A Way with Words - language, linguistics, and callers from all over · Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett. Produced by Stefanie Levine.

Gold Dance (Rebroadcast) - 12 May 20256

·54 min·4 clips

Martha and Grant uncover 'bacon bat,' a 1907 Smith College tradition of outdoor feasting and revelry.

Martha Barnett opens by revealing that she has been deep in the vocabulary of metal detecting and is considering it as a new hobby, after watching the BBC comedy-drama Detectorists. The specialized terminology she has discovered includes coinball, a chunk of dirt excavated with a coin inside it, which sometimes has friends meaning other coins in the same hole; can-slaw, the shredded remnants of aluminum cans run over by a lawnmower, which she finds a particularly picturesque term; nighthawk, a person who detects illegally at night in protected or off-limits areas; and gold dance, the celebratory jig performed when actual gold is found. Grant Barrett notes that metal detecting has apparently become trendy enough to generate Instagram influencers, which Martha greets with skepticism, suggesting that authenticity requires a dad bod and white socks with sandals, leaving no room for the fashionable variety. The main listener call segment opens with Larry Branhorst from Sparks, Georgia, raising a question about the phrase welcome back as used by television and radio hosts returning from commercial breaks. Larry's objection is that the hosts left for the break, not the viewers, so logically the hosts should be the ones welcoming themselves back. Grant explains that welcome back is part of the glue of broadcasting, the transitional language that eases audiences in and out of program segments, and that broadcasters cannot assume continuity between what happened before the break on their end and what the viewer experienced, since local stations may have inserted different commercial content. The show continues with additional callers and language discussions.

As heard by us

Metal-detecting slang and quote-marking become a warm, careful lesson in language.

Metal-detecting slang opens the episode into a quiet study of how language works in daily life. Terms like coinball, nighthawk, can-slaw, and gold get room to feel odd, vivid, and useful, while the hosts keep the tone warm and unforced.

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Why you'd press play

You want hobby slang, etymology, and a pleasantly nerdy detour.

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