A Way with Words

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig!

Posted by Grant Barrett on March 21, 2020 · Add Comment

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How are Polka Dots and Polka Music Connected?

Posted by Grant Barrett on July 10, 2017 · Add Comment

Judy in Huntsville, Alabama, has hundreds of song lyrics playing on auto-shuffle in her head. When the Polka Dot Polka started playing, she began to wonder how polka dots came to be associated with the music. It turns out that the polka dance craze of the early 1800s — named after the Polish word for [...]
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Jiggity-Jig

Posted by grantbarrett on June 20, 2011 · Add Comment

“Home again, home again, jiggity-jig!” A listener wonders about the origin of this phrase her Mother often used. Grant and Martha trace it back to another mother: Mother Goose. The full line goes, “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, home again, home again, jiggity-jig.” It does not, contrary to a highly visited [...]
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Yankee Dimes in a Culch Pile

Posted by Grant Barrett on October 10, 2010 · Add Comment

Howdy! In this week’s episode of “A Way with Words,” we have a whole culch pile of conversation about Yankee dimes, hanging crepe, educational rubrics, and whether the language you speak influences how you think. Here ’tis: http://www.waywordradio.org/yankee-dime/ We also discussed childhood misunderstandings, such as assuming that “cat burglars” steal cats. Many of you are [...]
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travesty dancer

Posted by Grant Barrett on December 12, 2008 · Add Comment

travesty dancer n.— «Forget about those famous old Russian ballerinas of yesteryear: you haven’t really seen a dying swan until you’ve seen the Trocks, as this company of male travesty dancers is affectionately known.» —“Dance Listings” New York Times Dec. 12, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
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hi mom

Posted by Grant Barrett on April 1, 2007 · Add Comment

hi mom n.— «Just before Thanksgiving, 2004, a Fox News producer with whom I’d worked a number of times in Kabul and Bagram showed up on Bagram Air Field to shoot what military PA people call “Hi Moms”—the little snippets of video of service members saying “I’m Corporal Bill Jones from Paducah, Kentucky and I want [...]
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