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

I'm Grant Barrett. And I'm Martha Barnett. And Grant, I have a riddle for you. Oh, please, yes. You throw away the outside and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside. What is it? A pumpkin. Potatoes. Because you feel potato. No, because you eat it all.

You're warm.

You're warm. It's a starch. You throw away the outside and cook the inside. Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside. Tapioca, cassava. I don't know. Tapioca. I'm thinking of starches. I don't know. Another name for tapioca is cats' eyes. Did you know that? Because you open the bag and then you eat the orange off your fingers and you throw out the starchy stuff in the middle. No, no, no, no. It's corn on the cob. Oh, I love corn on the outside. Okay, good. Eat the inside. Okay. That's a good one. Eat the outside. I'll take that home to see what my son says. Okay. What else you have for me there? How about this one? You go in one hole and come out three holes.

When you're outside, you're inside, and when you're inside, you're outside.

What is it?

Um, is it a aviary?

Is it a birdhouse?

Is it a hospital? Because you go and you have a baby and you come out with twins. Three whole people come out. I am loving your answer. Is it H-O-L-E or W-H-O-L-E? It's H-O-L-E. Oh, I don't know. Go in one hole and come out three. It's a sweater. Oh, oh, it's true. When you're outside, you're inside, when you're inside, you're outside, it's a sweater. A sweater. But I really like your answer. I'm struggling here. I'm trying, you know. I'm enjoying hearing your brain work. Sure, right, yes. And we'd enjoy hearing from you. Call us to talk about language, 87929-9673, or send us an email.

The address is words at waywardradio.org.

Hello, you have a way with words.

Hi, this is Dan, and I'm calling from Los Angeles.

Hi, Dan. Welcome. What's on your mind?

Thank you so much. So the other day, I was in the car with my friend Corey, and a little backstory. Corey is from Salt Lake City, Utah, and I'm from a really small town in upstate New York. And Corey was giving me directions, and we came to a stoplight, and he said, okay, he's like at the light, go ahead and hang a Roscoe. And I said, a what?

He said, hang a Roscoe.

And I was like, no, you mean hang a Ralph? I don't know who Rosco is. And he's like, well, I don't know who Ralph is. We agree on Louie. When you take a left, it's hang a Louie. We're universal on that, I guess. but we are wondering who are Ralph and Roscoe and why the difference.

Do you ever bang a Roscoe or bang a Ralph? No, you bang a Ui. You bang a Ui. You bang a Ui. You know, but never bang a Louie or a Ralph. What do you do, Martha? Do you hang a right? I just boring. I hang a right.

You turn right. You don't even hang a right. I let the Google lady tell me now. Dan, do you ever bust a Ui? No, I've never busted Ui. You never bust a Ui? No. Okay. There are so many of these. There's so many of these. and it's funny how many of them have to do with names.

I think there's, I only know Louis for left. And as far as I've ever seen in the slang dictionary, that's the only one that I know. And inevitably will get a call or an email from somebody saying, we in our town, we use something else. Hangily on. Hangily on. I don't know.

I did a quick Google search, and the only thing, I couldn't really find anything on the history,

but people also say hang a Reggie, and I just think that's too far. I can't. Well, some people do hang a Rachel and Roger or Rochester?

There's a few of these, yeah? Do you have a whip a yui, chuck a yui? There's a ton of these. No. But, you know, we do have an example in the slang dictionaries. I say the slang dictionaries because they all basically have the same citation. So in the New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English and then the historical dictionary of American slang and a couple other places.

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