Shoot, I Was Sure It Was Shoe and Not Shoo

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

We got an email from Whitney Catanio in Providence, Rhode Island.

And the day before she wrote us, her two-year-old daughter, June, had been playing on the slide in their backyard.

And then June started screaming that there was a bug on the slide.

And Whitney writes, I told her to shoo it away.

The next thing I know, she has her shoe up on the slide.

I laughed so hard.

And in fact, she thought it was so funny that she snapped a photo and she sent us, Grant, this adorable picture of this little curly-haired girl with her shoe up on the slide trying to shoo away the bug.

Of course, they are different words.

But how is she to know?

She did the best that she could with what she had.

Yeah.

But the shoo away is S-H-O-O, and it’s not related to the footwear.

Correct.

She is the most adorable child, though.

She looks like a handful.

I know.

That little blonde curly hair.

You’ve got to watch out for the curly-headed ones.

That’s all I’m saying.

Yeah, she looks like fun.

But, yeah, shoe, S-H-O-O, may come from the sound that you make when you’re waving away like chickens or something.

And, of course, there’s the term shoe-in as well.

You know, that’s an old horse racing term.

Yeah, we have more information about shoe-in as in a horse racing term on our website.

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