September 1, 2026 • 36 mins
What's the best meal you've ever had at a restaurant? If it was in the United States, odds are you paid your tab -- and then added an extra fee on top of that. While tipping didn't originate in the USA, the States have the world's most prevalent (and infamous) tipping culture. And ever since the Civil War, it's been a hot-button issue: Should you tip? If so, whom, and how much? In the first part of this severely biased two-part series, Ben, Noel, and Max dive into the debate... and learn the disturbing origin of American tipping along the way.
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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 uh here's one for the cheapskates
folks this is probably going to be a two-part series
on the uh the practice of tipping and we could
not do this without our super producer mr max 25 percent.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Williams what what what they say tipping ain't just a
What is it?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Not a country in China. China's a country. What's tipping?
The capital?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I'm bad at geography, but I'm good at tipping. And
I'll tell you why. From dating people in the service
industry or one person in particular, I was alerted that
by no intention of my own, no ill will, I
was a bad tipper. And it was only because I
didn't really understand the formula. And so ever since then,
(01:22):
I have just applied the simple doubling of the first
two digits of the check. And that usually amounts to
around 20%. And then, you know, of course, nowadays we
have helpful little guides at the bottom, little legends, you know,
telling you what the appropriate amount is. But I swear, man,
I just had no idea that I was such a
lousy tipper. And I fixed it and never looked back.
(01:44):
But boy, is it a problematic concept in general. here
in the United States in particular, where folks who work
for tips typically.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Aren't paid a living wage.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
That's Noel Brown, and I agree with you. I am
Ben Bolin, and this one is for you, fellow American
ridiculous historians, as well as for our fellow historians abroad.
If you are not from the United States and you
visit our fair country, or unfair country, you have doubtlessly
(02:21):
run into a particularly confusing social situation, which my pal
Noel just described. We've got a deep roster of wonderfully extroverted,
extraordinarily kind people in the U.S. Our government, obviously, is
not as good as it could be, but our people
(02:43):
tend to be curious, optimistic people, supportive. They want to
learn more about you if you visit from afar. We
still have a lot of weird stuff that doesn't make
sense to outsiders. You know, what I always think about,
Nuala Max, is when friends who come from other places
(03:05):
shop in a grocery store or a convenience store and
They're baffled by the fact that you see a price
for a thing, right? Your coffee is going to cost
you $ 1. 99 or what have you. And then you go
to the register and all of a sudden, boom, it's
more than you thought because the taxes are never listed.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Ah, the taxman. He's got to get his pound of
flesh or more.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Or, you know, maybe a kilo of flesh if you're
the Beatles.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Well done.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And we know that one of the biggest baffling things
here in the U.S. is the financial or social quirk,
the unwritten rule called tipping. And we're going to have
a lot of conversation about this.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
We sure are.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And also worth pointing out that, uh, doesn't the tax
man also want his cut of tips? Is that, I
feel like that's even like a campaign thing where we're like, ah,
no taxes on tips. Um, when it's really just kind
of like a slight consolation in a system that's already
kind of effed. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I mean, it's a, uh, for a group of politicians
right now, that's a big talking point. It's no tax
on tips, which there is, um, some question to the
validity of like whether or not their policies actually enforce that. But, uh, Because,
I mean, it comes to the question of are tips
gifts or are they how people pay for their bills
(04:38):
and their health insurance? I say this as somebody who
for 10 years worked in food and beverage, many of
those years as a tipped employee. So I have strong
opinions on today's topic, let's just say.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Oh, and not to mention, I know we're going to
get into this too, and I'm sure, Max, you have
some perspectives on this, but it's just the idea of
pooling tips and What situation does that apply?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Who does that benefit?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Is it really just kind of the business owners getting
a break on paying their employees a fair wage?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
It's wild.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And it doesn't seem like you go to a place
like France.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Tipping is borderline insulting.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Here in the States, you can take a cab or
an Uber. You visit a restaurant. You maybe stop by
a cafe for some coffee. and you pay an established price.
That price is conveyed to you in a very clear manner.
Your taxi ride has a meter. It shows your fee.
Your coffee shop has a menu, a list of how
(05:37):
much your espresso may cost. But on top of that price,
in the United States, here in 2026, you are also,
in an unwritten rule, expected to pay an additional smaller
fee called a tip. It's not It's not illegal to
pay it, but it's not legally required, and not tipping
(06:02):
can be seen as a huge social faux pas in
some situations, so much so that employees, yeah, I'm doing
French references, so much so that employees who don't get
a tip will remember you, and it may negatively affect
your service in the future.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Not only will they remember you, I always, when the
topic of tipping comes up, Remember this scene in The
Sopranos where Pauly Walnuts and Chrissy Moltisanti. I think this
is a series where Pauly is kind of basically torturing
Chrissy as his underling and making him pay for all
the dinners and all the drinks. And they have this
(06:42):
big dinner where Pauly keeps ordering lobster and all these
stuff for these ladies and drinks and champagne. And then
Chris pays the tab, and as they're walking out, this
waiter follows them out and says, excuse me, was there
a problem with your bill? And, you know, Chris is already, like,
at the end of his rope, and he's like, I'm
tapped out.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
That was $ 1, 500 there.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
He's like, yeah, that was the, you know, it was
a $ 1, 500 bill, and you only left me, like, $ 20.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
And he's like, I'm tapped out.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
And then the guy goes, go piss it away at
Blackjack or something like that.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
And then they beat him to death. Just saying, man,
tipping is a sticky subject.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
And to jump in here real quick, there is also
another very famous scene about discussing tips. Restore Dogs, the
very beginning.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Mr.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Pink does some tips.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Oh, gosh.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
But I will– Ben, to your point, bartenders are like elephants.
If you don't tip, they remember.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
That's where I learned that I was a bad tipper
was because my girlfriend at the time, her girlfriend was
dating the bartender at the local chicken wing joint that
we often reference. And– he told his girlfriend that I
was a crappy tipper.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And that I was like, Oh no, I just didn't.
I was just ignorant, frankly.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
And then that is when I kind of learned the
little trick I mentioned at the top of the show,
you know, doubling the first part of the check. Like
if it's a $ 10 check, you tip $ 2.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
If it's a $ 50 check, you tip $ 10. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Which would bring you to roughly 20%.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's a reasonable rule of thumb. I'm not saying it's perfect.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And I definitely have evolved past that as I've, progressed
as an adult, you know, but at that point I
was also like, you know, pretty poor. So I was
doing my best to do the right thing, but also
now I over-tip probably to make amends for my past.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And to exercise empathy here, we understand how this can
be super duper confusing because it is an unwritten rule.
If you visit the United States, you're not going to
get some sort of official piece of paperwork that tells
you how to tip. you might have no idea what
(08:50):
that extra line on your receipt at a restaurant means.
Because in so many other countries, there is an automatic,
clearly displayed service charge instead. And just so you know, folks,
people in the United States are still very heavily divided
on who you tip. when you tip them, how much
(09:14):
you tip them, right? Is it 10%? Is it 15?
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Is it a dollar?
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Is it 20%? And if you have ever been familiar
with our country's storage service industry, then you are probably,
like Max alluded to, going to tip about 20% of
a bill using, as you said, Noel, the quick heuristic
that a lot of people employ. Because if you live
(09:42):
in the United States, if you spend a lot of
time there, you realize that folks in the service industries
often depend upon that extra unofficial money to survive. But,
you know, we also should acknowledge getting into this that during.
COVID and post-COVID, there has been a backlash about tipping
(10:05):
being quote unquote expected. And a lot of folks are
saying it's gone too far. I remember in particular, Noel,
you had mentioned on our sister show, Stuff They Don't
Want You To Know, that Now, when we go to
an electronic point of sale, you order a coffee or whatever,
(10:26):
you get an espresso, and you have a separate screen
that pops up once your card runs, and it says,
do you want to tip 18%, 20%, 25%.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
And so on.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
So a lot of people don't love that.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
They don't love that.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
And then there's the whole other conversation around is tipping a, like,
reward for exceptional service, right? Like, and I think a
lot of people look at it that way, where if
you maybe only get so-so service, it is your right to, like,
not tip or to leave a crappy tip. And Max
is vehemently shaking his head, and I understand why. But
(11:04):
I also understand the confusion in this particular process. perspective
I think comes with a certain amount of entitlement and
ignorance around the system. So I'm certainly not supporting that
at all, but here we are with a lot of
people looking at it that way.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Well, Max, I do want to go to you here
because one of the horror stories I read in the
research for this, amid the many horror stories I read
about bad tippers, was a practice that feels so soulless
and manipulative There are really people in the United States
(11:42):
who will quote unquote tip with a fake religious tract
made to look like U.S. currency. And then even worse
than that, there are people, we can't confirm this, who
will walk into a restaurant, take out, you know, five
$ 1 bills and then put them on the table and say,
(12:05):
this is your tip. And anytime I don't like what
you're doing, I'm taking one dollar away. I think those
folks should be kicked out.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Send them to the gulag.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Max, you ever run into this?
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Oh, I mean, not exactly those things, but similar enough
to things. I mean, I'm a big believer that whenever
I train people on like serving or bartending, I was like,
The most important thing to do is to make sure
people get their food. You do the job right. And
then the extra stuff afterwards, that's like, you know, some
(12:38):
people don't want you to talk with them or hang
out with them. Like people have this whole idea like, oh,
you need to become your table's best friend. I'm like, no,
I think people want their food and their drinks. But
then sometimes people want that extra stuff. I am a
big believer that like, you know. There is like, you know, 20%
is like, you did the job. I, you delivered it
because there's also is a point of like the person
(12:58):
didn't do the job. And I mean, that's a whole
debate in itself. And that's like, is it a responsibility
of the customer to pay the employee's wage, which is,
I think, where this is all going to go to
the conversation of this all. But then I don't think
it's like, oh, you did such a great job. Here
is the bare minimum that we're supposed to do. But
it all goes back to this problem of why do
(13:20):
we have this like lexicon, super complex system in this
country of what to tip people, what to pay somebody's wage?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah. And why is it? An unwritten rule. We've got
to tell you this, folks. Regardless of where you find
yourself in this argument, which is something a lot of
Americans talk about ubiquitously, the way you would talk about
your favorite sports team, there is one truth. Most people,
including fans of tipping and including critics of tipping, have
(13:52):
no idea where this practice comes from, where it originates,
the true origin, ridiculously enough. At least here, this country
is 100% a product of slavery.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Surprise, surprise.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I don't mean, okay, not to be like too droll
about it, but it just, you know, like, oh, you
mean another weird remnant from our toxic past?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
You know, as a country, like there's other.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Examples of things like that that have stuck around well
past their time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I mean, cast your memories back there, folks, Van Morrison style.
In the days of the founding fathers, when they were
hatching up a revolution and they were still considered terrorists
by old King George, tipping was not a thing. in
the colonies at all. You paid for goods and services
(14:56):
through barter or whatever weird currency was considered acceptable at
the time. That's a whole other bag of badgers. But
what we're saying is the idea of going to an
inn and buying a bowl of soup or a flagon
of ale or Washington's famous eggnog, et cetera, the concept
of paying for that and then throwing another 20% extra
(15:19):
atop that price it would have been considered anywhere between charity, lunacy,
or in some cases, an insult.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
And not to mention, it could have been in some
situations considered a crime to tip people. Officers of the law,
for example, or other government workers, that could be seen,
of course, as it would likely be seen today, as
a bribe.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
There are also certain.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Places you'll go where there are signs up that expressly
forbid tipping. Like, uh, there's this deli, um, at the, uh,
this world market here in Atlanta, um, where there's a
sign up that says you're not allowed to tip.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
You're not supposed to, they're not allowed to accept the
wording is they're not allowed to accept tips.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
And frankly, I've always found that kind of unusual because
this is also an institution that employs a lot of immigrants.
So it feels a little part and parcel with perhaps
taking advantage of their employees.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I can't say I don't know what the folks make there,
but there's part of me that wonders if there's some
nefariousness going on in terms of retaining this employment.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
I do just want to jump in real quick from Futurama,
Panucci's Pizza, where Fry works in the 20th century. The
box says, do not tip the delivery driver.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Or we have a grocery chain here in the southeastern
United States called Publix. And Publix also has the signs
that we mentioned earlier, which say, do not tip the
people who are helping you carry your bags from the
store to the parking lot. We also do have, full disclosure—
(17:04):
a whole new legal form of bribing and corrupting public officials.
We have a euphemism for it. We call it lobbying
or campaign donations. I walked down the street, down the
block for that one, but it needs to be said.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Just a hop, skip, and a jump, yeah, especially as
legislation around those types of campaign contributions have devolved. It
really does appear more and more as just actual facts legalized.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Bribery pay to play.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Kind of stuff um so the etymology we're gonna get
to right now we don't know exactly where the term
itself comes from um it's always kind of struck me
as as odd right and there's even jokes about it
like in looney tunes cartoons where uh i think the
bugs bunny is like asks for a tip or something
something comes up where he's supposed to give a tip
(17:53):
and he says don't leave wax lips on the dresser
on a sunny day oh right yeah right so it's
like this idea of you're You're doing someone a solid, right?
Like you're giving them a good little tidbit of info
that then maybe can be kind of evolved into this
idea of a buck. Right.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
You're giving someone something that will benefit them in the
present or the future, right? Don't take any wooden nickels
is a tip.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
For example, the- If someone hands you a coin, you
got to bite it. Right, right.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
The Oxford English Dictionary has for a long time described
tipping as a slang term possibly originating from something called thieves' cant,
like a special language used by criminals way back in
the day. It still has that conspiratorial aspect meaning– It
(18:51):
likely comes from tip, meaning to strike or to hit
smartly but lightly, and that might come from low German,
tipping to tap or tipping, excuse me, T-I-P-P-E-N. It's an
interesting theory because of that aura of secrecy, and it
makes sense for the cheapskates in the crowd because sometimes
(19:15):
paying a tip can feel, from your perspective, like you
are getting robbed.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Well, unrelated, but related just in terms of the etymology
of it all, I do enjoy how in the UK,
a tip is a garbage dump.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah, just so, right? Boots and hoods, or boots and trunks.
And we know the phrase in English dates back to
around 1600. It usually meant at that time to give
a small present of money, to give a financial gift,
kind of like when your grandmother would send you you
(19:53):
know would slip a 5 or a 10 or a
20 in your birthday card it wasn't until 1706 that
tip became a verb meaning to give a gratuity to
this was this was a spot bonus and as we
would call it today, for doing an above average job.
(20:14):
And we've got some myths to bust. You're going to
hear TIP as an acronym, meaning that it stood, it
was short for to inspire promptness or something like that.
But we checked with our friends at Snopes. That is
not true. It is fun. And we do, I think,
(20:35):
have to take a moment to, while we're being etymology nerds,
look at the word gratuity, which is synonymous with tip.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
It's so weird. It's an odd use of that. I mean,
I think of gratuitous meaning like egregious or, you know, extra.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Way too much.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Okay, that is a little extra, but that is not
the connotation I typically associate with the word gratuitous.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I think of gratuitous violence.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Gratuitous sex you know any kind of uh something that's
just over the top.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Yeah and to jump in here i actually was diving
into uh the term gratuity song because that's like i
the way i think about it's like that's kind of
the fancy nerdy way to refer to tips it's like
oh can i get the gratuity i think uh data
refers to it as in the in the star trek
episode it's gratuity one time and it's like of course
you did data but uh what etymology online um it
(21:32):
comes from Gratuitatum, or from the French term for graciousness,
which is gratuity. I'm just guessing at these pronunciations.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Apologies.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
But basically the idea of a free gift or done
without pay, spontaneous, voluntary. But it comes from the root
of a Proto-Indo-European word, guire, or guiree. Basically, it's to
favor is the idea, but it exists back to the 1530s.
That's like the first documented use of it.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Oh, weird.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
So I wonder, guys, whether gratuity and graciousness or generosity
are related because the idea is it's a voluntary thing.
One does not have to do, but one chooses to do.
And regardless of which theory we go with, We have
(22:30):
to acknowledge the concept of tipping is older than the
United States, even though the U.S. is now the most
infamous tipping culture on the planet. It was really interesting
to learn that historians are not sure when tipping began.
You'll find some folks saying it goes back to the
(22:51):
Roman Empire, but there's this historian we love for this
named Cary Seagrave. who wrote a book in 1998 called Tipping,
An American Social History of Gratuities. And he says it's
not a Roman thing. He says it goes back to
the Middle Ages and to Tudor England.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Medieval times, in fact. No, not the restaurant. I believe
you also, they rely on tips, the surfers there. Tipping
was a master-surf kind of relationship. where a servant would
receive a little extra money for having done a good job.
And from time to time, the landed gentry would also
(23:35):
throw a few extra shekels at their servants, sometimes literally, yeah,
take it, get you from my sight.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Ooh, just like that, what was that film Pacino was in,
Al Pacino, where he, or I'm thinking of every gangster
film ever, where one of those Sopranos-esque organized crime guys
gets in trouble, and then they start just tossing out
currency on the floor. And they're like, fine, here you go.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, like throwing money at a problem.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
So, again, landed gentry, throwing money at the servant, who
had perhaps fallen on hard times. Perhaps they were suffering
from food scarcity, had.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Been injured, you know, a weird loose.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
very uh what's the word ad hoc form of workman's
comp um losing a loved one or having a child
but again all of this was custom and entirely up
to the master and their discretion.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah we're gonna see that hierarchy coming into play you
know we we've learned that by the 17th century, around the,
you know, through the 1600s, a fancy guest who would
stay overnight at the private homes of their fellow fancy
host would give the servants something called veils, V-A-I-L-S. Having
(25:13):
extra people stay over means so much extra work for you.
So this was not seen as condescending at that point.
It was seen as a courtesy, like, thank you for
doing so much more work. And at the time, even then,
you guys, some people complained about this practice. There were
(25:34):
people as early as the late 1600s, beginning of the
1700s in Europe, saying, look, I'm not a bad person.
I'm fine giving a veil occasionally, but I don't like
how these people that are beneath me seem to be
expecting me to give them money, which still just reeks
(25:59):
of entitlement.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And despite that bit of controversy, it wasn't long before
the practice kind of took off.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Spread past the estates.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Of the aforementioned landed gentry. Customers at London coffee houses,
for example, and other businesses began tipping as well. Ben,
is this like, I mean, I think that's what we
were already kind of spelling out a bit, but it
just seems to me that at this point, it's almost
(26:31):
a flex, right? It's like a show of wealth and
a way of sort of, I don't know, a power move.
in a way.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, very much so. And, and there's arguably some toxicity
to it. Uh, no matter how well intentioned it would be,
because now imagine, uh, imagine we are, uh, max, the
Duke of Williams. And we have a, uh, we have
(27:00):
a tailor that we visit routinely, right. And we have
a coffee house we go to routinely, uh, And we're saying,
you know, we are not so different, you and I, here.
I understand that you work very hard and I have
leftover money. So take my financial leftovers. My scraps.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Yes, indeed. Peasants. And dance for them. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
And dance for me while you tailor my suit. I
know that's physically impossible, but do your best.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
And now you two fight to the death.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
That's another great gangster scene.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Also involving Michael Imperioli in one of his first roles
where he plays Spider, the bartender slash kind of servant
boy in the back rooms where the gangsters of Goodfellas
did their, you know, seedy card games. And Joe Pesci,
he offends him in some way, so he shoots guns
at his feet and tells him to dance, you know,
(28:02):
and then he ends up shooting him in the foot.
And he goes, you shot Spider in the foot, you know?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Ooh, like Tori Lane in Megan the Stallion.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Tory Lane went to jail. He's an emcee. He got
locked up because he shot another musician, Megan Thee Stallion,
in the foot.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Oh, geez, I didn't know that. It must have been inspired,
which also is inspired by Old West kind of behavior, obviously.
But then in a similar move to what happened in Sopranos,
then Spider, you know, comes back with a bandage around
his foot at a later point. date and tells, you know,
Joe Pesci's character to go F himself. And he just,
she shoots him in the face.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Joe Pesci.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Everyone's just laughing because they find it really funny. And
Joe Pesci was completely out of hand.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
He's dead-eyed at first. It's terrifying.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
And then he shoots him a bunch of times.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Yeah, this is a kind of point out like how
insane Joe Pesci's character is supposed to be. It's just like,
you know, everyone's like, oh, this is really funny. And
Joe Pesci just like murders the guy. It's like, what
is wrong with you, dude?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
And from everything we've heard about Joe Pesci, the person
whom we have not met, he's different from his characters. Also,
this is a bit of insurance for us. Joe, if
you're tuning in, thank you. Please don't shoot us. We've
got the rough understanding of the origin of this extra
(29:23):
payment thing happening. We have to give you the quiet
part out loud. After the American Revolution, for a long time,
the fancy pants folks of this newly minted, emergent United States.
they had a big chip on their shoulder. They had
a lot of insecurity about the European cousins, which kind
(29:46):
of is– it's also part of the origin of the
transatlantic accent.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, you know, American Revolution was
about separating ourselves, this country, from our, you know, European
overlords and establishing an identity that was independent of them
both financially and culturally. But that doesn't mean that a
(30:13):
lot of the cultural things didn't stick around or had
a little bit of a stronger foothold than maybe we
as a country would have even liked to admit.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Agreed.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
We see that post-Civil War and then into the Gilded
Age of the early 1900s, there was a small, rarefied
demographic of well-off Americans in the States who were able
to travel across the pond. As they would put it,
they wanted to be casual. They would go across the
(30:48):
Atlantic Ocean and they would travel to Europe. and they
often would pride themselves on returning home with ostentatious, performative
European habits.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Oh, geez. It's like your friend that goes to London
for a week and comes back talking like Madonna when
she was married to Guy Ritchie.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
It's insufferable. It's insufferable.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
I want to shout out a super hilarious internet post
I saw where there was a lady sitting in a
restaurant And she overheard people on a first date and
a guy apparently said, gosh, I forgot how to use
a fork because I spent so much time in Korea.
(31:31):
And it's like, come on, dude.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I mean, I have a buddy who's lived in London
for quite some time.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
But I do rag him on the fact that every
time he comes around, I'm already doing it and making
fun of him a little bit. He asks if I
want to. go down the pub for a pint. And
I'm like, mate, give me an effing break. We were
in Boy Scouts together in Georgia. Stop it.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Ben, do you have to remind them to tip at
the pub?
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Good question. What are tipping rules in the UK? Are
they similar to the way they are in France?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Well, roundup.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Is usually going to be the one you can get
away with. So what we're saying is there was this
bid from, again, a very small part of the U.S.
population to seem more worldly, more aristocratic. These folks were
kind of insecure. They imported this idea of tipping from
old money Europe to the United States, and everybody else
(32:28):
in the United States saw this as a condescending, rude,
I'll say it, they saw it as a dickish move
instead of as a, Courtesy, because they were like, well,
you Gilded Age folks, you just want to keep up
with the European Joneses. You are, as a result, just
Jonesing to look cool, right? To impress each other.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Aristocratic.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
This tied in with two pretty formative industries in the nation.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Very, very high-grossing industries, right?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Railroads being the highest grossing of course uh and restaurants
um and then of course the aforementioned uh spoiler alert slavery.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah yep and as we said this is a two-part
episode you may have seen the title the um the
racist origins of tipping or the we'll, we'll see what
we wind up publishing this as, but we do want to,
as we're wrapping up part one, shout out the phenomenal
(33:37):
work of an author and activist named Saru Jayaraman. In 2016,
this author wrote a book called Fort, a new standard
for American dining. And as this author writes, explains in
chilling detail. Those industries that you just mentioned, Bill, they
(33:59):
embraced discrimination in a huge way at the end of
the Civil War because a ton of newly freed people
were hitting the job market and the folks in power,
particularly a guy named George Mortimer Pullman, said, how can
I screw these people over more? Thank you for the
(34:21):
thumbs down there, Max. I agree with you.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
This guy's a pill. Is that not a good cliffhanger,
that very question?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
How can I screw these people over more? So maybe
we do leave it here for today's part one of
the history of tipping and lead off part two, getting
into that racist origin that we teased.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
Agreed.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Thanks, as always, to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
Thanks to, of course, A.J. Bahamas Jacobs, the puzzler. Thanks
also to Jonathan Strickland, a.k.a. the Quister, eternally known as
a terrible tipper. I'm kidding. I'm kidding, Jonathan. We don't
(35:04):
know this about Jonathan. We don't know that about him.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I bet he's a lovely tipper.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I bet he's a lovely tipper. Although, you know what?
Speaker 3 (35:09):
It's funny you mentioned it, but I could see him
having a bit of a Mr.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Pink view on this.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
But we don't know this.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
I think I think I've talked with him. I think
he is a good tip.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
I think he probably is.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
But he is still a monster. Well, that's even sure
for our purposes here. Matt, massive bad guy.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Yeah. Big, big thanks, of course, to the rude dudes
of Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, you'll love them.
Let's see.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Who else?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Who else?
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Well, Christy Frost, you know, doesn't use Jeff goes here
in spirit, of course.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
And thanks to Maximilian Big Tipper Williams for his contributions
to this research helmed by you, Ben, who I also think.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Oh, my gosh. We'll just we'll get we'll all give
each other 20 percent, which I think gets us to
60 percent of whatever our tab is for this show.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio 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 uh here's one for the cheapskates
folks this is probably going to be a two-part series
on the uh the practice of tipping and we could
not do this without our super producer mr max 25 percent.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Williams what what what they say tipping ain't just a
What is it?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Not a country in China. China's a country. What's tipping?
The capital?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I'm bad at geography, but I'm good at tipping. And
I'll tell you why. From dating people in the service
industry or one person in particular, I was alerted that
by no intention of my own, no ill will, I
was a bad tipper. And it was only because I
didn't really understand the formula. And so ever since then,
(01:22):
I have just applied the simple doubling of the first
two digits of the check. And that usually amounts to
around 20%. And then, you know, of course, nowadays we
have helpful little guides at the bottom, little legends, you know,
telling you what the appropriate amount is. But I swear, man,
I just had no idea that I was such a
lousy tipper. And I fixed it and never looked back.
(01:44):
But boy, is it a problematic concept in general. here
in the United States in particular, where folks who work
for tips typically.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Aren't paid a living wage.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
That's Noel Brown, and I agree with you. I am
Ben Bolin, and this one is for you, fellow American
ridiculous historians, as well as for our fellow historians abroad.
If you are not from the United States and you
visit our fair country, or unfair country, you have doubtlessly
(02:21):
run into a particularly confusing social situation, which my pal
Noel just described. We've got a deep roster of wonderfully extroverted,
extraordinarily kind people in the U.S. Our government, obviously, is
not as good as it could be, but our people
(02:43):
tend to be curious, optimistic people, supportive. They want to
learn more about you if you visit from afar. We
still have a lot of weird stuff that doesn't make
sense to outsiders. You know, what I always think about,
Nuala Max, is when friends who come from other places
(03:05):
shop in a grocery store or a convenience store and
They're baffled by the fact that you see a price
for a thing, right? Your coffee is going to cost
you $ 1. 99 or what have you. And then you go
to the register and all of a sudden, boom, it's
more than you thought because the taxes are never listed.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
Ah, the taxman. He's got to get his pound of
flesh or more.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Or, you know, maybe a kilo of flesh if you're
the Beatles.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Well done.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
And we know that one of the biggest baffling things
here in the U.S. is the financial or social quirk,
the unwritten rule called tipping. And we're going to have
a lot of conversation about this.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
We sure are.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And also worth pointing out that, uh, doesn't the tax
man also want his cut of tips? Is that, I
feel like that's even like a campaign thing where we're like, ah,
no taxes on tips. Um, when it's really just kind
of like a slight consolation in a system that's already
kind of effed. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I mean, it's a, uh, for a group of politicians
right now, that's a big talking point. It's no tax
on tips, which there is, um, some question to the
validity of like whether or not their policies actually enforce that. But, uh, Because,
I mean, it comes to the question of are tips
gifts or are they how people pay for their bills
(04:38):
and their health insurance? I say this as somebody who
for 10 years worked in food and beverage, many of
those years as a tipped employee. So I have strong
opinions on today's topic, let's just say.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Oh, and not to mention, I know we're going to
get into this too, and I'm sure, Max, you have
some perspectives on this, but it's just the idea of
pooling tips and What situation does that apply?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Who does that benefit?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Is it really just kind of the business owners getting
a break on paying their employees a fair wage?
Speaker 3 (05:09):
It's wild.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
And it doesn't seem like you go to a place
like France.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Tipping is borderline insulting.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Here in the States, you can take a cab or
an Uber. You visit a restaurant. You maybe stop by
a cafe for some coffee. and you pay an established price.
That price is conveyed to you in a very clear manner.
Your taxi ride has a meter. It shows your fee.
Your coffee shop has a menu, a list of how
(05:37):
much your espresso may cost. But on top of that price,
in the United States, here in 2026, you are also,
in an unwritten rule, expected to pay an additional smaller
fee called a tip. It's not It's not illegal to
pay it, but it's not legally required, and not tipping
(06:02):
can be seen as a huge social faux pas in
some situations, so much so that employees, yeah, I'm doing
French references, so much so that employees who don't get
a tip will remember you, and it may negatively affect
your service in the future.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Not only will they remember you, I always, when the
topic of tipping comes up, Remember this scene in The
Sopranos where Pauly Walnuts and Chrissy Moltisanti. I think this
is a series where Pauly is kind of basically torturing
Chrissy as his underling and making him pay for all
the dinners and all the drinks. And they have this
(06:42):
big dinner where Pauly keeps ordering lobster and all these
stuff for these ladies and drinks and champagne. And then
Chris pays the tab, and as they're walking out, this
waiter follows them out and says, excuse me, was there
a problem with your bill? And, you know, Chris is already, like,
at the end of his rope, and he's like, I'm
tapped out.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
That was $ 1, 500 there.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
He's like, yeah, that was the, you know, it was
a $ 1, 500 bill, and you only left me, like, $ 20.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
And he's like, I'm tapped out.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
And then the guy goes, go piss it away at
Blackjack or something like that.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
And then they beat him to death. Just saying, man,
tipping is a sticky subject.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
And to jump in here real quick, there is also
another very famous scene about discussing tips. Restore Dogs, the
very beginning.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Mr.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Pink does some tips.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Oh, gosh.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
But I will– Ben, to your point, bartenders are like elephants.
If you don't tip, they remember.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
That's where I learned that I was a bad tipper
was because my girlfriend at the time, her girlfriend was
dating the bartender at the local chicken wing joint that
we often reference. And– he told his girlfriend that I
was a crappy tipper.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And that I was like, Oh no, I just didn't.
I was just ignorant, frankly.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
And then that is when I kind of learned the
little trick I mentioned at the top of the show,
you know, doubling the first part of the check. Like
if it's a $ 10 check, you tip $ 2.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
If it's a $ 50 check, you tip $ 10. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Which would bring you to roughly 20%.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's a reasonable rule of thumb. I'm not saying it's perfect.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
And I definitely have evolved past that as I've, progressed
as an adult, you know, but at that point I
was also like, you know, pretty poor. So I was
doing my best to do the right thing, but also
now I over-tip probably to make amends for my past.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And to exercise empathy here, we understand how this can
be super duper confusing because it is an unwritten rule.
If you visit the United States, you're not going to
get some sort of official piece of paperwork that tells
you how to tip. you might have no idea what
(08:50):
that extra line on your receipt at a restaurant means.
Because in so many other countries, there is an automatic,
clearly displayed service charge instead. And just so you know, folks,
people in the United States are still very heavily divided
on who you tip. when you tip them, how much
(09:14):
you tip them, right? Is it 10%? Is it 15?
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Is it a dollar?
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Is it 20%? And if you have ever been familiar
with our country's storage service industry, then you are probably,
like Max alluded to, going to tip about 20% of
a bill using, as you said, Noel, the quick heuristic
that a lot of people employ. Because if you live
(09:42):
in the United States, if you spend a lot of
time there, you realize that folks in the service industries
often depend upon that extra unofficial money to survive. But,
you know, we also should acknowledge getting into this that during.
COVID and post-COVID, there has been a backlash about tipping
(10:05):
being quote unquote expected. And a lot of folks are
saying it's gone too far. I remember in particular, Noel,
you had mentioned on our sister show, Stuff They Don't
Want You To Know, that Now, when we go to
an electronic point of sale, you order a coffee or whatever,
(10:26):
you get an espresso, and you have a separate screen
that pops up once your card runs, and it says,
do you want to tip 18%, 20%, 25%.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
And so on.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
So a lot of people don't love that.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
They don't love that.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
And then there's the whole other conversation around is tipping a, like,
reward for exceptional service, right? Like, and I think a
lot of people look at it that way, where if
you maybe only get so-so service, it is your right to, like,
not tip or to leave a crappy tip. And Max
is vehemently shaking his head, and I understand why. But
(11:04):
I also understand the confusion in this particular process. perspective
I think comes with a certain amount of entitlement and
ignorance around the system. So I'm certainly not supporting that
at all, but here we are with a lot of
people looking at it that way.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Well, Max, I do want to go to you here
because one of the horror stories I read in the
research for this, amid the many horror stories I read
about bad tippers, was a practice that feels so soulless
and manipulative There are really people in the United States
(11:42):
who will quote unquote tip with a fake religious tract
made to look like U.S. currency. And then even worse
than that, there are people, we can't confirm this, who
will walk into a restaurant, take out, you know, five
$ 1 bills and then put them on the table and say,
(12:05):
this is your tip. And anytime I don't like what
you're doing, I'm taking one dollar away. I think those
folks should be kicked out.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Send them to the gulag.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Max, you ever run into this?
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Oh, I mean, not exactly those things, but similar enough
to things. I mean, I'm a big believer that whenever
I train people on like serving or bartending, I was like,
The most important thing to do is to make sure
people get their food. You do the job right. And
then the extra stuff afterwards, that's like, you know, some
(12:38):
people don't want you to talk with them or hang
out with them. Like people have this whole idea like, oh,
you need to become your table's best friend. I'm like, no,
I think people want their food and their drinks. But
then sometimes people want that extra stuff. I am a
big believer that like, you know. There is like, you know, 20%
is like, you did the job. I, you delivered it
because there's also is a point of like the person
(12:58):
didn't do the job. And I mean, that's a whole
debate in itself. And that's like, is it a responsibility
of the customer to pay the employee's wage, which is,
I think, where this is all going to go to
the conversation of this all. But then I don't think
it's like, oh, you did such a great job. Here
is the bare minimum that we're supposed to do. But
it all goes back to this problem of why do
(13:20):
we have this like lexicon, super complex system in this
country of what to tip people, what to pay somebody's wage?
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah. And why is it? An unwritten rule. We've got
to tell you this, folks. Regardless of where you find
yourself in this argument, which is something a lot of
Americans talk about ubiquitously, the way you would talk about
your favorite sports team, there is one truth. Most people,
including fans of tipping and including critics of tipping, have
(13:52):
no idea where this practice comes from, where it originates,
the true origin, ridiculously enough. At least here, this country
is 100% a product of slavery.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Surprise, surprise.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
Right?
Speaker 2 (14:16):
I don't mean, okay, not to be like too droll
about it, but it just, you know, like, oh, you
mean another weird remnant from our toxic past?
Speaker 3 (14:27):
You know, as a country, like there's other.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Examples of things like that that have stuck around well
past their time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
I mean, cast your memories back there, folks, Van Morrison style.
In the days of the founding fathers, when they were
hatching up a revolution and they were still considered terrorists
by old King George, tipping was not a thing. in
the colonies at all. You paid for goods and services
(14:56):
through barter or whatever weird currency was considered acceptable at
the time. That's a whole other bag of badgers. But
what we're saying is the idea of going to an
inn and buying a bowl of soup or a flagon
of ale or Washington's famous eggnog, et cetera, the concept
of paying for that and then throwing another 20% extra
(15:19):
atop that price it would have been considered anywhere between charity, lunacy,
or in some cases, an insult.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
And not to mention, it could have been in some
situations considered a crime to tip people. Officers of the law,
for example, or other government workers, that could be seen,
of course, as it would likely be seen today, as
a bribe.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
There are also certain.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Places you'll go where there are signs up that expressly
forbid tipping. Like, uh, there's this deli, um, at the, uh,
this world market here in Atlanta, um, where there's a
sign up that says you're not allowed to tip.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
You're not supposed to, they're not allowed to accept the
wording is they're not allowed to accept tips.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
And frankly, I've always found that kind of unusual because
this is also an institution that employs a lot of immigrants.
So it feels a little part and parcel with perhaps
taking advantage of their employees.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I can't say I don't know what the folks make there,
but there's part of me that wonders if there's some
nefariousness going on in terms of retaining this employment.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
I do just want to jump in real quick from Futurama,
Panucci's Pizza, where Fry works in the 20th century. The
box says, do not tip the delivery driver.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Or we have a grocery chain here in the southeastern
United States called Publix. And Publix also has the signs
that we mentioned earlier, which say, do not tip the
people who are helping you carry your bags from the
store to the parking lot. We also do have, full disclosure—
(17:04):
a whole new legal form of bribing and corrupting public officials.
We have a euphemism for it. We call it lobbying
or campaign donations. I walked down the street, down the
block for that one, but it needs to be said.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Just a hop, skip, and a jump, yeah, especially as
legislation around those types of campaign contributions have devolved. It
really does appear more and more as just actual facts legalized.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Bribery pay to play.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Kind of stuff um so the etymology we're gonna get
to right now we don't know exactly where the term
itself comes from um it's always kind of struck me
as as odd right and there's even jokes about it
like in looney tunes cartoons where uh i think the
bugs bunny is like asks for a tip or something
something comes up where he's supposed to give a tip
(17:53):
and he says don't leave wax lips on the dresser
on a sunny day oh right yeah right so it's
like this idea of you're You're doing someone a solid, right?
Like you're giving them a good little tidbit of info
that then maybe can be kind of evolved into this
idea of a buck. Right.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
You're giving someone something that will benefit them in the
present or the future, right? Don't take any wooden nickels
is a tip.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
For example, the- If someone hands you a coin, you
got to bite it. Right, right.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
The Oxford English Dictionary has for a long time described
tipping as a slang term possibly originating from something called thieves' cant,
like a special language used by criminals way back in
the day. It still has that conspiratorial aspect meaning– It
(18:51):
likely comes from tip, meaning to strike or to hit
smartly but lightly, and that might come from low German,
tipping to tap or tipping, excuse me, T-I-P-P-E-N. It's an
interesting theory because of that aura of secrecy, and it
makes sense for the cheapskates in the crowd because sometimes
(19:15):
paying a tip can feel, from your perspective, like you
are getting robbed.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Well, unrelated, but related just in terms of the etymology
of it all, I do enjoy how in the UK,
a tip is a garbage dump.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah, just so, right? Boots and hoods, or boots and trunks.
And we know the phrase in English dates back to
around 1600. It usually meant at that time to give
a small present of money, to give a financial gift,
kind of like when your grandmother would send you you
(19:53):
know would slip a 5 or a 10 or a
20 in your birthday card it wasn't until 1706 that
tip became a verb meaning to give a gratuity to
this was this was a spot bonus and as we
would call it today, for doing an above average job.
(20:14):
And we've got some myths to bust. You're going to
hear TIP as an acronym, meaning that it stood, it
was short for to inspire promptness or something like that.
But we checked with our friends at Snopes. That is
not true. It is fun. And we do, I think,
(20:35):
have to take a moment to, while we're being etymology nerds,
look at the word gratuity, which is synonymous with tip.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
It's so weird. It's an odd use of that. I mean,
I think of gratuitous meaning like egregious or, you know, extra.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Way too much.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Okay, that is a little extra, but that is not
the connotation I typically associate with the word gratuitous.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I think of gratuitous violence.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Gratuitous sex you know any kind of uh something that's
just over the top.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Yeah and to jump in here i actually was diving
into uh the term gratuity song because that's like i
the way i think about it's like that's kind of
the fancy nerdy way to refer to tips it's like
oh can i get the gratuity i think uh data
refers to it as in the in the star trek
episode it's gratuity one time and it's like of course
you did data but uh what etymology online um it
(21:32):
comes from Gratuitatum, or from the French term for graciousness,
which is gratuity. I'm just guessing at these pronunciations.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Apologies.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
But basically the idea of a free gift or done
without pay, spontaneous, voluntary. But it comes from the root
of a Proto-Indo-European word, guire, or guiree. Basically, it's to
favor is the idea, but it exists back to the 1530s.
That's like the first documented use of it.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Oh, weird.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
So I wonder, guys, whether gratuity and graciousness or generosity
are related because the idea is it's a voluntary thing.
One does not have to do, but one chooses to do.
And regardless of which theory we go with, We have
(22:30):
to acknowledge the concept of tipping is older than the
United States, even though the U.S. is now the most
infamous tipping culture on the planet. It was really interesting
to learn that historians are not sure when tipping began.
You'll find some folks saying it goes back to the
(22:51):
Roman Empire, but there's this historian we love for this
named Cary Seagrave. who wrote a book in 1998 called Tipping,
An American Social History of Gratuities. And he says it's
not a Roman thing. He says it goes back to
the Middle Ages and to Tudor England.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Medieval times, in fact. No, not the restaurant. I believe
you also, they rely on tips, the surfers there. Tipping
was a master-surf kind of relationship. where a servant would
receive a little extra money for having done a good job.
And from time to time, the landed gentry would also
(23:35):
throw a few extra shekels at their servants, sometimes literally, yeah,
take it, get you from my sight.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Ooh, just like that, what was that film Pacino was in,
Al Pacino, where he, or I'm thinking of every gangster
film ever, where one of those Sopranos-esque organized crime guys
gets in trouble, and then they start just tossing out
currency on the floor. And they're like, fine, here you go.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Yeah, like throwing money at a problem.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
So, again, landed gentry, throwing money at the servant, who
had perhaps fallen on hard times. Perhaps they were suffering
from food scarcity, had.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Been injured, you know, a weird loose.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
very uh what's the word ad hoc form of workman's
comp um losing a loved one or having a child
but again all of this was custom and entirely up
to the master and their discretion.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah we're gonna see that hierarchy coming into play you
know we we've learned that by the 17th century, around the,
you know, through the 1600s, a fancy guest who would
stay overnight at the private homes of their fellow fancy
host would give the servants something called veils, V-A-I-L-S. Having
(25:13):
extra people stay over means so much extra work for you.
So this was not seen as condescending at that point.
It was seen as a courtesy, like, thank you for
doing so much more work. And at the time, even then,
you guys, some people complained about this practice. There were
(25:34):
people as early as the late 1600s, beginning of the
1700s in Europe, saying, look, I'm not a bad person.
I'm fine giving a veil occasionally, but I don't like
how these people that are beneath me seem to be
expecting me to give them money, which still just reeks
(25:59):
of entitlement.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
And despite that bit of controversy, it wasn't long before
the practice kind of took off.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Spread past the estates.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Of the aforementioned landed gentry. Customers at London coffee houses,
for example, and other businesses began tipping as well. Ben,
is this like, I mean, I think that's what we
were already kind of spelling out a bit, but it
just seems to me that at this point, it's almost
(26:31):
a flex, right? It's like a show of wealth and
a way of sort of, I don't know, a power move.
in a way.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, very much so. And, and there's arguably some toxicity
to it. Uh, no matter how well intentioned it would be,
because now imagine, uh, imagine we are, uh, max, the
Duke of Williams. And we have a, uh, we have
(27:00):
a tailor that we visit routinely, right. And we have
a coffee house we go to routinely, uh, And we're saying,
you know, we are not so different, you and I, here.
I understand that you work very hard and I have
leftover money. So take my financial leftovers. My scraps.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Yes, indeed. Peasants. And dance for them. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
And dance for me while you tailor my suit. I
know that's physically impossible, but do your best.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
And now you two fight to the death.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
That's another great gangster scene.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Also involving Michael Imperioli in one of his first roles
where he plays Spider, the bartender slash kind of servant
boy in the back rooms where the gangsters of Goodfellas
did their, you know, seedy card games. And Joe Pesci,
he offends him in some way, so he shoots guns
at his feet and tells him to dance, you know,
(28:02):
and then he ends up shooting him in the foot.
And he goes, you shot Spider in the foot, you know?
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Ooh, like Tori Lane in Megan the Stallion.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Tory Lane went to jail. He's an emcee. He got
locked up because he shot another musician, Megan Thee Stallion,
in the foot.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Oh, geez, I didn't know that. It must have been inspired,
which also is inspired by Old West kind of behavior, obviously.
But then in a similar move to what happened in Sopranos,
then Spider, you know, comes back with a bandage around
his foot at a later point. date and tells, you know,
Joe Pesci's character to go F himself. And he just,
she shoots him in the face.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Joe Pesci.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Everyone's just laughing because they find it really funny. And
Joe Pesci was completely out of hand.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
He's dead-eyed at first. It's terrifying.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
And then he shoots him a bunch of times.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
Yeah, this is a kind of point out like how
insane Joe Pesci's character is supposed to be. It's just like,
you know, everyone's like, oh, this is really funny. And
Joe Pesci just like murders the guy. It's like, what
is wrong with you, dude?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
And from everything we've heard about Joe Pesci, the person
whom we have not met, he's different from his characters. Also,
this is a bit of insurance for us. Joe, if
you're tuning in, thank you. Please don't shoot us. We've
got the rough understanding of the origin of this extra
(29:23):
payment thing happening. We have to give you the quiet
part out loud. After the American Revolution, for a long time,
the fancy pants folks of this newly minted, emergent United States.
they had a big chip on their shoulder. They had
a lot of insecurity about the European cousins, which kind
(29:46):
of is– it's also part of the origin of the
transatlantic accent.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, you know, American Revolution was
about separating ourselves, this country, from our, you know, European
overlords and establishing an identity that was independent of them
both financially and culturally. But that doesn't mean that a
(30:13):
lot of the cultural things didn't stick around or had
a little bit of a stronger foothold than maybe we
as a country would have even liked to admit.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Agreed.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
We see that post-Civil War and then into the Gilded
Age of the early 1900s, there was a small, rarefied
demographic of well-off Americans in the States who were able
to travel across the pond. As they would put it,
they wanted to be casual. They would go across the
(30:48):
Atlantic Ocean and they would travel to Europe. and they
often would pride themselves on returning home with ostentatious, performative
European habits.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Oh, geez. It's like your friend that goes to London
for a week and comes back talking like Madonna when
she was married to Guy Ritchie.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
It's insufferable. It's insufferable.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
I want to shout out a super hilarious internet post
I saw where there was a lady sitting in a
restaurant And she overheard people on a first date and
a guy apparently said, gosh, I forgot how to use
a fork because I spent so much time in Korea.
(31:31):
And it's like, come on, dude.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I mean, I have a buddy who's lived in London
for quite some time.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
But I do rag him on the fact that every
time he comes around, I'm already doing it and making
fun of him a little bit. He asks if I
want to. go down the pub for a pint. And
I'm like, mate, give me an effing break. We were
in Boy Scouts together in Georgia. Stop it.
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Ben, do you have to remind them to tip at
the pub?
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Good question. What are tipping rules in the UK? Are
they similar to the way they are in France?
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Well, roundup.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Is usually going to be the one you can get
away with. So what we're saying is there was this
bid from, again, a very small part of the U.S.
population to seem more worldly, more aristocratic. These folks were
kind of insecure. They imported this idea of tipping from
old money Europe to the United States, and everybody else
(32:28):
in the United States saw this as a condescending, rude,
I'll say it, they saw it as a dickish move
instead of as a, Courtesy, because they were like, well,
you Gilded Age folks, you just want to keep up
with the European Joneses. You are, as a result, just
Jonesing to look cool, right? To impress each other.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Aristocratic.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
This tied in with two pretty formative industries in the nation.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Very, very high-grossing industries, right?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Railroads being the highest grossing of course uh and restaurants
um and then of course the aforementioned uh spoiler alert slavery.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah yep and as we said this is a two-part
episode you may have seen the title the um the
racist origins of tipping or the we'll, we'll see what
we wind up publishing this as, but we do want to,
as we're wrapping up part one, shout out the phenomenal
(33:37):
work of an author and activist named Saru Jayaraman. In 2016,
this author wrote a book called Fort, a new standard
for American dining. And as this author writes, explains in
chilling detail. Those industries that you just mentioned, Bill, they
(33:59):
embraced discrimination in a huge way at the end of
the Civil War because a ton of newly freed people
were hitting the job market and the folks in power,
particularly a guy named George Mortimer Pullman, said, how can
I screw these people over more? Thank you for the
(34:21):
thumbs down there, Max. I agree with you.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
This guy's a pill. Is that not a good cliffhanger,
that very question?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
How can I screw these people over more? So maybe
we do leave it here for today's part one of
the history of tipping and lead off part two, getting
into that racist origin that we teased.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
Agreed.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Thanks, as always, to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
Thanks to, of course, A.J. Bahamas Jacobs, the puzzler. Thanks
also to Jonathan Strickland, a.k.a. the Quister, eternally known as
a terrible tipper. I'm kidding. I'm kidding, Jonathan. We don't
(35:04):
know this about Jonathan. We don't know that about him.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
I bet he's a lovely tipper.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I bet he's a lovely tipper. Although, you know what?
Speaker 3 (35:09):
It's funny you mentioned it, but I could see him
having a bit of a Mr.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Pink view on this.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
But we don't know this.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
I think I think I've talked with him. I think
he is a good tip.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
I think he probably is.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
But he is still a monster. Well, that's even sure
for our purposes here. Matt, massive bad guy.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Yeah. Big, big thanks, of course, to the rude dudes
of Ridiculous Crime. If you dig us, you'll love them.
Let's see.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Who else?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Who else?
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Well, Christy Frost, you know, doesn't use Jeff goes here
in spirit, of course.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
And thanks to Maximilian Big Tipper Williams for his contributions
to this research helmed by you, Ben, who I also think.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Oh, my gosh. We'll just we'll get we'll all give
each other 20 percent, which I think gets us to
60 percent of whatever our tab is for this show.
Speaker 3 (35:57):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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