[This episode originally aired May 17, 2008.]If someone calls you 'dibby,' should you be flattered or insulted?
You'd know if you were in college a century ago--it's outdated college
slang! Also, we are 'voluntold' to play a word puzzle about Unknown
Superheroes! What do we call it when new inventions or ideas
change the name of something old? It used to be that the word 'guitar'
was sufficient, but now we regularly distinguish between an 'acoustic
guitar' and an 'electric guitar.' Same for television, a word that
sufficed until we started saying 'color television' to distinguish it
from the earlier black-and-white version. What's the word for such
terms? We know you can't wait: it's 'retronym.'A Cincinnati man
says that at the non-profit where he works, he often hears the word
'voluntold.' It comes up when someone is volunteered by someone else to
do some task, rather than volunteering themselves. Does this term for
'involuntary volunteering' have military origins?'You're the
apple of my eye' is an ancient term of endearment. Martha explains the
connections between apples, eyes, and other precious things.We share a listener's email about 'nicknames for the city of Vancouver, Canada.' How about ' Word-couver'?Quiz
Guy John Chaneski is a huge fan of comic books featuring superheroes
like 'Superman and Spiderman.' Lo and behold, John claims he's
discovered a whole treasure trove of 'Heretofore Unnamed Superheroes,'
and invites us to guess their names. What do you call the doughty
superhero who can take any food item that is past its expiration date,
send it back through time, and make it edible again? Need a clue? His
mild-mannered alter ego is in his first year at NYU.An Oakland
man is curious about a queasy-making phrase: 'a face that could gag a
maggot off a gutwagon.' What's a 'gutwagon'? How's it used? Why is it
used? Yech!'Go fly a kite!' A caller from Washington, D.C. wonders whose kite is getting flown and why. Naturally, we have some ideas!A
San Diego caller says he's noticed that his high-school grandson and
his buddies habitually 'refer to each other only by their last names,'
but his granddaughter says she and her own friends never do. Is this
just a teenage guy thing? The book that Grant recommends here is A
Dictionary of Epithets and Terms of Address by Leslie Dunkling.Martha
shares the oodles of listeners' emails responding to a caller seeking
'a better word than retiree' to describe himself and his wife. How
about 'pre-tiree'? Or 'jubilant'?This week's Slang This!
contestant is from Boston. She shares a slang phrase making the rounds
among her friends at MIT: 'find your pants.' She then tries to guess
the meaning of the slang term 'boilover' and the obscure word
'nycthemeron.'Is it 'toward or towards'? 'Forward or forwards'?
Do they differ in American English and British English? A Seattle
listener wants to know.A California caller is puzzled as to why
'the prefix un-' seems to function in two entirely different ways in
the terms 'undone' and 'unmarried.'If you were raised in North
Dakota like our caller, you might wonder about a phrase you heard
growing up: 'It's a horse a piece.' It means something like 'six of
one, half a dozen of the other.' She is curious about the origin of the
horse phrase and whether it's a regional expression.--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.