Drinking, Card Playing, and Conversation

[00:00] I'm excited about this, Jason. What do I get to tell you about this week?
[00:28] Okay, so, under Googleables, it's America's favorite segment. This is where we take something
[00:37] that you would Google, but instead of Googling it, tweet it at us, or Facebook us, or you
[00:46] can email us, shoutout at the underbeadables.com, and we will put our minds together and come
[00:55] up with the answer for you. And in entertaining, we're going to take twists and turns, we're
[01:00] going to do the logic of Google. Well, not the logic of Google, but we're going to deduce
[01:06] the answer for you, basically. I've got to say our success rate is pretty
[01:11] high, honestly. We don't always get the right answer, but we usually get like, we're kind
[01:16] of in the right direction. No, no, no, no. I think our success rate is 100%. But I was
[01:21] impressed that Google is pretty good. Google is about 80%. I think we're always right.
[01:27] They're getting better. Well, because these days, there's lots of concerns about identity
[01:32] theft and stuff like that. So sometimes you don't want to Google things. Sure. Don't send
[01:38] us those things, though. But in general, you can send us those. We may not put them
[01:44] on air. Yeah, they're not going to make it to air, though. But we might have an off-air
[01:47] discussion. So this week, my under Google is, we often do on this show, Word Origins.
[01:54] That's something that we are interested in. I love Word Origins.
[01:59] As I mentioned earlier, I was hiking around in the woods of Vermont. One day, I was at
[02:05] this lake and going to stop by, and they had picnic grounds by the lake. I said,
[02:11] okay, great. Let's sit here. Then I was wondering, I was thinking that picnic is
[02:16] a very weird word, and I wonder what the origin of picnic is. Where does picnic
[02:25] come from? Like, it's not short for anything, I don't think, right?
[02:31] Picnic basket. Picnic basket. P-I-C-N-I-C. Picnic.
[02:40] So a picnic table, a picnic campground. Yeah. Picnic basket.
[02:49] Picnic blanket. Yeah, you get the blanket. I know that bears like picnic baskets. Yeah, they do.
[02:56] Yogi bear, right? Yogi bear. Yeah. If you hit a fork in the road, take it.
[03:06] That's Yogi bear, sorry. Okay. We'll put that out. No, he's got so many great ones.
[03:15] Nobody goes there anymore, it's too busy. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, stuff like that. All
[03:19] right. Okay, picnic. Oh, so I'm assuming it's Greek, Roman. Under what?
[03:29] It's Greco-Roman wrestling? What? Yes. What are you talking about?
[03:34] The downhill Greco-Roman. The downhill version. They actually outdid that from the Olympics,
[03:38] I was disappointed. Well, that was one of our sports from college,
[03:43] was downhill Greco-Roman, usually just involved a lot of beers and rolling around and rolling
[03:48] around, which was fun. Sure. So that's where the term came from?
[03:52] No, no, no. It's a side story. I think I'm undefeated though. I still may be the champion
[03:59] of saviors. You're undefeated? Yes.
[04:04] So do you have any theories on this? Because I feel like it's probably origin out of some
[04:11] strange Latin root. Huh, that's interesting. I was thinking it
[04:16] was like old English or something, was my guess, like a Nick. We're going to have a Nick that's
[04:22] like a- Like a guy named Nick?
[04:25] Somehow, we're going to have something to eat. No, they're going to have a little snack.
[04:28] And then somehow we're going to have a picturesque, not Nick?
[04:34] Oh boy, you went straight- Shortened? Yeah.
[04:37] I don't know. Yeah. It doesn't seem like, to me it doesn't seem like Western European.
[04:45] I don't know. No? No. I'm thinking like Hungarian maybe.
[04:49] Eastern European. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you like the Eastern?
[04:52] That's what I'm feeling in my gut. Maybe I'm hungry, I don't know.
[04:55] I see what you did there. Some goulash, yeah. Because you're hungry?
[05:02] Yeah, I'm hungry. I get it. Also turkey.
[05:05] Turkey. I don't eat turkey. No, I'm going to go with French.
[05:13] Okay. I feel like this is very French. This is a French thing,
[05:18] and I feel like picnics in the park is French. It seems kind of French.
[05:24] I think it's very French, and I think, and I wish I could remember my high school French better
[05:29] to give you some sort of, I mean, it's a romantic language. I suppose we could go back to sort of
[05:36] core words that I'm not coming up with right now, but I'm going to go with,
[05:40] it's French, and it's not as old as we think it is. Okay.
[05:45] I'm going to go like, I'm going to go- How old do we think it is?
[05:51] I think we think it's really old. I think we think it's like medieval,
[05:54] and I think I'm going to go with like, it's the turn of the, I think it's like the 1800s,
[06:01] like early 1800s. Okay.
[06:04] Okay. All right.
[06:07] In France. Joey, you're sticking with a Hungarian?
[06:12] A Hungarian, maybe Bulgaria, but I'm sticking with Hungary.
[06:16] What about a falconry? Have you thought of that?
[06:18] No, it's clearly not falconry. Shakespeare?
[06:21] I'm going to pick up the pick up the nick, the falcon picks up the nick.
[06:26] Oh. Yeah.
[06:28] With their claws.
[06:29] I've just never heard anyone talk about a falcon while we were picnicking.
[06:33] You're not doing it right.
[06:35] Maybe, maybe.
[06:37] Okay. So my guess was English, but according to Wikipedia, Coalson is just about right on the nose.
[06:48] Yes.
[06:49] It's first usage is traced to the 1692 edition of Tony Willis's origin de la langue Francois.
[07:00] You're like a hundred years off.
[07:03] A hundred years here and there.
[07:04] Which mentions a picnique, spelled P-I-Q-U-E, N-I-Q-U-E, as being of recent origin.
[07:13] It comes from the verb piquer, which means to pick, or peck, and rhyming nique,
[07:26] which is a thing of little importance.
[07:29] Ah, a little brief peck on the grass.
[07:34] Although I guess that's debated, so as I read more.
[07:38] Of course, we were all in.
[07:40] I mean, I was only a hundred years off and I was totally right.
[07:43] The word picnique first appeared in English in a letter of the gallicized Lord Chesterfield
[07:53] in 1748.
[07:55] He was a wanker.
[07:56] I knew him before it was gallicized though.
[07:59] Who associated it with card playing, drinking, and conversation.
[08:04] May have entered the English language from this French word.
[08:10] So what year would that have been?
[08:11] That was 1748.
[08:15] It's precariously close to your guess.
[08:18] That's right.
[08:19] It's when it got to us.
[08:21] Right.
[08:24] Which one did you find about the Hungarians?
[08:27] Nothing.
[08:28] There's nothing about the Hungarians.
[08:30] Well, let me get on Wikipedia here real quick.
[08:32] I mean, I'm sure that you're right.
[08:37] There is some theory that the language originally started as
[08:40] picniche, meaning pick a place.
[08:45] See, that makes a lot more sense.
[08:48] Have you ever gone on a picnic?
[08:49] I mean, it's been a while.
[08:50] Yeah, but you're taking the blanket and you're like, where should we sit?
[08:54] What are we going to do?
[08:55] Are we under this tree?
[08:56] Are there too many ants here?
[08:59] I think the stressful part of building the picnic basket
[09:03] isn't as stressful as finding the perfect picnic spot.
[09:06] You don't mean constructing the basket rack.
[09:08] No, no, no, no.
[09:11] Weaving it.
[09:14] Clearly, that's the easy part.
[09:18] Then you make the sandwiches, and the deviled eggs, and the champagne, and the strawberries,
[09:22] and you put all that in there.
[09:24] And then finding the right spot is the most stressful part.
[09:27] I should date you.
[09:28] Well, you've got to go pre-look, really.
[09:30] Because if you do it during the date, it gets very awkward.
[09:34] Where do we go?
[09:35] Do we sit here?
[09:35] Do we go there?
[09:36] I don't care.
[09:37] You make a decision.
[09:38] Now you're arguing.
[09:39] You're trying to do a nice thing.
[09:40] I think the pick niche, the pick's place, is my favorite answer so far.
[09:46] Since we can sort of choose, because there's other things.
[09:49] Sure, yeah.
[09:52] What year was that?
[09:53] Because I'll go ahead and take ownership of that.
[09:56] 1800 pounds.
[09:56] Another thing that someone else did.
[09:59] Sure.
[10:00] They say it may have appeared in a 17th century dictionary.
[10:06] Yeah.
[10:07] We'll just download that dictionary, and we'll figure it out.
[10:10] Yeah.
[10:13] So there you have it.
[10:16] Pick a niche.
[10:18] Pick a niche.
[10:20] We should do that.
[10:21] We should have a sponsored, unbeatable pick a niche.
[10:26] So I took lots of French in high school.
[10:32] Basically, I was trying to sleep with the president of the French club.
[10:35] You know, what happens.
[10:38] What I remember is Ferme Labouche.
[10:40] What does that mean?
[10:41] Can you shut your mouth?
[10:43] Yeah.
[10:44] It seems kind of aggressive.
[10:47] Is that how you pick the ladies?
[10:48] And Duréon.
[10:50] What does that mean?
[10:50] It's nothing.
[10:51] Okay.
[10:51] Which means don't worry about it.
[10:52] It's fine.
[10:53] Oh, I'm sure.
[10:53] That impressed the ladies.
[10:55] Yeah, yeah.
[10:55] I got this.
[10:56] Yeah.
[10:56] Don't worry.
[10:58] That work out for you?
[11:00] Totally.