&lt;p&gt;SUMMARY&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Need a good Scrabble word? Grant shares some of his favorites, and invites listeners to challenge him on &quot;Words with Friends.&quot; Also, why do we call those classic screwball films madcap comedies? And what does it mean to walk in a crocodile? Plus, mondegreens, naval slang, learned versus learnt, and no way, Jose. And what do you call that flourish at the bottom of John Hancock&#039;s John Hancock?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;FULL DETAILS&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Need a Scrabble word with q or z? Grant shares some of his favorite legal Scrabble words: qi (the circulating life force in Chinese philosophy), qat (a leaf chewed in some cultures for stimulating effects), and za (a shortening of the word &quot;pizza&quot;). He&#039;s inviting listeners to challenge him on the game Words with Friends on the iPhone or Android: search the username grantbarrett. What good is a smartphone without smart friends?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Where do we get the phrase belly up? The expression has made its way to the bar, but the original belly up belonged to a dead fish. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A listener wonders why his girlfriend remarks &quot;hubba-hubba&quot; when he&#039;s dressing up for the night. The flirty call had its heyday in the 1940s, when World War II soldiers would see a pretty lady walking down the street. Although no one&#039;s sure of the origin of &quot;hubba hubba,&quot; new research suggests it might have evolved from a catchphrase used by the &quot;Ki Ki, the Haba Haba Man,&quot; an employee of P.T. Barnum.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There&#039;s nothing like some joe with cow and sand in the morning. That would be &quot;coffee with milk and sugar&quot; in World War II naval slang.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.jstor.org/pss/1495930&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game of rhyming headlines based on the 1937 Variety issue, &quot;Sticks Nix Hick Pix,&quot; claiming that rural folks avoid movies about rural folks. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://bit.ly/fgtLlM&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What is a madcap comedy? A fan of classics like Bringing up Baby wonders about the origin of the term. Martha explains that years ago, the word cap sometimes referred to one&#039;s &quot;head.&quot; So if someone&#039;s &quot;madcap,&quot; they&#039;re crazy in the head. And of course, what would Shakespeare&#039;s Henry IV be without the &quot;nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales&quot;?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Did you say &quot;shtreet&quot;? The str sound is becoming shtr in more and more mouths of English speakers. Grant explains that this pronunciation of &quot;street&quot; as &quot;shtreet&quot; is simply a feature of language--sort of the consonant version of a diphthong. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What do you call that embellishment at the bottom of old signatures, like the hash-marked line beneath John Hancock&#039;s name? It&#039;s called a paraph, originally used as a distinct mark to protect against forgery.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A listener was confused when she heard a radio announcer say a man had &quot;Amanda Lynn&quot; in his hands, only to find out that it was &quot;a mandolin.&quot; These funny misheard phrases are called mondegreens, a term coined in Sylvia Wright&#039;s 1954 Harper&#039;s article, &quot;The Death of Lady Mondegreen&quot;. It comes from a mishearing of the song &quot;The Bonny Earl of Moray&quot;: &quot;They have slain the Earl o&#039; Moray, and laid him on the green.&quot; Another example: &quot;Olive, the other reindeer&quot; for &quot;all of the other reindeer&quot; in the song about Rudolph.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://bit.ly/f0OLUE&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://huff.to/15mHyy&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are The Two Ronnies from the BBC television show in a sketch about the mishearing of &quot;fork handles&quot; as &quot;four candles.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://bit.ly/g9bWg&lt;br /&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;br /&gt;Grant reads from a listener&#039;s favorite poem by Lisel Mueller called &quot;Why We Tell Stories.&quot; It reads in part: &quot;We sat by the fire in our caves,/ and because we were poor, we made up a tale/ about a treasure mountain/ that would open only for us.&quot;&amp;nbsp; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://bit.ly/gtwrCt&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Martha shares an email from a longtime listener, Lois Teeslink of Vista, Calif., about a favorite childhood librarian.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What&#039;s the source of the phrase No way, Jose? And who in the world is Jose? Grant says the expression doesn&#039;t show up in print until 1973, contrary to the oft-repeated story that it appeared in The Village Voice during the 1960s. The phrase &quot;No way&quot; was often used then; the name Jose was likely tacked on just because it rhymes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The saying Act in haste, repent at leisure is typically a warning that means &quot;if you make a hasty decision, you&#039;ll have plenty of time to mull over your mistake later.&quot; It&#039;s likely a variation of an older version, &quot;Marry in haste, repent at leisure.&quot;&amp;nbsp; David Foster Wallace had a most apt use of the phrase in his novel Infinite Jest: &quot;The shopworn &#039;Act in Haste, Repent at Leisure&#039; would seem to have been custom-designed for the case of tattoos&quot;. Be it a tattoo or a marriage, it&#039;s wise to think about the consequences before you act. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Did you ever walk in a crocodile? In Britain, a crocodile can be &quot;a group of children walking two by two in a long file.&quot; The phrase came up in an interview with the stylist Vidal Sassoon, who, as a child in London walked in a crocodile to school with other Jewish students being heckled by Nazi sympathizers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://bit.ly/6n71BG&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://n.pr/eoRkT7&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Are we tested on what we&#039;ve learned, or what we&#039;ve learnt? Grant explains how efforts to replace the &quot;t&quot; verb ending with &quot;ed&quot; gradually took hold in the United States, but not in Britain. Affiliated nations, such as Australia, New Zealand, and India, also use the &quot;t&quot; form. Either way, they&#039;re both correct. Grant recommends some books on Indian English.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://bit.ly/fesVDe&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://bit.ly/ggom2v&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Imitation is the sincerest form of television,&quot; said the radio comedian Fred Allen. Listeners are invited to share their favorite modern proverbs like this one, as well as their favorite classics.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&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;br /&gt;Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donate&lt;br /&gt;Site: http://waywordradio.org/&lt;br /&gt;Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/&lt;br /&gt;Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/&lt;br /&gt;Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/&lt;br /&gt;Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/&lt;br /&gt;Skype: skype://waywordradio &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Copyright 2011, Wayword LLC.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;feedflare&quot;&gt;
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