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When Did We All Start Saying "Bulls*t"? · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
0:31
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man,
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Speaker 1: the Myth, the Legend, our super producer, mister Max the
0:36
Speaker 1: freight Train Williams.
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Speaker 2: I'm still here in the Bahamas.
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Speaker 3: We're all in the Bahamas in our hearts. Max Bullshnip Williams.
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Speaker 3: That's mister nol no poop Brown.
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Speaker 2: They called me straight poop.
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Speaker 1: They call me Ben Bullen in this part of the world,
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Speaker 1: primarily due to tax purposes and folks. Before we get
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Speaker 1: into today's exploration, we have a disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer.
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Speaker 2: Somebody's one We're talking disclaimer disclaimer disclaimer.
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Speaker 1: This episode may not be appropriate for all Ridiculous Historians.
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Speaker 1: It may be one that you cannot play in the classroom.
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Speaker 1: We were on the fence about whether to include a
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Speaker 1: million bleeps here or just to label it explicit and
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Speaker 1: let it ride spoiler. We went for the latter.
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Speaker 3: Death by a million bleeps was not something that we wanted.
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Speaker 2: To go with right right.
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Speaker 3: We did it out of honestly, we did it out
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Speaker 3: of empathy for our dear long suffering producer Max.
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Speaker 2: The conversation was, uh, yeah, I mean, as long as
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Speaker 2: it gets more production time on this one, we can
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Speaker 2: I'll believe them all, and both Ben and nol No
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Speaker 2: we're not gonna. We're not gonna. Yeah, no, we're not
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Speaker 2: gonna do that.
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Speaker 3: Well, there were also philosophical reasons for the choice, you know.
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Speaker 1: Also, I believe that censorship is bullshity.
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Speaker 2: First one.
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Speaker 3: Also, first one, lets we have kind of agreeed, or
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Speaker 3: it ended up on the same page, that bullshit is
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Speaker 3: a bit of a PG. Thirteen swear, not even sure
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Speaker 3: if it makes an R rating. I think you can
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Speaker 3: have unlimited bullshit.
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Speaker 2: You can have what bullshit if you want, and that
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Speaker 2: bullshit will be fine. That's right, folks agreed.
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Speaker 1: We think the term bullshit has been normalized throughout throughout
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Speaker 1: a US discourse, throughout the anglosphere, honestly, And a few
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Speaker 1: weeks ago, you guys had this moment of ridiculous epiphany.
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Speaker 1: I was talking with some friends about Believe It or
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Speaker 1: Not politics, and I realized we were all using an
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Speaker 1: English phrase bullshit. And it's kind of bizarre because every
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Speaker 1: English speaker knows what that phrase means. But riddle me this.
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Speaker 1: There's so many animals walking, flying, and swimming along this
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Speaker 1: wide world of ours, so know how to cows of
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Speaker 1: all things, and just apparently male cows in specific. How
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Speaker 1: did they get such an unfair wrap? With everything pooping
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Speaker 1: all the time on the world?
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Speaker 2: How did everybody poops?
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Speaker 1: Right?
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Speaker 3: Or the less popular book, nobody poops but you you
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Speaker 3: shout out?
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Speaker 1: Family guys? How did how did bull feces in particular
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Speaker 1: become a stand in for that all that is untrue,
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Speaker 1: false or misleading? Like when did we all start saying bullshit?
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Speaker 2: You know? It's funny, Ben.
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Speaker 3: I also enjoy using the phrase horseshit, but that usually
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Speaker 3: just refers to something that I'm not into, like that's horseshit,
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Speaker 3: Like I'm angry about that. Bullshit, however, does imply incredulity,
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Speaker 3: And that's what I want to dig into. Man, Where
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Speaker 3: does that come from? Why are we so suspicious of bullpoop?
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Speaker 1: First off, this may surprise the more polite, ridiculous historians
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Speaker 1: in the crowd. Bullshit is a real word. It is
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Speaker 1: found in multiple dictionaries from Oxford English down to Merriam
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Speaker 1: Webster and Cambridge. Merriam Webster defines bullshit as also, I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna stop keeping it tally because I don't have a
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Speaker 1: fool errand yeah. Merriam Webster defines bullshit as both a
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Speaker 1: noun and a verb, because anything can become a verb,
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Speaker 1: especially in American English. But no, I am not yeah
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Speaker 1: God as a as a noun to your earlier point there,
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Speaker 1: noel as a noun. Mirriam Webster says bullshit indicates quote, foolish,
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Speaker 1: or insolent talk. As a verb, it can mean either
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Speaker 1: to talk foolish, foolishly, boastfly, or idly, or the less
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Speaker 1: cutting second definition, which I think is kind of wholesome
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Speaker 1: to engage in a discursive discussion, which you know they
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Speaker 1: like to.
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Speaker 2: We're just having a bull sash.
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Speaker 3: You can me if you want to be polite about it,
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Speaker 3: you could call it a bull sash. But it we're
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Speaker 3: just bullshitting man, just having a good old time talking,
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Speaker 3: talking a game. But yeah again, yeah we're just horsing around,
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Speaker 3: balling around.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that second definition is fascinating, guys. It shows us
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Speaker 1: a meaning wherein bullshit is not always inherently bad. It's
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Speaker 1: just sort of irrelevant. It's small talk. It's like shooting
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Speaker 1: the breeze. We all stayed a little later after dinner
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Speaker 1: just bullshitting, which literally happened to us in Baha Mar.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't mean we all stayed late to shout quote foolish,
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Speaker 1: insolent talk at each other. Instead, we probably joked about
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Speaker 1: the weather, caught up with old friends, We talked about books,
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Speaker 1: we were reading, new films we wanted to see. In
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Speaker 1: our case, we talked a little bit about the beach
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Speaker 1: and the casino in that sense, in the beach casino, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: in that sense. People around the world bullshit constantly.
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Speaker 3: So let's jump right into uh, you know, one of
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Speaker 3: the more high falutin dictionaries the Cambridge who agrees that
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Speaker 3: bullshit is both a noun and a verb, but they
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Speaker 3: take a slightly different and arguably meaner approach because they're British.
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Speaker 1: Yeah they're they're a little bit less. Let's know how
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Speaker 1: to cut you to the quick. Oh yeah, they've got
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Speaker 1: some of the best insults either of us have ever heard.
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Speaker 2: To Cabridge, there's just bollocks. To Cambridge.
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Speaker 1: Bullshit as a noun is a rude word for complete
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Speaker 1: nonsense or something that is not true and spoiler, there's
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Speaker 1: a clue in that definition They also turn up the
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Speaker 1: heat with their definition of bullshit as a verb, which
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Speaker 1: sounds downright accusatory. Noel, would you do the honors?
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Speaker 2: Yeah?
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Speaker 3: I mean this is we've kind of touched on this one.
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Speaker 2: A rude word. Why did you do an H? There?
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Speaker 3: It's just not being British that they wouldn't have done.
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Speaker 2: That either, A rude word.
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Speaker 3: I do love it though, when they say the letter H,
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Speaker 3: they say H, which is a lot of fun. Sorry
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Speaker 3: to continue. A rude word meaning to try to persuade
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Speaker 3: someone or make them admire you by saying things that
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Speaker 3: are not true. Don't bullshit a bullshitter, Ben, Yeah, don't
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Speaker 3: bes a bs or so.
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Speaker 1: Again, this is all too common in political discourse. As
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Speaker 1: we were talking with maxoft Air and we all, I
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Speaker 1: think it's fair to say ridiculous historians, we all almost
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Speaker 1: certainly have met someone that makes wild claims in day
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Speaker 1: to day life. Surely a lot of us, especially in
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Speaker 1: the States. We had that one kid in grade school
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Speaker 1: whose dad definitely invented Nintendo, or that one or the
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Speaker 1: cop Salad who yeah, who swore up and down that
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Speaker 1: they had a boyfriend or girlfriend for real, for real,
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Speaker 1: who just happened to go to a different school.
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Speaker 2: Oh that's me.
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Speaker 3: My girlfriend does go to a different school, lives in
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Speaker 3: a different state, as it turns out.
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Speaker 2: Oh you're going to school.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, I'm going to night school. I'm studying
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Speaker 3: bullshittery Ah.
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Speaker 2: That's not bullshit at all, right, yes, the God honest. Hey.
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Speaker 3: And also, by the way, we talked about this a
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Speaker 3: little bit in the inso or I may be dropped it.
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Speaker 3: I'm fascinated with a kind of Midwestern term, the straight poop,
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Speaker 3: which is which means the truth, the God honest. So
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Speaker 3: how can shit be both true and fault at the
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Speaker 3: same time?
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Speaker 2: Strangers shit.
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Speaker 1: There's this great Finnish comedian that I follow, a stand
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Speaker 1: up guy who plays with language a lot, and he
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Speaker 1: is fascinated by something being a piece of shit being bad,
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Speaker 1: something being the shit being good. That guy's name is
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Speaker 1: Ismo I S m O. Last name Likola l e
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Speaker 1: I k O l A. Do check him out. He's
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Speaker 1: just a genius, and we're wrestling with a lot of
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Speaker 1: the stuff our Finnish stand up pal is wrestling with
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Speaker 1: as well. You know, it's weird because Noel, there are
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Speaker 1: dozens of synonyms that convey the same or similar meaning
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Speaker 1: without themselves being curse words. Nonsense, hogwash, ballooney bollocks in
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Speaker 1: the UK also means nonsense. It is considered a rude
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Speaker 1: word like bloody, but it's not on the left.
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Speaker 3: Bollocks. Also the bulls bollocks. Right, Yeah, that's a good thing.
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Speaker 1: It's like yelling.
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Speaker 3: Balls now the bulls. The dog's bollocks is a good thing. Ah.
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Speaker 2: Yes, once again, I'm just saying we've got and antonyms.
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Speaker 1: Huh is that Cockney rhyming the dog ball, porky pies.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, porky pies is lies. Being in Barney is being
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Speaker 3: in trouble because Barney rubble. A lot of Cockney rhyming
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Speaker 3: slang seems to involve Hannah Barbara cartoon characters. Scooby. Not
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Speaker 3: a Scooby means you don't know what you're talking about,
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Speaker 3: not a Scooby doo a clue, that's the right one.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe the dog's bollocks may be
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Speaker 1: a different episode of World put it in our were
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Speaker 1: our quarterly things we left out?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, the dogs bollocks is good, but a dog's breakfasts
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Speaker 3: not good?
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Speaker 1: Right, yes, because as we know it, dogs youatpoop, and.
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Speaker 2: It all comes back around, comes from dust to dust.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, bull dust is also an Australian version of bullshit.
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Speaker 1: But there there are so many words, right, nonsense, hogwash, maloney, bollocks,
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Speaker 1: uh and who could forget obviously, flap doodle, oh my gosh,
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Speaker 1: not to mention, not to mention. Still, for some reason,
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Speaker 1: bullshit as a phrase occupies this special place in the
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Speaker 1: beating heart of the American dialect, right, or the various
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Speaker 1: American dialects. It's weird because it crosses generations, acrosses demographics.
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Speaker 1: You will hear the most wealthy, oldest people say something
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Speaker 1: is bullshit, and then you will hear the youngest people
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Speaker 1: say bullshit, like a fifth grader might say bullshit, and
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Speaker 1: then you both pause. Right, It's like uh in a
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Speaker 1: Christmas story where the kid says the F word RF
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Speaker 1: and then the narrator kicks in. But I didn't say fudge.
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Speaker 3: No, he sure, that's a fun movie. Now, this is great, Ben,
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Speaker 3: It's a really good point. It does seem to cross
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Speaker 3: a lot of generational divides. I think it also just
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Speaker 3: has a good mouthfeel to it. I think sometimes words
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Speaker 3: just kind of take on a life of their own
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Speaker 3: and get popular because they're fun to say.
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Speaker 1: It's that it's got that cool you in the first syllable,
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Speaker 1: and then it's got not to sound too spectrmy here,
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Speaker 1: and it's got a.
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Speaker 2: Tight t at the end, so yeah, and a hard sush.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. It's emphatic, right, and so. Like so many other words,
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Speaker 1: the origin story of the phrase bullshit is surprisingly murky.
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Speaker 1: It is fraught with misconceptions. Uh, let's put on our
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Speaker 1: etymology caps nol because.
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Speaker 3: We played wearing it, Ben, Yeah you did.
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Speaker 1: I think it looks good on you, and we played
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Speaker 1: a bit of a trick at the top of the show.
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Speaker 1: We were kind of bullshitting you, fellow ridiculous historians about bullshit.
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Speaker 1: It is a common misconception that bullshit directly refers to
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Speaker 1: male cattle. That is not the case. It is a portmanteau,
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Speaker 1: which we love, of bull meaning nonsense, not a bovine animal,
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Speaker 1: not a cow. It's pretty directly related, therefore, to the
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Speaker 1: English phrase bollocks, which comes to English via the French
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Speaker 1: word bull, which means fraud or deceit. And it's also
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Speaker 1: quite likely the meaning of bull here.
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Speaker 3: Latines, way, Wayne, that's wild, Okay, so that's one mystery
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Speaker 3: somewhat done and dusted.
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Speaker 2: We'll get back to it.
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Speaker 3: Yet, things, as they tend to do in the historical
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Speaker 3: game of telephone, we always like to reference, get a
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Speaker 3: little bit murkier and order to part the more we
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Speaker 3: attempt to figure out exactly how this term originated. And
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Speaker 3: you know, much like manure spread gardener, that was a
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Speaker 3: gardening joke.
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Speaker 1: That's for all the gardeners in the crowd tonight. Similar
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Speaker 1: to the F word, sorry mom, bullshit has several competing
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Speaker 1: origin stories, and one of these is really interesting. A
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Speaker 1: common bit of scuttle but argues that the word comes
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Speaker 1: from agrarian communities.
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Speaker 3: Right all right, already said that one up by accident,
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Speaker 3: and they would sell cow manure, of course, to use
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Speaker 3: as fertilizer that they would spread.
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Speaker 1: According to this story, the poop of the female cow
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Speaker 1: is good for plants and agriculture, yet the poop from
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Speaker 1: the male cow is either less helpful or downright harmful.
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Speaker 1: So if you're a bad intention unethical farm you are
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Speaker 1: out to up your profits, then you start to step
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Speaker 1: on or cut your proper cow manure with poop from
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Speaker 1: the male cows as well, you sell the literal bullshit
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Speaker 1: by claiming it is cowshit. Later down the line, as
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Speaker 1: the seasons progressed, the customer they had suckered would see
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Speaker 1: damaging effects on the crops. So the story tells us
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Speaker 1: that people started saying, don't sell me no bullshit, and
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Speaker 1: over the years this was shortened to just bullshit, and
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Speaker 1: then further shortened to bull.
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Speaker 2: I don't know. That seems like something someone invented.
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Speaker 3: And Ben I definitely had no idea, this idea or
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Speaker 3: this notion that cow manure, not all manure was created equal.
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Speaker 3: But I have a little bit of a suspicion that
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Speaker 3: the negative effects of manure had less to do with
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Speaker 3: the gender of where the poop came from and more
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Speaker 3: to do with the fact that it may have been
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Speaker 3: uncomposted fresh uncomposted or it turns out can actually be
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Speaker 3: harmful to crops due to high levels of ammonia and
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Speaker 3: nitrogen and salts that can actually damage and inhibit seed germination.
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Speaker 3: But I think you were going to that place with this.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, what's a fun story. We love a
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Speaker 1: fun story. I'm a Max's team here. It's up there
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Speaker 1: with the concept of buying a pig in a poke
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Speaker 1: or caveat temptur it's probably wrong. There are a couple
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Speaker 1: of immediately obvious issues with the narratives. So first off,
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Speaker 1: cowpoop is going to be more or less a question
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Speaker 1: of processing. It's the same across biological sex. The things
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Speaker 1: that are really going to affect your cowpoop output or
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Speaker 1: cowpoop output are going to be factors like the diet,
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Speaker 1: hydration environment, individual medical conditions or disease, and again processing.
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Speaker 1: And secondly, you know, as we were pointing now, the
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Speaker 1: timeline doesn't really match with the etymology here. You can
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Speaker 1: still see dictionaries of great repute. Encyclopedia is arguing over
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Speaker 1: this bull as an animal versus bull as nonsense question.
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Speaker 1: But for now it is safe to say the farmer
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Speaker 1: origin story is itself wait for it, a bullshit you need.
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Speaker 2: It's a bit.
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Speaker 3: It's a bit of shit, So it's full of shit
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Speaker 3: it is. Whoever may have told this tale out of school,
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Speaker 3: It does turn out the real meaning of it, as
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Speaker 3: you mentioned earlier, much more likely stems from that French
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Speaker 3: translation bull meaning nonsense or an untruth, dating back to
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Speaker 3: the seventeenth century. Bullshit's been used since around nineteen fourteen
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Speaker 3: nineteen fifteen and British and American slang, and that word
16:57
Speaker 3: made its way into the American lexicon late in the
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Speaker 3: nineteenth century, where bullshit was first documented in a nineteen
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Speaker 3: fifteen edition of The New Republic and used to describe hollow,
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Speaker 3: empty rhetoric. You know thing or two about that. American
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Speaker 3: serviceman in World War One adopted the term to describe
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Speaker 3: things taking it's a little broader as just things that
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Speaker 3: are generally not good, and.
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Speaker 1: So by the mid twentieth century, bullshit is firmly ensconced
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Speaker 1: in the casual American vocabulary, but it's mostly going to
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Speaker 1: be confined to these unrecorded, unpublished conversations because of the
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Speaker 1: vulgarity of its second syllable.
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Speaker 2: It's kind of haram right.
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Speaker 1: In fancy pants discourse. It becomes popularized in World War Two,
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Speaker 1: and no kidding, this is a bit of a plot
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Speaker 1: twist for us, we have to thank one of America's
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Speaker 1: best writers for the popularization of bullshit.
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Speaker 2: Guys.
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Speaker 1: It's none other than the legendarily uptight, the lovingly pretentious,
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Speaker 1: the problematically racist poet Extraordinariy ts Elliott.
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Speaker 2: Ah.
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Speaker 3: Yes, the jellical man himself.
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Speaker 2: There it is, that's.
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Speaker 3: Him, right, yeah, yeah, he wrote cats Yeah, the Cats guy.
18:20
Speaker 1: He would not have liked the Filmata.
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Speaker 3: She would have preferred them with buttholes.
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Speaker 2: So it sounds crazy, right, He was kind of a
18:27
Speaker 2: buttle Yeah, he kind of was.
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Speaker 1: Sorry, man, we know you're from Missouri. So it sounds crazy.
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Speaker 1: It sounds almost like bullshit. Hang on, hear us out.
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Speaker 1: Between nineteen ten and nineteen fifteen he wrote a poem
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Speaker 1: called The Triumph of Bullshit and it's a ballad, and
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Speaker 1: he finalized it with a few small changes in nineteen sixteen.
18:53
Speaker 1: Just to give you a sense of this. It is
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Speaker 1: not on the level of Proof Rock or The Wasteland,
19:01
Speaker 1: but it is an early example of this phrase in print.
19:05
Speaker 1: The final form of it, Just to give you the
19:07
Speaker 1: first first verse is ladies on whom my attentions have waited.
19:13
Speaker 1: If you consider my merits a small it, deoliated, alembicated, utund, tasteless, fantastical, monotonous, crotchety, constipated, impotent,
19:25
Speaker 1: galimattias affected, possibly imitated. For Christ's sake, stick it up
19:31
Speaker 1: your ass, and every scene, everythow dude, every verse. And
19:37
Speaker 1: it's like a three verses right, and every verse ends
19:41
Speaker 1: with a refrain for Christ's sakes, For Christ's sake, stick
19:45
Speaker 1: it up your ass, the triumph of bullshit. Look this
19:50
Speaker 1: guy is all.
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Speaker 3: Right Susian for a minute there, Ben, it was I love.
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Speaker 1: All this jelical language.
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Speaker 2: Yes, that is true. Susianis to that as well.
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Speaker 1: Elliott did not invent this word sucineity.
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Speaker 2: I love it.
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Speaker 1: We should keep it, Max, keep it please. And he
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Speaker 1: popularized the phrase bullshit with this poem, but the poem
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Speaker 1: did not see print immediately after he wrote it. The
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Speaker 1: earliest citations of the phrase bullshit come to us from
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Speaker 1: the equally fancy pants boffins at the Oxford English Dictionary.
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Speaker 2: Ah.
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Speaker 3: Yes, second in fancy pants neess only to Cambridge in
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Speaker 3: my humble estimation. Not sure there's the data there to
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Speaker 3: back it up.
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Speaker 2: I don't know.
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Speaker 3: Cambridge versus Oxford ultimate smash.
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Speaker 1: Let's go fight, So the earlier. That's a great question.
20:50
Speaker 1: I wonder how they feel about each other.
20:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, who's the fancist of lads?
20:53
Speaker 1: Who's got the cravat versus the regular necktie?
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Speaker 2: Oh, that is the question. You know, we're a cravat?
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Speaker 2: To Ben, who's that? It was? Uh?
21:03
Speaker 3: Fred from the Scooby Doo Gang.
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Speaker 1: Oh that's right. A bit of a cravat, I keep
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Speaker 1: forgetting about or.
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Speaker 2: Was it an ascot?
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Speaker 3: Never mind? I think wait, wait, wait, didn't we know?
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Speaker 3: I think a cravat is just to catch all the
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Speaker 3: umbrella term.
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Speaker 2: That's where I was going. Yeah, everything's necktie everything like that.
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Speaker 3: I love quibbling over semantics.
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Speaker 1: All right, Max, with the facts, we are one and
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Speaker 1: we know that regardless of egghead hierarchy. The Oxford English Dictionary,
21:54
Speaker 1: which we love, says the earliest citations.
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Speaker 2: Book, it's you. It's a page turner, second only to
22:02
Speaker 2: the Bible.
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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, okay, I've definitely read cover to cover a
22:11
Speaker 1: question about.
22:12
Speaker 2: It many times. I U name a verse.
22:15
Speaker 3: They're all good, They're all just so good.
22:17
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's real write my.
22:19
Speaker 3: Favorite, especially that one from Bubble Fiction that wasn't in
22:23
Speaker 3: the Bible. You know it isn't in the Bible. Ben,
22:25
Speaker 3: what's that potatoes? And that was a big reason that
22:28
Speaker 3: the people were suspicious of.
22:30
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, during the Great Exchange, which will be another episode.
22:35
Speaker 1: Dare I say a series we're getting to in the
22:37
Speaker 1: futures coming right up day tuned for Thursday for part
22:40
Speaker 1: one of that. We want you to know that the
22:44
Speaker 1: Oxford English Dictionary the OED they cite the first occurrence
22:50
Speaker 1: of bullshit coming from the letters of a British writer
22:55
Speaker 1: named Wynton Lewis and the American essayists and poet Ee Cummings.
23:03
Speaker 2: This is still.
23:04
Speaker 1: Confusing because here Wyndham Lewis is directly quoting Elliot's poem
23:10
Speaker 1: in a letter from nineteen fifteen, and Lewis writes, quote,
23:14
Speaker 1: Elliot has sent me bullshit and the ballad for Big Louise.
23:18
Speaker 1: They are excellent bits of scholarly reboldry. So rebolds cheeky
23:26
Speaker 1: cheeky devil that that ts Eliot. So we do know
23:30
Speaker 1: that there are other modern writers that began using the
23:33
Speaker 1: phrase as well, because why wouldn't they. It's already starting
23:36
Speaker 1: to creep into the lexicon. It's fun to say. One
23:39
Speaker 1: of my favorite names in modern literature Ezra Pound.
23:43
Speaker 2: I don't know.
23:43
Speaker 3: It's like give me an Ezra pound you meaning like
23:45
Speaker 3: dab me up. He used it in nineteen fourteen in
23:48
Speaker 3: a letter to James Joyce, who liked farts writing include
23:54
Speaker 3: check that one out if you want another rebald episode
23:58
Speaker 3: talking about James Joyce and love of Lady Farts. He said,
24:03
Speaker 3: I enclose a prize sample of bullshit.
24:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, he spaced it out, he said bull space ship
24:10
Speaker 1: he did.
24:12
Speaker 3: It's still we're still getting there. We're still getting there.
24:14
Speaker 1: I think we can all agree. We're pretty sure that
24:17
Speaker 1: Ezra Pounds, another problematic guy who was an excellent poet.
24:21
Speaker 1: We're pretty sure he meant bullshit in the figurative sense, because,
24:25
Speaker 1: so far as we can tell, ol Ezra did not
24:29
Speaker 1: actually include cow poop with the letter.
24:33
Speaker 2: That would have been a terrorist act.
24:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would have been like Jared Leto playing the joker.
24:38
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, apparently all those rumors though, by the way
24:40
Speaker 3: he started himself, Oh my gosh, yeah yeah that guy.
24:43
Speaker 2: Wow, classic Morbius, what a fellow. Well he's morb Morban
24:47
Speaker 2: out so.
24:49
Speaker 1: Hard right now.
24:50
Speaker 2: It's true.
24:51
Speaker 1: There's one other origin story that we have to get to,
24:55
Speaker 1: and this one takes us halfway around the world.
24:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, New Zealand, I can't do it. Are not New Zealand. Hey, God,
25:06
Speaker 2: that was better.
25:07
Speaker 3: Come at us and we deserve it, and we're ready
25:10
Speaker 3: for your blows. New Zealanders and Australians alike. Aussie's Eric Partridge,
25:15
Speaker 3: is this fellow's name, and he claimed that the term
25:17
Speaker 3: was popularized by soldiers, which we already have another version
25:21
Speaker 3: of the story where it's American soldiers beginning to use
25:23
Speaker 3: the term as just bad stuff. And we know that Army,
25:28
Speaker 3: my job is Army, very fond of quippie and sometimes
25:32
Speaker 3: body terms like fu bar all of that stuff, so
25:36
Speaker 3: it makes a lot of sense. In this version, it
25:39
Speaker 3: is the new Zealand and Australian soldiers the Army Corps.
25:44
Speaker 2: Rather and Zach shouting yeah.
25:48
Speaker 3: During World War One, this term began being flung around.
25:53
Speaker 3: According to Partridge, British officers of the war placed high
25:57
Speaker 3: emphasis on bull bullshit, which I love that that is
26:02
Speaker 3: sort of how we say it, but I also enjoy
26:03
Speaker 3: it quite a lot when people say bullshit with a question,
26:08
Speaker 3: kind of with a upward We're.
26:10
Speaker 1: Almost Mandarin in our intonations there.
26:12
Speaker 3: It's true high emphasis on bull which consisted of ensuring
26:17
Speaker 3: soldiers were perfectly dressed with clean clothing when it proved
26:21
Speaker 3: to be a hindrance during military operations. ANZAC troops mocked
26:26
Speaker 3: this emphasis on presentation by calling it a bullshit bull
26:33
Speaker 3: shit bullshit right sucking the Chinese meal, Oh guys, we're
26:38
Speaker 3: just bullshitting, and there we have it, fellow ridiculous historians.
26:42
Speaker 1: Like so many other popular words and phrases, the true
26:46
Speaker 1: origin of bullshit may be lost to history. It might
26:50
Speaker 1: even be an example of parallel thinking because the word
26:53
Speaker 1: is just so tasty. You know, we don't know who
26:57
Speaker 1: exactly was the.
26:58
Speaker 2: First edgy with bullshit just.
27:01
Speaker 1: That tasty bullshit. We don't know who exactly was the
27:04
Speaker 1: first edgy wit in all of human history to cook
27:07
Speaker 1: this one up, but we know it was again becoming
27:10
Speaker 1: commonplace by the early twentieth century, and it became massively
27:15
Speaker 1: popular once civilization fell into World War Two. And if
27:18
Speaker 1: you look at the various linguistic measures of the frequency
27:24
Speaker 1: of a word, it's skyrockets as a noun as we
27:27
Speaker 1: go into the nineteen eighties, right, And then at the
27:31
Speaker 1: same time we see the growth of bullshit as a verb,
27:36
Speaker 1: as bullshitting someone, and this becomes this becomes a fascinating,
27:42
Speaker 1: i would say, case test or case study, a proof
27:46
Speaker 1: of concept that you can kind of do whatever you
27:49
Speaker 1: want in American English. That's part of why words like
27:53
Speaker 1: bullshit become popular, because almost any word you can imagine
27:58
Speaker 1: can be turned into.
27:59
Speaker 2: A verb right.
28:01
Speaker 3: We williamsed it verbify it. I'm a fan. I'm a
28:04
Speaker 3: you know, and I'm also a fan of it. I
28:06
Speaker 3: think I speak for all of us language. It's a
28:08
Speaker 3: lot of fun.
28:10
Speaker 2: Three out of five.
28:11
Speaker 3: Okay, fair enough, I'm great and hard No, it's good
28:14
Speaker 3: you are.
28:15
Speaker 2: You're great. I'm grading on a curve.
28:23
Speaker 3: You couldn't leave us, though, Ben, without some fun bullshitty
28:26
Speaker 3: bits of trivia at a step two, several of which
28:30
Speaker 3: we've already mentioned, but leading off here in this list
28:33
Speaker 3: that you've included is dipshit, which is fun because but
28:37
Speaker 3: it also weirdly, it just it cuts man calling somebody
28:40
Speaker 3: a dipshit.
28:41
Speaker 2: It feels hurtful.
28:42
Speaker 1: It's dismissive, it's a diminutive. Dipshit means stupid. These all
28:47
Speaker 1: have their own spin on the earlier formula horseship, which
28:50
Speaker 1: was mentioned earlier. It means bullshit, but it's somehow dumber.
28:55
Speaker 2: I don't I think with dipshit, I kind of it's
28:57
Speaker 2: kind of like disrespectful, like work. I don't even think
28:59
Speaker 2: highly of horseshit is. I don't know. It's maybe a
29:03
Speaker 2: little bit more respectful, but somehow calling you dummer, that's
29:07
Speaker 2: personal max context.
29:08
Speaker 3: Though, horseshit to me is sort of interchangeable. I think
29:12
Speaker 3: bullshit has become so almost saturated and overused that I
29:18
Speaker 3: tend towards horseshit just as a way of changing it
29:21
Speaker 3: up a little bit.
29:21
Speaker 2: You know, the horseshit a lot too, for the same reason.
29:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, pig shit means be meat slopping down pig shit
29:29
Speaker 3: with these meatbags, right, meats.
29:31
Speaker 1: Both dumb and simultaneously repulsive. Shout out to I think
29:35
Speaker 1: you should leave. Dog Shit means disgusting, also just bad.
29:40
Speaker 1: Like you say that movie was dog shit. Yeah, you
29:43
Speaker 1: wouldn't say that movie was bullshit unless you had some
29:46
Speaker 1: philosophical issue with it. But if you were just gonna
29:48
Speaker 1: outright say something sucks, you call it dog shit. Yeah.
29:52
Speaker 1: And shitbird means an objectionable or despicable person, sometimes also
29:57
Speaker 1: with the low key connotation of being lacey.
30:00
Speaker 3: Well, that also is one that gets thrown around in
30:02
Speaker 3: military parlance a lot, and also in like you know,
30:05
Speaker 3: law enforcement and prison. It seems like the prison what
30:10
Speaker 3: is it called pos or CEOs correctional officers, they will
30:14
Speaker 3: call you a shitbird at least in you know OZ.
30:18
Speaker 1: We also know that the etymology of bullshit has not
30:23
Speaker 1: actually been studied as well as we would assume or hope,
30:29
Speaker 1: given the ubiquity of the word, because part of it
30:32
Speaker 1: is because it became so mainstreamed, especially with the historic
30:37
Speaker 1: South Park episode, which was one of the first programs
30:41
Speaker 1: in the US to use the word shit on television.
30:45
Speaker 3: Also, I mean, speaking of bullshit on television, there's that
30:48
Speaker 3: Penn and Teller TV show literally called bullshit where I
30:51
Speaker 3: think they may stylize it in print with like an
30:55
Speaker 3: asterisk or something like that, but I've never seen it,
30:57
Speaker 3: but I'm pretty certain they say it, and I'm wondering,
31:01
Speaker 3: we got to look this up before we wrap. Where
31:03
Speaker 3: does it land on the FCCS.
31:05
Speaker 2: So I will say so Rick and Morty is a
31:08
Speaker 2: show that is always trying to push it as far
31:09
Speaker 2: as possible. So in like Rick and Morty, you can say,
31:12
Speaker 2: like shit, they say shit all the time, and it's
31:14
Speaker 2: on censored on TV. But it's like the conducts around
31:18
Speaker 2: it they.
31:18
Speaker 3: Got, but it's also on cable. It's different rules. It's
31:21
Speaker 3: not on like broadcast.
31:22
Speaker 2: Well, Penn and Teller was on HBO. Okay, okay, they
31:26
Speaker 2: doesn't have it doesn't have to comply with the FEC
31:28
Speaker 2: rules on that way. Yeah, the the issue was I
31:31
Speaker 2: with HBO was one of the one of the pay channels.
31:33
Speaker 2: I believe.
31:34
Speaker 1: For a while the FCC was rationing out uses of
31:39
Speaker 1: strong language. So for instance in show uh, in even
31:45
Speaker 1: cable shows like Lost or Breaking Bad, they started to
31:50
Speaker 1: run into well, pre Breaking Bad, they started to run
31:53
Speaker 1: into situations where they could use a strong word once
31:58
Speaker 1: and the FCC maybe still find them. But but they
32:02
Speaker 1: ate it. Yeah, but they just ate a cost of
32:05
Speaker 1: doing business makes the show better.
32:08
Speaker 2: Uh.
32:08
Speaker 1: The FCC currently defines three things they don't like obscene
32:16
Speaker 1: in decent or profane obscene consumptively indecen Right, you know
32:21
Speaker 1: it when you see it, right, So obscene means you
32:24
Speaker 1: don't have protection of the First Amendment. Uh. The indecent
32:30
Speaker 1: content is you know your bits, Yeah, it's Australia country.
32:41
Speaker 1: Last one is profane content, yes.
32:43
Speaker 3: Indeed, and the sacred and the profane. And interestingly enough,
32:47
Speaker 3: the Commission the FCC has previously found the word bullshit
32:51
Speaker 3: to be presumptively indecent and they define it as profane
32:56
Speaker 3: or vulgar or irreverence of course language, et cetera. And
32:59
Speaker 3: to your point band that can lead to fines for broadcasters.
33:03
Speaker 3: But courts, on the other hand, have oftentimes struck down
33:07
Speaker 3: FCC and decency policies, finding them to be too vague
33:11
Speaker 3: as recently as twenty ten, and appeals courts struck down
33:14
Speaker 3: some aspects of this policy after it they tried to
33:17
Speaker 3: apply it to quote, fleeting expletives that kind of slide
33:21
Speaker 3: through on live television.
33:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, language or material that in context depicts or describes
33:30
Speaker 1: in terms patently offensive as measured by here this well
33:34
Speaker 1: contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium end quote. So
33:40
Speaker 1: they're really going back to that old argument about James
33:45
Speaker 1: Joyce's ulysses, which is what is pornography? What is indecent?
33:49
Speaker 1: I know it when I read here or see it.
33:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that also is inherently flawed because it is
33:55
Speaker 3: so subjective, right, And if I'm not mistaken, the current
33:59
Speaker 3: stance the FC takes on bullshit is that it is
34:02
Speaker 3: not considered profane in all contexts, meaning that set and
34:08
Speaker 3: setting is everything. You know, So I would argue, or
34:10
Speaker 3: it would seem that if you're saying something's bullshit, that's
34:13
Speaker 3: not inherently profane. But if you're like being gross or something.
34:18
Speaker 3: Then that's different.
34:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's more about or at least it seems to
34:25
Speaker 1: be more about in the days of destination watching and
34:28
Speaker 1: broadcast TV, it's more about when the program is aired.
34:32
Speaker 3: Well, that would be six am to ten pm.
34:36
Speaker 1: And then after ten you know, Gil will freaky with it.
34:39
Speaker 3: Six am to ten pm rather is considered I believe
34:42
Speaker 3: the term is safe harbor. It is applied to stuff
34:46
Speaker 3: that children may, within a reasonable doubt be around to
34:50
Speaker 3: check out.
34:51
Speaker 2: And that's why I show like Wrick and Mortar gets
34:53
Speaker 2: a little bit morelywey, because it's always playing, you know,
34:55
Speaker 2: eleven twelve pm.
34:57
Speaker 1: Right, and so will end it here. We hope you've
35:01
Speaker 1: enjoyed this exploration. We hope you don't find the story
35:04
Speaker 1: of bullshit bullshit because we're obviously very interested, so much
35:08
Speaker 1: so that we lost account of the times, the amount
35:12
Speaker 1: of times we said, we're still going, it's still going, okay, I.
35:18
Speaker 2: Say before I say we have to cut it off, so.
35:22
Speaker 1: We have to go okay, that's another one. We have
35:26
Speaker 1: to end on this. Why has this ubiquitous word bullshit
35:31
Speaker 1: been been kind of ignored. It's probably because it had
35:37
Speaker 1: it had this social taboo. Aura about it. But in
35:40
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, and this is thanks to a
35:44
Speaker 1: guy named Larry Walsh. In two thousand and five, a
35:47
Speaker 1: philosopher named Harry Frankfurt gave the word academic weight. He
35:51
Speaker 1: wrote a book called on Bullshit. He argued that bullshit
35:55
Speaker 1: is more dangerous than lying because it reflects in different
36:00
Speaker 1: to truth rather than deliberate deceptions. So liars will distort facts.
36:05
Speaker 1: Bullshitters count it speak to impress or persuade without regard
36:12
Speaker 1: for accuracy, so that, like propaganda, the truth is sort
36:15
Speaker 1: of irrelevant. And this leads us to what we church is,
36:19
Speaker 1: what I say it is. This leads us to exactly
36:22
Speaker 1: the post truth society we've talked about on our sister
36:26
Speaker 1: show stuff they don't want you to know. If you
36:29
Speaker 1: want to learn more about bullshit, check out books like
36:32
Speaker 1: Business Bullshit twenty seventeen, Bullshit Jobs A Theory twenty eighteen,
36:36
Speaker 1: Bullshit Management twenty twelve, and of course, The A Disea
36:40
Speaker 1: of Business Bullshit twenty eighteen. Now when catalogs corporate buzzwords, Max,
36:47
Speaker 1: how did we do? What's our final count?
36:49
Speaker 2: All right, we're going to we're cutting it off now? Okay, yes,
36:53
Speaker 2: so I'm gonna go who list. We said shitbird twice,
36:57
Speaker 2: we said dogshit twice, we said pig shit twice, we
37:02
Speaker 2: said dipshit four times, we said horseshit seven times, we
37:08
Speaker 2: said just the word shit ten times, and we have
37:12
Speaker 2: said bullshit, not counting that one obviously. Actually let's count
37:16
Speaker 2: that one. Go ahead. Yeah, we've said bullshit, so both
37:19
Speaker 2: of those ninety times.
37:21
Speaker 1: Leading us to a grand total of.
37:25
Speaker 2: Oh I got them all together. I haven't all separated, sonety.
37:31
Speaker 2: But out of ninety one hundred, one hundred and seven,
37:34
Speaker 2: one hundred and eleven plus one seventeen.
37:38
Speaker 1: All right, I think we did pretty well. Big big
37:41
Speaker 1: thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams for counting
37:46
Speaker 1: the poops quite literally, big big thanks, of course, you
37:50
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians for tuning in.
37:54
Speaker 3: Yeah.
37:54
Speaker 1: I think Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist curses Okay, yes, okay.
38:00
Speaker 3: You guys got got a dirty mouth.
38:02
Speaker 1: He probably adds like the old school an achronistic British curse,
38:06
Speaker 1: So true, so true.
38:08
Speaker 3: Who else do we think, Oh, Christoph Fracionas need to
38:11
Speaker 3: Jeff cod here. In spirit, of course, we thanked the quizzler.
38:14
Speaker 3: We must thank the puzzler mister A J. Bahamas himself.
38:18
Speaker 1: Big big thanks to the rude dudes of Ridiculous Crime.
38:22
Speaker 1: If you like us, you will love them. Please tune
38:26
Speaker 1: into some of their upcoming past and present episodes. This
38:31
Speaker 1: is a true crime show all about the most ridiculous
38:36
Speaker 1: things you can imagine, and it is the only true
38:39
Speaker 1: crime show that is guaranteed ninety nine percent murder free.
38:44
Speaker 1: Big thanks to everybody who went with us despite the explicit,
38:50
Speaker 1: expleditive nature of this episode, and Noel, thanks to you.
38:55
Speaker 2: Ah, thanks to you as well.
38:56
Speaker 1: Man.
38:57
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time. Folks.
39:05
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
39:09
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.