A Geek History of Time - Episode 257 - Interview with Author Jess Zafaris Part II

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

Item one, hit the grocery store. Item two, laundry. Item three, over through capitalism. You know, for somebody who taught Latin, your inability to pronounce French like hurts. Damn. Look at you getting to the end of my stuff. Motherfucker. But seriously, I do think that this bucolic, luxurious, live your weird fucking dreams kind of life is something worth noting. Because of course he had. I got into an argument essentially with

with some folks as to whether or not punching Nazis is something you should do. And they're like, no, then you're just as bad as the Nazis. I was like, the Nazis committed genocide. I'm talking about breaking noses. Drink scotch and eat strychnine. All right, you can't leave that lying there. Luxury poultry.

Yes, yes. Fancy chickens. Yes, fancy chickens. Pet fancy chickens. Pet fancy chickens. Pet Fancy Chickens? Pet Fancy Chickens. This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect nursery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock, I'm a world history and English teacher.

And today I had the opportunity to hang out with a friend of the show and my brother from another mother, Sean. And he and I were just shooting the breeze. And in the midst of our conversation, the comment came up that he would pay good money to find a way to put me in a locked room with Donald Trump. And because of the context in which he made that remark, it is honest to God, one of the most touching things any of my friends have ever said to me. Because he wasn't saying it like because you're, you know, you're

you and volatile and like who would be unleashed on this man. It was because I would pay money to see him have to deal with someone as self-possessed and confident in yourself as you are because he works so hard never to have that happen. And I was like, Oh my god, man. I'm gonna get choked up because... Wow. So yeah, that was like the high point of my month at least. So I'm still riding that high. How about you? Well, I'm Damian Harmony. I'm a US history teacher up here in high school level up in Northern California. I also had an odd compliment. I came in a little bit early to work. I never give free labor, but I came in a little bit early and swung by the office to say hi to a good friend of mine who works in the office.

And as I was doing that, one of the vice principals that we have, a man that I admire a great deal actually, we have really good vice principals at our school now. Awesome, makes a big difference. That's brilliant. Yeah, boy, don't it. still actually. Good. We have really good vice principals at our school now. Awesome. Makes a big difference. That's brilliant. Yeah.

Boy, don't it. And he walks by and he says, Oh, Harmony, can I ask you a question? And I was walking to the bathroom. I said, Well, I'm going potty, but hell, I wore my dark pants. Go for it. And so you Yeah, it is right. So everybody pops. And everybody's laughing about it and he's like no no go ahead and go. And so I go to the bathroom I come out and he's gone

and I was like what was his question that I scare him up was I too crass. And the guy's like he's like no he's been asking everybody can I ask you a question and then you say yes he's like well that was it. And I said oh I stole his thunder and he said yeah he's like, well, that was it. And I said, oh, I stole his thunder. And he said, yeah, he's not used to not being the funniest man in the room. And then you, without even blinking or hesitated, hit him with a line that shook his confidence that there was a script, just skipped ahead. And I was like, oh no, I feel so bad.

And he's like, why? I said, because the whole point of like what I do on stage, because I run a pun show, which by the way, March 1, come on out Sacramento. But and if you can't make it that one, first Friday of April, April 4. But I the whole point of what I do is I like being the point guard, I like being the one to dish it to someone else so that they can score the big shot. And if I'd known that he wanted to do something funny, as low bar as that was, I would have 100% set him up so much better.

Cause then he would enjoy it, I would enjoy it. I get a thrill from those things. But instead, I just popped off with my normal like, yeah, I'm a funny guy, it's morning time, nobody's had coffee, here we go. You know, a pee pee reference. And I scared him off and I felt bad. So anyway, it was a good compliment that I got

from my friends, the office manager, who said like, nobody's used to, everybody who runs into you isn't used to not being the funniest person, and you are so many levels beyond them. And I was like, oh yeah, I do Moonlight. So, it was a good compliment. I mean, there is a, yeah, I will say number one,

that's an awesome compliment. Number two, your whole reaction to that just proves that you are 110% bonobo, not chimp. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I genuinely think I could fix half of our district's problems by dry humping people. I really want to try. I've been yelling and throwing feces for years. So I could even offer it as here are the chance.

Look, look, we could go. I could be a neus right I could just be like look we could fight or We could dry hump like I'm I'm equally prepared to do either Yeah, so it's all in the hips both times like I don't care like here we go You want me to part my hair in the middle or yeah. So yeah. Anyway, yeah. Chimp rising bonobo sun sign. I don't know what that means. It's such a Scorpio thing to do. We have with us in the in the group again. We got her back for one more. But I feel like I bait and switched. She probably thinks my daughter's coming back. Author of Words from Hell, Jess Zaffaris. Welcome back. Thank you. The secret is I've been

here the entire time and I too support using your slapy bits over your fists. I think it's it's just better for the world I'm gonna keep in the same vein as the as our compliments like favorite compliment Recently, I guess this one isn't as recent but my favorite compliments actually come from my British friends because they tend to be Complacent, but they're meant with a lot of love I do I do like hot like marketing conferences and such on the side'll like moderate panels and things like that. And I say on the side by writing etymology books. So what I actually get paid to do involves interviewing people on stages sometimes. And one of them happened to be the CMO of Pepsi. And I was backstage getting him hyped up because he seemed like he was a little edgy. And we were talking about like what we're going to do that weekend.

And I told him we were in Miami and I was like, I'm going to drive down to Jupiter and hang out with my friend Jupiter is a place in Florida. They have a lot of towns with names like that because you know various gods and things Exactly and he was like that is the weirdest thinking name like why would you name it that because he was thinking the planet And I so I cited the god and he just like stared at me and my British friend who was standing next to me was like in his like Particularly British droll was like she's an endless wealth of mostly useful information. And I was like, I'm putting that on my resume.

Oh yeah. There you go. That's a blurb for a book. That totally is. That's, yeah. I love, because if you went the other way of mostly useless, it would feel more complimentary. But mostly useful is like citing that there's a gap there. And it also it works because because I like my like

personal brand is useless etymology. And I was like, Oh, wow, you're like breaking down my my own personal identity in the most complimentary and insulting way at the same time. It's an existential crisis. That is nice. But anyway, thank you for having me on the show again. I'm thrilled to be here. I had a blast last time. Julia was incredible. And I do look forward to reading her work

and hanging out with her in the future. I'm glad we'll be internet friends. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And if you ever find yourself in Sacramento, which you shouldn't, you know, let her know and she'll take you to her favorite, her favorite cafe, the there and back cafe. I dig it.

There you go. That's a good cafe name. It's pretty rad. Yeah. So, all right. So when last we spoke, it occurred to me that you and I have something in common that Ed and I do not And and that is that we both have names that people say are made up Yes, yes, so mine actually is made up yeah, so is mine so mine

It is it is made up. All right, so we should we should talk on that Would you like to intro with that? Yeah, that sounds great. Mm hmm. You know, since we're talking etymology, it's making up words. Yeah. You know, yeah, absolutely. So good stuff. All right. Yeah. Yeah. So you go first, because let's go out alphabetically opposite. So alphabetically opposite. So Zephyrus, my name is Z-A-F-A-R-R-I-S.

I'm spelling this because presumably no one can see it. And that I am the only person with that name ever. So the reason for that is because I made it up. It is it is a portmanteau, a portmanteau. If you are unaware, is a word that was first applied to words by Louis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, to describe the made-up words that he included in Jabberwocky that both like, make sense and don't at the same time because they are compilations of other words into silly sounding

yet still understandable combinations. And portmanteau is a word for like a carpet bag or a traveling bag, so it's a word that carries two meanings in it. Anyway, my name is not Portmanteau. My name is Ferris and it is a Portmanteau of my last name, which I was born, which was applied to me at birth, Ferris, F-A-R-R-I-S, which is an Irish name, meaning something like manly man, and because I'm very manly. And my husband's last name, which is Z-A-F-E-R-I-S it is a Greek

word meaning sapphire so I smashed the two together because otherwise like if I hyphenated I would be ferris the ferris or ferris ferris which is just like fun but egregious yeah okay fun but egregious is gonna be that you know, the poet in me hears that and is like, I that that bounces like, you know, but. Yeah, I understand. I understand the logic, but it'd be a pain in the ass to fill out forms with that. So, yeah, I totally agree. But so we smashed them together into the one. So we have an etymologically confusing and also a difficult to spell name.

I like it. I like it. Number one, a lot of folks don't know this, but Portmanteau is actually the last name of Natalie Portman originally. So it's Portmanteau, but then she suffered an injury, and it just became badly for me. Got very complicated. But I'm tssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss meet him for a tryst in Chicago's World Fair.

Yeah, what's funny to me is listening listening to it when you when you were, you know, introducing us to you know, because we'd seen it written, but not not heard it. When you were talking about how to how to pronounce it, I immediately went to it sounded to me like the kind of names that would have been attributed to angels in the Bible. Oh, that's cool. You know, and so there was this moment for me of like, okay, wait, is there some Hebrew in there? Like, you know, just because something about the Z and the Z and the and the F that the the syllabic structure of it was like like Azazel or something like that. Yeah, that's cool.

Azarayel or yeah, that's cool. Yeah, very cool. I like that. Thank you. I take that as my second favorite. Yeah. Okay, there you go. Excellent. So tell me about your made up names. Yeah, so my, I was born, so for anybody looking to steal my identity, here's where you start. I was born Damien Michael Smith. And then when I was eight, I was adopted by my dad and my name changed to Damien Charles Sessions. I was given the option to choose a new middle name,

took it for my grandfather. The Michael was for my father. Okay, so and to me, there new middle name, took it for my grandfather. The Michael was for my father. Okay. So, and to me, there's a difference between a father and a dad. And I, again, word that I am, you father a child, you don't dad a child. You get the title of dad for raising the child. No matter how good a bad job you do, that's the title, right? Fathering, on the other hand, is a little bit more just, you know- Biological? Biological.

It could be very, very uninvolved or it could be very involved, right? Okay. So, change to Charles for my grandfather on my mom's side. Very nice fellow. There's a wonderful joke that he used to tell. And the only reason that it was really all that funny is because he had had a stroke and it changed how he structured words and so I don't feel right telling it on the air certainly and and rarely do I tell it to anybody who didn't know my grandfather but it was a really good joke and it was

because of his delivery but anyway named for chose it. So I began my choice of names. And then when I was 20, I wanted to kind of strike out on my own and give myself, you know, when you're 20, you've got all the confidence and none of the background. And when you were smart and fourth grade, and that kind of sticks. It becomes part of your identity. So you spend at least 75% of your energy convincing yourself that you're right and thinking that your logic is unassailable. And so I thought, you know what would be really cool?

There's been a lot of chaos in my life. I really need a goal and how better to strike out of my own and become my own man than to change my last name to Harmony and for those folks who don't know Harmony is an English word that means harmony. Confluence things working together smoothly. Also that, yeah, that's secondary definition. Yeah. So, uh, but the, the thing is, I think it actually comes from the Greek harmonia.

Uh, and so, um, but, uh, so that's, that's what I chose. Um, again, when you're 20, it sounds like a great idea. And then it, then like the rest of your life is just like, you bought a live-in ferret for life. And so just nothing about my life got harmonious until I met my second wife. And then finally things settled down for quite a while. It was a lovely time. And you know, things end as they do. But the thing about the last name going to Harmony was when we moved into this house, we got mail and it was to the chaos. So the chaos at our address. And I saved it to show it to my brand new wife,

right? Well, not brand new. We'd been married, I think, two years by that point. But like our new house in the first couple of weeks. I was like, check it out. We got mail. And she's like, that's not to us. I'm like, no, no, that's to us, you know? And she's like, no, that's clearly a different name. And then some things when you're 20 stay, one of them being your willingness to condescend when you think you're very right. And I said, honey, our last name is Harmony. And the opposite of Harmony is, and she looked at me,

and this is why I was in love with her so much. She was really rad in a lot of ways. She said, hm, OK. What was the last name of the people who lived here before us? I said, oh, Chow. And she said, right. And I was like. So good, so good. Chef's kiss. I mean, she

I still tell that to my children, because I like them to know that I think of their mom very fondly and then you get all the worries. That's good. You've got to have somebody who brings you back down there. Oh, it was great. It was so good. It was so humbling. It was great.

But yeah, it is my... I've had the name since I was 20. It's been more than half my life. And one of the reasons I was okay with it was because at each iteration of family that I had, I had another brother who would carry on that name anyway. So I was buffered by younger brothers. Like my brother has got a last name of Smith. Cool. That name will live on, thankfully, because there's not that many of them in the world. My other brother's got the last name name of sessions. I was like, well, he's gonna carry that one on. Cool. So and then when my

children were born, I started realizing I was like, oh my god, these are the first natural born harmonies. And so I started saying things like because my son was born first, I started saying things like, you know, all harmony men men, and so all Harmony men are born in the winter. It stretches back generations. And then I was able to say, you know, all natural born Harmony women are born in the summer, because my daughter is the only are born in the summer because my daughter is is the only born Harmony you know their mom was married into a Harmony family so yeah all kinds of fun so yeah yeah so anyway so last we talked there were a couple terms that I don't

know very well so I was hoping you and Ed could dive into those. Yeah, you were mentioning egg horns and malapropisms. That's right, yeah. So these are both terms for like vocabulary faux pas, like an intentional, similar to the intended word. It's the difference between the two of them with malapropisms, the mistaken word, as I was saying last time, is blatantly incorrect.

It doesn't make sense in context and it's funny as a result. Basically, a clearly identifiable error by any reader or listener, or the average reader or listener. George W. Bush was famous for these. He would swap out words regularly. They're named after the fictional character Mrs. Malaprop who showed up in the first, first in the 1895 play The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan and her name means poorly placed or like badly for the purpose in French. And she says things like pineapple

of politeness instead of pinnacle of politeness. And it gives me the hydrostatics rather than the hysterics. I'm going to break in here right now. Hang on. Pineapple of politeness in swinger culture, if you put out a pineapple. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Upside down pineapple, right? What's that? I think it's an upside down one, isn't it?

Yeah. I think so. An upside down one. Is it? Yeah, I think so. An upside down pineapple. Yeah. You got to be careful about like my wife bought a couple of, you know, decorative lights to put out on our on our back patio. And one of them is is a pineapple.

That's right side up. But it was it was a pineapple. I remember she she brought it home and turned it on. And I didn't say anything because I didn't want to know why I was... Well, but I didn't want her to know what corners of Reddit I'd been visiting. And, but she showed a picture of it to one of her coworkers.

We got a reply of, oh yeah. That was the whole text reply was, oh yeah. I said, what? I thought it was cute. And her work friend had to explain to her, oh honey, maybe you need to be careful about that. And she looked over at me and she said, did you know? I said, no, maybe a little, but I didn't want to be the one to say it.

So. Yeah, because I don't want to have to explain why I know that. Yeah, I agree. But I am pineapple of politeness. I love it. I love it because it is a polite way to let people know. You're just hanging your shingle. Exactly. Exactly.

My favorite, my favorite Mrs. Malaprop quote is like the ultimate trifecta where she has like multiple malapropisms in one sentence is, if I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue and a nice derangement of epitaphs. And what she meant was, if I apprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my vernacular tongue and a nice arrangement of epithets. Yes. So that's that she really brings it home.

That is so winning. Oh my god, that's beautiful. One literary critic aptly described the use of malapropisms as word fouling with a blender bus and called her the patron saint of such things And then on reddit since we were just talking about this bone apple tea the subreddit is um A malapropism of bone appa tea Um, and there are other ones going to the I love like visiting the top of all time at the top of the past year Regularly because they're too funny. They're like people saying chupacabra instead of capybara or lemonade instead of laminate. How much to pet the chupacabra. Everybody in the forest loves the chupacabra. There's like a screenshot of a tweet that's like, I don't know why people are so scared of chupacabras.

They seem so nice and it's pictures of a capybara. Or like, I love the smell of my boyfriend's colon. Right. Exactly. He left that smell on the pillow. I didn't even know about that. I'm not going to kink shame. I mean, yeah, exactly. We're not yucking yet. I would not consent to be part of this. Like, can we like, yeah. So egg corns, a little bit different. Egg corns are when you, they're understandable versions of these mistakes. So like, these

were coined by a linguistics professor who saw someone use the word egg corn instead of acorn and like found it kind of charming because in a sense, acorns are egg shaped corns in the single grain sense. So he like coined that. And those are like things like saying ex patriot instead of expatriate. I feel like I should be able to spell this. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. But we're like an old timers disease instead of Alzheimer's disease.

You at least understand the logic, you know, even if it's a little cute. And this also happens in idioms like nip it in the butt instead of nip it in the bud. Which still works, but would be a different thing. Yeah, it's definitely a different mental image. Except if you discipline dogs, like you watch how the moms discipline the babies, they will. Yeah, exactly. It still makes sense, which is why it's the the egg corn rather than the malapropism. Yeah, love that. Cool. So do you have any malapropism stories? Because I know I have two. Well, I don't see I have I have a notable Spoonerism story, which is I guess like a subcategory of a malapropism.

Spoonerism is where you're laying side to side with someone and you slip them to your egg corn. With a pineapple. Right. There you go. Yeah. Upside down though. There's usually a pineapple somewhere in the decor. Yeah. And then it smells like colon. Talk about harmony. You know what you're into. Yeah. So no, but a spoonm is is where sounds get transposed in a phrase. So saying bunny phone instead of funny bone or, you know, a father saying son, it is now kissed to marry to cuss the bride would be samples of these. I love it.

And I got I got those two. I have to give credit where credit's due. I got those from vocabulary.com. But so a very good friend of mine who I am not going to name because I didn't vet this with them before telling the story, a very good friend of mine and his wife were newlyweds when this happened and they would trade spoonerisms with each other as part of their love language like being you know overly you know oogie boogie with each other and they were in line at Starbucks and And it's early in the morning. And they're maybe a month and a half married. And they're in line.

And they're being way cutesy with each other. And they're going back and forth. And there's the pastry cabinet there in Starbucks. And they're going past the pastry cabinet. And my friend's, at the time, new wife, who he is still madly in love with, pointed at one of the items in the cabinet and created an intentional spoonerism. The item she pointed to was carrot bundt cake. to was carrot bundt cake. America.

The top of her lungs without thinking about it in a high chipper cutesy voice, she said, Baron, come on. That immediately folded in on herself. Everybody in the room turned around like, what? That's good. That is good. So, yeah, I am leaving names out entirely to spare the naive. Sure. Well, she's my hero. I love it.

That's my favorite example of a spoonerism of all time, forever. So yeah. Okay. So I have a couple questions surrounding these kinds of things because I have found myself on the dipshit end of many times linguistic fuckups, right? So first off, the Latin has invaded the English famously. I think it's even in some of our bumper music is like Ed going, okay, I don't know if you don't, if I don't know if you're mispronouncing a word or if this is a word I don't know because you can never pronounce words right.

Yeah, especially if the etymology is French, you're going to completely fuck them just so badly. So many, yeah. Yeah. So the first one I want to ask is, oh jeez, there's so many. Okay, so let's circle the drain this way. If I were to take two words and accidentally put them in the wrong spot,

so for instance, or maybe it's not even that, like for instance, I wouldn't trust him with a 10 foot pole. What is that? That's not a spoonerism. Oh, there is a word for this. There is a word for this. It's a oh, I know this one. I can't remember.

Dang it. That's a fish of a different color is another example. Like we're in the bridge before we cry or after we cross it. Yeah. My favorite one is, oh, unfortunately, that train has sailed. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah.

I can't remember. There is a word for it. It's a good word, too. It's right here. I'll think of it. Everybody welcome to our inaugural episode of Stump the Entomologist. OK.

OK, so there's that. And then there's this. I went to, and I'm just going to tell this whole story because it is hilarious and it's going to be the name of my comedy album, If and When. I went to a Java city as a coffee place in my college. I stepped up, I asked for a muffin, I asked for a cup of water. Got a muffin. Got a cup of water. Blueberry muffin. Cup of water. And the blueberry muffin with the water was goddamn delicious. And feel free to break in if you find the word for what

that screw up is. Maliform. It's maliform. It's a maliform. Yeah, it's a maliform. Okay. And that's... Bad metaphor. Yeah.

Oh, okay. That makes sense. Or like, yeah, I don't... It's the metaphor. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Or like, yeah, I don't... It's the metaphor. Couple cards short of having both whores in the water. That kind of thing. Uh-huh. Yeah. I love that. That's brilliant.

So, I'm there. I enjoy the hell out of it. Like, this is the best muffin I've ever had. It had crystallized sugar on the top. It was a blueberry muffin with crystallized sugar. And the water caused the crystallized sugar to dissolve and melt over your tongue. It was the most elegant in the way when I mean elegant, I mean like scientifically elegant. Like it was so simple and it was so good. The most elegant breakfast I'd ever had. So good that I went back the next day for the exact same thing. However, between the time that I had eaten the muffin and the time that I went back to

order for another one 24 hours later, I'd gotten it in my head that that crystallized sugar was called scancing. I don't know why, but I was as sure of this as I am sure that like... I mean, it makes sense. Sure? Yeah. If you say it with enough, enough conviction, like you can make it a thing. Right. And I am a mediocre white man with a beard. So that that and this podcast. But yeah, but so I was

as sure of it as I'm sure that I, you know, my middle initial is you. And I went back, I said, you know, I'm in line. Next, I step up, I'm like, could I get a cup of ice water and a sconce blueberry muffin? And they look at me and they're like, you mean a scone? I'm like, no, no, no, I don't like scones. They're too dry. Water will get absorbed too easily. I would like a sconce blueberry muffin. Okay. And they look at me like you want a blueberry

scone. No, don't want a blueberry scone. Want a sconce blueberry muffin. And I'm usually really chill about people because they know their inventory. They they're working hard. You know, it's a little loud so I just keep reannunciating. Right. I'm not even getting louder. So no, just a sconce blueberry muffin. Thank you. And they look you'm not even getting louder. So no, just a skonced blueberry muffin, thank you. And they're like, you want a blueberry scone? I'm like, no, I really don't want a scone, but I appreciate that you guys have a surplus of scones.

I just want a skonced blueberry muffin. What? And then I realized, oh, they might not have them. So I immediately shift, because I'm a nice guy, and not so much that I have to tell people, but I say, oh, if you don't have a sconce blueberry muffin, I'll just take I'll take banana muffin with the sconce. And like you want a banana scone? No, I would like

a it's the muffin that I'm after with the sconce. So I don't care what kind you have. Lights on the side. Just want the sconce. Right. The torch is mounted. Right. And I didn't realize that word meant that side. I just want Wisconsin. I need the torches mounted. Right. And I didn't realize that word meant that thing. I thought it was the crystallized sugar and I'm as confident as can be, right? So, and they're very confused and now a line is backing up behind me.

And I'm that idiot and I'm starting to sense a shift in the lobby. And I'm like, just trying shift in the lobby and and I'm like just trying to get the fuck out of there and I'm like look if it's a brand muffin with sconce I'm fine with that. No and now I'm a little frustrated because they've tried to push the fucking scones like eight times. I'm like no I want a muffin with sconce and like we don't we don't have that. I'm like you did yesterday. It was it and I don't like being the guy who argues with people over their inventory, right? So I'm like, was it a promotional deal? If so, I can order something else. That's fine. Like you were just testing it out. I had it yesterday and I pointed to the table at that table. So now I'm just fucking crazy in their eyes, right? And they're like, sir, we don't we don't. Are you asking for a scone? Like they just because it sounds enough, right? Yeah, you're trying to fix it, you know. And so by this point,

another register has opened right next to me, and I'm seeing the side eye from fucking everyone. And so I'm like, No, I just want this. And I keep doing this with my hand. And for those of you that don't see, it looks like I'm petting an ice cream cone. And to explain, scouncing. I get where you're going for though. It's got the crumblies on top.

Scouncing, here's where it is. I do feel like the person should have picked this up a little bit at that point. Like they should have been like, okay, you want crap on top of your muffin. Right. Yeah, like, yeah. But at the same time, they have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about.

Right. What's that? Yeah. Do you mean do you mean the do you mean the sugar crust on top of that? Right. Like, you know, you would think they would have picked up on that. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe. Right. So in your in your slight defense. Like, yeah, yeah. I think what I did was indefensible, to be honest. Just because I think of it from the perspective

of being that worker. If you're trying to do a good job and all you've got is, I don't know what you mean. I don't know what soup that is, sir. Like, you know, this is a boarders. What do you? So I keep shaping a sconceing on top of my muffin And I keep telling them and they're just equal and and they're like could you describe it?

and meanwhile three people have gone by and I'm feeling like an asshole and like I I'm stressed I Everything I don't want to have happen has happened Fucking muffin so don't want to have happen has happened. No one is happy. Yeah, it's turned into a social nightmare. And I still don't have the fucking muffin. So, and so I'm like, it's got the crystallized sugar on top. Like, you know, and if you don't have any, that's OK. Just tell me and I will move on. Like, again, tell me you don't want a second date. It's OK. It is fine.

Just say the words so I know. you know? And they're like, Chris, like I said, yeah, and I do, yeah, skoncing, you know, and they're like, a skonce? And I said, yes, yes, okay, yes. So now we're speaking the same language, right? Yes, I want skoncing, right? Like a skonced blueberry muffin. And she's like, a sconce is a place that you put a torch in a wall. At which point the D&D brain kicked in. And I was like, oh, fuck, that's all very true. And I looked at her, I'm like, what the hell was I asking for? She's like, that is the question. Trust me, sir, we are going to spend the next week asking each other the same question.

You will be a topic of meetings. And she looks at me with the saddest, most pitying eyes and she's like, I don't know, sir. And I said, oh, well, shit. And she's like, that sugar's on all of our muffins. That's just how we do these things. And I'm like, and so then I like I summon all of my.

Yeah. And so I summon up the tattered rags of your dignity. Right. And I summon it all up and I reconstruct it like the wicker man that the Gauls would burn. And I say, all right, I would like please a blueberry muffin. And she reaches down to get it and like seven people have gone by ordering shit. And she reaches down to get a blueberry muffin and she looks and it's empty. And she looks up and there's a guy walking away. She's like, he

just got the last one Can I get you something else and I was like This is why it's gonna be my And she's like, can I Costello goods. That's awesome. Oh, God. To the point where other comics on my scene have, because I've done that on stage. You heard mostly a stage ready. In fact, there's a video of me doing this on YouTube at the Apollo. Good stuff. Now when I say at the Apollo, I mean in front of the Apollo temple in Syracuse.

Not nearly as successful as it sounds. And yet, so what is the word for what I did there? Other than hilarious. That's a great question. Just like fabricating words out of nowhere. Or like assuming there's a meaning that you don't have. I'm sure there is one. Honestly, I don't know this one.

I knew Malifour was in here somewhere. I just had to rattle it to the right spot. But that one I don't know off the top of my head, but it's great. And I feel like at some point we've all done something like that. I don't doubt it. Maybe not to that degree.

Maybe not with the same level of Elan. Right. Yeah. The commitment to the piece is really- It definitely, if it were closer to an actual word for the thing that you were describing, I would say it was a malapropism, but it's like there isn't a word like that for that stuff.

You're so far off the chart. Even Mrs. Malabarap would be like, what are you talking about? She'd be confused. Like, Deary, would you like some scones? No. No. I'm extending the pineapple of politeness. And it's like, would you like, yeah, fine.

You know what? Let's do this. Let's spoon. So. That's so good. Oh, okay. So there's a word that I used accidentally teaching once. Teaching about Roman history, teaching about how the Romans just got their asses kicked

up in the Belgae territory. And I talk about how the Eboronites just mollywopped them. And a student looked at me like with the eyes of like, oh my god, you just said something awful. And I'm like, what? She's like, what did you say? I said, they mollywopped them. Now, I, growing up, mollywopped is where you just like, it is a combination of whooped ass, donkey punched, and just kick someone down the stairs. Beat the brakes off of them. Yeah, and you're actually like, there is etymological reasoning behind this that I can get into in a minute, but please continue. But she told me, and this is one of those where the words shift out from under us sometimes, I guess. Molly whopping is where you drag your testicles across someone's face now.

And you slap them with it. That's tea bagging though. No, this is slapping them, not just dipping. This isn't like, this is like. I'm calling her urban dictionary bluff right here because I want to know. Yeah. Oh no, yeah, yeah, that's,, no. Yeah. That is what that is. Yeah.

Yeah. So. I've done learn something today. I trust teenagers when they tell me what people do with their balls on their faces. I'm not going to ask any further. I don't want any more details. Right. It's like, oh dear, we've all got the Internet and I know you can do those searches.

So what happens when a word shifts in meaning like that? I think that's slang nonsense right there. I see the reasoning behind both of these things. Mollywap makes sense because the term Molly cuddling, clearly that's where you pulled that concept from. And Molly is one of those words that ends up being attached to generic concepts that relate to women in the same way that Jack does, like JackSquat or Jack of all trades, Jack-o-lantern, things like that. It's the generic man's name we put in this

place to hold a place. And Molly does that. And it tends to have like intensifying properties because it's a pet name of Mary. So like Molly cuddle means overly cuddle. So you essentially like overly wop is a little bit of a new thing. You need to some creative ways. I mean, I get like wap or wop or like that can mean it's an onomatopoeia, you know. Yeah, I was gonna say it sounds likeop or like that can mean it's an automata Pia, you know

Yeah, I was gonna say it sounds like the thing that it is Yeah, exactly. And indeed in in Molly whopping in the sexual sense It is also that that like that is also what it is and clearly it's that sound in that sense It also like it makes sense because Molly would be the the placeholder woman's name you would do that too So I get both. I get both. I'm comfortable with this etymological reason, I'm sconce less so.

I do love that the less comfortable one is the sconce, not the dragging one to balls to slap someone's face part. I mean, I'm just sad that I didn't include Molly Wap in my book, so. Sorry. Well, now you't include Molly Wap in my book, so... Oh, sorry. Right? Well, now you can include Scons if I get credit, so... Yeah.

Scons. So... Okay. So... Scone does, by the way, Scone does have kind of a cute origin. It's like, it was originally like, it's from... It's a Germanic, I think, Dutch, if I'm remembering correctly, but it was from a compound word that was like Showing Brute which means like beautiful bread or something along those lines

So the word stone just means beautiful, which is kind of cute Still too fucking dry for my water. I will tell you see but here's the deal is as a as a certified fat guy I can tell you You need to be careful about what variety of scones you're looking at because there's the French style and there's English style scones the ones that are like This this is this is way starchy and like that's that's French style scones English style scones tend to be softer and more cakey You're supposed to dip the harder one in your coffee, I think. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Scone is like a soft biscotti. And they were also, if I recall correctly, they were also like nice ship, they're nice food to bring on like ships for long hauls because they didn't go bad. So you had like dry bread and stuff. Like lembas bread, but yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Which makes sense actually, given the Yeah. Kind of. Yeah.

Which makes sense actually, given the recipe that my children have cooked. My kids are dynamite cooks. Oh, it's so cool. And we made Lembas bread once. And it was... It could have used sconesing, I will tell you that. It could have used sconesing. You needed to apply a torch to it is what you're saying.

No, no, just the light sugaring. The crumbly sugar. And the ice cream motion over the top. Also torches. Yeah, a flambé. All right, so there's a word, disfemism. Disfemism. Disfemism.

The opposite of euphemism. Yeah, I was hoping that you could unpack that a little bit more. Dysfemism? Dysfemism. Dysfemism. Dysfemism. Okay. The opposite of euphemism. Yeah. I was hoping that you could unpack that a little bit more. Again, it's one of those blind spots that I just maybe need someone to talk me through to understand. I know what a euphemism is because of George Carlin.

Yeah. He had, it wasn't, what am I doing in Jersey? It was the one before that one. And he talks all about euphemisms, you know, passed away, expired. We measure radiation in sunshine units, all kinds of great shit, right? So euphemisms, I get, I absolutely get. Dysphemisms. Help me understand that better. So euphemism, like it literally means like in Greek, euphemismos, or however you would say that actually in Greek, because my Greek pronunciation is dreadful despite having been married to a Greek.

It literally means speaking well of something. So a disfumism, it's a modernized, like this is a back formation kind of thing. So it functionally ends up meaning speaking ill of something. So it's when you say someone passes away, that's a euphemism because it sounds nicer than they did, you know, a disfamism is like they croaked, they snuffed, they're, they're, they're like being meaner about it. The spark of their life is smothered in shite. Yeah. And, and they, be it naughty in my sight, I'll snuff it. Yes, precisely.

Okay. Give them the multi-python treatment, that's what the disfamism is. Or it's like, another form of disfamism is calling someone by an animal name to insult them, like saying somebody, and specifically as an insult, so if somebody's a chicken or a snake or something like that, you're okay. You're drawing upon the negative qualities of the animal. You're not as regal as a chicken. You are as cowardly as a chicken, which I don't know what chickens they've met because they're mean. Yeah. Roosters particularly, right? Yeah. Okay, so I guess you could have racial disfumisms then.

Theoretically, yes. Calling somebody an animal that is used racially. Absolutely, you can be as biased as you want, I am sure. Right, right. But yeah, they've also been called, like so because this is kind of a neologism, there are also like other variations of it, like cacophomism and malfomism,

which refer to like especially derogatory disfomisms. So like racist and homophobic slurs might be consideredophomism and malfimism, which refer to especially derogatory dysphemisms. So racist and homophobic slurs might be considered malfimism because they're inappropriate and insulting. And then cacophomisms. Yeah, exactly. They're intended to be very painful. And especially using animal names for people of color, things along those lines. And then some writings about cacophomisms suggest that they're used to intentionally exaggerate in a negative way. So euphemism for someone who's fighting for a cause might be that you're a freedom fighter, which take that with the gigantic block of salt it should be taken with. And so if you

agree with them, they're a freedom fighter. And if you don't agree with them, the cacophomism for that is terrorist, you know? Just taught John Brown not too long ago and we had that discussion. So, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And cacophomism, okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Now, if you look behind me, you'll see our logo. It's amazing. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we are. The word, the operational word there is of course, it's meant to kind of echo a brief history of time, right? But we're looking at time through a geeky lens, right? And of course, the word geek, absolutely something that shows up in your book. And it has special meaning for me, because again, the intersection that is Damien is Latin and history and Star Wars and professional wrestling.

And so, can you start us off on the history of geek? And I would like to add a few things in to kind of flavor it up a little bit, because there's some really interesting wrestling history that ties into it. Ooh, I can't wait to hear about this. I've like touched on this lightly, but not deeply. So I would love to. So geek is like Scandinavian and or Germanic of some kind. It's one of those when it comes to like short words that are like semi insulting and semi not that

get kind of a little blurry when it comes to the etymological sources. But in the 20th century, and it was words for like fools and like, especially like street performing fools, sideshow attractions, that kind of thing. But like it really like hit its prime during like the circus years. Have you seen? Oh, gosh, what's the name of it? There's a nightmare. Oh gosh. I'm not going to call it. I'll cough that up in a minute. But there's a film about circus life and circus sideshow people who I'm going to use the word. I'm talking about, I'm not talking about the film Carney. I'm talking about a film called Nightmare or something, which I will cough up in just a minute. But but the film is about and I'm going to use this term, which like can be triggering for

some people, which I mean, we've been swearing the whole time. But when you say like sideshow freak, you mean specifically not that in an insulting way, but literally they were called circus freaks. So performers who were on, yes? Nightmare Alley? Yes, that's the one. That's what I'm talking about.

Very good, highly recommended. That's the one with Hela and Rocket, right? Yes, that is true. That is accurate. There's also an older version that's also very good, but I did like the new adaptation and it was good. also very good, but I did like the new adaptation. And it was good. So a geek, and in this context, was a performer who ate live animals, like biting heads off chickens and eating snakes and things. And that's addressed in the film. So it was, you know, heavily stigmatized.

It was sort of a, you know, it was calling a rose a rose because that's what that thing was called at the time. Like a person who did this was just called that. It wasn't meant to be an insult. It wasn't meant to be this or that. But of course, like student culture picked it up and turned it into an insult

for anyone who behaved unusually or was outside of the norm for whatever reason. And it was used to mock people just like any number of other words and insults are. And then specifically it kind of overlapped with nerd, which today is like in my mind and, you know, correct me if your, if your perception is a little different, the way I see like a geek and a nerd today tends to be like geeks tend to be like over like more interested in like certain brands of pop culture and have like a few niches that they're super into and nerd is more like intellectual nerd or more like focused on a particular topic. Pretty solid, yeah. Nurds create the companies that employ the geeks. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Tech enthusiasts, things like that. So they became geeks during the 1990s tech boom.

And then in the past like two decades, these terms have diverged a little bit more. Okay. decades it has these terms have diverged a little bit more. Okay so there's a professional wrestler named Classy Freddy Blassie and he was born in 1918 I think because his parents got here in 1912. He I think he was of Austrian descent his parents were from Austria, which makes sense, them going here in 1912. But he let's see, 1918, by the time he gets out of high school, he's actually he's graduated high school by the time he gets out. He has a try at carny wrestling. So when carnivals would come to town, they would and folks who are long time

listeners, episodes like five through nine are about this and how pro wrestling mirrors our attitudes on the Civil War. But there's like, I think probably 13 or 14 episodes where wrestling is the main topic. And then the other 203 are wrestling gets mentioned. And Batman. Yeah, that's right. Obviously. Why wouldn't you?

I mean, you know, yeah. Well, because that's how we get to fascism. But what do you call it? So he he tries his hand at carny wrestling, which is the carnival would come to town and

they would have somebody challenge everybody and say if anybody can take him down in five minutes or whatever, you get X amount of money and the carnival uh the the wrestler would often be the one who would entice the strongest guy in the in the uh in the crowd and then in the town like the local champion of the town to win and then oh double or nothing you know and then they bring out a guy who knows how to hook you he was called the hooker a different derivation but but it was yeah in a lot of ways yeah use your body get paid definitely abused by the people who have more money looking for a mark which a mark mark was literally, they would note who was gullible

and they would mark them with a piece of chalk. And so you'd look for the mark in the crowd. Ah, good stuff. Oh wow. Yeah, and that would be the person that'd be like, oh, good job, hey, nice job, why don't you try for the bigger one? So, Fred Blassie is there with his girlfriend

and he decides to challenge the guy and he wins and he's trying to impress his girl. If you beat their hooker, then they often would offer you a job and then you could travel with them. So he starts traveling with the carnival. And by 1935, I think he was going to join the Navy. He might have actually joined it and then he came back. But by 1935, he is calling people out.

Now, there are two different kinds of wrestlers that are out there. There's faces and there's heels. And very often the face would be like, he'd be the one that would lose and be like, oh man, buddy, good job, good job. And then he would get you to take on the heel who everybody wants to see you kick his ass

and stuff like that. And this was carny wrestling, right? This is before you even had established territories. And Fred Blassie got started on the carnival circuit and becomes, turns full pro, I think by 1935 or, or yeah, I think by 35. And he starts using the words pencil neck geek to insult people to get them to want to come and beat him.

And he'd tell them that they had a neck that was like a stack of dimes and that they're nothing but a pencil neck geek. And he was describing someone and pointing at the geek in the thing. You're no better than that pencil neck geek over there. That becomes his catchphrase for the next literally 45 years because he was managing wrestlers when I was watching wrestling

when I first started in the early 80s. To give you an idea as to his cultural connections, in 1977 he recorded a single called Pencil Neck Geek. That's incredible. That was on heavy rotation on the Dr. Demento show. Oh man, that's a blast from the past. While I was in college. So yeah. It lasted for a while. Ed is not so old that he was in college in 77.

But see? See? That's 77. But now see, see. Yeah, that matches the timeline, too. That's that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. So Fred Blassie was such a hated heel. And by the way, in the territories got going, he really stuck out in L.A. He was very successful in L.A., but he also went up northeast to the WWWF and then later the WWF and he was so good at getting hated. It's called getting heat that in his career he was stabbed 21 times at shows.

I don't, I don't know that I would want to get paid for that. It was a badge of honor. He actually, I think he ended up in the ER, he had the last rights pronounced on him twice. He ended up in the ER a bunch of times, this is before ERs were ERs. He was doused with acid once and he lost all the vision in his right eye once when somebody threw a hard boiled egg at him.

I feel like these are disproportionate injuries. Stabbing, acid, egg. I do like to taper down. But I mean a well-placed egg. Exactly. In a temple, man. That'll do it. And now here's the thing. It's pro wrestling. So Puffery is a huge thing. He might have only been stabbed like five times. Right. But you only only there are scars. Yeah, he does have he did have scars that he could show you where he'd been stabbed in the neck and in the chest and in the arm and stuff like that and in the leg. God, somebody really spiked him in the leg once. So is it 21

times? I'm inclined to say yes, just because of how good he was at drawing heat. But he popularized. Yeah, he was an asshole. He called himself like the wrestling fashion plate and stuff like that. And if you look at pictures of him, he looks like the the there's just something that you want to throw eggs at with them. Very punchable face. Like fife and gazect.

Yeah. German. Yeah. But but yeah, so he he popularized pencil like he's I'm not going to say he was the originator. But he's certainly popularized it like he had to have played a role in that. Yeah, exactly. So he's one of like he's not he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean,

he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean, he's like, I mean,. But like it probably, if he wrote it down to be funny, one of his friends said it, you know,

and other people were saying it. So like he's popularizing these terms and now he's like known as the father of them, you know? Right, right. So. So yeah, Shakespeare, pencil neck geek. Yeah, Fred Glassing. That's the level we're on.

Fred Glassing, yeah, yeah. I have, well, when people, because I'm a huge pro wrestling fan, right and people always ask me Invariably, they'll ask me, you know, it's fake, right? And I always say yeah, just like hamlet Right, you know, that's a contrived combat at the end. There's a whole story leading up to it the whole thing There's a big blow off, you know Uh-huh. Yeah, just lacks. It's a different form of storytelling. Yeah, so it's a more like extremely athletic storytelling so

um, we murder gymnastics, right exactly Um, did you did you cover the word quantum in your book? I did not find it Um, although I don't think that I did in this one. Yeah, but I do have it. I do have it in the draft of it. Useless etymology. OK, because Julia took my bookmark a couple of times. So if I skipped over something, I'm going to blame my daughter.

But I've always liked the word quantum because it literally means the opposite of what people use it for. Similar to the word literally, actually. Because most people when they talk about a quantum leap, they mean a giant fucking leap. And it's but it just means like an amount like, yeah. Yeah. And it's a tiny, tiny measurement. Yeah. Like the only time I've actually seen it used properly in popular literature has been the James Bond movie, A Quantum of Solace.

Oh yeah, good point. Which I really like because that means that the idea of quantum leap, the TV show, people read it exactly the wrong way. Like the whole point of calling it a quantum leap was that he's leaping tiny little bits because we're all so much better connected. We're so close to each other in our own lives that Sam and Al can do their thing because the leap is super tiny. But I actually... The minimum amount that can exist. Exactly. Exactly. Which I think we see in the 1950s in science because it was about...

No, that's when it actually gets bastardized. Because somebody wrote a piece about how the Soviet Union had the H bomb and now the arms race has had a quantum leap. And they meant a huge amount. And I'm just like, right, it means the opposite. So, but I'm sure it's by association to, like nuclear physics and such. Sure. Sure. So you mentioned decimate, I think in the last episode. Yeah, yeah, the you know, killing 10 people are killing

one one of every 10. Right. So to speak, which I'm sure you know more about than I do in its actual context in practice. Yeah, it's it's way more brutal than just that. Because your tent mates were the ones who had to do it. Yeah, that's that's what than just that. Because your tent mates were the ones who had to do it. Yeah, that's what I was... like you're divided into 10 and then you kill the one of those people. Right. And you had to do it. Just so fucked up. Oh, incredible. And you had to do it with a bludgeoning weapon. Oh, I didn't know that one, I don't think. Yeah, you had to beat them with with flogs like yeah, yeah

It really is But I do love because it comes from the Latin word decimo decimare Which is literally the verb that means to select lot by every tenth man for punishment like they didn't have yes or no But they had that they had this But they had that. They had this. They had that. Yeah. It was yeah. And it was only for certain punishments and things like that. And then there were other kinds of things that they could do. How influential has Bugs Bunny been in popularizing insults for us? Yes. I mean, maybe not insults. He definitely like played a strong role in popularizing, like the one that people most often cite as Nimrod, which wasn't an insult. It was the name of a hunter. I will say, I was digging into this

a little bit farther. I wonder how rabbit holy to go on this one. So Nimrod was a famous, a famous hunter from a biblical hunter. Yeah. And really he was a king and the Bible people kind of read into some biblical translations to get to the idea of him being a hunter may not have actually been. But Bugs Bunny wasn't actually the first one to use it in, at least to name a character who is a hunter that way and for it to be funny. Bugs Bunny may have been the first one for it to like full on be an insult, like an ironic insult.

Like, haha, you Nimrod and it's supposed to be fully ironic. But there was a Einstein. Yeah, it was a character named Nimrod. I have this I was I was digging into it a little bit the other day. It's like Nimrod wildfire or something was a was a recurring character in wildfire or something was a was a recurring character in American and British plays about like that featured characters from the American frontier. And one of the reasons that I particularly like found like I found this whole intersection about it as I was looking into words like discombobulate, absquatulate and obfuscitate, which are like they're a category of word

where they obviously using both nonsense and Latin word elements to create words that mean other things and sound funny. And the context in which they were originally found was typically 19th century British and American plays featuring these like Sort of a highfalutin Confident frontiers men Backwards Americans who were also heroic So they were both kind of making fun of their lack of traditional British education while also kind of admiring them in the same way that you know, um in Dracula by bream Stoker,

there's sort of a ninja cowboy character who shows up and like helps them kill things. These kinds of characters were the ones that would come in and they would speak in like an endearingly uneducated way and they would create words like discombobulate and obfuscate and absquatchily. So Nimrod, and it's not Nimrod Wildfire, but it's something like that, like a compound last name, he would say things like that. So he'd like, Confliscate would come up. And I thought that was interesting. But when his name was used, it was meant to reference Nimrod as a hunter, but not in a strictly insulting way. There was still a lot of admiration

for this popular character trope of the swaggering backwoods American frontiersmen. That's so interesting, because you mentioned the 1800s, because I did some digging on Nimrod as well. Just in my notes, you sent me off into a whole bunch of different little whirlpools and eddies. It's fun, isn't it? Oh, it's so much fun. Like, yeah, it's a better way to spend time than exercising,

I think. But the stuff that I found was that it was Robert E. Lee wrote to a lady friend Robert E. Lee wrote to a lady friend about an associate of both of theirs who declined his placement at West Point. It was like, oh, thank you for the offer, but no thanks. And you remember Robert E. Lee, he ends up having zero demerits at West Point. He's the only one of only four college students to do that. And he still graduated second in his class, which I get a kick out of. But he wrote of this other fellow that his refusal to attend West Point was accompanied by that fellow's amended lamentation that, quote, I hope my country will be will not be endangered by my doing so. So like get a look at the stones on this guy, right? And so he calls him the Nimrod from the West. So it was already a concept at that point. This like western like American swaggering ballsy. And I was correct. It was Nimrod Wildfire.

And he's modeled after Davy Crockett basically. That makes a lot of sense. He appeared in the Kentucky. Okay but yeah this was uh this was 1834 um and yeah that's perfect that's that makes sense the tracks and it was peak peak use of dimrod in American literature was 1834 apparently. That makes sense yeah. And what I get a kick out of is that the Romans were doing that too. So you know that meme that went around recently about like, you know, ask your man how often he thinks of the Roman Empire. Right. People keep ruining shit for me because I, I studied it professionally.

Like, I mean, like it's kind of cheating with you. Right. Yeah. I should have a pass, but I don't look like the guy who gets a pass. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, technically, if Latin derived word origins are the Roman Empire, like if we're going to extrapolate that, then I also like, right immediately. Yeah, you get that's not specifically what I'm thinking about. Yeah. Yeah. When my wife asked me that question, I said, you understand I teach sixth grade world history, right? Right. Which specifically focuses on the ancient world. Like, yeah, I'm outside the sample.

Like, yeah, like the curve is here and I'm like here. So yeah, I'm not statistically meaningful as as as as an example. I will skew your data. Yeah, like completely. Right between my spouse and I, I'm the one who thinks about the Roman Empire more often If you qualify it through the lens of etymology, you know See we had a running joke When it when I was married of you know, cuz that back then it was because it was a while ago

Um, it was you know, go make me a sandwich. Um The joke was because I worked in a sandwich shop for like three years and I make amazing sandwiches So yes please, please make me a sandwich. If ever there's a sandwich to be made, I'm the one doing it. So for me to say go make me a sandwich is just ridiculous on like every level, you know. But okay, so the Romans called Pompey the Great, Pompey Magnus. They called him Magnus the same way we use Nimrod because he was so egotistical and so and by the way he was a colleague of the man who decimated the he was

one of the last ones to decimate the Roman army Crassus. He decimates his army because they lost to, I think, the Parthians. But anyway. They impressed the wrong people. Yeah. But what do you call it? Pompey Magnus, the reason he got his name is because it was an ironic naming of him and because he wanted a triumph. And he wanted all of this glory and all of these things.

And they're like, get a load of Pompey the Great over here. So when they named him, they're like, okay, Pompey Magnus, you know? Which is just awesome because now most people are like, oh, he was Pompey the Great. And I'm like, oh, it was an ironic name. Context. Yeah.

Context. And that happens. What do we always say? That satire has about a half a generation shelf life? Yeah, right comes the goal, you know in a kind of similar kind of in the reverse of that Charlemagne Carolus Magnus One my favorite college history professor insisted on referring to him anytime. We talked about the Carol engines

She insisted on calling him big Chuck. That's good. I like it. And if I could get away with that with my students, I would, because he would look at the name Charlemagne and be like, fuck no, come on. Like, no, I'm, I'm, I'm Charles. Yes, I'm tall, but come on. Yes, I'm tall but come on That's you know, yeah, that is great So that's perfect. Yeah

Cool. Yeah, other than that, I just have like, you know spot questions about various words which I can forever and ever and ever but you know, I I I love phrases phrases and stuff like that. And so I actually have done the research for another podcast that we're going to do down the road just on phrases, like things like winning isn't everything. And, you know, like digging into what that actually means and where it actually came from and the amount of chlamydia that was involved in that story and you know just What?

It's come on. It's a me podcast. It's not gonna feel good. Yeah, I mean well, yeah, I mean yes Uh granted. Yeah so, uh ed do you have any more questions because um No, I have stories of you using the wrong word. I've had a great time We also got to chat a little bit more while we were talking to Julia last episode. Oh good. Yeah You know, I I have been largely fortunate also very hyper cautious Most of my life I don't I don't have any stories nearly as good as

The sconce muffin like there's there's nothing. Yeah most of my life, I don't have any stories nearly as good as the Skon's muffin. Like there's nothing. Yeah, no one's that actively stupid. Yeah, and the closest thing to Molly that I have is when I was teaching. This is my very first year full-time teaching, it was high school US history and we were talking about the Great Depression and I shared, you know, personal family story that, you know, my grandmother came to California from Oklahoma.

My grandmother's part of the reason we have the CHP, right? Yeah. Bumber grades is what they called it. Yeah, literally established in 1927 to patrol our borders in California, and they shared duties with LAPD who was completely out of their jurisdiction, and it was literally there to stop his grandma. Yeah. Yeah.

In my grandma's case, they failed, thankfully. But you know, for me, she's a force of nature. Oh, let me tell you. Her name was Mariah. Ask her about. Yeah. Hmm. Mandy, that was a good, good reference to Oklahoma. That was a great, that was a great reference. That was awesome. But, and I told my students, because I showed them the Grapes of Wrath as like, you know, this is what was going on. And I said, so you all understand,

my own family on my mother's side, my grandmother was an Okie. And I said that as the grandchild of one of these people and I'd grown up all my life with my mother saying, well you know, you're quarter Oki. And just hearing that word, well I said this to a group of students in the San Benito Valley in California, which is part of where the Grapes of Wrath is set. And I had a classroom full of students whose parents all owned farms. Wow. Look at me.

Look at me with the kind of shock as though I had dropped a racial slur. No kidding. Yeah. Because to me, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I had I had used a slur and I literally was my first year teaching and I was like 23. I looked around the room like, what? It's just what I call my grandma. It's like clerks too, you know. You call your grandma that? I bought that. That's it. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

And so, you know, the etymology of that term, you know, speaking of, you know, talking about derogatory and, you know, I don't know if we'd call this one classist maybe. Yeah, absolutely. But you know, but like having a personal experience, finding out that there's that much baggage attached to it,

like, oh my god. And when one of the kids after class said to me, Miss Blaylock, we don't use that word around here. And I said, really? He said, yeah. And I had to stop myself from asking, so OK, should I not have said that because that's a bad word or should I not have said that because some of the families that I'm teaching their kids are going to treat me like an untouchable now? You know, which.

Right. So, you know, but yeah, yeah, it's it's it's linguistic drift and all of this stuff is fascinating. So thank you. Thank you so much for for bringing us with you. This is great. I'm so glad I honestly it's it was the most interesting part of writing the book I think with where the sections on like bias embedded in words that we don't realize because like I knew some, but some of them you don't even think about like you hear some of them have lost a lot of their like heat over the years, like the word like galoot, if you call somebody a big galoot, that was a word for a galley slave. Like so that's a that gets pretty rough. And then like this one's a lot lighter, but like corny, like calling a joke corny is inherently a little bit classist because it's the same as like the term like calling someone corn fed means that they're like backwoods hillbillies. And so corny humor is like low, low brow and

another very brown eyebrow. Right. That's another one that is embedded with racism. So is it related? I assume it's related to corn. Yeah, something like, well, this would be like if you eat corn, you're not eating like high end food. This was like corn was food you fed poor people so that they would not die. Yeah. Rather than like cuisine. Um, so actually, let's dive into that.

There are words that their sound and their adjacency, two racist terms, end up being accreted into being racist. Like there's that Norse word that means stingy. And it ends with Ard or Ardli. But I'm not going to say the rest. It looks a lot like the, it looks and sounds a lot like the n-word and we don't, we don't want to use that word. Even though they're unrelated, I would not recommend saying. They're homonyms enough that like we don't, we don't want to throw that around. Yeah. Right. So are there are is is that just kind of how language develops and as we become more sensitive to the fact that we should be more focused on the words that we use to make sure that they're not harm-based words like and we just kind of have to

accept that as a loss or? My perspective on this is I am not the one being hurt by a word like that. So I don't really get to say, like somebody asked me one time, I heard, I saw some discourse on TikTok around the word aboriginal. And there are some people who, especially on TikTok, decided who were expressing

that they didn't like being called aboriginal. They didn't like that term for themselves anymore. Even though it's a widely accepted word, it's not considered a slur by most people. And the reason they didn't is because they were assuming that the ab prefix in it was an inherent negative when it means off or away from the word aboriginal, technically, like when it was first coined,

it meant people who came out of Rome. And in that sense, it is therefore a Eurocentric term that has been applied to people who are not Eurocentric by any means. So the way I phrased it is like, this is the history of the word. It's not inherently like ab does not mean negative. It means off or away from. It is in some negative words. And because I'm not the person who's being injured by that term, I don't get to decide how they feel about it. So that's also my perspective on that other word is like, I'm not going to go around using it because it might hurt someone. And I also like I always get like people in my in my comments who are kind of pushing those lines being like, are you saying

I'm not allowed to say this? And I'm like, oh Lord, you can say whatever you want. You can also live with the consequences of that. Like right for it. Yeah, you know, in impact, Trump's or overcomes intent. Yes, absolutely. Every time. And yeah, and and you know, I think that's the thing. in impact Trump's or overcomes intent.

Yes, absolutely. Every time. And yeah, and you gotta keep coming back to just the simple piece of advice, just don't be an asshole. Right. Like that, that's all, that's all anybody's asking for is just don't be an asshole.

Yeah, yeah. Try it. Yeah. You know. Yes. I'm along the same lines. Like, uh, as a word lover, I'm like, oh man, what a cool word to have to lose. But like, oh no, I lost a word that I've used twice in life. Like whoopsie doopsie. Like, like I'm pretty sure I'll be okay. And like you said, I'm not the one being harmed by it. And here's the thing,

even if, like you said, Ed, impact Trump's intent, even if it's based on simple homophonic similarity, the feelings are still real. So done. do you really want to be the one fighting on that hill? Like... It doesn't, like, the fact that it's not the same word doesn't stop your teacher, for example, doing a double take when you call your friend a fucker. You know? Exactly. Exactly.

I mean, and so doing that, knowing that, is you're doing it in bad faith. Yeah. And so now the real sin is that you're acting in bad faith and besides which those fuckers were flying Messerschmitt's Well, that's only yeah. Yeah. Sorry as well. I had I had to Like I'm here for it. Yeah. Yeah so, okay, so Yeah words. I mean words words always change too. Like that's, the reason that Latin died is because people started going, well, that's not a Latin word.

I'm like, oh, dude, like that's, that's how you kill a language. Like that's not how you kill a live. So yeah, words change in their meaning and they change in their meaning to people. What I was gonna ask is, is there a word for, I guess using words, I'm thinking rhyming cockney slang. Yeah. You know? You have identified the word for it. Yeah.

So is that where you end up, I guess it's just dog whistling isn't it where you can use a word That didn't mean the thing but it now does mean the thing And I think it comes down Yeah, I think that comes down to like intent again Like are you trying to be intentionally shitty about it or are you not? Or you're trying to have it both ways. Well, I I didn't mean it in a shitty way I'm, sorry you took it that way. But yeah, right.

You know, there's a way to actually apologize for that. And there's a way to be like, I didn't know. Right. I've seen it coined as the I'm not touching you racism. I guess so, totally. Oh, that's good. I like that a lot. That's a great analogy.

Yeah. So cool. Well, this has just been a delight. I am I am very happy with what we got to do here. So yeah, this has been so much fun. Like probably like the most intellectually curious conversation I've had in a long time. So thank you both. Oh, thank you. Wow. That's wonderful to hear. Thank you. That's our dozen of fans are going to be really stoked. So cool. Where can people actually we're going to we're going to close this up.

So, Ed, before I even get to the plugs, what have you gleaned? Oh, just that I mean, first and foremost, that I need again, like I said at the end of the last episode, I need to get both of Jess's books for my classroom because, oh my God, like, and I know what I'm going to be recommending as reading for several episodes now. So yeah, and just it's always fun and scintillating to think about how meaning has developed and how we take abstract noises and attach meaning to them and how we play with that is just awesome. So thank you for bringing that here. Here, here. Thank you very much.

Yeah. I'm just gonna say Hegel was right. Words sublate in their meeting, and you never lose the full meaning of the origin, but it absolutely colors how you look at it in the... What, Ed? Just, you know, here I am gonna, you know, casually you know casually drop a conversation. That's all. Just fine. Be the one who read all the theory. Well you do fiction what? I don't know. Yeah I know. But yeah Ed if you want to be, or do you want to be found? I remain a shadow in the warp, no. Okay, well you can find me in Sacramento on March 1st and April 4th, doing capital punishment. We are back at the Comedy Spot.

Look up, go to the Comedy Spot's website, just type in Comedy Spot Sacramento, you'll find it. Find us on the events page, it'll be awesome. Come check it out, we'll the Comedy Spots website, just type in Comedy Spots Sacramento, you'll find it. Find us on the events page, it'll be awesome. Come check it out, we'll be slinging puns, the tournament is back baby. And you will see some of Sacramento's best pun slingers coming out and doing the thing. Again, that's March 1st and I said April 5th, I meant to say. So come check that out. Jess, where would you like to be found? I can be found under my name, Jess the Ferris, Z-A-F-A-R-R-I-S, anywhere online or at useless etymology.com. You can also find info about my books there. You can also be found roaming

the cosmos intellectually and in general and also stuck in a thesaurus occasionally. So look there. Also don't forget to look up your words that you don't know. This was a lesson from our last episode, a very important one. I hope you have a conscience that tells you when you come across a word you do not know to look it up. So stay curious, wield your words with joy and with love and with intention. Ooh, that's excellent advice. curious, real, dear words with joy and with love and with intention. Ooh, that's excellent advice. Yeah.

All right, everybody, go go buy Words from Hell, Unearthing the Darkest Secrets of English Etymology by Jess Zafaris. And yeah, thank you from all of us over here at Geek History of Time. Jess, thank you so much for joining us. Until next time, I'm Damian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, keep dwelling renties.