Bite the Wax Tadpole

You’re listening to A Way with Words, I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And you know, Grant, I’ve been reading this new book about language by Elizabeth Little.

And as you know, she’s not a linguist, but she is obsessed with words and pop culture.

And her idea of a great weekend is to sit around reading Navajo and Tibetan grammars.

Just the kind of thing that gets people like you and me hot and bothered, you know?

Yes, I’m married, though, to a linguist, so I get my satisfaction both ways.

Well, speaking of satisfaction, the title is pretty irresistible.

It’s called “Biting the Waxed Tadpole, Confessions of a Language Fanatic.”

And, Grant, I know you know where that expression comes from.

There’s a myth out there that says that when Coca-Cola showed up in China, supposedly they mistranslated their slogan as “Bite the Waxed Tadpole.”

And that’s a very long story made short.

But the truth is, Coca-Cola actually never did that.

When Coca-Cola showed up in the late 1920s in China, they found that some local vendors actually had done their best to translate the company’s name into Chinese and hadn’t quite pulled it off.

But it was only one small local vendor who called it “Biting the Waxed Tadpole.”

And actually, it had no effect on sales because any Chinese person would have immediately recognized that they were using the characters phonetically and not for their meeting.

Because basically, it’s a nonsense phrase, right?

Exactly.

And you know, when it comes to advertising that gets supposedly lost in translation like that, there are lots and lots of stories like “Bite the Waxed Tadpole” floating around.

But we’re going to talk about those a little bit later on in the show.

First, let’s take some of your calls.

If you’d like to talk with us, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or pop us an email at words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Greg Philipson.

Hello, Greg.

Hey.

Where are you calling from?

I’m calling from Bloomington, Indiana.

Bloomington, yay!

What’s up?

All right.

Here’s the deal.

Some time ago, I encountered a phrase in a Sports Illustrated article that I was reading, and I have tried a lot of people asking what it meant, and nobody could tell me.

So here it is.

It’s from an August 27th article in Sports Illustrated about Nick Saban, who is the new football coach at Alabama.

And it’s a really well-written article full of colorful language, really enjoyed it, but this phrase just stumped me, and here it is.

“They have welcomed him as Caesar, as Pharaoh, and paid him enough money to burn a wet dog.”

And I couldn’t enough of my life, and they figured out—I kept looking for further references in the article about burning a wet dog and how that relates to how much money they’re paying him, and I couldn’t find anything.

Oh, what an awful phrase!

No, I like that mix of high and low language, though.

I like that mix of biblical— It’s horrendous!

Oh, come now.

What do you think, Greg?

I mean, were you repelled by it?

No, not repelled.

It just puzzled me, because I like language, so I pick up my cell phone, and here we are.

Well, you came to the right place, Captain.

Let me tell you right now.

Martha, the reason I don’t think it’s so terrible—and you keep going on about this.

Well, yeah, I think it’s heinous.

I love animals and I love pets, but the thing is, it’s just a metaphor.

They’re not actually talking about burning real dogs.

Well, no, but maybe if we’re talking about a hot dog or something, I can understand that.

Well, no, they’re actually talking about real dogs, and actually, Greg, there’s a variant of the phrase “burn a wet mule.”

Oh.

Okay.

Because I can tell you that the phrase first appears in the late 1880s in the South.

A couple of the earliest uses that I know of are from Georgia, and the idea here is that the animal is so wet that you need a lot of tinder—in other words, money, paper money—to get the fire going.

That’s it.

It’s not about actually burning a dog.

But yes, it is.

Well, no, it’s a metaphor.

They’re not—no, Nick Saban’s not going to go out and burn a dog with his new big salary.

Yeah, I don’t think so either.

It would be a massive dog.

Okay.

I don’t want the Alabama people calling me and saying that I’d comment on his salary.

Oh, an Irish wolfhound, huh?

Yeah.

Okay, well, maybe I’m being mollified then.

If you’re saying it’s theoretical, that theoretically there’s this dog there.

Of course it is.

But still, the idea—I mean, Greg, what bothers me about this is that the English language is this fossil record of how badly we’ve treated animals over millennia.

I mean, there’s so many expressions.

I mean, “hang dog,” for example, in English, refers to the literal hanging of dogs.

Shakespeare talked about it.

So I don’t know.

I mean, it grosses me out, but I sort of like the metaphorical idea.

But you don’t mind about the burning mules.

Well, if you—no, no, but—Let’s not get politics into this.

How would you feel if I said, “Pay him enough money to burn a wet dictionary.”

Now, wouldn’t that ruffle your feathers?

Well, I would just hope it was a big press run.

Greg, so we’ve established that the term does exist.

We’ve been giving you a variant.

We’ve showed you that it probably comes from the South, and we’ve given it a rough time period that it probably came from.

How do you feel about that?

That’s okay.

That’s okay.

I hope they’ll accept that at my lunch crew at the math department Monday, because everybody’s waiting.

Okay, hey, thank you.

Thank you so much for your call, Greg.

Thank you, Greg.

Thank you all very much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question about animals, call Martha.

If you’ve got a question about words and language, call me.

And if you have enough money to burn a wet dog, email us.

The email address is words@waywordradio.org, and the phone number is 1-877-929-WORD.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Megan from San Diego, California.

I had a question about the word “biffy” as used for porta-potties.

The word what?

Biffy.

Biffy.

How do you spell it?

B-I-F-F-Y.

Mm—

And where have you heard this?

My parents say it.

And they use it for porta-potties.

Yeah.

And where are they from?

Well, my dad’s from Indiana and my mom’s from California.

-huh.

But they both spent a lot of time in Australia.

Oh, you think they might have heard it there?

I think it’s possible.

I’m not sure.

My boyfriend doesn’t believe me that it’s used for porta-potties.

Oh, really?

Yeah, you won’t believe me.

He thinks they’re just like making it up?

Yeah, my dad has made it up.

Oh, really?

I swear it’s used for porta-potties.

And so your question is whether or not that’s true?

Yes.

So you want to convince him that that is not just a family word, in other words.

Exactly.

I just quickly looked this up in the Macquarie Dictionary online.

That’s Australia’s national dictionary, and the word “biffy” does not come up.

I didn’t think it would, but just to confirm that it’s not an Australian term.

I know for a fact that the Dictionary of American Regional English has an entry for this.

And not only do they have an entry, they have a map.

The map shows where all the respondents to their big survey that they did in the 1960s, it shows little dots where each of them answered, “Yes, I know this word,” or included this word in a response.

And that’s in Wisconsin, mostly, and the upper Midwest.

It’s also sometimes shortened as “biff,” B-I-F, just one F.

But yeah, I’ve definitely heard it as well, “biffy,” B-I-F-F-Y.

You have?

Absolutely.

Well, I had it on my list of my 300 favorite words on my website, MarthaBryant.com, for years.

But no, I didn’t hear it in Louisville, but that would make sense, Megan.

Where did you first hear it?

Oh, when I was really young.

Yeah?

Yeah.

And do you use it yourself?

The biffy?

What?

You use the term, not the thing.

She’s been holding it a very long time.

I’m surprised my boyfriend hasn’t heard of it yet, because he’s from the Midwest.

Well, it’s the upper Midwest, and the Midwest is a really big region, and it’s got some language islands, and some people—how shall I say this nicely—are more observant than others.

So is it used for port-a-potties or bathrooms in general?

Generally, it’s a bathroom, but you’ll actually find some group that swears up and down.

It’s only for outhouses or port-a-potties, and another group that says it can be used for any kind of place that you would do your business.

Oh, perfect.

But what I would have you do is tell your boyfriend that he now has to apologize to your father and mother.

Oh, definitely.

He’s apologizing a lot for this one.

Wait, has he personally given them a hard time for it?

Not been so much as me.

I see Friday dinners far into the horizon.

Expensive things.

Steaks and lobster and the like, right?

Lots of good wine.

Oh, definitely.

Well, thank you.

That clears up a lot.

Yep, glad to do it.

Thank you so much for your call, Megan.

Alright, thank you.

Bye-bye.

You know, Grant, I’ve been waiting for a chance to use this on the show.

What, do you have a joke planned?

Well, no, I don’t have a joke planned, but— If you’ll just kick me when I’m supposed to laugh, I’ll do that for you.

I have very long legs.

No, our friend Steve Rifkin, who’s a brand name expert, recently reported that there was a contest of the 20 most appropriately named portable toilet companies in the US.

I’m looking at his website.

And they included such names as a portable toilet company called Duty Calls, Drop Zone, that’s kind of nice, Wizards of Ooze.

My gosh, would you go to— No, I wouldn’t.

If you were at an outdoor event and there was a portable toilet that said Wizards of Ooze, I don’t think I would go there.

Here’s one, Willy Make It.

I kind of like that.

And Betty Don’t.

Oh boy, I better stop while we’re ahead, huh?

Anyway, give us a call at 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

This is Barbara Burnett from La Jolla.

What was that, Barbara?

Well, I came across a curious word when I was touring, I believe, the Midway.

It may have been in the Pensacola Naval Air Museum, but at any rate, it was a little store on a ship on an aircraft carrier.

And it was the kind of thing that sells cigarettes and candy and little items that you might get in the deli, but it was called the GEDUNK.

The GEDUNK.

I believe it was G-E-D-U-N-K.

And I thought at first it might be some kind of acronym for Dumb Edibles Daily News Kiosk or something like that, but I don’t think that’s it.

But I have no idea what the origin of GEDUNK might really be.

Well, first let’s just establish that that is the usual spelling, you’ve got it right, G-E-D-U-N-K.

The earliest use that I can find is from a 1925 newspaper column in the Chicago Tribune.

But one of the running gags was about GEDUNK Sundays, and Sunday as in the ice cream dish, S-U-N-D-A-E.

Oh, that kind of Sunday.

Yes.

And where they got it from, I believe, is from the comic strip Herald Teen.

In the comic strip, Herald Teen has GEDUNK Sundays.

They’re a sweet treat.

And what you find shortly thereafter is that the word GEDUNK starts to appear not just in the Navy, but in various places throughout American culture.

I mean, the term starts to appear to refer to ice cream or dessert or snacks or any kind of food.

And then it changed, and it became a term, as you saw in the military, the place where you would buy or eat that food, so the PX.

Wow.

So the bottom line here is that it probably came from a cartoon, a comic strip.

It probably did, and it was popularized in places very similar to this column in the Chicago Tribune.

Well, interesting.

Well, Barbara, thank you so much for calling, and bon appetit next time you go out for GEDUNK.

GEDUNK, whatever.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Barbara.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question about words or language, give us a call at 1-877-929-W-O-R-D or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Coming up, a chemistry quiz for the scientifically challenged and more of your calls on A Way with Words.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett, and joining us once again is our quiz guy, Greg Pliska.

Hello, Greg.

Hello, Grant.

What are you doing over there?

I am wondering why I’m being called a quiz guy instead of a quiz assist.

What happened?

It was either puzzle guy or quiz assist.

Now we’ve conflated that into the term quiz guy.

Oh, we grew tired of it, weary of it.

We put the word out, and really, word-nista came up.

You know, that’s a Stephen Colbert word.

We weren’t sure.

You guys, the language is always developing with you guys.

It’s amazing.

It’s not pejorative.

Quiz guy.

What does he want?

Quiz master?

No, that’s you.

Mr.

Quiz.

Senior Quiz.

Mr.

Quizzard.

Sir Quiz.

Quiz in charge.

Mr.

Quizzard.

I like that.

Sergeant Quiz.

Yeah, exactly.

General Quiz.

Every time you come on, we’ll have a trumpet blast.

I’ll write it.

I’ll write the music.

Well, hey, Sergeant Quiz.

What’s been going on since the last time you threw down the gauntlet here?

So you want to hear about the music or you want to do the puzzle?

Let’s hear about the music.

Actually, I have a question for you.

How well do you remember high school chemistry?

N-A-T-L?

H2O?

You remember the periodic table of the elements?

N-2-S-O-4?

Well, here’s why I ask.

You found that a few of them could be turned into puns, and you’re going to milk it for all it’s worth.

You got it.

Now, today’s puzzle I’m calling Elements of Smile, and it depends, fortunately for you…

I like how you pause so we can laugh.

Just pause so you can catch up.

Fortunately for you, this puzzle depends not at all upon your dubious teenage study habits.

I aced physics.

Yeah, this is chemistry though.

All of these chemical elements I’m going to quiz you on are not in the periodic table.

Rather, they are simply words that end with the letters I-U-N.

Oh, like unobtainium.

Exactly.

What I’ll do is give you a fanciful or punny definition of a word as if it were a chemical element, and then you tell me the word.

For example, I might say, “Babies born early have an abundance of this element in their blood streams.”

Premium.

Exactly.

Premium.

Oh!

Because they’re “premie” short for premature.

All words that end with I-U-M, and they’re not really chemical elements.

Alright, enough with the hedging.

Let them loose.

Here we go.

An element found in department stores.

Elevator, escalatorium.

Credit cardium.

Dedium.

Miserium.

Bad serviceium.

Macy’sium.

Bloomingdaleum.

Fourth floor ringeram.

I have no idea.

No, it’s a more general word associated with department stores.

In fact, it’s a synonym for department store.

Omnium?

Emporium.

Emporium, exactly.

That wasn’t very punny.

That was a very direct clue.

Here’s a punnier one.

You sound apologetic.

It’s actually a little defensive.

Defensium.

This element causes negative reactions in taxpayers.

You get the chemistry pun there with reactions.

Negative reactions.

What would cause a negative reaction in you as a taxpayer?

Assuming you did pay your taxes, of course.

The last thing anybody wants to have done after you file your taxes.

Auditorium.

That’s right.

Where’s the vomitorium?

Element produced after one of these puns.

Vomitorium.

That’s correct.

Here’s another one.

We’re going to talk a little bit about music here.

This element is used to make instruments in the brass family.

That’s actually used to make one specific instrument in the brass family.

Tubium.

As you say, trombonium, French hornium.

It’s smaller than a tuba.

Bigger than a trombone.

Barnette.

Baritoneum?

No.

It is also sometimes called a baritone.

It’s used to make a flugelhornium.

French hornium.

All the musicians out there, all the brass musicians, know this one.

They’re yelling at their radio.

I know.

My friends in the brass band are just going to kill me.

It’s such a beautiful sound, too.

It’s a beautiful sound.

If something is a beautiful sound, you would say it is — I believe it’s a Greek-rooted word that you would say means something is beautiful sounding.

Caliphonia?

No.

If I said that — Euphonius?

Yes.

Euphonium.

Oh, the euphonium.

So named because it does have a beautiful mellow, round tone.

Oh, it’s gorgeous.

I like how Martha and I both go, oh, in chorus.

We do have some musical skills.

That’s a Greek word.

All right.

Here’s another one for you.

This element has the atomic number 1000.

I was going to say millium, but — Millennium?

Millennium.

Absolutely.

Martha’s instincts were good.

They tipped me off.

Teamwork thing.

Yeah.

All right.

This one I have to apologize for in advance.

Between us, we have a brain and a half.

I’ll give you another one here.

All right.

When he always adds another one, Martha, I call that the apology question.

It’s the one where he leaves us feeling a little better about ourselves instead of miserable at our failures.

I don’t think this is that one.

Sorry.

Oh, no.

If you find yourself falling asleep watching Actors Named Kilmer, you probably have this element in your system.

Valium.

Valium.

It was an easy one.

It was an easy one.

Greg, those were amazing, and I’m sorry we have to seesium.

It felt like a load of effluvium to me.

I already said that word.

But thanks a lot.

Thank you.

It’s always a pleasure.

If you’re puzzling over a language question, the number to call is 1-877-929-9673 or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

And join the conversation with your fellow word lovers at our new discussion forum.

You’ll find them at waywordradio.org.

Hi.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

My name is Jason Johnson.

I’m from Wakefield, Michigan.

Hi, Jason.

How you doing?

Good.

Pretty good.

How about yourself?

All right.

What do you do in Wakefield?

I’m actually a web designer.

I work from home.

What’s your language question today, Jason?

I actually have a question about the word lake.

I’ve often wondered why some lakes are named with the proper noun before the word lake and some are named after it.

We have a small lake in our town called Sunday Lake, and then of course north of us is the large lake called Lake Superior.

And I guess I’ll assume that the larger the lake, the word lake is before it.

But I’m wondering if there’s any specific rule or if it’s just up to the person that actually names the lake.

I can think of a number of examples right off the bat like Lake Champlain or Lake Victoria.

Yet, you know, you have Lake Victoria, but you don’t say Falls, Victoria.

You say Victoria Falls.

Right.

Right.

Rivers, I believe, are the same way as well.

For example what, Jason?

Isn’t the River Kwai?

Oh, yeah.

And most rivers are Mississippi River.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it’s interesting, Jason.

I once ran this question past a professor at the University of Louisville, which is my hometown, named Frank Nestle, and he belongs to something called the American Names Society.

These are people who study onomastics.

Yes?

Oh, I know these people.

They actually have their conference every year at the same time as the American Dialect Society, and I actually sit in on their session.

They’re some of the best papers I’ve ever seen.

Oh, really?

Really?

Well, Dr.

Nestle has written on the topic of onomastics, of course, a great deal.

And I actually asked him this question once, and he said there aren’t any hard and fast rules about this, but in general, as you suggested, Jason, the smaller lakes tend to have their specific name first and then the word “lake,” and with bigger lakes, it’s the other way around.

Oh.

So that was a good conjecture on your part.

And by the way, speaking of great big, Jason, did you know there’s a lake in Massachusetts with a name that is 46 letters long?

Oh, I did not know that.

That’s got to be a record.

Yeah, it is.

It is.

It’s great.

It’s this Indian name, and I’m talking 46 letters long.

That’s almost two alphabets in length, right?

Let’s hear it.

It is called Lake Chargagagagman Chagagag Chabana Gungamug.

What do the locals call it?

Actually, the locals do sometimes call it Webster Lake, but the name Lake Chargagagagman Chagagagag Chabana Gungamug is supposedly an Indian name that means “you fish on your side, I’ll fish on my side, and nobody fish in the middle.”

Oh, right.

I have heard that one.

That is the story that’s been put out, but you know what?

Etymologists have traced that back, and the reporter who made it up was just joking.

So I think it means something like “neutral fishing ground.”

Jason, I have a question for you, though.

I mean, if we grow up with something like Lake Superior being the proper name, when you say Superior Lake, it really doesn’t stick for you, right?

Right, but I mean, like, I always thought the lake in my town, the small Sunday Lake, Lake Sunday sounds fine as well, and there’s a lot of them, I believe, that could be changed either way, and they don’t sound too bad.

Yeah, but you wouldn’t want Lake Great Salt.

No, that’s true.

Lake Great Salt.

Right.

I also noticed, I looked on Wikipedia all the different names in the U.S. Of lakes, and it’s usually the ones with two words are almost always followed by the word “lake,” no matter how big they are.

Oh yeah?

Well, that’s interesting.

I did notice that, yes.

Well, maybe you want to join the American Name Society.

Oh, I hope we’ve helped, Jason.

The rule is, there’s no hard and fast rule.

Okay, that’s kind of what I figured.

But your hunch is correct, yeah.

Yeah.

All right, well, thank you very much, Jason.

All right, bye-bye.

Best of luck.

Grant, you know what we should do?

What?

I know a place on the internet where you can see a picture of the sign with the name of Lake Char-Gaga-Mog-Manchaga-Gaga-Cha-Bona-Gunga-Mog.

We’ll post that right on the website, then.

We’ll post it on the website, and this is the best part, I’ve saved the best part for last.

There is audio at this site that has a song by a guy who lives there near Webster Lake, who was trying to teach his kid how to say the name of the lake.

That’s how I know the name of the lake, and so we can link to the audio for that song.

Excellent.

If you’ve got a question about geography and lakes and water and hydroelectric dams, then give Martha a call.

If you’ve got a question about language or 1-877-929-W-O-R-D or send us an email anytime, day or night.

Martha’s always online.

Words@waywordradio.org.

In my pajamas.

Well, Grant, earlier we debunked that so-called advertising snafu in which Coca-Cola was supposedly mistranslated as “Bite the Wax Tadpole.”

But of course, the other biggie in that department is the story about the Chevy Nova, and lots and lots of people have heard this one, the story that the Nova, the car, didn’t sell that well in Latin America because in Spanish, “nova” translates as “it doesn’t go.”

But I’d love to believe this one, but sadly, it’s not true either, is it?

Nope.

Actually, the Chevy Nova sold very well in Latin America, even surpassing General Motors’ expectations.

The reason it did so well is because the Spanish actually have a perfectly good word, “nova,” that’s just like our English word, “nova,” and so it was no great mystery to them.

And they’re no more likely to divide the word up in two than we are.

And on top of that, at the time the car was introduced, they had a brand of gasoline called “nova” in the country.

You’d think that would have been a problem, right?

Exactly, right.

And if your car doesn’t start in Mexico, you’re more likely to say something like “no anda” rather than “nova.”

There we go.

But you know, in this country, we’re not much better at naming cars.

I mean, think about the probe.

I think it was Jay Leno who said, “Who wants to be rear-ended by a probe?”

Well, anyway, if you have a probing question, call us.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or reach out and touch us by email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, it’s Alex, calling from Muncie, Indiana.

Hey Alex, what are you calling us about today?

Well, I don’t know if you guys do a lot of text messaging, but it’s become pretty much my primary mode of communication.

Really?

Yeah, one day actually, a couple of years ago, I texted a friend and I met to call her a dork.

D-O-R-K.

It used to be you had to press, if you wanted an S, you had to press three times.

But now you can just do it once and the phone guesses what you’re trying to say.

So I was trying to say dork, but it thought I meant fork, as in the eating utensil.

My friend was very confused as to why I was calling her a fork.

You didn’t realize that I accidentally said the wrong word to you, right?

Right, I wasn’t paying attention.

I was probably driving or something, which is bad.

Alex!

I know, I know.

She and I developed this whole thing where we just referred to each other as forks because it was kind of cute and we had a thing and, you know, so it was like our pet name thing.

But I thought it was something that just the two of us did.

And then I was listening to a song by the band The Streets out of England, they’re in this cool little rap group, and he said, he was referring to his Ferrari, and said it was really book, E-O-O-K, which is another T9 mistake for the word cool.

Right, if you hit three, six, six, five, those words both come up.

A book is first and cool is second, right?

Right, so if you want cool, you have to hit zero, I think, to cycle through.

And it was this real light bulb moment when I heard it in the song because I thought I wasn’t aware that anybody else was like onto this, that there are words that are other words.

So my question really then is, I didn’t know if you guys knew of any other kind of pop culture references or this kind of thing happening, and if it’s something that’s spreading or if it’s just two people in Indiana and this one guy in England.

No, no, I don’t know the artist that you’re talking about in the UK, but it’s definitely well known there.

Susie Dent has written about it in, I believe, two of her language reports that she’s written.

She does like this annual book that kind of summarizes the thing that happened in language over the year, both in the United Kingdom and in North America.

And I’ve also seen it come up in numerous news articles when I’m hunting for words, and it’s exactly what you’re saying.

You make a mistake, you mean to choose cool, you hit book and you send it instead, and it becomes an end joke and you start to use stuff like that back and forth.

My problem with this is though, you’re actually, believe it or not, the first person I’ve heard of who does this on purpose.

It’s one of those things that’s much talked about but hard to find actually in the field.

Is this primarily a UK thing then?

As far as I know, it’s mostly used in the UK.

I bet it does happen here in the United States.

What I do know about texting, both in the United Kingdom and the United States, is that people seek clarity.

And so it’s only going to work if you understand each other on both ends.

There’s already enough abbreviation, enough kind of shorthand language happening there, that sometimes a text message can be difficult to understand.

So when you introduce something like book in place of cool, everybody’s got to be in the know.

It’s just not going to work otherwise.

And I just don’t know people here that use that.

Wow, and those of us who almost never text, we don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.

Well, you know, Mark, those rotary phones just don’t do that.

It’s been really book talking with you.

Oh, it’s been great talking to you too.

And the fact that it’s English makes it more pretentious, which means I will keep it up.

Nice.

Yeah, this kind of thing is often used just for fun.

It’s not in seriousness, is it?

No.

All right.

Well, best of luck with your studies.

I do hope you’re paying attention in class.

I’m doing my best and trying not to text during class because that’s definitely gratifying.

That’s what I think.

All right.

Take care of yourself, Alex.

All right.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Yeah, Grant, I think this is sort of baffling to most of us who don’t know what you’re talking about.

But I mean, basically, those phones will write for you.

It’ll try to guess what you’re typing, and that’s how that happens.

My difficulty with texting, and I do use it, I don’t use it frequently, though, because it’s so slow.

And also, it’s hard to keep your message to 140 characters or whatever the limit is.

Oh, there is limit.

I didn’t know.

I can type 80 words a minute or better on a computer keyboard, and I get to the phone and I’m like, “Eh, eh, eh.”

I feel like I’m hampered.

I can’t really get it.

I’m like, “Wait a second.

I have a phone in my hand.

Why am I not calling this person and speaking instead?”

It just doesn’t make sense sometimes.

If you’re in class, that’s a different story.

You know, this kind of reminds me too of when calculators first came out.

You weren’t even born yet, Grant.

But when calculators first came out, you could do these funny little codes.

You could type 7734 and then turn it upside down and it would be hell.

And there was some little joke that we would do in elementary school where you put in all these different numbers and then you turned your calculator upside down and the answer was shell oil.

Yeah, we had a bunch of those too.

We would actually do 9009 and you turn it upside down.

It looks kind of like boob, and that was funny when you were eight.

-oh, I just laughed.

I guess it’s funny when you’re however old I am.

Oh, you’re younger than I thought.

Very good.

Well, pick up your phone and give us a call.

The number is 1-877-929-9673 or text us.

Oh no, you can’t do that.

Sure, you can.

You can text us to words@waywordradio.org.

Oh, you can do that.

Okay.

Straight ahead, get ready for the slang quiz and more of your calls.

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You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And it’s time for another round of Slang This.

Today’s contestant is Deborah Brownau from Manhattan Beach, California.

Deborah, are you there?

I’m here.

How you doing?

I’m shaking in my boots.

Oh, well don’t.

Don’t.

Let me introduce you to Grant here.

He’ll calm you down.

Hi, Grant.

I’ll save you from Martha.

I won’t let them down.

So Deborah, do you have a favorite slang expression you’d like to share with us?

Well, you know, it’s funny.

I heard one just yesterday that was entirely new to me.

And I was convinced that I was much too old for slang and really didn’t know any good ones.

But now I think I’m going to adopt this.

It’s the expression, are you boning out on me?

Which means are you bagging?

Are you leaving?

And I heard this from the mother of a teenager.

And apparently it’s used for almost any situation, but particularly in parties like as in, dude, you’re not boning out already, are you?

Wow.

I’ve never heard that of you, Grant.

Of course you have.

No, I haven’t.

It just makes me think of gutting fish.

Ew.

Well, Grant, you must be excited.

I mean, aren’t you excited?

About boning out?

I’m actually making a note.

Hold on a second.

Let me write this down.

I’m hoping that I won’t need to bone out of here before the game is done.

Oh, I’m sure you won’t.

I’m sure you won’t.

No, you’ll be fine.

You’ll be absolutely fine.

I think actually the stuff I’m giving you today is going to be a little easier than boning out.

Oh, good.

Are you ready?

Well, all right.

Let me tell you how we play.

Grant’s going to give you a slang term, and then he’s going to present you with three possible examples of how it might be used.

And only one of them is real, the other two are bogus.

So Deborah, your job will be to tell us which example is the real thing.

Okay.

Three choices, one answer, and I will be standing by if you need a lifeline, okay?

Oh, good.

All right, Grant, take it away.

Here we go.

The first term today is bluebird.

That’s two words hyphenated, B-L-U-E hyphen B-I-R-D, bluebird.

Okay.

And the first clue is, “You hand-wringing little bluebirds think you’ve got it tough.

A little PX duty at 5 a.m. And you’re writing letters home to mama.

Poor little bluebirds.”

Okay.

The second clue, “On my first day as an encyclopedia salesman, I made two bluebirds.

They were easy pickings because they called me instead of me calling them, and I trotted the sales forms right over.”

And the third clue, “The badger’s newborn bluebirds crowded around their mother chirping to attract her attention.

Each had silky blue-black fur and four little pink paws.”

So three clues for bluebird is a bluebird, A, a derogatory name for a complaining soldier.

Is it B, an easy sale?

Or is it C, the offspring of badgers?

All right, well I’m going to eliminate C.

Oh, you see you’ve been headed all over there.

They’re so cute.

I know, they’re so cute, but it seems like badgers would have their their own offspring names that wouldn’t have to do with birds.

So somehow I think it’s A, it sounds like sort of a derogatory thing.

It’s because of the passion with which I read that clue, right?

It was so authentic.

Are you sure you want to go with A?

I can’t imagine.

I mean, I guess I don’t know.

I don’t know my birds well enough to know why a bluebird would be associated with easy pickings, although maybe it has to do with the whole worms and things.

What about the bluebird of happiness?

Okay, maybe we need to because that would make a salesman happy, wouldn’t it?

If I say B, you’re gonna question me again, aren’t you?

No, actually, because I’ve gone too long and my producer’s probably screaming in the booth.

Okay, all right, so let’s go with B.

It is indeed B.

Miracles is miraculous.

Oh, yes, it’s B.

And the thing is, Martha’s clue, she’s right on target.

Actually, I’m pretty sure, although the thing with this term is, as far as I know, it’s not in any other slang dictionary except the one that I do, but the thing is bluebird, meaning happiness, one way or the other, connoting happiness dates back to the early 1900s.

And the way I think this makes the most sense to people is if you think about a bluebird just flying in the window.

And so these sails just kind of like show up.

You know, you don’t have to work for them at all.

They’re just boom, there they are, and it’s money in your pocket.

All right, here we go.

Ready for number two?

Sure.

The next term is corpsing.

C-O-R-P-S-I-N-G, corpsing.

And the first clue is, we had to do 60 takes of the scene because Ricky kept corpsing so loudly that you could hear his stifled guffaws on the boom mic.

He finally got serious, and we wrapped the scene.

Okay.

The second clue, the key to corpsing is to not lose your cool as you lie there on the tracks waiting for the next train.

The winner is the last one to leap out of its path.

Okay, that little macabre.

All right.

And the third clue, the older ROTC men held a little corpsing ceremony in which I was forced to walk across campus in a straight line, never stopping until I encountered an immovable object.

Then I could only go around it when told.

So those are your three clues.

Is it A, laughing uncontrollably during the filming of a movie or television show?

Is it B, playing a game of chicken on the railroad tracks?

Or is it C, a type of hazing practiced by members of the Reserve Officer Training Corps?

I’m going to say C.

It sounds like a hazing word.

I’m sorry.

It is.

It’s A, but you’re too bad.

No, it’s A.

Think about this.

You’re in a scene.

There are like 100 crew members all around you.

There are cameras, hot lights.

You’re supposed to be the dead body, but all you can do is laugh.

That’s corpsing.

That’s exactly where corpsing comes from.

I used Ricky in the example because Ricky Gervais of the British version of The Office and the very well-known podcast and a bunch of, you know, whatever, very funny guy, British fellow.

He’s known for that.

Apparently, he can bust up an entire set and just like, just ruin hours of filming on end.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Oh, that’s so funny.

Deborah, you did a great job.

Thank you so much for playing with us today, Deborah.

It was wonderful.

Thank you.

It was great fun.

Hey, listen, we’re going to send you a copy of Grant’s book, The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang.

Oh, I’m so excited.

Yeah.

It’s just in time.

In time for?

For, you know, that election thing that’s happening in the next year or so.

Oh, yeah, right.

My children and I will make good use of it.

Excellent.

Great.

And everyone else, if you’d like to join our slang quiz on the air, the number is 1-877-929-WORD or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Be sure to include all of your phone numbers and your favorite slang word.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Phil calling from St.

James, New York.

Hi, Phil.

What’s on your mind today?

Well, I wanted to speak to you about what I consider a non-word that I’ve heard twice recently, and that is using the noun incentive and someone turning it into the verb “incent,” which I don’t think is right, but I’ll explain how this happened.

I work in a company that sells consumer goods, and the marketing people were speaking to me and asking me about a particular program and said to me, “We want to incent our customers to do this and that.”

Now, I’m open-minded, you know.

I thought, “Well, let me take this back to my dictionary,” and I went back to my office, and actually my second thought was to say, “You mean you want to provide incentives for our customers?”

I went back, I did not find this word in the dictionary, came home that night and put it up to my wife, who’s an excellent grammarian, and she said, “That’s not a word,” and I figured, fine, case closed.

And then a week later, listening to the radio, Mayor Bloomberg of New York is on, and he was speaking about congestion pricing in Manhattan, and he said that we would like to incent commuters to use mass transit.

Oh my goodness.

And I still rebel.

I don’t think this is a word, so I bring it to the experts.

All right, so Phil, you’re incensed by “incent,” is that what you’re saying?

I am incensed, Martha, you’re right, absolutely.

I am too, I am too.

I mean, I have to admit it is a word that’s been around at least since the 1970s, you will find it in the Oxford English Dictionary at least, but that doesn’t mean that you and I have to like it, does it, Phil?

No, I really don’t like it.

No, why use that when you can use a perfectly good word like “incentivize” instead?

Is that a real word too?

Yes.

“Incentivize” is.

Does that one grade on you too?

A little less.

I mean, I guess I’ve heard it more, I still don’t think that’s absolutely right either.

So Phil, your complaint is that it grates in it.

It does!

Right?

Our complaint.

Well, you know, I am a person who like, you know, shorter, used two words instead of ten, and I believe in all of that, but I don’t think it’s right when you take nouns and just turn them into verbs willy-nilly.

Phil, this is a back formation like the word “babysit,” for example.

We had the word babysitter before we ever had babysit.

You know, it’s one of those things that got shortened, and I was just sitting here thinking that I agree with you that “incent” is a pet “peeve” of mine, but then I realized that “peeve” is a back formation from “peevish.”

A whole store of our words are nouned verbs and verbed nouns and adjectives turned into adverbs, and you know, it’s like English language is made of a bunch of transvestites.

They’re always changing clothes and becoming something else.

Yeah, well, that’s true.

I guess we’re going to hear it more and more now.

Well, Phil, I’m holding your hand through the radio right now.

Thank you, Martha.

I appreciate it, and thank you for having my question.

Sure thing.

Thank you, Phil, for your time.

Bye-bye.

The number is 1-877-929-9673, or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Brian from San Diego.

How are you, Brian?

How are you doing?

Doing well, how are you?

Okay, what’s on your mind today?

My folks came to visit a couple weeks ago, and I have a four-month-old baby.

Oh, congratulations.

Thank you.

Boy or girl?

It’s a girl.

What’s her name?

Sophia.

Every now and then she, you know, like all babies do, she starts to fuss, and whenever she would head into that mode, my folks would say she was fixing a tune-up.

I was curious if you had any idea where that came from and what it even means.

Where are your parents from?

From Texas.

-huh.

Houston area.

West Houston, okay.

My mom did some time in Georgia where she picked up some…

Hard time?

No, she went to school there.

That can be, that can be thought of as that too.

Yeah, fixing, you know, my virginian-born mother would think nothing of saying, “I’m fixing to go get my hair fixed.”

Then she’d come home and make turkey with all the fixin’s.

Right.

Yeah, I’m not sure how fixin’ too came about, but it’s very, very common in Southern speech.

And Brian, I’m so glad that you mentioned fixing to tune up, because I have to tell you, I’ve heard that in the South for a baby being about to cry, fixing to tune up.

I haven’t seen it in reference works per se.

Have you, Grant?

I do know that there’s a general use of “to tune up,” meaning to shout, or to say loudly, or to exercise one’s vocal cords, but specifically related to a baby crying.

I haven’t seen that in the dictionary, no.

No, but you’ve just experienced it at home recently, right?

I have, because I, yeah, I have a seven-month-old myself.

Oh, congratulations.

So what do you…

I’m sorry to say that he’s the cutest baby in the world, Brian, and that leaves you out.

I don’t know, we have a competition going there.

-oh, they’re fixin’ to have a fight.

I got the feeling that this had to do with a performance, like, she was preparing for a performance, and so she was tuning up her instrument.

It ain’t over till the fat baby sings.

Anyway, it’s a wonderful expression, and I’m so glad that you brought it to our attention.

I haven’t asked them yet where they think it came from, but…

It’s probably one of those things they inherited down the years to fix into goes back at least a couple hundred years, I think.

It was in the American Dialect Dictionary dated as far back as the 1800s, and to tune up as far as babies, I think I’ve seen that in the early 1900s, so both of them have a pretty good history, a really good chance that they predate probably even your grandparents.

Yeah.

So Brian, does Sophia tune up a lot?

Not anymore.

She was there for the first three months.

She did a lot of tuning up, and she gave several big performances.

Well, let me just say, as somebody whose baby is just a little bit older than yours, and based on my very limited experience with one child, by the fifth month, the smiles come out and everything changes.

Yeah, once she started smiling, it was all worth it.

Best of luck, Brian.

Thank you.

Give your little girl a smooch for us, will you?

Okay, I will.

Thanks, Brian.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a question about an old family saying, or something that your grandmother used to mutter under her breath, give us a call 1-877-929-W-O-R-D, or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Mike from San Diego.

Hiya, Mike.

Hello, Mike.

Hello.

What’s up?

Well, some friends of mine from college, we’ve had sort of a long-standing debate about a a certain phrase, and it’s one that you would use to describe a particularly audacious falsehood.

Court testimony?

Yeah.

No.

The way I’ve always heard it is, and read it, is as a bald-faced lie.

B-A-L-D.

And some of my friends insist that it’s actually a bold-faced lie.

B-O-L-D.

And when we first tried to settle this, we actually went to the dictionary, and what we found was that actually both the bold-faced and bald-faced entries included that phrase as an example.

So what I was wondering is whether one or the other is more correct, or at least which one might be older.

Which is the chicken and which is the egg.

Yeah.

But you’re asking about the age of these.

Why?

Because you think the older one is automatically more correct?

Well, not necessarily, but it would at least, you know, I mean, if they’re both equally correct to use, then, you know, it would at least give me something to lord over my friends.

And that’s important.

Yeah.

Well, here’s the thing is, you’ve left one out.

The oldest form of this is actually bare-faced.

To say somebody’s a bare-faced liar actually goes back to Shakespeare, used variations on in a couple different plays.

And bald-faced then comes after that, is a little newer still, meaning roughly the same thing.

And then bold-faced appears much later, but not that much later.

Bold-faced actually has two different meanings where we can talk about somebody doing something in a kind of a brazen way, but also bold-faced can mean they do it in a way as to call attention to themselves.

It’s a little different there.

But in general, you’re always going to be safe with bald-faced, and bold-faced is going to get you in trouble with stickler grammarians and copy editors and those sorts of people, who are really not good company at all, actually not the kind of people you want to go drinking with.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Wait a minute.

Well, the truth is that you’re fine with all of them, but you’re safest with bald-faced.

Okay.

Well now, Grant, my question for you is, when you say “bold-faced lie,” I don’t actually say it.

Oh, well.

I allow it in the speech of others.

When the people whom you allow to say that say it, are they thinking about a lie that they’re telling with a very bold face, or are they thinking about a lie that’s written in really fat type?

No, I mean, don’t you think that’s a relevant question, Mike?

Sure.

Well, you know, that is actually the explanation that my friends have always used, is sort of a typographical explanation.

Well, maybe I can go out drinking with them.

So it wasn’t about being bold, it was about putting it in 48-point Helvetica on the front page of a newspaper?

Well, you know, I never really understood it myself.

So, Mike, what will you go back and tell your friends?

Well, you know, I may not bring it up at all.

Unfortunately, you know, one not being actually incorrect.

But if anything, I will certainly point out the historicity of the different options.

The historicity of the different options.

Very good.

And, you know, or your other option is just to go back and tell them that you’re right and make sure they don’t listen to this particular episode of the show.

But all the other ones after that, of course.

Yeah.

All right, well, thank you very much.

All right.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Whether your face is bare, bald, or bold, give us a call.

The number is 1-877-9299673 or email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Things have come to a pretty pass.

That’s our show for this week, but you can always call us with your questions about language.

The number is 1-877-9299673 or send us an email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Our senior producer is Stefanie Levine.

Tim Felten is our technical director and editor.

We’ve had production assistance from Michael Bagdasian and Dana Polakovsky.

A Way with Words is produced at Studio West in San Diego.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett inviting you to join us next week right here on A Way with Words. (music playing) You say either, and I say either.

You say neither, and I say neither.

Either, either…