Old College Try (episode #1607)

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. If you are now trudging through the bleak midwinter,

I have a poem for you. It’s called Mnemonic.

Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. Unless a leap year is its fate,

February hath 28. All the rest hath three days more, except in January,

Which hath 6,184.

How true is that?

That’s by Brian Bilston,

Who has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media

Because he’s incredibly prolific

And he writes a lot of witty poems like that.

And that’s from his new book called Days Like These.

Oh, yeah, I follow him on social media as well,

Mainly because his stuff is such an uplift

Every time I see it.

He’s the poet in the Shel Silverstein model where there’s multiple layers.

There’s the funny layer.

There’s the thoughtful layer.

And then there’s like, how did he do that layer?

Right, right.

That’s a great way to describe it.

Yeah, they sneak up on you sometimes.

Way With Words is about language.

And we open the phone lines to you every week.

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Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Nikki Hamer and I’m calling from Massachusetts.

Let me start with this.

I have a beef with beef.

You’re a vegetarian?

No, I’m just kidding.

Well, I was, but then it kind of, you know, when you have kids and you have to like test and cook everything because you want them to have kind of a good sampling of food, your vegetarianism kind of nods off a bit.

But this beef is about a feud with my daughter.

When you have a problem or you have an issue with someone, I tend to say you have a beef with someone.

And she says you have beef with someone.

And I thought that was so strange.

I’m like, well, you have to put a preposition.

You have to put an A in there or something like that for it to make a bit of sense.

And I was thinking, I was like, well, what’s the best usage?

I mean, how are you supposed to say it?

Are you supposed to say you have a beef with someone?

Are you supposed to say you have beef with someone?

Apparently, her English teacher also says beef without using an A or anything like that.

And I’m just horrified.

So I was wondering if this is possibly an age difference.

She’s 13.

Or is it a regional difference?

I grew up in Wisconsin.

We live in Massachusetts. So I wanted to know what is the proper usage of that phrase and maybe a little bit about its origin and why is there so much beef with beef?

I have no idea. It even sounds ridiculous. Just thinking about it.

Oh, this is good. Let me ask you, do you know how old your 13 year old’s English teacher is?

I think we’re around the same age. He’s, I think, in his early 40s, so I’m probably a little older than him, but I don’t know. I thought it was so strange.

Nikki, this is a really good one because I think you’ve really hit on something that is actually happening to this slang word.

So just to look at a little bit of the history, beef started in the very late 1800s.

We’re talking 1899 is the first use we know of in print to mean having a problem.

So having a problem with someone or something or a situation to have a complaint.

So it is old. It is an old slang word.

And there are lots of variations on what beef is mean.

But in slang, we’re not talking about the food.

We’re not talking about the animal.

Right.

So sometimes it has meant a fight or an altercation.

Sometimes it has meant just a harsh talk.

You know, he gave me a lot of beef when I asked him to do this thing.

So sometimes it’s meant a criminal charge or a rap sheet or it’s meant a sentence to prison, something like that.

So there’s lots of different.

On all of these, it’s negative.

Let’s just focus right now on the one that you’re talking about, which is a disagreement.

So you’re talking about to have a beef with someone, to have a disagreement with someone or an issue between you that can’t be resolved.

Traditionally, it has had, it has been a count noun.

You can have a beef or multiple beefs.

But starting around 1970s, in the 1970s, we start to see it change.

There’s a citation in Green’s Historical Dictionary of Slang that says,

Has he got any beef with you?

And we start to see the mass noun version of this appear.

And a mass noun doesn’t require an article.

And can’t be counted.

So it’s kind of like sheep versus dogs.

We can have a dog, we can have two dogs.

But we have one sheep, we have many sheep.

We have two sheep.

And then Pamela Monroe at UCLA and her linguistics students

For a number of years put together some slang collections

And in 2001 and 2005 they had entries for beef.

And they also used it as a mass noun.

So they would say, have beef with or have beef between.

Oh, wow.

Again, no article there.

They don’t have a beef, right?

So they used it like your daughter.

Oh, my goodness.

How could they be wrong, too?

No, it’s language change, and language change is normal.

And what we do is we accept it.

And we just acknowledge the amazingness of witnessing this happening before our eyes and go, whoa, I caught on to this.

I noticed it.

And how cool is that I saw it happen?

That’s so true.

Oh, wow.

That’s amazing.

That is so interesting.

Now I have to tell her she’s right.

Oh, no.

Or the language change is correct.

Yeah, this wonderful example of language changing right under our feet, moving from a count noun to a mass noun.

The larger question is, why do we talk about beef to mean fight?

I don’t know.

Except if you’ve ever seen cattle fight or bulls fight, it’s kind of alarming to see these huge animals go at it.

It is.

You back up.

You go find a tree to hide behind because they are alarming.

So maybe that’s why.

I don’t otherwise know.

Well, Nikki, I think the even larger question here is, what are you going to do about it?

How are you going to talk to your daughter about this?

I know what she’ll say.

She’ll say, I told you I was right.

And then I’ll just say, you know what?

Marth and Grant did not say you were right.

They just talked about the beauty and change of slang and language.

Oh, come on, Mom.

Mom, what you’ve got to say to your daughter is, you know what?

You were right.

I love this.

I’m so glad that you taught me something.

That’s so true.

And she’ll say, see, you’re old.

And you give her a kiss and a hug, and you guys go have ice cream together.

That sounds wonderful.

That is so cool.

I think that’s so cool.

That is really, really cool.

And I thank you so much for that.

Yeah.

Oh, thank you for bringing this to our attention.

And Nikki, you now have to call us again soon, all right?

Thanks, I will.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Parents and their children often have discussions about language.

They teach each other things.

What have you learned from your children or what have you learned from your parents?

Share it with us.

We’d love to hear how language is changing in your house.

877-929-9673.

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Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hello.

Who is this?

This is Megan from East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

Hello, Megan in Pennsylvania. What’s going on?

Hi, Megan.

Hi.

Hi.

So I have a phrase for you guys.

I work in physical therapy, and the one day I was trying to get my patient to do an activity,

And I said, let’s just give it the old college try.

And it kind of dawned on me, like, that’s kind of an odd phrase.

And I was just wondering if you guys happened to know, like, where it came from,

Like, did I hear it in a movie sometime?

Well, Megan, you’ll be interested to know that this phrase goes all the way back to the early days of baseball.

When a baseball player would try to make a spectacular play, one against all odds, like chasing a fly ball way into foul territory.

That was referred to as the old college try.

And in fact, in the 1920s, Babe Ruth himself defined the old college try as playing to the grandstand or making a strenuous effort to field a ball that obviously cannot be handled.

Isn’t that interesting?

Yes, and that is not what I expected at all.

Of course not.

Well, what’s also interesting about this, Megan, is that in the early days of baseball, there was a certain tension between the few professional players who were college educated and all the other guys who simply picked up the game on the sandlots, you know, and had been playing it forever.

And so in the early 1900s, you’ll see reports of these grizzled old baseball managers or teammates just kind of sarcastically saying, well, you certainly gave it the old college try or that’s the old college spirit or the old college effort.

And then over time, that phrase kind of ameliorated.

It became more positive.

And so people like physical therapists will use it to get somebody to do a certain kind of movement.

Give it the old college try, but it goes back to baseball.

How cool is that?

Oh, wow.

That is very cool.

Well, Megan, thank you so much for the question.

Oh, no. Thank you guys for answering it for me.

Take care now.

Bye.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org, or there’s lots of other ways to reach us, no matter where you’re listening in the world.

Go to waywordradio.org/contact.

At the top of the show, I shared a poem from Brian Bilston, whose new book is called Days Like These.

He posts poems on the internet just about every day, and I wanted to share part of one.

It’s called Index of Discarded First Lines.

It looks like an index with the first line and then dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, and then the page number.

So I just want to share a few lines from this poem called Index of Discarded First Lines.

Also, I am bleeding profusely, so please stay for a while.

Dot, dot, dot.

Eight.

I am a bowl chipped at the rim.

Forty-three.

Me and you in matching tank tops.

Thirty-nine.

Our love is like a broken oat cake.

Sixty-one.

That, my dear, is a diphthong.

And there are just a lot of these.

And I just, they’re great writing prompts, don’t you think?

I absolutely do.

But it is about the weird intimacy of life with other people.

The strangeness of the topics that come up and the things that you say to each other.

Right.

For that was the winter we listened to Enya.

Right.

If you could have an index for your life with your loved ones, it would be equally as strange.

All the odd things that you say.

And you would be red-faced at some of them.

So if you follow Brian Bilston on social media, you can enjoy these poems on a regular basis.

And in the meantime, we’d love to talk with you about language.

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

More about language and how we use it as A Way with Words continues.

You are 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 ducking into our recording igloo is our quiz guy, John Janeski.

Hi, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

I really wish we could raise the roof here a little bit.

You know, I’m 6’5″. It’s kind of uncomfortable, but we’ll give it a shot, okay?

Yeah.

Now, this puzzle is something we’ve done before.

This quiz, we like it a lot.

It’s called Common Bonds.

It means that I will give you three things, and you tell me what they have in common.

Now, there’s lots of names for these things.

If you’ve ever played the board game Tribond, same thing.

If you’re a fan of the game show Only Connect in the UK, same thing.

When I host Pub Trivia every week, it’s typically our last round.

Again, I call it Common Bonds, okay?

Yeah.

For example, if I said slide, golden, five-second.

Rule.

Yes, they can all be followed by rule, slide rule, golden rule, and five-second rule.

That last one being the giveaway.

The giveaway, indeed.

And it’s also nothing.

It doesn’t actually exist.

Okay.

Badminton, bikinis, limericks.

Badminton, bikinis, and limericks?

Yes.

How about things named for places?

Yes, things named for real places.

Badminton in the UK and Bikini Atoll and Limerick, of course, in Ireland.

How about this one?

Allen, Crescent, Monkey.

Wrench.

Wrench.

Wrenches, yes, types of wrenches.

Allen wrench, Crescent wrench, Monkey wrench.

How about this one?

Rain, Heart, Prose.

Purple.

Purple, yes.

Purple ring, purple heart, purple prose.

Finally, noodle, bean, nut.

Don’t say they’re things you eat.

That’s too easy.

Well, they are, but noodle, bean, nut.

Should we use our noodles for this one?

Yes, you should.

So they can all mean brain or head.

Yes, they’re all synonyms or slang terms for the head.

Use your noodle. Use your bean. Use your nut.

And you guys certainly did. You did a great job. Congratulations.

Common bonds once again. You nailed it.

Thank you, John. We’ll work on adding a second story to our recording igloo.

To the igloo, yes, please.

We’ll see you next week.

See you then. Take care, guys.

Take care.

All right. Bye-bye, John.

We’d love to talk with you about any aspect of language whatsoever, slang, grammar, word origins, or something fantastic that you read recently.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your thoughts to us in email.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Amy, Amy Davis from Western Kentucky.

Hello, Amy. Welcome to the show.

Yeah, a phrase that’s come to mind when I was growing up, we would hear, I remember my aunt Donna Kaye telling my cousin this all the time.

My parents would say this as well.

They would say, we’re going to cut your water off.

And usually it was used in the context of you’re doing too much.

We’re tired.

You’re not going to go here.

You’re not going to go there.

I’m not going to drop you off at your friend’s house.

But I thought that was such an interesting phrase.

I’ve even used it with my own children.

Your Aunt Kay would say, we’re going to cut your water off to mean we’re going to stop your activities.

Yes.

And she didn’t work for the water board.

No.

No.

And was it kind of a threat, like you better behave or you better straighten up?

Yes.

It was always said with weariness and like child, you’re wearing us out.

We’re going to cut your water off.

I’ve wondered if the implication was, we’re going to cut off your supply.

You know, as the authoritative figure, the parent, we’re cutting off your supply of transportation.

We’re cutting off your supply of money.

We’re cutting off your supply, so you have to shut down.

Yeah, your supply of everything that gives you energy.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s great.

I mean, it’s a wonderful metaphor, right?

Do that one more time and I’ll cut your water off or straighten up or I’ll cut your water off.

I’ve also seen a variant of this phrase that goes, I’ll cut your water off and take your meter out.

Now, that’s serious.

And I’ve seen it as I’ll cut your water off and read your meter.

Yeah.

Please don’t.

Which means not only will you have no water, but you’re going to get a bill.

Right.

Right.

But Amy, it’s not just your family. This phrase has been around since at least the early 1930s. There was a musician in the early 1950s, 1951, a fellow named Toby Doughty. Did you ever hear of him?

No.

Well, he was an old-timey country musician.

He had a TV show in Florida, and he had something of a hit in 1951 with a song called, I’d Cut Your Water Off.

I’d drink milk and buy you gin, then catch you drinking it with other men.

If I were a plumber, I’d cut your water off.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, it was written by a woman named Dot Horner.

I wonder what her hard times were like.

It’s just terrible.

Although Amy, I really like your family’s usage of it, saying that to kids.

I can just hear the exasperated parents.

Cut your water off.

Well, with seven children of my own, I find myself saying that.

Like there are too many sports.

We are cutting the water off.

Oh, too many sports.

Yeah, taking the air out of the tires for sure.

Turning off the internet.

Early bedtime. Yes, Amy, thank you so much for the call and sharing your family’s memories. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. I appreciate your show. It keeps me laughing.

All right, take care. Good be well. Take care, Amy. Bye-bye. Well, what’s the word or phrase that your family is wondering about? You’ve heard it all your life and you just think, what in the heck? Where did that come from? Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

We were talking earlier about the old college try and how that’s a term that comes from the early years of baseball, and it occurs to me, Grant, that another one of those terms is inside baseball. That refers to a particular style of play that emphasized sneaky strategies like bunts or chopping the ball so it bounces really high or runners being super aggressive about stealing bases.

It’s all about clever teamwork and quick thinking as opposed to the power hitting that came later in baseball. That was referred to in the early days of baseball, late 19th century, early 20th century, as inside baseball. And over the years, it moved outside of baseball and became used as a term for highly specialized knowledge about anything.

Yeah, I have an entry for that in my dictionary of political slang, and it’s a term that I like quite a bit. It is used in politics. The inside baseball of politics tends to be that knowledge that never quite escapes to the voters about how the systems work and about how the campaigns are operated.

Right, right. And I was just so fascinated that it actually referred to a particular style of play early on in baseball. I learned that from the wonderful baseball dictionary by Paul Dixon. Reach out to us, waywordradio.org/contact.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Charlie, and I’m calling from Columbia, South Carolina.

Hey, Charlie, welcome. What can we do for you?

Well, there’s an expression I heard a few years back, and I’ve heard it a few times since then. I’m very curious about it. In reference to South Carolina, I’ve heard it called South CAC. And I’m curious about where that comes from.

South CAC. And in what context did you hear that?

The first time I heard it was when longtime NBA all-star Kevin Garnett finally won a championship. And he was being interviewed. And he was shouting out to different individuals and places. And he’s from South Carolina. So he gave a shout out to South CAC.

And that sounds very positive then. Like he was proud of being from South Tech.

Very much so. I’m not at all sure that he was the first one to say it, but he’s the first person I heard use that.

Yeah. And you know what’s funny is I think you’re really representative. Every time that this has been looked into, usually with informal surveys, particularly there were some in the early 2000s, a lot of people who live in the Carolinas, that’s North and South Carolina, say they never heard it. Where some people say, yeah, of course I’ve heard it. I’ve known it all my life. And it’s just one of those strange things.

And it’s not just cack, but it’s cackalacky. And probably a dozen or more variations of it. Cackalacky, cackalacka. Is there a north cack?

Yeah, there’s a north cack and a south cack and kalinky as well. And North Carolina sometimes is called north no cack or north click.

Nice. Interesting.

Yeah, cacalacti, kalink, kalinky, all of these. And the history of this is really interesting in that we can’t find the roots of it. It does seem to be primarily oral. That is, it’s something that was said long before it ever showed up in print. So it’s old.

We find it in a play by Kathleen Kimball, who was a playwright living in North Carolina. She included it in a play in 1972. But the language historian Bonnie Taylor Blake found a tantalizing possible use of Kalinki in the 1930s. And I say tantalizing because it’s not clear at all what they meant in this very short phrase. And the phrase is, the mighty bear hunters have returned from North Kalinki without bear. I mean, bear, and it’s abbreviated bear where the E is left out and it’s just a B apostrophe A-R.

But the reason it’s confusing is there’s a comma between North and Kalinke. Nobody knows why. Is it just a mistake? Is it supposed to be there? Why? And it’s from like 1936. And that could be the thing, but we don’t know for sure.

In any case, what happened was in the 1990s was a resurgence of this being used in hip-hop. So that might be explaining why Kevin Arnett was using it. You know, I mentioned those surveys earlier that were from the early 2000s. Now, normally did a lot of people in the Carolinas say that they didn’t know the term. But among those who said they knew the term, they said they remembered it from the 50s and 60s. And they thought it might be a little derogatory or that it was only used by out-of-staters, people who weren’t from there.

And it looks like the 90s use of it in hip-hop has turned that around. And now it’s more claimed by people from the Carolinas. And it’s more positive now.

Wow, I had no idea. Now, as to where it comes from, most people agree it’s just a way to spell it. There’s one theory that it’s from a Cherokee word. There’s one theory that it comes from the German word for cockroach. Another word that it’s from a name of a traditional Scottish soup. There’s one that’s from a humorous pronunciation of Cadillac, but all of these lack supporting information. They’re just strictly based upon pronunciation alone without any supporting data.

And so I really just think it’s a hilarious, it’s somebody’s humorous idea of a pronunciation of Catalana. That’s what I’m thinking. It’s like coinkydink, you know, for coincidence. There’s just somebody saying Catalina in a really exaggerated way, and it just kind of took off from there.

I noticed it has the same intonation pattern as Carolina.

Yeah, absolutely.

Excellent. All right, take care.

All right.

Take care. Be well. Bye.

We have a ton of listeners in South Carolina and North Carolina, and we would love to hear their take on, do you consider this derogatory? Do you have home state pride for this term, referring to the Carolinas? Which variant do you use? And how far back do you remember using it? Let us know, 877-929-9673, or tell us in email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Marta, and I’m calling from Ukraine.

Ukraine?

Yeah, that’s it.

Yeah, Ukraine. Marta, welcome to the show. It’s great to have you.

Oh, thanks. Likewise. I’m really glad to be here. How can we help?

Yeah, so actual English is my second language, and I enjoy learning new words. So when I was reading the book Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, I came across the word parasol, which is quite similar to the Ukrainian word that means umbrella, and it sounds like parasol. So it immediately caught my attention, and I’m wondering whether this word is still used nowadays and which meaning it has.

Okay, the word parasol, P-A-R-A-S-O-L.

Yeah, exactly.

Right. And you came across this in the book Little Women?

Yeah, yeah, that’s it. Do you have a passage from there that you could share with us?

Yes, yes, I can read it. Just be calm, cool, and quiet, but safe and ladylike, and you can easily do it for 15 minutes, said Amy, as they approach the first place, having borrowed the white parasol and been inspected by Meg with a baby on each arm.

Okay, having borrowed the white parasol. You know, Marta, I’m betting that this action is probably taking place on a sunny day, that these characters aren’t really expecting rain. Is that your sense?

Yeah, yeah, that’s it.

Yeah, that makes sense because generally speaking in the United States, you use the word parasol for a shade from the sun. It’s an umbrella that you use to keep the rain off. And honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever used the word parasol in everyday conversation.

Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, it makes sense.

Yeah, a parasol, generally speaking, is a smaller, more delicate, it can be dainty and even lacy, and it’s used to keep the sun off of you rather than the rain off of you, which is what you use an umbrella for.

So, you know, we don’t use those so much in this country.

But you’re right that the English word parasol for that kind of shade is a distant cousin of the term that you use.

What was that again in Ukrainian?

Yeah, it sounds like parasola.

Parasola.

Yeah.

Yeah, both of those words come from ancient roots that mean against the sun.

And, of course, these two languages are distant relatives because they go back to Proto-Indo-European.

They’re very distant cousins.

And you also see evidence of this in other languages.

In French, the word parasol means a beach umbrella.

It’s that big thing that you take to the beach.

But generally speaking, Grant, I never use the word parasol.

No, no, but I think more significantly here probably is the French and its influence on the other European languages.

Because many items of fashion, although modern French might use the beach umbrella for that term, the fashion item that a lady would carry, the delicate lacy thing, probably spread throughout Europe from the French.

And that is how more than likely parasol entered English and Ukrainian and Polish and German and Spanish, Bulgarian and other languages, starting in Latin, then in Italian and then entering French.

But French being the main spreader of the word.

Yeah, thank you.

It’s like I’ve never thought about it, but it makes a lot of sense.

And like it actually opened my eyes.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for talking with us.

We really appreciate it.

And be safe and take care of yourself.

All right.

Thank you so much for having me.

Have a good day.

Bye-bye.

No matter where you are in the world, we’d love to talk to you.

We can talk to you by Skype, WhatsApp, and lots of other ways.

Find out more at waywordradio.org/contact.

Here’s an old phrase that you can use in response to somebody who’s particularly gossipy or talkative.

Your tongue wags at both ends.

I had to think about that, Grant.

I’ve heard that before.

That’s a good one.

I’ve heard a variant which is like your tongue is hinged in the middle.

Yes, yes.

Yeah, your tongue wags at both ends and is tied in the middle.

It’s like you’re double-tongued.

You just keep on going.

Double-tongued word-rester.

Well, yeah, get that tongue a-wagon.

Give us a ring, 877-929-9670.

That’s a toll-free number that you can call from anywhere in the United States and Canada.

You know, we’ve got numbers for Mexico and the UK that you can find on our website at waywordradio.org/contact.

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.

The other day I went to you.com, that’s Y-O-U dot com, to try out the text generator.

I typed in the prompt, why the A Way with Words radio show is a rip-roaring good time.

And then I pressed a button, and within seconds, the computer program spat out a whole paragraph.

It went, each week, hosts Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett explore the fascinating world of language, from words that are on the verge of disappearing from our lexicon.

To new terms that are just starting to catch on.

They also offer advice on everything from how to use proper etiquette when writing a thank you note to how to handle being corrected when you’ve made a mistake in speech or writing.

And the paragraph went on, and I thought, well, maybe it was lifted from some other site.

But it was entirely original.

I googled every sentence.

And I found this really unnerving.

I mean, I’ve gotten used to computers checking my spelling.

I’m glad that my phone anticipates the next word when I type.

But as somebody who spent my whole career as a writer synthesizing information and carefully crafting sentences, Grant, this just felt too close to home.

So I’m trying to keep an open mind about these large language models that let you do this.

But I keep asking myself, what do we lose and what do we gain from having this kind of technology specifically when it comes to writing?

I have also been playing with these, some of the so-called AI chatbots and the AI text generators.

I don’t know that they’re actually artificial intelligence.

I agree that they’re probably better applied language models is a good way to describe them.

And I have the same considerations.

Of course, this same conversation is happening with pictures and with audio and with video and in other fields as well.

What is happening when we’re analyzing all this data at a massive scale and then using it to generate new content?

What are the rights of the authors of the text that’s been analyzed or the media that’s been analyzed?

Yeah, I mean, it’s fun to play with, but you also have teachers who are worrying that they can’t assign essays anymore.

And I also have to wonder if our brains are outsourcing the mental work of coming up with whole paragraphs.

I mean, I can’t tell you the phone numbers of anybody on my phone contact list because I’ve outsourced that memory.

And, I mean, thinking back to the 5th century B.C., Socrates worried aloud that reading would make us stupid, that if we were able to use this new technology of writing things down and reading them, that it would destroy our memories.

And so I’m trying not to be a Luddite about this, but it’s still, like I said, unnerving.

You know, we talked about this offline, and I’ve been thinking about this since.

And I wonder about the idea that this may free up writers from doing the chore-like kind of writing into the bigger, more thinky kind of writing that can’t be done by this automated process that computers are doing.

Writers need to interview, and computers, as far as I know, can’t interview people.

Writers can connect thoughts through human experience.

They will remember a contact that they had 20 years ago that a computer won’t even know about.

Right.

Computers can only see what’s available in public and not in private.

Right.

Right.

Can a computer feel sorrow that might prompt a particular kind of writing?

Right.

I don’t know.

Would they have the sympathy to know not to exclude information because it should not be revealed to the public because it might expose someone to danger?

Mm—

I’m also thinking about, you know, we’ve seen a lot of people playing with AI and to generate images.

You know, you’ve made some super cool images that you sent to me.

And I can’t help but think that if Michelangelo were around, he would be doing the same thing.

He would be playing with this new technology and trying to find the good stuff, the ways that you can apply it and that can encourage your creativity, even if that’s not the final product.

And I can see where typing in an idea into a text generator might help you think about putting together a presentation or a speech you want to make or something.

But I don’t know.

I just I keep thinking what’s lost and what’s gained.

We welcome your input.

If you are an expert in the field of artificial intelligence or you have gone through and applied these tools in your work, whether you are in the creative professions or the professional professions, we would love to hear about how you have applied these AI tools, no matter what the medium.

Let us know, 877-929-9673, or tell us the details in email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Yeah, oh, hi. This is Linda Britton, and I’m calling from Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

What can we do for you, Linda?

So I’m calling about the usage or the meaning, I guess, of oopsie-daisy or whoopsie-daisy or, you know, any of those.

And I understand that it’s common usage for, you know, if you trip or if you fall or drop something or, you know, that kind of thing, like booksy-daisy.

But I have always also used it to mean, like, this section of, like, a roller coaster or a roadway where it goes, like, steeply down and then back up, like, pretty quickly.

And I’ve always called that like the whoopsie-daisy, the whoopsie-daisy on the roller coaster, that kind of thank you, ma’am thing.

And it’s come up a lot recently because when I moved to North Carolina, my road is just like a gravel road, and it’s hard to see from the main road.

And so I have described when to start looking for the turn to my road.

You go down the main road, the Old Greensboro Road, and then when you get to the whoopsie-daisy, look to your left.

You’ll see my road.

And people just look at me like, the what?

The what?

And then I describe it like, you know, that part of the road where the hill, it goes down steeply and then right back up, the whoopsie-daisy.

Sure.

Well, Linda, I think that makes a lot of sense.

There are lots of different names for that little depression in the row.

The thing where you go over it and your stomach stays down, but the rest of your body goes up.

Exactly. Yes.

You mentioned thank you, ma’am, which is a term that a lot of people don’t know.

But do you know why it’s called a thank you, ma’am?

No, I have no idea.

Apparently, the idea is like it makes your head nod as if you were, you know, nodding to somebody and saying thank you, ma’am.

Oh.

It’s sometimes called a yes, ma’am, or a how do you do?

Thank you, ma’am.

Oh, that’s so funny.

Yeah.

I’m not aware of anybody using the term whoopsie-daisy particularly for that kind of thing.

Are you, Grant?

No, but there are a couple other terms for it that I think are similar enough that I think they’re in the same family.

Like dipsy-doodle, maybe?

Yeah, and whoop-dee-doo.

So I think both of those are cousins, if not siblings, to what you use, Linda.

Yeah, Dipsy-Doo.

I think I’ve used that in the past, too.

Dip-Dee-Doo, Duck and Dip, Belly Tickler.

That’s a good one.

Yes, yes.

Belly Tickler.

Yeah, I’m going to have to write these down.

Now I’m really going to get some strange looks, though.

You should just invite lots of people over to your house all the time, and you can just mix them up like this.

Yeah, I think it’s time for a house party.

Instead of handwritten directions, you’re going to have to call everyone.

And use a different phrase with each person and see what reactions I get.

Yeah, and report back to A Way with Words.

Let me give you two more, Linda, for your list.

Okay.

And these are from the Ozarks.

One of them is Kiss Me Quick.

That’s the opportunity you might get, you know, if you’re jostled in a car.

And apparently for the same reason, those things are sometimes called love holes.

So you’ve been looking for an excuse to accidentally kiss this love interest,

And you can say, oops, a little kiss there.

Didn’t mean to. Oops.

Now I really need to have a house party and invite all the shy couples.

There we go. Perfect.

And have them drive back and forth.

Thank you.

But so in terms of saying whoopsie-daisy for that, people do use that besides me.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

It makes perfect sense.

It makes sense.

It kind of matches some of these other terms, but I haven’t seen it.

However, Linda, don’t let that stop you.

This stuff has to start somewhere.

Might as well be Linda in North Carolina.

Yeah.

The whoopsie-daisy queen.

Patient zero, yeah.

Whoopsie-daisy.

We endorse it.

We give you our hearty stamp of approval.

Absolutely.

Well, that’s what I needed.

This has been such a thrill to talk to you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Take care, Linda.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.

We have all the best topics, and you can throw yours in the mix.

words@waywordradio.org.

We’re still getting responses to our conversation about what you call a quick wash-up,

A sink bath or a bird bath or a possible bath.

Lori Martin tells us that her mother-in-law calls those quick wash-ups an airplane bath.

Why is that?

The kids standing there with their arms out where the parents just give them a quick wipe down?

Yeah, nose, wings, and tail.

Oh.

Nose, wings, and tail.

Nice.

Might be a good way to entice the kid to get cleaned up.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, boy, because every trick matters when it’s a kid.

And the trick that worked last time won’t work this time necessarily.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Good morning.

This is Jack Cook.

I’m from a little town called Sentinel Butte, North Dakota, which is right on the Montana border.

Welcome, Jack.

What can we do for you?

In North Dakota, there’s a lot of slang and a lot of things.

One of them is if I ask for somebody’s last name, instead of saying, what’s your last name?

I’ll say Martha Howmuch.

And I don’t know where that came from.

I don’t know what it means.

I’ve heard my aunts and uncles, grandparents, parents have used that slang.

They’re all gone now, so I don’t know where it came from.

And I was wondering if you guys had ever heard that.

Like Martha Howmuch for a last name.

Oh, yeah.

So instead of saying Martha who or Martha what’s her name?

Yeah.

I’ve never been called Martha Howmuch.

Well, the country is cowboys and rodeo and ranching, and everybody had nicknames, a lot of slang and things.

But I wasn’t sure if that was just local up there or if it was all over.

I hadn’t heard it anywhere else.

No, it’s not just up there.

It’s not just cowboy country, ranch country.

And there are two citations for this in the Dictionary of American Regional English.

One from Grant County, Indiana, as of the 1890s,

And another one from Wisconsin.

But that’s it.

But those are enough to let you know that it exists.

But, boy, there is not a lot of data on this.

And so I think what we’re going to have to do is throw open the windows

And holler out to the Way With Words listeners and see who else uses that.

Good enough. Thank you.

Okay. Take care, Jack.

Yep. We’ll talk to you later.

All righty. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Have you ever heard anybody use the words how much when they can’t remember somebody’s last name

And they say Grant How Much or Martha How Much?

Let us know, 877-929-9673, or send your stories about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Miranda.

I’m calling from Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Welcome to the show, Miranda.

What can we do for you today?

I’m a nurse, so I encounter different people every day.

I hear different phrases all the time.

A patient of mine was talking about food, and she said it was in the pits.

And I kind of like, you know, took a step back, and I said, in the pits.

And she’s like, yeah, in the pits.

This is the pits, in the pits.

And I knew what she was referring to, but I just never heard the term before.

So I wanted to know more about it and where it came from.

Miranda, she was using that term in a negative sense then, right?

This food was the pit.

Was it hospital food or something?

Yeah.

Yeah, it was hospital food.

And unfortunately, hospital food isn’t always the greatest.

So, yeah.

And did you have theories, Miranda?

You know, well, I thought maybe like in the pits, like maybe that’s what they would refer to something with like feeding like farm animals, like pigs or something.

Oh, I see.

Like be in the pits in that sense.

Maybe the pits of Hades or something like that, too.

Oh, yeah. I didn’t even think about that.

But, you know, it’s actually a little grosser than that.

It refers to the armpits.

Oh.

It does.

Okay.

Yeah.

But you’re a nerd.

I get this.

Because the armpits can get pretty nasty, right?

Stinky and hairy.

And it dates back to around the 1950s.

It started as college slang, I believe.

People talking about something like an exam result being the pits

Or feeling really terrible and feeling like the pits.

And it just kind of continued from there.

And you just feel like the pits, feel like the armpits.

Well, that is not the explanation that I was expecting.

And it’s related to calling towns like the armpit of whatever,

Like this town is the armpit of the West,

Or this town is the armpit of this state.

But it’s not abbreviated when we talk about a town,

But it is when we talk about anything else.

This is the pits.

So Miranda, how about that?

It’s an axillary origin.

That’s very interesting,

And it actually makes it quite comical.

Well, Miranda, we’re happy to help.

Take care, and we appreciate the work that you do in the hospital.

Oh, thank you very much.

You guys take care as well.

All right, babe.

Bye-bye.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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Listener Gary Kerr shared a nice line from Robert B. Parker’s detective novel Bye Bye Baby. It’s uttered by a guy when someone comments that he seems quite taciturn. The guy says, never say anything that doesn’t improve the silence. Oh, that’s a good line.

Is that the Spencer novels? Yes, yes, it’s one of the Spencer novels. Never say anything that doesn’t improve the silence. Why? The world would be a quieter place, wouldn’t it? Yes, maybe much quieter.

877-929-9673. Toll free, United States and Canada. Our team includes senior producer Stefanie Levine, engineer and editor Tim Felten, and quiz guide John Chaneski. We’d love to hear from you, no matter where you are in the world. Go to waywordradio.org contact.

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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. Special thanks to Michael Breslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Bruce Rogow, Rick Seidenwurm, and Betty Willis.

Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Barnette. And I’m Grant Barrett. Until next time, goodbye. Bye. Thank you.