A Geek History of Time - Episode 255 - I Do Not Think That Means What I Think That Means
Episode Date: March 15, 2024...
Transcript
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We were saying that we were going to get into the movies.
Yeah, and I'm only going to get into a few of them because there were way too goddamn
many for me to really be interested in telling you this clone version or this clone version
in the early studio system.
It's a good metric to know in a story arc.
Where should I be? Oh, there's Beast.
I should step over here.
At some point, I'm going to have to sit down with you
and force you, like pump you full of coffee and be like, no, okay, look.
And are swiftly and brutally put down by the Minutemen
who use bayonets to get their point across.
Well done there.
I'm good, Damian, and I'm also glad that I got your name right this time.
I apologize for that one TikTok video.
Men of this generation.
Wound up serving the whole lot of them as a percentage of the population
because of the war, because of a whole lot of other stuff.
Oh, yeah.
And actually, in his case, it was pre-war, but, but you know,
I was joking. Did he seriously join the American Navy? He did. I'm going toy to the real world.
My name is Ed Blaylock.
I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And today was the celebration of my son's sixth birthday. His
actual birthday was a couple of weeks ago, but this was the date that we had determined
would work for people and made all kinds of preparations, made all kinds of plans.
And it turned into a, not exactly a downpour,
but it rained steadily, which made the bounce house
we had rented something of an adventure.
I have not ever had a customer service experience
quite like the phone call I got at eight o'clock this morning from the bounce
house guy going, do you still want it? Yeah,
we, we still want it. Well, it's going to be pouring rain. Yeah, we, we still,
we, we still want to bounce house. Okay. Well, if you're sure,
cause it's going to be pouring down rain. Yes. Yes, we still, we're sure.
Thank you. So, uh,
yeah, I got at one point to climb into said bounce house and mop it out with a
several of our bath towels, but the kids didn't care. They had a great time.
And, uh, yeah, party was a smashing success,
but we're all completely wiped out now.
So apologies to the audience if I'm a little bit during recording.
It's been a long but good day.
How about you?
Well, I'm Damian Harmony.
I am a US history teacher up here in Northern California. And I don't really have any big news
beyond some professional stuff
that I ought not share in a public forum.
But I will say this, my daughter,
you remember a while back that she had created
the subclass for Warlocks called the Great Felt Ones.
Yes. Right. So in addition to
that a friend of the show, the the gentleman who did the Hulk Hogan episodes
with us actually. Yes. Soon to be doctor. Yeah, yeah, doctor in training. Yeah. Aaron
has asked me several times specifically to to to give him
the great felt ones
information
And sorry, I said Aaron I meant Andrew doctor near near dr. Andrew Sutherland
Yeah, you've had a long day to apparently so yeah
So sorry about that Andrew
Apparently so, yeah. So, sorry about that, Andrew.
But anyway, he has asked me for the Great Felt ones and stuff like that, so I've shared it with him, and I'm curious to see if he and his friends playtest it.
My daughter is rolling up the character as we speak because she doesn't want to continue playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle character that she developed.
But my son does want to continue playing his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle that he's developed. So he's playing Drunken Master Tortle.
And so she said, well, I want to play something else.
I said, okay, you know, whatever you want to play, let's do it.
And she's like, well, I kind of have this idea, but also I want to try the Great Felt ones.
I'm like, I guarantee you you'll have more fun playing a warlock of Muppets than you
will playing anything else that you've come up with.
But you do you.
So yeah, as we speak, as we speak, and we record late, but I let the kids stay up late
for the first episode that we usually record.
As we speak, she's down there writing it up
and stuff like that.
And she's looking at different invocations.
And she's like, well, OK, but this
isn't anything like Muppets.
I said, oh, no, we'll Muppetize it.
Yeah, yeah.
You need to understand skinning is a really big part
of these things.
Yeah.
Well, in this instance, it would be felting.
But I told her, look, I'm going to tell you part of these things. Well, in this instance, it would be felting. True.
But I told her, for instance, I think she wants the one where you can see really long
distance at night or something.
You can see in magical darkness and otherwise devil's sight or something.
She's like, well, what would that look like?
I'm like, well, you'd get googly eyes, obviously.
I mean, duh. And so once she saw that, she. Uh, so, I mean, duh.
And so like once she saw that, she's like, okay, I'm getting it now.
Good. Or, or who was, who was the, who was the dude who threw the fish?
That had the, that had the big wall.
I, the one, the one Muppet who would, who would show up and he
was clearly bat shit crazy.
He was, he was humanoid.
I remember him having a big mustache and like a big,
you know, theatrical, like clown like costume. And he had he had these gigantic crazy staring eyes.
Oh, it was clearly designed. Okay, somebody in the audience. Who's the fish throwing muppet?
Right, right. Yeah. Because that's what I that's where my head immediately went to yeah
So she's doing that I've written up an adventure for them go get the magic thing bring it back the magic nice
Yeah, okay
It's a magic made makes the magic golem go crazy instead of live and they have to rescue the town as well
So okay, there you go be fun. So cool. Yeah, but what I what I love about that
Uh-huh, but what I love about hearing that from you is so okay. You're using the D&D fifth edition rule set. Mm-hmm
to have one character playing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and
Another kid playing a fucking muppet. Yeah, and all I can think as I'm listening to that is, Oh my God, you've rift sified fifth edition D and D or like Gerps did
no rift because Gerps, Gerps is not nearly goddamn wacky enough for what you've
done. That is 110% rifts like, Oh yeah, no,
we're going to have magic, but we're also going to have like, you know,
Iron Man powered armor and like giant, we're going to take in giant robots and we're gonna have magic, but we're also gonna have like, you know, Iron Man powered armor and like giant we're gonna take in giant robots and we're gonna have and we're gonna have
We're gonna have you know, like like demons and Cthulhu and like all of it man all of it. That's that's
Yeah
And now I'm going like actually while I was working on on other episodes
I realized at some point I'm going to have to do something
about Palladium games.
Yes, you will.
Friend of the show, Tao Morgan, had mentioned them early on
when he was talking about diversity in dragons.
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
I need to come back to that and talk about the
lunatic, coke-fueled kitchen sink that was Rift.
Well, and they did do the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
game too.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
And Robotech.
Oh, thanks.
They got both of those licenses.
Nice.
So yeah, okay, yeah, I'm gonna have to do that.
Which by the way, we've done Robotech episodes.
Yes, yes.
So that's pretty cool.
All right. So yeah.
So have you ever heard someone using a word
that you're like, wait a minute,
and you have that indigo Montoya moment of,
I do not think that means what you think it means.
Yes.
Okay, have you ever?
I'm an English teacher, that happens to be weekly.
Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.
You know.
Sometimes more frequently than that, but yeah.
Right, yeah.
Have you ever heard people do that with phrases?
Yeah.
Okay, well. Yeah, I have have I'm going to take on both
Okay. No now. I'm not an entomologist
so
Well if you were that it bugged me
Yeah, I mean I would have to be Ringo if I were
Okay, you know I. Yeah, right.
So, but I'm not
I'm not a
etymologist. Thank you for catching that.
But
I am a Latin nerd and I know
how to look shit up and if I'm wrong
you know, still be it.
But I want to make
set some clear ground rules. First and
foremost this is not a Dunk Fest on people
for using the wrong butterfly,
butter knife kind of episode.
I'm not doing that.
I hate that fuck any and all elitism
when it comes to idiomatic usage,
vocabulary limitations,
or folks only having ever heard expressions in words,
or I'm sorry, folks only ever having read expressions in words
and never heard hearing them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that's not what this is.
Okay.
There might be a couple that edge toward that,
but it's not, it's not about that.
It's about words, which I love,
and they're morphing into other meanings through usage,
because I also really fucking love
when words morph into other meaning through usage.
No, it's fascinating.
Yeah, it's cool.
Oh yeah, and remember, dead language guy, right?
So if there's anyone who knows the way that a word
can end up changing the meaning through usage,
it's the guy who taught all the dead language
and didn't change so hard that it fucking died.
True, okay, yeah, meaningful.
Now, phrases, I used to think were more insidious
because when people would use a phrase,
I noticed that they all seemed to be like
a power surrendered to the money classes,
except for one that I will get to at the end.
So I'm a little more protective of phrases and their use
because very often phrases can be manipulated
and whereas words just kind of change.
It's almost as though words through the vulgar use
change and accommodate the culture
at the time that it's used. Phrases through
through use and I would say almost phrases through use of the Illuminati,
the the Erudite, the the upper classes. Yeah. Those tend to change. Those with access to education and those resources.
Right, those tend to change in a way that empowers
that class and not the rest of us.
We'll dive through all of them,
but my research will show that it's largely my confirmation bias having a field day with
Assumptions and etymology so okay bitch and Camaro. I'm here for it. So first let's talk words. Have you ever heard the word quantum?
Yes, okay
What what immediately comes to mind for you?
like if I say quantum next word
Quantum entanglement there you you go. Quantum physics. There you go.
Yeah. For TV fans quantum leap. There you go.
And therein lies the problem. A quantum leap sounds like a big,
like if you remember the TV show, he's leaving from person to person, right?
Yeah. Through life to life, right right quantum physics sounds like oh my god
This is this is what goddess atomic bombs and shit like that right?
To the to the uneducated yeah, yeah, um like it sounds like oh shit
This is the blowing stuff up stuff like quantum physics sounds like that's what's gonna power a hyperdrive, right? Yeah, yeah
Yeah, and I mean, you know might be but yeah
Yeah
And therein lies the problem because when you're leaping or attending to physics most folks think that we're talking about large amounts Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, it might be, but yeah.
Yeah.
And therein lies the problem because when you're leaping or attending to physics, most folks
think that we're talking about large amounts of things, a large amount of distance leapt,
large amount of energy explained in a really cool and fun way.
But in fact, exactly, the word quantum comes from Latin.
It's from an interrogative adjective, quantus aum.
And it comes to us by way of the neuter usage.
And very often the neuter usage is what gets used when it becomes adverbialized or if it
becomes a substantive.
As so many Latin adjectives do, they take on the neuter when they become substantive.
So quantum tends to mean how much or how great in Latin?
Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, it's it's related to the Spanish cuando
That means when and that comes no. Okay. Yeah, it's a good point. That's true. Sorry
Well, okay quando cuanto with the T however, uh-huh is how much?
Quantos? Right. Quantos a neustienes. Yeah, sorry. I
My brain leapt in a weird direction, but yes, it is it is the root of the romance languages quanto. Yeah
so
When it comes to science and physics and the like it it meant the smallest
discrete unit of a phenomenon
Mm-hmm, so it means the smallest fucking thing possible in what we're describing. Yes
Which blows the entire philosophy of the TV show quantum leap for me open because it means that we are all so close to each Other in our lives that for Sam and Al to do their thing,
the leap is as tiny as fuck.
Now this came, the quantum leap idea
came from a term quantum jump,
which meant a sudden change of energy
from one state into another within the same atom.
So we're talking tiny space, right?
But in the-
Moving an electron moving from one energy shell
to another energy shell.
There you go.
So in the mid 1950s, as we in the Soviet Union were trying to race to see who could blow ourselves into the most quantum of particles.
Fastest.
Yes. but also into the smallest bits. A writer described the shift from the A-bomb to the H-bomb
as a quantum leap in a popular magazine,
denoting a huge and sudden jump,
not a tiny and sudden jump.
And that's how it entered into our lexicon,
further cementing itself with Scott Bakla and Dean Stockwell.
Yeah.
I think it's also kind of important for the source of the phrase quantum leap is that
part of what's important about it is that the electron moves from one shell to another
shell without traversing the space between.
It is an inexplicable teleportation. And so part of what that writer was trying
to get across is this jump, this advancement has happened so rapidly that we have gone
from point A to point D without passing through B and C.
Yeah, it ceases to be a linear progression
and in fact is paradigmatic in shift.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Now since then, the only time
that I've ever seen it used properly,
and I'm using finger quotes for properly,
is right outside of academic settings, by the way.
It would be in James Bond movie, A Quantum of Solace.
Yes.
And that confused so many people
because it's a tiny bit of solace, right?
But.
Yeah, a barely measurable bit.
And the fun part is that confused people.
And I love that you have such a huge difference
for such a tiny thing.
So, now the next word is decimate.
And this is also comes from the Latin shock of shock.
It means something bigger than it used to,
to be perfectly honest.
In the original Latin, it comes from the verb.
And I would stop to point out that yes, the Romans had a verb for doing this, decimo deci
mare, which means to select by lot every 10th band for punishment or to pay a 10th in tithes
or taxes.
So they literally had a verb that meant that, which I used to tease my students and tell them, because they'd
ask, Harmony, how do we say yes or no?
I'm like, you never do.
That's not something the Romans wanted to be on the hook for saying, but I will teach
you how to stab somebody 24 different ways, because the Romans had that many words for
stabbing people.
And we're on the same wavelength, because because teaching sixth grade what I tell my students is if you only
Carry a couple of things out of my class at the end of this year
I want you to remember that the Romans were not nice people, right?
They were what if Biff Tannen was in middle management management
So Crassus famously decimated his troops during the Spartacus rebellions
Antony did it and I didn't realize this until I was digging deeper and to mark Antony did it
When he was part of the triumvirate, when he was out in Egypt,
when he was fighting against the Parthians. Really? Yeah, which I was a little shocked
because he won that but got his ass kicked to the point, and not even a Pyrrhic victory,
but basically plague wiped out his remaining army and he came back, conquered. The way that the propaganda was,
it was that he came back, conquered,
not by an enemy, but by disease.
He also gave another 10th barley rations, which,
so, what do you call it?
He gave the 10th Legion Legion he gave them barley rations instead of wheat rations
I'll punish them
So okay
this was a practice that Roman generals would use to put down mutinies or to punish cowardice and subordination desertion
and basically your division would be separated into groups of ten and
There were times where it was groups of eight or groups of a hundred by the way
the groups of eight would make the most sense on some levels because
You and your tent mates would be eight people who all slept together in the same tent and did same duties together
a cohort if you will
onto burning up wasn't it Yeah, canton ablas. Okay to Burniam, wasn't it? Yeah, Cantu Nables.
Yeah, the tent mates.
Anyway, you'd be separated into groups, and out of that group, one person would be chosen by lot to be killed.
Okay, that's terrible.
Okay, was it in fact always execution? Yes. Well, no, I just said like sometimes you
would say, okay, one-tenth of this legion will have Barley instead. Barley, okay, well yeah. But when
you're actually doing the killing part, yes, one out of every group, it were 10 or 8 or 100, one out of every one of them or every group would be
executed.
And this way you'll be less inclined to run away if you know that it could kill a friend
of yours in this way.
You'd be less inclined toward cowardice.
And if you were chosen, that meant that the other guys who weren't chosen would have to
be the ones to kill you.
Yeah.
And they would have to bludgeon you to death.
Jesus.
It wasn't a swift death.
It was not a... and they would have to bludgeon.
And if they didn't, then everybody would descend upon them.
So you were having to Hannibal Lecter against the guard in that cage in Cleveland while
the music's playing to your best friend
all
Yeah, and it was it was that rich about it was supposed to demoralize the enemy
Like look how hardcore we are
You know, I'm teaching a unit right now in ancient Greece and I,
and I started lecturing on, on the Spartans.
Okay.
And, and famously the good guys, the most macho of all men.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and like the, the subtitle for my, for my, uh,
uh, lecture is the Spartans or what you get when jocks run everything.
Yeah.
And what I'm, what I'm leading them towards the understanding that, no, no, this was an
entire society built around slavery and toxic masculinity.
And I'm in the middle of teaching that and and that line
Oh, yeah, no this this was to intimidate the enemy because look how hardcore we are. Mm-hmm
That that manages to outdo the Spartans for
stupid
Toxic masculinity like I've said which takes doing the Romans only ever invented like two things
Everything else they just innovated
These deep jobs to everyone. Yeah, so they took a really stupid idea and they made it worse. Yeah
Yeah, but I mean then typically the army would be immediately put back out to battle
So your arm is still stiff from beating your friend to death.
Um, and then you'd be, yeah, you'd be put back out into the field minus that
roughly 10 to 12% of fighting strength.
And you'd be expected to win this time.
There there's, okay.
So, so there's a supporting character in the in the sharps rifles series
of novels or the sharp series of novels who is this you know arrogant nitwit you know
upper class twit type who has bought and paid for his own regiment? Mm-hmm, which was something that happened in the British Army and it's it's weird. Um, so well
but
He he is introduced to the reader as sharp shows up to attach his unit of
crack sharpshooters to this regiment
And there's one
essentially platoon or company of this regiment that is being just viciously
berated by this guy who's standing in front of him, you will be the best.
And he's verbally berating him and there's something about a bunch of them having been
flogged.
And it's this same kind of idea that like, well, you know, I'm going to beat this into
you.
Right.
And then you're going to go out there and you're going to do better.
And in that novel, Sharp looks at this as like, you're going to get more of these men
killed.
Right. Sharp looks at this as like you're going to get more of these men killed. Do you not have wow. And, and, and it is,
it is framed in a way that this is the,
this Colonel turns into a recurring villain.
And the whole point is that he's not only vicious, he's also stupid.
Right.
Right.
You're describing this and I immediately think of that. I'm like, you know?
Yeah.
Wow.
See, I think about when No Child Left Behind threatened to remove funds from struggling
schools whose scores didn't rise and then hold them to the same test the next year.
Yeah.
You know, the Texas model.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, okay, well, if you don't do well, we're going to take the money away and then you
got to do better.
Right.
Okay. Right.
Okay. Right. How do you expect me to do better
when you are literally holding my sword arm behind my back?
Oh, don't give me your excuses.
You just don't want it enough.
So, now, when we use the word decimate,
we mean it just to destroy something,
or to wholly
or brutally destroy it, right?
Yes.
Like if you heard that the wildlife fires or the wildfires decimated the forest, you'd
be like, wow, there's hardly anything standing, right?
Yeah.
So in our lexicon, its use first peaked in 1859, but it's also been on a steady rise since
about 1926, almost quintupling its use since 26. Which makes a
lot of sense. We've been in a lot of fights since then. But
when we say that someone or some force was decimated, it now
means that it's lost a significant amount, but not an
insurmountable amount.
So it's kind of like wiggled back to the edge a little,
or back to the center a little bit between them,
but for use it has changed.
So, okay, next word.
Yeah.
Liberal.
Okay.
If ever there was a word that meant something different.
Yeah. And I'm not actually talking about the shift from classical to social liberalism. Okay. If ever there was a word that meant something different.
And I'm not actually talking about the shift from classical to social liberalism.
That's its own podcast and I'd rather not do it.
I mean the use of the term as a political label since the universal suffrage has largely
become an assumed thing.
Okay, yes. So liberal in America, modern liberalism, big L, means essentially according to FDR
himself in 1941, quote, the liberal party believes that as new conditions and problems
arise beyond the power of men and women to meet them as individuals, it becomes the duty
of the government itself to find new remedies with which to meet them.
The Liberal Party insists that the government has the definite duty to use all its power
and resources to meet new social problems with new social controls, to ensure the average
person the right to his own economic and political life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That's liberal.
Other politicians since then have made it more ephemeral, but this definition has some
nuts and bolts to it.
It mentions the duty of the government to its people, and it mentions the power of the
people within that system because it actually had actual real world applications that we
could point back to
as being tied to the ideology that pushed it.
And it's a straight simple line from this to that.
Okay.
Now, what comes after the end of World War II with the advent of the Cold War
was liberalism tinged with militarism and authoritarianism.
That's what it is now. So when you hear me going off on liberals,
that's what I'm going after. Not the FDR version, but the militarism and authoritarianism, which is
kind of funny that I'm not going after FDR's militarism when he guided us through World War II or his authoritarianism, when he turned us into essentially a command economy to arm us against a European series of powers.
I'm going after something. I'm not going after him for that. I'm going after what happened after.
Yeah. Well, Yeah, go ahead. I mean, a big part of what happened after
was FDR made this statement talking about the liberal party.
Right.
And then during the war,
or actually before the war,
the opposition conservatives, Republicans,
were up in arms and had their hair on fire
about the New Deal.
And they started using the term he had used to refer to his policies and then that that morphed within the within the
right-leaning lexicon that turned liberal into a dirty word that started
to mean socialist started to mean it didn't it didn't do that on any kind of
main mainstream level during his presidency though. He even said, I welcome their hate.
He wasn't specifically talking about them,
but he leaned on the strengths of the social programs
that he was pushing through.
Oh yeah.
And it was after that when now we're fighting
against communism as this vague enemy boogeyman out there.
That's when it changes and shifts.
It's almost like you have FDR's liberalism
and you have Truman's liberalism
and therein lies the difference.
Okay.
Because liberalism tinge with militarism
and tinge with authoritarianism
is kind of all that there is left now.
And it kind of starts with Truman going,
let's bomb these people to scare the
communists. And sure the stickers that they hand out might be glossy or matte or sparkly or lenticular
but they're still stickers that they're putting on bombs to kill people 13,000 miles away.
It's still a bomb.
So it's no longer about what's best for the people, but it's more now what's best for
the authorities and powerful structures in place that'll allow them to print the stickers.
In short, liberal now means ideological support for a domestic economy built on a balance
of power between labor and management, keening more toward corporate interests than anything
else.
And with that balance of power comes a status quo, one in which the worker is always fighting up from a reactive spot,
fighting only for wages, hours, and conditions and never for the direction of the actual
industry.
It's based on a foreign policy that means the same, détente in the Cold War and worldwide
occupation ever since then.
Social welfare programs still exist, but billionaires get tax cuts, which means
that at once the social welfare programs are necessary, more necessary, and underfunded.
And now we have to build more of them than people complain that we have too many. And
it's like, if you just did the thing you were supposed to do in the first place, we would
only need one. It would be called taxes. And the Keynesian economics of liberal policies are absolutely marshalled
toward munitions manufacturers now. Unionized workers who fight for hours paying benefits
fight for nothing else. And the munitions continue to get built.
Okay.
So that's, that's unfortunately how that word has changed.
Now that is absolutely me going on a diatribe.
Yeah, a little bit.
What I, okay.
So, so that is, that is very, very heavily focused specifically on the...
Specifically the politics.
Specifically, well, specifically the, the kind of, kind of moderate, what also gets tagged as, well,
they're moderate Democrats, moderate liberals, what's also been called neoliberalism.
Right.
Okay.
Yeah.
What I find interesting about that is when you first brought the word up, what I immediately
thought of was the way that it has turned into an amorphous, kind of almost meaningless
slur on the part of the right.
When they talk about, you know, well, you know, goddamn liberals, you know, like, okay,
stop when you say liberals, what do you mean? Right?
Well, all those guys. Yeah. And then they broad brush, they fucking roller, they spray
paint, um, anything to the left of, uh, hunting the poor for sport. Um, you know, like, like,
if you come out and say, well, you know, um, I think maybe we ought to spend less money on putting
guns in the hands of clearly unreliable individuals and maybe spend some of that money on more
social workers and psychiatrists.
And they're like, well, you just want lawlessness.
You godless liberal.
I'm a Catholic.
Right.
Like, you know, there's this whole, it's turned into a bugaboo, you know, that if you're
a liberal, you are automatically some kind of extremist, you know, like shrieking cartoon goblin, you know, wrapped up in a, you know, pick whichever
LGBT member this person is afraid of flag, you know, with, you know, multicolored hair
and like, I mean, you can look at their political cartoons and you can see what it is that they're,
you know, picturing in their heads.
And it's, I mean, it's patently bullshit.
And if you force them to like describe it for real,
they fall apart because under any scrutiny,
it is bullshit.
Yeah, it's Puritans upset that Victoria Woodhull
wanted to have an orgasm.
Like, you know.
Yeah, I like it.
So that being said though,
the people who very often will be like, you know, you don't get to paint me with that.
I know what a liberal is, I'm a liberal.
They would rather spend like their time arguing,
and I'm painting with a broad brush
to kind of point out the issue here.
The ones who very often will identify as such
Will be like no look I I do want gun control and I do want these things but
Until we get it. Can we at least make sure that like?
one in five bullets is pink because it's it's the Susan G Komen Foundation this month and it's like
Yeah, yeah, I I really I really wish I could argue with you, but I really can't. There's also what I think is important about that is there's within a sadly large sector
of the American voting public, there is this block made up of people who,
like they're well intentioned, but they're very surface level.
And that's what I mean.
And the symbolism and the trappings are more important than like, okay, no, let's get down to brass tacks
and actually like systemically change shit.
Yeah, no, they'll go out to a march for three hours
and then go buy a round of lattes at Starbucks.
It's like, what are you doing?
God damn it.
All right, so the next word, dashboard.
This is one of my favorites.
I love this word.
Now, it's not my favorite word in the English language.
My favorite word in the English language, by the way,
is bedroom.
Okay.
Because, okay, so just sidebar here.
Bedroom is my favorite word in the English language
because the name is in the name.
Like a room with a bed in it is a bedroom.
And if you say, oh, there's a bedroom upstairs
and you go up and you find a room without a bed,
you don't think that's the bedroom.
That's true.
What goes in there?
The bed.
What is it?
It's a room.
It's a bedroom.
Like there's no other room in the house
that is that simple and elegant and beautiful.
Like I defy you to name another room in the house
that only ever gets the exact usage in its name.
Yeah, yeah.
Cause the kitchen isn't the cook room.
Right.
And the bathroom is a euphemism
for the place where the shitter is.
Yeah.
And it's true.
So is the restroom. Yeah. Yeah. And it's true. So is the restroom.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The parlor is a parlor.
The living room, that's where people have a wake.
So.
OK, true.
Yeah, all right.
The only thing I can think of that comes close
is the root cellar.
It is the cellar where you keep root vegetables.
But even that, like, you could not have a shelf of potatoes in there and people would
still call it a root cellar.
So, okay.
Yeah, yeah, no, I get it.
All right.
So back to dashboard though, which is a beautiful word.
Dashboard originally was the board that was put in front of a carriage to protect the
driver from what the kit the horses would
Dash up with their hoops the shit the mud and the ice and the slush, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's okay board, right?
Okay, thus its location was in the front nearing the steering apparatus, right? The rain rains. Yeah, okay
Now when cars were invented at first they were called horseless
Now when cars were invented, at first they were called horseless carriages, which means that the need to protect the driver from stuff was still extant.
So the dashboard was still there to protect them from the dash that was kicked up by the
wheels.
As the car developed, the dashboard protected them from the noise, the heat, the fluids,
all from internal combustion and engines, right?
Yeah, okay as cars became more enclosed
Didn't need that anymore
But the name stuck and what it was now was the panel where instrumentation became
Began to appear on that self same dashboard, right?
Along with the accelerators the chokes the steering wheels and all all manner of signaling equipment that all started to originate up there.
Now the dashboard became synonymous with the instrumentation panel long after it stopped being an actual dashboard.
And some have said that it extends all the way to the passenger side,
which means that it also includes the glove box, the vents for the AC, and so on.
It also includes the glove box, the vents for the AC, and so on. Well, yeah.
This could also mean clocks, cigarette lighters, music devices, depending on how low this dashboard
now extends.
Okay, yeah.
Shit, even the fuses, if you really want to go down that far.
I think most of the manuals that I've read, because I always try, for every car I buy,
I try to get a copy of the
Chilton's manual for it, so like I can potentially fix shit myself. Most of them
tend to say under the dash or behind the, for the fuses.
Sure, and so then it becomes an argument of where you want to argue.
Where is that gray area where it, you know, yeah.
Which is wild because it used to be
where your feet fucking went.
Yeah.
So it's migrated up and then, and now it doesn't count.
You know, and it's just this weird thing.
So by 1937, it was also flat
and elevated above where your feet went.
Okay, so now it's no longer where your feet sit.
The Tucker 48 featured a padded dashboard.
Which, which like is an interesting semi semi foreshadowing of airbags in a weird way.
Yes.
But it probably did not have anywhere near
the protective capacity.
Of course not, it's fucking padding.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And in the 1990s, speaking of airbags,
they became pretty standard.
Yeah.
So the instrumentation also changes, right?
It goes from gauges to displays.
The orientation also changes, right? It goes from gauges to displays.
In 1979, the first digital dashboard display
was manufactured in an American car.
And of course things grow from there.
And the more advanced cars got,
the more digital the displays
and the more varied the displays
and the more customizable the displays
and always still a dashboard.
And then the dashboard moved.
In the mid 2000s, I think it specifically was 2005,
Mac released OS 4, Tiger.
This contained a bottom of the screen toolbar,
and remember Windows had the task bar since Windows 95,
and prior iterations of Mac OS had one on top,
but this time it was on the
bottom and it specifically and graphically had a dial called dashboard.
Yep.
And it still does.
Yep.
And this was a thing that would bring up widgets that had all sort of pre-apps, right?
The calendar, the clock, checking flights, weather, etc.
It was essentially a quick open to programs that you decided to
customize your dashboard with. Aesthetically, it looked like a dial on a car's dashboard.
And colloquially, the term seemed to have migrated over to mean the whole toolbar,
despite its very specific functions and uses. I never honestly found it too useful, but still,
the thing that was invented and
meant to keep horse shit from getting on you in a carriage is now at the bottom of your
computer with a wildly different use despite its name.
Yep.
So, I love that word. Now, the next one's biblical, Nimrod.
I know the story of this one. Yeah, but you know, it's it's one of those it used to mean
it's opposite kind of thing. I'm sure there's a term for it. It is the name of one of the great
great grandsons or no just one of the great grandsons of Noah. And he's the most skilled
hunter in the Bible. And he was the leader of the people who built the Tower of Babel. Babel, Babel,
Babel? It depends on which class assist you talk to. Babel. He ends up being the one that Abraham
feuds with later on down the road. And there's a lot of versions of the story. Some of them have
him simply having a discussion with Abraham about poly versus monotheism. Others have him hearing
that Abraham will bring an end to idolatry and so he kills all
the newborn babies, only to miss Abraham and be undone later. Others have him telling folks to
gather wood for a literal generation to burn Abraham in the biggest fire ever seen, and Abraham
walks out unscathed. Others still have him at the head of an army that Abraham vanquishes.
Others still have him at the head of an army that Abraham vanquishes.
One has Nimrod debating over who's more powerful, Nimrod or God.
Nimrod argues that he's at least as strong as God because he then sentences a prisoner to immediate execution,
but then he frees another before he exiles Abraham. So see, boom, I'm quicker.
Suffice to say his skills and his power are very frequently a feature of him. So how does this become one of the best insults
for the dumb hangers-on of bullies?
Sarcasm.
Plain and simple.
It actually might date back as far as the 1830s
in written form, being used sarcastically.
Think of like the title Pompey Magnus,
and I've told you about this, right?
How they gave him the title sarcastically.
But most of us don't know that.
Pompey the Great.
Yeah, exactly.
I hope that's how like Innocent the Impotent was named.
Like he actually fathered,
or whatever the guy's name was the impotent,
like Charles the Impotent. I like he actually fathered or whatever the guy's name was the impotent like Carlo or Charles the impotent
I'm sure
But but like, you know, he probably fathered like 600 kids kind of thing. Yeah, like yeah call him the impotent
You know, yeah Charles the impotent over there. Yeah. Yeah
It's like Damien the restrained, you know
But Ed the equanimous. Right.
Yeah.
Interestingly, in 1830, Robert E. Lee wrote to a lady friend that an associate of them
both declined placement at West Point.
Okay, so he's writing, so Robert's writing to Sally. Robert and Sally know this
other guy who basically was accepted to West Point and said, nah, I don't want to. Now
the institution of West Point is the place from which Robert E. Lee had graduated as
literally the perfect student, not a single demerit his entire time there.
A feat only accomplished by only four of his other colleagues there,
and he managed to graduate second in his class.
But he wrote of this other fellow,
this other fellow's refusal to attend West Point
was accompanied by that guy's amended lamentation that quote I hope my country will not be endangered by my doing so.
Oh wow.
Humble.
Right.
So Lee called him this Nimrod from the West.
Oh wow.
So that's 1830 and we, it was literally the peak of the name being invoked in
literature.
It was literally the peak of the name being invoked in literature. You know what I what I find interesting about that is
It's not necessarily about him being stupid. It's about him being arrogant. Yeah
Okay. Yeah Okay, and I think it's interesting that that the name Nimrod
Peaks in 1830 not in 1834 because Andrew Jacksonrod peaks in 1830, not in 1834,
because Andrew Jackson was president in 1834,
and he literally did the shit that Nimrod claimed
that he was more powerful than God for doing.
He forced various tribes of native peoples out of Georgia
over and above the Supreme Court's decision,
specifically the Creek in 1834.
Like he's deciding who lives and dies.
Oh yeah, no, yeah.
So I'm a little surprised
that they didn't bring it back for him.
They just kept calling him King Andrew.
So it's sarcastic and it doesn't actually carry
the meaning of dipshit, but it's use,
it has become a term that used to mean great and skilled, powerful leader,
and now it means dipshit.
It's like if we said, oh, get a lord of George Washington over here.
Right?
And it's like, we're not making fun of somebody for having wooden teeth or dying by shitting
himself.
We're teasing him for his prowess as a leader.
Now, you said you know the story, so I don't want to step over it, but I promise I'll get to the
thing that I think you know. So I just want you to say that's the, mockingly nicknamed, the ragged, trousered
philanthropist.
No, no, that was the title of the book.
There was a character that got this nickname, Nimrod, in a novel by an Irish blue collar
worker moonlighting as an author named Robert Noonan. Okay.
He wrote a book called The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist and he was writing under the
pen name of Robert Tressel.
Okay.
So the character was a foreman of a construction gang who had an overly developed sense of
his own importance.
Okay.
So it would be like if people named Admiral Ozil Yamamoto or something.
So the plot of the book is if you took the jungle and the grapes of wrath and you dip
them in Ulysses and then sprinkled them with three penny opera.
That's a hell of a thing.
It's 1914.
Like, Teddy Roosevelt had just run for president again
under the Bull Moose Party as a third option, right?
The world was bug nuts.
Yeah, like the man who had just expanded
the power of president more than anyone
since Andrew Jackson was running again, right?
Yeah.
Now, the term in all its uses hits its nadir
just after World War II,
right around the time that we began propping up
tyrannical dictators in the effort
to blunt the appeal of Stalinism,
which we conflated as society with communism,
which like a way to persuade people that communism's bad
by backing literal fascists in Greece and Turkey and Italy.
So weird that it would also fall out of use Communism's bad by backing literal fascists in Greece and Turkey and Italy Yes
So weird that it would also fall out of use at a time where we're backing people that would that would totally fit that
That sarcastic nickname, right? So it declines in its use up to that nadir until a cartoon pops up in 1948
Yeah, there we are. What what makes Daffy duck?
Yeah, well well it's yeah. Great pun by the way. Great pun. Oh my god. Chef's kiss. But it's it's Bugs Bunny. Okay right. So saying look at Nimrod over here. Right so that's in
51 and that's him talking about, yeah that's him
talking about somebody Sam, but this is Daffy in 48 talking about Elmer Fudd. Oh, okay.
So which makes more sense because Elmer Fudd's a hunter. Yeah, Mel Blank recycling his own
material. Right. So it's, I mean, Aaron Sorkin does this shit all the time. Oh, well, yeah. I've been Aaron Sorkin speech and you'll see it in three different series.
Just talk about a liberal.
But Elmer gets hung up by his own trap and asks aloud, how am I ever going to catch that squoey duck?
And Daffy says precisely what I was wondering, my little Nimrod.
And Daffy says precisely what I was wondering my little Nimrod
Yeah, that's a very Daffy delivery of that right and now he's he's he's giving Elmer Fudd shit and
The irony of the name is lost entirely on the audience because they're children
Who didn't grow up with Nimrod being part of the popular lexicon because it had dropped out of use
because it was at its nadir during their childhood. Okay. So then again in 51, this is the one that you know where Bugs refers to Yosemite Sam as the little Nimrod. Yeah. And as a result of these two
uses in cartoons, it now has come to stick to the concept of idiocy and ineptitude, which is why I was so weirded out
when the character Nimrod showed up in Marvel Comics in 1985 as a mutant hunter from the days
of future past in X-Men. I was like, why are you naming your guy idiot? Right. And I'm like,
and he's like the smartest and he's like the most robotic and weird shit. Like And I'm like, and he's like the smartest and he's like the most
robotic and weird shit. Like, and I'm like, what the fuck? Like I was so
confused. So. All right. All right. Now the next one, uh, these next couple are,
are going to be pretty short. Uh, hone, H O N E hone to sharpen, to make keen,
H-O-N-E, hone, to sharpen, to make keen, to refined. Right.
Not to track in on something.
That would be home.
Home, yeah.
Not hone in, home in.
But, again, through its use, it has come to be synonymous and exchangeable with home in.
They honed in on it.
And I just have to accept that through usage,
it has changed in meaning.
And through the combination of phonemes
by different groups coming into contact with each other
in America in the 20th century,
home and hone have become synonymous in usage.
The further we get from people
who actually raise homing pigeons,
the more it'll continue,
especially since if you say hone and home, hone is a much shorter consonant. It requires less work of the mouth, and so it's gonna stay
more frequently, especially if you are from a language group that does not distinguish
between those two or needs to hear it go for longer to distinguish
and that happens.
So no shade, but it does bug me,
but it's one of those, I have to get over it.
Like when a substitute teacher parks
in the teacher parking lot,
I'm like, they're part of the same bargaining unit as me.
I have no reason to be this much of a gatekeeper.
I should not be irked.
Right, so I keep my goddamn mouth shut.
Yeah, I am irked, but I recognize I shouldn't be,
so I'm just gonna keep my trap shut.
Right.
Yeah.
Actually, entitled is another one,
speaking of my behavior.
This actually does bother me more than hone,
and oh well, I'm fighting actual evolution in this so I know I'm
not gonna win if someone is entitled it means they have a legal or just claim to
something right yeah literally they hold title right they goes all the way back
to the feudal era right there yeah they're by eligible or entitled to the
benefits of that thing makes sense sense. A book is titled
something. It is not entitled. Oh, okay. This is the... That's the sticky wicket for me.
I was thinking, you know, talking about people, oh,
Jesus, that guy is so entitled. Oh, no, that works. That totally works because you're
acting in such a way. But no, it's when you do it to a book, no.
But the reason is,
is because the act of giving a book or a work a title
has now become to entitle it,
because you put in into it,
and it just happens, right?
Like if something is ensconced,
that means you have poured crystallized sugar over it.
I, you know, that's just how it goes.
I tell you, if people are listening to this as the very first time they listen,
they're gonna be so confused.
Completely, yeah.
That's such a fucking deep cut for us.
Yeah, that really is tough.
So this is likely due to a recombination
of more archaic uses of the term.
So people used to be entitled their ranks,
right? Not just entitled to the privileges of their rank. So if you name
someone the general of the cavalry, you might have said that that man was
entitled the captain of the horse, or whatever the fuck the position used to be
called. And this comes well before the usage that I've come up knowing it as.
So, yeah, they blend, and yes, it comes to us
from Latin via Old French.
Titulus is the little tag that would hang outside
from a scroll, a little inscriptive label
that would tell you what was on that scroll.
Okay, all right, there you go.
The title, if you will.
So, to be titled the master of the bears,
or whatever the fuck you are makes sense
And then you are entitled to all the ranks and privileges of being the master of the Bears. Okay. Yeah
Yeah, oh well. I've lost it. You know, yeah
The word till okay used to be a word that meant to dig in the earth and get it ready for planting
Yeah, yeah, I ll to get it ready to sow.
Yeah.
It also meant the thing that the money was kept in
for cash register.
Yeah.
Okay, the till.
I think they're related,
given that they both involve some sort of road system,
like a system of roads.
Its use in farming was clear as far back as the 1800s.
Now, there's another word that is till and it's
apostrophe T-I-L. Yeah. Short for until. Until. Right. Makes sense?
Till the rains came there was soil to till. Nice. Thank you. Till I was robbed
the till held money just fine. Yeah okay. Okay, now the best part. Before spelling was standardized,
and this is why I bite my tongue on a lot of these things,
the first use of T-I-L-L used as a stand-in for until
was in the ninth fucking century.
So it predates the use of till as a preposition by three centuries, because the use as a preposition,
till, is 12th century.
Then it gets formalized as till, but that's not till the 1800s.
Okay, took that long. Alright. So, pearl clutters like me need
you take a till pill. It's always meant the thing that we do with the earth, but
not always, but always since the 11th century, which means that the usage that
people insist isn't right has actually been employed longer than the verb.
Wow.
Yeah.
So suck it, me.
Okay.
All right.
And the best part is, is like, I'm still irritated.
Even though I'm staring at the facts, the fruits of my, like I've reaped what I've sown, the fruits of my research have shown me that,
actually Damien, you're wrong by two degrees,
or by a magnitude of two, it does not matter.
I'm still like angry, like so stupid.
It still just irks you.
Right.
It's just like, you know, like darts.
You can't do it just through usage because because of usage,
it's changed.
I'm like, oh, shit.
Yeah.
You know, I think the thing is, I think all of us have some things with language that
we are that we are for whatever reason, there's a part of our brain that wants to be prescriptivist
about some niggling little things.
You just want to be like, no, that's just wrong.
You just can't do it like that.
If you're a descriptivist, you kind of have to occasionally just go no no lizard brain
That's wrong right like no I can't I
Feel like Kathy Bates. He didn't get out of the cock-a-doodie car. Yes. He did. There's film
Yeah, like sorry. Sorry. They didn't show you that last week, but clearly they did you know yeah?
Now on to phrases
Okay, here we go. Okay, so
begs the question
Yes, and we use this one a lot yeah poorly yeah quite often
But we've also used it a number of times properly yeah, so it has changed over time through usage
So I don't really get to complain that much
So it has changed over time through usage, so I don't really get to complain that much, but that's how language goes.
It has now come to mean that something brings up the question that has yet to be uttered.
It's almost like it's begging you to ask, right?
That's how most folks use it.
However, it used to pertain specifically to a teleology that assumes the conclusion at
the outset. It comes
from 16th century neo-Latinist which fucking hell like you're it's that
whole well Klingon's not a real language I'm like neo-Latin is not a real
language either then like people are making shit up from other shit like all
languages are made up so shut up yeah yeah this language is a
construct fucking deal but it's a neo-latinist translation of a Greek
philosopher and I'm like could you just put it in Arabic and give us different words like
but whatever okay cool um so these words are written long after they're dead as words. But it comes from the Latin phrase
Petitio Principii, which means an asking of the beginning. So literally
Petitio is an asking, a petition, a seeking, a I beg your pardoning,
and then Principii, of of the principle of the beginning.
Of the first.
Right.
In other words, assuming an aspect of an argument
as true at the outset,
which will color the rest of your argument.
Incidentally, teleology is where you start from the end
and you work your way back,
assuming that the end purpose is the reason
for the creation of the thing. Right.
Right. So if you're thinking like a pro wrestling booker, there you go. Right. Yeah. Like how
are we going to get them into a cage match? Well, let's work our way back and then we'll
start the few or or the way we're encouraged to write lessons or units is what do you want
them to know at the end work backward from that? Right. remember your why yeah
for a paycheck that's why I remember my
why yeah I remember my wife I woke up
sheltered nice stay that way yeah yeah
um so here's a really good example if I
wore a mousetrap as a tie clip okay okay if you were going
teleologically um you would say well a mousetrap and its design were there
specifically and solely to keep ties from flapping in the wind because that's
how it's being used that would be a teleology, right? Okay, got it. And I think, I really wanna have a philosopher on here
as a guest someday to talk about these things
and maybe the prime directive, I don't know.
But back to begging the question, okay?
Which is a type of teleology.
So take for instance this question.
Ed?
Yeah?
Since you beat your wife, I feel comfortable asking you about
the appropriate use of degrading language when having makeup sex.
Fuck you on so many levels. Yeah okay. You see the problem. Yeah. So could you please tell us what the problem is?
Well the problem is you're operating from the assumption that we have makeup sex.
There you go.
But more importantly, there's also the assumption that I beat my wife, which, you know, no.
Right.
I mean, obviously anybody who's listened to the series knows I'm a beta cuck, so that's not gonna
be happening.
Right.
You know, but yeah.
Yeah, that's, that's, yeah.
How about this one?
We need to have better test security to keep kids from cheating because kids are naturally
dishonest creatures and prone to cheating on tests.
Have you got stats there? I'm just naturally prone. I'm just quoting from College Board, I think. Yeah, I know, but like this is what I want to tell them is wait. Based on what? Based on what evidence here. Right. So these are obviously flawed arguments.
They need to be called out as such. And nowadays people use it in a much less tortured and
much more linguistically logical and accessible way, to be perfectly honest. We all know what
begging is. We all know what a question is. Asking you to ask the question makes a lot
of sense. Begging the question now means it begs that this question, heretofore unmentioned, need
to be answered.
And frankly, that shit makes more sense.
And it begs the question as to how long it will be before snobby folks who lord over
language over others stop being such tools and accept this usage.
There you go.
So I begged the question while using begging question differently.
Now these next few are sayings that we all know, but we don't know the whole saying or, or it gets used so often.
We just hear the premise part of it or whatnot.
And my contention is that assholes with money are constantly truncating these sayings to make them justify their dominance over the rest of us financially and economically.
Okay. Now that is without any research. That is just my like all the research I did was your progressive right age.
Right. All the research I did was on the sayings, not on motives.
Winning isn't everything.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Just be happy that you played the game.
The odds are you're not going to win and you can't improve enough to win next time.
So just enjoy the game.
And honestly, that sounds awesome.
And I would like to live in a world where that was the case
Yeah, but there's a lot of money to be made by winning and and by being the only one who can win and
Point of fact it's actually something that red Sanders said coach of UCLA football through the most of the 1950s
Right. Okay winning isn't everything. It's the only thing. That's what you say. Now like many coaches before him
He was a former player who played in the leather helmet era
Take the conclusions you want there
um
As a coach winning is everything
It's the only thing right how many has he had? Oh, no, he hasn? Oh no, he hasn't had alcohol in decades.
That's just the way he talks.
Oh, you're going to love how his life goes.
As a coach, he drove his UCLA Bruins players to mortgage their bodies for victory many
times over.
I'm sure.
Sounds like it now. He died in a hotel room of an enlarged heart prior to the 1958 season
Yeah
The room was registered to his friend pop Grimes who had actually done time in San Quentin for pimping out women
Oh
The convicted wonder the convicted prostitute who was with him
heard his last words when he said, quote,
football is a great game.
You should come out this fall and see a few games.
Yeah, okay.
How about this?
Blood is thicker than water.
Oh, I know this one.
Okay, I thought I did too.
The problem with doing research and being
honest about it is I'm like oh I'm eating shit tonight. Yeah no the blood of
the Covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. Right right right this
saying is taken to mean now is blood is thicker than water that family and
kinship ties matter way more than anything else right. Yeah no fuck that.
Friends don't matter as much as family.
And again, all of this makes sense
that people would use this
because we tend to give loyalty to family
above common sense or decency or anything else.
Yeah.
I found mentions of blood is thicker than water
going back as far as the 1300s.
Okay, yeah.
Recently, people have started claiming
that it's an incomplete idiom,
that in fact, the
blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.
I've mentioned it previous on this podcast, and that is a case of confirmation bias absolutely
getting the best of me.
As I was researching this one, the furthest back mention I can find of blood of the covenant
is thicker than the water of the womb goes back roughly
120 years.
Oh, okay.
There's a couple of authors who claim that it goes back to the Crusades and the kinds
of bonds that Crusaders would make with each other.
It sounds so much cooler and more progressive to me than other sayings and other claims
that it's about family and shit like that.
And it would be really cool if you could go back to the 12th and 17th centuries in English and German and Aramaic and Arabic and find it.
But those authors are the ones that everybody quotes and nobody can quote any, because those guys didn't quote any other sources
and I couldn't find any verifiable sources
for the saying going back that far.
Okay.
So while I would love to dunk on people
who for centuries prized kinship ties above all else,
I haven't found anything.
Now, it could be wrong.
I would love to interview an etymologist on this
podcast and maybe ask them that. Yeah, personal intellectual honesty. Right but. Well, a bummer. Yeah I know I know right um how
about this pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Oh yeah I know this one. Yeah I
don't have boots. Yeah this well this is this is kind of a reverse of Nimrod.
Because it started out as a sarcastic statement, oh yeah, well just pull yourself up by your
bootstraps.
Because it's a physical impossibility.
It's not something that can be done.
And that was the whole point originally.
Yeah. Yeah. So when I had boots, I noted that the boot straps
were at about the top of my ankle or the bottom of my calf.
Yeah.
If ever I were laying down wearing said boots,
those straps would do nothing to help me get up.
Yes.
That's what you said, right?
It would literally be impossible.
So why are we telling people to do this?
It's because rich people are pricks.
So if you're rich and listening to our podcast, I would love it if you would sponsor me to
say that you're a prick.
That would be a very progressive thing of you to do.
Yeah.
And I'm fine.
Not liberal.
Right.
But progressive.
Yeah. And I'm fine indulging in whatever kink
you have that that excites. Not here to kink shame. Here to make money. I'm not here to
make money. I'm here to do a podcast. So it's come to mean that your own efforts are the
thing by which you can improve your own position, which sounds awesome,? Now the earliest reference I found of this phrase
100% meant it as sarcasm and absurdity and it's it's you're gonna hear about it in a
really fun callback in 1834 and that's not the callback. A, a man from Nashville, Tennessee, named Nimrod Murphy was in the newspaper.
Bullshit. Yeah, I know. When I found this, I like shouted out. So, according to an August 27, 1834 newspaper, quote, to all nations, languages and people
reading, know ye that I Nimrod Murphy of, Murphree, I'm sorry, Murphree. Okay, Murphree.
Of the city of Nashville and state of Tennessee have discovered perpetual motion
Okay, so
The mobile advertiser presumably from Mobile, Alabama
But I had trouble actually tracking down that newspaper for certain and they published a rejoinder in late September
So a month later
Yeah, quote, probably Mr. Murphy has succeeded in handing himself over the
Cumberland River or a barnyard fence by the straps of his boots.
We advise him to send his pretensions on to the next Congress by Colonel Crockett himself,
whose motto is, go ahead.
You can't get any more period colloquial language than all of that
You practically need to translate that from anglo-saxon
Right to the modern ear like all of those words together like I get the gist but there's so much there's so many references
Yeah, so the Cumberland River. Okay, that's as we all know because we've listened to old pro medicine show. Um, there's so many references. Yeah so the Cumberland River okay that's as we all know
because we've listened to Old Crow Medicine show. There's a clothing store right near it
it's called the Cumberland Gap. But so he's supposed to have launched himself across this river.
this river. That one hurt. That one was genuinely, genuinely painful. I thought it was on target. So he's supposed to launch himself over a river or over a barnyard fence, which is fairly
high by the straps of his boots. In other words, lift yourself up by your bootstraps,
right? Yeah. And then we advise him to send his pretensions onto the next Congress by
Colonel Crockett. That's Davy Crockett, who I believe served one term in Congress and
then was voted out because back then that happened. Yeah.
And he said, I'm going to Texas, y'all can go to hell.
I believe he was from Kentucky or Tennessee.
Yep.
Yep.
So it's very colloquial of the time of the 1830s.
It's very colloquial of the area.
And what I love is that the very concept
of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps
is tied to an even more absurd second half,
which is using that effort to pull yourself up
by your bootstraps to launch yourself then a great distance.
It's fucking impossible all the way around.
So it's aspirational and dismissive.
And usually by those born on third
who think they hit a triple, they'll talk about,
you gotta just pull yourself up by your bootstraps there,
Jim, and it's like, that's impossible there, Dave.
Usually the rich assholes who say that
don't see all the generational connections
that enabled them to think that they once used bootstraps to pull themselves up.
Yeah.
So, in fact, if they claim that they did, that means they didn't realize somebody was helping pushing them up doing an impossible task.
Mm-hmm.
So, again, perpetual motion, which is where you take your hand and you put it in a circle and you move it back and forth repeatedly. That's usually what's going on
when anybody talks about perpetual motion. Yeah. So all right the next one
early bird gets the worm. Okay yeah heard it. Yeah this is a
credit to a 1605 book of proverbs that was written and
gathered by William Camden okay William Camden was a well-known writer of smart
things he was an antiquarian and historian and a topographer and I
assumed that meant that he liked being called daddy he... gotcha. Ah, glad I wasn't drinking.
He wrote a ton of topographical surveys of Great Britain and Ireland from the 1500s through 1607,
from like the late 1500s. So he was writing both for Elizabeth and for James.
His ambition was largely realized and it was to provide a history of the Roman Britain by way of topography and choreography.
Not choreography. That would be cool.
Now, what's choreography?
So topography is a study of forms and features that land in waterways, right?
Right. Right. Right.
Choreography is similar, but it's also taking into account actual descriptions.
is similar, but it's also taking into account actual descriptions.
So, not only does it slope up, like, you know, 13 feet for every 400,
but also the grass is slick, or the dirt is crumbly.
Oh, okay.
That kind of thing. Or the water is silty.
It's not just, you know, that kind of thing or the water is silty. It's not just you know, okay All right
So his his goal was to describe Roman Britain by then present-day places and then trace them back to Roman Britain
Which is pretty cool. Okay, that's like proto-archaeology in a way in some ways survey like survey archaeology
Yeah, yeah, it's yeah proto survey stuff, stuff, right? Yeah. I would love to get a
survey on here. So it worked, by the way, he called it Britannia. Okay, yeah, good title. His
efforts were so good that the Spanish Inquisition condemned parts of it. Uh, uh, uh, uh,
so he's my kind of work.
The, the, the people running the Inquisition had, must've had access to the best wine, like,
like how, how, yeah, fuck that guy.
Like, I don't,
how dare he write about hills.
Okay, so he got
excoriated by the Spanish Inquisition.
But I love that they condemned parts of his work.
Normally they're kind of the baby with the bathwater kind of guys, but this time they're like
Well, only physical babies
Right like actual baby babies. They'll they'll throw yeah out
Like here they're like so much dabbing acetone on the toes and being like, okay now the baby's clean like
Fuck yeah
Yeah, so the problem is I could not find hide nor spine of this book of Proverbs. I found a bunch of other
stuff of his, nothing of the Proverbs, and people might just be misattributing to Mr. Camden.
Other people say though that it was found in a 1678 book called A Collection of English Proverbs
Digested into Convenient Method for the Speedy Finding of Any One Upon Occasion with Short
Annotations Whereunto our Added Local Proverbs with their explanations, old proverbial rhythms, less
known or exotic proverbial sentences, and Scottish proverbs.
Boy, they really did not know how to write a title back then.
That's not a title.
That's the foreword.
I don't know, though.
At the same time, it's like, what do you always say?
It is what it says on the box.
Exactly what it says on the tin.
It's what is it?
Hey, I'm looking for a collection of English proverbs digested in convenient method for
the speedy finding of anyone upon occasion.
And they're like, well, do you want with short annotations?
Yes.
Whereunto are added local proverbs with their explications, old proverbial rhythms,
less known or exotical proverbial sentences, and Irish proverbs.
Oh, sorry, we've only got the collection of English proverbs digested into a convenient
method for the speedy finding of any one upon occasion with short annotations, whereunto
are added local proverbs with their explications, or old proverbial rhythms, less known or exotic
proverbial sentences, and Scottish Proverbs
Well shit. Yeah. Damn. Yeah, you know where I could find it. Yeah, maybe down there. They might have cheddar cheese. I don't know. Yeah
That's that's a that's a a Monty Python skit that alas went unwritten right right there it reminds me a bit
that alas went unwritten right there. It reminds me. That whole bit.
This is like, is Vikings writ large?
It reminds me actually of the emo Phillips joke
about how he finds the guy getting ready to kill himself.
And he's like, how could you, you know,
don't you believe in God?
And he says, of course I do.
And then he's like, you know, what religion?
And it's like, you know, are you a Baptist or a Methodist?
I'm a Methodist. Me too, are you are you a Baptist or a Methodist? I'm a Methodist.
Me too. Are you a Southern Methodist or a Northern Methodist? Northern Methodist. Me too. You know
this council or this council. Me too. And all this and then liberal or conservative. Me too. And then
okay but so like the the and it's just longer and longer and longer and like the only difference is
like the the place from which they get their I don't know what it's just longer and longer and longer. And the only difference is the place from which they get their, I don't know what it's
fucking called, but their brand of Methodism was from an 1878 one or an 1892 one.
He's like, well, 1878.
And he says, die heathen.
And he pushes them off.
This is by John Ray, MA.
I assume that's a Masters of the Arts.
He was a Parsons naturalist who lived publishing zoological texts and works on taxonomy in
the late 1600s.
He was the first to define biological species in such a way that it was actually useful
to everyone
else. I have found it in that book, in that 1678 book title that I've forgotten. But it
is the first ever alphabetical list of proverbs, which is kind of a cool way to go about it.
So I'm inclined to agree with that assessment. Even though a lot of the
internet seems set on crediting Camden, I couldn't find the Camden source. Anyway, in
addition to the many other things that Camden wrote, he put together a book of Proverbs
that he published in 1605 that included the above mentioned proverb. And just to remind
everybody now 10 minutes later, early bird gets the worm is what we're talking about.
Right.
But once again, it's incomplete. It seems to be a classically clever and dry British witticism.
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Yes.
So yes, get up early, get shit done, outdo those around you.
But at the same time, being first has its own risks.
Yes.
Best to let someone else test the waters
and not be the first one in the water.
So now we've got the shortened version
of the shortened version in our senior discount restaurants, right?
Yeah.
Early bird discounts, early bird specials.
And I don't see any second mouse specials, unfortunately.
No.
So, now the next one.
Yeah.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Mm-hmm, but satisfaction brought him back.
There you go.
Now, this is a fairly standard admonition
to mind your own goddamn business, right?
Yeah. Intuitively, it's very sound. Now this is a fairly standard admonition to mind your own goddamn business, right?
Intuitively it's very sound.
A curious cat may ignore danger at its own peril.
Ben Johnson is first credited with it in his 1598 play, Every Man in His Humor by Ben Johnson.
And you might remember Every Man in His Humor by Ben Johnson from a, oh, actually, I don't know if this will air
before that or not, but you might remember
from our discussion on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Yes.
Now, if you don't remember, audience,
that's because it's coming up, so this is a preview.
Yeah.
Now, this is an example of something called humor comedy.
Each character is obsessed with or driven
by a specific humor. It's very broad, it's archetypical, and it's aimed at the idea of
people being driven by their natures for comedic effect. So I say in some ways it's like an English
comedian at Del Arte. Anyway, in his play Ben Ben Johnson has a character say, quote, Pelter Skelter hangs sorrow, Carol kill a cat, uptails all and allows for the hangman.
That's in need of translation, right?
Care used to mean worry.
So worry will kill a cat dead.
And a lot of people like to point out that it's incomplete.
Like you said, curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Where did you first hear it that way?
Oh, what the part about satisfaction brought it back? Yes. The fold.
That's a good question. I don't remember. Um, it was not as a kid.
It was, it was as an adult.
Um, I first heard it.
I first read it when I was 12 years old in Stephen King's The Shining.
Well, okay.
And boy did I feel smart because like, Oh, look, I heard the other heart part of it. And like, wow, this is, this is really, you know, adds the nuance, but researching
it as much as I have,
I found that the first mention of that rejoinder
doesn't actually show up until a newspaper
in Titusville, Pennsylvania, wherein they were advertising
for grocery shoppers, using the phrase,
as though everyone knew it.
And it's possible that everyone knew it,
but the first time I could find it in print was a 1912 newspaper ad.
Shortly thereafter it starts showing up in nearby newspapers for the next several years,
and it is a pretty cool thing to say. Iggy Pop thought so in his song, Curiosity.
Maybe that's where you first heard it. Curiosity killed the cat, but what it found brought it back.
But that was from 1979.
of what it found brought it back, but that was from 1979.
So it would seem that this is one of those many sayings that have had a part added on that has made folks,
including 12-year-old Damian, think that it was incomplete
and far older in a more completed form.
Okay, fair enough.
Now the next one, great minds think alike.
Oh, oh, oh, great minds think alike, but idiots always agree.
It's some very words like, yeah, great minds think alike, but so do dipshits.
Like, you know, it's kind of how it comes across.
The one that producer George and I use is always,
great mans think alike, and so do ours.
Yeah, and we do too, occasionally.
Right.
Yeah.
So this comes from an older saying,
good wits do jump is what it came from.
Jump used to mean coincide.
Okay.
So good wits do coincide.
And this was the thing from 16 1618 when it first appeared in the Dabbridge Court Belcher's
Hands Beer Pot.
Okay.
Right.
Now, it wouldn't be until almost 200 years later in 1816, so 1618 then 1816, when Karl
Theodor von Ullansky wrote the biography, quote, this is the title, the woeful history
of the unfortunate Eudoxia.
And he then changed it to great minds think alike.
And here's the quote from it.
It may occur that an editor has already printed something on the identical subject.
Great minds think alike, you know.
So it came to us from 1816 at least,
with that thing intact.
Like you can go back, what are we now?
200 years and some change,
and actually find it still intact in workable English
that we can understand.
Okay, great. actually find it still intact in workable English that we can understand. Okay.
All right.
Now this doesn't mean that the sentiment was un-interrogatedly accepted always.
Famous crank Thomas Paine printed the 1792, the rights of man edition two.
Um, which I just love that there was an electric boogaloo to the rights of man, addition two, which I just love that there was an electric boogaloo to the rights of man. Well, do not believe that any two men on what are
called doctrinal points think alike who think at all. It is only those who have
not thought that appear to agree. Okay. So the witty rejoinder that fools seldom.
Yeah, so it's very often people say great minds think alike, but fools seldom differ.
Yeah, that's it.
That's it, right?
That witty rejoinder doesn't seem to have a specific start and I cannot trace its first
use.
It doesn't appear in any of the original texts that I've mentioned, although Payne alludes
to that sentiment in his work. So it seems like another witty add-on that
has now been accepted as being there the whole time. So the next one is jack of all trades.
That was the original phrase, and that's literally all it was. In fact, the first time that I
can find it being used was in a weird
Dutch-Latin combo. There's an English pamphleteer and first actual professional
English author, Robert Greene, and he was critical of Shakespeare. And he said he
shouldn't be playwriting at all because he'd prior been an actor and we
shouldn't have actors as playwrights.
He called Shakespeare a Johann factotum.
That, I love that so much. Like I have, it takes a special level of vitriol to come up with a pseudo Latin combination
like that.
Right.
Johann Fakhtot.
So here's the actual quote. combination like that. Right. Johann Fakhtotum. Mm-hmm.
So here's the actual quote.
He says, he's an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers,
that supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank
verse as the best of you, being an absolute Johann Fakhtotum
in his own conceit, the only she shake seen in a country. Oh wow. So he's
basically calling him a so Johann factotum literally means a John does it
all. Yes. Because Foc means to do like Foc is the imperative of Fakio Fakara
which means to make or to do to manufacture to create. Potum means everything.
So Fak Totum, John do it all.
Yeah.
So this was supposed to be...
And Jack of course is taken from John.
Yeah.
What I find interesting about that is I had heard the part of that quote about
him being an upstart crow beautifying himself with our feathers or with our plumage.
Right.
And there's actually a bookshop that used to be a chain, but I don't think it is anymore, called the Upstart Crow.
Oh, neat.
Booksellers, yeah. Neat.
So, now this was disparaging in its usage.
The eventual use came to be appraised.
Someone whose skills were general enough
to be mostly useful and helpful.
In 1612, it was specifically used by,
I wanna say it's just Jeffray, Jeffrey, G-E-F-F-R-A-Y. Jeffrey, it's just Jeffrey Jeffrey GEFF RAY
Jeffrey
It's probably Jeffrey Jeffrey Minchel
When writing a memoir about his time doing time for debt to the king
He said it this is called it's from the the book
essays and characters of a prison and prisoners
Essays and characters of a prison and prisoners. Minchel said that, quote, some broken citizen who hath played jack of all trades.
So that's the use that I saw.
Now, around the late 1700s, we see the derogatory head poke back out.
There were others who disparaged being broad but not deep prior, but in 1770, the Gentleman's Magazine, a publication that lasted
for almost 200 years, which had the motto,
a pluribus unum, and said that Jack at all trades
is seldom good at any, in the most gentry styled way possible.
And the first mention of Jack of all trades,
but a master of none, was in Charles Lucas's
Pharma-comastics, or the Office Use and Abuse of Apothecaries, explained in 1741.
All right.
Now some will credit it as being in 1785, but I actually found that his death in 1771
made that much less possible.
I suppose it could be posthumous.
So Charles Lucas was a radicalized Irishman
in the Irish parliament who regularly picked fights
over the overreach of the government
and wanted greater democratization.
He was also an apothecary and a physician which could highlight some of his bias against
people with generalized non-specialized knowledge.
Hence his usage of the phrase master of none in the following, quote, the very druggist
who in all other nations in Europe is but a farmacopila, a mere drug merchant, is with us not only
a physician and a chirugion, chirugion?
Chirugion. It's an archaic antecedent of the word surgeon.
Ah, okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense true agent But also a galenic and chemic apothecary
Chemic maybe chemic chemic. Yeah, it's chemical a galenic so Galen
Mm-hmm and chemic apothecary a seller of drugs and he spelled it with two G's
medicines vertices oils paints or colors poisons with a Y and
Etc potions, vertices, oils, paints or colors, poisons, etc. A jack of all trades, and in truth a master of none.
Now, that said, the Boston newsletter of 1721 said jack of all trades and it would seem
good at none. And since then, the rejoinder to that addition has been added, but oftentimes
better than a master of one. I can't find its first usage though. It's fairly modern,
and yet again someone responded to an old expression and modernized it, which is more
than fine. But this isn't one of the truncated by the powerful ones that I loathe for that reason alone
Okay, so the next one is my country right or wrong
Okay, which I believe is a Midnight Oil song
The title of the song is just my country, okay. Yeah, it's my country, but it's yeah, they they use the whole phrase my
country ride over wrong's, yeah, they use the whole phrase, my country, right over wrong. Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's a, as are many of their tunes, it's a, a listering.
Yes.
Listering critique.
Yeah.
And they're, and they're the phrases used very much ironically.
Very much ironically.
So this was originated by Carl Schurz, S-H-U-R-Z,
who was a senator from Missouri.
This does not surprise me.
From 1869 to 1875. he was a Republican when it meant something besides
a lust for power and white grievance. In February of 1872, he said this in the Senate, my country
right or wrong, if right to be kept right, if wrong to be set right. Yes. That makes
a big fucking difference.
That's a huge and important difference, yes.
So he meant something very different than what we've had it truncated to.
Now this was during a discussion over whether or not to sell arms to French agents
and to what purpose in 1872.
He stood against doing so while the senator from Wisconsin was in favor.
The senator from Wisconsin was a man named Matthew Carpenter, also a Republican, and
he called into question Shures' loyalty to the United States given that Shures was a
German immigrant. Carpenter tried to slogan his way out of the debate by saying, well, my country right or
wrong and Schurz responded with, the senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming
my country right or wrong.
In one sense, I say so too.
My country and my country is the great American Republic.
My country right or wrong, if right to be kept right and if wrong to be set right.
There you go, god damn it. I was reading through the
congressional record. Yeah, so fun. I am so fun at parties.
So, Schurz was pulling from a prior famed dinner toast by Stephen Decatur, a
was pulling from a prior famed dinner toast by Stephen Decatur,
a naval post-revolutionary war hero and a fucking idiot who participated in a short range duel and died from it.
Yeah, Decatur did, didn't he?
Yes, he did. I'd forgotten.
I'd forgotten about that.
Yeah, so goddamn stupid for engaging in this duel.
Yeah, well, like I read all about it and I was like, okay, I
need to like not include all this. So many years ago. So many, so many of those guys
and I'm pretty sure Decatur was among them. He died at like 36. Oh yeah. Like full life
ahead of him, full career ahead of him. Just like short range naval duel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. So, Shures altered it to add
the moral message at the end. So, it was originally just that slogan. Shures added to it within
roughly a hundred years of its creation and then of
course now it's become truncated through jingoism and nationalistic
fervor. So now I got one last one for us. Okay. We just fucking got it wrong like
just a hundred percent it's wrong. starve a fever, feed a cold.
Yeah yeah. We took that as advice. Right. I've practiced that as advice. Yeah as
have I. Yeah it doesn't work. Um it's if you starve a cold you'll have to feed a fever. That's because so not only did we just so stew
okay if you're sick. Two goddamn words. Right like just it's it's a six word thing like Hemingway is like
guys um if you starve a cold you'll have to feed a fever is what it said. If you starve a cold, you'll have to feed a fever, is what it said.
If you're sick, you need nourishment, goddamn it.
Period.
Right?
You're not trying to starve a virus out of your body.
You're not.
Like, you need food.
John Withalls, a schoolmaster turned dictionary writer, which, okay, he wrote that in a dictionary in 1574 and he was wrong.
But it was 1574, so the idea of a fever and the humors, denying the furnace that is your body, the fuel needed to burn your blood, no wonder he got it so exactly wrong.
See, I always heard that if you had a fever, you didn't, you didn't want to eat
because you were going to vomit.
Yeah.
Cause you can, you can have fevers and not vomit though.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that was, that was the explanation I got.
Right.
You don't, you don't want to feed a fever.
You know, if you're running a fever, we're, you know,. If you're running a fever, you're not going to starve,
but you're not going to have a big meal.
Now, I get giving you more broth than anything,
because that will keep your fluids.
Yeah.
But that ain't starving.
No.
So a fever raises your temperature,
meaning that your metabolism requires more what to
keep you going?
That would be food.
So too with drinking, you need those fluids during a fever, right?
You need those fluids and foods also during a cold cold because it's also a virus yeah so
even the cold isn't causing a fever your body is marshaling resources to fight
off a virus hmm so I'm not saying like go all in you know on on a buffet like
it's your wedding night, but I am saying like
Get some goddamn broth in you sir
There's a story behind that
Others not I just the visual of just yeah grab it and shove it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so and it works
Regardless of gender by the way. Yeah, this is true. Yeah, I encourage everyone to act like it's a buffet
but by the way. Yeah, this is true. Yeah, I encourage everyone to act like it's a buffet. But yeah, if you're sick, you need food. I'm sorry. No. And I did that, man. I fucking did that too.
And the thing is, is like, how long do these things last? Usually three to seven days, right?
Yeah. Some of them last three days because they're going to last three days. Some of the last seven
days because they're going to last seven days. So you're like that one time it was a three day and it was because I starved myself.
It's like no. No, son. No.
Yeah. So. It might have only been a two day if you hadn't been starving yourself. Like,
yeah, you know. Your body might have had the resources to kill it off. Like. Right.
So, so anyway, that's about it. You know what would be really cool is if we could
get an etymologist on here. I'm going to see what I can do.
Yeah. That would be awesome. Anything that you've gleaned? I mean, this has been a bit
of a buffet itself. Well, I mean, the biggest thing is a reminder of just how much language is a mimetic thing
that it is like language is a meme.
And we joke about language turning into Jarmach and Talad at Tanagra or Dharmach and Jalad
at Tanagra or Dharmak and Jalot at Tanagra.
But that's literally how language evolves.
And the adoption of phrases and words to shift in meaning and tone is just part of what happens because all of language,
it occurs to me now, is kind of a very, very, very long-term game of telephone played over
very short distances at once. We learn language from our parents and we pass it on to our children and every generation
there's just a little bit of drift.
But that turns into plate tectonics over time.
That turns into continental spread over a long enough period of time.
And then there's something like Nimrod, which happens much more
dramatically.
Yes.
You know.
And due to popular culture.
Yeah.
And it's, yeah, but all of it is always undergoing this mutation from generation to generation.
Right?
Yeah.
It's just something fascinating to think about.
Yeah. You know, the thing I came away from this with was I might intuitively want to blame the
rich for everything. And I'm right in doing so. But also in several of these, I had proven myself
wrong with my research. Period Period like it was just like wow
I thought I knew like the the blood of the the the womb is
Darker than the water of the covenant or whatever the fuck it is
but so
But like there there were several where I was like, oh wow that also like
You know that also got added to over time. So, you know, just
just being willing to accept. OK, that's an assumption that I worked with for quite some
time and been very wrong about this whole time. Like so. And then again, there's the
the ones that I'm irritated by that. It doesn't matter that I'm irritated by them. So, yeah.
So, what are you gonna recommend for us this week?
What I'm gonna recommend, since we're talking about
evolution of language, it puts me in mind of a 2014 novel
entitled The Wake by Paul Kingsworth.
Sorry, did you mean titled?
Yes, you're right, I did.
No, but you also said entitled.
Entitled, yeah.
And that's fine too, because usage,
yeah, but. It's kind of the point.
Yeah, but you know what?
No, I'm gonna go with you, titled The Wake.
Okay.
Because I understand the tick of that knee-jerk prescriptivism.
Yeah, but I also don't think we get to do that.
Okay.
I've come around to the idea that like...
Okay, then I'm... Okay, no, you're right.
I'm doing it jokingly, but like, I don't think we should be doing that, even as teachers.
I understand that.
Yeah.
No, I, yeah.
You know, like, like we don't get to be prescriptive as with a language that is living.
But anyway, it's, it's, um, title is the wake.
The wake.
Okay. fictionalized account of the Anglo-Saxon rebellion against the Normans by Harroward the Wake,
which took place in the... I want to say it's 1067, 1068, that does not get a lot
of attention in mainstream history.
We tend to carry this idea that, well, the Normans showed up and they defeated Harold
at Hastings and that was pretty much it.
No, there were several rebellions and uprisings by the Anglo-Saxon residents of England against
their new Norman overlords. Right.
And a couple of them were put down with very great ferocity and cruelty.
And there's a couple of reasons it's germane to what we're talking about.
The first one is the book itself is written in an imaginary hybridization of Anglo-Saxon
and modern English.
Okay.
So he uses modern English syntax because otherwise it'd be completely illegible, completely unreadable.
But he uses a lot of vocabulary taken from Anglo-Saxon, not just Old English, right? But Anglo Saxon, the,
the English that existed before French got intertwined into,
right. Yeah. Before the,
the chocolate of French got mixed into the peanut butter of our, of our English,
you know, linguistic ancestors. And so number one,
it's this interesting linguistic exercise itself that highlights the evolution
of language.
But the other thing is a big part of what the Normans were responsible for is the modern
English language itself.
Because after the conquest, French became the language of prestige.
And so like we have a word for pig,
the animal, but the meat we eat from that animal is pork.
Right.
Pig is an Anglo-Saxon word. Pork is French.
Same with beef and beef and you know, yeah. Uh,
chicken, which would not have been anything elevated. Right. It's the same word. Chicken, chicken, you know, yeah. Chicken, which would not have been anything elevated.
Right.
It's the same word, chicken, chicken.
You know, but we do talk about poultry.
Right.
So anyway, that came to mind as we were talking about, you know, this development of language
and evolution.
And it's also, it makes for a fascinating read. It is not easy to read, but once you get five or 10 pages into it, you're able to, your
brain starts working on making context connections so you can understand.
So it's also an interesting linguistic exercise for the reader in seeing the plasticity of
your brain making sense of stuff.
And there is a glossary at the back of the book for anything that you're like, okay,
no context is not helping me.
What the fuck?
So you can go to the back and figure stuff out.
But it's an entertaining read and highly recommended.
How about you?
Well, just real quick
You said there were a bunch of
Rebellions afterward is it because of the embarrassment like it was such an eyesore to lose to William the Conqueror for
Harold no
No
You're nicely done though, thank you that was it was all set that. I already like people who get conquered don't like fucking being conquered
It's simple that um, but
I'm gonna recommend actually a book that I discussed with my daughter
Okay, as as a really good book and it's called words from hell
good book and it's called Words from Hell, Unearthing the Darkest Secrets of English Etymology by Jess Zafaris and I'm actually gonna try to reach out to
Jess Zafaris, the author, and see if I can have them on the show. I think that
would be pretty cool. Yeah, that would be cool. All the things that I've done we
could do a better version. There you go. Yeah, I like that. I'm gonna do what I can with that.
But I recommend very strongly people go to Amazon
or go to your library and get Words From Hell.
It's a fun little romp through the English language.
You can just pick a page and read from it.
It's a lot of fun.
So anyway, where can we be found?
We can collectively be found.
First off, we are still on Twitter if anybody's there as a Geek History of Time.
And we can be found on our website at www.geekhistoryoftime.com.
You are listening to us, so you have found us either on the Apple Podcast app, on Stitcher,
or on Spotify.
Anywhere that you have found us, or wherever it is that you did find us, I suppose would
be the better way to put that, please take a moment to give us the five-star review that
you know Damian has earned with his research, and hit the subscribe button.
More importantly, hit the subscribe button.
So yeah, that's where we can be found.
How about you?
Yeah, actually hit that subscribe button on Amazon and Spotify and the Apple app.
Oh, Amazon. Yep.
Dang it. Yes. But hit it on all three. Like, you know.
Yeah, everywhere. Yeah.
Everywhere, please. So you can find me on, well, you can find me on stage on March 1st, April 5th, and June, no, May 3rd and
June 7th with capital punishment, slinging puns back and forth again live at the Comedy
Spot in Sacramento.
Go to Sac Comedy Spot website.
You can just literally type it in and it'll auto populate.
And go to that website and get tickets.
It's just 12 bucks, 9 p.m.
You owe it to yourself for one or many Friday nights
to hear all kinds of good puns
from all kinds of good people.
So that's largely where people can find me.
All right.
All right.
Well, for a Geek History of Time, jeez,
I'm Damian Harmony.
And I'm Ed Blalock.
And until next time, keep rolling 20s.