Microminiaturization

[00:03] Coalson, you were back this week. We had to do some undegoogling without you.
[00:08] I want to shout out. I loved listening to the show last week. I didn't know anything
[00:14] about Groundhog Day.
[00:17] Oh, what's that? Happy Jour de Marmot.
[00:23] I almost named the pod that, actually. I really did. The Day of the Marmot.
[00:28] I'm so happy that we learned Pac-Tony Phil's full name.
[00:34] Yeah. Prognasticator and prognasticators.
[00:37] Yes. Sage of Sages.
[00:42] So yeah, thanks for doing the hard work while I was gone. I'm glad there was stuff that
[00:47] you didn't know. I'd normally assume that you guys know everything and don't need to
[00:51] Google stuff.
[00:52] No, there's the one time.
[00:57] And shout out to JJ for sending in something you actually couldn't Google.
[01:03] We are stumped.
[01:04] This week I've got a quick one. I think it might be self-explanatory, but I enjoy, I think
[01:11] you all do as well, the origin of phrases. And I was thinking about, I was trying to think
[01:18] of some phrases that are just out there in the vernacular. One of them is, in a nutshell,
[01:28] for me, I thought, well, I kind of know what that means. We're putting all the information
[01:33] in a nutshell, which means we need to make that information concise. But I don't know
[01:39] where that, does that have a history, a story, or maybe I'm wrong that that's my understanding
[01:46] of that phrase.
[01:48] Why is it a nutshell instead of like a small ball or something?
[01:53] Sure, exactly. Why is it not a Faberge egg or something?
[01:57] Sure.
[01:58] Yeah.
[01:59] It's a very upper class of you, so.
[02:03] Well, you know how-
[02:05] Turned a phrase come from the poor man.
[02:07] I do a lot of drinking of the high life, so you know that I am the upper class.
[02:11] True.
[02:12] True.
[02:13] You and your phlegm is rabbit.
[02:14] Yeah, I mean, this seems straightforward to me, that they're, yeah, you have to put
[02:19] it in a tiny, you have to summarize a large amount of information, but in a small amount
[02:25] of words, so you're going to take this vast world and condense it into the size of a nutshell.
[02:33] Okay.
[02:34] I can't think, maybe I'm having a block, but I can't think of any other-
[02:40] No, I'm with you. Do we think that this is like most phrases from Shakespeare? Or do
[02:48] you think it's been in the vernacular more recently? This doesn't go back that long.
[02:54] It's either from falconry or Shakespeare, that's what we find.
[02:59] Or from Urban Dictionary. I don't know. Those are the three places phrases come from.
[03:02] I thought you, we wouldn't, we don't let you go there anymore, Coalson.
[03:05] I really want to know what in a nutshell an Urban Dictionary means.
[03:08] You do not. Promise you you don't.
[03:11] Okay. I won't look it up, I promise.
[03:13] So have you guys ever heard, I always had heard in a nutshell, but then I started hearing
[03:18] some people recently say, in a nut. I know it features the same thing.
[03:24] Have you guys heard that one? Or just me?
[03:25] No, I've never heard that.
[03:28] It's the same, like people would use it in the same manner, but they would just say in
[03:32] a nut.
[03:33] Is that like a millennial thing?
[03:35] Sure, we're shortening the phrase.
[03:37] Social media, social needs.
[03:39] Social needs.
[03:40] They just shorten it, they don't have time, because they have to text everything, they
[03:44] don't have time to type it out.
[03:47] Totes.
[03:48] Yeah, I don't know why, I don't know why it would be in a nutshell.
[03:55] What kind of nutshell? Is it a peanut shell?
[03:58] I always thought walnut the whole time.
[04:01] Walnut, okay, that's good. I like walnut shell. I think I always thought every time.
[04:08] Alright, so I'm going to see, let's find out if it's a walnut shell and when it
[04:12] started into the vernacular. Let's do that.
[04:15] We have a guess on dates.
[04:18] I'm saying Shakespeare or falconry.
[04:21] You can't do that.
[04:26] Alright, I'm going Shakespeare then. I feel like he did everything.
[04:32] Okay, okay. According to Quora.com, the phrase originated from the Roman writer
[04:40] Pliny.
[04:41] Now, I don't know if this was Pliny the Elder or Pliny the Younger.
[04:46] There are definitely two Plinies who in 77 AD described a copy of Homeward's
[04:52] Iliad was in such a tiny hand that it could fit into the shell of a nut.
[04:59] Well, okay, so he wrote in an epic, very small, and it was all going to fit.
[05:10] It was an epic, right?
[05:12] The Iliad definitely was an epic.
[05:17] So clearly a little hyperbole there on his part.
[05:21] Exactly.
[05:22] Alright.
[05:23] He wrote it real small. Is that what I'm hearing?
[05:27] Yes.
[05:28] Or he described a synopsis, I think, of it, so it's small.
[05:34] Pliny the Elder, I'm learning from another website here.
[05:38] I don't think the Younger could do that kind of stuff.
[05:39] No, I think Pliny the Younger was more of a beer brewer kind of guy.
[05:46] Yeah.
[05:47] He was a bit of a drinker.
[05:50] Here we go though.
[05:52] In 1602, Shakespeare had Hamlet declare, oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count
[05:59] myself a king of infinite space.
[06:03] And this is like a whole realm, I guess, of people trying to make small versions of
[06:10] books.
[06:11] Okay.
[06:13] Yeah, the Bible is like the, they call it micromanorization.
[06:23] Okay, so clearly we're giving our credit to Pliny the Elder, and we'll throw in some
[06:34] Hamlet, but Pliny the Elder wins it.
[06:38] Do we know if it's a walnut or a peanut?
[06:41] No, we don't.
[06:45] Any of the pictures associated with his internet articles are walnuts.
[06:50] Yes.
[06:51] Nailed it.
[06:56] It's a walnut.
[06:57] It is.
[06:58] Yes.
[06:59] Yes.
[07:00] The Pliny, that the great philosopher Cicero had witnessed a copy of Homer's epic poem
[07:06] in the Iliad written on a piece of parchment that was quite small enough to fit into the
[07:11] shell of a walnut.
[07:13] Boom.
[07:14] There you go, Joey.
[07:16] There's nothing.
[07:18] You don't need that.
[07:19] You don't need Google.
[07:20] You got this.
[07:21] No.
[07:22] All right, well, there you go.
[07:23] Another phrase explained by the undergoggles.
[07:27] Well done, boys.