Mute Point

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

And I’m Martha Barnette.

The other day I was driving someplace, but then I got lost.

So I pulled up to a traffic light and I turned to the driver in the car next to me to ask her if I was headed in the right direction.

But she had her windows up, and so I tried to catch her eye.

And then I used that gesture that you make when you want somebody to lower their window.

You make a fist and you make it go in a circle.

But later I thought, wait, when’s the last time I ever lowered my window with that kind of circular motion?

I don’t think I’ve done that since the 1990s.

No, you’ve got a button.

You just press the button down, the window goes or up, the window goes.

Yeah, exactly.

And it occurred to me, Grant, that this motion that I used is sort of the gestural equivalent of one of your favorite words, skew-o-morph.

Oh, yeah, sure, exactly.

And it’s spelled S-K-E-U-O-M-O-R-P-H.

And it’s what you have when an element of design is preserved in something, even though it’s no longer necessary.

Like, for example, maybe you have a light fixture over your dining room table and it’s got those little bulbs in it that look like candle flames.

I mean, what is that about?

Yeah, you don’t need those anymore, right?

No, no.

We haven’t had those since, you know, Middle Ages or something.

Even some of the nicer radios that you can buy, like the big console radios that you might put behind your television on a big wall, they have fake wood grain.

Yeah, what’s that about?

Because radios used to be made with wood, right?

Of wooden cabinets.

Yeah, it’s weird, isn’t it?

Most people probably know skeuomorphs from their phones.

From their phones.

Because if you get a voicemail, there’s a really good chance that the icon that pops up to tell you that is an icon that looks like the old reel-to-reel tape machine.

Oh, yeah.

Or more like a little mini cassette.

And when was the last time you played a cassette?

You’re right.

Or a reel-to-reel, for that matter, right?

Gosh, and now that you mention it, I think of those little things looking like the cartridge that you put in your Instamatic camera.

Wow, that really dates me.

Well, another one on your phone.

Just pick up your smartphone and look, and I bet you’ll find something that’s related to the telephone, some icon or symbol that looks like the old-school AT&T handset from the 1970s.

Yeah.

Because we require this continuing idea, and it’s just enough information.

Now, you might have used a skeuomorphic language, right?

Because we talk about rolling up our windows.

Oh, yeah, rolling.

Just like we no longer do the cranking gesture, we no longer actually roll them up.

The car does it, right?

We’re raising them or lowering them.

Yeah, or dial the phone.

Who dials the phone?

We don’t.

You touch it.

So we have linguistic skeuomorphs, these remnants from a previous time.

We have design and architecture skeuomorphs, right?

And then we have skeuomorphs that are actions, right?

I’m looking forward to the day when we all have phone implants and you’ll still hold up your hand to your face in that kind of like…

With your thumb and your pinky out.

Yeah, to mean talk.

Call me, right?

Even though you no longer need it.

Well, what skeuomorphs have you noticed?

We’d love to hear about it, and we’d love to hear your stories about language, so give us a call.

877-929-9673 is the number to dial, or you can send it an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, Martha and Grant.

This is Crash from Marion, Florida.

Crash?

Hi, Crash.

That’s your name?

They call you Crash?

Yes, sir.

What, are you an old NASCAR driver?

No, no, I earned that while I was in the Navy.

Oh.

It stuck with me, so I had it legally added to my name.

Did you really?

Yes, ma’am.

Sounds like a story.

Yeah, how many ships did you ground?

Well, no, I didn’t ground any ships.

I was wrecking cars.

Oh, okay.

Well, Crash, welcome to the program.

How can we help?

Well, I’ve listened to you, and I’ve been thinking, trying to think of something to call you for, and walk around, and this thing popped into my mind, and it was when somebody asks you your name, they say, who are you? And you say, I’m Puddin’ Tain. Ask me again, I’ll tell you the same.

And I have no idea where it came from, and I don’t know what the heck Puddin’ Tain is.

How long have you known it?

All my life.

Since you were a boy.

Yes.

And you grew up where?

I grew up in Pennsylvania, and then 20 years in the Navy, and 20 years down here.

Okay.

Put in tang, Martha.

I said it when I was growing up.

You did?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah?

Yeah, it’s sort of a smart-alecky little thing.

I mean, when I think about saying it, I have my hands on my hips, and they’re sort of going back and forth.

Put in tang.

Between kids, right?

Between kids?

Yeah.

Yeah, not to an adult.

Yeah.

Not between adults, probably, either.

I…

I don’t know if my mom said that to me or not.

Oh, okay.

I haven’t said it in a long, long time.

Well, like I said, I was trying to think of something because I like your show, and I said, I’d like to get on there.

And that’s the only thing that has come to my mind.

Well, it is a great question. You win the prize. Here we are talking to you, Crash.

Yes, I appreciate it.

I’ve got to tell you, this plugs into this whole big chunk of children’s folklore around the English-speaking world, and frankly, in the French-speaking world and elsewhere.

When children meet, there are these rituals they have to find out whether the person that they’re talking to belongs.

And this, it’s a little more complicated, but it’s simply put, this is one of those rhymes that children have traditionally said to each other to find out if you’re a stranger or not, to find out if you’re part of the group or could be part of the group.

Whether you’re cool or not.

Yeah, and there’s a whole collection of rhymes collected by Iona and Peter Opie.

I’ve talked about them on the program before.

These are classic folklorists.

They specialize in children’s folklore.

They’ve got pages and pages of this stuff from the U.K. and the U.S.

And even some in French where the children’s rhymes.

Here’s a great one, Martha.

What’s your name?

Elegant pain.

What’s your number?

Cucumber.

What’s your road?

Big black toad.

They’ve got another one from New Jersey.

What’s your name?

John Brown.

Ask me again, and I’ll knock you down.

Knock you down, yeah.

Ooh.

Don’t like that one.

Yeah.

I’ve heard that, or where do you live in a sieve.

They go on and on like that.

What’s your name?

Baldy Bane.

What’s your ither?

Ask my mither.

That’s what you have to say in a Glasgow accent, a Glasgow region accent.

Yeah.

How about Pete and Repeat sitting on a fence?

Pete fell off.

Who’s left?

Repeat.

Repeat, yeah.

Pete and Repeat are sitting on a fence.

Yeah, I learned that from my uncle.

He’s also the guy who taught me H-buckle-B-buckle-huckle-buckle-y, H-buckle-B-buckle-huckle-berry-pie.

Slow down.

I can’t understand.

Well, there’s a backstory to Pudding of Tame that I want to share with you.

We’re not 100% on this, but it turns out there was a fellow who wrote some stuff in the 1600s where he described a character called Pudding of Tame, who may be the one being referred to in this rhyme.

And he was a proxy for the devil, more or less.

Does that sound right, Martha?

Something like that?

A fiend or a devil or the devil.

And it was a book called Harnet’s Popish Impostures.

And so some people believe that.

I’ll never remember that.

Yeah.

We’ll put it on the website.

But there’s some people who believe that this children’s rhyme just retains this one simple piece of information from centuries ago.

All right.

Although it’s lost all connotation.

On the site, can I get that list of things that you said the other two did?

Oh, sure, yeah.

We’ll link to it.

There’s tons of this stuff out there.

We’ll link to a bunch of it and make sure we’ll spread it around so the next generation knows how to respond when they meet a new kid.

Right, and I’ll start driving people crazy down here.

You mean more crazy?

I’m worried about you driving, Crash.

Yeah, I was going to say, stay on the road.

I gave up on that.

Oh, I did.

So now you’ve got a chauffeur, right?

Well, no, I’ve got my doggies that I chauffeur them around, and I don’t want to mess them up.

Yeah.

Well, Crash, we have a show for you.

It’s called A Way with Words, and we want you to call us again sometime.

I’ll do it if I can pick up another one.

Okay.

Thanks, boss.

I sure appreciate it.

Okay, take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Call us, 877-929-9673, or send your sayings and email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha.

Amanda calls from San Diego.

Hi, Amanda.

Welcome to the program.

I was calling just because I always had a thought of what the saying California stop was.

I thought everybody used that to describe someone who does a rolling stop at a stop sign.

You know, they just kind of cruise through it a little bit.

So you mean not a stop?

Yes, yes, pretty much.

Like, I’ve always heard it called that.

My parents are from Michigan.

They call it that.

And I was at the store the other day, and the clerk was watching this guy get pulled over.

And I asked him, what did he do?

And he called it a Hollywood roll.

A Hollywood roll.

Yeah, and it made me think, like, does every city and state, like, name it after themselves?

Or is that guy just weird?

And then I met someone again the other day, and I asked him.

And he’s from Indiana, and he called it a New York shuffle.

So I don’t know what to say.

Oh, a New York shuffle.

I didn’t have that one on my list.

So your question is, how many other names are there for this idea that you don’t actually stop at a stop sign?

You just slow down a little bit, look furtively both ways, and then roar through it, right?

Pretty much, yeah.

Looking in my works here, in my reference works, I count 11 other terms.

And the one that you gave me for the New York shuffle I’ve never heard before, that makes 12.

Woo-hoo.

And then there’s even an adjective related to this behavior at stop signs.

It’s called stop-tional.

Stop-tional.

Stop-tional?

It’s not a stop sign.

It’s stop-tional.

It’s a suggestion.

So I’ve got California stop, California roll, Texas stop, Hollywood stop, Hollywood roll, Missouri stop, LA stop, Michigan stop, which is interesting because your parents are from Michigan and they didn’t use that.

Yeah, not at all.

Rhode Island roll, rolling stop, St. Louis stop, Jersey stop.

That’s actually, including New York shuffle, is 13.

But stop and roll tend to switch hands.

Did you have City Stop in there?

City Stop.

Never heard that one.

Yeah, I’ve heard that one.

How about that?

Yeah.

14 then.

So, yeah, stop and roll, change hands, and the place changes as well.

And some of it is hometown pride and misbehaving.

It’s the locals who call it the Hollywood, California, and so forth.

You’re talking about yourself and the people around you.

It’s not necessarily the next state over, though sometimes it is.

Yeah, that’s how we do it in California.

Yeah, so that’s why I was wondering if other states named it after themselves, if it was just something we did or what.

It’s particularly associated with California.

In the earliest records that we find from the late 1960s, early 1970s, it’s almost always a Hollywood stop or a California stop or California roll.

And it shows up in court cases in the early 1970s as well, where it becomes a thing that people discuss when there’s some horrific accident and somebody dies.

And so it becomes spread mostly through fiction and films.

And the rest of the country either comes up with their own name for it or they just take the California name and switch it.

Because pretty much everywhere I’ve ever driven around the whole country, people don’t really stop at stop signs.

That’s interesting.

Thank you.

I bet there’s some more terms for this.

And we’ll throw the word out to everybody listening.

What do they call this non-stop stop where you are?

The California roll, the California stop, the Michigan roll, something like that?

I think I ordered this at the sushi restaurant the other night.

The California roll, right.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or tell us about an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Amanda, drive carefully.

Yes, please, and do stop.

I don’t want to read about you in the papers.

Yeah.

All right, bye-bye.

Just for good stuff.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye, guys.

Thank you.

Bye.

Call us with your questions about language, 877-929-9673, or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.

We’ve talked before on the show about collective nouns, like an exaltation of larks.

Right.

I came across one the other day in a story on CNN.

Oh, okay.

The collective noun was dole, D-O-L-E, a collective noun for doves.

It’s related to the Latin word for sadness.

And this was a description of a vigil for someone who died,

And they released a dole of doves into the air.

Sort of a mournful, mournful image, a dole of doves.

I love that.

I do too.

That’s fantastic.

Share whatever great words that you found in your reading

And tell us what you’re reading at 877-929-9673.

Or tell us about your words in your reading in email, words@waywordradio.org.

Support for A Way with Words comes from the Ken Blanchard Companies, whose purpose is to make a leadership difference among executives, managers, and individuals in organizations everywhere.

More about Ken Blanchard’s leadership training programs at KenBlanchard.com slash leadership.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re joined once again by our quiz guide, John Chaneski.

Hello, John.

Hello, Grant.

Hello, Martha.

Hi, John.

What’s cooking, dude?

It’s so great to be here.

You guys know I’m always looking for like an angle, right?

Trying to sell things to specific markets, people with different interests, blah, blah, blah.

Well, you know, when Obama was campaigning, I had the idea to sell his slogan on T-shirts, but specifically targeted to people in Topeka.

Can you guess what it said?

Yes, we Kansas.

Yes, we Kansas.

Very good.

Yes.

You got the sample.

You should be able to get the rest of them.

Oh, is this a quiz?

This is a quiz.

Surprise.

It’s sort of, they’re sort of portmanteau products, words that overlap.

And the first few are sort of state-themed.

Here we go.

How about something to write with that has a soft, spongy point for people in Pittsburgh?

Ballpoint, Pennsylvania?

Now, ballpoint does not have a soft, spongy point, does it?

Felt-tip, Pennsylvania?

A felt-tip, Pennsylvania, yes.

How about some playground equipment for people in Nashville?

Tennessee Saw.

Tennessee Saw, right.

I had this idea to reissue the first Beastie Boys album, specifically for people in Chicago.

It’s something Illin, isn’t it?

It’s close, yeah.

I forget.

Illin, I don’t know.

I forget.

It’s License to Illinois.

Yeah, there we go.

License to Illinois.

Big seller.

Big seller.

How about this?

This is delicious.

A nutty, marshmallow-y ice cream flavor for just people in Providence.

Rocky Rhode Island.

Rocky Rhode Island is right.

Good.

But then, you know, I took a left turn.

I said, how about some astrology?

People are interested in astrology.

How about an all-American dessert intended for those born in March?

Oh, apple pies of March?

No.

Think astrologically.

Oh, apple Pisces.

Apple Pisces.

Very good.

How about a measure of your financial solidity if you’re born in November?

Your credit Scorpio.

Yes, your credit Scorpio.

Oh, terrible.

Good.

That’s really bad.

Okay.

That’s fine.

I’ll take it anyway.

I decided to do a revival of a Will Smith TV sitcom aimed at those born in April.

Fresh Prince of Bel-Ares.

Fresh Prince of Belle Aries, yes.

It’s one for my dad, Aries.

How about some colorful makeup intended for those born in June?

Gemini Shadow?

Gemini Shadow.

How about an inspirational message about striking while the iron is hot meant for those born in March?

Striking while the iron is hot for those born in March.

Right.

Oh, gosh.

In this case, the sign comes before the thing, by the way.

Pisces the day.

Pisces the day.

This is where carpe diem really comes in.

It’s really appropriate.

That was messing me up.

Yeah, I was thinking carpe.

But you got it.

And those are my, what do you think?

These are my schemes, my entrepreneurial.

That’s great.

You’re qualified for the Port Authority.

I expect to see you hanging around the Greyhound Turnbull any day now.

You’ll see me some stuff on the sidewalk selling stuff.

Yeah, watches under your coat, right?

Great.

Stop by.

Make you a deal.

I promise.

We’ll make you a deal.

You’re a friend.

Friend’s deal.

Yeah, yeah.

Thanks for calling, John.

Much appreciated.

Always a pleasure.

Hilarious.

Thanks, Grant.

Thanks, Martha.

See you next time.

All right.

Bye-bye.

And if you’d like to talk about grammar, slang, punctuation, or words and how we use them, the number is 877-929-9673.

Or you can send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hello.

Hi, who’s this?

Hi, this is Joplin calling from Vermont.

Oh, hi, Joplin.

How are you doing?

Hi, Joplin.

Good.

Just a little commotion here.

What’s going on?

Oh, I’m in school. I just let kids dismissing for the day.

You’re a teacher.

Kindergarten teacher, yes.

Kindergarten.

Oh, great.

Oh, man.

So you must run across all kinds of great language stories.

Oh, boy.

It’s great.

What do you got for us?

Oh, well, one of the rules in our class is when we’re reading aloud, if we come across a word that somebody doesn’t know, we have to stop and figure out what it means.

Oh, I love this man already.

Yeah, there we go.

That’s how it’s done.

It makes read-aloud sometimes slow.

Get a little lengthy, and we get off on tangents.

You’ve been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar for six weeks now?

Right.

About that.

And then we keep this log list of words that we accumulate over the years.

That’s fantastic.

And I always ask to see if anyone either knows what the word means or maybe can figure it out from the context.

So one of my favorite stories is the day we were reading about Benjamin Franklin and came across the word victorious.

I said, anybody know what victorious means?

And this one little girl raised her hand and said, yeah, that’s where my mom buys her underwear.

Victoria’s Secret.

Nice.

That is fantastic.

But I’m always impressed with how kids, you know, we get these really bizarre words and they so often can figure them out just by, you know, using the context around them.

Yeah, that made perfect sense.

Bright minds.

I love it.

That’s wonderful.

Maybe not in that case.

That’s a great story.

Thank you for sharing that.

Did you have anything else, Joplin, you wanted to talk about?

Well, another thing that’s been on my mind is someone in, we’re doing our, February is our fitness month and we talk about all the things we need to stay healthy.

One of which is vitamin D, and we have this wonderful, these big windows in the hallway where the sun comes in.

So sometimes in the deep of winter, on a sunny day, we’ll go out and just sit there and absorb some vitamin D.

And someone introduced me to the word apricity, which I’d never heard before.

Apricity.

Oh, what a wonderful word. I love it.

And I went and looked it up, and it said it was obsolete.

And I said, well, what a shame, such a great word. How could it be obsolete?

How would you define apricity?

Well, the definition I think I found was the radiance of the sun in the winter.

In the winter.

I’ve been telling everyone, oh, you know this word, great word, apricity.

You’ve got to tell everyone about it so we can get it back into use.

It’s such a great word.

A-P-R-I-C-I-T-Y.

Yes?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes, I love this word.

I see it often used to describe faces, like much apricity of feature, or apricity seemed to illumine her countenance.

Huh.

That’s lovely.

That is lovely.

You think about somebody with a beaming face, literally, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I just love the idea of apricity being the warmth of sun in winter.

You know, there you are in the bleak midwinter, but you know what it feels like when you’re outside and it’s cold.

And I love the echo of April in that word because the green days are coming, right?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

That isn’t the etymology.

No, but it sounds like it.

Yeah, it sounds like it.

We’re reminded of this unrelated word.

It’s interesting that you’re free associating that way because I’m thinking of the first part of the word being kind of heavy.

I don’t know, the A and the P and then the icity is more delicate.

It comes from a Latin word that means pretty much the same thing, to lie open in the sun, to be heated by the sun.

Apricity.

But I’ve only seen it in 17th century.

Wow.

We’ll relaunch that word, apricity.

Yes, help me get it out there.

A-P-R-I-C-I-T-Y.

Start using it, everybody.

Joplin says you should, and so do we.

Well, I see that Apricity.com has been taken by a company in Scottsdale, unfortunately.

I was going to suggest that you buy the domain name.

Oh, yeah.

How can we publicize it besides the show?

Or is that what you’re doing right now?

I guess that’s what you’re doing right now.

Start using it, right?

Yeah.

We’ll put it out to all of our listeners and everyone who reads our newsletter, and we’ll put it on social media, and we’ll see if we can make it stick.

Have you tried it on your kindergartners?

I have, yeah.

Yeah?

I’ve always tried to get new words out there.

And are they using it?

Well, I don’t know if I’ve actually heard them use it, but I’ve certainly been using it with them.

So hopefully if they hear it enough times.

What is it?

You have to hear a word at least 25 times or something before.

That many?

Whoa.

Well, say it every day for a month there.

They should have it.

Thanks for calling.

Much appreciated.

And like we always say, teachers are doing the good work.

Keep it up, buddy.

Right on.

Putting old heads on young shoulders.

Bye-bye.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, I’m Lauren.

I’m calling from South Bend, Indiana, where I’m a graduate student at Notre Dame.

Thanks so much for taking my call.

Sure.

Welcome.

Glad to have you.

Well, I’m hoping you can actually help me with something that I’m working on for my dissertation.

So the stakes are high for me.

Wow.

But I’ve been curious about the origin and early uses of the phrase voracious reading.

I’m hoping you can help me find out more about this phrase.

And why voracious?

Well, you know, it’s a term that you hear used a lot, voracious reader.

Sure.

And I think most people mean it as a compliment these days, but it’s always struck me as kind of a puzzling phrase because, you know, it’s not usually considered good to be voracious about anything else.

So it’s sort of puzzling.

And the way it comes into my work is that for part of my dissertation, I’m looking at what some scholars call the gustatory trope, which just is kind of a fancy way of saying the way we talk about reading and eating.

The way we talk about reading and eating?

Mm—

Interesting.

Voracious reader.

Well, I guess you’re suggesting that voracious, which comes from the Latin word meaning to eat, right?

It’s related to words like devour and carnivore.

It has to do with eating.

And I guess you’re saying that when you hear voracious, you think more of a teenager in the kitchen.

Right.

And sort of, you know, it has this idea of not discriminating, not having.

So maybe you could oppose voracious consumption with tasteful consumption.

Oh, I see.

I’ve never made that distinction, but I could see that.

Yeah, sort of fast food versus slow food.

Right, and I think we use it that way when we talk about food, but when we talk about literature, maybe not, I don’t know.

We say it with a bit of wonder when somebody is a voracious reader.

Maybe respect, or we think that they’re kind of a spectacle, right?

If somebody is a voracious reader, they do it beyond all bounds of reason.

Yeah, I think people today describe themselves as a voracious reader, and they mean it with pride, don’t you think?

Yeah.

I mean, you must be a voracious reader, Lauren.

I am. I think so.

But are you in the closet about it?

People have often told me that.

Well, you know, I don’t know.

I’ve often been called a voracious reader, but I haven’t quite decided how I feel about that.

Well, it’s a badge of honor, frankly, really.

To be a voracious reader, to be called one, is a good thing.

I hope so.

Well, if we said a gluttonous reader, that carries more of a negative connotation.

But I think voracious, to me, means zesty.

Yeah, I don’t think of it as meaning that you’re greedy or that you consume more than you ought to.

Okay, well, that’s good.

I don’t.

I don’t.

And I think that when we look in the text over the years where it’s been used, even up to the modern day where I don’t think there’s, I think half of the Match.com profiles say, I’m a voracious reader.

Do they spell it correctly?

Well.

Well, I’m wondering, you mentioned early mentions of the term voracious reader, and I’m not aware of anything that suggests that it’s a negative thing.

I mean, as you probably know, there was criticism as the 18th century English novel began to develop that reading novels was a pastime of the middle class and really a time waster, right? A frivolous thing that ladies of leisure would do.

Right, right.

Yeah, so I’m kind of wondering about that because it seems like even today when we do talk about someone as a voracious reader, mostly we mean that they read novels.

I mean, I don’t think people are often accused of being a voracious reader for reading biographies or something like that.

Yeah, they’re not voraciously reading the Congressional Quarterly, are they?

Yeah, yeah. Maybe there are those people out there.

But it does seem to be kind of specific to novels, at least.

Yeah, and I think what we’re plugging into, and Martha introduced it very well, we’re plugging to the idea that some people believe that reading fiction in particular is less meritous than reading nonfiction, right?

And if you read a lot of fiction, it must somehow be bad for you because to do anything with that kind of extreme behavior, right?

We’re looking at, it’s not moderated. It’s unmoderated behavior taken to an extreme, and that’s automatically seen as bad regardless of what it is.

Yeah, and that was one of the criticisms of the early novels, that they weren’t real.

Right.

Well, I’ll be interested to see your dissertation when it’s finished. Can you sum it up for us in one sentence?

Yeah, sure.

So my dissertation looks at food and consumption in early 20th century British and Irish literature, in novels, really, and short stories.

And then there’s just one chapter where I’m focusing really on what I’m calling the gustatory trope, and the idea of literary taste, and how some of these terms, like voracious reader, might have been used at the time.

Well, I would be very interested to hear what our listeners have to think about this, about varicose reading.

Great. Yeah, that would be fun.

Thanks for introducing an interesting topic, Lauren.

Thanks so much.

Yeah, good luck with the dissertation.

Thank you.

Okay, bye-bye.

877-929-9673 or email us words@waywordradio.org.

Well, for a while there, it was impossible to miss the stories about radio host Rush Limbaugh getting in trouble for some of the things he said on the air.

And listener Mariana Levy wrote us from Argentina to remind us of the great Spanish proverb along these lines.

It goes, el pez por la boca muere, which means the fish dies by its mouth.

Very good.

He lives by the sword, dies by the sword.

How appropriate.

Yeah, very appropriate, huh?

Your questions, your proverbs, 877-929-9673, or send anything you want to know about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, good morning.

Good morning.

This is Mark calling from San Diego.

Hi, Mark. Welcome.

Hi, Mark. What’s up?

Well, I’ve got a question about a word that may be a nautical term.

In any case, the only people I’ve heard use it are Navy folks.

But I’d like to know something about it, like where it comes from and what it really means.

I think I know what it means.

And the word is hermitile.

And my whole career in the Navy, I’ve heard folks say, use this word sort of as a synonym for going crazy or getting really angry.

When the chief came down and found that guy sleeping on watch, he went completely hermitile.

Hermitile.

How do you spell that?

Well, I’m not entirely sure.

I tried to look it up in the dictionary, and I couldn’t find it.

But then the other day, I’m reading a book, also a Navy story, The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna.

And I saw the word in print, H-E-R-M-E-N-T-I-L-E, hermentile.

I’ve always heard it without the N, but in print when I saw it, there was an N.

And, of course, I looked that up in the dictionary as well and can’t find that one either.

Okay. I can help you with this.

This is a military term for sure.

You can find this back as far as the 1920s, probably World War I, among the Navy and the Marines.

And it has a wide variety of spellings, but they’re almost all what you say they are, H-E-R-M-A-T-I-L or H-E-R-M-A-N-T-I-L.

Sometimes the vowels will change to an I or an E, but it’s more or less the same stuff.

There are two entries in Urban Dictionary that are more or less the same as you give them, something about getting really angry or being crazy.

But what’s not clear to me exactly what we mean by this, do they just go out of their head and run down the beach naked screaming?

Or do they get violent and have a shoot-em-up?

Or do they just, I don’t know.

What kind of form does this take when somebody goes home style?

Well, it’s kind of used to describe somebody who did a lot of yelling and screaming.

Okay.

Right?

They were angry.

Okay, very good.

And so you said you’ve known this your whole time in the military.

How long has that been, if you don’t mind me asking?

25 years.

25 years.

Okay.

That’s good.

So it’s still got some history.

That’s great.

Sometimes these terms die out and they don’t pass to the new generation.

What’s really interesting is how consistently it stays within the military circles.

It’s either in military fiction or it’s in military reports or it’s in first-person memoirs or autobiographies of people who’ve served time in wars or in the trenches or what have you.

Anyway, so that’s the best that I can do for you.

I’ll keep digging on this because what’s really interesting is, for me, one of my colleagues has done a lot of work on the slaying of the First World War, and he didn’t have this term.

So you, Mark, have turned me on to something that I think is incredibly cool, and I’m glad to have it.

So a bit of a mystery still for you, but I think you’re on the track.

Thank you very much.

All right, take care.

All right, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Mark. Bye-bye.

If you know something about GoHarmantile, give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Or if there’s some aspect of language that makes you GoHarmantile, send it an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Next, Tales from the Inbox and more of your questions about language.

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.

Well, Grant, I don’t need to tell you what that song was.

Yeah, that’s my family song, actually.

Mine, too, from the Beverly Hillbillies.

And I wanted to get you back in the mood for a discussion of asafidity.

Asafidity.

Remember Brad from Grapevine, Texas called to tell us he’d heard asafidity mentioned in an episode of the Beverly Hillbillies.

And we talked with him about the fact that asafidida is a stinky substance and there’s this old folk tradition of wearing it in a bag around your neck in hopes of avoiding the flu.

And I got all excited about this call because my father himself was a proud hillbilly from North Carolina.

And he used to tell me stories of being made to wear an asafidity bag back when he was growing up in the hills.

So we have the episode right here.

Here’s Jethro telling the Clampett family that their friend Miss Jane has a mysterious ailment.

Oh, she’s got something called sick benefits.

Yes, sir. Well, I called her apartment this morning to find out could she come to supper tonight.

And she says, I’m sick in bed, Jethro.

And I says, well, Granny will come on over and doctor you.

And she says, well, you tell Granny there’s already a doctor on the way because I got sick benefits.

I bet you it’s something like a sick headache or maybe a sick stomach.

I reckon it’s worse than that, Ellie, because this is catching.

Is that a fact?

Yes, sir. Miss Jane says pretty near everybody that works down at the bank has got sick benefits.

That’s because they don’t wear asafinity bags.

I always loved Granny.

I always felt like she should be related to me.

She probably is, right?

So there’s our evidence from the Beverly Hillbillies.

But I should also point out that many listeners wrote to tell us that asafetida, that stinky substance, has another use.

From Cary, North Carolina, Anu Kapalavai wrote to say,

Asafoetida is a very common ingredient in Indian cooking,

Especially in the southern part of India where I come from.

It’s supposed to help counterbalance the effects of some spices and gassy foods.

It’s also used as a home remedy.

We’d mix a small pinch of the powder into a cup of diluted buttermilk with some salt

And drink it to relieve stomach cramps.

And lots of other listeners wrote to tell us that if you cook down asafoetida with all those spices,

It actually tastes really good.

And, you know, I should have mentioned that when we did that last call because my wife gave me a cookbook of easy-to-make Indian recipes because we’re both huge fans of Indian food and a number of the great sauces in there that I’m dying to try require asafoetida.

Well, I’m free Friday night if you want to whip it up.

All right.

I’ll put on the basmati and get the potatoes cooking.

We’ll go.

Tell us your stories about language and food, 877-929-9673, or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is David. I’m in Dallas, Texas.

Hey, David, welcome.

Hi, David, how are you doing?

Well, I have a phrase that has been just bouncing around in my head.

Most recently, I was watching the movie Lifeboat by Alfred Hitchcock,

And the phrase is something with a sarcastic quip like,

If I write it, I want the copyrights, including the Scandinavian.

And it seems like I’ve heard that before more than read it.

I’ve read it a couple of times.

I think it was in Huttucker Proxy, as briefly mentioned.

I asked some friends, some of them kind of vaguely know the phrase.

One of them thinks he hears it in Daffy Duck’s voice from a cartoon.

But I do know it goes to at least 1944.

And what’s so important about the Scandinavian rights?

I did a little research and I found out that American authors were not recognized in Scandinavian copyright law until the mid-50s.

Was it that big of a deal where there was a phrase, an inside joke in Hollywood maybe back in the day?

So the joke was, I want the copyrights including the Scandinavian.

Yes.

So Lifeboat came out in 1944.

You were watching this sometime recently and came across this phrase, did a little Googling,

And you’re still not completely satisfied. But I’ll tell you, David, you’re on to something.

There’s a thing here, and I’m going to introduce this by way of talking a little bit about

What happens when jargon leaves the place where it’s most at home.

Like jargon belongs to a particular trade. There was a period in American copyright law where

Europe and the European countries and the United States and Canada all had these packs where they agreed to respect each other’s copyrights.

However, the Scandinavian countries weren’t a part of that.

And so in the front of books for decades, in the early part of the 1900s, you would find this particular expression,

Right of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian, reserved.

And this was standard boilerplate at the front of books.

This is so omnipresent in books that if you’re any kind of reader at all, you would notice it.

I mean, you just kind of passively pay attention to it.

I’m going to change the subject for a second, David, but it’s perfectly on topic.

Have you ever heard a comedian make a joke about the tags on mattresses?

Yes.

And the joke is, oh, something about I can’t tear the tag off or I’ll be arrested.

Yeah, that always terrifies.

Tell me a lot.

And why is that?

Well, because it’s a particular bit of legalese attached to the mattress, which actually says you, the consumer, can tear the tag off.

But if you’re not the consumer, you can’t tear the tag off.

You have to leave it for the buyer to take it off if they want.

And it’s on there just to kind of show certain people that there’s law involved.

Because actually the mattress business was kind of icky for quite a while because people would resell bug-infested mattresses with just a little new covering on it or something.

In any case, it’s another one of those cases where this particular bit of jargon related to a particular convention of the law pops out at somebody who’s not really involved.

And so in the front of these books, this little bit of copyright would just pop out.

And you’re like, what does that mean, including the Scandinavian?

It’s opaque to me.

It’s just strange.

Why specify Scandinavian?

Why wouldn’t you say including the Libyan or the Egyptian?

Why wouldn’t you say including the Argentinian?

I just like, why the Scandinavian doesn’t make any sense to me?

And so it becomes a thing where you just keep mulling it over until it’s like, it’s just funny.

There’s another example that maybe is a little less common, but anybody in academia has probably encountered this.

This is when somebody makes a PDF file from a digital book,

And somewhere in the front or the back there will be a page that will say,

This page intentionally left blank.

Have you ever seen that?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I’ve gotten it in phone bills.

They say, this page intentionally left blank.

I thought that was for printing purposes were the odd even number of pages.

It is.

It’s something to do with that, but it’s also to let you know that there’s nothing missing,

That there wasn’t supposed to be anything there.

And the funny thing is, once they’ve added those words, the page is no longer blank,

So then they don’t need the words, but if they took the words off, then the page would be blank and you’re back where you started.

Good point.

And so these are three cases of jargon that are needed for somebody along the way, but probably not for you.

And so it pops out at you and it’s funny.

So anyway, so you can find in the 1930s in movies and films and books and newspapers, people making jokes about including the Scandinavian.

Anything related to any Scandinavian country, it was like the go-to cheap headline for newspaper copy desks where they just like, oh, I need a headline.

Let’s just call it including the Scandinavian.

Really?

Yeah.

Very, very good to know.

It ties a few loose ends up in my mind anyway.

Excellent.

David, thank you so much for calling.

Thank you.

Thanks, dude.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Grant, talking about this page intentionally left blank, it reminds me of back when I was a reporter at the Washington Post.

And if the computers crashed, you got this message that said, an impossible event has just occurred.

Mm—

What?

The world’s coming to an end.

I love those.

Hey, share your stories with us about jargon out of context and what it made you think.

Funny is great.

877-929-9673 or email us words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Stephen from Dallas.

Hi, Stephen.

How are you doing?

Hello, Stephen.

Very good, thank you.

We’re pretty excited to be on today.

My fiance, Kate, is right next to me.

Oh, okay.

-oh, is this a dispute?

It is.

Let’s hear it.

We’re getting ready to be married.

Congratulations.

And when we come to a wedding planning decision, which has been kind of rendered unnecessary by other events that have overtaken it, then I say it’s a mute point, pronouncing M-O-O-T as if it was a homophone of mute, M-U-T-E.

And Kate says, I’m just totally wrong and nuts about that.

I say it’s just an alternate pronunciation from where I grew up in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio.

And so we decided to call you all and see which one of us was crazy.

Stephen, did you look it up in a dictionary?

I have not yet, no.

Okay.

They came to us.

Okay.

Well, let’s hear from Kate.

Okay, just a second.

Yes, hello.

Hi, Kate.

Hi.

So is the engagement writing on this?

Is this a possible deal breaker?

I don’t think this is a deal breaker, but it’s something we might get harassed about for the next 50 years.

Well, you might have to put silence in his vows.

Yes, that’s true.

Yeah, we were hoping to get the marriage license today, so I don’t think this is a deal breaker.

Oh, okay, good, good.

Does he have his ear to the phone right now?

No, he doesn’t have his ear to the phone.

Should we put both ears to the phone?

Yeah, you put Stephen back on here.

Yeah, here he is.

Hello.

Hi, Stephen.

You know, I don’t know if your vows say love, honor, and obey, but I would say love, honor, and obey your new wife’s grammatical inclinations.

Yeah.

I don’t see any evidence that mute for M-O-O-T is a regional term.

Might be a family pronunciation.

Yeah, it might be a family.

But it’s not a widespread regional pronunciation as far as we can tell.

Yeah, and, you know, if you look it up in Reference Works, it’s moot, moot, moot.

It’s moot.

So what I’m hearing is that I’m going to have to go buy a dozen roses.

That’s all?

That doesn’t seem like nearly enough.

I mean, you’ve just aired your dirty laundry on the national radio program.

There’s a lot more on the line than that, buddy.

You’re going to go get a marriage license.

Well, this is probably good to clear the air now, right?

Yeah, seriously.

Forget the blood tests.

Yeah.

Yeah. How do you feel about that, Stephen?

She’s a translator, and a lot of our friends are translators,

So I’m used to getting all of these people that correct everything that you pronounce and say.

So I was hoping that this one was just a regional variation, but I guess not.

I guess it’s just me. I’ll have to change the way I talk.

Let me spin it positively for you. It’s another reason to love her.

That’s right.

There we go.

And vice versa, that you would be open to pronouncing it a different way.

I think it’s lovely.

Also, you need to do something about your dishpan hands.

I know you don’t have them yet, but you will.

Hey, Stephen and Kate, we wish you many, many years of happiness.

A hundred or more.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for calling. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Call us with your language disputes, 877-929-9673.

And if you and your sweetheart are disagreeing about a word, send it an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, I have another skew-o-morph for you.

That’s something that has an element of a design that’s preserved even though it’s no longer necessary.

Back when my father was getting up in years, he decided that he needed to exercise inside the house more.

And so he went to Sears and he bought a relatively cheap exercise bike and he set it up in the den and he would ride it while he was watching TV, which was adorable.

But what cracked me up is that the pedals on this exercise bike had reflectors on them.

What is that about?

You don’t need reflectors on an indoor exercise bike.

Did it have a bell too?

I don’t think so, but the reflectors were the equivalent of that.

Yeah, maybe it’s just cheaper to buy them in bulk and put them on all your real bikes and your exercise bikes.

Maybe so.

Send us your skeuomorphs, words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. Hi, Martha.

This is Kristen from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

How can we help?

Well, my question is in reference to my two-month-old son.

I find myself constantly talking to him, like in baby talk, like sing-songy kind of speak.

And it just kind of came to me like, has this been something that’s been around for a long time,

The way we speak to babies, or is it kind of a newer phenomenon?

Because I find everyone speaks to him that way, even men, children, everyone.

So I was just kind of curious if that’s something that’s new,

Or if you guys have seen it in writings in the past or what.

And he’s a two-month-old?

Yeah.

And what’s his name?

Congratulations, by the way.

Yeah.

Thank you.

His name is Miles.

And you have time to call us.

He must be an amazing child.

He is.

He’s a really good baby.

You just want to talk to adults for a change, huh?

Yeah, right.

Well, what do you say to him?

Yeah, what’s it sound like when you talk to Miles?

Oh, gosh.

Well, if I don’t do it to him, I’d just sound like a crazy person.

Just pretend like Grant is your two-month-old baby.

Yes, I do act like Grant.

I mean, mostly it’s words.

It’s not just like, ooh, gaga.

It’s like, who’s the cutest little baby?

You know, like, and that kind of speaks.

Yeah, the stuff that you say to a child, you’ve kind of described it very well.

It’s high-pitched, right?

Yeah, very.

It’s simple.

The syntax is simple.

The words are simple.

You are really close to the baby.

Even your face changes.

You raise your eyebrows.

Your eyes get big.

You smile, partly because of your love for the child.

And we all smile at really cute things like babies.

But you change your countenance.

You change your behavior.

You change your mode of discourse, as they say, in the business.

Absolutely.

And so your question is, are you just messed up?

Are you just like this freak parent who talks like this, or does everyone do it?

Are babies the helium of language, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

And the answer is, you’ve hit upon it.

It’s no accident that all the people around you talk to your child this way.

It’s not that you’ve each picked this up from each other.

It’s that there is a little bit of a discourse happening there,

Discourse being two or more people participating in an exchange of information. With the baby,

That exchange is really simple. You make a sound and you judge the baby’s face for just a second

To see if there’s an impact. And if there is, you do it again. You find yourself repeating yourself.

And then the next time you talk with the child, you’ll do it even more. And you’ll keep mixing it

Up until all that’s left after a very short amount of time is all of the things that the baby responds

Most do, particularly if it’s a smile or a coo or a giggle or that kind of thing.

So the baby is telling you with his attention what he wants from you.

And a lot of times it’s very extreme stuff.

High-pitched noise.

You’re facing a big, really obvious, like almost rictus, a big smile.

Your eyes wide, right?

Your eyes really, because he’s looking at your eyes.

He loves your eyes.

We are conditioned for that.

So it’s a natural, normal thing.

And he’s aiding you in telling him what he wants.

Yeah.

And when you say it’s a natural, normal thing, this is something that’s been going on since time immemorial, right?

I mean, people in Shakespeare’s time probably said, they weren’t the cutest little infant.

I know.

That’s so weird to think of that.

I mean, don’t you think?

Yeah.

I mean, this is unique to us.

There were a few researchers that claimed that there are cultures in the world where they do not talk to children at all.

Really?

And I find this hard to believe.

And I’m not the only one.

And there’s a lot of professional doubt about this.

Lots of times their belief is that maybe they only wouldn’t do it in front of a researcher,

That it was a private kind of little moment that they didn’t want to share.

But in any case, for the most part, as far as we know, every human culture,

Nearly every human culture does this.

They talk with children in a very different way.

Now, I should tell you that baby talk in different languages sounds different.

In some places, they don’t do the high-pitched thing.

They simply change their language so it’s much simpler words, maybe slower,

But it’s also mainly in a normal tone of voice.

And they just have a running conversation around the child

Or with the child kind of being included as if they can understand.

As far as we know, as far as research tells us,

Everybody changes the way they talk to a child.

The child requires that kind of attention among all the other kinds of attention it needs

In order to grow up healthy.

So, Kristen, it’s not just you and it’s not just that you’re sleep-deprived.

I mean, you’re probably sleep-deprived, right?

I don’t know, but yeah.

Well, take care of that sweet kid, all right?

Babies are fantastic.

Babies are good.

They sure are.

Thanks for calling, Kristen.

Thanks a lot.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

If you want to talk about language, call us, 877-929-9673.

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

Things have come to a pretty pass.

That’s all she wrote, for today’s show anyway.

But we want to hear your stories about language.

Leave them with us anytime at 877-929-9673.

Or try us anywhere in the world on Skype using the Skype name Wayword Radio.

Or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.

You can always find us on Facebook and Twitter, and you can find back episodes of the show on iTunes.

Our production team includes Stefanie Levine, Tim Felten, James Ramsey, and Josette Herdell.

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

That’s a nonprofit supported by listeners and organizations who believe in lifelong learning, better human communication, and the value of a thing well said or well written.

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

Thanks for listening.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Goodbye.

Bye-bye.

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More about Ken Blanchard’s leadership training programs at kenblanchard.com slash leadership.

And from National University, where flexible online classes let you earn your degree or credential on your schedule.

More at nu.edu.

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