词汇大师-- Some Terms That Have Outlived Their Roots

　　AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: our guest is author Ralph Keyes (kize). His newest book about language has a mouthful of a title.

RS: It's called "I Love It When You Talk Retro: Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime 1, and the Forgotten Origins of American Speech."

AA: "'Double whammy' and 'drop a dime.' Let's start with double whammy. What does that mean exactly?"

　　RALPH KEYES: "Well, this goes back to the old comic strip 'Li'l Abner' which put an amazing number of retro terms into our conversation. And Evil Eye Fleegle was a notorious hoodlum from Brooklyn in 'Li'l Abner,' and Evil Eye Fleegle would point one finger at someone that he wanted to demolish 2 and cast his evil eye on that person and lay them low.

"Now, when Evil Eye Fleegle decided 3 to put both of his eyes on a person or object and point two fingers, this could stop a rushing locomotive or topple a skyscraper 4. And this was a double whammy. And the only person who could withstand not just a single whammy but a double whammy was Mammy Yokum, Li'l Abner Yokum's wizened 5 old mother who smoked a corncob pipe. And she would whirl and spin and totter 6 around, but she was still standing 7 when Evil Eye Fleegle tried to lay her low with a double whammy."

RS: "So a double whammy today would mean?"

RALPH KEYES: "Anything where two things lay you low. Let's say somebody decides to run for office and it turns out they have a residency problem and they're not old enough. That's a double whammy.

RS: "Or you could have the flu and other medical complications -- "

RALPH KEYES: "Sure."

RS: "at the same time. So you would be hit by a double whammy. What was the second ... "

AA: "It was drop a dime."

RS: "Uh-huh."

RALPH KEYES: "Drop a dime. Now this one is really problematic for kids who have grown up with cell phones because they don't recall, as you and I may, the glorious golden era of telephone booths. Making a call from a public telephone in a phone booth usually cost a dime. And so when we wanted to squeal 8 on someone, to be a whistleblower and call the cops from a phone that couldn't be traced or where people couldn't see us, we would go into a phone booth, put a dime in and call the police. This is called dropping a dime."

RS: "Is it something that is still in use today?"

RALPH KEYES: "Well, the phrase is. We still talk about dropping a dime, to say that we're reporting someone, and then we become a dime dropper. But gosh, how many public phones are there out there anymore?"

RS: "Not many."

AA: "And they certainly cost more than a dime now. I think they're like fifty cents."

RALPH KEYES: "That's for sure."

AA: "You use the term in here, you talk about some all-American terms and one of them is 'Ozzie and Harriet.'"

RALPH KEYES: "Yeah."

AA: "Why don't you explain to people who maybe aren't familiar with old American television."

RALPH KEYES: "Well, this is a show from the fifties where Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Nelson ran what was considered to be the ideal American family in 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.'"

AA: "And they were real people, weren't they?"

RALPH KEYES: "Yeah, they were actually married to each other."

AA: "Right. And then they were also actors. But it wasn't like what we would today call -- "

RS: "And their kids were part of the ... they were a real American family."

(MUSIC)

TV ANNOUNCER: "And now, Hotpoint presents America's favorite family comedy, 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet' starring the entire Nelson family."

OZZIE: "Where's Rick?"

DAVID: "Well, he was with me a minute ago."

OZZIE: "Ricky?

RICKY NELSON: "I'm coming."

OZZIE: "Come on, breakfast is just about ready."

AA: "Today we'd say it would be like a reality show, but it wasn't a reality show."

RS: "No, it was all scripted."

AA: "It was scripted."

RALPH KEYES: "And in fact it was a fantasy show because people thought 'Oh, Ozzie and Harriet, that's the way a family ought to be.' And they still talk about that. You know, an 'Ozzie and Harriet' type of family where everything goes smoothly 9 and the dad wears a cardigan sweater and the mom has an apron 10 on and she's always bustling 11 through the kitchen door with a nice plate of warm brownies."

AA: Stay tuned 12 next week for more of our conversation with Ralph Keyes, author of the new book "I Love It When You Talk Retro."

RS: And that's WORDMASTER for this week. To learn more about American English, go to voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.