Slang This with Slang Imposters

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

And I’m Martha Barnette, and it’s time for our weekly slang challenge, where we try to stump a member of the National Puzzlers League.

Today’s contestant is Roy Laban from Redmond, Washington.

Hello, Roy.

Hi.

How are you doing?

I’m doing great.

Anybody from Redmond probably works for Microsoft, right?

Well, I did work for Microsoft for about five years, but I’m starting a company right now.

Oh, really? Well, congratulations. I know that’s a big undertaking.

What kind of business is it?

It’s a software as a service for small businesses, helping small businesses be more productive.

Well, congratulations and good luck with that.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So do you have a favorite slang term you’d like to share?

I do.

I thought about this a bit.

My kids, of course, had their votes.

But I thought about the word rad, which I learned when I was about 10 years old.

And rad was the first slang word that I heard that was new.

You know, it hadn’t existed before.

And as a result, it was the first word that told me slang changes.

And I even remember where I was when I heard the word.

I was in the middle of the street.

Maybe I’m not the smartest place to be.

But I heard the word rad and it’s like that’s new.

And obviously slang changes a lot.

But back then we didn’t have the internet.

We didn’t have as much television.

And it wasn’t as obvious how fast slang can change.

That’s cool.

So that’s rad short for radical basically meaning greater good, right?

Yeah.

Well, Roy, let’s see how you do on our slang quiz today.

Great.

I’m going to give you a sentence with a blank in it with two possible answers.

Your goal is to figure out which one is correct, all right?

If you need some help, just ask Martha.

Okay.

All right.

All right, well, here we go.

Here’s the first one.

He looked all buff and ripped until he took off his shirt.

His blank almost made me wretch.

What made me almost wretch?

Was it his A, bacne, B-A-C-K-N-E, or B, button cotton, B-U-T-T-O-N, C-O-T-T-O-N?

Wow, those are great terms.

Well, obviously, bacne, I can tell where that came from, or would come from if it was real.

Yeah, and then button cotton, button cotton.

I’m thinking that might be belly button lint.

You know, maybe someone’s overweight, has a really big belly button.

That’s a lot of lint.

Yeah, what do you think, Martha?

Remember, he’s all buff and ripped, though.

Oh, he’s buff and ripped.

Right.

Oh, so I think the button cotton’s not in.

I think it’s bacne.

Yeah, I could see how that could be repellent.

Yes.

And back knee is, you said it was obvious what it was.

Will you tell us?

Well, back acne.

There we go.

Acne on your back.

And that is the correct choice.

It is A, his back knee almost made me wretch.

And the reason I chose that is that sometimes people who use steroids in order to get all buff and ripped, that is to have well-defined muscles, have side effects, and acne is one of them.

And back acne can just be this horrific red bleeding mess.

It’s very disgusting.

Interesting.

Anyway.

The things you learn on this show.

I had no idea.

All right, Roy.

Good job on that one.

One more for you.

Ready?

Okay.

You better examine that closely before you send it out.

If you don’t blank a document like that, any mistakes in it are going to come back to haunt you.

So what do you need to do to a document before you send it out?

Do you need to A, snake check it, or B, filter filter it?

Filter filter?

Mm—

Interesting.

I was expecting something that was going to mean spell check.

Snake check.

Snake check could be check for things that are, you know, going to come and bite you.

Filter, filter.

I can’t think of what that might mean.

So I’m going to go with snake check thinking, you know, something’s going to come back and bite you, you know, because email ends up, you know, getting forwarded to the entire Internet these days.

Yeah, I’m leaning toward that for a different reason.

What’s your reason?

I’m thinking of, I just started doing this.

I’m leaving the little spell check thing on when I use Microsoft Word.

Oh.

You know, speaking of Redmond, Washington.

Yeah, and, you know, they have those little squiggly lines underneath.

That’s where I’m going.

Oh, that could be, you know, people could call those snakes.

I haven’t heard anyone call that a snake.

Or maybe a worm check.

I don’t know.

Worm check.

Okay, let’s go for that.

Grant, we can’t stand the suspense any longer.

It is snake check.

Martha, it has nothing to do with the red squiggly line in Microsoft Word.

Oh, I’m wrong?

What it has to do with, if you’re in the military or have been in the military in the jungle of the desert, you know what I’m talking about.

After dark, when you go to bed, you check your bed or your sleeping bag or whatever you’re sleeping in for snakes.

Because they will curl up inside your sleeping bag or under your blankets.

They’ll look for a warm place.

And they will bite you, just like Roy said.

Yes, they will indeed bite you.

And I left a clue in the sentence there.

I said mistakes in it are going to come back to haunt you, knowing full well that most people would think of going to come back to bite you, which is another way that we say the same thing.

So two for two.

Nice job, Roy.

Roy, that was a totally rad performance.

Thank you.

And thanks for playing.

Thank you, Roy.

It was fun.

All right.

Best of luck to you.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Well, if you have a question about slang terms or grammar or word origins, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.