Roy Blount Jr. Slings Southern Slang (minicast)

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Welcome to another minicast of A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

Humorist Roy Blunt Jr. joined us earlier this year to play our slang quiz. I had great fun in trying to come up with some southernisms that might stump him. Let’s hear how he did.

And today we’re welcoming a special guest to be our contestant. He’s Roy Blunt, Jr.

Roy is a regular panelist on NPR’s popular quiz show, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. And he’s recently written, get this, a book about language. It’s called Alphabet Juice.

Roy, welcome to A Way with Words. It’s good to be here.

Thank you, Martha. You’re welcome. Have you sold the film rights to this book yet?

Not yet. It’s, you know, people don’t like words that much in movies. Gun fights and car chases. Explosions. I should have had an explosion at the end. But, you know, if Myrna Loy was still with us, I think she’d be great.

Myrna Loy would be good, but she’s not. Roy, do you have a favorite slang term you’d like to share?

A baseball term I like is sitting dead on cheese. I’m sitting dead on cheese, which sounds like a poignant obituary for a mouse. It means absolutely planning on expecting a fastball. You’re sitting, so like you’re locked in, dead, like dead-eye dick or dead solid perfect. And then cheese is a baseball term for fastball. So it actually says what it means to say.

Lots of sports talk is a little bit off sports metaphors sometimes. For instance, recently, A-Rod said about, you know, he admitted having used steroids. He said, I’ve laid my bed and now it’s time to sit on it.

Oh, okay. But so sitting dead on cheese, though, he knows about that. I love that.

All right. Well, let’s see how you do on our slang quiz. I’m going to give you a clue that describes one of two possible slang words or phrases. Only one of them is correct. Your job, of course, is to pick the right one. If you need help, you can check with Martha.

I’m right here. I’ve kind of taken the liberty today of broadly defining slang for this quiz, so I’ve included some southernisms. So kind of your home territory, so to speak.

Yep. And so I’m not sure if that makes it easier or harder, because I’ve kind of looked for the middle ground there, but we’ll see how you do. Alright. First one. If I said that when Harlan Skaggs blew a fist, that dogs barked, and children cried, and everyone took a lunch break down at the sawmill, what would I mean? Is blow a fist A, to shoot rocks and rubbish out of a potato gun, or is it B, to make a hooting horn-like sound through cupped hands?

I never heard that expression at all, but what are my choices again? So blow a fist, is it A, to shoot rocks and rubbish out of a potato gun, or is it B, to make a hooting horn-like sound through cupped hands?

Well, I would say it’s making a hooting horn-like sound through cupped hands.

Yes, that’s exactly right. I can play my iPhone, by the way. Do you know there’s an app on iPhone called… Wait, this isn’t the farting app, is it?

No, no, no. This is the ocarina app. Nice. You can play it like a sweet potato, as we used to call it.

Well, you ever seen someone do this with their hands? They cup their hands together, right? And see that gap where your thumbs don’t quite meet? Yeah, that’s right. It’s like blowing a conch or something. It’s a similar sound.

I’m not very good at it, but… It’s compulsive. It’s like cracking your knuckles. Once you learn how to do it, you can’t stop. I knew a fellow who would do that at a wedding because he just couldn’t stop himself.

All right. Well, we’ve got three of these questions today. Here’s number two. All right?

All right. If I go down to the dry goods store and buy Duckins for Martha, what will she be wearing later on? Duckins. That’s D-U-C-K-I-N-S. What are they? Are they A, overalls made out of a rough cotton fabric, or B, leather boots laced up to her knees?

There’s another one I never heard, but, oh, gosh, I would, I’d say probably the boots.

The boots? Yeah. What’s your reasoning there?

Well, going in the water, being like a duck, the boots would let you wade into the water.

Not bad logic, but I’m afraid it’s not on the money.

Duckins are overalls made out of a rough cotton fabric, and that’s because the fat.

There’s that duck label, yeah.

Yeah, duck head.

I used to have some duck heads.

Not only that, but there’s a fabric known as duck or ducking.

Oh, duck cloth.

And so the cloth itself has lent its name to the overalls that are made out of the cloth.

It’s particularly common in Texas, which is a little west of your territory, but I thought you might know it all the same.

I should have guessed that.

No, that’s all right.

Sometimes it’s made for tents, too.

I’m not going to get down on myself.

Well, here’s one that I think you probably know.

We’ll see how it goes.

This is a quote from South Carolina in 1897, and I found it in the Dictionary of American Regional English.

It goes, it is asserted that boys like him could not be kept from eating raw turnips, potatoes, and pinders.

That’s P-I-N-D-E-R-S.

What’s a pinder?

Is it A, a peanut, or B, an unripe ear of corn?

P-I-N-D-E-R-S.

Pinders is peanut.

There we go.

I thought you might know that one.

That’s two out of three.

Nice job.

A pinder is just another name for peanut or a goober.

Goober peas.

Yeah, goober peas.

Lots of name for peanuts.

Pinders?

I’ve never heard that.

Interestingly, there is some fairly concrete evidence that Pender comes from some Central African languages.

Well, like okra and gumbo.

There we go.

And goober.

Goober, too.

Goober does.

That’s right.

And entered mainstream English through the language of the slaves in the South Atlantic and the Gulf states.

So nice job, Roy.

Thanks for playing with us today.

I actually saw peanuts growing in Africa, in Senegal.

In Senegal, right?

And they’re a ground nut, right?

They grow in the ground.

Yeah, they’re tubers, I think.

Tubers of sorts.

Now, Roy, I have to ask, did you ever have pinders in your Coke?

Well, I have had that, yeah.

Supposedly that was an aphrodisiac, wasn’t it?

No, no, something else.

An aspirin in Coke was supposed to be an aphrodisiac.

Oh, I thought it was a contraceptive.

So that explains the 16 children.

I hope you didn’t believe that what somebody told you.

Yeah, those boys will try anything more.

Don’t worry.

But peanuts and Coke, who does that?

Yeah, what is that about?

Is it salted peanuts or just?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

Doesn’t it fizz up or something?

It’s just something to do with your Coke.

I don’t know.

Yeah, it fizzes up, but I don’t know.

It’s like people like to mix things up.

And it was never a favorite of mine, but yeah.

Oh, it’s something to try.

Another kind of suicide maybe, huh?

Right.

It goes well with Moonpies.

You have to chew them up.

You have to chew them up, of course.

Well, Roy, it was fantastic to have you here.

Thanks for stopping by.

Well, it’s good to be here.

Roy Blunt is the author, most recently, of Alphabet Juice.

By the way, we also took some time to do an interview with Roy about his books and the controversy surrounding the Amazon Kindle II e-book reader.

You can find that on our website at waywordradio.org.

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For A Way with Words, I’m Grant Barrett in New York City.

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