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- [00:00]
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- [00:49]
Mike Pesca
It's Monday, November 24, 2025. From Peach Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. President Trump calling for the death penalty. Wait, let's be careful and let's avoid the news. Imperative present tense. You know, an Alabama man clinging to his life. So last week, after a collection of Democratic senators and members of Congress issued a video advising military personnel not to follow illegal orders, President Donald Trump went on Truth Social and said, this is really bad and dangerous to our country. Trying to convey the capitalization, their words cannot be allowed to stand. Seditious behavior from traitors. Lock them. And then in another tweet, the one right after sorry, another truth, he added, as if to answer, lock them up. Seditious behavior punishable by death. The content of the video that these senators put together was a little vague, but it did end with this call.
- [01:49]
Commercial Announcer
Because now more than ever, the American people need you.
- [01:53]
Guest or Panelist 1
We need you to stand up for.
- [01:54]
Mike Volo
Our laws, our Constitution, and who we are as Americans. Don't give up. Don't give up.
- [02:00]
Mike Pesca
Don't give up.
- [02:00]
Guest or Panelist 1
Don't give up. The ship.
- [02:02]
Mike Pesca
What were they saying exactly? I assumed it was about these strikes on vessels off the coast of Venezuela, which the administration calls drug ships. This seems very clearly outside permissible US Actions, and senators of both stripes have criticized the administration for the lack of convincing detail in their private briefings. But my suspicion was confirmed but then rebutted when Alyssa Slotkin, the most prominently quoted senator in that video, appeared on this Week. This week, do you believe President Trump.
- [02:34]
Commercial Announcer
Has issued any illegal orders?
- [02:37]
Guest or Panelist 1
To my knowledge, I am not aware of things that are illegal, but certainly there are some legal gymnastics that are going on with these Caribbean strikes and everything related to Venezuela.
- [02:47]
Mike Pesca
But then Slotkin, as well as other Democrats on the Sunday shows and in other public comments pivoted to another explanation. And this other explanation is more troubling from a legal and military perspective, but also more resonant to Americans.
- [03:03]
Guest or Panelist 1
It makes me incredibly nervous that we're about to see people in law enforcement, people in uniform, military, get nervous, get stressed, shoot at American civilians. It is very, a very, very stressful situation for these law enforcement and for the communities on the ground. So it was basically a warning to say, like, if you're asked to do something particularly against American citizens, you have the ability to go to your JAG officer and push back.
- [03:30]
Mike Pesca
There are a lot of problems with the advice to not follow orders emanating from US Senators and congressmen. Sure, the advice, simple, common sense advice to just ask your JAG officer. That's fine. That's always fine. Just like asking a doctor before using Nautilus machine at the gym or before trying children's chewable aspirin. But that's not what the videos were saying. They weren't just saying, hey, go to a JAG officer. The word JAG officer doesn't appear in the videos and it does end with don't give up the ship. There are no ships currently being deployed in Memphis or Charlotte or other places where the National Guard has been called in to quell immigration. If the senators were advising, you can always go to a JAG officer. And if that was the extent of their advice, there wouldn't have been a video, there wouldn't have been background music, there wouldn't have been somewhat punchy editing. You don't have to do that. You don't need to do that. It's not even a point that's worth making. So I think questioning the wisdom of the video is in fact valid. And I think calling for the death of those who made the video is totally, unbelievably invalid. But of course Donald Trump always goes too far and of course he always makes things worse than. Then again, if his critique had been my critique, you know, a bit intemperate of you kind sirs and madams, no one would have paid attention to his critique except to say, has someone occupied the body of Donald Trump? So by escalating in this incendiary, out of control manner, Trump makes his point and actually winds up winning the exchange. Mike1 why would you say he won? His point is less fair than the Democrats point? Yeah, it doesn't matter. The advice to don't give up the ship is about a 2 out of 10 on the worryometer. Death by sedition to elected officials that's at least a 6 out of 10, but Trump knows you always divide by about 100. When it comes to Trump, the lack of caution that the Democrats display is their Achilles heel. Being out of control and incautious and a wild man is Donald Trump's signature weapon and his armor. Those are the rules. They aren't fair. If you don't like them, I don't know, take them up with a JAG officer on the show. Today I shall bring you an entire show, just one of the most enjoyable conversations I've had because it brought me back to yesteryear in my broadcasting career with two old good friends. Bob Garfield and Mike Volo are the erstwhile and now current hosts of Lexicon Valley, a great podcast where they talk about words. And you know how they do it? By using words. Now that is meta. That is some meta stuff. Mike and Bob of Lexicon Valley. Up next, I sometimes struggle to find gifts to give for my mom and dad especially. But now I have a great idea because I've been using Cove Pure. Cove Pure is a way to get without fancy hookups. Get great water, great tasting water and water that is as half of the name implies or flat out promises, pure. It makes your water taste very, very good. Pure, clean, no aftertaste. I don't want to brag on behalf of COVID Pure or you know, my parents hear this. They'll say, oh Michael, you're such a good gift giver. But sometimes it gets those contaminants slash floaties down to single digits. It's lab certified to remove 99.9% of contaminants from your water. That includes stuff like PFAS and pharmaceuticals, fluoride, lead, arsenic. The purest water you could get and so easy to install. Fits right on the countertop. Looks great doing so. So if you're looking for a gift that's good for your loved ones and one they will actually use, I highly recommend Cove Pure. And because I have partnered with them, they're giving you a special $250 holiday discount with my link covepure.com the gist that C O V E P U r e.com/the gist to get $250 off COVP pure.com/the gist hurry before the sale ends. So my following guests are a lot like Deep Purple. I probably don't have to say more. You're like I get it. They were original unit. The classic Ian Gillian, Richie Blackmore, John Lord. And then one was replaced and the next was replaced and then they were an entirely different ban. But then they came back to be the original. Another way of thinking about this is the ship of Theseus. So my guess. Do I even have to say more? They are Mike Volo and Bob Garfield. They are the current and original hosts of Lexicon Valley. In the meantime, there were some interregna. John McWhorter ably hosted, still a beloved member of the Lexicon Valley family. But the originals have taken it back. John will contribute on occasion. We've had. I can't believe that I've never had a man I consider my mentor and a man I consider my Italian Jewish paisan landsman. Mike Volo and Bob Garfield. Welcome to the gist.
- [09:11]
Bob Garfield
Well, thank you.
- [09:11]
Mike Volo
Thank you. Yeah. Speaking of Italian and Jewish Mike, I've been trying to trace the term pizza bagel. I don't know if people called you that when you were growing up.
- [09:22]
Mike Pesca
It wasn't in the ether. There is a dictionary that was put out by Tablet magazine.
- [09:27]
Mike Volo
And.
- [09:28]
Mike Pesca
And they had an entry of Jewish phrases, and they had an entry for pizza bagel. And I was the example.
- [09:34]
Bob Garfield
So.
- [09:35]
Mike Pesca
Well, this is. In my experience, this is my entire contribution to the lexicon.
- [09:40]
Mike Volo
Well, I would just say, in my experience, most pizza bagels have a Jewish father and an Italian mother. We both have the opposite. We have an Italian father and a Jewish mother. And I've been trying to figure out where that term dates from. It's hard because a pizza bagel is an actual thing that predates the term, so you kind of have to tease the two out. But if your listeners can find an example from the 70s or 80s of somebody being called a pizza bagel in writing or in, I don't know, a song or something, that would be amazing. I'd love to see it.
- [10:17]
Mike Pesca
That's awesome. My original producer, Andrea Solenzi, was also a pizza bagel. But the thing is, you don't. You often don't come across the pizza bagel unless you inquire as to the person whose name ends in a vowel who seems somehow to be displaying some Jewish characteristics. Right. It doesn't work that much the other way. You wouldn't find someone with a surname of Schwartzbaum who may be acting stereotypically Italian. I think the Jewish characteristics, especially around holidays, assert themselves more.
- [10:51]
Mike Volo
Yeah, good Yontiff.
- [10:52]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. You know, there's a town in Long Island. I know you're from New Jersey, but in Long Island, Massapequa and Jerry Seinfeld had a joke from the old Indian word for land by the mall.
- [11:06]
Bob Garfield
I'VE been in that mall, by the way. Never lived anywhere near Long island, but I on major journalism business. I have been in the Massacre Pequa Mall, where I. I was just awash in pizza bagels with little highs and nails that go, you know, to here.
- [11:25]
Mike Pesca
Yes.
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Bob Garfield
Yeah.
- [11:26]
Mike Pesca
Well, it's so funny you say nails. My Aunt Celia did nails in the Massapequa Mall at a place called Wig Alore. They had a nail booth. But of course, in Massapequa it's pronounced Wigolore. So I think we said. I bring it up.
- [11:43]
Bob Garfield
I think.
- [11:44]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, that's it. It all wraps. It all wraps around like a bagel. Life is a flat bagel. So a couple other things. So reason I bring up Massapequa is the nickname is Matzah Pizza because of its Jewish and Italian residents. But I hate pizza bagels. And I don't think they actually exist because people like them. I think they exist because someone said, well, this is a natural pairing, but it's an unnatural. It is an unnatural thrust upon us in school lunch.
- [12:13]
Bob Garfield
And speaking as a locks and bagel, you know, with no other ethnicities involved, I can tell you I don't think a bagel should have almost anything except maybe onion and an everything bagel. Some poppy seeds, some sesame seeds. Once you start putting cinnamon and red sauce on them, I'm out.
- [12:37]
Mike Volo
It's a shonda.
- [12:38]
Bob Garfield
It is a shonda.
- [12:39]
Mike Volo
A cinnamon raisin bagel. That was unheard of in my house.
- [12:43]
Bob Garfield
It's against God.
- [12:45]
Mike Volo
Yeah.
- [12:46]
Mike Pesca
And, you know, you guys are the guardians of this, so you should know. So our listeners will note that so far, we've been communicating with words, and that's just one level of lexicon. Valley. We also communicate about words and the word of the year, and there are a few iterations of the word of the year. The word of the year was 6, 7, and you haven't done it on the show yet if you're going to do it. But do you feel obligated to get into if 67 is a word or how is it a word, or why does it deserve to be word of the year?
- [13:17]
Bob Garfield
Nah. Every other news organization in the world has done six, seven. You know, I don't think there's much for us to add, although I do happen to know that Mike is on the verge of being a six, seven savant. Me, you know, as I'm kind of six seven.
- [13:37]
Mike Volo
Well, yeah, A lot of news outlets have tackled it, but I. They've tackled it incorrectly or insufficiently in my experience. And you know, Bob, I would expect that this would be only marginally on your radar, if at all, because you don't have young kids anymore. And that's really. I think the way that adults know about this is through their young kids. Especially if you have middle schoolers, which I do. Right.
- [14:03]
Bob Garfield
Well, you know, I'm the oldest living American, and I don't, you know, I don't have the middle schoolers hanging around anymore, but I do, you know, I do read publications, and that's all they write about now.
- [14:17]
Mike Pesca
Well, basically they have a six, seven. Yeah, they canceled the foreign bureaus and they just went heavy with 6 7.
- [14:24]
Bob Garfield
They don't. Traveling events. I don't remember how, but 6 is.
- [14:30]
Mike Pesca
Very, very well covered.
- [14:32]
Mike Volo
Yeah. So I don't remember exactly how old your boys are, Mike. But I'm curious what it is that you know or that you think you know about the 67 meme?
- [14:43]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, so they're not very into it. They look askance at it. But they can tell me that people's. People like to mention it. They do a hand motion, a juggly, bobbly hand motion associated with the 6 7, like this. And my guys are pretty dismissive. They're more into the meme of the performative male. That's what Emmett went as for Halloween. And he kind of laughed or laughed off 6, 7. Ish. They're above it all.
- [15:11]
Bob Garfield
By the way, is the one thing that I find amusing about this, because it's. It's this, you know, it's like six of one, seven of the other. Wait, what? And everything else is just. I think it's just a prolonged conceptual joke.
- [15:29]
Mike Volo
Bob, you could not be more ignorant about the six, seven me.
- [15:32]
Bob Garfield
Tell us, Mike. Okay, I'll put that in the list, Mike. I'll put it in.
- [15:35]
Mike Pesca
Well, that's because he's been reading publications. He doesn't know anything about the European Union because they've canceled the bureaus. But he should know about 6 7. Except they're misinforming us. Mike Volo, inform us.
- [15:46]
Mike Volo
Okay, so in order to talk about the 67 meme, you have to start with a rapper named Skrilla. That's S K R I L L A Skrilla. He's identified with a sub genre of rap. It's called drill rap. That is particularly violent and dystopian, which has incidentally sparked the same debate that's been going on since I was a teenager. In the late 8, mid late 80s with early gangster rap, there was a debate over whether the lyrics. I would say a debate over whether they describe an atmosphere of drugs and guns and gangs and provide an outlet, or do they glorify it, Right? Do they celebrate it, it. So this context is important, I think, when you talk about Skrilla, because his music is for me and I like his music, but it is for a lot of people as well, evocative of a kind of dark, almost apocalyptic nihilism in the rap world. And you get this sense that he himself is on a pretty bad path. He's only about 24, 25. He was under house arrest as a teenager on heroin charges. He openly admits in interviews to doing a lot of drugs, a whole mix of them, and says that it's part of his creative process. He can't write or record without them, he says, and he's not stopping. So that's the background, and I think it's important.
- [17:14]
Mike Pesca
Black Sabbath said the same.
- [17:15]
Mike Volo
Different drugs, but yeah, different drugs probably. So I think the background is important and you'll see why in a moment. So last December he puts out this song unofficially. It came out officially earlier this year. It's called Doot Doot. It contains all of the things that I just mentioned. Drugs, guns, death. And like most of his lyrics, it's more or less indecipherable to anyone who doesn't know the street slang that he uses. But I won't go through it all, but there are two lines in the song, a couplet, let's call it in the middle of which he says the numbers 6, 7. And if you hear it, his delivery is kind of offhand. The 6, 7 has seemingly nothing to do with the narrative of what's happening in the song, which is a murder, basically. So I'll give you the relevant lines. He says the way that switch, I know he dyin't 6, 7, I just bipped right on the highway. And I can interpret this for you. Bob Skrilla is driving the car. There's a guy in the passenger seat. He has a gun outfitted with a switch. A switch is something that turns a semi automatic weapon into an automatic weapon. He shoots at somebody outside the car. The way that switch Skrilla is is known for using onomatopoeia in his raps. So he's saying, by the sound of the gunfire, I know that guy is not going to live. Quote, I know he dying. Six, seven, I just bipped right on the highway. Meaning he drove onto the highway, he got out of there. But the question is, what is the 6, 7 that's sandwiched between those lines? Nobody Knew. And so shortly after the song came out, somebody mixed together a highlight reel of LaMelo Ball. He's an NBA player with the Charlotte Hornets.
- [19:15]
Mike Pesca
Oh, wow. Lamelo was part of this?
- [19:17]
Mike Volo
Oh, yeah, Lamelo was part of this. And they played dute dute under this highlight reel. Now, Lamelo Ball Mike is 6, 7. He's 6ft 7 inches tall. So it seemed appropriate, right?
- [19:31]
Mike Pesca
Yes.
- [19:31]
Mike Volo
Shortly after that, one of the best high school basketball prospects in the country, a kid named Taylon Kinney, he's from Atlanta, he was a fan of the song, and he made a video where he's holding a Starbucks drink and he gives it a rating on a scale of 1 to 10, and he says 6, 6, 7. And he does that hand gesture as if he's deliberating between six and seven, and then he starts laughing with his friends. This was a planned video, and he made a bunch of other videos saying 6, 7. He went viral and, and spawned a whole bunch of other social media.
- [20:07]
Mike Pesca
Six, seven, my plan videos. He did a series of videos where the punchline, or it was all meant to just say six, seven.
- [20:16]
Mike Volo
Exactly.
- [20:16]
Mike Pesca
And the reason he was into this was was it a way to acknowledge that he was into drill rap, which without alerting potential colleges or pro teams that he was a potential gangster.
- [20:30]
Mike Volo
It was, I think, a way of just signaling that he liked the song and he liked saying six' seven. It really wasn't anything more than that. But it got picked up on by a lot of other kids, including this one kid named Maverick Trevilian, who's from Maryland. He's in middle school, and he was watching a youth basketball game and said 6, 7 into the camera, sort of imitating Taylon Kinney's hand gestures. That went crazy viral, especially among other middle school kids.
- [21:04]
Mike Pesca
Now, is this kid Maverick, anyone special? Does he have an existing channel? Is he a basketball player?
- [21:11]
Mike Volo
No, he was at a youth basketball game. All right, so. So there are linguists who point out that it's fairly common for African American slang and for rap lyrics in particular, to get misinterpreted. Right. In the, in the mainstream press and in social media. Because if people don't know the origin of a term, they speculate, they make stuff up. And that's what propagates. And that's exactly what happened with 6,7. So because these three most viral posts of 6 have of. Of the 6,7 meme happen to be basketball related. Lamelo Ball, Taylon Kinney with his Starbucks drink, and then Maverick Trevilian, people thought it must be about a basketball player. It must have something to do with basketball height, and that's what a lot of people still think. Now, there were other theories. Some people pointed out that there's a police radio code, 1067. It's a real code, like 104. But 1067 means that a dead body has been reported. Sounds like a slam dunk. But a reporter named Jess rohan with Philly burbs.com She contacted the Philadelphia Police Department, and it turns out they don't use that code.
- [22:26]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, a lot of. A lot of. To interrupt. A lot of police codes aren't universal, so.
- [22:30]
Mike Volo
Right.
- [22:31]
Mike Pesca
A 512 in Atlanta will be different from 512 in Denver.
- [22:35]
Mike Volo
Yeah. So it seemed unlikely that Skrillo, who's from Philadelphia, would be using that. Others thought it had to do with the fact that graves are often dug six feet deep and seven feet apart. Nobody knew what six, seven meant except Skrilla. Right. So finally, a reporter at the Washington Post, and this was just a couple weeks ago, Shane o', Neill, he managed to contact Skrilla, who's on tour right now.
- [23:03]
Mike Pesca
Oh, not under house arrest. Still, that's good.
- [23:05]
Mike Volo
No, not under house arrest anymore because.
- [23:07]
Mike Pesca
Otherwise it would have been easier to get in touch with them.
- [23:09]
Mike Volo
Yeah, yeah, just reach him at home. But he. He reached him at a gas station, like in between gigs, and he asked him about this. So two interesting things came out of that conversation as far as I'm concerned. One, that 67 is a reference to 67th street in Philadelphia, where apparently a bunch of his friends live. And two, because of this whole memeification of his song, his audiences have quadrupled, he said, in size. So that's what six, seven actually means. And the reason I thought that the background was important is that this meme is most popular now among kids, I would say, between the ages of maybe 8 and 13. So tweens and middle schoolers and. And for most of them, the 67 meme is that Maverick Trevilian kid, in part, I think, because he himself is a middle schooler, in part, maybe because he's white. All of the other major players in this are black. My son is 12. He knows about this meme, of course, but he did not know who Skrilla was until I told him. He didn't know what drill rap was. He didn't know the song Doot Doot. So my point is that unlike other numbers that have become slang or memes. Right. And of course, 69 is a perennial one, but you can go all the way back to 23 Skidoo, which was, you know, from the late 1800s, early 1900s. This one 6, 7 is different because it's totally semantically divorced from its actual meaning for the vast majority of people who know about it and who use it with their friends.
- [24:59]
Mike Pesca
Aha.
- [24:59]
Bob Garfield
Which is why I can re enter the conversation by saying for most everybody who is memeifying it and re memifying is in fact, it's a prolonged conceptual joke and the people who use it do it just to be subversive. It means nothing and everything at the same time. And I, I, I can't think of one. I mean there's a lot of memes certainly that I can't keep track of because I don't have, you know, school age kids. But this is, this one has taken off based purely on its absurdity in a way that I just don't remember having blown anything, having blown previously blown up this dramatically.
- [25:48]
Mike Pesca
Right. Well, it's the meme stock of language. Right. And the reason that GameStop went to the moon was because it was random or not even a worthy stock to invest in. Right?
- [26:01]
Bob Garfield
Correct. Yes. Meaning very much like that.
- [26:03]
Mike Pesca
But yeah, you might want to listen.
- [26:05]
Bob Garfield
You might, since you were starting the conversation mass suggest you jump in with it's the meme stock because I think you said mean meme stop anticipating you were about to say game stop.
- [26:17]
Mike Pesca
So sure, it's it's the meme stock of language. Just like, just like, just like the GameStop stock went to the moon. Right? Because it was a nothing company or not worthy of investing in or you couldn't put together a dossier on it, making a logical case for investment. The meaninglessness of it was central to its appeal. But I want to ask you, well, if you have the time, can you tell US why the 23 skidoo? Why the 86 from the diner slang? I don't know, maybe even if you want to get into why the 40 at the end of print copy to say we're done. And I do know I raise them because I do know there are a lot of just like with six seven, a lot of faux histories but associated with them and then rumors about why 86 exist in diners and they're almost all wrong.
- [27:11]
Bob Garfield
Well, I don't know if they're the 86 one. It's widely attributed to diner code for we're out of that item and then has been kind of extended to mean being, you know, getting kicked out of a diner or any other, you know, retail location. It, it can be dying. He. He's 86. And I, I, I don't believe the, the origin of that is. Is much in doubt. I don't think it's a controversy anymore as to why the diner code for we don't have that item was 86 to begin with. I don't know even remember Mike.
- [27:56]
Mike Volo
Well, you know, we did a whole episode about this with Ben Zimmer ages ago, and I, I would ask your, you know, your listeners, if they want to know, they should go seek out that episode. It's called Linguophile 86.
- [28:11]
Mike Pesca
And so this is either Mike Volo showing that he is an excellent promoter or has a terrible memory.
- [28:19]
Mike Volo
I'm gonna go with the latter there. But we never did do an episode about 23 skidoo. And the story that gets thrown around a lot about 23 ski doo is that, like, early in the 1900s, there was a part of 23rd street near the Flatiron Building that was particularly windy because of the shape of the Flatiron Building, and that when women would walk by there, it would blow up their skirts and that beat cops who were walking up and down 23rd street would kind of tell people to move along because there were these guys who would kind of loiter there waiting for it to happen, and they would say, Hey, 23 skedaddle skidoo. Right. I believe that is considered apocryphal. There are some better, I think, explanations, because there's evidence that 23 existed as a slang number apart from Skidoo for a while before it then got attached to Skidoo, and that it actually came from A Tale of Two Cities when there was a character who is waiting to be guillotined and they are calling him, and his number was 23, I believe.
- [29:41]
Mike Pesca
And, oh, I remember that character is Pierre Skidoo.
- [29:45]
Bob Garfield
Was it Sydney Carton? This is a far, far better thing I do than I've ever done before. I think. Yes, it was.
- [29:52]
Mike Pesca
It was the best of times. It was six hours exactly.
- [29:56]
Bob Garfield
I believe it was for the number of chromosomes in a piece of DNA. And how they were aware of that in the early part of the 20th century remains a mystery.
- [30:09]
Mike Volo
Mm.
- [30:10]
Mike Pesca
It's. It's as much a fun mystery as the real story is how the apocryphal story gets spread around. With 86, there was a story that couldn't have been true, but, man, did people cite it to me. Oh, it was the street address of Chumley's. Chumley's was on 86 bedford street. Which is a legendary. Was a legendary bar and before that a speakeasy. While true, they were the only place that ran out of things or threw people out there.
- [30:35]
Bob Garfield
So.
- [30:35]
Mike Pesca
Oh, by the way, people love it.
- [30:37]
Bob Garfield
Full circle in this. I'm sorry, this is what we on Lexicon Valley call a digression, but I'm not stopping. Once when I was a very young reporter, I worked in Wilmington, Delaware. Nevermind why? I had to go to New York for a story and I was very excited about it because I was going to get me a lox and bagel in New York City. And I walked all around midtown and I couldn't find any place that had lox and bagel. All the delis were not Jewish delis. And I finally found a Jewish deli and I went in and I swear to God this is true. I ordered a lox and bagel with cream cheese. And like the old elephant ear on a bun joke, the waiter comes back to me, says, I'm sorry, I can't give you a lox and bagel. And I said, wait, wait, wait, you're not out of bagels, are you? No, no, we never run out of bagels. I said, you can't be out of locks. He says, no, we got plenty of locks. He said, we're out of cream cheese. Truth imitating really old joke. So yeah, we can't help you on 86 any further.
- [31:52]
Mike Pesca
So. But this was what, the 1980s?
- [31:56]
Mike Volo
Yes.
- [31:56]
Mike Pesca
Locks was not prevalent in a fairly mid sized east coast city.
- [32:02]
Bob Garfield
Like there were a lot of places in Midtown that were Jewish delugers. There was, you know.
- [32:06]
Mike Volo
No, no, no.
- [32:07]
Mike Pesca
I mean, in Wilmington you were excited to go to New York to get this. Like right now in Wilmington you could get.
- [32:11]
Bob Garfield
Well, I'd only been in Wilmington for one week on this job, so I.
- [32:16]
Mike Pesca
Didn'T scope and you're going into withdrawal.
- [32:18]
Bob Garfield
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [32:19]
Mike Pesca
We'll be back in a minute with more of my Volo, Bob Garfield of Lexicon Valley.
- [32:32]
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- [33:51]
Mike Pesca
We're back with Bob Garfield and Mike Volo talking about their great and reconstituted podcast, Lexicon Valley. I don't like all the word of the year designations. Different organizations put these out, and some of them I give respect to. I think the Oxford Dictionary names a good word of the year, good being. It kind of fits with the word that everyone is turning to each other or coming across and saying, wait, what does that mean? It's operating like a real dictionary. So Oxford's last couple were brain rot. Riz and Goblin mode. Right. Elon went into Goblin mode. Everyone's like, what does he mean, Goblin mode. Then it got explained. This is why we need dictionaries. Same with brain rot. That's a useful phrase. I've heard 6, 7 be an example of brain rot. But the American Dialect Society, of which the aforementioned Ben Zimmer is a member and sometimes critic. They want to make a point, I think. And they went last year for raw Dog, the year before that forcation, and the year before that for usy, which is they describe pussy without the p, but you can apply it to bussy or bussy for behind pussy. What are you doing? American.
- [35:11]
Mike Volo
No, no, wait. Us see is like a selfie, but with multiple people.
- [35:17]
Mike Pesca
This is the USSY is an English language morpheme derived from the word pussy, used to create novel derived terms LGBTQ slang in the form of bussy or behind pussy or boy pussy. I'm not in those circles, but to me, this doesn't compete with RIZ as a. Oh, what does that mean? Type situation.
- [35:41]
Bob Garfield
Most of these words of the year win the title by being through data, through being heavily used. So they look for usage in the, you know, in the wordosphere, publications and so forth and online. And they also look for a dictionary searches and somehow they, you know, coalesce the the data and come up with the word that has had a very big spike and showed, generally showed some staying power. So they are words that often are of the moment and they're based on some events and often political events that are top of mind for a period of time and rise to the top for a year and they don't always hang around. I was unaware of the American Dialectic Society's choice of usy.
- [36:49]
Mike Pesca
Now you're better off for it. You're welcome.
- [36:51]
Bob Garfield
I've learned something. I didn't know either the multiple selfie definition or the, the vaginally related one, but I.
- [37:07]
Mike Volo
Sometimes they're combined.
- [37:12]
Mike Pesca
Got to get in really tight.
- [37:14]
Bob Garfield
Yeah, right. You go to JCPenney and get a, that, that group photo for over the sofa. Yeah, sure. So some people have suggested that dictionaries are just trying to be, you know, become political and make political points. I don't know what kind of point you were suggesting was being made, but it's easy to look at the word of the year and realize it's a reference to something that's been dominating the politics of particularly America and say, ah, these, you know, they're just, the dictionary is being woke here or the dictionary is being snarky. I, I really think, for the most part. Mike, tell me if I'm wrong here, as I wasn't wrong about the seven. There's data behind all of these things. Right. And, and of course, judgment and consensus.
- [38:16]
Mike Pesca
I believe you asked the other Mike, but I'll interject by saying I believe that is true with dictionary.com they have a dot com, so they see the data and it seems true with Merriam Webster, which has a popular website and it is, if not entirely often, data driven such that Miriam Webster's last couple of words of the year were polarization, authentic and gaslighting. Big spikes for those. But I do believe the American Dialect Society just has a vote among its members and are trying to make a point. Mike Volo, you say what?
- [38:48]
Mike Volo
I think that's right. And I know for sure that Merriam Webster chooses its word based on the most looked up word in its online version, which is mw.com, i believe we spoke with Peter Sokolowski about this some years ago and during the pandemic, the word was pandemic. I think a couple years later it was culture because there were a lot of phrases that were sort of bubbling to the surface of political and social discourse were, you know, x culture.
- [39:21]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [39:22]
Mike Volo
And so for them it's, it's definitely data driven and therefore you get just ordinary words like authentic. And so for the, the American Dialect Society, though, I think you're right. I think that they do have a vote, and there are words that are nominated. And it's a lot more about what these people who are very plugged into these kind of niche words about maybe about what they just sort of want to vote for what they like. And then you get words like USY and some other ones that they've had over the years. And shitification is just, you know, I, I can't see any reason for that to be a word of the year.
- [40:05]
Bob Garfield
You know, they have a good word.
- [40:07]
Mike Pesca
They have Cory Doctorow.
- [40:09]
Bob Garfield
But yeah, their system is something, I believe, like the Iowa Caucuses, they get a. A bunch of people who are linguists and lexicographers and PhD candidates and postdocs, literally in a room at the annual meeting. And then they debate it as a group. So, you know, anything can come out of that process.
- [40:34]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And the room is by law, by bylaw, in Des Moines, and no one really understands why in a high school gym on a cold night, they're basically.
- [40:44]
Bob Garfield
Just a bunch of OCs, so we don't have to pay that much attention.
- [40:51]
Mike Pesca
And this is why both USI and Pat Buchanan sometimes wins that competition. So, Mike, Bob, are you looking at. I don't want you to step on some other great episodes that people can get by going to book smart studios.com, but are you looking at other fascinating words or non fascinating words?
- [41:12]
Mike Volo
Well, Bob had the idea that we should talk about the word gist because he was betting that despite you having a show named the gist for over 10 years now, that you didn't really know anything more about that word. I don't know if it's right. He was talking all kinds of trash about you.
- [41:31]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, he was. What I found out is a surprising, shockingly large number of people in the populace have to have the word spelled as not with a Japanese. And I only find this out when I'm like, oh, I host the Gist. And they start plugging it into the phone. I'm like, no, no, it's. It's with a G. Like, that is shocking. Only ever with, oh, it's like, oh, the Gist. The guest people have said I was on MSNBC and they identified the show or me as being host of the Grist, which could be an alt title. So tell me of Gist. Tell me of what do we get when we get to the Gist?
- [42:05]
Mike Volo
Well, I'm not going to start with Gist. I'm going to start someplace that is. You're not expecting. And that place is a cemetery. So if you've ever been to one, and I assume we all have, then you may have seen the words here lies before the person's name. Right. You don't really see that so much anymore, I guess, but you come across it every now and then, especially in older cemeteries. For example, the poet John Keats, he's buried in Rome, where he died. And his epitaph on his gravestone, it's very famous. It says, here lies one whose name was writ in water, meaning that he would be forgotten because he. He knew he was dying. He was only in his mid-20s, and he thought, well, I haven't really done enough to live on. Ironically, he did. We're still talking about him. Now, if you've ever been to a French cemetery, you may see those same words, only in French. It's C G. So that's C.I. here and G I, T lies. So that word G I, t is the. If you were conjugating the verb jesir, it's the third person singular right of to lie, to be horizontal, as dead people usually are in cemeteries. And so I think Oscar Wilde is buried at Pere Lachaise in Paris, and I think his grave might have that CG on it. So what is this G? So the I in G I t in G has a circumflex over it. It's that little mark that looks like a roof. So often when I see that in words, I'm like, what am I supposed to do with that? What does that mean in a foreign word? Well, in French, it often means that there used to be another letter in the word, and that letter was probably an s, but it disappeared for some reason. So the French word, if you know any French for hospital, is hopital, H O, P I T, A L. There's a circumflex over the o because it used to be O, the same spelling as in English, but the S went away. Likewise, G I t used to be G I, S T. That was how you conjugated that third person singular of to lie. So gist meant he, she, it lies. Right, okay, so now.
- [44:45]
Mike Pesca
Which is what many listeners accuse me of.
- [44:47]
Mike Volo
Yeah, I'm sure. So let's forget about gist for just a moment. Now, whenever you bring a lawsuit, you have to justify to the court, what are the grounds for this legal action? What's the grievance? So starting in the 1500s, I believe, there was this legal phrase that you would use when explaining the grounds of a lawsuit. It was set Action, gist, this action lies in. And then you would explain the point of the lawsuit. The phrase was used in French. It was used in English law books. It was very much like an Anglo Saxon phrase. And so the word giste or gist became a kind of shorthand for the point, the essence of the legal proceeding. And for a long time, it was only used in a courtroom context. So in the 1700s, you would talk about the gist of the charges or the gist of the indictment or the gist of the lawyer's reasoning. It wasn't until the 1800s that you see it used more generally to mean the upshot, the crux, the essence of anything, really. So that's the backstory of the gist. And then it wasn't until 2014 that it became the name of a beloved and popular show.
- [46:14]
Mike Pesca
And when did it become the name of this show? Because that certainly doesn't describe it. Long running. We could say long running.
- [46:21]
Mike Volo
Okay, long running.
- [46:23]
Bob Garfield
I would like to know why we began in the cemetery. I believe, and I feel strongly about this, and we're going to have some people looking into it. I believe that you could have started in the courtroom and left the cemetery out of it, as well as the significance of that French accent. Roof.
- [46:49]
Mike Pesca
The circumflex.
- [46:51]
Bob Garfield
Yeah, the circumflex. And we would have been all the better for it. I know more than I otherwise would have, but I feel like I was hanging around a cemetery for no reason.
- [47:05]
Mike Volo
Well, I'll tell you why. Because, you know, it's. It's not spelled G I, s T in French anymore. That, that verb, he, she, it lies, is G I, t. But we still have the S in English, so it's confusing for anyone who thinks, well, okay, this comes from French, but French doesn't even have that word anymore. What's going on there?
- [47:25]
Bob Garfield
Confusing. I. I'm sorry, I'm going to have to object.
- [47:30]
Mike Pesca
So.
- [47:30]
Bob Garfield
And if you want to know what Lexicon Valley is like, Mike Pesca, it's a lot like this.
- [47:39]
Mike Pesca
But I just would like to point out that there might have been something else that Bob was doing there. He might have been pointing out to us in a roundabout way, pointing out, making the meta argument that via your necropolitic interregnum, what you were doing was not getting to the point of the story, that is ignoring the gist of things. And therefore, in fact, underline. Bob was both underlining the importance of getting to the gist and making a valid critique about his boiling hatred.
- [48:13]
Bob Garfield
Am I that Transparent. Yep.
- [48:15]
Mike Volo
Well, you know what it was up to. I have a coda, and maybe, Bob, you'll. You'll like this better. So there's something that I think is really interesting about the word in a particular variety of English. So it's taken on an additional nuance in one country where English is widely spoken, but as far as I know, nowhere else can I say.
- [48:41]
Mike Pesca
Can I guess?
- [48:41]
Mike Volo
Yeah, please.
- [48:42]
Mike Pesca
Is it Nigeria?
- [48:43]
Mike Volo
It is Nigeria, yes.
- [48:45]
Mike Pesca
And I'll tell you why I know this, but go ahead.
- [48:48]
Mike Volo
So gist in Nigeria, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a noun that means gossip or a kind of gossipy gabbing.
- [48:58]
Bob Garfield
It's the T. Yeah.
- [49:00]
Mike Volo
So my son has a close friend whose parents are from Nigeria. So I texted with the mother and asked her about it, and she said.
- [49:08]
Mike Pesca
Doing research on my behalf. God love you, Mike Vola.
- [49:11]
Mike Volo
So she said that gist is also widely used and maybe even more so as a verb meaning. And now I'm quoting her. She said to converse or to talk in a fun or gossipy way. And then she gave me an example sentence. Let me gist you what happened at the event. And she said that the subtext of the word is usually a kind of nosiness. So I think that the oed, if you're listening, you'd need to update that entry, because gist, it's also a verb in Nigerian English, not just a noun.
- [49:43]
Mike Pesca
Yeah.
- [49:43]
Mike Volo
So how did you know that, Mike?
- [49:45]
Mike Pesca
Well, first of all, the oed, like the government under the US Patriot act, is always listening. I'd like to assure you of that one day in, I don't know, 2016, if you would search for the gist in podcast search engines, you used to always get my show. And then one day, there was another show, the Gist of Women's Sports. And to this day, when people apply for jobs, 1 out of 75 people said, love to work for your show. I love the wnba. I love Simone Biles, and that's great. I do, too. But I don't know if that kind of attention to detail is what we're looking for, but one day, 200 Nigerian shows came online, and they were all called the Gist of Things. And I think that there was an app where it allowed anyone to create a podcast and you give your first name, and it would be, you know, honors gist of things. And I don't know a good Nigerian name, but let's say David's List, Gist of Things. So then I was alerted that it has this other context in Nigeria. I think if you look at the podcast engine now, all of the gists, besides us in the women's sports gifts have died away. But it's also a great testament to how lax the original bosses were with the intellectual copyright. That is the gist.
- [51:07]
Mike Volo
Yeah, well, I like it as a verb. I think I'm going to try to use it, work it into conversation. It's going to confuse people at first, but, you know, maybe we just do it. Yeah.
- [51:22]
Mike Pesca
That would be a gist outcome. Okay, so speaking of podcast engines and where to find shows, Lexicon Valley is out in many forms. Just go to booksmart studios.com there are options to subscribe, there are free shows, there are archives. There you can find some of the answers to the conundrum we put up today. And I want to thank you, Bob Garfield.
- [51:49]
Bob Garfield
Well, I want to thank you, Mike Pesca, for having us on. It's been fun and gosh, I've learned stuff. Much as you can do if you listen to Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.
- [52:06]
Mike Pesca
And I want to thank you, Mike Volo.
- [52:09]
Mike Volo
Thanks. Thank you, Mike. And again to your listeners, if you come across any examples of pizza bagel, I really want to know about this. Incidentally, I would have assumed that it was a Jew who created the first pizza bale, but no, apparently it was in Italian.
- [52:27]
Mike Pesca
So someone was appropriating someone and I'm not sure who it.
- [52:31]
Mike Volo
Yeah, this was back in the 50s even. And then he applied. The reason we know about this is because then he applied for a. A patent. So it's in the official government registers. The pizza bagel, that was in 1970. That's awesome.
- [52:44]
Mike Pesca
Where should they send pizza bagel tips?
- [52:48]
Bob Garfield
Oh, I would love to see the diagram. The diagram that they draw when they submit the application with a. Org.
- [52:57]
Mike Pesca
Where do you want your tips?
- [52:58]
Bob Garfield
Oh my goodness.
- [52:59]
Mike Volo
Send it to Booksmart Studios gmail.com.
- [53:09]
Mike Pesca
The Gist is produced by Cory Warrow. We had help today from Leah Yan. Kathleen Sykes helps me with the gist list. Text Mike 233777 and you could see what's behind today's paywall pageant chicanery in the Philippines. Jeff Craig does so much with the video and the socials and the visual. He's a master of the visual in this a primarily audio form. Michel Pesca also works with the visuals but is mostly the visionary improve do Peru. And thanks for listening, Sam.