Slang This! with a Video Game Designer

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

And I’m Martha Barnette.

It’s time for this week’s Slang Challenge, where we try to stump a member of the National Puzzlers League with some curious terminology.

Today’s contestant is Mike Selinker from Seattle, Washington.

Well, hello, Mike.

Hey there.

Hiya, Mike.

What do you do there in Seattle?

I’m a game designer, a puzzle designer out here for the company Lone Shark Games.

Video games or board games, what kind of games are we talking about?

We do all sorts of things. We do alternate reality games. Our new one’s called Citizens of Virtue. It’s out now.

Citizens of Virtue?

-huh.

Yeah, it’s a new highly controversial game.

What’s the object of the game, to be virtuous?

Well, it depends on who you talk to, but yes. The good guys are trying to be virtuous, and the bad guys are trying a very different way to be virtuous.

Oh.

It’s an interesting little game.

So we do that. We do big puzzle events. We do board games and card games. We do electronic games. We do all sorts of things.

Oh, man. Grant, we have a real puzzler on our hands.

Sounds interesting to me.

Yeah. Well, Mike, we always like to start by asking if you have a favorite slang term you’d like to share with us.

I don’t know if I have a favorite, but I think I’ve been spending a lot of time with, like, you know, the sort of down-home phrases lately, like, that dog won’t hunt or things like that, right?

Yeah, even a blind hog can find an acorn.

I think it’s probably because we’re in the, you know, last days of the Bush presidency, and I think those might go out of style sometime soon. So I’m kind of getting them out of the way for now.

Oh, I like that.

So it just feels like the right thing to do, to just speak plain. Be folksy and homey.

Yeah, but maybe not for long.

Okay.

Mike, let’s see how you do with our quiz.

I’ll do my best.

Are you ready?

Sure.

Okay.

I’ll give you a sentence with a blank in it and two possible answers. Only one of them is correct. If you need help, Martha will be playing along, so feel free to discuss these sentences with her, okay?

Okay, Martha, help me out here.

All right.

I doubt you’ll need it, but I’m right here.

All right.

Well, here we go. Here’s the first sentence.

No, it wasn’t just a few people having drinks. It was a blank. So was it A, a hamantaschen, or was it B, a party party?

I’ve got to go with party party because hamantaschen is a cookie, right?

Well done.

Yeah, but this is a slang quiz, so…

I don’t know. I mean, I guess I’ve never heard a hamantaschen be described as a party, but I guess it could be. If it’s a really good party.

It’s a three-sided cookie with poppy seeds on top, right?

Yeah, right.

So I’m still going to take the coward’s way out and go with that.

No, you’re taking the correct way out. It’s indeed party party.

I still feel like I didn’t really try on that one.

Well, you know, I wanted to see if that would be a stumper. I wasn’t sure. I thought it might be easy. But the reason I chose party party is because it’s a great example of how we use reduplication in English to indicate that it’s something big, great, or an especially good example of its kind. That is, we say the word twice. We don’t just mean it’s a party. It’s a party party.

Does that mean the beverage that you can buy in the store, the juicy juice, that’s the best thing on the planet? Because I’m sure that wouldn’t be my first guess.

I don’t know what they intended. The marketing people are mysterious to me.

They sure are. Their methods and motives are opaque.

All right, so you got one there. Mike, we’re going to do one more. Let’s see how you do, okay?

All right, I’ll give it a try.

Here it is. If I’d had the nerve, I would have told the cop where to blank. What right does he have to talk to me like that?

So if I would have had the nerve, I would have told him where to A, play patty cake, or B, to get off.

To get off?

Mm—

Wow.

Step off, sure.

I would have told the cop where to A, play patty-kid, or B, to get off.

I would say where to get off.

That is indeed correct. What’s your logic there?

Well, I mean, I think that where to get off is one of those things where it suggests the immediate action of the person you’re trying to tell what to do.

Yeah, where do you get off talking to me like that? That kind of use, right?

Right.

Yeah, it’s a little old-fashioned.

It’s funny that you mentioned exactly the other term that I wanted to talk about, which is the step-off.

Right.

Or even step-to, which is kind of related. If you step to someone, that means that you’re up in their face, ready to fight them. And if you tell someone to step off, you mean to bug off or get out of your face or go away, right?

A lot of slang terms are about proximity.

I mean, if I tell you, if you’re going to come to me, you better come correct. You know, it not only suggests that you better be accurate, but you also better not be directly in front of me when I tell you that.

That’s right.

A lot of those man issues about personal space and who is the dominant person, right?

That’s right.

Gee, I was really hoping it was going to be play patty-cake. I wanted to use that next time I get pulled over.

Martha, you can do whatever you like.

It depends on the cop, I guess.

Well, Mike, you did wonderfully well there. Congratulations. Two out of two.

Okay, glad to hear that.

Thank you so much for playing with us.

Absolutely, I’ll do it any time.

All right.

Bye.

You can find out more about the National Puzzlers League at puzzlers.org.

And you can call us any time about any aspect of language. The number is 1-877-929-9673. That’s 1-877-WAYWORD, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.