Pushing the Envelope (Rebroadcast) - 29 December 2025

A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over

A Way with Words

Language Learning, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sure, there’s winter, spring, summer, and fall. But the seasons in between have even more poetic names. In Alaska, greenup describes a sudden, dramatic burst of green after a long, dark winter. And there are many, many terms for a cold snap that follows the first taste of spring: blackberry winter, redbud winter, onion snow, and whippoorwill storm, to name a few. Plus, the family that plays trivia games at home may end up cheering for their teen in high-school competitions. Also, playful prayers at the dinner table: Amen, Brother Ben! Pass the butter, let’s begin! All that, plus retten up, push the envelope, with bells on, self-deprecating vs. self-depreciating, taffy pockets, pigeon pair, the end of pea time, a puzzle about pairs of words, and more. Here we go, laughing and scratching! Hear hundreds of free episodes and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org. Be a part of the show: call or text 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; elsewhere in the world, call or text +1 619 800 4443. Send voice notes or messages via WhatsApp 16198004443. Email [email protected]. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Away With Words, the show about language and how we use it.
0:03.9	I'm Grant Barrett.
0:05.0	And I'm Martha Barnett.
0:06.9	We've received lots of responses to our conversation about the phrase,
0:11.1	Off we go like a herd of turtles.
0:13.5	It's that expression that's most often used by parents when they're trying to round up the kids and get them out the door.
0:19.6	We heard from Joanna Jarvis, who lives in Santa Cruz, California,
0:23.8	who said that that saying really took her back because her father used that expression
0:29.1	when he was trying to get everybody into the car.
0:32.0	She writes, we were four kids, and I can't imagine it was easy corraling us.
0:37.1	But the other thing that he would always say during those moments was, here we go,
0:41.7	laughing and scratching.
0:45.6	What is they mean?
0:46.8	What do you picture, Grant?
0:48.8	I'm picturing like a troop of monkeys.
0:52.1	I am too.
0:53.0	Children are often compared to monkeys like scratching in uncouth places and, you know,
0:58.0	howling and chattering.
0:59.8	Yeah, I'm picturing the barrel just emptying.
1:02.8	You know, here we go, laughing and scratching.
1:05.9	But it turns out that her dad wasn't the only person who used this expression.
1:10.5	In a 1939 newspaper column by
	...

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