Everything is Tickety-Boo

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And you can still find us online at waywordradio.org.

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. I heard a crazy thing the other day. It turned out not to be true, but I want to share it with you anyway.

Somebody was telling everyone else, and I say somebody, it was the BBC and a bunch of other British newspapers, that Scrabble was going to allow proper nouns to be used on the board.

Oh, yeah, the Twittersphere went crazy.

Yeah, it was astonishing, but it turned out that it was just bad reporting.

As Stephan Faxes wrote for Slate, Mattel, which owns the rights to the game outside of North America, is releasing a card game called Scrabble Trickster.

It’s almost nothing like the board game.

It’s simply a pretty crummy game dressed up with a quality brand name, Scrabble.

Okay, so nobody’s going to play that Icelandic volcano name on me, right?

No, no.

But I should tell you, you know, in our house, as in many other houses, we have our own Scrabble rules.

Yeah.

Because in general, you don’t play tournament-style Scrabble at home, right?

No, no, no.

Just whatever’s there, right?

Here’s the thing.

We’re at a point in my house where the official Scrabble dictionary isn’t enough.

If you play Scrabble in my house, we have a rule.

Any dictionary goes.

Oh, yeah?

And so the effect of that is it stops all of these challenges where people say, well, that’s not a word.

It’s actually more fun in our house to let somebody put a completely bogus word down and then just like razz them for the whole rest of the game.

And so they’ll never do it again.

You know, I never get to play Scrabble.

Nobody wants to play with me.

And the truth is that I’m terrible at it.

I’ve lost the last few times I’ve played.

That’s the question you get a lot, right?

Are you good at Scrabble?

Yeah, I’m terrible.

I bet you’re really good at Scrabble.

And I always tell people, no, it’s about memory and math, and I’m awful at both.

It’s not about vocabulary or linguistic knowledge at all.

Not at all.

Otherwise, I’d be the champion.

Trust us.

I would have a very nice Scrabble trophy at home, and I don’t.

Well, how do you play Scrabble at home?

Did you change the rules?

Is it something new that you do to make the game more exciting and more fun?

We would love to hear about it.

1-877-929-9673, or send in an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Am I really on A Way with Words?

Yes, you are. Who am I talking to?

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. This is great.

My name is Mary Cook.

Hi, Mary.

And I live in Indianapolis, Indiana.

All right.

Okay. Welcome to the program.

Well, thank you. Thank you.

And I’ve wondered this for a long time, only because I come from a good Catholic family, and I have five brothers.

And there is always a lot of hooch at our parties.

And I wonder, where does the word hooch come from?

A lot of hooch.

Well, you know, I’m sure it comes from something like alcohol or alcohol-related, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come from the Latin anything.

No.

From the Latin hoochiness?

Yeah, hoochamos, hoochai.

Guardiamus, hoochinus.

No.

I thought, well, maybe I’ll give you guys a try and see if you can come up with an answer.

Now, why would we know about hooch?

Well, I don’t know.

Maybe.

See, my family, being good Catholic people, are, well, my father was German, my mother was Irish, so they worked hard at partying.

I see.

I see.

And they lived, well, actually, I was born on Grand Island, New York, which is an island that separates Niagara Falls from Buffalo, and it separates the U.S. from Canada.

And the family riverfront is there, and of course the family is always there.

My five brothers get together almost every weekend in the summertime where they consume copious amounts of hooch.

-huh. Now for you, what is hooch exactly?

Well, to me, hooch means any sort of alcohol.

Beer, maybe moonshine.

Someone suggested it might even be an Indian term, but I think that’s stretching it.

You know, actually, it’s not, Mary.

That person was not drinking hooch when they told you that it’s an Indian term.

It comes from the Hoochinoo village in Alaska, which was known for producing a lot of a really strong brew that was produced by Indians.

And it was made available when U.S. soldiers were there in the 1860s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, this was a real thing.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Made from molasses.

Powerful stuff.

Yeah.

Much invection against the drinking of this drink.

Right, right, right.

In the old papers.

Right.

Yeah, made from molasses, made from all different kinds of things.

Berries, graham flour.

And this was one of those drinks that, how can I put it, it’s better gulped than savored, I think.

Is this from personal experience?

No, no.

It’s like something they say, throw it back in your mouth.

Don’t let it hit your tongue.

That’s right.

Everything I know about hooch I learned from dictionaries, I promise.

Well, not everything.

But, yes, from the town of Hoochinu, which you appreciate, was on Admiralty Island in Alaska.

So it was an island just like the one that, you know, your family.

That I’m from.

Yeah.

Well, we have things in common then.

Hooch.

Right.

I like that.

I mean, I thought it was just something that, you know, maybe came out of the bootlegging days or things like that.

They actually had a lot of bootlegging that went on between Canada and the United States to Grand Island, where I lived.

Oh, really?

There would be boats going across the river, and divers go down every once in a while and find cases still full of all kinds of wonderful things that I’m sure are not drinkable.

Right.

It’s like, oh, I know where this is from.

This is from the rum running days.

Yep, yep.

And actually, Alaska had some very strict alcohol laws even before Prohibition.

So I think hooch became very popular, the stuff produced by the Tlingit Indians there in Hoochinu.

Yes, T-L-I-N-G-I-T, the Tlingit.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I love this description I’m seeing in one of the sources here.

They’re describing the Hoochinu alcohol.

You’ve got to hear this.

Made out of molasses or beans or rice or flour or anything that will ferment.

And this person says, I call it squirrel whiskey because two drinks of it makes you want to climb a tree.

Ooh, squirrel whiskey.

That’s great.

That’s fantastic.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Well, Mary, here’s to you.

Yes.

Think of us next time you read.

Here’s to you.

Thank you.

And now I can tell my brother, ha-ha, small change.

All right.

There you go.

Thanks so much, Mary.

Bye-bye.

What have you always wanted to know about language?

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Rose. I’m calling from Blackstaff, Arizona.

Hi, Rose. Welcome to the program.

Hi, guys. I just had a question.

Okay.

I’ve heard somebody say the 800-pound gorilla in the room, and I really don’t know what it means, and I’m just curious to see what you guys have to say about it.

-huh, Rose. So do you remember the context that you heard it in?

I think, like, a guy was just saying, oh, they didn’t notice the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

Mm—

I’m not sure, like, what that symbolizes or…

Yeah, okay.

That’s a great question.

And it goes back apparently to an old joke.

Now, this is a really goofy joke.

Rose, where does an 800-pound gorilla sleep?

On the floor? I don’t know.

Okay, here’s the really silly answer to that question.

Where does an 800-pound gorilla sleep?

Anywhere he wants to!

Oh, yeah!

I mean, it’s so goofy, right?

But, you know, a great big gorilla like that, it’s a metaphor for somebody who’s sort of all powerful.

Somebody or something, you know, like Microsoft, you know, the computer or something like that might be referred to as an 800-pound gorilla because it’s so powerful.

It can do whatever it wants to.

But what’s really funny is there’s another expression that you may have heard of.

And that one is, well, nobody’s talking about the elephant in the room.

Have you heard that one?

I think I have. Yeah, I have heard that before.

That’s like when you’re avoiding talking about a topic, right?

You’re sitting there and nobody’s mentioning the big issue that’s on everybody’s minds, but nobody can bring themselves to talk about.

And what’s funny is that in a lot of people’s minds, those two expressions, 800-pound gorilla and the elephant in the room, have gotten kind of mixed up.

Because that was the way you kind of used it at first, right?

Yeah, that’s how I heard it.

Yeah.

So there’s an 800-pound gorilla in the room means that there’s something big and ugly that nobody wants to acknowledge.

Yeah.

That’s exactly it.

Yeah, that’s exactly it.

In fact, a few years ago during the confirmation of John Roberts, the Supreme Court justice, one of the senators in Congress was saying they were talking about something that nobody was talking about, and he said, yeah, that’s the 600-pound elephant in the room.

And, you know, most elephants are at least 6,000 pounds, so a 600-pound elephant in the room is pretty weird.

That’s funny.

Oh, that’s cool.

Nice joke, though, right?

I mean, it’s a fun joke.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it makes sense because the joke is all about this thing that is kind of dominating and domineering.

And so a lot of times in business, you’ll see a company, which might be a $40 billion a year company, called the gorilla or the big gorilla or the 800-pound gorilla in their industry, meaning that they monopolize or they dominate or they somehow control the marketplace.

Wow.

So lots of metaphorical uses there of it as well.

Okay.

That’s really interesting, though.

That works for you?

Thanks for calling, Rose.

Yeah, it does work for me.

Okay.

Thank you, guys.

Okay, bye-bye.

I don’t have to be thinking about it now.

All right.

Have a good day.

Okay.

Take care.

Thanks, Rose. Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, what expression has caught your eye or ear lately?

Call us 1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

A few weeks ago, we took a question from a listener about the difference between garbanzo beans and chickpeas.

Remember that?

Oh, yeah. Who knew there was so much to say? And the conversation just keeps on going.

It sure does. We did a survey and we found out that people in the Southwest are a little more likely to use garbanzo.

But generally, both terms are used across the country for the same little bean that you might make into hummus or put in a salad or something.

But we also got an email from a fellow by the name of Charles Walksmith.

And Charles works for the U.S. Dry Bean Council.

He’s a food aid and emerging market specialist in Washington, D.C.

He says, to be honest, they’re basically the same thing, but in his business, they classify them differently on size and color.

The rule of thumb is that the larger, creamier colored ones, often in the can, are garbanzos, and the smaller, darker ones are chickpeas.

Who knew?

Very interesting, right?

Well, obviously Charles and the entire Dry Bean Council knew.

The U.S. Dry Bean Council knows.

He says it’s not really scientific, but he could get us the grain specifications if we insist.

Like just imagining like a big fat government manual, you know, with charts and pictures and graphs and everything and like little sizing devices.

So you can measure to decide whether to put it in a chickpea pile or a garbanzo pile.

I’m sure somebody needs to know that.

So that’s great.

And I’m sure you asked him for one.

Yeah, yeah.

Fantastic.

Your UPS guy is going to be mad at you.

Thanks, Charles.

You can find that survey that we did about garbanzos and chickpeas on our website.

Well, send us your observation about food words or interesting terms from your profession.

The address is words@waywordradio.org, or you can always call us 1-877-929-9673.

Coming up, get ready to flex your cortex.

Yep, it’s a puzzle.

Stay tuned to A Way with Words.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And we’re joined now by our quiz guy, Greg Pliska.

Hi, Greg.

Hello, Martha.

Hello, Grant.

Hello.

Hi, Greg.

What do you got for us today?

You got some quizzes, some puzzles, money?

I’ve got quizzes and puzzles.

All right.

And actually, this week, we’re going to revisit one of my favorite puzzles, something that I call initi arithmetic.

Initial arithmetic.

Okay.

Yeah, it’s easy for you to say.

I’ll give you a clue to a set of items for which there are a particular number, but some of the words will be replaced with just their initials.

So I might say there are 12 M in the Y.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

12 months in the year.

Yeah, exactly.

12 months in the year.

You have to come up with the words that go in place of those initials to make it true.

All right, then.

Let’s play.

All right.

Here’s your first one.

Eight D-A-W according to the B.

Eight days a week according to the Beatles.

Ooh, very good.

Very nice.

Yeah.

Eight days a week.

That’s Paul McCartney’s first band, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

28 D in the M of F except in L-Y.

Right.

28 days in the month except for?

In the month of February, except for leap year.

Except in L-Y, leap years.

Yes, very good.

How about 76T in the BP?

We’re talking trombones here.

Yes, we are.

In the big parade.

76 trombones.

Oh, I don’t know that.

I’ve never heard that before.

Grant, the music man.

I’ve never seen it.

You’ve got trouble.

Right here in River City.

Oh, I know that.

Only because, yeah, okay.

I know, before your time, I know.

Here’s another one for you.

5 p.m. Of the UNSC.

Five prime ministers of the United Nations Security Council?

So close.

So close.

Five putting members.

Permanent members.

Permanent members.

Five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

Okay.

Yeah, that’s very good.

A PM is a little misdirection makes you think of prime minister.

And I went right for it.

I just went right down that rat hole.

You got the UN Security Council.

No problem.

All right.

This is an easy one.

5,280 F in a M.

Oh, feet in a mile.

Yeah.

I mean, that’s too easy.

How about 16, the record number of AAN received by MS?

Whoa.

The record number of what?

A-A-N received by M-S.

M-S.

I have no idea.

I don’t really know.

What’s the domain of this?

The domain is film.

Oh, Academy Award nominations received by?

Meryl Streep.

Yes, sir.

Yes, ma’am.

Of course.

16, the record number of Academy Award nominations received by Meryl Streep.

Of course.

How about one more, Greg?

One more.

All right.

How about 3A in the EL, including A, A, and T?

3A in the EL, including?

A, A, and T.

And T.

3A in the European League.

3A in the electric light.

3A in the.

Okay, what’s the domain?

The domain is your domain.

English language, three adjectives.

No, three.

Three A in the E-L, including A, A, and T.

Articles.

Articles, right?

Oh, yeah.

In the English language, including A, N, and V.

Very good.

Okay, very good.

Thanks for the help, Greg.

You’re welcome.

Thank you for the puzzle.

My pleasure.

I have to go lie down now.

If you’d like to talk with us about grammar, slang, punctuation, or words, and how we use them, the number to call is 1-877-929-9673.

1-877-929-9673.

Or email us, words@waywordradio.org.

And don’t forget, you can stay in touch with us all week through Twitter.

We’re there under the username Wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Charlie Hayes, and I’m calling from Santa Cruz, California.

Hello, Charlie.

Hello, Charlie. How are you doing?

Hi, I’m doing all right.

I’ve been listening to your podcast.

I’ve been listening to them all in a row.

And in a recent podcast, you had a caller who asked what the cool kids are using instead of cool.

-huh.

And I have a little bit of input on that.

You’re one of the cool kids?

No, I am not one of the cool kids, but I am an SAT prep teacher.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so I’m working with all of the college-bound cool kids.

Okay, you’re on the front lines.

You must hear a lot.

And they’re still speaking English, right?

Yes, they are still speaking.

Well, actually, one of my kids, instead of speaking.

OK, so here’s one of the popular words.

The popular word is fresh.

Like instead of cool, they say fresh.

I tried to explain to them that they took that from like hip hop and even before that from, you know, African-American culture.

And it’s not that new, but they still like it.

But one of my students, instead of saying fresh because he wants to be different, he says fresco because he’s.

In Spanish class, I guess.

Oh, okay.

Very good.

Is it catching on?

He’s trying to make it not catch on because he wants it to remain his thing.

I see.

Oh, yeah, okay.

Well, job done because I’d never heard anybody use it that way.

Yeah, yeah.

But the main reason I was calling, though, is a slightly different word, which is legit.

Legit?

As in too legit to quit?

Yes, exactly.

Another one of those things that I said, it’s not as new as you think it is, but all right.

Wait, so they’re taking all the slang from my childhood and they’re reusing it?

Yes, yes.

Oh, that’s very green.

Recycle those slings.

Yeah.

Legit has taken on this weird paradigm, I guess you would call it.

I mean, it works in several different ways now, though.

They use legit to mean cool.

So, like, oh, that’s legit is, oh, that’s cool.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

I haven’t heard that.

Have you, Grant?

No, I haven’t.

Not that particular use of legit, no.

Yeah, it’s super big at all the schools around Santa Cruz County.

And I even have one student who uses it in place of the word really.

Like when you’re asking a question, when you say, oh, I heard that that’s a good place.

If you’re incredulous and you would normally say, really?

They say legit with that same upward inflection.

Oh, really?

Legit?

Oh, legit.

Oh, that’s interesting stuff.

I did not know that.

Yeah.

Well, that’s crazy.

And legit’s another one of those.

Legit has been a slang clipping of the word legitimate for more than a century.

I mean, they have kind of changed the ways in which it’s being used, but its roots are old and deep.

Is there a negative of it?

Oh, that’s illegit.

Oh, ill.

Just ill, but not that kind of ill.

Nah, I don’t think they’ve thought it through that far.

I actually can’t remember any new slang for bad.

Well, they’re still saying whack, maybe?

I don’t get a lot of whack.

I usually get that sucks.

I think that sucks is pretty big.

So it sounds like what you’re telling us is nothing is new under the sun?

Not really.

They all treat it like it’s brand new and like it’s the freshest thing around.

Yeah, it’s funny, Charlie.

When I give presentations or speeches to crowds and people start to talk to me about the latest slang, and they simply do not believe me when I say, well, yeah, actually that word that you think is new is from the 1600s.

They simply can’t accept it.

And if they were to drop all of the slang from their language that’s older than they are, then they would just speak normal English.

Yeah, there wouldn’t be anything left.

So how do they react when you tell them this?

Well, they tend to believe me to a certain extent because they kind of like me being their teacher.

I’m kind of hip enough to not offend them into just outright disbelief.

But they still kind of, you know, they latch onto it anyway, and they still think it’s the coolest way to talk, and it gets them through another day of high school.

Whatever it takes, right?

It’s all about membership in the right groups, right?

And the language that you use lets everyone know which group you’re a part of.

Very good.

That word legit is actually, like, too cool for school because the girl who used it the most with me actually got kicked out of school for throwing a raging party.

Oh.

So she’s really legit.

Yeah, she’s super legit.

Okay.

That’s cool.

The coolest of the cool kids.

Thanks for sharing with us today.

This is good stuff.

Thanks for the field report.

Grant’s madly taking notes.

Oh, yeah, this is great stuff, yeah.

I’m caught up for another year.

All right.

Thanks for having me.

All right.

Thanks, John.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, we’d love to get your field reports.

What are the kids talking about these days?

And if you’re a kid yourself, feel free to call 1-877-929-9673 or send in an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Gail DeCampos from Carbass.

Hi, Gail, welcome to the program.

Welcome.

Well, thanks.

I have kind of a weird question, and the question is, what’s that super great word from a show long ago that was for diarrhea of the mouth?

From a show long ago?

What are we talking about?

The Howdy Doody Hour?

George Steater?

I think it was the Doody Hour.

There were three actual words I wrote down from a show a long time ago, and I wrote them down and I put them in my wallet, and I shared them with people because they were so great.

But the specific word was the diarrhea of the mouth word.

But I think that menopause has sucked out a bunch of good words, and one of them was that one.

Right.

Right.

I understand the feeling.

So this is a word for, again?

Diarrhea of the mouth.

That’s what I thought she said.

And by that you mean lots of talk, lots of chatter.

I actually went through the whole thesaurus under the T’s, thinking it was in the T’s, and I never could find it.

But it’s like blabbering, blathering, gibberish, junk coming out of your mouth nonstop.

Oh, man.

Isn’t that a public radio program you’re talking about?

This is hitting a little close to home, this diarrhea of the mouth thing.

Well, you know, this calls on all our thesaurus powers, but what do you got there, Marth?

Can you help her?

Well, I suppose it’s too easy to say loggeria, right?

It wasn’t that one.

It wasn’t loggeria.

What about loquacity?

No.

Logomania?

What?

Logomania?

I don’t think it was a logo word.

Not prolixity?

No.

Garillessness?

I think when I hear it, I’m going to be happy.

Garulity?

What?

Garulity?

G-A-R-U-L-I-T-Y?

No.

How about coprolalia?

No, that’s talking about green.

Well, that’s talking a lot of bunk, so to speak.

Well, it’s talking specifically about excrement, right?

Well, no, it doesn’t mean that.

It just means talking a lot of crap.

Yeah, it wasn’t a specific word.

It’s not scatological.

Okay, it’s not scatological, and it’s not embololalia, which means to insert nonsense.

Well, there are two multi-words, two words that are very similar to begin with multi.

Do you know those?

Which are those?

Multiloquent?

Multiloquent?

Multiloquent?

Multiloquent, yeah.

And multiloquus.

Neither one.

Okay.

I’m not buying it.

We’re running on, that’s nine words now, and it’s none of those?

I actually read the caesars trying to figure it out.

Oh, bless your heart.

Gail, is it a T word?

Yes.

Is it, you know, this is my last gasp here.

Give me the T word.

What about tumidity?

No.

Are you tumid from swelling and no?

No?

Timidity?

Like bloated language?

No?

Oh, man.

You got to call me if you want to.

Well, yeah.

I mean, the good thing is that we have a lot of garrulous listeners, and I’m sure that somebody knows this word out there.

It starts with a T.

I think it starts with a T, and it sounds like something that a nerdy scientist would have at the tip of their tongue.

Well, I know somebody out there in listener land knows this word, so we’re going to get you an answer, Gail, okay?

Okay, but I do like lagaria anyway, so I’ll probably insert that into my poem.

Okay, well, we’ll be in touch, okay?

All right.

Thank you.

Thanks, Gail.

Bye-bye.

So hard to please.

Oh, man.

We did our best.

I just, I can’t think of anything else.

Well, can you help, Gail?

Do you have an answer for her?

What is a word that means diarrhea of the mouth and probably begins with a T, and it’s none of the 12 words that we offered her?

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send your suggestions an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, not long ago we were talking about the expression to have a gazelle on the lawn.

Remember that?

When you were sort of discreetly telling a family member that he or she had food on his or her face.

That prompted Jeff from Northern California to write in and tell us about another expression that his family used to discreetly tell somebody about something.

That is that your zipper’s down.

He described it this way.

One guy notices his friend in this condition and says to him, looks like you left a dime on the counter.

This both signals what the situation is and allows him to discreetly turn his back and correct the problem as if to pick up the dime.

I just wonder if that phrase has undergone inflation.

I mean, who’s going to turn around and pick up a dime off the counter anymore?

I think you would have to say you left a dollar on the counter at least, right?

Something. You left your credit card on the counter.

Yeah, yeah, that works.

You left your phone on the counter.

Yeah, that works.

What do you say in your house if you’ve got something uncomfortable to tell somebody else?

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send your euphemisms and double talk to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Renee calling from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Hi, Renee, welcome to the program.

Oh, it’s my pleasure.

Oh, our pleasure as well. What can we do to help you?

Well, a few years ago, I worked for an Indian corporation out of Florida,

And the executive secretary to the president, who was a very organized and proper Bostonian,

Was forever stating that this project or that was moving along tickety-boo.

Well, as a Midwesterner, I was really amused by this description,

And I kind of made the assumption that because she was a former elementary school teacher

That it might have been a carryover from dealing with youngsters for a number of years.

However, after I checked it out online, I found that the brief version is that it’s an outdated British expression.

But additionally, there is a Hindi phrase,

Tikai Babu, I may not be seeing that right, which is translated as,

It’s all right, sir, because I’ve lost contact with this woman who used it with great regularity.

I can’t ask what her original influence was.

And I’m more interested if there’s more to the source of this phrase and just how outdated it may be because I kind of enjoy throwing it out there for conversation starters from time to time.

Yeah, I love it.

So I came for your expertise.

And when you talk about Indian, do you mean like Seminole in Florida?

No, no, no, not Seminole in Florida, Eastern Indian.

Okay.

Subcontinental Indian.

All right.

Okay.

Interesting, yes, because there is that expression in Hindi, which is pronounced more like TK.

TK.

TK.

Which means it’s fine.

And I love that as a possible explanation for tickety-boo.

I don’t know that we’ve ever nailed it down, though.

I mean, the other idea is that maybe it’s just a variation on, hey, that’s the ticket.

You know, like that guy always says, hey, that’s the ticket.

Everything’s tickety-boo.

But it’s, you know, it’s one of those words, one of those expressions that they sound like what they are.

Don’t you think?

Tickety-boo.

It just sounds like things are sort of clickety-clacketing along, going really, really well.

Like copacetic.

But again, the influence of her having been an elementary school teacher is probably what colored my thinking on it, because it sounded rather whimsical as well.

I’m really surprised, though.

The word is, it’s definitely an old-fashioned word.

I think most people would still understand it, but it’s definitely not current English.

Its heyday was the 1940s.

The first use that I know of was in 1938.

And it just exploded.

Exploded and suddenly you find a few months after 1941, it is in absolutely every newspaper,

Like every single day, at least a few times, books and movies and articles.

And it’s just people are using it right and left and they burnt it out.

They overused it so much that they just stopped using it a few years later for the most part.

That’s a little prior to my era, but not so far off that I’m surprised that I hadn’t heard it sooner.

Yeah, a lot of credit needs to be given to the British for influencing the Americans during World War II.

This was so widely used in the U.K., and then the Americans really became fascinated with a lot of the language that the British used,

And this is one of the terms that they brought back.

I love the term as well, for the same reason that Martha said.

It’s fun to say, too.

Tickety-boo, tickety-boo, and it’s got its own melody built in.

Exactly.

That’s what I was trying to say.

Very lyrical.

So it’s all tickety-boo, right?

It truly can be.

Oh, right.

Well, thank you so much for calling.

Thanks, Renee.

It was fun to talk about.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Was it Tickety Boo?

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

You enjoy your program.

It’s all Tickety Boo.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye now.

1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

More of your calls and questions are coming right up as The Way With Words continues.

Support for A Way with Words comes from National University,

Where flexible online classes let you earn your degree or credential on your schedule.

Learn more at nu.edu.

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Martha, it’s spring here, and we’re planting tomatoes and peppers at home,

But we don’t have enough room for a three-sisters garden.

And I wonder if you knew what a three-sisters garden is.

A three-sisters garden?

Have you ever heard of that?

No, but I love it. Three sisters.

Yeah, what do you think it might be?

We only have this tiny strip of green next to our parking lot, and we’re planting stuff there.

Three sisters.

Do you make a list of what you’re going to plant and then check off?

Three Russian sisters?

No.

No, it comes from Native American tradition of planting three types of plants together.

Corn, beans, and rice.

Corn, beans, and squash.

Yes, yes.

And so the beans grow up the corn stalk, and the squash kind of shades the ground to keep the weeds away,

And they grow together in harmony, and they’re all Native American species in general.

That’s right.

That’s right.

I toured some canyons back in the southwest back in the day,

And they were always talking about how they grew corn, beans, and squash.

Yeah, it’s a three-sisters garden.

It’s a term that’s widely used in gardening manuals and even cookbooks

Just because you can also cook those three ingredients together

And make some pretty good casseroles or pretty good stir-fry and that sort of thing.

I’ve got some other new words here that have come across my radar

As I’ve been reading the news and kind of keeping an eye out.

Do you keep up much with what’s going on in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Only through you.

Well, the transit police here, the BART police,

BART is the name of the transit system,

Are adopting what they’re calling a weak hand draw.

A weak hand draw.

What do you think that means?

A weak hand draw.

They act like they’re drawing their weapon?

I don’t know.

That’s something like that.

They draw the other hand?

No, that wouldn’t be very smart, would it?

No, you’ve got it exactly right.

What?

Well, they’ve had some accidents where the transit police were a little too ready to pull their tasers.

So what you do is you hang the weapon in the holster in such a way that you forced your weakest hand to pull it.

So if you’re right-handed, you might hang your weapon in its holster on the right with the butt facing forward or on the left with the butt facing backward.

You make it difficult for you to draw with your strongest hand.

So it’s a weak hand draw.

Oh, that’s so interesting.

I wonder if they make that for email.

So that I have to really think about checking my email again before I check it.

Yeah, what if the email program icon just moved to random places on the screen

So you couldn’t compulsively click on it?

That’s brilliant. Yeah, we can email. That’s great. Do you have any more?

Yeah, I’ve got one last one.

I get a lot of email from a fellow by the name of Joe Clark in Toronto

Who sends me new words all the time, and this is one of his.

And I didn’t know this, even though it’s widespread,

But do you know what the generic name for weed eaters and weed whackers is?

The generic name, I thought that was a generic name.

No, those are brand names.

Weed here in Weed Wacker are brand names for these, you know,

The handheld battery or electric devices that do a little trimming along the side of the yard.

Yeah, I would have said trimmer.

They’re called string trimmers or line trimmers or strimmer, which is a mix of string trimmer.

Strimmers.

Strimmers, yeah.

Oh, I like that.

Now, it’s new to me because I haven’t had a lawn of my own to mow in 20 years.

And even then, my father gave us a push mower, manual grass clippers, none of this electric stuff, and a weed hook, you know, this big long blade on the end of a handle, and two acres of grass.

That’s what he gave us.

We did not have a weed eater.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for you today.

Just a little word quiz.

I thought I’d see how you’re doing.

I enjoyed it.

Well, send us your new words.

The address is words@waywordradio.org, or you can call us 1-877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jesse.

Hello, where are you calling from, Jesse?

I’m Roanoke, Virginia.

Roanoke.

What can we do you for?

Well, I have a question about a phrase that I heard back when I was a technician doing theater,

And it’s something that actors say, and I’ve never heard it anywhere else,

And I’ve never heard it, I’ve actually never heard actors use it

Independent of being on stage, and it’s a verb, and the verb is to go up,

As in, I guess the full version would be to go up on your lines.

You forget your lines.

You forget your lines and you need a prompt or something?

No, not necessarily a prompt.

It means just completely blank.

Okay, okay, interesting.

And you worked in theater?

I did.

Okay.

I did it as a college student and then a little bit post-college.

Did they say I went up on my lines?

Oh, I had such a bad afternoon, I went up on my lines three times?

Yeah.

Yeah, Jesse, I’ve done some asking around.

I tried to research this a while back,

And I didn’t really come up with anything in the linguistic sources,

But I asked a lot of friends who work in theater,

And the explanation that they’ve most often been given, and you’ll understand this being a theater technician, if you’re downstage, you’re where on the stage, Jesse?

You are closest to the audience.

Right.

And if you go upstage, then you’re back in the back of the stage, right?

Right.

Yeah.

And so, for example, I mean, we get the word upstage somebody else from that.

If you’re going upstage, then you’re forcing the other actors to sort of turn toward you.

And you’re taking the and sort of turning their back to the audience.

So that’s where we get upstage.

And the explanation that I’ve heard from a lot of the classical actors around San Diego is that if you go up,

It’s short for going upstage because the technical director or the stage manager would be there with lines if you needed them.

Does that make sense?

That does make sense.

Yeah.

It does make sense because usually there is a stage manager

Or an assistant stage manager hidden in the wings or behind the set

Doing things all throughout the show.

But generally they have a script on their lap.

Okay.

They know what to do.

-huh.

That makes a lot of sense.

I had a different idea on this, Martha.

There’s an old slang expression, to go up in a balloon, which means to be ruined or to come to nothing or to meet with disaster.

The earliest date in the historical dictionary of American slang is 1872.

And you can find it in a variety of theatrical sources over the following decades.

And sometimes they gloss it as just to balloon instead of to go up in a balloon.

Oh, really?

And they also gloss it, that is, define it as to go up in the air or to go up in one’s lines.

And in the U.K., they also call it to make an ascension instead of to go up or to go up on one’s lines.

So there’s a lot of different language here.

And I wonder if it just doesn’t have a relationship to this much older slang expression.

It just kind of became used in a very specific way in theater to mean to fail or just to come up dry, to come up empty.

Right.

They also say to dry up, don’t they?

That’s right.

That’s very interesting.

I considered two-week series, but both of them were sort of rooted in the actual actor’s business of scripts and life and stage and things like that.

But it doesn’t surprise me that there would be an older phrase that morphed as time went on.

Yeah, theater is the second oldest profession.

Exactly, exactly.

Wait a minute, it’s the oldest.

Isn’t advertising the oldest?

Yeah.

Theater, advertising.

Right.

Wow.

Well, you’ve got two pretty interesting answers there.

I like that about the balloon.

I do, too.

I like that a lot.

All right.

Okay, cool.

Thanks so much.

All right.

Thanks, y’all.

Bye-bye, Jesse.

Thanks, Jesse.

All right.

Bye.

Well, let us know what you think.

1-877-929-9673

Or send your questions about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Abby.

Hi, Abby.

Welcome to the program.

Where are you calling us from?

I’m calling from Bethel, Maine.

Bethel, Maine.

Very nice.

What can we do for you today?

Well, I have a riddle and a puzzle for you.

Aha.

We love those.

-huh.

All right, let’s have them.

Okay.

So the first is kind of the riddle.

The maker doesn’t want it, the buyer doesn’t use it, and the user never sees it.

The maker doesn’t want it.

Mm—

The buyer never uses it?

The buyer doesn’t use it, yeah.

Okay.

And what was the third part?

The user never sees it.

It’s not one of my books.

The maker doesn’t want it, the buyer doesn’t use it, and the user never sees it.

What else could that be?

Where did you find this riddle?

I don’t know.

I guess I must have heard it at camp last summer or something.

At camp.

Okay, that’s not a hint, though.

No.

That’s not going to give us any clues.

No.

Okay.

All right.

Well, what is it?

The answer is a coffin.

Oh, of course.

The maker doesn’t want it.

The buyer doesn’t use it, and the user never sees it.

Very good.

That’s great.

And you had something else for us, too.

Another riddle?

A puzzle?

Yeah, this is kind of like a word puzzle, sort of.

Okay.

So in the English language, if you take an adjective,

And you want to get to the superlative form, like pretty to prettiest,

You usually add three or four letters.

But there’s one word where you have to add five letters.

So what is that word?

Five letters for the…

Five letters to get to the superlative.

And it’s in English because in Italian, you know, you can add isima or isima and the like, right?

Right.

I don’t speak Italian.

I don’t know.

Okay, okay.

You didn’t call us with any Italian riddles?

Let’s see.

Nope.

It’s in English.

And, Abby, where’d you get this one?

I’m stalling for time here.

Where’d you get this riddle?

I had this from my cousin.

Okay.

Yeah.

You know what?

I don’t really know.

Can you tell me?

Can you tell us?

Tell me and Martha.

Martha can figure it out.

It’s hard.

It took me a good amount of time to figure out.

Okay, it’s an adjective, and you need to add five letters to make it a superlative?

Yeah.

I have no idea.

What is it?

Okay, the answer is farthest.

So you add T-H-E-S-T.

Oh, far to farthest.

Yeah.

Oh, I see.

Farthest, farthest.

Oh, man.

Very good, very good.

Oh, man.

You stumped the chumps.

That doesn’t happen often.

Oh, every day.

No, it doesn’t.

Just ask my wife.

Abby, thank you so much for sharing this stuff with us today.

Yeah, my brain’s tired now.

Thanks for having me.

Take care, Abby.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Farthest.

Farthest.

So far, farther, farthest.

Yeah, there we go.

Such a simple little word.

I’m ready to be riddled and quizzed and puzzled.

I’m puzzled all the time.

1-877-929-9673 or send your checks and email to words@waywordradio.org.

Earlier, we talked about going up on your lines, which means to forget your lines.

Yep, yep.

There are a couple more.

One of them is pretty simple.

To be out is to forget one’s lines or to be confused or nonplussed.

Really?

That’s what being out means in theater?

Yeah, it’s a little different.

It’s a little different.

Okay.

You know, sometimes words have more than one meaning, Martha.

Oh, gosh, you keep reminding me of that.

Right, okay.

In French, it used to be that if you forgot your lines on stage, you might just say some nonsense.

And it sounds like this. It goes, tati, tutu, tata. It’s kind of like yada, yada.

So you’re up there. You’re delivering your lines. You’re doing the grand gesture. The crowd is wrapped. And you forget your lines and you just kind of fill in with tati tutu tata.

That’s one way to handle it. I mean, all of the different ways to handle it. Like somebody’s going to feed you your lines or you’ll just like skip to another part or you’ll just make something up or somebody will rush in with their own lines to kind of save you from your mistake, right?

Oh, really? So it’s like singing only it’s on stage?

No, you just kind of like fill it in. It’s kind of like, and then I said to her, yada, yada, yada. It’s just nonsense that you just fill in the hole with.

I guess that’s one way to do it. Tell us your workplace jargon, 1-877-929-9673, or send those stories about your experiences in theater to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Trish calling from Fort Worth, Texas.

Hi, Trish, welcome. Hello, Trish. What are you calling us about?

Well, recently I was reading a very old copy of Cornette magazine from 1937. Catching up, are you?

Yeah. And I read an article that had a name, something like The Last Gentlemanly War, and it referred to the picket line. And the picket line, as they kind of described it, was a place between the two front lines where some one of the soldiers might get up and begin to pick berries because they had very little food. And certainly they needed those wild vitamins. And when they did that, it was not appropriate to be shot at by the other side. And then others would join them from the other side and they would talk.

Oh, really? Sort of like that Christmas truce or whatever it was?

Yes, yes. That kind of a thing. And so I wondered how that use of a picket line related to our current use of a picket line as it relates to a strike.

Oh, it’s really interesting. The word picket has a lot of different connections to a lot of different words we have today. It is a coincidence that they were picking berries on the picket line. The picking of berries has nothing to do whatsoever with the word picket line.

Yeah, it would have been a great explanation, but…

But you’re on to something there that a picket line is something with a strong military connection. The word picket starts in French in about 1380, and then it appears in English in about 1600. And it came into English from French meaning a stake. That is, you know, a sharp piece of wood stuck into the ground. And then later it became to refer to a stake used in a stockade. You know what a stockade is?

Yes.

Okay, sure. It’s an enclosure for cattle. And by 1700 or so, picket was used to refer to a stake for tethering horses. And then shortly thereafter, it was used for a military detachment. And the connection there is that not only were pickets used to stake your horses in the military, but they were used to enclose your camp in the military. And a bunch of soldiers standing in a row look very much like pickets, which is a bunch of stakes stuck in the ground used to fence something off.

And then by 1820 or so, it was used to refer to strikers, people who were seeking better working conditions, picketers. And they were so-called also after their resemblance to a group of pickets, a row of upright stakes, but also because they were kind of like a mob of soldiers or detachment of soldiers. And interestingly enough, and coincidentally, they carry pickets with placards or signs on them.

Right. So crazy stuff there. All of these different paths that these words picket have taken, but none of them whatsoever are related to the word pick as in to pick berries.

Oh, too bad.

Yeah, but you know what a great story? What a great story about in the time of war the two sides can meet over some blackberry bushes or what have you.

Right, right. Because I find blackberries. Yeah, I remember those things and everybody just might get along.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little hooch and a cop and, you know, the north and south are friends again.

Trish, this is all very interesting. Take care of yourself. I love the program.

Thank you so much.

Oh, our pleasure to serve you. Bye-bye.

Okay. Thanks, Trish. Bye-bye.

Well, what old magazines are you reading and what kind of language stuff are you finding in there? Strange words, interesting usage, possible etymologies, absurd word histories? Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Things have come to a pretty pass. That’s our show for this week. If you didn’t get on the air today, you can leave us a message anytime. That number is 1-877-929-9673. Or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.

You can stay in touch with us all week by following us on Twitter. We’re there under the username Wayword. Stefanie Levine is our senior producer. Our technical director and editor is Tim Felten. We’ve had production help this week from Josette Herdell and Jennifer Powell. From Studio West in San Diego, I’m Martha Barnette. And from San Francisco, I’m Grant Barrett. Thanks to Howard Gelman for engineering our show from the studios of KQED Radio with assistance from Seal Muller.

Matane. Catch you on the flip side.

Neither, neither. Let’s call the whole thing on. You like potato and I like patata. You like tomato, and I like tomato. Potato, potato, tomato, tomato. Oh, let’s call the whole thing off. But oh, if we call the whole thing off, then we must…

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Thanks.