From Booksmart Studios, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.
I'm John McWhorter, and listen to that music in the background.
That is from the 1978 Broadway production of the Fats Waller music review, Ain't Misbehavin'.
And the reason I have it on is not just because this number, the famous This Joint Is Jumpin',
is glorious, but because listen to what Andre DeShields says at the end.
Donkey!
Don't give your right name no, no, no. I learned that idiom from this recording,
and you hear it now and then, especially in old things.
I wouldn't use right that way,
although I'm imagining that there are possibly Americans who still do.
But it's a nice illustration of just the word right in its core meaning, which is correct.
And the reason that I want to discuss that is because of something that was brought to my attention by Lenore.
I know you're listening,
and I told you that this sounded like a Lexicon Valley episode, and this is the one.
And so what Lenore was asking me about was the fact that in our neighborhood,
you often see derecho, the word for right in Spanish.
And she was noticing that it looks like a word that she knows from Jewish expression as off the derrick,
as in you're going off of the right thing, so to speak.
And that refers to not doing the right things religiously.
You're getting off of the path.