Hat-Catcher

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. And it’s time for Slang This, our weekly puzzle about slang.

Today’s contestant is Zach Giolongo from Providence, Rhode Island. Welcome, Zach.

Hi.

How are you doing?

Hello, Zach.

Good. How are you guys?

Doing fine.

Great. What do you do in Providence?

Well, I work at an independent school, actually, across the border in Massachusetts, where I run their after-school program.

And then my night job is I work in a lot of comic book industry stuff.

Oh, yeah.

Are you the guy who writes POW and Biff and Zap and that kind of thing or what?

Sort of.

I do a lot of lettering for Japanese comics.

So a lot of it turns into having to redo sound effects and things like that for North America.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, interesting.

That’s pretty cool. Do you have a slang word for us today?

Well, being originally from the Boston area, I’m always really interested in the word wicked, but not as an adjective, like, you know, that’s wicked or, you know, the wind is wicked.

But when you use it as, you know, you guys are wicked good at words.

-huh.

So it was an adverb.

Yeah.

That’s kind of the East Coast equivalent of California’s Hela.

Yeah, I think so.

It just seems so synonymous with the region to me.

Wicked good.

Yeah, those socks.

How about those socks?

Yeah, they did wicked good.

They did wicked good.

Or wicked well, I guess.

Well, Zach, we’re going to move on to your next challenge.

Grant’s going to present you a slang term,

And then he’s going to give you three possible examples of how it might be used in a sentence.

Now, Zach, only one of those is real, and the other two are just something that he made up.

So your task will be to choose which one really is the slang term.

You got it?

I got it.

Okay, Grant.

All right, here we go.

And if you need help, just ask Martha.

She’ll be standing by going, what?

I’ll be going, pow, biff, zap.

Hi-ya!

All right, here we go.

Zach, the first phrase is to go shucks.

That’s three words, T-O-G-O-S-H-U-C-K-S.

And the first clue is, she was all, let’s look at the paint ship book.

Eggshell this, burnt sienna that, blah, blah, blah.

If I hear one more word about wallpaper or paint, I’ll go shucks and end up in the loony bin.

All right.

Second clue.

Ooh, it’s a bit spendy, isn’t it?

But father will surely love it.

Maybe we can go shucks on it.

You pay half, I’ll pay half.

And then the third clue.

The factory had a rule that everybody had to go shucks,

Which was another way of saying they wore the company’s dark blue coveralls with no pockets.

That prevented them from stealing.

So those are your three clues, Zach.

Zach is to go shucks.

Does it mean to go crazy?

Does it mean to split the cost of something between two or more people?

Or does it mean to wear an outfit without pockets?

Oh, let’s see.

I was hoping there would be something, you know, like, oh, gee, shucks, something like that.

I’m inclined to say the one about wearing an outfit.

The third one.

I think that.

The third one, yes.

Because I’m thinking like shucking corn, some sort of an outer covering.

Like an employee shucks pencils or something from the supply bin.

Yeah.

It makes sense to me, Grant.

Unfortunately, it is actually the second one to go shucks.

No, yeah, it’s to go Dutch or to split the cost, to share the cost of something with somebody else.

And there’s a variant, which is to go shags.

And shags, apparently, in English dialect, means a share.

So to go shags, to go shares with somebody.

Let’s try another one.

We’ve got one more for you.

The next word is hat catcher.

That’s H-A-T hyphen C-A-T-C-H-E-R, hat catcher.

The first clue is,

The president always travels with a hat catcher in his entourage.

At the sound of gunfire, this fellow is supposed to hug the president’s head to protect it.

B, the church stopped holding dances because of the hat catchers.

We’d go out to the cloakroom for our things afterward, and everything would be gone.

Coats, boots, umbrellas, hats, you name it.

And then C.

When I was a kid, I was a real hat catcher.

I idolized the firemen.

I’d hang around the fire station helping to clean the trucks, wash the sidewalks, anything,

Because I thought they were the toughest, coolest people on earth.

So, Zach, is a hat catcher A, a secret service agent specifically employed to shield the president’s head,

B, a person who steals items left in a cloakroom or a coat check area,

Or is a hat catcher C, a fan of firemen?

I don’t think it’s A.

Which whenever I hear someone say that, it usually means that it’s A.

I’m going to go with B at an event or a party, right?

Someone who collects everything?

Well, it’s the person who steals the stuff from the cloak.

That’s the clue, anyway.

A person who steals items left in a cloakroom or coat check area.

Oh, I see.

Let me rethink this, then.

I’m going to say C.

That’s exactly right.

That is indeed what a hat catcher is.

Oh, wow.

I guess the idea is that if you can just think about this hallmark moment

And this little glowing commercial featuring Americana,

And the truck pulls in, and the little boy is standing there looking in awe at his idols,

And the fireman throws down his hat, something like that.

Right.

It’s nicely done, Zach.

I gave you some toughies today, but I think you bore up under the pressure very well.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Nicely done, Zach.

And hey, for playing the game today, we’re going to send you a copy of Grant’s book.

It’s called The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang.

Cool.

I’m excited.

All right.

Maybe you can illustrate it, you know, put little…

Hey, give me a call.

I can do that.

All right.

Pow, sap, bang.

Cool word.

All right.

Thanks, Zach.

Thank you.

And if you’d like to play our slang game on the air, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.