. Used under a Creative Commons license.

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