They Do Swimming

[00:06] Oh, we doing under Google rules that was the play of super excited told us we had to
[00:17] We signed up for it in the end, it's gonna be better and more true than Google can give
[00:26] you
[00:27] I am wondering this one may be sort of self explanatory, but I heard this when I was in
[00:34] California and I just I'd never heard the phrase before it's got to be some kind of
[00:40] regional idiom. This guy was like, you know, I was at the racetrack and these guys were
[00:46] mixed up a little bit and the guys like, Oh, they're feeling froggy today. I was like,
[00:50] feeling froggy, feeling froggy. I had never heard that in my life. I like that. I do like
[00:59] it.
[01:00] A little feeling. So I guess so you're saying so the context would be that everybody's a
[01:06] little little heated up a little way up to a little, maybe a little jumpy, a little jumpy.
[01:12] I guess it may be self explanatory, but I was like, I just, it's a really fun phrase now
[01:16] I want to use it all the time, but I have no idea where or when it comes from, or whether,
[01:21] you know, homie just made it up.
[01:23] Right. Or if everybody knows what it means, and it's going to be offensive in the wrong
[01:28] situation.
[01:29] Exactly. Exactly. I'm gonna say it at work and I'm gonna get fired.
[01:33] Yeah.
[01:34] Yeah.
[01:35] Straight to HR.
[01:36] Yeah. Yeah. That's a derogatory term for Rwandan circa 1937. Like, you know, right. Yeah. Feeling
[01:45] froggy.
[01:46] You guys have never heard this before. I take it.
[01:52] No, no. What are the, there's some branch of the military they're referred to as frogs.
[01:58] Aren't they?
[01:59] Frogmen or Navy Seals.
[02:01] Navy Seals. Okay. Cool.
[02:03] Because they do swimming.
[02:07] Yep.
[02:08] They do swimming.
[02:12] But they, well, I mean, I've only seen the movies, but they're, they're an excitable
[02:17] bunch sometimes, but they're not that frequent. So you wouldn't really refer to somebody who's
[02:23] being froggy as like, them being Navy seal like.
[02:31] And I mean, I, I know what you're getting at, but I think of them as a very calm bunch.
[02:37] Right.
[02:38] Oh yeah. I think what they're doing, they're adrenaline monsters. Right. Right. Exactly.
[02:44] But you know, calm under fire also.
[02:47] Sure. Yeah.
[02:50] And you feel like maybe at least in the context from, from this person was that these people
[02:54] were actually getting jumpier, that more of the adrenaline was going. Everybody was
[02:58] a little on edge, a little bit.
[03:00] Maybe a little anxious, but you know, we're in to go to.
[03:05] Sure.
[03:06] So that might be applicable.
[03:08] And not, not looking to back down from a fight sort of thing.
[03:14] Probably not. Yeah.
[03:15] I feel like that was, yeah, that connotation, at least from that, it's like feeling froggy.
[03:19] I'm gonna, I'm gonna start throwing down, feeling froggy.
[03:22] Frogs aren't really known for being combative, are they? I mean, I've watched a fair amount
[03:28] of nature documentaries, you know, I've seen, you know, elephant seals battling and, you
[03:35] know, bighorn sheep and whatnot. And I'm sure that there is competition for, you know, breeding
[03:42] grounds and stuff like that. But I don't know. You don't really see frogs like jumping into
[03:46] one another.
[03:47] Nah, they mostly seem to poison each other, if anything.
[03:49] Okay, sure. Yeah.
[03:51] Sure. And they sit on logs and sing nice songs.
[03:54] Yeah. You know, both frogs.
[04:00] Well, now I'm wondering, we've lived everywhere. Where could this phrase possibly have come
[04:09] from that one of us has not run across it? I'm going for Florida.
[04:15] Yeah, this feels real Florida. Or, you know, South Carolina or something.
[04:24] Not North Carolina, obviously.
[04:28] Yeah, I've spent some time there.
[04:31] Oh, what about. Okay. Okay. Oh, oh, here we go. What's the. Is there some deep South College
[04:45] mascot that's like a horny toad and bras just always get like in fights and stuff from the
[04:54] school.
[04:55] There is. So like Texas Christian is the horned frogs.
[05:01] Well, I don't know. I don't know if Texas Christian counts as a bunch of guys, you know.
[05:09] I've been hanging out. I've been hung out with a lot of TCU kids. I couldn't tell you.
[05:13] Oh, wait, isn't there like a late latest like a meme, like the senior frog or something
[05:20] like that?
[05:21] Where is that?
[05:22] Is it like cue all up in that or something?
[05:24] That's that's that's she went on stuff, right? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I think it. Yeah,
[05:31] Pepe the Frog. Yeah. Would he be froggy? He's kind of a dick. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of those
[05:43] guys are like, you know, a little a little too eager to trigger happy. Right. Yeah. Okay.
[05:53] So you think that this could be potentially a phrase that came out of the most recent memes
[06:00] that this face is fairly new, because we've not heard it. Yeah. Okay. All right. But was
[06:08] it? Yeah, I don't know. So I haven't been down the rabbit hole far enough to know whether
[06:14] or not Pepe the Frog is on the side of the cue, guys, or is like the other like something
[06:25] that you make fun of? I don't understand. Do you know at all? I mean, I think I think
[06:31] both on some level, but I think somehow it's supposed to just be as it's just like a weird
[06:36] mascot for. Okay. You know, xenophobes of all stripes. Gotcha. But but where did he come
[06:45] from originally? Not right. Like he was he was co-opted, right? Pepe was co-opted by
[06:51] something else by this whole thing. I had no idea. I thought he existed by himself before
[06:58] all this. But maybe it was like from senior frogs, like from the wasn't isn't that like
[07:04] a bar or something like that? Yeah, probably in Florida. Like in every beach town. Panama
[07:15] City. There's definitely a senior frogs. Yeah, it's 100%. Daytona Beach. Senior frogs. Yeah.
[07:20] Yeah. I think that's totally true. All right. Should I should look this up? Yeah, I definitely
[07:27] like the idea of frog men the best. I'm concerned that it's a Florida phrase from the 90s.
[07:32] Feeling froggy. Feeling froggy. Is that where we're going with? Okay. Oh, not supposed to use urban
[07:46] dictionary. Can you give us the PC version? Horny is the urban dictionary. Okay. All right.
[08:04] There is a if you're feeling froggy jump. Yeah. His mountain speech in North Carolina
[08:12] as early as 1955. I'm seeing. Oh, here we go. It may have come from Navy SEALs frogman ballad.
[08:23] Whoa. Which is which they talk about in lone survivor. I'm getting yeah,
[08:30] people are anxious to do something whether that's fight or have sex is what I'm getting. But I don't
[08:36] have a origin on any of that. It's to be jumpy or anxious to do something. Well, according to how
[08:44] I skank on Reddit. It came from the mouth. We were delivered back when we were in eighth grade. Oh,
[08:52] I guess 1991. Immediately prior to me delivering the beating of a lifetime unto him.
[08:59] That guy's hilarious. Shout out how I skank. How I skank. At least we're giving the listeners
[09:10] the best. Yeah, just top of all the informationals. The blog of record. We missed one here. Also like
[09:24] if the French are referred to as frog, I guess. Yeah. But it's not about running away. So I assume
[09:33] it's not about them. I was actually I'm listening to Dan Carlin's first world war history. And I
[09:44] just I'm feeling especially bad for the French right now. Sorry, French for all of my all of
[09:54] the jokes about how they turn and run. Yeah. After World War One, there's a reason why they
[09:59] turned and run. So I'm not getting any of this the senior frog thing from totally froggy
[10:07] or whatever feeling froggy. So I'm not I don't think it's related to that. Yeah. Although I do
[10:17] need to look up senior frogs barn grill or whatever. Myrtle Beach. That sounds about right.
[10:26] And there's a million of them, but they're all in Florida. And yeah. Yeah. So back in so on the
[10:34] straight dope dot com message board. Somebody says that in Texas when I was a teenager,
[10:50] it would. Okay. And then here we go. Pepe the Frog was a cartoon character, an internet meme created
[10:56] by Cartus cartoonist, Matt Fury. Just designed fun guy. Let's see. He was in the comic boys club.
[11:10] And grew his popularity on MySpace. Very nice on MySpace. Yeah. Wow. And then and then became
[11:26] with the most popular meme used on 4chan and Tumblr and was looks like appropriated
[11:33] in 2015 by the alt right movement. So he had a life before before that. 2005. Pepe the Frog.
[11:44] Back on MySpace. Well, okay. This one's yeah. Let's see. Maybe I should do it because I've
[11:51] got one that I have no idea what it means either. So it could be another one of these
[11:55] where we're just making things up. Have you guys ever heard the phrase? Molly coddle?
[12:03] I feel like I've heard it, but I don't know what it means. My roommate used it the other day
[12:07] and I was like, I don't even know what that means. So if you guys haven't heard of it, then
[12:13] just Google it. Well, so I mean, I guess on some level, I'd always just assume that coddling was
[12:21] short for Molly coddle. Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense. Oh, actually, yes. That's great.
[12:29] I feel like this was a word in what is the game spelling be? Molly coddle was like a word
[12:37] was like the pan gram. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. And so all of us were like, what in the world? I've
[12:43] never heard this word before. Right. And yeah, it's just like overly coddle. Yeah. Okay, somebody.
[12:51] So it's got to be some Victorian era stuff, right? Like what a weird word.
[12:55] So is it the original version of like coddle and coddle is just a shortening of
[13:00] Molly coddle or is Molly coddle a just extreme version of coddling?
[13:06] That I don't know. We didn't get that far. Okay. Because if coddle wasn't, you know,
[13:11] was originally the word Molly coddle, that'd be pretty cool.
[13:15] Came about in the early 19th century as a derogatory term for an effeminate man,
[13:20] according to the grammar. British, so British to boil gently in the late 16th century.
[13:36] Oh, I guess probably the same. Oh, no, I'm thinking about like cauldron. No, no, it's not at all. Well,
[13:47] so coddle CAU DLE first appeared in 1297. In a recipe to coddle as wine,
[13:57] weed starts raisins to abate the strength of the wine. Oh, that's very cool. Yeah.
[14:06] I like that a lot. I like it when words have a meaning that mean the same thing way later,
[14:11] but for different reasons. That's really cool. Nice. Sometimes words are cool.
[14:20] Words are cool. Yeah.
[15:05] I don't know if this one is anything. So push come to shove.
[15:13] Okay. I also recently saw push comes to pull.
[15:22] You guys heard that one? Sounds familiar, but I have not heard it.
[15:29] Use it comes to pull. Yeah, I definitely heard push comes to shove,
[15:33] which let's see, what is the meaning of that? It's like at the end of the day,
[15:40] you know, this is what's going on.
[15:45] So is it kind of like six to one half a dozen of the other kind of saying like push and shove
[15:51] are basically the same. Oh, it's funny. I always, I always thought of it as an escalation.
[15:58] Yeah. Like when push comes to shoving instead of just pushing. I mean, I'm with you on your
[16:04] definition, Jason. I do think that there's a kind of, but it's not quite, it is what it is. It's almost
[16:12] like what it is needs to change a little bit. I feel like, like someone's being challenged and
[16:21] you've got, you're being challenged and you've got to step up or something. Yeah. I mean,
[16:26] it's almost like boiling it down, right? So, you know, when you get to the end of the argument,
[16:31] right? When push comes to shove, this is what needs to be done. Right. Yeah. We've,
[16:37] we've gone through all of the options. We pushed it as far as it can go. And
[16:43] this is what it's, am I saying that right or no? That's, that's the, I think that's more or less
[16:48] how I understand it. Yeah. Okay. What was interesting to me about this other iteration
[16:53] of it was on some level, it almost made more sense to me the way that we use it. When,
[17:00] when push comes to pull, that just gives you the imagery of I got to the top of the hill,
[17:05] now we're going down the other side. Right. Right. Or I've exhausted all the options and
[17:10] I need to try something completely different. Right. What was the context of that? I mean,
[17:17] like, was it the same context? Yeah, they were using it in the same way. It was a,
[17:21] okay. I want to say a British historian that I was reading
[17:28] and it was just about finality of a battle or something. I came here exactly what the context
[17:33] was, but it matched up with what we're talking about. Sure. Well, I, now I'm kind of curious
[17:40] about sort of honing in on the definition of when push comes to shove. Like I wonder if we're,
[17:47] we're all sort of agreeing because we kind of know what it means and how it feels
[17:51] in conversation, but I don't know if we're saying the same things though. You know,
[17:56] you're saying boil it down or when it all gets boiled down too or something. Yeah.
[18:02] That's the finality of a thing, right? When you get to the end of the thing,
[18:06] this is the conclusion that you have to come to or the thing that you'll need to be done.
[18:13] Well, yeah. So I think of it more of like, you're going to have to change.
[18:17] Something's going to have to change because we're about to go from pushing to shoving.
[18:21] You know, that's what I was, I was thought of it. Something, it's not just like things are going to
[18:26] be the way they are. Something has to be altered slightly because pushing is coming to shoving.
[18:33] Yeah. I mean, I guess it could have, could be used in both. Yeah. I mean,
[18:39] that's really a matter of degree. You're doing the same thing when you're pushing and shoving,
[18:42] right? That's just a matter of degree. That's a, that's a quantitative change, not a qualitative one.
[18:47] Agreed. More so push comes to pull. That's more of a quantitative shift.
[18:51] Well, no, that, that, yeah, that, see that makes the phrase clearer to me.
[18:58] That's what I'm saying. That's why I'm interested in sort of.
[19:00] It complicated if for me stuff.
[19:04] Well, when push comes to shove is so, yeah, I feel like it has, it's just so much gray area
[19:09] there because essentially they are the same and there might be, I think shoving is slightly more
[19:15] aggressive than pushing, but it's the same basic action. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[19:20] Pushing and pulling would be considered opposites. Opposite, right. Right. Which is,
[19:24] yeah, even though it's clear, even though it's just the, you know,
[19:28] creation of ways. Yeah. Which is push come to. It's just a vector difference.
[19:35] So when maybe we can, as we often do, try to narrow down time frame and maybe that will
[19:41] help us, uh, forget where this comes from at some level. So the push comes to, or
[19:48] push comes to pull reference was definitely around World War One.
[19:53] And I think it was written. It might have even been in a diary.
[20:01] Okay. Okay. All right. Well, that's very helpful. So at least since early 20th century,
[20:11] it could have been a World War Two. Definitely a big war.
[20:15] Sure. It strikes me. It strikes me as an old phrase.
[20:22] Yeah. Strikes me as an old phrase as well. But I don't know if these two things co-existed
[20:28] or whether we Americanized this at one point from a Britishism. Yeah. Well, yeah. This is
[20:33] starting to feel like, uh, when push comes to pull was a, was a phrase a long time ago and
[20:41] Shakespeare turned it into when push comes to shove or something like that, you know? Like,
[20:46] yeah, after plenty of the elder did it right. Shakespeare turned it on its head a little.
[20:51] Yeah. I feel like something like that, where I took a phrase that we all knew and was like,
[20:54] yeah, we're going to change it. And then that's what caught on or that's what we use today
[20:59] is that I'm kind of feeling that time era. But when push comes to pull was, yeah, the,
[21:07] the Romans, the Greeks, the Mayans, we never go with the Mayans.
[21:15] Don't give the Mayans much credit. It's one of the dangers of largely pre-literate societies.
[21:27] Do you feel like these are the same route or do you feel like they're opposite? They're trying
[21:32] to be opposite? I'm with you. I think that the one derives from the other. Okay. And probably
[21:38] push to pull come came first and then yeah, that's what I would think. But yeah, again,
[21:46] but I do like, I like what scenario is when push comes to pull, like you're just trying one thing
[21:51] over and over again. And then you just try the opposite. Like I can't open this door.
[21:56] So now I'm just going to pull it. Like, I mean, what's the, I like, I like your idea of going
[22:01] over the hill, but so I've pushed this thing up the hill and now I'm getting pulled down by
[22:09] it from the other side of the hill. Well, you're pulling it from falling down the hill without.
[22:13] I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And probably getting pulled down. Yeah, probably getting pulled down
[22:17] the hill as well. And that is, yeah, very Sisyphean metaphor that I have going here.
[22:22] That's right. But yeah, you're basically changing your strategy. You're essentially changing your
[22:30] entire strategy. Whereas push comes to shove is more of a escalation of strategy. But again,
[22:38] maybe not that much. Maybe they're synonyms, depending on how you read the phrase.
[22:45] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, push comes to pull, you know, from a strategic point of view,
[22:49] it could be just a very chit chit suit way of approaching a situation, right?
[22:53] You've already been pushing, they expect push. So when you pull, it throws them off balance,
[22:57] right? You flip them over your head and stuff. I mean, I don't, I fall down in a pile, but
[23:05] someone does. I am not feeling froggy. I curl in a ball and cry. I'm more tadpolly.
[23:21] Feeling tadpolly.
[23:22] All right, we got to look this sucker up. Yeah,
[23:31] he's at least going to look at that. When push comes to pull.
[23:36] It came from a song by Van Halen. Push comes to shove.
[23:42] Done. No more googling needed. Done and done.
[23:46] Done and done. I'm seeing the term comes from rugby,
[23:55] where after an infraction of rules, forwards from each team face off and push against one another
[24:02] until one player can kick the ball to a teammate and resume the game.
[24:05] So from the scrum. What?
[24:08] Yeah. That's where that comes from.
[24:10] I mean, this is from dictionary grammar says it's an American idiom, which means not rugby.
[24:19] Something's wrong. Maybe the British just stole our good idiom.
[24:27] Broke it.
[24:28] Okay, so here's a good definition of it. So means if when or if push comes to shove means
[24:37] when a situation reaches a critical point and one must commit oneself to an action or decision.
[24:47] The earliest occurrence comes from an interesting story of what a girl found to do and how she
[24:56] succeeded in the column. The home circle by, quote unquote, Bessie, published in the weekly
[25:03] Floridian from Tallahassee, Florida, Tuesday, 5th, February, 1889.
[25:10] No kidding. 1889.
[25:14] In Florida.
[25:17] Yeah. And then gives a ridiculously long quote.
[25:25] Like it doesn't highlight where push comes to shove is in this thing.
[25:30] Okay, here we go. I've got, are you on grammar phobia?
[25:34] I'm on word history's debt.
[25:38] So this says the it also has it also mentions the Floridian paper, but it's got a citation in
[25:50] 1837 from Thomas DeWitt Talmage writing in the United Methodist Free Church magazine.
[25:58] The proposed movement improvement is about to fail when push comes up behind it and gives it a shove
[26:06] and pull goes in in front and lays into the traces and low the enterprise advances
[26:11] and the goal is reached. Oxford English Dictionary gives this as a African-American colloquialism
[26:19] from the mid 1800s. And also in that quote, it also talks about the pull goes in in front and lays
[26:30] the traces, which is interesting. I haven't been able to find much in the way of references to
[26:37] push comes to pull. Word reference has a conversation about it, which actually comes from French.
[26:43] I read it from a British dude, but they, I mean, they seem to do the same thing for sure.
[26:49] It's just a matter of when it jumped the pond, I think.
[26:52] So did they take it from us or did we take it from them?
[26:57] With the pole part.
[26:59] The pole part seems just unreferenced, basically.
[27:04] There's like, yeah, nothing on it. Or it's very thinly referenced. It seems like
[27:11] Google, it just gives you answers for which comes to shove comes to shove.
[27:15] Google is smart enough to know that what you mean.
[27:21] So is it possible that the in this diary that was written, this guy didn't know the phrase
[27:27] that you read? Or, you know, at least in his in his family, they said when push comes to pull or
[27:33] whatever. Yeah. What year was that one? What's that? The thing that you read the passage?
[27:47] Oh, yeah. The passage I read was.
[27:50] Eighteen seventy three. Eighteen seventy three.
[27:54] Interesting. All right. Yeah. So it seems like
[27:58] African-American colloquialism, late 19th century.
[28:07] Langston Hughes, what Uncle Sam can do if push comes to shove.
[28:12] Cool.
[28:15] Yeah. Langston.
[28:17] Oh, that wasn't Langston. Damn it. I read that backwards.
[28:21] He said one can always buy another clock or even tell time by the sun if push comes to shove.
[28:29] That's what Langston Hughes much more poetic than than the guy before him.
[28:39] All right. Well, we learned something, I think, when when push comes to pull is is not really
[28:44] a phrase. Nope. And it in the Greeks didn't come up with it.
[28:49] Not that not that Van Halen perfected. Van Halen.
[28:57] Oh, nice work, team. Yeah. The other Googles always feel anticlimactic because it's not sure.
[29:02] Right. Can you sing us out? Sure. Never mind.
[29:07] For. Well, yeah, it's it's for something else, isn't it? That's not for
[29:11] Washington Hughes. For once and always poet Langston Hughes.
[29:17] Turn out the lights. The party's over.
[29:24] Push push came to shove. And now the party's over.
[29:27] That's right. Do love me some Langston Hughes.
[29:33] As poetry goes, I suppose. You rhymed in everything.