[Computer-generated transcript]
Mignon Fogarty: Welcome to Grammar Girl’s 20th anniversary extravaganza, Grammarpalooza: The Game Show! I am Mignon Fogarty, and I’m so excited to be here with all of you. I think language is fun, and I wanted to do a game show for many, many years. So when we were thinking about how to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the “Grammar Girl” podcast, it was time. It was time to do the game show, and I want to thank everyone who has listened over the years, and I especially want to thank the Grammarpaloozians. These listeners subscribe on Apple Plus, Subtext, and Patreon, and directly help support the show, and I’m really grateful for your support. And thanks to those of you watching the live stream for coming. You will get to play along in the comments, and the contestants will not be able to see your comments, so don’t worry about like helping them or anything. And at one point, the contestants will be directly competing against the audience, so you’re a very important part of this show.
So, I am also thankful for the wonderful guests we’ve had on the show throughout the years and my fellow travelers in the language world, especially the six people who are here with us today to celebrate and compete. So let’s meet the teams.
First, we have Team 1, the Cruciverbal Crusaders: Emily Moyers, Kyle Imperatore, and Ben Zimmer. Ben is many things, but he says it’s easiest to call him a puzzle maker for Slate, and Ben has been on the podcast multiple times. Ben, thanks for being here.
Ben Zimmer: Happy to be here, coming from Jersey City. And we’re the Cruciverbal Crusaders because Kyle and Emily and I were bonding over crosswords, and so, you know, we’re all cruciverbalists at heart.
Mignon Fogarty: Awesome. Thank you. And that’s Emily and Kyle. They had me on their language show, “Butter No Parsnips,” and I had such a great time. I knew they had to join me here today. Emily and Kyle, welcome to the show.
Emily Moyers: Hello! Thanks for having us, Mignon. Hey!
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah, thank you so much.
Mignon Fogarty: Where are you joining from?
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah, we’re both joining from Long Island, New York, and super excited to be here. A game show, I’ve always wanted to be on one. No whammies!
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, and next we have Team 2, MC Grammar: Jess Zafarris, Gabe Henry, and Valerie Fridland. If you’re a regular listener, you cannot have missed Jess and Valerie because they’ve both been on the show many times. Jess is the co-host of the “Words Unravelled” show on YouTube, and it’s a podcast, and author of many language books. Jess, welcome, welcome back.
Jess Zafarris: Thank you for having me. I am joining from the forests of Connecticut, about an hour north of New York City. Very suspicious, very dark, but I’m so happy to be here because this is one of my favorite shows. And Mignon and I have dabbled in game shows before, so this is going to be a great time.
Mignon Fogarty: We have. Yeah, thanks so much. Jess is also the author of “Miscellany of Weird and Wonderful Facts.” And Valerie Fridland is a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno, and also the author of many books, including the recent one, “Why We Talk Funny.” Valerie, welcome, welcome back.
Valerie Fridland: Well, thank you. I am coming in from the other side of the country, near you, Mignon. I’m in Reno, Nevada, just hot off the teaching floor, so I got the brain primed or the brain fried. I’m not sure which one, but we’re going to see.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, she rushed over right after class. And finally, Gabe Henry was on the show last year to talk about his widely acclaimed book about spelling reform, called “Enough Is Enough.” And I’m told he hosts pub spelling bees and maybe trivia shows.
Gabe Henry: A little bit.
Mignon Fogarty: So he is sure to be a formidable competitor.
Gabe Henry: Thank you for having me. I’m coming from Brooklyn, New York, where apparently Ben Zimmer informs me there’s going to be a nor’easter this weekend. That’s news to me. I really hope it doesn’t come before Saturday because I’m trying to get in one last round of Coney Island rides tomorrow night, so I don’t know. I think if there’s a nor’easter, they’re probably going to close it early. Fingers crossed.
Mignon Fogarty: Oh no. Well, you will hear more about each of these guests and their various books and projects throughout the show. So let’s get started with the games.
Category 1: Fake Definitions. This first category is likely to be most familiar because it’s much like the game known as Fictionary, or Balderdash, or just the dictionary game. I will give you what I hope is a word you’ve never heard before and four definitions, only one of which is real. Each team gets 30 seconds to deliberate over the answer, and if they’re wrong, the other team gets a chance to steal the point. You get one point for each correct answer. Does anyone have questions before we begin?
Kyle Imperatore: Let’s do it.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay. Team 1, the Cruciverbal Crusaders, you go first, and your first word is galactopoton. Galactopoton. Is this: A person who still drinks milk? A medicinal drink made from herbs steeped in warm water? A person who studies the movements and phases of the moon? Or a sweet-tasting compound produced during the digestion of milk sugar?
Ben Zimmer: Well, has to do something with milk, because I recognize the first part, galact-, yeah.
Emily Moyers: The galact-, yeah.
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah, the lact- is certainly milk. I can’t remember what the ga- in galaxy is. Is that also milk? I mean, lactose is milk.
Emily Moyers: Galaxy is all—it’s all together milk, right?
Kyle Imperatore: All together milk, yeah. I don’t know what the -poton is, though. That could be anything.
Emily Moyers: No, it’s reading that it’s a person to me, but only on vibes. I have no…
Kyle Imperatore: Galactopoton. I mean, a person—a poton, like foot, right? Maybe it’s the movement of the moon, like the moon’s walking across the sky.
Ben Zimmer: I feel like I like the idea of it being a person, and I like it having to do with milk, so my feeling is the first one.
Emily Moyers: I think so, yeah.
Ben Zimmer: Putting it all together.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, is that your final answer?
Ben Zimmer: That works for me, yeah. Let’s do it. Yeah.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, you’re right!
Emily Moyers: Hey!
Ben Zimmer: Oh, nice.
Mignon Fogarty: A galactopoton is a person who still drinks milk. I found this word in Peter Sokolowski’s forthcoming book, “By Definition,” in the section on one of the very first dictionaries, which is a 1623 book called “The English Dictionary.” It supposedly comes from ancient Greek and literally means milk drinker. And I have to say, during the practice sessions, we all wondered what the “still” is doing in the definition. Like, why is it someone who still drinks milk? But we don’t know.
Okay, get ready, Team MC Grammar. Question 2: What is the correct definition of swabbo? Is it: A careless or clumsy person? A short break from work? A blank or zero? Or a short length of rope?
Jess Zafarris: Is the answer listed in the question?
Mignon Fogarty: 30 seconds.
Valerie Fridland: I feel like they got the easy one.
Gabe Henry: Jess, I don’t know too much about this suffix, -bo. Is there anything you know about that?
Jess Zafarris: My concern here is that this isn’t fair for us because it says “real definition” next to one of these.
Mignon Fogarty: Oh no!
Emily Moyers: My money would be on that one.
Kyle Imperatore: I’m going to go with a blank or zero.
Jess Zafarris: I say we go for anything but that.
Mignon Fogarty: I told you anything could go wrong.
Gabe Henry: Jess, once again, your etymological expertise wins the day.
Valerie Fridland: Well,the worst thing is that I don’t think Gabe or I noticed.
Gabe Henry: I did not notice.
Emily Moyers: I was like, wow, they’re really playing it off.
Jess Zafarris: The other part about galactopoton was I was like, it’s related to potable, and I was like, I can’t say anything.
Ben Zimmer: Oh, potable.
Mignon Fogarty: Apparently, it also pays to have a good eye. Swabbo is military slang, and the oldest example I found was from the 1909 Boston Journal, saying that when Marines fired at a target and missed, quote, “The scorer called out in the language of the service, a swabbo for so-and-so.”
Jess Zafarris: See, I wouldn’t have gotten that, I think, without the snafu, to choose some more military slang.
Kyle Imperatore: It sounds very Australian, I don’t know.
Emily Moyers: It does.
Valerie Fridland: Well, I knew it the whole time. Just kidding, just kidding.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, back to the Cruciverbal Crusaders, Question 3. Hopefully, the answer won’t be on the slide. What is the correct definition of curglaff? Curglaff. Is it: A small fishing boat used on Scottish lochs? A type of bagpipe reel played at Scottish weddings? The sound a fishing net makes when it hits the water? Or the shock felt when you first plunge into cold water?
Ben Zimmer: Ooh, wow. That’s hard.
Emily Moyers: They all sound so reasonable.
Kyle Imperatore: It certainly sounds like it could be onomatopoeic for the plunge into water.
Ben Zimmer: I like that, because it’s like curplunk, curplash, curglaff.
Emily Moyers: Yeah, I like the fishing net one.
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah. I mean, fishing, it also does sound like Scottish, too.
Ben Zimmer: Yeah, so the answer’s obvious. One of the last two. I’m not sure which one, though. Because they’re both hitting water, imitative of that.
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah, the water one.
Emily Moyers: Fishing net.
Kyle Imperatore: And that’s a sound one, the sound of a fishing—but maybe that’s a red herring, not to be a pun.
Ben Zimmer: Maybe the last one? The shock, you think?
Emily Moyers: I don’t know.
Ben Zimmer: That one speaks to me, but I don’t know. Could be the third one.
Kyle Imperatore: I think the fourth one, yeah. Let’s go with that one.
Emily Moyers: Let’s do it. Let’s do it.
Ben Zimmer: Okay, sure. Yeah.
Mignon Fogarty: You are correct!
Emily Moyers: Hey!
Ben Zimmer: Oh, nice.
Mignon Fogarty: This one is Scottish dialect and means the shock felt when you plunge into cold water. It goes back to at least 1825. And I love this, it also has a verb form, to be curgloffed, which appears to be a little broader, meaning to be panic-stricken or confused, I guess like you might feel if you plunged into cold water.
Ben Zimmer: Sure. The Scots have the best words.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes.
Gabe Henry: Can you be a curgloffer? Can you be a noun for this? Can you be a person who likes jumping into cold water for the shock?
Valerie Fridland: Well, as a linguist, I’m saying yes.
Gabe Henry: Yeah, exactly.
Valerie Fridland: I’m going to just declare it, because you can be an -er of anything.
Emily Moyers: Yeah, I mean, you said it and we all knew what it meant, so yeah.
Jess Zafarris: Curgloffisterian.
Gabe Henry: Naturally.
Valerie Fridland: Now you might be pushing it, Jess.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, Question 4, back to MC Grammar: What is the correct definition of snollygoster? Is it: A device used to sharpen quill pens? A shrewd, unscrupulous person, especially a politician? A small burrowing animal found in the American Midwest? Or a 19th-century term for a fast-talking traveling salesman’s cart?
Jess Zafarris: I know that it’s not one or three.
Gabe Henry: To me, it has the sound of a Victorian insult. There are a lot of those, like “scallywag,” and that’s what I’m feeling from this.
Jess Zafarris: I would lean fast-talking.
Valerie Fridland: Yep, and it has the -er suffix. That’s awesome. One who exes or whatever, one who is annoying or unscrupulous. I’m willing to go with that.
Gabe Henry: So Valerie, you’re saying two; Jess, you’re saying four?
Jess Zafarris: I think four.
Valerie Fridland: Oh, I see. Okay, well, I was misunderstanding.
Jess Zafarris: They’re both fast-talking, they’re both…
Valerie Fridland: Yeah, I was seeing—yes, uh-huh, I was seeing salesman, but I didn’t see cart. Ooh, that’s a tough one. I’m going to go with Jess on this one.
Jess Zafarris: Oh, a cart? Oh, hang on, I missed the cart. No, I think politician.
Valerie Fridland: It’s cart, that’s why I was, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jess Zafarris: Cart, you’re right. I think politician.
Gabe Henry: I might be outvoted. I think I would go with two.
Valerie Fridland: I’m thinking two.
Jess Zafarris: Oh, yeah, no, two. That’s what I’m saying. Not the last one. I thought we were talking about the salesman, not the cart, so I think two as well.
Valerie Fridland: We’re trying to keep them confused on the other side. Like, we knew what we were talking about the whole time. I’m saying two. Let’s do two.
Gabe Henry: I’m saying two.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, that is correct! A shrewd, unscrupulous person, especially a politician. This one is U.S. slang, and Etymonline says it may have originally meant something like an unstoppable person or thing, but also delightfully adds that there is also a term supersnollygonchus, which means superlative or excellent, and I think we are having a supersnollygonchus time today.
Valerie Fridland: I’m going to have to work that into my next cocktail party.
Gabe Henry: The most unscrupulous politician.
Jess Zafarris: Supersnollygostrousexpialidocious.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, our last question for this round goes back to the Cruciverbal Crusaders, and the next word is uhtceare. Uhtceare. Is this: An Old English harvest festival held at first frost? A type of woven basket used to carry peat? An anxious feeling of lying awake before dawn worrying? Or an outpatient medical facility in Germany?
Emily Moyers: Wow. The u-h-t is immediately reading Old English to me, but I don’t know if the other ones are also very old.
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah, I’ve heard this word before.
Gabe Henry: Hang on, can we steal?
Mignon Fogarty: Not yet.
Kyle Imperatore: You can answer, but we get the point. I’ve heard this word before. I don’t think it’s two or four. I feel like I’m between one or three for this.
Ben Zimmer: Yeah, me too. And I feel like maybe is the -ceare related to care? I don’t know, just trying to think of like…
Emily Moyers: Yeah, it could very well be, like worry. There’s some association in my brain between uht- and dawn, so…
Ben Zimmer: Oh, well, let’s go with that.
Emily Moyers: I don’t know if it’s real, but it’s happening up here.
Ben Zimmer: The dawn worry. Yeah, let’s go with three, yeah.
Kyle Imperatore: Let’s do it.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes! You’re right! It’s the dawn worry! And I think the uht is dawn, so this one was extra hard because it was Old English, a word that didn’t survive into Modern English. It’s one of those wonderful Old English compounds that means dawn care or dawn sorrow.
Ben Zimmer: Love it.
Mignon Fogarty: And that ends Round 1. Amazing job, everyone. Supersnollygostrous! And then I think Holly’s going to jump in and give us a score.
Holly Hutchings: So, Team 1 is at three points; Team 2 has two points so far.
Jess Zafarris: So close.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, and now it’s time to meet Team 1 a little more. Ben Zimmer, let’s start with you. So what does it mean to be a puzzle maker for Slate?
Ben Zimmer: Well, you know, Slate, like many outlets, is doing a daily crossword puzzle. I’m part of the roster there, so you’ll see crosswords from me every couple of weeks. So that’s just something that I’ve been increasingly involved in lately, in addition to the various other hats that I wear, like vocabulary judge for the Scripps National Spelling Bee and chair of the New Words Committee for the American Dialect Society, so I’m keeping busy.
Mignon Fogarty: That’s wonderful. Where do you want people to find you if they’d want to like follow you online?
Ben Zimmer: Well, check out the crosswords at Slate, and you know, if you go to, you know, my author page at slate.com/benzimmer, then you will find my latest crosswords there.
Mignon Fogarty: Great. Can people still access your old crosswords?
Ben Zimmer: Yeah, there’s a full archive since we started this a couple of years ago, yeah.
Mignon Fogarty: Oh, that’s great. Okay, and Emily Moyers and Kyle Imperatore, am I saying that right?
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah, Imperatore.
Mignon Fogarty: Awesome. You are the hosts of the “Butter No Parsnips” podcast, and tell us what the podcast is about, but also, please, tell us what the name means, because I was definitely scratching my head the first time I heard the name of your show.
Kyle Imperatore: “Butter No Parsnips” comes from an old phrase that was more fully, “fine words butter no parsnips,” and it basically meant that like flattery isn’t going to get you anywhere. And we kind of flipped it and made the “fine words” in parentheses, and we are just buttering no parsnips.
Mignon Fogarty: I see. You’re not flattering anyone.
Kyle Imperatore: Not flattering, yeah.
Mignon Fogarty: Well, tell people about your show.
Emily Moyers: Yeah, so we have 202 episodes banked where we talk about a different word every podcast, and it’s a word that you might never have heard before. We talk about where it comes from, what it means, how it’s been used. We have a grand old time. And we are not currently making new episodes, but we stream on Twitch once a month, and we do word games, and we do T. Campbell’s Ubercross Abecedaria. We’re chipping away, bit by bit.
Mignon Fogarty: What is that?
Emily Moyers: That is the biggest crossword there’s ever been. It is 25 tiled crosswords that are each themed around a letter of the alphabet, I and J are together, and it’s just thousands and thousands and thousands of clues. We’ve put a dent in A.
Mignon Fogarty: Wow, that’s amazing. You have to check that out. And I love that you are both librarians. Do you want to talk a little bit about your day jobs?
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah, we’re actually both teen librarians, too, so we both work with teenagers. It’s just kind of happenstance. But it’s great because we get to have—we get to work with the public and have conversations with the teens about language and about words, and so it feels like we’re having the same conversations with two groups of people, and we’re, you know, trying to make the world a better place one step at a time.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, so we’re going to head into the next category. This is called Rhyming Definitions. It is supposed to be a speed round, and each team will get five questions in a row. So I will read two short definitions, and you have to come up with the words which will rhyme. For example, if I say “extremely thirsty” and “stiff,” the answer is “parched, starched.” And if I say “to get together” and “to suds up,” the answer is “gather, lather.” And your score is based on how many you get right. So we’re going to start with Team 2, MC Grammar. And your first clue is: a light wind and a dairy product.
Jess Zafarris: Let’s see, waft… Let’s go with dairy product. Cheese… cheese and breeze! Cheese and breeze!
Gabe Henry: Cheese and breeze.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes! Good job, Jess.
Jess Zafarris: I almost said like milk instead.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, I’m sensing a theme here that I didn’t realize was here. So we have: a rich dairy product and something imagined while sleeping.
Gabe Henry: Cream and dream.
Jess Zafarris: Cream and dream, yeah.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes! Nice. Next is: a watercraft and outerwear.
Valerie Fridland: Coat, boat?
Gabe Henry: A coat, boat, yeah.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes! Very nice. Next one: something worn by a king or queen and soft feathers.
Jess Zafarris: Crown and down.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes. Okay, and for our final set, this one might be a little more difficult: to tie or fasten and part of a bird’s covering.
Gabe Henry: Tether and feather?
Mignon Fogarty: Yes! Good job! You crushed it!
Valerie Fridland: All right, team!
Jess Zafarris: Uh-huh.
Mignon Fogarty: Nice. Nice job. Okay, Cruciverbal Crusaders, for you:
Emily Moyers: A hard act to follow.
Mignon Fogarty: We have: a path and a slow-moving mollusk.
Emily Moyers: Trail, snail.
Ben Zimmer: Trail and snail.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes. Okay: a fine spray of water and to turn or wind around.
Ben Zimmer: Mist and twist?
Mignon Fogarty: Yes! Okay: to break into small pieces and to trip while walking.
Emily Moyers: Oh, crumble, tumble? Stumble?
Kyle Imperatore: Stumble, stumble.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes, crumble, stumble. Yes. Okay, number four: to think deeply and to move without a fixed course.
Emily Moyers: Ponder, wander?
Ben Zimmer: Ponder, wander, there you go.
Kyle Imperatore: Good, Em.
Mignon Fogarty: Good job! Okay.
Emily Moyers: It’s my favorite activity: ponder-wander.
Mignon Fogarty: And for our final set, this one again might be a little more difficult, and it was contributed by one of our very own Grammarpaloozians, Larry…
Emily Moyers: Kyle’s going to do this one himself.
Mignon Fogarty: …Larry Rosenblum. So thank you so much, Larry, for this question. It is: reverse and trip.
Ben Zimmer: Well, reverse could be flip, but that doesn’t quite work. What else could it be?
Emily Moyers: Fall, yeah, fall…
Kyle Imperatore: Or it could be like vacation.
Emily Moyers: Back, oh…
Kyle Imperatore: Back track?
Emily Moyers: That makes sense. Wow.
Mignon Fogarty: Oh, Nat says you’re out of time. So that was flip and slip.
Kyle Imperatore: Slip.
Emily Moyers: Oh, yeah.
Mignon Fogarty: You were on the right track.
Kyle Imperatore: Wow. Devastating.
Mignon Fogarty: Devastating. Good job, though. Good job, everyone. Holly, can we get a score update?
Holly Hutchings: Definitely. So the score is tied, 7 to 7.
Ben Zimmer: Wow.
Mignon Fogarty: It’s so exciting. Okay.
Valerie Fridland: Neck and neck.
Mignon Fogarty: If you in the audience want to write questions for future games and support the show, you can become a patron at patreon.com/grammargirl. Valerie, before we move on, we have our first book break. It is “Why We Talk Funny” by Valerie Fridland, sociolinguist extraordinaire and my dear friend. She stayed in my house. Valerie, thanks so much for being here. Tell us about your book.
Valerie Fridland: Yes, and it was a very nice house and a lovely visit. Yes, well, yes, I am a sociolinguist, and my book is about all the funny ways we talk, which is really about our accents. So it’s about the history, the psychology, and the science behind the accents that we notice around us. And a little pro tip is we all have an accent, we just don’t realize it, because we are used to the way we sound, and it’s really when we notice other people’s accents. So I talk about sort of the ancient accents, baby accents, and then modern accents, and where they’re going.
Mignon Fogarty: And tell them about the audiobook, because I think that’s especially cool.
Valerie Fridland: Oh, that was a lot of fun to make. I’d only read a couple chapters in it. They allowed me, the press allowed me to audition people with different accents that I felt best represented sort of the ideas I was getting across in those chapters or the accents represented. So every chapter is read by an accent that’s embodied in that chapter, so it’s a really fun listen.
Mignon Fogarty: So great. And what are you teaching this term?
Valerie Fridland: I’m teaching sociolinguistics, so it’s a really fun class. All the things I talk about in my two books, really.
Mignon Fogarty: Nice. Okay, well, thank you. Our next category, this is Category 3: contestants are playing against the audience. So get your fingers ready to start typing in that comment box. I’m going to give you a starter word that has a lot of letters, it’s a long word, and then you write down as many new words as you can make from the letters in that word. But the catch is that only the words that count are the words nobody else got.
Gabe Henry: So all six of us are going to be working on this together?
Mignon Fogarty: Yes. Everyone’s going to be writing down all the words they can think of, and then we’re going to compare them all, and you get a point for everyone that everyone else doesn’t have.
Gabe Henry: And is there a minimum number of letters?
Mignon Fogarty: Let’s say three.
Jess Zafarris: We are all trying to beat the audience collectively while they try to beat us, all of them.
Mignon Fogarty: Right, yeah.
Valerie Fridland: So we should just yell out words?
Jess Zafarris: No, no, write them down.
Mignon Fogarty: Write them down, and then at the end, we’re going to compare, just like you do in Boggle.
Valerie Fridland: Oh, okay.
Kyle Imperatore: Okay.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, and because we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of the podcast, our starter word this time is celebration. And you have 60 seconds to come up with your words. So, go!
Grammarpaloozians is what I call the people who directly support the show, and the best way to do that is through Patreon. Not only do you get the great feeling of making shows like this possible, if you sign up for the $5 level or higher, you also get a weekly mini crossword puzzle, an ad-free version of all the podcasts, a bonus podcast every time I have a guest, and a short little language tip every Monday and Friday. I keep them short. I like to get things that are short; I don’t like to get things that are long. You know, I founded the Quick and Dirty Tips network, so they’re short tips on Monday and Friday.
Okay, stop typing! Pens down! And nobody cheat! And I think Rebekah is going to come on to help us compare. Stop typing! I see you typing. And each team is playing against the audience, you’re not playing against each other. So Cruciverbal Crusaders, like read off the words that you have, and Rebekah will say the audience has it or the audience doesn’t.
Ben Zimmer: I got a long list here. Okay.
Emily Moyers: Great, because I don’t.
Ben Zimmer: Should I just—I’ll just list my—okay, my list starts: “brat” is my first one, “rat” is my second one. Then I had “carb,” and I had “carbon,” and “bat.” Okay, I also have “celeb,” just the first five letters. A bunch of short ones here: “bin,” and “tin,” and “ran.” I have “barn” and “bran,” “ion,” and I also have “cation,” which is a kind of an ion, I think, c-a-t-i-o-n. I have “carton.” I have “ace,” “race,” and “brace.” I have “bee” and “beer,” “clear.” I have “rant,” and “cart,” and “create.”
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, Kyle, do you have any left?
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah, I actually do. I have “bra” and “belt,” two clothing ones. And then I have “real” and “iron,” and then I have “brain” and “ant.”
Mignon Fogarty: Emily, do you have any more?
Emily Moyers: I do. I have “ration.” I have “cel,” like a film cel with one L. I have “eel,” like the fish. And I wasn’t sure if you would take “Noel,” because sometimes that gets counted as a word.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, I would take that. Okay, is that all?
Emily Moyers: That’s all I got.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, so what is the score for Team 1?
Rebekah Sebastian: So they have 27, and we still have words on our list, and now we have to hear from Team 2, yeah?
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, yeah. So Team 2, MC Grammar, and you’re only playing against the audience, not the other team.
Jess Zafarris: Okay, so if I had some of the same ones as Ben or Emily, then they still count.
Mignon Fogarty: Right, because it wouldn’t be fair, because we counted theirs first.
Jess Zafarris: Okay, all right, cool.
Gabe Henry: Okay. I could start, if you want.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, go for it, Gabe.
Gabe Henry: Real, I had with two E’s; trail; rail; nail…
Jess Zafarris: What was the spelling? R-a-i-l?
Gabe Henry: For rail and nail, a-i-l. Bale, b-a-l-e; tale, t-a-l-e. Then I had a bunch of three: not, rot, lot, note, rote.
Mignon Fogarty: So how many, to make it easier for Rebekah, how many do you have?
Gabe Henry: 10.
Mignon Fogarty: 10. Okay. So Valerie?
Valerie Fridland: So, tar, and then I had bar. I can’t remember if we said that one before. I had ration. I also had ratio. I had eon, not ion, but eon, e-o-n; tier, or tare, however you’d like to pronounce it, I don’t know if someone said that; Lear, like a Learjet, I don’t know if that counts; and there’s also ton, I’m not sure if anybody said ton, and tin.
Rebekah Sebastian: Tin was said. Ton we don’t have. And we have leer, l-e-e-r.
Valerie Fridland: I had l-e-a-r, like the Learjet, but I didn’t know if that’s sort of like a proper name, I wasn’t sure if that counted.
Mignon Fogarty: I’ll take it.
Valerie Fridland: And then I think that’s all I had that hadn’t been said before.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, so how many do you have that were points?
Valerie Fridland: I think I had six that were new.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, so 16 so far for your team. Jess, what do you have?
Jess Zafarris: I had t-i-e-r; I had rate, r-a-t-e; I had beer, b-e-e-r, b-e-e-e-r; I had berate, b-e-r-a-t-e…
Mignon Fogarty: Ooh, good one.
Jess Zafarris: …crab; rabe, r-a-b-e as in broccoli rabe, or raab, however you say it; and then tone, t-o-n-e. And that, I think, is it as far as the ones that nobody on my team has said yet and nobody had for the team. You said, did the audience have tone or r-a-b-e?
Rebekah Sebastian: Nope.
Jess Zafarris: Okay, cool. So that’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, so that’s 23 for Team MC Grammar.
Rebekah Sebastian: Do you want me to read what we had left, because we do have some?
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, yeah, what did the audience get that nobody got? That’s great.
Rebekah Sebastian: Relate…
Emily Moyers: Oh, good one.
Rebekah Sebastian: …elate, notable, tree…
Mignon Fogarty: Ooh.
Rebekah Sebastian: …action, b-a-r-i-t-e? What do we think that is, barite? Or is it my handwriting? I don’t know. Old English, a lot of you seem to know other languages, how about Hebrew? Act, ear, e-a-r, did nobody say that?
Valerie Fridland: Embarrassingly, no.
Rebekah Sebastian: Someone says it’s good in Scrabble, and I think they’re…
Ben Zimmer: I think it’s a mineral of some sort, barite, yeah.
Rebekah Sebastian: Okay. Tribe, caliber, and then I think I wrote l-e-e-v-e or, no, there’s no V, b-e-r-e? Oh, maybe that was me writing beer fast.
Valerie Fridland: Or hoping, wrong, wrong, yeah, wrong beer, bear. They’re a lot smarter than we are. I feel like they definitely win.
Rebekah Sebastian: Yes.
Ben Zimmer: Give them all prizes.
Valerie Fridland: They did all the multisyllabic words, we’re like, “bra,” “ton,” “tin,” “ear”—well, we didn’t even get “ear.”
Rebekah Sebastian: I have nine for the viewers, and we can round it to an even 10, I think, and feel good about it, because I’m sure I missed one.
Jess Zafarris: They win on letter value, for sure.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, so we’ll say since they had a couple, that’d be 21 for Team MC Grammar. Can we get a score update?
Holly Hutchings: So, Cruciverbal Crusaders is at 34 points, and then if we add 21, then we have 30. So we’re at 34 to 30. Cruciverbal Crusaders are up by four.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, it’s time to talk about Jess and her book, “A Miscellany of Weird and Wonderful Facts” by Jess and her co-author, Shannon Miller. I love that you’re so collaborative, Jess, that’s one of the things I love about you. Tell us about your book.
Jess Zafarris: I totally forgot that we were talking about this book. I have another book that came out this year, but yes, no, no, I was like, oh, I’ll bring my word book. So this is “Useless Etymology,” please enjoy it, but I also have this co-authored book that’s full of weird and wonderful facts. And you’ll notice that there is a language and linguistics chapter, and that is where—that was my particular claim to fame in that book. So it’s full of etymology facts, and I hope you enjoy it. It’s very digestible. We have info on like food science, history, unsung heroes, weirdness, nature, etc., and it’s a good bit of fun. But yeah, I also write books about word origins and books that are only partially about word origins.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, you have another one coming out that we’ll talk about at the end of this season, so not only are you collaborative, but you’re incredibly prolific right now. And so also tell us about your show that you do with Rob Watts.
Jess Zafarris: Yes. Okay, so I am the co-host of the etymology podcast “Words Unravelled” with YouTuber Rob Words. It’s a lot of fun. We team up every week to tackle a particular topic and all of the words, well, some of the words associated with it. And it’s a blast. It’s funny and silly and deeply un-serious, so please join us. It’s full of such fun.
Mignon Fogarty: It is. It’s a lot of fun. Okay, so we’re going to end the show with the funniest category I could think of, which is Foreign Idioms. So most of us probably know that “not my circus, not my monkey” means not my problem, but did you know that when someone in Sweden says someone “slid in on a shrimp sandwich,” it means they succeeded or got somewhere without having to work very hard for it? So I’m going to read you some fun idioms like that, and you get to guess the meaning. And if you get close enough, you’ll get a point. So each team will take turns guessing the meanings of three idioms from one language, and if you get it wrong, the other team gets a chance to steal. And we have four rounds, and you get 30 seconds to deliberate. Are you ready? We’ll let Team MC Grammar go first. Are you ready, Team MC Grammar?
Jess Zafarris: Let’s do it.
Valerie Fridland: All ready, as ready as we’ll ever be.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, these first three are from Swedish. So the first one is: What does it mean to promise gold and green forests?
Valerie Fridland: All right, team.
Jess Zafarris: It’s got to be to like…
Gabe Henry: To overpromise in an unrealistic way, maybe?
Valerie Fridland: I was sort of thinking that, like to go overboard. But I mean, on the other hand, forests are often green, so that doesn’t seem like an overpromise, except maybe in the fall when they’re golden. Could it be to—I don’t know, I’m going down a rabbit hole here.
Gabe Henry: No, you’re right.
Jess Zafarris: I like Gabe’s interpretation, but I agree with you, like a lot of forests are green. Or is the forest gold and green? Are we promising change, or something like that?
Valerie Fridland: Oh, gold and green forests. Like you’re promising that everything’s going to go well, like good luck, to—or no, no. Okay.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, pick one. What’s your final answer?
Jess Zafarris: I’m going to go with Gabe’s.
Gabe Henry: Should we go with that first initial one?
Jess Zafarris: I think overpromise, yeah.
Gabe Henry: To overpromise in an unrealistic way.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes, that’s the answer! Good job!
Valerie Fridland: Look, we were just trying to mislead you, Team 2.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, second one in Swedish: What does it mean to have the beard in the mailbox?
Gabe Henry: It means your Halloween costume is on its way.
Jess Zafarris: Oh, man. Oh, I don’t know. Have you gotten yourself into a silly, unavoidable situation, like you got your beard caught in a mailbox?
Valerie Fridland: Oh my goodness, the beard in the mailbox.
Gabe Henry: Oh, like you got your—or your wife who’s covering for you became the mailman.
Valerie Fridland: Or could it be you get your extra stuff, like extraneous mailers?
Gabe Henry: Beard in the mailbox. I like Jess’s…
Valerie Fridland: …awkward situation or something.
Jess Zafarris: …like you get stuck in an unavoidable situation, or something like that.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes, that’s it! Amazing job!
Jess Zafarris: Oh, good!
Valerie Fridland: You think we’re so bad, we’re good, people! I like it!
Jess Zafarris: Staggering into the truth, getting our beards caught in mailboxes and all.
Valerie Fridland: Hey, if it works, it works.
Mignon Fogarty: Your last one is: There’s no cow on the ice as long as its rear end is on the shore.
Valerie Fridland: It’s not a problem, like it’s not really a problem unless the whole cow is on the ice.
Jess Zafarris: Yeah. It’s not something to worry about.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes, that’s right. Good job. Okay, Team…
Valerie Fridland: All right, MC Hammer!
Mignon Fogarty: Woo-hoo! Cruciverbal Crusaders…
Emily Moyers: You guys know Swedish, this isn’t fair.
Jess Zafarris: I hadn’t heard any of those, and I just did an episode on foreign idioms.
Mignon Fogarty: Cruciverbal Crusaders, these are from Italian. Okay, what does it mean when they say you can’t keep a chickpea in your mouth?
Emily Moyers: Oh, it’s got to be like can’t keep a secret, right?
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah, it’s got to be that, right?
Ben Zimmer: Yeah.
Jess Zafarris: Loose lips, you know.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes! Good job.
Ben Zimmer: Very good.
Mignon Fogarty: What does it mean when something is “every death of a pope”?
Kyle Imperatore: Every death of a pope, what could that mean?
Ben Zimmer: Like a big deal?
Kyle Imperatore: When something is every death of a pope?
Ben Zimmer: Well, I want to say it’s more like—I mean, it’s supposed to be a rare thing, right? Popes don’t die every day.
Kyle Imperatore: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Something that happens—so it’s like “in a blue moon.”
Emily Moyers: Like it’s not every death of a pope that… yeah.
Kyle Imperatore: In a blue moon. At least that was it.
Mignon Fogarty: That’s right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Valerie Fridland: I feel like that was their real definition clue right there.
Gabe Henry: It evened out.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, and this one was submitted by Grammarpaloozian Starshine Rochelle. Thank you, Starshine. It is from Italian, and it’s: to have your hands in all the dough.
Emily Moyers: Hmm. Oh, I mean, I’m tempted to say like to have your hand in a lot of pots, like…
Kyle Imperatore: Yeah, to be like in—maybe like inserting yourself into all the situations, or to just be involved in the kitchen, yeah.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes. It’s to be well-connected or involved in everything. Yeah. Okay, back to MC Grammar. These three are from German. So what does it mean if a German person says, “That’s sausage to me”?
Gabe Henry: They mean that’s easy to me or that’s familiar to me?
Jess Zafarris: Oh, I know I’ve heard this before. Maybe, yeah, I could see that.
Valerie Fridland: Or it’s leftovers?
Jess Zafarris: Maybe since it’s like a mix, it’s like that’s—it’s Greek to me or something, but that would be the opposite of what you said. “Familiar” sounds good.
Gabe Henry: “Familiar,” but you’re right, there are…
Mignon Fogarty: No. Sorry, no, you’re not even on the right path. So it means “I don’t care.”
Jess Zafarris: Oh, it’s just like leftovers, I don’t care about anything. Yeah, I was going to say it’s because it’s the wurst, the first.
Gabe Henry: I thought they famously liked sausage. I didn’t know that they didn’t care.
Emily Moyers: Well, maybe because it’s like made of the leftover bits, right?
Jess Zafarris: It’s like leftover meat.
Valerie Fridland: It’s like the parts you don’t want to see, you don’t want to know what you’re eating, I think, right?
Gabe Henry: “I don’t care, it’s all sausage to me.” Okay.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah. Okay, what does it mean to be washed with all the waters?
Gabe Henry: It means like you have your hand in a lot of doughs.
Jess Zafarris: I was going to say drunk, but I’m not sure.
Gabe Henry: I like Valerie’s: clean.
Jess Zafarris: What was it?
Gabe Henry: Washed with all the waters, as in pristine…
Jess Zafarris: Yeah, that sounds good.
Valerie Fridland: I don’t know, yeah, I’m not sure. I feel like there’s something more, like you could just be washed with water if you were clean, right? While “all the waters” suggests something different. It suggests maybe that you’re in all the—like there’s all the different ideas, that you’re buying all the different ideas. I don’t know, I feel like it’s something along those lines.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, pick an answer.
Jess Zafarris: Valerie.
Valerie Fridland: That you are open to all sorts of ideas, I don’t know. That’s a bad guess.
Mignon Fogarty: No, it means to be highly experienced and know all the tricks.
Valerie Fridland: Well, I was kind of on the right track. Like half-credit there.
Mignon Fogarty: Some of you were getting there. Yeah.
Gabe Henry: This round is hard.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, it is.
Jess Zafarris: I don’t know German idioms.
Mignon Fogarty: The last German one is: What does it mean if someone says, “I understand only train station”?
Jess Zafarris: Oh, that’s—that’s “it’s Greek to me.” That’s like all I can hear is noise, basically.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah.
Jess Zafarris: Like I don’t understand anything.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes! All right for Jess! Way to go on that.
Ben Zimmer: Jess, was that on your podcast? Did you do that one?
Jess Zafarris: No, I don’t think so. Someone may have recommended it to the podcast, though, so maybe I absorbed it.
Valerie Fridland: Ben, we messed up enough that I think you’re safe.
Jess Zafarris: I’ll redeem it even if it was a freebie.
Mignon Fogarty: Back to the Cruciverbal Crusaders. These last three are French. Okay, so what does it mean to make arrows from every kind of wood?
Emily Moyers: Oh. See, now that sounds like it could be what Valerie was talking about, like informed by a lot of things.
Ben Zimmer: Yeah.
Kyle Imperatore: Or someone who’s versatile, they can make arrows from every kind of wood, you know? Or like make something out of nothing, make lemonade out of lemons.
Ben Zimmer: I like that. Let’s go with that.
Emily Moyers: Yeah.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, I mean, that’s close enough. It’s to use every available means to achieve something. Yeah.
Kyle Imperatore: Nice.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, the next one is: to swim between two waters.
Emily Moyers: Feel like I’ve heard this.
Ben Zimmer: Is that like sit between two stools, or something?
Emily Moyers: Oh, to be like on the fence?
Kyle Imperatore: Fence-sitting.
Ben Zimmer: Sure.
Mignon Fogarty: Yes, that’s it! Yeah.
Ben Zimmer: Okay, nice.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, and the very last one for our game show, the last question: What does it mean to give your tongue to the cat?
Emily Moyers: Oh.
Ben Zimmer: I don’t know. Could be like being tongue-tied, I suppose.
Emily Moyers: Yeah, I mean, if a cat’s got your tongue, right? So if you’re choosing to stay silent, you’re giving it to the cat?
Ben Zimmer: Sure. Choosing to stay silent? Okay. I like that.
Mignon Fogarty: Yeah, you’re close, but I think to give up trying to guess.
Emily Moyers: Ah.
Kyle Imperatore: Oh.
Mignon Fogarty: I don’t think it’s quite it. Yeah, it means to give up.
Emily Moyers: We’re in the neighborhood. We sort of gave our tongue to the cat at the end of the day.
Kyle Imperatore: I think so, yeah. We did, we did. We were just giving you an example, is all.
Mignon Fogarty: Okay, while Holly is calculating the final score and determining our winner, we have another book giveaway, this time “Enough Is Enough” from Gabe Henry, his wonderful book about simplified spelling. Gabe, tell us more about your book.
Gabe Henry: Well, my book, it’s a history of something called the Simplified Spelling Movement, which was this effort over hundreds of years to shorten and simplify how we spell words in English, like spelling “laugh” l-a-f, or “love” l-u-v, or “though” t-h-o, and it was pushed by all these people like Benjamin Franklin, and Noah Webster, and Mark Twain, and even Charles Darwin, all in this attempt to make spelling more logical.
Mignon Fogarty: And what are these word games you run in real life? What is that?
Gabe Henry: Man, so I host these semi-regular adult spelling bees in New York and in upstate in Beacon, and at the great Planet Word Museum in Washington, D.C. And I know that our wonderful producer, Rebekah Sebastian, has attended and even competed in a couple of them, and I think she was quite good.
Mignon Fogarty: Awesome. Well, thank you. Gabe, where do you want people to find you online?
Gabe Henry: Gabehenry.com or on Instagram at @gabe.henry.
Mignon Fogarty: Great. Thank you. Holly, who is our winning team? Who won?
Holly Hutchings: Oh, my gosh, I’m so excited. Well, we’re going to give the MC Grammar Team 2 that half a point that they requested if it’s fair, and so they’re at 34 and a half, and our Cruciverbal Crusaders are at 39, so Team 1 wins the day!
Valerie Fridland: We got the pity point, team! We got the pity point!
Emily Moyers: Very nice.
Gabe Henry: Now, just to clarify, this is a best-of-seven series?
Mignon Fogarty: For sure. Grammar glory! Thank you so much, all of you, for being here. Thanks so much to everyone. You can hardly imagine how hard the team worked to make this possible: Holly Hutchings; Steven Schapansky, he’s the only one of us who’s ever done a game show before; Nat Hoopes has been running the music and sound effects; especially Rebekah Sebastian, who not only had the hardest job today, but she handled the marketing, she made all the slides, she essentially coordinated the whole thing. So thank you so much, Rebekah. And thanks to all of you who are here, all the guests. I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. If you aren’t already, please like or follow or join wherever you listen to podcasts, you know I have to say that. And if you want to be a Grammarpaloozian and support the show and write questions in the future, you can join at patreon.com/grammargirl, but I appreciate you all so much. This has been just the best way to celebrate the 20th anniversary. Thank you to absolutely everyone who made it possible, and that’s all. Thanks for listening.