Month of Sundays - 29 September 2014

<p>This week on "A Way with Words": Modern language with very old origins. If you're on tenterhooks, it means you're in a state of anxious anticipation or suspense. But what IS a tenterhook? The answer goes back to a 15th-century manufacturing process. Also, you probably have a term for those crumbs that collect in the corners of your eyes overnight. They go by lots of names, like "sleep" and "sand" and "eye boogers." But there's a medical term for them as well--one that goes back to ancient Greek. And where in tarnation did we get the word . . . tarnation? Plus, pie charts in other countries, a month of Sundays, euphemisms for vomiting, at the coalface, and the children's game, hull gull.<br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />Pie charts were invented by the Scottish engineer William Playfair, but the name for these visual representations of data came later. In other countries, this type of graph goes by names for other round foods. In France, a pie chart is sometimes called a camembert, and in Brazil, it's a grafico de pizza.<br /><br />Few actions have as many slang euphemisms as vomiting. The sound itself is so distinct that it's inspired such onomatopoetic terms as ralphing,  talking to Ralph on the big white phone or calling Earl.<br /><br />To be at the coalface means to be on the front lines--working at a practical level, rather than a theoretical one. The phrase is primarily British, and derives from the image of coal miners having direct contact with exposed ore.<br /><br />Young women used to be warned that a lady's name should appear in the newspaper only three times: at her birth, upon her marriage, and at her death. In much the same way, the admonition Don't get your name all up in the papers means "Don't do something brash"--an allusion to all the negative reasons one might find their name in the news. <br /><br />What 6-letter combination of initials would make a perfect title for a movie about elderly college athletes? NCAARP! Quiz Guy John Chaneski's puzzle this week features other portmanteau movie