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. A few weeks ago, we talked with Sean in New York City about the expression

bang out. That's when you call your boss to say you won't be coming into work, you bang out sick.

And that prompted a response from British historian Judith Flanders.

She told us that in the UK, the expression bang out is used for a traditional practice in the

newspaper industry. Retiring journalists are banged out on their last walk out of the newspaper

building. And she sent a video of a journalist being banged out. You see him on his last day of work,

and he's being walked through the massive newspaper building first through the printing rooms,

where the workers are banging metal furniture or machinery. As he passes, and then in the newsroom

itself, reporters bang their desks. This tradition apparently started in the press room in

the part of the publishing enterprise where the paper was actually printed. In the dictionary of

English folklore, it points out that not only did they make a lot of noise, but sometimes they

would cover the departing worker in printing ink and other sticky substances and maybe pour flour

and feathers on them and maybe tie them up in a public place. And they would take heavy metal

things and bang them on each other. And it says they would do it with such a force. It was as if a

dozen blacksmiths had gone suddenly crazy. And so all these workers in the press room with these

giant printing presses all around just making this huge noise. And those machines on their own

already make a giant noise. So I love this expression to bang out a worker in the UK. I

always love these traditions, these bits of hazing for incoming and outgoing workers.

So when they move from one part of their profession to another, an apprentice becomes a worker or

somebody who's elevated to a journeyman. But I also love the language that goes along with that.

And I know that we have people listening from around the world who have all these delightful

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