Mining Strippers

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Gwen.

Hi, Gwen. Welcome to the program.

Where are you calling us from?

Thank you. Terre Haute, Indiana.

Oh, very good. What’s up?

Well, I called in with a story I thought you guys might enjoy with a kind of little play on words, and thought I’d share that with you today.

Great. We love word stories.

Well, this is a few years ago, and I grew up southeast of here in a little town called Duggar, Indiana, and it’s in west central Indiana. It’s mining country.

Years ago, it was deep mines, and now it’s surface mining. And those of us who live there, grew up there, refer to the large drag lines that clear away the soil as a stripper.

And it’s just when you talk about the stripper, everyone locally knows you’re talking about the large drag line.

And a few years ago, it was my great-grandfather’s birthday, and we all gathered on Christmas Day for his birthday. And my cousin had come in with his new bride from Texas.

And we celebrated the birthday and had the cake and everything. And they were building at the time a brand new drag line.

And, of course, men being what they are, the bigger the toy is, the more they’re interested. So all the guys pile in the car and go down to see how they’re building this large drag line.

And when I mean large, the bucket alone can carry 450 cubic tons of dirt in one scoop. Kind of think of it as two city buses could fit easily in the bucket of this.

And the guys are all interested. So they go down, Jerry, and all the guys pile in the cars to go down.

Well, his new bride comes walking through and wanted to know where Jerry was. And we looked up and said, oh, all the guys went down to see the stripper.

Well, she got this unusual look on her face and didn’t say anything. And we continued on the conversation.

Finally, she jumped up very, very agitated and said,

What kind of family is this?

Why would they do that on Christmas Day and your grandfather’s birthday?

The men would go see a stripper.

And we said, well, yeah.

You know, I mean, it’s new, you know,

And still not getting the gist of her concern.

And we just continued, and she just was very agitated.

And then finally the light went on and someone said, well, they went to see the drag line.

And we could not convince her.

We tried to explain to her what it was.

But all she thought of was a Gypsy Rose Lee performance as opposed to, you know, the actual thing.

So we literally had to get her in the car and drive her down to see.

And luckily the guys were all still there, you know, looking at the drag line slash stripper.

And it took some violent convincing of all, because she thought maybe they congregated there and then were going on to see the stripper.

She had never heard that.

So, you know, the use of words locally can sometimes send people into panic.

That’s really, really good, Gwen.

So it’s stripping the soil is why it’s called a stripper, right?

Right. That’s why it’s referred to locally by most people as a stripper.

It strips away the soil to expose the cold vein.

Well, Gwen, thank you so much for sharing this story about the importance of precision in language.

I appreciate it, Gwen.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Well, thank you, guys.

Let us know.

Thanks, Gwen.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Wow.

Good thing she caught them before they went down to the gentleman’s club after seeing the drag line, right?

That’s right.

She intervened.

We love these stories about language and words misheard and misunderstood.

Call us about yours, 877-929-9673, or send those stories an email to words@waywordradio.org.