Familiar Strangers (episode #1594)

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. Grant, we’ve gotten a lot of reaction to our conversation with Haley.

She’s the poet in Minnesota who wondered if there weren’t more terms for the seasons than just winter, spring, summer, and fall. The times between the seasons where something weather-wise is happening, but it doesn’t really fit the other categories.

And it turns out that there are lots of terms for those mini seasons.

We heard from David Alice in Burlington, Vermont, who says in his state they also have something called stick season. And stick season is once the leaves have all fallen and there’s no snow on the ground yet, typically in November.

David says, I suppose because autumn is so spectacular here that it’s quite the contrast when the leaves are suddenly down. The forests look like big sticks.

And he says he’d never heard of that until he moved to Vermont.

And we also heard from Linda Lavalette, who lives in rural upper Michigan. And she said we refer to the time between winter and spring as mud season.

We heard that from more than a few listeners. Mud season is very popular around the country.

I don’t think they throw parties and they don’t look forward to it.

No, not at all.

And it reminds me that in Old English, before we started using the term February for that second month of the year, there was the term Salmonoth, which may mean mud month, which makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, at least in the northern hemisphere, mud month.

Oh, this is good. What do you call the other seasons of the year? Not winter, spring, summer, fall, or autumn, but the times in between.

Let us know, 877-929-9673, toll free in the U.S. and Canada. Or email your thoughts, ideas, or questions about anything having to do with language to words@waywordradio.org.

Or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you? My name’s Natalia. I’m calling from Rhode Island.

Yeah, we’re glad to have you, Natalia. What’s up?

So I had a question about a phrase that we always used to use in my family, and it’s when you’re driving behind a car for a really long time on the highway and you develop kind of a relationship with them. And it’s always for a car that’s really reliable and they’re driving the speed limit and they’re very safe.

And you can just kind of follow them for a long time, sometimes hours. And we always used to call them the follow John. Like, oh, you know, we’ve got a great follow John in front of us. Looks like our follow John is exiting, so we’re going to have to find another one.

And every time that you had to leave or they had to leave, it kind of felt like you’re breaking off a relationship. And I just realized that we might be the only people in the U.S. who use that phrase. It kind of came to us in a funny path.

And I didn’t know if there was another word for it that we could use that maybe other people will understand and relate with.

You said there’s a story about Follow John and how it became a family expression?

Yeah. So we’re all originally from Poland. And before we moved to the U.S., my family lived briefly in Sweden. And they had a friend who owned just like a little sailboat. And every time that he found a sailboat that seemed to actually know what they were doing and how to navigate in the water and where to go, he’d always yell out, follow John. And so then it caught on with my family. When we moved to the U.S., we kept it. And when we would use the phrase on the highway, it was always the only English phrase in what was otherwise a Polish sentence.

And for years, I thought that that’s just what Americans call that car.

Oh, my God.

And I no longer think that’s the case.

I have never heard it, Martha.

No, this is Follow John, J-O-H-N, right?

Like J-O-H-N, well, I mean, I don’t know because it came from a Swedish person into our Polish family and into the U.S. So I don’t think there’s a correct spelling.

We only ever said it in the car.

Oh, okay.

But it’s like somebody’s name, it sounds like.

Yes, although it was never John. It’s always the name of the car was Follow John.

Right, like a compound.

Like a compound, right.

Gosh, no, I have never heard of this.

It does remind me of, I have a friend from childhood who was on a really long drive to Florida. And he and this other woman kept passing each other. And they would serve as, you know, to use your term, they would serve as each other’s follow John. And it got to be kind of funny. And they started waving to each other. And the gas gauge got lower and lower. And at some point, my friend John scribbled the term coffee with a question mark on a piece of paper, stuck it up in the window. They go to a truck stop. And the next thing I know, a few weeks later, his family is talking about Freeway Jane. And I’m saying, who is Freeway Jane? And my friend John and Freeway Jane got married.

Oh, that’s awesome.

Oh, my goodness.

Wow.

I mean, it really is like a relationship that you develop.

Yeah.

But they took it to just a whole other level.

Yeah, but you may have given us a word for this because, Grant, I’m not aware of any term like follow John. I mean, I use terms with less kind of story behind them like road buddy or pace car. Pace car coming from car racing. And it’s come up a few times on Reddit, I remember. And people there say things like car buddy or travel buddy.

But these are all to be expected. These are all terms that you would create for that kind of person. But this is a shared experience that a lot of people have. You talked to Natalia about the reliability of the other car. That’s so important when you’re in it for the long haul. They’re making good lane choices and they’re not doing a lot of passing. And that’s what you want to do too so you don’t tire yourself out.

Exactly.

Exactly.

They make the drive easier. And then when they leave, it’s like a little part of your drive leaves too.

Yes.

It’s true.

There’s a term coined by the social psychologist Stanley Milgram, familiar strangers. This was in his 1972 paper called The Familiar Stranger, an Aspect of Urban Anonymity. And it’s about this, these people that you see in your life constantly, but you don’t really know. You know them and their behavior and where you encounter them regularly. And maybe even you nod or do a little hand wave or chin jut or something like that. But all they are is still strangers. But you’re a little more likely to talk to them should you be sitting next to them, say, in the theater or encounter them in line for food at a restaurant. Just because they’re a little familiar.

Yeah, familiar strangers.

Well, Natalia, if anybody else listening uses a term or uses follow John for this kind of relationship, I know we’ll hear about it. And I’m so glad you brought up this topic.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. I would love to hear what other people call that car.

Me too. Take care. Bye-bye.

All right. Thank you. Bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve got a word for Natalia’s experience of having a road buddy or a car buddy, this vehicle that you follow and they become your friend, even though you don’t really know them, but you’re following them for hours. If you have a name for that, let us know.

877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org or tell us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hello.

This is Diana from Saugerties, New York in the Hudson Valley.

Oh, nice.

What’s on your mind, Diana?

Well, I really, really love hearing about the derivation of words. And I got to think that, you know, my mother used to always want to talk about, you know, having something for lunch or whatever. Instead of saying sandwich, she’d say sandwich, like S-A-N-G, like sandwich. She’s Italian. And all my relatives on that side, the Italian side, all said sandwich that way. Saying like with a G in there.

I’m like, what?

First, I thought it was just her, but now they all do it.

And I also noticed watching The Sopranos, the TV show, that they say that pronunciation also.

And so I’m thinking, is this something Italian-Americans, like an affectation from Italian immigrants?

Or maybe it was just a New York area.

I’m not really sure.

I’m wondering if you guys have any idea how the G got in sandwich.

Oh, boy, do we?

Yeah.

This is a wonderful little example of something that linguists have studied.

And it happens with speakers of first languages like Italian and Spanish when they try to say words like sandwich, where they have that N-D-W in the middle because those sounds of that N and the D and the W, those three sounds in a row simply don’t occur in native Italian or Spanish words.

So they have difficulty with that.

So it’s not an affectation.

What it is is they substitute those three sounds with the closest sounds that they have in their native phonetic inventory.

And it’s what’s called a velar nasal stop, which makes the word come out like sandwich.

So it’s a very nasalized, almost NG.

And one of the really interesting things about this is small-scale research was done in Toronto.

And it was found that the word sandwich, the pronunciation, starts with the first generation immigrants.

And because it’s largely a kitchen word, that is, it’s kind of between family members, it continues to the second and third generation.

But people are likely to stop saying it if someone points it out and say, oh, that’s not the way that everyone else says it.

And nobody says sandwich in the second and third generation if their parents didn’t say it.

So the fact that all those other people say it in the Italian side of your family is because of those two people who migrated from Italy.

And they passed it down as kind of this family pronunciation.

Oh, interesting.

Because I don’t know if I ever said it.

I don’t remember if, I don’t think so.

Maybe when I was younger and I don’t remember.

But it’s funny because I know my mother said that she spoke Italian before she spoke English.

Yeah.

And this is a TV show, the HBO show, Sopranos.

They said it, and I was like, oh, this is something to do with Italians.

Right.

There’s a pattern here.

Yeah, and it’s funny that you should mention The Sopranos because that show and other shows about Italian-Americans have made sandwich less stigmatized than it might otherwise be.

Because people are like, oh, yeah, okay, so people from Italy or of Italian-American heritage say that.

Okay, that’s fine.

And they move on.

Whereas if people encountered it on their own and they didn’t have this data point or this reference, they might really belittle people who said that or criticize them severely.

But now, since you have a little bit of data, you can slot this in and say, oh, I know something about this and I don’t need to criticize it too much because it makes sense to me.

And so this is really a key part of what Martha and I do here when we always say if you find yourself angry or irritated by something about language, it’s probably because you don’t have enough data.

Well, thank you so much, and I just enjoy your show so much.

Oh, our pleasure, Diane. Call us again sometime, all right?

I will try to think of something else and do that, yeah.

Please do.

Okay, guys, thanks. Have a great day.

I’ll be really kidding.

Bye-bye.

Take care, Diane.

You’re welcome. Bye.

If there’s a linguistic question that’s been vexing you all these years, we want to hear about it.

Call us, 877-929-9673.

What did the grapes say when the elephants stepped on them?

What did the grapes say when the elephants stepped on them?

Mm—

I don’t know.

What?

Nothing.

They just let out a little whine.

Oh.

I think I’ve got internal bleeding from that one, Martha.

Oh, no.

877-929-9673.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

And joining us now is our quiz guy, the one, the only, the unique, John Chaneski.

Hi, Martha.

Hi, Grant.

I think one of me is enough.

This quiz this week is something we’ve sort of done before, but it’s a little different.

The answers to each of the following clues is a two-word or more-word phrase in which the only vowel is E.

You get that?

Yeah.

Okay.

For example, it’s what some people claim the moon was made of, and who’s to say it’s not?

Green cheese.

Yes, green cheese.

Two words, five E’s, all E’s, no other vowels in any of these.

Now, here’s the first one.

This describes a classic version of a picnic blanket or tablecloth, like you might see at a country diner.

Red checkered.

Yes, red checkered. There we go. Two words, four E’s, only E’s, red checkered.

This is a song by Warren and Mercer, written for the 1938 film Going Places, but it’s also a minced oath that in the song is inspired by a beautiful pair of eyes.

Jeepers creepers?

Yes, cheepers, creepers.

Where’d you get those peepers?

Also only E’s, peepers.

You commonly find these on mirrors, where the top, bottom, and sides are not square, they’re not rounded, they’re not tapered.

They’re beveled.

Yes, beveled…

Edges.

Beveled edges, yes, beveled edges.

One, two, three, four, five E’s in only two words.

Very good.

Now, you’re supposed to add these three words to the end of your fortune cookie fortune to give it a naughty meaning.

I thought it was always in bed, but…

So did I.

Well, this is sort of a more poetic way of saying in bed.

Oh, is this what we used to say when we would page through the Baptist hymnal?

Oh, do tell.

What is that?

You just add between the sheets to all the names of the hymns.

That’s it, between the sheets.

I thought it was between the sheaves, but okay.

Between the sheets, six E’s.

Six E’s there.

Finally, one of the three Beatles songs that only contains E in their title is appropriate for this part of our quiz because it’s over.

Something ends.

Yeah.

Just use the definite article.

The end.

The end.

Yes, that’s it.

The end, two E’s, and that’s it.

The other Beatles song that fits this quiz is Help, and you guys needed a little bit of help in this quiz, but that’s okay.

We appreciate all the hard work you put into these, John, and we’re looking forward to next week.

Thank you.

It’s my pleasure.

I can’t wait to do it again.

Talk to you next week.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

You can call our listener line 24-7 in the United States and Canada, toll-free, 877-929-9673, or email us wherever you are in the world, words@waywordradio.org.

Hey there.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

I’m Sarah.

I’m from Virginia.

And so I have a question about texting my dad.

Okay.

So my father, he’s 75 and he’s finally retired.

And when he was working, he would refuse to use his cell phone.

He’d always keep it off and in a drawer.

And every time I wanted to talk to him, I either had to call him on a landline or had to text my mom, have my mom tell him something.

I never texted him.

Emails were few and far between.

Now, me, I am 23, and I grew up on the Internet.

A lot of my conversations were through a text-based platform like chat forums, Internet forums, now social media and texting.

Because of that, the way I talk to people through text casually is I kind of started talking through memes.

And with my friends, it was never really a problem because a lot of my friends, we were always kept up with the latest memes and we could easily understand each other in where somebody who wasn’t really in the loop would have no idea.

So where can I start catching them up with the latest internet memes and lingo for somebody who has hardly communicated through a text and image based platform?

And Sarah, how motivated is he to do this?

He seems pretty open about it. I mean, because before he’d say like he’d be so afraid to use his cell phone.

But now he said it himself. I didn’t prod him.

He said it himself that after he stops working and he knows he’s not going to get a whole bunch of calls, that he’s willing to communicate through text.

And he does want to be kept in the loop, like when we send photos and such.

I mean, memes, the way you’re talking about memes probably seem to him a lot like that famous Star Trek episode, Dharmak and Jalad at Tanagra.

You know, it’s this culture where these people only speak in allusions and references to shared culture.

And they don’t ever say things explicitly.

Shaka when the walls fell.

Timba with his arms wide.

And memes probably to him seem like that, you know, at the start.

So you’re going to have to go easy on him and go in gentle.

And do memes maybe from television and movies that he’s seen and knows.

Maybe stuff from The Godfather or MASH or Cheers, stuff like that.

Oh, interesting.

You might think about that because he’ll say,

Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that episode.

Or, yeah, of course, isn’t that just like Sam Malone, you know?

But above all, just, you know, keep in mind that he probably comes from a business world where getting in, getting to the point and getting out is important.

And that’s still important in social media and the text-based online world.

You know, he probably really doesn’t think of it very much as a playground like those of us who grew up online do.

And that might be a real change in mindset for him.

Interesting.

You know, if he is motivated to, quote, unquote, learn a foreign language in retirement, as some people are, there is that website, knowyourmeme.com.

Do you know that one?

Oh, yes.

I’m very familiar.

Yeah, that’s K-N-O-W, knowyourmeme.com.

And I find myself looking up some things there from time to time.

And the other thing I’m wondering is, Sarah, have you thought about just using, I call them GIFs.

A lot of people call them GIFs.

I mean, my friends and I are constantly sending each other pictures that are just, I think, hilarious.

I mean, we can just go back and forth and back and forth, one picture versus another that way.

Do you do that?

Oh, yes, of course.

Yeah.

I mean, that’s a little different from memes, right?

But if you can get your dad to learn how to do that, that can, I mean, we’ve had entire conversations, my friends and I, just going back and forth, sending pictures.

Sarah, what application do you use with him?

What program do you use?

So, so far, we’re using either just regular SMS. I have used WhatsApp with him before when he was traveling. But before, the closest thing we’ve really been to, like a text and image-based platform, was email.

And even then, that just kind of has a stigma of talking formally. And email is just not really good for quick, pleasant conversations, or at least for me, because you should work email. And at the end would be like a long legal blurb.

The reason I asked about the application that he’s using is you’re going to have to teach him where to get his own things to share and how to share them. Make sure he understands how to do this.

For example, setting him up with, say, an Instagram account that is preloaded by you with some great meme follows. Follow some good memes and good sites like National Geographic or museums on topics that he likes and stuff like that.

Places that are image heavy.

So when he finds something that he likes on Instagram, he can share that.

He knows how to do it and send it to you.

So he becomes a generator of stuff to you and he feels like he’s holding up his end of the conversation.

So that’s a key part of it.

Teaching him how to generate his own stuff rather than just pulling from your stock of

Of of memes and pictures does that make sense so it’s not going to really really mean me but at

Least you’ll say oh my dad thought this was a good picture I now know this little bit about my dad that

He likes this sort of thing so it’s what I love about this there is you are bridging this

Intergenerational gap and and so help him do that by helping him share back what he likes I never

Thought about that. That’s genius.

Well, Sarah, you have to get

Back in touch with us in a while and let

Us know how you’re doing

Or have him do that. And if

He follows us, we will follow him

Back, okay? Okay. Thank you so

Much. All right. Take care and be well.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.

Well, we do try to follow everyone back. You can find us on Instagram at Wayword Radio. You can find us on Twitter at Wayword. And you can find us in email, which doesn’t have to be boring. It can be fun and lively at words@waywordradio.org.

Hey Grant, did you hear about the new doctor doll? The new doctor doll? No. You wind it up and it operates on batteries.

That’s terrible. I quit. I’ve been telling that joke since fourth grade.

Oh, boy. Tell Martha your bad jokes. words@waywordradio.org.

Hello. Welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi. Hey, Grant. Hey, Martha. How are you?

Oh, doing all right. Who are you?

Doing great.

Yeah, this is Will calling from Boston.

Hi, Will. What’s up?

So I’m a civil engineer, and I’m currently working on a project where I need to design a driveway to cross a stream and wetlands to access our proposed development.

And I’m working with a wetland scientist on this project, and he informed me that I needed to design the thalweg for the section of stream that we’re adjusting to accommodate our driveway.

And I was looking at this word, and I was like, this has to be a typo, because it’s T-H-A-L-W-E-G. It just looks so strange.

So I looked it up in the technical document that was referenced, and sure enough, there it was.

And a lot of these technical documents have definition sections. So I was able to scroll down and find the definition for thalweg.

It had two definitions, a line connecting the lowest points of a stream or riverbed, and then kind of a variant definition was the deepest part of the river channel.

So my question, obviously, is not necessarily what does it mean, but it sounds like an old word. It’s like, where does it come from?

Why do we have such a niche word for this type of technical definition? And yeah, just generally wondering what you guys can tell me about it.

It’s usually pronounced talweg, and it is a combination of two German words.

And let’s dispense with the second half first. The weg in there, W-E-G, means way or path, you know, like the path along the bottom of a valley.

But the tall part, the T-H-A-L at the beginning is super cool because it means valley.

And you see this word T-H-A-L, this German word meaning valley in a whole lot of German names like Rosenthal, which means the Valley of Roses, Blumenthal, the Valley of Flowers.

And in Germany, there’s the Neander Valley, which gave us the word Neanderthal, which is where they found the fossils of those hominids.

But wait, there’s more.

In the Czech Republic, there’s a little town in the mountains.

And in the 16th century, it went by the German name Zankt Joachimstall or St. Joachimstall, which translates as St. Joachim’s Valley.

Joachim being the father of Mary, who was the mother of Jesus.

And in Joachimstall, that is in St. Joachim’s Valley, there was a silver mine.

And the silver there was used to mint coins that were called Joachimstallers, that is, coins from that valley.

And in German, the name Joachimstaller was shortened to taller, which eventually gave us the English word for our currency, dollar.

Wow.

And there’s more.

I’m waiting for it.

But wait, there’s more.

There’s all this stuff about the land, though, Martha, right?

There’s all this stuff about the land because related to this word thal in German, meaning valley, is our own word dale, which is a kind of valley, and dell, which is sort of a smaller one covered with trees, usually.

Like farmer in the dell.

Yeah.

And dale, as in like the Yorkshire Dales, this beautiful country.

Yes. So I’m going to take a breath here.

And Grant, did you have anything to add to all that?

Thanks, Martha.

Will, you had a really good thought when you said something about this looks like an old word.

It is an old word.

And part of the reason that is so firmly in the specialist language of English is that it goes back to boundary disputes and discussions between different nationalities and principalities and the language of diplomacy and geopolitical boundaries.

So it’s definitely, it’s borrowed from like these really sophisticated, complicated international and geopolitical relationships.

So it’s a super important word that probably will never go away.

It wasn’t something borrowed accidentally.

It just really specifically represents this idea so perfectly that it’s been borrowed into French and a whole host of other European languages.

Wow. That’s so interesting.

I mean, so the etymology of the word goes back in so many different directions, but the actual river use had boundary implications, right?

Oh, yeah. Because the Talveg is often the middle of a navigable channel, same as the channel line, and that often is the geopolitical boundary between two states or nation states.

Wow.

The word Talveg is often used when discussing where one country ends and another one begins.

So I realize I went off into all kinds of tributaries, but they’re so cool.

They’re all connected.

Yeah, tributary, a choice word there, I think.

Right.

Will, so every time you see this word now when you’re working with it, what are you going to think?

Oh, man.

Well, I have so much power right now because I’m moving one, right?

It’s just a small intermittent stream in this application, nothing groundbreaking.

But, yeah, that’s fascinating.

No pun intended.

You’re moving a tall veg?

Yeah, all of, you know, five feet, and it’s a very small one.

I’ll put it that way.

That’s still interesting.

Well, I’ve got to imagine there’s a whole host of other vocabulary terms that you come across, and I am inviting you to reach out to us again anytime something strikes your curiosity.

We’d love to talk to you one more time or several more times about this stuff.

Yeah, it’s fun. I, you know, working in Boston, it’s an old city, so I get to read old, you know, zoning bylaws and terms that came in from, you know, you know, who knows, 1600s that are just terms that stuck around.

So, yeah.

Well, thanks for spending this time with us. We appreciate it.

Yeah, please do.

Yeah, this has been a blast. Thank you.

All right. Bye-bye.

Thanks, Will. Bye-bye.

Cheers.

Will’s not the only one who encounters the language of his profession and says, wait a second, I bet there’s more to this.

We know you have that experience, too.

Call us with it.

877-929-9673 is toll-free, 24 hours a day in the United States and Canada.

And, of course, you can always email us, words@waywordradio.org.

Here’s a word that was recently added to at least one dictionary in Italy, and the word is umarelle.

And that is a neologism for a concept that’s been around for a long time.

An umarelle is a kind of older gent, and the Zingarelli Dictionary says something to the effect of an umarelle is somebody who strolls around at construction sites, checking, asking questions, giving suggestions, or criticizing the activities that take place there.

And the dictionary definition describes that person doing all that, con le mani dietro la schiena, which means with his hands behind his back.

I mean, you’ve seen these guys outside of construction sites.

They’re universal and the world over.

He’s retired.

He’s got nothing better to do but look and see what these youngsters are up to and just kind of tsk, tsk, tsk, you know.

These alter cockers, right, in New York, just standing there and just kibitzing from behind the fence.

Right.

Giving advice.

Yeah, the word umarel is from a dialectal word that means little man, and it was popularized by writer Danilo Mazotti.

Perfect.

We love hearing the new words from other languages.

What languages do you speak?

There’s something new happening in them.

877-929-9673.

words@waywordradio.org.

Twitter @wayword.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Grant, have you been watching Severance on Apple TV?

I watched the first episode with my family, and I have to say that is some of the most striking, I call it filmmaking or showmaking I have ever seen.

Yes, it is the weirdest show with an amazing cast.

I’ve been describing it to people as sort of Twin Peaks meets The Office meets 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It’s a fascinating program that raises the question of what if the person you are at work knows nothing about the person you are at home?

You don’t know who your friends and family are or what you do in your spare time.

And when you’re at home, you know nothing about who you are at work and what you do.

And as you know from that, just that first episode is sort of creepy and dystopian, but sometimes it’s laugh out loud funny.

And I keep wanting to talk about it.

And now I have an excuse to, because it includes a teachable moment of etymology.

Oh boy, let’s hear it.

Yeah.

Once you get farther into it, there’s a book that claims to give the origin of the word camaraderie.

And it says, most linguists agree that it comes from the Latin camera, which means a device used to take a photograph.

And of course, the best photographs are not of individuals, but of groups of happy friends who love each other deeply.

Not exactly.

That was actually a laugh out loud line for me, because in Latin, the word camera means room.

And that eventually gave rise to the French word camarade, which means somebody who shares a room, a friend or a comrade, and that gave us camaraderie.

And when you’re talking about the modern photographic device called a camera, that’s a shortening of an earlier term.

As you know, probably, Grant, from doing this in elementary school, people knew for centuries that you could use a black box with a lens at one end to project images of external objects, and that box was called a camera obscura, literally a dark room in Latin.

And then later, when modern photographic technology came along, camera obscura was shortened to just camera.

And I have to say that in defense of severance, the book that professes to have the etymology of this word is sort of this flaky self-help book to begin with.

But it gives me an excuse to talk about the show, which I can’t seem to stop doing.

It is funny how often on television, particularly, obviously not the nonfiction shows, but the etymologies are wrong, are off.

And it irritates me because I’m like, well, with a little bit of effort, they could have gotten that right.

And then all the people who watched this would have had the correct etymology.

Yeah, we’re available for consultation.

We absolutely are.

Within the universe of this weird, weird show.

Right, it fit because the book was junky and so maybe the etymology was junky too.

Yeah.

Yeah, so anyway, I’m going to go back and re-watch the whole thing, I think.

We’d love talking about etymology and word origins.

877-929-9673 is toll-free in the U.S. and Canada, 24 hours a day.

And you can email us, words@waywordradio.org, or try us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kathy.

Hi, Kathy. Where are you calling from?

I’m in San Antonio, Texas right now.

Well, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

What would you like to talk with us about, Kathy?

Well, I was calling about the topic, the relationship between culture and language.

And I think you all put out a call about that.

And I just think that it’s interesting.

I mean, we know that language is a manifestation of the culture, but I think it’s interesting that language kind of helps to maintain and translate the culture.

You know, here in Texas, I guess in many parts of the country, we’re so concerned about losing our ethnic language, our ethnic culture, but the language associated with that.

And so here in Texas, Amatejana and part of the Mejia culture, the Aztec nation as it was renamed in the 1880s, but the Chichimeca tribes, the Kahanguatuai tribes were all here still.

And we’re concerned about losing the language of the conquerors, the language of the conquistadores, which is Spanish.

But really, our language goes further back than that.

And I think it’s interesting to me that the natural language is preserved in the Spanish language.

You know, the TL at the end of a lot of the words that were spoken by the Mahía Nation were taken into the Spanish language, but they end in TE.

So words like tomate, camote, aguacate, you know, these mean tomato and sweet potato, avocado.

All these words are in the Spanish language, but they actually even go back to the Mejia language.

And we use them every day in our sayings.

You know, we call them dichos.

The dichos are the sayings that we have.

Dichos and refranes.

Yes, yes.

So one that, I mean, our family uses almost every other day is menos burros más elotes. You know, which is fewer donkeys, more corn. The elote is corn, but that’s one of the words that was taken into the Spanish language from the Mejia.

Isn’t it interesting how often the words are food words?

Yes, and so many of the other words that I named were from food, you know, or making food. But I just think this one’s really funny because we use it all the time. My mother was saying the other day how her father used to say that when one of the kids said, oh, I don’t want to eat, you know, tortillas or I don’t want beans. And he’d say, hey, menos burros más elotes, which meant move over because somebody else will have it.

Yeah, more for me.

Yeah.

Fewer donkeys, more corn.

Right.

And my sister and I were laughing because at every holiday or special event, we always have somebody that’s new or a guest, somebody that’s not necessarily part of the family per se. And so we always have the food that all of us know we like, the traditional food or something. And there’s always a guest that says, oh, I’m sorry, I don’t eat shrimp or I’m allergic to that. And to a person, we’ll say, menos muros, mas elotes, because we like this stuff, so muro. You know? So it’s so interesting how often we use that.

And so the culture carries on. I mean, it’s in a transformed way, but the words are there. The food heritage is there as well. Elote, right?

Yes.

Coming from that word, E-L-L-O-T-L, a cob of tender corn, is recorded in the earliest relationships between the Spanish speakers and the Aztec language speakers, you know.

Yes, and I initially thought it was just our family or, you know, our extended family. But then I realized, you know, in reading some of the books that are out there, Barefoot Heart by Alva Trevino Hart, she talks about the migrant families. And these phrases were in there. And I was realizing, oh, my gosh, these are from when we were migrant workers. My grandparents came over from Mexico during the Civil War and they were migrant workers. And my parents were and my uncles and they took us out to the fields when we were little.

And so the exchange of the culture between the people that were migrating across the United States, you know, they didn’t read English. But, you know, my grandfather would drive from Texas up to Michigan to pick cherries and Minnesota for beets, but they’d always come back. And so there was this exchange of information. So all these dichos are across, you know, our culture, which is spread around the U.S. And it just reminds me that, you know, we’re still here. It’s in the culture, it’s in the food, it’s in our everyday words.

And in other parts of Mexico, the Maya people are still there speaking a variety of languages that have existed for millennia. And still, you know, practicing the culture and the food ways and speaking languages that helped decipher the glyphs on the stile and on the artifacts that were found there. The language has changed enough, but so little that they were able to help decipher this old written language. It was astonishing.

But we still see the footprints of that language in words like chocolate, for example, in English now. Or cocoa. Mm— Or cocoa. Chili and chilaquiles and tamales. Mole. All of those. Jicama, nopal, sapote. I have a sapote tree in my backyard.

There you go.

You know, one of my dad’s favorites was kadachango sumekate. And again, there’s that mekate, which is a rope. But that one just always makes me laugh because it’s every monkey, their rope. You know, and I just always think about this monkey swinging along. But he would say that to us when we’d want to do something a certain way or when, you know, he would just shrug his shoulders and, you know, give people their, you know, moment of grace if they were doing something different. You know, kadachango sumekate, let them do it the way they want to.

But yes, these sayings, and my sisters and I have been thinking about, you know, putting them down and illustrating them, you know, making them a book. Because even the next generation, my nephews that aren’t fluent in Spanish know these words. I mean, they’ll say the dichos, you know, and everybody laughs. Because we know they don’t speak Spanish, but they know the dichos.

What can I say, Kathy, you’re warming my heart. Because with somebody like you as an evangelist for your culture, spreading it to the new generations and to the broader family members, there’s no chance that this stuff is going to disappear. I mean, you sound so enthusiastic and knowledgeable about it. I mean, you are the truth teller, right? The truth bringer. You’re passing this along. And so bravo to you.

Oh, well, thank you. And I don’t want to take all the credit as the only one, because my uncle did that award-winning documentary, Truly Texas Mexican, about our food.

How about that?

The Gastro Obscura has some of the dichos in it as well, the video with that. So I guess each generation is just conscious of passing this on. So I guess that’s also part of our culture is being sure to pass our heritage to the next generation.

But thank you.

Thanks so much, Kathy.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

What are the word ways that represent the folk ways and the food ways of your people and your culture? Share your word ways with us, 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.

Our conversation about playful prayers at the dinner table, those formulaic ways of blessing the meal really fast and getting to the food, prompted an email from Al in Denton, Texas. And Al writes, a friend told me that when he was a youngster in Macon, Georgia, his family would frequently have Sunday dinner at his uncle’s house. When everyone was seated, they would bow their heads and the uncle would intone the same prayer. Much obliged. That works. Straight to the point.

What’s the language you use around these family rituals of eating? 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Teresa from Lyman, South Carolina.

Hi, Teresa. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Teresa.

Thank you.

Hi, my mom has been saying this my whole life. And I asked her where she got it from. She goes, well, I’ve heard it my whole life, which is not a very good explanation. But it’s queer. She will say it about people that are like odd, like are kind of set in their ways. And I don’t know, is it a form of queer or any ideas?

So we’re talking about somebody that wears their clothes inside out or likes funny hats? What are we talking about?

Usually it’s like people that don’t eat certain foods or like she was talking about a couple that she knows and like no matter how sick they are, they don’t want to go to the doctor. And she’ll say, they’re the queerest people I’ve ever met.

Queer.

Got it.

That’s wonderful. And have you ever seen the term spelled out?

I have not.

I have not.

Okay. But, I mean, you know, we’re Southerners, so we say everything a little different.

Yeah, quare is a word that you will hear in the American South, and it’s usually spelled Q-U-A-R-E, or sometimes Q-U-A-R. And it means, as you suggested, it means some, it describes somebody who’s a little strange, unusual. And what’s really cool about this word queer is that it’s an Irish pronunciation of the word queer. And by queer, we’re not referring specifically to sexual orientation. We’re talking about, you know, somebody who’s a little peculiar but harmless. I mean, like those people you were describing, you know, the queerest people you’ve ever seen. And yeah, you hear this through much of the American South. And what’s really nice about this is that it’s a lovely vestige of those Scots-Irish settlement patterns in the South.

And so, yeah, you describe somebody as quare, meaning strange or unusual. It gave rise to the verb phrase to go quare, meaning to seem strange or seem unusual. And also what’s cool in Irish English is that queer can also be an intensifier, like it’s queer hot outside.

Really?

Yeah.

Is it queer hot there today?

It really, really is queer today.

It’s on our DNA, and we are Scots-Irish from Tennessee, where my sister calls them mountain hoogers.

So that sounds right.

Take care now, Teresa. Thanks for calling.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Take care now.

All right.

All right. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, we aim to please and delight.

There’s more to the words that you speak than just their meanings.

There’s all these little flags attached,

And on those flags are words like history, family, and culture.

Call us, and we’ll explain your flags to you.

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Email words@waywordradio.org

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Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Larry Ott from Lafayette, Indiana.

Hi, Larry. Welcome to the show.

Hey, Larry. What’s up?

Thank you.

My family had a couple of things they used to say,

And I just was hoping you might be able to shed a little bit of light on it.

The word Jimmy Kane.

My grandma was the first one I heard use it.

When there was trouble coming of some sort,

She would say, there’s a Jimmy Kane a-coming.

And we were like, what the heck is it?

Jimmy came.

It definitely had to do with storms and weather,

But it also covered a whole range of other things that, you know,

Say you got some family problems and you know there’s going to be trouble

Or something.

I kind of liken it to when Dr. Phil says, no good can come of this.

No good can come of this.

You sound just like him.

It’s something bad that’s a-coming. Is that right?

Right, exactly.

Well, Larry, when you talk about a Jimmy cane, usually what you’re talking about is a really strong wind.

And by strong, I mean a really destructive one.

And we’re not really sure of the origin, but it’s probably a variant of the word hurricane.

It’s not quite as bad as a hurricane because it’s an inland storm.

And it’s strong enough to do some damage.

It’s a straight wind that can knock things down.

It’s just one of these winds that does a lot of damage.

I’m looking at a newspaper from 1879 that says,

A perfect Jimmy Kane visited these parts Thursday afternoon,

Blowing the top knots off haystacks, unrooting sheds, raising outhouses,

Lumber piles, etc.

Considerable fine real estate changed hands on that day.

Well, that definitely sheds some light on this situation.

Well, I’m very interested that your family uses it metaphorically

Because I’m not used to seeing that.

It’s usually specifically talking about weather,

But I could see where you would,

If you’re looking at metaphorical clouds looming in the distance

Or anticipating something bad happen,

I can see how you would use the term Jimmy King there.

Wow. Interesting.

All right. Take care, Larry. Thanks for calling.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Be well.

Bye-bye.

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Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. Until next time, goodbye.

Bye.