Herd of Turtles (episode #1587)

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. Here’s a trivia question for you.

What well-known U.S. poet has a species of bat named after her?

Well-known U.S. poet has a species of bat named after her.

Is this a joke or is it real?

No, no, it’s real.

I don’t know. Who?

Well, it’s Nikki Giovanni.

Nikki Giovanni?

Yes, over her long career, she earned a whole lot of awards like the Langston Hughes Medal.

She was nominated for a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album.

But she also has a species of bat named after her, Micronictorus Giovanniiae.

Because in 2004, Robert Baker, who was a biologist at Texas Tech there in Lubbock,

discovered a new species of Micronictorus.

And this is a bat that’s also known as the leaf-nosed bat.

And he was a huge fan of Nicky Giovanni.

And he wrote at the time,

I decided to choose someone whose life work I respected immensely,

but that I’d never had contact with.

It was a way of going outside of my own world.

So Robert Baker wrote to Nicky Giovanni,

and he basically said,

You don’t know me, and this isn’t a joke,

but I want to name a bat after you.

And Nikki Giovanni was delighted.

She told the Washington Post, it’s really cute with big ears and little eyes and it hangs out in the rainforests of Ecuador.

Oh, yeah.

I would be honored as well.

Yeah.

What a tribute to have a species named after you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, he really felt like he was conferring a gift.

You know, there are millions and millions and millions of stars, but there aren’t that many animal species.

So it’s kind of a big deal.

And instead of naming it after himself.

Yes.

Yes, to name it after a poet.

I just thought that was lovely.

He has her work up on his office walls.

And I really love that.

And I also love learning the word nose leaf.

Nose hyphen leaf is that thing on these bats.

It kind of looks like a little leaf.

It is really cute.

This little structure that may help them with echolocation.

Oh, exciting.

I’ve always been thrilled to learn more about echolocation.

I wish I could do it.

Names are part of language, and this show is about language.

Tell us about the names in your lives.

What if you name the kids, the dog, the car, the refrigerator, 877-929-9673, or on Twitter @wayword?

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

My name is Nancy Hastie, and I live in North Carolina.

Hi, Nancy, welcome to the show.

What can we do for you, Nancy?

I live in Appalachian Mountains, and we had a phrase that I grew up with, a spell.

It was like, well, what is a spell?

And it’s like, well, you go visiting for a spell.

You sit down a spell.

If you’re tired, you’re having a sinking spell.

Talking about the weather, you might have a dry spell or a wet spell.

And it wasn’t any definite period of time.

But growing up, we just kind of knew what a spell was.

And I was just curious about that because spell doesn’t have anything to do with spelling a word.

Yeah, we’re talking about the word S-P-E-L-L, spell.

And as you said, it’s completely different from the spell meaning to put together letters to form a word.

It’s different from the spell in spelling bee or to cast a spell on somebody.

The spell that you’re talking about, a period of time, is an entirely different word that just happens to look like those other words.

And here’s the story behind that.

That kind of spell, the kind of spell you’re talking about, it comes from a very old Germanic family of words that includes the old English word spalla, which means substitute.

And in the 16th century, spell meant to take the place of somebody, to substitute for somebody doing a task and to let the other person rest.

And you still hear that today, right?

You say, here, let me spell you for a while.

You’re raking leaves or something, right?

And you say, here, hand me the rake.

Let me spell you for a while.

And over time, it came to mean simply a continuous period of work.

Oh.

-huh.

Like sailors on a ship who are taking turns, you know.

Some of them are above deck and below deck, and then they switch.

They’re spelling each other, and they’re doing it for a spell of time.

And by the 18th century, a spell simply meant a period of time.

And as you said, it could be like a hot spell or a cold spell, you know, or set a spell.

And I also wonder if you’ve heard spell used to mean, you know, just a little ways up the road.

Only if it were somebody walking a spell.

Oh, walking for a spell, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah, because I know sometimes in Appalachia you might say, oh, it’s just a spell up the road.

So your instincts were absolutely right.

That is so interesting.

Sounds like Martha has left you satisfied.

I’m glad that you called.

Okay, and you don’t have anything to add.

Martha took this one.

She covered it 100%.

Well, you can take a break.

Go have a cup of coffee.

I’m just going to sit here and spell while Martha does the job.

Oh, okay.

Well, you said a spell then.

Okay.

Well, we’re glad that you’d spend a spell with us, Nancy.

Thank you, Nancy.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Why don’t you take a break for a spell from whatever you’re doing and give us a call, 877-929-9673,

or type your message and email words@waywordradio.org.

If you’re ever in South Africa and you want to express gratitude in a fun, informal way,

there’s a rhyming phrase you can use.

It’s donkey open plonky, which literally means thank you on a board.

Donkey is, of course, thanks.

Plonky on a plonky.

Yeah.

Donkey on a plonky.

And plonky is like our word plank.

Yes.

Yes, exactly.

Thank you on a board.

Donkey on a plonky.

Give us a call.

877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Well, hey, this is Robin from Jacksonville, Florida.

Hey, Robin.

Welcome.

Hi, Robin. What can we do for you?

I, I’ve had, I’ve wondered this for quite a while and I overheard somebody in the grocery store the other day, so it brought this all back.

My parents grew up in very small Southern Utah towns.

And so I didn’t know if it was from there, but we had always used the word unthaw.

And so I wasn’t until probably in my 40s that somebody corrected me and said,

No, you don’t need to go home to unthaw the hamburger.

You just need to thaw it.

And so this was a big revelation to me.

And they said that that was actually an oxymoron.

But everybody in my family has always said that.

I felt kind of embarrassed.

So I started learning to use the word thaw.

But just the other day, I was in line somewhere, and I overheard somebody say it also.

So I think it’s pretty common, but I’m not sure, and just wanted to know more about that.

So you might say unthaw, U-N-T-H-A-W, the frozen hamburger, instead of thaw, T-H-A-W, the hamburger, meaning to unfreeze it.

Right, or unthaw anything.

The car engine needs to unthaw.

Right, so warm it up.

-huh, you got it.

You’re not alone, Robin, if that’s any consolation.

It’s not just you, and it’s not just your family, and it’s not just that person in line.

Unthaw has been in regular and repeated use for more than 400 years.

How about that?

That’s exciting.

Yeah.

Wow.

Unthaw is such an interesting word that it’s one of a set of verbs that has been studied by linguists.

Although we were taught when we were in school that un, the prefix un, un, negates or inverts whatever it’s attached to,

there’s also another thing that it does.

Sometimes it simply emphasizes the action.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

So there was a group of verbs in the 1600s, 15th and 1600s,

where they didn’t need the un, but the un was added.

And unthaw was one of those.

For example, you might have unboundless.

Well, if someone’s energy was unboundless, it was also boundless.

You don’t need the un.

What is happening with that un?

It’s emphasizing the boundlessness, right?

Okay.

Or if somebody is unhelpless, they’re helpless.

Why do we have the un?

Well, we’re emphasizing the helplessness.

And they’re unrestless or unremorseless or unwitless.

All of these uns there aren’t negating and they’re not inverting.

They’re emphasizing what they’re attached to.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, Robin, there was no reason for you to come unraveled in the grocery line.

That’s another one of those words.

Yeah.

Well, and I think it’s because I explained to the lady, I said, I’m going to tell you something that somebody told me about 20 years ago.

But you can just say thaw and not unthaw.

Yeah.

And she looked incredulous because I think you feel kind of embarrassed.

That I grabbed.

And I taught it to the kids, too.

So anyway.

Yeah, thaw is a great choice.

There’s nothing wrong with thaw.

I would use thaw.

If you want to use thaw, go ahead and use thaw.

It probably is the better choice, certainly in formal writing.

If you’re talking on television or writing for an audience, definitely use thaw.

But in everyday speech, unthaw does the job and has for hundreds of years.

There are other words like this in everyday speech that maybe haven’t occurred to you.

Besides ravel and unravel, meaning the same thing, there’s also unpeel and peel.

Do you unpeel an orange or do you peel it?

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, that’s another one.

Do you loosen a screw or do you unloosen it?

Okay.

And you’ll find in everyday language we have a ton of these.

And now that I’ve pointed it out, you’re going to see them everywhere.

Absolutely.

And just remember that un isn’t only negating or inverting.

Sometimes it’s emphasizing.

And that’s what we weren’t necessarily taught in grade school when we were taught about prefixes.

So for some reason, we’re not taught that early on in our education.

So we have to learn it as adults.

It sometimes unemphasizes.

Okay.

Now, I have purposely not done this.

If I go now, look up in the dictionary, unthaw, will it be there?

Yes.

Yes, it will.

It’ll probably be marked as informal or a dialect.

Okay.

Very good.

Well, thanks, guys.

This is very informative.

Our pleasure, Robin.

Thanks for calling.

Take care.

Glad to help.

You betcha.

Bye-bye.

I got that list of unverbs from the 15 and 1600s from the linguist Larry Horn.

That’s H-O-R-N.

And he has written at length on the topic of unverbs.

And so if you search his name and the word unverb,

You’ll come up with some of his great writing on the subject.

And you’ll learn that there’s more to un-attached to verbs than just negating.

It’s really interesting stuff.

There always is, isn’t there?

There absolutely is.

We should do a show about that.

Great idea.

And you can help us out.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673 with your language questions

Or send them to words@waywordradio.org.

This show’s about language examined through family, history, and culture.

Stick around for more of A Way with Words.

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

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And here he is and his coat and tails and a top hat and cane, our quiz guy, John Janeski.

Hi, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha. I don’t know why I feel I need to get so dressed up.

You know, actually, that’s actually appropriate for today’s quiz because it’s about theater in some way.

Yeah, yeah. You know, we are lucky to have lived at the same time as one of the greatest Broadway composers and lyricists, Stephen Sondheim.

And it was pretty well known that Sondheim was obsessed with puzzles.

He was primarily responsible for introducing cryptic or British style crosswords to the U.S.

So I felt it was my duty to set a quiz about Sondheim.

Now, he created or contributed to an amazing set of mostly musicals,

And he was nice enough to hide a word or two inside the titles of each of them.

Now, as an example, I’ll use the title of the memoir he wrote, Finishing the Hat.

For someone who’s a big fan of murder mysteries, it’s not surprising he hid a body part in that title.

What is it?

Finishing the Hat.

Finishing the Hat.

Is it part of the leg?

Yeah, it is part of the leg.

How about the shin?

It is the shin.

Of course it’s a shin, yeah.

Now, I’ll give you the title of a Sondheim work and a hint to the word within it.

Now, you shouldn’t need a pencil and paper for these, but you can do as you please.

Here we go.

The only Sondheim show I was ever in, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

For a show about ancient Rome, how forward-thinking was Sondheim to download a small, specialized software program for your phone into that title?

App app as in happen a p p exactly it’s a long title with this very short word inside.

App funny thing happened on the way to the forum appropriately the word inside pacific overtures

Is well hidden yes i think martha the sound of martha getting it i get it too say it together.

What is it?

Covert.

Covert.

Covert, indeed, yes.

Now, much of Sondheim’s work was about seeking the truth in life,

So it’s ironic that follies contains an obvious untruth.

Lies.

Lie.

It’s lie, yes, or lies.

Sondheim received scores of great reviews in his time.

It’s also ironic that one of his greatest successes, Company,

Contains a not-so-good review.

Yeah, he got panned.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Pan.

Another irony is that one of his longest titles, Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street,

Has a tiny word within.

Sweeney Todd.

Oh, weenie.

How about just we?

Yeah, just we.

We.

Finally, Sondheim was adept at all sorts of characters, and in Assassins, quite a few of them had cheek.

Well, ass.

Well, it’s not that kind of cheek. It’s the other kind of cheek.

Sass.

It is sass. Yes, very good. Assassins.

Well, I mean, that’s my little tribute to Stephen Sondheim. We appreciate all his work.

Indeed, and we appreciate your work as well, John.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, John.

Thank you, guys.

And we’d appreciate talking with you about any aspect of language whatsoever.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send us an email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, how are you?

My name is Todd Hartley from St. Pete Beach, Florida.

How you doing?

Well, you know, it’s been a subject around a lot of dinner tables at our household.

And I know that makes it sound like a very boring family, but the subject is on this word next.

N-E-X-T, next.

I just don’t understand why it’s such a thing.

But, you know, I guess kind of the question is, when does next really mean next?

And I’ll give you an example here.

I’ll kind of set a scene how this whole word issue with next came up.

So I was cruising down the freeway with my son, right?

And I’m taking him to a birthday party.

This was many years ago.

And I’m cruising down the freeway.

And my son says, OK, take the next exit.

So I see the exit coming up, right?

And I take it.

And immediately my son says, no, I told you to take the next exit.

Not this one.

Well, in my mind, right, in my mind, I took the next exit.

It’s the first one coming up.

So we ended up getting lost and late for the birthday party.

And I got home.

My wife was mad at me.

Why were you so late?

You wanted to be at, well, you told me to take the next exit.

I took the next exit.

And it wasn’t the right one.

It was the first one and blah, blah, blah.

So it’s just become a lot of confusion, you know?

I have to tell you, if I were driving along and somebody said, take the next exit, and there was an exit right there in front of me, I would take that exit.

100%. My wife and I have had that argument. 100%. She no longer gives me instructions. I have Google do it.

So I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy. Okay.

No, but the thing is, both of these modes of speech are out there, and they are in constant conflict.

The next versus this is a real dilemma in all the ways that you outlined it, both on the highway and both with the week and both with the calendar.

Absolutely.

You’re not the only one.

We’ve talked about this on the show before.

We get emails about it.

These fights are not boring.

They’re super exciting because we’re nerds.

Can we come to your house for dinner?

Do you want to talk at length about a very nerdy linguistic topic?

Yes, please.

Yeah, we wear lampshades and we talk about the word next.

We’ll be right over.

When you’re driving, a lot of times there’s not a moment to ask for clarification.

I get that.

But really, in an everyday conversation, ordinarily we say, did you mean this coming Saturday or the one after that?

I mean, that’s how you would approach that.

But when you’re driving and people are just like blurting out commands, you sometimes just have to blindly follow them to the best of your ability.

And that’s where the mistakes happen.

Right.

Right.

And then you’re late for the birthday party.

Right.

The same way that people shout shotgun before they get in the car, we need to have a thing where you shout, all right, this is not a next car.

We don’t say next in my car.

This is a this car.

This is a this car.

Take this exit.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Take this exit or the one after this.

This is how we say it.

We don’t use the word next in this car.

Yeah, that’s exactly right.

So I guess it comes down to you just have to really make sure you have clarification when you use that word.

Yeah, absolutely.

It’s easier when you’re just, you’re not driving and there’s not that tension of, you know,

Driving is already stressful enough and somebody giving you commands, even though you love them

And they’re an important part of your life

And you want only the best for them.

Boy, that is still a tense situation.

And, oh, yeah.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

We’re glad that you could vent.

We’re going to give you the first session for free,

But if you want to come back to therapy,

Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate the clarification.

And I guess until next time, we’ll talk again.

All right. Take care now. Best wishes.

All right. Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Martha, I don’t even want to open the phone lines for this one.

No, no. I shut them down for the day.

If you want to talk about anything but next week versus this week or this exit versus next exit, call 877-929-9673.

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Hey. My name is Judy, and I live in Fort Worth, Texas.

Half the year, and in the other half I live in a little town called Frankfort, which is in Michigan,

A harbor town near Traverse City. Hi, Judy. Hey, where are you now? Fort Worth? I’m in Fort Worth,

Right. So my question is about not a particular word or expression. It’s more about reference

Sources. I’m trying to write a historical fiction, and it’s located, it’ll be located in Michigan.

My characters were living from Civil War times through the 1940s.

And what I’m looking for, I’m such a rookie at this, is the way they talked, their vernacular.

And I’m wondering, I imagine you guys have this huge reference library,

And I’m just wondering where does someone like me go look for that kind of information?

Well, we do have a big reference library, both physical and digital.

This is a great question. Martha, I get so excited when we get this question.

Oh, yeah, we do.

I just love the idea that there is another writer entering the world.

It’s just a great thing to have one more writer launching, so congratulations to you.

Yeah, I used to do psychological research. It’s a long way from historical research.

Oh, I bet.

I’m really having a great time looking up all these things to get the context right.

Oh, yeah. Well, that background sounds like it’ll come in handy for sure. But yeah, you’re right. You don’t want anachronisms creeping in. So, Grant, we can help out that.

Yeah, there’s a couple ways to stop that. But the first thing I want to say is your goal should be effect rather than historical accuracy.

And by that, I mean that your readers aren’t going to know the earliest uses of the language you use.

And in fact, many things that you use will be older than your readers think they are.

And so even if you’re accurate, your readers may think you’re not.

For example, you might be historically accurate in having a character called the police pigs in the 1830s.

Oh, yeah.

But a lot of people would be surprised by that because they might associate pigs as slang for the cops with hippies in the 1960s.

So historical accuracy has its own traps.

So sometimes, again, it’s about meeting your reader’s expectations more than it is being exactly accurate.

Now, that said, one thing we would always recommend, Martha and I both, is the Dictionary of American Regional English.

The Dictionary of American Regional English allows you to search by region, and it includes dated citations.

So if you’re writing and a phrase comes out of your keyboard that you’re like, oh, I don’t know if that’s too modern,

Try looking at the Dictionary of American Regional English, also known as DARE,

And see if it’s in there and see if there are dated citations for the period that you’re writing.

It’s not 100% foolproof because it doesn’t have everything, but it’s a good place to check.

It’s also online at daredictionary.com, and they often have sales where you can find an inexpensive annual price.

And many university libraries will also have subscriptions to it.

And another path is old newspapers.

And in Michigan, at the Clark Historical Library at Central Michigan University, there is a great project called Digital Michigan Newspaper Portal.

This includes links to its own set of digitized newspapers as well as digitized newspapers in the Chronicling America Project at the Library of Congress.

And these are all freely available.

Oh, great.

You go to these newspapers and you read like you’re a local or you’ve traveled back in time.

Read the personal stuff like letters and opinion pieces and society columns.

Get a feel for the times.

Read them like you’re interested in the news of the day.

And so phrases will leap out at you.

I took a little look here for you, and I found a couple quotes, for example.

This one from one newspaper from the Sheboygan Democrat on September 2nd, 1880.

Here’s a quote.

The crowd that came over from Petoskey last Wednesday to play ball was a mob,

And with very few exceptions composed of loafers,

Or else their actions at the hotel on the streets and in the saloons

Was a gross libel on their previous records.

Now, that’s that color, right?

Loafers, we know, and mobbed, and like there’s saloons.

I mean, we’ve got some things happening there,

And we’ve got maybe a rivalry with Petoskey, right?

Sheboygan versus Petoskey.

And then there’s another paragraph on the same issue

Where we find Petoskey mentioned again in a negative context.

It says, two people from Petoskey came to Sheboygan

Registered at the Spencer House, got full of budge, and foist their way into a room.

And budge, if you look it up, turns out to be a cheap alcohol.

So there you have a bit of slang.

And again, a Petoskey versus Sheboygan rivalry.

Suddenly, we have color and a vivid picture of something happening in September of 1880 in Sheboygan.

That’s fantastic.

You know, I love your advice about just getting the gist, the general feel for it.

I’ve been reading a lot of letters, Civil War letters, and firsthand accounts of old timers from this little county where I’m writing about.

And so I think I’m on the right track.

But the sources you mentioned are going to be hugely helpful.

So thank you so much.

Yeah, again, that’s the Clark Historical Library at Central Michigan University.

The project is called the Digital Michigan Newspaper Portal, and it includes lots of many free digitized newspapers.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Well, Judy, you’ll have to keep us posted.

Yeah. Good luck.

And remember, the key to writing is your butt in your seat and your pen to the paper.

I can’t help it. I’m just having a ball.

All right. Well, good luck and may the muses find you.

All right. Thank you again.

All right. Bye-bye.

Bye, Judy.

Call us with your questions about writing and language and reading, 877-929-9673,

Or send it to us in email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Diane and I’m from Eastern North Carolina.

Hi, Diane.

What can we do for you?

Well, I have a phrase that I would like a little history on and it is, I never chew my celery twice.

Tell us about that. Where do you hear that?

Well, my dad used to say this quirky and absurd phrase when I was a teen. And of course, I would block him out when he was going on, you know, just speaking to me in ad nauseum.

Of course.

Exactly. So then something would tell me, oh, you know, maybe I should have heard what he just said. And I would say, what? What did you say? And then he would turn to me and say, I never chew my sorry twice.

That would just leave me completely missed.

I knew what he meant.

I knew he wasn’t going to repeat himself, but it was, you know, a third.

Of course you’d chew your salary twice.

You’d joke if you didn’t.

So where is that from?

Oh, what a good question.

He probably conflated that with a much older expression that involves not celery but cabbage.

Have you ever heard that about chewing cabbage twice?

No, just celery.

There are a lot of different versions of an old expression that involves doing something with cabbages, whether it’s buying cabbages or selling cabbages or chewing cabbage.

And the idea is that it’s boring and distasteful.

You know, just too much cabbage is just boring.

And what’s really interesting is that it goes all the way back to ancient Greek.

There’s an expression in ancient Greek, dyskrombe thanatos, which basically means cabbage served twice is death.

The idea being that, you know, too much cabbage is just really boring or repetition is tedious.

And that got picked up over the centuries.

It got picked up by the Roman writer Juvenal, who had a line in one of his bits of writing that basically said, cabbage served over and over is the death of teachers.

Meaning, you know, if they’re teaching the same really boring curriculum over and over and over again, you know, it’ll just wear you out.

And over time, different versions of these proverbs involving how boring cabbage is have shown up all over the world.

That is really interesting.

By the 1700s, it was transformed into a proverb by Thomas Fuller along the lines of, no sweetness in a cabbage twice boiled, nor in a tale twice told.

That’s from 1732.

So it just really kind of just kept making the rounds over the centuries until it shows up as celery in your dad’s mouth.

I have to say, I have a teen and I say this to him and it’s incredibly satisfying for me.

I get the same look I’m sure I gave my father.

What are you saying?

So there you go, Diane.

Well, that’s awesome.

Outstanding.

Thanks for calling.

Take care.

Oh, thank you.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Diane. Bye-bye.

There’s something about those expressions that our parents said to us, and we get to relish as we say them to our children.

877-929-9673.

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More about what we say and why we say it.

Stick around for more.

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.

One of the loveliest threads I’ve ever read on Twitter was started by New Yorker writer Jelani Cobb.

And he asked, tell me about your first library card.

And Grant, I read those words, and wow, that instantly sent me back in time.

My first library card was made out of stiff white cardstock, and it was folded over, and it had the insignia of the Louisville Free Public Library on one side, and inside, it had my very own name.

And more than anything, more than the card, what it got me thinking about was my weekly trips with my mom and my little brother Jim all the way downtown to the main library branch.

And this was this stately edifice in the middle of Louisville.

It had smooth marble floors and soaring arches and painted frescoes way up high.

It was about as ornate as you would expect a building from 1906 to be, you know, that gem, that crown jewel of the city.

And when you went in, there was just something different about that building, a different smell, different sounds echoed through the building.

The floors were really shiny and worn smooth.

And then off to the left was the children’s library.

And when I think about that, I always think about the physical weight of the books in my arms.

Because every week we would check out the maximum number of books, which I think was 20 per child.

Of course.

You know, and so you’d grab them all.

And what I remember so specifically is trying to get my arms all the way around them to carry them to the car.

And sometimes it was really, really hard.

But I think back to that now and I think, you know, I was trying to get my arms around so much more.

It wasn’t the physical books. It was the content within.

Yes. Yes. Do you remember a first library card?

I don’t think I ever had library cards, but boy, I remember every library with clarity.

I remember the middle school library where I checked out the Tolkien books again and again and poured over the maps in the back that he had drawn with his own hand.

And I remember the bookmobile that pulled up to the second grade library.

I remember checking out every single one of the Wizard of Oz books.

It was not just the one that the movie was made from, but it was the other 11, all of those books.

I remember the one that was just down the street in high school where I worked my way down shelf after shelf after shelf.

Just started at one end and checked everything out all the way to the other end.

And they went to the shelf below and worked back the other direction just because I could.

And again, just like you, I checked out maximum number of books and they would never let me go past it.

That’s where I learned mythology and ghost stories.

And that’s where I learned about how cars work on the inside.

And that’s where I learned about the Panama Canal and Teddy Roosevelt and sequoia trees.

And that’s where I learned about the herbs you can eat and different things like that.

Yeah, and we’re so lucky that we had those opportunities, and they created a lifelong habit.

One of the things that I really liked about that Twitter thread was that all these people were chiming in with similar memories, and then people started saying, you know what, I just made a donation to my local library, the one where I grew up.

And I thought that was a really great idea.

Martha and I would love to hear your memories of your first library card or your first library.

Tell us an email, words@waywordradio.org.

Tell us on Twitter @wayword.

Or tell us on the phone, toll free in the U.S. and Canada, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kristen in Dubuque, Iowa.

Hey, Kristen, welcome.

Hi, Kristen, what’s up?

Well, I teach a class in U.S. History of Sexuality.

And in that class, I have the students start by doing an ethnography of their youth culture, where they put the rules or norms of their dating culture onto paper.

And then at the end of the class, after we’ve studied the history of sexuality, we look back at what they said were the rules or norms of their dating culture.

And this year, in 2021, the first time this has occurred, students used loyalty as a synonym for monogamy.

And in 2019, that hadn’t come up.

So I thought that was a really interesting change.

Loyalty is a synonym for monogamy.

Do you know if they came up with this independently of each other or was there some group work involved?

It was independent.

So I had 27 students and it appeared in several of them.

And how did they define loyalty?

Was it exactly like monogamy?

Well, I have a phrase from one of their ethnographies for you.

Dating requires loyalty from both. No flirting or seeing others.

And another person wrote, once you’re in the dating stage, you’re not supposed to be talking with others.

In other words, loyalty or monogamy is required.

So instead of monogamy just being about being with one person, they’re adding on additional ideas.

It’s not just about one partner, but it’s also about like, don’t look.

Like you can be monogamous and look, right?

Right. You’re right.

I didn’t catch that.

Yeah, definitely tied.

They’re adding on.

They’re expecting more maybe than other generations have expected.

They’re holding their partners to a higher standard.

That’s interesting that they’re redefining the word.

Right.

And when on the last day of class, we talked through the ethnography they had read, you know, everyone’s answers.

And I asked them, am I understanding that you are using loyalty as a synonym for monogamy?

They didn’t quite understand why I didn’t understand that.

So we were talking about the different ways that we use language.

So it was a great conversation between us.

And, of course, I don’t understand a lot of the slang that they use.

But this one was reconceptualizing a word in a very new way for me.

I like this, Kristen.

It’s a report from the field.

And it’s something to keep an eye on because words, as you know, aren’t static.

And this kind of transition does tend to happen with young people.

They’re the ones that move language forward.

And we do find that cultural shifts appear in language in just this way.

So maybe you have witnessed not just the language changing, but culture changing as well, the equalization of the relationship.

Yeah, that’s an interesting way to think about it.

So have you any other cases of this anywhere?

Well, there are some other terms that I think are worth bringing up here.

Previous generations have talked about their ride or die.

This is their person that they would commit themselves to fully or someone that you ride for.

And those are pretty much the same.

These are the person that you would do anything for, that you absolutely, this is, you’re 100% committed to this person.

And there’s a term being borrowed from gaming.

I don’t know how fully this is in the relationship world, but it’s called maining.

So maining in the world of video games is where you choose one character to play the most out of all the other possible characters that you could play.

And so when you’re kind of dating around, you might decide to start maining one particular person where you just date them exclusively.

And then they become the person that you’re monogamous with or loyal to the most.

So there’s kind of like that.

It’s that stage between dating around and becoming committed in between those two.

It’s maining.

Interesting.

Main, M-A-I-N.

Yeah, M-A-I-N.

They become your main person.

Am I the only one who keeps tripping over the term monogamous?

Because I feel like that is, you know, I’m looking at the Greek.

I mean, it has to do with marriage.

And I’m thinking that maybe it’s a more old-fashioned term or something.

You know, I think of, you know, somebody who’s monogamous is married to one person.

A bigamist is married to two people.

I have to wonder if that’s part of it.

Yeah, if part of the evolution is moving to loyalty or faithfulness or away from that term monogamous, which to me sounds a little bit more, I don’t know, sociological.

Clinical.

Clinical, that’s the word I’m looking for.

Is that any part of it at all?

I think so, because what’s interesting is they were trying to differentiate in this ethnography between the stage of talking and dating.

So talking is when you’re getting to know someone and you might be getting to know more than one person.

And they were trying to differentiate between like a talking stage and a dating stage.

And so this loyalty seems to be like key when you’ve moved into dating.

Oh, that’s interesting.

And I feel like talking is laden with all kinds of meaning.

Yeah, I can just hear the quotes around that talking, capital letter T.

Yeah, I’m talking to her.

He’s talking to her.

They’re talking.

In my junior high years, it was go with.

It was go with was a very laden expression.

You’re going with someone.

You’re not just like, you’re not accompanying them to the store.

You’re going with them, meaning you were a couple.

And talking is different these days?

Yes.

Talking is where there isn’t any type of a commitment.

It can involve sex between partners in the talking stage, and that’s probably generationally a new addition to that.

So talking and dating have different kind of rules about sex and how they fit in.

Well, I love this report from the field, Kristen.

I love this interface between culture and language, and we’ll look for more from you in our inbox.

Oh, that would be a lot of fun.

So thank you so much.

It’s nice to talk to friends today.

We’re delighted to take your call.

Take care and be well.

Okay.

Okay.

You too.

Thanks.

Bye.

Thanks, Kristen.

And we love getting those data points from folks in the field.

Yeah.

So if you have one, give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org, or hit us up on Twitter at Wayword.

If you need a different idiom to describe somebody who’s really corrupt or really crooked, you can always say, he was so crooked he could hide behind a corkscrew.

Isn’t that a great visual?

Yeah.

That reminds me of my favorite one.

It’s calling somebody a revolving SOB.

He’s an SOB no matter which way you look at him.

Revolving SOB.

That’s good.

877-929-9673.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Daniel Vitullo.

I’m calling from Youngstown, Ohio.

Hi, Daniel.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

So I’ve always had this question in my head, and I’ve never really been able to find an answer.

Whenever I would get in my papa’s car when I was younger, without missing a beat, you would always say, we’re off like a herd of turtles or a turd of hurdles.

And now I don’t know if he just came up with this.

I’ve tried to look it up before, but I’ve never found out.

And he was a kind of kooky dude.

Kooky dude.

So herd of turtles.

This was your father or your grandfather?

My grandfather.

Grandfather.

Grandfather.

Okay.

We’re off like a herd of turtles.

And did he mean anything more than we’re leaving?

No, it was just every time we got in the car to go somewhere, it was we’re off like a herd of turtles or a herd of hurdles.

You know what, Daniel?

I’ve never heard the turd of hurdles part.

I really like that.

The other expression, we’re off like a herd of turtles, a lot of people say it’s one of several sort of fanciful sayings for taking off like that.

Like we’re off like a dirty shirt at the end of the day, or we’re off in a cloud of whale dust, and we’re off like a herd of turtles.

I mean, it’s funny, isn’t it, for several reasons.

I mean, first of all, I don’t think herd is the right word for turtles.

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a herd of turtles.

I once tried to find the collective noun for a bunch of turtles, and some people say the word is bale, B-A-L-E, a bale of turtles.

What your dad does with playing with the words is really funny.

It’s what we call a spoonerism, where you switch those letters around, like you say the Lord is a shoving leopard instead of the Lord is a loving shepherd, that kind of thing.

And it goes back quite a ways to the 1930s, at least ever since then, people have been saying off like a herd of turtles.

But Martha, you talked about off like a dirty shirt, but that implies speed where a herd of turtles is rather slow and disorganized.

Really slow and disorganized.

I wonder if your grandfather was hoping people would hurry up and get in the car.

You would think that, but we always had to, you know, if we had plans with him, we’d always have to set the time a half an hour earlier just for him.

And so he would show up just on time.

He was always tardy.

He was more turtle-like, huh?

Yeah.

Yes, yes, he was.

Well, he sounds like a clever guy.

Yeah, kooky dude.

Oh, yeah, he is.

Thank you, Daniel.

No, thank you very much.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Take off like a dirty shirt and call us 877-929-9673 or email us words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jeffrey Smith from New Bern, North Carolina.

Hi, Jeffrey.

Welcome to the program.

Hi, Jeffrey.

Well, there’s an expression I’ve often heard and I just kind of wondered what is so right about rain.

You know, it just seemed like, you know, I suppose if you’re in the desert, you like rain.

But other than that, rain makes a lot of mud and it ruins a lot of picnics.

And I was just wondering where it could have come from or why they’re so pleased with rain.

Unless I’ve missed it, like rain, like a king monarch’s rain or something.

I don’t know.

No, your original idea is the right one.

It’s R-A-I-N.

And so how would you hear it?

What kind of situation would you be in where you’d hear that?

Well, my father was a Texan, and he had an anecdote.

You know, more of them than Carter had liver pills.

And everything had to have a follow-up.

Like, well, is this correct?

Yep, that’s right as rain.

And it’s like, so he’s confirming that it’s correct.

But he always added that twist.

So there could be some twist that he was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, Southern.

And I’m Dan Yankee from, you know, Connecticut and New Jersey.

And I just wondered, was it a colloquialism from Texas?

Or is there some other reason for rain that I don’t know about?

No, it’s pretty old.

Right as rain goes back to at least the late 19th century.

And there were actually a lot of expressions like this, like write as a book or write as nails or write as the bank.

But this is the one that survived.

And I’m thinking that it’s probably just because of the alliteration, you know, the two R’s there, write as rain.

And also there may be the idea that, you know, sometimes when rain comes down, it comes straight down in a straight line.

And it’s just absolutely right, you know, sort of a right angle to the earth.

But we don’t really know much more about it than that.

It’s a pretty straightforward term.

Well, just trying to prepare to ask you this question, you know, the thing started running around in my mind like two R’s.

I never thought of it being perpendicular to the earth.

I also was thinking maybe it had to do with people talk about, well, after clean rain, everything smells fresh and it started and it’s nice again or something.

But I thought I would serve it up to you guys and let you knock it out of the park.

Well, I don’t know if that was a bunt, but…

Jeffrey, thank you so much for your call.

Call us again sometime, all right?

Okay.

Thanks for taking my call.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Jeffrey mentioned having more of something than Carter has pills.

Well, Carter was a brand name, and Carter sold liver pills.

And you can find out more information about that and thousands of other things on our website at waywordradio.org.

Thanks to senior producer Stefanie Levine, editor Tim Felten, and production assistant Rachel Elizabeth Weisler.

You can send us messages, subscribe to the podcast and newsletter, and catch up on hundreds of past episodes at waywordradio.org.

Our toll-free line is always open in the U.S. and Canada, 877-929-9673, or email us words@waywordradio.org.

A Way with Words is an independent production of Wayword, Inc., a nonprofit supported by listeners and organizations who are changing the way the world talks about language.

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Thanks for listening. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. Until next time, goodbye.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.