Sufficiently Suffonsified

Hey, podcast listener. Even though you’re hearing this recorded show, you can still call us whenever you want.

1-877-929-9673. Our voicemail will take your call. Later, we’ll listen to it just as we listen to all of them.

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On with the show.

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Most of us tend to keep the names that were given at birth.

But with pets, it’s kind of a different story.

Sometimes animals take time to tell you their names.

When my partner and I adopted a little white Maltese poodle mix, it was hard for us to settle on one name.

Her previous owner called her Mitzi, but we didn’t like that.

And then for a while, we were going back and forth between the names Daisy and Lily.

And both of those names kind of reflect her sunny personality and the fact that she’s tiny and delicate.

In fact, she’s so tiny, Grant, that for a while there we were going to call her Cucaracha, but we decided against that.

But she’s about that big.

And it actually took us a whole month before we decided on the name Lily.

And I think that that was really mainly just because it tripped off the tongue more easily when you wanted to say, Lily, no!

You know what I mean?

But it struck me, Grant, that in contrast to human names, a pet’s name is often a work in progress.

And sometimes for quite a while.

Did you have that experience?

We did have that.

When we lived in the country, we were given a dog by neighbors.

It was a beautiful Great Pyrenees.

These are big, white, furry animals.

Oh, yeah.

They’re gorgeous.

Just gigantic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they called her Bandy, B-A-N-D-Y.

And this is from the Mo Bandy song, Bandy the Rodeo Clown.

You know this song?

No, I don’t.

I don’t.

It’s a song about a guy who’s a rodeo clown.

And so they thought she had hip dysplasia.

And this is where she makes her walk kind of funny.

And so they thought she looked like a clown.

So they called their Bandy the rodeo clown.

Oh, because she was bandy-legged.

And so we got this dog, beautiful animal, a rascal, though.

I mean, she could smell the neighbor’s rabbits a mile off,

And it was constantly going down there to worry the rabbits.

-oh.

My mother decided to call her Bambi instead.

Yeah, because it’s close to Bandy, so the dog isn’t overly confused.

But it’s not this awkward, weird name, you know?

Bambi.

Again, she was far from docile.

She was not a sweet little doe, no.

Well, yeah, and Bambi for a great Pyrenees?

Why didn’t you just call her Fifi or something?

Yeah, that is not a dog you call Cucaracha.

You call her Bull Elephant.

She was big and ornery and as sweet as pie when she was your buddy.

But it is funny, isn’t it, the way that their names can go through so many different changes through life sometimes.

Yeah, yeah.

And, of course, it didn’t stop at Bambi.

It became Bam, you know.

Oh, yeah, nicknames.

Yeah, the shortening happens and the other things, and it’s good.

Well, if you want to talk about your pet’s name change or maybe your pet peeve about language, call us.

We’re here to talk about words and phrases, grammar, old family sayings, and slang.

1-877-929-9673 or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Yoko calling from San Diego.

Hi, Yoko. Welcome to the program.

Thank you.

What can we do for you?

Yeah, I heard a few weeks ago on your program that there was an expression of happy like a clam.

I wanted to know how that expression came about because for me as a native Japanese speaker, clams don’t really talk or laugh.

We use the word clam in a different colloquial way.

You do?

Yeah.

How do you use it?

Well, be a clam or become a clam means you would be like a dormant or you don’t speak at all.

But I often use the term, I sleep like a clam, which is, I guess, the equivalent of sleep like a log.

Oh, okay.

In Japanese, you sleep like a clam?

Well, it’s actually more of a, I guess it’s a very casual, colloquial way of saying it.

The correct term of equivalent of sleep like a log is sleep like mud.

Oh, really?

Yeah, but what happened was one time I was talking to my husband, who is American,

And I said, oh, I slept really well last night.

I slept like a clam, and he just had this really blank stare.

He was like, what are you talking about?

I was like, you know, I slept really well.

And he’s like, oh, sleep like a log.

Yeah, yeah.

So it seems like, I mean, for me, sleep like a clam really makes sense

Because, you know, they are under the ocean and don’t really move around

And kind of, you know, happily sleeping.

Yeah, it’s dark in there.

But happy like a clam doesn’t really make sense to me,

And I wanted to find out what may be the origin of that.

Oh, yeah, we can help you with that.

Sure, absolutely.

But I tell you, Yoko, I’m dying to know what it sounds like in Japanese

To say I slept like a clam.

Kaiみたいに nemutta.

Oh, it’s melodic even.

You’re absolutely right.

It doesn’t make sense.

But the truth is that it’s a shortened version of the phrase, happy as a clam at high tide.

Right.

That makes sense.

But he’s buried in the sand.

He’s under the water.

He’s feeding himself, right?

Because there’s water covering his shell.

So he’s happy, right?

And he’s safe.

Yeah.

Nobody can dig him up because it’s high tide.

Okay.

Okay.

Makes sense.

So it’s not like a clam is laughing or something.

He’s just sort of contentness.

Yeah.

That’s a great way to put it.

Okay.

Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah, so it’s just a shortened version of happy as a clam at high tide.

Okay.

But I love hearing your version of it.

Yeah.

Yeah, my husband is now used to me giving lots of English expression that came from a Japanese saying.

Oh, yeah?

Give us some more.

I’d love to hear some.

How do you say that you’re very happy?

What’s the idiom for very happy in Japanese?

I’m not sure what I would say.

The expression I use a lot, and now my husband is learning, is I often say such and such is small as cat’s forehead.

Small as a cat’s forehead.

Yeah, when you talk about a little land, small patch of land, because cat has a really small forehead,

There’s a Japanese expression called it’s a small as cat’s forehead.

I love that.

And what is that in Japanese?

Neko no hitai hodo chisai.

Love it.

Love it.

Very good.

Well, Yoko, thank you so much for calling and sharing this stuff with us.

Yeah.

You enriched our conversation.

Thank you.

Arigato.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you speak English as a second or third or fourth language,

We’d love to hear some of the expressions that you use to enrich conversation.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Good morning, this is Steve Barrett in San Diego.

Hello, Steve, welcome.

Hi, Steve.

Greetings.

I’ve had a fascination always with the last word in the dictionary.

Oh-ho.

Since I was very young, and I’ve discovered that in every dictionary I’ve checked,

It was always different.

-huh.

Were you checking Spanish and Dutch and Russian or something?

No, no, no. I was just checking English dictionaries, going all the way back to a dictionary my grandmother had, an 1844 pocket dictionary.

Oh, nice. So what’s the last word of that dictionary?

What did you find?

The last word in this dictionary is zootomy.

Zootomy?

Yeah.

So this is a zootomy. This is like when you cut the zoo out of the picture? What is that?

According to this dictionary, it’s a dissection of the bodies of brute beasts.

Okay, zootomy, sure, of course.

Root beast.

Oh, this is the surgery on professional wrestlers.

It sounds like it should be in a limerick.

Okay, so the question is, so you’re checking all these dictionaries, looking at the last word.

It’s a bit of an obsession for you, it sounds like.

Yeah, a bit, yeah.

Nice.

And so what other final words have you come across?

Well, the one that I have found that I have not been able to beat was in my dad’s Winston collegiate dictionary from 1945.

Okay.

And that word was Zythum, Z-Y-T-H-U-M.

And what is that?

That is an ancient Egyptian malt liquor.

Nice.

The Egyptians sitting on the stoop with the 40.

That’s fantastic.

A little pop top.

Then there’s Zythum light.

Okay.

But you know what?

I can beat that.

You can.

I can.

Okay.

I can beat it.

I have four other words that are alphabetically after that, after Zythum.

Zythum is Z-Y-T-H-U-M, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Wow, you ready for this, Steve?

I’m ready.

I’ve got my pencil out.

Okay.

And the whole problem with this exercise, let’s just say this now, is that we’re not talking about common words, okay?

We’re just talking about any word that anyone ever anywhere has accepted is English of any kind.

Hey, I buy Zythum all the time.

What are you talking about?

That’s a brand name just waiting to be taken, right?

Absolutely.

Right next to the eight ball, right?

Okay.

What are your big four, Grant?

Here we go.

I’m not sure how to say these, but I’m going to try them.

This one, I believe, is Zyxoma.

Z-Y-X-O-M-M-A.

And it’s a type of Indian dragonfly.

Okay.

Where did you find that?

It comes from Greek.

It’s in the Century Dictionary and a couple other dictionaries.

Okay.

Okay.

Here’s the next one for you, Steve.

Okay.

Z-Y-X-T.

Zyxt.

And this is an obsolete Kentish word.

This Kentish is a dialect of the languages spoken in the British Isles.

It’s the second person singular indicative present of the verb to see, S-E-E.

Here’s one tight.

And for a long time, it was the last word in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Right, but it’s not in the online version.

Why did they take it out?

Well, it’s one of those words I believe is a pass-along word.

It was collected once, I think, in Northumberland in a glossary.

And so all the dictionaries of the era, since they just rip each other off, took it and added it to their own dictionaries.

And in that way, it was propagated.

And I think once you start to look at the word, you start to realize that it really doesn’t deserve to have a place in an English dictionary.

But in any case, it is in some of them.

Here you go.

Two more.

Z-Y, Z-Z-Y, V-A, Ziziva.

Ziziva.

And this is a type of tropical American weevil, and it’s a genus name as well for those types of weevils.

And they destroy plants and the like.

So Ziziva, Z-Y-Z-Y-V-A.

And I believe this is the last one in the American Heritage Dictionary.

I think it is, and I think it’s probably onomatopoetic, right?

Ziziva, little weevil.

I love the word.

That is a great word.

And actually, I believe there’s a literary journal of that name just because it’s such a fantastic word

And also because it tends to be last in the dictionary.

Okay, you got that one, Steve?

I got that one.

And there’s one more, huh?

This is the one which causes the most dispute.

Is this the random house word?

I don’t know.

It’s in Encarta.

It’s in Cambridge.

It’s in Webster’s New World.

Okay, drum roll.

Z, Z, Z.

It’s the automata PXL for sleep.

Oh.

I’ll be darned.

That’s cheating.

And you’ll see, there we go.

It causes dispute.

The thing is, do you allow it?

And yet I can read books that use it.

I see it in comic strips and cartoons.

Yeah.

I mean, I see it in speech bubbles in a variety of different places.

It’s in songs, even.

What do you think, Steve?

Do you think we should allow that one?

We can say it.

We can say it.

We can write it, and it has meaning.

It’s a word.

Steve, what do you think?

Unless you use the blank tiles, it’ll never fit into Scrabble.

Good point.

I’m not sure it’s allowed by the Scrabble dictionary.

I’m sure there’s some Scrabble excerpts going,

Actually, I used that in part of my winning game last week.

Doggone.

Well, I’ll be darned.

There’s four more.

See what you’ve done, Steve.

Steve, thank you so much for calling.

This was fun.

Thank you for having me on.

Our pleasure.

Have a great day.

Bye.

If you’re not zzzzing right now, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673,

Or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Coming up, the language referees solve more of your language disputes.

Stay tuned.

You’re listening to A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

And we’re joined once again by our quiz guy, Greg Pliska.

Hello, Greg.

Hello, Grant.

Hello, Martha.

What’s cooking, buddy?

What’s cooking?

I’m making some pasta, actually.

Yeah?

Yeah?

Yeah?

A little red sauce on that?

Some cheese?

A little red sauce?

You boiling it?

Do you use the cheese that comes in the green can, or do you grate your own?

I grate my own.

I have to admit.

I’m a cheese snob when it comes to that.

Pecorino or Romano?

A little of both, actually.

I got a little parmesan.

I’ve got some Romano.

Do you have a quiz in there somewhere amongst your recipes and your spoons?

I do, and it’s not about cheese.

Thank goodness.

We’re tired of those cheese quizzes.

Oh, I was all ready for it.

I’ll do cheese next week.

Okay.

It’s a little, you know, it’s very topical.

You know, Apple’s latest big thing is the iPad.

Oh, yeah.

I’m sure Grant is looking up the answers on his iPad right now.

No, no.

I’m not going to buy one.

He’s not an iPad kind of guy.

You know, it’s predicted to change our lives forever like everything else.

And before that, we had the iPod, the iMac, the iPhone, and so on.

So I’ve got a little quiz that I call i-dition.

Okay.

You’re going to take a word, add an i to it as if you were creating an Apple product, and get a new word.

Okay.

Okay, and does the I always go at the beginning?

I always goes at the beginning, yes.

Very good question.

For example, if I gave you the clue, the button that starts up your iPad, you would give me a word starting with I.

Ignition?

Ion.

Ion.

Oh, ion.

The on button with an I in front.

It’s the ion.

Okay, great.

Okay.

All right, does that make sense?

Mm-mm—

Here’s your first one.

Okay.

This is when you try to buy an iPod at an auction.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Yeah, Ibid, Ibid, Ibid, yes.

Okay, so it doesn’t have to be a long I.

Well, you know, not in that case, but in many of them, yes.

Ibid.

We might have to massage pronunciation a little bit here and there.

Okay.

This is how Steve Jobs begins a card game.

Ideal.

Ideal, exactly.

Oh, nice.

Okay. Because iShuffle, it’s already been taken, right?

Exactly, exactly. You have to have an iDeal before you can, after you have your iShuffle.

This is a scam in which someone tries to sell you a fake Apple product.

A scam? A fake Apple product? I bogus? I…

I fraud, I hoax, I rip off, I rip.

You’re starting with a three-letter word, and you’re going to make a four-letter word.

Iris?

Con.

Icon.

Icon.

That should have been easy.

There you go.

It’s a con.

It’s an icon.

All right.

Your next one is how much Steve Jobs charges per hour?

For this advertisement?

I don’t know.

What are we getting for this?

We’ll take trade.

Irate.

Irate.

Irate.

Oh, very good.

Irate, exactly.

Very good.

The rate per hour.

Okay.

The next few of these are all phonetic, which means you’re going to add an I and take the sound of the original word, but the spelling won’t necessarily transfer exactly.

Harder.

Harder.

Okay.

This is Apple’s new farming tool.

I hoe.

I hoe.

Hi, comma.

New farming tool.

Rake or hoe or plow or…

Something you use to cut down a lot of wheat.

I…

I…

I…

Icicle.

Icicle.

There you go.

Oh, man.

This one is how the number five would be written on a Roman iPad.

Ivy?

Ivy.

There we go.

Ivy.

Here are a couple more that are phonetic, and they don’t even start with the letter I.

They just start with the sound I.

Aha.

Okay.

This is how Steve Jobs whips his employees into shape.

And whip is the important word there.

I crack.

I flagellate.

I flagellate.

I fog.

I crack.

I bullwhip.

When you get in trouble, someone’s going to give you 30.

Lashes.

Eyelashes.

Oh, eyelashes.

Very good.

Eyelashes, yes.

This is the kind of boat that Apple employees go on when they go on vacation.

Eyeliner.

Eyeliner, exactly.

Eyeliner.

Eyeliner.

Eyeliner, yeah.

Okay.

And this is discomfort caused by using an Apple product.

Discomfort?

Eye strain.

Oh, very good.

That’s good.

No.

That works.

Yeah, it works.

I was thinking of another kind.

I was thinking of eyesore.

Oh, eyesore.

Eyesore.

Okay.

Yeah, sure.

Very good.

Either one works.

This is what you drink out of when you go over to Steve’s house for a cocktail.

Retired Mac SE 30s?

I don’t know.

Eye mug, eye glass, eye tumbler, eye…

Eye glass.

Yeah, eye glass.

Oh, hello.

Eyeglasses.

Exactly.

Now, this last one starts with an eye, but it’s phonetic as the earlier ones were.

Okay.

This is what you can get sued for if you publicly defame an Apple product.

Oh.

Is it a person in the North Atlantic?

It is, yes.

An Icelander?

Icelander, exactly.

Icelander, very nice.

That’s great, Greg.

Thank you.

Well, if you have a question about wordplay or language or grammar or slang or regional dialects, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-Wayword, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name’s Elizabeth Bushman, and I’m calling from the thriving metropolis of Princeton, Texas.

Well, hello, Elizabeth. Welcome to the program. It’s thriving. What goes on in Princeton?

Not much. It’s pretty small, actually.

They’re too busy thriving.

Exactly.

Well, if you’ve got a stoplight in a drugstore, then it’s a town, right?

Well, exactly. And we even have a McDonald’s, so we’re doing pretty good.

Okay. Gas station?

I grew up in towns like that in Missouri. I’m completely with you here.

Right. Well, I have a question, and I’m hoping that you guys can give me some insight.

My father grew up in Snowflake, Arizona, and he was the youngest of eight children.

He’s been gone now for about 20 years, but we still keep him very much alive in our sayings.

And one of the things that his family used to do at the end of a meal when asked if they would want more food,

They would say, I am sufficiently safonsified.

Anything more would be purely obnoxious to my taste.

No, thank you.

Now, he swore up and down that safonsified was a word, but we’ve researched it.

I’ve talked to many reference librarians, consulted many dictionaries, and we haven’t been able to find the word.

And I was hoping you could help me track it down.

Sufantified. Can you say that line again, please?

Well, he would say, I am sufficiently sufantified.

Anything more would be purely obnoxious to my taste. No, thank you.

I love that. And that’s a no, right? All that means no.

Exactly.

And so did he have a particular look about him?

Did it look like he was, did he like change his attitude or his, recompose his face when he said this?

I mean, was it just the words or was there something else going along with it?

Well, you know, a little patting of the tummy and a smug look like he knew something that we didn’t.

That sounds like my co-host.

What?

I’ve heard that about him.

Wait a second, all the way in Princeton, Texas, they’ve been talking about me?

That’s right, that’s right.

You bet.

That’s right. He is sufficiently suffonsified.

I am sufficiently suffonsified.

I love this expression. Elizabeth, yes, we can help you with this.

We can. And the part that I love about it the most is obnoxious to my taste.

What a construction that is.

Yeah, this has been a popular expression in some circles for a while, especially I read in Canada.

And you spell the word S-U-F-F-O-N-S-I-F-I-E-D, suffonsified.

That’s the way you usually see it.

I’ve seen suffansified and suffalsified.

Well, and I think it’s interesting.

My grandmother, I figured this came through my grandfather’s smart aleckness,

But my grandmother was from Canada.

So I wonder if that’s…

Okay.

Okay, yeah.

There are a couple places where this has been looked into with a little bit of satisfaction.

I think they’ve done a fairly decent job of it.

But it turns out that a lot of variations of this whole expression that you’ve given have existed since at least the mid-1800s.

And you know what we’re going to do, Elizabeth?

We’re going to link to some articles about this.

We’ll put them on our website so that we can just share more information about it.

Because the extended forms of this, some of them are very convoluted.

And some of the passages from the books are really striking in the way that the character kind of makes a fool of himself accidentally.

It’s just fun stuff.

Very good.

Well, thank you so much.

This has been very enjoyable, and I appreciate your information.

I think you’re saying that your linguistic sufficiency has been suffonsified.

I have been suffonsified.

And we are not obnoxious to your taste, I hope.

Definitely not.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

You bet.

Thank you.

Bye now.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you’ve got something like this that you’d like to talk about, just a little bit of goofing around is perfectly allowed.

1-877-929-9673 or send it along in email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jim Shin. How are you?

Doing well. How are you, Jim?

I’m doing very well. I’m calling from Vernon, Connecticut.

You’re in Vernon, Connecticut. All right.

I am. Well, I have a kind of a question. It kind of goes back to my childhood.

I remember my grandmother referring to the phrase stump jumper.

And I am a native Vermonter, and I’ve been referred to as a stump jumper,

And I just wonder if I should be proud or offended.

Who’s calling you that?

Yeah.

Well, a couple people have throughout my life, some of them family members.

In what kind of way do they say it?

Do they say, Jim, you stump jumper?

No, it wasn’t said in any kind of a direct, you know, as an insult or anything.

It was just Vermonter, a.k.a. Stump Jumper.

Aha, very interesting.

Do you have any idea what it might mean?

Well, my grandmother, I do remember her mentioning when I was very little, probably five or six.

She tried to explain it, and I don’t recall the whole thing.

I remember there was something about Native Americans, and I don’t remember much beyond that.

A Stump Jumper can go both ways.

Sometimes it’s nice, sometimes it’s mean.

It’s all about whether you’re an insider or an outsider.

Generally, it means a bumpkin or a rustic or a hillbilly,

And I can trace it back in that usage about 100 years or so.

Jim, do you think of yourself that way?

Well, not really.

I’ve been in Connecticut a long time.

Sometimes it just means a small farmer,

Somebody who’s got a lot of land that maybe they cleared for themselves

And maybe relatively recently and they haven’t pulled the stumps up.

Where the pejorative or the derogatory part comes in,

There sometimes is an insinuation there that he’s a bit lazy.

And the reason he has to jump the stumps when he’s plowing

Is because he was too lazy to go out there and yank them out.

But the term has been used a number of different ways over the years.

And one of the really struck me, I found one use of this,

Of a telephone lineman, a man who climbs the poles to do stuff,

Sometimes called himself a stump jumper

Because he’s actually climbing up these big poles that used to be trees.

And I’ve seen a couple of uses where a stump jumper is somebody who jumps from stump to stump on policies without ever settling on one.

So it’s kind of the old fashioned flip flopper.

Oh, that’s interesting. So in a political sense.

I didn’t see that coming.

But it makes sense because you’re giving a stump speech.

But the more common stump jumper is a type of plow, which I believe was invented in Australia in the late 1800s,

Which is literally a stump jumper where you don’t have to clear the stumps out of your land,

And it will work around them or kind of work over them.

And what it means is that you can clear land and get to farming right away without spending all this time with the ox,

You know, pulling the stumps out or the dynamite even getting the stumps out.

But that wouldn’t apply to somebody in Vermont.

Well, you know, the thing is, like, it’s not unheard of for a word to be coined more than once in different places.

But I’m just saying, like, I’m just suggesting that there’s another stump jumper out there that is interesting.

I wonder if there are people in Vermont who proudly call themselves stump jumpers, you know?

I mean, my father’s people call themselves hillbillies or hill people.

And it was, you know.

Well, I don’t ever recall it having a bad connotation.

Okay.

It just, it was kind of stump jumper, a.k.a. Vermont, or the other way around.

Yeah, I could see that.

I could see that being taken as a self-identification

Where somebody is proud of the fact that they’re making a living from the hard earth.

Yeah, they work hard in the field.

Jim, well, thank you so much for calling.

Well, I thank you, and I’ll be listening.

Okay.

All right, bye-bye.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks. Have a great day.

All right, you too.

Did somebody call you something, and you’re not sure whether it’s an insult?

Let us sort it out, 1-877-929-9673,

Or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

A little later in the show, we’ll be talking about Tom Swifties,

Those fabulous funny sentences that make great punny use of an adverb like,

My bicycle wheel is damaged, Tom said outspokenly.

How about this one, Grant? Can you guess this one?

We can’t have this and eat it too, Tom said.

I don’t know. Antoinette-nally? I don’t know.

Archaically.

Oh, archaically. Terrible stuff.

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Well, there’ll be more later in the show.

The number is 1-877-929-9673 or send your questions to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi. My name is Jackie. I’m in Dallas.

Hiya, Jackie. Welcome to the program.

Thanks. I’m calling about hog heaven.

I walked into my house last week, and I looked around at my three cats.

It was very cold, and they were all snuggled into very warm places,

And I said to myself, these cats are in hog heaven.

And then I thought, it should really be called cat heaven.

I mean, if you can see them, you just want to be comfortable as they are.

So I just didn’t know, like, why hog heaven?

They just don’t seem like particularly comfortable animals.

You know, when I was a boy, we raised the odd hog here and there and out back of the house once in a while.

And I have seen hogs, and they can look as contented as a cat.

If you’ve ever seen them deep in a wallow with a trough full of acorns or actually a belly full of acorns and just the right amount of sunlight.

Hogs, they know how to relax.

They know how to settle down.

You don’t want them rubbing up against your leg.

No, no, no.

They’ll rub your skin raw in about two seconds.

Yeah, but it’s a good question, right?

Why would it be hog heaven?

Yeah, of all the things about comfort, why hogs?

Great question, Jackie.

I’m not sure that we know the answer to it besides the idea of the alliteration there.

I mean, it’s very appealing.

I mean, hog heaven works better than, what, piggy paradise?

Yeah.

Yeah, hog heaven works really well, right?

Yeah, hog heaven.

I guess I could imagine myself in a mud pit with a few acorns kicking back.

They love acorns.

They really do.

It’s one of their favorite foods if they can get them.

It’s good eating for a hog.

But, you know, I’m serious.

Martha, you’ve seen hogs, right?

They really, they grunt and they’re contented and they squirm down under the mud and they just kind of lay there on their side.

They’ll lay there half the day and they’ll do all their business from a prone position if they can because they’re perfectly content.

Wait a minute.

All their business from, what is this, the happy hogger?

I’m not going to elaborate.

I’m just saying business, you know, in air quotes, kind of euphemistic there for all their difficulty.

Different business.

Yeah, they do like to lie around.

I really think that it’s no more complicated than that, Jackie.

If you’ve ever seen a contented hog, humans can’t get that contented.

We’re not capable of it.

We’re always fidgeting and squirming and we’re thinking about too much and trying to, you

Know, always looking for an advantage.

And the hog is like, look, I got mugged and slop.

I’m all set, you know?

And they just flop right down in it.

So I guess that lifestyle explains their body shape.

Yeah, yeah.

And also the human need for bacon.

Well, I wish we could have given you a more definitive answer, but I’m kind of liking these images that you two are conjuring of having a holiday.

Yeah, that makes sense.

That makes a lot of sense.

All right.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

We should note for the record that there used to be a town called Hog Heaven Valley in Idaho, but it’s been since renamed.

Yeah, and I don’t know if it’s pronounced Moscow or Moscow.

Maybe our Idaho listeners can tell us.

Well, if a word or phrase is stuck in your craw and you’re wondering about it, give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Coming up, you have questions, we have answers. Stick around for more on A Way with Words.

Support for A Way with Words comes from National University,

Where flexible online classes let you earn your degree or credential on your schedule.

Learn more at nu.edu.

You’re listening to A Way with Words. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Recently on our show, our quiz guy, John Chaneski, gave us a little quiz involving Tom Swifties,

Those sentences that feature an adverb that’s used in a funny way, like, pass the shellfish, Tom said, crabbily.

Or, I got the drain unclogged by using a vacuum cleaner, Tom said succinctly.

But, you know, Grant, one question that we left unanswered in that episode was, why are those things called Tom Swifties in the first place?

Oh?

And it’s great.

It turns out that the name refers to a series of books for young readers, sort of like the old Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew series, that started in 1910.

And it featured this bright young scientist named Tom Swift who comes up with cool inventions and solves problems using his scientific knowledge, sort of your proto-MacGyver, you know?

And the author who wrote many of those original books, Edward Stratemeyer, had what you might call an inordinate fondness for adverbs.

I mean, he was one of those guys who just can’t write the word said and leave it alone.

You know, it had to be Tom said, comma, good naturedly or Tom said, comma.

The hallmark of the great thinker, but the bad writer.

Exactly.

And those books were so packed with adverbs, those Tom Swift books, that people started making fun of them and coming up with bad puns involving adverbs.

The classic one being, we must hurry, said Tom swiftly.

Yes.

And so then there was sort of this cottage industry of Tom Swifties.

And the industry keeps cottaging.

It does. It does.

But I should say that like a lot of young men, I learned about Tom Swifties from Boys Life magazine.

This is the magazine of the Boy Scout Foundation of America.

Oh, no wonder I didn’t know about those.

I don’t know if it’s still there, but for years and years they had a page of Tom Swifties.

I did not know that. Cool. What are some of your favorites?

There were a lot of people talking on the discussion forum.

Well, those are the ones that I wanted to share with you because a lot of creative minds who listen to the show have chipped in on our forum to make a long list of these things.

And this is one of my favorites.

I got the first three wrong.

He said forthrightly.

And this one requires that you see it, but I’m going to try it anyway.

Tom murmured forensically, and the mm is four ins in a row.

Oh, forensically.

Brilliant.

I should give the credit for those.

I’m sorry, I didn’t write it down here, but Glenn, who is a heavy participant in our forum, he said this one.

Charlatan, dissembler, mountebank, rogue, decried Tom euphoniously.

Just words that are fun to say.

Euphoniously.

Euphony.

And then one more from Ron.

Ron said, the prisoner is coming down the stairs, Tom said condescendingly.

Oh, oh, nice.

For somebody who doesn’t care for puns, these just rock my world.

Yeah.

Because they’ve got the extra element in there.

Sometimes there’s a third and a fourth thing to catch, right?

It’s not just the one thing.

There’s layers here.

Yeah.

Well, I also like the ones that don’t have an adverb.

I don’t know if there’s a special word for this, but like,

I’m halfway up a mountain, Tom, alleged.

Very nice.

Or there’s room for one more, Tom, admitted.

Or my favorite.

I’m wearing a ribbon around my arm, Tom said with abandon.

With abandon.

Terrible stuff.

Give me more.

Awful.

Give us more.

Call us 1-877-929-9673 or send those emails to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Reed calling from Madison, Wisconsin.

Hi, Reed.

Hello, Reed.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you.

How can we help you?

Well, even though I’m calling from where we have a lot of snow right now, I grew up in the south.

I grew up in Louisiana.

I spent some time along the Gulf Coast parishes where I heard a word I haven’t heard anywhere else.

The word is gradu.

Gradu.

Gradu.

Gradu, and we can spell it phonetically.

I might try, but I’m sure I’d get it wrong if I tried to spell it in Cajun French.

If I understood the use of the word in context, it would be something you would rather scrape off your shoe.

Okay.

So you’d say, I have gradu on my shoe?

Well, no, you might say, what kind of gradu did you just step into?

-huh, okay.

Or unknown kind of schmutz.

Yeah, that sounds like a bunch of gradu to me.

-huh, okay, there we go.

Okay, well, gee.

Did you get this from English speakers or people who spoke Cajun French and English, or who was saying it?

By people who both spoke English and Cajun French.

Okay, that’s good. That’s a nice clue there.

Well, I’ve got a, if you’ll pardon me saying it, I’ve got a half-assed theory about it if you’d like to hear it.

Okay, just don’t try to crawfish out of the deal, all right?

I will not do that.

To crawfish out of the deal? I’ve never heard that.

Just scuttle sideways or something, right?

Oh, I’ve never heard of it.

The crawfish used to back out of the deal.

Oh, sure, sure.

They crawl back into their hole, right?

Oh, so crawfish is a verb? I didn’t know that.

Cool. Okay.

All right, what do you have, Grant, on gradu?

Well, here’s the theory, and the reason I asked about the Cajun French speakers

Is because I speculate that it is a corruption, and bear with me,

Of the French phrase gradu, G-R-A-S-D apostrophe E-A-U.

And basically, I found one source which suggests that it’s colloquially used, even though it’s not a literal meaning of the phrase, too much water, or basically the fat of the water.

So it might be the water junk or the flotsam, that sort of thing.

So there’s a lot of different ways it can go.

The reason I call this a half-cocked theory is that I don’t find anybody else who’s browsing this theory, and so little work has been done on the history of Gradu.

I’m really surprised not to find it in some of the standard works of American English.

I just don’t see it there.

So that’s my theory.

We find it as early as the 1970s.

It’s probably older than that.

It’s definitely more widespread at this point than just the French-speaking parts of Louisiana,

But it’s not nationally known, and many people are going to go, huh?

When you use it, right?

You probably get that.

Yeah.

You know, puzzled looks.

And what did you say?

I like your idea that it would be the flotsam.

That’s a more general kind of something you’d just assume do without kind of definition.

But it requires that you accept this colloquial interpretation of G-R-A-S, which just generally means fat.

So sort of scum on the water.

Yeah, kind of the scum of the water.

But again, who knows why it now is referred to something that you find on the street.

But I do find mention of it in Paul Dixon’s book Family Words.

He says that he has widespread reports of this, and he describes it as miscellaneous dirt, junk, small pieces of grit, etc., or the sludge at the bottom of wash water, or what’s left after melting snow for drinking water.

So it really makes, I mean, that kind of reinforces the theory.

Well, I’m a professional storyteller, and I’ve been fascinated with words all my life.

And one of the things I really enjoyed about growing up in Louisiana and other parts of the South, I’m sure people are like this everywhere.

But it really caught my attention down there how people are known to be creative with creating meanings using sort of taking tangents off of basic definition or basic use of a word.

Oh, yeah.

So if it was grado or gradu that would be slop water from washing dishes or whatever,

And it got to be spread around a little more, just basically something undesirable,

Something you’d rather scrape off your shoe or you would rather not step in.

Good description.

All that would apply to my experience down there.

Yeah, that’s generally how the words change.

And also we are great innovators, human beings.

We tend to take whatever we have at our disposal and modify it so that it will work for a new task.

And we do the same thing with language.

Well, Reid is probably a new word to a lot of people, so we appreciate your spreading around gradu.

Sounds good.

I think.

And I’ll do the same for you.

Okay.

Thank you for calling, Reid.

This was good stuff.

A pleasure.

I love your show.

Keep it up.

Thanks a lot.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

We’d love to hear your hometown expressions.

Give us a call, 1-877-929-9673, or send that crazy word to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Linda Logan calling you from Boonville, New York.

Hello, Linda. Welcome.

Hi, Linda.

Hi.

What’s going on there in Boonville?

Well, my grandmother, who was born in 1888, used an expression that perplexed me as a child.

She used to say when I would ask her if she would come help me that she would be there directly.

And I thought that meant immediately.

And I found out it meant I will be there when I get there.

She was a very gentle, loving soul.

I mean, there was nothing unkind or sarcastic about her, but I didn’t understand the meaning of the word as she used it.

And, Linda, did you live in a different place from your grandmother?

I did.

She lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

And as a child, I lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Oh, okay. So she would come to visit.

No, we’d go down to visit her.

Oh, you’d go down to visit her, and then you’d hear a totally different use of directly.

-huh.

So she would offer you that pie directly.

Right.

And you’d be all ready with the fork and the napkin and all that.

That’s right.

-huh.

My grandmother from southeast Missouri, and she’s been gone these two years, but she had the same word.

And I think of her when I think of that word, just like you think of your grandmother.

She would say, I’ll be along directly.

In her speech, though, it meant soon enough but not right away.

-huh.

And that’s where you’re kind of getting some discrepancy there, right?

There’s a couple different meanings.

Right.

And I have friends here.

This is in upstate rural New York where I live.

I have friends here who remember their grandmothers using that word the same way.

But what I would like to know is how did it come to change in meaning from meaning immediately to meaning presently?

The best dictionary to look for this kind of thing, when you know that there’s some kind of regional component to it, of course, is the Dictionary of American Regional English.

Did you check that one, Linda?

I don’t have that one.

I looked it up in the American Heritage.

Oh, good dictionary, great dictionary.

And they have a fairly decent coverage of some of the major dialect and regional forms.

But they’ve had a nice map in the Dictionary of American Regional English that shows a lot of little pinpoints right in Kentucky.

Because this is something that is from the south, generally.

I find it in Arkansas and Kentucky and the Carolinas and a spot here and there in Texas and so on and so forth.

My mother, my grandmother was from southeast Missouri, which has a lot of the southern components that you’d also find in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

And as you say, the older meaning, which meant immediately and without delay, is the one that has kind of carried through alongside the newer meaning, which means soon.

So there’s a little bit of change there, and it’s enough of a change that when you get these two uses of directly in the same community of speakers, it sows confusion.

But, you know, maybe that’s the goal.

It’s kind of like telling a child maybe, right?

The child hears yes and you hear no.

Yes.

So, Linda, do you use it that way?

Well, no, I don’t use the term.

It was in listening to your program a couple of weeks ago.

All of a sudden, the word came into my mind.

And grandmother died a number of years ago, so I can’t ask her any longer.

Yeah.

What was the name of the dictionary, the American Dictionary of?

It’s the Dictionary of American Regional English, usually abbreviated as DARE.

It’s done out of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and they’re preparing their fifth and final volume now.

It is, and I don’t know anyone in the lexicographical fields who would argue with me,

One of the top three finest dictionaries in any language.

Oh, wonderful.

It’s really fantastic.

I would agree with that.

And it’s great bedside table reading.

I’m not kidding.

I love it.

I love it.

So you’ll find that kind of thing.

Directly is really handy, the way that your grandmother used it, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Later.

Well, as I said, she was very gentle.

She was a very genteel and gracious lady.

It just left me confused, being a child who was growing up in the North, as to exactly what grandmother meant.

And maybe she’d be along a half hour later.

Sounds like a woman of class.

Well, she was.

She really was.

She was quite elegant, quite lovely, and quite loving.

And I miss her.

Oh, Linda.

Thank you for sharing all that with us.

Well, you’re welcome.

Yeah, we appreciate your calling, Linda.

Thank you.

Well, thank you.

Best of luck to you, Linda.

Bye-bye.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Well, share your linguistic heirlooms with us.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

We’d love to hear them.

You can also email us, words@waywordradio.org.

More Tom Swifties, Martha.

Can’t leave these alone.

No, go ahead.

This is one of my favorites.

Archie, we need to talk, said Veronica expectantly.

I wonder what she’s expecting.

Very nice.

Send your Tom Swifties and your language questions and your grammar advice to words@waywordradio.org

Or give us a call, 1-877-929-9673.

Yes, we take advice as well as give it.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Jay from Kokomo, Indiana.

Hello, Jay from Kokomo.

How are you doing?

Well, I have kind of a nickname my mom used to use when I was little.

Sometimes she would call me Snickle Fritz.

And it’s something I never thought much about over the years.

She would call my children that, you know, her grandkids sometimes.

And my first wife passed away about 10 years ago.

I’ve since remarried.

Now I have an 11-year-old stepson.

And I’ve started using that term for him.

And recently we were in a German cafe where they have a lot of gifts and stuff.

And on the wall, there was a poster that had different German kind of caricatures, cartoon characters.

And beside one of them was the name Snickle Fritz.

And then I was driving not long ago to one of my older sons plays college basketball,

Driving to one of his games, listening to your show.

So I thought, well, I’ll call in and see if you guys can help me figure out where the term Snickle Fritz came from or what it might mean.

So your mother used this. Did she use it on you when you were a child or an adult or both?

Just as a child.

Okay.

And sometimes, you know, if I’d go over to, like, take my kids when they were little over to my mom and dad’s, you know, she might say,

Well, why don’t you just sit down and eat, and I’ll take Snickle Fritz here out in the yard and play, or, you know, referring to my kids.

Yeah.

Are you of German heritage?

Was your mother a German speaker?

My mom, well, my mom was adopted, so we don’t know a lot about her heritage.

But what I do know, I think, is mostly, like, Welsh and Irish.

Now, on my dad’s side, there’s a lot of German.

Mm—

Well, this is a pet name.

It does come from German.

You’re spot on with that.

And it’s used to describe a little boy, particularly one who’s up to no good.

It’s a term of affection.

It’s not meant to be offensive or an insult or anything.

And I think it’s completely appropriate that you use it.

Except is that when you break it down etymologically,

It comes from a German dialect word for, pardon me, little boy’s penis,

Plus the common name Fritz.

Really?

Yeah, it’s schnickel.

Schnickel is a German dialect word meaning little boy’s penis.

Okay.

All right.

And the thing is, you’re like, whoa, wait a second.

What have I been saying all these?

What was my mother calling me?

Well, it always struck me as a term of endearment.

You know, that’s the way I’ve always taken it.

Sort of like a little rascal or something, right?

And the thing is, words become transformed when they join other words.

So schnickel plus fritz doesn’t necessarily mean anything naughty.

It becomes a term of affection.

And frankly, if you look at pet names in all the languages of the world, this is like tame and mild compared to what happens in some other languages.

And I won’t go into them because we can’t say them on the radio.

But what’s really interesting to me is that you have it in your vocabulary.

You learned it from your mother who wasn’t a German heritage, which just shows that this word was adopted very well into English.

And we find that it appears in Nebraska and California and Illinois and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and here and there.

Well, I like it.

I do, too.

And I like to tease my stepson, and that’s just something, you know, I use that term once in a while.

I’m just calling Sniffle Fritz, and he’s not offended by it at all.

Excellent.

So you’ll keep using it, Jay?

Oh, yes, yes.

Excellent.

Just don’t tell him, no.

Yeah.

He’ll hear it.

Yeah, someday.

Thank you for calling, Jay.

It’s a secret you can tell him when he turns 18 or something.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for your help.

Okay, sure thing.

Bye-bye.

What do you call your loved ones?

What are your pet names?

Give us a call 1-877-929-9673 or send them an email to words@waywordradio.org.

That’s our show for this week.

If you didn’t get on the air today, you can leave us a message anytime.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

Or email us. The address is words@waywordradio.org.

You can stay in touch with us all week on Twitter.

We’re there under the username WayWord.

Stefanie Levine is our senior producer.

Our technical director and editor is Tim Felten.

We’ve had production help this week from Josette Herdell and Jennifer Powell.

From Studio West in San Diego, I’m Martha Barnette.

And from San Francisco, I’m Grant Barrett.

Thanks to Howard Gelman for engineering our show from the studios of KQED Radio.

Sayonara.

Bye-bye.

If we call the whole thing off, then we must part.

And oh, if we have a part, then that might break my heart.

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Hi, it’s Martha.

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