We’ve talked before about surprising local pronunciations of things like towns or streets. A term or pronunciation that distinguishes locals from outsiders is called a shibboleth. The word derives from the biblical story of the warring Gileadites and Ephraimites. Gileadites would demand that fleeing Ephraimites pronounce the word shibboleth in a certain way, and if they could not, because their own language pronounced it a different way, they were exposed as the enemy and executed on the spot. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Shibboleth”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi there. This is Francisco from Dallas, Texas.
Hi, Francisco. Welcome to the show.
Welcome.
Thank you. Good to be on the show.
So I’m coming to you with a word from the Bible that has gotten a lot of currency, at least in my experience.
I travel a lot and was recently in New York, and I was with this group of people who were sort of talking about moving to the city and who’s really from the city and who’s not.
And this young lady at the table mentioned that, you know, she was so happy to be in New York City.
And a couple people in the group, especially I think the, you know, more local people have been there a while, said, hey, nobody says that.
No one says they’re from New York City.
What we discovered was that there’s this wonderful thing called a shibboleth.
And it’s, I guess, as we learned about it, was sort of a word afraid that helps you understand whether a person’s from a certain place or it comes out of a culture.
I guess in the Bible, the word originated as a way that a certain group in the Bible used to test whether they had enemies coming into their camp.
That’s right.
Maybe their enemy couldn’t pronounce a certain word or something.
So I’ve just been so intrigued by, you know, modern shibbolists today and what kind of examples there are to tell whether someone’s from somewhere of a particular culture.
Other places I’ve thought about as a Texan, too, we have a fair number of shibbolists I think that people could use.
We have a funny town here called Meheia, and it’s spelled M-E-X-I-A.
And I think if you’re an out-of-towner or a Yankee, you might be tempted to say Mexia, right?
Or some other.
But townspeople call it Meheah.
Oh, that’s a good one.
So the word, just so everyone gets it, is shibboleth, S-H-I-B-B-O-L-E-T-H.
I’m sitting across from a preacher’s daughter who probably knows the story in full.
Right, in the book of Judges, in the Bible, the Gileadites tested, as you said, the Ephraimites to see if they could say the word shibboleth because the Ephraimites couldn’t say shibboleth.
They would say sibileth.
And nobody’s quite sure what the word shibboleth meant in Hebrew.
It might mean an ear of corn or rushing water or something like that.
But the point was that if you didn’t pronounce it correctly, then they knew you were the enemy and you got executed on the spot.
Fortunately, shibboleths today aren’t so lethal.
Yeah, the classic one in New York City is Houston Street.
And as a Texan, you probably appreciate that.
Many people from the rest of the country assume that it’s pronounced Houston, as in Sam Houston.
But it isn’t.
It’s Houston Street, spelled exactly the same way.
The New York, calling New York City just New York or the city, is really particular, though.
I lived there for a long time.
And you would say the city, if you’re in the surrounding community, say New Jersey or Long Island or Connecticut.
it But much further than that, you probably wouldn’t say it because you’d be misunderstood.
So it’s very particular. And to call it just New York, you’re probably going to say New York to other people who are living in New York or know New York.
But let me tell you, our upstate New York listeners tell us that they’re very irritated when everyone just assumes that when they say they’re from New York, they mean New York City.
So you have to be super careful with it. And that’s kind of the nature of the shibboleth.
I would encourage you, Francisco, look on our website.
We recently talked about place names that have unexpected pronunciations, and we received so many different emails from people talking about all their local place names that don’t look like they sound or sound like they look.
So how you say it kind of shows who you are and what group you belong to.
And vocabulary too. I mean, when you’re in New Jersey, you don’t talk about going to the beach.
You talk about going to the shore.
Yeah, exactly.
The shore.
Yeah, even in New York, you say down the shore.
I’ll go down the shore.
It specifically means the New Jersey shore, not the shore of Long Island.
All right.
I appreciate the conversation.
Yeah, we appreciate your calling, Francisco.
Thank you very much.
All right.
Bye.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
