Jumped Up Bald-Headed

What do your pronouns say about your own psychological makeup? If you use the word I a lot, does it mean you’re a leader . . . or a follower? A surprising study suggests that people of lower status in a group tend to use I the most. Also, a look at why businesses intentionally misspell the names of their products. Sometimes it’s a smart marketing strategy — and sometimes it’s a necessity. Plus, bunt vs. butt, Duck Duck Gray Duck vs. Duck Duck Goose, alumnae vs. alumni, the silent s in island, throwing a wobbly, and “Holy old jumping up baldheaded!”

This episode first aired November 9, 2013. It was rebroadcast the weekend of April 6, 2015.

Sensational Spelling

 Companies sometimes intentionally misspell a product’s name in order to get customers’ attention. These deliberate mistakes, such as Cheez Whiz, Krispy Kreme, and Froot Loops, are also called sensational spelling or divergent spelling.

German Scrap Cake

 Restekuchen, or baked goods made with leftover ingredients, are popular in Germany, where their name translates as “scrap cake.”

Anagram Tweet

 From the Twitter feed of @anagramatron comes this apt pair of anagrams: Annoying kids all around me anagrams to I sound like an angry old man.

Music on Boydog

 Turn the music down, it doesn’t need to be on boydog! Have you heard this synonym for “the highest level”?

Throw a Wobbly

 To throw a wobbly means lose self-control in a panic or temper tantrum, or to cause consternation by acting in a surprising way.

Funny Softball Team Names Puzzle

 Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game about funny softball team names. For example, the real-life name of the Whitney Museum’s employee softball team? Why, they’re the Whitney Houstons, of course.

Silent S in Island

 If you were stranded on a desert island, wouldn’t you get to thinking how odd it is that we don’t pronounce the s in island? It was added during the Renaissance in an attempt to make the word look more like its Latin source, insula.

International Versions of “Say Cheese!”

 Say cheese! isn’t the only phrase photographers use to get people to smile. Sometimes French speakers ask the subject of a photo to say ouistiti, which means “marmoset.” Omniglot has a collection of these terms from photographers around the world.

Duck, Duck, Gray Duck Game

 In Minnesota and some nearby states, the children’s game Duck Duck Goose is known as Duck Duck Gray Duck.

Malware Reunion

 When you follow up with someone you’ve not heard from in a while to let them know their email was hacked, you might call it a malware reunion.

Stitch in your Side

 The stitch in your side that results from laughing goes back to the thousand-year-old use of the verb stitch to refer to a sewing needle poking through something.

Eating Corn through a Picket Fence

 How wide are the gaps between your teeth? Wide enough to “eat corn on the cob through a picket fence?”

Use of First-Person Singluar

 Contrary to what you might think, new research by psychologist James Pennebaker suggests that people who use the pronoun I a lot actually tend to occupy the lower status in a conversation. In addition, Pennebaker and his associates found that people who are lying tend to avoid speaking in the first-person singular.

Alumnae vs. Alumni

 Alumnae is the plural for a group of all-female former students, while alumni is the term for all-male groups, or co-ed groups. The male singular is alumnus, and the female is alumna. In informal settings, you can just use alum or alums.

Baseball Bunt

 The bunt, that deliberately short hit in baseball, was long interchangeable with butt, as in two rams butting heads.

Brown Kitties

 Trust us, you don’t want brown kitties. This dialectal term is another name for bronchitis.

Jumping Up Bald-Headed

 “Holy old jumping up baldheaded!” is a colorful exclamation with ties to both Jesus of Nazareth and Gary Busey. (In Busey’s case, the phrase was Holy Jumped-Up Baldheaded Jesus Palamino.)

Sharpen an Egg

 Among some Spanish speakers, the slang phrase sacapuntas en huevos refers to someone so stubbornly persistent, they could sharpen an egg.

This episode is hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, and produced by Stefanie Levine.

Photo by Chris Yunker. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Music Used in the Episode