[This episode first aired October 4, 2008.]Proverbs pack great truths into a few well-chosen words, no matter
which language you speak. Check out this one from Belize: 'Don't call
the alligator a big-mouth till you have crossed the river.' And this
truism from Zanzibar: 'When two elephants tussle, it's the grass that
suffers.' Martha and Grant discuss a new paremiography--a collection of
proverbs--from around the world. A woman from Cape Cod is
looking for a polite word that means the current wife of my ex-husband.
She's thinking about 'cur-wife,' but somehow that doesn't quite work.
Neither does the phrase 'that poor woman.' The hosts try to help her
come up with other possibilities.'It's raining, it's pouring.'
But what exactly is the 'it' that's doing all that raining and pouring?
This question from a caller prompts Grant to explain what linguists
mean when they talk about the 'weather it.' Hint: It depends on what
the meaning of 'it' is.Your eyetooth is located directly
beneath your eye. But is that why they're called eyeteeth? A Boston
caller would give her eyeteeth to know. Okay, not really, but she did
want an answer to this question.Quiz Guy John Chaneski invites Grant and Martha to busta rhyme with a word puzzle called Rhyme Groups.You've
seen people indicate emphasis by putting a period after each of several
words, and capitalizing the first letter of each word. A Michigan
listener wonders how this stylistic trick arose. Her question was
prompted by this description of French model-turned-presidential-spouse
Carla Bruni: 'She's got a cashmere voice and a killer body. Plays
decent guitar and writes her own lyrics. Can hold her own with queens
and statesmen. She. Must. Be. Stopped.' Jealous much?Do you
want to get down? Ask that in parts of Louisiana, and people know
you're not inquiring whether they care to dance, you're asking if they
want to get out of a car. A former Louisianan who grew up using the
expression that way wonders if it's French-inspired. The hosts proceed
to use the phrase 'get down' so much they end up with a dreadful K.C.
and the Sunshine Band earworm.Which is correct for describing a
close family resemblance: spittin' image or spit and image? Grant and
Martha discuss the possible origins of these expressions, including a
recent hypothesis that's sure to surprise.In this week's
episode of Slang This!, Dave Dickerson from the National Puzzlers'
League tries to guess the meaning of the terms cowboy up and money bomb.If
you've used the word sickly too many times in a paragraph and need a
synonym, there's always dauncy, also spelled donsie and dauncy. Grant
explains the origin of this queasy-sounding word.A Navy man
stationed in Hawaii phones to settle a dispute over the difference
between acronyms and initialisms. Here's hoping he didn't go AWOL to
make the call.Is English is going to hell in the proverbial
handbasket? A Wisconsin grandmother thinks so, particularly because of
all the ums and you knows she hears in everyday speech. The hosts
discuss these so-called disfluencies, including how to avoid them and
how to keep other people's disfluencies from grating on your nerves.We
leave you with a couple other proverbs translated into English. They're
from David Crystal's paremiography, As They Say in Zanzibar:Proverbs are like butterflies; some are caught and some fly away. (Germany)Teachers open the door; you enter by yourself. (China)--Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Site: http://waywordradio.org.Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2009, Wayword LLC.