Road Trip!

You’re listening to A Way with Words, I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette, and Grant, we got an email the other day from a fellow named Greg Ferry from here in Carlsbad, California, and Greg thinks there ought to be a word for talking while driving.

I agree with him.

He says that a certain friend of his “drives long distances and during these long times he pulls out his cell phone and calls people with whom he hasn’t spoken in some time, or failing that, someone who will listen to him.”

Now, Greg’s friend’s name is Harold, so he wants to propose the verb “to herald,” meaning to call someone using a mobile phone to chat in a very social way while traveling from one place to another.

And I don’t know, Grant, I agree that there should be a word for this.

It happens all the time here in Southern California.

But I don’t know, heralding?

I mean, that guy just cut me off in traffic, and look at that, he was heralding.

Boy, you know, they do that in New York, too.

They do drive and they pull them over, because talking on the cell phone while you’re driving here in the city is illegal.

Well, it should be.

Actually, throughout the state.

But my question is, if you’re heralding, are we talking about being in the passenger seat or driving or both?

I think we’re talking about driving.

I think this guy has lots of time to fill, you know, he gets bored on the commute, and he hasn’t managed to podcast our show, and so…

Well, I can appreciate that.

There’s a version of it we have here in New York City.

You know, I take the Q train to the studio, and the Q train goes over the Manhattan Bridge, which crosses the East River.

And so there’s this few-minute span during which the train is above ground, actually above the water, looking across Manhattan, and it’s a beautiful view.

But what everyone does is they yank their cell phones out of their purse or their pockets, and they check their messages and make quick phone calls.

It’s like the whole car all together decides that the cell towers are probably jammed every time the train comes through.

Attics, all of them.

They’re like those people who get off the airplane and they’ve got the unlit cigarette hanging on their lip, just waiting until they get to the smoking place, right?

They can’t wait to light that sucker.

That’s right.

So what’s the word for that?

“attic.”

That’s all I can think of.

I don’t know.

Do you like heralding?

I don’t really, actually.

But you know, I always say that most new words, they need more time to grow on you.

Maybe this one would after a while.

Well, we do need a word for it, don’t you think?

All right.

Well, let’s put the word out for the word for it.

All right.

So you can call us, pull over first, please, just to make Martha happy, with your suggestion for a term that denotes talking on the phone while driving.

The number is 1-877-Wayword.

That’s 1-877-929-9673.

Or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha and Grant?

Yes.

Hello.

This is Rick calling from Onalaska.

From where?

Onalaska, Wisconsin.

Oh, Onalaska?

Onalaska, Wisconsin.

Onalaska?

Onalaska.

How do you spell that?

It’s like Alaska with “on” in front of it.

Huh.

O-N-on?

O-N-on.

O-N-on.

Well, I’ve got to tell you, I’ve never heard of the place.

Where is it?

Tell me about it.

It’s near La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Okay.

What’s on your mind today, Rick?

Actually, I’m calling about the origins of a word that I’ve known for probably 30 years or so.

It dates back to growing up over on the other side of Wisconsin in Appleton, Wisconsin.

The term is “pediddle.”

How are you spelling that?

I’m not sure.

P-A or P-I, but “pud-iddle,” D-I-D-D-L-E, something like that.

-huh.

Now, what’s it mean?

Well, it was used when one or more people, more than one, would be driving in a vehicle going down the road, and the oncoming vehicle, be it a truck, car, whatever, would have one headlight burned out.

And what would follow would be the first person to see it would yell “pediddle” and then kind of whack the inside of the roof of the car with their hand.

And it was sort of like first one to see it won.

Right, right, right, right.

And a lot of people know about this, the “pediddle.”

Yeah, they do.

And it was just sort of generally accepted, a rite of passage, and you got to be about 16 in Wisconsin.

You got your driver’s license, you saw a car with one headlight, and you said, “pediddle.”

And then you smacked the roof of your car in triumph?

Smacked the roof.

Yeah.

And then after…and triumph, exactly.

And then somewhere along the line, I think once we got closer to the age of proper drinking age, it involved then the person who didn’t respond first owed the other person or people a beer.

Oh, wow.

And did you buy a lot of beers, or…?

I was a pretty good “pediddle” spotter.

So “pa-diddle.”

“Pa-diddle.”

“Pa-diddle.”

I’ve heard of this, and you know why?

Why?

When I was editing the Historical Dictionary of American Slang, I was working on volume three, which includes the letter P, and I worked on the entry for this.

You did?

I did.

Grant, you’re my hero!

Hello, yes.

You did the “pa-diddle” entry?

I’m hardly worth it.

It hasn’t been published yet.

Well, wait till you see my work to judge whether or not it’s worth it.

Oh, my gosh.

I can’t wait.

The earliest that we were able to trace this to was in the 1950s.

But what’s more interesting about this is that the game that you’re playing actually is a modified version of an older game, and the older game was about kissing.

Oh, what?

So you’re driving down the road, yeah, you’re driving down the road with your sweetie, right?

Yeah.

And if you see a car with one headlight, you’re the man or the boy, and you say “pa-diddle,” then you get to kiss the girl.

If the girl sees it first and says “pa-diddle,” she gets to smack you.

So that’s how it started out.

And I can think of any number of other car games that are roughly similar, like Slug Bug, everyone knows, right?

Slug Bug, exactly.

I’ve never played any of these, you guys.

You live in car culture now, Martha Shirley, right?

Well, no.

I’ve never heard of it in California, and I certainly didn’t hear it growing up in Kentucky.

Slug Bug?

No.

What is Slug Bug?

When you see a VW, you get to hit the guy next to you, you slug him on the shoulder, and you say “slug bug.”

It’s just like “pa-diddle,” the goal is get there first.

Rick mentioned being 16, even if you play this as an adult, it’s still pretty much a 16-year-old mindset.

It’s all about hitting somebody and having a reason to.

I think it’s all a boy mindset.

Don’t they, Rick?

They just kind of abide by their rules.

They don’t begrudge you the fact that you beat them to the punch, literally.

Really?

It’s like giving noogies or something, only on wheels.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So it sounds like it grew up with car culture.

I mean, you didn’t drive your horse and buggy and do it back then.

No.

And you know, that’s actually a really good point.

I think it’s significant that the term really doesn’t start to show up until the 1950s because after the war is when we could reasonably expect most American families to have an automobile and for that automobile to be allowed to be driven by 16-year-old boys who like to hit each other.

And if nothing better to do, go drive around for a while when gas is there.

Sure.

Well, think about the kissing game.

You know, go out and pick up their sweetie and go down to Lover’s Lane, right?

Someone that I work with that I had a conversation with talked about a variation of pa-diddle where you’re supposed to be taking articles of clothing off.

I don’t know anything about that one.

Strip to diddle.

Exactly.

Strip to diddle.

I know.

In Wisconsin in December, that may not have been that much fun.

No.

It might be about putting clothes on.

Get home and you’re wearing 15 sweaters and you’re like, “I don’t know what the light is.

You know, I’m going into the light business.

A lot of people need headlights in this town.”

All right.

Well, I hope we’ve helped you some, Rick.

Very enlightening.

Very enlightening, did you say, Rick?

Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

I couldn’t resist it.

That’s nice.

That’s nice.

All right.

Thanks for the call, Rick.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Pa-diddle.

Pa-diddle.

Now you’re going to do it, right?

Now I’m going to do it.

Even when you’re on your own, you’re going to get home with a bruised thigh because you’ll be hitting yourself every time you see a car with a light out.

That’s right.

Now I’m going to be playing strip pa-diddle by myself on the freeway.

Well, you know, in those parts of the country where it’s common to keep your headlights on during the day, pa-diddle is probably a much more thorough and ongoing affair.

It’s a constant thing no matter when you’re out, right?

Well, I guess so.

But is there a game for if your taillight is out?

Is that de-piddle?

I don’t know.

I’ve never heard of that.

If it exists, I don’t know about it.

Well, if it exists, somebody knows about it.

So call us at 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Evan from Falmouth, Maine.

Hello, Evan.

What’s going on in Maine?

Not a whole lot right now.

I’m just home for a break and enjoying it very much.

And you said you’re home temporarily.

Where are you otherwise?

I go to school at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario.

Okay.

What are you calling us about?

Well, my question is about the woman who is your mother or your father’s sister.

Now, the way I pronounce it is very, very different from the way that my friends in Canada pronounce it.

I pronounce it, how I think it should be pronounced is “aunt.”

Now, my friends up at school, they seem to mistake their relative for an insect on the ground and they pronounce it “ants.”

Now.

And so I was just wondering, is one of us more right than the other?

Is it simply a geographical thing or, you know, what’s the deal?

And so do you stop them in conversation and talk about insects?

I do sometimes.

I do.

I said, “Are you related to ants?”

I didn’t realize that.

I didn’t know I was.

Well, they’re my aunt.

And they, of course, say, “Oh, you’re just being pretentious.”

And I argue that, well, what other words beginning with “au” do you pronounce with just an “a”?

Well, applying logic to English, though, that’s always a trap, isn’t it?

Yeah.

Well, you know what?

In your part of the country, in Maine, in New England, and also in eastern Virginia, you would generally say “aunt.”

Throughout most of the rest of the United States, though, you hear “ant.”

Really?

Yep.

Oh.

Yes.

Yes.

In standard English, there is, in African-American vernacular English, you hear “aunt” a lot.

But in what we call standard English, the general pronunciation in this country is “ant.”

Oh.

That’s unfortunate.

Well, why?

Because now you’ve got to take it back?

All these things that you’ve said?

Oh, no, no.

I will never go back on what I’ve said.

I stick very, very firmly to the ideology that it’s “aunt” and not “aunt.”

You know, I do have to tell you, Evan, though, that I have—one of my mother’s sisters is named Anne.

And I do call her Aunt Anne.

But everybody else, I call Aunt Margaret and Aunt Mary Garnet.

Well, it may be—I’ve seen Grant—it suggested that maybe Noah Webster had something to do with that, just sort of— What, promoting the “ant” pronunciation?

No, promoting the “aunt.”

The “aunt” pronunciation.

You know, “rava,” and ask what you would do for— It’s a messy, tangled thing that I don’t want to get into too far.

But we do have a history, somewhat, in American English, of sometimes being more learned from our books than from our experience.

And sometimes when we’re learned from our books, we tend to take what looks like the obvious pronunciation, but isn’t the one that’s widely used.

And sometimes those pronunciations become dominant.

But I would say, overall here, the thing is, Evan, this is a matter of dialect.

And if you start throwing around the word “wrong” to apply to somebody else’s dialect, you soon get to a trap.

Because you’re going to find out sooner or later that you have a few dialect features that make you a minority.

And actually, you found one here.

That is true.

That is true.

But you know, you could just blame them as Canadians and be done with it.

Excellent.

Well, thank you very much.

And I might not share this information with my friends back up in Canada, but we’ll see.

Well, I just think maybe the insect talk probably best be kept quiet from here on out, and things will be fine.

Yeah, I will bring that up again.

Yeah.

All right.

I hope everything works out well for you there.

Well, thank you very much.

All right.

All righty.

Take care.

Thank you very much, guys.

Bye-bye.

All right.

So if you have a call that you’d like us to settle, we’ll be happy to come down on both sides of it.

Give us a call at 1-877-929-WORD, send us an email to words@waywarderadio.org.

Coming up, we’ll take more of your calls, but first a word puzzle.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re joined once again by the crazy man, the quiz guy, Greg Puska.

Crazy man.

Hello.

What’s up, dude?

I’m coming at the mouth with excitement today.

He has dealy boppers on, or is it that Steve Martin arrow going right through his head, right?

Those are headphones.

Where’s your banjo?

I was thinking about the fact that you always call me puzzle guy.

You haven’t called me puzzle guy in a while.

You’re very puzzling.

Which spoonerizes- And you have a quizzical look on your face.

Well, the reason I brought up puzzle guy is because if you spoonerize it, it comes up to something that you need to do in order to win the dessert-eating contest.

Oh, guzzle pie.

Spoonerisms.

Somebody who’s born with a silver spoon in their mouth says those.

Exactly.

To guzzle pie.

Guzzle pie.

Guzzle pie.

There we go.

You know where the term spoonerism comes from, don’t you?

Archibald.

A country in the middle of Atlantis, I don’t know.

No, William Archibald Spooner, who was an Oxford University Don in the late 19th, early 20th centuries.

But as I understand it, most of the spoonerisms that are attributed to him weren’t actually his.

They’re only a couple.

But it’s still a lot of fun, though, right?

It’s kind of like, I want to believe that Mark Twain said all those things, even though I know he didn’t.

And it doesn’t matter, because they’re great.

Yeah, they’re fun.

So as I’ve repeated, you have said once, “Let us raise our glasses to the queer old dean.”

Right.

Beaming, of course, the dear old queen.

Yeah, right.

A moo-noo-vee.

So, I guess your quiz today is about…

Is about spoonerisms. …dear old queens.

Exactly.

No, that’s you guys.

No, it’s about spoonerisms, which is, just to be clear, the shifting of the initial consonant sounds on a pair of words.

Right.

So, I’ll give you definitions for both the original phrase and the spoonerized phrase, and you have to guess the phrases.

Right.

So you give us two definitions, and we give you two phrases.

You got it.

Okay.

And it all comes out even in the end.

For example, “Common undergraduate college degree and online auction site.”

B.A. And eBay.

-huh.

You got it.

Move the initial consonant from B.A. Over to the other syllable to get eBay.

Oh, boy.

Okay.

Here we go.

“A place where they fix car dents and a second-rate jazz style.”

See, auto shop, shot-o-wop.

No.

A place where they…

Yeah.

A place where they fix car dents.

How about body shop and shoddy bop?

There you go.

Shoddy bop.

Second-rate jazz is shoddy bop.

All right.

Yes.

And body shop.

Okay.

All right.

“Reagan’s favorite candy and what you hope your overweight dad didn’t pass down to you.”

His belly jeans and jelly beans.

Exactly.

Reagan loved those jelly beans, and you don’t want the belly jeans.

Oh.

All right.

Here’s one.

I actually love discovering this one.

“Vladimir Putin, for example, or Otto von Bismarck or one of his neighbors.”

“Vladimir Putin, at least for many years, and Otto von Bismarck or one of his neighbors.”

Chancellor and Anselture, I know.

Is it a title?

Is it something like Czar or Premier?

Putin’s title is, or was.

Prime Minister.

Or the other one.

Premier.

The other one.

President.

President.

President of Russia.

President of Russia.

And resident of Russia.

Oh, resident of Russia.

There we go.

Okay.

That one completely.

That’s all right.

And I just heard a show about that this morning.

Putin’s a complicated thing there.

You know, a man who fishes with his shirt off, that’s all I want to say.

Did you see that picture?

Putin with his shirt off?

I don’t even know.

That’s the beginning of a great colloquialism.

It does.

A man who fishes with his shirt off catches his bass in his pants.

Fill in the blank.

I mean, he needs to be in charge of intelligence gathering, and there he is now laying it all out for the world to see.

He just like fishing with your shirt off, intelligence gathering.

You know, he’s got this weird floppy hat on that probably hasn’t been washed since they bought it 40 years ago.

And he’s fishing.

Here you go.

Strongly flavored cinnamon candy.

And dandruff, for example.

Ew.

Yeah, something you eat and something you don’t eat.

Gross.

A strongly flavored cinnamon candy.

Let’s go to another term for Frankfurter.

Red hot and head rot.

Head rot.

That is nasty.

Dandruff, for example.

Here you go.

What a very naughty child will get into and a pocket of air filled with cosines and tangents.

Pocket of air filled with cosines and tangents?

Yeah.

Clearly, that’s the fanciful one.

Wow.

Okay.

What’s a pocket of air?

A winch here.

What are you going to get into if you’re very naughty?

Oh, oh.

Oh, oh.

Trouble trouble.

You’re going to get in…

Trouble?

So it’s troubles in the first one and bubbles in the second one.

So…

Yeah.

I like the way you’re working this out.

Trouble…

Yeah.

Trouble…

What’s with a B?

What goes with trouble that has a B?

Grant Barrett, you get in here or you’re going to be in…

Oh, big trouble.

And?

Trig bubble.

There you go.

Oh, my gosh.

Ding, ding, ding, we have our horrible joke whatever the heck.

Stuck here in a trig bubble.

It could be a place where you’re safe from trigonometry.

He’s been talking to my mother again, Martha.

He knows.

He knows.

That’s the way he gets in.

I sat in more corners.

Okay.

Here we go.

One of America’s two favorite radio wordsmiths and the attic where the goose is kept.

So John Ciardi and…

Jeffrey Nunberg.

Yeah.

So…

Jeffrey Junberg.

There we are.

The what?

One of America’s two favorite radio wordsmiths and the attic where the goose is kept.

Grant Barrett and Brant Garrett?

The Brant Garrett.

What the hell is a Brant?

A Brant is a kind of goose.

Look it up.

I will.

It’s funny.

I know how to do that.

It’s right there right before Couch Rocket.

It’s just in the section right before.

Well, is that it?

That’s all I got.

You know, these always end too quickly for me.

I’m serious.

Even though I get, like, one out of ten, they’re great fun.

Well, I do have, like, two pages worth that we haven’t done.

Oh, you can save those for a couple months from now when we’ve completely forgotten.

I’ll just do the same ones.

You can just do the same one, Martha, and I’ll be like, oh, these are new.

But, no, this is great fun, Greg, and I want to thank you for taking all this time.

This is fantastic.

It’s my pleasure.

I always like plumbing decay with YouTube birdwalks.

Greg, length’s a thought.

We’re yelp—

And if you’d like to ask us a question about language, what are you waiting for?

Give us a call.

The number’s 1-877-929-9673.

Or send an e-mail to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Julie calling from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Julie, what are you calling us about today?

Well, I am calling about a word called do-goody.

My — I had used it about a year ago in an office area to reference someone whose name I couldn’t remember.

And I got really, really strange looks from people in the office.

And they Googled it and they said this is obviously a made-up word.

I’m originally from Southwestern Indiana.

And I went back and queried my family because this is something my mom has always said.

-huh.

And they’ve all told me that it’s the word she made up.

Oh, really?

And what is the word again?

Doofity.

How would you spell that?

I would say D-O-O-F-I-G-T-Y.

Doofity.

And you would say this when you don’t remember somebody’s name then.

Correct.

Okay.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before.

I mean, I don’t want to alarm you or anything.

You’re looking for a rescue here, aren’t you?

I am.

I thought maybe it was just a regional colloquialism because that region is — there’s a lot of — it’s an old coal mining area.

And they have a very distinctive accent around there.

They put Earl in their car and that sort of thing.

Earl, yeah.

And flush the toilet.

Do they flush the toilet?

Oh, yeah.

You put the R in it because it gets a cleaner.

You put the R in the toilet to make it cleaner?

No.

You put the R in wash to make it cleaner.

I never heard that.

I never heard that.

And they say doofity.

Grant, I’ve never heard that either.

I’ve heard doohickey and dealy bobber and thingamabob and whatchamacallit.

I wrote an article about these kinds of terms once.

I remember a bunch of them.

Yeah, whatchamacallit, doodad.

The Brits say doodah.

There’s doowanger, doojigger, doohickey.

And those are just the D ones.

There’s also the T-U-H ones.

Thingamabob and thingummy and thingum and thingy.

And I know a few French ones too.

Boy, I never come across that one before, Julia.

I don’t know what to tell you.

I bet she did make it up.

And you know what?

I’ll tell you this.

All words were made up at some point and it’s just fine.

Yeah, so you guys are ahead of the game.

Well, that’s good.

We’ll try to spread it around and see if we can get it to catch on.

Here’s the trick.

When you use a word like that that you’re pretty sure that nobody else is going to know, just get a really superior look on your face.

Kind of stick your nose up in the air and you make them wonder.

And if they ask questions, just give them a scornful look.

Sounds good.

Well, Julia, I’m hoping that maybe some of our listeners will let us know if they’ve ever heard that word.

Well, that would be great.

Yeah, so the question is still open then.

You’ve still got a chance to prove it to your friends because maybe we’ll hear from somebody who also says the word “dufity.”

And is it blood related to me?

Right, right, right.

Exactly.

Is it related to your family?

No, she said somebody who’s not blood related to her.

Oh, somebody who’s not blood related to you.

Right.

All right.

Well, thanks a lot for calling.

Well, thank you so much.

All right.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Thank you, “dufity” and me at 1-877-929-9673.

Or you can try us on the discussion forum at waywordradio.org.

And you can always send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is John calling from Sonoma, California.

Hiya, John.

What’s going on in Sonoma?

Well, I actually was curious about something I called at one time “biz marks.”

When I was growing up in Illinois, we would go to the bakery and I would get biz marks, which other people call jelly donuts.

And I seem to be the only one that remembers, or up until recently, I was the only one that ever called them that.

And I saw an old rerun of “Father Knows Best,” a television show from the ’50s or ’60s.

Sure.

And Bud said, “Can I have another biz mark?”

And I said, “My goodness, I am not alone.”

You jumped out of your chair.

So then I would make a point of saying, “Oh, biz marks.”

Or I would go in to get donuts and I’d say, “I’d have half a dozen biz marks.”

And they’d say, “What?”

And I’d say, “Well, give me some jelly donuts instead.”

Are they the same thing?

Then I Googled it.

-huh.

I got over 1,000, maybe 1,500 hits.

There are people that still call them that, I guess.

Sure.

And I suppose the obvious reason is they were named after either North Dakota or Count Bismarck or whatever.

And I guess my question is, is that true?

Were they named after him?

Why am I the only one that seems to remember them as biz marks?

And is that enough of a question?

That’s a great question.

So is it exactly the same thing as a jelly donut?

It is a jelly donut.

Oh, it is.

Okay.

Well, as far as I can tell, but when I was a little kid and I’ve lived in various places in the country, but I always remember that biz marks seems like something special.

Yes.

I know.

And whenever we would go back to visit, I had to go to that bakery.

It might have been that they used a certain kind of filling and maybe they cooked them a little differently.

I don’t know.

Did it have powdered sugar on the top?

Oh, my heavens no.

It had to be glazed.

Oh, glazed.

Okay.

Very particular about your biz marks then, huh?

And a certain kind of jelly?

Well, I don’t know.

You know, when you get jelly donuts today, you can get anything in them.

Right.

And you can get custard or raspberry or strawberry.

Yeah.

They’ll put pickle relish in there if you want.

Yeah, they don’t make jelly donuts like they used to.

You grew up in Illinois.

Where in Illinois?

Well, here’s the thing.

It was the street of Illinois.

And one of the things that I guess another thing that was in the back of my mind was that in “Father Knows Best,” they lived in a town called Springfield.

Just like the Simpsons.

So I wondered if the writer was from Illinois or something and they called them biz marks when he was a kid or something.

Yes, that could well be.

And you know, the story I’ve heard, John, is that it comes from the Hotel Bismarck in Chicago, which was built by German immigrants.

So what, it was a specialty of the house restaurant?

Yes.

Yeah, or they had a bakery there, actually.

And it doesn’t surprise me because a lot of times foods get named and get associated with a particular hotel or a particular restaurant.

I know when I was growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, we had a hot brown.

And do you know what that had in it, John?

Have you ever had a hot brown?

I don’t think so.

Not by that name.

Well, it’s from the Brown Hotel in Louisville and it was, get this, it was an open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon and cheese sauce.

Pass the Lipitor.

Yeah, pass the Lipitor, holy moly.

Of course, everyone thinks of Waldorf salad as well, which supposedly was named after the hotel.

Right.

Was it?

Yeah.

I think it was, as far as I know.

That’s the story anyway.

And the story that I heard about Bismarck Donuts is that they were, that they originated there, or at least they were popularized by Germans in that area, the Hotel Bismarck probably being named for the Chancellor Bismarck, the German Chancellor.

Well, John, I think that your connection to Illinois is strong because I think that is actually where the term originated.

That’s where it’s still most used.

And I’m not surprised that you don’t find it elsewhere.

That’s the best we can tell you, but I think that’s pretty good information.

Well, I’m happy.

Okay.

Bon appetit.

Yeah, bon appetit.

Okay.

Au revoir.

Take care of yourself there.

Au revoir.

Auf Wiedersehen.

Auf Wien.

Goodbye.

You know, Grant, I neglected to mention that a Bismarck is also a drink.

Oh, really?

Did you know that?

Yes.

What’s in that?

It’s a mixture of champagne and stout.

Sounds pretty yummy, huh?

I’m not sure about that.

It’s also called a black velvet.

If you’ve got a question about food or you want to send us a care package, give us a call, 1-877-9299673, send us an email to words@waywordradio.org, or talk about your food fantasies on our discussion forum, also at waywordradio.org.

In an earlier episode, we had a call about the expression “bread and butter,” which people sometimes say when they’re walking together, and an obstruction in their path makes each of them step around it on opposite sides.

And boy, do we get a lot of email about that, Grant.

Michael from Ontario, Canada, wrote to say his own parents used to do this all the time, but with any two things that went together, like bread and butter, pepper and salt, or ham and eggs.

Zev from Peaks Island, Maine, says the version he heard goes like this.

When you’re walking down the sidewalk with someone and you separate yourself from said person by walking between a lamppost and the street, you’re supposed to stop, go back around the correct way, and say “bread and butter.”

Zev goes on to point out that there’s an example of this version in a 1956 Popeye the Sailor cartoon.

If you’d like to watch this brief cartoon featuring the bread and butter superstition, go to our website.

That’s waywordradio.org.

Grant, I love that little cartoon.

I was watching it the other day.

I was a big Popeye fan growing up.

Were you?

I have one trait.

I say muskles.

I mean muskles sometimes.

And you had the hots for olive oil, I’ll bet.

La, la, la, la, la.

Very good.

Finally, this from Judy.

She’s a librarian at the University of Michigan.

And Judy writes, “I just listened to your podcast with the question about bread and butter when I started to watch a very old Twilight Zone episode on the SyFy channel.

It starred William Shatner in his pre-Star Trek self as a man making his way across the wilds of Ohio with his new bride, played by Patricia Breslin.

As they walk down the small town street, they come to a light post.

She begins to go on the opposite side of the light post, but he pulls her toward him saying, ‘Bread and butter.’

Then in response to her, ‘Yes, dear,’ he says, ‘Just trying to save your life.’

Judy adds, ‘Pretty dang hunky, Shatner.'”

Isn’t that a weird coincidence?

There should be a word for that, Grant, where you’re hearing a word and then you see it again.

Oh, there’s a bunch of those.

I guess there are.

We’ll put them on the website.

And if you want to share your observations about language, pick up the phone and give us a call at 1-877-929-9673.

Or you can send your crazy synchronicity to us by email to words@waywordradio.org.

Stay tuned for a game of slang this in which we try to figure out the meaning of strange language and more of your calls on A Way with Words.

Support for A Way with Words comes from Word Smart, the vocabulary building software.

Improving your vocabulary, reading comprehension, and critical thinking skills will increase your chances for success.

Learn more online at wordsmart.tv.

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You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And it’s time for Slang This, our puzzle about slang.

Today’s contestant is Saralyn Ferrara from San Diego.

Saralyn, come on down.

Oh, great.

Hello.

How are you?

Doing great.

How are you doing, Saralyn?

I’m doing great.

Are you psyched?

I’m psyched.

I’m ready.

Okay.

Well, Saralyn, as you know, to get past door number one in this challenge, you have to share your favorite slang expression with us.

So, Saralyn, what would that be?

One I use quite often.

It’s “in a nutshell.”

“In a nutshell.”

Yeah.

That’s it.

And why do you like that?

It just sums things up for me.

People know when I’m done with my thoughts.

I like that.

You know, I did some research on that phrase a while back, and I think it might come from the idea of trying to scribble something very small in a nutshell, like the Iliad or something.

I don’t know why.

Right.

That used to be a passion of people, right?

You’d get publicity because you wrote the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin or on a pearl or something, and then you would write whole long things in microscopic type inside a nutshell.

I don’t know what you would do with it after that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think there’s a connection there.

Well, anyway, we’ll have to look that one up and refresh our memories.

Well, Saralyn, we’re going to go on to your next challenge.

Grant’s going to present you a slang term, and then he’s going to give you three possible examples of how it might be used in a sentence, but only one of those is real, and your job will be to choose the real slang term.

And if you need help, Saralyn, I’ll be here offering moral support, okay?

Just moral support.

Just moral.

Okay.

No checks.

All right, here we go.

The first expression today, Saralyn, is “wigs on the green.”

That’s four words, w-i-g-s-o-n-t-h-e-g-r-e-e-n, wigs on the green.

And the first clue is, “I am a Connolly.

I’ll have to be getting home now.

It’ll be wigs on the green with me, missus.

Her mom’s come for a stay, and I’m expected home before supper.”

I know, that’s horrible, and I apologize to the British people for that.

I said British because it’s hard to tell whether or not that was actually Scots or Irish.

Those people over there.

Yeah, I thought it was Irish at first, but British will do.

All right, here’s the second clue.

“Once derided as the wigs on the green circuit, the Senior PGA Championship Tour is now one of the most successful in the country.”

And the third clue.

“Nah, nobody calls them dead presidents or Benjamins anymore.

These days, if you’re really hip, you call greenbacks wigs on the green.”

So is it A, a fight or difference of opinion?

Is it B, the PGA Seniors Golf Tour?

Or is it C, paper money?

Whoa, Sarah Lynn, what do you think?

Let’s do A.

You think it’s a fight or difference of opinion?

Are you Googling my answer?

Am I what?

No, I wouldn’t do that.

Although that’s a good idea.

Hold on a second.

I got a big red switch here.

I can turn off the whole internet.

I’ll do that.

Now, Sarah Lynn, why would you guess that?

Why would you guess wigs on the green is a fight?

You know, it was a process of elimination.

I don’t think it had anything to do with the PGA.

So it was just a guess.

You don’t think they wear wigs in the PGA?

I mean, they have those sort of ugly pants.

Yeah, that’s right.

That’s right.

And ugly moving jackets.

But I think A was that accent, that British accent, right?

Because I worked so hard at being so awful.

Yeah.

I just wanted to acknowledge.

I wouldn’t have been so embarrassing, right?

Exposed my bad acting skills if it wasn’t correct.

I think you have to do that for a reason.

I mean, that must be the answer, because why else would you have done that?

Oh, very well.

You were 100% correct, Sarah Lynn.

It is indeed the answer.

All right.

Wigs on the green.

To have wigs on the green means to have a fight or difference of opinion.

Think about the old days when gentlemen wore powdered wigs, and if they got into a fight, they would be all askew, right?

There you go.

And they’d be on the green, which means, you know, in the common area of town or on the grass or what have you.

All right.

Here’s one more for you.

This term is fake-a-bake, and I’ve written it as F-A-K-E-A-B-A-K-E, fake-a-bake.

And the first clue is, nobody’s going to know that you went the fake-a-bake route with dinner.

Just sprinkle a little flour on your shirt and make some good coffee.

They’ll think you baked the madeleines yourself.

And the second clue, the ads for the fake-a-bake creams make it seem like your tan will be natural, but when you come out looking like a bag of carrots, who’s not going to notice?

And the third clue, what do you mean fake-a-bake?

Dude, he said it was weed.

I asked for a dime bag and he gave me this.

How’s I supposed to know that it was oregano?

So there are your three clues.

Is it A, passing off desserts from a bakery is something you baked yourself?

Is it B, sunless tanning using chemicals or lotions?

Or is it C, legal cooking herbs sold as marijuana?

Not that you would know about number three.

No, that’s just way beyond me.

But I think I could be wrong when I use this slang, but I would say it’s B, a fake tan.

Because I’ve used that before, but maybe I said it’s a fake-a-bake.

Indeed it is.

Absolutely correct.

B, sunless tanning using chemicals or lotions, sometimes just called fake-bake, or baking fake or something like that.

There are a lot of different variants on that.

But it makes sense because you’re not actually under the sun, so it’s a fake way of baking yourself.

I don’t know, whatever.

Yes, it’s B.

Good.

That’s all.

Nicely done, Sarah Lynn.

You got two for two and you’re the slang hero of the day.

So that’s it?

There’s no more?

No, that’s it.

Do you want some more?

I’ll make some up on the spot.

Well, when I went.

You won a year’s — Well, that was fun.

I enjoyed that.

A free phone call.

That’s great.

And one was a guess, a kind of a guess.

Yeah, you did wonderfully.

And for playing our game, we’re going to send you a year’s supply of fake-a-bake creams.

Great.

I want a dark, dark tan, please.

Do you?

Okay.

I like a Latin tan, you know?

-huh.

Yeah.

Well, that was fun.

I enjoyed that.

Thank you all.

Yeah, well, thank you.

And I tell you what, really, we’re going to send you a copy of Grant’s book.

It’s called The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang.

Ooh, wow, that I would enjoy.

Yeah, Sarah Lynn, that’s perfect for an election year, huh?

Exactly.

That’s just what I was thinking.

All right.

Well, thanks for playing.

Hey, thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

And if you’d like to play our slang game on the air, call us.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or send us an e-mail to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, hello.

It’s Dorothy Hughes on Mount Helix.

Hi, Dorothy.

How are you doing today?

Pretty good, thank you.

What’s on your mind today, Dorothy?

I’m a retired professor, and I jokingly say the reason I got a Ph.D. Was because I was so annoyed in the 1960s with people saying “Ms.” Instead of “Mrs.”

But in those days, you still didn’t have your name.

You had, you know, it was Mrs.

Joe Jones or whoever you were.

Right.

And you went to college to get your MRS degree, right?

No, I went to college to get my doctorate.

Oh, well, yeah.

I meant women in general used to say that, you know.

Well, yeah, but anyhow.

Right.

So you wanted to be a doctor, Dr.

Dorothy.

Yeah, but the thing is that I retired in 1992 and became a professor emeritus.

And editors, I do a lot of writing and get quoted on things, and they call me emerita or emeriti.

And it goes back to that same old “Ms.” Thing, you know.

I say, “Oh, no, it’s emeritus.

That’s the fifth declension in Latin.”

But I don’t even know if there is a fifth declension in Latin.

Well, there is.

Bravo for bluffing, because I bet you win the day every time.

Oh, yeah, they just had to say, “Oh, okay.”

Right.

They can’t argue with you.

You have a Ph.D., right?

It really bugs me to say, to feminize this, because it shouldn’t be.

So what do you think?

The Latin is kind of irrelevant here.

I mean, there isn’t a — if you look at emeritus and emerita in Latin, you’ll see that they are two different forms.

But your question is, here in the 21st century, should we actually be differentiating between a professor who has made a contribution to a university over years and years and years?

Should we differentiate between the male and the female there?

Right.

Right.

And I would have to agree with you.

Really?

I’m actually surprised to hear you say that.

Really?

I don’t have a really strong opinion on this, but I do know that “professor emerita” can be an actual correct way to refer to somebody in Dorothy’s position.

Oh, sure.

Sure.

And that word came into English 200 years or so after emeritus.

It was around the beginning of the 1900s when they suddenly started having, I suppose, women infiltrating academia like that.

Well, I think I’m going to side with you both and say that even though “professor emerita” exists, “actress” also exists, but I think “actor” is perfectly fine to apply to a man or woman, and I think “professor emeritus” is also perfectly fine to apply to a man or woman.

Thank you.

So I think we’re all in agreement.

Yeah.

So do you get — But it’s highly unusual.

We’re the bells.

There should be a symphony playing, right?

More than I in agreement.

Well, Dorothy, I hope you get some perks being in emeritus.

Oh, well, on campus I get free parking.

Well, that’s gold.

And free use of the water fountain.

Oh, yeah, in California that’s gold, right?

That is gold in California.

Yeah, I’ve seen students wearing T-shirts that say, “Tell my professor I’m looking for a parking place.”

Hey, thanks for calling.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

We may have a lot of professors call up and disagree with us on this point, but we’re ready to hear it.

So give us a call at 1-877-929-9673.

Or drop by the discussion forum to discuss this show at waywordradio.org, and you can always send us e-mail.

We read everything to words@waywordradio.org.

Music Grant, a few weeks ago on our show we were discussing the word “biffy.”

Remember meaning a kind of toilet or outhouse or port-a-potty?

That prompted quite a few e-mails, including this one from Larry Christie of Oceanside, California.

Larry writes, “I was born at a midwife’s home while a raging January blizzard was in full force at Pierre, South Dakota.”

Thank you, Grant, the capital of the state.

“On his family’s farm, they used ‘biffy’ to mean ‘an outdoor or indoor toilet,’ whether it was a two-holer or a flushable pot.

A catalog was our toilet tissue.

One did not dally in the middle of a raging blizzard and below zero temperatures.

Often stripes of snow had to be brushed away from the seat that came through the cracks between the boards of the wall.”

Brrr.

Several other listeners wrote with suggested etymologies for the word “biffy.”

Some of you suggested that “biffy” is an acronym that stands for “bathroom in the forest for you.”

No.

Almost simply not.

No.

Others pointed out that there’s a brand of port-a-potty marked with BFI in big white letters, standing for Brown Ferris Industries, which is a waste management company, although I think that they have their hands in a lot of other businesses as well.

Thanks for that.

However, the problem with BFI is that I haven’t found proof that that company was in the portable toilet business before 1942. 1942 is when we first find “biffy” used in print.

Also, the term “biffy” seems more common in the upper Midwest, and BFI does business everywhere, and I think they’re based in Texas.

If you’ve got information that shows that BFI was in the portable toilet business before 1942, let me know.

Well, if you think of a question or comment about what you hear on A Way with Words, you can always write to us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

You can also leave comments in our episodes section of our online forum, or call us anytime at 1-877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Mary Ann from Wrightstown, Wisconsin.

What’s going on in Wrightstown?

Well, I have a question for you about Duck, Duck, Goose, the game that you play when you’re a little kid.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tell us how you play that.

Well, you sit in a circle with a bunch of kids, and one person is it, and they go around, and they hit people on the head as they go around, and they say, “Duck, duck, duck,” and then when they get to someone that they pick, they say, “Goose,” and that person, they run around the outside of the circle, and the person has to get to where that other person was sitting before they get them.

Right, hours of fun.

Hours, yeah, very much so.

That’s for when you’re very young, just kindergarten or even preschool, right?

Kindergarten, first grade, right, yep.

And I have a niece and a nephew who live in St.

Paul, Minnesota, and they’re in preschool, and they came home from preschool and said they played “Duck, duck, gray duck,” and my brother and I and my brother’s wife, we’ve never heard of “Duck, duck, gray duck,” we always played “Duck, duck, goose,” so we’re wondering why in that part of Minnesota they say “Duck, duck, gray duck.”

Okay.

Is that how you and your husband met, playing “Duck, duck, goose?”

No, I haven’t played “Duck, duck, goose” in a very long time.

Wow, gray duck, I’ve never heard that one.

In this case, Minnesota, though, let’s call it, it has a Texas characteristic about it in this particular case, and by that I mean Texas is so often the exception to various rules and things, or at least it thinks it is.

In this case, Minnesota is the exception because as far as I know, this is the only place in the country where they play “Duck, duck, gray duck,” and it’s fairly well known.

The Dictionary of American Regional English has an entry where they comment on it.

The dictionary’s editors have talked about it in news articles.

It comes up now and again when the Minnesotans are doing what I call “Chamber of Commerce” pieces in the newspapers, and these are where they talk kind of with pride about the things that make the Minnesotans, the words that they use or the behaviors that they have, or their particular perverse pride in the fact that they know how to navigate eight feet of snow without a show, you know?

And they play “Duck, duck, gray duck.”

And they play “Duck, duck, gray duck.”

And do they say why they play “Duck, duck, gray duck” or when that started, or it’s just, that’s what they do?

I do know that it goes back to at least the 1940s, so it’s nothing recent.

So there are generations of Minnesotan kids that grew up playing “Duck, duck, gray duck” and don’t think twice about it until they run into “Duck, duck, goose” people and go, “What?

You guys are doing it wrong.”

And that’s how I felt when I heard it.

I’m like, “What?

Duck, duck, gray duck?

Who plays math?”

Yeah, the Minnesotans, they actually have this weird thing where they kind of look outward at their other 49 states and go, “Oh, no, you all, you guys are doing it wrong.

We’re doing it right.”

But they are their own, and it’s not even the entire state.

I’m not sure exactly where it’s centered.

It might be more to the south of the state, so I’m not 100% sure.

Okay, yeah, and they’re in St.

Paul.

You know, if I were playing this in St.

Paul, I think I’d go inside and warm up with gray goose.

[Laughter] Just a thought.

Yeah, they’re a little chilly there.

[Laughter] Well, Mary Ann, thanks for an interesting question.

I bet we were, though.

Thank you for answering it for me.

All right.

All right, take care of yourself.

Stay warm.

Yes, you too.

All right, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

I was going to say, they’re warm people.

She meant that they have cold weather, right?

They do.

Granted, it’s so much fun exploring all these children’s games.

You know, one of my favorite ones that I came across only in the dictionary was one called “Honeypot.”

Do you know that one?

No.

If you look it up in the OED, it says, “A children’s game, one of the players called a honeypot sits with his hands locked under his hams, while the ‘honey merchants’ lift him by the armpits as handles, pretend to carry him to market, and shake him with the aim of making him let go his hold.”

Also called…

[Laughter] Isn’t that great?

I mean, you want to get rid of TV and Game Boys?

That’s what we’re going to be stuck with, honeypot.

We’d love to hear about your childhood games, old rhymes, and stuff that you have to remember from when you were very, very young.

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

[Music] Well, that’s our show for this week, but you can always call us with your questions about language.

The number is 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Our senior producer is Stefanie Levine.

Tim Felten is our technical director and editor.

We’ve had production assistance from Robert Fung and Dana Polakovsky.

“A Way with Words” is produced at Studio West in San Diego.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, inviting you to join us next time, right here on “A Way with Words.”

[Music] Oh, if we call the whole thing off, then we must part.

And oh, if we ever part, then that might break my heart.

So if you like pajamas and I like pajamas, I’ll wear pajamas and give up pajamas.

For we know we need each other, so we better call the calling off off.

Let’s call the whole thing off.

You say laughter and I say lobster.

You say actor and I say Oscar.

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