August 8, 2025 • 54 mins
This week, we return to our series on idioms and discuss some phrases that originated around (or refer to) the English Civil Wars.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to an hour of our time, the podcast where
we pick a topic, research it and come back to
tell you what we've learned. This week, we returned to
our anthology series on idioms. In fact, part eight of
this series, we'll be discussing some popular idioms that originate
or relate to the English Civil Wars. You know, after
(00:20):
three episodes, we just can't get away from it. I'm Dave,
I'm jeild Well. Welcome back to our longest running anthology series.
(00:41):
This is episode number eight on idioms.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Joe.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I think we always tend to start in the same way, yes,
which is that we define what an idiom is. No,
we assume that most people have heard our previous episodes,
but it's it's always good to make sure we have
a kind of an even understanding here of what this is.
So for those uninitiated, an idiom and this is from
(01:12):
the Oxford English Dictionary a group of words established by
usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of
the individual words. And the one that we often use
as an example is raining cats and dogs.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yes, yeah, which which we did cover on a previous episode.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
We also often talked about the fact that these are
very difficult for people who are non native speakers. Yes, absolutely,
and different languages have obviously different idioms, so we are
I think in a few previous episodes we've talked about
(01:56):
like idioms known in the languages that don't translate well
to English. But for the most part we're speaking about
English language idioms, and mine, in fact are mainly going
to focus on British English because I actually have a
few that are attached to the subject of a previous
(02:22):
episode effect episodes the Hopefully this isn't the first time
listening to this show, but if it is, thanks for
being here. And in a previous three episode Extravagant, we've
talked about the British Civil Wars. Yeah, so I have
(02:43):
a few idioms that are historically linked with the either
that era or with Oliver Cromwell himself.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, and in fact I have one of those as well,
and I tried to stick to a theme with mine.
My theme is a little broader. It's just idioms that
either were developed or are a reference to something from
the Middle Ages or the Medieval period. And sometimes it's
some sort of a loose translation from Middle English or
(03:17):
a kind of a derivative of French that existed at
the time, so you know things that are roughly from
the time of the English Civil War. Actually several of
these are a couple hundred years earlier, which is interesting
because it calls into conflict whether this one is actually
a reference to Oliver Cromwell or not. So, Joe, do
(03:38):
you want to start us off to remind everybody of
how we play the game here. Usually one of us
will read an idiom, the other one will attempt to
define it and guess its origin, and then the true
origin will be revealed because almost never can you guess
the origin, and we're not usually picking things that are obvious.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, so we're going to to talk about I'm going
to try to go like oldest to to to youngest,
and also well, I don't want to at the risk
of being a spoiler with too much of a spoiler.
(04:17):
A lot of idioms, and we've also found this with
like the origins of different like foods and beverages, that
they have a story, but then people later have like
concocted an explanation for how it got here that is
(04:37):
a historical I think we we kind of like encountered
this when we did our Absinthe episode where there was
a real doctor but he didn't actually invent absinthe, but
the legend goes that he invented it. So people have like,
you know, kind of like come up with that story
after the fact. So some of mine are actually from
(04:59):
this time period and some of them are merely attributed
to this time period. So anyway, I'm going to start
with one that is actually from this time period, or
of around the British Civil War. So, Dave, if I
called something a flash in the pan, what would that
mean to you?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
It means that it's like something that I don't know
that like God, it's fifteen minutes of fame, which is
in itself as an idiom, the idea that it's sort
of something that came and went quickly in terms of
its popularity.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yes, So there's actually kind of like two ways that
this is used. So I think the one is kind
of like what you said, a thing or person whose
sudden but brief success is not repeated or repeatable.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And so it's a one hit wonder.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, they're often used. In nineteen ninety five, a lot
of more sets was referred to by the Los Angeles
Times as a flash in the pan.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
This was an assumption that she would be and then
she went on to not be at all.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, and in fact, her debut album sold ten million
copies in nineteen ninety six and twenty million in the
following years, becoming actually one of the highest selling records
in music history, which I actually didn't know. Well shit, Yeah,
(06:37):
So flashing the pan is can either mean again like
something that you know, pears promising but turns out to
be disappointing or worthless. It can also mean, according to
Mary Webster, a sudden, spasmodic effort that accomplishes nothing. So
it can actually so those are actually kind of like
opposite things. It can either mean something that like it
(06:59):
is worthless or something that like first it is successful,
but then later you can't repeat. That's success. So a
one hit wonder is actually the perfect even though we're
using an idiom to explain an idiom, like you pointed
out that is that's a that's a great or fifteen
(07:23):
minutes of fame. That's a great explanation of it. So
where does this come from? I kind of talked about
this a little bit in the episodes about the British
Civil Warzel that I didn't actually like refer to the idiom,
(07:45):
but I'm first I'm going to tell you what the
incorrect explanation is for it, or incorrect history. So there
is this idea that it comes from the California gold
Rush in the.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Nineteenth century, like sifting gold with a pan.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, listen to our gold Rush episode. So it's the
idea that you would see a flash in your as
you're panning for gold, see a flash or a glint
of gold in the pan that would turn out to
be just an illusion or maybe pyrite like fools gold
or something like that. Now, the phrase something it didn't
(08:26):
pan out or something panning out that can actually be
traced to the the American West in the in the
early twentieth century in reference to the gold rush, but
gold prospecting isn't. So that's a similar phrase. But a
(08:48):
flash in the pan that has a much older origin
and it relates to firearms. Oh, specifically the type of
firearms which we're used during the the sixteen hundreds, during
(09:11):
for instance, the British Civil Wars. So in this kind
of musket, I explained a flintlock and a matchlock musket
at relative length. In that episode, but just really briefly,
there's like something Now, either it's like a piece of
(09:32):
flint that's striking steel to get a spark, or it's
actually like a lit cord of rope that is going down.
But in any case, you have a pan of priming
powder that ignites then travels down into the gun, which
ignites the primary charge that actually shoots the ball out
(09:53):
of the gun. So what you could have is a
misfire where you have the priming powder ignite but not
travel into the gun and actually set off the primary charge.
In other words, you would have a flash in the pan. Yeah,
we also talked about how those guns were notoriously unreliable
(10:19):
and that you would have about a dozen shots before
the gun was clogged and could clogged with soot and
had to be cleaned before it was operable again. So
if you had a flash in the pan, that would
mean it looked like something was happening, but there wouldn't
be the result that you wanted. So that's actually, like
(10:41):
I would say, kind of in between the two definitions
that I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, so now the first mentioned in written apparently there
is people do think that this was used during the
British Civil War, because it would have dated around that
time period. But the earliest like written mention is from
(11:12):
sixteen eighty seven from an author Elkana Settle in Reflections
on several of mister Dryden's plays, where he says, if
canons were so well bred in his metaphor as only
to flash in the Pan, I dare lay and even
wager the mister Dryden durst venture to see.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Well got his ass.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Got his ass. And it did become more popular around
the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, but it really seems to
like really take an off in popularity around the nineteen
hundreds nineteen twenties, and that is probably why it got
(11:59):
conflated with that, not panning out, which does relate to
gold panning.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Some related terms that I won't necessarily discuss would be
lock stock and barrel and fight fire with fire.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Ah okay, yeah, okay, so that is flash in the pan.
Nice Okay, Well, Joe, let me hit you with one
that frankly I'd never heard before, but in reading more
about it, it's certainly not something that I should have
missed because it is used by Hemingway's used by Washington,
Irving in the legend of Sleepy Hollow. It's in a
(12:38):
Radiohead song I just got onto this. It's by hook
or by.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Crook, by hook or by Krook. Okay, so I definitely
have heard this before. But so by hook or by Kirk,
I think that just means like, if I say, like
I'm gonna I'm gonna get this job done by hook
or by crook, it just means that I'm gonna get
it done no matter what.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yes, a good A similar phrase that would be used
is by any means necessary.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
By any means necessary academic sense.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So where do you think this comes from, Joe.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well, I think you kind of told me earlier today
off Mike, So I don't want to like cheat.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Well, this is the Oliver Cromwell one.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Oh Well, I was gonna say, but before you talked
to me about it, I would have said, by hook
or by crook would have probably had something to do
with like shepherds.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Okay, amazing, Okay, because that is right. So there there
is sort of a and a origin story that is
misrepresented that this has to do with Oliver Cromwell when,
as we recently discussed, invaded Ireland. He supposed the vowed
(14:00):
to take Waterford by Hook, which is the name of
an area it's on the Wexford side of the Waterford Estuary,
or to take Crook, which is a village on the
Waterford side. So he was either going to take Hook
or Crook, so by hook or by Crook as the
(14:21):
way he was going to take this area of Ireland.
At least that's how it was attributed. But again we
know that that happened. Oh Man, remind me years for
Cromwell and Ireland sixteen fifties. I was going to say
sixteen fifties, sixteen forty nine to sixteen fifty threes.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Campaign boom, I remember my own podcast.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
The first recorded use of this was in a writing
by someone named John Wycliffe in a book called Controversial
Tracks in thirteen eighty, so far before Oliver Cromwell. And
the thought is it actually comes from the regulation of
(15:07):
firewood at the time. You see, local people were able
to take firewood from common public lands, but there had
to be a regulation for how much they could take.
And the idea is that they can take any branches
that they could reach with a bill hook or a
shepherd's crook, so you reach it by cook or by crook,
(15:29):
so that seems to be the actual origin of it.
But with Cromwell you can see how it gets tied in,
and in either case it means by any means necessary,
or at least by I guess not by any means
necessary really means by these. In the Cromwell definition it
means by any means necessary. In the Firewood one, it
(15:50):
basically means by set regulation. Okay, interesting, So I would
say the Oliver Cromwell definition origin is false, but it
more the story more resembles what the phrase means today. Okay, it,
but it's actually older than Cromwell by a couple hundred years.
(16:12):
Thirteen eighty is his first usage.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
So interesting that sounds like Middle Englishye to me.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I would say, so yeah, bye bye hooky or.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Crooky, you know, like when they're still like writing the
E at the end of words with the K.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah. I'm not totally sure how it is used in
controversial tracks, which definitely like sounds like the next Ye
album controversial because it's about being a Nazi. But but
I want to look this up and see if I
(16:48):
can find the actual thing. Wow, oh yeah, I went there.
I can't find quickly. The interesting I can't find the
actual usage in this writing from thirteen eighty, but there
is somebody here that kind of is talking about it
(17:10):
and says that a definition for what it means in
that writing is by fair means or foul. So there's
your by any means necessary. Again, doesn't seem to tie
in with the brain of the wood on public Land thing,
but okay, all right, interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Well, so what about the phrase keep your powder dry? Hmmmmm.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It's one of my favorite songs of all time, Don't
Forget Me by Harry Nielsen.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Okay, Um, it means.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Doesn't it mean like to be true, to be faithful,
to be loyal?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Uh no?
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
So it was most famously recently used on September nineteenth,
twenty twenty, when undead asshole Mitch McConnell told it is
his caucus to keep their powder dry, meaning like in
(18:26):
the context of like not saying to reporters whether they're
whether they're going to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. Is
also used as the title of the nineteen forty five
movie Keep Your Powder Dry. But what it means is, basically,
it's got to be a gunpowder thing. Right, it is
(18:47):
a gunpowder thing. So it's asking people to remain cautious, okay,
and being and being ready for like an emergency.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
So this is interesting because this is attributed to Oliver
Cromwell really and we discussed this in the episode about
the British Civil War that he was the leader of
the new model Army where if you do the episode,
England did not have a standing army. They were not
common at the time. The parliamentarians erected a standing army
(19:25):
where they had like trained soldiers that they drilled, who
are professional soldiers, and they often won battles against their adversaries,
the Royalists, because they had better training and they would
stay calm and not for instance, chase their opponents after
a cavalry charge or something like that, or after they
had broken ranks and they would like, you know, stay
(19:49):
stay within their ranks and things like that. Okay. So
it definitely sounds like something that would be attributed to
or there's something that he would say. And I suppose
the quote is trust in God and keep your powder dry. Now,
this is a gunpowder thing. So again this goes back
to those matchlock rifles or a muscuts, I should say,
(20:15):
you have an open pan of black powder sitting on
this thing, sure, and so if it is you would
you would really need to keep it dry because the
powder won't ignite. But like if it's it's raining, or
you've kept it in like a human environment, it's not
going to ignite. So keeping your powder dry is an
(20:37):
idiom for like preparing for needing to use it. Right, Okay, sure,
but did he actually say it? So let's trace it back. So,
like I said, there's that movie from nineteen forty five.
If you go further back in time, there is a
book by Margaret Mead from nineteen forty three, and Keep
(21:01):
Your Powder Dry an anthropologist looks at America. The Times
literary supplement of nineteen oh eight has the passage in
thus keeping his powder dry, the bishop acted most wisely,
though he himself ascribes the happier result entirely to observance
(21:23):
of the other half of Cromwell's maxim so they are
referring to Oliver Cromwell. It appears in a book from
eighteen eighty eight about an Irish British Army officer, and
(21:44):
then it also is spoken of in the American Civil War,
specifically in eighteen sixty three a song called boys, keep
your Powder Dry, a soldier's song. So by the time
Civil War they are no longer using match locks, but
they were actually using a combination of flintlocks, and but
(22:10):
they were moving to percussion caps.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Oh okay, I.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Actually I don't know if they were still using some flintlocks,
but I digress. But still keeping your're they're still using
black powdered rifles. I think it's the point. Sure, they
were using percussion caps, not match locks. Okay, So does
this go back to Cromwell though? The idea is that
(22:39):
going back to uh sixteen forty two, when Cromwell's regiment
was about to attack the Royalists at the Battle of
Edge Hill, which we discussed as one of the pivotal battles,
he said to his soldiers to trust in God and
(23:01):
keep your powder dry. And then he was also like
supposedly said this in sixteen fifty at the Battle of Dunbar.
But basically any time he was this is a clue
that maybe he didn't actually say this that it's attributed to.
Any time he was meant to cross a river in
any of these battles, he was supposedly said this, but
apparently there's actually no evidence that he said this. There
(23:28):
is a book from eighteen thirty four, a poem by
William Blacker written about Cromwell. Supposedly it was substantiated by
a quote well authenticated anecdote, but there is absolutely no
evidence that such an anecdote existed and that he ever
(23:50):
said it. So the only interesting So, yes, the only
evidence that we have is that there was a poem
written about Cromwell in the eighteen thirties, So the earliest
use of it as an idiom is about the eighteen twenties.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And in that usage by the Earl of Radnor, it's
already being used as an idiom, so like they don't
feel the need to explain it because like people was
like already it must have been the use before this,
because you're meant to already know what that means, yeah,
when they say keep your powder dry. So it is
(24:34):
possible that it goes all the way back to Cromwell,
but there is no record of him saying it, and
there are in fact no actual written records prior to
the eighteen twenties, so we may never know, but it
seems unlikely that he actually said this.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah. I mean it's funny because it seems like whenever
we hear that kind of a thing, it's it's apocryphal.
It's like it's been attributed to them later on.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, so all for all lot of these as I
allude to the beginning, We don't actually know when this
phrase started to be used as an idiom, because by
the time it pops up in its first written appearance,
people are already using it as an idiom, so they're
not explaining like, uh, how it came to be used
(25:21):
that way, right, And we don't know how long it
was used or like how long of it, like an
oral tradition of this idiom there was prior to that
written usage.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So yeah, so that is keep your powder dry, I
feel like is a pretty archaic one, like as evidenced
by fucking Mitch McConnell, who is like the fucking crypt
keeper using it.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, this week John Stewart referred to him as the
Kentucky Fried Reaper.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah that sounds right.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
It's good stuff. It's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Uh, just piece of evidence that only the shitty people
live a long time. Yeah, that's true, Like like Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, that's extremely true.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Anyway, Joe, what about what about a baker's dozen?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Okay, So my understanding is that a baker's dozen is
when you buy a dozen, like a dozen donuts, and
the baker from the bakery and they give you a
thirteenth one, like so you'll come back to that bakery.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Okay. So your your assumption is that it's so that
you'll come back. But if that were the case, why
do all bakeries do this?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
I don't know, that's why. You could you could hear
the lack of confidence in my voice says I was good, Because.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
That's the thing. A baker's dozen is like a standard measurement.
It is thirteen of something. Here's why, Okay. In twelve
sixty two, wow, in England. In England, there was a
legislation called the a Size of Bread and Ale and
this was to correct a bad reputation that bakers had
(27:19):
for selling underweight loaves. In other words, they would if
you bought, you know, a dozen loaves of bread, some
of them would be smaller than others those and so
the idea of the legislation was to regulate their weight.
But you know that's extremely difficult to do with baking.
So what bakers were going to do to avoid being
(27:42):
fined was to just give an extra loaf. Usually what
they did is if you ordered one loaf of bread,
they would give you an extra slice of bread. And
if you ordered twelve loaves, they give you an extra
loaf so that they could ensure that the amount that
you got did not fall under that minimum weight. And
in fact, that extra loaf or that that extra thing
(28:05):
that you get has a name. It's called the vantage
loaf or vantage bread. Okay, so yeah, that's where that
comes from.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Okay. So so that's not like a marketing term, No,
it's it's it's it's literally like it became a tradition
just for these bakers to avoid being penalized.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
You know, it was relatively it was cheaper to give
somebody an extra loaf or an extra piece of bread
to ensure that they had more than the required amount
than to be penalized for it being underweight.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Okay. See, I think of it now as like that
would be like something you'd get at like a locally
owned bakery, like mom and pop bakery, like like Tim
Tim Horns. Ain't giving you a thirteenth donut.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, I don't know that I've ever actually received like
I kind of assumed, oh, this is a standard thing,
But in thinking about it, I don't know that I
have ever actually received a Baker's dozen when I bought donuts.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
No, neither of iem.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Now I want donuts, Yeah, I think I think you
should demand a thirteenth donut.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Donuts are my like sweet, that's like my weakness. If
they're like a donut, hate to see me coming. If
if there are speaking of Tim Tim Hortons, like even
like crappy donuts, I still fox with them. If someone
(29:48):
brings donuts to the office, I will do the thing
where I will get a donut and be like, oh
thanks so much for you know, bring these in. But
then I'll circle back two or three more times. Oh yeah,
you know in the afternoon when like you know that
(30:09):
everyone's had one, that's gonna have one, like, oh well,
hey for these go to waste.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
What's what's your go to donut if you're at a
donut shop, what's your favorite one to pick?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
If? Well, I like to have an assortment, you know
I don't like the well, I won't turn them down.
I like them but the like the fancy donuts like bacon,
maple and like cereal and stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I'm with you. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Those are fine. I enjoy them. I would eat them
and I would be very happy.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
My donut of choice is an apple fritter. Oh just
maybe it's not exactly it's not made technically a donut. Yeah,
but you often get it at the donut shop. Yeah,
I think I got the best apple fritter. Are none?
Buck Eye Donuts?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh man, Buck Eyed Donuts is great. I haven't had
their stuff in a while.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Buck Eye Donuts on uh for for those of you
that don't aren't like in living in Columbus, Ohio, there's
a place called buck Eye Donuts. It's on the Big
University campus and they also sell euro there, which is
like very funny, very funny. They're really good. But yeah,
you can get you can get your ur own frye
(31:29):
and they're for a little dessert. Good apple. I also
like a Devil's food.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Oh yeah, Devil's food is good. I think I think
mine's a toss up between a jelly just a classic
jelly donut and like a cream stick or a long John.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Okay, yeah, my wife likes Long John's, but I like
the cake donuts, not the easted donuts.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, east To is like the lighter ones, Yeah, crispier ones.
You know, I could go either way, but I think
a yeah cake donut is better, but I could. I
could go either way. I had a used to like
Layers donut. Recently it was actually vegan as well, and
it was it was better than you'd think. I will.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I would definitely eat those, but like the Krispy Kreme
kind of style donuts is just mostly air like yeah, yeah, no,
I'm with you, all right. I think it was my
turn after our.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Corner.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I don't think we've ever talked about donuts.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Oh, new episode, so maybe.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Maybe if we do, maybe just do an episode about donuts.
I don't know. Hell, yeah, send us a message, please,
we beg you send us any message all on any platform.
We'll probably respond to it.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, absolutely, Okay, So.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
I okay, here's one where I played myself. I swear
to God. When I was studying for the British Civil
War episodes, in our discussion of King Charles, right, yeah,
(33:09):
King Charles escaping from the Parliamentarians, I swear that I
had read that he was said to have flown the coop,
and that the origin of that phrase somehow was related
to that. But if so, if I were.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I definitely I definitely saw flew the coup as well. Yeah, no, no,
it wasn't. It wasn't Charles flew the coop. It was
when Charles went to parliament and the parliament members he
was looking for were all gone. He said, they flew
the coop, was what he was what he was said
to have uttered.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yes, so I so I did not hallucinate, No, not
at all. I could not, for the life of me
find that reference again because because I actually think that
that it was apocryphal. But if I say that someone
flew the coop, what what do I mean?
Speaker 1 (34:12):
They escaped and usually they kind of vanished, they escaped
without warning. Yeah, usually I think of it to mean
like like a criminal took off before the authorities got there.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yes, it is is often referring to a like someone
escaping from jail. Right. Okay, So well, like I said it,
apparently there's actually like a fairly recent origins for that. Okay,
(34:57):
so fly the coop. It seems to only date from
around the the late nineteenth century. Okay, So to describe yeah,
to describe people from escaping from jail, but it comes
(35:21):
from chickens escaping the chicken coop. Sure, so you can
think about the chicken coop. It's kind of like it
has bars or you know, like a mesh, and it
is like a confinement. You could say it is a
(35:41):
prison for the chickens. So you can kind of see
where people likened human beings escaping from jail to a
chicken escaping from the chicken coop. Now, as for when
is that seems like that's the first time or the
first like written record is just before the year nineteen
(36:07):
hundred mm. But again, and it's also it's very American slang.
This is not British. His first appearance is in the
United States, so it doesn't seem like Charles Ever said
this about parliaments, or at least there is not a
(36:30):
written record of it. So yep, interesting, yep, yep. Sadly
not as old as I would have thought.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yeah, I've come across that before too, in studying these.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Apropos of nothing. My sons are very like my son,
the younger son like like asks me, hmmm, if we
can get a chicken like once or twice a month. Okay,
Like he really wants to get a chicken chickens, which
(37:16):
I probably won't be doing right.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Wonder why he wants chicken so badly.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
We have a friend that they have chickens, so it's
not not without precedence, hmmm. So yeah, okay, Well next.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Well what about a nest egg? A nest egg?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
That that phrase, So that's like your your savings, like I.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Have, yeah, money for the future. Yeah, where do you
think that comes from? Joe?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I think it also relates to chickens.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
It does relate to chickens, so.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Well, I mean, I guess, like chickens are birds like
invest resources in their egg and they like you know,
bring food to the baby birds in the nests and
stuff like that. So I guess it's just like relates
to that.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, that would make sense. But the meaning is more
that this phrase kind of developed by the fourteenth century, okay,
and it was used by peasants to explain why they
would leave one egg in a nest when they would
collect them from chickens, because doing so would encourage the
(38:51):
chickens to continue laying their eggs in the same nest,
as opposed to if you completely emptied it out, So
by leaving the nest egg, you were ensuring the future
of the use of that nest.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Okay, so yeah, I wasn't. I guess I wasn't, like
completely wrong.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
No, you were completely wrong. And I don't know if
that's like a is that Is that a thing with chickens?
So I guess it. It sounds like it is or
it was.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
That what about them?
Speaker 1 (39:22):
That that if you don't leave one egg behind when
you're emptying out the nest, they will sometimes cease to
lay eggs in that nest.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I don't claim to be an accomplished chicken husband, yeah,
but we do have chickens at work, and when they
lay an egg, we just take the egg and then
(39:52):
they poop out a new one tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
So I don't know if that's actually true, but I
don't claim to be Yeah, I don't claim to be
a chicken expert.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Yeah, me neither. I'm looking this up to see if
there's anything to that, but huh, Yeah, it seems like
most people now collect everything so that they can keep
things clean prevent other eggs from being eaaten by other chickens.
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, chickens are all gross and they'll do like fucked
up stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
And it's also possible that fourteenth century English peasants didn't
have their science you know, all where it needed to be.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Well, I mean famously, that's by that point they still
believed that like fly is like we're berthed from rotting
meat right through a biogenesis stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, so there's that. I think people like.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Really don't understand what living in a pre scientific societ.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Was like, Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, Like I think we don't understand, like even people
who pretend are not pretend. Even people who don't who
reject like large swaths of like the findings of science,
like still are like using science of the fruits of
the scientific method their everyday lives because they like you know,
(41:25):
use a cell phone of li on airplanes and take
medicine and stuff like that. But just like the idea
that prior to about eighteen hundred, people were just like
she did not understand how the world worked, yeah, and
fairly well relied on mythology and things like that to
(41:51):
explain the world around them. I just think we cannot
fully like wrap our heads around that.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
I think you're right aggress Okay, now, Joe, and for
the sake of time, I think we've got each each
time for one more.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Well, here's my last one and it's pretty quick, and
this is another one while I'll just cut to the chase. Here,
another cut to the chase. Another idiom where this is
one that people think is very old, but it's it's
way younger than you think. So if I were to
(42:27):
say that I drew a line in the sand, what
does that mean?
Speaker 1 (42:33):
It means you sort of set a a standard or
a mark by which something something would have to cross
that mark for something to change. Is that that's not
a good way of describing it.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Uh, Yeah, it's usually like you know, the president, it's
a line of consequence. Yeah, the president says that like
this is their line in the sand, and like if
you if you do this thing, then they'll have to,
you know, send in troops or something like that. This
does end up being attributed to like military conflicts a lot.
(43:13):
But yeah, like you're in a negotiation or you're saying
like this is as far as I will go.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
I think of it's sometimes like an ultimatum as well. Yeah, yeah,
the line in the sand. So well, here's here's the thing.
There are.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
No there don't seem to be records of this before
about the nineteen fifties. Interesting, but after that it has
been ascribed to all different like things in history. It
was supposedly Colonel William Travis, who is the commander of
(43:50):
the Texan forces at Alamo in eighteen thirty six, was
said to have drawn a line in the sand with
his sword, saying that like of the Mexican army, cross
this line, you know we'll fight to the death. There
was a story that the Spartans at the Battle of
Thermopyla drew a line in the sand. There is one
(44:20):
of the more famous stories is a Roman general drawing
a line around King Antiochus the fourth, I believe, saying
that you know, if you if you stay in this
line until we're done, think that negotiations, then you know
we're cool. But if you cross this line in the sand, then,
(44:41):
like you know, we're gonna fight. But there's there's apparently
just no evidence of the figurative use of that idiom
from any of these events. And that is why the
Oxford English Dictionary official puts the origin about nineteenth. The
(45:03):
year of nineteen fifty HM that's interesting. So I think
this is like the perfect example of where we don't
know exactly how far back it goes, and people sort
of assume that it's gone like really far back. Right now,
I have to believe that at some point in history though,
(45:26):
someone took a stick or a sword and was like, motherfucker,
don't cross this.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Line literal line in the sand.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
I had to think that must have happened at some
point in history. Yeah, but yeah, h.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
So yeah, Fortunately I have a lot that are like, yeah,
we don't know where it comes from.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Yeah, all right, what about I gotta pick one more?
What about to play the Devil's advocate?
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Oh? I know, I know this one.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Okay, what's the mean?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
This is when I am when people make a relatively
simple statement online in a conversation with saying that, like,
I think that children should not go hungry, and then
some neck beard comes in and says, well, I'm just
gonna play the Devil's advocate. Here is taxation actually theft?
(46:27):
And is that actually the most immoral thing?
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Wow? Okay, so I feel like I feel like you
defined it.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
But playing the Devil's advocate means taking the opposite position.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Just to be a contrarian just to be a dickhead. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Absolutely, It's meant to be like I'm supposed to be
doing this helpfully, like I'm going to take the opposite
position or to help you strengthen your argument, but it
actually usually almost always ends up just you're being an asshole. Yeah,
obviously I had a very strong opinion about this one
and reacted to it because does I have a philosophy
(47:14):
minor and I've spent now over twenty years of my
life arguing with idiots online.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah, as one does.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I don't do nearly as much. I do almost no
keyboard warrioring now, but I used to do it quite
a lot.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
I got you, well, where do you think this comes from?
And I'll give you a hint. It's a lot more
specific than you think.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Okay, so I think that it is from like the
legal world. No, no, buck, devil, hold on, I'm going
to get this. I it's I feel like it's in
here somewhere, the Devil's advocate. It's it is religious.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
It is religious, but it's like logistically religious.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Yeah, all right, you're gonna tell me. So.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
It's a translation of a Latin phrase advocates the Abuli,
which means the devil's advocate, and it was a uh
a term used to describe a person who was appointed
by the Roman Catholic Church when they were they were
talking about canonizing a new saint. This person's job was
(48:44):
to argue against it. They were given the khan in
the argument to bring up all the unfavorable things about
this person to see if they really deserve to be canonized.
The title is officially the promoter of the faith, but
they were sometimes known as the Devil's advocate. And it's thought,
why is this fit my theme? Because it's thought that
(49:07):
this practice in this position was developed by Pope Leo
the tenth in the early sixteenth century.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Okay, someone should have been the Devil's advocate, or if
the devil's advocate should have tried harder against Mother Teresa.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Oh my god, yes, Mother Teresa does not deserve to
be a saint.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
And if you this is one of those things where
like I feel like I am taking crazy pills when
I like explain this to people. But if you do,
like I would say, a very cursory search on this,
you will find out what we mean.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
Yeah, it made me think of you know, hul Cogan
died a few days ago, and everybody was, you know,
talking nicely about him on the internet. Dude was a
huge fucking racist. Yeah, and prevented wrestling from having a union.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
He sucked for a long time, but he like especially
sucked recently.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Yeah, he really did.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
So. Yeah, it's too bad.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
People are infrequently what you want them to be. Yeah,
and a mother Teresa is a great a great example,
perhaps one of the best.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Do you know who is a saint that it deserves
to be a saint? Who's really cool? When we did
the episode about sharks, I forgot to tell the story
about Nicholas Steno or Nicholas Steno, who is basically the
father of geology, and he published like the landmark work
(50:41):
on geology that you learn about on like you know,
like day one of your introductory geology class, like in college. Oh,
and then like after about a year peaced out and
joined the church and he became a saint. This is
in like the sixteen hundreds. He became a saint like
in the nineteen eighties, but still still counts.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
I think we may have talked about this before, but
Pope Pious the twelfth he was well he is a
saint now, but it took a long time. See, I
think I think his yeah, his first canonization, like it
was first proposed in nineteen sixty five, he was pope
(51:29):
during World War Two, which is the important thing here, right,
And then it was brought up again in like two
thousand and seven, which I think is maybe when it
actually happened, maybe twenty thirteen. I can't find it here.
But the reason it took so long was that people
were really upset that you'd canonize a pope who essentially
ignored the Holocaust and a Catholic Church that then harbored Nazis.
(51:55):
And I remember when it was reopened in like sometime
in the two thousands, there was a maybe sixty minutes
thing where they were interviewing some Vatican official and they
were like, well, I mean, it gets brought up a
lot that you know, he ignored the Holocaust. And the
person said, well, you know, they would have put him
(52:16):
to death if he'd have done something about that. And
the interviewer said, well, I'm not arguing that, I'm just
saying that's what it takes to be a saint. And
it was like fuck, yeah, God is ass she.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
You said gif all the time.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
Yeah, So anyways, that's a different story altogether. So all right,
well another successful Idioms episode.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yes, if you like these tell us. If you don't
like them, keep it to yourself. Yeah. Also, in all seriousness,
for those of you that do consistently listen this episode,
all all three of you or this show, there's more
(53:05):
than that.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
There's more than that.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
The best thing you could do for us is if
you if you've never done this. And I find myself
listening to podcasts, and I have really tried to make
an effort to do this because I don't really think
about doing it because I'm usually in the car when
we're listening to podcasts. I can't like get on my
phone take a minute, give us a review or for
(53:29):
Bree five stars. But you know, whatever you think we deserve. Sure,
And and I actually write like words in the textbox,
like even just like I think this podcast is great,
could be really sure, I think Joe's voice is annoying,
but they but the stuff that they talk about is interesting,
So I let it slide. Whatever you want to write.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
Yeah, I'm sure, I sure of think this is better
than stuff you should know.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yeah, David, and I have been lamenting the fact that
I think that are I think we do a thorough
more thorough job than the stuff you should know, guys,
except if they want to have us on their podcast.
Love you but anyway, yeah, but anyway, right, as a review,
(54:16):
we would really appreciate it. But otherwise, thank you for listening.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Hell yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
With that, keep your patterned dry.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
All right until next time, peace. Thank you for listening
to An Hour of Our Time.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
If you like what you heard, explore our catalog of
over two hundred episodes and rate and review us on
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Speaker 1 (54:40):
And if you'd like to support what we do, visit
patreon dot com slash an Hour of Our Time podcast
Welcome to an hour of our time, the podcast where
we pick a topic, research it and come back to
tell you what we've learned. This week, we returned to
our anthology series on idioms. In fact, part eight of
this series, we'll be discussing some popular idioms that originate
or relate to the English Civil Wars. You know, after
(00:20):
three episodes, we just can't get away from it. I'm Dave,
I'm jeild Well. Welcome back to our longest running anthology series.
(00:41):
This is episode number eight on idioms.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Joe.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I think we always tend to start in the same way, yes,
which is that we define what an idiom is. No,
we assume that most people have heard our previous episodes,
but it's it's always good to make sure we have
a kind of an even understanding here of what this is.
So for those uninitiated, an idiom and this is from
(01:12):
the Oxford English Dictionary a group of words established by
usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of
the individual words. And the one that we often use
as an example is raining cats and dogs.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yes, yeah, which which we did cover on a previous episode.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
We also often talked about the fact that these are
very difficult for people who are non native speakers. Yes, absolutely,
and different languages have obviously different idioms, so we are
I think in a few previous episodes we've talked about
(01:56):
like idioms known in the languages that don't translate well
to English. But for the most part we're speaking about
English language idioms, and mine, in fact are mainly going
to focus on British English because I actually have a
few that are attached to the subject of a previous
(02:22):
episode effect episodes the Hopefully this isn't the first time
listening to this show, but if it is, thanks for
being here. And in a previous three episode Extravagant, we've
talked about the British Civil Wars. Yeah, so I have
(02:43):
a few idioms that are historically linked with the either
that era or with Oliver Cromwell himself.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, and in fact I have one of those as well,
and I tried to stick to a theme with mine.
My theme is a little broader. It's just idioms that
either were developed or are a reference to something from
the Middle Ages or the Medieval period. And sometimes it's
some sort of a loose translation from Middle English or
(03:17):
a kind of a derivative of French that existed at
the time, so you know things that are roughly from
the time of the English Civil War. Actually several of
these are a couple hundred years earlier, which is interesting
because it calls into conflict whether this one is actually
a reference to Oliver Cromwell or not. So, Joe, do
(03:38):
you want to start us off to remind everybody of
how we play the game here. Usually one of us
will read an idiom, the other one will attempt to
define it and guess its origin, and then the true
origin will be revealed because almost never can you guess
the origin, and we're not usually picking things that are obvious.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yeah, so we're going to to talk about I'm going
to try to go like oldest to to to youngest,
and also well, I don't want to at the risk
of being a spoiler with too much of a spoiler.
(04:17):
A lot of idioms, and we've also found this with
like the origins of different like foods and beverages, that
they have a story, but then people later have like
concocted an explanation for how it got here that is
(04:37):
a historical I think we we kind of like encountered
this when we did our Absinthe episode where there was
a real doctor but he didn't actually invent absinthe, but
the legend goes that he invented it. So people have like,
you know, kind of like come up with that story
after the fact. So some of mine are actually from
(04:59):
this time period and some of them are merely attributed
to this time period. So anyway, I'm going to start
with one that is actually from this time period, or
of around the British Civil War. So, Dave, if I
called something a flash in the pan, what would that
mean to you?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
It means that it's like something that I don't know
that like God, it's fifteen minutes of fame, which is
in itself as an idiom, the idea that it's sort
of something that came and went quickly in terms of
its popularity.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yes, So there's actually kind of like two ways that
this is used. So I think the one is kind
of like what you said, a thing or person whose
sudden but brief success is not repeated or repeatable.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And so it's a one hit wonder.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, they're often used. In nineteen ninety five, a lot
of more sets was referred to by the Los Angeles
Times as a flash in the pan.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
This was an assumption that she would be and then
she went on to not be at all.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, and in fact, her debut album sold ten million
copies in nineteen ninety six and twenty million in the
following years, becoming actually one of the highest selling records
in music history, which I actually didn't know. Well shit, Yeah,
(06:37):
So flashing the pan is can either mean again like
something that you know, pears promising but turns out to
be disappointing or worthless. It can also mean, according to
Mary Webster, a sudden, spasmodic effort that accomplishes nothing. So
it can actually so those are actually kind of like
opposite things. It can either mean something that like it
(06:59):
is worthless or something that like first it is successful,
but then later you can't repeat. That's success. So a
one hit wonder is actually the perfect even though we're
using an idiom to explain an idiom, like you pointed
out that is that's a that's a great or fifteen
(07:23):
minutes of fame. That's a great explanation of it. So
where does this come from? I kind of talked about
this a little bit in the episodes about the British
Civil Warzel that I didn't actually like refer to the idiom,
(07:45):
but I'm first I'm going to tell you what the
incorrect explanation is for it, or incorrect history. So there
is this idea that it comes from the California gold
Rush in the.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
Nineteenth century, like sifting gold with a pan.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yeah, listen to our gold Rush episode. So it's the
idea that you would see a flash in your as
you're panning for gold, see a flash or a glint
of gold in the pan that would turn out to
be just an illusion or maybe pyrite like fools gold
or something like that. Now, the phrase something it didn't
(08:26):
pan out or something panning out that can actually be
traced to the the American West in the in the
early twentieth century in reference to the gold rush, but
gold prospecting isn't. So that's a similar phrase. But a
(08:48):
flash in the pan that has a much older origin
and it relates to firearms. Oh, specifically the type of
firearms which we're used during the the sixteen hundreds, during
(09:11):
for instance, the British Civil Wars. So in this kind
of musket, I explained a flintlock and a matchlock musket
at relative length. In that episode, but just really briefly,
there's like something Now, either it's like a piece of
(09:32):
flint that's striking steel to get a spark, or it's
actually like a lit cord of rope that is going down.
But in any case, you have a pan of priming
powder that ignites then travels down into the gun, which
ignites the primary charge that actually shoots the ball out
(09:53):
of the gun. So what you could have is a
misfire where you have the priming powder ignite but not
travel into the gun and actually set off the primary charge.
In other words, you would have a flash in the pan. Yeah,
we also talked about how those guns were notoriously unreliable
(10:19):
and that you would have about a dozen shots before
the gun was clogged and could clogged with soot and
had to be cleaned before it was operable again. So
if you had a flash in the pan, that would
mean it looked like something was happening, but there wouldn't
be the result that you wanted. So that's actually, like
(10:41):
I would say, kind of in between the two definitions
that I mentioned.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, so now the first mentioned in written apparently there
is people do think that this was used during the
British Civil War, because it would have dated around that
time period. But the earliest like written mention is from
(11:12):
sixteen eighty seven from an author Elkana Settle in Reflections
on several of mister Dryden's plays, where he says, if
canons were so well bred in his metaphor as only
to flash in the Pan, I dare lay and even
wager the mister Dryden durst venture to see.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Well got his ass.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Got his ass. And it did become more popular around
the seventeen and eighteen hundreds, but it really seems to
like really take an off in popularity around the nineteen
hundreds nineteen twenties, and that is probably why it got
(11:59):
conflated with that, not panning out, which does relate to
gold panning.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Some related terms that I won't necessarily discuss would be
lock stock and barrel and fight fire with fire.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Ah okay, yeah, okay, so that is flash in the pan.
Nice Okay, Well, Joe, let me hit you with one
that frankly I'd never heard before, but in reading more
about it, it's certainly not something that I should have
missed because it is used by Hemingway's used by Washington,
Irving in the legend of Sleepy Hollow. It's in a
(12:38):
Radiohead song I just got onto this. It's by hook
or by.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Crook, by hook or by Krook. Okay, so I definitely
have heard this before. But so by hook or by Kirk,
I think that just means like, if I say, like
I'm gonna I'm gonna get this job done by hook
or by crook, it just means that I'm gonna get
it done no matter what.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Yes, a good A similar phrase that would be used
is by any means necessary.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
By any means necessary academic sense.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So where do you think this comes from, Joe.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well, I think you kind of told me earlier today
off Mike, So I don't want to like cheat.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Well, this is the Oliver Cromwell one.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Oh Well, I was gonna say, but before you talked
to me about it, I would have said, by hook
or by crook would have probably had something to do
with like shepherds.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Okay, amazing, Okay, because that is right. So there there
is sort of a and a origin story that is
misrepresented that this has to do with Oliver Cromwell when,
as we recently discussed, invaded Ireland. He supposed the vowed
(14:00):
to take Waterford by Hook, which is the name of
an area it's on the Wexford side of the Waterford Estuary,
or to take Crook, which is a village on the
Waterford side. So he was either going to take Hook
or Crook, so by hook or by Crook as the
(14:21):
way he was going to take this area of Ireland.
At least that's how it was attributed. But again we
know that that happened. Oh Man, remind me years for
Cromwell and Ireland sixteen fifties. I was going to say
sixteen fifties, sixteen forty nine to sixteen fifty threes.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Campaign boom, I remember my own podcast.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
The first recorded use of this was in a writing
by someone named John Wycliffe in a book called Controversial
Tracks in thirteen eighty, so far before Oliver Cromwell. And
the thought is it actually comes from the regulation of
(15:07):
firewood at the time. You see, local people were able
to take firewood from common public lands, but there had
to be a regulation for how much they could take.
And the idea is that they can take any branches
that they could reach with a bill hook or a
shepherd's crook, so you reach it by cook or by crook,
(15:29):
so that seems to be the actual origin of it.
But with Cromwell you can see how it gets tied in,
and in either case it means by any means necessary,
or at least by I guess not by any means
necessary really means by these. In the Cromwell definition it
means by any means necessary. In the Firewood one, it
(15:50):
basically means by set regulation. Okay, interesting, So I would
say the Oliver Cromwell definition origin is false, but it
more the story more resembles what the phrase means today. Okay, it,
but it's actually older than Cromwell by a couple hundred years.
(16:12):
Thirteen eighty is his first usage.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
So interesting that sounds like Middle Englishye to me.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I would say, so yeah, bye bye hooky or.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Crooky, you know, like when they're still like writing the
E at the end of words with the K.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Yeah. I'm not totally sure how it is used in
controversial tracks, which definitely like sounds like the next Ye
album controversial because it's about being a Nazi. But but
I want to look this up and see if I
(16:48):
can find the actual thing. Wow, oh yeah, I went there.
I can't find quickly. The interesting I can't find the
actual usage in this writing from thirteen eighty, but there
is somebody here that kind of is talking about it
(17:10):
and says that a definition for what it means in
that writing is by fair means or foul. So there's
your by any means necessary. Again, doesn't seem to tie
in with the brain of the wood on public Land thing,
but okay, all right, interesting.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Well, so what about the phrase keep your powder dry? Hmmmmm.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It's one of my favorite songs of all time, Don't
Forget Me by Harry Nielsen.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Okay, Um, it means.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Doesn't it mean like to be true, to be faithful,
to be loyal?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Uh no?
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
So it was most famously recently used on September nineteenth,
twenty twenty, when undead asshole Mitch McConnell told it is
his caucus to keep their powder dry, meaning like in
(18:26):
the context of like not saying to reporters whether they're
whether they're going to confirm a Supreme Court nominee. Is
also used as the title of the nineteen forty five
movie Keep Your Powder Dry. But what it means is, basically,
it's got to be a gunpowder thing. Right, it is
(18:47):
a gunpowder thing. So it's asking people to remain cautious, okay,
and being and being ready for like an emergency.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
So this is interesting because this is attributed to Oliver
Cromwell really and we discussed this in the episode about
the British Civil War that he was the leader of
the new model Army where if you do the episode,
England did not have a standing army. They were not
common at the time. The parliamentarians erected a standing army
(19:25):
where they had like trained soldiers that they drilled, who
are professional soldiers, and they often won battles against their adversaries,
the Royalists, because they had better training and they would
stay calm and not for instance, chase their opponents after
a cavalry charge or something like that, or after they
had broken ranks and they would like, you know, stay
(19:49):
stay within their ranks and things like that. Okay. So
it definitely sounds like something that would be attributed to
or there's something that he would say. And I suppose
the quote is trust in God and keep your powder dry. Now,
this is a gunpowder thing. So again this goes back
to those matchlock rifles or a muscuts, I should say,
(20:15):
you have an open pan of black powder sitting on
this thing, sure, and so if it is you would
you would really need to keep it dry because the
powder won't ignite. But like if it's it's raining, or
you've kept it in like a human environment, it's not
going to ignite. So keeping your powder dry is an
(20:37):
idiom for like preparing for needing to use it. Right, Okay, sure,
but did he actually say it? So let's trace it back. So,
like I said, there's that movie from nineteen forty five.
If you go further back in time, there is a
book by Margaret Mead from nineteen forty three, and Keep
(21:01):
Your Powder Dry an anthropologist looks at America. The Times
literary supplement of nineteen oh eight has the passage in
thus keeping his powder dry, the bishop acted most wisely,
though he himself ascribes the happier result entirely to observance
(21:23):
of the other half of Cromwell's maxim so they are
referring to Oliver Cromwell. It appears in a book from
eighteen eighty eight about an Irish British Army officer, and
(21:44):
then it also is spoken of in the American Civil War,
specifically in eighteen sixty three a song called boys, keep
your Powder Dry, a soldier's song. So by the time
Civil War they are no longer using match locks, but
they were actually using a combination of flintlocks, and but
(22:10):
they were moving to percussion caps.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Oh okay, I.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Actually I don't know if they were still using some flintlocks,
but I digress. But still keeping your're they're still using
black powdered rifles. I think it's the point. Sure, they
were using percussion caps, not match locks. Okay, So does
this go back to Cromwell though? The idea is that
(22:39):
going back to uh sixteen forty two, when Cromwell's regiment
was about to attack the Royalists at the Battle of
Edge Hill, which we discussed as one of the pivotal battles,
he said to his soldiers to trust in God and
(23:01):
keep your powder dry. And then he was also like
supposedly said this in sixteen fifty at the Battle of Dunbar.
But basically any time he was this is a clue
that maybe he didn't actually say this that it's attributed to.
Any time he was meant to cross a river in
any of these battles, he was supposedly said this, but
apparently there's actually no evidence that he said this. There
(23:28):
is a book from eighteen thirty four, a poem by
William Blacker written about Cromwell. Supposedly it was substantiated by
a quote well authenticated anecdote, but there is absolutely no
evidence that such an anecdote existed and that he ever
(23:50):
said it. So the only interesting So, yes, the only
evidence that we have is that there was a poem
written about Cromwell in the eighteen thirties, So the earliest
use of it as an idiom is about the eighteen twenties.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
And in that usage by the Earl of Radnor, it's
already being used as an idiom, so like they don't
feel the need to explain it because like people was
like already it must have been the use before this,
because you're meant to already know what that means, yeah,
when they say keep your powder dry. So it is
(24:34):
possible that it goes all the way back to Cromwell,
but there is no record of him saying it, and
there are in fact no actual written records prior to
the eighteen twenties, so we may never know, but it
seems unlikely that he actually said this.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah. I mean it's funny because it seems like whenever
we hear that kind of a thing, it's it's apocryphal.
It's like it's been attributed to them later on.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, so all for all lot of these as I
allude to the beginning, We don't actually know when this
phrase started to be used as an idiom, because by
the time it pops up in its first written appearance,
people are already using it as an idiom, so they're
not explaining like, uh, how it came to be used
(25:21):
that way, right, And we don't know how long it
was used or like how long of it, like an
oral tradition of this idiom there was prior to that
written usage.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So yeah, so that is keep your powder dry, I
feel like is a pretty archaic one, like as evidenced
by fucking Mitch McConnell, who is like the fucking crypt
keeper using it.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, this week John Stewart referred to him as the
Kentucky Fried Reaper.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah that sounds right.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
It's good stuff. It's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Uh, just piece of evidence that only the shitty people
live a long time. Yeah, that's true, Like like Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, that's extremely true.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Anyway, Joe, what about what about a baker's dozen?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Okay, So my understanding is that a baker's dozen is
when you buy a dozen, like a dozen donuts, and
the baker from the bakery and they give you a
thirteenth one, like so you'll come back to that bakery.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Okay. So your your assumption is that it's so that
you'll come back. But if that were the case, why
do all bakeries do this?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
I don't know, that's why. You could you could hear
the lack of confidence in my voice says I was good, Because.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
That's the thing. A baker's dozen is like a standard measurement.
It is thirteen of something. Here's why, Okay. In twelve
sixty two, wow, in England. In England, there was a
legislation called the a Size of Bread and Ale and
this was to correct a bad reputation that bakers had
(27:19):
for selling underweight loaves. In other words, they would if
you bought, you know, a dozen loaves of bread, some
of them would be smaller than others those and so
the idea of the legislation was to regulate their weight.
But you know that's extremely difficult to do with baking.
So what bakers were going to do to avoid being
(27:42):
fined was to just give an extra loaf. Usually what
they did is if you ordered one loaf of bread,
they would give you an extra slice of bread. And
if you ordered twelve loaves, they give you an extra
loaf so that they could ensure that the amount that
you got did not fall under that minimum weight. And
in fact, that extra loaf or that that extra thing
(28:05):
that you get has a name. It's called the vantage
loaf or vantage bread. Okay, so yeah, that's where that
comes from.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Okay. So so that's not like a marketing term, No,
it's it's it's it's literally like it became a tradition
just for these bakers to avoid being penalized.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
You know, it was relatively it was cheaper to give
somebody an extra loaf or an extra piece of bread
to ensure that they had more than the required amount
than to be penalized for it being underweight.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Okay. See, I think of it now as like that
would be like something you'd get at like a locally
owned bakery, like mom and pop bakery, like like Tim
Tim Horns. Ain't giving you a thirteenth donut.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, I don't know that I've ever actually received like
I kind of assumed, oh, this is a standard thing,
But in thinking about it, I don't know that I
have ever actually received a Baker's dozen when I bought donuts.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
No, neither of iem.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Now I want donuts, Yeah, I think I think you
should demand a thirteenth donut.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Donuts are my like sweet, that's like my weakness. If
they're like a donut, hate to see me coming. If
if there are speaking of Tim Tim Hortons, like even
like crappy donuts, I still fox with them. If someone
(29:48):
brings donuts to the office, I will do the thing
where I will get a donut and be like, oh
thanks so much for you know, bring these in. But
then I'll circle back two or three more times. Oh yeah,
you know in the afternoon when like you know that
(30:09):
everyone's had one, that's gonna have one, like, oh well,
hey for these go to waste.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
What's what's your go to donut if you're at a
donut shop, what's your favorite one to pick?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
If? Well, I like to have an assortment, you know
I don't like the well, I won't turn them down.
I like them but the like the fancy donuts like bacon,
maple and like cereal and stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I'm with you. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Those are fine. I enjoy them. I would eat them
and I would be very happy.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
My donut of choice is an apple fritter. Oh just
maybe it's not exactly it's not made technically a donut. Yeah,
but you often get it at the donut shop. Yeah,
I think I got the best apple fritter. Are none?
Buck Eye Donuts?
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh man, Buck Eyed Donuts is great. I haven't had
their stuff in a while.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Buck Eye Donuts on uh for for those of you
that don't aren't like in living in Columbus, Ohio, there's
a place called buck Eye Donuts. It's on the Big
University campus and they also sell euro there, which is
like very funny, very funny. They're really good. But yeah,
you can get you can get your ur own frye
(31:29):
and they're for a little dessert. Good apple. I also
like a Devil's food.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Oh yeah, Devil's food is good. I think I think
mine's a toss up between a jelly just a classic
jelly donut and like a cream stick or a long John.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Okay, yeah, my wife likes Long John's, but I like
the cake donuts, not the easted donuts.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, east To is like the lighter ones, Yeah, crispier ones.
You know, I could go either way, but I think
a yeah cake donut is better, but I could. I
could go either way. I had a used to like
Layers donut. Recently it was actually vegan as well, and
it was it was better than you'd think. I will.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I would definitely eat those, but like the Krispy Kreme
kind of style donuts is just mostly air like yeah, yeah, no,
I'm with you, all right. I think it was my
turn after our.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Corner.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
I don't think we've ever talked about donuts.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Oh, new episode, so maybe.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Maybe if we do, maybe just do an episode about donuts.
I don't know. Hell, yeah, send us a message, please,
we beg you send us any message all on any platform.
We'll probably respond to it.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, absolutely, Okay, So.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
I okay, here's one where I played myself. I swear
to God. When I was studying for the British Civil
War episodes, in our discussion of King Charles, right, yeah,
(33:09):
King Charles escaping from the Parliamentarians, I swear that I
had read that he was said to have flown the coop,
and that the origin of that phrase somehow was related
to that. But if so, if I were.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
I definitely I definitely saw flew the coup as well. Yeah, no, no,
it wasn't. It wasn't Charles flew the coop. It was
when Charles went to parliament and the parliament members he
was looking for were all gone. He said, they flew
the coop, was what he was what he was said
to have uttered.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yes, so I so I did not hallucinate, No, not
at all. I could not, for the life of me
find that reference again because because I actually think that
that it was apocryphal. But if I say that someone
flew the coop, what what do I mean?
Speaker 1 (34:12):
They escaped and usually they kind of vanished, they escaped
without warning. Yeah, usually I think of it to mean
like like a criminal took off before the authorities got there.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yes, it is is often referring to a like someone
escaping from jail. Right. Okay, So well, like I said it,
apparently there's actually like a fairly recent origins for that. Okay,
(34:57):
so fly the coop. It seems to only date from
around the the late nineteenth century. Okay, So to describe yeah,
to describe people from escaping from jail, but it comes
(35:21):
from chickens escaping the chicken coop. Sure, so you can
think about the chicken coop. It's kind of like it
has bars or you know, like a mesh, and it
is like a confinement. You could say it is a
(35:41):
prison for the chickens. So you can kind of see
where people likened human beings escaping from jail to a
chicken escaping from the chicken coop. Now, as for when
is that seems like that's the first time or the
first like written record is just before the year nineteen
(36:07):
hundred mm. But again, and it's also it's very American slang.
This is not British. His first appearance is in the
United States, so it doesn't seem like Charles Ever said
this about parliaments, or at least there is not a
(36:30):
written record of it. So yep, interesting, yep, yep. Sadly
not as old as I would have thought.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Yeah, I've come across that before too, in studying these.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Apropos of nothing. My sons are very like my son,
the younger son like like asks me, hmmm, if we
can get a chicken like once or twice a month. Okay,
Like he really wants to get a chicken chickens, which
(37:16):
I probably won't be doing right.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Wonder why he wants chicken so badly.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
We have a friend that they have chickens, so it's
not not without precedence, hmmm. So yeah, okay, Well next.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Well what about a nest egg? A nest egg?
Speaker 2 (37:43):
That that phrase, So that's like your your savings, like I.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Have, yeah, money for the future. Yeah, where do you
think that comes from? Joe?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I think it also relates to chickens.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
It does relate to chickens, so.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Well, I mean, I guess, like chickens are birds like
invest resources in their egg and they like you know,
bring food to the baby birds in the nests and
stuff like that. So I guess it's just like relates
to that.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
Yeah, that would make sense. But the meaning is more
that this phrase kind of developed by the fourteenth century, okay,
and it was used by peasants to explain why they
would leave one egg in a nest when they would
collect them from chickens, because doing so would encourage the
(38:51):
chickens to continue laying their eggs in the same nest,
as opposed to if you completely emptied it out, So
by leaving the nest egg, you were ensuring the future
of the use of that nest.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Okay, so yeah, I wasn't. I guess I wasn't, like
completely wrong.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
No, you were completely wrong. And I don't know if
that's like a is that Is that a thing with chickens?
So I guess it. It sounds like it is or
it was.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
That what about them?
Speaker 1 (39:22):
That that if you don't leave one egg behind when
you're emptying out the nest, they will sometimes cease to
lay eggs in that nest.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I don't claim to be an accomplished chicken husband, yeah,
but we do have chickens at work, and when they
lay an egg, we just take the egg and then
(39:52):
they poop out a new one tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
So I don't know if that's actually true, but I
don't claim to be Yeah, I don't claim to be
a chicken expert.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Yeah, me neither. I'm looking this up to see if
there's anything to that, but huh, Yeah, it seems like
most people now collect everything so that they can keep
things clean prevent other eggs from being eaaten by other chickens.
So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, chickens are all gross and they'll do like fucked
up stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
And it's also possible that fourteenth century English peasants didn't
have their science you know, all where it needed to be.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Well, I mean famously, that's by that point they still
believed that like fly is like we're berthed from rotting
meat right through a biogenesis stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, so there's that. I think people like.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Really don't understand what living in a pre scientific societ.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Was like, Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, Like I think we don't understand, like even people
who pretend are not pretend. Even people who don't who
reject like large swaths of like the findings of science,
like still are like using science of the fruits of
the scientific method their everyday lives because they like you know,
(41:25):
use a cell phone of li on airplanes and take
medicine and stuff like that. But just like the idea
that prior to about eighteen hundred, people were just like
she did not understand how the world worked, yeah, and
fairly well relied on mythology and things like that to
(41:51):
explain the world around them. I just think we cannot
fully like wrap our heads around that.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
I think you're right aggress Okay, now, Joe, and for
the sake of time, I think we've got each each
time for one more.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Well, here's my last one and it's pretty quick, and
this is another one while I'll just cut to the chase. Here,
another cut to the chase. Another idiom where this is
one that people think is very old, but it's it's
way younger than you think. So if I were to
(42:27):
say that I drew a line in the sand, what
does that mean?
Speaker 1 (42:33):
It means you sort of set a a standard or
a mark by which something something would have to cross
that mark for something to change. Is that that's not
a good way of describing it.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Uh, Yeah, it's usually like you know, the president, it's
a line of consequence. Yeah, the president says that like
this is their line in the sand, and like if
you if you do this thing, then they'll have to,
you know, send in troops or something like that. This
does end up being attributed to like military conflicts a lot.
(43:13):
But yeah, like you're in a negotiation or you're saying
like this is as far as I will go.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
I think of it's sometimes like an ultimatum as well. Yeah, yeah,
the line in the sand. So well, here's here's the thing.
There are.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
No there don't seem to be records of this before
about the nineteen fifties. Interesting, but after that it has
been ascribed to all different like things in history. It
was supposedly Colonel William Travis, who is the commander of
(43:50):
the Texan forces at Alamo in eighteen thirty six, was
said to have drawn a line in the sand with
his sword, saying that like of the Mexican army, cross
this line, you know we'll fight to the death. There
was a story that the Spartans at the Battle of
Thermopyla drew a line in the sand. There is one
(44:20):
of the more famous stories is a Roman general drawing
a line around King Antiochus the fourth, I believe, saying
that you know, if you if you stay in this
line until we're done, think that negotiations, then you know
we're cool. But if you cross this line in the sand, then,
(44:41):
like you know, we're gonna fight. But there's there's apparently
just no evidence of the figurative use of that idiom
from any of these events. And that is why the
Oxford English Dictionary official puts the origin about nineteenth. The
(45:03):
year of nineteen fifty HM that's interesting. So I think
this is like the perfect example of where we don't
know exactly how far back it goes, and people sort
of assume that it's gone like really far back. Right now,
I have to believe that at some point in history though,
(45:26):
someone took a stick or a sword and was like, motherfucker,
don't cross this.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Line literal line in the sand.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
I had to think that must have happened at some
point in history. Yeah, but yeah, h.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
So yeah, Fortunately I have a lot that are like, yeah,
we don't know where it comes from.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Yeah, all right, what about I gotta pick one more?
What about to play the Devil's advocate?
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Oh? I know, I know this one.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Okay, what's the mean?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
This is when I am when people make a relatively
simple statement online in a conversation with saying that, like,
I think that children should not go hungry, and then
some neck beard comes in and says, well, I'm just
gonna play the Devil's advocate. Here is taxation actually theft?
(46:27):
And is that actually the most immoral thing?
Speaker 1 (46:32):
Wow? Okay, so I feel like I feel like you
defined it.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
But playing the Devil's advocate means taking the opposite position.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Just to be a contrarian just to be a dickhead. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:48):
Absolutely, It's meant to be like I'm supposed to be
doing this helpfully, like I'm going to take the opposite
position or to help you strengthen your argument, but it
actually usually almost always ends up just you're being an asshole. Yeah,
obviously I had a very strong opinion about this one
and reacted to it because does I have a philosophy
(47:14):
minor and I've spent now over twenty years of my
life arguing with idiots online.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah, as one does.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
I don't do nearly as much. I do almost no
keyboard warrioring now, but I used to do it quite
a lot.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
I got you, well, where do you think this comes from?
And I'll give you a hint. It's a lot more
specific than you think.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
Okay, so I think that it is from like the
legal world. No, no, buck, devil, hold on, I'm going
to get this. I it's I feel like it's in
here somewhere, the Devil's advocate. It's it is religious.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
It is religious, but it's like logistically religious.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Yeah, all right, you're gonna tell me. So.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
It's a translation of a Latin phrase advocates the Abuli,
which means the devil's advocate, and it was a uh
a term used to describe a person who was appointed
by the Roman Catholic Church when they were they were
talking about canonizing a new saint. This person's job was
(48:44):
to argue against it. They were given the khan in
the argument to bring up all the unfavorable things about
this person to see if they really deserve to be canonized.
The title is officially the promoter of the faith, but
they were sometimes known as the Devil's advocate. And it's thought,
why is this fit my theme? Because it's thought that
(49:07):
this practice in this position was developed by Pope Leo
the tenth in the early sixteenth century.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Okay, someone should have been the Devil's advocate, or if
the devil's advocate should have tried harder against Mother Teresa.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Oh my god, yes, Mother Teresa does not deserve to
be a saint.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
And if you this is one of those things where
like I feel like I am taking crazy pills when
I like explain this to people. But if you do,
like I would say, a very cursory search on this,
you will find out what we mean.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
Yeah, it made me think of you know, hul Cogan
died a few days ago, and everybody was, you know,
talking nicely about him on the internet. Dude was a
huge fucking racist. Yeah, and prevented wrestling from having a union.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
He sucked for a long time, but he like especially
sucked recently.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Yeah, he really did.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
So. Yeah, it's too bad.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
People are infrequently what you want them to be. Yeah,
and a mother Teresa is a great a great example,
perhaps one of the best.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Do you know who is a saint that it deserves
to be a saint? Who's really cool? When we did
the episode about sharks, I forgot to tell the story
about Nicholas Steno or Nicholas Steno, who is basically the
father of geology, and he published like the landmark work
(50:41):
on geology that you learn about on like you know,
like day one of your introductory geology class, like in college. Oh,
and then like after about a year peaced out and
joined the church and he became a saint. This is
in like the sixteen hundreds. He became a saint like
in the nineteen eighties, but still still counts.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
I think we may have talked about this before, but
Pope Pious the twelfth he was well he is a
saint now, but it took a long time. See, I
think I think his yeah, his first canonization, like it
was first proposed in nineteen sixty five, he was pope
(51:29):
during World War Two, which is the important thing here, right,
And then it was brought up again in like two
thousand and seven, which I think is maybe when it
actually happened, maybe twenty thirteen. I can't find it here.
But the reason it took so long was that people
were really upset that you'd canonize a pope who essentially
ignored the Holocaust and a Catholic Church that then harbored Nazis.
(51:55):
And I remember when it was reopened in like sometime
in the two thousands, there was a maybe sixty minutes
thing where they were interviewing some Vatican official and they
were like, well, I mean, it gets brought up a
lot that you know, he ignored the Holocaust. And the
person said, well, you know, they would have put him
(52:16):
to death if he'd have done something about that. And
the interviewer said, well, I'm not arguing that, I'm just
saying that's what it takes to be a saint. And
it was like fuck, yeah, God is ass she.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
You said gif all the time.
Speaker 1 (52:36):
Yeah, So anyways, that's a different story altogether. So all right,
well another successful Idioms episode.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yes, if you like these tell us. If you don't
like them, keep it to yourself. Yeah. Also, in all seriousness,
for those of you that do consistently listen this episode,
all all three of you or this show, there's more
(53:05):
than that.
Speaker 1 (53:06):
There's more than that.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
The best thing you could do for us is if
you if you've never done this. And I find myself
listening to podcasts, and I have really tried to make
an effort to do this because I don't really think
about doing it because I'm usually in the car when
we're listening to podcasts. I can't like get on my
phone take a minute, give us a review or for
(53:29):
Bree five stars. But you know, whatever you think we deserve. Sure,
And and I actually write like words in the textbox,
like even just like I think this podcast is great,
could be really sure, I think Joe's voice is annoying,
but they but the stuff that they talk about is interesting,
So I let it slide. Whatever you want to write.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
Yeah, I'm sure, I sure of think this is better
than stuff you should know.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yeah, David, and I have been lamenting the fact that
I think that are I think we do a thorough
more thorough job than the stuff you should know, guys,
except if they want to have us on their podcast.
Love you but anyway, yeah, but anyway, right, as a review,
(54:16):
we would really appreciate it. But otherwise, thank you for listening.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
Hell yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (54:21):
With that, keep your patterned dry.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
All right until next time, peace. Thank you for listening
to An Hour of Our Time.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
If you like what you heard, explore our catalog of
over two hundred episodes and rate and review us on
your platform of choice.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
And if you'd like to support what we do, visit
patreon dot com slash an Hour of Our Time podcast
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