Q&A – The Origin of the Expression ‘86’

The origin of the term is in fact the mob...

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:13):
You have questions, Brian has answers. It's time for today's
Q and A of today. This is the Brian Mud
Show and Today's Q.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
And A the origin of the expression eighty six. This
is brought to you by mom listen Ashes, check mark collections.
Each day I feature a listener questions and by one
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(00:44):
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(01:05):
You see it, you tap it, you may lay down
the message right there, maybe for a future Q and
A just like this one. Hey, the eighty six thing
actually came from the mob. It was to take somebody
eight miles out and put them six.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Feet on there.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, so about the whole origin of the eighty six
thing in the grand scheme of things you probably didn't
have on your Bingo card recently, would be a that
James Commeny would be back in the news, right, didn't
really expect to talk about tall tales by James Comy. Hease,
that's truthful as ever, I mean, that's consistent, and b
that would be parsing out what the meaning of eighty

(01:43):
six is. But here we are after James F. Comey
cryptically posted a seashell formation stating eighty six forty seven
with a note, hey, hey, cool shell formation. Everybody on
my beachwalk Now, I know that you, like me, have

(02:09):
never really walked the beach without coming across things like hey,
we should whack this per I'm sorry cool shell formations
like that because and of course he had nothing to
do with the arrangement of the shells. So there's a
lot that said with a little here. But the question
is how much exactly was the former FBI director who

(02:34):
has proven to be a key figure in an effort
to undermine our representative Republic lest we forget through the
perpetuation of the Trump RuSHA collusion hoax, who also let
Hillary Clinton off the hook during the same twenty sixteen cycle,
truly unaware of the implications of what eighty six could mean,
as he claims, is that possible? Truly competent FBI director.

(03:02):
So this is what the Secret Service is investigating. So
about the term eighty six. Let's dive into this thing.
Let's dive into its meaning. As search of things online
that'll make use several different results. No shortage of stories
that have quickly been filed by the usual suspects in
the GSS media looking to soften the blow for comy.

(03:25):
Take this AP headline, for example, The old slang term
eighty six probably started as a restaurant worker jargon. Suddenly
it's in the news. Yeah, probably too. It's some good
solid news reporting right there. It probably was. This The

(03:47):
AP and others flooding this narrative evidently think you're stupid,
do you. I'm just curious, Joel, do you think that
you're being treated as they're stupid with things like that.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
I mean things like everything everything they do is makes
us feel like we're you know, we're we're supposed to
be this dumb.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah, it was a soda jerk. They started with the
soda jerks.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Eighty six loud that flavor's gone eighty six come on, well.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
In the come on, come on man, yeah, and the
come on man with this one.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Why eighty six?

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Right, it was a random it's a soda jerk thing
or probably where with the eighty six. So you need
to get an answer to that. There has to be
some logical explanation.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
And I read somewhere that said it could be again
the probably it could be uh.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Because it rhymes with nix. Oh my gosh, that's actually serious.
I did look into that. Yeah, oh my god, see
that somewhere too. Yeah, mixed this eighty six nicks.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, okay, So yes, has it been used in the
context of restaurants running out of menu items for example,
and nixing as Joel was just talking about uh offering
those items?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
I guess yes.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
In fact, when I was working as a teenager in
the food service industry, actually did have a cook that
would use that in reference to running out of food, Hey, Nicks,
whatever it is, like, Nick's this special today, We're out
of it?

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Okay? Is that the real backstory here?

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Not even close, As the listener who submitted today's talk
back said, the origin of the term is in fact
the mob.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
And by the way, what I'm getting ready to share
with you, this is not probably, This isn't open to interpretation.
This isn't a hey, I think the leading idea is X.
I'm telling you flat out the origin story. There's no room,
there's no alternate explanation. This is it, and it'll make
perfect sense as soon as I give it to you
here momentarily. It is a mob reference, the first time

(05:45):
it's ever documented, and it certainly have going to have
been the first time it was used because of the
specificity of the situation. Although the one thing that is
different it's not what the listener said. The origin of
it anyway, was not eight miles six feet out, you know,
take somebody eight miles six feet under that. I'm not

(06:07):
saying it wasn't used subsequently by the mob or anybody
else that way, maybe, but that's not the origin of it.
The first documented use of the term eighty six occurred
in New York City by the Mob while running alcohol
through speakeasies during Prohibition in the twenties. The top speakeasy
of the day was Chumney's, as is detailed, and the

(06:32):
New York Post twenty fifteen story Gotti Guns and Gay
Bars inside New York City's Mob History shold that.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
It is that something the Palm Beach School superintendent once said.
Doesn't that sound like something that Michael Burke would say,
Gotty's guns and gay bars, the cash guns and lawyers
or something.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
It just sounded am it makes mus have a ring too,
It isn't it?

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, here's the key to the origin ste The address
of Chumley's wasn't is an incarnation of it reopened in
twenty sixteen, eighty six Bedford Street. The origin of the
saying eighty six is eighty six Bedford Street, New York City.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
It is not a coincidence.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
The Mob had someone on the inside of the NYPD
who would tip off the speakeasy to plan inspections, and
on at least a couple of occasions, planned raids. The
deal was anytime the term eighty six was used in
the bar, and it could have been, and at the
beginning was as innocent sounding as someone calling the bar

(07:44):
and asking to confirm the address with the bartender, and
the bartender might say something like, yes, we're at eighty
six Bedford, and the moment eighty six was said by
the bartender from patrons, mobsters.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Whatever it meant, get out and get rid of the evidence.
That's what it was.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
Patrons, everybody here participating in the speakeasy, get out, take
the booze with you, get rid of it. And that's
not only a fun fact origin story, but it's also
instructive because from the first time it was used, the
term eighty six meant to put an end to an
operation and to get rid of the evidence. It was
after the Prohibition era that the term came to catch on,

(08:29):
with the mob likely being the perpetuator of it. Still
further from there, given that they were the origin of it,
but that takes us to the modern day considerations. The
current definition of what eighty six means, according to Merriam Webster,
is this. They say eighty six is a is slang
meaning to throw out, to get rid of, or to refuse,

(08:51):
to mix, to nix okay, So many have tried to
use that definition as an explanation. However, you can't defend
Comy E with that, even if you take the Merriam
Webster definition of it. Today, how is it that you

(09:12):
throw out, get rid of, or nix the president of
the United States currently? Think about that now, if you remember,
context is always key. The last time there was a
national conversation about this was in October twenty twenty. You

(09:32):
may recall Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, during an episode to
Meet the Press, had a sign sitting behind her, visible
on screen that said eighty six forty five, and at
the time a lot of us raise concerns thought it
was an extremely dangerous message to be conveyed. However, the
context was different. We were under a month away from

(09:53):
the presidential election, and that message, poor form as it was,
could have been interpreted Maine. She simply wanted Trump voted
out of office. Right, get him out of office. We got
an election here in a couple of weeks. Plausible. Fast
forward to today, the context has changed entirely. President Trump
has had two credible assassination attempts against him, one leading

(10:16):
to him having been shot. Additionally, as a full term
president and there were only months of his second administration.
How what is the only way that Trump's going to
be removed? I mean, he's the argument here going to
be well, the message was really for the Republican controlled
Congress to go ahead and impeach and convict him, and
that would remove him. Please, nobody ad buys that there's
only one way for Trump to be removed as president,

(10:39):
and that is for him to die. Add in the
additional context that James Comby literally conspired to attempt to
prevent Trump from becoming president in the first place, the
message is crystal clear. There's always two sides of stories,
one side of facts.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
Those are the facts.