September 2, 2020 • 12 mins
We're back with another handful of phrase origins.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
Jerry's out there fiddling around somewhere in the ether neet
of the internet and the whatever, and this is short stuff.
Let me just stop talking. Let's go. Yeah. This is
something we've done before and we will do again because
as everyone knows, we like phrase origins. I especially love
(00:24):
phrase origins, and I think we're doing three today, the
second one which can be summed up in like a
single sentence, probably, But we're gonna start with a grain
of salt. Take it with a grain of salt, buddy,
I will take it with the grain of salt because
I've just ingested some poison. No salt won't help that.
(00:45):
Oh well, according to Pliny the Elder, it would. And
they think that that's where the phrase take this with
a grain of salt really finds its origin. And by
the way, take something with the grain of salt means that, um,
you should be skeptical of what you're about to hear
or see or whatever. Um that that there's this information
that you're about to receive is of dubious origin. Right. Um,
(01:09):
That's that's the current understanding of take it with a
grain of salt, or a pinch of salt, or a
dose of salt, however you put it. That's the current
meaning of it. But they think as far back as
uh Pliny the Elder's naturalist hystoria um, that that that's
where it finds its origin. That's actually kind of a
referential thing to that to a recipe he gave under
the walnuts section. Yeah, take two dried walnuts, two figs,
(01:33):
and twenty leaves of rue. Pound them all together with
the addition of a grain of salt. If a person
takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all
poisons for that day. So if you were if you
thought you were going to be poisoned that day, before
you eat breakfast, eat this concoction that includes a grain
of salt, and no poison will befall you. Yeah, but
(01:57):
here's the deal. That explains nothing about this phrase other
than he said the words grain of salt in his language,
which was com grano salis okay, because it's not metaphorical,
it's literal. If you want to talk about metaphor um,
you need to flash forward quite a bit. Until John
(02:18):
Trapp used it in a book called The Commentary Commentary
on Old and New Testaments Colon Boring, No fright. I
just made that part up. And he said this is
to be taken with a grain of salt, but we
still aren't sure what he meant by that. I want
to hazard a guess here. I think what John Trapp,
(02:41):
who has a great name by the way, um, what
he was saying is that this the following is very
difficult to to hear or it's um hard information to swallow,
a k A poisonous Okay, so you would have to
take this with a grain of salt. That's my guess. Now,
(03:03):
I'm putting this out there everybody, because this is a
short stuff. I did not go to the trouble of
reading John Trapp's commentary on the Old and New Testaments.
So it's a guess. But man, oh man, it is
a good guess. Yeah, that makes sense. And it did
pop up since then, but usually again referring to actual
grains of salt than in in the A and A.
(03:25):
Um it's a literary journal. Had this line are reasons
for not accepting the author's pictures of early Ireland without
many grains of salt, which I can even make heads
retails of that sentence period. No, but I think they
were wailing on the photographer, which it's like, just don't
accept the pictures, don't make fun of them in the
in the magazine. That's like us criticizing how Stuff Works
(03:47):
articles that we based episodes on. We'd never do that. No,
just be mean, but this doesn't. And I think this
one frustrated me because even that it still doesn't say
where it came from, like or why they started saying
grain of salt to mean what they meant metaphorically. Yes,
because it was terribly written in this House Stuff Works article.
(04:10):
Well did you find a real reason because I couldn't.
I didn't. I didn't. It just kind of suddenly, is
like it just appeared. And I get the impression that
the grain of salt is kind of appeared out of nowhere,
that it was um not appeared out of nowhere, that
they have kind of traced it back. But there's not
any real clarification. I'll tell you what has a clarification
check a clear lineage, and that is the phrase close
(04:35):
but no cigar. Yeah, this one's easy. Uh, And we
can definitely get this in in the next minute and
twenty seconds before our break because it's super easy. Uh,
in the early twenty century when you went to these
traveling carnivals and they had these rip off games where
you would throw a ring on a coke bottle or
shoot a basketball into a hoop that's barely the size
(04:57):
of a basketball, which I didn't figure out sold. I
was way too old that that was not a standard hoop.
Did Gray, Hairy Body? Then I did, Uh, you're you're
meant to not win those games generally, or to come
close and want to spend more money. And that's the
whole idea. But back then, what was the prize or
one of the prizes that you would get a cigar?
(05:19):
That's right. So if you were sitting there throwing, you know,
doing a ring toss around some glass bottles and you
missed and you missed, and you missed, you ran out
of rings, the carnival barker would say close, but no cigar,
No cigar. So that's where that origin comes from, where
that phrase comes from it, which is great because it's
(05:39):
a nice, tidy package. There's no controversy, no disputing it,
and it's just done. It's not like that ugly, horrible
grain of salt origin. Yeah, and kids. It's six year
olds everywhere would go will I never get the cigar,
and their dad would say, here you go, son, have mine.
(06:00):
That was great. Should we take a break? Yeah, I
thought that was implied by the pregnant pause. All right,
we'll talk about South pause right after this. That's why
SKA you should know, y ska that you should know, nose,
but Josh Clarks watch sks you should know. Alright, Chuck,
(06:36):
we're talking South pause. And this one's like a neat
combination between horrible, ugly grain of salt and beautiful perfect
close but no cigar because there's a lot of different
ideas that that um are competing for the origin that
aren't necessarily right, but aren't necessarily wrong either. So there's
a lot of great info involved, that's right. Uh, And
(07:00):
and it kind of comes down to a couple of sports.
South paul Is um has long been linked to boxing
and baseball. Rocky Balboa was a south Paw, no, was he? Yeah?
I think so right. I don't know. I don't pay
that clothes of attention. I'm just enthralled by the action.
You were just all about those muscles. Yeah, yeah, I
(07:22):
think it was. I think it was kind of a
deal that he was a southball. Uh So you've long
heard it to be about boxers in baseball, but generally,
even um, more specifically, it's been associated with pitchers. A
left handed pitcher is known as a southball. Okay, yes,
now that's that's the one I've always heard it from.
I'm never Oh no, I'm sorry, I was about to
say the reverse of the truth. I've always heard it from, right, Um,
(07:48):
the the I've always heard of it being associated with boxing.
I've never heard of associated with baseball. Okay, yeah, baseball pitchers.
Generally it's you know, it's an old school term, but
I've I've definitely heard it before. So even before necessarily
it was involved in boxing, or it was involved with boxing.
Um and this there was a political cartoon that was
referencing boxing, and we just didn't realize it. Um. There
(08:11):
the earliest one of the earliest mentions of the left
hand especially involved in delivering a punch, being called the
south paw, comes from eighty eight editorial cartoon that showed
um a candidate named Lewis Cass who was running for
the Democrats. He had just laid out Zachary Taylor and
(08:31):
Taylor's running mate Millard Fillmore, UM and Millard Fillmore as
a black eye. And there's a quote coming from him
which Chuck, I think that you would be really good
to read this quote. Curse the old hoss. What a
south Paul he has given me. That's that was one
of the best Millard Fillmore impressions I've ever heard in
my life. W ot watt I'm gonna bring that one back. Yep.
(08:55):
So Millard Fillmore is calling Um at the very least
the punch that lew his cast landed on him a
south paw. If not Lewis Cass a south paw for
using his left hand, who knows, but the idea is
south paw and knocking a person to the ground with
your fists was associated at least as early as eighteen
forty eight, at least as politics is concerned. Yeah, there
(09:17):
was UM. There were more specific boxing references. There was
one in eighteen sixty in a bare knuckle um fight,
I guess or boxing match pugilists squaring off against one another,
it's another way to put it. In the New York Herald,
the reporter David woods Um reported that in the ninth round,
uh I'm sorry, David Woods was the boxer. David Woods
(09:40):
planted his south paw under the chin, under his opponent's chin,
laying him flat as a pancake. And that wasn't calling
him a south ball, but called his fist his south paw.
To words right, So okay, So that's that's good enough
for me, I say boxing. But unfortunately, there's some contemporaneous
(10:01):
use of south paw as far as um pitching goes
as far back as eighteen fifty eight. In the New
York Atlas, there's mention of left handed first basement, who's
called the south paw That predates that boxing reference, although
it comes after the Millard Fillmore quote. Um. There's some others,
like in eight seventy five edition of St. Louis newspaper UM.
(10:24):
So it seems to have been associated not just with pictures,
but the pictures are the ones who have the great
origin story of associating left handedness with being a south paw. Yeah,
and there was you know, some people said that ballparks
were oriented in the eighteen hundreds with home plate um
facing west, which meant that a lefty player facing west
(10:45):
would be pitching with his south paw but you know,
not all baseball stadiums were oriented that way, so that
seems a little flimsy to me. Um. I was seeing
of the boxing thing. If you're a boxer, you've got
your right hand sort of up as your lead hand,
and your left hand would be south so that might
(11:06):
be your south paw. But if you are a south
ball then your left hand is up, so that doesn't
really make sense. That's right, that's right. It's not sensible
at all, which means it's not solved. We have no
idea what the true origin of south paw is, but
at least there's a lot more information about it that
we can choose from and make your own decision. So
are we one for three on this one? No, we're
(11:27):
two for three. I'm including South Touth because it's so
great close but no cigars literally perfect, And then I
don't even want to bring up the other one again. Yeah,
I'm gonna go on assault free diet for the next
week because of this episode. Yeah, that'll show salt um. Well,
if you want to show salt uh, well, you do
that same thing yourself. And because we have run out
(11:49):
of things to say, everybody short stuff is out stuff
You should know is production of I Heart Radios How
Stuff Works. For more podcast My Heart Radio, visit the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. M h m hm
Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
Jerry's out there fiddling around somewhere in the ether neet
of the internet and the whatever, and this is short stuff.
Let me just stop talking. Let's go. Yeah. This is
something we've done before and we will do again because
as everyone knows, we like phrase origins. I especially love
(00:24):
phrase origins, and I think we're doing three today, the
second one which can be summed up in like a
single sentence, probably, But we're gonna start with a grain
of salt. Take it with a grain of salt, buddy,
I will take it with the grain of salt because
I've just ingested some poison. No salt won't help that.
(00:45):
Oh well, according to Pliny the Elder, it would. And
they think that that's where the phrase take this with
a grain of salt really finds its origin. And by
the way, take something with the grain of salt means that, um,
you should be skeptical of what you're about to hear
or see or whatever. Um that that there's this information
that you're about to receive is of dubious origin. Right. Um,
(01:09):
That's that's the current understanding of take it with a
grain of salt, or a pinch of salt, or a
dose of salt, however you put it. That's the current
meaning of it. But they think as far back as
uh Pliny the Elder's naturalist hystoria um, that that that's
where it finds its origin. That's actually kind of a
referential thing to that to a recipe he gave under
the walnuts section. Yeah, take two dried walnuts, two figs,
(01:33):
and twenty leaves of rue. Pound them all together with
the addition of a grain of salt. If a person
takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all
poisons for that day. So if you were if you
thought you were going to be poisoned that day, before
you eat breakfast, eat this concoction that includes a grain
of salt, and no poison will befall you. Yeah, but
(01:57):
here's the deal. That explains nothing about this phrase other
than he said the words grain of salt in his language,
which was com grano salis okay, because it's not metaphorical,
it's literal. If you want to talk about metaphor um,
you need to flash forward quite a bit. Until John
(02:18):
Trapp used it in a book called The Commentary Commentary
on Old and New Testaments Colon Boring, No fright. I
just made that part up. And he said this is
to be taken with a grain of salt, but we
still aren't sure what he meant by that. I want
to hazard a guess here. I think what John Trapp,
(02:41):
who has a great name by the way, um, what
he was saying is that this the following is very
difficult to to hear or it's um hard information to swallow,
a k A poisonous Okay, so you would have to
take this with a grain of salt. That's my guess. Now,
(03:03):
I'm putting this out there everybody, because this is a
short stuff. I did not go to the trouble of
reading John Trapp's commentary on the Old and New Testaments.
So it's a guess. But man, oh man, it is
a good guess. Yeah, that makes sense. And it did
pop up since then, but usually again referring to actual
grains of salt than in in the A and A.
(03:25):
Um it's a literary journal. Had this line are reasons
for not accepting the author's pictures of early Ireland without
many grains of salt, which I can even make heads
retails of that sentence period. No, but I think they
were wailing on the photographer, which it's like, just don't
accept the pictures, don't make fun of them in the
in the magazine. That's like us criticizing how Stuff Works
(03:47):
articles that we based episodes on. We'd never do that. No,
just be mean, but this doesn't. And I think this
one frustrated me because even that it still doesn't say
where it came from, like or why they started saying
grain of salt to mean what they meant metaphorically. Yes,
because it was terribly written in this House Stuff Works article.
(04:10):
Well did you find a real reason because I couldn't.
I didn't. I didn't. It just kind of suddenly, is
like it just appeared. And I get the impression that
the grain of salt is kind of appeared out of nowhere,
that it was um not appeared out of nowhere, that
they have kind of traced it back. But there's not
any real clarification. I'll tell you what has a clarification
check a clear lineage, and that is the phrase close
(04:35):
but no cigar. Yeah, this one's easy. Uh, And we
can definitely get this in in the next minute and
twenty seconds before our break because it's super easy. Uh,
in the early twenty century when you went to these
traveling carnivals and they had these rip off games where
you would throw a ring on a coke bottle or
shoot a basketball into a hoop that's barely the size
(04:57):
of a basketball, which I didn't figure out sold. I
was way too old that that was not a standard hoop.
Did Gray, Hairy Body? Then I did, Uh, you're you're
meant to not win those games generally, or to come
close and want to spend more money. And that's the
whole idea. But back then, what was the prize or
one of the prizes that you would get a cigar?
(05:19):
That's right. So if you were sitting there throwing, you know,
doing a ring toss around some glass bottles and you
missed and you missed, and you missed, you ran out
of rings, the carnival barker would say close, but no cigar,
No cigar. So that's where that origin comes from, where
that phrase comes from it, which is great because it's
(05:39):
a nice, tidy package. There's no controversy, no disputing it,
and it's just done. It's not like that ugly, horrible
grain of salt origin. Yeah, and kids. It's six year
olds everywhere would go will I never get the cigar,
and their dad would say, here you go, son, have mine.
(06:00):
That was great. Should we take a break? Yeah, I
thought that was implied by the pregnant pause. All right,
we'll talk about South pause right after this. That's why
SKA you should know, y ska that you should know, nose,
but Josh Clarks watch sks you should know. Alright, Chuck,
(06:36):
we're talking South pause. And this one's like a neat
combination between horrible, ugly grain of salt and beautiful perfect
close but no cigar because there's a lot of different
ideas that that um are competing for the origin that
aren't necessarily right, but aren't necessarily wrong either. So there's
a lot of great info involved, that's right. Uh, And
(07:00):
and it kind of comes down to a couple of sports.
South paul Is um has long been linked to boxing
and baseball. Rocky Balboa was a south Paw, no, was he? Yeah?
I think so right. I don't know. I don't pay
that clothes of attention. I'm just enthralled by the action.
You were just all about those muscles. Yeah, yeah, I
(07:22):
think it was. I think it was kind of a
deal that he was a southball. Uh So you've long
heard it to be about boxers in baseball, but generally,
even um, more specifically, it's been associated with pitchers. A
left handed pitcher is known as a southball. Okay, yes,
now that's that's the one I've always heard it from.
I'm never Oh no, I'm sorry, I was about to
say the reverse of the truth. I've always heard it from, right, Um,
(07:48):
the the I've always heard of it being associated with boxing.
I've never heard of associated with baseball. Okay, yeah, baseball pitchers.
Generally it's you know, it's an old school term, but
I've I've definitely heard it before. So even before necessarily
it was involved in boxing, or it was involved with boxing.
Um and this there was a political cartoon that was
referencing boxing, and we just didn't realize it. Um. There
(08:11):
the earliest one of the earliest mentions of the left
hand especially involved in delivering a punch, being called the
south paw, comes from eighty eight editorial cartoon that showed
um a candidate named Lewis Cass who was running for
the Democrats. He had just laid out Zachary Taylor and
(08:31):
Taylor's running mate Millard Fillmore, UM and Millard Fillmore as
a black eye. And there's a quote coming from him
which Chuck, I think that you would be really good
to read this quote. Curse the old hoss. What a
south Paul he has given me. That's that was one
of the best Millard Fillmore impressions I've ever heard in
my life. W ot watt I'm gonna bring that one back. Yep.
(08:55):
So Millard Fillmore is calling Um at the very least
the punch that lew his cast landed on him a
south paw. If not Lewis Cass a south paw for
using his left hand, who knows, but the idea is
south paw and knocking a person to the ground with
your fists was associated at least as early as eighteen
forty eight, at least as politics is concerned. Yeah, there
(09:17):
was UM. There were more specific boxing references. There was
one in eighteen sixty in a bare knuckle um fight,
I guess or boxing match pugilists squaring off against one another,
it's another way to put it. In the New York Herald,
the reporter David woods Um reported that in the ninth round,
uh I'm sorry, David Woods was the boxer. David Woods
(09:40):
planted his south paw under the chin, under his opponent's chin,
laying him flat as a pancake. And that wasn't calling
him a south ball, but called his fist his south paw.
To words right, So okay, So that's that's good enough
for me, I say boxing. But unfortunately, there's some contemporaneous
(10:01):
use of south paw as far as um pitching goes
as far back as eighteen fifty eight. In the New
York Atlas, there's mention of left handed first basement, who's
called the south paw That predates that boxing reference, although
it comes after the Millard Fillmore quote. Um. There's some others,
like in eight seventy five edition of St. Louis newspaper UM.
(10:24):
So it seems to have been associated not just with pictures,
but the pictures are the ones who have the great
origin story of associating left handedness with being a south paw. Yeah,
and there was you know, some people said that ballparks
were oriented in the eighteen hundreds with home plate um
facing west, which meant that a lefty player facing west
(10:45):
would be pitching with his south paw but you know,
not all baseball stadiums were oriented that way, so that
seems a little flimsy to me. Um. I was seeing
of the boxing thing. If you're a boxer, you've got
your right hand sort of up as your lead hand,
and your left hand would be south so that might
(11:06):
be your south paw. But if you are a south
ball then your left hand is up, so that doesn't
really make sense. That's right, that's right. It's not sensible
at all, which means it's not solved. We have no
idea what the true origin of south paw is, but
at least there's a lot more information about it that
we can choose from and make your own decision. So
are we one for three on this one? No, we're
(11:27):
two for three. I'm including South Touth because it's so
great close but no cigars literally perfect, And then I
don't even want to bring up the other one again. Yeah,
I'm gonna go on assault free diet for the next
week because of this episode. Yeah, that'll show salt um. Well,
if you want to show salt uh, well, you do
that same thing yourself. And because we have run out
(11:49):
of things to say, everybody short stuff is out stuff
You should know is production of I Heart Radios How
Stuff Works. For more podcast My Heart Radio, visit the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. M h m hm
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