Pinking Shears (episode #1638)

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.

On our Facebook group, Lucinda Kennedy said,

There’s a word I can’t for the life of me remember.

It refers to focusing on the taking of pictures of significant events or situations,

Such as weddings or eclipses.

Taking the picture becomes the focus,

Minimizing the event to the point that the event is missed.

And boy, did that prompt a fascinating discussion.

Some of it was about interesting or clever terms for missing out on an event because you’re too preoccupied with taking a picture or a video.

Jason said, when there’s a group of people who are together but completely focused on their phones, that’s divisilation, which I liked very much.

Divisilation.

And Robert noted a growing use of the term uncaptured.

People saying, I’m glad that was uncaptured.

You know, like you tell people, don’t bring phones to the wedding.

You know, don’t use your phones while all of that’s going on.

Yeah, I just attended a lovely wedding for my sister-in-law and my new brother-in-law,

And they asked that people put their phones away during the ceremony.

There were two professional photographers there, and they didn’t need the distraction.

They wanted everybody to witness it with their own eyes.

Yeah, I think more and more people are leaning in that direction.

We’ve just documented so much with our phones.

But as for words, I believe the word that is used in more professional contexts is intermediation.

I know there’s nothing exciting about it, but it’s the word that you use where the device is intermediating between you and the subject matter.

Oh, yeah.

And all the evidence shows that when your experience is intermediated, you lean too heavily upon the idea that you can go back later and re-experience it.

But that re-experiencing isn’t the same as having witnessed it yourself.

No, exactly.

You process the memories differently.

Yes.

The word that Lucinda eventually remembered when somebody reminded her was the word overshadowing, which I didn’t realize is used in a lot of fields to refer to the idea of a secondary thing becoming so important or so prominent that it partially eclipses, if you will, the main thing.

You know, like a teacher who tells jokes in class and the students remember the jokes, but they don’t remember what the lesson was.

Apparently, this term is used in a lot of contexts, including language acquisition.

I was really surprised.

That’s very interesting.

Yeah, I could see that.

This reminds me of a problem that happens in language learning when it comes to looking at mistakes, where sometimes learning about the kinds of mistakes you make actually promotes making those mistakes more than if you didn’t learn about those kinds of mistakes at all.

For example, if somebody says, don’t make this mistake, now that you know about it, you’re more likely to make it.

So it’s better for them not to point it out unless you have already made it.

Oh, that’s fascinating. So I guess that would be a case of overshadowing.

That’s a case of overshadowing. Absolutely. Yeah. But when we go back to the devices and the words for that kind of experience, I think overshadowing is a great word for it.

I would love to hear other people’s thoughts about this. You can call us at 877-929-9673 or send us an email. The address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Corey calling from beautiful Buffalo, New York.

Well, I have a couple of bread-related words.

The first one I have is from my family, and we call it unta.

I’ve never had to spell it before, but it’s, I guess, U-N-T-A probably.

It can be a noun or a verb, or it refers to that piece of bread that you use to sop up, like, the last good bite of whatever it is you’re eating.

So if you see something that’s still sauce left on the plate or something in a stew,

You’re like, oh, that would be good unca.

Or if you see something that you’re going to do that to,

You would grab your piece of bread and say, like, I’m going to unca.

And then top it up.

Okay.

And tell us a little bit about your family background.

Is there any reason that it might have been floating around from generation to generation?

Well, I think so.

My family is Jewish.

They call it a mixed marriage because they’re half Ashkenazi and half Sephardic.

But my grandparents’ generation used to speak Ladino,

And I’ve always wondered if it maybe came from that language.

But I unfortunately haven’t been able to find anything in my Ladino dictionary,

And my grandparents have passed, so I can’t ask them.

There’s a possibility there.

So unta, I might spell it U-N-T-A, and that’s very significant,

And that it’s specific to the Ladino and Sephardic connection.

Because in Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, and Catalan, there’s a verb untar, U-N-T-A-R, that means to spread, to grease, to smear.

So you might say, se unta el pan con grasa, which means to spread with fat.

And also, in Italian, there’s a bread known as fetunta, which is sometimes called panunta or fegorota.

Which means a greasy slice

Where the unta in the word

U-N-T-A means grease.

And so my thinking is

That might be related

To the idea that it’s the piece of bread

That you use to sop up the grease

Or the gravy or the fat

That’s left on your plate.

Yes, that’s absolutely what we use it for.

Like if you roast a chicken or something

All the fat that falls through

Is really good unta.

Yeah, so it might not even be

From your Jewish heritage

Is it your Sephardic or your Ladino heritage?

But, boy, that’s very suggestive, isn’t it?

Yeah.

Oh, my family’s going to be thrilled.

Have something to go on.

So what’s the other word from your friend, I guess?

I was going to say, I’m glad you got that answer from Grant because I was thinking, oh, it’s just because you put the grease onto the piece of bread.

That’s terrible, Martha.

I know.

I think that one actually drew blood over here.

All right.

Give us the other word here, Courtney.

So my other word is from my best friend, and her family uses schnuff,

Which is a noun that describes the last piece of bread or like the heel on a loaf of bread.

I had never heard this before, and I think it’s so cute.

That’s very good.

Are they of German heritage, perhaps?

They are, in fact, yes.

Because there is a dialectical word in German, which means snout or nose, which is schnuff.

And it’s related to the English word snuff or snuffle.

And so think of like a big cow’s nose or a cattle nose.

It looks kind of like the end of a big loaf of brown bread, doesn’t it?

I can’t say I’ve ever thought that, but now that you say it, I’m going to see that every time I see a cow.

But that’s literally what it comes from.

I’m 100% sure of this.

Yeah, and it makes total sense because some people refer to the end of a piece of the end of a loaf of bread,

Like a baguette or something, as the nose.

Right.

In English.

Yeah, in English.

And there are other body parts.

Sometimes, you know, you talk about the heel of a loaf of bread.

Some people call it the bread butt.

Or the bum end.

Yeah, the bum end of bread.

And in Spanish, it’s sometimes called the codo, the elbow.

So the schnuff makes perfect sense.

Yeah, the schnuff, the nose of the bread, the snout of the bread.

That’s fantastic.

You just made two families very, very happy with your Bradford College.

That’s a goal.

Thank you so much.

All right, Courtney, thank you so much for calling us.

We’re so delighted.

Call us again sometime, all right?

Will do.

Thank you so much.

All right, take care of yourself.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Mark.

Hi, Mark.

Where are you?

Central Florida.

Central Florida.

Welcome to the program.

Several years ago, I was working for a company, and I was talking with one of our trainers who did a lot of training of international customers.

And one of the questions that he had gotten was about the at symbol.

And, you know, is there another name for the at symbol?

And so this is a question he would always ask his students.

And one of the students, who I believe was from, I think he said he was from Northern Europe,

Said, yes, that they call it a schnable-ay.

And he mimed, like, the trunk of an elephant.

An elephant has a schnable.

And he mimed that.

So then it was like every time he had a class, does anybody know of another name?

You know, here in the United States, do we call it anything other than the at symbol?

Right.

So that’s my question.

That’s a great question.

It is such a fun question because the answers are delightful.

Martha, so we know something about this shnable, right?

We do.

Or shnabala.

Shnabala.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Meaning a beak or a trunk.

There are so many adorable, cute names for the at sign in various languages.

You can find lists of them on the Internet.

One of my favorites is kiocciola, which is the Italian word for snail,

which is so picturesque, I think.

But the schnabel a, though, that would be Denmark and Sweden.

Yes, yes, sorry, yes, Denmark and Sweden.

Yeah, so many of them have to do with animals, like the Italian word for snail.

Or in Greek, it’s papaki, which is duckling, which I think is really cute, just a little, you know, curled up.

There are various words in German, one of which is often schwanz, which is monkey tail, also very picturesque.

And let’s see, in Russian and Armenian, the names translate as little puppy or little dog.

Aren’t there a bunch that translate as something to do with some kind of pastry?

Sure, sure.

Hebrew, strudel.

And Sweden has another one, right?

Karnlubula?

Cinnamon roll?

Yeah, yeah.

So very picturesque names.

But I did want to recommend to you, Mark, a wonderful book on punctuation that has a whole chapter about the at sign in it.

It’s called Shady Characters, The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks.

It’s by Keith Houston, and it’s a very, very accessible book.

And it talks about when the at sign first started being used for email by a guy named Ray Tomlinson in 1971,

who was a computer engineer and was trying to figure out how to separate somebody’s name from the host computer that you would be sending an email to.

It’s much more exciting the way he tells it than I’m making it sound.

But I would really recommend that book, Shady Characters.

And Martha, Shady Characters, is that the book that goes into how it even ended up being standard on the typewriter?

Because that’s a story, too.

How it started in Italian bookkeeping and this eventually ended up being just something that showed up on the keyboard.

So it was there for Ray to consider to being used.

Yes, yes.

Just why the at symbol was even available to him.

That’s the story in itself.

And over the centuries, and there it was in front of him.

Yeah, it’s super cool.

Thanks, Mark. We appreciate your time.

Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

All right. Be well. Bye-bye.

Take care.

877-929-9673 or send it to us in email, words@waywordradio.org.

Here’s a pangram, a sentence using all 26 letters of the alphabet.

From Amy Beck in Bishop, California.

Funk revival jazz band played exciting three-quarter tempo waltzes.

That’s 59 letters. Pretty good, huh?

Nice. Nice. Well done, Amy.

Send us your pangrams. words@waywordradio.org.

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

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.

And peddling in on his trusty unicycle, juggling three flaming clubs, is our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Hi, guys.

You know, it was a penny farthing until the flames burned off one of the wheels.

But in any case, it’s a unicycle now.

Oh, watch where you’re pointing those things.

Watch out.

Put those out.

This week, our quiz is one of our staples.

It’s the takeoff.

It’s a variation on a National Puzzlers League puzzle type, but it’s very simple.

Take a word, take off its first letter, and the new word is left behind.

I’ll read a sentence that contains clues to both the original word and the word that is the result of taking off the first letter.

You tell me both of those words.

Now, this week we’re taking off the letter N, as in Nancy, from the beginning of all these words.

Here’s an example.

In the reddish glow of the tavern sign, I contemplated my choices for what seemed like years and years.

That clues.

It seemed like eons and eons.

And neon and eon.

Yes, very good.

Neon and eon, yes.

Yes.

Sometimes there will be words in the clue that are directly defining the answer words.

And sometimes just the sense of the sentence itself will give you what I mean.

Okay, here we go.

Come close and listen to this juicy gossip.

Near and ear.

Yes, near and ear.

Come near and lend an ear to this juicy tea.

Or hear and ear.

Or hear and ear.

Yeah, either one of those is fine.

My Russian friend has not denied me anything so far.

Nyet and yet.

Yes, he has not said nyet.

Not yet.

I intended to grace you with my poetry, but I’m afraid my vocal cords are swollen.

So you can’t say your odes because of your nodes.

Yes, that’s sad to say.

Yes, the nodes are preventing me from reading my odes.

Very good.

Nodes and odes.

Oh, rescued by nodes.

The archers defended the castle via tiny slits in the castle walls.

Arrow and narrow.

Arrow and narrow.

Very good.

Thanks to the time change, I arrived almost an hour before curtain.

Nearly and early.

Yes, nearly and early.

They don’t rhyme either.

I rhyme.

That’s a good one.

Yeah.

I’ll take that pastry or that one.

On second thought, take them both away.

I’m on a diet.

Either and neither.

Either and neither.

Or either and neither, whichever you prefer, yes.

You know what?

I’ve changed my mind again.

I want pasta.

Lots and lots of pasta.

I’ve changed my mind again.

Pasta.

Lots and lots of pasta.

We can even do without the first part.

Oodles of noodles.

Yes, yes, noodles.

And to take away the end, you get oodles.

Finally, I need you to paint 253 on my door

in a sort of earthy brown color?

Umber numbers.

Yes, number and umber,

the earthy brown color of umber.

Give our best to the family, John.

I don’t know how you’re going to fit them all on the unicycle,

but it’s really nice to see you.

You too, guys. Best. Take care.

Take care of yourself.

Our toll-free number in the United States and Canada

is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,

877-929-9673.

Leave us a message,

and you can send us messages by email, words@waywordradio.org.

And on social media, find all of our handles and accounts on our website and all of our past episodes at waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Benjamin Jacobsell.

I’m calling from Huntsville, Alabama.

Hi, Benjamin, what can we do for you?

Well, I was calling in to find out if you knew anything about the usage of the word Gates in addressing, you know, like friends or comrades.

I traveled with the Lionel Hampton band in the early 60s, and he addressed everybody in the organization individually and collectively by that term.

Like, hey Gates, how are you doing?

Whether addressing you one-on-one or addressing the whole band.

So I just wondered about where that usage came from.

So Lionel Hampton, this is the jazz xylophonist?

Yes.

Yeah, classic, legendary.

I am amazed that you played with the man.

Yeah, what did you play?

Trombone.

Trombone.

I played trombone.

You played all around?

I bet you wailed.

Well, I tried.

I did my best.

I did my best.

I was fortunate enough to work with some of the greatest jazz musicians there were.

Lionel Hampton was crowned an American Jazz Master.

But I also worked with another Hampton,

Slad Hampton, for two years,

and he was crowned an American Jazz Master,

as was another member of the band, George Coleman.

So I was fortunate enough to be in the company

of some great, great jazz musicians.

So all of these guys could be called Gates?

And that basically is, what does that mean?

Is that like dude or fellow or cool cat?

Well, in my mind, I always try to figure it out myself.

But I want to say that my mother, who was from Chicago, and her brother,

they were familiar with the usage of the term as just a word of greeting a friend or a comrade.

But as to its source, I just tried to reason it out for myself because the only way I could is that one of the characteristics of good jazz is that it must swing, you know.

And that is the characteristic of a gate, that it swings.

So I was just wondering if you all had any information on that.

That is what a lot of people say when they think about gait, that a fellow is a gait in jazz.

And it’s kind of an old term now.

Not many folks use it anymore.

But that a fellow is truly gait in jazz is a fellow who knows how to swing.

And that is absolutely true.

Or a lady who knows how to swing.

Let’s not be sexist here, right?

But there’s another story here, and it goes back to one of the greats.

And that’s Louis Armstrong, who was known as Gate Mouth because he had that big old mouth for playing his instrument.

And he embraced the term.

He loved it.

And in one of the books that he wrote, he talks about, he says, when I was a kid, they started calling me Gate Mouth.

And then he says, and then they started calling him Gate, short for Gate Mouth.

And then he started calling other people Gate, just like they were calling him Gate.

And so what would happen was he’d be playing and people would shout at him.

They’d be, swing it, gate, swing it, gate.

And then he would shout it back at other people, say, you know, to them, he’d say, swing it, gate.

And apparently he believed, Louis did, that that’s how it got around, is that from him, gate kind of started and launched.

Everyone was calling everyone gate around him, and then it kind of launched from there.

And for sure, prior to this kind of early to mid-1930s, gate didn’t really exist.

And it kind of seems to have come out of his particular scene.

And there’s another idea here.

Some people think, and I don’t know if there’s anything to this, but I’m going to give it to you, Benjamin, just in case you think something about it.

There’s an idea that Gate became Cat.

You know how there’s that old slang phrase for someone who’s hip or cool?

Yes, yes, I believe that.

Some people think that that, plus the notion of a tomcat, meaning a sly or a cool character, that’s where we get the cat.

That cat, he can really swing.

That is just a transformation of the word gate, supposedly, some people think.

Right.

The usage of both those terms is synonymous.

I agree.

They’re very similar, right?

And they sound the same.

They sound very similar.

And they came on the scene about the same time.

So it’s possible.

But there’s no proof of it.

So that’s what we know.

Thank you.

Good, good.

I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Oh, Benjamin, thank you so much for calling and sharing your stories.

I hope you’ll share some more stories some other time.

Give us another call.

Okay.

Well, stay cool, Gate.

We appreciate the call.

Okay.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

All right.

Be well.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Tell us about the cool cats you hang with and the language they use.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org and find a dozen ways to reach us on social media on our website at waywordradio.org.

There were so many interesting comments in the Facebook discussion that we were talking about earlier about overshadowing,

You know, where you’re not completely present for an event,

Like you’re paying too much attention to your phone during an eclipse or something like that.

And one of the things that somebody mentioned was the term chimping.

You probably already know this term.

That’s funny. That came to me earlier when we were talking about this.

Yes, I think I have citations for chimping on our website.

Chimping is when you’re messing with the buttons and settings on your phone,

But not looking at the subject that you’re supposed to be photographing.

You’re spending more time looking at the photographs you just took instead of taking more photographs.

Yes.

And this may have originated among photojournalists who are using high-end fancy cameras that have the screen on the back.

And they’re actually having to look down at their phone and check photos to make sure that they don’t need to make adjustments.

But we all do it at every level, right?

If we can, we look to see if it works and see if we need to make tweaks to it and don’t

Trust our devices and our, and our previous settings.

Yeah.

And apparently the idea is you’re, you’re holding the camera or the phone out, you know,

In front of you with your elbows kind of out, kind of like a chimp looking at the phone

Or the camera.

Well also, but if you’ve ever seen these videos of chimps that they’ve got something they’re

Not quite supposed to have, something that a human left in their zoo enclosure maybe.

And they’re really curious, and they turn it about and look at it strangely.

I look at it on all sides.

They’re as curious as humans, and they puzzle it out.

Puzzle out language questions with us, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Lynn in Warren, Pennsylvania.

Hi, Lynn. Welcome to the program.

Thank you.

What’s up?

Well, I have always wondered about something my grandmother used to say when we were little.

We’d go to visit her, and if she was surprised or astonished,

She would say, my stars and garters.

And I always wondered where such an expression came from.

This would be in response to what?

You showing her a trick that you’d learned or some joke that you told or a frog that you found?

Anything she would be surprised about.

You know, if she was surprised or astonished, and I think actually she looked for an excuse to say it.

Oh, okay. That’s kind of a favorite phrase of hers then.

Yes, and actually years later, many years later, I had an elderly tenant that used to say the same thing.

-huh.

My stars and garters.

Oh, my stars and garters, Martha.

Well, there is a story behind this phrase, Lynn.

It goes back to something called the Order of the Garter, which is the highest order of English knighthood.

In England. It was established in the mid-14th century, and this is at a time when garters were

Part of male attire. And today, the Order of the Garter is this extremely exclusive group. It only

Includes a very few people, the sovereign of England, the Prince of Wales, and no more than

Two dozen others. And most of them are politicians or high-ranking government officials. And recently,

Andrew Lloyd Webber was added to that group.

Oh, my word.

Oh, my stars and garters.

That’s as far from what my family was as you could get.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Well, if you were one of these exclusive few people who belong to the Order of the Garter,

Then you get to wear a fancy medal that’s in the shape of a star.

And actually, if you look at Prince William or Prince Charles in their military regalia, you’ll see on the front, on their chest, you’ll see this eight-pointed star that’s part of all that.

And then by the early 18th century, the phrase stars and garters appeared as this collective reference to all these decorations and honors and also to the few people who hold them.

And stars and garters became this familiar phrase.

In fact, in England, a lot of pubs are named the Star and Garter.

And you said something like, oh, my word, right?

Just a second ago.

Yeah, that’s so far removed.

We were country bumpkins.

So far removed from anything that we would have known or were.

Well, Lynn, do you think you’ll pick it up now and start saying it on a regular basis?

Oh, maybe just to surprise people.

I don’t know.

Well, that’s all very interesting to know.

It’s far-fetched from anything I would have imagined.

We appreciate your time.

Thank you so much.

Take care of yourself.

Oh, thank you.

All right.

Be well.

All right.

Bye-bye.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Well, great, Scott, and my word, and my stars and garters, give us a call, 877-929-9673,

Or find all of our contact info at waywordradio.org/contact.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yeah, hi, this is Brian.

I’m in San Antonio, Texas.

Well, I was curious about the term pinking shears.

Doing some sewing?

Not really.

My mom was the seamstress when I was a child.

She had a sewing machine, and one thing she used for working from patterns mostly was cutting fabric with pinking shears, which gives a fabric a zigzaggy edge.

And this helps to preserve the fabric from wearing and washing and so forth.

And anyway, I just wondered, where did that word come from?

Pinking shears.

Pinking shears.

Are we talking about colors here, Martha?

Well, no, we’re talking more about the action of the shears themselves.

And the term pinking itself goes back to the 1300s, probably to an old word that means to pierce or to stab or make holes in.

And it might be related to words like the French word pique, which means to pierce or stick.

And so if you’re in a fit of pique, you’re irritated; something’s pricking you.

And it may also be related to the Spanish word picar, which means to sting or prick and gives us picante, that spicy.

Oh.

Yeah, that spicy quality.

And then in the 16th century, the English verb to pink meant to poke decorative holes in, say, cloth or leather, you know, the little finishing touches on something you’re working with.

Right.

And by the 19th century, people used what was called a pinking iron to punch out a decorative hem on a garment.

So it had a zigzag pattern.

And what you did was you took the cloth and you put it over a hard surface.

And in between the hard surface and the cloth, you had this pinking iron that had a zigzag pattern on it.

And then you hammer it with a mallet.

And that cuts that little zigzag pattern.

But what a pain to do that.

And then along comes Louise Austin of Whatcom, Washington.

And in 1893, she patents what she called pinking shears.

And this is a device that you can use to, of course, do the pinking really quickly.

And then they were adapted from that.

So it has to do with piercing and making holes in and cutting.

That’s terrific.

And what a smart woman that was.

Yeah, I hope she died a millionaire.

That’s really cool.

Well, we’re glad to help and glad that whatever memory prompted you to call us, prompted you to call us.

I’m very glad to speak to you.

This is great.

Okay, so long.

Bye-bye.

We appreciate our word hoard.

That’s H-O-R-D-E.

And that means you.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, do you know what a brickfielder is?

A centerfielder who doesn’t have to move when a potfly comes their way.

That is exactly what I thought, actually, when I first came across this word.

I just happened to see it online.

But a brickfielder is a hot, dry wind in southern Australia that develops in the deserts during late spring and summer.

And it comes from the name of Brickfield Hill, which is a site of former brickworks in Sydney.

Lovely. Hit us up. You can find all the ways to reach us on our website at waywordradio.org.

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.

And it is time for a mea culpa.

Well, Grant, you will recall that a few weeks ago we had a conversation with Ian in Jacksonville, Florida.

He is the musician who wondered about a particular way that he and his fellow musicians use the word clam.

You recall this conversation.

Right.

That’s when you have a clanger or a bad note.

And it’s when you make a mistake and people call it a clam.

And you made a clam of your own.

I did. I made a clanger for sure.

Because while we were talking about that, I piped up toward the end of the conversation and I said,

Hey, I used to do a lot of sculling and rowing.

And when we messed up a stroke, if our oar caught in the water, we called that catching a clam.

And you said, Grant, oh, I never heard that before.

Oh, that’s interesting.

And I said, yep.

That’s on bone.

After I said that and that program aired, we received all these mostly polite emails and phone calls from rowers all over the country, all of whom said something to the effect of, you know, I’ve been rowing for years and I’ve never used the expression catching a clam.

I always called it catching a crab.

And so do all the other rowers I know.

But gosh, maybe catching a clam is a regional usage.

I’d be interested to know.

People were very open minded.

They were like, well, that would be amazing that other people said the other thing.

And I’m interested to find out more.

So most people were like, that’d be pretty cool if there was another way to say it.

Yes.

And unfortunately for me anyway, it is not a regional usage.

It’s regional to Martha.

Martha’s ever.

It was a total goof on my part.

I mean, what can I say?

I was thinking, you know, a mistake that happens when you’re doing coordinated movements with other people.

A small creature with a shell.

It’s a four-letter word.

The four-letter word starts with C.

It’s a clam.

And I do want to add that I really did row for many, many years.

In fact, you can do an online search for New York Times and Martha Barnette and rowing, and you’ll find a piece I wrote several years ago for the Times where I was rhapsodizing about the joys of rowing.

So I do know this stuff, but what can I say?

I caught a verbal crab.

Even Homer nods.

Well, Martha, thank you so much for the erratum report.

We appreciate it.

We’re always delighted to hear your thoughts, questions, reports, stories, complaints, errors, and more.

You can send them to words@waywordradio.org.

And you can also find dozens of ways to reach us on our website at waywordradio.org, where you’ll also find the link to our podcast, which is available on every major podcast platform.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jenny.

I’m Colleen from beautiful southern Utah.

And I had a thought the other day as I was listening to one of your shows.

Nice. Let’s hear it.

So, you know, when people call in and ask about different phrases or sayings, it’s always the Deep South or Appalachia or maybe, you know, New England area.

So here in Utah, do we have words that come from the Mountain West?

Or what’s our dialect that’s unique to Utah area?

Oh, that’s a good question.

And that’s where you live, I take it.

So I actually consider myself in the desert southwest, but most of Utah would be the mountain west, correct?

-huh.

Yeah.

The dialect regions out west tend to be very wide anyway.

They’re not as narrow as the east because people haven’t, English speakers haven’t settled the west for as long and haven’t had a chance to differentiate their dialects as long.

So it’s, they’re a little less well-defined in the west, but there are things that have happened out there.

Let’s start with food because that’s always a fun place to start talking about language.

Let me ask you if you’ve ever baked funeral potatoes.

Well, I do not like to call them that, but yes, I have.

All right, well that name and we use fry sauce a lot as well.

Yeah.

What what is it you said we use the fry sauce?

Fry sauce.

Yeah, funeral potatoes and fry sauce.

So for those who don’t know, funeral potatoes are a baked casserole dish of shredded potatoes and cheese and canned cream of mushroom or chicken soup, sour cream, onions, maybe put potato chips on top.

And then fry sauce is basically, what is it, mayo and ketchup mixed together?

Yeah, mayo or ketchup.

And both of those are very particular to Utah, although you might find them in surrounding states.

And also in Utah, there’s a type of scone, which isn’t at all like the English scone.

Do you eat those?

We eat fry bread.

Yeah, it’s like fry bread, but it’s called a scone.

Yeah.

I know that when I was younger, we talked a lot about the scones.

And as, you know, the older we get, I think I see scone less and fry bread more.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because there’s so many in the surrounding states, they just use fried bread, which is a gift from Native American cultures and peoples.

Do you know dirty sodas?

Oh, Utah is known for their soda.

This is where they take a soda and you mix, you put in syrups or creams and maybe fruit.

And particularly the local chains will do it.

It’s not even just like a thing you do at home.

You can just go to the chain store or the chain restaurants and buy them.

Yeah, like Starbucks or Dutch Brothers across the road.

We have soda shops every corner.

So right there, that’s a parcel of food terms that are specific to that part of the country.

But the other thing that happens in that part of the country is stuff related to geography.

Because you have all over the Mountain West, so maybe not so much in Utah, but you have 14ers.

These are mountains above 14,000 feet.

So you’ll find that particularly in Colorado.

You have things like Pow Day or Powder Day. This is the day everyone goes skiing after a really good snow, right?

Correct.

You have Red Rock. This is the red sandstone, which gives you those fantastic parks in Utah.

And that kind of Red Rock is not really well known around the rest of the country.

And then we have things like vowel mergers.

So this is a little more linguistic-y and a little harder to grasp.

But there’s something that happens in that part of the country.

It happens elsewhere, too.

But it’s notable in Utah and Idaho that words like hill, H-E-L-L, and hill, H-I-L-L, can sound alike, where they might not sound alike in the rest of the country.

My father-in-law, he uses the word cord, C-O-R-D, with an A, C-A-R-D.

So it sounds like?

He says, go plug in the card.

Card. Yeah, there we go. That’s a great representation of dialect features for some parts of the country.

Right. He wasn’t born in a barn. Barn in a born, right?

My grandmother said that.

Barn in a born?

Or vice versa.

We could talk about the influence of Spanish on the language.

Even just talking about Butte versus Mesa, which represents the Anglophone settlements versus the Hispanophone settlements.

We could talk about the Latter-day Saints influence on the language, things like wards.

There’s so much more we could talk about that is happening linguistically in that part of the country.

So there’s a lot going on.

But thank you so much for your call and talking to us and sharing your stories of what it’s like there.

We really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Bye, Jenny.

Bye.

Tell us about the language in your part of the world.

You can reach us at 877-929-9673.

And there are lots of other ways to get in touch with us.

Go to our website, waywordradio.org/contact.

One more comment from our discussion about overshadowing and not really being present for an event.

Bob on our Facebook group said, I’ve heard National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore say, pet the whale.

Put down the camera when you’re not getting a good shot and missing the live experience.

And I just love that expression, pet the whale.

Oh, I love that, too.

That reminds me of a conversation I’ve had multiple times over the years with my son.

I put it more baldly.

I just say, be present.

You’re here.

This is what’s happening right now.

Hello.

Yeah.

This is the thing.

We’re not waiting for something else.

This is where we are right now.

Be present.

Right.

I mean, if you’ve got a whale in front of you, why do you have a camera or a phone in between you?

It’s figurative, though, right?

Yeah.

But you’re here.

But there’s that famous quote, life is what happens when you’re making other plans.

Right?

And what are you doing on your phone?

You’re making other plans.

Right.

It is the phone.

We keep picking on the phone.

It’s this hope, but it’s not only the phone.

It’s the conversation that distracts you, right?

It’s also the reading the thing that is in your pocket, right?

It’s worrying about the receipt and did they overcharge you?

It’s thinking too hard about the next thing that you’re going to do.

It’s all those things as well.

It’s being distracted from the moment that is currently happening.

Right, right.

Yeah, actually, there is no past.

There is no future.

There’s just right now.

Big wisdom.

Well, call us and we’ll give you some middle wisdom.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Nathan Browning.

I live in Raleigh, North Carolina.

How are you guys doing today?

All right.

Welcome to the show, Nathan.

Great.

I’m calling from Raleigh, North Carolina, because my grandfather said a phrase to me over Thanksgiving that I had not heard before.

He was preparing Thanksgiving for the entire family, pretty much.

So it was kind of a stressful day for him.

When I was like, well, Pop-Pop, we’re going to sail through this thing, right?

And then he said, yeah, Steady by Jerks.

I said, Steady by Jerks?

He’s like, yeah, Steady by Jerks.

I was like, I’ve never heard this before.

I was like, where does this come from?

He’s like, I don’t know.

Maybe something to do with the trains, though.

I was like, okay, maybe, but it seemed like a good question for you guys.

It basically means by fits and starts or unevenly or spasmodically or episodically, steady effort interspersed with interruptions and breaks.

So you’ll have a period of like steady attention to whatever you’re working on, maybe a break or, you know, somebody interrupts you and then you go back to it and you continue steadily on.

So instead of one steady effort, it’s a series of steady efforts, steadily by jerks.

Does that sound like what he was describing?

Yeah, it sounds exactly like what he was talking about.

I’d be curious to know if you guys know where the origin of this came from, like where this phrase came from.

He’s Pennsylvania Dutch.

I don’t think it’s Pennsylvania Dutch.

It has a long history, at least to the 1830s.

We’re talking almost 200 years.

And typically, I think it’s just a strange construction in English without a specific origin.

Although there is one use I found in 1904 describes a stage scene with, quote, wooden angels moved steadily by jerks across the painted sky.

And you can just imagine like a rusty pulley and rope as the angels go across the top of the stage for the show.

But it’s the same idea.

Like you pull, they move.

You pause until you pull again and they move.

But yeah, you find it again and again.

You talk about people pulling water up from a well steadily by jerks.

Often, so steady or steadily by jerks, both of those constructions are used.

And usually with the verb move in front of it, move steadily by jerks.

You know, I’ve also seen the phrase steadily by jerks, like a frog swims or steadily by jerks, like a frog walks, which is kind of the same idea, like doing the breaststroke or something.

Interesting.

It sounds like there’s a whole lot of ways I can figure out how to fit this into my, into my day to day.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

So yeah, not sustained effort, but episodes of sustained effort.

I love that.

Okay.

And that’s about how the day went.

So that makes sense.

Well, I imagine if Pop Pop was making Thanksgiving for everyone, he definitely needed to take some breaks.

Yep.

Sit some coffee in the corner by himself.

Right.

Exactly right.

Well, Nathan, thank you so much for calling us.

We really appreciate it.

Absolutely.

You guys have a great day.

Thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Nathan.

Bye-bye.

If you’ve heard a word or phrase that you just can’t figure out, we’d love to talk with you about it.

Call us 877-929-9673 or send it to us in email, words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Robert and I’m calling from Tucson, Arizona.

Hello, Robert from Tucson. What’s on your mind?

Hey, you know, I have a phrase that I need your help with.

And I’ve heard it said all kinds of different ways, but let me give you just a quick background so that it makes more sense.

I grew up in southern Arkansas as a kid, had access to ponds and creeks and all kinds of places to explore.

So my buddy and I did that.

It was back in the day where you would go out in the morning, come home from a grilled cheese sandwich, and then go away again until it got dark.

And so ample opportunity to go find things, which we ended up doing, snakes, lizards, turtles, all that stuff.

And at one point I decided, you know what, I want to do this for a living.

I want to eat grilled cheese sandwiches and go out all day and find critters.

And it turns out that’s a herpetologist that I wanted to be, but that is a study of reptiles and amphibians.

And fast forward and found out that accounting was more lucrative, so I became an accountant.

But I kept my passion for herpetology.

And that brings me to my question.

In my circle of hobbyists, there’s a phrase, and it’s spelled I-N space S-I-T-U.

And I’ve heard it said so many different ways.

And for your listeners, that basically is a Latin phrase that means you found it as is, in place.

And the reason we use it is people find a snake, and they post it on Instagram, and it’s on a rock,

And there’s a waterfall and a rainbow behind it.

And you go, did you really find that, you know, I-N space, S-I-P-U?

I say it in situ.

I’ve heard it said in situ.

I’ve heard it said in situ.

I’ve heard it said in situ.

And so I’m hoping that you can help me sleep at night and tell me the accepted way you would say that phrase if you were in my hobby.

All right, Robert.

There’s so many different ways into this.

Let me just first say, I’m from Missouri.

Do you have blue-tailed skinks in Arkansas?

You know, we probably did, yes.

Yes.

I’m currently in Arizona, so it’s been a while since I’ve been to Arkansas.

But yeah, Arkansas has a lot of stuff.

Yeah, Missouri’s a great place, too.

I just want to say, getting home for the midday grilled cheese would have been nice.

We just ate whatever greens we could find in the woods.

Yeah, I think I had to do that.

They wanted to make sure I was still alive or something.

I’m not sure.

As far as the expression I-N-S-I-T-U, Latin for in place,

I went to the English Pronouncing Dictionary from Cambridge University Press to look this up, just to be sure I remembered correctly.

And it includes nine pronunciations for just North America and several more for the United Kingdom.

Nine.

The variations have to do with two different parts of the expression.

First, that last word is sight or sit or seat.

And also, what happens to that T in the U?

How are they pronounced together?

Is it site-to, site-you, or site-chew?

And so when you mix those combinations together,

You get a lot of possibilities.

You will find in mainstream dictionaries in site-you

Given as a standard pronunciation,

But they’ll also give two or three more.

And you will find different first pronunciations

Usually mean that they think that’s the mainstream one

Given in different dictionaries.

So it’s not a settled case at all.

This is definitely, again, one of those cases

Where the word is not completely anglicized.

It still has a very Latin flavor to it

And hasn’t been borrowed wholly into English.

Makes sense.

Makes sense.

So then, yeah, I have some leeway is what it sounds like.

You do, yeah.

Hey, pleasure talking to both of you.

And if you ever want to find a rattlesnake,

Come look me up in Tucson.

Oh, that’s inviting.

Oh, hey, we got them here in San Diego, man.

I have seen them.

I’ve been very close here in San Diego, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, you do.

You’re right.

You’re right.

But maybe the Arizona ones are better.

It’s getting warmer, too, so they’re coming out.

Got to watch out for the little ones, right?

Well, take care of yourself and enjoy your hobby and your work, all right?

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Thanks so much.

Good talking to you.

Take care.

Bye, Robert.

See you.

We’d love to incite your linguistic interest.

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Special thanks to Michael Breslauer, Josh Eckels, Clare Grotting, Bruce Rogow,

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Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Until next time, goodbye.

Bye.