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Podcast title	A Way with Words
Website URL	http://www.waywordradio.org
Description	A Way with Words is a lively hour-long public radio show about language, on the air since 1998. Author Martha Barnette and dictionary editor Grant Barrett take calls about slang, grammar, old sayings, word origins, regional dialects, family expressions, and speaking and writing well. Join them on the air at 1-877-929-9673, via email at words@waywordradio.org, or on the web at http://waywordradio.org/.
Updated	Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:02:00 GMT
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Category	Society & Culture Arts Education
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1. Ground Game (minicast) - 1 Dec. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 1.04Mb) Description: We're continuing our look at some of the words of the year of 2008. Being an election year, it generated a huge amount of political language. One expression that was not new, but which certainly seems to have exploded in use, was 'ground game.' Ground game is a political term that refers to the door-to-door, one-on-one tactics used in the presidential campaigns. The victory of the Obama campaign, in particular, has been widely credited to its voter registration drives, its organized efforts to sway undecided or independent voters, its email lists, and its repeated reminders of when and where to vote. Ground game has its roots in sports. In football, playing a ground game is about not kicking or passing, but pushing the ball step by step toward the goal with scrimmaging. It's a slog to the end zone, but it avoids investing too much hope on a single play. In martial arts, a ground game is the kind of fighting that happens on the mat or floor, as opposed to the kicking and punching that happens when standing up. It puts the combatants face-to-face. This, too, is a tough slog toward victory, though perhaps a more sure one as it does not rely on a miraculous kick or punch. That's all about 'ground game.' Next week we'll talk about the acronym 'PUMA.' -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
2. Moonbats and Wingnuts - 1 Dec. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: [This episode first aired September 20, 2008.] Here's a bit of political slang now making the rounds: sleepover. No, we're not talking about another pol caught with his pants down. We're talking about spending the night with, well, a voting machine. In this week's episode, we examine this and other examples of political language. You call the repairman to fix a balky garage door, but when he gets there, it inexplicably works. You summon a plumber, only to find that when he arrives, your toilet's no longer leaking--and you're out $150. Or you discover that somewhere between your home and the doctor's office, your kid's sore throat miraculously healed. A caller in Traverse City, Michigan, is tearing her hair out over this phenomenon, which she calls "phixophobia." But, she asks, might there be an even better word for the way inanimate objects seem to conspire against us? We think so: resistentialism. Great Scott! You've heard the expression. But who was Scott and why was he so great? Or was he an impressive Scotsman? Martha and Grant can't say for sure, although the evidence points toward a Civil War soldier who happened to go by that name. Our hosts bandy about some more political slang terms and explain their meaning and origin. Or did you already know the difference between a moonbat and a wingnut? Quiz Guy John Chaneski strikes up the band, begins the beguine, and treats Martha and Grant to musical quiz. Warning: Songs may be sung. Not to worry, though--all three have promised to keep their day jobs. If someone handed you something and told you to stick it in your jockey box, where would you put it? A Baltimore caller who grew up in Utah says when he used this term on a road trip with a friend, his pal was flummoxed. Is jockey box an expression peculiar to one part of the country? Is that oh-so-handy sticky stuff called "duct tape" or "duck tape"? An Emmy-nominated filmmaker is wondering, specifically because he has to instruct narrators to be careful to avoid running together a T sound at the end of a word with the T sound at the beginning of a word. And that has him further wondering if such elision of consonants has created other terms. We offer him an answer and a glass of ice tea. Or would that be iced tea? It's Obamarama time! We discuss the growing number of plays on the name of the Democratic presidential candidate. A North Carolina pediatrician is this week's contestant for an animal-themed version of our slang quiz. He tries to figure out the meaning of dead cat bounce and pigeon pair. A caller's question about the word wonky, in the sense of askew, leads to a broader question: What makes a word slang, anyway? Why do we say something is jet black? Does it have to do with the color of a 747's exhaust? Or skid marks on the runway? Or something else entirely? We provide a color with a mineralogical answer. A listener phones with his pet restaurant peeve: When your waiter ask, "Are you working on that?" Martha and Grant agree and pile on with gusto. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
3. Dust Bunnies and Ghost Turds - 23 Nov. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: Feeling fankled? It's a Scots English word that means "messed up" or "confused." In this week's episode, Grant and Martha also discuss a whole litter of synonyms for "dust bunny," a slew of different terms for the piece of playground equipment you slide on, and the proper way to refer to a baby platypus. When you were growing up, what did you call that piece of playground equipment that you climb up and then slide down? A former New Jersey resident recalls that when her family moved to Indiana, her playmates were startled when she called it a sliding board. They called it simply a slide. So is sliding board a regional term? Yes, indeed. Depending on where you grew up, you might have spent your childhood whooshing down a sliding pon, a sliding pond, or a sliding pot. Then there's the British name for it, chute, as well as Yiddish glistch, and Australian slippery dip. You know the type: Those guys whose everyday wardrobes are the fashion equivalent of oatmeal, with nothing fancier than khaki pants and knit shirts. One such fashion minimalist wonders if there's a specific terms for guys like him. He puts the question this way: "What's the opposite of a clothes horse?" Martha and Grant try to come up with a suit-able term. "Label-agnostic," maybe? Quick! That stuff under your bed--what do you call it? Dust bunnies? House moss? Beggar's velvet? Ghost turds? Those fluffy little puffballs go by lots of different names. But a caller is perplexed by his mother's term for those ever-multiplying dustwads: slut's wool. Quiz Guy Johnny C--a.k.a. John Chaneski--works his magic with a new puzzle called "Three's a Charm." The object of the game is to figure out the one word that can be placed in front of each of three other words to form three new, understandable terms. Like this: What one word fits before the words "surgery," "history," and "exam"? We thought "rectal" might work, but turns out it didn't. How about the phrase "on the ball"? A listener wonders if its origin derives from a landing maneuver on aircraft carriers. Does his theory hold water? If you're of a certain age, you may be surprised when someone asks you "hit me up"--and even more so when it turns out he's asking you to call him on his cell phone. Grant explains how "hit me up" began to take on a new meaning. If someone calls you a "notorious" singer, should you be flattered or insulted? An Indiana caller says he's hearing the word notorious used in a positive way, and wonders whether this adjective be reserved for describing things in a negative way, as in "a notorious criminal." For this week's episode of Slang This!, we turn the tables on our other Quiz Guy, Greg Pliska. Greg has to figure out the difference between "dusting" and "simping," and between "johnny pump" and "reverse toilet." Those last two sound like things you definitely wouldn't want to confuse. A biology student at Stanford University has a question that's surely on the minds of many listeners: Is there's an official term for "baby platypus"? He's heard the term "puggle" used to denote these cute little critters, but is unsure if "puggle" is a legitimate scientific term. Martha reports on some listeners' neologisms for the north-south equivalent of "bicoastal." So far, their suggestions for people who make those long, longitudinal commutes have been limited to the left coast, including: No-Cals, Yo-Cals, Bi-Vivants, and Verti-Cals. Have a better word? Tell us here. http://tinyurl.com/6ycaug "Full fathom five thy father lies..." When the Bard wrote these immortal words, he was talking about the word "fathom" as a measure of distance. But a Chicago caller can't quite fathom the meaning of the verb "to fathom." The hosts help him get his arms around this term. ... Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
4. Nuke the Fridge - 23 Nov. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 1.03Mb) Description: We kick off our series on contenders for 2008's "Word of the Year" with a look at "nuke the fridge." The American Dialect Society will hold the 19th annual "Word of the Year" vote in January. It's the granddaddy of all word of the year votes--the longest running, the most academic, and the most fun. And as we approach January 9th in San Francisco, we'll be talking here, in these minicasts, about some of the likeliest candidates. One very odd one that caught our eye was "nuke the fridge." Putting it politely, it means to exhaust the possibilities or merits of a movie franchise. Putting it negatively, it means to destroy a movie franchise through the hubris and arrogance of a successful producer or director. The term was coined based upon a scene in the latest Indiana Jones movie, in which the hero survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. "Nuke the fridge" is patterned after "jump the shark," which was coined a few years ago to refer to anything that had peaked in popularity or quality and was now on a downward slide. Jumping the shark referred to an episode on the sitcom Happy Days in which Fanzine water-skied over a shark, a moment thought by Happy Days aficionados (there are such things!) to be the surest sign of the show's decline. That's all about "nuke the fridge." Next time we'll talk about "ground game." -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
5. A Year of Words - 17 Nov. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: It's that time again, when people start thinking about a 'new or resurgent word or phrase that best captures the spirit of the past year.' And what a year! We heard the words 'bailout' and 'lipstick' more times than we'd ever dreamed, and saw also the rise of invented words like 'staycation' and 'recessionista.' What are your nominations for 2008's Word of the Year? 'Do English-speaking foreigners understand you better if you speak English with a foreign accent?' A Californian says that on a recent visit to Armenia, he discovered the locals had an easier time if he spoke English with an Armenian accent. Is this okay or could it be seen as condescending? 'Buckaroo' is an English word adapted from the Spanish word <i>vaquero</i>, meaning 'cowboy.' Is there a specific term for the linguistic process whereby such words are adapted into English? Martha nominates another Word of the Year candidate: 'Joe the,' as in 'Joe the Plumber,' and subsequent variations on the 'X the Y' formula arising from a certain drain-fixer's quarter-hour of fame. Quiz Guy John Chaneski stops by with a quiz about superlatives. Naturally, his name for the quiz is 'Best. Puzzle. Ever.' Why do we say someone's 'bright-eyed and bushy-tailed'? Your chipper, chattering hosts are ready with the 'sciurine' answer. 'http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sciurine&r=66< br/> An Indiana woman shudders every time anyone uses the expression 'comprised of.' She wants to know if she's right that it's bad grammar, and more important, is she right to be a stickler about it? Martha and Grant discuss some other Word of the Year candidates, including 'hockey mom' and 'hypermiling.' The term 'Chinese fire drill' can mean either a 'state of confusion' or the adoloscent ritual involving a red light and a carful of rowdy teenagers. But a caller who overheard the expression at work worries that expression might be racist. This week's slang quiz challenges a Seattle video game designer to pick out the correct slang terms from a mishmash of possible answers, including 'hammantaschen,' 'party party,' 'play pattycake,' and 'get off.' In 2008, is using the term 'jive turkey' politically incorrect, or just a little dorky-sounding? A Las Vegas schoolteacher jokingly used it with her students, then had second thoughts. Grant sets her mind at ease. It's raining, it's pouring, but the sun is still shining. Quick--what do you call that? Some folks refer to it a 'sunshower,' and others call it a 'monkey's wedding.' But a woman says her Southern-born mother used a much more unnerving expression: 'The devil's beating his wife.' Martha and Grant discuss the possible origins of this expression and its variants, like 'The devil is beating his wife and the angels are crying.' Around the world, this meteorological phenomenon goes by an astonishing range of names. In Lithuanian, the name translates as 'orphan's tears.' In Korean, 'a tiger is getting married.' Here's a list of many more, collected a few years ago by linguist Bert Vaux: http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-1795.html Wh ich of the following three factors has the 'biggest influence on a person's accent'? Is it your geographic location, your family, or the media? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
6. Of Gossamer and Geese (minicast) - 10 Nov. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 1.72Mb) Description: It's a warm day in late autumn. You're out for a stroll in the country. If the air is still, and the sun is at just the right angle, you may see the glint of spider threads floating lazily in the air. Particularly at this time of year, some tiny spiders use an odd way to travel: They shoot out threads of their own silk, and then hitch a ride on the breeze. Entomologists call this technique 'ballooning.' Walt Whitman described it in a poem, writing of a 'noiseless patient spider' launching forth 'filament, filament, filament, out of itself. / Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them....' And the word for these silky threads? 'gossamer.' It's a beautiful word, gossamer--almost sounds like itself, doesn't it? This term's meaning has come to extend to anything 'flimsy, insubstantial, or gauzy.' .' Cole Porter sang of 'a trip to the moon on gossamer wings.' And Charlotte Bronte wrote of 'a gossamer happiness hanging in the air.' So how did spider silk ever get the name 'gossamer'? It seems the spider's filaments take their name from an old word for late autumn. In this country, that period is often called 'Indian Summer.' But in Britain, the same period was long known as 'St. Martin's summer,' a reference to Martin's feast day, November 11. Centuries ago, though, speakers of Middle English referred to this period as 'gosesomer'--a name that means 'goose summer.' Why the goose in goose summer? That's where things get a little hazy. The most likely explanation is that early November traditionally was the time when people feasted on fattened geese. In fact, an old German word for November literally translates as 'geese month.' The name for this warm period, goosesummer, was later applied to the phenomenon that country folk observed at that time of year, those silky, gossamer threads floating in the autumn air. It seems that over the years, just like those tiny spiders, the word 'gossamer' has drifted a long way. ... You'll find the Walt Whitman poem here: http://www.internal.org/view_poem.phtml?poemI D=222 For more about gossamer, including Henry David Thoreau's fascination with it, check out 'Beneath the Second Sun: A Cultural History of Indian Summer,' by Adam W. Sweeting. http://tinyurl.com/56odbo -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
7. Pwned Prose, Stat! - 10 Nov. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: [This episode first aired September 13, 2008.] When you get to the end of a wonderful book, your first impulse is to tell someone else about it. In this week's episode, Martha and Grant discuss what they've been reading and the delights of great prose. An Illinois man recalls that as a kid, he used to mix fountain drinks of every flavor into a concoction he and his friends called a 'suicide.' He wonders if anyone else calls them that. Why a 'suicide'? Because it looks and tastes like poison? It started as a typo for 'own,' now it's entrenched in online slang. A Kentucky caller is curious about 'pwn.' It rhymes with 'own' and means 'to defeat' or 'to triumph over.' Our hosts talk about a special meaning of 'own' in the computer-gaming world. Quiz Guy John Chaneski is Havana good time with Martha and Grant on an round-the-world 'International Puzzle Hunt' that will leave you Beijing for more. You seem to hear it on all the television hospital dramas: 'stat!' A physician says she knows it means 'immediately,' but she doesn't know its origins. Quick! Is there a Latin expert in the house? A San Diego fisherman notes that he hears mariners talk about 'snotty weather.' 'Snotty?' Is it the kind that gives you the sniffles? Or is does it cop an attitude? Do you ever stare at a word so long that you think it's mispellllled? Even though it isn't? Your dialectal duo hunt up a word for that phenomenon. Grant and Martha reveal what books are on their own nightstands, waiting to be read. Just the top of the stacks, natch, because there are just too many. This week's 'Slang This!' contestant tries to guess the meaning of the terms 'liver rounds' and 'put the bite on someone.' An Indianapolis woman who grew up in the South says that when her slip was showing, her father used to say, 'Who do you think you are, Miss Astor'?' Martha shares other euphemisms for slips showing. If someone sidles up to you and says, 'Pssssst! Mrs. White is out of jail,' it's time to check your hemline. You can tell someone's an 'A Way with Words' listener when they confess to lying awake at night wondering about questions like, 'Are the words 'fillet' and 'flay' etymologically related?' A Minnesotan has been observing his infant babbling, and wonders if words like 'mama' and 'papa' arise from sounds that babies naturally make anyway. Are there some words or sounds that are instinctive? Or do they only learn them from their parents? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Usage, grammar, spelling, punctuation, slang, old sayings, other languages, speech, writing, you name it. Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web
8. Language Headlines (minicast) - 3 Nov. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 1.49Mb) Description: Last year British slang lexicographer Jonathon Green struck a deal with the publisher Chambers Harrap to create an exhaustive dictionary of English slang. Now, says the London Telegraph, the first fruit of that relationship has appeared in the form of the Chambers Slang Dictionary. The main sources of slang, Green says, have remained the same: sex and sexual organs, drinking, and terms of abuse. But ,there are always innovations. The Telegraph offers some of them: boilerhouse, modern British rhyming slang for spouse. Jawsing, US teen slang for lying. And, muzzy, an Irish word for a naughty child. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/ar ts/2008/10/27/sv_slangmain.xml http://www.telegraph .co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/10/27/sv_slang.xml In the Paper Cuts blog of the New York Times, Jennifer Scheussler reviews 'On The Dot,' by Nicholas and Alexander Humez. It's an exhaustive look at the period or the dot, that little piece of punctuation that does so much. And I do mean exhaustive. The book is so digressive and sometimes so far afield of its subject matter that you might find yourself flipping to the front to make sure you're still reading the same book. http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/27 /dot-everything/ In the discussion forum on that page, I discovered the 'fini.' This is a new piece of punctuation created by Dave Rosenthal, an assistant managing editor at the Baltimore Sun. The fini is a square instead of a circle. Dave says, 'A period is usually a fine way to end a sentence. But when there's a forcefulness attached to the words, I worry that the period will roll away. It is, after all, just a tiny black ball.' http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/book s/blog/2008/07/the_endofdiscussion.html Do you want to find out what Virginia Woolf and John Steinbeck sounded like? They're part of an audio collection from the British Library, called 'The Spoken Word: British Writers.' It was discussed and played on NPR's All Things Considered. The audio is a rare find, as many recordings of the early days of radio were never saved. Recordings by George Orwell, for example, have yet to be found, even though he worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/sto ry.php?storyId=96030704 -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
9. Hair of the Politics that Bit You - 3 Nov. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: This week on 'A Way with Words': Feel like having a little 'hair of the dog'? Grant and Martha explain what dog hair has to do with hangover cures. And what do you call it when random objects form a recognizable image, like a cloud resembling a bunny, or the image of Elvis in a grilled cheese sandwich? With all this talk about this year's election ballot, did you ever stop to think about where the word 'ballot' comes from? Martha and Grant discuss terms related to politics, including 'ballot' and 'leg treasurer.' 'A fish stinks from the head down.' When an Indianapolis woman is quoted saying this, she's accused of calling the leader of a particular organization a stinky fish. She says she wasn't speaking literally, insisting that this is a turn of phrase that means 'corruption in an organization starts at the top.' Who's right? Dude, how'd we ever start using the word 'dude'? The Big Grantbowski traces the word's origin - it's over 125 years old. Quiz Guy John Chaneski drops by with a puzzle involving overlapping words. He calls it, of course, 'Overlap-Plied Linguistics.' If you're hung over, and someone offers you 'a little hair of the dog,' you can rest assured you're not being offered a sip of something with real dog hair in it. But was that always the case? Grant has the answer, and Martha offers a word once proposed as a medical term for this crapulent condition: veisalgia. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q =crapulent&r=66 A new resident of Pittsburgh is startled by some of the dialect there, like 'yinz' instead of 'you' for the second person plural, and nebby for 'nosy.' What's up with that? For a wonderful site about the dialect of that area, check out Pittsburgh Speech and Society. http://english.cmu.edu/pittsburghspeech/index.html If someone says he 'finna go,' he means he's leaving. But finna? Grant has the final word about finna. Good news if you've wondered about a word for recognizable images composed of random visual stimuli - that image of Elvis in your grilled-cheese sandwich, for example. It's pareidolia. Here's the article Martha mentions from wordorigins.org: http://www.wordorigins.org/index.p hp/site/comments/audio_pareidolia/ In this week's 'Slang This!,' a member of the National Puzzlers' League from Boston tries to guess the meaning of four possible slang terms, including 'labanza,' 'woefits,' 'prosciutto,' and 'moose-tanned.' At Murray's Cheese http://www.murrayscheese.com/ in Grand Central Station, the workers who sell cheese are called 'cheesemongers.' The store's opening up a new section to sell cold cuts, and workers there are looking for more appetizing term than 'meatmonger.' (Meat-R-Maids? Never mind.) Martha and Grant try to help. At sports events in North America, we enthusiastically root for the home team, right? But a woman from Kenosha, Wisconsin, says an Aussie told her that they most assuredly don't do that Down Under. There, he tells her, rooting means 'having sex.' Is he pulling her leg, she wonders? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
10. Riddled Through With Riddles - 27 Oct. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: Here's a riddle: 'Nature requires five, custom gives seven, laziness takes nine, and wickedness eleven.' Think you know the answer? You'll find it in this week's episode, in which Grant and Martha discuss this and other old-fashioned riddles. Also: how did the phrase 'going commando' come to be slang for 'going without underwear'? And which word is correct: 'orient' or 'orientate'? To go commando means to 'go without underwear.' But why 'commando'? An Indiana listener says the term came up in conversation with her husband after one of them had a near-wardrobe malfunction. She mercifully leaves the rest to the imagination, but still wonders about the term. Grant says its popularity zoomed after a popular episode of 'Friends.' Watch the clips here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0JgkuNBuWI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q--6wtCPHg8&feature=rel ated A woman who grew up in India says she was baffled when someone with aching feet complained, 'My dogs are barking.' The answer may lie in a jocular rhyme. Martha is baffled when Grant shares another riddle involving 'four stiff standers, two lookers, and one switchbox.' Can you figure out the answer? To-ga! To-ga! To-ga! John Chaneski's latest quiz, 'Classics Class,' has the hosts rooting around for the ancient Greek and Latin origins of English words. Those who commute coast-to-coast are 'bicoastals.' But what do you call someone who commutes along the same coast--between, say, Miami and New York? A woman who now travels regularly between Northern and Southern California to visit the grandchildren wonders what to call herself. She's already considered and nixed 'bipolar.' The hosts try to come up with other suggestions. Remember when no one ever thought about adding the suffix '-gate' to a word to indicate a scandal? Now there's Troopergate, Travelgate, Monicagate, Cameragate, Sandwichgate, and of course, the mother of all gates, Watergate. Grant talks about the flood of '-gate' words inspired by that scandal from the 1970s. An Atlanta listener seeks clarification about the difference between may and might? Might 'may' be used to express a possibility, or is 'might' a better choice? In this week's slang quiz, a member of the National Puzzlers' League http://www.puzzlers.org from Somerville, Massachusetts tries to guess the meaning of bottle room and shred, as used in the context of snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing. Do you cringe when you hear the words orientate and disorientate? A copy editor in Waldoboro, Maine does. She'd rather hear 'orient' and 'disorient.' The hosts weigh in on that extra syllable. They were the last words Abraham Lincoln heard before John Wilkes Booth assassinated him: 'Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside-out, old gal--you sockdologizing old man-trap!' Booth knew that this line from the play 'Our American Cousin' would get a big laugh, so he chose that moment to pull the trigger. A Wisconsin listener wants to know the meaning and origin of that curious word, 'sockdologizing.' If you want to read the whole play, which has some silly wordplay and a dopey riddle or two, it's online at Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3158 Does one take preventive or preventative measures? A caller in Ocean Beach, California who just graduated from an exercise science program wants to know which of these terms describes what she's been studying. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
11. Darwinism and the Dictionary (minicast) - 20 Oct. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 2.10Mb) Description: The British publishers of the Collins dictionary have announced 24 words on their endangered species list. They're words like 'vilipend,' which means 'to treat with contempt,' and 'nitid,' that's n-i-t-i-d, which means 'glistening. ' The editors warn that if they don't see evidence of these words being used in everyday speech and writing, they'll drop them from the dictionary's next edition. They've even set deadline for the doomed words: February 2009. But they've also offered the public a chance to weigh in, and vote for which words deserve a reprieve. Sure, it's a great publicity stunt. But I have to say that the thought of any word being voted off the lexical island makes me wince. I understand, of course, that culling the herd is a necessary evil. First, there's the economic reality of dictionary publishing--more words mean more pages, and more pages mean more costs per unit. Still, I have to tell you I was aghast to realize that on the list was one of my favorite words ever. The word is caducity--c-a-d-u-c-i-t-y. Caducity. It means 'perishability, transience.' More specifically, it can denote 'the infirmities that accompany old age.' Caducity comes from the Latin word 'cadere,' which means 'to fall.' The same root produced other falling words, like 'cascade' and most likely, 'cadaver,' literally, 'one who has fallen.' So what I love about this word is that tucked inside it' is a picture of falling away, like leaves in autumn. You might speak of 'the caducity of fame' or the 'caducity of nature.' Or you might say, 'I worry about my parents' growing caducity.' There's a wistful beauty about this word. And it's not just poetic, it's musical. Listen: caducity. Contrary to what you might think, lexicographers say it's incredibly hard to coin a word that sticks around long enough to wind up in the dictionary. Same goes for self-conscious efforts to revive words that have become obsolete. But I'm convinced that 'caducity' has hardly outlived its usefulness. So I'm asking you to join me: Adopt it as your own. Use it. Drop it into casual conversation. Put it into a poem. On a vanity license plate--I don't care. Just use it. Another thing lexicographers tell us is that just because a word isn't in a dictionary, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So regardless of what the Collins editors decide in February, I'm going to hang on to this one. Then again, if we all start using it, maybe we can save this lovely word from, well, caducity. Check out the other words on Collins list here. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3046488/Col lins-dictionary-asks-public-to-rescue-outdated-words.html -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
12. A Moniker for Your Monitor - 20 Oct. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: This week on A Way with Words: Fess up: Do you have a pet name for your car? How about your computer? Martha and Grant discuss the urge to give nicknames to inanimate objects in our lives. Also, why do we speak of 'vetting' a political candidate? And what in the world is a 'zoo plane'? Fess up, now: Do you have a pet name for your car? Or maybe you spend so much quality time with your computer that you've given it a particularly affectionate moniker? What is it about inanimate objects--particularly technological gadgets--that inspires us to give them special nicknames? Martha raises these questions, and Grant reveals the name he selected for his own computer. 'If I had my druthers...' A former Texan says the youngsters he works with in his adopted home of Ohio don't understand this expression meaning 'If I had my way.' He wants to know its origin. If you still can't get enough of the word 'druthers,' this video should cure you pretty quickly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EToqIxHfXo How can I improve my vocabulary, and remember the words I do learn? When a San Diego listener asks that question, Grant and Martha share some practical tips on how to boost your vocabulary. For starters, forget the flash cards, and reach for a library card instead. We hear a lot about vetting candidates for political office, but where'd we get the verb 'to vet'? Does vetting have to do with 'veterans,' or 'veterinarians,' or something else entirely? John Chaneski's latest puzzle is 'The Yo-Yo Quiz,' and it's not about famous cellists or first person pronouns in Spanish. The object is to guess the missing word that can be paired with either 'up' or 'down' to mean different things. For example, try to guess the one-word answer here: 'With 'up,' it means 'to laugh uncontrollably.' With 'down' it means 'to become more strict about an issue.'' If someone is poor as Joe's turkey, he's impoverished. A caller raised in the South has heard that expression all his life, but wonders: Who was Joe, and what did his turkey have to do with anything? Things get clearer when Martha explains the original turkey's owner wasn't Joe, but the Biblical Job. Some native Spanish speakers prefer the term Hispanic, while others adamantly insist on Latino. The hosts discuss the origins of these words, and a bit about the controversy over their use. A San Diego history buff is curious about the word stingaree. This slang term once referred to part of the city's red-light district, and remains the name of a stylish downtown restaurant and nightclub in the city's Gaslamp district. Grant illuminates the risque origin of this unusual word. This week's 'Slang This!' contestant from the National Puzzlers' League http://puzzlers.org tries to decipher the difference between zoo planes and zipper clippers. She also puzzles over a sentence in which the words brindle and verse used in surprising ways. Ever had a friend who never can quite say 'goodbye'? Say you're finishing up an email conversation, you both say like 'so long,' but then up pops another email from him, asking just one more question or mentioning one more bit of news. A caller from Hillsboro, Oregon wants to know if there's a word for that kind of lingering, drawn-out goodbye. Martha calls it 'doorknob hanging,' but Grant has a more technical term used by linguists. Is the expression beck and call, or beckon call? And what's a beck, anyway? Hegemony is defined as 'preponderant influence or authority over others.' But how do you pronounce it? Heh-JEH-mun-ee? HEDJ-uh-moh-nee? Heh-GEM-un-ee? A caller's unsure which pronunciation is preferred. Grant gives Martha a pop quiz about the meaning of the English word opifex. And no, it's not a hoofed African quadruped. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
13. Reading the OED from A to Z - 13 Oct. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 2.33Mb) Description: Reading the OED from A to Z (minicast) Word nerd Ammon Shea quit his job as a furniture mover in New York City to spend an entire year reading the entire Oxford English Dictionary. The result, in addition to eyestrain, headaches, and skeptics' puzzlement, was Shea's new book, Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 pages. Martha talks about what he learned along the way. http://ammonshea.com/oed.html Years ago, I covered a story for a sports magazine about Tori Murden, a woman trying row a 23-foot boat across the ocean. She set out from the Canary Islands with four months' provisions...and little else: No motor, no sail, no support vessel traveling along with her. And after 81 days, and 2,962 lonely miles at sea, she reached her goal, becoming the first woman ever to row a boat across the Atlantic. But for Murden, the challenge of rowing an ocean was nothing compared to the struggle of trying to explain why she'd done it in the first place: Why endure crushing boredom, blazing heat, chilling rain, blisters, and backaches day after day - all in order to row a little boat from one continent to the next? Recently I thought of Murden while I was reading a book about, of all things, dictionaries. It's by Ammon Shea, and it's called...'Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages.' You see where I'm going here: When it comes to dictionaries, Shea is into extreme adventure. This book chronicles his quirky quest to scale the Mount Everest of lexicography: the great Oxford English Dictionary. Shea is besotted with words. In fact, he quit his job as a furniture mover in New York City in order to spend a whole year reading the OED. He writes that he did so to find out 'what words there are for things in the world that I had always thought unnamed.' And find them he did. Words like: Petrichor (PEH-trih-kerr). That's p-e-t-r-i-c-h-o-r. It means 'the pleasant smell of rain on the ground, especially after a dry spell.' You knew there should be a word for that, right? Or how about 'apricity'? That word denotes 'the warmth of the sun in winter.' Or how about 'balter,' 'to dance clumsily.' Now that's handy. Trudging though page after page, the author suffers headaches, eyestrain, and a growing ghastly pallor from long days reading in the basement of a New York. Fortunately for Shea, his girlfriend is a former lexicographer for Merriam-Webster - and, one assumes, an extraordinarily patient person. Shea's long march from A to Z is often exhilarating, sometimes numbing. His heart sinks upon realizing that the section of words starting with the prefix 'un-' -- as in 'unabandoned, unable' -- goes on for 451 pages. He write: 'By the time I've read one hundred pages I am near catatonic, bored out of my mind, and so listless I can't remember why I wanted to read any of this in the first place.' After pressing on through the letter U, Shea is rewarded with gems like velleity, which means 'a mere wish or desire for something without accompanying action or effort.' And zoilus. A zoilus is an 'envious critic.' As for the question 'Why?' Shea has a ready answer. He writes that he read the dictionary cover to cover because, quite simply: 'It was the most engrossing and enjoyable book I've ever read.' It's also why, after finishing the last page, he writes, he happily started over. And I thought I was a big word nerd. And now, I have to get back to some dictionary-diving myself. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
14. English Down Under - 13 Oct. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: This week, Martha and Grant discuss terms from Australia, including aerial ping-pong, pumpkin squatter, andâkangarooster? They explain the connection between stereotypes and stereos, and why we call the person clearing tables in a restaurant a busboy. Also, what's the plural of moose? Meese? Mooses? Great news for language fans: The Australian National Dictionary is now available online for free. It's full of fascinating words from Down Under. Contrary to what you might think, for example, kangaroosters are pouchless and feather-free, and a pumpkin squatter isn't a trendy thigh-reducing exercise. Ever been accused of faunching around? A San Diego listener says her family used this expression to describe the act of squirming fussily or impatiently, the kind of thing that happens when a toddler gets a haircut. She asks if the word is unique to her family. Say there's one moose, and then another comes along. Now there are twoâwhat? Meese? Mooses? Moose? A Denver man wants to know the correct plural term for moose. The hosts offer news you can use about moose. If Grandma thinks you're coming down with the epizootic, she'll probably want to put you to bed and bring you a bowl of soup. But what's an epizootic, anyway? And does being diagnosed with it make you feel better or worse? Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents a puzzle called 'Blank the Blank' or 'Verb the Noun,' about three-word phrases with a 'the' in the middle. It's harder than you might think, so play along and see if you can 'blank' the 'blank.' How about the phrase saddle my nag? No, this phrase isn't some obscure bit of jargon from world of finance. It's an expression familiar to Aussie schoolchildren. Martha explains what it means. If the word is spelled a-s-k, why do so many people pronounce 'ask' as 'axe'? Grant has a surprising answer, one that goes all the way back to, believe it or not, the time of Chaucer. If a tippler has one too many, he's said to be three sheets to the wind. But why three? And why, of all things, sheets? A Wisconsin listener remembers a boss who used to use an odd expression whenever he wanted to change the subject of a discussion. The boss would say, 'Well, wet birds don't fly at night,' then switch to another subject. Grant explains what the term likely means. Hint: Not much! Aerial ping-pong: Is it a new Olympic sport? A less intense version of tonsil hockey? Martha reveals the meaning of this Australian English term. In this week's installment of 'Slang This!' a contestant from the National Puzzlers' League tries to guess the meaning of the term vigorish. And no, it's not a Viagra-laced anise liqueur. He also guesses the meaning of the phrase how we roll. Everyone knows the term stereotype, but did you ever stop to wonder what the word has to do with stereos? Not much, really. But it does derive from the world of printing. Why do we call the fellow clearing the dishes and silverware a busboy? A Chicago listener isn't satisfied with the answer, 'Because he's bussing the table.' Grant reveals the terms likely Latin roots. You're going to meet yourself coming back. A New York City woman who's always used this expression is surprised when a friend is puzzled by it. Is it really that unusual? Grant assures her that it's been around for quite a while. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
15. Language Headlines (minicast) - 6 Oct. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 1.49Mb) Description: The world of politics tops this week's language headlines, including an explanation of the Bradley effect, and the ongoing debate over bilingual education. Also, what does the word fubsy mean? Grant has the answer, and reports about a new favorite blog described as 'LOLcats for smart people.' Ever since it started looking like Barack Obama was more than a long shot for his party's nomination, pollsters, and pundits have been talking about the 'Bradley effect.' It's when polls show a black political candidate way out in front. And yet, when the votes are cast, the black candidate barely wins or doesn't even win at all. As William Safire writes in the New York Times, the expression comes from Tom Bradley's loss of the governorship of California in 1982. Then, polls predicted that he would win, but, in fact, he lost by a small margin. Many people felt that Bradley, who was black, lost because hidden racists wouldn't admit to pollsters their true intentions. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/magaz ine/28wwln-safire-t.html Also in the campaign coverage is an ongoing discussion of bilingual education. Is it better to teach immigrant children only in English or should we teach them in a language they already know? http://tinyurl.com/5xrt93 That's the premise of a debate on the New York Times Education Watch blog. The presidential candidate's views come under some scrutiny by a couple of experts, but most interesting are the reader comments. One wrote, 'I am struck by how much the debate about the quantity of English in the classroom quickly devolves from a sensible search for the best strategy, to an ideological war that produces some very silly teaching strategies.' Speaking of campaigns, ever heard of the word fubsy? Well, British dictionary publisher Collins is threatening to cut that and other archaic words from its dictionaries. It's mainly a public relations effort, but they've succeeded in bringing out the word-lovers to nominate and mull favorite archaic words of their own. Fubsy, by the way, means 'short and stout.' http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/co lumnists/guest_contributors/article4798835.ece http://ww w.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1847038,00.html And finally, it's the latest in a long line of many similar sites, but a new favorite blog is Wordsplosion. There you'll find photographs of English gone wrong. Like the grocery store sign that says 'dairy choices.' And under that it says 'cheese and cheese.' http://www.wordsplosion.com -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
16. Never Bolt Your Door with A Boiled Carrot - 6 Oct. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: Proverbs pack great truths into a few well-chosen words, no matter which language you speak. Check out this one from Belize: 'Don't call the alligator a big-mouth till you have crossed the river.' And this truism from Zanzibar: 'When two elephants tussle, it's the grass that suffers.' Martha and Grant discuss a new paremiography--a collection of proverbs--from around the world. A woman from Cape Cod is looking for a polite word that means the current wife of my ex-husband. She's thinking about 'cur-wife,' but somehow that doesn't quite work. Neither does the phrase 'that poor woman.' The hosts try to help her come up with other possibilities. 'It's raining, it's pouring.' But what exactly is the 'it' that's doing all that raining and pouring? This question from a caller prompts Grant to explain what linguists mean when they talk about the 'weather it.' Hint: It depends on what the meaning of 'it' is. Your eyetooth is located directly beneath your eye. But is that why they're called eyeteeth? A Boston caller would give her eyeteeth to know. Okay, not really, but she did want an answer to this question. Quiz Guy John Chaneski invites Grant and Martha to busta rhyme with a word puzzle called Rhyme Groups. You've seen people indicate emphasis by putting a period after each of several words, and capitalizing the first letter of each word. A Michigan listener wonders how this stylistic trick arose. Her question was prompted by this description of French model-turned-presidential-spouse Carla Bruni: 'She's got a cashmere voice and a killer body. Plays decent guitar and writes her own lyrics. Can hold her own with queens and statesmen. She. Must. Be. Stopped.' Jealous much? Do you want to get down? Ask that in parts of Louisiana, and people know you're not inquiring whether they care to dance, you're asking if they want to get out of a car. A former Louisianan who grew up using the expression that way wonders if it's French-inspired. The hosts proceed to use the phrase 'get down' so much they end up with a dreadful K.C. and the Sunshine Band earworm. Which is correct for describing a close family resemblance: spittin' image or spit and image? Grant and Martha discuss the possible origins of these expressions, including a recent hypothesis that's sure to surprise. In this week's episode of Slang This!, Dave Dickerson from the National Puzzlers' League tries to guess the meaning of the terms cowboy up and money bomb. If you've used the word sickly too many times in a paragraph and need a synonym, there's always dauncy, also spelled donsie and dauncy. Grant explains the origin of this queasy-sounding word. A Navy man stationed in Hawaii phones to settle a dispute over the difference between acronyms and initialisms. Here's hoping he didn't go AWOL to make the call. Is English is going to hell in the proverbial handbasket? A Wisconsin grandmother thinks so, particularly because of all the ums and you knows she hears in everyday speech. The hosts discuss these so-called disfluencies, including how to avoid them and how to keep other people's disfluencies from grating on your nerves. We leave you with a couple other proverbs translated into English. They're from David Crystal's paremiography, As They Say in Zanzibar: Proverbs are like butterflies; some are caught and some fly away. (Germany) Teachers open the door; you enter by yourself. (China) -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
17. Regional Food Names: When Is a Milkshake Not a Milkshake? Minicast - 29 Sept. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 2.17Mb) Description: Regional Food Names: When Is a Milkshake Not a Milkshake? We asked you to tell us about odd regional food names, and boy did you oblige! Martha reads some of your letters about whoopie pies, hot tamales, pretzel salad, and coolers, plus the frappe vs. milkshake controversy. Welcome to another minicast of A Way with Words. I'm Martha Barnette. A while back, we talked about how the name of a particular food that you grew up with might be utterly mystifying to someone from another part of the country. Grant described the pork steaks that he ate all the time in Missouri, and I talked about how my family in Louisville ate Benedictine, a mix of cucumber and cream cheese. We asked you for other examples. What came through loud and clear was this: You don't have to be in a foreign country to be baffled by the local menu. We heard from Cindy in San Diego who told us about the culinary culture shock of moving from Michigan to Boston. When she and her husband ordered a milk shake there, she was surprised when 'what we got was milk with chocolate syrup - as watery as, well, chocolate milk! We were really confused. Then we described to the waitress what we thought we had ordered, and she exclaimed in a heavy Boston accent, 'Oh, you want a frappe!' Cindy went on to say: 'The other thing we found in Boston and nowhere else in the country was a confection called a Whoopie Pie - two chocolate cookie/cakelike disks filled in between with a white cream or icing in the center. Whatever store in Boston we happened to be, or at a bakery, there were the Whoopie Pies in all their glory. Never have seen these anywhere else in the country and if I ask people here in San Diego where I could get some Whoopie Pies, they'd just look at me cross-eyed.' Well, Cindy, that sounds a lot like what we in the South call 'Moon Pies.' Although if I ever need a stage name or nom de plume, I'm going to give serious thought to calling myself 'Whoopie Pie.' Or how about this one: Have you ever eaten 'pretzel salad'? I sure haven't - never even heard of it. But a listener named Michael tells us that pretzel salad is lime jello with carrots and pretzels mixed into it. 'It's mostly an East Coast thing,' he says. Hmmmm, another reason I'm glad I live in California. Mary wrote from Sheboygan, Michigan to say that when she first moved there 30 years ago, she noticed that the school lunch one day was 'hot tamales.' Mary writes, 'I was astounded that Sheboygan was so diverse that the school lunch for every child in the district was tamales. Later that day I discovered that what Sheboyganites call hot tamales are what I called barbecue and what other folks call sloppy joes. She adds: 'Sheboygan has many unique words for things including coolers, also known as 'popsicles.'' Finally, we also heard from you about food names that families invent and use among themselves. Take Mary of Lower Lake, California. She wrote to tell us about 'Hairy Arm Hot Dogs.' When she was growing up in Troy, New York, she recalls, the family would say, 'Hey, want to go for a Hairy Arm?' They'd troop off to the local hot dog stand with excitement. 'The origin of the name Hairy Arm,' she writes, 'came from how the stand's owner's practice of lining hot dogs up the length of his forearm while he dressed them with relish, onions, etc. Sometimes a hair from his arm would get on the hot dog.' You know, I can just picture that. Anyway, that's all for this minicast. Call us any time with your questions and comments about regional dialects, family sayings, grammar, slang, word origins, you name it. The number's 1-877-929-9673. Or send your emails to words@waywordradio.org. If you just can't wait to chat about language, join the party at our discussion forum. That's at waywordradio.org/discussion. Thanks for tuning in. For A Way with Words, I'm Martha Barnette. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
18. The Txting Db8 - 29 Sept. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: OMG, text messaging! It's destroying the English language, corrupting young minds, turning us into a nation of illiterates. It's probably shrinking the ozone layer, too. Or is it? In his new book, 'Txting: The Gr8 Db8,' author David Crystal offers a different perspective. The book's surprising message is one which linguists have shared for years: Far from obliterating literacy, texting may actually improve it. So put that in your message header and send it! The French phrase 'au jus' means with sauce, which is why it drives some diners to distraction when a menu lists beef with 'au jus sauce.' A Wisconsin listener calls to say this phrase sets her teeth on edge. The hosts order up an answer fresh from the 'Waiter, There's a Redundancy in My Soup!' Department. In medical parlance, your big toe is your 'hallux.' But what about the other four? Do they have anatomical names as well? A San Diego man who hurt the toe next to his big toe is tired of referring to his injured digit as 'the toe next to my big toe,' and wants the proper medical term. How does 'porcellus domi' grab you? Prehensily? Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents a letter-shaving game called 'Curtailments.' In this game, Grant and Martha leave everything on the floor. A caller from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, was puzzled when she moved there and locals asked, 'What's your name from home?' meaning, 'What's your maiden name?' The community has a strong Polish heritage, and she wonders if there's a connection. It's a good hunch, and Martha explains why. Say you have a particularly rambunctious child. Okay, a little hellion. Is it proper to describe the little devil as a 'holy terror'? Or might it be more correct and more logical to call him an 'unholy terror'? A Los Angeles caller thinks it's the latter. If you've flown from Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport recently, you may have noticed an odd but official-looking sign that reads: 'RECOMBOBULATION AREA.' A caller from Madison was discombobulated to see it, then started wondering about the roots of such words. See if it does the same for you here: http://tinyurl.com/4mc8dm The real problem with texting isn't how it affects language, but what it does to social interaction. Is there anything more annoying when you're trying to have a conversation than watching your companion's eyes flitting to his phone when he sees that a text message just arrived? The hosts discuss the need for a new text-messaging etiquette. Let's say that you're getting 'diesel therapy' at 'o-dark-thirty.' What are you getting and when are you getting it? A New Jersey contestant from the National Puzzlers' League learns the meaning of these terms in this week's slang quiz. What do you call a word made from a blend of two other words, like 'motel' from 'motor' and 'hotel'? A listener says his term for them is 'Reese's Peanut Butter Cup words,' after the old commercial: 'You got chocolate in my peanut butter! You got peanut butter in my chocolate!' But he wonders if there's another, more established term. The hosts introduce him to the word 'portmanteau.' When it comes to text messaging and its effect on English, the linguistic apocalypse is not nigh. Quite the contrary, in fact. Grant talks about some eye-opening research about text-messaging and teen literacy. That's all for this week. L8r! -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
19. Antipodes and Grooks Minicast - 22 Sept. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 2.48Mb) Description: A listener in Brazil challenges Martha's pronunciation of the odd English word antipodes. Their email exchange leads Martha to muse about a favorite collection of poems, where she first encountered this word. ... Recently on our show, I made a linguistic boo-boo. Did you catch it? We were talking about the word 'podium.' A listener named Joel called to say that the word 'podium' originally denoted something you stand on. But more and more, people are using it to mean something you 'stand behind.' Joel was none too happy about that. I told him he was right about the roots of the word 'podium,' even though its meaning has changed. M: I feel your pain Joel. Absolutely, podium comes from ultimately from a Greek word meaning 'foot.' G: Yeah, but that doesn't mean -- M: Hear me out. Hear me out! It's like podiatrist, the doctor who looks after your feet. It's like antipodes, the people on the other side of the world from us, exactly. There's a big old foot in that word. J: There sure is! Did you catch my mistake? One of our listeners in Brazil did. Luciano emailed from Sao Paolo to say I'd mispronounced that word for people on the other side of world. A-n-t-i-p-o-d-e-s, he wrote, isn't pronounced 'ANN-ti-poads.' It's 'ann-TIP-uh-dees.' - he's right! 'Ann-TIP-uh-dees' means, as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it: 'Those who dwell directly opposite to each other on the globe, so that the soles of their feet are, as it were, planted against each other.' It's a poetic word, 'ann-TIP-uh-dees,' those Greek roots conjuring an image of people standing sole to sole, yet separated by an entire planet. The English word 'ann-TIP-uh-dees' was originally plural in form, referring to lots of people. The singular version, 'ANN-tih-poad,' came only later, by a process linguists call back-formation. In any case, my only excuse for mispronouncing the word is this: In elementary school, I'd seen that singular form, 'ANN-tih-pode,' and just assumed that the plural would naturally be 'ANN-ti-podes.' You may be wondering why an elementary-school kid would run into the word 'antipode' at all. Let me tell you about a book of poems that I just love. It's called 'Grooks' by Piet Hein. If you're not familiar with it, you're in for a treat. Hein was a 20th-century Danish scientist, poet, and designer. He was always trying to bridge the gap between art and science, which is probably why he counted among his close friends both Albert Einstein and Charlie Chaplin. He also wrote short, insightful poems in Danish, English, and another passion of his, Esperanto. Here's a pithy poem called 'Problems': Problems worthy of attack Prove their worth By hitting back. Nuff said. Here's one that he called 'A Psychological Tip': Whenever you're called on to make up your mind, And you're hampered by not having any, The best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find, Is simply by spinning a penny. No - not so that chance shall decide the affair While you're passively standing there moping; But the moment the penny is up in the air, You suddenly know what you're hoping. I tell you, I've used that tip more times than I can count. And finally, the poem that introduced me to the word 'antipode.' It will steadily shrink, our earthly abode, until antipode stands upon antipode. Then, soles together, the planet gone, we'll know the ground that we rest upon. The book is called 'Grooks' by Piet Hein. Here are some more examples of his poems. http://www.chat.carleton.ca/~tcstewar/grooks /grooks.html --- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
20. Moonbats and Wingnuts - 22 Sept. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: Here's a bit of political slang now making the rounds: sleepover. No, we're not talking about another pol caught with his pants down. We're talking about spending the night with, well, a voting machine. In this week's episode, we examine this and other examples of political language. You call the repairman to fix a balky garage door, but when he gets there, it inexplicably works. You summon a plumber, only to find that when he arrives, your toilet's no longer leaking--and you're out $150. Or you discover that somewhere between your home and the doctor's office, your kid's sore throat miraculously healed. A caller in Traverse City, Michigan, is tearing her hair out over this phenomenon, which she calls 'phixophobia.' But, she asks, might there be an even better word for the way inanimate objects seem to conspire against us? We think so: resistentialism. Great Scott! You've heard the expression. But who was Scott and why was he so great? Or was he an impressive Scotsman? Martha and Grant can't say for sure, although the evidence points toward a Civil War soldier who happened to go by that name. Our hosts bandy about some more political slang terms and explain their meaning and origin. Or did you already know the difference between a moonbat and a wingnut? Quiz Guy John Chaneski strikes up the band, begins the beguine, and treats Martha and Grant to musical quiz. Warning: Songs may be sung. Not to worry, though--all three have promised to keep their day jobs. If someone handed you something and told you to stick it in your jockey box, where would you put it? A Baltimore caller who grew up in Utah says when he used this term on a road trip with a friend, his pal was flummoxed. Is jockey box an expression peculiar to one part of the country? Is that oh-so-handy sticky stuff called 'duct tape' or 'duck tape'? An Emmy-nominated filmmaker is wondering, specifically because he has to instruct narrators to be careful to avoid running together a T sound at the end of a word with the T sound at the beginning of a word. And that has him further wondering if such elision of consonants has created other terms. We offer him an answer and a glass of ice tea. Or would that be iced tea? It's Obamarama time! We discuss the growing number of plays on the name of the Democratic presidential candidate. A North Carolina pediatrician is this week's contestant for an animal-themed version of our slang quiz. He tries to figure out the meaning of dead cat bounce and pigeon pair. A caller's question about the word wonky, in the sense of askew, leads to a broader question: What makes a word slang, anyway? Why do we say something is jet black? Does it have to do with the color of a 747's exhaust? Or skid marks on the runway? Or something else entirely? We provide a color with a mineralogical answer. A listener phones with his pet restaurant peeve: When your waiter ask, 'Are you working on that?' Martha and Grant agree and pile on with gusto. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
21. Maverick and Gobbledygook Minicast - 15 Sept. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 2.41Mb) Description: Mmmmmaverick. Maverick, Maverick, Maverick. Maverick, Maverick, Maverick, Maverick. Maverick. Is it just my imagination, or are we hearing this word a whole LOT more lately? You usually hear it applied a politician who's staunchly independent and stubbornly non-conformist. But where'd we get an odd word like this? The answer involves a Texas political dynasty that added not one, but two, familiar words to English. Samuel Augustus Maverick was 19th-century Texas lawyer who went into politics. He was elected mayor of San Antonio in 1839 and later served in the Texas State Legislature. He also speculated in land deals. And he owned cattle, which he kept on a 385,000-acre ranch. In those days, cattlemen didn't always fence in their land, which meant their animals often roamed free. So, ranchers branded their cattle to prevent theft, and resolve disputes over ownership. Well, all the ranchers, that is, except for Samuel Maverick. Maverick was notorious for refusing to brand his own livestock. So whenever his neighbors saw an animal without a brand, especially a calf that had strayed from its mother, they'd say things like, 'Oh, that must be a Maverick.' Maverick told people he considered branding cruelty to animals. Skeptics, though, charged that by refusing to brand his animals, Maverick could then lay claim to any unbranded cattle as his own. Over the years, this term for a 'stray, unmarked calf' also came to apply to any kind of strong-willed nonconformist, particularly a politician not 'branded' by special interests. And the linguistic legacy of this Texas family goes even further. The Mavericks can take credit for yet another familiar English word that involves politics: That word is gobbledygook. Ggggobbledygook, gobbledygook, gobbledygook, gobbledy--well, you get the picture. Anyway, it turns out that Samuel Maverick's grandson, Maury Maverick, also went into politics, eventually serving in the U.S. Congress. A folksy, plainspoken Texan, Maury Maverick was appalled by the fog of stuffy, obfuscatory, bureaucratic language that hangs over and permeates Washington. In 1944, he penned an official memo to his colleagues and subordinates, urging them to speak and write in plain English. The memo read in part: 'Stay off the gobbledygook language. It only fouls people up. For Lord's sake, be short and say what you're talking about... Anyone using the words 'activation' and 'implementation' will be shot!' Talk about a real Maverick. Congressman Maverick later said he wasn't sure why the crazy word gobbledygook popped into his mind at just that moment. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'I was thinking of the old bearded turkey gobbler back in Texas who was always gobbledy-gobblin' and struttin' with ludicrous pomposity. At the end of this gobble there was a sort of â 'gook.'' In any case, both 'gobbledygook' and 'maverick' turned out to be way too useful to be forgotten. Both found their way into dictionaries--and onto the front page, especially in this election year. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Usage, grammar, spelling, punctuation, slang, old sayings, other languages, speech, writing, you name it. Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web
22. Pwned Prose, Stat! - 15 Sept. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: When you get to the end of a wonderful book, your first impulse is to tell someone else about it. In this week's episode, Martha and Grant discuss what they've been reading and the delights of great prose. An Illinois man recalls that as a kid, he used to mix fountain drinks of every flavor into a concoction he and his friends called a 'suicide.' He wonders if anyone else calls them that. Why a 'suicide'? Because it looks and tastes like poison? It started as a typo for 'own,' now it's entrenched in online slang. A Kentucky caller is curious about 'pwn.' It rhymes with 'own' and means 'to defeat' or 'to triumph over.' Our hosts talk about a special meaning of 'own' in the computer-gaming world. Quiz Guy John Chaneski is Havana good time with Martha and Grant on an round-the-world 'International Puzzle Hunt' that will leave you Beijing for more. You seem to hear it on all the television hospital dramas: 'stat!' A physician says she knows it means 'immediately,' but she doesn't know its origins. Quick! Is there a Latin expert in the house? A San Diego fisherman notes that he hears mariners talk about 'snotty weather.' 'Snotty?' Is it the kind that gives you the sniffles? Or is does it cop an attitude? Do you ever stare at a word so long that you think it's mispellllled? Even though it isn't? Your dialectal duo hunt up a word for that phenomenon. Grant and Martha reveal what books are on their own nightstands, waiting to be read. Just the top of the stacks, natch, because there are just too many. This week's 'Slang This!' contestant tries to guess the meaning of the terms 'liver rounds' and 'put the bite on someone.' An Indianapolis woman who grew up in the South says that when her slip was showing, her father used to say, 'Who do you think you are, Miss Astor'?' Martha shares other euphemisms for slips showing. If someone sidles up to you and says, 'Pssssst! Mrs. White is out of jail,' it's time to check your hemline. You can tell someone's an 'A Way with Words' listener when they confess to lying awake at night wondering about questions like, 'Are the words 'fillet' and 'flay' etymologically related?' A Minnesotan has been observing his infant babbling, and wonders if words like 'mama' and 'papa' arise from sounds that babies naturally make anyway. Are there some words or sounds that are instinctive? Or do they only learn them from their parents? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Usage, grammar, spelling, punctuation, slang, old sayings, other languages, speech, writing, you name it. Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web
23. Lackabookaphobia? Minicast - 8 Sept. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 3.25Mb) Description: Some people wouldn't be caught without the season's latest fashions, and others never leave home without their asthma inhaler. But for some of us, what strikes fear into our hearts is the thought of being caught without a book. Jeanie in Wisconsin has that kind of passion for audiobooks and calls to ask Martha and Grant to give her a name for her condition. If you have an idea for what this fear should be called, tell us about it! -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
24. The Secret Language of Families - 8 Sept. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 23.46Mb) Description: [This episode first aired January 19th, 2008.] Does your family use a special word you've never heard anywhere else? A funny name for 'the heel of a loaf of bread,' perhaps, or for 'visiting relatives who won't leave.' In this week's episode, Martha and Grant discuss 'family words,' and Martha reveals the story behind her own family's secret word, 'fubby.' Why do we say that someone who's pregnant is 'knocked up'? The hit movie starring Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen has a caller wondering about this term. A man whose last name is McCoy wants a definitive answer about the origin of the expression 'the real McCoy.' He's been told it comes from the name of turn-of-the-century boxing champ Kid McCoy. Is that really the case? A Michigander wants to know about the difference between 'titled' and 'entitled.' She'd assumed that a book is 'titled' Gone with The Wind and a person is 'entitled' to compensation for something. Grant and Martha explain it's a little more complicated than that. Quiz Guy Greg Pliska presents a quiz about 'False Plurals,' based on the old riddle: What plural word becomes singular when you put the letter 's' at the end of it? (Hint: Think of a brand of tennis racket, as well as the former name of a musical artist before he changed it back again.) Quick, which is faster? Something that happens 'instantly' or that happens 'instantaneously'? A caller wants to know if there's any difference between the two. A Brazilian has been researching why actors use the unlikely expression 'break a leg' to wish each other well before going on stage. He suspects it's a borrowing of a German phrase that means, 'May you break your neck and your leg,' but he's not sure. A caller who lived in the Bay Area during the 1960s remembers using the word 'loosecap' to describe someone who's 'not playing with a full deck.' He wonders if he and his friends are the only ones to use it, as in, 'Don't be such a loosecap!' This week's 'Slang This!' contestant tries to decipher the slang phrases 'dance at two weddings' and 'put the big pot in the little pot.' She also shares her own favorite slang terms for 'crumb crusher,' 'rug rat' and 'ankle biter.' By the way, you can read Grant's essay about slang terms for small children, 'Sprogs in a Poop Factory,' here. His column about language appears every two weeks in The Malaysia Star newspaper. A caller fears that the term 'Indian giver' is politically incorrect, and wants an alternative to teach her children. A Princeton University student wonders if his school can lay claim to being the first to apply the Latin word 'campus' to the grounds of an institution of higher learning. By the way, if you want to read about more family words, check out Paul Dickson's book, 'Family Words: A Dictionary of the Secret Language of Families.' Here's hoping all of you are happy fubbies! -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.
25. Pair o' Docs Paradox Minicast - 1 Sept. 2008 http://feeds.waywordradio.org/... download (audio/mpeg, 2.57Mb) Description: A caller from Imperial Beach, California has a punctuation question: Dr. Tei Fu Chen and his wife, Dr. Oi Lin Chen own and operate a large, multinational herbal food company. In company literature, the two doctors are referred to in several ways. The caller wants to know which is