Piping Hot

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.

I love living here in San Diego, but every once in a while I get a little nostalgic for things I remember from back East.

And that happened to me the other day when I saw some exquisite photographs online of those little bugs that fly through the air and glow.

At night.

Fireflies.

Right.

Fireflies.

Yeah, I grew up saying lightning bugs.

Yeah, so did I in Missouri.

Okay.

And I was just so struck by seeing them that, of course, I drilled down and started looking at all these other words for firefly or lightning bug.

Because there are other terms around the country.

Some people call them lighter flies or glow worms.

Some people call them third shift mosquitoes, which I really like.

But it’s also cool to look at the words for fireflies in other languages.

Because in Brazil, they call them “vagalumi,” which means “wandering light.”

Oh, interesting.

I can hear that.

The “vag” like “vagabond” or “lumi” like “lumière” or something.

Yes, exactly.

And the Hebrew word for this insect translates as “little ember” or “little spark.”

Sure, they’re like a spark coming up from a wood fire, just floating up on the heat of the flames.

Yeah.

That’s nice.

Until it goes out, right?

Right.

So I love the way that they’ve inspired these poetic names.

They also just bring back so many memories for me, gathering them in a jar and letting them loose at the end of the night and being the first kid to see a lightning bug.

Was that a big thing in your family?

Oh, yeah.

It meant summer had arrived.

It meant school was out or almost out.

Well, we’d love to hear your stories about the things that you miss and the words for them or your own terms from your own country for lightning bugs or fireflies.

Call 1-877-929-9673, email words@waywordradio.org, or send us a tweet to Wayword, W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you?

My name is Jeff Parthon, and I’m a junior high band director from Lafayette, Indiana.

All right.

Well, welcome, Jeff.

Yeah, glad to have you on the show, and thank you for working with the kids.

You’re making the world better.

Oh, well, thank you.

They’re fun kids.

We have a good time.

What can we do for you?

So I wanted to do a program, my May concert, and I wanted my kids to be involved with the Leonard Bernstein at 100 celebration, kind of a worldwide festival of Bernstein’s music.

And so one of my groups played some Bernstein, but there’s another composer with the same spelling.

His name is Elmer Bernstein, and he’s just as brilliant and a genius as Bernstein.

So I thought I’d play some Bernstein as well as Bernstein.

So I wanted to do some kind of a cross-curricular thing, so I looked up to see if I could find if there was a, you know, English term for different pronunciations of the same spelling.

And I came up with a couple, and I put the word out to my language arts faculty, and they were undecided as to which one it was.

So some of them thought it was a homograph, and some of them thought it was a heteronym.

Ooh, interesting.

And I’m not sure, so I thought you guys might know.

And I might suggest that it’s a homonym.

Let me see if I can summarize this.

You’ve got two composers, Bernstein and Bernstein.

They’re different names for different people.

They’re spelled the same but pronounced differently, right?

That’s correct.

All right, so they’re definitely homonyms, which means they have different meaning and same spelling.

They’re definitely homographs because they have the same spelling, and because they may or may not, but it’s fine that they refer to two different people because they’re spelled the same.

That’s all that’s required for a homograph.

They have the same spelling regardless of meaning, regardless of pronunciation.

And then heteronym, that’s the one where I kind of have a difference of opinion with your language arts teachers.

Hetero, remember, means not the same.

It’s opposite of homo, which is the same.

And they have the same spelling but different meaning, maybe a heteronym, because it depends whether or not you’re counting the name as the thing it’s referring to or the whole mix of spelling plus pronunciation.

So I don’t know, definitely a homograph, definitely a homonym, how about that?

That sounds great.

Okay.

And I would go with homograph just because it’s really the only thing that matters that they’re spelled the same.

But what you’re trying to do is capture spelled the same and pronounced differently, right?

Right, yes.

Okay.

And I have like four or five other terms that I’m not going to bring into this.

No, let’s leave them out.

But homonym or homograph will work just fine.

I love the idea that you’re doing Bernstein and Bernstein because it’s a weird thing about the Steinstein names is each family has its own pronunciation tradition and you just have to learn them to know which is which.

Yeah, there’s no real rule.

And it’s interesting in my research on this, both of those, they knew each other.

They were both kind of in the business, but one was Bernstein East and one was Bernstein West.

I like that.

It reminds me of the President’s Roosevelt or the President’s Roosevelt because they both had their own pronunciation traditions for the family name.

Well, Jeff, thank you for calling and good luck and send us some music if anything turns out okay, right?

Yeah, it’s a cool concert.

Yeah, it was a good time.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care now.

Thanks, Jeff.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Well, you know, this shows about a lot of things related to language.

It’s not just word origins or old stories about language.

Sometimes it’s the day-to-day stuff that happens as you go about your work.

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

I don’t know how I lived all these years without knowing the word “forswunk.”

I don’t know it either.

Yay!

Forswunk.

You’re going to love this.

Is this a past tense form of forswear?

No, it’s a past tense of “forswink.”

I also don’t know.

“Forswink,” is this golf?

No, no.

This is when the ball goes backward instead of forward.

I don’t know what a “forswink” is.

It’s F-O-R-S-W-I-N-K, “forswink,” which means to overwork, and so if you’re “forswunk,” then you’re totally worn out from work, and those are words that were around right after Middle English.

“Forswink,” okay, very nice.

I am totally “forswunk.”

“Forswunk,” or you have too much work.

Swamped by work.

In the weeds.

You’re worn out.

It’s the idea of being exhausted from work.

“Honey, I just got home, and I’m totally forswunk.”

Right, you need to rest your dogs.

Yes, but the dog needs walking, so …

Get us up on Twitter @wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey there.

My name is Chelsea.

I’m calling from Norfolk, Virginia.

How are y’all?

We’re doing well.

Thanks.

What’s going on?

I am originally from the Midwest, and I’ve lived out here in Norfolk, Virginia for the last three or four years, and for the first, I don’t know, six months, a year that I lived out here, I was so confused by something I heard on the radio all the time during the traffic reports, and it was that they were always saying that there’s a bridge opening.

The bridge is open.

At one, three, and five, the bridge will be open, and I always thought, “That’s so weird.

Why are they telling me the bridge is open?

Okay, so the road is open, the bridge is open.

Why are they telling me that?”

Then, I found out, “Oh, duh, the bridge is open,” which means the bridge is closed because it’s a drawbridge opening up for boats to go through, and I just thought it was fascinating that something that says it’s open actually means the exact opposite, that it was closed.

I understand that it’s for the boat that is open, so that would make sense, but I just wonder, “Why are they telling drivers that it’s open, they should be telling drivers that it’s closed?”

I was wondering if you all had any kind of experience where words mean the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to mean.

You mean outside of politics?

Yes.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Oh, this is wonderful.

I love that.

So, the bridge is open, but it’s actually closed, and when it’s closed, it’s actually open.

Depending on whether you’re on a boat or in a car.

That’s the crux of it, isn’t it, Chelsea?

The idea that if I have a ship with a tall mast, then I can’t pass this way until the bridge is up and the drawbridge is open, then I do think of the bridge as open, meaning I can go through.

Exactly, and so it would mean open in that sense, but my thought was, “Surely, boat operators have their own communication where they tell them the bridge is open, and so you would think that they would tell the roadsters that the bridge is closed.”

But yeah, I just thought that that was fascinating and wondered if you guys knew any other things.

So there’s a kind of famous category of words in English known variably as Janus words or contronyms or even antagonyms.

Or enantiodromes.

Enantiodromes, where a word, depending on the context, because you said that magic word “context,” it’s amazing how often that comes up on the show.

Depending on the context, one word, pronounced the same, spelled the same, can have two different meanings.

Yeah, although this is a little bit different, because the word “cleave” can mean to stick to, like you cleave to your wife, or you can cleave things in too with a meat cleaver or something like that, and those are words that are spelled the same way, but they’re actually different words.

They come from different origins, and in the case of the bridge, you’re both talking about the same thing, about it being open or closed.

So I’m trying to think of another word that means the same thing but is different based on your perspective.

Well, many words in English are like this.

Some of the times they’re slangy.

The famous one is the ’80s slang for bad meaning good.

You are bad, like that sort of thing.

But in dictionary editing, we have a word “polysemy,” which refers to the nature of words having more than one meaning.

It’s really common.

What we’re looking for is not only more than one meaning, but opposites, as Chelsea said.

I don’t think you’re ever going to solve this.

I’m putting myself in the shoes of the radio announcer and saying to myself, “I have several different constituencies that I’m talking to.

I’m talking to people who are seagoing, and I’m talking to people who are road-going, and I need different language for each,” and somewhere along the way, they got the tradition of just saying, “The bridge is open,” and speaking to the seagoers more than the road-goers.

That’s what I would assume.

It makes sense to me.

Yeah, I can see that.

What do you think, Chelsea?

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense, and it makes sense why they do it, but I just thought it was fascinating.

I’m wondering what you all had to say.

It really is, because the “open” means “open,” and “closed” means “closed,” but it just means different things for different people.

Exactly.

Yeah, I think it’s really cool.

And the bridge is in different positions.

You know another one?

If we want to be here all day, we can also talk about what it means to turn the air conditioning up.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

Oh, my gosh, I think “up” means turning it to 74, and my husband thinks it means 61.

That’s actually right.

That’s always a problem in my household.

Like, “Turn the air conditioning up!”

Yes, I agree.

We’re starting fights all across America right now.

Yes, it’s true.

All right, bye, Chelsea.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. 877-929-9673, email words@waywordradio.org, or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Here’s a fun bit of Mexican slang, “taco de ojos.”

Tacos filled with eyes, like animal eyes to eat?

You would think from that expression, right, because that’s literally what it would be, but it means eye candy.

Oh, oh, like a feast for the eyes, feasting on tacos.

I see, something very good then.

Something very pleasing to the eye.

Yes, something you want to knock back.

877-929-9673.

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

Stick around.

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, and joining us now is our quiz guy, John Chonesky.

Hello, John.

Hi, Martha.

Hi, Grant.

What’s up, bud?

Well, you know, I was watching TV with my kids the other day.

We have this new way of watching TV now.

We binge watch.

So we were watching an episode of The Big Bang Theory where Rajesh Kuthrapalli decides that for Halloween, he’ll wear a fedora and carry a bullwhip, and he’ll go as “Indian Jones.”

Now, of course, that’s wordplay that I can’t pass up.

So following are descriptions of fictional characters, but I’ve omitted a letter from their names.

And you have to tell me the new character name.

For example, if I said, “He used to use the force to turn people to the dark side.”

Now all he does is hang out in bars and toss pointy objects at a board.

Dart Vader.

Dart Vader.

Dart Vader.

Yeah, very good.

And the first one’s very similar.

“He’s given up being a Jedi, moved to Hawaii, spends all his time at the beach playing Aloha Oi.”

Uke Skywalker.

Uke Skywalker, yes.

Aloha Uke.

“Another Star Wars guy briefly stopped his smuggling and tried his hand at being a goofy stand-up comedian.”

Ha Solo.

Han Solo.

Ha Solo.

Not the best stage name for a comedian.

I guess it’s okay.

Now, changing franchises, “What former Starfleet science officer spends his time knitting hosiery?”

Science?

Mr.

Sock?

Mr.

Sock, yes.

You got that one.

Darn it.

“Orphaned as a girl, she becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall, marries Mr.

Rochester, and then leaves him to become the first female optometrist in the north of England.”

Jane I.

Jane I, right.

“Now anthropomorphic animals are always successful.

I’ve got an idea for a boy wizard who is furry, cute, and loves shellfish.”

Harry Otter.

Harry Otter, yes.

Once again, copyright 2018.

“Similarly, I’m going to change the fairest of them all into a swine.”

Now the dwarfs, they can stay dwarfs.

Sal White.

Sal White, yes.

“Conversely, I’m taking a highly successful Disney icon and changing him into a Greek deity who will inspire artists.”

Highly successful Disney icon?

Animated?

Yes.

So, inspiring artist is Muse.

Oh, Mickey Muse.

Mickey Muse.

Or Minnie Muse.

Could certainly be Minnie Muse as well.

“Similarly, the world’s greatest detective might give his brain a rest to become a realtor.”

Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes, it doesn’t even sound very different, but on his business card it would probably say, “If you need a home, call Sherlock Holmes.”

“Flaubert’s title character, who lives beyond her means in provincial northern France, has a side interest in women’s reproductive health.”

Madame Overy.

Madame Overy.

“He was a wisecracking superhero, or villain, or let’s say anti-hero.

Now that he’s adopted a bunch of kids, he’s too busy driving them to school, making them lunch, and all the other things guys like Grant and I do.”

Deadpool.

Deadpool, that’s right.

And that’s all my, what do I call them again, fictiona characters.

Fictiona characters.

Fictiona characters.

Thanks, Jon, that was a lot of fun.

We’ll talk to you next week.

Thank you guys, take care.

And we’d love to talk with you about any aspect of language.

So call us, 877-929-9673, you can send us email at words@waywordradio.org, and find us on Twitter @Wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha and Grant, this is Kevin calling from St.

Louis, Missouri, how are you?

Doing well, how are you?

Up until recently, my wife and I lived in New Orleans, and we had went to this French restaurant that my wife had really wanted to go to with some friends of ours.

And I’ve been a vegetarian my whole life, but I really haven’t had too much of an issue finding things on most menus.

But when we got to this French restaurant, I could not find any vegetarian dishes on this menu.

So I kept looking through it, and the people at my table were kind of getting aggravated that I was taking so long.

So I found something on there that was called Sweet Breads, and I went ahead and ordered that.

So in my mind, I’m picturing like some kind of savory breads, maybe with cheese, or maybe honey and nuts or something.

But it was very expensive, so I was hoping it was going to be a good meal.

They deliver it to the table, and it’s like these four little round balls on my plate, and they were breaded.

So I was thinking that they were still bread, they were like hushpuppy sized.

So I took a bite of one of them. I was chewing it up, trying to figure out what in the world kind of bread is this.

And about right when I swallowed, a bunch of alarm bells went off in my head.

Oh, this may not actually be bread.

So I had called the waitress over. I had told her, “Hey, I ordered the sweet breads, but I cannot figure out what kind of bread this is.”

And she had said something about, “Oh, this is the hearts and the throats.”

And I said, “Wait, what is the heart of a bread? I’ve never really heard of that.”

And then she went on to explain that it was like lamb organs or some such, and I just about blacked out from there.

But it was definitely not bread as I thought.

So I wanted to call you and see if you guys thought, like I do, that this is some sort of malicious misnomer, like to trick people into eating something that’s so unappetizing.

Oh, Kevin, Kevin, Grant and I have been cringing. We started about halfway through your story, just cringing here. Oh my gosh.

You ordered sweet bread off the menu, but it was not bread.

What’s your heart?

Sweet breads, actually, it’s usually in the plural.

So traditionally it’s the thymus gland or pancreas of like a lamb.

Mark Morton in his book The Cupboard of Love says, “It is, the name is surely the result of an early and brilliant marketing ploy on the part of butchers everywhere.”

It’s easier to get people to buy and eat it if you call it sweet breads.

Here, have a thymus, have a breaded thymus gland.

No, that isn’t really right.

But there are lots of different kinds of them, right?

Heart sweet bread and stomach sweet bread and belly sweet bread.

You know, I had a similar experience at Columbia University. I spent a year abroad in Paris and my first week there I went to a restaurant. My French wasn’t very good.

They had kind of pushed me too fast into the deep waters of French and I was kind of struggling my way to the surface.

But on the menu I recognized the word for lamb and I’m like, “I love lamb, I will have some lamb,” and I ordered lamb and it comes and it’s on the plate kind of by itself this unadorned lamb kidney.

It’s the most disgusting smelling, fowl-looking thing that I’d ever seen in my life.

I did not take a bite of it. I paid to the tab and left, but at least it wasn’t disguised by a breaded coating like yours was.

Oh heavens, yeah.

My wife has had a great time telling this story to all of my friends who know my eating habits.

She finds it pretty funny.

Yeah, we don’t really know why it’s called sweet bread.

No, by “we” we mean the two of us and just the language historians in general don’t know why it’s called sweet breads.

It’s a mystery, but I love the theory that just somewhere along the way this butcher’s like, “All right, how can I make some money off this stuff that otherwise would go to the hogs?”

Well, you know, it could be like a marketing kind of thing, like in New England they say Cape Cod turkey when they mean codfish.

Oh, I see.

Rocky Mountain oysters.

Yeah, Rocky Mountain oysters, I was going to say, or Welsh rarebit, which doesn’t have any rare meat in it or rabbit in it.

Yeah.

Well, Kevin, thank you for sharing your story.

I really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you for looking into that for me.

It was a pleasure talking with you.

Yeah, take care.

We do have our sympathies.

That’s really painful for a vegetarian.

I have to say, I was a vegetarian completely in college now that I think about it.

And I went to a friend’s house and he was cooking something up and I thought that he handed me a mushroom.

And so I took a bite of this thing that he handed me from the pot.

It was elk.

Oh.

Elk!

Oh, no.

That memory still gives me some nightmares.

I know, yeah, yeah, I get a little queasy.

Take care, Kevin.

Call us again sometime.

All right, will do.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Send us your questions to words@waywordradio.org or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

We talked a few weeks ago about the brand name Asics, which is a kind of shoe and it takes its name from a Latin phrase that means a sound mind and a sound body.

And I was reminded of a candy that takes its name from a partial abbreviation.

These are little discs and some people hate this candy and some people love it.

You know what I’m talking about?

They’re kind of the powdery pastel things?

Yes, yes, yes.

The Wafers.

The Wafers, what are they called?

They’re called Neko Wafers.

Oh, yes, right.

Neko Wafers.

And they’re so-called because they were manufactured in the early part of the 20th century by the New England Confectionary Company.

So N-E-C and then C-O.

Yeah, the C-O was often used as part of a company name to blend words together, like Nabisco, for example, as you’ll find many other companies from that period with Ko at the end.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, Martha.

This is Iris Chinook from Cave Junction, Oregon.

So Iris, what’s on your mind today?

Well, you know, it’s a family thing.

I’m in my 60s and every once in a while I’ll spout something that I learned when I was a kid and I don’t really understand what I’m saying.

One of the phrases is “get on the stick” and that was used in my family like, “Kid, you better get on the stick and get out there and mow that lawn,” you know?

And then the other one was, I had an uncle named Frank who insisted on having every beverage that he drank right off the boil.

I mean, the man would drink it scalding hot and he would say, “” and smack his lips and say, “Piping hot, just like I like it.”

So “get on the stick” meaning to hurry up or get with it and “piping hot” meaning very, very hot, right?

Correct.

I think we can handle both of these today.

Sure.

“Get on the stick” has an interesting two-part history.

Most of the reference works say that it comes from the manual drive of an automobile, you know, you call it the stick.

Oh, -huh.

But, you know, there are two older dialect expressions that I think probably really are the origin of this.

And one of them is just “stick” which means your rate of speed going back to the 1830s.

He whirls the coach away at a pretty good stick, meaning a pretty good speed.

And the other one is “to cut stick” which means to prepare to leave or to run away or to go quickly away.

There’s a long continuous history of these being used well up to the time of the automobile so at least there’s some overlap.

And the other problem I have with that automobile theory is I think that the rise of the stick in the airplanes, you know, you call that main device in the middle of the cockpit your stick, I think that also has some influence here.

So the whole idea is to get with the program to put on some speed and maybe pipe as far as the 1830s, yeah.

Yeah, when Uncle Frank was drinking his beverages piping hot, the idea there is that it’s pretty much boiling.

You know, it’s so hot as to make a whistling sound or a hissing sound and so it’s piping like pipes, like flutes.

So as the bubbles burst as it’s boiling, those bubbles are making the little piping sounds.

Yeah, you know, I thought it had something to do with a kettle and I thought maybe this bout was a pipe.

And then I went off on a thing where I thought maybe it means like hot water, boiling water, and steam going through pipes.

And then I don’t know.

So how fascinating, you guys are amazing.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, it’s mostly probably about the piping sound like an instrument, like a musical instrument that a kettle makes when it boils.

Well, that makes perfect sense.

Oh, now I know.

Now everybody else knows too.

That’s right.

Well, thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

Iris, we absolutely love it when people bring things handed down through their families like this.

So thank you for coming and sharing those with us.

Okay, well, I’ll be happy to catch the show.

Thank you.

Take care now.

Bye bye.

I’m reminded of the Japanese broth called shabu-shabu, which is named for the sound of it hissing when it’s being cooked.

Oh, that’s lovely.

Shabu-shabu.

Shabu-shabu.

Can I have some shabu-shabu?

Add that to my food list.

Well, in the meantime, give us a call at 877-929-9673, or tell us your language story, that thing you got from your family, in email to words@waywordradio.org.

Do you know the Jamaican term for firefly?

No, I think I knew it at once, but I don’t anymore.

I bet you did.

What is it?

Peenie Wally.

Peenie Wally.

Sounds familiar, yeah.

Yeah, it’s spelled lots of different ways, like P-E-E-N-I, and then another word, Wally, like the name, Wally, Peenie Wally.

Nobody knows why it’s called that, but I think it’s a lovely word for firefly, and if you want to hear an example of it, look up a poem called “Two Seasons” by Valerie Bloom.

You can hear the audio of it being read, and it’s just gorgeous.

Peenie Wally for firefly.

Mm—

Or lightning bug.

Yeah, and this is in Jamaican English.

Jamaican English.

Yeah.

Talk to us in email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Katie, and I’m calling from Mansfield, Texas.

I had a question about the word ruthless.

I was watching 30 Rock, and Jack Donaghy said, “It’s a cruel ruthless world,” and Kevin Purcell responded, “No, it’s a ruthless world.”

And so I was wondering about the opposite of ruthless, or maybe the root of the word, where it came from?

The root of ruthless, huh?

Ruthless meaning having no remorse or no sorrow, right?

Right.

Right, no mercy or that kind of thing.

Yeah, you know, there is an old, old word, ruth.

We don’t hear it very much anymore, but it goes all the way back to the 13th century, and it referred to the quality of being compassionate and the feeling of sorrow for another person.

And in fact, the root of ruthless shares a root with our word, rue.

You know, like if you rue the day, you feel regret for the day.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, so it’s a kind of outer-directed kind of emotion.

And ruthless showed up shortly thereafter, shortly after Ruth entered the language, and that one stuck around.

But Ruth didn’t.

Ruth just kind of faded away.

Yeah.

Right, it became a name, so interesting.

Okay, yeah, I had no idea that there even was a Ruth word to begin with, you know, even if it was 700 years ago.

We have a category for these words, by the way.

They’re called “unpaired words” or “missing opposites,” where there are a number of different terms in English that are like this, like “disconsolate.”

We never say that someone is consulate.

Right, or gruntled.

Right.

There is a word gruntled.

But it’s kind of a stunty gruntled you say just as a gag or joke.

But these unpaired words happen for a lot of different reasons, but in this case, it’s the more common reason, which is the fading away of one of the pairs.

It’s just for some reason not used and becomes archaic or obsolete.

Although, Katie, it would be great to have a Ruth-filled world, wouldn’t it?

Oh, yes, I just picture, you know, the lakes and prairies filled with chocolate and, you know, suddenly we have an animal diabetes problem or something.

I was thinking of…

Wait, oh, that kind of Ruth?

Like a baby Ruth?

I was thinking of, like…

I was thinking of baby Ruth.

Yes, that is what comes to my mind.

I was thinking of, like, clones of Dr.

Ruth and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, like, populating the world.

Oh, see, you sound intellectual.

I just went straight for the chocolate, so…

I wish you there, too.

Yes.

Katie, thanks for your call.

That was so interesting.

Take care now.

Yes, thank you.

Cheers, bye.

All right, bye-bye.

One of the other common reasons for these unpaired words to exist, like “disconsolate,” is that we borrowed from Latin or French or another language, but we only borrowed one of the pair and we didn’t borrow the other one.

Right.

Disheveled is one of those.

We didn’t borrow what would be the equivalent of “sheveled.”

We only borrowed “disheveled” from French.

Oh, that’s good.

So we never even had the original matching sister word for it.

Yeah, and “disheveled” has a hair in it, right?

Yeah, it’s something to do with your hair and disarray, yeah.

Well, we know you’re wondering about a word or a phrase.

What is it?

We’d like to know.

Call us, 877-929-9673.

When it comes to lots of languages, stepmothers get a bad rap.

Do you know what a stepmother’s blessing is?

I don’t know.

It’s a hangnail.

So it’s not a blessing for the stepmother?

Oh, it’s the thing that she blesses on you.

Yeah, that’s what I think.

Oh, I see.

So it’s more like a curse by another name, an ironic name.

That’s what I’m thinking, hangnail.

Oh, okay, that makes some sense.

Yep.

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

More of what we say and why we say it as A Way with Words continues.

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.

A few weeks ago, we had a discussion about the need for a word for that feeling that you get when your favorite restaurant closes.

Oh, yeah.

And we got some good suggestions, like Meelan Collie.

Oh, nice.

But I think we have a winner.

Oh.

And it comes from Ben Hurley, who lives in Arncliffe, which is a suburb of Sydney, Australia.

And Ben says it has to be “noshtalgia.”

“Nosh,” N-O-S-H, “talgia,” like nostalgia plus nosh.

Yeah, using the “algia,” which means pain.

And he says it’s the pain of remembering all those great meals that will never be served again.

All those great noshs.

Yeah.

And he also shared this story of his own experience.

He wrote, “There was once a little Italian restaurant on Stanley Street, Darlinghurst, called No Names.

As a kid, I lived in a rural town, and when we visited Sydney, my parents would take me and my two younger siblings to No Names.

It was a tiny space on the first floor of Terrace.

It was utterly basic.

The menu consisted of primo and secundo.

Primo was spaghetti bolognese.

I think secundo was Neapolitan ice cream.

All meals were served with thick slabs of white ciabatta bread and thick glass tumblers of a weak orange cordial.

There was a salad consisting of plain lettuce leaves and white vinegar.

As a kid, I dipped my bread in the cordial.

As an adult, I dipped it in the vinegar at the bottom of the salad bowl.

Seventeen years ago, No Names was where my brother proposed to his wife.

One month ago, I tried to take my kids there with my brother and his kids, and it was gone.

No Names, No More.

In its place now is a pokey-looking nightclub with cliche flashing lights.

Nostalgia.

Oh, yeah.

That’s so often how it is.

Isn’t it?

I just thought that was such a great description of loving a place that’s very simple and what it means to you as a kid and then going back as an adult, and then it’s gone.

There’s another kind of feeling you have, though, when you go back to a place that you loved and it doesn’t match your memory.

Oh, gosh, yes.

It’s not as grand as you thought.

It’s run down.

Right.

Perhaps it hasn’t been kept up or it was never that great and you just don’t remember the bad things about it.

Oh, yeah.

There’s a different kind of nostalgia where you’re like, “Was this food this bland the last time I was here?

Was this menu this terrible?”

Yeah, “Was this place so pokey?”

Which is a word that means cramped.

We love language related to food.

You might have picked up on that, but we’ll take language questions on anything. 877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Sarah.

I’m calling you from a little town called Lydon, Massachusetts.

Welcome to the show.

What can we do for you?

Well, I have a question for you.

It’s a baseball question.

I’m a huge San Francisco Giants fan living in Red Sox country.

Oh, boy.

And one of the things about being a Giants fan that’s great is we have the greatest commentators in the world, and so I actually listen to a lot of games.

I like the way they make a story, and one of the things that I notice is that people in baseball talk about pitchers.

They talk about their stuff.

It definitely has to do with a pitching package, but it seems sort of like from broadcaster to broadcaster, there’s like a subtle shift in what they’re talking about when they’re talking about stuff, and I’m not quite clear if there’s an agreed upon meaning of that word when broadcasters use it, and I also don’t know where it came from or when and why stuff, such a boring word for such malleable, skillful linguists.

And can you give us some examples of how you’ve heard it used?

Sure.

Like somebody would say a bum garners back from the DL, and the stuff is there. The stuff is there, but the command is off.

Or they’ll say they just had the draft, and the kid’s got great stuff, but he’s only got one pitch.

Or he’s got great stuff, but his curveball is off.

I don’t even know.

They talk about a pitcher’s stuff, but are they talking about just their velocity or their fastball? Are they talking about the entire package of all the different pitches they throw?

It’s a little bit of all of those together.

Like a lot of words, the baseball stuff has more than one meaning.

In the Dixon Baseball Dictionary by Paul Dixon, he breaks it down into four basic meanings, but the top one is the one I think you’re probably hearing most, and it refers to the repertoire.

What are the different pitches that this pitcher can throw? What’s his breaking ball like? What’s his fastball like? What’s his curve like? That sort of thing.

Is he a lefty or is he a righty? How does he do against certain kinds of batters? Is he a daytime pitcher, an evening pitcher? Can he go for a long game? Are you to bring him in as relief? That sort of stuff.

Stuff.

What we’re looking at here overall is why you think of stuff as an ordinary word, but think of it differently when you think of the stuff of life. It kind of refers to the essence, the older, more established meaning.

Before, this word is referred to the daily detritus that we surround ourselves with. It was really more like something about the core of a thing, its essential nature, its fundamental truth as a real thing in the universe, that kind of stuff.

Was there a broadcaster who’s credited with first bringing the word to the game?

The writing field, they’ve been writing about stuff in baseball since at least 1905, so this is well before baseball was established as something that you would hear on the radio. It’s been a sports term for over a hundred years.

Sports writing has always been this really expressive form of English that breaks a lot of new ground when it comes to coming up with new ways to say old things and taking what could be an ordinary game.

As you were saying about your favorite commentators for the Giants, taking what could be an ordinary game but because of their brilliance as wordsmiths, spinning it out into something impressive, and stuff certainly has a place in that.

Sarah, do you have that dictionary, Paul Dixon’s baseball dictionary?

I don’t.

This needs to be on your gift list.

Alright.

When’s your birthday? Tell all your friends that you need this dictionary.

Yeah, it’s a good dictionary. My birthday’s coming up not that far away.

There you go.

There’s two other meanings that I think you referred to that are definitely used, at least in the baseball commentating that I hear, and it’s about the stuff on a ball.

It’s kind of like the way that we refer to the English on a ball in billiards, which is the kind of spin that it has.

What has he done with his knuckleball to give it that certain spin that makes it drop at just that point where the batter strikes?

And also, the reverse is used. What is the stuff on the ball after the batter hits it that’s also the stuff?

It’s so interesting because there’s so many things now in modern baseball that they can measure, like the spin rate or the launch angle or all the ways that you can talk about metrics.

Yeah, the sabermetrics, right?

Yeah.

It’s really different to hear people talk about the game on the radio now than it used to be.

Well, Sarah, I tell you, you’ve given us a lot to think about here, and I do recommend Paul Dixon’s Baseball Dictionary. It’s a big tome that if, as a diehard baseball fan like you, would really enjoy it.

Yeah, you need it.

Okay, I wrote it down.

Okay.

Paul us again sometime. It was really nice to talk to you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Thanks, Sarah.

Take care.

You know, your life is filled with hobbies and pastimes. Some of them are sports, some of them are other things, and I know there’s a lingo attached to it.

We know that there’s something that you say that you’ve always wondered, “Why does everyone who does this thing, why do they all use this word?” This is the place to get the answer.

877-929-9673.

The other day, I stumbled across the term “back friend,” which was used for hundreds of years to mean a pretended or a false friend, an enemy who pretends like he’s your friend, but he’s not.

We don’t use it anymore.

No, a little worse than a frenemy.

Yeah, more insidious, more treacherous.

More insidious, yeah.

A back friend.

The false front they put on.

Oh, we all know the type.

We do, indeed.

I remember high school.

How could you forget, right?

877-929-9673, or talk to us on Twitter @W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you?

This is Elliott. I live in Cape Cod.

Hi, Elliott. Welcome to the show.

Nice. What’s going on?

I grew up in, actually, Miami Beach of all places. We moved out of New York, down south, and I lived in Georgia, and then we moved to Miami Beach.

And I heard a word as I was a young child, and I heard it again in New York. I have not used it, or used it a couple times. People don’t really know what I was talking about.

The word was “foblungent,” and I know it’s German, yet it’s Hebrew. And that’s a strange combination, but it’s a word that I’ve only heard used maybe two times in New York.

Can you say that again?

It’s called “foblungent.”

And how would you use it in a sentence?

I mean, someone has to be acting “foblungent” in a way, or it’s their end result if they got confused or something. They’re “foblungent.”

You are “foblungent.” It’s not like something you cook.

Generally speaking, it’s described as a word that means to be lost or astray or befuddled or confused, something like that.

And it has a lot of different spellings.

That I knew, yeah. Like F-A-R-B-L-O-N-J-E-T, “foblungent,” or “foblungent,” F-A-R-B-L-U-N-G-E-T.

And we think that it may go back to Polish, a Polish term that means to go astray. But you’re right that it’s Yiddish.

What’s interesting to me about this is that if you look this word up in some of the standard Yiddish or Jewish-language books, a lot of them written in the ’80s or earlier will say, “Oh, this is a common word that you’ll hear every day.” And the thing is, you don’t really hear it anymore.

It’s not common at all, not like it was.

No, it’s an unusual word. You know when words sound like what they are, the meaning is what they sound like?

Right, right.

It’s been adopted kind of self-consciously by a lot of comics, because it’s such a funny-sounding word to describe something that’s messed up.

Well, it’s more tragic to these people who get lost, I think, you know? I mean, they’re really messed up. They’re not only lost, but…

Lost in life, yeah.

They’re lost in life.

Thank you for sharing your story with us, Elliot. We really appreciate it.

Well, it was funny. Thanks very much.

Take care now.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

The Yiddishisms of everything that I’ve seen show that they’re kind of fading in the American English language. It’s kind of, the death knell has not been rung yet, but Yiddish itself is reducing in size, fewer speakers, and its influence on English has long since waned.

Yeah, unfortunately.

But he made a good point that in Yiddish, it’s a more… What am I trying to say?

It’s not such a comical word.

Right, yeah.

It’s a serious word.

Yeah, it’s somebody who’s lost their way in life, or lost sight of the big things that are important.

Right. 877-929-9673, email words@waywordradio.org, or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Rob calling from Barnstable, Massachusetts.

Hello, Rob.

Welcome to the show.

What can we do for you?

I’m curious why, at least in English, we use the plural for a garment that’s worn below the waist.

We never say “trouser,” we say we’re wearing trousers, or jeans, or pants, or shorts, or swimming trunks.

Tights.

Or in the old days, we talk about “clam diggers.”

Oh, yeah.

Panties, also, right?

Panties, sure.

Leggings and jeggings.

Shorts.

Shorts.

You know, we talk about socks, because we have two of them.

And someone might say, “Well, you have two legs,” but we also have two arms.

And we never talk about putting on my shirts, or, you know, the blouses.

So what gives?

What gives?

What gives?

You know, it’s a long history where that plural has stuck with us in English for hundreds of years, back to when you did put on two pieces of clothing and attach them at the waist, and so technically you were wearing two things as one garment.

And that’s what it comes from.

There was this period, oh, 1500s, I’m going to get the date wrong, but it was the 1500s or so, where you kind of pulled up this sheath of one leg and the sheath up another leg, and then you fastened them at the waist with a belt of some kind or a ribbon or a sash or something, and maybe the crotch region was open or there was tights there or something.

So yeah, there were two items, and those were pantaloons, or the original Italian is something along the lines of pantalones.

And what’s interesting for me about this is it comes from the theater.

There was this comic character, this buffoon or clown who was kind of always the butt of the jokes, who was known in all of the versions of the plays that he appeared in of wearing these kind of awkward, weird pantaloons.

And so the name for the character transferred to the name of the lower half of his body, the garment he was wearing there, and then here we have it as the shortened form of pants in English.

And then all the other plurals come from that, so panties and shorts and jeggings and jorts and whatever else.

So this is the old character in the Italian Commedia dell’Arte, right?

Pantalone.

So this is hundreds of years of history, Rob, that’s a long time for this word to have kept this plural even long after the garment really is one piece and not two or three.

You’ve reminded me of another garment worn below the waist which sounds like those ancient ones, which would be chaps.

Oh, chaps, right.

Where indeed there are two pieces of, commonly, leather, one on each leg, but they’re cinched at the waist, but again, two pieces of leather.

Exactly.

Think of a garment that’s a little bit like that.

Now, there are some really fantastic resources out there where you can really get into the full history of trousers or breeches or britches, that sort of thing.

But in general, these two-legged garments have been worn as far back as recorded history goes, but they come in and out of fashion.

And anyway, the pantalone is kind of very restricted to the European tradition of two-legged garments.

They don’t use plurals as far as I know in other languages that have historical garments that are very similar.

Well, thank you.

So there you go, Rob.

Hundreds of years of history comes from Italian, and we just kept the plural long after the plural mattered.

Great.

Well, thanks for clearing that up.

Yeah, our pleasure.

Thanks for calling.

Call again sometime.

Good talk, Rob.

Bye-bye.

Goodbye now.

877-929-9673.

We were talking earlier about the word for blunget, which means to be messed up, something like that.

Confused or lost.

Yes, lost.

And it reminded me that online in the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick form, there is a limerick about this word.

So this is the dictionary where they are taking regular dictionary words but having a limerick instead of a definition.

Yes.

And it’s hilarious often, right?

It’s often hilarious, as in this case.

This is a limerick by Sheila B. Bloom on the word for blunget.

My new toilet won’t flush.

I’m for blunget.

Feeling lost and confused.

Guess I’ll plunge it.

Now it’s flooding.

Won’t stop.

Fetch a bucket and mop.

What?

Some splashed on your sweater?

Here, sponge it.

She nailed it.

That may be the only limerick I’ve ever seen with for blunget about a toilet.

I’m a little for blunget about that, no.

877-929-9673.

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This program would not be possible without you.

Grant and I are out to change the way we listen and think about language, and you’re making it happen.

Thanks also to senior producer Stefanie Levine, director and editor Tim Felten, director Colin Tedeschi, and production assistant Emma Kellman in San Diego.

In New York, we thank quiz guide John Chonesky and that master of keeping it real, Paul Ruist at Argo Studios.

A Way with Words is an independent production of Wayword, Inc.

From the Recording Arts Center at Studio West in San Diego, I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

So long.

Bye-bye.

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