Touch Grass (episode #1602)

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. If I tell you a hen-dip snuff, you can look under its wing and you’ll find a whole can. That means what I’m saying is true, and if you don’t believe it, you can check it out for yourself. And I never knew that expression until I learned it recently from one of our listeners in Huntsville, Alabama, where we were doing a live performance at the invitation of the wonderful public radio station there, WLRH. This listener brought up a version of that phrase during the Q&A, and it turns out that this phrase is well-established in African-American vernacular English. In fact, jazz great Louis Armstrong once used it in a letter to his biographer. He wrote, if I tell you that a hen dips snuff, you just look under her wings and you’ll find a whole can full, meaning I don’t waste words either. I love it, and I love the layers in that expression because it plugs into the expression about hen’s teeth, which they don’t have.

And so the question is, where is the hen putting the snuff?

I never thought about that.

Maybe she’s sniffing it.

I don’t know what she’s doing.

Sniffing and spitting.

Well, we learn a whole lot from our listeners every time we’re on the road. Martha and I carry notebooks or record messages on our phones so we can look things up later. We’ll talk about what we learned from high schoolers in Huntsville as well. And you can find out where else we’re going in the world on our events page at waywordradio.org/events. And you can contact us wherever you are in the world at waywordradio.org/contact.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Noah. I’m from Charleston, South Carolina.

Hey, Noah.

Hi, Noah. Welcome to the show.

I’m calling you all today with a question about the word hangover.

Hangover. Is this something you’re experiencing at the moment?

No, we were in the process of working on one when we came up with the idea, though. Me and my girlfriend were out at the bar having a discussion, and she had said she had heard something about it being from a way that you could pay to sleep in an old English work camp where you had to hang from a rope all night. And she was saying that she had heard that’s where the word came from. And we love the show, so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to call in and ask y’all to answer our question.

Oh, wow. Yeah, so this gives us a chance to talk about a couple, two different kinds of hangovers. And they’re both, well, pretty good stories. The kind of hangover your girlfriend was talking about sometimes was called a penny hang or just a hangover. But it’s not the origin of the alcohol hangover. There’s an excellent description of this in George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, which he published in 1933. And I’m going to quote from it here. He writes, at the two penny hangover, the lodgers sit in a row on a bench. There is a rope in front of them and they’d lean on this as though leaning over a fence. A man humorously called the valet cuts the rope at five in the morning. And then he quotes a man who goes by the name of Bozo as saying, quote, it was more comfortable than it sounded, better than bare floor. So imagine sitting on a bench with your arms hanging over the rope or leaning on the rope. So it’s not like the rope is at your waist and you’re hanging over it like laundry. It’s not quite like that.

So it’s true that people who were very poor and very drunk could pay a few pennies to sleep off the alcohol in a place like this in London and some other places, but it isn’t the source of hangover. It’s just a different kind of hangover. The word hangover already existed and was used for other things. Recently, we can talk about other hangovers like a hangover from, say, a political event or a world event, like a war or a pandemic that still affects our decisions, our actions now. And so we just, it’s a general hangover became a specific hangover. So that’s why we have the alcohol hangover. Does that make sense? Often this happens in language where we have specialization, where a general term becomes specific and then kind of pushes out all the other meanings. And that’s what happened here with the alcohol hangover. So the hangover with the headache is the effects hanging over into the next day.

Yeah, that’s right. That’s exactly right. Right. It’s more something hanging above you than you hanging over an object. That is exactly right.

Well put. That’s so interesting. I was so excited about the Orwell story. But I’m just imagining walking in there into the room not knowing what you’re in for and just seeing all these really drunk people just flopping over a rope. And the smell must be horrific. Oh my gosh. But while we’re here, I just wanted to share some expressions for hangover from other languages. There’s a couple that are really great. Do you remember the comic strip the cats and jammer kids? These little cat-like troublemakers, it’s a German word, cats and jammer, and it’s a German word for hangover that means a lamentation of cats or a squall of cats. Just a loud, loud mess of cats.

And in Danish, there’s two. One translates as to have a blacksmith in the forehead, and another one means to have carpenters.

Yeah, and then in France, you can wake up with a wooden mouth, or you can wake up with a hair ache. That was the old way to say it. Mala chavo. I like that. Hair ache. That’s the same. Right? You ache right down to your follicles.

Oh, I can imagine that one. And one more term for that, if you want a medical term for it, back in 2000, some doctors coined a term for this that has gotten some use in the medical community. It’s vicealgia. It comes from the Norwegian kvise, which means uneasiness after a night like that, and algia, which means pain and suffering from Greek algos, like analgesic, which keeps you from having pain. Vicealgia.

Nowhere, there you go. And tell your girlfriend that she’s reading the right kind of literature if she came across that. There’s so much fascinating stuff about the world 150 years ago.

Yes, truly. Thank you guys so much. That was very enlightening and very interesting.

And now I’ll have a good little nugget of conversation from y’all. Thank you so much. Yeah, the next time you guys are working on a Buzz, would you like to work on a Buzz Alder?

Well, thank y’all so much. I enjoyed this so much. Be well. Have a good one. Thanks. Bye-bye, Noah.

We don’t want to have to put your head in a vice to get you to call us, but please do, 877-929-9673. Or you could just gently type out an email to words@waywordradio.org or use that same keyboard on your laptop, computer, or your phone to write us a message on Twitter @wayword.

And if you want even more ways to reach us, you can go to our website at waywordradio.org/contact. There’s a lot of ways to reach us no matter where you are in the world.

I was randomly paging through the Dictionary of American Regional English, which I am wont to do from time to time, and I came across a word that at first kind of jarred me, kind of shocked me. The term was bloody noun.

Bloody noun?

Yes, it’s all one word, bloody noun. And, you know, as a language person, I was thinking, what? That sounds terrible. Can we talk about this?

We can. We can. In fact, probably our South Carolina listeners know where I’m going with this because it turns out that bloody noun or blood noun is a very large bullfrog. It makes that deep sound that sort of sounds like bloody noun.

And that word may come from the Gullah language. There’s a word, bloodynon, which is a word for that kind of frog. The Gullah language. Lovely. I want to hear the bullfrog sound, Martha.

Oh, I think you’d be so much better at that than me. I’ve never heard it. You’re in charge of this part of the show, Martha.

Okay, South Carolina, let us know what a bloody noun sounds like. 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello. Hello, who is this? This is Denise calling from Wisconsin.

Hello, Denise in Wisconsin.

I’ve lived here over 30 years now, but I was raised in South Central Pennsylvania. I’ve used this word with my daughters while raising them. It’s shushly. And the context is kind of kids being too hyper, like stop being so shushly. And when they’ve in turn used it now as young adults in their work environment or friends, people look at them like, what are you talking about? So we have this big argument or debate of whether this is a word or not. And I was hoping you could help me. I’m assuming it comes from some sort of Pennsylvania Dutch or German derivative.

Yes. That was all around me. Yes. But please help me win this argument with my daughters.

Well, your instincts are spot on, Denise. It’s from Pennsylvania German. And that’s spoken, that dialect is spoken in mainly Pennsylvania, but also some in Ohio and Indiana and a few other places. But schusel means to rush or to do something in a quick way or a sloppy way. And schusel can mean clumsy or, you know, fidgety. Schusel in German is spelled S-C-H-U-S-S-E-L. That word means adult or a scatterbrain or somebody who’s clumsy. And schuselig means hasty or clumsy or sloppy. And that has evolved over time to also mean wiggly or fidgety.

So I was right. I’m right.

Yeah. Heck yeah. Well, thank you so much. This has been an ongoing debate with my daughters. And I’m like, I’m not crazy. This is a word.

It is a word. Denise, we’re high-fiving you from afar.

Yep. Take care. Thank you. Bye-bye.

All right, you too. Bye-bye. All right, bye-bye.

At least 100 years of that word being recorded in Pennsylvania Dutch, so that means it’s even older in this country. There is a longer expression in modern German, eine Sprung in der Schüssel haben, which means to be cracked in the bowl or the head, because there’s all these puns in German about Schösel and Schüssel. So one means bowl and one means scatterbrained, so they make puns about a cracked bowl and being a scatterbrain and stuff.

Yeah. So there’s lots of different kind of wordplay happening there. This is a multilingual country, and this is a multilingual show. Talk to us about the languages you speak. 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org. Talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Jean Anderson wrote from Greenville, South Carolina, to say that when she was a kid, she watched a lot of Western movies and TV shows like Rawhide and Wagon Train. And so from all her viewing, she knew that loco weed was something that made cattle herds act crazy. And in the evening when the local news came on, she got really puzzled. The loco news. And sometimes the news is very loco. You can’t believe what people get up to, whether it’s the crime report or politics.

Yeah, I remember watching the news when I was a little kid and thinking, guerrilla warfare? There are actually guerrillas fighting?

Yeah, that’s a super common one.

Yeah, so loco weed is usually gemson weed, though, right?

Sometimes it’s just marijuana.

Right, there’s that, too. Right, but yeah, it causes neurological effects in cattle and horses. She thought it was the loco news.

Yeah, the loco news. Share your childhood misunderstandings with us, 877-929-9673, or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org. More about language and how we use it as A Way with Words continues. 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 entering the scene from a mirage on the horizon, it’s our quiz guide, John Chanesky.

Hi, John.

Hi, Grant. Hello, Martha. Hey, you know, I’m just going to say, you guys, right now at this time, at this point in time, we all just need to take a second to just calm down and relax, okay? You know, like those posters, those posters from Britain in the 1930s that advised everyone to keep calm and carry on.

I like that.

Yeah, keep calm and word on.

Yeah, exactly. That’s very good. That’s good. We’ll start there. Yeah, those are understandably, those posters. They’re very popular right now. I’ve seen all sorts of different versions of them. And we’re going to make some of our own. And all we need is a three-syllable word that ends in on, O-N. For example, if you’re sailing down the longest river in South America, you know what to do. Just keep calm and…

Amazon.

Amazon, yes, very good. So now you know how this is going to work. Here’s the first one. If you’re in math class and you’re freaking out, just draw some multi-sided plane figures. You know what to do. Keep calm and…

Polygon.

Or hexagon.

Or hexagon or polygon, yes. Decagon is all good? Sure. If you’re bird watching and you start to get antsy, just do what that famous naturalist did. Get out your pencils and paints and just draw some birds. You know what to do. Keep calm and Audubon.

Yes, keep calm and Audubon. Chirp chirp. You say this is your premier performance ringing the bells at Westminster? Got a little stage fright? Don’t worry. You know what to do. Keep calm and carol on.

In Carillon, yes. Ding dong. What? You’ve time-traveled to ancient Mesopotamia, and now you’re lost? Look, just find a capital city of a handy-dandy nearby empire, and you’ll be just fine. You know what to do. Just keep calm in Babylon.

Yes, keep calm in Babylon. Which is exactly what you guys do on this show. All the time. All the time. In Babylon, yeah. If you’re freaking out about life and all, just pick up some poetry, my dude. Go with the classics. Go with America’s Greatest Poet. Go to Amherst and get to reading You Know What to Do. Who is an American poet from Amherst?

Emily.

Oh, keep calm and Dickinson.

Yes, keep calm and Dickinson. I don’t know if she’d appreciate me mangling her name like that, but let’s say she’s pretty cool. She probably would have been okay with it. You’ve got to finish editing an entire dictionary, and your deadline is looming, grab that list of words and get to work, Grant.

Oh, I know. You know what to do. Keep calm and lexicon.

Yes, keep calm and lexicon, which is, again, one of the things we do on this show all the time. We lexicon and babble on, and we finish our quizzes. Way to go, guys. Nice, nice, as he fades back into the sandy mirage in the desert. Goodbye.

Well, John, thank you for leading us in that mental workout. And we’d love to have you lead us in a mental workout with your questions and stories about language. So call us 877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Erin. I’m calling from New York City.

Hey, Erin.

Hi, Erin. Welcome to the show.

Hey, how are you?

Yeah, I was just calling in because I wanted to know if you could tell me if I’m pronouncing my own name correctly.

Wait, what?

That’s a big one. Say it again.

Oh, my name. My name’s Erin.

Erin. Spell that.

E-R-I-N.

Okay. Why is there some doubt?

So I grew up in Baltimore, and a lot of the times, like growing up, people didn’t really know if I was saying Erin, like E-R-I-N. They always thought I was saying A-R-O-N. And when I moved to New York, I had the same kind of issue. People up there say it a little bit differently. And I remember one time I mentioned to my friend saying like, hey, it’s so like it’s so annoying that like whenever I say my name, people always think I’m saying the boy’s name or they think I’m saying like some different spelled way. And she was like, well, you say it like the boy version of the name. And I was like, oh, I know I kind of had existential crisis when she told me that. I was like, I thought I was saying it correctly my whole life. And I thought about how my parents say it and they say it like me. And so I’m just like, am I, have we all been saying my name incorrectly this whole time? I guess I just want to know how it sounds to other people when I say it.

And are your parents also from Baltimore?

So my dad’s from North Carolina and my mom’s from D.C. And then they relocated to Baltimore.

All right. So I have an answer for you.

It’s not going to make it any better.

It’s not going to blame anyone.

It’s just going to explain it.

And I hope this will make you feel better at the end of the call.

Okay.

All right.

And so let me ask you how you pronounce the word M-A-R-R-Y.

Mary.

And how do you pronounce the word M-E-R-R-Y?

Mary.

And do those sound the same to you?

I guess Mary with the E sounds maybe a little bit shorter.

Yeah.

So in some parts of the country, it’s Mary and Mary.

Did you hear the difference?

Yes.

All right.

So in other large parts of the country, they sound exactly the same.

Especially in the Western US and Central US.

And in all of Canada, they sound basically the same.

But in the Northeast and in Montreal, they sound different, mostly.

And because linguists have taken very good care of the page, there’s an excellent summary of what is called the Mary-Mary merger on Wikipedia.

And you can look it up.

Just pick any spelling of Mary and Mary and type in merger after that, and you will find it on Wikipedia.

And so that’s what’s happening here.

It’s the same vowels and those words after the M that are happening at the beginning of these two names, Aaron and Aaron.

And so they’re pronounced differently because of regional dialects.

We don’t all speak the same English and never have.

There’s never been one English in the United States.

And we have regional variation.

And the names follow that regional variation.

And so your name, Aaron, is subject to that.

And so when you moved from Baltimore, and certainly because your parents were born with some North Carolina for sure, and D.C. to a certain degree, and Baltimore probably, with some Southern accent influence, you moved from there to New York City, you passed a dialect boundary, and you would probably most likely encounter new ways of saying your name.

And so you say it correctly because it’s your name.

You are the expert in your own name.

Nobody else can tell you how to say your name.

That is true for all names.

That’s right.

You’re the authority.

No matter what, no matter who you are, however you want to say your name, you are the boss of it.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

One thing I have to recommend to you, if you haven’t seen it yet, this is the Key and Peel sketch, Substitute Teacher.

You can find it on YouTube.

These two geniuses have turned the tables on names in school.

It is one of the best sketches they ever did.

So you know Key and Peele, the two comedians.

Again, the sketch is called Substitute Teacher, Key and Peele.

You have to watch it.

They poke fun of the pronunciation of names, including the boy’s name Aaron.

It is hilarious.

It is astonishingly funny.

You will love it.

Yeah, you’ll get kicked out of it.

Thank you for it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I’ll definitely watch that.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you for calling us Erin.

We’re glad to call us again sometime.

All right?

All right.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

Have a great day.

Yeah, sure.

Take care.

Be well.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

I am ready to talk to you about your name.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org or tell us on Twitter @wayword.

A few weeks ago, I said that a listener had sent us a puzzle that’s a mixture of numbers and words.

That is, it was composed of various combinations of the numerals 1 and 2, and it also included the words racehorse, was, and race.

And I found this really confusing at first, and then I realized, oh, this is actually a little repus about two racehorses.

One of them named 11 and another horse named 22.

And so I read it as 11 was one racehorse, 22 was one two, 11 won one race, 22 won one two.

You have to see this written out and you can see it on our website, waywordradio.org.

But in any case, I was so proud of myself.

But you know what, Grant?

I was wrong.

And we heard from many listeners who remembered it from their childhood or their time enjoying joke books or just something that their family used to say.

And they let us know with great glee and pleasure that there was another way to read the little rebus puzzle.

And what is it, Martha?

Well, yeah, you mentioned all the listeners who wrote in, and a whole lot of them were from Australia.

Amanda from Melbourne said, I love that you got to read that silly ditty about the two racehorses.

When I was a kid, it was a favorite to put in our autograph books.

But you read it incorrectly.

And then she wrote it out for me.

The horses weren’t named 11 and 22.

They were named 1-1 and 2-2.

And if you read it that way, then it goes, 1-1 was a racehorse.

2-2 was 1-2.

1-1-1-1 race.

And 2-2, 1-1-2.

That’s very good.

That’s excellent.

And we thank you for your email corrections.

We read them all, and sometimes we just silently correct stuff on the text to the website.

But, of course, the audio is there.

Our mistakes live on forever.

Thank you for putting up with our imperfections.

We’re always happy to hear from our listeners in the Antipodes.

If you’re in Australia or New Zealand or anywhere nearby, you’ll find a lot of ways to talk to us on our website at waywordradio.org.

And if you’re in the United States and Canada, you can call us toll free at 1-877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Sherry and I’m from Williamsburg, Virginia.

And I’m calling to find out a little bit more about an expression, cute little whiff it.

I had always thought it meant an adorable baby or an adorable small child.

But when I moved to Virginia, no one had ever heard of that expression.

Then I asked my sister, who’s in Ohio, where I grew up, and she hadn’t heard of it either.

And I’ve lived in Chicago, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma.

I’m just trying to figure out where I picked this up and why nobody’s ever heard of that expression.

Sherry, you said cute little whiffet. How do you spell that last word?

W-H-I-Ephison Frank, Ephison Frank I-T.

Whiffet. Cute little whiffet.

And so you say this about like a little sweetie pie, a little baby with chubby cheeks that you want to smooch.

Yes, or an adorable baby.

A cute little whiffet.

Sherry, it’s not that common a word, but it’s been around since the late 1700s.

It’s got some history to it.

And usually it’s spelled W-H-I-F-F-E-T, and it means a small, young, or insignificant person, like somebody who’s not that important.

In fact, one of my favorite uses of this word that you can quote to your friends is from Walt Whitman.

Back in 1892, he was writing admiringly of trees and how strong trees are and how vital and enduring, just standing there silently.

And he writes about how the tree stands tough and serene in all kinds of weather as opposed to, as he puts it, this gusty-tempered little whippet man that runs indoors at a might of rain or snow.

So he’s comparing humans to these majestic trees and calling us gusty-tempered little whippets.

So not as cute as a little baby, but it can sometimes mean somebody who’s insignificant or unimportant.

But in all cases, we’re talking about something small, right?

Or something weak that needs some protection of somebody stronger.

Yeah, something as small as just a whiff, you know, a little sniff.

It may come from that word. We’re not sure.

Do you have any ideas of what region I might have picked this expression up?

Oh, goodness. Are you a big reader?

Yes.

You may have picked it up in your reading then because it’s not all that common.

It’s not really regional in this country either.

Okay.

Martha, did you learn that when you were a kid growing up in Kentucky?

When I was a little whiff it, no, I did not.

No, I think it’s really evocative.

But no, I’ve only come across that term in writing.

As I said, Walt Whitman is one source of it.

Well, very good.

Very good.

Thank you for calling us and call us again sometime.

We always like to talk to the people who’ve lived all over and just have those moments where they brought this luggage with them, and it’s filled with words that nobody’s ever heard of.

And they unpacked that word luggage, and people were like, what you got in there? That’s some strange stuff.

Yes, yes, yes.

Well, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Oh, sure.

Take care of yourself.

Thanks, Sherry.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Unpack your word hoard with us, 877-929-9673.

Hi there.

You have a way with words.

Hi, this is Veronica, and I’m calling from South Carolina.

What’s on your mind?

So my mom always said something, and I know what it means. I just don’t know what part of it means. So if you were hanging something on a wall or building something or whatever, and it was just a little crooked, she’d say, well, that’s leaning towards fissures. So I know what it means. It means whatever it is is crooked. And I’ve looked up, tried to find it for several years, and there’s other stuff that refer to it. They say leaning towards Sawyers, and I get that. That’s about loggers and cutting trees and whatever, and if trees lean in, or leaning toward Jesus, I guess carpenters say, but I don’t know where Fishers is or what it’s about. Like, why Fishers?

All right. So if you’re hanging a picture and it was crooked, your mom would say it’s leaning toward Fishers, right?

Sure.

Or if you built something that wasn’t plumb, you know, something was like a little sideways or not quite plumb or level. Yeah, leaning towards fissures, leaning towards sawyers, leaning towards Jesus. Now, all of these are connected. You’ve got all of the pieces here, and I’m going to hook them up for you. Here’s the thing. The logging use of this is probably the original use.

Okay. So what happens is when you’ve got people using a crosscut saw and they’re pulling back and forth, if that saw gets in a bind, that is, the tree is so heavy that it stops the saw from being able to move, right? The tree isn’t leaning towards the fall. Instead, it’s leaning towards the saw. They can’t move it. So it’s leaning towards the sawyers. A sawyer is a person who saws. It’s leaning the wrong way. It’s crooked. So it’s literally leaning towards the sawyers. And so it sounds like a last name. And the idea is that it was a misunderstood outside logging as a last name and replaced with other last names. So you can find not only leaning towards Fishers, but leaning towards Jones and Coopers and Perkins and Schoonovers.

Yeah, I’ve seen Perkins, I guess.

Yeah.

Okay. All right. And other ones. Now, all of these ideas here can be modified to suit local circumstances. So you can fit in the name of a prominent local business or family or property owner. So no matter where you are, if you’ve got a local property owner whose name is Jones, you can joke that it’s leaning towards the Jones, right?

Okay.

Jones property or the Jones business.

Very cool.

Veronica, thank you for bringing that question to us.

Yeah, it’s cool, right? But I love that you came to this with so much information and we were able to get it. So those pictures are straight. We’ve got a perfect line. That line is plum.

Thanks. Appreciate the information.

All right. Take care now. You guys have a great day.

You too.

Bye-bye.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Martha, there’s a little tangent I want to take. I mentioned about a saw being in a bind, and that is where we get in a bind.

Really?

Yeah. The expression in a bind comes from logging. If a tree doesn’t fall away in the direction you attend, it will trap or bind the saw blade, making it difficult to continue.

Oh, wow. And so a logger might have originally said it was caught in the bind or caught in a box. But we get the idea of just being stuck and having no options from that expression of being in a bind. So it’s kind of figuratively used in the rest of English from logging.

I had no idea. We should do a whole show on logging language, you know. Log jam and debacle and all those kinds of things.

By the way, there’s another term from logging that I like. I wish we should also borrow into the rest of English. It’s called a Samson pole. This is a long pole that you use to push on the tree, to push it in the direction you want it to go.

Oh, really? And it makes you strong like Samson in the Bible.

Oh, like Samson. And it gives you a haircut.

Great.

Yeah, I need a Samson pole to push my life in the right direction.

Call us 877-929-9673. A way with words is about language seen through family, history, and culture. Stay tuned for more.

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. As we mentioned earlier, we just got back from doing appearances in Huntsville, Alabama, at the invitation of the local public radio station, WLRH. We spoke at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center there to WLRH listeners. But one of the highlights of our trip was a return visit to Lee High School, where we talked with students about the language that they use.

And, Grant, one of the things that struck me was coming there four years later was to find that some of them were still using the slang word FORF, F-O-R-F. As a verb, to FORF means to fail to follow through on your commitments. And as a noun, a fourth is somebody who flakes out on you. You know, they say they’re going to be there and they’re not going to be there. And it wasn’t as widespread as the last time we went to Huntsville, but some of the kids were still using it.

Yeah, slang tends to move a little faster than that. But yet it is a local word, not much spread beyond the Huntsville region. So there’s something of a bit of local pride. So maybe they’re hanging on to it with more ferocity than they would otherwise.

The other thing about that is we had a different group of students this time. We had podcasting and creative writing students this time, where last time it was just general students, I think, from English composition. And so maybe we had a different cross-section. Maybe if we’d had English composition students again, there would have been more people saying fourth. I don’t really know. So our sample needs to be checked. Our fieldwork is suspect. From a linguistics fieldwork point of view, we have to look at this carefully.

Well, you collected a lot of other cool words, too. It was so nice to return to our friends at Lee High School and to do the slang thing and just see the energy that these kids have. As I told the group at the Rocket Center, the kids are all right. The future is in good hands. And so we talked to them about slang, and they shared a lot of their slang with us.

And a few of these, which I love and didn’t know, one is to touch grass. This is something you tell people who are out of touch with reality. Maybe they’re fantasizing about a future with one of the members of BTS. They think they’re going to marry a K-pop star. Or they’re thinking about the online world all the time and not the real world, the meat space. And to say, look, you need to really touch grass. You’ve got to touch reality.

Right. Get away from that computer screen and go outside, literally.

Another one is dog water, which is an adjective. You just describe something bad as dog water. This comes from video games. You’re like, I am not eating that. That is a dog water. Because you think about a dog’s dish, like filled with like dust and dog hair and whatever the dog is like. Slobber.

Yeah, dog bowls. And the dog doesn’t care. The dog’s like, yum, dog water. And you would not touch it, except if desperate.

And then a really nice one, which can be funny, but can be good. It’s giving as an adjective. And so I might say, did you see Martha’s outfit? She is really giving Bilbo Baggins today, which means Martha looks like Bilbo Baggins today. That you’re dressed like Bilbo Baggins. You look like a hobbit.

You know, somebody once went to a Halloween party dressed as me.

How did you find out I did that?

You were so cute. I was giving Martha Barnette that day. But you might also say that someone is giving a vibe. And that’s where it comes from, that somebody’s giving. It’s a shortening of the longer expression, to give off a vibe or to give a vibe. And which really excites me because it’s that whole idea of having a vibe or a vibration, which goes back many decades in a new form.

So slang lasts, and it generates new forms, and it continues.

So giving is still that old notion of a vibe without the word vibe attached.

Well, you can tell that it gives us excitement to learn new things from our listeners, whether we come to your town or whether you give us a call.

So call us with your language questions and stories or send them to us an email.

The number is 877-929-9673.

And the email is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Bryant. I’m from Dallas, Texas.

The word that my grandma always used was like, give me the skinny or what’s the skinny on that.

And she’s from New Jersey, but she always used it in a way where she was meaning to give me all the details, which I always found interesting.

Like she never wanted me to leave anything out when she said that.

And I would have thought that it would be the opposite to mean just give me the facts and don’t give me any of the fluff.

So I don’t want to know if she was using it wrong.

And then I’m also kind of curious on where it where it exactly comes from.

So you thought it might have something to do with your grandma’s connection to New Jersey, but it’s it’s deeper than that.

Unless she had some experience maybe in the military.

She didn’t. Her husband did.

Which branch did he serve in?

He was in the Air Force.

Air Force. About when, do you think?

About to be 50 years ago.

Okay. 70s then. 60s.

Okay. So a lot of work has been done looking into the skinny to mean information or details by the members of the American Dialect Society email list, particularly Stephen Granson and Ben Zimmer.

And I did some more work looking into this on my own.

It’s just kind of every once in a while an expression like the skinny will catch the fancy of word researchers and they just can’t leave it alone.

And this is one of those terms that they just keep going back to.

And I kind of get it.

It’s something about that definite article in front of it.

The skinny just makes it like why the skinny or why not some skinny or a bit of skinny.

And so you feel like there should be a particular skinny out there.

And right now, the prevailing theory is that it comes from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Because as far back as the 1890s, there is in the yearbooks for the Naval Academy, skinny referring to the physics and chemistry department.

And let me explain why this theory seems to hold water.

You’ll find in these yearbooks again and again student bios or profiles referring to students having problems mastering the details of studying for physics and chemistry.

And they’ll talk about having problems in the skinny.

Or one student in 1932 is described as having a skirmish with the skinny department, meaning having difficulty passing classes there.

And at the same time, in that same yearbook, in that same year, a profile of another student says,

If you don’t get the skinny of things, Eddie can usually set you right.

So here in the same yearbook in 1932, we see skinny used in pretty much the same way that we’d use it today.

In 1913, in that same series of yearbooks from the Naval Academy in Annapolis,

There’s a glossary in the back of it where the skinny is defined as a midshipman’s slender knowledge of the laws and principles of physics.

And so that whole idea about it being knowledge really seems to be a forerunner of the way we use the skinny today.

What do you think about that?

I mean, that makes a lot of sense.

It is fascinating.

So that’s just kind of the beginning of it.

That’s like the birth of it.

By the 1930s, it starts popping up in things like the novels of Richard Matthews Hallett,

Actually appeared in his autobiography, where he wrote stories about life at sea.

But he also spent some time on a Navy battleship with the Secretary of the Navy in 1928,

Even going to Honolulu.

And he uses the skinny a couple of times in that book in 1938, 10 years later.

And then by the time World War II comes around, boom, the skinny, and especially as the phrase, the straight skinny, is everywhere in the mouths of soldiers.

And it’s starting to appear in lists and glossaries of soldier slang and sailor slang, meaning things like the straight dope or the naked truth.

Right. Interesting. Well, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

And that answer wasn’t skinny.

That’s the skinny on the skinny.

Yes well thank you I appreciate it.

Yeah sure thanks for calling and sharing your your family stories I’m glad to hear that there was some military back there because I am sure that they’re like like Lego bricks there’s some connection there that your family story plugs into this story and that’s probably where the skinny entered into your family’s lore.

Yeah definitely well thank you for having me on.

I love what you guys do thank you all right take care bye bye.

We’d love to hear from you with your language questions, so call us 877-929-9673 or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Here’s one of my new favorite terms, custard wind. Isn’t that beautiful?

Custard wind?

Custard wind. It’s a type of wind. It’s any of the cold easterly winds that are prevalent on the northeast coast of England in the spring.

And custard wind may derive from the word coastward because, you know, they’re going toward the coast.

So it’s not about a perfect froth at the tip of the waves that the wind brings up.

No, but that’s beautiful. I would love to read a poem about custard wind.

I know, and you just have to have the right kind of sweater and wear the Wellingtons and walk along the beach with a stick to poke the sand and see what you could find.

I could envision that day.

Can you envision that day?

Oh, yeah.

I was thinking of carrying a spoon and a custard with me.

And you come back and your cheeks are red from the brisk breeze.

I was thinking of coming back to a warm custard pie is what I was thinking.

We’d love to hear about what they say your way.

You know, we get calls and emails from around the world, and we welcome our worldwide callers.

877-929-9673 is toll-free in the United States and Canada.

But there are lots of ways to reach us on our website at waywordradio.org contact.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

This is Larry Barwick.

Where are you calling from, Larry?

Cameron, South Carolina.

All right, Cameron, South Carolina.

Well, Larry, what’s on your mind today?

Well, I’m trying to find the source of the word Gaius Gudis.

Gaius Gudis. Tell us what that means.

Well, that’s what I was hoping y’all would tell me.

Where’d you hear it?

A friend of mine from Johns Island, South Carolina, when she was a child growing up, her mother told her sisters and her brother not to go out in the woods by themselves or the Gaius Gudis would get them.

-huh. The Gaius Gudis.

Apparently it’s something that lives in the woods.

Yeah, yeah, it sure does.

Yeah, Larry, the Gaius Gudis, that’s a name for a mythical monster, and it’s usually spelled G-Y-A-S-C-U-T-U-S, Gaius Gudis, which sounds scary in and of itself.

That was really a popular term in the mid-1800s in this country.

And the Gaius gudus was this imaginary animal that was really fearsome.

There’s a lot of folklore about it.

And it takes different forms in different parts of the country.

In the eastern United States, sometimes it was described as this monster about the size of a deer with rabbit ears and sharp teeth and telescopic legs that it could shorten and lengthen at will so that it could graze on steep hillsides.

And out west, sometimes it was described as a rodent that was nine feet long and three feet tall.

It sort of had scales like armadillos and projections like a stegosaurus on its back.

And carnival owners would take advantage of this scary-sounding animal,

And they lure gullible people to their tents and say,

This is the most ferocious, rambunctious, man-eating animal ever exhibited under canvas.

And they talk about how scary this monster is.

And then when the last ticket’s been sold,

The proprietor rushes out of the tent and says something like,

Run for your lives, ladies and gentlemen.

Escape before you’re swallowed alive.

The guy’s scooters is busted loose.

That would send me running.

This was a time when there were lots of stories about lots of mythical animals, like the Swamp Gahoon and the Hickle Snifter and the Gilly Galu, which is a bird that lays square eggs, and the Wiffle Poofl, and all these scary monsters, you know, that you would use to, you know, keep kids in line, for one thing.

Well, I guess it worked.

It sure did.

They made it to tell the story to the next person.

They sure did.

Larry, thank you so much for your call.

We really appreciate it.

All righty.

Well, be careful.

Watch out for that guy’s gutus.

It’ll get you.

Take care.

On air.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Mickey calling from New Braunfels, Texas.

Hey, Mickey, welcome to the show.

What can we do for you?

So I’ve been thinking about this for a while and finally got up the nerve to call.

But my mom does this thing, and she’s the only one I’ve ever heard do this.

And I’m curious if she’s the only one.

If she’s not, where it might have come from, she has no idea.

But she’ll do this thing where she’ll, kiddingly, if she wants to know if you acknowledge what she’s saying, she’ll be like, are you picking up what I’m putting down?

Are you smelling what I’m stepping in?

And that’s the part that I don’t know if anybody else says it or if it’s just her thing.

This is interesting because there’s a whole nexus of similar sayings that kind of all come together here.

How old is your mom?

Oh, she’s going to tell me because I don’t actually know.

Give me a decade.

I will say late 50s.

Okay, late 50s.

I would expect someone using are you smelling what I’m stepping in to be younger, but I’m not judging.

My mom is super hip.

Okay, go mom.

Yeah, go mom.

Are you smelling what I’m stepping in has never been all that common, but it’s become more common in the last 10 to 15 years.

But it’s a variant of things like, and not just this one, but things like, you smell what I’m cooking.

And probably a certain small segment of our audience remembers that Dwayne The Rock Johnson had the catchphrase, do you smell what the rock is cooking, which was part of his shtick when he was a professional wrestler.

And that, in turn, kind of combines what’s cooking with the persona that he had as a professional wrestler.

And so all of these things kind of play on each other.

And in turn, the smell, do you smell what I’m cooking, is probably an extended form of the black English, you smell me, which is probably a form of the black English, you feel me.

Both of them meaning you get me, you understand me.

And both of those are at least a couple decades old.

Definitely from the early 2000s, probably well into the 90s and maybe even older than that.

So all of these kind of play off each other, and it’s really difficult to say what begat what, what stems from what, because there’s so much interplay here in the usage of these.

But certainly in the kind of the spider web of all these different ways to say, do you get me?

Do you understand me?

Are you smelling what I’m stepping in?

Is a part of that, is a part of that whole kind of melange.

Gotcha.

And by the way, the are you picking what I’m putting down had some currency in the 1950s among jazz musicians.

And that just is a play on just the general English.

It’s not even really slang to pick up on, which means to gather or to understand or to perceive.

That is interesting.

All right.

Well, take care of yourself, Mickey, and give our best to your mom.

All right.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Mickey.

Bye-bye.

No matter how old you are, young or old, whether you’re 8 or 88, we’d love to hear from you about the new language you’re finding and using.

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Special thanks to Michael Breslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidenwurm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Until next time, goodbye.

Bye.

Thank you.