Hi everyone, Mod R here.
Thank you so much for all the get well wishes! I feel much better, the antibiotics and painkillers have kicked in and I no longer want to saw my ear off, which is always a plus.
I did spend the weekend emulating “some bloke called Les, who is really miserable all the time” as Nanny Ogg would say. In order to distract myself, I fell into this research deep-dive about popular expressions and their surprisingly recent origins…or are they?
It turns out people get very heated about these, and there are few things I love more than nerdy fights. Some of the stats did seem…rectally derived, however, so let’s see if the wisdom of the Horde can settle the disputes.
Wardrobe Malfunction
This expression didn’t exist until the mid-noughties. I didn’t want to believe it, because that’s around the time I came into my English-as-a-second-language fluency and it seemed a phrase as old as accidentally catching your skirt in your knickers and giving everyone an eye-full.
Everyone is pretty in agreement that Justin Timberlake ripping Janet Jackson’s top during the Super Bowl is the first time we’ve collectively heard it. This did not ruin the tour. It was a different time.
Sweet Summer Child
Perhaps *the* most disputed in origin, the popular and slightly patronising phrase “oh, you sweet summer child” denotes someone who is naive. They have never known hardship in their lives, and what they (foolishly) claim has no basis in real experience.
When it was claimed that George R. R. Martin created the expression in 1996, a lot of receipts were produced about it being in use all the way back in 1840, and it being in common use with grandparents from the Silent Generation.
Thy home is all around,
Sweet summer child of light and air,
Like God’s own presence, felt, ne’er found,
A Spirit everywhere!
The West Wind, by James Staunton Babcock, New York, 1849
The Song of Ice and Fire author certainly applied it more literally that 19th century authors in any case: winter is coming, but the sweet summer child has never experienced its fear and darkness, because each season lasts several years in Westeros. In a question of “combination of words” vs “actual idiom with meaning of its own”, maybe 1996 should win. What do you think?
Debbie Downer
Again 2004 (a year for iconic phrases!), the character Debbie Downer was created by Rachel Dratch who debuted it on Saturday Night Live. The name seemed to enter popular use seemingly instantaneously.
Vociferous detractors claim this was a popular nickname going back to the 50s and 60s, and that “downer” for “person who finds the pessimistic side of everything” has an ever longer history, so the rhyme was bound to emerge.
I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle- SNL had copious real life inspiration, and some of the people who remember it from time immemorial are probably conflating it with “Negative Nancy”, another sobriquet that is very close in meaning.
The Friend Zone
The linguistic equivalent of cassette tapes, the Friend Zone originated in the popular 90s sitcom Friends, meaning it’s just under 30 years old.
It was nearly ubiquitous for a while, with magazine articles that advised you how to avoid it, and popular forums who allowed you to decry being stuck in it. The younger generation is calling out its toxic implications and rejecting it, so if you’re in your mid-30s or older, we may have witnessed its birth and fall into anachronism in our lifetimes.
Spam
And finally one that everyone agrees on: the reason we call junk or unwanted mail Spam isn’t because it’s a mix of bits and bobs no one would happily consume unless they were highly processed.
We do it because of Monty Python put Spam in a sketch in the 1970 and turned it into an inescapable item. When the first spam messages started appearing, early internet users took to calling them out in forums by using the SPAM! reference.
Language is always evolving and endlessly fascinating. The meteoric rise and fall of memes and other viral content floods colloquial speech with obscure references every other week.
And we still love to argue over two-centuries’-old poems. Isn’t that so cool?
Fellow language nerds unite 😉😁
Glad you’re feeling better ModR! Hope it’ll all clear up entirely soon 😊
(I just shared the spam/Monty Python connection with my significant other and got back: “Well of course it’s a reference to Python. That’s what you get when the Internet is designed by nerds. There’s also a computer language called Python.” So that’s me told 😉)
😀 That’s exactly the warm and fuzzy feel I got! Long live nerdom!
And Confuse A Cat!!!!!
I thought Python was named after the snake, not Monty. Live and learn, glad you are better Mod R.
Python is named for the comedians? This sweet summer child’s mind is blown!
Love the post, Mod-R, & I’m glad you’re not emulating some bloke called Les anymore.
To confirm the Python – Monty Python link, here’s a clip of the history of python documentation referenced by Wikipedia!
“When he began implementing Python, Guido van Rossum was also reading the published scripts from “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”, a BBC comedy series from the 1970s. Van Rossum thought he needed a name that was short, unique, and slightly mysterious, so he decided to call the language Python.“
Eh, I recently dug into the phrase “buy a pig in a poke” because I always understood “poke” to be a jab with your finger and was a good way to get into trouble with the parents when applied to one’s sibling.
Anyway… seems it dates back to medieval times referring to a scam. In this case a “poke” is another name for a sack. And the scam involved putting a cat in a bag and selling it as a piglet. So if you bought the bag, didn’t open it to check over the goods, you got a much less valuable animal.
Seems to be one of the potential sources of the phrase “to let the cat out of the bag” as well. The other potential sources of that phrase involves the British Navy and disciplinary action involving a cat ‘o nine tails which was stored in a bag with the master-at-arms.
Language can be fun sometimes.
My only reference for that is the Supernatural episode that is based on Groundhog Day (another use that didn’t exist before the 80s! Groundhog day as a holiday, ofc, but not the meaning of deja vu/ repeated day).
Dean orders the Tuesday special, “Pig in a poke” for several hundred Tuesdays 😀 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPsm7BGmHaY . So *I* always thought it was a well-known American diner food hehehe. We’re shattering expectations today!
Mystery Spot is one of my favorite Supernatural episodes!!! I always assumed “Pig ‘n a Poke” was a regional specialty (we don’t have it where I’m from in the US). Learn something new every day. 🙂
Glad you’re feeling better, Mod R – thanks for the fun post!!
My favorite relatively recent phrase is “creative accounting”. It first occurred in the Mel Brooks film “The producers” in 1968. Before that, of course, the concept was simply known as “fraud”, but that word is so crass.
I feel its kinship with “spicy accountants” which is a TikTok-era euphemism for sex workers.
Creative and accounting are two words that should not be used together. IMHO.
I think maybe you need to define expression. A phrase or word can exist as a part of the language for a long time and not become an “expression” until to develops a specific and widely recognized and agreed upon meaning separate from the obvious. It becomes symbolic.
For instance, the word “squirrel” has apparently been around since the 14th century with a known meaning (small or medium sized arboreal rodents) but since the movie “Up” it has also come to symbolize a person who is easily distracted or a conversation which has suddenly veered off topic.
Distressingly professorial of me but I can’t help it. My family tree is littered with teachers, professors and ministers on all sides.
I remember my grandma and mom telling the kids to stop acting “squirrelly” and I passed childhood long before the movie Up came out. Maybe it was a regional thing that just became more widespread after Up came out? iirc, grandma was from the coal country area of Indiana.
Same for my mom, and remembered fondly since we were apparently all a little squirrelly growing up. ;^)
But using just the word “squirrel!” to point out a person’s distractibility or a conversational non sequitur feels new to me.
I also grew up with this phrase in Canada. But squirrelly always meant something similar to nervous, unreliable or sketchy, not necessarily easily distractable.
Like the beloved Squirrely Dan character 🐿️ https://youtu.be/0eT6eZLjr1I?si=QdX4qVbazzAkHmcH
Using squirrel or squirrelly as a term for easily distractible or behaving erratically has been around for awhile. In the early 80s, we called our kids “squirrel brains.” “Thurber squirrel” for dithering until it’s dangerous goes way back. That’s a different usage from the now-classic use in “Up!” (squirrel as a source of distraction).
One for the Horde word nerds: anyone know how “different from” (US) versus “different to” (UK) came about? That fascinates me.
There’s also “different than”… 😉
Yeah, my grandma too, in the 1970s, in St. Louis. Maybe midwestern?
Another Midwestern here and yes, squirrelly (although I feel like that might not be spelled correctly) is a term applied to a person’s behavior or demeanor and didn’t really mean easily distracted.
Midwesterner here- definitely grew up with the term squirrely in both Wisconsin and Kansas. I do have a theory as to when using plain old squirrel to imply distractability came into play. To borrow from Sophia of Golden Girls infamy- picture this: Disney Pixar, 2009. The movie Up was released and Dug the dog enters the scene…
https://youtu.be/SSUXXzN26zg?si=AaTDMi0_ySNCV6Gb
Pretty sure this is when the phrase was coined, but that’s just my two cents;) Gotta love colloquialisms!
ADHLAS: Attention Deficit – Hey, Look A Squirrel. 🐿️
Is the link for “toxic implications” supposed to link to the Friends wiki page ?
Nope, fixed it 🙂
Little Freudian slip there? 😁
Language and its evolution is indeed fascinating.
What is accepted and understood in a certain time period’s vernacular can make communication difficult because if you’re not “in the know”, you can be viewed as too old, uneducated, etc.
Mod R, I’ve never heard “rectally derived” before. 😂 I’m totally stealing it!
Oh interesting! I had assumed “sweet summer child” was some sort of hippie reference!
Ooh, I love a bit of etymology. Back in the day when I was academically confused I thought maybe I wanted to study Linguistics and not Literature but what I actually wanted was Philology only I got Philosophy instead and was lost (or found as it were). But I still love a good origin story!
My people!
I love nerdy word and language thingies. My family has family words and expressions. My Dad used “hoogies” for nifty, smallish miscellanea. My Mom’s family uses “yoday” to describe a person who is delightful in an off-the-beaten-track kind of way. Our family uses the phrase “cat baby” to describe a person who is cute but professionally/life skills helpless. We also used to give points for the correct use of descriptive and esoteric words in a conversation – and called it “Word Wealth”, after my high school english book (loquacious was a favourite).
As a book worm and logophile, I fell in love with Anne Fadiman’s essays. I highly recommend “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, and “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”.
oooo! +a million for the Nanny Ogg reference! GNU PTerry
From one Donna to another, message received, GNU Pterry, arses up!!!
I had to look up the very new (c. 2005) gaming phrase of “LEEROY JENKINS” yesterday bc it was referenced somewhere and I didn’t get it. Lol I’ve also argued with my teenager who called me a “boomer” when I am a very respectable Gen X thank you very much. Apparently boomer now means anyone who seems out of touch! I am still offended 😎
I AM a boomer, and no teenager of my acquaintance would dare call me out of touch.
I may not know all the latest of whatever, but I was playing D&D when it was three rule books, a supplement, a pile of funny dice and half a ton of paper. I haven’t forgotten, and I pick up on things really fast.
It also doesn’t hurt that when they decide they want to talk, I actually listen.
I watched the Leeroy Jenkins video on YouTube. It is hilarious. After they extensively plan, Leeroy misses it, runs in shouting his name and spoils everything. All his pals get killed. At the end when his friends are telling him that he is dumb, he says, “At least I have chicken.” ha, ha, ha
I am glad you are feeling better.
Last night I discovered percussive maintenance while hubby was watching Star Trek. I kept laughing, because I felt we all should know that phrase since we all have had to knock something to get it to work. But for some reason I only heard it last night for the first time
i love the term percussive maintenance (also known as the fonz method). it is surprising how often it works.
Welcome back Mod R. We missed you. Glad you are better. Loved this post by the way, In the way of the Hoard, may I ask for more ;-). <3
This was fun! Glad you are back and feeling better! BUT, there was CAKE in the picture and I have no cake. Sad face.
I was around when the wardrobe malfunction happened and it entered the vocabulary. Big hoo-ha!
SPAM!!! 🤣 Glad you’re feeling better, Mod R! Isn’t medicine wonderful? It can lead one into all sorts of nerdiness!! 😁
I’m a huge linguistics nerd, loved this post! I thought I’d mention my beach read from last summer, a 1988 book by Robert Claiborne called “Loose Cannons, Red Herrings, and Other Lost Metaphors.” It doesn’t have the etymology of our more recent idioms, since it’s over 30 years old, but it does have a lot of classics. To give a taste, here’s what he has to say about letting the cat out of the bag/pig in a poke debate: “I doubt that even the dullest bumpkin was ever stupid enough to “buy a pig in a poke” (bag)— especially since a cat in a bag makes distinctly un-piglike noises. A more likely explanation is the “cat” (cat-o’-nine tails) used to punish sailors in the bad old days. Between floggings, it was kept in a cloth bag— and once it was out of the bag there was no time left for explanations or apologies.”
If anyone knows of a more recent book covering this type of topic, please post it— I’d love to buy a round-up of our latest phrases. I suspect I’m not the only nerd in this crowd who spent ages trying to determine the origin of “Not today, Satan” when it first became popular! (For the curious, origin does appear to RuPaul’s Drag Race, despite how classic the phrase feels.)
I don’t know if you’re from the UK and whether or not they’re internationally available but Susie Dent (from popular British TV show Countdown) has written numerous books along these lines. A few years ago I was gifted Word Perfect and it really was.
This is all so interesting! Thanks for the ‘Word Perfect’ recommendation Donna: I had never heard of it and was happy to see it was available for my Kindle (where it now resides!) 😁
+1 for Susie Dent! There are a couple of YouTube channels you might enjoy: ‘RobWords’ an English journalist and language fan, lots of word and phrase origins. He also does a collaboration with Jess Zaffaris from the US – ‘Words Unravelled’, great fun and they have a really good rapport.
I do think GRRM owns “sweet summer child” now.
And yeah, “friend zone” is pernicious for all the reasons stated. Heard a funny story about that at a summer camp reunion:
Two adolescent friends yakking in a car back in the very early 80s. Male randomly leans in for a kiss while female is talking. Female says, “What the fuck are you doing?” Male draws back and female resumes her subject as if the interruption never occurred. The next time they speak of it is four decades later at the reunion, when the male relates the incident, which the female didn’t even remember. He says the lesson he took away is that you can get your signals crossed briefly and still stay friends. I suspect there’s another lesson about respecting boundaries in there too, or they wouldn’t have stayed friendly.
The Monty Python clip was hilarious. Thanks for the great laugh.
The most recent word invention I can think of is ‘Karen’. For troublemakers female only.
When I was majoring in History (early American History), I had to read documents from the late 1600s into the 1700s and then around the time of the Civil War (or War Between the States – depending on where in the US you live in). That was some reading. I had to read out loud a little in the library to get what the writer was saying since the language and the meanings were so different at the time.
I was around when “wardrobe malfunction” became a popular saying. I remember saying it to my mom one time. She couldn’t stop laughing and asked me to repeat it to her.
The fun of our ever changing language and the meanings behind the words. 😀
Glad you’re back and feeling better Mod R.
I was young when email came out and spam was used. I wondered why anyone would want canned processed meat on their computer. 😂😂😂😂😎
Hahaha @ “rectally derived” – Mod R, did you pull that phrase out of your a… um, your brain?
Mod R, you alluded to English being your second language. You are extremely articulate with a way higher than average vocabulary in English. Your grammar and diction are amazing. I can only imagine your capabilities in your “first” language because your “voice” really comes through in English. Glad you’re feeling better. We miss your humor when you are gone.
My parents always used “gully-washer” to describe a heavy rainstorm. My sister thought it might have come from our English grandparents, at least until she asked someone from England who went “what?”
So I looked it up and it turned out to be South/Southwestern term that migrated to California. My parents probably picked it up when my dad was stationed in west Texas.
I have a tendency to geek out over names and their meanings, particularly since a naming convention nowadays is naming kids Ocean, River, Meadow and similar place names. I get a kick thinking that hundreds to thousands of years ago there were children named Bright Meadow(Shirley), Sunny Sea(Marisol) and Rock(Peter). Ever notice that names are either based on things/places or are based on virtues?
I once did a translation of my full set of names. It turns out I’m a river goddess, a divine marshall/general, and I came from the waters – and they’re derived from a whole set of different languages 😂 I’d love to claim it’s because I have such cosmopolitan families, but honestly, I think it’s just a completely random coincidence 😂
Mod R glad you’re better and didn’t hack off your ear! You would’ve been called Van Sasso!
Regarding English and its many funny misinterpretations, I thought “ Friends with Bennies” was said “ Friends of Benny’s” who is my nephew. Oh boy did we laugh when THAT was straightened out, bcse at the time he was only ten! 😂
My mom speaks several languages and very often messes up idioms;
“Is a bear Catholic?” Yes she’s also placed the Pope in the woods😆
And my favorite, “You can see the forest through the streets.”
My grandad used to do that type of thing, he spoke seven languages since his childhood and even though he stayed here in England from the 1940s right up to his death, he would mix up sayings from here, there and everywhere.
I like to think of it more as an expansion of vocabulary than a confusion 😉
I hear “Adulting” alot from those my age (early 40s) but I think that started from those in their 20s and social media; just starting their careers, moving out on their own ,etc. One I have always been curious about but never looked up is “cat got your tounge”.
Here is what I found.
“The origin of the phrase ‘has the cat got your tongue?’ isn’t known. What is certain is that it isn’t derived as a reference to the cat o’ nine tails or people’s tongues being fed to cats in ancient Egypt. Both of these have been suggested and there’s no shred of evidence to support either of them.”
Thanks!!
I recall being looked at funny when my daughters were kids and we were visiting some friends who actually had a yard. The kids were getting to be fairly rambunctious, so I told them to go kill each other outside.
My mother used to tell me and my siblings and whoever else was there to do that unless it was coming down in buckets or six inches deep snow and still coming down.
The worst that ever happened to me was face down in the manure pile (we had horses) a time or two.
First language was Friulian (“Furlan”) although when I have to state it for forms and such, I just use “Italian”.
Anyways, we kids ended up translating many phrases into English. Which is why, when someone is brain farting all over the place, they are not “losing their marbles” but “losing their chickens”.
Haha love these linguistic deep dives, and the Terry Pratchet reference! Hope you’re recovery is complete and you are back to full health
Glad you’re feeling better! Ear stuff is nasty. Like a toothache. Some kinds of pain are so much harder to ignore than others.
“Language is always evolving and endlessly fascinating.” I am in total agreement with that; I deem myself to be a ‘word nerd’, and though I’m neither educated nor expert in etymology, I’m fascinated by it. From the other side of the pond, we’re told we speak American, rather than English, and I’ll happily agree. Finishing my rambling onto another tangent, while some argue for the ‘Purity of the English Language’, a chap named James Nicoll had a more than slightly crude comment on the subject. I’ll merely put in a link.
https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/purity.html
And thus the phrase “rectally derived” made its way into colloquial speech 🤣
Hope you’re fully recovered soon 😊
Glad you’re on the mend, ModR.
I’m glad to hear you are better and not emulating Vincent.
Your article was a fascinating read and I love hearing how things originate.
Thank you,
Love a bit of unexpected Monty Python!
Interesting!
IMO, the 1840s “wins” with sweet summer child. It may have been popularized once more after GOT, but it originated and was popular in the Victorian era.
I must disagree about Debbie Downer. I vividly remember it being used during my high school years (in the early to mid 90s in a small town in Alabama) which is a good decade before 2004, so it was in use in my area before then, leading me to think 40s / 50s is probably more correct for its origin and popularity. (I think more likely 50s, but it’s more of a guess based on 50s words and phrases than actual knowledge.)
(OAN, American slang from the 40s is a lot of fun. I used to love watching movies from the 40s.)
I had always thought “Booyah!” was a 90s thing as I hadn’t heard it before then, but a few years ago, an older person told me it was from the 70s. I found a reference to a linguistics professor in the 80s at UCLA who asked her students to define the word so it definitely didn’t originate in the 90s. I read that the word originated in California, likely the LA area. “Booyah!” gained popularity nationwide in the 90s, mostly due to Stuart Scott (ESPN anchor) and 90s movies.
I suspect there’s a lot of phonetic confusion over the word Booyah. If you ever come up to Green Bay, Wisconsin, you’ll get the real story. It’s a stew! How to make it is a hotly contested debate. It’s delicious, but there’s no single right way to make it- it’s the official everything but the kitchen sink stew, and no two families make it the same.
The amorphous ‘They’ say it originated with the Belgium immigrants that came over to the Midwest sometime ago (think 1840’s). We have huge fundraisers where they literally make it in massive amounts (think 30 chickens to make up base- that is, if your version uses chicken…;). When we first moved up here, I’d see signs saying ‘Booyah! Next weekend!’, and thought it was some kind of armed forces thing. I got schooled eventually.
Turns out, phonetics and American perversity are important. Here’s how it was explained to me: Booyah is delicious stew. Oorah is something Marines say. Hoorah is Army, and Hooyah is Navy. No idea on the why’s and wherefores, but there you go. My uncle told me it’s been going on since WWII. They all sound so much alike! Hope this helps;)
No worries Jaye, I do have your comment logged as a reply to Carrie! 🙂
Best stew ever!! Have a friend in the Green Bay vicinity who made it for us the last time we visited.
Welcome back! So glad you’re on the mend. ❤️🩹
Your research was fascinating. I love learning the background of words and phrases.
This is not the same, but there are surveys online on “American accents” that use your pronunciation of words and phrases to determine where you are from in the US. This one specified the state I was from (and no longer live in).
https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/american-accent-quiz
Glad to hear you are feeling better. A fun read today. Thanks
late to the party, but more on wardrobe malfunction.
the infamous wardrobe malfunction is the reason live American television now has a few seconds delay.
In the world of sexism/racism, Justin Timberlake, ripper of clothes, was immediately forgiven and continued on his rise to superstardom. Janet Jackson was blamed and accused of manufacturing the wardrobe malfunction. despite being forced to repeatedly apologize her career did not recover.
We called my sister Debbie downer way back in the 70s. Because she was. Still is.
If you remember the wardrobe malfunction of the superbowl, you will probably like Lewis Black’s “Luther Burbank Performing Arts Center Blues” CD. His comedy about it was priceless
How about “troll” as someone baiting others on the internet? The origin of that was, probably, about 1987. In the early days of the internet, we had chat groups based on local colleges. At that time we said that someone acting as the above was “trolling” as in what one does in fishing when pulling bait along and hoping a fish would bite. Eventually this morphed into “troll”.
SPAM dates back to WW2, it was the ‘junk meats’ processed to be a nutritional source during food rationing. GIs called it junk, and did APPLY IT TO OTHER THINGS they thought were junk. My uncle who served in the Army in WW2 told me that, and used it thusly and had no exposure to monty python. So Python just took it further along that thoughtway.
Unbelievably cool!!
Glad you are better Mod R! Glad you kept your ear! Been there, I feel your pain au chocolat.
I recently made the mistake of asking two 15-year-old relatives to tell me all the current Gen Z slang (I’m Gen X). There were so many terms/new meanings it was like English but also a foreign language. I asked if they understood me, they said yes, I said great, we can still communicate with plain English. I also asked if I could still say “cool” and apparently the original meaning is still universal. Also yay still means you’re happy, for the most part.
They can pry “cool” out of my cold, dead Millennial lips 😀
Late to the party but apparently “new fangled” actually originates from old English…. I mentally had it pegged as Victorian
The Ugly American springs to mind. In the book by the title, the protagonist is a U.S. diplomat. Locals tell people who want help to go to the ugly American, describing his physical appearance. His co-worker is a good-looking, nasty sort.
People who never read the book assumed the ugly guy was the bad guy, and ugly American became a catch phrase for obnoxious behavior abroad.
Personally, I believe the latest term is using Karen as a derogatory label; is the worst of all. Since there are so many who were named Karen and grew up with it as “good” name, I am of the age where parents named daughters Karen after some very popular women.
My name is Debbie, and I remember being called Debbie Downer when teased at school in the 70s.