Made from Scratch (episode #1583)

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. A few weeks ago, we talked about that German term for a short distance, Katzensprung. Do you remember that, Grant? Oh, yeah. Yeah, like a cat’s leap or a cat’s spring.

It’s sort of the equivalent of a stone’s throw. You know, it’s not a very long distance. But there are lots of other approximate distances like that that are very picturesque. For example, in Greece today, if something’s nearby, you might say that it’s one cigarette away in a cigarro dromos, which is the distance that you can walk while finishing a cigarette. And in Australia, if something’s far away, either literally or metaphorically, you might say it’s not within a bull’s roar. And that’s because a bellowing bull can be heard for a long, long way.

I know you’ve talked about this before, Grant. In Boston, you might hear people joking about a unit of measurement called a Smoot, which is five feet, seven inches. And that stems from a prank at MIT in 1958, where fraternity members used one of their pledges named Oliver Smoot Jr. as a unit of measure to determine the length of the bridge that connects Boston to MIT’s campus in Cambridge. And Smoot does appear in the American Heritage Dictionary. It says, interestingly, Smoot went on to become the chair of the American National Standards Institute and the president of the International Organization for Standardization.

That’s outstanding. How perfect is that? Isn’t that great? Smoot. Plus a fun name to say.

Yes. It reminds me of all the teasing on Reddit that the Americans get from the rest of the world, basically, of how we’ll measure anything by anything else, as long as we don’t have to use the metric system. We’ll say it’s as big as a baseball field or as big as a football field or one Empire State Building tall or it’s two car lengths or something like that, but we won’t say like 10 meters. We should avoid it. If we can avoid using the metric, we will.

Why haven’t we switched to metric yet?

English is an odd one, and we know you’ve got something you’d like to share with us and everyone else. Give us a call at 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org or go to our website and send us a comment from there, waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, is this Martha?

My name is Andrew. I’m from Fort Worth, Texas.

Hey, Andrew. Welcome.

Hi, Andrew. Welcome to the show.

Hey, Grant. So I work in a retail chain and I sell paint. And I ran across a really weird thing that happened with my language, which I didn’t know I did, which was I used the word preach. And it was just a quick interaction. The guy grabbed his paint and he was running off. And then I handed him some paint sticks. And then I was just like, okay, preach. And he kind of whipped back around and gave me a look. I go, oh, did I forget something? And he just goes, what did you just say? I was like, I said, preach. And he didn’t know what that meant. Said he had never heard somebody say it. And it was just short for, I appreciate you. I appreciate it.

Huh. So I had no idea that that wasn’t a thing. And I swear I’ve heard people say it, but now I think I’m crazy. And I’m like, am I?

No.

Dr. Grant says no.

Yeah, preach is legit.

Yeah, and I was like, of course, if anybody knew, I know you’re like the slang guy. And maybe Martin can even tell me that the ancient Mayans used to say it.

As Aristotle once said, priest, dude.

Yeah, priest, dude.

Yeah, it totally happens. How old are you or what decade are you in?

I’m actually 32, so I’m not young, but I’m not old yet, you know?

Okay, that’s ballpark. The earliest I can find it in print, although I’m sure it’s much older, is 1984 in a newspaper article about college or teen slang. But you do find it as priest dude or really priest or totally priest or much priest or just priest. And you can also have it as non-priest, which is I do not appreciate that or you. But before that, as early as the 1950s, appreciate was just a priest. It was an abbreviation, but not as short as priest up through the 1970s. And it was a shortening of appreciate, but also it was a short of appreciation for things like music appreciation or art appreciation classes. So you might say, I’ve got to go to music appreach or I’ve got to go to art appreach. All teen or college slang.

So it’s got a longer history than that.

I would have never guessed. I thought this was something that may have just started here in the last couple of decades. But back to the 50s and stuff, I would have never guessed that, especially catching, because this was an older gentleman. So, I mean, maybe he just hadn’t heard the preach.

Yeah, it’s not that common, Andrew.

It isn’t really that common, you know.

Well, that figures.

Yeah, but it’s fine. Go ahead. You have my permission.

Oh, yeah. Just look at him, cock an eyebrow and say, excuse me? Next time he’s, I don’t know. You don’t know what that means?

Oh, my gosh. I really preach.

Seriously.

Yeah, well, we preach your call, dude. Thanks for it. Andrew, take care.

Thank you. Take care, guys.

All right. Bye-bye.

Bye, Andrew.

Bye-bye.

This show is about language. Approach. 877-929-9673.

Grant, remember our conversation with Lola from Madison, Wisconsin, who had just bought a 1900s-era home that had an interesting layout. It had the kitchen, but it had a side room that contained a sink and a larder, and we weren’t quite sure what to call it.

Yeah, we had a lot of suggestions for her, but our listeners all seemed to come to an agreement that we should have come up with another word.

That’s right, the word scullery. We heard from Christine in Texas who said, what’s really interesting is that the scullery is making a comeback in modern kitchen designs as a cleaner way to host dinner parties, with all of the open concept kitchens as becoming more popular as a means to keep the prep dishes and dirty dishes out of sight. It sounds like a return to form rather than a new idea.

Yes, someone else who took us to task was Eddie Muhlenberg, who said in South Africa, where I’m from, it’s called the scullery, but it can hardly be regarded as delightful or quaint because as a result of apartheid, it was historically the area in white families’ kitchens for black domestic workers. So it’s a very small area, functional with sink and cabinets, but quite separate from the main part of the kitchen where food prep and cooking take place.

We always appreciate your additions and corrections to what we say. You can always give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your thoughts to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hello, this is Carol in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Hi, Carol. Welcome to the show. Well, the phrase that I’ve often wondered about is making something from scratch. And of course, my mom must have said it to me. And it seems like a phrase that everybody knows. So I wondered its origin and was it ever in a certain specific area of the country and spread or if you can find, if you found that out about it.

When you say making something from scratch, you mean like cooking something in the kitchen?

Yes, not a meal. I mean, I’ve always used it pretty much primarily in terms of baking, like saying, oh, that was made from scratch. And it’s become like a compliment. Like, oh, you made it from scratch. You know, you didn’t buy it in a box.

Right, right. Well, what’s really interesting about this phrase is that it has a very, very literal origin. It just refers to a line scratched in the ground to mark the starting point of a race. So if you have competitors lined up at the very beginning and nobody gets a head start in the race, then they’re all starting from scratch. Nobody has a special advantage or a head start. They’re all starting from nothing.

Okay. All right. Yeah. The original image was runners. And you also see something similar in boxing. It used to be that in a boxing ring, there would be a scratch or a line drawn across the ring.

And then opponents would come up to that scratch from the opposite corners to start the match.

And so they would literally come up to the scratch or come up to scratch.

And so if you’re up to scratch, you’re ready to meet your opponent.

How does that connect with baking?

So you don’t have any helps like a baking mix, like you said.

You’re just starting from the very, very beginning.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah, the baking isn’t the only place that it’s used.

Baking just happens to be someplace that we think about it.

But from scratch could be in a machine shop where you built a car from scratch,

Or it could be in a wood shop or in a farm.

You do lots of things from scratch, not just bake.

Okay.

All right.

I understand that now then.

And you’re using, yeah, the original ingredients.

Yeah, you’re not using a mix.

Right.

There’s no shortcuts.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Exactly.

All right. All right. Well, thank you.

Sure thing. And now you’ll think of us every time you’re baking, right?

Or if I say that to somebody, oh, I made it from scratch. Yes. Thank you.

Excellent. Thanks for calling.

Take care.

Oh, you’re welcome. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

One of my reference books, I wish I had recorded which one, said,

Why wasn’t a company smart enough to make a product called Scratch

So that a homemaker could honestly say that they made their cake from scratch.

Brand name scratch.

I’m surprised nobody’s done that.

877-929-9673.

Here’s a fantastic word that I am going to be sure to use at least when springtime comes,

And that word is huang, W-H-A-N-G. Do you know this word?

Is that naughty? That sounds naughty.

It does sound kind of naughty. There is a version of it, though, that was used in New England and

Mostly Maine around the turn of the last century to mean a house cleaning party. You would invite

Your neighbors to a huang and they would help you clean up your house. How does that work? What do

They get in return? I guess they come over to your house another day? Yeah, yeah. I think it’s like a

Barn raising or something, but I would love to, and I don’t know if my friends would like it,

But to invite people to a huang. I came across this article in the New York Times from 1888,

And it talks about a woman who issued cards for an afternoon party at her home, terming it a huang.

And it says, a Hoang is a house cleaning party, and some of the ladies are sorry that they didn’t dress accordingly.

Apparently not everybody in that area of Maine knew that term, but it’s in the Dictionary of American Regional English.

That would be one way to go to the party, but oh, I wore my nice clothes. I can’t really help with the oven.

See ya.

877-929-9673.

This show is about language seen through family, history, and culture.

Stay tuned 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 we’re joined from New York City by our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Hello, Grant.

Hello, Martha.

How are you guys today?

Doing well.

Good, good. I’m doing very well myself. I have a pretty simple quiz for you today.

What I’ve done is I’ve taken a two-word phrase and changed the first letter of the first word to P.

So, now the second word remains the same. I’ll describe the result, and you tell me what the changed phrase is,

And the original phrase is, if you’re so inclined.

For example, I’ve decided to open what my mother would call a beauty parlor in my home,

But mine will be very romantic.

You can only book appointments for couples.

No singles.

Only two at a time, please.

Now, what would you call a place like that?

So would you be a pear stylist?

That’s not bad.

Pear salon is what I was going for.

But yes, pear stylist works very well.

Exactly.

I think you’ve got it.

Here are a few more.

I mean, a few more.

All right.

Now, here in George, we hold our own unique Summer Olympic Games.

It includes our version of a game with a ball and a net.

But we use only locally grown fruit instead of a ball.

What is that you’re doing?

What is that voice?

That’s my Georgia accent.

Is that what this is?

Peach volleyball.

Peach volleyball, indeed, yes.

Oh, it’s going to pad.

Very good.

I’m sorry, Georgia.

I apologize.

Sorry, Georgia.

Now, I know I don’t have much experience in city planning, but hear me out.

Suppose we took a city just west of Dallas, Texas, and relocated the entire place just off the Gulf of Mexico.

That way, we could ship goods directly there.

Port Worth.

Port Worth, yes. Nice.

As opposed to Fort Worth, of course.

Now, over the course of my life, I’ve taken classes in karate, judo, taekwondo, all sorts.

But invariably, I get halfway through the thing and I just stop.

Partial arts.

Partial arts.

Yes.

Excellent.

Excellent.

Grant’s on a roll.

Yes.

Very good.

It was an obscured sign for martial arts that actually inspired this quiz.

That’s awesome.

That’s funny.

Now, this restaurant in Tokyo is famous for its chicken dishes.

The secret is every day they use a super fast railway to deliver young hens straight from the farm.

The pull-it train.

The pull-it train, yes.

Very good.

That’s good.

Welcome, Hogwarts students, to London Heathrow Airport.

As you know, you’re not allowed to bring any magical liquids, elixirs, brews, filters, whatever, on board the plane.

Just to be sure, we have a device that will find and identify such things.

A potion detector.

That’s it, a potion detector.

Nice, Martha.

Anyway, that’s my pea change for today.

You guys did fantastic.

Congratulations.

Oh, John, thank you so much.

That was a real workout.

We’ll talk to you next week.

Give our best to the family, all right?

Take care.

You too.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

We had a great time talking with John, and now we want to talk with you.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your comments about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, hi, this is Joshua Rowe from Jacksonville, Florida.

Hi, Josh. Welcome to the show.

I was younger, my fit and friendly 20s.

I did a lot of traveling around in Europe and things like that.

And overseas, they have words for a lot of things that you just don’t have translations for in American English.

And, for example, the word abyoko is that real tired feeling you get after you eat a big meal or something.

And since being back, I have found another word called yugen, which is this, like, really cool feeling that, like, deep and mysterious, almost like profound beauty you have, a sense that you have whenever you’re, like, watching a sunset or you’re, like, reading poetry, something like that.

And I always wondered if there were any words in, like, make American English or things kind of like those that you could use to explain.

And maybe you guys would have any kind of great ideas for those.

Well, let’s back up a second.

You used the word abbioco.

Yes.

That’s not my slang, but that was one of the words that kind of stuck with me because, you know, I feel like that all the time.

In Italy.

You’re reminding me of, I was once in Venice and had a nine-course meal that had asparagus in every single course.

And it was because it was asparagus season.

And afterward, there really was this sense of abbioco, as you say.

Talk about un pasta ricco e abundante.

A rich and abundant meal.

Yeah, it’s that feeling of being really full and satiated and just sort of drowsy, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, like not falling asleep drowsy, but just kind of that pushing back from the table.

There’s actually a fun word in Dutch, outbalken, which means to sit back and relax after dinner.

And it comes from words that mean belly out, which is kind of the same thing.

You know, you loosen your belt.

So abyo-ko and al-ba-ken.

What I think is so cool about that word is that it just is so evocative, right?

I’m sure any time you hear that word or have that sensation, you now reach for that word.

Yeah, it does.

It’s really all together and just saying it kind of as such a round word, if you will.

It’s almost like a belly, you know, abyo-ko.

It feels like a mouthful and a stomachful at the same time.

Yeah, it’s interesting.

In English, I don’t know that, Grant, we have anything like that.

We say, I’m full or I’m sufficiently suffonsified.

Not a single word.

Right, that’s what I’m saying.

There’s nothing perfect about a single word.

Multiple words can do the job just as well.

But for some reason, we gravitate to single words.

Exactly.

We can say postprandial drowsiness.

That means a sleepiness that comes after your meal.

Right.

But I think what Josh is saying is that there’s something so delicious about packing all of that into a single word.

Right.

You really get a feeling, right?

Right.

And it’s kind of got these markers on it for him for a time and a place and a moment of his life.

And it’s wrapped up in the experience.

It’s more than just the word.

It’s about where he was and who he was with and what he was doing and what his life was about at the time.

So it’s a suitcase that contains many other things other than there’s more than a meaning there.

Yeah.

A backpack, if you will.

Yeah.

A backpack.

Perfect.

Yeah.

There’s a reason that English is often criticized by other languages for intruding upon their languages and loaning out its words willy-nilly.

Because English often has concepts that are harder to explain or longer to explain.

Weekend, for example, borrowed into numerous European languages is a single word for end of the week.

So we have words that other countries really like and we just think of as ordinary.

It can work both ways.

And we might look at these other words in these other languages as interesting and useful or exotic or just lovely.

And they might say, well, yeah, it’s just an ordinary word.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Josh, if you want to get more of this experience of just feeling like you’ve learned a word that you can savor,

There are two books that I want to recommend to you.

One of them is The Book of Human Emotions by Tiffany Watt Smith,

Just loaded with lots of lovely writing about how we feel and the words we use,

Both in English and other languages, for our feelings.

And the other one is a book by Tim Lomas, that’s L-O-M-A-S,

Translating Happiness Across Cultural Lexicon of Well-Being.

Again, he has looked at lots of languages around the world

And found the ways that these languages think about happiness and talk about happiness.

And it’s interesting to see that these words are tied into cultural concepts.

They’re not necessarily word-for-word translations and can’t be.

So there’s a lot more to say than just A equals B.

So sometimes it’s A equals a paragraph or A equals a page.

So both of these books are very good.

We’ll link to these on the show notes for the episode.

Excellent.

Well, thank you.

Josh, thank you for sharing your memories and reminding me and reminding us how important it is to get out there, see the world, and learn a little bit of every language, just as much as you can gather.

Yeah, thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

It was a great experience.

Hopefully my kids will be able to do that the same one day.

Thanks, Josh.

Bye-bye.

We know there are stories about the words in your life.

Call us and we’ll share those stories with each other.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

If you need a synonym for sleepy or sluggish and you’re just too tired to look one up,

You can always use the word slomy, S-L-O-O-M-Y.

A slum is a light sleep and used as an adjective, slomy means sleepy or sluggish.

Oh, and it sounds like it too, right?

Doesn’t it?

I’ve had it slomy.

It reminds me of watching puppies play, you know, and then they just, they run themselves ragged and then they just get all sloomy.

Yeah, they just flop down.

One minute they’re erratic and crazy and the next minute they’re just asleep.

Sloomy puppy.

Oh, that’d be a great name for a band.

Oh, it would.

Maybe I think you’re a skinny puppy.

Are you going to see Sloomy puppy tonight?

Call us 877-929-9673 or send us email.

We love to get email.

words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jackie Sobrey from Hinsdale, Illinois.

And the word is corker.

My mom used to use it when one of the kids did something a little mischievous or naughty, maybe a little naughty, but not bad.

And I used it on my children and on my husband.

And then my husband looked it up and he said, how could your mother use this word?

It doesn’t mean anything other than a person who puts corks in bottles for a living.

Really?

Well, I’ve looked it up since into other dictionaries, and that’s not what it says.

So we wondered about it.

Yeah, so what kind of behavior are we talking about here that would make somebody be called a corker?

Well, if you were to take one of your other siblings’ Easter eggs out of their Easter basket

And replace the money that might have been in it with a piece of chocolate,

And they found out they were the only child who didn’t get that kind of thing in one of their eggs.

Just little things and whoever was giggling or just little kind of being rambunctious or mischievous.

So they’d be a corker.

Yeah, that’s, I know that one.

He must have had a pretty bad dictionary not to find the sense of corker that we’re talking about here.

The sense of something that is extraordinary or unusual or just kind of takes the cake.

Yes.

Takes the cake.

Or the money you got at the Easter egg.

Yeah, or takes the money.

Yeah, too, yeah.

Yeah, its origin does have to do with corks in bottles,

But it’s not about the person who puts them in the bottles.

Kind of isn’t.

It’s about the end of things.

It’s about the thing that ends the party.

It puts the cork back in the wine bottle or back in the beer barrel

Because it’s the end of things.

There’s no point in talking any further

Because the thing that we’re talking about is obviously and inarguably the best that there ever

Was. There’s no point in saying anything more about it. So that’s the end of the discussion.

And so we’re going to put the cork back in the bottle and this party is over.

And so it is the corker and it goes back as far as the 1830s. And of course, there’s some overlap

With the expression to put a cork in it, which means it’s a rude way of saying to stop talking.

Again, having to do with putting a cork in a hole, you know, to stop whatever’s coming out of it.

And by the 1870s, it really was mostly about something remarkable.

So a woman could be a corker if she was beautiful, or a man could be a corker if he was handsome or, you know, very athletic or something.

Because you are ending all talk about who is the best or who is the most.

It’s also used to mean a knockout punch.

You know, that was a real corker.

And there’s also some overlap with baseball because you might have a corker as a hit, a really strong hit out into the field.

And the idea here was that maybe the bat and the ball had cork in the center, which would make that ball behave differently, go further.

So obviously a cork-filled bat was not something that would be allowed.

So that would be a corker as well.

And all of these meanings of corker kind of interplay with each other,

All kind of occupy that same slang register of English.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, that makes sense.

How interesting.

So how many little corkers do you have?

Well, my mother had six.

Wow.

Okay.

Yes.

And then there were grandchildren that were known to be corkers as well.

Oh, okay.

Got it.

Well, thank you. This adds some insight to it. Yes. I appreciate it.

Jackie, thank you so much for your call. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, too. Bye-bye.

Thanks, Jackie. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hello. My name is Brian. I’m from Pittsburgh.

Hi, Brian.

I’m from Pittsburgh, but when I’m up in western Pennsylvania, I’ll be at a family or friend’s house,

And we’ll be having a meal and someone will say, go ask for the recipe of a dish or a dessert.

And they’ll say, can I have the receipt?

And I’ll say, I’ll give you the receipt.

And I’ve not known those two words to be interchangeable, but up there they know exactly what they’re talking about.

I don’t know if it’s generational or regional, but have you ever heard people referring to their recipe as their receipt?

Well, Brian, actually, you’ve spotted a rare linguistic specimen.

This is super cool.

There are places scattered across the U.S. where people use the term receipt for those sets of instructions of how to cook something, but it’s dying out.

But what’s really interesting about it is that for a long time, both recipe and receipt could be used to mean that list of instructions for cooking something.

Both of these words come from the Latin word recipere, which means to take or receive.

But they entered English at different times and in different ways.

So the older version, the one that you’re hearing when you go and visit these folks, receipt, originally meant the act of receiving something.

And then after that, it meant a piece of paper listing all the things that you received in that transaction.

And over time, it came to mean the list of ingredients and instructions, first for making a medicine and then later for cooking food.

And then the word recipe, the one that is more commonly used in this country, shows up later in the 16th century.

And it’s spelled just like the Latin imperative of that verb recipe or reccipe.

And what would happen in the Middle Ages is that when a physician was writing out what amounted to a prescription, they would write that Latin at the top of it. They would say recupae, meaning here, take these. And then they had the list of the things that you were supposed to take to make this medicine.

And what’s also super cool is that this was eventually abbreviated as RX. And you see that in pharmacies, don’t you? Like on prescription pads and that kind of thing.

So the term recipe went from meaning a list of instructions for making medicine to a list of cooking instructions.

And then, as I said, for a long time, those two words existed side by side in the language.

And there was a time when receipt was the more fashionable term and recipe was considered a more commercial term.

But now the tables have turned, so to speak.

And you’re going to hear fewer and fewer people say receipt for that list of instruction.

It may well die out in another generation or so.

Well, that’s more than I had anticipated.

That’s very interesting.

I’ll have to share that with my friends.

I’m sure they definitely did not know that.

Yeah.

Well, do that at your next dinner table conversation.

It’s a safe conversation.

That’s very good.

I do appreciate the information.

And I enjoy your show.

Oh, well, thank you so much for calling.

We really appreciate it.

And go Stillers.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

All righty.

Thanks, Brian.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, if there’s a word that comes up in conversation at your dinner table and everybody’s curious about it, we’d love to hear about it.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673.

More about what you say and why you say it.

Stay tuned 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 Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. I am very excited to talk about one of the best books I have read in a very long time. It’s called The Invention of Nature, Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, and it’s by historian Andrea Wolfe.

During his lifetime, Alexander von Humboldt was probably the most famous person in Europe besides Napoleon. And in 1869, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, there were massive celebrations in his honor all over the world. There were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of New York and Chicago and Melbourne, Australia and Buenos Aires and Moscow.

And today there are towns and rivers named after him, mountain ranges, 300 plants, more than 100 animals, a glacier, an asteroid. In fact, Grant, the state of Nevada was almost named Humboldt in his honor.

So you may be thinking, who was this guy? That’s what I was thinking when I started reading this book. It turns out that Alexander von Humboldt was a German naturalist, a geographer, and a polymath. And he traveled through much of Latin America, collecting specimens and recording observations that would forever change the way we look at nature.

And when he was a young man, he climbed what was then thought to be the tallest mountain in the world in the Ecuadorian Andes. And when he was in his 60s, he traveled more than 10,000 miles into the remotest parts of Russia. He was just so hungry to learn so many things.

And Charles Darwin himself called Humboldt the greatest scientific traveler who ever lived. And get this, Grant, he was also a close friend of the German poet Goethe, and he befriended Simon Bolivar, and Thomas Jefferson was thrilled to welcome him to the White House.

He’s sort of like the Forrest Gump of the 19th century.

So why don’t we still hold Humboldt in such high regard? Why doesn’t he have the popular consciousness that Einstein has, for example?

You know, I’m hoping he will, Grant, because his most important contribution that I think people are just starting to take notice of again is that at a time when other scientists were looking at nature through the narrow lens of classification and hierarchy, he was describing nature as a web of life where everything was connected. He said nature is a living whole.

And his views at the time, they were revolutionary and hugely influential. And he was actually in 1800 predicting human caused climate change. So I’m really hoping that people will rediscover this guy. I was just, this was a case where a dear friend of mine put this book into my hands and said, you got to read this book. And I looked at it, it’s kind of heavy. And I thought, you know, and I read the book just to humor her. And I just I read a few pages and 400 pages later, I can’t wait to read it again. I’m not kidding.

You came up for air.

Yeah.

And so the book is?

The book is The Invention of Nature, Alexander von Humboldt’s New World. And it’s by Andrea Wolfe, who also in 2019 published kind of a sequel. It’s a graphic nonfiction version of the book illustrated by Lillian Melker. And it’s something you just want to curl up with on a rainy afternoon and just luxuriate in.

Oh, I might have to take a holiday to the rainy climes just to read this book.

Thank you, Martha. That sounds wonderful.

I don’t think my book choice could be more different, Martha. It’s a brief history of everyone who ever lived the untold human story retold through our genes.

Oh, wow.

By Adam Rutherford.

You know, the more I have become interested in historical linguistics, the more I have become interested in historical genetics. There has been a lot of multidisciplinary research that combines those two fields with things like anthropology and archaeology.

And so I kind of wanted to expand what I knew about human genetic history.

So in this book, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, and if that isn’t a brave title, I don’t know what a brave title is, Adam Rutherford explains what we’ve been able to learn from the traces of DNA found in hominid bones throughout the world and what we can surmise about the diet, the intelligence, the appearance, population size, migration patterns, and more.

For example, there were at least four human species that probably interbred. We know something about the whys and the wheres of redheads. We have strong clues about how many times the Americas have been settled and by whom.

We can determine which populations of the world today have the most Neanderthal DNA, and we know that it doesn’t make them dull-witted.

But one thing the book does a really good job of is defeating our expectations that we will learn everything about ourselves through ancient DNA or that we’ll ever have a Jurassic Park moment.

And, for example, raise a Neanderthal clone. Rutherford is constantly regretful about how insufficient our language is to describe DNA in anything but scientific terms.

How metaphors fall short or mislead. Calling DNA a map, a manual, or an epic poem can help us understand it. But, you know, our genes are not instructions or blueprints. And language like that, he says, doesn’t really help us recognize the fundamentally probabilistic nature of our genes.

That is, you know, that it’s kind of like each gene is a dice roll. You know, it’s not an off or on. There’s a lot that goes into deciding what that gene will do. But as he says in the final analysis, there’s an interview with him in the back that is very instructive. And he says, genetics underwrites all biology. It is the language that evolution is written in. And so I guess that’s one metaphor he can’t stay away from.

What does it mean that I am reading about the invention of nature and you’re reading about the history of everybody who ever lived? Dorks.

In any case, these are the books that we’ve been enjoying lately. You know, we’d love to see pictures of the stacks of books next to your bed or couch. Send them along to us on Twitter @wayword. Or if you’d like to just explain what you’re reading and why you’re really liking it, send us an email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Barb from Boston.

Hey, Barb.

Hi.

And I’m calling because in a previous life I had, I was a banker on Wall Street, and I worked for a British bank. And we had a situation one day where we got some mail, and it landed on my desk. And it was from a Nigerian prince, and it was a wonderful offer for the bank. And everybody laughed, and I was told, oh, that’s a tizzy. You have to send that to the tizzy hunting office. I thought it was a joke, but apparently this bank in London had an office that was called the tizzy hunting office. And so I found the envelope that came in and sent it off and didn’t hear anything more about it. But I always wondered what in the world the tizzy hunting was. I never had another instance of it happening there.

And over the years, I’ve always mentioned tizzy hunting when I’ve seen a scammer or fraud, and everybody looks at me strangely. Then I figured, you know, you probably would be able to figure it out for me. And nobody at the office really ever said more to you about tizzy or tizzy hunting?

I was new and no, and they didn’t explain it. They just said, that’s a tizzy. And that was it. And because we didn’t, I was learning a lot and there were other things going on. We never had another instance of it. And I looked it up in the directory and we actually did have a tizzy hunting office.

Really?

How about that?

I want to see their stationery.

Wow. That would be so cool.

It’s funny that you should mention the stationery, Martha, because that is one of the scams that tizzy hunters are on the lookout for. Sometimes people will write innocuous letters to banks hoping to get, I mean, it’s less common now, hoping to get something back on official bank stationery that they can then reproduce to make scam letters on stationery.

Huh. Interesting.

This was in the days before email. It was in 1981, so it was many years ago. Well, I have a little bit to tell you, and then I have a bit of speculation. So I’ll tell you the things that I know for sure. There is a mention in the Dictionary of the Underworld by lexicographer Eric Partridge. He says a tiz worker is a confidence man. That’s a con man from the 1920s. And that tiz, T-I-Z-Z, is short for the low slang tizzle, meaning a swindle or a fraud. And I’m certain that these are connected to what you’re talking about.

And then there’s old Cockney slang of tizzy, meaning a sixpence. Sometimes tizzy is spelled T-I-Z-Z-I, sometimes T-E-I-Z-Z-Y. And there’s no indication that connected, but I do believe that they are. And I am certain that this is a British term. Now, the speculation here that I have is it may be connected to a speech given by Winston Churchill in 1909. And I’ll tell you why. He was giving a speech about, you know, at this point, Churchill is already 35 years old. He was already a big figure in politics and famous enough to have his first wax figure at Madame Tussauds. And he was referring in this speech to taxing foreigners. And he used the term tizzy hunting just as you used it.

How about that?

What he was talking about was that the government was going to spend large sums of money to get taxes from foreigners only to get back a little bit of revenue for all of its effort. And what he meant was that they were going to get these tizzies, these sixpence from these people when they were spending so many millions of pounds. He thought he was making an important point, but his audience didn’t understand. It was new slang to them, so they just kind of sat there and didn’t respond. And so I’m wondering if this tizzy hunting is the same tizzy hunting that you’re talking about, this idea of going after money from foreigners.

I do think it was part of, so the bank was based in London, and the tizzy hunting office was part of the international side because the bank was an enormous retail banker in Britain, but we were on the international side. And so that might make some sense. It definitely fell out of flavor. They don’t use it anymore, apparently.

No, I only found it. Otherwise, I found tizzy used in the way that you use it to refer to fraud outside of this dictionary of the underworld, only in one other source. It’s really just not that common. But I got to tell you, I’ve added this to what I call like my permanent hunt list, where anytime I come across a new resource, like a great new reference book or a great new website, I will look for this and just see if there’s something new that I can find.

Well, that solves that. Because whenever I see some new fraud, I say, oh, that’s a tizzy, and everybody stares at me.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for calling.

Well, thank you.

Thank you, Barbara. I really appreciate your call. Take care now.

Well, thank you very much.

Bye-bye.

Email us, words@waywordradio.org, or give us a call, 877-929-9673.

We were talking earlier about picturesque ways to measure distance, and apparently there’s an old Finnish tradition of poronkusima, which is something that translates as reindeer pee, and it has to do with the fact that reindeer supposedly have to take a bathroom break every six or seven miles or so.

Oh, so that’s the distance between bathroom stops for a reindeer.

Yeah, I kind of measured distance that way on road trips myself.

Reindeer known as caribou in North America, usually.

That’s right.

Yeah, I lost that. I play the Learned League trivia, and I actually missed that question, so it’s stuck in my brain.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Kimberly, and I’m calling from Harrisonburg, Virginia. How are you today?

Doing great.

Thanks for calling, Kimberly. What’s up?

So I have a question about a word. My family on my mother’s side is rather large. My mom was one of nine kids. And growing up, they ate a breakfast food. Now, they were pretty poor back in those days, but this was a very normal breakfast that they had all the time, and it was called scorns. And what it is is simply just biscuit dough fried. You literally just grab a hunk of biscuit dough and throw it in the frying pan and fry it. And so, you know, each one kind of has different shapes. And then you serve it with butter and that’s it. And so we will have these when we have our family get-togethers, such as for Christmas or other things. But we’ve always just wondered, where does that word come from? Because we’ve never met anyone who knows what they are. And so I’m really curious if there’s anyone else out there who knows what scorns are and calls them that.

Scorns. And this is just simply fried biscuit dough. There’s no corn involved, in other words.

Right.

No, just no corn, just fried biscuit dough, which I think typically made with, like, you know, from scratch biscuit dough, just from flour. But I think you could also do it from frozen dough, although my mom said they never used canned dough.

Okay.

Okay. I got to tell you, Kimberly, I don’t know that one. I have a bunch of food books. And by food books, I mean words, books about food words, books about food etymology, cookbooks in four languages.

And I have never come across the word scorn to refer to any kind of food dish.

Now, if you Google it and do kind of clever searches with scorn and dough or fried scorn or fresh scorns, you’ll find some typos for scorn where people clearly meant scone, S-C-O-N-E.

And that obviously probably came to your mind already.

For sure.

We’ve always wondered if it was related to the word scone, but they’re so different, really.

And also, again, like they were pretty poor, so I don’t know that they would have even been familiar with scones back in those days.

But then maybe that’s how it started. They heard a word and misunderstood it.

Well, scones have about 500 years of history from Scotland.

And scones in the U.K. are different from scones in the U.S.

They’re more like American biscuits.

Oh, really? Okay.

Yeah, I’m just wondering if someone in your family heard someone British talking about scones and sort of assumed that they were pronouncing a word that had an R in it?

You know, it could be.

And my mom’s family, now they come from Boston.

So I guess there’s a pretty large Scotch-Irish population that would have been up there, right?

So it could be that.

I’m not sure.

I still would love to hear if any of your other listeners have ever heard of it.

That would be awesome.

Yeah, I would too.

Yeah, you’re doing our job for us, Kimberly.

We’ll put on the language sirens and the flashing cherries and see what we get in return when we put the word out, all right?

Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

I love being on the show, but honestly, I’m so excited to be on the show, I’m more excited to find out about this word.

So I hope something turns up.

We do, too.

Stay tuned.

The blueberries and cherries are spinning and the sirens are going.

And if you know Kimberly’s word for fried biscuit dough, they call it scorns in her family.

Let us know, 877-929-9673.

Kimberly, if we find out more information, we will talk about it on the show and let you know.

That’s wonderful.

Thank you guys so much.

Have a great day.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Kimberly.

Bye-bye.

I do like what you said about the pronunciation because in parts of the UK and the US, a word like S-C-O-R-N, the R wouldn’t be pronounced to be lack of roticity, and it would sound like scone.

And the word S-C-O-N-E is pronounced in part of the UK like scorn.

And so it might be a misunderstanding that kind of translated into people saying, oh, that’s corn.

Let us know. 877-929-9673.

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.

Many thanks to Wayword board member and our friend Bruce Rogow for his help and expertise.

Thanks for listening.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Until next time, goodbye.

Bye-bye.