A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over

[This episode first aired October 17, 2009.]Some teachers are using a controversial tactic to get young students reading: They let their 'pupils choose which books to read' for class. Does it work? Also, should that line at the grocery store checkout read 15 items or 'less or fewer'? And is the expression 'these ones' grammatically incorrect?The owner of a yarn store in Juneau says a customer corrected her when she pointed out a special collection of buttons and said, 'You should check out these ones.' Is it incorrect to say 'these ones' instead of just 'these'?A Syracuse woman wonders how 'bread and butter pickles' got their name.What do you call that jarring sensation when you see a radio personality for the first time, and he looks nothing like what you expected? The hosts talked about it in a past episode http://www.waywordradio.org/bogarting-bangers/. Listeners responded with more words for this phenomenon.Quiz Guy John Chaneski was rummaging around the 'A Way with Words' Lost and Found Department, and returned with a 'quiz' based on lost items and their owners.The sign over the checkout lane says '15 Items or Less.' A listener is adamant that it should say '15 Items or Fewer.'A Texas listener recounts an ongoing debate in her family's kitchen over the exact 'definition of the word spatula.' Is it the kitchen tool used to spread icing and level measuring cups? Something you use to flip a pancake? That item with the plastic handle and the rubber blade for scraping a bowl? When she gets together with the in-laws to cook, the caller says, the request 'Hand me a spatula' leads to confusion. In Philadelphia, the expression the 'big mahoff,' means 'a bigshot,' as in 'Who do you think you are, the big mahoff?' But just what is a mahoff?A 'shivaree,' also spelled 'charivari,' is a raucous, good-natured hazing for newlyweds. A discussion here http://www.waywordradio.org/words-with-k-in-them-are-funny/ about that word prompted lots of listeners to write in with their own stories about shivarees. Martha shares some of them.In Britain, Canada, and some other English-speaking countries, the last letter of the alphabet is 'not zee, but zed.' A caller who grew up in Guyana wonders why.Sure, the present tense of sneak is easy, but what about the past? Is it 'sneaked or snuck'?A law student wonders about the origin of the word 'widget.'Is the word 'financial pronounced' with a long I in the first syllable?There's a story going around that the word 'posh' derives from 'Port Out, Starboard Home.' 'Don't fall for it.'--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 2010, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

South African English is a rich mix of Afrikaans, English, and indigenous languages such as Zulu and Xhosa. Martha and Grant discuss some favorite terms from that part of the world, including lekker, diski, and ubuntu. Also, where'd we get the term hurt locker and why do we say 'pardon my French' after cursing? What's the difference between supposedly and supposably? And is having a vast vocabulary filled with obscure words really all that important?Looking ahead to the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/, Martha and Grant discuss some terms you might hear there. By the way, here's where you can learn that South African diski dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fML326GXJPY.Why do we say 'pardon my French' after cursing?A Dallas listener says he was confused at first when a friend from rural North Dakota reported coming home and finding a moose in his kitchen. Only later did he learn what difference the so-called 'Canadian raising.'Quiz Guy Greg Pliska presents a puzzle about the Oxcar awards, given to fictitious films, the names of which differ by just one letter from the names of the real 2010 Best Picture Oscar nominees. Here's one such plot: 'George Clooney plays a corporate downsizer who avoids close personal relationships by spending his time climbing evergreen trees.'Which adverb is usually correct: supposably or supposedly?What's a round-heeled woman?The 2010 winner of the 'Best Picture' Oscar has a Seattle woman wondering about the term hurt locker. Ben Zimmer wrote about it recently in his column at the Visual Thesaurus http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2195/ and we talk about it, too.And here's the searing poem by Brian Turner called 'The Hurt Locker http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/brian_turner/the_hurt_locker.shtml120.'The hosts discuss Ammon Shea's recent New York Times Magazine column http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/magazine/14FOB-onlanguage-t.html about whether a large vocabulary filled with obscure and unusual words is all that necessary. A medical transcriptionist who majored in English reports that her co-workers are squabbling over a sentence: 'The patient was brought to the operating room, and laid supine on the operating-room table.'Martha shares a listener's email about a pet's name changing over time. In this case, it's a cat whose name morphed from 'Orange Juice' all the way to 'Lanny.' Martha traces the con-cat-enation of monikers.A Texas nurse says she's often teased about her last name, which happens to be 'Newby.' She wonders if she should change it and how long the term newbie has been around.Is it ever correct to refer to a mustache as a plural?Martha shares another email about the evolution of a pet's name, in this case a dog whose original name was Dumpster. Now the pooch is named after the 19th president of the United States. Sort of.--'A Way with Words' is supported by its listeners. Donate today:http://www.waywordradio.org/donate/Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: [email protected]:United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Site: http://waywordradio.org/Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donate/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradioCopyright 2010, Wayword Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired October 10, 2009.]Do you say something happened on accident or by accident? Is text-messaging is destroying our kids' writing ability? Where do horseradish, zark, and ignoramus come from?Grant and Martha discuss a new collection of college slang compiled by UCLA linguistics professor Pamela Munro. Learn more about it and order a copy here.A Burlington, Vt. caller wants to know: Is horseradish so named because of this root's strong resemblance to part of a horse's anatomy?The word zarf means 'a metal cupholder,' but a Scrabble enthusiast says other players always challenge his use of that word. He wants to know its origin.What word in the English language is an anagram of itself? Hint: It's a trick question.Puzzle Dude John Chaneski has a quiz about the unofficial terms for familiar things that have less familiar official names. 'The Academy Awards of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,' for example, are unofficially called the Oscars. So what's the unofficial name for what's officially known as Chomolungma?If you use the expression on accident rather than by accident, it probably says less about where you live and more about how old you are.Is there a word in the English language that means 'to read by candlelight'? A listener in Kittery Point, Maine, used to read the dictionary every night as a teenager and came across such a word. She's been racking her brain to remember it.An Orange County, California, listener describes how both his left-handed parents were forced as children to learn to write with their non-dominant hand. Their handwriting looked unusual, to say the least. Grant discusses myths about handedness and recommends the book Handwriting in America: A Cultural History by Tamara Thornton. By the way, if you're looking for the word that means 'written toward the left,' it's levographic.Here's a bit of campus slang accompanied by a hand gesture: awkward turtle. Grant explains what it means and how it's used. Need a visual?Text-messaging is destroying our kids' ability to write, right? Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.In a few parts of the country, such as eastern Wisconsin, the more common term for 'water fountain' is Text-messaging is destroying our kids' ability to write. A man who heard the term frequently in Rhode Island wonders: How did bubbler make it all the way over to Rhode Island, but seemingly skip the states in between?The story behind the word ignoramus is big fun. It involves a bumbling lawyer, a six-hour farce from the 17th century, and a Latin legal term. See? Big fun.If you need proof that language is powerful, here's some. Researchers at Cornell recently reported that kids are more likely to eat their veggies if they're told the food has enticing names like 'X-ray Vision Carrots' and 'Dinosaur Broccoli Trees.' Wonder how big a grant the researchers got to study what every parent already knows.Did you learn the vowels as 'a,' 'e,' 'i,' 'o' 'u,' and sometimes 'y' and 'w'? A caller who was taught that in second grade was left wondering: When and where does 'w' function as a vowel?--Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: [email protected]: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Site: 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 2010, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's the right way to pronounce gyros? Have you ever heard of feeling poozley? Called something great a blinger? Use the expression one-off to mean a "one-time thing"? Read full show notes, hear hundreds of free episodes, send your thoughts and questions, and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org/contact. Be a part of the show: call 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; worldwide, call or text/SMS +1 (619) 800-4443. Email [email protected]. Twitter @wayword. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Write it Right One hundred years ago, American journalist and satirist Ambrose Bierce published a curmudgeonly book of writing advice called Write It Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. In her new book, Boston Globe language columnist Jan Freeman explains where Bierce got his ideas about language, how his grammatical convictions compared with those of his contemporaries, and what they teach us about English today. The book is Ambrose Bierce's Write It Right: The Celebrated Cynic's Language Peeves Deciphered, Appraised, and Annotated for 21st-Century Readers. Recently, Freeman talked with Grant about Bierce and his cranky advice for speaking and writing well. http://www.amazon.com/Ambrose-Bierces-Write-Right-21st-Century/dp/0802717683 You can read much more by Jan Freeman (and we recommend that you do) in the archives of her columns in the Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/jan_freeman/ -- "A Way with Words" is made of paper: drop a few bills in the donation jar today: http://www.waywordradio.org/donate/ . Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: http://waywordradio.org/ Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donate/ Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/ Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/ Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/ Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2010, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know that grammatical 'rule' about not ending a sentence with a preposition? Well, who ever decided finishing off a sentence like that is a bad thing? (Personally, we think it's one of the silliest things anyone ever came up with.) In his new book, The Lexicographer's Dilemma The Evolution of 'Proper' English, from Shakespeare to South Park, literary historian Jack Lynch offers a lively narrative about the evolution of such rules, starting in the 17th century, when grammar books were more like self-help guides for the upwardly mobile. He introduces us to the flesh-and-blood (and almost always quirky) grammarians and dictionary editors who created and popularized traditional rules that people still argue about today. Recently Lynch talked with Martha about why and how some of those rules came to be. http://www.amazon.com/Lexicographers-Dilemma-Evolution-English-Shakespeare/dp/0802717004/ref=pd_rhf_shvl_1 Incidentally, Lynch, an associate professor of English at Rutgers University, has published his own helpful guide to grammar and usage online. http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/ -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2010, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grant interviews 'Jeopardy!' champion Ken Jennings about the grueling nature of TV quiz shows, the fine art of writing trivia questions, the special challenges of competing in European quiz contests, and how it feels to answer incorrectly. You can hear him try to puzzle out the answer to our slang quiz in this episode. http://www.waywordradio.org/bless-your-heart/ Find out more about Ken here. http://www.ken-jennings.com/index.html -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2010, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode originally aired February 9, 2008.] In this week's episode: Just how far back could you go and still understand the English people were speaking? We crank up our trusty time machine to find out. Hint: You'd probably have a tough time getting around in the eighth century, when English poetry looked like: 'Hwaet we gardena in geardagum...' Speaking of the more recent past: When you played hide-and-seek as a child, did you yell 'Ollie, Ollie Oxen Free'? Or 'Ally Ally in Free'? Or maybe 'Ally Ally Ump Free'? 'Ole Ole Olsen Free'? Or something else? A caller in Montevideo, Uruguay, is curious about the origin of such nonsensical phrases. It's the Moby Dick of etymology: 'Where do we get the phrase the whole nine yards?' A pediatrician in North Carolina wonders if it derives from a World War II phrase involving 'nine yards' of ammunition. Grant and Martha discuss the many theories about this expression. Martha and Grant discuss 'squeejawed' and other strange terms that mean 'crooked,' or 'askew,' including 'slanchwise,' 'whompy-jawed,' 'lopper-jawed,' 'antigogglin,' 'sigogglin,' and 'catawampus.' Puzzle Guy Greg Pliska presents a letter game called 'Dandy Dyads.' A woman wonders about a phrase from her past: 'I'm going to beat you like a red-headed stepchild.' Martha and Grant discuss 'gingerism,' or prejudice against redheads. A New York babysitter says the English language needs a word to replace the clunky phrase, 'the kids I babysit.' The hosts try to help her find one. 'Charges'? 'Child associates'? 'Padawans'? This week's 'Slang This!' contestant, a professor of medieval history at the University of Santa Cruz, tries to guess the meaning of the slang terms 'quizzam' and 'snirt.' A native speaker of Spanish has a hard time with prepositions in English. (Why do we say that someone's 'on my mind' but 'in my heart'? A listener in York, England wonders about the word 'grockles,' a derogatory term for tourists. On an earlier episode we talked about regional differences involving the words 'dinner' and 'supper,' prompting a whole smorgasbord of responses. Grant reads a few of them on the air. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2010, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired January 12, 2008.] In this week's episode, Martha and Grant discuss not-to-be-believed articles about language from the satirical newspaper The Onion, including one headlined 'Underfunded Schools Forced to Cut Past Tense from Language Programs.' By the way, did you ever notice how ONION is ZO-ZO if you tilt your head to the right? A caller has a friendly disagreement with a pal: Is the expression 'tide me over' or 'tie me over'? Hint: The answer she gets should tide her over. If a dictator dictates, and an aviator aviates, then does a commentator 'commentate'? A caller complains that this last word gives him the willies. Does an alligator alligate? A middle-schooler who's reading 'Anne of Green Gables' is puzzled by a mention of 'breakfast, dinner, and supper.' She wants to know if the words 'dinner' and 'lunch' really interchangeable. The fur flies when Greg Pliska unleashes a word puzzle involving the names of animals. Also speaking of animals, an immigrant from India recounts his confusion the first time he heard the expression 'I'm going to go see a man about a horse.' How in did that become a euphemism for 'I'm going to go to the bathroom'? A former West Virginian reports that she grew up hearing a strange word: 'charny.' In her part of the country, she says, it means 'dirty' or 'filthy,' and she always heard it pronounced 'chee-YAR-nee.' This week's Slang This! contestant, a comic-book illustrator from Providence, R.I., tries to guess the meaning of the expressions 'hat-catcher' and 'to go shucks.' What IS the longest word in the English language? 'Antidisestablishmentarianism'? 'Floccinaucinihilipilification'? Or 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,' maybe? Martha and Grant discuss such sesquipedalian contenders for the title of Longest English Word. Where do you put those exclamation points and question marksâdo they go inside or outside the quotation marks? Can you say, 'We have the answer!'? Confused about whether 'biweekly' means 'twice a week' or 'twice a month'? Martha rants about why the using the words 'biweekly' and 'bimonthly' at all is a bad idea, period. Grant shares listener email about the origin and meaning of the term 'g-job.' -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Enough about the 'Word of the Year.' How about the 'Word of the Decade'? Bailout? Google? Martha and Grant discuss some candidates. Also in this episode, does speaking a different language make you feel different emotion'? What did Don Draper on 'Mad Men' mean when he called Betty a 'Main Line brat'? And why do we talk about 'throwing someone under the bus'? Where'd we get the expression 'mind your p's and q's'? A Barcelona native wants help understanding exactly what it means, and shares a few other English idioms that caught her up short. A die-hard fan of television's 'Mad Men' is puzzled when Don calls Betty a 'Main Line brat.' Grant's been collecting contenders for 2009's 'Word of the Year,' including 'Dracula sneeze,' 'Government Motors,' and...'unumbium'? Quiz Guy John Chaneski sums up the events of 2009 in the form of limericks, all with a blank to be filled. Here's one: NASA really put on a great show A new lunar crater did blow To the glee of mankind The rocket did find That the moon contains much __________. A dogsledder in Vermont wonders why he and his fellow mushers direct their furry packs by shouting 'gee' for 'right' and 'haw' for 'left.' If you ask a salesclerk for change in the form of a 'case quarter,' what are you asking for? An upstate New York woman says her British husband makes fun of her for saying 'lookit!' Does speaking a particular language make you feel certain emotions? The hosts talk about a blog post http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/a-language-of-smiles/ by evolutionary biologist Olivia Judson musing about whether this might be true. A woman from Indianapolis is trying to convince her grandmother that it's okay for restaurant servers to refer to both male and female customers as you guys. Grandma says it's sexist. Our caller maintains it's fine, drawing an analogy with Spanish, where the masculine pronoun 'ellos' encompasses both sexes. Why do we describe the sudden abandonment of someone as 'throwing him under the bus'? A Dallas man says his grandmother used to carry around washcloth a plastic bag in her purse. When he and his siblings would get their hands dirty, she'd say to them, 'Show me your 'paddywackers,''' and they'd hold out their hands to be wiped clean. He wonders if she made up the word 'paddywhacker.' Two more expressions that characterized 2009: 'El Stiffo' and 'drive like a Cullen.' -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired May 10, 2008.] We all misspeak from time to time, but how about when we mangle words on purpose? Do you ever say 'fambly' instead of family, 'perazackly' for exactly, or 'coinkydink' for coincidence? When Grant recently wrote a newspaper column about saying things wrong on purpose, the response was enormous. Why is it that many people find such wordplay hard to resist? We consider this question and share their own favorite examples. A Pennsylvania minister is curious about a phrase her family uses: 'by way of Robin Hood's barn' or 'around Robin Hood's barn,' meaning a long, circuitous route. How do you pronounce the architectural term 'beaux arts'? (Yep, Grant accidentally left of the final S when he spelled the term on the air.) Is it pronounced 'boh-ZART,' 'boh-ART,' 'boh-ZAR,' or 'boh-ZARTS'? We settle a dispute between a New Jersey woman and her nephew. Martha shares the winners of a contest for Best Book Titles of the Year. Or would that be Oddest Book Titles of the Year? Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents a puzzle in which we remove the first letter of a phrase to yield another with a different meaning. Try one: originally it was a boxing film starring Robert De Niro. Now it describes a head of cattle that's perhaps getting on in years. A Wisconsin woman is trying to remember 'a term for paths in the grass created by pedestrians taking shortcuts.' Grant has an answer for her, straight from the jargon of urban planning professionals. The caller also wants 'recommendations for a good thesaurus.' The hosts' response may surprise you. A caller is curious about a slang term she hears from her friends in the military. The word is 'Jody,' and it means someone who steals a soldier's girlfriend. Grant tells the colorful story behind this bit of military slang, as well as the songs it inspired. Here's a sample of Jody calls from the Vietnam war and from the Korean War. Grant and Martha share more intentional mispronunciations, including 'tar-ZHAY' instead of Target. This week's Slang This! contestant is not just any word nerd. She's Dorothea Gillim, creator of the animated PBS series WordGirl. Dorothea tries to guess the meaning of the odd terms 'pelican crossing' and 'zanjero.' The new season of WordGirl starts Monday, May 26th, and airs Mondays through Fridays. What is 'janky'? A Chattanooga caller uses it describe something inferior or bad. A Wisconsin man wonders about the use of the term 'big box store' to denote the stores of big retail chains like Wal-Mart. Is 'big box' a reference to the size and shape of the stores, or the fact that they sell huge appliances that come in, well, big boxes? Here's a silly song from JibJab about bix box stores. A Pittsburgh man is bothered by people who would say someone wrote an 'outraged letter.' Can a letter really be angry and indignant or is it really the writer who's upset? Martha answers his question and seizes the opportunity to talk about the four-syllable word, 'hypallage.' -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another minicast from A Way with Words. I'm Martha Barnette. You may remember the call we had from Tony in Encinitas, California. He was curious about the term for an unusual hazing ritual: My dad woke us up one night, about 8 o'clock. He said don't be alarmed. There's going to be gunfire and a lot of noise, and there's going to be a lot of people in the house and there's going to be a party. This is probably late spring. And lo and behold, next thing we knew there were trucks driving up and women coming in with food and we heard people shooting off guns and men doing what men do. It was a giant party. And I said, 'Daddy what is this?' He said, 'It's a shivaree.' Well, it turns out that shivarees aren't that unusual after all. Or at least, a lot of you have had experiences with these raucous surprise parties for newlyweds. Amanda from Livingston, Montana says that shivarees were quite common when she was growing up in rural western South Dakota in 1960's and 70's. 'They usually took place long enough after the wedding that the happy couple had let down their guard,' she writes. 'The revelers would turn up late in the evening in a noisy caravan and take over the house, rousing the hosts out of bed. Good-natured chaos ensued; shortsheeting beds, sprinkling cornflakes in the beds, and tearing the labels off the canned goods in the cupboards while the hosts were distracted by entertaining the crowd. It was a fun, harmless way to welcome the new couple into the community of adults.' Guess that's one way to do it. We got another email from John. He's a dairy farmer in Eleva, Wisconsin. At the age of 40, John took his sweetheart took a trip to Colorado. While there, they ended up getting married. 'Upon our return,' he writes, 'as news of our marriage leaked out, the farming community felt that they were deprived of a party. And thus plans for a shivaree were hatched. 'It happened in the early evening, after the milking chores had been done, on the night of a blue moon in August, 1985. A stream of pick-up trucks and cars paraded up our 3/4 mile-long driveway. In the back of some trucks were men shooting guns. In another, two men held a large lumber mill saw blade between them on a piece of pipe, striking it as if it were a large cymbal. 'After the initial shock wore off, I asked what was expected of me. The reply was that a quick trip to town was in order for cold beer for the men who lounged outside in the cool summer night air. Meanwhile the women took over the house and set up a buffet meal. 'The guests provided everything, from the table cloth, food service ware, napkins, coffee pot ready to plug in, food of all sort, and gifts to celebrate our marriage. After a memorable evening the women cleaned up and took with them all trash and evidence of the event. 'And again, Evelyn and I were left in the splendid evening of a blue moon in Wisconsin, our hearts filled with gratitude for the warmth and camaraderie of a small farming community.' Not to mention for the women doing all the cooking and cleaning, right? Well, we appreciate the warmth and camaraderie of our virtual community of language lovers, and we're glad you're a part of it. We hope you'll drop us at line any you have language on your mind. That address is [email protected]. Or pop by our discussion forum. That's at waywordradio.org/discussion. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Did you ever use a tilly ticket in the bathroom? Over the years, we've answered lots of your questions about words and phrases that have to do with going to the bathroom. We've talked about euphemisms like I have to go see a man about a horse. Or that Victorian-era locution, I'm going to go pluck a rose. Or my favorite: I'm going to visit Miss White. We've also talked about the origin of biffy, a word for outdoor facilities. And we discussed how the word john may have become synonymous with that bathroom destination. But recently we received an email that has me puzzled. It's from Marge in Chula Vista, California. She writes: 'My brother and I have been reminiscing about our childhood, spent in an old house in New Hampshire, during World War II. My mother always called toilet paper Tilly Tickets.' She continues: 'We don't have a clue where that expression came from. Our memory was that when we were out of Tilly Tickets, we used the old scratchy patterns -- the kind used for sewing.' Eeeeuw. Well, her question made me squirm, and not just at the thought of using an old McCall's pattern. I have to admit I'm stumped. 'Tilly Tickets'? So I'm hoping you can help. Ever hear toilet paper called 'Tilly Tickets'? If so, did you ever hear a story to explain that name? Let us know. Our email address is [email protected]. One more thing: I want to share something I discovered while trying to find out about Tilly Tickets. You may recall that we've talked about the word lagniappe. It's a term you're more likely to hear in the Gulf States, especially in southern Louisiana. It means 'a little something extra,' a little freebie that a vendor tosses in. A free keychain from your mechanic, or a calendar from a realtor--those are lagniappes. Well, it turns out that in Ireland, and parts of Newfoundland, they don't call it a lagniappe. They call it a tilly. I don't think this type of tilly has anything to do with Tilly Tickets. Just a little extra something I thought I'd toss in. Anyway, drop us a line if you know anything about Tilly Tickets. Hope you enjoyed this little tilly. If you like what you hear and learn, please consider a donation to our program. Thank you! -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Humorist Roy Blount Jr. stops by to try his hand at a slang quiz specifically about Southernisms. Blount, who is president of the Authors Guild, also joined Grant for a wide-ranging conversation about such topics as the controversy over writers' rights and the Amazon Kindle 2. Listen here. http://www.waywordradio.org/a-conversation-with-roy-blount-jr/ -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If a restaurant menu states, 'We cook off our potatoes,' what in the heck does that mean? A truck driver who encountered such an announcement at a roadside cafe is still puzzling over what it means to 'cook off' a tuber. He phones in to hash it out. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No, it's not the neurological effect of spending too much time researching odd new terms. Slang jang is a tongue-tickling sauce found in East Texas. For more about slang jang, including recipes, check out etymologist Barry Popik's site. http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/slang_jang/ -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is it acceptable to make a brand-new adverb simply by adding an -ly to an adjective? A scientist wants to know, and specifically a term she uses, nuclearly. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's a brand-new season of A Way with Words! Grant has big news, too: He's used up his last Metrocard, packed up his belongings, and moved to the Left Coast. He reports on some features of California language there that are already catching his ear. Also in this episode, what's the real meaning of decimate? And what does it mean when someone says don't leave your endgate up? A Wisconsin community is about to open its first dog park. But what to name it? 'Scentral Park'? 'Unleashed'? Martha and Grant try to help. Why do we call a run-down area skid row? A Philadelphia listener has a Yiddish twist on an old palindrome: 'Unable I was ere I saw Elba, nu?' 'If you're writing out the names of numbers, what three numbers require six e's and no other vowels?' Quiz Guy John Chaneski has the answer in his latest word puzzle. Instead of saying 'Good-bye' or 'So long,' a Hoosier says, his great-grandfather used to say, Don't leave your endgate up. What's up with that? 'Are you shining me on?' means 'Are you trying to fool me?' But what does shining have to do with tricking someone? Grant talks about the surprising beauty to be found in, of all things, the names of shantytowns. Rock climbers use the term beta to refer to any information they receive about a route before climbing it. Is it related to beta as in 'beta-testing software'? The word decimate has a grisly etymology. It derives from a Latin military term meaning 'to execute every tenth man in an army unit'--the penalty for a failed mutiny. As a result, some sticklers insist that the English word decimate should be used only to indicate 'destroying a fraction of something' rather than 'destroy completely' or 'utterly wipe out.' Who's right? A Pittsburgh woman reports that when she went away to college, she was surprised to find people correcting her grammar when she'd say things like 'the car needs washed' or 'the kids need picked up.' She wonders if she's been saying it wrong all these years. There's a new Facebook group called People for a Library-Themed Ben & Jerry's Flavor. They say that libraries are awesome, B&J ice cream is tasty, so why not combine the two and convince Ben & Jerry's to produce a new flavor with a library theme? Candidates so far include 'Gooey Decimal System' and 'Rocky Read.' Do you have others? Tell us about it in the forum. A 14 yr-old teenager pronounces the word 'bagel' as BEH-gul, rather than BAY-gul. Her family thinks she's crazy. Who's right? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode originally aired October 11, 2008.] 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 with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does your family have a word for the cardboard tube left over from a roll of toilet paper? A caller says his family refers to them Oh-ah, Oh-ahs. Turns out many families have their own terms for them, including drit-drit, dawda dawda, hoo-hoo, to-do, taw-taw, and der der. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many of the world's languages apparently derived from a prehistoric common ancestor known as Indo-European. But since no one ever wrote down a word of it, how do we know what it was like? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired October 4, 2008.] 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 with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired Sept. 27, 2009.] 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 with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired June 6, 2009.] Has the age of email led to an outbreak of exclamation marks? Do women use them more than men? Also, is there a word for the odd feeling when you listen to a radio personality for years, then discover that they look nothing like your mental picture of them? And what's the origin of the verb 'to bogart'? Writing in the 'Guardian,' Stuart Jeffries contends that our email boxes are being infested with exclamation marks , known as 'bangs' or 'bangers' (without mash) to some people. Jacob Rubin also wrote on the subject a couple of years ago in Slate. If you tell a buddy, 'Don't bogart that joint,' you're telling him not to hog the marijuana cigarette. Ahem. We know phrase was popularized in the film 'Easy Rider' (performed by The Fraternity of Man ) but does it have anything to do with Humphrey Bogart? You know that odd feeling when you've listened to a radio personality for years, but when you finally meet them, they look nothing like you'd imagined? Is there a word for that weird disconnect? 'Radiofreude,' maybe? Martha shares what F. Scott Fitzgerald and Elmore Leonard had to say about exclamation marks. Short version: Neither is a fan. Quiz Guys John Chaneski and Greg Pliska lead a couple of rounds of 'Chain Reaction,' a word game that's great for parties and long car rides. Two players try to make a third one guess the word that the other two are thinking of. The trick is that they have to give alternating one-word clues to build a sentence. Hilarity ensues. Hillary sues. Why do some people refer to a couch or a sofa as a 'davenport'? How should you pronounce the word 'gala' ? Grant reports some etymological news: A recent article in the journal American Speech suggests a new source for the term that means 'drunk,' 'blotto.' If you're in New Zealand and are told to 'rattle your dags,' you'd better get a move on. Literally, though, the expression has to do with sheep butts. Martha reviews the new book, 'Dreaming in Hindi,' by Katherine Russell Rich , a memoir about setting out to learn a second language in mid-life. Rich spent a year in India to learn Hindi, and became so fascinated with the process that she went on to interview experts about the mechanics of second-language acquisition and how it affects the brain. Publisher's Weekly has an interview with Rich . Grant discusses an article about what happens to the mother tongue voice when first-language speakers of indigenous languages in India learn English and then spend years focused on speaking and writing in their adopted tongue. How did the word 'pigeonhole' come to mean 'classify' or 'categorize'? An employee who gets a great termination package is said to leave the company with a 'golden parachute.' Where'd that term come from? A caller is adamant honorifics should be used to address the President of the United States, as in 'President Obama,' never 'Mr. Obama.' He thinks it's disrespectful and divisive when news organizations use 'Mr.' -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired May 16, 2009.] Pickle, baboon, cupcake, snorkel, pumpkin, Kalamazoo -- let's face it, some words are just plain funny. But what makes some words funnier than others? Martha and Grant consider this question with an assist from Neil Simon's play (and movie) 'The Sunshine Boys.' Also in this episode: 'There are three words in the English language that end in -gry. Angry and hungry are two of them.' The hosts explain how this 'aggravating riddle' works -- and doesn't work. And what's a 'shivaree'? Do you know this diabolical riddle? 'There are three words in the English language that 'end in -gry.' Angry and hungry are two of them. What's the third?' The hosts explain that the answer's not as simple as you might think . Does the expression 'to boot,' as in 'I'll sell you this Hummer and throw in a free tank of gas to boot,' have anything to do with booting up a computer? In an earlier episode, the hosts discussed the phrase 'all over it like a duck on a junebug' , which refers to doing something with great eagerness. Martha shares an email from a Wisconsin listener who's watched plenty of ducks interact with junebugs and offers a vivid description of what that looks like. In this week's puzzle, Quiz Guy John Chaneski is looking for phrases in which the only vowel is the letter A. Try this clue: 'This person said, 'I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant, sometimes it is fearful, but nevertheless, it is inevitable.' Hint: The speaker's first name is the same as one of this show's hosts. What do you call the wheeled contraption that you push around the grocery store? Shopping cart? Shopping carriage? Shopping wagon? Buggy? A former Kentuckian wonders if anyone besides her calls them 'bascarts.' Check out this dialect map featuring these and other names for this device. One definition of a 'shivaree' is 'a compliment extended to every married couple made up of beating tin pans, blowing horns, ringing cowbells, playing horse fiddles, caterwauling, and in fine, the use of every disagreeable sound to make the night hideous.' Also spelled 'charivari,' this old-fashioned form of hazing newlyweds often involved interrupting them in the middle of the night with a raucous party. A former Hoosier calls to discuss boyhood memories of a shivaree and wonders about the source of this term. How do you 'pronounce February'? Is it FEB-roo-air-ee or FEB-yew-air-ee? A husband and wife have a long-running dispute over whether the word scissors is singular or plural. Is it 'a scissors' or 'a pair of scissors'? Grant recommends a couple of favorite children's books by Kate Banks and Georg Hallensleben: 'Baboon' and 'The Night Worker' . Martha explains the story behind the expression 'richer than Bim Gump.' Find out more about the long-running comic strip that inspired it here . The names Australia and Austria are awfully similar. Is it a coincidence? The H1N1 virus has a lot of people wondering about pandemics vs. epidemics. Grant explains the difference. Martha explains the origin of the word 'coin,' as in 'to coin a phrase.' -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does it bug you when people talk about themselves in the third person? A caller finds herself mightily annoyed by this habit, which she observes especially among politicians and celebrities. There's a word for the practice of referring to oneself in the third person: illeism. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired May 2, 2009.] In this downbeat economy, some advertisers are reaching for upbeat language. Take the new Quaker Oats catchphrase, 'Go humans go,' or Coca-Cola's current slogan, 'Open happiness.' Martha and Grant discuss whether chirpy, happy ad copy can go too far. Also this week, why New Yorkers insist they 'stand on line' instead of in line. And who is 'William Trembletoes'? And what's a 'zerbert'? (The title of this post is taken from a routine by comedian Bill Hicks .) Here's a New York Times article about perky ad copy in a sluggish economy. 'William Trembletoes, he's a good fisherman. Catches hens, puts 'em in the pen...' If you recited this rhyme growing up, you're probably tapping your foot along with its singsong cadences right now. The rhyme accompanied a children's game, and is the source, by the way, of the title of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. A caller who played the game as a child wonders if its roots lie in her Cajun heritage. It's an easy way to separate New Yorkers from non-New Yorkers: 'Do you stand on line or in line?' A Midwesterner who relocated to the Big Apple wants to know why people there are adamant about waiting on line instead of in line. See a map showing the dispersal of both forms across the U.S. . Quiz Guy John Chaneski conducts a word puzzle involving musical instruments hidden in various sentences. Try this one: 'My cousin is a Santa Monica zookeeper whose specialty is hummingbirds.' (Keep saying it over and over until you hear this instrument's name.) If you're doing a hasty, haphazard job, you're said to do it with 'a lick and a promise.' What's the origin of that expression? Who put the piping in the expression 'piping hot'? Oh, that gives me 'agita'! A Connecticut native says her Midwestern colleagues office were flabbergasted to encounter this expression, which she's known all her life. Grant and Martha discuss this word for 'upset' and its likely linguistic roots. Hear the song about 'agita' from the movie 'Broadway Danny Rose'. When somebody cuts you off in traffic do you 'feel all stabby'? Grant discusses this slang term. You know the sputtering, raspberry-like noises you make with your lips on a baby's tummy so he'll giggle? Many people call that a 'raspberry,' but some people call that a 'zerbert.' A caller's husband insists that Bill Cosby coined the term on his popular sitcom. She begs to differ. The expression 'over yonder' isn't just the stuff of Carole King songs and old-timey hymns. To many Southerners, it's everyday English. The hosts discuss this poetic-sounding turn of phrase. For tech-savvy types, saying 'ping me,' meaning 'contact me,' is as natural as grabbing a snack while waiting for your computer to boot up. The hosts disagree about whether the verb to ping has already moved into common parlance in the larger world. It's a grammatical question that trips up even the best writers sometimes: Is it 'who or whom'? A physician says he likes the sentiment in a colleague's email signature, but he's not sure it's 100% grammatical. The sentence: 'There are some patients whom we cannot cure, but there are none we cannot help, cannot comfort, and none we cannot harm.' -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If a colleague repeatedly mispronounces a word, what's the best way to handle it? Should you correct him? Ignore it? Is it possible to discuss the proper way to say something without being rude or condescending? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The English language has no shortage of words that mean nonsensical talk, including one that's piqued a listener's curiosity: How did flannel come to mean 'empty chatter' or 'hot air,' as in 'Don't give me any of that flannel!'? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired Apr. 11, 2009.] Why are the names of cars so unimaginative? Grant argues that auto manufacturers might take inspiration from 'ornithology' to build a better car name. (Then again, would you be any less aggravated if you were rear-ended by a 'lazuli bunting'?) Also this week, why do so many young folks 'pepper their speech with the word 'like,' and what, if anything, can be done about it? All that, plus Luddites, chicken bog, a ducks on June bug, and the possible origins of the phrase to get one's goat. Ever been met with a quizzical look and the question, 'Do what?' The hosts discuss this dialectal equivalent of 'How's that?' or 'Come again?' For many Southerners, it's very picture of eagerness and alacrity: 'He was all over that like a duck on a June bug!' Martha and Grant reveal the memorable image behind this curious expression. Grant notes that birds sometimes get re-christened with a different name. Often a bird's 'commemorative name'--one that honors a bird's discoverer--will be replaced years later. Case in point: 'Rivoli's hummingbird' is now known as the 'magnificent hummingbird.' Puzzle Guy Greg Pliska takes equal portions of words and numbers, mixes well, and whips up a quiz called 'Initiarithmetic.' The idea is to guess the words based on the initial letters of well-known phrases involving numbers. For example: 'There are 12 M in the Y.' Wait, that was too easy. How about this one: 'There are 2 K of P in the W. T W D the W into T K of P, and T W D.' Is there a way to get youngsters to stop overusing the word 'like'? The mother of a middle-schooler who's picked up the habit wonders where it came from and how she can stop it. Grant and Martha have suggestions, and Martha mentions this enlightening essay about teenagers and 'like' by linguist Geoffrey Nunberg 'Chicken bog' isn't a bird name, nor is it a place. It's a dish of rice, chicken, country sausage, and lots of black pepper, found primarily in the Southeast. It sometimes goes by the name chicken perlow or pillow or pilau. A South Carolina caller wonders about the origin of these food terms. By the way, if you like chicken bog, you'll love the annual bog-off in Loris, South Carolina. Some folks use the old-fashioned exclamation 'Good night, nurse!' as a handy substitute for a cussword. But where'd it come from? Grant explains how this phrase became popular in the early 20th century. What's a 'Luddite'? Martha explains that this term for 'someone resistant to technological change' has its roots in a form of populist rage in the early 19th century. A Texas grandmother says she's long been baffled about the origin of a counting rhyme that she learned from 'her' grandmother. During the game, her grandmother bounced her on her knee, saying, 'Malagee Buck, Malagee Buck, how many fingers do I hold up?' The caller learned that the game she loved as a child is incredibly widespread throughout the world in various forms, and dates back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. If you're told to 'keep your eyes peeled,' you're being warned to stay alert. But--'peeled'? Where'd we get the expression to 'get someone's goat'? A caller suspects it comes from a Sicilian folk tale. But does it? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode originally aired March 28, 2009.] Why is it that what you say to your family and what they hear are different? If you say 'no,' your child hears 'maybe,' and if you say 'maybe,' she hears 'ask again and again, and yes is just around the corner.' Grant and Martha discuss ways that families communicate and miscommunicate. Also in this episode: the West Coast exclamation 'moded!,' the Navy expression 'turn to,' how to pronounce 'llama,' what it means if someone says your car is 'banjaxed,' and more. Grab some popcorn, slip into a folding seat, and you're ready to watch the coming attractions. But if they're shown before the main feature, why in the world are movie previews called 'trailers'? Enjoy old movie trailers at Turner Classic Movies. It's California in the 1980s, and--uh-oh!--you're outsmarted or caught doing something stupid and someone else says, 'Ooooooooooo, moded!' This Schadenfreudian slip of an expression was sometimes accompanied by a chin-stroking gesture, or elaborated still further as 'Moded, corroded, your booty exploded!' Grant has the goods on this expression's likely origin. Check out his entry for itâand the comments of people who know the termâat his dictionary site . In a previous episode, , a caller sought a classy term for a worker in the meat section of a cheese shop, something a little more sophisticated than, say, 'meatmonger.' The helpful suggestions from listeners keep rolling in, and Grant and Martha share a few. Wait, did they really suggest 'carncierge' and 'meatre d''? Quiz Guy Greg Pliska drops in with a word game called 'False Opposites.' They're pairs of words whose prefixes, suffixes, and other elements make them appear to be opposites, even though they're not. For example, what seeming opposites might be derived from the clues 'forward motion' and 'American legislative body'? Feel free to weigh the pros and cons of your answer. Navy veterans will recognize the two-fingered gesture that looks as if someone's turning an invisible doorknob. It accompanies the order 'turn to,' meaning 'get to work.' How did this handy expression get started? If you appropriate something that no one else seems to be using, you may be said to 'kipe' that object. A Wisconsin caller remembers 'kiping' things as a youngster, like a neighbor's leftover wood to build a fort. Grant discusses this regionalism and its possible origins. Is there a distinction to be made between 'envy' and 'jealousy'? The hosts try to parse out the difference. Grant gives a brief review of the new third edition of Paul Dickson's 'The Dickson Baseball Dictionary' , all 974 pages and 4.5 pounds of it. To some folks, they're 'thermals.' To others, they're 'long underwear.' And some folks call them 'long johns.' Are these warm undergarments named after some guy called John? If your car's broken down you might say it's 'banjaxed,' especially if you're in Ireland. A caller who grew up in Dublin is curious about the word. Martha and Grant revisit the 'apple core, Baltimore' game they discussed a few episodes ago . Many listeners learned it from this Donald Duck cartoon . How do you pronounce the word 'llama'? A caller who learned in school that Spanish 'll' is pronounced like English 'y' thinks it's a mistake to pronounce this animal's name as 'LAH-ma.' Is he correct? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An Alabama high-school teacher observes that one of his fellow teachers tends to write words that should be plural as singular, such as 'I graded all 50 test' instead of 'I graded all 50 tests.' The reason for this locution has to do with some interesting features of Southern English. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired March 21, 2009.] Sure, there's 'Grandma' and 'Grampa,' but there's also 'Gammy,' 'Bumpy,' 'Dadoo,' 'Gre-Gre,' 'Kiki,' 'Kerkel,' 'Monga,' 'Nee-Nee,' 'Pots,' 'Rah-Rah' and 'Woo-Woo.' Martha and Grant talk about the endlessly inventive names grandchildren call their grandparents.'They also discuss 'Seinfeldisms,' 'couch potatoes,' and where in the world your car can and will be stopped by robots. Really! You've heard people describe something momentous as 'a watershed moment' in history. What is a watershed, exactly? Besides an Indigo Girls' song , that is. In Ireland you'll find that some folks have an odd habit of gasping in mid-conversation. A Texan who lived in Dublin for years says he found this speech trait disconcerting. The hosts explain that this 'pulmonic ingressive' is heard other places around the world. More about ingressives here , including examples in audio clips from Sweden and Scotland. Martha shares listener email about what to call that icy buildup in your car's wheel wells. 'Fenderbergs,' anyone? Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a puzzle called 'Wordrows,' a.k.a. 'Welded Palindromes.' They're two-word palindromes, in other words. For example, what two-word palindrome means 'beige bug'? Yadda yadda yadda. Newman! No soup for you! The 1990's sitcom 'Seinfeld' popularized these expressions and more. Check out this Paul McFedries article from 'Verbatim' . What's the origin of the term 'couch potato'? Grant has the story of the guys credited with coining this term for 'boob-tube aficionados.' Your dining companion suddenly starts choking. Once his coughing subsides, he exclaims, 'Whew! Something when down my 'Sunday throat'!' Sunday throat? Martha explains this odd expression. A few episodes back, Grant and Martha discussed what linguists call 'creaky voice.' Many of you wrote to ask for more examples of this curious speech trait. Here are a few , about halfway down the page. In this week's installment of 'Slang This!,' Grant and Martha are joined by June Casagrande , author of 'Mortal Syntax: 101 Language Choices That Will Get you Clobbered by the Grammar Snobs -- Even If You're Right.' June tries to pick out the true slang terms from a group that includes the expressions 'hot wings,' 'bird farm,' 'bellybag,' and 'budget.' When you're late for something in Johannesburg, you can always say you were 'held up by robots' and no one will think twice. That's because in South Africa, a robot is a traffic light. Check out this haunting video called 'Death of a Robot' . The hosts discuss this and other terms for those helpful semaphores. What's the best style guide for online writing? In William Howitt's 'Madam Dorrington of the Dene' , a character named Vincent says, 'Don't let my father be fearful of me. I will be as ravenously ambitious, and as gigantically 'work-brickle' [...] as he can desire.' Grant has the goods on the dialect expression 'work-brittle' or 'work brickle,' which means 'energetic' or 'industrious.' -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired March 14, 2009.] If English isn't your first language, there are lots of ways to learn it, such as memorizing Barack Obama's speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention. Martha and Grant talk about some of the unusual ways foreigners are learning to speak English. Also, a golfer wonders if it's ever proper to say 'I'm going golfing' rather than 'I'm going to play golf.' And they share an easy way to remember the difference between 'lie' and 'lay.' Here's the The New Yorker article about Crazy English that Grant mentions. Why do aviators say 'roger' to indicate they've received a message? A pilot phones the show about that, 'wilco,' and similar language. For some golfers, the phrase 'go golfing' is as maddening as a missed two-foot putt. The proper expression, they insist, is 'play golf.' A longtime golfer wonders whether that's true. He's sharp as the corner of a round table' She's so sad she's pulling a face as long as a fiddle. If startling similes leaving you grinning 'like a basket full of possum heads,' you'll love the book Intensifying Similes in English, published in 1918. It's available at no cost on the Internet Archive. Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a game called 'Odd One Out,' the object of which is to guess which of four words doesn't belong with the rest. Try this one: dove, job, polish, some. 'Yo!' Why did people ever start using the word 'yo!' to get someone's attention? Grant explains that in English there's mo' than one yo. It's one of the biggest grammatical bugaboos of all, the one that bedevils even the most earnest English students: 'Is it lie or lay?' Martha shares a trick for remembering the difference. See below for her clip-and-save chart of these verbs. Print it out and tape it to your computer. Better yet, laminate it and carry it in your wallet at all times. And if you choose to tattoo it onto some handy part of your body, by all means send us a photo so we can post it on the site. How are things in your 'neck of the woods'? And why heck do we say neck? Grant reads a few lines from a favorite poem:'A New Song of New Similes' by John Gay. It also appears in the front of the book 'Intensifying Similes in English' linked above. In this week's installment of 'Slang This!,' the president of the National Puzzlersâ League tries to pick out the slang terms from a list that includes 'poguey,' 'pushover,' 'noodles,' and 'naff.' In a 1936 episode of Jack Benny's radio show, a woman says that her father sprained his ankle the night before while 'truckinâ.' This has an 'A Way with Words' listener confused; she thought trucking was a term from the 1970s. Grant clears up the mystery, and along the way inspires Martha to bust some moves. Grant explains the connection between 'sauce' and 'don't sass me.' Why do some people pronounce the word 'wash' as 'warsh'? Martha and Grant discuss the so-called 'intrusive R' and why it makes people say 'warsh' instead of 'wash' and 'Warshington' instead of 'Washington.' -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A caller wonders why some versions of The Lord's Prayer include the phrase 'forgive us our trespasses,' while others substitute the word 'debt.' -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's the deal with using the two-letter postal code abbreviations for states, instead of the longer, more formal abbreviations? That is, why write IN for Indiana instead of good old Ind.? A caller is annoyed by U.S. Postal Service abbreviations creeping into modern prose, and thinks they should be reserved for postal addresses. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired February 23, 2009.] Does your 'handwriting' look like chicken scratches, calligraphy, or maybe something in between? Martha and Grant discuss the 'state of penmanship,' the phenomenon linguists call 'creaky voice,' euphemisms for going to the bathroom, and the New England expression 'I 'hosey' that!' There's a new book out about the history of penmanship. It's called Script & Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting, by Kitty Burns Florey. If you want to claim something--say, the front seat of a car or the last piece of cake--what do you say? 'Dibs'? 'Boney'? How about 'I hosey that!'? The hosts talk about this New England expression, its possible origins, and its equivalent in other parts of the country. A caller has a hard time remembering which is correct: 'Give the book to my husband and me,' or 'Give the book to my husband and I.' Martha offers a sure-fire, quick-and-easy way to know if 'husband and I' or 'husband me' are right every time. According to a listener in San Diego, when a DJ plays a great set, he's said to 'rinse it.' In honor of the 44th U.S. president, Quiz Guy Greg Pliska offers a word game 'Glom-a Obama.' The object: Figure out a series of rhyming two-word phrases by guessing the word to be added to the name 'Obama.' For example, if Mr. Obama had been born in one of Japan's second-largest city, he would be '_____________ Obama.' 'He's been sick three days 'hand-running.' Huh? In some parts of the country, 'hand running' means 'in succession, consecutively.' The hosts muse about the possible origins of this phrase. One of the Olsen twins does it, some public radio hosts do it, and at least one former U.S. president does it. Grant describes the curious speech trait linguists call 'creaky voice.' A 'red letter-day' is a special occasion. Martha explains how this term came to be. A listener says she and her husband called their unborn child 'wohube.' What other 'noms de fetus' are there? In this week's installment of 'Slang This!', a member of the National Puzzlers League tries to separate the real slang terms from the fake ones. Try this one: Which of the following expressions really is a British synonym for the 'willies', the 'heebie jeebies' or a similar kind of 'nervous freakout'? Would that be the 'belching withers' or the 'screaming abdabs'? And which of the following terms is Australian slang for 'people from the United States'? Is it 'septics' or 'songbirds'? (The Aussies are all rolling their eyes at this obvious answer.) If you're having a conversation with someone, are you speaking with them, speaking to them, talking to them, or talking with them? A caller wonders what differences, if any, exist among all those expressions. You might have heard Brits say 'I'm going to spend a penny' when they have to visit the loo. The hosts discuss the reason for this phrase, and other euphemisms for making a trip to the toilet, such as 'I'm going to 'visit Miss White' and 'I'm going to go drop off some friends at the lake.' A caller observes that after moving to Indianapolis, he noticed that many of the locals say the names of commercial enterprises as if they're plural or possessive, even when they're not, such as calling Walmart 'Walmart's.' Grant explains the inclination to add the S sound to the names of businesses in casual speech and writing. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are serial commas always necessary? An English teacher says she was surprised to learn that she and her husband, who's also an English teacher, are giving their students conflicting advice. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired February 14, 2009.] Martha and Grant share a couple of favorite online sources for reading about language: Michael Quinion's World Wide Words newsletter and Arnold Zwicky's blog . Be sure to check out Zwicky's post, 'Dialect dangerous to cats' for a look at The Lion Cut If you're a Texan, you may be familiar with the phrases 'raise the window down' and 'help your plate.' If not, you'll find translations here. What's lurve got to do with it? A caller is puzzled by a greeting card with the phrase 'crazy cosmic lurve god.' Linguistics fans will fan themselves as Grant explains the roots of this expression with linguistic terms like the 'intrusive R' and epenthesis . Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a puzzle called 'Weight Loss Program.' The object is to guess a pair of words from his clues. Remove a unit of weight from the first word in the pair, and you'll get the second word. Example: 'A Palm Beach County resort town whose name is Spanish for 'mouth of the rat,' and 'A timely benefit or blessing.' The answer weighs in at 2,000 pounds. If the 'subjunctive mood' were to disappear from English, would our language be the poorer for it? The hosts have strongly different opinions about it. Ever notice when people start to answer to a question with the words, ''Yeah, no'â'? Linguists have been studying this seemingly contradictory phrase for years. It may look like oxymoron, but it's not. 'Ennead,' anyone? If you need a word for 'a group of nine things,' that one will do the trick. In this week's installment of 'Slang This!,' a member of the National Puzzlers League tries to separate the real slang terms from the fake ones. Try this one: If you have chutzpah, might you also be said to 'have the stitches' to get things done, or 'have the brass' to get things done? Here's another: Which of the following is a slang term for 'daybreak'? 'Rancid butter's melt'? Or 'sparrow's fart'? The cleverly named 'Buy n Large' corporation in the movie Wall-E has a caller wondering why we say use the phrase 'by and large' to mean 'generally speaking.' It has its origins on the high seas. Does the word 'swarthy' mean 'hairy'? A man has a running dispute with his wife the English teacher, who insists it does. Is she right? Cleave, dust, and screen are all 'words that can mean the opposite of themselves.' You can cleave to a belief, meaning to 'adhere closely,' but you can also separate things by cleaving them. Words that mean the opposite of themselves go by many different names, including 'contranyms,' 'contronyms,' 'auto-antonyms,' and 'Janus words.' Lists of such words: http://people.csail.mit.edu/seth/misc/selfantonyms.html http://polysemania.blogspot.com/2007/03/janus-words.html http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/4264 Martha talks about 'enantiodromia,' which is 'the process by which something becomes its opposite,' particularly when an individual or community adopts beliefs antithetical to beliefs they held earlier. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can the word 'friend' possibly describe both the people you went to school with *and* the people to whom you are connected through Facebook and MySpace? Are friends on the social sites really friends? Is there a better word to describe someone who follows you on Twitter? A caller thinks the English language could use some new words to differentiate among varying levels and types of friendship. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

'Great Googly Moogly!' A caller wonders where that exclamation comes from. Here's the Snickers commercial that includes the phrase. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSAXLayoMKI -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A special message for podcast listeners. Also, this just in: The term gunny sack is a pleonasm! Who knew? (So sue us -- we can't help getting excited about that kind of thing.) -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired February 7, 2009.] Are fairy tales too scary for children? A survey of parents in Britain found that more than half wouldn't read them to their children before age five. Martha and Grant discuss the grisly imagery in fairy tales, and whether they're too traumatizing for kids. Also, when did 'dog food' become a verb? And does the word butterfly come from 'flutter by'? How did serialized melodramas come to be called soap operas? The answer has to do with the suds-selling sponsors of old-time radio shows. When a theater company gives out free tickets to a performance, it's called papering the house. But what kind of 'paper' are we talking about, anyway? Our show's pun-loving Quiz Guy, Greg Pliska, whips up a word game called 'Country Kitschin'.' The challenge is to fill in the blank in a sentence with the name of a country so that the spoken sentence makes sense. Try this one: 'We'll take our time today, because you'd hate to _____________ quiz as good as this one.' 'Don't tump over the canoe!' The verb to tump is familiar to folks in many parts of the United States. Use it elsewhere, though, and you might get some quizzical looks. What does it mean and who uses it? The hosts tump over their reference works and answers spill out. Why do some people add a final 'th' sound to the word 'height'? At one time, that pronunciation was perfectly proper. If you work in the software industry, you may already know the term dogfooding, which means 'to use one's own product.' Grant explains how dogfood became a verb. In this week's installment of 'Slang This!,' a member of the National Puzzlers League (http://www.puzzlers.org/) tries to separate the real slang terms from the impostors from a list that includes: backne, button cotton, snake check, and filter filter. A caller suspects that the word butterfly derives from a reversal of the expression 'flutter by.' But is it? Her question leads to a discussion of butterfly behavior and a handy five-letter word that means 'caterpillar poop.' That groove between your nose and upper lip? It's your philtrum, from the Greek word for 'love potion.' Martha explains. Which is correct: 'I'm reticent to do that' or 'I'm reluctant to do that?' -- Do you like what you hear? Help support the program with a donation: http://waywordradio.org/donate/ -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, [email protected], or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why do we say someone is 'on the wagon' when they abstain from drinking alcohol? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[This episode first aired January 24, 2009.] President Barack Obama hopes to boost the economy by pouring federal dollars into efforts to rebuild the nation's infrastructure, much like the old Works Progress Administration of the 1930s. But how about reviving that other jobs program from the New Deal era: the 'Federal Writers Project.' Martha and Grant discuss the pros and cons of subsidizing writers with taxpayer money. A caller from Juneau, Alaska, says she was tickled when her friend from the South told her he loves 'vye-EEN-ers.' It took a while before she realized he was saying Viennas, as in that finger food so often found a can, the' Vienna sausage.' So, just how common is the pronunciation 'vye-EEN-er'? It's been called the 'ape drape,' the 'Kentucky waterfall,' the 'Tennessee top hat,' 'hockey hair,' and the '90-10.' We're talking about that haircut called the 'mullet,' otherwise known as 'business in the front, and party in the back.' But why 'mullet'? The word 'borborygmic' means 'pertaining to rumblings in one's tummy or intestines.' Martha explains that it comes from the Greek word 'borborygmus' ('bor-buh-RIG-muss'), a fine example of onomatopoeia if ever there was one. Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a word game in which the object is to guess the 'color-related terms' suggested by his clues. Try this one: What color-coded term is suggested by the phrase 'information gained without serious effort'? What do you call the 'strip of grass between the street and the sidewalk'? Depending on where you live, you may call it a 'tree lawn,' a 'berm,' a 'city strip,' the 'parking,' or one of a host of other regional terms for it. In a small part of the country, this narrow piece of land called a 'devil strip.' In fact, this expression figures in a great story about forensic linguistics: When a linguist analyzed a ransom note and saw the term devil strip, he realized this was a telltale clue--one that would lead authorities right to the kidnapper. Does the English expression 'falling in love' derive from the biblical story of Rebekah and Isaac? A caller thinks so. The hosts don't think so. You may have used the expression, 'Nobody here but us chickens!' Would you still use it if you knew its origins lie in a racist joke from the turn of the 20th century? In an earlier episode , the hosts heard from a woman who, as a teenager, was scolded by her grandmother for wearing a skirt that Granny said was 'almost up to possible.' The woman wondered about that phrase's meaning and origin. Grant shares listener email about this question, plus information he's found linking the term to James Joyce's 'Ulysses'. This weekâs âSlang This!â contestant from the National Puzzlersâ League tries to pick out the real slang terms from a puzzle that includes the expressions 'board butter,' 'cap room,' 'mad pancakes,' and 'mad gangster.' http://puzzlers.org/dokuwiki/doku.php Is the proper expression 'in regards to' or 'in regard to'? In regard to this question, the hosts say, the answer is clear and unambiguous. A sampling of several kinds of wine is called a 'flight.' But why? And while we're on the subject of sampling lots of different savory things, what's the 'difference between a smorgasbord and a buffet'? Or is there one? -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another minicast from A Way with Words. Iâm Grant Barrett. [Music] Hip-hop is high art. Yeah. Thatâs right. And if you donât understand that, then youâre missing out on some of the best poetry. Literary scholar Adam Bradley examines the style and poetry of hip-hop lyrics in his new book titled: Book of Rhymes, the Poetics of Hip-Hop. 'When a rapper's flow is fully realized,' he writes, 'it forges a distinctive rhythmic identity that is governed by both poetic and musical laws.' A hip-hop MCâthe one who sings or chantsâis a rhyme-maker and 'flow' is what an MC has when the rhymes lie easily on top of the rhythm. Rhyme in hip-hop means more than words that sound alike; spitting rhymes is waxing poetic is writing lyrics is storytelling. [Music] There's a structure there, things that are permitted and forbidden in the art form. Rules about accent, pitch, intonation, force. The conventions of poetry are all there. So, these hip-hop lyrics are complex. They are connected to each other across samples, across songs, across albums, across artists, across the decades. They could be mapped like a family tree because a good MC knows the hip-hop canon. [Music] And there is a canon, just as there is in literature. Bradley writes, 'Hip hop is haunted by this sense of tradition. It is a music whose death was announced soon after its birth, and the continuing reports of its demise seemingly return with each passing year.' The old school, the new school, everything that you see in the worlds of prose and in the worlds of poetryâthe complex relationships between creator and consumer, between colleagues and competitors, between art and businessâthose exist in hip-hop. Hip-hop may be the only place in America where poetry still rules, where it is savored and appreciated by a vast, educated audience. Itâs where great poetic skill is rewarded with respect, fame, and money, more often than is the case with the precious poetry you might find in tiny pamphlets near the bookstore register. I, for one, believe in the pleasure derived from poetically sophisticated rhymes. And I think they're here to stay. [Music] Adam Bradley's 'Book of Rhymes' is just published by Basic Civitas Books. You can find out more about him at AdamFBradley.com For A Way with Words, Iâm Grant Barrett. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: [email protected] Phone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Site: 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 2009, Wayword LLC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices