Why isn’t “you’re welcome” the default response to “thank you” for everyone? Plus lies that kids tell, Philadelphia lawyer, cowbelly, skutch, mind-bottling vs. mind-boggling, tsundoku, infanticipating, noisy piece of cheese, a word game, and lots more.

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/. Email [email protected]. Twitter @wayword. Our listener phone line 1 (877) 929-9673 is toll-free in the United States and Canada. Elsewhere in the world, call +1 (619) 800-4443; charges may apply. From anywhere, text/SMS +1 (619) 567-9673. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation.

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A young patron's sense of wonder prompts a moving tweet by a staffer at the Toronto Public Library.

The phrases to put on the dog and putting on the dog refer to ostentatious behavior, and in particular to dressing in a flashy way. But what do dogs have to do with stylish clothing?

Our discussion about the many ways to say someone is pregnant prompts a listener to share another one he picked up from broadcaster Paul Harvey: infanticipating.

A woman in San Diego, California, says that when she was making too much noise as a youngster, her dad would gently reprimand her by saying You're a noisy piece of cheese.

Need a mnemonic to remember difference between the spelling of the palate in your mouth and an artist's palette? Associate the one in your mouth with the past tense of the verb to eat.

Quiz Guy John Chaneski, who also writes for Paid Off, a game show starring Michael Torpey, offers a game-show style puzzle. For example, what are the top 3 most likely responses from Google's autocomplete feature if you type in the question Why does my arm . . . ?

Whatever happened to saying You're welcome? A Lantana, Texas, woman observes that during media interviews, people will often respond to a Thank you by saying Thank you themselves.

A listener in Hope, North Wales, points out that there's punny way to spell a hungry horse in four letters. (Hint: one synonym for horse is gee-gee.)

A 10-year-old in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, says friends correct him whenever he says funner and funnest. Are they really words, and if so, is it okay to use them?

A law enforcement officer says he and his colleagues are curious about how the word pig came to be used as a derogatory term for police. This use has a long history that goes back more than two centuries.

The term cowbelly is used in Louisiana to mean both a kind of work shoe and  soft river mud. This kind of silt has been described evocatively by writer Conger Beasley, Jr.

A tweet soliciting the biggest lies people heard from other kids while growing up turns up some whoppers, like the boy who claimed his great-great-great-great grandfather was Elvis.

What you call the space between two mountain peaks depends on which part of the country you're in. The word gap is used more in the Southern United States, notch in the Northeast, and saddle or pass in the West.

There's a word for those noble souls who're picking up litter while they jog. They're ploggers.  The neologisms plogger and plogging are a combination of the English word jogging and  Swedish plocka upp, which means pick up.

A listener in Omaha, Nebraska, says that when he was being particularly inquisitive, his grandmother would exclaim, You ask more questions than a Philadelphia lawyer! This term for a particularly shrewd attorney goes all the way back to the late 18th century, and may be a reference either to Ben Franklin or the Philadelphia attorney Andrew Hamilton, who successfully defended German-American printer John Peter Zenger.

The term mind-boggling describes something that has a powerful effect on the mind. Sometimes it's misunderstood as mind-bottling, an eggcorn popularized by a Will Farrell movie.

The Italian-American slang word skutch refers to someone who's being annoying, and derives from the Italian word scocciare, which means to pester.

The Japanese have a term for the act of buying books but letting them pile up without reading them. It's tsundoku.

This episode is hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, and produced by Stefanie Levine.

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A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donate

Podcast listeners, contact us with your questions and comments! Email [email protected] or call toll-free 24 hours a day (877) 929-9673 in the US and Canada. Everywhere else call +1 (619) 800-4443.
https://waywordradio.org/
Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. All rights reserved.

Why isn’t “you’re welcome” the default response to “thank you” for everyone? Plus lies that kids tell, Philadelphia lawyer, cowbelly, skutch, mind-bottling vs. mind-boggling, tsundoku, infanticipating, noisy piece of cheese, a word game, and lots more.

Listen to all episodes for free: https://waywordradio.org/
 
Support the show to keep episodes coming: https://waywordradio.org/donate
 
Your responses, questions, and comments are welcomed at any time! 
 
https://waywordradio.org/contact
 
[email protected]
 
Listener line 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the US and Canada
 
Text/SMS +1 (619) 567-9673
 
Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. All rights reserved.

What’s in a mascot name? Maybe you’re a fan of the Banana Slugs, or you cheer for the Winged Beavers. Perhaps your loyalty lies with the Fighting Artichokes. There are some strange names for sports team out there. But what’s even stranger is the origin of the word mascot itself. It’s from a 19th-century opera! And: the host of a television show about gardening is tired of using the verb “to plant,” and is desperate for an alternative. But coming up with one is harder than you might think! Plus, a word for that sinking feeling when your favorite restaurant closes. Also, a word quiz based on the party game Taboo, the history of cataract, a begrudging ode to office jargon, and an old children’s song about popping the heads off of flowers.

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.

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The slang coming out of Victorian mouths was more colorful than you might think. A 1909 collection of contemporary slang records clever terms for everything from a bald head to the act of sidling through a crowd. Plus, how to remember the difference between CAV-al-ry and CAL-va-ry. And: what’s the best way to improve how introverts are perceived in our society? For starters, don’t bother asking for help from dictionary editors. Also, collieshangles, knowledge box, nanty narking, biz bag, burn bag, yuppies, and amberbivalence. 

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.

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This week on "A Way with Words": Slang from the 19th century. The slang coming out of Victorian mouths was more colorful than you might think. A 1909 collection of contemporary slang records clever terms for everything from a bald head to the act of sidling through a crowd. Plus, how to remember the difference between CAV-al-ry and CAL-va-ry. And: what's the best way to improve how introverts are perceived in our society? For starters, don't bother asking for help from dictionary editors. Also, collieshangles, knowledge box, nanty narking, biz bag, burn bag, yuppies, and amberbivalence.

Listen to all episodes for free: https://waywordradio.org/
 
Support the show to keep episodes coming: https://waywordradio.org/donate
 
Your responses, questions, and comments are welcomed at any time! 
 
https://waywordradio.org/contact
 
[email protected]
 
Listener line 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the US and Canada
 
Text/SMS +1 (619) 567-9673
 
Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. All rights reserved.

The highly specialized vocabulary of people who work outdoors, communicating with sled dogs, a word from the sport of rock-climbing, church key, browse line, smeuse, nitnoy, mommick, zawn, zwer, boom dog, and I think my pig is whistling. 

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.

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The highly specialized vocabulary of people who work outdoors, like farmers and fishermen, can bring us closer to the natural world. Also, a woman who trains sled dogs discusses the words she uses to communicate with her animals. You may be surprised to hear that "Mush!" is not one of them! Finally, if you're getting ready to go rock climbing, you'll first want the beta--a word with roots in the technology of video recording. Plus church key, browse line, smeuse, nitnoy, mommick, zawn, zwer, boom dog, and I think my pig is whistling.

Listen to all episodes for free: https://waywordradio.org/
 
Support the show to keep episodes coming: https://waywordradio.org/donate
 
Your responses, questions, and comments are welcomed at any time! 
 
https://waywordradio.org/contact
 
[email protected]
 
Listener line 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the US and Canada
 
Text/SMS +1 (619) 567-9673
 
Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. All rights reserved.

The highly specialized vocabulary of people who work outdoors, like farmers and fishermen, can bring us closer to the natural world. Also, a woman who trains sled dogs discusses the words she uses to communicate with her animals. You may be surprised to hear that "Mush!" is not one of them! Finally, if you're getting ready to go rock climbing, you'll first want the beta--a word with roots in the technology of video recording. Plus church key, browse line, smeuse, nitnoy, mommick, zawn, zwer, boom dog, and I think my pig is whistling.

FULL DETAILS

There's a word hole in a hedge or wall made by the repeated passage of a small animal. It's called a smeuse. This dialectal term from the UK is one of hundreds from Landmarks, a book of essays in which Robert Macfarlane seeks to reanimate our connection with nature by showcasing some of the specialized language involving features of the natural world.

A listener doing volunteer work in Tempe, Arizona, is puzzled when a co-worker refers to a bottle opener as a church key.

The highest point on trees that grazing animals can reach is called the browse line.

A rock climber in Omaha, Nebraska, wonders about the term beta, which her fellow climbers use to refer to  information about a particular route. It's a reference to using Betamax video to record information about a climb. A good source for the vocabulary used in this sport is Matt Samet's The Climbing Dictionary: Mountaineering Slang, Terms, Neologisms, & Lingo.

Samuel Butler once likened definitions to a kind of scratching.

Quiz Guy John Chaneski's punny puzzle involves words that end in -ISH. For example, something that's somewhat like a mark used to identify livestock might be what word that ends in -ISH?

In dogsledding, the exclamations gee and haw are used for left and right respectively. A woman in Fairbanks, Alaska, uses those terms when training her dogs for the Iditarod and wonders about their origin. (As promised, here are her pups.)

The German idiom Ich glaub mein Schwein pfeift is used to express tremendous surprise. Literally, it means I think my pig is whistling!

The term nitnoy means a little bit, and most likely derives from a Thai term that means the same thing.

Robert Macfarlane's book Landmarks, a collection of dialectal terms for features of the natural landscape, includes zwen, the sound of partridges taking off, and zawn, a wave-smashed chasm in a cliff.

A young woman in Las Cruces, New Mexico, is conflicted after a professor writes a glowing recommendation for her that also describes her as sassy. Isn't sassy a gendered term that should be avoided? And if so, how should she handle the situation?

According to Robert Macfarlane's book Landmarks, long, thin patches of snow that have not yet melted are called snow bones.

A trucker in Glasgow, Kentucky, wonders about the term boom dog, a device used to secure things on a trailer. The boom may be inspired by a ship's boom. The word dog has long been used in a variety of ways to refer to something that holds something else tightly in place.

A caller from coastal North Carolina says that in her part of the country, people use the word mommicked to mean flustered or deeply frustrated. It derives from mammock, which means to tear or muddle, and was used that way in Shakespeare's time. She reports they'll also say I'm bent double for I'm laughing really hard, and use the phrase in the merkles, to describe someone's lost their way--a phrase that probably derives from in the myrtles, or in other words, having wandered away from a cleared path.

This episode is hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, and produced by Stefanie Levine.

--

A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donate

Podcast listeners, contact us with your questions and comments! Email [email protected] or call toll-free 24 hours a day (877) 929-9673 in the US and Canada. Everywhere else call +1 (619) 800-4443.
https://waywordradio.org/
Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. All rights reserved.