Pickle Seeder - 16 March 2015

<p>This week on "A Way with Words": Constructing imaginary languages and deconstructing the lingo of Hollywood. For example, would you rather live in a world with no adjectives . . . or no verbs--and why? Also, who in the world is that terrible director Alan Smithee [SMITH-ee] who made several decades' worth of crummy films? Actually, if a movie director has his work wrested away from him and doesn't like the final product, he may insist on a pseudonym, and Alan gets a lot of the blame. Also, backpackers and medical personnel must pay close attention to "insensible losses" -- although they may not be what you think. Plus, cuttin' a head shine, insensible losses, fulsome, apoptosis, and a whole slew of ways to refer to that nasty brown ice pack that's been jammed around some of your car wheels all winter.<br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />Let's play a round of linguistic Would You Rather: Would you prefer that everyone talk in language that uses only verbs or only adjectives? Grant and Martha both had the same preference. See if you agree.<br /><br />An East Tennessee caller wonders the phrase cutting a head shine, meaning "pull off a caper" or "behave in a boisterous, comical manner." Cutting a head shine derives from an alternate use of shine, meaning "trick," and head, a term used in Appalachia meaning "most remarkable, striking, or entertaining." A similar phrase, cutting a dido, is used not only in the South and South Midlands, but through much of New England as well.<br /><br />We recently spoke about the phrase I've slept since then, for "I don't remember." A Texas listener wrote to say that where she lives, the phrase is I've blinked since then.<br /><br />A caller in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, says that when his grandfather was asked how he was doing, he'd reply, Running like a pickle seeder, meaning "doing really well." The joke, of course, is that there's no such thing as a pickle seeder. After all, what would be the point of taking seeds out of pickles?<br /><br />On our Facebook group someone asked, "Doe