linguistics

Words That Migrated

I showed a friend of mine a picture of me sitting at the edge of a thin ridge jutting out, about 300 feet above the Pecos River. He said, “I can’t look at that, it gives me the willies.”

Oh, yes, the willies, goosebumps and shiverings triggered by our phobias.  As an amateur linguist, I’m always wondering where certain expressions come from. How did the words end up as common words in English? The willies, for instance, has a fascinating derivation. Frontiersmen, you see, used to wear wool undergarments, but as they were made of wool, they often got itchy causing “the woolies,” which evolved into “the willies,” and was then used to name all circumstances of discomfort that make your flesh crawl.

I love words that have interesting origins like that. There are many words we use daily that we might believe are native to English or even Texas, but are foreign.  Here’s a few that fit the bill.

Honcho. Seems like a word of that would have come from the old West. “Who’s the head honcho around here?” It’s actually Japanese. It means, as you know, “boss” or “group leader.” It was brought back by U.S. soldiers who served in Japan after WWII.

Savvy is another word that migrated here. Again, it sounds like, and was, a word used in Western movies. “That boy’s got a lot of savvy about horses.” It comes from the Portuguese verb saber. Sabe – to know. Within a trade language it became sabi, with an ‘i” and in that pidgin language, traveled to the Caribbean where sabi became savvy.

Ever been stuck in the boonies? I hear that word often. A text comes in – “I’m stuck out here in the boonies – truck won’t start. Can you come get me?”  The boonies is derived from bundók, a Tagalog expression  U.S. soldiers brought back from the Philippine-American War in 1899.  It means: in the remote areas of the interior, in the mountains.  Similarly, there’s a common expression in Spanish I often hear in Texas:  “en el monte,” meaning remote areas that are unpopulated and perhaps backward.

Metroplex is both Greek and Latin. The metro is derived from the Greek Metropolis (mother city), which gives birth to smaller towns and cities. Plex is Latin to weave. And so it means that the mother cities of Fort Worth and Dallas have weaved an enormous network of interconnected cities and towns and suburbs.

A few more for you. Ketchup is, one would think, American as apple pie. But it is Chinese. Lemon is Arabic. Wanderlust is German. And we get a lot of good slang terms from Yiddish. Your IT specialist often explains the trouble you were having with your computer as “a glitch.” That’s Yiddish. So is schmooze. And so it klutz.

You might think that the word chocolate, a virtually vital condiment here in America, would have its roots in English, or in a European language, but no, it comes from the native American language found in Mexico, Nahuatl. It’s xocolatl in its original form. It migrated to Spanish as chocolate.  And we Anglicize it as chocolate.

Last, we come to words so common, especially in Texas, that we forget they’re Spanish.  Rodeo, patio, corral and desperado, which evolved from desesperado. Actually, if not for Spanish words that have become staples in English, we couldn’t eat our favorite meals:  avocado, guacamole, chili, chili pepper, and tomato. But sometimes we don’t bother to use a translation or even use the cognate pronunciation. We just say, “Otra cerveza por favor, amigo.”

Hungry? Let’s go to lunch.

Lila Gleitman

Lila Gleitman was an American professor of psychology and linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. who passed on August 8, 2021, at the age of  91. She was an internationally renowned expert on language acquisition and developmental psycholinguistics, focusing on children’s learning of their first language.

In this edition of  Two Guys on Your Head, Dr. Art Markman, and Dr. Bob Duke it’s Lila Gleitman; her work, her creativity, and her legacy.

Texas Standard: January 15, 2020

The Democratic presidential debate: the last before voting begins in this years contest. We’ll explore whether anything might have made a difference to voters in the Lone Star State. Also, wage violations: a new law likely to insulate some of America’s biggest franchises. And a unique way of talking among many Texans: has Spanglish become a language all its own? All those stores plus a Politifact check and more today on the Standard:

Texas Standard: July 4, 2019

There’s a long list of Democratic Presidential candidates. Two from Texas, but only one Texan is now among the top 5 candidates. We’ll have the story. Also, in this, the land of the free, how one man found true freedom even as he is behind bars. Plus how can camp create positive memories for children who are homeless? U.T. Dallas may have found a way, we’ll explore. And linguistics and Baseball. Excuse me, what? Don’t worry, we have a Texan Translation for you! And, scoot closer to the radio because we are about to talk scooters: the good, the bad and the ugly. That and more today on the Texas Standard:

Ranch Words In Urban Life

The other day I was trying to pull out on U.S. Route 281, and the traffic was so steady that I had to wait about three minutes for an opening. As I was waiting, my father’s voice came into my head and said, “Somebody left the gate open down there.”

Dad’s been gone 30 years now, but those sorts of metaphors still live in my head, as they do for a lot of us Texans. We may have mostly moved from farms and ranches to cities, but our language is still peppered with these expressions of pastoral life. As T. K. Whipple, the literary historian pointed out, we live in a world our forefathers created, “but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, what they lived, we dream.” You cannot have the influences of the frontier or country life disappear in just a generation or two. It hangs on in interesting ways, in our myths and in our language.

One place that we can witness it with some vibrancy is in the farm and ranch expressions or metaphors that survive in our digital age. Here are twelve I’ve rounded up for you.

“I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it.” It’s used to infer the poor likelihood that a given investment or prediction will come true. “Well, yes, Congress might decide to work together for the greater good, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it.”

“To mend fences.” It means to make peace. “You might want to mend fences with Jayden. You’re likely to need his friendship one day.”

“Dig in your heels.” When cowboys were branding calves and roped one, they had to pull hard against them and were told to dig in their heels. Now, the phrase is used for any act of taking a tough stance. “We’re diggin’ in our heels on this contract.” Similar to “sticking to our guns.”

“Take the bull by the horns” is a good one. Face your troubles head on. Yet a similar saying warns against careless assertiveness: “Mess with the bull and you get the horns.” That expression was made particularly popular in classic films like The Breakfast Club and Some Kind of Wonderful.

“Don’t have a cow!” Bart Simpson made it world-famous. Of course, he added “man” at the end. It is about anti-empathy. I can’t validate your over-reaction. The earliest known printed use of “don’t have a cow,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was found in the Denton Record-Chronicle in 1959. The phrase appeared in quoting someone who said, “He’d ‘have a cow’ if he knew I watched 77 Sunset Strip.” Proud it showed up first in Texas.

“Till the cows come home.” That means a long time, long time. It’s almost as bad as waiting for “pigs to fly.” “Until the cows come home,” perhaps originated in the Scottish highlands. They let cows out to wander lush pastures in the spring and it would be a long time before they would make their way home. It also refers to cows coming home to be milked in the early morning hours.

“Maverick” is well-known. It is used to brand someone as a non-conformist. It is named after Samuel Maverick, a Texan who allegedly didn’t brand his cattle. That isn’t the entire truth, but that is what many have come to believe, and so that version of the story has stuck.

“All hat and no cattle” is one of my all-time favorites. I used it recently in a conversation with a teenager and he said he had never heard it before and didn’t know what it meant. I explained that it was similar to “all bark and no bite.” He didn’t get that one either. I guess trying to teach ranch metaphors to a teenager is like “herding cats.” In fairness, I didn’t understand his saying that I seemed “salty” either.

“Riding shotgun.” This started as means of naming the guy who rode on the stagecoach next to the driver, generally holding the shotgun to ward off bandits. It’s still being used 150 years later. Even modern teenagers still yell “I got shotgun!” as they run to the truck.

“Hold your horses.” Just wait a minute. Let’s think about this calmly before we jump right in and regret it. “Hold your horses, Jim. I can’t buy your truck until I talk to my wife, first.” I also like that we still measure engine power in “horses” – 400 horsepower.

“I’m on the fence about it.” Taking that new job in the oil patch in Odessa? Not sure. Still on the fence about that.

I guess the most popular metaphor of all from ranch culture is “BS,” meaning “nonsense.” It’s difficult to accurately trace its origins and attempting to do so leads us into a thicket of art form itself.

I used the word recently while giving a talk in the state Capitol building. I was asked afterward if I thought that was an appropriate term to use in such august surroundings. I said, “I imagine the expression has been used more than a few times here in the legislature, and probably, even more often, impressively illustrated.”

Lemonade Anniversary Live Show Celebration (Ep. 8)

DaLyah and Jackie celebrate the two-year anniversary of Beyoncé’s visual album Lemonade with their first live show at the Tiny Texas Podcast Festival. They speak linguistics and Southern identity with Alexis McGee. McGee is a doctoral candidate in the University of Texas at San Antonio Department of English studying black feminist theory, black women’s language & rhetoric. Two&Fro also hosts their first live lip sync and “Who Bit Beyoncé” debate.