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

'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: words@waywordradio.org 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: words@waywordradio.org 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, words@waywordradio.org, 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: words@waywordradio.org 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: words@waywordradio.org 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: words@waywordradio.org 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

Martha muses about the language of falconry, and in the process, reveals the origins of several words and phrases in one fell swoop. Did you know that a falcon's eyeballs are so huge that they take up most of its head -- and that those two eyes are separated only by a thin membrane? That's just one of the fun facts I learned from a new book called Falconer on the Edge: A Man, His Birds, and the Vanishing Landscape of the American West. The author, Rachel Dickinson, is married to a falconer. Her book is a glimpse into the world of this centuries-old blood sport. Now, I'll admit it: The blood part makes me queasy. but the book gave me a whole new appreciation for the vocabulary of falconry. Take the word haggard. It describes a worn, tired, gaunt appearance. But did you know that originally haggard applied to birds? Specifically, haggard described an adult female hawk caught in the wild, not raised in captivity. By the 16th century, the word had came to denote anyone similarly 'wild or intractable.' Later haggard was applied more generally. In Shakespeare's day, falconry was an aristocratic sport. You see lots of images from it in his plays. There's jealous Othello, fretting that Desdemona may prove to be 'haggard' -- that is, wild and out of his control. Or in Macbeth, the character MacDuff is aghast when he learns that his family's been murdered in 'one fell swoop.' The image of is the way a falcon swoops down from the sky, and strikes with swift ferocity. The 'fell' in 'one fell swoop' is an adjective. It means 'inhumanly cruel.' This fell is a linguistic relative of 'felon.' Then there's the term 'pride of place.' Today it means 'the highest or most important location': as in 'High-definition TVs enjoy pride of place in many living rooms.' Originally, 'pride of place' meant the airy height from which that falcon swoops. You see this phrase in Macbeth, when Shakespeare uses it to suggest that unnatural, ominous things are happening: 'A falcon, tow'ring in her pride of place, was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.' Anyway, if you want a closer look at the odd and bloody subculture of falconry, check out Dickinson's book. It'll give you a whole new sense of birds and words. http://www.amazon.com/Falconer-Edge-Vanishing-Landscape-American/dp/0618806237 -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: words@waywordradio.org 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. sits down with Grant for a conversation about the controversy over writers' rights and the Amazon Kindle 2. As president of the Authors Guild, Blount has argued that writers whose work is featured on the Kindle 2 should earn extra royalties because its text-to-speech feature essentially turns written works into audiobooks. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/opinion/25blount.html Blount also discusses his own recent book, Alphabet Juice, talks about 'sonicky' words and noodling for catfish, and clears up the mystery of whether the cancan dancers at George Plimpton's memorial really did honor the late writer's request that they perform without panties. Read the first chapter of Alphabet Juice here. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/books/chapters/chapter-alphabet-juice.html Find out more about Blount and his work here. http://www.royblountjr.com/ -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: words@waywordradio.org 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 week, we're going through the e-mail bag. Here's a savory, sensuous one. It's from Stacey in Boulder, Colorado. Stacey grew up out West, but says she spent summers and Christmases at the home of her maternal grandparents, just north of New York City. 'This side of my family,' she writes, 'is unapologetically Italian. For me, a highlight of every visit was the night of arrival. My grandma would welcome us home with a big pot of gravy. After the day-long trip to get there, Stacey writes, 'nothing was more comforting or restoring than walking into a Grandma-sized hug, and a house positively perfumed with the sweet, heady scent of garlic and tomatoes.' Now, about that pot of gravy, she writes: 'In Colorado, or anywhere else I've been, it's called marinara sauce. Outside of my family, I have never heard the word gravy used to describe anything other than the brown gravy you put on a turkey at Thanksgiving.' And, she says, 'Hearing the word gravy used in this way evokes just as much warmth and contentment as the smell or taste of the gravy itself. I can almost feel my grandmother's bone-crushing hug swallowing me up once again.' Stacey wants to know: Is gravy just her own family's weird word for tomato-based sauce? Or is there anyone else out there who understands what she calls 'the intimate, emotional, have-some-macaroni coziness behind this seemingly simple term.' Stacey, you'll be pleased to know that lots and lots of people refer to this stuff as gravy. In fact, this kind of gravy made an appearance in an episode of the HBO series The Sopranos. A member of the mob in New Jersey goes to Italy. He dines out in Naples. But he can't find what he wants on the menu. Check out what happens. http://tinyurl.com/che59s So, using the word 'gravy' in this way isn't unique one family. But I must add an important word of caution: Many Italian-Americans do call it 'gravy,' but others are adamant -- and I do mean adamant -- about calling it 'sauce.' In fact, you can find some amazingly heated debates online about which is the correct term. In Italian, the word sugo can mean either 'sauce' or 'gravy.' It may be that some Italian immigrants translated it into one English word, while those in other communities used a different English translation. So, pasta lovers: Which is it? Sauce or gravy? Let us know. We'd also like to what other odd food names evoke vivid sensory memories for you. And, as always, we welcome your thoughts about any aspect of language. Our address is words@waywordradio.org. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: words@waywordradio.org 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

What's a 'Hobson's Choice'? If you're facing a Hobson's choice, you don't really have much to choose from. The phrase describes a situation in which your options are either to take what's offered, or else take nothing at all. Martha offers some choice words about the origin of this term. Recently a friend emailed to ask about a curious phrase she'd run across. A newspaper columnist argued that when it comes to fixing the economy, the Obama administration faces a Hobson's choice. In other words, the writer said, shoring up U.S. banks may be wildly unpopular, but economic recovery requires doing exactly that. You might guess from the context that a Hobson's choice isn't really a choice at all. You either take what's offered, or get nothing. A great example is the declaration by automaker Henry Ford. In his 1922 autobiography, Ford wrote that his Model T would be available in any color, quote, 'so long as it is black.' The phrase Hobson's choice goes all the way back to 17th-century England. For 50 years, Thomas Hobson ran a stable near Cambridge University. There he rented horses to students. Old Man Hobson was extremely protective of those animals. He rented them out according to a strict rotating system. The most recently ridden horses he kept at the rear of the stable. The more rested ones he kept up front. That meant that when students came to get a horse, Hobson gave them the first one in line -- that is, the most rested. He'd let them rent that horse, or none at all. Hobson and his curmudgeonly take-it-or-leave-it rule apparently made quite an impression on Cambridge students. They included the great poet John Milton, who wrote about Hobson. Meanwhile, his horses left their hoofprints in our language, in a phrase that means 'taking what's available, or else not taking anything.' Well, if you want to talk about language, I hope you'll choose to email us. Our address is words@waywordradio.org. -- Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: words@waywordradio.org 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