Word for Getting the Last Remnants out of a Bottle

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Bill Raisley calling from beautiful Bo Verde, Texas.

Bo Verde, with a name like that, it must be beautiful.

Welcome to the show. Glad to talk to you.

Yeah, thank you.

Kind of something that’s puzzled me, I guess, you know, most of my life. My family grew up in South Bend, Indiana, and so I have a couple generations of family back over there. But my dad decided in 1955 he would kind of pack us all up in the car and move us off to Denver, Colorado, which is where I grew up.

And out there, you know, just growing up, I always didn’t think too much of it. But, you know, if I was sitting at the dinner table and I had a bottle of ketchup there and I was trying to, you know, it was almost empty and I was trying to shake it and get the ketchup out, my dad would say, just go Wabash it.

And I would go, what? He would say, just go over to the sink, put a little water in there, shake it up a little bit, and it’ll come right out of there. So I did, you know.

So that was sort of a saying that my family used, you know, wabashing things, you know, just to add a little bit of water to send something out, like leftover food or something in a jar or those kinds of things. And here I am sitting here all these years later, and I’m wondering, where did that phrase come from, Wabashing things? I was kind of hoping that you all might be able to add some insight.

Well, Bill, what does Wabash mean to you besides that process? Does it mean anything else to you?

Not really, no. I mean, I know there’s a Wabash River in Indiana.

Yeah. I don’t have any other connection with that word. Was it just your family, or did others around you, other families, say it?

Well, back in South Bend, I don’t, you know, we’d go back there for Christmas and holidays and things, and people back there would say it. I don’t think it’s that common at all.

And my first thought was that you’re holding the ketchup bottle and bashing it with your hand. And then I was thinking, well, maybe it has to do with the folks back home, you know, doing it like the old folks at home in the Wabash area since you’re from Indiana.

The only other thing that I can think of is that the Wabash River, when it enters Indiana, sort of meanders and has to, and they have built canals to help the flow of the river because it is so windy there where it first crosses the border into Indiana. But I don’t know.

So you’re thinking that the liquid added to the ketchup bottle is kind of like the Wabash River kind of sluicing through those channels? That’s the process of Wabashing.

Yeah, that’s the only thing that I can really think of. I’m not aware of other people using it.

Yeah, I’ve never heard this term before you at all, and I don’t have any information on this. The only theory that I have is that perhaps at one point it was a joking term, washing, with an extra almost pig Latin syllable added, kind of like the same way you might say edumacate instead of educate. So wabashing instead of washing.

Wabash. Because people goof around with language, and it kind of cots is a family word. I don’t know.

So outside of your family, you’ve heard other people in South Bend, Indiana use this?

I have.

Okay. Wow. That’s a long time ago. Okay. And they say Wabash like the river, not Wabash, right?

Correct. Yeah.

Wow. Correct, yeah. That’s fascinating. That is very fascinating.

I was up in Denver just last week. My father is up there, and he’s 100 years old now. And so I got the opportunity to say, Dad, do you remember Wabashing things? And he goes, oh, heck, yeah, I still do it. And I said, well, what can you tell me about that? And he said, well, that word, you know, used that way came from Indiana. And I said, tell me more.

And he started to say, well, you know, things were pretty tight back then, you know, when I was growing up in Indiana. And then he said, but I just can’t remember. And I was going, oh, no, tell me more, you know. So I assumed that maybe it had to do with stretching something.

Oh, that could be. It connects because there is a slang word to wabash something, which means to cheat or to swindle. So I wonder if it’s connected to that. And this goes back not that far. I find uses of it in the 1940s, probably older. So to cheat, to defraud. And it was used in Indiana and the west of there. So who knows? To water it down, basically.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s pretty interesting. Yeah, I don’t know. I still use it today and I’ve corrupted all my kids, you know, so they use it. I want to make sure it lives on.

Well, yeah, Bill, you’ve corrupted me because now every time I try to get ketchup out of a bottle, I’m going to think of that. I mean, it’s a perfect word for that. It’s not just getting ketchup out. It’s adding water to get the last remnants out, right?

Yes, correct. Yeah. I’m going to thin it down a little bit so it’ll come out.

Huh. That is super cool. Bill, thank you so much for calling.

Yeah, it’s really exciting. I’m glad that you guys could make that connection with it. We’ll see what our listeners have to say. We’ve got a ton of people in Indiana who will have opinions.

Oh, I can’t wait. I just can’t wait to see what comes out on this. Thank you for your call. Really appreciate it.

What comes out. We’ll Wabash it. I love your show. Take care.

Thanks so much for having me.

All righty, Bill. My pleasure.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Do you know something about the verb to Wabash, meaning to get extra ketchup or something out of a bottle by putting water in there and sloshing it around so you can just finish it off completely? If you do, let us know, 877-929-9673. That’s toll free in the US and Canada. Or email us, words@waywordradio.org.