Have you ever eaten a 'Benedictine sandwich'? Or savored a juicy 'pork steak'? What's a favorite dish you grew up with that may be mystifying to someone from another part of the country? Also, what does it mean to tell someone to 'put a snap on the grouch bag'?A rugby referee from Indiana calls to ask if his sport is the origin of the word 'touchdown' as it is used in American football.How do you pronounce the word 'patronize'? Is one pronunciation used if you say 'Don't patronize me!' and another one if you say 'We patronize local businesses'?Why do we say political campaigns that are in a 'dead heat'? Why 'dead' and why 'heat'? We play bingo on the air with Quiz Guy John Chaneski. His motives are not B9!A woman who went to school in New Orleans reports she was startled the first time she heard residents of the Crescent City talk about 'making groceries' rather than buying them. Grant explains the French origins of that expression.A listener who recently played in a Boggle tournament wants to know why we speak of 'seeding' such a competition.The German word 'uber' has found a place in American English. A New Jersey man says he and his colleagues find it to be more versatile than a Swiss Army knife, as in, 'He is uber in the middle of that situation,' 'That was an uber meeting,' and 'You guys are the language ubers.' An Indianapolis caller wants to know about curious expression she heard from her Aunt Harriet: 'put a snap on the grouch bag.' You would think it means 'Stop complaining!' but she says it refers to making sure your valuables are secure. What's the grudge?Martha and Grant discuss more regional food terms. If you order 'Albany beef' in upstate New York, for example, don't be surprised if you're served fish.This week's Slang This! contestant grapples with the slang terms 'squish' and 'optempo.'What's the trouble with using the expression 'drink the Kool-Aid' to connote blind, unquestioning obedience to a politician? A caller is bothered by the grisly origin of the phrase--a reference to the 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana--and thinks it's being used inaccurately, in any case.A caller is curious about the odd expression 'to who laid the rail,' which is used to mean, among other things, 'thoroughly, completely, excessively.'...Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org/. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.

[This episode first aired January 19th and 20th, 2008.]Does your family use a special word you've never heard anywhere else? A funny name for 'the heel of a loaf of bread,' perhaps, or for 'visiting relatives who won't leave.' In this week's episode, Martha and Grant discuss 'family words,' and Martha reveals the story behind her own family's secret word, 'fubby.'Why do we say that someone who's pregnant is 'knocked up'? The hit movie starring Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogen has a caller wondering about this term.A man whose last name is McCoy wants a definitive answer about the origin of the expression 'the real McCoy.' He's been told it comes from the name of turn-of-the-century boxing champ Kid McCoy. Is that really the case?A Michigander wants to know about the difference between 'titled' and 'entitled.' She'd assumed that a book is 'titled' Gone with The Wind and a person is 'entitled' to compensation for something. Grant and Martha explain it's a little more complicated than that.Quiz Guy Greg Pliska presents a quiz about 'False Plurals,' based on the old riddle: What plural word becomes singular when you put the letter 's' at the end of it? (Hint: Think of a brand of tennis racket, as well as the former name of a musical artist before he changed it back again.)Quick, which is faster? Something that happens 'instantly' or that happens 'instantaneously'? A caller wants to know if there's any difference between the two. A Brazilian has been researching why actors use the unlikely expression 'break a leg' to wish each other well before going on stage. He suspects it's a borrowing of a German phrase that means, 'May you break your neck and your leg,' but he's not sure.A caller who lived in the Bay Area during the 1960s remembers using the word 'loosecap' to describe someone who's 'not playing with a full deck.' He wonders if he and his friends are the only ones to use it, as in, 'Don't be such a loosecap!'This week's 'Slang This!' contestant tries to decipher the slang phrases 'dance at two weddings' and 'put the big pot in the little pot.' She also shares her own favorite slang terms for 'crumb crusher,' 'rug rat' and 'ankle biter.' By the way, you can read Grant's essay about slang terms for small children, 'Sprogs in a Poop Factory,' here. His column about language appears every two weeks in The Malaysia Star newspaper.A caller fears that the term 'Indian giver' is politically incorrect, and wants an alternative to teach her children. A Princeton University student wonders if his school can lay claim to being the first to apply the Latin word 'campus' to the grounds of an institution of higher learning.By the way, if you want to read about more family words, check out Paul Dickson's book, 'Family Words: A Dictionary of the Secret Language of Families.'Here's hoping all of you are happy fubbies!

[This episode first aired January 12th and 13th, 2008.]In this week's episode, Martha and Grant discuss not-to-be-believed articles about language from the satirical newspaper The Onion, including one headlined 'Underfunded Schools Forced to Cut Past Tense from Language Programs.'By the way, did you ever notice how ONION is ZO-ZO if you tilt your head to the right?A caller has a friendly disagreement with a pal: Is the expression 'tide me over' or 'tie me over'? Hint: The answer she gets should tide her over.If a dictator dictates, and an aviator aviates, then does a commentator 'commentate'? A caller complains that this last word gives him the willies. Does an alligator alligate?A middle-schooler who's reading 'Anne of Green Gables' is puzzled by a mention of 'breakfast, dinner, and supper.' She wants to know if the words 'dinner' and 'lunch' really interchangeable.The fur flies when Greg Pliska unleashes a word puzzle involving the names of animals.Also speaking of animals, an immigrant from India recounts his confusion the first time he heard the expression 'I'm going to go see a man about a horse.' How in did that become a euphemism for 'I'm going to go to the bathroom'?A former West Virginian reports that she grew up hearing a strange word: 'charny.' In her part of the country, she says, it means 'dirty' or 'filthy,' and she always heard it pronounced 'chee-YAR-nee.'This week's Slang This! contestant, a comic-book illustrator from Providence, R.I., tries to guess the meaning of the expressions 'hat-catcher' and 'to go shucks.'What IS the longest word in the English language? 'Antidisestablishmentarianism'? 'Floccinaucinihilipilification'? Or 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis,' maybe? Martha and Grant discuss such sesquipedalian contenders for the title of Longest English Word.Where do you put those exclamation points and question marksâdo they go inside or outside the quotation marks? Can you say, 'We have the answer!'?Confused about whether 'biweekly' means 'twice a week' or 'twice a month'? Martha rants about why the using the words 'biweekly' and 'bimonthly' at all is a bad idea, period.Grant shares listener email about the origin and meaning of the term 'g-job.'----Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAYâWORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.

There's a frisson you get when you meet a word for the first time--feeling pleasantly stumped in between wondering, 'What the heck does that mean?' and hurrying off to find out. Martha and Grant talk about some terms that had just that effect on them: 'ucalegon' and 'cacoethes scribendi.'A recent college graduate from Portland, Oregon, calls to ask about a term popular on her campus. She and her classmates use 'sketchy' to mean 'creepy, shady, possibly dangerous,' as in 'a sketchy part of town' or 'that sketchy guy over there.' Grant and Martha discuss this term and how it lends itself to such variations as 'Sketchyville' and 'Sketchy McSketcherson.'In San Diego, a man says increasingly he hears the phrase 'down the pike' at work but suspects it was originally 'down the pipe.'Martha discusses another word she happily tripped over in the dictionary: 'spanghew.'Quiz Guy John Chaneski tries to stump the hosts with a puzzle called 'Cryptic Crosswords.' How about this one: 'Do-re-mi-fa follower + sneaker feature = comfort.âWhy are cave explorers called 'spelunkers'? How do you pronounce the word? A naturalist at Mystery Cave in Minnesota wants to know and in return she tells us how to 'tell a stalactite from a stalagmite.'A listener from Texas heard an NPR report from Asia in which an interpreter translated a speaker's words into English as 'a whole new ball game.' He wants to know if that's a literal translation from an Asian language, and if so, is it a reference to baseball or some other sport? Grant shares a strange word from the fringes of English: 'mofussil.'This week's 'Slang This!' contestant is asked to guess the meanings of the slang terms 'gauge' and 'head-up.' A California caller is curious about the words 'Shia' and 'Shiite.' Is there difference between them or are they interchangeable? A Michigan woman working a study-abroad program at a large university is bemused by the many applicants who write that they want to study overseas so they can be 'submerged in the culture.' She thinks there's a difference between 'immersed' and 'submerged' but wants to be sure. Are more and more people talking about 'standing behind a podium?' A San Diegan says the traditional rule has been that one stands behind a lectern and stands on a podium. Has this traditional rule changed?---Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.

Everybody has a nickname, and there's usually a story to go with it. Martha and Grant reveal their own nicknames and the stories behind them. Also, is the expression 'heebie-jeebies' anti-Semitic? And is there a better word than 'retiree' for someone who moves on from a job late in life?Speaking of nicknames, the word 'nickname' has an interesting etymology. It's an example of a word formed by what linguists call 'misdivision.' More here. If you have a nickname you'd like to share (and hey, let's keep it clean, folks!), tell us about it in our discussion forum!On to our callers:A cantor from a synagogue in Nyack, New York, says she's fond of the expression 'the heebie-jeebies' but recently began worrying that it might be anti-Semitic. Did the term 'heebie-jeebies' originate as a slur against Jews? By the way, the hosts mention a cartoon with the earliest known use of the term.An adult caller from Phoenix is stung by the memory of losing an elementary school spelling bee when he misspelled the word 'dilemma.' He insists that his teachers taught him that the word contains a silent 'n.' After all these years, he's still trying to find out whether 'dilemna' is an acceptable spelling.Recently we discussed the lack of a word in English for the act of trying to do in your offline life something you can only do on a computer, like expecting spellcheck to kick in if you're scribbling a grocery list, for example. The hosts share suggestions emailed by listeners. How about 'e-flex'? Or might 'deja undo' do?Quiz Guy John Chaneski presents a puzzle about homophones, in this case, words that sound just like participles that have lost their final 'g,' like 'button' and 'buttin'.' The first clue: 'Picture Vladimir Putin trying to catch a departing bus.'A woman and her boss want to resolve a dispute over the words 'reoccuring' and 'recurring.' Which is correct if you're talking about something that happens again and again? Grant explains that there is indeed a difference between the two words--and that one of them is almost always the right choice, particularly in the world of business.When a proper Southern lady fans herself and exclaims, 'I do believe I have the vapors,' what vapors is she talking about, exactly? A caller from Austin, Texas wants to know the origin of this term. Just how did it come to apply to a whole range of things, from being flustered all the way to more serious maladies such as depression and hypochondria?A former sociology professor shares a peeve about the language of political pundits: He's irked when they say a candidate wants to 'replicate' or 'duplicate' his win. The professor explains why he thinks they should eschew those words and instead opt for 'repeat.'Cities have nicknames as well, including 'Sacratomato' and 'Lousyville.' Do you have a better city nickname? Let's hear it.This week's 'Slang This!' contestant is from Esquimalt, British Columbia. She tries to guess the meaning of the slang terms 'white hat' and 'necklace light.' And no, the latter has nothing to do with a 'Frankenstein flash.'A husband and wife are retiring after many years on the job. But they're keeping their options open for future employment, and don't want to be called 'retirees.' The word 'retirees' isn't enough to connote the more ' dynamic and open-ended' way of living they're anticipating, nor does it take into account the possibility that they might continue to do some kind of paying work. How about 'rehirees'? Or...?What's the nickname for your hometown newspaper? Do share by emailing us.A Kentucky listener and her husband wonder about the proper meaning of the word 'everloving.' Sometimes they hear it used to express frustration, as in, 'Why won't he pass the everloving basketball?', but other times they hear it used more positively, as in, 'I just want to get in my everloving bed and sleep!' Grant answers her everloving question.----Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write 24 hours a day: (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673, words@waywordradio.org, or visit our web site and discussion forums at http://waywordradio.org. Copyright 2008, Wayword LLC.

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