Goody Two-Shoes (episode #1543)

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. We got a voicemail from Roger Short who said,

I’d just like to tell you, Theophilus thistle sifter while sifting a sieve of unsifted thistles thrust 3,000 thistles through the thick of his thumb.

Theophilus is very busy and he needs a band-aid.

Roger said, my grandma taught that to me when I was five years old and I’m 75 now.

Did he, did Roger get that all the way out without stuttering?

That’s a heck of a tongue twister.

Yes, yes.

He did a great job.

I’ve since looked up other versions of this.

If thou fullest thistle, the successful thistle sifter can thrust 3,000 thistles through the thick of his thumb.

See thou in sifting a sieve full of unsifted thistles, thrust not 3,000 thistles through the thick of thy thumb.

Thy thumb.

Wow.

Two twisters.

Yeah, that’s a great one.

I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.

I haven’t either.

I mean, I know all the standard ones that you learn in grade school.

Yeah.

Or at least I’ve heard of them.

Yeah, rubber baby buggy bumpers.

Peter Piper and all those.

Yeah.

And six sheep, six sheep, whatever.

I can’t do that one.

Come on, you can do it.

Peter Piper I can do.

Peter Piper picks a pickle puffer.

If Peter Piper picks a pickle puffer.

Whereas the pickle, pickle, pepper, pepper, pepper, pigt.

But that’s the…

That’s great.

And when you’re 75, you’ll probably be just like Roger.

Just, you know.

But you have to practice that like 500 times to get that good at it.

You do.

It’s really hard.

And it stops being useful as a tongue-relaxing exercise and you have to move to the next one.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Like Peggy Babcock.

Excuse me?

I mean, that’s not a person who says tongue twisters.

It is a tongue twister if you say it three times fast.

Peggy Babcock.

Peggy Babcock.

Peggy Babcock.

Peggy Babcock.

That’s very good.

Yeah.

You must do radio or something.

I have to do a little radio.

You want to put on a radio show with me, Martha?

Yeah.

Let’s do one about language.

Okay.

And there’s something missing.

Yeah.

Callers.

Yeah.

People around this country have interesting things to say, cool voices, and stuff to talk about.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello there.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. It’s Barbara Parrish from Seattle, Washington.

Hi, Barbara.

In early December, I went to a white elephant holiday party.

And at this party, my choice of gift, I unwrapped it, and the girl sitting next to me, and it was a multi-tool.

And the girl sitting next to me said, oh, you can just throw that in your jockey box.

And I looked at her real quick, and she completely got so embarrassed right away.

And she said, oh, I mean, you can throw that in your glove compartment.

And I said, oh, where are you from?

And I would not have known to ask that question had I not just, like, listened to, you know, so many of your shows in a row.

Right.

So she said, I’m from Montana.

And I said, so does everybody use that word there?

And she goes, I don’t know, but my dad sure does.

So I immediately thought of you guys.

It was just so fun.

Like, it just got served up to me on a platter.

Served up to you on a platter.

It worked, Martha.

You don’t have that.

You’re not from Montana and you don’t say jockey box.

I’ve never heard it.

Where are you from?

I’m from Sacramento, originally.

Sacramento, okay.

This is kind of a classic American dialect term.

This is a really good example of the kind of term that we would bring out speaking at schools or kind of introducing people to the show or the concept of Americans don’t speak all the same.

We don’t all have one language.

And this is because jockey box is used pretty much in one part of the country, in the American Northwest.

So Montana, definitely.

Wyoming and Washington State and Idaho and Utah.

And the reason it’s used in those places is because those are places that were settled by people who rode wagons out west.

And because a jockey box originally was a box usually beneath the driver’s seat that had small articles in it, like tools, for example, maybe a multi-tool.

But the little things that you might today put in your glove box or your…

Glove compartment is what I call it.

Yeah, so under the driver’s seat of a wagon pulled by horses.

All the little articles that you need.

Yeah, it makes total sense.

And, you know, I’ve lived in Seattle now since 2004.

And I guess it’s a sign that I should probably get out of the city more than I do,

But I’ve never heard that expression ever.

And it was just so delightful.

And it makes total sense.

Yeah, so it’s not universal in the American Northwest.

It’s just more common there.

And you’re definitely going to hear it more in places that aren’t populated by people who have moved there from somewhere else.

There’s a little footnote here, too,

That in the American West, traditionally,

A jockey box on a chuck wagon was where they put the horseshoeing equipment.

So ropes are the stuff to hobble a horse while you put new shoes on them.

So there were different varieties of jockey boxes.

And, of course, the word jockey refers to what we know of as jockey and horse racing.

It was a jockey was the person who rode a horse, right?

So that’s why you call it the jockey box.

The driver, the main person in control.

Yeah, and then you get those newfangled, horseless carriages, automobiles.

So you borrow some of the language from the old equipment, and you apply it to the new equipment.

I love it. I love it. And I love your show.

It’s just been so—when I discovered it, it was just exactly sort of what I needed at that time.

I’m glad to hear that.

And now, now, now too, but especially then, and that’s why I just devoured it.

But what a delight. I’m so glad I found you guys.

Oh, that’s so nice to hear. Thank you.

Well, you keep those linguistic antennae out and call us again sometime.

Thank you so much, you guys.

Have a great day.

You too.

Take care now.

Thanks, Barbara.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org or tell the world on Twitter @wayword.

You know, there’s that tongue twister that goes, she sells seashells by the seashore,

The shells, she sells our seashells, I’m sure.

So if she sells seashells on the seashore, then I’m sure she sells seashore shells.

Yeah.

Right?

I did not realize that some people claim that that tongue twister was composed in honor of Mary Anning.

An actual person.

Yes, who was a 19th century English fossil collector and paleontologist.

She’s got a fantastic story.

Mary Anning, A-N-N-I-N-G.

She and her dad lived in a coastal town in southwestern England and would sell curios to visitors who came by.

And these were fossils with colorful local names like snake stones and that kind of thing.

And she ended up making some huge contributions to the study of paleontology.

And in fact, 163 years after her death in 2010, the Royal Society in Britain included her on a list of 10 British women who have most influenced the history of science.

This is ringing a bell.

And there’s no firm evidence that that had to do with her.

Oh, but how nice that would be if that were true.

Yeah.

That you would have a part of the English language history in that way.

And when she was alive, for most of her life, she did not get recognition.

But she made these big contributions to science.

So Google Mary Anning, A-N-N-I-N-G.

That sounds like a movie that needs to be made.

A father and a daughter with these curious habits and strange pastimes and passions out there combing the beach.

And their habits turn into science and the history of the planet.

Yeah.

Maybe Scarlett Johansson and Bruce Dern.

Oh, there we go.

Perfect.

What a pairing.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Marge Cushel.

Marge, where are you calling us from?

Greenfield. It’s a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

-huh. Well, welcome to the show, Marge. What can we do for you?

Well, when my friends talk about their wild adventures when they were young, I always say, I never did those things. I didn’t like breaking the rules.

I guess I’m a goody two-shoes.

And then we got to wondering the origin of that expression and what it really means.

I think it’s a little derogatory in that you sound kind of prissy and all, but I’m not real sure.

Yeah, well, you know, the story of the term goody-two-shoes is really interesting, both from a historical point of view and the fact that there are a couple of linguistic twists at the end of it.

The most famous goody two-shoes was the subject of a novel in the late 18th century. It was called The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes.

This was a time when there was a real fad for kind of rags-to-riches stories, and stories in particular of young, impoverished women who were really, really well-behaved, and their virtue was eventually rewarded.

And that’s what happened in this novel.

Poor Marjorie Meanwell was so impoverished that she only had one shoe, which is really sad, right? But then this clergyman took pity on her and got her another shoe.

And she was so happy that she would go up to people and say things like, “Two shoes, ma’am, two shoes.”

And eventually she continued to be really good and well-behaved. And she became a teacher and married a rich man.

And then she used her newfound wealth to help other people who were similarly impoverished as children and do a lot of good works.

But here’s one of the linguistic twists.

The goody in Goody Two-Shoes isn’t really about being good necessarily.

Do you remember the Scarlet Letter with Nathaniel Hawthorne?

Yes.

Remember how some of the characters were called goody, like Goody Mortimer?

Oh, I don’t recall that, but sure.

Yeah, there was back in the 16th, 17th century, there was a polite term of address, especially for people of lower social status, which was Goody.

And for men, it was Goodman. So I would be Goody Barnette and Grant would be Goodman Barrett.

And so the Goody in the case of Goody Two-Shoes was actually like Little Miss Two-Shoes.

But there was also, of course, the idea that she was good.

But here’s one other linguistic twist, which is that that’s not even the first appearance of goody two-shoes in English literature.

There was actually a poem back in the 1600s, late 1600s, that sarcastically referred to a woman as goody two-shoes.

But in any case, as you said, it’s kind of a slightly derogatory term, goody two-shoes.

And then some reinforcement later with the appearance of goody, goody, right?

Oh, absolutely.

So the kind of like, “Oh, don’t be such a goody-goody,” kind of reinforce the idea of goody-two-shoes of having this kind of like, “Don’t be like that. You’d think you’re too good for everyone.”

Exactly.

Yeah, the good kind of has a double function there.

Yeah, so you and I, Marge, were both called goody-two-shoes as kiddos, it sounds like.

Well, even at 81, I don’t like breaking rules.

And my parents weren’t real strict, so it just came from me somehow.

I think at 81, you should cut loose a little bit. Just see what happens.

That doesn’t work anymore.

Go five more miles over the speed limit. See what happens.

There you go.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

Here’s another tongue twister for you.

A box of biscuits, a box of mixed biscuits, and a biscuit mixer.

You wouldn’t think that would be so hard.

It’s those consonant clusters.

It is those consonant clusters.

You should write a tongue twister about consonant clusters.

Let’s try it. Say it a little bit, and I’ll repeat it.

A box of biscuits.

A box of biscuits.

A box of mixed biscuits.

A box of mixed biscuits.

And a biscuit mixer.

And a biscuit mixer.

Oh, this is good. Let’s do an hour of this.

Okay.

877-929-9673.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And we’re joined by our quiz guide, John Chaneski.

Hello, John.

Hello, Grant.

Hello, Martha. How are you?

We’re doing great. How about you?

I’m just fine.

You know, this quiz is, I think it should be very amusing.

The word boomer used to mean baby boomer. That is someone born between 1946 and 1964.

But lately, many people use it to mean older person who is out of touch.

Anyway, I’m hopping on the latest linguistic tick before it fades away.

It occurred to me that a dismissive okay just seemed that much more dismissive if you pair it with an word.

For example, a friend of mine who was the former mayor of Banger was explaining to me how superior his state was to mine, to which I said, “Okay, Maynor, you got it?”

Yeah.

That’s what we’re going to do. Give me the two-syllable person I’m dismissing in each of the following situations.

Here we go.

I was sunning myself on the gable of my house the other day when a guy working nearby starts telling me, “Asphalt singles are really superior to tile and metal.”

So I said, “Okay, roofer?”

Okay, roofer. Okay, roofer. Yeah, that’s what I said.

I was riding a ferry on Lake Superior the other day when a guy tries to tell me that “Sault Ste. Marie is really the prettiest town in northern Michigan.”

So I said, “Okay, youper.”

Okay, youper, indeed. The upper peninsula of Michigan.

I was digging for gold the other day when my co-worker tells me, “We had much better pig actions 40 years ago.”

So I said, “Okay, minor.”

Okay, minor.

Okay, 49er.

49, sure.

I just kept going.

I was at a food expo the other day when Mr. Peanut, the late Mr. Peanut, the planter’s mascot, almost bumps into me saying, “Get out of my way, I can barely see you in this thing.”

So I said, “Okay, Goober?”

Okay, Goober. Yeah, that’s right.

I was taking an aerobics class in the 1980s the other day when this device on my belt starts making a racket and the display says, “Call the office.” So I said, “Okay, Pager.”

Okay, pager, right? Or okay, beeper would have been fine.

Okay, beeper, yeah.

I was working at the circus the other day when one of the acrobats yells at me, “We’re trying to practice our somersaults here, move!”

So I said, “Okay, Tumblr.”

Okay, Tumblr, right.

Finally, I was reading my fan mail the other day, and a letter said, “You should do more wordplay on the radio. I find your games to be questionable.”

So I said, “Okay, punster.”

Okay, punster indeed.

Yes, perfect.

I’ll get right back to answering that email right now, as a matter of fact.

Thanks very much, guys. You were great.

Okay, jokester.

Okay, quister.

Okay, listener, we’d love to hear from you about any aspect of language whatsoever.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your emails to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Martha.

Yes.

This is Tim DeMulder in a little town in upstate New York, Unidill, New York.

Well, Tim, what would you like to talk with us about?

My grandmother, I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but she immigrated from England, from Nottingham, England in 1907.

She came in Ellis Island.

And my family all knows this.

She used to say, “It’s a great life. You don’t weaken.”

And I’ll say it to people, and they’ll kind of look at me cross-eyed, or they’re like, “What’d you say?”

And then I repeat it, and some people kind of acknowledge that, and other people kind of like, “I don’t get it.”

But we’ve always said it here. It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.

Yes.

All right, so here’s the thing.

Around 1914, actually in 1914, this catchphrase exploded, exploded in the English-speaking world on both sides of the Atlantic.

Just blammo. We’re talking wartime. I don’t know where it came from. I have some ideas and I’ll express those in a minute.

But in 1914, everyone, everyone was saying it’s a great life if you don’t weaken. Or they were saying it’s a gay life if you don’t weaken. Or it’s a good life if you don’t weaken. But some variant of it’s a great life if you don’t weaken.

I mean, it’s all over the newspapers. It’s in every comedian’s routine, vaudeville.

People were saying this. It was in soldiers were saying it. It was just the thing to say.

And I don’t know why.

And none of the catchphrase hunters, and they’re out there, these are people, they’re all weirdos like me. They hunt these things up and try to prove their origins.

They don’t know why either.

But 1913 and before, no evidence of it whatsoever.

1914, blammo.

The first use I have is in March of that year, and it’s from a theater person.

And actually the first few uses that we have are from theater people all on the east coast of the United States.

And then before you know it, it starts showing up from soldiers and it starts showing up in newspapers and sports writers and here and there.

And then everyone’s saying it.

And the general gist of this expression typically was it imparts the idea that life is great if you can keep your health.

But there’s also a little bit of irony to it.

A second meaning that if you can avoid giving into vice, if you can avoid giving into self-indulgence.

So there’s like two layers to this.

You actually have letters from the trenches, guys writing home from World War I, using this line as they’re being shot at, more or less.

And, you know, they’re in the mud saying, it’s a great life if you don’t weaken.

And that’s the utter irony because it’s not a great life.

And they are being ultimate in strength.

It reminds me of that expression, nice day if it don’t rain.

You know, sort of like, duh.

Yeah, exactly.

It’s a little bit of that.

That’s everything that I know about that.

Well, thank you so much, you guys.

It’s been such a pleasure.

All right, Tim.

Take care, now.

Thanks.

Don’t weaken.

It’s a great life, you don’t weaken.

You guys take care.

Bye-bye.

All righty.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

What’s the expression your grandmother or grandfather used?

We’d love to hear about it.

877-929-9673 or send it to us in email.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.

Billy James was the second son of William James, so that makes him the nephew of the writer Henry James.

And Billy came to England in 1902 to visit with his uncle.

And years later, Billy gave an interview to Henry James’s biographer in which he described his uncle Henry as this guy with a quick wit and a great capacity for affection.

And he told the biographer that what he carried away from this visit with his elderly uncle was the memory of hearing him say,

Three things in life are important.

The first is to be kind.

The second is to be kind.

And the third is to be kind.

Which is great advice, right?

Yeah.

Be kind, be kind, be kind.

The reason I set it up that way is that it’s been attributed to Henry James.

You see this all over the Internet.

Here’s a quote from Henry James.

We don’t know for sure that Henry James said it, but our friend Garson O’Toole, a quote investigator, has done some digging.

Garson’s fantastic.

Yeah, yeah.

And he’s pretty confident that that’s where that quote originated.

So we can trust Billy James’ account of this.

Yes.

Okay, that’s fantastic.

I love it when we can get to all these fake quotes going around, right?

Actually, the quotes are so fake sometimes that people make them up to mock the fake quotes, right?

Right.

You put a modern quote about computers on a picture of Abraham Lincoln.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, but that’s a great resource that you and I both use, quoteinvestigator.com.

Yeah, QuoteInvestigator.com, right?

Mm—

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Michael.

I’m calling from Huntsville, Alabama.

Welcome to the show, Michael.

I had a question regarding Greek mythology.

Is it okay if I give a little background?

Oh, heck yeah.

Sure, go for it.

Martha’s salivating.

I’m salivating.

So my go-to story whenever I introduce people to what etymology is,

Is the story of Tantalus from Greek mythology.

And so Tantalus was one of the many sons of Zeus,

And when he upset his father in one particular instance,

He took it too far and was sentenced to a special prison

Where he was made to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree.

Whenever he would hunger and reach up for the fruit, the branches would rise,

And whatever he would thirst and kneel to drink, the waters would recede.

This is where we get today’s word tantalizing,

And that’s now the proverbial term for temptation without satisfaction.

So I’ve just always thought that this is one of the coolest stories,

And it got me interested in etymology because it showed me that words could be more than just assembled parts

And could have stories behind them.

Yes!

So I would love to know what other words might have stories behind them from mythology, whether it’s Greek or not.

Oh, yeah. Michael, you’re a kindred spirit. Yeah. I love the story of Tantalus because it is one of those light bulb moments, right? When you realize the origin of this word and it’s this really vivid story.

Yeah, it’s exciting. Often you hear the story of Tantalus in conjunction with the story of Sisyphus. You remember him?

Yeah, he pushed the rock up the hill, right? The boulder?

Yeah, yeah, he was condemned to push a rock up a hill and it would always go rolling back down at the end of his efforts and he would have to do it all over again.

And that was yet another punishment from the gods. And so, of course, we get the word Sisyphean from that, a Sisyphean task or something like that, where you’re just condemned to do it over and over again with a lot of effort.

But yeah, gosh, there’s so many of these.

I mean, think of the word narcissist.

No, I didn’t know that was tied to Greek mythology.

Well, Narcissus was in love with his own image.

He was this beautiful, beautiful youth.

And he was known for staring at his reflection in a pool.

And that’s actually why we get the name of the flower Narcissus, because it grows near bodies of water.

And we get the word narcissist from that and narcissism.

And, of course, connected to narcissus is the story of Echo, who fell in love with this beautiful youth, but just pined away for him because he rejected her.

And she just pined away and pined away until there was nothing left but her voice.

Poor Echo.

Oh, wow.

How about that?

That’s really neat.

Yeah, yeah.

There’s so many of these.

I’m thinking of the word iridescent.

Which comes from the Roman goddess Iris, who runs upon the rainy wind.

She was the goddess of the rainbow.

And, of course, in Spanish, we get arco iris from that, the word for rainbow.

So there are lots and lots and lots of these.

And you’ve talked about Stentorian on the show before as well.

Yeah, the man who had a voice of 50 men.

Yeah.

And she can go on and on.

We could do hours of this.

That last one you said was Tentorian?

Stentorian.

Stentorian. Stentor in Homer was a guy with a really, really loud voice.

And so you get stentorian, the adjective, which describes a really strong voice.

Oh, wow. OK.

So you said that you were explaining etymology to people?

It’s really because of the show. I try to get people interested in the show.

And the easiest way for me to convey what it’s about is to give them a story behind a word to convey that, you know, words have history.

Have meaning beyond necessarily what we use them for.

Right.

Yes.

And so I just, that was always my go-to example

Because it was the one that got me originally interested.

So, Michael, I’m going to equip you with something that will help you

When you’re recruiting people to listen to the show.

Okay.

There’s a book called From Achilles’ Heel to Zeus’ Shield,

And it’s by Dale Corey Dibley, that’s D-I-B-B-L-E-Y,

Published in 1993.

You might find it on used bookstores or on one of the used bookstores online.

So from Achilles’ heel to Zeus’ shield, and it’s just filled with this, word histories from Greek and Roman myth.

That sounds amazing. That sounds right up to you, Holly.

Well, Michael, we’re really glad that you called, and thank you for evangelizing the show.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

All right, take care. Bye-bye.

Take care. Bye.

And if you’d like to share your language story, give us a call 877-929-9673 or spill the whole thing an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you? This is Byron calling from Norfolk, Virginia.

Well, welcome to the show, Byron. What can we do for you?

I was calling about the word gold brick.

I was watching a 1950s military police training video on YouTube, and they talk about the need to watch out for gold bricks when you’re on patrol.

And so I thought it was an interesting term.

So I looked it up, and it said someone that’s useless or has no value towards the team.

And I just thought it was kind of weird because when you think about it, a gold brick is very valuable, and I would want to keep it with me at all times.

But they seem to make it seem like it’s dead weight.

Byron, what are you doing watching 1950s military training videos on YouTube?

I just watch random stuff on YouTube, and it comes up on my suggestions.

Because I like a lot of stuff about World War II and Cold War and things like that.

Okay.

So pretty much once you watch one of those on YouTube, I bet your feed is just filled with nothing but videos like that, right?

Yes, I get a lot of them.

All right. That’s a fantastic place to run across terminology. Those videos where they just throw these terms out and they don’t even realize that they’re using a term that other people might know, that is something that a slang researcher like me loves because it’s an unironic, unconscious use. They’re not like winking at you when they use it. They’re just like it just blips right by, right?

Right. It’s like their normal vernacular.

Right. Okay. So in the context, a gold brick was something to avoid, something you didn’t want.

Right.

Okay, the story is super interesting.

I hope you love this, and we’ll connect with that video in just a second.

In the 1800s, there was this scam they would pull in the West during the mining days, during the gold rush, where people from the East would show up hearing about this gold rush.

And these scammers would paint lead or other metals gold and sell it to these idiot Easterners as gold bricks.

They would paint them gold-colored and sell them sometimes for thousands of dollars as if they were actually made of gold and get away with it.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so literally fake bricks of gold.

And this scam became widely known.

And so very quickly, to gold brick someone became a generic term for a swindle or a cheat.

And then by World War I, a gold brick as a noun referred to a malingerer, that is somebody who pretends to be sick and isn’t, or somebody who was sick and still kind of is in bed, still pretending to be sick, or loafers or shirkers or soldiers who tried to evade duty.

And this is where we start to intersect with your term.

And by World War II, a gold brick was somebody who, especially an officer, who was seen by soldiers as soft or poorly trained.

Somebody who was dead weight in the company.

Somebody who was just like, you had to do everything for them or they were to buy the book in particular.

Somebody who only could refer to the manual but had no practical experience.

And so I think that’s probably what they were talking about in your manual.

Somebody who just could not be relied upon when times were tough, when you were out there in the field and really needed to hunker down and deface the enemy head on.

Do you hear that word much anymore?

I kind of associate it with World War II or the 50s or something like that.

I’ve only heard it from people who kind of know goldbricking as fooling around on the job, where you’re just mucking about pretending to work but not actually doing anything at all.

And it’s gold brick as a noun rather than gold bricker?

I’ve seen both, but again, as a slang guy, I’m not a really good example of somebody you can check my knowledge of everyday usage because I spend too much time in the dictionaries.

Right.

What about you, Byron? Do you run across it anywhere else besides that YouTube video?

No, I have not heard gold brick other than that.

But now that it’s 2020, I’ve heard people are starting to try to bring back 1920s sling because we’re now in the roaring 20s again.

Sure, yeah.

Maybe it’ll start to make a resurgence that way.

Yeah, we’re looking forward to the drop waist skirts and all the dances, the Charleston we’re all going to do.

Yeah, the chaos between the wars. It’s time.

I’m going to do the elevator. That’s no steps.

Well, when you run across other weird terms in the weird YouTube videos you’re watching, give us a call, all right?

Yeah, let us know.

I will.

All right, take care.

All right, thanks, Byron.

All right, thank you.

Have a great day.

Call us, 877-929-9673.

This show’s about language examined through family, history, and culture.

Stick around.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

A while back, we had a conversation about what would you put on your tombstone?

You know, how do you distill your life into an epitaph?

Who am I, and how am I going to tell the world about myself?

Right.

And we had a lot of listeners call and write with what they were proposing for their own epitaphs.

We heard from Julie Phipps, who said, I’ve decided to put on mine.

I enjoyed it.

May I be excused?

And there’s a reason she did that.

She says, I grew up in Texas, and I always had to say it before I left a meal that my mother had prepared for us.

She’s from a very small town in Mississippi, and boy, manners were everything.

So whether it was broccoli or Brussels sprouts, whatever, I always had to say, I enjoyed it.

May I be excused?

So I always thought that would be a great epitaph.

Yeah, that could be good, right?

Yeah, I like that one.

And we also heard from Seth in New York, who said that he was unfortunately faced with the responsibility of coming up for epitaphs for his parents.

And he said that his dad, whether it was at a bar mitzvah or a wedding, he would always ask the band to play this one song.

And the one song was You Are the Sunshine of My Life by Stevie Wonder.

And Seth says, I used to cringe at it and think it was silly.

And then his parents ended up passing away 12 days apart.

So he had to come up with two gravestones.

And on his father’s side, the epitaph is You Are the Sunshine of My Life.

And on his mother’s side, it says, forever you’ll be in my heart.

How sweet is that?

That’s very nice.

And one more from Sam Rittenberg, who lives in New York City.

He says that his Uncle Jack took a trip to somewhere in the Southwest and brought back a snapshot of one of his favorite sets of tombstones, probably in the late 1940s.

He writes, it was of a husband and wife who had been laid to rest side by side.

On the wife’s stone was written, where are you, honey?

And on the husbands, I’m right here, darling.

Oh, that’s very nice.

Right?

I got choked up reading that.

Yeah, that’s very fantastic.

I have great news for you, Martha.

Yeah?

If you want to read a lot more about this, there is what looks like the entire run of The journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies at archive.org.

What?

There is such a thing?

This is an academic journal.

It’s called Markers.

Ooh.

Yes.

And it’s all available at no cost at archive.org, issue after issue, page after page, including pictures and articles and discussions of materials and methodologies and experts talking about their field.

And it is utterly fascinating. Utterly fascinating.

What’s the name of that journal again?

It’s called the Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies, and the journal is named Markers.

Where is that association located?

I don’t know. I don’t really know. But it goes back decades.

Decades of this journal. Oh, my goodness. It’s wonderful at archive.org. Just look for it.

There goes my weekend. You find out all kinds of things on this show, and you can find out the answers to your questions about language. So call us 877-929-9673, or email us at words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Becca. I’m calling you from a little piece of heaven, Wimberley, Texas.

I wanted to talk about an expression that my grandmother used to use.

The way that I heard it was essentially kind of listening in on my grandmother talking with her lady friends, like back in the mid-60s when I was around 11.

She would use an expression that sounded something like this.

Well, my foot.

My foot, like the thing at the end of your leg?

Yes. So the ladies would be talking about something, you know, telling about somebody else, usually talking about somebody else, perhaps.

And after kind of maybe a scandalous or surprising action that was being recounted, my grandmother would say something like, well, my foot.

I’ve never heard it or I hadn’t ever heard it since until just recently.

And so I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about this particular expression that absolutely never made any sense to me at all.

And what was the situation where you heard it recently?

Well, I’ve listened to you guys on podcasts.

And Grant was telling you, Martha, some kind of a story, and it ended up kind of outrageous.

And you said, well, my foot.

I did?

You did.

And, of course, it was a little dangerous because I was driving, and my jaw hit the ground.

So then I thought, okay, now I have to call you because you haven’t only heard it, but you actually said, well, my foot.

You know, that’s so funny because I don’t remember saying that at all.

And I don’t think of that, Becca, as a term that I use very often.

However, I will say that when I was a little kid, I heard my Aunt Maiso say that all the time.

The famous Aunt Maiso.

My famous Aunt Maiso from Western North Carolina.

If she was, you know, frustrated or disgusted or irritated with something, she would just say, foot.

Oh, wow.

Without the my there, that must have been just sort of a little shard embedded in my psyche or something.

Because I don’t remember saying that.

Yeah, but I can tell you that we’re not the only people who say that.

I mean, it’s an expression that’s been around, particularly in the South.

And Becca, your grandmother, was it just simply an insertion of excitement or was she refusing to believe what she was hearing?

How did you take it when your grandmother said it?

Well, it was usually something that you would say if something was a little scandalous.

Like my word, something like that?

It was more like, oh, my word.

I see.

Well, both foot and my foot used in that way is particularly common in the South and South Midlands of this country.

And we’re not really sure of the origin of it.

There are a couple of different hypotheses floating around.

One of which goes way back to the notion of a euphemism for Christ’s foot.

Oh.

I don’t know. Grant, do you have a strong feeling about either of those?

Well, one of the difficulties with this theory is that the God’s foot, Christ’s foot theory is that there’s several hundred.

It’s really old and there’s a several hundred year gap.

Whereas the my foot pops up at the same time as my elbow and my eye and these other bodily expressions, which are used for surprise or excitement or refusals to believe or, you know, where you’re kind of discounting what the other person is saying.

And then they all kind of pop up at once in American English.

And so they kind of seem of a piece.

Yeah, yeah.

That seems more logical.

Seems more likely.

Yeah.

And but they’re all kind of ways of avoiding saying my God, which are kind of swearing.

Right.

I can’t imagine Aunt Mazo even trying to, even thinking about that.

She would never say, my God, right?

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I’m thinking it was a more pedestrian, if you will, origin.

A pedestrian, no pun intended.

No pun intended.

Well, you got it.

Well, thanks for calling that to our attention.

We appreciate your calling.

Yes, ma’am.

Well, thank you.

All right.

Take care.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thanks.

877-929-9673.

This week I came across the expression Barker’s egg.

Do you know this term?

Barker’s egg?

Oh, this has got a flavor to it.

Does it?

This has a slangy flavor to it.

It does have a slangy flavor to it.

Barker’s egg.

This is saying it’s a dog-related thing.

That’s right.

Barker.

Yeah.

When I first saw it, I thought Barker’s egg, well, that must be from a specific bird.

You know, Barker is such and such, and the egg is a special egg.

But no, a Barker’s egg in Australia is, you know, when you’re taking your dog for a walk and you have that little plastic bag and you pick up the Barker’s egg off the ground.

Oh, I see.

It’s the doggy do that you pick up, right?

Yeah, a Barker’s egg.

The steamer.

I see.

Parker’s egg. That’s wonderful.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

This is Irv Cummings calling.

Hello, Irv. Welcome to the show.

Where are you calling us from, Irv?

Thank you. I’m calling from Putnam Station, New York.

Putnam Station, New York. Well, welcome to the show. How can we help?

I’d like to know the background and some information on the word Lowry.

It’s a word that my mother used to use, and she used it to describe a damp and cloudy day.

Can you give us an example of how she’d say it?

She would say, it looks Lowry out.

Oh, I see.

Or, this is a Lowry day.

I see. And how would you guess that she was spelling that?

My guess is L-O-W-R-Y, but I never saw it in writing, so I have no idea.

Well, that makes sense because what you would see in writing is L-O-W-E-R-I-N-G.

And that word is usually pronounced lowering.

I always pronounced it lowering whenever I saw it, which wasn’t that often.

It seems to be a word that isn’t that commonly used.

Poets seem to like it a lot.

If you’re talking about a Lowry day or a Lowry sky, they’re gloomy and dark and kind of foreboding.

Yes, exactly.

We don’t really know much about the etymology of this word.

It probably goes back to some kind of Germanic word that has to do with frowning or lying stealthily in wait or something like that.

But it’s usually spelled L-O-W-E-R-I-N-G.

Sometimes it’s spelled L-A-U-R-I-N-G, lowering.

And there is a verb, L-O-W-E-R, or L-O-U-R, to lower, which means to frown or to scowl, which you can talk about a person’s faces.

They’re lowering.

Lowering.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there’s a tiny bit of folklore around this from a book of New England folklore, A Lowry Day, A Lowry Bride.

And they’re talking about the wedding day.

So if a bride’s day is dark and gloomy, that means that she’s going to be dark and gloomy and it doesn’t bode well for the marriage.

Oh, my goodness.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

Our pleasure.

Call us again sometime.

I will.

All right.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

One of those real lovely, just lovely words that when you encounter it in fiction, you pause for a moment.

Right.

Because you just know that the person that used it is a literate type.

Yes.

They’ve run across it.

They’ve stashed it away and presented it to you at just the right moment in just the right way.

Yes.

The dark, lowering, foreboding sky.

It reminds me of the word gloaming.

Whenever I see the word gloaming, you know, in the gloaming.

Same kind of word.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Hi there.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jennifer from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.

Hey, Jennifer, what’s going on?

Well, there were two terms that I was curious about.

I am in recovery from substance abuse, and I’ve been in recovery for 29 years.

And I was listening to your show a couple weeks ago, and I’m not exactly sure what it was,

But something triggered me to remember these two terms, and I was just kind of curious to their origin.

Okay.

The first one, my ex-husband was significantly older than I was and was born and raised in California.

So he brought California terms and attitudes to the Midwest, which is where we were together.

And one of the things he would say is, now you got my nose open or don’t get my nose open.

And it was typically in relation to drugs, you know.

And I just thought that that was a very interesting term, kind of an interesting way of saying, now you made me want to do drugs or now you’ve now you’ve enticed me to decide that I want to do drugs.

Yeah, that one I know that’s a classic slang term going back to at least the 1950s. So he would say this when you would entice him or make him interested and want him to do what, like a rail of coke or something like that or smoke a joint?

Yes, yes. There was a lot of cocaine involved back then. So yeah, mostly cocaine. So maybe someone would come over and had it, but wasn’t going to share it. And my blue, the name of my ex-husband, would say, come on, man, you got my nose open.

Right.

Or, yeah, yeah. You got me wanting it.

Now, there’s a couple other related meanings. There’s a larger meaning of to have one’s nose open in slang. And generally, it’s to be excited or interested in something. And in another context, to have your nose open is to be sexually excited or to be romantically interested in someone. And so to have your nose open means to be in pursuit of a romantic partner.

Oh.

Yeah, I’ve heard that as nose wide open.

Nose wide open, yeah.

Or another one is to be angry at somebody. To have your nose open is to be intensely angry and ready for a fight.

Nostrils flaring.

Nostrils flaring, yeah. It kind of sounds like the jungle.

Yeah, but in all these contexts, all of them is you’re focused on a goal. You’re focused and interested on a thing and in pursuit of something.

Interesting.

Yeah.

What’s your other term?

The other term is Bonnaroo, and I have no idea how to spell it.

Bonnaroo.

He would use it like, I’ve got some Bonnaroo stuff, meaning it’s really good. And I know that there is a festival called the Bonnaroo Festival now.

Yeah, that’s right.

Of course, I thought immediately that there was probably drugs involved with that, but that may not be so.

It’s connected. It’s connected.

So let’s talk about the slang term Bonnaroo for a second here. They found it as far back as 1938 in a list of slang from San Quentin. They talk about Bonnaroo, and they talk about a Bonnaroo as a noun. And a Bonnaroo in 1938 in San Quentin was a really good job in prison. And in their case, they mentioned that having a job in the prison library was a Bonnaroo.

But the Bonnaroo festival, the music festival where you go to see live music, actually comes from the 1974 album Desertively Bonnaroo by Dr. John. Desertively is the word definitely positively combined. And Bonnaroo supposedly comes from the French words bon, meaning good, and rue, meaning street, meaning good street. And he claims it was street slang in New Orleans in the Ninth Award that meant the best on the streets. And so it referred to really good drugs.

I’ll be darned.

Yeah.

Isn’t that interesting how all of that’s connected?

It’s all connected.

Now, the problem is that that album came out in 1974. It’s possible that slang was on the streets of New Orleans at the time. We have it in California in 1938. The Bonnaroo might have been floating around. It might not even come from French, but that’s the story of that album from 1974.

That’s the myth of the word.

That’s what Dr. John believes it comes from.

Perhaps it’s the origin.

And I believe Dr. John spent some time in prison. Jazz has always had this underbelly association with the rougher side of life, hasn’t it? It’s never been completely clean on the up and up.

Well, Jennifer, speaking of clean, congratulations on 29 years.

Yeah, that’s amazing.

That’s really great.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

And sometimes things just pop up, like something about your show just got me thinking about those terms. And so I really appreciate you letting me talk about that and finding out more about those terms.

Our pleasure.

We appreciate your calling.

Yeah.

Call us again sometime if something else occurs to you, all right?

I will.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Is there strange slang in your past that you’d like to talk about? Give us a call 877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Thanks to senior producer Stefanie Levine, director Colin Tedeschi, editor Tim Felten, and production assistant Caitlin O’Connell. You can send us a message, subscribe to the podcast, get the newsletter, or catch up on hundreds of past episodes at waywordradio.org.

Our toll-free line is always open in the U.S. and Canada, 877-929-9673. Or send us 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.

We’re coming to you from the Recording Arts Center at Studio West in San Diego, California.

Thanks for listening. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. Until next time, goodbye.

Bye.

Thank you.