White Hat and Necklace Light

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. And now it’s time for Slang This, the puzzle in which you try to guess the meaning of some strange slang terms.

Today’s contestant is Maureen Blaske from Esquimalt, British Columbia. Maureen, welcome.

Well, glad to be here.

Say hi to Grant.

Hi, Grant. How are you?

Hello, Maureen. Esquimalt, please tell those of us in the lower 50 where Esquimalt is.

Esquimalt is on Vancouver Island, and it’s just across the bay from Victoria,

Which is one of those quaint little tourist towns most people know about.

Well, do you up there in Esquimalt have a favorite slang term for us?

Well, I was thinking, considering you’ve got your elections are coming up,

I thought I would mention that in the South, you eat grits, and in Canada, we elect them.

Because grits is another name for the liberals.

Oh, really?

The liberal party of Canada are called grits.

Really?

For the same, it’s the same grit, it means the food?

No, no, no, no, no.

I don’t know where it comes from.

It has nothing to do with cooking them up and turning them into mush.

Ooh, I like this one, though.

So you mean you have arguments between conservatives and grits?

No, we have arguments between Tories and grits.

Oh, Tories and grits.

It probably comes over from England eventually, ultimately.

Oh, that’s marvelous.

Yeah, like Tories. I wouldn’t be surprised.

But, you know, I love it when I get the favorite slang word of a contestant that I don’t know.

It’s fantastic.

So off to the dictionaries I will go when I go home.

Well, Maureen, you’ve made Grant’s day.

Let’s move on to our game.

Okay.

Okay, Grant’s going to give you a slang term,

And then he’s going to give you three sentences that might suggest how that term is actually used.

Only one of them will be real and the other two are fake.

So your task, Maureen, will be to figure out which one of those three sentences

Illustrates how this particular slang term is actually used.

And chances are you won’t have heard this word before,

So the trick will just be to try to puzzle out its meaning.

And if you get stuck, I’m right here.

Okay?

Okay.

Okay.

All right, here we go.

The first expression is two words, white hat, W-H-I-T-E-H-A-T, white hat.

And the first clue.

Once the White Hat set up the honeypot computer, all the script kitties and wannabe hackers attacked it.

That’s how he figured out how they operated.

The second clue.

At every diplomatic meeting between the Russians and the Americans, each side appoints a White Hat.

The White Hats are allowed to say anything to anyone, even if it breaks long-standing protocol and custom.

And the third clue.

The position of Lieutenant Governor of Texas is sometimes known as the White Hat.

They’re typically seen at ribbon cuttings and opening ceremonies,

Wearing a white cowboy hat and glad-handing everybody.

So, Maureen, is a White Hat a computing expert who tries to catch hackers and online criminals,

A diplomat who is permitted to be undiplomatic,

Or a nickname for the Lieutenant Governor in Texas?

Oh, that’s tough.

I know in Calgary the white hat is something they give every visitor a white Stetson.

So the western is definitely there.

That’s interesting.

I’m still trying to figure out what a honeypot computer is.

Yeah, that one’s got me too.

I’m trying to sort of tiptoe around it.

It also makes sense because, you know, the white hat rides to the rescue, that sort of thing.

But I think it’s a negotiator because I sort of see it like a white hat on a stick.

People take shots at it, and that’s how you sort of work everything out.

I like that.

You’re in the trenches, and just to see if the enemy is still there,

You put your hat on a stick and poke it above the horizon, right?

That’s right.

Boy, that’s vivid.

So you’re going to go with the diplomat then?

I’m going to go with two, yes.

The undiplomatic diplomat.

But unfortunately, the correct answer is A, the first one, which is the white hat is the person who tries to catch online criminals.

And what a honeypot computer is, it’s something they set up.

It’s such a sweet target, and it’s defenseless, and it’s got no antivirus or anti-malware.

It’s got no protections on it.

And the hackers think, wow, I found the live one, and they just go for it and try all their tricks, and they leave footprints everywhere.

And so the white hat, which indeed does come from the old Western movies, because in the old movies, right,

The good guy always wore the white hat and the bad guy always wore the black hat.

It seemed like it always came down that way.

So the white hat in computing is the guy who tries to catch the black hats who are the bad guys.

Oh, my husband’s going to be so disappointed.

He’s a total geek.

You didn’t know that?

Sorry, dude.

No, it’s all right.

And I actually liked the imagery that you gave us for the diplomat.

All right, here we go.

Are you ready for the next one, Maureen?

You bet.

The next one is also two words.

And the two words are necklace light, N-E-C-K-L-A-C-E-L-I-G-H-T, necklace light.

And the first clue.

We drove across the Verrazano Bridge as its necklace lights winked out and the morning sun peeked over the horizon.

I don’t care if it’s right or wrong, that was beautiful.

The second clue.

After the success of the Lord of the Ring movies, necklace lights sometimes now take the place of engagement rings.

Couples want a token of love like that glowing bauble given by Arwen to Aragorn.

And the third clue.

In order to get just the right illumination,

Photographer Bert Stern invented the necklace light,

A hinged, multi-part fluorescent device that can wrap around the neck or shoulders

And give a brilliant glow to the underside of a face.

So, Maureen, is a necklace light,

The light on the cables of a suspension bridge,

A token of love between two people modeled after characters in the Tolkien movies?

Or an around-the-neck light used by photographers?

The around-the-neck light, that sounds like it would be awfully close to a Frankenstein flash.

You know, when you light people up from underneath, they don’t look attractive.

They look scary.

Wow, and they call that a Frankenstein flash?

Yeah, photographers use it when they’re journalists and they catch someone sneaking out of someone else’s famous house.

They deliberately use the flash from underneath to give them that look of being ne’-do-wells.

Okay, so you’re ruling out the photographers.

Yeah, I’m not liking that.

But I do like the bridge lights.

Maybe it’s because it’s such a strong image.

That you wove there, Grant.

Indeed, a necklace light is the light on a suspension bridge.

They use it, as a matter of fact, for the Verrazano Narrows Bridge here in New York,

Which is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world.

Anyway, so you’ve done really well here today, I think.

I think you at least have puzzled through it like you’re supposed to do,

And I think you’ve come out a winner in that regard.

Oh, good. Okay, well, that’s what I’m supposed to do.

You did your radio duty today, Maureen. Congratulations.

You held up the Canadian end.

That’s right.

Oh, good. I’m so glad. Waved the flag.

That’s right. All of Canada thanks you.

And, hey, to thank you for playing our game today,

We’re going to send you a whole book of interesting terms.

It’s Erin McKean’s book, Weird and Wonderful Words.

Oh, great. I love words.

Thank you so much, Maureen, for playing.

It was really good fun, and we’re glad to have you here.

Oh, it was great to talk to you guys, too.

All right, take care.

Great.

Yep. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a puzzling question about language, give us a call.

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Or if you have something illuminating to tell us, email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.