March 19, 2019 • 36 mins
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 with special guests Frank Mulherin and Rowan Newbie, the creator of the Pitches podcast, as they explore the bizarre origins of your favorite turns of phrase.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
Yeah, and we've returned. In an earlier episode, we launched
our continuing exploration into idioms. This is the next episode
(00:33):
of Idiomatic for the people, Come on, knock on my door,
Idiomatic for you something something bad, people and phrases and
you gotta workshop that. No, Ben, you pointed out though,
that the Threes Company theme kind of dirty, clearly not
as innocent as the melody would imply. And this is
(00:57):
something that we we should look back into you because
I know that you and I and our super producer
Casey Pegram had a fantastic time tripping the light of
music history in our Louis Louis episode, So maybe we
can look at sitcom theme songs one day. Are you
trying to make trip the Light happen? Ben? No, but
I was thinking about bank a cast the pod. Fantastic voices. Voices, Man,
(01:23):
We've got voices, not just the ones in our heads. No, No,
it's not just you and Casey and myself. Today we
are rejoined by our good friends Rowan Nuby and Frank Mulherron. Hey, guys, thanks,
thanks that a well hello or a mahallow, both both multifunctional.
(01:45):
So we are we're really glad that you guys didn't
didn't give up the ghost. It's another idiom. Didn't give
up the ghost at intermission and came and came back.
So thanks so much for giving us a second date.
We've established the rules video matic for the people already.
I almost tapped out myself, Ben, Yeah, you've been You've
(02:06):
had a long day, my friend, It's been a long journey.
I was telling the superducer Kisy program that I did
get good sleep last night. I went to bed like
a good boy at around nine four thirty. But it's
not about the lack of sleep. It's just about the
length of the day. We are up at four. It
feels like an eternity. But I'm kind of liking this
punchy vibe that I'm riding now. I'm hoping that it'll
lend itself to some fun idiomatic dissection. I am agreed
(02:31):
with you, and I've just been struck by inspiration. Noel,
will you be the first brave soul to explore an
idiom with us today? I would love to Ben jim Man, Uh,
my idiom is the name of a spice girl. Can
you guess which one it is? Is it scary? The story.
(02:52):
The story is a little bit scary, and it does
involve some sport, some potential sports some sports. Uh individual
sporty individual. What are the other ones? There's baby baby, um,
there there may be some babies in the story here
baby spice, Ginger, ginger spice, ginger spice or was she was?
Wasn't she? There was ginger spice? Yeah, I don't know.
(03:13):
Ginger is a spice. I think that's what you mean.
Ginger is a spice multiple levels. The story of of
the spice girl in question, um, or at least her namesake,
does involve some spices potentially, um, yeah, exactly. It involves
a journey to uh, the land of exotic spices, right
(03:34):
like turmeric, like you know, peppercorns, also peppercorns. That's right,
that's right. Um. But it's not just any journey, my friend.
It is the journey of the wealthy via steam ship.
You see, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
it was the thing to do for the well to do,
the wealthy, the upper crust of England to go to
(03:57):
India for what they call in in England holiday which
means vacation or it's also a fabulous Madonna's song, wouldn't
that be funny? So there was there's a go Ghost
song called Vacation, and then there's a Madonna song called
Holiday and they're both. You know, madonna song about Holiday
is about taking a holiday, if we took a holiday,
(04:19):
just some time to celebrate. Now I think she's more
talking about like a Christmas type experience. It's talking about celebrating. Well,
as long as you wake me up before you go go, oh,
you know, I will ruin, you know, I will listen here,
listen here, my friends, so they have to take this
journey on steamship. And here's the thing. In those days,
it was not a good look for the wealthy to
(04:39):
have a tan because the tan was not what it
is today. Or people you know, get literally spray painted
on their body so they look they have that like glow. Uh. No,
that was the look that was reserved for like a
field hand. That was considered like we would call like
a redneck or something like that, someone that's like the
lowest of the low. And these these wealthy types wanted
(05:01):
to maintain their ghostly complexion. Um. So here's the thing,
the story of the word posh, that is, it was
a long preamble to get there. I know, but Ben,
you know I love a good acronym. That's true. You
know you know this about me, Frank, you know this
about me. I'm always talking about acronyms at the house.
It's like I won't shut up. I'm like, acronym, acronym, acronym,
(05:25):
Yet I can't seem to think of radar race car.
That's it's a palindromes, not an acronym. Uh, just want
to chime in here. One of my favorite palindromes doctor
awkwardly wo beautiful. Also one of my favorite Spiderman villains. No,
(05:46):
wait a second, my favorite is a lonely titlan All. Wow,
that's a good one. Yeah, But palindromes maybe something for
a different tale, right, you know the word palindrome is
itself a palindrome. I'm pretty sure it might be in
some other language. That's fair. So I'll tell you. The
story of the word posh is really fascinating because there
(06:09):
is a popularly circulated, let's call it um. I don't know,
rumored origin of this word that these uh, these mucky
muck English types that were going on their holiday to
India via steemship required a very particular type of seat,
so they would not get that tan Um. So they
(06:31):
wanted to sit in the part of the ship that
would shield them from the afternoon sun, which is the
hottest of the hot during the day when you're out
on the open sea, which would, according to this version
of events, be the right or the starboard side, and
then when you came back, they wanted it to be
on the left or the port side. So therein you
(06:54):
have the acronym p O s H port side out
star home, meaning the voyage there you'd sit on the
port side. On the voyage back, you'd sit on the
starboard side. And supposedly, according to this tale, these tickets
would be stamped with posh and it got so popular
that people just started asking for the POSH ticket. We
(07:15):
want the posh ticket. It turns out this is garbage.
This story is not true at all, and there's a
great reason there's it's so garbage and so questionable that
Snopes has a fantastic article dissecting all of these these
various versions of the story. Uh, and they have a
couple of reasons that does not make sense. First of all, um,
(07:36):
the way the sun would move in a journey like
this would be different depending on the day. This is
a very long and arduous journey. And they you know,
you couldn't really bank on where the sun would be exactly.
It doesn't make its own rules. And that's the thing.
(07:56):
The winds. There were monsoon winds that would be in play,
and they would change from season to season. So it
would change seasonally, you know, like maybe not day to day,
but certainly seasonally. Um. And there's here's the other part.
Here's the other rub as they say, which is another
idiom we should explore. Um, yeah, there it is right there. Uh.
(08:18):
They these trips were so long and difficult that they
wouldn't book a round trip. They would be staying in
India for a long time to make it worth their while.
They might stay months, some might even stay over like
a year or so. They would not book that return
trip until they knew, damn well they were ready to
come home. It's so posh um. And so the real
(08:40):
origin of the word posh uh came around in eighteen thirty.
And the thing about posh too is the reason stories
like this can take whole is because it's it's origins
are a little bit murky. But there are some um
origins in the Romani language of the early seventeenth century,
where it was a term that meant money. The term
was posh who which was their version of a halfpence
(09:03):
so um. Then the word posh kind of stuck around
and started to mean money. Money equals you are so money,
you are so well to do, you are so posh.
That makes a lot of sense to me. Um, And
now we use that term to mean anyone that is
moneyed or looking fancy or looking like whatever their get
(09:25):
up is is would have cost a good bit. You know.
That's amazing. I have to admit I'm a little It
was a little bit of an emotional roller coaster for me, Noel,
because I got quite into the idea of posh spices,
full name being port side out, starbird hole spice. That
would be good. That would be good. And a point
(09:47):
that I love the Snopes article makes is that the
Brits of this period, and honestly humans in general, big
fans of scrap booking. Scrap booking is it was a
super fashionable thing to do, and not a single one
of these posh stamped tickets exists in the world. Bus
debunked so yeah, totally debunked. The birds love to say posh.
(10:08):
That's probably where I know the term from. Of course,
you're a posh dandy, you know, because you're like a
posh dandy tripping the light. Fantastic there, Like that line
from Peep Show. It's like he calls him a posh
spas you probably iron your socks. Yes. Also, also I
propose that we take it upon ourselves to bring back
(10:30):
posh as a sling term for money. There's always there's
so many I think you can. I think you can
pull it off and no one will bust you, you
know what I mean? Like if you say how much
posha is that, they'll just say it's four thirty five.
I think that works totally. There's some like you ever
heard of, like a scratch You heard someone calling money
scratch cheddar. Posh is way cooler. Yeah, posh is way cool.
(10:51):
You got the posh probably more fashionable. Sounds like something
Alig would say that you would say, exactly, Pasha, oh boy,
uh now we uh now we turned to let's see
(11:11):
what what you got something? Frank, you got one for us? Sure? Um?
I was looking at what's cracking in what's cracking in
on tonight you'll have what's cracking? Do you'll have any
idea of what's going on? Like some some what's the HAPs? Yeah,
what's the HAPs? What's the buzz? What's the you know,
what's the new gassa? What's the four one one? Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
(11:32):
And so I was looking into this, and you know,
it's not something that's native to America. It's but it's
been around in England for a while and specifically it
comes from the Ulster area and the Scots Irish area
of the British Isles. And originally it was spelled you know,
(11:53):
like the way we spell it now, like c R
A c K. So there was American then it was
an American version or no, well no, no, no. It
was originally started out and as Middle English, and it
was just like it, you know, it was related to
the sound, but it but in this particular usage of it,
it pertained to like a lot of chatter basically like people,
(12:17):
you know, you go into a loud bar restaurant, you
hear just you know, yeah, I believe they call them
pubs over there. Yeah yeah, and yes, exactly exactly. And
so what I found really interesting about this was that
it's an example of a re borrowing. So it was
(12:39):
primarily used in you know, Scotland, Northern England and in
Northern Ireland. It really wasn't used in Ireland, even though
we associate, you know, when people say where's the crack
or what's the crack and not what I think of
when people say where's the crack, I'm thinking of something
completely different totally. But um, yeah, but say if you
(13:00):
were in Ireland and somebody asked you that, you know,
they would just take you to a cool bar, you know,
a restaurant or whatever, then sell you some crack, sell
you some crack, and then you'd continue about your nine.
So crack's use in mainland Ireland or the non Northern
Ireland part really was more of a recent thing, and
um kind of started in the late sixties. And what
(13:22):
happened was they took crack and Galic sized it and
started to spell it c R A I C you know,
so they don't have a K in Gaelic, and I
don't know why they chose to put an eye from them.
That's what I'm saying. It looks like a more Middle
English version, like I would think of it like you know,
(13:43):
the creek was whiskey and the Leapy Deeves, and it's
got a jabberwalkee vibe to it as well. Really in
the Sleepy Tutes, yes, yes, the guy or in Gimbal
So I wonder if it's really to archaic anyway, just
because of that Ai. It's just an example of the
Irish taking this word and giving it a more Gaelic
(14:07):
sort of rebranding. And that's really kind of like what
it turns into, because it turns into this Gaelic spelling
of it, and it becomes associated with Irish nightlife culture
and just going out and having fun and raising hill
and all that kind of stuff, and then it ends
up coming back into English by way of Ireland, and
(14:31):
it kind of now means like fun, nightlife, gossip and
all this kind of stuff, but with the kind of
Irish flavor to it. So are we are we having cracked? Now?
Is that? Is this what we're doing? I'd like to hope.
So is that how you would say it to we're
having crack? Yeah? Yeah, we're having a crack. And I
(14:54):
feel very very fake, say like because I went, yeah,
I went to um Dublin last year and what surprised
me is I had heard people use this phrase, but
I had no idea what it meant. And it was
never in a situation where I wanted to stop someone
and be like part of me. Uh, fellow Irish person,
(15:16):
you know what I mean? What? What? What is this
crack of what you speak? Take a crack? And where
can I get some? I'm sorry, I keep bleeding on
that because I can't. I can't hear that. So to me,
what what occurred? What what comes to mind is what's cracking? Uh?
And I also another popular British expression is a cracking
good time exactly. So we've be saying that's cracking good
(15:37):
you know that just I think it just means that
it's super exciting and fun and uh upbeat, high energy. Yeah, totally.
And one interesting thing um I came across with this
is that it's kind of now that it's become readopted
by English speakers, it's now kind of like seeing as
kind of like emblematic of the disneyification and of Irish culture.
(16:02):
You saw like the proliferation of like Irish pubs in
the nineties, you know, and that gipsy mixed stumbles exactly. Yeah,
I didn't freaking eyes. Hometown of Augusta, Georgia, which you
mentioned last episode, there is an Irish bar that's sort
of like an Irish bar Hooters called Tipsy Mixed stumbles.
If that's not the most offensive cultural appropriation that I
(16:24):
can think of up my head, I don't know what
it is. You know, there are a lot of really
cool examples of re borrowing that I thought were really interesting,
you know, like you know how like animation in English
and then jack in Japan. There's anime and then now
in English animation that has that's from Japan or I
(16:45):
mean Japan animation. Nobody, nobody says, I'm not supposed to
say that that will get you punched by fans of
the medium. Yeah. Yeah, So it's come full circle back
to anime. So I have a question. Can we as
Americans use this phrase? Are we being jerks? I would
if I was going over there, I would be like, listen,
(17:05):
I don't want I don't want I don't want this.
Mickey Mickey Mouse, Donald duck crack. You know, I'm looking
for the real thing, you know, don't send me to
where the tourists are. Okay. I feel like I'm not
into Donald Duck crack either personally. Oh my goodness, last thing,
real quick. I keep seeing this on the internet when
I'm looking at this. The crack was ninety. Why isn't
(17:28):
it only nine? That is the highest gradation of crack
breaking bad. If you go pass uh crack ninety, then
you've entered into minus crack, where you've had too good
of a time and and you know you said some
terrible things and gotten into a fight, and you know
(17:51):
you cancel you you were canceled this season, right, you were.
So that was fantastic. I first of all, when you
texted the group saying that I thought you were misspelling
a word, and I was like, but I am. I
am delighted. I literally learned something new. Yeah. I didn't
want to. I didn't want to mention it in our
(18:12):
off air talks because I thought you would like have
more fun. You knew what it was, Yeah, because you
people talk about it, and I actually um when we
were there, we ended up entirely through accidents, staying next
to the most notorious club in Dublin, which is a
place called Copper Faced Jack's. Uh. I don't want to
(18:35):
go too far into detail on it, but if you
are by a computer that is not associated with your work,
feel free to google it and check out what happens
at copper faced Jack's I hear it's a raging crack.
It's at ninety. Am I doing that right? Yeah? Crack ninety.
We should do, we should do. There's some T shirt
(18:56):
ideas here, guys. These are T shirt I did, yeah,
I or any shirt with crack on it. That's what
people say about you. I have one, you, guys, it
might it might surprise you. Have you ever felt that
you were doing something or involved in some kind of
(19:17):
project that um felt too improvised, somewhat haphazard, like this podcast. No,
we had Hey, we had a plan, we had a text,
we had a text, a text threat and more Lucy
Goosey than this is what you're saying and not But
but that's a great one to the phrase Willie Nilly,
(19:42):
which is for older generations. I know, I'm sorry, just
Willy Nilly Lucy Goosey there, but similar sing song they've
got some whimsy to them, right, they're a bit to June.
But Willie Nilly, Now it's something that you would associate with,
let's be honest, maybe a child a teacher or an
older person say in a in a way like if
(20:05):
you've ever seen a very wholesome person get angry, they
would use a phrase like willy nilly, like you cannot
be out all hours of the night driving willy nilly
hither and yon yes yes me so nowadays, in we
associate this with the definition that I think we all
(20:26):
recognized instantly doing something without a good set of directions,
lackluster planning somewhat haphazardly, which reminds us uh I feel terrible.
Super producer Casey Pegro we went willy Nilly into the
beginning of this podcast. We ran rough shot over our
normal top of the show, shout out to Casey, yes,
(20:49):
please do yes, we're we're penitent. I blame you? What
come on? We blame ruin. Oh look, I'm sorry, Casey.
Do you forget of me? I forgive you. Listen to
that h Casey on a case yeah, and it sounded
very sincere. So why don't you guys need to take
(21:10):
take a deep breath. Alright, We're good. So Willie Nilly
is much older than you might originally suspect. The phrase
that survives now w I L L Y dash n
I l l y is the winner of a long
battle between various different spellings uh. And it's even become
(21:36):
a great fake name if you guys are into those
William William, Who's who's going to use that at the airport?
Next every hotel, every hotel. So the early meaning of
the word nil is key to the understanding it used to.
It used to mean originally with or against your will.
(21:58):
So come hell or high wall is closer to the
original version of Willie nilly because the early meaning of
the word nil it was the opposite of will, a
contraction of nay will so gosh so so I nil
(22:19):
do that, I will not do that. Websters defines it
as uh, whether you like it or not. Yep, and
so I've always wanted to say, Websters defines it as
it's perfect shout out to Websters. So will I nil
I can be expanded into b I willing b I unwilling,
combining the two sentiments with the implication that it doesn't
(22:41):
matter how you feel about it, you are stuck doing
this thing. I got a lot of this information from
one of my favorite word websites, which is Worldwide Words.
It is a treasure trove a cavalcade, a very very
strange phrases, and an interesting backstory. The guy that that
maintained it right, Yeah, yeah, he is no longer actively
(23:02):
updating the site, But Michael Quinnion has spent his entire
life studying this. He's a one man army and it's
it's fascinating, just the sheer bulk of stuff he describes.
So shout out to you, Mike, and thanks for putting
this together. So the phrase itself dates back at least
a thousand years. The earliest known version was in an
(23:23):
Old English text called Lives of Saints. The line is
for in the we is saying saying food and skilled
in boone ad mode, Really we needed we I don't
know what he's talking about, and something about skating and
bone what was it? Skanks and bones, sin sinful and
(23:44):
slen boone ed mode ed mode moved im in ed mode, Bro,
you're so ed modr. That's like when you like actively
are sort of like a dweeb, like I'm in full
ad mode, and then became this is great, He's gonna
be t shirts and then uh. It occurs in The
(24:06):
Taming the Shrewe in with its original meaning Patricio, speaking
to Catherina, says, thus, in plain terms, your father hath
consented that you shall be my wife. Your dowry greed
on and will you nail you? I will marry you.
Super creepy dude. Wow, Yeah, that's that's not a good
(24:27):
look for Patricio. What's his name? That's right, got it?
He nailed it, man. And this is just I think
a great example of how previously maybe not sinister, but
previously more combative or or less innocuous terms become these
fun things that we throw around. Now, you know what
I mean, You're not You're like the odds of you
(24:50):
being in an altercation and someone saying will you nail you?
That's in a threatening manner. That's just safely not gonna happen. Yeah,
I totally agree. I do have to say, Ben, I
use this one quite a lot. Yeah, Willie Billy, I
use it Willie Nilly. It's just just every which way.
(25:10):
Uh yeah, I really do. I really really like Willy Nilly.
Oh come on, I keep thinking of what's that song,
will Bully? I keep thinking of the song Willy Bully,
but just with the lyrics replaced Willy Nilly. I like it,
which actually works, I do, but honestly that when I
use it, though, I use it in kind of a
Larry David kind of like grumpy old man way, where
(25:30):
I'm like, you can't just go doing this stuff willy nilly,
you know, like you know, it's this idea of there's
gotta be a little order involved. You can't just go
you can't just be going out, you know, doing whatever
it is you're doing, whatever the case might be, whose
be haphazard or pell mell hell mell, which is so
funny because they're cigarettes about our grandpa cigarettes, I would
(25:54):
also say willy nilly probably, but Grandpa's pronounced it pell mell.
And if you look at the pack, clearly paul mall.
And they're still around, but apparently they're like that. That's
one of these examples of wilful disagreement of an obvious pronunciation,
you know, like we're just like a fast as possible
and time to read the box a person with do.
(26:21):
So that's that's the story. So we have posh, we
have crack. We took a crack at crack, and then
we have will eat nilly, But we weren't quite willy
nillly with this episode because we did have a plan.
We did promise everyone in the beginning that we would
we would each present an idiom and Rowan since you
(26:41):
are an alumni of the show, now alumnus, alumnar, alum aluminium,
since you are in fact build largely from alumenium. No
I'm a tent man, we would like to give the
honor to you. You have the last idiom. Now, this
means that if the three of us have really dropped
(27:02):
the ball here I don't know where that one comes from,
then it's no pressure on you to save the show. Yeah,
I don't. I don't feel pressure by that statement at all.
Good because Nolan Frank gave you some serious nods and on.
You know that we're not joking. Okay, they all just
cracked their knuckles and they're looking at me very sternly.
(27:23):
I want everyone to know. Can you hear those knuckles?
That is that is in the room? Wow? Okay, well
I'm bullets right now. Put that on your list. By
the way, there, um, because I'm tripping balls, tripping the
balls fantastic, got it? Uh? Yeah, there's actually a dry
race board behind ben Or He puts a tally of
(27:45):
every accidental idiom. We utter literally keep score in all
things and all things. It's podcast related. I'm super petty, um,
but sure, yeah, here we go, let's jump in. Uh.
This is a lesser known idiom or the people out
there hardbucksing the runway. If you're not familiar with this,
(28:06):
it refers to someone who's maybe showboating or peacocking a bit,
you know, maybe accidentally alienating a crowd as opposed to
enlightening with their flair and uh mild superiority but like
big personality. Mostly I've heard this, but I have no
idea where it comes from. Is it like as like
a European thing or is it you know, I think
it's origins or English, but uh but I think English,
(28:29):
so yeah, European. Okay, I think did you do the
home the homework? Come on? Well it is one of
those expressions that feels fakes, but I promised it's not
so okay, so so lay it on. Est man, What's
what's the etymology? Is there a story behind this? Well,
(28:50):
there there's a man by the name of Alexander Benson.
Okay who it was? The great grandfather somebody who I know,
And Admiral Nicholas von Vinson, who um has shared this
wisdom with me. Uh, evently stems from old bricotine ships
(29:10):
and um there was something called like you know with
the front of the ship is the bow and the
back is the is the port correct starting thank you,
And so in the back of the ships where you
steer the ship, and if somebody was steering the ship,
they would they would have this semblance of um, you know,
kind of arrogance. They'd be taking up a lot of
(29:30):
you know, they oh, I'm in control of this ship.
So they were often known as the hard bucks. There
were hard bucks saying the runway being like they're the
passageway from the port or the starboard. Oh alright, the
stern is in the backup saying but when you look forward, yes,
because they they get this whole like vista of the
(29:50):
entire ship at the sea because they're steering the ship.
So they like hogging the spotlight exactly, and they can
be a little braggadocious, but they're do the job, you know. There.
I think it's kind of an unintentional like flexing on
the Graham or something. Sure, a more archaic version perhaps, Yeah,
(30:11):
this why not very archaic because I haven't. I gotta
be honest, like I haven't. I'm familiar with it. I'm
sure a lot of us listening are, but I haven't
heard it in the modern day, you know what I mean? Yeah, well,
you know, much like Willy Nilly, people aren't um or
will to the nil or whatever it was. Folks aren't
using this as as often as they should. You know. Frankly,
(30:33):
I'm a little upset that people are often try to
call me on this, but it is real as the
table we're in front of a right, we are not
sitting down, we're standing. Real is the table in front
of us. You can put that on the tally board. Right,
So do you think people should bring this back? I
(30:55):
strongly suggest it would be for the benefit of all
if we because because you gotta call people on their
on their bs often, you know what I'm saying. So
what I'm saying, Okay, So I'm gonna okay, yeah, alright,
I don't know, man, I wrote a bunch of other
fake things. Yes, yes, I mean real things, because I
(31:20):
did actually google the word hardbuck, because you know what,
that's what the Internet's for, right, hardbuck could have ties
to a Gaelic expression hardbuck, which was a surname or
habitational name taken from our Buckle, a parish of air Dry, Lancolnshire.
I think I'm pronouncing nothing correctly, but it's yes, well
(31:41):
really it's it's Gaelic. So we we've got crack and
we came back around exactly, We're back and he was
talking about ships at the beginning of the show. Wow, yeah,
I think about that. It's almost as though I'm definitely
usual suspect almost or I'm alright, discovered the perfect crystallization
(32:03):
of everything that we did in this episode, summed up
in a completely believable and meticulously researched idiom. I you know,
I couldn't have said it better myself. I Um, I'm
patting myself on the back. However, Nicholas von Vinson, Admiral,
deserves a large amount of the credit as well. I
must say, was he the hard was he the original Hardbucks?
(32:25):
He was the original person to Hardbucks the runway. I
actually say this wouldn't an admiral. He would just be commanding,
he wouldn't be steering. He was kind of a dick
about it. Some people are really hands on, you know people. Yeah, exactly,
because you know it's a you know, there are shifts,
it's also a power move exactly like you would admirally
want people to know he still got it. He would
(32:46):
often just like shout hey, guys, look at me. Hey,
check out the the steering on this guy. Huh handling
really good handling. Yeah, and then people swam on the
poop deck like that's nice, sir, that's great. Well, you
know what I say, we take this to our favorite
(33:07):
court because if anyone can get to the bottom of
the veracity of this figure speech, it will be our superproducer,
Casey Pegram. Casey, question for you, when was the last
time you heard Hardbucks in the runway? I would estimate
about an hour ago. Uh, we're talking about it outside
(33:28):
before recording. This is new to you, it's a new
one to me. But you know, it feels like it
should be real, so it has that going for it.
What should be real? Casey, I thought we were. I mean,
you know, all languages constructed, so I mean, really, what
is real versus fake? Yeah? Thank you? And that's actually
something I texted's you did? Uh? So be it true?
(33:51):
Will he nil? He? Um? You know. I I think
it demonstrates the malleability of language and the power of belief.
What we're all about here on ridiculous. It's like our
main thing. It's one of our main things. So guys, again,
thank you so much for dropping by and helping shed
(34:13):
some light on the mysteries of etymology. For those of
us listening, we want to thank you for all the
responses we received to our previous idiomatic for the people
right in let us know some of your favorite figures
of speech, turns of phrase, idioms. Also, if you speak
languages other than English, what's something that you think sounds
(34:36):
really strange in English but it is very common in
some other language. That's an episode all its own. There
are some great ones. Thanks to you, my dear friend,
my dear old friend, Frank m'haran, coiner of the idiomatic
for the people, ephemeral friend of the show. And now
what's the what's the opposite of ephemeral? Concrete, flat lasting, corporate,
(34:57):
corporeal the show, part of the show. It's been a
long time comment. Thanks for being here, man, thanks for
having now. You had to rush over here from from
work and it means the world. Ruin Nuby, Yeah, thanks
so much, Ruin you can find You can find Mr
Newby on his own show Pitches, which is a comedy
podcast about the evaluation of ideas. Correct a panopoly of ideas.
(35:22):
Right that is correct? Very good word. Yeah, you know
it's like Shark Tank minus all the stress and money
and plus all the chatter and and fun and irreverence
and um yeah, it's it's pretty off the cuff. I
got Ben Bowling here actually coming up on an episode,
and I got Noel Brown here on a one that's
airing today. Do you like them apples? So you can
(35:42):
check it out now wherever you find your favorite podcast,
correct Apple podcast, Spotify all the things you get on
their baby at Pictures podcast. Get it. You can also
find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Meet one of
our favorite parts of the show, your fellow listeners on
your Facebook page where dick us Historians. Big thanks to
super producer Casey Pegram, Big thanks to our research associated
(36:05):
Gabe lose here, and thanks to Alex Williams who composed
are ever so earwormy theme And as we said in
previous episode, right it and let us know if there
were any figures of speech or turns of phrase that
we used. Unconsciously. I'm sure they were in there. You
can find my personal Instagram at Ben Bowling and hey Nolan,
you're on the internet to Yeah, I'm on the insternet
(36:27):
at at Embryonic Insider double ats. It's the only way
you can find it. I'm getting just a single app
Willy nilly, great crack folks. Stay tuned for our next
episode when we do something that we guarantee will be ridiculous. Yeah,
that's the least we can guarantee. We'll see you next time.
Yeah, and we've returned. In an earlier episode, we launched
our continuing exploration into idioms. This is the next episode
(00:33):
of Idiomatic for the people, Come on, knock on my door,
Idiomatic for you something something bad, people and phrases and
you gotta workshop that. No, Ben, you pointed out though,
that the Threes Company theme kind of dirty, clearly not
as innocent as the melody would imply. And this is
(00:57):
something that we we should look back into you because
I know that you and I and our super producer
Casey Pegram had a fantastic time tripping the light of
music history in our Louis Louis episode, So maybe we
can look at sitcom theme songs one day. Are you
trying to make trip the Light happen? Ben? No, but
I was thinking about bank a cast the pod. Fantastic voices. Voices, Man,
(01:23):
We've got voices, not just the ones in our heads. No, No,
it's not just you and Casey and myself. Today we
are rejoined by our good friends Rowan Nuby and Frank Mulherron. Hey, guys, thanks,
thanks that a well hello or a mahallow, both both multifunctional.
(01:45):
So we are we're really glad that you guys didn't
didn't give up the ghost. It's another idiom. Didn't give
up the ghost at intermission and came and came back.
So thanks so much for giving us a second date.
We've established the rules video matic for the people already.
I almost tapped out myself, Ben, Yeah, you've been You've
(02:06):
had a long day, my friend, It's been a long journey.
I was telling the superducer Kisy program that I did
get good sleep last night. I went to bed like
a good boy at around nine four thirty. But it's
not about the lack of sleep. It's just about the
length of the day. We are up at four. It
feels like an eternity. But I'm kind of liking this
punchy vibe that I'm riding now. I'm hoping that it'll
lend itself to some fun idiomatic dissection. I am agreed
(02:31):
with you, and I've just been struck by inspiration. Noel,
will you be the first brave soul to explore an
idiom with us today? I would love to Ben jim Man, Uh,
my idiom is the name of a spice girl. Can
you guess which one it is? Is it scary? The story.
(02:52):
The story is a little bit scary, and it does
involve some sport, some potential sports some sports. Uh individual
sporty individual. What are the other ones? There's baby baby, um,
there there may be some babies in the story here
baby spice, Ginger, ginger spice, ginger spice or was she was?
Wasn't she? There was ginger spice? Yeah, I don't know.
(03:13):
Ginger is a spice. I think that's what you mean.
Ginger is a spice multiple levels. The story of of
the spice girl in question, um, or at least her namesake,
does involve some spices potentially, um, yeah, exactly. It involves
a journey to uh, the land of exotic spices, right
(03:34):
like turmeric, like you know, peppercorns, also peppercorns. That's right,
that's right. Um. But it's not just any journey, my friend.
It is the journey of the wealthy via steam ship.
You see, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
it was the thing to do for the well to do,
the wealthy, the upper crust of England to go to
(03:57):
India for what they call in in England holiday which
means vacation or it's also a fabulous Madonna's song, wouldn't
that be funny? So there was there's a go Ghost
song called Vacation, and then there's a Madonna song called
Holiday and they're both. You know, madonna song about Holiday
is about taking a holiday, if we took a holiday,
(04:19):
just some time to celebrate. Now I think she's more
talking about like a Christmas type experience. It's talking about celebrating. Well,
as long as you wake me up before you go go, oh,
you know, I will ruin, you know, I will listen here,
listen here, my friends, so they have to take this
journey on steamship. And here's the thing. In those days,
it was not a good look for the wealthy to
(04:39):
have a tan because the tan was not what it
is today. Or people you know, get literally spray painted
on their body so they look they have that like glow. Uh. No,
that was the look that was reserved for like a
field hand. That was considered like we would call like
a redneck or something like that, someone that's like the
lowest of the low. And these these wealthy types wanted
(05:01):
to maintain their ghostly complexion. Um. So here's the thing,
the story of the word posh, that is, it was
a long preamble to get there. I know, but Ben,
you know I love a good acronym. That's true. You
know you know this about me, Frank, you know this
about me. I'm always talking about acronyms at the house.
It's like I won't shut up. I'm like, acronym, acronym, acronym,
(05:25):
Yet I can't seem to think of radar race car.
That's it's a palindromes, not an acronym. Uh, just want
to chime in here. One of my favorite palindromes doctor
awkwardly wo beautiful. Also one of my favorite Spiderman villains. No,
(05:46):
wait a second, my favorite is a lonely titlan All. Wow,
that's a good one. Yeah, But palindromes maybe something for
a different tale, right, you know the word palindrome is
itself a palindrome. I'm pretty sure it might be in
some other language. That's fair. So I'll tell you. The
story of the word posh is really fascinating because there
(06:09):
is a popularly circulated, let's call it um. I don't know,
rumored origin of this word that these uh, these mucky
muck English types that were going on their holiday to
India via steemship required a very particular type of seat,
so they would not get that tan Um. So they
(06:31):
wanted to sit in the part of the ship that
would shield them from the afternoon sun, which is the
hottest of the hot during the day when you're out
on the open sea, which would, according to this version
of events, be the right or the starboard side, and
then when you came back, they wanted it to be
on the left or the port side. So therein you
(06:54):
have the acronym p O s H port side out
star home, meaning the voyage there you'd sit on the
port side. On the voyage back, you'd sit on the
starboard side. And supposedly, according to this tale, these tickets
would be stamped with posh and it got so popular
that people just started asking for the POSH ticket. We
(07:15):
want the posh ticket. It turns out this is garbage.
This story is not true at all, and there's a
great reason there's it's so garbage and so questionable that
Snopes has a fantastic article dissecting all of these these
various versions of the story. Uh, and they have a
couple of reasons that does not make sense. First of all, um,
(07:36):
the way the sun would move in a journey like
this would be different depending on the day. This is
a very long and arduous journey. And they you know,
you couldn't really bank on where the sun would be exactly.
It doesn't make its own rules. And that's the thing.
(07:56):
The winds. There were monsoon winds that would be in play,
and they would change from season to season. So it
would change seasonally, you know, like maybe not day to day,
but certainly seasonally. Um. And there's here's the other part.
Here's the other rub as they say, which is another
idiom we should explore. Um, yeah, there it is right there. Uh.
(08:18):
They these trips were so long and difficult that they
wouldn't book a round trip. They would be staying in
India for a long time to make it worth their while.
They might stay months, some might even stay over like
a year or so. They would not book that return
trip until they knew, damn well they were ready to
come home. It's so posh um. And so the real
(08:40):
origin of the word posh uh came around in eighteen thirty.
And the thing about posh too is the reason stories
like this can take whole is because it's it's origins
are a little bit murky. But there are some um
origins in the Romani language of the early seventeenth century,
where it was a term that meant money. The term
was posh who which was their version of a halfpence
(09:03):
so um. Then the word posh kind of stuck around
and started to mean money. Money equals you are so money,
you are so well to do, you are so posh.
That makes a lot of sense to me. Um, And
now we use that term to mean anyone that is
moneyed or looking fancy or looking like whatever their get
(09:25):
up is is would have cost a good bit. You know.
That's amazing. I have to admit I'm a little It
was a little bit of an emotional roller coaster for me, Noel,
because I got quite into the idea of posh spices,
full name being port side out, starbird hole spice. That
would be good. That would be good. And a point
(09:47):
that I love the Snopes article makes is that the
Brits of this period, and honestly humans in general, big
fans of scrap booking. Scrap booking is it was a
super fashionable thing to do, and not a single one
of these posh stamped tickets exists in the world. Bus
debunked so yeah, totally debunked. The birds love to say posh.
(10:08):
That's probably where I know the term from. Of course,
you're a posh dandy, you know, because you're like a
posh dandy tripping the light. Fantastic there, Like that line
from Peep Show. It's like he calls him a posh
spas you probably iron your socks. Yes. Also, also I
propose that we take it upon ourselves to bring back
(10:30):
posh as a sling term for money. There's always there's
so many I think you can. I think you can
pull it off and no one will bust you, you
know what I mean? Like if you say how much
posha is that, they'll just say it's four thirty five.
I think that works totally. There's some like you ever
heard of, like a scratch You heard someone calling money
scratch cheddar. Posh is way cooler. Yeah, posh is way cool.
(10:51):
You got the posh probably more fashionable. Sounds like something
Alig would say that you would say, exactly, Pasha, oh boy,
uh now we uh now we turned to let's see
(11:11):
what what you got something? Frank, you got one for us? Sure? Um?
I was looking at what's cracking in what's cracking in
on tonight you'll have what's cracking? Do you'll have any
idea of what's going on? Like some some what's the HAPs? Yeah,
what's the HAPs? What's the buzz? What's the you know,
what's the new gassa? What's the four one one? Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
(11:32):
And so I was looking into this, and you know,
it's not something that's native to America. It's but it's
been around in England for a while and specifically it
comes from the Ulster area and the Scots Irish area
of the British Isles. And originally it was spelled you know,
(11:53):
like the way we spell it now, like c R
A c K. So there was American then it was
an American version or no, well no, no, no. It
was originally started out and as Middle English, and it
was just like it, you know, it was related to
the sound, but it but in this particular usage of it,
it pertained to like a lot of chatter basically like people,
(12:17):
you know, you go into a loud bar restaurant, you
hear just you know, yeah, I believe they call them
pubs over there. Yeah yeah, and yes, exactly exactly. And
so what I found really interesting about this was that
it's an example of a re borrowing. So it was
(12:39):
primarily used in you know, Scotland, Northern England and in
Northern Ireland. It really wasn't used in Ireland, even though
we associate, you know, when people say where's the crack
or what's the crack and not what I think of
when people say where's the crack, I'm thinking of something
completely different totally. But um, yeah, but say if you
(13:00):
were in Ireland and somebody asked you that, you know,
they would just take you to a cool bar, you know,
a restaurant or whatever, then sell you some crack, sell
you some crack, and then you'd continue about your nine.
So crack's use in mainland Ireland or the non Northern
Ireland part really was more of a recent thing, and
um kind of started in the late sixties. And what
(13:22):
happened was they took crack and Galic sized it and
started to spell it c R A I C you know,
so they don't have a K in Gaelic, and I
don't know why they chose to put an eye from them.
That's what I'm saying. It looks like a more Middle
English version, like I would think of it like you know,
(13:43):
the creek was whiskey and the Leapy Deeves, and it's
got a jabberwalkee vibe to it as well. Really in
the Sleepy Tutes, yes, yes, the guy or in Gimbal
So I wonder if it's really to archaic anyway, just
because of that Ai. It's just an example of the
Irish taking this word and giving it a more Gaelic
(14:07):
sort of rebranding. And that's really kind of like what
it turns into, because it turns into this Gaelic spelling
of it, and it becomes associated with Irish nightlife culture
and just going out and having fun and raising hill
and all that kind of stuff, and then it ends
up coming back into English by way of Ireland, and
(14:31):
it kind of now means like fun, nightlife, gossip and
all this kind of stuff, but with the kind of
Irish flavor to it. So are we are we having cracked? Now?
Is that? Is this what we're doing? I'd like to hope.
So is that how you would say it to we're
having crack? Yeah? Yeah, we're having a crack. And I
(14:54):
feel very very fake, say like because I went, yeah,
I went to um Dublin last year and what surprised
me is I had heard people use this phrase, but
I had no idea what it meant. And it was
never in a situation where I wanted to stop someone
and be like part of me. Uh, fellow Irish person,
(15:16):
you know what I mean? What? What? What is this
crack of what you speak? Take a crack? And where
can I get some? I'm sorry, I keep bleeding on
that because I can't. I can't hear that. So to me,
what what occurred? What what comes to mind is what's cracking? Uh?
And I also another popular British expression is a cracking
good time exactly. So we've be saying that's cracking good
(15:37):
you know that just I think it just means that
it's super exciting and fun and uh upbeat, high energy. Yeah, totally.
And one interesting thing um I came across with this
is that it's kind of now that it's become readopted
by English speakers, it's now kind of like seeing as
kind of like emblematic of the disneyification and of Irish culture.
(16:02):
You saw like the proliferation of like Irish pubs in
the nineties, you know, and that gipsy mixed stumbles exactly. Yeah,
I didn't freaking eyes. Hometown of Augusta, Georgia, which you
mentioned last episode, there is an Irish bar that's sort
of like an Irish bar Hooters called Tipsy Mixed stumbles.
If that's not the most offensive cultural appropriation that I
(16:24):
can think of up my head, I don't know what
it is. You know, there are a lot of really
cool examples of re borrowing that I thought were really interesting,
you know, like you know how like animation in English
and then jack in Japan. There's anime and then now
in English animation that has that's from Japan or I
(16:45):
mean Japan animation. Nobody, nobody says, I'm not supposed to
say that that will get you punched by fans of
the medium. Yeah. Yeah, So it's come full circle back
to anime. So I have a question. Can we as
Americans use this phrase? Are we being jerks? I would
if I was going over there, I would be like, listen,
(17:05):
I don't want I don't want I don't want this.
Mickey Mickey Mouse, Donald duck crack. You know, I'm looking
for the real thing, you know, don't send me to
where the tourists are. Okay. I feel like I'm not
into Donald Duck crack either personally. Oh my goodness, last thing,
real quick. I keep seeing this on the internet when
I'm looking at this. The crack was ninety. Why isn't
(17:28):
it only nine? That is the highest gradation of crack
breaking bad. If you go pass uh crack ninety, then
you've entered into minus crack, where you've had too good
of a time and and you know you said some
terrible things and gotten into a fight, and you know
(17:51):
you cancel you you were canceled this season, right, you were.
So that was fantastic. I first of all, when you
texted the group saying that I thought you were misspelling
a word, and I was like, but I am. I
am delighted. I literally learned something new. Yeah. I didn't
want to. I didn't want to mention it in our
(18:12):
off air talks because I thought you would like have
more fun. You knew what it was, Yeah, because you
people talk about it, and I actually um when we
were there, we ended up entirely through accidents, staying next
to the most notorious club in Dublin, which is a
place called Copper Faced Jack's. Uh. I don't want to
(18:35):
go too far into detail on it, but if you
are by a computer that is not associated with your work,
feel free to google it and check out what happens
at copper faced Jack's I hear it's a raging crack.
It's at ninety. Am I doing that right? Yeah? Crack ninety.
We should do, we should do. There's some T shirt
(18:56):
ideas here, guys. These are T shirt I did, yeah,
I or any shirt with crack on it. That's what
people say about you. I have one, you, guys, it
might it might surprise you. Have you ever felt that
you were doing something or involved in some kind of
(19:17):
project that um felt too improvised, somewhat haphazard, like this podcast. No,
we had Hey, we had a plan, we had a text,
we had a text, a text threat and more Lucy
Goosey than this is what you're saying and not But
but that's a great one to the phrase Willie Nilly,
(19:42):
which is for older generations. I know, I'm sorry, just
Willy Nilly Lucy Goosey there, but similar sing song they've
got some whimsy to them, right, they're a bit to June.
But Willie Nilly, Now it's something that you would associate with,
let's be honest, maybe a child a teacher or an
older person say in a in a way like if
(20:05):
you've ever seen a very wholesome person get angry, they
would use a phrase like willy nilly, like you cannot
be out all hours of the night driving willy nilly
hither and yon yes yes me so nowadays, in we
associate this with the definition that I think we all
(20:26):
recognized instantly doing something without a good set of directions,
lackluster planning somewhat haphazardly, which reminds us uh I feel terrible.
Super producer Casey Pegro we went willy Nilly into the
beginning of this podcast. We ran rough shot over our
normal top of the show, shout out to Casey, yes,
(20:49):
please do yes, we're we're penitent. I blame you? What
come on? We blame ruin. Oh look, I'm sorry, Casey.
Do you forget of me? I forgive you. Listen to
that h Casey on a case yeah, and it sounded
very sincere. So why don't you guys need to take
(21:10):
take a deep breath. Alright, We're good. So Willie Nilly
is much older than you might originally suspect. The phrase
that survives now w I L L Y dash n
I l l y is the winner of a long
battle between various different spellings uh. And it's even become
(21:36):
a great fake name if you guys are into those
William William, Who's who's going to use that at the airport?
Next every hotel, every hotel. So the early meaning of
the word nil is key to the understanding it used to.
It used to mean originally with or against your will.
(21:58):
So come hell or high wall is closer to the
original version of Willie nilly because the early meaning of
the word nil it was the opposite of will, a
contraction of nay will so gosh so so I nil
(22:19):
do that, I will not do that. Websters defines it
as uh, whether you like it or not. Yep, and
so I've always wanted to say, Websters defines it as
it's perfect shout out to Websters. So will I nil
I can be expanded into b I willing b I unwilling,
combining the two sentiments with the implication that it doesn't
(22:41):
matter how you feel about it, you are stuck doing
this thing. I got a lot of this information from
one of my favorite word websites, which is Worldwide Words.
It is a treasure trove a cavalcade, a very very
strange phrases, and an interesting backstory. The guy that that
maintained it right, Yeah, yeah, he is no longer actively
(23:02):
updating the site, But Michael Quinnion has spent his entire
life studying this. He's a one man army and it's
it's fascinating, just the sheer bulk of stuff he describes.
So shout out to you, Mike, and thanks for putting
this together. So the phrase itself dates back at least
a thousand years. The earliest known version was in an
(23:23):
Old English text called Lives of Saints. The line is
for in the we is saying saying food and skilled
in boone ad mode, Really we needed we I don't
know what he's talking about, and something about skating and
bone what was it? Skanks and bones, sin sinful and
(23:44):
slen boone ed mode ed mode moved im in ed mode, Bro,
you're so ed modr. That's like when you like actively
are sort of like a dweeb, like I'm in full
ad mode, and then became this is great, He's gonna
be t shirts and then uh. It occurs in The
(24:06):
Taming the Shrewe in with its original meaning Patricio, speaking
to Catherina, says, thus, in plain terms, your father hath
consented that you shall be my wife. Your dowry greed
on and will you nail you? I will marry you.
Super creepy dude. Wow, Yeah, that's that's not a good
(24:27):
look for Patricio. What's his name? That's right, got it?
He nailed it, man. And this is just I think
a great example of how previously maybe not sinister, but
previously more combative or or less innocuous terms become these
fun things that we throw around. Now, you know what
I mean, You're not You're like the odds of you
(24:50):
being in an altercation and someone saying will you nail you?
That's in a threatening manner. That's just safely not gonna happen. Yeah,
I totally agree. I do have to say, Ben, I
use this one quite a lot. Yeah, Willie Billy, I
use it Willie Nilly. It's just just every which way.
(25:10):
Uh yeah, I really do. I really really like Willy Nilly.
Oh come on, I keep thinking of what's that song,
will Bully? I keep thinking of the song Willy Bully,
but just with the lyrics replaced Willy Nilly. I like it,
which actually works, I do, but honestly that when I
use it, though, I use it in kind of a
Larry David kind of like grumpy old man way, where
(25:30):
I'm like, you can't just go doing this stuff willy nilly,
you know, like you know, it's this idea of there's
gotta be a little order involved. You can't just go
you can't just be going out, you know, doing whatever
it is you're doing, whatever the case might be, whose
be haphazard or pell mell hell mell, which is so
funny because they're cigarettes about our grandpa cigarettes, I would
(25:54):
also say willy nilly probably, but Grandpa's pronounced it pell mell.
And if you look at the pack, clearly paul mall.
And they're still around, but apparently they're like that. That's
one of these examples of wilful disagreement of an obvious pronunciation,
you know, like we're just like a fast as possible
and time to read the box a person with do.
(26:21):
So that's that's the story. So we have posh, we
have crack. We took a crack at crack, and then
we have will eat nilly, But we weren't quite willy
nillly with this episode because we did have a plan.
We did promise everyone in the beginning that we would
we would each present an idiom and Rowan since you
(26:41):
are an alumni of the show, now alumnus, alumnar, alum aluminium,
since you are in fact build largely from alumenium. No
I'm a tent man, we would like to give the
honor to you. You have the last idiom. Now, this
means that if the three of us have really dropped
(27:02):
the ball here I don't know where that one comes from,
then it's no pressure on you to save the show. Yeah,
I don't. I don't feel pressure by that statement at all.
Good because Nolan Frank gave you some serious nods and on.
You know that we're not joking. Okay, they all just
cracked their knuckles and they're looking at me very sternly.
(27:23):
I want everyone to know. Can you hear those knuckles?
That is that is in the room? Wow? Okay, well
I'm bullets right now. Put that on your list. By
the way, there, um, because I'm tripping balls, tripping the
balls fantastic, got it? Uh? Yeah, there's actually a dry
race board behind ben Or He puts a tally of
(27:45):
every accidental idiom. We utter literally keep score in all
things and all things. It's podcast related. I'm super petty, um,
but sure, yeah, here we go, let's jump in. Uh.
This is a lesser known idiom or the people out
there hardbucksing the runway. If you're not familiar with this,
(28:06):
it refers to someone who's maybe showboating or peacocking a bit,
you know, maybe accidentally alienating a crowd as opposed to
enlightening with their flair and uh mild superiority but like
big personality. Mostly I've heard this, but I have no
idea where it comes from. Is it like as like
a European thing or is it you know, I think
it's origins or English, but uh but I think English,
(28:29):
so yeah, European. Okay, I think did you do the
home the homework? Come on? Well it is one of
those expressions that feels fakes, but I promised it's not
so okay, so so lay it on. Est man, What's
what's the etymology? Is there a story behind this? Well,
(28:50):
there there's a man by the name of Alexander Benson.
Okay who it was? The great grandfather somebody who I know,
And Admiral Nicholas von Vinson, who um has shared this
wisdom with me. Uh, evently stems from old bricotine ships
(29:10):
and um there was something called like you know with
the front of the ship is the bow and the
back is the is the port correct starting thank you,
And so in the back of the ships where you
steer the ship, and if somebody was steering the ship,
they would they would have this semblance of um, you know,
kind of arrogance. They'd be taking up a lot of
(29:30):
you know, they oh, I'm in control of this ship.
So they were often known as the hard bucks. There
were hard bucks saying the runway being like they're the
passageway from the port or the starboard. Oh alright, the
stern is in the backup saying but when you look forward, yes,
because they they get this whole like vista of the
(29:50):
entire ship at the sea because they're steering the ship.
So they like hogging the spotlight exactly, and they can
be a little braggadocious, but they're do the job, you know. There.
I think it's kind of an unintentional like flexing on
the Graham or something. Sure, a more archaic version perhaps, Yeah,
(30:11):
this why not very archaic because I haven't. I gotta
be honest, like I haven't. I'm familiar with it. I'm
sure a lot of us listening are, but I haven't
heard it in the modern day, you know what I mean? Yeah, well,
you know, much like Willy Nilly, people aren't um or
will to the nil or whatever it was. Folks aren't
using this as as often as they should. You know. Frankly,
(30:33):
I'm a little upset that people are often try to
call me on this, but it is real as the
table we're in front of a right, we are not
sitting down, we're standing. Real is the table in front
of us. You can put that on the tally board. Right,
So do you think people should bring this back? I
(30:55):
strongly suggest it would be for the benefit of all
if we because because you gotta call people on their
on their bs often, you know what I'm saying. So
what I'm saying, Okay, So I'm gonna okay, yeah, alright,
I don't know, man, I wrote a bunch of other
fake things. Yes, yes, I mean real things, because I
(31:20):
did actually google the word hardbuck, because you know what,
that's what the Internet's for, right, hardbuck could have ties
to a Gaelic expression hardbuck, which was a surname or
habitational name taken from our Buckle, a parish of air Dry, Lancolnshire.
I think I'm pronouncing nothing correctly, but it's yes, well
(31:41):
really it's it's Gaelic. So we we've got crack and
we came back around exactly, We're back and he was
talking about ships at the beginning of the show. Wow, yeah,
I think about that. It's almost as though I'm definitely
usual suspect almost or I'm alright, discovered the perfect crystallization
(32:03):
of everything that we did in this episode, summed up
in a completely believable and meticulously researched idiom. I you know,
I couldn't have said it better myself. I Um, I'm
patting myself on the back. However, Nicholas von Vinson, Admiral,
deserves a large amount of the credit as well. I
must say, was he the hard was he the original Hardbucks?
(32:25):
He was the original person to Hardbucks the runway. I
actually say this wouldn't an admiral. He would just be commanding,
he wouldn't be steering. He was kind of a dick
about it. Some people are really hands on, you know people. Yeah, exactly,
because you know it's a you know, there are shifts,
it's also a power move exactly like you would admirally
want people to know he still got it. He would
(32:46):
often just like shout hey, guys, look at me. Hey,
check out the the steering on this guy. Huh handling
really good handling. Yeah, and then people swam on the
poop deck like that's nice, sir, that's great. Well, you
know what I say, we take this to our favorite
(33:07):
court because if anyone can get to the bottom of
the veracity of this figure speech, it will be our superproducer,
Casey Pegram. Casey, question for you, when was the last
time you heard Hardbucks in the runway? I would estimate
about an hour ago. Uh, we're talking about it outside
(33:28):
before recording. This is new to you, it's a new
one to me. But you know, it feels like it
should be real, so it has that going for it.
What should be real? Casey, I thought we were. I mean,
you know, all languages constructed, so I mean, really, what
is real versus fake? Yeah? Thank you? And that's actually
something I texted's you did? Uh? So be it true?
(33:51):
Will he nil? He? Um? You know. I I think
it demonstrates the malleability of language and the power of belief.
What we're all about here on ridiculous. It's like our
main thing. It's one of our main things. So guys, again,
thank you so much for dropping by and helping shed
(34:13):
some light on the mysteries of etymology. For those of
us listening, we want to thank you for all the
responses we received to our previous idiomatic for the people
right in let us know some of your favorite figures
of speech, turns of phrase, idioms. Also, if you speak
languages other than English, what's something that you think sounds
(34:36):
really strange in English but it is very common in
some other language. That's an episode all its own. There
are some great ones. Thanks to you, my dear friend,
my dear old friend, Frank m'haran, coiner of the idiomatic
for the people, ephemeral friend of the show. And now
what's the what's the opposite of ephemeral? Concrete, flat lasting, corporate,
(34:57):
corporeal the show, part of the show. It's been a
long time comment. Thanks for being here, man, thanks for
having now. You had to rush over here from from
work and it means the world. Ruin Nuby, Yeah, thanks
so much, Ruin you can find You can find Mr
Newby on his own show Pitches, which is a comedy
podcast about the evaluation of ideas. Correct a panopoly of ideas.
(35:22):
Right that is correct? Very good word. Yeah, you know
it's like Shark Tank minus all the stress and money
and plus all the chatter and and fun and irreverence
and um yeah, it's it's pretty off the cuff. I
got Ben Bowling here actually coming up on an episode,
and I got Noel Brown here on a one that's
airing today. Do you like them apples? So you can
(35:42):
check it out now wherever you find your favorite podcast,
correct Apple podcast, Spotify all the things you get on
their baby at Pictures podcast. Get it. You can also
find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Meet one of
our favorite parts of the show, your fellow listeners on
your Facebook page where dick us Historians. Big thanks to
super producer Casey Pegram, Big thanks to our research associated
(36:05):
Gabe lose here, and thanks to Alex Williams who composed
are ever so earwormy theme And as we said in
previous episode, right it and let us know if there
were any figures of speech or turns of phrase that
we used. Unconsciously. I'm sure they were in there. You
can find my personal Instagram at Ben Bowling and hey Nolan,
you're on the internet to Yeah, I'm on the insternet
(36:27):
at at Embryonic Insider double ats. It's the only way
you can find it. I'm getting just a single app
Willy nilly, great crack folks. Stay tuned for our next
episode when we do something that we guarantee will be ridiculous. Yeah,
that's the least we can guarantee. We'll see you next time.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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