Paul and I was wondering if this is just a strange little regularity or something more widespread and long no the older generation sort of a pet peeve of mine that I've wondered about for years I noticed this the other day when I was sitting with my mom and we have some friends over there's a couple things here linguistically we can talk about stick around a way with words is up next so I says to him you can join the Navy but I'm going for ya. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Janine Herbst with the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee Dianne Feinstein calling for an investigation into the question of whether President Trump might have obstructed justice in the Russian investigation Republicans are worried about where Special Counsel Robert Mahler's investigation goes next after former f.b.i. Director James Comey testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week now this as Attorney General Jeff Sessions is scheduled to testify before the same committee on Tuesday N.P.R.'s Mara Liasson has more comi made it clear that if the president wasn't under investigation for collusion he probably is now under investigation for obstruction and they're also worried about how the president is handling this so much of these problems were caused by his own actions in his frantic effort to get out from under the cloud of the Russian investigation he now put himself under a cloud for possible abuse of power and maybe obstruction N.P.R.'s Mara Liasson reporting any of British Prime Minister to resign May's Conservative Party and Parliament want her to go at least eventually after last week's parliamentary election losses from London N.P.R.'s Frank Langfitt reports George Osborne the former treasury secretary who may sacked says the electoral debacle on Thursday in which May's party lost its majority in parliament has left her fatally wounded Here's Osborne speaking with the B.B.C.'s Andrew Marr reason maze a dead woman walking and says how long she's going to remain on death row and I think we will know very shortly in other words we could easily get in the next week or 2 collapses or if it doesn't it will be delayed even if May is a lame duck or a party may have reasons to keep her on for some time in the gauche Asians begin June 19th and if the party were to replace may it could easily trigger another national election in which Jeremy Corbyn and his Labor Party could be poised to win Frank Langfitt n.p.r. News London the u.s. Military has carried out an airstrike against the Islamist group al-Shabaab in southern Somalia the B.B.C.'s do. Even Wolf will reports from Nairobi this a minute president say one of the jihadist groups main training and command posts was destroyed in a settlement he says the security is top priority for his government and unless the militants remounts violence and take advantage of his amnesty offer he will take the fight to them so far no comment has been reported from Bob and Bob regularly launches attacks in Somalia focusing mostly on the capital in Mogadishu and other regions controlled by the federal government it aims to drive out a frickin Union peacekeepers until my Us government the B.B.C.'s David Wolfe Foula in St Paul Minnesota Closing arguments are expected tomorrow in the trial of a suburban Minneapolis police officer charged in the shooting death of steel a black man last summer as his girlfriend live streamed it on Facebook saying Anthony officer ja. Yanis told the court last week it started as a traffic stop but he became afraid for his life when he saw part of a gun on Castiel moments later authorities determined he had a permit this is n.p.r. . Thousands of people marched today in support of l.g.b. T.q. Rights and other progressive causes including on the National Mall in Washington d.c. N.P.R.'s Maggie penman has more from the Equality March for unity and pride was a knack a March began not far from the White House where supporters gathered with brightly colored signs and rainbow flags as the group got closer to the National Mall they were joined by coalition and gay choirs who led the marchers and sound the was Ok people traveled from around the country to be at the March many of the marchers carried signs with the names of the victims from the past my club shooting and I land out which happened on June 12th last year the the the the magic pen and pad news. At the weekend box office. Came in here. To follow. That's the trailer from the Warner Brothers Wonder Woman movie which took the top spot for a 2nd weekend in a row bringing in an estimated $57000000.00 in ticket sales the female directed film now is made $435000000.00 globally Universal's the mummy a reboot starring Tom Cruise debuted in 2nd place with $32000000.00 but that movie cost an estimated $125000000.00 to produce and a 3rd place Captain Underpants the 1st epic movie coming in with an estimated $12000000.00 I'm Jeanine Herbst n.p.r. News in Washington support for n.p.r. Comes from their group or family foundation supporting N.P.R.'s international coverage covering the trends moments people and movements that drive the world always with the goal of creating a more informed public one challenged and invigorated by events ideas and cultures . You're listening to a way with words a show about language and how we use it I'm grandparent and I'm Martha Barnette and it's time for baseball slang and. What's a snow cone. That's a ball that gets caught on the fingertips of the glove Yes. Did you know that or were us saying oh yeah better let out of and instead of in the basket writer and exactly a holiday exactly are sort of works its way up so that it's a fairly sticking out you know this is a g.p.s. So it does it does indeed Well let me try this one on Iran when is dreamers month dreamers month is this when the free agents are I think about moving to a better team. At I don't know what is an excellent guess it really is an excellent Ok but let me give you a hint the baseball season usually starts in April Ok so the dreamers March yes everybody think about like I'm going to break the $300.00 home run and I'm going to you got it yes yes I mean trees this year right that's exactly it this is from the definitive dictionary on baseball by Paul Hall's Dixon's Baseball Dictionary meaning work yes and in it he says of dreamers month at this point in the year anything seems possible for any team anything seems possible here I suppose poetry isn't it really is it made me think about for me dreamers our. 6 am you know I look out the window and I think oh there's a little baby day out there and one thing going to grow up to be. Sometimes it grows up to be an ogre. Doesn't. Already come back to exactly but I'm going to share some more baseball lingo later in the show because as you said it is poet it's all good well we'd love to hear your sports language What's your favorite sports team or ask any question about language at all 877929673 Send us an e-mail to word. At wayward radio dot org or hit us up on Twitter at w a y w o r d hello you have a way with words I this is Adam I'm calling from a nominee Wisconsin Well I'm originally from a nominee Wisconsin but now I live in Madison Wisconsin welcome to show Adam nice to talk to you thank you so much for having me the reason I was so specific about where I'm from originally is because I think my question might be very specific very specific region there in Wisconsin west central Wisconsin are from Minneapolis St Paul growing up my family would always order eggs at a restaurant or if we were talking about having eggs at home we preferred Sunnyside but we called them look at that. And now when I when I travel or a fine even in a restaurant in the Madison Wisconsin area and I order my eggs out thinking of looking at everyone else at my people and times and the server usually gives me a very weird look and it takes people a moment before they realize I realize that we're speaking the same language and then I have to either clarify Sunnyside for someone else they are trying to find out that's outstanding Yeah I think it's an interesting way to order eggs and I swear the same but nobody I've ever met outside of Menominee Wisconsin can confirm this for me and I googled for it I can't seem to find any information about it online so I'm hoping that you folks maybe help it's really charming I almost never see it but great use Yeah I've seen on far back in the 1920 s. You can find it searching various complicated ways on google books you'll find plenty of uses of it over the decades it's not common but it is out there and apparently it's a thing that early says that I can find actually has it in quote marks which means that the author thought that it was worth setting off in court for special attention as being an unusual phrase Great book is that can you say. I don't have it in front of me at the quote I can find Ok The quote is the one thing that sets off a plate of nice Berkshire ham more than any other thing is a nice plate of giant white Plymouth Rock looking at you I love it thank you so much that is really vindicates well so yeah I really enjoyed the story and it's literally breakfast so it's ham and eggs for breakfast right exactly exactly you know it's interesting to all the Germanic heritage there in Wisconsin because because in German the term for this translates as Mirror eggs you know it's interesting Ok yeah like like they're looking right back at you and you see the same thing you know. Yeah yeah in Hebrew to the name for it translates as I egged in fact in Japanese the term for it is Madonna Yaki which means cooked like eyeball Oh this is great this is so good I am so glad I called you folks Yeah my question is when the server finally understands what you say and then they bring the eggs back to you but to bring your order today say here's eggs looking at you kid no they don't do that right. They don't know I missed opportunity I will say some of the fire where the servers will you know have a lot of fun with that yeah yeah I bet All right well here's to eggs looking after Thanks so much for the call dude thank you so much take care. About miracles is good yeah Miriam says you're looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing your eyeballs back at you yeah that's what I think and that notion of of those kinds of eggs looking like I appears again and again in languages around the world like in in Latvian it translates his ox eyes oxides and big Yeah that's right yeah yeah the name for it in Indonesian translates as Kauai is not that's cool you know humans we see things the same or yeah i know kind of creepy to think if you have an edge of coffee and these guys are looking at that cut where the knifing me. 8771973 email words at wayward radio dot org and talk to us on Twitter at w a y w o r d. You know little fun here is in baseball a baseball 2 o'clock hitter I don't know I have no idea what it is going to guess that a 2 o'clock here would be like out to right field or something and I think about the face of a clock but that's not it and. Now it dates back to the time when most games started at 3 o'clock and batting practice started at 2 o'clock so if your 2 o'clock hitter you hit really well in batting practice and then you get to the game and you're Yeah yeah I know I can identify what the pressure is on yeah allergies and then again they're not lobbing softballs across the plate Yes exactly and that's one of the things that I really like about baseball lingo is it's so applicable to real life you know you have a rehearsal that goes really really well and then then you get to the performance and give us a call about anything 877-1973 hello you have a way with words Hi this is Hello I'm Ok as from El Centro California hi hello how are you and fine thanks how are you all right welcome to the show what's up my question is about the 2 words and their usage amount and number sort of a pet peeve of mine that I've wondered about for years. And I have always been of a mind that when you use the word amount you're talking about things that cannot be counted things that are sort of fungible like grains of sand or something like that and when you use number as an adjective that that's for things that can be counted like people or cows or. Things such as that So when people say it's a large amount of people it sounds long to me and I've always wondered if I'm correct or incorrect manage to say how much I enjoy hearing the word fungible thank you for using that I went to law school that's why I use. It's one of those words I've had to look up time and time and time again to get a good valuable Really. Good now feel good now feel like I like a nice shot of wine so thank you for that Helen this is a really interesting one so your dispute is whether or not some amount a number exactly equal and could be treated the same when it comes to counting things or referring to things as a mass unit right correct Well 2 things that are counted should be a number on a bank and things that can should be an amount of style and that is generally the accepted wisdom in most style and usage guides a number is usually for counts nouns we have a there are a number of cars in the lot right I write an amount is usually grammatical in the room amount is usually for mass nouns. There there's unusual amounts of sand in the drainpipe right so it's not rank regular to be counted but notice my word usually we have some exceptions if you get a bonus at work your boss might say your bonus in the mouth of a $1000.00 would be paid to on Friday ha your boss wouldn't say and that's a $1000.00 actually discrete dollars that are being counted up to the amount of a 1000 so it's not right to mass at all and we have a few other places where we typically do this so there are some exceptions but I'm going to basically say you're I'm agreeing with you that just there's no reason that a number an amount should be considered exactly equal Ok where I hear it a lot is. Unfortunately with the newscasters who talk about large. Out of people here and there and it really bothers me that sounds like a very large people. It's as if you break it down if you really over analyze it I can get I can kind of I can't get behind that but I can get my mind to where they are if we think about people as this large undefined number like we're not saying persons right people is a mass of persons people is on like I could have you know there are many people in the room could be 3 or I could be 3000000 you know it's a red card I can get behind that and I understand also as radio people Martin I totally get that sometimes you're speaking off the cuff and it just can't be helped you face the system comes out and that's just the way it is yeah I'm not buying that. You expect perfection from you know your host be nice after all right we'll work on that but all right well thank you very much you've now cleared up something that's been bugging me for about 30 years so I will rest easier tonight yeah hey good to know well and really appreciate it stay cool there no thanks All right much already today are now by. The scholars actually a little in a disagreement over this like followers usage guide and Brian Garner's modern American usage kind of garner takes the hard line very much as a mount should never refer to people. Fowler says it often refers to people that's just the way that it is you know it's a style thing though we should be clear on this one more than it's a grammar thing the grammar of English doesn't much care either way because doesn't have feelings. Colace with your language questions 877999673 or you can send them to us an e-mail that address his words at wayward Radio dot. Comes the baseball the No 3 blind mice oh the umpires Yes yes I did not realize that that was a term for empires and that some baseball stadiums when umpires take the field they play the song on the order. Of. 3 Stooges kind of patient as well. I hadn't thought about that as you know I'm not a baseball fan at all but it sounds like a lot of the appeal is just rooting for your own team and dissing the partners and everyone else pretty much except your team and maybe even some of the. Share your baseball lingo with us 877-1973 or send it to us in email that address is words at wayward radio dot au argy. More conversation about what we say and how we say it state. Support for k p.b.s. Comes from the San Diego County Bar Association providing support for over 10000 members and connecting citizens with attorneys and resources through their lawyer referral and information service set the bar higher search for legal information or for a lawyer at s d c dot org Support for k. P.b.s. Also comes from the San Diego County Fair presented by Albertsons Vons now through July 4th we can see award winning fine art photography and Design in would visit s.d. Fair dot com as a trusted source of news. Information in San Diego and the Imperial Valley p.p.s. Acknowledges the companies that make award winning news possible if you are organization would like to reach the k p p s audience contact James row 10 corporate development manager at 619-594-5715 or Jr o. W. T. e N. At k. P.p.s. Dot org You're listening to a way with words a show about language and how we use it I'm Grant Barrett and I'm Martha Barnett in Joining us now from an undisclosed location in New York City is our quiz guy John chin ascii Hi John Hi Martha Hi gran you know the location is undisclosed but that nevertheless there's still a poem on here so how. Could I call them all there you go and bring us a charm in there and I thought I had a ball the story was so good it was on my bed it's one of my lap it was terrific Well let's put the poker Mungo aside for just a 2nd I do you know we've done a lot of quizzes on famous books and plays and poems this is about famous paintings you know how can we do that well I'm going to change a word in the title of a famous painting and then describe what the new painting looks like for example if I said I removed 2 letters from the end of this paintings title and now it looks like the couple has been replaced by a pale young man outside a farmhouse wearing a black t. Shirt an eye shadow and several piercings in America. America. And you know now I'll let you know the wordplay that we're working with before you with the title here we go. I've taken this 2 word painting title and change the 1st letter of the 2nd word now it depicts a pretty smiling woman holding a credit card. Yes that's right that was the Mona Lisa Vinci I have taken this 2 word painting title and change the 2nd word into a home a phone of itself no it depicts a pretty young woman in a field who is spinning and really really dizzy Christie is. Right Christine is world as opposed to Christina's world w o r l d y y f I think in this 2 word painting title and deleted the last 2 letters of the 2nd word now it depicts an insect of the order Lepidoptera Whistler's ma. Right Whistler's Mother by James McNeil Wessler I've taken these 2 word painting title and remove the last letter of the 1st word now it depicts one of the Beatles enjoying a nice pleasant evening on his porch star night during night yes starry night as it starry night of course by Van Gogh I've taken this 3 word painting the 1st word is the I change the 1st letter of the 2nd word now it depicts all the actors in a Broadway play having a nice meal together. Oh the. Cast suffer yes. Which probably happens all the time. Thanks John for the Chris really appreciated super fun stuff well thank you guys it was great and if you want to talk about any aspect of language whatsoever give us a call 87799973 or send your questions an e-mail to words that wayward radio dot org Hi You have a way with words Hi This is receiving from Dallas Texas hi welcome to the show what can we do for you thank you so my question actually isn't about English it's about Arabic so I noticed this the other day when I was sitting with my mom and she was we had some fun for Indian friends and. I brought up sort of concept how in Arabic we have this thing where mothers fathers uncles aunts just any relatives will call younger relatives like I guess they're nice nephews son daughter they'll call them by their titles So for example my mother will call my series and I will call a few mama our dad will call us baba which is the Arabic word for Dad and it's the same concept for Anson uncles so I was wondering you know where this sort of came about because when we were talking with our Indian friends they didn't have anything like that and I know for a fact that other Arabic speakers they have the same sort of concept. So when you say Indian friends do you mean some sub Continental Indians or Native American Indians the concept of it's interesting because I had heard that in some parts of. The sub continent of that they do do also do that that you will sometimes for yeah but you know India is a massive country with hundreds of dialects and lots of subcultures and very strong different identities depending on where you are so I'm not surprised that it's not universal So what you're saying just to recap here in Arabic it sounds like the parents are calling the children by the name that the parents themselves are known as so father calls the boys by then it means father mother calls the girls women in the mother so forth. I know that a lot of our listeners are jumping up and down in their seats right now and Martha looks eager with anticipation as well because the same thing happens in Spanish and you will find this again and again throughout Latin America I believe also in Spain where the little kids may be called mommy and Poppy right and it's very similar So what happens linguistically is that the word stops meaning one thing and it starts taking on additional meanings it basically kind of generalizes It's a term of affection and stops being like a gender based term of affection so the same way that I might call my wife honey and I call my son honey or so about ever something like that or you might call Cutie is you know gender unaware man or woman it can be Cutie or sugar or all these terms and it kind of basically is joins this other group of Terms of Endearment that don't have a gender do your family have any explanation for it or you know I had asked my mom and she kind of just. What she said was This is just like how her parents said what her what her man what her grandparents it. Was just sort of a learned thing that she took on from her parents. It's interesting because I have a friend from Turkey who says that. You know in a way it's sort of remind you of your ancestors as well as sort of a way of keeping them alive interesting so that children will become a father and a model one day and yet I am not your kind of basically making small wishes for the future Yeah yeah and I think that's a that's a lovely idea I have no tradition I sure haven't haven't seen it in this country I have seen it in small ways in the haven't you we have family friends from North Carolina and the mother refers to her little girl as Mama is that right yeah I have seen it elsewhere but I've never seen it for the. Boys to you and I as I understand it is sometimes happens in the American south I don't know how widespread I'm sure our Southern listeners will call quickly and let us know but I do understand that sometimes it happens for for the little boy sometimes I think Bubba and mama are paired together so Bubba takes the place of what otherwise would be daddy. And then f.t. Reports that possibly happening in Jamaica African-Americans sometimes will do this is while the little kids are known as mama or daddy and India of course a Filipino culture from the Philippines possibly and I wouldn't be surprised if we get reports of it happening elsewhere it is very widespread in Spanish speaking cultures and Arabic speaking cultures it's ringing a vague Yiddish bell for me oh is it yeah that's called the kids of bubble a little you know level of yeah interesting yeah yeah I thought it was really also because it's the same thing for aunts and uncles my uncle which he had to quit for your mom's side is you also called me and thinking with my grandparents my grandmother called me which is sort of like the Arabic treatment of endearment for Grandmother and same thing for my grandpa who called me there to quote for Grandpa Well this seems like a lovely tradition one last question before we go what variety of Arabic does your family speak English speak Palestinian Arab Palestinian Ok cricket thank you very much for your call this is super interesting and we're going to get a ton of e-mail on this thank you so much our pleasure a thinks he's going to. Connect with us 877999673. 1 of my favorite quotations about writing comes from the great writer Isabel Allende who wrote show up show up show up and after a while the muse shows up to 0 in the stick to it of Mr quired in order yes anything yes Lou your bottom to that chair just keep showing up or whatever your tool is right keep the hammer in your hand and the work will get done he faggot and one of these days the Muse will show up that's a hard thing to impress upon kids and. Particular right that persistence of effort it was the results of eventually Oh yeah if you want to be done miraculously in a minute yeah show up show up show it's funny how often a completed work looks like there was a muse and you're like no that's also what. Know me and I wasn't inspired at all in 99 percent perspiration 877999673 hello you have a way with words. There and this is fun calling from Honolulu help for you oh hi from Welcome to the show thank you so I have that expression from my hash then Grandmother Jesse. Jesse was she was Sergeant way from a hazard to Kentucky. My husband said that she had a lot of very interesting expressions and this expression and she used to use it to describe people leaving their fast and she would say oh he just laughed at so fair I said you could add for quite marvelous on the it's the coattails of the middle class Ramona I love this expression very very much I think it creates a very vivid image so it's just want to learn anything and everything about it boy that's fascinating me hazards right there in in Appalachian Kentucky good good color there yeah very colorful colorful expression it reminds me of. When I was a kid growing up in another part of Kentucky we would talk about how if you could sprinkle salt on a bird's tail you could catch it oh that's funny yeah. And nice in this case the fine we're talking about imagine somebody wearing a long coat that has coat tails of flaps of fabric you know below the waist and if you run in wearing one of those they will fly out behind you in the breeze that you're making with your speed imagine a flag for example. On a car doing the same thing it's limp when you're still but it's stiff and straight in the breeze and so that's the joke is that they are running so fast their coat tails are horizontal and it's a flat surface perfect for playing marbles and you can find references to coat tails being flat like that because of summoning being fast as far back as the Eat 150 s. . Well and I don't find the marbles so fast you can play marbles until 1900 but it's the game that's 100 years of people using that expression of obviously not very common anymore because who has coattails outside of a fancy wedding right. And the current speaker who has a coke pills because it's cut Taylor says so she only used it Sue to describe Mayo I wonder if there is some equivalent phrases expression you say female that's a really good question i only seen it referred to for for men I don't know I don't know of a female one for that she's going so fast that her I don't know what her scarf is you can play marbles on her scarf I don't know good question you know so that's most of what we know here but it's a very tied to a time when hotels were common and and marbles were common kids don't play marbles much anymore either and we thank you for your call fan really happy to talk to you thank you all right take care all right bye bye bye we know that your parents and grandparents use language that seems odd archaic or amusing to you we'd love to hear about it and share it with the world 877-1973. Think of when you think of the term. Bowie sounds like the ins destination for academic who's just done with academia. That's the that's the resting place of bright minds who have just been depleted Well I don't know if you think tanks might disagree with you but I mean basically the definition of a think tank is yeah a bunch of smart people examining certain issues that are relevant to their focus Yeah Research Institute might have warned us about education right about political recall or. That sort of thing yeah exactly and this term has been with us since the 1950 s. Meaning that kind is institution but did you know that the term think tank actually goes back to at least 880 did not know that when Think Tank meant your brain or your mind is right yeah like your brain case yeah or another term used during that time was thought box thought box Yeah my guess is unknown piece of machinery atop your shoulders yeah yeah you're seeing my thoughts happen and then the reservoir where all your thoughts and now I think but you know it's an organization or a. Think Tank Yeah 877-929-9673 hello you have a way with words Hi Mark Hi this is James Callan and we should go to Washington Hey James welcome to the show what's up what can we help with thanks I have a question you know how when or at least when I was a kid and you didn't have anything that was like a real time but you wanted to know how fast something was that was you know relatively quick like running whatever you're trying to do the counting you know 100-1002 or you know one Mississippi to Mississippi to estimate the sec and why is it Mississippi as opposed to any other state or if it's after the river. I don't know if there are a lot of other I mean obviously that's from the state much better but in the u.s. But when did that start why did that start what is it about Mississippi that made it the default. Second in the timing because we have plenty of other states that are you know just as many syllables or longer do we I'm trying to think. How around 010. Brianna the longer Louisiana own of Mississippi is just tied up in all those double letters and it being also difficult to spell and it seems longer it might be the same syllables of Colorado but it's hard. Do you know someone who grew up seeing one Nevada 2 men Nevada really and yeah they go out we have to Mississippi Yeah it does seem longer you're right so you hit on some stuff I think it's a well known river I think it's hard to spell it's got a lot of letters even though maybe the same number of syllables and it's kind of fun to say Mississippi is a really on where yeah it does remind me that there's that you know that little rhyme or chance or whatever it was or how you spell kind of like you actually want that yeah I could get a better I hear him or out goes better. You know this is my phone no no I mean no it is you know I was going to say the way I learned to spell Mississippi was from some old Looney Tunes cartoon that had the bouncing ball remember when you had the bouncing ball and it went M.I.A.'s as a s. As I p.p.i. That used to be so hard to spell it used to make me cry and. To this day that's how I spell Mrs I want to do less as I use as I learn like James that it's in my cook political letter that come back come back I owe you some back I too only to have backs I have never ever heard him I could go either cricket letter cricket or could go out or back come back I. But it. Or whatever what we used here are a couple others feed by the way apparently in the United Kingdom because they don't have the Mississippi River that are more likely to say hip hop want to. Know some people say banana and in a variety of other countries they'll do just like we do can do in English so do 1001000000 in their own language right and yes we'd In no no no way in Sweden right Iceland didn't work I have been told on the highest authority that they say one case of beer 2 cases. So in a way that's our best guess for you and plus a few extra things thrown in go that's what we'll do we know how far back that guy was I mean really really all over the. One of the things that seems old but turns out you know 10 years prior I was born I haven't found earlier than the 1900 but I wouldn't be surprised and I'm going to use a very old one and only have Mississippi's obviously been there forever Yeah and you nailed something like widespread timepieces like we're probably looking out timepieces Casio wristwatch is kind of putting us on the one was that you write those 8 dollar things you got out of it on both machines at Wal-Mart kind of probably got into that mostly I don't know anyway thanks for call dude thank you so much take care. 87799173 email words wayward radio dot org and talk to us on Twitter at w a y o r d. Creative you heard the term blue bird weather no but I know about the Blue Bird of happiness and your idea of things related to happiness and sunny dispositions really bluebirds something connected well I suppose it is connected chiefly in Maryland in eastern Virginia Bluebird weather refers to a brief period of warm weather in autumn. Leaves or hit us up on Twitter at. R.d. . More conversation about what we say and how we say it state. K.p.s. Is supported by moonlight stage productions presenting Elton John and Tim Rice's rock musical Ada at the moonlight amphitheater this modern retelling of verities offer up performs June 14th through July 1st at the outdoor theater in Vista more information at moonlight stage dot com support for k.p. P.s. Also comes from Jackson design in remodelling inviting you to their design and remodelling seminar Tuesday June 13th 530 to 7 30 pm in their Kearney Mesa show. Room meet j.d. 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At Jackson design and remodelling dot com the day moves fast that can be tough to keep up with meetings with friends with the news listen to all things considered for 20 minutes this afternoon to catch up to the day's biggest stories stand with the facts listen to all things considered every afternoon you're listening to a way with words the show about language and how we use it I'm Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette there was a time when I worked in a hospital years ago that I literally punched a time clock and then later when I was a newspaper reporter in this big cube of a building I would go there every day and I was expected to be in the building when I was not reporting and then later I did the same kind of work for magazines only from the office in my house and at that point I called myself a freelancer and I really liked that term because it connotes the idea of a medieval knight who's not particularly beholden to one King he's more of a mercenary kind of agent but there's another growing work style that I think is in need of a term what do you call it grin when you work for a company and then they let you move across the country and work someplace else but you're still working for the same company it's just remote work or remote work or telecommuting Yeah telecommuting there's a couple other couple names for that but yeah yeah virtual worker so I think the Home Office is still say in Delaware but your home is in California right now has an office near you write The writer Michael Iraq has written about this as well and he finds problems with the terms for tool and telecommuting these sound either insubstantial or antiquated and he's been suggesting working in place working in place yeah one. Do you think about that people who work in place I work in place I think it automatically requires an explanation many maybe we'll get to the day that it doesn't but right now literally every time you use it you're going to have to explain it there's nothing transparent about it I know you're working Yann place I mean yeah it's sort of like the idea of sheltering in place or aging in place working in places I see you know working wherever you are I'm traveling in Thailand I'm still when I'm at home I'm still working yeah if I'm at a conference I'm still working I like that I get that now but it did require an explanation I see it kind of reminds me of being out of pocket like you're on your own dime for now and the company will kind of figure of you later on all expenses yeah I'm totally convinced about that where I kind of like working remotely working remotely works and that's transparent Yeah roads are pretty clear right but I think the larger point is that more and more people are doing this and I'm wondering what our listeners call this so if you work outside the office for a company that's not near you or maybe it is nearby for some reason you're not in the office what do you call that the jobs that you can take your laptop anywhere and get everything done as long as you have your phone in your laptop you're good to go whether or not you're in the Arctic or the desert or the jungle or wherever your head is working in place works for you yeah does it or is there something new or a term that you use 877-929-1673 e-mail words at wayward radio dot org Hello you have a way with words. Than cards from New York City at 18 Welcome Ben what can we do for you so I was listening to your segment about hang attention to the way in which are all their family members speak and I was thinking about you know what are some ways that my grandparents speak and that's how to think of something and to stop and to my mind which is that whenever my grandmother retell something that happened to her and. And use dialogue she uses says the present tense instead of said The past tense and I thought that was really strange because for the most part Jesus says when she's talking about herself such as I walked into the store and I says x.y.z. And I was a little confused. Why she says something like that and I was wondering if this is just a strange sort of regularity 'd that she has or is this something more widespread and well known of the older generations using the present tense when telling stories instead of the past great question and you've given us a really great example of how that kind of speech works she she's American Yes And how old would say she is she is early seventy's early seventy's Well it's nothing to have to do with her in particular is she from New York also yes she lived in Brooklyn for a long time and now lives in New Jersey Yeah there's nothing particularly regional about it it's a form of probably best described as the historical present tense Now usually we only encounter this in English into extremes of formality either in very informal language like the stuff to your grandmother saying are very formal language like Scientist recounting historical event to some great importance and that word recount is the key here because that's what your grandmother is doing as well She's recounting previous speech it's called Reported speech in linguistics and we tend to use this what sounds like the present tense in order to give an immediacy and make it seem vivid and like it's actually really happening as we're tell a story it makes it actually makes it feel more real to the hearer Yeah I would agree with that I think when she tells stories it doesn't matter if it's very far in the past or something that happened earlier that day but it does make you feel that it is it's happening to your ear much grist and that story that she was telling. Yeah and there's a cool thing about that I do. You feel like you kind of nailed one part of it I think it's passing away at least in these informal very informal uses does seem to be marked as something from a previous generation I'm actually surprised that your grandmother is as young as she is and still using it because that's how archaic It seems to be coming but perhaps my information is wrong and perhaps it's still far more widespread than I believe for some reason it reminds me of a younger people using the term like to introduce a similar kind of scene you know something that's that similarly present tense I was like that it is because they're both reporting on speech rights of the like as a quoted of and the Says isn't a quote it exactly but your shirt and certainly they're definitely talking about a previous situation in a really informal way yes kind of this performance and I think that's good that's a good way of word for it we ben we do a lot of speech that we talk about we recrossed it as if it is a narrative and tell it like a story and act it out your hands are going in our faces or making grimaces and smiles and so forth and yeah it's cool. Just for historical perspective there are records of this kind of speech going back hundreds and hundreds of years has existed in English for quite a while that's very interesting never have heard something like this you know oh very observant of you yeah the last time I encountered it was with an 80 year old woman in the Lower East Side of New York there was a woman named Helen who was homeless there who would sit on my front steps and she was originally from Boston which had lived in New York for like 50 years and she would just tell me stories of the 2nd Street between avenues b. And c. And the Lower East Side and she would just soused and she always had that same exact instructions you like so I says to him I'm you can join the Navy but I ain't waiting for you remember I was really good. Ben thank you so much for the question thanks for taking it I really appreciate it and love the so take care but so I says I says to myself give us a call 877-929-9673 email words at wayward radio dot org. Prevent pass to save the other day it was by Laurie laking Hutcherson who's the founder of a website called good black news and the essay is what I think should be required reading on white privilege it was just a beautifully beautifully argued piece of writing and I picked up an interesting term from that which is chandelier pain she noticed and I don't know that it's a chandelier pain yes she ended leered pain describes the kind of pain that you have when when a doctor touches an extremely sensitive area that doctors talk about having to pull the patient off the chandelier or they reach up to the ceiling because the pain is so terrible and she was talking about the cumulative effect of small hurts over time and how that can result in chandelier and I imagine. Cartoon cats doing nothing like leaping up and hanging by their claws Yeah yeah where the slightest little thing can chandelier Yeah interesting I love that one that's my list thanks for that 187-792-9967 extension 3 hello you have a way with words Hi this is Jack Vanderbeek from Libya Washington I've got a question for you all right shoot. I was doing a writing the other day and I came up on the verb. Is a common word when I was growing up meaning to kind of nag like her being on something to harp on somebody or something it was kind of returning to the same subject over and over I was wondering where that came from. Yeah to just say the same thing over and over and over again ha Do you have any theories you know for some reason I kind of thought it came from the church that it was like the heart of an angel or something like that. I was there I was thinking about this morning and it and it occurred to me that. Maybe it had to do with the harpy but I don't even understand where that came from or why it would be of her you know I was pictured her as being a stringed instrument. Yeah you're on the right track with with the harp as stringed instrument it's actually the the original version of this is to harp on the same string or to harp on one string if you go you can go all the way back to the 16th century and find references to to somebody who harp with all of one string or or looking at another one this is a harp no more upon that string or he harps much upon that jarring string so the idea is it's almost like a little kid who's who's driving you nuts by holding a harp and just plucking that one's drain you know again and again and again and again and again. So it's kind of them I'm not yeah yeah exactly the monotony Ok well I suppose that makes a lot more sense I don't think that the people I was hearing it from understood their evasion either but they were. They got their point across Yeah yeah it's a very picturesque phrase if you think about it and a long way from its origins Now sit back to the 16th century or so yes indeed that well way. That explains a lot Ok we're glad to help Jack thank you so much for calling Oh right well thank you very much thanks for your program Ok take care of our 87719673 email words at wayward radio dot org and talk to us. On Twitter at w a y w o r d. The other day I was talking with a friend about our plans for going to a play and I was saying should we have dinner before hand or and then I immediately wanted to say after hand we don't do it we don't but you know I looked it up I mean why in the world don't we say after hand if I say before he would say afterward Yeah afterward or just after I was what I ended up saying but it turns out that of course if you look in the Oxford English dictionary the word after hand came into English about the same time as before hand and it's a word that just didn't arrive Yeah it didn't drive like before hand is actually where it is weird yeah but but there's no law that says or no rule that says English has to be balanced in that way well goodness knows goodness knows the rules are there well read a few but this one if I might just start using after hand just to be contrary to that. There would be. 877999673 hello you have a way with words this is John I mean New Hampshire Hey John welcome what's up how can we help let's you I have. An odd phrase that my mother used I think she got from her mother. And it has to do it when you're sitting in a room let's say when we were kids we would be sitting around and we might say well what mom is that we might say oh she's going to get us in trouble she would say she being the cat's mother. That I don't call me she call me by my name it's kind of an admonishment. And I'm not really sure with sure where she being where she is the cat's mother comes from it's an odd really kind of an odd expression and sure is digital around look at look into it I did a little bit and I found that it was. Kind of was originated maybe a 150 years ago or something but it didn't really give me much information on what the background of it was or where it came from there's a couple things here linguistically that we can talk about let's get rid of the one unfortunate that we can't help you with much we don't know why it's the cat's mother we don't know. It but we do it like you said find it back at least a 100 maybe I don't know about 150 years but quite a ways back some sources suggest some authoritative reference work suggests that the cast mother is an anonymous creature you know the cat has a mother but you don't know her name and that's why she's chosen and we're thinking about like when Katherine sees coddled and or creatures but they were basically wild all over the place and kind of half feral half domestic that sort of thing Ok so I don't I'm sorry we don't know their words now but the other thing that's interesting here is that injunction against using a pronoun for a person who is present is very widespread and is widely considered rude and yet And yet there are so many people who've never heard of it they are shocked to find that calling somebody she when she's in the room particular woman is insulting they're really just never occurred to them and somebody might be offended by that my mother and my mother and your mom might be more with a woman than a man yeah it's almost and at least in the English speaking world it's almost always a woman and this probably dates back to more prim notions of showing deference and respect to women as these sensitive creatures who need coddling because they're made out of fine china and never of course right. But the but you know these days my mother would get upset if we she heard us talking about her even when she wasn't present as she said that we have to do x. Or she doesn't want to do y. Z. . You're just right I have a name so you should say you never used the cats I mean I have a name use my name yeah I got that one too but she would always always refer to this particular phrase but she didn't know where it came from either she just used it but I do know I do there are plenty of people that to refer to somebody as she when she's president or when you could over the other have otherwise use the use their name is considered rude Ok John thanks so much for calling Ok well thanks Take care bye bye bye bye 877-1973. I've been spending some time with the poetry of Antonio Machado the great Spanish poet who was born in Sivia in 1975 and one of his most famous poems is really short I wanted to share it this is a translation by Maria who say he menace in Anna Rose and why and the poem is sort of an answer to an implicit question of what path should I choose wonder it's your steps the road and nothing more wanderer there is no road you make the road as you go as you go you make the road and when you turn you'll see the path you leave behind never to walk again wanderer there is no road only wakes upon the sea. And what I love about this poem is that it's about making life up as you go along that often you don't really see the path until you turn around and look at where you've been that's right and there's the standard template for Life isn't a thing right yeah you're always on what past should I take and it's easy to follow the crowd to I think I sense some of that there about being an individual Yeah 877-929-9673. 1 more way with words listen to years of past episodes of wayward radio dot org or find the show on any podcast aft or on itunes our toll free line is always open so leave us a message at 87799973 we'll take a listen we love to get your messages if the words at wayward radio dot org or hit us up on Twitter at w a y w o r d and look for us on Facebook this program would not be possible without you Grant and I are out to change the way we listen and think about language and you are making it happen thanks also to senior producer Stephanie Levine director and editor 10 Felton director call him today and a production assistant Emma Kalman in San Diego in New York we think quiz guy John and that Master of keeping it real Paul Roux is dead Argo studios a way with words is an independent production of the way we're getting from the Recording Arts Center at Studio West in San Diego I'm Martha Barnett and I'm Grant Barrett so long. 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