Honkus Bonkus (episode #1649)

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.

What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive?

And what if that dictionary also had feelings?

And that dictionary felt sad because, unlike all the other books on the shelf, she didn’t have a story to tell.

She just had lots of words that were arranged in alphabetical order.

Well, that’s the idea behind a new children’s book called The Dictionary Story.

It’s by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston.

And this is a book that’s lavishly illustrated, and the story is a little bit hard to explain, but I’ll try.

One day, a hungry alligator gets loose from the A section of the dictionary, and he goes chasing after a donut over in the D’s.

And the donut rolls away, and the chase continues through the dictionary.

And the alligator and the donut run into a ghost and a puddle and a few other things.

And then over in the T section, everything goes topsy-turvy when they run into a tornado.

So how does all this get back in order?

Well, that’s what the alphabet’s for.

So this is an imaginative book.

And if you’re an adult and you’re looking at it long enough, you’ll find a lot of other surprises for you as well.

So that book is The Dictionary Story by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston.

We’ll link to that book from our website.

And a little later in the program, we’ll talk about some more books we’ve been reading.

If you’ve got a book that you love that you’d like to recommend to us, 877-929-9673, or tell us about it in email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, this is Emily calling from East Tennessee.

Okay, well, what’s up?

Yeah, I was just calling to ask about a phrase that I heard my father saying a lot when I was growing up.

He’s from West Tennessee, and he would often say, like, if I did something smart or somebody did something kind of intelligently, he would say that they’ve got melon.

And I was wondering if you guys had any information about that, like where it might come from or other places that might use it.

Got melon.

You got any guesses?

Well, I know that sometimes people use melon to refer to, like, your noggin.

Mm—

But that’s really all I know.

I think that’s it.

I think you nailed it, Emily.

So it’s just about having brains because melon is used to mean head and head contains your brains.

Just like you’d say someone has a good head on their shoulders, you can say they have a good melon.

And we do have a tradition of English of using food words to refer to the brain.

So calabash, which is a kind of gourd or grape used in the military, or filbert, another name for the hazelnut.

And all of these just are about comparisons one way or another from the food item to your head.

And not itself.

And it’s a really common comparison.

It pops up again and again in languages to call your head a melon.

In Hawaiian, in the Hawaiian language, it goes the other direction.

There’s a kind of watermelon that is called ipa’o ka naka, which basically means human head gourd.

Because it has smooth skin on the outside and red pulp inside.

So it’s kind of like a head.

That’s really interesting.

I should tell you before we go, though, one of my favorite bits of slang for the human head comes from the U.S. Marines, where in order to kind of mock the military’s use of unnecessary jargon for everything, they call your head the brain housing group.

They just make it super ridiculously jargony.

Use your brain housing group, Emily.

I might start using that phrase.

That’s really great.

Yeah, your instincts were good.

You’re rock solid there.

Thank you for calling.

All right.

You guys have a good day.

Bye-bye.

You too.

Take care.

Well, I know our listeners have melon too, and they’re more than welcome to use that melon to call us, 877-929-9673, toll free in the United States and Canada, or talk to us on social media or through our website at waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Chad from Hilliard, Florida.

Oh, what can we do for you, Chad?

I’ve always grown up hearing adults around me saying, oh, that’s oldest Methuselah.

And I’m like, where is that from and how old is Methuselah?

Oldest Methuselah, so what, you’re talking about someone’s great-grandma or an old idea?

What are we talking about?

If they see somebody that is very old and they’re walking, they’d be like, oh, that person is old as Methuselah.

Yeah.

Who was a Methuselah?

And why are we talking crap about him, right?

Right.

I’m trying to figure out who is this person?

Is it a man?

Is it a woman?

Where did it come from?

I mean, I’m 47 years old, and I’ve been hearing that saying my entire life.

Well, Chad, there is an answer to that, and I think Grant’s going to let me give it, because I’m a preacher’s kid, and Methuselah was a figure in the Bible.

I kind of figured that much.

Did you?

Yeah, yeah.

He’s a figure in Jewish and Islamic and Christian tradition, and according to the biblical book of Genesis, Methuselah was a really old guy.

If you read Genesis, it says that he lived for, get this, 969 years.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, pretty old, right?

Wow.

It was all the Pilates.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so Methuselah, he was the grandfather of Noah.

And when he was supposedly when he was 187 years old, he fathered a guy named Lamech and lived another 782 years after that.

Now, you may be wondering, did he really live that long?

What’s the deal here?

And nobody really knows.

Some people think it might be a matter of mistranslation or other people think, well, you know, it’s just kind of metaphorical or they measured time differently in that particular time.

So nobody really knows for sure.

But what we do know for sure is that if you say somebody’s old as Methuselah, like you said, Chad, they’re really, really old.

Old as the hills, older than dirt, oldest time, as we say.

Why don’t let’s spell that just for people who might not know the name.

Yeah, I was going to say it’s M-E-T-H-U-S-E-L-A-H.

Right.

Methuselah.

Chad, thank you so much for your question.

Call us again sometime.

All right.

All right.

And thank you.

And I love the show.

Thank you.

Oh, wonderful.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

You too.

Well, we don’t want to sit around waiting as long as Methuselah to hear from you.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Aubrey Hornack.

I actually live in Waco, Texas, but grew up in Southern Illinois.

Okay, well, we’re glad to have you, Aubrey.

What’s up?

Yeah, so I have an interesting phrase that I’ve actually continued using, but my mom used it when we were kids.

Whenever she was very protective, didn’t want us to touch everything out in public to get germs, to get sick.

And so she would tell us that, you know, not to touch that or we’ll get honkus of the bonkus.

Honkus of the bonkus?

Yes.

And what is that?

Did you get it?

So, well, after hearing that, I wasn’t going to touch anything.

That sounded terrifying.

It does.

What did she say about it?

Did she give you any more information about that condition, honkus of the bonkus?

It just means like you get just some horrible disease or some sickness, some unknown sickness or whatever.

I was curious because I was like, well, where did you hear it?

And her mom also used it.

Now, my mom was born in 1948 and her mom was born in 1920.

So it’s been around for a long time.

Yeah, it absolutely has.

We have some history for you if you want it.

Oh, yes.

Strangely, it appears in a series of Popeye comic strips in 1933.

And this looks like where it came from.

But there it was called Bonkus of the Concus instead of Honkus of the Bonkus.

And in this series of strips through like August and September of 1933, Popeye has this whole back and forth because he’s trying to take care of a sweet pea, the little baby.

And somebody’s trying to take sweet pea from him.

And they hit him on the head with a baseball bat.

And then he’s diagnosed by the doctor as having bonkers of the conchus.

And Olive Oil is, of course, really upset.

And she goes to the doctor and she says, doctor, what is this bonkers of the conchus? Is it serious?

And he’s like, I have records of 1,000 cases and every one of them died. There is no hope for him.

So, you know, if you’re a big fan of Popeye, you’re really worried until the next strip came out so you could see if Popeye would live.

But it probably comes from the words bonk and conk, which, of course, both mean to hit.

But also conk has this meaning of head, your noggin, to the 1830s or so.

But you’ll find a lot of variations of this.

Honkus of the bonkus. Honkus on the bonkus. Bonkus of the conkus. Bonkus in the conkus.

Concus, boncus, honcus, boncus, boncus, concus, honcus, concus of the boncus.

That’s my favorite because it’s all of them.

Honcus, concus of the boncus.

And they all are this made-up placeholder disease.

And we have a few of these in English where we just kind of, like when you talk about having the crud, for a lot of people that’s not a specific thing.

It just means you kind of feel bad.

You know, blah, the blahs.

Okay.

But I bet that was terrifying when you were a little kid.

Oh, my goodness.

That’s serious, right?

And that other thing is that U.S. ending of both of those words, that us sound, kind of is vaguely fake Latin.

So that kind of makes it sound a little more official.

Interesting.

Like I said, I had searched. I found it in the Urban Dictionary.

But again, there was no etymology.

But I also was thinking, you know, it sounded similar to hocus pocus.

Oh, yeah.

I could see that being an influence.

Yeah.

I wasn’t sure if it was related to that at all.

It is.

And that U.S. ending, again, hocus pocus, sounds kind of mystical and serious because it reminds us of Latin words that end in U.S.

So it’s exactly the same thing that’s happening there as with hocus of the bonkus.

And Aubrey, before we go, I just want to say, do not touch whatever it is your mother said not to touch because you do not want to get hocus concus of the bonkus.

I don’t know what it was.

Maybe it was like the radiator, but yeah, do not do that.

And if you have any symptoms, call your doctor.

Yes, I will definitely.

And, you know, my son knows not to touch anything for Honkus of the Bonkus, too.

There you go.

One more generation.

Pass that on.

Keep it going.

Take care of yourself, and thanks for calling.

All right.

You, too.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

The Popeye comic strips are very entertaining.

They hadn’t been in the paper that long, like since 1929, so it was only four years later.

They used to be called Thimble Theater.

And then after Popeye became one of the most famous characters in that Thimble Theater comic, he got his own.

And it started to be called Thimble Theater Starring Popeye.

But there is one particular panel which I love, which is after Popeye is being diagnosed with bonkers of the conkers, Olive Oil has fainted, and she’s on the floor, and she’s like, bonkers of the conkers!

Oh, no, no, not that!

So you know it’s serious. She’s got those little tears irradiating from her face like they do in comic strips. I forget what they call them, pudes or something. I don’t know.

Yeah, I think it’s pludes.

That’s it, yeah.

Yeah, I loved the Popeye cartoons on TV as a kid. I developed a taste for spinach very early because of Popeye.

That explains your big guns, Martha.

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 striding up to the microphone with his astronaut helmet in his hand about to tell us something is our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Can you, I guess I should, I should take this off, should I?

Yeah.

Listen, guys, it’s great to be back.

I have for you a quiz we’ve done before.

This is called Common Bonds.

I give you three things.

You tell me what they have in common.

Now, there’s lots of names for these.

When they were in a board game format, they were called Tribond, and people still call it that.

If you’re a fan of the UK game show Only Connect, it’s like the connecting wall.

And when I host Pub Trivia, though, I call it Common Bonds.

For example, if I said a report card, USDA inspected beef, and incline, you would say grades.

The report card has grades.

USD inspected beef, grades, and an incline has a grade.

Got it?

Mm—

Good.

All right.

Let’s do the first.

Road, horror, Balboa.

Rocky.

Rocky Road, Rocky Horror, Rocky Balboa.

Yes.

Very good.

Right out of the gate.

Well done.

This one’s a little similar.

Wild, cold, Tom.

Tom turkey.

Yeah.

Wild turkey, cold turkey.

Yes, very good.

Lightning bolt has hit you.

Very good.

Well done.

You notice sometimes they’ll be like, this can follow a word or this can precede a word.

Those are pretty common.

How about this one?

Row, rattle, valley.

R-O-W?

Right.

Death.

Death row?

It is.

Death Rattle, Death Valley.

Oh.

Death Row, Death Rattle, Death Valley.

It’s the feel-good question of the night.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Again, this is phrase-related.

Roof, ruckus, rent.

Raise the.

Yes.

Things you can raise.

All right.

This is more trivia-based.

Alfredo D’Alelio, Cesar Cardini, Ruben Kulikovsky.

Are these all magicians?

No, they’re names of.

Not magicians.

That’s a great guess.

But they’re associated with food.

Fettuccine Alfredo, Caesar salad, and what was the last one?

Reuben Kulikovsky.

Oh, the Reuben sandwich?

The Reuben sandwich.

They all have dishes named for them.

Yes, very good.

Let’s do this one.

A trombone, a playground, a microscope.

Slide.

Yes, they all have slides.

Oh, nice, Martha.

Nailed it.

Very good.

On a roll now.

Chromium, Damascus, stainless.

Steel.

Types of steel, yes, very good, or blank steel.

Okay, down to the wire now.

Arcade, lane, dreadful.

Penny.

Yeah, penny arcade, penny lane, penny dreadful.

Okay.

John, those are some toughies, but I always like the toughies.

Good, good.

Thank you, and we’ll see you next week, bro.

I’ll talk to you then.

Thank you, guys.

John, thank you so much for those push-ups for our brains, and we’d love for you to give us a workout as well.

Also, call us with any question whatsoever about language, word origins, grammar, slang, you name it.

877-929-9673 or send them to us an email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Per. This is Walt, and I’m calling from my high school classroom in downtown Los Angeles.

Whoa, fantastic. Well, Walt, what do you teach in high school?

I’m a theater teacher.

Theater. Theater kids. Our people.

I guess they’re all our people. What’s on your mind, Walt?

Well, if you can, I’d like you to settle a heated dispute I am having with my brother and sister.

The three of us were at a family reunion not long ago, and the conversation turned to reminiscing about our sweet mother who died in 2005. She’d be 101 today if she were alive.

We’re catching up on our year and whatever. And I told them that last year I directed an original work that I wrote based on a Mark Twain novella. And I was telling my brother and sister how I had used a lot of mom’s charming old timey sayings in the course of writing it to add to that homespun feel similar to Mark Twain’s prose.

In describing the whole lot of mom’s sayings, I used the expression old eddered sayings. And I was sure they heard our mom call all of her quirky phrases that and they razzed me that I was just making that up and being dramatic.

And I thought maybe they were gaslighting me because I’d heard her say it several times, but they insisted I must have gotten it wrong. So I guess my question is, have you ever heard that expression used to describe these, you know, old times.

He had a hundred of them, old timey sayings.

Walt, do people accuse you as a theater director of being dramatic a lot?

It’s the bane of my existence, yes.

Well, we’re happy to tell you that you are in the right.

Oh, I feel seen.

Yes, you win, Walt.

Any idea how she spelled Eddard or Eddards?

Well, no, but I, being, you know, a language teacher, I thought it must be the past participle of some verb to Edder, E-D-D-E-R.

Sure, I mean, it makes sense.

Yeah, I, you know, and, or maybe it was old Getters things, but that didn’t make sense, you know.

So, no, I have no idea because I looked it up and tried to do my due diligence before I called you.

Well, we can tell you that actually what it is is Old Edwards.

Oh, okay.

That’s something I had but not thought of.

Yeah, I like the past participle idea, but it’s Old Edwards.

And this refers to an old-time radio show.

Maybe she listened to it because it aired during the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s.

And this old-time radio show was called Lum and Abner.

Oh, I’ve heard of that.

Okay.

All right.

Well, this show featured two main characters, a guy named Lum Edwards and his sidekick, Abner Peabody.

And these characters, Lum Edwards and Abner Peabody, were two storekeepers who were in the fictional town of Pine Ridge, Arkansas, there in the Ouachita Mountains.

And they played these guys who were seemingly unsophisticated, uneducated, but usually got the best of the city slickers who came in.

Exactly like you described it as kind of corny, homespun humor.

And this character of Lum Edwards had a lot of clever sayings.

One of my favorites is, societies like pie.

The upper crust doesn’t count for much unless there’s something mighty good below it.

Yeah.

Well, they weren’t really adages like that.

She’d just say it.

So maybe she was just attributing, you know, old Eddard sayings to just anything she said.

I don’t know.

Yeah.

Makes a little bit of sense because her father was from Arkansas.

Oh, perfect. Perfect.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Here’s another old editor saying, we’ve always figured that if a feller would choose his friends the way he chooses his britches, there would be fewer rips in friendship and no patches on the seat of his wisdom.

Wow.

I don’t know how useful that is.

A way with words, a patch on the seat of your wisdom.

The one that keeps coming to my mind all the time and I put in my conversation and I don’t even realize I said it until somebody looks at me oddly is if somebody’s complaining about something, but it’s not that bad.

My mom would say, well, that’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

And we used to look at her like everything’s worse, not as bad as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

You know, and she had a whole bunch of those.

So, yeah, that sounds exactly right and awesome.

I’m happy to hear that there is a real term.

Yeah, you’re happy to hear you’re right.

You win the debate.

You win.

It’s time to call them up and go, na-nya, na-nya-nya.

Oh, there is going to be a strongly worded text.

Strongly worded.

Whoa.

I think you’ve got to go for the voice note with a lot of drama in it.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

That sounds good.

Walt, thank you so much for sharing your memories of your mother.

And thanks for doing the hard work with the kids and teaching them about the world.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

What a pleasure to talk to you.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Take care, Walt.

Well, I’m a pickin’ and she’s a grinnin’.

And you can give us a call at 877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.

Welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi.

My name is Porter O’Neill.

I’m in Madison, Wisconsin.

Hey, Porter.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Well, I work as a receptionist at a company that proctors professional examinations.

And sometimes a candidate will fail and have to come and try again.

And when that happens, as I’m explaining the check-in rules, they say, oh, this isn’t my first rodeo.

And eight years ago, when I started this job, I never heard that.

But in the last couple of years, it’s become very often.

And so when they say this isn’t my first rodeo, they’re saying, I’ve done this before.

Yes, they’ve heard it.

They don’t need me to tell them again.

Okay.

Yeah, it’s interesting twists and turns in this expression.

I don’t think it’s any more common than it was eight years ago.

Perhaps you’re just noticing it more.

The first use that I know of in popular media was found by the language researcher Barry Poppock.

And it’s in the film Mommy Dearest from 1981, the Joan Crawford biopic, where she says, I’m going to modify the curse word on this.

She says, don’t F with me, fellas.

This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.

And then in 1990, there was a country song by Vern Gosden called This Ain’t My First Rodeo.

And it’s got lines like, this ain’t my first rodeo.

This ain’t the first time this old cowboy’s been thrown.

This ain’t the first I’ve seen this dog and pony show.

This ain’t my first rodeo.

So the idea is there, even then, you know, 40 years ago, 40 plus years ago, that it’s about, you know, I’ve been here before.

I know how this works.

There’s no surprises for me.

But there’s an older version of it, which goes back to the 1940s.

And it’s still about being experienced.

And there are long versions of it and short versions of it.

But a lot of them go something like, I’ve been to three state fairs and a goat rodeo, and I’ve never seen anything like this.

And sometimes goat rodeo is a goat roping or a goat race.

This goes back to the 1940s.

Sometimes they’ll say pumpkin pickings or I don’t even know.

They have a lot of frog race.

I’ve been to two state fairs, a goat roping and a frog race.

And, of course, there are vulgar versions, but you can find those on your own.

So that’s what we know about it, Porter.

Again, I don’t think it’s any more common than it was, but certainly there’s a long history of people talking about their experience compared to going to a rodeo.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

It’s our pleasure.

Thanks for calling.

Take care.

Okay, bye-bye.

We talk about all kinds of slang expressions on the show.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Sue Burns from Iowa.

Hey, Sue, welcome to the show.

What’s on your mind?

Well, I have been reading and researching my great-great-grandmother’s diary, which she started in 1888 and continued until she died in 1922.

And I have noticed that she did not use contractions.

And I was kind of wondering if you could maybe shed some light on why that might be.

I mean, I know contractions were used because I’ve also been reading court transcripts from that same time period, and they’re full of contractions.

So I know people use it speaking.

I don’t know if she didn’t use contractions in her diary because it was written and she thought it was too informal for written communications or what was going on.

That’s a really good question, Sue.

Did you have the impression that she knew she was writing for history, for legacy?

Like, does she have a self-consciousness in what she’s writing?

There was and there wasn’t.

At the very beginning of the diary, she would talk about, you know, I can talk to my diary like a friend, and it was much more of a, you know, sort of a confidant kind of thing and very personal.

Later in her diary, she had written about reading another book that was also in the form of a diary, and she wrote something about whoever may read these words after the hand that has penned them has ceased its labors kind of thing.

So she did at some point think that maybe somebody in the future would be reading it, but that wasn’t really carried out throughout the entire diary.

What was her life like?

Was she an educated woman working, say, in academia or something like that?

No, she was born in 1842, and her family moved to Iowa when she was 11.

And her older sister taught school near her house for other people in the community.

So I assume she went to her sister’s school.

She read a lot.

She wrote about all of subscriptions to magazines and newspapers, and she wrote a lot about what she was reading.

So I know she read a lot, but I don’t know if she actually had education past eighth grade or high school.

The reason that we ask these questions, Sue, is that there has been off and on over the history of English certain self-appointed experts who have suggested or demanded that other people not use contractions, both in written and spoken language.

Now, this is a problem because contractions have existed in English, in Old English, in Elizabethan English.

And they kind of fell out of favor in the 18th century when these experts kind of really came into their own.

When literacy started to become more widespread and people were looking to reference books and experts in order to improve themselves.

And so this is part of that whole package that took place in English where we get all these non-rules that stick around, these ghost rules that aren’t really rules.

And where we get things like trying to regularize spelling and, you know, large, broad proscriptions against certain written or spoken behavior because the person writing is of one dialect and they’re criticizing the dialect of all these other people.

And so this proscription against contractions kind of falls right in there.

Now, as you can hear, it’s kind of an up and down thing.

Like you get authorities like Henry Fowler, who said that they were fine for natural conversational writing.

And a lot of experts, again, experts is in quotes there because usually they’re self-appointed.

You know, they just kind of took it upon themselves to be the boss of language.

A lot of experts say, oh, it’s fine, only in formal writing.

But then we have this problem of terms.

What is formal writing?

Is it all schoolwork?

Is it only when you’re talking to somebody of a higher class than you or somebody that you want something from, like a judge or an employer?

So it’s kind of complicated.

But I think for me, the best advice comes from this magazine called Correct English by Josephine Turok Baker.

And the very first issue in 1899, she writes about people who, as she puts it, endeavor to eschew contractions altogether.

But she says there’s no good reason why you shouldn’t use contractions if you use the proper ones.

So by that, she means avoiding ain’t.

And she writes, to refrain from using contractions has the tendency to lend a pedantic air to one’s speech.

In dignified utterances, before large assemblies, one has less license.

But in conversational utterances, contractions are permissible.

So I think probably your great-great-grandmother was under sway of somebody who thought that contractions were too informal.

And she was trying to present herself in this legacy situation where she knew that she would be read in the future.

As an educated woman, as somebody who knew how to conduct herself properly on a page.

Well, Sue, what a rich and wonderful experience you’re having.

I would be reading that aloud just to give voice to those words.

Do you ever do that?

Oh, yeah.

Well, I wrote a book based on her diary where, you know, I did all this research into, you know, what she was talking about, what was going on in the world at the time, and all that kind of thing.

And I do have, I give presentations about it, and I do read from her diary in those presentations.

Well, I’d love to read your book.

Yeah, me too, Sue.

Thank you so much for calling us and sharing your memories and your family history with us.

All right.

Thank you for taking your time.

I appreciate it.

Take care of yourself.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye.

Send your questions about language to words@waywordradio.org.

There’s more Aware with Words to come.

Stay tuned.

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.

Earlier in the show, I recommended a kid’s book called The Dictionary Story.

And Grant, I’m wondering, what have you been reading lately?

Well, it’s a wonderful book by the writer Mariel Young-Kuhns. That’s J-U-N-G-K-U-N-Z. And it’s called Dreams of Green, a Three Kings Day story. And this is about a young Puerto Rican girl who moves from the lovely island to snowy Ohio.

And when Three Kings Day comes around, which is about 11 days after Christmas, she misses a lot of the Dia de los Reyes celebrations that she knew back home, the parrandas, which are a kind of Christmas carol, and food.

And she has to reconcile these two different parts of herself, these two different traditions being Puerto Rican and yet in a part of the world where they don’t know her holiday.

And it’s a lovely book. You can actually buy it in both English and Spanish.

The Spanish is El Verde de Mis Sueños.

And it’s about Puerto Rican culture and trying to fit in.

And it’s targeted at young readers.

And it adds another way to celebrate the holidays.

It’s a piece of Puerto Rico.

And it feels very warm and welcoming.

But for an older audience, maybe teens and higher,

I just finished the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear.

And this is an 18 novel series that follows a young woman from the age of 13, right before World War I,

Through her becoming a battlefield nurse, a woman of means, and above all, a private investigator and psychologist until after the end of World War II.

The character Maisie starts her journey as a young working-class woman who enters service as a maid in a wealthy London household.

There, she is discovered late at night reading in her employer’s library and trying to teach herself Latin.

But instead of getting in trouble and being fired for breaching this protocol, her employers arranged for her to be tutored by a family friend and psychologist who was also a bit of a detective.

And through her studies with him, she learned traditional academics and the observational and psychological skills that laid foundation for her to be a great investigator.

So this book series is set against the backdrop of two world wars and the Spanish Civil War.

It has a lot of societal and psychological conflict, but also it’s very personal.

It’s about her growth as an individual and about the setbacks and advances that we all have.

And I really loved this series and just tore it through all 18 books.

And so this is The Maisie Dobbs, that’s M-A-I-S-I-E, Dobbs, D-O-B-B-S, series by Jacqueline Winspear, W-I-N-S-P-E-A-R.

And the book I mentioned earlier is Dreams of Green, A Three Kings Day Story.

It’s by the writer Mariel Young-Kunz, that’s J-U-N-G-K-U-N-Z.

And you can also find it in Spanish as El Verde de Mis Sueños.

We’ll link to both of those on our website at waywordradio.org.

Grant, both of those sound wonderful.

I’m adding them to my reading list right now.

Absolutely.

And Martha and I love it when you send us recommendations for your books.

What have you been reading?

What do you think that we should add to our shelves?

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

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Rowan.

I’m calling from Ottawa, Ontario.

Hey, Rowan, we’re glad to have you. What’s on your mind?

Yeah, so there’s a word that my family uses, nausiki, that I was wondering if you could help me track down the origin.

What’s the word?

It’s nausiki, so I’d spell that N-O-W-T-H-C-I if I were to give it a try.

Nausiki?

Yeah.

And in what context would they use it?

Yeah, so we might say if we’re feeling a little bit restlessly unhappy, uninspired,

Moving from one thing to another and not able to sit down and actually get going on something.

And my mom uses it, and her mother is Irish, so I was wondering if that’s maybe the origin of it.

Irish? Irish or Irish heritage?

Irish, yeah. My maternal grandmother is Irish from there.

Gotcha. So you learned it from your mother who learned it from her mother.

Yeah, exactly.

And so it’s when you’re not quite sure what to do. Is that what I’m hearing?

Yeah, you’re feeling, you know, like just sort of restless.

Restless, gotcha.

Yeah, nothing’s really working for you today.

I clarified the Irish point because I think that’s our source here, and I think you knew that already.

But I think I found the word.

I think I know the actual word, the Irish word for it.

It’s fantastic.

I’m really excited as well.

Let me tell you how it’s spelled,

And then I’ll give you an approximation of the pronunciation.

It’s N-E-A-M-H-C-H-I-N-N-T-E.

And the Irish Gaelic pronunciation is something like nauchinta,

Or nauchinta, or nauchinta.

So that middle sound is either an aspirated H or an H,

Or a th or an sh something like that depending on the dialect of the speaker.

And what it means is uncertain or indeterminate and the plural form of it is even closer to the

Word you said the plural form is now hinty something like that okay yeah i mean that.

Definitely sounds like it, yeah, yeah. And so you might say that somebody is unsure or not fixed or indeterminate or something is indeterminate. And it combines these two Irish words. The first part, the N-E-A-M-H is a prefix that means non or un, just like we have in English. And the C-I-N-N-T-E comes from a word meaning certain or sure. So it’s just, you know, a prefix and a root word there combined in kind of the same way that we would do it in English.

Okay. Okay. Well, really good to know. I tried looking it up before and of course I didn’t, I don’t know much about Irish orthography, so I figured that maybe I was spelling it very wrong.

Well, there you go.

Just to summarize, Rowan, it’s the plural adjective, nauchenty, or nauchenty, and means uncertain or unsure.

Okay, well, thank you so much.

I’m really happy to have that mystery solved.

Our pleasure.

We’re happy to have you.

Let me give you that spelling one more time. N-E-A-M-H-C-H-I-N-N-T-E. Now you can look that up, okay? And you’ll find it in Irish dictionaries for sure.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

Grant, you remember that conversation we had not long ago about what you call that little device that you use to change the channels on your television?

You’re sure, remote control or clicker or zapper or doometh flatchy.

Right, right.

And we talked about how early versions of that device actually made a clicking sound. And that prompted an email from Charles Sanders in Miami who said, our dogs would shake in front of the TV. The rattle of their collars would change the channel or volume. And it’s true. I looked into this and the early remote controls produced an audible tone that activated the TV channel. And you can go on Reddit and see all these people talking about all these different sounds that would change the channel on their TV. You know, like shaking your car keys or a kid playing with a slinky or turning on your vacuum cleaner. But in the case of Charles Sanders, his dogs Lupe and Bubba would shake their collars and it would change the channel.

Yeah, they want to watch Paw Patrol.

Right.

What channel is Rin Tin Tin on?

We’re going to watch the Lassie Marathon.

Come on, people.

I wouldn’t mind a clap and beep TV.

You don’t have to shake your keys to reach us. You just have to press the buttons on your phone, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Catherine Hathaway calling from Tallahassee, Florida.

Hi, Catherine in Tallahassee. How are you?

I’m fabulous, and thank you so much for letting me ask my question on your show.

Oh, please, yes. Fire away.

Okay. When my 99-year-old mother says she’s not feeling very well, she’ll say, I just don’t feel so scrum-bunctious. I said, Mother, where did that word come from? She says, I don’t know. My mother said it. So we’re going back into the way early 1900s that people in my family have said, they don’t feel scrumptious. So tell us what that word means to you and then spell it in the best way you know how.

What it means is I’m not feeling well. I’m not feeling terrific. It’s not, I feel horrible. I’m going to die. It’s just, I’m not feeling so well. And I would spell it S-C-R-U-M-B-U-N-C-T-I-O-U-S.

Yeah, you won the spelling bee. That’s how it’s spelled.

Martha, are you feeling scrumptious?

Well, I am, and it sounds like Catherine is as well.

I am very scrumptious.

Well, you are indeed, yes.

This word has been used since at least the 1890s to mean energetic or high-spirited or rowdy or, you know, just in really, really good shape. And yes, as Grant said, you use the most common spelling. I don’t think of it as that common a word, but we see over time it’s been used to describe like a scrambunctious party or a scrambunctious parade or a person or an athletic performance. So it’s this wonderful, playful, invented word that probably combines scrumptious, meaning delicious or delightful, and probably rambunctious, meaning lively, rowdy or spirited, maybe rambustious. So it’s just a fun word. And I love the way that she used it to mean, you know, she’s not in terrible shape, but she’s definitely not in great shape either.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

I will tell mom. She’ll be real tickled to know.

Oh, I hope she’ll feel scrambunctious.

Me too.

Me too.

We’re having her 99th birthday party and all the family is coming.

That sounds fantastic.

Well, give her our best. And thank you so much, Catherine, for calling us.

Have a wonderful day.

Take care.

Thanks, Catherine.

Bye-bye.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

We often talk on the show about childhood misunderstandings, and that prompted an email from Chris Montalto, who lives in Santa Rosa, California. Chris writes, I remember hearing the word vehicle, but not quite getting the meaning right. I thought it simply meant things. So the next morning, I told my family that I had laid out all the vehicles I was planning on wearing that day after I changed out of my pajamas. A matchbox car is dangling all over. And she adds, I was chagrined by their laughter when they explained my mistake, but I remember the thrill of saying a word I’d never spoken before and feeling oh so grown up.

That’s awesome. I know that feeling. We’ll take your sweet stories about your language memories. words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. This is Melissa from New York.

Hey, Melissa from New York. What’s up?

Well, I had a question. My dad used to say a phrase when something didn’t go his way or like he stubbed a toe or something. He needed a certain number of the roll of the dice and wouldn’t get it. And he’d say, your mother wears combat boots. And I was thinking, like, where did that come from? Did he make it up or have you guys heard that before?

Your mother wears combat boots.

And he would say this to people or just to situations?

Just to himself, like, you know, I should have done better than I just did that, you know.

Yeah, that’s a pretty tame insult, given the things he could say.

That’s true.

A mild bit of swearing there, not really swearing.

Yeah, your mother wears combat boots. Sometimes people say your mother wears army boots or army shoes. Goes back to the 1940s, really became popular around the end of the Second World War. But it’s descended from this tradition of yo mama jokes. You remember those? So you have this Black American tradition of playing the dozens, as it was called, or also called sounding or capping or snapping. And yeah, so it’s just kind of part and parcel of that, this idea that back when men were mainly the ones that were in the military, your mother wearing combat boots or army boots meant that she was rather manly. Not manly, but mannish is a better word for it, you know, in a not flattering way.

A tough cookie, you said?

Yeah, but I don’t think met is a compliment.

Yes, because I thought he might have gotten it from being in the Marine Corps or, you know, back in the 1950s and stuff.

Yeah, it did seem to have some vogue during the Second World War among soldiers. It was also used among the populace. And by the 1960s, it was more of a counterculture saying than it was something used by the military. And there’s other versions. I can tell by your toes your mother wears brogues, and fee-fi-fo-fum your mother’s a bum, or your mother wears a jockstrap.

Oh, my goodness.

I never really asked him why he said that or anything. I should have when he was alive, but I never did.

Yeah.

I think it’s interesting that he said it when he stubbed his toe, like to nobody in particular. I’ve certainly heard it back and forth between people, but that’s interesting. He never really actually said it to a person. He would just say it to himself like he messed up.

Yeah.

Martha, do you say anything to yourself when you mess up?

Yeah, but I can’t say it on the radio. I usually say something. When I say something mild, it’s usually like, come on, Barrett. You can do better than that.

What about you, Melissa? What do you say?

I kind of can’t say that on the radio either.

Melissa, you’re a delight. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate your time.

Yeah, you too. Bye-bye.

Love the show. Thanks.

What’s the linguistic family heirloom that’s been handed down to your generation?

We’d love to talk about it with you, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email, words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, you probably already know this term, but I came across it in something I was reading.

I wish I could remember what it was, but it’s the term barn find.

That was a new one for me.

Is this from antiquers and people who love to go to estate sales, that sort of thing?

It’s sort of along those lines.

A barn find is typically a classic car that’s been rediscovered after it’s been stored for many, many years, usually in a barn, but people get all excited about these kinds of, you know, like a 1967 Shelby GT500 that’s got a layer of dust on it.

That’s apparently a valuable thing, too.

When you find one of these barn finds, you don’t necessarily want to clean them up, apparently.

Well, what you do want to do, though, is change all the rubber, because that rubber is probably cracked and stuff and relubricate everything.

But yeah, I can see the joy in that.

Who doesn’t like a bit of discovery in their life?

Yeah, I just love the element of surprise there.

Apparently this is true for classic motorcycles or even aircraft.

Somebody described it online as resulting from when life plans go wrong.

Maybe the owner died or went bankrupt or had an accident.

And this car just sits there for years and years and then somebody rediscovers it.

And something like that is going to mean something to somebody.

We’d love to hear the words and slang of your hobby, whatever it happens to be, 877-929-9673, or email words@waywordradio.org.

A Way with Words senior producer is Stefanie Levine.

Tim Felten is our engineer and editor, and John Chaneski is our quiz master.

Go to waywordradio.org for all of our past episodes, podcast links, and ways to reach us.

If you have a language thought or question, the toll-free line is always open in the U.S. and Canada, 1-877-929-9673.

A Wayword Words is an independent nonprofit production of Wayword, Inc.

It’s supported by listeners and organizations who are changing the way the world talks about language.

Although we’re not a part of NPR, we thank NPR stations throughout the United States that carry the show.

And special thanks to our nonprofit’s volunteer board, Michael Breslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Merrill Perlman, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidenwurm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Until next time, goodbye.

So long.

Thank you.