Professional Puccalo

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Megan Dooley from Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Thanks for having me on the show today, guys.

Hello, Megan Dooley.

You sound like you’re in a good mood.

I am in a good mood.

It’s always a good time to be on A Way with Words.

Absolutely.

Got that right.

What’s on your mind?

I was wondering if you guys had ever heard of the word pukolo.

I’m a professional whistler.

A professional whistler?

Really?

Yes.

Yes, that’s what pukolos are called.

Isn’t that funny? It makes me feel like I’m part of like the woodwind family.

We’ve got strings. We’ve got Megan.

Exactly. We got me.

Wait a minute. A professional whistler. What does that mean that you do?

So I’m I’m technically I’m a professional musician.

I do more than just whistling. I I’m a multi-instrumentalist.

I play guitar.

I play ukulele.

I play piano.

I’m a singer.

I’m a songwriter.

I do a lot.

I’ve been performing locally, regionally, and internationally for 20 years.

It’s my 20-year anniversary this year, actually.

My dad taught me how to whistle.

He used to do the bird calls that sounded like super ethereal.

-huh.

Yeah.

And, like, he could do crazy-sounding whistles.

I can’t do that.

I can only do the melodic whistling, which is what a pucolo is.

All right.

So tell us about the word pucolo.

We have to know.

So I was at a show, and I was talking about how I could not find a word for being a professional whistler

And how frustrated it made me.

One of my fans had found it, and they stood up in the middle of the audience,

And they were like, I know what it is.

And I was like, you’re kidding me.

Is there an actual word?

And they’re like, yeah, you’re called a pucolo.

And I was like, that makes perfect sense, actually.

And it’s Italian, and it is based off of, you know, like all of the original music terms and embouchures and stuff like that.

So it’s been around for a really long time.

It’s just never used or talked about because professional whistling isn’t a very popular subject, I suppose.

Okay, so Megan, while you’re talking, I’ve been digging here, and I can tell you a little bit more about it.

Awesome.

So P-U-C-C-A-L-O, right?

That is correct.

All right, so it’s a combination of the words pucker and piccolo.

Oh, see, I am part of the woodwind family.

You are, yeah.

So you pucker your lips to whistle, and you’ve got those high-pitched notes like a piccolo.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Awesome.

And it looks like it was coined by a guy named Ron McCroby, who there’s a story in People magazine from 1983 where he whistled jazz.

Oh, yeah.

It’s called the art form Puccolo, and he looks like he’s the first guy to use this word from the early 80s.

Oh, see?

Maybe that’s why I couldn’t find anything historically about it because I was digging a pootie.

Now, there is a Puccolo as a last name in Italian, so that’s easily why it could be considered Italian.

But it doesn’t look like it was connected to whistling until he did it.

And he put these two words together to make this blend.

So you say Puccolo or Puccolo?

It’s been said to me so many times as pucolo.

Pucolo’s great.

I love the sound of pucolo better than puckolo.

You know that we’re not going to let you go without hearing.

I can either whistle something improv for you guys,

Or I can whistle one of my favorite pieces that I do,

Which is Lovey and Rose by Edith Piaf.

Oh, my goodness.

Oh, yes.

That would be lovely.

Please do that.

I think we must hear that.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Megan, thank you so much for sharing your talent and your stories.

That was amazing.

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Our pleasure.

Thank you.

Good luck and be well.

Thank you.

Thanks, you too.

Bye.

You do something for a living that’s got a great lingo, and I bet you there are words in it that you want to share with us because you’re pretty sure they’re fun and we don’t know them.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or give us the glossary and email, words@waywordradio.org, or share it on Twitter, and we’ll retweet it @wayword.