Typewriters We Have Loved

[MUSIC PLAYING] You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And Grant, there was a story in The Wires the other day suggesting that the death of the typewriter has been somewhat exaggerated.

Did you see this?

No, I didn’t see that.

It said that computers have largely replaced typewriters, but there’s still typewriter enthusiasts out there, and there’s still typewriter stores out there.

And in fact, you can even buy an electric typewriter at a place like Office Depot or Staples.

I had no idea.

I didn’t either.

I guess for three-part forms, the kind of stuff where you need to have that physical impression on the paper, right?

Exactly.

Yeah, that’s one of the uses of it.

The story got me to thinking about typewriters.

You know, I can remember my granddaddy typing out his sermons on this big black Smith Corona on his roll-top desk back in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

And then I started thinking about how I learned to type myself in Miss Varnedoe’s ninth grade typing class and how those keys felt under my fingers.

And then I don’t know about you, but when I was in college, I graduated to an electric IBM.

And I can still remember the way that it kind of shuddered under my fingers.

But Grant, you know, I’m thinking about you.

You’re younger than I am.

You probably didn’t even start out on a typewriter, did you?

Oh, I did.

Yeah, I started on an IBM Selectric, the home row and all that, and quickly moved to computers.

But I came in right at the transition from typewriters to computers.

And within a few years, all of my professors were expecting papers to be printed from a computer and not to be typed.

I mean, they anticipated it.

It was a lot less mess for them.

Right.

First with the daisy wheel.

Remember those?

Yeah, and correcting fluid everywhere and typing and retyping and reviewing certain pages.

Right, and tape, yeah.

And then editing your copy to make it fit just so you didn’t have to type two pages.

You could just type one.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you know, the story also linked to a site called mytypewriter.com.

And on that site, they not only sell typewriters online, but they have a list of famous authors and their favorite typewriters.

I mean, I had no idea that John Irving still writes on a typewriter.

And so does David Sedaris.

I mean, who knew?

I don’t get too nostalgic about typewriters, though.

And maybe it is because I came in at the very end of their importance.

But there is a kind of forced contemplation with a typewriter, right?

You really have to think about what you’re doing so that your editing later is less time consuming.

You don’t want to have to do revisions over and over and over and retype stuff that is otherwise perfect just because it surrounds something that isn’t.

That’s right.

I just remember when I switched to computers, it really changed the way that I wrote and thought.

You’re right, you really have to be much more contemplative.

And then there’s the whole sensuous thing of the click of the keys under your fingers.

The tactile response, sure.

You definitely want it.

And I remember that there are typing programs that will teach you to type on a computer that give you that same audible response so that you are fully conditioned so that when your finger hits the key, you get the feedback instantly to know that you’ve struck the correct key.

Oh, really?

Or struck any key, for that matter.

Well, if you have a question or comment about typewriters, writing, grammar, regional expressions, or any other aspect of language, type us an email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Or you can call us 24 hours a day, 1-877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, Martha and Grant.

Hello.

Who is this?

This is Candace calling from San Diego.

All right.

Hello, Candace.

How are you guys doing?

Excellent.

Awesome.

Me too.

Good.

Well, I’m calling you guys today because I’ve got an interesting instance, in fact, two instances of, I think, a case of really mixing up two words that are spelled really close to each other and sound a lot like each other, but I think really actually have very different meanings.

So what happened was I opened up our local newspaper early in the morning one morning.

And in giant typeface, I read the following headline, “Universal Insurance Proposal Flounders.”

And it really kind of woke me up really fast because I thought that that was a terrible mistake.

I thought that what the editor really meant to say was that “universal insurance proposal founders.”

I don’t know.

What do you guys think of that?

Well, my question would be, has it completely failed already, or is it on the way to failing?

Well, I believe at the time when I read a bit of the article, it seemed that it was on the way to failing.

And then I think actually floundering is still the right word because if it was “foundering,” that’s kind of a subjective way of a journalist saying that they think it’s going to fail, and perhaps they wouldn’t want to make that leap.

Oh, that’s interesting.

Well, what I did was I looked in the dictionary as soon as I got to work that morning, and I found that the connotations that in the definitions for flounders I saw were sort of like what it sounds like, like a fish that might be sort of frantically flopping, you know, under its own power.

When I looked at the definition for “founders,” that all the connotations were sort of nautical, and, you know, you imagine a little boat, you know, sort of steaming really hard through choppy water to get home to port.

So when I think of a legislative initiative, I think of that, you know, little boat in high seas.

I don’t — the way I do think of when I hear floundering is I imagine a big fish trying to flop itself up the stuff, the capital steps, so that’s — But you can see how they both could be used figuratively, right, rather than literally?

Yeah, yeah, that’s true.

Yeah, “founder” comes from a Latin word that means “bottom,” like in “foundation,” and so it literally refers to sinking and flounder.

I mean, I think of the fish, too, that way.

Yeah, but if an insurance proposal is floundering, it’s not quite yet dead, right?

It’s still — It’s still — In the sense it’s — It’s lying in the muck.

You know, it’s lying in the muck when the tide has fallen away, and it’s not yet quite over with, and if it’s floundering, then it’s about ready to be overcome by, what, the sea, the wind, the storms?

You two are so poetic.

I’m so impressed.

You know, well, you know what?

Something else would bear out what you’re saying, Grant.

I was watching the NBC Nightly News last night, and Brian Williams, the host of the news, said something about the economy is headed for tougher times with the floundering housing market leading the way.

And so that would be another instance of what Grant is talking about with something sort of on the way to demise as opposed to having reached its demise.

Oh, yeah, let’s hope it’s floundering and not foundering, right?

I would hope so.

We’re all in trouble.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That’s an interesting distinction between those two.

I appreciate the subtlety of your thought, though, ’cause I could certainly see how you’d want to carefully choose that word so as to not give the wrong idea.

Yeah, exactly.

All right.

Well, thanks for an interesting question, Candace.

You’re welcome, and thank you so much for having me.

All right, I hope I didn’t flounder too much.

No, I don’t think so, and thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Grant, what a difference an L makes, huh?

What the L?

If you’ve got a question about words related to land or sea, give us a call — 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD, or send us an e-mail — words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Dee from Oceanside.

Hello, Dee.

What’s going on?

Not much.

You got a question for us today?

I do have a question, and my question is about the origin of the word “gram.”

I’m a surfer, and we use that word to refer to little surfers or little beachy kids.

Little what kids?

Kids that live near the beach or look beachy.

Oh, beachy.

You said beachy kids.

Gotcha.

Now, you’re a surfer yourself.

And so how would you use that in a sentence?

You would call to them, “Hey, Gram, come here.”

You would — if you referred to them, you would just refer to them as “Gram.”

“Hey, look at that Gram. Check out that Gram right now.”

Is it derogatory?

You know, I’m an old surfer, so I remember when it used to be derogatory, about 10, 15 years ago, but I think it’s kind of just a general term for young surfers now.

As I understand it, it comes from an old French term that meant “servant” or “valet,” and then it moved into English as a term for a cabin boy on a ship.

And, Grant, my sense is that it probably went from there and migrated to Australia, which is a wonderful font of surfing slang, right?

Right.

It is Australian originally, and it came out of the Australian surfing scene in the great beaches that they have there and the great breaks that they’ve got.

And actually, it’s not that long that it’s been in American English, probably 20 or 30 years at most.

And it applies not only to surfing, but now it’s sort of moved into the skateboard world and the snowboarding.

Right, snowboarding, too.

Mm—

A lot of the terms from surfing actually show up in snowboarding and skating.

Well, Dee, we have to go get some grunts now.

Do you use that? Want some grunt?

With a sandwich?

No.

Food?

—

Yeah, food, after a big…

What do you call it, Dee, when you have been surfing all morning and then you go get some food?

Do you have a slang term for that?

I think we’re a little bit behind the Australians with our lingo.

We just call it breakfast.

I see.

Well, I think you should start calling your breakfast grunts.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Yeah, kawabunga.

Thank you.

Surf’s up.

All right.

Shaka bra.

Surf’s up.

Ciao.

We’re out of here.

Bye-bye.

Thank you so much, Dee.

All right.

Bye-bye.

You know, I see surfers all the time because I live near a surfing area and I go for walks by the beach.

And it’s funny because I never hear them saying anything.

They’re just kind of carrying their boards and have this blissed-out look.

So I don’t know where all this lingo starts up unless it’s when they’re out there paddling about and waiting for the next wave.

If you’ve got some sports slang or some lingo that you’d like to hear us talk about, give us a call at 1-877-929-WORD.

Or you can send us an e-mail.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

[Music] Grant, we’ve been talking about things that send us on a stroll down memory lane, like typewriters and vinyl LPs and slide rules and that kind of thing.

But words do that for me, too.

And one word that does that for me every time is the word for “sythia.”

I don’t hear it much out here in California, but every time I hear the name of that plant with the yellow blossoms, I’m instantly back at the home of my mother’s parents in the Blue Ridge Mountains where they had them in the yard.

That’s pretty cool.

I have a few words like that.

And there are many of them, at least from my very young years, associated with my grandmother.

She has the dialect pronunciation of “they” instead of “there is” or “there’s.”

So she’d say something like, “They some blueberry jelly in the refrigerator.”

And so when I hear that, yeah, she took care of me and my brother when we were very young, so there was always a really tight bond there.

And even more importantly, I guess as an adult, she taught me a little bit of plant lore.

So when I hear people mention “lambs quarter” or “poke” or “sheep sorrel,” I think about her, and I think about her place down on the river where the morning fog would kind of like burn away when the sun came over the hills, you know?

It’s a very specific time and place.

Watercress does it, too.

There was a spring nearby, and we would go down to the spring and pick the watercress.

And I could be — I have been in Paris eating a goat cheese salad with watercress, and I think of that particular part of the country where my grandmother lived and where we used to go see her when I was a boy.

Oh, my gosh.

That’s gorgeous.

Well, what word does that for you?

Give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673 or e-mail us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

♪♪ Stay tuned for “A Word Puzzle” and more of your calls on “A Way with Words.”

♪♪ You’re listening to “A Way with Words.”

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette, and we’re joined by our puzzle man, Greg Pliska.

Hiya, Greg.

Hiya, Martha.

Hiya, Grant.

Hello, Greg.

What’s cooking?

Hiya.

What’s cooking?

I haven’t cooked in a long time.

I have a new pair of glasses, which has nothing to do with cooking at all.

—I have a new pair of glasses.

Yeah?

I know.

I can see that.

You can’t see me.

That’s why you don’t know.

Man, they’re not that good.

I got bad lenses, but…

Are these bifocals?

I have progressive lenses.

They’re progressive lenses.

That’s what they call them these days.

Oh, they’re green-tinted.

That’s right.

I look at you, and you look like Dennis Kucinich.

Really?

He’s a handsome man.

He’s a stunning example of manhood, just like Grant.

It’s perfect.

Is your quiz about Dennis Kucinich?

Not exactly, but a little bit.

Now, this week’s puzzle is a variation on the odd man out puzzle type, where you’re given a set of items, one of which is not like the others, and the trick is to figure out which item doesn’t belong and why.

I should warn you that some of these get tricky, so you might want to have a pencil handy to write them down, and no Googling allowed.

Can I use a pen?

Let me give you an example.

Happy, sleepy, gregarious, and grumpy.

The answer, of course, is gregarious, which is not one of the dwarves, and is actually the opposite of bashful, who is one of those.

So, the odd man out is going to be the opposite of one who’s listed.

The odd man out should have the opposite property of the ones that are listed.

Now, this is an election-year variant on the game that we’re going to call odd candidate out, because each set of items will include the name of one of our current crop of presidential candidates, and as an extra help, actually, the candidate is never the odd one out.

This isn’t a quiz.

It’s a Rube Goldberg contraption.

Exactly.

Right.

If you set the monkey on fire, he leaps into the bucket, causing the answer to fall on Grant’s head.

All right.

Well, here we go.

Let’s try odd candidate out.

Here’s your first set.

Ron Paul, Harrison Ford, Elton John, and Phyllis George.

Ron Paul, Harrison Ford, Elton John, and Phyllis George.

Oh.

Okay.

Does this have to do with the Beatles?

Oh, no.

There’s no Ringo.

No.

I think Harrison Ford is the odd man out, because it’s John Paul George, and so Ford is the odd man out.

And specifically, Harrison Ford…

George Harrison.

…has a Beatles last name as the first name, while all the others have Beatles first names as their last name.

Gotcha.

Very nice, Martha.

I was headed for something to do with presidents, because we had George and Ford, but that wouldn’t have worked very well, ’cause it was first and last name.

Here’s another one for you.

Biden, twisted, individual, dinosaur.

Again, these are not comments on the actual candidate.

Biden, twisted, individual, dinosaur.

And it’s not haiku, so…

With these words, I don’t think we fix on what seems to be a prefix.

So, maybe we put a suffix on if we’re not putting a prefix.

Are you saying to put a prefix on there?

I’m just trying to clue prefix.

I’m getting to think about prefix as a concept.

I could have just done a clue that I could have just said, “Here’s your clue. Prefix.”

But it wouldn’t have sounded as clever as a little rhyming couplet.

I got to get paid for doing something.

Biden, twisted, individual, dinosaur.

I would say that individual is the odd one out.

Oh, you’re good.

Why is that?

Well, I’m thinking of “bi” and “twi” and “di” all having to do with “two.”

That is correct.

Yeah!

That is correct.

And individual has the dual suffix at the end of it.

Now I understand why it’s right.

But you got it right.

That’s all that matters.

It’s like the SATs.

If you just check the right box, it doesn’t matter if you actually hate it.

Here’s another one for you.

Clinton, Stewart, Lucas, Clooney. -Clinton.

It sounds like taking the SATs.

All these pencils. -So I have posters of all four of these guys on my office wall. -What? -Yeah.

George Clinton, Patrick Stewart, George Lucas, and George Clooney.

Is that the clue? -Yes, it’s all people who are posters and grants. -No, George.

Three of them. -Three of them are George. -And one of them isn’t. -Yeah.

Well, actually, what would be the opposite of being a George?

It would be… -Georgina. -Martha. -Martha Stewart.

You got it.

I actually was gonna use George Plimpton, and then I realized, of course, Martha Plimpton is also a fairly well-known day. -You kind of cheated on the presidential thing, right?

Because just George is — right?

George Clinton was never president. -It’s not the point of the puzzle.

Well, he was president of Parliament Funkadelic. -He was the emperor of the universe. -Yeah. -Okay. -Wow. -Well, have you had enough, or you, you know… -I think we’re good. -My brain hurts. -I’ve been humbled, as usual. -Okay, good. -I feel very small, so… -I’m glad I could do that. -Shop down to — -I can cancel therapy for another week. -Greg, thank you so much. -I think I know how this game works now. -Thanks for having me.

I’ll do it again next year, and you’ll finally understand it. -Awesome.

I’m gonna need a year to recuperate.

Well, if you’d like to puzzle us with a question about language, the number is 1-877-929-9673. -Or send us an e-mail to words@waywordradio.org. -Hi.

You have A Way with Words. -Hi.

This is Glenn from Lebanon, Indiana. -Lebanon, Indiana.

Welcome, Glenn. -Thank you. -Hello, Glenn. -Hello. -Where’s Lebanon? -It’s about 20 miles northwest of Indianapolis. -Gotcha.

Gotcha.

What’s going on? -Well, the question I had is that I have a sister who has rather feminist leanings, and the question I had is she said that she has stopped using the term “rule of thumb” because she thought that rule of thumb is a misogynistic statement because it goes back to a rule that you couldn’t beat your wife with a stick bigger around than your thumb. —huh. -And so the question I have is, is that indeed where — if that is indeed where the phrase came from or if she’s just being overly sensitive? -Mm—

Mm—

Well, I’ve heard that — -That’s a good question. -Right, and we’ve heard that story floating around quite a bit, Grant. -Yes, we have, as a matter of fact.

Is she going to believe you if I tell you that she’s wrong? -If there’s a way I can back it up, but I’d have to have some proof, but as long as she can hear it on the radio, I’m sure that she would. -‘Cause we sound like the voice of authority. -Absolutely. -Well, the thing is, like Martha said, we have heard this before, and it’s one of those things that just — you can’t shake these false etymologies.

The truth is that the rule of thumb does not come from any law or any rule in any country that ever had anything to say about if you could or when you could or how you could beat a wife.

It doesn’t.

Unequivocally.

There’s no argument there. -Well, that’s good to know. -Just as a little background, it probably comes rule of thumb from the tendency of humans to measure things with their body.

We have feet, for example.

That’s our best example.

We might measure a horse in hands, and we might say something like, “Somebody’s as thick as an elbow.”

Well, no, actually, I made that one up. -Yeah, but that’s 300 cubits, you know? -I don’t know what’s artwork and all that. -Yeah, that’s what we do, right?

My father actually taught me how to do that when we were doing woodwork.

He’d say, you know, measure from your arm to your elbow and put it down here, and you can kind of — You know, if it’s not really important, if you’re just building something, say, a temporary structure to hold firewood or something like that, it’s not really — You don’t have to measure it down to the centimeter.

Now, the only thing that I can tell you further about the reason that this etymology exists, and this is usually what’s a little more interesting about this, is that there was once a British judge who said something about that it was okay to beat one’s wife as long as the stick was no larger than a man’s thumb.

But — and the “but” is so important here — that was in 1782, and it was long after the term “rule of thumb” already existed, and he only said it.

He didn’t make a law about it.

It wasn’t put in the book somewhere.

It wasn’t an official policy or anything like that, and actually — -He was just a sexist pig. -Yeah, he was a really odd individual, very odd individual.

So I could see how somebody might misconstrue that, but it’s one of those things that it’s so sensitive, the discussion of beating one’s wife, that I think it behooves us to get it right. -Well, I do find it a little ironic because my sister did hit me with a Montgomery Ward catalog in the house when we were teenagers. -Well, she’s learned her lesson sense.

Now she’s a righteous person, right? -Yeah, that’s right, and I wasn’t doing anything other than reading at the time, of course. -Well, good.

Thank you very much.

That helps clear it up. -All right.

Take care, sir. -All right.

Bye-bye. -Bye-bye. -Bye-bye. -You know, granted — -Where do people come up with this topic, Martha?

We’re at a party, and then beating wives comes up, and then somebody just mentions, “Oh, by the way, rule of thumb comes from beating your” — No.

I don’t know how to — -No, I think people will use the expression “rule of thumb.”

You know, “Oh, that’s a rule of thumb,” and then somebody will say, “Don’t use that expression.”

It has to do with beating one’s wife. -Every six months or so, I pick a new windmill to tilt, so maybe I’ll pick this one next to tilt against, and maybe I’ll pick this one next time.

Anyway, if you’ve got a question, if you’ve got a myth that needs debunking, if you’ve got a language story that you want proven true or untrue, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673. -Or e-mail us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words. -Hi.

This is Sabrina from Oceanside, California. -Hiya, Sabrina. -Hello, Sabrina.

How you doing? -What’s on your mind? -Well, I had a question regarding “Alley Oop.”

I was reading the funnies, and some reason it prompted my memory that there was an old cartoon about a caveman called “Alley Oop.” -Right. -Yeah, it’s still in some newspapers, actually. -Is it?

Didn’t know that. -Yeah, so I was just verifying that with my mom, and then I also knew that “Alley Oop” is a basketball shot. -Mm—And I just wondered about if there was any relationship or how one became the other or… -Sabrina, are you a basketball fan? -No, I’m not. -Oh. -I’m a football fan. -Oh, a football fan.

I was just gonna say that I’m a basketball fan, and there’s nothing more beautiful than an “Alley Oop.” -Yeah. -I mean, it’s just — It’s poetry.

It’s like — -No, correct me if I’m wrong.

An “Alley Oop” is when I’m running for the basket, and you’re coming along behind me with the ball, and I leap up, and you throw the ball in such a way that I catch it in the air, and then I slam it down into the net, right? -Yes, you are up above the rim, and when you see that, it is just — It is poetry.

It is like hitting the sweet spot on a tennis racket.

There’s just nothing like it.

I love “Alley Oops.”

I can’t do them anymore. -Right. -But, -Wait, didn’t there — There used to be an “Alley Oop” in football, though, didn’t there? -I think, yeah. -There was also a long kind of — So is the “Alley Oop” the long pass, or is it the jumping up and throwing and dunking? -Or is that — Sabrina, is that a “Hail Mary”? -What the “Hail Mary” is more like a good luck with who gets it? -And the “Alley Oop” is more precise in basketball.

Okay. -So, anyway, back to your question.

Yeah, the comic “Hamlin,” I think, is the guy’s name, who drew that for years and years and years.

I think there’s a connection here.

What I can tell you about “Alley Oop,” first of all, though, is it comes from the French, and it basically means “get up” or “go,” because “Allee,” A-L-L-E-Z, in French, is the imperative command for “go” or “get with it,” to move on, to get cracking, kind of the point of bougé-vous, “move yourself, get moving.”

And then the “up” part, or our “oop” part, comes from — and this is where some of the dictionaries, actually, they need a chastisement for me.

It comes from H-O-P, “op.”

It sounds like “op” in French because you don’t pronounce the H.

So, “Allee Oop,” “Allee Oop,” like that.

So it sounds like “up.”

So sometimes you’ll find “Allee Oop” written as “Allee” in English.

Some of the dictionaries, they actually spell it as O-U-P or H-O-U-P, but none of my French dictionaries have that.

Anyway, they use it in acrobatics, and they have since the 1920s, Sabrina.

Yeah.

So I think there’s a connection between the physical effort of the kind of acrobatic world, and maybe there’s something happening there.

I don’t know how we would get into football and basketball and so forth, but more than likely, I’m suspecting that our soldiers brought it back from France.

We can tell you a lot about “Allee Oop” as a word, but we can’t tell you about a connection to sports.

Okay.

Well, that helps.

It does?

Cool.

A little bit.

I mean, it’s good to know about the history of it as far as the connection goes.

We’ll just have to see.

Well, thanks for calling, Sabrina.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Sabrina.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, you can score answers to your questions here on “A Way with Words.”

Give us a call.

The number is 1-877-9299673, or throw up a Hail Mary pass in e-mail.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hey, Grant, knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Objective case.

Objective case who?

No, no, no.

Objective case whom?

Ha-ha, knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Interrupting cow.

Interrupting cow.

Moo, moo, moo.

Oh, no.

It’s come to this, hasn’t it?

Well, come to us with your language questions. 1-877-9299673 or e-mail us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, Grant.

This is Frank.

I’m calling from Burlington, Wisconsin.

Well, hello, Frank.

How are things in Burlington?

Well, right now, we’re cold and waiting for snow.

What’s on your mind today, Frank?

My wife and I have been going back and forth for— well, maybe not back and forth.

I’ve been correcting her for quite some time about her choice of the word “irregardless.”

Oh, that’s— I just want to say, that’s always fun when you correct your wife.

It makes her a really enjoyable evening.

It happens very infrequently.

This is the one instance that, since the 11 years we’ve been married, that I’ve done anything.

She chooses to use the word “irregardless” in conversation, and when she does, I step in and say, “You mean regardless,” because I don’t believe that the word “irregardless” is really a word.

Let me just ask you, why wouldn’t it be a word?

It seems redundant to me.

Well, I’m going to actually play devil’s advocate with myself, and Martha, you can beat me up later for this.

I can’t wait.

But if you can say it, and you can write it, and it has a meaning, isn’t it a word?

Well, sure, it’s a— I guess, technically it’s a word, but it just doesn’t— it seems to me redundant.

Yeah, I think that’s right.

That’s right, that’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say.

That’s your real argument right there.

That’s going to win your fight.

OK.

Right.

And the truth is, Frank, that it is a word in that it’s in many dictionaries, and I wouldn’t use it, because I agree with you.

I think it sounds redundant, but I’m sure that my co-host has some kind of wackadoo excuse for it, that it’s some kind of blend of “irrespective” and “regardless,” or it’s some kind of emphatic double negative.

But as I said, I think there’s just sort of a wackadoo cornball— Grant, is that your theory?

Well, I need not speak, apparently.

My mind is known.

My secrets are laid out for the public to see.

It’s like having all of my underwear on the line at one time.

No, actually, you’re wrong, Martha.

How little you know me.

Frank, here’s the thing.

Irregardless of what I think about irregardless, it is radioactive.

It’s to be avoided at all costs.

And your wife should avoid it, too.

Whether it’s a word or not is irrelevant.

Whether or not it’s got a long-standing use.

Because by the way, I have found this term in newspapers from as early as 1795.

This word has been in use for a very long time.

They were wackadoo back then.

That newspaper was so old that actually the first S was an F.

That’s how old it was.

Oh, really?

Yes.

Wow.

But the thing is, so much outcry about this.

It’s like one of the number one peeves that we get email about.

It’s the number one peeves that people first think of when they want to ask me a question at parties about language.

It’s something that people complain about others using right and left.

My point is, I’m with Martha on this, it should be avoided.

There’s just too much debate about it.

It’s always going to shadow what you’re trying to say when you use this word.

And you don’t want to cloud your message.

Just avoid it.

I agree.

And I would tell your wife that, too.

You would?

I would.

I will tell her that with your backing.

How do you think she’s going to react to that, Frank?

I don’t know.

We’ll have to see, I suppose.

Yeah.

Well, I hope she still loves you regardless.

No.

She will.

She’ll make sure of that, huh?

Or irregardless.

So now you don’t have anything to argue about, right?

It’s domestic bliss from here on out.

That’s right.

It’s perfect.

Great.

Life is good.

Great.

Well, glad we could help.

Abel, thank you very much for your help.

All right.

Thanks for calling, Frank.

You have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

We’d love to get you on the line.

Give us a call at 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Join us on our discussion forum at waywordradio.org/discussion.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Get ready for a slang puzzle and more of your calls right here on “A Way with Words.”

Support for “A Way with Words” comes from WordSmart, the vocabulary building software.

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You’re listening to “A Way with Words.”

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And it’s time again for “Slang This,” our weekly puzzle about slang.

Today’s contestant is Rich Stevens from East Hampton, Massachusetts.

Welcome, Rich.

Hi.

What do you do in East Hampton?

I’m a cartoonist, and I sell t-shirts on the internet.

Oh, that’s pretty cool.

What kind of t-shirts?

Hopefully witty ones, but sometimes slightly pandering ones.

Very good.

OK.

So please kill me.

Please kill me.

Well, Rich, the first step in that process is that you have to give us an example of your favorite slang term.

I send a lot of files back and forth.

And we do everything online.

So I’ve taken to using the word “zap” to replace every conceivable verb for giving somebody anything digitally.

Because I hate typing out IMing and stuff like that, because everybody uses apostrophes.

It looks gross.

You’re like, if my editor, Ted, was mad at me, he’d be like, you’re late on your cartoons.

And I’d be like, hang on 30 seconds.

I will zap you a week’s worth of stuff, and it will be in your inbox.

OK.

So it’s an all-purpose verb, then.

If I send it to you in any way other than in an envelope, I zap it.

And other people have started using it on me.

We’re about to zap your brain with some slang words.

That’s right.

All right.

Well, Grant is going to present you with a slang term, and then he’s going to give you three possible examples of how it might be used in a sentence.

Rich, only one of those is real, and the other two are something that Grant made up.

So your task will be to choose which one of those really is a slang term.

You got it?

I have a one in three chance of looking smart.

So let’s do this.

That’s right.

Pressure’s on.

So Grant, go ahead.

Zap him.

All right, here we go.

The first word is simul, S-I-M-U-L, simul.

All right?

And the first clue is, Gary Kasparov took on 20 players in a simul match, beating all of them in under three minutes.

The second clue is, they’re all simuls.

Fake tans, fake hair color, fake nails, fake interest in the conversation, and that’s just the men.

And the third clue, the simuls on these cars of the future look just like fins on old Fords, only when the car is in motion, these ornaments flex and bend like the wings on a fighter jet.

So is it A, a chess tournament in which one player takes on multiple opponents?

Is it B, a phony person?

Or is it C, a type of adjustable fin plan for the automobile of the future?

I have absolutely no clue about this one.

This is a wonderful one.

I’m hoping it’s the chess one, because I’d rather hear about chess than those other things.

I’m going to go with the first one and throw myself to mercy.

I don’t know mercy required, because it is A.

A simul is a chess match where usually one grandmaster will take on many other people.

There was something that happened in Cuba.

I think there was a person who took on something like 900 people at the same time.

I don’t know if they do that with a lot of monitors.

There’s a lot of running around the room.

I’m not sure how that works.

The second one was very convincing, though.

It just sounded like a Blade Runner word.

Yeah, or Los Angeles.

A replicant, right?

Yeah, or Los Angeles.

Here we go.

The second slang term is slugline, S-L-U-G-L-I-N-E, slugline.

And the first clue, when lexicographer Samuel Johnson theorized that a word existed, but he couldn’t find evidence, he wrote the word slug in its place.

That’s why there are in his dictionary seven accidental entries called sluglines by lexicographers.

The second clue is, “Hawksters outside the ballpark work the slugline of rubes waiting to get in, hawking t-shirts proclaiming last year’s losing World Series team as the winner.”

And the third one, “After I first picked up Ricardo in the expressway slugline on my way into the city, I started going out of my way every day, hoping he’d be there, needing a ride from me again.”

So is a slugline A, a placeholder word used by lexicographer Samuel Johnson?

Is it B, a queue of people waiting to enter a sporting arena?

Or is it C, a place where hitchhikers wait to be picked up by people who want to have enough passengers for the high-occupancy vehicle lane?

Oh, I’m going to go with the same strategy as last time.

I’m hoping it’s number one, because then my education and photography will be useful.

I’m hoping it’s slugline, the dictionary one.

No, maybe?

Martha, what do you think?

Well, I do remember in my newspaper days we would slug a story.

Yeah, that’s what I mean.

But I’m willing to be wrong.

I’m glad, because you are.

It’s funny that you should both say that, because I was thinking of the slug sheet that I used when I worked in newspapers when I wrote that first clue.

It was intentionally a little misleading, because I figured, well, people say, well, he makes dictionaries, so he might know.

So he would write about— but you didn’t follow that logic.

Oh, you are so devious.

It’s actually C.

A slugline is a place to pick up an extra passenger so that you can go on the HOV lanes.

Interesting.

I wish— if I was still commuting, I would probably know that.

Yeah, who knew?

Rich, you were one for two there.

That’s very good.

And for playing slang this today, we’re going to zap you a copy of Grant’s book, The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang.

Sweet.

Sweet.

Thanks for playing today, Rich.

Hey, thanks.

Thanks for calling.

This is a blast, guys.

All right, well, thanks for playing, Rich.

Thanks so much.

We’ll talk to you later.

OK.

And if you’d like to play our slang game on the air, call us.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or you can send us an email.

The email address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Mary calling from San Diego.

Hi, Mary, how you doing?

Good, how are you?

Great, glad to talk to you.

What’s on your mind today?

Well, I was wondering about the fact that the winds that were associated with those fires are called Santa Annas.

I saw those being reanalyzed somewhere.

Somebody said it must have something to do with Satan, right?

I didn’t know what to think.

I’ve wondered about it before, but having the entire county burning up around you just brought it more to my mind.

And I didn’t know if it’s a geographic association or if it’s from Spain and something with an area there.

I just have no idea.

Well, Mary, talk a little bit about Santa Annas, because I have to confess that when I moved here from Kentucky to Southern California, I had never heard of them before, had no idea that they existed.

And they really affect me.

Right, I had rather a similar experience because I’m from Connecticut.

And I found it really hard to understand what anybody was talking about when they talked about Santa Annas.

I’ve lived here about 14 years now.

And I now realize when I get up in the morning that there’s a Santa Ana, because there either is moisture on the car or there isn’t, and it’s really bright and sunny or it isn’t.

And in San Diego, it’s usually marine cloud layer in the morning.

And sometimes it’s the exact opposite.

And that can be, as I understand it, a Santa Ana.

It means the weather system is coming from the east from the desert.

Right, right.

And how do they affect you?

Because they just make me weird.

My hair is better, because your daughters have to frizz when there’s less moisture.

But then, especially, it was so dry.

It was so extreme.

At the time of the firestorms, I mean, even before the fire started, I really noticed my skin was dry.

But otherwise, it’s really kind of nice weather.

Yeah, it’s spectacular.

It’s really, really clear, isn’t it?

Really, really dry, really, really clear.

I can hear the freeway that I can’t hear other times of the year.

Yes, that would seem right, because the air is just thinner.

Yeah.

Yeah, and Grant mentioned the idea of devils.

And I’ve seen people try to associate it with the vientos de satan, winds of Satan, or suggesting that it’s somehow from Santana having to do with something satanic.

And certainly, it feels that way.

I’ve seen it called devil’s breath or devil’s wind before.

But I think the best guess we have— and it’s only a guess, because nobody is completely sure— is that it’s derived from geography, either the Santa Ana Canyon or the Santa Ana Mountains, because the air tends to go that way.

Right, right, the Santa Ana Mountains in California.

Right.

And it’s interesting, because those winds affect us so much.

And there are all kinds of words for all different kinds of winds.

Did you see the movie “Volver” by Almodóvar?

No.

There’s a— everybody in Spain is going nuts because of this weird east wind there.

Yeah, no, but I’ve heard of the wind in France, which I guess would be really different that they call Le Mistral, so just a famous wind that I never really knew what they were talking about there.

But I didn’t live in the region that’s affected by it.

Right, yeah.

There are a lot of names for it.

I’m Googling here, and I guess anyone could Google this.

But some of these I’ve heard before.

There’s a great list at a site called ggweather.com, ggweather.com/winds.html.

I’ll put a link on the website.

But they’ve collected a pretty good list here of this stuff.

And it’s really interesting.

There’s almost a personality to some of these winds.

I think of the little faces on the map, so the blowing from the east and the west.

And they’re almost human or godlike in the way that some of these winds are named and described.

Well, the whole concept always struck me as very romantic somehow.

I don’t know if I just mean like romance in the usual sense, but poetic, I guess, not just because of the way they affect us, but because it almost changes the world you’re in without traveling anywhere.

And it almost like it portends something important to feel such a change in the climate.

Speaking of portending things, there’s this wonderful quote from Raymond Chandler about Santa Anna’s.

He says, “Those hot, dry winds that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch.

On nights like that, every booze party ends in a fight.

Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks.

Anything can happen.”

That’s really nice.

I think that captures it.

It is kind of like electricity in the air, although I don’t know that there really is electricity in the air the way there is before a thunderstorm.

Maybe because of the wind.

There’s something, yes.

And we give names to those winds because they are so powerful.

And so in this case, as far as we know, Mary, I think our best guess is that it has to do with the way the wind comes over the Santa Anna Mountains in Orange County or the Santa Anna Canyon or the river there.

OK.

Thank you so much for your call, Mary.

All right.

Thank you both.

Take care.

OK, bye-bye.

I think that they have Santa Annas in New York apartments that are heated by radiators because my skin feels like parchment after just a couple of months of winter.

This is Santa Granta.

Anyway.

Santa Granta.

Give a couple of wind bags a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or email us at words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, earlier we were talking about typewriters and how they can send you on a stroll down memory lane.

Well, you know, sometimes we get an email that does that same thing.

And one of those came in recently from Liz Beckman.

She lives in Laguna Woods, California.

And she wrote to share the following memory.

It’s really brief but really evocative.

Here it goes.

Some 40 years ago in northern Minnesota, Grand Rapids, one of the early public radio stations had a program called Green Tomatoes that often did crossword puzzles on the air live with call-ins.

They would describe a word that they needed and people would call in with the answer and then go on to the next word.

Simple pleasures on a Friday night.

Lots of fun.

Isn’t that great simple pleasures on a Friday night doing crossword puzzles on the radio, Grant?

That’s very nice.

You know what it reminds me of?

On Camo X in St.

Louis when I was a kid, they had call-in classifieds where you would call and you’d say, you know, I have a court of firewood for sale and here’s my phone number.

And they would just sail through these things.

And it was exactly like the classifieds in the newspaper.

The same sorts of things, puppies and trucks and yard sales and all the things that you’d see in the back of the newspaper.

It was great.

Oh my gosh.

You know what it also reminds me of?

When I was in Venezuela in Colombia, they do this thing where the radio announcers, because you know, it’s a very mountainous country and parts of the continent, the radio announcers will do things like just announce personal messages, not even like call us, we have something for sale, but things like Rico, call your mother or Maria S, your brother wants you to pick him up at the airport on Wednesday or the Gomez report that their daughter has recovered, things like that.

And they’ll go on for hours with this and the messages show up on foot and then the radio announcer reads them and then everybody in the listening area gets the news about what’s happening to Rico or Maria or the Gomeses.

Oh my gosh, that sounds positively addictive.

So Garrison Keillor stole that.

Well, it’s the way that radio used to be and radio is so different now.

It’s even different within my living memory.

Is it?

Yeah, I think the kind of radio that we hear on the FM dial isn’t the kind of things that I heard in the 1970s.

It was a looser format and it was about laid-back personalities and people have more control as individuals over what they’re playing and what they’re saying and I don’t think we have that anymore.

Yeah, by the way, Grant, your mother called.

You’re supposed to return her call.

My mother always calls.

Well, if you’re Grant’s mother or even if you’re not, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is David from Poway.

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

Well, I have an interesting question.

I was listening to NPR on the way to work, which is my usual mode of operation, and the local segment for KPBS was talking about the fact that an organization in Kiawana had gone down to fight AIDS and the person doing the story said they were giving away condoms like they were going out of style and I thought that doesn’t make any sense because if you’re giving something away like it’s going out of style, why would somebody want it?

I mean, that’s yesterday’s style.

Because they’re not fashionable?

Yeah, I mean, it’s not fashionable anymore.

Who would want that?

And I was thinking, you know, these people are asking for them, they’re getting them, they’re acting like they’re coming into style, they’re the thing to have.

And so it sort of made sense to me that, you know, that’s not going out of style, that’s the thing that’s coming into style.

But what about the giver?

What’s the mindset of the person giving the stuff away?

Maybe they think differently.

It could be that, yes.

But I was thinking about the person who’s receiving it.

And I was thinking, going out of style.

I thought, well, no, it’s not going out of style, it’s the thing that’s coming into style.

Maybe it’s the person giving it away, you know, I don’t want it because it’s yesterday’s thing.

But to my mind, it just didn’t make any sense because it was very clear the person who was giving it away wanted people to have it and the person who was getting it wanted to have it.

So in both sense, I think that they were thinking that this is the thing you want to have, this is today’s style, this is the thing that’s new, it’s interesting.

So it wasn’t the condom part so much as the actual phrase?

Yeah, it was the fact that it was going out of style.

And I thought, no, wait, this is something that people want, so it’s not going out of style, it must be coming into style.

And that’s what got me was that dichotomy between going out and coming in.

Wow, well, David, this is certainly food for thought.

I would guess that it’s like when you go into a department store in July and they’re already selling the winter clothing, they’re selling the summer clothing like it’s going out of style.

And that makes sense, because it’s in fact going out of style.

And they don’t want it anymore, so they’re pushing it every way they can to get rid of it, right?

Yeah, that makes sense, that’s yesterday’s stuff.

But this is a like, they said like it’s going out of style, that’s a key part of the idiom there, so they’re not actually saying that it’s going out of style, they’re saying it’s like it’s going out of style.

Yes.

Well, I think the bottom line is that we want condoms to stay in style.

Yes, we do.

Well, David, have we helped you at all?

I guess.

Or at least given you something to think about.

I think that that phrase simply means exactly what Grant was saying.

Yeah, it’s yesterday’s fashion.

I’m a retailer, I want to get rid of those clothes, so I’m selling them cheap, I’m selling them at a discount, and then I’m giving them away to Goodwill, because they are going out of style, and I just want to get rid of them and make room for the new stuff.

Yeah, I think in respect to what it’s usually used for, it makes sense, but in a particular context, it didn’t.

I see.

Well, you know, the first uses that we found were from the 1940s, and they were talking about giving money away like it was going out of style.

I don’t think money is ever going to go out of style.

Exactly, so that kind of makes the point here.

So, remember, it’s just a simile.

Even more ironic, yeah.

Money going out of style.

Okay, I’ll think on that too.

Well, we will too, David.

Thanks for giving us the…

Thanks, David.

You’re welcome.

I love your show.

Thanks, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Gosh, Grant, I never quite thought about it that way.

Well, if you’d like to bring us some food for thought, the number is 1-877-929-9673, or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

That’s our show for this week, but you can always call us with your questions about language.

The number is 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Our senior producer is Stefanie Levine.

Tim Felten is our technical director and editor.

We’ve had production assistants from Robert Fong and Dana Polakovsky.

A Way with Words is produced at Studio West in San Diego.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, inviting you to join us next time.

That’s right here on A Way with Words.

♪ And I say either, you say neither ♪ ♪ And I say neither, either, either, neither, neither ♪