Aeneas in Las Cruces, New Mexico, describes his family’s traditional way of razzing someone who just had a haircut. They shout Rinctums! (also spelled Rinktums!), and proceed to give the person a rough knuckle-rubbing on the back of their head, unless that newly shorn person beats them to it, yelling No rinctums!. A 1921 article about this newly popular practice at the University of Texas describes how students with a new haircut try to avoid these noogies with a preemptive shout of vincure rinktums or vincure scrapeings [sic]. This is part of a complete episode.
Subscribe to the fantastic A Way with Words newsletter!
Martha and Grant send occasional messages with language headlines, event announcements, linguistic tidbits, and episode reminders. It’s a great way to stay in touch with what’s happening with the show.