Words of the Year (full episode)

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You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

I can’t believe it’s already time to start talking about Words of the Year. Amazing.

But what a great time we’ve had. Just let me say right now, so far, the year’s not quite done yet, but a fantastic time, news has been wonderful for language, lots of cool stuff coming our way. I’m making notes right and left, right?

Yeah, we’re collecting new words.

And I’ve got a few for you.

What do you have?

These are going to be on my nomination list for the Words of the Year when we do the vote in January for the American Dialect Society.

Tell me what you think about these.

All right.

First of all, “refutiate.”

Oh, it has to be in there. It’s a wonderful Sarah Palin-ism, it’s a mix of “refute” and “refudiate.”

As soon as she uttered that word, it exploded in the search engines, it exploded in the dictionary searches, it exploded everywhere.

This word is here to stay, whether you like it or not, right?

Refudiate.

Do you think people are going to be using it the same way as “nuclear”?

No, they’re going to use it like “embiggen,” or they’re going to use it like the internet.

They’re going to take it and first use it ironically, and truthiness.

They’re going to first use it a little ironically and in a knowing sense, and then I think in time, it’s just going to become normal.

I think it is too.

It’s really interesting, right?

Love it.

And of course, if we’re talking about Sarah Palin, we have to mention Mama Grizzly.

These are these tough women who look after their cubs, right?

They’re successful in the professional world, right?

Right.

Love it.

So those two, Refudiate and Mama Grizzly, got a couple more for you.

We cannot have the Word of the Year vote this year without the word “vuvuzela.”

Vuvuzela!

Love it.

Love it.

Those buzzing horns from the World Cup.

Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh.

Have you seen that sonata for “vuvuzela” on…

Oh, fantastic.

Fantastic.

It’s just one whole note.

I watched most of the World Cup, the big games anyway, the ones that were broadcast here, and that sound is still in my head.

It’s like the cicadas every 13 years.

It’s the same sound.

Love it.

Vuvuzela.

And then the last one, this has only come about towards the end of this year.

Actor Randy Quaid and his wife fled the country and then told the police and the press that they fled the United States because they were worried about Starwhackers.

W-H-A-C-K-E-R-S.

People who kill stars.

And on their list of friends and acquaintances who’ve died recently are Heath Ledger, Christopher Penn, David Carradine, Natasha Richardson, and they felt like they were next.

So they left the country to flee these Starwhackers.

So Starwhacker is on my list of nominations for Words of the Year.

Oh my gosh.

You don’t think they’re radio Starwhackers, do you?

Not at our level, Martha.

If we’re lucky, somebody will beat us about the head and neck with a tote bag.

If you have Words of the Year nominations, send them along.

I’d love to have them and make them a part of my grand list.

Send them to words@waywordradio.org or give us a call on the telephone, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name’s Andrea.

I’m calling from San Diego.

Hello, Andrea.

Welcome.

Hi, Andrea, welcome.

Hi, thanks for having me.

What can we do for you?

So I’m wondering how the nickname Five-0 for the police got started.

I’ve heard that it’s from the television show Hawaii Five-0 and my boyfriend was very adamant and saying, “No, it’s because of the Ford Mustang 5.0 engine that police officers used to drive.”

So I thought, is it one of the two or is it something else altogether?

Is your boyfriend around?

He’s not.

Let me just say this and you can pass this on to him.

It’s not from the car.

It is from the television show.

It is.

It’s hard to imagine this point in American history where we had basically four channels but we did.

And so when Hawaii Five-0 was on the air in the ’60s and ’70s, it was big stuff.

Oh, so big.

So big.

And I am reaching for my flute right now because how many of us played the Hawaii Five-0 theme song in marching band?

There’s only one hand up.

There’s only one hand up here, brother.

But the theme song, it’s like the earworm of all time, right?

Oh, my God.

Sorry.

I’ll give a free plug to whatever network but they’ve got the new one now.

They do.

It’s not bad.

I was watching it.

I was watching it with my sons on there, Grace Park, Daniel T. Kim.

It’s good stuff.

Yeah.

So that’s how this question got started.

We were sitting there watching it one night and started wondering where did that nickname come from?

Could it really had come from a television show?

It is from the show.

And what’s really interesting about this, it comes from the show.

It doesn’t show up until the show is in reruns basically.

It shows up like in the late ’80s, early ’90s in neighborhood slang.

And I don’t mean that as euphemism for black.

I’m just meaning from like guys on the street, whoever they happen to be shows up as just a reference to the cops because it’s a lot of street slang is about euphemizing real life.

It’s kind of like having an indirect way to say something so people aren’t quite sure if they’re an outsider what you’re really saying.

And so it shows up and then by the early ’90s, it starts appearing in slang dictionaries and little slang collections and then entered the mainstream when television eats itself basically.

So, “Hawaii Five-O” is the name of the show.

It starts being used on the street, “Five-O” used on the street to mean the cops or the police, right?

And then it shows up in the dictionaries and the cultural kind of indicating guides.

And then television starts using it and other cop shows to refer to the cops.

And it’s kind of cool.

It’s just like, “Will the circle be unbroken?”

Anyway.

Anyway, it does come from the television show, the original one with Jack Lord, which I remember watching.

It is not from Mustangs.

In the television show, the producer Martin Freeman named it “Hawaii Five-O” because Hawaii is the 50th state.

That’s it.

Yeah, that’s it.

Interestingly, this is something that I really love the most about this is that earlier this year in July, CBS put a press release out that said the zero in “Hawaii Five-O” is a zero and not a capital “O” because the press was writing about this, right?

And they were putting the wrong character.

They were really putting an “O.”

Yeah.

Because we say “O” for zero even though that’s technically wrong.

Yeah.

Would you write it that way?

I think I would have.

I think most people do, actually.

With an “O.”

I guess.

I don’t know.

Originally in my email about the question, I had put zero.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

Impressive.

So you’re good.

Impressive.

You’re all good, Andrea.

I had an instinct, I guess.

So you write just all the way around.

Wait until your boyfriend finds out about that.

What’s new?

What’s new?

What’s new?

No.

No.

I see who has the upper hand here.

That’s weird.

I like to pretend.

Anyway, so there you go.

There’s your answer.

Awesome.

Thank you guys.

Super.

Okay.

Take care.

Bye-bye, Andrea.

Bye-bye.

If you have a question, call us, 877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

My name’s Heather from Vista, California.

Hey, Heather.

Hi, Heather.

I was calling to see if you could help me out with a phrase that I’ve been hearing a lot.

Okay.

Well, I moved to California about two years ago from Michigan.

I started hearing this phrase, “It is what it is.”

And I was wondering if you could help me figure out maybe where this came from or why the sudden rise in popularity.

Oh.

Now, Heather, I want to ask you, how do you feel about that phrase? Does it annoy you?

It’s more like I just notice it a lot.

Okay.

Good.

And it seems like people will say it to kind of console or say, “Oh, well, sorry. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

Right.

Bingo.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It seems like the serenity prayer only compacted.

There we go.

Right.

Give me the serenity to accept the things and whatever. To change and the wisdom.

Yeah.

Or sort of c’est la vie or…

Mm—

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

Tough beans, whatever.

So you noticed it more after you moved to California. Are you suggesting that you believe it has something to do with being Californian?

You know, not necessarily.

It was about two years ago, and it just looks like I just did a quick search online, and it was about two years when it started being popular.

But when I moved to California, that’s when I saw the T-shirts and things that they had this phrase on them.

So…

Interesting.

I’m not sure.

I first noticed it coming to prominence in 2004.

Really?

Or 2003 or 2004.

That year, the American Dialect Society included it as one of its candidates for Word of the Year, which isn’t always about the word, but sometimes it can be a phrase.

And I don’t think it won any great accolades, but it certainly went on notice as being something that people were paying attention to, lexicographers and linguists and so forth.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Even USA Today had an article about how it’s the most overused sports phrase around.

Right.

When was that?

’04.

’04.

’04.

But there was a movie in 2001 called “It Is What It Is.”

Right.

And so the phrase is definitely older than that.

Now, whether or not it’s had any more prominence in the last couple of years, I can’t say.

William Safire, may he rest in peace, wrote about it in 2006 in The New York Times.

And British linguist David Crystal has also written about it.

And the sum total of what they have to say is really interesting, is that this fits a pattern in English of us finding these shortcut ways to say, as Martha was saying, you just have to accept it because there’s nothing that we can do about it.

And there’s a bunch of these.

David Crystal has a few great examples of “It takes what it takes,” which sounds familiar to me, or “I’ll be ready when I’m ready,” you know?

Yeah.

Or just, “Whatever.”

“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

“Boys will be boys.”

I mean, tell me something new.

I can’t stand the phrase.

If I’m telling you about a problem I have, I don’t want you to say, “It is what it is.”

I want you to help me think about solutions.

No.

That’s not…

Don’t just accept the problem.

Somebody…

You know, I want some help.

Do you think she should be peeping about it?

Oh, you know, I know some people that it really annoys, and I know some people that use it quite a bit, actually.

Mm—

Yeah, I can understand how people can get annoyed by it.

Thank you.

Well, Heather, what can we say?

That’s when you say it is what it is.

Well, I guess it is what it is.

There you go.

What’s done is done.

Thank you so much for calling, Heather.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

Take care.

Bye.

Que sera, sera.

Yeah.

Que sera, sera, sera.

Whatever will be, will be.

Yeah.

I like that better.

If someone says, “C’est la vie,” do you find that annoying?

If it’s a fellow feeling kind of say, “La vie,” but I think that it is what it is when I’ve used it.

That is a good point.

Yeah, that’s the difference.

It’s not about joining someone else in sympathy and empathy.

Thank you.

That’s what I’m trying to say.

It’s about separating yourself and saying, “Tough luck.”

Yeah.

That’s what I’m saying.

That’s exactly what I’m saying.

I see.

Okay.

And maybe I just have a different sense of the expression.

Well, you’re generally a positive and upbeat person, so I can absolutely see why you don’t want somebody to tell you when you have a legitimate complaint.

It is what it is.

Nobody wants to hear that, right?

What you want to hear is, “Oh, my God, I didn’t know. Let me solve that problem for you.”

That’s exactly it.

And if I say, “Boy, it’s a bummer that we all have to die, isn’t it?” And you say, “C’est la vie,” well, then I feel like we’ve bonded some.

You know, it’s sort of more like girl talk rather than boy talk.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thanks for not maybe being a part of the girls club.

Makes me feel taller.

1-877-9299673 is the number, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Martha, I’m still thinking about words of the year.

Obamacare.

Obamacare.

This is the health insurance dealio that was passed at the behest of the Obama administration.

They first started using it in 2009.

The term just exploded in life in 2010.

And here we are with the term Obamacare.

It’s generally derogatory, which I think is kind of obvious.

Right.

It’s so odd because if you think about the word itself, it sounds positive, but it’s been used in a really negative kind of way.

If you’ve got a word of the year candidate, send it along to words@waywordradio.org or call with your word of the year nominations, 1-877-9299673.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And we’re joined now by our quiz guy, John Chenesky.

Hello, John.

Hi, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

How are you guys?

Welcome back.

Nice to hear from you again.

It’s great to be back.

What kind of puzzle do you have for us?

You got a quiz something?

Yeah.

I got a little something for you today.

A hard time to give us?

We’ll see about that.

You guys know what a word letter is, I’m sure.

You begin with a word, any word.

Say we’ll use the word, word, W-O-R-D, and then you change one letter, say the W to C to make.

Chord.

Chord.

Then change another letter, say the D in chord to E for?

Chord.

Chord.

All right.

Change the O in chord to A for?

Care.

Good.

And finally, the only original letter left is the R in care.

Change it to M for?

Came.

Came.

Good.

So we’ve changed word to came.

Now, we’re going to do a few of these small word letters.

I like to call them step ladders.

Word ladders.

Ladders.

I thought you said word letter.

I did too.

Oh, word letters.

Sorry.

That new word.

Flapping T in American English is so confusing.

Sorry.

Ladder.

Your T is flapping, John.

Word ladders.

So I like to call them step ladders.

They give you a clue to the new word we’re making.

So here we go.

Okay.

Okay.

Starting with the word step.

S-T-E-P.

Mm—

Change a letter to get the opposite of go.

Stop.

Stop.

Here we go.

Start off easy.

Now, I’d like you to make wet food specifically for pigs.

Slop.

Slop.

All right.

How about the sound a horse’s hoof makes?

Clop.

Good.

Or how about we’ll end with a dense, dull person?

Clod.

Clod.

Good.

That’s our starter.

Nice, easy one.

Let’s try another one.

Starting with the word quiz.

Change a letter to get a slang for a one-pound sterling.

Quid.

Quid.

Yes.

How about a high traffic area of a college?

Quad.

Quad.

Good.

Here’s a somewhat rare word for a pair of objects.

Doo-ad.

Doo-ad.

Yes.

Really?

Very good.

Yeah.

Just a guess.

And from doo-ad, we’ll get expired.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

That’s it.

And that word letter is dead.

Let’s move on to the next one.

Starting with the word pain.

P-A-I-N.

Mm—

Change a letter to get extremely self-absorbed.

Pain to extremely self-absorbed.

Vain.

Vain.

Very good.

How about from vein to a component of the circulatory system?

Vain.

Vain.

Vain to vein.

Very good.

How about from vein, V-E-I-N, to a covering for the face?

Veil.

Veil.

Good.

And from veil to the meat from a calf?

Veal.

Veal.

Very good.

All right.

Next step ladder.

Starting with the word line, L-I-N-E, change a letter to make part of a chain.

Link.

Yes.

From there, from link to a hockey venue?

Rink.

Rink.

Rink.

From there, from link to uncommonly putrid?

Rink.

Rink.

Rink.

From rink to a piece of billiards equipment?

Rack.

Rack.

Wow.

Nice work.

Here’s the next one.

Starting with the word bear, B-E-A-R, change a letter to a policeman’s patrol.

Beat.

Beat.

Yes.

From beat to without equal?

Best.

Best.

Best.

Yes.

And from best equal from best to rib?

To rib?

Jest.

To rib.

Jest.

Yes.

Very good.

Oh, jest.

An intentionally short curt clue.

And from jest, let’s change jest to something that means fair and equitable.

Just.

Just.

Just.

Very nice.

Okay.

Let’s do one more.

Okay.

Okay.

Starting from rasp, R-A-S-P.

Give me a word meaning impetuous.

Resh.

Good.

Good.

Now give me the title of a popular ’70s dramedy.

Mash.

Yes.

From mash to a grammar school subject?

Math.

Math.

And from math to legendary?

Try a legendary story.

Myth.

Myth.

Oh, very good.

Yes, very good.

You did myth that one.

That was great.

Thank you, John.

If you’d like to talk about grammar, slang, punctuation, or words and how we use them, the number to call is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Bob from Asheville, North Carolina.

Hello, Bob.

Asheville.

Hey.

Yeah.

And I have a question about a word and I think it’s kind of a conceptual thing I’ve been wondering about for a while.

Okay.

I think a lot of us have been in a situation where we felt kind of awkward with kids in the car and you’ve driven by and they say, “Daddy, what’s an adult bookstore? What’s an adult movie theater?”

And, you know, you kind of talk around it and say, “Oh, that’s something you’ll see when you’re older,” or whatever, but, you know, everybody’s basically in that context, you know, you have no doubt what that is.

But then I’m thinking, I saw on advertisement and they couldn’t keep from laughing because they were advertising adult daycare center, you know, a place to take your aging parents that perhaps couldn’t take care of themselves.

We were making horrible, you know, really bad jokes about, you know, branding in a red corset and stuff like that.

Got us to thinking, apparently, the word “adult” means different things in different contexts.

Yeah, and adult daycare center could be really fun.

Yeah, yeah.

You’re never too old.

Yeah, of course.

Nice.

And then we were thinking you go in a library and, you know, like they have a section called children’s books, but you don’t think of the rest of the library as the adult section.

No, no.

Not unless there’s a beaded room somewhere, a beaded doorway.

A secret chamber.

So, anyhow, really, what I was wondering is, when did it come to be that the word “adult” is used as euphemism for pornography, so everybody kind of understands what it is?

Adult really started to take on the connotation of having to do with the more purience and sexual side of being adult, the things that adults do together when they’re alone, and about the time that America started mainstreaming titillating content, “adult” had long been used, even in the early days of the moviemaking business, to refer to films that had blood and violence and adult situations that weren’t sexual, and they used it very specifically to mean this content is not appropriate for a child, and they weren’t talking about anything sexual at all.

So, of course, by the time we started mainstreaming sexual content in our movies and our books and our magazines and so forth, the term was already there and ready to be used to refer to the sexual nature of something as well.

So are we talking late 50s, early 60s?

Yes, that’s right.

Yeah, in the 1950s, 40s and 50s is when we started to see adult to take on this kind of subsense to mean of a sexual nature, of a purient nature.

When I was a kid, there were theaters, and they used to call them art houses, and I thought maybe that was to get around the law like the Supreme Court because it had artistic merit.

Well, it could have been.

I’m certain that was definitely one of the euphemisms, as was French film.

Oh, yeah, and blue movies, too.

I mean, when I was little, I pictured blue movies.

I mean, is that like “Avatar” or what?

Really, the Smurfs.

Oh, the Smurfs.

But in any case, yeah, there’s plenty of room because of those dual meanings for lots of jokes and laughs about this.

I think it’s almost always context-sensitive, and if you want to misunderstand for the sake of the joke, then go right ahead.

But I think it’s usually pretty easy from context to tell.

All right, I love the show, and thank you for answering that.

Bob, thank you for calling from Nashville.

Thanks, Bob.

Bye-bye.

What’s your question about language?

When did it change and become something new?

1-877-929-9673.

Or send your questions and comments and stories and email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Liz.

I’m calling from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Well, hello, Liz.

Welcome to the program.

Hi, Liz.

Thank you.

Well, I have noticed in this political season that every time I hear a political ad on television, at the end, the candidate comes on and says, “I approve this message,” and every time I hear it, it doesn’t sound right to me, but I can’t figure out why.

I think I want to hear them say, “I have approved of the content of this message,” or, “I approve of this message, but…”

Or, “This message wasn’t so great.”

Or, “This message is a big, fat lie,” or…

Now, that’s what I want to see on this.

There you go.

And I talk this over with friends, and some of them have said, “Oh, no, that sounds right.”

And then a lot say, “No, it doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know why.”

And we thought maybe you could help explain whether it’s right or wrong.

Now, Liz, are you saying that what grates on your ears is, “In the present tense, I approve this message”?

You know, tense may have something to do with it.

If they say it in the present tense, it sounds like, “Oh, I just heard that for the first time. I approve that.”

Exactly.

You know what I mean?

And maybe that’s what bothers me.

But I’m also trying to figure out, is there some sort of grammatical rule that would explain why it doesn’t sound right?

I don’t know about a rule.

To me, “I approved this message” sounds less weird.

And I’ve been thinking about why that might be.

And I think one reason is that there are a couple of different meanings of “approve.”

We approve of our daughter’s boyfriend, which is different.

It’s like you’re expressing heartfelt support, and you say “approve of.”

But you would also say the city council approved the stadium.

They passed something that would allow the stadium to be built.

I think there’s a difference there, and I miss that “of” in there.

Well, when I’m hearing it in the political ads, they are not saying “approved” with a “d” on the end.

No.

They’re just saying, “I approve.”

Yeah, and I think that’s what’s so weird, and I think it’s partly because if you use that second sense of “approve,” that is, put your stamp on, then you’re not used to hearing that in the first person.

You’re used to hearing that the council approved this, but you don’t usually hear “I approve that.”

But that’s not the sense that they’re using necessarily, right?

Because it’s a combo of these two senses?

The politician’s approval is an ongoing event.

It is not a one-time event.

They continue to approve of the message or approve it.

Well, I would think that the person signed off on the message.

And so, to me, past tense would make more sense.

Interesting.

Do you know what I mean?

I totally agree, because you wouldn’t say, “I sign off this message.”

Right, “I signed off.”

“I signed off on this message.”

Yeah.

Right, so maybe that’s not the sense that they’re meaning, then.

Maybe they are meaning it in the sense of “I approve of a boyfriend,” which is…

But they aren’t putting the “of” in there.

Exactly.

That’s what she’s saying, is that the “of” isn’t there.

Very interesting.

“I approve of this message.”

But it’s so directly tied to elections and has been for a number of election cycles that I don’t think we’re likely to escape it.

Well, you know, it occurred to me the other night that it could just be economics if they’re paying a million dollars for 66 if they don’t have the time to say, “I approve of the content of this message.”

Yeah, that little preposition costs a lot, right?

But this came about because of legal requirements, right?

Right.

Having to acknowledge who…

The campaign itself was responsible for the ad and not some PAC, right?

Right, right.

The Campaign Reform Act of 2002, I think.

But I think that it sounds more authoritative if you say, “I approve this message.”

I think that’s more like the city council approved the stadium.

But “approve of this message” seems to me more heartfelt or something.

Interesting.

I wonder if we can find election ads where they have said “approved,” where somebody thought about this instead of just borrowing the message from somebody else.

Because that’s the thing.

They all sound the same.

I think there have been, and I know when George Bush was running, his messages in Spanish were definitely past tense, a probé.

Very interesting.

So I don’t know if it’s a conscious choice by the politicians or more likely their handlers or what.

But I agree with you.

It sounds weird to my ear, Liz.

Interesting.

Well, this is a great question and I bet we hear more about this.

So we approve of your bringing it to us, Liz.

Well, thanks so much.

And I certainly enjoy talking with you about it and will love to hear other people’s ideas about it.

Me too.

Thanks, Liz.

I bet we do.

Bye-bye.

Let us know what you think, 877-929-9673, or send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there.

My name is Eric.

I’m from Southern California.

Welcome, Eric.

What can we do for you?

Thank you.

Well, last week, a gentleman called in asking why his daughter would always say “fail.”

And you guys had a great answer for him, which got me thinking, what’s an internet meme?

And where does the word “meme” come from?

Very good.

Very good question.

Internet memed.

Do you have any guesses?

I don’t.

Maybe something having to do with me, myself.

I don’t know.

Yeah, there is a good guess.

We should define what an internet meme is.

How would you define it, Eric?

I guess maybe a trend that’s caught on, usually short-lived, often pretty popular in the short time span that it’s around.

Like, for example, what?

Well, “fail,” for example, is kind of an internet meme where, wow, there’s countless examples, but… Oh, sure, yeah.

Tons of them.

Yeah.

Sometimes in the form of animated GIFs or silly YouTube videos or… Or Rickrolling.

Rickrolling, sure.

There you go.

There you go.

Very good.

The origin of this word is known, which it’s crazy how many words we don’t really know exactly who coined them and when, but we do this one.

It comes from Richard Dawkins, who published a book in 1976 called The Selfish Gene, and in this book, he lays out the idea of a meme, and a meme, M-E-M-E, is something that is transmitted from person to person, usually culture, and not culture, as he notes, not in the snotty, elitist sense, but in the things that we all know, we all know how to do or that we all recognize.

And he gives a list here of memes, tunes, ideas, catchphrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches, and so it’s all the information, ideas, and knowledge that we transmit from person to person, sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously.

And you’re probably thinking now, well, this reminds me a lot of a virus that passes from person to person, which is why internet meme and going viral are two terms that are closely related to the idea of something becoming unexpectedly popular or being passed from person to person in a natural, organic way.

And it makes sense that Dawkins would come up with that because he’s an evolutionary biologist, right?

Right.

And an atheist.

Right.

Famous atheist.

And his whole premise was, and there’s an article in New Scientist that we’ll link to on the website from 1976, his whole premise was, is it possible that these things are transmitted from person to person or from group to group, not because it’s advantageous to the people, but because it’s advantageous to the ideas themselves?

It’s really kind of an astonishing thing.

What if we are merely the vessels of good ideas and that the end result of all life isn’t a perfect form of a being that is alive and well, but a perfect idea?

There you go.

Deep philosophy.

So he took it from a Greek word, right?

That’s right.

That means to mimic.

That’s right.

And he wanted a word that sounded sort of like gene, right?

That’s right.

Exactly right.

Sort of replicating idea across the internet.

Yeah.

The Greek word is M-I-M-E-M-A that means that which is imitated.

And it caught on.

His book was very popular then.

It’s been popular since, many follow-ups.

He’s well known for the idea.

And most major dictionaries now include the word.

Wow.

Well, who would have thought such a small word has such a big history.

It filled the lead though.

It did a job.

He came along with this word at a time in the philosophy of science and in human culture and anthropology where all these different disciplines were coming together and we needed new language to express some new concepts.

And he was there at the moment and he had the word and it caught on.

Hey, Eric.

Thanks a lot for calling.

No problem.

Thank you for a very insightful answer.

We try.

Have a good one.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye. 877-929-9673 or words@waywordradio.org or find us on Facebook at /waywordradio.

Every year when I put together my words at the year list, I like to sneak in a couple that haven’t really caught on yet.

Yeah.

Those are some of my favorites.

Yeah.

Because there’s always that question, are they going to make it?

Has Grant chosen well?

You know, usually I don’t choose that well.

Oh, yes you do.

But it’s fun in the meantime.

One for you this year is imappacy with an I, I-M-M-A-P-P-A-C-Y.

And it’s like a literacy with maps.

You don’t know how to use them, make them, you just can’t understand them.

Imappacy.

I love it.

That’s nice.

It’s like enumeracy, right?

Yes, exactly.

It’s modeled after enumeracy.

So it can be a phrase.

It doesn’t have to be new but it has to be important to the year 2010.

Give us a call at 877-929-9673 or send it an email to words@waywordradio.org.

A Way with Words is sponsored in part by iUniverse, supported self-publishing.

Is there a book in you?

Information available at 1-800-Authors or online at iUniverse.com.

And by National Geographic Books, publishers of The Last Speakers, the quest to save the world’s most endangered languages by K. David Harrison from the Emmy-nominated documentary The Linguist.

In bookstores and on the web at shopng.com/books.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

In a previous show, we talked about great first lines, those lines in novels that just grab you from the get-go.

And we asked you for examples of your favorites and we got a ton of them.

And so I wanted to share some of these with you.

They sort of separated themselves out into three categories.

The first category I’m calling the “huh, what just happened” category.

The second one is “unforgettable pictures” and the third one is “intensity of voice.”

Let me give you some examples, okay?

Okay.

Yes, please.

This is from the “huh, what just happened” pile of emails.

They shot the white girl first.

Don’t.

Isn’t that just…

Yeah.

I’m going to read the rest of that book.

Oh, exactly.

That’s the same thing.

What novel is that?

That happened to me with all of these.

This is Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise.

And Jim Adams from Capistrano Valley sent that in.

And he said that he first came across that in a creative writing class, that everybody was anticipating Toni Morrison’s next book.

And his teacher was saying, “You got to look for her first line. What’s it going to be?”

And it turned out to be, “They shot the white girl first.”

Powerful.

How could you not go beyond that sentence, right?

Right.

In the unforgettable picture category, Steve Link in San Diego sent us, “Stately plump buck mulligan came from the stairhead bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.”

Holy moly.

What is that from?

That’s from the beginning of Ulysses.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

Isn’t that great?

By James Joyce.

And then intensity of voice, finally.

A lot of you mentioned Call Me Ishmael from Moby Dick.

There’s a great essay on this by Michael Cunningham, who wrote The Hours.

And he talks about how the words “Call Me Ishmael” connote authority.

He says, “Call Me Ishmael, three simple words.

What’s the big deal?

For one thing, they possess that most fundamental but elusive of all writerly qualities, authority.

As writers, we must, from our very opening sentence, speak with authority to our readers.

It’s a little like waltzing with a new partner for the first time.

Anyone who is able to waltz, to foxtrot, or tango, or perform any sort of dance that requires physical contact with a responsive partner knows that there is a first moment on the dance floor when you assess automatically whether the new partner in question can dance at all, and if he or she can in fact dance, how well.

You know almost instantly whether you have a novice on your hands, and that if you do, you’ll have to do a fair amount of work just to keep things moving.

We’re not done taking your recommendations for the best first lines of novels.

Sure, bring ’em on!

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

Try our discussion forum at waywordradio.org/discussion.

Hello, you have A Way with Words!

Oh, hi Martha, this is Kathy from La Mesa, California.

Hello Kathy, welcome!

Hi Kathy, welcome to the program.

Well, I’m looking for recruits to help me in my revival of some awesome phrases from the ’70s.

Awesome!

Were there awesome phrases in the ’70s?

Well, I think we have awesome powers to thank for reminding us about Foxy Lady, which is just such a vibrant and lovely compliment.

You like being called Foxy.

Sure, you can call me Foxy.

It’s a compliment then, right?

I think so, it seems that way.

And Grant, since you’re a slang slinger, I’m hoping you can help us figure out where the expression “jive turkey” fits into.

I think we were actually watching some ’70s cheesy movies, and there are just several scenes where somebody gets their nose completely out of joint when someone else calls them a jive turkey.

And it just seems so innocent, or at least completely inoffensive, but I guess all of these things are just contextual, so if you look at the use of the word “jive” back in the late ’50s and early ’60s with beatniks, you know, “are you hip to the jive,” that seems like a cool word, but suddenly in the ’70s, or later in the ’70s, it’s become something of an insult.

Yeah, the jive goes back to the 1920s at least, and it starts out almost immediately with a negative sense, and it refers to boasting, or bragging, or just a lot of big talk, and it starts in Black English, so it’s really interesting that it continues for some five or six decades well into Black English.

And then Turkey’s got its own history out of showbiz, meaning a flop, and then migrated from Hollywood entertainment-type speak into mainstream English, so you put the two together and you get a jive turkey.

I’ve seen those movies.

You’re talking like the blaxploitation films, right?

Absolutely.

And they don’t usually use harsher language, like four-letter words and melon farmer and that sort of thing, right?

Right, and thankfully, we’re searching for ways to maybe drive the language back to a simpler time.

Oh, so that’s what you and your other are up to, right?

Your bow?

You think it was simpler?

It was definitely a much more creative use of language, how is that?

Because it’s just so easy to go to four-letter words and curse words and that kind of thing, so if you can convey the same just cut-to-the-gut insult with something like jive turkey, then you get kudos from us for being a better user of language.

Oh, but who’s really going to take jive turkey seriously?

I mean, I would have to say you jive turkey you.

But, Kathy, what I was getting at is in those movies, they didn’t have a lot of truly coarse language, right?

Because they were mainstream films?

Right.

So jive turkey is kind of a stand-in for the rougher language that they can’t get away with using.

And so I think you, as the viewer, are meant to understand that jive turkey represents a lot of really hardcore language that we can’t say on a family radio program.

It’s a stand-in for the tougher language.

So did it have a sting or was it self-conscious?

That’s what I’m not getting.

Yeah, it had a sting because jive, I mean, just forget the beatnik stuff, that’s white guys taking black language and doing things to it.

But in black American English, jive was generally something negative for a very long time.

Your jive was all your bragging talk about how great you were that nobody else believed.

And so if you are a jive turkey, you are a loser and a failure who is constantly talking about how great you are.

And so a jive turkey is not a really nice thing to say.

I mean, it’s not as bad as calling somebody, you know.

Boop!

But jive turkey has got a long heritage.

I think you are undertaking a noble deed.

Your cause is just to bring jive turkey back to the masses.

Thank you.

If we come up with a male equivalent for foxy lady, I will go ahead and call you back and apply that to you, Grant.

Kathy, thank you so much for your call.

Absolutely.

My pleasure.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye.

If you have a question, call us at 877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, is this Grant?

This is Grant.

Who’s this?

Hi, Grant.

This is Gaye Macy.

I’m in San Diego.

Hi, Gaye.

Welcome to the program.

Thanks.

What can we help you with today?

Okay, this is a funny one.

I worked at a law firm for about 20 years in San Francisco.

I did a lot of document review, fact-checking kind of things, and so it kind of caught my eye.

And I don’t know if this has been going on for a while and I was oblivious or if it’s a sudden change, but I noticed in titles of things, like I was at the checkout counter and I get the Atlantic, I get San Francisco magazine, and I noticed that on the cover when they put titles of stories, it used to be that you would initial cap kind of the important words of the nouns and verbs and some of the smaller things would be capped.

But now I’ve noticed that everything gets initial caps.

I was kind of wondering, when did that happen?

So we’re not talking about the National Enquirer and the Star and the Weekly World News and those sorts of…

I only read those at the hairdresser.

I see.

Okay.

But we’re talking about a wide variety of considerably well-edited newspapers.

Literaries.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I would consider it a literary level.

Okay, very good.

Yeah.

And I know what you’re talking about because the rules we learned were different, right?

I’m thinking.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like you capitalize the first letter and the last letter and then nouns and verbs and adjectives, but you don’t capitalize prepositions.

They come in the middle of the headline.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And it almost made telegraphic sense, like man bites dog, but you wouldn’t say man bites the dog on the note.

So the telegraphic thing is missing now.

Right.

So I’m not sure.

Is that a new thing?

Well, it’s interesting to see how these rules are changing in different venues.

And again, I think the thing that messes us up is that we get taught in school to capitalize book titles this and that way.

It’s interesting to watch.

I hadn’t noticed the Atlantic, but I’m looking online and I see what you mean, that every single one of those is capitalized.

You know, it’s the Atlantic.

I consider it like a literary light.

If anyone’s going to do it properly, the New York Times and the Atlantic would do it.

Well, hold on a second.

This isn’t a matter of proper, right?

This is a matter of style.

This is a matter of institutional choice.

It’s not an accident that they’re doing it this way.

It just seems from, we have something called the blue book, which had all these rules in it for doing citations, legal citations, and it included capitalization.

I’m sure the AP style book has something similar.

So I don’t know.

I assumed it was a grammatical rule, but it is capitalization.

So I’m not sure if it’s a rule or a style.

The Union Tribune here in San Diego, they had a redesign recently, and a lot of their headlines are now all caps.

So it’s an institutional style that they do for aesthetic effect.

And you may be right.

You may be 100% right.

It may affect your ability to understand what is most important in that headline because the capitalized words aren’t standing out the way they did, right?

If the word “of” and the word “the” are capitalized, they’re kind of like taking away a little bit of oomph away from the more important stuff happening in the sentence.

Yeah, but I understand what you’re saying, Gaye.

I mean, it’s nice to have that predictability, right, that thing that you can depend on.

It’s just funny.

It just caught my eye because I’m used to seeing things that look like book titles, like in the olden days when you looked them up in the library card catalog, and they were written a certain way.

Exactly.

And they just looked right.

Yeah, you get accustomed to that.

I think that’s it.

Yeah.

I think that’s it.

So it just suddenly, for some reason, rearranging things, I really looked at it and went, “Oh, gosh. That looks different.”

Exactly.

I wonder when that happened.

So Gaye, you and I are going to have to just sort of stretch our brains a little bit more.

Do some mental yoga.

I like that, though.

I think it’s good to stretch our brains and go for new things.

But I thought, “You know, Grant and Martha would know about this.”

Well, thanks.

Thanks very much for running with that one.

That was kind of fun.

Okay.

Thank you for calling, Gaye.

Thanks, Gaye.

It’s really interesting.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Have a question about language?

Call us, 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

If you know me, you know my rant about serial commas.

Grant, you know this.

I’ve seen The Bloody Knife, yes.

I am a big fan of serial commas, that last comma in a series like Red, White, and Blue.

I want that comma there after White.

Sure.

Yeah, I agree.

And a lot of people agree with me, but it’s a contentious issue.

Well, I just found another great example of why we should use the serial comma always.

It’s a caption that was in a newspaper article about Merle Haggard, okay, had a photo of Merle, and underneath it said, “The documentary was filmed over three years. Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, comma, Chris Christopherson and Robert Duvall.”

Give me the serial comma, please.

The slavish adherence to that Associated Press style book rule means these kind of laughable moments are pretty much an everyday occurrence, right?

Oh, they hurt so much.

And I know that newspapers are trying to save ink and save space, but please, spare that little serial comma.

We need them.

They’re like plankton in the ocean, you know.

They feed the mighty whale.

That’s right.

Thank you very much.

And they feed mini-rants.

That’s right.

Like this one.

If you’d like to rant about grammar, 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Christina from San Diego.

Thanks for taking my call.

We’re happy to.

What’s up?

Well, I’m calling you about a phrase that I’ve heard from my in-laws in Pennsylvania.

And the phrase is, “Another country heard from.”

Usually we bring our babies to visit, and a lot of times we’ll have a baby sleeping in another room, either napping or asleep for the night.

And if they keep up, if we hear them crying or just a little baby noise, my in-laws will say, “Oh, another country heard from.”

So I thought it was an interesting, really interesting expression, and I started asking around other people if they heard it.

And one of my friends said, “Her mother-in-law uses it.”

And then my mother said that her mother would use the expression.

If there was a discussion and she felt it had come to an end and then somebody would pipe up and she wasn’t really interested in their opinion, and she would say, “Oh, another country heard from,” it kind of was exasperated.

And where was she from?

She was from the Boston area.

Okay, so Pennsylvania, Boston.

And so it’s always, “Another country heard from.”

And California.

Yes.

Okay, so California, Boston, and Pennsylvania.

So far.

So far.

So it’s always, “Another country heard from,” right?

Yes.

I ask this because the older form of this is, “Another county heard from,” without the R, C-O-N-T-Y, instead of C-O-N-T-R-Y.

And you might be surprised by this, I say this all the time on the show, don’t I?

I find something really old.

I have found this phrase back as far as 1868.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

And it’s widespread.

It’s got a great history.

Here’s the thing.

Imagine a world pre-telephone.

For that matter, basically, the Morse code was a new thing and the telegraph was pretty rare.

And if it existed at all, it was just a few miles, it wasn’t like a cross country or even an intercontinental thing.

So when you do national elections or even state elections, it takes a while for the ballots to come in, right?

Either they’re bringing the count in or they’re bringing the actual ballots in from all these precincts from far away to do the counting.

And so it’s not like you just wait a couple hours on election night to find out who wins.

You may wait a week or two.

And so over the course of the days of counting these ballots, the newspapers would report another county heard from, Wayne County went for Hayes and here’s the tally now.

And so they would literally, I mean, I have a clip from an Iowa newspaper in 1868.

That’s the headline on this election tally, it says, “Another county heard from, the election returns of Sioux County became manifest at the Capitol yesterday. The presidential vote stands Grant 6, Seymour 5.”

And it goes on to talk more about the election.

And so this was just a standard journalistic kind of method of just updating people in a really precise, concise way.

So people picked it up.

Yeah.

And then really quickly by the 1870s, it comes to be used a little humorously and a little ironically, you’ll see it show up in advertisements where some magazine would say, “So-and-so in Tallahassee renewed his subscription to our fine journal, another county heard from.”

And then it starts showing up in stories and tales and fiction.

And by the time radio came along, you started hearing it in radio scripts and television and movies.

And it’s kind of rare today, which is what’s really exciting, Christina, because most people don’t use it anymore.

Yeah.

That’s another thing.

I hear about people’s parents and grandparents using it.

And I was surprised that my own grandmother used it, but it kind of hasn’t come down to my generation.

Although one time when my baby woke up from a nap, I said it, and I was really surprised that I had picked it up.

It was just a reflex.

Oh, yeah.

We all do that.

We all end up speaking like our parents, don’t we?

Yeah.

Oh, that’s a great expression.

So, Christina, you’re going to keep using it and spreading it around?

I’m going to do my best.

Okay.

Yeah.

Raise that kid to say it.

Thank you so much, Christina.

Thanks.

Okay.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

One of the things that you tell your children that your parents told you, call us and tell us about it.

Words@waywordradio.org is the email address 1-877-929-9673 is the phone number.

You can also join us on Facebook at Wayword Radio, where you can join a community of people just like you who are talking about language.

That’s our show for this week.

If you didn’t get on the show today, you can leave us a message even when we’re not on the air.

Call us at 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

The address is Words@waywordradio.org.

And you can stay in touch with us all week on Facebook.

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Stefanie Levine is our senior producer, our technical director and editor is Tim Felten.

We’ve had production help this week from Josette Hurdle and Jennifer Powell.

A Way with Words is independently produced and distributed by Wayword Inc., a nonprofit organization.

From Studio West in San Diego, I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Bye now.

Take care of yourself.

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Hi, it’s Martha.

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