Speaker 1: It soundly and now on Night's Words with Cal Richards,
Speaker 1: who gently reminded me, of course I knew it, but
Speaker 1: I didn't actually say it. He is the late Sir
Speaker 1: Redmond Hillary. Now, but yeah, great man. I shouldn't clarified
Speaker 1: that it sort of didn't sound right, did it. But
Speaker 1: there's some funny stories about surre Redmond Hillary. Apparently, I've
Speaker 1: known some. I won't say anything because it might sound
Speaker 1: like some sort of commercial thing, but I put it
Speaker 1: this way. I know a couple of sponsors who've worked
Speaker 1: with certinmun Hillary and asked him to promote their products,
Speaker 1: and I've just heard these stories over the years, and
Speaker 1: they said he was the nicest, most humble person. They
Speaker 1: were shocked that such a famous man could be so
Speaker 1: humble to work with. Hello, kel By the way, speaking
Speaker 1: of humble legends.
Speaker 2: Good evening, Good evening. It's nice to be here, and
Speaker 2: I feel humble in every way. There was a show
Speaker 2: in which there was a so called lord. It's hard
Speaker 2: to be humble when you're perfect at every way. Well,
Speaker 2: it's the show.
Speaker 1: It's just about to ask you the same question. Someone
Speaker 1: will know one three, one eight seven three or zero
Speaker 1: four six zero eight seven three A's everything I can
Speaker 1: hear it. My's hiring to be humble when you're perfect
Speaker 1: in every the song.
Speaker 2: That's the song.
Speaker 1: Oswords dot com dot you. Of course, if you want
Speaker 1: to dig more into this, Kel also has the daily newsletter.
Speaker 1: You can have it for free, so subscribe go to
Speaker 1: Osward's dot com dot au and don't forget anything, any
Speaker 1: language issues, any phrases, any comments. It can be origins
Speaker 1: as we already have a question about Kel, and we'll
Speaker 1: we'll also deal with the emails that we've had in
Speaker 1: the last week or so too, because quite often Kell
Speaker 1: has to do some serious investigative reporting on some of
Speaker 1: these things. And there's some beauties I can see on
Speaker 1: the list, so we'll make sure we get to those.
Speaker 1: But up front, Beverly wants to know and you know what,
Speaker 1: this reminds me of the great comedian from the United States,
Speaker 1: Paul Lynde, because she wants to know the origin of
Speaker 1: for Pete's.
Speaker 2: Sake, Okay, for Pete's sake, in that it's one of
Speaker 2: a group of phrases which are fairly similar. That form
Speaker 2: of it, for Pete's Sake is recorded from nineteen oh three.
Speaker 2: Few years later, was recorded as for the Love of
Speaker 2: Pete Yes, and a variational was for the Love of Mike,
Speaker 2: which is a little early from the eighteen nineties. The
Speaker 2: best guess we have is all of them are softened blasphemies,
Speaker 2: so all of them were for God's sake, for the
Speaker 2: love of God, that they were all substituting something for that.
Speaker 2: There's a wonderful story that circulated on the Internet claiming
Speaker 2: it was Michael Angelo appealing for money for painting the
Speaker 2: Sistine Chapel or something, and he was appealing for money
Speaker 2: from Sir Peter's or for subpeters. It's all rubbish. That's
Speaker 2: a lovely story, but it's all complete rubbish. It just
Speaker 2: became a soft blasphemy in the late eighteen hundreds, and
Speaker 2: that's where all the for Pete's sake, for the love
Speaker 2: of Pete, for the love of Might come from.
Speaker 1: You remember Paul Lynde and all. He was on different
Speaker 1: game shows, and he did a whole lot of voiceover
Speaker 1: work as well.
Speaker 2: Oh, for a beat's sake, I remember him working with
Speaker 2: Carol Burnett.
Speaker 1: I think, yes, yes, we had that show in Australia,
Speaker 1: didn't we care.
Speaker 2: Carol Berner popular very funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one of the great early female comedians, or
Speaker 1: comedy ends as they used to be called, with two.
Speaker 2: Ends and an e yes. Do they still do that?
Speaker 1: There's a word well or was that just a made
Speaker 1: up word to soon?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, it was a real word. But we are told
Speaker 2: not to use gender language. So there are no actresses anymore.
Speaker 2: There's only actors. And we wouldn't talk about an aviator.
Speaker 2: That's a very dated word. But if we did, you
Speaker 2: couldn't call a woman and Avia tricks, which she would
Speaker 2: have been called years ago. So those gendered words tend
Speaker 2: to be largely dying. I suspect.
Speaker 1: Good point, and that's a no brainer, I think given
Speaker 1: the current climate. No brainer is one that we had
Speaker 1: an email about kel So that's first on your list
Speaker 1: of emails, by the way, one three one eight seven
Speaker 1: three or zero four six zero eight seven three eight
Speaker 1: seven three on the text line, don't leave it to
Speaker 1: the last minute, please.
Speaker 2: I think the bloke who emailedus was Martin, I think
Speaker 2: was his name, and Martin was worried that it was
Speaker 2: really offensive. It was saying people, it's really insulting people
Speaker 2: who got very low IQs or disabled or something or
Speaker 2: rather or mentally struggling. He named as an example, I've
Speaker 2: got no idea why Joe Biden, and he said, it's
Speaker 2: just a very rude expression. It's actually not. It's American
Speaker 2: and Americans coined nineteen fifty nine somewhere around there. And
Speaker 2: it's the idea that something is obvious. It's not a
Speaker 2: comet about a person. It's a comment about an idea
Speaker 2: or a judgment. And it's an idea or a judgment
Speaker 2: which is obvious. It is so obvious you can just
Speaker 2: see it. You don't need to put your brain into gear.
Speaker 2: It is a no brainer. So Martin, don't worry. It's
Speaker 2: not an offensive expression. You can use it.
Speaker 1: Yes, I couldn't agree more. I've always thought of it
Speaker 1: that way too. It's about not using your brain, not
Speaker 1: suggesting you don't have one. That's right, Alan, I beg
Speaker 1: to differ, even though Harvey Corman and Tim Conway, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: said Alpha Pete's sake quite a lot. Paul Lind is
Speaker 1: synonymous with it. He says it's not, but he is
Speaker 1: vampi campy. Paul Lind asks why do bikis wear black
Speaker 1: leather because chaffon crumples so badly, says David, thank you.
Speaker 1: I can just imagine him saying that, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the list one three one eight seven three if
Speaker 1: you have a call, if you want to get on
Speaker 1: the text line at zero four six zero eight seven
Speaker 1: three eight seven three, Done and dusted. This is one
Speaker 1: of our email conundrums.
Speaker 2: This is an interesting one. It's only recorded in nineteen thirty,
Speaker 2: although my guess would be it comes from earlier in
Speaker 2: the twentieth century, just in the in print until nineteen thirty.
Speaker 2: And there are a bunch of theories, none of them
Speaker 2: very persuasive. The one that I think is the most
Speaker 2: likely source is there was a time when sawdust was
Speaker 2: sprinkled on the floor of some places to catch spills
Speaker 2: and drips and so on, and then swept up at
Speaker 2: the end of the day and a new lot put out.
Speaker 2: This is my guess that the junior, the apprentice, the person.
Speaker 2: Pubs did that, and butcher shops did that. If you
Speaker 2: remember the sawdust in pubs and butcher shops, which the
Speaker 2: younger generation would be amazed to think you'd walk into
Speaker 2: a pub of this sawdust on the floor or a
Speaker 2: butcher shop. Anyway, it did happen pardonly it really did.
Speaker 2: I think at the end of the day the blaker
Speaker 2: had to do it. The assistant of the apprentice would
Speaker 2: clean the place up, then sprinkle the sawdust for the
Speaker 2: next day he was done and dusted, right, That's where
Speaker 2: I think it comes from, the sawdust on the floor.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. Now Alan's explained himself here. He meant
Speaker 1: to say Harvey Korman and Tim Conway were on the
Speaker 1: Carol Burnett's show, not Paul ind I just did a
Speaker 1: quick google. Alan paul In definitely was on a number
Speaker 1: of Carol Burnet episodes. But I'll bow to your better
Speaker 1: judgment than he may not have been a regular, We'll
Speaker 1: put it that way. So I think we might have
Speaker 1: come to an agreement on that. Well, better go to
Speaker 1: a break. We'll do that. We've got a couple of
Speaker 1: calls waiting, thank you, hanging there please. We've got more
Speaker 1: stuff on the text line as well, pouring in. It's
Speaker 1: eighteen past ten, twenty one past ten words with Kel
Speaker 1: Richards and the calls of banking up and some of
Speaker 1: the text messages. Let's get into it. Pam, good evening to.
Speaker 3: You, good evening, Bill and kill I was doing a puzzle,
Speaker 3: and one of the answers was do daddy. I've just
Speaker 3: looked it up. Can you please explain. I don't even
Speaker 3: know the.
Speaker 2: Meaning of it, do daddy. Oh well, let me tell
Speaker 2: you something. The Oxford English Dictionary has never heard of it.
Speaker 1: You sure you don't mean do dad? Like you know
Speaker 1: little do dad? Over there? That's an expression of here.
Speaker 3: It was actually D double o da double D.
Speaker 2: Why when D double o.
Speaker 3: D A double D? Why?
Speaker 2: Right? Okay? Now the Oxford still hasn't heard of it. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: If the ox It hasn't heard of it, then either
Speaker 2: A it's not a word, or B it's not an
Speaker 2: important word.
Speaker 1: What about do dad?
Speaker 2: I don't know. If do dad isn't there, we can
Speaker 2: find out.
Speaker 1: I've heard the expression do dad as referring to some
Speaker 1: kind of little thing, A little do dad. Yeah, what's
Speaker 1: that do dad? Hanging around your neck? That type of thing? Yeah, Pam,
Speaker 1: you've heard do dad?
Speaker 2: Surely yes, the Oxford, the Oxford knows do dad from
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty A thing of me? I think that's their definition.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, isn't that funny? It's an under think
Speaker 1: of me. It's got do dad is Yeah, Pam, I
Speaker 1: hope that helps.
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't because we didn't find an answer, so
Speaker 2: it doesn't help, Pam. But take it for calling.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: We're all in blissful ignorance about do daddies. You could
Speaker 1: take that anywhere, really, couldn't you. Gary's on the line, Hello, Gary, Ohio.
Speaker 5: Bill and kill I'm love you show.
Speaker 4: I look forward to it every week. I'm sure he
Speaker 4: can probably help me. The origin of the word.
Speaker 2: Bonza, Oh okay, it's Australian. It was coined in the
Speaker 2: eighteen eighties and it's the best guess is Australians cooked
Speaker 2: it up in the bush out of a couple of
Speaker 2: foreign words. One is the French word bond, which means
Speaker 2: good bo n, and the other is the Spanish word bonanza,
Speaker 2: which means a good find, a good discovery. And the
Speaker 2: assumption is that there were several ways of saying it
Speaker 2: and spelling it in the early days Bonster, Bonster. These
Speaker 2: are recorded very early in the piece. If you look
Speaker 2: at the old bulletin magazine you'll find these odd sort
Speaker 2: of spellings. Then it's settled down to being bonza, and
Speaker 2: was pronounced and written as bonza, but it was simply
Speaker 2: concocted out of Australian verbal inventiveness using bits of two
Speaker 2: foreign languages.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much, logic answer yes, thank you, bonds.
Speaker 1: A call gaz, thank you for that.
Speaker 2: There is a board game called do Daddy.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 1: That's probably where I just.
Speaker 2: Asked, mister Google the dice game.
Speaker 1: She did refer to a board game. I think when
Speaker 1: she first asked about it. It's just a made up
Speaker 1: just a mate copyright. Yeah, someone would own it. Tim
Speaker 1: is on the line with a really tricky one. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of journalists come to grips with this
Speaker 1: on daily basis. Hello, Tim, that's probably.
Speaker 3: Where I heard it from.
Speaker 4: I'm wanting to know it's the right word.
Speaker 5: Disoriented or disorientated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sorry. I've got bad news for you.
Speaker 1: It's both.
Speaker 2: They are both. Yes, they're both in the Oxford they're
Speaker 2: both equally accepted. Strictly speaking, I suppose disoriented would be
Speaker 2: more accurate. Disorientated comes later, and it is a back
Speaker 2: formation from disorientation. So orient originally meant looking east, That's
Speaker 2: what the word means, and then it meant, you know,
Speaker 2: pointing in a particular direction or focused in a particular direction,
Speaker 2: and if you're not focused in any direction, you are disoriented.
Speaker 2: Now that led Ryan, that gave rise to constructions of it,
Speaker 2: one of which was orientational disorientation. And while people were
Speaker 2: talking about being oriented or disoriented as a back formation
Speaker 2: from orientation, disoriented, orientated or disorientated was constructed. That happened
Speaker 2: in the early eighteen hundreds. So it happened a long
Speaker 2: time ago. And what happens is if they start being
Speaker 2: used in the English language, they become part of the
Speaker 2: English language. So both words with exactly the same meaning
Speaker 2: are acceptable these days.
Speaker 4: Fantastic, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I hope that helps. I caught a flight from Asia
Speaker 1: to Australia. I was disoriented.
Speaker 2: You were deoriented.
Speaker 1: I felt disoriented.
Speaker 2: Though, yes, all right, all.
Speaker 1: Right, I shouldn't be going on side tracks because we
Speaker 1: have a lot of text to get through kem and
Speaker 1: the jokes are really bad by now. I'll get him
Speaker 1: angry if I keep going. Not likely, is Freddie. Regarding
Speaker 1: blind Freddie.
Speaker 2: Says, ray, oh, look, there are theories about this, and
Speaker 2: the one that most of the dictionaries publishes that there
Speaker 2: was a blind beggar in Sydney in the early years
Speaker 2: of the twentieth century, so early nineteen hundreds, who was
Speaker 2: well known around Sydney and who was known as Blind Freddie.
Speaker 2: I've got this lovely theory of mine, which no one
Speaker 2: else supports, and for which I found no documentary evidence,
Speaker 2: but I think it goes back about fifty years earlier
Speaker 2: than that, and was Sir Frederick. Sir Frederick Pottinger. Sir
Speaker 2: Frederick Pottinger was an English baronet, young man in his twenties,
Speaker 2: who was set out here by his family because he
Speaker 2: disgraced himself back at home, and because this baronet with
Speaker 2: the title arrived in New South Wales, he was appointed
Speaker 2: to be head of a patrol of troopers to find
Speaker 2: Ben Hall. Well, of course Ben Hall the master of
Speaker 2: the bush and the bush that was filled with his friends.
Speaker 2: Sir Frederick didn't have a chance, so he never found him.
Speaker 2: And I would like it to be the case that
Speaker 2: he was the original Blind Freddie.
Speaker 1: That's a good theory. That's a good theory. Brett wants
Speaker 1: to know about fully sick Broull is one of the
Speaker 1: things kids say these days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ask a kid look fully sick bro I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: ask a twelve year old. Yeah, nowadays, kids use sick
Speaker 2: to mean good. Bro is a Black American abbreviation of brother.
Speaker 2: Why any white Australian would say bro? I have no idea.
Speaker 2: I don't care. If they're only fifteen, they should know better.
Speaker 2: It belongs in the ghettos and America American street language.
Speaker 2: I think it's really stupid here.
Speaker 1: It's picked up a lot, though, I hear it a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Oh, there's lots of idiots around, so that's
Speaker 2: why you've heard it a lot, because there's a lot
Speaker 2: of stupid people around. But it's a stupid expression. So
Speaker 2: that's where the bro comes from. It's just nuts and
Speaker 2: sick means sick. Is one of these things where it
Speaker 2: was originally negative and the kids use it to mean good.
Speaker 2: So fully sick just means really good.
Speaker 1: It's gone out of my head. But there is a word,
Speaker 1: is there not for using a word that's the opposite
Speaker 1: of the meaning you're expressing.
Speaker 2: What is that? Antony?
Speaker 1: Music and anthony antonym Because when you say something sick
Speaker 1: to say it's good, or if you say something's if
Speaker 1: you're being sarcastia. Yeah, yeah, it's probably just sarcasm. It's
Speaker 1: just very bad swaying anyway, Peter won't call them actors
Speaker 1: an actress.
Speaker 2: Not calling them bro. That's a really really silly word, Paul. Sorry,
Speaker 2: you got me started now you shouldn't have got me
Speaker 2: onto this. It really is an idiotic word. It's an
Speaker 2: really silly expression. What about brother, Oh, brother's okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: brother's fine, brother.
Speaker 1: I noticed that's catching on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh well among Christians it's been used for about
Speaker 2: two thousand years. Good morning brother, Good morning sist. So
Speaker 2: that's not new, that's fine, but bro, spare spare me days.
Speaker 1: Paul lind also played Uncle Arthur in the sixties TV
Speaker 1: show Bewitched with Elizabeth Montgomery. Thank you, Fred, yes he did.
Speaker 1: How come we can have a waiter and a waitress,
Speaker 1: asks Anna, but not an actor and an actress.
Speaker 2: Well, you can't have a waiter and a waitress anymore.
Speaker 2: They are now officially called weight persons. I know it's
Speaker 2: stupid and it's a really really dumb construction in the
Speaker 2: English language. But because the woke are bullies are therefore
Speaker 2: people who employ persons to weight on tables have to
Speaker 2: call them weight persons these days.
Speaker 1: I don't mind flight attendant. A lot of the other
Speaker 1: wokism irritate the heck out of me. But flight attendant,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It seems to be nicely neutral.
Speaker 2: No flight attendants not too dad dear, that's okay.
Speaker 1: I can't think of any other stuff off the top
Speaker 1: of my head. That actually all over, Red Raver asks
Speaker 1: Scott had.
Speaker 2: No idea, no idea. It's simply the kind the English
Speaker 2: language likes. Expressions are phrases, idioms which contain rhythm and rhyme.
Speaker 2: And any expression which contains rhythm and rhyme will be
Speaker 2: taken up by the language, will be remembered by people,
Speaker 2: be repeated by people all over. A Red Rover is
Speaker 2: simply a rhyming way of saying it's over. It's nothing
Speaker 2: more than that the creator was anonymous, and we don't
Speaker 2: know when.
Speaker 1: Now we'll go to the break with Jules, who sent
Speaker 1: a text in expanding on our reference to oh lord,
Speaker 1: it's hard to be humble. She says, Oh lord, it's
Speaker 1: hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sing it. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: look in the mirror because I get better looking each day.
Speaker 1: That's from mac Davis in nineteen seventy four. Thank you, Jules,
Speaker 1: it's twenty four to eleven. Don't waste time. We've got
Speaker 1: a lot to get through here. On the text line,
Speaker 1: Kell and calls coming in too. Mark wants to know
Speaker 1: when they say on the music shows and similar forums
Speaker 1: their new album is dropping tomorrow. Why is it dropping?
Speaker 1: I think that's an expression used in other forms, isn't
Speaker 1: it or is it just music?
Speaker 2: I don't know, just off the top of my hit,
Speaker 2: I can't remember being used any world. It is simply
Speaker 2: music people trying to be I mean, it's been released tomorrow,
Speaker 2: is what's happening? Why you would choose to say it's
Speaker 2: dropping tomorrow. I've got no idea. It's just music people
Speaker 2: who don't speak English quite like the rest of us,
Speaker 2: and they were really super cool.
Speaker 1: Maybe in the old days when that the record moved
Speaker 1: up and then dropped on the platter. Maybe maybe well
Speaker 1: where it came from.
Speaker 2: That's what they're not talking about. That they're talking about
Speaker 2: it being released released the day it's released as the
Speaker 2: day it drops, so it becomes available to the public
Speaker 2: on that day. I can sort of under it's figurative language.
Speaker 2: It's a metaphor. I could understand the figurative language. I
Speaker 2: can understand the metaphor, and I suppose it's a bit
Speaker 2: cooler them saying it's been released tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This text has no name, but it says I remember
Speaker 1: our male neighbor when he had a few too many
Speaker 1: singing that song It's hard to be humble every weekend,
Speaker 1: and he was no Brad Pitt. George is on the
Speaker 1: line with the question, Hello.
Speaker 4: George, look at ahl and join us thing tonight. I
Speaker 4: know you were talking about do Daddy a few minutes ago,
Speaker 4: and the first thing that came to mind were those
Speaker 4: beach Party movies of the sixties with Frankie Avalon Annette Foncello,
Speaker 4: and they used to have a character in those movies
Speaker 4: called Big Daddy. And I think it's an African American
Speaker 4: thing to tack on something to Daddy, you know, like
Speaker 4: do Daddy and Big Daddy. And you might remember the
Speaker 4: Yardbirds in the UK were a very famous sixties English group.
Speaker 4: They made their name at the craw Daddy Club in
Speaker 4: the UK. So it's I think it's a beatnik African
Speaker 4: American thing that developed in the fifties and sixties. So
Speaker 4: that's that's what came to mind.
Speaker 2: Anyway, it became popular because Tennessee Williams used it in
Speaker 2: one of his players, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Speaker 2: I think Burl Eives played Big Daddy in the movie,
Speaker 2: I think. But it goes back to the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: eight and nineties anyone who was domineering. Actually, originally it
Speaker 2: meant someone who was really sort of domineering and influential
Speaker 2: was big Daddy. And it may go back to American
Speaker 2: politics because American Tammany Hall politics was famously corrupt, and
Speaker 2: there would be a big Daddy who called the shots
Speaker 2: and ran the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, George, Is that your only question?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 4: Well, well, actually the reason I called was, well, our
Speaker 4: indigenous brothers and sisters or are always in the news,
Speaker 4: but just lately, and this is a thing you may
Speaker 4: have dealt with before kill is our indigenous brothers and
Speaker 4: sisters keep referring to themselves as our mob. And I
Speaker 4: keep shaking my head because word mob is a pejorative term.
Speaker 4: It's a negative term, and I can't understand why they
Speaker 4: keep refusing that word our mob. Oh.
Speaker 2: Quite often, terms which started off as prijority terms are
Speaker 2: adopted by groups of people as positive terms. So when
Speaker 2: Methodists were first called Methodists, it was meant to be
Speaker 2: an insult, and they just took it up and said, yes,
Speaker 2: we'll call ourselves Methodists, so that quite often happens. Mob
Speaker 2: comes from the word mobile, so it means any any
Speaker 2: group of people or animals that can move, that can
Speaker 2: move around. So that's where it originally came from. But
Speaker 2: it's an English word. It's not an Aboriginal word, fairly obviously,
Speaker 2: and it was used in Australia for a mob of
Speaker 2: sheep or a mob of caple cattle or whatever, and
Speaker 2: Aboriginal people adopted it as a good collective noun. They
Speaker 2: liked it, they chose to use it, and they use
Speaker 2: it a lot now. In fact, they've used it a
Speaker 2: great deal for I would think over one hundred years.
Speaker 1: Thanks George, Good on you mate. Brett's on the line
Speaker 1: waiting patiently with another interesting one. Hello Brad, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Gay, Bill and Kel.
Speaker 1: Yesterday Fordham made a comment on his show about a
Speaker 1: blike who had a machete.
Speaker 5: Down his dacks.
Speaker 3: How do you get dax from a pair of pants?
Speaker 2: My memory is, and I'm just I can find it quickly.
Speaker 2: It was a proprietary name there was a manufacturer by
Speaker 2: that name, a proprietary name for a brand of clothes.
Speaker 1: Like people say Hoover for vacuuming.
Speaker 2: Exactly the same thing, that's right, or sell it tape
Speaker 2: instead of a sticky tape. It's that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: There was a company called s Simpson Limited. I've just
Speaker 2: opened up my Oxford database so I don't memorize all
Speaker 2: of this stuff in Stoke Newington Road in London, and
Speaker 2: they manufactured trousers under the brand name Dax And it
Speaker 2: was just a brand name that caught on and applied
Speaker 2: to all trousers then. So it'd be nice if there
Speaker 2: was a really exciting but it's just a brand name.
Speaker 1: Okay, there you go, Brett, there's a bit of history
Speaker 1: for us. Jude Jaw and Jim Crack are also do
Speaker 1: Dad's true, says Sarah. There you go.
Speaker 2: Okay, we will take your word for that. Bill and
Speaker 2: I are thoroughly convinced you know exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: We've taken your word for that.
Speaker 1: We will Joyce says My mother used to tell us
Speaker 1: she would knock us into the middle of next week
Speaker 1: when we were naughty. What do you think of that? One?
Speaker 2: She says, yes, it's actually the interesting thing about these
Speaker 2: expressions is the way they survive and the way they
Speaker 2: are passed on from one set of parents to another.
Speaker 2: So it must be part of the oral culture, because
Speaker 2: there's not a set of instructions when you become a parent.
Speaker 2: You know, one of the things you can say when
Speaker 2: the kids play up, when the kids will say, we'll
Speaker 2: knock you into the middle of next week. There's no
Speaker 2: book that tells you that. But nevertheless, these things get
Speaker 2: passed down from one generation to another and from one
Speaker 2: set of parents to another, and they are simply good expressions.
Speaker 2: They're nice expressions that convey what you want to convey
Speaker 2: to the kids with being too physical.
Speaker 1: Now, this is a good one, Kel because I often
Speaker 1: wonder if people these days understand it. As a journalist,
Speaker 1: I do, obviously, But Susan says, what does it mean
Speaker 1: when you see in brackets sic after a paragraph in
Speaker 1: the paper? And where does it come from?
Speaker 2: It comes from Latin, and it may what does it
Speaker 2: mean Latin? It means the idea of s I C
Speaker 2: means that's the way it was originally. So if they're
Speaker 2: running a quote from someone in the middle of it
Speaker 2: there's a mispronounced or misspelled word. They put sick afterwards
Speaker 2: in brackets to say he did it, not me. What
Speaker 2: does sick mean in Latin? I'm trying to remember my Latin.
Speaker 2: Someone who knows who learned Latin and remembers their high
Speaker 2: school Latin call up and tell us.
Speaker 1: Please, Yeah, I know what it's for, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know the origin, so I never studied Latin this one.
Speaker 1: What about the saying strike me pink? Says Mick.
Speaker 2: It's simply that pink is meant to be the color
Speaker 2: of good health. If you've gone pink, then you're you're
Speaker 2: looking good and you're fine. You know, you're doing really well.
Speaker 2: So strike me pink was that kind of expression of surprise.
Speaker 1: Getting back to Bro, Mark says, hey, Bro, you're going
Speaker 1: to upset the kiwheeze.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: Wherever it came from, there's no doubt they do a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh oh, sick means so so. In other words,
Speaker 2: if you put that in brackets, say it was so
Speaker 2: how they did it? It was so?
Speaker 1: Thank you Okay, thank you by the way too for
Speaker 1: that text message. Mark, that was an interesting observation. Pats
Speaker 1: on the line with another one. Now, I know that
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis and I think die Hard made famous a
Speaker 1: version of this, saying Hello Pat.
Speaker 5: Good evening guys, thanks to the show and thanks Cal.
Speaker 5: You're absolutely I think, And you know, my mother was
Speaker 5: an elocution teacher, so it's quite amazing how you are
Speaker 5: still attained all your knowledge yp io.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: To the best of my knowledge, it's an American Western
Speaker 2: expression and it was a cry used by cowboys to
Speaker 2: words catle on. Now. I think that's where it came from,
Speaker 2: and I would think it would have been recorded by
Speaker 2: well at least from the eighteen sixties. It may have
Speaker 2: been recorded earlier than that, but it was the kind
Speaker 2: of yell or cry or shout that someone driving cattle
Speaker 2: would use to move the cattle on.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure Bruce Willis used the term yippie kaya
Speaker 1: kaiya instead of which I was familiar with. But someone
Speaker 1: can tell.
Speaker 2: Us there'll be there will be various versions of it,
Speaker 2: so there won't be one version because it was part
Speaker 2: of or the oral language, and it was just part
Speaker 2: of a bit of slang. I mean, it was the
Speaker 2: just using yippee was used as an exclamation of delight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they just tried to put a spelling on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just a sound. It's a quarter to eleven.
Speaker 1: This is Kel Richards with words. We've still got plenty
Speaker 1: of texts here. We'll get through as many as we
Speaker 1: can after this, where with Kel Richard's with words and
Speaker 1: we'll do as best we can in the last five
Speaker 1: minutes or so. This is a good one from Mark,
Speaker 1: who says Kel just wondering when dealing with food using
Speaker 1: the word helping came about.
Speaker 2: It's recorded from eighteen twenty odd to a serving of food,
Speaker 2: and it comes from the idea of help yourself. In
Speaker 2: other words, food was commonly served in the middle of
Speaker 2: the table, and everyone helped themselves to some of the roast,
Speaker 2: some of the vegetable, some of the whatever. And because
Speaker 2: you helped yourself, what you got out of it was
Speaker 2: are helping?
Speaker 1: Jukebox? Asks Alan. That's interesting because is it related to
Speaker 1: the old duke joints back in the early days when
Speaker 1: the African Americans had those places? I wonder, yeah, or
Speaker 1: is that an entirely different thing. Jukeboxes still exist, don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine they would because everything's digital now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it comes from a West African word which was
Speaker 2: taken to America a West African language called Gulla, and
Speaker 2: it was pronounced duke or juke, and originally it meant
Speaker 2: to live wickedly, to live really badly.
Speaker 1: I think it is connected to the duke joints.
Speaker 2: Then, yeah, so you could have a juke house or
Speaker 2: a juke joint, which might be a brothel, or it
Speaker 2: might be a roadhouse or a cheap roadside establishment. So
Speaker 2: probably I would think that the juke box got the
Speaker 2: first part of its name from that, because they were
Speaker 2: machines that played music in those kinds of places.
Speaker 1: Yes, the big cheese, asks Pamela, the big cheese when
Speaker 1: it comes to words.
Speaker 2: Well, a big cheese, I mean someone who's important. It's
Speaker 2: a bit like big daddy. Originally an American expression, and
Speaker 2: it was used for someone who was self important, who
Speaker 2: thought he was the big cheese. So I'm presuming that
Speaker 2: it was originally meant to be a kind of a
Speaker 2: put down, you know, someone who thought really well of himself.
Speaker 2: Look at he thinks he's the big cheese. And cheese
Speaker 2: is not that important unless it's really nicely important. French trees,
Speaker 2: it's not that important. So it's a way of putting
Speaker 2: down someone who was very impressed by himself.
Speaker 1: What about on a cracker with a glass of red.
Speaker 1: Now we're getting somewhere. Yes, a lot of people, David,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: Do you know the sort of person. There's a friend
Speaker 2: of mine and he speaks very well of himself.
Speaker 1: No names, no patrol. Yes, well, where'd that come from?
Speaker 2: No name's no patrel.
Speaker 1: We can't have a conversation really without stopping.
Speaker 2: It comes from the army, that's right.
Speaker 1: And yes, Harvey as well. A lot of people got
Speaker 1: the Latin meaning for sick, by the way, congratulating a
Speaker 1: few people in case you're wondering, we do note these things. Rebecca,
Speaker 1: well done. A whole stack of people had that correct.
Speaker 2: Can I just say thank you for that because my
Speaker 2: brain went totally blank. I'd filed that in some sort
Speaker 2: of brain cell that it since died, and it did
Speaker 2: finally come back to me, but it took a while, So
Speaker 2: thank you. You're very helpful.
Speaker 1: Wendy's got a funny one by two grandsons nine to
Speaker 1: twelve and nine years of age call each other brother
Speaker 1: or bro, which we think is cute. They haven't got
Speaker 1: it from the US because they're too young. Oh, then
Speaker 1: they are brothers, Wendy.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes they have. BRO was not coined here. Bro
Speaker 2: is imported here from America, and it turns up on
Speaker 2: too many television things and somewhere on television. They've heard it.
Speaker 2: All their friends have heard it on television, and they've
Speaker 2: picked it up from them. I'm sorry it did come
Speaker 2: from America, even for your wonderful grandsons.
Speaker 1: Now, Allan says Kell, and he's full of praise. Your
Speaker 1: opinion on the meaning of the word youth was ultimately
Speaker 1: supported by the judge and the Newington co Ed Versus Boys'
Speaker 1: school court case the word wizard.
Speaker 2: As I mentioned last week, the people who were running
Speaker 2: the case did contact me, very nice lady, lovely lady,
Speaker 2: and I was very sympathetic to her cause. But I said,
Speaker 2: you will not win it on the meaning of the
Speaker 2: word youth because it is not gender specific. And I
Speaker 2: did a bit of digging in the Oxford and elsewhere
Speaker 2: for information to back that up and gave it to her.
Speaker 2: But they ignored my advice, ran the case anyway, and
Speaker 2: did not win.
Speaker 1: John makes a good point. I hope I've got you
Speaker 1: right here, John. When you're saying there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as daylight savings. It's daylight saving. But John, you will
Speaker 1: seem to make it a plural.
Speaker 2: Yes, John, you are exactly right, and you and I
Speaker 2: stand together on this one. It is the saving of
Speaker 2: daylight during the day. It is an action. It's not money,
Speaker 2: it's not a thing. It's an action. And so it's
Speaker 2: the action of daylight saving. And people who make it
Speaker 2: plural displaying their sheer ignorance.
Speaker 1: I took my cash to the bank yesterday, kel is
Speaker 1: that daylight savings? Sorry? Are you sorry? You warned me,
Speaker 1: didn't you not to make cheapid dad jokes?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Sorry, sorry, dad jokes.
Speaker 2: It's just jos dad jokes.
Speaker 1: Come on, I'm just about to walk out. Stay with
Speaker 1: me for another minute and a half if you don't
Speaker 1: mind two minutes, Wade says, Hi, gentlemen, there were stacks
Speaker 1: of dack slacks on racks, as the saying.
Speaker 2: I recall, Ah, yes, and I think it might have
Speaker 2: been used in advertising. Was it ever used in radio advertising?
Speaker 1: It could have been. I don't remember, to be honest,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like it was. Let's go quickly through.
Speaker 1: I've lost my place. I've lost my place up to
Speaker 1: the oldest. Let's go back to the email line for
Speaker 1: a second, because this is one I really liked. Flotsam
Speaker 1: and jetsam. Elizabeth wanted to know.
Speaker 2: The difference started out in maritime law. Flotsam is the
Speaker 2: wreckage of a ship that floats. The bits of wreckage
Speaker 2: which float are the flotsam, and you can see that
Speaker 2: if you look at the word the bits of and
Speaker 2: gets washed up on the shore. The bits of wreckage
Speaker 2: which are thrown overboard when a ship is in trouble
Speaker 2: is the jetsam.
Speaker 1: As in jettison, as in jettison.
Speaker 2: So that's the flotsam, and that's the jets And when
Speaker 2: it comes to collecting whatever legal prize you're allowed to
Speaker 2: collect when you collect a w recship, it makes a
Speaker 2: big difference. Apparently, flotsam there is no the original owners
Speaker 2: can't have a claim on.
Speaker 1: A couple of quick ones. Alan wants to know Khaki
Speaker 1: or khaki.
Speaker 2: Oh, Kaki always khaki shoot anyone. Anyone says khaki shoot them.
Speaker 1: Where does that come from? Though? Why did they start
Speaker 1: saying that? Is it American past? Just like they say aluminum?
Speaker 2: You know, no, No, aluminum is a totally different story.
Speaker 2: Why would they say that. If you think back to
Speaker 2: mash they didn't say they didn't say khaki. They said khaki,
Speaker 2: didn't they?
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It comes from part of India. It came into
Speaker 2: Britain when India was part of the British Empire. It
Speaker 2: comes from a language called Urdu and it means dust colored.
Speaker 1: And will say goodbye with Jason clarifying I was right
Speaker 1: when it came to die Hard and Bruce Willis. He
Speaker 1: said yippie kaye.
Speaker 2: And something else which is unusable on a family program.
Speaker 1: Correct And with that, Kel Richards, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: That went quickly, didn't it. You'll be back next week
Speaker 2: You will, I will say, mate, there he is the
Speaker 2: great Kill Richards