2/6/2012 | Download File (23.78 MB) - right click to download
SHOW SUMMARYWhy do spelling bees include such bizarre, obsolete words like cymotrichous? And why is New York called the Big Apple? Also, the stinky folk medicine tradition called an asifidity bag. Worn around the neck like an amulet, these smelly bags supposedly keep away cold and flu. Also, the surprising number of common English phrases that come directly from the King James Bible. Plus, three sheets to the wind, the term white elephant, in like Flynn, Australian slang, and what to call foam sleeve for an ice-cold can of beer or soda.FULL DETAILSWhat's the common thread that connects the phrases pour out your heart, from time to time, fell flat on his face, the skin of my teeth, and the root of the matter? They all come from, or were popularized by, the King James Bible, published in 1611. The Manifold Greatness (http://www.manifoldgreatness.org/) exhibit is now traveling to libraries and schools nationwide, demonstrating, among other things, this translation's profound impact on the English language. A wedding photographer says she happens to run into lots of people who are three sheets to the wind, and wonders why that term came to mean "falling-down drunk." It's from nautical terminology. On a seagoing vessel, the term sheets refers to "the lines or ropes that hold the sails in place." If one, two, or even three sheets get loose and start flapping in the wind, the boat will swerve and wobble as much as someone who's overimbibed.In Australia, if someone's socky, they're "lacking in spirit or self confidence." If someone's toey, they're "nervous," "aroused," or "frisky."The words respiration and inspiration have the same Latin root, spirare, which means "to breathe." The word "conspire" has the same Latin etymological root. But what does conspiring have to do with breathing? The source of this term is notion that people who conspire are thinking in harmony, so close that they even breathe together.The so-called Wicked Bible is a 1631 version of the King James, printed by Robert Barker and Matin Lucas. This particular Bible is so called because the printers somehow managed to leave out the word not in the commandment against adultery. They were, indeed, punished. Behold the offending page here. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/arts/design/manifold-greatness-and-king-james-bible-at-folger-review.html?pagewanted=all)Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game of Curtailments, in which the last letter of one word is removed to make another. For example: When the family gathers around the ________, it's clear that home is where the _______ is.What do you call a gift that turns into more of a hassle, like a gift card for a store not in your area, or one with a pressing expiration date? A New York caller suggests the term gaft. Another possibility is white elephant, a term derived from the story of a king in ancient Siam, who punished unruly subjects with the gift of a rare white elephant. The recipient couldn't possibly refuse the present, but the elephant's upkeep became extremely costly.What's an asafidity bag? Variously spelled asfidity, asfedity, asafetida, asphidity, and assafedity, it's a folk medicine tradition involves putting the stinky resin of the asafetida or asafoetida plant in a small bag worn around the neck to ward off disease. Then again, if this practice really does help you avoid colds and flu, it's probably because nobody, contagious or otherwise, wants come near you. You can hear Granny Clampett mentions asafidity bags twice in the first two minutes of this episode of The Beverly Hillbillies(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S2RJqBbRpkof). There's also a lengthy online discussion about this old folk tradition here.http://en.allexperts.com/q/General-History-674/f/old-medicinal-practices-southern.htmIn an earlier episode (http://www.waywordradio.org/your-sweet-bippy/), Martha and Grant discussed what to call a person who doesn't eat fish. A listener calls with another suggestion: pescatrarian, from the Latin word that means "fish."Why do spelling bees in the United States use so many bizarre, obsolete, ginormous, and Brobdinagian words? Webster's New International Dictionary, 3rd Edition, published in 1961, is still the standard for spelling bees, and thus contains some dated language. However, most unabridged dictionaries won't get rid of words even as they slip out of use.Recent winners of the Scripps National Spelling Bee included cymotrichous, stromuhr, Laodicean, guerdon, serrefine, and Uhrsprache. How many do you know? The whole list is here. (http://www.spellingbee.com/champions-and-their-winning-words)Do you pronounce the words cot and caught differently? How about the words don and dawn, or pin and pen? The fact that some people pronounce at least some of these pairs identically is attributable to what's called a vowel merger. Why is New York City called the Big Apple? In the 1920s, a writer named John Fitzgerald used it in a column about the horse racing scene, because racetrack workers in New Orleans would say that if a horse was successful down South, they'd send it to race in the Big Apple, namely at New York's Belmont Park. For just about everything you'd ever want to know about this term, visit the site of etymological researcher Barry Popik. (http://www.barrypopik.com/)A caller says her relative always used an interjection that sounds like "sigh" for the equivalent of "Are you paying attention?" The hosts suspect it's related to "s'I," a contraction of "says I." This expression open appears in Mark Twain's work, among other places.Many teachers aren't crazy about cornergami. That's what you've committed if you've ever been without a stapler and folded over the corners of a paper to keep them attached.The phrase in lik
1/30/2012 | Download File (23.78 MB) - right click to download
SUMMARYWhat do pigs have to do with piggyback rides? Martha and Grant have the answer. They also get a lesson from a listener in the fine art of speaking gibberish. And what's the correct way to pronounce the name of the nut spelled p-e-c-a-n? Pee-KAHN or PEE-can? The French have the Academie Francaise, but what authority do we have for the English language? Also, what you should do when someone yells, "Hold 'er Newt! She's headed for the barn!"FULL DETAILSMartha and Grant share some favorite unusual words. Omphaloskepsis is a fancy term for "navel-gazing," from the Greek omphalos, meaning "navel." The other is mumbleteenth, a handy substitute when a number is too embarrassing to mention, as in, "Socrates the omphaloskeptic questioned himself for the mumbleteenth time." Double-talk, or doublespeak, is a form of gibberish that involves adding "ib" or other syllables to existing words. This sort of wordplay may have originated among criminals using double-talk to communicate on the sly. You say pee-KAHN, I say PEE-can. Just how do you pronounce the name of the nut called a pecan? Actually, there are several correct pronunciations.Window-shopping became popular pastime along New York's 5th Avenue back in the days when stores closed at 5 p.m. Passersby would stroll past, gazing at the window displays without intending to purchase anything. The French term for "window shopping," lecher les vitrines, literally translates as "window-licking."The word plangent, which means "loud" and sometimes has a melancholy ring to it, is an apt descriptor for movie soundtracks.Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski revives a classic game of word reversals called Get Back. What palindromic advice would you give to someone who ought to stay away from baked goods? How about shun buns? If, on the other hand, you've highlighted the pastries, then you've stressed desserts.The word silly didn't always have its modern meaning. In the 1400s, silly meant happy or blessed. Eventually, silly came to mean weak or in need of protection. Other seemingly simple words have shifted meanings as the English language developed: the term girl used to denote either a boy or a girl, and the word nice once meant ignorant.Is there an English language authority like the Royal Academy in Spain or the Academie Francaise? Dictionaries often have usage panels made up of expert linguists, but English is widely agreed to be a constantly shifting language. Even in France and Spain, the common vernacular often doesn't follow that of the authorities.How do double rainbows form? Scientists at UCSD have explained that extra-large droplets, known as burgeroids because of their burger-like shape, have the effect of creating a double rainbow. Burgeroids, all the way!http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/12/science-shot-burgeroids-cause-do.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTIThe word bummer originates from the German bummler, meaning "loafer," as in a lazy person. In English, the word bum had a similar meaning, and by the late 1960s, phrases like bum deal or bum wrap lent themselves to the elongated bummer, referring to something that's disheartening or disappointing.Many in the South know a pallet to be a stack of blankets or a makeshift bed. The classic blues song "Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor" gives a perfect illustration.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39RBm4tH9cAThe I vs. me grammatical rule isn't hard to remember. Just leave the other person out of the sentence. You wouldn't say me am going to a movie or Dad took I to a movie. What's the difference between empathic and empathetic? Empathic is actually an older word, meaning that one has empathy for another, but the two are near-perfect synonyms, and thus interchangeable. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/12/rat-empathy/Do you suffer from FOMO? That's an acronym fueled by Facebook and Twitter and other social networking sites. It stands for "fear of missing out."http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/17/hephzibah-anderson-fomo-new-acronymhttp://wordspy.com/words/FOMO.aspWhat does a piggyback ride have to do with pigs? Not much. In the 16th century, the word was pickaback, meaning to pitch or throw on one's back. It's changed spellings dozens of times over the past few centuries, but perhaps the word piggy has contributed to its popularity among children.You know how it is when you encounter a word and then suddenly you start noticing it everywhere? One that's seemed to pop up is cray, or cray-cray, a slang variant of crazy.http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/cray_cray/Hold 'er Newt! This primarily Southern idiom means either "Hold on tight!" or "Giddy-up!" It apparently derives from the idea of a high-spirited horse. Variants of this expression include Hold 'er Newt! She's headed for the rhubarb and Hold 'er Newt! She's headed for the barn! Eric Partridge's 1922 Dictionary of Catch Phrases indicates that the name Newt was once jocularly used to mean an idiot. Some classic advice for writers from Anton Chekhov: "Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass."http://writershandbook.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/a-glint-of-light-on-broken-glass/ --A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: [email protected]: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio
1/22/2012 | Download File (23.78 MB) - right click to download
SHOW SUMMARYIf your friend says she's coming to town "Sunday week," exactly when should you expect to see her? And what do you call those typographical symbols that cartoonists use in place of profanity? Martha and Grant have the answer. Plus grass widows, the linguistic phenomenon called creaky voice, the difference between insure and ensure, the roots of the term jingoism and what it means if someone warns You don't believe fat meat is greasy. Also, is it okay to make a noun out of a verb?FULL DETAILSResearchers have found that stress is a leading cause of plewds--you know, those drops of sweat popping off the foreheads of nervous cartoon characters. That's one of several cartooning terms coined by Mort Walker, creator of the Beetle Bailey comic strip. Martha and Grant discuss this and other coinages from The Lexicon of Comicana. http://www.mortwalker.com/books7.htmlIf someone's coming to town Sunday week, when exactly should you expect them? This Scots-Irish term means "a week after the coming day mentioned." What are those symbols cartoonists use in place of profanity? They're called grawlixes--good to know for the next time you play "Comic Strip Trope or Pokemon?"Is it okay to make a verb out of a noun? Yes! It's estimated that twenty percent of English verbs started as nouns. Just think of the head-to-toe mnemonic: you can head off a problem, face a situation, nose around, shoulder responsibility, elbow your way into something, stomach a problem, foot the bill, or toe the line. http://madshakespeare.com/2010/08/sunday-funnies-verbing-weirds-language/http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/anthony-gardner/youve-been-verbedSqueans are the little starbursts or circles surrounding a cartoon character's head to signify intoxication or dizziness.Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a puzzle called Categories. The challenge is to find the common thread that unites seemingly unrelated things. For example, Mary-Kate and Ashley, Jack Sparrow's crew, and Cherubim all fall into which category? The answer: Twins, Pirates, and Angels are all baseball teams!What's a grass widow? In the 1500s,this term applied to a woman with loose sexual morals. Over time, it came to mean a woman who's been separated from her husband, or a divorcee. If someone's jingoistic, they're extremely patriotic, often belligerently so. The term comes from a British song written in 1870 that uses the phrase By jingo! to conjure up enthusiasm for a British naval action. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnCNJD3-e7gThe curved lines that follow the moving limbs of cartoon characters? Those are called blurgits or swalloops.The admonition You don't believe fat meat is greasy means "Just go ahead and try me" or "Don't push your luck." This idiom is found almost exclusively among African-Americans. The idea is apparently that if you don't believe fat meat is greasy, you're someone who misses the obvious. What's the difference between the words insure and ensure? To ensure means to make certain. Insure means to protect someone or something from risk, and should be used exclusively in a financial sense.For some time now, linguists have been studying a style of speaking known as creaky voice. In the United States, it's heard particularly heard among young, white women in urban areas. New research about this phenomenon, also known as vocal fry, has been making the rounds on the internet.http://www.waywordradio.org/chicken-scratches-and-creaky-voice/http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/15/get-your-creak-on-is-vocal-fry-a-female-fad/Voila (not spelled wallah or vwala) is a good example of a borrowed word. Though French for "there it is," Americans often use it as a simple utterance, akin to presto or ta-da.http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005052.htmlLock the bad guys up in the hoosegow! This slang term for a jail comes from the Spanish juzgado, meaning "tribunal." It's an etymological relative of the English words judge and judicial.Did you know roly-polies, or pill bugs, aren't even bugs? They're isopods, meaning they have equal feet, and they're technically crustaceans. Autocorrect mistakes abound, but have you ever made the errors yourself, such as typing the word buy when you meant by? Studies in Computer Mediated Communications have linked this phenomenon to the way we process words phonetically before typing them out.Solrads are those lines radiating from the sun or a lightbulb in a comic strip, while dites are the diagonal lines on a smooth mirror.--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: [email protected]: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2011, Wayword LLC.
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1/16/2012 | Download File (23.78 MB) - right click to download
SHOW SUMMARYIt's a bird! It's a plane! It's . . . "witches' knickers"? Well, what do YOU call those stray plastic bags littering the landscape? Also, what it means to do something "like a boss," how to hyphenate correctly, and why we say we have a "crush" on someone. What do you call when you meet someone for the first time, and they ask if you know so-and-so, just because you share an area code? Also, similes from the 1800s, a rule on hyphens, and the truth about what happens when you turn a bull loose in a china shop.FULL DETAILSWhat do you call those plastic shopping bags that litter the street? Some know them as witches' britches or witches' knickers. Others prefer urban tumbleweeds. In American Beauty, Ricky Fitts famously called one the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Either way, despite the effort to introduce reusable bags, the plastic variety continues to build up. Lori Robinson of Santa Barbara has even gone so far as to collect them from Tanzanian villages and distribute the more sustainable variety.http://animprobablelife.com/2011/11/26/lori-robinson-bag-project-africa/http://africainside.org/favorite-charities/one-wordplastics/A clumsy person may be known as a bull in a china shop or a bull in a china closet. The former came into use first, in the early 1800s, but a bull in china closet is all the more evocative. Plus, according to the MythBusters, a bull in a china shop is surprisingly nimble.http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/db/animals/bull-china-shop-cause-dish-carnage.htmlWhen did the expression to have a crush on someone come into use? The television series Downton Abbey has dropped this and other fun bits of language, but no need to worry about its historical accuracy- crush has been around since the early 1880s. To mash on someone or crash on someone are idioms in the same vein, and may derive from the idea of an emotional collision between two prospective flames.As they say in Wasika, Minnesota, "If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture."Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a new game entitled The Secrets of Nym. In AA, d.e.n.i.a.l. is said to stand for don't even notice I am lying, which is a backronym. An acoustic guitar could be considered a retronym. And an editor named Daily is an example of an aptronym.When someone finds out where you're from, do they ask if you know so-and-so? The cynics out there may refer to this as the six degrees of stupid, but even urban dwellers can admit that the answer is yes more often than the odds would suggest. How do you respond in those cases, and is there a term for those questions?The Spanish equivalent of our bull in a china shop analogy translates to "like an elephant in a pottery store."Where does the meme like a boss come from? The original boss may be the rapper Slim Thug, whose 2005 track "Like A Boss", from the album Already Platinum (which never went platinum), lists the myriad tasks he performs like a boss (e.g. "When I floss/ like a boss"). In 2009, Andy Samberg of SNL and The Lonely Island made a video entitled "Like A Boss" featuring Seth Rogen, which describes further boss-like activities (e.g. "promote synergy/ like a boss").A book of similes from the 1800s contains such gems as it's easy as peeling a hardboiled egg and it's as hard to shave as an egg.Does evidence-based have a hyphen? Why, yes it does, because evidence-based often functions as an adjective. While style guides indicate that we're continuing to drop hyphens, evidence-based is an important one to keep intact, even when used after the verb (e.g. the research is evidence-based). Here's another great simile: large as life and twice as natural. As in, did you really see Elvis? Yep, he was large as life and twice as natural.It's been a puzzler tracking the origin of the saying good night, sleep tight, see you on the big drum. Perhaps it's an innocent mixup that takes from the Robert Burns poem "Tam o' Shanter", which reads, good night, sleep tight, I'll see you on the Brigadoon.http://www.waywordradio.org/kit-caboodle/http://www.robertburns.org.uk/Assets/Poems_Songs/tamoshanter.htm You'd better behave, or I'll knock you from an amazing grace to a floating opportunity! This African-American saying, used as a motherly warning, first popped up in the 1930 play Mule Bone by Langston Hughes. Infra dig, short for the Latin phrase infra dignitatum, means beneath one's dignity, or uncouth. Abbreviated Latin phrases like infra dig have become standard after old English schoolboys used to shorten them while studying classical texts. Here are some easy similes: easy as winking, or easy as breathing. If you prefer a tough one, try as difficult to grasp as a shadow.We all know the idiom slow as molasses, but slow as Moses does just as well. After all, he spent 40 years trekking to the Promised Land, and even described himself as slow of speech and of tongue.The 19th Century French writer Adolphe de Lamartine said that written language is like a mirror, which it is necessary to have in order that man know himself and be sure that he exists.In their song "The Old Apartment," The Barenaked Ladies sang, "crooked landing/ crooked landlord/ narrow laneway filled with crooks. This is an example of a polyseme, or one word that has multiple meanings. Similar to this is the syllepsis, wherein one word is applied to other words in different senses (e.g. Alanis Morissette: "you held your breath and the door for me"). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ggJS0p-QQchttp://rhetoric.byu.edu/figures/S/syllepsis.htm Here's one that's sure to lull a restless child into sleep: night night chicken butt ham
1/9/2012 | Download File (23.78 MB) - right click to download
SUMMARYHow about some wind pudding with a dollop of air sauce? What's in a tavern sandwich? Do pregnant women really crave pickles and ice cream? Grant and Martha dig in to colorful language from the world of food. Plus, ever think of publishing a novel? Be warned: The snarky literary agent from SlushPile Hell shows no mercy when it comes to rejections. Also, piggy banks, children vs. kids, hand vs. foot dexterity, and a bi-coastal quiz. Plus, those flipped sentences known as antimetabole, such as "It's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men." FULL DETAILSEver thought about getting that novel published? Apparently, others have too, and some of their queries are less than persuasive for the admittedly grumpy literary agent who writes the blog SlushPile Hell. He posts some of the more colorful queries from his inbox, along with his own pithy responses. Take this one: "Have you ever wondered what it's like to be pulled up a waterfall or to be flushed down a toilet?" To which the agent responds, "Hey! Have you been reading my mind?" Ouch.http://bit.ly/9z3rBpIs it wrong to refer to children as kids? One discerning mother, when asked about her kids, always replied, "I don't raise goats, but my children are fine." Grant explains that as early as the 1600s, the word kids had popped up to refer to bratty or unruly children. But by the 1800s, it was normal even among upper-class households to call their young ones kids without any negative connotations. A vegetarian from Vermillion, South Dakota, wonders about the origin of a popular loose meat sandwich called a tavern. It's like a sloppy joe, and also goes by the monikers Maid-Rite and Tastee. Martha notes a diner in Sioux City, Iowa, called Ye Olde Tavern, that claims to have created the sandwich. Still, with food origins, plenty of people lay claim to the inventions of everything, from hamburgers to breakfast cereal.http://bit.ly/fik8P2http://bit.ly/jtCwOAQuiz Guy Greg Pliska has a bi-coastal quiz about two-word phrases connecting the letters NY and CA. For example, the man in black is JohnNY CAsh. Keep your eyes wide open for the clues!A Canadian listener's boyfriend has a special talent. He can remove his socks, roll them up, and throw them across the room into the laundry basket--all with his toes. She says he has toe dexterity, but wonders if the word dexterous can apply to feet as well as hands? Martha notes that great soccer players like Argentina's Lionel Messi are simply called dexterous, although nimble and agile are also appropriate adjectives. Noctivagant people are those who wander the night, and vespertilian folks have bat-like qualities. Add these to "shirtless" as poignant ways to describe a vampire.When the going gets tough, the tough get going. This and other phrases of wisdom are known as antimetabole, from the Greek for "turning about in the opposite direction." Certain forms of these statements also go by the name chiasmus, from the Greek letter chi, meaning "X." They're often effective for making a point in a speech, like John F. Kennedy's famous "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." No matter the context, these flipped-sentence proverbs are great for making a point clear. Mardy Grothe has a whole book about chiasmus called Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You. http://bit.ly/lJz5qpThe grumpy agent who writes the blog SlushPile Hell received a submission stating, "I have attached a copy of a letter I recently sent to Oprah about my book. She ends her show in September 2011, which leaves little time to select an agent." The agent responds, "Finally! An author who understands the importance of Oprah and has a no-fail plan for getting on her show." As if.What's for dinner? How about wind pudding, air sauce, and a side of balloon trimmings? This colorful euphemism for "nothing" dates as far back as the American Civil War, when troops would come into the mess tent, see a wild squirrel boiling in a pot, and opt for wind pudding and air sauce instead. The calls and e-mails keep coming in about Scotts being called Todds and Todds being called Scotts. One listener left a voicemail about a christening where the priest called the baby by its oddly common misnomer. Another listener by the name of Stefanie complains that she keeps getting called Jennifer. Perhaps it has to do with rhythm, and the patterns we develop out of sounds and syllables.There's been a lot of talk about the place of handwriting in the digital age. Grant has some great books to recommend on the subject: Reading Early American Handwriting by Kip Sperry, and Handwriting in America: A Cultural History by Tamara Thornton. A long time ago, part of the reason for teaching longhand cursive was to have students practice transcribing documents with indoctrinating political messages. The character of handwriting, from the flourishes to the way a letter sits on the line, brought with it an array of cultural implications.http://bit.ly/mwKGPnhttp://bit.ly/lDrvCSWhy do we have piggy banks instead of any other kind of farm animal banks? In Scotland and Northern England, a kind of earthen material called pigg was used in the Middle Ages for making pots. The name stuck, and today we fill our piggs, or piggy banks, with coins. Why do pregnant women enjoy pickles and ice cream? Or do they? Linguists from the American Dialect Society have been discussing this recently. They found that the expression pickles and ice cream once referred simply to the conjoining of two unrelated things, sort of the opposite of peas and carrots. Not until the middle of the 20th century did it pertain to cravings, simply because pregnant women go through different nutritional patte
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