This week on "A Way with Words": Careful what you criticize! Not long ago, some words that sound perfectly normal today were considered gauche and grating on the ear. If the complainers had had their way, we couldn't say the word "pessimism" or use "contact" as a verb! Also, we'll settle another debate once and for all: is it "a historic" or "an historic"? Plus, what are you doing for Inside-Out Day? Also, bed lunch, sweven, hinky, johnny gowns, the real meaning of shiver me timbers, and more. FULL DETAILS We get lots of calls and emails that take a pessimistic look at the way language changes-- which reminded us that the word pessimism itself, just 100 or so years ago, was derided by the curmudgeons of old. People thought the word pessimism was a lazy, inaccurate replacement for "despondency." If you're looking for yet another reason to buy an infant a present, there's always Inside Out Day, which some people celebrate as the day when a baby has been out of the womb as long as they were in it. Singultus, which comes from a Latin word for "sobbing" or "dying breath," is a fancy way of describing a not-so-fancy affliction: the hiccups. Did pirates ever actually say shiver me timbers? And why would they be shivering in the Caribbean, anyway? Actually, this saying has nothing to do with being cold, and pirates probably didn't say it. The phrase goes back to the 1700's and was popularized in books such as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Shiver, in this sense, means "to split in two." Shiver me timbers, in the imagined pirate lingo, refers to a storm or siege splitting the wooden beams of a ship. A bed lunch is one way to refer to a late night meal, right before bedtime. Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a quiz about the ties that bind various sets of three words. For example, what do essay, excess, and decay have in common? The a historian vs. an historian debate has a pretty straightforward answer: a historian is the correct way to write and say it. Lyricists take note: sweven is another term for a dream, which should come in handy when looking for words that rhyme with heaven, eleven, Devin, or leaven. Hinky, or hincty, is a term going back to the 1920's that has meant both "snobbish" and "haughty," or, more commonly, suspicious. A police officer from Grove City, Pennsylvania, calls to say his older colleagues often use the word to describe someone who arouses suspicion. Fever is often diagnosed with an indefinite article attached—as in, you have a fever—but it was some time between the 1940s and 1960s that we added the article. And in the Southern United States, it's still not uncommon to hear someone say they have fever. Contact, when used as a verb, is another word that once prompted peeving. In fact, in the 1930s, an official at Western Union lobbied for a company-wide ban on the word, which he deemed a hideous vulgarism compared to the phrases get in touch with or make the acquaintance of. "These days, a chicken leg is a rare dish" might sound like an odd thing to observe, but during World War II, it was among dozens of phonetically balanced sentences devised by researchers for testing cockpit transmissions and headphones in planes. The sentences use a wide variety of sounds, which is why they're still useful for testing audio today. We have the word avuncular to mean like an uncle, but is there one word for describing someone or something aunt-like? Materteral is one option, though it's rarely used. As author Terry Pratchett once said, "It's still magic if you know how it's done." The slang term nation pops up several times in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a reduced form of a mild swear word. The word damnation was euphemized as tarnation, which was later shortened to nation. Nation in this sense goes back to the mid-1700's at least, and can also mean "large," "great," or "excellent." We spoke on an earlier show about insensible losses, a medical term for things like water vapor that your body loses but you don't sense it. That inspired a Sacramento, California, listener to write a poem with that title about great artists who go underappreciated. Johnny or johnny gown, meaning hospital gown, is a term most associated with New England.   This episode was hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett. -- A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donate Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: words@waywordradio.org Phone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donate Site: 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 2016, Wayword LLC.