You're listening to Away With Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I'm Grant Barrett.

And I'm Martha Barnett.

When you answer the phone, do you have a favorite word or phrase that's a little bit out of the ordinary?

Or maybe you know somebody who does that?

We asked readers of our email newsletter that question, and they had some surprising responses.

We heard from Matt on Nantucket Island,

Massachusetts, who told us that when he picks up the phone, he says, front desk. He says he does

that in an attempt to stop the caller's brain, if only for a nanosecond, and adds, it often works.

We heard from Anne Lynn in Ithaca, New York, who wrote that her grandfather, who was born

in the late 1800s and lived in Ontario, Canada, used to pick up the phone and say, commence.

Just commence.

Yeah. And then for Marlene Dryden, this question brought back memories of her great Aunt Yula McQuage of Salisbury, North Carolina.

She says, Miss Yula would hear her phone ring from a little alcove in the wall of her foyer,

and she'd slowly walk over there, pick it up calmly, and holler, all right, all right.

That's fantastic.

Isn't that great?

She says that beautiful, nearly tidewater accent and the smell of cornbread are the most vivid memories I have of her.

And, I mean, I wonder if that's a vestige of, you know,

when you had operators plugging in the cords. Right, right. When you did need to make sure that

the line was okay before you began your conversation. We would love to hear more about how you

answer the phone. What do you say? Is it funny? Is it old-fashioned? Is it something cool or weird?

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