&lt;p&gt;SUMMARY&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let&#039;s put the moose on the table: You have questions, and Grant and Martha have answers. For example, why would someone have an albatross around his neck? And what&#039;s so cool about bees&#039; knees, anyway? Plus, jockey boxes, bailiwicks, and cute names for loved ones, from snookums to bubula. If a bartender ever serves you a mat shot, don&#039;t try to beast it. You&#039;ll regret it in the morning. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;FULL DETAILS&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What pet names do you have for your loved ones? In The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten shares the name his Mother used to call him--Bubala, a term of endearment grandmothers might use in addressing children. We have all kinds of substitutes for the names of those we care about: sweetie, honey buns, snookums, etc. Martha opts for the Portuguese fofinha, meaning &quot;fat, cuddly baby.&quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/yiddishjoy&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What&#039;s so cool about bees&#039; knees, anyway? The bee&#039;s knees, a phrase meaning &quot;cool&quot; or &quot;great,&quot; dates back to the flapper era of the 1920s. It relates to an old definition of the word &quot;cute,&quot; referring to something &quot;small and nicely formed.&quot; The knees of a bee are just that, after all. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/bees-knees&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A bartender wonders about the origin of the term jockey box. In his world, a jockey box is a &quot;metal container for ice.&quot; However, in some parts of the western U.S., jockey box means &quot;the glove compartment of a car,&quot; and much earlier, the term referred to boxes attached to the side of chuck wagon for holding feed or water. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The caller also shares another bit of bartending slang, the so-called mat shot or Matt Dillon. It&#039;s a glass of whatever liquor collects on the rubber mat behind the bar, which some enterprising patrons order as a prank or a test of a strong stomach.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The hosts discuss an email from a listener in Romania. His problem is that he learned English in the Southern U.S., but after going back home to where a British English is taught, people are having a hard time understanding his accent. Where we learn a language plays a big role in how we speak it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Quiz Guy Greg Pliska has a game called Centricity, emphasis on the &quot;city.&quot; For example, &quot;Mickey ate all the fruit, leaving Minneapolis.&quot; And as George H.W. Bush said to George W. Bush, &quot;You can be president Tucson.&quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Has your boss ever used the expression Let&#039;s put the moose on the table? This management buzzphrase, meaning &quot;let&#039;s address the problem everyone&#039;s been avoiding,&quot; is relatively new, showing up in print around the early 1990s. The phrase pops up in books by former Eli Lilly CEO Randall Tobias and management guru Jim Clemmer. In Clemmer&#039;s book Moose on the Table, he tells a possible origin tale about a baby moose that crawled under a buffet table, only to be avoided by the patrons as it stank up the banquet hall. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/moosetable&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What does it mean to have an albatross around your neck? A political pundit, referring to a current candidate, mentioned &quot;an alcatraz around his neck.&quot; The proper version, with an albatross, originates from Samuel Taylor Coleridge&#039;s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, wherein a sailor shoots an albatross, bringing down a curse on the boat, and his shipmates force him to wear an albatross around his neck as a symbol of shame. Grant notes that the name albatross likely derives from the Portuguese or Spanish alcatraz, meaning &quot;pelican&quot; or &quot;sea bird.&quot; So perhaps an alcatraz around the neck isn&#039;t so far off after all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/albatrossneck&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/ancientrime&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If something&#039;s &quot;the bee&#039;s knees,&quot; you can bet that it&#039;s also beast. A sixth grade teacher wonders about the term beast being thrown around by her students. This synonym for &quot;cool&quot; or &quot;good&quot; is also used as a verb, as in I beasted that exam, or &quot;I did extremely well.&quot; The slang term &quot;beast&quot; is common slang in sports, as in, &quot;That player is a beast on the field.&quot; Former Cal running back Marshawn Lynch is notably famous for his signature playing style, beast mode.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/beasted&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A few weeks ago, a listener was looking for a term to describe the copy of The Emperor&#039;s New Clothes that he&#039;d read many times as a child. In this picture book, the naughty bits were always cleverly covered up. Thinking he wanted a synonym for &quot;fig leaf,&quot; Martha had offered the word antipudic, from the Latin pudor meaning &quot;shame.&quot; Many listeners responded, suggesting that the word he really wanted was bowdlerize, meaning &quot;to remove improper or offensive material.&quot; This eponym comes from Thomas Bowdler, whose sister ghost-edited The Family Shakespeare in 1818 containing censored versions of Shakespeare&#039;s plays.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/antipudic&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/bowdlerandsis&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you go to a department store, you&#039;ll see the Men&#039;s department, the Women&#039;s department, and the Children&#039;s department. So why do so many stores have a department that&#039;s called simply Baby? Grant attributes the non-possessive nomenclature of stores like Baby Gap to tradition in the retail industry.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A listener from San Diego, California, named Lois has been called Louise, Lori, Lauren, Louisa, and Rosa, to name a few. And of course, the Scott/Todd mix-up phenomenon continues. Do people ever mess up your name?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/scotttodd&lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;What does it mean to vet a political candidate? The word vet comes from veterinarian, specifically the ones who would examine a horse before a race to make sure it was healthy and eligible. Similarly, one might vet a candidate to make sure they&#039;re up to snuff. The novelist John le Carre popularized the term in his political stories.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/lecarre&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A listener from Wisconsin adds to the discussion on wind pudding and air sauce, explaining that where he&#039;s from, wind pudding is old loggerspeak for baked beans. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://wywd.us/windpudding&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How do you pronounce biopic? The proper way to mention the genre of biographical motion picture has always been &quot;BUY-oh-pick,&quot; as opposed to the mirror of myopic. It&#039;s not unusual to mispronounce a word if the spelling does not clearly indicate how to say it. For example, Grant notes a common error people make in pronouncing misled to rhyme with &quot;chiseled.&quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If something&#039;s not in your bailiwick, it&#039;s not in your jurisdiction or area of control. But what exactly is a &quot;bailiwick&quot;? Martha explains that the two words which make up the term--bailiff and wick-- have specific meanings in Middle English. A bailiff, in the time of kings, was &quot;a public minister of a district,&quot; and a wick was simply a &quot;town&quot; or &quot;village.&quot; For example, Gatwick literally referred to a &quot;goat village.&quot; And Greenwich literally meant &quot;green village&quot; or &quot;village on the green.&quot; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Is that funny hehe, or funny haha? The way we laugh indicates whether we&#039;re laughing at someone or if we&#039;re simply enjoying the humor they&#039;ve brought.&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;p&gt;--&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donate&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email: words@waywordradio.org&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Phone: &lt;br /&gt;United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673&lt;br /&gt;London +44 20 7193 2113&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;feedflare&quot;&gt;
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