There Once Was a Gal (episode #1424)

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.

When readers who care about grammar and style write letters to the New Yorker magazine, there’s one thing that they complain about more than anything else. Can you guess what it is?

Harvard comma. Oxford comma.

No.

The two dots over the O.

Yes. Yes. The diaresis.

Diaresis.

Yes.

Fancy.

It’s a diacritical mark that’s over the vowel, the second of two vowels that are bumping up against each other. So in words like re-elect or re-enact or dius or cooperate, so you don’t mistake them for cooperate or something like that.

I mean, who needs that, right?

Well, kind of.

The clue is there if you want it.

Right.

But I’m one of the complainers. I mean, I haven’t written to them, but I would write to them.

And we know that it’s the most common complaint because of a wonderful new book called Between You and Me, Confessions of a Comic Queen. And this is by Mary Norris, the longtime copy editor at The New Yorker. And she explains why they’re still using it.

Oh, do tell.

Well, she says that her predecessor had a conversation with the style editor at the magazine and said, you know, we really should get rid of this. It looks kind of fussy. Nobody else uses it. And so they had a conversation about it, and the style editor said, you know, I’m on the verge of changing that rule, and I’m going to send out a memo soon. But he died before he could send out the memo. So they just kept doing it.

Yes, and Mary Norris writes, this was in 1978. No one has had the nerve to raise the subject since. Because if you try to remove the diarysis, you’re going to die. You don’t want your diarysis removed. It’s just vestigial anyway, but yeah.

Right. I know. I know. Aren’t you on the same page, so to speak, with me, Grant?

A little bit, but I know that the diarysis solves the problem of not having to hyphenate, which often is done in other style guides where cooperate would be C-O-O-P-E.

Yeah, which also looks fussy and pretentious to me.

Well, it looks old-fashioned to me, but there is, particularly given the really casual tone that some New Yorker techs can take, especially on the web-only content, there’s a register mismatch there.

There’s just a problem where I’ve got Andy Borowitz writing stuff, and they’re using the highfalutin style guide from the New Yorker, and it just doesn’t match.

I mean, I guess this is my pet peeve. I just think it’s silly. But then I think, well, you know, we always advise people with pet peeves to turn them around and just notice them. Do your field work and notice where they appear and think of them as a little hello from Martha and Grant.

Maybe that’s how I should look at the…

Right, there we go.

When you have a pet peeve, put a leash on it, give it a name. And get it off the streets and get it neutered so it doesn’t breathe, right?

It doesn’t breathe, there we go.

Well, we want to talk with you about any aspect of language, so call us, 877-929-9673. Or you can send emails about words to words@waywordradio.org. And you can find us on Twitter at Wayword, and we’re also on Facebook.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Oh, good morning.

My name is Lucy, and I’m calling from San Clemente, California.

Hiya, Lucy. What’s up? How can we help?

Well, with all of the sports things that have been going on lately, I am not much of a sports buff, but my husband is. He’s an equal opportunity sports listener, and so it’s always on in the background. And over the years, I’ve heard them speak about different seeds, that this team or this person is seated here or there, first, fourth, whatever in their ranking. And over the years, I just thought that the announcer had bad diction and they were actually saying seat, like they were seated first or fifth.

And during March Madness, I actually listened and I asked my husband, I said, are they actually saying seed, like the thing that grows from the ground? And he said, yes, but he had no idea why. And we couldn’t figure out where that came from or why they would call it a seed. So we figured we’d ask you.

Okay.

So S-E-E-D is the word that you’re hearing, right? Seed, as in the seed of a plant. And I was like you. I thought it was S-E-A-T for a long time. Seat made a little more sense like you were, you know, it’s kind of like an orchestra like your first chair top talent at the front and so forth all the way back. But there’s two different stories for this. The one that I like best is that if you look at the tree for a tournament as you winnow it down to the best team of each round, like two teams play, the winner goes on to the next round, it starts to take the shape of a tree turned sideways. And that even though the seed is at the top of the tree and the branches and it all builds toward the root, it still looks like a tree. And supposedly that’s the story. But the other one that I’d heard was, and I don’t give much credence to this, is that you spaced them out evenly, just like you would seeds, so that you could see who would prosper the most.

Oh, that was my sense of it. I spent a fair amount of time in the tennis world and they would talk about seeding the tournament and you don’t want all the good players in one bracket because they’ll just cancel each other out. You want people to buy tickets. So you seed them throughout so that…

So it’s a conscious act. They don’t do seeding randomly.

That actually makes more sense to me.

Yeah, it does to me too. But the thing is there’s evidence early on is that it might have something to do with the visual structure of the tournament tree. So there’s always a difficulty there. Do I have something written in print that shows that? But I do like that explanation because who wants a boring tournament?

Well, exactly. You want to sell those darn tickets. You want to fill those seats. Your number one and your number two players play each other in the first round.

Exactly. Because then you’re losing the excitement that’s going to come later in the tournament.

Right. You don’t want Nadal and Djokovic in the first round.

Absolutely not.

I sure appreciate hearing those explanations. It makes a whole lot of sense now.

Sure thing.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Say hi to that sports fan in the house.

Yeah, right. Okay.

Thanks.

All right.

Bye-bye.

We may not know a lot about sports ball, but if you want to sports with us, you can call us at 877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org or talk to us on Twitter, W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

We heard this week from Miranda Fisk, who writes that her grandmother, who was born in 1889 in Birmingham, Alabama, had some colorful sayings that included this one. Might as well go out and let the moon shine down your throat.

What does that mean?

It’s in reference to eating something that doesn’t have much taste or flavor. Or I did some research on it. It can also mean taking a pill that’s not really going to be effective. You might as well go outside and let the moon shine down your throat.

That was really strange.

Yeah.

Never heard that one either.

This is the place for things you haven’t heard of or you don’t think we’ve heard of either.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi.

This is Kitsie Smith from Dallas, Texas. How are you doing?

I’m good. How are you?

Excellent. Thank you. I was just living in Australia for about two years.

Cool.

And, yeah, it was awesome. We were in Sydney. And I have a three-year-old and he was learning the alphabet. And I noticed when he said the end of the alphabet, instead of saying Z, he said Zed. And then I also heard people say, like, there’s a bank there called A and Zed Bank. It’s A and Z. And so it kind of dawned on me, they don’t say Z, they say Zed. And I realized that Australians and the British also say Zed.

And so I was wondering, how did that come about that they say Zed and then we say Zed and we’re all, you know, different?

Mm—

Yeah, two countries separated by a common language, or three in that case, if you’re talking about Australia as well.

The interesting thing about Z is that it goes back to the Greek letter Zeta.

It’s closer to the Greek letter Zeta than our letter Z.

So it found its way into English as Z and a lot of dialectal variants of that in the British Isles, like Izzard and Uzzard and Z.

And then when all the British settlers came over here, they were all using different versions of that.

And good old Noah Webster, who was trying to differentiate the American language from the English language and simplify things,

He proposed that we use the letter Z instead of Z.

So it was Noah Webster who got in there and interfered.

And this time was successful.

He wasn’t always successful.

No, almost never successful.

We remember his few successes.

There’s a path in there that I wanted to elaborate on.

And that’s where Old French had it as two different spellings.

There was Z-E-D-E with an accent grave on the first E, so it was Zed.

And then also it became Zé in Old French as well, Z with an acute accent on it.

And both of these were borrowed into English.

So the split happened even before the pronunciation of this letter entered into what we would call modern English.

It was really interesting.

And now in Canada, there’s something interesting that reminds me of what you said about your three-year-old.

Apparently up there, according to the journal articles I’ve read, Canadian children learn the alphabet song as Americans sing it, you know, X, Y, and Z.

And then there’s kind of this ritual of puberty where they’re taught to say Zed.

And this is kind of just because they’re stuck.

They’re kind of halfway between American English and halfway between British English.

Today you are a man.

Now you must say Zed.

Well, this is what one of the journal articles said.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

It’s kind of just like they all go through this apparently.

No kidding.

Yeah.

It’s like their initiation into Canadian citizenship?

Yeah.

Adulthood?

And I wonder about Australia, you know, with American television being everywhere.

I know in Canada, so much work has been done on Canadian English.

The Z is slowly gaining on Z.

And it is considered by many a point of pride not to acquire the American Z and stick to the Z.

It’s slowly, slowly, percent by percent.

Z is winning out.

Wow.

I didn’t know there was such a rich history.

There’s whole big parts of books that are simply about Z versus Zed.

Because there’s a lot wrapped up.

And you’ve heard Martha talk about it goes back to the Greeks.

And then where did the Greeks get it, you know?

And the Romans got it from the Greeks.

And how did the shape of the letter transform itself?

And why did, when the Romans put it on the end of their alphabet, did it stay there for the next several thousand years?

Right.

Right, because the last letter of the Greek alphabet, of course, is not Zeta.

It’s Omega.

Crazy stuff.

Crazy, crazy stuff about this one letter and the sounds that it’s represented over the years.

Yeah, and how it’s tied up in our culture.

Well, that is really interesting.

I’m so glad you all solved that mystery for me.

Very good.

Sure, glad to help.

Glad to help.

Thank you so much.

Take care now.

Have a great day.

Bye-bye.

Thank you, too.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Kitsie.

I don’t know that there is another letter in the alphabet that has such a great story,

But I know there are lots of books about the alphabet.

Right, right. I love Letter Perfect by David Sachs.

He’s passionately in love with all 26 of them.

877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.

And talk to us on Twitter under the handle Wayword, W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

Somehow I missed a portmanteau word that we were sent by Jennifer Batchelder from Chicago.

It’s the word clopin. Do you know this word?

Yeah, it’s a close open.

Yes.

A close open for businesses.

Yes.

A clopin. If you work the clopin or you work the clopin ship or you’re clopining,

Then your manager has asked you to work until closing time at 1130 and then maybe come back in at 430

And get the coffee shop or the restaurant or whatever, the retail store ready.

Clopening.

Those split shifts are terrible.

Yes.

They are really hard on a person, but they’re good for the business.

Indeed.

Indeed.

But some businesses are banning them.

I think Starbucks just started banning them.

Yeah.

Split shifts are hard because they are kind of speaking for all the time in between the

First half of the shift and the last half of the shift.

You bet.

Right?

It’s not really fair to the employee.

Oh, it’s awful.

Well, the lines are open, not clopening, 877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org or talk to us on Twitter under the handle W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

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 on the line is John Chaneski, our quiz guy.

Hello, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

Hi, John.

What’s up, buddy?

Well, I have a little quiz for you.

You know, we’re going to play another change a letter game.

You know, we like to do a thing where we take titles and we change a letter in the titles.

Okay.

Yeah.

But, you know, I think we go to William Shakespeare just a little too often.

So we’re going to go with another famous English author, Charles Durkens.

I mean Charles Dickens.

Sorry, I changed the letter in his name by accident.

Okay.

Charles Durkins.

I’ll change one letter in the title of a Dickens work

And then describe the work that Dickens could have written

Or Durkins could have written.

Durkins.

For example, a wealthy miser becomes a lot more agreeable

When someone gifts him with a substitute for chocolate.

A Christmas carob.

A Christmas carob.

Excellent.

You’re already out of the gate with the example.

You’ve got it.

Very good.

I get it.

I get it.

Well, here are some other clues.

Dickens doesn’t just hold a lock on Christmas stories.

One of his books is about several children and the hopes they have for receiving candy on Halloween.

Treat Expectations.

Treat Expectations is right.

Yes, very good.

And a more upbeat title in his canon is this tale of a domicile where tired orphans could occasionally and briefly take a few minutes off of work.

Breakhouse.

Breakhouse is right.

And what’s that change from?

From Bleak House.

From Bleak House, yes, just for those who don’t know.

His shortest work is just a listing of the garnishes used in cocktails,

Although he neglected to include pearl onions.

Yeah.

How about Olive’s Twist?

Olive’s Twist, yes, very good.

One novel remains virtually unchanged,

Except it becomes a dialogue between a pair of characters

About their respective hometowns.

Yeah, dialogue?

I was something with A Tale of Two Cities, but what would it be?

Oh, yeah, I don’t even know.

A Tale of… A Talk of Two Cities?

That’s it, A Talk of Two Cities. Very good.

In another serial novel, a small girl helps her father out of debtor’s prison

By getting a job putting the dots on the eyes at a printer’s shop.

Tittlenell?

No, Tittlenell…

Tittlenell, that works, a jot and a tittle.

Little Nell is actually a character in another book, but she’s not in the title.

Oh, she’s not in the title.

I thought that was good.

What was that, Grant?

Tiddledor it.

Tiddledor it is correct.

Yes, very good.

Finally, this is the strange story of an ancient piece of footwear that killed the cat.

Curiosity shoe.

Right, the old curiosity shoe.

Oh, yeah, right.

Okay.

All right.

Nice work, guys.

You did fantastic.

Thanks a bunch, John.

Thank you, guys.

Take care.

Talk to you next week.

Thanks, John. If you’ve got questions about language, this is the place, 877-929-9673, or email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi there.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Savannah Sterrick calling from Richmond, Virginia.

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

Well, I have a question that I heard in a home video that my mom recently wanted me to watch.

It was an interview of my great-grandma Singleton, who was from Travis Peak, Texas, which is in the rural hill country in central Texas, where my mom grew up.

And in the film, the interviewer was basically just asking my great-grandma questions about life in the past and growing up without electricity, courting in her days, etc.

Nice.

But at one point in the video, she referred to a male relative as being someone’s old scratch.

She kind of laughed after that and kind of embarrassed and asked the person filming if they were going to include that clip in the film.

She seemed like she thought she had said more than she ought to or something she shouldn’t have.

Oh, really? That’s great.

Yeah. So I never heard this phrase before.

I asked my mom if she knew what it meant, and she thought it meant something like the devil,

But she didn’t know what the reference was or where it had come from.

So we were both a little stumped.

Was the person she was talking about a rascal?

She kind of insinuated that.

She didn’t really give any background story, but yeah, that was kind of the vibe.

And Savannah, was your great-grandma conservative or really religious?

Yes, yes. She grew up Church of Christ, which is pretty conservative, to say the least.

And yeah, I think maybe she felt a little embarrassed about what she had said.

But she also had a really good sense of humor.

Like, she was kind of irreverent sometimes, even though the people in her community were probably not so much.

Yeah, well, old scratch does mean the devil or Satan.

It’s sort of a euphemism for that old guy.

It comes from an old Norse term that means goblin or something like that.

But I’m curious, you said she was referring to someone as somebody else’s old scratch, like a devil belonging to somebody?

It was a male relative who she was talking about.

And she was talking about him in reference to either his wife or someone that he was dating.

I think it was his wife.

Okay.

So I don’t know, maybe she was referring to the relationship between them, or maybe he did things he shouldn’t have.

I don’t know.

Yeah, that sounds right.

As Grant suggested, maybe a rascal.

I was thinking of a guy who might be stepping out on his wife or something like that.

Oh,

I mean, to get the devil in you, that sort of thing.

That would explain things.

Well, there’s another interesting thing happening here.

Not necessarily that’s the case.

I’m fascinated by your great-grandmother wondering if that would be taken out of the video.

Because there has long been an injunction, so to speak,

Against saying the name of the devil at risk that he might appear.

So if you mention the devil, historically the superstition was

There was a chance then he would enter your life.

Well, sure. Speak of the devil.

Right, exactly.

This is part of the reason why we have all of these nicknames

And euphemisms for the devil, like Old Ned.

Old Billy. Old boy.

Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of these.

Old Harry.

Old Harry, yeah.

So maybe she was speaking from a little bit of superstition almost, like knock on wood or something like that.

It could have been that too.

Yeah, and I’m not to say that she understood the superstition as something that she believed, but just like we might say knock on wood but not have any of the superstition left in us.

Just a habit to try to not just mention the devil at all.

Savannah, that video sounds like a real treasure.

Yeah, it was really cool.

She was really funny.

I mean, I remember her from when I was little, but it was really cool to sit down and watch the video and hear her as an adult.

Yeah, that’s really cool.

Outstanding.

I should do that, right?

What?

Tape my older relatives.

Oh, gosh.

Everybody should be taping their older relatives.

We have it in our pockets.

It’s in our phones, right?

Oh, my gosh, yes.

Any one of us could do that right now.

That’s right.

That’s right.

Those linguistic heirlooms.

Savannah, I want to thank you for sharing a little bit of your family with us.

Absolutely.

Thanks for having me.

All right.

Take care now.

Bye-bye.

Thanks a lot.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Oh, yeah. What a treasure.

Right. Here’s your assignment.

When you’re done listening to the radio show, get out your cell phone, find the oldest relative who’s near you,

And record a few minutes saying, what was it like when you were a child?

And see what happens. You’re going to learn some stuff.

And then, if you have any linguistic stuff come up, some slang or old words or old sayings or things that you didn’t understand,

Then you call us and we’ll help you figure it out.

Right. I mean, Savannah was talking about her great-grandma talking about courting and what it was like to live without electricity, all those kinds of things.

Right.

Cording.

Who goes courting anymore?

I know, I know.

Ask those leading questions about births and deaths and sickness and work and all those things.

And then share it with us.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Grant, I did not know until yesterday what a Bonnspiel is.

Bonnspiel.

Is that German?

What is that?

Maybe from Dutch.

We’re not sure, but it’s B-O-N-S-P-I-E-L.

Is spiel related to words or like a spiel?

No.

Spiel meaning game in German.

And it’s a word for a curling match.

The kind with the ice and the stones and the berms, that thing?

Yeah, and the sweeping the ice.

I don’t understand it, but it’s fascinating to watch.

Out of all the sportsing, that may be the weirdest sportsing I have ever seen.

Right, right.

Bonspiel.

Bonspiel.

Bonspiel.

Accent on the first syllable.

Yeah, we’re getting together for a bond spiel.

Not a bonfire, but a bond spiel.

On the beach with hot dogs and marshmallows.

877-929-9673.

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Connie.

I’m calling from Denver, Colorado.

Welcome, Connie.

What can we do for you?

Well, I have sort of a multi-part question about something that I’ve noticed.

My husband and I have a 22-year-old daughter and a 20-year-old son.

A few years ago, when listening to our kids speaking with their friends,

I noticed that they use this phrase, I feel like, constantly.

And the reason it really sort of stuck out to me is that most of the time they would use it when they’re really not talking about a feeling situation at all.

And when, in fact, it might have been more accurate or appropriate to say, I think, or I suppose, or it seems to me.

But instead, they always just use this default phrase, I feel like.

And sometimes it was tacked onto the beginning of a sentence that it didn’t even need to be, almost like a verbal tick.

So what I started wondering is, number one, is this really a new phenomenon in speech or has it been there all the time?

And I’m just now noticing it.

But I also wondered, is it just a young person thing?

But I listen to a tremendous amount of audio content.

For the last 10 years, I’ve been going legally blind.

And so now I no longer really interact with print at all.

So my interaction with language is all auditory, and I hear it.

It’s ubiquitous.

I listen to a tremendous number of podcasts.

It’s been interesting because it’s almost been my own little social experiment.

I want to find out how many people are saying this.

It seems there’s a tendency often in our language to be so nice and so accommodating that it seems like we use a lot of softening phrases.

And to me, I’m wondering if it’s being used as one of those softening phrases, you know, sort of those social lubricants that we all use so that we don’t seem too strident or as if we’re asserting ourselves too strongly.

I don’t love it because to me, it smacks a little bit of sloppy speech.

I think the language is so vibrant and diverse, they could use something that’s more accurate.

You know, now that we live in an age where we can all just listen to 12 podcasts in a row on our iPhone and where kids use social media and young adults, you know, became so high usage in social media before a lot of their parents did.

I’m wondering if this is one of those language things that has gone from teens and moved up and is now in heavy usage among adults.

There’s a lot to be said here.

You are asking some great questions.

I love the way that you think.

You have a lovely voice to boot.

Yes.

I would love to have an hour or two to talk to you about what it is like to go legally blind.

But I wonder if listening to that much audio has given us the answer to your first question.

Are you suffering from the recency illusion? That’s what we call it. And I think that you are a little bit, but not by much. It’s certainly been noticed, the I feel versus the I think thing, for at least 15 years. And it’s probably gone back further than that. There are any number of places where you can find people asking a question about this from years ago, it being answered.

So, yeah, I think a little bit of what you’re hearing is just because you’re listening to people who are talking in a dialogue format where they are expected to answer your other question to provide some social lubricant so they don’t come off as blunt or brusque.

Right. And we do use that. Fortunately, I have an answer for you on a little bit of this that you didn’t quite ask. There was a study done by some people at Stanford University a few years ago. It’s really, really interesting stuff. Zachary Tamala and Nicole Meyer talked to some people in this study, and they used a phrase like, I feel like I should donate blood versus I think I should donate blood. And they used other examples as well and found that if you prefaced a sentence with I feel versus I think, it was received differently, even though all other factors were equal.

And people were more willing to listen to you if they themselves tended to be emotionally responsive or considered themselves or were noticed to be emotionally interactive people. Whereas people who were cognitively oriented, that is, they were more interested in hard facts and thinking processes and working through a solution, they were more likely to respond to, I think I should donate blood. It was really interesting. I’m probably short-circuiting this whole study, but that is all to say there is a difference between these, and I feel does open the door to other people having a difference of opinion with you without either one of you feeling like you’re being confronted.

Okay, that’s fascinating. And you know, one thing, Grant, that was kind of interesting to me, I started wondering if maybe as women, we are sometimes more likely to use those softening things, especially like a woman in a boardroom situation or something like that. But I will say in all of the various NPR programs and slate programs and just all the podcasts and whatnot that I listen to, it seems to me, and of course, this is a small study. It’s just basically Connie’s listening habits. But it seems ubiquitous among men as well. I have not noticed that it’s in higher usage among women.

In sociolinguistics, though, young women tend to be the innovators and tend to spread new speech habits out to the larger communities of older people and to men. Really? Yes, they do. I mean, it’s not like it’s, you know, a 90-10 thing split on that, but they are more likely to show new language habits before any other group, young women. And so I’m not surprised.

The other thing I think we need to say here is that there are a number of different kind of conflict resolution strategies that are taught both in private therapy, group therapy, in work situations, in professional development, in any kind of diplomatic circles that use language very much like the, I feel like you are saying X, but I think we need to talk about Y. There’s all these very specific constructions that are offered as linguistic tools to get you to a point of resolution. And it’s really interesting how much this reminds me of that, just this kind of a natural paving, smoothing the road to get to a good end goal.

Well, it’s interesting because I, on the other hand, know that I do that a lot, and I’m trying to train myself not to do it. Because you feel that you’re being shorted or slighted or people don’t take you seriously? Yes. I’ll use all kinds of softening language, and I often realize that I don’t need it. You know, I have friends who will say, instead of, I feel like we should do this, people will say, the truth is we should do that. You know, and so I’m trying to use that kind of language because I do think that sometimes you can get passed over.

That’s so interesting that you bring that up. That’s something I’ve really thought about a good bit, probably especially more with our daughter, Vice, our son. Mainly because, I mean, goodness, you know that, what’s her name, Cheryl Sandberg? Sandberg, you know, the lean-in author. And recently I think she and a gentleman from the Wharton School released some information about how women are treated so much differently. Their communication style is looked at very differently in a boardroom situation. And they were talking about how many times women are cut off very quickly when they begin speaking, and how a woman speaking the exact same number of words in a setting as a man, she’s considered being like as if she’s speaking too much, as if she’s being strident, whereas a man would not.

And so I have, and of course, you know, I feel totally like I can get pedantic and corrective with my own children. I never would with their friends. But with my daughter especially, I’ve said, you know, I think it’s more powerful speech. Don’t couch everything in feelings because I do worry that as women, that’s how we can be perceived in the world. I completely agree. But the other thing is to understand that sometimes when I feel is being said, I think is being meant. And so just talking, using the word feel doesn’t mean that you’re talking about feelings.

I just want to wrap this up, Connie, and say I really recommend that you look up the Stanford Business Review. They have this study by Zachary Tormala and Nicole Meyer about I think versus I feel. Basically, if you just look for Tormala, I think, I feel, you’ll come up with it on the Internet. It’s totally a really good read. They’ve kind of laid out some of the differences here in the way people perceive people, other people who use I feel versus I think.

Okay? Oh, I love that. I want to do a deep dive on this. Who knows why, but it’s very fascinating to me. Give us a call again sometime, Connie, all right? Thank you so much. Take care now. All right. Bye-bye. Have a great day. Bye-bye.

877-929-9673 is the number for you to call to talk about language or send us an email. That address is words@waywordradio.org.

A couple of weeks ago on the show, I shared a quotation from Terry Pratchett, the late author. He’s so quotable, I have to share a couple more. Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Oh, nice. Isn’t that nice? Yeah. Yeah. Somebody who appreciates fantasy novels. The value of writing for yourself. Right. Right. And there’s all this research now that shows that people have more empathy if they read fiction and that kind of thing. Right. Interesting.

I got to share one more with you. The entire universe has been neatly divided into things to A, mate with, B, eat, C, run away from, and D, rocks. Rocks. The more I hike in California, the more I tend to agree with that. 877-929-9673. 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.

In our Facebook group, Stanley Anderson from Orange County, California, has been posting what he calls limerizations. Limerizations. Limerizations. This is where he takes a well-known literary passage or speech and then he translates it into limerick format, which is a really hard thing to do. I bet. If you think about it, they’re recognizable and pretty wonderful, I have to say. For example, here’s his rendering of Hamlet’s to be or not to be speech in limerick form.

There once was a question of being or not, as I’m presently seeing. Is’t nobler to bear, oh, a fortune of arrows and slings in outrageous fleeing? Okay, that kind of works. That’s pretty brilliant, right? I think it works really well. How about this one? See if you can guess what this one is from. And he usually starts out with the there once was a blah, blah. Okay. There once was acknowledged a fact.

Universally, single men packed with good fortune must be, if yet maritally free, in great want of the wife that they lacked.

I don’t know what it is.

Isn’t that wonderful?

I don’t know what it is.

It’s the beginning of Pride and Prejudice.

Oh, nice.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged.

I think these are great.

And he was asking for more people to chime in with their own versions of limerizations.

And this is Stanley.

Stanley Anderson from Orange County, California.

You want to hear one more?

Yeah.

And this one, he uses the word trow, T-R-O-W, which means to think or believe.

So see if you can guess what this is.

There once was a time years ago, about four score and seven, I trow,

When our forefathers brought to this continent’s lot a new nation conceived in the know.

Wow, it’s fresh in the mind, the Gettysburg Address.

Right, right, yeah.

But try it.

I was trying to do Juliet’s speech from the balcony.

Somehow the gravity is lost from Lincoln’s speech, though.

But the cleverness is there, the enjambment, and I just think it’s terrific.

How far did you get on Juliette’s speech from the balcony?

Not far.

There once was a maid on a, I mean, what do you say?

Balcony, who wasn’t very much of a phony.

Right.

She looked down at her bow, and she said, well, dost thou marry me tomorrow, or shall we die by stoning?

I don’t know.

That’s very good.

That’s very good.

And you’ve provided me the opportunity to mention that that was the original pronunciation in English of balcony.

Yeah, I use that all the time when people talk about, oh, language changing.

It’s terrible.

I’m like, all right, well, what do you call that thing?

Balcony borrowed from Italian.

Yes, indeed.

Well, if you want to find more limerizations of classic passages from classic works,

Find our Facebook group, A Way with Words.

Just look for it.

Or you can send yours, if you’ve come up with a few, to us an email to words@waywordradio.org.

And by all means, give us a call and recite them in full flower, 877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Stuart in Minneapolis.

Hey, Stuart, welcome to the show.

What’s up?

Thank you.

Thanks to streaming Wisconsin Public Radio, I listen to your program every Sunday morning.

I listen with someone who I refer to as the D.C. And it’s mutual.

What’s the D.C.?

The Dear…

Darling Companion from the Loving Spoonful song.

Gotcha. Okay.

Ultimately, the L.I., the love interest.

Okay. And your S.L.

We listen to you on Sunday morning, but Saturday night and Sunday night,

Wisconsin Public Radio has three hours streaming for us of old-time radio.

And the God’s honest truth that a lot of the old-time radio for me once was new-time radio.

A lot of these stories are based in the largest city in California.

And the time frame, these broadcasts come from late 30s to like early 50s.

And that city is more often than not almost always pronounced as Los Angeles.

Los Angeles.

And we just started wondering when it started becoming Los Angeles.

You make it sound so simple with your short question, but it’s a really long answer,

And I’m going to lay it out for you in about 30 seconds.

Can you take it?

Yes.

Okay, here it is.

Los Angeles was founded by Spanish speakers, but somewhere along the way it lost its kind of Hispanic heritage

And became very, very Anglo.

And most of the Hispanic stuff happening in Los Angeles today is actually new, relatively new.

There’s this whole kind of middle period where even people with Latino last names spoke English and no Spanish whatsoever.

And you find this throughout the city and actually throughout much of Southern California.

Many, many, many, many place names are not pronounced as they would be in Spanish because that pronunciation was lost.

Los Angeles is a great example of that, where you had Anglophones coming in from all over the country, pouring into California, reinforcing kind of this loss of this, bringing their own pronunciations with them and overlaying on top of what was already there kind of misunderstandings of how these place names should be pronounced.

Los Angeles, I think I counted 17 different pronunciations in one source.

Wow.

Yeah.

And is it Los?

Is it Lus?

Is it Los?

Is it Angles, Angelis, Angelis?

Is it Angles or is it Angelis?

Yeah, I’ve heard those on the radio, definitely.

So I’m going to point you to a resource that really lays this out perfectly.

He did a better job in print than I can do on the air.

There was a writer by the name of Steve Harvey, not the Steve Harvey,

Who wrote a story in 2011 for the Los Angeles Times.

It’s called Devil of a Time with City of Angels Name.

Okay, so look for that, Steve Harvey in the Los Angeles Times.

And he talks about this whole history where they had convened committees and they had public campaigns and they had marketing.

And they’re like, how are we going to pronounce this?

And they took a vote and they talked to their most respected experts and their most famous citizens.

And all for naught.

People still pronounce it any way they want.

And so right now I think there are three major pronunciations of Los Angeles.

And the best thing ever, the reason L.A. is the most common name for the city is because the pronunciation problem with the name.

I mean, this is the theory, that people sought something really simple because the other alternative was too difficult.

And they just say L.A. instead.

Claro. Muy bueno.

Talk.

So anyway, look for that article in the Los Angeles Times.

He’s really done a good job.

There’s a lot of history in there, some funny moments, even mayors getting it wrong, you know,

Or politicians who show up into town and they’re like, you know, they’re trying to seem like a local and they just mess it up?

Well, thank you.

And I’ll be listening next week.

And I will be listening for the variations on the theme on the radio.

Outstanding.

Thank you so much for your call, Stuart.

Hi to your D.C.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

I remember moving to San Diego about five or six years ago.

And places that seem perfectly, like V-I-S-T-A, looks like it should be Vista, you know?

Oh.

But it’s Vista.

Well, see, I’m always thinking of the Latvian word for chicken, which is Vista.

We have talked about this on the show.

And La Jolla is the famous one, though.

Oh, right.

But that one I knew from afar.

That one’s so well known.

It’s nationally known.

It’s a mess, isn’t it?

Take the El Camino Real.

It’s not San Diego.

It’s San Diego.

No, you would never do that.

San Diego.

San Diego, 877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

And talk to us on Twitter, W-A-Y-W-O-R-D.

Here’s another wonderful limerization written by Stanley Anderson.

He posted this on our Facebook group.

See if you can guess what it is.

Okay.

There once was a lady who’s sure.

All that glitters is golden and pure.

There’s a stairway that heads up to heaven, it said,

And the cost of the thing she’ll incur.

It’s brilliant, right?

Is that stairway to heaven?

Of course it is, in limerick form.

The guitar riffs are going to be really hard to work out for that.

877-929-9673, Twitter, W-A-Y-W-O-R-D,

Or find us on Facebook.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Dorothy.

I’m calling from Fort Worth, Texas, but I’m originally from Glasgow, Scotland.

Well, welcome to the show.

Thank you. I’ve enjoyed it for a long while.

And finally, finally called in.

We’re glad you did, Dorothy. How can we help?

As I said, I grew up in Glasgow, Scotland.

I’ve lived in Texas for 44 years.

But I grew up saying a lot of things, phrases, things that I just said, never knowing where they came from,

Never questioning where they came from until I’ve lived here.

And I wondered if you would be able to tell me, you know, where they did come from.

One of them is like, I mean, I know what they are, I know what they mean, but I don’t know where they originated.

One of the things that I say is an exclamation is in the name of the wee man.

And another one is somebody is, you call somebody a blathering skite.

That means they talk a lot.

We’ll hook you up with some answers, and I’m going to give you a great resource after this for some Scots language, all right?

All right.

So let’s take these one at a time.

A wee man, in the name of the wee man, is a minced oath where you’re referring to the devil.

It’s in the name of the devil.

Yeah, another term for the devil is the wee man.

Oh, I thought it was baby Jesus.

No, yeah.

No, according to what I’ve read, and there’s a number of euphemisms.

Well, in Scots, apparently, you can say in the name of anything and make it sound like an oath.

You can say, in the name of this coffee, I’m not going to work today or whatever.

I never heard that one.

Well, I made that one up, but it’s just in the name of whatever.

Oh, you mean I should stop calling my grandson the wee man?

No, that’s a different wee man.

No, that’s the thing.

It’s a different wee man.

You’ve got two meanings of it.

The wee man is the little guy, and then he’s also the devil.

But maybe he’s both.

I don’t know.

No, no, no, no.

He’s a sweetie.

He’s perfect.

I’m sure he is.

Now, a blethering skite, if there’s anything more Scots in the world, I don’t know what it is.

A skite is a rascal or a scoundrel of some kind.

And to blether is to talk incessantly or loquitiously.

And in the United States, we actually have blather skite.

We say it with an instead of an eh.

Blatherskite.

I’ve heard that.

I’ve heard that here, blathering.

Yes, exactly.

We caught it very soundly during the American Revolution from a song that was really common among the soldiers called Maggie Lauder, and it’s got the word in it.

And it’s been strong in the United States ever since.

It’s really interesting.

Outside of blatherskite, most Americans wouldn’t say to blather and definitely would not use the word skite.

It’s just not really any part of the vernacular here.

No, most people are, yes, most people are confounded when I see blethering skite.

Yeah.

So there it all is in a nutshell.

But let me tell you my secret source for all things Scots language.

And I’m mentioning this to everyone because a few years ago they had some funding problems.

I threw in my few dollars and some others did too, and it’s now going quite soundly.

And this is the dictionary of the Scots language, which is free online.

It has a newly designed interface.

It’s by Scots, for Scots, with lots of Scots content.

It combines all of the great lexical works of the Scots language all into one resource, and you can look up just about anything that you can think of, and it’s probably in there with citations and historical information and notes on usage.

Thank you. I appreciate that. You’ve really helped.

Oh, yeah.

Glad to do it.

She says with a tone of surprise.

The brother Scots came through.

Thanks, Dorothy.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

No matter where you’re from in the world, if you’ve come to the United States, you’ve brought linguistic baggage.

Would you like to open that up so we can all go through your laundry together?

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

I came across a German expression the other day that means I almost lost my temper or I became outraged.

And it literally translates as, I almost jumped in triangles.

What’s it in German?

I knew you were going to ask me that.

Ich bin fast im Dreie gesprungen.

Gesprungen.

Yeah, I almost jumped in triangles.

It means to become outraged.

Nice, I almost jumped in triangles.

Why? I don’t know.

Me neither.

877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Cynthia from San Diego.

Hi, Cynthia. Welcome to the show.

What’s going on?

Thank you. I have a word that has been used by my grandmother, and she’s from northeastern Missouri.

And she always would say to us whenever we were getting dressed to go outside or do anything outside, she’d say, well, you better take your jacket or you’re going to freeze your Tia Liberta.

And we just looked at her and thought, oh, Grandma.

But T-E-L-A-B-E-R-T is a word that I find myself using now as I’ve gotten older with my kids.

And anyway, I’m just wondering, where did it come from?

And my dear sweet husband said, you know, you can look that up online.

And I said, no, I’m going to call A Way with Words and see what they have to say.

So T-E-L-A-B-E-R-T-A, am I saying it correctly?

Yes, exactly.

How would you spell that if you had to put that on paper?

I have tried to write it before, and I just put T, and then I think T-E-E-Dash-E-L-L-A-B-E-R-T-A, just really sounding it out, you know.

Yeah, that’s what I would do.

And what is your Tia Liberta?

You said you would freeze it.

What is it?

I think it’s your derriere.

I think that’s how she meant it to be, but it was always very playful.

But what’s interesting is her two daughters, my mom and her sister, never said it.

So I don’t think it was something that they liked or it must be really old-fashioned or something.

I can’t honestly say I’ve heard anybody else say it.

Have you ever heard anyone?

No, never have.

And it doesn’t come up in any of the standard reference works either.

No.

There’s some slightly similar ones in the Dictionary of American Regional English.

These are Tee Heiney and Tee Heiney Boo.

Tee Heiney Boo.

And there’s one more with a Tee something else.

Tee Hinder.

Tee Hinder, yeah.

Yeah, you’re going to freeze your Tee Hinder off.

There also might be kind of misestimating here, but there might be several hundred words for the thing that you sit on.

And actually in the Dictionary of American Regional English, when they put it together, one of the questions that field workers asked was basically, what’s a funny name for the thing that you sit upon?

And we’re not talking chair, right?

No, they mean on your behind, your bum, your bottom, your posterior.

Your TL Alberta.

Yeah, your BTM is one that I thought was amusing.

BTM?

Yeah, so it’s kind of a fake acronym of bottom, BTM.

See, I wonder where the T comes in, though.

I mean, wonder why it would start with a T.

Good question.

I don’t know.

But the nice thing about this radio show, Cynthia, is that we have so many listeners that if there is even one small pocket of people in North America who use this term, we’re probably going to hear from them.

Oh, I would love that.

No promises, though.

You receive emails.

If you do, how will I know?

I’d like to know if anyone else has a grandmother who’s ever said it.

We’ll talk about it on the show.

We’ll put it on social media.

It’ll show up on all the usual channels, all right?

Oh, that’s the great news.

So it’s actually just the bottom, like I suspected.

I thought maybe it was your whole area of your body counting top and bottom, and T.L. Alberta maybe was a reference to T and A, not to get vulgar.

Maybe.

I’m looking at this thinking it could maybe be like an exaggerated form of TLB something, but I can’t think of what TLB would stand for.

Yeah, tomato, lettuce, and bacon.

I have no idea.

Well, we’re going to find out.

Our listeners are going to get off their TLBertas and give us a call, I hope.

Oh, that was great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Cynthia.

Bye-bye.

Okay, so keep listening, all right?

I sure will.

Thanks.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

Well, if you know what TLBerta is, I mean, we know what it is, but if you use it or someone you know has used it, if you’ve got a clue about it, clue us in, too.

Hit us with a clue by 4 at 877-929-9673 or send in an email to words@waywordradio.org.

Things have come to a pretty path.

That’s all for today’s broadcast.

But don’t wait until next week to chat with us.

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A Way with Words is independently produced and distributed by Wayword Inc., a nonprofit supported by listeners and organizations.

Who believe in lifelong learning and better human communication.

The show is coming to you from the Recording Arts Center at Studio West in San Diego, California.

Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. Bye-bye.

So long.

I like tomato, potato, potato, tomato, tomato.

Let’s call the whole thing up.