A Massachusetts native living in Washington, D.C. says her professor and classmates had no idea what she meant by a “light dawns on Marblehead” moment. It’s a reference to the town of Marblehead in her home state, on an outcropping of land where the sun first hits the coast. It’s also a pun on Marblehead, meaning someone who’s dense. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Light Dawns on Marblehead”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, thanks for taking my call. This is Samantha Fajako from Washington, D.C. By way of Massachusetts.
Oh, hello, Samantha. By way of Massachusetts. How’d you do it? On a boat, train, automobile?
All three at some point.
All right. What’s up? What’s on your mind?
So I wanted to give you guys a call because I’ve been in Washington, D.C. for a while now, and I went to undergraduate school and graduate school here.
And while in graduate school, I was in class one day and we were discussing the previous day’s readings.
And it was my turn to give a little overview of what I thought.
And as I was discussing the concepts in the readings, I said, oh, and when I read this chapter, I had a light dawn on marble head moment.
I continued to speak.
And then my professor interrupted and said, you had a what?
So I, again, I had a light dawn on marble head moment.
And I looked around to my classmates being like, come on, guys, you know what I’m talking about.
And blank stares from everybody looking back at me.
That probably felt good.
And I had been saying this expression for years at this point and had never been interrupted by anybody.
So at this point, I realized that nobody had ever known what I was talking about.
And I had to explain what I meant.
So, Samantha, what did you mean by light?
What is it?
Light dawns?
Light dawns on marble head.
Light dawns on marble head.
So what that means for me is that you’re completely clueless about something, and then all of a sudden it clicks in your head, and you understand everything laid out before you.
But here’s the thing.
You came from Massachusetts, and I think this is significant, right?
Yes, that is what I’m assuming.
So tell us about the Massachusetts connection.
So, I mean, I grew up in Massachusetts.
My entire family still lives there.
And I have always heard this expression being used around my house growing up.
I particularly remember my mom always saying it.
And it’s just something that has always stuck with me and that I would never have thought in a million years was just a Massachusetts thing until this one experience.
Oh, so there is a Marblehead, Massachusetts, right?
Yes, there is.
Oh, no, and it’s kind of north of Boston, northeast of Boston.
Some people call it Marblehead.
Marblehead, right, the lack of the R there.
And if you look this up, it is almost exclusive to Massachusetts, maybe a few of the surrounding states, but mostly people from Massachusetts say light dawns over Marblehead or light dawns on Marblehead or variants of that kind.
Dawn breaks over Marblehead.
And so am I understanding there’s two meanings here?
One is it’s not the most eastern point of Massachusetts, but it’s way out there in the ocean.
A head is a piece of land, is a piece of land that juts out into the ocean.
But the other thing is they’re making a joke about being dense, right?
Being thick in the head and something finally penetrating your thick skull, right?
Yes, exactly.
Okay, very good, very good.
Light dawns over a marble head means that the thick-headed person finally got the information.
Makes sense here.
And growing up, I always pictured in my head a statue.
Okay, yeah.
If my head was made of marble and I had no brains, just marble, and my marble head finally understood something.
Right.
Pigeons resting on your shoulders.
But I didn’t make the connection between Marblehead and Massachusetts.
Yeah.
So it is related to the city.
Actually, it’s not a city.
What do you call that?
It’s some district, a town maybe, which is near Salem if you’re trying to orient it in your brain, everybody.
And it definitely is a reference to the town.
It’s a regionalism.
It doesn’t much get beyond Massachusetts.
It goes back at least as far as the 1960s.
I would not be surprised to find that it’s older.
It’s a good one, Samantha.
I don’t know much more about it except for those things.
Thank you for sharing.
I wish we had more for you, but it’s enough that we get this out in the world so that other people can use it.
Yes, thank you.
Our pleasure.
Now I won’t be looked at funny.
No, never.
That’s true.
Own it.
Be who you are.
Take care, Samantha.
Thanks, Samantha.
All right.
Thank you so much.
Bye-bye.
Appreciate it.
Bye-bye.
Email words@waywordradio.org and hit us up on Twitter @wayword.
