Slang This! with WordGirl

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

And I’m Martha Barnette, and it’s time for Slang This, the puzzle where you guess the meaning of strange slang terms.

Today’s contestant is Dorothea Gillum of Boston, Massachusetts. Dorothea, welcome.

Thank you.

Say hello to Grant.

Hi, Grant.

Hello, Dorothea.

And, you know, I should point out, before we go any further, that Dorothea is not just any word nerd. She’s the creator and executive producer of the PBS animated series Word Girl.

So, Dorothea, tell us who Word Girl is and what she does.

Well, Word Girl is a 10-year-old superhero who can bend steel and fly at the speed of sound, and she knows every word in the dictionary and some hieroglyphics, too.

Oh, she would have been my role model when I was young. Do you have a favorite slang term?

You know, I don’t know if I have a favorite slang term, but I have one that caught my ear recently, In the Boat. I’d never heard that expression before, but one of our casting directors here, we were talking about an upcoming War Girl record, and we were having trouble nailing down one of our actors who will remain nameless, and the casting director said, well, you know, better to go with someone else who’s in the boat.

In the boat?

And I had to ask him what that meant, and it meant, I guess, a fishing term, where instead of you’re reeling someone in, it’s like a sure thing. It’s in the boat.

Have you heard that before?

No, I haven’t, but explaining with the fishing imagery really works because it’s the fish you’ve already landed rather than shooting for the fish that you haven’t caught yet, right?

Exactly.

Well, let’s move on to our game. Dorothea, Grant’s going to give you a slang term, and then he will give you three sentences that suggest what that term could mean. Now, only one of those will be real, and the other two examples will be fake. So your task will be to guess which sentence illustrates how this slang term is really used.

Now, chances are you won’t have heard the word before, so the trick is going to be to puzzle out its meaning. And since Word Girl can’t be here to be a lifeline, I’ll be standing by to help you if you get stuck, okay?

Great.

All right, here we go. All right, so we’re going to have two terms for you to guess today, and the first one is pelican crossing. That’s two words, P-E-L-I-C-A-N-C-R-O-S-S-I-N-G, pelican crossing.

And the sample sentences are, Nigel hammered on the button at the pelican crossing, but the traffic light didn’t change.

And the second sample sentence, on the day of this year’s pelican crossing, those gleaming white sails looked like flocks of seabirds headed for open water. It was the first day of great sailing this year.

And the third one, the ferry didn’t stop, but came just close enough so that we could make a pelican crossing by leaping across the dark water to the dock.

So, is a pelican crossing a pedestrian-controlled crosswalk? Is it the first good sailing day of the year? Or is it disembarking a ship by jumping across open water?

Wow, that’s a tough one.

It is a tough one. What would you say if I told you that this term is British?

Well, that changes everything. Because, let’s see, pelican crossing. Well, I love the image of the last one.

I do too. The idea that someone would leap like a pelican between the boat and the dock is very graceful and beautiful.

Yeah, and there should be a word for that, too.

There really should be a word for that. Although my father’s a sailor, and I’ve been in that position before, and it’s not always done gracefully.

Yeah, it’s the don’t-get-wet crossing.

Yeah, usually you’re more like a scared cat, duck running for the dock.

Which one are you keen on?

I’m keen on the middle one.

So you’re thinking of first good sailing day of the year.

Yeah.

It sounds British, and it sounds like it should have a name, Pelican Crossing.

Well, the reason I offered you that second clue that it sounds British is because I included in my first sentence the name Nigel. Because indeed, Pelican Crossing is a pedestrian-controlled crosswalk.

That’s hilarious.

It is. Now, I’ve heard them called, well, I guess that’s just the crosswalk in Britain called a zebra.

Well, right. Zebra crossing is, but that’s just about the paint on the road and whether or not it’s pedestrian controlled or not.

Right. It’s not quite an acronym. The pelican comes from the words pedestrian light control.

Oh, really?

Yeah. So it’s the P-E from pedestrian, the L-I from light, and the C-O-N, although it’s the wrong spelling from control.

Oh.

Dorothea, who knew? You got me with the anacronym.

All right. Well, let’s try another one and see how you do on this one, all right?

Okay. So the second term is zanhero. It’s a term used in the American Southwest in a dialect of Spanish that is spoken there.

And the first sample sentence is, Sanjero, she cried as the bus for Santa Fe left the station without her. Driver, wait!

The second sentence, with a deft movement, the Sanjero swiveled the board that diverts the water to canals surrounding the orchard.

And the third sentence, plucky young Sanjeros from the suburbs often try their hand at hunting roadrunners, believing that the birds are as hard to catch in real life as they are in cartoons.

So which of these meanings is the correct one used in the Spanish spoken in the American Southwest? Is it a word for bus driver? Is it someone who mechanically controls the flow of irrigation? Or is it a man from the suburbs who foolishly chases roadrunners?

I really wanted to be sea. I was imagining guys in pink polo shirts and, you know, penny loafers.

Yeah. I hope that there is a phenomenon like that happening in the American Southwest. I mean, not for the sake of the roadrunners, of course.

Well, you know, because cow tipping is all played out. You’ve got to have something new, right?

Right, right. I have a feeling, though, it might be B.

Yeah? Which one is B?

Yeah, I don’t know why, but I feel like it might be a firm term.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m going completely on gut here, Grant.

All right, this is your answer. I’ve got nothing to back me up.

So that’s right.

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. A sanjero is someone who mechanically controls the flow of irrigation. The word comes from the Spanish words zanja, meaning a deep ditch or irrigation ditch, and zanjon, which means a ditch rider or overseer.

A ditch writer is somebody who is responsible for making sure that the ditch isn’t dammed up or isn’t blocked and the water is flowing to the crops like it should.

So there you go. Nice work there.

Well, thank you. I, phew, redeemed myself.

That’s right. You’re batting 500.

Well, Dorothea, thank you so much for playing our game today.

Oh, it was a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

And hey, as a special thank you gift, we’re going to send you a brand new book. It’s called Sapphire’s Political Dictionary. And get this, it’s signed by the author himself, William Sapphire.

Really? Mm—

Wow, fantastic.

Yeah. Thank you very much.

And if folks want to find out more about Word Girl, they can go to pbskids.org slash wordgirl, right?

That’s right.

All right. If a question about language is puzzling you, give Word Woman and Word Man a call right here at 1-877-929-9673, or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.