FROM MOTORVATIN' TO TRUCKIN'

Mike Sykes says:

About "call" meaning "to phone":

'Mostly' on your side of the Atlantic perhaps, but here I mostly hear 'phone', 'call' being used for calling on a friend or acquaintance or calling (to) someone to the table, in from the garden, &c.**

About "let's motor":

It may be disappearing, but the phrase 'really motoring' is used to mean making satisfyingly rapid progress, whether moving in a motor vehicle or in almost any other way. A bit like "now we're really cooking with gas".

Another bit of slang that came from new technology ~ the gas stove was a big change from the wood-burning stove. I remember my grandmother cooking on a wood stove. Cooking with wood is a lot of work.

About the name-plus-apostrophe in possessives behaving like common nouns:

That's because they */are/* singular nouns.

Thanks; hope you had that drink, Mike.

Herb H. weighed in on "motor" too:

I think "motor" as a verb has been there all along, and when Exxon (was it?) used "Happy Motoring" as an ad slogan or catchphrase in the 60s they weren't borrowing any obscure slang.

But as black lingo, I'm reminded of a verse that could be a candidate for all-time great rock and roll writing ~ the first verse of Chuck Berry's "Maybelline":

As I was motor-vatin' over the hill

Saw Maybelline in a Coupe De Ville

Cadillac movin' on the open road

Nothin' out run my V8 Ford . . . .

I think the very first time I heard that, I was first delighted with "motorvatin'" and then with time for reflection astounded at Berry's ability to set the stage with those four tiny lines for a proud man and a mysterious woman racing wide open throttle across the countryside.

Now there's no doubt to anyone who can hear and listen that Chuck says "motor-vatin." But to my amazement, I've found that many sources give that lyric as "motivatin'" over the hill. It's a little like people trying to "make allowances" for Bobby Dylan.

Herb, I found that sound clip! Lyrics online are showing "motivatin" but you can definitely hear "motoRvatin" in the clip from "Chuck Berry ~ Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll (1987 Documentary) [SOUNDTRACK]". By the way, listen to Car Talk on the radio for cool car songs. One of my faves is "Hot Rod Lincoln" (lyrics) (sound clip here).

Jan G. wrote:

...a few slang terms came to mind that were used by my Grandma Gregg who came from southern Ohio ... sometimes she would ask me if I would help her "red up the house," her way of saying to clean it up. Her term for someone who was causing trouble and got caught doing it got their "come uppins." When someone went out of their way to do something extra special, she said "they did it up brown."

Remember in the 70's, the term, "Keep On Truckin' "? To me, this had a variety of meanings depending on its use in a sentence. I often said it as a non-religious "keep the faith." Someone would describe something they were doing, attempting to do, have done and and/or are still doing it, (whatever "it" was), then it was also a "keep on truckin' " moment.

My sister used to say, "Let's get truckin' " when she was ready to go someplace or "we are truckin'. " "How's your term paper coming along?" "Man, I'm truckin'!" meaning of course that it was going well and getting done. I think more than the term of keeping on truckin', just the word "truckin'" was used a lot and ran the full gamut of emotion in life, about life and OK, enough of that word.

Yeah, I remember truckin' especially from R. Crumb's cartoon, and from the Grateful Dead song. But actually the word goes way back to a dance called truckin', from as early as the 1830s.

"Come uppins" was your grandma's way of saying "comeuppance" (just desserts). Must be the old way of saying what goes around, comes around/comes up?

"Red up" is old ~ www.dict.org says: generally with up; as, to red up a house. [Prov. Eng. & Scot.] My guess is that this sense would be related to "ready" but I didn't find the etymology. I'm waiting for the Oxford English Dictionary to appear in its entirety online. Well, it is online, for $295 a year.

As for "do it up brown" one online source says the origin probably has to do with browning meat, but somehow that seems an unlikely though tasty etymology.

PROPS

Dave DaBee wrote about "propers" although I seem to have lost his e-mail. I'm sure he was the one whose daughter says "Give me my props" when she sees him, meaning "Give me a hug". So her "props" are her property, what properly belongs to her, what she has a proprietary interest in.

ECT ECT ECT

Nurse Sue S. wrote about this and that:

It's: i before e, except after c, or when sounded like a as in neighbor or weigh......weird could be pronounced wayrd if you're from Kentucky like me. The apartment complex I'm in now has a banner hanging that reads "Turn right here and your home." It drives me nuts that there are no proofreaders anymore. Everything is left to spellcheck. Too bad there is no "word usage check"!!* I remember in grade school teachers would drill us on your/you're, loose/lose and all those common mistakes in usage. I am grateful for teachers who taught. Another one that annoys me is ect for etc. Ect is an abbreviation for electroconvulsive therapy, aka shock treatment. When I see that stenciled on the side of a truck door as advertising for a business, I wonder if anyone caught the mistake. I wouldn't pay for it until was fixed!!

* MSWord does have a grammar check but I never trust it.

** Note Mike Sykes' British "&c."

ALL AND ALL IN ALL

I heard someone confused "all and all" with "all in all"; does it matter how? They do sound alike, but they don't mean the same thing. "All in all" is used to sum up a situation: "All in all, it was a good vacation." "All and all" doesn't really mean anything.

KEEP 'EM IN YOUR HEAD

The other day I started to say "Keep your eyes out for a tornado" (we had a tornado warning), when I realized that I should have said "Keep an eye out." Well, my excuse is I was excited. You can keep your eyes open, or keep an eye out, but don't keep both eyes out.

HISTORY IS A MISTAKE

Here's a letter I sent to the newspaper this week, which may or may not be printed:

Richard Cohen says Israel is a well intentioned mistake ("Hunker down with history," July 19). He acknowledges that the history of the Jews in Europe wasn't so great either, though Israel doesn't consist only of European Jews (Ashkenazic). Let's not forget the Sepharidic Jews, who come from the Iberian Peninsula, Northern Africa, and the Middle East. The Jews have had trouble all over; Cohen gets mighty close to saying Jews are a mistake.

Well, everybody's got to be somewhere, and leaving aside for the moment the question of their historical ties to Israel and the holy city of Jerusalem, is there anyplace else the Jews could make a homeland?

Here's a suggestion: Why not emigrate to northern Mexico! At least some of them. Call it Israel West. This would be great for Mexico and for the United States. The Mexicans probably wouldn't have that familiar knee-jerk impulse to kill their new neighbors and drive them out. The Jews would turn the desert into profitable farmland and create a thriving modern economy on top of it so Mexican farmers could survive in their homeland or get decent jobs. And the Jews would bring over their heavy-duty military and intelligence experience and resources to secure the border. Illegal Mexicans in the U.S. would be scrambling to go south — and lots of U.S. citizens would go with them. I think it could work. The Baja Strip would be a nice change.

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