Yak Shaving (episode #1548)

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 want to share a passage from a new book that I really love.

It’s by a college professor who’s describing bringing his children for a visit to campus.

He writes,

On the ground floor of my office building, I’m pointing out the details of a wall map to my children.

The bell rings. Class is let out. I mutter an easy prediction.

Watch this. Everyone will stare at their phones.

Students amble into the hallway.

One meanders towards us, bumps into me, recalibrates her trajectory without looking up, and continues her Roomba-like text walking.

I love that Roomba-like text walking. I’ve seen that. I’ve been there.

Both the little robot vacuum and the people walking around looking at their phones and just kind of like gently bumping into walls and people and furniture.

You know, it’s all very careful, but still divided attention.

Right, right.

I was going to say, sort of oblivious yet aware at the same time.

But before the phones, you know, it was not uncommon to see people doing this.

I mean, I remember living in New York before cell phones, newspapers and books.

People would walk down the street reading.

And there was something kind of charming about it, as long as they didn’t bump into you too hard.

Right.

Well, and now we have a term to describe it, Roomba-like text walking.

I love that.

Roombas. Yeah, the Roombas. Just shorten it. They’re all Roombas.

But if they could pick up a little trash as they go, that’d be great.

Well, that’s from a new book called How to Think Like Shakespeare, Lessons from a Renaissance Education. It’s by Scott Newstock. And I’m really crazy about this book, so I want to talk about it later in the show. And I know we’re both looking forward to talking to our listeners about language.

Call us, 877-929-9673.

Email us, words@waywordradio.org, or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. How are you?

My name is Caitlin, and I’m calling from Laredo, Texas.

Welcome to the show. What can we help you with?

So I’m calling to ask about a word that I have learned since moving here to Laredo, a very specific Laredo word, it seems like.

That is the use of the word mariachi to refer to breakfast tacos.

Food word, Martha.

Yes.

Breakfast tacos.

Yes.

So you moved to Laredo from where?

From Wisconsin, originally.

And so no mariachi tacos in Wisconsin?

No, for sure not.

I think it was maybe the first week that I had started my job at the office and somebody stopped by to tell me that there were mariachis in the kitchen and I was a bit confused for a second until they clarified that apparently here in Laredo, it is another word for breakfast tacos.

And what was it when you got it? What was in the breakfast taco?

Usually it’s just, you know, eggs and something else on a tortilla, maybe egg and potato or egg and bacon, egg and ham, with or without salsa, all different kinds of variations.

Yeah, that sounds about right. And so your question is, why that word and why there?

Yes. I mean, I tried to do some of my own research, but there’s some of this kind of speculation that because a mariachi taco will wake you up like a mariachi band would, that’s where it comes from.

But I just wanted to see if you all knew or could find anything more specific.

Yeah, that’s actually close to the theory that I learned that I like best. And I learned it from Jose Rallat. He has a book published in 2020 called American Tacos. And so he has explored the American taco experience. And it’s a wonderful book.

And he talks about the mariachi tacos from Laredo, Texas.

And he says it was a breakfast taco wrapped in flour tortilla, 8 to 10 inches, filled with a single item originally, and then grilled and slightly crisped.

But he says now it can have more than one filling.

But he says there are a couple different theories, but the one that he likes, he learned from Professor Norma Cantu, who is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas, San Antonio.

And she traces the mariachi tacos to a long-gone Lareda restaurant called Las Casuelas on Market Street in Lareda.

Okay.

According to him, and I’m quoting him, quoting her, the workers in the rail yard would stop there at this restaurant for breakfast.

And a story is that one rail worker said his tacos weren’t picante enough.

They weren’t spicy enough.

So the cook told him that she would make him one that would have him shouting like a mariachi.

You know, the grito that they do?

Yeah.

The mariachi shout.

And so the cook laid on the hot sauce and apparently laid it on enough that the worker did yell at the spicy heat of the taco.

And that was the way they were made.

And so Rallat says in his book, American Tacos, he says that the term mariachi for that kind of taco seems to be falling out of favor in Laredo.

And I don’t know what you think, but he says he thinks that the word is not long for the taco world.

But you’ve learned it. How long have you been there in Laredo?

I’ve been here about three and a half years.

And I will say I think probably the first person I heard it from is one of my coworkers who is in his late 70s, born and raised in Laredo.

And definitely among my older coworkers, in particular those who probably grew up speaking English and Spanish kind of equally.

But I’ve also noticed that, you know, you’ll see it painted on the signs of restaurants advertising their mariachi plates or at a restaurant, a specific section in the menu labeled mariachis, maybe kind of as a way to distinguish themselves as a true Laredo restaurant.

Right.

I don’t know.

Yeah, they’re signaling that they’re local and that they’ve got some local pride.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Right.

Yeah.

It’s kind of like in San Diego, fish tacos, they always, you know, you got to learn who is the real fish taco and who is not.

Right.

So that’s one thing.

There was another theory, which I don’t like as much, but I’m going to share.

But one theory is that the folded taco looks like the brim of a mariachi’s hat.

But the problem is many tacos look like that.

So why wouldn’t they all be called mariachi?

Well, whatever the etymology, I feel a road trip coming on.

Don’t you, Grant?

I think we need to retrace Jose Rolat’s path in his book, American Tacos, and try them from coast to coast.

Really, that’s the only way to do it.

Right.

In the interest of research.

Yeah, in the interest of research.

You want to come with us, Caitlin, and do that?

I like that plan.

Caitlin, thank you so much for calling.

You’re welcome.

Thank you.

All right.

Take care of yourself.

All right.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Hello.

You have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Martha from the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

Oh, Minnesota. Nice. Well, welcome to the show.

Martha, nice.

I can’t have too much more thought.

Yeah, Martha.

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

Thanks so much. So I have this fun saying that my dad always said when I was growing up, and I didn’t ever think to ask him about it, where he heard it or if it was popular in his day or what.

But my husband heard me saying it and told me that he must have made it up.

My dad must have made it up because he’d never heard it.

So the saying is, and I kind of have to say it in his voice, he would always say it sort of stentorian style.

He’d say, the juice was worth the squeeze.

And it meant like the effort that you put into something proved worthwhile and it was a good venture to do.

It was worth it.

Okay, so he said this phrase in what kind of situation?

Like you put some effort into something, you made a lot of trouble to do something, but it all turned out really well, so it was worth it.

You were glad you did it because the outcome proved worthwhile.

Okay, so there’s satisfaction in there and feeling like your effort was justified then.

Exactly. Like you squeezed some fruit and the juice that you got was worth it.

You got to have a nice swig of orange juice.

Yeah, that’s exactly the idea there.

Squeezing a piece of fruit and getting the juice that was worth it.

So he didn’t make it up, I’m guessing?

No, no, because there are juicing oranges and there are non-juicing oranges, and the non-juicing oranges definitely are not worth the effort.

You get almost nothing out of them.

They’re like all pulp.

They’re rind and pulp.

Yeah, and people have been saying this since at least the 1960s.

I wonder if that was that when he came of age.

He was well of age by the 60s, but probably a little hipper in those days than when I came along.

Yeah, so it’s definitely not your dad.

And, of course, we’ve probably got a lot of listeners pounding the dashboard or pounding the table saying, mention Lizzo, mention Lizzo, because, of course, Lizzo has her song Juice, where she says the juice ain’t worth the squeeze if the juice don’t look like this, talking about herself.

Yeah.

I got to check that out.

Yeah, she’s good.

If there’s a great NPR Tiny Desk concert, you’ll become an instant fan if you watch that.

She’s just got a lot of personality, and it’s a big show for such a small space.

I will check that out immediately.

I have another fun thing I wanted to share if you have a minute.

Yes, please.

Sure.

So something I learned about from you guys on the show, the idea of a pangram, and you mentioned the contest for a pangram, which I’m sure most listeners already knew this, that a pangram is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet.

So I got kind of excited about that, and I forgot about it, and then I came back and reapplied myself and wrote a pangram.

But when I went to look up the contest, I learned I had missed the deadline.

So then I wrote a pangram in the form of a haiku about that.

About your experience of missing the deadline for our contest?

Exactly.

So a double whammy, a haiku pangram together?

Yep.

Okay.

Yep.

Let’s hear it.

Okay, so the title of the haiku is part of the pangram.

It counts in the letter total.

So it’s Pangram Contest.

Lively interest piqued.

Just my kind of whiz-bang fun.

Deadlines passed.

No fix.

Aw, but it’s good.

It’s a very good one.

Thank you.

That’s fantastic.

You didn’t have to force the X in there like so many of them.

Right, or the Q or the Y.

Or the Z, yeah.

Yeah, you made it work.

Martha, that’s like writing a pangram while you’re walking backwards and in heels.

I never wear heels, but I can walk backwards.

Or dancing backwards, I guess it is.

But in any case, yeah, that’s quite a feat.

Well, I think we need to give Martha a consolation prize or something for that contest, because nobody did that.

Just getting to read it.

There we go.

Your prize is sharing it with thousands and thousands of people.

That was beyond delightful.

That’s amazing.

Thank you.

You’re delightful, too.

We’re glad to have you on the show.

Oh, thank you so much.

All right.

Be well.

Yeah, I hope the juice was worth the squeeze.

Totally, totally.

Take good care.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

All righty.

Bye-bye.

The show’s about words and language and pangrams and haikus and goofing around, 877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org or talk to us on Twitter @wayword.

I got an email the other day from my friend Ray who grew up in Mexico City.

And I wrote him back and I said, I haven’t heard from you in a while.

How are you doing?

And he immediately responded, aburrido como una ostra, which means bored as an oyster.

And I just love that phrase.

Oh, that’s bored.

That’s very bored.

Just sitting there filtering water all day, right?

Right.

Spitting out the occasional grain of sand or maybe making a furrow.

Yeah.

That was so picturesque.

It just stopped me in my tracks.

Bored as an oyster.

Bored as an oyster.

Yeah.

Say it again in Spanish.

Aburrido como una ostra.

Bored as an oyster.

Very good. 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 we’re joined by our quiz guide, John Chaneski.

Hi, John.

Hi, Grant.

Hi, Martha.

It’s so good to hear you guys again.

How are you doing?

Fantastic.

And you?

Doing great.

Good.

I’m just great.

You know, I was reminded recently of a quiz that we played a few years ago in which the ends of a pair of words had the same sound.

There was an sound like prima donna or mama pajama.

Do you remember that?

I don’t know if you remember.

Yeah.

How could we forget?

Of course.

This time we’ll seek out two word phrases that end in E.

So you’ll basically be saying E-E, like E-E, like the music from Psycho.

Or a dolphin.

Don’t be scared.

Or a dolphin.

It’s called Dolphin Quiz.

Right.

I called it E-E Cummings because here come the E-Es.

Okay.

For example, it’s described as a participation dance with a distinctive accompanying tune and lyric structure.

And I think it has an unhealthy obsession with body parts.

What is it?

It’s the hokey pokey.

Hokey pokey, right?

Some places they call it the hokey cokey.

Hokey cokey.

I’ve never heard that, but that’s what they call it.

Yeah.

Now here are some more, but unlike my example, none of these actually rhyme.

They end in EE, but they don’t rhyme.

You’ll see what I mean.

Yeah.

Here’s the first one.

In the UK or Australia, you might playfully describe an imputed person with this phrase, or you might actually be describing a primate with a fleshy face.

Ooh.

Cheeky monkey.

Cheeky monkey is right.

Very good.

Very good.

Now, I’m not sure why this two-word noun went out of style.

It still describes a type of conveyance for young children, whether or not it has rubber bumpers.

Oh, rubber baby buggy bumper.

It’s a baby buggy, right.

Baby buggy.

Baby buggy.

His birth name was Hubert.

He was born in 1901, and he was one of the first modern teen idols.

In the days when you could not count on a working microphone setup, he would sometimes sing through a megaphone.

Who was he?

Oh.

Blanky, blanky.

Rudy Valli.

Yes, Rudy Valli.

There we go.

Perfect.

Yes.

Very good.

I know we had a couple of listeners shouting Rudy Valli at their computers.

That’s fine.

Speaking of nostalgia, though, I can remember when you could use this common toy based on polymers with unusual properties to pick up newsprint or comic strip.

Silly buddy.

Silly buddy.

Yes, it’s Silly Putty.

Yes, Silly Putty.

There were four sequels to this 1971 neo-noir action thriller, including Magnum Force, The Enforcer, The Deadpool, and Sudden Impact.

Is it Dirty Harry?

It is Dirty Harry.

Yeah, I was going to tell you that the last one, Sudden Impact, was directed by star Clint Eastwood himself.

You’ve given me the answer.

You’ve made my day.

Nicely done.

Finally, a triple, a triple E-E-E.

According to a classic Scottish nursery rhyme, this character can be found turling at the window, crying at the lock.

Are the wee-ins in their bed?

For now it’s 10 o’clock.

Wee-willy-winky.

Wee-willy-winky.

Strange man wandering about town, knocking at people’s windows.

You don’t see much of that anymore.

Perv.

You guys worked your way through the quiz.

Nicely done.

Thank you, John.

I don’t know where you keep that clever brain, but put it on ice and we’ll talk to you next week.

Will do. Talk to you next time.

All right. Take care of yourself.

And we’d love to talk with you about any aspect of language whatsoever.

So give us a call, 877-929-9673, or send your stories about language in email to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello. You have A Way with Words.

Hi. I’m John, and I’m calling from Dallas, Texas.

Well, welcome to the show, John.

Hi, John. We’re glad to talk with you. What’s going on?

Well, first, I’m honored to talk to the Duchess of Dictionaries and the Sultan of Slang.

The what of slang?

The Sultan of Slang and the Duchess of Dictionaries.

Well, I’m happy to talk with the Wizard of Words on the line. What to call us for, Wizard?

I was watching TV and, well, they described a character as a loose cannon.

I know it has something to do with a real smart chap, i.e. Someone who’s a little bit of a smart aleck, but that’s all I can think of.

Oh, wow. Okay, so somebody was described as a loose cannon.

Yeah, they were a little bit of a hothead, always making sarcastic remarks.

So that gave me a clue.

So what were you watching? What was happening on the show?

Well, an announcer was like describing a character, and this wasn’t a live action show.

It was like an anime, and well, they were just describing a classic announcer character, as they called them.

It was like describing a character as they were stepping onto the stage.

Oh, I see. Okay, gotcha.

Well, you know, if we tell you a little bit about the history of this expression, it might make more sense to you.

Would you like to hear that?

Sure. That would be very handy.

Well, think back to those old wooden ships hundreds of years ago.

You know, the ones with the tall sails.

Like they might need to have cannons in case like pirates try to invade their ship.

They can knock them out before the pirates get there.

Yes, sir. Some of those ships had cannons on board to fire at other ships or enemies.

And in those days, John, the cannons were mounted on wheels so they could be moved back and forth on the deck while you were shooting them and then loading them and shooting them and loading them.

And usually those cannons…

I got it. So it was like constantly, so those cannons were constantly firing off.

And I think that was used as like a metaphor for like a constantly firing off mouth.

Because he was, you know, constantly firing everything out.

That’s a great guess.

Like all those cannons on that ship.

Well, you’re right that it’s a metaphor,

But, you know, usually when they weren’t using the cannons, those cannons were securely fastened to the ship.

But imagine if they came loose,

If, say, the ship got into a bad storm at sea and, you know, just riding the seas like a roller coaster.

You don’t want that cannon to become loose because if it does, you can imagine what would happen, right?

Kaboom, kaboom, kaboom, you suck.

Pretty much.

Pretty much.

Even if the cannons aren’t loaded, they could go rolling along and hurt somebody or slam into another part of the ship and damage it.

And so you’re absolutely right, John.

It’s a metaphor for somebody who’s unpredictable or uncontrollable.

Just like a cannon rolling around on one of those ships when it’s not supposed to.

You never know if it’s going to accidentally fire, what it’s going to crash into next,

And who is going to get bumped into and knocked over.

Bingo.

Who’s going to get knocked over.

That’s right.

So, yeah, don’t be a loose cannon if you can help it.

Yeah, try not to.

John, you really do seem to have a way with words.

Absolutely.

I get that a lot.

I just have a large vocabulary.

I kind of always have.

Yeah, sounds like it.

Sounds like you definitely are a word wizard.

I really appreciate you calling us.

And you know what?

I invite you to call us again sometime, okay?

Plus, I have stereotypical word nerd glasses.

Oh, those are…

That kind of gives it away.

Yeah, me too.

It kind of gives it away.

Me too.

Nerds unite.

So do I.

That’s how we hide our secret identities.

All right.

Take care of yourself, John.

It was a real delight to talk to you.

See you.

Bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-ya.

I think I’m speechless, Grant.

You may have to give the phone number.

877-929-9673.

We love taking calls from kids, no matter who you are, where you’re calling from, or what your question is.

Talk to us on email, words@waywordradio.org.

You can talk to us on Twitter, too, @wayword.

In the 1874 novel 93 by Victor Hugo, there is a fantastic passage talking about a loose cannon.

He’s writing about a two-ton cannon that broke loose during a terrible storm.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

This is perhaps the most dreadful thing that can take place at sea.

Nothing more terrible can happen to a man of war under full sail.

A cannon that breaks loose from its fastenings is suddenly transformed into a supernatural beast.

It is a monster developed from a machine.

This mass runs along on its wheels as easily as a billiard ball.

It rolls from one end of the ship to the other, whirls around, turns aside, evades, rears, hits out, crushes, kills, exterminates.

It is matter set free.

One might say that this eternal slave is wreaking its vengeance.

It would seem as though the evil and what we call inanimate objects had found vent and suddenly burst forth.

It has the air of having lost its patience and of taking a mysterious dull revenge.

Nothing is so inexorable as the rage of the inanimate.

And that’s just him talking about a cannon.

Wow.

A loose cannon on a ship.

So when people talk about a loose cannon, this is a serious thing.

This is just like, oh, it bumped me.

This is death.

This is death at sea.

This is, you know, you’re done.

You’re over.

That is annihilation.

Yeah.

It’s annihilation.

I am right on that ship with him.

Oh, my gosh.

That’s terrifying.

Yeah, and if you’ve never read Victor Hugo, he’s certainly worth picking up in big batches and small, certainly.

Oh, man.

I’m glad we had that conversation about loose cannon because that’s one of the best pieces of writing I’ve heard in a while.

Yeah, and we’re always open to hearing about your favorite pieces of writing, large and small.

Martha and I love to take your recommendations and share them on the air, 877-929-9673.

Or send a paragraph or two of what you’ve been reading, something that’s really struck you, to words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Caroline Germany.

Hi, Caroline. Where are you calling from?

I’m calling from northeast Tennessee from Clinch Mountain.

Clinch Mountain, that’s a fantastic name.

Welcome to the show. What can we help you with?

I’m sitting on 26 acres, me and my puppy, and it was time to start reading old classics while this thing is going on.

And with no people around.

So I started with all of Tolkien’s stuff, and I ran into the word fell, and I thought, you know, I have run into this quite a bit, not as the past form of fall, but describing a person that’s not very nice.

And then I picked up the Yorkshire Vets books again, and they use fell a lot, but it’s describing something in Yorkshire geographical.

And I can’t tell if it’s obviously a mountain or a cliff, but it’s not like a hollow.

I don’t know what that is.

So this is a really interesting word to me.

So what are these two fells, Martha?

F-E-L-L, right?

Yeah, so you’re seeing fell in those books, or in the Tolkien books anyway, as sort of a synonym for cruel.

I mean, it’s weird to see that word used as an adjective, right?

Right.

And it’s always a bad guy that he uses it as a description.

Caroline, there is a place where Tolkien describes the Naskul as fell riders, and there’s another place where he describes fell beasts.

I think he’s talking about the things that live in the mines of Moria.

Oh, okay, the Balrog.

The Balrog, but other things that are under there, the unnameable things that we just don’t know about, never find out about really.

But fell beasts and fell riders, these are the spirits of nine kings who are taken over by the Dark Lord.

Right. So you can kind of guess from the context that fell in those situations means cruel or fierce or vicious.

And the etymology is a little bit murky, but it may come from an old French word that means the same thing.

And the light bulb for me is that some etymologists think that it is connected to the word felon.

F-E-L-O-N, as in a criminal.

Right.

Yes.

Right.

And you probably know the expression at one fell swoop, right?

Yes.

Oh, yes.

I forgot about that.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s the same idea.

So that means an evil swoop or one instance of something evil.

Yes, yes, like a ruthless and deadly attack by a bird of prey.

Right, yeah, got them all in one fell swoop, yes.

Yeah, now the other books, the other sense of fell as a feature of the landscape, that’s a new one on me.

Do you have any thoughts about that, Grant?

Yeah, so Tolkien and James Herriot both talk about the fells, and a fell is an elevated bit of land, and there’s a couple contradictory meanings.

One is a hill or a mountain, not necessarily like a tall, tall mountain.

We’re not talking about the Himalayas, but maybe a rise in the land.

And sometimes, though, it’s a level field that’s in an altitude.

Usually an uncultivated plain or uncultivated mesa of some kind.

The two fells are etymologically unrelated.

It’s just an accident of history that they’re spelled the same.

Oh, okay. All right.

Caroline, we are so grateful for your calling and sharing these thoughts with us.

We wish you and the pup the best.

Take care of yourself.

My pleasure.

I really enjoy it.

It’s my favorite show on NPR.

Oh, that’s nice.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Be well.

You’re welcome.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

All righty.

Take care.

We’d love to hear about what you’ve been reading and what’s sustaining you these days.

Give us a call, 877-929-9673, or tell us about it in email.

Our address is words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Greg Rivas from San Antonio.

Hey, Greg, welcome to the show.

How can we help you?

I work in the tech industry.

I joined a new team about two years ago, same team I’m with now.

And they had this funny term for describing something that was sort of tedious and lengthy.

So if they needed to go through code and make a simple change, you know, 10,000 times,

They would refer to that as shaving yak hair.

And it would be like, oh, I’ve got to shave the yak hair for this thing,

And I’m still in the middle of that, and I can’t help you.

They kind of say these things, and I had never heard that before.

It was just an interesting term phrase.

And you took shaving yak hair to mean, what, fiddling with a lot of small things?

Yes.

So basically they have a large but monotonous workload ahead of them,

And it’s shaving yak hair.

Did you Google it?

I have not Googled it.

Okay, because you would have probably been a little confused,

Because if you Google it, you’re going to come across a television show called Ren and Stimpy.

Do you remember Ren and Stimpy?

Yeah, I mean, I absolutely do.

And that’s where the term originated.

There was a 1991 segment of the Ren and Stimpy cartoon.

Remember these two little weird nut balls?

Just the goofiest show you ever wanted to see.

I think one of them was a chihuahua.

What was the other one?

I don’t remember.

He was a cat.

A cat, yeah.

Anyway, in this segment, they have a holiday called Yak Shaving Day

Where they hang diapers, they shove coleslaw into rubber boots,

And they wait for the shaven yak to float by.

And it’s ridiculous and hilarious, of course,

Because the show was somebody’s fever dream.

I don’t know what else to say about Riddin’ Stimpy.

It was the weirdest thing.

In any case, I guess it caught someone’s fancy.

And by 2002, this expression, yak shaving, had really kind of held its place in the tech world to mean a couple different things, not just the way you used it, but to not just mean you doing a lot of small stuff, but also sometimes doing useless stuff instead of what you should be doing.

And meaning the small stuff you have to do before you can do the work you want to do or the work that’s really important.

So it’s always about kind of stuff getting away of the real thing or the big thing.

But in any case, it did come from that cartoon, Ren and Stimpy, this weird, weird show about shaving a yak.

I don’t really know.

That is hilarious.

Yeah, and it wasn’t just that one episode.

They also had a video game about yak shaving.

It came up more than once, and there’s a song, and it’s really delirious.

Yeah, I think that definitely fits how it seems to be used colloquially here.

Everybody seems to use it.

For a team of like 40 people, and I had no idea, like, what does this mean?

Well, it’s so evocative.

You know, you don’t even need to know the etymology.

I mean, it’s really cool to know the etymology, but just picturing shaving a yak.

And that’s exactly what they, the way they use it is like, hey, I got to,

I really want to work on your cool thing, but, you know,

I got to get through patching all these machines,

And it’s going to take the rest of today and tomorrow, so I’m, you know, yak shaving.

Yeah, shaving coleslaw into rubber boots.

Yeah.

That’s it.

Yeah, I like that one too.

Greg, thanks for sharing that.

Take care of yourself.

Thanks, guys.

All right, bye-bye.

You know, I went to a muskox farm outside of Anchorage, Alaska,

And I know they’re not the same animals, so nobody needs to correct me on that.

But, boy, just imagining shaving one of those with my little Gillette.

What a great expression.

We’d love to hear about the language and jargon from your workplace, so call us 877-929-9673 or share your stories in email to words@waywordradio.org.

This show is about language seen through family, history, and culture. Stay tuned for more A Way with Words.

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.

There was a time when William Shakespeare wasn’t William Shakespeare.

There was a time when he was just another little seven-year-old going off to school.

So what exactly was he taught, and how did his schooling shape the writer and thinker he would become?

A wonderful new book called How to Think Like Shakespeare, Lessons from a Renaissance Education, has some answers.

It’s by Scott Newstock. He’s a professor of English at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

Newstock says Shakespeare never had what we think of as English classes.

Those wouldn’t come along for a few hundred more years.

Instead, Shakespeare’s grammar school in Stratford was conducted in Latin.

He was schooled in compelling stories from ancient sources.

He was taught to take apart, study, and imitate the language of the greats who preceded him.

He was educated in the art of disputation, of taking one side of an argument, making the case,

And then taking the opposite position and doing the same, sort of like to be or not to be.

And it was that regimented curriculum that led to the Bard’s creative achievements.

Newstock shows how many of the educational practices of Shakespeare’s time actually nurtured the mental play and creativity and freedom that later flourished in Shakespeare’s writing.

And he goes on to describe how even if your classes aren’t in Latin, you can still adapt those approaches to stretch and hone your own mind.

He insists that education must not be just accumulating data, but learning the craft of thinking.

A craft that can be taught like any other.

He writes,

Learning to think means picking up that feel

Akin to a baker’s awareness of the consistency of dough,

A doctor’s gentle pressure on the patient’s body,

A sailor’s hand on the tiller.

And Grant, speaking of craft,

One aha moment I had while reading this book

Was about the craft of writing plays.

Because before we had the word playwright,

Someone who wrote plays was known as a playmaker.

The word playwright came later.

And of course, it’s not W-R-I-T-E.

It’s W-R-I-G-H-T.

Because as you know,

Write was an old word for craftsman or maker,

Like the wheelwright who crafts wheels

Or the boatwright who builds boats

Or the wainwright who builds wagons.

A playwright crafts plays.

I thought that was so cool.

It was this light bulb moment for me.

It’s as much about putting pieces together,

Putting materiel together,

As it is about ideas.

The beginning writer might think it’s about inspiration when some of it is about the mechanics

Of it. Yes, yes, exactly. And measuring and polishing and looking at it from all different

Angles. I just love that insight. And the whole book is like that. It’s actually a joyful book.

I found it exhilarating and witty and amiable and bracing. It’s like no other book I’ve ever read.

You can tell it’s the distillation of wide reading by somebody who’s a Renaissance man himself.

I also liked your opening thought about little Billy Shakespeare.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There was a time before when he was just little Billy.

Little Billy throwing rocks.

Yeah, right.

Playing kick the rock with his kids in the playground.

Yeah.

So I highly recommend this book.

The book is How to Think Like Shakespeare, Lessons from a Renaissance Education,

And it’s by Scott Newstock.

Thank you for that recommendation, Martha.

I will definitely check that out.

And we’d love to hear what you’ve been reading

And what you recommend for us.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, my name is Quincy Brown in San Diego.

How are you doing?

Doing well.

How are you doing, Quincy?

Oh, I’m just awesome.

So during the whole COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been working as a delivery driver, and one day my wife and I was joking around, given that she’s been in the house the entire time with my little daughter, that I’m out having fun, gallivanting, running into the strumpets.

Strumpets.

Yeah, and I’m like, I don’t know what a strumpet is, you know, and we’re laughing about it.

And she’s like, yeah, you’re having a good time and getting out of the house, and you’re going to run into strumpets.

So what is a strumpet?

I’ve never heard of this word.

I just need some help.

So she’s locked down in the house, and she thinks that you’re just having the time of your life running into, what, women of questionable morals?

Is that what she thought?

Well, maybe, because as a delivery driver, we have to go to doors, and we have to climb stairs, and sometimes our customers are really hungry and appreciative.

And her friends tell her stories of, you know, interactions.

We’ll just say interactions of, you know, lonely Postmate guys running into, you know, people who are in the house lonely by themselves.

So I didn’t believe it.

You know, I was just joking around.

But I still never heard of the word strumpet.

I’ve been lost.

I’ve been kind of stuck.

I see.

Okay.

Yeah.

That’s a good sign.

If you don’t know the word.

Yeah, it’s a good sign, yeah, if you don’t know the word.

Okay.

I have heard the word before.

It used to mostly mean a prostitute or a woman of loose morals.

It’s about 700 years old.

Okay.

Yeah, probably comes from an old German word meaning a dirty and tidy woman and with a French feminine et suffix, making it like an extra feminine word.

It’s similar to words like trollop.

But these days, both trollop and strumpet, both have really lost a lot of their semantic force, as we would say.

So they mean something more like floozy or just someone who’s a big flirt, a tease, or sexually provocative.

So not necessarily somebody out there selling themselves on the street.

Right. Okay. Okay. I give it to my wife in her large vocabulary.

Yeah.

Awesome. 700 years old.

Good crossword word.

Awesome. Well, thank you, guys.

I think we can finish the joke now when she wakes up.

So she thinks you’re out there, what, delivering pizzas, and it’s like the start of a porn movie?

Well, I mean, younger married man in San Diego delivering food, you know, and yeah.

Getting big tips and so forth?

Again, all jokes. Exactly.

Because we joked about that when we first started.

I’m like, oh, babe, I get these nice tips.

And she’s like, what are you wearing?

Is that cologne?

And I’m like, oh, yeah.

Why are you wearing cologne?

Because I like to present myself a certain way.

There’s no more cologne.

Yeah, yeah.

It’s going to get hot soon.

You’re going to be wearing shorts, right?

Wearing your Friday night clothes?

That’s the question.

Yeah, exactly.

Is it the silk shirt and the hair done up?

Is that what’s happening?

Not so funny.

Well, truth is, I actually do always wear a suit.

I’m the one delivery guy who comes up with a full button down and, you know, cars all perfectly shiny.

Oh, that’ll give you the tips, won’t it?

Yeah, that’ll bring the tips in.

People appreciate that care.

Yeah, it sounds like if she’s using an antiquated word like that, then she really is kidding, right?

Yeah.

Of course.

That’s the thing.

Me and my wife, we always joke about every taboo subject as we’re, you know, under 30 and been married for five years now.

And, you know, all of our friends are single and still living that life.

So we always joke around about it.

Oh, that’s delightful.

Quincy, take care of yourself.

Thanks for calling and give us a ring sometime.

All right.

Definitely.

I look forward to calling in again.

All right.

Bye bye.

All right.

Bye bye.

All right.

Bye.

Call us 877-929-9673.

I happened to cross a handy word the other day, pickthink.

That’s spelled P-I-C-K-T-H-A-N-K.

Pickthink.

Pickthink.

Pickthink.

How old are we talking here?

100, 200, 300 years?

At least back to 1460.

Okay, is this a rude word?

No, it’s not rude.

It’s archaic and literary.

You really don’t hear it much anymore, but it’s a handy one.

Okay, so is this something you would yell across the parking lot at somebody who dinged your car?

No, so not rude.

Not that rude either.

Okay.

No, not that rude, but you might use it to describe someone you don’t really respect.

Noah Webster defined a pick-thank as a whispering parasite or an officious fellow.

And it’s a person who curries favor with another person by informing against somebody else.

So sort of a flatterer or a sycophant.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, a butt-kisser.

Yeah, it’s sort of the same idea as curry favor.

You know, when you try to pick a thank from somebody, you’re trying to extract something by being obsequious.

Oh, yeah. And curry favor, a lot of times the metaphor there escapes people.

To curry a horse is to brush it, right?

Exactly.

So to curry favor means to groom somebody so that they’ll give you praise and pleasantries.

Yes, yes, exactly.

So pick thank is not a kind word, but I like it.

It’s kind of like picking, instead of picking lice, you’re picking thanks.

Right.

877-929-9673.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, I’m Mike from Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.

Hi, Mike. Welcome to the show.

Okay. I’ve only heard one person ever use this word before, and that was my mom.

Growing up, she would say you’re being picky-unish.

If you’re trying to make an argument, it would be a reach for the most minutest example.

And sometimes, like, if you’re being spiteful.

And then with Hurricane Katrina and in the wake of the hurricane, on the news they had mentioned that there’s a newspaper in New Orleans called the Picayune.

And I was just wondering if there’s a relationship between the two and, like, what’s the history behind the word?

Because, like I said, I’ve never heard anyone else use that before.

Yeah, it is the same word.

There is a relationship between those usages, but it may surprise you.

I mean, you’re right that Picayune, it means little, insignificant.

If somebody’s criticizing you, they may do it in a petty way, a Picayune way.

But what’s really interesting about the history of this word is that it goes back to a southern French regional term for a small coin.

And the name sounded like Picayune.

It was like Picayon or something like that that was used in Louisiana in the early 1800s.

And it referred to a Spanish coin that was worth a little bit more than six cents.

And so that coin was referred to by speakers of French in that area as Picayon.

And so we get Picayune from that.

You may be wondering, well, why would you call a newspaper Picayune?

That doesn’t sound very complimentary.

But the fact is that this newspaper is really old.

And back in 1837, when it was founded, the Picayune cost guess how much?

A little less than $6.

Yeah, just one of those little coins.

Is it like a regional?

Because like I said, I mean, I grew up in southern Maryland.

And like I said, my mom was the only one that I’ve ever known to use that word.

Well, now it’s pretty well distributed all over the country.

But it had its origins in this country down in Louisiana.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much.

All right.

Take care.

Be well.

You too.

Thanks.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Thanks, Mike.

877-929-9673 or send your stories about language to words@waywordradio.org.

Hi there. You have A Way with Words.

Hi, I’m Tricia Dunn from Chesapeake, Virginia.

Hey, Tricia. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. I’m glad to be with you. I listen to you all the time.

Fantastic. How can we help you today?

Well, I have a very old question. It’s almost as old as I am.

I will be 73 soon.

And back in the very early 50s, 52, maybe 53 at the latest, my dad used to say something that I always wondered if it was something that he made up or if it’s indigenous to the Virginia area where I live because he and my mom both were Virginia natives.

He was the consummate Virginia gentleman.

He never I never ever heard him utter anything that wasn’t totally proper.

But sometimes when he would get annoyed with my mother he’d say to her oh Jackie go sit on a tack.

And I was so young and she never said anything back they weren’t mad at one another or anything.

She never said anything back but after I had heard him say that maybe two or three times over about a year’s period of time I was probably maybe five five and a half at the time I said to my mom.

Mama what is a tack I mean if he just said go sit on a nail I would have known what that meant but I did I wasn’t familiar with tax and she explained it to me and so then I thought okay and I didn’t ask for anything else but I always wondered if there was some basis for that some old saying that had been around maybe in his family or in this area for a long time and she didn’t take offense at that, right? Oh, no, not at all. Okay. Well, like I said, they got along fine. I mean, you know, it wasn’t a mean thing. It was just a, oh, you know, go sit on an attack. Okay. Yeah.

We can talk about it. Did he say anything else along those lines? Did he ever say, go climb a tree? He would tell my sister to go climb a tree all the time, and she did, and she probably still does to this day, and she’s 70 years old. But did he mean it as a way of saying, stop bugging me.

Get out of my hair.

More of a sense of frustrated type of a thing, but he wasn’t mad.

Right.

I think there’s a difference in being mad and frustrated, but that’s what he said.

There’s this whole batch of things that you say, and those are some of them, to get people to leave you alone.

And go sit on a tack has been one of those since at least the 1880s.

Go sit on a tack.

Yeah, absolutely.

And go fly a kite and go climb a tree, go jump on a lake, go soak your head, go chase yourself, go run in traffic.

These are all things that people say when somebody’s annoying you and you’re just basically saying, leave me alone.

Stop bothering me.

And that was your dad.

Your dad’s go sit on a tack is one of the politer ones.

There are many offensive ones that we can’t say on the air, of course.

Oh, he’s a very polite person, extremely polite person.

And he was born in 1921, so apparently what he was saying is one of those that comes probably back in his family from the 1800s.

It could be.

The late 1800s.

He could have just learned it on the playground because it’s certainly something that kids would say.

And there was this heyday for them in the early 1900s when a lot more of them were created.

And you can find them in joke books and little tidbits shared in newspapers.

There’s one joke that etymologist Barry Poppick discovered.

What time is it when you sit on a tack?

Springtime.

That’s great.

I love it.

And then there was a little tidbit in a newspaper from 1890.

Did the boss give you a new position?

He offered me one, but I didn’t take it.

What was it?

He told me to go sit on a tack.

Oh, I doubt that my dad’s boss ever did that to him.

But, yeah, that’s so interesting because I thought this was going way out on a limb to call and ask them this.

But it’s interesting to know that it probably really was a thing.

And so you answered that very well, as usual.

Well, it’s been a delight to talk to you, Trish.

I really appreciate your ringing us up.

And you call us again sometime, all right?

Okay.

Love your show.

I’ll keep tuned.

Thank you.

Take care now.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

You know, Grant, I’m reminded of the phrase, go fry ice, which is nonsensical.

We’ve talked about it before on the show, but it’s sort of that same idea.

Oh, yeah.

And I bet our listeners have a bunch more ways to tell people to bug off, to get out of your hair, to go be a pain in someone else’s neck.

And if you’ve got one you want to share with the world, let us know, 877-929-9673.

Or send your ways to tell people to go sit on a tack to email, words@waywordradio.org.

Or let’s start a whole big thread on Twitter @wayword.

Thanks to senior producer Stefanie Levine, editor Tim Felten, and production assistant Rachel Weisler.

You can send questions and comments, find stations, get the podcast and the newsletter, and catch up on hundreds of past episodes at waywordradio.org.

Our toll-free line is always open in the U.S. and Canada, 877-929-9673.

Or email us, words@waywordradio.org.

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

A nonprofit supported by listeners and organizations who are changing the way the world talks about language.

Many thanks to Wayword board member and friend Bruce Rogow for his extraordinary effort at making this show possible.

Thanks for listening. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett. Until next time, goodbye.

Goodbye.

Thank you.