One Kind of Visiting Fireman Paints the Town Red, Not Douses It

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, hi, this is Harriet from Lakewood, New York.

Well, welcome to the show, Harriet. What can we do for you?

Thank you. Well, I was brought up in Vermont, and my mother was brought up in Massachusetts.

And when I was growing up, she would always refer to our visiting friends that would come and stay, or relatives, as visiting firemen.

And so I’ve used that expression my whole life.

And when I moved here to Western New York, I was playing mahjong with some of my girlfriends.

And I said, yeah, I’ve got visiting firemen coming because we were having a family reunion.

And they all looked at me with a quizzical look and went, visiting firemen?

I don’t think firemen like afternoon tea.

And I have a small tea room here.

And I said, oh, no, no, they’re not actually firemen.

They’re relatives that are coming to visit.

And not one of them had ever heard that expression.

So I was wondering if it’s like a New England expression or a Vermont expression, or I’m not sure.

Because nobody here has ever used it.

In all my reference works, kind of don’t agree on the definition of visiting firemen.

Again, when we’re talking about figurative meanings, not literal meanings.

So some say that a visiting fireman is a famous important guest or a visiting celebrity.

Some just say they’re tourists, especially some that have lots of money to spend.

Others say that a visiting fireman is just any rowdy group of people.

Well, that would be the family, especially those who come for conventions.

And I guess that kind of fits the tourists who have a lot of money to spend definition.

Another one says something about unofficial visitors who are made welcome.

Another one says visitors who are well looked after or visitors who are kindred spirits.

So I guess in all of them, they all kind of have this overall theme of out-of-towners who are made welcome.

So I guess it fits.

Does any particular one of those fit more than the others for you?

Yeah, that’s a good question.

It was always referred to as people coming in from out of town.

And usually was, we usually refer to our cousins and, you know, our relatives coming in as visiting firemen.

Then I kind of have always used it just to mean people coming in from out of town.

Like that’s how I used it when I was talking to my friends the other day.

So, but with us, it certainly didn’t mean money.

I would say more kindred spirits, but I would think it’s more the out of town.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In the historical record, it goes back at least 100 years.

And what we find is there’s kind of this turning point where you start to see firefighters as groups have this political power where they have money and unions and start to take elected offices outside of being firefighters.

And so they have weight to throw around.

And so they’ve got all this money as a body of people.

And so they do things like have conventions around the country in the United States and Canada.

And firefighters come from around North America or even the world.

They’re quite a sight.

They’re an active body of people.

And they tended to be young men with lots of energy.

And they required lots of entertainment.

And I’m kind of euphemizing some of this here because they were, visiting firemen were a thing to behold, you know.

Right.

Well, it certainly would be if they showed up at my tea room.

Yeah.

So that’s why visiting firemen kind of became a shorthand for conventioneers who come to town and kind of put the whole place on tilt.

So, Harriet, it’s not just you and your family.

And I’m also wondering if there might be some firemen who would really enjoy coming to your tea room.

Of course they would.

I’m sure because I have dress-up clothes all upstairs, and I would get them all dressed up in some bazaar outfit.

Right?

Oh, in case somebody’s not dressed correctly, you have spares?

Right, they have to take off their uniforms and put on something crazy that I have.

So, yeah, they would have fun.

Yeah, we want you to send us pictures if that ever happens.

All right, well, call us again sometime and enjoy yourself in the tea room, all right?

All right, okay, thanks so much.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Harriet.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you’re like Harriet and you used an expression and everybody looked at you like, what?

You might want to give us a call to talk about it.

877-929-9673 or send us an email about it.