Down A Chimney Up

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You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Lately, I’ve been having a lot of fun with a collection of poetry.

It was edited by the former poet laureate, Robert Pinsky.

And the book is called Essential Pleasures.

And these, Grant, are poems chosen specifically because of the pure pleasure of reading them aloud.

Oh, okay.

It’s really cool, and it even includes a CD of Pinsky reading several of the poems.

And I tell you, the one that caught my eye, or I should say caught my ear,

Is one that was a description of, of all things, a headache.

And I want to read some of it to you, okay?

Okay, please.

When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache and repose is tabooed by anxiety,

I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in without impropriety,

For your brain is on fire.

The bedclothes conspire of usual slumber to plunder you.

First your counterpane goes and uncovers your toes,

And your sheet slips demurely from under you.

Then the blanketing tickles.

You feel like mixed pickles, so terribly sharp is the pricking.

And you’re hot in your cross, and you tumble and toss

Till there’s nothing twixt you in the ticking.

And then it goes on to describe this really crazy dream,

And then get this when the person wakes up.

You’re a regular wreck with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore for your heads on the floor,

And you’ve needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a creep for your left legs asleep,

And you’ve cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung,

And a feverish tongue, and a thirst that’s intense, and a general sense that you haven’t been sleeping in clover.

But the darkness has passed, and it’s daylight at last, and the night has been long, ditto, ditto my song,

And thank goodness they’re both of them over.

I love that description of a headache, Grant.

That’s beautiful.

Yes, it doesn’t sound anything like a headache, does it?

That sounds like a jaunt.

Well, to me, it sounds like a headache.

All those harsh case sounds and the frantic rush of images and sounds at the end.

Do you know who that was from?

I don’t know.

W.S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame.

But it was interesting to see his verse from a libretto in a book of poetry.

You don’t really see that kind of thing, but I thought it was a terrific reminder of what the sound of poetry can do.

Yeah, that’s wonderful, Martha. And that book again is?

The book again is called Essential Pleasures. It’s edited by Robert Pinsky.

Well, is there one particular poem that you love purely for its sound or the way that it marries sound and sense?

Let us know. Call us at 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Robert Smith calling from Camp Hamilton, California, actually, in San Diego.

Oh, hi, Robert.

Hi, Robert. How are you doing?

Fantastic. How are you guys today?

Super duper.

What’s up?

Okay, well, I have a question.

I just got married back in early October.

Hey, Mazel Tov.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

And she kept her maiden name, which is Crumpacker, which is derived from Grumbacher, of course.

How do you spell that?

Just like it sounds.

C-R-U-M, hacker.

Oh, my.

Yes.

Wow.

So I have a non-exotic name, leaps and bounds, you know, Smith.

But she didn’t want to change her last name, so she kept her maiden name Crumpacker.

Now, to introduce us, there is no longer the option for Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

She can’t be called Mrs. Crumpacker because that would entail that she married a Crumpacker.

Right.

But what do I call her?

You know, Ms. Bob?

I have no idea.

Honey, sweetie, sugar, darling?

I use doodlebug quite a bit.

Oh.

But yeah, we’ve just been arguing about it.

Not arguing, it’s more like a friendly banter.

-huh.

I’m so interested.

So she didn’t want to change her name.

What was her rationale there?

Oh, she’s a very independent person.

-huh.

And really digs her last name.

And that’s about it, actually.

Okay.

So what’s her title, right?

That’s what you want to know.

What’s her title?

Well, she’s Mrs., Ms., Ms., what?

Exactly.

What does she want to say?

What does she use?

She uses Ms.

Ms. with a Ms. sound.

Exactly.

-huh.

But I had always heard that that was used for maybe divorcees or even widows or such, but I have no idea.

Well, the underlying rule for most of this is that whatever the person wants to be called is what they’re called.

So if she wanted to be called Mrs. Jones, that’s her prerogative.

It’s when you don’t know what the preference of the person is that you really have a problem.

So if she prefers Ms. Crumpacker, then she is Ms. Crumpacker.

She sounds like she’s the mistress at a boarding school.

Wrapping those knuckles.

Yeah, she’ll love that.

Putting old heads on young shoulders.

Well, yeah, I think that your wife, what’s her first name?

Andrea.

Andrea.

I think Andrea’s instincts are right on because if she were to be Mrs. Crumpacker, then naturally the question is, where is Mr. Crumpacker?

Exactly.

And he’s not in your home, right?

Not even close, no.

Okay.

Boy, it sounds like there’s a story here.

I would definitely go with Ms. there.

I would do that actually for any woman who wants to keep her original name.

What do you think, Grant?

I mean, if you say she’s Mrs. Crumpacker, then there’s always an asterisk there, an invisible asterisk.

Yeah, yeah.

Mrs. isn’t right here.

Miss implies that she’s not married.

Ms. is a title which is appropriately vague but allows any of these other things to be true, to be unmarried or married.

And, you know, if you know somebody well enough, they’ll figure it out.

And if you don’t know them well enough, then maybe they don’t need to know.

We have the same circumstance in my house, Robert.

My wife kept her name.

We wanted to keep it.

She’s besides her grandfather.

She is the only other person in her whole family that has that name.

So she kept it.

It’s valuable to her.

And we gave it to my son as a middle name.

And when I asked her about this, she’s like, I don’t care.

You know, part of it is there’s a battle here to be fought because most people won’t respect your wishes anyway.

A lot of people will think that she took your name anyhow.

Right.

And a whole other group of people just don’t understand the role of Ms.

And think it’s something foisted upon them by the ERA movement.

Exactly.

Right, so Robert, are you okay with her calling herself Ms. Andrea Crumpacker?

Absolutely.

I think that’s a great choice.

I think Ms. Crumpacker is exactly the right choice.

Good to go.

Well, that’s good to know.

I appreciate your help.

All right.

Sure, no problem.

Thanks for calling, Robert.

Okay, bye-bye.

Well, did you have a dilemma about this when you got married?

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

Or you can email Ms. Barnette and Mr. Barrett at words@waywordradio.org.

Howdy. You have A Way with Words.

Hi. My name is Naomi Breinard, and I’m from Denton, Texas.

Welcome, Naomi. How are you?

Hi, Naomi.

I’m doing great. I had a question.

I go to a public university here in North Texas, and I have been hearing a word,

I think it’s a slang, thrown around campus, and I’ve also heard it in pop culture.

A lot lately, and I wanted to know where it originated from.

The word is frontin,

Like F-R-O-N-T-I-N, or fronting.

I’m not even sure.

And I think it means to put up a front.

So I was wondering where that came from and how it got thrown around.

Can you give us an example or two of how your friends might use it?

Sure. Yeah, I’ve heard it in some songs, pop culture songs, like Don’t Be Fronting.

I’ve heard, I actually don’t personally know anybody that has been using it.

I hear it sometimes in the classroom.

So I can’t just directly ask them, what do you mean? Why are you saying it like that?

But I have heard it a lot in rap and hip-hop songs also.

Sure, absolutely.

So I don’t know if that answers your question.

Don’t be fronting is the way that they say it.

That’s right.

Yeah, yeah.

I’m surprised that you’re still hearing it.

I didn’t know that fronting or fronting, I didn’t know that that still was being used by the young folks on the college campuses.

I’m really surprised to hear that because it’s got a long history, decades and decades.

Really long, yeah.

Here’s how it started.

I’m going to take you all the way back to the 1800s, all right?

And among pickpockets, there was somebody known as the front.

And this is the guy who would kind of conceal the actions of the pickpocket.

Like he would distract you.

You’re the victim.

You’re the mark.

While the pickpocket would take your purse or your wallet, right?

So he’d be fronting for the cut purse, cut purse being another name for pickpocket.

And then later it meant to act as a front, somehow legitimizing or covering for someone’s illegal activities of any kind, not just pickpocketing.

And this actually is still the most common form of the word, common slang form of the word.

Then, a little bit after that, it started to mean to put on a front that was mainly about false assurance or bluffing, but as part of a confidence game.

So it still has that criminal element to it as part of a confidence game where you try to con someone by getting them to trust you.

And ultimately, there’s money at the end of that rainbow, right?

So it’s all about deception.

Yeah, at least up to that point.

And that’s up until around the 1960s or so.

Then we find in the 1980s it starts to change again, and the criminal element drops away, and it just means to posture, to show off.

To front is to kind of put on a false front, to act like something you’re not.

And, of course, in any society or any group of people, especially among young men, where it’s important to be authentic,

To accuse somebody of frontin’ would be insulting their mother almost because you don’t want to ever be seen as fake and a poser.

You know, there’s a lot of status involved in being genuine and not being known as the guy who’s always front and pretending to be something he’s not.

And then it meant just a plain lie.

You’ll find this in hip-hop songs by Biz Marquis from 1988.

And Fab Five Freddy talks about it in one of his books.

And, you know, Fab Five Freddy being one of the legends of the hip-hop world.

So it’s definitely young black men who still use it primarily,

Although I imagine there’s some bleed over into young white people who listen to the music as well.

I’ve even heard it in Britney Spears’ song, so that’s definitely an example of it bleeding over.

But, you know, that’s the way of slang.

It ultimately leaves its crowd.

You know, it left the pickpocket crowd and went to the general criminal crowd

And went from the criminal crowd to just kind of the street crowd and went from streets to hip-hop,

And now it’s being used by—

Now it’s on your campus.

Yeah, and now it’s on the college campuses.

Yeah.

That’s kind of a normal history for a slang word, to kind of move slowly from group to group.

It’s cool that it’s still being used.

I didn’t know.

I don’t often get to the college campuses to get to listen to language being used

When people don’t know that I’m doing fieldwork, if you know what I mean.

Because if they find out that I’m a guy who studies language,

Then they change their speech, and it ruins everything.

Well, that’s very interesting.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for calling, Naomi.

Thank you so much for calling, Naomi.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

You have questions, we have answers.

Call us 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, I have a brain buster for you.

Let her rip.

Okay, what can go up a chimney down but cannot go down a chimney up?

I don’t know, what?

An umbrella.

How big is your chimney, really?

You’re just assuming like some standard size of a chimney.

But if I had a really big chimney, the umbrella would have no problem being up and down at the same time.

That’s you.

You always find the exceptions and the outliers.

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send those riddles and emails to words@waywordradio.org.

More of your calls and a word puzzle.

Stick around.

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. And we’re joined now by our quiz guide, John Chaneski.

Hey, John.

Hi, Grant. Hi, Martha. How are you guys?

Hey, buddy.

What’s going on?

Well, this is a very simple puzzle, but I wanted to do something cheerful.

Simple quizzes usually cheer you up, Grant. Isn’t that true?

I’m a simpleton. I’m easy to please.

That’s right.

Now, the answers to each of the clues I’m going to give you start with the word happy.

Happy.

Happy.

Okay.

For example, if I said, this phrase might describe someone who managed to successfully erect a tent.

You might answer, happy camper.

Happy camper, right.

Nice and easy.

Okay, yeah.

Let’s begin.

All right.

All right.

This two-word phrase describes a situation in which an unexpectedly good result occurs from what might otherwise be perceived as a mishap.

Happy ending.

No.

No?

That’s no.

Happy chance.

Happy accident.

Right, happy accident.

Happy chance is another version, I guess, but yeah, happy accident.

I like happy accident.

Yeah.

Here’s the next.

This is the nickname of Zeriera Hollander, as derived from the title of her best-selling 1971 memoir.

The Happy Hooker.

Happy Hooker is right.

Or perhaps someone who creates rugs and is very bad about that.

Crochet.

I used to do that.

This four-word simile presupposes that bivalves are, by nature, quite cheerful and content.

Happy as a clam.

Happy as a clam.

Very good.

We’re zipping through these.

In this 1996 sports comedy film, Bob Barker beats the crap out of Adam Sandler’s title character.

It’s Happy Madison.

Is that it?

No, it’s a different one.

That’s a mix of his titles.

I have no idea.

He’s a hockey player turned golfer.

Right.

I forget the name of it.

Oh, happy.

I don’t remember.

I’ll give you that one.

It’s Happy Gilmore.

Happy Gilmore.

There we go.

Happy Gilmore.

Now, let’s see how much you know about music.

This is a type of dance music typified by a very fast tempo, coupled with solo vocals and sentimental lyrics.

Really?

Yeah.

I don’t know.

Happy chant?

Happy trance?

Happy.

No, but.

Happy drum, happy beat, happy techno.

Happy jungle?

No.

Happy club?

Happy house?

Happy?

Happy hop.

No, but without the word happy, it’s a word that means very intense, sort of like a gamer.

You might call someone, if someone’s a video gamer and they do it all the time, you say that they’re very this.

Or if they’re a punk rocker, you say, man, that guy’s.

Hard?

Oh, happy hardcore.

That’s it.

Happy hardcore.

Oh, yeah.

I did not know that one.

Very good.

No idea.

Wow.

Happy hardcore.

Let’s move on.

Now, literature.

In the first line of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy said these were all alike, but that every unhappy one is unhappy in its own way.

Happy families.

That’s right.

Happy families.

Every happy family is alike, but every unhappy one is unhappy in its own way.

Isn’t that on a Chinese menu too, happy family?

That’s right.

Yeah.

What is it?

And crawling up a tree and I don’t know.

I don’t remember what it is.

It’s some sort of combo meal.

We used to actually go to a local Chinese place near us that was called happy family.

We loved it.

Yeah.

Here’s the next one.

This one’s a little easier.

Television.

This show inspired several spinoffs, including Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy.

It wasn’t Happy Nights.

No.

It was Happy Days.

Happy Days is right.

Now let’s move on to the category of cuisine.

These typically come with a toy and consist of burger, fries, and chocolate milk.

And apparently a voice that sounds a little like this.

It’s a Happy Meal.

Happy meal is right.

My kids actually, when they see the Golden Arches, they just say happy meal.

It’s happy meal.

Oh, look, Dad, happy meal.

So, all right, whatever, if we must.

Our next subject is musical theater.

This tune was the theme song to The Roy Rogers Show and was written by Dale Evans.

Oh, yes.

How could we forget?

Happy trails to you.

Nice work, guys.

That’s the puzzle.

Thank you very much.

Happy to have you here.

Happy to be here.

I’ll see you next time.

Well, if you’d like to talk about nouns, verbs, slang, punctuation, or words and how we use them, call us.

We’d be happy to hear from you.

1-877-929-9673.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Lauren Pappin from Arlington, Texas.

Hi, Lauren. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Lauren.

Thanks for having me.

Sure.

Our pleasure.

There’s a word that I was wondering about that my grandmother always uses for usually like a blanket, like a child’s blanket.

Like whenever I was a kid, I had this one favorite blankie like we all seemed to have, and she called it ukush.

And she seems to call, I don’t know if it’s the Czech word or what, but she uses this word for blankets usually, I think.

Ukush.

Mm—

So would you use it too when you were a little kid?

I wouldn’t really.

It was just such a weird word for me.

I never really used it.

I just heard her use it, and it’s just a strange word to me.

And, Lauren, did you carry it around like Linus, your little security blanket?

Yes, I did.

Well, why don’t you tell us about it?

What color was it, and did it have little figures on it?

The blanket I have, which I actually still have today, it’s just a little pink blanket with like a silky trim on it.

I had one of those too.

Really?

Pink with silky pink trim?

You had a wool.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you still have it?

Do you still carry it around?

I don’t carry it around, but I do still have it.

Oh.

Where do you keep it?

I actually keep it in my bedroom.

I’m married and everything, and my husband’s like, well, you should really get rid of that.

I was like, no, I can’t get rid of it.

Your husband wants you to get rid of your ukush?

Yes, he does.

Oh, man.

Boy, well, you came to the right place.

We have to solve this, Grant.

She should be able to keep her ukush.

Well, she should.

She should.

Yes, yes.

This is all our way of saying we have no idea what the Czech word for blankie is.

I’m not finding it in any of my resources here, and it’s under a variety of spellings.

All that I can say, this reminds me of a children’s book about a mouse named Owen who has a yellow blankie that he likes to take everywhere.

And ultimately the solution for his parents is that his mother cuts it up into a little bit of handkerchiefs so he can actually bring them around in his pocket.

And he doesn’t have to carry the whole blanket.

And so people don’t really know that he’s still got his woobie with him.

Oh, this is like one of those horrible Grimm’s fairy tales, you know, where the central character gets chopped to bits.

No, no, it’s actually a pleasant resolution.

I don’t know.

What do you think, Lauren?

Plus, it means there’s more corners for him to suck on, which is kind of what kids do with blankets, right?

Well, yeah, yeah.

You don’t still suck your thumb, do you, Lauren?

No.

Okay, just checking, just checking.

So your grandmother, who was of Czech descent, called it an ukuush.

Mm—

And what did you call it?

I just called it a pink blanket.

A pink blanket?

Oh, you didn’t have a pet name for it?

No, pink blanket was his name.

Yeah, I think I had a blankie.

What about you, Grant?

Nothing, no.

You didn’t have a woobie?

No, no, no.

I learned that one from your website.

Well, you know, I had a roll of barbed wire that I like to carry around with me everywhere.

It was rusted.

This explains a lot, Lauren.

I called it Brutus.

No.

Oh, that’s good.

Well, I tell you, Lauren, all I’ve heard in this country is woobie, blankie, lovey, and nai-nai.

You know, like night-night.

But I’m sure that, I mean, I know that we have Czech speakers who listen to the show.

So maybe they’ll inform us as to whether or not ukush is an actual Czech word.

I know there’s a Polish word that sounds sort of like schmata for a little kid’s security blanket, sort of like the Yiddish.

Wow, this old schmata.

Right, for fabric or cloth or textile, right?

Or clothing.

Yeah, but the Czech, well, we’ll just have to put the word out.

Okay, that would be great.

It could be a Polish word, maybe, because she’s of Czech and Polish descent.

So maybe it is Polish, but I for some reason thought it was Czech.

So Lauren’s going to be, you’re going to be there clinging to your blankie until you get an answer, right?

Yes, yes I will.

All right, bye-bye.

Thank you, bye-bye.

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org,

Or tell us what you called your woobie in Twitter to the username Wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Michael T. Brown calling from Irving, Texas.

Hello, Michael. Welcome.

Hiya, Michael T. Brown.

Hey, thank you.

Well, I have a question.

We use the term U-turn here in America when describing a 180-degree turn,

Such as switching direction from north to south or east to west.

And this maneuver mimics our letter U in the English alphabet.

Now, which terms are used to describe this driving technique in languages where the letter U is not present, such as Arabic or Japanese kanji?

Michael, do you spend a lot of time on the road?

Well, I spend a little bit of time traveling abroad.

Not driving, though, but I do spend a little bit of time overseas and in South America.

-huh. So is this a trick question? You already know the answer?

No, I actually do not know the answer.

Oh, but you just got wondering, what is that turn if you’re turning the steering wheel all the way to the left and you’re in Israel or something, right?

Right.

Well, I’m not affluent in any of those languages, but I should say that most of the languages have something that translates more or less as to turn around or to do an about-face.

It’s pretty straightforward.

And there are some languages that do have the U that do also do something like U-turn.

Norwegian is usving, something like that.

So it’s U hyphen S-V-I-N-G, which means literally a U-turn.

And you swing around in the shape of a U.

Oh, I like that.

Usving.

And all of the languages that I know anything about that have letters with characteristic kind of like shapes,

Like an L shape or a T shape or a plus shape or a box shape or that sort of thing,

They’re often used in other languages to refer to the shape of the letter in the exact same way that we would use the U.

As a matter of fact, English has a ton of these, doesn’t it, Martha?

I was thinking of the I-beam when I edit text in a text editing program.

You have that little cursor that’s the shape of an I-beam that you build a building with.

That’s called an I-beam because it looks like the letter I.

We have a ton of these.

And most languages will do that.

It’s just one of the many ways in which humans are creative.

They sometimes use a letter to have a meaning, and then they use the letter shape to refer to another meaning.

So one character can do a lot of jobs.

Well, Michael T. Brown, you’ve asked an interesting question here.

Now you’ve got me thinking about other letters like that.

I mean, if you’re wearing a V-neck sweater inside an A-frame house, how do you eat a T-bone steak in Hindi?

Well, I guess you wouldn’t be eating a T-bone steak in Hindi.

But in Arabic or, you know, I mean,

Right.

But, yeah, the languages do tend to use their alphabets in the same way that we use our alphabet.

They’ll take the shape and then make a word from it to indicate something that has to do with the shape of that letter.

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question.

All right.

Well, our pleasure.

Thank you so much, Michael.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Well, you sitting there in the T-shirt.

This is your cue to give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

You know, Grant, earlier we were talking about words for blankie and woobie and synonyms for that.

I just found another one on the web that’s a pretty good one.

It’s the term that psychologists use for that thing.

Attachment something or other.

Yeah, transitional object.

Very good.

Oh, okay.

They really know how to take the fun out of things, don’t they?

Transitional.

Transitioning from what to what?

From child to adult?

Yeah, well, from mommy to external reality.

Yeah.

Oh, I see.

Come here, honey.

Here’s your transitional object.

I don’t think so.

Anyway, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Celeste Green. I’m calling from Fort Worth, Texas.

Well, hello, Celeste. Welcome.

Hi, Celeste.

Well, thanks for having me.

Delighted to have you. What’s on your mind?

Well, my question is about a phrase that I’ve picked up from my mother and my nana, her mom.

And the phrase is, out like Lottie’s eye.

And we know what it means, but we’re not sure where it came from.

We have no idea who Lottie is and why her eye is out.

Well, how is it used?

At least the way they use it is basically out like a light.

Like if someone is in a very deep sleep, they’ll be out like Lottie’s eye.

And this is something that all three of you use, all three generations use this expression?

Well, I haven’t really had much occasion to use it myself, but they have both used it, and I’m sure one day when I have children of my own, I will continue the tradition.

And have you heard it outside of your family?

No.

Okay.

Well, we’ve done some Internet research and quotation database just in the past and have never been able—

I mean, we found the quotation, but no explanation of who Lottie is, which is our big question.

Your big holy grail.

Yes.

Did you find the quote attributed to Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde fame?

That is one of the ones we had found, yes.

Yeah, that’s the one that most people know when this expression comes up.

He supposedly said, I’m just kind of paraphrasing here, that he wasn’t going to try to run when the authorities were after him, that he was just going to keep on going until he was out like Lottie’s eye, meaning until he was dead.

Right.

Very dead.

Well, see, that’s the thing about out like Lottie’s eye.

It’s all the different meanings of out can be used here.

Like you can say a horse ran out like Lottie’s eye, meaning it ran very fast.

Or you can say I’m going to finish this work and then I’m out like Lottie’s eye, meaning I’m leaving very fast or you’re leaving immediately.

So there’s a lot of different ways that Lottie’s eye can be used in this idiom.

Here are some interesting things that we know for certain, Celeste, about Lottie’s eye.

This looks to be a Texas expression.

It’s Texas.

Yeah, yeah.

Most of the citations that you can find for this, a few dictionaries have kind of addressed it, and there’s a number of different places that it appears in books, even within the last couple decades or so.

It’s not that old.

I mean, it’s not archaic.

It’s not out of fashion yet.

They almost all seem to have something to do with Texans or Texas or used by Texan or Texas authors, which is really interesting.

But why Lottie?

I mean, is this a person?

Could it be out like a light that somebody just played with and mangled?

There’s a theory.

There was a famous gambler, a woman, by the name of Lottie Dino.

Did you hear about this, Celeste?

I’m not sure.

I don’t think so.

And the last name is spelled D-E-N-O.

And some people think that maybe she was somehow involved in this expression because she did some of her gambling in Texas.

But the thing is there’s no record that she ever lost an eye, and people don’t understand why it might be pertinent to her.

And it might just be a red herring, not really the truth at all.

It’s not a hurricane.

You might think, oh, maybe there was Hurricane Lottie.

There was one Hurricane Lottie, but it was in Fiji.

It wasn’t like, you know.

This is what I love about my co-host, that he knows that Hurricane Lottie was in Fiji.

Well, you know, God bless the Internet, let’s just say.

Out of all the fine things created in the world, Internet might be the best one yet.

You know, rest assured, first of all, that it’s a Texan expression, and that’s kind of nice to know that it belongs to a certain group, right?

And the other one is that it’s got a long history, so we know it goes back at least 100 years.

I did find uses of it from the early 1900s.

And the other thing, I like the fact that it’s still in use by novelists and even nonfiction writers who are writing about Texas and its history.

And occasionally it will even pop up in like high school football stories.

Like the quarterback ran out like Lottie’s eye.

Oh, come on.

Yeah, that’s kind of nice, right?

So it’s still an expressive bit.

Well, no.

I mean, I think kind of, I think what we’re understanding here is that whatever, whoever Lottie was and whatever was going off their eye, it was that something was remarkable.

Maybe she had like this piercing gaze that could get right into your soul, you know, and if Lottie’s eyes were out, then, you know, you knew something important was happening or that, you know, your secrets are about to be revealed to the world.

I don’t know, but whatever was happening, Lottie must have been a remarkable woman.

So there’s a little bit that we know about that.

I hope that’ll hold you until such time as more information comes to light.

Well, it’ll definitely answer some of the questions.

So at least we have an idea now of possibilities.

Yeah, but do pass it along to your kids.

I think it’s really cool.

And Celeste, if we find anything more, we’ll put it on the website, of course, okay?

Awesome.

Sounds great.

Thanks for calling.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, if something’s mystifying you, give us a call.

The number’s 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.

More Lex Love coming your way.

Stay tuned as The Way With Words continues.

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You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Martha, one of the places I like to read and discuss language online besides the A Way with Words discussion forums is a place called Ask Metafilter at metafilter.com.

There is a category there of questions called writing and language.

And the way it works is anybody who has a question posts it.

And anybody else who participates can answer it.

And it’s a very smart community.

There’s some people here with a lot of education and some good thinkers and just kind of reliably funny people, which is always great for leavening it.

And one of the questions that caught my eye this week was posted by a woman who says that she didn’t speak her first word until she was three.

Oh, yeah, I saw that one.

And she wanted to know if there was something wrong with her and if other people who, you know, started late in life, started speaking at three or four even, if they had information about this, if they could share.

She was basically looking for commiseration.

And what was so attractive about it was the amount of evidence that there seems to be out there to indicate that the age at which you start speaking isn’t an indicator of intelligence or success or anything.

It just happens to be the age at which you started speaking.

Right, right.

And that discussion was interesting because a lot of people mentioned the fact that it seems to be that if you have older siblings, you may end up speaking later anyway because you can’t get a word in edgewise.

That’s right.

They’re kind of your puppet master.

And then they do everything for you and they speak for you and your needs are taken care of.

Yeah, for why bother?

And in there they share the famous anecdote that’s supposedly true about Albert Einstein.

Do you know this one?

Yeah, yeah.

It’s supposedly when Einstein was young, he was a late talker.

And, of course, his parents were worried.

So finally one day at supper he broke in with the words, the soup is too hot in German, of course.

And his parents, of course, were greatly relieved.

But they asked him why he hadn’t spoken a word before then.

And he said, well, until now, everything was in order.

And I love that.

It’s very matter-of-fact and straightforward.

Yeah, I don’t know that that’s true.

I’ve seen other versions of that attributed to other people, but it is pretty funny.

Share your stories and information about children who first speak late in life.

You can send them to words@waywordradio.org,

On our discussion forum at waywordradio.org/discussion,

Or you can call us on the telephone, 1-877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Camille from Frankfurt, Michigan.

Well, hello, Camille. Welcome to the program.

Hi.

What’s cooking? What can we do for you?

Well, there’s a word I’ve been trying to retrieve from the recesses of my memory.

Means a person who is very good at using a space to fill every corner,

Every part of it, as if you’re packing.

And you have to make the most of the space that you have.

And the person who is very good at assessing it visually and doing this.

Oh, man.

Camille, do you have any recollection of the context in which you heard the word or read it?

Oh, sure.

Oh, I definitely do.

What happened?

When I lived in the Detroit area and had to commute to college up in Marquette in the Upper Peninsula,

We had one car for two or three people, and we’re going to school far away for the year,

And, you know, you have to bring what you can, you know, what you need, but fit it into a small space.

And when I got really good at doing this, I remember someone saying to me, oh, you’re a blank.

You know, and I went, wow, there’s a word for that.

Oh, you’re a blank.

And I have to say, I don’t want to prejudice, you know, the contributions, your answers or anything,

But there is a letter that seems prominent in it, whether it begins with a V or has a V prominent in the sound.

I don’t know why that stands out in my memory, but it does.

V as in Victor?

Yeah.

Oh, that’s tough. This is tough.

So you remember that somehow there’s a word for a person who is very good at packing a car or a truck or a box, just making stuff fit, right?

Yeah.

So when would this be? Was this 80s, 90s, 2000s?

This was in the late 70s.

Oh, late 70s. So a Tetris champ isn’t what you’re looking for.

No.

It’s prior to the Tetris game. Okay.

And I guess you weren’t packing a VW, right? Or a VW bus, right?

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Okay. It just had the letter V in it.

No, it would be any kind of car.

Okay. All right.

No, it had nothing to do with the car.

Boy, it seems like there should be some kind of German word, you know, with that kind of German efficiency.

Did you have any German majors traveling with you?

No, no, no.

No, in fact, I think it was the father of one of our friends who said it.

I’ve got to tell you, I don’t know what this word is, Camille.

I have no idea.

This is a mystery.

Oh, but let’s guess.

What’s the opposite of déjà vu?

What would it be?

Avant vu?

That has Vs in it?

Avant vu?

You see before it all goes in?

Yeah, yeah.

All right, that’s not going to work.

What about if you took the word clairvoyant and made it space voyant?

Somebody who can really see the space in front of you, right?

That kind of works, yeah.

I don’t think Camille’s buying it.

No, Camille, you’re thinking of it.

I haven’t studied French.

You don’t want us to coin something.

You’re thinking of it.

There’s a specific word out there that you need to retrieve.

And it did kind of, it sounded, it didn’t sound foreign.

It just sounded like, you know, an American word.

It could, of course, have a French or German origin, and most of our words do.

There aren’t that many words in English that begin with the letter V.

So let’s just get a dictionary and work your way down the list and see what happens.

That’s what my mother said to do.

I said, oh, my God, I have to go through every entry in V.

Well, it’s not that many.

It’s a few thousand, maybe.

Oh, man.

Well, what we’ve got to do, Martha, is turn on the sirens, get the flashing lights going,

Put the call out to everyone.

What is a word that might begin with V that means that you are very good at doing things like packing cars and moving trucks?

Maybe that’s it.

What?

Very good.

No?

No.

Thank you.

Camille in Michigan says that there is one word for this.

She can’t remember it.

Help us help this woman.

And meanwhile, you’re going to take the dictionary and start at V and call us when you find the word, right?

Oh, God.

Put us out of our misery.

Okay.

Thank you, Camille.

We’ll let you know.

Thank you.

And if you think of it at 3 in the morning, call us.

Okay.

All right.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

I’ll tell you what, though.

If you can help Camille and you can help us, if you know of the word, or you can coin a great one that means a person or the characteristic of not wanting to leave empty spaces or being good at packing automobiles or what have you, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Rachel from Connecticut.

Hello, Rachel. Welcome.

Hi, Rachel.

I have a question about the slang term homeboy, meaning like friend.

Right.

I was talking to a friend of mine, I guess, about it recently,

And it sort of seems like it maybe has an obvious derivation,

As in like, you know, it’s a boy from your home.

But then we were thinking about it,

And it’s really similar to like the Latin word for man,

As in, I don’t know Latin, but French, home, or Spanish, hombre.

And we were wondering if that had anything to do with it,

And I was wondering if you guys could help.

We can help indeed.

Yeah, so homeboy meaning just a friend, right?

Yeah, basically, I think.

Yeah, and it started out in black English,

But I guess it’s kind of spread to all across the country.

Everybody uses it, right?

Everyone knows what it means?

That would be my guess.

Yeah, I’m a homie.

Yeah, homie.

You’re homie.

You’re my homie, Martha.

Yeah, and you’re my homie.

And so it doesn’t actually have any relationship to homo, H-O-M-O,

The Latin for man or the French for man or the Spanish for man.

It actually is just related to the word home in English.

And it comes from originally the late 1800s.

Homeboy meant a male friend from back home.

This was a point in American history during which there was a lot of migration from the south to the north,

Especially among black Americans.

And there are often cultural and historical ties back to the old home region,

Even across generations, you know, beyond decades.

And so it was always important to understand that your relationship with somebody

Had a connection that was deeper than that they just happened to live in your building on your block.

It was somebody that you knew back when.

You knew their people.

They knew your people.

They were from back home.

They were your homeboy.

They sounded like you, too.

They had the same accent.

And it’s related, Rachel, to a word homefolks or a compound homefolks,

Which is the same exact thing, which is your people from back home.

And when I say your people, there’s definitely a connotation there of family and knowing each other and connected ties and a shared history and just all the things that come from an understanding of the people in your real community.

Not just somebody that you live next to, but that you live with.

Does that make sense?

So, Rachel, it’s a good guess, but it’s just one of those linguistic coincidences.

I’m curious if you use the expression.

Sometimes, yeah.

I should tell you guys that part of the reason that I decided to call is that I looked this up on Wikipedia.

They think that it has a Latin root, but there’s no source cited.

Hello, Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is, let me just say this for the umpteenth time, and I always get hateful email. Wikipedia is not reliable.

I agree, but that’s why I decided to ask you guys.

Wikipedia is one of, I mean, there are a few entries there where I’ve tried to make changes on Wikipedia, or have made changes, and I’ll go back later, and somebody has just, if you’ll pardon the expression, crapped all over my work. There’s no point in it.

Oh, that’s Ickypedia.

Ickypedia.

Well, Rachel, very good instincts there. Very good instincts to check that out.

Well, thank you guys very much.

Okay. You’re welcome. Thanks. Bye-bye.

So, Martha, it’s really surprising to find that Homeboy is more than 100 years old, right? Yeah, I was shocked when I heard that.

Most people would think that it came out with hip-hop in the late 1970s and early 80s, but it’s got a long history. It definitely comes from Black English into mainstream English.

It’s very, very old, yeah, and I just think it’s a beautiful term.

I never recognized the beauty of that term until I realized it went all the way back to a time when people, you know, you recognize somebody from home, and that just does something visceral, right?

Mm-It’s true.

Your questions about words and language are welcome to 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Felipe.

Hi, Felipe. Where are you calling from?

I’m calling from Kennedale, Texas, next to Fort Worth.

Okay.

What’s the name of the place?

Kennedale.

Kennedale.

Okay.

It’s a small little community.

Okay.

All right.

Well, welcome to the program. What can we help you with?

Well, I have a quick question for you.

My grandmother used to say a saying in Spanish that my mother then used, and currently I use as well.

And in Spanish, you say, donde lloran está el muerto, which translates to where there’s crying, there’s a dead person or a dead body.

And they always used it when referring to someone that would tell them, I don’t have money to do that.

And what they’re trying to say, essentially, is that they do have money. They’re just crying about it, essentially, that they’re just telling you they don’t have money.

And I wanted to see if there was a translation to that into an English phrase or a saying, which I’ve never been able to find other than where there is smoke, there must be fire kind of thing.

So the idea there is that they’re protesting too much. Is that right?

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

There’s kind of a self-published book by a fellow named Mark Laser called The Dictionary of Mexican-American Proverbs.

And he has this, if you want a little more information about that, I think you can find it on Google Books.

And he has it exactly, almost exactly as you’ve given it. He writes it as, donde lloran, allí está la muerte.

And he says, you use this about a penny pincher or a money nagger who is wealthy.

So it’s somebody who’s complaining about being poor and not having money.

And he writes, my mom says an old woman complained about a cent at a grocery store, something costing one cent more than it should, and then jumped into a brand new Cadillac and drove off.

My mom felt the proverb was appropriate to describe the situation.

So I think he’s kind of nailed it there.

And he gives a couple other attributions for the expression.

So that book, again, is A Dictionary of Mexican-American Proverbs, and it’s by Mark Glazer.

It looks like this is going to be a place to get your answer.

Thank you for taking my call.

Yeah, I’m putting that book on my wish list.

Thanks for…

Yeah, the best thing about it is it looks to be self-published, which means it’s probably more interesting than something that’s gone through a strict editorial process.

It’s probably got more personality and character and more stories.

Cool.

Thank you for the information again.

Sure, no problem.

Thanks for calling, Felipe.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye.

Bueno, if you have a question for us, call us 1-877-929-9603.

Llamalos.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, I know how much you love old-fashioned riddles.

Here’s one for you.

I’m taken from a mine and shot up in a wooden case from which I am never released, and yet I’m used by almost everybody.

Who am I?

Is it uranium that powers the atomic clock in Fort Collins, Colorado?

I don’t know. What’s the answer to this?

Cork?

You’re a writer. You’ll appreciate this. It’s pencil-led.

Oh, very good. Very good. Nice. Yes. Thank you. Perfect.

1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi. This is Chet Sewell, and I’m calling from San Diego.

Well, hiya, Chet. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Chet.

Thank you. Hi.

Well, I grew up in Iowa, and my mother grew up on a farm in southern Iowa.

And when she was growing up, her mother, my grandmother, when they would get done with dinner, my grandmother would say, okay, kids, read up the table.

And on fancy days when they had a big, huge meal, my grandmother would pretend that they had a maid, and Bridget would read up the table, the imaginary maid.

When I grew up, my mother would tell us children to read up the table.

And then when my parents remodeled their kitchen and my mother got the coveted dishwasher, the dishwasher became Bridget.

And so our job was to read up the table and load Bridget.

That’s cool.

I’m curious about the phrase read up.

I’ve never heard it used outside of my immediate family.

My aunts and uncles used it because they were with my mom when they were growing up.

But I just don’t know where it comes from.

And every time I say it to somebody, they look at me like I’m completely off my rocker.

Well, you may very well be. What part of rockerless Iowa are you from?

I grew up in Des Moines.

I grew up in the big city.

And that’s where your aunts and uncles and mother and so forth are from?

They grew up in Osceola, Iowa. My grandmother grew up in Indiana.

-huh. Maybe northern Indiana, eastern Indiana?

Yeah, Reynolds, just near Lafayette.

Mm-Anna, what kind of lineage does your family have?

German, French, and Irish.

Mm-Mm—

Well, yeah, we can assure you that you may be off your rocker, but you’re using Red Up correctly.

Oh, cool.

And you’re not alone.

Yes, you’re not alone.

I’m not.

No, you’re not alone, Chet.

Well, that is so funny because out here in California, nobody that I have come across knows what I’m talking about when I mention that phrase.

Right, right.

Because it’s more confined to that area of Pennsylvania, especially Ohio, northern Indiana.

And it reflects the footsteps of Scottish immigrants in that part of the world.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it spelled out.

No.

It’s usually spelled R-E-D-D.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, and it’s a vestige of the language of Scottish immigrants and means to tidy up.

Yeah, it’s got a great long history in the United States in all the various dialects of that part of the country, and it’s well attested to.

It appears in print consistently decade after decade.

It doesn’t even seem to be disappearing, which is nice for a little dialect feature like that.

Well, cool. I teach kindergarten, and I use it oftentimes with my children when it’s time for us to clean up.

Oh, my gosh.

I’m passing it on.

Good for you. Their parents are probably scratching their heads.

Right.

Yeah, that’s great.

So that’s good to know where it comes from. Thank you so much.

Oh, you’re welcome.

All right, thanks for calling, Chet.

Oh, it was fun. Bye-bye.

All right, bye-bye.

1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

That’s our show for this week.

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We’ve had production help this week from Josette Herdell and Jennifer Powell.

From Studio West in San Diego, I’m Martha Barnette.

And from San Francisco, I’m Grant Barrett. Thanks to Howard Gelman for engineering our show from the studios of KQED Radio with assistance from Monte Carlos.

Peace out.

Love ya.

You say neither, and I say neither, either, either, neither.

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Hi, it’s Martha.

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