Speaker 1: There's more than one way to skin the cat of etymology,
Speaker 1: it's one more thing. I'm strong, and one more thing.
Speaker 1: So first, Joe used the disgusting phrase more than one
Speaker 1: way to skin a cat, which we got off on
Speaker 1: wondering where that comes from, and a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: people texted, it's catfish, it's the way to skin catfish.
Speaker 1: That mayn't be true. That may not be I even
Speaker 1: looked it up. And even if I look it up
Speaker 1: and find it, that doesn't mean it's accurate because some
Speaker 1: other website will say something different. That's it within a
Speaker 1: week anyway, Right, That's been my history of these things.
Speaker 1: But Joe also used the phrase screwed and tattooed, which
Speaker 1: I was actually wondering about somewhat and apparently the actual phrases,
Speaker 1: and I've heard this before screwed, ballued, and tattooed.
Speaker 2: Please tell me this is not horrifying because I used it,
Speaker 2: you know on the r it can be any of it.
Speaker 1: At least three things. Where this came from? This this.
Speaker 3: So blued, that's grammatically incorrect.
Speaker 1: Well on this one, it's it came from ship's mechanics,
Speaker 1: tighten all parts and screws use bluing to stain the metal,
Speaker 1: which is something you do, put an inspection mark through
Speaker 1: the blue paint with a tool, and to tattoo the
Speaker 1: part to show that it has been taken care of.
Speaker 3: Screwed blue, its completely taken.
Speaker 1: Care of, right, or it could be this. Before shipping
Speaker 1: out from a foreign port, call a sailor would see
Speaker 1: a local working girl. That would be the screwed portion
Speaker 1: of the conversation. After that he'd dress in his navy
Speaker 1: blue uniform to head back to the ship. Then he'd
Speaker 1: get another tattoo to remember where he had been.
Speaker 2: Okay, bullshit on that one, but it's charming anyway.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I believe that one. And then
Speaker 1: also the one.
Speaker 2: Tane charming, you know, including the hooker and everything, but
Speaker 2: at least I don't know.
Speaker 1: So apparently back in the day, and again this is
Speaker 1: yet another version of this. Back in the day in
Speaker 1: the Navy, you would take a mercury pill, which was
Speaker 1: a blue pill, to treat the syphilis you got while
Speaker 1: you were in you know, in town, while you're doctor
Speaker 1: or whatever. So you got screwed, you got syphilis, you
Speaker 1: got blued. With the medicine to treat the syphilis, and
Speaker 1: then you'd show your ship's tattoo to avoid being pressed
Speaker 1: into service on another ship to get out of town.
Speaker 3: Huh. I feel like it almost feels like a game show, Katie,
Speaker 3: doesn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna go with answer A. I think the
Speaker 4: first one sounds the most legit out of those three.
Speaker 1: Uh i uh. I find it interesting that there are
Speaker 1: all kinds of words and phrases that we use because
Speaker 1: we know what we know what you're trying to say
Speaker 1: with them. But like the origin will turn out to
Speaker 1: be very very different or whatever. It doesn't make any difference.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't make any difference. If it's being it's
Speaker 1: been used for the last fifty years to communicate a
Speaker 1: certain thing, what difference does the origin make at that point?
Speaker 1: Does it make any difference?
Speaker 2: It's it's interesting, I'm charming, but no, it means what
Speaker 2: it means currently. Yeah, it's like the whole idiotic BLM.
Speaker 2: And again you have to remember all of that crap
Speaker 2: was fake. It was designed to overthrow the powers that
Speaker 2: be in Western civilization. So the idea that you couldn't
Speaker 2: use the term picnic, it was just an effort to
Speaker 2: get you to obey them anyway, just to they are
Speaker 2: calling the shots. They will tell you what you can
Speaker 2: say and what you can't say. The idea was to
Speaker 2: get you on your heels anyway. I came across another
Speaker 2: list of.
Speaker 3: Possibilities of what it might mean.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like funny, a common one we got. We
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time on this. Some politician used
Speaker 1: the term, I think balls to the walls, and then
Speaker 1: people were horrified about it, and then everybody got into
Speaker 1: the etymology of that, and then some of them it was,
Speaker 1: you know, sexual, and some of them it was mechanical. Mare.
Speaker 1: It's all kinds of different, had to do with trains
Speaker 1: or planes or whatever. It wasn't sexual at all, right.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, I can't remember what it was, but it wasn't.
Speaker 3: It was completely not sexual.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you have any look on skinning a cat there, Katie,
Speaker 1: Now not yet. Well, we got a bunch of texts
Speaker 1: on that pole cat, which is a raccoon, is often
Speaker 1: referred to as a cat, and you did skin raccoons
Speaker 1: because the fur trade was a really big deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that could Yeah, that's probably where it came from,
Speaker 1: probably eighteen hundreds, you know, of fur traders.
Speaker 2: But again to your point, using that expression doesn't mean
Speaker 2: you're soft on raccoon skinning or fur in general, or.
Speaker 1: Know anything about the multiple ways to get the hide
Speaker 1: off of raccoon, right exactly.
Speaker 2: It's it's irrelevant to say, you know, that's actually an
Speaker 2: expression that means, you know, that's interesting, but just quit
Speaker 2: with It's that weird presentism thing, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's another form of that.
Speaker 2: It's just a fake, annoying way to show moral superiority.
Speaker 1: So there was an editor's note on one of these
Speaker 1: that said sybilist is actually incurable and mercury will not help.
Speaker 1: But it was believed at the time that it was
Speaker 1: well certainly still incurable.
Speaker 2: No, no, you can cure it with antibiotics unless it
Speaker 2: goes too far.
Speaker 1: Why does Katie? Why does Joon know so much about
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious myself there, Joe. I don't actually
Speaker 1: know if syphilis is like a common current one or
Speaker 1: if it's an old timy one. Is it a common one? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Yeah, Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know for all yours.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you. I tell you what.
Speaker 2: By the third time I got the treatment, I could
Speaker 2: have done it myself.
Speaker 1: I said, I can give me the needle, had your miroscope,
Speaker 1: and you'd put a little sample under there. A lot
Speaker 1: looks like simphle, it's again, diy, Oh my goodness, hey.
Speaker 3: Honey, syphiliss again.
Speaker 2: I used to work the venereal disease desk the Armstrong
Speaker 2: and Getdy Show. I remember, especially when we were just
Speaker 2: a local show in northern California. The statistics would come
Speaker 2: out every year, and you know, upsurges in gonna rhea
Speaker 2: and syphilis or whatever in the state of California. Some
Speaker 2: department put out a report and I'd always bring it.
Speaker 3: Up, see how the state's doing. Hey, gotta rea down,
Speaker 3: but syphilis up?
Speaker 1: Folks?
Speaker 3: Where that condom? Come on?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: I've never understood how old time the Old West prostitution worked.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know. It's pre condom. I just
Speaker 1: what was going on there?
Speaker 3: Well, they had condoms preest before the modern.
Speaker 1: Using them.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I wasn't there they were.
Speaker 1: I don't actually know. But like when you watch those
Speaker 1: old timey Westerns and everybody's kind of just joking about
Speaker 1: going upstairs with the local harlet, it's gotta be disgusting.
Speaker 2: Nobody shower abortions, abortions, and and and VD.
Speaker 1: Well and just just being grossly dirty. In addition to
Speaker 1: all that, it's just ah.
Speaker 3: Well, they had water. You could take a bath. You've
Speaker 3: seen the Westerns where you lay there in the.
Speaker 1: Like once a month after a cattle drive or something.
Speaker 3: Put as long as it's before the sex.
Speaker 1: And how long since? When did she take her the
Speaker 1: most recent bath?
Speaker 3: I don't know, ask her. Besides, we did a syphilis soon,
Speaker 3: don't worry about it.
Speaker 4: Here's a fun fact. In the late eighteenth cent made
Speaker 4: out of sheep guts, condoms were soaked for a couple
Speaker 4: of hours and then made to have them be pliable afterwards,
Speaker 4: and then they would put a ribbon at the end of.
Speaker 1: Its especially for the holidays.
Speaker 3: Santa hat. Another possibility
Speaker 2: Old timey condoms like great stocking stuff for well, I
Speaker 2: guess that's it.