Him and I or Him and Me?

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

And I’m Martha Barnette.

When I was very young, my parents used to take me to a physician named, of all things, Dr. Hurt. Isn’t that terrible?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Actually, he didn’t. He was very, very nice. And maybe his name influenced his bedside manner. I don’t know. But it sure got me to thinking about the power of names and also about aptronyms.

Now, an aptronym, as you know, Grant, is a name that’s particularly suited to its owner.

Right.

And I was reminded of aptronyms recently because we got an email from Peter Cesario. Peter lives near Albany, New York, and he and his family came up with a great game that involves aptronyms.

Ooh, do share.

Well, picture this. You have a newborn baby, and you have dreams of that child entering a particular profession in adulthood. So what do you name the child to help him along?

For example, you want her to be a wedding planner. You’d name the child…

Mary.

Mary.

Good.

You want to do some more of these?

Oh, yes, please.

Okay. You have a newborn baby. You want him to be a gas station attendant when he grows up. You’d name him…

Pumper?

I don’t know.

Or maybe you want him to be a dentist. You’d name him…

Oh, driller?

Drill?

Filler.

Fill.

Fill.

Fill.

Fill.

Oh, I see now. Still doesn’t make me any smarter.

How about this one?

Okay, shoot.

You want him or her to be an attorney. You could name her Sue or him.

I don’t know.

That’s a crazy face you’re making.

Will. You can name him Will.

I see. Very good.

Here, you’ll get this one. We can name him Sue. Ask Johnny Cash.

Here’s another one.

All right. If you want your son to be a radio announcer, you’d name him?

Spark, Sparky, Mike.

I was pointing madly to the mic there. That’s the only reason you…

My brain’s not working too well, mama.

Okay, one more. How about if you want him to be a trainer or a fitness instructor? You’d name him?

Jim.

Good, good.

Okay, now you got it. Now that you have the hang of this, Grant, I’ll give you a few more later in the show.

Oh, very good. And if you’d like to talk about any aspect of language, grammar, slang, punctuation, pronunciation, call us. Word origins, regional differences, call us 1-877-929-9673. Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Shannon, and I am calling from Milwaukee.

Hi, Shannon.

Hey, Shannon. What’s going on?

Hi. I have a question about a word my husband uses repeatedly, and he swears it’s an actual word. He uses the word paper cowling, and I’ve never really thought much of it, and I kept threatening him that I was going to call you guys, and so I finally just did. And I’m wondering if there is a slight chance, because his family uses it too, I’m just wondering if there’s a slight chance that it’s an actual proper form of the word or not.

He kind of qualifies it because of gossling and sapling, and I’m thinking, well, the way you’re using it, it should almost be a verb like Googling. But anyway, you guys are the professionals.

So he cleans up the messes in your house.

Well, that’s good. That much is good. It’s not like sapling or gossling, though. It’s more like clothing.

Right. There are exceptions where ing isn’t a verb in process. So I’m just, we needed to have it settled in order to stay married. I’m just kidding.

And he’s here ready to defend himself.

Oh, he is. Bring him on. Bring him on.

Well, finish wiping up that mess and have him get on the phone. What’s your husband’s name?

His name is Corey. I’ll hand the phone over.

All right, great.

Hello.

Hi, Corey.

Corey. So tell us, what’s the problem here? Why isn’t your wife automatically right?

I don’t know. I’ll be honest. I was ready to concede this a while ago because she probably is the smarter of the two of us. I was actually listening to another one of the programs on public radio, and they were doing their special on grilling. And one of the people on the network actually said that they were talking about making wine corn or something. And the guy on there said that he wraps it in paper toweling, which restarted this whole thing again. So I was like, see, I’m like, public radio cannot lie. Like, they have to write it.

That’s not true.

Well, we got news for you, Corey.

No, but I mean, I think growing up, I mean, like I had heard things like machining or tooling. And even like when my dad would do some woodwork and we had like dowel, but we also refer to it as like doweling.

Oh, doweling.

Okay. Well, I think the problem here is the difference between the suffix l-i-n-g, ling, and the difference between verbs that have the verbal ending ing.

Like I would read paper toweling as, well?

It’s both. Couldn’t it be both?

I guess it could be both. Paper toweling could be the geron action of to paper towel something, right? And it could also be the material.

Or the participle.

It could be, oh, I see where you’re going. See, what I’m doing, here’s the thing, Corey, I think you’re right. I think you’re fine. I like you. And it’s not just because, it’s not a guy thing. It’s because we have parallelisms in English. We talk about sacking, for example. And this means the material that sacks are made out of. We talk about clothing. This is the material that clothes are made out of, right? And paper toweling, as a matter of fact, is widely used in exactly the way that you use it.

But are you saying that that roll there of paper that you tear off is paper toweling? Because when you say paper toweling, I’m thinking about wallpapering a room with paper towels. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I just see, I mean, I guess anything that comes from the little roll of, I mean, paper towel, paper toweling, whatever. And I think if there was just one, I would be like, oh, it’s a towel. You know, kind of this idea that it is a group of these things where you can tear off one of many chunks, you know, kind of thing in there.

Right. So it becomes like a toweling.

Corey, here’s the thing. Martha may be willing to concede that you’re right. I’m definitely willing to concede that you’re fine. Let’s talk to Shannon again.

Yeah, let’s talk to Shannon again.

I will give you back to her then. Here you go.

Isn’t he wonderful?

Yeah.

Yeah, he’s great. Seems like a nice guy, actually.

Great. Here’s kind of what we decided. I don’t know if you were listening with your ear right up to the phone next to him. But I think he’s right, Shannon.

Oh, no. I’m not so sure.

Because we have plenty of parallel words in English that are similar to this. You can use the ing suffix to indicate a substance or material that comes in vague or indiscreet quantities. In other words, you might have sacking, which is the material used to make sacks. You might have piping, which is the material used to make pipes. Aluminum siding. Or even the piping along the line of clothing, right? Siding is another example. I think paper toweling can work for this. It’s not the best use of it, but there’s certainly—

I agree. It’s not the best.

It’s not the best use. Proven not least because you’re arguing about it.

I was going to say, can I hold on to that a little bit?

There are tons of people online who use it exactly the way your husband does.

Okay.

They’re wrong, too.

No. Some of these people are professional people talking about their work.

It’s not just some joker in a discussion forum.

They’re talking about their paper toweling the counter at the restaurant?

Craft projects and things like that. I mean, yeah, if you’re making a little paper mache thing and you add some paper toweling, I can see that. But I am not going to call that roll of paper in the kitchen paper toweling. I think that’s just weird.

Let’s just decide, Martha. Here’s something I think we can agree on. Look, if you can find and buy paper towels that don’t have perforation, that’s paper toweling. If you find and buy paper towels that do have perforation, that’s paper towels. How about that?

I like that.

Buy him his own roll of unperforated paper towel material, and you’re all set.

Grant just made that up.

I did make that up.

I’m exercising my authority.

I’m changing the language right here and now.

And that’s why we called you.

We needed someone to settle it.

So thank you.

Oh, you said settle.

I thought you wanted to muddle it.

Yeah, I think you set us against each other.

Shannon, tell Corey he’s fine to go forward and use paper towel.

Okay.

I will let him know.

So he has to wipe up everything.

Anytime anything spills.

Between the three of us, just listen really carefully.

You’ll find some other annoying thing that he says and just start in on that.

Yes.

Oh, I have a couple, but I thought I would call him the most prominent.

Yeah, you’ve got to keep some in reserve.

Yeah.

That’s right.

Pace yourself.

Thanks for calling, Shannon. It was a good time.

Thank you.

All right, bye-bye.

Bye.

What kind of language questions come up in your family?

What kind of arguments do you have?

877-929-9673 or tell us everything in email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Tom from Charlottesville, Virginia.

Hi, Tom. How are you doing?

Hi, Tom.

I have a story that I thought might entertain you, as it has for me for some 50 years, because when I was just a teenager over 50 years ago, I was vacationing at the beach with my parents and family, and I was befriended by a couple of really wonderful college students who were just terrific with young people.

And as luck would have it, when I was walking along the beach barefoot one day, I ended up stubbing my toe and something in the sand and got an injury there.

And the college students looked at it and said, you know what you have to do?

And I’ve remembered this now for 50 years.

They told me, what you have to do is go to your parents and tell them that what you need is an anatomical juxtaposition of the obicular aurus muscles in the state of contraction.

That would be a kiss on my unilateral calcification of the carbuncular metatarsal.

And so they were telling me, just as a parent would, to kiss the boo-boo or kiss the sore.

But it really turns out to be, kiss my foot.

I just thought that that was a fun use of language.

And it’s always entertained me to think about the way people express themselves.

And I entertain my grandchildren, my nine grandkids, all try to imitate those kinds of twists on the language.

That is hilarious.

And you were able to memorize it right then and there?

I made them practice with me all that week, but it stuck with me now for 50 years.

It’s just one of those things, and I’ve never run into those kids again, but I remember them often about how nice they were to this young teenager who looked up to those college kids who knew so much.

That is fantastic.

I love it when you learn something like that when you’re a little kid, and it just sticks with you.

I had one of those.

Yes, I do, too.

You do?

Yeah, I tried to.

Would you share it?

Yes, yes, I would love to share it with you.

I tried out for a play once, and we had to memorize something.

So I memorized this thing, and I’ve never found it anyplace else.

It goes, today was tomorrow yesterday, but today is today today, just as yesterday was today yesterday, but yesterday today, and tomorrow will be today tomorrow, which makes today yesterday, and tomorrow all at once.

I can’t find that anywhere on the Internet, but I memorized it, and it makes perfect sense.

But I love it when we come up with these things as kids.

It sounds like a Marx Brothers routine, frankly.

Who’s on first?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I’m going to try to tape this show so that I’ll be able to memorize yours and pass that on to the next generation.

I’m glad that you’ve shared with us your sesquipedalian wisdom.

Well, you two are so much fun to listen to.

I really enjoy it.

And thanks.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks, Tom.

Thanks for calling.

All right.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you have a word you’d like to talk with us about, call us 877-929-9673 or send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.

Coming up, it’s the Word Pride Parade.

More of your questions about language.

Support for A Way with Words comes from the University of San Diego, whose mission since 1949 has been to prepare students for the world as well as to change it.

More about the college and five schools of this independent Catholic university at sandiego.edu.

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barron, and we’re joined once again by the musician and quiz master, Greg Pliska. Hello, Greg.

Hi, Greg.

Hi, Martha. Hi, Grant. How’s it going?

Welcome back. How are things in New York?

Today is one of those New York days where you think you might actually be living in San Diego. It’s so beautiful.

This week we’re going to play our old favorite, the Odd Man Out game.

Yay!

Where I give you four words and you tell me which one doesn’t belong.

Oh, I see.

This reminds me of high school getting picked last for kickball.

It reminds me of Sesame Street.

And funny you should say that because today’s version of the game is called the Grant and Martha version.

Oh.

Each of the list will include at least one of your names.

But I do have the reminder that whenever possible, the odd item out has the opposite property of the items that belong.

Okay.

All right.

Well, enough with the legalese.

Let’s get started.

Let’s plunge right in.

All right.

Here’s your first one.

Four words.

Grant.

Promised.

Ho.

Shark.

And ho is spelled H-O.

Grant promised hoe shark.

Grant promised hoe shark.

Land?

No.

Land grant.

Land hoe.

Yeah, it’s land.

Oh, it’s land.

Land shark.

Yeah, land shark, land hoe, land grant, and promised is promised the sky, right?

You promised somebody the sky?

No, promised land.

Promised the moon.

Oh, promised land.

Oh, I see.

Promised with a D, promised.

But it’s the one that has the land at the end.

So promised is out.

Is that right?

Exactly.

Promised is the one that doesn’t belong.

The others create a phrase with land in front.

Very good, Martha.

Thank you.

Here’s another one for you.

Martha Irving Denzel Booker.

Washington.

They’re all Washingtons.

Washington Irving is the odd one out.

That’s right.

Martha Washington, right.

Right.

There are three with the last name Washington, Martha Washington, Denzel Washington, Booker T. Washington, and then one with the first name is the odd one out, Washington Irving.

Here’s another one.

Okay.

Grant, Jimbo, J-I-M-B-O, Bug, and Tony, T-O-N-Y.

Grant, Jimbo, Bug, Tony.

Oh, I see. The second letter of each word moves up to the next word.

Whoa.

Really?

You know, it doesn’t.

So the O from Tony goes to bug and becomes bog.

The U from bug goes to Jimbo becomes jumbo.

Wow.

The I from Jimbo goes to Grant and becomes giant.

And that leaves Tony as the odd one out because the R doesn’t work in Tony.

That’s an extraordinary process.

Wow.

I bow to your expertise.

Wow.

I win at the radio.

Found something completely irrelevant to the puzzle.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait.

No, no, no, no.

You’re on the right track.

The one that’s out is Tony.

Okay, why?

Okay, let’s hear it.

Because if you change the R in Grant to I, then you have Giant, change the I in Jimbo to Jumbo, the Bug to Big, then Tony gets changed to Tiny.

There you go.

And it’s actually the second letter that changes each time.

Yeah.

That’s what I was working on the second letter, but the wrong formula.

Cool.

What else you got there, dude?

Here is the last puzzle for you today.

This one uses a last name.

Barnette Bagatelle Matrix Woman.

I’ve been called worse.

Let’s see.

Barnette, and that’s B-A-R-N-E-T-T-E.

Of course.

Bagatelle Matrix and Woman.

Yes.

You’re the Bagatelle Matrix woman, if there ever was one.

Oh, I think, well.

You have it?

Maybe.

It’s kind of a long shot.

The E-T-T-E is a feminine suffix.

The E-L-L-E is a feminine suffix.

And the I-X is a feminine suffix.

Yeah.

I was actually thinking the T-R-I-X is a feminine suffix.

Oh, very good.

Yeah, the T-R-I-X.

Yeah, very good.

And the M-A-N is actually a masculine suffix.

Wow.

Very good.

Oh, man.

That was a tough one.

We like tough ones.

Yeah, we do.

Thanks so much for that, Greg.

You’re very welcome.

If you’ve got a question about anything having to do with the language, 877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Kirsten from Tucson, Arizona.

Hi, Kirsten.

Hey.

Hi.

What’s up?

I have a question about what a good way to say how to cool a room down when the air conditioner is already on.

So when the heater is on, you say you turn the heat up, and that makes the room warmer.

But in the summertime, if you want to make the room cooler, if you turn the air conditioner up,

Does that make the room cooler, or are you making the room warmer?

Oh, turn up the air conditioner.

And are you actually turning anything at all, or are you just pushing buttons?

Well, yes, nowadays, right?

And even better, why do we call it air conditioning when you’re cooling it?

Aren’t you also conditioning it if you’re heating it or dehumidifying it?

I suppose.

I think you are dehumidifying it at the same time when you do use the air conditioner.

Sorry, I was just trying to make it more complicated.

I have a bunch of friends that I asked this question of,

And all the engineers said, well, you turn the air conditioner up.

And everyone else wasn’t quite so sure that that was the right answer.

So the engineer’s answer is turn the air conditioner up.

And so in terms of heat, too, you would say turn the heat up and turn the heat down.

Yeah.

But that would apply both to the thermostat and, you know, the mechanics of the heater.

It’s working harder and the temperature is going up.

Right.

Actually, there are two different things being adjusted.

One is the intensity of the machines operating, and the other one is the temperature.

Exactly.

And in one case, they’re both going up.

In the other case, they’re going in different directions.

Right.

And that’s the confusion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you know what I think I would say is throw the air conditioner out of it completely and just say the air conditioning.

If you turn the air conditioning up, then air conditioning is sort of, it’s analogous to heat, which is easier.

You turn the heat up, you turn the heat down.

If you turn the air conditioning up, it’s going to be colder.

If you turn the air conditioning down, then it’s hotter.

That’s my solution.

Yeah.

Or just open the window and…

But, of course, you’re in Arizona, right?

Yeah, not with the heat they’ve been having.

No, no, ma’am.

But I would say just leave it at 74 and don’t touch it anyway.

Just start taking off your clothes.

But it’s a great question.

You also, Kirsten, it’s clear that you thought about this because you also had the other part of what I would answer,

Which is English is not a perfect language.

We do have to clarify all the time, and it is very ordinary that we say something,

And then right after it, we explain what we just said.

And so, yeah, it’s true.

Everybody who speaks English has to do this when they talk about the heat and the cooling and so forth.

So we say turn it up.

Oh, I mean, not the temperature, the air conditioning.

So, Kirsten, what are you going to do?

Well, I will try air conditioning.

And if people understand what I’m saying, because I’m not sure they’ll make that connection.

You know, they might just kind of stick with what they’re used to.

But I’ll give it a try and see if it works.

Okay.

Kirsten, thanks for calling.

Let us know how it goes.

All right.

Take care.

Keep cool.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

English is weird.

Let us help you sort it out, 877-929-9673.

You can also send your questions to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Li Fong calling from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Li Fong.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

What can we do for you today?

I have a question about the word wear.

Normally, I would hear people talking about, asking questions about the location.

They would say, where is that?

Or, where are you at?

I didn’t learn English here in the U.S., but I think that’s probably not the right way.

When I learn English, it really means to see at which location.

And so it seems redundant to add to at.

Where did you learn English?

I learned English in China.

Okay.

Okay.

And so you learned that if I’m looking for a book and I ask Grant, I would say, where is it, rather than where is it at?

Exactly.

Correct.

Yes.

Yes, you’re exactly right.

There’s no need for that at, right?

It’s redundant.

I’m looking at one of our favorite books on usage, which is Brian Garner’s Modern American Usage, and he says the usage is notoriously illiterate.

Garner is dramatic.

Well, he’s also right.

No, he says that, you know, in the 1960s, people would talk about this is where it’s at.

But it was kind of a joke.

And he says that saying where is it at is no more grammatical today than it ever was when not used with a wink and a nudge.

It’s still a badge of illiteracy.

But Lee Fong, to put this in proper context, Brian Garner is on the very extreme of the most formal English.

And he’s right that in most of the circles in which he travels to say where is it at is completely unacceptable.

He’s a lawyer.

He knows the top legal minds of our age.

These are the people that he’s writing for.

That’s right.

That’s where he is.

That is not where he is at.

But, Li Feng, the thing about this is in colloquial informal usage, where is it at is so incredibly common.

We will never get to a point where people just drop that at.

There’s the Jennifer Hudson song, right?

Where are you at?

There’s a tagline for a mobile phone company, where are you at?

That’s true.

I mean, they just leave out, they even have copula deletion,

And they just leave out the is altogether.

Well, tell us, why does that particular usage interest you?

Why do you want to know?

Yeah, good question.

Because I have a kid.

I have a six-and-a-half-years-old son, and he’s going to school here.

And I really want him to grow up speaking proper English

And be able to know what is the proper way of talking or speaking English

And what is more informal or quirky way.

It’s just I’ve been noticing other things,

And he starts to use me and my mom doing something.

And it just bothers me.

Right, right.

He’s being influenced by his peers then.

So I’m trying to have a rule in the house that you only speak proper English when you’re in the house.

And you can talk to your peers, your classmates, however way you want.

But when you are in the house, pay attention to the language you use.

Yeah, I think that’s a great policy.

He’s six and a half.

He’s learning.

It’s up to you and the rest of the adults that he knows to guide him towards the best English possible.

He’s going to make mistakes along the way.

He’s going to pick up bad habits from television and from his friends and maybe even some of the books that he’s reading.

But as long as you’re there to gently correct him and say, look, here’s a better way to do this, he’s going to remember that for the rest of his life.

It’s going to lead him to a place where he may still say things that aren’t formal or absolutely correct, but he’ll remember in the back of his mind that, oh, mama said it was something else.

There’s a book that may be better than just a regular dictionary to help you.

Michael Swan has written a book that I believe is called Learners of English.

And it’s mostly about people who don’t speak English as a first language,

Who are learning English as a second or third or fourth language.

But a lot of the advice that he gives in this book works perfectly towards kids who are learning English as their first language.

Because it’s about knowing that all of these stages of mistakes have to happen before you get to something approximating perfection.

As a child, your son has to make these mistakes before he can get to the better language.

We all go through it, all of us.

And he’s got to pass through these stages before he gets there.

And that takes a little bit of load off of you.

You just know that he’s got a lot more schooling ahead of him, at least another 12 years, right?

Right.

Probably.

Hopefully.

Hopefully.

A lot more schooling ahead of him, and you’re going to be there guiding him along the way.

He’ll find mentors along the way.

He’ll start reading great literature.

That will guide him.

So it’s a process.

Look for this book, Michael Swan’s Learners of English, and see if that isn’t better than a dictionary because they have example sentences in there.

And that’s kind of what you need.

Great.

That sounds great.

Well, it sounds like he chose his parents very well.

Oh, thank you so much.

I really love your show.

Thank you, Lifang.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming.

Make him listen to it.

That will help, too.

Lock him in a room.

Jump us a line every once in a while.

Let us know how he’s coming along.

All right?

All right.

Well, thank you, Martha and Grant.

Thanks, Lifang.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Give us a call about your kids and the English that they’re learning or Spanish or French or Chinese or whatever tongue they’re practicing.

Let us know how it’s going and call us about your questions and problems.

877-929-9673.

Grant, I have another couple of aptronyms for you.

Yes, please.

You have a newborn baby.

What do you name him or her if you want that baby to grow up to be a bank teller?

Cher?

I don’t know.

Cher?

Cher is French for expensive.

Oh, I was thinking share the money.

Okay, for the girl, starts with a P.

A bank teller.

Penny.

Oh, of course.

And the boy starts with a B.

Yeah, there you go.

Call us with your aptronyms or your questions about language, 877-929-9673,

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Gina calling from Dallas, Texas.

Hello, Gina.

Hi, Gina. How are you doing?

I’m great. How are you guys?

Awesome.

What’s going on?

I was wondering where the term croaker for $100 bill originated.

Croaker.

Croaker.

How are you spelling that?

C-R-O-A-K-E-R.

Well, now tell us how you heard that or where you heard it.

Yeah, how do you use that in a sentence?

What’s it sound like when it comes out of your mouth?

Can I have a croaker?

Are you originally from Dallas?

No, my family’s actually from New Orleans.

And this is a family word then, right?

Yes, it is.

All right, and you don’t hear it in Dallas from anybody who’s not from Louisiana, right?

No, I actually say it to friends, and they kind of look at me like I’m crazy.

There is only the tiniest bit of information about the word croaker out there.

But what is incredibly interesting, it is this so hyper-focused that we know that it comes mostly from people who have lived or been familiar with Louisiana.

Every use of the word croaker to mean a $100 bill or a big bill, you know, a lot of money, they all come from Louisiana.

And I can find maybe a dozen, 15 uses of it online.

None of the dictionaries I can check have it, but there’s like this little scant evidence out there.

C-R-O-A-K-E-R, right?

That’s how you would spell it?

Yes, sir.

And so you might find people online saying things like, I would bet a croaker that my car is faster than yours.

A croaker?

A croaker, yeah.

Or it’d be worth a croaker to me if you’d come by and help paint the house, right?

Meaning that I would pay you a croaker.

I’d pay you $100 if you’d come by and paint the house.

And Gina, that’s how you use it, huh?

Yeah, yes.

It’s very slangy, right? It’s not a formal word at all?

No, it’s not formal. In fact, my mom won a bet on the Derby, and my uncle gave her a $100 bill and said, here’s your croaker.

And they’re both from Louisiana as well?

Yes.

There’s one theory that I have. There’s two theories that I have. One of them is good, and the other one is bad.

I’ll tell you the good one first.

Oh, let us guess.

Well, there’s a French verb, C-R-O-Q-U-E-R, which in one of its meanings means to be crisp.

Sure, like croque masseur.

Yes.

So a thing that is crisp might be, in an Americanized version of the word, a crisp $100 bill might be a croaker.

Nice.

Right?

Is that the good theory or the bad theory?

That’s the good theory.

Okay.

The bad theory is that there’s a kind of sack that’s often called a croaker sack or a croaker bag.

It’s kind of a burlap sack or a gunny sack.

And it comes from an older word, crocus, because those bags were used to transport the crocus flowers around the world from all these different places.

But in the south, in the Gulf states of Florida and Georgia, and not really as far as Louisiana, but a little bit, this term is widely used for a gunny sack or a canvas sack.

And my theory, which I’ve invented out of whole cloth, so to speak, is that a croaker holds about 100 pounds worth of stuff.

A croaker sack is about 100 pounds.

But that’s bogus.

That’s heavy.

Yeah, that’s heavy.

I suspect it’s from the French Ford.

I like that.

Awesome.

Crisp $100 bill.

Well, thanks for answering that question.

Yeah, sure.

No problem.

Drop us in line another time, all right?

You want the address for where to send your croaker?

She’s not answering.

Okay, Gina.

We’ll talk with you later.

Bye, Gina.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

What do they say around your way?

You know, what’s the language that they use down the store when you go out there and buy your groceries?

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or drop us a line and tell us about the curious things your neighbors pronounce.

words@waywordradio.org.

More of your calls as A Way with Words continues.

Support for A Way with Words comes from National University,

Where flexible online classes let you earn your degree or credential on your schedule.

More at nu.edu.

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

And I’m Martha Barnette.

We received an email from Judith Piper, who’s looking for a dictionary recommendation.

Grant, she wants the kind of dictionary that you can put on your desk,

Not on your desktop, on your computer, but on your desk.

She wants one that has good paper, lots of pictures and other special articles, guides, keys and charts of Indo-European languages.

What would you recommend for Judith?

That’s great. What is she replacing?

Right now she has the American Heritage, the new college edition, and the Random House Webster’s College Dictionary.

One is from 1979, the other from 1991. I’d say it’s time.

You came to the right place. I’m nothing if I’m not a dictionary nerd.

If you ever make it to San Diego, I’ll show you my little collection.

There are two dictionaries that I typically recommend for people who want something that’s not particularly portable,

Something that you put on the desk at home or at the office, something that has a little bit of class, right?

The first one is the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

It’s a two-volume work.

You want the latest sixth edition.

It’s a little British for an American audience, but the great thing about it is it’s basically the OED with a lot of new words that the OED doesn’t have yet.

And a lot of the archaisms taken out.

So it’s right to the point.

It’s going to have almost anything you find if you’re reading stuff from the 1700s or 1800s or 1900s.

Great stuff.

A lot of obscure stuff.

Pretty good etymologies.

It’s classy.

That’s the word for it.

And then the other one, which I’m excited to talk about, is the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition.

It’s brand new.

It’s just come out.

Hot off the presses.

I know their work.

This is published by Houghton Mifflin.

They do fantastic work.

This one apparently has 10,000 new words.

It’s well known for its great etymologies, original etymologies.

They don’t just rip them off from other sources.

Lots of illustrations.

Great front matter, which is where you get the keys and the guides

And the information about language in general.

Just a really reliable work.

So again, those two dictionaries I would recommend, Judith,

Are the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

It’s a two-volume, sixth edition.

And the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the fifth edition,

Which is a big, big one-volume dictionary.

That’s really exciting that it’s making news.

It’s just coming out right now.

Yeah, a brand new dictionary.

And they’ve been working on it for 10 years or more.

I don’t know, a long time.

Cool.

It’s wonderful.

Well, if you have a question about reference works or grammar, slang, word origins, call us 877-929-9673 or send your questions in email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Troy Hester from Hotsville, Alabama.

Hi, Troy.

Welcome to the program.

Hi, Troy.

Hi, Graham. Hi, Martha.

What’s going on in Huntsville?

I don’t know. My wife and I are in New York City today.

Oh, well, we’re in New York City. That’s my old stomping ground.

Oh, great. Yeah, we’re visiting. She’s at Columbia University for a seminar, and I’m carrying her bag.

Good man. Good man. What’d you call us? What’d you call that today?

I recently gave away a daughter.

In front of 400 people, the pastor asked me, who gives this daughter to be married?

And I thought about this quite a bit.

I guess the background’s in order.

I was kind of a grammar Nazi with my two girls, especially when it came to me versus I.

And if I caught them in what I perceived was a mistake, I would correct them mercilessly.

So, the day of the wedding, the pastor asked who gives this woman to be married, and I said, her mother and me.

Now, I had thought carefully about that, because her mother and I didn’t seem to make sense to me.

Especially if I, the trick that I normally use is removing the second person.

And when I do that, it just sounds, it sounds more correct to me.

I don’t have any more justification than that.

Who gives this one a marriage?

Me.

So since I’ve done that, though, my offspring, that I remember I tortured as they were growing up, have kind of turned on me.

They’ll do that.

And they bring up this poppycock about implied verbs.

I think they’re making it up.

But we thought we would lay this controversy at your feet and let you make judgment.

Oh, now.

I need to know, am I courageous or am I simply foolish?

Or do you have to do the wedding over?

No. Believe you me, no. The 400 people have come and gone.

I was going to say, you’re not calling us right now from the wedding aisle, are you?

No, this is burned into our family history, for sure or worse.

Well, I hope that’s the least of the problems in your family, or the most of the problems in your family.

So the question on the table, Martha, is should he, when the preacher said, who gives this woman in marriage, should he have said her mother and me or her mother and I?

Oh, boy.

What’s throwing me off is that you said you really thought about it.

You really thought this through.

I mean, if you were just sort of nervous and sweating there in your suit and tugging at your collar and they said, who gives this woman in marriage?

And you just kind of blurted, her mother and me.

You know, that might be sort of a natural way to do it.

I think technically there’s an implied verb there.

Her mother and I are giving her away.

You would say, if you were the bride, you would say, thanks for giving all these wedding gifts to my husband and me, right?

Because it’s the object of the preposition.

But I think technically…

I think you’re right, Martha.

Troy, I’m sorry to say, but it should have been her mother and I.

Which means that you’ve raised your children really well.

Well, it means I have to leave the country now.

Canada’s nice.

I’m close.

You’re close.

It’s like a nine-hour drive from New York City to Canada.

I can never face my family again.

You realize?

Oh, really?

There’s only 400 people in the setting.

But let me just…

You don’t understand.

If I had been the least bit generous when I was correcting my children, I may have been forgiven this.

But circumstances, they are.

I don’t think they will ever forgive.

Well, what you need to do then every time they bring this up and say, well, you know, your mother and I are working on the will right now.

And so maybe they’ll clam up about it.

I’ll tell you, since you’re in New York City, Saks has some very nice gifts on the Julie aisle, if you have apologies to make.

Or Tiffany’s over on Fifth Avenue.

Connection’s breaking up.

I’m sorry.

I did hear nothing about buying Julie.

Troy, we’re going to thank you for calling us.

Drop us a line.

Let us know how they respond.

I bet they love you so much they’re just going to be good natured.

They’ll rib you once in a while, but it’s all love, right?

Okay. Also, I’m going to start a Facebook group for the abolition of implied verbs.

We’ll join.

Good luck with that.

Okay. Thanks, guys.

Enjoy your trip.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Oh, bless his heart.

Family disputes are something we can help you resolve or at least make fun of.

877-929-9673.

Or tell us the whole sordid story in email to words@waywordradio.org.

Try us on Facebook and Twitter, and have a nice day.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Phil from Appleton.

Hey there, Phil. What’s going on?

Hi, Phil.

Hi. Well, recently I heard a newscaster use the word Byzantine to describe our medical health care system in the U.S.

And I can understand the complexity of the medical system, but I wonder how Byzantine came to refer to both complex and being duplicitous in an adjective.

Duplicitous. That’s a great word, duplicitous.

Yeah, for the health care system.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Are you having struggles with the health care system?

Are you having trouble with an insurance company or something?

I’m a physician, so I always have trouble with insurance companies.

Gotcha.

I see. You’re an insider. You have a new insight.

Well, Phil, what do you know about the Byzantine Empire?

Well, only that it was in Constantinople.

And that little more than that, Martha, I can’t say I know much about it.

It was around for a long time, starting in what, about 330 A.D., I think, and going for hundreds and hundreds of years.

And I know that they were notorious in that empire for having a very, very, very complicated and convoluted kind of government.

And they handed out titles sort of like Oprah hands out cars.

You know, you get a title, you get a title.

So there were all these titles that people had, all these nobles and friends of nobles, and they would get these long titles like All Super First August One.

I mean, that was, you know, they just kept adding the little prefixes on there.

And so it was really, really complicated, really intricate and complex.

And I think that the word Byzantine describing that kind of government probably captured the imagination of historians in the West just in part because it was so different, so other, so strange.

And I’m not sure, though, that their government was any more complicated than anybody else’s.

Yeah, it’s always easy to look at the other side and go, oh, well, they’re worse than we are.

Yeah.

We’re pretty awesome.

I understand our level of hierarchy and system problems and wheels within wheels.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, too, the word Byzantine has been influenced by the fact that you think of Byzantine art, and a lot of that is incredibly elaborate, incredibly intricate.

Oh, certainly intricate and complicated.

Yeah.

Beautiful in its way.

Yeah.

So that’s usually what I think of Byzantine, but there is that element, too.

Byzantine.

Well, that’s initially what I thought in terms of their artwork is pretty intricate, I guess is the best description.

Mm—

But I guess just in the back of my mind, it still had more of a negative connotation of Byzantine rather than just purely extremely complicated.

You know, almost that the complications are manufactured to keep people from understanding it.

I was going to say, that sounds sort of like the medical system, doesn’t it?

I won’t admit to that much, but no.

Well, no, no, not the caregivers, but I mean the language and all those forms.

If you can know the system, then you can game the system, right?

Exactly.

And so you’ve got to put in these roadblocks and these checks to stop people from using a system to its utmost.

Okay, well, I think we’ve given you a Byzantine answer.

I don’t know if that’s opaque or just complicated, but that’s interesting.

I think it’s intricate.

I think it’s intriguing.

Very good.

Thanks for calling, Philip.

Bye now.

Thank you.

Bye.

Well, is there a word that’s caught your fancy and you want to talk about it?

Call us, 877-929-9673, or email us about it.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.

So, Grant, picture this.

You have a newborn baby, and you want him to grow up to be an accountant.

What do you name him?

I don’t know.

Check.

Debit.

Credit.

I don’t know.

Not Eve, but…

Dawn.

You want him to be an accountant.

You want to name him Adam.

Adam.

Adam.

Adam.

That’s terrible.

That’s what I was looking for.

I wanted to get one that’s terrible from Grant.

I just did.

It’s ironic.

Another afternoon for you.

You have a baby girl.

What do you name her if you want her to grow up to be an ophthalmologist?

An ophthalmologist?

Yes.

My old man’s an ophthalmologist.

What do you think about that?

Where is an ophthalmologist?

Never mind.

He’s stalling for time.

I am.

Iris?

Yes, yes.

Very good.

She pointed at her eyes.

She gave it away.

So very helpful.

I try.

Send us your aptronyms, those appropriate names for different professions.

Words@waywordradio.org, or call us 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Marza, this is Paula from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Hi, Paula.

Hey, Paula, how you doing?

Hey, Grant.

Thanks for calling us. What’s up?

Oh, I’m just so confused. I hope you can help me.

I work for a law firm, and one of our younger female lawyers, we’ll call her Susie, is leaving in August.

Her husband, we’ll call him Bill, just got a new job in Maine. And he’s going ahead in July to get settled.

And then she’s leaving our firm and selling the house in Wisconsin, taking up stakes, moving to Maine.

And while we were chatting, I said, you know, I think it’s really admirable that you’re following your husband to Maine.

And she stopped and her face kind of fell.

And she said, well, that’s not really what I’m doing.

Shortly thereafter, I was in the lunchroom with my coworkers.

And I said, oh, Susie’s moving to Maine with Bill.

She’s following her husband.

He has a new job.

And everyone looked at me blankly.

And I said, well, maybe this isn’t as current a term as it was in my day.

So she’s literally following him in that, in terms of time, he’s going first.

Right.

But people aren’t taking it that way when you say that.

They’re hearing something else.

They’re hearing a kind of subservience on her part, right?

Yeah, but, okay, I don’t get the subservient take on it.

That’s interesting.

Because your language of following one’s spouse or following one’s husband is pretty standard in the human resources business.

If you look at all these different books on Google Books, you’ll find that language used repeatedly, regardless whether it’s the man going first or the woman going first.

But I could see how someone might go, oh, wow, that’s got double meanings.

And I don’t like one of those meanings because it makes me sound like I’m the obedient, subservient wife who does whatever my husband bids me to.

Right.

Oh, the old marriage dynamic.

Yes, the old marriage dynamic.

He’s the head of the household, and she’s following along.

Well, you know, I’ve done this twice, Paula.

My wife has come along with me twice to new homes in new faraway places.

And she’s a linguist and a lexicographer, too.

But I think she would also, she’s 30, she would have some problems with me saying, oh, yes, my wife is following me to my new job.

Because she doesn’t see it that way.

She sees it as a team effort, regardless of who’s going first, both of us entering this new life and this new place together.

It’s all part of the action.

She’s seeing that other meaning of follow, as if she’s forced to walk 10 paces behind me in public, you know?

Right.

So instead of going with you, she’s a camp follower.

Like she didn’t have any choice in the matter.

Right, right.

I’m picturing, you know, two animals yoked together side by side as opposed to a dog sled where Grant’s way up in the front.

So you’ve got a woman here.

She didn’t really take umbrage, but she was a little sensitive about it.

Yeah, she was a little down at the mouth.

So now you can see what her point of view might have been, right?

No, I really don’t get it, but I’m willing to acknowledge it.

She probably feels more like they’re relocating the family.

You know, that it’s a unit that’s going rather than a choo-choo train.

Right.

She’s really, it sounds like she’s probably sensitive.

And your other co-workers are sensitive about this idea of a woman following a man as if she had no choice.

Right.

Being the caboose.

Yeah.

This is a great question.

Paula, thank you so much for sharing this kind of, this difference between generations with us, this difference between perspectives.

And it kind of gets to the meaning of the word follow, but it also gets to the heart of how we’ve had this cultural shift over the last decades.

Well, thank you, and you’ve encouraged me to maybe spruce up my language a little bit.

Take care.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Did a conversation at work have you thinking about a word or phrase?

Call us, 877-929-9673.

You can always find us on Facebook and Twitter, or you can email us, words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, I have another aptronym for you.

What do you call your son if you want him to grow up to be a statistician?

I don’t know.

How about Norm?

Norm!

Oh, it’s terrible.

Yeah, it is.

Send us your afternems, words, at waywordradio.org.

Things have come to a pretty pass.

That’s our show for this week.

Don’t forget you can leave us a message even when we’re not on the air.

Call us at 877-929-9673 or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Stay in touch with us all week on Facebook and Twitter.

You can listen to all of our past shows by going online to waywordradio.org,

Or you can get the podcast on iTunes.

Stefanie Levine is our senior producer.

Our technical director and editor is Tim Felten.

Tim also chooses our music.

We’ve had production help this week from Josette Herdell, Jennifer Powell, and James Ramsey.

A Way with Words is independently produced and distributed by Wayword, Inc., a nonprofit organization.

The show’s recorded at Studio West in San Diego, California.

Thanks for listening. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

So long.

Ta-ta.

Neither, neither, neither.

Let’s call the whole thing off.

You like potato and I like potato.

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Where flexible online classes let you earn your degree or credential on your schedule.

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