Last Piece of Food

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, hi.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Dale calling from St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Hi, Dale. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Dale.

Well, thank you. Thank you. Hi.

What’s up?

Well, I had a word at one time, and I lost the word.

And the word has to do with appetizers or maybe a meal in which there’s one item left in the jar on the plate.

And that item could be a piece of cheese, and people will cut that piece of cheese into three pieces so they don’t have to take the very last piece of cheese.

It’s like an embarrassment thing.

Like I don’t want to be the one to take the last one.

And I know there’s a word, because I’ve heard it before, that tells you about that last piece.

It indicates, well, that is the last piece of cheese that nobody will take.

That’s the last meatball that nobody will take.

And I’ve used the word before, and the reason I’ve used it is I have a great group of friends up here, and they’re all college educated.

I am not.

And, for instance, they went to UMass, UConn, Andalwood Newton Seminary, Princeton.

And what they like to do is they like to throw out words to me and then look at me and go, Dale, you might not understand that because you didn’t go to college.

Oh!

In a very humorous way, and I get it.

And I enjoy it.

But then again, I like to have words they don’t know.

Right.

So it’s kind of a fun rapport.

So we can equip you. That’s what you want, right? We are kidding you out for your next battle.

I’ve heard that word for the last item left, but it escapes me. I want to get it back.

Have you heard of such a word?

Well, Dale, I was going to ask if the word was in Spanish because I do have a Spanish word for that.

Oh, you do?

Yeah. You mentioned shame, that nobody’s going to take it because of their shame.

Yeah.

And in Spanish, the word is la vergüenza, which means shame.

It’s the shame.

Vergüenza means shame.

That refers specifically to the last item on the plate.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Who wants the vergüenza?

And then the person who has no shame is the one who takes it, right?

Now, am I to learn how to roll my tongue?

I can’t do that.

Well, there are English words for this.

There are English words for this.

There’s at least two English expressions that can do the job also.

Yeah.

You can say vergüenza.

You don’t have to roll your R.

Vergüenza.

Vergüenza.

And then Grant has an English word for you.

Well, there are two.

There’s the manners bit or the manners piece.

It’s the bit or the piece that is about manners.

It is the very last thing on the plate.

And you leave it as a guest, as an acknowledgment that your host has sufficiently provided for you.

Right?

You are basically telling your host, you did a good job.

You gave more than I could possibly eat.

Oh, really?

Even if you’re hungry, you still do that.

Really?

Yeah, there’s even a bit of doggerel that goes along with it.

Let me read this to you.

Of a little, take a little, manners, so to do.

Of a little, leave a little, that is manners, too.

So manners are not only about taking a little bit, but it’s also about leaving a little bit.

Oh, that’s nice.

I like that.

But that’s not the one you were thinking of, Dale.

The only other one that I know of is the old maid.

The old maid?

As in popcorn?

Yeah, yeah. The term old maid is sometimes used for the unpopped popcorn, right?

And the little kernels that end up in the bottom of the bowl.

But yeah, sometimes it’s used for that last piece on a plate.

Manners bit will do. It’s archaic and old-fashioned and mainly only appears as a novelty in modern dictionaries and not something that’s going to appear anywhere in modern writing except in historical fiction.

But it’s still serviceable. Manners bit is probably the better term to use.

Sometimes it’s written as one word.

But, Dale, are you saying that none of those is the word you want?

No, no, it is.

Okay.

Which one?

I can’t recall.

I’m going to say the manners bit.

And it was years ago that I heard it, and I wanted to use it, and I used it once or twice with the people that really didn’t matter.

I wanted to use it in a room when my friends were there.

Okay.

So I could kind of jab them a little bit.

Very nice, very nice.

Well, let us know how that turns out.

I want to hear about this little bit of culinary warfare.

Oh, all right.

I certainly will.

Thanks for calling, Dale.

We really appreciate it.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Well, what word have you and your friends been talking about?

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