You’re a Card

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jamie McLaughlin. I’m calling from Jacksonville, Florida.

Hi, Jamie. Welcome to the program.

Hi, how are you?

All right.

Listen, I heard you guys talking about the origin of some interesting words on your radio show the other day, and I got to thinking about a conversation that I had with my roommate one night concerning the word card. We were talking about something, and I guess I was trying to come off as being funny, and I said, yeah, I’m a real card. And I’m 36 years old, and he’s 19 years old. And he said, a card? And I said, yeah, you know, a card. He said, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. He said, you meant a credit card or what? A debit card? Yeah, I mean, he was genuinely confused.

Nice.

And I said, you know, a card. You know, somebody that’s, you know, the way I understand it, someone who’s, you know, I guess quick-witted and funny, you know, with the jokes and stuff. Mm— It kind of got me thinking. I was wondering if it had something to do with possibly the card associated with, say, a boxing fight, or maybe even going as far back to, like, vaudeville. So someone who’s maybe on a card for a show or something like that. I really just have no idea where it comes from, and that’s why I call it the show.

Very nice. Interesting theories. What do you think, Martha?

I think they’re good, colorful theories.

Colorful, huh?

Yeah.

But do they hold water?

Well, I think that we’re not 100% sure about the origin of this, but we have a pretty good guess about it. And it’s not nearly as fun as your idea is. You are a card.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

Apparently, it just goes back to the whole idea of playing cards.

Oh, I see. Because we’ve had so many other terms come from playing cards, right? A house of cards. If you play your cards right. Having a full deck. Right. You play this or that card. Yeah, not playing with a full deck, which can also be somebody who’s a card. And for a while there, Jamie, there were uses of card that were more metaphorical, like a sure card was a sure bet, or a wild card went from being something in a game to just, you know.

To programming terminology.

To programming terminology.

What?

Oh, you mean like the asterisks?

Yeah, computer programming, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, and then just generally in life a wild card is. So a sure card, if somebody’s a sure card, it means that they’re kind of a known value and they’re guaranteed to do or be the thing that you want them to do or be, right?

Yeah, to be a success.

Yeah.

And it appears that that habit of adding an adjective to card to create some kind of metaphorical idea just sort of fell away at some point.

Isn’t that boring?

That’s so boring compared to a boxing hat.

So it went from sure card to an old card or a good card.

Yeah, or a knowing card.

So card just became to refer to a person, right?

Yeah.

It became so ubiquitous that they just dropped the preceding adjective altogether.

Yeah, it sounds like it.

And I see here, I’m looking, it says something about eccentricity or peculiarity, and that’s probably the starting point of the card being a funny person.

Right, right. Because these days, if you’re a card, you’re pretty much just somebody who’s hilarious, right?

Yeah, I think there was sort of a transitional period of it being sort of an original. You know, he’s a card, he’s one of a kind. And then it became there’s nobody as funny as he is or nobody as hilarious as he is. And now that’s all we have left.

Right.

So it’s not nearly as picturesque as what you’re suggesting, Jamie.

You must be a card.

Well, I definitely never would have figured that out if I hadn’t called the show, and it definitely answers the question for me. So thank you very much.

All right.

Thanks, Jamie.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

So the kids say one thing and the old people say another, and they’ve got to meet in the middle. Call us to find out how to do that, 877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.