Ralphing

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Kelsey. I’m from Tallahassee, Florida, and I have a question about the slang.

To Ralph.

To Ralph?

Okay, Kelsey from Tallahassee. Welcome to the show. We’d love to talk about vomit.

Let’s talk about Ralphing. You mean as a verb, right? Okay.

Yeah, yeah, like to throw up or to vomit. Yeah.

You need to tell us why you’re thinking about this.

It’s a funny story. I was putting my tax forms together this year, and I was sitting in my living room on the floor because I have dogs, and so I was petting my dog.

And my older dog came over and threw up on my W-2.

Yeah.

Talk about expressing an opinion.

So I had to go in the next day and ask my boss for another one.

It was just this ridiculous conversation.

It was something I never expected to have to talk to my boss about.

You know?

And so I was relaying this story to one of my friends,

And I was looking for a more clever way to say my dog threw up on something.

Yes.

And so I was trying to spell to Ralph.

And I was spelling it.

I was going, gosh, I don’t actually know how to spell Ralph.

And so I tried to look it up.

And, of course, it wasn’t there.

I don’t know why I thought it would be because it’s playing.

But I did find the word Ralphia, which is a plant, a type of bush, I believe.

And it said something in the definition of this word that said that, you know, basically, if you eat small quantities of it, it has a purgative quality.

And I thought, like, it makes you throw up.

And I was wondering if there was a connection there.

This all happened while I was teaching.

I’m a teacher.

I’m a music teacher.

And I was teaching this class of middle school boys, and they got really excited about it.

And we were all excited about a wolfia, and could this be a connection?

Have we found the etymology of barfing?

You know, like, it was just really exciting.

And so I had to call.

Exactly.

It was a beautiful learning moment.

So, you know, I just had to call and ask, because we have to know.

You know, my class has to know whether this is the truth.

Oh, my goodness.

Unfortunately, no, it doesn’t come from the plant name.

Oh, gosh, that’s so disappointing.

It’s a little better than that, I think.

It’s onomatopoeic.

It comes from the sound that you make when you vomit.

Really?

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, and so there are a lot of different forms of this.

It dates to the 1960s, maybe 1964 or earlier.

And you might say you’re called Ralph because it sounds like you’re saying the guy’s name.

There’s some elaborated forms that came along much later to talk to Ralph on the big white phone.

With the assumption that you actually, your dog didn’t actually make it to the bathroom.

But if the assumption that you made it to the bathroom, you put the job where it needed to be put.

Put the job.

Right, right.

Well, it’s the same idea with, I mean, some people say calling Earl.

Yeah.

Earl.

Yeah.

And it might be where the word hurl comes from when you talk about vomiting.

All of these having to do with the sound.

It’s a very distinct sound that we don’t make at other times.

Yep.

And we have to find ways to talk about it.

So, Ralph.

I guess that’s true, yeah.

How clever are you to find that plant, though?

Because I’d never heard of that plant.

Yeah.

Yeah, Raulwulfia.

It’s spelled R-O-W, and then like wolf, and then I-A.

Yeah, it looks like Raulwulfia comes from the name of a German botanist.

Oh, interesting.

His last name was Raulwulf.

Which is interesting because the name Ralph comes from old words that mean wolf council.

There we go.

Very nice.

You know what you can do, though?

You never know.

If you want something to look up, even though the plant name didn’t pan out,

Have them look up onomatopoeia and then try to think of words that fit the definition.

Ooh, that’s a good idea.

Yeah, that’s great.

Because onomatopoeia actually is fun to say and it’s got a really complicated spelling.

So that’s a great one for the spelling list.

Oh, yeah.

And the thing is, I’m a music teacher.

Like, I’m not even an English teacher.

And my kids get so excited.

We do the word of the day, and they always get excited about it.

Oh, my gosh.

You’re my kind of teacher, Kelsey.

Seriously.

But you can work onomatopoeia into a music lesson easily, right?

Absolutely.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, you could just talk about the word boom, for example.

I think that was the word of the day a few months ago.

Yeah.

You could talk about a drum booming.

A drum booms.

A boom is onomatopoeia.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, Kelsey, you’re a delight to talk to, and this is really great.

I love hearing the stories from inside the classroom.

Sounds like you’re training up a lot of bright kids there.

Well, I hope so.

Yeah, cultivating that curiosity.

And I hope you got a refund.

Oh, yeah.

No, it all worked out fine.

Everything was okay.

Very good.

I would never send my puked-on W-2 form to the IRS.

That’s like a guaranteed audit, right?

Yeah.

Here’s another one.

This is not a good sign.

I need to fix it.

Oh, my gosh.

That’s hilarious.

Kelsey, thanks for calling.

Best wishes to you.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.