You Sound Old (episode #1325)

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And you can still send us email to words@waywordradio.org.

And you can still find us online at waywordradio.org.

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

And I’m Martha Barnette.

There’s a scene in the new movie 50-50.

The film is part comedy and part drama, and it’s about a young man with cancer.

Adam is about 30-something, and he’s just been diagnosed.

And on the advice of his doctor, he goes to a psychologist.

Now, he’s expecting to find the stereotypical guy in his 60s, tweed jacket, maybe smoking a pipe.

But, of course, the psychologist turns out to be this very young, very attractive woman.

And here’s what happens next.

Sorry, if you don’t mind, how old are you?

I’m 24.

You’re 24? Wow.

So what are you, like, Doogie Howser or something?

Who?

Doogie Howser, the teenage doctor.

Does he work here?

No, no.

Grant, I totally identified with this poor guy.

You use a word or a phrase and you get this blank look and you realize, oh, my gosh, my language marks me as being from an entirely different generation.

And this person has no idea what I’m talking about.

I love this.

Yeah, when people make Pokemon references, which was past my time, I have no idea what they’re talking about.

All this.

They’re like, yeah, that was just like this character in this anime.

And I’m like, anime was not a thing in the early 80s when I was watching cartoons.

No idea what you’re talking about.

But it’s not just the pop culture references, right?

No, it’s everything.

There was a great discussion on Reddit about this.

What are the things that your parents say that make you realize that they’re old fashioned or out of touch or that make them seem old?

I have more and more of those.

The other day I said, only her hairdresser knows for sure.

And I got this blank look.

What in the heck is that? I’m getting a blank look right now.

I get it. I get it. Yeah. Yeah.

Didn’t Helen Reddy do the song on the commercial for that?

No, that was something else, right?

So today we’re going to be talking about the things that other people say that make them seem out of touch or old-fashioned.

Or things that you’ve said and you realize, oh, this person has no clue.

Do tell on yourself, 877-929-9673, or tell on other people, words@waywordradio.org.

We’ll be sharing a lot of these throughout the show.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Serene calling from New York City.

Serene.

Hi, Serene. Welcome to the program.

Hi, thanks.

What can we help you with?

So I run the college prep program of an after-school program,

And my colleague and I teach writing classes as part of that.

And sort of both pride ourselves on being grammar nerds.

And when one of the students finishes their work and says,

I’m done, he’ll correct them and say, the work is done, you’re finished.

And so we kind of have a little dispute about whether there’s actually a difference between done and finished.

I think you can use them interchangeably.

And he says, no, you’ve got to say the work is done, you’re finished.

Why does he say there’s something wrong with done?

What’s his reasoning?

I don’t know.

He went to boarding school, and I feel like it’s kind of one of those things that your teachers say to you.

And, you know, so then he sort of just repeats that, I guess.

I don’t know.

He couldn’t articulate what the rule might be.

Yeah, yeah.

So he had teachers telling him that this was a hard and fast rule, right?

Right.

And you know what?

I didn’t go to boarding school, but I was told the same thing, and I was in his camp for a long, long time.

Who taught you?

Your mother?

Mean old Miss Booker.

I’ve talked about her before on the show.

She traumatized me with all these different rules of hers that were just so seemingly arbitrary.

And, you know, she would say that done is when you put in a cake.

And, you know, if somebody’s not done yet, then, I mean, I just want to stick a toothpick in them, you know, when they say that because of this traumatic grammatical experience.

But you know what, Serene, I have finally come around on this.

And Grant and I have argued about this for years.

But I’m starting to feel like…

So you agree with me that I’m always right?

Every once in a while I do, yes.

Yes, yes. And let’s do this like couples therapy where I say what my radio husband Grant would say.

This is what couple therapy is all about, right?

Oh, please.

And let me just repeat to you, Grant, what you would say.

You would say that—

You’re going to leave out the obscenities, right?

Yes.

Okay.

That words have more than one meaning. Big deal.

You can say a cake is done, but you can also say that a person is done with—

Mm—

And, you know, if I said I’m finished, I mean, it doesn’t mean that I’m shellacked.

Right. Well, you might be. Are you now? But it doesn’t mean that you have a shiny coat from a chemical, right?

Well, no, no.

It means that whatever you are doing is now completed.

Yeah. So, Serene, I have moved beyond where your colleague is. I think it’s beyond. Maybe it’s behind.

But just to kind of rephrase all that, I agree with Martha. Thank you for agreeing with me.

But this has been passed along from teacher to student for a very long time.

And there’s no historical evidence whatsoever that should be any distinction at all between done and finished.

Except one tiny little thing.

Finished is slightly more formal.

That’s it.

Well, I think so.

You know, when somebody says, I’m done, I’m sorry.

I can’t help getting a mental picture of a little kid in a high chair saying, I’m done.

Yeah.

And if you’re finished, it’s just a slightly more elevated form of speech.

And that’s the only real difference between these two particular meanings of done and finished.

Maybe he went to finishing school.

Maybe he did.

Can he walk with a book on his head without it falling?

I don’t know.

Well, that makes me feel like I won that argument then.

You did.

But the other thing to say to your friend, even though he’s wrong on the content of his message, is he’s just got to stop telling the joke.

Right?

It was funny the first time, maybe the second.

Right.

It’s like a match.

It works the first time.

Yeah.

By the third time, just stop already.

We heard it.

Come up with something new.

So congratulations, Serene.

That’s great.

Thank you guys so much.

Sure.

No problem.

And we’ll link to some of those resources so you can check out the full detail on the history of done versus finished.

All right?

How are you going to break it to him?

He’ll be okay.

He will?

Bake it inside a cake.

Hold his hand while you’re telling him.

Thanks, Serene.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Share your language stories with us, 877-929-9673.

Or you can send those disputes to words@waywordradio.org.

Here’s an email from listener Hugh Alt.

He asks a question that a lot of people have sent to us.

He says, could you discuss at some point why entree in the U.S. means main dish,

While elsewhere it means what it suggests,

That is the dish at the beginning of the meal.

And there is a lot of confusion about that, right, Grant?

Because entree, you would think it would be the first thing.

Right.

If you know any French at all, you would expect that it means something first.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

But the trick is that in the 19th century, formal dining in Britain, the entree came later in the meal.

Because you started out usually with something like soup or fish.

And then you had the entree, which was the entree, so to speak, into the main roast or joint, as they would say.

So it wasn’t the entry point into the whole meal.

Right.

It was to the entry point into the piece de resistance.

Right.

The big thing.

Right.

The boar’s head with the knife stuck in it and the apple in its mouth, right?

Exactly.

Yes.

But that wasn’t the entree, but the entree was the lead up to that.

Some little saucy thing, right?

Yes.

Entree in English then kind of took its own legs and ran away and did something else and left French behind and said,

See you later, I’m going to become the main course myself, right?

Right.

And so if you understand the etymology, it’s a little confusing,

But we just kind of have to chalk it up to language changing out from underneath us.

Yes.

Right.

Well said.

Well, you can send us an email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org, or you can call us 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Phil Carrion.

I’m calling from West Covina, California.

I’m dating my girlfriend for about nine months,

And this really didn’t seem like a big deal at the time,

But it’s kind of grown into a fun debate between us.

She asked me one day, she goes, hey, what time is it?

And I went, it’s 10 of 5 or whatever it was.

She goes, and, you know, she kind of mockingly says, I don’t know what you mean.

And I went, it’s 10 minutes of 5.

She goes, of is not the proper use.

I went, well, it has to be.

I’ve been using this for years.

She goes, no, it can’t be right.

So now I said, well, it’s 10 minutes until 5, dear.

She goes, okay, okay.

So for the last five or six months, jokingly, I’ll say it’s, you know,

Three of midnight or whatever the case may be.

And she will always say, I don’t know what you mean.

So then I, of course, you know, play the game and say, well,

It’s three minutes until 10 or whatever it is.

So we finally got to a point where we’re like, okay, let’s take a bet.

I bet you I’m right.

She says, I bet you you’re wrong.

We’re going to email Martha and Grant.

What does she say, Phil?

She says it’s not the proper use of language.

But what does she use herself?

Till.

Till.

It’s five till four.

And how does she spell it?

T-I-L-L, I would assume.

Yeah, which means the same thing as until, right?

Of course, yeah.

Exactly.

I mean, there’s some people who say that T-I-L-L is too informal or something, but it’s just fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But does she ever say, or do either of you ever say, it’s quarter to five?

Yeah, he does.

Yes.

You say quarter of five.

No, I say quarter of five, yes.

Oh, okay.

And she’ll say it’s a quarter to five.

And why does this matter to her?

Because she likes, she takes every opportunity that she can to give me jabs.

In a fun way.

No, it’s a lot of fun.

Yeah, well, prepositions are handy for that.

Exactly.

She’s dating a caveman.

I only went to a few years of college, and she has three degrees.

Aha.

So it’s one of those things, and I’m well-spoken.

I work for a big company, deal with a lot of big clients and stuff.

So, you know, I try not to sound like a caveman, but we have fun with it, and, you know, and that’s where we are.

Yeah, I don’t think you sound like a caveman.

No, you sound fine.

Very well-spoken, as you say.

No.

No.

I think I grew up saying ten of five.

Only in Kentucky it was ten of five.

Ten of five.

Ten of five.

Yeah.

How funny.

Because here’s the big secret for your girlfriend.

Fiance? Girlfriend?

No, you know that, I’m hoping one day.

Okay.

It looks that way, but you know.

So here’s the secret.

There are millions of people like you, Phil,

And they also say things like quarter of five or ten of three and so forth.

Right.

That’s pretty well known.

It’s not the only way to say it, but neither is it incorrect.

Nice.

Well, we’re big fans, and she’s been on your show before, so we’re really big fans.

So she’ll trust our authority then.

Yes, of course.

Of course.

No, this is just a fun little debate that we had.

It’s a lot of fun.

Live long and prosper, friend.

Good to know.

Thank you, guys.

I really appreciate it.

Sure thing.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

All right, guys.

Bye-bye.

Well, what are you arguing about with your spouse?

Not the laundry, not the dishes, but something that she said or something that you wrote, right?

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Put in an email to words@waywordradio.org or find us on Facebook or Twitter.

Here are more of those things that people think make you sound old-fashioned or out of touch.

Okay.

This is from our Facebook page where there’s a lively discussion going on.

A lot of people have pointed out in Twitter as well that icebox makes you sound old.

Oh, yeah.

Just put that in the icebox, honey.

It’s a refrigerator or a freezer.

It’s not really an icebox anymore.

It used to be, yeah.

I like that, though.

There are a couple people who’ve replied in this long thread saying,

You know, a lot of these just seem homey to me and not old-fashioned.

So it’s a difference of opinion.

Right.

One wiseacre here, Gregory May, points out that super duper makes you sound out of touch in old fashion.

Hello.

That’s something I say all the time.

Who says that?

I told him it’s timeless.

Super duper will never be old.

Well, at least a couple of people said, what can I do you for?

And you say that all the time, too.

Yeah, but, you know, you and I are kind of like, we’re like crows or magpies.

We pick this stuff all across the wide history of English.

We’re old crows and magpies.

But we bring it all in.

We’re completely up to date and also very old-fashioned all at once, right?

That’s right, yes.

Drop us a line, join our Facebook discussion, send us a tweet, whatever.

Let us know what makes people sound old-fashioned or out of touch.

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

Stick around for more hot chat about language as A Way with Words continues.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

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

Hello, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

Hello, John.

Hello, Jenny.

Hello, Grant.

Hello, Martha.

How are you guys?

Super.

What’s happening up there?

What are you working on these days?

Let’s see.

What am I working on?

You know, making puzzles.

I’m making puzzles.

I made a crossword for a group of a magazine that goes out to supermarkets, and I do sorts

Of other things.

And I have a special project coming up I’ll tell you guys about soon.

A big secret, is it?

Yeah, a little bit.

A little bit.

In the lab.

Will we get it for Christmas?

I believe you probably will, yes.

Great.

Well, do you have a little present for us now?

I do.

You know, we’re all agreed that eventually the world will be overrun by the living dead

In a massive zombie apocalypse, right?

Yeah, sure.

We know that, right?

Yeah.

Either that or the rapture.

Pick one.

Right.

What I want to look at is how the world will change or not change once the dead walk again

And feast on the living.

So wait, you’re worried that we won’t be able to tell?

Yeah.

I think there may be places where you look around and you can’t even tell the difference.

That’s exactly what this puzzle is about.

Okay.

Now, this is a very special puzzle because I invited a friend of mine, a zombie friend of mine.

His name is Zombie Rob, who will tell you some things about life in a zombified world.

Now, I need you to tell me what he’s talking about.

If you don’t actually have Rob Zombie in the studio right there with you, I’m going to be so angry.

No, no, no.

This is Zombie Rob.

Oh, okay.

This is Zombie Rob.

This is his acquaintance, okay?

Okay.

Now let me bring him in.

Say hi to the people, Zombie Rob.

Now listen, before he goes on, I just want you to know,

All the answers to these clues will include the word dead.

Okay.

Okay.

Ready?

Yeah, we’re ready.

I can speak zombie.

Zombie Rob, work for postal service.

Zombie customers’ bad correspondence.

Address items incorrectly.

Dead Letter Office.

Zombie Rob put items here.

Dead Letter Office.

Very good, Zombie Rob.

Very good, Grant.

Yes, Dead Letter Office.

Okay, you guys continue.

You are not going to give every clue in the zombie voice, are you?

Don’t mean Zombie Rob.

Out of way, tall man.

No.

Zombie Rob’s sister’s ex-husband, not good zombie.

No pay alimony.

What kind of zombie that?

Deadbeat Dad.

Deadbeat Zombie.

Urgh.

Zombie Rob.

Spend time.

Zombie pirate ship.

Navigator.

Compass sextant broken.

How Zombie Rob determine position?

Zombie Rob sounds like Hulk.

Dead reckoning.

Dead reckoning.

Very good.

Unfortunately, Zombie Rob dropped his prepositions somewhere on the way to the studio.

So is there a Rob Zombie that I’m missing?

There is a Rob Zombie.

Okay.

All right.

He’s a musician and the director of horror movies and such.

I see.

I’m just representing all the listeners like me who have no idea what you’re talking about.

Talk about being out of touch and feeling old.

Okay.

Now, Zombie Rob’s feeling kind of bad that you guys are more concerned with Rob Zombie than him.

So pay a little attention to him, okay?

Zombies no listen radio.

Good thing.

Zombie Rob, not good radio host.

Forget to talk.

Dead air.

What?

That called – oh, yes, that called dead air, yes.

Good.

How about this?

Go on, Zombie Rob.

Zombies famous for shambling along.

All zombies run same speed.

Make track meets boring.

Every race end same way.

Dead heat.

Dead last.

Dead heat, dead last.

They’re all dead last.

It’s a dead heat.

Last one.

Zombie.

Government.

Democratic.

No get anything done.

Vote on this tie.

Vote on that tie.

Every time.

Deadlock.

Deadlock government.

Deadlock.

That quiz is dead and buried.

Thank you, guys.

You were actually fantastic.

Thank you, Zombie Rob.

Oh, no.

Thank you, John Terneski.

You great puzzle guy.

Oh, man.

If you’ve got some brains left, give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Send John a love letter to words@waywordradio.org.

And send your letters for Rob to the Dead Letter office.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there.

This is Mark Russell from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Mark. How are you?

Hey, Mark. What’s going on?

I’m good.

Well, I have kind of a strange question.

A friend of mine has normal speech for the most part,

Except in one word that I can pull out, and that’s garage.

His parents were both from Illinois, and he was born in California,

Lived there as a small child, and then moved to Texas early on.

And he doesn’t have much of an accent in any way that I can note, except for that one word.

And I’ve never heard it before.

He insists on clinging to that pronunciation.

I wondered if there’s some background to that way to say garage.

Say it again.

Garage.

Garage.

He’s thrown an extra R in there.

It’s a bonus R.

Free R’s for everyone.

Garage.

There are at least six pronunciations of that word, G-A-R-A-G-E, that I know, but that’s not one of them.

I don’t know.

Yeah.

He’s got an R insertion thing happening.

You usually hear it in wash or warsh, right?

Yeah.

Or Washington or Washington.

But I’ve never heard it in that word before.

Is that a thing, Martha?

Well, it is now, yeah.

Garage.

There’s one guy from Illinois.

We have a data point.

Put it on a map.

Where’s my push pin?

You know what?

I think I’ve heard that before, but I don’t know that it’s connected with any particular region or anything.

Maybe, does he not get out much?

Actually, he’s quite the social butterfly.

Oh, he is.

I don’t believe that’s it.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

Because I’ve heard several, as you said, Grant.

I mean, there’s garage and garage, if you’ve written, and garage.

I grew up saying garage.

What about you?

Yeah, exactly, garage.

And Mark, what about you?

Same here, garage.

So garage, garage, garage, garage, and this guy, garage, and I think there’s another one here.

Well, yeah, I’ve heard people say garage, just one word.

I’m going to put the car in the garage.

Well, tell him, go on and prosper, but just don’t spread it.

Okay, I’ll do that.

Mark, thanks so much for calling.

You bet.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Hey, you know, you never know.

One data point can turn into a map full of pins, right?

It could.

There could be a whole group out there.

Remember when we talked about the names for the end of a loaf of bread, the heels?

Oh, yes.

And we had the one.

Yeah, we had the Kronka.

It turned out to be Polish, right?

Right.

Who knew that that many people had Polish grandparents, right?

Who knew?

Oh, my gosh.

Is covered with red pins

Because all these people

Are like,

Yeah, my parents were,

My grandparents were Polish.

I know that word.

And we’re like,

Oh, mine weren’t.

So this guy in Illinois

Could be on to something.

Garage?

All of Illinois

Is going to rise up

And say,

Garage.

Garage.

Madam Garage.

It’s the second to our movement.

I bet there’s a Facebook group

Or there soon will be.

There.

Call us and tell us

What you think.

877-929-9673

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

And you can always find us on Facebook, too.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kim, and I’m calling from Chicago, Illinois.

Hi, Kim.

How are you both?

Super-duper, and yourself?

I’m doing great.

Well, I was sitting down with my son in the living room,

And we were, he’s learning to read.

And at the end of each of his little books, it says, The End.

And so he started asking me, you know, because obviously it looks like the.

And so I explained to him that if there’s a vowel after the word the that you pronounce it the.

And my husband, who is my walking dictionary, so he turns around from the computer.

He was working and he said, no, the and the are two different words. And I said, no, I remember

From grade school that you pronounce it a different way depending on the word that comes after it.

So we decided to bring in our 13-year-old who should be learning this about now or last year

And she had never heard of it.

And so I decided to write you.

And so then I put on my Facebook page

That I was going to be on A Way with Words

And how excited I was.

Kim, let’s go back just a second.

I want to ask you something about your husband.

You call him your walking dictionary

And yet he claimed that T-H-E is two words.

What did he mean by that?

He meant that there’s T-H-E-E and there’s T-H-E.

Well, those are different words,

But they’re not the same word.

That those are different words.

Yeah.

And that the is always pronounced the.

Oh, wow.

We just want to short-circus all the, I mean, it’s clear that you really touched a nerve with people.

This is kind of incredible.

I expect we’ll get a flood of email because we’re talking about this.

Yeah, I’m fascinated.

But you’ve got it right.

It’s all about.

I have it right.

Yeah, the consonant or vowel that follows controls the pronunciation of T-H-E.

Well, now, wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait one second.

The sound.

No, no, no, no, no.

So this is fascinating to me, Kim, because you’re teaching your kids this rule really early on,

That if the E in the word T-H-E comes before a vowel, then it’s a long E, right?

Right, right.

So it’s the apple.

Right, the apple, the ocean, the orange.

And if it comes before a consonant, then it’s more of a schwa sound, like the.

The dog, the cat, the car.

Right.

Yeah. Now, what fascinates me about this is that I somehow, my mother was an English teacher.

I had a good education. I never heard this for decades.

Me, I didn’t learn it until I was almost into my 30s.

Really?

Nobody ever told me this.

Me either.

I learned it in junior high, and it stuck with me.

I mean, I went through a K-8 school, so I learned it in either 7th or 8th grade.

And it stuck with me. It was one of those things that has stuck with me.

And I’m never wrong when it comes, I mean, I’m never wrong when it comes to things with English when it comes to my husband.

Yeah.

There’s an exception.

There is one exception, a little asterisk footnote here, which is for emphasis, you can say the in front of any word at all.

Yeah.

And you hear politicians do that a lot.

And Kermit the frog.

Right.

So if you’ve got a golden apple, you might say, this is the apple that fell from the tree and hit me on the head.

Yeah.

This is the radio show.

Yeah.

Not the other apple.

This apple.

This is the apple.

Yeah.

Right, right.

And there’s another thing here, too, which is, frankly, vowels tend to schwa in English.

So even when we say the E sound and we say it very briefly, a lot of times it still sounds like, oh, because we just talk so fast.

Right.

Vowels tend to go,

Yeah.

But you’re right that this was taught as a rule that if it comes before a vowel, it’s going to be an E sound.

If it comes before a consonant, it’s an

But somehow Grant and I missed it.

It went right over our heads.

And I had it pointed out to me, and I was shocked.

I was absolutely shocked.

Well, you know, this is a really interesting question, Kim.

We’re going to just explode this.

We’re going to set some C4 along the corners of the Internet and then step back a few hundred yards and light that fuse and see what happens, all right?

And if everyone wants to join us, find us on Facebook or Twitter or on our website in our discussion forums, and we’ll all talk about this together.

And if we come up with an answer, we’ll share it on a future show, okay?

This has been the most interesting call we’ve had in a while.

Not really.

So technically right, but…

No, completely right, but not everyone learned what you learned.

Yeah, you’re right.

That’s the rule, but it’s not always taught.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool, Kim, thanks.

Well, thank you for your help.

And props to you for educating that 13-year-old properly.

Have a great day.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

All right, bye-bye.

Okay, bye-bye.

If you’d like to get your voice on the air and talk to us about language and all kinds of goofy nonsense, 877-929-9673.

Or you can call Martha and tell her how brilliant she is.

Send in an email, words at wherewardradio.org.

And as we like to say, on Facebook and Twitter and everywhere else.

Grant, speaking of expressions that seem dated, how about out of sight, man?

That is so old.

That is so old.

It’s back there with groovy.

It’s no longer groovy.

But, you know, I say groovy sometimes.

Do you?

I’m conscious of the fact that it’s really before my time.

Right.

By the time I learned groovy, it was already old-fashioned.

Yeah.

And for a lot of people, they learned it from the Austin Powers movies anyway.

Right.

Or else they were reintroduced to it through the Austin Powers movies.

Yes.

But it’s funny when people don’t realize that it’s being reintroduced.

You know, they’ll hear a new song and think it’s a brand new song and it happens to be a cover of the Beatles or something.

Yeah.

I’ve heard people cover Beach Boys songs in a modern way, and then people hear the Beach Boys version, and they’re like, well, why are these guys covering this song?

No, they were the first.

They were there.

Brian Wilson did that a long time ago when you were not even thought of.

Your parents were still in high school.

Give us your examples of things that you’ve said that suddenly date you or things that you hear your parents say and you realize, they are from a different generation.

877-929-9673.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha.

Hi, Grant.

This is Adam Clevenger from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Hi, Adam. Welcome to the program.

Thank you. I’m really excited.

Every time I travel, I always listen to the show on podcast,

And the last couple episodes I had heard some questions about family sayings,

And I had one, and I wanted to find out a little bit more about my grandmother’s superstitions.

Whoa, your grandmother’s superstitions do tell.

She had one that I’ve never heard anyone else talk about,

And actually no one else in my family ever really talked about,

But she would always warn me against splitting a pole.

And it usually involved if we were walking down a sidewalk or a street

And we would happen to walk on either side of a pole or a mailbox

Or a light post or any sort of barrier.

But she also did say that there was a remedy, and the remedy was to say bread and butter as the two walked around this barrier.

So, you know, out of habit, I still continue, anytime my wife and I are walking someplace and we happen to split a pole, I will say bread and butter.

And the first time I had said this, my wife said, what are you talking about?

You know, I don’t know if this is a common phrase or a common superstition or what really its meaning is.

Yeah, well, I think that bread and butter is much more common than the idea of splitting the pole, which I’ve always seen as P-O-L-E, you know, like a pole standing there in front of you.

That’s right, yeah.

I’ve also seen don’t break the pole, that kind of thing.

And the idea is not to separate.

You know, you’re with somebody you care about and you don’t want to separate.

You want to stay as close together as bread and butter are when bread is buttered.

Right.

And it is a common superstition, but it goes by different names or no name at all.

It’s just a habit that people have.

And the don’t split the pole is one way of referring to it.

Lots of people know the bread and butter, by the way.

We did a call about that and got a lot of response.

And even found, I think it was an old Bugs Bunny cartoon where it’s used.

Yeah, Looney Tunes.

Looney Tunes.

Where there are tigers walking back.

You can probably find this on YouTube, Adam.

It’s two tigers walking in a cage back and forth.

I thought they were saying grandmother, grandmother, but they were saying bread and butter, bread and butter.

But you can probably find that on YouTube.

I guess in my case, that would make sense.

I would make sense.

I hadn’t thought about that.

Yeah.

But split the poll.

Don’t split the poll is a pretty common superstition.

You’ll find a number of references online.

You probably found them.

Quite a few refer to African-Americans who have this belief.

Yes.

And you’ll also find a small little Facebook page called Don’t Split the Poll.

Oh, really?

Of course, there’s a Facebook page for everything.

Yeah.

It’s got about 70 members.

And they describe don’t split the pole as when you walk into a doorway that has two doors and there’s a divider between them where the doors will latch.

And it’s when you go through the two doors, one on each side, rather than both of you going through the same door.

Oh, really?

And that’s their version.

This person who set up this page called it don’t split the pole.

So maybe it’s the idea of splitting around the pole, I guess, is the idea.

But you nailed it, Martha.

It’s about being separated from this person that you’re with.

It’s a physical separation that somehow represents some other kind of psychic or emotional separation.

And Adam, does your wife say anything back to you when you say that?

No, she just accepts it.

And it’s really, it’s not for superstition or anything like that.

And for me, it’s just, I guess, just out of habit.

I don’t even know sometimes when I do it.

Well, you know, if you want her to participate in it, she can say, come to supper.

You know, there’s some call and response there in some of the traditions.

Oh, interesting.

One person says bread and butter, and the other person says cheese and cherries,

Or the other person says come to supper.

Bread and butter, come to supper.

I kind of like that.

And good for you for carrying on your grandmother’s tradition.

Oh, that’s great.

Well, I look forward to continuing the tradition then.

Excellent.

And I like adding the callback or the response as well.

Yeah.

What is it, cheese and cherries?

Well, I like come to supper.

You can say bread and butter, and she can say come to supper.

I like that.

Okay, very nice.

Adam, thanks so much for calling.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

877-929-9673

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

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.

And by the fifth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

Ten years in the making with 10,000 new words and senses.

More at ahdictionary.com.

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

And I’m Martha Barnette.

If you’ve ever tried to learn a foreign language,

You’ll probably be as amazed as I was by the story of a 19th century Catholic priest named Giuseppe Mezzofanti.

In the early 1800s, tourists to the city of Bologna returned home with these rapturous accounts of this priest’s extraordinary abilities when it came to language. He himself claimed to speak between 40 and 50 foreign languages. But was that really true? And what was his secret?

People who can speak at least six languages fluently are known as hyperpolyglots. They’re sort of the Olympic athletes of language. But what is it about them that makes it easy to become fluent in all those languages when you and I struggle to master just one? And are there any modern-day mezzofantes?

Well, those are some of the questions that Michael Erard set out to explore in his new book. It’s called Babble No More, The Search for the World’s Most Extraordinary Language Learners. Now, Grant, as you know, Michael Erard has a background in linguistics, but he’s also one of the few people who happen to know how to write a book about language that reads like a mystery.

He travels the world to interview hyperpolyglots. Polyglots. He delves into neuroscience and takes a look at the preserved brain tissue of gifted language learners. He uses his online survey to find 167 hyperpolyglots all around the world, and he uncovers some surprising answers about what a lot of them have in common.

Now, this is a book that’s really chewy with information. I can’t possibly go into all of it here, but let me just say that I blame the author for a couple of sleepless nights because this is a guy who knows how to write a linguistic cliffhanger. And along the way, you’ll appreciate this, he tosses in some really nice turns of phrase. Like, for example, at one point, he describes his own experience of taking a college-level Russian class. And this is a horrible class. The teacher is awful, super boring, grammatical rules and drills. And Grant, you’ll appreciate this, he says of that dry, dusty language professor’s style, he taught like a jaded stripper.

Isn’t that fabulous? I’ve had, unfortunately, I’ve had a couple of language professors like that. And, you know, that’s no way to teach a foreign language. It doesn’t have to be that way. I got an advanced look at this book, and Grant, obviously, I thoroughly enjoyed it. And you can find out more about it at babblenomore.com. That’s babble like the tower, babble, B-A-B-E-L, babblenomore.com.

Thanks, Martha. It sounds like a wonderful book. If you’ve got a language book that we should tell our listeners about, drop us a line, words@waywordradio.org, or let us know on the telephone, 877-929-9673.

Hi, you have A Way with Words. Hi, my name is Tracy, and I’m calling from Dallas, Texas. Welcome, Tracy. What’s up? Well, I had a question. It’s been bothering me for several years. My question is, is there a word that is defined as the way words feel when they’re spoken? So, like, it has nothing to do with what the words mean. For example, I like the way the word suitcase feels, the combination of syllables, but I don’t like the word rural or the way that feels. Suitcase versus rural.

I could see that. What do you like about saying the word suitcase? I guess it’s just, I don’t know. It’s not that you like to travel, right? Right. It’s just the way it feels in my mouth and on my tongue. Interesting. Tracy, so if you say the word suitcase for you, it’s like, I don’t know, biting into a delicious piece of Belgian chocolate or sipping coffee that you really like. I mean, is it like food? It might be kind of similar to that. It’s harder for me to find a word that I like. It’s a lot easier for me to find a word that I really don’t like.

That’s interesting. That’s interesting because I think of wine tasting, you know, and how they talk about mouthfeel, the way the wine feels. That’s what I was thinking. Sort of rounded or velvety. And it requires that you venture into the territory that’s almost unexplainable because it’s based in describing our physical sensations to a degree that we usually don’t bother. Right. And that’s why I’ve been so frustrated because I’m a writer, and I’ve tried to express this concept many times over the years, and it’s like if there was just a word defined this, maybe it wouldn’t be so difficult.

Tracy, even if we can come up with a word for you, you’re still stuck because you’re still going to have to explain that word because it must be rare. Nobody knows it. And I would think as a writer that you might have more enjoyment in the process of explaining why you enjoy the sensation of saying a word more than you would simply just slotting a single word into that space where otherwise you might need a page or a paragraph. Well, that’s true. I hadn’t thought about that.

I think there’s a word for that. We interviewed Roy Blunt Jr. about his book Alphabet Juice. It’s in a podcast on our website. And he uses a word in that book and in the follow-up book Alphabet or Juice, sonicky, S-O-N-I-C-K-Y. And it basically describes exactly what you’re referring to. This idea that they sound kind of the way they mean. So it’s a little bit about meaning, but they come from your mouth with some kind of clue as to the way that they’re to be received. For example, fuzzy or sleek, right? Fuzzy is a little fuzzy because of the Zs and sleek is a little sleek because of the Es. But that does refer to the meaning. And it’s kind of like mouthfeel in that it’s not quite right.

And then there’s the German word, and pardon me if my German pronunciation isn’t very good. Martha, you know this one, right? Sprockfuhl? Sprockfuhl or something. It’s S-P-R-A-C-H-G-E-F-U-H-L, usually with double dots over the U. But that’s more a feel for the language. It’s a feel for… Yeah. So it’s not quite right either. It sounds like what you’re describing is sort of a low-grade synesthesia in a way. You know, are you familiar with that book? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, The Man Who Tasted Shapes. Or perhaps kinesthesia, right? The relation of thought to movement. I was thinking of that earlier. I had that word in my head. We’re going to keep looking for you and see if we can come up with something else. Those are the best candidates that we have. Sonnike, Sprachgefühl, and Mouthfeel. But none of them are quite right. Somewhere in the intersection of those three words maybe is our answer.

All right. Well, I think the synesthesia part and the kinesthetic element is kind of where my brain is on it. And mouth feels very close, too. Okay. Very good. Thanks for calling, Tracy. If you come up with anything or will come up with anything, we’ll trade messages, all right? Oh, excellent. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.

We were talking earlier about terms that are intelligible to one generation and not another, or maybe understood differently by one generation and not the other. Here’s a great one on our Facebook page from Melissa Van Orch. She says, my mother reminds my father to pack his rubbers on business trips. They are the rubber pullovers for his polished business shoes in case of rain, not anything else that might come to mind. She’s not encouraging extra marital activities. No, no, she wants him to take his galoshes. But I can totally see that. Sure, yeah. There’s a problem there, right?

Have you used a word or phrase that you realize made you sound old-fashioned or out of touch? Call us and let us know, 877-929-9673. Or if you’re a little more hip, send us an email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, this is Alvaro Michaels from Dallas, Texas. Hi, Alvaro. Welcome to the program. Thank you. What can we help you with today? Well, my question is, you know words like not and no, where there’s a K-N at the beginning, but the K you never pronounce it, right? Mm— Well, I was wondering, was there ever a time in English history where they did pronounce that K? Yes, there was. There was? Yeah, there was. Yes, indeed. You’re absolutely right. Well, in Old English, for sure. I mean, the word for not, like the thing that you tie, was knotta. Mm— And over time, we lost that. The linguistic process is called apharisis. A-P-H-E-R-S-I-S, apharisis. And it comes from Greek words that mean to take off. And it means taking off the first letters or first sounds from a word. So they disappear through some natural kinds of changes that happen as language is spoken over time.

And know, K-N-O-W, is a particularly interesting example because it has cognates in French and Spanish and other languages that come from the same root and they mean roughly the same thing.

So in Spanish, Martha, to know is conocer.

And this hard C sound at the beginning is still pronounced.

And in French, it’s, my French is…

Connaître.

Yeah, connaître.

C-O-N-N-A-I-T-R-E.

And so they still have that hard C sound where it’s been lost in English.

Yeah, and there are quite a few examples of those, Alvaro.

Knight, like a knight in shining armor was knicht earlier on.

And you see that in a lot of the Germanic languages too,

Where it’s like knife started with a K sound as well.

What got you to thinking about that?

Oh, I don’t know.

It just came to me one day.

Sometimes I just think about random things.

And then that just came to me.

I just thought, well, I wonder if there ever was a time where you did pronounce that K.

There absolutely was.

Also, so I guess the same kind of process applies to words like gnat,

Where there’s a G in front of the N, but you don’t pronounce that.

I’m not sure about the history of gnat.

It’s definitely from a Germanic root.

They may come from different sources.

We also have the rock, G-N-E-I-S-S, right?

The type of stone.

It’s a type of bedrock, right?

Is it a volcanic bedrock?

Is that what it is?

That sounds familiar.

And, of course, gnu, which is so confused from all the puns and jokes that’s made in poetry

That half the population doesn’t know whether or not the G is silent or pronounced.

Yeah, it’s really gnarly.

Because so often in the joking about these words, we pronounce them and then we get confused about which is correct.

It’s interesting.

English is a strange thing.

I call it a fractal made of Mobius strips.

It’s a strange little beastie with all kinds of oddities and historical relics.

And I don’t think I’d ever want to strip it down to pure spelling.

We could never agree on it, for one thing, but also we’d lose some of that curiosity.

Well, we’ll talk to you later.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you’ve got your knickers in a twist about something to do with language,

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Send us email to words@waywordradio.org.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter or SmokeSignalsWork.

We’re talking about the things that people say that make them seem old-fashioned or out of touch.

There was a Reddit discussion that we’ll link to, and I wanted to share a couple that I liked.

One says that her friend’s mom, when teaching a church class, would call a mistake a boner,

Which of course means a completely different thing to a certain set of Americans.

Oh, yeah, you young whippersnappers.

I remember hearing that.

It was just a mistake, right?

Yeah, a goof.

A goof.

And then another one is this fellow says, or it could be a woman.

It’s hard to tell with those nicks on Reddit.

They said that their dad asked if they were doing the pot.

And then when this person left, their dad said, I know you are because I found your being.

My being.

So there’s two things happening there.

One is this article, there’s no reason for the pot.

It’s just pot or marijuana or MJ, whatever you want to call it, right?

Right.

And then to get the name kind of wrong, right?

Yeah, that the is, or the, is a really, is a telltale kind of shibboleth, right?

Like the internet, the internet.

Yeah, and then getting the name a little bit wrong, interweb, or your interface web tube.

I’ll put it on the Facebook.

Share your expressions, the things that people say that make them seem old-fashioned or out of touch.

words@waywordradio.org, or give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, Grant, this is Andy from Independence, Missouri.

Hi, Andy. How are you doing?

Hello.

I’m doing well. Hey, Martha.

What’s up?

My grandpa died several years ago, but we recently passed what would have been his 105th birthday.

Oh, wow.

And as we passed that date, I happily recalled some of the things that I remembered the most about him.

One of the things that I remembered was that he taught all of his kids, and they taught all of their kids, the names of their toes.

Those names are Tom Pumpkin, Long Larkin, Betty Pringle, Johnny Jingle, and Little Dick.

Now, we asked him late in his life where those names had come from, but he couldn’t remember.

It has, however, become quite tradition within our extended family.

I’ve passed this down to my kids, but it seems to lack some of the staying power that it had with my generation.

It seems like such a wonderful thing to pass down and to keep as something to connect our extended family.

And I’m hoping that some backstory might give it a little more bite.

Hopefully that’s where you guys come in.

That’s a really good question.

So say the names of the toes again from largest to smallest.

They are Tom Pumpkin, Long Larkin, Betty Pringle, Johnny Jingle, and Little Dick.

Oh, yeah, but there are lots of different little names like that.

There’s a whole collection online.

Little P, Penny Rue, Judy Whistle, Mary Tossie, and Big Tom Bumble.

I guess maybe that’s going in the other direction.

There’s a website called mamalisa.com.

If you Google the origins of Scandinavian toe naming rhymes or some variation, you’re going to come up with this.

Because it’s a very common page with tons of comments from people relating the names for the toes that they use.

And most of them are Scandinavian, but some of them are English.

But also, what I want to refer you to is Mother Goose’s nursery rhymes from 1919.

Yeah, this will give you a little backstory.

There are a couple different rhymes in there.

We all know the really common Mother Goose rhymes, but there are all these rarer ones that, as people have adapted that book or republished it, tend to get left out.

And there’s one about Little Betty Pringle, which is one of the toe names that you named.

And there’s one about Johnny Pringle, which is not quite the name that you gave, which was Johnny Jingle, but it’s close.

Little Betty Pringle, she had a pig. It was not very little and not very big.

When he was alive, he lived in clover, but now he’s dead and that’s all over.

That’s so sad.

Johnny Pringle, he sat down and cried.

Betty Pringle, she laid down and died.

So there was an end of one, two, and three.

Johnny Pringle, he.

Betty Pringle, she.

And Piggy Wiggy.

And this is a rhyme about the toes.

We all know about toes being called piggies, right?

Sure.

So a few of the names are in common.

One of the names is exactly the same.

One is similar and the others are different.

But still, we can get a sense here that perhaps your grandfather got a couple of his names

Through some oral tradition that was connected to the Mother Goose rhymes.

That’s what I’m thinking, yeah.

Well, that’s fantastic. So it’s not necessarily specifically from one place, but picked up pieces and bits here and there.

No, we’ll link to this mamalisa.com page. It’s really fantastic.

All of these people have chimed in with a certain amount of, I think there’s glee in their voices.

They’re enthusiastic about sharing this particular thing that most of them remember from their own childhoods.

And so there’s fondness involved with that and memories of closeness to family and that sort of thing.

Yeah, like I said, that’s just something that kind of connects us all and hopefully keeps it alive.

And Andy, did you say that you were having a hard time passing this along to the next generation?

Yeah, they just don’t seem to be quite as interested in it.

But I’m hoping that maybe, you know, when it comes time and they have kids that they’ll remember it.

Then they will.

Then they’re going to understand a lot, right?

Yep.

Well, good for you for passing it on.

Well, thank you very much.

Thanks for calling, Andy.

We really appreciate it.

All right.

Bye-bye.

If you have names or rhymes for your toes, give us a call.

Let us know.

877-929-9673 or explain it in email to words at waybirdradio.org.

We had so much fun with that game, What Would You Serve?

Remember that, Grant?

Yeah.

What would you serve a plumber when it comes to dinner?

You serve him leeks.

Well, we got a great example from Nina Jaffe, who listens to us in Burlington, Vermont.

She wants to know, what dessert would you serve to a baseball player?

Mounds.

Oh, that’s good.

Mounds.

I hadn’t thought about that.

I don’t know.

What was her answer?

I bet it’s better.

What you would serve to a baseball player for dessert is bunt cake.

Nice.

Good.

Love it.

I love bunt cake.

Yeah.

Yeah, we’d love to have more of your what would you serve questions.

The whole idea is you pick a profession and find a food that has some kind of pun or homonym.

Got a joke in there?

Send it along, 877-929-9673 or words@waywordradio.org.

Things have come to a pretty pass.

That’s our show for this week.

You can leave us a message even when we’re not on the air, 877-929-9673 or by email, the address is words@waywordradio.org.

Stay in touch with us all week on Facebook and Twitter.

You can listen to all our past shows by downloading them at waywordradio.org, or you can get the podcast on iTunes.

Stefanie Levine is our senior producer.

Our technical director and editor is Tim Felten.

Tim also chooses our music.

We’ve had production help this week from Josette Herdell and James Ramsey.

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

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

Thanks for listening. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. Ta-ta.

Adios.

Neither, either, either.

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