Sundog (episode #1507)

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

I wanted to share an email we got from Carrie Van Ornam, who lives in Wapaka, Wisconsin.

She writes,

We were all in the car listening to your show on the way to the state fair.

And Aidan, my 11-year-old, brought up a memory from when he was probably about five years old.

He was describing to me some acrobatic act, asking me if I can do one.

His words were confusing me.

Mom, can you do a winter pepper?

I was stumped.

After much explaining and him showing me a regular somersault and then saying,

But backwards, it finally dawned on me.

A backwards somersault is a winter pepper.

That’s the opposite of summer is winter and the opposite of salt is pepper.

That’s nice.

Isn’t that nice?

Did he earnestly, honestly believe that that was the word for it or did he just coin it on the spot?

That’s really clever.

I don’t know.

I found it in a joke book.

I don’t know.

Am I obligated to say that the summer and the salt aren’t the same summer and the same salt?

Okay, I just did.

Feel free.

Feel free.

Well, bravo to Aiden.

That’s super clever.

Yeah.

We know the kids in your house come up with funny stuff all the time.

We want to hear it.

877-929-9673.

Or tell us an email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Allie in Milwaukee.

And I have a question for you guys.

All right.

Shoot.

Okay.

So I was out to lunch with my family a few weeks ago, and I noticed a flyer on the table highlighting a campaign, something like The Last Straw.

And I then realized our drinks had been served without straws, you know, on purpose.

And this was part of an environmentally friendly campaign to limit plastic straw usage.

And so I thought it was so clever that they were using this phrase, the last straw.

You know, literally they’re trying to end using plastic straws, so they’re actually looking for that last straw.

But, you know, also it kind of says something to me about the ethos of, you know, we’re fed up with the amount of pollution going into the Great Lakes and the ocean, and, you know, this was the last straw.

And so I just thought it was so clever, you know, not only using this old phrase for something new,

But having that double meaning and kind of wanted to know what you guys thought about that.

Or maybe even a triple meaning, right?

The usage we all know, and then the idea that they have served their last straw,

They’re no longer providing one in that restaurant,

And they’re hoping to see the last straw on the earth, or the last straw that goes into the rivers or lakes.

Yeah, maybe three meanings.

Yeah, so I agree with you. That’s very clever.

And it caught your eye, and I wonder how many other customers had the same,

Oh, feeling and that their marketing was totally perfect and spot on.

Right.

Yeah, and this is a characteristic of really successful advertising.

There’s been research showing that puns work better in slogans,

And I think you’ve got one there.

You’ve zeroed in on one, the last straw,

Referring, of course, to that old story about the camel that had baskets on its back and somebody put more and more and more straws in there and then the last straw broke it.

But there is research showing that a pun in a slogan can be more successful, that people respond better to it.

And I think there are a couple of things going on there that Grant alluded to one of them, which is that it catches your eye or it catches your ear.

It makes you do a double take and think, well, what’s that?

And then the other thing is I think about that saying that laughter is the sound of people congratulating themselves.

And I think that that’s some of what’s going on there, that a slogan like that is kind of a mini riddle.

You know, it’s a little bitty riddle.

And when you figure it out, then you get this little dopamine rush and you feel a little bit more invested in it.

I think that’s so true.

And I’ve thought about this phrase since then and even thought about how, you know, it’s such a good metaphor for pollution, every little straw in and of itself.

Doesn’t do a whole lot, but together it really wreaks a havoc on the environment.

When I was in newspapers, working for online newspapers, we did a headline analysis of our most successful stories.

And it wasn’t puns necessarily. It was things that could have multiple meanings without the humorous intent of the pun.

So it’s kind of what Martha was saying about the research.

So when you put something where people have to pause for just a second to decide whether that’s a noun or a verb.

Or where they had to say, oh, is that a person’s name or is that referring to, so for example,

If you did a headline about the television show House, is it House the TV show or the thing house or is it House Music or something else?

Those where they had to pause for a moment are the ones that had the highest click rate

And the people’s more likely to get into the story and spend more time in the story to figure it out.

Oh, that’s cool.

Yeah, that’s very interesting.

So I guess they have a really good marketing campaign there.

Yeah, they sure do.

The other thing I should say is humans, one of the really common traits across all languages is how much we play with language.

And double meaning is a part of poetry and music and everyday wordplay and the languages that families use in themselves, you know, that they don’t really share with the outside world.

And it is utterly, completely human to do that, to take a phrase and say, oh, but maybe we can make it mean this or make it mean that or twist it around a little bit.

We do this all the time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that’s what I love about your show, Grant and Martha, even you saying, you know, hello, you have A Way with Words.

That’s just hilarious to me.

I love it.

Yeah.

We don’t want to get rid of words when we say that.

Right.

Right.

Well, cool, Allie.

Thanks so much for your call.

We really appreciate it.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, I appreciate you guys, and we listen to you on every road trip.

We just think you’re the best, so thanks so much for what you’re doing.

Thank you so much.

Yep.

Bye. Take care.

All right. Bye-bye.

Take care.

Call us with your language question, 877-929-9673.

On Twitter, Lauren O’Neill writes,

I love how, for some inexplicable reason, OBGYN is pronounced OBGYN as if it were an acronym.

Yes, I just made my annual appointment with the obtaining babies and groping your nethers doctor.

I never thought about that.

It’s not an acronym, right?

It’s not an acronym.

It’s not an initialism.

No.

Right, yeah.

The initialism where you say just the letters and the acronym where you pronounce it as a word.

Yeah.

That’s funny. It’s sort for obstetrics and gynecology, right?

877-929-9673.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi. This is Ben. We’re calling you from Rapid City just outside of the Black Hills in South Dakota.

Oh, nice.

Wow. Okay.

I just wanted to talk with you guys about sun dogs.

Sun dogs?

It’s basically just a sun, the sun, right? And then it has a rainbow around it.

Oh, yeah. Nice.

What got you to thinking about that?

Well, we were driving to Cincinnati on a trip.

We saw one on a freeway, so we were just thinking about it, and then we called.

And here we are.

So, yeah.

So you want to know where we get sundog and why we call that kind of glowing ring around the sun a sundog.

Yes, exactly.

Okay.

I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.

The bad news is we don’t really know why it’s called the sundog.

Oh.

There’s no really good theories.

It goes back way into naval history, though.

It’s a term that’s been used by sailors for a very long time in English.

And there are other names for it, too.

Some people call it a mock sun or a weather gall, G-A-L-L.

Or here’s the fancy term for it, parheelion, which is Latin.

Parheelion.

Yeah, it means beside the sun.

And so it only happens when the sun is a certain point in the sky.

And there are ice crystals at a certain altitude.

So the sun can kind of bounce through them and then come to our eyes at certain very specific conditions.

There’s a slang dictionary from 1890 that called it a phantasmic mirage,

Which I think is a great way to describe a sun dog.

It goes back to at least the 17th century, so that’s hundreds of years.

And in some parts of the United States, including Illinois and Maryland,

Folklore tradition has it that if you see a sun dog, it can tell you a little bit about the weather that’s going to come.

So, for example, on Smith Island, Maryland, some people have believed that it will bring easterly winds,

Cool temperatures, and fewer crabs in the crab harvest.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it’s pretty cool, right?

So it’s kind of like an omen?

Yeah, an omen, exactly right.

In that area?

Yeah, exactly.

The only thing that I can imagine that would explain why it’s called a dog is because it goes along with the sun, you know?

Oh, like a dog follows you by and catch your heel?

Yeah, a smaller version.

But nobody really knows, as Grant said.

Yeah, unfortunately, nobody really knows.

Ben, thank you for calling us.

Keep up the curiosity and call us again sometime, okay?

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, bye-bye.

Take care.

Yeah, I was thinking about the dog accompanying the sun because you think about the term dog days

And how that has to do with the star Sirius being near the sun.

The dog star.

You know, you can see it.

Yeah, it’s visible at certain times of the year in relation to the sun.

But who knows?

Who knows, yeah.

As we said.

All these different names for it.

We know there are fantastic mirages in your world,

And if you want to talk about the names for them,

Give us a call, 877-929-9673,

Or email us, words@waywordradio.org.

We heard from Susan Gallant in Burbank, California,

Who wrote to us to describe a game that she and a friend used to play back in high school and college

Whenever they had a little downtime, say they were standing in the line at a movie theater.

She writes,

We’d start with a word containing a prefix, base word, and suffix,

And take turns changing one part.

The only rule was that you couldn’t change the same part twice in succession.

If she had changed the suffix, then I could change the base of prefix.

One could enlarge a part by combining more than one suffix,

And it was also acceptable to add an extra vowel to make the word pronounceable.

There was no requirement to form a real word, quite the contrary.

The more outrageous, the better, because the object of the game was just to start laughing.

And she says that after 50 years, I can only remember one of our favorite verbal concoctions, epidormithry,

Which we defined as the uppermost sleeping accommodation as, may I offer you the epidormithry or would you prefer the lower bunk?

So the upper bunk, like on a train or a dorm room.

Yeah.

That’s cool. I like that.

And so I started trying to play this game just with myself during a few idle moments.

And it’s actually kind of fun.

I went from the term preposterously to postposterously to postpostercized to postpreparized.

And I stopped there.

I decided that postpreparized is when you think of all those things you should have brought on that picnic.

Yeah.

Don’t.

There’s a very common word game that we do that’s a little like this where you take, you change one letter in a word.

We do only three-letter words in my family.

Oh.

So you might do lid to lad.

You can’t change the same letter, and lad becomes fad, and fad becomes maybe…

Fat.

Fat, sure, and you just keep going.

What usually happens, you end up in a rut, and cat comes up inevitably, and you go back into the cycle, and that’s time for the game to be over.

Better than looking at your phone, right?

Post-posturously.

I think that’s a great game.

877-929-9673, or talk to us in email words@waywordradio.org.

This show’s about language examined through family, history, and culture.

Stick around.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And we’re joined, who is this handsome man who cast along the shadow?

It’s John Chenefti, our quiz guy.

Hello, guys.

Hello, Grant.

Oh, Martha.

You know, I love the comic books.

You know, a big comic book guy.

I was going through my collection, my vast collection.

I’ve got thousands.

I noticed how many villains’ names end in O, like Magneto and Bizarro, Sinestro, Metallo,

Mysterio, Despero, Starro, Electro.

There’s a whole bunch.

So let’s look at O villains.

I’ll describe villains, new villains I’ve come up with,

Whose names are all common words ending in O,

And you tell me who they are.

Oh, boy.

Okay?

Okay.

I don’t think you get it.

For example, this villain takes large islands

And breaks them up into a chain of smaller islands.

What a cad.

He calls himself Archipelago.

Archipelago.

Dun, dun, dun.

Oh, so the word comes with an O already attached.

We’re not adding an O.

No, we don’t have to add an O.

No, it comes with an O, yeah.

Now, who are the following evil geniuses?

And as a sort of side puzzle, you can try to guess if these are actual characters,

Because when I was doing research on this, I actually found there are a whole bunch.

So here we go.

This villain commits crimes with impunity because he can inflict intense feelings of dizziness

Upon law enforcement and superheroes.

Vertigo, you will obey me.

Yes.

Actually, Vertigo is a superhero.

Not a supervillain.

Yeah.

This villain can summon up a hot, dry wind to carry herself where she needs to be or sweep away any superheroes.

Ooh, derecho.

Oh, not derecho.

I don’t know that one.

That’s good.

But I was thinking of a little Middle Eastern action.

Sirocco?

Sirocco, yes.

Sirocco.

But derecho’s good, too.

Actually, a superhero.

I always think they’ll team up.

Yes.

Be a superhero team.

There we go.

This villain carries a magic guitar with which he plays highly rhythmic music from his home of Trinidad and causes opponents to dance uncontrollably.

Bongo?

Not Bongo, no.

Calypso.

Calypso, who is actually a supervillain, but not a musical supervillain.

And his sidekick, Bongo.

Bongo, sure, why not? Let’s throw in sidekicks.

Okay.

This villain is a highly skilled soldier who specializes in sea or air attacks.

His secret?

He gets his powers from not wearing any underwear.

Commando.

Commando, who is neither a superhero nor a villain.

There’s other kinds.

There’s some villains.

And he wears a kilt.

It’s terrible.

That’s how you get superpowers.

Yeah, exactly.

This villain is a real pain in the butt.

Almost.

He incapacitates his opponents by causing them great discomfort in their lower back.

Lumbago.

Lumbago.

Neither a superhero nor a villain.

But again, very possible.

Why not?

This villain is an agile dancer and defeats opponents by distracting them with his clapping

And then stomping them with his hard-heeled shoes.

Flamenco.

Flamenco.

Not a real superhero, though there is an anime series called Samurai Flamenco.

Dig this.

About a male model with no powers who tries to convince himself he’s a superhero.

Just sharing.

Just sharing.

I gather that you have the kind of browser history that when you pass away,

The first thing you want to have is to have it cleared, right?

Clear everything, please.

And not for prurient reasons either, just because it’s just weird.

All right, you guys, let’s go out and fight crime together.

Let’s try to find these villains and track them down.

You guys have been great.

Because we are on the radio.

Radio.

Thanks, John.

John, that was neat-o.

Thanks so much.

I’ll see you guys next time.

Bye-bye.

Tally-ho.

There we go.

Tally-ho.

Let’s keep the conversation going.

Call us to talk about language.

877-929-9673 or send us your questions in email.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Barbara Murray, and I’m calling from Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California.

Well, hello, Barbara. Nice to talk to you.

Hi, Barbara.

What’s up?

Hi. It’s great to talk to you guys, too.

What can we do for you?

Well, I have a question about a phrase that my mom always used, and I never heard anyone else use it.

And it got to be kind of a family joke.

So now when we use it, we use it in a joking kind of way because we thought it was such a silly phrase.

So she would always say whenever she thought we were going someplace, like I grew up in Northern California in the Bay Area.

So like when we had to go over to San Francisco and she knew it was going to be crowded, she would be like, oh, I really don’t want to go.

It’s going to be a mob scene.

And so that was her favorite.

She would always call things that she didn’t even know for sure, but anything she thought was going to be crowded.

She called it a mob scene.

And my kids picked it up and it just became a family joke.

So now when we talk about going anywhere, we’re like, oh, God, should we go?

It’s going to be a mob scene.

Why is it funny?

Just because it’s employed so often?

To me, it always sounded like I didn’t know where she got the phrase.

I never heard anyone else say it.

And it sounds vaguely sinister, but the way she said it, it didn’t really sound scary.

But I always pictured the scene in the old Frankenstein movie where the crowd is storming the castle with flaming torches.

That was what I pictured when she said mob scene.

So I just, you know, I wanted to know what was the real origin of the phrase.

Do other people use this?

Did she make it up?

Oh, no, it’s been around for quite a while, since at least the late 1800s mob scene.

And it referred to kind of the kind of scene that you’re talking about.

Just it comes from the world of theater and a whole bunch of people coming on stage.

You know, that big climactic scene.

It’s a crowd scene.

Yeah, yeah, a crowd scene.

Only somehow the word mob makes it sound more horrible or bigger.

Well, it has developed nuances over the centuries since it first really popped into the English language, depending on the context.

So sometimes mob is negative and automatically implies violence or danger.

Yeah.

Yeah, which it was not in her case.

It was just, I mean, she wasn’t, I would not say that she was in any scientific sense agoraphobic.

She just didn’t like to go any place that was crowded, even though she constantly had to.

And so she would just always use that phrase.

And like I said, now it’s a family joke.

I love the word mob, too, because it comes from the Latin mobile vulgus, which means the changeable common people, the fickle common people.

The mobile is like mobile.

It’s related to mobile and move.

And the vulgus is like vulgar.

But not vulgar as in obscene. Vulgar as in common.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah, so the mobilee vulgus was the common people,

The crowd that would sing Hosanna one day and crucify him the next.

A mob isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just a whole lot of people.

Yeah, and disorganized.

A mob, you never call soldiers on parade a mob because they’re in rinks and rows, right?

Right. They’re very organized, whereas a mob is just a bunch of people milling around.

Right, he’s doing her own thing.

Which I think was maybe part of what my mother didn’t like was just a whole ton of disorganized people.

Right.

Yeah, I’m picturing all the extras in a movie scene or on stage, you know, saying peas and carrots, peas and carrots,

Or whatever it is that they say to simulate crowd noise, steamboat rhubarb.

Well, that’s great.

I just, you know, as I said, I have really never heard anyone else use it,

And I didn’t know if she had made it up or if it was a real thing.

And I just, I love that it’s become a joke thing.

It’s really one of those eye-rolling things now in the family.

Yeah.

So I think she would be happy to know we’re carrying it on for her.

Well, yeah.

And now I’m going to think of her whenever I hear that term.

Good.

Well, my mom was a great person.

That’s great, Barbara.

Barbara, thank you for your call.

We really appreciate it.

Okay.

You have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

We’ve talked about this on the show before, how words that are not ordinary were once condemned as horrible.

Oh, yeah.

And mob was one of those words.

So as early as 1710, Jonathan Swift and other people described the word mob as terrible.

It was a shortened form of the Latin phrase.

And he said, it’s the result of a natural tendency towards relapsing into barbarity, which delights in monosyllables.

So this criticism of shortening words, which is a perfectly ordinary way to make new words in English, is at least 300 years old.

A long tradition.

A natural tendency towards relapsing into barbarity.

That is the human condition, isn’t it?

If he had pearls, he would have been clutching them, right?

Yes.

877-929-9673.

If you’re giving up on something, then you throw in the towel, right?

Right, yeah.

And that’s an expression that comes from boxing, right?

I think there’s throwing a sponge, too, yeah.

That’s what I was going to say.

I just came across that.

Chuck up the sponge or chuck in the sponge is an earlier term that also comes from boxing.

That means the same thing.

I’m going to chuck up the sponge.

So you’re no longer going to wipe up the blood on the mat or wipe up the sweat off the brow of the boxer?

You’re no longer going to participate in the pugilistic endeavor.

You’re done.

Chuck up the sponge.

You’re done-ski.

Go do something good in the world.

I don’t know.

877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Andrew Barthwaite from Omaha, Nebraska.

Hi, Andrew.

Welcome to the show.

What can we do for you?

I was curious about a word, George, that my grandfather uses to describe something that’s exceptionally good

Or something where everything about it was good or really great.

George? Isn’t the name George?

Yeah, it’s spelled with K. It can be used like double George.

Sometimes they’ll say double George, so it’s something incredibly just over the top.

And every once you try it or every once you taste it, he’ll say it’s double George.

He usually uses it to describe restaurants or food that he’s eaten.

Okay. And he’s still around, grandfather?

Oh, yeah, he is. He’s still around, still as colorful as ever.

Colorful as ever. How old is he?

He is about 75 now, I believe.

I was asking because this particular slang word goes back to the early 1900s,

But it really fell out of fashion after the 1950s.

So I’m really surprised to hear it in his vocabulary or have you telling us about it because it’s really not been that common at all.

But there was a time in the early 1900s where it pops up in, say, glossaries of hobo language as a thing you might say.

And it was synonymous with something could be Jake.

You maybe even heard that one more often than George.

If a situation is Jake, it’s also George, which means good or pleasant or acceptable.

Usually it’s not quite excellent.

It just means it passes muster to a certain degree and isn’t a complete failure.

So he’s obviously around in the 50s, but I don’t think he’s really used the word for a while.

He’s been kind of nostalgic lately and is remembering a lot of the things that he used to say back in the day with his buddies and everything.

He’s Italian-American, and he grew up in Little Italy in Omaha and has lots of memories from those days.

There’s a linguistics textbook from the 1970s that talks about George being used as secret

Language in casinos to refer to a high roller or a good tipper who was coming through. So

Here comes George. It’s possibly a descendant of the much older George used in the hobo language.

And also in a collection of Groucho Marx’s letters in the 1950s, he uses it. And so it had some

Currency, but the last real use of it I see is like the 1970s, but really that was the

Tail end of it.

It really, its heyday was the 1950s.

Now, it’s funny you mention that because that seems kind of more plausible of an origin

Of his kind of use of the word because gambling was really big around here back in the day

And he and his uncles and everyone was a gambler in the family and in the neighborhood back in the day.

So maybe that’s sort of where he learned the word and that’s where his understanding of it comes from.

That’s great. I love that you threw in that extra tidbit.

Maybe he picked it up from his time playing in the casinos.

Well, Andrew, it sounds like another conversation to have with him.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

It’s funny, every time he comes up with a new story or a new word or something like that, it then covers so much more.

He’s full of surprises, and he’s always full of good stories, too.

And we love to sit around the dining table over holidays and just listen to him tell all his funny stories.

We’re usually just rolling, you know, with tears in our eyes, laughing so much.

He’s hilarious.

Oh, that’s nice.

Well, Andrew, you’ve got to call us again sometime once you get some more.

Yeah, definitely.

I will. Thank you so much for helping me out with that word, George.

Yeah, sure. Take care. I really appreciate it.

Sure. Give him our best.

Will do.

Bye-bye.

Okay. Bye-bye.

Bye.

It’s even more than that. I’m looking in the Historical Dictionary of American Slang.

It’s not just that George means good or acceptable and Jake and Tom, but also Jerry.

It’s all these different words have meant okay or hunky-dory or copacetic.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Okay. No Betsy or Janet or nothing like that?

Not in this particular part of slang. That’s another whole part of slang.

You know, I had a light bulb moment when I discovered the origin of the word George years ago.

The name George?

Yeah.

It comes from Greek words that mean farmer.

If you think about it, it’s earth worker, like the geo is like geo, geographical and all that.

And the erg is from Greek for working.

Ergonomics.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Earth worker.

Or ergs. I think there’s a measurement of power or force called an erg, right?

Yes. Yes. So George is an earth worker or a farmer.

877-929-9673. Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yes. Hi. How are you? This is Rick Bethel. I’m actually in Rouse’s Point, New York, on a project.

Okay.

What would you like to talk with us about?

I had a boss years and years ago that used to use this phrase, and I never quite knew what it meant.

And I’m not even sure he said it properly, but it was, hang for a sheep as a lamb.

Hang for a sheep as a lamb.

Hang for a sheep as a lamb.

And in what context would your boss use that?

I think it was more like go for broke.

I mean, if you’re going to go for it, go all the way.

I think that’s what he meant.

But I never quite understood where that saying came from.

And I don’t know that I’ve ever heard it ever again.

There might have been one time watching an old-time movie where I might have heard Kirk Douglas use it,

But this would have been like a 1940s movie.

And that’s the only other time I’ve heard it.

So kind of in for a penny, in for a pound?

I guess so, yeah.

And I think it might be supposed to be hang as for a sheep as for a lamb.

Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be said.

Yeah, the idea is go big or go home, right? So he would use it to encourage you all?

Yeah, oh, absolutely. Yeah, go for it. Hey, you might as well go. If you’re going to go, go all in. Go all in.

And it never, I’ve always thought of it, and I always, I don’t know that I’ve used it much myself,

But I do think about it whenever I’m at that point in my life. Hey, what should I do here?

Well, hang for a sheep as a lamb.

Yeah, that’s an interesting variation on a very, very, very old expression.

Often you see it as might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb or something like that.

And it actually goes back to the tradition in England of capital punishment for some kinds of crimes.

If somebody stole a sheep, there was a point where people would be hanged for that if they were caught for that crime.

So the idea is if you’re going to steal something, you might as well steal something really valuable rather than just a little lamb.

Steal a sheep because you’re running the same risk.

You know, it’s sort of like would you rather get hit by a fire truck or a bus?

Yeah, good point.

Yeah, but it goes all the way back to the 17th century at least.

There’s a book of English Proverbs that uses the phrase,

As good be hanged for an old sheep as a young lamb.

And it’s the same idea.

Again, you might as well just go for it.

Okay.

Well, thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

It’s our pleasure.

Thanks for calling.

Okay.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Rick.

And one of the Scots proverb dictionaries,

They have a variant which connects to a word that you know the origin of,

As well be hanged for a wedder as for a lamb.

W-E-D-D-E-R.

And you know where I’m going with this, right?

The word bellwether refers to a bell on a weather.

And a weather is a male sheep often castrated, which when you castrate an animal, often they grow bigger and stronger and boss the rest of their animals around, the rest of the herd around without the sexual drive.

Anyway, so a bellwether was the sheep wearing the bell so you could hear where they were out in the pastures and you wouldn’t have to hunt them up.

Right, right.

It kind of led the others and led you to where they were.

Yeah, it let you know where they were anyway.

So might as well be hung for stealing a wetter as for a lamb.

Wetter being a big, burly sheep with a lot of muscle.

Language.

Language.

Story in a single word.

Call us to hear more about that.

877-929-9673.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

A while back, we had a conversation with a young woman in Florida

Who naturally used the expressions yes ma’am and no sir,

And some people thought that was a little strange, a little affected, but it was just the way that she talked.

And that reminded Dorinda Hickey from Austin, Texas, about an experience that she had in ninth grade in Worcester, Ohio, which is about 50 miles outside of Cleveland.

She wrote to us, I was a very quiet girl, shy and slightly backward, but I was smart and in what was then called advanced classes.

My dad was in the military and we moved around a lot, so I was really quiet and shy for that reason.

Our home and family was Mississippi.

She goes on to talk about how one day early in the school year, her English teacher asked her a question.

And Dorinda answered, yes, ma’am.

Her teacher was indignant and said, you do not say ma’am to me.

It is disrespectful. Do you understand?

And Dorinda automatically responded, yes, ma’am.

Oh.

And she goes on to say, remember, I’m from Mississippi, and in that day, not saying that could get you a wooden spoon to the backside.

We were born saying it before we said mama or daddy.

But the teacher saw it as smart aleck, and in her defense, sometimes kids would say, yes, ma’am, or something like that, sarcastically.

Anyway, her teacher ended up sending Dorinda to the principal’s office.

And she goes on, I had never been there before.

I was embarrassed, ashamed, and mortified.

What had I done? My first year and I’m in trouble two weeks into being there.

The principal read the note, listened to me talk, and proceeded to tell me,

Here in northeastern Ohio, we speak standard English. We do not slur our R’s. We do not stretch out our words. We do not say certain things. They are not correct. I was sent home

With a note from him to have my parents sign it and come have a talk. He made arrangements for me

To have speech therapy.

What?

I was mortified.

Fortunately, though, she writes,

My parents fell out laughing.

I never did do therapy.

I graduated with high honors

From that school system

After changing schools

Two more times in the four years.

I didn’t think it funny at the time,

But I can look back

Over 50 years later and laugh.

Oh, I’m glad she can laugh.

I’m not laughing.

I’m not.

I’m angry for her.

I knew you would be great.

Dialect is not a malfunction. It’s not. Dialect is not an error. It doesn’t require therapy. It doesn’t require therapy.

I was going to say the same thing. I am not to the funny stage yet, Dorinda.

What? I want to go marching on her behalf. This little girl needs people to stick up for her. Because she said yes, ma’am. Right. And she speaks with a Mississippi accent. Yeah. Bless her heart. I’m sure she’s not the only person with a story like that. I know she’s not. We get emails and calls about this. People who grew up speaking French in Maine and were told at the English-speaking schools that they couldn’t speak it. Or people who had their hands smacked for speaking Spanish at the religious school. Because that’s what they spoke at home but not at school.

I just finished reading about Code Talkers, the Navajo. And they were forced to go to the English-speaking schools where they were spanked if they spoke Navajo to each other. I’m hoping attitudes are changing. Dorinda, thanks for sharing that story. Yeah, just to underline, a dialect isn’t a thing to be corrected, it’s a thing to be cherished. Well said.

877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Peggy. I’m from Idaho, and I had a question about the Basque language. Okay. I have a brother-in-law who is Basque, and I have been kind of drug into the whole Basque culture around Idaho, and Idaho has a very large Basque community. And so I find it pretty fascinating that the language is considered quite ancient and is not related to any of the countries around them in Spain and in France. So I wonder what your take was on it.

Well, that’s the best nutshell description I’ve heard of Basque in a while. That’s pretty much it. It’s what’s known as a language isolate. Do you know this expression? Yes, I’ve looked that up, yeah. Gotcha. So a language isolate is one that is not connected directly to the languages around it. And it is believed that Basque predates the Indo-European languages. That is, it was a language spoken before the people who brought all the Indo-European languages into Europe before they arrived. And we know a little bit about its history because there are a few inscriptions on grave sites. A lot of the place names give us clues to it. But the strong evidence is that it is not directly connected to any of the Romance languages, although it did borrow from Latin. It’s not connected to any of the Germanic languages, although there may be a few words that have traveled from the Germanic languages into French and then into Basque and things like that. And so it’s a very interesting thing. It is spoken by about 700,000 people, give or take, although almost all the speakers are bilingual, and there are numerous dialects of it. I think there are four major dialects of Basque. And it’s just a very interesting curiosity, this remnant of another time, and not much is known about it and where it comes from, although it’s heavily studied because it’s so interesting and so unconnected to the languages around it.

Is it connected to the Celts at all? Because I heard that the people were somehow connected with the Celts, maybe the Welsh and Irish. There are some people who have tried to propose that theory, but it doesn’t withstand scrutiny. Some people have looked at genetic similarities between certain bodies of people and think that they found something. Again, generally it falls apart. There are superficial similarities between all languages in the world. And what you need is a consistent similarity across multiple features of the language. For example, we would expect the verbs, if one verb is similar between languages, we would expect many of the verbs to be similar between the languages. If there’s one word for, say, a relationship term like father or mother, we would expect many other relationship terms to be the same. And it’s just not the case. So I believe the evidence is clear. There is no connection to Welsh. There is no connection to the Celtic languages. It’s not related to Cornish. It’s not related to other languages spoken in France that aren’t French. And so forth.

Wow. Yeah, it is a very interesting, very interesting language. And the Basque people themselves, I think, are very interesting with their origins. And wasn’t there a time, too, when whoever was ruling in Spain had barred the people from speaking back? Yeah, that’s a really common story across cultures. It’s not just Spain. But even in France, some of their regional languages were stomped out by this French need to establish a nation state with a French identity that was built upon the language and centered upon French as the common language. So dialects spoken in Brittany are all but gone. It’s unfortunate. But it happened in the United States as well, in Canada and Australia and China. It just happens pretty much anywhere where a nation sees its identity as being firmly attached to one language. They almost always put in a program of stomping out the other languages.

I hear Basque food is really good, too. Have your relatives treated you to any? Oh, yes, they have. My sister has become quite the best cook. Oh, really? Boise has what they call a Basque block, and they have a cultural center, too. But there are many Basque bars and restaurants in the Boise area that are preserving the heritage foods as well. So, yeah, it’s pretty interesting.

Yeah, well, Peggy, thank you for telling us about all that. We appreciate your calling. Well, yeah. Well, thank you for having me on the air. My pleasure. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

We were talking earlier about using the term George as an adjective, meaning something really great. And I wanted to mention that I had a light bulb experience back when I was first learning Greek and realized that the name George comes from Greek words that literally mean farmer or earth worker. You think about geo in George being related to geo in English, you know, geopolitical or whatever. And the erg in Greek meaning work, as in ergonomics, is the latter part of that name. So it’s an earth worker, a farmer.

That’s super interesting. And erg is a measure of some kind of power and force as well, right? Yeah, of work. Of work. Very cool. In ergy as well.

Well, talk to us about language, 877-929-9673, or hit us up on Twitter @wayword.

Hello. Welcome to A Way with Words. Hi. Hey, who’s this? Thank you. This is Ellen from Mississippi. Well, hi, Ellen. Welcome to the show. Hi, Ellen. Thank you. We’re in Mississippi. Hattiesburg. Hattiesburg. Hattiesburg, lovely place. All right. What can we do for you?

You know, Southerners have all kinds of expressions, as do any areas in the country, and most of them are fairly familiar to all of us here in my office. But I use one that my colleagues say they have never heard before, and it’s Jisum Peets. And I grew up in New Orleans, and I wonder if maybe that’s where it came from. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s really very uncommon. And, of course, my children, who are grown, have heard it all of their lives. But my colleagues think it’s something I made up.

What’s happening in your office when you say, geez and Pete? Well, unbelievable or, you know, things like that. So somebody misses a deadline by a week and thinks they’re still going to get paid, and you’re like, geez and Pete, what do you expect? Or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ellen, have you ever written it out? How would you spell it? Well, you know, I’ve thought about that because a friend asked me about it because she thought maybe I was trying to take the Lord’s name in vain. And so I sort of took a stab at G-E-E-S-U-M, but I have a feeling it probably is J-E-E-S-U-M. Pete, P-E-T-E-S. And so, you know, it could be something like that. I have no idea.

-huh. Yeah, you’re on the right track there. I mean, it doesn’t get written down a whole lot because it is an exclamation. And so there are lots of different versions when you do see it in writing, like G-E-E-Z and J-E-E-Z. And it is what we call a minced oath or a euphemism. It’s a way of not taking the Lord’s name in vain by saying something a little milder. And there are lots of different versions of it. I mean, you’re definitely not the only person who uses it. I mean, there’s Jeezum Pete.

I haven’t heard Jeezum Pete’s.

You have an S on the end of it?

Yeah, there’s an S.

-huh, -huh.

There’s also Jeez O. Pete and Jeez Louise.

Some people say Jeez Louise.

And all the people in Vermont are shouting their version now.

Jeezum Crow is what they say in Vermont and parts of New York.

Mm—

Well, what do your colleagues say when they’re surprised at something or exclaiming?

Well, they’ve begun saying Jeezum Pete’s.

Oh, good.

Well, do they say golly or gosh?

They do.

Or Gemini?

They absolutely do.

Or Gemini.

They don’t say Gemini.

They say gee whiz.

They say Jeepers or Jeepers Creepers?

Not really.

I mean, I can see it happening, but no.

It’s not a common thing.

Well, Ellen, you can tell them they’re doing the same thing if they’re saying golly or gosh.

That’s right.

Yeah, that’s also a minced oath.

Yeah, that’s a way of not saying God.

That’s exactly right.

Yeah, thank you.

By the way, it might be a combined minced oath.

So the first part, the jesum is a version of Jesus, and the Pete is from St. Pete, St. Peter.

I thought about that.

I thought it could be Jesus and Peter.

There are a few minced oaths or euphemisms out there that are about St. Peter or use his name instead of somebody else’s.

Sure.

Oh, sure.

For Pete’s sake, yeah.

Ellen, you’re not alone.

It’s said all over.

It’s not that common.

Yeah, it’s not that common.

Yeah, we have lots of records of it.

And hey, now your colleagues are saying it.

Well, yeah, and we get fairly regular emails and calls about it in one form or another,

Usually with the Jesus being the significant part that doesn’t change.

Well, Ellen, thanks for calling us.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Y’all have a good day.

You too.

Okay, take care.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

There are dozens and dozens of these mints, though.

So many.

Just to avoid saying the name Jesus Christ.

Let’s hear some.

G. Willikens, Jiminy, Jehoshaphat, Judas Priest.

There’s another name out there.

Jekers is a rare one.

Jumpin’ Jehovah.

Gosh, as you mentioned.

G. Willikers is a favorite of mine, although I don’t say it.

I like it.

I like the sound of it.

Jiminy Cricket or Jiminy Crickets.

Jerusalem.

And then maybe the best one for really dodging the problem and turning it positive is G. Christmas.

G. Christmas.

G. Christmas, right?

Because you’re as far as you can get.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe.

Jiminy Christmas is…

Oh, you know that one?

Yeah.

There’s so many of them, though, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

What are you talking with your coworkers about?

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send us the whole story in email.

That address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hi there.

You have A Way with Words.

My name is Michael Kolakowski, calling from Papillion, Nebraska.

Papillion.

Ooh, nice.

Butterfly.

Yeah.

Cool.

Welcome to the show.

What can we do for you, Michael?

I was doing some work around the house the other day, and I had to go to the hardware store and buy a couple of those heating registers.

And I was thinking, why do we call them registers?

What exactly do they register?

Then I thought this would be a perfect question for you guys.

So you’re thinking of those devices that are on the wall or floor that either expel air or suck in the air?

They regulate the flow, right?

Really, it’s just like a vent cover.

A vent.

But sometimes they put out heat.

Sometimes they put out cool air.

Sometimes they have the intake for the larger AC system, right?

That’s correct.

Okay, gotcha.

Right.

Why do we call them registers?

That’s a fantastic question that I don’t have the answer to.

Thanks for calling.

No.

I know this is one of those things, Michael, that I looked into,

And I was not happy with anything that I found.

I looked in historical dictionaries, and I looked in expert texts

Where they talk about building, you know, installing these systems in houses.

I looked in old newspapers to try to find early uses of it.

And one thing that I found was pretty much in the 1600s,

You find register being used to mean, how should I put this,

On a chemistry apparatus where the results would appear.

So, for example, if you combine this chemical with that chemical,

This is where the third chemical or the fumes or the product would come out.

So this is where you would register the effect, if that makes sense, the effect of all your

Experiments and your processes that you’re putting this stuff through.

Imagine tubes and pipes and bubbling things and so forth.

And at the end is the product.

You know, if you think about registering as being where something is imprinted or something

Is established, that’s kind of what we’re talking about here.

But it’s still not clear to me why they chose that as register.

I’m still not 100% sure.

And then it expands by the 1800s when we get to the steam era and the industrial era.

A register is used for a wide variety of inflows and outflows, giant ones and small ones,

On tiny little machines and vast ones in houses and businesses,

And even sometimes on automobiles and aircraft and that sort of thing.

And a register now pretty much is, as you said, just a vent, any place where air moves back and forth for whatever reason.

Yeah, I’m thinking of organ pipes as well, right?

Yeah.

Different registers.

Well, they talk about registering the pipes of an organ where you set them to work in a specific way for a particular performance.

Right. Yeah.

That would make more sense to me, I think.

Yeah.

But that’s a really specialized use of register, and I don’t think it’s related to the specific origin of the wider register, meaning event.

All right. Fair enough.

Yeah. That’s the best I could do.

I’m sorry. But you know what?

We have people all over the world listening to this show, and I know that we have construction workers who—

We have truck drivers and people with specialized knowledge.

And if somebody has a better idea of where this register comes from, by all means, let us know, 877-929-9673.

Thanks, Michael.

Sure thing. Thank you.

Take care.

Thanks for calling. Bye-bye.

-huh. Bye-bye.

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A Way with Words is an independent production of Wayword, Inc.

From the Recording Arts Center at Studio West in San Diego, I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

So long.

Bye-bye.