Radio Webster

Many of radio's most familiar shop words (cue, gag, ad lib) are hand-me-downs from its elder cousins, the stage and screen. But radio now fits so snugly into a few that they seem custom-made. Last week Mutual published a dictionary of 200-odd broadcasting terms. Sample radioese:

clinker--a bad or sour musical note.

fluff--missing a cue, or stumbling over a gag.

hook--a stunt, novelty, contest or other device intended to produce tangible evidence of audience attention.

leg--a regional chain, one link of stations in a network.

live--as opposed to recorded or transcribed.

mike hog--one who elbows others away from a microphone.

on the button (head, nose)--a program ending exactly on time.

pancake turner--the sound technician controlling the playing of double-faced records.

segue (pronounced say-gway)--the transition from one musical number to another without break or announcements.

stretch--slow up the concluding musical numbers so that the show will finish on the nose.

tight show--a program that exactly fits or runs a few seconds over its allotted time in rehearsal.

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