Good Job, Brain! - 89: Sock It to Me

Episode Date: December 3, 2013

Ah, the foot; the meatbrick with 5 sprouting flesh morsels can hold so much mystery, wonder, and microbes. Let us rock your socks off with trivia and tales about our glorious feet: what does the "pink" in "pinky toe" mean? Why do we hang up stockings for Christmas? And where did the measurement of feet and miles come from? Karen blows minds with the phenomenon of "Frito Feet," and we dip our toes in Chris' idiom quiz. ALSO: Check your body for some mildly odd genetic traits. Just sayin'. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hello, shining, sharp shooting Sherlock's. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 89, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen, and we are your formidable formation of four foraging for formulas and for for loco oh i'm colin i'm dana and i'm chris that was good the good four loco right the vintage stuff yeah the vintage stuff and i just have a quick special shout out to julie and she wanted me to say hello to ryan aaron alison becky teddy lee elena jonathan and matthew so hi you guys hey you guys hey guys julie actually went to the same school as i did

back in Taiwan. So I was like, oh, what a coincidence. Let's jump into our first general trivia segment, Pop Quiz, Hot Shot. And I have a random card, Tribal Pursuit card from the box, and you guys have your barnyard buzzers. Here we go. Blue Wedge for Geography. Oh, name two of the four U.S. states that are actually Commonwealths. Oh.

How do you guys, Chris. Massachusetts is a Commonwealth. Yes. Correct. And I believe Virginia. is as well. Correct. That's all I know.

Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Okay. That's a good, that's a good trivia one, yeah. I don't get it. I don't get it. I've looked this up so many times, so many times. It has something to do with laws and how the government, how the government structure, yeah, yeah. Okay.

I'm embarrassed. Nice and big. Yeah. Very hand wavy. Another list question, Pink Wedge for Pop Culture. Name four. of the seven von Trapp children in the sound of musing.

All right, well, Weasel, everybody knows Liesel. Correct. Skippy. There's two boys. The Bve. Man. I don't know.

Franz. Hans. Something like that. All right, wait, wait, wait, okay. I'm making up German names. You're just guessing. Swiss names. All right, what are they?

The Austrian. Oh, okay. Can you even agree on the country. Arnold. Wow, they are. Liesel, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigita, Marta, and the little one. Greidel. Oh, okay.

Geez. That all sounds right. All right, sure. Was a one for seven out of the three of us. You know what? Some things you just know or you don't. All right, Yellow Wedge. Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore were roommates at

What university? Chris. Yale University. Incorrect. What? What is? Harvard. You're going to do what is.

But, okay, Harvard. When you said Tommy Lee Jones, I just thought Tommy Lee, I was like, Pamela Anderson. Purple Wedge. Bill Gates bought Who's Notebook for more than $30 million in 1994? Dana. Leonardo da Vinci. Correct. Yes.

And it's said here, it's written in reverse lettering, commonly called Mirableness. writing, which we talked about before. I think we did. Fine. Greenwich for science. What is the sole component of ozone? Oh. The sole component of ozone.

Chris. Oxygen? Correct. Okay. All right. Orange Wedge. Oh, a sports question. Finally.

Pete Rose was banned for life from Major League Baseball for what? Uh, generally for gambling. Yes. For betting on baseball. and in particular for betting on baseball while he was in the league. So is it okay if he gambled in other sports? Or, you know, yeah. I mean, he would probably be in the Hall of Fame if he had just gambled on other sports.

But you can't bet on the sport that you are playing. Conflict of interest. Yeah, to say the least. A touch. To say the least. Yeah. Well, and then he lied about it, too. He's like, no, I didn't.

He denied it for, yeah, right. He eventually came clean. Mr. Rose. Good job, Brains. So this morning, I do this a lot, I guess, like, oh, when we record, I ran a half marathon today. And it was, it was awesome because I got my best time. Oh. But before I came over here to Collins Place to record, I spent half an hour trying to pop all the blisters for my feet.

Oh. And that's great. Wow. Okay. That's something when you exercise a lot. If you're on your feet a lot, you get blisters. And I had, like, crazy blisters that were growing on top of each other. Anyways, it was very complicated.

Okay. Which ties in to neatly to what. I'm glad I brought that up. I'm glad I brought up. Because for this episode, we decided to talk about feet. So if you're not grossed out yet, so this week, get on your feet. I'm going to the end till United

All right All right I'll start us off here With an exclamation point I've noticed that a lot of my quizzes have exclamation points in the titles Oh, good, means you're exciting So I almost did the same thing I was doing something called stock facts

But then I didn't do it. I thought better with it. Sox secrets. Sox secrets. Secrets. So news flash for you guys. We have ten toes. Basketball players tend to have big feet.

I don't know if you guys knew this. Oh, yeah. They tend to have big feet. So I've heard. Yeah. So let's start it off here with a question for you guys. Logging in at a whopping size 23. Yeesh.

American sizing. Tell me what NBA superstar wore the biggest shoes in league history. I believe this is Shaquille O'Neal. It is Shaquille O'Neal. His shoe size is 23 EEE. Yes. Triple E's mean super wide. Yes. The letters. It is big and wide. I did some, I tried to find some conversion to European sizing. I know we have a lot of European listeners. It is literally off the charts on every chart I found. So I did some of my own conversions here. I believe that converts to size 56 European sizing. So there you go. Yeah. Big, big, big, So this is interesting. He actually started the league. He wore size 22s, apparently, which there were some, several other players had size 22. They're five at least. And then as he had some foot and toe injuries over the course of his career, he went up a size and moved up to size 23. And can go online and find pictures of his shoes next to normal human objects. I mean, it's just comical, like a picture of his shoe next to a laptop. Or he gave one to President Obama and Obama put it up next to his foot. It just, it is comical. He can probably wear the shoe with the shoe. Oh, yeah. We'll wear like a snow boot. Yeah, yeah.

Just put some suspenders on it. You got some snow boots. Right. So, Karen, you recently brought up the question for us. What is the official name of the I chart, you know, that we see? And it was. You guys still know. Dr.

Seymour letters. Snelling. Snellin. Snellin. Snellin. Snellin. You're going to write that for real on pub quiz one day. We're going to be.

We did. Yeah, we wrote it. We wrote it. We wrote it. A joke, yeah. Oh, no, we erase it. We don't do joke things. Oh, we put, I think we put like Bosch and Loam or something.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We tried to make a real guess. Yeah. In a related vein, I have a question about another industry standard. When you go to the shoe store, what is the official name of the little metal device with the sliders that you put your feet on to tell you what size and width shoe you should wear? It is a patented device. It has a very specific name. We had this, too.

Yes, we have definitely had this. Oh, man. Dr. Seymour Toes. It is a Brannick device. Really? A Brannock device. Named after its inventor, Charles Brannick of Syracuse, New York. Brandok?

Brannock. Yeah, B-R-A-N-O-C-K, a Brannock device. He patented it when he was 23 years old in 1926. His father was in the shoe business, so it wasn't totally out of left field for him to be interested in feet. But, yeah, it's one of those devices that came along at just the right time. And it was patented and became an... absolute industry standard, and you go into a shoe store today, and it's still the brannock device. If you were to go to a doctor and ask for stiletto surgery, what type of

procedure would you be asking for? Stiletto surgery? Stiletto surgery. This is a common name, not a technical name. Oh, okay. And I'll give you a little hint. By and large, the people who go for this are female, yes. Oh, okay. I think I know.

Karen. Is it bunyan surgery? it at its most mild could include things like that Chris it is um foot narrowing at its most extreme stiletto surgery is toe shortening or toe removal so you can fit into tight shoes better yes that's like cinderella it is to me it is crazy with more anesthetic the women who get it swear that it's necessary very broadly it's any of a of a few procedures basically to to make your feet fit better into tight shoes. So at its most extreme, it can include removal of the pinky toe, which is the absolute most

extreme. It can also have shortening, I guess, you know, shortening of the second toe to make it as shorter than the big toe is a little more common, where they will literally remove part of the bone and shorten your toe. Mammy's little baby love shortening toes. It can also include collagen injection into the balls of your feet. It's like having little built-in soles. Yeah.

You know, apparently this is a. rising trend among women who absolutely need to wear their tight-fitting shoes. Do you know how tall the shoes should be, like what a foot doctor would say? If you had to wear heels, what's the highest? I don't know. I don't know. Platform or no platform? Heels.

So like first heel. Net. Yeah. Is it like one inch, two inch, three inch, four inch. Three and a half. I'm going to guess two. It's two. Oh, man.

They say don't go above two. Yeah. So, again, not all doctors will perform these procedures. In fact, my favorite quote here comes from Dr. David Levine. I don't have anything inherently against cosmetic surgery. I have no problem if someone wants to change their nose or their boobs, but you don't walk on your boobs. Indeed. Indeed.

You can. You can slide around. Maybe. Wow. So this counts as cosmetic. Oh, yeah. There's no way this can be spiked. You can have some of these procedures for medically necessary conditions.

But to call it under the blanket term of stiletto surgery, yeah, we're talking about for cosmetic reasons. True or false? Humans have evolved to the point where the pinky toe no longer serves a purpose. Ooh, true. Chris says true. I use mine. I don't know. To pick up stuff.

Yeah, I definitely don't use it. Or to kick stuff. To climb trees, to grasp objects. You don't know. That is false. What? We do still use the pinky toe, but for balance primarily. Oh, yeah?

So if you sort of imagine, yeah, you've got like three points. You got your heel, the first knuckle of your big toe, and the first outer knuckle of your pinky toe are really sort of the base of balance when you're on your feet. Now, that said, most foot experts say that, yeah, if you lost your pinky toe or if you happen to be born without one, you get along just fine in the modern world. Because that's the number one spot on your foot when you accidentally kick something. Oh, my God. It's seen some stuff.

It's been broken so many times. Like, there's that one second where you realize, like, oh, I just hit the pinky toe. Oh, because it's the furthest thing from your brain. It's like a dinosaur. It's just working its way up there. And then the pain hits. Yeah. The pain hits and you're like, oh.

Such a disproportionate amount of pain for the size of your anatomy. Yeah. All right. So talking about the pinky toe. Why do we call it the pinky toe? Where is it? And I'll give you a little bit of a connection here. It comes from Pinky Finger.

It's named the Pinky Toll. That's what I was going to say. But why do we call it the Pinky Finger? What is that mean? Yeah, where does that word come from? This one blew my mind. Blue my mind. Wow.

We're not going to guess it, apparently. I want to hear your guesses, though. Does that have something to do with the color pink? It does not. Oh, pink or tint. We get the word pinky, ultimately from Dutch, but via Scottish English. And going way back, it really is just a root just means little. So, like, pink just meant little, and pinkier with a J was kind of a diminutive form, meaning

little finger. So now this is where it gets interesting. So it came into, as I say, into Scottish English, and then it seems like we picked it up from there. And for a long time, just pinky meant anything tiny, like a little dable or a little little hole in a little tiny little hole in the wall could be like a pinky in 17th, 18th century. Yeah. In English?

In Scottish English in particular. Yeah, like the little pinky. In fact, today, in modern Dutch. pink is little finger. So now this is interesting. So you guys know... Game with Romp? This is related.

Ah, no. That'd be great. Pink eye. Pink eye does not have to do with the fact that your eye turns pink when you get pink eye, which I always assumed. In Old Dutch, they believe that the expression pink organ, as I said, pink meant small, meant half-closed eyes or literally small eyes. That if you've got a pink eye, you can't open it.

So pink eye meant small eye. And we took both the word and the meaning. So that's how pink eye and pinky are related. That's like an almost acorn. Yeah, it is an almost acorn. It makes sense. Wow. I love that.

That's my anatomical etymology of the week. And that's foot facts. Yay. Deserving of the exclamation point to be sure. Growing up, your parents would tell you reasons for stuff. You're kind of doubting it. You don't know if it's a fact, but it's believed to be a fact. So, for example, growing up, my dad used to tell me that,

I don't know if you guys have this, but in your inner forearm, an inch and a half from your crease of your elbow towards your hand, some people have a very light crease. Oh, I do. You have it? I think I do. Is that it right there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have it.

I have no crease. Yeah. So I have it on both arms. And growing up, my dad always said, oh, this is a genetic thing. It means your Han Chinese, which is a ethnic. group. It's like, oh, Han Chinese people have this line. I have it on my other arm. And I was like, oh, okay, cool, but I don't really believe that only this type of people have it. Obviously, we're just proven around the table that obviously, yeah.

I can verify that Chris and I are not Chinese. And another weird body growth or oddity that my dad would tell me that means that I'm Han Chinese is, I assumed everybody had it on your pinky toe. Yeah. Yeah. And your toenail. Yeah. Some people, like me, have an extra toenail in the corner. What?

What? Wow. I thought everybody had it. So you have your normal pinky toenail. Yes. And in the very corner, you have, like, another little circle that's like a toenail. Like, overlapped, like a fish scale? No, it's just like on the side.

Huh. And it's kind of by itself. No. But it's there. Okay. No, not me. Oh, okay. And it's sometimes called the split.

Pinky Toe. The official name of this is called the accessory nail of the fifth toe. Accessory nail. Accessory nail. That sounds like an upsell. Now, can I interest you in the accessory now? No, it does look like because you have your normal pinky toe and it's like this little toenail in the corner. It is a physical trait of the small toe. And it's one of the very famous kind of legends is that all Han Chinese people have them. And there are some myths or some origin stories that are not. true. They're probably just legend or urban legend. They're all kind of gruesome and violent, so I'm not going to share with these. There are a couple of them. They're all like, yeah.

And then I was digging deeper. There are other cultures claiming that that's a definitive trait of their culture. Like the elbow crease in Celtic culture, they're like, oh, that means you're pure Celtic. So a lot of cultures actually have this trait too. So I just want to share with these two body oddities, the accessory nail of the fifth toe. Does your whole family have that? I never asked. I don't know. In terms of size.

I'm going to see it. It's pretty small. Go lost your toe. Because I'm missing a lot of my toenails. Yeah, I don't want to see. Oh, I was going to be like, oh, you should put a picture of it. Yeah.

But yeah, so that's a weird pinky toe thing. Oh, I have another body oddity, actually. I have two holes on the upper part of my left ear, where it's connected to my head, where your ears connect to your head. No. And it's not a piercing. Termites. Do they look like piercings?

It's a hole? How far does it go? Like a centimeter or like almost a centimeter. Holy cow. Yeah. I have another one up here too. Weird. And I look that up.

That is not one of those Han Chinese lists. It's just a deformity that a lot of people have too. If you're listening and you're like, hey, wait a minute. I have holes on my ears, not piercings. It looks like piercings, but you do. You're in good company because I have them too. Okay. So I'm going to talk about weird feet, too.

Well, sorry. You're a nice value judgment there, Tena. Oh. In my head, there was no value judgment. And out loud, I was like, like, on Karen's face. I was like, wait a minute. Special, special, beautiful. Perfect, just the way you are.

Yes, right. You are beautiful. A weird alien kind of beautiful. Why is a mile 5,280 feet? Oh, those kind of feet. Yeah. It's one of those just like. that like they changed the standard like a hundred times over a thousand years one of those things

right so a mile originally came from roman there was it was a milay passum which is a thousand paces and one pace is five feet so that equaled about four thousand eight hundred and fifty modern feet which is still not five thousand two hundred and eighty right where did that come from so in fifteen ninety two the british parliament decided that they would standardize it because you know It was in exact. It was hard to say what a mile was. Ish. Ish.

So they were like, all right, we'll make them furlongs. It is eight furlongs. Do you know how long the furlong? I'm sure like the like the like looks in your faces. Furlong is a distance. One age of a mile. I've read. It's something to do with.

It's the length of the furrow. A team of oxen could plow on a day. So it's eight, eight days of oxen plow. It's one mile. Oh, man, it makes really simplifying things. And if you don't have your own team of oxen, then... Right. And if one of the oxen is sick, then...

On average. On average. So it's about 660 feet times eight. It's 5,280 feet. Oh, my God. So it's not even a week of oxen plowing. It's eight days. It's like...

Damn it. It didn't make it. All-timey people. Get your act together Seriously I mean I grew up with the metric system What is actually a foot Why is it a foot

It comes from like feet Like the length of your feet Like a ridge like going way back Yeah because people would measure things out in paces Yeah they would measure things And it was about like 12 inches Yeah a pace was five Roman feet But that's shorter than our modern foot

So then where did inches come from Inch is one of those things Where I think it was defined relatively It was like oh it's a 12th of a foot I've also seen stuff where it's like an inch was three barleycorns. You know, so like you would... It was like you would put three barley corns together. Because everyone has barley corns naturally.

Yeah. And like that was an inch. And it's all very arbitrary. Yeah. Well, timey farmer people were like scientists that could... I don't know. Why didn't go to the moon sooner? They knew all the answers.

Sing! Oh my God. They were on top of it. But it doesn't make any sense. anymore. But now we just use it. I mean, it's been said. Five tomatoes. Yes, five tomatoes. That's our, that's our mnemonic. Oh, yeah. Feet in a mile. Five two, eight, oh. Yep. Five tomatoes. So when I think of feet, obviously, I think of Santa Claus. This is timely to this. If you're listening to this episode, just as it's coming out, early December. December 5th is St. Nicholas's Eve in Benelux, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and in some other parts of Germany.

in some other parts of some other European countries. It's the celebration of Sinterklaas, the Santa Claus-esque figure character from which American Santa Claus comes from. But they celebrated around St. Nicholas's Eve because, of course, Sinterklaas came from St. Nicholas, etc., etc., who apparently was a real person, as far as anybody knows. What they do, some European countries around this time, is kids will be putting out, originally it was their shoes, now much like we have Christmas stockings, it's wooden clogs that are like for this purpose, put them by the fireplace, and you fill them with straw or sugar cubes or carrots for St. Nicholas's horse. Because he's a horse. For his horse. Oh, for his horse. Oh, I was kidding. I didn't know. Okay. Well, you know, kids put out the treats for the reindeer and stuff like that

too. He has paused, so it's like four. And I was like, is it for the kids? It's really weird. Oh, it's for his horse. So it should. shoes by the fireplace. Now, how did all of this actually happen? Well, we know that there probably was a guy named St. Nicholas, historically. In general, the stories that are passed down about him is that he was very generous. Now, the more specific story, which, you know, it's probably apocryphal, but the big tale is that there were three girls that were going to be sold into slavery, basically.

Because their dad didn't have enough money to support them, and he didn't have a dowry. So if anybody were to marry them, they didn't, you know, he needed money, basically, or else they were going to have to go away. So St. Nicholas gave them money. But then, you know, the story is that he came around late at night to give it anonymously to them and just threw the money in the window where it landed in their stockings, which were hung by the chimney because they were drying. That's what the legend says, basically. These countries were Christianized at some point in the, you know, we're talking about early, early when the years had three digits in them kind of stuff. Why did St. Nicholas, of all people, become this popular figure? Theory is that the tales of St. Nicholas and his sort of wintertime generosity, whatever it was, got blended in with the tales of the Norse god Odin,

who has a long beard and rides a horse and is closely associated with Ewell, pre-Christian winter celebration. Got it. Right. So eventually, at some point down the line, it becomes, you know, cinterclass. Also, this was really interesting. At some point, these tales might have gotten blended together with La Befana, an Italian, witch, who puts gifts in the stockings of kids in Italy, and that she might have come from the Roman goddess, Streneua. Christmas presents in Italy are known as Strena.

Like, that's the word for it. So, like, the Roman goddess might have turned into the witch. And La Befana probably comes from Lepiphana or Epiphany, which is a certain holiday early in January, which is when a lot of Christmas stuff used to be celebrated. So it's, like, myths and tales and figures all just getting blended together, like going culture to culture. Yes, yep, yep. And now, eventually, at some point, we go from shoes to stockings somehow. This was always kind of weird to me, the stockings, because, like, you know, you'd really. read about, you know, Twas the Night Before Christmas when they talk about the, which is actually

titled, excuse me, it's titled, A Visit from St. Nicholas. It's not titled Twas the Night Before Christmas. You read about Santa gives the gifts to the kids, but he just fills up their stockings and, like, that's where all your presents go. Right. But when, like, I was a kid, like, you couldn't fit all the presents into the stocking. Yeah. Like, you can't fit He-Man action figures into the stockings. So you had presents under the tree, right? Boy, my big old sock. Go on. In my family, like, the stockings were kind of like the appetizers, you know. Little trinkets and candies and things. like that you started with the stockings yeah um but there was a back and forth about you know do we put presents under the tree or do we put them in the stockings there's actually the visit from st nicholas poem is credited with popularizing the idea of hanging christmas stockings um okay this is always one of my favorite parts of any good job brain episode that i can squeeze this into all right it is a recitation of a new york times article from december 26th eighteen eighty three and it seems like more of an edit

It is a significant fact that comparatively few Christmas trees were exposed for sale this year. There is a very evident decrease in the demand for them, and this is unquestionably due to the revival of the Christmas stocking. The stocking was for so many years so closely associated with Christmas that Christmas without stockings seemed inappropriately and insufficiently celebrated. The German Christmas tree, a rootless and lifeless corpse, was never worthy. of the day. It continues. I think this is, yeah, an editorial probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

In the days of the unobtrusive white stocking, no one could pretend that the stocking itself was a graceful or attractive object when hanging limp and empty from the foot of the bedstead. Now, however, since the adoption of decorated stockings, that article of dress has become a medium for the display of color and design. Then he goes on, the anonymous writer of this random piece that's stuck in the New York Times. Yeah, there's no, there's no name attached. What was needed to bring about the revival of the Christmas stocking was the invention of a variety of stocking especially

designed for the reception of Christmas gifts. This want has been met by the invention of the Smith Christmas stocking. This is an advertisement. It is. That's what I realize as I'm reading producing. Advertorial. So people like, people quote this article because you can find this in the New York Times webpage and I see a lot of people referring back to this article. But as I read this, I realized this was like an advertising article probably like provided for free to the New York Times. That's probably what this was. Yeah. And so thus casting a whole lot of doubt on whether or not the stocking really was making a roaring comeback or whether he was trying to get it to make a roaring comeback wherever this was. But I will read you the final

paragraph because it is a, it is a delight. The Christmas tree, dropping melted wax upon the carpet, filling all nervous people with a dread of fire. Remember, remember, it was candles. Banishing the juvenile delight of opening the well-filled stocking in the dim morning light and diffusing the poison

of rationalism thinly disguised as the perfume of hemlock should have no place in our beloved land. It has had its day, and the glorious reaction in favor of the sacred stocking will sweep it away forever. This person is on a woman. I feel like he's missing the essence of America.

Like, we have both. We'll take both of it. All of it. That's it. We want all of it. We want all of the everything. This is not an oar. A full stocking and presents under the tray.

Thank you very much. It's like your complete breakfast. You have the cereal and the orange juice and the bagel and the toast. And the eggs and the bacon. Port of a complete Christmas. Yeah. All of it. Yeah.

So anyway, I have no idea why we hang up stockings of Christmas. Nobody can figure it out. It's such an old tradition. It just goes back and back and back. And then it's just sort of like, well, I guess we tell this story about St. Nicholas, but it's like, you made that up. Yep. All right. Let's take a quick ad break.

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It is the heart of football season. It's right there in the name, the foot in football. And, you know, it sounds like a American football. Yes, American football. You put the foot in football. Gowl. It all comes back to advertising. Yes, in particular, I'm talking about American football. We're in the heart of football season, NFL season right now.

And, you know, the beauty of football, if you're a football fan, is that part of the beauty is that it's an all-weather game. You know, it's by and large, you play in open-air stadiums, and you play if it's sunny, if it's rainy, if it's windy, foggy, snow. You know, unless it's just outright hazardous and dangerous, you play. I feel like they shouldn't play in some of those weather conditions. I don't know. It's just how it's always been. It's an outdoor game, you know. They're smashing each other's heads at high speeds.

They can take a little snow. Well, and, you know, I mean, and a lot of the teams in cold weather environments in particular look at it as an advantage. Yeah. They're like, you know, we're used to it. Oh, sure. If you're coming from Miami or San Diego, you may not be as used to it as we are. And in fact, at the time that we're recording here, it's a Sunday.

And tonight in the NFL, the Denver, Broncos are going to be playing the New England Patriots in New England, in Foxborough Stadium. Now, this is a nighttime game. This is in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is further north than where you grew up. And I think you can attest it. It's going to be cold there. It's going to be cold.

Yeah. It's a 8.30 kickoff. It's expected to be 21 degrees with a 20 mile an hour winds. With the windshield factor, it should feel like four degrees on the field. A balmy four degrees. Yes, four degrees Fahrenheit. Yes. That kickoff.

It's really, really cold. I want you guys to imagine you're there on the field. It's four degrees. It may be snowing, maybe windy, you know, but you're out there to play. All right, I want to leave. And I want you to imagine taking off your shoes, taken off your sock, and kicking a football as hard as you can. Oh, my God. I wouldn't want to do that.

It sounds really unpleasant. They used to do this, isn't they? They used to do that. They used to have barefoot kickers in the NFL. Wait, why? Well, we'll get to that in a second. Okay. So I want to talk about not just football players, but the kickers in particular. You know what I mean? Because even though there's the foot in football, most of the players on the field actually never touched the ball with their foot. It's really just the kickers. They do a lot of run and throwing and catching. But these days, you don't kick the ball unless you're at kicker. So let's back up a second here. So in football, modern football, there's three kinds of kicking. There's punting. There's field goals, you know, where you kick it through the bars for the points. And then there's kick off. You know, you start the game. Let's kick this off. That's where that saying comes from. Wow.

In case you didn't know. Trivia. And yeah, these days it's really specialized. Like on a team, you'll have dedicated punters, dedicated field goal kickers, dedicated kickoff people. Yeah, it's really hyper-specialized. I mean, in the old days, though, it was just whoever the best athlete was on your team would typically be the kicker. You know, and it makes sense. They were just, let him kick.

He's the best at it. So there have been two major changes over the years in football kicking. There have been a change in style from straight on kicking to soccer. style kicking. Okay. And there's been experimenting with barefoot kicking. So let's talk about the style first, because that's sort of the less sexy change, or the less comical, if you will.

Less naked body parts. For years and years and years, you would, the way you would kick a football is you run straight at it and you kick it off the end of your foot, like where your toes, right? You know? Yeah, sure. Straightforward. But around the 1970s in the NFL, they started to have an influx of mainly European players kicking more soccer style.

They grew up playing soccer. So you come from the side, and instead of kicking off the end of your foot, you kick off the instep, yeah, or the inside of your foot. Yeah, it's more rigid. It's, yeah. More surface area. More surface area. Exactly.

More control. And it was kind of a novelty at first. It was like, oh, the soccer style. Oh, it's a European thing. Yeah. Yeah. It seemed exotic. But, you know, it's pro sports.

So like anything, if it's successful, you copy it. And the soccer style players, were generally more consistent, could kick longer distances more consistently, to the point that these days, every player kicks soccer style. Like, there's no longer even a distinction. So that sort of was a shift that happened and was very complete. The other one that fascinates me, though, is the barefoot kicking. It seems like, all right, I'm going to kick something as hard as I can.

I want to have some protection. I want to have a boot on there, you know? But sure enough, there was another fad. It started at the end of the 70s. Tony Franklin of the Philadelphia Eagles was the first. barefoot kicker in the NFL kicked the first barefoot field goal in 1979

and part of the reason that it started a trend is because he was a really good kicker at one time he had kicked the longest field goal in collegiate history barefoot yeah barefoot okay so again if it seems to be working for somebody if it seems to be working yeah people will copy it I'm old enough that I can remember watching

football as a kid it was not uncommon to see a barefoot kicker it was just like oh they're a little uncommon but that was how they do it I assume when you say barefoot they're not wearing anything like on their feet. No sock, no shoe. No, just the kicking foot. So it looks even weirder. I mean, you can find many pictures of this. But they still have to run. So they're running well, so that's the thing. You know, I mean, a lot of people say like, yeah, it's not just that you're kicking this ball barefoot, but that you don't have a cleat on it. And you're taking,

you're taking at least one step on that foot and your approach to the ball. In my mind, it seems like you're at a disadvantage too. It kind of peaked in the 1980s. And then it sort of faded away from there to this point where there hasn't been a barefoot kicker in over 10 years in the NFL. Oh, but you still can if you want to. You can if you want to. You are allowed to. There's no rule. So here's what's one of the funny rules. There's no rule that says a dog can't play football.

There was a rule, an NFL rule, that players had to have two socks. Can you guess what he did? He put them both on the same thing? No, he cut off the bottom of the sock. So it was just like a tube. I like my idea better. It was basically like a little, like a sweatband, and he would just pull it up to his calf, you know, just to sort of

get around the letter of the rule of having two socks. It's on my foot. It's on my foot. Was he a side kicker? Yes, yeah. Okay. Because they can imagine kicking straight on with your toe is a mistake. Yeah. Like that one?

Yeah. Especially you don't have a special boot or anything to protect it. I mean, and you would ask the barefoot kickers like, well, and again, I mean, cold weather, windy weather, you know, you get out there and do it. And they say, yeah, it really stings. Because remember, in cold weather, the ball gets really hard. You know, imagine a football that, you know, and they'll try and warm it up and make it flexible.

But still, I believe, and most people kind of believe, it's just if you're more comfortable doing it, you're going to be more successful at it. Although they do pay you well for doing that. So it's worth it. It might be worth it. In NFL culture, the kickers are kind of generally in the bottom of the totem pole in terms of respect. They're generally paid the least, but

they score the most points. My kicker on my fantasy team is treating me really well. Good for you, kickers. Yeah, they're consistent. Or that one kicker, I don't even know his name. Is Matt Prater? Is he someone? Yes. Yeah. He's on my I don't know what. Yeah. Yeah.

He gets me points. You don't even play it very well. He just randomly pick out people and see how you do. The top 25 scoring players in NFL history are all kickers. Oh, okay. Yeah. It makes sense.

You think about it. Because if they're treated, I mean, like you said, bottom of the top. It's because generally they don't have to get tackled, which is why. They're like, oh, I'd hurt my foot. I'm like, everybody else has, like, all these shit. Yeah.

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You guys are all at one point in your life dog owners or had lived with dogs. I've never had a dog. Really? No, always cats. Oh. It's cats all the way down. You know what? Some cats actually have this weird phenomenon, mostly in dogs.

It's called Frito Feet. Frito Feet. Frito, like, as in the corn chips, feet. Yeah. Feet. It sounds gross. They're feet. I'll just say right away, like, one of the things I think about with that.

Another name is popcorn paws. What? It sounds like a skin issue, doesn't it? They smell salty? When you take your dog out, or if your dog's having a ball outside and they come back in, they smell different, right? They smell like a little bit gamier. They smell like outside. Nothing's wrong with your dog.

It just happens when your dog goes outside and usually exerts a lot of energy and plays around. The thing is, dogs don't sweat. We know that, right? Dogs do not sweat. They perspire by panting, but they do perspire from their paws. Oh. And they do, I mean, they do. So they do sweat.

They spit out their paws. Yeah. And they do emit a light, light bit of perspiration through their hair follicles, which, you know, that has a chemical scent that is individual to the dog. When they're active, do conjure up some smells, just like the way we have the O. Sure. But what. Frito Feet refers to is most dogs, not all, but most. If you smell their paws, it has a very specific scent.

Okay. That is different than wet dog smell or that is different than outside dog smell. It smells nutty, little corny, kind of like tortilla chips and maybe a little bit yeasty. It's called Frito Feet. Like my dog's paws do smell like that. It's not like popcorn or corn products. Really? It's this specific smell from their paws.

It doesn't mean anything's wrong with their dogs. It's just one of the things. It's one of those phenomenons that happen. Not all dogs have it. Some cats actually do have it, too. Their paws. It's just a paw scent. Come in a kidding.

Get the paw cats. Yeah. Smell their paws. It sounds weird. It doesn't actually smell bad. To me, it just smells like dogs are supposed to smell like. Yeah. Right.

It's just a certain scent. And why their feet or their paws smell this way is because dog feet within all the folds of skin and the pads is a great place for bacteria and yeast to, you know, take up residence in a way and not say that that's bad because all living beings have some sort of microbes, a bunch of microbes living on them, living with them. Yeah. Your belly button's a wonderland.

Yeah, exactly. Yep, yep, yep. Because dogs perspire through their feet and they're always on their feet and they're always on their feet and they're outside, I mean, that is a great place for microbes to live in. some of these microbes will generate smells and in combination with all of this chemistry going on dog's bodies it just so happens the smell it gives off smells like corn products and this is a phenomenon like a lot of dog owners will think like oh no something's wrong with my dog why does it smell like this and they're like don't worry about it unless it's super strong

or normally strong then you know maybe something's wrong but you can just wash your dog's paws and if you really don't like the smell. But it's like, it was like, if it smells like cool ranch, get him to the vet immediately. Seek attention immediately. Or your dog just stepped in ranch. Or that. Which, yeah, for my dog, that is probably what happened. So, yeah.

Frito feet or popcorn paws. Cute. Less gross than I thought it was going to. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I agree. You know how like some people have toenels that look like Fritos? I thought it's going to be like that.

Yellow. And speckly, and crunching, and, like, curly. Yeah. Thanks, thanks, guys. Well, this episode is about to end on the right foot. I hate you guys. Chris, you have one last quiz segment for us? Yes.

Appropriately enough, it is a word quiz. It is a quiz about English language idioms. You're making a face, Karen. It's my own no face. Yes, this is Karen's weak point. Don't worry. I bet you'll answer some of these. So again, I just started looking up sock facts, and then I totally got distracted.

And I noticed that the word sock was used in many English language idioms and many expressions. And also like feet or foot, shoes even, too. Oh, yeah. So here is the quiz. I will give you guys the definition or the synonym. Okay. And you give me the idiom, and all of these will contain either the word sock or shoe or feet or foot. Okay.

So, here is number one. To impress someone greatly. Karen. Knock their socks off. Yes. Is it knock or rock? Knock their socks off. Yes.

I don't want anything to do with that. Uh-oh. Dana? Never mind. I was going to say shoe it away. No, but no. If the shoe doesn't fit? No.

Okay. Colin? Give it the boot? Oh, no. Oh, that's good. Like, I, that is not even something that I'm going to, I'm not going to mess with that. Oh, Colin. I'm putting my foot down.

No. Oh, dang it. I'm not even going to get in there. I won't put my shoe in, my foot in. Colin? I don't want to step in that? No. What I'm thinking of is I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. Oh.

Oh, foot like that. Yeah, okay, all right. Okay. Okay. Okay. To see something from another point of view. Oh. Uh, Karen.

Walk a mile in there. shoes? Yeah, or step into someone's shoes or walk a mile on their shoes. Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. To get involved with something immediately and with enthusiasm. Dana. Is it jump in with both feet?

Yeah, jump in or dive in with both feet. Yep. Shut up. Dana. Put a sock in it. Put a sock in it. Yes, that's it. All right.

To be the cause of one's own misfortune. Colin? Tripping over your own feet? No. I was going to say, well, you made your bed now you have to lay here. One foot in the grave went on a banana peel? You know, maybe all these are accurate. I was thinking to shoot yourself in the foot.

Okay. Yes, that's more. Yeah, right. To put something in a secure place. Colin. To sock it away. To sock something away. Yes.

Sock it away. To say something stupid. Dana? Foot in mouth. Foot in mouth. Let me have it. Colin. Sock it to me.

Sock it to me. There we go. Afraid to take action. Dana. Cold feet. Cold feet. That's just scared sockless. Scared sockless.

Oh, I guess that's it. That's it. That's it. The end. Yay. All right. And that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me.

And thank you guys listeners for listening in. Hope you learned a lot of stuff. stuff about stockings, about Frito feet, about kickers and such, and other cornucopia of foot-related stuff. Oh, is that a pun? Because there's corn on feet. Oh, ew. That's a close pun.

I was going to do something about diseases on your feet. And then I was like, oh, this is going to get gross. But that may be why I said so many gross things like. It's your outlet. You can find us on iTunes, on Stitcher, on SoundCloud. and on our website, goodjobbrain.com. And check out our sponsor at Squarespace.com slash good job brain. And we'll see you guys next week.

Bye. Bye. podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had, but once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms? And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to? Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation, jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to Minute Earth wherever you like to listen.