Uncommon Names For Baby Animals

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.

Grant, I wonder if you know what these four words have in common.

Leverett, Elver, spat and smolt.

Are these geology terms?

I’m thinking of smolt and smelt and leverit sounds like leverite, which is a jokey name for rocks that you leave right there.

Leave her right there.

That’s right.

But I don’t know the middle two.

Okay.

Baby animals of some kind?

Maybe fish, maybe turtles.

Yes, these these are all names for baby animals.

And Elver is a baby eel, a smalt is a baby salmon, a spat is a baby oyster, and a leveret is a baby be hair..

Okay More bells are ringing now.

They’re distant in another valley, but it’s all it’s all yeah.

I did know these terms at some point.

Yeah, yeah, they’re terms that you come across every once in a while and then you just forget them because when are you ever gonna talk about, you know, but I learned the one for the oysters and Joseph Mitchell’s famous essays in The New Yorker about oysters and clams in the yeah, New York Harbor.

Oh but tell me why you’re thinking about baby animals.

Well, I’m thinking about baby hairs, H-A-R-E-S, in particular, because I just finished a whole book about a baby hair, and it’s a fantastic book.

It’s the book that I’m pushing on to all my friends.

And I want to talk about it later in the show.

It’s called Raising Hair.

Oh lovely.

Yeah, I’m always interested in your book recommendations and you the listener, Martha and I would love to hear what you’re reading and also get your language, stories, thoughts, questions, and ideas.

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