Lake Pirates

[00:00] I've got that game for my PC called Into the Breach.
[00:05] Is it like a World War II game?
[00:08] No, it's like a futuristic hellscape.
[00:14] Well, yeah.
[00:15] In 2024?
[00:17] No, you play as like these different kind of mechs.
[00:25] But it's not like it's like a strategy kind of game.
[00:30] It's not like first-person shooter or anything.
[00:32] Turn-based.
[00:33] Yeah, it's like a turn-based strategy thing.
[00:36] But you play as these mechs, and you're
[00:38] trying to keep these other future mechs to like,
[00:41] you've got to save the people.
[00:42] Got to save the people with the mechs.
[00:45] Yep.
[00:46] I actually have a similar game.
[00:49] It's called Into the Brooch, where I helped my mom put
[00:51] her little brooch on her neck.
[00:54] Turn-based play?
[00:56] Turn-based strategy.
[01:03] I'll look for it on Steam here coming up, I think.
[01:06] Yeah.
[01:06] Sounds fascinating.
[01:09] Yeah, I'm not going to pay full price, but I'm interested.
[01:15] I'll watch it on Twitch, sure.
[01:32] We doing under Googles?
[01:33] That was the play of Super Excited.
[01:36] You told us we had to, sir.
[01:39] You said we signed up for it.
[01:43] In the end, it's going to be better and more true
[01:45] than Google can give you.
[01:49] All right, team.
[01:50] I think it's, I checked it, it was dame time,
[01:56] then it was Halliburton's time.
[01:58] Now it's time for the under Googles.
[02:03] Coalson, how can we help you this week?
[02:06] Well, I was thinking about this one, Crazy as a Loon.
[02:12] And I kind of went down a little spiral in my head,
[02:15] because then I was like, is Looney connected to Lunatic
[02:21] or Crazy as a Loon?
[02:23] And then I just was like, my own mind blew.
[02:27] And I was like, I got to take it to my people's figure out
[02:30] where we get Crazy as a Loon, as a phrase.
[02:33] Mm, mm.
[02:36] Yeah.
[02:37] Interesting.
[02:38] Well, you've already been down this rabbit hole.
[02:39] What did you decide?
[02:41] Actually, I didn't.
[02:42] I was wondering, actually, if Loon
[02:45] comes from the same root as Lunatic.
[02:47] I know they're spelled differently.
[02:50] And I think Looney is spelled like the bird Loon.
[02:53] So I think they're probably separate.
[02:57] And I think Looney comes from Crazy as a Loon.
[03:02] But it's just so true.
[03:03] And where does Looney Tunes fit in?
[03:04] Yeah, I think it's from Looney, which is from Crazy as a Loon.
[03:08] But again, that always reminisces of a lunatic.
[03:12] And like I said, I got myself in a spin.
[03:17] Got yourself in a state.
[03:18] Yeah, there are different roots, probably.
[03:21] I mean, I assume, especially since they're spelled
[03:23] differently.
[03:24] But I wonder if they're related, whether some sort of,
[03:30] whether we named the bird Loon because we
[03:33] thought it was a lunatic.
[03:35] You know, like, I don't know.
[03:37] I don't know.
[03:37] What's the, what's the, is the bird
[03:41] just the Loon, it's just the L-O-O-N?
[03:44] L-O-O-N, yeah.
[03:47] And it's like a water bird, right?
[03:51] It's a waterfowl.
[03:53] Yeah, waterfowl.
[03:54] And it's black and white.
[03:56] And I believe that it's kind of a night bird, doesn't it?
[03:59] I feel like it's connected to the moon.
[04:01] Or maybe that's just the Loon thing.
[04:04] Moon and Loon.
[04:05] I think there's more than one kind of Loon, I think.
[04:09] Yeah, I feel like Loon's cry at night.
[04:12] And I feel like maybe they make a crazy sound.
[04:15] They do have a distinct call.
[04:18] Yeah, it's like, I don't want to try to make it now
[04:22] because I'm not a birdologist.
[04:24] Not a lunatic.
[04:28] That's what fans of Loon's are called.
[04:31] Sure, but L-O-O-N.
[04:34] Yeah, exactly.
[04:36] But does it kind of like, ooh.
[04:40] Is that a thing?
[04:41] Is it kind of like a haunting cry out on the water?
[04:46] Yeah, a little bit.
[04:47] A little bit.
[04:49] But why is that crazy?
[04:54] Well, people who are truly hysterical
[05:00] may scream or cry out or some such.
[05:04] And so the ravings of a lunatic may indeed
[05:10] sound a little bit like a Loon's call.
[05:13] At least that's where my mind first went,
[05:15] because it's a very strange, high-pitched sort of whale.
[05:19] OK, a high-pitched whale.
[05:21] Yeah, that makes sense, because birds
[05:22] make lots of weird noises.
[05:24] There's lots of animals that make weird noises,
[05:26] and we don't necessarily call them crazy.
[05:28] You know?
[05:30] Well, how do whales get into this conversation?
[05:34] Whales?
[05:35] I'm just messing with you.
[05:39] Are we sure?
[05:40] I guess, how confident are we that the bird, Loon,
[05:44] and like the word lunatic are related at all?
[05:49] No, I don't think it's 0%.
[05:50] 0%.
[05:51] I've zeroed.
[05:53] That's what made me ask this question,
[05:56] but I don't think they're related at all.
[05:58] OK.
[05:58] But they might be.
[06:01] But they're spelled differently.
[06:02] So there's probably a different origin
[06:06] from the Loon and the lunatic.
[06:08] We have established also that English can be stupid, and.
[06:12] Right.
[06:13] You know.
[06:15] Yeah, I mean, it could be like, that bird sounds like a lunatic,
[06:18] and then we just spelled it different.
[06:21] You know?
[06:23] That's quite possible.
[06:25] You think it might be short for doubloon?
[06:31] Maybe.
[06:33] What's your?
[06:34] Pirates, right?
[06:37] So your error would be like the 1700s on the water?
[06:46] For the pirates?
[06:47] Yeah.
[06:48] I was actually thinking the Pittsburgh Pirates.
[06:52] OK.
[06:53] Yeah, so late 1800s.
[06:54] I think Loon's are largely lake birds.
[06:57] Yeah, I think they're lake birds as well.
[06:59] Well, they're lake pirates.
[07:01] Lake pirates.
[07:02] Old lake pirates.
[07:03] From the smaller stakes stuff.
[07:05] Yeah.
[07:06] Pittsburgh lake pirates.
[07:08] Yeah, yeah, sure.
[07:11] So a lot of steel.
[07:12] Yeah, that's how we know them.
[07:15] So you're saying that the Loon is directly connected
[07:18] to the baseball team.
[07:22] I mean, I can't envision another scenario.
[07:31] But but do you think so?
[07:34] I guess the reason it kind of screwed with me
[07:37] is because when I always heard the term loony,
[07:38] like loony tunes or whatever, I just assumed
[07:41] that that was loony as in lunatic.
[07:44] But then when I thought of the phrase crazy as a loon,
[07:47] I went, oh, no, it's actually loony as in the bird loon.
[07:53] And then just my world kind of fell apart.
[07:56] I guess this is what I'm talking about.
[07:58] I need help with this.
[08:00] I would think maybe my uneducated guess
[08:05] would be that the loony, like loony tunes
[08:10] does come from lunatic.
[08:12] But it's a cartoon, you know, it's a cartoon.
[08:17] And they take liberties with language all the time.
[08:21] Right, but like if you but if you say I'm with you,
[08:24] I see we're saying it looks the same as tune, right?
[08:27] Loon and tune.
[08:28] You get that you want to spell it the same way.
[08:30] But like, you wouldn't say that did is loony
[08:34] and spell it L-U-N-Y, right?
[08:37] You would spell it loony as in loony tunes.
[08:40] So do you think the phrase loony tunes
[08:42] was created to match tunes even though it
[08:47] was coming off lunatic and has nothing to do with the bird?
[08:50] Is that what you're suggesting, Joey?
[08:53] Yes.
[08:54] OK, all right.
[08:55] Well, that solves that.
[08:57] I'm now convinced that loony comes from crazy as a loon,
[09:03] the bird, and I'm just saying.
[09:07] That loony does and lunatic both?
[09:09] No, no, no, just loony.
[09:11] Yeah, OK.
[09:12] And that loony is not connected to lunatic,
[09:15] even though that's how we associate it.
[09:19] That's what I'm going with.
[09:21] OK, so.
[09:22] And that the crazy as a loon came along in the when
[09:28] when did loons come along?
[09:31] Probably around 100 million years ago or so.
[09:38] When did language come about?
[09:43] When were people near lakes?
[09:45] I'm going to go with, oh, OK.
[09:49] I'm going to say that this is a native people's word
[09:56] for this bird, like Algonquin or something like that.
[10:02] I'm going to go with that and.
[10:05] Like the bird loon.
[10:06] The bird loon, right.
[10:07] And it was translated incorrectly by white people.
[10:14] And then that there was some superstitious era,
[10:18] superstition, some sort of, there was witches
[10:20] and we were drowning them and stuff.
[10:22] And I'm going, I don't know.
[10:23] When was when was the crucible filmed?
[10:28] When was it filmed or what period does it cover?
[10:31] You heard the man would have been filmed in the 70s.
[10:37] I don't know when to go the 1500s.
[10:39] I don't know.
[10:40] Yeah, I mean, I'm going to go with Shakespeare.
[10:42] I mean, this seems like a metaphorical thing here.
[10:48] So for loon and crazy as a loon, loonie.
[10:53] I'm to go with, you know, it does
[10:55] have to do with the bird's whale or call Shakespeare.
[10:58] It's a scary cry.
[11:01] And then in a weird twist, I must say that lunatic
[11:04] came much later, but out of it, like during the asylum era
[11:10] when we were just making up words for crazies
[11:13] and like turn of the century America.
[11:16] OK, I'm going to say that lunatic is a root word
[11:20] and, you know, the romance like it's from Roman times.
[11:25] It's from the right.
[11:26] The romance is plot.
[11:27] It's the Romans created the word lunatic is what I'm thinking.
[11:31] OK.
[11:32] One question I have is what is a Native American word.
[11:35] That's what I'm going with.
[11:37] What's the what's the territory?
[11:40] Where do loons live?
[11:41] I think they live in the Northeast of.
[11:47] Well, they definitely live in the Northwest.
[11:48] I can tell you that as well.
[11:50] OK, they live in the North.
[11:52] I think they live in one that's cold lakes.
[11:55] OK, but like North America, though, right?
[11:57] Yeah, I guess.
[11:58] Yeah, maybe Canada.
[11:59] I think they're big in Canada.
[12:01] Well, well, I guess what I'm getting at is.
[12:04] Yeah, not a lot of cross language play between North America
[12:07] and Shakespeare.
[12:10] Yeah, I mean, that's if they're not in Shakespeare's.
[12:13] Well, are they I mean, there are
[12:15] in the British Empire.
[12:19] I have no information to suggest that.
[12:22] I mean, I mean, clearly the Americas were part of the British Empire,
[12:26] but that would be after Shakespeare.
[12:28] Correct.
[12:29] And I feel like they weren't talking about North American birds.
[12:31] Yeah.
[12:32] Also, yeah, not a lot of cross play with Native American languages
[12:36] in the 1400s, either or whatever you went with.
[12:38] Well, right. We don't have to be right.
[12:39] We both don't have to write Harper.
[12:41] I'm saying I'm saying we're both wrong.
[12:45] Shakespeare, I'm saying Native Americans doesn't mean that we're both right.
[12:48] Well, right.
[12:48] But we didn't have a lot of cross play with Native Americans in 1400 either.
[12:52] That's not when we were here.
[12:54] Yeah, I'm going later.
[12:58] I'm going. I'm going.
[12:59] We came up with the white people misunderstood
[13:02] and misinterpreted Native Americans in the late 1800s, early 1800s.
[13:08] Yeah. Yeah. Early 1800s in Canada.
[13:16] All right.
[13:17] I'm going to say maybe I'm going to say unconnected from somehow the loon.
[13:20] I'll go with lunatic is older that it's Greek or something.
[13:24] And so I'll plenty the elder plus Shakespeare.
[13:27] I'll go for a two for.
[13:28] I like that. I like that.
[13:30] Joey's going with horse racing.
[13:34] I was born with, you know, seafaring seafaring.
[13:38] OK, not like ships. No, that's good.
[13:40] I like that.
[13:40] Falconry was on the nose.
[13:42] Lake ships are on the beak, as the case may be.
[13:45] All the lake ships.
[13:47] All right.
[13:48] Well, here's what I'm finding is that this is not
[13:52] we are not the first people that had this question.
[13:54] Oh, that's interesting.
[13:57] So Lune L.O.O.N.
[14:01] First. Appeared in English during the early 1600s.
[14:06] Nailed it and is and believed to be derived
[14:10] from the Scandinavian term for the loon lomer.
[14:14] So they do have loons over there.
[14:16] Apparently. OK.
[14:18] A loon that means a crazy foolish or silly person
[14:21] came from the Middle English loun.
[14:24] Originally, this loon, which entered English in the 1400s,
[14:29] meant a lout idler or rogue.
[14:32] Like I said, you know, negative connotation.
[14:35] And it was extended to mean a crazy person or simpleton.
[14:38] Lunatic derived from the Latin luna moon.
[14:44] Which was mentioned.
[14:46] Insured English during the early 1300s, because many people believe
[14:51] insanity was caused by the phases of the moon.
[14:56] Like werewolves, werewolves and vampires. Yeah.
[15:02] Looney, an adjective form of lunatic emerged during the late 1800s.
[15:07] For like Looney Tunes.
[15:09] But is that and that's connected to both or.
[15:12] That's connected to lunatic.
[15:16] It's just another version of that.
[15:19] It says it's an action, action to verb of lunatic.
[15:24] So are they connected or not?
[15:26] They're completely separate things.
[15:29] The bird and the lunatic, I think, are completely unrelated.
[15:35] But there was like several.
[15:37] Several similar sounding words
[15:40] that had come from Scandinavia and English
[15:46] that sounded similar and seemed to be kind of all come into the same same place.
[15:55] What's really confusing to me is that loons.
[16:00] Or at least the common loon is a North American bird
[16:03] that you do find it in Greenland and Iceland.
[16:08] Which I mean, I guess the.
[16:11] You know, the Vikings got there pretty early on,
[16:14] but it's sort of strange to me that the word made its way back
[16:16] and then into the lexicon so early as the 1400s.
[16:24] That's weird.
[16:26] So when lunaticus originally referred mainly to epilepsy and madness.
[16:32] Yeah, so I'm I'm I'm seeing here agreeing with you, Joey, that
[16:37] the phrase loony comes not from the bird, but from lunatic.
[16:44] And that is connected to the face of the moon.
[16:51] I have the simile of lunatic behavior to a the water bird.
[16:58] Was John Skelton in 1529
[17:04] wrote about the loons
[17:08] speaking of their madmen cries.
[17:11] So, yeah, we're trying to figure out where loons come from.
[17:16] Yeah, I was looking at that, too.
[17:17] Well, I mean, it's a common loon.
[17:23] You know what?
[17:23] I think I do see live on lakes.
[17:25] We are in other waterways in Canada, the northern United States,
[17:29] including Alaska and southern parts of Greenland and Iceland.
[17:32] Small numbers breed on Svalbard and sporadically elsewhere in Arctic Eurasia.
[17:38] Common loons winter on both coasts of the US as far south as Mexico
[17:42] and on the Atlantic coast of Europe.
[17:45] Yeah, that's what I'm seeing, too.
[17:47] The they'll go to the Atlantic coast on Europe.
[17:51] So they're all over the place up there, but they they that's
[17:55] they just hang out there.
[17:57] Merriam Webster suggests that loony is was influenced.
[18:02] The word loony was influenced by the development and spread of the
[18:08] crazy as a loon, even though it is directly from lunatic.
[18:14] They suggest that the language and that phrase influenced the term loony,
[18:18] which came later than both the phrase lunatic and crazy as a loon.
[18:24] Well, I feel like we did good on time frames anyway.
[18:27] Yeah, I mean, it wasn't.
[18:29] We've done worse.
[18:30] You know, it is a particularly American use of the word
[18:33] to refer to a daft person as a loon.
[18:36] That's what Merriam Webster says.
[18:39] Can I disagree with the dictionary?
[18:41] Yeah, you can do whatever you want, buddy.
[18:47] All right, then I'll put I'll put it in.
[18:50] I'm going to write a letter to the dictionary editor.
[18:53] It had nothing to do with the Pittsburgh Pirates, however. Huh?
[18:58] I think you should write that in your letter.
[19:00] Oh, for sure.
[19:03] Check your facts.
[19:06] Who is my who is my favorite Pittsburgh pirate?
[19:12] Do you know any Pittsburgh pirates?
[19:14] Yeah, for sure. And events like
[19:17] and events like who am I thinking of Roberto Clemente?
[19:22] Definitely. He played there. Yeah.
[19:26] He's my favorite. He's the only pirate that I like.
[19:31] And maybe it's like just because it's fun.
[19:34] And also Blackbeard, you like him?
[19:37] Yeah. Well, did we learn anything?
[19:43] I feel like we nailed it.
[19:45] OK, you don't even.
[19:46] Why do we need Google?
[19:48] Yeah. Just listen to us, guys.
[19:53] You could have read something in in 30 seconds on Google
[19:58] or you could listen to us for 20 minutes. So yeah. Yeah.
[20:02] What we need is to just like add three or four more people
[20:05] to our Google show, so we just have more guesses that would
[20:09] we could really blanket the potential options if we do that.
[20:14] I mean, we did we did guess a lot of things.
[20:17] We did guess a lot of things, but we were right on many of them.
[20:20] Pretty pretty right on things.
[20:23] Nice work, team.
[20:25] Feel good about our big brains.
[20:28] And Barry Bonds, I think, is who I was probably thinking of.
[20:31] Oh, yeah, he was he was a pirate, right?
[20:34] Yeah. For most, most famously a pirate.
[20:37] Yeah. That was before all the steroids, was it?
[20:40] Yeah, his head was like a totally normal size.
[20:49] Were you still recording?
[20:51] I mean, cut off what you want.
[20:55] This is podcast where where all the gold is very end of the recording.
[21:01] Yeah.