Big Circus

[00:06] Oh, we doing under Google rules. That was the play of 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] John
[00:30] It's time for another under Google. Well, how can we help you this week?
[00:36] Well, I actually
[00:37] So I'm starting to see I've got I've got a lady friend
[00:41] And yeah, yeah, you're right pat me on the back
[00:45] She used the phrase tinder hooks
[00:48] And I said, oh it's like old kinder hook
[00:53] you know like the
[00:55] We also learned that on under Google's the okay, and she said no no no not kinder hook
[01:03] tinter hooks
[01:05] And I was like
[01:07] You said that incorrectly. It's tinder hooks
[01:11] And she said no, I think you're wrong. I think it's tinter hooks and I've never heard that phrase
[01:17] And I now am concerned that I'm wrong
[01:21] So are you familiar with the phrase tinder hooks or tinter hooks?
[01:27] as a team
[01:30] Can you use it in a sentence? Yeah, so I would so I would say you're kind of
[01:35] You're on I feel like tinder hooks is a I always envisioned it as
[01:42] Sort of being hung precariously. You're at a
[01:46] dangerous emotional or physical space
[01:50] And it's very tender
[01:52] and
[01:55] You're kind of hanging
[01:58] You're and I've always
[02:01] You know, you're you're on tinder hooks
[02:05] And she thought it was tinter hooks, and I don't know what that means
[02:09] It is tinter hooks. It's tinter hooks for sure
[02:13] So that means this has nothing to do with tinder
[02:16] I mean unless she and I are both wrong
[02:22] But i'm still looking for a sentence
[02:25] Yeah, yeah, I got a prepositional phrase
[02:29] Yeah, um, yeah, I was I was on tinder hooks
[02:35] I know the word tinter hooks
[02:39] Um, no
[02:44] I know the word tinter hooks and you apparently don't
[02:47] But it's something that somebody says if they're if they're in an emotionally unstable place
[02:52] My girlfriend just broke up with me and now i'm on i'm on tinder hooks. Okay. Gotcha
[02:57] Yeah, um, and I thought I was hanging precariously either physically or emotionally
[03:03] But in general, I always thought it was sort of more emotionally because you were tender or raw
[03:09] Um, I kind of always
[03:12] Envisioned people sort of on meat hooks, you know hooked through their shoulders
[03:18] And then you have to just sort of balance on that, you know always comes back to medieval torture with you
[03:24] It does it does so
[03:27] I mean, I guess i'm not familiar with the phrase
[03:30] Probably just because of the stability of my life
[03:37] But my concern is
[03:41] Coalson I get what you're saying and I I understand that concept, but if it's not that I don't know anything about tinter
[03:47] Well, this is what i'm saying. So Harper immediately was like no, it is tender
[03:51] Harper can you explain this to me? Why is it? What's the difference between tender and tender? Is it like tint hooks?
[03:59] It's t-e-n
[04:02] Right in terms no t-i-n
[04:05] No, right. So I in my mind it was t-e-n
[04:09] D-e-r but you're saying it's t-e-n t-e-r. Yep. Yep. So
[04:15] What's how's that work?
[04:18] That that's the word man, that's what that I don't know. I don't know the etymology of the word
[04:21] I don't know where it came from. I just know the word but is it like uh, and how
[04:26] just like it's in
[04:30] In ewoks ready. Okay. I read lots of books about instability. What what are these things? What are
[04:34] What are books?
[04:37] books
[04:39] Um, so do you use hooks in tents? I mean the only place that I ever use hooks are like fishing
[04:46] Right. So I just assumed that it you know
[04:49] Like the meat hooks that you're referring to. I thought perhaps something to do with fishing, but I don't really know
[04:55] Okay
[04:56] and do you
[04:58] At any time in
[05:00] human history
[05:01] We call people that go camping
[05:03] Tenters and like is it related to the tent?
[05:08] This is what i'm wondering. Okay. I mean this blew my mind. I entire my entire life
[05:13] I'd heard the phrase tinder hooks and I always heard it as tinder hooks. I don't know. I clearly didn't read it like Harper
[05:22] But i've heard the phrase many a time well, you've probably heard me say it and just heard tinder hooks anyway
[05:27] It just assumed it was tinder hooks. Yeah, and not tinder hooks. Um
[05:33] Yeah, it's i'm assuming it's a type of hook that you hang stuff on that
[05:38] I look I was trying to sound impressive in front of a lady and she called me out and I need your help
[05:42] That's all i'm saying and Harper is your impression also that it's it's an emotionally fragile. It describes an emotionally fragile state
[05:51] um
[05:52] Or I like precarious a lot like okay
[05:57] Is it emotional or is it just like physical as well because I thought of it as also physical
[06:02] Well, I mean it'd be
[06:04] I mean, I I don't know. I think of it very metaphorically like you do right?
[06:08] So you're hanging precariously from something and yes, we usually use it to refer to like, you know, an emotional state
[06:16] But I assume that the derivation object or something like yeah, I assume that the derivation is from physical options
[06:22] Okay
[06:24] So is there an actual tinter hook that hangs something
[06:29] so like someone who's a tent or
[06:32] a camper
[06:33] Someone who creates tents a tent maker perhaps
[06:38] You hang your your lamp from a little tinter hook
[06:41] From your tinter hook and it could potentially fall and could catch everything on fire sleeping
[06:46] Yeah, you can hang the like if you get to keep stuff away from bears, you got to hang it up, right?
[06:51] That's actually okay. I like that
[06:54] I do it's a tinter hook or is that a bear hook?
[06:58] Ooh, that's a different thing. There's a bear can
[07:02] I've got one of those but
[07:04] And even without that, I mean normally you just like
[07:08] Throw it up over a limb. Yeah, exactly
[07:12] Um, I I thought I was being smart by throwing in kinder hook
[07:17] For the okay, but that's completely under unrelated. Do you assume?
[07:20] I think yes
[07:24] I wouldn't think unrelated
[07:27] I mean that's what she assumed is a lot of like
[07:31] They are they sound similar. They do sound a lot of like I
[07:35] Were you trying to impress her by just saying a bunch of facts?
[07:39] Just quickly have you met me? I'm like, oh I know all this stuff from this stupid thing I do
[07:45] I'm gonna just throw out a bunch of facts
[07:48] I was definitely mansplaining a lot of stuff
[07:53] Actually that comes from
[07:57] Um
[07:59] Do you set yourself up in conversations just so you can
[08:03] Uh, just so you can you can you don't brag about uh, do you like bring up? Yeah falconry things
[08:10] Uh shakespeare a lot shakespeare horse racing. Yeah, I try to use, uh
[08:17] Uh, you know phrases that I already know the answer to so that I can explain where the phrase came from
[08:24] Right, right, right. That's
[08:27] Yeah to confuse others so you can then explain it to me
[08:31] People love that. I've heard it
[08:34] Yeah, so so
[08:36] It's going great. I promise guys it's going of our of our old standbys. Uh
[08:42] Sailing or nauticalness seems like a place where you might use hooks lots of hooks
[08:49] for a sale
[08:50] Tenting like do you tense? Is that a thing that you do with a
[08:55] A sale or are you tempted out?
[08:57] I don't know that i'm aware of heard the phrase tinting in in sailing. Although, you know
[09:03] my
[09:04] Um, it's limited my experience and yeah, i'm i'm a bad sailor if if we're stuck on a sailboat together
[09:10] We're all gonna die
[09:12] I do like car camping. So i've done some some tinting. Yeah
[09:18] Yeah, so what's the definition of that? Oh, you don't have to backpack him and stuff
[09:28] No, everything's in your car
[09:30] Okay, but you still sleep in a tent. Yeah, it's just in your truck and yeah, okay
[09:36] Most people's camping experience
[09:38] Okay. All right, but like, you know, you could also backpack into the wilderness and tent
[09:44] Uh chairman and I used to call that pansy camping
[09:48] And then you had a kid and yeah, oh right now that's actually camping
[09:54] Uh, so our best guess is it's it's
[09:58] people throwing
[10:00] Hooking their bag with the tinter hook
[10:03] Throwing the end other end of the rope over a limb and pulling it up
[10:08] For the bears. I don't love this but I think it's the best we got to keep to keep the bears away from the food
[10:13] Are we doing it to build a tent? No, no, no to keep the
[10:17] The
[10:18] Well, yeah, I don't know. Oh, maybe this is like uh
[10:21] To to make a big top tent for a circus
[10:26] Oh
[10:27] Okay. Okay. See I could see somebody being called a tinter that actually did it for a living. Somebody that puts up tents like big uh
[10:35] it's like a like a
[10:37] Cooper or a
[10:38] Candlestick maker. Yeah, it's the tinter
[10:42] Were the tents notoriously
[10:45] Like dangerous like it looked that's a big tent, buddy. I don't know. Yeah. I mean I know but I mean did they fall down a lot
[10:52] Oh, I assume that they killed people all the time. Well, if you put a bunch of hooks on it almost assuredly
[10:59] Or or if you didn't get it hooked correctly
[11:04] You know
[11:04] But you would think that that's a flying hook itself and the cable would be pretty robust. So it wouldn't really describe
[11:12] The precariousness we're on tinter hooks
[11:16] See again, this is throwing me off
[11:19] Because in my mind tinder hooks were why they the hooks were tender
[11:25] The tinter isn't precarious, right? You're right. There should be eyelets. There should be
[11:32] Little things to put your hook in on a tent
[11:35] Well, when you say tinder hooks are tender, you're not referring to the hooks
[11:38] You're referring to the meat that you jabbed it through. Yes. Yes
[11:43] So also in my in my head you're putting the hook through the tent which again should have some eyelets or some grommets or something
[11:51] um
[11:52] In my head i'm still going through the meat of it. Even if it's a tent am I wrong on that?
[12:00] I mean a well-designed tent that was going to be hooked would have a a grommet or an eyelet. I agree
[12:06] Okay, you're not just you don't just want to poke a hole in your yeah, you just want to yeah poke a new a new hole every time
[12:12] That's not good. Oh, maybe this is the answer. Maybe it's just they back in the day
[12:16] They just hooked like fabric and it would rip apart all the time. I like medieval torture
[12:24] Okay. Okay. Okay. That's where we go. We should be going with that
[12:31] And tenting was a type of torture. I'm just saying tinter hooks are the hooks that yeah you just
[12:37] Throw in somebody and pull them up. Yeah, this is like uh, yeah, yeah
[12:42] post uh
[12:43] post crucifixion technology
[12:45] My my my guess right now I think is going to be that
[12:50] That tinter is going to be from like a non like a word that english
[12:55] co-opted or something okay, okay, and which is going to make it difficult for us to
[13:00] To track this one back, uh, i'm gonna go with uh late 1800s, uh
[13:07] This big circus, you know, barnum and bailey's
[13:13] Um
[13:14] Big circus big circus
[13:16] and
[13:17] uh, tinter hooks
[13:19] Uh, and and they were they were dangerously precariously put up and often collapsed and killed millions
[13:27] Millions millions
[13:29] I mean not at one time but over the early surface massacres
[13:35] Yeah over over years it killed maybe the fishing thing is like, you know, if you know
[13:42] Like hooking a fish is always a bit precarious, right? Sure. Yeah
[13:46] I'll go back to my fishing and uh
[13:53] Yeah, tinter hooks were just crap even crappy. It's just the name of a hook. Yeah, it's just name
[13:59] They've got a they've got a million different types of tents, right?
[14:02] Yeah, uh, i'm going camping. Why not going camping camping?
[14:10] Tenter hook tenters and tinter hooks were commonly used from the 14th century
[14:16] Both is an important part of the process of weaving woolen fabric
[14:20] Starting sometime in the 18th century the phrase on tinter hooks came to mean in suspense
[14:26] The way a piece of cloth is suspended from tinter hooks
[14:30] On a tender
[14:33] So in suspense more than precarious well, I mean physically suspended
[14:39] right, right
[14:42] Okay
[14:43] Like literally suspended literally literally. So if i'm
[14:48] On tinder hooks i'm
[14:50] In suspense i'm suspended literally
[14:55] Wait, not literally
[14:57] I still don't know what these things look like
[15:00] Small l-shaped iron fasteners
[15:05] After cloth or wool was washed and cleaned. It was then stretched to dry on a wooden frame
[15:10] These frames called tenters consisted of parallel posts with pairs of horizontal rails. They're these huge frames. Wow
[15:18] These are gigantic
[15:20] They're like it looks like uh
[15:24] Like uh grape
[15:26] Vine posts or whatever they like take a whole fields. Wow, that's crazy
[15:31] And it looks like the word tenter from what i'm seeing is a latin word
[15:36] Or come came from latin
[15:39] Oh, yeah medieval latin latin tendere
[15:42] to tent which is stretched
[15:46] Titorium, okay. I've heard titorium. There's like uh, isn't that something in your eardrum or something?
[15:53] Um
[15:55] John ford used it in a 1963 play broken heart my heartstrings. My very heartstrings are on the tenters
[16:04] Ooh, oh no, it's uh, okay. It's a
[16:10] Part of your brain anatomy. That's where i'm from. I mean, where were we grade ourselves on this?
[16:16] uh
[16:17] I don't not I mean harvard was close on uh, medieval times for his torture
[16:24] Okay
[16:26] Timing hey, I knew what I knew we we got what tenter herx. We got the spelling
[16:31] We got the spelling and we got the meaning we answered your primary question, which was how do you spell which was
[16:38] Which is is and also uh is colson wrong? Yeah. Yes. Yes
[16:43] She already knew that but yes, i'm wrong. Um, and also we were so it's hanging
[16:50] Uh metaphorically hanging in suspense
[16:54] Yeah, and I put on I added because I thought the word was tender
[16:59] I added sort of a vulnerability to it that it didn't necessarily need
[17:04] Yeah, potentially
[17:06] It looks like there's a podcast episode of grammar girl about
[17:13] Tenter hooks or tender hooks?
[17:16] We do know the answer to that
[17:18] Nobody go listen to that because exactly listen to this one because i'm stealing our thunder here
[17:23] Okay
[17:24] And i'm afraid they did it better than we did. Oh way better
[17:31] We're just four morons wandering in the darkness trying to
[17:36] Find something to grab onto look. I don't know bears probably
[17:50] So, I don't know say goodbye Joey goodbye Joey