Ring of Fire

[00:01] All right, team, we have gathered here today.
[00:04] I've got an under-googable.
[00:09] We do under-googables. That was the play of Super Excited.
[00:25] I told us we had to.
[00:29] You said we signed up for it. In the end it's gonna be better and more true than Google can give you.
[00:36] Since Coastal's not here, I came to
[00:41] we got the top end. We got the cream of the crop
[00:45] here today. Shout out, Coalson.
[00:49] Oh yeah, how you doing, bud? I had a question
[00:54] that I thought I knew the answer to but
[00:58] I saw some usage
[01:01] of a word or a phrase that I wasn't sure about and I wanted to just
[01:05] get your all's take on it. The phrase is
[01:08] towing the line. The usage I've always felt
[01:13] was like the meaning I'd always thought was sort of like pushing
[01:18] pushing it. Basically
[01:22] there's some limit of something and you're coming up to
[01:25] to the edge of what is acceptable for whatever the context is.
[01:30] I always in my head, I don't know if I've ever seen it written,
[01:34] but I always in my head was thinking it was your foot. There was a line
[01:38] and you're not supposed to cross the line. You kept bringing your toe
[01:42] up to the edge and that was what it was. That was what I thought it was.
[01:47] Then I saw it written somewhere with towing the line.
[01:50] I guess I said the phrase again.
[01:55] But when I said at that time, in my mind, it was spelled
[01:59] T-O-W-I-N-G like
[02:03] a truck towing something
[02:06] like a boat or something. And on those you would also potentially
[02:11] have a line or like a boat would tow
[02:16] skiers or tubers. Not like potatoes, but like
[02:23] Thank you for that clarification.
[02:31] What was going on with water sports in India this year?
[02:36] Some terror groups. People who tube.
[02:41] Yeah. Yeah. So where do you guys
[02:48] I mean, you guys, you could tow a line. There's a tow line, right? Like that's the
[02:51] there's a name specifically around that. So what do you guys think? Is it
[02:57] is it just the T-O-E like your foot or or or what did you think it was the
[03:03] whole time? I definitely thought it was a foot
[03:06] thing the whole time. It never even occurred
[03:10] to me that it might be a nautical barge thing or something.
[03:14] That's the other reason we couldn't do this one while Coalson was here because
[03:17] it's a foot thing. It's so hard to keep him focused at
[03:23] that point. Yeah. He can't keep those tracks clean.
[03:26] There's a lot of smacking his lips.
[03:36] Yeah, no. But I mean, I guess because of the meaning that you
[03:40] said, which I agree. That's how I always thought of it. It's somebody's
[03:44] towing the line and walking right up to the edge of
[03:47] acceptability and then stopping basically. Is that your impression of the meaning of
[03:54] the phrase, Harper? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. You are
[04:00] definitely not stepping over. You are carefully observing
[04:03] the the limits of acceptable behavior. Or is it also like being a good soldier
[04:11] and towing the line, like towing the company line
[04:16] is another way that I've heard it. Is that a thing? Yeah.
[04:20] And in that case, TOW kind of makes a little bit more sense.
[04:26] You're pulling your weight for something that
[04:30] the company needed to do. That's right. You're pulling something.
[04:35] Because I don't think that that same phrase with the TOE, the foot one, makes
[04:41] as much sense in that context. I would agree. Unless I feel like maybe
[04:47] when I thought of it in that context, it was like
[04:49] your it's like military order. And you're like,
[04:55] you know, everybody's on the same page and
[04:58] towing the line. Got their toes up on the line
[05:02] and following the rules are ready to go, I guess.
[05:08] It could be one way to think about it. Yeah.
[05:13] Well, let's think. Sometimes when we do these things, we think about what the
[05:16] origin of the phrase might be. I said my previous Johnny Cash
[05:22] because he was walking the line, right? He was walking the line. Yeah.
[05:27] He took it to a whole other level.
[05:31] So you're saying it it predates Rings of Fire.
[05:37] Yep. Best guess. So this goes way back.
[05:42] I don't think it goes. I feel like it's 20th century to me though.
[05:46] I don't know. I was kind of assumed it was a track and field thing.
[05:52] Oh, interesting. Okay. And so that'd be that could be like
[05:57] ancient Greece. Sure. Hmm. I guess that's true too. Yeah. When
[06:06] you're starting like a race. Yeah. And you want to be
[06:10] as close as you can with your toes without going over. I mean, these days,
[06:14] you know, hands, but back in the day before we knew how to spread right.
[06:21] Right. Did you guys know that I did not realize that that the
[06:29] reason they don't use a gun anymore at those races, have you heard it
[06:32] about it? Like particularly like the the short sprints, but
[06:39] apparently there is enough if they if they shoot a gun like from the finish
[06:44] line or from even from the start line or you know the the the fake gun or
[06:48] whatever. But the apparently what the measurements
[06:52] have been was that the speed of sound made enough difference
[06:57] from the person closest to it to the person
[07:00] farthest from it. Oh wow. That there was a significant or not significant, but there
[07:06] was an advantage to being closer to the gun person, the starting pistol.
[07:12] Well, but so the sound has to come from somewhere
[07:15] where. So they put a speaker behind each person. Each individual person. Yes. So now
[07:23] it's like the speed of light.
[07:27] You still have to connect them somehow. Right. Yeah. So whatever
[07:32] sending the signal has to get it from there too.
[07:37] But it just comes to all of them at the same time, I guess. So
[07:40] or now it's within an acceptable range. They've all got their own
[07:45] speaker. Yeah, I had no idea. Yeah. But I suppose they'd have more than a
[07:50] big enough data set over however many. Yeah. Hundreds of
[07:54] thousands of races have been timed over there.
[07:58] That's interesting. I didn't notice that there were speakers behind the
[08:01] starting blocks, but I had no idea. That was why.
[08:05] Makes sense. And they just didn't worry about it for the longer distances
[08:08] because it's marginal over. Right. A longer time horizon.
[08:14] You're not looking at thousands of a second at that point.
[08:17] I mean, if you had one that came down to a thousandth of a second.
[08:22] Yeah. Well. Blame that starting gun. Cross that.
[08:26] We'll cross that bridge when we come to. Blame the speed of sound.
[08:31] So back to towing of lines. So if it is the TOW,
[08:36] it's a nautical sailing term, which is often the
[08:41] has been the source of many of these phrases that we've done on this
[08:46] fighting program. Is it possible that there is two distinct phrases?
[08:54] That's what I'm yeah, that's where I'm going. Well, I want to guess I want to
[08:57] get that answer first. Do we think it's two separate ones? And if so,
[09:03] we need some sort of guess on both. Or do we think that it's just one?
[09:11] It's just one and it's the same one is used in all contexts.
[09:19] Because I kind of feel like there's two. I would have gone to one
[09:28] and somebody made a typo, but that would be really interesting if there were two
[09:33] distinct phrases. That would be the more fun answer for sure.
[09:38] That have the same. So what are those pseudonyms? Homonyms.
[09:45] Homonyms. Homophone. Homonyms. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I had the opposite
[09:53] Harper. I think it's one, but I think it's TOW and I was wrong my
[09:57] entire life. The simplest answer.
[10:06] Well, that would make us both wrong for our entire lives.
[10:11] Probability of that is very low. I mean, you would think.
[10:17] So you think you thought you always thought it was TOW?
[10:20] No, I always thought it was TOW. I always thought it was TOW, but I
[10:24] okay. I thought it was wrong. And now that you have introduced me to this idea.
[10:29] Okay. Yeah, I'm gonna go. I'm going ancient. I'm going TOW,
[10:36] track and field, ancient Greece, plenty of the elder.
[10:40] Nice. I'm going TOW, Civil War era.
[10:50] When did they start towing barges? I wonder. Because for a long time,
[10:54] you just put whatever crap you wanted on your ship, right?
[10:59] Right. I mean, I suppose when she had big harbors and you have like tugboats.
[11:03] Well, I wouldn't. I mean, until you have, yeah, the steam engine, I guess,
[11:10] is when you start having barges, probably. Yeah.
[11:15] When I also think of towing with like canals, right? Like.
[11:21] Okay. Yeah. Like oxen along. Yeah.
[11:24] Yeah. Because I don't know that you do that with a river.
[11:32] I don't think you just. That current makes it too difficult, I think.
[11:37] Yeah. I know that's how a lot of the interior of the US canals, you know,
[11:43] that's how you move stuff around was just having, you know, having some ox or whatever.
[11:48] Another side bark. I learned we were in upstate New York a couple of weekends ago,
[11:53] and I learned that they drain the Erie canal every winter. Did you know that?
[11:58] Yeah. Yeah.
[12:02] No, no idea. Yeah. Because the lake will freeze. So.
[12:08] Yeah. I don't know why they have to drain the canal. That part I didn't understand.
[12:11] But yeah, the lake freezes frequently. So.
[12:16] They just. I assume any other standing water would also freeze. So.
[12:22] Hmm. They don't know that. All right. So do I think it was one phrase or two phrases?
[12:30] I'm going to go. I'm going to stick with one. And I think it's. I think it's TOE. And.
[12:41] I'm going to put it towards the military. Always a good guess.
[12:47] Yeah. After doing enough of these.
[12:49] The first hits I'm seeing is that it's TOE. My robot over Lorde told me that it was TOE and
[13:05] that it comes from the idea of standing at the starting line of a race and aligning your foot
[13:09] with the mark. So either I'm very good or Google is listening to me. It's also very right.
[13:16] Exactly. And then doing confirmation bias. Let's see. Wikipedia says the
[13:25] expression has disputed origins, though the two earliest in print are from the British Army
[13:33] and the third the third from the Royal Navy. Those suggested are from public school, the
[13:41] armed services, bare knuckle boxing, or possibly the British House of Commons.
[13:48] There was also apparently a practice of standing barefoot and added tension during inspection
[13:54] with the toes of the sailors touching the seams of the wooden deck planks.
[14:00] And then, yeah, 17th or 18th century Royal Navy.
[14:04] Navy. Those boats got in there.
[14:07] Those were bad for. But those parents in print from the army regulator, 1738,
[14:16] an officer forming rocks with a soldier says, silence you dogs toe the line.
[14:25] What's the army regulator? What is that? Just sounds bad ass. Is it a publication? What is it?
[14:31] That's a good question. Let me go to the reference.
[14:35] The army regulator or the military adventures of Mr. John Railton, given an account of his
[14:41] particular services in the horse Grenadiers, the dragons, the foot and the train of artillery.
[14:50] No idea what that means. I mean, some guy's memoir, I guess. Yeah. Okay. Well,
[14:58] I'm going to sign up for that. So everything I'm seeing here that T.O.W. is incorrect and
[15:06] it seems like that's a common misspelling because everything that I'm seeing around
[15:14] the T.O.W. is saying, no, it's actually T.O.E. and the other ones are wrong.
[15:22] So it's a somewhat common misspelling, which kicked off me questioning everything.
[15:32] Well, to channel my Coalson, questioning everything I've ever known,
[15:38] trying to decide which parts of my life were not a lie. Army regulators, army regulators,
[15:47] mount up. General Warring G. T.O.E. Nailed it. Half credit to Harper.
[16:02] Like full credit to Joey. Yeah.
[16:08] Jason, I'll share my credit with you. Oh, that's all right. No, no need. So three halves.
[16:16] Stop Coalson, do the scoring. In honor of Coalson's scoring. Coalson, stay after class.