Spondulix

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Wendell Holloway in Dallas.

Hi, Wendell. How you doing?

Great. How are you?

All right.

What’s going on, Wendell?

Well, so I’m new to your program. I started listening several months ago, and it got me thinking about this word that my friend Dan and I have been using for probably 20 years when we talk about money. And I’m wondering, did we make this up, or is this a real word?

So the word is spondukage. And we actually spell it the way it sounds, spondukage. And I’m just trying to figure out, gosh, did we make that up? And if we did, maybe we need to do something with that. Or is this a word that’s been floating around and we just sort of grabbed it years and years ago and used it?

Spondukage? So you would spell that S-P-O-N-D-U-C-A something?

Well, in our emails and texts, we use a K, but maybe we made up the spelling. I don’t know.

Spondukage, D-U-K-A-G-E, maybe at the end?

That’s right, yeah.

And Wendell, how would you use it in a sentence?

So it really started, I think, when we were over at the Stoneleaf thinking about having a beer, and Dan or I would say, hey, do you have any spondukage today? Let’s go get a beer. And we had money, but we just sort of threw that term in there, you know, as a way to get the conversation started about going and meeting and having a beer.

Well, it sounds an awful lot like spondulix, which is a fairly, fairly well-known word for money. Maybe you all read Huckleberry Finn. Mark Twain used it in that book to mean money.

Oh, yeah. That was a few years ago. Yeah. Okay.

-huh. Yeah. Usually you see it as spondulix or spondules or sponduli.

Yeah, it has been around since at least the mid-19th century, 1840s or so. And we don’t know the origin of it for sure, although there’s a theory that I really like.

Oh, me too. This is a great theory, right?

The Greek one?

Yes, the Greek one.

Yes. This is really cool, Wendell. In ancient Greek, the word spondulos means vertebra. And there are references in the past to a stack of coins resembling a spine. Some people think that it arose in college slang in the mid-19th century. And I could just see these college guys who are struggling with ancient Greek and stacking their coins on the table calling them spondulics.

Yeah.

It’s cool that we have the written evidence that at least a couple of times somebody made that connection. Spondulics mean spine. Coins stacked look like a spine. Therefore, generically, all money could be a spondylix.

Oh, that’s really interesting. Yeah, great.

How cool is that? Maybe we took our subconscious from reading Mark Twain years and years ago and converted it over beers. I don’t know. I have to think more about that.

A lot of conversion occurs over beers.

But it was beyond Twain. Twain was definitely, it was a word of his era for sure. And it was widespread enough that it pops up in older fiction. And even now, people kind of unconsciously use it without quite realizing the history of the term or how many years it’s been around.

Oh, that’s awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah, so now you have something to talk about.

Yeah, that’s really great. And now we can add spondukage to the wide variety of spellings and pronunciations for this term.

Well, next time you’re in Dallas, we’ll have a beer and we’ll explore all of that and more.

Okay, if you’re bringing the spondukage, we’re there.

Okay.

Thanks, Wendell.

For the first round.

Okay, for the first round.

Okay.

Thanks, Wendell.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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