Easy as Pie (episode #1643)

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.

A few weeks ago, we talked about the slang from a British research station in Antarctica.

And Grant, you will remember that one of the terms we discussed is the term Dingle Day.

Right. For a clear day, no clouds, nothing obscuring the view.

Right. And we heard from Malcolm Dingle, who lives in the city of Worcester, England,

And he thinks that the source of this phrase may be his father, Richard Dingle, who is a marine micropaleontologist who worked for the British Antarctic Survey in the 1990s.

And it turns out that in Antarctica, there’s a nunatak named after Richard Dingle.

Now, a nunatak, N-U-N-A-T-A-K, is an Inuit term.

And a nunatak is an isolated mountain peak that’s projecting through surrounding glacial ice.

And Malcolm shared with me what his dad wrote at the time.

He said that nunatak was a place that I landed on from the Navy helicopter and took some samples and fossils.

I suppose I was the first person to set foot on it, and a bleak and uninviting place it was, too.

Nice views, though, to the southwest.

And according to the Australian Antarctic Data Center, that’s why that nunatak there is called Dingle nunatak.

And it seems perfectly plausible to me that on a beautiful sunny day, you would look out and see Dingle nunatak and think, oh, it’s a Dingle day because I can see the nunatak.

I can see the Dingle. That’s amazing. I love it. Boom, boom, boom. Neurons firing. Things connecting. This is it.

This is the moment we live for, right? The story unveiled.

I think it is. I mean, it’s sort of like in the Pacific Northwest when you say the mountain is out, either for Mount Rainier or Mount Hood.

Right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. I love this.

Thank you, Martha. Thanks for making that connection.

We’d love to hear from you. The lines are open.

We’re having a Dingle day. 877-929-9673 is toll free in the United States and Canada.

If you’re in Antarctica, you’re going to have to try us on social media.

You can find all those handles on our website at waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Good morning, how are you?

This is John Forster.

I’m calling you from a little town of Blowing Rock in North Carolina.

Well, what’s on your mind?

I have this word that my brother-in-law gave me,

And I was sure he invented it, and the word is dwaddle.

I thought it’s a great word.

It’s a combination of dawdle and waddle.

So dawdle, you’re just walking slowly, meandering down a road.

And waddle, you sort of, perhaps your body’s moving side to side and things.

And he had this one word, dwaddle, which combined the two words.

And I love it.

I’ve used it.

I don’t think it’s a real word, but it’s really nice.

It’s cool.

So where were you when he mentioned this word?

Well, as in the context I just described.

So he’d see somebody in front getting in the way.

We would be walking down a sidewalk and see this guy in front getting in the way.

And he said, oh, he’s just dwaddling.

And I said, Donald, it’s not dwaddling.

It’s dawdling or whatever.

Anyway, so that’s the word he used.

But, John, it could be dwaddle.

You’ll find that in Scots English and in the English spoken in the northern part of the United Kingdom,

Which is where it sounds like you’re from,

You’ll find that dwaddle with a D-W-A-D-L-L is often used basically as a synonym for dawdle, D-A-W-D-L-E.

Oh, really?

It’s just an alternative use?

Yeah, but with some variants, some variations.

Things like to waste time or to linger or to tarry.

And it goes back quite a way.

So it’s possible that, I don’t know where he’s from, but it’s possible that he could have inherited that word.

Of course, I think it’s easy enough to say that he probably could have just recoined it, too.

He’s from Chicago.

He was born and raised in Chicago and then moved to Miami about 40 years ago.

So I met him about 40 years ago in Miami.

And he just used it.

I mean, he’s an educated man.

He used all sorts of good words.

But dwaddle was one that got me, and I used to joke with him about it.

I really like it.

It sounds slower than dottle.

You know, dottle versus dwaddle.

You have to say it more slowly.

I love it.

It forces your mouth, right, to hesitate.

Waddle.

Waddle, yeah, you really do.

It sounds sort of like when you’re leaving a restaurant after a meal, you know, you look up from your table and you see all these people who are sort of dwaddling their way out.

Right.

Yep, yep, yep.

There’s a certain walk that people have.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, it’s a word that can be used.

I love it.

I can use it with all these other words I get from your program.

Why not?

Use many of them.

Well, John, thank you so much for your call.

We really appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, I hope you use it.

It’s a great word.

Will do.

Take care of yourself.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Thanks, John.

Bye-bye now.

Bye-bye now.

Do not dwaddle for a second.

Get to that phone and call us 877-929-9673.

The German word Zaun means a fence or a hedge, and the German word König means king.

And there’s a German word for the little brown bird called a wren, and it’s Zaunkönig, which means literally king of the fence.

I just love this.

You know, these little birds in their seemingly regal presence, despite their small size, just all puffed up sitting there on the fence.

I’m king of the fence.

Whether you live in Königsstrasse or you live on King Street, we’d love to talk to you. 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Mira.

Hi, Mira. Where are you calling from?

New Hampshire.

New Hampshire. Well, welcome to the show. Mira, you sound like one of our younger listeners. How old are you?

Ten and a half.

Ten and a half. That half makes a difference. Well, again, welcome to the program. What can we do for you?

So, why are the words icing and frosting related to cold?

Okay.

You mean like the icing or frosting that you would put on a dessert, like a cupcake or a cake?

Yeah.

What made you think about this?

I don’t know.

I think it was when I was making a cake.

Ooh, what kind?

Vanilla.

Vanilla.

That’s good.

Vanilla cake.

Vanilla on the inside and the outside?

Yeah.

Well, what do you call it? Do you call it icing or frosting, that sweet, creamy stuff you put on top of the cake?

Usually frosting.

That’s interesting. And you’re in New Hampshire, right?

Right now, yeah.

Okay.

Are you usually in New Hampshire?

Maryland.

Maryland, okay.

Maryland, okay.

Here’s the thing, Mira.

The words icing and frosting in this case aren’t about the temperature.

They’re about what they look like because, you know, when you spread that on the cake, it sort of looks like frost.

And generally people think of icing as something that is a little bit less dense than frosting.

Frosting tends to be thicker and creamy.

Have you ever had carrot cake?

No, but my mom has.

Oh, huh.

And that kind of frosting is really creamy.

It’s really, really thick as opposed to what some people think of icing, which is thinner.

And actually, have you ever had a glazed donut?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, the glaze is a whole other idea that’s similar to that.

That was used even earlier.

A glaze looks like it’s kind of glassy.

And so it’s about what it resembles rather than the temperature.

Does that make sense?

Mm—

Mira, thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with us and sharing your question.

Thanks.

All right. Take care of yourself and give our best to your mom.

Bye.

There’s another term that you might hear occasionally in the U.S. South, and that’s filling, even when it’s on top of the cake or the cupcake.

Mmm. Mmm. Yeah, filling.

And I forgot to mention that in parts of the middle of the country, sometimes people call icing calf slobber.

I’ve never heard that.

That’s the other end of the formal spectrum from glace.

Which is the fancy term for thin ice and glacé.

877-929-9673.

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

We love hearing from our listeners of all ages.

Regardless of how important you think your question is,

We will take it seriously.

You can also send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, hello, this is Michaelene Kelly.

Michaelene, welcome to the show.

Where are you calling us from?

Grand Rapids.

Okay. Well, what’s on your mind today?

Well, I wanted to talk about the word trifling.

It’s a word, T-R-I-F-L-I-N-G.

It’s related to trifle, obviously.

But I started hearing the word used by my family from Mississippi.

So I think the word is used by black people from the South or from Mississippi.

And it’s meaning it’s a negative character trait, a longstanding character trait.

And it’s not exactly somebody that’s petty or lazy or unmotivated.

It refers to somebody who won’t do the slightest, most trivial thing or action to improve their situation.

Like not fixing something when it’s really easy to fix.

So you don’t have a toilet because you’re too trifling to fix it.

Or, you know, you’re walking through your house.

Instead of picking something up, you just walk over it.

Or not finishing a project.

It’s somebody that can be relied on not to do the most trivial thing to help themselves.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

That’s it.

You’ve nailed it.

So your family in Mississippi, your African-American family in Mississippi uses the word that way?

So I married into a black family from Mississippi, and I had the privilege of hearing all kinds of idioms and words, expressions that I had never heard before.

To talk about trifling and focus on that, trifling really is an African-American word used in black English.

It does refer to somebody who kind of lacks ambition or maybe that they’re deceitful or secretive or even a little suspicious acting.

I’d say somebody who’s trifling and never keeps their promises.

Exactly.

Barack Obama uses it in his book, Dreams from My Father.

He says, we’re trifling.

That’s what we are, trifling.

Here we are with a chance to show the mayor that we’re real players in the city.

So what do we do?

We act like starstruck children.

So he’s talking about somebody who had an opportunity and didn’t take it.

Yes. Lost opportunities. But like I said, it seems like a longstanding character trait as opposed to a single trifling action.

Yeah, that’s a fair reading. It is easy to read a lot into the contexts that might not be there for everyone.

So you will find other uses of trifling and other parts of African-American English that just are different because it’s not a, the boundaries of trifling in this way aren’t particularly strict.

So it does vary from neutral to very negative.

Okay.

But Michaelene, I got to say, you have got a ton of information there.

It’s clear that you pay attention when people speak.

And I appreciate that.

That’s important.

Well, it was a whole new language for me growing up in Chicago and moving to Michigan.

And being with the Black people from the South, I treasured spending time with them.

Their stories were so interesting.

Their language is still so interesting.

And yeah, I guess I’m a poet and I love words, you know.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, keep that ear to the ground and continue what you’re doing.

Listening more than speaking is something that’s hard for a lot of people to do, but it sounds like you’ve mastered it.

Sure does.

Thank you.

Take care of yourself now, all right?

Right. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, what have you observed about the language around you?

We’d love to hear about it. 877-929-9673.

More about language and how we use it as A Way with Words continues.

You’re 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 we’re joined by John Janiski, who is not only our quiz guy,

But he is a world championship hide-and-seek player.

John, how many days have you been missing?

So far, it’s been 60 years.

I’ve been missing 60 years.

No one has found me yet.

I’ve come out of hiding to deliver this puzzle, this quiz.

I have this sad friend.

He’s a guy who always wants language to be frozen in time, or better yet, changed back to old ways.

Unfortunately, as time marches on, he’s always left behind, ranting, and no one understands him.

For example, he’s obsessed with the Greek alphabet, and every time he sees the name of a Greek letter in print, he has to pronounce it like the Greek.

And this leads to confusion.

He saw a man standing idly by while his wife struggled with grocery bags, and he goes,

Well, cavalry is dead.

Ky-vul-ry.

You see, anywhere he sees C-H-I, he pronounces it Ky.

Oh, gotcha.

Ky-vul-ry.

Ky-vul-ry is dead.

Weird.

Now, let’s explore this fellow’s confusing world, okay?

Yeah.

Okay.

At a Kentucky-based fast food place, he leaves frustrated and hungry.

He cannot get anyone to serve him fried poultry.

A chiken restaurant?

Ky-kin?

Chiken?

Ky-kin, yes.

It sounds like Kraken, but it’s Kraken.

It’s not.

It’s Ky-kin.

Release the chicken.

Release the chicken, indeed.

Once he was a sculptor, but he’ll get no work done now

As the hardware store refuses to sell him a wedged hand tool for carving stone.

A kaisel.

A kaisel, yes.

A chisel.

Why would you do that to the poor hardware store guys?

A kaisel.

He sticks by his guns, though.

Anyway, at a clothing store, he just wanted some khaki-colored pants made of cotton twill,

But he left pantsless as no one knows what he wanted.

He wanted kainos.

Kainos, yes.

Is this the only Greek letter he knows?

Well, I’m focusing on his one battle he has to deal with.

Gotcha.

You know, we could do future quizzes about others.

Save me some material, Grant, please.

So, yeah, Kainos for Chinos.

Now, I once asked him where he was born.

I’d never heard of the place.

He said, how can you not know the Windy City, the city of big shoulders in Illinois?

The city of big shoulders.

Chicago.

Chicago.

Chicago is his kind of town.

It’s Chicago, right.

John, what is this guy’s name?

Oh, it’s Kyle.

It’s my friend Kyle.

So we’re sitting on Kyle’s porch enjoying nature,

And he suddenly claimed that the squirrels were making some strange sound.

I thought they were just making squirrel noises, but he said they were…

Kitering.

Kitering.

Kitering squirrels.

Chittering, yes.

What a weirdo.

Now, finally, he told me he was going to get a dog, but his partner doesn’t like, you know, big dogs.

So he said he’d get a small dog, some obscure breed I’d never even heard of.

Kaiwawa?

Kaiwawa, yes.

Kaiwawa?

I got you to say the word kaiwawa, yes, instead of chihuahua.

Oh, John, I think I’m going to have to give my inner Kyle a hug.

Very nice.

Thank you, John.

We appreciate it.

We’ll talk to you next week.

We’re kind of silly on this show sometimes,

And we also talk about serious subjects when it comes to language.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673,

Or send us an email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Oh, hi.

I’m Nancy Jackson from Aurora, Colorado.

Hi, Nancy.

Hi.

I’m excited to talk to you.

I listen to your podcast all the time.

I just love it.

Oh, lovely. Thank you.

What’s on your mind today?

So I am what’s called a senior citizen.

And it’s just really come to mind lately.

My oldest son is going to be 50.

And my other two, quote, children are just a few years younger than he is.

And I obviously call them my children.

But he’s 50 years old.

It doesn’t fit.

So I looked up synonyms for children, and if you’ll bear with me,

I’m going to just read what AI says children are.

Kids, youth, juveniles, youngsters, teenagers, cubs, adolescents, chicks,

Babies, teens, kitties, kiddos, monkeys, moppets, infants, younglings,

Toddlers, buds, bambini, bairns, welts, sprouts, et cetera, et cetera,

Kindergartners, quirts, chaps, et cetera, et cetera.

I think it just goes on forever.

Rugrats, mischief, twins.

Okay.

No, no, no.

A 50-year-old is none of that.

So then a grown child, and apparently this is a real issue because there were lots of different things on the Internet.

But adult child, progeny, offspring, man child, although I have a daughter, so she would be the woman child, I guess.

Descendant, successor, scion, offshoot, heir, offspring, progeny, issue, family, lineage, line, posterity, seed, fruit, or fruit of someone’s loins.

I’m not calling my kids, excuse me, kids, any of those.

Not fruit of your loins?

Well, technically, yes.

I’m not really interested in reminding people of that.

Right.

So the difficulty here is that the word children has more than one meaning, and you’re not sure that when you talk about your children, people aren’t thinking of five-year-olds instead of 50-year-olds.

Right.

And what do your offsprings say about it?

They don’t care.

They don’t care.

They don’t care.

You’re saying our language doesn’t have a term for it.

And I guess my question for you, Nancy, is when did this start bothering you?

Was it when they turned 21 and were of legal age?

No, no.

Was it later? Not really. It’s been lately when they’re, you know, in their 40s and 50s.

It’s like, okay, you know, they’re getting gray hair.

Yeah, maybe that should be the dividing line. You know, once you see those gray hairs come in,

You need a different word. But it really sounds like you’ve called them your kids and your

Children all your life and they’ve called you their mother all of their lives. Yeah, so there’s

No really reason to change that. One of the features of language is that a lot of explaining

Is necessary. So getting that one word term isn’t necessarily going to clear anything up. You’re

Probably still going to have to explain what you mean when you say the kids are coming over.

We constantly have to restate and rephrase when we speak. So this is just another one of those

Cases. Yeah, I mean, we have a

24-year-old living with us, and

You know, my wife still calls him the

Boy, or, you know, the man-child.

You know, what are we going to feed the boy?

Man-child has connotations, though.

You know, I’m at this

Stage now where my kids are starting,

See, my kids, they’re starting to

Give me advice.

So, you know, the roles are,

They’re not reversing yet, but they’re

On their way. I can’t believe they

Waited until their 50s to start giving their parents

Advice.

Well, I mean, Mom, you really shouldn’t drive there.

Mom, you know, give us your itinerary.

Let us know when you’re home.

All this stuff.

I’m like, okay.

It’s just an odd time.

That’s really interesting.

Well, I’m sure that our listeners will want to weigh in on this.

I’m really struck by the fact that you just continue to call them your kids naturally.

You know, when you’re talking to us, it just sort of slips out.

And so I don’t know that you need to change it, but I also understand that you’re a little bit uncomfortable with that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Nancy will let you know what all of their listeners say, and maybe there’s something good there for you.

That sounds wonderful.

I’d really like to know.

Take care of yourself, and don’t drive when you shouldn’t be.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Will do.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Nancy.

A while back, we talked about this on the show, and Penny H. In Frankfurt, Michigan, says that her parents coined the word Schultz, which I assume is a combination of child and adult.

And I don’t know about that, Penny, but there it is.

It’s out there.

People want it.

Schultz.

Yeah.

And some people say kidult, but that just sounds so contrived.

Yeah.

That’s the problem with creating the new words.

They’re contrived and they’re not spread yet.

So you still have to explain what you mean.

Well, let us know what you think, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email, words@waywordradio.org.

We got a message from David who told us he moved from New York City to Nashville 30 years ago.

And he had a question about a word that he’s only heard there in Nashville.

And that word is girming, G-H-E-R-M-I-N-G, girming.

And the way that David described it is he said,

When a tourist or a person who’s not a celebrity would bother a celebrity on the street to have a selfie made or get an autograph,

Or just to talk to them and let them know what big fans they were of this country artist, he keeps hearing the word girming.

And I reached out to Mark Allen Barnette.

Mark Allen Barnette is a well-known singer and songwriter in Nashville,

And he said that he first heard this term used with reference to the revered Nashville songwriter Harland Howard.

And apparently Harland Howard used this term to refer to a person who’s sort of like a germ.

They’re trying to infect somebody who has more celebrity, you know,

To approach them and try to shove a CD or a business card into their hand.

And in fact, Mark reported that a friend of his told him he was nearly germed to death while being wheeled into a hospital emergency room by a nurse who was trying to elbow her way into the industry.

Can you imagine?

You’re terrified.

You’re on this gurney and somebody’s like, you’ve got to hear my song.

It’s the best song ever.

Getting germed on a gurney.

Getting germed on a gurney.

Yeah.

But anyway, it’s a big no-no in Nashville.

And that’s the only context in which I’ve been able to find this term, girming.

It does remind me of gurning, though.

You are in gurn, which is to stretch your neck up and look at something that you can’t quite make out.

Oh.

So kind of rubbernecking.

Interesting.

So sort of somebody who’s at a higher level in the industry than you.

Well, I’m just talking in a physical space in the world.

When you’re in a restaurant and you see somebody.

No.

You know.

And you’re prairie dogging.

And you think that’s Luke Bryant, but you’re not sure.

So you stretch your neck up and look over.

Gurning.

I thought it was a really fascinating term,

And I have learned that you should never, ever germ if you go to Nashville.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, Martha.

This is Paul McDowell from South Bend, Indiana.

Hey, Paul.

Welcome to the show.

What can we do for you?

Well, thank you so much. Well, I’m so delighted to be speaking with you both.

My question is about the etymology of the expression in spades.

It’s not an expression that I use very often or that I hear very often, but I used it recently.

My son and I have lunch every day together, and he graduated with a degree in linguistics from Ohio State.

So we often have conversations over lunch that are linguistically oriented.

We’re both definitely word nerds, no doubt about that.

So in spades, any ideas that you can share with me?

Yes.

As a matter of fact, we have a bunch of ideas, but the best one is, have you ever played Bridge?

The card game Bridge?

No, I’ve not, Grant.

I’ve not.

That’s where it comes from.

In the 1920s, a hundred years ago, in the 1930s,

Bridge was huge.

It was this enormous fad.

Bridge columns started appearing in newspapers,

Books about bridge.

People would speak on bridge.

Huge bridge tournaments.

It was the thing that you did when you went over to somebody else’s house.

You played bridge.

And there were other games too, like Wist and Skat, S-K-A-T,

That were similar.

But because of that, some of the bridge language crept into English.

And in this particular case, coming up spades or to be in spades is that term.

And spades are an important card to have.

It’s the most powerful suit of cards in the game bridge.

And this is the black kind of silhouette of the pointy end of a kind of a stylized spade.

Like you would dig in the ground.

So it looks like the metal scoop part of the implement.

And you can read these old columns in books and newspapers, and they talk about, you know, I thought we were, I didn’t have a chance, but then I saw that my partner was in spades.

And it’s kind of the same in as we would say in bloom or in stock, meaning there’s something is happening where there’s a lot of it or it’s all present.

That’s all very interesting.

I figured it had to be either in the context of carts or gardening.

So that’s really great.

Thank you for sharing that answer with me.

That’s really interesting, and I can’t thank you enough for taking my call.

Well, Paul, we hope that you will give our best to your son.

Maybe he’ll call sometime with a question or comment as well.

Well, I’ll pass that on to him.

Thank you, Paul.

Okay.

Take care.

Thank you both.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye now.

Well, if you have a question about language, we have answers in spades.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, I am Carmen Bontrad, and I’m calling from Jacksonville, Florida.

Jacksonville, Florida.

Well, we’re glad to have you, Carmen.

What’s up?

I called because my husband is from Memphis, and when I first traveled there to meet his family, when I met his grandmother, as she first saw me, she said, you’re as pretty as a speck of puff.

So the translation to that meant, well, I guess you’re facially pretty.

So during this day, of course, I had to ask, well, what if you’re not facially pretty?

And she said, then you’re a dammit, I’ll bite you.

So my question is, are these Southern sayings, expressions?

It was the first I had ever heard that.

But I have since gone on to let my daughter know who had her first grandbaby.

So now we call her a speck of puff.

So I just wanted to know what rooting this may possibly have or if you’ve ever heard of it.

Oh, so Carmen, that’s a delightful thing, though, to meet your in-laws and have them tell you that you’re pretty, right?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So you’re saying speck of puff, S-P-E-C-K-O-F-P-U-F-F.

Correct.

What’s really interesting here is that that is a form, it’s a modified form of the farm or common version, which is cute as a speckled pup.

So S-P-E-C-K-L-E-D-P-U-P, like a little puppy with speckled fur.

Yes, yes.

I’ve heard as much, but I remember her saying speckle puff.

And so my husband said that’s all he ever heard.

So I don’t know if that was then her variation of what should be.

It has to be because that’s a far more common expression in the U.S., in the American South.

And the longer forms are things like cute as a speckled pup under a red wagon or pretty as a speckled pup with a ribbon around its neck.

And this goes back at least to the 1870s.

It’s legendary history.

It’s just one of those beautiful, charming Southern expressions that should just keep being used.

It’s just got a real nice feel to it.

And it is Southern?

Yes, it is.

Yeah.

U.S. Southern.

And I can see how she could reanalyze it as a speck of puff because that’s, you know, just a little bitty, little bitty cute thing.

Yeah.

Are you a small thing, Carmen?

Are you a little bitty gal and you’re just as cute as can be?

I, I, I, I’ve been told as much to be modest, but what about if you’re not sexually pretty, then is that, is that something you’ve heard?

No, I’ve never heard.

Damn it.

I’ll bite you.

It’s not pretty.

It reminds me of the Wizard of Oz though.

There’s a scene where Dorothy tells Miss Gulch, who’s the mean lady who was trying to take Toto from her.

And Dorit says, you go away, or I’ll bite you myself.

For some reason, it reminds me of that, but that’s probably not related.

Wow.

Oh, my goodness.

Okay, well, I had to get to the bottom of it somehow because I’ve been talking about this to my husband for quite some time, so I love your show.

I listen to it all the time.

Oh, that’s really nice.

I’ll just make the call.

Well, you, Carmen, are as good-natured as a speck of puff.

Thank you.

All right.

You take care now.

Thanks, Carmen.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

It doesn’t take much to be both charmed and fascinated by the new language you hear around you.

We’d love to explore it with you.

877-929-9673.

That’s a toll-free number, 24 hours a day in the United States and Canada.

And if you’re listening somewhere else in the world and there are a lot of you, we also have a WhatsApp number.

Find it on our website at waywordradio.org.

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.

In the spring of 1947, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas went to Italy for four months with his family.

And they spent some time on the island of Elba.

And while they were there, they experienced this intense heat wave.

And it made them all miserable.

And he described just how miserable they were as only Dylan Thomas could in a letter that he wrote to a friend.

And I wanted to share part of it because it’s just so wonderful.

He wrote, I can hardly hold this pen for the blisters all over my hands, can hardly see for the waterfalls of sweat, and appealing too like a drenched billboard.

Oh, oh, oh, the heat.

It comes round corners at you like an animal with windmill arms.

As I enter my bedroom, it stuns, thuds, throttles, spins me round by my soaking hair, lays me flat as a mat and bat blind on my boiled and steaming bed.

We keep oozing from the ice cream counters to the chemists.

Cold beer is bottled god.

If ever for a second a wind, but wind’s no word for this snail-slow sizzlepuff, protoplasmically crawls from the suffering still sea, it makes a noise like H.D.’s poems crackling in a furnace.

And then later he says, my brains are hanging out like a dog’s tongue.

Wow, this is amazing.

How did he define the wind snail-slow sizzlepuff?

Yes, yes.

He was describing the wind as a snail, slow sizzle puff.

This is so incredibly familiar.

There are large parts of the world right now who are going, yes!

And I’m not sure what he meant by it makes a noise like H.D.’s poems crackling in a furnace.

He was, of course, the imagist poet who wrote in a very minimalistic style.

So I’m not sure if those poems, if he was suggesting they were really hot or what, but like poems crackling in a furnace.

Cold beer.

As a god.

I just loved his description.

We will post that bit of writing by Dylan Thomas on our website.

And you know, when you’re reading and you come across something amazing, just a perfectly worded bit of text or prose, share it with us.

We’ll share it with everyone else.

We’d love to see it.

877-929-9673.

Get us read it into the telephone or send in an email to words at waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, Martha and Grant.

This is Carl.

I’m calling from Newport Beach, California, but I live up in Sonoma County in Sebastopol, California.

Oh, okay.

And I’m calling because I would like you to tell us a tale of two prefixes.

Now, if we think back to the French Revolution or the Tudor period in English history, we know that a lot of people were decapitated.

But those same people were beheaded.

They weren’t deheaded.

And you would think that deheaded would have described pretty accurately what happened to them.

And then the situation gets stranger to me when we consider the word befriend, because in befriend, we’re clearly adding a friend to someone’s life, not removing one.

And then it gets stranger still when we consider words like bemoan or belabor, where the be prefix isn’t about adding or subtracting.

It seems to be more about intensifying or modifying.

But then the prefix dee also works that way sometimes, as in the word decry.

So could you tell us what’s going on with be and dee?

Yeah, this is a big morass and pretty complicated for what we’re going to do here.

It really needs to be written down.

But, Carl, it sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this.

Why are you thinking about something as gruesome as beheading?

You know, I just like words, and I am one of your success stories.

You have changed the way I think about language.

Okay.

And I just think about more things since I’ve started listening to A Way with Words.

Oh, that’s nice.

That’s wonderful.

Maybe we’ll just think about beheading, say, flowers, which is also not nice, but better than anything animal related or humans.

Yeah.

So one of the things you’ve got to first grasp here is that all of those prefixes you mentioned, let’s go ahead and talk about B, E, and D, E, and also add dis in there, D-I-S.

So these three prefixes all do similar functions, but they’re not identical.

And they all have more than one use.

So this is going to resolve a lot of the difficulties you have with wondering why we use one prefix and not the other.

And they seem to be the same, but they’re not the same because they’re not the same.

And they have different life stories.

It is interesting to note that DE prefix and DIS prefix probably both originally come from Greek and Latin roots meaning two, such as to divide by two or to separate into two pieces.

And the B, however, comes from a Germanic root.

And actually that B prefix is incredibly common in German and modern German.

But it also appears in a variety of forms in the other Germanic languages, like Swedish and Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, and so forth.

And I don’t really want to spend too long talking about this, but when we talk about behead here, that be prefix in this case is talking about removal, or privation, to use a fancy word for it, but separating.

But that be prefix doesn’t always do that.

For example, if I befriend you, it’s because I’m turning a noun friend into the verb befriend, right?

So that’s one use of be that is not the same as the be, which means to separate.

And there are others.

Sometimes we use it for intensification or to make verbs from adjectives.

Notice that in two cases here, we’re talking about changing the part of speech and that be prefix does that.

And sometimes we just talk about coverage or surrounding or overall application to, like, if I bedob a building with clay, that means I’m putting clay all over the building.

Or you bedazzle something.

Right.

I bedazzle my jean jacket so it says cool dude on the back.

So this is really what we’re talking about.

So each, remember the two fundamental things here when it comes to this.

One is prefixes, just like words, often have more than one meaning.

And prefixes, just like words, have their own stories.

And true synonymy is really impossible to find in English.

Words that are absolutely 100% the same.

For example, to behead and decapitate on the surface are synonyms.

They both mean to separate the head of something from its body.

But they have different contexts.

One’s more formal.

One’s more informal.

One’s a little more archaic, one’s a little more modern.

One’s Germanic and one’s Latinate.

So is the difference between the Germanic and the Latinate root related to the meaning of the prefix?

Does B tend to have one meaning more with Germanic roots than with Latinate roots?

Yeah, the B traditionally, although of course in modern times it’s all mixed up, but traditionally, the B was only found as a prefix on Germanic originating words.

And otherwise, if it was a Latinate root, you would use dis, D-I-S, or D-D-E to indicate kind of the same, almost the same thing, but not quite the same thing.

That makes a lot of sense.

Carl, I want to recommend a website before we go.

Michael Quinion, who is a British lexicographer and language researcher, has a wonderful website, affixes.org, A-F-F-I-X-E-S dot O-R-G, where he explains many of the common prefixes in English.

And it’s a very reputable site, and he does a great job.

Super. I will look it up.

Great.

There’s your weekend right there.

Thank you so much for calling, Carl.

And keep your head on.

I will definitely do that. You guys, too.

Love talking with you.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye, Carl.

We’ve talked before about the term orts, which means leftovers.

But there’s another wonderful term that also means odds and ends, whether it’s leftover food or small change or miscellaneous items.

And that word is manavolins.

It’s just a lovely word to say, manavolins.

Menavillance. Spell that for me.

Well, Herman Melville spelled it M-A-N-A-V-A-L-I-N-S.

That’s the most common spelling.

There are several other spellings.

What’s really interesting about this word is that it may derive from a bit of nautical slang because there’s a verb, menarvel, which means to pilfer from a ship’s store.

So you can just picture all these sneaky sailors developing a word like menavillance to denote the things that they’ve menarveled.

Manarvel and manavolence. I love it.

I remember as a boy manarveling cookies when I was not supposed to be eating between meals.

And you didn’t leave any orts either, I bet.

No, no.

Send your manavolence to us and email words@waywordradio.org or tell us all about it on the telephone, 1-877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey there.

My name is Eric, and I’m from Iron Station, North Carolina, right outside of Charlotte.

Gotcha.

Welcome to the show, Eric.

I appreciate it.

Hey, I’ve got a saying that my father-in-law says.

It’s, if you’re waiting on me, you’re backing up.

And he usually uses that in context.

If we’re getting ready to leave and we just ask everybody, are you ready?

They’ll say, well, if you’re waiting on me, you’re backing up.

And so I just want to know kind of the background of that, maybe the origin, and if you guys have heard that before.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, so he’s basically saying you don’t need to wait on me.

I’m ready, right?

Right.

Yeah, or I don’t have to get ready because I stay ready.

Yeah, and maybe that’s the case, but it’s pretty frequent whenever we’re going places.

That’s kind of his go-to.

Yeah, yeah. It’s a joking way of saying, hey, I’m already ahead of you. In fact, you’re in my rearview mirror and you’re getting smaller and smaller if you’re just standing there waiting. It’s like I’m already ahead of you. And I don’t know, maybe he’s a country music fan.

He’s country. I’ll tell you that.

Okay.

Country music fan or not, I’m not sure. But okay, that’s good. I appreciate that.

Well, sure. Yeah, I was going to say I asked if he was a country music fan because there have been a number of country music performers who have used this expression and recorded songs with a line like that in it, like the Kendals and Pam Tillis.

There’s a famous song that goes, if you’re waiting on me, you’re backing up because I already fell in love a long time ago and you didn’t even notice me.

You don’t have to worry about jumping the gun.

So that’s that same idea.

You know, if you’re waiting on me, you’re wasting time or there are different variations of this.

If you’re waiting on me, you’re stepping back.

And, you know, there’s one thing that I find really interesting about this phrase, and it’s the part that goes waiting on, because that feels really familiar to me and it probably feels familiar to you.

Waiting on in the South is what a lot of people in the North would describe as waiting for.

But waiting on is more Southern.

Yeah, it is.

Now, that’s a good point.

I’ve not looked at it from that perspective before.

It’s got some history.

There’s versions of it go back to the 1930s.

If you’re waiting on me, you’re fooling around.

Yeah.

Well, maybe the goal is not to be waited on at this point.

Right?

But anyway, I appreciate the background.

Sure.

Our pleasure, Eric.

Thanks for your call.

We’ll take care of you now.

All right.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you’re waiting on us to call you, you’re backing up.

Call us instead, 877-929-9673.

Hit us up with your best ideas and thoughts about language.

You can also tell us on social media.

Find our handles and nicknames on our website, thewaywardradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

This is Arthur.

Arthur, where are you calling us from?

I’m calling from New Bern, North Carolina.

New Bern, North Carolina.

And what has prompted you to take time out of your busy day to give us a call?

I saw a commercial where they were saying, if you switch from this product to this product, it’s as easy as pie.

Now, to make a pie, you’ve got to get the tin, put the crust in, cut the apples, put the stuff in, and bake it.

Or if you want to go to the store, you’ve got to get in the car, find the parking spot, walk into the building.

Then you get the product.

Then you’ve got to wait in line.

And then you’ve got to come back.

That ain’t easy.

No.

You’ve got a point there.

No, not at all.

So your question is, why do we say easy as pie if it ain’t easy?

Exactly.

That’s a great one.

Let me ask you, Arthur, before we get into that.

You’re in New Bern, North Carolina, but you sound like a New Yorker.

Born and raised in New York, about 125 miles outside of Manhattan.

On Long Island?

Exactly.

Halfway between Montauk and Manhattan.

All right.

So let’s talk about easy as pie.

Why do we say it’s easy as pie if making a pie isn’t all that easy?

It’s probably because part of the expression is now missing.

Probably it was originally about the eating of pie is easy.

Easy as eating pie.

And we’ve just kind of shortened it.

It’s kind of related to something being a piece of cake.

A piece of cake isn’t all that easy, but it’s easy to eat.

I understand what they’re saying.

Yeah.

So it’s really just the phrase has been shortened. We lost some of the original context, and now it doesn’t make a lot of sense until you know the story.

Now that I learned something from you, thank you very much. We appreciate your call, Arthur. Take care of yourself and give us another call sometime, all right?

I will. If I have another question, I’ll ask you.

All right. Bye-bye.

Please do. Now stay cool.

All right. Cool as a cucumber. Bye-bye.

Well, we love to answer your food and language questions. Where those intersect, that’s our sweet spot. Give me and Martha a call at 877-929-9673.

As far as we know, the first person to use the word belittle in writing was Thomas Jefferson. This was in 1785. There was this French naturalist who had been insisting that species of animals in America, including humans, were naturally smaller and inferior to the ones in Europe.

And Jefferson was furious about this, and he answered that with an emphatic rejection of what he called this new theory on the tendency of nature to belittle her productions on this side of the Atlantic. When he wrote this, a lot of people were really appalled by his use of the term belittled.

And in fact, there was a critic in England who wrote, “Belittle! What an expression! It may be an elegant one in Virginia, and even perfectly intelligible. But for our part, all we can do is to guess at its meaning. For shame, Mr. Jefferson! Why, after trampling upon the honor of our country, and representing it as little better than a land of barbarism, why we say perpetually trample also upon the very grammar of our language. Oh, spare we beseech you our mother tongue.”

Yeah, that kind of complaint from the British side of the Atlantic is never stopped. Never.

No, never. The Americans are always accused of doing harmful things to the language. But it’s such a small word, belittle. How could you complain about that?

Yes, and now it’s perfectly legitimate. Also, the theory about things being smaller in the New World is ridiculous. What’s the evidence for that? You’ve got to support that claim. I don’t see that as being true.

No, I don’t either. We’ll talk to you just about any way we can, including on social media. Try us out. All of our handles and nicknames are on our website at waywordradio.org.

Our team includes senior producer Stefanie Levine, engineer and editor Tim Felten, and quiz guide John Chaneski. We’d love to hear from you, no matter where you are in the world. Go to waywordradio.org/contact.

Subscribe to the podcast, hear hundreds of past episodes, and get the newsletter at waywordradio.org. Whenever you have a language story or question, our toll-free line is open in the U.S. and Canada, 1-877-929-9673. Or send your thoughts to words@waywordradio.org.

A Way with Words is an independent production of Wayword, Inc., a nonprofit supported by listeners and organizations who are changing the way the world talks about language. Special thanks to Michael Breslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidenwurm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Barnette. And I’m Grant Barrett. Until next time, goodbye.

Bye.