Raring to Go

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Gran and Martha. This is Terry calling from San Diego.

Hello, Terry.

Hello, Terry. How are you doing?

I am doing great. It is sunny and beautiful here.

That’s great, and I hear a smile in your voice, too.

Well, I’m happy to be on the line with you, too.

Well, same here. What’s up?

Well, I grew up in the Midwest, and we have all kinds of idioms and colloquialisms, as you know, in that neck of the woods.

And we frequently hear a phrase that got me thinking a little bit called rearing to go.

Oftentimes when we’re about to take the dogs on a walk, my little Chesapeake Bay Retriever will rear up on her hind legs and be really eager to take that walk.

And it got me thinking about being a visual person, the fact that maybe the phrase is actually rearing to go and not rearing to go.

And I’m wondering what you two thought about that.

That’s a really good guess because rarin is a variant of the earlier form rearing.

And both of those words belong to the same linguistic family as the word raise.

And so you’re right.

The whole idea here is raising.

Okay.

Well, being a visual person, I always envision this big steed rearing up on his two hind legs before the Lone Ranger rides him off into the sunset to right some great injustice.

Exactly.

Or something’s rearing its ugly head, right?

It’s the same idea.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Well, I was pulling a number of my friends about this.

We were very excited to have the opportunity to speak with you.

In fact, I guess you could say we were chomping at the bit to talk to you.

Or is it champing you two?

Both.

Can we get a twofer on this?

Both work.

Chomping and champing.

Depends on your dialect.

But isn’t the traditional?

Traditional schmishinal.

We’d all be speaking Elizabethan English if that were the case.

Here, here.

Well, I have to ask the two of you then, because in pulling my friends, it was nearly 50-50, but the simple majority preferred raring to go.

And I’m curious what the two of you think.

I know that, Grant, you’re from the Midwest.

So what’s your opinion first?

And then, Martha, I’d love to hear yours.

Yeah, but you know that she’s turning the table.

She’s interviewing us.

This is strange.

Yeah, I’m raring to be interviewed.

I’m raring to be interviewed.

I’ve got to tell you, though, I’m not a good sample for your survey.

For anything.

No, really.

I’m contrarian and obstinate and not willing to cooperate with just about anyone.

No, all my language is polluted by my studies in linguistics.

Seriously.

He’s a stinking cesspool of lexical content.

But I think Martha’s got the same problem.

We analyze our own speech too much, and we affect it based upon what we learn.

But both are fine.

Rearing and rearing are 100% okay.

But I think if you Google them, you’ll find rearing is much, much more common.

Rearing? R-A-R-I-N-G?

Yeah, especially in this country. It’s more of a U.S. locution than British.

I think there’s definitely some semantic separation there.

I think a lot of people don’t connect rearing to rearing.

They don’t think of the stallion with its legs in the air trying to take off after the bad guy.

They don’t see that.

Yeah, but Terry, you did. Why are you such a visual person? Are you an artist?

No, I actually work in the realm of solar energy.

The realm of solar energy.

I had an aunt who planted the seeds of linguistics and a love of grammar eons ago back in Ohio.

And I just like to speak with a little bit of humor and a little more to paint a picture, I suppose, like the two of you do on a regular basis.

Oh, I see.

Well, John Dunn, you’ve done it today.

Yeah, I’m definitely getting a visual of her planting the linguistic seed and then Grant and me adding manure.

And it’s just blossoming forth.

But that only brings richer fruits for our fertile minds, right?

There we go.

Richer fruits for our fertile minds.

Man.

Or else just a good chutney.

Now, what about the chomping, champing thing?

Is there a possibility I can sneak that two-ferentity?

No, yeah.

Like I said, they’re both fine.

Chomping, champing are both fine.

Yeah, but the traditional one is champing, right?

Traditional.

Traditional.

Traditional tradition.

Terry, thank you for calling today.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Well, if you and your friends are sitting around talking about language and a question comes up, why not call us 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.