Your Imaginary Boyfriend (Rebroadcast) - 11 August 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

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

We use the term Milky Way for that glowing arc across the sky. But how people picture it varies from culture to culture. In Sweden, that starry band goes by a name that means “Winter Street,” and in Hawaii, a term for the Milky Way translates as “fish jumping in shadows.” And: the history of naming rooms in a house. Some old houses have a room off the kitchen with only a sink and cabinets. It’s not a kitchen, exactly — but what’s it called? Plus, the colorful flag of one European town features a visual pun on its name. It’s a drawing of a hand holding a heart. All that, and head over teacups, humpty-twelve, lowdown, chockablock, overhaul, Desperate Ambrose, honyock, an imaginary boyfriend named Raoul, so mad I could spit nickels, and more. 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.
0:03.7	I'm Grant Barrett.
0:04.8	And I'm Martha Barnett.
0:06.4	Not that long ago, we were talking about indefinite hyperbolic numerals.
0:10.7	You remember that conversation, Grant?
0:12.6	Right.
0:13.0	Forty-11, zillions, jillions, and all those other approximate numbers.
0:17.6	Right, those indefinite approximate numbers.
0:20.7	Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was visiting
0:22.7	family in the mountains of North Carolina, and I heard another one that I really love and I'm going
0:28.9	to adopt, which is Humpty 12. Humpty 12. About a dozen, but maybe not a dozen, a little more, a little less.
0:39.3	A whole, yeah, yeah.
0:40.7	You know, I went on vacation and I came back and there were Humpty 12 pieces of junk mail.
0:45.9	Sounds like a cousin of Upteen.
0:48.0	Yes, I think it probably is, but it just, I don't know,
0:51.5	it's just something delicious to roll around on your tongue. And you know what?
0:56.1	I was also looking around a little bit more, and you may be familiar with this one. You can also use
1:01.4	the term telephone number or telephone numbers. Apparently since the 1940s, if you were talking
1:07.1	telephone numbers, you were talking about a really big number. So people would talk
1:11.9	about that in terms of a large sum of money. You know, that house costs telephone numbers or,
1:17.1	or it could be applied to your time in prison. You know, he's doing telephone numbers. I can imagine a
1:23.6	time in the history of the world where most people didn't encounter a big number until they got a telephone number or saw one.
	...

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