Interesting Origins of Everyday Phrases

We don’t think about the words and phrases we use all the time - until Josh and Chuck look into them and tell everyone what they found. That’s the gist of this episode! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is
a good old fashioned episode of Stuff you Should Know.
That's right. But before you get going, we want to

(00:22):
make a plea to cough up just a little bit
of dough for our friends at co ED. If you
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(00:45):
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Large donation, small donation doesn't matter because they're all going
to be pulled together and get us to one million
dollars donated from Stuff you Should Know listeners, which would
be great. And you got a little piece of housekeeping, right. Yes,

(01:06):
I wanted to thank a guy named Daniel Murgatroyd who
is a rather talented painter who a while back noticed
a picture of um Momo that I posted on Instagram,
and he offered to paint it, and he sent me
a straight up amazing oil painting that looks just like

(01:26):
the photograph. So we have a wonderful oil painting of MO.
And I just wanted to thank him for that and
tell everybody to go check him out on Instagram. Daniel
Murgatroyd art m u r g a t r o
y d art. Uh. He's really really good. So and
I think he might be accepting commissions by the one.
I'm gonna check that out. No Marvin Martian jokes, I

(01:48):
promise no. I always think of jam on it um.
I think that's one of the little Gremlin's sisters. His
named Murgatroyd. I always think of Marvin Martian. Have inster
margat Troyd. Oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot about him.
I was never a big fan of his. He was creepy.
I liked him. Okay, we also need to shout out

(02:08):
Worldwide Words. If you've never been on Worldwide Words website,
it's amazing. The guy Michael Quinlan who ran the site
is he just really did some amazing work of digging
up word origins and etymology and all that and then
Graham Arst. There is another really good site that we
drew from, among many others, but those two were the
ones who deserve the biggest shout outs. Yeah, we've done

(02:30):
something like this before, and I think every couple of
years will probably throw out another word in phrase origin
episode because it's always fun to look at this stuff.
I'm an enthusiast of phrase origins. We're gonna kick it
off with the old on the wagon phrase. You were
on the wagon that means you're not drinking, you are sober.

(02:52):
I can't have that drink, man, I'm on the wagon
right right. And this one's awesome because we actually know
pretty much with a of percent certainty where it came from. UM.
But first, before we get to that, let's talk about
a couple of competing theories. One of them is from
our friends across the pond in the UK who apparently, UM,
back in the day, if you were being taken to jail,

(03:15):
or you were being taken to the gallows, you would
be taken by wagon or cart and the very gracious
constable or jailer would stop at a pub and let
you have one last drink. And then after you had
that drink, you would get back on the wagon never
to drink again. That's right, because you're about to go

(03:35):
get your head chopped off, right, So I don't even
know if that happened, but whether it did or not,
it it's not the origin of on the wagon, Sorry,
britt friends. It's a good one though, and it's funny.
Anytime you do research on phrase origins, there are always
a lot of competing theories and a lot of them

(03:57):
sound really fun and you will probably repeat some of them,
but a lot of them aren't true. No, but these
are vetted. Man. We we really worked hard to make
sure that this one really really is accurate. Alright, So
moving on a little closer, but not quite there. This
sort of dances around the true origin. But this one
takes us to America. We don't have to go across

(04:19):
any pond because we're here already. And the Temperance Movement
is what we're speaking of. Where uh, if you listen
to our episode on What's it call it? When they
get rid of all the booze prohibition prohibition it was
led by the Temperance movement, which was a movement of
uptight people who said you shouldn't drink no one should drink,

(04:40):
and we're gonna make uh it really hard for you
to drink. So the Temperance Movement was really happening, and
they would go through towns at times preaching abstinence and
literally like parading through town, and they would almost like
a church invitation, would call people, uh, to take a pledge,
like come up and take the pledge and say you're

(05:02):
not going to drink this devil's juice anymore, and sign
this thing swearing that you're never gonna take a drink again.
And here after you signed it, why don't you just
jump on this wagon. We're riding around on through town
and you can beckon others to do the same. And
that is where the origin of on the wagon came from.

(05:24):
Always such a good actor. Uh, not quite. It's good
and it's close again, it dances near it, but that's
not quite right, right right? Uh. It turns out it
did have to do with the Temperance Movement and their
pledge and people taking the pledge, but it wasn't a
parade wagon that was being referenced. It was what was
called a water wagon or a water cart. And back

(05:45):
in the day around the time of the Last Turn
of the century. There are lots of towns out there
that had just nothing but a dusty dirt street. There
was no pavement, no oyster shells, no cobblestones, something like that.
And on dry days that dirt could turn to dust
and blow in your face. So the water cart would
be a cart of non potable water, non drinkable water

(06:06):
that a horse would draw that would just kind of
spray the road down to keep it from being dusty. Yeah,
that's what they call in the film business, a wet down. Sure,
they usually doing on asphalt streets to make it look
cooler at night, right, So, I don't know if they
did it for that, But this was more This was
more practical. But the point was the water in the

(06:29):
water cart you did not want to drink. So when
somebody who signed the pledge said something like I'd rather
drink from the water wagon or the water cart rather
than take a strong drink. Again, that is the origin
of I'm on the wagon. That's what they were saying,
is I would rather drink this nasty water than drink
a glass of whiskey. Again. Yeah, that's a good one.

(06:50):
I thought so too. And then water wagon became just
the wagon, And apparently by four there was an article
in the Davenport Daily Leader that said a man fell
off the water wagon, and they felt obligated to say
this was a real water wagon, not the figurative one.
So it was at least right in widespread use by
I like that. I do too. That was a good one.

(07:12):
All right, Uh, this one, I guess we're just gonna
have to get into this because this one bothers me.
That is exception that proves the rule, because I fully
understand what this means and I get it, and I
didn't know anyone had any problem with the phrase the
exception that proves the rule? Oh really, so like the

(07:33):
the original and proper use of it, that's what you
that's the only one you're aware of. I mean, I
just I know, I feel like I know what it means,
and that I don't understand the confusion of what it means. Well,
let's explain what some people are confused by. So a
lot of people out there think that the phrase the

(07:55):
exception that proves the rule is talking about like an outlier,
an exception that by its very existence it shows that
the rule that it's breaking is generally true. But that's it'
that's not it though. That's not correct, and it's actually
kind of nonsensical if you dig into it. I don't
think so. I think that's how modern people use it.

(08:17):
I think this is a case of changing language. Yes,
and I think it's very easily understood. Like if I
say I hate all mushrooms, but I like portobellos only,
then that is an exception that that generally proves the
rule that I hate all other mushrooms. Okay, but let
me under let me explain why it's actually nonsensical. Like, yes,

(08:38):
you're absolutely right, So so so many people use it like
that that it has come to mean that as well.
But we're talking about like the original version, which is
still holds the same meaning to It's still a useful
way of using it. It's not like archaic or anequated, right,
But what I'm saying is, don't get your hopes up
that you're convince me that it's nonsensical. Okay, that's not

(08:59):
perfect sense. Let me explain why you're wrong. So, um,
there's a there's an adage that you only have to
find one white crow to disprove that all crows are black.
But does that mean that that one white crow also
proves that crows in general are black. I would say no,
because how many white crows are out there? Right, it

(09:20):
doesn't mean anything. It just means the one thing that crows.
Not all crows are black. It doesn't. It doesn't show
also that crows are generally black. That's why it's generally
considered nonsensical. Yeah, I'll buy it. There's a second way
to do it too. Um that that says, Um, that
really emphasizes the proves part. The exception proves the rule.

(09:43):
But they don't mean prove isn't like I proved it.
It's it's uh, it's inarguable. They meet it in the
scientific term of of test the validity of Yeah, that
makes sense, but that's not what it was originally intended
to mean either though, Right. No. And another good example is, um,
let's say you have a rule that says you shouldn't
put pants on horses, and an exception to that rule

(10:06):
might test the validity the viability of that rule. So
there's one guy who puts pants on a horse. Yeah,
that guy, the horse trips breaks a leg, and that
horse has just shown that that rule is pretty valid.
That you shouldn't put pants on a horse, because that
rule protects horses makes sense way more sensical than the

(10:29):
one that that you subscribe to. But finally we reach Chuck,
the the original version, the original meaning of the exception
that proves the rule, and I think it's beautiful in
its elegance. Well it is, and and I guess this
is how I used it with the mushrooms, and this
is how I always took it to mean, which was
the use of the phrase is basically that the presence

(10:51):
of an exception proves that a rule exists. Okay, okay, yeah,
I could see how you. There's an interpretation of your
mushroom statement that that that follows mushrooms. I hate them,
but I like Portobella's. That basically proves that I hate
all other mushrooms if I only like one. Yeah, okay,

(11:15):
so yeah, I think it's the phrasing of it that's
throwing me off, because typically when you're using the exception
that proves the rule correctly, um. An example of it
is UM free parking on Sundays like this one. This
made my brain hurt. Okay, but listen, that's an exception
that suggests that, uh, there's a rule that all the

(11:36):
other days of the week you have to pay to park.
There's an exception that's posted that proves that a rule exists. Okay,
no shirt, no shoes, no service. The fact that a
store would feel obligated to post that sign suggests that
elsewhere you can wear go without shoes or a shirt. See.

(11:58):
I don't know if I buy that. That to me
doesn't mean that. That to me means that at some
point someone came in there without a shirt and people complained,
so they said, well, we gotta have a rule now, right,
But that anything about other restaurants, I disagree. So, um,
that's but that's how that's how you're supposed to use.

(12:19):
And the reason why this is the original version is
because it's actually it actually comes from medieval law. Yeah
it was. I believe there was a Latin phrase. I
love reading Latin acceptio probat regulum and cassibus non accept us.
The exception confirms the rule, and the cases not expected

(12:42):
accepted accepted. What I say expected. I got a question
for you. Let's go back to no shirt, no shoes,
no dice. Alright, So you're saying, if you walk into
a restaurant and says no shirt, no shoes, no service.
You would say, hey, I didn't see a sign at
uh that so that must mean you can go in
there without a shirt on. Uh. If I stopped and

(13:06):
thought about it, yes, that logically makes sense, But I
don't think. I think you don't have to fixate on
other restaurants. It can just mean that other places in
public you could be without a shirt and a shoe
and you're not going to be arrested for it or
something like that. Okay, so like you got your shirt
tied around your waist your roller blade, and you stop

(13:26):
to go in to get some food. You take off
your roller blades and you're now barefoot, but you gotta
put on that shirt and fish the flip flops out
of your back. Back excuse me, I My The point
was that this was supposed to be more understandable. I
think we made it at least ten times less understandable.
All right, that's perfect. I think that means we should

(13:47):
take a break. Alright, let's take a break, kids, sk'

(14:12):
all right? That was fun. I think from here on
out it's gonna be pretty pretty easy going. I think
it's smooth sailing ahead because we move on to one
of my favorite things that I said as a kid
that you don't say as much as an adult. I
don't feel like. But as a kid, when you smell
something that's a nasty a lot of times you'll go P.

(14:34):
You you don't say that as an adult. Home No,
I say who farted? But I don't need to ask
because my daughter already had announced it. That's as PU
as in the letters PU. But they don't even mean anything.
They don't stand for anything, right, yeah, which is pretty interesting. Um.

(14:54):
And if you think about PU, it's it's totally unnecessary.
You can just say that smells awful, but by adding PU,
it just puts a whole luster on it and really
says that smells really bad. Um. So they don't stand
for anything but P. And you in that order have
a long standing association with something offensive or disgusting. Um.

(15:18):
And it goes all the way back to Latin. Actually
before Latin. There's a Latin word called puteo which means
I stink, which is probably not said that that frequently
back then. And then um there's an even more ancient
word and from proto Indo European Um language, which is
really really old p U h P. That meant rotten

(15:40):
or foul, so that word has been around a really
long time. Um, but again, PU doesn't stand for anything.
It's just a total coincidence that those two letters put
together in the English language make the same sound that
humans typically make when we encounter something gross and nasty. Yeah, like,

(16:01):
you know, you think of the word putred has PU,
But it's all just coincidence. People say pew you know,
spell it however you want, p y o O or
p e W. I guess even you can throw an
h in there. pH e w and PW just came PU.
And I think this is a great thing to keep

(16:23):
in your hip pocket. Like, I think it's genuinely interesting
that PU is just a coincidence with the Latin and
the proto Indo European such that you could even drop
some wolf bait at a dinner party and very quickly
like get out of the embarrassment by saying, well, here's
an opportunity, actually, did you know? And then all of

(16:44):
a sudden everyone's like, I don't even remember that you farted, right,
what's awesome to PU has only been in use since
like the nineteen fifties. Yeah, and it's in the O. E.
D Rights in the Oxford English Dictionary spell pew and
that's where p you generally just thought to sort of
come from. That's right, Pugh. I like that one too, Chuck.

(17:09):
I'm gonna bring it back. Let's start, Okay, I think
we should because it is really great. Uh so too
is the next phrase, Chuck, burry the hatchet. Burry the hatchet?
Now what does that mean? Uh? This is a really
good one. This is something that you say if like,

(17:30):
let's say you and I are having a big fight
and that eventually we're having a fight over what the
exception that proves the rule? We're at logger heads, we say,
oh god, we gotta take a commercial break, which is
when we do our best fighting. And then in that
commercial break, I might listen. Man. No, actually you say
it because you're the peacemaker. You say, let's just bury
the hatchet here. This is a dumb thing to fight over,

(17:52):
And I say fine, and then that's it. We move on.
Everything's good from that point on because the hatchet has
been buried. Yes, this him. It's a symbol of getting
over an argument. Letting bygones be bygones. Right, Um, what's
interesting is that it actually started out with a really
literal meaning to the phrase bury the hatchet. Uh. And

(18:14):
the whole thing comes from the Iroquois language family, better
known by their own term the hawt in O'shawnee, which
means people of the long house. Iroquois was the French
name for for this group of people that included a
number of tribes up in the northeast, the Cayuga, Cherokee, Huron, Seneca, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga,

(18:38):
and Tuscarora, and their whole jams stretched from Lake Ontario
over to Pennsylvania and New York and all the way
up to Ontario and Quebec, which means that they were
rubbing elbows with the French, British and the Dutch after
the Europeans started to come over, which also means that
ideas were able to spread among this group, which is
why we're talking about bury the hatchet today. That's uh.

(19:00):
And if you and I think this is a very
great story, according to Iroquois legend um, there was a
treaty for it by some members of this Iroquois family,
and they actually got it wrong. For many years. They
placed it at fourteen fifty one, but researchers at the
University of Toledo go rockets, rockets almost said, mud, hen's

(19:24):
not right, that's the team. Yeah. Uh. They got together
and used oral history and astronomy data and all sorts
of great documentary resources and said, actually, hey, we know
what it is. It was August thirty one, eleven forty two,
so much earlier than it was believed. But in this treaty,

(19:46):
it's very cool what happened. They got the five original signatories,
which were the Cayuga, the Oneida, the Mohawk, the Seneca,
and the Onondaga, and they formed what was known as
the a josh Confederates hot in O'shawnee hot in Oshawni Confederacy.
The French called it the Iroquois Confederacy, but it was

(20:10):
it was an early model of democracy in action. Yeah.
And if those University of Toledo scholars are right, and
the whole thing was established in eleven forty two, that
makes it one of the oldest continuously functioning democracies in
the world. It's up there with the Government of Iceland,
the Swiss Cantons, and I said, continuously operating. It's still

(20:32):
functions as a government entity in Upstate New York and
issues passports. So it's been going since possibly eleven forty two.
And the whole reason we're talking about this is because
at that meeting in eleven forty two of those five
nations that came together to form a treaty to to
the leaders of this um, this treaty UH meeting, I

(20:53):
guess uh dagana Widah who is a Huron, and Hiawatha
who is either a mohawk er and onondaga Um. They said, hey, everybody,
just to kind of keep everything peaceful and on the level,
let's all bury our weapons under this white pine tree
and just leave them there during this meeting and we

(21:13):
can dig them up afterward. But they couldn't dig them
up chuck, could they. Now they thought this is a
nice symbol, and it also has the side benefit that
no one's gonna get murdered probably, And a river, an
underground river, came and washed them away. And so they
all said, hey, this is like kismet. I don't even

(21:36):
know what that word means, but this was meant to be.
We buried, literally buried our weapons and they were washed
away underground. So this is a charmed treaty and a
charmed joining of nations. So that whole practice spread pretty
quickly among the Iroquois language family tribes. UM. Where Like
if you were having like a peace treaty meeting like

(21:58):
the two, the two groups would bury their their weapons
of war. UM. And then like I said, the proximity
of the Europeans allowed ideas to spread. And this was
definitely one of them. Um, the Brits, the French, the Dutch, uh.
Later on the Americans, they all actually like buried weapons

(22:18):
when they were engaged in peace treaty talks with different
Native American tribes. And what was interesting is that some
Native American tribes that had nothing to do with the
Iroquois had never probably even met iroquire hot in O'shawnee,
I should say, Um, the Americans buried the hatchet with

(22:38):
those tribes as well. So in that sense, the Americans
actually spread Native American idea from one group to another
group of Native Americans who had never even met. I
find that fascinating totally Down here in the Southeast with
the Chickasaw they were burying hatchets in Alabama and Mississippi.
And yeah, it's pretty interesting how custom can spread like that. Uh.

(23:01):
The seventeen nineties was basically when it became sort of
a common phrase in North America among English speakers, and
everyone still uses it, like people still say bury the hatchet.
Why not bury the tomahawk. Well, that's a good question. Uh,
you would think that a tomahawk would be a little
more correct. But the tomahawk was I believe Algonquin. We

(23:25):
talked about the Algonquin hotel recently, right, yeah, by Hyatt,
that's right. Uh was a man this very symbolic. Uh,
it was not an Iroquois word at all, so right, no, um.
And apparently the Seneca um had a word godji wa,

(23:48):
so you would probably more accurately say bury the goji wa,
bury the godgi wa. So there you go, bury the hatchet.
Literal stuff. How about the next one, Chuck, I love
this one, short and sweet and it has Shakespeare, that's right.
And the phrase is in a pickle, yeah, which means

(24:09):
you're in a tight spot, a tough situation, you've got
a problem, there's a difficulty over your head, something like that. Right,
that's right. And it always struck me as odd. And
I think I might even mentioned this before that you
can be in a pickle, in a jam, and in
a stew and that's all kind of the same thing.
And it's all food related, it is, but all of

(24:29):
it means you're you've got a problem, You're you're in
a tight spot. That's where I'm going to define it
as you're in a tight spot. We're gonna leave it
with that. And it was Shakespeare that that came up
with this one. Yeah, so you mentioned Shakespeare the great
play The Tempest. There's a line from in the play
from Trinculo to Alonso. I have been in such a

(24:50):
pickle since I saw you last. I fear me will
never out of my bones. I shall not fear fly
blowing Very nice? Shall I translate? Please? So Trinculo has
been saying he's been totally trashed since the last time
he saw Alonso, and he's drunk so much that he's

(25:11):
concerned it's never going to get it out of his system,
and that even after he dies, the flies won't even
touch his courts because it will be so preserved by
all the alcohol that he's drunk. He was in a pickle,
which it doesn't quite make sense. What does that still mean?
As in a pickle. But it does make sense when
you trace it back a little further. Shakespeare actually borrowed

(25:32):
this phrase introduced to English, but he borrowed the sentiment
in the phrase from the Dutch, who had their own
little phrase into pickle zitten for Dutch. That is remarkably readable,
it really is. There's no rando j somewhere. It's just
all pretty straightforward. So um, in this sense, the chuck
peckle doesn't mean the pickle, it means the pickle brine. Yeah, so,

(25:57):
I mean this is also has to do with if
you say you're drunk, you you're pickled. That's sort of
along the similar lines of what that means, right, that
you were sort of soaking in that pickle brine. Exactly.
You're preserved by the alcohol, just like a pickle would
be by the brine. But the thing is is that's
not what in a pickle means. In a pickle means
in a tight spot. So at some point hundred two

(26:20):
hundred years after Shakespeare, Samuel peppis um. I think that's
how you say his name. I've only ever seen it written,
but he he was famous for his diary, and one
of the entries in his Diary in sixteen sixty he
says that his house is in a pickle, meaning that's
in in a sorry state, in in bad shape, because

(26:41):
it was under construction. And so Samuel Peppis was the
one who kind of took that term and ended up
setting it free, letting it evolve into being in a
hard place a bad state. Amazing. And you know what,
I actually get to follow up on the Shakespeare episode.
When I was shouting out my great English professor who

(27:01):
translated just like you just translated, somebody wrote in you
can always count on a listener. Someone who was at
at park Hall, the English Building, around the same time
I was, said, I bet you it was John Vance.
And I looked him up and lo and behold John Vance,
former professor Department of English, now retired and writing novels.

(27:22):
Oh yeah, what kind of novels. It's read article from
like four or five years ago. Uh, writing parody novels
based on his professorship, erotic parody novels. I don't think so.
But she she said that she try and get the
word to him that I was shouting him out, but
I just decided to do it on the show. So

(27:43):
John Vance, if you're out there and you hear this.
You were one of the best English teachers I've ever had.
Very nice, Chuck, I don't. I don't think there's anything
we can do but follow that with a break, because
that's stuff off in large skate. As watched my sks,

(28:13):
you should know, all right. So we got a few
more to drop on your head, and one is one
that we uh actually messed up, and that is the
old slippery slope which I think a lot of people
over the years, and I had heard it before you

(28:35):
said it, have it attributed to a Supreme Court justice.
But that's not the case, right. No. I couldn't see
exactly where it came from or even what justice has
used at Wayne, but I did see it goes at
least back to the nineteenth century. Um. But I think
what's more interesting about it, Chuck, is UM, it's actually
a logical fallacy, and it has its own name, the

(28:57):
slippery slope argument. And basically everybody who's walking around using
the phrase slippery slope is using it correctly. Um. It
just basically means, if we do something take one or
two steps, we're we're entering a dangerous situation that could
end in catastrophe just from taking that first or second step. Yeah,

(29:20):
it's a phrase that I have always loathed. Um. I
think if you say something is a slippery slope, it's
always it's never like, uh, hey, if you know, if
your kids hanging out with the the kids smoking by
the dumpster, it's a slippery slope and they could end
up smoking too, Like that makes sense. It always is

(29:42):
some really far off extreme where you say, then your
kid's gonna end up on heroin one day. Uh if
they hung out with the kids smoking by the dumpster.
It's always taken to this really far extreme, and it
seems like it's used a lot in political arguments where
just the dumbest things are said about you know, if

(30:03):
we allow gay marriage, then then what's to stop us
from marrying our pets and things like that. It's it's
so infuriating it is, and you're right, I think you
kind of nailed it. Like it goes from we could
try this to catastrophic problems. And the reason it does
that is because the slippery slope argument is is used

(30:25):
to scare somebody else into agreement. It's basically saying, like, hey,
this new thing that you're talking about It sounds great
on its face, but do you realize that if we
do that, the world will literally end? And the other
person goes, oh, well, I don't want the world to end,
so we should probably not do that thing. I was suggesting.

(30:45):
That's right. Uh. And what the problem is, as far
as the logical fallacy goes, is you are predicting an
outcome that cannot be predicted. Uh. It's literally just sort
of making something up to scare people into submission of
not doing anything. Yeah. Um. There's a guy named James
Graft who wrote an article about it in the Week

(31:07):
in two thirteen, and he said the reason why it's
it just doesn't make sense is because he said, there's
no reason to reject doing one thing just because it
might open the door for some undesirable extremes. Permitting aid
does not suspend our ability to say, but not be
and certainly not zac down the line. And he also

(31:29):
points out something I think is really important too, that
if you with the slippery slope argument, the whole point
is to say, all these terrible things can happen, and
if you just focus on that, you're never gonna do anything.
That's right. Scared into an action exactly nice. Um. And
the thing about the slippery slope argument is the more

(31:51):
you look for it, the more you see it everywhere.
I mean, it is everywhere, and once you realize what
you're actually what's actually being done to your your psyche,
it's kind of annoying. At that point, I agreed, Uh, yeah,
so you're you're right to loathe it. I think I'm
with you on that, alright. So moving on to a

(32:11):
phrase that I always, very stupidly assumed was French k
sara sara the great song whatever will be, where will be.
For some reason, it always sounded French in my head.
But now that I'm looking at it, k q u
e is clearly like some variation of Italian or Spanish.

(32:32):
I don't know why I always thought it was French.
It just sounded French to me. It does sound French.
You're absolutely right, other people think Italian. Maybe what's interesting
is it's it's both. It's also neither, and it's gibberish.
It turns out in both languages. But the upshot of
the meaning of k sara sara is that, Um, the

(32:55):
way it's translated is whatever will be will be, and
it's a it's a reminder to kind of take like
a lacks attitude toward life, take life as it comes, accepted,
and enjoy it. You can't you can't really predict the future.
Don't try you'll just fail. That kind of thing, that's right. Uh.
And it comes from the Hitchcock film The Man Who
Knew Too Much and it was sung by Doristay very

(33:16):
famously in that movie. Became a big, big hit for
Doris Day. But it was written by Jay Livingston and
Ray Evans, who were very uh. I don't know about
how famous famous they were, but within the industry well
regarded as kind of pumping out these big hits during
the heyday of of this sort of songwriting. What was

(33:38):
the uh we did a podcast on it, the um
tim pan Alley tim pan Alley was this? Then I
thought tim pan Alley was way earlier. No, I don't
think so, Okay, Well, these guys would be tim pan
Alley all the way. Then agreed, I might be wrong,
but they had big hits with uh Mona Lisa, men

(33:58):
Have Known You and Silver Bells a great Christmas song,
the theme to Bonanza. Another great song, The ed Horse
is a Horse. Of course, of course, yeah, and Livingston,
one of the writers was the voice of Mr Edge
Mr Ed. I've always heard of rumor that they put
peanut butter in Mr Ed's mouth to make him flap

(34:20):
his gums like that, and he hated peanut butter. That
a horse loves peanut butter. So they wrote this song
for the Hitchcock movie. But they actually kind of stole
the phrase, not actually kind of. They definitely stole the
phrase from another movie, The Barefoot Contessa. I'd like to
say inspired. I think they do too. But in that movie,
Ava Gardner's character, her family motto is inscribed on her

(34:44):
Italian villa villa and it's case Sarah Sarah, but they
spelled that c h E. And what's interesting is the
guy who wrote and directed The Barefoot Contessa, Joseph Manka
waits who I think that's the guy that they made
Manca out right, that's one and the same. Yeah, he
um apparently did his homework because k Sara Sara did

(35:07):
originate as a family motto, not in Italy, but with
the first Earl of Bedford in England in the sixteenth century.
Interestingly enough, right, so put a pin in that Livingston
and Evans are inspired enough by this phrase to immediately
write this song. Uh, and then wait a couple of
weeks for Hitchcock to come calling because they, I guess

(35:30):
they want to make it seem like they really took
their time with it and came up with a true
original for Hitchcock for hitch Yeah. And I don't understand
this response from Hitchcock. Ah, is this what he really said?
I don't, I don't quite get it. His quote was gentleman,
I didn't know what kind of song I wanted, and
that is the kind of song I want. Okay, just

(35:52):
a little clumsy. I guess it is a little clumsy.
You could also take it as like a subtle dig
Oh yeah, I could believe me. The movie the song
was a big hit. The movie was a big hit.
Like I said, Doris Day who apparently did not like
it at first, But it's a song that's really closely
associated with her because she, you know, sang it over

(36:13):
and over in performances over the years. But it was
a number two hit in the US, number one in Britain,
and one best original song in X at the Oscars. Right,
So huge song. Why is it? Gibberish? Is the big
question that we face now, right, So the Earl of

(36:33):
Bedford the motto k sara sara c h E s
A r A s a r a. It is Italian
and it does mean in Italian what will be, will be? Okay,
so that's what the words mean, but it's not grammatically correct, right. No,
it should be kel k sara sara. And the reason

(36:55):
why is because k means what and sarah sarah means
will be, will be. But what is almost like if
if if you were saying what like in English as
a response to somebody calling your name, will be, will be,
it makes about that much sense grammatically, whereas if you

(37:16):
if you say kelk sara sara, you're saying the things
that will be will be, and that makes much more sense. Right.
But they changed it, Livingston and Evans changed it to
a more sort of Spanish sounding thing by spelling it
q u E s e r A s E r a.
But that's not grammatically correct either, right, so they still

(37:38):
mess it up. Yeah, for the same reason because Italian
and Spanish are both very closely related romance languages. Uh,
you should say lo k sara sara, same thing, the
things that will be will be it just doesn't make sense.
And again it makes sense, but it makes sense in
the way that like the Earl of Bedford probably hired
an English translator who got his hands on an Italian

(37:59):
dictionary looked up the word what and looked up the
word for what for what will be will be and
then said that didn't do any of his grammatical research,
and neither did Livingston and Evans. But it doesn't matter,
apparently agreed. Uh. And that along with our last one,
which we're gonna talk about, erna sec begs the question,
are two that I think are often begs. The question

(38:22):
certainly is often said incorrectly, and people often also jump
on it and say, you know, you really mean raises
the question that begs the question. I don't hear as
many people when someone says the case ras ra saying actually,
that's grammatically incorrect. It's true for sure. So just a
little word of friendly advice from your older friend here,

(38:43):
uh if like correcting someone isn't super cool, but but
telling someone a cool story about an origin is another
way to do it in a more tactful way. Like
instead of saying case rassaras and grammatically incorrect, what you
could say is like, yeah, Case Ross Rogers said, cool
story behind this. Uh, and you're still sort of correct him,

(39:05):
but in a gentler way. Yeah. And if you're starting
out with wrong like you really have some work to do. God,
go back to the drawing board. So thank you, By
the way, I needed to hear that as well, um,
along with the listeners you were speaking to, because we've
said begs the question before. Yeah, and I know that
you've even self corrected and said, I mean raises the question.

(39:26):
But it's sort of one of those things that over
the years people have tran you know, mistranslated begs the
question to where everyone gets it now. Yeah, but its
like the way that everybody uses it, which is wrong.
It makes sense, which is it's a statement that raises
a question. And an example is, um, everyone looking over

(39:47):
the menu begs the question what's everyone going to order? Right? Sure,
that is not at all what begs the question really means,
but because so many people use it that way, now,
that is what it means. But that there's also an
original meaning too that actually is closer to correct or
at the very least worth mentioning. Yeah, and also the

(40:07):
answer is always French onion soup, so people shouldn't even
be asking anything. I don't know. I've had some bad
French onion soup, man, Yeah, I love French onion soup.
Like you could put a salt like in some with
some beef bullion Cuban, I would probably like it. I've
still had bad French onion soup. Now what does that mean?
They just didn't get a good crust on that cheese
on top or what. No, like the taste was ranked

(40:31):
like something bad happened. But by the way, I've got
to shout somebody out chuck. We had a listener named
um Ryan I believe and Ryan is a chef who
rode in and said, hey, man, don't give up on
your homemade beef stock. You left out a step and
he he basically said, you want to reduce it by half.

(40:52):
And I was like, that's exactly right, the beef stock.
Don't you make the beef stock and you have it done.
I immediately frozen and he was super watery and tasteless.
And he said, no, you want to reduce it by
hashkey Johnson, trade it and then use that. And my
hats off to him for the rest of my life.
So thanks a lot, Ryan, I believe, who wrote in

(41:13):
and let me know about that. I had beef bone
broth for lunch. Oh yeah, from my friends at the
Oh So Good Company. I'm hoping to hear this and
send me free broth because it's expensive. Oh yeah, yeah,
for sure. What's it? What's the name of it? Oh
so good? Do you get it chipped frozen? And it's
really really good quality broth. I'll take some too, And

(41:38):
I was right. It was Ryan Thompson who wrote in
to let me know about that. Awesome, that's good especially well,
never mind, but we just missed. We just had Thanksgiving,
and I was gonna say, if you're gonna make your
turkey stock, but by this time, when when is this
going to come out? Mid December? All right? He might
make another turkey just sure, reduced by half? Yes, reduced

(42:00):
by half. We're gonna make t shirts that say that
can we get to Aristotle though? Yes? Excellent idea. So
we raise Aristotle because he was the one that that well,
I guess raised the original um meaning of begs the question.
And it's a little bit of circular logic that he
pointed out that sometimes people use right, that's right. He

(42:22):
called it petitio principe. Come on, that's close enough to
Italian that you could do it like that, princippi, which
is basically the use of an argument that uses the
endpoint as proof itself. And was this your example with
ice cream? How could you tell? Well, because I've never

(42:43):
heard of Superman ice cream, and I just sounds like
something you would say, apparently it's Midwestern, okay, Neopolitan. No,
it's very colorful. It's gaudy, it's in Garish, it's so colorful,
and flavors are not Neopolitan flavors. Okay, Okay, I thought
I thought it meant it was divided into three different
verse it's all swirled together and it's very pretty. Yeah,

(43:03):
so Superman ice cream, A good example would be Superman
ice cream is the best ice cream because it's the best.
That would be petitio principe, which is that you're using
the point you're trying to make as evidence of the point.
It doesn't make any sense whatsoever, but people do that
a lot. And Aristotle said nine no more. Yeah. The

(43:26):
only time you can do that is if you're trying
to be funny and just say, like, you know, the
original Ghostbusters is the best because it's the best then,
and you're making a joke unless you're eight, and I
think that's who Aristotle was really targeting with this. So
here's where it gets somewhat interesting, although I also thought

(43:48):
the other was interesting. But in Latin, petitio principal means
request the principle, uh, which means Aristotle's use of it,
assuming the initial point. But apparently this was just like
a bad translation, right, yes, absolutely terrible bad translation by
some sixteenth century Europeans who said, oh, request the principle. Well,

(44:11):
request also kind of means beg in English sort of,
and the principle we could just substitute the question for that,
and so petitio principi in English now means beg the question,
even though it makes no sense, especially when you realize
that it's supposed to mean requests the principle or assuming
the initial point. That's right, and that's it. That it's

(44:35):
as easy as that, and as a matter of fact,
it's as easy to understand as the popular use of
beg begs the question as like a statement that raises
a question. It's just not explain like people don't explain
it unless you use it wrong and you just happen
to be near a prescriptivest who who's bonkers? Yeah, and

(44:55):
not to yuck the prescriptive ist yum m, because there
are people that are very defensive of words and language
is somewhat sacred. I'm not one of them, but you know,
if that's your thing, just don't be obnoxious about it.
We we need to do an episode on prescriptivists versus descriptivists.
I agree. So do you want to end with this

(45:16):
little anecdote about translations because you can make a case
that the translation of begs the question is one of
the worst of all time into English. Yeah, this is
pretty fun. Uh. The great Jimmy Carter, former US President,
went to Japan on a visit and was getting big laughs.
Uh this anecdote he told about it this small Methodist

(45:40):
college out in the country, and I think laughs so
much that he was like, what's going on here? And
so as a translator, like, why was everyone laughing so
hard at this story? That wasn't that funny? And what
did the translators say? The translator said that his exact
words to the public were President think Carter told a

(46:00):
funny story everyone must laugh and the Japanese went wild.
You could only do that to Jimmy Carter. I know,
I know, if I'm sure he thought that was hilarious too.
Of course he's what a what a great guy. He
was a great guy. Is he still around? He's still going? He? Uh?
I believe did Rosalind pass away? I think so? Yes? No,

(46:24):
she's still life too. Oh okay, yeah, sorry, guys, she's
nive and he's my lord. But yeah, they still go
to braids games and do stuff. I think he still
teaches Sunday school and all that stuff. Very cool. Yep.
So that's our episode on Jimmy Carter. Everybody, we should
do one on Jimmy Carter. Yeah, why not? He's definitely
worth an episode. Um, you got anything else about Jimmy

(46:48):
Carter or phrases? No, but a good listener mail that
kind of dovetails. Okay, well, hold on, hold on. Since
Chuck started talking about listener mail, obviously it's time for
listener mail. Um. Yeah, I didn't even play this. This
is perfect. Hey, guys, love the show. Uh. In the

(47:09):
Typewriter episode, you were making suggestions on license plates and
Chuck suggested balls out b a l z o U
t uh. That might be the right amount of vulgar,
but the assumption is that balls out refers to testicles.
That is not true at all. The true origin and
the saying is way more fun and not at all vulgar.
Many machines use a centrifugal I hate that word, governor

(47:32):
to regulate the speed that something is uh spinning and
old timy ones you had two weighted balls on the
end of sticks spinning around. You've probably seen this before, right, No, no,
you would if if you saw it, you'd recognize it.
It's like two balls like spinning in a circle. I mean,
I can imagine that, but I can't place it under
the hood of a car. It's not in a car.

(47:55):
This is more like a machine in a factory or something. Oh,
centriviing goal force. They're classic details to include on cartoon
machinery and you would know it if you saw it. There. Um,
the faster the machine is spinning, the further the two
balls stick out to the side. So when a machine
is running at a high speed, it's called running balls

(48:16):
out because the balls are sticking straight out from the
sides of the governor. That's awesome. So when my mind
balls out as a fantastic custom license plate, especially if
the driver tends to have a heavy foot. Again, love
the show, Keep the good stuff coming. Peace from Ben, Peace, Ben,
thank you for that. That's a great one. I still
cannot imagine it in any kind of machine. I don't

(48:39):
know what he's talking about, but I understand what he means. Right.
Just google Centrifugal governor. Okay, I will, And if you
want to be like Ben and say peace, you can
email us. Send it to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart radio
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit

(49:02):
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listen to your favorite shows. H