On a busy day in the emergency room, Alisa of Dallas, Texas, told an efficient colleague that she was really humming, meaning it as a compliment. Her colleague took offense, maintaining that humming meant “smelly.” Since the 18th century, English speakers in the UK have used humming to mean “stinking,” probably a reference to the busy, buggy nature of a manure or compost heap. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Humming Along — Like It’s Covered in Flies?”
You have a way with words.
Hi, this is Elisa from Dallas.
Hi, Elisa from Dallas. Welcome to the show. What’s up?
Well, I had a situation at work the other day. I work in an emergency department.
Oh, I’m putting on my HR hat.
And we were crazy busy with it being October at the time and everybody coming in for the flu COVID strip.
And I told our tech, I said, you are really humming along today.
And she goes, excuse me?
I said, you’re really humming.
And she goes, that’s pretty rude.
I said, maybe we’re not talking the same language.
I said, you know, humming, like, you know, the engine, like it’s humming along.
You’re not clanking.
You’re just ticking by, getting things done.
And she goes, that is not what humming means. I said, well, what does it mean? And she goes, humming means you stink. And we got into an argument. We pulled all of our coworkers in on it. We asked them if they knew what humming meant. Most people don’t use it because apparently this is not something that your typical 20 or 30 something year old says anymore. Most people, when I gave my definition said that makes sense. One person said that they agreed with her definition. And so we went to Google and Google said that British slang for humming is stink, but it didn’t give an explanation why.
Yeah. Wow. What a story. Well, it is true that hum is an old verb used in Britain that that means to stink. And somebody who’s humming is very smelly.
Like how old?
Like back to the 19th century.
No, it’s older than that.
Is it older?
Yeah, the noun is to the 1700s.
Oh yeah, the noun. But I think humming for stinky, it’s pretty old. Some dictionaries have taken a crack at it. One refers to the humming of fermentation in an active manure heap. You know, there’s a lot going on. So the fly is buzzing, the sound of the flies buzzing as they lay their eggs.
Yeah, I was going to say, another dictionary says, perhaps with reference to the activity of flies or other insects in rotting matter.
You know, there’s a lot going on in your compost heap.
Seriously.
Yeah, so people have talked about humming manure or humming ham.
I mean, it’s pretty gross.
Thanks, Alisa.
This is what we needed.
She works in an emergency department, right?
That’s true.
She’s seen worse.
This is nothing for her.
There are a lot of things in the emergency department that are definitely humming.
I can guarantee you that.
I think you’ve just given us a new code word.
There’s a hummer in the emergency room, and I don’t mean an SUV.
Well, you have given us new lingo to use in the emergency department.
And the word picture is just perfect.
So thank you so much.
Our pleasure.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
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