Drop a Dime (episode #1376)

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Recently I had a chance to talk with Khaled Hosseini. He’s the author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Sons.

And I was interviewing him in front of an audience here in San Diego about his latest bestseller, And the Mountains Echoed.

Hosseini grew up in Afghanistan, and there poetry is integrated into daily life in a way that we’re not used to here in this country.

He said that in Kabul, you can walk around and you can see the kind of graffiti that you see anywhere in the world.

But then you’ll go around a corner and you’ll see that somebody spray painted the work of a 13th century mystic poet.

And we were talking also about the fact that proverbs are a part of the fabric of everyday conversation there.

And here’s one that I know you’ll like.

A porcupine speaking to its baby says, oh, my child of velvet.

Of course.

There’s nothing wrong with my child.

Exactly.

It’s perfect.

Exactly.

Claw-free.

I’ve got some more that I’m going to share later in the show.

But in the meantime, we’d love to talk about any aspect of language with you.

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

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Maya.

I’m calling from Traverse City, Michigan.

Traverse City, Michigan.

All right.

What are you bringing us?

This is kind of weird.

But my husband, actually, when we first started dating, would refer to himself as a good doobie.

When he would do something like clean up the house, get the bills paid, he was always saying I was a good doobie.

And I asked him, what on earth does that mean?

And he said, oh, it’s what my mom used to always call me.

And I don’t know.

I’ve always thought, boy, that sounds a little bit weird, especially when you think of other connotations that that could be.

Why would your mom call you that?

What kind of doobie are you thinking about?

Doobie brother.

Now, I’m not saying.

I just read the media.

But I think we can.

Can what?

Talk about what a doobie is.

Yeah, the other doobie.

There’s two doobies here, right?

Oh, well, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously, there is the vessel for drug inhalation, if you will.

That’s what I’ve always heard doobie use.

Right, a marijuana cigarette.

Cannabis delivery system, yes.

But this other doobie is another thing, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think so.

That’s actually the doobie that I grew up with.

The good doobie.

The good doobie.

Yes, yes.

You grew up with the good doobie.

I did grow up with the good doobie.

Why no?

Because, in fact, there used to be a children’s show on TV called Romper Room.

Have you ever heard of that?

Oh, maybe vaguely.

Vaguely, okay.

I watched it, I remember.

Did you?

Okay.

1970s, yeah.

Really?

Okay.

It was on that late?

Okay, well.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, when I was watching it, there was a character named Mr. Doobie, and he was this giant bumblebee.

Who would advise children on proper behavior.

And so this giant bumblebee would advise children to do be a good plate cleaner or do be a helpful person around the house and that kind of thing.

Yeah, so if you were a good doobie and a devoted romper room watcher as I was, then you would strive to do all those good things.

And don’t be a don’t-be.

Right, don’t be a don’t-be.

Don’t be a don’t-be.

Be a doobie.

Doobie.

Oh.

It’s not regional. It’s almost generational then.

Yes, definitely generational.

But the show was on the air for decades all around the country.

And it had a variety of local hosts, too, so a lot of people remember a different person.

But I remember enjoying it and loving it.

I think it was on the PBS station where we lived when I was a kid.

Yeah. I lived in Boston at the time, and we had Miss Jean.

And at the end of the show, she would look in her magic mirror.

Do you remember this?

And she would say, romper, bomper, stomper, boo, tell me, tell me, tell me, do.

Magic mirror tell me today have all my friends had fun at play and then she would do a shout out to different kids whose parents had written in and I remember that my mother was trying to get me to drink all my milk at the dinner table and so she actually sent my name in and so one day I’m watching TV and Miss Jean says Martha Ann you drink all your milk don’t you and I was sitting there just nodding at the TV, lying through my teeth.

Mind blown.

It was completely blown.

Oh, that’s adorable.

Thank you.

You were a doobie, though, except for the milk.

Yes, but I became a doobie after that.

I think it was mind control.

I think she was sending out devil rays ever since.

I’ve always drunk all my milk.

Boy, that’s a helpful parenting tool.

Yeah.

Something like that now.

Yeah.

So your husband’s not weird, and your husband’s family’s not weird.

They just watched kids’ television maybe a little late in life.

They watched a charming television show.

Wow.

Take it up.

You can find various clips of it around the internet.

Yeah.

It’s for kids.

It’s sweet and charming.

It does all the things that a show like that should do.

I’m going to have to find it now.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

See if you can find a DVD set and give it to him for Christmas.

Oh, my gosh.

That’s a great idea.

I’m writing it down.

That’s a great idea.

Hopefully he won’t hear this.

Otherwise, I’ve just given away his gift.

Thanks for calling, Maya.

Thank you.

All right, take care now.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673 or send your questions and stories about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Connie.

Hi, Connie.

Where are you calling from?

I am calling from the New River Marine Corps Air Station in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

Well, nice to have you on the show.

Hi. Well, as I’m sure you both know, every branch of the military has its own jargon and phrases and whatnot that you hear all the time.

There’s one phrase in particular that I’ve only really heard my husband and his Marine buddies use over the years, but I don’t know the origin of it.

And in fact, I kind of suspect it might not even be a military term, but I am just curious if you might be able to help me out and tell me where it came from.

Sure, we’ll try.

Okay, well, the phrase is to dime someone out, or they might say to drop a dime on someone.

And the context is always the same.

It means that they’re getting someone in trouble, someone is being tattled on, if you will.

And to me, that almost sounds like something more like a gangster would use or something, you know, to drop a dime on that guy.

But I’ve only heard it among my husband and his Marine buddies.

Well, Connie, your instincts are correct. It goes well beyond the military.

Actually, quite simple. It has to do with using a payphone back in the day when a telephone call just cost 10 cents.

You’ve used a payphone, right?

I am definitely old enough to have used payphones and to remember when they cost a dime.

Okay, very good.

Well, that’s exactly it.

Then you know about going into a phone booth and dropping that dime, and you make a phone call.

And it has to do with slipping away in the night or slipping away secretly to make a phone call.

If you’re going to tattle on somebody, call the police, you’re not going to do it from your landline at home.

You’re going to sneak out to a phone booth.

Muffle your voice maybe, do it at the late hours somewhere in a dark corner.

Okay.

Tattle.

And the interesting thing about dropping a dime, it’s funny how in old ads and stories from the old days when payphones were a thing, how often that phrase is used to drop a dime.

I’m just simply meaning to call with no slang intent and nothing about snitching or narking or ratting somebody out or being a fink.

Oh, interesting.

So has it just kind of slipped out of the vernacular just because no one, number one, I don’t suppose, even if there are payphones, I’m sure they don’t cost a dime anymore.

Yeah.

Well, it became specialized in the 50s and 60s.

When you dropped a dime on somebody,

It just started only to mean that you were calling the cops to snitch on somebody,

To be a stool pigeon, so to speak.

That’s really interesting.

Right, moving farther and farther away from its original meaning.

Okay.

All right, how do we do, Connie?

Well, thank you.

Sure.

Our pleasure.

Thanks for calling.

Have a good day.

Bye-bye.

All right, thanks for calling.

You know, Grant, when I was a teenager, my mother never let me get out of the house without my emergency dime.

I remember when I moved to New York City in the early 90s, pay phones were still a thing.

And I always made sure to leave the house with quarters just in case.

You never knew.

Yeah.

Because you would check your voicemail.

You would call it remotely and check your voicemail.

Oh, man.

Strange days.

Yeah, even before the days of voicemail.

I mean, I remember carrying a dime in my shoe between my sock and my shoe just in case, you know.

Little mad money, we called it, too.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, here’s another proverb from Afghanistan.

A tilted load won’t reach its destination.

Supposedly, this means honesty is the best policy.

It’s like you have to start out right because, I mean, it’s such a great

Visual, isn’t it? You start out with a tilted

Load, you’re not going to get there.

877-929-9673.

Hello,

You have A Way with Words.

Good morning. My name is Mehran. I’m calling from

San Antonio, Texas. I had a

Question. Basically,

It’s about the khaki

Color.

I’m originally from Iran and

Khaki in far

Seeming the earthly

Or down

To earth. My

The question was, what is the origination of this?

How did it enter the English language?

So in English, we have that K-H-A-K-I is how we spell it here.

It refers to a type of tan or brown fabric, usually sturdily made, perhaps worn by soldiers or people who are working outdoors.

And it goes back to the British history in the subcontinent.

The British picked it up during the British Raj, this period of rule.

And they picked it up in the north of India or in what is now Pakistan.

The Urdu, which is very similar to Hindi, but has a lot more influence from Farsi and even Arabic

And some of the other languages that have historically been along those trade routes.

And so the word was borrowed from Farsi into the variety of Hindi slash Urdu spoken in Pakistan and now.

And then the British picked it up.

In the 1840s or so, they began to dress their soldiers in this particular type of fabric called, at the time, keiki by the locals, but kharki by the British, something like that.

Then it caught on from there because it’s a sturdy, reliable fabric that can take stains and the dust of the world is almost invisible on it.

It was one of the things that they loved about it.

And these days, in the languages of India and Pakistan and Afghanistan,

It tends to mean dusty or earth-toned or earth-like or related to the ground, something like that.

So very similar. It’s interesting.

You’ve made a great historical connection there, Mehran.

I really appreciate it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Khaleem Amnon.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Boy, we could just start a miniseries on all the awesome ways that Farsi has influenced the other languages of the world.

I mean, it shows up in some of the languages of southern Africa where you don’t quite know why there’s an influence there,

But you can actually trace it back to trekkers and explorers and trade and wars and invaders.

And it’s incredible.

Call us if you’ve got a question or a guess about how a word is connected or related to another one.

Let us hear your theory, 877-929-9673, or email words@waywordradio.org.

Another proverb from Afghanistan, and I’m not quite sure how to interpret this, Grant.

Every plate that is made breaks.

How would you interpret that?

All things must come to an end.

That’s what I was thinking.

We’re all mortal.

But I’d love it if somebody who’s from Afghanistan would let us know if it means something other than that.

Every plate that’s made breaks.

Yeah.

I mean, I immediately took that to mean we’re all mortal.

But it could be, you know.

Dust to dust.

Yeah.

Or everybody’s imperfect, something like that.

I don’t know.

We’d love to hear your thoughts.

877-929-9673.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re joined once again by John Chaneski, our quiz guy.

Hello, John.

Hi, Grant Barrett.

Hi, Martha Barnette.

How are you guys doing?

Hi, John Chaneski.

What’s cooking in New York City?

Things are good here.

Things are great here.

It’s been a nice summer.

And I’m working at the museum, the Museum of Mathematics, MoMath.

The reason I mention it is a coworker of mine sort of inspired today’s quiz.

This quiz is about the nth degree.

It’s about taking things beyond limits.

It’s about Just One More, which is the title of the quiz.

Now, my friend at the museum likes to say five ever.

Aha.

What is five ever?

Oh, that’s great.

Forever plus one.

Five ever is even longer than four ever.

It’s just one more than four ever.

Because I’ve been waiting here.

Five ever.

So let’s take things a bit further and add just one more to numbers within words.

Okay.

All right.

Sounds good.

I’ll describe a word with a number or the sound of a number in it.

It’s not necessarily spelled out correctly.

It could be anywhere in the word.

You add one to the number and tell me the neologism.

Okay?

The new word.

Fill in the blanks.

Here we go.

My cousin got some new ink this weekend in a marathon session.

It covers his entire back, his shoulders, and his legs.

It’s not just a blank.

It’s a blank.

It’s not just a tattoo.

It’s a tat three.

It’s a tat three.

Very good.

Okay, this one.

Here we go.

So then the giant squid smashed into the boat and wrapped a huge arm around the sailors.

It was massive.

I mean, it wasn’t just a blank.

It was a blank.

It was an octopus.

It was an, what’s the after octo?

No, it’s an eleventicle.

Eleventicle is right.

It wasn’t just a tentacle.

I was trying to think of the word for a nine-armed octopus.

Pretty cool.

All right.

Now, you know, Popeye the Sailor Man is quite interesting physically.

First there’s, you know, the Popeye.

Then there are his limbs.

Yikes.

He doesn’t have blank.

He’s got blank.

He doesn’t have triceps.

He has quad steps?

No.

No.

Biceps, triceps.

That was already a quad steps.

Think about Popeye, how he looks.

Muscles.

What is he?

Muscles.

Me muscles.

I said limbs because I was avoiding certain.

Limbs, I know.

He doesn’t have forearms.

He has five arms.

He has five arms, yes.

Oh, golly.

Oh, golly.

Of course.

Forearms.

Now, according to the coroner, the poison was a particular strain that was so powerful,

It not only killed the victim, but the killer as well just from touching it.

This was not just blank.

This was more like blank.

Oh, it’s not just strict nine.

It’s strict ten.

It’s strict ten, yes.

Good one.

You have to give him credit.

He never gives up.

He never gives in.

He’s like a dog with a bone.

He’s not merely blank.

He’s blank.

Dogged?

No.

He’s 11-acious.

Elevanacious.

Martha likes to go right for the up word.

He’s not tenacious.

He’s elevanacious.

He is so entrenched at that college that they could never fire him,

Even if he were to poison the dean or set fire to the quad.

Blank?

He’s got blank.

Ten-year?

He’s got elevan-year.

That’s good.

Good.

When I was a toddler, this is a true story, by the way,

When I was a toddler, I was kind of a big kid, really.

In fact, when my first molar came out, my dad said, that’s not just a blank.

That’s a blank.

That’s a three-th.

That’s a three-th.

That’s not a tooth.

That’s a three-th.

That’s not a knife.

That’s a knife.

Okay, now here’s the last one.

Kids, don’t forget the rules while your mother and I are on vacation.

No staying up late, only one hour of television a night, and absolutely, positively no wild parties.

I’m serious here.

Parties are not just blank, they’re blank.

Not just forbidden, they’re five-bidden.

They’re five-bidden.

All right.

You guys went above and beyond for just one more, so good work.

Thanks, John. Really appreciate it.

Your quizzes are always a delight.

Thank you so much. Bye, guys.

You want to talk about language?

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

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. Hi, Grant. This is Jill Kern calling from Stowe, Massachusetts.

Hi, Jill. Welcome to the show.

Hi there. How are things in Massachusetts?

Well, I was in Italy recently, and we were out to dinner with our guide, and I had a question for him at the end of the meal.

Some years before, when I was traveling in France, I had tried asking a waiter to wrap up my leftovers for me to take home and enjoy later, and the waiter was horrified at the time.

I guess that wasn’t the thing to do in France 15 or 20 years ago.

So on this trip, I wanted to find out if things had changed.

I asked the guide, is it okay to take my leftovers with me?

And he said, yes, of course.

So I asked, how would I say that, meaning what’s the Italian phrase?

He thought for a moment and then said, doggy bag.

Really?

Yes.

And the other two Americans at the table and I also broke out laughing at that, just like you did.

And we kept talking about this because though it’s an American phrase that we all knew, none of us had used it for years.

Instead, we’d just say, may I take the rest with me?

We kind of came to the conclusion that maybe doggy bag had gone out of fashion because everybody knows we’re not taking the food home to the dog.

And it would kind of feel wrong to put it that way.

So I was wondering what your database says about doggy bag.

I don’t know, though, that the Italians all call it a doggy bag.

I don’t know that they have another term for it.

They probably have something fancy that sounds nice, right?

I don’t know.

Sack to pooch.

I don’t know what they call it.

Something like that.

Probably, yeah.

There’s a crazy thing about the doggy bag.

First, one of the things you were on the nose about was people just don’t use that term much anymore because, as you were on the nose about, people tend to just forego the whole illusion that they’re actually taking the leftovers home for the animal because we’re past the point where that was an embarrassment.

There was a point in American culture where to admit that you were taking the food home for yourself, certainly in good restaurants, that was déclasse.

That was pretty gauche.

You just did not do that.

Just as in France, that was absolutely not the thing to do.

Well, in France, you have the dog sitting right there at your feet, right?

Yeah, that’s a great point.

In the restaurant.

And the other point is, doggy bags, to take stuff home for your dog has often meant you actually literally took a bone home.

Either a bone off your plate or the cook or the chef or somebody in the kitchen would say, oh, we’ve got these shanks left over from the meal we prepared.

We put them together for your dog, you know?

So you literally were taking something just for the dog that was actually something they were allowed to eat or no human would touch because it’s just gnawing on bones.

There’s an interesting quote that I wanted to share.

This is from a reminiscence from 1970s of the Ligon family, L-I-G-O-N.

And I love this because this perfectly encapsulates the problem with doggy bags in a certain period.

Nancy, now in a formal gown, stood with specially selected social leaders.

The prince looked down at her and smiled, saying, I see you changed your dress.

And then, would you believe a socialite who sat only a few seats away from Prince Philip at the opulent banquet at the Fontainebleau asked for and got a doggy bag to take home?

And she doesn’t even have a dog.

I mean, you can just hear it, right?

You have to read it in that voice.

So, like, in front of the prince, they asked for a doggy bag.

And she doesn’t even have a dog at this fancy dress occasion.

And we’re far past that.

Yeah, we are. In fact, we’re past bags, right?

I mean, you can get these little origami things out of foil or foil pans with little lids and things.

There’s a whole industry around making doggy boxes or takeout boxes or take-home boxes or whatever you want to call them, right?

Yeah.

And as a dog owner myself, in the past, I stopped taking things home for the dog because we were told not to feed them table scraps.

Right.

It’ll keep them out of your lap for sure when you’re eating at home if they don’t think of your food as also theirs.

Yeah, yeah.

But, I mean, there’s this whole dog food industry.

Terrible health for them.

Promoting things that they’re supposed to eat.

You know, this is all pretty interesting.

I bet people have other terms for this, the doggy bag or the different ways of handling it.

I’d love to hear from people.

Yeah, what would it be, like husband bag, wife bag?

I don’t know.

The leftover sounds kind of meh.

Anyway, Jill, thanks for calling.

We really appreciate it.

All right?

Thank you very much.

This was fun.

All right.

Take care.

Thanks, Jill. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Tell us about your dog, your doggy bag, or the language you use when you want food from a restaurant, 877-929-9673, or email words@waywordradio.org.

Two words come to us from Bruce Rogow in San Diego.

The first one is paw burst.

It’s when a cat or dog reaches out to stretch and flares out their paws.

I like that.

Paw burst.

Nice.

And then hat-to-head ratio.

It’s the measure of how many full-time jobs a single modern corporate employee has.

The hat-to-head ratio is very high in this room.

Oh, that’s terrific.

You know, because you wear a lot of hats, right?

Yeah, you’re piled high.

Piled high.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there.

This is Phil Slates from Indianapolis, Indiana, and I’ve got a question about pronunciation.

All right.

Go ahead.

Shoot, Phil.

We have family down in Evansville, which is kind of at the boot or the toe of Indiana, and it’s a river town.

And someone down there was calling what I would call a calliope.

They would pronounce it a calliope.

And I said, ooh, you’re wrong.

They said, no, it’s a calliope when it’s on land, and it’s a calliope if it’s on a steamship, a riverboat.

And since I’ve only heard it there, I’m kind of, is that for true?

Somebody pulling my leg, what’s up?

Oh, my.

Do they have particular expertise in steamboats or anything like that?

No, they’re not particularly from a riverboating family that I know of.

I mean, it’s, although, I mean, gosh, the whole area is, you know, saturated with river lore.

Yes, indeed.

Right there on the Ohio.

Yeah.

So, Phil, when you talk about a calliope, what you mean is what my father’s people used to call a steam piana.

Exactly.

Right?

Yeah.

Which you might see in a parade or something like that.

There you go.

Exactly.

We happen to have one right here in the studio.

Yeah, well, don’t quit your day job.

Yeah, this is that tooting keyboard instrument that actually was originally designed for churches.

It was patented in the 1850s, and it was supposed to go into churches.

But when the parishioners started laughing too much, they had to play it with a somber organ.

Yeah, then it got picked up by circuses and particularly by steamboats, and it was great for steamboats because you could let people know from miles away that you were coming down the river.

Interesting. I hadn’t thought of that.

So instead of just the tooting whistle, you’ve got music.

Yeah.

And the people would come to the shore, rush, and I don’t know.

Right, yeah.

Buy tickets to the show.

Yes, yes.

Go on the boat for a cruise.

And it was given the highfalutin name that you’re talking about, Calliope, who, of course, was the ancient Greek muse of eloquence and epic poetry, Calliope.

So she was said to have a beautiful voice.

Yes, yes.

Yeah, literally, literally the name means beautiful voice in ancient Greek.

And calliope is the term that has been used traditionally, but there’s always been a certain dispute about it because people look at that, and it’s like for years I thought the name Penelope was Penelope.

And it’s sort of easy to see why people would think that it would be Calliope.

I’ve never heard that distinction between on land and on the water.

But I will confirm that some older dictionaries, say 150 or more years, do include the Kaliope pronunciation.

Okay.

Yeah.

And there were actually some poems in the 19th century that sort of made fun of that dispute over the pronunciation.

They would write poems about this instrument and pronounce it both ways.

Or at least that’s what it looks like to me when I look at the text.

Because you’re looking for the rhymes.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Cool.

Anybody out there, if you know something about that other pronunciation of Calliope, Calliope, to refer to a Calliope aboard a steamship or boat, let us know, 877-929-9673, or email words@waywordradio.org.

Phil, thanks for starting the conversation.

Well, thank you both for letting me talk.

Yeah, sure. Cheers. Take care.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Take care of you.

Call us with your questions about language, 877-929-9673.

Here’s one for you, Grant.

A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar.

The bartender says, what is this, a joke?

-huh.

You thought it was funny.

I’ve heard it before.

Oh, you have?

I’m being polite.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Shayla.

Hi, Shayla.

Where are you calling us from?

I’m calling from Anna, Texas.

Well, welcome to the show.

What can we do for you?

I’m so excited to be on.

Well, I worked in Thailand a few years ago, and the majority of the staff my first year were Canadian.

And I noticed a lot of differences between different words that we said, of course.

But the one I noticed the most that was the most confusing to me was the way that they used the word maybe.

Maybe.

Yeah, maybe.

So for context, my administrator would say, okay, maybe be at staff meeting at 730 in the morning.

So in my mind, I thought, okay, well, that’s optional, right?

It says maybe, but he wasn’t meaning, like, perhaps be at staff meeting.

He was just trying to soften the phrase a little bit.

So my question, I guess, is have you guys heard of other Canadians using the word maybe that way?

Or is it maybe where he is from in Canada?

Or is this something just unique to him and how he uses Gord, maybe?

Oh, you’ve got an ear for language, I gather, if you picked up on that and can relate it so well.

Or did you miss the meeting and you got in trouble?

I did, but I asked one of my coworkers.

I said, so do we have to be at staff meeting?

And they said, of course.

What are you thinking?

But you said an important word when you described what happened.

Use the word softening.

Yeah, softening is what’s happening here.

Using maybe in that way isn’t really about variability.

It’s about politeness.

And we do that throughout English where we’ll take a word and we, I don’t know, we bevel the hard edges off of what we’re saying so that it’s easier to receive.

You know, we throw in some dryer sheets to soften the clothes and take the aesthetic cling out.

I don’t know.

There’s a dozen different ways to describe this.

But it’s very important to have these kinds of tools in our toolbox.

Admittedly, some people overuse them.

It sounds like this guy may have.

But your intuition at first was wrong, and you discovered on your own what it was really meant.

I think you were right on target.

It’s not Canadian in particular, although the Canadians are known throughout the world for being very polite.

Right.

Most English speakers do some form of it with maybe.

Maybe not to that degree.

Yeah.

Maybe not as often as them.

Yeah, I might use I guess.

I guess we’ll meet here tomorrow.

My favorite form of softening in English, and maybe you know this one, Shayla, is the conditional tense.

Would you mind moving your car so I can get out of my driveway?

It’s much better than move your car so I can get out of my driveway, right?

Softening, we’ll just use that word, exists everywhere in English.

Yeah, maybe there isn’t about options.

It’s not.

You didn’t have the option, right?

Yeah.

So when I’m telling the story to people, I’ve used the word, like I’ve explained it as, you know, like it wasn’t optional.

It was he was using it as a softener.

So I could say that and it would be, you know, correct.

Yeah, or dryer sheets, linguistic dryer sheets.

The dryer sheet.

I think that’s a better way to say it.

Well, cool, Shayla.

Thanks for calling.

I’m glad we were able to help.

Thanks.

Thanks so much.

Take care.

Good talking to you all.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

What have you heard in your workplace that has you thinking about language?

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

Grant, I have a Southernism I think you’ll appreciate.

Okay.

Breath and britches.

What’s that?

That’s somebody who doesn’t amount to much.

He’s just breath and britches.

That’s the all hat, no cattle one, right?

Yeah, yeah, just breath and britches.

Call us with your Southernisms, 877-929-9673, or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.

And you can find us on Facebook and Twitter.

More of your stories and dilemmas about language.

Stay with us.

Thank you.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Picture your local library.

When it comes to the books and electronic databases, which age group would you expect to find using them?

If you’re picturing the over-30 crowd, then you have to think again.

A new study found that Americans ages 16 to 29 are considerably more likely than their elders to read actual library books and to search library databases.

That under-30 crowd is also much more likely to spend time in the physical space of the library.

And there were a couple of other interesting statistics, Grant, from a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

One of them was that they found that three-quarters of those Americans, ages 16 to 29, said they’d read at least one print book in the last year.

That’s 75% of teens and young adults, as opposed to just 64% of older adults, saying that they read an entire print book.

I don’t know.

Maybe that’s Twilight and The Hunger Games.

We’ll take it.

Yeah, exactly.

We’ll take it, right?

And the survey also found that teens and young adults are also far more likely to use computers and Internet facilities at a library and to use libraries as places to read, study, and consume all kinds of media.

Grant, I know you spend much more time in the physical space of libraries than I do.

Does that kind of younger demographic jibe with your family’s experience?

It does, as a matter of fact.

And it’s no surprise to anybody who listens to the show that my family, we’re big users of the library.

We are bringing up our son to appreciate books and to appreciate reading and information.

But what strikes me as so true about this is this particular aptitude that the younger set has for finding things out.

And it goes hand-in-hand with being more comfortable with technology.

It goes hand-in-hand with being comfortable with the Internet.

And the Internet is filled with connectors to these physical spaces.

Does that make sense?

I do a search on a book to, I don’t know, help me repaint my bicycle, right?

And it turns out that what I’ve turned up is an index record for a library.

I’m like, I found the record on my own on my computer, and now I can go to the library to get it.

The same way that I might go down to the Barnes & Noble to get a physical copy of a book, right?

So it’s just interesting.

I think this dovetails perfectly well with what I see.

There’s another thing happening here.

We might argue that the libraries are benefiting from kind of a rise of a little bit of cafe culture,

Cafe culture kind of having a bit of resurgence in the last 10 to 20 years.

And libraries have modernized a little bit.

They’ve made sure that they provided these digital resources and that they’ve kept up with the times.

I mean, we can argue about to what degree they should do that.

We don’t really want them to become an Apple store.

But on the other hand, they’re not the Biblioteque Nationale Francaise where you have to get permission to check to look at absolutely anything.

Right.

And it’s interesting what you said about young people using the technology on their own.

Because one of the other findings that I thought was really interesting was that fully 85% of those young folks said they felt it was very important to keep librarians there.

To have librarians they can go and consult when they can’t figure it out.

They want an arbiter.

Yeah.

And they want a guide.

Exactly.

It’s true.

You know, we’re big fans of librarians on this show.

You and I know librarians.

We appreciate the work.

They’re rock stars.

Yeah, and I think the key thing here is I love the way that this survey, which is from a reputable source, debunks the notion that the younger generation has discarded all that the older generation has held dear.

It’s alive.

The library is vivid.

It’s all spectrums of people, gender, race, age, background, you name it.

It’s very different in there.

Yeah, I had a librarian say, you know, people think that we shush people, but actually it’s more like McDonald’s at lunchtime the whole time, the whole day long, you know?

It’s just crazy.

It’s a big service industry, isn’t it?

Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.

Tell us where you think libraries should go in the future.

How should they change to meet the needs of the younger generation to keep them there and keep them reading?

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hi there.

You have A Way with Words.

Hello.

This is Tudie Owens from Dallas, Texas.

Well, I’ve had wondering about, I call it cow versus chicken.

And, you know, when we have dinner, we’ll say, oh, we’re having chicken for dinner.

But when we have steak or hamburger, we don’t say we’re having cow.

Or if we’re having pork chops, we don’t say we’re having pig for dinner.

And it’s silly, but I was just wondering why.

Yeah, that’s a great question.

Yeah, it’s a good question. It goes back to something that happened a long time ago in 1066.

You might remember that the Normans, the French-speaking Normans invaded the British Isles, the Norman invasion.

And with that marriage of cultures also came a marriage of language.

So you had these two cultures operating in the same space with their own lexicons.

And there’s a strange thing that happens when you have two approximate, almost perfect synonyms for a thing.

Either one of them gets forced out or they start to diverge in meaning.

And so what happened is that the French terms for things that had to do with the kitchen and the table and government and the judiciary

And just the managing of people overall, because they were the dominating class,

Those tended to stick and take on the words that we use now for the food terms.

Like veal comes from the French, and mutton also comes from the French, and so on.

And beef comes from the French, and pork comes from the French, and a few others like that.

The word government and legislature and lieutenant, all of these words come from the French.

But the process wasn’t quick.

It took something like 300 or 400 years for it to happen.

Even by Chaucer’s time, which was well after that,

They had not yet perfectly solidified into their current roles as we use them today.

You could still, even at that time, and even a couple hundred years after that,

Still talk about, I’m going to go round up the beef or something like that.

The terms were more interchangeable in the past than they are now.

Okay.

Yeah.

It’s crazy.

I love there’s a slight myth that says, oh, the reason that we have these terms is because the French, you know, through their cultural domination, stomped all over the Anglo-Saxon language and those terms were obliterated.

But I don’t think you can call a four to 600 year process a stomping out.

I think what you can call that is it just terms that continue to be used in a consistent daily way were the ones that won out in a particular domain.

It’s interesting, too, psychologically, isn’t it, that eating beef feels different from eating dead cow.

Yeah, it’s true.

It’s sort of like the whole process of we don’t really know where those things come from.

Mm—

We’re blind to that.

And the best example of that is that eating escargot seems kind of elite and sophisticated, but eating snails is disgusting.

I know.

Some people would argue that about cows and pigs, too.

That’s true, yeah.

Thank you so much.

This goes back to 1056.

1066.

1066.

Yeah.

If you Google that, Google 1066-1066, English, Norman, French,

You’re going to get some great stuff that’s been written on this.

It’s one of those topics that is just rich in history,

And you kind of have a lot of aha moments where you’re like,

Oh, I get it now, and maybe what you read of Chaucer in college is coming back to.

It’s pretty interesting stuff.

Oh, very good.

Well, thank you so much.

Sure thing, Judy.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

Grant, here’s an Afghan proverb that I really like.

It goes, he has soaked a hundred heads, but hasn’t shaved one.

And the idea here is that somebody has soaked a hundred heads for shaving,

But he hasn’t gotten around to shaving any of them.

So it’s like somebody who starts a whole bunch of different projects and just has this sort of long line of monuments to his unfinished work.

Ooh, yeah, wow, highly effective then.

Yeah, he’s soaked 100 heads but hasn’t shaved one.

877-929-9673, email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kenny from Barnesville, Georgia.

Hi, Kenny, welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

Hi, Grant. Hi, Martha.

Hello, how are you?

I’m doing well.

I have a word that I’m really interested in.

My mom used this word when I was a child, and I’ve never heard it used otherwise.

But the word, as she pronounced it, was kjarn.

Kjarn.

And an example of how she might use it was if a dog, our dog, would drag a carcass up into the yard,

Maybe a possum or a rabbit or something that had made its demise on the roadway.

She’d tell us to get that dog away from that cairn.

Or she might say, boys, get the wheelbarrow and haul that cairn to the woods and bury it.

I’ve never heard it used otherwise.

I’m just curious.

It seems the word matches the definition of carrion.

Yep.

But, you know, pronounced completely different.

Maybe you could give me some insight into that deviation, if indeed that’s what it is of carrion.

Whether it’s a regional pronunciation or just anything you can tell me.

You’ve answered your own question.

I think we’ll just sort of step back and let you keep talking because that’s exactly it.

It’s a regional pronunciation of the word carrion, and you hear it a lot in Appalachia, for sure, charn.

And it refers to rotting flesh, roadkill, that kind of thing.

And sometimes you hear people say charney, like your room is charny.

Charny.

Charny. It’s just a real mess. I mean, it gets used as an adjective that way.

I agree. I couldn’t recall specific examples, but I know my mom used it not just for, you know, putrefied flesh, but, you know, if it was something that was just disgusting, you know, it was charny.

Exactly. That’s exactly it.

And you hear that little tweak in a few other words in Appalachia from time to time,

Like CARD for C-A-R-D.

CARD.

CARD. Yeah.

Well, that’s interesting.

My mother was born in North Georgia and grew up in North Georgia,

But her father was from North Carolina.

So you do think it comes from that region?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

The South, South Midlands, and it’s often spelled C-Y-A-R-N or K-Y-A-R-N.

Since it’s dialect, it has lots of variants like that.

Right.

It’s widespread enough that it’s recorded in most of the dictionaries

That make any attempt at all to record Southern speech.

Mm—

You’ve made my day.

I feel like my children have heard me use the word,

And they thought it was a made-up word.

And, you know, again, the only reference I had to it was something I heard my mom use.

So I feel justified in continuing to use the word.

Absolutely.

Somebody made it up, but it wasn’t you.

You’re in good company.

Kenny, thanks for calling.

Thank you all very much.

Take care now.

All right.

Thanks, Kenny.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

We have another Afghan proverb here that goes,

Five fingers are brothers but are not equals.

It means although people may be related, they’re still different, right?

Yeah, that’s good, right.

Yeah, take a look at your hand.

You know, they’re related but different.

Very good.

877-929-9673 is the number to call with your questions.

Or send emails to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Luke from Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Hi, Luke. Welcome.

Hey, Luke. What’s up?

I am a cyclist, a pretty avid one these days.

And a couple years ago when I was shopping for a cycling jersey, I wanted to buy one from my favorite team.

They were Garmin Sharp back then, and they wore an Argyle jersey, so I wanted an Argyle cycling jersey.

And so as I was searching around, seeing if it would be okay to buy one and wear it to races,

I came across a term that people use in cycling that’s a thread.

So if someone buys a team cycling jersey or a team bike and they’re not any good as a cyclist, they’re called a Fred.

I see.

So they have all the trappings of it.

I wonder if you guys have heard that before.

They’re a wannabe.

Maybe I’ve heard that before.

Do you use that term for yourself?

Is this something you wear with pride?

No.

I avoid it as much as possible as I think most people do.

It’s Fred F-R-E-D.

Yeah, exactly like the name.

Okay, great.

And so this is somebody who has pretensions or a bit of a poser.

Yeah, I’d say so.

Generally, you’d apply it to kind of a chubby guy who gets excited about bike racing

And buys thousands of dollars worth of stuff and can’t climb a hill or something like that.

Well, I am a chubby guy.

I do have a problem climbing hills.

I do ride a bike, but I didn’t spend anywhere near that amount of money.

So I’m good.

I’m not afraid.

You know, I think it’s vaguely registered somewhere on my mind

In my passing through various slang dictionaries and stuff.

I don’t know very much about it.

Looking on the internet, I find that, believe it or not,

Wikipedia has a fairly decent entry on it.

As, you know, how Wikipedia is.

If there’s something that somebody can obsess about to the end of time,

Wikipedia will have a really great entry on it.

Yeah, definitely.

So I don’t know very much about it.

There’s a female equivalent, right?

Doris?

Doris, yeah.

I hadn’t heard that one.

Yeah, they both remind me of the, remember when Poindexter was a slang for nerd?

Came from like the Iran-Contra scandals.

And what was his name?

Admiral Poindexter testifying on live television all day.

Long, the most straight-laced, nerdiest dude you ever met.

Well, yeah, he looked like a Poindexter.

Reminds me of that.

But Fred and Poindexter aren’t synonyms, are they?

No.

I mean, Fred, you have the outlay of money and the aspiration.

Oh, right, yeah.

Don’t you think?

Sure.

Yeah, I don’t know why.

Who’s Fred?

Well, the various things that have been floating around the internet for about 10 or 15 years

All claim that Fred is possibly related to this old dude that everyone knew at one time

Who was kind of a nice Fred.

He had a beat up bike, but yet he could just like like the tortoise in the tortoise and hare story.

He could just chug along till he got where he needed to go.

And so you got he got respect that way.

And it morphed over time to mean exactly what Luke’s saying, like these people who aren’t really worthy of respect because, well, there’s a great sentence from John Updike that I really like talking about people who want to be novelist.

And what he says is some of them only want to wear the novelist’s hat,

And they don’t want to sit at the novelist’s desk.

And that’s what I’m thinking these Freds are.

They want to wear the trappings of the team, but not actually do the work

That would make them anywhere near that level of sport.

Yeah, it takes a lot of hours to earn the right to wear a shiny jersey or look good on a bike.

Did you buy the Garmin Sharp jersey?

I buy it, but I don’t wear it.

I just look at it because it’s really, I mean, it’s blue argyle, so it’s pretty awesome.

But that’s kind of like owning the jersey for your favorite hockey goalie, right?

Yeah, I think it would be the same kind of thing.

You wouldn’t want to wear it to a game or to the rink.

Yeah, you just wear it out just to show your pride

And be identified as being a fan of that team and that sport.

Well, cool, Luke. Thanks for calling. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks a lot, guys.

All right, take care. Call us again sometime, all right?

Will do.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye.

If you’re in a hobby that’s got a whole bunch of language that you’d like to share,

Slang, weird stuff. We want your lingo. Dump it on us. Yeah. 877-929-9673 or email the

Whole kitten caboodle to words@waywordradio.org. Grant, I was looking at paint chips the other

Day and I came across the word bisque. Did you ever think about that word bisque? No, I haven’t.

B-I-S-Q-U-E?

Yeah.

Any idea where…

It’s kind of a reddish?

It’s more like a beige.

Beige.

Yeah.

Any idea where it comes from?

Is it related to…

Some word related to burning?

It’s actually an altered form of biscuit.

It’s the same color as a biscuit.

Oh, very good.

Why shortened, though?

I don’t know.

Frenchified.

Frenchified.

Frenchified biscuit.

It’s called a croissant.

Yes.

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Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Burnett.

And I’m Grant Barrett. Adios.

Ciao.

You like potato and I like potato.

You like tomato and I like tomato.

Potato, potato, tomato, tomato.

Let’s call the whole thing off.

But oh, if we call the whole thing off, then we must part.

And oh, if we ever part, then that might break my heart.