Plum-Crushers

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. Hi, Martha.

Hello, how you doing?

Hi, who’s this?

This is Ann Angerer from San Antonio, Texas.

Hi, Ann. How you doing?

Welcome, Ann.

Oh, I’m doing well, thanks.

Recently, I was reading an interview with the absolutely amazing Mephys Staples.

Oh, amazing.

Love her.

And she’d used a term that I had never heard before.

She was talking about how her life might have been different if she and Bob Dylan had married and had children.

Apparently, they used to date back in the 60s.

And in this interview, she referred to children as little plum crushers.

And I did a Google search, and I came up with nothing.

I have no doubt that Mavis and Dylan would have had amazingly talented little plum crushers.

I have no idea of the origin of that term.

I have a few thoughts.

We would be buying their children’s albums already, wouldn’t we?

Yes.

Oh, my God.

I know I would be.

Plum Crusher.

It actually said that in the article.

It said that in the article.

And she said if we’d had some little plum crushers, how our lives would be.

The kids would be singing now, and Bobby and I would be holding each other up.

Oh, my goodness.

I’ve got to read that.

What newspaper was that?

It was in The Guardian.

Okay, I’ll look for that.

Oh, okay, okay.

And I can tell you I have never heard or seen the word plum crusher, and my suspicion is that the reporter misunderstood what she said.

Really?

Or she had a malapropism.

Yeah, but I’m guessing the reporter had a brain-o and just misunderstood it because there’s a far more common term, which is crumb crusher, particularly in the African-American community.

And it means a baby who’s just learning to eat solid food, a crumb crusher.

Oh, okay.

Well, that makes sense.

And it’s interesting because the term plum crusher just jumped out at me because I had never seen that.

And then when I went on the Internet and started looking, there was absolutely no reference to it whatsoever.

I would not be surprised if The Guardian reporter misunderstood it.

In part because one of my favorite newspaper corrections was from The Guardian, where this football chairman, the chairman of a soccer team there, was attributed as saying our team was the worst in the first division, but they had to run a correction later on and noted that he had just declined the offer of a hot drink, and what he actually said was our tea was the worst in the first division, not our team.

So it does happen.

That is the newspaper that misspelled its own name and is now called the Growney Yod by some people.

But it happens to all of us.

I think that’s a very logical explanation for it, although I have to say I’m a little disappointed because I was thinking up some interesting reasons for Plum Crusher.

Plum Crusher is a solid lead and most likely what she meant to say or actually said.

Yeah.

She misunderstood.

Oh, well, it’s good to know.

At least it was kind of driving me crazy.

I hate not figuring things out.

I hear you.

Yeah.

I appreciate that.

Thanks, Anne.

And by the way, I love your show.

I listen to it every Sunday.

Yay.

Hey, Anne.

Thanks a lot.

Take care now.

Thanks.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Crumb crushers.

Crumb crushers.

They have these little stubby fingers that can’t grab things very well, and everything ends up as a…

There’s no delicate eating with a child.

I know, right?

Because when you’re a new parent, first kid, you don’t realize at first that you shouldn’t put them in the high chair next to the wall.

So we have pictures of a nicely painted wall, painted with blueberries.

Oh, really?

We fixed that one.

Blueberry crusher.

Well, don’t give a kid plums, right?

Yeah, exactly.

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