LiveScience reports: “Fishermen have long known that you can drive earthworms to the surface with a strange technique called worm grunting.
The trick involves driving a wooden stake into the ground and then rubbing the top of the stake with a long piece of steel called a rooping iron. It generates a peculiar grunting sound that drives nearby earthworms to the surface where they can be easily collected for fish bait.”
I wonder if something similar could get the worms out of congress.
I wonder if the word “rooping” is etymologically related to the Norwegian “rop,” which means to call out.