Who is Chester Drawers - 11 July 2011

SUMMARY

Some of the world's most famous writers had to support themselves with day jobs. Martha and Grant discuss well-known authors who toiled away at other trades. Also this week, Eskimo kisses, the frozen Puerto Rican treat called a limber, how the word fail ended up as a noun, the phrase I'm efforting that, and where you would throw a houlihan. And what's a chester drawers?

FULL DETAILS

Some of the world's greatest writers had to do their work while holding down a day job. William Faulkner and Anthony Trollope toiled as postal clerks. Zora Neal Hurston trained as an anthropologist. Vladimir Nabokov was a lepidopterist who curated a butterfly exhibit at Harvard. Literary historian Jack Lynch tells the stories of these and others in his new book, Don't Quit Your Day Job: What the Famous Did That Wasn't.

http://bit.ly/aT4oXe

An Indianapolis newspaperman complains about his colleagues' use of the phrase I'm efforting that.

A woman in Racine, Wis., says her father and his fellow bus drivers always pronounced the word schedule as "skeh-DOO-lee." Is that an accepted pronunciation?

Todd Purdum's recent Vanity Fair article on the presidency contains intriguing beltway slang, including gaggle and full lid.

http://bit.ly/cXgmIj

Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game called "Word Search."

 A woman of Puerto Rican descent wonders about limber, the name of the savory frozen treat popular in her homeland. Was it really named in honor of aviator Charles Lindbergh?

A man in Huntington Beach, Ca., ponders his teenager's frequent use of the words fail and epic fail. Grant explains what this has to do with linguistic bleaching, and discusses some funny fails on failblog.org.

http://failblog.org/

Martha has an example of a linguistic false friend: In Latvian, the word vista means "chicken."

On a recent episode of "Mad Men," a character said "keep me in the loop." Was that phrase really around in the 1960s?

Everyone knows old proverbs, but what about modern ones? Here's an aphorism attributed to William Gibson: "The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed." The hosts discuss some others.

After a San Diego man used the term Eskimo kiss with his preschooler, they both wondered about its origin.

An Indiana woman is puzzled about a phrase in the old western song, "I Ride An Old Paint": "I'm goin' to Montana to throw the houlihan." What's a houlihan? You'll find one version of the lyrics here.

http://to.pbs.org/bmHyw2

Here are different interpretations of this cowboy classic by Johnny Cash and Woody Guthrie.

http://bit.ly/9h03hD

http://bit.ly/9cEqws

On an earlier show, Martha mentioned the popular detergent in the Middle East called Barf. Martha shares email from listeners who say that although the word spelled the same as English "barf," the Farsi pronunciation is somewhat different.

http://www.waywordradio.org/a-gazelle-on-the-lawn/

Ever hear anyone refer to a wooden dresser as a chester drawers? A woman who grew up in St. Louis only recently learned that not everyone uses this term.

Martha reports that, during her recent attempt at learning to surf, she picked up lots of surfing lingo in between wipeouts. Here's a handy glossary of such terms, including tombstoning and pearling, both of which she did quite a bit.

http://bit.ly/da7hqe

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