Points on a Compass, the Saga Continues (minicast)

Welcome to another podcast edition of A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

My lovely co-host Martha Barnette is off settling the debate over the pronunciation of F-O-R-T-E, meaning “point of strength.”

She’s decided that everyone who says “forte” will live west of the Mississippi, and everyone who says “fork” will live east of the Mississippi.

Too bad, she says, if you say “both” and end up straddling the river.

One of the most popular phone calls we’ve ever taken was from Tom in Mount Vernon, Indiana.

Early this year, he called to ask about a word he’d forgotten, a nautical term related to the major points of the compass.

He couldn’t for the life of him remember it, but swore he knew it decades before.

We suggested a lot of things, ERT, Pyxis Nautica, RUM, and Cardinal Points, and Tom said no dice to all of them.

A bunch of you called and wrote to suggest other terms, Azimuth, Binacle, Boxing the Compass, Compass Rose, Cross Point, Digogram, Flinders Bar, Gimbals, Inclinometer, Pelorus, Principle Points, Rows of Winds, and Zodiac Points.

So we called Tom a second time and tried those suggestions on for size.

Tom said, “No way, Jose,” and the emails and the calls kept coming, most of them suggesting words we’d already tried and a few suggesting that maybe Tom was pulling our legs.

But there was one letter, from Michael McGuckin in Phoenix, that made us perk up.

It contained a word that we hadn’t tried, so we called Tom one last time to try it on him.

Is this Tom?

Yes, this is Tom in Mount Vernon, Indiana.

Well, hiya, Tom!

It’s Martha and Grant, calling to both of you.

Tom, I want to tell you about an email we got that we’re excited about.

The fellow by the name of Michael, from Phoenix, sent us about 800 words, more than 800 words about the word that he thinks that you’re looking for.

I’m going to summarize his email because it’s beautifully written, but it’s an architectural word, and he thinks that it is similar to boxing the compass, so to speak.

It comes from ancient Greeks and earlier, it’s found in, he says, virtually every case it’s orientated to the points of the compass.

And what it is, is a circle of columns surrounding a building or court or open space.

So a circle of columns surrounding a building or court or open space.

It’s called a peristyle.

That seems very, very close, and I recognize the word, and I recognize the application of it for architectural.

And somehow or another, I think that it’s got to be a basis for what I was thinking of, but it isn’t exactly what I was thinking of.

Are you sure?

You said, I mean, if I’m remembering that first call, you said it began with a P, right?

I thought it began with a P, and I thought that it probably had to do something with peri.

That P being peri.

Do you live near a train track?

Yes, I’m sitting out on a front porch on a beautiful evening here, but there’s a train track about three blocks away, so he was crossing with a glass of iced tea and your feet up, right?

And Tom, are you facing north, south, east, or west on that porch?

I am facing northwest, but you’re not sure about peristyle.

It’s northwest on the peristyle, it has to be.

That is the closest that I think that anyone could come to do it.

It didn’t click.

It didn’t click?

I was ready to give this man the prize, I mean, we don’t have one, but I’ll walk over and shake his hand to say hello.

We will meet in Phoenix.

I think we are honing in on it somehow.

Honing in, Tom?

What about peristyle-ish?

Well, of course, that’s a slightly different version of peristyle.

Peristyle-ized?

I wouldn’t say in any of those.

Paris in the springtime?

I’d like to go check that out, first of all.

I am still amazed that this has generated so much interest.

Oh, now people like a puzzle.

You know people like a puzzle.

There’s nothing people like more than something they’re told they can’t figure out.

I mean, there are probably people that stay up nights with this, got the family around the table and the Scrabble tiles out, rearranging them, trying to figure out what the word was.

Thanks for giving us another try.

And I thank you for keeping me in the loop and letting me know what you’ve come up with.

My heart started beating.

You start setting parries, something, and I go, they’re getting it, they’re getting it.

And I’m going, well, I don’t, it’s not quite.

It’s like love you’ve just described there, but not quite like it.

Tom, thank you so much, and you please have a good evening tonight.

Take it easy.

Sounds like you had a long day.

Yes, I did, and I’ll take it easy now.

All right.

Good night.

All right.

Good night.

Bye-bye.

You’ll be happy to know that Tom’s jersey will go on the wall of our Koller Hall of Fame, right next to the porcelain plaque from the lady who was putting together a coffee table book about toilets.

I love this job.

That’s all for this podcast edition of A Way with Words.

You can join our discussion forums at our brand new website at waywordradio.org.

You can always send us email at words@waywordradio.org, or call us 24 hours a day at 877-929-9673.

For A Way with Words, I’m Grant Barrett.

And hey, if that doesn’t brighten your day, here’s some even better news.

The brand new season of hour-long episodes of A Way with Words starts next week.

That’s right, next week.

So keep on downloading.