Latest / Ridiculous History / Idiomatic for the People II, Part 2

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Idiomatic for the People II, Part 2 · Ridiculous History

0:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we've returned. In an earlier episode, we launched
0:28
Speaker 1: our continuing exploration into idioms. This is the next episode
0:33
Speaker 1: of Idiomatic for the people, Come on, knock on my door,
0:39
Speaker 1: Idiomatic for you something something bad, people and phrases and
0:46
Speaker 1: you gotta workshop that. No, Ben, you pointed out though,
0:48
Speaker 1: that the Threes Company theme kind of dirty, clearly not
0:53
Speaker 1: as innocent as the melody would imply. And this is
0:57
Speaker 1: something that we we should look back into you because
1:00
Speaker 1: I know that you and I and our super producer
1:03
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram had a fantastic time tripping the light of
1:08
Speaker 1: music history in our Louis Louis episode, So maybe we
1:12
Speaker 1: can look at sitcom theme songs one day. Are you
1:14
Speaker 1: trying to make trip the Light happen? Ben? No, but
1:16
Speaker 1: I was thinking about bank a cast the pod. Fantastic voices. Voices, Man,
1:23
Speaker 1: We've got voices, not just the ones in our heads. No, No,
1:27
Speaker 1: it's not just you and Casey and myself. Today we
1:30
Speaker 1: are rejoined by our good friends Rowan Nuby and Frank Mulherron. Hey, guys, thanks,
1:38
Speaker 1: thanks that a well hello or a mahallow, both both multifunctional.
1:45
Speaker 1: So we are we're really glad that you guys didn't
1:49
Speaker 1: didn't give up the ghost. It's another idiom. Didn't give
1:52
Speaker 1: up the ghost at intermission and came and came back.
1:55
Speaker 1: So thanks so much for giving us a second date.
1:59
Speaker 1: We've established the rules video matic for the people already.
2:02
Speaker 1: I almost tapped out myself, Ben, Yeah, you've been You've
2:06
Speaker 1: had a long day, my friend, It's been a long journey.
2:08
Speaker 1: I was telling the superducer Kisy program that I did
2:10
Speaker 1: get good sleep last night. I went to bed like
2:12
Speaker 1: a good boy at around nine four thirty. But it's
2:15
Speaker 1: not about the lack of sleep. It's just about the
2:17
Speaker 1: length of the day. We are up at four. It
2:19
Speaker 1: feels like an eternity. But I'm kind of liking this
2:22
Speaker 1: punchy vibe that I'm riding now. I'm hoping that it'll
2:25
Speaker 1: lend itself to some fun idiomatic dissection. I am agreed
2:31
Speaker 1: with you, and I've just been struck by inspiration. Noel,
2:36
Speaker 1: will you be the first brave soul to explore an
2:40
Speaker 1: idiom with us today? I would love to Ben jim Man, Uh,
2:44
Speaker 1: my idiom is the name of a spice girl. Can
2:48
Speaker 1: you guess which one it is? Is it scary? The story.
2:52
Speaker 1: The story is a little bit scary, and it does
2:54
Speaker 1: involve some sport, some potential sports some sports. Uh individual
2:59
Speaker 1: sporty individual. What are the other ones? There's baby baby, um,
3:03
Speaker 1: there there may be some babies in the story here
3:05
Speaker 1: baby spice, Ginger, ginger spice, ginger spice or was she was?
3:10
Speaker 1: Wasn't she? There was ginger spice? Yeah, I don't know.
3:13
Speaker 1: Ginger is a spice. I think that's what you mean.
3:14
Speaker 1: Ginger is a spice multiple levels. The story of of
3:18
Speaker 1: the spice girl in question, um, or at least her namesake,
3:22
Speaker 1: does involve some spices potentially, um, yeah, exactly. It involves
3:27
Speaker 1: a journey to uh, the land of exotic spices, right
3:34
Speaker 1: like turmeric, like you know, peppercorns, also peppercorns. That's right,
3:39
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. But it's not just any journey, my friend.
3:43
Speaker 1: It is the journey of the wealthy via steam ship.
3:46
Speaker 1: You see, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century
3:50
Speaker 1: it was the thing to do for the well to do,
3:53
Speaker 1: the wealthy, the upper crust of England to go to
3:57
Speaker 1: India for what they call in in England holiday which
4:02
Speaker 1: means vacation or it's also a fabulous Madonna's song, wouldn't
4:08
Speaker 1: that be funny? So there was there's a go Ghost
4:09
Speaker 1: song called Vacation, and then there's a Madonna song called
4:12
Speaker 1: Holiday and they're both. You know, madonna song about Holiday
4:16
Speaker 1: is about taking a holiday, if we took a holiday,
4:19
Speaker 1: just some time to celebrate. Now I think she's more
4:21
Speaker 1: talking about like a Christmas type experience. It's talking about celebrating. Well,
4:25
Speaker 1: as long as you wake me up before you go go, oh,
4:27
Speaker 1: you know, I will ruin, you know, I will listen here,
4:30
Speaker 1: listen here, my friends, so they have to take this
4:32
Speaker 1: journey on steamship. And here's the thing. In those days,
4:36
Speaker 1: it was not a good look for the wealthy to
4:39
Speaker 1: have a tan because the tan was not what it
4:43
Speaker 1: is today. Or people you know, get literally spray painted
4:46
Speaker 1: on their body so they look they have that like glow. Uh. No,
4:50
Speaker 1: that was the look that was reserved for like a
4:53
Speaker 1: field hand. That was considered like we would call like
4:56
Speaker 1: a redneck or something like that, someone that's like the
4:58
Speaker 1: lowest of the low. And these these wealthy types wanted
5:01
Speaker 1: to maintain their ghostly complexion. Um. So here's the thing,
5:05
Speaker 1: the story of the word posh, that is, it was
5:09
Speaker 1: a long preamble to get there. I know, but Ben,
5:12
Speaker 1: you know I love a good acronym. That's true. You
5:16
Speaker 1: know you know this about me, Frank, you know this
5:18
Speaker 1: about me. I'm always talking about acronyms at the house.
5:21
Speaker 1: It's like I won't shut up. I'm like, acronym, acronym, acronym,
5:25
Speaker 1: Yet I can't seem to think of radar race car.
5:31
Speaker 1: That's it's a palindromes, not an acronym. Uh, just want
5:37
Speaker 1: to chime in here. One of my favorite palindromes doctor
5:41
Speaker 1: awkwardly wo beautiful. Also one of my favorite Spiderman villains. No,
5:46
Speaker 1: wait a second, my favorite is a lonely titlan All. Wow,
5:51
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Yeah, But palindromes maybe something for
5:55
Speaker 1: a different tale, right, you know the word palindrome is
5:58
Speaker 1: itself a palindrome. I'm pretty sure it might be in
6:01
Speaker 1: some other language. That's fair. So I'll tell you. The
6:05
Speaker 1: story of the word posh is really fascinating because there
6:09
Speaker 1: is a popularly circulated, let's call it um. I don't know,
6:14
Speaker 1: rumored origin of this word that these uh, these mucky
6:18
Speaker 1: muck English types that were going on their holiday to
6:22
Speaker 1: India via steemship required a very particular type of seat,
6:26
Speaker 1: so they would not get that tan Um. So they
6:31
Speaker 1: wanted to sit in the part of the ship that
6:32
Speaker 1: would shield them from the afternoon sun, which is the
6:36
Speaker 1: hottest of the hot during the day when you're out
6:39
Speaker 1: on the open sea, which would, according to this version
6:42
Speaker 1: of events, be the right or the starboard side, and
6:46
Speaker 1: then when you came back, they wanted it to be
6:49
Speaker 1: on the left or the port side. So therein you
6:54
Speaker 1: have the acronym p O s H port side out
6:59
Speaker 1: star home, meaning the voyage there you'd sit on the
7:04
Speaker 1: port side. On the voyage back, you'd sit on the
7:07
Speaker 1: starboard side. And supposedly, according to this tale, these tickets
7:10
Speaker 1: would be stamped with posh and it got so popular
7:13
Speaker 1: that people just started asking for the POSH ticket. We
7:15
Speaker 1: want the posh ticket. It turns out this is garbage.
7:19
Speaker 1: This story is not true at all, and there's a
7:22
Speaker 1: great reason there's it's so garbage and so questionable that
7:25
Speaker 1: Snopes has a fantastic article dissecting all of these these
7:29
Speaker 1: various versions of the story. Uh, and they have a
7:32
Speaker 1: couple of reasons that does not make sense. First of all, um,
7:36
Speaker 1: the way the sun would move in a journey like
7:40
Speaker 1: this would be different depending on the day. This is
7:43
Speaker 1: a very long and arduous journey. And they you know,
7:48
Speaker 1: you couldn't really bank on where the sun would be exactly.
7:53
Speaker 1: It doesn't make its own rules. And that's the thing.
7:56
Speaker 1: The winds. There were monsoon winds that would be in play,
8:01
Speaker 1: and they would change from season to season. So it
8:05
Speaker 1: would change seasonally, you know, like maybe not day to day,
8:08
Speaker 1: but certainly seasonally. Um. And there's here's the other part.
8:11
Speaker 1: Here's the other rub as they say, which is another
8:13
Speaker 1: idiom we should explore. Um, yeah, there it is right there. Uh.
8:18
Speaker 1: They these trips were so long and difficult that they
8:21
Speaker 1: wouldn't book a round trip. They would be staying in
8:24
Speaker 1: India for a long time to make it worth their while.
8:27
Speaker 1: They might stay months, some might even stay over like
8:29
Speaker 1: a year or so. They would not book that return
8:31
Speaker 1: trip until they knew, damn well they were ready to
8:35
Speaker 1: come home. It's so posh um. And so the real
8:40
Speaker 1: origin of the word posh uh came around in eighteen thirty.
8:44
Speaker 1: And the thing about posh too is the reason stories
8:46
Speaker 1: like this can take whole is because it's it's origins
8:49
Speaker 1: are a little bit murky. But there are some um
8:52
Speaker 1: origins in the Romani language of the early seventeenth century,
8:56
Speaker 1: where it was a term that meant money. The term
8:59
Speaker 1: was posh who which was their version of a halfpence
9:03
Speaker 1: so um. Then the word posh kind of stuck around
9:07
Speaker 1: and started to mean money. Money equals you are so money,
9:11
Speaker 1: you are so well to do, you are so posh.
9:14
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense to me. Um, And
9:17
Speaker 1: now we use that term to mean anyone that is
9:21
Speaker 1: moneyed or looking fancy or looking like whatever their get
9:25
Speaker 1: up is is would have cost a good bit. You know.
9:29
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I have to admit I'm a little It
9:32
Speaker 1: was a little bit of an emotional roller coaster for me, Noel,
9:35
Speaker 1: because I got quite into the idea of posh spices,
9:39
Speaker 1: full name being port side out, starbird hole spice. That
9:45
Speaker 1: would be good. That would be good. And a point
9:47
Speaker 1: that I love the Snopes article makes is that the
9:50
Speaker 1: Brits of this period, and honestly humans in general, big
9:53
Speaker 1: fans of scrap booking. Scrap booking is it was a
9:56
Speaker 1: super fashionable thing to do, and not a single one
10:00
Speaker 1: of these posh stamped tickets exists in the world. Bus
10:04
Speaker 1: debunked so yeah, totally debunked. The birds love to say posh.
10:08
Speaker 1: That's probably where I know the term from. Of course,
10:10
Speaker 1: you're a posh dandy, you know, because you're like a
10:13
Speaker 1: posh dandy tripping the light. Fantastic there, Like that line
10:17
Speaker 1: from Peep Show. It's like he calls him a posh
10:19
Speaker 1: spas you probably iron your socks. Yes. Also, also I
10:25
Speaker 1: propose that we take it upon ourselves to bring back
10:30
Speaker 1: posh as a sling term for money. There's always there's
10:34
Speaker 1: so many I think you can. I think you can
10:36
Speaker 1: pull it off and no one will bust you, you
10:38
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like if you say how much
10:39
Speaker 1: posha is that, they'll just say it's four thirty five.
10:42
Speaker 1: I think that works totally. There's some like you ever
10:44
Speaker 1: heard of, like a scratch You heard someone calling money
10:47
Speaker 1: scratch cheddar. Posh is way cooler. Yeah, posh is way cool.
10:51
Speaker 1: You got the posh probably more fashionable. Sounds like something
10:54
Speaker 1: Alig would say that you would say, exactly, Pasha, oh boy,
11:07
Speaker 1: uh now we uh now we turned to let's see
11:11
Speaker 1: what what you got something? Frank, you got one for us? Sure? Um?
11:15
Speaker 1: I was looking at what's cracking in what's cracking in
11:18
Speaker 1: on tonight you'll have what's cracking? Do you'll have any
11:22
Speaker 1: idea of what's going on? Like some some what's the HAPs? Yeah,
11:25
Speaker 1: what's the HAPs? What's the buzz? What's the you know,
11:28
Speaker 1: what's the new gassa? What's the four one one? Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
11:32
Speaker 1: And so I was looking into this, and you know,
11:35
Speaker 1: it's not something that's native to America. It's but it's
11:39
Speaker 1: been around in England for a while and specifically it
11:44
Speaker 1: comes from the Ulster area and the Scots Irish area
11:49
Speaker 1: of the British Isles. And originally it was spelled you know,
11:53
Speaker 1: like the way we spell it now, like c R
11:56
Speaker 1: A c K. So there was American then it was
11:59
Speaker 1: an American version or no, well no, no, no. It
12:01
Speaker 1: was originally started out and as Middle English, and it
12:05
Speaker 1: was just like it, you know, it was related to
12:08
Speaker 1: the sound, but it but in this particular usage of it,
12:13
Speaker 1: it pertained to like a lot of chatter basically like people,
12:17
Speaker 1: you know, you go into a loud bar restaurant, you
12:20
Speaker 1: hear just you know, yeah, I believe they call them
12:25
Speaker 1: pubs over there. Yeah yeah, and yes, exactly exactly. And
12:31
Speaker 1: so what I found really interesting about this was that
12:35
Speaker 1: it's an example of a re borrowing. So it was
12:39
Speaker 1: primarily used in you know, Scotland, Northern England and in
12:45
Speaker 1: Northern Ireland. It really wasn't used in Ireland, even though
12:49
Speaker 1: we associate, you know, when people say where's the crack
12:52
Speaker 1: or what's the crack and not what I think of
12:54
Speaker 1: when people say where's the crack, I'm thinking of something
12:56
Speaker 1: completely different totally. But um, yeah, but say if you
13:00
Speaker 1: were in Ireland and somebody asked you that, you know,
13:03
Speaker 1: they would just take you to a cool bar, you know,
13:05
Speaker 1: a restaurant or whatever, then sell you some crack, sell
13:08
Speaker 1: you some crack, and then you'd continue about your nine.
13:11
Speaker 1: So crack's use in mainland Ireland or the non Northern
13:15
Speaker 1: Ireland part really was more of a recent thing, and
13:19
Speaker 1: um kind of started in the late sixties. And what
13:22
Speaker 1: happened was they took crack and Galic sized it and
13:27
Speaker 1: started to spell it c R A I C you know,
13:32
Speaker 1: so they don't have a K in Gaelic, and I
13:36
Speaker 1: don't know why they chose to put an eye from them.
13:39
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. It looks like a more Middle
13:41
Speaker 1: English version, like I would think of it like you know,
13:43
Speaker 1: the creek was whiskey and the Leapy Deeves, and it's
13:50
Speaker 1: got a jabberwalkee vibe to it as well. Really in
13:53
Speaker 1: the Sleepy Tutes, yes, yes, the guy or in Gimbal
13:57
Speaker 1: So I wonder if it's really to archaic anyway, just
14:00
Speaker 1: because of that Ai. It's just an example of the
14:03
Speaker 1: Irish taking this word and giving it a more Gaelic
14:07
Speaker 1: sort of rebranding. And that's really kind of like what
14:11
Speaker 1: it turns into, because it turns into this Gaelic spelling
14:16
Speaker 1: of it, and it becomes associated with Irish nightlife culture
14:20
Speaker 1: and just going out and having fun and raising hill
14:25
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff, and then it ends
14:27
Speaker 1: up coming back into English by way of Ireland, and
14:31
Speaker 1: it kind of now means like fun, nightlife, gossip and
14:36
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff, but with the kind of
14:38
Speaker 1: Irish flavor to it. So are we are we having cracked? Now?
14:44
Speaker 1: Is that? Is this what we're doing? I'd like to hope.
14:47
Speaker 1: So is that how you would say it to we're
14:50
Speaker 1: having crack? Yeah? Yeah, we're having a crack. And I
14:54
Speaker 1: feel very very fake, say like because I went, yeah,
14:59
Speaker 1: I went to um Dublin last year and what surprised
15:04
Speaker 1: me is I had heard people use this phrase, but
15:06
Speaker 1: I had no idea what it meant. And it was
15:08
Speaker 1: never in a situation where I wanted to stop someone
15:12
Speaker 1: and be like part of me. Uh, fellow Irish person,
15:16
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? What? What? What is this
15:19
Speaker 1: crack of what you speak? Take a crack? And where
15:21
Speaker 1: can I get some? I'm sorry, I keep bleeding on
15:23
Speaker 1: that because I can't. I can't hear that. So to me,
15:26
Speaker 1: what what occurred? What what comes to mind is what's cracking? Uh?
15:30
Speaker 1: And I also another popular British expression is a cracking
15:33
Speaker 1: good time exactly. So we've be saying that's cracking good
15:37
Speaker 1: you know that just I think it just means that
15:38
Speaker 1: it's super exciting and fun and uh upbeat, high energy. Yeah, totally.
15:43
Speaker 1: And one interesting thing um I came across with this
15:46
Speaker 1: is that it's kind of now that it's become readopted
15:52
Speaker 1: by English speakers, it's now kind of like seeing as
15:56
Speaker 1: kind of like emblematic of the disneyification and of Irish culture.
16:02
Speaker 1: You saw like the proliferation of like Irish pubs in
16:05
Speaker 1: the nineties, you know, and that gipsy mixed stumbles exactly. Yeah,
16:10
Speaker 1: I didn't freaking eyes. Hometown of Augusta, Georgia, which you
16:13
Speaker 1: mentioned last episode, there is an Irish bar that's sort
16:16
Speaker 1: of like an Irish bar Hooters called Tipsy Mixed stumbles.
16:20
Speaker 1: If that's not the most offensive cultural appropriation that I
16:24
Speaker 1: can think of up my head, I don't know what
16:25
Speaker 1: it is. You know, there are a lot of really
16:27
Speaker 1: cool examples of re borrowing that I thought were really interesting,
16:30
Speaker 1: you know, like you know how like animation in English
16:35
Speaker 1: and then jack in Japan. There's anime and then now
16:40
Speaker 1: in English animation that has that's from Japan or I
16:45
Speaker 1: mean Japan animation. Nobody, nobody says, I'm not supposed to
16:50
Speaker 1: say that that will get you punched by fans of
16:52
Speaker 1: the medium. Yeah. Yeah, So it's come full circle back
16:55
Speaker 1: to anime. So I have a question. Can we as
16:58
Speaker 1: Americans use this phrase? Are we being jerks? I would
17:02
Speaker 1: if I was going over there, I would be like, listen,
17:05
Speaker 1: I don't want I don't want I don't want this.
17:09
Speaker 1: Mickey Mickey Mouse, Donald duck crack. You know, I'm looking
17:12
Speaker 1: for the real thing, you know, don't send me to
17:14
Speaker 1: where the tourists are. Okay. I feel like I'm not
17:18
Speaker 1: into Donald Duck crack either personally. Oh my goodness, last thing,
17:22
Speaker 1: real quick. I keep seeing this on the internet when
17:25
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this. The crack was ninety. Why isn't
17:28
Speaker 1: it only nine? That is the highest gradation of crack
17:34
Speaker 1: breaking bad. If you go pass uh crack ninety, then
17:38
Speaker 1: you've entered into minus crack, where you've had too good
17:41
Speaker 1: of a time and and you know you said some
17:46
Speaker 1: terrible things and gotten into a fight, and you know
17:51
Speaker 1: you cancel you you were canceled this season, right, you were.
17:55
Speaker 1: So that was fantastic. I first of all, when you
17:58
Speaker 1: texted the group saying that I thought you were misspelling
18:01
Speaker 1: a word, and I was like, but I am. I
18:05
Speaker 1: am delighted. I literally learned something new. Yeah. I didn't
18:09
Speaker 1: want to. I didn't want to mention it in our
18:12
Speaker 1: off air talks because I thought you would like have
18:15
Speaker 1: more fun. You knew what it was, Yeah, because you
18:18
Speaker 1: people talk about it, and I actually um when we
18:22
Speaker 1: were there, we ended up entirely through accidents, staying next
18:26
Speaker 1: to the most notorious club in Dublin, which is a
18:30
Speaker 1: place called Copper Faced Jack's. Uh. I don't want to
18:35
Speaker 1: go too far into detail on it, but if you
18:38
Speaker 1: are by a computer that is not associated with your work,
18:42
Speaker 1: feel free to google it and check out what happens
18:45
Speaker 1: at copper faced Jack's I hear it's a raging crack.
18:48
Speaker 1: It's at ninety. Am I doing that right? Yeah? Crack ninety.
18:54
Speaker 1: We should do, we should do. There's some T shirt
18:56
Speaker 1: ideas here, guys. These are T shirt I did, yeah,
18:59
Speaker 1: I or any shirt with crack on it. That's what
19:02
Speaker 1: people say about you. I have one, you, guys, it
19:10
Speaker 1: might it might surprise you. Have you ever felt that
19:15
Speaker 1: you were doing something or involved in some kind of
19:17
Speaker 1: project that um felt too improvised, somewhat haphazard, like this podcast. No,
19:24
Speaker 1: we had Hey, we had a plan, we had a text,
19:27
Speaker 1: we had a text, a text threat and more Lucy
19:32
Speaker 1: Goosey than this is what you're saying and not But
19:36
Speaker 1: but that's a great one to the phrase Willie Nilly,
19:42
Speaker 1: which is for older generations. I know, I'm sorry, just
19:46
Speaker 1: Willy Nilly Lucy Goosey there, but similar sing song they've
19:51
Speaker 1: got some whimsy to them, right, they're a bit to June.
19:54
Speaker 1: But Willie Nilly, Now it's something that you would associate with,
19:58
Speaker 1: let's be honest, maybe a child a teacher or an
20:02
Speaker 1: older person say in a in a way like if
20:05
Speaker 1: you've ever seen a very wholesome person get angry, they
20:09
Speaker 1: would use a phrase like willy nilly, like you cannot
20:12
Speaker 1: be out all hours of the night driving willy nilly
20:16
Speaker 1: hither and yon yes yes me so nowadays, in we
20:23
Speaker 1: associate this with the definition that I think we all
20:26
Speaker 1: recognized instantly doing something without a good set of directions,
20:31
Speaker 1: lackluster planning somewhat haphazardly, which reminds us uh I feel terrible.
20:39
Speaker 1: Super producer Casey Pegro we went willy Nilly into the
20:43
Speaker 1: beginning of this podcast. We ran rough shot over our
20:46
Speaker 1: normal top of the show, shout out to Casey, yes,
20:49
Speaker 1: please do yes, we're we're penitent. I blame you? What
20:54
Speaker 1: come on? We blame ruin. Oh look, I'm sorry, Casey.
20:59
Speaker 1: Do you forget of me? I forgive you. Listen to
21:02
Speaker 1: that h Casey on a case yeah, and it sounded
21:06
Speaker 1: very sincere. So why don't you guys need to take
21:10
Speaker 1: take a deep breath. Alright, We're good. So Willie Nilly
21:14
Speaker 1: is much older than you might originally suspect. The phrase
21:21
Speaker 1: that survives now w I L L Y dash n
21:24
Speaker 1: I l l y is the winner of a long
21:29
Speaker 1: battle between various different spellings uh. And it's even become
21:36
Speaker 1: a great fake name if you guys are into those
21:39
Speaker 1: William William, Who's who's going to use that at the airport?
21:45
Speaker 1: Next every hotel, every hotel. So the early meaning of
21:51
Speaker 1: the word nil is key to the understanding it used to.
21:55
Speaker 1: It used to mean originally with or against your will.
21:58
Speaker 1: So come hell or high wall is closer to the
22:01
Speaker 1: original version of Willie nilly because the early meaning of
22:05
Speaker 1: the word nil it was the opposite of will, a
22:09
Speaker 1: contraction of nay will so gosh so so I nil
22:19
Speaker 1: do that, I will not do that. Websters defines it
22:22
Speaker 1: as uh, whether you like it or not. Yep, and
22:26
Speaker 1: so I've always wanted to say, Websters defines it as
22:29
Speaker 1: it's perfect shout out to Websters. So will I nil
22:34
Speaker 1: I can be expanded into b I willing b I unwilling,
22:38
Speaker 1: combining the two sentiments with the implication that it doesn't
22:41
Speaker 1: matter how you feel about it, you are stuck doing
22:44
Speaker 1: this thing. I got a lot of this information from
22:46
Speaker 1: one of my favorite word websites, which is Worldwide Words.
22:51
Speaker 1: It is a treasure trove a cavalcade, a very very
22:54
Speaker 1: strange phrases, and an interesting backstory. The guy that that
22:57
Speaker 1: maintained it right, Yeah, yeah, he is no longer actively
23:02
Speaker 1: updating the site, But Michael Quinnion has spent his entire
23:08
Speaker 1: life studying this. He's a one man army and it's
23:12
Speaker 1: it's fascinating, just the sheer bulk of stuff he describes.
23:15
Speaker 1: So shout out to you, Mike, and thanks for putting
23:17
Speaker 1: this together. So the phrase itself dates back at least
23:20
Speaker 1: a thousand years. The earliest known version was in an
23:23
Speaker 1: Old English text called Lives of Saints. The line is
23:28
Speaker 1: for in the we is saying saying food and skilled
23:31
Speaker 1: in boone ad mode, Really we needed we I don't
23:34
Speaker 1: know what he's talking about, and something about skating and
23:40
Speaker 1: bone what was it? Skanks and bones, sin sinful and
23:44
Speaker 1: slen boone ed mode ed mode moved im in ed mode, Bro,
23:51
Speaker 1: you're so ed modr. That's like when you like actively
23:55
Speaker 1: are sort of like a dweeb, like I'm in full
23:58
Speaker 1: ad mode, and then became this is great, He's gonna
24:03
Speaker 1: be t shirts and then uh. It occurs in The
24:06
Speaker 1: Taming the Shrewe in with its original meaning Patricio, speaking
24:11
Speaker 1: to Catherina, says, thus, in plain terms, your father hath
24:15
Speaker 1: consented that you shall be my wife. Your dowry greed
24:18
Speaker 1: on and will you nail you? I will marry you.
24:22
Speaker 1: Super creepy dude. Wow, Yeah, that's that's not a good
24:27
Speaker 1: look for Patricio. What's his name? That's right, got it?
24:30
Speaker 1: He nailed it, man. And this is just I think
24:34
Speaker 1: a great example of how previously maybe not sinister, but
24:39
Speaker 1: previously more combative or or less innocuous terms become these
24:43
Speaker 1: fun things that we throw around. Now, you know what
24:46
Speaker 1: I mean, You're not You're like the odds of you
24:50
Speaker 1: being in an altercation and someone saying will you nail you?
24:56
Speaker 1: That's in a threatening manner. That's just safely not gonna happen. Yeah,
25:00
Speaker 1: I totally agree. I do have to say, Ben, I
25:02
Speaker 1: use this one quite a lot. Yeah, Willie Billy, I
25:06
Speaker 1: use it Willie Nilly. It's just just every which way.
25:10
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I really do. I really really like Willy Nilly.
25:14
Speaker 1: Oh come on, I keep thinking of what's that song,
25:17
Speaker 1: will Bully? I keep thinking of the song Willy Bully,
25:21
Speaker 1: but just with the lyrics replaced Willy Nilly. I like it,
25:24
Speaker 1: which actually works, I do, but honestly that when I
25:27
Speaker 1: use it, though, I use it in kind of a
25:28
Speaker 1: Larry David kind of like grumpy old man way, where
25:30
Speaker 1: I'm like, you can't just go doing this stuff willy nilly,
25:33
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, it's this idea of there's
25:37
Speaker 1: gotta be a little order involved. You can't just go
25:41
Speaker 1: you can't just be going out, you know, doing whatever
25:43
Speaker 1: it is you're doing, whatever the case might be, whose
25:46
Speaker 1: be haphazard or pell mell hell mell, which is so
25:49
Speaker 1: funny because they're cigarettes about our grandpa cigarettes, I would
25:54
Speaker 1: also say willy nilly probably, but Grandpa's pronounced it pell mell.
25:58
Speaker 1: And if you look at the pack, clearly paul mall.
26:01
Speaker 1: And they're still around, but apparently they're like that. That's
26:04
Speaker 1: one of these examples of wilful disagreement of an obvious pronunciation,
26:08
Speaker 1: you know, like we're just like a fast as possible
26:13
Speaker 1: and time to read the box a person with do.
26:21
Speaker 1: So that's that's the story. So we have posh, we
26:25
Speaker 1: have crack. We took a crack at crack, and then
26:29
Speaker 1: we have will eat nilly, But we weren't quite willy
26:31
Speaker 1: nillly with this episode because we did have a plan.
26:34
Speaker 1: We did promise everyone in the beginning that we would
26:38
Speaker 1: we would each present an idiom and Rowan since you
26:41
Speaker 1: are an alumni of the show, now alumnus, alumnar, alum aluminium,
26:49
Speaker 1: since you are in fact build largely from alumenium. No
26:53
Speaker 1: I'm a tent man, we would like to give the
26:55
Speaker 1: honor to you. You have the last idiom. Now, this
26:59
Speaker 1: means that if the three of us have really dropped
27:02
Speaker 1: the ball here I don't know where that one comes from,
27:04
Speaker 1: then it's no pressure on you to save the show. Yeah,
27:10
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't feel pressure by that statement at all.
27:13
Speaker 1: Good because Nolan Frank gave you some serious nods and on.
27:17
Speaker 1: You know that we're not joking. Okay, they all just
27:19
Speaker 1: cracked their knuckles and they're looking at me very sternly.
27:23
Speaker 1: I want everyone to know. Can you hear those knuckles?
27:26
Speaker 1: That is that is in the room? Wow? Okay, well
27:30
Speaker 1: I'm bullets right now. Put that on your list. By
27:34
Speaker 1: the way, there, um, because I'm tripping balls, tripping the
27:38
Speaker 1: balls fantastic, got it? Uh? Yeah, there's actually a dry
27:43
Speaker 1: race board behind ben Or He puts a tally of
27:45
Speaker 1: every accidental idiom. We utter literally keep score in all
27:49
Speaker 1: things and all things. It's podcast related. I'm super petty, um,
27:54
Speaker 1: but sure, yeah, here we go, let's jump in. Uh.
27:57
Speaker 1: This is a lesser known idiom or the people out
28:01
Speaker 1: there hardbucksing the runway. If you're not familiar with this,
28:06
Speaker 1: it refers to someone who's maybe showboating or peacocking a bit,
28:09
Speaker 1: you know, maybe accidentally alienating a crowd as opposed to
28:13
Speaker 1: enlightening with their flair and uh mild superiority but like
28:18
Speaker 1: big personality. Mostly I've heard this, but I have no
28:20
Speaker 1: idea where it comes from. Is it like as like
28:23
Speaker 1: a European thing or is it you know, I think
28:25
Speaker 1: it's origins or English, but uh but I think English,
28:29
Speaker 1: so yeah, European. Okay, I think did you do the
28:32
Speaker 1: home the homework? Come on? Well it is one of
28:38
Speaker 1: those expressions that feels fakes, but I promised it's not
28:44
Speaker 1: so okay, so so lay it on. Est man, What's
28:47
Speaker 1: what's the etymology? Is there a story behind this? Well,
28:50
Speaker 1: there there's a man by the name of Alexander Benson.
28:54
Speaker 1: Okay who it was? The great grandfather somebody who I know,
28:59
Speaker 1: And Admiral Nicholas von Vinson, who um has shared this
29:03
Speaker 1: wisdom with me. Uh, evently stems from old bricotine ships
29:10
Speaker 1: and um there was something called like you know with
29:13
Speaker 1: the front of the ship is the bow and the
29:15
Speaker 1: back is the is the port correct starting thank you,
29:19
Speaker 1: And so in the back of the ships where you
29:21
Speaker 1: steer the ship, and if somebody was steering the ship,
29:25
Speaker 1: they would they would have this semblance of um, you know,
29:28
Speaker 1: kind of arrogance. They'd be taking up a lot of
29:30
Speaker 1: you know, they oh, I'm in control of this ship.
29:33
Speaker 1: So they were often known as the hard bucks. There
29:35
Speaker 1: were hard bucks saying the runway being like they're the
29:39
Speaker 1: passageway from the port or the starboard. Oh alright, the
29:44
Speaker 1: stern is in the backup saying but when you look forward, yes,
29:48
Speaker 1: because they they get this whole like vista of the
29:50
Speaker 1: entire ship at the sea because they're steering the ship.
29:53
Speaker 1: So they like hogging the spotlight exactly, and they can
29:57
Speaker 1: be a little braggadocious, but they're do the job, you know. There.
30:01
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of an unintentional like flexing on
30:05
Speaker 1: the Graham or something. Sure, a more archaic version perhaps, Yeah,
30:11
Speaker 1: this why not very archaic because I haven't. I gotta
30:14
Speaker 1: be honest, like I haven't. I'm familiar with it. I'm
30:17
Speaker 1: sure a lot of us listening are, but I haven't
30:20
Speaker 1: heard it in the modern day, you know what I mean? Yeah, well,
30:24
Speaker 1: you know, much like Willy Nilly, people aren't um or
30:27
Speaker 1: will to the nil or whatever it was. Folks aren't
30:30
Speaker 1: using this as as often as they should. You know. Frankly,
30:33
Speaker 1: I'm a little upset that people are often try to
30:37
Speaker 1: call me on this, but it is real as the
30:41
Speaker 1: table we're in front of a right, we are not
30:45
Speaker 1: sitting down, we're standing. Real is the table in front
30:49
Speaker 1: of us. You can put that on the tally board. Right,
30:51
Speaker 1: So do you think people should bring this back? I
30:55
Speaker 1: strongly suggest it would be for the benefit of all
30:58
Speaker 1: if we because because you gotta call people on their
31:01
Speaker 1: on their bs often, you know what I'm saying. So
31:04
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Okay, So I'm gonna okay, yeah, alright,
31:10
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I wrote a bunch of other
31:12
Speaker 1: fake things. Yes, yes, I mean real things, because I
31:20
Speaker 1: did actually google the word hardbuck, because you know what,
31:23
Speaker 1: that's what the Internet's for, right, hardbuck could have ties
31:26
Speaker 1: to a Gaelic expression hardbuck, which was a surname or
31:31
Speaker 1: habitational name taken from our Buckle, a parish of air Dry, Lancolnshire.
31:37
Speaker 1: I think I'm pronouncing nothing correctly, but it's yes, well
31:41
Speaker 1: really it's it's Gaelic. So we we've got crack and
31:47
Speaker 1: we came back around exactly, We're back and he was
31:50
Speaker 1: talking about ships at the beginning of the show. Wow, yeah,
31:53
Speaker 1: I think about that. It's almost as though I'm definitely
31:56
Speaker 1: usual suspect almost or I'm alright, discovered the perfect crystallization
32:03
Speaker 1: of everything that we did in this episode, summed up
32:06
Speaker 1: in a completely believable and meticulously researched idiom. I you know,
32:12
Speaker 1: I couldn't have said it better myself. I Um, I'm
32:15
Speaker 1: patting myself on the back. However, Nicholas von Vinson, Admiral,
32:20
Speaker 1: deserves a large amount of the credit as well. I
32:22
Speaker 1: must say, was he the hard was he the original Hardbucks?
32:25
Speaker 1: He was the original person to Hardbucks the runway. I
32:27
Speaker 1: actually say this wouldn't an admiral. He would just be commanding,
32:29
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be steering. He was kind of a dick
32:31
Speaker 1: about it. Some people are really hands on, you know people. Yeah, exactly,
32:36
Speaker 1: because you know it's a you know, there are shifts,
32:39
Speaker 1: it's also a power move exactly like you would admirally
32:43
Speaker 1: want people to know he still got it. He would
32:46
Speaker 1: often just like shout hey, guys, look at me. Hey,
32:51
Speaker 1: check out the the steering on this guy. Huh handling
32:57
Speaker 1: really good handling. Yeah, and then people swam on the
33:00
Speaker 1: poop deck like that's nice, sir, that's great. Well, you
33:03
Speaker 1: know what I say, we take this to our favorite
33:07
Speaker 1: court because if anyone can get to the bottom of
33:11
Speaker 1: the veracity of this figure speech, it will be our superproducer,
33:17
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram. Casey, question for you, when was the last
33:21
Speaker 1: time you heard Hardbucks in the runway? I would estimate
33:24
Speaker 1: about an hour ago. Uh, we're talking about it outside
33:28
Speaker 1: before recording. This is new to you, it's a new
33:30
Speaker 1: one to me. But you know, it feels like it
33:32
Speaker 1: should be real, so it has that going for it.
33:34
Speaker 1: What should be real? Casey, I thought we were. I mean,
33:39
Speaker 1: you know, all languages constructed, so I mean, really, what
33:42
Speaker 1: is real versus fake? Yeah? Thank you? And that's actually
33:45
Speaker 1: something I texted's you did? Uh? So be it true?
33:51
Speaker 1: Will he nil? He? Um? You know. I I think
33:54
Speaker 1: it demonstrates the malleability of language and the power of belief.
34:00
Speaker 1: What we're all about here on ridiculous. It's like our
34:02
Speaker 1: main thing. It's one of our main things. So guys, again,
34:09
Speaker 1: thank you so much for dropping by and helping shed
34:13
Speaker 1: some light on the mysteries of etymology. For those of
34:18
Speaker 1: us listening, we want to thank you for all the
34:21
Speaker 1: responses we received to our previous idiomatic for the people
34:25
Speaker 1: right in let us know some of your favorite figures
34:28
Speaker 1: of speech, turns of phrase, idioms. Also, if you speak
34:32
Speaker 1: languages other than English, what's something that you think sounds
34:36
Speaker 1: really strange in English but it is very common in
34:39
Speaker 1: some other language. That's an episode all its own. There
34:42
Speaker 1: are some great ones. Thanks to you, my dear friend,
34:45
Speaker 1: my dear old friend, Frank m'haran, coiner of the idiomatic
34:48
Speaker 1: for the people, ephemeral friend of the show. And now
34:52
Speaker 1: what's the what's the opposite of ephemeral? Concrete, flat lasting, corporate,
34:57
Speaker 1: corporeal the show, part of the show. It's been a
35:00
Speaker 1: long time comment. Thanks for being here, man, thanks for
35:02
Speaker 1: having now. You had to rush over here from from
35:04
Speaker 1: work and it means the world. Ruin Nuby, Yeah, thanks
35:08
Speaker 1: so much, Ruin you can find You can find Mr
35:11
Speaker 1: Newby on his own show Pitches, which is a comedy
35:16
Speaker 1: podcast about the evaluation of ideas. Correct a panopoly of ideas.
35:22
Speaker 1: Right that is correct? Very good word. Yeah, you know
35:25
Speaker 1: it's like Shark Tank minus all the stress and money
35:28
Speaker 1: and plus all the chatter and and fun and irreverence
35:32
Speaker 1: and um yeah, it's it's pretty off the cuff. I
35:35
Speaker 1: got Ben Bowling here actually coming up on an episode,
35:37
Speaker 1: and I got Noel Brown here on a one that's
35:40
Speaker 1: airing today. Do you like them apples? So you can
35:42
Speaker 1: check it out now wherever you find your favorite podcast,
35:45
Speaker 1: correct Apple podcast, Spotify all the things you get on
35:48
Speaker 1: their baby at Pictures podcast. Get it. You can also
35:52
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Meet one of
35:56
Speaker 1: our favorite parts of the show, your fellow listeners on
35:58
Speaker 1: your Facebook page where dick us Historians. Big thanks to
36:01
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram, Big thanks to our research associated
36:05
Speaker 1: Gabe lose here, and thanks to Alex Williams who composed
36:09
Speaker 1: are ever so earwormy theme And as we said in
36:12
Speaker 1: previous episode, right it and let us know if there
36:15
Speaker 1: were any figures of speech or turns of phrase that
36:17
Speaker 1: we used. Unconsciously. I'm sure they were in there. You
36:21
Speaker 1: can find my personal Instagram at Ben Bowling and hey Nolan,
36:24
Speaker 1: you're on the internet to Yeah, I'm on the insternet
36:27
Speaker 1: at at Embryonic Insider double ats. It's the only way
36:31
Speaker 1: you can find it. I'm getting just a single app
36:33
Speaker 1: Willy nilly, great crack folks. Stay tuned for our next
36:38
Speaker 1: episode when we do something that we guarantee will be ridiculous. Yeah,
36:43
Speaker 1: that's the least we can guarantee. We'll see you next time.