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Short Stuff: More Phrase Origins · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Jerry's out there fiddling around somewhere in the ether neet
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: of the internet and the whatever, and this is short stuff.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Let me just stop talking. Let's go. Yeah. This is
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: something we've done before and we will do again because
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: as everyone knows, we like phrase origins. I especially love
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: phrase origins, and I think we're doing three today, the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: second one which can be summed up in like a
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: single sentence, probably, But we're gonna start with a grain
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of salt. Take it with a grain of salt, buddy,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I will take it with the grain of salt because
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I've just ingested some poison. No salt won't help that.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Oh well, according to Pliny the Elder, it would. And
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: they think that that's where the phrase take this with
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: a grain of salt really finds its origin. And by
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the way, take something with the grain of salt means that, um,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: you should be skeptical of what you're about to hear
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: or see or whatever. Um that that there's this information
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: that you're about to receive is of dubious origin. Right. Um,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: That's that's the current understanding of take it with a
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: grain of salt, or a pinch of salt, or a
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: dose of salt, however you put it. That's the current
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: meaning of it. But they think as far back as
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  Speaker 1: uh Pliny the Elder's naturalist hystoria um, that that that's
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: where it finds its origin. That's actually kind of a
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: referential thing to that to a recipe he gave under
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the walnuts section. Yeah, take two dried walnuts, two figs,
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  Speaker 1: and twenty leaves of rue. Pound them all together with
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  Speaker 1: the addition of a grain of salt. If a person
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  Speaker 1: takes this mixture fasting, he will be proof against all
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: poisons for that day. So if you were if you
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  Speaker 1: thought you were going to be poisoned that day, before
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: you eat breakfast, eat this concoction that includes a grain
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  Speaker 1: of salt, and no poison will befall you. Yeah, but
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: here's the deal. That explains nothing about this phrase other
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: than he said the words grain of salt in his language,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: which was com grano salis okay, because it's not metaphorical,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: it's literal. If you want to talk about metaphor um,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: you need to flash forward quite a bit. Until John
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Trapp used it in a book called The Commentary Commentary
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  Speaker 1: on Old and New Testaments Colon Boring, No fright. I
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: just made that part up. And he said this is
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: to be taken with a grain of salt, but we
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: still aren't sure what he meant by that. I want
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to hazard a guess here. I think what John Trapp,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: who has a great name by the way, um, what
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  Speaker 1: he was saying is that this the following is very
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: difficult to to hear or it's um hard information to swallow,
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  Speaker 1: a k A poisonous Okay, so you would have to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: take this with a grain of salt. That's my guess. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I'm putting this out there everybody, because this is a
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  Speaker 1: short stuff. I did not go to the trouble of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: reading John Trapp's commentary on the Old and New Testaments.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: So it's a guess. But man, oh man, it is
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: a good guess. Yeah, that makes sense. And it did
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: pop up since then, but usually again referring to actual
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: grains of salt than in in the A and A.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Um it's a literary journal. Had this line are reasons
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: for not accepting the author's pictures of early Ireland without
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: many grains of salt, which I can even make heads
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: retails of that sentence period. No, but I think they
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: were wailing on the photographer, which it's like, just don't
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  Speaker 1: accept the pictures, don't make fun of them in the
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: in the magazine. That's like us criticizing how Stuff Works
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: articles that we based episodes on. We'd never do that. No,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: just be mean, but this doesn't. And I think this
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: one frustrated me because even that it still doesn't say
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: where it came from, like or why they started saying
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: grain of salt to mean what they meant metaphorically. Yes,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: because it was terribly written in this House Stuff Works article.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Well did you find a real reason because I couldn't.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't. It just kind of suddenly, is
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: like it just appeared. And I get the impression that
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the grain of salt is kind of appeared out of nowhere,
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  Speaker 1: that it was um not appeared out of nowhere, that
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  Speaker 1: they have kind of traced it back. But there's not
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  Speaker 1: any real clarification. I'll tell you what has a clarification
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: check a clear lineage, and that is the phrase close
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: but no cigar. Yeah, this one's easy. Uh, And we
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: can definitely get this in in the next minute and
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: twenty seconds before our break because it's super easy. Uh,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: in the early twenty century when you went to these
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: traveling carnivals and they had these rip off games where
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: you would throw a ring on a coke bottle or
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: shoot a basketball into a hoop that's barely the size
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: of a basketball, which I didn't figure out sold. I
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was way too old that that was not a standard hoop.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Did Gray, Hairy Body? Then I did, Uh, you're you're
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: meant to not win those games generally, or to come
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: close and want to spend more money. And that's the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: whole idea. But back then, what was the prize or
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: one of the prizes that you would get a cigar?
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  Speaker 1: That's right. So if you were sitting there throwing, you know,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: doing a ring toss around some glass bottles and you
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: missed and you missed, and you missed, you ran out
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  Speaker 1: of rings, the carnival barker would say close, but no cigar,
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  Speaker 1: No cigar. So that's where that origin comes from, where
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: that phrase comes from it, which is great because it's
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  Speaker 1: a nice, tidy package. There's no controversy, no disputing it,
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  Speaker 1: and it's just done. It's not like that ugly, horrible
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  Speaker 1: grain of salt origin. Yeah, and kids. It's six year
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  Speaker 1: olds everywhere would go will I never get the cigar,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and their dad would say, here you go, son, have mine.
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  Speaker 1: That was great. Should we take a break? Yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: thought that was implied by the pregnant pause. All right,
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  Speaker 1: we'll talk about South pause right after this. That's why
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: SKA you should know, y ska that you should know, nose,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: but Josh Clarks watch sks you should know. Alright, Chuck,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: we're talking South pause. And this one's like a neat
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  Speaker 1: combination between horrible, ugly grain of salt and beautiful perfect
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: close but no cigar because there's a lot of different
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: ideas that that um are competing for the origin that
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: aren't necessarily right, but aren't necessarily wrong either. So there's
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of great info involved, that's right. Uh, And
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and it kind of comes down to a couple of sports.
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  Speaker 1: South paul Is um has long been linked to boxing
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  Speaker 1: and baseball. Rocky Balboa was a south Paw, no, was he? Yeah?
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: I think so right. I don't know. I don't pay
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: that clothes of attention. I'm just enthralled by the action.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: You were just all about those muscles. Yeah, yeah, I
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: think it was. I think it was kind of a
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  Speaker 1: deal that he was a southball. Uh So you've long
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: heard it to be about boxers in baseball, but generally,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: even um, more specifically, it's been associated with pitchers. A
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: left handed pitcher is known as a southball. Okay, yes,
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  Speaker 1: now that's that's the one I've always heard it from.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I'm never Oh no, I'm sorry, I was about to
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: say the reverse of the truth. I've always heard it from, right, Um,
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  Speaker 1: the the I've always heard of it being associated with boxing.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I've never heard of associated with baseball. Okay, yeah, baseball pitchers.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Generally it's you know, it's an old school term, but
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I've I've definitely heard it before. So even before necessarily
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: it was involved in boxing, or it was involved with boxing.
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  Speaker 1: Um and this there was a political cartoon that was
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: referencing boxing, and we just didn't realize it. Um. There
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  Speaker 1: the earliest one of the earliest mentions of the left
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: hand especially involved in delivering a punch, being called the
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: south paw, comes from eighty eight editorial cartoon that showed
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: um a candidate named Lewis Cass who was running for
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the Democrats. He had just laid out Zachary Taylor and
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Taylor's running mate Millard Fillmore, UM and Millard Fillmore as
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: a black eye. And there's a quote coming from him
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: which Chuck, I think that you would be really good
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: to read this quote. Curse the old hoss. What a
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  Speaker 1: south Paul he has given me. That's that was one
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  Speaker 1: of the best Millard Fillmore impressions I've ever heard in
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  Speaker 1: my life. W ot watt I'm gonna bring that one back. Yep.
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  Speaker 1: So Millard Fillmore is calling Um at the very least
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  Speaker 1: the punch that lew his cast landed on him a
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: south paw. If not Lewis Cass a south paw for
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: using his left hand, who knows, but the idea is
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  Speaker 1: south paw and knocking a person to the ground with
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  Speaker 1: your fists was associated at least as early as eighteen
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  Speaker 1: forty eight, at least as politics is concerned. Yeah, there
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  Speaker 1: was UM. There were more specific boxing references. There was
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  Speaker 1: one in eighteen sixty in a bare knuckle um fight,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: I guess or boxing match pugilists squaring off against one another,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: it's another way to put it. In the New York Herald,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the reporter David woods Um reported that in the ninth round,
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  Speaker 1: uh I'm sorry, David Woods was the boxer. David Woods
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  Speaker 1: planted his south paw under the chin, under his opponent's chin,
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  Speaker 1: laying him flat as a pancake. And that wasn't calling
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: him a south ball, but called his fist his south paw.
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  Speaker 1: To words right, So okay, So that's that's good enough
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  Speaker 1: for me, I say boxing. But unfortunately, there's some contemporaneous
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  Speaker 1: use of south paw as far as um pitching goes
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  Speaker 1: as far back as eighteen fifty eight. In the New
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: York Atlas, there's mention of left handed first basement, who's
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  Speaker 1: called the south paw That predates that boxing reference, although
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  Speaker 1: it comes after the Millard Fillmore quote. Um. There's some others,
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  Speaker 1: like in eight seventy five edition of St. Louis newspaper UM.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: So it seems to have been associated not just with pictures,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: but the pictures are the ones who have the great
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: origin story of associating left handedness with being a south paw. Yeah,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: and there was you know, some people said that ballparks
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: were oriented in the eighteen hundreds with home plate um
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: facing west, which meant that a lefty player facing west
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: would be pitching with his south paw but you know,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: not all baseball stadiums were oriented that way, so that
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: seems a little flimsy to me. Um. I was seeing
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: of the boxing thing. If you're a boxer, you've got
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: your right hand sort of up as your lead hand,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and your left hand would be south so that might
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  Speaker 1: be your south paw. But if you are a south
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: ball then your left hand is up, so that doesn't
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  Speaker 1: really make sense. That's right, that's right. It's not sensible
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  Speaker 1: at all, which means it's not solved. We have no
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: idea what the true origin of south paw is, but
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: at least there's a lot more information about it that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: we can choose from and make your own decision. So
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: are we one for three on this one? No, we're
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: two for three. I'm including South Touth because it's so
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: great close but no cigars literally perfect, And then I
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: don't even want to bring up the other one again. Yeah,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go on assault free diet for the next
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: week because of this episode. Yeah, that'll show salt um. Well,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: if you want to show salt uh, well, you do
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: that same thing yourself. And because we have run out
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: of things to say, everybody short stuff is out stuff
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: You should know is production of I Heart Radios How
• 11:58
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• 12:04
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