Copulation of Tortoises

[00:00] We've got one more thing for you this show. We've got another under Google under Google rules. That was the plan
[00:14] Super excited told us we had to
[00:19] We signed up for it in the end, it's gonna be better and more true than Google can give you
[00:28] Wilson what are we gonna get to answer?
[00:30] potentially
[00:31] correctly this week
[00:33] so I'm at work the other day and
[00:37] somebody gave a
[00:39] co-worker gave somebody a cootie shot
[00:41] hmm and
[00:44] There we had a long conversation, you know circle circle dot dot now you have your cootie shot
[00:52] Whether whether the circle circle dot dot was
[00:56] in fact sort of
[00:59] Circling or drawing breasts on someone's arm because they're well
[01:03] No, and I'm trying to get trying to get here because that we wondered if there was this issue with
[01:09] Cooties usually come from a boy or a girl, right? It's it's about the opposite sex
[01:15] Is it normally how you get cooties and and whether the term cooties came from things like coups or cooter or things like that?
[01:23] and so we we didn't know the
[01:27] the history of the cootie shot or the
[01:30] etymology of the word cootie and
[01:32] I did not look it up and I made everyone wait and I said I'm going to do this on the under Google Bulls and
[01:38] I'll let you know what we come up with
[01:41] So first of all, just don't wanna be a I want to be clear on this and I do not believe in vaccine
[01:47] So I don't think the cutie shot works
[01:50] Okay, okay
[01:53] It's a weird it's a weird game, right? Do you remember that?
[01:55] Did you play this when you were a kid like if a girl gets near you or touches you you can get cooties
[02:01] You need to be vaccinated against the cooties with the cootie shot
[02:06] And sometimes the cootie shot was being pinching you
[02:10] Which makes sense because it was sort of like a shot
[02:14] But in my mind it was always from a boy
[02:16] I mean it was always from a girl for boys and always for you know, the other way around it was like a gender thing, right?
[02:23] This is part of my childhood that I don't remember at all. You didn't remember any of this
[02:27] I mean, I obviously I'm aware that cooties is a thing. But like I don't remember any of the
[02:33] sort of rituals around it or like being overly concerned that I was gonna contract cooties or
[02:41] Right anything like that. So I was never really worried that I was gonna be like become ill from cooties
[02:47] But it was just about the public shame
[02:49] You know you have cooties and then you get yelled at and pointed at and teased and things
[02:55] That's why you need to inoculate yourself with it. But it was which you don't really get from the other gender. Was it a
[03:02] Which is interesting a form of ridicule that lasted more than like a
[03:08] Minute or five, you know, five minutes probably ten minutes. Maybe yeah, so I don't know. Maybe I just
[03:14] Just let it didn't register. Yeah. No nobody came back and we're like, we all know you still got two weeks, right? Yeah
[03:22] Have you gone to the doctor and get that checked out right exactly
[03:26] There's a rumor going around that you keep spreading cooties
[03:29] Gotta wrap that up
[03:32] Mmm, yeah
[03:36] Five year old you went to man
[03:40] They closed that school yeah, I don't know so Ed Amala
[03:44] Etymologically, I don't know where it comes from. I always associated it with like cuties for some reason
[03:50] I don't know why but like you because it was like you maybe had a crush on
[03:56] Somebody of the opposite sex or something. I don't know
[03:59] Hmm and it was almost like that was associated with having cootie. It's like oh, it's gross
[04:04] You actually like like somebody or I don't know
[04:09] Something like that. Is that right? No, I yeah. No, that's good
[04:15] Definitely, there's definitely lots of overtones and undertones of sexual tension in the whole thing. I I
[04:23] Assumed it was degrading to women somehow
[04:26] Um, that's why when I started thinking about it. Yeah, cuz everything is everything is yeah, cuz that's how
[04:34] It's how the world works Joey. Yeah
[04:38] And so and so that's what made me concerned and I or you know, we're just curious about where this came from
[04:44] You know about how sad
[04:47] This is as it comes to some sort of childhood game whether we've
[04:51] So, what do we think how long how old how long have people been?
[04:56] administering cooties shops
[04:58] Like we're cooties around for a long time and then eventually somebody was like, oh we can vaccinate against this
[05:05] Jonas sulk of elementary school came along and invented the cootie shot. I like that idea
[05:12] Cooties were running rampant until somebody figured out circles circle dot-dot. That's right
[05:17] I
[05:19] Know I recent there's been flare-ups recent. That's right. Yeah, cuz people don't want to vaccinate their kids, right?
[05:24] Right, right. I I was I assumed that
[05:28] It was something that my parents did as well
[05:31] Like I don't know I guess I haven't had a conversation with them
[05:34] But I just always felt like it was something that had been around for a long time
[05:38] Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. Like how far back do you think like do we got like 50s?
[05:44] Like 1800s. Yeah, that's what I'm asking. I'm not turn of the century. It feels like a new age
[05:52] Thing a new age sort of thing it doesn't feel like London Bridge is falling down type stuff
[05:58] Yeah, that's right. It's got it. Well, cuz it's I think it's got to be post
[06:04] Definitely post germ theory. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. It's gotta be that
[06:10] So, when do we start giving out when we're getting rid of smallpox in the 50s 40s
[06:17] Yeah, something like that. When was the polio vaccine was like as 50s 30s or something. Oh 30s. Okay
[06:24] Alright, so I like that we're so now we're talking like Great Depression. We're talking about World War one and two
[06:33] You know stuff going on there
[06:37] maybe
[06:39] We'd have to do something with the Germans or something
[06:46] Like do we think this is a strictly American phenomenon as well? Well, I mean, I just felt like cooties was worldwide
[06:59] And that's the other thing it's like
[07:02] Are we getting this from
[07:06] You know is the word cooties coming from some other American slang or is it coming from some like?
[07:12] Misinterpreted is this one of those things where you get different cultures together and the the language gets all smashed up
[07:20] And it's like a it's a Latin word and Americans screwed it up. Mm-hmm
[07:27] Or it's a I'm gonna assume that Americans screwed it up. That's yeah, kind of what we do. So
[07:34] my guess is that it it
[07:37] started in the
[07:40] Let's say
[07:42] Early 1900s in America with American school children, so it's just America
[07:49] That's my theory and then
[07:51] The the word cootie. I don't know where it's derived from that's that's getting me
[07:58] I can't even see that
[07:59] Do you think do you agree with me that it could be connected to like coups or cooter and it could be derogatory towards women?
[08:05] Or do you do you think it's not?
[08:09] Feel it. Well, I don't know
[08:11] could be yeah, but
[08:13] But that would indicate that it was like something that originated amongst more mature
[08:19] Individual like I think of this is like what about the way if your theory is correct. What about like a wartime thing like a
[08:26] military
[08:29] What of like a sexually transmitted disease thing in wartime stuff that somehow got filtered back to American children
[08:37] Maybe yeah
[08:39] Could be like what if it's like crabs or something?
[08:43] Mm-hmm. Yeah
[08:45] Well, I mean, I'm just thinking why is it always the opposite sex they gave it a
[08:50] Acute name for the kit to explain to the kids. What was going on? Yeah, like oh, yeah, your dad has
[08:56] cooties because he was
[08:59] Not touching because a girl touched him. Yeah, you know, you can see how that might
[09:05] Yeah
[09:07] Wait, is Vietnam too late for that? You think it's earlier than that? I think it's earlier. I think you're right
[09:13] I think that definitely our parents generation
[09:15] Played cooties. Yeah, or had cooties. I heard your mom had cooties
[09:25] Joey do you have a guess before we look it up?
[09:30] The only thing I could think of the whole time was just that southern named cooter
[09:38] Hmm
[09:39] He was on the Dukes of Hazzard. Oh, yeah, good cop. I
[09:44] Think that was just he was promiscuous and you had to stay away from him. My favorite bar in New Orleans is called Cooter Browns
[09:52] Your Browns. Mm-hmm. Is that where you went to?
[09:57] degrade women
[09:59] No, no, that's where I had
[10:01] Some fresh-shucked oysters and watch the Pacers wins playoff games and drink beers around the world. Whatever you can do both
[10:12] Okay, this is interesting so
[10:15] Cooties is a
[10:17] Fictitious childhood disease used in the United States and Canada as a rejection term and an infection tag game
[10:26] The word is thought to initially originate from the Austronesian language family in
[10:33] Which the Philippine languages Mayori and Malaysian Indonesian word kutu
[10:39] Refers to a parasitic biting in insect
[10:43] Earliest recorded uses of the term in English are by British soldiers during the First World War
[10:50] Referring to lice that proliferated in the battlefield trenches
[10:55] So they were they were calling lice kutis a
[10:59] handheld game the kutie game
[11:02] Was made by the Irvin Smith Company of Chicago in 1915
[11:07] It involved tilting capsules
[11:11] Which are the kutis into a trap over a background illustration depicting a battlefield
[11:16] Hmm
[11:23] When soldiers went home at the end of the war they took with them their kutis despite
[11:28] Considered delousing efforts and the word inter general parlance accounting for a spike in the usage around 1920
[11:36] Hmm, so we nailed the time period. Awesome. Yeah, we did
[11:40] By the mid 20th century
[11:42] North American children had co-opted the word to mean an imaginary germ carried by other kids particularly of the opposite sex
[11:54] Cited in the
[11:56] 1951 ginger pie
[11:59] So this is interesting. I feel like it's it's partially or maybe it's derived from
[12:09] like ticks or
[12:11] You know some sort of parasitic
[12:14] bug
[12:16] And that somehow changed
[12:21] To the children talking about that in a cute term. Oh, here we go
[12:28] Interesting according to the OED to kut is an intransitive verb
[12:34] Referring to the copulation of tortoises
[12:38] What?
[12:40] Yeah in 1667 by the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. They refer to two tortoises
[12:49] Koot for 14 days together. Wait, why would they have a special term for those?
[12:55] animals
[12:57] getting down
[12:58] I'm reading that that kuta is just the word for turtle
[13:05] for peoples in West Africa
[13:07] the temporal and geographical
[13:10] Distance make the relationships between cute and cootie and probable
[13:15] No, I say no, okay
[13:18] interesting
[13:21] Goodness I thought I was onto something with the turtle sex
[13:26] You found out that there is a word specifically for turtle sex. Yeah, that makes me very happy
[13:35] There also was a movie from 2014 that had
[13:41] Elijah wood rain Wilson in it called kooties
[13:45] Oh, was it a horror film a
[13:48] mysterious virus hits an isolated elementary school transforming the kids into a feral swarm of mass savages
[13:55] No way an unlikely hero less lead a motley band of teachers in their fight in the fight of their lives
[14:02] Oh, we got a we got to see this movie. We got a link to it
[14:06] We're gonna watch it at undebedecon. This sounds like the greatest of all time. I was just gonna say undebedecon
[14:13] We'll be watching that one
[14:15] Coming up soon. So what's our final verdict? Do we do we nail it partially nail?
[14:22] I think we got way closer. I thought we're going to that was Jason's whole decision that it was gonna be North American and early
[14:32] 1900s I think steered us in the right direction
[14:36] I'm still I can't figure out where the shot originated but
[14:40] But I think I'm with you though
[14:42] The reason the reason you were driven there is because it had to be come off of inoculations and stuff and I think that
[14:48] right
[14:49] You know once that enters the vernacular once we start having polio vaccinations whatnot
[14:57] You just you've got to get rid of cooties. That's how you do it
[15:02] Yeah, so it must have come much later, right? Cuz yes the cootie shot. I'm assuming is like the 50s
[15:08] All right. Exactly. So I was right so people were running rampant with cooties. We're going crazy till the
[15:14] I'm glad they got that under control. They should give Salk a second nobel
[15:26] Nice work gentlemen, sometimes we're surprisingly good at this. Yep. We get there most times not but
[15:33] man
[15:34] We always learn something how you how do we great that we grade these pretty good. See me after class
[15:41] I
[15:43] Think we did. All right that reminds me of my one of my favorite Doris young stories
[15:59] We took the lame is
[16:03] Test that everybody was terrified of you know, we had to read the book and we had to there was this extremely long
[16:09] test multiple choice and then
[16:12] essay answer and
[16:15] We go in for the day where we're getting all the tests in and she was like I would like to read the
[16:21] Best answer I've ever gotten in my 25 years of being a teacher or whatever and she read my answer
[16:26] To one of the things and I was I was so thrilled
[16:29] I was just beaming sitting in my chair because she hadn't said who was it was and I'm just sitting there being like
[16:35] Oh my god, this is me. I did this. This is great
[16:37] And then she slammed the paper down and said C minus because you use fragment sentences
[16:45] She was the best man, she was great
[16:49] So she liked the answer just the yeah, but I was bad which is still the case even after a published novel
[16:57] I'm still terrible at grammar. I'll tell you what that's that's why editors exist exactly. That's what I should have said
[17:04] Argued for a better grade. That's true