Latest / Stuff You Should Know / What's in a surname?
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
- 0:04Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
- 0:13Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant. It's just the two
- 0:16Speaker 1: of us, kind of like old time soun Chuck sure,
- 0:21Speaker 1: and this is Stuff you should It's not the full
- 0:24Speaker 1: thing without Jerry. That's right. But you said you're Josh Clark,
- 0:29Speaker 1: don't you mean Josh Clerk. Yeah, that is what my
- 0:33Speaker 1: my name is from. It's one of the most boring
- 0:36Speaker 1: names you could have, but it is my last name.
- 0:40Speaker 1: And that's what we're talking about. I don't even know
- 0:42Speaker 1: my I mean, I know the like country of origin
- 0:46Speaker 1: and stuff for Bryant, but I don't really know. Like
- 0:49Speaker 1: this is one of those episodes where I was constantly going, oh,
- 0:54Speaker 1: that's where that came from. Oh, that's interesting, but I
- 0:57Speaker 1: didn't have anything for me. I have something for you, friend.
- 1:01Speaker 1: You got the origin of Bryant, No origin of Wayne. Okay,
- 1:06Speaker 1: let's hear it. It denotes a driver or builder of wagons.
- 1:11Speaker 1: That's you, buddy in a nutshell, Well that was my surname. Yeah, yeah,
- 1:15Speaker 1: but I mean it still works for your middle name
- 1:17Speaker 1: is sound like it just loses all meaning when it
- 1:19Speaker 1: gets moved to the middle. Right, builder wagons, it's me
- 1:23Speaker 1: or driver. You could have been a driver to truck
- 1:26Speaker 1: wagon or or a double trouble a builder driver of wagons. Right.
- 1:32Speaker 1: So that's that's it. But we're not talking about middle names.
- 1:36Speaker 1: We're never really talking about first names. We're talking about surnames,
- 1:39Speaker 1: which if you've ever been confused about which one that is,
- 1:41Speaker 1: it's the last name, it's the family name. Yes, And
- 1:46Speaker 1: depending on where you live in the world, it might
- 1:48Speaker 1: come before your first name, it might come after it.
- 1:51Speaker 1: There might be a couple of surnames involved, there may
- 1:55Speaker 1: be a hyphen joining them. Um, there's a lot of
- 1:58Speaker 1: different things you can do with surnames. And like you,
- 2:01Speaker 1: I was like, okay, there's actually a lot of interesting
- 2:04Speaker 1: stuff to this, So good pick, and thanks to the
- 2:07Speaker 1: grabster for helping us out. Yeah, and you know Ed
- 2:11Speaker 1: will feature later on because I don't want to spoil
- 2:14Speaker 1: it yet. But his last name is interesting because this
- 2:18Speaker 1: Polish and Polish names are generally interesting and how they're
- 2:21Speaker 1: and how they look on paper on the page and
- 2:24Speaker 1: are often changed. So we're just we're gonna float that
- 2:27Speaker 1: out there as a teaser. We're gonna be talking about
- 2:30Speaker 1: Ed's last name and speaking of being on paper. I
- 2:34Speaker 1: thought it was a polished name all this time. Glad
- 2:38Speaker 1: you said something first. Uh. The deal with surnames, though,
- 2:42Speaker 1: is they have been around a lot less long. That's
- 2:47Speaker 1: one way to say it than a given name or
- 2:51Speaker 1: a first name. Like first names, they came first, like
- 2:54Speaker 1: from the beginnings of people, like with Took Took. People
- 2:57Speaker 1: wanted to call each other things, and so people would
- 3:00Speaker 1: just give each other names. But surnames were invented much
- 3:04Speaker 1: much much later for reasons we're going to talk about
- 3:07Speaker 1: kind of around Dish the eleventh century. Yeah, that's for
- 3:10Speaker 1: like England, Western Europe. Um. There were places where they
- 3:16Speaker 1: came along much earlier, like I think in China they've
- 3:19Speaker 1: been in use for three thousand years as far as
- 3:22Speaker 1: we can tell. And then in Rome there were different
- 3:25Speaker 1: naming conventions that had two names, sometimes three names, you know,
- 3:29Speaker 1: a couple of thousand years ago. So yeah, surnames are
- 3:33Speaker 1: in England at least or the Western Europe. Uh, they
- 3:38Speaker 1: are definitely latecomers, is relatively speaking. Yeah, and you know,
- 3:42Speaker 1: one of the reasons, uh, you might think, like why
- 3:45Speaker 1: would you need a surname, and there are a bunch
- 3:47Speaker 1: of reasons, um, one of which, like one of the
- 3:49Speaker 1: earliest reasons was that people, you know, there were more
- 3:52Speaker 1: people being born, and so your little quaint town that
- 3:57Speaker 1: had you know, John and in Jane everyone who John
- 4:02Speaker 1: and Jane were. But then as more and more people
- 4:04Speaker 1: are born, that town gets bigger and bigger. There's more
- 4:06Speaker 1: John's and Jane's. It was literally just like a way
- 4:10Speaker 1: to differentiate people, yeah, exactly. And then also as people
- 4:14Speaker 1: started to travel more, um there there that also kind
- 4:18Speaker 1: of called for people that differentiate themselves a little bit too. So, um,
- 4:24Speaker 1: population pressure is a really good reason, a really good
- 4:27Speaker 1: explainer for why there were such things as surnames. Why
- 4:31Speaker 1: they came along. There's just more people, so you needed
- 4:34Speaker 1: to be able to say no, not Jane, that Jane,
- 4:37Speaker 1: the other Jane. People got really sick of doing that,
- 4:40Speaker 1: especially if a third Jane came along, they just pull
- 4:43Speaker 1: their hair out and be mad all the time. Right.
- 4:45Speaker 1: And then by the time people own property or had
- 4:50Speaker 1: like legal things to transfer to one another, titles and
- 4:53Speaker 1: things like that, then you had to have surtinnames. So uh, nobles,
- 4:58Speaker 1: of course, you know, there's you know, a lot of
- 5:00Speaker 1: class that plays into this because a certain class of
- 5:02Speaker 1: people were landowners and had official titles. So these nobles
- 5:07Speaker 1: adopted these surnames, or maybe the monarchs that you have
- 5:10Speaker 1: to have a surname because we need to know your
- 5:13Speaker 1: you know, the rights of succession of your land or
- 5:16Speaker 1: you know, it's just gotta all legally check out. So
- 5:17Speaker 1: we just being John isn't enough anymore. Yeah, it was. Um,
- 5:22Speaker 1: it's strange to think of, but naming somebody and like saying,
- 5:26Speaker 1: either choose a name or I'm going to choose one
- 5:28Speaker 1: for you. It was a way for the ruling class
- 5:32Speaker 1: of a civilization to like basically track people, keep them
- 5:36Speaker 1: in line, keep you know, one group from you know,
- 5:40Speaker 1: marrying another group, and consolidating power. Um. And it's interesting
- 5:44Speaker 1: because they think that, you know, in China, one of
- 5:47Speaker 1: the reasons why uh they surnames came along three thousand
- 5:51Speaker 1: years ago was because of population pressure, but also because
- 5:55Speaker 1: the Zoo dynasty. And I'm probably not saying that correctly.
- 5:58Speaker 1: I think it's z h O. You is that right?
- 6:02Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with yao. I'm just kidna. I'm feeling
- 6:05Speaker 1: a little spicy today. I thought it was h A
- 6:07Speaker 1: O or am I thinking of something different? Okay? So
- 6:09Speaker 1: even more I'm going with Jao okay. But anyway, the
- 6:13Speaker 1: Joo dynasty was saying, um, like, you know, we want
- 6:16Speaker 1: to keep track of you nobles, and a good way
- 6:19Speaker 1: to do that is to like label something. That's how
- 6:21Speaker 1: you keep track of something. And that's that's one of
- 6:24Speaker 1: the other reasons why these um surnames came along in
- 6:27Speaker 1: China and the same thing played out um you know,
- 6:30Speaker 1: a couple of thousand years later in England for basically
- 6:33Speaker 1: the same reasons. That's right, by the way, I was wrong.
- 6:36Speaker 1: It is the h O wor I'm sorry, oh you okay,
- 6:40Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with jaw then. Okay, are you talking
- 6:43Speaker 1: about William the First Yeah, the Conqueror and his Doomsday book, which, boy,
- 6:49Speaker 1: if there was ever a book that was mistitled, it's
- 6:54Speaker 1: not Doomsday. It's Domesday D O M E S D
- 6:59Speaker 1: A Y. But when you look at it very you
- 7:01Speaker 1: just want to say doomsday book. Yeah, But what it
- 7:04Speaker 1: was it was just a survey of land and landowners
- 7:08Speaker 1: and tight six and William the First commission this thing
- 7:13Speaker 1: and basically said, all right, we got a book now,
- 7:15Speaker 1: so all these informal names aren't going to do it,
- 7:17Speaker 1: so we have to have an official historical record of
- 7:19Speaker 1: this stuff, So pick a surname. Yeah. It was almost
- 7:25Speaker 1: like taking a snapshot of like the conventions and the
- 7:28Speaker 1: customs of naming people at the time, because William the
- 7:31Speaker 1: Conqueror didn't say, you know, you have to have a
- 7:34Speaker 1: surname now. It was more like whatever you go by,
- 7:38Speaker 1: you're going to go down in this book as that
- 7:41Speaker 1: and that basically solidified and created that tradition of passing
- 7:46Speaker 1: down surnames. From that point on, it kind of like
- 7:50Speaker 1: kept it going. What is so funny? I'm just trying
- 7:53Speaker 1: to think, do you want to be John the a
- 7:55Speaker 1: hole the rest of your life? Exactly? That's what you're
- 7:57Speaker 1: known as around town. But if you have a chance
- 8:00Speaker 1: or to rewrite things, Yeah, and if you go back
- 8:02Speaker 1: and look, there's a a website that uh that um
- 8:07Speaker 1: ed found. I'll try to find it later, but it's
- 8:10Speaker 1: basically just uh, a tittering tour through medieval England and
- 8:15Speaker 1: some of the horrific last names people got saddled with
- 8:19Speaker 1: for nicknames and that became like their last name like
- 8:22Speaker 1: stuff we just can't even possibly say on this podcast. Yeah,
- 8:26Speaker 1: and uh, Ed points out too, and um, just since
- 8:29Speaker 1: we're talking about that, that sarcasm is not a recent invention.
- 8:33Speaker 1: So you might be uh called something like you maybe
- 8:37Speaker 1: John Goodman, Well not John Gidman. You could be John Goodman.
- 8:41Speaker 1: I'm just going with John for everything. Uh, when you
- 8:43Speaker 1: were like a very like not nice dude, somebody might
- 8:46Speaker 1: have said Goodman as a good man. Yeah, as a
- 8:49Speaker 1: sort of a nod and a wink or a joke
- 8:52Speaker 1: or a play on words. Like imagine if John Goodman
- 8:55Speaker 1: were basically like Russell Crowe gets the point across, he's
- 9:01Speaker 1: still on Wrestle Crew. I'm I'm trying to throw back here, man,
- 9:04Speaker 1: I'm trying to bring everybody back to our period of
- 9:07Speaker 1: comfort rather than moving along with everyone else. But it's
- 9:11Speaker 1: interesting you mentioned medieval the medieval period because the Roman
- 9:16Speaker 1: system that you talked about, which eventually evolved to a
- 9:20Speaker 1: three name system. I think at first, or I guess,
- 9:24Speaker 1: before Rome, in different civilizations they had single names. But
- 9:28Speaker 1: then the Romans came along and they had what was
- 9:31Speaker 1: called a prey I guess prey Noman, which would be
- 9:37Speaker 1: the equivalent of a given name. Then the Noman which
- 9:39Speaker 1: what we would think of as the last name, and
- 9:41Speaker 1: then later on, if you were like an elite, you
- 9:43Speaker 1: would have a third name, the cognomen uh if you
- 9:46Speaker 1: wanted to like show off a little bit and show
- 9:48Speaker 1: your status. But it went away after the Romans for
- 9:51Speaker 1: a long time and then came back with the Europeans. Yeah,
- 9:55Speaker 1: it's really interesting that like the Europeans had all this
- 9:58Speaker 1: influence the Chinese had already in I ended this for
- 10:00Speaker 1: a couple of thousand years, and it just kind of
- 10:02Speaker 1: like evolved in isolation later on. So it really kind
- 10:07Speaker 1: of does just go to go to show you like
- 10:09Speaker 1: surnames are just once you reach a certain point of
- 10:13Speaker 1: you know, a civilization or a population growth, it's just
- 10:18Speaker 1: something that's just going to come up inevitably organically. It's
- 10:21Speaker 1: pretty neat. It is pretty neat. Um and we I
- 10:24Speaker 1: know we mentioned um. Some Asian names, I think Korean
- 10:27Speaker 1: and Japanese and Chinese are traditionally written with the surname
- 10:31Speaker 1: first and then you're given name. And then just a
- 10:34Speaker 1: few years ago, Japan I think formally enshrined that and said,
- 10:37Speaker 1: you know, we're not gonna western ize this anymore. We're
- 10:40Speaker 1: gonna go with the surname first. Yeah, they're going back
- 10:42Speaker 1: to their roots. I love it. A new kind of suit.
- 10:47Speaker 1: That's right. You you got that one really? Yeah? Sure, man, Chuck,
- 10:52Speaker 1: I'm impressed. Uh, she'll be. Well, since you're impressed, let's
- 10:56Speaker 1: take a break, because I don't I want to. I
- 10:58Speaker 1: want to just like bathe in that for minute. I
- 11:00Speaker 1: think it's a wise move, or rather two minutes, and uh,
- 11:03Speaker 1: we'll be back and talk about the different types of
- 11:07Speaker 1: surnames and why they came about right after this defin
- 11:26Speaker 1: sk Alright. So, um, what's interesting is that surnames, you know,
- 11:33Speaker 1: take all sorts of different shapes and forms, and there's
- 11:36Speaker 1: actually some cultures that just don't have them or don't
- 11:38Speaker 1: use them. I believe, Um, the Philippines didn't use surnames
- 11:42Speaker 1: until they were colonized by um Europeans. Um. So I mean,
- 11:48Speaker 1: there's some some cultures that don't use surnames at all.
- 11:50Speaker 1: But among the cultures that do use surnames in different
- 11:54Speaker 1: way shape, way, shapes and forms, there's actually some commonalities
- 11:58Speaker 1: almost universality amongst our names and where they came from
- 12:02Speaker 1: and what they mean. Um. And there's at least four
- 12:04Speaker 1: or five that you can kind of hack out that. Say,
- 12:08Speaker 1: wherever you go in the world, if they're using surnames,
- 12:10Speaker 1: they may have some sort of like version of this. Yeah,
- 12:14Speaker 1: and this is the stuff that's really cool. I think. Um,
- 12:17Speaker 1: and this found me saying, you know, because ed gives
- 12:20Speaker 1: a bunch of great examples of a surname, and then
- 12:23Speaker 1: when you find out how it evolved to be that,
- 12:26Speaker 1: you just go, oh, well, that completely makes sense. Now.
- 12:30Speaker 1: Uh well, I was about to say something about jobs,
- 12:33Speaker 1: but we'll get to jobs a minute. Um. First though,
- 12:36Speaker 1: is place names, specific place names. If you were and
- 12:40Speaker 1: I think a lot of people know this one, but
- 12:41Speaker 1: if you were from a place, you might have been
- 12:45Speaker 1: Chuck of Atlanta, or you know, if it was in Europe,
- 12:49Speaker 1: it might you might have substituted d E for the Latin,
- 12:52Speaker 1: like chuck d Atlanta, and then over time that d um.
- 12:57Speaker 1: There's this this process that happens to words, where if
- 13:00Speaker 1: you use a word for a thousand years, it gets
- 13:04Speaker 1: kind of molded and shaped and um and cut down
- 13:08Speaker 1: to a more manageable size. You're saying L and OMG
- 13:12Speaker 1: right exactly or l m f A oh because party
- 13:16Speaker 1: rock is in the house tonight. Um. But it's called truncation.
- 13:21Speaker 1: And the same thing happens with names too, So instead
- 13:23Speaker 1: of Chuck day Atlanta, it could just become chuckd Atlanta,
- 13:28Speaker 1: d apostrophe Atlanta, which is very kind of nice, like
- 13:32Speaker 1: I like the way that rings that Atlanta. Um, Yeah,
- 13:36Speaker 1: you have to say it like that, or you could
- 13:37Speaker 1: just get rid of that apostrophe and make it one
- 13:40Speaker 1: word chucked Atlanta, right, And that actually happened like that
- 13:43Speaker 1: with the name Darcy. Um. It used to be um
- 13:46Speaker 1: somebody a day r C r C is a village
- 13:50Speaker 1: I believe in France, or Normandy maybe um, And then
- 13:53Speaker 1: over time it became d apostrophe r C as in
- 13:56Speaker 1: Jefferson Darcy from Married with Children, or just Darcy d
- 14:01Speaker 1: A r c y as in Mr Darcy from Pride
- 14:04Speaker 1: and Prejudice, who I presume Jefferson Darcy's character is based on.
- 14:11Speaker 1: But if you have the name Darcy, um, you can
- 14:16Speaker 1: almost I mean, there are other ways that you can
- 14:17Speaker 1: acquire last surname, which will we'll see kind of along
- 14:20Speaker 1: the way, but Um, chances are you can probably trace
- 14:23Speaker 1: that back to the fact that someone in your lineage
- 14:26Speaker 1: was from Arc. Yes. Um. And it also suggests that
- 14:30Speaker 1: some somewhere back in your lineage, somebody was probably of
- 14:33Speaker 1: uh noble lineage, because it was the nobles who would
- 14:37Speaker 1: have taken the place that they were from as their surname,
- 14:41Speaker 1: because number one, they would go off to court, so
- 14:45Speaker 1: they would be I'm Jefferson Darcy, so you know, not
- 14:49Speaker 1: Jefferson d Atlanta, Jefferson Darcy, I'm the one from Darcy
- 14:53Speaker 1: or from Arcy. Right, Um, a commoner from r c
- 14:58Speaker 1: would have no reason to to say that they're from
- 15:00Speaker 1: Arcy because they don't ever leave Arci. They spent their
- 15:03Speaker 1: entire life there exactly. And then also, um, it would
- 15:08Speaker 1: let people know that you were, um you basically like
- 15:11Speaker 1: ruled that land that you were from. That was that
- 15:15Speaker 1: was that And it's called a toponymic name. Um, where
- 15:19Speaker 1: you're it's a place name that you've taken as your
- 15:21Speaker 1: last name. That's right. If you were a commoner, like
- 15:25Speaker 1: you said, you would not be Chuck of Atlanta because
- 15:30Speaker 1: I was I grew up a commoner because I could
- 15:32Speaker 1: make no claim that I ruled Atlanta back in the
- 15:35Speaker 1: medieval times or post medieval times. Um, and everyone else
- 15:39Speaker 1: would have that name too. And in my little neighborhood
- 15:41Speaker 1: that didn't have a lot of money, let's say, but
- 15:44Speaker 1: you might have a really local name that is um
- 15:51Speaker 1: more like topographic. Like if your last name is hill
- 15:54Speaker 1: or under hill or green, then chances are you're you know,
- 16:00Speaker 1: distant relatives lived on a hill or on a green
- 16:04Speaker 1: or under a hill. I don't know if that there
- 16:06Speaker 1: were cave dwellers, but those are literally named. There's a
- 16:09Speaker 1: name by water. I've never really heard that, but you
- 16:11Speaker 1: know it literally means you live by the water. Yeah,
- 16:14Speaker 1: there's some really nice names that have to do with water.
- 16:16Speaker 1: Um as that served his last names like bay, shore, bay, meadow. Um.
- 16:22Speaker 1: I think those are very pleasant, but that I never
- 16:25Speaker 1: really realized that means that their family lived by a bay,
- 16:28Speaker 1: by a meadow. I guess last names. Those are very
- 16:32Speaker 1: nice last names. And then um, Chuck. I also realized
- 16:37Speaker 1: just now when you were talking, that you could have
- 16:40Speaker 1: rightly called yourself chuck unpaved road right, Sure that would
- 16:47Speaker 1: have that would have definitely placed you there. Yeah. Yeah,
- 16:50Speaker 1: I grew up on a chuck to gravel. Yeah. The
- 16:54Speaker 1: via Graville another locator or I guess topographic. Um, it's
- 17:01Speaker 1: sort of along those same lines. If you ever hear
- 17:03Speaker 1: anyone with the last name of like Scott or Western.
- 17:07Speaker 1: Western is a great example. It's a great last name
- 17:10Speaker 1: or the last name Ireland that you know, those are
- 17:14Speaker 1: just very quite literal last names taken because chances are
- 17:17Speaker 1: they moved to a different place and maybe that was
- 17:19Speaker 1: a different rentiator, like there, you know that maybe they
- 17:22Speaker 1: even called the person from Ireland that moved to a
- 17:25Speaker 1: place not in Ireland, Ireland, right exactly. They were probably emigrants,
- 17:30Speaker 1: you know, they were the Scott who just showed up
- 17:32Speaker 1: that everybody liked, you know, the Scott Okay, yeah, John Scott,
- 17:37Speaker 1: the Scott school, right exactly. Um. It's also like in
- 17:41Speaker 1: that movie Zombie Land, where everybody's called where they're from.
- 17:46Speaker 1: I don't remember that, Yeah, I think, Um, what's his name,
- 17:50Speaker 1: Jesse Eisenberg. Isn't that who's in it? Yeah? He he's
- 17:54Speaker 1: like Columbus And I can't remember what Woody Harrelson where
- 17:57Speaker 1: he's from? Text maybe or some something like that. I know, gotcha. Yeah,
- 18:02Speaker 1: I just wanted to give a Zombie Land shout out.
- 18:05Speaker 1: You know, it's a good movie. It really was surprisingly so.
- 18:09Speaker 1: Um or if you're just finished several you just have
- 18:13Speaker 1: a last initial like Mark s Well, I just watched
- 18:19Speaker 1: it twice because Emily didn't watch it the first go round,
- 18:21Speaker 1: and I was like, I think you would like this actually,
- 18:23Speaker 1: so um, I watched it all the way through again,
- 18:26Speaker 1: so I obviously loved it. But that boy, that season
- 18:30Speaker 1: Family was to st at minute panic attack. It really was,
- 18:34Speaker 1: and one of the most unfair cliffhangers history of TV
- 18:38Speaker 1: really was, but really really good stuff. Love it. So
- 18:42Speaker 1: um moving on, Chuck Um. One of the other things
- 18:46Speaker 1: we could have adopted as our surnames if that were
- 18:49Speaker 1: a thing, like people were still taking new surnames, we
- 18:52Speaker 1: could be Josh Podcaster and Chuck Podcaster. Yeah. I mean
- 18:57Speaker 1: I love this one because this is uh, probably the
- 19:00Speaker 1: most common way that someone would get a surname. I
- 19:02Speaker 1: think more than ten of English surnames are because of
- 19:07Speaker 1: an occupation in your lineage. So you know, Karen Carpenter,
- 19:11Speaker 1: she had someone way back in her family that was
- 19:13Speaker 1: a Carpenter probably, or Earl Weaver had a Weaver in
- 19:17Speaker 1: his family, and uh any Smith. I mean, well that's
- 19:22Speaker 1: not true because there is a thing too where a
- 19:24Speaker 1: lot of time immigrants would adopt the name like one
- 19:26Speaker 1: of the most common names when they would immigrate to
- 19:28Speaker 1: a country to fit in, so there might be smith's
- 19:31Speaker 1: acquired that way. But uh, if you were a smith,
- 19:34Speaker 1: then you had the last name Smith, right, um. Or
- 19:38Speaker 1: Clark is a derivative of clerk, which was yeah at
- 19:42Speaker 1: the time, not just some some pencil pusher. It was
- 19:45Speaker 1: a scholarly person who could read and write at a
- 19:48Speaker 1: time when most people couldn't read it. Oh yeah, yeah,
- 19:52Speaker 1: my ancestors was real smart. Um. Thatcher is another example
- 19:58Speaker 1: of an occupation le based or shepherd. Uh. These are
- 20:01Speaker 1: all very obvious, but one kind of cool little oh
- 20:05Speaker 1: moments is in medieval England they would use s t
- 20:10Speaker 1: e r or x t e r as a suffix
- 20:13Speaker 1: if it was a woman's occupation, So a baker would
- 20:18Speaker 1: become Baxter or brewer would become Brewster. That's right, um,
- 20:24Speaker 1: so uh, and that's that holds not just for England,
- 20:27Speaker 1: but like if you went to Germany and your last
- 20:28Speaker 1: name Schmidt, it's it's the same thing as if you
- 20:31Speaker 1: were in England and your last name Smith, because there
- 20:34Speaker 1: was somebody in your lineage that was a blacksmith, which
- 20:37Speaker 1: is pretty cool. Um. And it was almost like like
- 20:40Speaker 1: I was saying when that Doomsday book was was um
- 20:43Speaker 1: when it came out. Sure, it was like a snapshot
- 20:48Speaker 1: of professions at the time. UM. And apparently within about
- 20:53Speaker 1: three d four hundred years the use of surnames had
- 20:57Speaker 1: solidified enough that people became weird for the tradition of
- 21:02Speaker 1: it being weird for us to say I'm changing my
- 21:05Speaker 1: last name to podcaster because it's my job, that had
- 21:08Speaker 1: really kind of solidified. People weren't taking on new surnames,
- 21:11Speaker 1: they were getting them passed along, and so um. Professions
- 21:14Speaker 1: that came after the fourteenth and fifteen centuries don't usually
- 21:17Speaker 1: pop up very often as people's last name. No, but
- 21:21Speaker 1: it's funny now that I'm thinking my Instagram handle is
- 21:23Speaker 1: Chuck the Podcaster, I should podcast. I should change it
- 21:27Speaker 1: to de ampost future. That'd be pretty fun. I think
- 21:32Speaker 1: that's a great idea, Charles. Another fun thing that Ed
- 21:35Speaker 1: found was sometimes actors back in the day would um,
- 21:42Speaker 1: sort of with a nod and a wink, take a
- 21:44Speaker 1: surname of a character that they played a lot. And
- 21:47Speaker 1: anyone that knows the origins of the theater knows that
- 21:51Speaker 1: actors were. You know, they're not like they are to day.
- 21:54Speaker 1: They were generally sort of the lower class. And so
- 21:57Speaker 1: if you that, that would like sort of explain away
- 22:00Speaker 1: why you might find someone of the of a lower
- 22:04Speaker 1: class maybe with the last name king or lord, because
- 22:07Speaker 1: they might have been an actor who played a king
- 22:10Speaker 1: or a lord a lot. Yes. Uh. And then nicknames
- 22:14Speaker 1: play a really big role across cultures. Uh. And again
- 22:18Speaker 1: this is kind of what they think the tradition of
- 22:20Speaker 1: first names came out of. Like your your first name
- 22:24Speaker 1: was not necessarily John or Jim or Josh or Chalk
- 22:27Speaker 1: or anything like that way back in the day. It
- 22:30Speaker 1: was probably just the initial differentiator for you, you you know,
- 22:35Speaker 1: like instead of that guy, No, no, not that guy.
- 22:38Speaker 1: That guy they would say, you know red or apparently
- 22:43Speaker 1: sherlock means fair headed. Um. They would also they would
- 22:48Speaker 1: apparently if you did things with say like your penis,
- 22:52Speaker 1: you might end up with a nickname name like Shakespeare
- 22:56Speaker 1: they think is actually that or Wagstaff they think are
- 22:59Speaker 1: actually leap from from that kind of lewd uh toilet humor,
- 23:06Speaker 1: lowbrow humor that people used to love in the medieval era.
- 23:09Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean there was you know, I mean
- 23:12Speaker 1: Shakespeare itself was sort of body. But I took an
- 23:15Speaker 1: English class where we did. Uh. I took a couple
- 23:18Speaker 1: of like, um, not play writing. Well, I did take
- 23:21Speaker 1: play writing, but play reading classes. What would you call that? Uh? Yeah,
- 23:26Speaker 1: play reading had a better name than that. Uh. And
- 23:30Speaker 1: a lot of the place that we read from the
- 23:32Speaker 1: time period that weren't Shakespeare were just toilet humor, blue humor,
- 23:36Speaker 1: dirty body humor. And it's not like that's just gone anywhere.
- 23:40Speaker 1: I mean, I made a marry but children reference not
- 23:43Speaker 1: twenty minutes ago, so it's still around, although married with
- 23:46Speaker 1: children is not around anymore. But you know what I'm saying.
- 23:49Speaker 1: But I would pose it that, like sophisticated intelligent humor
- 23:55Speaker 1: is a pretty recent invention, you know. I'm sure there
- 23:59Speaker 1: are gets of it here there over time, Like Benjamin
- 24:03Speaker 1: Franklin had a pretty sharp wit, and he was he
- 24:05Speaker 1: was of an intelligent humor. No, you're right. I mean
- 24:08Speaker 1: the first joke was pulled my finger, let's be honest, right,
- 24:10Speaker 1: And that lasted a long time and people use that
- 24:14Speaker 1: until that well went dry. But I think it's a
- 24:17Speaker 1: fairly recent thing. And I think, um, you know, I
- 24:21Speaker 1: think that's kids introduction to humor is like lowbrow toilet humor.
- 24:24Speaker 1: But I think it's a pretty big marker based on
- 24:26Speaker 1: how fast you you evolve into intelligent humor. Yeah, oh
- 24:32Speaker 1: for sure. Like my daughter's her the funniest words for
- 24:35Speaker 1: her are or when she's trying to make a joke.
- 24:37Speaker 1: Like kids don't make really good jokes. No, they don't. Uh,
- 24:41Speaker 1: they're all because they're not sophisticated yet. But they sure
- 24:44Speaker 1: do like to talk about your you know, having poop
- 24:46Speaker 1: in your hair and stuff like that. You know, it
- 24:49Speaker 1: is a pretty good one. And me laughing certainly doesn't help. No,
- 24:52Speaker 1: definitely not. Does Emily get mad or does she laugh too, No,
- 24:55Speaker 1: she just walks through the room and goes, she got
- 24:58Speaker 1: that from you, so she is of your own making.
- 25:01Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, I said, I actually do have
- 25:04Speaker 1: poop in my hair. It's not a joke. And then say,
- 25:06Speaker 1: pull my finger, Emily, I probably should take back like
- 25:10Speaker 1: my little soapbox thing condemning toilet and low brow humor,
- 25:13Speaker 1: because it is still kind of funny now that you
- 25:15Speaker 1: mentioned it. Yeah, I love it. I mean I like both.
- 25:19Speaker 1: I like a sharp wit and I like a fart joke,
- 25:22Speaker 1: all all at the same time. That chuck makes you
- 25:25Speaker 1: a renaissance man. Alright, good. Uh if you, Well, I
- 25:30Speaker 1: was trying to tie that into what I was about
- 25:31Speaker 1: to say next, but I really couldn't think of a
- 25:33Speaker 1: good last name for that. But um, if you Another
- 25:36Speaker 1: very common surname convention is if you were the son
- 25:41Speaker 1: or daughter of somebody and if John was your dad,
- 25:45Speaker 1: you would be Johnson or Smithson. Uh. Sometimes it was
- 25:49Speaker 1: even more basic than that, like if your name was
- 25:53Speaker 1: It gives the example of someone named Martin and then
- 25:56Speaker 1: as some named George, they might just take the dad's
- 25:58Speaker 1: name and be George Martin. Right. Uh. And that's typically
- 26:02Speaker 1: especially in Western Europe in the UK. Um, that's it's
- 26:09Speaker 1: it took the father's lineage. So it's patronymic. Is that
- 26:13Speaker 1: kind of naming convention, And there is such a thing
- 26:15Speaker 1: as matronymic naming conventions. It's just much rarer in h
- 26:19Speaker 1: in our cultures. Um, but it does happen, Like Marriott
- 26:23Speaker 1: means a child of Mary. Um. Yeah, so it happens
- 26:27Speaker 1: from time to time. It's just much less common. Um.
- 26:31Speaker 1: But that is a like you said, it's a very
- 26:33Speaker 1: common thing to name to take a relative's name, and
- 26:37Speaker 1: it happens in It's a bunch of different ways um
- 26:39Speaker 1: and a good example of how how you know different
- 26:42Speaker 1: it can be as in Icelandic culture to where um,
- 26:46Speaker 1: if you're a son, say you're the son of Eric
- 26:50Speaker 1: um you of course yeah, um, your your last name
- 26:58Speaker 1: would be eric Son if you were a son, if
- 27:02Speaker 1: you were a daughter, you would be Eric's daughter. So
- 27:06Speaker 1: Eric has a son and a daughter, and they're both
- 27:09Speaker 1: his son and daughter, but they have two different last names.
- 27:13Speaker 1: And the reason why Iceland is not catching fire and
- 27:16Speaker 1: people are running all over the place and confusion is
- 27:19Speaker 1: because they don't really care as much about last names. Yeah,
- 27:22Speaker 1: this is kind of cool because Ed brought up b
- 27:25Speaker 1: York and she doesn't just go by B York to
- 27:29Speaker 1: be like Madonna. B York goes by BI York because
- 27:33Speaker 1: in Icelandic culture, the surname just isn't that big of
- 27:36Speaker 1: a deal. Uh. And so I looked up her surname
- 27:40Speaker 1: and be York's surname is actually and I'm going to
- 27:43Speaker 1: mispronounce this because I have no idea about Icelandic stuff,
- 27:47Speaker 1: but is it's Guman's daughter, which is of course d
- 27:52Speaker 1: O T T I R. Because her father was Gumander Goonerson.
- 27:59Speaker 1: That's a great which means that his father was named Gooner, right,
- 28:05Speaker 1: so it's sort of this weird flip as you go back.
- 28:09Speaker 1: It's like almost like a little puzzle, a little Icelandic puzzle.
- 28:11Speaker 1: It is. It's pretty cool. And then also in a
- 28:14Speaker 1: stroke of awesomeness, um, Iceland has also come up with
- 28:17Speaker 1: a third uh, a third name for non binary gendered people, Um,
- 28:25Speaker 1: who don't go by son or daughter, they go by Burr.
- 28:27Speaker 1: So it would be Eric Burr. That's right, and that
- 28:32Speaker 1: you know, that's the thing now with especially with hyphen nations.
- 28:35Speaker 1: We'll get to why you might change your name, but um,
- 28:38Speaker 1: you know, one of the sort of I feel like
- 28:41Speaker 1: it's kind of antiquated, but one of the things that
- 28:43Speaker 1: we do here in the West sometimes is a woman
- 28:45Speaker 1: that might take her husband's last name or they might
- 28:48Speaker 1: hyphenate it. But with uh, you know, non binary parents
- 28:53Speaker 1: or gay parents, sometimes they will hyphenate their last name,
- 28:57Speaker 1: which you know, apparently can present a little bit of
- 29:00Speaker 1: the conflict sometimes in that there uh struggle too, I
- 29:04Speaker 1: guess have a non traditional family but also sort of
- 29:08Speaker 1: try and fit in with a more traditional naming convention. Yeah,
- 29:12Speaker 1: which I had never considered, And that's sad. That that
- 29:15Speaker 1: is even a question, but it makes sense in a
- 29:18Speaker 1: sad kind of way. Go Iceland, now, huh yeah. And
- 29:21Speaker 1: then also, um, we really shouldn't leave our Arab cultures
- 29:25Speaker 1: who use Ibben first son of or if the name
- 29:28Speaker 1: Ibben comes in the middle of the name, maybe been
- 29:32Speaker 1: or Bent as daughter of, and it usually can go
- 29:36Speaker 1: back a couple of generations, sometimes three, which explains why
- 29:40Speaker 1: there's a lot of ebbins or bins um followed by
- 29:43Speaker 1: other names in somebody's full name from Arab cultures. That's right.
- 29:49Speaker 1: Or Ed gives a great example of Saddam Hussein was
- 29:53Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein abdal Magid al tecret and Saddam would be
- 30:00Speaker 1: the given name there, Hussein would be the father's name.
- 30:03Speaker 1: Abdol Mageed is grandfather's name. Then al Tecredi is where
- 30:09Speaker 1: he grew up. So that's sort of a a mesh
- 30:12Speaker 1: of topic or not topographic. I guess, uh what do
- 30:16Speaker 1: we call the geographic? Yeah, toponymic and then the patriarchal
- 30:22Speaker 1: and everything's just sort of matched together and with his grandfather.
- 30:26Speaker 1: Will you want to take another break and then come
- 30:28Speaker 1: back and talk more about I don't know surnames. Sure, Okay,
- 30:33Speaker 1: we're gonna do that. Everybody sit tight, sk uh. So
- 30:55Speaker 1: one thing we didn't cover with um the uk uh.
- 30:59Speaker 1: We got to cover the max oh yeah, and the
- 31:03Speaker 1: the A P S. So, if you were Irish or Scottish,
- 31:08Speaker 1: the prefix mac would what would mean son of So
- 31:12Speaker 1: if your name was Dougal and you had a son
- 31:15Speaker 1: named John, you would be John MacDougal. Or in the
- 31:19Speaker 1: case of being from Wales, they use a P to
- 31:24Speaker 1: mean son of so. And this is kind of interesting
- 31:27Speaker 1: because it gets truncated along the way. So ap Rice
- 31:31Speaker 1: r h y s would be son of Rice, but
- 31:35Speaker 1: then over time that gets truncated and the ap just
- 31:37Speaker 1: becomes a P. So the name price originally can vary. Well,
- 31:42Speaker 1: it's hard to say like in all cases obviously, but
- 31:45Speaker 1: I could have very well been like the son of Rice, yeah,
- 31:48Speaker 1: or Reese. So it could also be the last name priest.
- 31:52Speaker 1: That don't sound right right, We're going with Rice instead
- 31:57Speaker 1: and then Chuck. So uh. We talked a little bit
- 31:59Speaker 1: about changing names, and there's all sorts of reasons people
- 32:02Speaker 1: change names. There's also a lot of reasons people take
- 32:05Speaker 1: on names. Again, sometimes it's decreed by law. Apparently there
- 32:09Speaker 1: was a law during the Austro Hungarian Empire that you
- 32:13Speaker 1: needed a last name, and so there was a kind
- 32:17Speaker 1: of a custom or a trend you could almost say,
- 32:19Speaker 1: among Jewish people who lived in that area or under
- 32:23Speaker 1: Austro Hungarian rule, UM to kind of take names from nature,
- 32:28Speaker 1: like Tannenbaum or Rosen meaning fir tree or rose um.
- 32:34Speaker 1: And that's where a lot of the more common Jewish
- 32:36Speaker 1: names come from that have a kind of a Germanic
- 32:39Speaker 1: tone to them. And then also there was a big UM,
- 32:42Speaker 1: there's a big conundrum, ra I guess the decision that
- 32:47Speaker 1: faced UM freed enslaved people after the Emancipatent Proclamation then
- 32:53Speaker 1: later on juneteenth UM, because they didn't actually have surnames
- 32:59Speaker 1: at the time, especially if they'd you know been you know, second, third, fourth,
- 33:03Speaker 1: fifth generation American. Um, they might not have a surname
- 33:06Speaker 1: at all, That's right. And so in many cases, uh,
- 33:10Speaker 1: they were given or sometimes chosen uh, the name of
- 33:15Speaker 1: the person who enslaved them, which obviously, as generations went on,
- 33:19Speaker 1: that doesn't sit as well. Uh. And so a lot
- 33:22Speaker 1: of times, if you're African American, you may change your
- 33:24Speaker 1: name later on, UM, Like you know, many generations later
- 33:28Speaker 1: to sort of shed yourself of that enslaved name. And
- 33:32Speaker 1: then probably the most common reason, especially in the West,
- 33:35Speaker 1: that people um changed their names is through marriage, which
- 33:39Speaker 1: has evolved over time. You know. Traditionally it was the
- 33:43Speaker 1: wife took the husband's last name, shed her own, you know,
- 33:46Speaker 1: maiden name, maybe moved it to her middle name UH,
- 33:50Speaker 1: and then that was it UM. And then over time
- 33:52Speaker 1: there's there's been kind of like this uh um push
- 33:56Speaker 1: against just being completely subsumed by their husband's identity UM.
- 34:02Speaker 1: And that introduced the uh, the hyphenated last name into
- 34:07Speaker 1: Western culture, which again it's like if you go to Spain,
- 34:10Speaker 1: they've been doing that for a very long time, so
- 34:13Speaker 1: much so that like um, you know, the children will
- 34:16Speaker 1: actually have both of their parents last names, father's first
- 34:20Speaker 1: hyphened mother's second. And that's that's been going on. It's
- 34:25Speaker 1: called dosa politos um. But in here, in like the West,
- 34:30Speaker 1: I should say in the United States, because I guess
- 34:32Speaker 1: Spain would technically be the West. UM. That's becoming more
- 34:36Speaker 1: and more common, but it's still fairly new if you
- 34:38Speaker 1: think about it. I mean, I don't remember people hyphenating
- 34:42Speaker 1: their names very commonly before, like the eighties or nineties,
- 34:45Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, I mean, I'm sure it happened,
- 34:48Speaker 1: but it seems like it definitely caught on. Um. You
- 34:51Speaker 1: know obviously was sort of in lockstep with the women's
- 34:54Speaker 1: liberation movement. Yeah, they called it the flash dance effect. Uh,
- 34:59Speaker 1: it's you know, there's there's no wrong way to do it.
- 35:01Speaker 1: People should do what they want to do. I never
- 35:04Speaker 1: wanted or expected Emily to change her name because she's
- 35:07Speaker 1: just She's got a great last name and that's who
- 35:09Speaker 1: she is. And I never I just thought, I don't know,
- 35:12Speaker 1: it seemed outdated to me, but there there is no
- 35:14Speaker 1: right or wrong way. And eventually years later, Um, I
- 35:19Speaker 1: think it was probably lined up. When my daughter came along,
- 35:21Speaker 1: she ended up going with a hyphen it. Uh. And
- 35:24Speaker 1: then you know our very good friend and friend of
- 35:27Speaker 1: the show who played Jerry on the Stuff You Should
- 35:29Speaker 1: Know TV show, Uh, Lucy waynewright Roach, that is a
- 35:34Speaker 1: hyphen it because her father is Loud and Wayne Wright
- 35:36Speaker 1: and her mother is says he Roach, and so she
- 35:40Speaker 1: went with a hyphen it. Yeah. Apparently there's a famous
- 35:42Speaker 1: um bass player for Jethro toll Um. I had not
- 35:46Speaker 1: heard of this. Dude had you did you know had
- 35:49Speaker 1: had not? So his first name is Jeffrey. Will call
- 35:52Speaker 1: him that for the moment. But both of his parents
- 35:55Speaker 1: UM had the last name of Hammond. Yeah, they weren't related.
- 35:59Speaker 1: UM just by him playing bass for Jethro Toll and Um.
- 36:03Speaker 1: He wanted to honor both of them, so he took
- 36:05Speaker 1: the last name Jeffrey Hammond Hammond with the hyphen in
- 36:08Speaker 1: between him. Yeah, it's pretty funny. Yep, good job, Jeffrey.
- 36:13Speaker 1: I know that's pretty great. He got a great story.
- 36:15Speaker 1: Everywhere he goes. Intelligent humor, that's right. Yeah, you think, uh,
- 36:24Speaker 1: somebody who went to a Shakespeare play would get that
- 36:26Speaker 1: now be totally lost on him. One of the myths
- 36:31Speaker 1: we can kind of bust, although I'm sure it happens
- 36:34Speaker 1: some was this notion that if you came through Ellis
- 36:37Speaker 1: Island you were just given whatever name the person at
- 36:42Speaker 1: immigration on Ellis Island felt like filling out, or if
- 36:45Speaker 1: they wanted to shorten it, they shortened it, or if
- 36:47Speaker 1: they want to get rid of some of the hyphens,
- 36:48Speaker 1: they get rid of the hyphens. Apparently, I'm sure that
- 36:51Speaker 1: did happen some, but ung angle man, I could never
- 36:55Speaker 1: say say this Anglish sizing. He nailed it. Yeah, Anglicized
- 37:00Speaker 1: did not happen to the extent that people think it
- 37:02Speaker 1: did on Ellis Island. And many times it was the
- 37:05Speaker 1: people themselves that new country, new start wanted to fit
- 37:08Speaker 1: in that would um drop the apostrophe from Darcy and
- 37:12Speaker 1: stuff like that. Yeah, and I saw that, if anything,
- 37:15Speaker 1: um Ellis Island Uh immigration officers were more prone to
- 37:19Speaker 1: actually correct mistakes and spelling errors that some shipping clerk
- 37:24Speaker 1: over in Europe had made on the ship's manifest Um.
- 37:28Speaker 1: Most of them spoke multiple languages, and we're you know,
- 37:32Speaker 1: pretty familiar with what you know. There's a finite number
- 37:35Speaker 1: of last names, and so if you see one with
- 37:37Speaker 1: the you know, the the name misspelled, they probably corrected it.
- 37:41Speaker 1: So it's kind of yeah, it's like the opposite of
- 37:43Speaker 1: the myth that you have. Yeah. Another thing that people
- 37:46Speaker 1: have done to make it maybe just a little bit
- 37:49Speaker 1: easier on everybody else in themselves is to, uh, if
- 37:53Speaker 1: they have a name that's um kind of a lot
- 37:55Speaker 1: of consonants in it, let's say, yeah, we're looking at
- 37:59Speaker 1: you Slavic countries, is to phonetically spell it out uh
- 38:04Speaker 1: and eds like a tease. At the beginning, Ed's last
- 38:06Speaker 1: name is we always calling the Grabsters Grabnowski, and he
- 38:12Speaker 1: lives in the region where there are a lot of
- 38:15Speaker 1: Polish people still living there. And he says that he
- 38:18Speaker 1: has never seen another Grabowski, but he does see Grabowski's
- 38:22Speaker 1: or Grabski's. Yep, no Grabsters. No, we're trying to make
- 38:27Speaker 1: it happen though, aren't we. Yeah, my friend Paul's last
- 38:30Speaker 1: name is Waslow, but it is not spelled w A
- 38:35Speaker 1: z l o W. I can't even remember how how
- 38:39Speaker 1: it's spelled. But it's not intuitive. But he held onto
- 38:42Speaker 1: it and he didn't he didn't change it phonetically for Paul,
- 38:46Speaker 1: sticking into the man Paul's family. Yes, that's right. Have
- 38:50Speaker 1: you got anything else? I am looking here? Do we
- 38:55Speaker 1: have anything else? Not? Really, nothing of any great interest
- 38:58Speaker 1: if you ask me. Now, I think this is good stuff.
- 39:01Speaker 1: I think it's it's cool. People should check it like.
- 39:04Speaker 1: I'd love to hear some stories from listeners, or maybe
- 39:07Speaker 1: do a little research into your own name and where
- 39:10Speaker 1: it might have come from, because there's a lot of
- 39:11Speaker 1: interesting stories out there. I'd love to hear more. Yeah. Also, Chuck,
- 39:14Speaker 1: by the way, your last name denotes somebody who used
- 39:17Speaker 1: to live by a hill in the Celtic era. Oh really, Bryant, Yes,
- 39:25Speaker 1: derived from Brionne Hill. People pronounced Briony in northern France,
- 39:30Speaker 1: so you're a Frenchy Chuck. Interesting, Yeah, pretty cool? Yeah
- 39:37Speaker 1: dat Atlanta. Well, since Chuck said ha ha, of course,
- 39:42Speaker 1: that means it's time for a listener mail. All right,
- 39:48Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this uh choir math and I should
- 39:52Speaker 1: say that uh Lyle here had a lot of consternation
- 39:56Speaker 1: after Lyle sent this email about because Lyle is a
- 40:01Speaker 1: math person and I think a math teacher about how
- 40:04Speaker 1: Lyle chose to express this so much so that almost
- 40:08Speaker 1: didn't read ex didn't want to call his Lyle any stress.
- 40:11Speaker 1: But I'm gonna read it anyway. And this is about
- 40:12Speaker 1: the church choir coincidence. Uh. When we said one in
- 40:16Speaker 1: a million, he said, did you guys calculate that yourself?
- 40:18Speaker 1: Guessing you repeated it from something else? Because unless I'm
- 40:22Speaker 1: missing something, one out of one million is crazy wrong.
- 40:27Speaker 1: Using the assumptions you stated for two reasons, here we go.
- 40:31Speaker 1: If there are fifteen members and each had a one
- 40:33Speaker 1: quarter chance of being late, the probabilities were equal and independent,
- 40:37Speaker 1: so it was like rolling fifteen four sided dice. Uh,
- 40:42Speaker 1: that would be roughly a one in a billion chance
- 40:46Speaker 1: and number two point two. Even the calculation in one
- 40:51Speaker 1: completely fails to capture what you seem to want to
- 40:53Speaker 1: express the chance of something like this happening, i e.
- 40:57Speaker 1: The simultaneous choire lateness coinciding with the explosion. That would
- 41:00Speaker 1: be trickier to work out. The simplest way to calculate
- 41:03Speaker 1: it would be to decide on the chance of a
- 41:05Speaker 1: nineteen fifty Nebraska church blowing up on a given night
- 41:08Speaker 1: and multiply that by the one in a billion chance above.
- 41:11Speaker 1: So basically it sounds like we did half of the
- 41:13Speaker 1: equation and didn't even do that half. Right, No, that
- 41:17Speaker 1: sounds like us. So he says, you know, did churches
- 41:20Speaker 1: blow off and blow up off in nineteen fifty Nebraska.
- 41:23Speaker 1: But see, you could also say a building blowing up
- 41:27Speaker 1: or a building killing somebody. Like, I don't know where
- 41:32Speaker 1: you draw the line because I'm not a math person
- 41:33Speaker 1: or how you would quantify that. I would think you'd
- 41:37Speaker 1: need to go with churches just to compare apple to apples.
- 41:40Speaker 1: And then also, you know, not every building is going
- 41:43Speaker 1: to invite people into it at seven pm on a
- 41:47Speaker 1: night or something so good point and then actually goes
- 41:50Speaker 1: on to to say it's easy to get overly dazzled
- 41:53Speaker 1: doing calculations like these, And I think that's what we
- 41:55Speaker 1: are now, is overly dazzled dazzled. The more specifically described
- 42:00Speaker 1: have any event or collection of events, the more astronomically
- 42:03Speaker 1: unlikely it becomes. Uh, I e. The chance of my
- 42:06Speaker 1: spaghetti being in this exact configuration or mind bogglingly low. Uh,
- 42:11Speaker 1: pretty amazing story still, and that is from Lyle. That
- 42:15Speaker 1: is classic Lyle, always slipping a spaghetti reference into his emails.
- 42:19Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, that is interesting to think about though, Like,
- 42:23Speaker 1: depending on how far you want to drill down you
- 42:26Speaker 1: can you know, it gets a little nutty totally. But
- 42:29Speaker 1: I like his calculations even better than ours. One in
- 42:31Speaker 1: a million chance kind of dazzling one in a billion chance.
- 42:35Speaker 1: And that's just step one. That's I got stars in
- 42:38Speaker 1: my eyes basically. Wow. Well thanks a lot, Lyle. I'm
- 42:41Speaker 1: sorry for driving you a little bit crazy. Uh. We
- 42:44Speaker 1: are glad that you could take the time to explain
- 42:47Speaker 1: to us, um what we got wrong and not call
- 42:50Speaker 1: us stupid in the in the bargain. Thank you. If
- 42:55Speaker 1: you want to be like Lyle and get in touch
- 42:56Speaker 1: with us, you can send us an email to Stuff
- 42:58Speaker 1: Podcasts at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
- 43:04Speaker 1: is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
- 43:07Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
- 43:10Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H