Umbers!

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Rachel.

I’m calling from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Rachel.

What’s up?

So it’s kind of random.

So I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and there’s lots of kind of funny Albuquerque-isms.

But the one that I had a question about was, so, you know, when you’re in, like, elementary school

And somebody gets in trouble, you know, to go to the principal’s office or you get in trouble at recess and everybody would go, ooh.

Right.

Well, in Albuquerque, instead of doing that, everybody would say, umbers.

So you would say, umbers.

And it’s something that I, you know, anybody from Albuquerque, my brothers and all of my friends that I grew up with, we all know exactly what it is.

But then I grew up and went to college and moved away from Albuquerque.

And whenever I bring it up, anybody that I ever talk to thinks that I’m totally crazy.

They look at me like they’ve never heard it before.

And so I just have no idea where it came from.

If it’s just like a really random Albuquerque thing or what it is.

So I thought I would ask you guys because you’re an expert.

Umbers, like that?

Umbers.

And so when I grew up, when I was in school, it would have been, oh, like that.

So it’s the same tone, but a different word.

Yeah, and I’ve heard of that, but everybody’s like, what the heck is umber?

Interesting.

I grew up with something kind of in between the two of you.

I grew up with

Oh, yeah.

But it’s still got that same pitch change, right?

Oh, yeah.

The performance of it is 90%.

When everyone does it together, that’s when it’s got the most power.

Yeah, exactly.

And then your stomach drops.

You’re like, oh, what did I do?

So I’ve looked at a lot of random collections of Albuquerque slang.

Or collections of random Albuquerque slang?

Both.

Okay.

And most of them are not professionally done.

And this is on most of the lists.

It really is.

Is it really?

Yeah.

So I don’t think it’s just you and your family for sure.

I think you’re right.

It belongs to Albuquerque.

I did find some evidence that there might be people who do it in Colorado.

Just so you know. But, you know, parts of Colorado are not that far, really.

But the whole rest of the country, I don’t think people use it at all.

You know, it’s not in any of the mainstream slang dictionaries.

Yeah, I’ve never heard anybody else that I’ve ever talked to about it has ever been like, oh, yeah, we did that, too.

They’re like, who are you? You’re crazy.

Did you know the form umbers cucumbers?

No, I’ve never heard that.

Apparently that was the more severe form. Umbers cucumbers.

I don’t know how common that was.

I found a couple people who mentioned it in different places.

I have two really sorry kind of pathetic theories for you that I’m going to share.

Okay.

The first one is the most pathetic theory, which I wouldn’t give any credence to, so you should just not listen.

And this is that there has been a long history in the United States of a very Anglicized pronunciation of the Spanish word hombre, meaning man.

And those two pronunciations are umbri or umber.

And so my theory is that it has to do with the same way you might go, man, that’s a really terrible theory.

I can see that.

I can definitely actually see that.

You can almost sell that.

My slightly better theory, only a little bit, is that it is the same way that you might in some places even today go, burnt.

And it comes from the name of the burnt umber crayon in the big box.

Okay.

I think I can see the first one a little more, honestly.

Oh, I like the second one.

They’re both terrible theories.

I regionally and, you know, the people I grew up with, I could see that happening.

Yeah.

Oh, really?

But, you know, something like this, this kind of exclamation, this kind of interjection is nearly impossible to track to its roots.

It’s so very hard to do.

Yeah.

Because it’s contextless except for the circumstance.

Like, it doesn’t keep company with very many other words.

Like usually when I’m looking into a word’s history, I’m like, okay, so what other words does this word tend to appear with?

And what do I know about them?

And what do I know about the phrases that are nearby?

And this is not one of those things where I can do that.

It could just be an intensification or an elaboration on

I think that’s a really good guess.

I really do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Although I sort of like your goofball theories, Grant.

They’re kind of colorful.

Yeah.

Hey, I could see it.

I could see it.

Well, I’ll just continue to stay with my brothers, and people will continue to think that we’re totally nuts.

No, it’s fine.

Let them feel left out.

They’ve got their thing.

You’ve got yours.

Own it.

Yes.

Okay.

Rachel, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

All right.

Take care.

Thanks, Rachel.

Bye.

Bye.

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