Episode 103 · July 24, 2021
Vegetable Bones
A host who always thought "souped up" was "super-ed up" asks which it is and where it comes from.
“Double kiwi drizzle was the name of my band in high school.” (00:30)
Questions
Where does the phrase "souped up" come from? (01:42)
Our guess
From "supered up" or superchargers (cars, 1920s-30s), or from making a boring soup tastier.
From "supered up" or superchargers (cars, 1920s-30s), or from making a boring soup tastier.
Reveal the answer
The answer
From "soup" as slang for any substance injected into a racehorse to change its speed or temperament (Webster's 1911), including drugs and even nitroglycerin. It predates superchargers and was later applied to cars.
From "soup" as slang for any substance injected into a racehorse to change its speed or temperament (Webster's 1911), including drugs and even nitroglycerin. It predates superchargers and was later applied to cars.
Verdict wrong
Transcript (auto-generated)
[00:00] New Zealand I think is in a good spot. Sure. I don't know what they pay though [00:06] They pay you in Kiwis [00:10] It's the Kiwi to dollar. The bird not the fruit. Oh, okay. That's even worse [00:19] Or is it better? No, I think that's better. Yeah, Kiwi meat [00:26] Need a nice roast Kiwi? [00:30] It's a spot. It's a real delicacy with some Kiwi, maybe [00:37] Excited Kiwi. Oh, yeah the kid with a Kiwi drizzle sauce [00:45] Kiwi compote on the side double Kiwi drizzle was the name. I've been in high school [00:54] Mine was Kiwi three ways [00:56] Hey [01:06] To change the subject from from three ways [01:13] Do we have a under Google this week we do we do under Google rules that was the play of [01:33] Super excited. I told us we had to [01:35] We signed up for it in the end [01:42] It's gonna be better and more true than Google can give you what you got for us [01:47] So a couple months back buddy of mine sent me a text and he used the term souped up [01:56] Spelled it s o u p e d dash up [02:02] as in soup and [02:04] I my entire life had thought souped up meant [02:10] Supered up so it was s u p e r e d sort of a shortening of that [02:15] Souped up. So if you want a souped up car, it'd be super dupp [02:19] and then I thought to myself maybe my entire life has been a lie and [02:25] Maybe I don't know [02:27] Like you think that after every text gets sent [02:29] And [02:34] So my question this week is is it souped up as in super dupp or souped up as in the [02:43] Lovely meal of soup. I don't know the hot beverage. It can be cold as well. So this is why it's hard for me [02:51] I also want to get a timeline from when it came out and you know an origin as [02:58] We do on the undergoogles [03:02] So does anybody have a thought on whether it's souped up or souped up? [03:09] It's definitely souped up. I [03:13] Feel like I feel like I'm with you. I always thought that it was souped s u p e d I guess yeah [03:21] But I do feel like I've seen it written in [03:26] In books or something like that as like as s o u p I [03:32] Don't that's not a clear memory though. Well, but so this is what got me like so I've had some time to think about it [03:38] And I started wondering whether [03:40] Souped up meant like prepared for a meal, you know, so like I ate my soup and [03:47] Now I'm like souped up for the entree. Yeah, and like maybe that was what sort of got me hyped [03:53] I got a souped up for the for the entree who likes soup that much. I love soup. I'm a big soup fan [04:01] Yeah, so it would be like akin to being buttered up [04:05] Mmm. Well, I was thinking more like [04:09] Like Popeye eating spinach like I'm just I'm souped up ready to go. I mean, I know that's what it means [04:16] Oh, I see sure etymology sure sure. Yeah, I [04:21] I guess my reading of souped up was I soup is [04:28] Especially probably historically was probably just broth [04:31] Right. Sure. Oh, yeah, it's super boring. It's it's it's boiling down [04:36] Meat bones essentially, right? Yeah, we're vegetable bones. Well, I mean [04:42] That was when stupid vegetarians came along it's always been meat bones Joey just deal with it [04:47] There were definitely always that much we know [04:55] But my thought was that you know because soup probably considered a fairly boring thing if you could make soup tasty [05:03] You had souped it up. Oh, okay. So like adding vegetables like Joey suggests or [05:13] Or some of these baking spices [05:16] Yes [05:17] Exactly exactly [05:19] Some fresh uh jalapenos or something. Yeah, you're you're souping up your soup. Yes, you're improving upon an existing thing [05:29] Okay, so you really souped up that broth. Yeah, you took it from broth to a soup soup [05:33] Yeah, because otherwise you're just drinking soup. That's pretty good Harper. I like it [05:37] Yeah, I like that you've basically made broth into soup. You souped it up [05:42] Now I will say that that's going to make your timeline much harder [05:45] The other one would have been like oh sometime during the industrial revolution, right? [05:49] now you're like [05:52] Medieval France [05:55] Well, no, so I was actually wondering so so the other idea that as you were talking about this is uh [06:01] What about if you've created soup for? [06:05] people [06:07] Like during the great depression and you give out soup [06:12] And then you've like souped up those people [06:14] So like you've souped up the homeless people [06:17] I don't I mean like the only [06:20] like [06:22] Nouns that i've heard being modified by souped up are like engines or like yeah [06:28] Mechanical type things. Yeah, so that makes me think that it's like goes back to [06:34] Like war time or something like that world war one world war two or something like that [06:39] And it's a similar timeline like super [06:43] Like superman is okay, you know has come about right? So like maybe that's when is superman 1920s something like that [06:51] Ish yeah, maybe even earlier. I don't know [06:54] Yeah [06:57] And so yeah gi's are saying man, this is a real souped up tank we got here like okay, I don't know [07:03] Sure, this is like the you know [07:06] Car I had back home, but it's super it up and then it just gets souped up [07:13] It could also just come straight up from like supercharger [07:18] Okay, yeah, it's true [07:21] My my inclination is that it has nothing to do with the the food or uh beverage as you call it [07:28] Cool says I drink a good soup [07:31] You can drink a good soup, but it's just not a beverage [07:35] It's just not I don't make the rules [07:38] I just I just enforce them. Yeah, so what's your line between beverage and soup then right? [07:43] So if i'm drinking tea versus well [07:46] But like if i'm drinking a broth versus a tea [07:49] You would call a broth a soup and tea a beverage i'd call a broth a broth [07:55] Okay, what about like a miso soup like I I can drink that that's food. That's that's but it's just it's just essentially broth [08:02] Right, but so what's the difference between that and hot tea i'm not that wrong [08:08] All i'm saying is Joey just get off my back. All right [08:12] All the way all the way off my back about this it wasn't that big of a slip of the tongue [08:17] All right [08:19] Well, i'll be the judge then [08:22] Clearly you will be i'm just fighting back a little bit [08:26] My point was uh whenever soup's a beverage [08:29] Okay [08:33] And we have a time [08:39] I think it has nothing to do with food the the the it's uh is entirely [08:48] We got him [08:51] We got him where he goes [08:56] I think it's entirely entirely uh super or a supercharger down that vein and I guess [09:04] um, you know [09:07] When that when that word came about [09:10] Um that I don't know so let's i'm gonna throw out [09:16] I feel like this is like the 50s or something. Yeah [09:21] When did when did things when did things start becoming super? [09:24] I think in the I I think in the 20s [09:27] When did they stop becoming super also? [09:30] I think recently [09:33] Exactly [09:36] Um, I I like, uh [09:40] the the derivation of of super [09:43] Um being not american though [09:46] Do you have a so you're saying not america. Do you have a [09:50] Potential country no, no, uh the uh europe [09:55] Yeah, so I do remember in um [09:58] Well, actually this would have been just so in french you said super sweat which meant like super cool [10:05] Um, but like that was just all our stuff, man. They were stealing that from english. I understand that but what i'm saying is [10:12] i'm wondering if [10:14] um [10:16] I don't know. I just feel like it's too easy for us to have come up with the word. It's just it's never that easy [10:22] I'm gonna say it's a Bavarian [10:25] I'm gonna say american's own slang [10:28] Okay [10:31] All right. Yeah, there's i'm gonna i'm gonna go uh real hard against your uh, Bavaria [10:40] I'm gonna i'm gonna take the field against Bavaria [10:42] Yeah [10:46] I'm gonna bet it all on nothing [10:51] All right, so what do we have on super and then souped up and then soup in general is it a beverage [10:58] I'm gonna guess super chargers were probably the 20s [11:02] or [11:04] 30s [11:06] when they became [11:08] When people start putting them into cars, right we souped up your car, right and that's and I agree with [11:13] Yeah, when like Ferrari started souping up cars, right? [11:19] Yeah [11:21] And then you would have done that in 50s car culture, but like I think the phrase is out there before that [11:32] Okay, what do we got uh souped up like the uh beverage is the [11:40] Head correct spelling. Okay. Okay [11:46] According to uh [11:48] Whatever this is [11:50] So my friend either had it auto corrected or actually knew how to spell it. Oh, man [11:56] It's freaking horse racing [11:58] No, it's not souped up predates the invention of super chargers and initially referred to any horse that had been injected [12:05] With something to increase its speed [12:08] Yeah, uh in [12:10] one of the definitions of soup [12:13] In some dictionary. I forget where this is. I don't know [12:16] It's uh any material injected into a horse with a view to changing its speed or temperament [12:24] from webster 1911 [12:27] So what would that be like liquid cocaine like what are we what are we injecting horses with to make them run faster? [12:33] Lots of liquid concoctions of drugs performance enhancing or otherwise have been referred to as soup [12:40] So has nitroglycerin [12:42] In the early part of the 20th century. So this is uh, jalopnik.com [12:51] Where i'm getting this information [12:53] um [12:55] So we got the timeline right right? I mean we're [12:57] Seems like in the 20s [13:00] Is when it started coming out and it definitely refers to [13:05] a lot to [13:07] like engines or [13:09] whatever, which I guess [13:12] Comes quickly from uh, yeah [13:15] I mean on some level car racing replaced horse racing, right? Right [13:24] Daimler received a german patent for supercharging an internal combustion engine in 1885 [13:31] Rinal patent a centrifugal supercharger in france in 1902. So superchargers are older than I thought apparently [13:40] so, um [13:43] Is [13:44] What i'm hearing is that we basically were were we cheating in these horse races with this or was this allowed? [13:52] To to inject them with soup [13:54] I don't think that was allowed. Okay, were there rules in early horse racing? [13:59] I feel like it was all like sure mafia run [14:02] Weirdness back then, right? [14:04] I'm not finding a lot about [14:07] other than the fact that [14:10] Giving a horse soup [14:17] Yeah, like whether or not it was like actual drugs or just like [14:20] a really good [14:21] Brought vegetable bone broth [14:29] Because they keep referring to nitroglycerin but nitroglycerin that's the thing that's used in car engines, right to [14:36] Or no, that's nitrous [14:39] You've been watching uh too many fast and furious I guess that maybe not enough [14:46] The early history of horse doping is unclear although according to your rippity's [14:52] Yeah that your rippity's [14:55] In like 450 bc some horses were fed human flesh [15:00] To make them faster and more savage [15:03] Ooh [15:06] Uh according to urban dictionary [15:12] Souped up means to get you, uh, extremely drunk [15:18] Uh or something or someone extremely ugly [15:24] As in yo grandma's Cadillac is souped up bro team [15:28] I gotta get I gotta get running here, but I do want to give you one more definition from urban dictionary [15:35] While we're while we're here [15:37] And the word is himbo [15:40] And the definition is a generally a large [15:43] A broad tall or buff attractive man who tends to not be very bright [15:48] But usually extremely nice and respectful. So essentially it's the male version of a bimbo. I like it. Oh [15:55] It's a himbo [15:59] I'll take it. Uh [16:01] and i'm seeing here that the [16:03] Uh back to horses, it was definitely drugs being injected into the race horses. Yeah, it looks like [16:09] hungry hungry himbo [16:15] wrap it up