Dyed in the Wool (episode #1689)

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

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

In 1665, the English scientist Robert Hook published a book called Micrographia, and it quickly became a bestseller because it was the first book that shows what a microscope can reveal.

And it turns out that Hook had trained as an artist, so he made these amazing detailed drawings of what you could see with these new fangled devices.

But what’s really cool is that he didn’t start with a picture of magnified plant cells or a snowflake or anything like that.

Instead, he chose to magnify a mark of punctuation, specifically a period printed on a page.

And if you look at that drawing, the period looks like this big, hairy, scary blob.

It’s kind of funny.

Yeah.

It’s the ink, I guess, that is soaking up into the fabric of the page.

Right?

Into the little…

Right?

So it’s not clear at a distance, but…’

When you magnify it, you see all of its deformities.

Yeah.

It looks really weird.

Almost like a virus or something, you know, that we think of today.

And he compared it to a dirty smear made with the end of a burnt stick dragged across a floor or, as he put it, a great splotch of London dirt.

Oh, wow.

Splotch.

Great word.

Yeah.

Anyway, I learned all this from a new book that takes a similarly close look at punctuation, you know, where these marks come from, what they’ve meant over time, and how they shape the way we communicate.

So we’re gonna talk about that book some more later in the show.

And we’ll also talk to you if you call or text toll free (877-929-9673, or send us an email with your thoughts about language or or the books you’re reading, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Mark calling from San Diego.

Hello, Mark.

How are you doing?

Welcome to the show.

What’s up?

I had a phrase that…

Or a term that I had from my childhood that we used to use all the time, and the phrase were…

Or the term was cheater’s proof.

And the way we used it was the kids in Chicago back in the day, we didn’t have any diversions other than to play with each other.

So we had groups of kids that would just…

We depped games, all kinds of sports games and stuff.

And we had to make up our own rules because we had no adults supervising as we were out doing things.

So, anyway, if somebody was to try to get around the rules and ultimately was called out or lost or something, everybody would just immediately say cheater’s proof, and that was, the end of it.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, I mean, the apostrophe could be on either side of the s as far as I can remember.

I mean, there could be groups of people.

So cheaters, let me spell this.

CHEATER, apostrophe S, proof, p R, double O, F.

Cheater’s proof.

Right.

Gotcha.

Mark, I…

I’m wondering.

This is like playing, like, sandlot baseball?

Or or It it could be it could be sandlot baseball.

It could be card games.

It could be board games.

It was just stuff that when…

In the absence of any adult supervision, the kids had to kinda come up with their own, you know, rules and things.

So…

And people…

And and you couldn’t argue with it, so you just had to play it out whatever it was.

Okay.

Let’s keep going, and then we’ll see what happens.

Got it.

Got it.

So so, like, if somebody bends the rules or breaks the rules, if a batter says that a pitch wasn’t a strike, then you agreed to a do over, and then the pitcher throws the ball again, and the batter swings and misses.

Then everybody says cheater’s proof.

Is that how it went?

Yeah.

That’s how it went.

I hadn’t thought about it for at least fifty years until this summer when…

During the World Cup.

And I don’t know if you can follow World Cup at all, but the Yeah.

The US team player got a red card in one of the semifinals or quarterfinals, and that, of course, meant that he couldn’t play the next game.

Right.

And I I don’t wanna get political, but there was an intercession done.

And all of a sudden, it was decided that this player was now eligible to play the game.

Right.

So, of course, The US went on to lose.

And, immediately, I texted my buddy, Mike, in Indianapolis, and I said, Mike, this is a classic example of cheater’s proof.

And he texted me back same way.

And the people I was watching the game with said, I’d never heard that phrase.

So I said, well, I’ll just Google it for you.

So we goo…

I can’t come up with nothing.

I think they were all Sandiagons, though.

Since you’re from Chicago, you had Yeah.

Yeah.

They were.

They were.

And I think maybe it just took a the covered wagon took a long time to get out here, maybe.

I don’t know.

I think it was the boat all the way around the southern tip is out there, Southern America.

Yeah.

This is so interesting because it does have really strong associations with the Chicago area.

I once saw an obituary for a Chicago area man who played on a softball team called Cheaters Police.

Yeah.

You’ll find it in other parts of Illinois, so Chicago area, but also occasionally pops up in nearby states like Iowa.

Yeah.

And I’ve seen it in basketball a lot, Martha.

I’ve seen it Oh, yeah.

Where somebody gets to shoot a free throw because of supposed foul that not everyone agrees that they made.

And if they miss the free throw, people are like, cheater’s proof.

It it…

It’s it’s this idea that the universe will bring justice.

Yes.

And you’ll be outed as a cheater by the way things not going your way.

Right.

Exactly.

They don’t have a phrase for the other way that the cheater actually gets off gets off.

Maybe it was, like, liar’s luck.

You know?

Yeah.

Liar’s luck.

Yeah.

That’s the other side of it.

Yeah.

That would be the other side of it.

Where you cheated, but you still you still come out ahead.

Mark, since you sound like a sports guy, let me ask you.

Another thing that they say in basketball instead of cheetah’s proof is ball don’t lie.

Have you heard that one?

Yeah.

Well, my buddy, Mike in Indianapolis, Kate me, said that that’s what his people that he talks to all the time is they hear that ball don’t lie.

Ball don’t lie.

Yeah.

It’s the same idea, this idea that cheaters never prosper or the longer long cheaters never win and winners never cheat.

Love it.

It’s little it’s a little more street than it’s a little more street than what we would we would have said.

Yeah.

The cheers proof.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

Well, Mark, we appreciate your time spending some time with us, and thank you so much for a really interesting question.

Love it.

Yeah.

Call us again sometime.

Alright?

Alright.

Thank you very much.

Alright.

You’d welcome.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Mark.

I feel like calls from thousands of people are eminent now.

They’re about to dial our toll-free line and call or text (877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Grace Snyder calling from Philadelphia.

Well, hello, Grace.

We’re glad to have you on the show.

What’s on your mind?

I’m so glad to be here.

I am calling about this phrase take a shower versus get a shower.

My fiance always says to me, oh, well, I’m gonna go get a shower.

And I always say I’m gonna take a shower.

Never have heard get a shower before.

Not sure if it’s like a local thing or whether this is more broadly spread.

But I’ll always say to him, well, what are you getting when you get a shower?

He’ll have to be, what are you taking?

And it just makes me think.

What is the way to say it?

What are you doing today?

Glad that you’re both showering.

Yeah.

Thanks a relationship.

Staying clean.

Let me ask you about your fella.

Is he from Southern New Jersey or the Delaware Valley, perhaps?

Yeah.

He’s from Philly.

His whole family, they’re from they’re from the Philly area.

So I guess close enough.

Although, maybe some people would fight me on that.

And you’re from where?

Originally, I’m from Texas.

Ok.

But my family is from New York.

‘ Cause there is some…

A light regional variation on this.

A bunch of work has been done on this by people like Dale Koy, John Algio, and and Yurita Gigparate.

All of these linguists really looking into whether you get, have, or take things, you know, when you have some variability.

We can get, have, or take a shower or a bath and it’s not always the same everywhere.

But one thing I wanna…

I start up by saying is those verbs get have or take, they don’t really have a lot of semantic value.

They just indicate action.

You just kind of…

In parentheses, action is here.

More than they actually mean the thing.

So you don’t really have to take in other meanings of take, and you don’t really have to get in other meanings of get.

But they do carry a tiny bit of semantic value, because it turns out that the get forms, GET, are about seizing an available opportunity.

You can kinda hear that.

The take forms are about intention and a physical act.

And the have forms are about being habitual or something that you experience.

And so there’s some subtle variations there and they’re not universal and there are plenty of exceptions.

But generally, those are the trends that we see.

But but I wanna talk about this regionality.

So we’re divided in The United States, and then we’re divided across The Atlantic.

So in The United Kingdom and in most commonwealth English speaking countries outside of North America, they’re far more likely to say have a shower or half a bath.

Now do Yeah.

Sometimes take a bath or shower, use that verb instead.

So they say it often enough that it’s not too strange to them to hear it, but they’re far more likely just to say have a shower or half a bath.

In North American English, that includes The US and Canada, we’re far more likely to take a bath or a shower, but there’s some exceptions to that.

In Southern New Jersey in the Delaware Valley, there’s this little pocket of people who are a tiny bit more likely to get a shower or than they are…

Than people in the surrounding areas are.

So they say, GET GET instead of take or to have.

But…

And again, there’s no universals here.

We’re always talking about aggregate data and averages and tendencies.

So there are plenty of people that live in all these places who use the the verb that’s on the outs with everyone else around them.

That’s fascinating.

There are people who say I have to have a shower.

I’ve never heard that one either.

I guess if it’s not North America Yeah.

I have a shower.

Yeah.

Or I’m going to…

It’s often a bit…

Some kind of form of future tensor and some kind of construction indicates intention.

I’m going to have a shower.

I’m going to have a bath or I had a bath.

I had a shower.

Got it.

Ok.

So it is a regional thing then.

Yeah.

It’s got some regional needs.

So our own listener queries over the years show something really interesting.

So Martha and I have been gathering enough data for long enough time that we have information and it shows that get a bath may actually appear outside of New…

Southern New Jersey and the Delaware Valley’ we do have people from The US South reporting that they use it and people along the Appalachian Ridge reporting that they use it.

And this is all consistent with Scott’s Irish settlement patterns where the get a shower or get a bath actually occurs in those countries as well as well as in Northern England.

Again, not with huge frequency, but more often there than than in the rest of The United Kingdom.

That’s fascinating.

So it’s it’s really kind of about, like, where the people came from that sort of, you know, way back kind of is, like, determining it a little bit.

But the…

It’s interesting that it never thought about the fact those verbs don’t really mean anything.

They’re just kinda there.

No.

Well, yeah.

They just kinda vaguely say some action goes here.

Oh, gosh.

Well, that’s fascinating.

Well, I guess it doesn’t really help me answer if one of us is right or not.

But I can at least say that maybe I’m I’m in the majority, maybe.

Grace, does he listen the show?

I’m gonna make him listen to this episode.

Well, I was gonna suggest that that if he doesn’t listen, you can just tell him that you were right, and he’ll never know.

Oh.

Oh.

That’s a better idea.

That’s actually better.

I’ll do that.

We we do welcome him as well.

We’ll we’ll welcome the get-a-bathers as well of the have-a-bathers or take-a-bathers.

That’s his spice to life.

Well, Grace, thank you so much for calling.

Thank you so much for writing me.

This is wonderful and very informative.

Yay.

Call us again sometime.

Alright?

Yeah.

I will.

Have a good one.

Alright.

Bye.

Take care.

Call or text anytime.

(877-929-9673.

It’s the bouncy house for language.

Stay tuned.

Listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And dropping in on us with his jet powered propeller Beanie, it’s our quiz guide, John Schenesky.

Hello, everybody.

Yes.

I I I traded in my my SNH green stamps for a jet-powered propeller.

That’s how old I am.

Listen.

Now that I’m here, I wanna tell you guys, I feel really good.

I was feeling really good because I thought we were coming to the end of our takeoffs.

Speaking of propellers, you know what those are?

Takeoffs.

I give you a clue to two words.

If you remove or take off the first letter from one of them, you get the other word.

Remember those?

Love them.

Yeah.

We were working our way through the alphabet, and I was pretty sure we were ready to wrap this whole thing up.

When I looked through my files, I determined that we had never done a a takeoffs.

Ok?

Yeah.

Right back right back at the beginning.

So if I said the sound of a bell could be heard from the small circular island, the answer would be A toll and atoll.

Right.

A toll and toll.

Right.

So you take a word word atoll.

You take the a off, and you get toll.

And both of those words will be clued in the sentence I’m gonna give you.

Okay?

Now none of these are a word, and it’s negative, like typical and atypical or symmetry and asymmetry.

That’s that’s cheating.

We’re not gonna do that.

Okay.

Away we go.

Hey.

Let’s toss that dehumidifier.

It’s too dry in here anyway.

Oh, let’s get rid of it because it’s too arid.

Yes.

Exactly.

Arid and rid.

Very good.

No.

There’s no entrance fee to see the president’s faces.

But how much is parking?

So Mount Rushmore, it’s national park.

What’s kind of a letters that we…

A words are we talking about here?

For parking.

You’ve already said one of the two answers.

Oh, I have?

Yes.

You have.

Oh, a mount and mount.

Yes.

There’s no entrance fee to see the present’s faces.

But, you know, how much is parking?

Which is actually true, by the way.

You don’t have to pay and see the the mount, but you do have to pay for parking.

James Bond is quite a polite chap.

Oh.

He’s aimable.

What what my thought matter has That secret agent is agent.

Yes.

He is.

The agent is agent.

Very good.

My band is playing at a cool music club on Broadway.

A cool music club on Broadway.

Right.

Oh, venue and avenue.

Yeah.

A venue on an avenue.

Very good.

Finally, with all his testosterone, that dude can lift a space rock.

With…

Oh, yeah.

With all his steroids.

Lift lift an asteroid.

That’s right.

It’s alright.

Asteroid.

I do love the long ones.

They are good.

They’re good long answers.

Very nice.

Well done, guys.

You did the a takeoff.

So all the way back to the beginning.

No.

I guess I’ll have go all the way through the alphabet to get back to to z.

John, thank you so much.

We’ll see you next time.

Alright.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

And if you wanna talk about anything involving language, we’ll try to bring our a game.

Us a call, (877-929-9673, or you can email us.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Ben Fridell.

I’m calling from Oneonta, New York.

Hi, Ben.

Welcome to the program.

What can we do for you?

Well, I’ve been a sports fan all my life, and I grew up outside of Boston rooting for the local teams there.

And it wasn’t until I moved to Upstate New York here that I heard one of our local announcers on the…

Doing the high school sports use the expression off the schneid, which I had never heard before.

And I think in the context of where he was…

How he was using it, it seemed to indicate either a team had finally won a game or scored a point or a player had finally made a point, but I’ve never been sure that’s what it meant.

And I have no idea what the origin of the expression is.

Oh, there’s a very colorful origin involved in this actually.

Yeah.

That’s exactly right.

Because it’s a clipping of the word Schneider.

Now, just like you say, you’re gonna encounter this in sports where a team or a player breaks a slump.

They end a losing streak.

That means Mhmm.

If you’re on the schneid, you’re on a losing streak.

And if you’re off the schneid schneid, you’re off of it.

But before it was off the schneid, it was off the Schneider or on the Schneider.

Exactly the same meaning, but somewhere in the nineteen forties, it started to be abbreviated.

But it wasn’t abbreviated in sports.

It was abbreviated in card games’ that’s where it came from.

It came from games like Rummy.

If you Schneidered someone, you locked them out.

They were on the Schneider.

You kept them at zero points.

There’s, like, a a particular way to play Rummy that I don’t wanna get into where you can actually do stuff where the other player just doesn’t score and you you Schneidered them.

But where did Rummy get Schneider?

As Martha says, it is a really interesting origin, but we get it from German card games like Scott and Schopkoff or Sheepshead.

And all of these games use Schneider in the same way, and, of course, German immigrants brought it to the The US in the eighteen eighties or so.

But before that, we find it used in German as far back as 1730 to refer a card game called marriage, which involved kings and queens and and kissing other players when they made a certain player or trick.

And of course, because of the historical interplay between German and Yiddish, it’s a…

It’s impossible to separate which language contributed Schneider or Schneider most to English, but certainly German is a strong contender.

And, of course, I know there are people listening now, Martha, who going, Schneider means tailor, someone who makes clothes.

And it does.

It absolutely does.

But even in German, before this particular figurative use of Schneider was borrowed into English, it had already begun to take that new meaning.

So we borrowed the word and the meaning, the non tailor meaning directly from German.

That metaphor was already intact.

In German, you’re gonna say, Austen Schneider sein, which basically means to be out of the Schneider’s territory.

And the whole concept here is that a Schneider was a tailor, was characterized as being weak and poor.

Like somebody with no physical strength and no money.

So if you’re like a Schneider, that means that you’re kind of out of points.

You’re…

It’s as if you’re out of money.

Yeah.

Taylors get a bad rap in in German and in English.

You know, there there are a lot of phrases in German that, you know, mean mean like a…

To look like a tailor means you look like you’re very sick.

Mhmm.

What…

Would this start being used in sports, Grant?

That’s that’s Oh, yeah.

So it shows up in sports some…

By the nineteen fifties, but firmly by the nineteen sixties.

So you’ll find it sprinkled here and there.

And clearly, it came over.’

Cause you know the the card playing pages, the rummy and the bridge columns in the newspaper, they were all usually right next to the sports page.

So I’m not surprised that No.

There’s a little leap there.

I do wanna say that in modern German, there’s still a form of this.

Austem Schneidersehen, it refers to being freed of all worries.

Basically, the equivalent of the English metaphor is to be out of the woods or to be off the hook.

Yep.

Yep.

You mean you’ve escaped circumstances.

Wow.

That is so interesting.

I I figured it had a German origin, but I had no idea what, and you guy…

You guys explained it very well.

Well, Ben, we’re so glad you called.

Yeah.

Stay off the schneid.

Well, now I can stay off the schneid after talking to you guys.

It is great.

Alright.

You take care now.

Alright, Will.

Thanks so much, guys.

Alright.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Send your language questions to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

I’m Genevieve calling from Milan.

Well, welcome to the program, Genevieve.

What’s on your mind?

I wanna know the origin of when in Rome do as the Romans do.

When in Rome do as the Romans do.

Is this something that came up in your house or in school or in your reading?

I just was wondering because I sometimes use this a…

Because I just really use this a lot.

Genevieve, that’s such a good question.

And what do you mean when you say when in Rome do as the Romans do?

It means to respect what…

Like, if you’re somewhat someplace else, it means respect their customs and what they do.

Yes.

That is exactly right.

That’s a perfect description of what that phrase means.

And what’s really interesting about it is that it has a very, very, very long history.

In fact, it goes back about sixteen hundred years.

Can you believe that?

No.

Well, let me tell you about how this phrase got started.

Because about sixteen hundred years ago, there was a woman and her son whose name was Augustine, and they lived in Milan, the city of Milan, which is in what is now Italy.

And they were puzzled about something because the mom and her son were both Christians, and they found out that in the city of Rome, which is about 300 miles away, The Christians, they’re fasted on Saturdays.

That means they didn’t eat anything at all.

But in Milan, where the two of them lived, they noticed that Christians did not fast on Saturdays.

They could eat whatever and whenever they wanted.

So the mom and her son were wondering, well, what are good Christians supposed to do?

And her son, Augustine, went to a religious leader there, the bishop there in Milan and basically said, you know, what’s the rule?

Are we supposed to eat on Saturdays or not?’

I’m seeing different people doing different things.

And the bishop basically said to him, when I’m in Rome, I do what the Romans do.

So if I’m in Rome on Saturday, I fast.

But when I’m here in Milan, I do what the people of Milan do.

They don’t fast on Saturdays, so I don’t either.

So in other words, exactly as you said, the advice that this religious leader gave them was wherever you go, you should disrespect the local customs.

And so this story was passed down through generations, and the woman’s son, Augustine, grew up to be a saint, Saint Augustine.

And the story was eventually condensed into various versions and then finally into the proverb that you mentioned, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

So it has a very, very long history behind it.

Well, I didn’t know that.

That’s why you called.

Yeah.

But it’s good advice, don’t you think?

Mhmm.

So, Martha, my understanding is is…

These days, it’s not just about the customs of another place, but it’s also when you find the mood of a group or the the consensus of a group around you is going a different way than you want to go.

It’s when you just say, you know, when in Rome Mhmm.

And you go along with the group just because it’s easier or you don’t care very much.

Yeah.

That’s another example of it.

And it’s another example of how this saying has even gotten shortened the way that you used it, Grant, just went in Rome.

You don’t even have to finish that sentence because everybody knows the the saying.

That’s interesting.

Yeah.

So now you have a story that you can share with your friends when you’re wherever.

Thank you for spending some time with us.

You’re welcome.

Alright.

You take care now.

Give our best to your family.

Ok?

Ok.

Alright.

Bye-bye.

Thanks for calling.

Call or text toll-free, (877-929-9673.

Hi there.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Sarah Kennedy from Saint Augustine, Florida.

Hey, Sarah.

We’re glad to have you.

What’s up?

I have a question.

I’m wondering if there’s a word that explains how we get an accent for our parent…

From our parents or an inherited accent.

For example, my husband lived all over The United States because his father was in the US Navy.

He doesn’t have a distinctive accent, but because his father was from Brook…

Brooklyn, New York and his mother was from Canada, he has some particular words, he says, with that accent.

Mhmm.

Mhmm.

Like, for example?

For example, the Brooklyn words, he says stereo and cherry like that.

Oh, nice.

And then Canadians use the word face cloth instead of washcloth, and he uses that term.

And so your question is, a, why is my husband so weird?

And b, why can’t be normal like me?

Clearly.

That’s what you’re saying.

No.

You’ve got it exactly right.

Because, of course, when you meet new people, they always say, where are you from?

And he says Mhmm.

All over United States.

And then they can’t tell from speaking to him.

And I tease him about these words that he he says that…

I said, that’s your father coming out of your mouth when he says Oh, nice.

Yeah.

Turn on the stereo.

Sterreo.

So you’re noticing a little bit of accent and a little bit of vocabulary.

Yeah.

So it’s a little bit…

So so…

Yeah.

So dialect isn’t just the words we use.

It’s also how we pronounce things in the syntax.

So…

I’m gonna drop a few linguistic terms on you, I’ll try not to be too wonky about it.

But one of them is idiolect, and it has nothing to do with idiolect.

But this is the language blend that an individual speaks.

So your husband’s language blend is his idiolect.

And I’m using the word blend because I I think of it like coffee.

You know how you can get coffee all over town?

Everybody’s got it.

Cafe, grocery store, wherever, Starbucks, you can get coffee.

But each place may have their own coffee blend and their own processes that mean the coffee is a little different each place.

So you know where to go to get the coffee that suits you.

Right?

That’s what idiolects are like.

It’s each person’s little blend and process that’s just a little different than everyone else’s.

The other thing about the idio elect that I I I feel compelled to say because people misunderstand it is it’s mostly something that happens to you rather than something that you purposely built, if that makes sense.

Ok.

So it’s not anything that he necessarily is consciously doing.

But for your larger question is, what do we call this when we talk about the language we get from our parents or even any of our elders, like our grandparents or aunts and uncles and so forth.

And it’s just called intergenerational transmission.

This is pretty standard phrase for it in linguistics.

Most often, the transmission goes downward.

That is you get things from your elders.

But occasionally, we get stuff from people who are younger than us.

It moves upward.

So this intergenerational transmission can work both both ways, but it’s mostly old to young.

Two other things about this intergenerational transmission.

One, we get most of how we talk from people who are in our same generation not from the older generation, but there is some of the older generation there.

So you’re more likely to sound like your classmates than you are your parents.

That’s interesting.

But in in your husband’s case, because he moved around, one of the constants in his life was his father.

So he is gonna sound like his father probably more than all these different groups of…

Who have all these different dialects all over The United States.

I wanna take your example of face cloth because it is such a great example of an intergenerationally transmitted word.

It’s indeed very Canadian.

Canadian word for washcloth.

And it’s homy, and it’s familiar, and it’s an intimate word.

It’s exactly the kind of thing that we learn from our parents.

It is about the home words, and the food words, and the words associated with politeness and customs.

One final thing before we wrap this up.

The language that everyone in the family speaks together is called echolect or echolect, e c o l e c t or the familect, family pluslect.

And so your husband’s family’s echolect includes Canadian English and Brooklyn English and whatever else his father picked up in the Navy.

That is so interesting.

Yeah.

So your husband and his father moved around the country because of the different postings for for the US Navy.

And so what happens is he’s exposed to all these different variations and dialects and all these different places, not just word choices, but the vowels he uses.

And so something happens in your husband’s speech where he does what is called dialect leveling, l e v l e I n g, dialect leveling.

And this is mostly unconscious.

It’s where we might suppress the most distinctive features that we pick up and so that we can fit in more with our peers.

And so it just makes us sound more general.

You know, not…

I won’t…

I hesitate to use the word generic, but more kind of you average out all the different dialect things that you pick up.

So you’re just kind of got one accent that’s not so much an amalgam and doesn’t really stand out too much in any particular way.

Although, obviously, you as his his spouse are going to be exposed to all the different things that are odd about his speech.

Definitely.

Well, this has been so interesting.

I just love your show, and I’m so excited to have a chance to ask you this question.

Well, we appreciate you.

Bye-bye.

What language did you pick up when you traveled across the country or around the world?

We’d love to hear about it.

(877-929-9673 or email us words@waywordradio.org.

Words on parade as Await with Words continues.

Listening to A Way with Words to show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

As the writer Florence Hazrat observes, in school, we’re taught to think of punctuation as a set of rules or, as she puts it, the invisible ushers of the sentence, simply telling words where to sit.

But in reality, those dots and lines and squiggles do a whole lot more than just organized text.

And in her new book called On the Mark, Hazrat traces the history of punctuation and also shows how it conveys tone and attitude and intention and how those tiny marks shape the interaction between writer and reader.

She notes that the role of punctuation has developed over the centuries.

For example, in antiquity, there was even a class element to punctuation because elite Greek and Roman readers regarded punctuation as kind of a crutch for amateurs.

You know, if you were properly educated, you should be able to find the structure for yourself.

And so adding punctuation to text to make it easier to read also meant opening it up to more people.

And then during the Renaissance, the role of punctuation expanded even more, helping writers to put feeling and voice onto the page.

And then later, the dash was introduced to show interruption or hesitation or thoughts changing direction, which is reflected, by the way, in the German word for dash, which is, which literally translates as a thought stroke.

I don’t know about you, Grant, but I find those marks really handy, but dashes have always had their critics even before the age of AI.

For example, in the eighteenth century, a grammarian named Joseph Robertson complained that dashes were the mark of hasty and incoherent writers, and they were roundly condemned as the mark of cheap pamphlets and silly romance novels.

And even Jonathan Swift mocked the dash in this little ditty that goes, in modern wit, all printed trashes set off with numerous breaks and dashes.

So from the ancient Greeks to modern days, people have been snobby about punctuation one way or the other.

Well said.

Well said.

Well, you’ll find all this and more in Florence Hazrat’s book.

It’s called On the Mark, and it’s this up close and personal look at punctuation sort of like Robert Hook putting that tiny period under a microscope.

We’ll put a link to the book on our website at waywordradio.org.

And you know, Martha and I love to get recommendations for what to read next.

There’s still a little bit of room on our bedside tables.

You can send them to words@waywordradio.org Or tell us what to read next on the telephone call or text toll free from The United States and Canada, (877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

I’m Hollis in Anchorage, Alaska.

Hey, Hollis.

We’re glad to have you.

So I grew up in North Carolina, and I grew up on a small farm.

And my family often used the phrase dyed in the wool.

And we weren’t using it to describe the sweaters from our sheep, but people with really strong beliefs.

And so I was thinking about that phrase recently because there are a lot of strong beliefs going around these days, but I haven’t heard the phrase in a while.

And so I was wondering about about that phrase.

And, you know, is it just me?

Is it my location in Anchorage that I’m not hearing it so much anymore?

You know, I’m curious about its history and origins.

Yeah.

Diet in the wool.

So when you hurt it as a kid, what was being discussed?

We were often talking about people who had really strong beliefs.

Ok.

So Like politics or religion, that sort of thing?

Politics, religion, just really strong ideas.

One of the reasons it might be less popular, and I think the data show that it is less common to hear it or to see it, is that people don’t know whether or not d I e d or d y e d.

The the fact that it’s dyed in the wool gives us some clue that it’s probably d y e d.

But Yeah.

I think that might mean that people are a little avoidant when it comes to using this.

But also, a culture and a society, further and further removed from everyday agriculture and the way that our goods are manufactured.

So, it might not understand the process.

It really is about the process of handling wool.

Did you process your own wool or make your own We did.

Yarn or sweaters when you were on the farm?

Yeah.

Yeah.

My dad shared the sheep and my mom spun the wool and we all knit.

I was wondering just what you’re saying if if it was d y Yeah.

E d.

And and I guess it’s a little confusing to me the phrase to be dyed in the wool because when you think about dying wool or adding color wool Mhmm.

I would usually use that verb differently, that the wool would be dyed itself.

Instead of dyed in the wool, it’s a sort of unusual use of that preposition Yeah.

With the phrase.

Yeah.

So that preposition I n is more indicative of the fact that we’re talking about an uncountable substance.

That’s kind of what’s happening here.

So that d y e, the meaning of color or a substance Mhmm.

Of color, What would happen is that textile workers learned very early on in the civilization…

Part of civilization and the time of civilization where we learned to process wool.

That if you added the color to the raw wool before spinning it, before making it into yarn, then your color is gonna be more permanent and more uniform.

Right.

And the other side of that, if you added it after the garments are already sewn or made or knitted that fully formed You can’t really do that anymore.

It’s’ cause the color’s uneven and and it fades a lot faster.

So Yeah.

Dyed and the wool refers to that that first thing where you die…

It’s just got this big mass of unprocessed wool.

I mean, it’s clean, obviously.

You’ve maybe even cartered it, but you haven’t done anything else, and you apply the dye before you you turn it into yarn.

Before you bent it.

Yeah.

The other side of that is dyed in the piece.

This is where you do dye the garment.

You change the color, like, if you’ve ever had to change I see.

The color of a dress or shoes in order to have something to wear to a dance or a wedding or something’ cause you didn’t wanna buy a new, that would be dying a piece.

As early as the fifteen hundreds in British English, we see some uses of dye to the wool that are figurative where there’s talking…

Someone being imbued with traits.

So, it’s not so much that they have strongly held beliefs.

It just means that their whole personality and characters is colored by whatever…

Is that like they might be dyed in the wool…

A dyed in the wool Welshman or something like that, you know.

They’re very much of their place and time or of their their people and situation.

But in Britain, you used to be more likely to hear died in the grain, g r a I n e.

And that’s a it’s a strange history because that…

It comes from the Latin word grana, which refers to the same insects that gave us the colors carmine and crimson and vermilion.

Oh.

Those insects looked like harsh small seeds, which are grana.

That’s what it means.

And it’s also when we get the word ingrained as in her beliefs were ingrained in her from a young age.

Meaning Right.

We instilled you with a bright permanent dye of those beliefs.

So ingrained I didn’t know that.

Yeah.

Ingrained is actually the same as to die of the world.

Fascinating.

As everyone says, a huge fan of the show.

So thrilled to get to chat with you and and word nerd out little bit.

Absolutely.

We hereby give you our people certificates.

Hollis, we’re so glad you called.

Alright.

Take care.

Have a great rest of your day.

You too.

You too.

Bye.

Alright.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Call or text toll free in The US and Canada.

(877-929-9673.

Grant, you forever have me creasing.

Do you know this bit of slang creasing?

I forever have you creasing.

This sounds like an Appalachian term.

Is this laughing so that your eyes crinkle up?

Don’t know.

It it is about laughing.

Ok.

It’s it’s slang that a a friend of mine from London sent.

Creasing and creased up refers to when you’re laughing so hard, you’re doubled over and laughing.

Oh, perfect.

Yeah.

I bent it the waist’ you can’t keep straight’ it’s just too funny.

Got it.

Send your favorite words from another dialect that seems strange to you, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hello.

This is Jeff.

I am in Memphis, Tennessee.

I was born and reared in the coal fields of Southeastern Kentucky.

My dad was a coal miner, and we raised our own vegetables.

And when we did, we raised green beans.

And those green beans couldn’t always be canned or frozen.

And so what was passed on to us was a thing called drying the beans.

And we would take the full green bean and take a needle and string it through the the bean until we got about an eight foot string of green beans.

And then we would hang them in the sun and let them dry out, and that’s the way we’ve preserved them.

Mhmm.

And then all through the winter, take those and then soak them and cook them, and then we would eat them.

And they were called shucky beans, and some people called them leather britches.

Leather…

Like, pants.

Leather pants.

Yes.

And have no idea where the name come from or where any of that originated from.

And I was just wondering if you could tell me Because once I moved to Memphis, nobody here in Memphis has ever heard of that type of bean.

It’s the big city.

They just don’t owe country ways.

That’s all.

I bet those beans are tasty too.

I bet they’re incredibly tasty.

Delicious.

So you’re rehydrating them after drying them out on a on a string.

Yes.

You know, this is all really familiar, Jeff.

Like, I would tell you, this is…

There are a couple really fantastic descriptions of this in in, you know, literature from Appalachia.

And there’s a a couple of the books talk in particular about how it was kind of a social event to get everyone together to string the beans.

Exactly.

It was.

Then in one of the stories, it says something about it was bigger than the church dance.

Wow.

Well, I wouldn’t even go that far.

Some churches don’t dance.

Yeah.

Some churches don’t dance.

Oh, yeah.

So Shucky Beans and Leather Bridges or Breeches are widespread terms.

They’re…

They appear in Appalachia and the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia.

There are other names, maybe shuck beans or shucky beans or fodder beans or hay beans.

And the leather britches, I I don’t know what you think, Jeff and Martha, but I think it has to do with that color and texture that the dried out potholes get.

You know?

It’s it’s kind of like a stiff leather, like maybe the leather of a saddle or a baseball glove.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the shuckie maybe has to do with the corn husks, you know, the same idea.

Right.

So they’re they’re raspy and dry like a corn husk.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And how do you like those, Jeff?

The…

One of the Vername Sloane, who is an Appalachian author, she describes the flavor as being nut like and said that maybe they would serve it with cornbread, pickled beets, or sauerkraut.

Oh, yes.

And and some kind of pork.

Yeah.

Some kind of pork.

Hog’s Jowl is what she says or salt pork.

Yeah.

Y’all, I can smell this conversation That’s insane.

Crazy.

I’m walking up some beans.

Hold on a second.

Jeff, thank you for sharing this with us.

But just know the the language that you’re using is shared by many others in the region, and it’s it’s got a long precedent.

So you’re part of a you’re part of a big tradition, both in food and in language.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate it very much.

Oh, we appreciate the call.

You take care now.

Mhmm.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Jeff.

What’s that traditional recipe that’s on your stove, and what do you call it?

Let us know.

(877-929-9673.

Hello.

Welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi.

My name is Lee, and I’m calling from San Antonio, Texas.

San Antonio.

What a great time we had when we were there.

Fabulous place.

Yeah.

Lee, what did you call about today?

So I have a word that I learned from my mother, and it’s used to describe, like, a sticky, gooey, gross, usually unknown substance.

Mhmm.

And the word we use is gookupeki.

And I’ve asked my mother where she learned this word because we’ve never heard it anywhere out…

Outside of my family.

I learned it from her, and I use it.

And we’re pretty much the only people that use this word.

And she said she learned it from her grandmother who…

We don’t know if her grandmother, like, made it up.

It was a made up word, or if it had some deeper origin.

My mother’s grandmother was a descendant of Czech Polish immigrants to Central Texas.

Mhmm.

So I don’t know if it had, like, a Czech origin.

But, yeah, it’s a it’s a gross sticky substance, and the word is Guk And Pucky.

Guk And Pucky sounds to me like one of those towns that’s on a border, like, between Kentucky and Georgia.

You know, like, Texarkana or Mexicali or something like that.

Yep.

Yeah.

And any idea how you spell Gucumbucky?

Or maybe you don’t even have occasion to spell Gucumbucky.

Not really.

I mean, I would spell it G O O C U D K P U C K E Y, something like that.

Yeah.

The judges will allow it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that’s as good as anything, Lee.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, well, it appears that Gookumpucky is is one of a number of words that end with pucky to refer to sort of the thing that you’re talking about, you know, sticky stuff, gunk.

The more common version, the one that’s actually in the dictionary of American regional English, is a c k e m p u c k y, and it’s spelled a lot of different ways like a c k e p y.

People will use a c k e p u y to describe sludge or wallpaper paste or sealant or caulk, or plumbers might describe the gunk that’s caught in the threads when you’re taking pipes apart as akam pucky.

And I’ve only seen gookumpucky a few places along with stickum puckey Oh.

Which refers to a kind of adhesive.

So I’m pretty sure that it’s just part of that family of words, you know, that that sort of sound like what they are.

I mean, if you’re wiping gookumpucky off a little kid’s face, you know, that works really well.

Yes.

Exactly.

So maybe she added the goo part because she was dealing with my mother as a child covered in goo.

I don’t know.

We should hear from John in Florida who remembers using goocompucky to refer to Bondo.

You know, it’s that filler you used to repair auto bodies.

To, like, smooth out Ok.

Of divots in the in the seams.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I don’t think there’s a Polish or Czech connection.

No.

I don’t think it’s just And if the great…

It was your great grandmother who was Czech Polish?

Yes.

Yeah.

And if she moved to Central Texas, a really good chance her main language was German and not Czech or Polish.

Mhmm.

But this isn’t Americanism, is the other thing that we know.

So it’s not…

Right.

You’re not gonna find this outside of of North America.

Yeah.

So it’s that sticky stuff that you wipe off and it’s still on your fingers.

You know, you just can’t get it off.

Schmutz.

Definitely.

Is a good synonym for that.

I love that.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Thanks for sharing, Lee.

We appreciate it.

Call again sometime.

Alright?

Alright.

For sure.

Thanks so much.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Guk and pucky, akam pucky, or any pucky, give us a call or text.

(877-929-9673.

Away With Word senior producer is Stefanie Levine.

Tim Felten is our engineer and editor, and John Schensky is our quizmaster.

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 US and Canada.

877-929-9673.

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

It’s supported by listeners 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 nonprofits volunteer board, Michael Bresslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Merrill Perlman, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidanwarm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Until next time, goodbye.