Drop in the Bucket (episode #1670)

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.

And Grant, I have some words of encouragement for you.

Yes, please.

Let’s have them.

Add oil.

Add oil.

A-D-D space O-I-L.

Exclamation mark.

Add oil.

Yes.

Add oil.

All right.

What am I adding oil to?

Is it to my cooking, to my sore muscles, to my engine?

Well, yeah, metaphorically, you’re adding it to your engine.

It turns out the Oxford English Dictionary added this expression a few years ago, and it noted that it’s from Hong Kong English, meaning expressing encouragement or excitement or support, that it’s similar to go for it.

And it’s that same idea of making your engine run even more smoothly.

You know, keep it humming, add oil.

Right, because the oil lubricates things, reduces friction, reduces the amount of heat.

Yeah.

Interesting.

And what do we know about how this got into Hong Kong English?

Well, it comes from a Cantonese expression that has to do specifically with that.

And there’s a similar sounding Mandarin term that translates the same way, but it comes from Cantonese.

Oh, so it’s that nice interplay between multiple languages in one space.

I love it.

Exactly.

At OYO, we’re encouraging you to call us or text us toll-free 877-929-9673.

Get all of our past episodes on our website at waywordradio.org.

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Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Bill calling from Bayfield County, Wisconsin.

Hey, Bill, what’s up?

Ever since I was a kid, back in the 60s, they referred to a quarterback getting tackled behind the line of scrimmage while trying to pass as a sack.

Now, I know in the UK, sack is referred to somebody losing their position, being fired, in other words.

But I don’t get the connection between a paper bag and a player getting tackled.

Oh, this is so good, Bill.

You’re opening up a huge can of worms.

So the first thing to know about sack is that it is an old word.

The modern word sack, as in a bag, can be traced back to Akkadian.

This is a language that was written in cuneiform.

So that makes the word about 2,300 to 5,000 years old.

This is old.

I mean, recognizably, the word sack, like the sounds, the S and the K sound are there.

It’s crazy, right?

And then the word spread into Greek and Latin and Phoenician and other Semitic languages and entered all the Romance languages and many of the Germanic languages.

I mean, throughout Europe, you will find some version of the word sack in nearly every language.

Recognizably the word sack, meaning this bag that holds things.

But in the original sense, it was a cloth bag or a fabric bag.

And this is important because the football sack to sack a quarterback is related to the idea of pillaging.

That is, you sack a town.

You know, if you sack Carthage, you have bags to put in your treasures, the booty that you’re stealing.

You know, the gold and the silverware and whatever else is valuable, even food items.

It all goes into a sack and you throw those over your back or on a wagon or on a mule and you take off because you are the victorious army.

So you have literally sacked down.

Wow.

Yeah.

And so it’s a much reduced form.

This is called amelioration in language when something that is particularly negative or violent becomes a little milder.

So to sack in football doesn’t contain that kind of drama or violence.

But the idea of taking something from a quarterback is still there.

You’re taking the ball, right, or trying to.

You’re at least taking the down away from them.

Fascinating. Fascinating.

And that’s where the English idea to sack someone, meaning to fire them, comes from, too.

They literally would get their sack and put their belongings in it and leave.

Oh, OK. Learn something every day.

There was a fellow by the name of Deacon Jones who played defensive end for the L.A. Rams, and he often claimed credit for coining the term sacking, but the evidence just isn’t there.

Even though his obituary said it, he probably did not coin the term.

But he was a well-known defensive end who sacked many a quarterback and has an extraordinary record for doing it.

He certainly did.

Well, that’s very fascinating.

I appreciate you taking my question.

I’ll be listening loyally to your program.

Thank you so much.

Absolutely.

Take care of yourself, Bill.

Have a good day.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Well, what’s the word or phrase that’s been thrilling you lately?

We know there’s one.

You can always send us an email about it, words@waywordradio.org.

In English, if we want to emphasize extreme smallness or insignificance in the context of something vast, we might say a drop in the ocean or a drop in a bucket.

But in Mandarin, there’s a wonderful expression that translates as nine cows, one hare.

Now that’s hair spelled H-A-I-R.

And if you picture it literally, just imagine nine full shaggy oxen and they’re all covered with all kinds of hair.

And then you compare those to just one single hair from all of them combined.

It’s the same idea.

I think it’s even better than a drop in the ocean.

Nine cows, one hair.

Share your expressions from whatever languages you know.

877-929-9673.

That’s toll-free call or text in the United States and Canada.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Oh my gosh, hello, this is Chalice. I’m so excited to be talking to you guys.

Oh, Chalice.

Hey, Chalice. Where are you calling us from?

I am calling from the southern United States, Arkansas specifically.

All right. Well, welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

Among my many travels, I did spend a bit of time in Mexico where I met my husband.

And my husband is Mexican, but he speaks really great English.

As a matter of fact, he lived in Chicago.

So he honestly people know that he’s not from Arkansas.

Now that we’re back in Arkansas, but they think he’s from up north.

They don’t imagine that he, you know, is English is not his first language.

He’s just he has a way with languages, I suppose.

Wow.

But so it’s been I’ve never been able to like stump him.

Right.

You know, and my Spanish is pretty good, but the way his English is makes me really jealous.

Until one day, my sister has horses.

We had horses growing up, and she lives a little bit out in the country.

You know, I’m in the big old city of Little Rock, and she lives out on a very, very small town.

And so her neighbor’s name is Mr. Kenny.

And Mr. Kenny was the first person that my husband ever met in Arkansas that he could not understand everything that Mr. Kenny said because of the nature of his accent.

But one thing that specifically struck us is, you know, it was getting to be a little bit colder.

It was fall, you know, so probably February.

That’s when it starts to get cold in Arkansas.

And he said, oh, well, it’s a, it’s done turn off cold, ain’t it?

And I, even I, born and raised in the South, I had never heard turned off cold.

So when my husband came back to report that phrase to me and asked me what in the world, I was as dumbfounded as he was.

So I was just curious if that happens anywhere else, or if maybe this is just a Mr. Kenny invention.

No, Mr. Kenny is following a dialect tradition that’s sprinkled throughout the United States.

Sometimes it’s turn off, so T-U-R-N space O-F-F, and then whatever adjective you want there.

Or sometimes it’s come off.

It might come off cold or come off hot or turn off pretty as one or come off fair.

Just always about the weather.

And it’s directly related to something that you’ve probably heard more often.

We might say an event came off well.

Now, I recognize we’re using came here and not turned, but it’s the same expression with different verbs.

Or we might say that someone comes off as confused.

Your husband came off as confused when he heard Mr. Kinney, right?

Oh, yes.

I like come off much better.

I understand that much more than turned off.

Yeah, the turn off is a little rarer than the come off version, but they’re both the same and they kind of travel together and appear in the same circumstances.

It’s always about the weather turning.

That’s where we get that term verb in there.

We do talk about the weather turning cold, and it’s just got another preposition in there that is not doing much extra, but it’s there nonetheless.

And so you’ll find this sprinkled in Maine, in Massachusetts, North Carolina, Northwest Florida, even Northeast California.

So it’s sprinkled throughout the U.S., but not that common, but about 400 years old.

Oh, my goodness. That’s shocking to me.

Well, in reference to weather, it’s from around the 1840s or earlier.

But the whole idea of meaning to happen, to result, to turn out, that come off is about 400 years old.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

We strive to not say fix and to and things like that.

But I enjoy that this has such a storied history here.

Well, why not? Be of your place. Go ahead. Say fix and to. We give you permission.

I’m a big fan of fixing to, but I have to tell you, Chalice, I’ve never heard that expression, turn off cold.

Yeah.

And you find that.

That makes me feel great because I had never heard it.

Oh, no, it’s really rare.

And fiction writers love it.

It’s one of those expressions they like to put in their books to give a bit of regional color.

Well, as ever, which is why I listen to the podcast, I’m so glad for the information that you’re giving.

I never would have kind of correlated to come off or came off.

And that makes sense to me in the way you’re presenting it.

So that’s really interesting.

I had never made that connection.

Well, it came off well.

Thanks for calling.

Thanks, Grant and Martha.

Bye-bye.

Take care now.

Bye.

How do they talk where you live?

Give us a call.

877-929-9673.

Here’s something I found inspiring and encouraging.

In 1905, Virginia Woolf wrote a letter to a friend of hers, and she said,

No one really takes very much interest. Why should they in my scribblings?

Do you think I shall ever write a really good book?

You know, 23 years later, she published A Room of One’s Own, and I’m just thinking,

You know, you got to stay with it.

And I just found it really inspiring that Virginia Woolf doubted herself back then.

I think it’s a sign of someone who has the potential to be successful.

When I have been in various writing groups or online forums, you know, in real life or in the digital world,

The ones who have an arrogant belief in themselves and utter unshakable confidence just never seem to fulfill their own confidence.

That’s a really good point.

Yeah, and the ones who question themselves, you know, who live an examined life.

Right, they’re always working on their craft.

They’re always working to be better because they doubt their abilities and their capabilities.

Yep, and then you’ve got to spend that time in the chair, polish that chair.

Yep, but in seat.

Well, put phone to ear, 877-929-9673.

Or get your thumbs ready and text us toll-free to the same number, 877-929-9673.

Stay put. We’ll be right back to untangle the web of English.

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

I’m Martha Barnette.

I’m Grant Barrett.

Well, here he is with a somersault and a pirouette.

It’s our quiz guide, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Whoa.

Hey, guys.

How are you?

Ow, I think I pulled something.

It’s fine.

It’s fine.

We’ll just keep going.

We’ll go to the quiz.

Let’s just do what I do best.

Quizzing.

Everyone knows that the plural of foot is feet and the plural of goose is geese.

And that’s just the gateway puzzlers need to come up with the false plural of boot, which is, of course, beats.

Beat.

One boot.

I see.

One boot, two beat.

I finally found my missing boot.

What do you think of my beat?

That’s a perfectly logical sentence in puzzle land.

Now, I’ll give you a clue to a singular word that has two O’s and its false plural that has two E’s.

You give me both plues.

I mean, please.

Ready?

Gotcha.

Good. Here we go.

In 1973, Nixon made a speech in which he said he was not a blank.

Since then, many people have come to believe that all politicians are blank.

I am not a crook. Well, there are a lot of creek in Washington.

A lot of creek in Washington.

Once I got a good blank at that painting, I just had to go back and get several more blank.

You got to look.

Oh, look and leave.

Right.

Yeah, I got to go back and take a leak.

Take several leaks.

Oh, my gosh.

Have several leaks.

You shouldn’t take a leak at the museum, though.

Don’t do that.

No.

Each guest house at the spa has its own blank.

It takes a lot of chlorine to maintain all those blank.

Pool and peel?

That’s right.

A lot of chlorine to maintain all those peel.

Hand me that blank.

No, not the hammer, the wrench.

No, not the crescent wrench, the monkey wrench.

Wow, you really don’t know a lot about blank.

Hand me that tool.

You don’t know a lot about teal.

Teal.

I got the teal in my teal box, my tool box.

I entered my blank into the National Family Island Regatta,

Only to find I’d be competing against 88 other blank.

Schooner and Skeener?

I think it’s Sloop and Sleep.

It is Sloop and Sleep.

Yes.

Sloop.

I ended my Sloop.

I was in a bad lie, so I asked my new caddy to hand me a strong two blank, only to find

He can’t tell any of the blank apart.

Well, we’re talking about clubs, but what’s another name for club?

And golf.

Iron?

I think Iron Putter.

Two.

It’s rare that we have a—

The Two Wood.

Yes.

He asked for the tube wood.

But he couldn’t tell any of the weed apart.

That’s right.

I asked him for a wood.

He’s the worst caddy.

He can’t tell any of the weed apart.

Wood and weed.

You got it.

Very good.

Very good.

Or very geed.

I don’t know.

I’m lost.

Anyway, you guys are awesome.

I’ll see you next time.

All right, take care, John.

There he goes.

Tumbling out the door.

Whoa.

As you can tell, we goof around on this show.

But we also have serious conversations about language, and you can do that with us, 877-929-9673,

Or send your thoughts to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Martha calling from Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Well, hey, Martha, we’re glad to have you.

Well, I have a word that is from my childhood, and I don’t know the origin of it.

I’m guessing at the spelling, the word is box.

And I don’t know, I’ve never seen it written, so I don’t know if it has one T or two T’s.

But it was always used as if you were pouting, they would say, don’t bother her, she’s got the box.

And I was a very sensitive child, so I pouted a lot.

And it was more often used with me than any other of the siblings around.

But anyway, it’s B-O-T or B-O-T-T-S, not sure which.

My grandfather was a doctor.

My grandmother was a registered nurse.

I did not know if it was a medical term.

Another of my daddy’s favorites was she’s got a tail over the dashboard.

So I think maybe they may be similar.

And then my sister recently told me, and I’ve never heard this, that it stood for butt on the shoulder.

Yeah.

Have you ever had the bot?

Bot on the shoulder.

Well, your sister has made that up out of whole cloth or gotten it from somewhere unreliable because bot is bot.

It is sometimes spelled with one T or two, B-O-T.

And it’s the same bot that is in the word botfly because the bot is the larva of the botfly.

These are absolutely annoying farmyard insects.

They will lay their eggs to an animal’s coat.

There’s a bunch of different species, but often a horse’s coat.

And the horse will lick it and maybe ingest it somehow.

And then the larvae attach to the lining of the stomach and intestines of the horse, and they get sick.

They can cause colic and other things.

Sometimes it can kill them.

And so you do not want botflies on your farm or on your land.

They’re bad news.

This is why you’ll do a variety of dips and sprays and other things.

In any case, so this idea of this horse disease, although there’s a version, like I say, for sheep and other ones,

This became more generalized when applied to humans, to any kind of ailment that you couldn’t name, including feeling down or sullen or moody, where you’re just overall feeling kind of rough, but you don’t know why, or you haven’t explained it to other people why you’re feeling bad, badly.

And so, yeah, and this is interestingly also common in Australia and New Zealand. They have a couple different variations down there.

Oh, wow. Well, that’s interesting. That sure clears that mystery up. And I will tell my sister this, too, since she’s laboring on depression.

Yeah, it’s so a horse disease that became generalized and kind of in a joking, figurative way applied to humans.

Okay, well, that sounds good. I’m so surprised and so happy that y’all could work this out for me. I’ve often wondered about it.

You mentioned the tail over the dashboard. We can address that one too. That has to do with a horse in an old horse-drawn carriage that has a dashboard in front of the person who’s holding the reins.

If you keep your tail over the dashboard, then you’re perky like a horse. So those are two horse-related terms.

Okay. Well, I’ll definitely tell my daughter and son-in-law because they have horses. And then my daddy was of the generation that when his father, the doctor, went out on a house call, my daddy would go with him and hitch the horses to the wagon and drive him and bring him back home again.

So that makes sense, too. There you go. Yeah.

Well, gosh, y’all are wizards. I’m just, I love your program. I’m really impressed.

Well, Martha in South Carolina, it’s our pleasure. We appreciate it. You call again sometime, all right?

Well, y’all have a good rest of the day, and thank you for making mine. All right. Take care of yourself. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

877-929-9673. I came across a word that you’ll rarely hear, but I think it deserves more use. The word is finifugal.

Finifugal. Spell that one. It’s F-I-N-I-F-U-G-A-L. Finifugal.

Is this like the weird pronunciation and spelling of difficulty? Like defogati? Defogati, yeah. No. Like a weird form of finally? What is it?

Well, it’s related to finally. It comes from the Latin word finis, which means end, and fuga, which means flight. And if you’re finifugal, then you want to avoid the end of something because you want it to go on forever.

So you might be finifugal about reading a book. You know, you just don’t want to get to that last page.

Oh, yeah. When you’re enjoying a book series and then you look up the next book in the series and it says so-and-so passed on 10 years ago. And you’re like, no.

Yeah. Well, maybe that’s another one. You don’t want to begin that second book. But yeah, I find myself being more and more finifugal in terms of books or TV series. You know, I just don’t want it to end.

You want the goodness to last. I appreciate that. You’re finifical about the sweet years of your children when they’re little pudgy things.

Yeah, that’s another one, right? They grow up too fast. Toll-free, call or text 877-929-9673.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Chris calling from Bluffton, South Carolina.

Hey, Chris, welcome to the show. What’s on your mind today?

I am a 16-year resident of Bluffton, which is next door to Hilton Head, but grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 35 years. And it was not until I moved away that I realized, or at least I think I realized, that Baton Rouge has its own unique accent that I guess is flavored by its proximity to New Orleans and to Acadiana and the Cajun culture.

And I guess I wanted to ask, how does an area like Baton Rouge, 300,000 people, kind of a cosmopolitan area, absorb, for lack of a better word, accents from the cultures around them in a way that becomes its own unique sound?

So what’s happening here is that Baton Rouge has more in common with general southern dialect than it does with New Orleans English. So Baton Rouge has things like the A and I vowels are often lengthened. So the word R-I-D-E may sound like rod.

And unlike New Orleans English, where cat might sound like cat, which is kind of a tensed vowel or a glide. So New Orleans English often has had also was non-rotic, at least for the older generations. That’s where the R sound after vowels disappears.

But New Orleans English is starting to get that R back as the younger generations drop those old dialect features. In any case, so Baton Rouge then also, on top of having the broad southern dialect patterns, also has some of the Cajun influence, a little bit of the Cadiana, as you say, coming in there.

Not a lot. It’s just a little bit, and it tends to show up in the lexical items, like, I don’t know, Faye Dodo or the median or buying groceries instead of making groceries. So you buy groceries in Baton Rouge, but you make them in New Orleans.

Right. So, yeah. But some of it also is just that native speaker’s ear. So you have, because you’re from there, you hear things that maybe even linguists haven’t put precisely down on paper.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I used to say that the Baton Rouge accent was a more polished version of a New Orleans Cajun, like a lightly kissed version of it. But that made it sound kind of superior, which that’s not what I’m trying to say.

Oh, sure. Why not? Have some pride. Lightly kissed. No, that’s nice. Yes. Growing up, you know, Mardi Gras was never big in Baton Rouge, but St. Patrick’s Day was huge. And I think a lot of people don’t realize how many cultures come together in South Louisiana.

And I kind of was curious if all that interrelates. New Orleans, heavy Italian, Irish, German. That’s right. Yep.

Yeah, New Orleans was for a long time and still is far more of an international city as a major port. And just the overlay of the Creole cultures and the Italian cultures and African-American cultures, just everything happening there.

Baton Rouge tend to be a little more of your typical south with a little bit of that, but also whiter. Just tend to be more Scots-Irish influence. And so all of these things come into play. So you get that wonderful, that stirred mix of the local talk.

And how is it that two cities that are relatively close to each other can be different? Well, that’s just the way language works.

Yeah, and most of my family is from the South. And if I go to, say, Alabama, where my dad is from, it’s pretty homogenous unless you go all the way down to Mobile. And then that section is different than the rest.

It always just struck me as very odd that Baton Rouge could be close to two major areas with such distinct, unique language styles of their own and not absorb more of it. But obviously it absorbed more than I realized growing up there.

Well, one term I want to leave you with before we go, and this is what linguists call leveling, which is when the people who live in a geographic area level out their linguistic differences so they start to sound more alike. And it’s done for a variety of reasons, usually unconsciously, but they often have to do with paths of power, how you get your influence personally, professionally, academically.

That’s very interesting. Yeah. Love your guys’ show. I listen to it every weekend while I’m at work. Keeps me entertained.

Yeah, a pleasure. Thanks, Chris. Call us again sometime. I will. Thanks a lot. You guys have a great day. You take care now. Bye-bye.

Thanks, Chris. Bye-bye.

No matter where you are in the world, we’d love to hear from you and love to hear how people talk out your way. 877-929-9673 is toll-free in the U.S. and Canada. Or send us an email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, how are you? This is Joe.

Hi, Joe. Coming from North Carolina. Welcome to the program. What can we do for you?

Well, I used to have this book. It was called The 5,000 Must Words. It had a lot of interesting words. I wish I could find it. I’ve looked for it everywhere. I can’t find it.

But the word was weltschmerz, I think is how you would say it. Yeah, yeah. You’re talking about the word weltschmerz, which I think is a really beautiful word. And you would spell that in English. You would usually spell it with the capital W-E-L-T-S-C-H-M-E-R-Z.

And Weltschmerz, your understanding of it, I take it, is that you’re sort of world-weary, you’re apathetic, something like that?

Yes, sort of, I guess, pensive.

Is it a sad feeling?

I can’t quite recall, but I just remember, I just thought it was a beautiful word, and I’ve lost my definition.

I agree with you.

I think it’s a really beautiful word.

It’s a combination of two words that literally mean world pain.

And the Welt in Weltschmerz, W-E-L-T, is cognate with the word world.

Both the English word world and Welt come from the same root.

Something similar happens with the Schmerz part, the pain, which kind of sounds like something painful, Schmerz.

It’s related to the English word smart, you know, like, ouch, that’s smart.

So Welt Schmerz literally means world pain.

And it was coined by a 19th century German novelist and humorist who wrote under the pen name Jean Paul.

And in 1827, a book was published that he had written called Selina.

And this book was a poetic meditation on love and death and memory and the afterlife.

And he used this word, Weltschmerz, to mean world sorrow made bearable only by contemplating a blessed afterlife.

That was the sentence.

Oh, wow.

Why would it be capitalized?

Because German nouns are capitalized.

And it indicates that the word has not been fully anglicized since we’ve kept some of its German-ness about it.

I suspect the word will never be fully anglicized because it feels very foreign to English.

Right. Well, that’s amazing.

Yeah, and some people do in English use it with a lowercase w.

And it got picked up later in the 19th century by English speakers because, as you and I agree,

I mean, it’s a really handy word. It’s a really evocative word.

And people have used it to mean things like homesickness for a place you’ve never seen.

Or Ralph Ellison, when he wrote Invisible Man, wrote about an old woman singing a spiritual as full of weltschmerz as flamenco.

And one other interesting thing. I’m so glad you brought up this word weltschmerz because, you know, Jean-Paul also coined another word that I bet you know.

Okay.

Any guesses?

Hit me.

Doppelganger.

Oh, that’s a great one.

That’s one of my favorite words.

Yeah, he coined that word in another book, you know, the second self,

That person who’s wandering the world who looks just like you or is just like you.

He’s credited with that word.

I’m going to need to read up on him.

His stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, check him out, Jean-Paul.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, glad you called.

Thanks for calling. Take care now.

Okay, thanks. You guys have a great day.

You too. Bye-bye.

All right. Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

Sure to dispel your Weltschmerz.

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.

The word ekphrasis, that’s E-K-P-H-R-A-S-I-S, ekphrasis, refers to a literary description of a work of visual art that brings that work to life.

It’s a verbal representation of a visual representation.

You might think of the poet John Keats and his Ode on a Grecian Urn.

That’s a poem that describes images on an urn.

And there’s a remarkable new book of ekphrastic poetry.

It’s called Ensnaring the Moment on the Intersection of Poetry and Photography.

And it is a sumptuous collection of poems by more than 100 well-known poets, each writing about a particular photograph.

And granted, it’s a gorgeous volume.

The list of contributors reads like a who’s who of poetry.

Ocean Vuong, Nikki Finney, W.S. Merwin, Ada Limon, Katie Ford, Ellen Bass.

The list goes on and on and on.

And the book opens with an essay by Leah Ullman, the editor of the book.

She’s an art critic who’s written extensively for Art in America and the L.A. Times.

And the essay really makes you think about the connection between poetry and photography.

How both of those compress time and distill experience and bear witness to single fleeting moments.

And I’m going to give you an example of that. This is a short poem in the book by Rebecca Lindenberg, and with her permission, I’m going to read it. It’s called Things That Lose by Being Photographed.

One night when the moon is very full and sugaring the snow all over our backyard, there we are, a bearded man and a small woman in blue rubber boots, dancing slowly to no music, while a penny-colored pit bull picks up first one foot, then the other, trying to tell us to let her inside.

And of course, Grant, that was based on a photograph, you know, a snapshot from somebody’s life.

And I think this poem is such a beautiful example of what Ullman says about how poetry is a verbal portal to the visual.

And the visual is a portal to the past.

It’s just a gorgeous book.

And it’s one that poetry lovers are going to want to keep on their bedside table for sure.

That sounds lovely, Martha.

And I love this idea that a great poet can see more in something visual than I can and describe it to me with their brilliance.

And in that way, they help me get to the point of the original piece, the original art, the visual art.

Because they’re going to have skills that I just don’t have.

Yeah, that’s a really good point.

I mean, some of these are just the most mundane snapshots in the world.

But you view it through a poet’s eyes and it not only is described in such a beautiful way, but also they extract meaning from it.

So it’s a wonderful book, and it’s called Ensnaring the Moment on the Intersection of Poetry and Photography, edited by Leah Ullman.

We will link to that book on our website.

And as always, we’d love to hear about what you’re reading or what you’ve written.

You can email us, words@waywordradio.org, or call or text our toll-free number, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Judy King, and I’m from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Hi, Judy. Welcome to the program. What’s up?

Thank you.

I am wondering about the origin of the word chifirobe.

And why I’m wondering that is, my mother had this huge piece of furniture in her house.

It looked to me like it was just a freestanding closet.

And we had like 10 actual closets in our house, so she didn’t need one.

But this was large and beautifully built, and you would open the doors, and there would be drawers inside that you could put various objects.

And each side was a place you could hang things.

And then when you shut it, there was a mirror.

And I remember her showing this to me and I’m like, wow, this is impressive.

And she said, this is my shiferobe.

I don’t know what that word means.

I don’t know where she got that word from.

And so I thought I’d talk to you and maybe you could help me out.

It sounds like an elegant bit of furniture.

It was very elegant.

It was beautiful.

Hand carved, all that kind of thing.

And we still have it.

Yeah, of course.

That sounds like an heirloom.

It is.

Yeah.

Yeah, Judy, you’re bringing back so many memories for me here.

Oh, really?

Because, yes, my grandmother, who was in southwestern Virginia, had a shiffrobe and introduced me to it exactly the same way.

Did she really?

Very proud of it.

The place to put your things.

She was.

She was.

This is a shiffer robe.

Exactly.

And my mom was from a river town called Madison, Indiana.

And I don’t know if she grew up in an old house where they didn’t have closets, maybe.

Yeah, that was a thing, right?

There’s this whole period of home building in the United States where it’s just rooms and no place to store your stuff.

Nothing built into the walls.

No closets.

Exactly. Exactly. That’s what it was.

So your description is spot on. It’s a big piece of furniture that’s half drawers and half closet.

And it’s a combination of the French word that gives us chiffonnier, which is a tall chest of drawers.

And that’s a really interesting word in French. Chiffonnier literally means a rag gatherer.

And women used to use this as a little cabinet to put their little, you know, their little odds and ends, their little knickknacks or the embroidery they were working on.

So it’s literally a rag gatherer.

And that became a tall chest of drawers.

And then the other part is, as you suggested, it’s from wardrobe.

So it’s a combination of French chiffonnier and garde-robe, which means, you know, a room to guard clothes.

Oh, my. Interesting.

Yeah. So it’s a blend of those things and a really lovely word.

I guess we should spell it, huh, Grant?

Yeah. Yeah. And usually chiffon robe, there’s often, sometimes there’s some, you know, variations that we say.

But yeah, usually it’s pronounced chiffreau, but it’s C-H-I-F-F-O-R-O-B-E.

And then that lovely French word that you share, chiffonnier, is C-H-I-F-F-O-N-I-E-R.

And so what I’m gathering here is that we’re talking about something that’s kind of like an armoire and kind of like a wardrobe.

Yeah, yeah, a combination of things.

And you know what this reminds me of is that really amazing thing that happens in English where many of our elegant words are borrowed from French.

And as a matter of fact, this is common throughout Europe.

So it’s no accident that those words I just gave, wardrobe and armoire and chiffonnier and chiffon robe plus bureau and commode and chaise longue all come from French.

And you’ll find this throughout Europe, that many of the more elegant pieces of furniture have modified French names in the local language.

Well, thank you so much, Judy, for sharing your story and your memories.

We really appreciate it.

I really appreciate you letting me know what it means.

Our pleasure.

Take care now.

Okay.

Bye.

Bye, Judy.

It’s the everyday things that give us the best questions about language, and we’re waiting to hear yours.

Toll free in the United States and Canada, 877-929-9673.

Or email words@waywordradio.org.

I came across an interesting use of the word textile.

At least it was new to me.

And I saw it in news articles about an RV park and resort here in Southern California.

It’s long been known as a nudist resort or a naturist resort, if you prefer.

And it’s a place where clothing has been completely optional at all times.

But the resort’s now under new management.

And a few months ago, the people who live there got a notice that the place will now become a textile park.

Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that, too.

So it’s the opposite of naturist or nudist, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Apparently this is a usage in the nudist community.

You know, you might say, oh, no, that’s a textile beach, not a nude one.

Or they’re a mixed couple.

She’s textile.

He’s a naturist.

Oh, that’s so interesting.

I imagine there’ll be protests because they have a lot of skin in the game.

Did everyone, can I get a witness?

Did everyone just hear what happened?

Grant, are you feeling okay?

Oh, yeah.

If you’ve come across a new word that’s puzzled you, let us know.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Shannon.

I’m calling from San Diego.

Shannon, welcome to the show.

What’s on your mind?

So I’ve been wondering about something that I’ve been seeing over the past couple years,

But I especially saw it sort of really get on my radar, I’d say, about three, four years ago.

And that’s advertising language that doesn’t use articles.

So I’ve seen ads a lot of the times from like mobile carriers where they’ll say, instead

Of get the new iPhone 14 Pro, they’ll say get iPhone 14 Pro.

Or in the case of baby formula and diaper companies, they’ll say, do what’s best for

Baby rather than do what’s best for your baby.

And I’ve been wondering, why is that?

Because it feels like something that’s deliberate,

But at the same time, I don’t see the benefit of it,

Because it seems a little odd from the way we normally talk to one another.

It’s definitely a thing.

Get iPhone and Best for Baby both have different paths that we can wander down,

But I want to talk about Best for Baby for a minute,

Because it instantly reminds me of the 1938 film called Bringing Up Baby.

And it’s a comedy by Howard Hawks that stars Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.

Although Baby is a leopard in the film, you know, the large feline, it still is using Baby in the way that you’re talking about without an article in front of it, without an indirect or direct article.

This gives us like a date that we can work with.

So we know that at least by 1938, using Baby in this way was already a thing.

But in the larger realm of advertising, to drop the articles to say something like get iPhone, you know, get iPhone 17, the marketing people, the rationale there is to change the style so that it seems more archetypal and elevated.

It’s kind of a form of headline-ese.

That’s the language used in the news media to summarize a story in a headline or subheadline, but it omits verbs, omits prepositions, it omits articles, and it gives a sense of immediacy and directness.

And if headlines are well written in this way, even though you’ve dropped those parts of speech, there’s still a huge amount of information per word.

So are you with me? Are you following here?

No, I’m following what you’re saying, because my thinking with that rationale was maybe they was trying to make it seem more, I guess, like special as in like a proper name.

Yeah.

Like you address me or you, you know, but I didn’t consider that what you were mentioning of maybe making it still like it still gets the information across without needing the extra language.

Yeah. So, of course, this has been studied. Jeffrey Leach wrote a book that was published in 1966 called English in Advertising. And he talked about something called the particularity of reference. And what he means is that although there are tens of millions of iPhones in the world, you know, it’s a hugely successful product.

The product is treated as if it were unique, as if each unit is a special unicorn.

Like the one you had before you in your hand is an extraordinary, unique device.

And sometimes you can do it by including the definite article saying, the iPhone.

But you do it without the article, as you noticed, by eliminating them altogether so that the product stands alone.

It kind of is raised up into this universe of products like I’m going to school, you know, I go to church.

It’s kind of as if this is a fundamental force in our civilization, in our culture.

IPhone, not the iPhone, but iPhone.

Like the platonic form.

Yeah.

There has been so much written on the use of language in advertising.

But the key to what you noticed, and you did notice something important, is that advertising doesn’t use regular everyday English.

It uses its own form of English with different goals and with a kind of necessary conciseness.

And sometimes, in order to stand out, people break rules.

This is not a rule break so much.

It’s just a consistent behavior that we wouldn’t do in everyday language.

Well, Shannon, thank you so much for calling our attention to this particular practice. We appreciate it.

Of course. And thank you for having me.

All right. Take care now. Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, we appreciate it when you listen closely to advertising and media and bring us your thoughts about it. 877-929-9673.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Oh, hi. This is Terry from Franklin, Indiana.

Hello, Terry in Franklin, Indiana. Welcome to the program. What’s up?

The question I have is about the word let.

I’m from Indiana, and I was living in Pennsylvania for a while.

I worked at a horse barn, and I went in on a Sunday, and I met the local girl there,

And I asked her, were we going to let the stallions out?

They were in, you know, for nighttime.

And she says, no, let them in.

I said, oh, are they already out?

But no, we’re going to let them in.

Well, how can we let them in if they’re not out?

And it became a who’s on first for a couple minutes there

Until I figured out that she meant leave them in.

Oh.

So I looked it up, and I discovered that let in the dictionary means to allow to pass.

But this is a local thing here, there in Pennsylvania,

And I just wondered what your thoughts were.

What part of Pennsylvania was she in?

We were near Glen Rock in a small town called Seven Valleys.

Which part of the state is that?

It’s east and south.

Okay, gotcha.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Yeah.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, Terry, because that’s an area of German settlement.

And interestingly enough, there, just as you said, the word let can mean either to leave behind or to allow to remain.

And that goes back to the German influence there, because there’s a German verb lassen, which means either to cause something to happen or to permit something to happen.

And so you will hear these locutions that might sound a little bit strange if you’re not from that area.

You know, like he told me to leave the stallion go or leave the book, sit right there, which I just think is glorious, that difference.

But I can see how that would be sort of a who’s on first, what’s on second kind of moment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It took a little bit for me to understand.

Yeah.

So it goes back to the German influence in that area and the fact that there’s a German verb that means a couple of different things.

Okay.

Well, I appreciate you straightening me up on that.

Help me understand a little more.

Terry, thank you so much for your call.

We really appreciate it.

Well, thanks for taking my call.

You guys have a wonderful afternoon.

All right.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

You can find us in all of our past episodes at waywordradio.org.

A Way with Words senior producer is Stefanie Levine.

Tim Felten is our engineer and editor, and John Chaneski is our quiz master.

Go to waywordradio.org for all of our past episodes, podcast links, and ways to reach us.

If you have a language, thought, or question, the toll-free line is always open in the U.S. and Canada.

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A Way with Words is an independent nonprofit production of Wayword, Inc.

It’s supported by listeners and organizations who are changing the way the world talks about language.

Although we’re not a part of NPR, we thank NPR stations throughout the United States that carry the show.

And special thanks to our nonprofit’s volunteer board.

Michael Breslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Merrill Perlman, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidenwurm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. Until next time, goodbye.

So long.

Thank you.