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A Way with Words, a fun show about language examined through history, culture, and family.
A Way with Words is an upbeat and lively hour-long public radio show about language examined through history, culture, and family. Journalist/author Martha Barnette and linguist/lexicographer Grant Barrett talk with callers from around the world about slang, new words, old sayings, word origins, regional dialects, family expressions, jokes and riddles, and speaking and writing well. They settle disputes, play word quizzes, and discuss language news and controversies.
There are no carriage fees. You can begin carrying the program right away. Email or call Grant Barrett for details: grant@waywordradio.org, 646 286 2260.
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Easy as Pie (#1643)
From A Way with Words | Part of the A Way with Words series | 54:00
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After our conversation about the expression dingle day, a slang term used by workers at a research station in Antarctica to denote bright, sunny weather, a listener offers a possible explanation for this term. It may derive from the idea of the skies being clear enough to see the nearby Dingle Nunatak. A nunatak is an isolated mountain projecting through glacial ice, and derives from an Inuit term.
In Scotland and parts of Northern England, dwadle means to "waste time," "loiter," or "linger."
The German word Zaunkönig means "wren," but literally translates as "king of the fence."
A young listener wonders: Why do the words icing and frosting both refer to the idea of being cold? The names for this sweet cover on a cake refer to its appearance, not its temperature. Something similar occurs with the glaze in glazed doughnut, which refers to its glazed or "glassy" appearance. Some people in the Southern United States call that covering filling, even when it's on top of a cake, and in the U.S. Midlands, it's jokingly referred to as calf slobber.
In Black English, the word trifling describes a person who lacks ambition or fails to keep promises. Former President Barack Obama used it that way in his memoir Dreams from My Father (Bookshop|Amazon).
Quiz Guy John Chaneski's puzzle was inspired by the Greek letter chi. All of the answers contain the letters C-H-I. For example, if you see a man standing idly by while his wife struggles with grocery bags, you might surmise that something's dead. What is it?
Nancy in Aurora, Colorado, asks: Is there a better term for one's adult offspring than children or kids. The list of expressions she's pondered includes adult child, progeny, offspring, man-child, woman-child, descendant, successor, scion, offshoot, issue, fruit of one's loins, family, lineage, line, posterity, and seed. Still, she says, none of these feels right. Is there another?
David from Nashville, Tennessee, wonders about a word he's heard only in that city: gherming. Someone who gherms makes a habit of pestering country-music celebrities or acting overly familiar with them in public. Nashville songwriter Marc Alan Barnette has observed that when a friend was being wheeled into a hospital emergency room, he was even ghermed by a nurse trying to elbow her way into the industry. The word's origin is unclear, although it may be related to the term gurn, meaning to "contort one's face," possibly in an obsequious manner.
Why does the expression in spades mean "in abundance"?
Carmen in Jacksonville, Florida, was told she was pretty as a speck of puff. The more common simile is pretty as a speckled pup or cute as a speckled pup.
In a sweaty letter to a friend while vacationing on the island of Elba, poet Dylan Thomas wrote colorfully and expressively about a terrible heat wave, complaining that, among other things, "My brains are hanging out like a dog's tongue."
Carl in Newport Beach, California, wonders why the prefix be- functions so differently in the words behead and befriend. Also, why do the words decapitated and beheaded have different prefixes? And what the be- doing there in bemoan and belabor? Like words themselves, prefixes can have more than one meaning. The prefixes de- and dis- are likely related to Latin and Greek roots meaning "two." Michael Qunion's site Affixes.org is an excellent resource for understanding these building blocks of English.
We've mentioned the word orts before. It means "leftovers," but if you want another great word for leftovers or various little odds and ends, there's always manavalins. That's how Herman Melville spelled it, although there are several other versions. Manavalins may derive from manarvel, "to pilfer from a ship's stores."
Want a clever way to say you're ready to do something? Try this one: If you're waiting on me, you're backing up.
Arthur in New Bern, North Carolina, wonders why we say something that isn't difficult is as easy as pie when making a pie is a whole lot of work. This phrase most likely refers to the ease of eating a pie, not making one.
U.S. President Thomas Jefferson has been credited with the first use of belittled in print. The word appears in his 1785 Notes on the State of Virginia.
This episode is hosted by Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette.