I, For One, Welcome Our New Robot Overlords

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You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett, and I’m Martha Barnette. Recently, the newspaper in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, invited its readers to share the unusual names that the kids and their families give to their grandparents. Well, the response was so overwhelming that the newspaper published a whole grandparents glossary with dozens and dozens of these names. And Grant, it’s astounding how many different names we give to grandparents. You know, there were the predictable ones like Grammy and Gaga. But then the list went on and on with all these made-up names that were funny, but also really endearing.

Yeah, ’cause a lot of the names were coined by the children. They misspoke, it said something funny, then everyone thought they were talking about the grandparents, or maybe they were, and it became the grandparents’ name.

Right, right. One of my favorites was Dadu. This little boy whose grandmother used to read a lot to him was so captivated by her rendition of a rooster crowing, “cock-a-doodle-doo,” that he started calling his grandmother Dadu, which I just love. And the name stuck, and her family wrote to the newspaper that she was still his Dadu when she passed away last year at 91.

Oh, I was also interested to see it seemed as if some grandparents are called different things by their different grandkids.

It’s not always the same for all of their grandkids, right, right?

Reading this story made me wistful. I was kind of wishing that I’d come up with some of these clever names like Bumpy and Knock-Knock.

Bumpy and Knock-Knock.

Yeah, actually, Knock-Knock was a name that this kid gave to his babysitter because they used to go knock on the babysitter’s door. Associations there are strong, right, between those important figures in their lives and something we’re doing. Well, we’d love to hear your crazy names for grandfathers and grandmothers or other members of the family that for some reason they’re called something out of the ordinary, not aunt and uncle, not grandma, grandpa, but maybe Be-Bom, Boo-Boo. You can call us at 1-877-929-9673. That’s 1-877-WAY-WORD or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

You can call us Be-Bom, Boo-Boo, for that matter.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello.

This is Leanne.

Hi, Leanne.

Where are you calling from?

I’m calling you from Blacksburg, Virginia. What can we do for you today?

I’m curious about the word watershed.

Now, what has you curious about that word?

Well, you want to hear the story?

Sure.

Tell us a story.

This is the one unanswered question from my graduate school 25 years ago. In a history course in graduate school, my professor used the expression, “a watershed moment.” It was a watershed moment in history. My professor was German, so English was his second language. I had a classmate from Korea, so English was his second language, and my Korean classmate asked my professor, “What is watershed?” And my professor stood there and said, “I don’t know.” And I have just been curious about it from that day, and I figure there’s a literal meaning and a figurative meaning, and I’m curious about both of them.

That’s so great. Do you have a guess about it?

Well, I’ve had some thoughts about it because I live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, according to the sign on the interstate. And I wonder if from a certain point of elevation, the water must flow in Virginia toward the Chesapeake Bay. So I’m wondering if a watershed is water, you know, a point from which water flows in a particular direction.

Brilliant. But I’ve also wondered if it was a little house over the well.

Leanne, that’s what confused me about watershed forever. I couldn’t picture it. I was like your professor. I don’t know, Grant. What did you do?

I pictured a shed full of water suddenly overflowing, and it was so crucial a point. I pictured a whale or a submarine breaching the surface of the ocean and the water literally shedding off of the rounded, you know, the front of our top of it.

Yeah, here’s the key to it, Leanne. In English, for hundreds of years, the word shed has also meant a separation or a parting. And in fact, in the Middle Ages, if you talked about the shed of my crown, you were talking about the part in your hair. So I’ve had a crooked shred for a long time. And so your instincts are right when you talk about a landscape. A watershed is a ridge of high land, and it separates the two areas that are drained by different river systems. So it’s that dividing line, that kind of fork in the road, to mix a metaphor. So a watershed moment then, Martha, is what? How do we get from the continental divide to a watershed?

Good question.

Well, it’s that dividing line. I mean, I suppose that your professor, Leanne, was talking about a dividing line in history, right?

I said I think so, right?

I see. So it’s a moment which really separates two fundamentally different eras, right, right?

It’s a great metaphor now that I understand it. Yes, things were different from this point on, and now they’re different for you, Leanne, right? Because you understand they are. This is a watershed moment in my life.

Now, I understand. I feel like I’ve earned my graduate degree now.

Thank you so much.

Congratulations.

Thank you for your call, Leanne.

Bye.

Upon the Watership, did you know that Indigo Girls song, Grant?

That’s what I always think of.

I think I’ve heard that one before, yes. You know, years ago in the Pleistocene era, I was in a band, and we covered that song. I think it’s called Watershed.

What, the link to it or play it?

Well, if you’ve got a question about a word that’s been bugging you since you went to school, we’d like to help. Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673. That’s 1-877-WAY-WORD. Or if you’re in front of a computer, you can send us an email to words@@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Jonathan from Austin.

Hi, Jonathan.

How you doing?

I’m good, thanks. What’s on your mind?

Well, I’ve listened to your show a total of one time, and I thought, “Aha! This is a solution to finally get an answer to this question.” So I hope you can help. So about eight years ago, I lived in Dublin, Ireland, and experienced the linguistic idiosyncrasy that’s coupled my wife and I to this day. When we first arrived there, I had a leasing agent in Dublin showing me some office space and quickly became aware that at the end of every other sentence or so, he would audibly inhale like this. And it was a little disconcerting. And, you know, at first, I was kind of filled with compassion for the poor man, and I thought he had a parent, you know, his apparent medical condition. And of course, you know, I didn’t reference it with him. And my wife and I had subsequently heard this with other people, including my executive assistant, who had the same sort of quirk. And, you know, at first, we were concerned about this great Irish respiratory illness that apparently no one had heard of. But I finally came to realize it was probably more cultural than medical.

So have you guys heard of this peculiarity?

Yes.

Yes.

Oh, Jonathan, this is so great because linguists are talking about it. It’s called the pulmonic ingressive.

The pulmonic ingressive.

Yeah, isn’t that great?

Yeah, and the pulmonic is related to pulmonary. It has to do with the lungs, and ingressive, drawing air in like that. And it’s not just in Ireland. I mean, you’re right to detect it there in Ireland, but it’s not just there. It’s on just about every continent. You hear it a lot in Scandinavian languages, for example.

Interesting.

It’s an element of speech that does have meaning, doesn’t it, Grant?

Yeah, I can and in various of them country to country and language to language. One of the reasons that we know that it has meaning there was a really interesting study done of Swedish speakers who use a similar kind of ingressive. What this language did was to divide people into two groups and they were trying to make travel reservations on the phone. Some of them were talking to actual travel agents and some of them were talking to what they thought was a computer on the phone. The people who were talking to actual people and knew they were talking to actual people used that ingressive during the conversation, but people who were talking to the computers did not or the bow. And so clearly, it seems that it has a certain kind of meaning either giving feedback or expressing like that.

Yeah, that was my job. Right, right, or expressing solidarity or affirming what the other person is saying. Did you hear it in those kinds of situations, Jonathan?

Well, you know, the one I distinctly remember was the leasing agent who was attempting to sell us property or sell us at least the lease.

Mm. And I suppose that what you’re saying matches with sort of a sales context like, you know, you agree with me, right? Or I’m fine in with you, something like that. That’s exactly right that they would make perfect sense, wouldn’t he? He’s confirming for you with this cultural sound that what he’s saying is good and positive and it’s something that you should agree with, right? But actually he was freaking you out. Right, we didn’t know how long he had on this earth. You know, we’re not sure if we’re gonna get our lease with him or not. That’s great.

That’s fantastic.

You solve the riddle.

My wife would be pleased to hear this.

It’s just been puzzling us for so long. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for calling, okay.

Thanks guys. Let’s see those words again so people can do a little googling and find out more about that.

It’s what is it again?

It’s pulmonic ingressives, right?

Pulmonic-ingressives, pulmonic-ingressives. Right, and you know what we could do is put some links on the website – I am the link master. Yes, you are. You are link man.

Just in case you haven’t gotten enough of the pulmonic ingressive and you want to hear more, go to our website at waywordradio.org and you can always call us. The numbers one eight seven seven nine two nine nine six seven three or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org. A while back we had a call from someone who was asking for a word for those dirty chunks of ice that build up in your car’s wheel wells during wintry weather. Boy.

That’s alliterative.

Isn’t it, Grant?

Do you remember that?

I do remember that and we decided that we would call those somebody else’s job.

No, not my responsibility, right?

But we did talk about several possibilities like snarred, which is a combination of snow and hard, car sickle, cars like that. And then we asked you to tell us your words for that stuff and boy, a lot of you must live where it’s cold because we received an avalanche of responses on our discussion forums. Some folks suggested chunkers, slush puppies, and Pete from Saranac, New York wrote to say that he calls it slung, which is a combination of slush and the past tense of sling because it’s slung up under your car. And then Matthew from Madison, Wisconsin writes that he derives great satisfaction in kicking those chunks off the car. It’s the same kind of satisfaction I get from vacuuming up dust bunnies. So my word for the stuff he goes on is kickies because I love to kick the chunks. I love that, sort of like squeezing bubble wrap, only colder. But there was one that I liked even more and you haven’t yet, Fenderberg’s. That was so weird.

We received that suggestion from two different people, from Donna in Wisconsin and Holly in Maine. They both wrote to tell us they call those things Fenderberg’s, super secret psychic sisters. Come on, Don and Holly, come clean.

Anyway, Fenderberg’s, I like that one too.

Fenderberg’s and kickies. Well, we’re still taking your names for what you call that messy ice in the wheel well of your car. Send it to words@waywordradio.org or leave a message for us at 1-877-929-9673. A word puzzle and more of your calls, stay with us. You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette and I’m Grant Barrett and we’re joined now by the one and only Greg Pliska. Hello, Grant.

Hello, Martha.

Hi, Greg.

You’re still a quiz guy, right?

I think so, or a puzzle quiz or puzzleist or a quiz-a-sister?

A puzzle quiz, a puzzle quiz.

I like that.

A quiz-a-fur, quiz-a-ferg, quizzle, I’m a quizzle.

I’d like to be a quizzle.

Quizinator?

A little bit.

Quiz-a-nart?

Oh, quiz-a-nart.

What’s your puzzle today?

What do you got there?

I’m ready to go.

Start it.

Go ahead.

Roll it, roll it.

Well, this week we’re gonna play with welded palindromes, which are two-word phrases which are spelled the same forwards and backwards. I like to call a phrase like this a word row for obvious reasons. So here’s an example of how this works.

I’ll give you a clue to the phrase, you tell me the phrase. Like what palindromic two-word phrase can be clued by beige bug?

Tanat.

Tanat is exactly right.

Yes.

It’s t-a-n-g-n-a-t.

That’s it.

You got it. Okay, number one, a place where Andean pack animals shop. Llama mall?

A llama mall, of course.

Very good. How about the length of time you can rest in the afternoon? A nap pan?

The length of time you can rest in an afternoon. You were very close, Martha. You needed a pivot letter in the middle there. You needed to stick something between nap and pan.

Huh, length of time you can rest in the afternoon. Oh, how about nap span?

You’re nap span.

Absolutely, absolutely.

What’s your boy’s nap span, Grant?

About an hour and a half.

There you go.

See?

Satan on SNL. So that would be SNL like Saturday Night Live, like devil live something devil. Just put them the other way around, live devil. He would be a live devil.

That’s right.

Sure, live from New York.

It’s Satan. Something is almost, you could do a palindrome with Satan.

It’s really Sodom and Gomorrah here all the time. I’m surprised for anyone.

Here’s one for all the drinkers in the group. Really bad addition to a martini. Evil olive.

Yes, Satan live had an evil olive.

All right.

I started with vermouth, but that just didn’t, that this, yeah. That’s why I was working on gin and I’m like, oh, that doesn’t come any place happy.

Yeah, that’s not good.

That’s good. Evil olive, it’ll give you a gut tug if you have too many evil olives.

It will. Here’s one for the 21st century. Unwanted atlases in your inbox. BAM BAM.

Yes, spam maps or map spam, either one. I know where I’m going.

The reason why he was called the menace. That’s an old chestnut. All right.

How about one more, Greg? One more.

Apparently, I’m not cut out for palindrome. That’s all I want to say. A thin layer of fauna.

A thin layer of fauna. So fauna is some kind of animal.

You actually said it. You actually said one of the words, animals. Yeah, a thin layer of fauna. Lamina.

Animal lamina. Oh, Greg, these were real brain busters.

She got him.

All right.

I got nothing here. Losing is just as much fun as winning.

Thanks for coming today, Greg. Go dog.

Thanks. Well, if you have a question about wordplay, language, grammar, slang, regional expressions, strange old sayings, or palindromes, call us. The numbers 1-877-929-9673. That’s 1-877-WAYWORD or send an email to words@@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant and Martha. This is Mandy McMurdie from Wiley, Texas.

Hello, why is how you doing, Mandy?

Good. How are you?

And who’s that in the background?

Is it my kids?

I’m hoping they’re not too loud for you. Well, my husband is a huge Seinfeld fan and you know, he’s like one of those guys that can quote full scenes from the show even though it’s been off the air for what, 10 years now. And so it seems that Seinfeld has become, you know, a huge part of America’s pop culture. It’s also contributed a lot to the fling of a vocabulary or at least it has to my family. So I had a few popular Seinfeld phrases and I just wanted to run and buy you and see if you know where the origins are from. Is this a quiz?

No, it’s not a quiz.

I need your help.

I have no idea where they come from.

All right, shoot. Let’s hear what you got there.

Okay. Well, the most common is yada yada yada and that’s probably the most popular phrase that comes from Seinfeld. My husband has made up a curse word to replace other less desirable phrases. Like he says Newman when he stubs his toe or something and I kind of caught on to that and say it all the time too. And I think that originates from when Jerry meets his arch-nemesis Newman, he’s like hello Newman and he says hello Jerry, you know, that kind of thing. So, I don’t know if anybody else says that or if it’s just, you know, our family that does that. And then there’s the soup Nazi and no soup for you and stuff like that. So you got any ideas where they come from?

Oh, yeah, let’s knock these down one at a time real fast. Yada yada yada. Although Seinfeld is often given credit for it, it existed before the show. It goes back to at least mid 1940s is you tada da ya tada da ya tada da. And of course, we’ve often said things like yap yap yap, blah blah blah. But that whole idea of a repetitive phrase that means more talk, more talk, more talk wasn’t new with Seinfeld. But again, credit for popularizing though definitely goes to him. That show was immensely popular. Is it not on in reruns there?

Oh, I don’t know.

Yeah, we just have a basic channel. So besides if he watched it and if it were on, he would watch it all the time.

Right, right. And you don’t even need the reruns, right? Because he knows of all the episodes already. He can just do them.

Yeah, they’re all in his head.

Yeah. But the Newman thing I really like ’cause it’s right. Wayne Knight played this kind of annoying character on the show and every time that he would come into Jerry’s apartment, usually uninvited, with some kind of smarmy smirky look on his face and some like harebrained scheme that would, you know, get Kramer and or Jerry into lots of trouble.

You’re right.

Jerry would go, “Hello Newman,” like that, a really scornful voice. And it’s in the way Jerry says it is very catchy. So I could easily see why it would become kind of an epithet in your house. And then what else did you ask?

Yes, but no soup for you, right?

That one has got a life, it’s got legs as they say. No X for you. It’s what we call a snow clone, which is where people have taken the original phrase no soup for you and then they put a new word in place of soup. So it’ll be, you know, no cheese for you, no car for you, no, no, whatever, no nookie for you, whatever the expression is.

Can I say that?

I don’t know, sure. So, yeah, that one’s definitely still coming. You’ll even see it in headlines. Newspaper writers love that phrase, no whatever for you.

And that started with Seinfeld.

Yes, definitely. Although the soup Nazi was originally a real soup little restaurant in New York City. But I heard about that was he did they call him the soup Nazi or is that just a catchphrase?

I believe that was the name of his place, but my memory fails me. But I believe the place was called the soup Nazi even for the show. But there have been a couple restaurants in New York City which are notorious for having this guy behind the counter who’s very stern. There was a sandwich shop in Soho, may still be called Malampo’s, which is the same way. You could only order what was on the menu. If you wanted a single one substitution or anything different, he would just kick you out of his store.

Well, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do for you, Mandy. There’s an article that was published in 2003 in Verbatim, the Language Quarterly, and it was written by Paul McPhedries, who is a, oh, he runs a site called Word Spy and he’s done the whole multi-page article on Seinfeld-isms. So it’s all these expressions that are pretty popular and that have come from the show. And so we’ll put a link to that on the website. You can take a look there and get a little more background on these crazy things that your husband is saying.

That would be cool.

Thank you.

Super duper.

Thanks for calling, Mandy.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye. Did pop culture lodge something in your brain that you want to know more about? Call us, we’ll help get it out. One eight seven seven nine two nine nine six seven three. That’s one eight seven seven Wayword or send it an email to words@waywordradio.org. Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Wayne calling from Montero, California.

Hello, Lynn.

Hi.

Hi.

I was watching a show on like dog rescue and so they put, they placed the dogs in actual homes to evaluate the dog’s temperament. And then they showed the dogs back at the kennel and they had signs on the cages saying what kind of temperament the dog had. And they showed this one dog all curled up and the sign said couch potato. And I was wondering where the phrase came from because I, you know, I use it and I’ve heard it as long as I can remember and I think it’s a great phrase, but I was curious as to the origins.

Was he lumpy and brown and had lots of eyes?

No, actually, actually he was like a lab.

Okay, so by couch potato, Lynn, you guessed that they meant what? Did he just like to lie around on the couch?

Yeah, that he was a dog who would be just as soon spend his time laying on the couch hanging out than anything else. So he’s an easygoing dog who didn’t require a lot of exercise or attention.

Mm, and you want to know where couch potato comes from?

Well, here’s the story. It’s been reported in many places. One of those is in the book called Predicting New Words by Alan Metcalf, who is a linguist and lexicographer. And he’s a dialect scholar as well. And in this book, Predicting New Words, he talks about couch potato and its history. And the short version of his story is that there was a group of men from Southern California who used to get together to watch television. And this is in the 1960s or 70s. And so one of the fellows made a joke on the fact that they were all sitting around watching the boob tube. And he called one of the people watching the boob tube a tuber. And then later, because a tuber is a potato, he called them potato.

So somebody sitting on the couch watching the tube is a couch potato. You see the logic there, how it goes from boob tube to tuber to potato.

Oh, well, and fast forward a few years and these fellows kind of became, you know, a quasi-official group of men and they entered a float in the Pasadena doo-dah parade. And this was what, 1979 I believe it was. And a story ran in the local paper about the parade, showed their float. They were interviewed, I believe, by the media and people got to see their float which featured, ta-da, couch potatoes. And that kind of was the launching point of that word. These guys, they put out books, they did interviews, they had t-shirts and the whole kit and caboodle. They made a big deal out of the term that they came up with.

Yeah, they did.

Oh, thank you.

I miss this 1955 so, you know, I should I should I I don’t know how I know it’s probably to your credit I’m serious.

I think it’s probably to your credit because basically they got a lot of attention made some money off of it. And it’s all goofy anyway. But I think the other reason that the term “couch potato” you know really succeeded is not just because these guys made a big deal about this word that they this term that they coined. It’s because we needed it. We needed a term for people who are lounging around the couch doing nothing but watching television and drinking beer or whatever. You know, we needed a term for the sluggards of the world besides sluggard, you know something new. The term is so successful now that I don’t think any dictionary gives it its trademark even though it was trademarked. I think it’s completely generic and it’s so generic that you can do things like call a dog a couch potato and of course there’s the variant “mouse potato” as well, which is somebody who kind of lies around using the computer. Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah, mouse potato, click potato. I’ve seen tons of. Yeah, it’s a it spawns a lot a lot of variants.

So anyway, that’s a it’s you know it’s a great question, but it’s a good one that you asked because so few words do we know the backstory and this is one of them. Well, thank you so much. Okay, bye bye bye. So if you’re sitting around on the couch and thinking about language, give us a call. The numbers 1-877-929-9673 or you can email us. The address is words at waywordradio dot o RG.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Susanna from Indianapolis.

Hello, Susanna.

What’s what’s happening there in Indianapolis?

Well, I just had a question about a phrase that I heard my grandmother used this past Thanksgiving and she we were all sitting around the dining table eating Thanksgiving and my grandmother started choking a coughing. And then she finished coughing and she said that went down my Sunday throat and I had never heard this phrase used before. And I was wondering if you guys knew the origins down her Sunday throat. Yeah, so she choked on something.

Yeah.

Yeah, the most common use I guess for the same kind of scenario would be like it went down my windpipe. Heard that before but I never heard it went down my Sunday throat.

-huh Did you ask your grandmother about it?

Yeah, I did and she really didn’t have any any answer for me. She said that’s what they always used when they were growing up.

That’s just a common phrase that they use.

Yeah. Yeah, I’m familiar with this.

In fact, I used it a couple of weeks ago because oh, did you really? Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it. As far as we know the idea is that at least in Christian traditions Sunday is a different day of the week, you know it’s special and it’s unusual compared to Monday through Saturday, right?

And so if something goes down your your special alternative other throat, it’s it’s sort of a joking reference to your windpipe. Okay, I see that makes sense.

You do see Sunday used in different ways like that. I mean Sunday go to meet and clothes or special clothes and do you know what your Sunday face is?

No, no. Well, it’s your derriere.

Oh wow, it’s kind of your other alternative face, you know, there’s other alternative cheeks that kind of right right so it’s a pretty simple explanation.

I’m delighted to hear this phrase.

I haven’t heard it in a while except for my own use of it. Well, I really appreciate you guys giving me that answer.

I’ve been curious about it since Thanksgiving.

So well, thanks for calling.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

You know, I’ve also seen one’s windpipe referred to as Sunday Lane or Sunday pipe, but the idea there again is is something different from from the ordinary. Yeah, I love that.

Did you grow up with that expression?

I never heard it.

No, it was always the windpipe. My family is as rural and as southern as some of them are weren’t particularly colorful. Well, if a linguistic question is sticking in your craw, give us a call. The numbers 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words at waywordradio dot org or you can post a question in our discussion forum. That address is waywordradio dot o RG slash discussion. Martha, a while back we did a call about creaky voice.

Do you remember that one?

Of course?

It’s kind of the opposite of falsetto. It’s when people speak of this low almost gravelly voice and in a kind of a confiding way as if they’ve got something to tell you with some kind of sincerity or maybe it’s a little secret or they kind of want you to believe what they’re saying, right?

I picture them, you know, shrugging their shoulders a little bit maybe shoulders up around their ears. Well, a lot of people emailed us about that. They were delighted first of all to find out that there’s a term for something they’d long since noticed and most of them said they noticed it in the speech of young women which it does feature there. But men do it too and a couple people emailed and said you know what?

I need more examples. I think I know what you’re talking about. I’m pretty sure but can you play some sounds for us of people speaking with a creaky voice?

So we found some and here they are. Take a listen to this and tell me what you think. This is actually like an apartment building.

It’s weird. We’re like on the third floor and I mean they broke up and got back together like five six times something like that. As you can hear Martha, they kind of dropped their voice.

It’s a different tone, right?

It’s not a normal speaking voice. It’s it’s almost intimate. I mean not necessarily sexually or romantically intimate, but personally intimate. Yeah, or almost apologetic or like they don’t care something. I think it makes the speaker sound a little more likeable like like it doesn’t make you feel a little more friendly towards them. No, oh, that’s interesting.

Does it work for you?

Well a little bit because and that’s definitely one of the features of some creaky voice speech as we said on the first time we talked about this. Creaky voice is used for a lot of different reasons and a lot of different languages by a lot of different people. One of the uses is to make the other person feel more friendly towards you.

We’ll have links to these audio clips on our website and you can listen there and I’ll see if I can dig up a few more. And in the meantime, if you have a question about any aspect of language, call us 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD or send an email to words at waywordradio dot o RG. More word games and your calls stay tuned. You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett and I’m Martha Barnette and it’s time for our slang game. Our contestant today is June Casagrande from Pasadena, California. She’s also the author of Mortal Syntax: 101 Language Choices That Will Get You Clobbered by the Grammar Snobs, Even If You’re Right. Ouch. June, welcome.

I’m fine.

Am I a grammar snob?

No, definitely not. You guys are the kind of people who like to who like to seek out answers and you take a very academic interested fascinated approach to the language as opposed to the people who want to take a very narrow don’t find answers. You know, I’ve read the book and I have to say you do a fair amount of clobbering of your own. I definitely walk both sides of the fence for comedic effect, but it’s all in the name of trying to promote good information. So yeah, I definitely I definitely cheat a bit in my approach. But it’s it’s all to serve the reader in the end and I hope they appreciate it. Hey June, speaking of words. Do you have a favorite slang term for us?

You know, I think my favorite slang term of late is probably weasel, and I don’t even know that qualifies as slang. It’s just a really fun word to say, and I think when I say it, at least it qualifies as slang. Weasel, just a weasel, just use a weasel.

It’s better the verb to don’t weasel out of that. Don’t weasel out of paying the bill, that kind of thing. Mmm, is there a song called weasels ate my brain?

I don’t know, but there should. Sounds like a Frank Zappa song. Well, let’s see how you do with our slang quiz.

Okay, I’ll give you a clue that describes one of two possible slang words or phrases. Only one of them is correct, and your job is to pick the right one.

It’s pretty simple. But if you get stuck, Martha’s standing by to help, okay.

Okay.

All right.

Here we go.

Number one. You could call it an airport, an aerodrome, an airstrip, or a big pain in the neck. But an undercover cop might call it a of the hot wings or be a bird farm. Which one of these is another name for an airport?

Wow, that’s tough. My job is done.

Can I guess, or should I look? Oh, yeah, just guess. I’m at my slang mojo says bird farm. Bird farm.

Your slang mojo is on target. It is bird farm. Supposedly, bird farm is what police use when they’re working undercover and talking, say, on an open radio frequency or on a phone, and they don’t want people who might be listening in to know that they’re talking about an airport. But you got to tell you, to me, it seems a little transparent if you’d say, yeah, I’m going to the bird farm. I, you know, unless you live in chicken territory somewhere in Arkansas.

Most people probably would think of an airport. June, let’s try another one. See how this one goes. All right, a camper carries a backpack and a mess kit. An artist carries a portfolio. A hobo carries a bindle. What might a tinker carry? You know, a tinker is someone who travels from place to place fixing things. Does a tinker carry a budget, be you DG ET, or a bull’s belly?

Bu L L apostrophe SB e ll y, bull’s belly. I have, these are great questions. I have no idea. No, but I think, but I have a feeling of what I’d want to carry if I were a tinker. If I were a tinker, it sounds like I’ve got wings and I go around on tiptoes. But I would want to be tough.

So I’d want to carry something really bold and tough sounding like a bull’s belly. Yes, my guess. Your guess? You think tinker is something related to a tinker bell?

Yeah, it does throw the key, right?

Yes.

Yes, tinker, T I N K E R, tinker is someone who fixes things.

Right. But it has that connotation. It has a sort of, it has a delicate connotation, and if I were a tinker, I would probably want to counteract that with something kind of tough sounding. Okay, okay, but unfortunately, the answer is a budget, be you DG ET, and here’s why. Budget can mean a leather bag, pouch, a pack, something like that. Both this meaning of budget and the budget in terms of, you know, a financial budget come from the same source, which is an old French word, Bouge at B U G E T T E, and it means a small bag. And the history of how it came to refer to something money related is that in the UK, at some point in the history of the country, it became custom for the government official to be said to opening the budget, meaning kind of metaphorically opening up the money bags when they talked about financial matters. And then by extension, budget became a way of talking about any kind of financial statement or plan. I bet if my two and a half years of French had been three years of French.

I got no, no. It’s a little archaic.

I think you’re fine. You’re on good territory. There is a line in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale where he uses the word. He says, if tinkers may have leave to live and bear the South skin budget.

So maybe, maybe the Shakespearean experts who are listening caught that one.

Well, June, I thought you did really well, and I liked your reasoning. Yeah, the reasoning is all though. It’s all in the fun, right?

It’s called wild guesses followed by backpedaling. Exactly.

Well, thanks for playing.

Thank you so much for having me.

All right.

Thank you, Jim.

Bye.

Bye. Well, you can call us anytime about grammar or slang or word origins or any other aspect of language. The number’s 1-8-7-7-9-2-9-9-6-7-3. That’s 1-8-7-7-W-A-Y-W-O-R-D, or you can email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org. Hello, you have A Way with Words.

My name is Summer. I’m from Dallas. My story that I wanted to share with you takes place probably in 1992 or 93 when I was in high school, and I had a friend who was from Cape Town, South Africa.

Mm—

And the first time that we went to pick him up from his house, he gave us directions through email, and we didn’t really trust them. We just printed them up, and it wasn’t until we got across town toward his place that we realized he used the word. He used the word that we’d never heard before in this context. Told us to take a right at the robot. At the robot, to take a right at the robot. Correct, to take a right at the robot. Huh, and it was around Christmas time, ironically, just as a side. It was around Christmas time, and he, right where this supposed right was supposed to be, we thought there was a mall with these robotic statues in front of it. So to turn right at the robots would have put us into the mall, and we knew that he didn’t live there. So we began, we actually began turning right at everything we could think of that could be a robot, but it was very confusing. We never did find his house.

There were no bright shiny humanoids. Warning, warning, danger. You know, the data here stood still, did not happen. It turns out though that what he meant was the street lights, the traffic lights. But I’ve never heard them referred to the robot since, and I’ve actually, I’ve done traveling outside of the US, and I’ve, I’d never heard them referred to as robots before.

-huh.

So I just thought that was pretty funny. Well, Summer, had you gone to South Africa?

You would have heard everybody talking about the robots.

Oh, really?

Yes. Yes, that is the term in South Africa since the 1930s or so. I think I can explain why that meaning seems so odd to us.

Okay. The fact that it dates to the 1930s is the clue. The word is just about that old. The word was new then, and there were a lot of, in the early days of the use of the word robot, there were a lot of weird applications of it. They weren’t necessarily all towards these machines that looked and behaved like humans.

And so this particular use stuck around. And you’ve seen it used over the decades to mean anything kind of mechanical or automated that might do the job you used that used to be done by a human. You’ve been using the word robotic and automated sort of interchangeably.

Yeah. So instead of having a human standing on the street corner between the lanes of traffic waving stop-and-go signs, you put a machine up to do it.

It’s really fascinating.

Yeah, it really. Yeah, it makes me want to move to South Africa just so I can say, sorry, I’m late. I got caught by the robots. Well, thank you very much. That was really interesting.

All right, cool.

Thanks for your interesting question.

Oh, yes, Grant, I have told you before that I do have a special fascination with traffic lights. Just because I had a little toy traffic light as a child. And what does your doctor say?

Caution. You know, and then later, later in high school, I kind of collected them a little bit, but the other thing that I’ve been collecting is words for traffic light in other languages.

Oh, really now.

Yes, in my favorite is the official Hebrew word for traffic light because of course in Israel you have to come up with all these words for new things, new technology because the language is thousands of years old.

The word is Rams or, and it comes from a word that means hint or wink. I don’t know if it’s because a traffic light in Israel is just sort of a suggestion or maybe you should slow down now because, well, if you got a call about something like that, some strange word you heard in another language of thought was English, we’d like to help you figure it out. Our number is one eight seven seven nine two nine nine six seven three or you can send an email to words at waywordradio dot org.

Hello.

You have a Way with Words.

Hi, this is Pam from Dallas.

Pam.

Welcome.

Well, hello Pam.

Thank you.

What’s up?

And at my job as a copy editor and a proofreader for a website and a think-tank, I read a lot of different kinds of articles and studies, and over time I am increasingly finding more and more references to internet works, blogs, ebooks, internet radio shows, internet TV shows, and I can’t seem to find a primary go-to resource for how to style them.

I use a lot of AP in Chicago, but they sometimes disagree. So my question is, is there a primary resource for styling titles on the internet? And this is style that you’re in search of is for what kind of publication online, both websites and also studies, academic studies.

All right, so this is for a variety of different places or from one place. So a variety of different places. I see you’re a freelancer or something.

Okay.

There we go. Here’s the crux of this whole dilemma. Two things. First, a lot of people have made style guides for the internet. Most of them have not been widely adopted, right? And second is that style is a matter of either institutional or personal preference. There is no, just by the definition of style alone, there is no universal rule for this kind of thing. It’s what you decide to do or your institution or company or what have you, the publication decides to do. And so what I would encourage you to do is work up your own personal style guide. Adopt Chicago for the most part, pick the parts of the AP style guide that you believe to be useful or not in complete contradiction to the Chicago style, and then develop a style that you use that you consistently can fall back on. Say, well, I don’t know what this, you know, I don’t know what this newspaper is gonna want for me, but let me use my own personal style because it’s worked so well for me in the past. They’re probably editing the heck out of what you’re writing anyway and changing your style, you know, before it reaches print or press, right?

Are you the last line?

I’m more often the last line, actually. Why it’s important that I can go to, you know, have a primary resource.

Oh, yeah. You need to have a higher power to call down when somebody questions your choices, right?

We do use both AP and Chicago. It’s only because they conflict sometimes that I wondered if there was yet another source.

I know there’s a book out there called Wired, but that’s a ten-year-old book now.

Yeah, exactly. And again, was never widely adopted. I would always prefer Chicago over the AP style guide for one thing. Chicago is more comprehensive. For two, I think it allows for a lot more choice on the part of the writer or copy editor. AP style, don’t forget, is for a particular group of journalists, and I know it’s widely adopted within the journalism world, but it’s for the Associated Press and right, their business, and it’s a very in-house guide. A lot of the publications you’re writing for probably have some sort of style guide of their own, don’t you?

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. But I just always wondered if there was something special for these newer kinds of electronic communication that are that we’re coming out with.

No, it’s my knowledge, and this question comes up online and off and in person and everywhere. People ask this question of us a lot, and to the best of my knowledge, there is no standard, but a lot of people rely heavily upon Chicago. They love the idea that they can go to this respected work when they’re challenged and say, well, the Chicago manual style, which is used by the universe, says you’re wrong. I hope that we’ve come some way to give you an answer.

Well, it’s certainly given me a way to go to my senior editor and say they said Chicago.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, best of luck to you then, Pam.

All right.

Thank you. One eight seven seven nine two nine nine six seven three.

That’s one eight seven seven Wayword or send an email to words @ waywordradio dot org. Hello, you have a Way with Words.

Hi.

Yes.

This is Bruce Kinsey from Indianapolis, Indiana. What’s up?

I’ve heard something used by old-timers and mentioned by my mother who grew up on a farm. It was a work brickle, meaning to indicate someone’s either work brickle or they’re not as being lazy or they’re effective at their job. And I don’t hear it used by in common usage today, but I just wondered, you know, where’d that come from?

Bruce, how do you spell that?

Well, the way I spell it is phonetically. I mean, I just, I don’t know. It’s B R I C K E L L is the way I guessed at it.

Mm. So W O R K B R I C K E L L.

This is familiar, Martha, right?

Right, and they’re two different words, right?

Yes.

Mm, and you’re in Indiana.

That’s interesting because that’s where I’ve heard of it the most. Here’s the short story on this is that this goes back to the dialects of the British Isles, and it’s got pockets of usage here in the United States. I actually had a reason to ask the chief editor of the dictionary of American regional English about this exact expression earlier this year, and she replied to me and gave me a little bit of information that they haven’t published yet. So here’s a big scoop for you. She says that they’ll probably put it under the spelling of work brittle, B R I T T L E, which is a little more common. But there’s also an entry in the English dialect dictionary, which is from the late 1800s for work bracko, B R A C C O. So like a lot of dialect expressions, the spelling, there are many spelling variants, and it’s got two primary meanings, as you say. One of them means eager to work or energetic or, you know, enthusiastic and industrious, that kind of thing, right?

Yeah, but the other one is exactly the opposite.

It means lazy or to be a sluggard. So if you are a work, you can be a work brickle, meaning that you are a lazy person. And this happens sometimes with dialect expressions, especially if they’re mostly spoken aloud and not put in print. They do sometimes suffer an inversion of meaning to mean exactly the opposite. I’ve heard it used for me, you know. So if someone’s work brickle, it means that they’re a good worker. Here, used here, and if he isn’t very work brickle, I’ve heard that used quite a bit. That means they’re lazy, but I know that that’s all I’ve heard here.

All right, and you saying you don’t use it, but it’s the older generation that you heard use it?

Yeah, that’s exactly. I asked a friend of mine today who’s 65. It was out in the country, and I asked him if he’s heard of that before. He was, oh yeah, I’ve heard of it, but it’s only the old timers that use that.

Yeah, I definitely would say this one is probably headed for the archaic list. It’s not that common, and it’s so odd that it’s hard to grasp and get on first hearing.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for your call, Bruce.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for straightening that out. If there’s something the older generation says that you don’t understand, give us a call one eight seven seven nine two nine nine six seven three. That’s one eight seven seven Wayword or send an email to words at waywordradio org. That’s our show for this week. Support for a program comes from MOSI online backup. Got data? Visit M O Z Y dot com. If you didn’t get on the air today, you can leave us a message anytime at one eight seven seven nine two nine nine six seven three or email your questions to words @ waywordradio org or join the conversation right now on our discussion forum.

You’ll find it at waywordradio org discussion. Stefanie Levine is our senior producer.

Our technical director and editor is Tim Felten. Tim also engineered our theme music. Kurt Conan produced it. We’ve had production help this week from Michael Bagdasian and Josette Hurdell from Studio West in San Diego. I’m Martha Barnette and from the Argo Network in New York City.

I’m Grant Barrett. Sayonara, Baba. We have a part that would break my heart. So I say there’s the you say oyster. I’m not gonna stop eating nurses just ’cause you say oysters. Let’s call the whole thing [music fades out] (upbeat music).