Sailor’s Delight

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

And I’m Martha Barnette. The other night I saw a spectacular sunset, and I was reminded of that little ditty that goes, red sky at night, sailors delight, red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

You remember that one, Grant?

I do, as a matter of fact.

Is that the way you learned it?

It was something similar to that.

But I think of sailors and seafaring when I hear that one.

Yeah, right, right.

Well, I got curious about that phrase. And I did some digging, and I discovered so many different versions of this idea. And they’re not just involving sailors. They’re involving anybody who works outside and depends on knowing the weather.

How about this one? Evening gray and morning red make the shepherd hang his head. It’s like, bummer, I have to go out in the rain.

And this idea actually goes all the way back. I didn’t realize this. It goes all the way back to the Gospel of Matthew.

That long?

Yeah, yeah. And I’m sure farther back than that. But there’s a passage where Jesus quotes the conventional wisdom about the weather. He says, when it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and lowering.

And I was thinking that, you know, it’s kind of a cool reminder that you don’t necessarily have to have a weather app.

No, no, no.

Or satellite or radar to predict the weather.

Oh, that’s very good. You know, I’ve got a term about weather that’s not quite that old. It dates back to about the 17th century, but it’s such an odd word to hear, particularly when you find out what it means.

Oh, good.

The word slatch, S-L-A-T-C-H, slatch.

Never heard it.

Slatch?

Yeah, you would think that’d be something ugly or filthy or something kind of greasy or yucky or something. No, it means a short gleam of fine weather. A slatch. Isn’t that wonderful?

Oh, that’s nice.

Yeah, and more specifically in New England, I’m reading from the American Heritage Dictionary, they have a really nice usage note on this. It can also be a lull between breaking waves or a lull in a high windstorm.

And I just loved the idea that there was kind of this discrepancy here. We’ve often talked about euphonious words that somehow sound like the thing that they can note. But this is the word where it’s the opposite. Slatch does not seem like it would be a wonderful thing. There was a slatch yesterday, and so I stepped out before the storm set in again.

Oh, gosh, I love that.

Something like that. Sort of like those bright intervals that the weathercasters talk about in England.

Very good.

Exactly right. But I like slatch. That’s great.

Share your weather sayings with us to words@waywordradio.org or recite them as poetry on our phone line, 1-877-929-9673.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Candice.

Hi, and where are you calling from?

Dallas, Texas.

Dallas, Texas. Well, welcome, Candice, from Dallas. What can we do for you?

Well, I had a question about a certain phrase. I recently got an email, and it was a team-wide email, CC to about 10 people, and the title of the email was On the Stick. Body of the email was really talking about some protocol that we’d been missing as a team, and, you know, our manager really wanted us to stay on the stick, be on the stick.

And about five of us responded independently of each other and were like, do you mean on the ball? Because she used it in the way that you would use the term on the ball. And she said, no, no, no, on the stick, on the stick, on the stick. And we all thought she was a little crazy. And I can’t find reference to the phrase anywhere.

However, I am new to Texas. I’m actually from Seattle. So I was wondering whether or not it’s a regional thing, if the phrase is actually real, or if she’s confused, because sometimes she gets a little confused. Not that I don’t love my boss because she’s great. But I had no idea what was going on, and I thought you guys would be able to tell me.

Wow.

So get on the stick. She wanted you to what?

Get your act together?

Yeah, on the stick. We all want to be on the stick as a team.

I see. On the ball as a team makes sense to me, but on the stick makes no sense whatsoever. Or at least I haven’t heard it before.

Oh, that’s interesting to me. That’s incredibly interesting. I’m surprised that so many people out of 10 had never heard the term before. Is it a common phrase?

Yeah, it kind of is.

So she wanted you all to stop talking about grammar and get back to work?

I mean, does this happen a lot in your office or wherever you are?

Well, no. She just has a habit of mixing phrases. She’s done it a couple of times where she’s mixed phrases. So I think we were all sort of teasing her, but then it became this search of what’s the origin of all that, and we couldn’t find it anywhere.

So nobody got any work done that afternoon, right?

No, we ignored everybody. Who needs social work when you can find things on the Internet?

Yes, the great time waster.

Okay. Well, okay, you’ve called the right place because we make some small effort to get on the stick when it comes to finding answers for questions like these. First of all, your boss didn’t invent this, and it’s not a mixed metaphor. It is a standard idiom in American English. So she’s covered there.

It’s good for the boss to be right, right?

Yeah.

Always.

And the thing that interests me the most about this is that I was kind of surprised when I first ran across the origin of this that all of the sources that you can check say that it comes from the early days of automobiles. And it is about the stick shift in an automobile.

Have you ever driven a stick shift or a manual?

I have not. I’m an automatic girl.

I’m here to a stick shift.

Well, even on automatic, you can hear when the car needs to shift gears. There’s a sound that you grow accustomed to where you can hear that it’s just revving too much. And you need to shift to another gear so the engine doesn’t have to work as hard in order to put out the energy required to maintain the speed, right?

And when you’re driving a manual or a stick, you just learn instinctively. You can hear the car telling you, now’s the time to shift, now’s the time to shift. And so to get on the stick is to get on that actual, literally get on the stick shift and move it into the proper gear and do the thing that needs to be done.

Yeah.

So that’s a good metaphor, right?

That totally makes sense. And, you know, when we were arguing about it via email, I was picturing the same thing as on the baseball reference, you know, being on the ball, being on the stick. I thought like a bat. That’s what I was seeing in my head.

So that makes more sense, the stick shift.

Yeah.

Well, so what about the ball? Is that the ball on top of the stick shift?

Well, no. On the ball, there you go, is indeed from baseball. And as far as I can tell, you know, and the thing about this is that stick and ball are used in so many different metaphors. And they’re very common English words, and they pop up a thousand different places when you barely start looking.

So right now it looks like on the ball comes from baseball, and it’s about throwing a pitch that is just right. You know, if you are on the ball, it means you’ve got a good game going, you’re throwing the mean stuff, the nasty stuff across the plate. One interesting thing, I was looking in the Dictionary of American Regional Language here, that even on the ball is so common that it shows up in Hawaiian as on the kinipopo.

What?

Yeah, kinipopo is ball or baseball in Hawaiian.

So on the kinipopo means to be on the ball or on target.

I can see your boss’s next email right now.

Let’s all get on the kinipopo.

Yeah, it’s catchy, right?

Yeah, it’s a great little, I love the sound of that word, kinipopo, right?

So, Candice, it sounds like you have three options, huh?

I definitely do.

It’s unfortunate that she was correct because that means we can’t tease her anymore.

Oh, you can still tease her about her kinipopo.

And also get on the sticks.

Well, thank you so much.

Thank you, Candice, for calling today.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Have a great day.

You too.

Well, the language referees have our whistles in hand, so call us 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Barbara from Del Mar, California in the San Diego area.

What’s going on, Barbara?

Well, my question is, can you think of another word besides mentee for someone who is mentored?

And this came up because I’m active in women’s ministries at our church, and I’m involved in mentoring.

And I like the word mentor and the whole concept, but mentee bothers me.

And I don’t know if it’s just me, but it makes me think of manatee, that ugly animal in the ocean.

Right, you’re not that big, right?

Then I thought, oh, maybe it’s just me, or maybe it’s just in the church circle they use that word.

But our daughter is doing an MD-PhD program in Houston.

And she said in her circles, which would be academic and medical, they use mentee also.

So a friend of mine at church said she has heard mentoree being used, which I don’t think is going to catch on because it’s too long.

And too late.

Yeah.

And I looked it up in Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition, which is our newest.

And I learned that there was a person in Greek literature, and a mentor was a friend of Odysseus entrusted with the education of Odysseus’ son named Telemachus.

Yep.

And so my husband, the scientist, the logical one, said that this is a false analogy, that we’re taking a noun, mentor, as if it’s advisor, and then we’re adding E.E. to it.

Yep.

But the second definition in the dictionary was a trusted counselor or guide, a tutor or a coach.

And I also saw that the verb, the transitive verb, just came in in 1983.

So what ideas do you have?

Yeah, there are a few that come to mind immediately.

What about protege?

I was thinking of protege.

But I also tend to think that that’s in music or, you know, it may be in intellectual circles.

Okay.

And a protege to me has to be a star in the field, like with great talent.

But someone who’s mentored just has to be someone who wants to grow in some way.

So they’re not starting out with genius.

They’re working toward genius.

Well, what about, that’s well, you know, I go back to this, Martha.

I suggested this for the name of somebody that you babysit.

Oh, I heard that whole thing.

Yeah, what was that?

What about a Padawan?

Do you watch the Star Wars movies?

No, I’m not into that.

And I will point out, mentoring in the church, you are not necessarily mentoring someone who is of a chronologically younger age.

It usually is.

But it has to do with spiritual maturity.

I know women in their 30s who are very spiritually mature, and they might, if it’s agreeable, take on a woman who’s 10 years older.

I see.

So the word sapling couldn’t be reported.

No, definitely not.

Well, you’re coming up with a lot of ideas.

I’m sorry I’m shooting everyone down, though.

That’s okay.

I’m used to it.

Oh, you’re used to it.

You’ve been talking to my wife.

Oh, no.

Oh, well, you know, I guess we’re going to have to turn on the sirens and turn on the flashing lights and see what our listeners can come up with.

Oh, that would be a good idea.

What is a better word for mentee that is somebody who follows a mentor?

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

Help Barbara out.

Oh, please.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

And I’ll stay tuned to hear what you find out.

All righty, Barbara.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks a lot.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Martha, if we were in the UK and it was cold and invigorating outside, what would we call it?

Brisk?

Well, parky. P-A-R-K-Y.

Parky.

Yeah, you know, we speak a different language.

I don’t know what they’re doing over there to like the English language.

We’ve got like the real thing going on over here and they’re like corrupting it.

I’m kidding. I’m kidding.

No, but it was a fun British term that I didn’t know and I thought I’d share it.

Parkey. Send your questions about language to words@waywordradio.org or give us a call 1-877-929-9673. Coming up, some aerobics for your brain. That’s next on A Way with Words.

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

And I’m Martha Barnette. And we’re joined once again by the greatquisition, John Chaneski.

Aquisition. Hi, Martha.

You like it?

How are you doing?

I like that little certificate on your wall.

Quiz is going to puzzle myself.

I’ll do so, and I’ll puzzle you as well.

All right.

You’re going to hate the paperwork, though.

This one is a simple quiz, but there’s sort of a competitive aspect to it between you guys, I think.

All right.

Good.

I’m ready.

I’ve assembled a collection of two-word phrases.

Each phrase begins with either G and B or M and B.

Okay.

Get it?

Mm—

Okay.

For example, if I said a surgical alternative to dieting, you might say…

Gastric bypass.

Gastric bypass.

Good.

That’s a GB.

And if I said to pretend like Mr. Rogers land, you would say…

Make believe.

Make believe.

There’s your MB.

Very good.

Okay.

Now, I’m not going to tell you which pair of letters I’m cluing.

You’ll just have to guess.

Okay?

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

This clue is just a list.

Turkey, duck, pheasant, quail, geese, partridge, ptarmigan.

Gamebirds.

Gamebirds.

There’s a GB right there.

Very good.

And this clue is merely a three-word question.

Paper or plastic?

Grocery bag.

Grocery bag.

Another GB.

Here’s another one.

Where can you find Ventnor Avenue, Oriental Avenue, and the Reading Railroad?

The Monopoly Board.

Monopoly Board.

Very good.

And a related question, what company is well known for making Monopoly Boards?

Milton Bradley.

Milton Bradley.

Two MBs in a row.

Very good.

Now, some people believe an extract from this tree’s leaves can enhance something.

I can’t remember what.

Kinkgo biloba?

Biloba, right?

Maloba.

Maloba.

Maloba, yeah.

Maloba, very good.

Here’s the next one.

While catching a bouquet at a wedding means you’ll be next to wed, catching this confers a more immediate honor.

Is that a garter belt?

A garter belt, right.

There’s your GB.

Wait, what do you get if you catch a garter belt?

You get to place it on the leg of the lady who caught the bouquet, I believe.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

That’s the weddings I go to.

That’s what happens.

Yeah, I don’t know if we go to the same weddings or not.

No.

Maybe it’s an Italian thing.

I don’t know.

Now, this one’s a little trivia based.

Let’s see if you know it.

In a classic rock ballad, when the players tried to take the field, this refused to yield.

The marching band.

Marching band, yes.

The marching band refused to yield.

Nice.

What song was that?

American Pie.

Couldn’t you tell?

Name that tune and four notes.

The wrong notes, but four notes.

The medical term for this condition is cutis anserina.

And the act of inducing this condition is known as horripilation.

Goosebumps.

Goosebumps, yes, very good.

Well, that gave me goosebumps.

Me too.

Gives me goosebumps just to say it.

How about this one?

Coincidentally, Barrett’s is a popular brand of this kind of slightly carbonated alcoholic drink.

Gin blossom?

No.

Ginger beer.

Ginger beer is right.

Yeah, very good.

Used to make a Moscow mule or a dark and stormy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

Very good.

And here’s the last one.

This is a phrase describing these questions.

It means a little of this, a little of that.

A grab bag?

Grab bag or?

Or a mixed bag.

Or a mixed bag.

Very good.

There’s a GB and an MB.

Very nice.

A little something for everyone there.

Good job, guys.

Thank you.

No, good job to you, sir.

Thank you.

Or flattering us by using our initials in that way.

A little tribute.

Yeah, and if you’d like to flatter us or ask us a question, call us 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, hello.

This is Todd from Balboa, California.

Hi, Todd.

Welcome.

Hi, Todd.

Welcome.

Greetings.

Hello.

My question actually directly concerns my name. For as long as I can remember, grade school, substitute teachers in high school, college professors, doctors, and the most comical one to me is when you’re at an event wearing a Hello, My Name is sticker with my name Todd on it. I am inevitably called Scott, and it’s happened too many times for it to be coincidental.

So my query to both of you is, have you heard of this phenomenon before? And if so, is there an explanation you could offer?

People getting our names wrong?

Absolutely, all the time.

What do you think the reason is?

I don’t know. I mean, I suppose, you know, with the double consonant, that would be something to consider. But, again, it’s happened too many times over my life for me to think that it’s coincidental, and especially with someone looking directly at a name tag, shaking your hand, and then saying, nice to meet you, Scott.

Yeah, well, how annoying it must be.

Well, I don’t know. I don’t know that I need to change my name yet, but it’s something that I’ve just been curious about, and I thought that your avenue might be an interesting way to figure out what’s going on.

That’s really interesting. It’s the fact that the name is written down in front of me that kind of throws me for a loop. Because I can understand when you’re first introducing yourself to someone with your voice. Your name is context sensitive. So there is no context surrounding your name. They’re just my name is anything could fill that blank. And so they don’t have any particular kind of rules governing what could follow my name is.

So when you’re speaking aloud and you say, hello, my name is Grant Barrett, people often say Brant or Graham or Gary or Grant Barnette and 1,001 variations because they don’t have anything to associate my name with until after they’ve met me and known me for a while. And then they tend to get the name down, right?

Sure.

People who’ve known you for a while probably don’t make this mistake.

Well, close friends and family, of course. But as I mentioned, college professors, TAs, and there’s been cases where doctors who have my file, you know, we’re walking in. Hello. Hello, Scott. Nice to see you again.

Oh, really?

Very strange. I mean, it’s not just a preliminary introduction that this is occurring with.

How interesting. So you’re thinking that maybe it has something to do with those double letters, the two Ds and the two Ts?

That’s just a thought. I just figured I’d throw it out there. And, again, I didn’t really have an explanation for it, and that’s why I wanted to, you know.

It’s possible that the T and the D sounds are formed in nearly the same part of the mouth, and they’re remarkably similar sounds, which is why in words like butter, B-U-T-T-E-R, Americans tend to say butter, which sounds like B-U-D-D-E-R. And there are many words in English that behave this way. So for many of us, those two sounds are either identical or nearly identical, and they can be heard. One could be said and the other could be heard. They could be mistaken for each other.

I see. The first sound is a little more difficult, the S and the T, but the vowels are the same too. So you’ve got two of the three phonemes are nearly identical, identical or nearly identical. And it’s that initial sound that’s different. So a little stumped is why they would make this mistake.

You know, I bet there are a number of Todds in our audience who can tell us whether or not they have the same thing happen. This is the kind of thing we need to do, right? Maybe Scotts have the Todd problem. I don’t know if it goes both ways. I just know that I’ve been there for every occurrence, and I can tell you there’s been quite a few of them.

Scott and Todd, I’m talking to you guys. Send us an email and tell us. Do people get your name wrong? Tell us. Do people call you the other one? If your name is Scott, do they call you Todd? And if your name is Todd, do they call you Scott? We want to know. We want as many people as possible. You can also call us on the telephone and let us know, 1-877-929-9673.

And you, Todd, we will get back to you and let you know what we uncover.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Take care.

Thank you for calling.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Participate in our call to action. Send an email to words@waywordradio.org or call us at 1-877-929-9673 and let us know if your name is Todd or Scott if you are often confused for the other one.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Edith from Los Angeles.

Hi, Edith.

Hi, Edith. Welcome to the program.

Thank you.

Well, my question is another food question for you guys.

Yay!

Yummy.

Yeah, and this is about an ambrosia that my grandmother used to make decades ago, 50 years ago. I hate to use the word white trash, but that’s kind of what it is. It’s a pistachio pudding, Cool Whip, pineapple, walnuts, and I think I might have said marshmallow bits, but all of that mixed together.

Oh, my heavens. You know, it’s not classy, but it’s tasty. And the name that we had for it in our family, this is my question, is Pooflopoo Pie.

Say that again. One more time?

Right, right. Pooflopoo Pie.

So you would spell it P-O-O-F-L-A-P-O-O. Pie.

Okay. And I’ve never heard it called that. I’ve heard it called other things. This is what I’m wondering about. I’m wondering if this is only within our family, because the story is that it was, you know, and my grandmother had seven children, and the youngest of the children had, I guess, just seen a play and heard that word, and then named this dessert, whatever they called it, he coined it Poo-Poo-Poo Pie. And it stuck. It’s just something that’s been in our family that you’d only really eat at a family, you know, reunion, if ever. You wouldn’t bring it to somebody’s house and say, hey, I brought you some Poo-Poo-Poo?

No, no, no, no, no. Unless they really loved you and knew you very well.

But I know this dish. You said something about white trash. Believe me, there were seven or eight dishes of this stuff at my family reunions.

Really?

Yeah, and they called it a Watergate salad usually, although I have heard it called ambrosia, as you called it, but exactly the same stuff. Fruit, usually pineapples.

Pineapples?

Mm—

Sometimes the pistachio pudding is left out because that adds to the bill. But a little Cool Whip, walnuts, pineapple, marshmallows. I actually don’t care for it at all, but there were always big bowls of this stuff.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You could eat mountains of it and then not really feel very full, just a little gross.

So your question is, is this a family word or do other people call it this?

Yeah, yeah. And it’s beginning to seem like it’s just a family word, but I don’t know.

It might be, but you know what it made me think of when you first said it? Say the word again, please.

Poo-flop-oo, pie.

There is a dessert called ful, which is made of a pureed fruit mix with cream or custard. And so the ingredients are kind of similar to what you’re talking about. And the ful or the fool is in there as well. And I wonder if it’s just a corruption. If the relative who coined the word actually heard somebody calling it pudding ful pie or pistachio pudding ful pie and then just came up with a shorter version.

I’m wondering. I’m just speculating there.

I think they probably just ate a whole bunch of it, leaned back, put their hands on their tummy and said, poof, la boo.

You know, both of those sound good. It’s one of those stories where you really have no idea because it’s been so long and no one really knows. And it’s a little kid who used the word. So I’m kind of glad to know that it might be a unique phrase. A lot of times you guys don’t get those. But you usually got an answer.

Right.

It might be something you want to keep in your family.

I don’t know.

I know.

Well, yeah.

Families do tend to have their own words and their own language, and it’s one of the bonding things between family members.

Oh, yeah.

Well, you know, I’m really happy to have gotten an answer.

Thank you so much for calling, Edith.

It was fun to talk to you, and I’m going to see if I can get my wife to make this and see if I still dislike it.

Why don’t you make it?

All right.

Well, great.

Thank you, guys.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Okay, bye.

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or let us know if your family eats poo-flopoo pie.

We’d also love to hear that one.

Send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, a while back on the show we were talking about the difference between stalactites and stalagmites and how to remember that.

We got a great mnemonic from Tom in Pittsburgh who said, the best I’ve ever heard was given to me by my earth science teacher in college.

He told the class, when the mites go up, the tights go down.

Oh, well, hello.

Words to live by.

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

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Doug from the intro.

Hi, Douglas, how you doing?

I’m doing great, how you doing?

Super duper.

I was hoping, actually I got two things.

One is I was hoping you could solve a conflict that we have with the word that.

And then as kind of a little side note, I have a little brain teaser with the word that I think you’ll enjoy as well.

-ha.

With the word that?

That, T-H-A-T?

With that, T-H-A-T, correct.

All right.

What is it about that?

Okay, well, I’m a police officer, and so I end up writing a lot of reports based on interviews that I do with people.

And in the reports, I have to basically describe what the people told me.

And so I’ll say something like, you know, the subject stated that he met the co-defendant at a party two weeks ago.

He stated that the co-defendant offered him an opportunity to be involved in an illegal venture.

He stated that he agreed to be involved after he was offered a substantial sum of money, things like that.

And when I submit that report to the prosecutors in order to initiate the case, the prosecutor will go and get rid of every word that in my entire report.

Really?

My take on it is, although it doesn’t sound good to have the word that over and over and over again, I feel like it’s necessary because it indicates that I’m actually summarizing what the person told me as opposed to a direct quote.

If I say the subject said he met the co-defendant of the party, to me, without the word that to kind of distinguish, then he met the co-defendant of the party would have to be a direct quote.

But I’m not sure if I’m correct.

Yeah, I like what you’re doing.

I think that makes sense to me.

Oh, you do?

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

What do you think, Grant?

Well, let me hear your argument.

Okay.

I’m not completely committed to the other point of view, but let me hear what you think.

What do you think?

I feel about that thing the way that I do about the serial comma.

You know that last comma and the flag is red, comma, white, comma, and blue?

Correct.

Do you do that too?

I don’t put the comma in there.

Oh.

I’ll leave it out.

Oh, I thought I had a kindred spirit here.

But anyway, I put it in there just for clarity, and I think that that does help clarify things.

I’m surprised they’re taking them out.

Well, they’re taking it out because it sounds better without it.

But, see, I’m not writing a report that’s supposed to be for pleasure reading.

I’m writing a report that’s evidence.

Yeah, I think that especially, maybe not so much with the word said, but a lot of other words like acknowledge or believe or doubt or claim, and maybe stated as well, it just helps clarify things a little bit.

Like, for example, what about the sentence, say, the court decided the question did not need to be addressed?

Okay.

For a second there, you think the court decided the question of such and such.

You know, it’s just one of those things where you have to put the clutch in and put the car in reverse and back up a little bit in the sentence.

That’s my feeling about it, Grant.

I can see that being a great explanation of case.

But, you know, you kind of do it on a case-by-case basis.

If there’s no room for confusion there, you might as well leave the that out.

It is often a redundant word.

But I think what you’ve identified here, and accurately, is the places where there’s a clause where the suspect said that, and it’s a whole idea that belongs together.

And in that case, the that, I think, is called for.

And if we had—and, Doug, it sounds like you’re not using quote marks.

If you write, the suspect said that he was not there at the time, there are no quote marks here.

It’s a paraphrase, right?

Yeah, if there were quote marks involved, I could definitely see leaving the that out as an almost universal case, because you would say the suspect said, comma, quote, and then you would put the thing.

I guess as long as you two, you and the prosecutor are discussing this and making sure that you come to an agreement about the joint style that you’re sharing, you’re going to end up in a good place.

So you mentioned something about that, that you wanted to…

A little brain teaser I learned years ago, and I’ve yet to have anybody correctly answer.

If you could use the word that five times consecutively in a sentence correctly.

So in other words, at some point in the sentence, you’d have the phrase that, that, that, that, that, with no stuttering involved.

The setup is there is a teacher in a classroom teaching the proper use of the word that.

A student uses the word that in a sentence, and the teacher replies, I believe that, that, that, that that student used was correct.

Sweet!

Say it again, please.

I believe that, that, that, that that student used was correct.

Oh, wow.

So there’s some commas in there.

That’s good, yeah.

That’s nice.

Oh, gosh.

Thank you for the help with that question, and I’ll relay it to those who may or may not take it into consideration.

Okay, well, don’t get us in trouble.

No, it’ll be all me.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you, Doug.

All right.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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What kind of clarity do you need?

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We will sort out your grammar and language dilemmas.

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You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Everybody has a word that you just can’t spell right, right?

For me, the word was always ecstasy.

I never could get that word right.

I always put an extra C in there.

You need to stop writing love notes.

Then you won’t have to use the word so often.

Good point.

But you know how I finally figured that out was I went to the etymology of ecstasy, and it comes from standing out of something, you know, kind of being out of your mind.

And so I just remembered stasis and standing, and that helped me come up with, every time, E-C-S-T-A-S-Y, ecstasy.

Very good.

So etymology is going to be a device for remembering how to spell words.

Absolutely.

Super.

Yeah, what are some of your buddhys?

Well, you can make your own.

One of my words is occasion.

I often forget whether or not there are two S’s in it and two C’s.

And the fact is occasion is spelled with two C’s and one S.

And the way I remember that, that it is spelled O-C-C-A-S-I-O-N, is I just have a little mantra.

It’s nonsensical, but it works.

Two C’s, one S.

That’s it.

I just say two C’s, one S.

And two C’s, one S.

And you just keep saying two C’s, one S.

And it almost becomes its own word because the syllables blend together.

Two C’s, one S, two C’s, one S, two C’s, one S.

And that’s how we spell occasion.

I thought you were going to say two C’s the occasion.

Very good.

You could do that.

Whatever works for you.

And I find that people often come up with their own tricks.

But one of the easiest ways that I found, and I think there’s some evidence to back me up on this. I’ll look for it.

But one of the ways that I found that works for most people is that if you are having difficulty spelling a word, at the moment you are writing the word is not the time to teach yourself how to correctly spell it.

It’s write that word down, save it for later.

When you get a few words on a piece of paper, go through them, read them aloud, spell them aloud, write them down a few times.

And outside of the context of work that you have to do or schoolwork that you’re preparing, it’s going to be better.

It’s going to stick better in your brain.

You’re going to be more likely to remember the spellings.

I like doing it on the spot.

I mean, for example, accommodate is one that drives people crazy.

But if you take a minute, just a few seconds and look at it, and you think, okay, accommodate is a word that’s big enough to accommodate two Cs and two Ms.

Oh, there aren’t three Ms?

No, it’s not that accommodating.

But you can do little tricks like that.

I mean, people misspell cemetery, and the way to think about that is going through a spooky cemetery going ee-ee-ee all the way through.

That works, right?

Very good.

Beautiful.

I mean, it’s goofy, but it just takes a little bit to think of that.

What are the stompers in your spelling world?

What are the words that you misspell the most often?

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, and tell us about the tricks that you use to make sure that you spell them correctly.

You can send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Matt Voss. I’m calling from Indianapolis.

Hi, Matt. How are you doing today?

Pretty good, thanks. Thanks for having me on the show.

Sure. Welcome to the program.

Yeah, thanks. The question I had was regarding the origin of the phrase, dressed to the nines.

So I typically know that as people who are dressed very well, but I wondered kind of where that came from and if there are any other variations on the phrase.

Like, you know, if you didn’t have enough money to spend, can you be dressed to the fives or the threes or things like that?

I know.

I’m dressed to the one right now.

That’s great.

Yeah, and what got you to wondering about this?

You know, well, I listened to your show on the radio, so I just said, hey, you know, I really wonder where that phrase comes from.

So I decided one day to just call.

Okay.

Good idea.

Good enough.

Except that the truth is with this one, we have no idea, Matthew.

Get out the sad trombone.

So what’s his consolation prize?

No, this is one of those things where there are a million theories, many of them specious, a lot of them invented, most of them rubbish.

And the data is sparse and the intent is malicious.

It’s a big, what I always call them is the orig onk, origin unknown.

But, you know, you can find a lot of these theories discussed in a variety of reference books.

Some of them will talk as if they’ve solved the problem for all time.

And yet you’ll find that they have a date problem where they say it comes from, you know, 1850.

And in fact, the just to the nines is a lot older than that, isn’t it, Martha?

Yeah.

And the expression up to the nines or just nine since the early 18th century is meant to perfection or the highest degree or point.

And we really don’t know why, except that nine has been sort of a special number with the nine muses and what? Eight wonders of the world plus one?

Right, right.

Yeah.

So, Matthew, we’re just going to be honest with you and tell you that we don’t know.

Can you believe it?

Okay, well, no, I can’t believe it.

But I’ll tell you what we’re going to do is if we find out more, we’ll make sure to tell you about it, all right?

Okay, thank you so much.

One of these days we’re going to get to the bottom of this and we’ll be famous, Martha.

Dressed to the nines will be solved once and for all.

Right.

All right.

Well, I’ll be listening.

Thank you so much for calling.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thanks, Matt.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Dressed to the one, Martha.

You said you were dressed to the ones.

Isn’t that in the buff?

No, that’s dressed to the zero.

Oh, okay.

Oh, man.

Call us with your linguistic mysteries.

We promise to say something even if it’s not what you want to hear.

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

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Alisa Keown. I’m from Indianapolis, Indiana.

I noticed that my mother-in-law and my husband’s aunt both used the words peepi instead of peekaboo with our son.

And I’m wondering if that’s a family thing or if you could tell me the origins of it.

Peepi. And where are they from?

From Indiana.

Okay. And how old is your son?

He is 18 months.

And so they say Peepai instead of Peekaboo.

Do they also ever do Peekaboo?

No.

All I’ve heard is Peekaboo.

And you grew up with Peekaboo, I guess.

I did.

And where are you from?

I’m also from Terre Haute, Indiana.

Oh, you’re ruining my plan here to find some kind of regional difference.

Why couldn’t you have said Maine or something like that or Boston even better?

This is one of those great things that when you first find the other variant of it, you’re amazed.

And it sounds like you’re kind of surprised that they say Peep Pie, right?

Yes.

I didn’t understand what they were saying when I first heard it and made them repeat themselves.

But it’s the same peekaboo game, right?

You put your hands over your eyes and then you put your hands away and you look at the child and go, Peep Pie!

That’s right.

That’s the game.

Well, the reason I know this is that my mother’s family, who are Boston Irish, they all do Peep Pie.

And another family that I have from my father’s side of the family, it’s Peekaboo.

And, of course, I know Peekaboo is the most prominent form in the United States, but Peekaboo is not unheard of.

And as a matter of fact, in the Dictionary of American Regional English, they explain it’s very southern and south midlands.

I’m not surprised to find it in Indiana.

They’ve got some records here of people in Tennessee and Kentucky using it.

So I’m not surprised at all to find that Peekaboo exists in Indiana.

And I’m also not surprised that Peepi and Peekaboo exist in kind of more or less the same territory, since Indiana is kind of straddling two different dialect regions of the United States.

But even more interesting to me, did either of you know that they often say something different in the United Kingdom?

No.

Yeah, Bebo.

They say Bebo.

Bebo.

Or Pebo.

And there’s a great thread on the blog by Lynn Murphy.

The blog is called Separated by Common Language.

And she’s an American linguist who lives in the United Kingdom.

She teaches linguistics there.

And so naturally her whole theme is the discussion of the differences between American and British English.

And she’s talked about this a couple years ago.

And her commenters just like opened up with all this great stuff.

Like some people think it sounds like pee-ho and peep-boo and pee-bo.

And even more interesting is if you look this up in any sufficiently advanced dictionary, you will find that the original form was bo-peep.

What?

Yes.

It’s crazy.

It’s crazy.

And then somehow it got turned around.

And I think if you think about the nursery rhyme that we all know, little bull peep lost their sheep and doesn’t know where to find them.

It’s about hiding and finding, right?

Oh, Elisa, did you ever think of that?

No, not at all.

And just this morning I was watching PBS television with my son.

And there’s a program, I believe it’s Canadian, called Caillou, C-A-I-L-L-O-U, which is a French-Canadian name for a little boy.

And he has adventures and gets into trouble and stuff.

And the game that they played with his little sister in the program, they don’t say peekaboo, and they don’t say peepi, and they don’t say bebo.

They say peek.

That’s all that they say.

Peek?

Elisa, who knew?

I had no idea.

Anyway, more than you wanted to know.

How is it spelled, just out of curiosity?

Well, the Dictionary of American Regional English spells it peep, P-E-E-P, hyphen, E-Y-I.

But I have also seen it spelled P-E-E-P, hyphen, P-I-E, so peep pie.

Yeah, I mean, Elisa, do you think of it as the eyes?

Because I didn’t realize, I was thinking of pea pie.

I was thinking one of those cakes in a urinal.

That’s how I was thinking of it, too.

You were, see?

See?

We were on the same page then.

I wouldn’t be surprised if our listeners can report some other examples of the peekaboo game with a different name.

Because it’s one of those things that just passed on from family to family.

It has a strong regional and familiar content.

You tend to use the version that your parents taught you.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some other ones that we haven’t mentioned today.

And, of course, you’re welcome to send those along.

So bottom line, in Indiana, you would hear both.

Peekaboo is going to be more common across the United States,

But Peepi also exists and has a fair kind of overlap in that part of the country

From the south where it is more common.

Wow.

So every time you play this with your son, you’re going to think of Grant now, right?

I am.

My son is almost three, and he still plays it.

But now it’s with blankets and furniture instead of his hands.

See what you have to look forward to?

You’re welcome, Alisa.

Thank you for calling with such an interesting question.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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

Well, here’s a weather term, Martha.

This one sounds so made up, but apparently it’s legitimate.

I mean, all words are made up, right?

But some just are kind of goofy and somebody was stunting a little bit and performing.

Yeah.

The formation or intensification of a meteorological front is called frontogenesis.

Frontogenesis.

Doesn’t that sound wrong?

First of all, you’re mixing your etymological roots there.

Frontogenesis.

You can’t do that.

That’s right.

Everybody knows frontogenesis is in the beginning.

Well, yeah.

It’s in front of the beginning.

That doesn’t work.

But that’s what they call it, apparently.

BroncoGenesis.

Who knew?

It’s the guys who practice aromancy who use that term.

Aromancy.

Yeah.

Meteor.

That’s nice.

Yes, prognostication.

Aromancy, right?

I thought that was when you were trying to figure out when your flight’s going to come in.

No.

No, aromancy is forecasting changes in the weather.

Okay.

Nice.

Aromancy.

All right.

Send your questions about grammar, slang, punctuation, usage, and debates you’re having

On the topic at work to words@waywordradio.org or give us a ring-a-ding, 1-877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Carol Henderson. I’m from Tallahassee, Florida. How are you today?

Super, Carol. How are you doing?

I’m doing well. I am hopeful that maybe you can help me solve an issue or shed some light

On an issue that’s been bugging me for quite some time. When I grew up in school, the words

More and most were reserved for more if you were comparing two things and most if you were comparing

More than two things and i I’m just a couple of examples that of what I’m talking about I was just

Watching the Westminster Dog Show the other evening and it jumped out at me again I mean that

That they just jump out everywhere.

And it said, this breed has been in the show, and it listed what year it began.

And then they said, making it one of the older breeds of the show.

Well, I know there are way more breeds than two.

So it seems like that should be most.

Then just the other day, a fellow teacher said to me,

Gosh, she’s one of the more difficult students I’ve ever had in class.

And I thought, I know she’s had more than two students.

And so just examples of that, as I say, keep coming up to me all the time.

And there’s something about it that just jumps out at me,

And then I lose track of what else they’re saying because that has hit my attention.

So I’m wondering if you can shed some light on this more and most situation for me.

Well, let’s see.

That’s an interesting construction, making it one of the oldest breeds in the show

Or one of the older breeds in the show?

Or another one that I just came up against is we were doing some applications here at school,

And somebody said, well, he’s read all the applications,

And Johnny is certainly the stronger candidate.

Well, there were about 40 applications.

Okay, yeah.

Well, that one’s very clear, right?

That one’s very clear because it’s just Johnny versus everybody else.

So I don’t know if there’s supposed to be an understood of everything else is the other one,

And then that’s what makes more okay.

But to me, it should be most because you’re comparing it with lots of other individual things.

So I am just wondering if you can help me with this because it has been bothering me,

And if I have to let it go because you say it’s okay, then I will.

Wow, that’s a lot of power to invest in this.

Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe you should because now you have me thinking about it. I’m stumbling over it myself.

Okay. I think the difference is with Johnny being the strongest candidate, it’s Johnny compared to everybody else, right?

And so he is the most there. It’s a superlative. He’s the strongest candidate.

But when you’re talking about one of the more difficult students, I suppose there can be many students who are more difficult than others.

So it seems to me that those two are different.

Okay.

So there’s an extra nuance there.

If you say tuna is one of the more rare species of fish,

Then you mean that it is not necessarily the most rare, but it is more rare than average?

Is that what we’re saying?

Yeah, it’s one of the rarer species.

Right, without getting too precise.

But not the rarest.

So it’s a way of doing kind of rough, vague comparisons

Where your line between more and less is not clearly defined, right?

Yeah.

It’s without putting numbers to it or statistics to it.

Is that what you’re saying, Martha?

Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.

And there’s a difference to me when you’re talking about one specimen out of all the –

One specimen compared to all the other specimens

Versus one specimen who’s a member of a whole group that is more of something than the rest.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, I can definitely see a rule for more here to be used in this way.

Carol, do you remember being taught a specific rule that goes that way?

My rule was if I was comparing apples and oranges, then one of them would be more than the other.

If I was comparing apples, oranges, grapes, and bananas, then one was most.

Right, right. And I think the difference there is that if you’re comparing, let’s see, I’m trying to think of a thing that unites those things.

If you were comparing apples, oranges, bananas, and sandwiches, the first four would be fruitier than the other.

They would be the fruit most.

Carol, you’ve asked a very difficult question.

Yeah, this is a bit of a…

But I think the gist of this here is that what you’re hearing,

I think, try to summarize this and kind of wrap this up in vagueness.

But no, but I think what you’re saying here is

It’s very interesting to hear somebody use a comparative

Where you were expecting a superlative.

Oh, man, I’m going to be thinking about this all day, Carol.

Thank you very much for…

Well, thank you for at least giving me a few more ways to think about it.

Did we?

Yes, our pleasure.

And I do very much enjoy your show

Because I love grammar.

Oh, great.

Very nice to hear.

Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Well, drop us a line again sometime, all right?

Okay.

Thank you so much.

This is one of the more thoughtful shows out there on the radio.

Okay.

You’re one of our better guys.

You’re the most…

No, never mind.

Thank you, Carol.

All right.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

-huh.

Bye-bye.

Give us a call if you’ve got a question about grammar like this.

Let’s see if we can make a model of it.

1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD, W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

That’s our show for this week.

If you didn’t get on the air today, you can leave us a message anytime.

That number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.

And you can stay in touch with us all week by following us on Twitter.

We’re there under the username Wayword.

Stefanie Levine is our senior producer.

Our technical director and editor is Tim Felten.

We’ve had production help this week from Josette Herdell and Jennifer Powell.

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

And from San Francisco, I’m Grant Barrett.

Thanks to Howard Gelman for engineering our show from the studios of KQED Radio.

Cheers.

Love ya.

I say either, you say neither, and I say neither, either, either, neither, neither.

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