Not Enough Hair To…

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

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Remember when you were first learning to sign your name? You wanted it to be a thing of beauty, a reflection of yourself, crafted with confidence and style.

Remember, Grant, how carefully you signed your first driver’s license? Oh, my social security card.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah, when I was 18, I spent so long working on that capital letter G. I wanted it to be perfect. And I still have that, and it’s very different from what I sign now.

Yeah, exactly. That was my point, that when I’m signing a receipt now, a credit card receipt, or worse yet, one of those signature pads at the grocery, my name might as well be…

Mine looks like an electrocardiogram. Just up and down, peaks and valleys. Just flatlining there at the end.

I’ve been thinking about this because Daniel Wheeler has an article in the Atlantic Monthly called Signing Off, the Slow Death of the Signature in a Pen Code World. And he notes that there was a time when we took our signatures seriously because we believe that they said something about who we are.

But in part because of technology, all that’s changing. And, I mean, I’ve seen people write little smiley faces on their credit card receipts. I’ve seen parents let their kids sign the signature pad at the grocery.

And I don’t know. I mean, I might as well sign, you know, Martina Barnette-Lover or something.

You’ve done that, right?

I would never do a thing like that, Grant. It’s kind of a small space for comedy. I just sign it and move on. People online behind me.

Okay, you’re admitting it, yeah. But, you know, I’m starting to think that maybe our signatures are reflections of ourselves. It’s just the fact that we’re all in a hurry.

Do you think that’s what it is? Or maybe we realize that it doesn’t matter.

Well, that’s the other part. A signature is kind of a social construct. We used to all agree that it was really important. And now we’re like, wait a second. I can get the same effect from just sending an email that I don’t have to sign.

Well, that’s true. Maybe we have no faith left in the signature as a legal imprint.

I think we have very little. And then when I get back to having to sign something, like signing a book or signing a thank you note, it really takes a little bit of practice to get back there.

Yeah, yeah. My signature tends to look like a big muddle. You know, it’s got like thumbprints and smudges and it looks like a kid’s build is into ink.

Well, this is the place where we talk about words and how we use them and how we write them. Our phone number is 877-929-9673, or you can send us email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Lisa calling from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Hi, Lisa. Welcome.

Hi. I have a question. I work with children often, young children, kindergarten age, first grade, and every day I’m telling them to sit on their tuchus. Instead of saying but, which sounds so crude, I say, sit on your tukas. And I say it so often, but I guess I take it for granted. I don’t actually know the derivation of the word.

And are you Jewish, perhaps?

I am not Jewish, but for some reason I have a lot of Jewish sayings. I’ll say shalom or oy. I say oy all the time. So I don’t know why I’ve incorporated these. I find that Judaism to be a very interesting religion. Often I envy their traditions. So if tuchus were a Jewish word, I would be so excited.

Well, it’s a Yiddish word, right, Martha?

Yeah. It comes from a Hebrew word that means under or beneath.

Yeah, like you’re behind.

Yeah.

Oh! That preposition, yeah. And what’s doubly interesting to me, I was amazed to discover this. Tush and tushy, which also mean your bama, your derriere, come from tuchus. So it’s a variation, a derivative. Both these words are primarily American, even though they started in Yiddish. You won’t find them in English in the UK and Australia and South African places like that usually.

Yeah. Primarily North Americans, particularly United States. And so there are lots of different spellings since it came from Yiddish.

Right, because T-U-C-H-U-S I think is probably the most common one. Our producer, who knows this word because she speaks some Hebrew, says tuchus, like that, chuch, like that. But most Americans will just say tuchus.

Tuchus.

I say it with a chuch.

Do you?

Yeah. Get some flim in there. Get the flim going in there. And for some reason, it seems so much more authoritative to say, I get a better response to the kids if I say, sit on your tuchus.

Why?

It sounds so much more like I expect you to do it.

Maybe you think it’s like a magic word. It’s like abracadabra or something like that.

You sound like a real hard tuchus. I want to ask about something you said. You said that butt is so crude. Why is butt crude for you?

Well, I think it’s probably, I see it as crude based on the audience that I’m using it in front of. If you were to say it in front of adults, you may get a couple of laughs, but not many. But if you say but in front of first graders, it’s kind of a crazy response in the room, because then they go on to all these other words that they can’t say.

I see. And so I try not to use but.

Yes. I have a four-year-old. There is an avalanche of comedy surrounding the word but.

Okay. There is so much humor just in the word but.

Well, cool, Lisa. Thanks for sharing with us. Tukas is Yiddish. You are using it correctly. It sounds great. I’m glad that your kids are understanding it. And they all think it’s a really formal term.

Right, right. They do. It’s hilarious.

Well, thank you so much for your help.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

It’s almost clinical to them, I guess. Maybe you think it’s a medical term. Or a very formal term. I’m going to see them, you know. Mother, my tacos is hurting.

Tell us your stories about language, 877-929-9673, or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.

You know I have a four-year-old in my house, right?

Yeah.

He’ll be going to kindergarten this year, right?

Right. So riddles are what we tell in our house.

Oh, dear. And so we have this whole category of alphabet riddles, and I thought they weren’t bad, and we could share them with our listeners, right?

Try me.

They’re all about the alphabet, okay?

Okay. So what’s the alphabet’s favorite insect?

A bee!

Of course. Okay. All right. What do the alphabet’s love notes say? This is a classic. You’ll know this one.

Why is this so hard for me?

Because you’re not poor!

U-R-A-Q-T. If you’ve got your own riddles, let us know, 877-929-9673. Send them to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kurt. I’m from Philadelphia.

Hi, Kurt. Welcome.

Hey there. Well, do you guys know the game Padiddle?

Yes, as a matter of fact, we do.

Well, let’s hear you describe it.

Awesome. Well, it’s a game that you play in the car that when you see somebody with one headlight out, you hit the ceiling of the car and then you say Padiddle and whoever gets to do it first gets a point.

Mm—

Well, the debate is that my girlfriend and I, when we were driving back from visiting my parents in Ohio, the game Padiddle came up. I can’t remember if I hit it or if she hit it. And then it turns out that she calls that game Padiddle, and I call it Padiddle. And so there was this massive debate about who was right, about what the correct name of the game is. You know, she’s from Minnesota, I’m from Ohio, and, you know, it’s hoping that you can let us know, like, you know, what’s the actual name of the game? Where did it come from?

And Kurt, how much is writing on this?

Oh, lots of pride. Lots of pride. There is a bit of a wager, and especially if I lose, I have to greet all of her friends in this really exaggerated manner. Kind of how she does it.

What?

You have to do the girl squeal and the girl hug when you see her friends or something?

Exactly.

I’m going to be, it’s fun! And air bear!

There’s a lot of writing on this.

There’s a lot of writing on this.

Oh, boy.

All right.

Well, I’m happy to tell you that you’re both right and you’re both wrong and you’re playing it wrong.

Oh, whoops.

So it looks like both of you are going to have to pony up.

Oh, boy, yeah.

All right, let’s break this down as simple as we can.

First, let’s talk about the history.

As far back as the 1940s, this was a kissing game.

When you saw a car with its headlight out, a boy could claim a kiss from a girl or a girl could claim a kiss from a guy.

Oh, okay.

And the thing is, the girl also had the option of smacking the guy if she wanted instead of kissing him.

Ooh.

Yeah, so for a long time, for decades, it was just a kissing game.

And there are lots of complicated versions that involve different things happening when you saw your third padiddle of the night.

The padiddle is the name for the vehicle with the one light.

Wait, you can get to third base by the third padiddle?

Well, it depends.

It depends on how old you are, where you are, and how much the folklore journals wanted to put in print.

I love this particular phrase in one of these journals.

It says, sometimes the couples save up their padiddles throughout the evening and have a reckoning before departure.

In other words, they don’t give little smooches along the way.

They just neck a little bit before they go home.

Oh, okay, okay.

Kurt, is that the way you played it?

I hope they park before they pull up the reckoning.

So you’ll both be happy to hear that this will bring you closer together if you start playing it correctly.

Oh, yeah, okay.

She might smack you once in a while.

And then the other thing is the name of this game, because it’s transmitted from mouth to ear and mouth to ear,

That is, it’s rarely been put in print except in folklore journals.

It’s heavily corrupted.

I’ve got seven different variants of the name right here in front of me.

It’s a lot of different versions, the badiddle and perdido and padoodle and padungle.

Lots of variants of this.

And this is what happens to any word that is transmitted orally or verbally, right?

It’s the telephone game.

It’s the Chinese whispers game.

Something becomes corrupted as it’s passed from mouth to ear.

And so there isn’t a canonical perfect form of this word.

There is not one form of it that’s the right one.

Great, you’re killing me.

Awesome.

Is there any way to tell what’s the most common?

No, no, you’re not allowed to do that.

You’re just not really.

Like I said, it rarely appears in print.

If you wanted to say that there was one form that is the most correct,

I would choose what is called the head word from the Dictionary of American Regional English.

And they have chosen the spelling P-A-D-I-D-D-L-E.

Padiddle.

Okay, okay.

That’s the way you were doing it, right?

That was your spelling, right?

Yeah.

I think I’ve got to feather my cap on this one.

I think you do, too.

But I want to see you greet her friends that way.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you’ve got to change the rules, though.

It’s far more fun as a kissing game hitting the roof of the car.

What kind of fun is that?

Yeah, that’s lame.

That is.

Well, Kurt, you can work on your pediddle technique.

I mean, the two of you together.

I think that would be a great solution to the whole thing.

Yeah.

You’ll be married by the end of the year.

Kurt, thank you so much for calling.

A lot.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks for having me.

Okay, let us know how that works out.

All right, bye-bye.

Will do.

Give us a call about the games that you play, the words that you know,

And the fights you’re having with your spouse or partner.

877-929-9673.

Words@waywordradio.org.

A couple of weeks ago, we were talking about the expression,

Hold her newt, she’s headed for the barn,

Which you say when you’re speeding up a car or something and telling everybody to hold on, right?

Yeah, counting your rosary, saying your prayers.

Well, David Bass in Waco, Texas, was reminded of something that his mother used to say.

He said that she was born on a West Texas tenant farm in 1919,

And she used to always say,

Hold her newt, she’s a rear end, or the equally descriptive,

Hold her newt, she smells alfalfa.

All right, yeah.

I like that.

He said all made good sense to someone who grew up riding a horse.

He also sent us some wonderful expressions from his family, including, my favorite,

He didn’t have enough hair on his chest to make a wig for a grape.

Isn’t that great?

Love those Texans.

Send your stories about language to us, words@waywordradio.org,

And you can find us on Facebook and Twitter.

Support for A Way with Words comes from the University of San Diego,

Whose mission since 1949 has been to prepare students for the world as well as to change it.

More about the college and five schools of this independent Catholic university at sandiego.edu.

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. And who is that handsome man on the horizon?

It’s John Chaneski, our quiz guy.

Hey, it’s me. Can you stand to be in my handsome presence?

You know, I’d have to shield my eyes.

And plug my ears and hold my nose.

Hi, John.

What’s up, bud?

Hi, Martha.

Hey, you know, I want to tell you guys, my daughter wanted to join the Girl Scouts.

Yeah?

Now, I highly admire the Girl Scouts, so after weeks of trying to make this happen,

I’m happy to state that tomorrow will be the first meeting of Daisy Troop 2055 at PS261 in Brooklyn.

Now, it’s inspired me to create a scouting organization of my own.

Aha.

Yes.

Do I see it’s a quiz?

I call it the Word Scouts.

Okay.

Yes, it is a quiz.

The object is simple.

We earn badges in different disciplines.

I’ll give you an area of study and a word question in that area.

If you give me some right answers, you’ll earn your badges.

What do you think?

Yeah, great.

Good, let’s do it.

The first area is artist, your artist badge.

To get your artist badge, tell me the source language and meaning of any of the following art movement names.

Faux-vism, de style, bow house, grouposette.

Well, faux-vism is French, right?

French.

Can you tell me the meaning?

Bauhaus is German.

The wild ones is savage.

Wild beast.

Very good.

Yeah.

Matisse and all those guys, right?

Very good.

Okay.

Next one was what?

De style.

I was going to say Cole Porter, but it must be.

It is Dutch.

And I think you’ve done enough to get your badge in this.

Bauhaus, you’re right, is German from School of Building.

Sure.

And I think you could probably get Gruppo Sette.

Seventh group? What is it?

Group seven from the Italian. Very good. Nice artist badge getting.

Here’s the next one. Let’s go for our cooking badge.

Oh.

The cooking badge requires that you tell me what I should add to the following word salad.

Celery, onion, garlic, kosher, table, sea, Epsom.

Salt.

Salt, yes.

Oh, very good.

Pretty simple.

Okay.

All right. How about the naturalist badge?

Give me the name of a flower that is also a past tense verb.

Rose.

Rose.

Very good.

Nice.

Nice two quick ones in a row.

Good way to go.

Here’s a little trivia one for you.

Money.

The money badge.

A Lincoln penny has engraved on it the year it was issued and 14 words.

Can you tell me 12 of those words?

On both sides, right?

Yeah.

So, E pluribus unum.

That’s three.

And then United States of America.

Seven.

Does it not have In God We Trust?

It does.

In God We Trust.

That’s 10.

That’s 11.

I think that’s 11.

Is it?

Yeah.

How many do we need?

12.

We need one more.

Lincoln.

Cent.

The year.

Yes.

Cent is good.

I already mentioned the year.

Oh, yeah.

Doesn’t it say one cent on it?

It says one cent, right.

And there’s one more word.

Any idea what it is?

Liberty.

No.

On the left.

Lower left, right?

That’s right.

Yeah.

Not a lot of people know that.

Okay.

You’ve got your money badge.

Nice.

Congratulations, you are officially Word Scouts.

Well, John, is that it then, that the stompers are over?

That’s it. You did great.

If you’ve got a question about language, give us a call, 877-929-9673, or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name’s Fabron. I’m calling from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Fabron?

Yes.

Is that right?

Welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

I’ve always wondered about a phrase I heard when I was in middle school in Louisville, Kentucky. I remember one of my teachers once mentioned a phrase referring to it being cold, saying, “Who let the hawk out?” And it puzzled me. I’d never heard that before. I didn’t know if that was a…

Now, the thing about it, she was African-American, and she was from the South. And I always wondered, was that a Southern saying? Was that an African-American saying? I’d never heard it before. At the same time, if it’s hot, can I say “who let the hawk in?” I never got permission on that. So I wanted to see if you guys could help me out in any way on that.

We can help you a little bit. You heard it from a teacher at school in Louisville.

Yes.

Okay. And do you know where this teacher was from?

I don’t know exactly what state she was from. I believe she was from the South. I want to say maybe even Louisiana, but I can’t get it.

But not from Kentucky?

No, not from Kentucky. I’m asking, of course, for a particular reason. This term is almost exclusively associated with Chicago and African-American language in Chicago. It’s mainly about the cold weather coming in off the lake. We don’t know why it’s called the hawk, except it flies in with some force and ferocity. Maybe that’s why. Maybe like a hawk going after rodents in the hay. It first shows up in the 1940s in some blues lyrics.

Okay. And so it’s associated with Chicago blues, the language of African Americans. Now, of course, there’s this whole back history to how the African American community in Chicago grew during World War II and brought all of this southern language with them to Chicago.

Oh, sure. Yeah. So it’s entirely possible that it originated elsewhere in the United States. It’s just I don’t see it in the written record. I just don’t see any evidence of it outside of Chicago much. So it could have been something that they brought with them or it could have originated from there. But it’s got a good long history. It shows up again and again throughout the decades. 1946 appears in a song. These days you’ll often find people who want to show that they understand a little bit of the local lingo. We’ll use it in Chicago newspapers. It’s kind of an ostentatious self-conscious use of it.

Oh, really?

Well, I’m glad you said it in Chicago because I actually work with someone from Chicago. So I’m going to mention that too because they’ve heard it.

Yeah, ask them and see what they have to say.

Yeah, just try it out. Don’t even ask them. Just if it’s cold.

Are you where it’s cold?

Oh, no, wait. We’re Dallas, Texas.

That’s right. It’s 7 degrees right now.

Awesome.

No, it is not cold right now. Never mind. Well, like Mark Twain said, if you don’t like the weather here, wait, it can change. Wait five minutes.

Yeah, wait five minutes and change. You never know. I might be able to use it before the night’s over.

Excellent. Thanks for calling. Appreciate it so much.

No problem. Thank you so much, you guys.

All right. Take care.

All right. Bye-bye.

All right. Bye-bye.

And I’d have to say for our rest of our listeners, those in Chicago, give us a call. Let us know.

Yeah. Do you know this about the hawk? Do you say this about the hawk? And do you have any idea where you picked it up? The hawk is flying, or someone let the hawk out to mean that it’s windy. Who let the hawk out? To mean that it’s windy, or particularly that it’s a chilly wind. 877-929-9673, or words@waywordradio.org. And, of course, you can always talk to us on Facebook and Twitter.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, hello, how are you?

Good, who’s this?

This is Angelica Brito.

Where are you calling from, Angelica?

I’m calling from Atlanta, Georgia.

Oh, welcome to the program. How can we help?

Well, first of all, I want to really congratulate you for this wonderful show.

Thank you very much. It’s been a great tool for me, and I’ve been sharing this great tool with all my colleagues, interpreters and translators.

You’re an interpreter?

Yes, I’m an interpreter, Spanish-English.

Spanish-English? And where are you from originally?

I’m originally from Mexico.

Oh, okay.

Okay. And what kind of interpretation do you do?

Well, I started doing medical interpretation. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last 15 years. And then I moved to the legal interpretation, for which I had to, like, relearn a different language.

Right, right. Now you’re trilingual, right?

Yeah, sort of. Pretty much.

Yeah. Angelica, so you’re a court interpreter?

Yes, I am a state-certified interpreter. I’m not federally certified. And that was, in fact, one of my questions for you. Because I took the test to get my certification as a federal interpreter, and I didn’t pass the test.

Oh, really?

Yeah, because the idioms.

Yeah, yeah. I didn’t know enough of idiomatic expressions in English. And so they came up with some questions that I was totally lost.

Oh, really? Questions that I have, like, no way to relate to, you know, like, I know this expression now because I check it after the test, but there were, like, 20 questions about idioms that I was not even there.

Oh.

Like, wet behind the ears.

Oh, yeah, yeah, wet behind the ears. Now I know that it’s like with no experience.

Yeah. But then it was like, what is this? My God.

Yeah, it’s a vast well of idioms in English. It’s hard even for natives sometimes, native speakers of English to keep up with those sometimes.

Oh, yeah. Particularly if you’re in your 20s and the speaker’s in their 50s, they might have a whole different collection of idioms.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and Angelica, I’m fascinated that you do this work because I spent a day with court interpreters here in San Diego, and it is such intense work. I mean, you’re translating not only legal things, but you’re translating aloud. You’re having to listen and speak at almost the same time, right? I mean, this is really, really intense work. What do you do to unwind?

It’s very difficult, and sometimes it’s difficult not just because of the nature of the work, but also to detach from the problems that you see on your day-to-day.

Exactly. Difficult. For me, it’s very difficult.

Exactly. And so did you have a question about some of your work?

Yeah. Well, I have a question, and I have asked these questions to some people who I work with, like in the court or attorney, because why is it that we have, for somebody that works with the law, three different names, attorney, counselor, and lawyer? Which one is the one that we should use? Which one is proper, like, or why do we have three different words? I don’t understand.

-huh. Well, I think the short answer to that is they all mean the same thing. Historically, attorney didn’t necessarily have to refer to somebody who worked with the law. An attorney could be somebody you hired to work with your business, not necessarily in a legal sense. You see the word turn in there. It’s the same as in English. It’s somebody who’s turned to. We get the word attorney from French. And do we see that left over in the phrase power of attorney?

I think so. I think so. So any of those words actually work fine. I think lawyer is the one that most people use. But you know what? I don’t use it because people make fun of the way I pronounce the word.

Oh, your southern accent comes to bear?

Yeah, I’ve had people laugh at me because I say lawyer.

Lawyer.

Somebody who practices law. But I have dictionary.com here on my computer, and I’m going to play you the audio file of the pronunciation.

So you’ve built your stall man, and now you’re going to burn it.

That’s right. Yeah, but they all basically…

Lawyer or lawyer.

Yeah, but that’s a computerized voice. Let me play this again. And it’s dictionary.com.

Yeah, but it’s…

Lawyer or lawyer.

See, you can pronounce it either way. Lawyer or lawyer, right?

Yeah, but the short answer is these days, there’s really no difference. Even within the profession.

Yes.

And my other question is, is there any book that I should refer to to learn the idioms that I have to learn to pass a test?

Oh, boy.

Well, there are probably several thousand books of English idioms out there.

I would encourage you to go for Houghton Mifflin’s American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms.

Not only do they have the idioms and their definitions, they give you a little bit of the history behind them,

And that helps you remember and helps you understand what the idiom means.

And it’s a great start.

Yeah, because if I don’t relate to it, it’s like it does not get in my head, you know?

Thank you so much, Angelica.

And we’re glad to hear from you and pretty pleased with your description of the important work that you do.

It sounds amazing and difficult, and it sounds like you’re bearing up under the load.

Oh, thank you so much.

Thank you for your time and for all your helping me.

All right.

Okay, keep listening.

Bye-bye.

Okay, sure.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got stories about language in your workplace, give us a call, 877-929-9673.

We can solve your disputes, settle your arguments, send it all to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yes, hi.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Dale calling from St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Hi, Dale, welcome to the program.

Hi, Dale.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Hi.

What’s up?

Well, I had a word at one time, and I lost the word.

And the word has to do with appetizers or maybe a meal in which there’s one item left in the jar on the plate,

And that item could be a piece of cheese, and people will cut that piece of cheese into three pieces

So they don’t have to take the very last piece of cheese.

It’s like an embarrassment thing.

Like, I don’t want to be the one to take the last one.

And I know there’s a word, because I’ve heard it before, that tells you about that last piece.

It indicates, well, that is the last piece of cheese that nobody will take.

That’s the last meatball that nobody will take.

And I’ve used the word before, and the reason I’ve used it is I have a great group of friends up here,

And they’re all college educated.

I am not.

And, for instance, they went to UMass, UConn, Andover Newton Seminary, Princeton,

And what they like to do is they like to throw out words to me and then look at me and go,

Dale, you might not understand that because you didn’t go to college.

Oh!

In a very humorous way, and I get it.

And I enjoy it.

But then again, I like to have words they don’t know.

Right.

So it’s kind of a fun rapport.

So we can equip you.

That’s what you want, right?

We are kidding you out for your next battle.

I’ve heard that word for the last item left, but it escapes me.

I want to get it back.

Have you heard of such a word?

Well, Dale, I was going to ask if the word was in Spanish because I do have a Spanish word for that.

Oh, you do?

Yeah.

You mentioned shame, that nobody’s going to take it because of their shame.

Yeah.

And in Spanish, the word is la vergüenza, which means shame.

It’s the shame.

Oh.

Vergüenza means shame.

That refers specifically to the last item on the plate.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, who wants the vergüenza?

And then the person who has no shame is the one who takes it, right?

Now, am I to learn how to roll my tongue?

I can’t do that.

Well, there are English words for this.

There are English words for this.

There’s at least two English expressions that can do the job also.

Yeah, you can say vergüenza.

You don’t have to roll your R.

Vergüenza.

Vergüenza.

And then Grant has an English word for you.

Well, there are two.

There’s the manner’s bit or the manner’s piece.

It’s the bit or the piece that is about manners.

It is the very last thing on the plate.

And you leave it as a guest, as an acknowledgement that your host has sufficiently provided for you.

Right?

You are basically telling your host, you did a good job.

You gave more than I could possibly eat.

Oh, really?

Even if you’re hungry, you still do that.

Really?

Yeah.

There’s even a bit of doggerle that goes along with it.

Let me read this to you.

Of a little, take a little.

Manners, so to do.

Of a little, leave a little.

That is manners, too.

So mayonnaise are not only about taking a little bit, but it’s also about leaving a little bit.

Oh, that’s nice.

I like that.

But that’s not the one you were thinking of, Dale.

The only other one that I know of is the old maid.

The old maid?

As in popcorn?

Yeah, yeah.

The term old maid is sometimes used for the unpopped popcorn, right,

And the little kernels that end up in the bottom of the bowl.

But, yeah, sometimes it’s used for that last piece on a plate.

Manners bit will do. It’s archaic and old-fashioned and mainly only appears as a novelty in modern dictionaries

And not something that’s going to appear anywhere in modern writing except in historical fiction.

But it’s still serviceable. Manners bit is probably the better term to use.

Sometimes it’s written as one word.

But, Dale, are you saying that none of those is the word you want?

No, no. It is.

Okay. Which one?

I can’t recall. I’m going to say the manners bit.

And it was years ago that I heard it, and I wanted to use it,

And I used it once or twice with the people that really didn’t matter.

I wanted to use it in a room when my friends were there.

Okay.

So I could kind of jab them a little bit.

Very nice, very nice.

Well, let us know how that turns out.

I want to hear about this little bit of culinary warfare.

Oh, all right. I certainly will.

Thanks for calling, Dale. We really appreciate it.

Bye-bye.

Take care. Bye-bye.

What word have you and your friends been talking about?

Call us, 877-929-9673, or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Coming up, more of your stories about language.

Support for A Way with Words comes from National University,

Where flexible online classes let you earn your degree or credential on your schedule.

More at nu.edu.

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Martha, my wife and I have been visiting schools here in San Diego.

We have an opportunity to choose a school.

So we’ve been visiting these schools and checking out a lot of campuses

And trying to really get the spirit of a place so that we can decide which ones we want to try to get our son into.

And we did a tour of a Spanish language immersion school,

And I thought you might be really interested to hear a little bit about this place.

Absolutely, sure.

I’ve never encountered this before.

I mean, I know that they exist.

So for the first three years, kindergarten, first and second,

100% Spanish is spoken by the teacher.

No English.

As far as the kids know, the teacher speaks no English whatsoever.

Is that right?

And it’s interesting because the kids never quite catch on that when they speak English,

The teacher understands and responds in Spanish.

They never quite figure it out.

Oh, how interesting.

So when they’re in school in these three years, the only people who speak English to them are outside of the classroom.

So maybe the principal of the school, when they say good morning to her or they see her around, she might speak English, even though she’s bilingual as well.

And I just found this really amazing that these kids can do this.

And I was one of many parents who wanted to know how the kids handle them.

And it turns out they’re usually pretty fine with it.

I mean, there’s always crying kindergartners in that first year.

Sure.

But that happens in any school, not just the immersion schools.

And it’s doubly interesting because the administrators there say that the parents of the kids also end up learning Spanish.

I was going to ask about that.

Even if they don’t speak it at home.

I mean, this is a school for kids who don’t speak Spanish as a first language.

So if you speak Spanish natively, you are not admitted to this school.

And so the kids bring their review homework to the parents and sit with the parents and go over what they learned.

And they explain it to the parents.

It’s not just doing exercises.

They are required to explain their work to Mama and Papa.

That’s so interesting.

It’s like first-generation immigrants coming home and teaching their parents.

And most of the parents that we talk to and that we’ve heard from are absolutely delighted because they feel like it’s enriching themselves and it’s increasing the educational bond that they have with their children.

They described it as being something like when you have the books before bed, and this is a little mini educational opportunity that you have every day to explain, you know, zebras eat grass or orcas.

Sometimes we’ll eat a seal, things like that.

So they have this opportunity to sit at the table and learn some basic Spanish for the kids.

We loved it.

We thought it was great.

We may yet consider this school or some other schools, but I just thought it was a nice little look into this opportunity that parents and schools create for a kid to be educated in another language.

And by the time they hit just a couple years, they’re totally fine.

I mean, their Spanish is great and their English is great.

Their English does not deteriorate.

That’s fascinating.

Well, I’d love to hear other parents’ experiences with this kind of language immersion program.

I would, too.

Have you yourself been a student in a language immersion school or have you sent your kids to a language immersion school?

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or tell us the story and email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello there. This is Cindy in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Hello, Cindy. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Cindy.

Hello.

How can we help?

Well, it all started when I was a little kid.

My mom taught me this nonsensical phrase sentence thing, and then she went on to teach it to my kids.

And I was just wondering if you would have any idea where it would have come from.

Let’s hear it.

Okay.

Okay.

Ishkabibble, Horton Dorton, Bobo Skeditindot, Whatnot Hip Burp, Anderpander, Geotopolis, Oscar Kubiabiyash, Sheeshlag.

Now backward.

Oh, dear God.

And what does that mean?

I have no idea.

And she’s passed on now, so I can’t even ask her, you know, where she got it from.

Well, did she just walk into a room saying it, or were there certain occasions where she would bring this up?

Not really. We’d just, like, be sitting around the kitchen table, and, you know, then one day she just started teaching me this phrase.

Let me ask you a question. Did you go to summer camp when you were a kid?

Yeah.

Did your mother go to summer camp when she was a kid?

I have no idea.

Probably not.

A lot of our listeners right now are going, I know a version of that.

Because it’s a fairly well-known camp song.

Or something like it is kind of a camp song.

You can find videos, and we’ll put them on the website.

You can find videos of people singing something similar to this on YouTube.

I know of at least a few.

But the thing is, they’re very different from each other.

They all have something in common.

They sound similar.

They’re all nonsense.

But they’re different because they’re folklore.

They’re transmitted from mouth to ear, as I’ve said before.

And so they tend to be corrupted and modified and changed.

Like yours starts with Ishkabibble.

None of the other ones that I know start with Ishkabibble.

And Ishkabibble has its own life as a word in slang and a word in dialect.

Yeah, I think the one I know is Achi Kachi Kumarachi Ua’a.

It starts that way.

And then it goes Ishkabibble.

Yeah, that’s it.

Yeah, I just found this online.

Somebody is quoting a version of this camp song from the late 1960s.

And his version, it’s very long, but one part of it goes,

Iten, dien, little, dotten, oaten, dotten, little, dotten,

Little, spiddly, oaten, dotten, bobees,

Ga-dotten, dotten, wa-dotten, chew.

And it’s similar to what you’ve got, right?

Yeah, there are bits in it, yeah.

And I did a little bit of digging on this, and here’s what I found.

I believe that I found a point of origin.

I won’t say it’s the first use of it, but maybe a point of popularization.

There was a show on the radio in 1946 and 1947 about a character called Buddy Bear.

It was a show written by a woman named Betty Berry, B-A-R-R-I-E.

And this show and one of the episodes, you can find a description online that describes Buddy as speaking in scat.

And he says, Bobo Skaditendaten.

Yeah, and so, and if you look that song up, you can find it in the copyright index from 1946.

So she not only wrote it for the show, but then she copyrighted the song.

And that’s the earliest.

I mean, it’s really difficult to search for this kind of thing.

But that is the earliest version of any variant of this that I can find, is this show called Buddy Bear from 1946 and 1947.

And my mom would have been about 10, 11 years old.

She would have been camp age, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So anyway, there we go.

There’s a little bit of history there, Cindy.

I’m looking forward to the calls and emails we get about this song because I’m quite certain that many of our listeners know a version of this.

And by all means, recite the whole thing.

Oh, yeah.

Call us and recite the whole thing in a voicemail.

We’ll have fun with it.

Cindy, thanks for your question and performance.

Thank you very much.

Our pleasure. Take care.

Bye-bye.

You too.

If you’d like to tell us about your version of that camp song or some other nonsense song that you know, 877-929-9673, or spell it out in email if you can to words@waywordradio.org.

I have more alphabet riddles for you.

Oh, great.

There are only 26 letters, right?

So I’m sure I can get one of these.

What did the alphabet say when it got the joke?

Oh.

I see.

Oh, I see.

Oh, I see.

This is a trick one.

What’s the pirate alphabet’s favorite letter?

Nope, the C.

Oh, I see.

It was a trick one, I told you.

How does the alphabet get to work?

The L.

Oh, the L.

How can I not get these jokes that four-year-olds get?

See, they’re fantastic, aren’t they?

Oh, man.

Tell us your four-year-old riddles.

We’d love to hear them.

Why?

Because they’re fun.

Why?

You’re laughing.

Your face is red.

Why?

It’s a joke.

877-929-9673 or words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, how you doing?

Hi, who’s this?

My name is Henry.

Hi, Henry, where are you calling from?

Hi, Henry.

I’m calling from Dallas, Texas.

All right, welcome to the program.

What can we help you with?

Well, I got a question about the word Hannah.

My parents refer to that as the son, and it’s been like that since I was a little boy.

And once my dad passed away maybe six years ago, I asked my mom, and she said she got it from my dad.

So I’m kind of still stuck, not knowing what that means or what it’s referring to.

Well, Henry, can you give us an example of how they’d use it?

Well, we’d be on a fishing trip or whatever, and the sun would be behind the clouds.

And my dad would always say, Hannah is coming out to get her man.

And it would always puzzle me, and I’d be like, what is Hannah?

And he would always say, the son, boy.

And I’m like, what?

The son.

And I’m like, okay.

And that’s what it is.

I mean, they consider the son.

They have always called it Hannah.

Yeah, and have you ever heard anybody else use that?

I have not, and I’ve been all over the world.

I have not.

And now where are your father’s people from?

Where is he from?

Well, he’s from East Texas,

And my mom is from actually like Southeast Texas,

Like the Galveston area.

Okay.

Henry, this is great.

So the word is Hannah. This is like a woman’s name.

Yes, yes, because she would always say, Hannah is coming to get her man.

Mm—

So, you know, so I figured it had to be a woman name.

Yeah, Henry, this is great. There’s some really good history behind this expression.

The term old Hannah is used almost exclusively in the English of African Americans, for one thing.

Oh, okay.

You see the writer Zora Neale Hurston using it.

And the place that I’ve seen it most often is in a haunting song.

And you’ve got to find these recordings online.

There’s some great recordings of a song called Go Down Old Hannah.

Oh, okay.

And it’s a song that’s sung to the sun.

And it is taken from a time when the states in the Deep South, like East Texas and Mississippi, would lease out their prisoners to private plantation owners and work them unmercifully in the sun.

And there was this song that went, go down, old Hannah, don’t you rise no more.

Go down, old Hannah, don’t you rise no more.

And then the last line is, if you rise in the morning, bring judgment day.

So it’s like this work is unbearable and just go down.

I mean, you can imagine how hot it gets there, hot and sticky, and you’re working out in the sun and you want old Hannah to go down.

So the song is sung to the sun because she’s the most omnipresent thing while you’re out there working in the fields, right?

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

Wow, well, I had no idea.

Yeah, and you can find many recordings.

Just search for Old Hannah song or Old Hannah lyrics online, usually with an H at the end, so H-A-N-N-A-H.

And you will even find a Lead Belly song.

He’s quoted as talking about this in the 1940s.

And in the Dictionary of American Regional English, there’s a great quote from somebody in Texas from 1933 where this fellow, he says, about three o’clock on a long summer day, the sun forgets to move and stops.

So then the men sing this song.

And it’s the old Hannah song.

It’s really interesting.

It’s a work song.

It’s a song for the workers in the field.

That’s amazing.

It is amazing.

And I don’t know why Hannah.

I don’t know why the name Hannah.

Sometimes you see Old Betsy, but usually it’s Old Hannah.

Yeah, I don’t know either.

Wow.

Well, listen, Henry, do us a favor.

Look that song up and see if that rings any bells.

Okay, I’ll do that.

I’ll do that.

Yeah, we’ll link to it on our website, waywordradio.org.

You can find them there.

Thanks, Henry.

Thank you, Henry.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

-huh.

There is history in language.

Call us about your language, 877-929-9673, or email us to words@waywordradio.org.

You go down old-handed and don’t rise no more.

So if he rises in the morning, bring Judgment Day.

Here is an argument against Twitter being completely useless.

If you think it’s just frivolous talk about eating sandwiches or stuff like that.

Okay.

It is a great way to discover new words.

Did you know that?

I absolutely know that.

One of the ways you can do it is find out what words other people have discovered.

So you just search for the phrase new word.

-huh.

And people will tell you on Twitter, I learned a new word today.

Oh, cool.

Bill Milner in London learned holus bolus.

You know this one.

Holus bolus.

It means all at once.

Oh, okay.

I love that word, holus bolus.

Is it two words or one word?

Yeah, two words hyphenated, holus bolus.

You could say that he ate the turkey holus bolus.

He ate the whole turkey all at once, right?

Share your new words with us, 877-929-9673, or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Matt calling from Noblesville, Indiana.

Hi, Matt. Welcome to the program.

Thank you, thank you.

What can we help you with?

Well, I work for a general contracting company, assembling job files, getting quotes from subcontractors and so forth.

And about a year or two ago, I started hearing people giving me a quote for something, and they would say that that quote was soup to nuts.

I kind of almost immediately knew what it meant as being a turnkey price.

In other words, this is the complete price for this line of work or whatever.

But I don’t know what the heck soup has to do with nuts, what either of them have to do with construction, and where that terminology even came from.

Oh, interesting.

That is interesting because it’s far beyond the construction world.

Really?

Yeah.

And even in the construction world, I’m surprised that you didn’t hear it on the Ace Hardware commercials that they played endlessly for years and years.

Oh, really?

They had that on there?

Yeah.

Did they have nuts?

I kind of tune out advertising.

That’s why I listen to NPR.

Okay.

Wait, on the Ace Hardware commercials, did they have soup and then the kind of nuts you put on a bolt?

Probably.

I don’t know.

I don’t remember buying any soup at Ace Hardware nor seeing it there.

I don’t remember there being a soup aisle next to the shop.

Maybe corn nuts, but that’s about the most nice hard work.

Well, yeah, Matt, we can tell you this phrase has been around a long time, at least since the 1830s, soup to nuts.

And what it means is simply from the beginning to the end is a reference to how people used to have long meals, starting with soup and ending with nuts for dessert.

Really? So it’s more of a culinary thing.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, exactly.

And as I said, it’s been used far outside the construction industry.

And it’s sort of like there’s a Latin expression.

The ancient Romans used to say, ab ovo usque ad malum, which meant from the egg to the apple or the egg to the fruit.

And that was their long course dinner, starting with eggs.

That was a big appetizer in ancient Rome.

So we’re talking about these rather sophisticated meals that involve more than one fork.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And napkins and things like that.

Cloth napkins.

I suppose in these days, those long, drawn-out meals don’t exist, and I don’t normally associate walnuts or pecans with dessert so much as I would as a snack.

Well, that’s a good point.

I look at the culture a little bit as well.

All my long, drawn-out meals are because my son won’t eat.

Yeah, and they involve strained carrots or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, different story.

Ours usually involve puppet shows in the middle.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Let’s open the hangar so Mr. Airplane can fly in.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, Matt, there you go.

Thank you so much.

Our pleasure.

Take care.

All right.

You guys have a great day.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Tell us your language stories, 877-929-9673, or send them an email, words@waywordradio.org.

One of my favorite hikes here in beautiful Southern California is to a mountaintop.

And every time I walk that trail, I think of a poem by Kay Ryan.

She’s the former U.S. Poet Laureate and a professor at a community college in Northern California.

And last year, she won the Pulitzer for poetry.

And every time that I’ve been walking for a good half hour and I’m almost to the top of the mountain, I think of this poem.

And I wanted to close the show out with it today.

It’s called The Long Up.

You can see the land flattening out near the top.

The long up you’ve faced is going to stop.

Your eyes feast on space instead of pitch, as though you’d been released.

The measured pace you’ve kept corrupts with 50 yards to do, 50 times as hard against the blue.

And I love this grant because if there’s a better description for reaching a mountaintop or almost reaching a goal, I don’t know what it is.

Thank you, Martha. That was very beautiful.

877-929-9673, words@waywordradio.org.

Things have come to a pretty path.

That’s a wrap for today, but let’s continue the word nerditude online.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter, and you can stay up to date on language in the news by signing up for our weekly newsletter at waywordradio.org.

Try us anywhere in the world on Skype using the Skype name Wayword Radio, or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

A huge thanks to all of today’s callers.

If you’d like to share your stories about language, leave us a message anytime, 877-929-9673.

We listen to and read all of your messages.

We could pick yours to read on air, so keep them coming.

Our production staff includes Stefanie Levine, Tim Felten, James Ramsey, and Josette Hurdell.

A Way with Words is independently produced and distributed by Wayword, Inc., a nonprofit supported by listeners and organizations who believe in lifelong learning, better human communication, and the value of a thing well said or well written.

The show is recorded at Studio West in San Diego, California.

Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. See ya.

Ta luego.

Support for A Way with Words comes from National University.

Where flexible online classes let you earn your degree or credential on your schedule.

More at nu.edu.

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