Takes the Cake (episode #1615)

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.

Grant, do you remember a movie from the 1980s called The Dresser? It starred Albert Finney as a Shakespearean actor, and Tom Courtney as his dresser, that is, the guy who helps him get ready to go on stage each night. Does that ring a bell?

Vaguely. Albert Finney, he’s great, so maybe it’s something I saw?

Yeah, yeah, I have a vague memory of that movie being kind of heavy. These days you’ll also see The Dresser performed as a play. And recently a New Mexico paper published a story about a local run of that play, but it seems that the headline writer hadn’t really paid attention to the plot because the headline originally read, The Dresser centers on relationship between actor and furniture.

Oh no, oh no. It’s not furniture. It’s someone who helps someone else dress to put on clothes.

Yes. As we always say on the show, words can have more than one meaning.

Yes. The life of a reporter.

Yes. You live in mortal dread of making a mistake like that and having to correct it for everybody to see.

Of course, the good thing about making mistakes online is that this was quickly corrected to place centers on the relationship between an aging actor and his dresser. But the bad thing about publishing stories online is that people can still dig them up and take screenshots.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Reporters, everyone sees your work. They see your errors.

Of course, that’s true for radio hosts as well, as you and I both know. Our listeners will let us know if we goof.

That’s for sure. Or if we put out a, I don’t know how I know this, but if we put out a newsletter with a typo in it and it goes out to tens of thousands of people, boy, will they reply.

Thank you for letting us know. We always do appreciate it. You know, and you make gaffes, too, and sometimes they’re hilarious. And if you can laugh at yourself, well, let us laugh, too.

Send your gaffes to words@waywordradio.org or call us on the phone, 877-929-9673. That’s toll-free, 24 hours a day in the United States and Canada. And there are lots of ways to reach us on social media at waywordradio.org/contact.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Marga Lee, and I am calling from Fairbanks, Alaska.

Hello, Marga Lee, Fairbanks, Alaska, one of my new favorite places. Well, so I have something that I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while. This is an expression that my husband, as an endearing term, has been calling me for the last 20 years, like whippersnapper. I might not say it very well, but whippersnapper. So I’m wondering where does it come from and what does it mean exactly? If you could enlighten me, that would be great. And what kind of context would he use this term in?

Oh, just when he’s, I think like, you know, affectionately, just, you know, instead of calling me sweetie or, you know, like when we are just talking about different things, in that kind of context.

Okay. All right. Yeah, it’s got an interesting history to it. It goes back to there was a fad in the 17th century in England where young men would race horses. And this is typically, as you might expect, the kind of thing that young men would do. Anytime there’s something to be raised, young men will do it.

Of course. They would crack whips to make the horses go faster. Not necessarily crack the whips on the horses, but the whips go so fast they make the loud snapping sound as they pass the speed of sound. They make a pop, a huge pop.

And there was a fad for those with money, lots of money, to spend it on teams of faster horses and expensive coaches and to race them all at high speeds. And they would perfect their whipping technique to know just how to whip it and to touch the animal with it to get it to move without disturbing the ones next to it. So sometimes they would whip the animal.

For other young men who were poor and didn’t have money, it was kind of a case of all whip and no equines, to coin a phrase. They would make themselves seem like expert horse racers who just happened to be away from their mounts and coaches. And they would stroll around with the whips, even though they didn’t own horses and they didn’t own carriages. And so they would walk around with these whips, snapping them, whipping them and snapping them.

And so they became known as whippersnappers. And the expression started as whippersnapper, but there was another term before it called snippersnapper, which was a much older expression, which meant a young, arrogant man, which probably influenced whip snapper to become whippersnapper. And so what it referred to was a little young man with a lot of attitude who went around snapping whips and causing commotions.

All right. Well, I hope I didn’t get that. I didn’t call that because of my attitude.

I doubt it, but the history of the world is just fascinating, actually.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I often think of that word being coupled with another adjective, you know, like young whippersnapper or little whippersnapper or something like that. Did your husband use it that way?

That’s correct. Yes. And also he was or he has been using that because his father would call him like that. His father would use that on him as well as he was growing up.

-huh. -huh. Now he uses it affectionately with you. My little whippersnapper or something like that?

That is exactly correct, Martha. Yes. So, Marguerite, let me ask you a question. Vous êtes en Française, oui?

Je suis Française, oui.

Okay. So there’s a French word, which is roughly equivalent to whippersnapper. And it’s freluquet. F-R-E-L-U-Q-U-E-T. And it’s an old-fashioned word. And it means a young, pretentious man. And that’s roughly what whippersnapper means in French.

Oh, my goodness. Okay, that makes sense. I mean, it was used in the French literature, more like in the olden days.

Oh, I just love it. This is great.

Yeah. But no, I really appreciate your help with making me understand. I could have looked it up, but I thought it’s better to have it from your own words.

Yes, it’s more fun to goof around, isn’t it? Marguerite, I have one more question for you. If he calls you a whippersnapper, what do you call him?

Smarty pants.

Smarty pants. Smarty pants. Would that be adequate?

I hope it will be.

Yes, perfect. Probably. He’s too big for his britches.

I love that too. And of course, the context is all affectionately context, of course.

Of course. Sounds very loving, both directions. And we just love listening, you know, to your radio show every Saturday. So thank you very much.

Oh, that’s very nice. Thanks for calling. Take care. Bye-bye.

Okay. Au revoir.

877-929-9673.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi. This is Alice Sullivan in South Carolina, Aiken.

Hi, Alice. Welcome to the show. I would like to know what the origin is of a word, and I cannot spell it, but the word is defugality.

Defugality. Defugality. Tell us more about that.

I worked for the Department of Navy for 27 years, and frequently the sailors, in the beginning it was in a Navy school, and the sailors would come and ask, what’s the defugality, or the defugality is this and this. It was in place of, I think, the problem. What’s the problem? At one point, I also was watching a TV show, and this woman was talking about her husband, and she said that her husband said something about the defugality. But I can’t prove to my sister that it is really a word, but I think it is.

You think it is because you’ve heard people use it to mean the problem.

Right. Well, that’s what I tell my sister.

Okay. Yeah, but it’s hard to search for because how in the world do you spell defuglty?

I don’t know. One time I was able to figure it out and my sister found it, but she still won’t admit that it’s a real word. She’s never heard it before.

Defuglty. Defuglty.

I think Martha’s got good news for you, Alice.

Yeah, it’s an intentional mispronunciation of the word difficulty.

Okay. That was what the sailors were doing. But I could see sailors mispronouncing things on purpose.

Sure, you got to pass the time some way, right? Yeah, you know how difficulty is spelled.

And there are lots of different spellings of this intentional mispronunciation, like D-E-F-U-G-A-L-T-Y, or D-E-F-U-L-G-A-T-Y, defulgity.

There are lots of different versions of this.

But it’s just an example of wordplay.

You know, when you say something incorrectly and you do it on purpose, or you do it on porpoise, right?

Yeah, on porpoise.

Just to make something mundane seem funny or maybe seem funnily important.

But I love it.

Well, what a coinkydink.

Yeah, that’s a good one, too.

Oh, neat.

The most extreme version we know of this is cafuglety with a C at the beginning.

Cafuglety.

Now, that’s neat.

What’s the cafuglety with defuglety?

Well, next time I run across a sailor, I’m going to have to punch him.

There we go.

But it’s in some slang dictionaries and dialect dictionaries.

The problem is you’ve got to go for those specialty dictionaries if you want to prove it exists.

And just tell your sister, if people use it and you understand it, it’s a word.

That’s what I told her, but she won’t listen to me.

She’s my baby sister.

Well, Alice, we’re happy to help you with your defugality.

We’re happy to hope you.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If you’re having defuglity or cofuglity with a word or phrase, 877-929-9673, or find all of our past episodes on our website at waywordradio.org.

Listeners are still sending us suggestions for how to apologize to another driver in traffic.

You know, for example, if you cut them off, do you gesture?

How do you communicate to those people?

And by gesture, we mean not the middle finger, but something polite.

That’s right. How do you do it politely?

And we got a suggestion from Vasily Sharapov, who lives in Waltham, Massachusetts.

And his suggestion, if you cut somebody off in traffic, is to flash your lights once.

But Vasily went further than that.

He wrote a poem just for us, and I wanted to share it with you.

If you’ve offended your fellow man while driving on the highway, you merely lapsed your attention span and wished to tell them some way.

Be not mistaken for troglodytes with this kind intervention.

A single flash of the hazard lights will speak to your intention.

Oh, that’s nice.

Yeah, I appreciate he took the time to spell it out that way.

Yeah, when it’s dark or twilight, I sometimes do a flash of the lights, a flash of the brights to say, go ahead or okay or I see you.

So, yeah, that would work.

It’s kind of a one-note positive message when you flash your lights.

Yeah, yeah.

We can all use more civility on the roadways, right?

Yeah, we’d still love to hear what you do when you just want to, you know, do a positive acknowledgement to the other driver that, yeah, I know I messed up, but I didn’t mean it.

It’s nothing personal.

Hit us up, words, at waywordradio.org or 877-929-9673.

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.

And here he is, the fabulous quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Hey, Martha.

Hey, Grant.

Hey.

Hi, buddy.

What’s up?

Well, you know, I host Pub Trivia every week at a place here in New York, and it’s a lot of fun.

One of our rounds that we do as part of our five round night is called Name Three, and it’s sort of a tribond thing.

And I give you three words.

You tell me what they have in common.

There’s lots of names for these.

They call it, you know, triple threat or whatever.

I call it the missing link here today because we need our own thing.

So a missing link.

I’m going to name three things, and you tell me the link that those three things share.

Okay.

And is it going to be a word or an idea?

What are we talking about here?

Yeah, it’ll be mostly word-related, but there’s some trivia involved.

It’s like, for instance, if I said, well, this is not word related, but if I said Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, and you said, you know, dead white guys, not specific enough.

A little more, you know, founding fathers, things like that.

Okay.

Gotcha.

Here is the first one.

Numbers, acts, judges.

Oh, books of the Bible.

Books of the Bible.

Books of the Bible, which also are things, which is good.

How about samosa, pierogi, creploc?

Oh, all little kind of closed, meat-filled hand food.

Right.

Closed, meat-filled.

That’s almost exactly what I have written here.

Closed, meat-filled hand food.

What’s the official name?

Some kind of dumpling almost, right?

Dumpling is the word I was waiting for, yes.

Very nice.

Well, I’ll argue later about what a dumpling is.

Oh, no.

It’s all good.

It counts in the plus column.

Here we go.

Bandstand, buffalo, pie.

American.

American what?

American blank.

American bandstand.

Yes, American bandstand, American buffalo, and American pie.

Very good.

How about Bible box, roll top, secretary?

Types of desks.

Types of desks is right.

Bible box.

Can you describe a Bible box for me?

I don’t know it.

I just knew the other two.

Okay.

Me too.

It’s sort of like a lap desk, like a box with a lid, but like a big heavy wooden one that you put in front of you.

How about this?

This one’s very simple.

K-G-M.

Letters.

Letters is a good start.

Consonants.

Are they letters?

Are we spelling these out as words?

Yes, they are letters.

No, they’re letters, yeah.

Let’s put it this way.

Letters that all stand for the same thing.

Oh, thousands?

Yes, thousands.

All three of those stand for 1,000.

Where does E stand for 1,000?

Oh, no, it wasn’t E.

It was M, sorry.

M, right, right.

Gotcha.

There we go, yeah.

Finally, raspberry, answer, Neel.

How are you spelling Neel?

K-N-E-E-L, Neel.

Raspberry, answer.

Silent letters.

Yes, silent letters.

Raspberry is the silent S.

P.

Well, P.

Silent P, right.

Answer.

W.

W and Neil.

Okay.

The K, which was silent until I spelled it earlier.

Okay.

And that’s your missing links for today, guys.

You were fantastic.

Nice work.

Thanks, John.

Thank you so much, John.

This is a show about language and how we use it.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Alex from Lexington, Kentucky.

Hi, Alex in Lexington.

Welcome to the show.

What’s on your mind, Alex?

I was talking with a co-worker of mine the other day, and she described a present as a side saddle gift.

And being from Lexington, I’m familiar with a decent amount of equine jargon, but I hadn’t heard this phrase before.

So I thought about calling you all and seeing if you had and maybe knew a little history on it.

So talking about a side saddle gift, what does that mean? How did they use it in context?

A side saddle is, instead of a traditional saddle where you might be facing front or forward on the horse with both legs on each side, a side saddle allows you to put both of your legs on one side.

So it was traditionally used by a woman with like a big dress.

That way they could ride a horse but have the kind of big hoopie dress on them.

And in the context, it was used to describe a present given by someone to a partner or a recipient, but the real ultimate benefactor of the present was the person giving it.

So in the, I guess, the way it explained to me was that, you know, a wife may give her husband a side saddle, but in reality, she’s going to be the only one using it.

So it’s a gift that really kind of comes back to only benefit you.

Exactly.

Yes, it’s a gift that the giver gives and then ends up using at least as much as the recipient does.

There’s another great example of this in a newspaper from 1966.

There’s a column in the Daily Oklahoman where this woman is talking about how when she was a child, her family had a relative who showed up quite often for surprise visits and expected to stay a long time each time.

And one year, the Christmas gift that this relative brought for them was a luggage rack.

And obviously, that’s supposed to be a thoughtful gift for the family.

But hey, who’s the person who’s going to end up using the luggage rack?

It’s that person.

And yes, it comes from that idea of a side saddle.

You know, a woman who keeps asking her husband for a new side saddle.

And he keeps saying, no, you don’t need one.

And then come Christmas Day, what does she give him?

Hey, darling, a lovely side saddle.

But it’s not a widespread term, though, is it?

No, it’s not that widespread, but we do see instances of it, and it’s taking matters into your own hands.

I had never heard it before.

When I explained, I had asked my family about it, and while they hadn’t heard the phrase, when I had kind of given a little context, they had definitely been familiar and received side saddle gifts before.

Yeah, I mean, as Grant said, it’s not that common, but I’m just so glad to know that there’s a term for this because I think we’ve all experienced it, and now we have a term for it.

Yeah, I think when you become an adult, couples, a lot of gifts you give each other are side saddle gifts on purpose where you buy things for the house and you just address it to your partner.

Oh, there’s the new cushions for the dining set.

Here’s a dust buster.

Yeah, exactly.

It’s not that you want them to use it, just the house needed one.

I appreciate you all giving me a bit more illustration to it because I like the phrase and I definitely hope to maybe use it in the future.

I’m glad there’s a name for kind of the experience we’ve all had.

I think you bringing it to the radio show will put this in the mouths and ears of a lot of people.

So there’s a good chance we’ve given it new life.

Well, that’s exciting.

Well, thank you for calling from the bluegrass.

Thanks for talking with me.

You know, it wouldn’t be a side saddle gift if you called us and asked us a question, because Martha and I love to get those kinds of questions.

877-929-9673.

That’s a 24-hour toll-free number in the United States and Canada.

You can call at any time.

Or you can find a dozen other ways to reach us on our website, no matter where you are in the United States or the world.

Go to waywordradio.org/contact.

Kelly Davis, a fantastic journalist here in San Diego, tweeted something that I have to share with you, Martha.

She says, and the prize for the best automated transcription error goes to, quote, serious mental Elvis.

Serious mental Elvis?

Yeah, it was supposed to be serious mental illness.

Oh.

And I’m just imagining this guy in a white spangly suit just shaking his hips in your head.

He’s up there dancing.

So instead of an earworm, you have an ear Elvis up there.

He never leaves.

He never leaves.

It’s just like, oh, a lot of shaking going on in your head.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Trinette Wiggins, calling from Virginia Beach, Virginia.

So my daughter recently had a baby and I was putting him to sleep and I started to say, dodo the baby. And it occurred to me, I hadn’t heard it since she was a baby when I used to sing it to her. And I kind of heard it, cause I grew up in Southern Louisiana. So it was a thing we said, but I just never heard it anywhere else. So I was wondering where did dodo come from?

Seems to relate to putting babies to sleep with dodo. So dodo the baby or let’s go dodo.

Yeah, that’s familiar to me. Did you sing a nursery rhyme?

No, it wasn’t a nursery rhyme. It would just be like, tell the baby, let’s go do-do. Or while you’re rocking, I would just sing like do-do to baby. So it wasn’t anything like a song. It was just something we said that meant it was time to go to sleep.

Yeah, are you from that part of the United States, from down in the French-speaking part of New Orleans or Baton Rouge down that way?

Yes, so I’m from a small town in Ascension Parish, and it’s like halfway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense because that comes from the French, and it’s a classic nursery word or child’s word to mean to sleep, and it’s used throughout the French-speaking world.

You’ll find it in Quebec.

You’ll find it in the French and French Creole spoken in the Caribbean.

You’ll find it even in Mauritian Creole on Mauritius.

And it’s even popped up in migrations into South African English and Afrikaans from people who have settled there from various French-speaking parts of the world.

Yeah, so it’s widely used.

And it’s kind of a corruption of possibly two words, both which mean to nod or to dandle, like to dandle a child on your knee.

And both kind of influenced by dormir, which means to sleep.

A little bit of reduplication, which means doubling of a sound or a syllable.

So do-de-line and de-dine are the two verbs.

So sometimes it’s do-do, d-o-d-u, but usually it’s do-do, do-do.

And I asked about the nursery rhyme, and I don’t know this nursery rhyme well.

I wasn’t raised in a French-speaking household, but there is one, and it’s just basically, you know, sleep, baby sleep.

The baby will soon go to sleep.

There’s a white chicken in the barn who will make a little crow for the child who will soon go dodo.

Oh, wow.

I’ve never heard that before.

You can find that if you look it up on YouTube, if you want to learn it to sing to your grandchild.

Just look up the phrase dodo l’enfant d’eau.

L’enfant is L apostrophe E-N-F-A-N-T space D-O.

Okay, I sure will do that.

Trinette, I love the image of you holding this baby and rocking the baby to sleep.

And then having this sort of linguistic heirloom pop up, you know, that you just, that you remember from your own childhood.

And all of a sudden, there it is with this baby in your arms.

Yeah, I even asked my daughter, I said, do you remember, you know, me saying that or singing? And she’s like, not really, but I’ve heard it before. She was born in Louisiana, but she’s mostly been raised in Virginia.

That’s lovely.

Yeah, those little bits just stick around in the last generations, don’t they?

Yeah.

Thank you.

I’m definitely going to look up that nursery rhyme.

Yeah.

Give the little take a smooch and a squeeze for us, will you?

I sure will.

Okay.

Take care now.

Thank you so much for calling.

All right.

Thank you.

Call us 877-929-9673.

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You can find it on our website at waywordradio.org/contact.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Larry. I’m in Irvington, New York.

Well, we’re glad to have you. What’s up?

So a few years ago, I was in Pennsylvania on vacation with friends around by the Poconos area, I think it was, and bumped into some people, local people from Pennsylvania, started talking.

And at one point, one of the guys from Pennsylvania said he was hungry and wanted to eat a hoagie.

I said, what’s that? I had never heard of a hoagie before.

And he looked at me as if I might be joking.

He didn’t believe that I did not know what a hoagie was.

But then he proceeded to explain.

He said, you get a piece of Italian bread, you open it up.

And then he turned to me and said, and then you get lunch meat.

And he said to me, you know what lunch meat is, don’t you?

And after I assured him that I did know what lunch meat was, and I wasn’t totally out of it, he proceeded to say, well, you get things like ham and turkey, and you put it in the bread, and you put lettuce and tomatoes in.

And I said, oh, that’s a hero.

I said, in New York, that’s what we call a hero.

And then we did order some hoagies and we had a great lunch.

Short time after that, I was talking to my daughter.

My daughter was teaching down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and she told me that she had had a po’boy.

He explained to me that it was basically kind of like a hero, but with different things in it, like shrimp and all of that, things locally from Baton Rouge.

So I have not traveled the U.S. much.

So my question is, do other parts of the country have different names for what I in New York call a hero?

Oh, Larry, you’re asking a food question of us.

How much time do you have?

Are you sitting down?

I am sitting here.

Get a cushion and a chair, a notepad.

This is a big question with a big answer, and it’s been well-researched by dialectologists.

And it’s going to just ring a lot of bells for a lot of people because this sandwich, with variations, is regional.

And has been for a long time.

And the Hoagie, yes, is very Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.

And it has been for a long time.

Hero, yes, is very New York.

Now, Irving, you said you’re in Irvington?

Right, but I grew up in Queens and Astoria and Woodside.

That makes more sense to me.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, Hero is very New York City and dates back to the 1930s.

I found the earliest use of it that anyone knows of in the unpublished manuscript of the lexicon of trade jargon.

And then you’ve got submarine sandwich, which is by far away the most used term in the United States.

And it predates the subway shop, the trade name.

So it’s older than that company.

So it doesn’t come from the company.

The company took the term that already existed.

And then you get terms like grinder, which is used in New England outside of Boston.

And you get older terms which have faded, unfortunately, like torpedo or torp, which used to be common in upstate New York.

Unfortunately, it’s little used.

Or zeppelin or zep.

Parts of Pennsylvania use that.

Po’boy or poor boy in New Orleans, fortunately, is still strong.

I’m just slobbering thinking about a catfish po’boy right now.

Oh, I can do it.

Garibaldi in Wisconsin.

They’re all yelling at the radio in Wisconsin.

I got you.

I got you, Wisconsin.

Don’t worry.

I’m taking care of you.

Muffalata also is another one.

I think that’s in New Orleans as well.

Bomber.

I think they may still use that in Buffalo, upstate New York.

What else, Martha?

What am I missing here?

Well, in Boston, there’s the name that comes from the Italian word spucadella, meaning long roll.

Is it spooky?

Yeah, yeah.

Southie uses that, although that’s also really faded in use and is really rare to hear anymore.

It’s very much the older folks using that.

It’s pretty much been forced out by Grindr and Sub.

Jeez, it’s a lot more than I realized.

Yeah, for a while in Cincinnati, you might have heard Rocket, Cuban sandwich in Miami.

Although it’s very different and very specific.

And it’s about as far away from a sub or hoagie as you can get.

But it’s still kind of clasped in there with it.

Yeah, so there’s tons of these things.

And I have a feeling our listeners are going to chime in with more.

Yeah, and that’s just the United States.

Who knows what they’re doing in Canada and Australia and the U.K., you know?

Yeah, South Africa, I think it’s a Gatsby.

Oh, lovely.

Thank you for all the information.

Yeah, sure.

Thanks for calling this.

We love the food questions.

Larry, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us.

All right. Have a good day.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

All right. Bye-bye.

If you feel like I left you out in the list of words for submarine-style sandwiches, by all means, let me know what I forgot.

877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

I just got back from Fairbanks, Alaska, where I was doing a talk for the local public radio station, KUAC.

And I had a wonderful time meeting KUAC listeners.

And I was also able to spend a few extra days in Fairbanks doing a lot of really cool things.

One of the things I did was to go multiple times to the University of Alaska’s Museum of the North.

It’s an architectural gem in and of itself and has fascinating exhibits.

And I also spent some time hanging out with reindeer, as one does.

Like at pubs and nightclubs?

Yeah.

No, there’s a place outside Fairbanks called Running Reindeer Ranch.

And it’s run by a family that shares its home with a small herd of reindeer.

So I was able to spend a delightful afternoon with them walking in the woods with reindeer.

And of course, Grant, I brought you back some very cool language involving these animals.

So are you ready?

Yep.

Okay.

First of all, the word reindeer, what exactly is a reindeer?

Well, in North America, these animals are called caribou if they’re wild.

And if they’re domesticated, they’re called reindeer.

And the rain in reindeer comes from an old Norse word that sounds sort of like hrein, which means reindeer itself.

And, you know, in early English, the word deer was used much more generally than it is today.

Deer applied to lots of different little animals with four legs.

And it was only later that the word deer became specialized and applied to the animal that we think of as a deer today.

So literally, reindeer means something like reindeer animal.

It’s a little bit redundant.

And this was also a surprise.

Did you know that reindeer’s feet click when they walk?

Like they’re wearing tap shoes.

That’s what it sounds like.

They have these little tendons that slide over bones in their feet, and they make a clicking noise when they walk.

And it may be that this noise helps them stick together in harsh or foggy weather.

They’re not really sure why they make this noise, but they definitely do.

So there really might be more to that song about up on the housetop, click, click, click.

That was a light bulb moment for me.

That’s cool.

Bring into noise, bring into caribou.

And I was thinking about the word antler, too.

That’s a weird word.

And I thought, is that some old Norse word or something?

Apparently, it comes from a Latin term, ante ocularis, which means literally before the eyes, which is kind of an odd thought.

But there’s also an old German word for antler, augenspalsen, which literally means eye sprouts, these things that are sprouting out of your head near your eyes.

And finally, Grant, if you ever need an adjective for something that looks like a reindeer or has to do with reindeer, the word you want is rangiferine.

Rangiferine.

So I could say that tree branch looks rangiferine.

Yes, or they wouldn’t let poor Rudolph join in any rangiferine games.

Perfect.

So just to clarify, the rain in reindeer doesn’t have to do with weather.

And it doesn’t have to do with a harness or controlling the animals and telling them which way to go.

Exactly. It has to do with an old word that means reindeer.

Reindeer. So it’s a little bit of a pleonesm. The word itself contains the meaning of the word itself.

Exactly.

That’s cool. Martha, you come back with such delights when you travel.

And you sound refreshed. Fairbanks was good to you.

You know, I was terrified of the cold weather because I’ve been a Southern California girl now for a couple of decades.

We get spoiled here, don’t we?

You know, I think we’ve talked on the show about the expression, there’s no bad weather, there’s just bad clothing.

And it’s really true.

You should have seen me in my insulated motorcycle suit.

I had a blast.

I saw the pictures.

There are pictures online, aren’t there?

You look like Maggie Simpson in her snowsuit.

Like you couldn’t move.

You were just like a little starfish.

Martha and I would love to hear about the words you learned when you traveled.

877-929-9673.

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Hey there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, I’m Ashley and I’m calling from Danville, Kentucky.

So there’s a term that my grandmother has always used, and I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older, my mom and I both use it as well, even though I’m not sure that either of us know what it means exactly.

If someone looks really bad, well, female specifically looks really bad, like pale, maybe hungover or just peaked, she’ll say, oh, she looks like a haint.

And I’ve referred to myself that way when I wake up and I look really bad.

I’m like, oh, I look like a haint.

And I feel like somehow maybe it’s related to a haunt.

But I’m not, I’m really not sure.

Well, that’s a really good guess because you’re right.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah.

The term hate is a dialectical term that means a ghost or evil spirit, and it’s probably just a variation of the word haunt.

Okay, well, that makes sense.

I thought I was probably far off base, but times when, you know, you’ve woken up with your makeup on and your mascara smeared and you’re pale, I just always thought, oh, it must be a haunt.

Yeah, it’s not that you ain’t looking too good.

But it’s, yeah, particularly in the South and Southeast, you might talk about a house that’s painted or somebody looks like a haint, meaning they look like a ghost.

And, you know, I bet our South Carolina listeners in particular are saying, oh, yeah, haints, because in the coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia, the word haint, meaning a ghost or evil spirit is well known among the descendants of enslaved Africans, the Gichigala culture there.

And there’s actually this long tradition there of trying to ward off haints, those evil spirits, with the use of the color haint blue. And you may have seen this on houses in the south. Sometimes people will paint the ceiling of a front porch with sort of a robin’s egg blue that’s called haint blue and that’s because there’s an old belief that a haint can’t cross water or they’re so confused by this shade of blue that they think it’s water. Isn’t that weird?

Oh wow I love that. That’s so interesting and I have especially in the older southern homes with the large wraparound porches and things.

I’ve seen the ceiling painted blue like water.

As far as when it dates back to, do you have any ideas of that?

It’s been around a while.

It’s hard to know because so often the pronunciation is independent of the spelling, if that makes sense.

Somebody might spell it H-A-U-N-T, but pronounce it haint.

Definitely a long tradition.

My Aunt Maiso used to talk about that house is hainted.

Hainted.

Oh, really?

Oh, my granny is going to have such a fun time hearing this and knowing, because for a while we picked on her for saying it, and then over the years we’ve picked it up ourselves.

Nice.

It’s really funny.

So fun talking to you guys.

I love etymology.

That’s when I travel, if I’m on a plane, I’ve got a book.

And that’s my favorite thing to read on an airplane is about etymology.

Wow, you should fly out and visit with us.

Absolutely.

You’ve become loaded with information.

Oh, that’s so fun.

All right.

Well, thank you, guys.

Take care, Ashley.

I appreciate it.

You too.

All right.

Thanks so much.

Bye-bye.

Haunt, the verb, goes back to the 12th century in French.

So it’s got a long history even before it shows up in English.

The French etymological dictionaries trace it back from an Old Norse word meaning to frequent or find again or to long after, you know, to desperately want.

And it might even refer to the herds of animals in the barn seeking the stable for the winter.

Ooh.

Yeah.

Very interesting, right?

Great stuff.

Let’s talk about language.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

We are still getting responses to our conversation about the phrase, excuse the pig, the hog’s out walking.

This is what a person who makes a rude noise might say immediately afterward to apologize to people.

You know, excuse the pig, the hog’s out walking.

Right, if somebody burps or passes wind.

Yes, and we heard from Robert Scott, who lives in Jacksonville, Florida,

And he said he was hoping that we would also talk about things that someone hearing such a noise might say in response.

And he writes, when I lived in the UK, the sardonic quip I would hear made most often by someone hearing an unintentional noise would be more tea, Vicar.

Is there an American equivalent, I wonder?

And it turns out that more tea, Vicar, you know, pretending as if you’re at tea time with a member of the clergy and offering them more tea to distract from whatever happened just before that is quite a thing.

Or you might say, good evening, Vicar, or another cucumber sandwich, Vicar.

And apparently this was popularized by a British comedian in the 60s and 70s named Dick Emery, who often used this expression, more tea, Vicar.

And in fact, he recorded this goofy song called The Vicar of Belching by the Sea.

Which sounds like a British place, right?

Absolutely.

I’m from Belching by the Sea.

Well, hey, well, we’d love to hear from you.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Well, hello.

Pleased to be on the show.

This is Edward Van Hall up in Fargo, North Dakota, Frosty Fargo.

Frosty Fargo.

Frosty Fargo.

Like a beer mug in the freezer.

Absolutely.

Well, I’ll tell you what happened.

The other day, I was provided a really nice chocolate cake.

It was, I think, birthday.

And that afternoon at the office, I was thinking about a big slice of cake when I got back home with a cup of coffee.

Came home, and the cake was gone.

And I was wondering, sure enough, my spouse, my wife, Kim, had taken it to the lake.

And there I was after a full afternoon of anticipation, no cake.

And so I called her and I said, well, if that doesn’t take the cake.

And then all of a sudden I realized, where did that come from?

She literally took the cake to the lake.

That’s right.

It’s something my mom used to say years ago.

And I thought, man, I’ve never said that before.

Where did that come from?

And so I kind of was intrigued, and I thought, well, I wanted to find out more.

And that would be in the same way that someone might say, well, doesn’t that beat all?

Or, well, isn’t that a shame?

Something like that.

It’s just kind of a—

That’s right.

You can’t believe that something negative happened.

That’s right.

You’re not truly angry about it.

No.

More just exasperated.

Exasperated.

That’s a good word for it.

Yeah, this has got a good history, and it’s entwined in American history, and it goes back, well, a couple hundred years.

And it goes back to, unfortunately, the enslavement of black Americans.

There was a practice called a cakewalk where people would compete for a cake by doing a dignified or silly or exaggerated walk before judges.

There were lots of kinds of cakewalk, but the black Americans, many of them would do these exaggerated steps.

They would wear lots of fine clothes, and they would pretend to be someone powerful, such as slaveholders, the very people that controlled their lives and their fortunes.

So this is before emancipation.

So this was a way of mocking the slaveholders when they were enslaved.

And so they would usually go in a circle and whoever was deemed to be maybe the most outrageous or the most like fancifully regal or whatever the what are their greed upon terms of this contest word, they would be given the cake and they would literally take the cake.

Well, that’s really interesting.

I just can’t imagine, you know, that it’s carried for all these years.

And it’s an expression I haven’t really heard since my mom used it from time to time, usually after something that I had or hadn’t done.

And so I thought I wanted to find out more.

That’s great.

Well, you know, there’s a little more to the story if you want to hang in there and hear it.

This particular cakewalk branched out after emancipation,

And black Americans took it into other corners of American culture.

It became stylized both as different types of music and as regularized dances.

And you can actually find it being performed in videos on YouTube.

The Library of Congress has old videos of it,

And you can find white people doing it because, as always, black culture is a wellspring of just all kinds of entertainment.

We look to black culture as a source of great ideas of how to entertain.

And I’m just saying that it’s another idea that white Americans got from black Americans.

And these cakewalk dances, as they became called, showed up in movies.

I think you can see them in Meet Me in St. Louis.

So just they became so exaggerated and so distant from this original cakewalk that some people did them and didn’t even realize where these weird movements and these kind of high stepping, exaggerated stances came from.

But they came from the plantations.

Interesting.

It’s also these particular kind of cakewalks were also the source of when we say something like, yeah, he won the he won the prize.

It was a cakewalk for him.

When we say something was a cakewalk, it’s exactly the same origin because we’re saying it was as easy as doing a cakewalk.

And this idea may be that a cakewalk is an easy contest because all you have to do is act like a fool.

But in any case, our sympathies about that cake, that sounds like a really frustrating experience.

Yeah, I would love that chocolate cake. I know that feeling.

I did eventually get to it.

Oh, you got to it.

That’s right. It was excellent.

Edward, thank you for calling and sharing.

Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Bye-bye.

All right. Be well. Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

What’s the word or phrase that you’re wondering about?

Give us a call, 877-929-9673.

Here’s a handy word from the West Midlands of England, yampy, Y-A-M-P-Y.

Do you know this word, Grant?

No. Can I make some guesses?

Please.

Yampy, it’s when you’ve got swamp butt after being out in the Louisiana heat in the summertime.

No more guesses.

Although you’re right that it’s somewhat negative.

If somebody’s yampy, they’re just not quite right or they’re foolish or they’re daft.

So if you’re under lots of pressure, you might be driven yampy or somebody might be yampy as a box of frogs.

Oh, okay. Kind of barmy.

Yeah. Yampy may come from a Scots word, yamp, which means noisy or talkative, or the word yamph, Y-A-M-P-H, which means to bark like a small dog or yelp.

Oh, it sounds kind of like yap or yappy. Oh, good names for you and me.

So if you’ve got a question about language, call yampy and yappy, me and Martha, 877-929-9673.

Our team includes senior producer Stefanie Levine, engineer and editor Tim Felten, and quiz guide John Chaneski.

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A Way with Words is an independent production of Wayword, Inc.,

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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.