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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.
Shauna: 00:00 Welcome to Bunny Trails. A whimsical adventure of idioms and other turns of phrase, I'm Shauna Harrison
Dan: 00:05 and I'm Dan Pugh. Alright, so Shauna, recently I had to do some repairs to my car, which cost me about two grand. And when I got the quote
Dan: 00:14 Yeah what I remember, when I got the quote, I was thinking this is going to cost me an arm and a leg. And uh, usually when a phrase pops into my head, I then start going, wait, where did that come from? So this week we're going to talk about that progression of arms, and sometimes legs too, as a thing of such major value.
Shauna: 00:31 Gotcha. That's awesome. You know, today's teenagers would have said that's a lot of damage.
Dan: 00:37 "It's a lot of damage." Funny it's my teenager and damage that caused me to get some repairs, so...
Dan: 00:46 Anyway, so all right, there's, there's a couple of idioms that have "arms" meaning, something of value and a few of them here. Uh, and I'm going to include them all as we talk about this cause they're all really part of really the same concept.
Dan: 00:58 And so "arm and a leg" means an enormous amount of money or an exorbitant price. So it costs me an arm and a leg to get that fixed because it was two grand ($2,000 dollars). And that's a lot of money "to give my right arm" as in to do something or as in for something and the variants around that means to be willing to make almost any sacrifice to acquire or do something, especially something that is unlikely or impossible to be attained or achieved. Like I'd give my right arm to have this car fixed without me having to do any work or pay any money.
Dan: 01:35 That's brilliant. That's great. Uh, and then another one is "for my right arm" or originally "for my better arm".
Dan: 01:48 That's exactly what they tried to do. Yes. So usually this is used a negative context. Like, I wouldn't do that for my better arm or speaking specifically about one's most valued possessions, uh, at any price or for all the world. Gotcha. Alright. So Shauna, any guesses on when this a phrase started?
Shauna: 02:06 You know, I just, I feel like this sounds like a Shakespeare type thing or something around that time frame. So I'm going to go like, or, hmm. Okay. So maybe early 16 hundreds. Actually, that's what I'm going with.
Dan: 02:20 Okay. Well that would be Shakespearian time. And uh, Shakespeare did use this, but as usual he stole it from somebody else.
Dan: 02:27 We actually see this in the late 13 hundreds, early 14 hundreds, uh, with Chaucer. And the first time we see it written is in his epic poem, Troilus & Criseyde, which Shakespeare then rewrote in another way and continue to use the same same concepts. Yeah. So, uh, in this Chaucer writes - I'm gonna read the translated version I have where he wrote - and this is translated from middle English to English:
Dan: 02:50 "But well you know, the chamber is but light and few folk may lightly make it warm. Now look you for I will have no blame, to bring in crowd that might do him harm or him distress for my better arm."
Dan: 03:05 So they were saying I'm not, I wouldn't even, I wouldn't give my, I would give my better arm to not let this happen or I wouldn't give my better arm for that to happen.
Shauna: 03:14 Like the Troilus & Criseyde or Crisisda or whatever. Uh, those, those names are, and that was a, those are a common couple, right? Throughout history. I think that's a folklore that's been retold multiple times beyond Chaucer and Shakespeare.
Dan: 03:42 So we see this again in 1597, John Payne in Royal Exchange, the first edition, "he reserved neither leg nor arm of that living to himself." And in this case he's using arm and leg. Uh, as the, the crux of saying I'm not going to, uh, I would, I would not give my arm or my leg for that, for that living. I don't want that. I don't want any of that.
Shauna: 04:04 Gotcha. Like he reserved neither like nor arm, like he held nothing back there. That's cool.
Dan: 04:11 Again, we see it in the 16 hundreds, around 1616 in Shakespeare in, in the play Timon of Athens. "His right arm might purchase his own time."
Dan: 04:21 So again, given his right arm or has better arm for a thing to get, have more time in this case. Also R. Dugdale, in a letter to court, Lord Colvill wrote, "he would give his right arm to quit the Northumberland." So this was in 1767. And to give a little context, Vice Admiral Alexander Colvill, who was the, uh, seventh lord of Colruss, served as the commodore and commander in chief of His Majesty Ships and vessels in the North America from 1757 to 1762. One of those ships was named the HMS Northumberland. And it was a 70 gun, third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. Uh, and during the seven years' war, the Northumberland was the flagship of Lord Colville from 1753 to 1762. So future explorer, James Cook served as the ship's master from 1759 to 1761. Uh, you've probably heard of this guy. He later became a captain and is (known as) Captain Cook.
Dan: 05:23 But this guy, he got his fame because he was writing.... he was making maps during this timeframe and had mapped many areas and it was very helpful to do the thing, but back to the original quote, "he would give his right arm to quit the Northumberland". He hated... The person that they were speaking of, hated being there and wanted to leave.
Shauna: 05:40 Gotcha. Uh, so, uh, I would imagine that being on a ship that size, I mean, okay, so 70 guns and that's a whole lot of people. I don't know. I mean like if you, if you know anything about ships, it takes a handful of guys for each gun and you know, then depending on what kind of method of propulsion and, all the, all that, that's a, that's a whole lot of people
Shauna: 06:02 Well oars too, you know, can like sometimes they have a oars to like make adjustments. But so then there are certain people assigned to the oars and like, it's like just hundreds of people all smashed into this space and that's just, I can't imagine that's a pleasant way to live I think in general.
Shauna: 06:22 Yeah. So if you add in any kind of other unpleasantness, like your boss sucks, then yeah, definitely. Like just bail on that.
Dan: 06:27 Well that's a, I would imagine that's why they, they had so much grog, so "my life sucks. I'm going to enjoy some grog here"
Dan: 06:43 You know, my, my favorite quoted things from Pirates of the Caribbean, when Jack Sparrow says, "why is the rum gone?" And then he stands up and he's like, "oh, that's why the rums gone".
Dan: 06:59 So, uh, we continue to see this used a, another example, 1825 in the culture magazine, American Athenaeum from uh, the 1825 October 6th issue. We see a phrase, "I would not from my right arm commit a dishonorable action".
Dan: 07:16 So we're continuing, and these are interspersed in these different phrases here, uh, where we see this, but we really haven't seen an arm and a leg take off yet. But we do see here in this as an example, I would not from my right arm... I would cut off my right arm before I committed a dishonorable action.
Dan: 07:33 And then in 1842 by a, in Midsummer's Eve by Alfred Butler, he writes, "if the girl should perish, how should I dare appear before my most noble lady? How should I make her believe that I would give my right arm, Yea, suffer my right eye to be plucked forth to purchase this girl's liberty."
Dan: 07:52 So there, and actually in that book the author uses "giving my right arm" two other occasions too. And the same concept. So it was obviously it's a thing that the, the character who says it a lot, it's one of their favorite phrases. But again, the whole concept here is I, you know, I would, it's my most, the most important thing I have is my right arm or my better arm first. and that is, you know, nobody says I'd give my left arm for it cause that would have a different connotation,
Shauna: 08:23 Like I wouldn't give my right arm, but I'd give my left arm in, in fear, I left handed person then that's, you know, would be a significant but ...
Dan: 08:30 Right. But it wouldn't be in the, in the vernacular though, because most people were uh, right handed or thought that or should be right handed.
Shauna: 08:37 Okay. So I think this is really interesting. One, how old this phrases like already learning that. But I kind of wondered initially when you said it, if it had to do with like thieves and you know, they used to get their hands cut off cause they like stole something and that was like the punishment for stealing
Shauna: 08:55 And so I thought, well maybe like that kind of little bit of, but no, it's kind of nothing to do with that.
Dan: 09:02 But it was in the 19 hundreds that we really see the arm and the leg being added to it, like an arm and a leg. Uh, and so I'll give some examples from uh, the early 19 hundreds and then, and then moving further. So 1924 out of the Oakland Tribune, this was the 21st of November. "There's so much interest in the game and so few seats compared to the number of persons who would almost give an arm or a leg to see it."
Dan: 09:25 So I couldn't find the original newspaper because it's behind a bunch of paywalls that I, and even I'm like, I don't mind paying to be able to read a newspaper, but I don't want to pay if I can't, if I can't have some sort of belief that that's the newspaper I'm looking for and the where this stuff was, I just couldn't find it.
Dan: 09:43 But anyway, so I was able to pull, because the Oxford English dictionary has this quote, so I was able to use it. But the concept here, they don't give any other, other specificity. So we know that "arm and a leg" is used, uh, at least in the vernacular before this. So people would understand what you're saying. And here they use it without any sort of, of, of explanation. And also don't...
Shauna: 10:05 It doesn't even have one of those qualifiers of, "as they say", right, it just says it.
Dan: 10:09 I also don't know what game they're talking about. I tried looking that up, but I couldn't figure out what was being played.
Dan: 10:28 Yeah. So we see it again in the New York Times in the 13th, June edition, 1948. "It's very welcome news to hear of a house that doesn't demand an arm and a leg to buy it."
Dan: 10:49 Yes, absolutely. I mean, when you're selling, you're like, wahoo! Well, it's never as high as you want it when you're selling is always too high when you're buying. So in 1956, Billie holiday with William Duffy wrote a book, an autobiography, uh, sort of, uh, in, in the book is called The Lady sSngs The Blues, they write, "Finally she found someone who sold her some stuff for an arm and a leg."
Dan: 11:11 So she finally found somebody who saw all this stuff, but it was super expensive. It costs her a figurative arm and a leg,
Dan: 11:17 And they were, oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a troubled life. Um, there were a lot of, during the World War One, World War II, a lot of references to arm and a leg literally, and like they were used figuratively, but, but the allusions to the literal, um, so there were, there were a lot of examples of that use during that time frame in newspapers.
Dan: 11:39 Right. But most of them were made to make somebody feel bad for not buying war bonds. I mean, that was the idea.
Dan: 11:46 So there were, there were just numerous, numerous examples during World War during the world wars that were American newspapers were trying to make people feel like they were a supporting the enemy by not, by not buying war bonds. So if you didn't have the money to buy a war bond, you were supporting the enemy because you should do whatever you can to be able to purchase war bonds and give money to the government so they can fund the war effort.
Shauna: 12:07 They touched on that in the captain America movie, or we'd like, he, you know, went on on the campaign to raise funds for the right. Sure and I was like, oh gosh, that's like so and to, I wonder for people who don't have that knowledge or haven't seen the newspapers from that time or any experience with that kind of kind of a realm that that how true or accurate some of that really was is really kind of a cool to see it in a movie like that after seeing so many ads for war bonds in newspaper, old newspapers.
Dan: 12:37 Yeah. And most of those war bond things, they're not, they're not, they're not just appealing to the, like if you can do it their actively making you feel like you are unamerican if you don't.
Shauna: 12:49 Yeah. Yeah. Like you are, you are not supporting, like you said, you are almost against your country if you're not buying war bonds. Yeah.
Dan: 12:59 Also, a state of marketing still has not changed in this country either. I will say the one thing that I get from reading newspapers is a massive despair that our country is still, in America, is still continuing to face almost every one of the same issues they were facing before and we haven't figured out how to grow from it. We were literally the same issues in 2019 as we were dealing with in 1719. Just the technology and, and our quality of life has changed. But the issues are still there. We haven't figured out how to solve. We, all we're doing is we're putting bandaids on it over and over. Right?
Shauna: 13:37 Yeah. Just more, more effective media mediums to, to share that. I saw a study that evaluated how people apply bias to the things that they are engaging with. So whether that's print media or or visual, auditory. Um, so when you're listening to something on the radio, how impactful is that message to you and are you a, and how biased does it become? But when you're seeing a that, so videos that also have sound with them, that's the most impactful and the, the time when you're least able to recognize bias or recognize some sort of ulterior motive of the, of the message or anything like that. So really when we're watching things that are a video, we are limiting our own, uh, our personal interpretation of it and taking more of what they say instead of kind of thinking for ourselves. So I was an interesting study.
Dan: 14:32 I've seen some, some sites that make you do a little "answer a question" about the article before you can post. So like it's not that it's you have to sign in, but you have to answer a question about the article, which means you would have had to, what they're trying to do is reduce the amount of people who comment on articles that just read the headlines and then post something and they want you to have to have actually read the article to figure out, oh, you know, then you can, then you can post it
Dan: 15:03 So there's also another thing I wanted to point out here, another phrase that I haven't talked about that was, I saw it pop up and Eric Partridge's Dictionary Of Slang and this was in 1937. And he defines Under The Arm as "an idiom that's used as no good, a form of tramps cant", and cant, if you're not familiar, is a form of language or communication that is used by a subset of a population usually used in meant to be secretive. So, but only people that are part of the group understand it. And in this case he, he, he says it's part of the, it's a form of tramps cant. And any, anyway, so the, uh, the Oxford English dictionary also echoes this meaning no good as Under The Arm, meaning "no good". And they specifically say, "compare it to an armpit". So when we use armpit, figuratively, not literally of course, but figuratively as being like a smelly place, not a good place, a place that nobody wants to be, that kind of a thing. And that's what they're, they're saying that the word was used as, or that phrase was used at meaning it was no good. It was kind of like the inferior, poor, bad. Um, but it is a rare phrase but it was used in the mid 19 hundreds and then rose up and then fell back out of favor again.
Shauna: 16:13 I think I've heard that maybe in a movie or something or a book somewhere that was like, you know, uh, it was a location like at, well Kansas, "Kansas' armpit" or something like that, is like to say that it was the worst part.
Dan: 16:24 Oh no, I definitely heard armpit used that way. I've never heard her under the arm that, but that's because it's very rarely use now. It was, it was popularized in the mid 1900's came and went all then.
Shauna: 16:33 Today's show is sponsored by our patrons on Patreon. Special thanks to our logamorphology 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 are in a financial situation that allows for monetary support, you can get additional perks for as little as $1 a month. Features like early access to episodes, behind the scenes content, bonus episodes, and more are all available at patreon.com/bunnytrailspod.
Dan: 17:08 So one of my favorite movie quotes that uses this, this style of phrase is from Lethal Weapon 4 which was released in 1998 and Riggs and Murtaugh are weaving in and out of traffic in a personal vehicle and you hear Riggs yell, "I'd give my right arm for a siren right now!"
Dan: 17:41 I don't know if it's still on, but I mean there was, they remade macgyver and, yeah, well I mean like they remake everything. Everything is remade.
Dan: 17:50 There's also a song called Arm and A Leg by The Legendary Pink Dots off of their 2008 album, Plutonium Blonde. Lyrics like "just when you thought you had everything under control, that mean old mud pie hits you between the eyes and what do you know it drips and makes a mess of the designer shirt you paid an arm and a leg for."
Shauna: 18:10 Okay. I'm liking the lyrics. They're very entertaining. I've never heard of these Legendary Pink Dots. That's me. I may be awful. I don't know. I never totally disconnected...
Dan: 18:27 Yeah. So here's another song that I found and it's called "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous".
Dan: 18:37 This is by Dean Peer off the 2009 album, Think... It's all good. And it's a, uh, it's a bluegrass-esque instrumental, upbeat and fun. I actually, I bought it while I was listening to it. I liked, I really liked it. So I bought it on my, uh, on my Google music. But it's a good song. Uh, the title is actually a quote by Yogi Berra who is a baseball legend known for his quick wit and unusual sayings, like "I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous".
Dan: 19:03 So there's also a 2016 slasher flick, The Bad Batch, and it had a subtitle. "Salvation costs an arm and a leg". So this is, I'll read just a little...
Dan: 19:21 So here's a quick review by screencrushed.com "The Bad Batch is a bit of an odd bird. Part Mad Max, part Texas Chainsaw Massacre, part cannibalism horror, part romance. It doesn't quite fit into just one genre.
Dan: 19:44 And then there's also a book that's called I'd Give My Right Arm by Jeffrey Dale Wopp. I couldn't find a publisher. So I'm assuming this was self published. The synopsis is, "this is a true story of the horrific impact and an inadvertent use of an addictive drug had on my life over the period of nearly half a century. My story will provide insight into the life of an addict such as you've never seen before. The reason I'm confident you've never read a book such as this is because people who do the things I've done don't live to tell about them. Only by cheating death more times than any man has a right to have I remained alive long enough to be able to tell the complete story of what addiction can do over the course of an entire lifetime. My hope is that whosoever reads this well wisely take heed and not repeat the mistakes I've made."
Dan: 20:33 If it's something you would like, you would think you would enjoy, you can find it on Amazon.
Shauna: 20:37 Nice. I think that like one thing that, that was interesting. It says inadvertent use of uh, an addictive substance.
Dan: 20:49 Yeah. There was one of the things that he had mentioned in there that "my personal experience and exposure to murder, disease, betrayal, amputation and immeasurable loss of life will surely make you think of what can happen if you decide to try an addictive drug."
Dan: 21:02 Yeah. It's almost like the, it's this is like a written version of that guy that comes to your high school to tell you to say no to drugs, you know, and like, I was in an accident at prom or don't drink at prom, you know, that kind of folks. I don't know if those people are effective or not, but you know, there it is.
Shauna: 21:16 I Dunno, I, you know, actually I think there was a, somebody who visited my high school, uh, I don't know if it, if it made me not drink and drive or whatever, but he did tell a really pretty horrific story. Uh, the ended... resulted in paralyzation of a friend of his and so, and, uh, but I just, yeah, I'd, I never forgot it. I don't, I don't know how it impacted my decisions, but I didn't forget it.
Dan: 21:41 There you go. So there's also a podcast that's called An Arm And A Leg. It launched in October, 2018 and it's about the cost of healthcare in the United States. Uh, and so you can see how the use of this idiom sets the tone for the show and the rising cost of healthcare in the US. All right. So before we finish up, I have something to mention that I ran across that I'd never heard of before. Uh, so when I was looking at giving my right arm, I ran across a similar phrase to the give my X for my Y proposition. Right. Okay. So this one is "give my eyeteeth"
Shauna: 22:12 I'm sorry, did you hear that? Because I couldn't actually create words, like I couldn't find words. That were sufficient.
Dan: 22:24 Were the canines of the upper jaw, possibly known that way as the tooth would descend from the area of the eyes downward replaced the baby teeth. Okay. It's getting better actually. Okay. So this is from the Middle French, uh, or, or actually the middle french has a similar phrase with roots, uh, meaning teeth and eye or eye coverings like blinders. So this isn't exactly an English phrase, like there's a French phrase that the English derived from. So as Oxford English dictionary says, "one would give one's eye teeth" or, I give my eye teeth and variants. It's a hyperbolic statement that "one would be willing to go to any lengths for something or be able to do something". Uh, and so we first see this kind of a thing, attested at 1655 in James Shirley's The Politician, A Tragedy where they say, "I would give an eyetooth to read, but three lines." Hmm. Uh, and then another example of this is in 1930 when William Somerset Maugham in Cakes And Ale says, "He'd give his eye teeth to have written a book half as good. "
Dan: 23:29 I have several more examples. Uh, so "to cut ones eyeteeth" is, uh, to "have one's eyetooth pass through one's gums", like the figurative "to pass from babyhood to youth" or "to become knowledgeable or experienced", which is how when this phrase is used now it's used this way. It's apparently still used. So I know listeners, I need you to let us know @bunnytrailspod on social media, have you heard this phrase relating to eyeteeth and do you use it? So here's an example of "to cut ones eyeteeth" from 1935, Archibald James Cronin in The Stars Look Down, "A clever pair. Yes, they both cut their eyeteeth all right."
Dan: 24:06 Meaning they are both wise and, and know what they're doing. And a very similar usage "to have one's eyeteeth about themselves" is "to be shrewd, capable, or mentally alert" or a what we might say "to have one's wits about them." And this is not oftentimes use now, but in the 17 hundreds, it was used 1713, Charles Dodd, in The History of the English College at Doway wrote, "Parsons had all his it and failed not to make a hand of all these civilians."
Dan: 24:36 One, one last example "to draw a person's eyeteeth", uh, to draw his eyeteeth or her eyeteeth or whatever, "to take the strength, pride or self confidence out of someone, meaning to humiliate them or to dupe or cheat them." So this in 1823 an example is Walter Scott in St Ronan's Well, where he wrote "you snarled at the Philistines as they have drawn your eye-teeth with a vengeance. "
Shauna: 25:00 Gotcha. Well that's Kinda interesting that it has that flip. So like if it's referring to wisdom and then on the flip side of that, if they've, you know, undermined you in some way, then you know, they've drawn that person's eyeteeth.... This is such a disturbing word.
Dan: 25:16 Yes. So I'm a fluent native speaker of English and I still come across phrases I've never heard of before. And just being able to learn something new like "eyeteeth," which hurts me to say, uh, that, that makes, that makes it so much fun to do really like this podcast and the research and just, I, I just hope, I hope you as listeners get as much enjoyment out of this. Uh, and the words and their histories as I do and, and, and as I know Shauna does as well. So that about wraps us up for today. I'd also like to say a big thank you to those of you who posted reviews for the show. It really is the easiest way to support your favorite podcast. Best of all, it's free. If you have a suggestion for an idiom or other turn of phrase or just want to chat, you can catch us on Twitter and Instagram and occasionally Facebook all @bunnytrailspod.
Shauna: 26:00 We post most of our additional content on our Patreon and you can follow along there for free. Of course, if you want to support the show through monetary means, we're okay with that too. Either way, head over to www.patreon.com/bunnytrailspod for all of the latest content. Thanks again for joining us. We'll talk to you again next week. And until then, remember
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