Flatter than a Gander’s Arch

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Oh, yeah. Hi, how are you?

My name is Sue, and I’m calling from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.

Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Well, welcome, Sue. What’s on your mind?

I was calling because my husband and I have had a 30-year, not an argument, but a disagreement about a term that we used when we were kids.

So you’re playing pickup sports like kickball or softball with the neighborhood, and you don’t have enough kids to make up two teams.

So you have to sort of make the best of it.

So let’s say I get up to kick the ball, and I kick the ball, and I run to first base.

And then the next person gets up to kick the ball.

They kick the ball.

They run to first.

I run to second.

But now because we don’t have enough kids, I have to go back and kick the ball again.

So when we were kids, we always said ghosty on second or ghost runner on second.

And you left the ghost runner on second base and then they ran for you the rest of the way.

My husband was from a different region of Pennsylvania.

And he said he and his friends all called them invisible man.

And so I told him how ridiculous that was because nobody says that.

And he disagrees with me.

And so here we are.

We’ve been having this disagreement for all these years.

Boy, well, I mean, there have been plenty of people who have said ghost runner and plenty of people who have said invisible runner.

I mean, both of those are used, and it’s not the kind of thing that’s necessarily documented a whole lot because you’re just using those terms on the playground.

It’s just so automatic.

Everybody I ask about this, I say, okay, listen, what do you say?

And I tell them the scenario, and they’re like, oh, yeah, ghosty.

Ghosty on first.

Okay.

It’s immediate.

Okay.

But again, to be fair, I’m mostly only asking people from my region.

So that’s cheating.

I guess.

Grant, are you aware of a regional component to invisible versus ghost?

No, I think that they’re both widely used.

Ghost runner probably is a little more common.

I would say what’s more interesting about your speech is calling it a ghosty because I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah, that was always you didn’t.

We never almost never said ghost runner.

I mean, sometimes you would, but it was mostly ghosty on second.

And then you went about your business and went to kick the ball again.

Yeah, because it’s not something that has come across my plate before, and it doesn’t come in my research database.

It doesn’t come up either, ghosty for a base runner.

Well, Sue, the great thing about this show is that we have listeners all over the U.S. and all over the world who can chime in on this and let us know.

Maybe we’ll do an informal poll and see if there are more invisibles or more ghosts.

But all right.

Two little facts before we go.

Paul Dixon’s baseball dictionary does include ghost runner as the main head word, but says synonyms are invisible man and imaginary runner.

And you will find in the tradition of stickball and stoop ball.

These are kind of urban games you might find in New York City.

The ghost runner is typically more common.

But I wouldn’t say that Ghostrunner is the clear favorite and best choice here.

I would say that it’s time for a new argument.

I don’t know, because I’m saying, well, if that’s the main header and these other ones come underneath it.

Yeah, you’re just looking for any advantage, aren’t you?

A little bit. Yeah, a little bit.

Well, take care of yourself. Thanks for your call. Let us know if there are any new arguments in your life.

Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. And I enjoy listening to your show every week.

Oh, yay. Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

All right. Have a great day. Thanks.

Do you have a fun family argument about language?

Let Martha and me sort it out.

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