Nicknames Give Me the Heebie-Jeebies

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

And I’m Martha Barnette. And Grant, you know, we’ve been getting a lot closer after all this time on the air.

I feel like I should have a nickname for you. Do you have one that you could share?

You can call me Sugar. You can call me Honey. You can call me Darling.

No, let me tell you a story. When I was a kid, we used to play this game.

Did you ever go around with the question among your siblings, what would you have been called if you had been born the other sex?

If you had been a boy, what would your name have been?

That was a game that we played growing up.

Huh.

No.

I can’t say I did.

It’s just something to talk about.

In our family, the question was, what would the name of each of the five children have been if they had been born the other sex?

And my sisters and my brother decided that my name would have been Gertrude.

I’m sorry.

Yes.

I’m sorry, Gertrude.

No, and it really kind of bothered me at the time.

Now I’m basically an adult.

I think I’m still five.

But my youngest sister, Leslie, who’s five years younger than me, she was able to repay back years of teasing with a vengeance.

She called me Gertie for years, for a very, very long time.

And you?

I was afraid you were going to ask that, Gertie.

Well, I tell you what.

Yes, I will share my probably my best known nickname, which is Big.

Big?

Big.

B-I-G?

B-I-G, because when I was a freshman in college, I had a friend from Little Rock, Arkansas, and she had this really thick southern accent.

So she always referred to me as Motha, and Motha kind of morphed into Big Motha.

And she would, you know, say at a party, well, my friend Big Motha is coming to the party.

And then people, you know, I’d walk in and people would be wondering why I was named Big.

And after that, it got clipped to just Big.

And to this day, there are acquaintances of mine who know me only as Big.

Isn’t that weird?

Nicknames are so weird.

Yeah.

Well, if you have a story about a nickname you’d like to share with us or if you have a question about any aspect of language, call Gertie and me.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Big will be standing by. That’s 1-877-929-WORD.

Or email us. We read all of them.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi. This is Sally Neff calling from Nyack, New York.

Well, hello, Sally. What do you do in Nyack?

I’m a cantor.

A cantor. This is…

Tell us what that is.

You sing in temple, right?

Yes. I sing in a synagogue.

Basically, it’s like clergy who’s in charge of music.

And I do a lot of teaching as part of my job.

I always try to help my students become better writers and better speakers.

Right on.

So you’re Mishpacha.

Oh, yes.

Absolutely.

Wait a second.

My Hebrew is not that good.

Or Yiddish.

What does that mean?

Family.

Oh, there we go.

Family.

All right.

So I was actually at a shiva minion a couple of weeks ago when this word came up.

And the word is heebie-jeebies.

Oh, wow.

And a shiva minion is a kind of memorial kind of?

Right. Sorry. After somebody passes away, they have a service at the family’s house for seven days.

And, you know, usually you talk about the person who’s passed, but sometimes conversation does move around,

Especially when you’re not talking to the primary warner.

And actually, the way this came up was one of the women I was talking to said that she felt gypped.

And I said, oh, you know, you really shouldn’t use that word because some people think that it’s related to gypsy and it’s not really nice.

It’s kind of derogatory.

And she said, really?

I never heard that.

You know, I heard that heebie-jeebies is anti-Semitic.

Oh.

And I used the phrase, oh, that gives me the heebie-jeebies all the time.

And as a cantor, I certainly don’t want to be saying something anti-Semitic.

Oh, yeah.

So I went to my favorite word gurus to help me figure this out.

And what did they say?

You’re my favorite word, Garus.

Oh, oh, oh.

Oh, well, I’m not really used to that title, but okay.

I think I could grow into that.

So the idea here is that somehow the hebe part has something to do with Hebrew.

Maybe the jeebie part has something to do with Jew or Jewish, right?

Right.

And so there’s just a phonetic similarity there, and you think maybe it’s possible, right?

It sounds like it could be.

I hope not because I like the phrase.

I love it, too.

Oh, that gives me the heebie-jeebies.

It’s such a wonderful expression.

And I can tell you that you’re standing on firm ground, at least etymologically speaking, as far as we know.

It goes back to an old cartoon.

The first reference that we see about heebie-jeebies is in an old cartoon by the same guy who did the Snuffy Smith cartoons.

Did you ever see those?

No.

Yeah, well, it was in the 1920s, and that’s the first reference that we see to this expression.

And there’s really no connection with any kind of anti-Semitism.

No, it’s perfectly fine.

It’s perfectly fine to say heebie-jeebies.

We should also say, though, that it’s parallel to some similar phrases.

Some of them are less common.

Have you ever heard of somebody saying,

Oh, I’ve got a case of the whim-whams, or the jimmy-jams, or the jim-jams, or the screaming mimis?

I haven’t heard those.

Those are all basically the same.

I have a case of the nerves, or the jitters, or the willies.

My hair is standing up on the back of my neck.

So it’s just nonsense syllables.

Yeah, they are more or less.

I like these kinds of colorful expressions because, I don’t know, it’s fun to have silly things that come out of our mouths, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah, but Sally, I see where you’re coming from because how strongly did your friend feel about it?

Well, she didn’t feel strongly.

She was more just curious because I had brought up the question of the word she was using.

She said, you know, I was always wondering about, you know, so she didn’t have anything to base it on.

Right, right.

Sally, my advice to you would be to keep using it, and then you can just seize on that as a teachable moment.

Fantastic.

You know, if somebody challenges you.

All right.

Well, thanks for your call, Sally.

Thank you so much.

There you go.

Two hosts, three opinions, right?

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Okay, bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question about language, we’d love to hear it.

And we particularly like settling disputes or starting new ones.

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send us an email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Tom Stillwell in Phoenix, Arizona.

Hiya, Tom.

Hi, Tom. What’s going on?

Well, not much. I’m very excited, actually, to speak with you.

Well, we are, too.

I was driving in Indianapolis and took the announcer’s advice and repeated a question that I’ve asked people for the last, I guess, 30 years, no, 35 years.

And it has to do with a spelling bee that I lost back when I was in seventh grade.

Oh, boy, that can be traumatic, huh?

Well, especially so when you’re absolutely sure that your spelling of the word is correct.

Yes, yes.

And since then, I’ve asked many, many people how to spell the word,

And I would say a very significant number of them spell it the way that I did,

And I wondered why in the world it is that so many of us were taught wrong.

-oh.

So you’re still bitter.

You’re still bitter.

I think I’ve gotten over the bitterness, and in fact,

Knowing that I was going to be talking about this on your show

Caused me to do a little Google searching, and I feel absolutely exonerated.

You do?

I do. This is discussed on blogs all over the place. I had no idea. I’d sort of let go of it, actually, after about five or ten years.

So there’s a whole online support group for people like you?

You could say that. You could say that.

Wow. What in the world is the word?

And there’s even a clever phrase to describe it. It is the dilemma. Dilemma.

Dilemma. D-I-L-E-M-N-A.

M-N-A?

M-N-A.

And the bell rang, and I had a shocked look on my face, and I sat down.

And, in fact, I knew every other word that went all the way through the championship,

So I actually am thinking about asking for a recount.

Oh, I don’t know if that’s how it works, but good luck.

Perhaps not, but apparently, although not documented in either the OED

Or in any official dictionary,

It is very, very commonly spelled that way

By people both in England and in the U.S.

Somewhere along the line,

Someone was teaching a whole bunch of us

That there was a silent N in the word dilemma.

I have to say, I’ve never seen that spelling

Nor heard of it.

I have to confess the same.

I’m sorry, Tom.

Yeah, it’s interesting.

And those who think that it’s spelled that way are absolutely just shocked when you tell them that it’s not.

So this is subliminal?

I don’t think so.

I suspect that it actually had, apparently, the change of the spelling to always be MMA, from one source at least,

Said that it started to occur in earnest in the late 60s or early 70s, which would have been when I was in grade school.

And I suspect that there was just a widespread misspelling of it in some sort of literature that hasn’t been documented,

And a lot of teachers went out there spelling it that way.

I don’t know how else to explain it with people all over the place.

Well, it was the 60s, right?

It was the 60s.

And as Robin Williams says, if you can remember it, you weren’t there.

Here’s what I’m seeing while you’re talking.

I was doing a bit of looking in some historical text,

And I do see now that the D-I-L-E-M-N-A spelling was very common in the 1800s and even a little bit into the early 1900s.

But you’re not that old.

I’m not that old, but I was reading a lot of encyclopedias when I was a kid.

I think there’s some historical evidence for it, but you’re right.

I see none of the dictionaries that I have here at my disposal, none of them have the spelling with the N in it.

Well, Tom, you sound kind of, I don’t know, obsessed about this.

I wasn’t until I heard your show and it stirred it up again.

Well, I hope that this has helped at least a little to unburden yourself after 30 plus years.

Exactly.

Well, thanks a lot for calling, Tom.

I hope you feel better.

I’ve enjoyed it.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

What do you bet we’re going to get calls about the use of the word dilemma as a problem rather than a choice between two things?

We’re going to hear from Sticklers about that.

I know it, and you can call us about it at 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

On a recent show, we discussed the need for a term for the act of trying to do something offline that you really can only do online.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

You know, when you’re scribbling on a piece of paper and you expect spell check to kick in, you’re looking for the red squiggly lines, right?

Right.

Or you’re reading a book and you’re looking for the back button or the find button, and of course there’s no such thing in a book, right?

Right.

Yes, yes.

I think I talked about wanting a search function for my entire office.

And a lot of people wrote to us about that.

One listener named Martha Wilde.

You’ve got to love that name, Martha Wilde.

It’s kind of redundant.

Anyway, Martha Weil suggested the term deja undo for when you want to undo something in real life.

I kind of like that.

Several of you had another term for the way we instinctively reach for the computer keyboard to solve offline problems.

And that word was e-flex, e-hyphen-f-l-e-x.

I love that, Grant.

What do you think?

I think it’s a winner.

You know, maybe.

It’s pretty good.

We’ll see if it catches on.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like reflex, but, you know, you instinctively reach for the computer.

I think it’s a winner.

Well, reach for your real-life computer keyboard

And write to us about any aspect of language.

Send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.

Next on A Way with Words, a word puzzle and more of your calls.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And here to try to stump us once again is our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hello, John.

Hello, Grant.

Hello, Martha.

How are you?

Super.

We’re doing well.

How are you doing?

I’m doing great.

We just got back from Arizona.

You and the kids and the wife?

Oh, yeah, all four of us on the plane for five hours, five and a half hours.

That was fun.

So today’s quiz is about pronouncing words that end in I-N-G.

Sometimes when some people pronounce an ing word, they leave off or elide the g sound.

And sometimes that word sounds like another word.

For example, I might say, that goat just kept on button that rubber tree plant.

Now, butting with the g elided sounds like button.

Or I might say, I was out in the field branding some cattle.

If I own some cattle, which I don’t, and a branding iron, which I also don’t.

Brandon sounds like the name Brandon.

Got it?

Okay.

Now you have the basic premise of the quiz.

I’ll give you a clue that suggests both versions of an I-N-G word,

One with the G on and one with the G off.

Please tell me both words and their spelling, okay?

Okay.

Good. Here we go.

First one, I think, is a softball.

Picture Vladimir Putin trying to catch a departing bus.

He must be Russian.

See, I’m going to do well with this because I’m from the South.

That’s right.

He’s a Russian Russian.

Russian rushing or rushing Russian, either way.

Okay, next one.

Now, this one’s not a stretch.

Imagine an iconic creature from Chinese mythology pulling its long, heavy tail along the ground.

Dragon.

Dragon.

D-R-A-G-G-I-N-G-D-R-A-G-O-N.

Pretty good.

Good.

Wait, did I miss a letter?

No, that’s pretty good.

Very good.

Very good, then.

Thank you.

Off the charts.

100.

And a star.

Yeah.

Here’s another one.

This is also within the realm of possibility.

A convicted criminal doing the work of a lumberjack.

A convicted criminal?

I want to say it’s…

What?

A convicted criminal?

A felon?

Oh, felon.

Trees.

He’s felon trees.

F-E-L-O-N.

Felon.

Felon felling is correct.

So nothing against lumberjacks.

I’m sure a lot of them are fine upstanding people.

Right.

Some of your best friends.

My best friends are lumberjacks.

And they’re okay.

But let’s move on.

Here I’ve got a spool with thread wound around it, and I’m alternately raising and lowering it.

Oh.

A bobbing bobbin.

B-O-B-B-I-N-G-B-O-B-B-I-N.

That’s right.

Here’s one.

The star of The Graduate doing some light housework.

Nice, nice.

Dustin and dusting.

You don’t have to spell that one.

I think we all know how that goes.

But that’s quite good.

Okay, here’s the last one.

I have to tell you that while I don’t love the fungus growing on that rock,

I do think that it’s pretty okay.

So you’re kind of liking it.

Is that right?

Lichen and lichen?

Liking lichen?

I’m liking lichen.

I’m allowed.

L-I-K-I-N-G-L-I-C-H-E-N.

Right.

This is one case where we definitely need the spelling.

Yeah.

Well, guys, I hope you were liking that puzzle because that’s all I’ve got.

And you guys were fantastic.

Yeah, we had some fun, Gus.

Really good.

Ouch.

What is that from?

I don’t even know.

Fungus.

Oh, we had some fun, Gus.

Because John is such fun.

Because you all are such fun.

He’s a fun guy.

Okay, right.

Thanks, guys.

I’ll see you next week, okay?

All right.

Yes, we’ll be here.

Thank you, John.

Thank you so much.

And if you’re puzzling over a question about language, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

Or email us.

We’re waiting.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha.

This is Shireen calling from Denver.

Shireen.

Hello, Shireen.

I’m excited to be on the show.

Awesome.

Well, what’s up?

Well, I was at work with my boss, and we were talking about a payment schedule because we’re in finance.

And I used the word reoccurring expenditures, and he told me it’s recurring expenditures.

And I claimed that they were synonyms, and he said, no, in the financial world, people say recurring and not reoccurring.

And basically, I’m a hick by saying reoccurring.

Whoa.

No, I’m kidding. He didn’t say that.

Oh, wow.

How’s the lawsuit coming?

Sir, are you at work right now?

Yes.

Can we talk to your boss?

Can you order her to get on the phone?

Yep.

Hello.

Hi.

Hello.

How are you?

Who is this?

This is Chris.

Shireen told us to ask for a raise for you.

We think she should get one.

Double?

And eight weeks of vacation a year.

Yeah, I don’t know about that.

So your position of reoccurring and recurring is that they’re not synonyms and that recurring is preferable.

That’s correct.

Because?

Well, I come from the financial industry.

I used to work on Wall Street and actually sold a company in the payments business.

And, you know, we met a lot of people from around the country in the payments business,

And some would say recurring and some would say reoccurring.

And the reality is a lot of it, whether they said recurring or reoccurring,

Depending upon whether they were from, like, the southeast or the southwest or not,

Versus some of the coast.

And I was told by many of the authoritative professionals in the industry that, you know, that it’s – to a certain degree, it’s a difference between irregardless and regardless.

And, you know, recurring was the way that you pronounced, you know, a sort of fixed set of payments.

Well, okay.

This is one of those cases where we have two similar words.

They are spelled similarly and used similarly, and they’re both real words, right?

I don’t think anybody’s arguing that point here, right?

Well, I’m not.

I claim a synonym.

There’s a writer word.

But you’re calling us instead of marketplace.

I mean—

Let me break it down for you.

Yes, they’re both words.

They are not exact synonyms, which is important.

And let me just say reoccur generally means to occur again, obviously.

You would say it usually of discrete actions or incidents, such as, I’m going to take this outside your industry just for a little clarity here.

She had reoccurring wins at the roulette table, which meant she won more than once.

But it doesn’t mean that she had continuing wins at the roulette table.

She didn’t go and win every week then.

She could.

She’s done it more than once, but we don’t know how often it’s lasted or how many times.

All right?

And recur, R-E-C-U-R, means to happen repeatedly.

That is to say more than once or continuously.

So recur, we have the idea that is a continuing reoccurrence.

So it basically means to keep reoccurring.

See what I’m saying there?

So I’m right?

No, no.

I think I’m right.

No.

I have a way of bringing mud to a conversation, but let me just…

What do you think, Shereen?

Here’s the short version.

Here’s the thing.

When in doubt…

I think if you have monthly rent, that’s a recurring expense.

Which is what we were talking about.

No, but we were also talking about paying some contractors we only pay three times and not every month.

And that would be a reoccurring expenditure.

Is that correct?

Oh, I see.

Let me just say here, when in doubt, you should use recur and not reoccur.

Fine, but in this instance…

I think the difficulty here is the way that you’re phrasing it.

If you paid rent to somebody three times, you could say it was a recurring payment or the payment reoccurred three times.

Perfect.

Because if it reoccurred three times, you have discrete instances of it occurring.

But if they were of different amounts?

It’s about the action in the instance, not the amount, not the frequency, not the space between the frequency.

It’s the fact that there was an occasion of this thing happening more than once.

In any case, like I said, Chris, I think generally what we’re talking about here is you chose recur for whatever reason, but it’s going to be the best solution when you’re in doubt about these two words.

Recur is going to work almost every place that recur works.

Reoccur is not going to work every place that recur works.

Right, whether you’re in the grammatical world or the financial world, I guess.

Right.

So, Shereen, I would basically say listen to your boss and don’t expect a good movie.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It’s horrible.

Don’t expect a good review.

Can you write that down and mail me a letter with that?

Well, I could actually send you to some management courses because clearly you’re not keeping your people in check.

Thank you, Grant.

Oh, man.

Well, Shereen, thanks for calling.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Well, if you want a pay raise, we’re the ones that can help you lose it.

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

Or email us words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Richard.

It’s calling from Austin, Texas.

Well, hello, Richard.

What’s going on in Austin?

Yeah, we’re just a city recovering from on South by Southwest right now.

Oh, the big music festival.

There were a zillion bands there, right?

And then the tech show up after that, right?

Oh, yeah.

Well, there’s tech people, there’s film people, and there’s music people.

Oh, that’s right.

Three of them.

And which one are you?

I’m more of a music person than anything else.

Like most of the people in my town, after all.

Right, right.

Great town for music, Austin.

Absolutely.

Well, yeah, I was just calling about the vapors.

I remember hearing this phrase, I guess, in movies,

Where there’d be like an old stereotypical Southern Belle

Getting flustered about something and saying,

Oh, I believe I have the vapors.

Let’s hear that one more time.

I was wondering what that was, what exactly that meant.

Anything you have for me would be great.

Okay, Richard.

Do you have any theories about the vapors?

Yeah, I kind of figured it’s some sort of like Victorian medical thing where, you know, sort of like the humorous.

We don’t really think that way anymore, but the phrase stuck.

That’s the only real theory I have.

Yeah, yeah, bingo.

Yeah, as far back as the 15th century, people were talking about the vapors that emanate from the stomach going up this time and go into your head and make you just sort of nervous or ill, that kind of thing.

So it’s an idea that’s been around for a long, long time.

And as you suggested, it’s like the humors.

People didn’t really understand how the body was working.

But you’re right, too, that it’s a wonderful southern expression in particular, the vapors.

It’s right in line with all those other southern euphemisms for all kinds of things that befall, especially women.

I can remember my grandmother from East Tennessee talking about the vipers or talking about how this or that girl had come unwell.

Do you know what?

I’ve never heard that one.

Yeah, if you come unwell, that’s a euphemism for a woman’s time of the month, in other words.

I see.

So the vapors is of a piece with all those kinds of…

But it’s not a euphemism, right?

It just generally means being out of sorts or flustered, doesn’t it?

Well, it’s kind of an all-purpose diagnosis,

But I think originally there was this thought

That it was an actual physical thing that happened,

Something came up out of your stomach.

Right, but something that was odorless and tasteless and colorless, right?

I hope so.

Is it something like the vapors are what drive you, and if they get out of balance, that’s a problem?

Or is it something like you only get vapors going when you’re upset?

Oh, I see.

I’m not quite sure how it worked, actually.

Yeah.

The mechanics are weird.

I hesitate to bring this up because I don’t want to perpetuate a false connection.

Oh, go ahead.

In later days, in recent decades, many young people who don’t have any experience with this except through the movies have reanalyzed it, meaning they’ve taken the word and said, what possibly could they mean by the vapors?

And assumed that it means flatulence.

And so when you have these charming southern women saying, oh, I believe I’ve come down with a case of the vapors, that the modern young Americans would assume that she was saying that she had gas.

And it’s not true.

It doesn’t mean that.

And it has never meant that, even though there is that connection between the words.

Vivian Lee was not.

Well, I’m glad to hear that.

Yeah.

It wasn’t really something I wanted to talk too much about, so I guess, you know, it works for me.

Glad to oblige, then.

We’ll just close there.

Have we helped you some, Richard?

Yeah, I think so.

I think you seem to hear all these other little aspects of it.

All right.

Well, thank you for your call, sir.

Thank you very much for taking my call.

All right.

All right, Richard. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, the number to call here is 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Saul Feldman in San Francisco.

Hiya, Saul. How are you?

Hiya, Saul. What’s going on?

Okay.

Yeah?

I have a question that I’ve been hearing.

The political pundits lately have been using the words duplicate and replicate interchangeably.

They’ll say something like, Obama hopes to duplicate his success in Iowa, in Missouri.

And they’ll also say replicate.

And it seems to me that both of these words are incorrectly reused.

Duplicate seems to me to mean double.

And replicate is a scientific term, meaning you’ll get the same results under the exact same conditions.

So what would you rather they use?

Repeat.

Repeat.

I think replicate would work here.

I mean, I would agree that there are different definitions of both duplicate and replicate.

Replicate would work, though, because the more general definitions, I know it’s used scientifically, is to obtain a consistent result.

It doesn’t have to be under the exact same circumstances.

Like in an experiment, you mean?

Well, right.

But also we’re talking about something that’s quantifiable.

We’re talking about elections and primaries and politics where votes are cast and counted.

And in that way, it resembles the data that you’d gather in a scientific survey or research, right?

Yeah, but repeat is so much simpler.

Well, sure, but if you’re a blowhard talking head on television, you have to sound pompous and important,

So you have to have a word with more syllables, right?

Well, I disagree.

Okay.

I think replicate is okay.

I really do.

But I agree with you, duplicate is wrong.

Well, now, so why does this get under your skin?

Are you in the scientific field?

Well, I used to be a university professor, and we always talked about replicating results,

And it was always a precise term that we would expect that the same conditions,

Under the exact same conditions, we would get the same results,

Which would validate the experiment.

And the result, the conditions are never the same when you go from state to state.

So replicate seems to me to be a misuse of the term.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, but you can’t take that jargon that’s very specific to your field

And apply that kind of in lay uses, can you?

Well, yes, I think you can because to me it has a very precise meaning as well as does duplicate.

And repeat is simply I want to repeat my success, have the same success I had in state A as I had in state B.

Well, I do agree with you that repeat definitely works and there’s nothing wrong with using the word repeat.

Yeah, but we’ve all agreed that duplicate is exactly wrong in all situations.

I would definitely avoid it, definitely.

If I were writing the script for the puffy-haired dude made-up false faces on television, I wouldn’t avoid that word.

Well, Saul, you know what?

I hadn’t thought about this, and now I’m going to think of you every time I hear a pundit hold forth and say that word.

Thank you.

Thank you, Saul.

Thanks for calling that to our attention.

Well, thank you very much.

Or mine, anyway.

Okay, great.

Bye.

Bye.

When somebody puts a song in your head and you can’t shake it, that’s called an earworm.

What about a call like this where Saul puts this question into her head?

So now every time we hear those three words, repeat, duplicate, and replicate, we’re going to say, oh, is that right?

Is that right?

Is that right?

Right.

Oh, is that a saw worm?

A saw worm?

I think it is.

Congratulations, saw.

Well, that’s good.

No, saw they wrote.

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

If you hear something on the radio or see something on television and it just doesn’t sound right, give us a call.

Martha and I will hammer it out for you.

That number again, 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, we were talking earlier about nicknames for people, but what about nicknames for cities?

Don’t you mean earlier sugar we were talking about?

I mean earlier, Gertie.

You and I were talking about nicknames for cities.

I mean, I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and I love Louisville, but, you know, some people call it Lousyville.

Yeah, I was born in St. Louis.

It doesn’t have any nicknames that I know of except for St. Louis, which the locals find repulsive, and it’s only used by outsiders.

Oh, really?

I don’t know if that really counts.

My favorite one is actually very sweet.

I like it.

It’s Sacra Tomato, which is a nickname for Sacramento because of all the tomatoes that are grown nearby.

Oh.

Never heard that one?

Sacra Tomato.

No, no, no.

Yeah.

Sacra Tomato.

There we go.

Well, does your favorite city have a nickname?

Let us know at 1-877-929-9673.

Or pop us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Get ready to play our slang game.

It’s coming up next on A Way with Words.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And now it’s time for Slang This,

The puzzle in which you try to guess the meaning of some strange slang terms.

Today’s contestant is Maureen Blaske from Esquimalt, British Columbia.

Maureen, welcome.

Well, glad to be here.

Say hi to Grant.

Hi, Grant. How are you?

Hello, Maureen. Esquimalt, please tell those of us in the lower 50 where Esquimalt is.

Esquimalt is on Vancouver Island, and it’s just across the bay from Victoria,

Which is one of those quaint little tourist towns most people know about.

Will, do you up there in Esquimalt have a favorite slang term for us?

Well, I was thinking, considering you’ve got your elections are coming up,

I thought I would mention that in the South, you eat grits,

And in Canada, we elect them, because grits is another name for the liberals.

Oh, really?

The liberal party of Canada are called grits.

Really?

For the same, it’s the same grit, it means the food?

No, no, no, no, no.

I don’t know where it comes from.

It has nothing to do with cooking them up and turning them into mush.

Ooh, I like this one, though.

So you mean you have arguments between conservatives and grits?

No, we have arguments between Tories and grits.

Oh, Tories and grits.

It probably comes over from England eventually, ultimately.

Oh, that’s marvelous.

Yeah, like Tories. I wouldn’t be surprised.

But, you know, I love it when I get the favorite slang word of a contestant that I don’t know.

It’s fantastic.

So off to the dictionaries I will go when I go home.

Maureen, you’ve made Grant’s day.

Let’s move on to our game.

Okay.

Okay, Grant’s going to give you a slang term,

And then he’s going to give you three sentences that might suggest how that term is actually used.

Only one of them will be real, and the other two are fake.

So your task, Maureen, will be to figure out which one of those three sentences illustrates how this particular slang term is actually used.

And chances are you won’t have heard this word before, so the trick will just be to try to puzzle out its meaning.

And if you get stuck, I’m right here.

Okay?

Okay.

Okay.

All right, here we go.

The first expression is two words, white hat, W-H-I-T-E-H-A-T, white hat.

Okay.

And the first clue.

Once the White Hat set up the Honeypot computer, all the script kitties and wannabe hackers attacked it.

That’s how he figured out how they operated.

The second clue.

At every diplomatic meeting between the Russians and the Americans, each side appoints a White Hat.

The White Hats are allowed to say anything to anyone, even if it breaks long-standing protocol and custom.

And the third clue.

The position of Lieutenant Governor of Texas is sometimes known as the White Hat.

They’re typically seen at ribbon cuttings and opening ceremonies wearing a white cowboy hat and glad-handing everybody.

So, Maureen, is a White Hat a computing expert who tries to catch hackers and online criminals,

A diplomat who is permitted to be undiplomatic, or a nickname for the Lieutenant Governor in Texas?

Oh, that’s tough.

I know in Calgary the white hat is something they give every visitor a white Stetson.

So the western is definitely there.

That’s interesting.

I’m still trying to figure out what a honeypot computer is.

Yeah, that one’s got me too.

I’m trying to sort of tiptoe around it.

It also makes sense because, you know, the white hat rides to the rescue, that sort of thing.

But I think it’s a negotiator because I sort of see it like a white hat on a stick.

People take shots at it, and that’s how you sort of work everything out.

I like that.

You’re in the trenches, and just to see if the enemy is still there,

You put your hat on a stick and poke it above the horizon, right?

That’s right.

Boy, that’s vivid.

So you’re going to go with the diplomat then?

I’m going to go with two, yes.

The undiplomatic diplomat.

But unfortunately, the correct answer is A, the first one, which is the white hat is the person who tries to catch online criminals.

And what a honeypot computer is, it’s something they set up.

It’s such a sweet target, and it’s defenseless, and it’s got no antivirus or anti-malware.

It’s got no protections on it.

And the hackers think, wow, I found the live one, and they just go for it and try all their tricks, and they leave footprints everywhere.

And so the white hat, which indeed does come from the old Western movies, because in the old movies, right,

The good guy always wore the white hat and the bad guy always wore the black hat.

It seemed like it always came down that way.

So the white hat in computing is the guy who tries to catch the black hats who are the bad guys.

Oh, my husband’s going to be so disappointed.

He’s a total geek.

You didn’t know that?

Sorry, dude.

No, it’s all right.

And I actually liked the imagery that you gave us for the diplomat.

All right, here we go.

Are you ready for the next one, Maureen?

You bet.

The next one is also two words.

And the two words are necklace light, N-E-C-K-L-A-C-E-L-I-G-H-T, necklace light.

And the first clue.

We drove across the Verrazano Bridge as its necklace lights winked out and the morning sun peeked over the horizon.

I don’t care if it’s right or wrong, that was beautiful.

The second clue.

After the success of the Lord of the Ring movies, necklace lights sometimes now take the place of engagement rings.

Couples want a token of love like that glowing bauble given by Arwen to Aragorn.

And the third clue.

In order to get just the right illumination,

Photographer Bert Stern invented the necklace light,

A hinged, multi-part fluorescent device that can wrap around the neck or shoulders

And give a brilliant glow to the underside of a face.

So, Maureen, is a necklace light,

The light on the cables of a suspension bridge,

A token of love between two people modeled after characters in the Tolkien movies?

Or an around-the-neck light used by photographers?

The around-the-neck light, that sounds like it would be awfully close to a Frankenstein flash.

You know, when you light people up from underneath, they don’t look attractive.

They look scary.

Wow, and they call that a Frankenstein flash?

Yeah, photographers use it when they’re journalists and they catch someone sneaking out of someone else’s famous house.

They deliberately use the flash from underneath to give them that look of being ne’-do-wells.

Okay, so you’re ruling out the photographers.

Yeah, I’m not liking that.

But I do like the bridge lights.

Maybe it’s because it’s such a strong image.

That you wove there, Grant.

Indeed, a necklace light is the light on a suspension bridge.

They use it, as a matter of fact, for the Verrazano Narrows Bridge here in New York,

Which is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world.

Anyway, so you’ve done really well here today, I think.

I think you at least have puzzled through it like you’re supposed to do,

And I think you’ve come out a winner in that regard.

Oh, good. Okay, well, that’s what I’m supposed to do.

You did your radio duty today, Maureen. Congratulations.

You held up the Canadian end.

That’s right.

Oh, good.

I’m so glad.

Waved the flag.

That’s right.

All of Canada thanks you.

And, hey, to thank you for playing our game today,

We’re going to send you a whole book of interesting terms.

It’s Erin McKean’s book, Weird and Wonderful Words.

Oh, great.

I love words.

Thank you so much, Maureen, for playing.

It was really good fun, and we’re glad to have you here.

Oh, it was great to talk to you guys, too.

All right, take care.

Great.

Yep.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a puzzling question about language,

Give us a call anytime, day or night, 1-877-929-9673.

Or if you have something illuminating to tell us, email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Steve from San Diego.

Hiya, Steve. Welcome.

Hello, Steve.

Thank you.

I am looking for a word and was wondering if you could help me.

Sure, we’ll give it a try.

Okay, both my wife and myself are in our 50s,

And my wife is leaving her company of 25 years, and the term they use for that process is retiring, which is a word she absolutely hates.

I am also reducing the hours that I work in my job, and we are both looking to see what we might do with the time we now have.

My wife will possibly be doing consulting work, possibly looking at other careers, and I will be doing similar sort of things.

And retirement just doesn’t seem to be the right word.

And all we can think of are other words that seem not a whole lot better, like transition.

We’re going through a transition.

That doesn’t seem to work.

Yeah, that’s not very sexy.

Sounds like you’re changing genders.

Yeah.

Did you have any other candidates?

Not really. None that have really come to mind.

Let me throw a couple things at you and see how these sound.

These are words that I’ve come across in my word hunting.

Oh, really?

I keep an eye on slang and new words.

How about rehirement?

It’s a play of course on retirement.

The idea is that you’re actually, you know, you’re going,

Your wife is still going to do a job somewhere.

She’s still going to be working.

Maybe.

So then would they be rehirees rather than retirees?

I still think it’s too job dependent.

What about free-tirement?

Because that indicates that you are now going to have some free time.

Possibly. A little too cute for me.

All right. Here’s something that’s a little different,

But this is used within the headhunting industry to describe somebody who, say,

Moves from a job as CEO of a cell phone company

And becomes, say, a CFO of a parts wholesaler.

So they’re still moving from high-level job to high-level job, but they’re in very different industries, and the focus of their work is different.

And that is called repotting, R-E-P-O-T-T-I-N-G, the same way that you might repot a plant.

What do you think, Steve?

Well, since my wife is an avid gardener that has some somewhat appropriate, but no.

No, not for that one.

No, I think I’m a difficult case here.

I mean, somehow being compared, you know, visualizing myself as being put in a clay pot and surrounded with dirt is not quite doing it for me.

Well, Steve, what do you think are the most important aspects of this state?

Well, I think retirement is somewhat static and limited and seems to be all about a job.

You either have a job and then at some point you don’t.

And I think what we’re looking for is and looking forward to is something that’s more dynamic and open-ended and may involve an actual paying job.

It may involve consulting.

It may involve short jobs or working on specific projects or things.

And that’s what we’re trying to get some difference between that and retirement.

Right.

So it’s more about freedom and liberation and choices and that kind of thing.

Yes, and basically not being you either have a job or you don’t, and you either work or you sit in a chair.

Well, and you’re also in a particular stage of life.

Yes.

I don’t have anything else here.

I don’t.

No, yeah.

Well, it’s not an easy question, and I think it’s kind of a new concept in a way.

Friends of ours who are 65 or so have no problem with the term retirement.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And they are retiring, and they have no problem with it.

I think it’s somewhat that we’re younger, and we see jobs and the role of work differently.

Well, this sounds like one to throw out to the listeners.

That sounds good to me.

Well, here it is, 1-877-929-9673 and words@waywordradio.org.

Send us an email or call us and let us know what you think that Steve should call his new career.

I don’t know what to call it.

Yeah. I don’t know. That sounds great.

All right. Thanks a lot.

Thank you for your call. Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Join in the discussion here, 1-877-929-9673, or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Martha, we were talking earlier about nicknames. There is a whole other category of nicknames that we haven’t brought up yet,

And that’s nicknames for the hometown newspaper.

Oh, yeah.

Most places have a love-hate relationship with their major metropolitan daily, don’t they?

Absolutely.

They read it.

They love it.

But they also hate it because it kind of, I don’t know, they know its weaknesses and its intricacies.

Right.

And you’re from Louisville.

What’s the one in Louisville called?

Well, yes.

For years, I worked for the Louisville Courier Journal, but in-house.

And sometimes when we call people on the phone to interview them and they weren’t happy about that,

They would refer to us as the curious urinal.

Curious urinal.

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I grew up around St. Louis.

I was born in St. Louis, and the post-dispatch is often called the St. Louis Post Distress or the St. Louis Post Distort.

But, you know, just yesterday, and I swear this happened, I was in the barbershop here in Brooklyn,

And it’s one of those classy old joints with the marble counters and the steamed towels that they’ll wrap around your neck.

And they were talking about the New York Slimes as a name for the New York Times.

And they used it without kind of comment.

That’s their way of referring to the paper because they didn’t care for it.

Yeah, but I bet they read it every day.

Well, we’d like to hear your favorite newspaper nicknames, nice or not.

Give us an email, words@waywordradio.org.

Or call me in Gertie anytime.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Hello.

Don’t make me come over there.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha.

This is Sharon.

From louisville from louisville hello sharon from louisville where in louisville what high school

Did you go to we always have to ask that don’t we i did not actually grow up in louisville okay

I moved here you’re an import yes okay but they’ve taught you how to pronounce the name of the city

That’s good they did they did so what’s up sharon well my husband and i were discussing a phrase

The phrase ever-loving or ever-loving.

And we’ve both heard it used to express frustration,

As in why wouldn’t he just pass the ever-loving basketball?

But I think that I’ve also heard it used

As to describe something that gives comfort,

As in I just want to get in my ever-loving bed and sleep.

I can relate to that.

We’re wondering if the second usage is also correct or if the way it’s most often used is the one where there’s the connotation of frustration or anger.

What about both?

That works.

You’ll find that the second one is the older form.

It actually does mean the ever-loving mean I always love my bed.

You’ll find it often refers to someone’s wife, actually, my ever-loving wife,

The wife that I always love, have always loved and will always love.

The use that you’re talking about with basketball, though,

That’s more kind of euphemistic and kind of an intensifier.

I mean, the same way we might use damned, right?

Okay.

Well, I think there are a lot of people who said they might use it to replace a word

If they were in polite company.

It’s just kind of an intensifier, then.

We have a number of different ways that we kind of get a point across of frustration

Without actually using a crass or crude word.

And I think that requires a delicacy of speech that not everyone has.

But if I’m talking about, I’m so tired, I just want to lie down in my ever-loving bed.

It means you ever love your bed.

You love your bed forever.

No, no, Grant, no.

I think it’s the same idea.

Do you?

It’s just my gosh darn bed.

I think it’s the same idea.

Well, yeah, that’s right.

That’s exactly right.

There are two distinct uses of this.

And I think Martha’s interpretation is a perfectly fair one.

Definitely we’re talking about a heightened sensation here, a heightened feeling,

Whether that feeling is frustration or love or attraction to a bed

Because we’re so tired that we must get some ever-loving sleep.

Yeah, yeah.

So, Sharon, have we answered your call? Have we helped?

You have. You have helped. Thank you so much.

All right. Thank you, Sharon. Thanks for calling.

Thank you.

All right. Bye-bye.

Take care of yourself.

Bye-bye.

The number we’d really ever-loving like you to dial is ever-loving-18-ever-loving-77-ever-loving-922.

How’s it go? 1-877-929-9673.

Well, that’s our show, but you can always call us anytime with your questions and comments about language.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-929-WORD.

Or send us an email to words at waywardsradio.org.

And dive into the discussion on the A Way with Words forum.

You’ll find it at waywordradio.org.

Stefanie Levine is our producer.

Our technical director and editor is Tim Felten.

We’ve had production help this week from Dana Polakowski and Michael Bagdasian.

A Way with Words is produced at Studio West in San Diego.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette, inviting you to join us next time.

That’s right here on A Way with Words.

So if you like pajamas

And I like pajamas

I’ll wear pajamas

And give up pajamas

For we know we

Need each other so we

Better call the calling

Our boss

Let’s call the whole thing

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