Make a Beeline (episode #1641)

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

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Grant, how’s your feet and ears?

My what?

My feet and ears?

Yeah, how’s your feet and ears?

How are my elbows and my knees?

I don’t know.

I mean, how are you frogging?

How am I frogging?

Are we talking about the video game or talking about going out with a lantern and trying to catch frogs?

What are you talking about, Martha?

Well, actually, in the case of frogging, I’m talking about your health.

You know, are you nimble? Are you hopping around like a frog?

Yeah.

Yeah, these are just a couple of silly greetings that I’ve come across recently.

I was thinking about the fact that, you know, especially among people who know each other well, like you and I do, greetings aren’t always what you expect.

They’re certainly not the kinds of greetings that you run into on Duolingo, for example.

You know, I knew somebody in the past who used to always say, what you got on your mind?

Yeah.

Some people say there was a job I had. For some reason, the thing that people would say was, what’s working?

What’s working?

And it kind of meant, what are you working on? Or what’s happening in your part of the company?

But it was shortened to, what’s working?

What’s working?

When you pass somebody 50 times a day in the hallway, you’re not going to do a full greeting every time.

Exactly. And I think we’re just, you know, endlessly creative and playful.

And the more I started thinking about this, I mean, the kinds of formal greetings that you’re taught in books just don’t always happen.

I have Spanish speaking friends and I always say, ¿Qué te pasa, calabaza? You know, what’s up, pumpkin? What’s going on?

And they reply, hola, hola, Coca-Cola. It’s stupid, but it performs a function, right? Yeah.

Well, we’d love to hear the goofy way that you greet your families, your friends, and your coworkers.

Share them all.

Tell us in voicemail.

Toll free, United States and Canada, 877-929-9673.

Or send your funny stuff in email to words@waywordradio.org.

And you can hear all of our past episodes and find lots of ways to talk to us on social media on our website at waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey there, this is Nell Reed from Huntsville, Alabama.

Well, hello, Nell in Huntsville, one of our favorite towns. How are you doing?

Oh, doing great. How are you?

All right. What can we do for you today?

Well, I grew up in Alabama, various parts of it. And then at the beginning of my career, I moved to northeast Tennessee, the Kingsport area.

And there was a phrase there that I heard repeatedly that I’ve heard before, but it means the exact opposite in that one area than it does anywhere else I’ve lived.

And that is I don’t care to.

Where everywhere else I’ve heard it, that means I’d rather not.

But up there, it means I don’t mind.

Oh, now this is a great one.

Tell us what that experience is like.

What’s going on? What’s the conversation like when you encounter it?

One example would be a friend of mine was trying to organize a party and she kept asking people when she would call and invite them, well, would you care to bring a cake or would you care to bring this, that, or the other?

And the locals would respond with, no, I don’t care to.

And the hostess who was not from there was just, she couldn’t believe how unhelpful everybody was.

But on the day of the party, everybody showed up with all this stuff.

Double the cakes.

Well, yeah, like a dozen cakes.

But another example was then after that, I moved to South Carolina.

And while I was there, and I was with the same company, and I brought in a specialist from Kingsport to help us work on a design issue.

And on the day that he was wrapping up and he presented his results and recommendations to the group, he ended his recommendations with saying, well, now, if y’all have any further problems, I don’t care to come back.

Oh, wow.

On the faces of the people from South Carolina, they’re shocked.

And I jumped in and I said, oh, no, no. What he meant is that he doesn’t mind to come back or doesn’t mind coming back.

And he said, well, that’s what I said. I don’t care to come back.

And I said, no, what you just told him is you don’t want to.

Oh, no, this is delightful, Martha.

I know you’ve run across this before.

Have y’all run across this before?

Oh, sure.

I’m just thinking about how lucky these people were to have you there as a translator.

Oh, my goodness.

The cultural interpreter.

The ones in South Carolina were highly offended.

Oh, dear.

Explain.

Oh, no. It’s such a subtle one, Martha.

How did we get to I don’t care to meaning I don’t mind?

Yeah, it’s a really weird one, isn’t it?

I mean, you do hear it particularly in southern Appalachia and Kentucky and southern Indiana and Missouri, that part of the country.

And you’ve outlined it really well.

But as Grant said, how do you get there?

Well, the word care is a weird one, if you think about it, because in its earliest sense, it meant to grieve or to experience sorrow.

And then over time, care also came to mean to feel interest or concern or have regard for.

And we see the same thing happening with the noun care, you know, tender, loving care. That’s a good thing, right?

And at the same time, if you have cares, then you’re troubled, right? You’re not carefree.

And it turns out that since the 16th century or so in England and then later in those parts of the U.S. that I mentioned, when you use the verb to care in a negative construction, like I don’t care or I don’t care to, as you said, Nell, it means I’m not bothered by that. I don’t mind it. I have no objection to it. It’s no trouble. It’s no care to me at all.

But it can be really confusing, you know, if you ask somebody for a ride and they say, I don’t care to give you a ride. That means they do in that part of the country.

But I think the nugget of what you’re saying, which I really want to emphasize, is that the noun care can be negative and positive. And so can the verb. And that’s what’s throwing people.

Is that area the only area that does use that phrase that way? Is the vast majority of the way that I grew up hearing it, which is I’d rather not?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it reflects those settlement patterns.

I know that this usage also appears in Scotland, for example, and there’s a lot of Scots-Irish in those areas.

There are. I’m sure it’s a heritage that has been passed down.

Okay.

Well, and that was what I was wondering, was that if it had come from the highlands regions of the British Isles, because they settled so much of that area.

Exactly, yeah.

Well, Nell, thank you so much for sharing those stories about this interesting cultural conflict.

That kind of cultural friction definitely needs a Nell on the spot to interpret.

Well, thank you so much for answering my question.

All right. Take care of yourself.

All right. Thanks, Nell.

All right. Okay. Bye.

Give us a call. 877-929-9673.

Emily Burns from Coventry, Rhode Island, said her family is always coming up with new terms that they use among themselves.

And now that she sent a few to us, I’m going to borrow some of them myself.

For example, the term Bompel, B-O-M-P-L-E.

What does that sound like to you, Grant?

Bompel, B-O-M-P-L-E.

It sounds like a contusion from when you bump your head.

Well, sort of.

I mean, it’s said of fruit, like you have a bag of apples and there’s a hole in the bottom and they fall and roll and bounce all over the place.

They went bumbling all over the place.

So the apples have contusions as well.

Onomatopoeic.

That works very well.

Bumbling fruit falling out the bottom of a bag.

Yes.

And then the other one that I’m going to borrow, and you probably will want to as well, is fribble.

Any guesses?

Fribble.

That sounds like a breakfast cereal.

With the chocolate marshmallows.

It does, doesn’t it, mommy?

For Emily’s family, fribble is when a cat vibrates the base of its tail.

It’s fribbling its tail.

You know this.

Oh, yeah.

And what does that mean in cat language?

That means something in cat language, right?

Their body language.

I think it’s satisfaction or pleasure.

I think they like it.

The only actual term I could find for it was quivering.

But fribble works.

Yeah, that’s what I call my cat when she does it.

My quiver-tailed kitty. She’s just shivering with delight that something’s happening.

Fribbling. Or be fribbling if you call us. Toll-free 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Elena. I’m calling from Mount Holly, North Carolina, near Charlotte.

Hi, Elena. Welcome to the program.

Thank you. My friend and I were riding in the car, and she said the phrase,

That’s why we’re making a bee line to your house.

And we kind of stopped.

And we’re from the South, so we have a lot of phrases that no one really knows the origin of.

And so we were wondering, and we started talking about it, just wondering, you know,

Because if you think of a bee, sometimes you don’t necessarily think about a straight line.

But that’s usually the context that that phrase is used in.

So we were just interested in where the origin of that phrase came from.

So you’re right.

You know, if you think about when you see bees out among the flowers, they take their time, you know, kind of wandering around and moseying from one blossom to the other, right?

Right, exactly.

It’s not like they’re flying in a straight line.

The thing is, once their little honey stomachs get full of nectar that they’re collecting, they go racing back to the hive to drop it off, and then they come back for more.

And that return trip to the hive is what’s called a beeline because it is pretty much straight back to the hive.

And what’s really cool is that some people still engage in the old practice of what’s called bee lining or bee hunting.

And that’s when you lure a bee in a box that has an old honeycomb and some sweetened substance like watered down honey or something like that.

And the bees will come and they’ll drink it.

And then when they’re full of this sweet substance, then you let it crawl out and watch it fly away.

And you can follow its path straight back to its hive.

And people find hives of feral bees that way.

And it used to be a lot more common, and in fact, Henry David Thoreau hung out with bee hunters.

And in his journal of 1852, he describes what happens after a bee takes its fill of this sticky substance.

He writes,

He rises up about 10 feet and then begins to circle rapidly round and round with a hum,

Sometimes a circle 20 feet in diameter before he’s decided which way to steer

And then suddenly shoots off in a beeline to his hive.

And of course, what’s hilarious about that is that he’s referring to the worker bees as male

And the worker bees are not male, they’re female.

But anyway, isn’t that cool?

That is super cool, yeah.

Well, you know, we should all go beelining sometime.

It’s a hobby for a lot of people.

You don’t collect the bees usually because they’re, you know, feral colonies

And they’re doing fine on their own.

But, you know, it’s sort of like the B version of geocaching.

I just think it would be a blast.

Yeah, sounds like fun.

A good reason to get outside.

Yeah.

Right?

That’s super interesting.

I never even heard of that.

Elena, thank you so much for your call.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

You guys have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Yeah, thank you.

Bye.

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More about what you say and why you say it.

Stick around for more of A Way with Words.

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

I’m Martha Barnette.

I’m Grant Barrett, and just back from a fabulous night at the Met Gala wearing a gown you’ll never believe.

It’s John Chaneski.

Hello, everybody.

Excuse me while I try to slide in here with this gigantic taffeta number on.

But here, just get in careful.

Don’t step on that.

Okay, it’s worth very, very much.

Anyway, look, you know what, guys?

It’s done.

I’m sending my second kid to college.

Wow.

That’s right, yes.

Max is in college, and now Jesse will be in college next year.

And, you know, looking at all the different choices was quite a job in and of itself.

It did, however, spur me to think of some possibilities.

For example, if you were going to study locksmithing, obviously the university you’d want to attend would be…

Yale.

Oh, Yale.

No, Yale, yes.

That’s a big lock company for those of you…

I like that.

Yeah.

That’s good.

Or if you want to be a chef and you want to make sure your French toast has a nice golden color on both sides, you could go to brown.

Yeah, so brown.

Go to brown to learn how to cook.

Go to brown, yeah.

Well, here are a few more.

You tell me the college I am very awkwardly referring to.

Here we go.

This is going to be great.

I’m sure.

You say you want to specialize in Japanese cuisine.

Good luck.

Now, first, you must study the basics.

The basic staple food grain.

You should go to Houston and go to Rice University.

Now, I’m not sure U.S. College is where you want to be if you want to be royalty.

Titles of nobility aren’t usually granted at universities, but I guess you could start at Queens College.

Queens College is a good guess.

But I’m thinking of one more.

Let’s see.

Where is this one?

Somewhere in North Carolina.

Duke.

Duke, yes.

You can become a Duke at Duke.

You want to get into fashion design?

Yes, specifically making boas or jackets

With faux fur collars and cuffs.

You’d probably learn to work with

Bunches of feathers or fur at…

Tufts.

Tufts, yes.

Tufts University.

Nice.

Go to Massachusetts and study Tufts.

At Tufts.

Finally, you know, you could be a great

Geneticist. You’d be a great pioneer

In the science of cloning, but you’d have

To get your doctorate in Ireland

At the University of…

Dublin.

Dublin, yes!

Study cloning

At Dublin. That’s terrible. That’s the worst.

That is the worst answer.

So bad.

So I don’t even have to be about

Universities. I don’t know where I came up with that. On that high note, I am going to,

I’m going to go back to college is what I’m going to do. I’m going to go study enigmatology

Somewhere in Indiana. All right, you guys, this has been fun. I’ll talk to you next time.

John, that was so painful on so many levels. We loved it.

We’re going to miss you.

I’ll miss you. Talk to you next week.

Bye-bye.

Bye, John.

And if you’d like to talk with us, we’d love to share a conversation with you.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your thoughts about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

I’m Loretta Kasteen, and I’m calling from Shreveport, Louisiana.

Well, hi, Loretta.

Welcome to the program.

Many years ago, I decided to go back to college to get my English degree.

And early on during this, my husband and I attended an English department function.

I was kind of a new student, so the professor really didn’t know me and didn’t know my husband at all.

But we ended up talking to one of the English professors, and I later found out he has a Ph.D. in linguistics.

So we were chatting, and the professor kind of stopped suddenly, and he says,

To my husband. He said, okay, so I’m going to guess that you’re in the military. Am I right?

And my husband was like, yeah. And so he continued. He said, my professor, he said,

You know, not just that, but I’m going to guess that you are a military kid. Was your father in

The military? Interesting. My husband said, yeah, 20 years Air Force, you know, and we were both

Kind of shocked by that. And my linguistics professor kind of just laughed and said,

He likes to play a little game where he, whenever he meets new people and he likes to try to guess.

Where they’re from, according to like their accent or, you know, how they speak, the words they use.

And he said whenever he couldn’t pinpoint where someone grew up or where they were from, it was because nine times out of ten that they were either in the military, were a military kid, or sometimes both.

And he called my husband’s accent garbled.

Garbled.

Yeah, kind of all mixed up.

And he said it’s kind of southern, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where.

And so I was wondering if that was something that was kind of known about military people, that they’re kind of known for having accents that you can’t place.

And the second part of my question is, I was wondering if either of you two do that.

Do you play the game and try to figure out where someone’s from?

Oh, heaven’s sakes, yes.

Yes, of course we do. Absolutely. I don’t know with that kind of success, but if you’re judicious about it, you can look amazingly clever.

Yeah, that’s really impressive. Yes, I’m listening to you speak and you’re talking about nine times out of ten.

T-I-N. It sounds like T-I-N.

Vowel glide.

Right. Yep. Yep. So. So, yes, Grant and I are always listening for pronunciation, particularly vowels.

How do you pronounce the word C.O.T.? And does it sound different from the past tense of catch?

Because that depends on where you are from in the country or if if you insert an R in wash, W.A.S.H. as wash.

You’ll hear that in the Midlands of the country. So. So pronunciation is one thing.

Vocabulary is another thing that people who do this listen to.

You probably know what the word tump means.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

You tump something over?

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

It turns over.

Exactly.

Yeah, I learned that in Kentucky.

Went away to college in New York.

Nobody knew what I was talking about.

And we get calls about that all the time, you know, that you move to a different part of the country and people look at you like you have two heads because you’re pronouncing things differently.

Or you’re using different vocabulary.

You know, if you’re talking about a shopping cart, you might call it a buggy.

And if you say that, I might guess that maybe you’re from Georgia or something like that.

And then we look at grammatical constructions as well, like needs washed, the cat needs let out.

Or might could.

Right.

Might could is another one, double modal.

So Grant and I are always taking in all of these kinds of things.

And yeah, whether we tell the person or not, we’re definitely listening for these things.

And Grant, I don’t know about military in particular.

Loretta’s spot on.

Yeah, the military, people who’ve served in the military and have been stationed at a lot of bases tend to do have more of an amalgam accent.

I wouldn’t call it garbled.

Garbled.

But the only other group that I’ve heard that’s like that are diplomats’ children.

Oh, that makes sense.

They’re, again, stationed at a lot of different places.

And they tend to be taught in English-speaking schools in foreign countries where they’re getting kind of an average accent and not any one regional accent.

And so that’s kind of what’s happening when you’re hearing the people from different branches of the military speak who have served for a long time or the children of people who have served for a long time.

And they’ve picked up little bits and pieces from a lot of regions.

So they have a lot of regional features and no one feature.

Martha and I kind of fall into that now because of what we do for a living.

We try on accents all the time.

We try on new language.

We try on new dialect features, and some of it sticks, you know.

Sometimes we’re not really good examples of anywhere anymore.

No, we’re terrible.

We’re magpies.

We are delighted that you shared with us, Loretta.

It was just really fantastic.

Thank you so much.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Love the show.

Love you guys.

Keep up the good work.

Take care of yourself.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye, Loretta.

877-929-9673.

words@waywordradio.org.

A while back we talked about knitting slang in terms like stash, which is your supply of yarn that’s sitting there waiting to be knitted.

And that prompted an email from Jill Wiggins in Kerrville, Texas.

She said that conversation reminded her of a sign in her local craft shop, which read, I hope my husband doesn’t sell my stash for what I told him I paid for it.

I love that because there are similar signs in fishing shops and in the shops where they sell tools for mechanics.

Oh, is that right?

Yes, exactly.

I guess I don’t shop there.

I hope my wife doesn’t sell my tools for what I told her I paid for them.

Oh.

877-929-9673.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there, how are you?

This is Charlie.

I’m calling from Rutland, Vermont.

Hi, Charlie.

What’s up?

What’s on your mind?

I just had an expression I said to my wife the other day, and I picked it up somewhere.

I’ve lived all over northern New England.

She was going to bed early, and I said, well, it’s dark under the table.

She said, what are you talking about?

And I said, I don’t know.

It’s just an expression that I’ve heard that when somebody goes to bed early, you say, well, it’s dark under the table.

So I was just kind of curious about it.

And I tried to Google it and I couldn’t really find anything other than dark under the table meant shady.

But it wasn’t really used in that in that term.

Yeah. Was it dark outside?

No, no. It’s usually when it’s, you know, it was like it was an old timer in Vermont that said it to me one time.

I said something about going to bed in the summertime before it gets dark.

He goes, well, it’s dark under the table.

What’s interesting about this is I love that you’re from Vermont and that you’ve been all around New England because it is particular to that part of the United States.

Now, you do find it in the early 1840s from all across the United States.

It’s an Americanism.

But in the last hundred years or so, it’s far more common in states like Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

And so you will find it in the writing of people like the Mainers, Louise Dickinson Rich and Stephen King.

And then there’s a poem by the Vermont poet James Hayford called Dark Under the Table, which is really lovely.

It’s dark under the table, but James Hayford goes, most all of you good neighbors go to bed as soon as it gets dark under the table.

And I would do the same if I were able.

Our daylight steps should earn our daily bread.

But there’s no rest in my restless head.

And I must pass under every darkened gable, hearing a horse stomp deep within a stable, hearing a wakeful dog growl in a shed.

So he, as a Vermonter, probably heard that in his own daily life and made a poem out of it.

That was great. So I’m not crazy.

No, not at all.

Louise Dickinson-Rich, she spent some time in the Goldsboro Peninsula in Maine, and she has a really lovely book published in 1958 called The Peninsula.

And she says it was very particular among the lobstermen there to talk about going to bed as soon as it’s dark under the table.

And for them, it wasn’t about going to bed early.

It’s just because they had to get up so early, they had to go to bed early.

But they would say that they pry up the sun in the morning and that they go to bed as soon as it’s dark under the table.

I love that.

They pry up the sun.

Oh, that’s wonderful.

Yeah, because that’s, you know, that’s kind of like when we would talk about it.

It was if we had a really early day, go to bed when it’s dark under the table because you wanted to get to bed as soon as you could.

Right. So that’s the first part of the house that becomes dark in any way is under the table, right?

Well, I have never heard this expression and I love to go to bed early.

So I am going to borrow this one, Charlie.

All right.

Thank you so much for your call.

We really appreciate it.

All right. Thank you.

Take care now. Bye-bye.

Bye now.

If there’s a word or phrase that’s been puzzling you, we would love to puzzle over it with you.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Samantha calling from Charleston, South Carolina.

I’m really excited to get to ask you my question.

Hi, Samantha.

Glad to have you.

Welcome.

What’s up?

What’s on your mind?

I’ve got a question about a phrase that my family would use, my mom and my Nona, my grandmother.

And it’s an Italian phrase, malaria, meaning bad air, mal, aria.

But they would use it all the time in kind of almost like a folksy kind of lore way of, you know, don’t go outside with wet hair.

You might get sick, that kind of thing.

If the seasons were changing, that was often a time when you might catch malaria.

You know, it’s kind of chillier than normal or the temperature is different.

My mother’s grandparents also said you could catch it if you stood in front of the air conditioning.

And so a way to avoid it would be you have to cover your neck.

So my mom still does it to this day.

She feels like the weather is changing.

She’ll say, oh, Meladia is in the air.

And so she’ll wear a scarf or if she forgets her scarf, she puts her hand over her neck.

Just protecting your neck is the big way to not catch it, I guess.

So my question is, you know, I don’t know if this was something specific to my family.

Is this kind of an old wives tale in other places?

And then in a bigger sense, combining the two words, malaria, you know, you get the word malaria.

And so I just wonder if there’s some sort of connection with that and where this all might have come from.

Yeah, you’re right on target, Samantha.

First, let’s talk about that folklore, which is really interesting, that whole idea of going outside with wet hair or going to bed with wet hair.

Lots of cultures around the world have folklore about that, that you would get sick of some kind, maybe pneumonia or an earache.

Or if you go to bed with wet hair, you’ll wake up with a sore throat or your teeth will fall out or you’ll go blind or insane.

All of these things.

And so it’s not just the Italians, like the Russians and the Filipinos and many other people have this too.

And I’ve heard the air conditioning one as well, which I love because it means it’s modern folklore since air conditioning is relatively new.

So I love the fact that new folklore is so apparent.

So something I really love though here is that the word folklore in English sometimes means old wives tale in English, but in Italian it’s consigli delle nona, which is, it’s funny because you know it was one of the people usually it’s advice from nona.

Oh, that’s wonderful.

I love that.

But the other thing is, your larger connection that you made, and you must feel really good about this, is that yes, the malaria, that’s two words meaning bad air, is indeed the origin of the word malaria, the disease that we get from mosquitoes.

And it comes from this history of, before germ theory was a thing, of people believing that there was bad air, perhaps connected to swamps, that gave you the disease.

They didn’t even know that there were insects involved.

And so what happens is those, linguistically, those two words mala, meaning bad, and aria, meaning air, they combine into one word.

Where the end A on mala and the beginning A on aria make one A.

And that’s called haplology.

So it shows up in Italian in the 1500s and in English in the 1700s.

And actually in English, the guy who brought it into English, Sir Robert Walpole, who’s a British politician, he also brought us the word serendipity.

So this guy has two words to his credit.

Oh, that’s so interesting.

I’m so glad to just hear more about it because it’s something that, I mean, my mom still says this to me today.

You know, in the fall, it’s inevitable that my mom will be like, don’t forget your scarf.

There’s malaria around today.

And I’m like, okay, I’ll make sure.

So she’s referring to this older notion, which is an ague, any kind of fever that you might have.

Just generically called an ague before we had the word malaria.

And so she’s got this whole other, your mother and your nonna have this whole other track that has continued, even after malaria became a separate thing in this mosquito-borne disease.

So that folkloric idea of just general bad air, meaning general bad sickness, that’s always existed too.

So much history right there in her mouth.

Yeah.

Samantha, that’s delightful.

And you are delightful.

I appreciate you sharing your stories with us.

Yes.

Thank you so much for making time to talk to me and answering my question.

I’m so excited to get to talk to you both.

I’m glad to have you.

Take care of yourself.

Okay, bye. Thanks.

877-929-9673.

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

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

We received an email from Christine Kunert in Delafield, Wisconsin.

Christine sent us a list of rare and obsolete words with their brief definitions, and I was really happy to get this list because I knew only about a third of them.

It included words like throttle bottom, which is a dishonest public official.

That word has been around since 1931.

And then there was snout fair.

That’s a good-looking person.

Oh, wow.

Snout fair.

That’s lovely.

Yes, that’s been around since 1530 or so.

And then there was ejectamento, which is material ejected from a volcano.

Now, there were 31 of these words, and that’s significant because what made these words really special is that they were part of a challenge for an online group that Christine belongs to.

It’s a Facebook group for calligraphy enthusiasts.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense.

Oh, Grant, you’ve got to visit this group.

It’s called Copperplate Script for All.

And each month as an exercise, they’re given a list of words like these and definitions to practice.

And if they’re pleased with their results, they can post a photo.

And I joined the group and these samples are stunningly gorgeous.

It reminded me of what we used to say about somebody with a beautiful voice.

You know, you’d say, oh, I could listen to her read the phone book.

It doesn’t matter.

Yeah, but you’re saying you could read the phone book in calligraphy.

Well, yeah, this is the visual equivalent of that.

And it got me to thinking about how we render words visually, you know, the clothes that we put on words and their effect on us, because there’s so much that we take for granted about, say, how expressive somebody’s handwriting can be or how easily we change fonts in a document and how that feels a little bit different.

Or even how our reading experience can be affected by the kind of typeface that’s used.

It’s sort of, you know, the clothes that we put on words and how that makes us feel.

I agree with all of that.

And I’m thinking about the words that you mentioned, throttle bottom, like what’s going to happen to that double T when a calligrapher gets a hold of it, right?

That’s amazing.

Like, my name is Barrett.

I have two R’s and two T’s.

And cool things can happen with double letters.

And then I’m thinking about ejectamenta, the J.

The J probably is a calligrapher’s dream.

What are they going to do with that hook underneath the baseline?

Are they going to bring it up under the E?

Like, cool things can happen with these interesting letters and complicated words.

It’s so interesting to me that you look at it that way.

I was thinking about how throttle bottom, a dishonest public official, actually looks beautiful.

The contradiction, yeah.

Throttle bottom.

It’s got two double Ts there.

I’m just thinking, like, a clever calligrapher could do amazing things with those.

Now you’ve got me thinking about that.

And the three Os and the big T at the beginning.

Oh, man.

Well, right.

And the B with that’s kind of, it’s like two pillows on a bed, right?

Well, maybe you’re one pillow.

So what’s the name of that Facebook group again?

The Facebook group is called Copperplate Script for All.

You know, there are lots of different scripts, but this one is specifically Copperplate.

If you are well known for your calligraphy or your handwriting, boy, Martha and I would love to see samples of it.

You can find lots of ways to reach us by email or social media on our website at waywordradio.org.

Or you can tell us how you got into calligraphy on our voicemail, toll free in the United States and Canada, 1-877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, good morning.

This is Judy Geary, and I’m calling from Huntsville, Alabama.

Oh, well, welcome to A Way with Words.

What can we do for you, Judy?

Thank you.

Well, I was remembering my stepmother called Miss Bunny, and she periodically would say to me,

He that hath a horn to toot, and tooteth it not, the same shall not booted.

And I heard encouragement as well as humor for me to use my voice and use my gifts.

And what kind of context would she say this in?

She would say that when she wanted me to join in the conversation or to realize that I could sing, actually.

I think that that was part of the deal.

She knew that I had some issues around learning piano, and she heard me singing around the house, and she wanted to encourage that.

And even though the singing is not the same as a horn to toot, she made it clear that she appreciated my voice.

That’s very sweet, actually. That’s very nice.

It’s funny because it’s not the usual way that the expression is applied, if that makes sense.

Oh, yes, yeah.

But I guess it works here, you know, because when we talk about tooting one’s own horn, we’re talking about speaking highly of ourselves, bragging a little bit maybe, or saying good things about ourselves that others might not be saying about us.

Right.

And that’s what that expression, despite its weird wording, that’s basically what it is.

It’s saying, it’s just basically saying, nobody else will toot your horn if you don’t.

Right, right.

That makes perfect sense to me.

And she knew a lot about that, speaking up for herself and for her own gifts and for her own life, really.

What was the phrase again?

Well, he that hath a horn to toot, and tooteth it not, the same shall not be tooted.

Yeah.

Yeah, I’m trying to think what book of the Bible that is.

You’re right.

I think that must be in Ephesians somewhere.

I have seen it attributed to Jehoshaphat, but it’s not actually in the Bible.

It dates at least to the early 1850s.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so it’s got some legs to it, but what’s strange about it is it’s got this patina of age to it that it doesn’t really deserve because of that weird syntactic construction, just the way that it’s put together.

But often it’s attributed to made-up gods or made-up oracles or figures of wisdom, or more recently, often it’ll be in the mouths of famous people who didn’t actually say it, people that we’ve come to respect as thinkers and writers.

And there’s lots of variations on it, but yours is as good as anyone.

He that toots not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted.

Right, right.

And he has half a horn to toot.

One more pedestrian one is toot your own horn, but deliver the goods.

Right, right, yeah.

Yeah, well, I appreciate that.

I had no idea.

I just know that it was unique to hear that in my little rural community,

And that I appreciated hearing that from Miss Bonnie, our stepmother.

Well, Judy, thank you so much for calling and sharing these stories with us.

You’re very welcome.

All right. Take care of yourself. Bye-bye.

Thanks. Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

Well, I see the Oxford English Dictionary has added the word baby Chino to its…

Baby Chino.

This is tiny pants for babies?

Little chinos?

Little pants.

Tiny pants.

Oh, no.

This is a drink.

This is a coffee drink.

No.

A Baby Chino, which is baby, and then C-C-I-N-O, is a children’s drink consisting of hot milk

That’s been frothed up with pressurized steam so as to resemble a cappuccino.

No coffee, though.

No caffeine.

You don’t want to do that, no.

Not to yourself.

The baby might like it.

Right.

But you don’t want a caffeinated baby in your world.

No.

Apparently this term has been around since 1995, started in Australia.

Baby Chino.

We want you to call us or email us or talk to us on social media.

You can find all the ways to do that on our website at waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Laura Cardinal.

I’m calling from Hereford, Arizona.

Hi, Laura.

Welcome to the show.

What can we do for you?

Hi.

Thank you.

Well, I had a troubling experience listening to the radio.

I was listening to one of my favorite NPR programs talking about a national act, the Endangered Species Act.

And the host had three different scientists on.

And the host would say, we’re here to talk about the Endangered Species Act.

And she would introduce Professor So-and-so, and the professor would say, yes, the species that we’re talking about is blah, blah, blah.

And then go back to the host, and she would again say, species.

And the next guest would say, species.

And it started to be distracting because the scientists were saying very clearly, enunciating very clearly, species, and the host would say species.

And I found myself just completely distracted from the discussion and listening to this word challenge between the host and the guest about how to pronounce this word.

Afterwards, I started listening to how people say it, and there seemed to be a real range of the ways people pronounce this word.

A lot of people do say species, but a lot of people say species.

And I have even heard people say species or species, like he, she, and species.

I don’t know why there’s so many pronunciations of this word, but it was puzzling to me, and I thought, you guys could figure it out.

You’ve got a great ear. You’ve got a really good listener’s ear, Laura.

Let’s just clarify for everyone who’s listening now, just so they know what we’re saying.

We’re talking about the word species, S-P-E-C-I-E-S, species.

Correct.

And what you’re hearing here is like an S-H sound where you would expect to hear an S sound.

So you’re hearing shh where you’re expected to hear ss.

You’re going to be surprised, I think, to find that the species where the last syllable sounds like she, as in the pronoun she, is far more common in North American and British English.

Like by far and away.

Like nine to one.

I’ll be darned.

Actually, the scientists have the rarer pronunciation.

They were the outliers.

Yeah, they’re the outliers.

It sounds more like you’re talking about high seas, species.

Correct.

So that’s what’s really interesting.

Both pronunciations are considered standard in North American and British English.

And neither one of them has a stigma attached to it or is considered beyond the pale.

So they’re both legit and good and cool.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the scientists don’t have within their field a preferred pronunciation.

And that happens all the time, particularly like in the medical field,

Where the professionals have all agreed kind of inside their business, inside their industry, to talk one way.

And it’s at odds with the way the regular folks talk, the ones who aren’t specialized in that.

And that might be what you heard.

But it doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily more correct or that it’s better.

Okay.

All right. Well, thanks for calling and take care of yourself.

Always a pleasure listening to you guys.

All right. Be well.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Katie. I’m calling from the Northwoods of Wisconsin.

And my word is jonered.

Jonered.

Jonered.

All right. Tell us more about jonered.

It’s funny. I got into a conversation with the older of my two older sisters,

Who is 17 years my senior, and she defines Joner differently than I do.

She defines it as abject humiliation using the example of being in the sixth grade,

Being on stage in front of the entire elementary school,

And then having the elastic in your underwear burst and losing your underwear around your ankles.

Oh, that’s terrible.

So they were Jonered because their britches fell down.

Well, that’s how she would define it.

I disagree. By the time I was growing up, at least, Jonah became far more nuanced. It definitely

Was a form of embarrassment, but it included a component of humiliation. And I’m going to give.

You an example that I remember very, very well. My grandmother, who lived with us, got into an argument with another member of our family who was not me about whether or not Billy Graham and Mahalia Jackson had ever been on stage together.

So my grandmother was adamant that her position was the correct position, and in the course of the conversation actually wound up calling the other family members stupid and an idiot, and what did they know about anything, okay?

As you can well imagine, when it was over, it came to light, of course, that my grandmother, whatever position that was, turned out to be wrong. And it was one of the few times that she ever admitted, however quietly, that she felt jonered.

I love the way you said that, however quietly. We all have somebody like your grandma in our lives. They’re always right.

Yeah. Now, I’ve heard people say, oh, it’s a, you know, it’s some sort of a morph of Jonah, which it can’t be. Jonah’s like to be a jinx.

Oh, but you’ve got a preacher’s daughter here. The preacher’s daughter is going to school you. Okay, fill me in.

Well, yeah, both of those things are negative. And it sounds like if your grandmother was arguing so forcefully about Billy Graham, she was probably familiar with the story of Jonah, wouldn’t you think?

Well, yes, I’m sure she was. But I don’t know how she would have morphed being a Jonah into being humiliated, unless she thought Jonah was humiliated by the whale. I don’t know.

Well, I think there was an element of humiliation in there. You remember that God commands Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and preach there and tell people to change their ways. But he has other ideas and Jonah gets on a ship and heads off in a different direction.

And this huge storm comes up and Jonah gets blamed for it. And he tells the sailors, yeah, God’s mad at me. But if you throw me overboard, the storm will stop. And so they do. And the seas calm down.

But then he’s swallowed by the whale or a big fish. This story used to terrify me in Sunday school. But he was swallowed by the whale and stayed there three days and three nights and ends up repenting. And I suppose is humiliated in the process.

And then God makes the whale vomit him out, which would also be humiliating. And so he ends up doing what he was supposed to do in the first place. And you’re right that a Jonah or a Jonah in English dialect is a jinx or somebody who brings bad luck or somebody who’s being a pest primarily.

But Katie, I wanted to talk about the transformation of this meaning here about this biblical character who had this trouble with God that he brought upon himself. And so this idea of being a troublemaker is part of the history of to be jonered or to joner someone because it can be both transitive and intransitive.

But later we see variations, you know, starting in the 1860s where it’s about trouncing someone or making someone fail or rejecting someone. I’ve even seen Jonah being used to talk about taking the sting out of a very rough text where somebody has written something excoriating, something really terrible about someone else, and then it’s edited to be much calmer. And they’ve Jonah-ed the text, almost baudelorized it.

Well, thank you very much. That’s all very interesting. And now I can tell my sister what I have discovered, that indeed it does have a connection to Jonah. But it still is more than just abject humiliation.

You have to have done something. It’s because the example that she gave, I just called it a terribly embarrassing accident. But it wouldn’t make you feel jaded. You’d just want to go high and never, yeah.

That’s an interesting development. Well, thank you very much, guys. Take care. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Katie. Bye, Katie. Bye-bye.

There are lots of ways to reach us, and you can find them all and all of our past episodes on our website at waywordradio.org. Our team includes senior producer Stefanie Levine, engineer and editor Tim Felten, and quiz guide John Chaneski.

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Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Barnette. And I’m Grant Barrett. Until next time, goodbye. Bye.