Turn on a Dime (episode #1675)

Every subculture has its own secret lingo, whether you’re talking about surfers, cab drivers, or coffee-shop baristas. A new book uncovers the slang of everyone from stunt performers to department-store Santas and more. Plus, why is English so darn weird? Those odd spellings and weird pronunciations form a fascinating fossil record. And: a quiz where the actual object of the game is to spell words Incorrectly! Also, clabberhead, eating me out of house and home, can of sugar vs. canister of sugar, prototype theory, a clever Puerto Rican phrase, an orthographic brain teaser, turn on a sixpence, Chef Mike, and more.

This episode first aired February 21, 2026.

Auctioning Meals à la Ding

 When your server brings food to the table and inquires as to who ordered which dish, that’s informally known in the restaurant biz as auctioning. If your meal is delayed because the person who took your order forgot about it, that’s called a pocket ticket. If you send back food because it’s not warm enough, that may be a job for Chef Mike, also known as the microwave oven, the use of which is jokingly known as cooking à la ding. Writer Ben Schott has collected this and other lingo from dozens of subcultures in Schott’s Significa: A Miscellany of Secret Languages (Bookshop|Amazon).

To Eat Someone Out of House and Home

 Candace from Memphis, Tennessee, wonders about the phrase You’re eating me out of house and home. The emphatic doublet house and home is part of a long tradition that includes scared out of house and home and chased out of house and home. Even earlier than that, eaten out of house and harbor communicated the same idea. In Italian, someone may be described with the equivalent of eating like a wolf. In Brazil, they’re eating like a locust. In Spanish, someone might be eating like a new metal file (the rasp-like tool). In German, someone ravenous will be eating the hair off your head. In Arabic, someone is said to have eaten the camel and all it carried. In Dutch and Bulgarian, they eat the ears off your head.

It Will Heal in Time for the Wedding

 Yasha, who grew up speaking Russian, recalls phrase used to comfort a child after a small mishap like a skinned knee. The phrase translates as “It will heal in time for the wedding,” and Yasha had assumed it was solely Slavic. So he was surprised to hear a South Carolinian use the English expression It’ll heal in time for the wedding in similar circumstances. In fact, versions of this reassuring phrase appear across Europe in English, Ukrainian, Russian, Czech, French, Spanish, Polish, Greek, German, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Portuguese. A Hungarian version translates as “By the time you become a soldier, it will be gone.” In Turkey, a child’s boo-boo is soothed with the equivalent of “You’ll forget about it by the time you grow up.”

When Christopher Columbus Lowers His Finger

 Jane Alberdeston is a poet who lives in Norfolk, Virginia, but she’s originally from Puerto Rico, and notes that in the capital of Puerto Rico, San Juan, there’s a famous statue of Christopher Columbus with his finger pointing toward the horizon. In Puerto Rico, if you want to express skepticism that something will ever happen, you can say so with the jocular phrase cuando Cristobal Colon baje el dedo or “when Christopher Columbus lowers his finger.” In other words, never.

Intentional Misspelling Word Game

 Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a puzzle that’s full of misspellings–only on purpose. Given a definition, you have to provide the common incorrect spelling. For example, how would you misspell the word defined by the following? “A confection made from sugar, water, and gelatin whipped into a solid but soft consistency. It’s so good, you might want some more.”

Can of Sugar or Canister of Sugar?

 Amy from Charlotte, North Carolina, reports a dispute arose when visiting her brother’s family. Is a large container for storing sugar properly called a can or a canister? The answer involves prototype theory, which in cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology involves how we think of things and how we name them. In this case, one definition of the word can could depend on the metal it’s made from, but another is based on the idea of a cylindrical container with flat ends. In the first case, the prototype involves material and the second focuses on shape. Either’s right, although when in her brother’s house, Amy might want to defer to that family’s usage.

Walk East Until Your Hat Floats

 Deb in Lombard, Illinois, shared an expression her grandmother used when irritated with someone: Hey, buddy, walk east till your hat floats! In other words, it’s the same ill-willed advice as go play in traffic!

To Finnie Something Is to Claim It

 Finnie, as in I finnie that, is an old expression used to claim something. The term may have arisen from the use of the word fen in the children’s game of marbles, referring to the idea of the fending or making up a rule that defends an action or area. Similar ways to declare dibs on something include hosey as in I hosey the front seat!, and I have beans on that!, plus terms like wacky and muggins.

A Clabberhead Is Pulp-Brained

 Clabberhead is a mild rebuke that suggests someone has a curdled dairy product for brains, clabber being sour milk, ultimately from an Irish Gaelic term for “mud.” The Dictionary of American Regional English has a good history of clabberhead. In Good Words to You (Amazon), the poet, translator, NPR commentator, and critic John Ciardi listed several similar workplace-safe insults, including chowderhead, churnhead, puddinghead, meathead, and mush head. All imply that someone is pulpy-brained.

Mushers Have the London Knowledge

 Among London cabbies, a musher is somebody who owns their own cab, a starving musher is someone still paying for their cab, and musher’s lotion is rain. The book Schott’s Significa: A Miscellany of Secret Languages (Bookshop|Amazon), writer Ben Schott contains hundreds of pages of expressions from subcultures as diverse as professional Santas and stunt performers, graffiti artists, sommeliers, Venetian gondoliers, coffee baristas, typographers, television directors, and dozens more professionals and hobbyists in various pursuits.

A Rough Slog Through to Our Tough English Spelling

 English spelling seems so irregular because it preserves history instead of matching sound. Early on, this Germanic tongue absorbed Norse and French influences from invaders, and in the late 1400s, printing helped standardize early spellings just before pronunciation shifted dramatically in the Great Vowel Shift. Vowels changed; spellings tended not to. The result is a mismatch between what is seen and said. In addition, unlike some other languages, English lacks a central language academy to impose reform, and pronunciation varies widely across regions. Gabe Henry recounts the long history of attempts to simplify English spelling in Enough is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell (Bookshop|Amazon).

Pales in Comparison

 If something pales in comparison to something else, the reference is to its intensity decreasing next to something even brighter. The pale in this case is unrelated to the one in beyond the pale, which has to do with territory marked by a literal pale, a post or boundary of posts.

This Baby Can Turn on a Dime and Get Nine Cents Back

 The expression to turn on a dime means “to change quickly.” Early on the phrase referred to horses or horse-drawn vehicles and later to motorized ones, and suggested the idea of changing direction quickly and easily without needing a large turning radius. Even more elaborate versions include turn on a dime and give you back change as well as turn on a dime and get nine cents back. The earliest versions, though, refer to turning on a five-cent piece. In Australia, something may turn on a cabbage leaf. In the United Kingdom, something or someone nimble can turn on a sixpence. In Italy, something turns on a handkerchief and in Hungary, on a pocket square.

This episode is hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, and produced by Stefanie Levine.

Books Mentioned in the Episode

Music Used in the Episode