Singing Sand (episode #1546)

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. Grant, this week I put on my flippers and mask and took a deep dive into one of our favorite books. The dictionary?

Close. It was Homeground, A Guide to the American Landscape.

Oh, what a lovely book.

Yes. You’ll recall that this is a book in which writers have gathered more than 800 terms that have to do with features of the landscape particular to various places. So these are words that are used in particular locales, but not necessarily something that you would find in a regular dictionary. And here’s a great example from that book that I brought up from my deep dive, Paternoster Lake.

So Paternoster is our father in Latin?

Yes, yes. So I don’t really know where to go from there.

Yeah, yeah. It’s sort of puzzling, right? But this isn’t an official name.

And this is a kind of lake, right?

Yeah.

So not a proper noun.

Yeah.

It’s a series of circular lakes along a valley.

Like you’re standing at one end of the valley.

Does it look like rosary beads?

Yes.

That’s exactly it.

That’s exactly it. As the book says, a Paternoster Lake is also known as a glacial stairway, the result of a mountain glacier pushing down a valley, scouring at various intervals a series of water basins connected by rapids and waterfalls.

Bowering a series of water basins.

Yeah, yeah.

This is why we like this book.

It is.

Not just the language, but it’s well-defined and well-written.

Yes, yes.

And it’s about nature.

That’s right.

Yeah, the editors, Barry Lopez and Deborah Gortney, gathered a bunch of writers together to do these individual entries. And so they all took them very seriously and really poured a lot into it.

And the book is Homeground, edited by?

Barry Lopez and Deborah Gortney.

And I’ll share a couple of other examples later in the show.

Fantastic.

You know, we love to learn new words from our listeners. No matter who you are, what language you speak, or wherever you are in the world, give us a call, send us an email, talk to us on Twitter, 877-929-9673.

That’s toll-free in the U.S. and Canada.

You can send us an email to words@waywordradio.org or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, my name is Matt.

And Simon.

We’re from Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Simon and Matt, hello. Welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

Well, we had a question. We were walking to school. This was actually a couple years ago, and we’ve been waiting to call. We finally did it.

So we were walking to school, and we had a question.

Simon, do you remember what words we were wondering about?

The difference between barely and nearly.

I was trying to think about it for a minute because they seemed similar. But then I used sort of my dad kind of approach was like, well, if you, pardon my bluntness, but if you nearly poop your pants, then you almost did, but you’re in the clear. If you barely pooped your pants, it seemed like you’d just a little bit not good, better go change.

So that was my dad’s approach at translating it and putting it in a very clearly painted sort of setup for Simon. And we’ve kind of explored that because there’s sort of subtle opposites.

But Simon, you had one too, right? What was your thought on it?

Like if you nearly fell off a cliff, you barely hung on. And then if you barely fell off, you nearly hung on.

Yeah, kind of.

Yeah, yeah, it’s true. It’s all about those circumstances, right?

So you might almost think about it as a timeline where there’s an event and nearly is before the event and barely is after the event, right?

Right, right. It seems like it gets, because when we were trying to look at opposites, you couldn’t say, like, I nearly died versus I barely died.

Right.

There’s a completeness. It seems to work only if there were, like, shades of something, in a sense.

Yeah, timing-wise, it seems to fit that.

Yeah, so it’s more about chronological. It’s more about time than it is about them being opposites.

That’s so interesting because I think of it in terms of space. I’m thinking visually. Like if I reach my finger out and I nearly tap you on the shoulder, I didn’t really tap you on the shoulder, but if I barely tap you on the shoulder, I’ve crossed a line.

But it’s the lightest of touches.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah, time and space are the keys here, I think.

I love it that dad immediately went to the bodily functions for the explanation. And the son’s got the classy one. He’s talking about cliffs and falling. Nice going, Simon. Way to be the adult, kid.

Yeah.

I think it’s that my job has informed that of me as being an at-home dad.

Okay.

Wow, it sounds like you all have a lot of interesting conversations.

Well, he’s 10 now, and when he was 8, he had written a chapter book, a Star Wars-inspired chapter book.

Oh, nice, Simon. Over 100-some pages into it when he moved on to the next book. I don’t know if he’s quite finished some of them, but he’s quite a reader and writer.

A hundred pages. What was the title?

The Lost Ship.

The Lost Ship. Sounds great.

Sounds like a good idea. Keep writing, bud. Keep them coming. And don’t feel like you have to finish it. When the new idea comes, just let it pour out onto the page. That’s how you get to be a better writer.

Yeah.

All right. Well, Simon, Matt, thank you so much for calling us. We really appreciate this. Call us again sometime. Let us know about these distinguished ships.

Yeah, puzzle this stuff out. We’ll help, all right? We love thinking about this stuff. Join us on the air another time, okay? Take care.

Bye.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Sometimes it’s about cliffs. Sometimes it’s about number two. 877-929-9673.

You can tell us the whole thing in email, words@waywordradio.org, or just write it down and message on Twitter @wayword.

Hi. You have A Way with Words.

Hey there. This is Jacob calling from Dallas.

Hi, Jacob. What’s going on?

I’ve been interested in a phrase that my grandfather used to say when I was a kid. And it’s one that, I mean, just on the outset, it explains itself. But I’ve always been interested in where it comes from. And the specific phrase is having a come apart, or specifically the way he used to say it is having a come apart.

Having a come apart.

In the cases where he’d say it is, you know, if either myself or a cousin or a little brother or something just started to freak out, had a breakdown, essentially, you were having a come apart.

After a handful of years, I started saying it outside of my family, especially when I moved from Odessa, Texas, to Dallas. And no one knew what the heck I was saying. No one had heard of it before at all. I would just get blank stares or questioning looks.

So I was wondering if you guys could help me with that.

I’m not surprised. It’s not that common. It’s rare enough that it’s not in any of my specialty dictionaries at all, but it’s common enough that if you look in digital archives of newspapers and books, you will find enough uses of it to find that it’s not particularly regional either. So it doesn’t belong only to Texas or the South or anything like that.

The earliest that I can find it is 1984. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s much older than that. But your description of a come apart as being the same as a breakdown is a good one. So it’s a falling to pieces, right? Or losing your cool or losing the plot. It’s the opposite of a come together.

Yeah, and I’ve said that a couple of times, but that even sounded stranger. So out of curiosity, when you’ve seen it written or documented, how exactly is it spelled out?

Well, it is a noun phrase, which is one of the things that’s odd about it, because everyone can think of the verb phrase to come apart. That’s really common, right? Oh, she’s coming apart, meaning she’s having a nervous breakdown. But to say someone is having a come apart is a space, C-O-M-E space, one word, A-P-A-R-T, a come apart. And you might, sometimes I’ve seen a come apart hyphenated, C-O-M-E hyphen A-P-A-R-T.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

That’s interesting.

But usually, usually not.

So it’s a noun phrase, a come apart, a come apart.

I’m picturing a two-year-old, you know, having a meltdown.

But I like a come apart.

Yeah, a come apart.

And so I’ve seen it.

That’s 100% when it was used.

I can remember specific examples of my little brother having a come apart.

So I’ve seen it in newspapers and books from across the country, from coast to coast, north to south, from newspaper columnists and sports reporters and in political context as well, where people are talking about their own political party or an opposing political party having to come apart because they didn’t get their way or couldn’t get their way.

Well, I’m wondering if that’s probably where my grandfather picked it up, was reading some sports article about a football team or otherwise.

Given that you mentioned it was in the mid-’80s, that would make sense because it was coming up in the late-’80s.

Yeah.

It probably would have been in his parlance at the time.

It’s a good one.

Jacob, thank you for calling.

Yeah, thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

All right.

Take care now.

All right.

Cheers.

Bye-bye.

Call us 877-929-9673 or send your language questions to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Lucy from San Diego.

So my question is about a phrase that my mom says a lot.

And that usually is when somebody has like made a guess about something or tried to do something, but they were unsuccessful.

Then she always says, oh, close, but no tomato.

And she’s always said tomato, but I think the original one is probably cigar or something like that.

But I’ve always just wondered where that came from and why we say it.

Well, you’re absolutely right that the much older one is close but no cigar.

And do you know the origin of that one?

No, I have no idea.

Well, it’s pretty cool.

It refers to an old carnival game in which somebody could show how strong they are by hitting something with a giant hammer.

And it pushes a weight up along a kind of column that goes up and rings a bell.

You may have seen it in cartoons, you know, where somebody…

Yeah, I’ve seen those before.

Yeah, okay.

And it rings the bell if the person is really strong, right?

Because it goes all the way to the top.

Mm—

Back in the early 20th century, it used to be that the reward for doing that at many carnivals was a cigar.

The cigar was the prize.

And so, you know, you had the carnival barkers standing there trying to get more people to come and play this game.

And if they almost missed the bell and it didn’t ring, they’d say close but no cigar, which meant that the person had pushed it far up there but not far enough to win the prize.

That is a cigar.

And we don’t really see close but no tomato until the 1980s or so.

It’s a much more recent term.

I don’t know that we really know why it’s a tomato, except that it’s a little healthier than a cigar.

And it’s kind of funny, right?

Yeah.

I always thought that my mom had switched it out because she didn’t want to be saying cigar when we were little.

Oh.

No, it’s more people say it.

That was always my take on it.

More people say it than your mom.

I mean, she might have come up with her version on her own, but it’s out there.

We found it in books and newspapers, and you can find other people who’ve said it and print on the Internet.

Yeah, but that’s a really good guess.

Yeah.

Wow, that’s really cool.

So close but no tomato, do you say it yourself or do you just laugh when your mom says it?

Sometimes I say it a little bit.

It’s usually my mom, though.

The earliest version that we found in print of close but no tomato was from a textbook for people who wanted to go into broadcast news.

Does your mom work in broadcast news?

No, she does not.

Okay, just thought I’d ask.

That’s really cool, though.

Okay, well, cool.

Thank you, Lucy, for giving us a call.

We really appreciate it.

My whole family really loves your show, so this is very exciting.

That’s nice.

All right.

Take care of yourself.

Thank you.

Bye.

Thanks, Lucy.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.

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

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and we’re joined from New York City by our quiz guide, John Chaneski.

Hey, Grant. Hey, Martha. How are you guys doing?

Hey, bud.

All right.

What’s up?

Good to hear from you.

You know, we’re going to do a little quiz that we’ve done before today.

It’s called Common Bonds.

I’ll give you three things, and you tell me what they have in common.

Now, there’s lots of names for these.

If you come to a pub quiz at Trivia NYC, we call it the Name 3 Round.

If you’ve played the game called Tribond, it’s the same thing.

If you’re a fan of the UK game show Only Connect, that’s the same thing.

For example, if I said a report card, USDA inspected beef, and an incline, you would say…

Grade A.

Grades, grades.

Grades.

Yeah, so I’ll give you three things.

You tell me what they have in common.

All right.

Here we go.

Whistle, ear, foil.

Tin.

T-I-N.

Tin.

Tin.

Right off the bat.

Very good.

Right at the gate, Grant.

Well done.

Tin whistle, tin ear, tin foil.

Good.

How about this one?

Crash, golf, pastry.

Cart.

Cart is right.

C-A-R-T.

Cart.

C-I-R-T cart.

Crash cart, golf cart, pastry cart.

Very good.

How about this one?

Hotter, beagle, craven.

Well, you can take off the first letter of each and come up with a different animal.

That’s what it is.

Yes, very good, Martha.

Hotter becomes an otter.

Beagle becomes an eagle.

Craven is a raven.

All right, let’s try this one.

Set, run, go.

These are the entries in the Oxford English Dictionary with the most definitions.

Yes, very good.

Words with over 450 definitions each.

430 for set, 396 for run, 368 for go on average.

Actually, though, run was recently revised and passed set.

Oh, really?

Okay, that’s great.

Good to know.

How about this one?

Martin Amos, Joseph Hillman King, Tessa Dahl.

Martin Amos, Joseph King, and Tessa Dahl.

Right.

How do you spell Dahl?

D-A-H-L.

They are all children of famous writers who are also writers themselves.

Yes, exactly.

Martin Amos’ dad is Kingsley Amos.

Joseph Hillman King is Stephen King’s son.

And Roald Dahl was Tessa Dahl’s dad.

Here’s the last one.

Discord, Slack, Overtone.

These are all chat apps for group communication.

They are voice and text chat apps.

So very good.

Mostly my kids use Discord for gaming chat.

I’m going to go check on what they’re doing right now.

You guys did absolutely very, very well in this common bond quiz.

Nicely done.

Thanks, bud.

Take care of yourself.

Thanks, John.

Talk to you next time.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

And we’d love to bond with you over language, any aspect whatsoever.

Slang, grammar, word origins, regional dialects, that weird thing your grandmother used to say.

Call us.

877-929-9673 or send it to us in email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Here’s an interesting word.

Cark.

C-A-R-K.

I thought it was probably some kind of container, but it means worry or trouble or carking doubts or something like that.

Any known origin for that?

Yeah, and this will make sense.

It goes all the way back to the same Latin word that gives us charge, meaning to burden, you know, something that you have to carry.

And it’s also related to the word car.

Okay, yes.

It carries you around.

So burden, charge, got it.

Yeah, so you’re carking troubles and anxieties.

Cark.

Send us an email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Susanna from New York.

Welcome to the show. How can we help?

I am a content specialist with a large database company,

And I often run into the issue of the comprised of, composed of, consist of,

And comprises issue with people who believe it should be comprised of,

And sometimes a big debate breaks out.

So I’ve kind of been beaten into submission in using comprised of.

But I wanted to see if we could discuss that issue, composed of versus comprised of,

And how to use that word appropriately.

So tell us about the comprised of debate there.

So a typical sentence or a typical phrase in our very sexy industry of technology would be something like,

They are building somewhat unwieldy multi-cloud environments comprised of SaaS or PaaS cloud offerings or mixes of public infrastructure as a service environment.

So I often try to use a pizza.

I try to use the pizza example, which I try to say to them, okay, comprise means to include or consist of.

Like you would say the pie comprises eight slices or eight slices compose the pie, you know, to try and make it simple for people to understand.

But it seems like most people just want to default to comprise of.

But then when I insert the constitute or consist of, it often sounds funny.

You know, it doesn’t fit in the sentence, and it looks weird, but I’ve kind of just given up hope.

Oh, wow.

So I just use comprised of, but I want to be able to explain to them or even send them a podcast of the show to say,

Hey, I’m not the only one who says this is incorrect in this instance, you know.

So, yeah, I was looking for guidance on how people keep it clear because it’s very confusing, you know,

The difference between comprise or when to use comprising or comprises.

Do you ever use the comprise of or should you just go with compose as an alternative, you know, is composed of, you know, as an example?

Yeah. Well, Susanna, you’ll be glad to know that technically you’re right.

Just don’t say comprised of. Just don’t.

That’s the traditional rule.

The problem is that people like you and me sound sort of prissy now when we insist that you shouldn’t say comprised of.

I mean, if you go back to the origin of this word, it’s related to the word comprehend.

It comes from Latin words that mean basically a wrap your arms around something.

And your pizza example is a good one.

I like talking about the alphabet, too.

The alphabet comprises 26 letters or it’s composed of 26 letters or it consists of 26 letters.

Yeah. But but technically, traditionally, sticklers are going to say don’t say comprised of.

But OK. But what’s but then what do you do with that information in your workplace?

Right. Well, now I show them that an authoritative source has agreed with me and I play the podcast for everyone.

And then everyone just falls into line.

Yeah.

An authoritative, prissy source.

And I change the industry for the better.

Maybe.

I just always try to reword it because I start to question myself.

Yeah.

Because you said this yourself, Susanna.

Just avoid comprise.

Just avoid the word.

Just get out of the argument altogether and stop using comprise.

Do you have an in-house style guide, by the way, for these kinds of things?

Yeah, I based it on the AP style guide, although some people, you know, whether it’s AP or Chicago style, that is basically what I use.

Although with social media and everything, I’m kind of being forced away, you know, from the norms sometimes just because of spacing issues.

You know, if it’s a short blog post or social media, even spelling out acronyms.

I mean, most of our product names are so long, you know, we’ve just resorted to using acronyms and things like that that we hope people in the industry just inherently know.

But, yeah, there’s a lot of grammatical norms that, of course, go out the window now as I move to a paradigm of digital and social media where everything has to be so short and the average reading time is like 25 seconds on a blog.

Right.

So it’s, yeah, it’s a constant battle since I’m, you know, I’m almost 50 now and I’m very well entrenched.

I used to carry that AP style guide like a Bible.

Yeah.

And now I have to kind of let it go sometimes.

You have to choose your battles, right?

That’s right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For this one, I think you gave yourself the solution.

If they insist on using comprise, just go with constitute or composed of or constituted of and just move on and just sideline that word from here on out.

Put it on a brass plaque and never use it again.

Right.

Yeah, and it is.

It’s something you do see a lot in the tech world.

Silicon Valley, a lot of the companies use it a lot.

People reach for it because it feels a little fancy, and you’ll often find that in the writing of people who are trying to glitz up their so-so ideas.

Right.

And so maybe use it as a signal that you need to pay more attention to their content, too.

Yeah, it’s just one of those words where somebody is going to have a problem with it.

Yeah, that’s true as well.

Whether you get it right or wrong, somebody is going to have difficulty with it.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I appreciate your help on this.

And yeah, I’ll stick with what you recommended then to try and make my life easier.

Yeah, yeah, that’s the goal.

Thanks for your call.

Take care now.

Bye, Susanna.

Okay, thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Here’s another cool term from that book, Homeground, about words for features of the landscape, singing sand.

This is familiar to me.

Is it?

Perhaps it’s from reading a dune. I don’t know.

Or perhaps it’s from watching a National Geographic documentary.

I didn’t know this, but apparently sand dunes can make this sort of roaring noise.

Really?

Yeah, I watched a whole segment of a National Geographic.

Singing sand.

There’s something about the way that it vibrates that produces this sound.

Sometimes it’s a big booming sound, but then there’s like barking sand in Hawaii

Where you step in sand and you kind of move your feet and it kind of makes this little yip, yip, yip sound.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there’s singing sand and barking sand.

Barking sand.

How about that?

Talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Therese, and I’m calling from Juneau, Alaska.

Hi, Therese, welcome.

What can we do for you?

Well, when I moved to Alaska like 35 years ago, I moved to a small community, Petersburg, in the southeast.

And it was a summer place used by the Tlingit people, got settled by Norwegian people,

And it was a strong fishing community.

And so my question is, like, I would go down the street and you’d hear, you go in Yulevaki.

Or, oh, I got corked on the last bottle of milk.

Or didn’t talk.

Or, you know, there was just this mixture of, you know, Norwegian and English and sometimes native words and fishing terms.

And I wondered if there was an overall term for, you know, when that occurs in a community.

I mean, I know it’s not the only community in the world that happens, but I’m just kind of wondering if there’s a term for it.

Yeah, but I’ve got to ask you, can you explain all the things that you said?

What was the first thing that you said before you said about being corked?

Oh, corked.

It’s a fishing term.

It comes out of the gill netters, and they set drift gill nets, and the top line of the net is the cork line,

And the bottom is a lead line that holds it so the net stays open and it drifts with the current.

And there’s kind of like a pattern that they use.

You know, one guy will set and then it drifts for a little bit.

And then when there’s enough space, another net will be set by a different fisherman.

And sometimes somebody takes cuts and they set too close to somebody, so they call it get in court.

So that’s one of the terms.

So they’re taking somebody else’s catch, more or less.

Well, they’re kind of interfering with somebody’s ability to get a good catch.

That’s my understanding of it.

I trolled, so I don’t know exactly how they set their nets, but I do know that that was the process.

And you said something, you were talking about walking down the street and you’ll hear something,

And then you said something before court.

Oh, Eulabocking?

Yeah, what’s that?

Eulabocking is a Christmas celebration.

They do it Christmas Eve.

And in Norway, you would have gone from farm to farm, and people would leave food out on their table.

And in Petersburg, they go business to business.

And it’s a very social thing.

Everybody goes, kids, dogs, grandparents, it doesn’t matter.

And traditionally, you eat Norwegian food.

You might have an adult beverage along the way.

So it’s very fun.

So we’re talking Norwegian and English and Tlingit and fishing argo and other things all kind of used on a daily basis.

Rolled into one.

Rolled into one. yeah

So this does happen around the world, as you guessed.

Anytime you’ve got a bunch of different people with a common interest living in the same locations, you do get an interchange of words.

And it’s contact language is what it is.

And if it happens long enough, then you can get a permanent transfer and things can develop.

One of the things that can happen is you can get a trade language.

And there have been some known in the Pacific Northwest, as a matter of fact, where a language developed that was used amongst people who traded.

And that was only used for trade, where they would come together for agricultural products and fish products and different kinds of things and use it just as long as they were doing commerce together, as long as they were doing business.

But it wasn’t something they used on a day-to-day basis in their homes.

Then you can also get pigeons, if it happens long enough, where two or more languages can combine different features, grammatical features and lexical features, and develop something more sophisticated with rules.

And that can be passed along from parents to children.

And it can become an actual language.

And these can survive generations and be something that can be passed through time and history and be cataloged and join the larger human family of languages.

And that’s spelled P-I-D-G-I-N.

That’s right. Not like the bird.

Is that, they refer to that in Hawaii sometimes?

Yeah, that’s right. There is a Hawaiian pigeon, which is a mix of the original Hawaiian language and English.

Well, I was just curious because, I mean, that was one of the things that first struck me as a young, you know, just out of college going there and hearing this and like going, wow, you know, it’s kind of interesting.

I came from New England and we have our own little set of weird words, too.

But I just kind of wondered how that came about and how it was referred to.

Yeah, but languages and contact always, they always leave a little bit of each other on each other.

And it works both ways.

Even a small language surrounded by a larger language will leave a little something behind.

It always happens if there’s a sufficient length of time.

Sometimes it’s just food words.

Sometimes it’s commerce words.

Sometimes it’s family terms.

But there’s just a little something left behind.

I thought it enriched the community.

I agree.

I think it does.

And it leaves a flavor.

I have to say, I appreciate your field report.

I feel like you are a field worker for us, and you have delivered a solid field report from Alaska.

Well, thank you.

I’m glad I could help.

Thank you so much, Therese.

Thank you.

This was skookum.

Yes, it is.

It’s skookum, and that’s right.

Have a great day.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Well, what are the words and phrases and idioms that flavor your part of the world?

Let us know. 877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.

A Texan friend of mine uses the expression happy as a boarding house pup.

And apparently a lot of Texans use this term.

And I thought, why would a pup at a boarding house be happy?

I think I’ve heard about this.

It’s because the food is known to be bad.

And so on the sly, you scrape it off so the dog can eat it under the table.

Oh, that makes a lot more sense.

I was just picturing like a bed and breakfast, you know, where the dog is so happy to see everybody.

And everybody’s missing their dogs back home.

So they’re giving the dog lots of attention.

That makes a lot more sense.

The board comes with the room, and they give you the bare minimum food, and it’s usually terrible.

That makes so much more sense.

I’m so glad I mentioned that to you.

Happy as a boarding house pup.

The dog doesn’t care.

Not as much as the humans do.

877-929-9673.

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.

I was going through one of our favorite reference works, the Dictionary of American Regional English,

And I realized that there are an awful lot of regional terms that involve the word cat.

Cat.

And cats.

C-A-T, cat.

C-A-T.

For example, do you know what cat beer is?

I hesitate to guess.

Given how often cats vomit.

I hadn’t thought about that.

At least they have the grace on the dogs not to reconsume it.

It has nothing to do with…

Oh, I don’t know. What’s cat beer?

Cat beer is a term that you hear in the north, at least in Minnesota and in Vermont, that means milk.

Oh, how about that?

Cat beer.

Cat beer.

Yeah.

What about cat hair?

It’s not the cat hair.

No.

Actual cat hair.

It’s something else.

No.

Would this be, I don’t know, cat hair?

You might say of somebody, he’s certainly got the cat hair.

Whiskers on your face from not shaving?

I don’t know.

Money.

That’s money?

They had citations from Oklahoma and Ohio.

Cat hair.

To have the cat hairs to have money.

Yeah.

How about that?

Sure.

And cat ice is another one I really liked.

Cat ice?

Not cat eyes?

No, not cat eyes.

Who’s that?

What’s that?

Cat ice is really, really thin ice.

It’s either because, well, here’s one citation from Wisconsin that says,

Cat ice forms in depressions in fields, edges of pools, just like glass.

It looks like the eye of a cat with bubbles in the ice, or a cat would break it stepping on it.

Oh, I know that kind of ice.

Yeah.

I know that.

And one more, cat face.

Oh, sure.

I know that one.

We have citations for that on our website.

Oh, okay.

So these are fruits, vegetables, especially tomatoes, where they kind of grow with some weird splits in the side, like the way the cat’s mouth is shaped.

Mm—

Yeah.

Yeah, or the way that a tomato looks when you pull it off the vine, you know, that part where it connected to the vine.

Oh, yeah, but it looks like the little triangular shape of a cat’s face.

Yeah.

There are actually a couple of other definitions for cat face.

One is a scar or not on a tree.

Oh, yeah.

But the one that I really like is the one that’s used largely in the African-American community in the South.

And it means a wrinkle or pucker in clothing when ironed too dry.

In fact, Maya Angelou wrote in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,

I had to iron seven-star shirts and not leave a cat’s face anywhere.

Oh, how about that?

Yeah.

I didn’t know that one.

I know.

So many picturesque terms involving cats.

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I’ve been reading the book The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.

This is the marvelous book about the great migration of African-Americans from the Jim Crow South and beyond up north.

One of the expressions that I’d never come across before was, you must be smelling yourself.

Oh, yes, of course.

Which is what you say of somebody who’s conceited.

Right, they have a high opinion of themselves.

Yeah, you must be smelling yourself.

It is a marvelous history.

I have read some of that myself, but it’s been a number of years.

I highly recommend it.

The book again is?

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.

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Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Andres from San Diego, California.

Andres, welcome.

So my question is, where did the term pokey come from?

And pokey is when people refer to a prison or a jail.

People say, oh, I was in the pokey for a couple of nights.

Where’d you run across it?

Actually, it’s funny.

I was listening to this guy that I follow on the Internet.

He used to be a bank robber in the 80s.

And I don’t hear many people say the term pokey anymore.

I used to hear it when I was younger, like with my uncles and stuff like that.

But he referred to jail as pokey, and it kind of just brought back memories.

I was like, I wonder where that came from.

There’s a little bit of mystery in it, like so many words.

We don’t know the full story, but it probably goes back to a word known as pokey,

Which is maybe familiar to you, and I’ll get into that in a little bit.

Which meant a workhouse or a poorhouse.

Those two words might not be very well known these days.

A workhouse was a prison where you worked as part of your sentence. You did manual labor usually.

And a poorhouse was a place, a similar place, where you worked off a debt. Or maybe it used to be common if you owed money and couldn’t pay it, you were imprisoned.

Now, this is not allowed anymore, but at the time it was. And those were known as pogies as well.

That word in turn, we’re not really sure where it comes from. But there’s another word that you may know, which is the adjective pokey, which is spelled without the e, p-o-k-y, which means small or cramped, and it may be related to that.

And so the idea is that a pokey could just be a small or cramped space. And pokey and pokey, you can hear they sound very much alike.

And there’s a lot of interplay between these two words. The pokey for jail with the K first appears a print in the early 1900s, but pogey, referring to a small cramped space, appears in the late 1800s.

There’s a lot of back and forth, a lot of different spellings for these, a lot of oral transmission. But even now you will hear pokey and pokey both being used to refer to prison in prison slang and prison Argo and different kinds of like the glossaries in the back of these books that people write about their time and their joint and that sort of thing.

And there’s one particular expression that sometimes is kind of unsavory, pogey bait. You’ll hear sometimes it’s used to talk about anything or anyone that might lead someone to commit a crime, especially a sexual one.

So in other words, jail bait. So pogey bait, so that is the same word. In pogey bait is the same word as pokey or pokey to mean a jail.

So anyway, so that’s the most that we know about it. Well, thank you guys very much for clarifying that.

Yeah, sure. Thanks for calling. Thanks for calling. Take care. All right. Thank you guys. Have a great day.

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Here’s another cat word from the Dictionary of American Regional English, kitten ball. It’s all one word, kitten ball.

Okay, so it’s an ordinary phrase, but because you’re presenting it this way, it must mean something not ordinary.

Yeah. Plant-related? Nope. Nope. Nope. I have no idea. It’s an early name for softball.

Softball. Yeah. According to Paul Dixon’s Baseball Dictionary, it was introduced in Minneapolis by a fire company as a form of exercise. And the first team took the name kittens as their nickname.

Oh, okay. And set up a little diamond next to the station. So it’s kind of an informal term for softball and heard in places like Minnesota and Iowa.

Kitten ball, as opposed to maybe hard ball, so it’s suggesting the softness of the sports versus the…

Yeah. Okay. Go kittens. Go kittens.

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Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, how’s it going? Hi, it’s going well. Who are you and where are you calling from?

So this is Omar, and I’m calling from Wilmington, North Carolina. From Wilmington there on the coast, huh?

Yeah. Okay, well, great. What can we talk with you about?

Sure. So a little backstory. I was born and raised in Pakistan, and I grew up playing a very popular sport over there called cricket.

Sure. And oftentimes I would hear the TV commentators talk about the cricket team captain as a skipper. And I was curious if the term skipper is used for captains of other sports or if it’s even used outside the context of sports.

Yeah, so skipper for the team captain in cricket, right? Yes. Yeah, it’s incredibly common. You’ll find it in curling sometimes or bowling or bowls, sometimes even in cycling.

It comes from, of course, naval usage or seafaring usage. And even in more informal context, just some skipper, anybody in charge of a bus sometimes or any kind of public transit is sometimes jokingly or in a friendly way sometimes called the skipper or even abbreviated to skip.

Did you ever call your team captain just skip? Not really, but generally I would hear the commentators talk about, oh, the skipper is out on the field for the coin toss.

Yeah. And generally it was the Australian cricket team, and they would be referring to their captain as the skipper.

Okay. Yeah, so it comes directly from the skipper of a ship, and the word skipper itself comes from the word ship, and it basically means the person who conducts a ship, the person who makes the ship go where the ship needs to go.

It’s kind of a borrowed usage, the person in charge of conducting this whole enterprise and making it go and do what it needs to do. So, yeah, sometimes even in American baseball, the manager of a team is called the skipper or the skip.

Okay, that makes sense, yeah. Yeah, so it’s not just cricket. So you’re saying in Pakistan it’s less likely to call the captain of the team the skipper, more likely in Australian cricket?

Yeah, the few times that I do recall it, I would hear the commentators talk about the captains out on the field. And generally it was the Australian commentators or the Australian cricket team referring to their captain as the skipper.

Okay. How’s the Pakistan team doing this year? Not that great, no. I’m sorry to hear that.

All right. Thanks for your call, Omar. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question about the language of sports in your country, talk to us, 877-929-9673, or email words@waywordradio.org.

Another word from home ground is segi, T-S-E-G-I. Don’t know much about that.

Yeah. Obviously not an English word. Correct. It comes from Navajo and basically means rock canyon. And it’s also the source, I was surprised to learn, of the name Canyon de Chey, which is one of my favorite places on the planet in Arizona, Canyon de Chey, which is a French corruption of Segi.

Oh, how about that? So it just means canyon. That’s it. Okay. Nice.

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Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jason. I’m calling from De Pere, Wisconsin. Hi, Jason. Welcome to the show.

Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. Well, we had an experience the other night, and my wife and I knew immediately that we needed to call you because we needed some expert advice.

We have second-grade twins, and they were practicing their spelling list for the week. The topic was contraction. And as they were reading the list back and forth from one to the other, they spelled the word thistle as in the contraction for this will.

And I immediately took the list away from them and said, you guys, stop making up words. We need to actually practice here. And they showed me the list, and sure enough, thistle appeared on their list.

My wife and I talked about it, and I couldn’t come up with anything that seemed like appropriate usage to me. And so I thought, we better throw this one to you and get the expert advice.

Is this whole sloppy language, or can they use it in writing? So T-H-I-S apostrophe L-L, thistle. That is it. Contraction for this will.

And what’s your major objection to it? Well, we tried to think of, you know, writing a paper, and a kid’s going to write something, and they’re going to say, thistle be the answer. You know, like I said, we could come up with, you know, the American Pie song, you know, this will be the day that I die.

I felt like anything goes in music, but spelling thistle as a contraction, it just didn’t make sense to either of us as an appropriate word for them to be learning.

What an interesting question. Were there any other outliers like that? Like thattle? No, I didn’t see thattle. And I think that’s maybe my main argument with it was there wasn’t any other outliers.

Everything else seemed like common usage words. And I know this is a national spelling list that used at different schools, and so I was just surprised to see that word appear.

Oh, it is a national list? Because I was going to ask if it was possibly pulled from readings that they’re doing in class. Like, did it come from books or chapters or other things that they’re reading?

Well, oddly enough, I had a discussion about it with their teacher because we were just kind of bantering about it.

And she said, boy, I hope that wasn’t something I tossed in there.

And she went back to the list and said, no, this is provided as, you know, from the source material that they use and that they’re teaching at, you know, at multiple schools, I’m sure, across the country.

How about that?

So the teacher started backpedaling?

She was nervous if it was a word.

She said, I sure hope that’s not a Mrs. V word.

And I said, well, let’s look.

And she said, no, it’s definitely on the list.

Well, it’s a loud contraction.

There’s nothing morphologically wrong with it.

It’s a perfectly legitimate contraction in English.

Certainly you can find zillions and zillions of use of it.

It’s not a common contraction.

I mean, compared to the other contractions, it’s a sound formation in English.

And it’s perfectly well formed.

And I think Grant raised a good point, which is that they may well be encountering it in books or other things that they’re reading.

And it would be useful to know.

But I can hear your point as well that you might not want to see that in a paper.

Yeah. And if we were to look at the most common, say, top million words in English, I’m not even sure that would be in there.

I mean, you would encounter she-el or he-el or we-el, you know, we-will, she-will, he-will, long before you would encounter thistle.

It had to be somebody’s favorite word that they included it on the list.

Maybe, or maybe somebody had homophones on the brain and they were thinking of the word thistle, T-H-I-S-T-L-E.

Well, that was my first thought was, we’re doing contractions.

Don’t be messing around with thistle.

Yeah, yeah.

With thistle.

Ouch.

So, Jason, did your daughters have any input on this?

They just thought that I was being goofy, that I was so worked up about a spelling word.

Dad, it’s on the list. Of course we have to learn to spell it.

They kind of thought I was being silly.

Yeah. There’s no harm in learning it.

I don’t know that there’s a lot of value.

It’s interesting. It could easily, though, be a nice jumping off point.

And I’d be interested to hear from the teacher on this.

If you have thistle on the list, it does give you a jumping point for all the other apostrophe LL contractions.

So you just use that word to talk about all the other contractions that can be formed in that way.

So maybe it isn’t a standalone word.

We can then talk about wheel and sheel and heel and da-da-da-da-da and all the other words that are formed with will as a contracted form.

Yeah, it’s weird.

I think of that’ll be $5.95 and I don’t think twice about that.

That would be far more common, right?

Yeah.

That’ll be far more common choice than thistle.

-huh.

Or thosele.

Or diesel?

Maybe.

I’m worried about dozels and diesels.

They sound so weird stand alone, but as part of a sentence, they sound normal.

Well, I’d be real curious to know what other parents of students in your classroom or other parents who are listening might have to say about that.

Maybe, but I just want to reassure you, Jason, that no harm is being done here.

All right, I’m going to have to accept it.

Yeah.

Yeah, and your daughters are going to have to admit that dad’s maybe not quite so goofy.

I better correct you that it’s a daughter and a son or they’ll be really,

Mad at me. Oh!

All right. You have to know twins come in

In all forms. Yes, absolutely they do.

Tell your children we said hello

And congratulate them on

Having a father who cares and pays attention

To their schoolwork. Thank you so much, you guys.

I really appreciate it. All right.

Take care now. Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Here’s a cool Latin word, latibulum.

It means a hiding place or a den of animals, refuge.

And latibulum comes from the same word that gives us latent, you know, something that’s kind of hidden.

And the reason I got excited about this word was because it seems like so many times when I find a cool Latin word like that,

You can also find in the 17th and 18th century that people have adopted it into English, and the word is letibulate.

Oh, so they did, but it just didn’t catch on.

It didn’t catch, you know, it’s obsolete now.

But letibulate, according to a 1623 dictionary, means privily to hide oneself in a corner.

Privily to hide oneself in the corner.

I’m going to go to that party, but I’m going to letibulate.

Fantastic.

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