The Juice is Worth the Squeeze

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Martha from the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

Oh, Minnesota. Nice. Well, welcome to the show.

Martha, nice.

I can’t have too much more thought.

Yeah, Martha.

Welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

Thanks so much. So I have this fun saying that my dad always said when I was growing up, and I didn’t ever think to ask him about it, where he heard it or if it was popular in his day or what.

But my husband heard me saying it and told me that he must have made it up. My dad must have made it up because he’d never heard it.

So the saying is, and I kind of have to say it in his voice, he would always say it sort of Stentorian style. He’d say, the juice was worth the squeeze.

And it meant like the effort that you put into something proved worthwhile and it was a good venture to do. It was worth it.

Okay.

So he said this phrase in what kind of situation?

Like you put some effort into something, you made a lot of trouble to do something, but it all turned out really well, so it was worth it. You were glad you did it because the outcome proved worthwhile.

Okay, so there’s satisfaction in there and feeling like your effort was justified then.

Exactly.

Like you squeezed some fruit and the juice that you got was worth it. You got to have a nice swig of orange juice.

Yeah, that’s exactly the idea there. Squeezing a piece of fruit and getting the juice that was worth it.

So he didn’t make it up, I’m guessing?

No, no, because there are juicing oranges and there are non-juicing oranges, and the non-juicing oranges definitely are not worth the effort. You get almost nothing out of them. They’re like all pulp. They’re rind and pulp.

Yeah, and people have been saying this since at least the 1960s. I wonder if that was that when he came of age. She was well of age by the 60s, but probably a little hipper in those days than when I came along.

Yeah, so it’s definitely not your dad. And, of course, we’ve probably got a lot of listeners pounding the dashboard or pounding the table saying, mention Lizzo, mention Lizzo, because, of course, Lizzo has her song Juice, where she says the juice ain’t worth the squeeze if the juice don’t look like this, talking about herself.

Yeah.

I got to check that out.

Yeah, she’s good. There’s a great NPR Tiny Desk concert. You’ll become an instant fan if you watch that. She’s just got a lot of personality, and it’s a big show for such a small space.

I will check that out immediately.

I have another fun thing I wanted to share if you have a minute.

Yes, please.

Sure.

So something I learned about from you guys on the show, the idea of a pangram, and you mentioned the contest for a pangram, which I’m sure most listeners already knew this, that a pangram is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet.

Right.

So I got kind of excited about that, and I forgot about it, and then I came back and reapplied myself and wrote a pangram. But when I went to look up the contest, I learned I had missed the deadline.

So then I wrote a pangram in the form of a haiku about that.

About your experience of missing the deadline for our contest?

Exactly.

So a double whammy, a haiku pangram together?

Yep.

Okay.

Let’s hear it.

Okay, so the title of the haiku is part of the pangram. It counts in the letter total. So it’s Pangram Contest. Lively interest piqued. Just my kind of whiz-bang fun. Deadlines passed. No fix.

Aw, but it’s good.

It’s a very good one.

Thank you.

That’s fantastic. You didn’t have to force the X in there like so many of them.

Right, or the Q or the Y.

Or the Z, yeah.

Yeah, you made it work. Martha, that’s like writing a pangram while you’re walking backwards and in heels.

I never wear heels, but I can walk backwards.

Thank you, Ginger.

Or dancing backwards, I guess it is. But in any case, yeah, that’s quite a feat.

Well, I think we need to give Martha a consolation prize or something for that contest.

This was a prize enough.

Because nobody did that. Just getting to read it.

There we go. Your prize is sharing it with thousands and thousands of people.

That was beyond delightful.

That’s amazing.

Thank you.

You’re delightful, too. We’re glad to have you on the show.

Oh, thank you so much.

All right. Be well.

Yeah, I hope the juice was worth the squeeze.

Totally, totally.

Take good care.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

All righty.

Bye-bye.

The show’s about words and language and pangrams and haikus and goofing around, 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.