Borrowed Bones

Borrowed Words 3

• Sarah Sexton • Episode 20

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Ever wonder why we say “graveyard shift” or “trick or treat”? Listen as we unravel the eerie origins of words and phrases we say every spooky season.


Sources:

Wordsmarts.com, Graveyard Shift, BetterWordsOnline.com, MentalFloss.com, Phrases.com, WordOrigins.com, LoveToKnow.com, TheExplain.com, UncoverWords.com, Etymonline.com, MerriamWebster.com, History.com

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey everyone.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm Sarah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I'm Cole.

SPEAKER_00:

And you're listening to Borrowed Bones. Today we're doing a borrowed words episode.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, good. It's been a while.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. Yep. I needed a little break. We just finished that three-part series on the Grimms.

SPEAKER_02:

I wasn't in those ones.

SPEAKER_00:

No.

SPEAKER_02:

I had a guest replace me for a while.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was fun doing it with Samantha. Yeah. Yeah. She seemed to enjoy it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Your laughter would always harmonize and it freaked me out a little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Oh my God. Editing that was the word. I hated it so much. It was so yeah, unnerving. It kind of felt unnerving the way we sync up like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And the same lilt and cadence to your laughs.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. I can't really unhear that ever again, but uh, whatever. It is what it is.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But yes, today I just wanted a little break, do a borrowed words, and I thought it'd be fun since we are officially in October to do a theme with this one. It's a Halloween spooky theme for our words and phrases that we are going to dive into today.

SPEAKER_02:

Cool. It's my favorite time of year.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. For anyone who's not listened to one of these, this is only our third one. And I do just a quick research, a little more casual. And Cole doesn't know what I have written down or what I've researched.

SPEAKER_02:

I have no idea what words or phrases she's selected.

SPEAKER_00:

So just to get started, Cole, I have the phrase graveyard shift.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. And now okay, and I'm supposed to try to speculate on why I think the etymology or the origin of this phrase is.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. So first let's talk about what graveyard shift means.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So we know it means to work all night.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, to work third shift usually through the night.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, midnight to morning, dusk till dawn. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

And I assume that it comes from semit well, I shouldn't say cemetery, but graveyard caretakers, those who tended graveyards for churches overnight. Or, you know, just general cemetery workers.

SPEAKER_00:

One might say a sexton.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. There you go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So why are they you said they're watching it overnight?

SPEAKER_02:

Watch watching it overnight or just doing general work there. Because there's a lot like I would assume in the olden days a lot of the digging and whatnot would happen at night.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, oh, to keep out of the sight of the day of the the proper people.

SPEAKER_02:

It just kind of makes it more offensive if there's people just digging future holes in the light of day. So I could see it being more of a nocturnal activity to Yeah. Yeah. So Yes. Am I right or wrong?

SPEAKER_00:

Or someone's You are among the masses, but you are incorrect.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So I also thought that. The thought is with that theory is that the sextons or the workers of the graveyard are watching over to make sure that no one is alive.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh.

SPEAKER_00:

You right? Ringing the bell and having to dig them up like from way back in the day when people were prematurely buried.

SPEAKER_02:

I thought it was more to deter grave robbers who were in the world. Well, all of it.

SPEAKER_00:

And that was a part of it, but it's wrong.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Either way, it's wrong. I thought all of the same things, you know, because there's a lot to do with graveyards and a lot that happens at night in graveyards. But there's just nothing connecting to that. Maybe verbally that happened, but there's just nothing, there's just no evidence of that being the case. Now, in the late 1800s, this is when we start seeing this in print for the first time and having it used somewhat regularly. In the late 1800s, there were a lot of coal mines. A lot of mining needed to be done. And in order to mine down under the ground, you can't see anything, so you need to have lighting.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Electricity at this time in the late 1800s is expensive.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. So it's very expensive, and obviously you put a lot of money into that. So most businesses or all other businesses and places at this time did not work at night because it wasn't cost effective. Didn't make sense. Mining, however, have to have those lights anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So the theory is that they're the first 24-hour business.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. That makes sense. Because they did the little caps with the candles mounted in the front and other things. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00:

I didn't look up what the lighting was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And they had they would, as they were digging, they'd put candles cloud. But yeah. So they already got by without electric light, artificial light. So that would make sense.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. Or they would have artificial light as well. Yeah. Because it was cost effective for them to do it because they would use it all the time. That's what I read. But also the candles, too. I'm sure a mix of both.

SPEAKER_02:

And it was called the graveyard shift because working in the mine was like working in a grave, working on the ground.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. I don't I couldn't find exactly why specifically it was said graveyard, because again, I found that there was no evidence of it being related to the graveyard. The only thing I found were references like you said, like it's as quiet as the dead, it's still, it's, you know, people referenced it like working at night, felt like you were working alone, working amongst the dead, spookier, but there's no direct relation to graveyard that I found. The first recorded phrase of working the graveyard shift was on August 9th, 1884. It appeared in the mining record, which was a magazine or a journal.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And it was this was in reference to an Arizona mine. And it said, On Monday afternoon, the superintendent received a telegram directing him to resume operations in the mine. And at 6 p.m., the graveyard shift went below. While the whistle sounded long and loud, he keeps on going on, but that's it. The graveyard shift went below.

SPEAKER_02:

That was 1884.

SPEAKER_00:

1884. Okay. And then there's a definition of graveyard shift that appears in a Colorado court like records from 1894.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. So it originated in the Southwest, seemingly. Colorado and Arizona.

SPEAKER_00:

I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. Said that several shifts were at work, and a man named William Sharp and his companions were employed on what is well termed among the miners, the graveyard shift from midnight on to the morning. So this was the definition that was given in the Colorado court records. And then in 1897, an article in the Salt Lake Tribune has a quote saying, The police changed shifts for the month yesterday. This month, Sergeant Ware takes the morning relief, Sergeant Rhodes, the middle, and Sergeant John, the graveyard shift. So it's just already used regularly.

SPEAKER_02:

But it's all all the initial accounts are in the Southwest, which there are and were a lot of mines.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

In the Southwest. I mean that's one of the main things that brought people there.

SPEAKER_00:

There had to have been some connection with being in the mines in the ground and having it feel like they're digging their graves or that they're working in graves.

SPEAKER_02:

There had to have been that joke. They did die frequently from mishaps and black lung and whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I couldn't find any evidence or written works of it referencing that, but they're just it had to be a reference.

SPEAKER_02:

There were also phrases to I'm going to get a little tangential, but bear with me. But like mind speculating, because everyone was wanted to, you know, strike it rich and then would head west to Arizona, New Mexico, whatever, to looking for silver mines, you know, to strike it rich. And there were people who mocked them and said, you know, you're only the only thing you're going to dig out there is your grave.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02:

So maybe there's some connection there. Like the tombstone, Arizona, again Arizona.

SPEAKER_00:

Main tombstone.

SPEAKER_02:

Because the guy who founded it was a silver miner and he struck silver.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And before he left, people who mocked him said the only thing you're going to find out there is your tombstone. So when he did strike it rich, he ironically named the town Tombstone. That's funny. Yeah. So there's a connection just because it's from the same region at like the same time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I think there has to be some connection there. I do. Because that's the big I could really find it within the mining world in the late 1800s, and then that's all the same area. Yeah. Yeah. So that's it for the graveyard shift.

SPEAKER_02:

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. The next phrase I have hit me. Is skeleton in the closet or skeletons in the closet.

SPEAKER_02:

Meaning uh you have uh dirty secrets that you don't want people to know about. Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. It can be in reference to you yourself alone or oftentimes with a family. The family's got skeletons in the closet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Got some dirty history. Yeah. More often, like you said, associated with a family or a group than an individual. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Any guesses on the origin?

SPEAKER_02:

Give me a second here. Why would I mean I in a literal sense, I'm assuming it started with something literal. Why would somebody have I mean there's obviously the the grave robbing if you want to get literal, but I don't think it's that.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Um having a relative die and you don't report them as dead and you stash them to maybe collect social security benefits or something, but I think that's fairly recent. I mean, obviously social security is fairly recent. That's just my That's not it. Okay. I don't know. I don't know then. Hit me.

SPEAKER_00:

Um well you were closer with the first two things you were saying.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

One of the theories is that like women, if they, you know, not just women, but families, married couples, whoever, when they had a baby, and if the baby died young, like as an infant, they would maybe bury them in the walls.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know why that was a normal thing. I don't know if it was normal.

SPEAKER_02:

Wall burials before.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like wall burials of like infants.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um another is the grave robbing. Both of them don't seem to be connected to skeletons in the closet, though. Um, the biggest theor or the biggest misconception is the grave robbing, because you know, in the 1800s, there were a lot of people that would sell bodies to doctors and pre-med students and all of that so they could study on you know what they were they were called? I what is it? I can't think of it.

SPEAKER_02:

Resurrection men, these grave robbers that would, you know, sell body parts to cadavers for med school.

SPEAKER_00:

And the local authorities, like the law kind of made it easy to happen. They didn't really track down the like if a doctor had a dead body, he didn't really ask questions.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

The authorities wouldn't. Anyway, we're sidetracking.

SPEAKER_03:

That has nothing to do with skeleton in the closet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So skeleton in the closet, it was coined in England in the 19th century.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And I was a little confused at this at first because in England, closet, is it water closet, like the toilet? And no. So it was first used in England. Yeah, I was confused. I was like, this doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_02:

What is skeletons in the loo?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. But I guess back in the day, England did say closet the way we did. I have no clue if that's true, but according to this phrase, I'm extrapolating from this. Um, the phrase was original, it did say closet, meaning like a closet in America or a cupboard in England. Okay. And then as time went on, England now says water closet, meaning toilet, but they don't say skeleton in the closet anymore. They say skeleton in the cupboard.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00:

So their phrase changed a little bit. Yeah, but stayed the same because closet is still closet.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know if anyone else was going to get sidetracked by that, but I went down a 30-minute rabbit hole with that.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

All right. Skeleton in a closet alludes to, like we said, a person or a family having a guilty secret waiting to be uncovered. And the thought is that the imagery of a closet or a cupboard being nearby, you know, you pass by a closet or a cupboard all the time. And you just, and all it takes is one person to open that door to discover it, but it's kind of hidden in plain sight.

SPEAKER_01:

It's mundane.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

It's banal.

SPEAKER_00:

Now, what isn't clear is whether the origin is like real or if it's more just fiction. I'm leaning on more not fiction, but just um metaphorical. Metaphorical. It was always metaphorical. Yeah, I don't think it really ever was literal. I don't think there was a person that this was based off of or some tradition or killer in the 1800s that stashed all those victims' bones. One theory points to Bluebeard.

SPEAKER_02:

I was just gonna say Bluebeard.

SPEAKER_00:

The French fable?

SPEAKER_02:

The the yeah, the opposite of a black widow that the the guy, the husband that kills a serial wife killer.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, okay, so Bluebeard, yes, yeah, is a French fable featured in Charles Peral's famous collection of fairy tales in 1697. But I do have to say something, the Grimms are better collectors.

SPEAKER_01:

Shameless plug.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I know. No, no, no. I just the Grimms aren't the only ones that collected fairy tales. There were a lot of people doing the time, blah, blah, blah, whatever. He was fine. Anyway, Cinderella, yay. Uh, France. But um Cinderella's from anyway, yes, sidetrack. So the French fable, Bluebeard. And do you want to tell us or do you want me to tell you? Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

I just saw the broad strokes that like because I know it's still the phrase is kind of still used today, it's to refer to like just a husband that kills his wife will be called like a bluebeard. Oh, that kills her husband will be called like a black widow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, okay. I never thought of that. Or I never heard that be used in that way.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's not I mean that comment anymore, but back in like the 50s and 60s when men were killing women. Or well, when when journalism was more was using more colorful terminology.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, a little more flowery, a little punchier. Yeah, the bluebeard.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, local bluebeard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But we kinda don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm gonna bring it back.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, bring it back. Bring it back. Yeah. But they don't do it like regularly. Yeah, and I think Bluebeard is anyway. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

In the story, Bluebeard, he is the wealthy man who forbids his wife from entering a specific room in their castle. And then one day she disobeys to find the room filled with corpses of his previous wives. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. I didn't read the whole story. I just did a quick little Yeah. I knew there was a discovery of Yeah, she discovers all of the skeletons.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So the thought, I think it's probably sprung from this, and then people took it from there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's yeah. I honestly was thinking Bluebeard right before you said it.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a lecture in the year 1815 by Joseph Adams. He mentions people's impulse to conceal the skeleton in the closet. And he's referencing the skeleton as being family history of uh hereditary disease illnesses. And there's a lot of references to that as well. Like people fearing the skeletons in their closet being family history trauma diseases. I'm not sure why.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, if they understood genetics at the time, it would make more sense, but obviously they didn't, in the sense that like the skeleton is going to be an ancestor, and maybe you know, if they had a genetic disorder, it'll be still living in the kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Like the family curse kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So the phrase was first used in the early 1800s in the UK monthly periodical, the eclectic review. It says two great sources of distress are the danger of contagion and the apprehension of hereditary diseases. The dread of being the cause of misery. So basically, it's just very flowery in saying we're scared of hereditary diseases. And it says that men need to conceal the skeleton in the closet. And that's what this review said in 1816. And then there's this author, William Thackeray. Do you know his name?

SPEAKER_02:

I've heard it's named by hand. Thackeray. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know if he's popular or not, but I don't know him.

SPEAKER_02:

I've heard the name, but I can't think of anything he's written.

SPEAKER_00:

William Thackeray, he further popularized the phrase in 1845 when writing in Punch magazine. He wrote, There is a skeleton in every house. And then he went even further because he's a Victorian author. He went even further and wrote the Newcombs, which is a family name, like someone's family name, like the Newcombs, memoirs of a most respectable family. He wrote that in 1854, 1855. And in it he says, some particulars regarding the Newcomb family, which will show us that they have a skeleton or two in their closets, as well as their neighbors. The phrase caught on during the Victorian era. I mean, just think of the Victorian era. They're very into death, very into the macabre, and they always have this veneer and this shiny, glowy, front-facing look to them, this aesthetic. And they're not allowed to show anything underneath that's bad. So the thought is that this phrase got really big when Victorian era came about because they were so intrigued by hiding, because they had to hide everything so much. Even when they mourned, they hid so much. Like you couldn't have emotion, you had to dress certain ways for certain times. Yeah, everything is suppressed. So the thought is that this is why it's becoming a phrase so much now. We have Bluebeard, which was written in 1697, and then it's not until the mid to late 1800s that it really becomes a thing. I just think it had to wait for the Victorian era to really catch on.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's used a little more lightly now, though. It's not so intense, like way back in the day, skeletons in the closet meant like exposing something major. You're really toppling things. You've ruined everything. Now, today it's just used for big stuff, little things, all the things, even referencing coming out of the closet. That comes from this skeletons in the closet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So I thought that was interesting to see how skeletons into the light of day.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yep. Dragon the skeletons into the light of day. Yes. But yeah, I thought that was an interesting one. The bluebeard thing was surprising. I didn't even think of that. I don't know the story of Bluebeard very well, but I thought that was interesting that it came from most likely a fairy tale. Yeah. This one I found is just the word haunt or to haunt or haunting haunt.

SPEAKER_02:

Um I don't believe it starts necessarily or has its origins with ghosts. I would just think it means to occupy, to be to be to be at, to occupy, to be present at. You haunt. I mean you don't have to be a ghost to haunt in the classical sense of the the word.

SPEAKER_00:

Like Yeah. Yeah. You're almost there. Yes. Ish. So the word haunt it can be traced back to the old French word haunter. I don't know how to pronounce it in the accent. Which means to or meant to frequent or to visit regularly. Okay. So repetitively you're going back and forth back and forth. Haunt also traces back to old Norse um hemp, meaning to bring home. And over time, the word haunt sort of evolved into something more intangible, like the haunt of bringing home, the ghost coming home.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But it doesn't really mean just to visit or frequent. You have to have this emotional pull or connection to it. So like your favorite haunts. You like them because you're nostalgic about them. They they bring you good feelings, good memories, good thoughts, or like, oh, that's my old haunt back in the day. Maybe you don't like that place. Maybe I don't want to go there.

SPEAKER_02:

It's more personal. Yeah. Like that's an old site. Yes. That's an old spot.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, one of my haunts.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

unknown:

Over.

SPEAKER_02:

Sort of my hangouts. Yeah. Kind of like I guess hangouts more is more just like fun.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

But I mean, today, like it's more modern than modern equivalent.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Over time, haunt came to describe more disconcerting or unsettling. Like over time, Haunt had more of a unsettling insidious quality. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

More like thoughts or memories reoccurring that you don't want to keep happening. You're haunted by things. An old adage is he who has a haunted heart has a troubled mind. And that kind of hints at how being plagued by memories can disturb one's peace, showing that haunt has like been a long metaphor for emotional unrest. Haunted by my thoughts. No one's thinking of happy thoughts when you say I'm haunted by my thoughts.

SPEAKER_02:

Haunted by pleasant memories. Yes. You just experience you relish and whatever you experience pleasant. Yeah, you're haunted by bad memories. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm threatening you if I'm saying I'll haunt you once I'm dead. Like that's a threat. And then as time went on, it's the thought that this lingering nature of the memories and the thoughts, that's what led to the word being used in reference to ghosts haunting places. Because the word ghost I did read was first. So like the ghost is haunting. So again, going back to the Norse definition of returning home, repeating it. And I think those two together, and you know, the thought that ghosts repeat the same thing over and over again, or they're caught in the same memory, the same loop. That's a theory too about ghosts. There's certain energies are caught in the same loop over and over again. So haunt, I think, just naturally got sucked into that ghostly world, that ghostly realm. It just seems to match very easily.

SPEAKER_02:

And then I think from haunt, you eventually get haint, where that's just the ghost or the entity itself becomes like the noun, like a ghost. Oh yeah. And then it just becomes it is a hint, which is like a I don't know the etymology, it's an Americanism.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, I believe. But uh so haint is H A I N T.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you just replace the U with an I. And that's a ghost. And that's the a ghost or an entity or something. Right, okay. Something in the supernatural.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll have to look up that one. Well shoot. I should have looked that one up, but I'm I don't have my phone on me or anything here. So oh well. Sorry, listeners, look it up yourself.

SPEAKER_02:

Look up yourself, you're on the internet.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks. All right. And the next one, it's my last one. I just wanted to do a quick one today because you're now not feeling well and I'm getting over my sickness. So this one was supposed to be nice and quick and light.

SPEAKER_02:

It is so far. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. The last one is the phrase trick or treat.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. The actual phrase. Okay, I don't know the error. I mean, obviously, I know the whole Halloween goes back to the Celts and the Foods.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm not doing a whole Halloween history. We know I'm not asking what is trick-or-treating. I'm asking the words trick or treat. Oh, because we know trick-or-treating is a Halloween thing. And you go out on Halloween and you go house to house and you yell trick-or-treat, and then you get a treat from the person at the door.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I guess we should say this to our international audience.

SPEAKER_00:

It's pretty well known by now, I'm sure, but just I like to stay within the format that I'm in. I I I needed this for me. And for anyone who might not know, but I I needed this for me. So yes, the words trick or treat, why do we say those words?

SPEAKER_02:

Um I think I I I'm gonna speculate here. Um, because I know like American the American version of the trick-or-treating holiday kind of started in in Kansas in like the 19 early 1900s. The one woman kept getting Right, right. Yes, kept getting vandalized by like kids.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, there was a woman, yes. And she like organized like every Halloween her garden would get turned upside down and vandalized by hoodlums, kids running amok on Halloween night.

SPEAKER_02:

She was like, we gotta give these kids something to do with it.

SPEAKER_00:

She started like a party basically and was like, give them goodies.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And so I would guess it would start around there with the it meaning like it's kind of a you know tongue-in-cheek threat. Give us a treat, or we'll do a trick to you. Like we'll we'll play a prank on you kind of thing. Like it's kind of a yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what I thought as well, but the phrase trick or treat didn't come about that early on. It was a lot later. Yeah, people were going the kids, what we said is true. They did the act of trick or treating. They did the act of going through, but I don't know what they would say if they said anything at all, or if they just knocked and need to say anything. Right. So before saying trick or treat, people were still going house to house. They would ask for treats, food, whatever, and this was during Sawin or Sowen.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. At least you didn't say Sam Hain.

SPEAKER_00:

No, I did not.

SPEAKER_02:

Dower.

SPEAKER_00:

But yeah. Um sowen is a festival, festivities during like ancient Celtic times. And this is what laid the foundation for trick-or-treating for the thing. And then this woman, yeah, as we talked about, did her whole like, let's give them something fun to do and have them go house to house and look for things. Yeah. But how did we get the sing songgy trick or treat? How did people start saying, You're chewing?

SPEAKER_02:

Sorry, I have a throat loss and sh and it would be picked up. I thought I would hear that.

SPEAKER_00:

You chewed, you didn't move your mouth at all. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, my mouth is closed.

SPEAKER_00:

Anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

Um well the candy companies. Is it an advertising gimmick?

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, no. I'll tell you. You're never gonna guess this. Let me tell you, okay. Okay. It started with souling. S-O-U-L-I-N-G. Okay. So this became a thing in medieval Europe. Is it's lasted longer, but this is the beginning of it. People would walk door to door and they would offer prayers for people's souls that were stuck in purgatory. Oh. And in return, the dead's relatives, the people in the house, would give these prayers or these soulers, so I don't know if they're called that, but I'm calling them that. Give these soulers soul cakes or goodies treats, but fun to call everything a soul cake. This was a Catholic practice done on All Souls Day, which is November 2nd of every year. And this was pretty common even into the 1800s to do something like this. So that's how they think trick or treat started to come about, mixed with adults saying, Hey, have a treat instead of doing tricks. Like it is kind of a threat. Yeah. It is, like it truly is. But I still couldn't figure out why the words trick-or-treat were a thing. Because I was like, why are we like, how did we get there? And I couldn't really find a good answer for it. It is something that just kind of happened. But like we said earlier, it's an ultimatum for the children who again are typically running around, ruining people's gardens, ruining people's houses, like just vandalizing everything.

SPEAKER_02:

Halloween in like 19 teens was like it was rough.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah, it was really, really rough.

SPEAKER_02:

It was bad, apparently. But it was bad because we organized a whole holiday to stop teen ruffians.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And I still couldn't find exactly why trick-or-treat. I can only think it was a quick phrase to say mixed with the souling, mixed with the door-to-door, all these things blending together over time. Now, in the early 20th century, so we're looking at 1928 here, the first American newspaper that printed the phrase was a Michigan newspaper.

SPEAKER_03:

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00:

And well, the newspaper was the Bay City Times. No way. November 1st, 1928, baby. Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_02:

This is the first recorded use in American.

SPEAKER_00:

It was first used in like other in Canada. I think I don't know if they were the very first ones, but they might have been the second or first ones. No, I've got the newspaper. Article right up here. I'm gonna read straight from the Bay City Times 1928, November 1st, article.

SPEAKER_02:

Is there a writer credited? Not that I would I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

I didn't look that hard, but I maybe at the beginning of the paper, but I only have this one clip, so I don't know. All right. So I'm reading this, I'm reading this little article from a 1928 Bay City.

SPEAKER_02:

97 years ago.

SPEAKER_00:

So for anyone who's just catch filling in right now and doesn't know us from other episodes, I guess. This is Cole's job. This is who he works for right now.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Like this is wild for us. And I did not even intend to figure this out or find this.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm gonna have an interesting factoid to tell my coworkers tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00:

I already told everyone.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh.

SPEAKER_00:

While you were at court. Sorry. Oh shit. Yep, they already know. One coworker might do an article on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Goddamn Joey.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So anyway, the article is titled Tricks or Treats. Question mark. So it's plural. Okay. Tricks or treats. Question mark. What is this? And here we go. Quoting. The black hand gang itself, that's capitalized. So there must have been a black hand gang in Bay City.

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe there's I want to figure it out. Yeah, I guess so.

SPEAKER_00:

So the black hand gang itself would envy the activities of some of the children of Bay City if it could see them in the midst of their practice of the gentle art of blackmail. But like duck shooting, blackmail is a seasonable sport. And that season was closed last night after about six weeks during which trade was plied for fur with fervor. So this is November 1st, the day after Halloween. So season is closed. I don't know what's six weeks, what they were doing for six weeks, but that seems like a long-September. There's six weeks of like harvest. Yeah. Maybe that's what he means, like harvest season. Anyway. Farming village. Um he goes on to say in fact, regular beats were developed by the children, and the peaceful citizens lived in terror of the time each evening when they should be summoned to their front doors to hear the fatal ultimatum tricks or treats uttered in a merciless tone by some small child who clutched in one grubby fist a small chunk of I don't know what this word is, a small chunk of scap capable of eliminating the transparency from any number of windows. Oh, oh, it's cut out soap. Okay, so he's throwing soap to eliminate the transparency from any number of windows. Y'all, he's talking about breaking windows with a soap bar. This is beautifully written. Oh, the none too subtle are of blackmail. And woe betide any housekeeper who had not the proper supply of apples, cookies, candy, or peanuts on hand to avert the disaster. Though they were stale to the crumbling point, yet they served to assuage the unbelievable appetites of the Halloweeners. But that is all over now, and all the unfortunates have is bitter memories, and all the Halloweeners have is stomach aches.

SPEAKER_02:

That's so awesome. I need to find that.

SPEAKER_00:

Joey already found it.

SPEAKER_02:

Alright, I need to like ask like we'll talk later how you found this. Is this like on Wikipedia? Like how like how do you find like the I have my sources, I'll show you.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Like how you confirm like this was like the first American usage of it in print. I want to like that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

I found that in two sources. Oh, okay. That's good. I mean, it's two sources that I found it as being the first. So I I'm pretty sure it is. Okay. I was like, I don't if you need more than two, then you can fuck off. Now, by the 1940s and 50s, the phrase was becoming more popular. The peanuts comics were now using it. Charlie Brown said it in one of the comic strips in 1951. Okay. And then in 1952, Disney produced a cartoon called Trick or Treat featuring Donald Duck and his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. And the rest is history. That's when it really started to become a thing. So 40s and 50s is when we're really saying trick or treat. But trick or treating was happening well before that. Yeah. But the phrase trick or treat.

SPEAKER_02:

It's also when TVs are first starting to get into. I mean, it's the post-World War II.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

The boomer era. TVs are getting in advertising. We're more connected than we've ever been.

SPEAKER_00:

That's true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Like 50s culture.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yep. I just want to do a quick fun one there. Um, I hope everyone has a fun start to their October and it's not too shitty. Also, we have the government was shut down. Sorry. That was I didn't mean to make a joke. I'm sorry. Anyway. Merch.

SPEAKER_02:

We got merch.

SPEAKER_00:

We have merch now. Happy October. Yes, we do have merch though, for real. Um, I made a merch website. It's pretty cool, and I've ordered some of the clothes for myself, and I'm wearing, I'm like touching myself. That sounds weird if you can't see me. I'm touching my shoulders and my arms because the sweater I'm wearing is actually very comfortable. I wasn't sure what I was getting, and I I made a good choice, you guys. I'm proud of myself. So check out our merch. It is borrowedbonespodcast.com, or you can follow us on Instagram at borrowed bonespodcast, and the link to the merch is in my bio.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's like shirts and mugs, sweaters, mugs, phone cases, hats, all the all the normal bags, yeah. Yeah, merch.

SPEAKER_00:

Whips, chains, whistles, yo yos. Whistles, yo yo.

SPEAKER_02:

If anyone gets that reference, you're awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. That's all, yeah. Good deep cut. But yeah, that's it. So thank you for listening. Happy October, and hopefully both of us are fully better in the next recording. Yeah. Bye.

SPEAKER_01:

Bye.

Head Shot

Sarah and Cole

Host

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