August 22, 2025 • 41 mins
Bradley Jay Fills in on NightSide
Have you ever wondered where some of the weird phrases we use originated from? For example, chances are you've heard the phrase, "over my dead body" or "riding shotgun". How about the term “hungover”? Why do we use such bizarre expressions or terms? Bradley will discuss these phrases and terms and their origins! We also want to hear your example of an odd expression you might hear a lot!
Have you ever wondered where some of the weird phrases we use originated from? For example, chances are you've heard the phrase, "over my dead body" or "riding shotgun". How about the term “hungover”? Why do we use such bizarre expressions or terms? Bradley will discuss these phrases and terms and their origins! We also want to hear your example of an odd expression you might hear a lot!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's night Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you Boxton's
and Beech Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thanks again, El, And we continue with this really fun
and actually educational segment here, and we're get digging into
the origins of phrases we use all the time and
never really stop to think what they're all about. I'm
going to run through them very quickly and we'll go
to your call six one seven. It's what we haven't
(00:26):
covered yet. And this is only because some people have
just joined us. You have to assume there are new
folks all the time. And the list goes like this
once we have not covered yet. Include and I'll be brief,
Devil's Advocate, raining cats and Dogs, Upper Crust Wake Wake's
one of my favorites, Drinking the kool Aid, Deadline, Bite,
(00:48):
the Bullet, hot Shot, True Colors, Peeping Tom, and the
whole shebang, Nest and Nest Egg, and it's dug in air.
Get to Doug. There you go, Doug. Hello, Well, it's great.
Are you driving your truck driver? Are you're driving your
(01:09):
truck now?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Oh yeah, I'm getting leading a learning that island can.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
So you drive a fuel truck and you're dumping fuel
into the big tank and a gas station or something
like that in Arlington. Yeah, I think that's you're still
doing that. Man, that's a hard job and you've been
doing it a long time.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It's it's taking its toll. I'm feeling it.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I'm not learning any tie.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So when you say it takes its toll, what in
what ways does it take its toll.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
For long periods of time? I leg hurts sometimes.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, it's just are you Is there anything you can
do to get your connection a little better. It's a
little fuzzy if it's If not, that's fine, Just talk
into the phone better. I don't know. Okay, do you
want to take a shot at one of those?
Speaker 5 (01:59):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
And its original?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I do?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I'm surprised that's drinking the kool aid? That's that came
from the guy any tragedy. Jim Jones, that's right, that's right,
Jim Jobs. That's the only one I know.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yep, that's right. Jim Jones' followers drank the kool aid,
and because they followed him, they believed him, and that
belief required them to drink the kool aid and they died.
Just have to imagine. But you know, the more. The
longer I live, the more I see that the human
brain is a very fragile thing, and people can and
(02:40):
people can fill it full of dumb ideas much easier
than you think. And look at and look at the
cost of that. I mean, that's an extreme version of
the cost they drank the kool aid. But still you
see you see people drinking the kool aid all over
this nation today. Yep, well, very good.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Is there anything else on my over here? I stopped
at one of those red arrows?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh yeah, just one. Very briefly. You're a truck driver,
what's the rule? Do you stop? Can you turn right
on a red arrow or not?
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I usually wait for that one because it has a
sign that says no turn on red, And I was
listening to you talk about that the other night. The
logic is, why would they bother to go through the
trouble of putting a red arrow there, like they want
to make sure you don't turn right on it?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Right? Yeah, if there's a sign that says no right
on red, I wish they would say no right on
red arrow. But whatever, I don't I don't want to go.
Sometimes if the people behind me beep, I grits my
teeth and go and hope I don't get in trouble.
But still no one, no one, no one has given
me both the answer and the source. They're not really
(03:53):
I mean they've said, well it's in the code, but
really I need you to read me the code from
the code book. So that's It's a good one, Doug,
great call, and I appreciate that. Six one sevent thirty. Wow,
this is night number five. This is the twenty fifth hour, right,
is that right? No, twenty twentieth hour, twentieth hour. Yeah,
(04:15):
I know. I haven't done this shift much so I
haven't counted the hours. Andrew and Gloucester, you're on WBZ.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Bradley, thanks for taking my call. I also called with
the kool aid and I just hung on because I
didn't want to just hang up. But also that that
that phrase, I think it's I think the way we
use it now so cheaply. If you understand what those
people went through at that time with that particular murder suicide,
(04:46):
that you know, their children had been given the kool
aid before it was offered to them, and they were
basically told you know if you don't Some of them
were some of them were physically, you know, injected, and
others were told, you know, if you don't drink it,
you're gonna get shot. So it was we tossed it
around like, oh, you know, they drank the kool aid
and it led to the death. But it was really
(05:09):
not like that.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
You know. I guess I'd forgotten that because there's a movie, right,
I believe I saw the movie, and I don't remember that,
but I completely believe you. And that makes a little
more sense. But how do you get in that situation
at all? Good God, that's so sad.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
Well, I mean, Jones was very, very connected. He had
you know, he had a good reputation and in in
in the right types of circles. I mean, people that
that if you you know again, if you go back
and look at any of the history he was, he
was celebrated by you know, the the political elite in
(05:51):
in California as someone who was a real champion of
civil rights, and and.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, you know, I didn't know that. I forgot that.
I'm gonna have to go back and either either get
an audiobook on that topic or watch the movie. I'm
big in audio, big into audiobooks. By the way, if
anybody has an audiobook to recommend, I need one. I
just finished the audiobook of Albert Camew's Stranger and I
need a new book. So there's that. Anything else from.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
Taking my call. It's good to hear your voice. I'm
I'm busy again.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
There.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Thank you very much, Andrew. It's a pleasure. It is
fun to get to know y'all again. I guess we
can go to Karen in Wisconsin. Karen, what's the deal?
Speaker 7 (06:37):
What's the deal? I've got one for you, and the
answer will be something. The answer will be from what
you put out there. So if you can figure that
out by what I said, I'm going to ask you this,
(06:59):
and then you think of what you put out there
and you will have the answer. What do you get
when you cross an alley cat with a canary.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
An cat with a canary?
Speaker 7 (07:18):
The answer.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I give up?
Speaker 7 (07:23):
Think of think of the ones. Come on, well, it ends,
it starts. Should I just say? There's three words a peeping.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
A peeping canary, a peeping cat, peeping cat, peeping tom cat.
Speaker 7 (07:44):
There you go, peeping tom.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That's pretty good for you.
Speaker 7 (07:50):
I just kind of variated the game a little bit
by giving you because you know you see what I mean.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
You know, I'm very impressed. You variated it very well. Right,
you sound pretty good too, You sound well.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
Oh, I'm I'm doing well.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
How are you.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It's been a long time since I talked to you,
like years, So anything, anything, gonda happen. So I'm glad
you're good.
Speaker 7 (08:16):
Well, it happened yesterday. Somebody poked my nose. So I'm
not breathing very well right now.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So I can't let that go. They poked your nose.
What do you mean, Yeah, punched you in the nose.
Speaker 7 (08:29):
Oh, there's just something that was there way a long
time ago, and they poked it. You know, now they're
going to buy op see it it was there.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
I thought a stranger walked up and poked your nose.
Speaker 7 (08:43):
Well they are, so I wanted off of there. I
don't want people poking me.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, but what is it? Something bad? It's got to
get removed.
Speaker 7 (08:52):
Well I got it removed and it grew back, so
I got it removed yesterday. But you know, it's it's
hard to breathe.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Okay, some things you just gotta do. You got if you.
Speaker 7 (09:04):
Some things you do and some things you don't. Right,
all right, I just thought this was kind of cute
because you put out Peeping Tom and I you know,
saw this and decide to switch the game a little
on you.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That was great. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 7 (09:22):
Take care, so I miss you, and I just not
good with computers, but maybe i'll try again when when
everything clears up. Very good, We take care? Okay, yes
you too, you too care, take care out there. Miss you.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Well, you don't have to miss me anymore because here
I am. Thank you. It's eleven sixteen, which means, oh,
why not. Well, let's do this. Let's hear these messages
and continue with this. There's not that much time left
in the show, forty five minutes, and there's a lot
of you know, you're probably all wondering what is the
to these these? What are the origins of these? So
(10:03):
that's going to take me some time to just explain
those all as well. So we'll do that and we'll
talk to Matt and Brighton next on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Let's go right to Matt and Brighton see if he
can give us the origin of one of these sayings
that I have been sharing with you and Matt. There
you go, Hi, Matt.
Speaker 8 (10:29):
Hey, how you doing. I hope you had a good week,
and I appreciated calling in earlier in the week and
being able to call back in.
Speaker 9 (10:36):
Okay, Uh hope, Paul as well.
Speaker 8 (10:41):
Good good to hear. You know. So, I mean I
want to say I'm the cooly thing. You know, there's
something I think important fundamental to mention here, and it's
less of a question than I want to kind of
think it's a fundamental.
Speaker 10 (10:57):
You know, when Jim Jones moved.
Speaker 8 (10:59):
His you know, so I don't know what word we
want to call it, trotyru compound, well, he had the
compound out of Guyana, but before he had it locally,
you know, in you know, domestic United States, and he
got this group to go out there, you know, the
People's Church whatever was called. You know, they from nineteen
(11:23):
seventy six to seventy eight ordered massive amounts of UH.
I don't know if I should say this something or
not cyanide or something similar to that. So this was
a built up plan. And when Congressman Ryan came over
to try and pull these people out, many of whom
wanted to leave, it was far too these people were
(11:47):
under the spell of this individual, and in many cases
he's nine hundred people and the shot literally they were
infected with.
Speaker 10 (11:59):
It, you know.
Speaker 8 (12:00):
I mean and when you say, you know, do they
drink the cool league, Yeah, some of them may have.
But I think it's important to know when you're under
the spell of a a leader of that kind of uh,
you know, narcissistic, you know, uh just uh when't necessarily genocidal,
(12:22):
but a form of that. It's important to know the
difference between mental uh you know, maybe the Stockholm syndrome.
You know, you're at the help the whole of this person,
and you don't have an option.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
So here's a question for everybody. Do you think that
anybody could fall under that spell just like they did,
or does it take a person that a wants to
or is be particularly vulnerable in some way?
Speaker 8 (12:53):
Well, I think that's a great a great question. And
for me, you know, I went to law school for
a little bit. It's not what I ended up doing.
I had a psychology degree. I'm not a PhD. But
I look at the the Stanford Prison experiment and how
quick if it is a movie made off of it,
(13:15):
and these are normal people who are put in a
programmed environment that are normal people with a strong, cold
authority overseeing other people. It's all simulated, but it becomes real.
And I think what the answer is very quickly is
that yet normal every people can be programmed on certain situations.
(13:37):
I'm not saying everybody, but can be programmed quickly to
adhere to either your abuser or to the opposite. And
I think that's human nature.
Speaker 10 (13:49):
You have to be.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
It's either it as strong or the weak, and you
have to be as strong as to win the week
cannot always win. And I'm not saying being weak or
being submissive as bad, but it's the altruistic kind of
you know, handmade's tale kind of that you get into
that kind of whole George Orwell type thing which is
going off the rails. But that's my belief is that
(14:13):
I think every human can be programmed differently.
Speaker 10 (14:15):
Absolutely so you could.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
You figure if you know, if if Jim Jones had
enough time with you, he could have gotten you under
his spell.
Speaker 8 (14:24):
Well, I ended a day. If he was able to
get me on as an adult, I never would have
had any influence of wanting to join the People's Church.
That's not my religion, anything. But if I was under
that realm, or I was put under that at sixteen,
I can't tell you because I never lived it, so
(14:47):
I can't for me. I always say when people say
I'm so sorry about what happens to somebody, if you
haven't lived it, you cannot say I feel sorry that individual.
So if I'm in that situation or something like that,
I put myself in that situation, I don't know. Would
that person can then and hear me too, or convinced
(15:10):
me to do if I put myself in that situation.
Perhaps once you put yourself under the will of someone
who's in that it could.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Be yep, all right, it's true. You don't know.
Speaker 8 (15:23):
Hope. I would hope not. I would hope that my
own mental will without me too, and I would never
put myself in the situations.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Thanks so much for that college.
Speaker 8 (15:33):
Great great gods. Have a good beginnd.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
All right, it's Bob in Kingston. Then hello Roberts, what's
going on?
Speaker 9 (15:44):
Yeah, I got I got one for you. It comes
from my early days as a college graduate. I worked
for Phillip sixty six, the gasoline that won the West.
That was trade. I went through the dealer trading program
in Denham and they taught what was called them daily nuts.
You know what the origin of the daily dunners. It's
(16:07):
an accounting term really, the.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Daily nut, the daily yep, you got me? You stump me.
I'm stumped. I stand.
Speaker 9 (16:15):
But in believal days, fares would be held and wagons
would pull in with merchants, and what the town would
do was remove a wheel duck so they couldn't drive
off without paying whatever taxes they owed at the end
of the day. But we used it as an accounting
(16:37):
term to teach our dealers that they had to make
X amount of money every day in order to pay
their bills. Because when they started up a service station,
their money was so tight that they couldn't They dealing
in thousands and thousands of dollars. And that was before
credit cards were that prevalent in sixty five sixty six.
(17:00):
So they're they able to get cash. They have huge
amounts of cash by the end of the day. Wow,
they might get They might think, Wow, I got so
much money, I could buy this, I could buy that.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
But your cata that's a good one because it's an
amount of money. What it means is uh, when someone says,
what's your nut? It means how much money do you
have to make to start to make a profit, I think,
or how much do you have to make well to
not go out of lives to cover expenses, which is
(17:32):
just like what you say, and I didn't know way back,
but just just like so many of these, they go
back them to medieval.
Speaker 9 (17:39):
La times, medieval Love the Daily Doty, the town would
take the nut off one of the wheels so that they,
you know, the merchant couldn't drive off without paying whatever
taxes he owed to the town for the prophecy made
selling his wares in their town, you know.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Will be recorded.
Speaker 9 (17:59):
There's just sorry, Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Very good Bob. Thanks. There's one catch though, when I
think the medieval times, like I think, you know, Monty,
Python and the Holy Grail or whatever. Did their wheels
have nuts? They had wooden spokes, right, they were kind
of jammed into the hub and then they had rims.
(18:25):
But did they have nuts? I mean you couldn't. Do
they have wrenches? Did they have metal? They didn't even
have metal, so so hmm, I'm having second thoughts about that.
Maybe they did they wooden screwsy ah, so maybe wooden bolts.
Maybe do they have wooden nuts? Maybe? Well that's my
(18:45):
thought process and I'm sticking to it now. It's Melinda
in Quinsy on WBZ. Hi, Melinda, Hi, how are you fantastic?
It's good to hear your voice.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Oh, thank you, you too. What I called Braddy was about
Doug's one about the kool Aid, because so many of
us know kind of where that came from, I think,
But what I want to say was, I don't think
a lot of people know that it wasn't actually kool aid.
It was used. It was a less expensive powdered drink
(19:18):
called flavor Aid. He probably just went cheap.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I can't imagine you were cheap cheap at.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
A time like that, that's I know. But but they
didn't want to use probably all like actual kool aid.
He just used this, which he can add. The whole
thing was a horror. But that's why I remember so
well that you know that this whole suicide he killed
nine hundred people, nine hundred followers on that. You know
that Jim Jones flavor aid.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Maybe you couldn't get kool aiding flavor ate, right, That's it.
That was it. He couldn't get kool Aid in g
Maybe that's the reason.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
Yeah, maybe because it just had less expensive I remember
it the less expensive powdered drink mix and called Slavor
eight exactly Slavery eight.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
When you said less expensive, I was thinking, oh xarex,
But no, that's not right.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I don't think that's less expensive either.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
Yeah, I don't know remember that stuff cheese ye?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Speaking of kool aid, are you old enough to remember
when you made kool aid? You put in the color
and then you had to put in like seventeen pounds
of sugar.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
I don't remember really you did that. I didn't know.
I thought you just came out of a little to
say you got grape, but you got cherry and it
just came out.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Of a little that was pre sweetened kool aid.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
Right, Well, so you will go. So there was a
time you actually added sugar too.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
You added so much sugar, you really could. How much
sugar do it's? Your Koolid was maybe fifty sugar it was.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
Did? Yeah, sugar is so bad and I hate to
say it. I am I am a sugarholic. I just
sugar and water is probably what is what a half makes, right,
And you would talking about chocolate a while ago, you
said mentioned some Charlotte. Do you like Doc chocolate? Yep,
Doc Chocolate's good for you. So I am a nut
for chocolate too. But if I at least eat the
(21:11):
Doc chocolate, the good ones, like you're at Elie or something.
I don't know if I'm gonna say, but that's good
for you. At least it's good for you. Like blueberries.
Blueberries and Doc chocolate, they're good and I can take
them or as I can't eat tale and salmon and
certain things that should I should eat.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Can't eat salmon. I love salmon.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
I just can't stand it now. I can't do it.
My daught eats all the right foods. She has all
the right stuff, and I have all the stuff back
from the sixties seventies.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
How about sardines, No, okay, you eat them right, I do.
And we like things. If you ever, when people go
to Spain, they have a thing called bucarones, which is
which are sardines that are philaided and with oil on them,
and they're fantastic. Well, and I just want to warn
everybody in the States. And I went to a restaurant
(21:59):
the other day that said they were serving bocourone, but
they weren't. It's phil sardines. They were anchovies and it's
not so so this is really that was a really
good call. I didn't know that about flavor aid. That's
so generic.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
Yeah, something you don't think of, But we do say
that thing. Oh, you're right, we say it a lot nowadays.
There's things going on and we tend to say that.
But anytime that's that's a word we use, that's the
saying we use now. So anyways, I just want I
just figured, well, I can't use it now. I can't
bring it up now. But I think a lot of
people don't know because we all say the word kool aid,
(22:40):
but that it was flavor right, So I thought they
would at least still hang in there and try to
tell you something. You know.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Fantastic, Melinda, Thank you so much, Thank you, perfect wonderful call.
Jane and Devin will be next on w b Z.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Then we go directly to Jane and Shrewsbury to find
out what's up with her and perhaps she wants to
take a shot at defining or giving me the answer
to the origin of some of these phrases that I
have given you. And I'll leave a little time at
the end so I can give you all the answers,
so your time will will not have been for not Jane, Hi, Hi.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Actually I called because you mentioned audio books and that's
my passion. So and I keep lists of the ones
that I read. So is there any particular type you're
interested in.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I do like well, I like thrillers and mysteries, spy stuff.
I mean, I have dozens and dozens written down. But
if you like, I'm trying to think. She now, I'm
going to draw a blank. Let me think about it.
The other thing is I eat canned fish all the time, herring,
normally as a salad with cabbage and sour. I mentioned
(24:00):
this to you when you still had your own show,
so uh, and you know sardines and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I love talking about sardines for this long wow, well.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Some years ago we did. If you like, I don't
really know about. There are some good spy novels, but
I'm not that good on them. But most popular books
you can find an audiobook now. And if you've liked
a narrator. I try to sometimes repeat the narrators. My
husband said to mention James by Percival Everett, which has
(24:32):
been a really majorly talked about book the last few years,
is a remake of Huckleberry Finn.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
So that's good. I do want to kind of stay
on this topic, though, thank you. Do you want to
do you want to take a guess on one of
these phrases?
Speaker 4 (24:48):
No, you know, I because I kind of missed some
of the show. Actually I tuned back in when you
were mentioning the audiobook, so I got to do this anyway.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
So I'll run through the phrases if any of these.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Oh, okay, okay, I'll try sure.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Okay, deadline, bite the bullet, hot shot, like that guy
thinks he's a hot shot, the whole shebang. Nest Egg
Devil's advocates raining cats and dogs. Upper crust and weak.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Upper crust. That sounds like something to do with like
the kind of food that the wealthy people would have,
that would have.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Kind of since we're running the long time and I
have to give these answers anyway, soon, I'll give you
that one. So they used to use pewter cookwaar I guess,
and that would interact with food, especially tomatoes, and for
the longest time they thought tomatoes were poisoned, but it
was because the pewter was interacting with the acid and
the tomatoes. But in general, the poor people would get
(25:51):
the stuff that had cooked within the pewter because they
didn't really know why, but they knew that they kind
of made you sick. So if you were poor, you
got the stuff like under the crust, and if you
were if you were you know, mid mid range and
your income, you kind of got the middle. But if
you were rich, you got the upper crust, which had
been cooked above uh the pewter and was not so poisonous.
Speaker 8 (26:16):
Hm hmm.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Okay, That's what I got.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
That's my story and I'm sticking to it all right, Jane,
thank you. Devon over in Rawley or is it Rowley
and Devon? No, Devon and Raley.
Speaker 11 (26:30):
Hey, yeah, and I called last week. I was the
tattoo shop. Okay, but the barbam when he was looking
for the saying bite the bullet.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
What it means, yes, go ahead?
Speaker 11 (26:45):
As when like back in the war, when they would
be putting uh, you know, kinde off your leg or
cutting off your arm. They'd have you bite the bullet.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yes, that was the saying Civil War anesthesia only there
was anesthesia, but I guess they didn't have enough of
it to go around because they were they were doing amputations.
The definition of a surgeon was a good surgeon could
amputate you quickly, not save your leg, but just do
it quickly. And they said bite the bullet. But who's
really going to bite on a bullet? Really surgeons did?
Speaker 11 (27:15):
They really did better bullets. Surgeons had a.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Leather strap in their kit for you to bite on.
I suppose if you have a love of strap, but
that's part of the surgeon.
Speaker 11 (27:26):
You a bullet.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
The thing about biting on a bullet, it's going to
break your teeth. That's terrible.
Speaker 11 (27:32):
You're getting a leg topped off, your mind a little.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Bitch teeth Okay, anything else?
Speaker 11 (27:38):
He said about the Monty python and how like the
wheels have wooden like those gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
That Collins said, where's the word? What is what is
your nut? Or the phrase nut being related to financial
uh stuff? And he said that when wagons would come
in and sell stuff, the you know, in order to
make sure that the wagon owner paid the cellar, the
vendor paid their taxes, they would remove a nut from
(28:07):
the wagon. I started thinking, you know, when I think
of nut, I think of nuts on the cars that
we have today metal, and I didn't. I don't remember
seeing nuts on wooden wagon wheels, just spokes driven into
holes in the hub, and so I started to doubt it.
But of course I got to look care more carefully
at that.
Speaker 11 (28:28):
So, well, let's think about their head like iron like that, Uh,
the blacksmiths and stuff like that. Back then, they'd the
iron mesh, you know, on their their uniform. So they
had metal back then. Definitely metal on the field.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I guess they did, because they had horses, shoes, that's right. Yeah,
well he was talking about medieval times. Did they have
blacksmiths medieval?
Speaker 11 (28:50):
Why would they?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah? Right, they had they had iron armor, that's right.
Speaker 11 (28:55):
Yeah, they had the irons like black smiths. Wh wouldn't
they have like metal on their wheels. That's like a
way to keep it together.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Very very good point. I guess it depends how far
you go back in the Middle Ages. But yeah, that's
a super good point. But I still in my mind,
I don't I can't picture meteal nuts. It's one thing
to hammer on a horseshoe or a sword, but another
thing to make a threaded bolt and a threaded.
Speaker 11 (29:22):
Threaded and maybe just like you know, like it's like
lash on, like you know, go around the scope part
around the park.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
That's also a good point, very very good.
Speaker 11 (29:31):
I tuned in at that point.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
So, well, that's very good. I think you got me
maybe thanks.
Speaker 12 (29:36):
All right, Okay, so I'm going to start to give
you the answers to these, but if you have one
you want to get you before I get to it
and take a guess at its.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Meaning, its origin. Let me know, let's go with Devil's advocate,
to play the Devil's advocates. I played Devil's advocates. It
seems that back in the early sixteenth century, which is
fifteen hundreds, one of the pope Leo's I think it
was Leo the tenth created a job a post called
(30:14):
promoter of the faith, and that person's job was to
argue against proposed canonization of a saint. So they were
thinking about canonizing someone to become a saint, and the
job of that this protector of the faith, it was
called a promoter of the faith, was to think of
(30:39):
everything they could think of in terms of reasons they
should not be canonized as a saint. And I guess
if they couldn't think of enough reasons, and there were
enough reasons, they would. But that's where it came from.
There was an official job, Devil's advocate. And the reason
(31:01):
you know it's an official job called Devil's advocate is
the actual name of the job was Advocatus diaboli or
Devil's advocate. So there's that. That's a good one. Huh.
It's Jim and Hyde Park.
Speaker 10 (31:19):
Hello, Jim him Bradley. Hey, it's good to he help
you bet and enjoy your chill. Bradley. On the wheel,
there is a nut on the wheel. I'm gonna on
a farm will full back in the forties.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, but we're talking we're talking the year nine hundred
or something like that.
Speaker 10 (31:40):
You know, no, but we used them in the forties.
My dad has there is a nut on the wheel
in the middle of a wheel.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
But that's in the forties. We're talking Middle Ages, medieval times.
Speaker 10 (31:59):
Uh. Well, I was just seeing I used to we
used to as well.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Okay, so there there there you go. I still when
I picture a wagon wheel from even back in the
days when they had chain mail made out of metal,
which is a good point. Metal helmets like in Monty
Python and the Holy Grail, I still envision. Wouldn't wagon
wheels where the spokes go into the hub was the hub?
(32:31):
Maybe the hub was kept on by some wooden screw.
So yeah, all right, or or nuts if you will, yeah,
wor not? Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and acquiesce and
say you got you folks are right.
Speaker 10 (32:47):
And I'm I'm okay.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, thanks Nancy and Wooster. I know it's Wooster. I
don't know why I said, Wooster, Wooster.
Speaker 13 (32:57):
Go ahead all week. The show has been very interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Thanks.
Speaker 13 (33:04):
I just wanted to call about biting the bullet. When
I was younger, when I was a little girl, we
went to Fort tykwonder Roga, Okay, and they had in
the museum a lot of bullets that were bitten by
the soldiers during amputations, and it made a very big
impression on me when I was nine or ten years old.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Well, okay, it looks like you've proven me wrong again.
Speaker 13 (33:29):
Yeah, they really did bite them. I don't know how
hot bullets are. Maybe they all lad of something and
they're not all a lot hard. I don't really know that,
but I just you remember seeing them crushed and thinking
how bad that was must have been.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So I think it's going to hurt enough having an amputation.
I don't want my teeth to be broken too. I
would find something else.
Speaker 13 (33:50):
Maybe that would feel better than the imputation. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
I wouldn't want to bite on a spot.
Speaker 13 (33:56):
Bite the bullets in your tongue.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yes, actually that's right. Definitely one hundred percent agreement on that.
Thanks Nancy. Fantastic to hear from me. I hope to
hear from you next week. Oops. I didn't realize she
was going to talk. Now I have some remaining I
will give you the meetings right after these messages on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Boy, I had a great week with you, folks. I
love you. Thank you so much. This is so fun.
I'm going to use the last few minutes here to
give you the answers to the questions regarding the origins
of certain phrases. Are you ready? We did peeping Tom
Devil's advocate. Okay, raining cats and dogs back in the
day when they were fast drews and they had, you know,
(34:49):
maybe a fireplace in there. He would rise to the
top of the warmest place to be up near the
roof and the heat would seep into the thatch of
the thatt roofs and where cats and dogs like to
hang out, well they need They like hanging out by
the radiator on a heating pad in my in my
home's case, they like warmth, so they would go up
(35:10):
and sleep in the thatch. But if it rained heavily,
they would either run away from there and just jump out,
or in some cases, if there was enough of a
del use, it might have washed them out. But if
it rained hard enough, cats and dogs would be jumping
or falling to the ground. Raining cats and dogs. Now,
(35:32):
I could be wrong, but you don't have time to
prove that upper crust we did Wake. I love Wake. Now,
this could be wrong too, but this is definitely the best,
the most fun version. Back in the day, goblets mugs
were made out of metal. It was at least partly lead,
(35:52):
which would interact. It would leach and along with the
combination of the lead and the alcohol, it could make
you want conscious and sometimes for days. So they didn't
know if you really were dead or not. Sometimes they
were worried that you might not really be dead, so
you would be laid out and people would watch you
(36:14):
to see if you would wake. Now again, I don't
know if there's another more fancy version, but this is
a good one. Might as well go with this one, right,
The truth doesn't seem the truth is overrated these days.
I mean, the truth is underrated these days. People don't
(36:36):
really pay much attention to truth. Deadline. You're in jail,
and if you try to run away, there's a certain
certain area where I guess they can call, hey, come back,
or we'll shoot. But then there's a line past which
the guards have the green light to shoot. That would
be the dead line. Hot shot, Hey, hot shot? Who's
(37:01):
that hot shot? He thinks he's a hot shot. A
hot shot is a cannonball. It's been heated up directly
in the fire, red hot cannonball that it was designed
to be shot into the sales of ships and set
them on fire. That would be the hot shot. The
whole shebang. This what a shebang is. In the Civil
(37:24):
War era, it was a hot or a shed or
an encampment. So I guess if you wiped out the
enemy's encampment. You had wiped out the whole shebang. There's
another version of it. It's also used to denote a
(37:46):
drinking establishment, which may come from the Irish Irish chabine
shabe n yeah, chabine, which is good to know you can,
Hey Bob, want to go over to the chabine for
a couple of beers. The next one up is nest egg,
(38:08):
nest egg. I like this. I don't know if you've
ever had chickens and you try to get them to
lay eggs, and you would take the eggs and you
eat them. We had chickens. A couple things about chickens.
If you ever get some, make sure when you reach
in to get the eggs you check for snakes. Snakes
(38:32):
like to hang out in there, and it's a bomber
to reach in to get eggs and have there be
a snake. But that's not where the nest egg comes from.
Farmers who had chickens would tend to leave one egg
in the nest as kind of a reminder, Hey, chicken,
you're supposed to lay these, remember these eggs these? Yeah? Yeah,
(38:54):
this egg? Lay some more in case they forgot and now,
I'm just remembering when we had our eggs. We had
a glass white egg we would put in the nest
to make the chicken, to remind the chickens what they're
supposed to do. That's funny. I haven't thought of that
in one million years. But yeah, we did Baker's dozen
(39:18):
and that's just a wake up a crust running raining
cats and dogs. Yeah, that covers it all. I've got
two minutes here and then I want to acknowledge something,
correct something, clear up something from the other day. The
other day, we had Jason J. Smart call in live
(39:40):
from Kiv, Ukraine, after staying in a bomb shelter all
night with explosions going off, and we interviewed him about
what it was like there, and during that he said
erroneously that Ukraine that the Russians had only taken one
(40:00):
percent of Ukrainian territory, and GEO called in and correctly
corrected him and said that's not true. They've taken more
than that, like twenty percent. Actually, at the beginning of
the conflict they got twenty seven percent. Since then they've
lost seven percent. But the confusion from the guests Jason
(40:22):
Jay Smart came from what I believe he meant to
say was they only gained one percent in twenty twenty four,
because that's the fact, and I've heard that used in
other accounts of the war and other accounts of twenty
twenty four. So after losing hundreds of thousands of men,
they only only gained one percent. So I do want
(40:44):
to thank GEO for being right, well for a caring
and b being right. And I do want to explain
what I believe the guest was referring to. He was tired,
he didn't get much sleep because of all the explosions
and the bombs and the rockets and the drones, and
neglected to put in that this year twenty twenty four.
(41:06):
I think that's it. I had a great, great, great
rewarding week with you all, and I'm looking forward to
next week as well. That's pretty much it. I'm gonna
head home, make myself a maybe a sprints or something
like that, and dig in and get ready for next week.
(41:27):
Thanks to Rob brooks Man, thanks so much, Rub and
most of all, as you know, thanks to you for
being great and being part of this great show. And
thanks to Dan Ray for letting me do this' WBZ
News Radio ten thirty
It's night Side with Dan Ray. I'm telling you Boxton's
and Beech Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thanks again, El, And we continue with this really fun
and actually educational segment here, and we're get digging into
the origins of phrases we use all the time and
never really stop to think what they're all about. I'm
going to run through them very quickly and we'll go
to your call six one seven. It's what we haven't
(00:26):
covered yet. And this is only because some people have
just joined us. You have to assume there are new
folks all the time. And the list goes like this
once we have not covered yet. Include and I'll be brief,
Devil's Advocate, raining cats and Dogs, Upper Crust Wake Wake's
one of my favorites, Drinking the kool Aid, Deadline, Bite,
(00:48):
the Bullet, hot Shot, True Colors, Peeping Tom, and the
whole shebang, Nest and Nest Egg, and it's dug in air.
Get to Doug. There you go, Doug. Hello, Well, it's great.
Are you driving your truck driver? Are you're driving your
(01:09):
truck now?
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Oh yeah, I'm getting leading a learning that island can.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
So you drive a fuel truck and you're dumping fuel
into the big tank and a gas station or something
like that in Arlington. Yeah, I think that's you're still
doing that. Man, that's a hard job and you've been
doing it a long time.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
It's it's taking its toll. I'm feeling it.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I'm not learning any tie.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
So when you say it takes its toll, what in
what ways does it take its toll.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
For long periods of time? I leg hurts sometimes.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Yeah, it's just are you Is there anything you can
do to get your connection a little better. It's a
little fuzzy if it's If not, that's fine, Just talk
into the phone better. I don't know. Okay, do you
want to take a shot at one of those?
Speaker 5 (01:59):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
And its original?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I do?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I'm surprised that's drinking the kool aid? That's that came
from the guy any tragedy. Jim Jones, that's right, that's right,
Jim Jobs. That's the only one I know.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Yep, that's right. Jim Jones' followers drank the kool aid,
and because they followed him, they believed him, and that
belief required them to drink the kool aid and they died.
Just have to imagine. But you know, the more. The
longer I live, the more I see that the human
brain is a very fragile thing, and people can and
(02:40):
people can fill it full of dumb ideas much easier
than you think. And look at and look at the
cost of that. I mean, that's an extreme version of
the cost they drank the kool aid. But still you
see you see people drinking the kool aid all over
this nation today. Yep, well, very good.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Is there anything else on my over here? I stopped
at one of those red arrows?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh yeah, just one. Very briefly. You're a truck driver,
what's the rule? Do you stop? Can you turn right
on a red arrow or not?
Speaker 3 (03:13):
I usually wait for that one because it has a
sign that says no turn on red, And I was
listening to you talk about that the other night. The
logic is, why would they bother to go through the
trouble of putting a red arrow there, like they want
to make sure you don't turn right on it?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Right? Yeah, if there's a sign that says no right
on red, I wish they would say no right on
red arrow. But whatever, I don't I don't want to go.
Sometimes if the people behind me beep, I grits my
teeth and go and hope I don't get in trouble.
But still no one, no one, no one has given
me both the answer and the source. They're not really
(03:53):
I mean they've said, well it's in the code, but
really I need you to read me the code from
the code book. So that's It's a good one, Doug,
great call, and I appreciate that. Six one sevent thirty. Wow,
this is night number five. This is the twenty fifth hour, right,
is that right? No, twenty twentieth hour, twentieth hour. Yeah,
(04:15):
I know. I haven't done this shift much so I
haven't counted the hours. Andrew and Gloucester, you're on WBZ.
Speaker 6 (04:23):
Bradley, thanks for taking my call. I also called with
the kool aid and I just hung on because I
didn't want to just hang up. But also that that
that phrase, I think it's I think the way we
use it now so cheaply. If you understand what those
people went through at that time with that particular murder suicide,
(04:46):
that you know, their children had been given the kool
aid before it was offered to them, and they were
basically told you know if you don't Some of them
were some of them were physically, you know, injected, and
others were told, you know, if you don't drink it,
you're gonna get shot. So it was we tossed it
around like, oh, you know, they drank the kool aid
and it led to the death. But it was really
(05:09):
not like that.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
You know. I guess I'd forgotten that because there's a movie, right,
I believe I saw the movie, and I don't remember that,
but I completely believe you. And that makes a little
more sense. But how do you get in that situation
at all? Good God, that's so sad.
Speaker 6 (05:26):
Well, I mean, Jones was very, very connected. He had
you know, he had a good reputation and in in
in the right types of circles. I mean, people that
that if you you know again, if you go back
and look at any of the history he was, he
was celebrated by you know, the the political elite in
(05:51):
in California as someone who was a real champion of
civil rights, and and.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, you know, I didn't know that. I forgot that.
I'm gonna have to go back and either either get
an audiobook on that topic or watch the movie. I'm
big in audio, big into audiobooks. By the way, if
anybody has an audiobook to recommend, I need one. I
just finished the audiobook of Albert Camew's Stranger and I
need a new book. So there's that. Anything else from.
Speaker 6 (06:24):
Taking my call. It's good to hear your voice. I'm
I'm busy again.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
There.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Thank you very much, Andrew. It's a pleasure. It is
fun to get to know y'all again. I guess we
can go to Karen in Wisconsin. Karen, what's the deal?
Speaker 7 (06:37):
What's the deal? I've got one for you, and the
answer will be something. The answer will be from what
you put out there. So if you can figure that
out by what I said, I'm going to ask you this,
(06:59):
and then you think of what you put out there
and you will have the answer. What do you get
when you cross an alley cat with a canary.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
An cat with a canary?
Speaker 7 (07:18):
The answer.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I give up?
Speaker 7 (07:23):
Think of think of the ones. Come on, well, it ends,
it starts. Should I just say? There's three words a peeping.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
A peeping canary, a peeping cat, peeping cat, peeping tom cat.
Speaker 7 (07:44):
There you go, peeping tom.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
That's pretty good for you.
Speaker 7 (07:50):
I just kind of variated the game a little bit
by giving you because you know you see what I mean.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
You know, I'm very impressed. You variated it very well. Right,
you sound pretty good too, You sound well.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
Oh, I'm I'm doing well.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
How are you.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It's been a long time since I talked to you,
like years, So anything, anything, gonda happen. So I'm glad
you're good.
Speaker 7 (08:16):
Well, it happened yesterday. Somebody poked my nose. So I'm
not breathing very well right now.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
So I can't let that go. They poked your nose.
What do you mean, Yeah, punched you in the nose.
Speaker 7 (08:29):
Oh, there's just something that was there way a long
time ago, and they poked it. You know, now they're
going to buy op see it it was there.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
I thought a stranger walked up and poked your nose.
Speaker 7 (08:43):
Well they are, so I wanted off of there. I
don't want people poking me.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, but what is it? Something bad? It's got to
get removed.
Speaker 7 (08:52):
Well I got it removed and it grew back, so
I got it removed yesterday. But you know, it's it's
hard to breathe.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Okay, some things you just gotta do. You got if you.
Speaker 7 (09:04):
Some things you do and some things you don't. Right,
all right, I just thought this was kind of cute
because you put out Peeping Tom and I you know,
saw this and decide to switch the game a little
on you.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
That was great. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 7 (09:22):
Take care, so I miss you, and I just not
good with computers, but maybe i'll try again when when
everything clears up. Very good, We take care? Okay, yes
you too, you too care, take care out there. Miss you.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Well, you don't have to miss me anymore because here
I am. Thank you. It's eleven sixteen, which means, oh,
why not. Well, let's do this. Let's hear these messages
and continue with this. There's not that much time left
in the show, forty five minutes, and there's a lot
of you know, you're probably all wondering what is the
to these these? What are the origins of these? So
(10:03):
that's going to take me some time to just explain
those all as well. So we'll do that and we'll
talk to Matt and Brighton next on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Let's go right to Matt and Brighton see if he
can give us the origin of one of these sayings
that I have been sharing with you and Matt. There
you go, Hi, Matt.
Speaker 8 (10:29):
Hey, how you doing. I hope you had a good week,
and I appreciated calling in earlier in the week and
being able to call back in.
Speaker 9 (10:36):
Okay, Uh hope, Paul as well.
Speaker 8 (10:41):
Good good to hear. You know. So, I mean I
want to say I'm the cooly thing. You know, there's
something I think important fundamental to mention here, and it's
less of a question than I want to kind of
think it's a fundamental.
Speaker 10 (10:57):
You know, when Jim Jones moved.
Speaker 8 (10:59):
His you know, so I don't know what word we
want to call it, trotyru compound, well, he had the
compound out of Guyana, but before he had it locally,
you know, in you know, domestic United States, and he
got this group to go out there, you know, the
People's Church whatever was called. You know, they from nineteen
(11:23):
seventy six to seventy eight ordered massive amounts of UH.
I don't know if I should say this something or
not cyanide or something similar to that. So this was
a built up plan. And when Congressman Ryan came over
to try and pull these people out, many of whom
wanted to leave, it was far too these people were
(11:47):
under the spell of this individual, and in many cases
he's nine hundred people and the shot literally they were
infected with.
Speaker 10 (11:59):
It, you know.
Speaker 8 (12:00):
I mean and when you say, you know, do they
drink the cool league, Yeah, some of them may have.
But I think it's important to know when you're under
the spell of a a leader of that kind of uh,
you know, narcissistic, you know, uh just uh when't necessarily genocidal,
(12:22):
but a form of that. It's important to know the
difference between mental uh you know, maybe the Stockholm syndrome.
You know, you're at the help the whole of this person,
and you don't have an option.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
So here's a question for everybody. Do you think that
anybody could fall under that spell just like they did,
or does it take a person that a wants to
or is be particularly vulnerable in some way?
Speaker 8 (12:53):
Well, I think that's a great a great question. And
for me, you know, I went to law school for
a little bit. It's not what I ended up doing.
I had a psychology degree. I'm not a PhD. But
I look at the the Stanford Prison experiment and how
quick if it is a movie made off of it,
(13:15):
and these are normal people who are put in a
programmed environment that are normal people with a strong, cold
authority overseeing other people. It's all simulated, but it becomes real.
And I think what the answer is very quickly is
that yet normal every people can be programmed on certain situations.
(13:37):
I'm not saying everybody, but can be programmed quickly to
adhere to either your abuser or to the opposite. And
I think that's human nature.
Speaker 10 (13:49):
You have to be.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
It's either it as strong or the weak, and you
have to be as strong as to win the week
cannot always win. And I'm not saying being weak or
being submissive as bad, but it's the altruistic kind of
you know, handmade's tale kind of that you get into
that kind of whole George Orwell type thing which is
going off the rails. But that's my belief is that
(14:13):
I think every human can be programmed differently.
Speaker 10 (14:15):
Absolutely so you could.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
You figure if you know, if if Jim Jones had
enough time with you, he could have gotten you under
his spell.
Speaker 8 (14:24):
Well, I ended a day. If he was able to
get me on as an adult, I never would have
had any influence of wanting to join the People's Church.
That's not my religion, anything. But if I was under
that realm, or I was put under that at sixteen,
I can't tell you because I never lived it, so
(14:47):
I can't for me. I always say when people say
I'm so sorry about what happens to somebody, if you
haven't lived it, you cannot say I feel sorry that individual.
So if I'm in that situation or something like that,
I put myself in that situation, I don't know. Would
that person can then and hear me too, or convinced
(15:10):
me to do if I put myself in that situation.
Perhaps once you put yourself under the will of someone
who's in that it could.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Be yep, all right, it's true. You don't know.
Speaker 8 (15:23):
Hope. I would hope not. I would hope that my
own mental will without me too, and I would never
put myself in the situations.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Thanks so much for that college.
Speaker 8 (15:33):
Great great gods. Have a good beginnd.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
All right, it's Bob in Kingston. Then hello Roberts, what's
going on?
Speaker 9 (15:44):
Yeah, I got I got one for you. It comes
from my early days as a college graduate. I worked
for Phillip sixty six, the gasoline that won the West.
That was trade. I went through the dealer trading program
in Denham and they taught what was called them daily nuts.
You know what the origin of the daily dunners. It's
(16:07):
an accounting term really, the.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Daily nut, the daily yep, you got me? You stump me.
I'm stumped. I stand.
Speaker 9 (16:15):
But in believal days, fares would be held and wagons
would pull in with merchants, and what the town would
do was remove a wheel duck so they couldn't drive
off without paying whatever taxes they owed at the end
of the day. But we used it as an accounting
(16:37):
term to teach our dealers that they had to make
X amount of money every day in order to pay
their bills. Because when they started up a service station,
their money was so tight that they couldn't They dealing
in thousands and thousands of dollars. And that was before
credit cards were that prevalent in sixty five sixty six.
(17:00):
So they're they able to get cash. They have huge
amounts of cash by the end of the day. Wow,
they might get They might think, Wow, I got so
much money, I could buy this, I could buy that.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
But your cata that's a good one because it's an
amount of money. What it means is uh, when someone says,
what's your nut? It means how much money do you
have to make to start to make a profit, I think,
or how much do you have to make well to
not go out of lives to cover expenses, which is
(17:32):
just like what you say, and I didn't know way back,
but just just like so many of these, they go
back them to medieval.
Speaker 9 (17:39):
La times, medieval Love the Daily Doty, the town would
take the nut off one of the wheels so that they,
you know, the merchant couldn't drive off without paying whatever
taxes he owed to the town for the prophecy made
selling his wares in their town, you know.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Will be recorded.
Speaker 9 (17:59):
There's just sorry, Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Very good Bob. Thanks. There's one catch though, when I
think the medieval times, like I think, you know, Monty,
Python and the Holy Grail or whatever. Did their wheels
have nuts? They had wooden spokes, right, they were kind
of jammed into the hub and then they had rims.
(18:25):
But did they have nuts? I mean you couldn't. Do
they have wrenches? Did they have metal? They didn't even
have metal, so so hmm, I'm having second thoughts about that.
Maybe they did they wooden screwsy ah, so maybe wooden bolts.
Maybe do they have wooden nuts? Maybe? Well that's my
(18:45):
thought process and I'm sticking to it now. It's Melinda
in Quinsy on WBZ. Hi, Melinda, Hi, how are you fantastic?
It's good to hear your voice.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Oh, thank you, you too. What I called Braddy was about
Doug's one about the kool Aid, because so many of
us know kind of where that came from, I think,
But what I want to say was, I don't think
a lot of people know that it wasn't actually kool aid.
It was used. It was a less expensive powdered drink
(19:18):
called flavor Aid. He probably just went cheap.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
I can't imagine you were cheap cheap at.
Speaker 5 (19:27):
A time like that, that's I know. But but they
didn't want to use probably all like actual kool aid.
He just used this, which he can add. The whole
thing was a horror. But that's why I remember so
well that you know that this whole suicide he killed
nine hundred people, nine hundred followers on that. You know
that Jim Jones flavor aid.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Maybe you couldn't get kool aiding flavor ate, right, That's it.
That was it. He couldn't get kool Aid in g
Maybe that's the reason.
Speaker 5 (19:54):
Yeah, maybe because it just had less expensive I remember
it the less expensive powdered drink mix and called Slavor
eight exactly Slavery eight.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
When you said less expensive, I was thinking, oh xarex,
But no, that's not right.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
I don't think that's less expensive either.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
Yeah, I don't know remember that stuff cheese ye?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Speaking of kool aid, are you old enough to remember
when you made kool aid? You put in the color
and then you had to put in like seventeen pounds
of sugar.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
I don't remember really you did that. I didn't know.
I thought you just came out of a little to
say you got grape, but you got cherry and it
just came out.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Of a little that was pre sweetened kool aid.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
Right, Well, so you will go. So there was a
time you actually added sugar too.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
You added so much sugar, you really could. How much
sugar do it's? Your Koolid was maybe fifty sugar it was.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
Did? Yeah, sugar is so bad and I hate to
say it. I am I am a sugarholic. I just
sugar and water is probably what is what a half makes, right,
And you would talking about chocolate a while ago, you
said mentioned some Charlotte. Do you like Doc chocolate? Yep,
Doc Chocolate's good for you. So I am a nut
for chocolate too. But if I at least eat the
(21:11):
Doc chocolate, the good ones, like you're at Elie or something.
I don't know if I'm gonna say, but that's good
for you. At least it's good for you. Like blueberries.
Blueberries and Doc chocolate, they're good and I can take
them or as I can't eat tale and salmon and
certain things that should I should eat.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Can't eat salmon. I love salmon.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
I just can't stand it now. I can't do it.
My daught eats all the right foods. She has all
the right stuff, and I have all the stuff back
from the sixties seventies.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
How about sardines, No, okay, you eat them right, I do.
And we like things. If you ever, when people go
to Spain, they have a thing called bucarones, which is
which are sardines that are philaided and with oil on them,
and they're fantastic. Well, and I just want to warn
everybody in the States. And I went to a restaurant
(21:59):
the other day that said they were serving bocourone, but
they weren't. It's phil sardines. They were anchovies and it's
not so so this is really that was a really
good call. I didn't know that about flavor aid. That's
so generic.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
Yeah, something you don't think of, But we do say
that thing. Oh, you're right, we say it a lot nowadays.
There's things going on and we tend to say that.
But anytime that's that's a word we use, that's the
saying we use now. So anyways, I just want I
just figured, well, I can't use it now. I can't
bring it up now. But I think a lot of
people don't know because we all say the word kool aid,
(22:40):
but that it was flavor right, So I thought they
would at least still hang in there and try to
tell you something. You know.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Fantastic, Melinda, Thank you so much, Thank you, perfect wonderful call.
Jane and Devin will be next on w b Z.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on w b
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Then we go directly to Jane and Shrewsbury to find
out what's up with her and perhaps she wants to
take a shot at defining or giving me the answer
to the origin of some of these phrases that I
have given you. And I'll leave a little time at
the end so I can give you all the answers,
so your time will will not have been for not Jane, Hi, Hi.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Actually I called because you mentioned audio books and that's
my passion. So and I keep lists of the ones
that I read. So is there any particular type you're
interested in.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
I do like well, I like thrillers and mysteries, spy stuff.
I mean, I have dozens and dozens written down. But
if you like, I'm trying to think. She now, I'm
going to draw a blank. Let me think about it.
The other thing is I eat canned fish all the time, herring,
normally as a salad with cabbage and sour. I mentioned
(24:00):
this to you when you still had your own show,
so uh, and you know sardines and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I love talking about sardines for this long wow, well.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Some years ago we did. If you like, I don't
really know about. There are some good spy novels, but
I'm not that good on them. But most popular books
you can find an audiobook now. And if you've liked
a narrator. I try to sometimes repeat the narrators. My
husband said to mention James by Percival Everett, which has
(24:32):
been a really majorly talked about book the last few years,
is a remake of Huckleberry Finn.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
So that's good. I do want to kind of stay
on this topic, though, thank you. Do you want to
do you want to take a guess on one of
these phrases?
Speaker 4 (24:48):
No, you know, I because I kind of missed some
of the show. Actually I tuned back in when you
were mentioning the audiobook, so I got to do this anyway.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
So I'll run through the phrases if any of these.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Oh, okay, okay, I'll try sure.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Okay, deadline, bite the bullet, hot shot, like that guy
thinks he's a hot shot, the whole shebang. Nest Egg
Devil's advocates raining cats and dogs. Upper crust and weak.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Upper crust. That sounds like something to do with like
the kind of food that the wealthy people would have,
that would have.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Kind of since we're running the long time and I
have to give these answers anyway, soon, I'll give you
that one. So they used to use pewter cookwaar I guess,
and that would interact with food, especially tomatoes, and for
the longest time they thought tomatoes were poisoned, but it
was because the pewter was interacting with the acid and
the tomatoes. But in general, the poor people would get
(25:51):
the stuff that had cooked within the pewter because they
didn't really know why, but they knew that they kind
of made you sick. So if you were poor, you
got the stuff like under the crust, and if you
were if you were you know, mid mid range and
your income, you kind of got the middle. But if
you were rich, you got the upper crust, which had
been cooked above uh the pewter and was not so poisonous.
Speaker 8 (26:16):
Hm hmm.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Okay, That's what I got.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
That's my story and I'm sticking to it all right, Jane,
thank you. Devon over in Rawley or is it Rowley
and Devon? No, Devon and Raley.
Speaker 11 (26:30):
Hey, yeah, and I called last week. I was the
tattoo shop. Okay, but the barbam when he was looking
for the saying bite the bullet.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
What it means, yes, go ahead?
Speaker 11 (26:45):
As when like back in the war, when they would
be putting uh, you know, kinde off your leg or
cutting off your arm. They'd have you bite the bullet.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yes, that was the saying Civil War anesthesia only there
was anesthesia, but I guess they didn't have enough of
it to go around because they were they were doing amputations.
The definition of a surgeon was a good surgeon could
amputate you quickly, not save your leg, but just do
it quickly. And they said bite the bullet. But who's
really going to bite on a bullet? Really surgeons did?
Speaker 11 (27:15):
They really did better bullets. Surgeons had a.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Leather strap in their kit for you to bite on.
I suppose if you have a love of strap, but
that's part of the surgeon.
Speaker 11 (27:26):
You a bullet.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
The thing about biting on a bullet, it's going to
break your teeth. That's terrible.
Speaker 11 (27:32):
You're getting a leg topped off, your mind a little.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Bitch teeth Okay, anything else?
Speaker 11 (27:38):
He said about the Monty python and how like the
wheels have wooden like those gentlemen.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
That Collins said, where's the word? What is what is
your nut? Or the phrase nut being related to financial
uh stuff? And he said that when wagons would come
in and sell stuff, the you know, in order to
make sure that the wagon owner paid the cellar, the
vendor paid their taxes, they would remove a nut from
(28:07):
the wagon. I started thinking, you know, when I think
of nut, I think of nuts on the cars that
we have today metal, and I didn't. I don't remember
seeing nuts on wooden wagon wheels, just spokes driven into
holes in the hub, and so I started to doubt it.
But of course I got to look care more carefully
at that.
Speaker 11 (28:28):
So, well, let's think about their head like iron like that, Uh,
the blacksmiths and stuff like that. Back then, they'd the
iron mesh, you know, on their their uniform. So they
had metal back then. Definitely metal on the field.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I guess they did, because they had horses, shoes, that's right. Yeah,
well he was talking about medieval times. Did they have
blacksmiths medieval?
Speaker 11 (28:50):
Why would they?
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah? Right, they had they had iron armor, that's right.
Speaker 11 (28:55):
Yeah, they had the irons like black smiths. Wh wouldn't
they have like metal on their wheels. That's like a
way to keep it together.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Very very good point. I guess it depends how far
you go back in the Middle Ages. But yeah, that's
a super good point. But I still in my mind,
I don't I can't picture meteal nuts. It's one thing
to hammer on a horseshoe or a sword, but another
thing to make a threaded bolt and a threaded.
Speaker 11 (29:22):
Threaded and maybe just like you know, like it's like
lash on, like you know, go around the scope part
around the park.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
That's also a good point, very very good.
Speaker 11 (29:31):
I tuned in at that point.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
So, well, that's very good. I think you got me
maybe thanks.
Speaker 12 (29:36):
All right, Okay, so I'm going to start to give
you the answers to these, but if you have one
you want to get you before I get to it
and take a guess at its.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Meaning, its origin. Let me know, let's go with Devil's advocate,
to play the Devil's advocates. I played Devil's advocates. It
seems that back in the early sixteenth century, which is
fifteen hundreds, one of the pope Leo's I think it
was Leo the tenth created a job a post called
(30:14):
promoter of the faith, and that person's job was to
argue against proposed canonization of a saint. So they were
thinking about canonizing someone to become a saint, and the
job of that this protector of the faith, it was
called a promoter of the faith, was to think of
(30:39):
everything they could think of in terms of reasons they
should not be canonized as a saint. And I guess
if they couldn't think of enough reasons, and there were
enough reasons, they would. But that's where it came from.
There was an official job, Devil's advocate. And the reason
(31:01):
you know it's an official job called Devil's advocate is
the actual name of the job was Advocatus diaboli or
Devil's advocate. So there's that. That's a good one. Huh.
It's Jim and Hyde Park.
Speaker 10 (31:19):
Hello, Jim him Bradley. Hey, it's good to he help
you bet and enjoy your chill. Bradley. On the wheel,
there is a nut on the wheel. I'm gonna on
a farm will full back in the forties.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Yeah, but we're talking we're talking the year nine hundred
or something like that.
Speaker 10 (31:40):
You know, no, but we used them in the forties.
My dad has there is a nut on the wheel
in the middle of a wheel.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
But that's in the forties. We're talking Middle Ages, medieval times.
Speaker 10 (31:59):
Uh. Well, I was just seeing I used to we
used to as well.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Okay, so there there there you go. I still when
I picture a wagon wheel from even back in the
days when they had chain mail made out of metal,
which is a good point. Metal helmets like in Monty
Python and the Holy Grail, I still envision. Wouldn't wagon
wheels where the spokes go into the hub was the hub?
(32:31):
Maybe the hub was kept on by some wooden screw.
So yeah, all right, or or nuts if you will, yeah,
wor not? Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and acquiesce and
say you got you folks are right.
Speaker 10 (32:47):
And I'm I'm okay.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Yeah, thanks Nancy and Wooster. I know it's Wooster. I
don't know why I said, Wooster, Wooster.
Speaker 13 (32:57):
Go ahead all week. The show has been very interesting.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Thanks.
Speaker 13 (33:04):
I just wanted to call about biting the bullet. When
I was younger, when I was a little girl, we
went to Fort tykwonder Roga, Okay, and they had in
the museum a lot of bullets that were bitten by
the soldiers during amputations, and it made a very big
impression on me when I was nine or ten years old.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Well, okay, it looks like you've proven me wrong again.
Speaker 13 (33:29):
Yeah, they really did bite them. I don't know how
hot bullets are. Maybe they all lad of something and
they're not all a lot hard. I don't really know that,
but I just you remember seeing them crushed and thinking
how bad that was must have been.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
So I think it's going to hurt enough having an amputation.
I don't want my teeth to be broken too. I
would find something else.
Speaker 13 (33:50):
Maybe that would feel better than the imputation. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
I wouldn't want to bite on a spot.
Speaker 13 (33:56):
Bite the bullets in your tongue.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Yes, actually that's right. Definitely one hundred percent agreement on that.
Thanks Nancy. Fantastic to hear from me. I hope to
hear from you next week. Oops. I didn't realize she
was going to talk. Now I have some remaining I
will give you the meetings right after these messages on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Boy, I had a great week with you, folks. I
love you. Thank you so much. This is so fun.
I'm going to use the last few minutes here to
give you the answers to the questions regarding the origins
of certain phrases. Are you ready? We did peeping Tom
Devil's advocate. Okay, raining cats and dogs back in the
day when they were fast drews and they had, you know,
(34:49):
maybe a fireplace in there. He would rise to the
top of the warmest place to be up near the
roof and the heat would seep into the thatch of
the thatt roofs and where cats and dogs like to
hang out, well they need They like hanging out by
the radiator on a heating pad in my in my
home's case, they like warmth, so they would go up
(35:10):
and sleep in the thatch. But if it rained heavily,
they would either run away from there and just jump out,
or in some cases, if there was enough of a
del use, it might have washed them out. But if
it rained hard enough, cats and dogs would be jumping
or falling to the ground. Raining cats and dogs. Now,
(35:32):
I could be wrong, but you don't have time to
prove that upper crust we did Wake. I love Wake. Now,
this could be wrong too, but this is definitely the best,
the most fun version. Back in the day, goblets mugs
were made out of metal. It was at least partly lead,
(35:52):
which would interact. It would leach and along with the
combination of the lead and the alcohol, it could make
you want conscious and sometimes for days. So they didn't
know if you really were dead or not. Sometimes they
were worried that you might not really be dead, so
you would be laid out and people would watch you
(36:14):
to see if you would wake. Now again, I don't
know if there's another more fancy version, but this is
a good one. Might as well go with this one, right,
The truth doesn't seem the truth is overrated these days.
I mean, the truth is underrated these days. People don't
(36:36):
really pay much attention to truth. Deadline. You're in jail,
and if you try to run away, there's a certain
certain area where I guess they can call, hey, come back,
or we'll shoot. But then there's a line past which
the guards have the green light to shoot. That would
be the dead line. Hot shot, Hey, hot shot? Who's
(37:01):
that hot shot? He thinks he's a hot shot. A
hot shot is a cannonball. It's been heated up directly
in the fire, red hot cannonball that it was designed
to be shot into the sales of ships and set
them on fire. That would be the hot shot. The
whole shebang. This what a shebang is. In the Civil
(37:24):
War era, it was a hot or a shed or
an encampment. So I guess if you wiped out the
enemy's encampment. You had wiped out the whole shebang. There's
another version of it. It's also used to denote a
(37:46):
drinking establishment, which may come from the Irish Irish chabine
shabe n yeah, chabine, which is good to know you can,
Hey Bob, want to go over to the chabine for
a couple of beers. The next one up is nest egg,
(38:08):
nest egg. I like this. I don't know if you've
ever had chickens and you try to get them to
lay eggs, and you would take the eggs and you
eat them. We had chickens. A couple things about chickens.
If you ever get some, make sure when you reach
in to get the eggs you check for snakes. Snakes
(38:32):
like to hang out in there, and it's a bomber
to reach in to get eggs and have there be
a snake. But that's not where the nest egg comes from.
Farmers who had chickens would tend to leave one egg
in the nest as kind of a reminder, Hey, chicken,
you're supposed to lay these, remember these eggs these? Yeah? Yeah,
(38:54):
this egg? Lay some more in case they forgot and now,
I'm just remembering when we had our eggs. We had
a glass white egg we would put in the nest
to make the chicken, to remind the chickens what they're
supposed to do. That's funny. I haven't thought of that
in one million years. But yeah, we did Baker's dozen
(39:18):
and that's just a wake up a crust running raining
cats and dogs. Yeah, that covers it all. I've got
two minutes here and then I want to acknowledge something,
correct something, clear up something from the other day. The
other day, we had Jason J. Smart call in live
(39:40):
from Kiv, Ukraine, after staying in a bomb shelter all
night with explosions going off, and we interviewed him about
what it was like there, and during that he said
erroneously that Ukraine that the Russians had only taken one
(40:00):
percent of Ukrainian territory, and GEO called in and correctly
corrected him and said that's not true. They've taken more
than that, like twenty percent. Actually, at the beginning of
the conflict they got twenty seven percent. Since then they've
lost seven percent. But the confusion from the guests Jason
(40:22):
Jay Smart came from what I believe he meant to
say was they only gained one percent in twenty twenty four,
because that's the fact, and I've heard that used in
other accounts of the war and other accounts of twenty
twenty four. So after losing hundreds of thousands of men,
they only only gained one percent. So I do want
(40:44):
to thank GEO for being right, well for a caring
and b being right. And I do want to explain
what I believe the guest was referring to. He was tired,
he didn't get much sleep because of all the explosions
and the bombs and the rockets and the drones, and
neglected to put in that this year twenty twenty four.
(41:06):
I think that's it. I had a great, great, great
rewarding week with you all, and I'm looking forward to
next week as well. That's pretty much it. I'm gonna
head home, make myself a maybe a sprints or something
like that, and dig in and get ready for next week.
(41:27):
Thanks to Rob brooks Man, thanks so much, Rub and
most of all, as you know, thanks to you for
being great and being part of this great show. And
thanks to Dan Ray for letting me do this' WBZ
News Radio ten thirty
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