Hitch in its Getalong

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Judy Woodruff.

Hey, Judy, where are you calling from?

From Indianapolis, Indiana.

All right, what’s on your mind?

Well, I have two questions for you, but I just have to give like a little history, but I can keep it really short.

Oh, we love histories.

All right, well, we’ll see.

I’m from New York, and my husband is from the Midwest, and I love the Midwest, and my husband doesn’t.

I mean, he loves his job and his kid’s school and everything, but he’s not really very Midwestern-y, even though he’s from here.

So one day, my car wasn’t working.

And I don’t know anything about cars.

Like, I don’t know where a piston is or anything.

And so he was asking me to describe what was wrong with it.

And I thought of this phrase, and I remember thinking, man, this is a great phrase.

And I said, it has a catch, and it’s get-along.

And he’s usually a very even-tempered kind of guy, had a very bad reaction to that.

Oh, my.

But would you break out into a rash?

Well, he just said it was imprecise and vague and not helpful and just generally peeved.

You know when you look back when you’re with a maid and you look back, I’m like, remember when we did this five years ago, how dopey that was?

And laugh. Well, he still doesn’t laugh about it.

I’m sorry for laughing.

I was listening to your show before, and I thought, I need to know this.

Where did I get this from?

When did it come along?

And do you think it’s an evocative colloquialism, or do you think it’s imprecise and vague?

Judy, I think a catch in its get-along is a wonderfully evocative expression.

Thank you.

I mean, Judy, I’ve seen variations of this from time to time.

In fact, you may remember on election night 2004, Dan Rather, who is always good for a Texasism, he’ll say things like, his lead is as thin as turnip soup.

Dan Rather said, I remember this very clearly, CBS had predicted the wrong winner, and at one point he said, we had a slight hitch in our giddy-up, but we corrected that.

I mean, it’s the same idea.

And I suspect it’s sort of a cowboy kind of expression.

A hitch in your giddy-up.

I do know it goes back to the early 1900s.

You can find it in newspapers from the period.

So to go back to your original questions, let’s just shoot these off one by one.

Is it an established phrase?

Yes.

But the other thing you said was, is it too vague?

And on this point, I think I’m going to have to side with your husband.

I knew you were going to say that.

And it’s not a guy thing.

I know about as much as automobiles, I can barely tell a Ford apart from any other make.

You know what I’m saying?

I have a license, but I don’t drive it that often because I take the subway.

But the thing is, it’s a fun, evocative phrase, but I don’t know that if you’re in the middle of worrying about a multi-thousand-dollar piece of machinery, not performing properly, that it’s the right thing to say.

Yeah, you might not.

I mean, but that’s for the mechanic to figure out, you know?

Catching his get along.

Now that you put it in those terms, perhaps that was his…

I still don’t know why he’s still peeved about it, but it was like this is a serious thing, and you’re using something cute to describe it.

Yeah.

Yeah, you should be using something of more gravity, whatever.

The engine is misfiring?

I like catching your get along.

That’s true, too.

If you’d have said something overly formal, that would have sounded probably wrong.

I suspect that maybe you couldn’t win at that situation.

Probably silence would have been the best answer, because maybe anything you would have said, he’d have had a reason, it’d bugged him, because he was probably just more ticked off that the car wasn’t working.

Overall, I think you were fine with the phrase.

The words that come out of your mouth are your choice, not his.

Okay.

Well, Judy, do you feel better?

I feel so much better, and I feel like we put this thing to rest.

Oh, that’s great.

Well, it was fantastic to hear from you, and thanks for giving us a ring.

Thanks. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Grant, you know, it reminds me of what my dad used to say when he was tired.

He used to say, my get-up-and-go just got up and went.

I’ve heard that one before.

Have you? I love that one.

Yes.

I like get-along, though, as a way of talking about your ability to ambulate.

Yeah.

Well, get-along over to your phone and give us a call.

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