Wayback and Back-Back

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Joan McCarthy calling from Batendorf, Iowa.

What’s on your mind, Joan?

I was reminiscing about a word or a phrase. Back in the 80s, we had a little Toyota Corolla. It was like a little station wagon, kind of a bronze color. And we have four kids, so they were all really little. And we’d pile them into the station wagon, and they’d have all this stuff in their hands, and I’d say, well, just put it in the way back. Put it in the way back. And I had never heard anybody really use that phrase before, and I felt like I made it up. But I don’t know if I did.

You haven’t heard anybody else use the term way back for the part of a station wagon or a van that’s way, way back, the farthest row of seats. Is that right?

I actually have. I actually have heard other people use it, but I didn’t know if maybe they heard me say it and they just latched onto it.

No, the truth is that, Joan, plenty of people have used the term way back for that part of a car. I mean, all the way back in the 1960s and 70s, remember how big those station wagons were? They were enormous. And if you weren’t riding shotgun up in the front seat and you were sitting all the way back in that last row, I mean, it is the way back of a car.

Yeah. And, you know, what’s funny is that years ago we had a caller from Maryland who said that she used the term way back and her kids made fun of her. And she was wanting us to tell her that it was a legitimate word.

And absolutely it is.

And we put the call out to our listeners, and we heard from people all over the country who use the term way back for that part of a car. It’s not the term that I used growing up in Kentucky. We called it the back back or the back back to. And other people have other terms for it, like backity back or the back of the back. But you’re perfectly within your rights, Joan, to use the term way back for that.

Oh, well, good. I’m saddened that I didn’t make it up, though. Well, we often don’t remember where we learned our words, right? Most words that we say, we have no idea where we got them from. It just seemed appropriate, you know, to give that directive to four little kids to make them understand where they were supposed to put their junk.

It is entirely possible that you did come up with it independently, but so did other people. So it’s out there. I always understood way back to refer to the non-seat storage area, though, in the back of a van or station wagon. But you guys think it’s the last row of seats?

Well, sometimes it’s adjustable. Yeah, I think of it as a storage because our little Toyota station wagon just had a front seat and a back seat. And the way back where there were no seats. Gotcha. And then, yeah, we never had one of those station wagons where they had the third row that faced the back. We just had the storage area.

Well, Joan, thank you so much for sharing your memories with us. And we would love to have you back on the show some other time. Okay. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

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