Pwned Prose, Stat!

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

You know, there’s nothing like that feeling you get when you come to the end of a terrific book.

You linger over that last page, you put the book down, and then the first thing you want to do is go tell somebody about it.

Oh, I know that one.

Yeah?

You had that experience lately, Grant?

It’s a 12-year-old book, but it’s surprising how relevant it still is.

It’s Primary Colors by Joe Klein.

Actually, he wrote it under the pseudonym of Anonymous, and it’s kind of a masked story about the first run for the White House by Bill Clinton.

And it’s fiction.

There’s a lot of fictional elements in it, but also there’s an underpinning of history that really gave it a lot of resonance during the recent Hillary Clinton campaign.

So it was just really interesting reading, and he really, truly has A Way with Words.

There were a couple pages in there I had to read several times, not because I didn’t understand them, but because I said to myself, “How did he do that?

How did he make me feel that way?

What was the magic that he had?”

And he had it.

It was great.

And you?

You’ve got one of those?

Well, it’s not an entire book, Grant, but I just read this short story by Tobias Wolff, and it’s about this curmudgeonly book critic who goes to a bank, and he gets involved in the middle of an armed bank robbery.

And the short story is called “Bullet in the Brain.”

And so, of course, as you can imagine, there’s a lot of dramatic tension, and it’s a really taught narrative.

But I tell you, there’s a moment in this story that I think is one of the most marvelous evocations of what it’s like to be young and suddenly start marveling at the beauty and the glory of language itself.

It’s a little surprise in the story, and I don’t want to give any more away than that, but it really knocked my socks off.

So it’s Tobias Wolff, and the name of the story is?

The name of the story is “Bullet in the Brain,” and although I hate to cut into any author’s book sales, you can find it online.

That’s where I read it.

Oh, okay.

Well, we’ll look for it.

I’m sure we can find it with no problem.

If you’d like to talk to us about your favorite books or grammar, language, slang, word origins, or just a particularly great piece of prose that struck you as really important or powerful, we want to hear about it.

Call us at 1-877-929-9673, or email us at the address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Joel from Decatur, Illinois.

Hiya, Joel.

Hi, Joel, what’s up?

I’ve got a question about the word “suicide.”

Okay.

Yeah, but not as it refers to its literal meaning.

When I was a little kid, my brother and I would go to a convenience store or a fast food place where you could fill up your own soda, and when you put different types of soda into your glass, that was called a “suicide.”

And I thought that was just something my brother and I said, but I guess it’s not.

Everybody I know says that, and I was just wondering how that word got attached to doing that.

Oh, wow.

So when you were a little kid, do you mind me asking how long ago that was?

That was, well, I’m 35 now, so, you know, another, at least half that ago.

Do you still drink suicides now?

No, no.

I prefer the purity of coke and unhealthy products.

Right.

So you’re saying you would go down the line and you’d do Pepsi, Mountain Dew, those Fanta, whatever, Dr.

Pill or Dr.

Pepper.

Sure, you’d fill your glass with everything.

Oh, my gosh.

That sounds disgusting.

Well, it is, and that’s why I don’t do it anymore, but of course, when you’re a kid, you know, anything sweet tastes good enough.

And would you drink the whole thing?

Yeah, usually because my mom would make me.

Right.

If you, yeah, right, if you’re going to prepare the dish, you better be prepared to eat it.

Right.

Exactly.

And if your brother is going to drink it, you’re, of course, going to drink yours.

Oh, absolutely.

Well, he was my older brother, so I did everything he did.

Well, we did the same thing when I worked in fast food, and this would be more than 20, this would be 22 years ago.

I worked there, so we would do this, and we called them suicides as well.

And this was in Missouri.

So I know that it’s at least that old.

And I have a little bit of information about this.

Some people call it bug juice, and other people call it swamp juice.

But the reason it’s called a suicide is simply because it seems, it looks like a poisonous mixture, doesn’t it?

Usually, it’s got a weird kind of, I hate to say this, but almost the color of mucus or pus, right?

It looks poisonous.

Because you mix these odd colors together, and it is not, it looks vaguely like industrial cleaner.

True.

Very true.

Something that you’re going to put on the floor and clean the tiles with, and not something you’re going to put in your mouth.

I think this sounds completely disgusting.

What I want to know is, is this something that little girls do too, or is this a little boy thing?

Well, you have to answer that.

I don’t know.

It sounds like something gross that little boys would do, but I don’t know that I ever saw a girl do it.

Yeah, I never did it.

And my friends, I mean, I never even heard the term suicide soda, although since growing up and doing research, I’ve seen the expression graveyard soda, I’ve seen them called shipwrecks and hurricanes.

Wait, these are the same thing?

Yeah.

Yeah, just a whole bunch of things.

Oh, I don’t know those terms.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wonder if there’s any suicide soda that tastes good.

Well, what you could do, if you didn’t do quite all of them, I would often take all the white sodas and mix them, or all the black sodas and mix them, and that’s something very citrusy that’s not quite identifiable as a particular kind of drink.

It’s just different, you know?

Suicidey.

But these days, water will do.

I take some water out of the bathroom, and some water out of the kitchen, and then I mix them, a little bottle of water, and then I have a suicide water drink.

It’s great.

Well, so, Joel, you’re right.

It wasn’t just you and your brother.

This is a popular pastime among little boys, at least.

I guess so.

At least for a couple of times, right?

Well, Joel, I hope that we get some information from our listeners about this, and if we do, we’ll be sure to post it to the website, all right?

Yeah, I’m looking forward to that.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Yeah, you too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bottoms up.

Martha, you never did it.

You were like a little prissy thing, right?

Yes.

I was.

I was a teenage prude.

Call us at 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-Wayword.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Max calling from Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Max.

Hiya, Max.

What’s going on?

How are you all today?

Doing fine.

Super.

Cool.

I am calling to ask you guys about a word that’s thrown around a lot in computer nerd gaming circles.

The word is spelled P-W-N, and I now pronounce the word “pone.”

Well, it sounds like there’s a story here.

You used to pronounce it a different way?

Yes, I did.

I first heard this word either probably when I was a senior in high school or a freshman in college.

I’m now a senior in college, so I’ve been using the word maybe four or five years now.

And when I first heard it, my friends pronounced it “poon,” as if just like it looks, just “poon,” with no vowel.

And then when I got to college, I started dating a girl that played the game Counter-Strike, and she corrected me and said, “No, no, pone.”

Oh, was that an embarrassing moment?

And the word means to completely and fully dominate someone.

Right.

To own somebody.

Right.

To own them.

Exactly.

And it’s just, you know, my understanding has always been that it’s just a spin from the word “own.”

I would like to know what the actual, in fact, true origin of this word is, because I’ve heard a couple of stories, but I don’t know the actual origin of how “pone” came around.

One of them that you probably heard, which is the correct one, is that it comes from a common and repeated mistyping of the word “own.”

O-W-N, right?

Correct.

Yes.

That is the correct story.

Anything else that you’ve heard isn’t true.

So it’s not from the game Counter-Strike or any other particular game?

I’ve run into this numerous times with these different gaming communities, and they all believe that their culture is so rich and fertile that they must be the source of all this lingo.

And yet, you’ll find again and again that some of these words, including “pone,” existed years, even decades before these games were even invented or the companies that coded them were even founded.

Really?

Yes.

You’ll often find that as the case.

And I’m talking in general here about this kind of computer language.

“Pone,” as far as I know, came about in the last 10 years or so.

Counter-Strike could have come from Counter-Strike, but I don’t think that there’s any evidence supporting that.

So Matt, for those of us who aren’t in college or aren’t gamers, how would you use it in a sentence?

Oh, see, I mean, it comes up quite frequently in my circle of friends, you know, say somebody says something stupid and somebody else calls them out on it, then they just got pwned.

Or if it’s something like really huge, like you just gave a presentation in class, I guess, and were completely wrong about something the entire way through it, and somebody calls you out on it.

That might be epic pwnage.

Epic pwnage.

Epic takes it to the next level of pwnage.

Oh my goodness.

So somebody would say to you, “You’ve been pwned?”

Or what would they say?

Right.

Yeah.

You got pwned.

You got epically pwned.

You got epically pwned.

I knew that there were multiple pronunciations for it, but pwned is the one that I’ve heard most often too.

But to me, Max, to me, the most interesting part of this is “own,” the original slang that it comes from, where you could use, to use “own” to mean “I own you.”

And that’s actually the language they’ll use, “I own you,” meaning “I control you.”

And that, we do know, comes from hacker subculture, and it comes from getting root on somebody’s box.

And I know that sounds naughty, but it’s not.

What?

Wait.

It means getting administrative access to somebody else’s computer illicitly or illegally so that you can do whatever you want over the network or over the Internet to their machine.

So “own” that machine, meaning it is literally within your control, and that is the origin of “own.”

So “pwn,” P-W-N, the typo for “own,” is actually only the latest iteration of that particular kind of slang chain.

That is really cool.

Well, Matt, thanks for calling.

Thank you very much, guys.

All right.

Thank you.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Interesting question.

Bye-bye.

Grant, you pwned that question.

Pwned.

You totally pwned that question.

Pwnage.

I pwned you.

Now, Grant, this brings up an interesting question for me.

Remember, and I bet we could hear from listeners about this, are there words that you intentionally — remember when we talked about intentionally mispronouncing words?

Are there words that you intentionally misspell in e-mail because I do that?

Oh, yeah.

You do that all the time.

No, those are accidents when I’m writing you.

No, no.

You misspell “kool” on purpose.

Oh, I misspell “kool,” K-E-W-L, just because it has a different sound, “kewl.”

Well, and I actually think it more accurately reflects one of the California pronunciations of the word, “kool.”

Exactly, “kewl.”

There are nouns that misspell “dude,” D-U-D-E, to be D-O-O-D, because people in the West tend to say “dude.”

I’m exaggerating here, but it’s more like “dude” rather than “dude.”

Oh, really?

Oh, really?

Yeah, there’s a different vowel sound there.

Oh, that’s interesting.

So sometimes people do that to reflect the way they actually say it.

Sometimes they do it to reflect the joking nature.

It’s a tip-off, really, isn’t it, that you’re not being altogether serious and the thing is informal?

Exactly.

I used to have a cat named Typo, and he — Because he would dance on your keyboard.

He did, the first day I got here.

I mean, he typed 6-6-6-6-6, but I misspelled his name once in an email as “tyop,” and I just thought that was so perfect, so any time I email somebody about Typo, I would write “tyop.”

And I’m just betting that a lot of people out there do that same kind of thing.

I’d love to hear about it.

You can call us at 1-877-9299673 or send an email — that would probably be better if you’re going to send us a typo — to words@waywordradio.org.

Up next on “A Way with Words,” stay tuned for a word puzzle.

You’re listening to “A Way with Words.”

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And we’re joined once again by our very own personal quiz guy, John Cheneski.

Hello, Martha.

Hello, Grant.

Hiya, John.

What’s up?

Hi, John.

I am the puzzle guy on retainer for “A Way with Words,” and you’re a personal — your own very personal puzzle guy.

I have got a problem with the traffic ticket.

Can you take care of that?

I’ll do what I can.

And the Sunday Puzzle has been giving some problems.

Can you look into that for me?

I’ll just do it for you.

Oh, okay, yeah.

That’s how it works with my mom.

I just do it for her.

Okay.

Yeah, it’s actually the crossword, and you’ll send it back filled out?

Yeah, you go.

And it really does work.

Wow, great.

Now, do you guys remember when I took you on a USA puzzle hunt one time?

I gave you a clue, and that led to a city, and there you found another puzzle, and that answer led to another city.

We went all over the country.

Oh, it was a great road trip, yeah.

I think it’s time for the Martha and Grant World Tour.

Wow.

Yeah.

How about that?

So here’s an international puzzle hunt.

The answer to each clue will be the name of a country.

And once you’re there, I’ll give you another clue, and we’ll race around the world to find something, a special prize.

Oh, I know.

Okay.

A solid gold MacGuffin.

How’s that?

All right.

Good.

Wow.

Do you have your passports?

Yes.

Good.

You don’t have any liquids on you, do you?

Because that’ll be a problem.

Only three ounces or less.

That’s fine.

Good, good.

Here we go.

You’re going to start your puzzle hunt in a North American country whose name becomes that of a three-dimensional shape when its last letter is changed.

Whoa.

A North American country?

Yeah.

There are only three.

Think again.

Oh.

Well, if you count all the Caribbean islands.

Wait.

Say this again, John.

North American country.

Whose name becomes that of a three-dimensional shape.

Cuba.

That’s it.

Right.

You change the last letter to an E, and you get…

Cube.

Cube.

Right.

Yes.

We will start from Havana.

Havana.

Right.

Oh, gracious.

Okay.

Now there, you’re handed an envelope, and inside is the following clue.

You’re going to a South American country whose name is Spanish for a well-known feature of the Earth.

Ecuador.

Ecuador is correct.

Ooh.

Grand.

The country is located right on this terrestrial feature.

You’re on your way to Quito, Ecuador.

The second you arrive there, you see a huge banner at the airport announcing, “Welcome radio hosts.”

It also says the following.

Your next stop is a European country whose name is a perfect anagram of Meg Ryan.

Meg Ryan.

Meg Ryan.

Germany.

Germany is right.

Oh, good.

Good.

Very good, Grand.

Let’s go to Berlin.

When you arrive, you see two creepy little twin girls who robotically chant the following clue.

Head for an African nation consisting of many islands.

The country’s name, if the first vowel sound is changed, answers the question, “What does she sell at the seashore?”

Oh, the Seychelles.

Seychelles.

S-E-Y-C-H-E-L-L-E-S, right?

Right.

You didn’t have to spell it, but you did.

Very good.

Well, it’s radio.

It helps to spell things.

Extra credit.

Seychelles Seychelles.

It’s off to Victoria in the Seychelles.

There you are greeted by the country’s cultural attache.

Appropriately, he’s carrying an attache case containing this clue.

The two of you must split up.

Go to two island nations.

Both are in the North Atlantic.

Both of their names are seven letters long, yet the names differ by only one letter.

They do?

Yeah.

North Atlantic.

North Atlantic.

Oh, Ireland and Iceland.

That is correct.

Oh, my gosh.

Grant left me in an airport restroom four countries ago.

I know.

Martha said, “I’m not going to Northship.”

She bailed.

She’s in Bermuda.

She’s got a cold drink and she’s like, “See ya.”

Little umbrella.

No, no.

She’s still with us.

She gets the frequent flyer miles still.

Okay.

Now, who wants to go where?

Who wants to go to Dublin and who wants to go to Reykjavik?

I’ll go to Reykjavik.

Oh, that’s good.

Okay.

When you arrive, your feelings begin picking up radio transmissions that say, “Head for another island nation,” this one in Oceania, “its name has three dotted letters in a row.”

Well, how about that?

Yeah.

How many of those are there?

Dotted letters?

Yes.

You mean like with a double diarasis over them?

No.

I think he’s thinking about letter I’s.

Oh.

Or J’s.

J’s and I’s.

Sorry.

I’ve been reading too many New Yorkers.

J’s and I’s?

Like Fiji, you mean?

Fiji is correct.

There it is.

Yes.

You are in the capital of Suva.

Of course, in the New Yorker, the word coordinate has dots over it.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Okay.

You’re getting tired.

So luckily, when you arrive there, your final clue is delivered by pigeon.

It reads, “Travel to a small African nation whose name, if split into two words, might be commonly found scrawled on a restaurant order.”

Wow.

It’s only four letters long.

Four letters.

To go.

Togo.

Togo is right.

You end up in Lome, the capital of Togo, which is appropriate since you got to go to so many wonderful places.

Don’t forget to pick up your McGuffin at the duty-free shop.

Thank you very much, guys.

Yay.

That was good.

That was great.

That was a great Lome score.

Yeah.

I’m applauding because I was nailing them, but that’s all right.

John, that was great.

I think I had a jet lag.

That was tremendous.

Thanks very much.

That was fun.

Like I said, take a rest.

You guys earned it.

You were terrific.

Okay.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Grant, do you have any melatonin on you?

No.

I got suntan lotion.

Well, if you’d like to try to puzzle us with a question about language, give us a call.

The number’s 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-929-W-O-R-D.

Or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hello.

This is Marie Celina calling from Durham, North Carolina.

So what’s on your mind today language-wise, Marie?

I was wondering about the word “stat,” S-T-A-T.

And then a physician would say the word “scalpostat” or something to that extent.

Do you watch a lot of TV shows like and that kind of thing?

Well, yes.

Yes.

And I’m a physician myself.

I always wondered where that word originated from.

So this is something you use every day, right?

No.

Not really.

It’s usually…

Are you a dermatologist or something?

No.

I mean, that’s kind of a leisurely profession, right, compared to some of them.

Okay.

So you don’t work in an

Oh, a pimple cream right away.

Well, usually, I have actually rarely heard it said in real life.

Really?

You hear it much more on the doctor’s show said than in an or an intensive care unit.

It’s written more often than said.

So if you need a certain lab stat, which means any lab that’s being drawn that needs to take priority or if you need a certain medication stat.

But I’ve rarely ever heard it verbally said in real life.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

I knew that those TV shows were all wrong.

Thank you for confronting that.

There’s no way that every episode they could have a man whose head was detached to the shoulders and then magically sun back on and he walked home, you know?

There’s always like some like miracle.

It’s just impossible, right?

You’re on to them.

Yeah, more mundane than that.

Well, Marie, I’m really glad you asked this question because there’s a really simple answer.

And you might think that it’s an acronym or something, you know, like stop that and treat or something.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It’s not though, right?

No, it’s not.

But the answer is really easy.

It comes from the Latin word statim, which means immediately.

S-T-A-T-I-M, right?

Right.

Oh, how about that?

So Marie, we’re delighted that you asked us such an easy question.

That’s always nice for a change.

Oh, thank you so much, doctor.

We appreciate your call.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I have some friends, Martha, who’ve done medical schooling and most of the schools that I’ve heard of offer a class in Greek and Latin roots just for this very reason, so that the doctors can like have a little kind of head start in an interpreting language that they don’t encounter that often.

Oh, they absolutely should.

That’s a great idea.

There’s so many medical terms that are so vivid if you know the meaning.

You know, the amygdala, they’re tucked inside your brain, that little organ.

It comes from the Greek word for almond.

And if you know that, then it’s easy to remember.

Of course, you need to learn Greek to know that.

I always just think of Princess Amidala from the Star Wars movies, but okay.

Well, if you have a question about language, call us, STAT.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-929-WORD, or you can send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Pat from San Diego.

Hiya, Pat.

What’s going on?

Just had a question that I was interested in relating to the weather out here when we’re fishing off the offshore in San Diego.

Sunny and clear.

Yeah, sunny and clear right now.

But sometimes the ocean acts up a bit, and people out here will refer to it as snotty weather.

By acting up, you mean what exactly?

Well, usually we’ll be talking about rather large swells and maybe white gaps and wind getting above 1050 knots in that range.

I’m digging around here, and I find some uses of snotty in this way from 1985.

I have no doubt that it’s earlier.

And all of the uses are pretty consistent with what you have to say.

It doesn’t require that it be cold.

It doesn’t seem to mean weather that will put snot on your face.

But there is a certain amount in the sailor tradition of personifying the weather as an opponent or somebody who does not wish you well.

And I’m wondering here, and I don’t see any direct evidence of this, but I’m wondering here if it’s just not like an extension of the idea of the weather as an entity, this being or creature or some kind of spirit, and maybe you can give it traits.

You can say that it has traits that are human-like, like being snotty, which might be in this case unhelpful or haughty or uncaring or disdainful.

I got to say, the sailing slang and the sailing language is always interesting to me.

And Patrick, I want to thank you for sharing this one with us.

This is pretty cool.

Snotty weather.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, we’ll keep our ears out for that.

I love that.

I wonder, Grant, do you think this term is going to make landfall?

Right.

We’ll have people in landlocked states using it on the nightly news.

Yeah.

Traffic reports.

There’s a lot of congestion because of the snotty weathers.

I don’t know.

Maybe.

I don’t know.

Maybe.

Anyway.

Yeah.

It’s relative, too.

I heard it on Deadliest Catch the other day, that television show on Discovery Channel.

And there, they were in the Bering Sea, and there was 20-foot wells, and the wind was just blowing the top off of the waves.

And they showed this 100-foot boat going up and down and up and down.

And sure enough, the deckhand just looked out, using the foul weather gear, and goes, “Yep.

The ocean’s a bit snotty today.”

Understatement, right?

Yeah.

That’s fabulous.

All right.

Stupendous, Patrick.

Thank you so much.

And good fishing.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Snotty weather.

I loved it.

Thanks a lot.

I’m imagining those maps, where you have the winds in the four corners, and there’s these faces with these puffed-up cheeks, right, trying to blow you up, of course.

And red noses.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sure.

If you’ve got a question or just want to tell us about a cool word that you’ve been seeing a lot lately, we want to hear it.

The number to call is 1-877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha.

Hi, Grant.

My name is Sam Lee from San Diego.

Hello, Sam.

How are you, Sam?

What’s going on?

I have a question that’s been bugging me for a few years, well, actually, longer than that.

But every so often, I’ll see a word that I know is spelled correctly, but in that moment, it just seems to be spelled wrong.

For example, one time I was driving down the road, I saw a stop sign, and I could swear the word “stop” looked wrong.

And more recently, I was looking at a web page, and I saw the word “piatrics,” and I know in my head that it’s spelled right.

I know that it’s right.

It just looks to my eye wrong, just in that moment.

Is there a name for this phenomenon?

I am not a doctor.

I thought this might be a question for a psychologist, but, you know.

Well, this is something I’ve come across a little bit in some of the books that I have.

There’s a general overall term for the inability to understand words of speech, and it’s used in a lot of different ways with a lot of different modifiers.

And it’s aphasia, A-P-H-A-S-I-A, aphasia.

And so what you’ll find often is that doctors will describe it as a type of aphasia, and so that allows it to be more specific.

In this case, it might be something like a receptive aphasia, which is the inability to understand written or spoken language.

The problem here is that these terms, and I have others, they tend to be used to describe ongoing conditions and not momentary conditions.

Yeah, and some kind of pathology.

Yeah, you need a way to indicate that it’s occasional or temporary.

Maybe you could call it occasional receptive aphasia, and maybe a doctor would say, “Okay, I get that.

I understand that that’s what that is.

I don’t know.”

But without being a doctor, I’m not 100% sure.

But the reason I offer you the word aphasia is that is a great word to use to look up in the text to see if you can find out more information about this and find out if there’s a legitimate term.

All right.

Well, you know, Sam, I mean, Grant from time to time uses his “gnarly foot” theory.

I like that just as well.

Yeah.

Do you know that one, Sam?

No.

That’s if you stare at a word long enough, it begins to look wrong.

Yeah, I come across that when you see a list of the same word, like that word “pediatrics,” it was just a whole page of that word just coming after names, and as I kept looking down the line, it started looking more wrong and wrong and wronger.

Mm—

Yeah.

There are a few others.

A few other words, “acatamathesia,” A-C-A-T-A-M-A-T-H-E-S-I-A, and this is from a Greek word meaning “a thorough understanding.”

It’s a form of aphasia, and it also means a loss of understanding or an absence of a response to, say, something that you’re looking at or something that you’re listening to, but the problem with that is it’s usually a result of a psychotic disturbance.

Oh, that’s comforting.

I don’t think we’re talking about that.

Well, you know, as long as the psychosis is only lasting, you know, half a second or so, you’re fine, right?

Yeah, exactly.

You know, maybe there’s someone listening who can give us a more specific word for this.

Oh, sure.

We have doctors in the audience.

I know we do.

We do.

Is there a doctor in the audience?

Let me know.

All right.

Thank you.

Thanks for calling, Sam.

Thank you, Sam.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, we’d love to take your calls about your condition.

Come and report your health to us.

The number is 1-877-929-W-O-R-D, or you can send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Earlier in the show, we were talking about books that we just couldn’t wait to tell people about.

So, Grant, I’m wondering what’s next on your reading list.

What book are you just championing at the bit to read?

There’s a series of books by Neal Stephenson.

The first one is called “Quicksilver,” and these are monster fat tomes.

I guess you’d call them historical fiction.

He does have a bunch of real characters in there, old alchemists and early philosophers.

It’s set in the 1600s in the New World and in the Old World.

I tried to read it once before, but I could only get about 100 pages in, and I was like, “Oh, this is a waste of my time.”

But people keep telling me, “I need to read this book, and so I’m going to give it a shot.”

But what about you?

What’s on your nightstand?

Well, on my nightstand right now is “Collected Fictions” by Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentinian writer.

And the reason that I got this book is because I read a short story by Borges.

This is a collection of them, and I read one called “The Gospel According to Mark.”

Have you read this story?

I haven’t, no.

Oh, man.

It’s such a great story.

I was just reading a lot.

It takes place in the countryside of Argentina, and I’m interested in that.

And I was just reading along, reading along, no idea where the author is going until the very last word.

And then it left me gasping, and I had to go back over the whole short story.

It was truly amazing.

So now I want to…

Because it recasts the entire book for you.

Yeah, yeah, the entire story.

I was just kind of going along and then all of a sudden, boom.

And so I’m very eager to see what else he can do like that.

So it’s “Collected Fictions” by Jorge Luis Borges.

And again, the book that I mentioned was Neal Stephenson’s “Quicksilver.”

If you’d like to talk to us about good writing and how to do it or any other aspect of language, call us, 1-877-929-9673.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Coming up next, it’s a quiz about words from the edges of English.

Stay tuned.

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Hi, you’re listening to “A Way with Words.”

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And it’s time for another slang quiz.

Grant, today’s contestant for slang this is Andrea Carla Michaels from San Francisco.

Well, hello, Andrea.

Hi.

Hi, Andrea.

Hi.

How are you doing?

I’m doing fine.

I understand that you’re a crossword puzzler and that you were at that national tournament this spring.

Yes.

Will Shortz used one of my puzzles as the opening puzzle, the easy one to get people going.

It was sort of the highlight of my life to watch 699 people doing my puzzle.

I had never even seen one person doing one.

So that was the highlight of your life and it’s all downhill from here.

Until today.

Well, I was going to say.

Oh, what’s happening later?

We’re not part of your downhill slide, right?

Well, how about a slang word for us?

Your price of admission for this game, Andrea, is telling us your favorite slang word.

Oh, well, I was thinking when I was growing up in Minnesota.

I don’t know if this is technically slang, but we used to say “ish” instead of— As a euphemism for the S word?

No, no, no.

It just means “ick.”

Somebody would say something and we’d go, “Ish!”

And I haven’t heard it since leaving there and only discovered as an adult that it was specific to Minnesota.

Is that right?

Is that right?

Well, hey, Andrea, you want to play a game?

Yes, please.

Always.

All right.

Okay.

Well, here’s how we play.

Grant’s going to give you a sentence with a blank in it.

Oh.

And then he’ll give you three words that might fill in that blank.

So your job is to figure out which slang word fits best, but you can’t just pick out a word.

You have to show us your work.

Justify it.

You have to justify it.

Yeah, right.

You have to justify your choice.

It’s like showing your work in algebra.

Okay?

And I haven’t seen the question, so I’ll be joining you on the player side of the table so we can talk about the process.

Oh, good.

Okay?

All right.

Well, here we go.

Here’s the first sentence.

“Well, Doctor, your first day at County General has been a doozy.

Two births, a death, and a motorcycle accident.

What do you say to blank down at the bar?

Is the blank A, liver rounds down at the bar, B, sharp starters down at the bar, or C, monkey straps down at the bar?”

I love, I mean, my first inclination, of course, is liver rounds because it has to do with drinking and destroying the liver and making rounds.

So that sounds very doctor-y, but that sounds like something that you would then make up.

Yeah, or give to your puppy.

I’ll open the little plastic bag and give him a liver round if they do a trick.

And sharp starters, I don’t even know where to begin on that.

Monkey straps, I love.

I’m hoping that’s the answer, but I know we have to figure out why.

Martha, why would it be monkey straps?

How can we tie that into a doctor doing something?

Well, gosh, you know, monkey, I’m thinking bananas, so I’m thinking maybe it’s some kind of drink with a, you know, like a piña colada only with bananas or something.

I mean, you think it could be slang for stethoscope, you know, like it hangs around your neck.

Ooh, and then you stick them in your ears and you look sort of monkey, mmm.

And if you’re wearing them, the chicks at the bar know you’re a doctor.

So I’m going to go, yes, I’m going to go with monkey straps.

Or they know to stay away.

You’re going to go with monkey straps?

Yes, I’m sticking to that inexplicably.

When I take trips, I always love to take little detours and go to the side road, but I always get back on my road and go in the right direction, and you should have stayed with liver rounds.

Your logic there was impeccable.

It’s when doctors go out for drinks with other doctors.

It’s a play on the double meaning of rounds, you know, a doctor will do his rounds by checking on all his patients, and then buying rounds in a bar, buying drinks for people that you’re with.

And of course, as you said, liquor is bad for your liver.

All right, and what is a monkey strap in real life?

A monkey strap is actually the name of those straps that you might hang on to, say, in a helicopter or at the top of a telephone pole when you’re repairing something up there.

They also call them jump straps.

Some cars have them too, but usually they’re not called that in an automobile.

All right, well, here’s another chance.

Are you ready?

Yes.

All right.

There’s a filly in the fourth at Belmont called Sweet Mama’s Got Your Number, and I just know she’s a winner.

I wouldn’t ordinarily try to put the blank on you, but just this once, give me a couple hundred dollars, and I’ll pay you back to Mari.

So is it A, I wouldn’t ordinarily try to put the mark on you?

Is it B, put the tail on you, T-A-I-L?

Or C, put the bite on you, B-I-T-E?

Wow.

Well, of course, gamblers use marks, and maybe with horse racing, they use tails, and put the bite on you.

Bite.

I’m going to go with monkey straps.

I wouldn’t ordinarily put the monkey straps on you, but you’re my kind of guy.

Hello.

Let’s see.

Don’t bring me into your fantasy life.

This is my same problem, that mark seems really straightforward, and tail has a nice kind of horse thing happening, but I guess in a gambling sense, I guess the mark makes the most sense.

So that’s your answer?

I give up.

Yeah.

I’m going to say put the mark then, I guess.

It’s the bite.

It’s a gambling term.

Andrea, it’s the bite.

The bite.

If you put the bite on somebody, you hit them up for money.

Oh, maybe because no one buys money from me because I always have less than they do.

I was hoping, Andrea, that you might be familiar with the Spanish term mordita, which means it’s Spanish for a bribe.

You take a little bite.

It literally translates into English as a little bite.

Oh, that’s sweet.

Yeah, and a lot of languages actually have that connotation of it’s kind of like somebody reaching over at the restaurant in your plate and sticking their fork in and taking some of your meal.

That’s the kind of bite we’re talking about here.

And sometimes there’s an understanding that that money is not really a loan and actually will never be given back.

Andrea, this was great fun.

I love the way your mind works.

Oh, thank you.

That’s sweet.

I’m going to give you the opportunity to learn even more because by way of saying thanks, we’re going to send you a copy of Grant’s book.

It’s called The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English.

That’s fantastic.

Thank you for playing with us today.

Thank you for letting me play.

All right.

Bye-bye, Andrea.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question about how best to use English, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-Wayword.

Or send us an email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Marge Thomas from Indianapolis.

Well, hiya, Marge.

What’s going on?

Well, I wondered if you or Martha knew anything about something that my dad used to say to me.

If my slip was showing, he would say, “Who do you think you are, Miss Astor?”

So do you know who Miss Astor is?

You know, I think that could be any one of the many Astors.

As you said, Marge, they were one of the wealthiest families in the country.

For a long time, the term “Miss Astor” or “Mrs.

Astor” was something that you might say to somebody who’s a little bit overdressed.

Oh.

And so I suspect, I’m not sure, but I suspect that, you know, it’s kind of a way of sort of pulling somebody back down a little bit from that level.

But I love that he was using that kind of euphemism.

Now, where did you grow up?

In South Carolina, in the Lowcountry.

In the Lowcountry.

Right.

Right.

And did you hear, Marge, any other expressions to indicate that your slip was showing?

Well, no, not really.

That was the only one with the slip showing.

Now, one of my friends said that her grandfather used to say that she or people were dressed up like Mr.

Astor’s pony or Mrs.

Astor’s pony.

That’s nice.

I’m so glad you asked about the slip showing, because I collect these euphemisms for slips showing.

You know, we don’t really care so much about it today, do we, Marge?

Well, a lot of us don’t wear slips today.

Well, that’s what I was just going to say.

I remember my mother lecturing my sisters about that, and most of the young ladies don’t wear them today, do they?

Their dresses take into account something like that.

Right.

And I think when he was telling me, you know, the dresses were pretty short.

And so I think if I recall correctly, since it was the staff, we just wore half-lips.

And so they are kind of notorious for showing.

-huh.

So you were wearing really short skirts?

Oh, yes.

Sigh-scrapers, as they call them?

Well, my mother used to make our dresses, and she’d say, “Are you sure you want this dress this short?”

Well, Marge, you’re bringing back great memories for me, because I tell you, I will never forget the time that my Aunt Margaret, who grew up in Virginia, said to me, “Motha Ann, you have a PhD.”

And I just gave her this look, and she said, “You have a PhD, petticoat hanging down.”

I’ll never forget that, but I think especially Southern women have this way of, you know, I mean, you can just — and it’s from a different era, you know.

You can just hear somebody sidling up to you and saying, “Marge, Mrs.

White is out of jail.”

Yeah, the bras show now, and so I doubt if the petticoat would be, you know, a big thing.

The bras show now?

Right, right, right.

That part is an outer garment, so I guess, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that’s really interesting, so we’re really talking about a kind of linguistic fossil, huh?

Right, right.

I think so.

Yeah, so I think the answer is that it was one of the Esther’s.

We’re not sure which one, but the idea is somebody who’s really dressed up.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for your call, Marge.

This was a nice avenue of discussion to go down.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question, or would like to pass on some old saying that your grandparents or parents used to say, we’re the ones who want to hear it.

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Jack, I’m calling from Madison, Wisconsin.

I had a question, one of those things that occurs to you in the gray area between sleep and waking up, when you’re waking up in the morning.

Oh, yeah.

I was wondering, the idea occurred to me, the similarities between the verb flay, F-L-A-Y, and the noun filet, as in a filet mignon.

I wondered whether those two words shared some kind of original word or whether something got carried over in a translation or something like that.

No, the short answer is no, they’re etymologically distinct, and I think it’s mostly, maybe completely, a coincidence that they are spelled similarly, sound similar, and can on occasion describe similar acts.

The filet, F-I-L-E-T, I know some people pronounce it “fillet,” comes from an old French word meaning “thread,” which itself is based on a Latin word, “filum,” which is the same place that we get the word “filiment.”

So that’s filet, and then “flay,” F-L-A-Y, comes from the old English “flayan,” which is Germanic, and not from Latin, and it’s got roots in a variety of Germanic languages, and so ultimately these two have separate roots.

There is something, a kind of cross-pollination that happens sometimes in English where two similar words, I should say, where they sound similar are spelled similarly, sometimes will lend or reinforce certain meanings in other words.

It’s possible that it happened here that “fillet” and “flay,” you know, one can mean “take the skin off” and the other one can mean “to cut into very thin slices.”

It’s possible that they’ve reinforced each other, but I don’t see any evidence of it.

No common ancestry, just pure coincidence.

Right.

But you know what?

I’m digging the fact that this is what you were thinking about at night before you go to bed.

Me too.

Next time you…

Kindred soul, definitely.

Yeah.

All right.

Sweet dreams.

Take care of yourself.

Bye-bye.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Bye now. 1-877-9299673 for your Antillucan revelries.

That’s 1-877-Wayword, or you can email us to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Jed.

I’m calling from Lake Owen Camp in Cable, Wisconsin.

All right.

How’s it going there?

It’s going pretty good.

What’s on your mind up there?

We originally came up with the question a couple months back when Oliver, our 16-month-old son, just started using his words.

And the first sounds out of his mouth were pretty much “mama” and “dada.”

And I think it was my wife who originally said, “You know, I wonder if that’s something that adults assigned or if kids essentially assigned that,” because the kids were making those noises anyway, so being that there’s two parents, they each got to pick one, “mama” and “dada.”

Great question.

So the question revolves around instinctive language.

Are there sounds that are instinctive for humans to make for certain feelings and emotions?

Well, Jed, it sounds like you’re in a similar situation to me.

I have a 16-month-old son as well.

Play date, play date.

And he is a talker.

He’s a talker.

You know, I’m a lexicographer.

I edit dictionaries for a living besides the show, and my wife is a linguist who also is a dictionary editor.

And, of course, this question has come up in our house, too, and we actually have the books that will provide the answers to this question.

So if you want…

That’s why I called you guys.

I can give you the short take on this because it’s a really huge subject.

Much work has been done, and I’m going to try to summarize a lot of academia into just a few lines.

Okay?

Okay.

So I’ll post some links to some stuff on our website later where you can follow up for a lot more detail.

But the short version is, we don’t know, but what’s really interesting in almost all of the languages spoken by humans in the world, “mama” and “dada” and words for “mama” and “mother” and “father” began with what we call labial sounds.

These are M, B, P.

D is a little different, but it’s close.

It’s basically those sounds with the lips parted and the tongue forward on the teeth, D maybe on the palate.

And so throughout, and sometimes they’re reversed.

Sometimes what is “baba” in one language means “father” and “baba” in another language means “mother.”

But they often refer to “mother” and “father” because these are the two most important people in a baby’s life, so they’re going to remember these words or learn these words first.

But there’s another problem with this.

You were saying, is it hard-wired in the baby’s head, and I think that’s what you were getting at, right?

Yeah, or that maybe that originally I was thinking that that was the first few noises the baby makes, because that’s how we develop our speaking.

And two adults said, “Oh, look, he’s calling me ‘mama,’ oh, look, he’s calling me ‘dada.'”

It’s possible.

We’ll never know.

But what’s interesting is, think about it a different way.

When you want to communicate to a baby, even one that you know doesn’t understand you and doesn’t speak, what do you do?

You speak in baby language.

You use really simple sounds yourself, right?

And those sounds do tend to be things that are just issuing air through the lips and the lips making like a motorboat sound or humming, these very simple, nothing that’s happening with your tongue in the back of your throat, no complicated kind of acrobatics in there at all.

And so maybe it’s possible that it was the other way, and that the parents originally, by using baby talk, suggested to the kid certain sounds.

And it could work either way.

It’s kind of a chicken and an egg problem.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, Jed, this is great.

This is good.

And by all means, check out the site in a few days.

I’ll post some stuff online and maybe we’ll continue the conversation there.

We’ll talk.

I’m sure everyone has stories about the remarkable learning abilities of children.

It’s just really amazing how quickly and how well they can learn.

Yeah.

When I bring it up to other parents, they say the same things, so.

Great.

Thank you so much for calling, Jed.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

And you can give us a call at 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

That’s our show for this week.

If you didn’t get on the air today, don’t worry.

You can leave us a message any time, day or night.

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You can also email your questions to words@waywordradio.org or join the conversations going on right now in our discussion forum.

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Stefanie Levine is our senior producer.

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Tim also engineered our theme music.

Kurt Konan produced it.

We’ve had production help this week from Michael Bagdasian.

From Studio West in San Diego, I’m Martha Barnette.

And from the Argo Network in New York City, I’m Grant Barrett, inviting you to join us next week, right here on A Way with Words.

So long.

Later.

Either, either, neither, neither, let’s call a whole thing off.

♪ Call the whole thing off ♪