This week on "A Way with Words": What's in YOUR spice rack? Say you're cooking up a pot of chili, and you need to add more of that warm, earthy, powdered spice. Do you reach for a bottle of KOO-min? KYOO-min? Or are you going to add KUMM-in? The pronunciation given in dictionaries may surprise you. Also: some people have a problem with using the word issue instead of problem. And if you're talking to a group of men and women, be careful about using the term you guys. Plus, sharp as a marshmallow sandwich, the phrase of an evening, what your paycheck has to do with salt, and tips for breaking bad grammar habits.FULL DETAILSCumin, a spice often used in chili powder, is easy to think of as an exotic ingredient with an equally exotic pronunciation. But many dictionaries insist that its pronunciation rhymes with comin.'Someone on the dull side might be described as sharp as a marshmallow sandwich.If you're talking to group of people of mixed genders, it's fine to address them as You guys. After all, English lacks a distinctive second-person plural. Still, if the usage offends someone, it's best to address them in whatever way makes them feel comfortable.The gold or silver light you see shimmering on the water at night is called moonglade or moonwake. Similarly, the sun shining on the water is called sunglade or sunwake.Broken pieces of pottery, commonly known as shards, are also referred to as sherds by professional archaeologists. What word is both a verb meaning to make shiny and clean and a demonym for the people of an Eastern European country? Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski asks this and other questions in his game, Word Olympics.Dutch people are no more prone than anyone else to splitting the bill at a restaurant, so why is that practice called going Dutch? Listener K.C. Gandee, a whitewater rafting guide from Bethel, Maine, tipped us off to lingo from his world. Dead-sticking is when the guide is doing all the paddling and no one else is. A lily dipper is someone who barely paddles while everyone else works hard. Dump-trucking is when the raft nearly capsizes and everyone in it gets thrown out. When you have a habit of using a particular bit of poor grammar, rote exercises like writing out a script to practice may help you get past it. Practicing the correct usage by singing to yourself may work, too.To sip a mint julep on the veranda of an evening may be a distinctly Southern activity, but the phrases of an evening or of a morning, meaning "in the evening" or "in the morning," go back at least to the 1600s and the Diary of Samuel Pepys. If you're making a salary, be grateful that it's paid out in dollars and not salt. In antiquity, salt was a valuable commodity, and the term salary comes from the Latin salarium, the portions of salt paid to Roman soldiers.Open your kitchen cupboard or a cookbook, and chances are you'll come across a lot of spices and peppers with recognizable names that you still can't pronounce properly, like turmeric, cayenne, and habanero. We often give foreign-sounding inflections to foreign-looking words, and many times we're wrong.To do me a solid or do someone a solid, meaning "to do someone a favor," may be related to the slang term solid meaning "a trustworthy prison inmate."A listener from Madison, Wisconsin, has an issue with the word issue. She doesn't like it being used as a synonym for problem. But the American Heritage Usage Panel has come around to accepting the new use of issue, so if that's a problem, take issue with them.Tautologies in names are pretty funny, like the Sahara Desert, which basically means "Desert Desert," or the country of East Timor, which in Malay means "East East."Let's settle this once and for all: George Bernard Shaw is responsible for the sentiment behind the quote, "Youth is wasted on the young." But Fred Shapiro's Yale Book of Quotations indicates that the history of the saying isn't so simple.This episode was hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett.....Support for A Way with Words comes from The Ken Blanchard Companies, celebrating 35 years of making a leadership difference with Situational Leadership II, the leadership model designed to boost effectiveness, impact, and employee engagement. More about how Blanchard can help your executives and organizational leaders at kenblanchard.com/leadership.--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2014, Wayword LLC.