Criss Cross Applesauce - 4 April 2016

<p>How do languages change and grow? Does every language acquire new words in the same way? Martha and Grant focus on how that process happens in English and Spanish. Plus, the stories behind the Spanish word "gringo" and the old instruction to elementary school students to sit "Indian Style." Finally, the English equivalents of German sayings provide clever ways to think about naps, procrastination, lemons, and more. Also: catawampus, raunchy, awful vs. awesome, Man Friday, and no-see-ums.<br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />If you're looking forlorn and at a loss, a German speaker might describe you with a phrase that translates as "ordered but not picked up." It's as if you're a forgotten pizza sitting on a restaurant counter.<br /><br />Sitting on the floor Indian style, with one's legs crossed, is a reference to Native Americans' habit of sitting that way, a practice recorded early in this country's history in the journals of French traders. Increasingly, though, schools across the United States are replacing this expression with the term criss-cross applesauce. In the United Kingdom, however, this way of sitting is more commonly known as Turkish style or tailor style. <br /><br />A nine-year-old from Yuma, Arizona, wants to know the origin of catawampus. So do etymologists. Catawampus means "askew," "awry," or "crooked." We do know the word has been around for more than a century, and is spelled many different ways, such as cattywampus and caddywampus. It may derive from the Scots word wampish, meaning to "wriggle," "twist," or "swerve."<br /><br /><br />How sour is it? If you speak German, you might answer with a phrase that translates as "That's so sour it will pull the holes in your socks together."<br /><br />A sixth-grade teacher in San Antonio, Texas, is skeptical about a story that the gringo derives from a song lyric. He's right. The most likely source of this word is the Spanish word for "Greek," griego, a term applied to foreigners much the same way that English speakers might say that an unintelli