Pinball Slang

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.

Listener Justin Masterson shared some slang from his favorite hobby with us, and that includes terms like drain, gobblehole, and live catch.

And Grant, I know you know what this slang is from.

Right. I don’t need a death say for that. That’s pinball language.

It is indeed. A drain can be both a noun, and that’s the space between the flippers where you lose the ball. And it can be a verb and that’s the act of losing a ball.

And a gobble hole is a hole that swallows up the ball, as you might imagine.

And a live catch, I love this one, that’s when you hit the flipper so that it hits the ball at the exact right time to cancel the ball’s momentum.

Right. And then it just balances on the flipper and then you can have a moment to think about what you want to do with that ball, where you want to send it, you know.

If there’s a special place to get more points or get a multi-ball going.

There’s a satisfaction in that, isn’t there? Just balancing it there and deciding where you’re going to send it.

I spent many hours with the Addams Family pinball game. Just so many.

The Addams Family?

Yeah, there was something perfect about that.

I don’t know if it was just me and my friends, but we loved that game.

And I’m talking not as a teenager, but in my 20s and 30s.

Oh, really?

It was very good, yeah.

Would Thing come out if you got to?

I think there was somebody came. I think it might have been, I don’t remember.

Somebody came out and spun around, but it was very good.

Well, we’ll share some more pinball slang later in the show.

And we’d love to hear from you about slang that you use in your hobby or any other question about language.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.