Hey, it's Martha with a quick word for our listeners in Vermont.

I'll be speaking at the Brooks Memorial Library on Wednesday, October 4th at 7 p.m.

I hope you'll bring your questions about language and your recommendations for the best

maple creamies and the best cider donuts in town.

That's Wednesday, October 4th at 7 p.m. at the Brooks Memorial Library.

The event is free, but you must register to attend.

Go to BrooksLibraryvt.org for details.

Hope to see you there.

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.

Listener Justin Masterson shared some slang from his favorite hobby with us,

and that includes terms like drain, gobble hole, and live catch.

And Grant, I know you know what this slang is from.

Right, I don't need a death say for that. That's pinball language.

It is indeed a drain can be both a noun, and that's the space between the flippers where you lose the ball.

And it can be a verb, and that's the act of losing a ball.

And a gobble hole is a hole that swallows up the ball, as you might imagine.

And a live catch, I love this one, that's when you hit the flipper so that it hits the ball at the exact right time to cancel the ball's momentum.

Right, and then it just balances on the flipper, and then you can have a moment to think about what you want to do with that ball,

where you want to send it, you know, or you're going to, if there's a special place to get more points or get a multi ball going.

There's a satisfaction, and that isn't there, just balancing it there and deciding where you're going to send it.

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