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Interesting Origins of Everyday Phrases · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is
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Speaker 1: dollars donated from Stuff you Should Know listeners, which would
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Speaker 1: be great. And you got a little piece of housekeeping, right. Yes,
1:06
Speaker 1: I wanted to thank a guy named Daniel Murgatroyd who
1:09
Speaker 1: is a rather talented painter who a while back noticed
1:13
Speaker 1: a picture of um Momo that I posted on Instagram,
1:19
Speaker 1: and he offered to paint it, and he sent me
1:22
Speaker 1: a straight up amazing oil painting that looks just like
1:26
Speaker 1: the photograph. So we have a wonderful oil painting of MO.
1:30
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to thank him for that and
1:31
Speaker 1: tell everybody to go check him out on Instagram. Daniel
1:35
Speaker 1: Murgatroyd art m u r g a t r o
1:39
Speaker 1: y d art. Uh. He's really really good. So and
1:43
Speaker 1: I think he might be accepting commissions by the one.
1:45
Speaker 1: I'm gonna check that out. No Marvin Martian jokes, I
1:48
Speaker 1: promise no. I always think of jam on it um.
1:51
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the little Gremlin's sisters. His
1:56
Speaker 1: named Murgatroyd. I always think of Marvin Martian. Have inster
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Speaker 1: margat Troyd. Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot about him.
2:02
Speaker 1: I was never a big fan of his. He was creepy.
2:05
Speaker 1: I liked him. Okay, we also need to shout out
2:08
Speaker 1: Worldwide Words. If you've never been on Worldwide Words website,
2:13
Speaker 1: it's amazing. The guy Michael Quinlan who ran the site
2:16
Speaker 1: is he just really did some amazing work of digging
2:20
Speaker 1: up word origins and etymology and all that and then
2:23
Speaker 1: Graham Arst. There is another really good site that we
2:25
Speaker 1: drew from, among many others, but those two were the
2:28
Speaker 1: ones who deserve the biggest shout outs. Yeah, we've done
2:30
Speaker 1: something like this before, and I think every couple of
2:33
Speaker 1: years will probably throw out another word in phrase origin
2:37
Speaker 1: episode because it's always fun to look at this stuff.
2:40
Speaker 1: I'm an enthusiast of phrase origins. We're gonna kick it
2:44
Speaker 1: off with the old on the wagon phrase. You were
2:48
Speaker 1: on the wagon that means you're not drinking, you are sober.
2:52
Speaker 1: I can't have that drink, man, I'm on the wagon
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Speaker 1: right right. And this one's awesome because we actually know
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Speaker 1: pretty much with a of percent certainty where it came from. UM.
3:03
Speaker 1: But first, before we get to that, let's talk about
3:05
Speaker 1: a couple of competing theories. One of them is from
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Speaker 1: our friends across the pond in the UK who apparently, UM,
3:12
Speaker 1: back in the day, if you were being taken to jail,
3:15
Speaker 1: or you were being taken to the gallows, you would
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Speaker 1: be taken by wagon or cart and the very gracious
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Speaker 1: constable or jailer would stop at a pub and let
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Speaker 1: you have one last drink. And then after you had
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Speaker 1: that drink, you would get back on the wagon never
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Speaker 1: to drink again. That's right, because you're about to go
3:35
Speaker 1: get your head chopped off, right, So I don't even
3:39
Speaker 1: know if that happened, but whether it did or not,
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Speaker 1: it it's not the origin of on the wagon, Sorry,
3:45
Speaker 1: britt friends. It's a good one though, and it's funny.
3:48
Speaker 1: Anytime you do research on phrase origins, there are always
3:53
Speaker 1: a lot of competing theories and a lot of them
3:57
Speaker 1: sound really fun and you will probably repeat some of them,
4:00
Speaker 1: but a lot of them aren't true. No, but these
4:02
Speaker 1: are vetted. Man. We we really worked hard to make
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Speaker 1: sure that this one really really is accurate. Alright, So
4:09
Speaker 1: moving on a little closer, but not quite there. This
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Speaker 1: sort of dances around the true origin. But this one
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Speaker 1: takes us to America. We don't have to go across
4:19
Speaker 1: any pond because we're here already. And the Temperance Movement
4:23
Speaker 1: is what we're speaking of. Where uh, if you listen
4:26
Speaker 1: to our episode on What's it call it? When they
4:29
Speaker 1: get rid of all the booze prohibition prohibition it was
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Speaker 1: led by the Temperance movement, which was a movement of
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Speaker 1: uptight people who said you shouldn't drink no one should drink,
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Speaker 1: and we're gonna make uh it really hard for you
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Speaker 1: to drink. So the Temperance Movement was really happening, and
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Speaker 1: they would go through towns at times preaching abstinence and
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Speaker 1: literally like parading through town, and they would almost like
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Speaker 1: a church invitation, would call people, uh, to take a pledge,
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Speaker 1: like come up and take the pledge and say you're
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Speaker 1: not going to drink this devil's juice anymore, and sign
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Speaker 1: this thing swearing that you're never gonna take a drink again.
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Speaker 1: And here after you signed it, why don't you just
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Speaker 1: jump on this wagon. We're riding around on through town
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Speaker 1: and you can beckon others to do the same. And
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Speaker 1: that is where the origin of on the wagon came from.
5:24
Speaker 1: Always such a good actor. Uh, not quite. It's good
5:28
Speaker 1: and it's close again, it dances near it, but that's
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Speaker 1: not quite right, right right? Uh. It turns out it
5:34
Speaker 1: did have to do with the Temperance Movement and their
5:37
Speaker 1: pledge and people taking the pledge, but it wasn't a
5:39
Speaker 1: parade wagon that was being referenced. It was what was
5:42
Speaker 1: called a water wagon or a water cart. And back
5:45
Speaker 1: in the day around the time of the Last Turn
5:47
Speaker 1: of the century. There are lots of towns out there
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Speaker 1: that had just nothing but a dusty dirt street. There
5:52
Speaker 1: was no pavement, no oyster shells, no cobblestones, something like that.
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Speaker 1: And on dry days that dirt could turn to dust
6:00
Speaker 1: and blow in your face. So the water cart would
6:02
Speaker 1: be a cart of non potable water, non drinkable water
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Speaker 1: that a horse would draw that would just kind of
6:09
Speaker 1: spray the road down to keep it from being dusty. Yeah,
6:13
Speaker 1: that's what they call in the film business, a wet down. Sure,
6:18
Speaker 1: they usually doing on asphalt streets to make it look
6:20
Speaker 1: cooler at night, right, So, I don't know if they
6:23
Speaker 1: did it for that, But this was more This was
6:26
Speaker 1: more practical. But the point was the water in the
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Speaker 1: water cart you did not want to drink. So when
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Speaker 1: somebody who signed the pledge said something like I'd rather
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Speaker 1: drink from the water wagon or the water cart rather
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Speaker 1: than take a strong drink. Again, that is the origin
6:42
Speaker 1: of I'm on the wagon. That's what they were saying,
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Speaker 1: is I would rather drink this nasty water than drink
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Speaker 1: a glass of whiskey. Again. Yeah, that's a good one.
6:50
Speaker 1: I thought so too. And then water wagon became just
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Speaker 1: the wagon, And apparently by four there was an article
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Speaker 1: in the Davenport Daily Leader that said a man fell
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Speaker 1: off the water wagon, and they felt obligated to say
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Speaker 1: this was a real water wagon, not the figurative one.
7:05
Speaker 1: So it was at least right in widespread use by
7:10
Speaker 1: I like that. I do too. That was a good one.
7:12
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, this one, I guess we're just gonna
7:15
Speaker 1: have to get into this because this one bothers me.
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Speaker 1: That is exception that proves the rule, because I fully
7:24
Speaker 1: understand what this means and I get it, and I
7:26
Speaker 1: didn't know anyone had any problem with the phrase the
7:30
Speaker 1: exception that proves the rule? Oh really, so like the
7:33
Speaker 1: the original and proper use of it, that's what you
7:36
Speaker 1: that's the only one you're aware of. I mean, I
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Speaker 1: just I know, I feel like I know what it means,
7:43
Speaker 1: and that I don't understand the confusion of what it means. Well,
7:48
Speaker 1: let's explain what some people are confused by. So a
7:51
Speaker 1: lot of people out there think that the phrase the
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Speaker 1: exception that proves the rule is talking about like an outlier,
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Speaker 1: an exception that by its very existence it shows that
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Speaker 1: the rule that it's breaking is generally true. But that's it'
8:09
Speaker 1: that's not it though. That's not correct, and it's actually
8:11
Speaker 1: kind of nonsensical if you dig into it. I don't
8:14
Speaker 1: think so. I think that's how modern people use it.
8:17
Speaker 1: I think this is a case of changing language. Yes,
8:20
Speaker 1: and I think it's very easily understood. Like if I
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Speaker 1: say I hate all mushrooms, but I like portobellos only,
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Speaker 1: then that is an exception that that generally proves the
8:32
Speaker 1: rule that I hate all other mushrooms. Okay, but let
8:35
Speaker 1: me under let me explain why it's actually nonsensical. Like, yes,
8:38
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, So so so many people use it like
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Speaker 1: that that it has come to mean that as well.
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Speaker 1: But we're talking about like the original version, which is
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Speaker 1: still holds the same meaning to It's still a useful
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Speaker 1: way of using it. It's not like archaic or anequated, right,
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Speaker 1: But what I'm saying is, don't get your hopes up
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Speaker 1: that you're convince me that it's nonsensical. Okay, that's not
8:59
Speaker 1: perfect sense. Let me explain why you're wrong. So, um,
9:02
Speaker 1: there's a there's an adage that you only have to
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Speaker 1: find one white crow to disprove that all crows are black.
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Speaker 1: But does that mean that that one white crow also
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Speaker 1: proves that crows in general are black. I would say no,
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Speaker 1: because how many white crows are out there? Right, it
9:20
Speaker 1: doesn't mean anything. It just means the one thing that crows.
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Speaker 1: Not all crows are black. It doesn't. It doesn't show
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Speaker 1: also that crows are generally black. That's why it's generally
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Speaker 1: considered nonsensical. Yeah, I'll buy it. There's a second way
9:35
Speaker 1: to do it too. Um that that says, Um, that
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Speaker 1: really emphasizes the proves part. The exception proves the rule.
9:43
Speaker 1: But they don't mean prove isn't like I proved it.
9:45
Speaker 1: It's it's uh, it's inarguable. They meet it in the
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Speaker 1: scientific term of of test the validity of Yeah, that
9:53
Speaker 1: makes sense, but that's not what it was originally intended
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Speaker 1: to mean either though, Right. No. And another good example is, um,
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Speaker 1: let's say you have a rule that says you shouldn't
10:02
Speaker 1: put pants on horses, and an exception to that rule
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Speaker 1: might test the validity the viability of that rule. So
10:10
Speaker 1: there's one guy who puts pants on a horse. Yeah,
10:15
Speaker 1: that guy, the horse trips breaks a leg, and that
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Speaker 1: horse has just shown that that rule is pretty valid.
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Speaker 1: That you shouldn't put pants on a horse, because that
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Speaker 1: rule protects horses makes sense way more sensical than the
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Speaker 1: one that that you subscribe to. But finally we reach Chuck,
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Speaker 1: the the original version, the original meaning of the exception
10:38
Speaker 1: that proves the rule, and I think it's beautiful in
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Speaker 1: its elegance. Well it is, and and I guess this
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Speaker 1: is how I used it with the mushrooms, and this
10:44
Speaker 1: is how I always took it to mean, which was
10:47
Speaker 1: the use of the phrase is basically that the presence
10:51
Speaker 1: of an exception proves that a rule exists. Okay, okay, yeah,
10:58
Speaker 1: I could see how you. There's an interpretation of your
11:01
Speaker 1: mushroom statement that that that follows mushrooms. I hate them,
11:06
Speaker 1: but I like Portobella's. That basically proves that I hate
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Speaker 1: all other mushrooms if I only like one. Yeah, okay,
11:15
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think it's the phrasing of it that's
11:17
Speaker 1: throwing me off, because typically when you're using the exception
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Speaker 1: that proves the rule correctly, um. An example of it
11:25
Speaker 1: is UM free parking on Sundays like this one. This
11:29
Speaker 1: made my brain hurt. Okay, but listen, that's an exception
11:33
Speaker 1: that suggests that, uh, there's a rule that all the
11:36
Speaker 1: other days of the week you have to pay to park.
11:38
Speaker 1: There's an exception that's posted that proves that a rule exists. Okay,
11:44
Speaker 1: no shirt, no shoes, no service. The fact that a
11:48
Speaker 1: store would feel obligated to post that sign suggests that
11:53
Speaker 1: elsewhere you can wear go without shoes or a shirt. See.
11:58
Speaker 1: I don't know if I buy that. That to me
12:00
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that. That to me means that at some
12:03
Speaker 1: point someone came in there without a shirt and people complained,
12:07
Speaker 1: so they said, well, we gotta have a rule now, right,
12:10
Speaker 1: But that anything about other restaurants, I disagree. So, um,
12:17
Speaker 1: that's but that's how that's how you're supposed to use.
12:19
Speaker 1: And the reason why this is the original version is
12:21
Speaker 1: because it's actually it actually comes from medieval law. Yeah
12:25
Speaker 1: it was. I believe there was a Latin phrase. I
12:29
Speaker 1: love reading Latin acceptio probat regulum and cassibus non accept us.
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Speaker 1: The exception confirms the rule, and the cases not expected
12:42
Speaker 1: accepted accepted. What I say expected. I got a question
12:48
Speaker 1: for you. Let's go back to no shirt, no shoes,
12:50
Speaker 1: no dice. Alright, So you're saying, if you walk into
12:53
Speaker 1: a restaurant and says no shirt, no shoes, no service.
12:56
Speaker 1: You would say, hey, I didn't see a sign at
12:58
Speaker 1: uh that so that must mean you can go in
13:01
Speaker 1: there without a shirt on. Uh. If I stopped and
13:06
Speaker 1: thought about it, yes, that logically makes sense, But I
13:09
Speaker 1: don't think. I think you don't have to fixate on
13:11
Speaker 1: other restaurants. It can just mean that other places in
13:14
Speaker 1: public you could be without a shirt and a shoe
13:17
Speaker 1: and you're not going to be arrested for it or
13:20
Speaker 1: something like that. Okay, so like you got your shirt
13:23
Speaker 1: tied around your waist your roller blade, and you stop
13:26
Speaker 1: to go in to get some food. You take off
13:28
Speaker 1: your roller blades and you're now barefoot, but you gotta
13:31
Speaker 1: put on that shirt and fish the flip flops out
13:34
Speaker 1: of your back. Back excuse me, I My The point
13:39
Speaker 1: was that this was supposed to be more understandable. I
13:42
Speaker 1: think we made it at least ten times less understandable.
13:44
Speaker 1: All right, that's perfect. I think that means we should
13:47
Speaker 1: take a break. Alright, let's take a break, kids, sk'
14:12
Speaker 1: all right? That was fun. I think from here on
14:16
Speaker 1: out it's gonna be pretty pretty easy going. I think
14:19
Speaker 1: it's smooth sailing ahead because we move on to one
14:23
Speaker 1: of my favorite things that I said as a kid
14:26
Speaker 1: that you don't say as much as an adult. I
14:28
Speaker 1: don't feel like. But as a kid, when you smell
14:31
Speaker 1: something that's a nasty a lot of times you'll go P.
14:34
Speaker 1: You you don't say that as an adult. Home No,
14:38
Speaker 1: I say who farted? But I don't need to ask
14:42
Speaker 1: because my daughter already had announced it. That's as PU
14:46
Speaker 1: as in the letters PU. But they don't even mean anything.
14:50
Speaker 1: They don't stand for anything, right, yeah, which is pretty interesting. Um.
14:54
Speaker 1: And if you think about PU, it's it's totally unnecessary.
14:57
Speaker 1: You can just say that smells awful, but by adding PU,
15:01
Speaker 1: it just puts a whole luster on it and really
15:03
Speaker 1: says that smells really bad. Um. So they don't stand
15:08
Speaker 1: for anything but P. And you in that order have
15:12
Speaker 1: a long standing association with something offensive or disgusting. Um.
15:18
Speaker 1: And it goes all the way back to Latin. Actually
15:21
Speaker 1: before Latin. There's a Latin word called puteo which means
15:24
Speaker 1: I stink, which is probably not said that that frequently
15:27
Speaker 1: back then. And then um there's an even more ancient
15:31
Speaker 1: word and from proto Indo European Um language, which is
15:36
Speaker 1: really really old p U h P. That meant rotten
15:40
Speaker 1: or foul, so that word has been around a really
15:43
Speaker 1: long time. Um, but again, PU doesn't stand for anything.
15:48
Speaker 1: It's just a total coincidence that those two letters put
15:52
Speaker 1: together in the English language make the same sound that
15:56
Speaker 1: humans typically make when we encounter something gross and nasty. Yeah, like,
16:01
Speaker 1: you know, you think of the word putred has PU,
16:04
Speaker 1: But it's all just coincidence. People say pew you know,
16:09
Speaker 1: spell it however you want, p y o O or
16:11
Speaker 1: p e W. I guess even you can throw an
16:15
Speaker 1: h in there. pH e w and PW just came PU.
16:20
Speaker 1: And I think this is a great thing to keep
16:23
Speaker 1: in your hip pocket. Like, I think it's genuinely interesting
16:26
Speaker 1: that PU is just a coincidence with the Latin and
16:30
Speaker 1: the proto Indo European such that you could even drop
16:34
Speaker 1: some wolf bait at a dinner party and very quickly
16:38
Speaker 1: like get out of the embarrassment by saying, well, here's
16:41
Speaker 1: an opportunity, actually, did you know? And then all of
16:44
Speaker 1: a sudden everyone's like, I don't even remember that you farted, right,
16:49
Speaker 1: what's awesome to PU has only been in use since
16:52
Speaker 1: like the nineteen fifties. Yeah, and it's in the O. E.
16:56
Speaker 1: D Rights in the Oxford English Dictionary spell pew and
17:02
Speaker 1: that's where p you generally just thought to sort of
17:04
Speaker 1: come from. That's right, Pugh. I like that one too, Chuck.
17:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring it back. Let's start, Okay, I think
17:12
Speaker 1: we should because it is really great. Uh so too
17:16
Speaker 1: is the next phrase, Chuck, burry the hatchet. Burry the hatchet?
17:20
Speaker 1: Now what does that mean? Uh? This is a really
17:25
Speaker 1: good one. This is something that you say if like,
17:30
Speaker 1: let's say you and I are having a big fight
17:32
Speaker 1: and that eventually we're having a fight over what the
17:35
Speaker 1: exception that proves the rule? We're at logger heads, we say,
17:39
Speaker 1: oh god, we gotta take a commercial break, which is
17:42
Speaker 1: when we do our best fighting. And then in that
17:44
Speaker 1: commercial break, I might listen. Man. No, actually you say
17:46
Speaker 1: it because you're the peacemaker. You say, let's just bury
17:50
Speaker 1: the hatchet here. This is a dumb thing to fight over,
17:52
Speaker 1: And I say fine, and then that's it. We move on.
17:56
Speaker 1: Everything's good from that point on because the hatchet has
17:58
Speaker 1: been buried. Yes, this him. It's a symbol of getting
18:02
Speaker 1: over an argument. Letting bygones be bygones. Right, Um, what's
18:07
Speaker 1: interesting is that it actually started out with a really
18:10
Speaker 1: literal meaning to the phrase bury the hatchet. Uh. And
18:14
Speaker 1: the whole thing comes from the Iroquois language family, better
18:19
Speaker 1: known by their own term the hawt in O'shawnee, which
18:22
Speaker 1: means people of the long house. Iroquois was the French
18:27
Speaker 1: name for for this group of people that included a
18:29
Speaker 1: number of tribes up in the northeast, the Cayuga, Cherokee, Huron, Seneca, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga,
18:38
Speaker 1: and Tuscarora, and their whole jams stretched from Lake Ontario
18:43
Speaker 1: over to Pennsylvania and New York and all the way
18:45
Speaker 1: up to Ontario and Quebec, which means that they were
18:48
Speaker 1: rubbing elbows with the French, British and the Dutch after
18:51
Speaker 1: the Europeans started to come over, which also means that
18:54
Speaker 1: ideas were able to spread among this group, which is
18:57
Speaker 1: why we're talking about bury the hatchet today. That's uh.
19:00
Speaker 1: And if you and I think this is a very
19:02
Speaker 1: great story, according to Iroquois legend um, there was a
19:08
Speaker 1: treaty for it by some members of this Iroquois family,
19:11
Speaker 1: and they actually got it wrong. For many years. They
19:14
Speaker 1: placed it at fourteen fifty one, but researchers at the
19:19
Speaker 1: University of Toledo go rockets, rockets almost said, mud, hen's
19:24
Speaker 1: not right, that's the team. Yeah. Uh. They got together
19:30
Speaker 1: and used oral history and astronomy data and all sorts
19:34
Speaker 1: of great documentary resources and said, actually, hey, we know
19:38
Speaker 1: what it is. It was August thirty one, eleven forty two,
19:42
Speaker 1: so much earlier than it was believed. But in this treaty,
19:46
Speaker 1: it's very cool what happened. They got the five original signatories,
19:51
Speaker 1: which were the Cayuga, the Oneida, the Mohawk, the Seneca,
19:55
Speaker 1: and the Onondaga, and they formed what was known as
19:59
Speaker 1: the a josh Confederates hot in O'shawnee hot in Oshawni Confederacy.
20:05
Speaker 1: The French called it the Iroquois Confederacy, but it was
20:10
Speaker 1: it was an early model of democracy in action. Yeah.
20:14
Speaker 1: And if those University of Toledo scholars are right, and
20:16
Speaker 1: the whole thing was established in eleven forty two, that
20:19
Speaker 1: makes it one of the oldest continuously functioning democracies in
20:24
Speaker 1: the world. It's up there with the Government of Iceland,
20:27
Speaker 1: the Swiss Cantons, and I said, continuously operating. It's still
20:32
Speaker 1: functions as a government entity in Upstate New York and
20:35
Speaker 1: issues passports. So it's been going since possibly eleven forty two.
20:39
Speaker 1: And the whole reason we're talking about this is because
20:41
Speaker 1: at that meeting in eleven forty two of those five
20:45
Speaker 1: nations that came together to form a treaty to to
20:49
Speaker 1: the leaders of this um, this treaty UH meeting, I
20:53
Speaker 1: guess uh dagana Widah who is a Huron, and Hiawatha
20:57
Speaker 1: who is either a mohawk er and onondaga Um. They said, hey, everybody,
21:02
Speaker 1: just to kind of keep everything peaceful and on the level,
21:06
Speaker 1: let's all bury our weapons under this white pine tree
21:09
Speaker 1: and just leave them there during this meeting and we
21:13
Speaker 1: can dig them up afterward. But they couldn't dig them
21:16
Speaker 1: up chuck, could they. Now they thought this is a
21:20
Speaker 1: nice symbol, and it also has the side benefit that
21:23
Speaker 1: no one's gonna get murdered probably, And a river, an
21:27
Speaker 1: underground river, came and washed them away. And so they
21:31
Speaker 1: all said, hey, this is like kismet. I don't even
21:36
Speaker 1: know what that word means, but this was meant to be.
21:38
Speaker 1: We buried, literally buried our weapons and they were washed
21:42
Speaker 1: away underground. So this is a charmed treaty and a
21:46
Speaker 1: charmed joining of nations. So that whole practice spread pretty
21:50
Speaker 1: quickly among the Iroquois language family tribes. UM. Where Like
21:55
Speaker 1: if you were having like a peace treaty meeting like
21:58
Speaker 1: the two, the two groups would bury their their weapons
22:02
Speaker 1: of war. UM. And then like I said, the proximity
22:06
Speaker 1: of the Europeans allowed ideas to spread. And this was
22:09
Speaker 1: definitely one of them. Um, the Brits, the French, the Dutch, uh.
22:14
Speaker 1: Later on the Americans, they all actually like buried weapons
22:18
Speaker 1: when they were engaged in peace treaty talks with different
22:22
Speaker 1: Native American tribes. And what was interesting is that some
22:25
Speaker 1: Native American tribes that had nothing to do with the
22:28
Speaker 1: Iroquois had never probably even met iroquire hot in O'shawnee,
22:32
Speaker 1: I should say, Um, the Americans buried the hatchet with
22:38
Speaker 1: those tribes as well. So in that sense, the Americans
22:41
Speaker 1: actually spread Native American idea from one group to another
22:45
Speaker 1: group of Native Americans who had never even met. I
22:48
Speaker 1: find that fascinating totally Down here in the Southeast with
22:51
Speaker 1: the Chickasaw they were burying hatchets in Alabama and Mississippi.
22:56
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's pretty interesting how custom can spread like that. Uh.
23:01
Speaker 1: The seventeen nineties was basically when it became sort of
23:04
Speaker 1: a common phrase in North America among English speakers, and
23:09
Speaker 1: everyone still uses it, like people still say bury the hatchet.
23:13
Speaker 1: Why not bury the tomahawk. Well, that's a good question. Uh,
23:18
Speaker 1: you would think that a tomahawk would be a little
23:20
Speaker 1: more correct. But the tomahawk was I believe Algonquin. We
23:25
Speaker 1: talked about the Algonquin hotel recently, right, yeah, by Hyatt,
23:29
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh was a man this very symbolic. Uh,
23:38
Speaker 1: it was not an Iroquois word at all, so right, no, um.
23:44
Speaker 1: And apparently the Seneca um had a word godji wa,
23:48
Speaker 1: so you would probably more accurately say bury the goji wa,
23:51
Speaker 1: bury the godgi wa. So there you go, bury the hatchet.
23:55
Speaker 1: Literal stuff. How about the next one, Chuck, I love
23:59
Speaker 1: this one, short and sweet and it has Shakespeare, that's right.
24:04
Speaker 1: And the phrase is in a pickle, yeah, which means
24:09
Speaker 1: you're in a tight spot, a tough situation, you've got
24:12
Speaker 1: a problem, there's a difficulty over your head, something like that. Right,
24:17
Speaker 1: that's right. And it always struck me as odd. And
24:19
Speaker 1: I think I might even mentioned this before that you
24:21
Speaker 1: can be in a pickle, in a jam, and in
24:23
Speaker 1: a stew and that's all kind of the same thing.
24:26
Speaker 1: And it's all food related, it is, but all of
24:29
Speaker 1: it means you're you've got a problem, You're you're in
24:32
Speaker 1: a tight spot. That's where I'm going to define it
24:35
Speaker 1: as you're in a tight spot. We're gonna leave it
24:36
Speaker 1: with that. And it was Shakespeare that that came up
24:38
Speaker 1: with this one. Yeah, so you mentioned Shakespeare the great
24:41
Speaker 1: play The Tempest. There's a line from in the play
24:45
Speaker 1: from Trinculo to Alonso. I have been in such a
24:50
Speaker 1: pickle since I saw you last. I fear me will
24:54
Speaker 1: never out of my bones. I shall not fear fly
24:58
Speaker 1: blowing Very nice? Shall I translate? Please? So Trinculo has
25:04
Speaker 1: been saying he's been totally trashed since the last time
25:08
Speaker 1: he saw Alonso, and he's drunk so much that he's
25:11
Speaker 1: concerned it's never going to get it out of his system,
25:13
Speaker 1: and that even after he dies, the flies won't even
25:16
Speaker 1: touch his courts because it will be so preserved by
25:19
Speaker 1: all the alcohol that he's drunk. He was in a pickle,
25:23
Speaker 1: which it doesn't quite make sense. What does that still mean?
25:26
Speaker 1: As in a pickle. But it does make sense when
25:28
Speaker 1: you trace it back a little further. Shakespeare actually borrowed
25:32
Speaker 1: this phrase introduced to English, but he borrowed the sentiment
25:35
Speaker 1: in the phrase from the Dutch, who had their own
25:37
Speaker 1: little phrase into pickle zitten for Dutch. That is remarkably readable,
25:44
Speaker 1: it really is. There's no rando j somewhere. It's just
25:48
Speaker 1: all pretty straightforward. So um, in this sense, the chuck
25:52
Speaker 1: peckle doesn't mean the pickle, it means the pickle brine. Yeah, so,
25:57
Speaker 1: I mean this is also has to do with if
26:00
Speaker 1: you say you're drunk, you you're pickled. That's sort of
26:03
Speaker 1: along the similar lines of what that means, right, that
26:05
Speaker 1: you were sort of soaking in that pickle brine. Exactly.
26:08
Speaker 1: You're preserved by the alcohol, just like a pickle would
26:12
Speaker 1: be by the brine. But the thing is is that's
26:15
Speaker 1: not what in a pickle means. In a pickle means
26:17
Speaker 1: in a tight spot. So at some point hundred two
26:20
Speaker 1: hundred years after Shakespeare, Samuel peppis um. I think that's
26:26
Speaker 1: how you say his name. I've only ever seen it written,
26:29
Speaker 1: but he he was famous for his diary, and one
26:31
Speaker 1: of the entries in his Diary in sixteen sixty he
26:35
Speaker 1: says that his house is in a pickle, meaning that's
26:38
Speaker 1: in in a sorry state, in in bad shape, because
26:41
Speaker 1: it was under construction. And so Samuel Peppis was the
26:44
Speaker 1: one who kind of took that term and ended up
26:47
Speaker 1: setting it free, letting it evolve into being in a
26:50
Speaker 1: hard place a bad state. Amazing. And you know what,
26:54
Speaker 1: I actually get to follow up on the Shakespeare episode.
26:57
Speaker 1: When I was shouting out my great English professor who
27:01
Speaker 1: translated just like you just translated, somebody wrote in you
27:05
Speaker 1: can always count on a listener. Someone who was at
27:07
Speaker 1: at park Hall, the English Building, around the same time
27:10
Speaker 1: I was, said, I bet you it was John Vance.
27:13
Speaker 1: And I looked him up and lo and behold John Vance,
27:16
Speaker 1: former professor Department of English, now retired and writing novels.
27:22
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what kind of novels. It's read article from
27:25
Speaker 1: like four or five years ago. Uh, writing parody novels
27:30
Speaker 1: based on his professorship, erotic parody novels. I don't think so.
27:35
Speaker 1: But she she said that she try and get the
27:37
Speaker 1: word to him that I was shouting him out, but
27:40
Speaker 1: I just decided to do it on the show. So
27:43
Speaker 1: John Vance, if you're out there and you hear this.
27:45
Speaker 1: You were one of the best English teachers I've ever had.
27:48
Speaker 1: Very nice, Chuck, I don't. I don't think there's anything
27:51
Speaker 1: we can do but follow that with a break, because
27:53
Speaker 1: that's stuff off in large skate. As watched my sks,
28:13
Speaker 1: you should know, all right. So we got a few
28:20
Speaker 1: more to drop on your head, and one is one
28:24
Speaker 1: that we uh actually messed up, and that is the
28:29
Speaker 1: old slippery slope which I think a lot of people
28:33
Speaker 1: over the years, and I had heard it before you
28:35
Speaker 1: said it, have it attributed to a Supreme Court justice.
28:40
Speaker 1: But that's not the case, right. No. I couldn't see
28:43
Speaker 1: exactly where it came from or even what justice has
28:46
Speaker 1: used at Wayne, but I did see it goes at
28:47
Speaker 1: least back to the nineteenth century. Um. But I think
28:50
Speaker 1: what's more interesting about it, Chuck, is UM, it's actually
28:54
Speaker 1: a logical fallacy, and it has its own name, the
28:57
Speaker 1: slippery slope argument. And basically everybody who's walking around using
29:02
Speaker 1: the phrase slippery slope is using it correctly. Um. It
29:07
Speaker 1: just basically means, if we do something take one or
29:10
Speaker 1: two steps, we're we're entering a dangerous situation that could
29:16
Speaker 1: end in catastrophe just from taking that first or second step. Yeah,
29:20
Speaker 1: it's a phrase that I have always loathed. Um. I
29:24
Speaker 1: think if you say something is a slippery slope, it's
29:26
Speaker 1: always it's never like, uh, hey, if you know, if
29:32
Speaker 1: your kids hanging out with the the kids smoking by
29:35
Speaker 1: the dumpster, it's a slippery slope and they could end
29:38
Speaker 1: up smoking too, Like that makes sense. It always is
29:42
Speaker 1: some really far off extreme where you say, then your
29:46
Speaker 1: kid's gonna end up on heroin one day. Uh if
29:49
Speaker 1: they hung out with the kids smoking by the dumpster.
29:52
Speaker 1: It's always taken to this really far extreme, and it
29:55
Speaker 1: seems like it's used a lot in political arguments where
29:59
Speaker 1: just the dumbest things are said about you know, if
30:03
Speaker 1: we allow gay marriage, then then what's to stop us
30:06
Speaker 1: from marrying our pets and things like that. It's it's
30:10
Speaker 1: so infuriating it is, and you're right, I think you
30:14
Speaker 1: kind of nailed it. Like it goes from we could
30:17
Speaker 1: try this to catastrophic problems. And the reason it does
30:22
Speaker 1: that is because the slippery slope argument is is used
30:25
Speaker 1: to scare somebody else into agreement. It's basically saying, like, hey,
30:30
Speaker 1: this new thing that you're talking about It sounds great
30:34
Speaker 1: on its face, but do you realize that if we
30:37
Speaker 1: do that, the world will literally end? And the other
30:40
Speaker 1: person goes, oh, well, I don't want the world to end,
30:42
Speaker 1: so we should probably not do that thing. I was suggesting.
30:45
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. And what the problem is, as far
30:48
Speaker 1: as the logical fallacy goes, is you are predicting an
30:52
Speaker 1: outcome that cannot be predicted. Uh. It's literally just sort
30:56
Speaker 1: of making something up to scare people into submission of
31:00
Speaker 1: not doing anything. Yeah. Um. There's a guy named James
31:04
Speaker 1: Graft who wrote an article about it in the Week
31:07
Speaker 1: in two thirteen, and he said the reason why it's
31:13
Speaker 1: it just doesn't make sense is because he said, there's
31:15
Speaker 1: no reason to reject doing one thing just because it
31:18
Speaker 1: might open the door for some undesirable extremes. Permitting aid
31:22
Speaker 1: does not suspend our ability to say, but not be
31:26
Speaker 1: and certainly not zac down the line. And he also
31:29
Speaker 1: points out something I think is really important too, that
31:33
Speaker 1: if you with the slippery slope argument, the whole point
31:36
Speaker 1: is to say, all these terrible things can happen, and
31:39
Speaker 1: if you just focus on that, you're never gonna do anything.
31:41
Speaker 1: That's right. Scared into an action exactly nice. Um. And
31:48
Speaker 1: the thing about the slippery slope argument is the more
31:51
Speaker 1: you look for it, the more you see it everywhere.
31:54
Speaker 1: I mean, it is everywhere, and once you realize what
31:56
Speaker 1: you're actually what's actually being done to your your psyche,
32:00
Speaker 1: it's kind of annoying. At that point, I agreed, Uh, yeah,
32:06
Speaker 1: so you're you're right to loathe it. I think I'm
32:08
Speaker 1: with you on that, alright. So moving on to a
32:11
Speaker 1: phrase that I always, very stupidly assumed was French k
32:17
Speaker 1: sara sara the great song whatever will be, where will be.
32:21
Speaker 1: For some reason, it always sounded French in my head.
32:25
Speaker 1: But now that I'm looking at it, k q u
32:28
Speaker 1: e is clearly like some variation of Italian or Spanish.
32:32
Speaker 1: I don't know why I always thought it was French.
32:34
Speaker 1: It just sounded French to me. It does sound French.
32:36
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, other people think Italian. Maybe what's interesting
32:42
Speaker 1: is it's it's both. It's also neither, and it's gibberish.
32:46
Speaker 1: It turns out in both languages. But the upshot of
32:49
Speaker 1: the meaning of k sara sara is that, Um, the
32:55
Speaker 1: way it's translated is whatever will be will be, and
32:57
Speaker 1: it's a it's a reminder to kind of take like
32:59
Speaker 1: a lacks attitude toward life, take life as it comes, accepted,
33:03
Speaker 1: and enjoy it. You can't you can't really predict the future.
33:06
Speaker 1: Don't try you'll just fail. That kind of thing, that's right. Uh.
33:10
Speaker 1: And it comes from the Hitchcock film The Man Who
33:13
Speaker 1: Knew Too Much and it was sung by Doristay very
33:16
Speaker 1: famously in that movie. Became a big, big hit for
33:19
Speaker 1: Doris Day. But it was written by Jay Livingston and
33:22
Speaker 1: Ray Evans, who were very uh. I don't know about
33:27
Speaker 1: how famous famous they were, but within the industry well
33:31
Speaker 1: regarded as kind of pumping out these big hits during
33:34
Speaker 1: the heyday of of this sort of songwriting. What was
33:38
Speaker 1: the uh we did a podcast on it, the um
33:41
Speaker 1: tim pan Alley tim pan Alley was this? Then I
33:45
Speaker 1: thought tim pan Alley was way earlier. No, I don't
33:49
Speaker 1: think so, Okay, Well, these guys would be tim pan
33:52
Speaker 1: Alley all the way. Then agreed, I might be wrong,
33:54
Speaker 1: but they had big hits with uh Mona Lisa, men
33:58
Speaker 1: Have Known You and Silver Bells a great Christmas song,
34:03
Speaker 1: the theme to Bonanza. Another great song, The ed Horse
34:08
Speaker 1: is a Horse. Of course, of course, yeah, and Livingston,
34:11
Speaker 1: one of the writers was the voice of Mr Edge
34:14
Speaker 1: Mr Ed. I've always heard of rumor that they put
34:16
Speaker 1: peanut butter in Mr Ed's mouth to make him flap
34:20
Speaker 1: his gums like that, and he hated peanut butter. That
34:23
Speaker 1: a horse loves peanut butter. So they wrote this song
34:26
Speaker 1: for the Hitchcock movie. But they actually kind of stole
34:29
Speaker 1: the phrase, not actually kind of. They definitely stole the
34:32
Speaker 1: phrase from another movie, The Barefoot Contessa. I'd like to
34:36
Speaker 1: say inspired. I think they do too. But in that movie,
34:40
Speaker 1: Ava Gardner's character, her family motto is inscribed on her
34:44
Speaker 1: Italian villa villa and it's case Sarah Sarah, but they
34:50
Speaker 1: spelled that c h E. And what's interesting is the
34:53
Speaker 1: guy who wrote and directed The Barefoot Contessa, Joseph Manka
34:56
Speaker 1: waits who I think that's the guy that they made
34:59
Speaker 1: Manca out right, that's one and the same. Yeah, he
35:03
Speaker 1: um apparently did his homework because k Sara Sara did
35:07
Speaker 1: originate as a family motto, not in Italy, but with
35:11
Speaker 1: the first Earl of Bedford in England in the sixteenth century.
35:14
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, right, so put a pin in that Livingston
35:19
Speaker 1: and Evans are inspired enough by this phrase to immediately
35:23
Speaker 1: write this song. Uh, and then wait a couple of
35:27
Speaker 1: weeks for Hitchcock to come calling because they, I guess
35:30
Speaker 1: they want to make it seem like they really took
35:32
Speaker 1: their time with it and came up with a true
35:34
Speaker 1: original for Hitchcock for hitch Yeah. And I don't understand
35:38
Speaker 1: this response from Hitchcock. Ah, is this what he really said?
35:43
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't quite get it. His quote was gentleman,
35:46
Speaker 1: I didn't know what kind of song I wanted, and
35:49
Speaker 1: that is the kind of song I want. Okay, just
35:52
Speaker 1: a little clumsy. I guess it is a little clumsy.
35:54
Speaker 1: You could also take it as like a subtle dig
35:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I could believe me. The movie the song
36:02
Speaker 1: was a big hit. The movie was a big hit.
36:04
Speaker 1: Like I said, Doris Day who apparently did not like
36:06
Speaker 1: it at first, But it's a song that's really closely
36:10
Speaker 1: associated with her because she, you know, sang it over
36:13
Speaker 1: and over in performances over the years. But it was
36:16
Speaker 1: a number two hit in the US, number one in Britain,
36:20
Speaker 1: and one best original song in X at the Oscars. Right,
36:26
Speaker 1: So huge song. Why is it? Gibberish? Is the big
36:30
Speaker 1: question that we face now, right, So the Earl of
36:33
Speaker 1: Bedford the motto k sara sara c h E s
36:38
Speaker 1: A r A s a r a. It is Italian
36:41
Speaker 1: and it does mean in Italian what will be, will be? Okay,
36:47
Speaker 1: so that's what the words mean, but it's not grammatically correct, right. No,
36:52
Speaker 1: it should be kel k sara sara. And the reason
36:55
Speaker 1: why is because k means what and sarah sarah means
37:00
Speaker 1: will be, will be. But what is almost like if
37:04
Speaker 1: if if you were saying what like in English as
37:09
Speaker 1: a response to somebody calling your name, will be, will be,
37:12
Speaker 1: it makes about that much sense grammatically, whereas if you
37:16
Speaker 1: if you say kelk sara sara, you're saying the things
37:19
Speaker 1: that will be will be, and that makes much more sense. Right.
37:23
Speaker 1: But they changed it, Livingston and Evans changed it to
37:26
Speaker 1: a more sort of Spanish sounding thing by spelling it
37:30
Speaker 1: q u E s e r A s E r a.
37:34
Speaker 1: But that's not grammatically correct either, right, so they still
37:38
Speaker 1: mess it up. Yeah, for the same reason because Italian
37:41
Speaker 1: and Spanish are both very closely related romance languages. Uh,
37:44
Speaker 1: you should say lo k sara sara, same thing, the
37:47
Speaker 1: things that will be will be it just doesn't make sense.
37:50
Speaker 1: And again it makes sense, but it makes sense in
37:53
Speaker 1: the way that like the Earl of Bedford probably hired
37:57
Speaker 1: an English translator who got his hands on an Italian
37:59
Speaker 1: dictionary looked up the word what and looked up the
38:02
Speaker 1: word for what for what will be will be and
38:05
Speaker 1: then said that didn't do any of his grammatical research,
38:08
Speaker 1: and neither did Livingston and Evans. But it doesn't matter,
38:11
Speaker 1: apparently agreed. Uh. And that along with our last one,
38:15
Speaker 1: which we're gonna talk about, erna sec begs the question,
38:18
Speaker 1: are two that I think are often begs. The question
38:22
Speaker 1: certainly is often said incorrectly, and people often also jump
38:27
Speaker 1: on it and say, you know, you really mean raises
38:30
Speaker 1: the question that begs the question. I don't hear as
38:33
Speaker 1: many people when someone says the case ras ra saying actually,
38:36
Speaker 1: that's grammatically incorrect. It's true for sure. So just a
38:40
Speaker 1: little word of friendly advice from your older friend here,
38:43
Speaker 1: uh if like correcting someone isn't super cool, but but
38:48
Speaker 1: telling someone a cool story about an origin is another
38:52
Speaker 1: way to do it in a more tactful way. Like
38:55
Speaker 1: instead of saying case rassaras and grammatically incorrect, what you
38:59
Speaker 1: could say is like, yeah, Case Ross Rogers said, cool
39:01
Speaker 1: story behind this. Uh, and you're still sort of correct him,
39:05
Speaker 1: but in a gentler way. Yeah. And if you're starting
39:07
Speaker 1: out with wrong like you really have some work to do. God,
39:11
Speaker 1: go back to the drawing board. So thank you, By
39:15
Speaker 1: the way, I needed to hear that as well, um,
39:17
Speaker 1: along with the listeners you were speaking to, because we've
39:20
Speaker 1: said begs the question before. Yeah, and I know that
39:23
Speaker 1: you've even self corrected and said, I mean raises the question.
39:26
Speaker 1: But it's sort of one of those things that over
39:28
Speaker 1: the years people have tran you know, mistranslated begs the
39:33
Speaker 1: question to where everyone gets it now. Yeah, but its
39:36
Speaker 1: like the way that everybody uses it, which is wrong.
39:40
Speaker 1: It makes sense, which is it's a statement that raises
39:43
Speaker 1: a question. And an example is, um, everyone looking over
39:47
Speaker 1: the menu begs the question what's everyone going to order? Right? Sure,
39:52
Speaker 1: that is not at all what begs the question really means,
39:55
Speaker 1: but because so many people use it that way, now,
39:58
Speaker 1: that is what it means. But that there's also an
40:00
Speaker 1: original meaning too that actually is closer to correct or
40:04
Speaker 1: at the very least worth mentioning. Yeah, and also the
40:07
Speaker 1: answer is always French onion soup, so people shouldn't even
40:10
Speaker 1: be asking anything. I don't know. I've had some bad
40:13
Speaker 1: French onion soup, man, Yeah, I love French onion soup.
40:17
Speaker 1: Like you could put a salt like in some with
40:19
Speaker 1: some beef bullion Cuban, I would probably like it. I've
40:22
Speaker 1: still had bad French onion soup. Now what does that mean?
40:24
Speaker 1: They just didn't get a good crust on that cheese
40:26
Speaker 1: on top or what. No, like the taste was ranked
40:31
Speaker 1: like something bad happened. But by the way, I've got
40:33
Speaker 1: to shout somebody out chuck. We had a listener named
40:37
Speaker 1: um Ryan I believe and Ryan is a chef who
40:41
Speaker 1: rode in and said, hey, man, don't give up on
40:44
Speaker 1: your homemade beef stock. You left out a step and
40:48
Speaker 1: he he basically said, you want to reduce it by half.
40:52
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's exactly right, the beef stock.
40:56
Speaker 1: Don't you make the beef stock and you have it done.
40:59
Speaker 1: I immediately frozen and he was super watery and tasteless.
41:02
Speaker 1: And he said, no, you want to reduce it by
41:04
Speaker 1: hashkey Johnson, trade it and then use that. And my
41:08
Speaker 1: hats off to him for the rest of my life.
41:10
Speaker 1: So thanks a lot, Ryan, I believe, who wrote in
41:13
Speaker 1: and let me know about that. I had beef bone
41:16
Speaker 1: broth for lunch. Oh yeah, from my friends at the
41:19
Speaker 1: Oh So Good Company. I'm hoping to hear this and
41:21
Speaker 1: send me free broth because it's expensive. Oh yeah, yeah,
41:27
Speaker 1: for sure. What's it? What's the name of it? Oh
41:29
Speaker 1: so good? Do you get it chipped frozen? And it's
41:32
Speaker 1: really really good quality broth. I'll take some too, And
41:38
Speaker 1: I was right. It was Ryan Thompson who wrote in
41:41
Speaker 1: to let me know about that. Awesome, that's good especially well,
41:44
Speaker 1: never mind, but we just missed. We just had Thanksgiving,
41:48
Speaker 1: and I was gonna say, if you're gonna make your
41:49
Speaker 1: turkey stock, but by this time, when when is this
41:52
Speaker 1: going to come out? Mid December? All right? He might
41:55
Speaker 1: make another turkey just sure, reduced by half? Yes, reduced
42:00
Speaker 1: by half. We're gonna make t shirts that say that
42:04
Speaker 1: can we get to Aristotle though? Yes? Excellent idea. So
42:07
Speaker 1: we raise Aristotle because he was the one that that well,
42:10
Speaker 1: I guess raised the original um meaning of begs the question.
42:15
Speaker 1: And it's a little bit of circular logic that he
42:18
Speaker 1: pointed out that sometimes people use right, that's right. He
42:22
Speaker 1: called it petitio principe. Come on, that's close enough to
42:29
Speaker 1: Italian that you could do it like that, princippi, which
42:33
Speaker 1: is basically the use of an argument that uses the
42:35
Speaker 1: endpoint as proof itself. And was this your example with
42:39
Speaker 1: ice cream? How could you tell? Well, because I've never
42:43
Speaker 1: heard of Superman ice cream, and I just sounds like
42:45
Speaker 1: something you would say, apparently it's Midwestern, okay, Neopolitan. No,
42:50
Speaker 1: it's very colorful. It's gaudy, it's in Garish, it's so colorful,
42:54
Speaker 1: and flavors are not Neopolitan flavors. Okay, Okay, I thought
42:57
Speaker 1: I thought it meant it was divided into three different
43:00
Speaker 1: verse it's all swirled together and it's very pretty. Yeah,
43:03
Speaker 1: so Superman ice cream, A good example would be Superman
43:07
Speaker 1: ice cream is the best ice cream because it's the best.
43:11
Speaker 1: That would be petitio principe, which is that you're using
43:15
Speaker 1: the point you're trying to make as evidence of the point.
43:19
Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense whatsoever, but people do that
43:22
Speaker 1: a lot. And Aristotle said nine no more. Yeah. The
43:26
Speaker 1: only time you can do that is if you're trying
43:28
Speaker 1: to be funny and just say, like, you know, the
43:31
Speaker 1: original Ghostbusters is the best because it's the best then,
43:36
Speaker 1: and you're making a joke unless you're eight, and I
43:39
Speaker 1: think that's who Aristotle was really targeting with this. So
43:43
Speaker 1: here's where it gets somewhat interesting, although I also thought
43:48
Speaker 1: the other was interesting. But in Latin, petitio principal means
43:51
Speaker 1: request the principle, uh, which means Aristotle's use of it,
43:57
Speaker 1: assuming the initial point. But apparently this was just like
44:02
Speaker 1: a bad translation, right, yes, absolutely terrible bad translation by
44:06
Speaker 1: some sixteenth century Europeans who said, oh, request the principle. Well,
44:11
Speaker 1: request also kind of means beg in English sort of,
44:16
Speaker 1: and the principle we could just substitute the question for that,
44:20
Speaker 1: and so petitio principi in English now means beg the question,
44:25
Speaker 1: even though it makes no sense, especially when you realize
44:28
Speaker 1: that it's supposed to mean requests the principle or assuming
44:31
Speaker 1: the initial point. That's right, and that's it. That it's
44:35
Speaker 1: as easy as that, and as a matter of fact,
44:37
Speaker 1: it's as easy to understand as the popular use of
44:41
Speaker 1: beg begs the question as like a statement that raises
44:44
Speaker 1: a question. It's just not explain like people don't explain
44:48
Speaker 1: it unless you use it wrong and you just happen
44:50
Speaker 1: to be near a prescriptivest who who's bonkers? Yeah, and
44:55
Speaker 1: not to yuck the prescriptive ist yum m, because there
45:00
Speaker 1: are people that are very defensive of words and language
45:03
Speaker 1: is somewhat sacred. I'm not one of them, but you know,
45:08
Speaker 1: if that's your thing, just don't be obnoxious about it.
45:10
Speaker 1: We we need to do an episode on prescriptivists versus descriptivists.
45:14
Speaker 1: I agree. So do you want to end with this
45:16
Speaker 1: little anecdote about translations because you can make a case
45:20
Speaker 1: that the translation of begs the question is one of
45:22
Speaker 1: the worst of all time into English. Yeah, this is
45:25
Speaker 1: pretty fun. Uh. The great Jimmy Carter, former US President,
45:30
Speaker 1: went to Japan on a visit and was getting big laughs.
45:35
Speaker 1: Uh this anecdote he told about it this small Methodist
45:40
Speaker 1: college out in the country, and I think laughs so
45:43
Speaker 1: much that he was like, what's going on here? And
45:47
Speaker 1: so as a translator, like, why was everyone laughing so
45:50
Speaker 1: hard at this story? That wasn't that funny? And what
45:53
Speaker 1: did the translators say? The translator said that his exact
45:57
Speaker 1: words to the public were President think Carter told a
46:00
Speaker 1: funny story everyone must laugh and the Japanese went wild.
46:06
Speaker 1: You could only do that to Jimmy Carter. I know,
46:09
Speaker 1: I know, if I'm sure he thought that was hilarious too.
46:12
Speaker 1: Of course he's what a what a great guy. He
46:14
Speaker 1: was a great guy. Is he still around? He's still going? He? Uh?
46:20
Speaker 1: I believe did Rosalind pass away? I think so? Yes? No,
46:24
Speaker 1: she's still life too. Oh okay, yeah, sorry, guys, she's
46:28
Speaker 1: nive and he's my lord. But yeah, they still go
46:32
Speaker 1: to braids games and do stuff. I think he still
46:34
Speaker 1: teaches Sunday school and all that stuff. Very cool. Yep.
46:38
Speaker 1: So that's our episode on Jimmy Carter. Everybody, we should
46:42
Speaker 1: do one on Jimmy Carter. Yeah, why not? He's definitely
46:44
Speaker 1: worth an episode. Um, you got anything else about Jimmy
46:48
Speaker 1: Carter or phrases? No, but a good listener mail that
46:51
Speaker 1: kind of dovetails. Okay, well, hold on, hold on. Since
46:55
Speaker 1: Chuck started talking about listener mail, obviously it's time for
46:59
Speaker 1: listener mail. Um. Yeah, I didn't even play this. This
47:06
Speaker 1: is perfect. Hey, guys, love the show. Uh. In the
47:09
Speaker 1: Typewriter episode, you were making suggestions on license plates and
47:12
Speaker 1: Chuck suggested balls out b a l z o U
47:15
Speaker 1: t uh. That might be the right amount of vulgar,
47:19
Speaker 1: but the assumption is that balls out refers to testicles.
47:23
Speaker 1: That is not true at all. The true origin and
47:24
Speaker 1: the saying is way more fun and not at all vulgar.
47:27
Speaker 1: Many machines use a centrifugal I hate that word, governor
47:32
Speaker 1: to regulate the speed that something is uh spinning and
47:35
Speaker 1: old timy ones you had two weighted balls on the
47:38
Speaker 1: end of sticks spinning around. You've probably seen this before, right, No, no,
47:44
Speaker 1: you would if if you saw it, you'd recognize it.
47:47
Speaker 1: It's like two balls like spinning in a circle. I mean,
47:50
Speaker 1: I can imagine that, but I can't place it under
47:52
Speaker 1: the hood of a car. It's not in a car.
47:55
Speaker 1: This is more like a machine in a factory or something. Oh,
47:59
Speaker 1: centriviing goal force. They're classic details to include on cartoon
48:04
Speaker 1: machinery and you would know it if you saw it. There. Um,
48:08
Speaker 1: the faster the machine is spinning, the further the two
48:10
Speaker 1: balls stick out to the side. So when a machine
48:13
Speaker 1: is running at a high speed, it's called running balls
48:16
Speaker 1: out because the balls are sticking straight out from the
48:19
Speaker 1: sides of the governor. That's awesome. So when my mind
48:22
Speaker 1: balls out as a fantastic custom license plate, especially if
48:25
Speaker 1: the driver tends to have a heavy foot. Again, love
48:28
Speaker 1: the show, Keep the good stuff coming. Peace from Ben, Peace, Ben,
48:33
Speaker 1: thank you for that. That's a great one. I still
48:36
Speaker 1: cannot imagine it in any kind of machine. I don't
48:39
Speaker 1: know what he's talking about, but I understand what he means. Right.
48:42
Speaker 1: Just google Centrifugal governor. Okay, I will, And if you
48:47
Speaker 1: want to be like Ben and say peace, you can
48:49
Speaker 1: email us. Send it to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart radio
48:53
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
48:58
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49:02
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
49:05
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. H