Borrowed Words 4

From sailors’ ropes to Paris bartenders, our language gets tipsy in this Borrowed Words episode. We highlight popular drinking words and phrases on the biggest bar night of the year! 

Sources:

Snopes.com , Factcheck.com, OED.com, Dictionary.com, Learnreligions.com, phrases.org, English.stackexchange.com, therealdill.com, Silvercircledistillery.com 

Chapters

• 0:00 Holiday Vibes And Mixed Feelings
• 3:34 Why Thanksgiving Eve Packs The Bars
• 5:18 Three Sheets To The Wind: Sailing Roots
• 8:21 Hangover: Origins And Victorian Myths
• 11:13 Hair Of The Dog: Folk Cure To Cocktail
• 13:23 Bloody Mary: Paris Bars To Chicago Lore
• 18:33 Wrap-Up And Release Timing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:14

Hello everyone.

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

Hello.

SPEAKER_01: 0:16

I'm Sarah.

SPEAKER_00: 0:17

And I'm Cole.

SPEAKER_01: 0:19

And you're listening to Borrowed Words, an episode where we break down the etymology of words and phrases.

SPEAKER_00: 0:25

Oh, some of these episodes.

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

Yes. I normally wait a few months in between to do these episodes because not that long ago. Yeah. I but I figured with the holidays, with the holiday season.

SPEAKER_00: 0:41

The worst time of the year. The best day of the year is December 26th. Because it's the furthest away from Christmas.

SPEAKER_01: 0:51

I like the holidays because I like the energy that people have in in the good way, like how people are more giving and working in the service industry. I do see it. It's a great time. People tip more, they're nicer, they're feeling better, they are more sympathetic. They ask what you're doing for the holidays and everything. And it is nice. There is, of course, a negative side to it with capitalism culture and all of that. I do refuse to dive into that. Every year I try to give less and less gifts, honestly. And my family is pretty good. Like we're normal about it. Like maybe one gift to each person and focus more on the youngins, the kids. But yeah, I like the holiday season.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35

I don't.

SPEAKER_01: 1:36

I don't mind it. I like the lights. I like the decor. That's really what I like.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41

I loathe all of it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:43

Yeah. I like the music.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45

I hate it. I wish I could just go into hibernation.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49

Barbara Streisand, her jingle bells. It's my favorite.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54

Mariah Carey.

SPEAKER_01: 1:56

Oh, I don't. I can't do that. No. That's too much. Barbara is my go-to Christmas album. I love it. She switched it up. She didn't keep it traditional.

SPEAKER_00: 2:09

Mark Lanigan had a Christmas record, but it was like six songs that you never think of as Christmas Carol. I mean, they're like old, old like they're the ones that aren't popular. You don't hear them like at fucking Target playing jingle bells. They were like songs about women hiding their firstborn babies from King Herod on Christmas Eve so that sh kids aren't killed when Herod sent his troops to kill anyone the night that Jesus was allegedly born.

SPEAKER_01: 2:36

I've never, never heard of this. Wow. No. Can we listen to that?

SPEAKER_00: 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:41

Okay. All right. That sounds good to me. I'll bring Barbara and you bring what's his name again?

SPEAKER_00: 2:47

Lanigan. Mark Lanigan.

SPEAKER_01: 2:48

Oh, Mark Lanigan. I forgot. I do. I just forgot who you said.

SPEAKER_00: 2:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:53

So yeah, okay. Because of the holiday season and how hectic it gets and weird and crazy. There's a lot going on, a lot of visiting, a lot of driving, a lot of traveling. I figured I would just throw one of these in there because they're easier, they're lighter. I don't do as much research with them. We're looser with our form here. I just wanted to ease myself through this season. I'll probably do a Christmas one as well. I just like it. It's easy. So the borrowed words we are going to look at today all pertain to drinking.

SPEAKER_00: 3:28

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 3:30

And I thought of this because this month we are celebrating Thanksgiving here in America.

SPEAKER_00: 3:35

Ironically.

SPEAKER_01: 3:36

We all have thoughts about it, and I understand.

SPEAKER_00: 3:38

I always wonder if I know he was sincere because honest Abe, but when Abe created Thanksgiving in the midst of the Civil War, I'm like, was he being a little satirical? Yeah. It's time to give thanks. As our brothers and sons are coming home with their limbs ripped off.

SPEAKER_01: 3:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:56

Fighting people who want to own other people.

SPEAKER_01: 4:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 4:01

Let's be thankful for what?

SPEAKER_01: 4:03

Exactly. So in the spirit of that, I thought we would all drink. Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving always falls on a Thursday. The Wednesday before is considered the biggest bar night of the year. It's thought that because when people come home for Christmas, they need to be on their best behavior. Christmas is more of a religious holiday. And then on Easter, same thing, a religious holiday. No one really wants to be drunk or hungover around grandma.

SPEAKER_00: 4:33

It's also the first time a lot of college students coming back home.

SPEAKER_01: 4:38

Oh, you're right.

SPEAKER_00: 4:39

They leave in late August, early September for college. It's their first time back. So they're all coming together that that Wednesday night at the bar.

SPEAKER_01: 4:48

You're right. Yep. That's also a factor.

SPEAKER_00: 4:51

Influences making it the busiest bar night.

SPEAKER_01: 4:53

Yes. And it really is the busiest bar night of the year. It is always hectic and crazy. So I wanted to honor that and do words and phrases that are within the drinking culture. All right. We are starting with the phrase three sheets to the wind. Use it in a sentence like, oh, she's three sheets to the wind. She's so drunk. She's falling over. She's three sheets to the wind. She's dancing on tables. He might be dancing on tables. I don't know. Do you have any thoughts of where it might have come from?

SPEAKER_00: 5:28

Well, I'm picturing, I don't know how. Let me work through this, but I'm picturing like linen hanging on a clothesline. Literally, like bed sheets on a clothesline in the wind blowing. Maybe someone's stumbling drunk and stumbles through bed sheets that are hanging, and they're walking through like a ghost with like bedsheets just haphazardly hanging on them.

SPEAKER_01: 5:51

I like that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:52

That's my thought. Like, oh, he's you know, walking through clotheslines. The visual I have in my head is the first night of the living dead, the zombie walking through and just like he runs through a clothesline. There's no sheets on it, but like and he angrily just like pulls it down because it's just in his way. That's kind of what I'm picturing. Like a stumble-down drunk stumbling into sheets being hanging.

SPEAKER_01: 6:12

Not a bad thought. It's not what it is, but that's not a bad thought. I also thought like clothesline, like sheets hanging. It's about ships when I was learning about this. There are these sheets on ships that are not the sails. Yeah. They're actually ropes or chains. Okay. The ropes or chain are holding on to the sails. They're they're tying the corners down. There's always three sheets that are tying the corners down. If the ropes are loose and blowing about in the wind, then that means that the ship's sails will flap about and the boat will lurch and rock around like a drunken sailor. So you have the the original super original version was three sheets in the wind and not to the wind. But we say to the wind more now. Yeah. But originally was three sheets in the wind, and that kind of that makes more sense. Imagine some chains flap flapping around in the wind or some ropes flying around.

SPEAKER_00: 7:13

Gotcha. I did not know that.

SPEAKER_01: 7:16

Yeah. Well, after that, on Thursday morning, you're probably gonna have a hangover.

SPEAKER_00: 7:22

Oh, is that our second word of the day?

SPEAKER_01: 7:25

Yes. If you do not know what a hangover is, lucky you. It is a very awful feeling after you have had too much to drink the night before. You probably have a headache, you're dehydrated, you're shaky, you're dizzy, you are maybe vomiting. Who knows? Maybe run into the bathroom. I don't know. There's a lot of different ways to feel bad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:47

More ways to feel bad than there are to feel good. Yes. What does that say about reality? Anyway, sorry.

SPEAKER_01: 7:52

But drinking makes you forget.

SPEAKER_00: 7:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:55

Drink to forget.

SPEAKER_00: 7:57

The anesthesia of reality.

SPEAKER_01: 7:58

Oh god. So, yes, a very popular thought for hangover. Oh, wait, sorry. I didn't give you a chance to guess. Do you have a thought of where hangover comes from?

SPEAKER_00: 8:08

I always just took it literally as the alcohol or the effects of the previous day are hanging over into the current day.

SPEAKER_01: 8:17

Yes. That that isn't what most yes.

SPEAKER_00: 8:20

Yeah, it just is what it is.

SPEAKER_01: 8:21

Yep. But they it wasn't always referencing drinking, though. It could mean anything, like my work is hanging over from yesterday. It could mean anything. However, I did see that a lot of people think that it comes from the Victorian age in England, in London, in kind of the more slummy areas. People would get drunk. A lot of them, a lot of the sources I found reference sailors being drunk specifically. I don't know why, but maybe I think they spent a lot of their money at the bars and saloons. So, you know, servicemen. Yeah. And they would get drunk and they would go to these houses and they would rent a space to stand and hang on a line. So like a rope would be hung from one wall to the other.

SPEAKER_00: 9:10

And you would just slabs of meat. Yes. Like a subway car, the thing you hold.

SPEAKER_01: 9:15

You would just stand and you would hang on to that. And those did really exist. Um, they would rent, they you would rent a little space for two pennies, and you would just hope that you don't fall down and you would just hold on to that rope. So you would hang over the rope as you're drunk.

SPEAKER_00: 9:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 9:32

There were quite a bit of people on one side of the fence that said, no, it's not from this. And I couldn't really see anyone advocating that it was from this. They just said we think it's from this, but then they read that the Oxford English Dictionary said that it was not this. So I'm leaning towards no, I'm leaning towards it's from just hangover means to hang over. And then we eventually used it for drinking. But I did see that as we started using it as like a hangover from alcohol, it was around the same time as the Victorian era. I mean, it was the same time frame. So I I just wonder if maybe people associated it with drinking because of hanging over a rope.

SPEAKER_00: 10:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 10:21

But hangover was already used normally or regularly.

SPEAKER_00: 10:25

Yeah, so it's so two sources of maybe.

SPEAKER_01: 10:29

That's just what I want to believe. I didn't see anyone say that. I'm just putting two things together because I saw dates.

SPEAKER_00: 10:36

Sounds like it could be accurate.

SPEAKER_01: 10:38

That's just what I'm thinking. If you have a hangover, in order to get rid of it, someone might tell you to have a little bit of the hair of the dog that bit you. This is our next phrase.

unknown: 10:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 10:54

Do you know what this means?

SPEAKER_00: 10:55

Yeah, keep drinking.

SPEAKER_01: 10:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:57

Yeah. Have more alcohol.

SPEAKER_01: 10:59

The hair of the dog that bit you have more alcohol to cure that hangover. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:03

I mean, I don't know when it started, but it I mean, the metaphor is pretty self-explanatory. Like the dog bit you, and so you bite it back. Keep going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:13

All it really does is delay the hangover, though.

SPEAKER_01: 11:16

I don't know. I mean, it's medical professionals say this doesn't help. It it there's no way it does. Why would it? You're just adding more.

SPEAKER_00: 11:23

Yeah, it'll get you drunk again. And then you stop feeling bad, I guess, because you're kind of numb. You just it just delays the hangover.

SPEAKER_01: 11:32

Well, anyway, this isn't about if that works or not. This is about the phrase hair of the dog that bit you. Because I wanted to know why this was even said. Like, did people get bitten by dogs at one point? Like, what why? Why a dog? Why hair? Why this? And what I found was that it was advised if you get bitten by a dog, get some hair from that dog and put it in the wound, and that will help heal.

SPEAKER_00: 11:59

I mean, it's in the same, I guess, general, I mean, I'm being liberal with this, but in the same general wheelhouse of inoculation, I guess.

SPEAKER_01: 12:10

There was also still some thought of um what I found to be called sympathetic magic as well at that time, where something could cause you harm if you have something of that person or it could help be better if you have something of that person or that thing. So I don't know much about magic, but there's some magic that people still kind of thought at that time existed, and this helped.

SPEAKER_00: 12:36

It's also a little homeopathic of like a little of the thing that hurts you will somehow make you better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:42

Yeah. All of this started in like the Middle Ages, like the 14, 1500s. So we don't know exactly when it turned into an alcohol thing, but we know that it there is people way back when really did think getting hair from the dog that bit you would help cure you. And of course, alcohol hurts, it can hurt the next day. And so it just makes sense that they shift it over to that. Whenever I have a hangover and I do follow that old cure of the hair of the dog that bit you, sometimes I decide to have a bloody Mary. And I wanted to know where the name Bloody Mary came from.

SPEAKER_00: 13:26

I don't know exactly. I know, I mean, I before the drink, obviously, I heard of the like childhood game of, you know, you go be in front of a dark mirror and you say Bloody Mary however many times, and you know, you'll see a ghostly figure in the mirror, allegedly. Oh yeah. That's yeah, I think it was some myth figure, you know, some ghost story. Bloody Mary killed someone. I don't know. That's all I know. And I assume the drink is called that because it looks like blood.

SPEAKER_01: 13:55

Kind of. Oh, it has nothing to do with the scary Bloody Mary in the mirror thing. This is this is separate, but it does have to do with blood. Okay. So we're starting back in Paris in the 1920s. There's a bar called Harry's New York Bar. This must have been with like the lost generation of Hinway and Stein and Fitzgerald and Harry's opened in 1911 after an American jockey had a New York bar dismantled and shipped to Paris. Oh. I thought that was so interesting. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:36

Turn for the Statue of Liberty.

SPEAKER_01: 14:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:39

That's how we should return it.

SPEAKER_00: 14:40

No, that's what we could say. That's the exchange. Like the Statue of Liberty, we gave them a New York bar.

SPEAKER_01: 14:45

Yeah, okay. Well, the New York style bar became an American destination during the prohibition era. And then around 1920, people who escaped the Russian Revolution arrived in Paris bringing vodka with them. Okay. So we're getting this. It's right. You know, it's starting to happen. There was bartender. We're gonna call him Pete because that's what he goes by, but it's a French name. I don't want to try to say, but Pete. And he's a bartender at Harry's, and he doesn't know what to do with this tasteless vodka, but he also is seeing this new, not new, but like newer-ish, kind of cool ketchup um tomato sauce, not ketchup, but like a tomato sauce. And he decided to zhuz it up, add some things, do a little this, do a little that, and then add the vodka, and lo and behold, we have a bloody Mary.

SPEAKER_00: 15:34

I like that you described vodka as tasteless because I've always been like, it is tasteless. And people are like, I love the taste of vodka. I'm like, I don't think you like to drink. There's a reason like teenage girls like vodka the most because it doesn't taste like anything. It's like when old men are like, Oh, vodka is so great. I'm like, okay, have a daiquiri.

SPEAKER_01: 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 15:54

It's wait a minute, daiquiri's not cut that. That's not the right no.

unknown: 15:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:59

Daiquai's rum.

SPEAKER_00: 16:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:01

Yeah. I'll cut that, don't worry.

unknown: 16:02

No. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 16:03

Um, yeah, I I do think for me, vodka does have a taste. I don't like it, but I know that it's meant to be tasteless, and most people don't taste it. Like it's not, it is meant to blend in with drinks, and yeah, I I just don't like the taste of it.

SPEAKER_00: 16:17

Yeah, it's like on all the dumb rankings of the the taste, the blind, you know, Pepsi challenge for vodka. I'm like, it all tastes like nothing. It all tastes like nothing.

SPEAKER_01: 16:26

The point of vodka is to taste like nothing. So the best vodka should be tasteless. So yeah. Anyway, moving on, Pete would end up moving to America. I think he moved to New York, and he would bring the Bloody Mary drink with him. He didn't have the name Bloody Mary, though. He actually called it Red Snapper.

SPEAKER_00: 16:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 16:46

Yeah. So then the story goes that it started to be called Bloody Mary after Queen Mary Tudor and her bloody reign against the Protestants in England in the 1500s.

SPEAKER_00: 16:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 16:58

Yeah, because it looks like blood.

SPEAKER_00: 17:01

All right. Yeah. It seems like a stretch that an American audience would care so much about an antiquated war in another country to name a I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 17:10

I don't know. Yes. I I'm not sure. There there's there's multiple theories of where the name Bloody Mary comes from. The most popular is the Queen, Bloody Mary, which I think is probably just because it's fun.

SPEAKER_00: 17:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:23

Like I don't I don't really know. This is the final theory that I found of where the name Bloody Mary came from. And I I want it to be this. This is what I want. Okay.

unknown: 17:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:34

There was an ad in the 1930s, in the 1930s, that claimed the drink Bloody Mary was named after a friend of an entertainer, and the friend's name was Mary, and Mary worked at a saloon bar called The Bucket of Blood in Chicago.

SPEAKER_00: 17:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 17:53

And I did not look up to verify if the Bucket of Blood is an actual bar or not. I don't know for sure because I want this to be true.

SPEAKER_00: 18:00

I've heard it referenced historically, like in songs of the era. Okay. So it makes sense. So yeah. Yeah. It sounds like yeah, I've heard it referenced in songs and literature.

SPEAKER_01: 18:14

Yeah, so I want it to be true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:16

So that's what I want it to be called. I I were that's where I want it to be from. It's from the bucket of blood, and some entertainer wanted his friend Mary to be named after this. Yeah. I love it. So and that's all I have. I just wanted to kind of do a few.

SPEAKER_00: 18:35

Oh, there's not.

SPEAKER_01: 18:36

No, that's it.

SPEAKER_00: 18:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 18:38

These are only like 20 or 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_00: 18:40

Yeah.

unknown: 18:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 18:41

Yeah. That's it.

SPEAKER_00: 18:42

All right.

SPEAKER_01: 18:43

Just a nice quick one, something easy. I am going to release this one on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So I thought it'd be kind of fun.

SPEAKER_00: 18:50

Isn't is this week Thanksgiving?

SPEAKER_01: 18:53

No. Thanksgiving is on the 27th this year.

SPEAKER_00: 18:58

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01: 18:59

It's the third Thursday, but it's also the last Thursday of Jimi Hendrix's death day. Right? Is it the last one?

SPEAKER_00: 19:07

It's always the last or fourth Thursday. Is it the fourth or third? Fourth. I believe.

SPEAKER_01: 19:13

It is on November 27th.

SPEAKER_00: 19:15

That's always the fourth Thursday.

SPEAKER_01: 19:16

Damn it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 19:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:18

Why would I think that?

SPEAKER_00: 19:19

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 19:20

That's weird. Okay, the fourth third, whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 19:22

It's Hendrix's birth date this year, not death date. I said that earlier.

SPEAKER_01: 19:26

But yes, I wanted to do some bar highlights on the night before Thanksgiving. Hope everyone has fun out there. Um, I will not be going out as my feet are still broken from my surgery. So that's fun. I get to miss that.

SPEAKER_00: 19:42

She's on the mend.

SPEAKER_01: 19:43

I'm getting better. It's not so bad. But yeah, like, follow, check us out on Instagram, all the things. So yeah. Happy holidays, maybe.

SPEAKER_00: 19:53

Have the holiday you voted for.

unknown: 19:56

What?

SPEAKER_00: 19:56

I don't know. That's just what I my response to everyone today. In general, about like what do you do with the holiday? Because I'm expecting family to be starting inviting us to things and that's just me or my response to anyone who invites me to something.

SPEAKER_01: 20:09

Okay.

unknown: 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:11

Yeah. So bye.

SPEAKER_00: 20:13

Bye.