If you’re feeling squiffy, it means you’re drunk, especially in 19th century British slang. If someone has a golden gut, on the other hand, it means they have good business acumen. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Squiffy and Golden Gut”
You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Grant, I came across a word the other day in my reading that I’d never seen before.
Okay.
You know how I am about that. I got so excited. I wanted to share it with you, but I thought I would share it in the form of a little quiz.
Okay.
Okay. It turns out this word first appeared in the 19th century, and the word is squiffy, S-Q-U-I-F-F-Y.
Grant is squiffy, a noun meaning a kitchen implement made from corn husks. B, an adjective describing someone who’s drunk, or C, a proper name for a small breed of dog popular in Newfoundland, as in he’s a purebred Squiffy.
It’s drunk.
How did you know that?
Because I’ve heard it before.
Oh, you have?
Yeah, Squiffy. He’s a bit Squiffy.
It’s British.
Yeah, yeah, 19th century.
Well, let me ask you one, then.
Okay.
If I say that you have a golden gut, what am I saying about you?
That I have excellent taste in food.
I can eat anything.
A golden gut.
No, I’m talking about…
I have good intuition.
Yes.
I’m talking about your business acumen, your business intuition.
And this term golden gut came to surface because I was looking at the rise of data in the business world.
And more decisions now are being made by people who appreciate data and they care about the data and they ignore their gut.
They ignore their golden gut, even if they’ve been successful in the past.
So you have this paradigm shift where this old method of the boss is always right because his gut and his experience say so.
And the new crowd comes and said, look, but it’s not supported by the data.
Right?
There’s a great story that they tell about Google.
A guy who left Google said that when he was there, they tested 41 shades of blue by showing this particular element on the page to millions of visitors and figuring out which one got clicked on the most.
And then that’s the one that they used.
Oh, my gosh.
And then it’s completely the opposite of going with your golden gut.
I wonder if they could have.
That’s so interesting.
Golden gut.
What new words have you encountered?
877-929-9673 or email us.
The address is words@waywordradio.org.
