Click on “Read More” for the full transcript.
We used Temi to auto transcribe this, then Dan went through and checked it based on the show notes. He tried really hard on it, but this kind of stuff isn't his specialty. So if you notice anything confusing, please comment on this post so Dan can look at it and clarify anything.
Dan: 00:00 Welcome to Bunny Trails, a whimsical adventure of idioms and other turns of phrase, I'm Dan Pugh
Shauna: 00:10 This week though, we're swinging the pendulum back the other direction with "in cold blood"
Shauna: 00:23 Yeah... Uh, when someone acts in cold blood, they are acting entirely without emotion. Uh, almost inhuman. This is not an act of love or anger. It's, um, it's understandable that it is chilling to think of someone killing in cold blood.
Dan: 00:37 So it's like premeditated. I'm not doing it emotionally. I'm going to take action against someone maliciously and with intent and I'm not doing it because I'm, you know, angry right now I'm doing it because I'm... I just wanna.
Shauna: 00:54 Yeah, it's not like a passionate killing, but, and not necessarily premeditated, but just without, uh, without human emotion assigned to it. So.
Dan: 01:03 Right. But the idiom itself just means if you're doing something "in cold blood", it means you're doing it without, without,
Dan: 01:17 Well, I'm anxious to see if, if there is a historical reference for why we use it for killing or what have you.
Shauna: 01:25 So the Oxford English dictionary has two entries for 'in cold blood' dating back all the way to the 16 hundreds.
Shauna: 01:35 Yeah. It really surprised me. Um, so a phrase of the older, uh, physiology "from the sensations felt in the face and head when the circulation is quickened by exertion or excitement, the blood itself was supposed to grow hot or to boil, at other times to be cold or not sensibly hot". So the phrase in cold blood came to mean "Coolly, without excitement, not any passion or with 'sang froid'."
Dan: 02:03 Wow. So I, if you would've asked me before we started this, where I thought in cold blood came from, I would have said that I'm not sure if it had to do with the Truman Capote book or if it, like if, if he popularized that phrase or if it was already a phrase and he used it because it was popular. But it sounds like this is probably the case that he used to because it was popular if it was used in the 16 hundreds.
Shauna: 02:27 Yeah, it's definitely been around for awhile and there's a lot around that Truman Capote story so I'm excited to get to that part of it.
Dan: 02:34 Oh, nice. Well it's so the cold blood would have been like without excitement and then hot blooded would be like, you know, which we use today.
Dan: 02:41 Yeah, that's another, I guess the opposite of that. That's really weird when you can have idioms that are the opposites of each other, like that cold blood versus hot blooded. Wow.
Dan: 02:56 Well good. I wanted to know this cause you said that word and I was like, I don't even know what that is.
Shauna: 02:59 Uh, so that actually means composure or coolness, uh, sometimes excessive as shown in danger or under trying circumstances. So as opposed to lacking any emotion, this is someone who's displaying like careful control of their emotion. So the first time this was in use was attested and, or this was it used in print, was in 1609 in Commentaries By F. Vere and it said "a resolution framed in cold blood".
Shauna: 03:28 So this is going back to that like without excitement, not so not pat, like overly passionate. So it's not say it's not that same like lack of human emotion but controlled emotion. You know, with a seriousness and a and a control. We see it used again in 1642 in Naval Tracts by Monson."Punishment is fittest to be executed in cold blood, the next day."
Shauna: 03:52 So instead of saying it in a negative way, but when you're not hot blooded, when you're back under control and you've got, you know your wits about you, then that's the best time for punishment.
Dan: 04:01 So in this case they weren't meaning revenge is a dish best served cold. (Words are hard.) They're, they're seeing more like literally, cause this is Naval Tracts, right? So they're saying that 'don't delve out the punishment while you're mad, wait and calm down and then delve out the punishment'.
Dan: 04:19 So that would be the modern day, 'Don't send an email while you're mad. Wait until the next day and then send the email'
Shauna: 04:33 In 1712, we saw it again, Addison wrote in Spectator, "we can talk of life and death in cold blood." And the goal here was, uh, was to discuss the issues of life and death in a practical manner without the confusion that emotions would bring to the matter.
Shauna: 04:51 And so it was a... Spectator was a magazine... and so that was kind of trying to bring this into a place where conversations about death could be more reasonable and, and something that was okay to talk about, um, in, in, you know, in popular culture as opposed to a topic that was avoided.
Dan: 05:09 Right. And that makes sense because even today, like so I do disaster response as my day to day job when I'm not looking up words and being a word nerd, one of the things we talk about is making plans and having conversations, tough conversations sometimes during, during "blue skies", which is what we use to say when things are fine, not when the disasters happen so that you can have that conversation, uh, on a, on a, uh, blue and sunny day or when no one, when there is no, no one's life is on the line because of this conversation. Let's have that conversation during blue skies. And then that way when it's dark and cloudy skies, or gray skies, then, uh, we're dealing with things and we've already answered some of the questions.
Shauna: 05:57 So that's kind of that sim... Similar concept. Um, so, but there was a transition certainly for in cold blood. Um, another reference with 'in cold blood' was a little later on, but it has a little bit more of a literal usage of it. And this was in 1881 in Mrs O'Donoghue's Ladies on Horseback, "a horse greatly dislikes being brought to his fences in cold blood".
Shauna: 06:20 So the use of the phrase here was to mean physically cooler blood or, and that lack of emotion too or both. But it was seen throughout this timeframe, both uses of it, whether it was saying physically that their blood, you know, they were cool headed, right to say that they were lacking emotion. So both were kind of used at that time.
Dan: 06:38 Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I was playing red dead 2 the other day. And during the Epilogue, a character is, is supposed to wear out (make tired) a horse so that a kid can ride him and I, and I think I remember hearing something about cold blooded or, or cool him off or something like that, you know, to, before the kid was supposed to ride. I mean it, it just stuck in my head. I was just thinking about that. But yeah, no spoilers for red dead redemption two. It's a great game. I mean it's, it's rated M for Mature, but if you're an adult, yeah, it definitely go play that game. It was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. What a story. Oh my goodness.
Dan: 07:17 Oh my goodness. I would love to talk. All things with you. Oh my goodness. Love it. All right. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead.
Shauna: 07:23 Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, uh, I know Dan loves it when I do this, but I'm going to take a science break. Yeah. So why does the face get hot when a person is upset? Uh, I turned to sideshow to help with a simple explanation for this because scishows awesome.
Dan: 07:37 Yeah. I love sideshow show said no, I don't, I don't have a problem when you get all sciency, as long as I know you're going to get sciencey. It's when *suddenly* you are sciency. And I'm like, Whoa, what happened here? I did not... Like a turn signal or something would be nice. So I know we're going down to science realm.
Dan: 07:51 I like some sciences, like I love quantum physics, but there are a lot of sciences that I'm all like, I don't know anything about that thing that you're talking about.
Shauna: 07:59 You know, uh, MIT open course-ware just released quantum physics three. To the public so that's exciting. Yeah.
Dan: 08:13 We will link to the video on our Patreon so you can watch it yourself. (www.patreon.com/bunnytrailspod)
Shauna: 08:16 Yes, yes. So when we experience an immediate stressor or even something mildly upsetting, our sympathetic nervous system recognizes that as a threat and it activates the fight or flight response.
Shauna: 08:29 This response, it affects the whole body preparing us to either fight the threat or run away from it. Now our sympathetic nervous...
Dan: 08:36 "He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day", said Major Blood from GI Joe in the 80s
Shauna: 08:50 Yes. Uh, so the host, the host of this episode is Michael Aranda and he's awesome, uh, and explains within a few seconds, your pupils grow large, your heart beats faster and blood vessels all over your body widen to increase blood flow. This allows more blood to reach your muscles, providing them with more oxygen and preparing them for action, whether that's putting up a fight or running away. As a result of all this, the vessels in your face, also widen allowing more blood to flow in.
Shauna: 09:25 Thank you Michael Aranda for being on the show. So this can cause your face to appear very red. Some scientists, this is my own little thrown in thing here. Think that that actually was a physiological response to that helped with similar to like when a butterfly opens its wings and it has the eyes on it or something like that, it, it, it increases that fear response in your, uh, attacker because they lookscarier because your face is red or broader or whatever. So the increased blood flow will also make a person's head and face feel hot. So now imagine you're about to commit a heinous crime. That should be a decent stressor to elicit the fight or flight response. When someone is acting cool headed or in cold blood, they are in the opposite state. They're lacking emotion or passion. They weren't triggered to some sort of fight or flight response because it didn't elicit that emotion in them, which is sort of creepy.
Dan: 10:14 I was going to say that is far scarier. Actually that would scare me more than anything else.
Shauna: 10:19 Yes. Leads us to our second definition of 'in cold blood': "now chiefly in reference to doing with cool deliberation things which look like the cruel deeds of passion".
Dan: 10:30 So we transferred from uh, well when did we, I mean the last thing you gave with 17 hundreds,
Shauna: 10:35 Actually all the way into the, yeah. 17 hundreds. Um, and then was, uh, at the same time, actually we saw some of this same thing.
Dan: 10:41 So it transitioned a little bit, so not just 'not excitement' but, 'not excitement' when you should be excited.
Shauna: 10:49 And probably was used simultaneously for some time before we saw it in print. This definition is very similar, however it is referencing specifically to act that would normally be done in the throes of passion, whether that be from anger, love, jealousy or whatever. So the first time we see it in print is in 1711. This was also in the Spectator by J. Addison. "It looks like killing in cold blood."
Shauna: 11:15 So it was used specifically related to murder. It's found again in 1757 in Smollets Reprisal. "We Englishman never cut throats in cold blood"
Dan: 11:27 So yes, very good. You're very proper English when you never slit throats in cold blood. Only when you're hot blooded about it, only when you're mad!
Dan: 11:39 I don't know that I've seen English folk get that passionate about most things. They're pretty prim and proper matter everything actually.
Shauna: 11:44 Yeah pretty much like it's, it's pretty controlled. So, uh, in 1879 in a Froude's Caesar, we see it again. "A few thousand prisoners were taken, but they were murdered afterwards in cold blood."
Shauna: 11:58 There were some, honestly, some really very disturbing stories that popped up that I chose not to, to reference it. It's just unnecessary. But Gosh, there have been some things we've done as hew-man... Humans
Shauna: 12:24 Okay. So yeah, humanity not always been at its greatest. This second definition for our phrase is the idiom that we know today, and it's the way it's been used most commonly throughout history. One excerpt from an article in the gazette of the United States out of New York, New York in 1792
Dan: 12:40 You don't have to say New York, New York. If you're going to say out of New York, then you could be like New York City, but like everyone in New York City already thinks you mean New York. So if you just say New York, they assumed New York City, you have to specify if it's not, let me know if I'm wrong listeners, but I'm pretty sure if you say New York, you mean New York City. If it's not New York City, then you have to specify.
Shauna: 12:58 I actually like let us know either way because if he is wrong, then we need to know and if he's not wrong than I was wrong.
Shauna: 13:12 Okay, so this is in 1792 and sadly it described the deaths of the people of Avvignon, France following their leaders death. A group of ruffians claiming vengeance killed the people of the town. "They plunged them into the prisons of the palace and there, massacred them in cold blood"
Dan: 13:36 You said Ruffians there, which makes me think of Dungeons and Dragon's fifth edition starter set Lost Mines of Phandelver, I think, but it's the Lost Mines one, and there's a group of bad guys there known as the Redbrand Ruffians and so when you said ruffians, I quit listening.
Shauna: 13:51 Great, nice. I read more of the article just to get an idea for it. And a lot of people believed that the murders were done without passion, that it wasn't actually vengeance and that was just an excuse that they used for their brutality, so.
Shauna: 14:17 And we find a discussion on duels, including details on the legal or rather illegal status of these activities and why they are such. "And from hence, it clearly follows that if two persons quarrel overnight and appoint to fight the next day or quarrel in the morning and agreed to fight in the afternoon or such a considerable time after by which in common intendment it must be presumed that the blood was cooled and then they meet and fight and one killed the other. He is guilty of murder."
Dan: 14:48 Holy crap. So like. it's fine, like if you duel mad at each other full of emotion, it's fine. But if you do it the next day... murder, total murder! I get it, the in cold blood thing is worse. I mean we've, we've commented on that, that it's creepier and somehow worse, but like... It's still taking another human lives still seems bad.
Shauna: 15:08 Yeah, right? So this continued to be seen with some regularity over the decades. And one of my favorites was a story titled A Soldier's Target found in the Lincoln County Leader in 1898. "Thirty seconds passed away and we glanced back at Davis. He had lifted his head and was looking at the officer over his gun. At the end of a quarter of a minute, he dropped it again. It was his duty to kill, but this was killing in cold blood and he had to have a few seconds to nerve himself up."
Shauna: 15:37 So this was even in battle and the soldier doesn't end up shooting the other man and is actually closely reprimanded by his superior. However, he ends up earning respect from his leaders and comrades and becomes a leader in the army himself. So it's got kind of a neat story.
Shauna: 15:53 Yeah, no, I don't know about the rest of the United States or those in other countries, but for this Kansan uh, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear 'in cold blood' is the book by Truman Capote, of that name.
Dan: 16:07 I'm from Texas, so I didn't learn anything about Kansas history before I moved here as an adult. But uh, yeah. Oh, that's what's cool. I mean, like I'm familiar with Truman Capote's book, but yeah, I've never read it and I didn't know that it was set in Kansas.
Shauna: 16:21 Gotcha. Yeah. Um, but you know, it's funny, there's a thing that kids do and in elementary school here where they do like these wax museums or in history day is, and it's always like Kansas. They're supposed to pick somebody from Kansas. That's like a sig, significant historical figure. And uh, I got to tell you, it's hard to find a famous person from, from before the co... the, the modern era who wasn't a murderer or something like that. There were some great ones but...
Dan: 16:46 That was going to say Bob Dole, but that like, he might be old enough to be before the modern era. I don't know.
Shauna: 16:50 They'd probably allow that now. Like, I mean, we're in 2000, you know, I mean like, yeah, we're good. We're good now. Um, so anyway, and so In Cold Blood was released in 1966 and it chronicles the Clutter family murders and subsequent punishment of the perpetrators. It's a fascinating story.
Dan: 17:09 I'm sorry, can we go back? Did you say subsequent (sub SEE quent), is that how you say that word?
Shauna: 17:16 Listen, I'm one of those people who grew up reading everything and I like didn't hear words so I still find out that I'm saying things wrong.
New Speaker: 17:25 I'm not saying you're saying it wrong, I'm just saying I say subsequent (SUB suh quent) , I don't... Subsequent (sub SEE quent) may be right. I listen to...
Shauna: 17:30 I mean, okay listen, like its sequence (SEE quence), like sequence (SEE quence) 'in sequence' and this is sub-sequence. So it's like following, okay.
Dan: 17:48 Yeah, Helen Zaltzman, Olly Mann, and Martin the sound guy. It's a good podcast. But their accents are definitely different than mine and so they pronounced words that are different and I listen to them sometimes and go 'hahahahaha, that sounds silly', but then I think about it and I'm like, no, that's actually, that makes more sense. Like if you just follow the rules of pronunciation, that actually is, Oh man, we screwed this up.
Dan: 18:08 Well not you apparently you probably, you've got this right. I'm the one saying are wrong.
Dan: 18:14 Alright, in 1966 and he's chronicling the Clutter family murders and their subsequent (SUB suh quent) or subsequent (sub SEE quent) punishment out of the perpetrators. Yeah.
Shauna: 18:25 So two men after getting out of prison, they went to the Clutter family residents looking for a safe full of money. Instead they find four family members at home and very little in the way of valuables. Uh, so they, they systematically, uh, bound and killed the family, uh, pretty brutally. And then they leave after stealing what money they could find and a few other items. So they were caught several weeks later. Thanks in part to some very impressive crime photography by Garden City Assistant Chief Ritch Rohleder. I might be saying his name wrong too
Shauna: 19:00 Yeah. He was able to capture an otherwise unseen footprint as well as tire treads. This was a pretty new thing at the time. So is it is pretty or not very common anyway, so it's really impressive. Uh, so the two murders were hanged without much to do and both died between midnight and 2:00 AM.
Shauna: 19:19 Um, so if you'd like to read an overview of the case, the Garden City Police Department has the story available on their website in the history section and we'll post that link too on our, on our patreon page. Um, so you can read that. I thought it was interesting. It has a pretty prominent place on the Garden City's, uh, police department's website uh, they have a history, that history section, but it's really fascinating that it would be such a significant thing after so much time still. So the story of the writing of Capote's book is almost as interesting as the book itself. Hearing of the crimes he traveled to Kansas with his friend Harper Lee...
Shauna: 19:53 ...of To Kill A Mockingbird fame. Yeah. Uh, together they gathered thousands of pages of notes, interviewed the police and residents and followed the case. Uh, he discussed the murderers in some depth, discussing their backgrounds and psychologies. Experts will note that there are some details that differs slightly from the actual case, but it's an enlightening tale nonetheless. And a lot of them appreciated his evaluation of the, of the case. It took Capote about six years to complete the novel, which was an immediate success. And today remains the second best selling true crime novel. Uh, yeah, coming in first is Vincent Bugliosi's 1974 novel Helter Skelter about the Charles Manson murders. I thought that was pretty crazy and impressive too that it was that the second most popular true crime novel. So yeah, it's pretty cool.
Dan: 20:44 Well, today's show is sponsored by our patrons on Patreon special thanks to our lagomorphology interns, Charlie Moore and Pat Rowe for sponsoring this episode. Patreon.com is a subscription service that allows you to support content creators you love. It's free to sign up and follow along. If you're in a financial situation that allows for monetary support, you can get additional perks for as little as a dollar a month. Features like early access to episodes, behind the scenes content, bonus episodes and more are all available at www.patreon.com/bunnytrailspod.
Shauna: 21:13 So we do know that the book by Truman Capote In Cold Blood brought a lot of popularity to the phrase and really brought it back into the lexicon, um, with that kind of fierceness and just common use. Uh, there was a movie based off of Truman Capote's book in 1967 and then a TV mini series in 1996 just following that same story. Right.
Dan: 21:35 Wasn't there, wasn't there a movie though also or Phillip Seymour Hoffman Played Truman Capote?
Shauna: 21:41 I think it was called Capote or something like that... Truman, or I don't remember, but yeah. Yeah. Um, in Slaughter Of The Innocents also called In Cold Blood in 1993, this was a horror movie. A seasoned FBI agents child genius son assists him in catching a child killer, a schizophrenia Mohab nut who believes his, who believes he's been chosen by God to be a new Noah. Oh yeah. A whole lot going on.
Dan: 22:19 I hear lots of podcast talk about like when they, or just lots of things when they talk about Noah and bringing two of every animal. So the Bible actually says that Noah brought two of every unclean animal and seven of every clean animal. Which the idea was that they would eat the clean animals to survive. Every time you think about like bringing two of every animal and how logistically difficult that would be, think about the fact that it was actually supposed to be two of every unclean animal and seven of every clean animal and now suddenly...
Shauna: 22:48 That's a whole different story. Also though. I mean like how many and would like, was it every animal on the face of the planet or was it just like the farm animals that they kept? Like maybe it was just the cows, chickens or whatever.
Shauna: 23:01 Yeah, they had it handled. Yeah, the, okay, so the song In Cold Blood by the group, Alt-J was completed in 2016 the chorus goes, Mister Caspian's killer told me, so la La la La la heard. It's down on the radio. Uh, la La la La la. My Pool, summer, summer pool, summer vibes killed in cold blood
Shauna: 23:22 Along with the video. The song tells the story of a young adult pool party drinking, music, lots of fun and it is interrupted when someone jumps into the water and by the time he reaches the surface someone has been stabbed.
Shauna: 23:38 Right. The song title comes from the 1966 book of the same name by Truman Capote. Again, however, Alt J admitted to NPRs All Things Considered that this was mostly because it sounded good rather than due to the song being about mass murder.
Shauna: 23:54 Yeah. As I was looking at Google trends, I founded that Ice-T was listed as a related search and was the top one on that list, which I thought was kind of interesting. I was like, what does Ice-T have to do with like the, the person Ice-T, you know, not like iced tea,
Shauna: 24:13 I didn't know! There was a TV series a that just started last year, 2018 In Cold Blood and it's hosted by Ice-T, the series exposed outrageous tales and shocking true stories involving sex, money, murder and sometimes a fatal cocktail of all three.
Shauna: 24:33 Yeah. So, uh, but can you guess the second most searched a topic, uh, top searched item with in cold blood.
Dan: 24:45 because that would be great if it were like Ict-T, then Truman Capote. Is it Phillip Seymour Hoffman?
Shauna: 24:50 No, no, no, no, no. That would be funny actually... Um, it was actually a cliff notes or sparks notes like,
Shauna: 24:57 So yes. It was the book, but it was like, where are the cliff notes for this? Yeah. I thought that was awesome.
Shauna: 25:05 In cold blood has it been around for several centuries with pretty much the same usage for the entirety of that time. The reference to death and murder with no emotional tie is a concept that has existed for centuries and it gives the impression that these crimes are less human and in a way I think idea... Ideas like this allow people to distance themselves from the atrocities of others. Idioms like this allow for a complete concept to be imparted by the speaker without the need to use any details from a situation. And this is one of the things I actually love about language. It gives us the ability to connect to one another and provide context even in the darkest of circumstances.
Shauna: 25:46 Well that about wraps us up for today. Thanks for joining us. I'd like to say a big thank you to those who've posted reviews for the show. Leaving a review really is the easiest way to support the show and best of all it's free! Throughout the week you can catch us on Twitter and Instagram and sometimes on Facebook, all @bunnytrailspod.
Dan: 26:05 So last week we asked you to follow our social media accounts for Bunny Trails on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. This week we just wanted to let you know that we also have a few personal accounts too, so if you are so inclined, I know some people would prefer follow the person's personal account, rather than the show account and that's fine if you want to do that. I do retweet stuff sometimes that the show has posted so you can still get some of the same information there. But if you're so inclined you can follow me on Twitter @ParagonOfDan, p a r a g o n o f d a n. And that's pretty much the only place I am is Twitter because I don't do social media very well, otherwise.
Shauna: 26:41 You can find me on Twitter @Writer_Shauna, that's w r i t e r underscore s h a u n a, or on Instagram as Merynne. That's m e r y n n e. I am horribly inconsistent, but every once in a while you'll be barraged with cute or fun or interesting pictures, uh, and and funny things.
Dan: 27:05 I am consistent on Twitter. But that's the reason its the only thing, I really have, because it's the only place I'm consistent. So thanks again for joining us. We'll talk to you again next week. And until then, remember:
No comments:
Post a Comment