September 16, 2025 • 38 mins
With nearly one thousand episodes out in the world over the years, Ben, Noel and Max realized they've never asked about the origin of the word "ridiculous." In this rollicking, cartoonishly meta episode, the gang learns the history of this specific word -- and why, since before the dawn of recorded history, humans have always been all about a good joke. (And, of course, terrible jokes as well.)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, Myth,
the Legend. Our super producer Max Fabio Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Fellows actually have my hair down right now.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Oh yeah, dude, don't tell hr. It sounds like I'm
the Sopranos referring to a sex worker.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I mean, I got to rock the twenty four inches
of hair that I'm coming right now.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
And for a good cause maybe because if you get
tired of it, we know you, well, you are the
kind of person to donate to you something like Locks
of Love.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
That's the plan that's been for about three years now.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
No, you said you found another organization that you prefer.
Uh yeah, it's what is the name of it. It's
like it's it's like wigs for kids. I think the
name of that. If that's not the name, then I
you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
The same thing that always bend to donate the hair.
Because it was like COVID was coming around and it
was like ten inches long. I was like, oh, let's
keep throwing it. And then the cove.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
It's a commodity. It looks good. You grew it yourself. Then.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Also, like you know, it's been like what four or
five years since that point, So.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, about four or five hundred degrees here in Atlanta,
only just now starting to turn to the proper fall
fall half fallen, y'all, and I'm here for it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, we are a tumnial and I've been bullen. That
is Noel Brown. And here at the end of summer
we are heading into autumn and our fair metropolis of
Atlanta metro area. We thought we'd celebrate with a pretty
weird idea and all something kind of meta that's been
(02:03):
on our minds because you know, over the years, you
and I have explored all sorts of bizarre people, places
and events throughout history, and I think it's fair to
say that our north star has always been what makes
this specifically ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Sure, yeah, for better or worse, sometimes more than others.
But we do try to not you know, do a
story that's just purely a bummer. They try to have
some sort of ridiculous lift in there somewhere, but it's true.
And you know, Bet I never you know that both
of us are fans of etymology, and we're always wondering
(02:40):
where words came from. But I just I've just always
accepted ridiculous for its own merits. It never even occurred
to me to ask the question, where does the word
ridiculous come from? I'm not sure if that says more
about me or more of about the power of the word.
M Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Despite almost eight years of creating new episodes a week,
which puts us around eight hundred and thirty two episodes
this October, folks, Yeah, despite diving into almost every imaginable
angle of ridiculous things, we have never asked about the
word itself, which is itsself ridiculous that we didn't ask?
(03:17):
So what is this word? Where does the word come from?
Today we're solving the mystery.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
We're over the moon.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
To have you a board with us.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Oh, I'm gonna put forth that it has something to
do with something that is worthy of ridicule. Maybe, yeah, yeah,
I don't know. Let's get into it. Let's get into it.
Let's get into it. It's not that hard actually, as
it turns out, to define words. It's a pretty common
word in English, unlike words like what is this sesqua pedallion?
(03:52):
That's okay. This is a new one on me. Um, yeah, Ben,
give give it to us.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
What is sesqua padallion? It technically means two things. It
means a foot and a half long, and it means
a person who loves using long words to just or
to describe long words themselves. And so, to be clear,
that second meaning is almost always used as an insult,
(04:20):
dissing people who engage with overly verbose language. And you know,
it's kind of self defeating, right, The irony is not
lost on either of us there.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I think you're sort of like pot calling the kettle
black there a little bit. If that expression is still allowed,
I think it is. Yeah, Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
It's a pyrrhic victory to criticize someone for being wordy
by using one of the nerdiest dang words in the
English language.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I think people would literally drop dead of eyrol if
someone were to use this like out loud in the
context of like a diss. I just don't think I
could handle it personally.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I've only heard it deployed in common conversations when I
was in the Ivory Tower of Academia.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
And there it was a burner. There was a banger,
sick ber mic drops bidallion.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Right, the conference is over. Everybody steal as many sandwiches
as you can all the way out.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
But there are academic sandwiches are the worst though. Man,
they're those tiny little ones. I had the concept of
finger foods. It always gives me the mill like it.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I still don't understand, you know, the concept of high
t cucumber sandwiches. We'll get into some of that when
we talk about the Kentucky Derby and the Masters and
their sandwiches. But what we're saying here, folks, is out
of all the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of words
in the English language, no one sure how many there
(05:43):
are by the way, ridiculous, it doesn't really stand out.
And that's why folks like Noel and Max and myself
are never really questioning it. As you said, we're sort
of accepting it. It is not the most common word
in the English like whiche. Can you guess what the
most common word in the English language is.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I'm not picking up what you you heard this, it's
the T, not like thhe.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So let's get to it. And what does ridiculous mean today?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Well, I think we all know that it typically refers
to something that is extremely silly or potentially even unreasonable.
You know, you can say, man, you look ridiculous talking
about someone's outfit being a little outlandish, or you could
say you're being ridiculous, meaning that you're being obstinate, or
you're not giving an inch, or you're like really digging
(06:40):
in on something that you absolutely should not be doing.
Cambridge describes it as stupid or unreasonable, and ding ding
ding deserving to be laughed at, worthy of ridicule. Ouch,
not nice, Cambridge. They've got some acerbic wits over there
at Cambridge.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, I guess someone was having rough day at the
dictionary factory when they wrote that. When I mean, if
we want to convey that meaning, we are not limited
to the R word. You can also use synonyms like absurd, cock.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Eyed, idiotic, laugh. Kaka maimi.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, kaka maimi is of course the favorite. Uh And that's.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
That's what I put a link to as well, because
it's just such a weird word. I wish we could
do our own show all.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
About ridiculous words or ridiculous etymology.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Ben. You know, I don't think I've ever seen kaka
mamie in print before. I had a really outlandish kaka
mami spelling of it in mind, but it's actually a
little bit more. No, wait a minute, there is an
alternate spelling, though apparently less common, which is more what
I had in mind, c O C K A M
A M y, though the more proper spelling would be
co O C K A M A I e uh.
(07:53):
And of course again, you know, stand in for ridiculous,
something that is worthy of ridicule. Even the word ridiculous
is in the Webster description for kakamamie. Incredible is another
one that I've always found interesting, sort of like awesome.
If you say something's incredible, that can mean you're really
impressed by it, but it can also mean it's kind
of someone maybe telling a whopper, you.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Know, yeah, without credibility.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
So this shows us throughout the evolution of English, it
shows us one thing, all of the daddy languages that
led to English, all it shows us is that for
a long time, for the course of human history, people
have been talking trash. And this gets us to the
evolution of that specific word ridiculous. It's time for I'm
(08:41):
doing a drum roll in less Mexic gets a better sound.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Etymology, Yeah, etymology indeed, not to be confused with atemama,
which is a delicious snack. Ridiculous is a surprisingly old word,
and it used to be damn near fighting word right,
way more mean than anyone would ever use it as today,
again more attacking somebody's credibility. It's first documented all the
(09:10):
way back in the fifteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest evidence for ridiculous in print
is from fifteen thirty three. It's found in the writing
of a guy named Thomas Elliott, not spelled the way
you think, a humanist and a diplomat. His last name
is often spelled Elyot or Elyott. But I think we
(09:36):
should take a second to shout this guy out. Most
people probably haven't heard of Tommy, but he is one
of the main reasons fiction books you read today are
in English instead of Latin.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You knew, isn't that weird? We didn't. It is weird.
I didn't know one person could have that much influence.
He is one of the very first people who said, hey,
let's perhaps write English literature English, since that's what so
many regular people were speaking in those days. So it
might sound like a little tiny historical footnote, which kind
of is. But again, it's a lot of influence for
(10:10):
one person to be able to change the tide of
language like that. It's tough for us to fully grasp
how incredibly important this person was, and again changing the
way we communicate, the way we consume information.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
M M.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, it reminds me of how we marveled at the
invention of containers way back in antiquity. At some point
before the discovery of containers, people just had to live
by the water until somebody, right, until somebody figured out
you could build a thing to hold other stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
The humble vessel. It seems like just an idea as
old as time. But yeah, you know, it's funny. It's
one of those basic things where it's sort of like
it implies a newfound understanding of the way matter works. Right,
What if I took this stuff and put other stuff
inside the stuff, and can I find the right stuff
(11:08):
the right stuff? Yeah, let's try different stuffs, see what
works the best. Exactly, this is wild.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So all we're saying is shout out to you, Tommy, Eh,
back to ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Fast forward just a few years.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
By the time we get to the fifteen forties, it's
spelled ridiculos, r id y c, ridiculous l O U
s E. And that's still pretty mean. It means worthy
of ridicule or huh contemptuous laughter.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Ooh, contemptuous, very mean spirit of perhaps someone in the
in the stockades, worthy of being pilloried, you know, having
tomatoes and stuff thrown at them. The implication would be
imparting a sense of vast inferiority, an idiot, a loser,
an absolute buffoon, someone who is beneath you. It is
(11:58):
an absolute character asassination. To use this in those days, yeah,
it's calling.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Calling someone ridiculous means you are, you are massively lesser.
You are for the birds, you were straight up a
grade dumb.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Not to be taken seriously.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
And when we get to English, like so many words,
we learned that the English use of ridiculous comes from
Latin ridict culus, which means laughable, funny, or absurd, and
that comes from madeira, which just means to laugh.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Can I just say, but I applaud you for your
use of the phrase daddy words. I just the child
in me giggles every time a little bit, but it
absolutely is a fantastic descriptor. So we're gonna talk about
some daddy words.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, and also shout out to past us when when
we fell in love with I still don't recall whether
it was a song we seriously worked on or if
it was just a game we played, But we had
this rap game called Daddy Daddy math. Yeah, we're like,
blah blah blah blah blah, that's daddy blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I don't know, I don't know what it is. It's
a simple math.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
We'd never built out the world on that one, but
we can't tell you. Ridire is also the daddy word
of risible, which is confusing. I wish it was used
more often.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Yeah, I don't know about riseable. By the way, is
daddy math maybe the calculation you determine how many bastard
children you have out in the world. There, we're perhaps
like a you know, a despot, historical despot, Djengus or
Nick Canny. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So for centuries, like we're saying, ridiculous was a hard
and righteous dis mockery, as you noted earlier, fighting words.
Throughout the sixteen hundreds, we see a lot of fiction
and nonfiction writers, including Shakespeare, using ridiculous in that sense.
Sometimes they spell it different ways, mainly because everybody at
(13:56):
this point was still trying to figure out how stuff
would be spelled. Literacy was a pretty rare skill.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Set, for sure. No, it was a big deal, and
they were kind of spitballing a little bit, you see,
before they land on the one that kind of sticks.
And oftentimes that is determined by someone very powerful who
perhaps you know, codifies the printing of a particular work,
and then then that begins to spread because the more
consistency you have, the more people pick up on and
(14:23):
then the more it's passed around and reprinted, et cetera,
one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And this is where we arrive at the eighteenth century. Ridiculous,
however you spell it, becomes a little bit less of
a mocking fighting word. It's starting to evolve to mean
something that is more funny or haha, not necessarily.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
In a mean way.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
It's absurd, but it's amusing, it's comical.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
I guess what we're talking about here too, I mean,
is the evolution of language where know the word you
could absolutely still use it in any of these ways,
but it begins to really depend on like the emphasis
you put on it when you speak it, the context
around it, you know, what your attitude is towards the word.
So we're kind of we're not even necessarily talking about
(15:17):
the purely the pure evolution of a word. It's just
sort of like it picks up different umamis along.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The way, right, Yeah, well said, well, because what we're
talking about is language as technology, and so we're really
talking about the way society evolves in their usage of
a thing. Right, and this is this new this like
coke two of ridiculous, is the uh is the more
(15:44):
friendly version of the word, because it's still traced back
to uh ridicularious meaning concerned with jokes, which we definitely
are on this show.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Was it thirty Rock where there was like a fictional
rapper named Ridiculous who was sort of like like ludicrous
sort of stand in satire and parody.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
You know, we were talking off air with Max. I've
been rewatching thirty Rock, which is just phenomenal writing. I
would have to finish watching the run of the show.
But I'm sure you're right, if not in thirty Rock,
in some show, that joke's just too.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Good, it's too good. Yeah, and I having our I don't.
I couldn't possibly know how to spell it ridiculous. It's
I'm spelling it correctly and nothing is coming up. But
it's like comedy joke rapper, ludicris Perry, parody. Maybe yeah,
parody would be good. It doesn't matter. It'll come to
me eventually when I don't care. But I'm almost positive
(16:42):
that it was thirty Rocks.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And we obviously are huge fans of thirty Rock. We
also you know what I love about the point you
earlier made is we're also talking now about ridiculous acquiring
informal meanings like one thing that can happen if you
are dating, especially here in Atlanta. I remember a friend
(17:09):
of mine got kind of mythed when he made a
joke and it landed, and the lady was interested in went, oh,
you're stupid, but she meant that he was funny. She
is stupid funny, right exactly. So, when we see the
same thing happening with slang, and the word ridiculous and
(17:30):
all living languages constantly creates slang, let's go to the
Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words by how did I
not know about miss Franzil today. That's incredible, and this exists.
It's multiple editions to man. This is written by James
Orchard halliwell I was first published in eighteen forty six,
but we are using the eighteen fifty two version because
(17:53):
per our accounting department, we are not quote made of money.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
That's true. It's true. And this is what he had
to say on the subject of the word ridiculous. This
is used in a very different sense in some counties
from its original meaning. Something very indecent and improper is
understood by it as any violent attack upon a woman's
chastity is called wow, very ridiculous behavior. A very disorderly
(18:21):
and ill conducted house is also called a ridiculous one.
So in this situation, it's really starting to get like
honed in, almost on the level of like a legal designation.
Right it's really like hard in terms of its its
judgment call.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Especially because to us right now, ridiculous means funny, interesting
and cool, silly goofy, you silly goose. But right right now,
I think we'd all be more insulted if someone came
to our homes and called them ill conducted. I don't
know why that would steing me more if someone said.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I would be impressed if they whipped out that Turner phrase,
And you're right, it probably would cut me to my
very core.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, it feels like they thought about it, right, So
we also see to your point, more than a little
discrimination comes into play with this slang as well. In
the twentieth century, in the United States, ridiculous was described
as a synonym for outrageous, and the people who described
it as such always wanted to point out this is
(19:30):
primarily used in Gullah speech and quote among poor whites
in Ozarks.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Yeikes. Yeah, man, It's another one of the things moment
where you realize that any form of a word that
describes something being stupid or ill conceived or outrageous, it
has a basis in othering. It has a basis and
this is something that is different than me that freaks
(19:57):
me out, you know, And it's a way of demonizing
a perceived other and the way they talk, the way
they dress. It's still used today, you know, it's I mean,
it really all just boils down to this idea of
something being worthy of ridicule. What what worst designation could
you slap on something than being worthy of jeers and
(20:19):
insults and derision.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Agreed fully, and any word can be weaponized, at least
in English. For instance, think of innocuous words like urban
and think about how keeevily that was deployed, especially in
the advent of the War on drugs, or dog.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Whistles for racist not not. Let's not get too far
into this, but then you've got words like that that
you know, initially are sort of benign, and they start
referring to certain demographics in certain areas. We even see
it in the categorization of like music, you know, and
that's an official term used in like radio circles and charts, right,
(21:01):
like music charts, those examples. Where is that taking the
word back or is that another example of an establishment
referring to something with a little bit of a side eye?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, And this is where we get to the serious
side of ridiculousness. We've established our origin story and we've
got some other words that sort of fill out the
background of our painting. We've walked through what we hope
is some tasty etymology for our fellow logophiles word nerds,
oh my god. But before not not fans of the not,
(21:34):
fans of logs, not fans of logs. That's a different
read election. But before we light out for the old
podcast territories, we do want to establish some serious value
of ridiculousness as a concept in the ancient past and
in the modern day. Here we have a second Tommy
(21:55):
entering the stage. Please, folks, holt your accolades and laws.
This is a tom you have probably heard of none
other than Thomas Hobbes.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Think that the imaginary Tiger and Calvin and Hobbes is
named after Thomas Hobbs. It's spelled the same That just
occourats me seeing it on paper.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
First off, I have chosen to believe he is very
much a real type.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Oh fair enough, excuse me the spoiler.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
But I also I believe you are absolutely correct there,
especially when you see written out right. The legendary English
philosopher Thomas Hobbes is probably to most of us best
known for an absolute banger he wrote in sixteen fifty
one called Leviathan. He first kicks the idea of what
(22:39):
we call social contract theory.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So it's a nice idea. Yeah, it's a nice idea.
I mean, isn't the social sorry not a d re
but is given what's going on in the world. Now,
isn't the social contract kind of reliant on people just
agreeing to follow certain rules and like, in order for
the privilege of living in society, you have to kind
of give up a little bit of into individuality in
favor of, like, you know, getting along. We all sort
(23:03):
of abide by these rules that are mutually agreed upon
and beneficial.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, you nailed it, man. Social contract theory is the
idea that you, as an individual human, either explicitly or
simply by existing in society, you have agreed to abide
by rules of that society, to have certain responsibilities in
(23:27):
exchange for protection and maintenance of social order. We know
that this goes in a thousand directions, but the idea
at base is that it takes everyone to make a
society work. We're not a philosophy podcast yet, but we
(23:47):
do have to give you one more fun fact about
Tommy h He spent a lot of time ruminating over
the concept of humor, and to him, the nature of
ridiculousness and absurd is central to the theory of Beaty.
Here Max, what makes funny? So encountering the ridiculous triggers laughter, shock, parody, satire.
(24:12):
Also Hobbes, by the way, super duper hater.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Yeah, man, he had some He had some hot takes,
that's for sure. Definitely, Uh thought very highly of himself. Oh, okay,
we'll do We'll do one quote from Leviathan. I think
we must. It'll give you a good sense of this
guy's Yeah, penchant for for Hobbs. Yeah maybe, all right.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
So true, for such is the nature of man that,
howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty,
or more eloquent, or more learned, yet they will hardly
believe there be many. So wise it's themselves, for they
see their own wit at hand and other men's at
a distance.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah. Look, he's not wrong. I'm not even really trying
to be a hater of the hater. I think he
was just he's pretty dialed in. That's not incorrect. It's
this idea that everyone's sort of the main character in
their own story, right, and that everyone else sort of
exists as side players, and that at the end of
the day, you're more concerned with your own bit and
(25:17):
coming across a certain way than you are and listening
to what other people have to say or acknowledging their existency.
Excellent unpacking there.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, you see your own you marvel at your own
intelligence or your own winds, and other people they're at
an arms.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Linked at best. Someone else also said, hell as other people.
So those could you know? Pair those together and you
got yourself a full on philosophy of life.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, and Tom puts some stank on that one. Also,
he was a proponent of absolute monarchy, and his arguments
for that are ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
So Tom, we hope you were joking.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I don't even bring it back to ridiculous though, Well,
later on, much much much later on, after the rise
of the science we call psychology, it turns out scientists
would verify Hobbes's pitch about ridiculous, right.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I mean, he's clearly lampooning most of society and considers
humans to be inherently quite ridiculous. This is a very
important word in helping to draw attention to social hierarchies
and attitudes of the time. By this, we mean the
absurd is able to kind of subvert in a way.
(26:37):
He was also I don't know, it's hard to how
would you describe his work? I mean it's a treatise, right,
He's basically telling he's calling attention to the absurdities of
society in an effort to perhaps teach people how to
live better. Right, there could be a better way. But
it also is satirical in a way. It's an interesting
(26:57):
kind of cross section there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, there's kind of a Josh Johnson to it, or
a George Carlin esque thing. You know, these are great
or Bill Hicks, these are great orators who will who
understand the power of laughter along the way. And this
is an old idea. It's I love that you're talking
about absurdism, subverting social norms. That's why a jester can
talk trash so loudly at the king and say all
(27:22):
these things. An ordinary peasant would be tortured for muttering
under their breath.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
The idea of a roast, You know, people love a
roast as long as it's there, kind of in control,
and it is all sort of like it in the
service of this kind of holding court kind of situation. Right.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I genuinely enjoy a lot of roast, except for the
one of Chevy Chase that was I don't think they
were being funny.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I know they was being mean. Isn't that guy a
real Dick, though I've heard like not great things about it.
I didn't see the roast though, but I imagine there
was a lot of people just unloading on a guy
who maybe deserved it a little more than the average
roast roasty.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, apparently very difficult to work with, and we hope
that we're easy to work.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
With so that we don't pick up with chevies. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
So, the thing about stuff being ridiculous or absurd is
that it reframes the way you perceive a given experience
in small yet measurable ways. It also reframes every other
thing you encountered before or after. You look at the
world differently, you pay more attention, and we see this
(28:31):
everywhere politics, fiction, personal relationships, advertising. Look, we have background
in live performance, and as any live performer can tell you,
the number one easiest emotional reaction to get from an
audience is laughter.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Right, would you agree with that? I think so. It's
definitely easier than eliciting a gasp, unless you're just going
for shock value. But it's also the I think it's
the easiest and most pleasant reaction that an audience might
want to have elicited from them. You know what I mean?
People have to laugh. It's a psychologically cleansing sort of experience.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yeah, especially when you're laughing together, when you're not asking
for much, right, just the shared acknowledgement that this thing
is funny or ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Dude, speaking of ridiculous and laughter, have you seen the
New Naked Gun movie yet? Not yet. No, I've been
deep in research land. It is a laugh a second.
It's just so densely packed and that we'll we'll pull
those out of you. So I highly recommend him looking
for a cathartic experience in that respect, go check out
the New Naked Gun Movie. I'm so excited. I'm so
(29:40):
excited to see it.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
And you know, I've got a little bit of limited
mobility right now, but as soon as i'm as soon
as I'm back on my proper land lover's status, dude,
I'm getting to the movie theater to check it out.
And we're huge fans of the earlier Naked Gun stuff
as well, although to be clear, not all of it
aged well. Which happens a comedy, Yeah, I mean O
Jay Simpson's in the first two. I think it's really funny,
(30:04):
though he's very I gotta give it to guy's very funny,
but he definitely murdered those people. Yeah, once you get
someone to chuckle with you, psychologically you built this foundational bond,
even if it's only for a limited amount of time.
And from that bond you could say laughters like a
mental passwords like hacking a computer. You can do a
lot of other stuff. Not all of that stuff is
(30:26):
necessarily above board. And that takes us back to advertising.
Ooh man, advertising and laughter for sure.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, and again, I mean we're starting to see the
pivot into ridiculous of the idea of worthy of ridicules
starting to feel more like positive laughter, something that's done
to illicit laughter, like the gesture you're talking about, Ben,
rather than someone that is a buffoon worthy of mockery
and contempt.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Oh yeah, like the old stand up rule punching up
versus punching down.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Right. Really yeah, Advertising, though, is a great transition, Ben,
where we start to see the kind of weaponizing of
some of this thinking. It is, of course a particularly
manipulative branch of psychology unto itself, leveraging a lot of conditioning,
but you know, behavioral cognitive effects in order to elicit
(31:17):
a certain reaction to help encode memories, you know, into
the viewer and to help impart a positive impression of
a particular brand, product or concepts. Yeah, think about it.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Your favorite commercials, especially if you're from the West, are
properly comedic. They likely incorporate a buzz term, a jingle
or both. And the serious commercials we remember, like the
famous PSAs let's play what here is? Here is an
example of a serious PSA, which we're counting as a
(31:56):
commercial for this purpose. You may all recognize this one, folks.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Is there anyone out there who still isn't clear about
what doing drugs does? Okay, last time, this is your brain,
This is drugs. This is your brain on.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Drugs, eggs. Oh no, sorry, that was the wrong message.
It was supposed to be. Okay, brain drugs will crack
open my brains and fry them in a pan, right, right?
And you remember this one, right of course? Yes, And
there is some absurdity to it. It is also just
(32:46):
sort of like very heavy handed metaphor. I guess as well.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
You know, yeah, yeah, you nailed it, because despite the
initial intent of the people who made that or made
those copyright PSAs, like you wouldn't download a car I
would if I could, right exactly in this academy get
back to us. But they meant these things to be
serious and to stay with you. However, a lot of
(33:15):
the audience only remembers them because we find them ironic
and funny. We laugh when we recall them because we
find them accidentally ridiculous. It kind of reminds me of
you know, not too long ago. I think, just just
like a few days ago, you and I literally saying
(33:36):
the Mele mixed jingle on our sister show stuff.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
They don't want you to know. Somehow he didn't get
soon knock on wood. It is funny though, right, I
mean the way those little things like they eat more
chicken campaign is another good example with chick files of
not only is it absurd this idea that an anthropomorphic
cow is trying to deflect us from eating its flesh
and the flesh of its breath in favor of instead
(34:02):
eating it's these other animals that presumably the cows have
some sort of vendetto with it's implied, but not only that,
it incorporates the concept of disfluency into the ad campaigns,
where it's the text that's all splattery and misspelled words,
and that encodes itself onto your brain even more so.
It's like piggybacking on that absurdity with these elaborate billboards,
(34:24):
with these like three dimensional cow sculptures, and then the
fact that when you're driving past it you see these
kind of misspelled words, which forces you to think a
little deeper.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah, exactly, you're paying more attention because you're replying cognitively
to absurdity. The concept of ridiculous gets in our heads.
The meal Mixed jingle solidified the memory, and so even
if we didn't each personally run out to buy meal
mix right after recording, we now have a shared fond
(34:53):
memory of It's It's a brilliant idea again, it's ridiculous.
English is a phenomenally fastating language chock full of words
that are themselves ridiculous, by which I guess we would mean
cartoonishly specific, oddly, self contradictory, or even just the kind
of word where you look back on it later and think.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Well, why would someone make that? What?
Speaker 1 (35:16):
What on earth happened in society that we need a
whole word defining this?
Speaker 3 (35:21):
You know what I mean? Yeah? I don't, I mean,
I don't know it's a good question, then, so.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
We we can play a game for the very end
of this. I know, I dug up a book that
I know you will love if you haven't read it already.
It's we love specific reference works. This is depraved and
insulting English.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
God. Yes, what was the other reference book or the
old tone that you pulled up a source?
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is the diction words archaic and
provincial words.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
It does seem like a good pairing. I'm down, sign
me up. All right, how about this? Well, we're going
to do the live. We don't know if it will
work out. So Paul G.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Stomacks in advance. No, I'm going to flip through this
book and you say when okay? All right, going when okay?
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (36:12):
And then I'm gonna run my finger up and down
the page. You say, when okay, Rick Rubin, when okay?
Cock o Kalia the state of being.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Guess Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah C A c O c
A L l I A C A c O. Initially,
my mind is is jumping to the word cow, and
this is like if it's a calia. I don't know
what that suffix is, but it sounds maybe a little
bit like Aphelia or this is not a phobia. You're
(36:48):
into something. You're into whatever Coco represents. That's my guess,
and I think it might be cow Is. Well, this
was a very unfair one.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I I don't think either of us would have would
have guessed this one. The definition is the state of
being ugly but sexy. What that? Hell?
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Yeah, oh my god, I'm writing this down, CaCO Kalia,
that is my I'm gonna use that as my mantra
from now on. You're not You're the opposite of ugly.
You have some devil you no, no, but that's cool.
So it's like, you know, uh, what's his name, the
horrible painter who also acts Adrian Brody. What a weird
(37:29):
way to describe that. He's a funny looking dude there.
I think this term is very interesting. There are a
lot of what you might call striking individuals who you
could argue you are ugly but sexy. I think it's
not a disc man.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I'm into it. I think uh, I think I think
I agree with it. Except for you and de Niro.
I'm going to go to the bat for you guys.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Craggy looking dudes, weathered, he looks weathered because.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Of his age. We are your ever faithful ugly at
Sexy Correspondence. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you
so much as always for tuning in. Thanks to our
super producer mister Max Williams as well as Alex Williams
who composed this track.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Huge thanks to Chris Frossiotis and need to Jeffcoats here
in Spirit, Jonathan Stricklan the quist Or, A J. Bahamas
Jacobs the Puzzler.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Big big thanks of course to doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance,
Big thanks to East Jeffcoat Christopher Hasiotis here in Spirit,
and big thanks to Peter Novobotsky and Amanhea who wrote
Deprived and Insulting English Kill.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Yeah. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, Myth,
the Legend. Our super producer Max Fabio Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Fellows actually have my hair down right now.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Oh yeah, dude, don't tell hr. It sounds like I'm
the Sopranos referring to a sex worker.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I mean, I got to rock the twenty four inches
of hair that I'm coming right now.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
And for a good cause maybe because if you get
tired of it, we know you, well, you are the
kind of person to donate to you something like Locks
of Love.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
That's the plan that's been for about three years now.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
No, you said you found another organization that you prefer.
Uh yeah, it's what is the name of it. It's
like it's it's like wigs for kids. I think the
name of that. If that's not the name, then I
you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
The same thing that always bend to donate the hair.
Because it was like COVID was coming around and it
was like ten inches long. I was like, oh, let's
keep throwing it. And then the cove.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
It's a commodity. It looks good. You grew it yourself. Then.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Also, like you know, it's been like what four or
five years since that point, So.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, about four or five hundred degrees here in Atlanta,
only just now starting to turn to the proper fall
fall half fallen, y'all, and I'm here for it.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yes, we are a tumnial and I've been bullen. That
is Noel Brown. And here at the end of summer
we are heading into autumn and our fair metropolis of
Atlanta metro area. We thought we'd celebrate with a pretty
weird idea and all something kind of meta that's been
(02:03):
on our minds because you know, over the years, you
and I have explored all sorts of bizarre people, places
and events throughout history, and I think it's fair to
say that our north star has always been what makes
this specifically ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Sure, yeah, for better or worse, sometimes more than others.
But we do try to not you know, do a
story that's just purely a bummer. They try to have
some sort of ridiculous lift in there somewhere, but it's true.
And you know, Bet I never you know that both
of us are fans of etymology, and we're always wondering
(02:40):
where words came from. But I just I've just always
accepted ridiculous for its own merits. It never even occurred
to me to ask the question, where does the word
ridiculous come from? I'm not sure if that says more
about me or more of about the power of the word.
M Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Despite almost eight years of creating new episodes a week,
which puts us around eight hundred and thirty two episodes
this October, folks, Yeah, despite diving into almost every imaginable
angle of ridiculous things, we have never asked about the
word itself, which is itsself ridiculous that we didn't ask?
(03:17):
So what is this word? Where does the word come from?
Today we're solving the mystery.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
We're over the moon.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
To have you a board with us.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Oh, I'm gonna put forth that it has something to
do with something that is worthy of ridicule. Maybe, yeah, yeah,
I don't know. Let's get into it. Let's get into it.
Let's get into it. It's not that hard actually, as
it turns out, to define words. It's a pretty common
word in English, unlike words like what is this sesqua pedallion?
(03:52):
That's okay. This is a new one on me. Um, yeah, Ben,
give give it to us.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
What is sesqua padallion? It technically means two things. It
means a foot and a half long, and it means
a person who loves using long words to just or
to describe long words themselves. And so, to be clear,
that second meaning is almost always used as an insult,
(04:20):
dissing people who engage with overly verbose language. And you know,
it's kind of self defeating, right, The irony is not
lost on either of us there.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I think you're sort of like pot calling the kettle
black there a little bit. If that expression is still allowed,
I think it is. Yeah, Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
It's a pyrrhic victory to criticize someone for being wordy
by using one of the nerdiest dang words in the
English language.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I think people would literally drop dead of eyrol if
someone were to use this like out loud in the
context of like a diss. I just don't think I
could handle it personally.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I've only heard it deployed in common conversations when I
was in the Ivory Tower of Academia.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
And there it was a burner. There was a banger,
sick ber mic drops bidallion.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Right, the conference is over. Everybody steal as many sandwiches
as you can all the way out.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
But there are academic sandwiches are the worst though. Man,
they're those tiny little ones. I had the concept of
finger foods. It always gives me the mill like it.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I still don't understand, you know, the concept of high
t cucumber sandwiches. We'll get into some of that when
we talk about the Kentucky Derby and the Masters and
their sandwiches. But what we're saying here, folks, is out
of all the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of words
in the English language, no one sure how many there
(05:43):
are by the way, ridiculous, it doesn't really stand out.
And that's why folks like Noel and Max and myself
are never really questioning it. As you said, we're sort
of accepting it. It is not the most common word
in the English like whiche. Can you guess what the
most common word in the English language is.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
I'm not picking up what you you heard this, it's
the T, not like thhe.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
So let's get to it. And what does ridiculous mean today?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Well, I think we all know that it typically refers
to something that is extremely silly or potentially even unreasonable.
You know, you can say, man, you look ridiculous talking
about someone's outfit being a little outlandish, or you could
say you're being ridiculous, meaning that you're being obstinate, or
you're not giving an inch, or you're like really digging
(06:40):
in on something that you absolutely should not be doing.
Cambridge describes it as stupid or unreasonable, and ding ding
ding deserving to be laughed at, worthy of ridicule. Ouch,
not nice, Cambridge. They've got some acerbic wits over there
at Cambridge.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, I guess someone was having rough day at the
dictionary factory when they wrote that. When I mean, if
we want to convey that meaning, we are not limited
to the R word. You can also use synonyms like absurd, cock.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Eyed, idiotic, laugh. Kaka maimi.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, kaka maimi is of course the favorite. Uh And that's.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
That's what I put a link to as well, because
it's just such a weird word. I wish we could
do our own show all.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
About ridiculous words or ridiculous etymology.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Ben. You know, I don't think I've ever seen kaka
mamie in print before. I had a really outlandish kaka
mami spelling of it in mind, but it's actually a
little bit more. No, wait a minute, there is an
alternate spelling, though apparently less common, which is more what
I had in mind, c O C K A M
A M y, though the more proper spelling would be
co O C K A M A I e uh.
(07:53):
And of course again, you know, stand in for ridiculous,
something that is worthy of ridicule. Even the word ridiculous
is in the Webster description for kakamamie. Incredible is another
one that I've always found interesting, sort of like awesome.
If you say something's incredible, that can mean you're really
impressed by it, but it can also mean it's kind
of someone maybe telling a whopper, you.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Know, yeah, without credibility.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
So this shows us throughout the evolution of English, it
shows us one thing, all of the daddy languages that
led to English, all it shows us is that for
a long time, for the course of human history, people
have been talking trash. And this gets us to the
evolution of that specific word ridiculous. It's time for I'm
(08:41):
doing a drum roll in less Mexic gets a better sound.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
Etymology, Yeah, etymology indeed, not to be confused with atemama,
which is a delicious snack. Ridiculous is a surprisingly old word,
and it used to be damn near fighting word right,
way more mean than anyone would ever use it as today,
again more attacking somebody's credibility. It's first documented all the
(09:10):
way back in the fifteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest evidence for ridiculous in print
is from fifteen thirty three. It's found in the writing
of a guy named Thomas Elliott, not spelled the way
you think, a humanist and a diplomat. His last name
is often spelled Elyot or Elyott. But I think we
(09:36):
should take a second to shout this guy out. Most
people probably haven't heard of Tommy, but he is one
of the main reasons fiction books you read today are
in English instead of Latin.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
You knew, isn't that weird? We didn't. It is weird.
I didn't know one person could have that much influence.
He is one of the very first people who said, hey,
let's perhaps write English literature English, since that's what so
many regular people were speaking in those days. So it
might sound like a little tiny historical footnote, which kind
of is. But again, it's a lot of influence for
(10:10):
one person to be able to change the tide of
language like that. It's tough for us to fully grasp
how incredibly important this person was, and again changing the
way we communicate, the way we consume information.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
M M.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, it reminds me of how we marveled at the
invention of containers way back in antiquity. At some point
before the discovery of containers, people just had to live
by the water until somebody, right, until somebody figured out
you could build a thing to hold other stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
The humble vessel. It seems like just an idea as
old as time. But yeah, you know, it's funny. It's
one of those basic things where it's sort of like
it implies a newfound understanding of the way matter works. Right,
What if I took this stuff and put other stuff
inside the stuff, and can I find the right stuff
(11:08):
the right stuff? Yeah, let's try different stuffs, see what
works the best. Exactly, this is wild.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
So all we're saying is shout out to you, Tommy, Eh,
back to ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Fast forward just a few years.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
By the time we get to the fifteen forties, it's
spelled ridiculos, r id y c, ridiculous l O U
s E. And that's still pretty mean. It means worthy
of ridicule or huh contemptuous laughter.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Ooh, contemptuous, very mean spirit of perhaps someone in the
in the stockades, worthy of being pilloried, you know, having
tomatoes and stuff thrown at them. The implication would be
imparting a sense of vast inferiority, an idiot, a loser,
an absolute buffoon, someone who is beneath you. It is
(11:58):
an absolute character asassination. To use this in those days, yeah,
it's calling.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Calling someone ridiculous means you are, you are massively lesser.
You are for the birds, you were straight up a
grade dumb.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Not to be taken seriously.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
And when we get to English, like so many words,
we learned that the English use of ridiculous comes from
Latin ridict culus, which means laughable, funny, or absurd, and
that comes from madeira, which just means to laugh.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Can I just say, but I applaud you for your
use of the phrase daddy words. I just the child
in me giggles every time a little bit, but it
absolutely is a fantastic descriptor. So we're gonna talk about
some daddy words.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah, and also shout out to past us when when
we fell in love with I still don't recall whether
it was a song we seriously worked on or if
it was just a game we played, But we had
this rap game called Daddy Daddy math. Yeah, we're like,
blah blah blah blah blah, that's daddy blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I don't know, I don't know what it is. It's
a simple math.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
We'd never built out the world on that one, but
we can't tell you. Ridire is also the daddy word
of risible, which is confusing. I wish it was used
more often.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Yeah, I don't know about riseable. By the way, is
daddy math maybe the calculation you determine how many bastard
children you have out in the world. There, we're perhaps
like a you know, a despot, historical despot, Djengus or
Nick Canny. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So for centuries, like we're saying, ridiculous was a hard
and righteous dis mockery, as you noted earlier, fighting words.
Throughout the sixteen hundreds, we see a lot of fiction
and nonfiction writers, including Shakespeare, using ridiculous in that sense.
Sometimes they spell it different ways, mainly because everybody at
(13:56):
this point was still trying to figure out how stuff
would be spelled. Literacy was a pretty rare skill.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Set, for sure. No, it was a big deal, and
they were kind of spitballing a little bit, you see,
before they land on the one that kind of sticks.
And oftentimes that is determined by someone very powerful who
perhaps you know, codifies the printing of a particular work,
and then then that begins to spread because the more
consistency you have, the more people pick up on and
(14:23):
then the more it's passed around and reprinted, et cetera,
one hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And this is where we arrive at the eighteenth century. Ridiculous,
however you spell it, becomes a little bit less of
a mocking fighting word. It's starting to evolve to mean
something that is more funny or haha, not necessarily.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
In a mean way.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
It's absurd, but it's amusing, it's comical.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
I guess what we're talking about here too, I mean,
is the evolution of language where know the word you
could absolutely still use it in any of these ways,
but it begins to really depend on like the emphasis
you put on it when you speak it, the context
around it, you know, what your attitude is towards the word.
So we're kind of we're not even necessarily talking about
(15:17):
the purely the pure evolution of a word. It's just
sort of like it picks up different umamis along.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The way, right, Yeah, well said, well, because what we're
talking about is language as technology, and so we're really
talking about the way society evolves in their usage of
a thing. Right, and this is this new this like
coke two of ridiculous, is the uh is the more
(15:44):
friendly version of the word, because it's still traced back
to uh ridicularious meaning concerned with jokes, which we definitely
are on this show.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Was it thirty Rock where there was like a fictional
rapper named Ridiculous who was sort of like like ludicrous
sort of stand in satire and parody.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
You know, we were talking off air with Max. I've
been rewatching thirty Rock, which is just phenomenal writing. I
would have to finish watching the run of the show.
But I'm sure you're right, if not in thirty Rock,
in some show, that joke's just too.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Good, it's too good. Yeah, and I having our I don't.
I couldn't possibly know how to spell it ridiculous. It's
I'm spelling it correctly and nothing is coming up. But
it's like comedy joke rapper, ludicris Perry, parody. Maybe yeah,
parody would be good. It doesn't matter. It'll come to
me eventually when I don't care. But I'm almost positive
(16:42):
that it was thirty Rocks.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And we obviously are huge fans of thirty Rock. We
also you know what I love about the point you
earlier made is we're also talking now about ridiculous acquiring
informal meanings like one thing that can happen if you
are dating, especially here in Atlanta. I remember a friend
(17:09):
of mine got kind of mythed when he made a
joke and it landed, and the lady was interested in went, oh,
you're stupid, but she meant that he was funny. She
is stupid funny, right exactly. So, when we see the
same thing happening with slang, and the word ridiculous and
(17:30):
all living languages constantly creates slang, let's go to the
Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words by how did I
not know about miss Franzil today. That's incredible, and this exists.
It's multiple editions to man. This is written by James
Orchard halliwell I was first published in eighteen forty six,
but we are using the eighteen fifty two version because
(17:53):
per our accounting department, we are not quote made of money.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
That's true. It's true. And this is what he had
to say on the subject of the word ridiculous. This
is used in a very different sense in some counties
from its original meaning. Something very indecent and improper is
understood by it as any violent attack upon a woman's
chastity is called wow, very ridiculous behavior. A very disorderly
(18:21):
and ill conducted house is also called a ridiculous one.
So in this situation, it's really starting to get like
honed in, almost on the level of like a legal designation.
Right it's really like hard in terms of its its
judgment call.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Especially because to us right now, ridiculous means funny, interesting
and cool, silly goofy, you silly goose. But right right now,
I think we'd all be more insulted if someone came
to our homes and called them ill conducted. I don't
know why that would steing me more if someone said.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
I would be impressed if they whipped out that Turner phrase,
And you're right, it probably would cut me to my
very core.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, it feels like they thought about it, right, So
we also see to your point, more than a little
discrimination comes into play with this slang as well. In
the twentieth century, in the United States, ridiculous was described
as a synonym for outrageous, and the people who described
it as such always wanted to point out this is
(19:30):
primarily used in Gullah speech and quote among poor whites
in Ozarks.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Yeikes. Yeah, man, It's another one of the things moment
where you realize that any form of a word that
describes something being stupid or ill conceived or outrageous, it
has a basis in othering. It has a basis and
this is something that is different than me that freaks
(19:57):
me out, you know, And it's a way of demonizing
a perceived other and the way they talk, the way
they dress. It's still used today, you know, it's I mean,
it really all just boils down to this idea of
something being worthy of ridicule. What what worst designation could
you slap on something than being worthy of jeers and
(20:19):
insults and derision.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Agreed fully, and any word can be weaponized, at least
in English. For instance, think of innocuous words like urban
and think about how keeevily that was deployed, especially in
the advent of the War on drugs, or dog.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Whistles for racist not not. Let's not get too far
into this, but then you've got words like that that
you know, initially are sort of benign, and they start
referring to certain demographics in certain areas. We even see
it in the categorization of like music, you know, and
that's an official term used in like radio circles and charts, right,
(21:01):
like music charts, those examples. Where is that taking the
word back or is that another example of an establishment
referring to something with a little bit of a side eye?
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Yeah, And this is where we get to the serious
side of ridiculousness. We've established our origin story and we've
got some other words that sort of fill out the
background of our painting. We've walked through what we hope
is some tasty etymology for our fellow logophiles word nerds,
oh my god. But before not not fans of the not,
(21:34):
fans of logs, not fans of logs. That's a different
read election. But before we light out for the old
podcast territories, we do want to establish some serious value
of ridiculousness as a concept in the ancient past and
in the modern day. Here we have a second Tommy
(21:55):
entering the stage. Please, folks, holt your accolades and laws.
This is a tom you have probably heard of none
other than Thomas Hobbes.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Think that the imaginary Tiger and Calvin and Hobbes is
named after Thomas Hobbs. It's spelled the same That just
occourats me seeing it on paper.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
First off, I have chosen to believe he is very
much a real type.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Oh fair enough, excuse me the spoiler.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
But I also I believe you are absolutely correct there,
especially when you see written out right. The legendary English
philosopher Thomas Hobbes is probably to most of us best
known for an absolute banger he wrote in sixteen fifty
one called Leviathan. He first kicks the idea of what
(22:39):
we call social contract theory.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So it's a nice idea. Yeah, it's a nice idea.
I mean, isn't the social sorry not a d re
but is given what's going on in the world. Now,
isn't the social contract kind of reliant on people just
agreeing to follow certain rules and like, in order for
the privilege of living in society, you have to kind
of give up a little bit of into individuality in
favor of, like, you know, getting along. We all sort
(23:03):
of abide by these rules that are mutually agreed upon
and beneficial.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, you nailed it, man. Social contract theory is the
idea that you, as an individual human, either explicitly or
simply by existing in society, you have agreed to abide
by rules of that society, to have certain responsibilities in
(23:27):
exchange for protection and maintenance of social order. We know
that this goes in a thousand directions, but the idea
at base is that it takes everyone to make a
society work. We're not a philosophy podcast yet, but we
(23:47):
do have to give you one more fun fact about
Tommy h He spent a lot of time ruminating over
the concept of humor, and to him, the nature of
ridiculousness and absurd is central to the theory of Beaty.
Here Max, what makes funny? So encountering the ridiculous triggers laughter, shock, parody, satire.
(24:12):
Also Hobbes, by the way, super duper hater.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Yeah, man, he had some He had some hot takes,
that's for sure. Definitely, Uh thought very highly of himself. Oh, okay,
we'll do We'll do one quote from Leviathan. I think
we must. It'll give you a good sense of this
guy's Yeah, penchant for for Hobbs. Yeah maybe, all right.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
So true, for such is the nature of man that,
howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty,
or more eloquent, or more learned, yet they will hardly
believe there be many. So wise it's themselves, for they
see their own wit at hand and other men's at
a distance.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah. Look, he's not wrong. I'm not even really trying
to be a hater of the hater. I think he
was just he's pretty dialed in. That's not incorrect. It's
this idea that everyone's sort of the main character in
their own story, right, and that everyone else sort of
exists as side players, and that at the end of
the day, you're more concerned with your own bit and
(25:17):
coming across a certain way than you are and listening
to what other people have to say or acknowledging their existency.
Excellent unpacking there.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, you see your own you marvel at your own
intelligence or your own winds, and other people they're at
an arms.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Linked at best. Someone else also said, hell as other people.
So those could you know? Pair those together and you
got yourself a full on philosophy of life.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah, and Tom puts some stank on that one. Also,
he was a proponent of absolute monarchy, and his arguments
for that are ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
So Tom, we hope you were joking.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I don't even bring it back to ridiculous though, Well,
later on, much much much later on, after the rise
of the science we call psychology, it turns out scientists
would verify Hobbes's pitch about ridiculous, right.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
I mean, he's clearly lampooning most of society and considers
humans to be inherently quite ridiculous. This is a very
important word in helping to draw attention to social hierarchies
and attitudes of the time. By this, we mean the
absurd is able to kind of subvert in a way.
(26:37):
He was also I don't know, it's hard to how
would you describe his work? I mean it's a treatise, right,
He's basically telling he's calling attention to the absurdities of
society in an effort to perhaps teach people how to
live better. Right, there could be a better way. But
it also is satirical in a way. It's an interesting
(26:57):
kind of cross section there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, there's kind of a Josh Johnson to it, or
a George Carlin esque thing. You know, these are great
or Bill Hicks, these are great orators who will who
understand the power of laughter along the way. And this
is an old idea. It's I love that you're talking
about absurdism, subverting social norms. That's why a jester can
talk trash so loudly at the king and say all
(27:22):
these things. An ordinary peasant would be tortured for muttering
under their breath.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
The idea of a roast, You know, people love a
roast as long as it's there, kind of in control,
and it is all sort of like it in the
service of this kind of holding court kind of situation. Right.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
I genuinely enjoy a lot of roast, except for the
one of Chevy Chase that was I don't think they
were being funny.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I know they was being mean. Isn't that guy a
real Dick, though I've heard like not great things about it.
I didn't see the roast though, but I imagine there
was a lot of people just unloading on a guy
who maybe deserved it a little more than the average
roast roasty.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, apparently very difficult to work with, and we hope
that we're easy to work.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
With so that we don't pick up with chevies. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
So, the thing about stuff being ridiculous or absurd is
that it reframes the way you perceive a given experience
in small yet measurable ways. It also reframes every other
thing you encountered before or after. You look at the
world differently, you pay more attention, and we see this
(28:31):
everywhere politics, fiction, personal relationships, advertising. Look, we have background
in live performance, and as any live performer can tell you,
the number one easiest emotional reaction to get from an
audience is laughter.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
Right, would you agree with that? I think so. It's
definitely easier than eliciting a gasp, unless you're just going
for shock value. But it's also the I think it's
the easiest and most pleasant reaction that an audience might
want to have elicited from them. You know what I mean?
People have to laugh. It's a psychologically cleansing sort of experience.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
Yeah, especially when you're laughing together, when you're not asking
for much, right, just the shared acknowledgement that this thing
is funny or ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Dude, speaking of ridiculous and laughter, have you seen the
New Naked Gun movie yet? Not yet. No, I've been
deep in research land. It is a laugh a second.
It's just so densely packed and that we'll we'll pull
those out of you. So I highly recommend him looking
for a cathartic experience in that respect, go check out
the New Naked Gun Movie. I'm so excited. I'm so
(29:40):
excited to see it.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
And you know, I've got a little bit of limited
mobility right now, but as soon as i'm as soon
as I'm back on my proper land lover's status, dude,
I'm getting to the movie theater to check it out.
And we're huge fans of the earlier Naked Gun stuff
as well, although to be clear, not all of it
aged well. Which happens a comedy, Yeah, I mean O
Jay Simpson's in the first two. I think it's really funny,
(30:04):
though he's very I gotta give it to guy's very funny,
but he definitely murdered those people. Yeah, once you get
someone to chuckle with you, psychologically you built this foundational bond,
even if it's only for a limited amount of time.
And from that bond you could say laughters like a
mental passwords like hacking a computer. You can do a
lot of other stuff. Not all of that stuff is
(30:26):
necessarily above board. And that takes us back to advertising.
Ooh man, advertising and laughter for sure.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, and again, I mean we're starting to see the
pivot into ridiculous of the idea of worthy of ridicules
starting to feel more like positive laughter, something that's done
to illicit laughter, like the gesture you're talking about, Ben,
rather than someone that is a buffoon worthy of mockery
and contempt.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Oh yeah, like the old stand up rule punching up
versus punching down.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Right. Really yeah, Advertising, though, is a great transition, Ben,
where we start to see the kind of weaponizing of
some of this thinking. It is, of course a particularly
manipulative branch of psychology unto itself, leveraging a lot of conditioning,
but you know, behavioral cognitive effects in order to elicit
(31:17):
a certain reaction to help encode memories, you know, into
the viewer and to help impart a positive impression of
a particular brand, product or concepts. Yeah, think about it.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Your favorite commercials, especially if you're from the West, are
properly comedic. They likely incorporate a buzz term, a jingle
or both. And the serious commercials we remember, like the
famous PSAs let's play what here is? Here is an
example of a serious PSA, which we're counting as a
(31:56):
commercial for this purpose. You may all recognize this one, folks.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Is there anyone out there who still isn't clear about
what doing drugs does? Okay, last time, this is your brain,
This is drugs. This is your brain on.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Drugs, eggs. Oh no, sorry, that was the wrong message.
It was supposed to be. Okay, brain drugs will crack
open my brains and fry them in a pan, right, right?
And you remember this one, right of course? Yes, And
there is some absurdity to it. It is also just
(32:46):
sort of like very heavy handed metaphor. I guess as well.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
You know, yeah, yeah, you nailed it, because despite the
initial intent of the people who made that or made
those copyright PSAs, like you wouldn't download a car I
would if I could, right exactly in this academy get
back to us. But they meant these things to be
serious and to stay with you. However, a lot of
(33:15):
the audience only remembers them because we find them ironic
and funny. We laugh when we recall them because we
find them accidentally ridiculous. It kind of reminds me of
you know, not too long ago. I think, just just
like a few days ago, you and I literally saying
(33:36):
the Mele mixed jingle on our sister show stuff.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
They don't want you to know. Somehow he didn't get
soon knock on wood. It is funny though, right, I
mean the way those little things like they eat more
chicken campaign is another good example with chick files of
not only is it absurd this idea that an anthropomorphic
cow is trying to deflect us from eating its flesh
and the flesh of its breath in favor of instead
(34:02):
eating it's these other animals that presumably the cows have
some sort of vendetto with it's implied, but not only that,
it incorporates the concept of disfluency into the ad campaigns,
where it's the text that's all splattery and misspelled words,
and that encodes itself onto your brain even more so.
It's like piggybacking on that absurdity with these elaborate billboards,
(34:24):
with these like three dimensional cow sculptures, and then the
fact that when you're driving past it you see these
kind of misspelled words, which forces you to think a
little deeper.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Yeah, exactly, you're paying more attention because you're replying cognitively
to absurdity. The concept of ridiculous gets in our heads.
The meal Mixed jingle solidified the memory, and so even
if we didn't each personally run out to buy meal
mix right after recording, we now have a shared fond
(34:53):
memory of It's It's a brilliant idea again, it's ridiculous.
English is a phenomenally fastating language chock full of words
that are themselves ridiculous, by which I guess we would mean
cartoonishly specific, oddly, self contradictory, or even just the kind
of word where you look back on it later and think.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Well, why would someone make that? What?
Speaker 1 (35:16):
What on earth happened in society that we need a
whole word defining this?
Speaker 3 (35:21):
You know what I mean? Yeah? I don't, I mean,
I don't know it's a good question, then, so.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
We we can play a game for the very end
of this. I know, I dug up a book that
I know you will love if you haven't read it already.
It's we love specific reference works. This is depraved and
insulting English.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
God. Yes, what was the other reference book or the
old tone that you pulled up a source?
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is the diction words archaic and
provincial words.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
It does seem like a good pairing. I'm down, sign
me up. All right, how about this? Well, we're going
to do the live. We don't know if it will
work out. So Paul G.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Stomacks in advance. No, I'm going to flip through this
book and you say when okay? All right, going when okay?
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (36:12):
And then I'm gonna run my finger up and down
the page. You say, when okay, Rick Rubin, when okay?
Cock o Kalia the state of being.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
Guess Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah C A c O c
A L l I A C A c O. Initially,
my mind is is jumping to the word cow, and
this is like if it's a calia. I don't know
what that suffix is, but it sounds maybe a little
bit like Aphelia or this is not a phobia. You're
(36:48):
into something. You're into whatever Coco represents. That's my guess,
and I think it might be cow Is. Well, this
was a very unfair one.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I I don't think either of us would have would
have guessed this one. The definition is the state of
being ugly but sexy. What that? Hell?
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Yeah, oh my god, I'm writing this down, CaCO Kalia,
that is my I'm gonna use that as my mantra
from now on. You're not You're the opposite of ugly.
You have some devil you no, no, but that's cool.
So it's like, you know, uh, what's his name, the
horrible painter who also acts Adrian Brody. What a weird
(37:29):
way to describe that. He's a funny looking dude there.
I think this term is very interesting. There are a
lot of what you might call striking individuals who you
could argue you are ugly but sexy. I think it's
not a disc man.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I'm into it. I think uh, I think I think
I agree with it. Except for you and de Niro.
I'm going to go to the bat for you guys.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
Craggy looking dudes, weathered, he looks weathered because.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Of his age. We are your ever faithful ugly at
Sexy Correspondence. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you
so much as always for tuning in. Thanks to our
super producer mister Max Williams as well as Alex Williams
who composed this track.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Huge thanks to Chris Frossiotis and need to Jeffcoats here
in Spirit, Jonathan Stricklan the quist Or, A J. Bahamas
Jacobs the Puzzler.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Big big thanks of course to doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance,
Big thanks to East Jeffcoat Christopher Hasiotis here in Spirit,
and big thanks to Peter Novobotsky and Amanhea who wrote
Deprived and Insulting English Kill.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Yeah. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows
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