Slake Your Thirst

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Rebecca Bridge from Seattle, Washington.

Hey, Rebecca, welcome to the program.

How are things in Seattle?

Well, I’m hoping that you guys can help settle an argument between my friends and I.

We were out the other night having beers, and we got into, one of my friends asked about,

Or asked for another beer, and he said it would really slate his thirst at the moment.

S-L-A-T-E.

Okay.

And I immediately corrected him and said, you mean slake?

And he said, no, I think that slate also works.

And then his name is Aaron.

And then our other friend Mike jumped in and said he thought it was slay.

One’s first.

So after a little bit of Googling, we didn’t really find anything that settled the argument about correct word usage.

So we’re looking for you as a deciding vote.

Between Googling it and talking to us, there weren’t knives and billy clubs involved.

You guys didn’t go.

Do you have a rumble on this?

We got a lot of back and forth.

He seems he’s pretty sure that slate is proper usage as well as slate.

I think that what I think it’s an acorn, but I’m not quite sure.

So if you could jump in on my side, that’d be great.

We can.

We can.

We got your back, right?

They got to buy you drinks next time.

Martha’s got broken bottles in both hands and I’ve got a chair.

We’re ready to go.

Good, good, good, good.

And you’ve got the right word.

It is slake.

It’s S-L-A-K-E, slake.

Yes, slake your thirst.

Let’s just be definitive about it.

Without question, it is slake.

Yes, yes, yes.

Have you heard people using slate at all?

I’m not even sure if I would consider it an acorn or more of a malaprop.

Let’s just explain again for our listeners what an acorn is.

This is when people mishear something or misremember something,

And they say it in another way that kind of makes sense and doesn’t sound exactly wrong.

For example, some people think that an acorn, A-C-O-R-N, is egg corn, E-G-G-C-O-R-N.

And so they kind of work out a backstory for this word that kind of makes sense to them.

In this case, I would say to slay your thirst is an egg corn, S-L-A-Y,

Because you’re thinking, oh, I’m going to kill my thirst or destroy my thirst or stop my thirst, right?

Right, right, drown it.

But to slay your thirst, I don’t get how anybody could explain that to themselves where it would make sense.

Did he say why he thought the verb slate made sense and slate your thirst?

I think he was referring to some kind of third or fourth usage of the word slate, maybe.

I don’t know.

To me, it sounds like, you know, he’s saying that next Wednesday at 9 p.m.

He’s going to go ahead and have a beer to clench his thirst.

Oh, so he’s scheduling his thirst?

Pencil it in, right?

Yeah.

No, no, there’s an old, old meaning of slate, meaning to punish an enemy severely

Or to beat or thrash.

So technically, I’m going to say that.

But the number of people in the country who know that without looking it up

Is probably three, the three of us.

Right.

Well, Aaron is kind of an inventive fellow.

He’s an avid Dungeons & Dragons player.

Well, there’s his weakness.

Okay, right.

Why go to false mythologies when all the real ones are so interesting?

Exactly.

Well, I think that I’m glad that you guys came down on my side on this one.

I feel vindicated.

There’s one interesting thing about Slake that I love.

It’s one of those words that’s mostly used by fiction writers.

They love this word.

If you look at, if you analyze big texts, lots of collection of different kinds of texts,

It’s the fiction writers who keep this word going.

Well, I actually am a fiction writer.

Oh, you are?

Well, very good.

I am an MFA holder.

Oh, yeah?

Yes.

Yes, I am.

Well, you’re doing Slake proud then.

Okay.

No wonder you used it in conversation, right?

Well, your credentials are better than his.

Dungeons and Dragons versus an MFA?

Come on.

I tried to tell him that, but now I can’t wait until he hears this on the air.

Well, tell him that we scoffed, all right?

We clawed.

And use Slake Your Thirst in your next book or poem, or what are you writing?

I have a collection of poetry that’s finished, and I’m working on a novel right now.

Okay, great.

I’ll make sure to work the phrase in it some place.

Yeah, then highlight it and send a copy to us and to your friend.

Well, I will.

Super. Thanks, Rebecca. Best of luck with the novel.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

All right. Bye-bye.

We do like settling these linguistic disputes

Because a lot of times they get at these fundamental truths about English

And how we understand or misunderstand, which is often just as interesting.

Yes.

So call us, 877-929-9673, or explain the whole mess in email, words@waywordradio.org.