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

The Most Beautiful Words in the English Language: "Cellar Door"?It's been said that the most beautiful combination of words in English is "cellar door." But why? By the way, after this caller raised the question, Grant did even more digging on the topic. The result: He wrote a whole article about it that appeared in The New York Times. http://nyti.ms/bkqwpg--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: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: 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

Is it y'all's? Y'alls? Y'alls's? What do all ya'll think?--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: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: 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

A Texas listener came across the word "Boche" in a biography of a French statesman, and wants to know: What does it mean, exactly?--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: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: 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

[This episode first aired December 5, 2009.]In high school, no one thinks twice about cheering for the Fighting Trojans or the Tigers. But what about the Hickman Kewpies http://service.columbia.k12.mo.us/hhs/about/? Or the Maryville Spoofhounds http://www.maryville.k12.mo.us/? Martha and Grant talk about some of the odder names for school athletic teams. Also, in this episode: If you're queasy, are you "nauseous" or "nauseated"? How do you pronounce the word "sorry"? And why do conservative Democrats call themselves "Blue Dogs"?Grant and Martha discuss strange names for high school sports teams. Know another example? Talk about it in the forum http://www.waywordradio.org/discussion/.How do you pronounce the word "sorry"? SORE-ee? SAHR-ee? A Connecticut woman says her family pronounces this word four different ways, and is hoping her way is correct.Is there a name for those vocal sound we make when shrugging our shoulders or wordlessly affirming something with an "mm-hm"? Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a puzzle called "There's An App For That." The challenge is to guess what new word is formed by tacking the letters A-P-P on to another one. For example, what new word appears when you add A-P-P to the word that means "a soothing balm or salve." How'd we get the term "colorblind," and when it did come to be mean "indifferent to race"? "Really???" Really! A college student in Provo, Utah, says he's hearing this expression of sarcastic incredulity more and more—even catching himself saying this to his cellphone when it dropped a call. He suspects it comes from "Saturday Night Live." Does it? Really? Here's a great example of that show's use of the expression. A Connecticut cop says his dad, a retired professor of English and comparative literature at Yale, has been reading his son's police reports. They disagree about whether "complainant" is a legitimate word, or whether it should be "complainer."Here's a riddle: "I'm weightless, but you can see me. Put me in a bucket, and I'll make it lighter. What am I?" Martha has the answer.Grant shares online sites that can help you solve a difficult crossword puzzle"or anagram words to help you get the highest scores in Scrabble. WordNavigator http://wordnavigator.com/ and Wordsmith.org's anagram server http://wordsmith.org/anagram/.A veteranian says her colleague insists that "nauseous" means "contagious." Is that right? And if you're queasy, are you "nauseous" or "nauseated"?A Burlington, Vt. man says his mother and grandmother used the expression "journey proud" to denote being restless, nervous, or excited, especially on the eve of an upcoming trip."I'll be there at three-ish." "That shirt is bluish." "It wasn't a house—but it was house-ish." OK, but what in the world does "ish" mean, exactly?Conservative Democrats are sometimes called "Blue Dog Democrats." Grant explains why. Check out the work of George Rodrigue http://www.georgerodrigue.com/, the Blue Dog artist.--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: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: 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

How do you pronounce this word that means someone's "strong suit"? And what does it have to do with fencing?--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: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: 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

Um, are you, like, one of those people who, um, get, like, really annoyed, by, um, you know, like, um, lots of filler words in, you know, like, conversation? If it's any comfort, there's a great term for this. Can you say "embololalia"? --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: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: 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

The first of two podcasts this week includes a special message to "A Way with Words" podcast listeners. Also, Martha answers a listener's email about the term "sea change." Or is it "C change"?--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: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: 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

Anagrams, rebuses, cryptograms -- Martha and Grant swap stories about the games that first made them realize that playing with words and letters can be fun. Also this week, what's a jitney supper and where do you eat graveyard stew? The hosts explain the origin of the term hang fire and why Alaskans sound like they're from the Midwest, and take on a debate about whether an egregious falsehood is a bald-faced lie or a bold-faced lie.What games first made you realize that words and letters make great playthings? Martha describes puzzling, as a child, over the odd combination of letters, F-U-N-E-X, until she finally figured out the joke. Grant talks about discovering anagrams as a youngster, and how word puzzles in the newspaper became a daily ritual.An office worker in Indianapolis is mystified when a British colleague sends an email telling her to hang fire. It has to do with faulty firearms. "Call up to 24 hours in advance to make a reservation." Do those instructions mean you can call until 24 hours before the deadline, or that you should call within 24 hours of it? When a San Diego listener assumed it was the former, she was surprised to be wrong. Did you know the POTUS (President of the United States) has a BOTUS? Grant explains what a BOTUS is.Quiz Guy Greg Pliska's word game this week is "Name Dropping." The answer for each set of clues will be a word that has a common first name hidden somewhere in it; when that name's removed, the remaining letters spell a new word. For example, the first clue is "one of the seven deadly sins," the second is "the grain consumed by one-fifth of the world's inhabitants." Subtract the latter from the former, and you get a woman's name.A Charlottesville, Virginia, caller says that when she was a child and recovering from an illness, her mother fed her a kind of milk toast she called graveyard stew. Is that strange name unique to her family?During the health care debate in Congress, there was lots of talk about an up-or-down vote. A Montana listener finds this expression annoying. What's wrong with plain old "vote"?In youth slang, "totes" is short for "totally." Grant talks about new, lengthened version of this slang shortening.A Carlsbad, California, couple has a running debate over whether an egregious whopper is correctly called a bold-faced lie or a bald-faced lie.The Library of Congress is archiving the entire content of Twitter. Grant explains why that's a gold mine for language researchers like David Bamman at Tufts University. You can see some of the results Bamman's compiled at Lexicalist.com.http://www.lexicalist.com/What do you eat at a jitney supper? Jitney?Why do people from Alaska sound like they're from the Midwest?A caller who grew up in Arkansas says his mother used a colorful expression instead of "mind your own business," which was "tend to your own rat-killing."--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: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: 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

This week, it's backhanded phrases, those snarky remarks that come sugar-coated in politeness, like "How nice for you," "Oh, interesting!" and the mother of all thinly veiled criticism, "Bless her heart." Also this week, free reign vs. free rein, the origin of the one-finger salute, and what it means if a Frenchman has big ankles. And "Jeopardy!" champion Ken Jennings stops by to try his hand at a slang quiz.You've been on the receiving end of backhanded phrases, and admit it, you've used them, too. A discussion on Ask Metafilter http://ask.metafilter.com/133910/Bless-your-heart-and-other-backhanded-phrases prompts Grant and Martha to talk about the ways people use sugar-coated snark. By the way, if you want a fancy word for veiled criticisms like "bless her heart" and "let me know how that works out," it's "charientism," from a Greek word that means "the expression of an unpleasant thing in an agreeable manner."Is it free reign or free rein? Ruling or riding?The "back forty" refers to a remote area of a large piece of land. Grant has the origin of that phrase.What do English bowmen, the French, and lopped-off digits have to do with the classic middle-finger insult? Absolutely nothing. A San Diego truck driver wonders about the true origin of the one-finger salute. There's a great debunking of the English archers story here: http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.asp.Quiz Guy John Chaneski says he's been visiting some "niche" high schools, all of which have the word "High" in them, maybe in reverse of a standard phrase. How about this one: "The school where they study phantoms, ghosts, and apparitions." That would be "Spirits High."A caller who grew up in Australia has a question about wedding-invitation etiquette in the U.S. She wonders: Shouldn't an invitation refer to a daughter's "marriage with" the groom rather than a "marriage to" him?A man who works nights in a mortuary in Brookings, Oregon is curious about the origin of--what else?--"graveyard shift." Quick, picture a berry: Is it blue? Red? Then where'd we get the English expression "brown as a berry"?It's "Slang for $500." All-time "Jeopardy!" Champion Ken Jennings tackles his next logical challenge, the "A Way with Words" slang quiz. Ken puzzles over the meaning of "brummagem" and "pluck of a pig," and tries to guess an usual meaning for the term daylight. More about Ken at his website, www.ken-jennings.com http://www.ken-jennings.com/index.html.In many neighborhoods, the night before Halloween is the night when pranksters run around wreaking all kinds of mischief--toilet-papering houses, spraying windows with shaving cream, ringing doorbells and then running away. A Connecticut woman remembers calling that night "Goosey Night," and is surprised when friends call it "Mischief Night." In fact, that prankfest goes by lots of other names, including "Corn Night," "Picket Night," and "Devil Night."In English, we say that someone who's egotistical has a "big head." But in French, according to a caller, the person is said to have "big ankles." Why ankles?Grant shares a "quirklum." --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: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: 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

Who was that masked man? Was it the Barefoot Bandit, the Mummy Bandit, or perhaps the Botox Bandit? Or maybe it was the Bad-Breath Bandit? The hosts discuss the wacky names that law enforcement officers give to suspects. Also, what's a pickle button? Why do we say be there or be square? And what does the word seditty mean in the African-American community?A news story about the Ho-Hum Bandit has Grant musing about the odd names that law enforcement officers give to criminals at large, usually based on their appearance or behavior, like the Barefoot Bandit, the Mummy Bandit. Or how about the Bad Breath Bandit?Where do we get the phrase be there or be square?What's seditty? Many African-Americans use this term, also spelled saddidy, to mean "stuck-up." A caller's heard it all his life, and is curious about the word.Grant has a riddle: "I never was, am always to be, no one ever saw me or ever will, and yet I am the confidence of all to live and breathe on this terrestrial ball. What am I?"Quiz Guy Greg Pliska offers a colorful variation on his ever-popular "Odd Man Out" puzzle. In this series, for example, which one doesn't belong: Imperial, Shasta, Kings, and Orange. A caller from the coastal town of La Jolla, California, is sure he's heard a word for bright pools of silver light that form on the surface of the ocean when sunbeams poke down through cloud cover. Albedo http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/albedo, maybe? Coruscation http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coruscation? How about sunglade http://books.google.com/books?id=93UKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA341&dq=sunglade&lr=&num=100&as_brr=3&ei=2nflS7DHH4amlQSBwcjkCQ&cd=15#v=onepage&q=sunglade&f=false?Why in the world would two people part from each other saying, "Abyssinia!" "Ethiopia!"? The hosts clear up the mystery.Martha shares a puzzle sent in by a listener: "What's the longest word typed on the left hand's half of the keyboard?" Hint: It's the plural of a now-outmoded occupational term.A lagniappe is a little something extra that a merchant might toss in for a customer, like a complimentary ball-point pen. What's the origin of that word?Grant argues that new commercial categories of literature, which include poop fiction, chick lit, K-mart realism, and tart noir resemble the kind of fracturing that already occurred in the music world. Here's the blog entry that got him started http://thewritingresource.net/2010/04/06/weekly-vocab-builder-new-lit-types/.What exactly do you mean when you use the words couple, few, and several? Do they conjure specific numbers? The hosts disagree. A retired Air Force officer says he's never wondered until recently why the button that pilots push to drop bombs is called the pickle button, and to "pickle off" the bomb means to drop it.Grant reveals another riddle: It's the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place. What is it?A Scrabble game sparks a debate between a college student and her English-teacher sister. Which is correct: stupider or more stupid?--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: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: 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 Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices