Is there a word that describes someone who’s good at visualizing how best to pack a suitcase or car? A Michigan woman is sure she heard such a term for someone who can visualize 3-D arrangements in advance, but darned if she can recall what it is. Can the hosts help? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Good with Packing”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Camille from Frankfurt, Michigan.
Well, hello, Camille. Welcome to the program.
Hi.
What’s cooking? What can we do for you?
Well, there’s a word I’ve been trying to retrieve from the recesses of my memory that means a person who is very good at using a space to fill every corner, every part of it, as if you’re packing and you have to make the most of the space that you have. And the person who is very good at assessing it visually and doing this.
Oh, man.
Camille, do you have any recollection of the context in which you heard the word or read it?
Oh, sure.
Oh, I definitely do.
What happened?
When I lived in the Detroit area and had to commute to college up in Marquette in the Upper Peninsula, we had one car for two or three people, and we’re going to school far away for the year. And, you know, you have to bring what you can, you know, what you need, but fit it into a small safe. And when I got really good at doing this, I remember someone saying to me, oh, you’re blank, you know, and I went, wow, there’s a word for that. Oh, you’re blank.
And I have to say, I don’t want to prejudice, you know, the contributions of your answers or anything, but there is a letter that seems prominent in it, whether it begins with a V or has a V prominent in the sound. I don’t know why that stands out in my memory, but it does.
V as in Victor?
Yeah.
Oh, that’s tough. This is tough.
So you think there’s a, you remember that somehow there’s a word for a person who is very good at packing a car or a truck or a box, just making stuff fit, right?
Yeah.
So when would this be? Was this 80s, 90s, 2000s?
This was in the late 70s.
Oh, late 70s.
So a Tetris champ isn’t what you’re looking for.
No.
It’s prior to the Tetris game.
Okay.
And I guess you weren’t packing a VW, right? Or a VW bus, right?
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Okay.
It just had the letter V in it.
No, it would be any kind of car.
Okay.
All right.
No, it had nothing to do with the car.
Boy, it seems like there should be some kind of German word, you know, with that kind of German efficiency. Did you have any German majors traveling with you?
No, no, no.
No, in fact, I think it was the father of one of our friends who said it. I’ve got to tell you, I don’t know what this word is, Camille. I have no idea. This is a mystery.
Oh, but let’s guess. What’s the opposite of déjà vu? What would it be? Avant vu? That has Vs in it? Avant vu? You see before it all goes in?
Yeah, yeah.
All right, that’s not going to work. What about if you took the word clairvoyant and made it space voyant? Somebody who can really see the space in front of you, right?
That kind of works, yeah.
I don’t think Camille’s buying it.
No, Camille, you’re thinking of it. I’m having studied French. You don’t want us to coin something. You’re thinking of it. There’s a specific word out there that you need to retrieve. And it did kind of, it sounded, it didn’t sound foreign. It just sounded like, you know, an American word. It could, of course, have a French or German origin, and most of our words do. There aren’t that many words in English that begin with the letter V.
So let’s just get a dictionary and work your way down the list and see what happens.
That’s what my mother said to do.
I said, oh, my God, I have to go through every entry in V.
Well, it’s not that many. It’s a few thousand, maybe.
Oh, man.
Well, what we’ve got to do, Martha, is turn on the sirens, get the flashing lights going, and put the call out to everyone. What is a word that might begin with V that means that you are very good at doing things like packing cars and moving trucks?
Maybe that’s it.
What?
Very good.
No?
No.
Camille in Michigan says that there is one word for this. She can’t remember it. Help us help this woman. And meanwhile, you’re going to take the dictionary and start at V and call us when you find the word, right?
Oh, God. Put us out of our misery.
Okay.
Thank you, Camille.
All right.
We’ll let you know.
Thank you.
And if you think of it at 3 in the morning, call us.
Okay.
All right.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
I’ll tell you what, though. If you can help Camille and you can help us, if you know of the word, or you can coin a great one that means a person or the characteristic of not wanting to leave empty spaces or being good at packing automobiles or what have you, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.
