Ghost Runner (episode #1631)   

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.

So you work hard all week, getting up early every day, and then Saturday morning, you decide to sleep in.

There’s a great expression for this in French. It’s faire la grosse matinée, which basically means to make or do the fat morning. Isn’t that lovely? The fat morning. The lazy morning. I love it.

Yeah. Faire la glace matinée on le weekend. Le weekend. Le weekend. Faire la glace matinée sur le weekend en le smoking.

You mean, in le smoking, you mean you’re wearing your dinner jacket to bed? Or maybe you were up all night.

Yeah, there we go. There’s a reason you’re having a fat morning on a Saturday, right? You had a fat Friday night.

Yeah, I really like that French idiom. And I came across another one that I thought was pretty wonderful, too. I’ve already used it several times in different contexts.

If somebody falls in love too easily, in French, they’re said to have an artichoke heart. An artichoke heart. Mm— Wow. Wow. Kind of dartichon. Wow. That’s amazing.

It’s a shorter version of a saying that goes, to have an artichoke heart, one leaf for everybody. Right. Because you peel them down and you’re like, oh, this isn’t the edible layer. And by the time you get done with an artichoke, there are no edible layers.

Yeah. Yeah. And I should point out that what I’m talking about in terms of me having an artichoke heart, it’s like falling for a book or a podcast or something like that.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I’m spoken for. Just look at my podcast app with all these lovely podcasts I have subscribed to but not listened to.

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Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Tricia, and I am from, like, Cross Oaks, Texas. It’s near Denton.

Okay. Okay. What’s up?

I was calling because we have a word in my family. Well, it was a nickname that I had growing up, and it came from one of my parents’ friends who we no longer know, but it was one of their friends that took care of me some when I was young, and they called me a nitnoid, and none of us have any idea where that came from, but it has held on, and now my kids are also nitnoids.

And is that an affectionate term or is it, do you say that when you get annoyed or what?

The way we use it, it is an affectionate term. Yes.

What’s interesting about this expression is that it’s not English. It originally comes from the language Thai, spoken in Thailand.

Really? Fascinating. And in Thai it means small or little. It sounds something like lit noi in Thai language.

Oh. Yeah, and so it was borrowed by American soldiers who had experiences in Thailand as part of the U.S. Military presence there.

Now, some people have tried to connect it to the Vietnam War, but we don’t really find it in print as a term for a person in English until the 1980s. Although, apparently, in the 1970s, the ambassador to Vietnam, Graham Martin, had a poodle who was named Ninh Nui.

Fascinating. Okay, so I do know, well, I was born in 82, so that tracks. And my dad was in the Air Force Reserve.

Now, maybe, I mean, I’ll have to ask him. Maybe this was one of his Air Force buddies or something.

It’s possible. Very possible, yeah. Because the American presence in Vietnam was directly tied to the American presence in Thailand. And we had a presence in Thailand even after the Vietnam War.

So it’s entirely possible that anybody who served in one or both of those places might have known the term.

That’s fascinating. Okay, I’ll have to ask about that. You know, we actually have an inside running joke in the family.

Whenever my dad came home from one of his deployments, I guess, my mom got a letter that was all in a characterized language. We’re assuming, you know, either, you know, Japanese, Chinese, could have been Thai, I don’t know, something. A different language and asked my dad about it. And he did not have an explanation for this.

So my mom’s explanation is that he just has another family over there. And so maybe it was Ty. Maybe he has a Ty family.

If you still had that letter, I would love to find out more. It’s so much easier to get a translation these days. So maybe we’ve narrowed it down.

In the U.S. Military, it’s often used to describe something that is seemingly unimportant, but very important to some bureaucrat. So it’s the kind of thing that somebody else considers important, but you consider small and insignificant.

And there’s a notion here in English, people often pick up on the idea of nitpick and annoy. It is not from those words. But it does seem in its usage in English to have borrowed connotations from nitpick and annoy.

Okay. But again, it’s not related to them. It’s just a coincidence.

Well, thank you guys so much for taking me. I am a nerd right up there with you guys. So thank you guys for continuing it.

One of us. One of us. Take care.

Thank you so much. And thank you for reaching out. Bye-bye.

Thank you. All right. Bye-bye. Take care, Tricia.

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There’s an atmospheric phenomenon that looks sort of like the aurora or the northern lights. There are these purple and green ribbons of light in the sky, and they’re not as well known as the auroras, and they probably have a different origin.

And in fact, this phenomenon wasn’t officially investigated and recognized until 2016. But in any case, it has a very friendly name. It’s called Steve.

Steve. I love it. Because we think nothing of using the names of Greek gods or Roman gods to name things, and they seem different and strange and foreign. But our names will seem strange and foreign someday soon.

Well, it’s interesting that you mention that because there’s a cool origin story to this name Steve. Because the citizen scientists who were chasing this phenomenon didn’t have a name for it. And they were like, oh, well, let’s just call it Steve. I mean, kind of like you said, you know, something friendly.

But the story goes that they were inspired by the animated movie called Over the Hedge. And in this movie, there are these talking animals that come upon a hedge that seems huge and scary and intimidating. And one of the characters says that she’d be a lot less scared of it if she knew what the hedge was called. And so all the animals say, hey, let’s name it Steve. So they start calling it Steve.

So these astronomy enthusiasts started referring to these purple and green lights as Steve. And then career scientists picked it up. And of course, they had to give it a backronym. So Steve is actually an acronym for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. But just Steve. Steve to its friends.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, look, there’s Steve. I love it. We like hearing about all the interesting words and names for new things happening in every field, even yours.

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Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. How’s it going? My name is Daniel Sarkala. I’m calling from Gainesville, Florida. What’s on your mind today in terms of language?

I’m calling you guys because over the holidays, I got together with my family and my mom was invited to a party. And the theme of the party was Sunday Go-To Meeting in the 80s. And I heard this and I was a little bit confused. And she told me that she knew exactly what it meant, but other people didn’t understand what it meant.

And they went dressed in full 80s garb with leg warmers and such things, which is what I thought it was. And so that term kind of stuck in my head. And then a few weeks later, my wife and I watched the movie Meet Me in St. Louis. And in that movie, there’s a song called Tip to My Lou. And the first verse of it is, put on your Sunday, go to a meeting, it’ll take you by the hand.

And so this term must be old enough to be used in the 40s.

But I’m wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the origins of this and where it comes from and what it means.

And what do you take it to mean, Sunday Go To Meeting?

Just forget the in the 80s part for a minute.

I thought it had maybe something to do with church just because of the Sunday aspect of it.

I assume it’s nice clothing.

I mean, in the movie, they wear very nice clothing as they talk about it, getting prepared for the dance.

So I assume it’s some sort of formal vestige, but I’m not sure.

No, you’re absolutely right. Since the late 1700s or so, the word meeting has been used as a term for a gathering for worship services.

I mean, it’s not like a school board meeting or a bridge club meeting. Sunday go to meeting has to do with getting dressed up and going to church.

And in fact, the word meeting has been used in lots of different contexts like that, like a basket meeting is a revival where people bring food and sit there and listen to the preacher.

And then afterward they all fellowship with the food they brought in their baskets.

And testimony meeting is another term that has been floating around for quite a while.

That is the kind of meeting where you get together and you all share your religious experiences.

And so this term meeting for a lot of people for a long time in this country has specifically referred to religious services.

And it’s reinforced by that Sunday go-to.

Sunday go-to meeting clothes are really, really, you know, your very best because you’re going to go stand there in front of the congregation, in front of God.

And it’s a lovely expression.

Wow.

I love that term.

It’s amazing.

I’m glad that I got to hear it in the wild.

So your mother, when she was talking about this theme of this party, she was passing on something with 200 years of history.

But in the 80s is quite a spit on that.

Yeah, I’m trying to picture this.

I’m thinking of my fluorescent outfits and my OP clothes.

I don’t even know what all.

The leg warmers is what I like.

Yeah, I think they meant the formal wear of the 80s in hindsight.

But I really empathize with the people who showed up in stereotypical 80s garb.

Right, leotards and leg warmers and headbands.

Yeah, that’s not Sunday Go-To-Meeting.

Looking like Olivia Newton-John.

Well, Daniel, thank you so much for your question.

I think this is going to ring a lot of bells for a lot of people.

Can you sing us out with a little bit more of the Meet Me in St. Louis song?

Oh, gosh.

Put on your Sunday Go-To-Meeting and I’ll take you by the hand.

Tip, tip, tip to my loo.

Tip, tip, tip to my loo.

Tip, tip, tip to my loo.

Tip to my loo, my darling.

Yay!

Wonderful.

Thank you for obliging me.

I really appreciate it.

All right.

Thank you.

That was inspiring.

You take care of yourself, all right?

Well, we have a heck of a list of callers who call with the most amazing stories and questions,

And I know that you are one of them.

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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 what is this?

It looks like a Ska champion, black and white checked outfits, a cap on backwards.

He’s jamming out.

It’s our quiz guy and Ska world leader, John Chaneski.

It’s me, Chaneski, one step beyond.

That’s me.

All right, so today’s quiz is called Verbed a Noun.

But it’s not about verbing nouns like when people use nouns as verbs.

For example, bear me, Marge.

That’s not like that.

Okay.

This is about metaphors where an action is performed on a noun.

Okay?

For example, I was having trouble writing an essay when suddenly I got some great ideas,

But I wasn’t literally in a car, and I didn’t literally reorient at 90 degrees into a new street.

But what do we say happened?

I did a 180.

No, I blanked a blank.

I verb the noun.

You pulled a…

I had some great ideas suddenly.

So I was having a hard time, but I had some great ideas.

So I reoriented my car 90 degrees into a new street.

Did a U-turn.

Turned is there.

I turned a corner.

A U-ey.

Turned a corner.

Yeah, I turned a corner.

I verbed a noun.

Okay.

All of the answers here are a past tense verb, A, just the letter A, and then a noun.

Okay?

I’ll describe.

You deduce.

Here we go.

I saw my high school sweetheart on the street.

Now, I’m completely over her, but when I wasn’t, it’s not like I literally transported a brazier from place to place for her.

But what do we say I did?

Well, you carried a torch or not.

Right.

I carried a torch.

But no longer do I carry a torch for this sweetheart.

Brian didn’t know who it was, but he could tell that someone on his work team was leaking trade secrets.

It’s not like he could literally sense the aroma of vermin, but what do we say he did?

He smelled a rat.

He smelled a rat somewhere in the company.

He smelled something fishy.

Yes, very good.

Now, thanks to some leaked trade secrets, Rachel lost a lot of money in her investment.

It wasn’t like she literally plunged into a tub full of water, but what do we say she did?

She took a bath.

She took a dive.

She took a bath.

She took a dive.

Sure, took a bath.

Took is the past tense verb there, even though it isn’t E-D, but it is past tense.

Yeah.

We got the heck out of there fast.

But it wasn’t as if we literally stood there wiggling a limb.

In fact, that would have made it harder to get out of there.

But what do we say we did?

You shook a leg.

We shook a leg is right.

We danced.

Oh, how we danced.

It was not as if we danced so hard and fast we damaged the flooring, but what do we say we did?

You cut the rug.

Yeah, I cut the rug.

We cut a rug, yes.

I can only imagine dancing that hard.

Now, this one may be destined for complete extinction, but I have to include it.

When I discovered that Audrey had leaked the trade secrets, I turned her in.

But it’s not as if I literally put a coin in a pay telephone and called the authorities.

What do we say I did?

You dropped the dime on her.

That’s right.

I dropped the dime on the dame.

Ouch.

Man, I think there may still be one phone booth somewhere in New York City.

They keep there just so people can look at it.

But even then, I think the sign on it says 25 cents.

But, yeah, back in the day, you dropped the dime on someone when you wanted to call the authorities on them.

Anyway, you guys did very well in that verb-to-noun quiz.

Great job.

Thank you, John.

And we hope you’ll boogie on over to your phone and give us a call to talk about language, words, and how we use them.

The number is 877-929-9673 or send us an email.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

How are you doing? This is Leo Mendoza in Tucson.

I’m doing great, Leo. We’re glad to have you.

What’s on your mind?

Well, you know, I was thinking about some experiences I had when I lived in Japan as a scientist.

And among them, they would use words that sounded like English, but they weren’t really English phrases or words.

So one time the fellow said to me, oh, you are so scareful.

And I said, what’s scareful?

He said, that’s not English.

And basically it meant that I was worried.

Yeah.

And I said, oh, okay.

And then another fellow said, oh, that guy, he’s just a paper driver.

And a paper driver, what’s that?

He said, oh, that’s not English?

So he said, that’s a guy who drives, has a driver’s license, but doesn’t have a car.

Oh.

Nice.

He’s just a driver on paper.

On paper.

And they had a lot of other funny, strange phrases like that.

And I was thinking, you know, are there other places that have similar kind of phrases or words?

But those are just a couple of the ones I came across when I lived there, but it’s been a while.

Leo, yeah, so you know there’s a term for this kind of Japanese made English?

Waseigo.

That’s right.

W-A-S-E-I-E-I-G-O.

Two words.

And this Japan made English is so common.

A lot of it has to do with the American occupation of Japan after World War II,

And then the increasing cultural and commercial ties in the many decades thereafter.

But there are so many of these terms, and it really has to do about, like I said,

These strong cultural and commercial ties where we are both, I think,

The English-speaking world and the Japanese-speaking world are kind of enamored of each other’s cultures.

We like each other’s food.

We like each other’s language.

We like each other’s entertainment.

And we just borrow willy-nilly from each other, both from ideas and from technology, but also in language.

So there’s just so many of these.

You have a simple word like high vision, which means high vision.

But it also is used, means modern.

So it literally translates into English as high vision, but it means modern.

So they take the word hive, they take the word vision, and they just kind of twist that meaning a little bit.

Yeah, I like the word for corn dog.

What is that?

Do you know the word for corn dog?

American dog.

American dog.

Yeah, right, American.

I had a coffee maker that was there, and on top, you know, it said in the katakana, it said strong.

Strong.

And then when you turned it way down, it said American.

Oh, that’s funny. Americans like a weak coffee. Yeah. We are known worldwide for our bad coffee, supposedly.

And I remember when I was young, my grandmother used to say skosh. Oh, I’ll just have a skosh.

And then when I lived there, you know, of course, skosh just means a little bit in Japanese.

And so that was a word that we borrowed.

Yeah. And a lot of people just assume it’s like a Native American word or something or even Yiddish.

But no, it’s from Japanese.

There have been some movements by the various Japanese governments and governmental bodies to kind of take English out of the language.

But one study which tracked more than 11,000 names of government projects found that 25% of them had words borrowed from Western languages, European languages.

And it’s not only English that shows up in that way.

So French will also show up and Spanish will also show up in Japanese borrowed and turned into something else.

It’s really, there’s many wonderful books written on this topic because it is, again, it’s the areas that we have in common, like food and entertainment and technology.

These are the places where the words tend to be borrowed.

Leo, thank you so much for calling.

I’d love to hear more of these sometime.

Sure.

It’s a lot of fun.

Thanks for having me.

I enjoy your show.

Bye, Leo.

Share your newfound words, your new loved friends from other lingos with us, 877-929-9673.

Or find a dozen ways to reach us on our website at waywordradio.org.

Grant, I want you to picture a room full of chihuahuas.

And right in the middle of this room full of chihuahuas, there’s a Great Dane just sitting there kind of chilling with all the other little dogs.

You might describe that Great Dane as Ken Speckle.

Well, yeah, Ken Speckle. I think I know that word. I’ve talked about it on another podcast recently.

Right. The word Ken Speckle means conspicuous or easily recognizable.

It’s used mostly in Scotland and northern England, and it probably has a Scandinavian origin.

Isn’t that right?

Yeah, yeah.

I believe it’s probably Norse.

It goes back way to the Norse roots of some English words that are only found in the north of England and Scotland now.

And it’s the same ken meaning to know, like something is beyond your ken, it’s beyond your knowledge.

And that ken is related to verbs meaning to know in Romance languages throughout Europe.

Right, right.

And reconnoiter and conning tower and all those words like that.

Corocer in Spanish.

Exactly.

But I do love that word kinspeckle.

It’s fun to say, and I just keep picturing that Great Dane in the middle of all those chihuahuas.

When you were laying out this picture, I was imagining myself in the Great Dane’s position

And all these adorable little chihuahuas and me having a nice romp.

Well, you would be kinspeckled, too, in that picture.

I would be kinspeckled.

I would definitely stand out.

But also a chance to play with a bunch of dogs.

Absolutely.

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words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello.

My name is Leonore, and I’m calling from Dallas.

Hi, Leonore.

I have a question on a little saying that I used to hear when I was a child.

And my grandmother used it, and so did my mom,

And I guess a lot of ladies in the neighborhood.

When we were kids, and if we went outside to play and fell,

Scraped a knee, an elbow, we’d come in crying,

And they would stop, look at it, put saliva on it,

And wipe it with that, with their finger.

And they’d say,

Where did this start?

Is it very Mexican, or do all the Latin countries use it?

And funny, it was like magic.

We’d just resume our play.

Oh, Leonore, you are bringing back lots of warm memories, I am absolutely sure,

For so many of our listeners who heard that saying when they were growing up,

Or maybe they say it to their own kids now.

And the literal translation of what you’re talking about is,

Heel, heel, little frog’s tail.

If you don’t get better today, you’ll get better tomorrow.

Isn’t that it?

That is correct.

Yeah, and it’s such a lovely little musical saying,

Sana, sana, colita de rana, si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana.

The rana in there is frog, and the sana means to heal.

It’s related to English words like sane and sanitary.

And the colita, which means little tail, is related to the English word coda,

Like, you know, the little coda, the little tail at the end of a piece of music.

So, Sana Sana Colita de Rana has this wonderful sing-song melody,

And that rhyme is so pleasant and reassuring, isn’t it?

Yes, and my kids grew up with it because my mother lived with me.

-huh. Yeah, and it’s wonderful because it takes the kids’ mind off the boo-boo, right?

They have this weird image and it’s also so reassuring.

But you asked if there were other versions of it.

And my goodness, there are versions all over Latin America.

Some of which are a little more coarse that we won’t share.

But there’s one that goes, dame un besito para hoy y mañana.

Give me a little kiss for today and tomorrow.

And we’re not sure where it comes from.

Frogs and toads tend to show up in a lot of Mexican folklore, I know.

But I’m not sure, Grant, that we know an origin for it.

No, no, but these kinds of sing-songy rhymes to make a child ignore their boo-boos

Are pretty common across all human cultures.

And sometimes you might, you mentioned they would put saliva on the boo-boo.

-huh, -huh.

Sometimes they just massage.

But it’s the touch of the parent, too, that helps.

Well, that’s interesting.

Yeah, thank you for sharing your memories.

This is going to ring a lot of bells for a lot of people.

Thank you for giving me the privilege of speaking to you, and I’ve enjoyed it.

All right, take care of yourself.

What a pleasure.

Sana sana to you.

Martha, I love it when you share your language memories from these cross-cultural experiences.

Share them with us.

We can talk about them, explore them, and let everyone else know as well.

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Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Robert Koehling. I’m calling from

Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome to the show. What’s on your mind?

Well, one of the most pressing questions of our time is on my mind.

Oh.

And I was just curious about how the word pot became synonymous with marijuana.

P-O-T pot.

Yes, P-O-T pot.

And why is this question on your mind?

People have been using that expression for forever, and I just wonder how it got started, how the two terms became synonymous.

Okay, yeah. As more and more of the country finds the state laws about marijuana being relaxed, this kind of language maybe is recirculating with a new urgency or frequency. So medical marijuana or other things.

I mean, I even hear politicians using the word pot when they’re, you know, so it seems to be becoming more of our vernacular.

Yeah, it’s funny that you would get that sense because while pot was a very popular name for marijuana in the 1950s, it had faded by the end of the 1960s and other terms like weed took over.

Although it’s always kind of still been here. It’s one of those terms that never completely fell out of favor from when it first appeared.

And we can find examples of it as early as 1936.

The underworld slang lexicographer David Moorer, and that’s a title that anyone would relish, underworld slang lexicographer. He had some theories about it.

And one of the first theories that he spread was the idea that it came from a Mexican, Spanish, or Portuguese word, potigaya or potagaya.

However, these two words, and you will find this given as the etymology of pot in lots of reference works, including mainstream dictionaries. However, those words do not seem to exist.

There is no evidence for them in Portuguese or Spanish anywhere at any time, except when they’re talking about the supposed origin of this word.

So it really looks like this one guy who is well respected in the slang world kind of spread this possible origin. And later he gave it up.

He thought that it probably was not the case and suggested that perhaps it comes from the expression potación de guaya, literally supposedly meaning a drink of grief, basically a potion of grief.

And you said this was in 1937?

36, yeah. Originally it was the 1930s, and then later he revised it by the 1950s.

But this other expression also doesn’t seem to exist in Spanish. Spanish speakers did not and do not call it potasión de guaya.

And it’s not really clear at all where he got that from. So perhaps he had an informant who misled him.

I don’t know. But you’ll find it, again, mentioned in legitimate real reference works who just have kind of borrowed from each other and not really done their own legwork, which is, you know, a lexicographical sin.

So where does this leave us? It leaves us with two other theories.

One is that supposedly maybe it comes from the pots in which you might grow marijuana. Of course, many plants grow in pot, so why this one plant? Why does it get the name pot?

And the other one, perhaps it comes from the word pod, P-O-D, which coincidentally later, after pot had already existed, also was used to refer to weed or marijuana.

But the order of events is wrong here. Pod is newer than pot, so it’s hard to say that pot could come from pod. And pod because you might have seed pods on a marijuana plant.

But again, all of these theories are rubbish for various reasons. And we are going to have to slot pot in the big, fat, origin unknown category.

Well, you guys are amazing. You really I totally enjoy your show. And I think what you do is awesome.

Yeah, our pleasure. By the way, if you’re looking for a book about marijuana in general, there’s a book called The Marijuana Dictionary, and it’s spelled with an H instead of a J in marijuana, by Ernest Abel, A-B-L-E, from 1982. You might be able to find it in used book websites or used bookstores.

As far as I’m concerned, it has the most comprehensive summary of the hypotheses about the origin of pot. And the book in general is well-researched and well-gathered.

Well, thank you for the reference.

Yeah, our pleasure. Call us again sometime, Robert.

Oh, sure. Thank you very much.

And take care of yourself. Bye-bye.

You too. Thank you.

Bye, Robert.

Call us to talk about the slang in your world, 877-929-9673, or send your stories about language to words@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 2013, an archaeologist from Maryland named Sarah Rivers Cofield was visiting her mom in Maine, and she came across an antique dress in a vintage clothing store.

And when I say antique, I mean it had a bodice and lacy sleeves and a bustle. And Caulfield bought it.

And then later she discovered that inside the bustle was a secret pocket. And inside that pocket were two pieces of paper.

Each of them was several lines of handwritten cryptic words separated by commas. And one line on one of those sheets read, Bismarck, omit, leafage, buck, bank. And another one read, Paul, ramify, loamy, event, false, new, event. What in the world was that?

And so Cofield was puzzled. She was trying to figure out what the previous owner of the dress was doing with these pieces of paper. Was she some sort of spy? Did this involve illegal gambling? Were they maybe cryptic love notes for some secret affair?

She was baffled, so she posted those photos to her blog asking for help, and nothing happened for a while, and she forgot about it.

But then in 2018, a researcher at the University of Manitoba, Canada, Wayne Chan, who solves codes as a hobby, started looking into this.

And three years later, Grant, he figured out the answer.

Oh, my goodness.

It turns out that these seemingly random words were part of a sophisticated code that were used in the late 1800s to transmit information about the weather.

The weather?

Yes.

Oh, I was envisioning great intrigues involving international conspiracies, but it was just the weather.

It was just the weather because at that time, the Army Signal Corps functioned as the National Weather Service, and they had a manual that used pages and pages of long lists of code words for various weather observations because those were a handy way of condensing detailed information and transmitting it by telegraph really quickly and efficiently.

And so each of those lines listed the station location, and then it was followed by code words that indicated temperature and pressure and cloud conditions and things like that.

So, for example, that line, Bismarck omit leafage buck bank, if you cross-reference those five words with the list in the codebook, then you get a weather report that says, at the Bismarck station, the temperature was 56 degrees with a pressure of 0.08 inches of mercury, a dew point of 32 degrees at 10 p.m. With no precipitation, and a northerly wind of 12 miles per hour, and at sunset, the sky was clear.

So you can see.

Isn’t that great?

So amazing.

I love it.

And Wayne Chan published his research online. We will link to it because it’s super cool.

And there are pictures of the pages of all these words. You know, at first it’s overwhelming, but you look at it for a while and you start to remember this means that and this means that.

And you can see how that would be a great way to send telegraphic messages.

And his research proved so accurate that he actually figured out the day that those pages referred to.

Those pages with those coded words were reports of the weather on May 27, 1888.

How cool is that?

And that helps date the dress that they were found in, too.

That is so wonderful.

We have talked about commercial codes on the show before, which are, again, ways to send long messages with just a few keywords.

But this is a whole other level.

It is.

And I highly recommend taking a look at his research. He’s even made a little video.

It’s like a graphic novel of his experience. And we’ll link to that online as well because it’s all super cool.

Codes and ciphers have always been a big part of language. What are the codes in your life?

What are the ciphers you’ve discovered? 877-929-9673.

Or tell us the sordid details about the weather in email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

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 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. It’s immediate. But again, to be fair, I’m mostly only asking people from my region. 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 ghostie because I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before.

Oh, really? Oh, yeah. That was always. We almost never said ghost runner. I mean, sometimes you would, but it was mostly ghostie 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.

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 stoopball, 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 ghost runner 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. 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words. My name is Jim Bakker. I’m calling you from Carmichael, California, a suburb of Sacramento.

Carmichael, California. Well, welcome to the show, Jim. What’s on your mind today?

A while back, I was reading a mystery novel, and the Georgia countryside was described as flatter than a gander’s arch. I’ve never heard that expression, and an internet search didn’t find it either. So I’m still wondering just how flat was that countryside, and what’s a gander’s arch?

So flatter than a gander’s arch. Do you have any guesses as to what that might be? I’m thinking that a gander is a male goose. And so maybe the arch, maybe the arch refers to the crook in his neck. But the whole putting everything together, it doesn’t make much sense.

An arch is a curve, and yet this countryside is supposed to be flatter than that. Maybe it makes some amount of sense, but it’s definitely an odd expression.

Well, it is a colorful expression, Jim. Have you ever taken a close look at a goose’s foot, though? They’re really flat. So they don’t have an arch like a human foot does. It’s not the neck.

It’s the foot. Exactly. Yeah. Now it all makes sense. All makes sense. That’s a really colorful expression.

I’m thinking of several other expressions involving goose feet that sort of connote that kind of shape. There’s a goose foot, which is a plant that has leaves that are flat and they’re sort of shaped like a goose’s foot. And actually in German, there’s Gänsefuschen, which is the German word for quotation marks, but literally it means little bitty goose feet.

Well, I’ve heard of the plant, the goose foot, but I never understood that it was referring to anything flat. So today I learned.

Right, exactly. Today you learned. Well, thank you so much for your call, Jim. We really appreciate it.

Okay, thank you for your answer. All right, take care of yourself. Bye.

You can hit us up and email words@waywordradio.org.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words. Hi, Martha, this is Van from Washington, D.C.

Well, hello, Van. Welcome to the show. What’s up?

Well, I have a story about a word, but to tell that story, I have to give you a compliment first. So my mother was absolutely a fan of your show. But unfortunately, she did pass away this fall.

And I was having a conversation with my friend after her celebration of life ceremony about how my mom was a huge collector of rabbit figurines. And so it was, you know, with great delight that my friend said, oh, you mean your mother had a fluffle of bunnies?

F-L-U-F-F-L-E. And I was like, what is a fluffle? And my friend said, well, this word is now taking Instagram by storm. It’s across the internet. But as a young college student, me and a bunch of my physics classmates made this word up as a joke.

And in the early days of the internet, they posted this on Wikipedia. And now this word has been used and cited in veterinary pages on, like I said, on Instagram, people are adding it to their books of delight. And, you know, I would just say my mom would be one, thrilled about this word, and then two, doubly thrilled that I get to talk to you about this.

And my question is, one, fact-checking my friend. It seems to be a word that is used rather frequently across the internet. And I just couldn’t believe that she and a group of friends just making up this word was actually true. So I wouldn’t see if there’s some veracity in what she said.

And then two, this feels a little weird that this is, you know, what I would think would be a more scientific word, you know, talking about a biology, you know, phenomenon, you know, a group of rabbits and fluffle just comes up into existence. So I wanted to get your thoughts and insights on fluffle.

To be clear, it wasn’t you, Van. It was your friend and your friend’s friend who put the word on Wikipedia. Yes, that is what she is claiming.

Gotcha. And you said the early days of the internet, but it wasn’t that early, right? I guess it’s maybe 10, 15 years ago at this point.

Yeah, that’s about right. By pure coincidence, our colleague Ben Zimmer, who is a fantastic linguist and the Wall Street Journal’s language columnist, did some digging on this very term in 2023.

And he has a great post to the email list of the American Dialect Society, where he shows that it was first added in July of 2007 by a Wikipedia user going by the handle Free writer, free writer, one word, no E at the end.

And it says there, this is how it was first added to Wikipedia. A group of rabbits or hares are often called a fluffle in parts of Northern.

Canada. And over the years, he tracks this word fluffle. He shows it being borrowed into not very respectable reference works. He shows it being deleted in 2010 because somebody says, I can’t verify this. And then it shows up on Reddit in 2013. And somebody says, what’s a fact you know that will cheer me up? And somebody says, a group of bunnies is called a fluffle. And it just keeps coming up in Thought Catalog articles and BuzzFeed articles.

Then we get to February of 2023 when it’s added to Wiktionary. So the trajectory of this word from that first moment when it appeared on Wikipedia to now is really interesting. And as you say, it’s all over social media because people just kind of steal memes from each other. I guess that’s the nature of memes.

Plus it does make your day, right? Yeah, but what’s interesting is fluffle is a collective noun for rabbits or bunnies, as far as I can tell, did not exist before that Wikipedia entry. So if your friend was one of those people, then your friend is correct. They did launch the word fluffle into the universe.

Well, that’s wonderful. It sounds correct because they were at the University of Alberta at the time. So I think that matches what they’re claiming. That Northern Canada part? Mm-Absolutely. There’s a couple other notions that we should get into here.

One, fluffle is kind of in a weird limbo where it looks like it could be successful, but it needs more use by lots of other people across all kinds of media before it can really become permanently entrenched in English. So it’s not fully fledged, so to speak. This bunny hasn’t grown up completely.

But another facet of it, which is, this is where I throw a wet blanket on things, is these kinds of collective nouns for animals tend to mostly be showpiece words that people talk about but don’t use except in ostentatious, look at me ways. They’re kind of like an antique car that you have, but you never drive. You talk about it, but you never drive it. It’s just not necessarily ever going to be picked up in scientific texts without a giggle or a footnote, you know. Talk to us in 20 or 30 years. We’ll see where it is.

Okay. That sounds great. Thank you, Van. We appreciate your call. Yeah. And thanks for sharing the memories of your mother. Those were really lovely. That sounded really sweet. And I’m glad that she appreciated the show because it sounds like she received exactly what we were sending.

Oh, yes. She would be delighted. And thank you so much for taking this call. She would, yeah, really remember this. Thank you. All right. Take care of yourself. Take care, Vin. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.

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. You.