Macon Whoopie

You’re listening to A Way with Words, a show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Grant, you will recall our conversation about winged beavers and banana slugs.

Yes.

Mascots, right?

Yes, yes.

Strange mascots.

Yes.

And we put the call out to our listeners to let us know strange mascots they’ve come across.

And we heard from Joyce Sisko in Cody, Wyoming, who wrote this.

I think you’ll enjoy this.

Driving past the high school in a very small rural Montana town for the first time, I noticed a very imposing black metal bat with wings spread across the top of a post.

It looked quite menacing and appeared to have been constructed by the students, perhaps in metal shop.

It took me a few minutes to realize that it was the perfect mascot for a high school in Belfry, Montana.

Oh!

There is a Belfry, Montana. It’s tiny.

It’s tiny.

They have bats in Belfry.

Yes, they do.

And we also heard from CJ in Washington, Connecticut, who points out that in the 1970s, there was a team in Macon, Georgia, an ice hockey team.

Can you guess what they were called?

Macon, Georgia?

Macon, Bacon?

I don’t know.

Oh, good guess.

I don’t know.

What?

They were the Macon Whoopie.

Go Whoopies.

Okay.

What is it about mascot names?

I mean, you can’t call them like the evildoers who were slaughtered, you know.

Well, that’s true.

That’s true.

Come to think of it.

Yes, yes.

We heard from Ariel Kershaw from Plainfield, Indiana, who said there the mascot is the Quakers.

So they’re the fighting Quakers.

Sure.

Wait, what?

No.

Fighting Quakers?

You go ahead.

Yeah.

Just clear the way for the goal so they can get there, will you?

Oh, I’m sorry.

I’m in your way.

Oh, I didn’t mean to hit you.

We’d love to hear your comments about any aspect of language.

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The address is words@waywordradio.org.