Strong Coffee (episode #1625)

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’ve ever played tennis, you know that after a while the net will start to sag. And at that point you have to go over to one end and turn a crank to make it taut again. Now that crank was invented by a Yorkshireman named Robert Charles Hope. He came up with this device in the late 19th century at a time when the popularity of lawn tennis had begun to surge in England. For example, the first Wimbledon tournament was in 1877. Now you may wonder, why am I telling you all this on a show about language? Well, Robert Charles Hope was not just passionate about tennis, he was also passionate about words. And he’s one of many members of the public who responded to a call from the Oxford English Dictionary to send in citations for notable words that they encountered in their reading. And it was Robert Charles Hope who provided the OED with its first citation for the word filching, meaning pilfering. And he also sent in the first citation for the verb to jaunt, meaning to make a horse prance up and down.

And I learned about him in a fantastic new book by linguist and lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie. It’s called The Dictionary People, The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary. And I’m very excited about it. That was just a preview because I want to talk about it later in the show, too. This is tonally different than Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman, also known as the Surgeon of Crowthorne in the U.K., and that it’s not just about a couple of people and how dictionaries are made. It’s about a lot of people and how dictionaries are made. And I would say that it’s a lighter, more fun book. It’s a lot of fun.

In fact, I was going to add that one more word that Robert Charles Hope probably used is spharistike.

Oh, spell that.

S-P-H-A-R-I-S-T-I-K-E, spharistike. It comes from Greek, and it’s an old name for the game of tennis that was used in the 1870s and eventually replaced by the term lawn tennis.

Sporisticky.

Yeah.

Well, we’ll talk more about this book by Sarah Ogilvie later in the show, but we’d also like to talk to you. Why don’t you lob some balls across the net to our phone number at 877-929-9673, or you can reach us on our website at waywordradio.org/contact.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my call. This is Melissa calling from Alabama.

Hi, Melissa in Alabama. Welcome to the show. What’s on your mind?

Okay, I have this question. My family is from East Tennessee, the Appalachian regions, the hills, mountains of East Tennessee. And my grandmother, she would always use this expression growing up. And sometimes it would be used in astonishment. Sometimes it would be used in praise. But I’ve never heard anyone else use it. And I’m wondering, is this an old folk kind of language? Is it antiquated that used to be very popular? What happens?

So the phrasing sounds like this. And the tone, the intonation is part of it. She would say, they, my goodness. It was so funny.

Oh, yeah, it was so funny.

This is your grandmother from Appalachia?

She is also from the East Tennessee area.

Yes. And so she would say that. You would tell her a story, and if she was just amazed by it, she would go, they, my goodness. And she would say, wish you would listen to this, they. Sometimes she would shorten it, and she would just say, they, like that. Where does this come from?

And so it sounds like the pronoun they, T-H-E-Y. That’s the way it sounded.

-huh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, this is wonderful.

Yeah.

And you know what? Our best guess is that this they, as an exclamation, is a variant of the word there. You know, T-H-E-R-E, like look there. My grandmother was from East Tennessee, and she talked that way. D, they, Lord, hush your mouth.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, so as far as we know, it’s particularly common in North Carolina, Georgia, East Tennessee, and it may have some Scottish influence. So it’s like an R-less pronunciation of there.

Right. So it’s used more like a directive to call one’s attention to what has just been said or what is occurring. Like there, look there, listen there. That kind of thing?

Yes, exactly. So, Melissa, are you feeling surprised at our answer and have an exclamation you want to share with us about it?

I am. I am surprised. And I’m so thankful to hear this because I grew up all the time listening to this. And I knew how she used the word, but I didn’t understand where it came from in the history. And so that makes so much sense that it would be localized to that area, that it would be localized to kind of that, I don’t want to say time period, because, you know, this was current all the way up through now that she uses this language.

Melissa, I think Martha was angling to get you to imitate your grandmother again.

They, I just didn’t understand that.

Thank you.

Oh, that’s delightful. I can hear the affection in your voice as you do it, too.

Oh, she was wonderful.

Well, dear, it was lovely talking with you. Take care, Melissa. We appreciate it. Bye-bye.

Very appreciated. Bye-bye.

We should clarify that you come by the Southern accent honestly, Martha.

Oh, I do.

It’s not just actor, Martha. It’s authentic.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I melt when I hear an East Tennessee accent because that is exactly how my grandmother talked. She would ask me about my gentleman callers.

Dear.

Little did she know.

Think Amanda Wingfield.

Yeah, right.

Martha and I are delighted to hear your stories and memories of the way people used to talk or your memories of the way people that you loved talked. That thing they said that you just can’t let go. Share those with us. We’d love to appreciate them with you. 877-929-9673 is a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week toll-free number in the United States and Canada.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Yeah, hi, it’s John calling from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, John, welcome to the program.

Hey, sure, appreciate it. You have me on. I’m a huge fan of this every week. And real quick, I want to tell Martha, I heard her mention her grade school one time, and I have two nephews who are proud alumni of Field Elementary, which I believe is where she went.

Oh, is that right?

Field Elementary in Kentucky?

In Crescent Hill, that’s right.

Yeah, yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, so what I was talking about today, my mom actually was not too far from there. She’s in Louisville still. She was describing to me someone who works at the apartment complex where she lives. And she used this term I’d never heard her use before. She’s 88. And she said, well, I wouldn’t say he’s a hail fellow well-met, but boy, well, I can be a good hard worker. And I was like, what are you talking about, hail fellow well-met? I’d never heard that term before. And I kind of, from her context, just from the words, I kind of assumed it meant sort of like, it sounds like somebody like an old-timey term for somebody kind of like super outgoing and kind of walks in and just sort of owns the room kind of thing. Almost picturing like Babe Ruth in a fur coat in the 20s, you know. But, you know, that famous picture of Babe Ruth, you know. So anyway, I just thought it was so interesting. It’s such a strange conglomeration of words. It’s almost like they don’t even fit together. Yet when you hear it, you just kind of, it’s one of those things where you just kind of know what it means, but it doesn’t really make any sense.

So he’s not, I wouldn’t describe him as a hail fellow well met.

That’s what she said?

That’s what she said, yeah.

Yeah, so more he’s like, you know, he’s a hard worker. He’s kind of quiet, does his job, comes in and, you know, just is, but isn’t like just sort of this gregarious, super, like, everybody look at me kind of person, you know? So I think it’s like a, it’s not a compliment. It’s not an insult. It’s just a description of a type of person that we all know.

Yeah, you’ve described it really well.

And the reason that it sounds weird is that it’s made up of two separate elements, one of which is hail fellow, and the other one is well met.

Because hundreds of years ago, hail fellow was a warm, casual greeting. You know, fellow meaning, you know, somebody on your level, a companion or a buddy. So like, hi, guy. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you know, not like good day, sir. Okay. Yeah. Hi there.

Since the late 16th century, Hale Fellow has described people on friendly terms. So if you’re Hale Fellow with somebody, like I’m Hale Fellow with Grant, it means we’re friendly enough to greet each other casually rather than formally. And the well-met part in the early 16th century was used as a greeting when you ran into an acquaintance. If you’re well-met companions, then you’re happy to see each other. And you see well-met a lot in Shakespeare. Well-met, sir, well-met. Or in Romeo and Juliet, one of the characters says happily met. He greets Juliet with happily met.

And then by the late 16th century, those two agitival phrases, hail fellow and well-met, merged into one emphatic phrase, hail fellow, well-met. And I’m interested in her sense of the word because quite often Halefellow Well-Met is a little bit, what would you say, Grant, kind of irritating, sort of overly so. Yeah, it’s about the people who are a little too quick with their business card and their handshake and they’re constantly talking and it seems to be all about them. Yeah, yeah, you know, back slapping, putting an arm around you when you weren’t ready for that. That’s exactly what I pictured.

But is it in fashion at all anymore? I have never heard her describe anyone, even her old friends back in college. She’s 88, so she certainly could have used that term long ago. But is it in fashion at all anymore or anywhere in the country? I still hear it from time to time. But it’s interesting that in contemporary use, it’s acquired more of that negative sense. You know, somebody who’s just a little too, too. Okay. You’ll still hear it. You’ll probably hear it all over the place now that you’ve noted it. Well, I might even have it down again when I feel that. Not that people understand what I’m saying, but it’s just such an interesting term.

Like I said, what I really found so interesting was just that even hail fellow and well met, just the four words together are almost like four random words, but when they put together, they just sort of come together. Yeah, because it’s so archaic. It’s all these archaic constructions smashed together. You don’t even say hail for hello. Well, cool. I appreciate the information. It’s really, really interesting. We’re glad you called. And we were well met, John. Thanks for being with us. Take care. Well, nice to talk to you guys. Good talking to you. All right, see ya.

It’s always nice to meet our listener friends on the telephone or an email or on social media. If you’d like to be a part of it, call us at 877-929-9673 or reach us on our website at waywordradio.org. On our Facebook page, Sandy Wolf introduced me to the concept of Titiwadi. Well, not the concept, but the name for this. Did you see this? Titiwadi? Titiwadi. It’s an acronym that she picked up in the Navy, T-T-W-W-A-D-I. Titiwati means that’s the way we’ve always done it, which is always a problem in big organizations for long history. Nobody knows why. Don’t mess with it. Right. It’ll break. Right. It’s Titiwati. Titiwati. That’s the way we’ve always done it.

The way it’s done to talk to us is to go to our website at waywordradio.org and send us a message. 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. Who’s this guy in a sailor suit coming in off a big ship? It’s John Chaneski, our quiz guy. Ahoy. Ahoy, everybody. Ahoy, ahoy.

Listen, you know, a few years ago, we did A Way with Words live at the Bell House in Brooklyn, if you remember. Yeah, great time. Good audience. It was fantastic. I remember there was a Q&A, and someone asked me the classic, where do you get your quiz ideas? And I say that quite often. I just look around, and I see a word. I think about its properties, and I use that as a jumping-off point. And I ask the audience to shout out a word. And I distinctly remember someone shouted out pickle. Now, I remember rhyming pickle, but ever since then, I felt like I should have come up with something better.

Well, here we are years later, and I have a quiz based on pickle. Believe it or not. It occurred to me that when we want to contract the word will, we use all. Like, who will help me move my convertible sofa from the attic to the basement? Grant will do it. Grant will. That’s not a word, of course. But pickle is, as in, I want to strum my guitar, but my fingers are too sensitive. What will be useful to me? The answer is a pickle. A pickle will be useful. Oh, a pickle will be useful. A pickle. Gotcha. Okay. Gotcha. Okay, good. Got me.

Now, that’s how these clues work. I’ll ask you a question about what will be useful, and you will tell me, you’ll tell me what will, what’ll, what’ll be useful. So, it’ll be something all. Yes, exactly. And it’ll also be a word. My friends and I are gearing up for a baseball game. We’ve got gloves and balls, uniforms, everything, but we’re still missing one vital piece of equipment. What will be useful for playing baseball? Battle. A battle. Yeah, a battle will be useful. Very good.

I’m portraying Juliet in a community theater production. I’m quite nearly bald and Juliet isn’t. What will be useful for making me look more like a young woman? A wimple. A wimp? We’re going to use a wimp? No, I don’t think a wimp will help, no. She’d look great in that. Well, it’s not wiggle. Yes, it is a wiggle. A wiggle. Oh, it is a wiggle. I’m not hearing the other word. It’s twice now. That’s sexy Juliet. Yeah, sexy, sexy Juliet.

I have to get across town, and I can’t afford a taxi. What will be useful to get me to where I want to go? A bustle to go with your hustle. Yes, very good. To go with your wiggle. To go with my wiggle, yeah. My front door sticks a bit in the summer. I need to get out of the house. What will be the action I perform to get the door to open? Use a shovel. A shovel. A shovel will work, yeah. You can use a hammer, but a good shovel. I keep putting this poster up on the wall, and it just keeps falling down. Now, watch. See? I put it on the wall. I let it go, and it falls. What will be useful to me in keeping this poster on the wall? The tackle. A tackle? You think I should just jump on it? That would do. Okay, I see what you mean. Yes, a tack. A tackle will work.

Finally, bartenders, waiters, even trivia hosts work very hard at what they do. What will go a long way towards letting your server know you appreciate them? A little tipple. A tipple, yes. A tipple will help. Also, if you tipple enough, you’ll probably end up leaving more of a tip, which is really good. That’s what we like. So very good, guys. You got all of the answers in what I call what will. So congratulations. Nice job. Thanks, John. Really appreciate it. That was my pleasure. I’ll see you next time. Thanks, John. Bye-bye.

You can call us to goof with words or talk about slang or grammar or anything else involving language. 877-929-9673 or send your stories about words to words@waywordradio.org. Hi there. You have A Way with Words. Hi. My name is Aubrey. I’m calling from Jacksonville, Florida. So nice to meet you, Aubrey. So my question was this. I am a nurse. I’ve been practicing for a little over a year now. And up until this time, I had been, you know, more or less speaking the same way I ever had. But ever since I started working, I would come home and my parents, they tell me, you have a different accent that we have never heard from you before in your life. You know, why are you suddenly sounding different? And I hadn’t even noticed it because who notices.

Those kinds of things. But it wasn’t until I put some thought into it that I realized that a lot of the patients that I would see, the hospitals that I worked in, they were in a very specific area. And a lot of the folks around this part would have a similar sounding dialect.

And so I had a moment of clarity, like, oh, my gosh, I’m kind of picking up their dialect. And I didn’t even realize that was a thing you could do at, you know, a later age in life. You hear about those kinds of things in children, but, you know, I’m 23. So it’s kind of a surprise.

And so all this is to say is, you know, is this something you’ve heard about among nurses or any other kind of people-focused profession? So maybe it’s just a me thing. I care a lot about connecting with my patients and building relationships during, you know, what is more often than not one of the most challenging and hard periods of their lives.

And so, you know, being able to form those connections with my folks matters to me. So maybe that’s why I’m doing it. I don’t know. But I thought it was interesting and I wanted to bring it up.

Oh, this is so good. I’m so excited to talk to you about this just to get on a good start here. It’s not a me thing. It’s not a you thing. It’s a we thing. We all do this to some degree or another. It’s natural.

It’s really common among all people to varying degrees to take on the language attributes of the people around them so that they fit in. And it particularly makes a lot of sense in your kind of work where you have to engender trust really, really quickly, right? You have to make a connection with these people you’re working with one-on-one, right?

Yes, ma’am. It’s so well-known, in fact, that sometimes it’s taught in sales or customer service training, where they explain mirroring someone’s voice, not just their accent, but their mood, their tone, their emotions, helps the other person to like you.

Of course, they also talk about mimicking body movements. So, like, if they cross your leg, you cross yours. If they stand up, you stand up. If they smile, you smile. But this is an unconscious, or it’s usually unconscious, mimicry that we have as humans when we’re speaking or interacting with someone else.

We want them to know that we’re like them and they want the same. So we do it kind of without thinking because it’s built into the societal training that we have. This natural glue of people who are like us are safe is what we’re taught and people who are different from us are not.

Of course, this is the source of bias and prejudice and racism, but it’s in there. It’s hardwired to agree that we imitate the people around us to fit in. It’s fundamental, like that animal part of us that we can’t shake.

That makes sense. It’s funny because, you know, you mentioned subconscious, even consciously, you know, something I try to do when I’m trying to get to know a new patient I haven’t met before is I would, you know, try to talk a little bit about myself, ask questions about their lives, try to find common interests and, you know, keep that discussion going over the course of my shift.

And that’s something I am actively thinking about. But I guess I got so focused in that, assessing medications, all of the things that go with being a nurse that I didn’t even stop to consider all of the unconscious things that go into connecting with people too.

It’s even about how you face them, right? Are you facing them head on or from the side? When you reach for stuff that’s near them, how do you reach? Do you reach hand up or hand down, palm up or palm down? There are a lot of different ways that you can show friendship or that you’re not threatening.

And also the volume of your voice. You may lower it to match the other person or the pitch or how fast you’re talking and your accent as well to some degree. So you’re very astute to notice this, Aubrey. And in fact, linguists study this kind of linguistic accommodation.

There have been studies of retail workers who unwittingly adopt the pronunciation of the people that they’re trying to serve. Yeah, that’s the famous study by linguist William Lebov in the 1970s, where he interviewed people in a department store, and people from the working-class neighborhoods took on the tones and accents of the people from the wealthy neighborhoods in order to sell them things.

There’s a book I want to recommend to you if you want to read more about this. It’s called Language and Nationality by Pietro Bortone. And this book, while it’s talking about language identity on a national level, it has a very good chapter, chapter three, called Preference for the Linguistically Similar, where he describes exactly what you’re talking about and how it works with us when we begin to sound like someone else.

He talks about when you talk like somebody else, you’re perceived as cozy or more expressive, more colorful, more flavorsome, and as having immediacy and emotional charge. It’s just a really very good book on the topic. I think it’s approachable by anyone in post high school. Chapter three of Language and Nationality.

I’ll look it up. Thank you so much. Yeah, by Pietro Bartone, B-O-R-T-O-N-E. Understood. I’ll write it down. Thank you so much for the hard work that you do as a health care professional.

Yeah, you sound like you’re really good at what you do, Aubrey. I can tell just from the way you talk. Thank you. I appreciate it. And thank you guys for what you do. You know, more often than not, being in health care in any aspect, it leaves you exhausted.

And I would be too tired to talk to people, but I still wanted to have a sense of connection. So on my drives home, I’d turn on NPR, and it would make me feel a little bit less alone. And that alone has done so much good in my life. So thank you guys, too.

Oh, thank you so much for the kind words. Give us an update at some point, and let us know how it’s going. Will do. I’ll write down your recommendations. Take care. Have a great day, y’all.

Thanks, Aubrey. Bye-bye. Well, we love getting these reports of the language that you use in the workplace or the way you speak in the workplace.

We’d love to hear from you. So call us 877-929-9673 or send your stories to words@waywordradio.org. We’ve talked before about slang terms for going someplace on foot, like traveling by shanks mare or going with Pat and Charlie, Pat and Charlie being names for your legs.

Or taking the Chevrolet’s. Yeah, the Chevrolet’s. I like that one. Well, we heard from Kevin Hendrickson in Green Bay, Wisconsin, who wrote to us with some other examples he learned from his wife, Arely, who is from Honduras.

One of them is Voy al Puro Once. It literally means I’m just going 11. And the idea is that 11 looks like a pair of legs. Oh, yeah. I’ve heard versions of that before.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Taking the number 11 bus. Puro 11. Yeah. Taking the number 11 bus. Yeah. Using your legs. Right.

And another one that I really like that he sent was, voy a puro pincel. And a pincel is a very fine paintbrush. And so if you’re using a pincel, it takes you a really long time to paint anything. So it’s sort of like if you’re going to walk there, it’s going to take you a while.

Oh, yeah. So what is it in Spanish again? Voy a puro pincel. I’m just going to find a paintbrush. Taking my time. Share your favorite idioms from other languages. words@waywordradio.org.

Hello. You have A Way with Words. Hi, Grant. Hi, Mother. How are you all doing? Doing great. How are you? And who are you?

Good. My name’s Mateo. I’m calling from Richmond, Virginia. We’re glad to have you. What’s up? Well, I had a question about the term paper tiger.

I’d always thought that it had something to do with German counterintelligence during World War II. I know a Tiger was a type of German tank, and I thought that the Germans would leave false documents around inflating the numbers of tanks that they had in different battalions to throw the Allies off while they were making maneuvers around Europe.

So yeah, I’m just kind of curious as to what the origin of that phrase is.

Wow, that’s an interesting theory. And I do love watching those documentaries about all different ways that the psychological warfare that each side tried to confuse the other during World War II, like inflatable tanks or bases that didn’t exist or planting false documents on dead bodies so they’d be captured by the enemy.

But Paper Tiger does not come from Tiger tanks during World War II.

Oh, wow.

No, even more interesting. As a matter of fact, it comes from Chinese.

Oh.

It’s a kiaok, as they call it, where a word is directly translated word for word from one language to another.

So in Chinese, I’m going to do my best here.

It’s something like zhiar lao hu or zu lao fu, literally paper tiger.

Even though the term dates back quite a ways, it didn’t become well-known, popular, until Mao Zedong, the former leader of the People’s Republic of China, would use it in interviews and in stories where he was talking about his opponents or the United States of being paper tigers.

That is, they looked fearsome, but they were weak.

He would talk about his internal Chinese opponents in the same way, called them reactionaries and paper tigers.

It’s somebody who puts on a good front but can’t back it up.

Oh, well, maybe that’s where I picked up that connotation.

You know, I guess it just kind of filtered into my understanding of German history.

But that’s really fascinating.

We often talk on the show about popularization versus coining, and that’s what happened here.

Mao Zedong popularized the term, but didn’t coin it.

And it’s not surprising, since he was one of the leaders of one of the major countries of the world, that this term paper tiger was passed to other languages, not just English.

But in the 1800s, when it came up, it was usually people talking about Chinese or Chinese culture.

Oh, okay.

Mateo, it was a really great question. I’m glad you asked it.

Oh, yeah. No, thank you. Thank you so much for the insight on it. I really never would have thought it came from Chinese.

Yeah, I bet that.

Yeah, yeah.

You know English, borrows wherever it pleases.

Yeah, well, thank you all so much. I really appreciate it.

Our pleasure. Call again sometime. Thanks for being with us, Mateo.

Good talking with you, Mateo.

Bye-bye.

Great talking with you, too. Thank you. Bye-bye.

The whole idea is that a tiger, a real tiger, is fierce, but a paper is fragile.

So you’re not getting what it looks like on the outside.

Call us with your language question, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Debbie Four.

Where are you calling from, Debbie?

New Jersey.

New Jersey.

Welcome to the show.

Well, my grandmother used to always say the word fossicking whenever we were rummaging around and digging in the dirt.

Basically just, you know, hunting anything. And when I asked her about it, she had said that she’d always heard that from her relatives. And our family comes from like Great Britain.

And I was wondering if you could tell me something about that term and why would she use that term?

Fossick, F-O-S-S-I-C-K, fossick.

That’s a good instinct that it comes originally from the UK, although where it became really popular in the mid-19th century was Australia and New Zealand.

In Australia and New Zealand, at mining excavations, after they’d been depleted, people would just go in and fossick about.

They would just see if there was anything left.

And in fact, it’s a really cool hobby and a cool activity in Australia, especially today, to go and look for pieces of garnet or opal or sapphire or topaz and a number of other minerals that you can find there.

And so the word fossic came to mean looking around in those old excavations for things.

And then it more generally came to mean to search about or to rummage around like she used it.

And I mentioned that the origin is probably from the UK itself.

It’s kind of murky.

It may go back to a dialect term, fossock, which means to bustle about or to fidget.

But it certainly got popularized in Australia and New Zealand by people who were fossock-ing about.

And today, I love using the term fossick to refer to what I do with dictionaries.

You know, sometimes I’m just fossicking about in the dictionary looking for a word I don’t know.

Oh, that’s great.

Yeah.

That Australia-New Zealand connection reminds me that there’s a syndrome for it, which is very Australian.

And it’s bandicooting.

Like bandicoots.

Yeah, bandicoot is a little marsupial.

And it has this foraging behavior.

It digs around looking for roots and insects.

Yes, they’re very endangered, yes.

And so just like with fossicking, bandicooting also is used for humans who dig around looking for something.

Oh, that’s funny.

All right, well, take care of yourself.

Bye, Deb, and happy fossicking.

Thank you. Take care.

We know you’ve been fossicking and bandicooting around the Internet looking for answers to your language questions.

1-877-929-9673 is toll-free in the United States and Canada, or you can find a dozen other ways to reach us if you’re somewhere else in the world on our website at waywordradio.org.

This show’s about language seen through the lens of family, history, and culture. Stick around for more.

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.

In the 19th century, the Oxford English Dictionary was something like the Wikipedia of its day, in that much of its information was crowdsourced.

Now, yes, of course, there were the academic elites working on the dictionary, but it’s also full of information gathered by volunteers.

James Murray took over as editor in 1879, and he put out an appeal for the public to send in examples of how words were being used in the books that they were reading.

And he asked them to note every word that strikes you as rare, obsolete, old-fashioned, new, peculiar, or used in a peculiar way.

And anybody could send in a slip of paper with that information, plus the name and date of the publication, the author, and the quotation in which the word appears.

And for decades, a few hundred people answered that call.

Or at least, that was the story until just a few years ago.

That’s when Sarah Ogilvie, a linguist and lexicographer, discovered something in the basement of Oxford University Press that took her breath away.

She happened to cross James Murray’s old address books, and she realized that she was looking at a treasure trove, because those books contain the names and addresses of not hundreds of contributors to the dictionary, but thousands of them, from all over the world, all walks of life.

And she spent the next eight years doing some serious sleuthing to find out just who these volunteers were.

And she came back with amazing stories that she shares in a new book called The Dictionary People, The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary.

And the book is an absolute delight.

It’s chock full of information about language, about history, and it has fascinating profiles of the contributors who include people like a Scottish explorer who endured ghastly conditions in the Arctic, and a London businessman who was thought to own the world’s largest collection of pornography.

And there was an eccentric Englishman who always wore a coat with 28 pockets that were stuffed with nail clippers, string and knife sharpener, academic papers, and even though he was a teetotaler, a corkscrew and a scone, just in case he ran into somebody he knew who was hungry or thirsty.

And whenever he walked, he made a noise like a kitchen drawer, she writes.

It turns out that there were also hundreds of Americans who contributed to this quintessentially British dictionary, and they include a chemist who invented the special green ink to use on currency to guard against counterfeiting, giving us the term greenbacks.

So clearly, Ogilvy went down a whole lot of rabbit holes. They’re all super interesting.

And I tell you, Grant, reading this book feels like meeting up in a pub with your smart, nerdy friend who’s already waiting there for you.

And as you’re sitting down, she says, you won’t believe what I found today.

Oh, what a perfect description of this book.

Sarah Ogilvy has written something for the everyday audience.

It’s not for specialists or people deep in the dictionary field.

It’s very readable.

It’s enjoyable.

As you’ve explained, Martha, it’s not about the great men of history.

It’s about people you’ve never heard of.

And who before this book haven’t been chronicled in any meaningful way.

Yes, as you said, it’s enjoyable.

And I would say it’s joyful.

This is the book that I’m recommending to all my word nerd friends.

It’s called The Dictionary People, The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary, and it’s by Sarah Ogilvie.

As always, we will link to that book from our website at waywordradio.org.

And, you know, there are dozens of ways to reach us.

You can find them on that same website at waywordradio.org/contact.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Sam DeFranceschi from the Metropolitan PGA calling in.

Well, hi, Sam. The Metropolitan PGA?

Yeah, I work with the Junior Golf Club, actually, in Brooklyn, New York.

Okay, well, welcome. What can we do for you?

In golf, we use the word handicap all the time.

And I looked into it and found out that the word handicap actually has its derivation in the game of golf.

But I was wondering if you guys knew of any of the early uses when the word made the jump from golf to regular everyday life.

I have a few other terms if you want to talk about, but I’ll throw that off you now.

Where did you read that it comes from golf?

Well, like any other normal human being in 2023, I’ve been using AI to do my research.

I suppose I should probably ask it where it found its information.

Oh, well, right there is the problem.

AI.

It hallucinated or at least led you astray because it does not come from golf.

It’s older than that.

And before handicapping became a thing in golf, it was a thing in horse racing.

But handicap actually doesn’t come from horse racing.

It’s more connected to what originally I think was a children’s game, where if two children wanted to exchange things of value, they might argue about what the terms would be.

So they would put those two things of value in hats and their hands in there.

And then somebody that they’d chosen as a judge or umpire or arbiter would make the call and say, yes, these are equal or no, these are not equal.

So you owe him a little bit more money or another additional item in exchange.

And so it’s just kind of a way to settle disputes.

And in horse racing, it was often used to decide how much weight would be put on a better horse so that a race might be more equitable.

So that’s where we get the horse handicapping idea today, just from this original idea of two people being on the spot, literally hands in a cap while their decision is decided by a third party.

Right. Literally hand in cap.

And then that became used in horse racing to decide how a horse would be handicapped.

For example, to make them more equal on the track, you might put weights on the better horse so that it was more in line with the other horse and really have a competition, really have, you know, something worth gambling on.

And then the term later showed up in golf.

Interesting. Interesting.

Sam, you mentioned terms that come from golf.

I think my favorite is stymie.

Oh, stymie is a great one.

You don’t want to be stymie, do you?

Siamese when the ball is directly behind a tree and you really can’t shoot at your intended target.

You have to take your medicine and play out, hopefully into the fairway.

We also have things being par for the course, up to par from golf.

Yeah. You know, I’m interested in that, too, because people say, you know, his play was subpar in culture.

You say, oh, if he wasn’t doing well or she wasn’t doing well, you say, oh, they played subpar.

But of course, in golf, if you’re under par, you’re doing well.

That’s true.

You’re right.

But par is older than that, and it existed before it showed up in golf.

So par as the level that you were trying to reach.

It existed before golf.

Well, other cool terms that do come from golf that are used often are tee off or to tee off on someone.

Fairway, bogey, mulligan.

Those sorts of terms are used and tossed around all the time.

Well, thank you for your knowledge.

Fascinating stuff.

All right.

Take care of yourself.

Thanks for calling.

Bye-bye.

Okay, talk later.

877-929-9673.

We had a message from Barbara Anderson in Jacksonville, Florida.

She was listening to the show, and a saying from her grandmother popped into her head.

Her grandmother used to say that she liked her coffee strong enough to tote double and kick up behind.

Strong enough to tote double and kick up behind.

Yeah, and Barbara was wondering if anybody else used that.

And so I did a little digging, and it’s not all that common.

But apparently tote double refers to the action of a horse carrying not one, but two people.

So if a horse totes double and kicks up behind, that’s a very strong horse.

Gotcha. Oh, wow. There’s so much flavor to that expression.

Yeah, that’s how I’m going to order coffee next time.

I want coffee that’s strong enough to tote double and kick up behind.

You can reach us on social media, all of those links and addresses on our website at waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Nate Danforth. I’m calling from Tucson, Arizona.

Welcome to the show, Nate. What can we do for you?

Thank you. Yeah, I was recently back home in western Massachusetts and was reminded of quite a few things from my childhood.

And one of them was the saying my grandmother had.

She had come from Nova Scotia just before World War I, and she had some things that came with her.

And she would get exasperated sometimes and say, dear me says, something would startle her.

And that would be kind of her retort on that.

And I’ve never heard it since, so I didn’t know if there was something that was out there.

Dear me, sus?

Any idea how she spelled it?

I don’t.

No, but…

Okay, but definitely not suds.

Not suds.

Not S-U-D-S, but more like S-U-Z as in Zed.

Yes, exactly.

Yep, yep.

Okay, yeah, this is really interesting.

It’s not that common.

Anybody who uses this term probably recognizes that it’s very dated, if not obsolete at this point.

But there are about 200 years of history that we know about showing up first in the early 1800s, 1820s.

And all of the evidence points to it being a form of SIRS, S-I-R-S, as in Dear Me SIRS,

With an overlapping influence of transformations of SAKs to get variants like SIRS alive,

But also variants like law me says or oh says alive, law says, and all of these are just kind of a form of drawing attention to a situation, kind of like you might say man or boy.

There isn’t necessarily a man or a boy present, but you’re using that as a form of emphasis.

The form that your grandmother used shows up very early, 1830s.

We can find it in the as-told narrative of Peter Wheeler.

He was a black man who left enslavement and helped move the cause of abolition with his life story.

It also shows up in a Mark Twain short story, the $30,000 request from 1905.

So there are at least two written places that it could have gained some traction and been picked up by others.

People in the 1800s definitely would have recognized it, but it just is not that comment anymore.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So Dear Me Says, S-U-Z, is probably a form of Dear Me Sirs, S-I-R-S.

Same way we’d say man or boy or lady.

It’s an interjection of surprise or delight.

So Nate, you’ve helped to popularize it a little bit today.

Perhaps. Let’s see. Let’s see if it finds its way back into favor, right?

I like it. Yeah, right. No, no, this is good. I’m going to research this.

Thanks for sharing your memories of your grandmother.

And give us a call again sometime, all right?

Well, indeed.

Thank you guys so much.

Take care.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Nate.

The number is 877-929-9673, toll-free in the United States and Canada, including Nova Scotia.

Grant, earlier we were talking about the term fossick, meaning to hunt for gemstones.

And I forgot to mention the term noodling, which is used quite commonly in Australia to refer specifically to sifting through dirt looking for opals, noodling.

What is it with the Australians in these terms for digging through dirt?

Well, I think they have a lot of gemstones, particularly in Queensland.

Nobody’s sure where that comes from.

It might come from the British sense of noodle, meaning to fool around.

Or it might have to do with nodule.

Oh, noodling for nodules. Got it.

But noodling and fossicking, that’s what we do on the show, right?

And bandicooting.

And bandicooting.

877-929-9673.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, how are you?

My name is Keandra, and I am calling from Delaware.

Oh, well, great to have you on the show. What’s up, Keandra?

So I have a question about a phrase that my grandparents use, and they have used it all of my life.

And I actually heard the phrase myself, a part of the phrase, when I was living in France.

So I wanted to know just about the etymology, where it comes from.

My grandparents use it, and people kind of look at them a little bit strange because it’s so traditional, I think.

The expression is, I beg your pardon.

And how would they use it? Like in what context?

So they use it, well, my grandmother, she’s the feisty of the two.

And she would use it if maybe she felt like she was being insulted or if someone was saying something that she didn’t quite particularly understand what they were saying.

And maybe she took it as an insult.

She’d say, you know, something like, I beg your pardon, you know.

And my grandfather, well, they both sort of use it also when they may not really know what’s being said.

Or let’s say they go to a restaurant and they look at something on the menu and the waiter might tell them what it is.

And they’re really not sure.

So they’ll say, I beg your pardon.

So I’ve heard them both use it in that regard.

And does that strike you as something that’s overly formal?

It is very formal, and my grandparents are both very traditional and, you know, very formal.

They both were born around the 40s.

So, yes, they are very traditional, very sort of prim and proper, and they use this expression all the time.

We can kind of zero in on some of this.

I think, although you asked for the etymology and the history of it, I think we should go with this, where it’s talking about the levels of formality that we give and have when we try to be polite.

The history of this term, to beg your pardon, or beg leave, or to beg excuse, dates from about the 1600s.

Pardon itself, we do need to get from French, so good look out there, and Latin before that.

And we can have beg pardon as a noun, meaning an apology that also dates to the 1600s.

But one of the things that struck me here as you were explaining was how the informality of modern English kind of leaves some people who still have the old formality hanging.

That is, what was once normal is now not normal.

And so they sound a little out of step.

Yeah.

I wouldn’t say abnormal, but, you know, we have this informalization of language where everything, almost at every level, is less formal.

Yeah.

And it’s been a turn in English for at least 100 years in all parts of society and all parts of the English speaking world.

Part of it’s cultural, part of it’s social, part of it is just language change.

Democratization of all different parts of society also contribute.

And so Beg Your Pardon is a really great example of a phrase that’s going by the wayside because of that informalization of language.

Yeah, young people just, they have a blank look on their face, you know, when my grandparents use it.

Yeah. So the individual meanings of the words in beg pardon or beg your pardon don’t really matter.

It’s just that overall tone of formality. We do this a lot in language.

Greetings are like that and leave taking or the way that we sign emails.

All of this is expected of us, but the words themselves don’t matter so much.

Just as long as you do the formality, just as long as you do the politeness task.

Right. You might say, how are you doing? But you don’t really want a list of everything that’s going on with the person.

Well, I must agree with you guys there.

My grandparents are very polite, and they will be polite even when they are grimacing.

Thank you, Kendra, for your call.

We really appreciate it, and I always love when people share memories of their grandparents, and yours sound adorable.

Well, if I have any other phrases that they say that I can think of, I’ll give you guys a call back.

Oh, please do.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

We welcome it.

Take care.

Thanks so much.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, what’s the polite way that you start a phone call?

Let’s find out.

Call us, 877-929-9673.

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.

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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. you