If You’re Too Tired, He’s Three Tired

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. And Grant, did you know that a turkey’s head can change colors?

Maybe you know this from growing up on a farm.

A turkey’s head can change colors. Yes, I did know this. Sometimes even the wattle can become bluish.

Yes, I learned this only today, that depending on its mood, a turkey’s skin can shift from red to blue to white.

Because the skin has these bundles of collagen interspersed with lots of blood vessels.

And so if the bird is angry or agitated,

The spacing between those collagen fibers changes when the blood vessels swell or contract.

And I learned this because I went down something of a turkey rabbit hole, to mix metaphors,

When I found out that the Japanese word for turkey, which is something like shihimencho,

Translates as seven-faced bird. Isn’t that wonderful? It’s because of the change of color.

Seven-faced bird?

Yes.

That sounds like a political insult.

Well, it’s a descriptive word for this kind of bird, and there’s a similar word in Korean.

I learned it from the book, The Wheel is Spinning, But the Hamster is Dead,

A Journey Around the World in Idioms, Proverbs, and General Nonsense by Adam Sharp.

That sounds like a fantastically fun book, Martha.

It really is.

It’s a great browsing book.

It gathers sayings from around the world.

And as you can imagine, some of them are coarse or body, but that’s often the way that people talk, right?

Yeah, so you’ve bookmarked those sections for me.

Well, I also have some of the cleaner ones.

In Ireland, if you want to describe someone who’s always showing off or engaging in one-upmanship,

You can say, if you’ve been to Tenerife, he’s been to Elevinarife.

I’ve heard that one before.

Oh, have you?

Yeah, that’s lovely.

I like it.

Or you’ll really like this one, too.

If you’ve got an elephant, he’s got the box it came in.

Oh, I love that.

I’m still going back to the turkey with the chromatospores, though.

Like the turkey that can change colors like an octopus.

Yeah.

I was still thinking about that.

The seven-faced bird.

That’s crazy.

Yeah, so much to learn.

So much to learn.

And so many jumping off points in this book.

We’ll link to this book on our website.

And the book again is?

The Wheel is Spinning, But the Hamster is Dead.

And despite the dreary title, it sounds like a lovely and exciting book.

We’ll have a link to it on our website.

And we’d love to hear about what you’re reading or those fun idioms and expressions from wherever you live in the world.

And whatever languages you speak, English or not, doesn’t matter.

You can send them to us in email, words@waywordradio.org,

Or talk to us on social media.

All of our accounts are on our website at waywordradio.org.