CLASSIC: Idiomatic For The People, Part I

Language is beautiful and, in many cases, continually evolving. As a result, we end up with hundreds of strange idioms and figures of speech that we use on a daily basis, with little to no understanding of what they originally meant. Join the guys and special guest, Rowan Newbie, the creator of the Pitches podcast, as they explore the bizarre origins of your favorite turns of phrase. (Ben here, with a bonus question: I went through and noted multiple turns of phrase we all used unintentionally - how many can you catch?)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow Ridiculous historians. This classic episode has an unexpected gift.
It's a special guest, longtime friend of the show, our
pal Rowan Newby. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Speaking of Rowan Newby, he doesn't do the podcast pitches anymore.
But a record that he and I made together that
took us many, many years, just came out. It's on
Spotify Rowan Neuby. It's called some Hippie You Turned Out
to Be. And the record just got picked up by
our cool indie label out of Philly called Perpetual Doom.
So do check it out. I think there's gonna be
physical versions coming soon.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Yeah, and you guys did phenomenal work on that. We
talked about that a little bit off air. I love
oh that lonely song, Once You've Been Lonely, Once You've
Been Lonely. That's a banger. Check it out and no'll
do please save me a vinyl.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yes, but maybe Perpetual Doom will be putting it out
in that format.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
And so in this episode, which is part of a
on and off continuing.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Series, mainly off, but man, it's reminding us. I think
we should bring it back.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
We should bring it back. We had ruin with us.
We also later, I think in this series, we talked
to longtime friend of the show, our brother in arms,
Frank Malheran.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
About crack, not like the drug, the word the Irish parlance.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yes, cr ai c. So we got interested in the
idea of idioms and favorite turns of phrases. We can't
wait for you to hear this one, folks, and get
to your podcast platform of choice as you're listening, and
let us know any turns of phrases that we unintentionally
used without exploring the etymology thereof.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Yeah, and Apaulo is all about this.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
If you can hear a little barkie boy in the background,
he's excited for some idiomatic for the people.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Part one, Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. It's

(02:16):
often said that, how do you say it? A podcast
in one hand is worth two in the bush, or
you can take a podcast to water, but you can't
make it stream, you.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Can't teach an old podcast new tricks, or can you.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Don't look at gift podcaster in the mouth. These may
not be the exact verbatim figures of speech or turns
of phrase, but by gosh, by golly, by gum, those
things are fascinating nonetheless, right.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, I'm Ben, Hi, I'm Noel, and this is ridiculous history.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Oh yes, we should tell people the name of the show.
We are a company, of course, as always with our
super producer Casey Pegram. Give them a hand if you're
not driving. And this is a very special episode for
us NOL. It's true we are exploring some strange dare
I say, ridiculous idioms and figures of speech. But we

(03:16):
are not embarking on this journey alone, my friend. Oh no,
we have joined forces with a good friend of ours,
friend of the show, podcaster, producer, musician.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Just regular you know, all around jack of all trades,
renaissance man.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
You can't hear.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
This, but I'm blushing right now, really ridiculous historians. Rowan, newbie,
thanks for coming on the show man.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Rowan, that's
your real name. Yeah, it's another here.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Nor There has a fantastic podcast called Pitches, where in
various entertaining comedic people, smart people, funny people come on
and pitch pretty horrible ideas for product or films or
books or really anything that would require a pitch to
try and sell.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Is that right? I couldn't have said it better myself.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Well, terrible ideas right there?

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Maybe unorthodox, they're unorthodox, Okay, that's fair.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Sure.

Speaker 4 (04:12):
Sometimes it's almost scary when we stumble upon a good
idea because we don't know what to do. There's off
we're like, uh, no, go, you know, let's cut this.
You quickly copyright and we'll save this episode or something.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Browan was kind enough to have me on as a
guest of a very early episode of the show, and
we kind of stumbled upon a reality show idea for
like masked performers, and it was more in the DJ space.
But then the other day we looked at the TV
and now there's the masked singer Lo and behold Low
and behold parallel thinking at its finest is low and

(04:46):
behold the name of the artist.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
That's a good idea. It would be with zeros though.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Oh yeah, yeah, naturally, And it's weird how quickly that
that idea just evolved. Right. One of the things that
we're we we explore often here on Ridiculous History will
be the strange turns of phrases that emerge, especially in English,
but in all languages over the unending game of telephone

(05:12):
that we call history. Right, there are some weird ones.
I don't know if you guys have ever seen those
great compilation articles about phrases in other languages that just
don't translate, you know, like things that make sense in Turkish,
for instance, but not English. It turns out that our
language has a ton of those, and today we combined

(05:35):
our forces to explore a few that captivated us, and
to do our darnedest, since we're family show, to discover
the origin behind these phrases. Right, this is the right
episode for that.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
It is, and I think it's actually a repeatable model.
I think if this goes well, we could maybe do
some more of these. My dear friend, your dear friend,
Rowan's dear friend, Frank actually came up with a great
name for the segment, or this type of show. We
could call it Idiomatic for the People, Hey like as
a nod to Georgia Boys Rim and their seminal album

(06:07):
Automatic for the People. I had a little bit more
of a self deprecating name, which would be idiots on Idioms.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
I think you know what. I like both of those.
I like both of those. I did not prepare a
name for this segment.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
For sure, there's music in both of them.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
It's true, there we go. But what So we decided
to do this episode and then we split apart and
solo style, gave ourselves some homework, and the one of
the conversations we had was about whether we should let
each other know in advance which idioms we're bringing the table,

(06:41):
or whether we should surprise one another.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
I think it's a mixed bag, right, It's a mixed bag,
and I know some of them, and then on some
of them I don't know, and I'm excited for all
of them.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Actually, without further ado, gentlemen, what do you say, who
shall be the first to cast their word hat into
the word ring?

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well, Ben, I meant you didn't let us know any
of yours, so I'm kind of on the edge of
my seat. Do you mind going first with one of
your choices?

Speaker 1 (07:09):
Sure? Absolutely. There is a phrase that is very common
even nowadays, and it is something that should be familiar,
I think to all native English speakers, regardless of the
country and which you live. It's something ruin that you
and I have said before in casual conversation. It is
to butter someone up. Oh, stop buttering me up. Noel,

(07:32):
you and I have used this as well.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, and it always kind of weirds me out a
little bit because it makes me think of, you know,
covering someone in delicious.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Spreadable butter.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
I mean, if you're friends with someone who's you know,
maybe a dinner roll, or you're friends with a turkey
maybe you know, I don't know, baste me.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, please, it's implying a very intimate form of physical contact.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
So it's strange because we use this phrase and we
all know roughly what it means. Flattery, right, maybe a
little bit of somewhere between flattery and pandering. This is
actually an ancient concept. I had no idea because a
lot of phrases, oddly enough, in English come from things

(08:19):
like the Bible or translations of it, or they come
from wars. However, to butter me up has a couple
of different proposed origins, and one of the most solid
or most widely accepted traces its origins back to ancient India. Huh,

(08:41):
which I did not see coming. So we're talking about
gee here, we were talking about gee. Yes, well done,
clarified butter clarified.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Gee.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
So here's what would happen, guys. The idea is that
in ancient India, people would lob small balls of butter
of gee butter at statue use of various gods while
asking them for favors. It's kind of an inducement, the
same way that in some other religions you would offer
a favored treat of a god as a tribute. So

(09:12):
like cigars or alcoholic beverages or coins.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
You know, blood of an infant, food, the skull.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Of an enemy or a loved one. You know, there's
a lot of various So butter is largely innocuous in
this idea, And in Tibet there's an even older custom
of crafting butter sculptures when the new year rolls around.
The sculptures are viewed as a way of bringing happiness
and peace in the coming year. So when we say

(09:42):
that we're buttering someone up, we are implying that either
they we are making them a statue every year, or
that we are giving them an offering in a transactional
way because we want their favor. So the meaning of
the meaning of this has become less blatant over time,

(10:05):
and now it just means be nice to someone, but
still I would argue with a soft implication soft and buttery,
that there is something expected in return. Yeah, so it's
like paying tribute, right, I mean because also I would
imagine we've done episodes in the past about how butter
was a very hot commodity, right, Yeah, Margarine versus butter

(10:26):
was a big thing too, but I think you're talking
about an older period of time, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
And it was also the one about the Protestant Reformation
about how those butter indulgences were such a thing because
it really pointed to the fact that, you know, the
powers that be didn't actually care about good works and
being pious. It was more just a way of like
depriving people of things and giving the rich what they
wanted as long as they could pay for it. So
it's interesting butter has always been kind of a divisive

(10:53):
and tasty.

Speaker 1 (10:54):
Treat, even as recently as the eighteen seventies, right, because
there was the law about how Margarine had to be
dyed pink so that people would know it was not
true butter that I think Wisconsin was one of the
last holdouts for that. But yes, that's it, So butter
me up the next time you want to be one
of those. Actually, people, in a conversation at a cocktail

(11:16):
party or a soiree of your choosing, come armed with
that information and butter someone up by saying, I'm sure
that you already know the etymology of to butter someone up, but.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Here it is, I would ever do that. Nobody listens
to the show or anyone sitting in the room would
ever do it? Actually would you? Anyone butters what now?
And actually you would never go like, actually, you know.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
I wouldn't do it on purpose. I've been accused of
doing the glasses up the nose thing, but it's always
with a you take it with a grain of.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
Salt, that's true, or a slap a ball of butter.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
With a ball of butter. You know.

Speaker 4 (11:51):
I think it's interesting, though, that you're really leaning into
it being a mostly nice thing. I take buttering someone
up as definitely wanting something and as manipulative. Kind of right,
buttering someone up I always just read as like, because
when someone's like, why are you buttering me up?

Speaker 3 (12:11):
You know that tone implicates that it's ingenuous, right.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Yeah, kind of gee whiz, or like this is not
when I was I don't believe this is when we today.
But it's sort of akin to blowing smoke up someone's
back sss, right.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Which I wonder since we can speculate on that when
I wonder whether that has anything to do with uh
Kellogg and his overwhelming love of what he thought were
medicinal enemas, including tobacco smoke. Is that right? Oh? Yeah,
it's all about enemas.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
I knew he's about animas, but I didn't know that
smoke was was in the equation tobacco water.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
Weird, weird, true of the state.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
There we go, So what's what's next? We've cracked the case.
I'm buttering someone up.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Well, I had one question.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yes, they make so you're saying they made statues in
India of.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
Their gods. I'm just searching for a genesh joke.

Speaker 4 (13:10):
Somewhere in there there's an I guess that's found.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
I'm really sorry.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
No, you forget this is what kind of we have
been accused of absolute dependence on dad jokes.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
So it's totally totally.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Part of wes I have come to the right place. Yes,
welcome home, we have. I would have been lauded for
uh the our attempts at humor.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
Lolded potato potato.

Speaker 4 (13:33):
My friends, are you saying that you get like listeners,
writing YouTube comments, being.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Likes enough with the dead jokes? Okay, well not on YouTube,
but on iTunes. Is it is a terrible place. Don't
ever go don't ever read the iTunes.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
I get more emails and tweets and stuff like. Life
was hopeless until you guys did that run of puns.
Thank you. There's there's a light at the end of
the tunnel.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Our famous pun run. Oh I heard about that. Yeah,
the charity twenty twelve famous pun run.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yes, classic things will never be How is you guys
had no idea? Well we had luchador mask on. Oh,
it's part of it. That's sexy. Well it seemed like
a good idea of time, and now it's tradition and
we were bound by that.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
We are nothing if not fans of tradition.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
So same is.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
So what what's next? What's next?

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Tuesday? I don't know who wants to go next? You
want to go next?

Speaker 1 (14:26):
Sir?

Speaker 3 (14:27):
And Newby? Yeah, okay.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
The first one I'm going to talk about is nipp
it in the butt.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Nip it in the butt?

Speaker 4 (14:33):
Come on, folks, we know what that means, or if
we don't we at least have used it and thought
that makes sense. Technically, it's a horticultural metaphor alluding to
putting a stop to something, uh, in its early stages,
before it becomes you know, negative.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Before it grows out of metastasizes and takes over your
entire garden.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
Right, And it's derived from like debudding of plants and
the whole horticulture thing, because you cut the top then
can't grow into a beautiful fruit.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
So when you say it, it sounds to me like
whenever people use that, it's almost like a bit of
a tongue in cheek way of trying to sound southern,
kind of like just nip it in the butt.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
It is.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
I feel very particularly Southern.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
Actually, I remember first hearing it from Barney Fife in
you know and the Grit of the show.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
That's that's strange because I would also assume, if I'm
overthinking this that in the original horticultural sense, it's still
it doesn't kill the plant the root.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
Still No, it does not kill the plant. It just
stops it before it can reach its you know, flowery climax.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Okay, So somebody, as for instance, say collecting way too many.
What's a weird thing for someone to collect tails? Tails?
They're collecting too many tails? T Ai aill. Okay, they're
collecting too many tails. And they say, okay, fourteen is enough.
It's getting weird. I'm going to nip it in the bud.

(16:01):
But that means they're not necessarily going to get rid
of the other fourteenth.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
That's they're just nipping their weird tail collection in the
bud before people start calling that person, you know, the
tail freak of of Cincinnati. Now it's interesting freak.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
There's actually even another version of this that is nip
it in the bloom, and it was first cited in
a work by Henry Chettel in a book called a
romance book called peers Plans seven Years Apprenticeship. I'm guessing
that's Old English. It's a p I E r A
s p l A. I almost sound in French for
a second, but then it's got years spelled y E

(16:40):
r E s, which is very Canterbury tail is if
you ask me, And that's from fifteen ninety five. Who
that doesn't quite add up to Old English, though, does it?

Speaker 3 (16:48):
Guys?

Speaker 1 (16:48):
I also found that this is one of those idioms
that people tend to mispronounce or misunderstand. There are a
lot of people will see now, oh.

Speaker 4 (16:58):
I already know what they think it is. They think
it's nip it in the butt? Is that what you
were going to say? Yes, you're correct, right, yeah, which
is ridiculous. What would what would nip it in the
butt mean?

Speaker 3 (17:12):
What would that mean?

Speaker 1 (17:13):
Just give it a little bite, a little tweak, yeah,
a little love bite.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Okay, So so I was actually wrong in terms of
Chettle was actually a contemporary of Christopher Marlowe, who was
like a contemporary of William Shakespeare. So the old English
talk kind of that that does hold true. But I
believe the cannabray tails were a little earlier than that.
But it does feel like right in that in line
with that, and that's where it first came from, which
is I didn't know either. But I'm just I'm just
googling away right now as we talk about this, because

(17:39):
you've you got mom.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
I literally I literally didn't take that note because I
couldn't pronounce any of those words. Just so you know,
I also found that all.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
Well, no, that's the thing though, I just want you
to to be very comfortable. A big part of this
show is the fact that we don't try that hard
to pronounce things correctly.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
Other than wonder yes, because we do have We don't
want to be vague about this, We want to be specific.
We we have a francophone and our super producer, Wonderful,
he will he will handle a lot of the French
for us.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
That's also because the French are the most judging.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Well, occasionally, it's because occasionally he'll he'll do it with
some reluctance, because we have just sprang it on him
and said, hey, Casey, here's a paragraph of French. Could
you just translate this for us?

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, but he you know, he understands the game and
he is he is taken to it over time, and
now he doesn't even make a face anymore when we
ask him to help us.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Pronounce it takes a face on the inside.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
As long as I don't see it.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
He is a he is a champion.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Among that, I also feel like it's largely about yeah,
you're totally right, like getting rid of the early stages
of something so doesn't become something worse. But usually it's
about a problem right, or it's about like a person
it's like, we're gonna nip this in the bu We're
gonna like sort out this disagreement now before it gets
out of control and everything gets blown out of proportion.

(19:05):
That seems to be the way that I'm familiar with
it being.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, yeah, Now, now I'm increasingly a fan, and thank
you for this rowin of uh nip it in the butt.
I am just gonna see you've just been sitting over there,
how long I can pull that off in normal conversation
before someone.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
They do, but they do the finger wag and the
glasses and they go.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Actually, it's the butt. And I learned that from roun
Nubye on Ridiculous History.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
I'll say, you know, I I co founded a host
that show, and then and they'll say who are you?
And I will, naturally, of course, as I always do
it in airport, say my name is Casey Pegram and
then proceeds to wage mayhem across the terminal, but well,
nipping it in the butt aside. Uh, this is I

(19:52):
think this is a I've learning a lot. I don't
know about you, guys.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Every day is a shiny new penny. As our cohort
Holly fod I likes to.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Say, and every day is a winding road.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
As Cheryl Crow once said, It's true only once though,
Well I don't know that that song was pretty hot.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
No, I mean she did it in one tech you
think so? No?

Speaker 4 (20:12):
Is that true? This is also lies about Cheryl Crow podcast. Yeah,
watch out, she listens to this show regular No.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
She is also notorious heltigious, yes, incredibly touchy right, sorry,
and pedantic, Cheryl.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
I'm just rasing you. I'm just nipping you in the butt.

Speaker 4 (20:34):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (20:35):
All of our iTunes reviews that are not favorable are
in fact written by Cheryl Crow.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:40):
She has like a clip farm, like in somewhere in
you know, Taiwan, where it's just like fifty young children
just writing mean reviews about ridiculous history.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
It's where most of her royalties have gone. Actually, she's
put a lot of time in this, have to.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
So most of your streams too, are from her click farm.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yes, gosh, but you know you've made it when you
have like a true nemesis. And what better nemesis to
have than the multi Grammy award winning artist like Sheryl Crow.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yeah, you guys, you made this. Yeah, it's made it.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
I've made it.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
We're all holding hands right now, by the way, and
we it might sound like we're joking, but I want
to be completely sincere. I would like to confess something
about my personal life. As a child, I had a dream,
a recurring dream, where the violinist of Dave Matthew's band
hated me somehow knew who I was and despised me.

(21:36):
And eventually I thought, maybe that's maybe that's correct, maybe not,
just like I didn't think specifically of a nemesis, but
I thought, man, it would be amazing if I had
a celebrity, not a huge, huge celebrity, but someone who
was a celebrity who just knew me and intensely and
publicly didn't care for my whole life.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
How did this manifest hself? Did he swat you with
his bow?

Speaker 1 (22:00):
In the dream, which was a recurring dream, again, I
would go to a concert, a Dave Matthews concerts when
they were pretty big.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
How you knew it was a dream because you never
go to a Dave Matthews concerts.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
Some dream logic there my friends.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
And I was, I was in the I was in
the concert. I was inevitably on a date. The person
I was dating would change because I had this dream
over a number of years. And then at some point
in the concert when they paused between songs, the violinist
of Dave Matthews group would come up and say, uh,

(22:35):
I know Ben Bolan is in the crowd tonight and
say horrible, horrible stuff about me. This is a true story.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
And I used to think it meant that I was
destined to go to a Dave Matthews concert, but I
have not done.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
So I have an alternate theory. Well, first of all,
I inexplicably know that the violinist for Dave Matthews band's
name is Boyd Tinsley.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
Wow, and he passed away.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
He did pass well? No, I think he actually just
got kicked out of the band because it turns out
he was not a good guy. I think he was
accused of some sexual harassment and and he got fired.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Oh man, I might, in some incredibly useless way be
capable of precognitive dreams.

Speaker 3 (23:12):
Possible.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
I think that that Boyd Tinsley of the day of
Matthew's band represented your inner insecurity's been and it manifested
its front of God and everyone and and and you
had to contend with that night after night after night
like some kind of fresh personal hell.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
Plus you went on. You were saying there was always
dates and that the girl changed that for the time.
It's probably because you were taking her to Dave Matthews
con never saw you again. What are you doing?

Speaker 1 (23:41):
For the record? I believe it was Leroy Moore who
actually passed away. And the clarinets all right, and so
so back to the subject of the podcast. Thank you
for joining me on that strange dream journey. Guys, I
hope I don't have that dream again in or how
long has it been It has been at lee at

(24:01):
least a decade.

Speaker 3 (24:02):
Then you're cured.

Speaker 4 (24:03):
We say that now there's really only two outcomes here.
One that you start having that dream again horribly in abundance,
or you never have it again because you've finally gotten
this off your chest and now.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
You're you're safe.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
What would be the modern day equivalent of the violinist
for Dave Matthews Band. I know they're still around, but
would it be.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
John Mayor of Dave Matthews Band, there you go, or
anybody in Coldplay aside from the main guy.

Speaker 4 (24:32):
Yeah, are you saying like the equivalent meaning another violinist.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Another sort of ancillary player and like a very like
contemporary giant, uber popular jam band who might possibly start
appearing in Ben's dreams and talking smack dam.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
We may have cursed, we may have cursed me. It
may just be Sheryl Crow.

Speaker 4 (24:52):
I was gonna say the guitarist for like regigainst the
Machine or Slash, you know, one of those like vice
presidents of the band essentially where they're as famous but
not really. You know, you'll just all of them will
meet you, like uh at a dinner table. It will
be Slash, Keith Richards.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
You know it's not you guys, I will carry Oh
no what, We will have your back, sir, We will.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
We will fight off this horde of trash talking.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
Dream villains, weird bad band dream villains. But hey, we
should probably nip this in the buzz. And here from
nol my turn.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Pretty good? All right, that was pretty good.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
It was absolutely proper use of that expression. And now
we actually know know a little bit more about where
it comes from. So here's mine. The funny thing about
a lot of these phrases is out of context. Like you,
you get so used to hearing them that you never
even think about what the words even really mean, right, I.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Think that's a big part of this.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
So for me it was basket case, right, So I
we all know how basket cases you just referring to
someone that doesn't have their their life together. It's like
having a crisis or whatever you're saying or you can
say about yourself. It's like, oh, I'm such a basket
case today, nothing's going right for me. Disorganized, but more specifically,
it's like more of having like a bit of a
mental health break down. I think we can all remember

(26:13):
the seminole I've been using that word a lot in
this episode today, but I'm going to keep rolling with it.
Nineteen nineties Green Day song basket Case, where he talks
about how, you know, he gives himself the creeps, his
mind plays tricks on him.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
He's cracking up.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
He thinks he's had enough, he's paranoid, or he might
just be stoned. But he's having a hard time Billy
Joe Armstrong in his faux British accent.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
And he's having a really hard.

Speaker 4 (26:38):
Time that he is just he is just rolling the back.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, he really has.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
So here's the problem that I had when I started
really thinking about before doing the research about basket case,
I think of the word case, and I think of
it as like a like a suitcase. So I'm like,
but isn't a basket already a case for things? Sure,
it's sort of a wicker case, right, it's a basket,
saying ATM machine. So when I thought it's a little redundant,
so I thought, maybe it just meant a useless thing

(27:06):
or a redundant, silly, ridiculous thing. Who needs a case
for a basket? A basket's already its own case. It's
like having a bag for a bag.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
A waste.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Turns out nothing to do with any of that, Absolutely
nothing to do with any of that. The origins of
the term basket case date back to nineteen nineteen during
World War One, and it was a term that was
used to describe a particularly brutal type of wound or

(27:38):
series of wounds experienced.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
By soldiers, the.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
Dreaded quadruple amputation.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
I think rember the quadruple amputation.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
So you've lost your arms and your legs and are
therefore in need of being carried around in a basket. Therefore,
you are a basket case. And it of course is
morphed over time, and we'll get to that.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
But here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
It actually has been consistently denied by army officials that
there ever were any basket cases. So here's the thing.
Early in World War One, well, and it goes on,
so the Surgeon General of the Army in nineteen nineteen,
the United States Surgeon General, said that there were no

(28:26):
foundation for any of the stories that have been circulated
because this term kind of had been making the rounds.
And he uses the term basket case to describe a
thing that he says doesn't exist. So he acknowledges the
term in its existence, but he says, but there are
no such cases as would be required to be carried
in baskets.

Speaker 3 (28:45):
Right, So it's a paradox.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
It's a bit of a paradox. But then you know,
we've got World War Two and the term kind of
stuck around in the zeitgeist, and yet again Surgeon General
in nineteen forty four says, quote, there is nothing to
rumors of so called basket cases, and then goes on
to say cases of men with both arms and legs amputated.

(29:09):
So here's the interesting part. Apparently there was a case
of a Canadian soldier that is pretty well documented who
did experience quadruple amputations, but he actually went on to
lead a very productive life, and he was fitted with
prosthetic legs and even had a prosthetic arm fitted to

(29:30):
him that allowed him to be able to write and
lived a very normal and productive life. And this comes
from a fantastic article on grammarphobia dot com that refers
to the basket case myth.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
So obviously the term evolved over.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
Time and became much more of an expression referring to
mental health and someone who, as we said at the top,
is experiencing trauma or anxiety or having some kind of breakdown. Right, So,
after World War Two, the term stopped being used to
refer to these kind of imaginary basket cases because there

(30:06):
was really no proof of them ever having existed. But
considering I don't know, Ben, you're a bit of a
war historian yourself in terms of your interests, can't you
imagine that there must have been at least a handful
of cases where someone had been injured so badly by
explosions that they may have had to happen. It doesn't
it seem a little fishy? This official line was like,
this never happened.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Well, here's the grizzly thing. It probably did happen, but
people's odds of surviving that that's the lower.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
That's right, that's why the Canadian case was noteworthy.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
That's a good point.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
But that's an extraordinary story, man, Yeah it is.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
And then somehow it just kind of, like things do,
evolved to a completely different meaning entirely because of the
fact that these cases didn't exist. But the term was
still floating around in that zeitgeist. People kind of started
adapting it and referring to people that didn't have their
act together. But then it's still it's still used today.
And the interesting thing is, obviously is a little bit

(31:01):
of a in poor taste kind of term. No matter
how you use it, right, it's a pejorative, especially if
you're talking about any person with a disability, and then
when you apply it to somebody that's having trouble psychologically,
that's also not very nice. So it's actually become more
in style to use it to refer to things and
nations as opposed to people. And there's a really interesting

(31:21):
article in The Guardian, I think it was a letter
to the editor, and it's called basket case the case
against and it talks about how it is just lazy
writing and it should not be used, and that then
it goes in cites how often it is used. So
apparently the Sun in the UK thinks that Greece, Zimbabwees
and Spain are basket cases, and that Prince William could

(31:44):
have been one, but then he married Kate Middleton, so
now he's okay, he's not a basket case. And then
you've got the Times that believes Greece and Argentina are
basque cases.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
Africa once was, but now isn't.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
They now refer to it as a bread basket. And
then they also talk about particular governments that are basket cases.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Companies too, companies that are basket cases.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
And this writer makes the case that it's just bad
writing and that it doesn't have any metaphorical power anymore
and to just let it go. And I would be
inclined to agree.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
In some aspect. They got that from George Orwell's Rules
of writing. He is the guy who famously said never
use an idiom figure, speech or phrase that you are
used to seeing in print, and he broke that rule
often just by.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
The way, yeah, and This commentary was by a writer
named David marsh and Ben. As you said at the
top of the podcast, war often brings new idioms into circulation,
and it makes sense because you have people of different
ethnicities mixing under times of great duress, and you've got
a lot of like kind of phrases commingle and take

(32:53):
on new meaning and get adopted, you know, by different cultures.
And I think we had a couple that we want
to just throw out real quick.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Yeah, sure, sure. There's for instance, boondocks, which now is
meant to indicate a place in the middle of nowhere, right,
The boom doocks originally was a phrase in Tagalak in
the Philippines, and it just meant mountain. Or there's what's
another one, Pip squeak, Right, that's one.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Pips Squeak's an interesting one because that was actually a
very particular type of small German gun that was used
in trench warfare during World War One. And then you have,
speaking of trench warfare, the trench coat was very specifically
one a garment that was worn originally in trench warfare.
So that was a thing they didn't have a name for,

(33:39):
and then they called it a trench coat.

Speaker 4 (33:40):
Interesting, I mean you call pip squeaks. You refer to
someone as a pip squeak if they're kind of just
a nerdy, precocious kid now.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Or in any way diminutive and not worthy of your respect.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Right?

Speaker 4 (33:52):
Sure, that reminded me of another one flea bag actually,
as in like a flea bag hotel.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Oh I missed that phrase.

Speaker 4 (33:58):
Yeah, first to uh, grimy and just unsuitable sleeping arrangements.
You know, the word comes from slang actually used by
soldiers in the trenches referring to their sleeping bags.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
So that would have often been absolutely infested with fleas
under these horrible conditions. So you know, from awful circumstances
sometimes come fun.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Idioms, yes, yes, and fun idioms, fun idioms, fun idioms.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
Actually we anoyed. We have tintinabulated that way right, speaking
of downtown abbe it what I said, nintinabulated. So tintinabulation
is one of my favorite examples of how you can
simply create a word out of more or less whole cloth.
I believe it was Edgar Allam Poe who used who

(34:45):
coined the term tintinabulation to mean the sound of bells ringing.
Whoa yeah, just the sound of ringing bells or the
sound after a bell has been rung. He just made
it up. He just styled on it. Or as we've
said before on this show, he churchified it. This idea

(35:05):
of bags, flea bags. It's an excellent segue. I have
one that will be familiar to you Nolan, to you Casey,
and perhaps to you long time ridiculous historians or fans
of other shows. It is the phrase to let the
cat out of the bag or the badger, oh a
classic yes, yes, or in our case the badger. So

(35:30):
going back to what you said earlier, knowl about how
it's strange that certain phrases can just feel normal because
of the context in which they occur. Let the cat
out of the bag is something that everyone who speaks
English typically understands. Right to reveal a secret of some sort,
sometimes an unpleasant truth, sometimes a pleasant surprise. But when

(35:54):
you think about it, it's really strange, Like when's the
last time you walk around with a cat in a bag?
Or someone was like, hey, will you hold this.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Bag for me?

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Be careful it has a kit full of cats, full
of cats. There's no time to explain.

Speaker 4 (36:11):
It feels like a very old person, bad habit, and
it might stem from like a granny who was going
through a serious episode of dementia and had a foot
kitty cat in a bag.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Or simply refused to pay for one of those cat carriers.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
Right, and so I'm not gonna pay for it, though
I wasste fifteen dollars. I got this perfectly good bag.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
I tend to picture the bag as being a pillowcase
and the act being much more of like I'm hunting
cats and I'm put the cat in the bag and
then I'm going to hit the bag drowning kittens.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Or something like that Gumma style. Not good.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Well, luckily it's quite possibly not that dark, I have
to say, quite possibly. So. The first recorded use of
this frame.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
The positive the cat got out of the bag.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
The first recorded use of it comes from this book
review in seventeen sixty in London magazine, and the reviewer
is complaining about this book that they've read, and they say,
we could have wished that the author had not let
the cat out of the bag. And so in this
context it seems like it still as a present day meaning,

(37:21):
which is that the author not spoiled a surprise or
secret in the book, but this was used other times
in print, and there are a few origin stories about
how it came about. I'll give you, guys the first
one and then tell you why I think it makes
no sense. So the first one is this idea that

(37:44):
goes all the way back to open air market in
Britain and the concept of unscrupulous tradesmen or con artist.
The thing is that they would trade livestock right, including pigs,
which were a big deal at the time, and people
would sometimes sell piglets in bags, or, as the expression goes,

(38:08):
pigs in a poke. Poke would be another one for bag,
not a blanket, not a blanket in front. They didn't
get it.

Speaker 4 (38:18):
Not as delicious, not well, you know, to each their own.
But that's a corn dog actually, yeah, a pig and
a pillow. I'm sorry, going, no.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Is that really a term?

Speaker 3 (38:28):
No, man, it is as of right now, all.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Right, tend to nabulate it. So the idiom that's related
to is when a pig is offered open the poke,
meaning that one should always check and inspect what you
have before you leave, after you buy it. Don't buy
some mystery thing in a bag just because someone told
you what it was. That concept or figure speech dates
back to at least the sixteenth century. I forgot where

(38:52):
an audio podcast, So everybody, I'm sort of feudally gesturing
with my thumb over my right shoulder for some reason.
That's where the sixteen hundreds are.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Well, now you made it audible, so we can picture it.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Now, there we go.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Case you can throw in some sound effects too.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
You've saved the show. So the idea is that these
con artists would instead of giving somebody a piglet sold
in a bag, they would capture and sell a much
less valuable feral cat. This was a profitable practice for
the con artist. But either way, the moment of the
revelation or the origin of the phrase in this story

(39:35):
is that someone would get home and they would open
the bag, and this we can only imagine incredibly irritated
cat would burst forth and recavoc you know, become an
agent of chaos. But this doesn't really make sense because
even the largest cat is going to weigh less than

(39:57):
a pig right, true, right, like a I'm not an
expert piglet handler, Yeah, it's not in my skill set.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
Yet your cats are pretty big. They're almost piglets sized.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Oh I think, yeah, they're sort of luxurious, furry soft piglets.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
Hey, and I've seen some emaciated pigs out there too.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
So maybe there's a ven there's a sweet spot, there's
a ven diagram here.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
Or maybe they made it a pig and a cat.
I'm just gonna leave it at that. Okay, rhymes, that
was very doctor.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah, they made it a cat, and I'll leave it
at that.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Sound effects, So there's but there's the thing, all right,
So this doesn't really make sense because additionally, pigs and
cats make audibly different noises. We can only assume that
they would probably not be chilling in a bag, so
we would hear some squeeze, some oincs, et cetera, and
then we hear some loud hisses and mews and uh,

(40:53):
you know, that seems easy to differentiate. But there's the
other idea that it comes from a Spanish phrase, the
Spanish equivalent do regato libre to give a cat for
a hair, because rabbits, sorry h r e rabbits are
commonly eaten. During the fourteenth fifteenth century, cat and a
rabbit are more similar in size, and it seems more

(41:17):
plausible to pull this switch ru this way. But the
third theory is that sailors would get in trouble in
the Royal Navy, and the Royal Navy would keep them
in line with a coat of a cat of nine tails,
and that this was originally kept in a red sack
that people could that everybody was aware of, you know,

(41:39):
kind of a warning hanging out in public view. And
then when someone is going to be punished, the captain
would order that they'd be trotted out. Everybody on the
ship has to join on deck and then boom out
comes the red cloth bag and then boom out comes
the cat of nine tails and then upshrints and repeat.
So that's a little more grizzly. I'm also I mean

(42:00):
can take it out a pad of tails in a fact.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
You know, that's interesting, Ben, because they both imply a
negative thing being released that can wreak some havoc when
it's let out into the world and one so they
both kind of hold true. I have one quick question, Bene.
You talked about the original let the Pig out of
the Poke or whatever it was about examining a purchase
you're going to make and how it would be smart

(42:23):
to do that.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
I think I know where you're going.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
It's kind of the opposite of looking a gift horse
in the mouth, right, because that's impolite. If you're like
examining a horse's teeth that was given to you as
a gift, that's the no.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
No, even though it would be prudent.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Maybe, you know, even if a horse is a lot
of responsibility, even if it was a gift, I would
want to make sure I wasn't getting some kind of trash,
you know, diseased horse.

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Yeah, I want a horse to go to the dentist
through regularly.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Well you can tell the age of the oh, I
think is one of the one of the factors.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Or just I don't want a sickly horse, because then
I have to dispose of the horse. I might get
close to the horse and become its pale, go on adventures,
and then all of a sudden the horse drops dead
and I'm left sad and alone. Horse, I want to
take a stick my head all the way.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
In that mouth.

Speaker 4 (43:11):
So that was it, And not to kick a dead
horse if you will, Okay, but yeah, I mean, if
who's given away horses. That's in thing.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
I wouldn't be at that point in my life where
someone's like, hey man, I have this horse that I
thought of you. I don't know what I would do
with it, but.

Speaker 4 (43:31):
It would definitely be a well, wow, thanks. Do you
also give me a farm?

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Nay, it's like somebody giving you, like, here's a field
for you to cultivate and farm.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
And take care of and water.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
It's an obligations, but that's a whole new career. Yeah.
The last thing about this cat and the bag idiom
whence you guys can tell you went on a little
bit of a rabbit hole on is the idea that
it is a thing that cannot be reversed. It is
very difficult to get that cat back in the bag, right.

(44:08):
It's a Pandora's box or Pandora's jar situation. Pandora's bag,
Pandora's bag, thank you, Pandora's basket Handora's basket case bag.
So now oh we are now we are armed with that,
and I'm liking the I think I took us in
a weird animal direction, but I was just captivated because
I really wanted to know if there had ever been

(44:30):
you know, some prominent myth or some real life historical
occurrence wherein someone was like, all right, guys, I've got
this bag. I think there's a cat in it.

Speaker 4 (44:41):
There's with me exactly? Well, it kind of was. I
guess cat out of the bag? Everybody you heard it.
Her first was the OG spoiler alert. Ah, yeah, that's
the cool way of saying it. Now, But God's out
of the bag. No one likes to say that. You know,
when you ruined the ending.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Of sixth Sense? All right, Grandpa?

Speaker 4 (45:04):
More more like the plots out of the bag, right, Yeah,
because that that guy is Bruce Willis the whole time.
That's true, always he was, Hailey Joe Osmond ambers, well
as the whole time.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
I've just got to say it. I saw an episode
of Future Man.

Speaker 3 (45:21):
You guys know that I thought you were just about
to ruin the ending of sixth Sense.

Speaker 4 (45:24):
I just gotta say that.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
I think that's past the statute limitation of Estaish this
and other shows.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
But still, it's just what were you going to say?

Speaker 1 (45:33):
Well, Haley Joel Osmond is still acting.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
Yeah, he was in Silicon Valley.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
He looks very, very different. He looks he's a very
and I don't mean this in disrespectful way. He's got
he still has the same facial features in the same arrangement, but.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
He's he's large, big, but the face is just kind
of thropped in the middle of his head.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
I think he's really funny and I really good guy.
He's on Comedy Bang Bang a lot, and he on
the Comedy Band Bang TV show, and they kind of
played into that slightly odd look because he plays a
character called slow Joey, So I mean, I didn't that
wasn't my idea, but.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
You know, he definitely has a sense of humor and
oh absolutely, I mean like him on Silicon Valley is
a similar kind of you know, hair brained character, Isn't.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
He also kind of a weird back an alien, kind
of debauched, weird Hollywood execuey type guy who is always
drugging and boozing and womanizing.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Did I make that up?

Speaker 4 (46:31):
I kind of he seems more like dopey and brought
out of Bushatail as opposed to the other guy who's
like that, who's like really maniacal.

Speaker 3 (46:39):
Characters.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Well, Haley Jolas, But if you're listening, is he on
Future Man?

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Is that Future Man? He is without spoiling the thing.
He's also unhinged in future, man, I was just watching
on surprise because I didn't believe it was him at first.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
I've never seen it.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
You know it's worth your time.

Speaker 4 (46:57):
I'll watch it in the future, man.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
Right, well, let the cat out of the back row
a movie? What else do you have for us? Hey?

Speaker 4 (47:04):
You know both of you two.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
I like the cut of y'all's jib. It's true.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
Is jib right here? That jib this whole thing? Uh
huh the jib over there too.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
I stay jib and I see it.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
You guys have heard this probably, Oh yeah, kind of
you can.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Assume mainly on the Sopranos.

Speaker 4 (47:20):
Mainly on the Sopranos, for sure. It's actually from maritime traditions.
It's as old as like seventeenth century, eighteenth century. It's
referencing the triangular shaped sail known as the jib. Some
ships actually have more than one jib sail. They all
have their own style. And I guess that's kind of
refers to when you say I like the cut of
your jib, it's like, oh, like, I like your style, man,

(47:42):
I like your vibe.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yeah, you know, so.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
This is actually, the jib is the fabric the sale exactly.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
Oh and another thing, and I don't know if this
was verified or but I read that because these jib
sails look vaguely like a nose, it could refer very
specifically to someone's facial features, which is pretty interesting.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Yeah, that's a very specific compliment to give someone, right.
I feel like you have to know someone pretty well for.

Speaker 4 (48:12):
Sure to be like, Hey, hey, Jimmy Duranty, I like
the cut of your jib. You know that's a joke
for the elders. Everyone googled Jimmy nose.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
Come on, guys, doesn't he say like or something? He says,
make that up?

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Isn't his big nose isn't. Also quite red and largely
probably due to burst blood vessels from alcoholism.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Bulbous from the gin gin face for days. That makes sense.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
So wait, what is a jibsail? Though we know it's
a sail, is it you said they have multiple ones?

Speaker 4 (48:49):
Well, it's I'm assuming affiliated with the mass of the boat.
So which is the big wooden middle part that then
hoists the jib sail? I don't quote me on that,
but this is what I took in when I was,
you know, scrambling to learn the anomology of chip.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
And I'm surprised to learn that there's this nasal illusion.
Now I'm gonna start calling people's noses jibs for sure.

Speaker 3 (49:19):
Keep you jib clean, Keep you jib clean.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Man, Well you mean so.

Speaker 4 (49:24):
With noses, peop, don't be putting your jib in other
people's you know, jibs.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
This Do you remember jib jab? Okay, we're going off tangent.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
No, no, Now, I'm just going to replace the word
nose with jib every time I every time the opportunity
presents this, along with nippet in the butt, is setting
up my next.

Speaker 4 (49:45):
Oh my god, butts and noses, and then that's that's
a perfect setup for a brown nose. Of course, think
about that, which is kind of one that I thought
about earlier as well.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
That's disgusting. Fair enough, that's discussed.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
Because it refers to the on news because you're kissing
someone's booty so hard, well, you know, the rest is obvious.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
But then that's why I didn't actually choose that one,
because it seems obvious.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Well, there's someone maybe who has a who's just having
a uh. The more you know moment right now, Brown.

Speaker 3 (50:16):
Right, the light bulb over their head just bursts.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
They're like, oh okay, I get it, Brown, Nos got it, Pope.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
I want to check in real quick, Casey or any
of these surprising you so far?

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Uh? I hate to be the unactually guy. But no, not.

Speaker 4 (50:36):
Well hold on, Casey, you didn't know the history of
all these. You assumed this is an educational program. This
is true, this is true.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Well, we still luckily have one more shot to uh
surprise and unactually are again very beloved super produce.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
Unactually Is that cannot be our next podcast?

Speaker 3 (51:01):
I love Unactual Actually?

Speaker 1 (51:05):
Noel are our hopes for this episode? Today rests with you,
my friends. Oh man, that's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
And I'm struggling right now because our internet has has
just abandoned me.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
It has forsaken me. We don't use the wall recording.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
That is a lie. This is straight from our endless
Jeopardy brands.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
Oh well, that's that's very very nice, Very nice of
you to think that Rowan knew me.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
But alas that is not the case.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Although to be fair, Ben and I are the only
ones with laptop machines in front of us, right now.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
Rowan is pure pen and paper. I am more paper
and brains. Well that's what rowan is.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
Doom doom, doom, doom doom.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Are you doing Ice Ice baby or under pressure?

Speaker 1 (51:50):
You know what? Man, Let's be honest. Vanilla Ice ripped
it off.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
They're just kind of intertwined at this point, right, that.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Great moment in that VH one, uh whatever the show was,
We're he tries to play the music yeah yeah, where
he tries to explain they're different because he.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
Says, there's a yeah, this is an extra, an extra
blipt up.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Well, you guys, I'm I'm ready.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
I'm ready to take on this.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
And it's actually really serendipitous. I I did know what
our pale rowan was going to do with the cut
of the GiB and all, but I didn't actually do
any research into it.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
I had no idea that it was a nautical term.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
As it turns out, mine is also a nautical term,
and it involves not the jib or the sail itself.
And it's actually really interesting because I think that these
things sound god like they should be flipped. Mine is
three sheets to the wind, and as it turns out,
in nautical parlance, a sheet which you would think would

(52:50):
be the sail. Not so, it's the line that tether's
the sail.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Interesting, right, and someone is very inebriate.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
And very aebriated. I I didn't know this one at all.
I didn't even have any inkling.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
It's one of those ones that I just chose blindly
to use. Sometimes I would even go so far as
to say more than three sheets, you know, for sure
sheets your seven sheets, you're ten sheets to fifteen sheets to.

Speaker 1 (53:18):
The wind, target linen department, to the exactly your blotto.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Wind, exactly whatever.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Yeah, so Rowin you may not have I don't know
how much of a steadfast Fana ridiculous history you are.
But we did do an episode where we kind of
listed through Benjamin Franklin's expressions for being drunk, and ben
just listed a few there great, But one that Benjamin
Franklin did not come up with is three sheets to
the wind. And this is this is so crazy to me,
because yeah, these were not sheets or sails as you

(53:51):
might think. There wasn't even wind, well there hopefully was,
or else the ship's not going to go.

Speaker 4 (53:57):
Sorry.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
They were lines, ropes, sometimes they were chains and they're
the things if you've ever been on a sailboat or
a sloop of some sort of perhaps a barge. No,
barges don't have sails.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (54:08):
I'm not a I'm a I'm a bit of a
I'm a land love what they call that.

Speaker 2 (54:13):
Yeah, they're fixed to the bottom corners of the sails
to hold them in place so that they catch the wind.
And again, if there's any sailor types out there, forgive
my ignorance. I'm doing the best I can. But I
believe a sail would require three sheets to be properly
fastened and uh and you know, tightened so that you

(54:33):
could actually manipulate it and put it, you know, in
the direction of the wind so it catches the wind.
So but again, this to the wind business doesn't even
refer to the wind that's catching the sails.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
It refers to the.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Sheets or the lines being loose range or in the wind.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
Huh.

Speaker 2 (54:50):
You know, like if there be steered, it can't be steered.
Not only that it's gonna be erratic because the the
sail is there and catching some of the win, but
it's flopping around like crazy. And so in sort of
resembling a drunk person stumbling around. Yeah, okay, so there
are actually variations on this, right, So if you're one

(55:12):
sheet to the wind, you're gonna not be quite as tight.
You're gonna have a little bit of a little bit
of a little tipsy yes, right. And then if you
got two sheets, you're kind of in the middle there.
And if you got three sheets, you're not looking good.
You're embarrassing yourself. Dad, go home.

Speaker 4 (55:31):
Your boat has sprung a leak, really will if you
do not get an uber boat home?

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Yes, the thing and if it's not as should be.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
Also side note, in the time of f Scott Fitzgerald,
the phrase tight was used to mean getting drunk.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
Yeah, that is a that is a very very good
addition there, Ben. So it's interesting because this expression goes
back to eighteen ninety one in a book by Pierce
Egan called Real Life in London, and it this is
out of context, and I'm getting this from an article
on phrases dot org dot uk, which is fantastic for
these etymological explorations, and the quote that they cite out

(56:12):
of context is fantastic. Old wax and bristles is about
three sheets in the wind.

Speaker 4 (56:19):
It was old wax and I guess old wax and bristles.
Everybody here, everybody was old wax and bristles, old wax
and bold. And I like, it's three sheets in the wind,
not to the winds in that, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
And then then it got changed to the wind and yeah.
And then in this article as well, they talk about
the scale of drunkenness that sailors had, where like I
said before, three sheets was completely stupefied, falling over yourself, drunk,
your tipsy, like you said, rowan was one sheet and
then or a sheet in the wind's eye. And actually

(56:53):
they don't listed two sheets, but surely two sheets was
the middle ground has to be right, because that's going
to give you some stability on that sale, but not enough.
And they even have another example using a windmill, like
a Dutch windmill, which would have four that's good, they
would have four What do you call them turbans? No,
that's not one wing on a turbine is not a turban.

(57:14):
The turbine, well they some some people in the engineering
community pronounce it turbine.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
Oh, I know it's true.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
I only know this because I used to work public
radio and I covered the nuclear industry and I would
interview these engineering nuclear nerds and they would call them turbans,
and they actually and I'm doing it.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
I'm actually right now.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
And I'm pro nerd.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
So I love nerds, and I'm saying that sort of
that is not what I'm doing it all, Ben, I
love nerds. There are some Okay, you guys are really
making me, but here we go. So, yeah, if you
have four of these, you know, let's call them, what

(57:56):
do you call one thing in a propeller, one part
of a blades, blade, blades? Gosh, I am not doing yeah.
So if you have like four of them, right, So
if one of them is out of commission, he got three,
that's going to be a very unstable.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Turban, right, I mean for sure.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
So three sheets to the wind anyway, So there's more.
It actually carries on in literary history in a novel
called The Fisher's Daughter by a writer named Catherine Ward.
And here's another quote from this phrases dot Org article.
From this work, Wolf replenished his glass at the request
of mister Blust, who, instead of being one sheet in

(58:40):
the wind, was likely to get to three before he
took his departure.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Right, Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
It's beautiful, beautiful expression. Is a beautiful qusson.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
At this point we're still three sheets in the wind.
And then we have the modern three sheets to the
wind that comes in a book called the Journal of
Francis Asbiret that talks about this gentleman's travels through Kentucky,
through Kentucky and the United States. But yet this is
an Englishman and the writer also English, and this is

(59:11):
the line from this work. The tavern keepers were kind
and polite, as Southern folks should be, and as Southern
folks ought not to be. They were sometimes two sheets
in the wind.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
Oh that liquid fire. That's so great.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Not to crib too hard from the Incredible Phrases dot
Org article, but it goes on to talk about how
Robert Lewis Stevenson really popularized this phrase for a wider audience,
because obviously Treasure Island was like a blockbuster of a novel,
gave us all kinds of pirate parlance, right like shiver
me timbers and talking about searching for treasure. You got
your ex that marks the spot. The image of a

(59:51):
pirate with a peg leg and a parrot. You know
that whole all that, all that, all that imagery comes
from from Robert Lewis Stevenson. And the quote that he
uses with this phrase goes back to the old way,
which is, maybe you think we are all a sheet
in the wind's.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Eye, but I tell you I was sober. Nah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
And there's a lot of great pirate slang in Treasure Island.
I think there are also some arguments about how much
of that was Stevenson going this is what I think
a pirate will sound like, and how much of it
was actual pirate speech. And you know what, we could
do a great piece on genuine pirate speech because a
lot of these guys tended to be polyglots. You know,

(01:00:34):
they met so many other people. But before we continue, Casey,
could we have a drum roll? Please? Did Noel save
the day? Was this a phrase that you were unaware
of origin? Story wise?

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
Yes, Casey on the case, I did it?

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
Wowoa, WHOA.

Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Just kidding, guys, it's getting We all did it. Everyone
brought amazing stuff to the table. Thank you so much.
Rowan Newby of Pitches Podcast Fame. Check it out. I
think it's on SoundCloud now, but soon it will be
on iTunes and all the places you find podcast at
Pitches podcast not for the kiddos.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
It's it gets it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
Gets pretty pretty blue at times.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
It gets a little blue.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
Well, if you want your kids to have an accelerated
learning course in the ways of languish, yeah, it's not
that bad.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
You guys.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Well, if you like the cut of ridiculous Histories jib
we imagine that you uh, you will go bananas. We
didn't look into what that means, but you will go pitches.
So check it out. As Noel said, don't hesitate to
get thee to the internet in the meantime. Yeah, thanks
so much for coming broin.

Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
Really been a pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
It's been a pleasure here too. It's always a pleasure
hanging out rowing just like me and Ben. We always
say this. I think we say it so much people
might think we're not telling the truth, but I swear
we are in fact all friends outside of the show
and we hang out. And it was nice to have
you enter the shipping container, the podcasto sphere with ridiculous history.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
Yeah. I'd actually like to get a picture of you
Rowan if you're comfortable with that. Its been port of
face to a name, and we'll pop it up on
my Instagram which is at ben Bulin. Maybe we'll get
our ridiculous history folks to retweet it or I'm sorry regram.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
It was that a thing has a separate app for that.
It's a really annoying analyst that it's a weird one.
I'm really into the stories. I think it's a lot
of fun. That's really the closest thing you can do
to regramming stuff. Put them on those stories. You can
check me out at Embryonic Insider. You can check rowing
out at Pitches podcast. On the Instagram, you can check
out Ridiculous History at Ridiculous History. Also, if you want

(01:02:53):
to hang out with your fellow Ridiculous historians, you can
do that on our Facebook group which is the Ridiculous Historians.
You just have to name one of our names, or
Casey's name, or you know what we make us laugh?

Speaker 3 (01:03:04):
Oh, name dropping. That's another one we didn't talk about.
That's very true. That can probably figure out where that
one go.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Big Thanks to super producer Casey Pegrim and Alex Williams,
who composed our theme.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Yes, Thanks as always to our research associate team. Thanks
very much to you guys out there listening in podcast land.
This episode is over, but the story of strange phrases continues.
When you are reaching out to us, let us know
what phrase always sounded very strange to you, the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Origin story of something, and let us know if you
want to see idiots on idioms or idiomatic for the
people rearing its head once again, iracy. There you go
in the ridiculous history and a sphere.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
There we go.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
We'll see you next time, folks.

Speaker 2 (01:03:59):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.