Go Bananas (episode #1600)

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.

One of our Australian listeners is Rob McCahill, and he lives in Cairns, Queensland, and shared with us a little poem that he learned from his grandfather.

Now, the first time I read it, I completely misunderstood it.

It’s a mixture of numerals and letters, and I’m going to try this.

I don’t know how it’s going to work in audio, but I’m going to try it.

I read it as 11 was one racehorse, 22 was 12, 1,111 race, 22,112, which makes no sense, right?

No, but I think I know where it’s going.

You think you know?

Yeah.

You think there might have been two racehorses, one named 11 and another named 22?

Right.

Yeah. If you read it that way, it’s 11 was one racehorse, 22 was one two, 11 won one race, 22 one one two.

That’s very clever.

Yeah, it’s really cute when you see it on the page.

And I’ve been told that this poem appears in something called the Ha Ha Bonk book, which was published in 1982 by Janet and Alan Alberg.

A punk book. That’s a great name, too. It reminds me of something that you learn when you first start statistics, that sometimes numbers count and sometimes they can be counted.

Sometimes numbers count and sometimes they can be counted.

Right. So sometimes they are a thing that you count. And that is a big deal in statistics.

No kidding.

Right? Put your mind around that for a second.

I’m still trying to put my mind around 11 and 22.

Right. So sometimes a number is a name for a thing.

Sometimes the number counts the thing.

Oh, okay. All right.

There we go.

I need to take a statistics course, clearly.

Your calls, thoughts, and questions about language, toll-free, 24 hours a day in the United States and Canada, 877-929-9673.

You can also email us, words@waywordradio.org, and talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, this is Eddie calling from Queens, New York.

Welcome to the show, we’re glad to have you.

What’s up?

Thank you.

Well, the other night I was watching some reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and they said a phrase, and I started to think, why are bananas the fruit that we associate with things that are crazy?

Like, what is particularly crazy about bananas?

So on Buffy, somebody went bananas.

Yeah, or there’s some line.

I don’t really remember, but it just got me thinking.

And I figured rather than Google it, I would call the experts.

Bananas are funny, right?

I mean, it’s a funny word to begin with.

I mean, I’m thinking about the song, Yes, We Have No Bananas.

You know, would that song have been as funny if the refrain involved apples or pears?

I don’t think so.

I don’t know.

I guess I just kind of wondered, like, is it common in other languages?

Is it just in English that we say so-and-so went bananas or this is all bananas?

Oh, that’s a really good question.

I don’t know about in other languages, but, like, there’s the term banana problem.

Do you know this term, banana problem?

No, I don’t think so.

I think it comes from the language of tech and computers.

But like when you’re uncertain about whether a project is actually finished and you’re uncertain about where to stop, like you’re designing a website and you keep adding more and more stuff and you probably should have stopped a while ago.

That’s called a banana problem.

And it comes from the joke about the kid who says, I know how to spell banana.

I just don’t know when to stop.

You know, all those letters.

A-N-A-N-A-N-A-N-A.

Yeah.

And then, of course, there’s the fact that we associate bananas with monkeys and their antics or slipping on a banana peel.

And I can tell you that by the early 1900s, people were using the term banana oil to mean nonsense for some reason.

And if you talked about somebody being bananas back then, sometimes, at least in underworld slang, it meant somebody was a degenerate.

But by the 1950s, on college campuses, bananas and go bananas, meaning being wacky or out of touch with reality, was being included in collections of campus slang.

There’s one from the late 1960s that defines the adjective bananas as excited and upset or wild.

And then the other thing is, I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember back in the 60s, but there were rumors that you could dry and smoke banana peels and it would sort of give you a hallucinogenic effect.

And so there are a lot of different factors swirling around.

But I think basically it’s just that the word is a funny word.

What do you think?

Wow. I had never heard of people actually trying to smoke banana peels.

I feel like, I don’t know, I’m 40.

I’m still freaked out when the kids are trying to lick frogs or whatever.

Yeah, well, don’t try this at home.

Yeah, supposedly it doesn’t work.

I thought, Martha, that there was something to the story about monkeys and apes getting excited over bananas as their favorite fruit to eat.

Because this is why we also say that people go ape over something.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, monkeys in their antics.

Yeah, but it is a funny word.

Yeah, there were all these jokes when bananas became more common and you could get them at the grocery store that started appearing in the periodicals about the people who ate bananas for the first time.

And somebody would say, well, how’d you like it?

Well, I liked it pretty good, but the hull was kind of hard to eat.

Yeah, all these dumb jokes.

But that’s the thing that the banana just inspired, just like jokes, because it looks funny and it was just so unusual compared to your normal hand fruit.

Interesting.

That is good to know.

You said that you noticed it when you were watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Do you use it in your everyday life?

All the time.

All the time.

Well, tell us about your life.

Usually when I use it, I usually just say B-A-N-A-N-A-S to stress how crazy something is at work.

But it’s my sort of euphemism for this is like a total cluster at work.

Yeah.

I’ve heard people go, this is bananas.

Yep, yep, yep.

That’s probably how you say it with a nine-man.

But it is kind of hard to stop, isn’t it, when you’re saying ba-na-na-na?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Like a ball bouncing.

Well, I’m old enough to remember that Gwen Stefani hit, so I definitely remember spelling bananas quite a lot.

What?

Wait, wait.

Gwen Stefani?

What’s it?

Wait, educators.

Yeah.

What?

In that song, Hollaback Girl, she says, this is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

Oh, yeah.

I don’t know why.

I think that probably was like a pretty big pop-it.

I was quite a tough one.

Yeah, it was.

It was a huge song.

Oh, my gosh.

And here I am quoting, yes, we have no bananas.

I think that’s from the 20s.

Okay, that’s why we call into the show.

I want to learn all of the history.

I’ve been a big fan for a long time, Martha and Graham.

I see your live shows, your Zoom shows.

A super fan.

Thank you so much for calling us.

We really appreciate it, dude.

Have a great day, Martha and Graham.

Thanks, Eddie.

We appreciate your comments.

Take care now.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

We know your life is a little bananas right now, but make some time to give us a call at 877-929-9673.

It’s toll-free in the U.S. and Canada, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Or you can email us, words@waywordradio.org, or reach out to us on Twitter @wayword.

Here’s a riddle from the book The Puzzler by A.J. Jacobs.

It’s supposedly translated from the Swahili.

And the riddle goes, I am a house without a door.

That’s it?

That’s it.

An egg?

Grant, how in the world did you get that?

I had all these clues ready to go, and I was going to lead you to the answer.

It reminds me of one in The Hobbit that Bilbo and Gollum tell each other.

It’s something like a box with no lid inside a golden treasure is hid.

And the answer is an egg.

Oh, there you go.

Let us help you solve your linguistic riddles.

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

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yeah, yes.

This is Carlos from Miami.

Hey, Carlos.

Welcome to the show.

What’s on your mind?

I had actually called before because they were talking about different phrases.

From different cultures, different countries.

And one of the ones that I submitted was, it’s in Spanish, but particularly Cuban Spanish, and it’s, El que no llora no mama, which is basically a direct translation.

The baby that doesn’t cry doesn’t get any milk.

Right.

And it usually applies to when someone’s asking, wants to ask for a raise or something in a relationship that somebody wants to get done.

You know, I guess the equivalent would be the squeaky wheel gets the oil, something like that.

Yeah, squeaky wheel gets the grease. That’s right.

Yeah, so that’s all I got for you guys.

Oh, but it’s a good one. Say it again for us.

El que no llora, no mama.

The baby that doesn’t cry doesn’t get to suckle.

It’s true.

Let me ask you if you’ve heard another Spanish one.

No de siere esta boca es mia.

What would that mean exactly?

Well, according to what I learned, it’s to not say that this mouth is mine.

So it’s a way to not speak up for yourself.

So in English translation, you might say he didn’t say this mouth is mine, so his business partners cut him out of the deal.

Oh, okay. I get it.

Yeah, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that one.

No, no. But thank you. I know it now.

I looked up your expression, no llora, no mama, in my proverb books, and I’ve got a zillion of them.

And it looks like it’s widespread throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

In Chile, in Nicaragua, Colombia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Mexico, and some more countries.

So maybe I was being selfish with my Cuban upbringing.

No, no, it just means that you’re part of this larger Spanish-speaking culture.

So you belong to this large history of proverbs and sayings.

Yeah, and being bilingual in Miami, it’s almost like it’s extra fun because you get kind of the best of both worlds.

You know, you get proverbs from everywhere, as many as you can.

Well, Carlos, thank you so much for sharing.

And call us again sometime with some more of these, all right?

You know, thank you for having me.

It was a pleasure.

All right.

Thanks, Carlos.

Have a good one, guys.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

And if you don’t call, you won’t get to talk with us about language.

So dial 877-929-9673 or send your questions and stories about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Our listeners continue to have fun inventing the names of lesser-known Greek gods by pronouncing familiar words with the accent on the wrong syllable, like Tentacles, the god of octopuses or something like that.

We heard from David Savilla in Athens, Ohio, who sent us the name Mediocrates.

That’s the god of things that are just pretty much okay.

Mediocrates.

Mediocrates.

Yeah.

And then we heard from John Mink in Palo Alto, California, who sent us Lotteries.

That’s the god of random numbers.

And Jim Gossens of Burlington, Vermont, sent us the name of the Muse of Lung Sounds.

Any idea what that is, Grant?

The Muse of Lung Sounds?

Oh.

How would you hear lung sounds?

Cophicles?

I don’t know.

That’s good.

How about stethoscopy?

Oh, instead of stethoscope, stethoscopy.

That’s very good.

Send your Greek gods our way, 877-929-9673, or your thoughts and ideas 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.

And look over there.

I’d know that sashay anywhere.

It’s our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

If Bigfoot can sashay, I’d be doing the Bigfoot sashay right now for sure.

Thank you, Martha and Grant.

Sometimes common knowledge says that two things are the best example for something.

Now, here’s my example.

Two things are dead.

One is a bird.

The other is hardware.

So if I said as dead as a blank, one of you could answer…

Dodo.

Dodo.

And the other could answer…

Yes, doornail, right.

Now, only one thing apparently is pretty.

So if I said as pretty as a blank, either of you could say…

Picture?

Yes, picture. Very good.

So either two things are as blank as blank or one thing is as blank as blank.

Let’s see what we get. Here are more.

To my surprise, two animals are happy.

If I said as happy as blank, one of you could answer…

A clam.

A clam, and the other one could answer…

Oh, happy as a pig in, let’s say, mud.

Let’s say mud indeed, yes. Let’s go with mud.

Now, there are lots of cool vegetables, but apparently only one vegetable is as cool as blank.

Either of you could answer…

A cucumber.

A cucumber, of course. Very good.

Only one flower is fresh.

If I said as fresh as blank, either of you could answer…

A daisy.

Yes, a daisy. As fresh as a daisy.

To my surprise, two fictional characters from the same source can be mad.

If I said as mad as blank, one of you could answer…

As a hatter.

A hatter. And the other could answer…

A march hare.

Yes, a march hare.

Lots of things are solid.

So how come only one thing is solid?

If I said as solid as blank, either of you could answer…

Solid as a rock.

Yes, either of you could sing solid as a rock.

Very good.

Anyway, so those are some similes.

Those are similar to similes.

Are exactly like similes. So there we are. Thanks, John.

Thank you, guys. We really appreciate it.

We’ll talk to you next week.

Give our best to the family and good luck with the trivia that you do all around Brooklyn.

Thank you.

And thanks very much.

You know, we’d love to hear from you.

That’s why we have a toll-free phone line that is available in the U.S. and Canada.

That’s 877-929-9673.

Call us with your stories, ideas, and questions about language.

And we’d like to hear from you an email, words@waywordradio.org.

And hey, try us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Meriwether calling from Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Hi, Meriwether. Welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

Okay, I have a little bit of a query for you.

I work in film and television in the costume department.

And before and after COVID, literally two years apart, I was working as a shopper for the costume department.

So February of 2020, I wrap a television show that I’ve been working on and I’ve been doing all of the shopping for the costume department, going in all kinds of stores, everything from high-end boutiques, big box, department stores, specialty boutiques, even, you know, biker stores, sporting goods, mom and pops, everything.

And people, when you would walk in the store, they’d say, welcome to wherever.

Welcome to Banana Republic.

Welcome to REI, whatever.

Literally two years later, the first time back doing a similar project, I’m on a feature film, same area, and going into the usual variety of stores.

And all of a sudden, every place I go in, they’re saying welcome in.

So it’s gone from welcome to Dillard’s to welcome in.

I’ve never heard this before.

Yeah, what’s changed?

So I don’t know if you can help me, but that’s the thing.

And it’s only getting worse.

Like, it’s everywhere now.

Well, you make it sound like a different pandemic.

Yeah, exactly.

There’s a pandemic of welcome in.

It’s gone viral.

First, let me assure you that the patient is fine, that English will survive this.

It’s not going to kill the language.

Did you get a sense whether or not it was all young clerks asking this, saying welcome in?

A lot of them were young, but some of them were not.

So it did cross different age groups.

But I would say that more of the clerks that I was encountering were young.

You know, we first got, I think we first started hearing from our listeners about this in 2016.

And I did a search on Twitter to see when I could first see people commenting on it there.

And I could see it as far back as 2014.

But people, you know, in Phoenix and Atlanta and California and other places.

But what’s really interesting is, as early as 10 years ago, people were commenting that they were hearing it in Starbucks.

From Starbucks staff.

And Starbucks staff were saying that they are required to greet customers as they’re coming in.

And I just keep wondering if there isn’t some company out there providing training or training manuals to a variety of corporations that encourage the use of the phrase welcome in instead of welcome to.

It just seems possible that just somewhere along the way,

There’s this company that provides this, this method. And that’s, it could easily be explained by that. And I don’t have anything to base this on except that it’s, it just seems possible.

Because corporate training is this unavoidable juggernaut, if you’ve ever been through it, boy, they just really hammered into you. Oh, I was in training for a corporation. You know that? And there was language that was very specific, which felt unnatural.

Right.

And we enforced it to some degree. Ultimately, it was the phrase that we were taught to encourage or require was dropped. And this particular phrase was apartment home. Welcome to your apartment home. And I was like, who’s your apartment home? And they finally just gave up because it just never, it just stuck in your mouth. But I remember we just quit hammering it. But it wouldn’t surprise me if there were some training element to it.

The funny thing is I’m originally from the South and we don’t mind a long string of prepositions. But this one. And I would think that if anybody were to do this, like waffle out, welcome back. You know, and you don’t hear it. I wonder if they say it there.

Well, let me ask you if part of what is dissonant for you is because it feels like there should be an object to be welcomed to. I mean, it’s understood that you’re welcomed into the store or the restaurant or whatever. But does it feel like they should be saying something after the inn? Welcome in and you’re just kind of waiting for something to follow and nothing follows?

Well, I think what it is when you said welcome in the restaurant, I would say welcome into the restaurant.

Yeah.

So it feels like a little extra bit of something that doesn’t add shade of meaning. And when I hear other prepositions strung along, they tend to add some kind of shade of meaning. And I guess it does add emphasis, but I don’t know. It’s just kind of cringy for me.

Well, one thing I’ll leave you with before we go is when we have these commercial interactions, the kind of the back and forth, hello, how are you, thank you, please, that sort of stuff. They’re mostly customary, and they’re almost devoid of semantic value. That is, they have almost no meaning except in the transaction. The transaction, the back and forth, is the value, and there’s no meaning to take away, almost no meaning.

So it really doesn’t matter what they say. They could say, sherbert, and that would be it.

Olives.

Yeah, olives. And if everybody in the country said olives when you walked into a store, after a while, we would just say, oh, yeah, that’s what they say to you when you walk into a store is olives. Because they would just be customary. But something tells me that we’re going to hear from listeners who work in those industries and can comment on it further.

Yeah. Take a photo of the page in your training manual, if that is a thing, and send it to us because I’d love to learn whether or not that theory is correct.

Well, thank you very much. More to come. That’s all I can say, Mary, whether more to come. I’ll be listening.

Okay. Take care now. Thanks for calling.

You too. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye, Maryweather. We know that language changes every single day, and sometimes you notice it. Talk to us about it. We can explain it, or try to, 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.

Magdalena Benedetto called us from South Carolina. She’s 13 years old, and she asked, why do we have a word for throwing somebody out of a window into the street, but not a word for the day after tomorrow? Why do we have defenestrate, but not a word for the day after tomorrow?

But we do have a word for the day after tomorrow. It’s just not common.

That’s exactly right. And that word is? Overmorrow.

Right. So you might say, tomorrow and overmorrow will bring us a heat wave. And the reason we have a word for throwing people out of a window.

That’s a word that was invented to denote what’s called the defenestration of Prague.

And that happened in 1618 when two Catholic officials and a secretary were tossed out of the window of the castle that at that time was the seat of power.

And it was the start of the Thirty Years’ War.

So we do have that word.

It’s what we might call a stunt word.

You don’t hear it very often, I guess, unless you’re throwing something out of a window.

Defenestration comes from the Latin word fenestra, which means window.

And you see that in the French word fenet.

And also fenster in German, which is part of one of my favorite German words, which is Kirchenfenster,

Which English-speaking wine lovers will know as legs on a wine glass.

But in German, it’s Kirchenfenster, which means church window, because they kind of look like little church windows, those legs going down the glass.

The legs going down the glass?

You mean the way the wine drips on the inside of the glass?

Yeah, when you swirl the wine and then you watch it kind of drip down.

Yeah, it adheres a little bit to the inside of the glass, but it also drips down.

Yeah, and it looks sort of like a series of church windows.

I mean, I’ve always thought about it as…

Oh, that’s right, with a little bit of arch, but a little bit of color.

Yeah, Kirchenfinster.

Oh, how about that? That’s a lovely term.

The world is filled with beautiful colors and language.

Call us about it, 877-929-9673,

And share your thoughts and questions about language.

And email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi there, this is Jane Loewy calling over here from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Hello, Jane from Cape Cod. What’s going on?

I run a community, women’s community choir, and I’ve been doing it for over 20 years.

And we gather weekly until the pandemic, of course.

And we have a different purpose than a traditional choir, which is, you know, you kind of rehearse so many nights and then you wind up with a concert.

But what we do is meet to sort of develop community and joy and resilience and for our own good fun.

And sometimes we have concerts, sometimes we don’t.

And certainly during these last couple of years, the emphasis hasn’t been on performing.

So I really dislike the word rehearsal for what we do,

And I’m looking around for something that speaks to our gathering but has a musical emphasis to it.

It’s not quite a rehearsal. It’s just a regular gathering.

Yes, and we’re not trying to do something else, if you know what I mean.

I want what we do is complete in and of itself each time we get together.

So it’s a real thing.

It’s not a rehearsal.

Right.

And if you do shows for the public, those are just a byproduct.

Correct.

Oh, what a wonderful question.

So you’re really talking about not just the artistic process of getting better at whatever you’re singing,

But also that joy and community and sharing and common everything, right?

I mean, there’s so many health benefits I have read from singing together, right?

Yes.

And funny, you should use the word common because we call ourselves common voices.

Oh, that’s nice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But there’s all kinds of research that your hearts kind of start beating together.

And there’s just, it gets almost addictive, doesn’t it, to make music with somebody else?

Yes, it really does.

And it’s not only addictive, but it’s really life-supporting and life-affirming.

And it’s been, it becomes people’s, like, a necessary part of life, yes.

Right.

You want a word besides rehearsal then, just sort of slogging along and building this song that you’re going to perform for people.

It’s about the experience itself.

Boy, I love this concept.

And, of course, I’m reaching back to Greek and Latin,

But I feel like the words that would come from the Greek and Latin are already taken.

I mean, I’m thinking of symphony, which comes from Greek words that mean voices together.

But that word is kind of taken.

And then there are all these other great words from Latin, cantare, meaning to sing, you know, like enchantment.

Goes back to Latin cantare, and also the word accent goes back to a Latin word that means to sing.

An accent is literally song added to speech. That doesn’t help you, does it, though?

Well, no, only because it wouldn’t be familiar to a common voice, so to speak. You know, people wouldn’t automatically relate to it and know why they were going.

Right.

I guess I’ll have to throw out this Sardinian phrase I was thinking of.

Throw out your Sardinian phrase, Grant.

Well, the phrase is canto a bulge note, which means a night voice song. But they use it to, you know, in their multi-part singing tradition in Sardinia to refer to singing for pleasure, spending time together.

Ooh.

What’s the phrase again?

It’s a canto a bulge note, literally night voice song. Or it translates maybe to I sing at night or a nightly song. But it’s about the habitual action of singing, maybe emphasizing the content of the text. But again, it’s not an everyday phrase. But I just, I really think the notion of it is what you’re going for here.

Years ago, I read Anthony Bourdain’s books, and he’s got a lot of restaurant slang. And then we watched the TV show The Bear recently. And there’s something called The Family Meal. And this is food cooked in a restaurant for the staff, who they sit down either before open or after closed to eat together. And a family concert doesn’t quite work, but I think the sentiment is there. This idea that we’re all spending time together for our own purposes, basically serving ourselves our own product, more or less, or singing for ourselves.

So clothes show or home show or something like that, maybe you’re a little too bland, but something along those lines, maybe. It’s just, what is it about this focusing your attention inward to the group?

The word that stuck out to me the most that’s passed our lips today is enchantment. Martha said that. So something about enchanting or, you know, like, you know, that’s kind of the closest that sort of rang a bell for me.

Interesting.

I could see that as being a beautiful springboard to a lot of possibilities. Look that up in a couple of thesauruses and see if anything clicks for you. Look up its etymology and break it down into its word origins and its component roots and see if just something kind of comes at you from an angle and your eyes open wide and you have that moment with the hair standing up on the back of your neck.

Okay, I’ll be looking for that.

Yeah, we always are. Well, Jane, the great thing is that we have lots of listeners who I am sure want to weigh in on this, people who have had that same kind of experience that you have every time that you sing with your fellow singers. And maybe we can crowdsource this and somebody will come up with an even better one. So stay tuned, okay?

I sure will. And thank you very much. I appreciate the exploration. Take care now. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye now. Martha and I are open to your recommendations, your questions, your thoughts, your ideas. 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.

In this country, if you go into a building and you need to get up to the top floor, sometimes you can step into an elevator. But that’s not the case in Britain, right, Grant?

You get into a lift.

Exactly. I guess we were raised differently.

That’s terrible.

Shout out to dadjokes.com.

You did not get that from dadjokes.com.

I did.

You did?

I did.

Oh, I’m going to your house. I’m sneaking over at night and blocking that on your router.

I shouldn’t be allowed.

You should not be allowed. That’s the worst.

877-929-9673.

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.

My wife and I just got back from a week in the Hudson River Valley, where, as you know, there’s a lot of wonderful hiking. And one of our favorites was the Rockefeller State Park Preserve, which is near Pleasantville. And we were wandering around this beautiful preserve when we saw this sign that was pointing to something called the Glacial Erratic Trail. And we were thinking, well, what’s a glacial erratic trail? Is it a really tough trail that you have to take at a glacial pace? Or is it so erratic it’s just zigzagging along with a lot of switchbacks? So we had to find out, of course.

So we’re walking down this trail and we come to a clearing. And there in front of us, all by itself, is this huge boulder. And I’m talking about a boulder that’s the size of a two or three-story house. And it’s just alone there in the woods, surrounded by trees. And we were thinking, what the heck? But then we saw a little sign, and that’s when I learned that the word erratic isn’t necessarily an adjective. Because in geology, it can function as a noun. An erratic is a rock or boulder that’s been transported by a glacier as the glacier is moving. And they’re often transported for hundreds of miles. And this particular one was left thousands of years ago after the ice that had covered that whole valley melted away. It left behind this thing called a glacial erratic.

And that’s when it all made sense to me because the adjective erratic means, you know, inconsistent or haphazard. And it comes from the Latin errare, which means to wander. It’s also the source of our word error, because if you make an error, you wander from the path. And so it was a little lesson in geology, but it was also a little linguistic reminder that sometimes if you assume that a word is a particular part of speech, you may be in error. And so there’s a connection here to knights errants. Knights errants are knights who wander.

Yes. Yes, they’re wandering around.

Freelancers, right? Literally.

Freelancers, yeah. The Ronin of the medieval world. But if you see something out there and you’ve got a question about it, what is the erratic errant message in your world? You’re like, that doesn’t mean what I think it means, does it? We can help you solve that.

877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org. Or try us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Oh, hi. This is Michelle from Bedford, Texas.

Hi, Michelle.

Right outside the DFW area.

Hey, Michelle.

I had emailed somebody about a reservation for a trip that was happening the current year, and I was asking if the same trip was going to be programmed for the next year. I was not at all certain of that, and I have to plan my vacations way ahead of time because we don’t want to conflict with my colleagues. You know, you can’t everybody be off at the same time.

This particular person returns the email and says, yes, Michelle, we schedule that trip every year. And it just struck me as a little odd. Instead of saying, hey, Michelle, yes, that trip will be scheduled, it was, yes, Michelle. And I’m adding emphasis because, of course, I have no idea how the person would have said it out loud. This was in an email, and you don’t get tone or inflection in an email.

I have a colleague who, when we’re on a conference call, we’re all working from home, and so we have team calls, and this particular colleague, when I ask a question directed to this person, or my boss asks a question directed to this person, he will respond with our name. Yes, Michelle, or yes, my boss’s name. I have not noticed that he does it with anybody else. And I’ve asked my colleagues, and they’re like, oh, never paid attention. But I asked my son, who is actually a very well-grown-up young man. I’m very proud of him. But he says, it sounds a bit condescending. And that’s how I’m receiving it, as it’s a tad condescending or manipulative. And also, my son’s girlfriend says that she’s noticed one of her professors used to do that, too. So I’m wondering if we’re being overly sensitive, and they may not even be aware of what they’re doing. I was just curious about it.

Well, that’s a lot to unpack. I mean, as you mentioned with email, it’s really hard to discern tone. In these meetings that you’re having where the person is addressing you by your first name, does he address everybody else by their first name as well?

I’ve only noticed it with me or our boss.

And your boss is female?

Yes.

The charitable part of me wants to say that, you know, maybe he’s read Dale Carnegie, where he, you know, how to win friends and, you know, influence people. And, I mean, people love to hear their names, don’t they?

I mean, when you introduce yourself to somebody, how many times do you remember that person’s name versus your own? I mean, I just wonder what else is going on for that person.

But the uncharitable part of us thinks about the linguistic discourse studies that show that people, adjusting people by their first name, sometimes can introduce a power differential that is indeed taken as condescending and may intentionally be or unintentionally be there to shift the mood or the control of a conversation or a situation. That’s how it felt.

In fact, I made some notes for our call, and one of my notes I have, it feels like a change in power.

Yeah. Change.

Yeah, the change is what’s important. So if, particularly in the email, so we can discern something from the email, if you’re having a back and forth with someone and there’s no addressing each other by name for several emails in a row, and then they address you by your name, that’s definitely a power move. That’s definitely them trying to assert some sort of control or power or to condescend or to chastise you a little bit, for sure.

For me, sometimes I do it just to bring the person in, though. It’s more of an embracing. I think there’s more than one way to do that.

I’m talking about a one-to-one conversation.

No, that’s what I’m talking about, too. It’s certainly context-dependent. But if it’s a tense situation where something isn’t being understood or explanations are required.

That’s different from the embrace, yeah.

Yeah. But really paying attention to the changing of someone’s naming practice is really going to help you understand what’s happening here. It’s when they shift from a formal to an informal, or they shift from an informal to a formal.

For example, we all know about the parents shouting your whole name, you know, Martha Ann Barnette, get your shoes off the sofa. That’s definitely somebody’s angry at Martha Ann Barnette, right?

Exactly, and it gets your attention.

I thought about that, too, and I thought about it’s just how the ways that the words are ordered. It’s the yes, Michelle, versus the hey, Michelle, yes. And I thought it’s really subtle how…

Oh, I agree with that. I picked that up, too.

Yes, Michelle. You can almost hear the eyes rolling.

Yes, Michelle. Yes, Michelle. Yeah.

Instead of like, oh, Michelle, like there’s couching language they could use.

Oh, I’m glad you asked, Michelle. You probably don’t know this, but yeah, we do this every year.

Or like, or if you might remember, we do this every year.

Or yeah, there’s just lots of different ways they could have allowed you the moment of doubt and said, oh, maybe she just doesn’t remember.

But they didn’t. They made it sound like you should have known.

Yes, and actually with the first email, that was the initial email with correspondence with that person.

Well, Michelle, there is a lot of work that has been done in linguistics, mostly by female linguists, of course, about the power differential when it comes to addressing men versus women.

And one of the things we find is that again and again and again, women are addressed by their first name, and men are addressed by titles and last names, or just last names.

And sometimes people say, oh, well, it’s just because I relate to women. They seem friendlier.

But a lot of times it turns out that in the same situation, like the meeting that you’re having, it can really be about genderism or misogyny even, and women not getting the respect that they’re due in the workplace.

So it is definitely something to pay attention to.

I think what I’m taking away is that I shouldn’t be bothered too much for it, but watch out for it.

Yeah, yeah, watch out for it.

This was enlightening. I know we’ll get a lot of response on this.

Thank you so much for breaching this topic.

Thank you. I love your show, by the way.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. We’re really glad you called.

Thank you again. Bye-bye.

Thanks, Michelle. Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

If you do enough crossword puzzles, you’re sure to come across the word etui, or etui. It’s spelled E-T-U-I, and it means a small case for sewing needles or other little items.

And because it’s such an odd combination of letters, it’s a handy term for those crossword constructors.

There’s a great cryptic clue for etui, which is a case of pins and needles, which I think is pretty brilliant.

Oh, nice.

What’s also really cool about this word is that it comes from French etui, which means a case or a box or container.

It goes back to a word that means to keep or shut up or in prison.

And that also branched off in an interesting way into another term.

In the 17th century, the English word was often spelled E-T-W-E-E.

And the plural of that is etuis, E-T-W-E-E-S.

e And the word etweez eventually transferred from the case to the little instrument that those cases sometimes contained.

Etweezers.

Oh, I see.

How about that?

That’s why they’re called tweezers.

Yeah, it’s a weird word if you think about it, but it goes back to the idea of keeping something in a little case.

The world is filled with linguistic curiosities and strange collisions and coincidences.

We’d love to share ours with you, and you can share yours with us.

877-929-9673 is toll-free in the United States and Canada, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Anthony Gaudio from Tallahassee, Florida.

Hi, Anthony. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Anthony.

I was calling because I am always trying to improve my Italian, and I’ve come across an Italian proverb that caught my attention.

And that Italian proverb is mal cam une mezzo gaudio.

And the reason it caught my attention is that has my last name in it.

And it intrigued me.

I kind of looked it up and it resembles the English proverb, troubled shares are troubled halved, although the literal translation is quite a bit different.

Yeah, let’s hear that expression again.

Mal comune mezzo gaudio.

Which word is your last name?

Mezzo?

Comune?

No, gaudio.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I’m teasing.

Which is, you know, it means joy, but it’s not the Italian word gioia, which is, you know, personal joy.

It’s kind of like root joy or joy of the community is what I have been told by Italian scholars.

Yeah, the mezzo is like half or middle, like a mezzo soprano is between a soprano and a contralto.

And the gaudio, your last name is a really wonderful word, goes all the way back to Latin.

And, you know, there’s that old drinking song that’s the official song of a lot of schools, Gaudiamus egetur, you know, that means, you know, that one, let us live then and be glad.

Yeah, but it’s a beautiful sentiment, malcomune mezzo gaudio.

And, you know, there have been lots of different ways to express that sentiment. One of my favorites goes back to ancient Rome and ancient Greece.

There’s an expression that translates from both of those languages as either a common shipwreck is a comfort to all, or, you know, to be shipwrecked together is a relief for everybody or a comfort to everybody. Or I’ve even seen those translated as society in shipwreck is a comfort to all.

So it’s like, you know, at least we’re all in this together.

Well, I had never heard the English version of it. But shortly after I came across this Italian version, the woman who does the cooking on Downton Abbey said it.

Oh, really? I said, oh, my goodness.

Yeah. She said the troubled chair does troubled have.

Oh, she didn’t say it in Italian.

No, no, no, no. She said it. That was the first time I had ever heard the English version of it was that. And it was kind of surprising to me.

But, you know, Gaudio is actually an uncommon conome or last name in Italy. But because it and it probably goes back to Latin times, Roman times.

Sure, sure. Yeah. Gaudium in Latin.

Well, fantastic, Anthony. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. And good luck on your Italian classes. It sounds like you’re making good progress.

Well, you know, I’ve been I’ve been studying it for years. And in Italy, my family makes fun of my American accent and my poor choice of tenses.

But I sold your rod.

Yes, that’s the attitude. Very good.

Take care now and be well, all right?

All right. Thank you very much.

Bye-bye.

Okay. 877-929-9673.

You may recall that a few weeks ago we heard from Natalia.

Who was asking about a term that her Polish family adopted from a Swedish friend.

And Natalia’s family used this term to denote another driver on a long road trip, the one who sets the pace for you mile after mile, or the one you keep seeing over and over as each of you passes the other on the highway.

And Natalia was mystified as to why this Swedish friend of theirs used the term follow John in those kinds of situations.

And Grant, you and I were mystified too. We hadn’t figured it out yet.

No, we had our own terms that we’d come up with, but we didn’t understand the Swedish connection.

But then we got an email.

We got an email from a listener in Malmö, Sweden, Karin Tidbeck, who emailed us about a Swedish game that is called Följeljön, which literally means follow John.

And it was a game that was popular when Karin was a kid.

And it’s a bit like Simon says.

Karin writes, someone has appointed John, and you have to mimic whatever they’re doing.

And if you fail, you’re out of the game.

Whoever’s last to keep up with John will be the John for the next round.

And Grant, that has to be the answer.

Yes, it certainly does.

And I’m surprised that we weren’t able to come up with that.

But that’s why we have these wonderful listeners.

They are our field workers.

They’re out there bringing us new knowledge and educating us every single day.

And thank you for that.

Indeed.

Tusen tak, as they say in Sweden.

But you want to know how wonderful Karin is?

Karin writes speculative fiction in both English and Swedish.

And although they didn’t mention it, I did some digging and learned that Karin’s book, The Memory Theater, is on the New York Times list of best science fiction and fantasy books of 2021.

How about that?

What is the book called?

It’s called The Memory Theater, and the reviewer said it’s a slender, extraordinary jewel of a book.

And you can find out more about that book at karintidbeck.com.

Wow, going to have to add that to my list.

Yeah.

Thank you so much, Karin. We really appreciate it.

And we love hearing from writers and readers around the world telling us about the books they’re working on and the books they’re reading.

877-929-9673.

Words@waywordradio.org and on Twitter @wayword.

Our team includes senior producer Stefanie Levine, engineer and editor Tim Felten, production assistant Rachel Elizabeth Weissler, and quiz guide John Chaneski.

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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.