Borrowed Bones

Borrowed Words

• Sarah • Episode 5

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 Hello, everyone. 

How's it going? 

I'm Sarah, 

and I'm Cole. 

You're listening to borrowed words. 

What? 

A spin off of our regular podcast borrowed bones, we wanted to try something a little different, something kind of fun. 

We are going to dive into the etymology of words and phrases to better understand what they mean, where they come from, and the true backstory of it all. 

Yeah. 

This is something we often do with our friends when we're out, especially at the bar. When we've had a little bit to drink, we tend to challenge each other and be a little competitive. 

Yeah, I know. 

Whenever anyone, heaven forbid, says a phrase or a common terminology. 

Someone will always chirp from across the table and say, do you even know what you're saying? And we get into these, 

yeah, we tend to all [00:01:00] have a bit of one upsmanship about us, arcane trivia and specifically etymology and origins of kind of cliche phrases. And, you know, you think about them and what, what did that originally mean? 

 

Yeah, so I wanted to do it in a formal setting. 

Yeah. 

Hence, borrowed words. 

Now, I looked up some words and phrases that I was interested in or things that just crossed my mind and I looked up. The origin, background, the interesting stuff, just did a quick brief overview, nothing too in depth, Cole also has looked things up, and we did not share with each other what these words and phrases are. 

True. Yes. 

Yep. So my first one That I wanted to do is one word. Alright. It is a very simple word. Everyone uses it all the time. It's overused. The word is [00:02:00] nice. 

Nice. 

Yeah. 

Yeah, I don't even know what language that would have originated from. 

Yeah, and if you think about it, nice means Something kind of good, but it also has a negative connotation to it as well. 

It's non committal. It's what, you describe a person as nice when you have nothing else to say about them, but they're also not a bad person. You don't have a criticism either. 

It's 

It's literally like the minimum when you have nothing else to say and you can't even criticize 

so I wanted to see where it came from and why we use it so much and in A very nebulous way, either negatively or positively. 

It's, it's nebulous and like you said, like a watered down emotion. 

, today, nice means many different things. it could mean that she's nice, he's nice. Oh, that's nice. But if you change the tone a little bit, it could mean, Oh, yeah, that's nice. With like an eye roll and [00:03:00] a, you know, eyebrow lift. Sarcastic connotation. So it's easily both ways, and I just wanted to know, how did this simple word get such a dynamic meaning? 

Would you find out for us? 

I found out that even as early as the 1800s, people were already over it. It was already an overly used word. Like, I remember when I was in college, one of my professors, was very adamant about us not using the word nice. She said, write it down, because we were still writing my freshman year of college. 

She said, write it down, and every time you use the word nice, look up another word. There are better words. That's a 

meaningless adjective. Right. 

It says nothing. She would take points away. Yeah. If we used the word nice, because she said there's Anyway. Jane Austen Also felt the same way. In one of her books, the Northanger Abbey. 

I haven't read that one. 

I was wondering if you, I have not read that. I'm not much of a reader. I'm not a [00:04:00] Jane 

Austen fan. 

just, 

just. 

Fair enough. When Jane Austen even made fun of it in her book, Northanger Abbey, she has a character named Henry and Henry's making fun of these other characters for using the word nice. 

And he quote says, and this is a very nice day and we are taking a very nice walk. And you two are very nice young ladies. Oh, it is a very nice word indeed. It does for everything. . 

Wow. Getting a little saucy. Jane Austen . 

I love the way they wrote and spoke back then. So where did this word come from? 

What's the origin? It's Latin. 

Oh, Latin. Okay. 

And I did not look up the pronunciation of this because I suck at that. But the Latin word is Nessius. N. E. S. C. I. U. S. Nessie is 

something like that, right? 

Meaning unaware or ignorant. 

Oh, 

Right. [00:05:00] So the ignorant definition of Nessie is carried over to old French. When the old French language picked this word up, they also kept that negative ignorant, you know, unaware, stupid. They extended it though. They added more like clumsy, weak, poor, needy, foolish. it wasn't until the late 1300s that the word started to have a more pleasant nature to it. 

 

seems like it started, like its initial, or I should say the, when it takes on the more pleasant, complimentary association, that's almost satirical for the time. 

Maybe. I mean, that's kind of how I use it in a satirical way. Like, oh, that's nice. With an eye roll. Yeah. 

Okay. 

So it started to get a little bit more pleasant. 

It was still mainly negative though. But now it could also be used as dainty or delicate. 

Okay. 

In the [00:06:00] 1400s, they added definitions like precise, fussy, finely dressed. So we're starting to see the evolution here, dainty, delicate, fussy, that's a nice dress, like complementing clothing. And then it evolved even further in the 1700s. 

Agreeable, delightful, polite were added to the definition, but it just kept adding. The negative stuff never dropped, , it never changed, it just kept adding. And I feel like that's such the definition and personality of this word. The personality of Nice is just, okay, keep adding. It's all right. 

Yeah, just keep going. 

Like I said, that's what you say about someone when you have nothing else to describe them by. 

Yeah. I'm thinking of, um, In the Labyrinth with David Bowie, Sarah, when she's in it and has all the things on her back, just keeps adding to it from her room and when she's in like the pile of garbage. 

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, anyway, moving [00:07:00] on. 

 In the 1800s This is when nice evolved to what we see today adding the kind and the thoughtful side to like Oh, that was nice of them. That was sweet. That was nice All of that being used interchangeably and that's that's all I found for nice The evolution of language starting in Latin from the word Nessius, kind of weak, stupid, and then to today when it's all the things. Yeah. So yeah. 

All right. 

Do you have anything? 

Yes. I'm going to start off with a, with a phrase and, , I'm just kind of spitballing this. 

This is more from memory. , so here we go. first, I'm gonna ask you, you've probably heard this phrase, but what do you think it means? Pleased as punch. 

Pleased as punch? 

Yeah, it's a little old timey, but to say that someone is just pleased as punch. 

I don't know, are they smiling so [00:08:00] Bright their face turns red like punch 

Not a bad thought, but no it actually dates back quite a bit. 

Oh, 

all right. My face 

turns red for everything 

So punch is actually a person's name or a character's name. It's a proper noun Punch this would have date 1600s in England. 

It's still a phrase around But, this is its origin. So, England, 1600s, the Punch and Judy shows, the hand puppets, with the two, that'd be, you know, street vendors, kind of you've seen those in the, you know, movies, set back in the Like 

in the Santa Claus, 

when he goes to the North Pole, and they see him get 

undressed, ! 

 Yeah, exactly. There's usually, there's the 

man, Punch, and the woman, Judy, and they're usually having slapsticky, kind of comedic routines, and, Punch, again, the male, always was smugly, self satisfied by his antics, so [00:09:00] he'd be so pleased with himself. So the phrase came about of, oh, you're so, you are just pleased as punch, and you're sitting fat and sassy. 

So it's like someone who, kind of got, not one over you, but they It's like a gloating set. It's like a pleased as punch, you lean back a little, arms crossed, and everything went your way. Ah, that's annoying. 

Someone says they're pleased as punch, they're comparing themselves to the fictional hand puppet character. 

Nice. 

There we go.   

I looked up the word nightmare. 

Oh 

yeah. 

I Any thoughts? 

Yes. I know a mare was, the root word for M A R E in this context was, malevolent spirit in some folk, I believe, in like, I don't know if it was Scottish, Irish, English, Welsh, but somewhere in there, and they would visit you at night, and that was [00:10:00] believed to be the explanation for what we would now call sleep paralysis, 

The accounts of people seeing a presence in the room or on their chests, you know, back in medieval terminology, it was demons and phantoms and now it's aliens and ETs, but, 

Yeah, that's it. 

Oh, I nailed it. 

The end. 

Well, do you know the language Mayor started from what country 

all of the ones you've said. 

Oh, okay, 

that's all over the place They don't know exactly where it's Germanic. It's Irish. It's English. Yes Because of the sleep paralysis of it all that's just how people were dealing with it. All right. Well, what's, what do we do now? You want to go for another one or what? 

I do, I mean, I do have some things I could add to the nightmare. 

okay. 

Right. So, like you said, it was paralysis. It came from all over the place. It was, very widely known. 

[00:11:00] She was mainly a she, the mare. 

hmm. 

Was mainly a she, she was described as like a goblin in the beginning of the lores. And then as it evolved, she turned into more of a hag or a specter. But always with weight on you, and always the feeling of suffocation sitting on you, sitting on your chest. 

There's several like renaissance paintings I'm picturing, they're all like similar, of some figure sitting on a person's chest, and then like, 

yeah, and 

there's always like a, usually a white or pale horse peeking around. 

There's like several variations of it. One's even just called the nightmare, but it was like a common theme amongst artists of 

I did find that mare as in a female horse has nothing to do with any of it I know like you said some paintings will have a horse But that that's just because people heard the word mare and did that that's nothing to do with the lore of this mare this ghoulish Demon woman 

[00:12:00] convergent word evolution different words that evolved 

And night is just meaning night. 

That's that's all that is. 

I knocked man 

but as time went on people added to the lore saying that these mares that would sit on you They would give you visions that were not very pleasant And at the time they called them Um, 

I 

don't know how much research you've done on it, but the research I did was like, uncomfortably sexual, especially when they started talking about, yeah, the mayor rides and I just kind of. 

It was, it was weird with goblins and demons and horses and mares and 

harvest I mean look that continues with UFO alien abductions with why do they always the people who you know, they Claim the aliens had a focus on their genital regions Yeah that they probed them and there's always a sexual connotation in the alien abduction stories, too I [00:13:00] shouldn't say always but Most most of the time. 

Well, there were also ways to protect yourself from the nightmare. 

Don't fall asleep. 

Well, 

number one, 

maybe but they had other things like You could place your shoes at the, by the side of your bed and you would turn your laces toward the place where you were going to lie down. 

Oh, so it's just like OCD, kind of flip the light switch three times so you don't die. 

Okay. Sure. 

Yeah, I have no idea why that's a thing. I couldn't figure out why, but that was something. Or you could plug up any keyholes or knots, like in the wood, to keep the mare away. They could slip through those little crevices and not fun or you could get a friend to come and sit and wait for the mayor to appear and then capture it. 

Oh, 

I didn't know you could capture them. 

Yeah, 

or you could offer the mayor a gift when she does come you say hold [00:14:00] on I'll give you a gift and then she'll go sweet. I'm leaving now to give you time to get the gift I'll be back tomorrow to collect 

Okay. 

Yep. I don't get it Now, if you wake up to a mare sitting on you, you can try putting your thumb in your hand to get it to leave. 

And this is what really makes me think of sleep paralysis, because I think of, Is the character's name Nellie, in Haunting of Hill House? She is taught to like, wiggle her toes, or make a fist, or something like that. To start small. And that gets her out of her sleep paralysis? I think that this was the 

Origin of that? 

Origin of that. People knew that this was a connection to do something little, and then 

Start with your fingers and toes. They figured it out, yeah. I'm going to start small. Right. 

So yes, you nailed it, but I had a few things to add. 

Yes, I learned more than I knew [00:15:00] ahead of time. 

Always bettering each other.      

Okay. Do you have any for me? 

Yeah, I got a little idiom or proverb, another saying. 

Alright. 

Everyone's heard it, but everyone is saying it wrong. 

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Meaning you can't have it both ways. You know, everyone knows what that means, right? 

You can't have your cake and eat it, too. Yeah, right. 

But I always thought that it made much more sense, like, dramatically, to say you can't eat your cake and have it, too. Even as a kid, I was like, what is it? 

It doesn't make sense that you would 

. 

It would make more sense to say you can't eat it, meaning you've essentially destroyed it, and then still have it. 

which way would you like to say it? 

You can't eat your cake and have it too. That one makes more sense, and it turns out that was the original version of the phrase. 

Right. 

dating back to the 1500s, 

you know, I knew that [00:16:00] was it because I, okay, this is a confession. I would say it the way that the most people do, I guess. I would say it that way until What movie came out, a while ago. Is it the Zodiac? 

No, the Unabomber. It was a The Unabomber. It was a mini series. 

Mini series, yes. Manhunt with, Paul Bettany. All these 

guys just blend in. Anyway. Yeah. But yeah, in his letter, or in his note, or Manifesto. Manifesto, his written words. Yeah. He He wrote that in and that's what made them recognize who he was or know that yeah that he was different And I remember thinking well, he said it wrong and then but he said it correctly. 

When did that miniseries come out? 

Pre covid so 2018 

I was really hoping to be earlier than that because I was really saying this phrase for quite a while that way. 

Yeah, cuz Kaczynski wrote The original proper way of you can't [00:17:00] eat your cake and have it too. Yes, he's talking about how we as a society can have unlimited technology and expect to not destroy ourselves with it. 

What? What is AI? 

Yeah. 

So the proper term or phrase is proper, you can not or no, 

you can't eat your cake and have it 

you cannot eat your cake and have it too. So you cannot eat it first and then Have it just outside of your stomach, sitting, undigested. 

But apparently since the night But the 

other way around Sorry, I need to walk myself through this. 

The other way around, the way that everyone says it is I will have my cake and eat it too. 

You can't have your cake. Oh, you can't. Yeah. 

Listen, I just want the cake. They keep 

the you can't part. Yeah. You 

can't have your cake and eat it too. When really you can. If you're holding your cake, you can eat it. 

 

well, if I got the cake, what else am I supposed to do but eat it? It's probably one of those things. So it's always made more sense to be like, yeah. Apparently around the 1930s or 40s, it just [00:18:00] switched through someone somewhere said it wrong once. It caught on and it just it flows nicer. 

It sounds better in the mouth like a good mouth 

feel the organic meme Like how you know in its original context of what a meme meant of spreading through a culture That's how it started means 

we're around before the internet. 

Yeah, I think Christopher Hitchens was the one who coined the term meaning just like how Cultural belief or tradition gets passed and spread amongst the people. 

Nothing ever changes. 

It didn't originally meme just meme, huh? Didn't originally mean just funny blips on Instagram and shit. 

 Yeah. Is that it for have your cake and eat it too? Wait, you can't eat your cake and have it too. Yeah. Gosh, I'm never going to say it right. 

Kaczynski kind of getting [00:19:00] caught, his hero the proper way, the FBI, I think it was the FBI was looking into it, recognized one agent. 

Recognized it's, that it stood out, and then, through Kaczynski's brother, he was able to make, the argument legally that his idiolect was so unique that he could, it was like a fingerprint, so he was able to get a warrant for his, little cabin in Montana. 

Yes. Words matter. 

Mm hmm. And your phrasing and everyone's style of speaking and writing. 

Wonderful. 

Mm hmm. 

I have a phrase. 

Okay. 

I really like this phrase. Well, I like the origin of it. It's cute. Well, it involves animals. So the phrase, you let the cat out of the bag. 

Do you know what that phrase is? What that's talking about when someone says that to you. 

Yeah, you don't spill a secret. Yeah, tell something you're not supposed to 

yeah Usually it's [00:20:00] by accident you you know mistakenly will say something like oh, yeah your party this Saturday Oops, it's supposed to be a surprise. 

I guess I let the cat out of the bag Yes, so a A secret was exposed accidentally by mistake or on purpose, but really by mistake. Now when I looked into this, I found there were two theories for this one. And do you have any guesses before I continue of where this originates at all? 

No. 

No? Okay. You never thought about it? Nah. Well, one of the theories, the first one I'm going to talk about is the one that Even though everyone seems to write about it and acknowledge it, every website and source that I looked at, Said that this is a theory, but we don't think it's the right theory. 

 

Multiple possible origins. 

Yeah. So the first theory is from the [00:21:00] seas, from the time of people working and living on ships and doing all that. So the crewmen, the crew members, if they were doing something wrong, misbehaved, they would have to deal with. 

the cat. Oh, nine tails. Oh, so cat of nine tails. And that was like, from what I could gather like a rope or a cord whip 

with three. 

Yeah, yeah. So well, right. 

So the main cord would have three other slits yeah sprouts That's a good one to say would have three sprouts and then as someone was being whipped The more times that they got hit though those three sprouts would then sprout three more so it eventually became nine like ropes or cords hitting you at once and The men also said that the scarring or the scratches from the Cat O Nine Tails looked like cat scratches. 

[00:22:00] So that's why they gave it the lovely nickname of Cat O Nine Tails. However, there's nothing that connects it to a secret. Yeah, or like a gotcha kind of moment Even though the cat of nine tails was a real punishment. It did exist. It was really there 

unlike the iron maiden 

Yeah, the iron maiden's not really all but anyway, the cat of nine tails was real, but it just wasn't connected to You let the cat out of the bag. 

The theory that is the most widely Accepted for you. Let the cat out of the bag is to do with pigs or little piglets. 

Okay. 

Yeah, it's very cute. Well, kind of. I just want a piglet. I looked at pictures of piglets when I ran into this, so I want a piglet, but this isn't very cute story. They don't stay 

piglets. 

I know. I know. It's not a very cute story, but I just like piglets. Like 

babies don't stay babies. 

Exactly. So back in [00:23:00] medieval England People would go to the market to get the items they needed, they'd go shopping, they would also buy their livestock there. 

Everything was at the market. 

The plague and the dysentery. Yes. Get all that. Get it 

all, baby! It was very common to buy a piglet at one of these markets to take home and raise into a nice big fat pig for the family. Now, if a person purchased a piglet, the merchant or the seller would hand you a bag, or it was also known as a poke. 

 

Yeah, 

if you've ever heard of pig in a poke, it's a pig in a bag. 

I've never heard that, but I knew poke is used as like a satchel or a bag. Yep, 

so same thing. you'd be handed a pig in a poke or in a bag, and if you did not look inside the bag before purchasing, you might have accidentally purchased a cat instead. 

Oh, so you were scammed? 

You were scammed. A good old bait and switch. 

Just eat the cat. 

Well, the sneaky sellers would I don't want to eat a cat. I [00:24:00] tried to move on from that one. I can't. They would slip cats or kittens into the bag. Um, just I think they must have been cheaper or easier. 

You know, just stray cats. And if the buyer did slow down for a second, have the wherewithal to open the bag before finalizing the purchase, then the cat would most likely jump out of the bag. And then the customer would be very upset and 

the cat's out of the 

bag. Now the secrets expose, I know what's going on. 

So that is Cat out of the bag. 

Oh. 

Mm 

hmm. Don't let the cat out of the bag. 

Yeah, don't let the cat out of the bag. Or let the cat out of the bag. I don't know. Seem to help them people a little bit, but yeah. 

Cats in the bag and the bags in the river. 

Yeah. Yeah, so do you have any more for me? Are y'all tapped out? 

I am tapped out. I did not prepare as much as you did. That's 

okay. . I have one more phrase, , that I did look into, and this phrase is, [00:25:00] It'll cost an arm and a leg. 

Alrighty. 

I didn't know where this came from. Do you have any idea of the time frame that this phrase was said about? 

I have no idea. Yeah, 

I didn't know either. Well, if you've never heard the phrase, it'll cost an arm and a leg. This is referring to needing to buy something with a large amount of money and, you know, more than It's expensive. Very, very expensive. It's gonna cost me an arm and a leg. 

You're giving up part of your body. 

Yeah. 

Which you can do. You can actually sell your body now that we're in that state. I mean, you've been able to do it for a while now, but yeah. If you ever need more money in America, go sell your body. Oh, 

like body parts. Yeah. 

Yeah, it's a booming industry now. 

Alright. 

That's what we'll be living. 

. 

Now, It is widely thought that Tacostin Arm and a Leg meant that portrait painters back in the day would charge more if you wanted your arms and legs in the picture. 

Versus just a [00:26:00] shoulder up shot like a headshot. 

Gotcha. So 

you you would literally pay for an extra limb of your body to be in there. 

Okay. 

This is not true. Portrait painters at the time 

Didn't sound true. Right. I got the logic of it, but like it just didn't. 

It's not true. 

Portrait painters, they would charge more for larger portraits in general. So if you do want a full body portrait, life size, that is going to cost more than a non life size portrait, but they didn't charge per arm, per leg. It was just the size of the canvas, much like they do today, I'm guessing. The phrase was actually coined in America during World War II. 

I didn't realize it was that recent. Oh, really? World 

War II, not the Civil War? 

Nope. World War II. Exactly. And I thought that too. I thought, oh, war makes sense. Civil War, 

you know, amputations on the battlefield, that kind of thing. No, 

World War II. During this time in World War II. Many soldiers were written about in the [00:27:00] papers and their stories usually involved losing an arm or a leg So I wonder if there were more papers around at that time and more people were illiterate at that time Oh, yeah, the Civil War and more people could afford the paper in general So I think maybe more people how many times can I say more people how many more people? 

Saw it And we're like, holy shit, people are losing arms and legs. That's the only thing I can think of as to why it wouldn't happen in the Civil War. Yeah. Right. So people thought this is the price the soldiers had to pay. They had to pay with an arm and a leg. Now, this phrase most likely came from a few other phrases that were floating around at the time, that were around in like the later 1800s. 

There's one phrase that says, I would give my right arm, like, oh, I'd give , my right arm for that. another phrase is even if it takes my leg, 

you know, 

so people have always kind of for a while [00:28:00] compared their body parts to money, especially in America. And I found this interesting. This stumbled across my little eyeballs. 

The French have a similar saying to cost an arm and leg. They have one that says it costs the eyes from my head. 

Oh, okay. 

It costs the eyes from my head. Regional variations. I like that one. All right. And that's it for me. I'm all tapped out now. All right. So thank you guys 

we appreciate it. And as always, you can follow us on Blue Sky, Borrowed Bones or Borrowed Bones podcast. You can also follow me on my personal Blue Sky account, Daughter of Marauders. I've seen a couple new followers, so I hope I see more. Thank you. Bye. Bye. 

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