Mona from Riverview, Florida, grew up understanding that the word schmooze, which comes from Yiddish, meant simply “to mingle and chat” at parties, but when she fondly referred to her friend as a schmoozer, the friend was insulted, assuming that a schmoozer was a smarmy flatterer. Schmooze has more than one meaning, much like the word kibitz, also derived from Yiddish, which can mean either “to offer unwanted advice, but also simply “to chat.” http://waywordradio.org

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A Navy vet recalls learning the slang term gundeck, meaning “to sign off on checks or reports without fully completing them.” A possible origin involves a ship’s gun deck, either as a place where sailors hid to avoid duties or where navigational math was done later from memory instead of on the spot. Gundecking refers to rushed or fabricated paperwork when one’s workload exceeds the time available. http://waywordradio.org

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A listener remembers her grandmother’s colorful comment when someone arrived late after getting lost: You went around your elbow to get to your thumb. Lots of similar sayings in English suggest roundabout routes or overcomplicated tasks, including going around your elbow to reach your nose or ear, going all the way around Robin Hood’s barn. In the UK, you may hear the same idea expressed with going around the Wrekin, a large hill in Shropshire, or going around the houses. The French convey a similar idea with chemin des écoliers, or “the schoolchildren’s path.” A German expression translates as “go from behind through the chest into the eye,” and a similar phrase among Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians roughly translates as “go over the stream for the water.” http://waywordradio.org

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C’mere—the quick, reduced version of Come here—is an example of what linguists call an allegro form, a sped-up, casual pronunciation or spelling created through phonetic reduction. The lento form, in contrast, is the longer version. In musical notation, allegro refers to “fast” and lento refers to “slow.” http://waywordradio.org

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Susie Dent’s murder mystery Guilty by Definition (Bookshop|Amazon) includes the word grob, an obsolete word meaning “to in the dark search by the sense of touch,” as when feeling around in one’s pocket for change. http://waywordradio.org

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Susie Dent’s murder mystery Guilty by Definition (Bookshop|Amazon) follows a lexicographer in Oxford who becomes a sleuth of a different kind, seeking the culprit in a long-unsolved killing. A lexicographer herself, Dent includes lots of obscure and obsolete words, such as conjobble, a verb that in the 17th century meant “to eat, drink, and talk.” http://waywordradio.org

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League of the Lexicon is a wide-ranging trivia game for language lovers with thousands of questions on all matters linguistic. Creator Joshua Blackburn has also compiled a treasure trove of linguistic delights in a companion volume called The Language-Lover's Lexipedia (Bookshop|Amazon). http://waywordradio.org

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What’s Working Now: This advisor listened to her clients’ cybersecurity concerns and found a way to help them while also getting in front of prospects.

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Why I’m Putting on Cybersecurity Presentations

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