You Talk Like a Sausage (Rebroadcast) - 5 January 2026

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A Way with Words

Language Learning, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do you refer to your dog or cat as “somebody”? As in: When you love somebody that much, you don’t mind if they slobber. In other words, is your pet a somebody or a something? Also, for centuries, there was little consistency in the way many English words were spelled. But long before the printing press helped to standardize spelling, powerful historical forces were already shaping how those words looked on the page. Plus, Irish words that are as handy as they are fun to say: bockety, which describes something wobbly, and segotia, a fond term for “friend.” And ship vs. yacht, rope vs. line, The New Yorker vs. the The New Yorker, evening vs. afternoon, how to pronounce hammock, a wild and woolly animal quiz, “talking cheese” in German, and an Iranian-American playwright on the challenges of learning another language. 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	This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe.
0:03.6	As the evenings get darker and colder, this...
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0:24.6	uk slash pod for an exclusive discount. You're listening to Away with Words, the show about language
0:33.0	and how we use it. I'm Grant Barrett. And I'm Martha Barnett. The editors of the Oxford
0:37.3	English Dictionary just added some more words from Irish English and some of them How we use it. I'm Grant Barrett. And I'm Martha Barnett. The editors of the Oxford English
0:37.6	Dictionary just added some more words from Irish English, and some of them should be in your
0:43.0	vocabulary, too, if you don't know them already. One of my favorites is Segotia, S-E-G-O-T-I-A,
0:50.6	Segotia. And Grant, do you know what that word means? I do. I included an entry for that in one of my books, the official dictionary of unofficial English. Yeah. I didn't, of course, take it back as far as it's full history, but yeah, it just means a friend. It's a term of endearment. Right, right. You're my old Segotia. We don't know the etymology for sure. Some people have guessed that it comes from French meaning my dear child or maybe Irish Shagotcha, which means here you are. But nobody knows for sure.
1:22.1	What else was in there? What other Irish words do they include?
1:24.9	Well, my other new favorite word is Kittag. That's C-I-O-T-O with an accent mark G. C-I-O-T-O-A-A-C-O-A-C-O-A-M-G. Kittug means somebody who's left-handed. And it used to be a little bit more negative, but now it's sort of, it's sort of ameliorated over the years.
1:47.3	I think it means more like lefty, you know, my wife's a kiddig, bless her.
1:50.8	Well, you know, in my dictionaries, I have a ton of reference works here, as you can imagine.
1:55.4	There have been a number of different collections of words for left-handed in Ireland. And one of my favorite ones is
2:01.5	Claverclawed. My goodness, clabberclod. That means left-handed?
2:06.4	Left-handed, yeah. Clapper-clod. I don't know that it's used anymore, but it was recorded.
2:14.2	Well, we'll talk about another Irish word or two later in the show.
2:17.5	We know we've got listeners all over the world.
2:19.7	We know people speak a wide variety of Englishes.
	...

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