Pickled Peppers (episode #1640)

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. The main street in San Francisco is not Main Street. The main street there is actually called Market Street, and it goes on for several miles. Now, San Francisco does have a main street, but it’s just five blocks long and it’s harder to find. Now, you might wonder why that is. Well, it turns out that San Francisco’s little bitty main street is named for a 19th century businessman whose name happened to be Charles Main.

How about that?

That makes a lot of sense.

Wait, so it’s not because it’s the primary street. It’s just named after this guy.

Who was this guy?

Charles Main made his fortune supplying miners during the gold rush, and the city honored him with a street named after him. It just happened to be called Main Street.

That’s always the way to make the fortune. Sell the tools, don’t do the digging.

Exactly. And that’s just one story that shows that names don’t always mean what you think they mean. And I’ll give you another example. I always thought that Snowflake, Arizona was probably named because the locals were transplants from the north or maybe they were wistful about cooler weather. But no, Snowflake, Arizona was founded in 1878 by a couple of guys named Erastus Snow and William Jordan Flake.

How about that?

And I should add that William Jordan Flake, one of the founders, is the great-great-grandfather of somebody you might have heard of, former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake.

Oh, there we go. That’s pretty interesting. Snowflake, Arizona.

Well, names are just one of the things we talk about on this show, and we’d love to talk with you about any aspect of language whatsoever. So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your questions an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. How are you?

This is Janine from Murray, Kentucky.

Hi, Janine.

Oh, great.

Welcome to the show. What’s up?

I was calling because I was curious to know how tongue twisters had originated. Because growing up, my dad would say these weird tongue twisters to me. And I held on to every word he said, and I would remember the words and practice them. And, you know, I think it’s kind of a lost trait. I say them to my kids. They’re young adults now, but they look at me like I’m crazy. But I think they’re kind of fun. And I did a little research on my own, and I found out that they originated to help people remember things, such as north, southeast, and west, for instance, you know? Never eat sour wheat. So I thought it was kind of fun, and I wanted to find out what you guys thought.

Well, Janine, if you’ve memorized some and say them on a regular basis, you know we’re going to want you to share some of them.

Oh, of course. I’ve got two in mind.

Okay.

Let’s do it.

All right. The first one is, are you the kid that told the kid that I’m the kid that hit the kid? Because if you’re the kid that told the kid that I’m the kid that hit the kid, I’m going to hit you, kid.

I never heard that one.

Are you the kid that told the kid that I’m the kid that hit the kid? What’s the other one?

I thought that one was really funny.

That’s great. My dad had a fun sense of humor, so that’s where I get that from. And the other one is the skunk stunk, the stump stunk, and the stump stunk, the skunk stunk.

I don’t want to meet that skunk or that stump.

Me neither.

Oh, my goodness. Those are rich.

So I thought those were fun.

Yeah, there’s a lot of reasons that people do tongue twisters. Partly just the same reason that we’re doing them now is because they’re fun. Because people mess up. And we like to see each other mess up. We like it when other people look a little foolish.

I held on to every word of that, I’ll tell you.

Yeah, and we like to laugh at ourselves, frankly.

Oh, absolutely. When we mess up, we giggle at ourselves on how silly we feel. And we don’t mind very much that we tried something and it didn’t work out. And we’ll keep at it until we get good at it. And that’s the other thing. People like to be challenged. They like it when stuff is hard. And then they like to get good at hard things. And tongue twisters are really, you know, there’s something you can really practice and get good at. And you feel proud of yourself, right?

Oh, yeah. As a kid, it was fun because you never knew what was going to come out of a kid’s mouth, you know. But, Martha, you know, in radio and speeches, which you and I both do, we speak at events all around the country. And we sometimes in preparation before we go out in front of crowds, we do these limbering exercises with our mouths and maybe say rubber baby buggy bumpers or something like that, right?

All I want is a proper cup of coffee.

Maybe a proper cup of coffee pot. Every language I’ve looked into has these. French is a language that I know fairly well. And one I know in French is, cinq ou six sous-officiers sont promenés en soissons. Five or six officers are walking in soissons. Something like that. And there’s a longer version, which is like this whole story.

Janine, one of the things that I really liked about the two that you repeated is that they’re visual. You know, some of these are just kind of arbitrary and, you know, the words are just thrown in there so they don’t make a whole lot of sense. But I love the ones that have images in them or just things that you can think about. I’m thinking about a Spanish one that goes, oh, no. Basically, it translates as Joe Freckles chops potatoes with a pick and with a pick, Joe Freckles chops a potato. You know, you can picture that. Papa’s corn pico.

So just to kind of bring this around, you were asking about origins. The earliest one that I know of, and I’m sure they’re older than this, probably as far back as humans could speak, they were challenging each other to say difficult things. There was a book published mostly in Latin by a fellow whose name was John Wallace, published in Oxford in England. And the Latin title is Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae. Basically, it means English language grammar. And he’s got this long, long passage. Interestingly enough, it’s about twisting. And it goes something like, when a twister a-twisting will twist him a twist. For the twisting of his twist he three times doth entwist. But if one of the twists of the twist do untwist, the twine that untwisteth untwisteth the twist. And it’s got paragraphs more of this. But most of the book is in Latin, except for this passage. And he also has a French version. This. And so this is kind of not the earliest tongue twister that we know, but it’s kind of like this real nice marker from about 400 years ago, where it kind of establishes this real nice middle point of tongue twisters and is about twisting.

That’s interesting. Yeah. By the way, the famous Peter Piper one, you can find a really beautifully done book from 1824. It’s a collection of tongue twisters. It’s called Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Playing the Perfect Pronunciation. And it’s in there.

Oh, that sounds so adorable.

And they’re all still really fun and you can find beautiful versions of it online at Gutenberg and Internet Archive. Just gorgeous, gorgeous modern recreations of it just in beautiful typefaces and ink drawings and so forth.

That’s interesting. Thank you so much for sharing your memories and your tongue twisters with us. We really appreciate it.

Thanks for your time, guys.

All right, you take care of yourself. You have a great day.

You too.

Bye-bye.

You too, Janine.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, whether your name is Theophilus Thistle or Sheba Sherman Shelley or Shrewd Simon Short, we’d love to hear from you, either your favorite tongue twisters or other thoughts about language. So give us a call at 877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi. My name is Scott. I’m calling from Madison, Wisconsin.

Hey, Scott. Welcome to the show. How can we help you?

I am a small business owner. In fact, one person, it’s me. And so I’m in charge of the billing.

And the question I have concerns the word invoice.

So on the top of my forms, it says invoice form.

And I thought to myself as I was listening to your show, as a matter of fact, what the heck does that mean?

And I tried to break it down into syllables, invoice.

That didn’t do anything for me, quite honestly.

I was lying.

It didn’t help.

But my question to you is, can you give me a brief derivation of the word invoice?

Brief? You’re asking the wrong people.

Well, this is your time to horridate.

So when you looked at invoice, you said, wait, voice is in there.

This has nothing to do with voice, V-O-I-C-E.

Correct.

Yeah, yeah.

But you might be not surprised to hear that has something to do with envoy,

Somebody that you send to, say, do something diplomatic.

Aha.

You feeling that?

Yeah, because they both go back to French, the French words,

And ultimately, of course, Latin having to do with to put something,

To send something on its way, to send, basically.

And so there’s a French word, E-N-V-O-I, plural with an S on the end.

It means something that has been sent or things that have been sent.

And so it’s an English spelling corruption of the French plural word meaning things sent.

And so an invoice is something that you send to someone else.

And in this case, it became specialized in English to mean something that you send saying, pay me now.

All right.

That’s it, really.

That’s your brief explanation that you wanted.

That is wonderful.

I really want to thank you guys for all you do for us.

And because of your wonderful services, feel free to send an invoice.

It’d be our pleasure.

What’s that address?

Thanks a lot again, guys.

All right.

Take care of yourself.

Bye-bye.

Have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Well, you’ve been sitting at your desk and you come across a word and you’re just starting to puzzle over it like Scott did.

You can always give us a call and talk about it.

877-929-9673.

I have a book I want to recommend.

It’s called Colossal Words for Kids, 75 Tremendous Words Neatly Defined to Stick in the Mind.

It’s by Colette Hiller, and she uses charming little poems to define each of these 75 big words.

For example, for the word colossal, the poem is,

If something is huge, truly enormous, a mountain perhaps, or a brontosaurus, a royal palace, or a giant fossil, all these things could be called colossal.

When something’s so big, you stand back and say, whoa, the word colossal is handy to know.

And she does this for words like magnanimous and discombobulated and acquiesce.

And it’s a beautiful book, too.

It’s playful.

It’s colorful.

It’s illustrated by Tor Freeman.

I should add, too, that Colette Hiller worked many years as an actor performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company in England.

And she’s worked as a producer for the BBC.

And for all you movie buffs out there, she also played Corporal Farrow in Aliens.

Oh, fantastic.

And because she’s got all this theatrical experience, she probably has good rhythm for writing poetry.

She sure does.

So that book, again, is Colossal Words for Kids, 75 Tremendous Words Neatly Defined to Stick in the Mind by Colette Hiller.

We’ll link to that from our website at waywordradio.org.

More about what you say and why you say it.

Stick around for more of A Way with Words.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And striding into the room in a green visor with a big stack of money,

It’s our guy, our quiz guy, John Chonesky.

Hi, John.

Hey, how you doing, guys?

Settle around the table.

Let me deal you guys in this quiz.

All right.

Yeah.

You know, when you play a quiz when you’re hungry, this is the result.

I’ll describe some items, and you’ll reiterate, but since you’re hungry, every answer will relate to food.

I call this a smorgasbord of words.

Let’s see.

Now, for example, I have a friend who is afraid of every little thing.

I think he just has a self-confidence problem, but you’re hungry, so to you he’s just…

Don’t overthink it.

Self-confidence problem.

He’s afraid of every little thing.

He’s he’s a he’s a veritable drumstick of oh he’s chicken yes he’s chicken oh yes you’re right i was

Overthinking there you go yeah just make your list of foods now and let’s see which ones we come upon

Here we go my neighbor and i have a decades old disagreement i say we we do not get along

But you’re hungry, so you say…

You have a beef.

I have a beef.

You have beef.

Yes, I have beef.

Ken has beef.

I have beef with them, yes.

I could obsess over my neighbors,

But I’ve got a lot going on.

I’ve got more important things to attend to,

But as you say…

You have a lot going on,

More important things to attend to.

Right.

Priorities. You have bigger fish to fry.

Exactly. I got bigger fish to fry. Delicious fish to fry.

Seriously, I can’t talk about it. I’ll give away the whole thing if I dish.

Or as you say, I will…

Spill the beans.

Yes, spill the beans.

The opposite of clam up, but that’s good too.

The opposite of clam, yes. Yummy vegan alternative.

Now, I might just tell you the whole story.

It might take a few hours of convincing me, or as you hungry people would say…

Hours of convincing you.

You would have to…

Go the whole hog.

That’s pretty good, but I think there’s something more precise than that.

Wow.

So you’re trying to get me to tell the story.

Just keep trying to convince me.

Oh, egg you won.

Yes, you may have to egg me on.

Very good.

You know what?

Enough about my neighbor.

You should see my kids dancing around together at the concert.

One is just like the other.

Or as you would say, they are two peas in a pod.

Yeah, two peas in a dancing pod.

I love it.

You know, sometimes I dream about changing careers.

But you know what?

These quizzes are just what I do.

They bring in the big bucks for me.

Or as you would say, they are…

So they’re your mainstay.

Bread and butter?

Yes.

No, that’s it.

They are my bread and butter.

Pickles.

Bread and butter.

And bread and butter and pickles.

Yes.

And gravy.

We’re just coining new food terms right and left.

And now I’m just famished and I have to go have lunch.

So thank you guys for a great quiz.

I’ll talk to you soon.

You’re always the big cheese to us, John.

Yay.

Yeah, none of that was corny at all.

Oh, ouch.

And you can join us for a tasteful conversation about language.

The number is 877-929-9673.

Or send your thoughts and comments about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Janice, and I am from Louisville, Kentucky.

There was an email that I got at work,

And this guy was saying that he couldn’t answer my question

Because it puts him in a bit of a pickle. So I started thinking about that. And I’ve heard that

Term over the years, but I really don’t understand why people would say I’m in a pickle if they can’t

Do something or answer something. Because the way I see it, pickles are delicious. They’re fun. You

Know, you’ve got sweet pickles, you’ve got sour pickles, you’ve got spicy pickles. I don’t see a

Pickle as being a problem.

Yeah, well, there’s a bit of history to this term, Janice. The word

Pickle is related to a similar sounding Dutch word pickle. And we have to look at the history

Of this word a little bit. In the earliest sense, the word pickle in English referred to a kind of

Spicy sauce, you know, something that would have a lot of chopped things in it and you serve it

With meat. And over time, pickle came to refer to the salty or acidic liquid that you put things in

To, you know, preserve them like fruits and vegetables. And over time, pickle came to specify

The things that were preserved in that brine, such as pickled cucumbers. And there’s an old

Dutch phrase that goes, in de pikkel zitten, which literally means to sit in the pickle brine,

Which doesn’t sound very comfortable, does it?

Oh, my goodness.

How did you ever find that?

Oh, that’s what we do.

But there’s more to that because metaphorically,

This Dutch expression that means to sit in the pickle brine,

Metaphorically, it means to be drunk.

So you’re completely saturated with this foreign substance.

You know, you’re soaking in this powerful liquid.

You’re soused.

Yeah, yeah, you’re soused.

You’re sauced. You know, you’re saturated with alcohol in this powerful liquid that changes you.

And actually, as early as 1561, you’ll see this expression in Dutch.

And then after that, you also see it in English. You see the phrase to be in a pickle, meaning quite inebriated.

And if you go back to Shakespeare in The Tempest, there’s a character who says to another one, I’ve been in such a pickle since I saw you last.

And by that, in that context, what he means is I’ve been so drunk.

And it may be that this idea of extreme drunkenness then extended to being in a less than optimal state.

You know, if you’re really drunk, then you’re really messed up.

You’re not your usual self.

You’re making new problems for yourself.

And then over time, that just sort of softened into having a problem.

But that’s the basic idea.

Well, I am just so glad to know that history, and I really appreciate you taking my call.

Oh, it was our pleasure.

Oh, sure.

Stay out of those pickles.

I know.

Thank you, guys.

Good talking to you.

Take care, Janet.

Bye-bye.

Great talking with you.

Bye.

We’re talking about word histories and mysteries here, 877-929-9673, or send your thoughts to us in email, words@waywordradio.org.

I think one of the most beautiful words in the English language is the word stilliform.

Do you know this word, Grant? Stilliform.

Stilliform. That actually sounds bad. It sounds like a medical problem.

No, it’s actually quite lovely.

Stiliform means drop-shaped.

It’s from the Latin stila, which means drop.

And it’s a relative of drippy words like distill, which means to drip down, and to instill, which means to put in drop by drop.

I just think it’s so lovely.

S-T-I-L-L-I-F-O-R-M.

It has those beautiful long, thin letters in the middle, like they’re kind of dripping.

So if someone is a drip, you can call them still a form and they won’t know that they’re supposed to be offended.

I suppose that’s true.

My, you’re still a form.

Yes.

I like that, too.

You can hear all of our past episodes on our website at waywordradio.org.

Hi there.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, I’m Amy and I’m calling from Vermont.

I’m actually looking for a word, and specifically when there’s just enough light to be able to see color.

And to explain, I’m actually visually impaired with photophobia, so that’s my comfort zone.

But the word that typically comes to mind or people think of is dim.

Like, okay, diminished light.

But it’s not very colorful. So I’m looking for something more like gloaming, which I really like, but not so much what it means, because coming from glowing, it’s too bright, really.

So you think of dawn and dusk or weather conditions like overcast, fog.

But really, I’m just looking for something light specific.

I’m hoping you can help.

Amy, are you wanting to talk with other people about this then?

Or is it a word that you just want to keep in your heart and ponder?

Why are you looking for a particular word?

Because I do a lot of cursing of the sun.

So I’m hoping for a word that I can be very pleased with.

Yes, this is the amount of light that I like.

-huh.

And you want a single word.

I mean…

A multitude of words.

It could be in other languages.

You know, I’m happy to have a full quiver of options to use.

What level of light are we talking about here?

Can you describe it further?

It’s like I used to love moonlight, but that got too bright.

So I can handle up to maybe a half moon.

I typically get up early in the morning, but I don’t like dawn because that’s when the light starts.

So I prefer pre-dawn.

Dusk is great, but you quickly lose, you know, the light gets to the point where you can’t see the color any longer.

Right.

And so it’s really, it can happen any time of the day or night.

Maybe not night, but because I don’t like artificial light either.

Bright enough to see color, but dark enough so it doesn’t hurt your eyes.

Exactly.

I’m thinking about things that are luminous, like glowworms and, you know, and certain molds and bacteria and fungus.

But I’m also, starlight is a word I really like, but I think that’s too dark for you.

I do like starlight.

Yeah.

Radiant is too bright.

Subdued, I think, is good.

For this. Subdued also suggests that you don’t want anything to suddenly brighten. So that’s the thing is sometimes in our environments, things are erratic. Light turns on and off or flashes.

Yeah. Yeah. So that’s what you’ve got to avoid as well. Clouds are wonderful, but then it becomes partly cloudy and you get hit with this light beam.

Yeah. I’m thinking of things like alpenglow, you know, which you see way up north, something like that. And this may be something that we have to put out to our listeners all over the world. They might have some ideas there.

I have a couple of other ideas for you, just that I’m thinking of from Greek and Latin. Of course, there’s crepuscular in English, which I’ve always loved, but that has to do with twilight, and that’s not really where you’re wanting to go with that.

I’m also thinking of one of my favorite words is antelucan, A-N-T-E-L-U-C-A-N, which is it refers to those moments in the dawn before the light really comes up.

But, again, you didn’t want pre-dawn things.

So I have one other thought that I’ve just made up on the spot.

I’m liking this.

Okay, well, you might tuck this into your quiver. I’m thinking about, in terms of Greek roots, there’s a word hypnagogic, which means leading to sleep, and the agogic there is the leading part.

And I’m thinking about the word root, chrome, and I’m wondering if chromagogic, you know, leading to color is sort of what you’re talking about.

Those moments before it gets colorful.

Mm—

Chromagogic?

Yeah, I thought of.

Oh.

I just made that up.

So many possibilities there.

Amy, we are going to throw this out to our international cadre of super intelligent and clever listeners and see if they can come up with something for you, okay?

Sounds fantastic.

Until then, we’re just going to call that Amy Light.

Oh, I like that.

That’s the best one yet.

Yes.

Yes, because there’s, you know, that whole notion of liking or loving Amy Light.

I like that.

A-M-I-L-I-G-H-T.

I think we’ve got it.

Amy Light.

And we’ll see what everyone else has to say.

877-929-9673.

If you can identify that perfect level of light just before you see colors that won’t hurt some very sensitive eyes, or you can email us words@waywordradio.org.

Amy, it sounds like a really difficult situation that you are handling with aplomb.

I love how creative you’ve been in identifying your own situation.

Best of luck to you, and I thank you for listening to the show.

Yeah, thanks for an interesting question.

Well, thank you both. Really appreciate it.

All right, take care of yourself. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Amy.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Matt Blake from Memphis, Tennessee.

Hi, Matt in Memphis. How are you doing?

Well, when I was at East Carolina University, I had a professor for music theory that was known for his colorful expressions.

And there was one in particular I was always curious about.

If he was giving an assignment and added restrictions or conditions that he knew would make it more difficult, he would say with a smile, that makes the cheese a bit more binding, doesn’t it?

So, you know, we knew what he meant, but where does that come from and why does it mean that?

Well, yeah, you said you knew what he meant. What did he mean?

Well, he was just saying it makes it more complicated, more difficult.

But why cheese a bit more binding? I don’t know.

Yes, this phrase refers to the constipating effect of cheese on a person’s digestion.

And what’s interesting about this phrase, Matt, is that it’s been used a couple of different ways.

And one of them is the way that your professor used it to make the cheese more binding.

It means to make something more challenging or to complicate a situation.

You know, if the cheese gets binding, then, you know, the plot thickens.

Things got more difficult.

And that’s kind of a negative sense.

But at the same time, making the cheese more binding can also be positive, I guess, depending on how you feel about the cheese doing its work.

Because make the cheese more binding can also mean to improve or to enhance a situation.

Say you and I are negotiating about something and you throw in a little something that makes the deal more enticing to me, then I might say, well, now that makes the cheese more binding.

But I have another question for you, Matt.

Okay.

Did you ever watch old episodes of The Twilight Zone?

Yes.

Okay. Do you remember the one called To Serve Man?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Famous one. That’s incredibly famous.

Maybe the most famous one.

Yeah, it’s definitely my favorite.

These nine-foot-tall space aliens come to Earth, and one of them tells government officials that they come in peace and they’re coming to create a paradise here on Earth.

And then he takes off, and you remember he leaves behind a book in their mysterious language, and the humans are all skeptical about what the aliens are really up to, and they’re trying to decipher this mysterious book.

And then one of their cryptographers manages to translate the title.

And you remember what the title is, Matt?

To Serve Man.

Exactly.

And at that point, when they realize that in the episode, one of the government officials says, well, that makes the cheese a little more binding.

And at that point, he’s all excited about it because he thinks that’s a positive thing.

And we won’t talk about anything else that happens in it because we don’t want to spoil it for anybody who hasn’t seen it.

You can spoil it at this late date, Martha.

Do you think?

But what about all the young people out there who haven’t seen this episode?

Anyway, he thinks things are going to turn out great, and they don’t.

Again, I just love that this expression is in that episode.

Well, that makes the cheese a little more binding.

So it’s got both positive and negative senses.

And it’s been around for what, Grant, about a century?

Yeah, yeah, at least the early 1900s.

Lots of different variations, but the cheese is always there and the binding is always there.

So it has to do with your insides.

Gotcha.

Well, thank you, Matt, for your call and sharing your memories with us.

All right, well, thank you very much.

Take care of yourself. Bye-bye.

There are lots of ways to reach us.

You can find all of them at our website, waywordradio.org, and you can always give us a call, 877-929-9673.

This show is about language seen through family, history, and culture.

Stay tuned.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

The workers who handle curbside check-in at the airport or help you with your luggage are called skycaps.

And what’s interesting about this word skycap is that it joined the English language because it was the winning entry in a competition.

In 1940, the Airlines Terminal building in New York was about to open, and a contest was held to invent a word for the porters who would be working there.

A man named Willie Wainwright suggested the word skycap, and he won $100 for that.

And he was apparently inspired by the term red cap, which at the time applied to railway porters who wore red caps to make them stand out in a crowd.

In the 20th century, there were lots of these contests to create new words that would stick in the language and ideally bring a lot of publicity.

In 1923, three years into Prohibition, there was a Boston philanthropist and staunch anti-alcohol crusader named Delsevere King, and he sponsored a contest offering $200 for a term to denote somebody who flouts the law by drinking illegal liquor.

And he wanted a word that would stab awake the public conscience to the fact that such lawless drinking is a menace to the public itself.

And more than 20,000 entries came pouring in, and they included words like Boushevik and Klinker and Wedocrat and Slacklaw and Lawjacker.

And none of those quite worked for Delsevere King, but one entry did, and it was actually submitted by two different people.

And their word was, do you know what I’m going to say?

Scofflaw.

Scofflaw, exactly.

Golf law ended up sticking around, although these days, you know, it’s used in connection with minor offenses like parking tickets.

But I have a couple of footnotes to this story.

A Harvard student magazine shortly after Delsevere King ran his contest, they ran their own contest and they offered $25 to come up with a word for a prohibitionist.

So they had all kinds of entries like, you know, college students.

They got entries like fear beer and jug buster.

But the winner of that contest was spigot bigot.

Did not catch on.

No, I guess they eventually won out.

But one more footnote, Delsevere King, whose contest gave us this word scofflaw, is buried in Quincy, Massachusetts.

And if you go there and take a look at his gravestone, his epitaph reads simply, he tried to be helpful.

Oh, that’s a great one.

Yeah, that’s what the best of us do, right?

The best people try to be helpful.

That’s a very good one.

Martha and I get into names and naming every chance that we get, and we love to hear your stories about the clever names in your life, be it your name, a family member’s name, a pet’s name, the name of your business, how you decided to name the book that you wrote.

Let us know, 877-929-9673, or tell the story at length in email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Hope from Buffalo, New York.

Hi, Hope in Buffalo. How are you?

I’m good. How are you?

Super duper. Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Well, I had called regarding a word that was used by my grandmother, my father’s mother, growing up.

And he has also told us that this word was used with him and his sister as they grew up.

And it is the word, Ritchie.

And it was used in a context when we were little kids and we had ants in our pants.

We couldn’t sit still.

My grandmother would lean over to us, like in church, and tell us, stop being so richy.

And then in talking with my dad, she used the same phrase, but then if they didn’t comply with her request, it would lose the I-E and be added to another less savory word.

But she never used that with us.

So we just knew the word Ritchie.

And as I talked to friends and would use this word with them, they’d go, what does that mean?

So I was just curious, you know, if there’s any idea where this would come from, because it’s not a word that’s familiar with other friends and people I know.

Well, you know, Hope, I think Grant knows the very first question I’m going to ask you about this.

And it’s not whether you were Ruchi, because it sounds like you were.

It sounds like you were.

It was more directed to my youngest sister.

She couldn’t sit still.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, my real question is, is there any German heritage in your family?

So interesting.

Not necessarily from my grandmother.

My grandmother was Portuguese.

Both her parents were from Portugal, come through Provincetown, Rhode Island.

But my, so her parents, but my great-grandfather, her father, had the last name of Gaskell, which looking it up would have either been English, German, or French.

So that’s the only thing.

Yeah, that’s a little far back.

Anybody live in Pennsylvania, Dutch territory?

Yep, that was my next question.

No, no.

Because this word does indeed exist.

You’re not the only person who uses it.

And you usually hear it in areas of German settlement in this country.

And that’s why Grant was asking about Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania Dutch, because there is a German word, rutschen, which means to slip or to slide or to slither.

And this has been adapted into English dialect in a number of forms because it just gets passed on from, you know, one person to another rather than written so much.

And so Ruchi and Ruch, R-O-O-C-H and R-O-O-T-S-H and words like that have to do with wiggling.

You know, if you have a baby who’s a real wiggler, she’s slipping around and scooting around and squirming and fidgeting when you try to diaper her.

She’s said to be Rucci or Rucci or Rutzie.

Okay.

Yeah, definitely has German roots.

And if you go to Pennsylvania, I am sure you’ll hear people say that.

I’m sure.

That is wonderful to know.

I know her husband, my grandfather, he would have been, or he had English and German ancestry.

But it’s interesting, it was my grandmother who used it more so than my, I don’t remember my grandfather saying it.

But I know in the Buffalo area there is a huge German population with German ancestry,

And there’s a lot of a big mix of different ethnic groups that came in,

Especially around the turn of the century.

So that doesn’t surprise me that that’s where it would come from.

And my grandmother was of Portuguese descent but living in an Irish neighborhood.

So everybody kind of mixed together.

So that’s wonderful to know.

I can’t wait to tell my dad.

He’ll be thrilled to find out, you know, kind of where this word has come from.

And that it is actually a word and not just something she made up.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Well, we’re glad you called, Hope.

Thank you so much.

I’m so grateful to talk to you today.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care of yourself.

All right.

Bye.

Bye.

There are fun things in everybody’s family language.

Martha and I would love to hear yours.

877-929-9673 is toll free in the United States and Canada.

And you can also email us words@waywordradio.org.

And if you’re somewhere else in the world, try us on WhatsApp.

You can find that number on our website at waywordradio.org.

We heard from Taylor Roste in Casper, Wyoming.

Her little boy, John, is almost three years old, and she was prepping him to meet his great-grandparents for the first time.

And she said, tomorrow we’re going to go have lunch with your great-grandparents.

But little John misunderstood great as grape, and she says he now refers to them as Grandma and Grandpa Grape, like the fruit.

And my husband and I have resolved that we are never correcting him because it’s the most precious thing in the world.

Grandma and Grandpa Grape.

I love it there’s so many puns just waiting to happen he loves them a bunch.

Oh they’re raising him right oh lord I I would just like everyone to take a moment and

And note who is doing the punning here.

I’m capable of punning.

I just don’t like it because they’re so predictable.

They’re obvious.

They’re just lying there around.

It’s the rare pun that I appreciate, not the easy ones.

You know what the grapes said when the elephant stepped on them?

No.

Nothing.

They just let out a little whine.

Injured.

Somebody else call us and talk to us.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Charles from Lambert, Montana.

Hi, Charles. Welcome to the show.

Hey, Charles.

Well, I farm and ranch in eastern Montana.

And to give you a little background, my family homesteaded here in 1909.

Now, that may have nothing to do with my word.

Okay.

But growing up, I used to hear the word epizooty to describe every form of illness or disease.

Like someone got the epizooty, don’t get the epizooty.

It could have been a cold to cancer.

Who knows?

Anyway, I thought it was just a made-up family word.

But I found later in life that it was a deer disease, epizootic hemorrhagic.

And I was just curious if that’s my own family quirky word or if it was something other cultures used.

Yeah, yeah.

Epizootic is a really interesting word.

It was around for a while.

And then you may remember that in 1872, there was this horrible example of epizootic disease that was circulating among horses.

This was a really big deal back in that day.

It was this terrible disease that was a rasping cough, and the horses were weak and feverish, and sometimes they just died of exhaustion.

And this example of epizootic disease was so bad that it affected so many horses that it briefly brought the country to a standstill.

Because in the 1870s, you know, the United States was so dependent on horses.

It was kind of like the grid going down or gas supplies drying up because farmers couldn’t take their goods to market and canal boats backed up and horses couldn’t drag coal out of the mines and firefighters had terrible trouble hauling water.

So it really forced this reckoning in the United States, this equine influenza that people called the epizootic.

It forced a reckoning with how dependent our country was on horses and also how horses were treated.

And the word epizootic itself, which refers to different kinds of diseases that affect animals, including deer, as you said,

Epizootic is actually modeled on the Greek word epidemic, which is a disease on a whole group of people.

It comes from the Greek word demos, which means people, as in democracy.

So we had the word epidemic already, and epizootic was modeled after that because the zoo in there, that Z-O-O, means animal.

So an epizootic disease was one that affected a whole population of animals.

So that’s some of the background.

And then over time, people just started referring to any kind of disease,

Even just an imaginary one or just a vague kind of illness.

Yeah, yeah.

It’s kind of when you say you’ve got the crud.

It doesn’t really mean something specific.

Yeah.

Thank you so much, Charles, and good luck on the ranch.

Oh, thank you.

It was a pleasure to talk to you.

Take care of yourself.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

But you’re not going to get the epizooty or the cootie if you call us,

So pick up that phone, 877-929-9673.

And you’re going to be just fine if you email us too.

That’s words@waywordradio.org.

And you’re going to feel great if you reach out to us on social media.

You can find all of our handles and addresses on our website, thewaywardradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, I’m Sean from Buffalo, New York.

Well, I wanted to talk to you today about a phrase that my mom brought into the family,

I’m not quite sure how far back it goes, but whenever anybody burps, she used to say, well, bring it up again, we’ll vote on it.

And I think she may have gotten that from her father.

She was Canadian, okay?

She was from St. Catharines, Ontario.

And besides all the other stuff that they bring in, like A and all the wonderful vernaculars from Canada, I got this one.

And I think she may have gotten it from her father, who maybe got it because he was talking about folks in the House of Commons.

That when you bring something up, they discuss it and then they vote on it.

Well, it’s possible that they independently derived it, but it does have some other history elsewhere.

Other people do say it and have said it.

I think I found it in yearbooks, high school yearbooks from the 1930s in the United States.

Yeah.

So it’s got some history outside of Canada.

But, you know, North American English doesn’t know borders.

It does tend to cross freely back and forth across the border, particularly with many Canadians kind of clustered at the bottom of the country there like an Etch-A-Sketch that’s been shaken.

Yeah.

But, you know, that’s not the only.

So is that the only one that she used?

Just every time someone burps, bring it up again and we’ll vote on it.

Or were there other ones?

No, that was pretty much it.

But my dad was from New York City.

Yeah.

He was from Westchester County.

And he would always say, just like downtown.

And I’m like, really?

When something went right?

Oh, yeah, that’s a great one.

We’ve got research on that on our website, just like downtown.

So definitely look for that at waywordradio.org.

Okay, he didn’t say that about burps then.

That was a whole other situation.

No, no.

It’s whenever anything went correct, it was like, oh, yeah, that was smooth and silky and really nice.

And that was well done.

And then just like downtown.

Sean, there is a category in folklore for those kinds of expressions that you say when somebody breaks wind or burps.

And it’s those bodily noises are known as instead of rites of passage, they’re known as wrongs of passage.

And there’s a lot of those sayings.

We had a listener named Cynthia who emailed us.

She went to Junior Heist in suburban Boston, and she says they said six more and we’ll have seven up.

Oh, very nice.

And other people say things like greetings from the interior.

I think that would be a good one for Canada.

Most definitely.

For all our listening audience, they should start adopting that one.

Greetings from the interior.

But I thought it rather nice that she had this phrase instead of saying this.

Yeah, because it’s something that happens to every human, right?

Yeah, most definitely.

Well, thank you so very much for your time.

Yeah, our pleasure.

By the way, there is a book of Prince Edward Island sayings, and Bring It Up and We’ll Vote On It does appear in that book of Prince Edward Island sayings.

So there’s a Canada connection for you.

Yeah, most excellent.

Well, you have a great day, okay?

Yeah, our pleasure. Take care of yourself.

Thanks. God bless. Bye-bye.

Our team includes senior producer Stefanie Levine,

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And quiz guide John Chaneski.

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Special thanks to Michael Breslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidenwurm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. Until next time, goodbye.

Bye.

You