Up in the Papers

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Dana calling from New York. How are you?

Dana, welcome to the show. I’m doing well, and Grant looks pretty darn good himself.

I’m fantastic. New York where? I always have to have New York City? Upstate New York?

Yes. New York City, yes.

Where in New York City?

I live in Washington Heights.

Okay, sure. I know where that is. That’s great. Good Dominican food up there, right?

Yes, it is. We call it Upstate Manhattan, so it’s a nice place.

Upstate Manhattan.

What can we do for you, Dana?

Well, I grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Well, my granny had lots of colorful, colorful phrases.

But the one that kept coming to mind was anytime people would start to get upset around her, she’d say, don’t get all up in the papers.

And I knew what she meant, but I had no idea where that came from.

What did she mean?

She just meant don’t get upset.

Let things go.

Just let it go.

Don’t get all, as she used to call it, flustered.

So she kind of mixed flustered and frustrated together.

But, yeah, that’s what we understood she meant.

But I have no idea what being all up in the papers had to do.

Do you think she might have meant don’t do anything so crazy that you get your name and your mugshot in the newspapers?

Oh, you know, that would make sense.

Because that’s what I’m thinking.

I’m not sure what she meant, but yeah.

There was a time in American history where you didn’t want to be in the newspapers.

Right.

I mean, most of the people who were in the newspapers were people who were up to no good.

I mean, you might have the guy opening his new business and you might have the politician who’s been elected.

But most of the other stuff was either the death announcements or the crime report, the crime blotter.

Yeah, I think ladies were told to have your name in the paper only when you’re born, you get married, and when you die.

Yeah.

That’s it.

And these days we’re all happy to be quoted.

What do you think of the new video game system?

We’re like, I’ll tell you a whole thing you can put in there.

We’re happy to be quoted on any topic.

I love that.

I had never crossed my mind at all.

That makes perfect sense.

Her particular version of that, don’t get all up in the papers.

I love that.

It’s got another feature I think it’s worth talking about here, the all up in or the all even or the all up.

The all up is two intensifiers that we use together to just really mean more of the same.

So you could say, Martha, don’t do that.

You’ll get in the newspapers.

That doesn’t sound very exciting.

I could say, Martha, don’t do that.

You’ll get all up in the newspapers.

All up in the newspapers.

And it’s even more in the newspapers as if that’s possible, as if there’s like a, I don’t know, put you on the front page, top of the fold, right?

Right.

Big picture.

Right.

That’s great.

Oh, I love it.

I love it.

So that’s probably what she meant.

She sounds like a colorful lady?

She was definitely a colorful lady.

I kept trying to come up with phrases that I could say on the radio.

And so that was one that came up that I knew it was okay to…

But it took you a while?

Dana, you can send the other ones to us in email.

We won’t share them on the air.

Yes.

Or online.

Facebook, Twitter, let us know.

Yeah, put them on Facebook.

Book. Exactly. Exactly. All right. I really appreciate your call, Dana. You make me homesick for New York every time I talk to a New Yorker.

You’re making me homesick for the Blue Ridge.

I love it here. All right. In the Blue Ridge. See, I got both of you in one.

I know. You guys, thanks so much. Yeah, take care now.

Love it so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Oh, that’s great. Stay out of the papers.

I’ll try. All right. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. It is a familiar story. We hear it in our email and our voicemail and when we’re doing speeches around the country.

People say, my grandmother or my grandfather used to say this thing and I’ve always wondered.

Well, this is the show where you get the burr out from under your saddle.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673 or email us, words@waywordradio.org and we’ll figure it out together.