Something Our Parents Would Say By The Skin Of Our Teeth

Those old phrases. Where did they come from? By the skin of your teeth. How far back does this one go? Way before your grand momma.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's actually been a fun adventure collecting all the conversations
I have since twenty sixteen with those that have been
featured on NBC's The Voice. Now the question is can
we put them all in one place and not let
them be forgotten in history? Yeah you can. It's called
Arrow dot net a rre dot net. Look for that voice.
Enjoy the exploration those old saints, phrases, idioms, you know

(00:23):
those things your family and friends would usually come up with,
and they came from out of nowhere, and only sometimes
they actually made sense. I mean they had to start
somewhere right, who, where, why, when and how. Some of
those old saynts are not only ancient, but still carry
a powerful punch today. In fact, I live by one
of those old saints. Winning is a choice, it is

(00:44):
a way of life. The goal of these episodes is
to help preserve not only a language, but lessons in life.
My name is Arrow. By the skin of your teeth?
Are you ready for this? It actually comes from the Bible,
the Book of Job, which is one of the oldest
stories in the Old Testament. The actual verse is found

(01:06):
at Job nineteen twenty. My bone cleaveth to my skin
and to my flesh, and I still escaped with the
skin of my teeth, basically meaning how narrowly they survived
their suffering. It paints the picture of someone getting by
with barely nothing. It was the English who chose to
start using the Bible Verse within their everyday expressions. Some

(01:29):
want to know if it truly means by the skin
of our teeth, when in fact there's no such thing.
It's absolutely not true. The Hebrews connected the Verse to
our gums and membranes, covering the roots of our teeth.
By the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, preachers and writers use
the phrase figuratively, not by physically suffering. It's still about

(01:50):
the narrow escape. By the nineteenth century, by the skin
of my teeth reached the realms of the secular world,
appearing in newsprints and thick novels. In fact, fact Ryder
Thornton Wilder used it in his nineteen forty two play
To Skin Our Teeth. But in the end, it's still
about survival, faith, and resilience by the skin of your teeth,

(02:12):
something our parents would say. My name is Arrow,