Is it cool for parents to use their children's slang? What's wrong with the term "illegal alien"? Grant and Martha discuss possible alternatives. Yehudi refers to the mysterious character who holds up strapless dresses, turns the light on in the fridge, and does lots of other things we can't see. But why Yehudi? Also, terms from the dictionary of anatomy, an idiom puzzle, putzing around, out of pocket, long in the tooth, and the ancient roots of the folksy expression "even a blind pig can find an acorn." And what do you call the slobber marks a dog leaves on a window?

This episode first aired December 3, 2011. Listen here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download the MP3 here (23.8 MB).

To be automatically notified when audio is available, subscribe to the podcast using iTunes or another podcatching program.

Does your vocabulary mark you as old or outdated? Certain words really indicate generational gaps, like chronological shibboleths. For example, are thongs panties or flip-flops? And what do women carry around — a pocketbook, a purse, or a bag? Your answer likely depends on when you were born.

At what point is it inappropriate for parents to use the slang of their offspring? Can you call your son "dude," or give your kids a beatdown in Scrabble? Living with children makes for a slang-filled home, so it becomes part of your regular speech. So long as your children aren't mortified, go for it.

Who is Yehudi, and what exactly does he do? In the 1930s on Bob Hope's radio show there was a musical guest named Yehudi Menuhin. His name proved so catchy, along with sidekick Jerry Colonna's joking phrase, "Who's Yehudi?" that it entered the common vernacular, coming to refer to anyone, or anything, mysterious. Yehudi is, for example, the little man that turns on the light inside the refrigerator. He holds up strapless dresses. The Navy even had a secret project named Project Yehudi.

Charles Hodgson's Carnal Knowledge: A Naval Gazer's Dictionary of Anatomy is chock-full of great terms. It's best to keep the lipstick within the vermillion border, or that line where the lips meet the skin. And be careful when applying around the wick, or the corner of the mouth.

Our Quizmaster John Chaneski has a puzzle based on clues with everything but the but. For example, when likening someone to a house, we say the lights are on, but nobody's home. Or regarding a noisy political contest, it's all over but the shouting.

If someone's being a bit lazy, or just moseying aimlessly, we say they're putzing around. But the word put derives from the Yiddish for "penis." Plenty of Yiddish words have made their way into the common vernacular, especially in the Northeast. But before you open your mouth, it's important to be mindful of context and whom you're speaking to.

A physician wants to know: Is it politically correct to use the phrase illegal alien? The Society of Professional Journalists have decided, collectively, to use illegal immigrant. But even words like illegal or undocumented can often be inaccurate. If, for example, doctors are talking about a patient, they want to recognize the patient as an individual person, not a statistic.

Speaking of those generational divides, did you know that Post-It notes haven't always been around? Martha shares a listener's funny email about that.

If you're having a tough time finding something, remember that even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while. This encouraging idiom actually comes from Ancient Rome, where the concept of a blind animal turning something up lent itself to the Latin saying that a blind dove sometimes finds a pea. An 18th-century Friedrich Schiller play employed the blind-pig-and-acorn version, and the play's translation into English and French brought it into modern speech.

What event in life introduced you to a whole new vocabulary? Going away to college, having a child, renovating a home, or even getting diagnosed with a medical condition often exposes us to huge bundles of new words. If you're renovating a house for example, suddenly a whole slew of new words muscles its way into your vocabulary, such as backsplash, shoe molding, quarter-sawn oak, sconce, grout, and bullnose.

What does "out of pocket" mean? The answer splits down racial lines. Among many African-Americans, if someone's out of pocket, they're out of line or unruly. For most non-African-American speakers, out of pocket is primarily used in business settings, meaning that someone is either unavailable or out of the office, or they're paying for something with personal money, with an expectation of being reimbursed later..

What do you call those slobber marks that dogs leave on the inside of car windows? Some of our favorites are woofmarks, dog schmear, and snot kisses.

Is your name a conversation piece? A listener by the name of H. Christian Blood shares his story growing up with a colorful name. And for those of you with a comment to make, Christian Blood would remind you that he's heard plenty of it over the years, so unless it's really something sharp and original, it's best not to waste your breath. And yes, his name is for real.

What crawled over your liver? This Pennsylvania Dutch idiom means "What's the matter with you?"

If someone's getting long in the tooth, it means they're getting old, or too old for their behavior. The metaphor of long teeth comes from horses. If you look at a horse's teeth and the extent to which their gums have receded, you can tell pretty accurately how old they are. It's the same source as that old advice, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth," which means "if someone gives you a gift, don't inspect it too closely."

… Read the original blog post.

Heimhenge said:

Word usage does date you. Totally agree. I considered the words clockwise and counter-clockwise, now that we're into the age of digital timing. Seems like (except for the town hall clock, e.g., "Big Ben" and the like) these words might eventually lose their meaning.

Then I discovered a nifty little book called "Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise." Turns out that when mechanical clocks were first built, the decision about which direction to make them run was based on the movement of the shadow on a sundial.

Of course, that etymology would be lost on most people … you'd have to be an astronomy geek to see the connection.

The shadow on a sundial moves counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere (or part of the year in the region between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer).

Emmett