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.
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. Each week we delve into the origin and history of an idiom, or
other turn of phrase and discuss how it's been used over time. This often takes
us down some fun and interesting research rabbit holes. But first Shauna, happy
birthday.
Dan: 00:21 Yes,
not your birthday. Our birthday. Bunny Trails is one year old! So we launched
April 25th, 2018. And so this episode marks our one year point.
Dan: 00:39 All
right. Since we are now professionals and we've been doing this a year. Oh,
let's just jump right on in. So I recently had to travel for my day job and I
listened to several podcasts while I was driving and on the way to the place
that I was going, someone in a podcast had said they needed to wet their
whistle and which I, I laughed about and I thought, oh, that's cool, that's
clever. But then when I was driving home, I was listening to a different
podcasts. They said they wanted to whet their appetite.
Dan: 01:06 Right.
And suddenly I was like, no, wait a minute. I know that those intellectually, I
know those two words are different, whet and wet, but is there any connection
between these two? What do you think?
Shauna: 01:25 Also,
I'm not a good whistler and I think it is probably associated with the whole
speech issue, but I do have to wet my lips a lot in order to whistle. And so I
always kind of liked the wet your whistle thing. I always associated with it
like actually having to wet your lips in order to be able to whistle.
Dan: 01:42 I
see. All right. Well, okay, well wait no more. We're going to figure this stuff
out now, but...
Dan: 01:51 All
right, so this episode, the next episode, we're going to delve deep into both
of these phrases. So up first is whet your appetite. So from the Oxford English
dictionary, whet your appetite, W-H-E-T whet
Dan: 02:05 Cool
Whip. Cool Whip. Whip. Whip. That's a Family Guy bit. Sorry. So from the Oxford
English dictionary, Whet your appetite,
Dan: 02:15 About
Cool Whip. Cool whip. All right. So from the Oxford English dictionary,
"something that incites or stimulates desire and incitement or inducement
to action," this is what, uh, whet your appetite means, right? So it could
also be said that it's something that kind of teases you, went into wanting
more, uh, or it can mean that it just sharpens your hunger, which is a thing
that we will explore here in just a minute.
Dan: 02:44 All
right, so you ready? Let's start with the word "whet". It's a, it's
pronounced wet, just like W-E-T, but in this case it's W-H-E-T. And whet has
meant "to sharpen" as a verb since the ninth century.
Dan: 02:57 Yes.
It was first attested by King Alfred around 897, uh, in his work Pastoral Care.
And it comes from an old Norse word as well as moving through the Germanic
languages. And it means to sharpen basically, uh, I'm not even gonna pretend to
say the old Norse word because there's no way.
Dan: 03:20 In
this, in this case, no, no, not the way it was originally used, no, "to
sharpen" was to like "sharpen a weapon."
Dan: 03:28 So,
and that is how we hear whet use now. So like a whetstone is a stone use for
sharpening. Yes. But that's a W-H-E-T stone. Whetstone is used for sharpening.
Dan: 03:41 Perfect.
So in the late 10th and early 11th centuries, we began to see a figurative
usage of whet W-H-E-T pop up in phrases like "whet the sword", which
those literal words meaning whet your sword would mean to sharpen your sword.
And then in the late 10th century, early 11th century, we start seeing those
words used as an allusionary way to say, prepare for battle. So you would say
whet the sword in as an allusion to preparing for battle, not necessarily the
specifics of sharpening your sword, which is what whet the sword would mean.
And then we also started to see the phrase around that same time frame used
interchangeably with whet the teeth, W-H-E-T the teeth. And that also meant to
prepare for an attack. So we started to see in that timeframe, it transition
from a very specific and literal use to a use of the literal words, but in a
figurative or an allusionary, a way, and also whet the teeth started to come
around to that timeframe. Let me, let me hit a little point where we almost
started using it. We almost made it with Philemon Holland's 1601 translation of
Pliny the elders, The History of the World, Commonly Called the Natural History
of C Plinius Secondus, which is, Plinius Secondus is is what they called Pliny
the Elder.
Shauna: 05:01 Can
I say that? I love Pliny the Elder and you know, we just haven't seen enough of
him lately on our pod.
Dan: 05:07 I
mean... This is where we saw this first in, in his History of the World,
"Touching the dogs grasse Canaria, it took that name in Latin, because
dogs use therwith to discharge their gorge & whet their stomacks when their
appetite to meat is gone."
Dan: 05:24 As
you can see, we're really close to it, like whet their stomachs when their
appetite to meat is gone. That was how that translation was at 1601 and as our
friends at the Sawbones podcasts are quick to point out, Pliny the Elder was
not always correct with his medical advice. So I am not going to make any
claims whatsoever. I said accuracy or inaccuracy of Pliny the elder and dogs
grass or in this case canaria, specifically.
Shauna: 05:50 Okay.
So is this saying that dogs, what they do is they go out and eat some grass,
which makes them throw up...
Dan: 06:02 Well
I mean it might be true. I don't know. I'm not making any claims one way or the
other. I am not a veterinary, I mean my biology degree is focused on humans,
not on dogs. So I got nothing on that.
Dan: 06:14 All
right. So the first time we actually see this used is in 1612 like I said, so
close. And this is the first time we find it in print. It's in the play. If it
Be Not Good, The Devil Is In It. And this is by Thomas Dekker and the character
shackle soul says, "alas my Lord. I thought it had been here as in the
neighboring churches where the poorest Vicar is filled up to the chin with
choice of meats, yet seeks new ways to wet dull appetite."
Dan: 06:45 So
that is the first time we see it talking about whetting our appetite, whetting
appetites in some way.
Shauna: 06:51 So
these like, okay, so they get filled up with the choicest of meat. Okay. So
they're getting all the good food.
Dan: 07:03 Yeah,
no, it's really good. I have to tell you, just as an aside, I'm going to go
down a little bit of a bunny trail here, but as is common for Internet
research, I found no less than four gazillion sites all saying that 1612 is the
first time that we saw this phrase used. But none of them said where and all of
them quoted one thing, which was not the original quote whatsoever. Not even
remotely. It was like somebody said it was the first time we saw it was in 1612
as in, and then just gave some made up statement that wasn't actually anything
about, you know, some sort of a musical play, Schubert or something. And everyone
seems to have copied this. So it literally, all of the websites that talked
about this, that claim 1612 they all plagiarized each other and while they were
all right about 1612 they were all wrong about.. Like that, that phrase was not
the quote that used and a lot of them because they plagiarized after
plagiarism, after plagiarism, after plagiarism, it, the differentiation
between, "as in" this phrase was lost. And uh, so it became very
difficult. It took me also like 20 minutes to figure out the character cause
they just used, I'd read the whole play because they just use the abbreviation
for the name. So just said Shac, S-H-A-C. And so I was like, I don't know who
that is so I can go find, and it's not like classic, you know, poetry, uh, or a
classic plays of Shakespeare or whatever. Even though this was at around the
same timeframe, it's not where it has like a list of the people in it at the
front.
Dan: 08:44 Thomas
Shadwell's 1688 comedy Squire of Alessia. I'm apparently, I'm only going to
quote plays lately.
Dan: 08:54 I
don't know. Whatever word I said, let's not worry about that. Squire of
Alsatia. So this is a 1688 comedy by Thomas Shadwell. And in it they say,
"let's whett. Bring some wine. Come on. I love a whett!"
Dan: 09:12 So
in this case, he's not saying whet his appetite, but he's using it in that way.
And then in a 1694 translation of The Satyr of Titus Petronius Arbiter they
write, “When having whet our appetites with an excellent Antipast, we swill'd
our selves with the choicest of Wine.”
Dan: 09:37 No,
they don't. They did not mean that. I will tell you exactly what they mean at
the end of the episode
Dan: 09:46 Yup.
Nope. Not that at all. I mean, actually they're probably roots probably come
from the same thing which you will see here, but no, they don't mean that
specifically.
Dan: 09:55 All
right, so let's jump into some newspapers from the national gazette. July 11th,
1792 and this is out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And this was the news, uh,
foreign news specifically out of Brussels. This news was May 10th, 1792 it just
took it a little bit to reach a Philadelphia at the time. And they said
"Large bodies of French troops are on the march to reinforce their northern
army. Lafayette's army is daily receiving reinforcements. He seems by his
motions to be meditating some important attack as to the troops hostile to
France. It is computed that the number of troops in the Netherlands from
Luxembourg to the sea, from the several German powers amounts to 60,000 in
order to whet the appetites of these soldiers and encourage them, all the
plunder taken from the French is to be distributed amongst them."
Dan: 10:53 Oh
yeah. All right. So here's another example. In 1879 in Robert Louis Stevenson's
Travels with a Donkey In the Cevennese, "Father Michael gave me a glass of
liqueur to stay me until dinner. The whet administered, I was left alone.
"
Dan: 11:10 And
then another example in 1898 out of Nebraska city, Nebraska in The
Conservative, this is basically they are complaining about financial
inconsistencies. Uh, especially in the case of government owned railroads. He
says, "and all of this property and all of this patronage whet the
populistic appetite for power, place and plunder for it, they would quintuple
the interest bearing debt of the government"
Dan: 11:35 Thats
1898 talking about government debt. There we have not learned anything in
America, but also this is the first time I found it where we talked about whet
the certain type of appetite and now we're not talking about even a humanoid
like appetite now, but some sort of a um, you know, political motive or some
sort of other things. So he's talking about the populistic appetite. So the
appetite of the masses for populism. In this case, in the Whitefish Pilot in
1912 out of Whitefish, Montana, I saw a article where they were talking about
clean sweep sale at the star clothing companies. And so they had basically all
kinds of different clothes that were for sale. And one of the things that they
listed, there were some basic stuff that to get them started and it said
"just to whet your appetite".
Dan: 12:22 So
here again, we're not, we see it continue to transition, not just talking about
our actual appetite or hunger, but other concepts as well. Any sort of
appetite...
Dan: 12:36 Right.
So with that, we're starting to see that transition to something that incites
or stimulates desire as an incitement or induction to action. And we're
starting to see that transition in the late 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds.
And we see that through these newspapers of the United States. In the Roanoke
Rapids Herald out of Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina in 1933. This is the March
2nd edition. So I'm gonna read just a little bit of this says "magicians
say exposure booms their business."
Dan: 13:02 And
this is talking about a, uh, each generation of magicians is revealing some of
their work, but then they add to it and leave some of it secret, but they real
real like the basic of it. And, uh, so basically their comment is "the
explanations only seem to whet the appetite for more."
Dan: 13:21 So
again, we see a complete shift of this usage from appetites, food related or
drink related to appetites of like I want more desire, you know, I desire for
more
Shauna: 13:32 I
see that concept too. I mean with these magicians it's like you're giving
people a little bit so they know that there is something there that they could
potentially figure out but uh, you know, it's got them desiring to watch the
next thing and see what comes out next to try and figure it out for themselves.
Dan: 13:49 Absolutely.
Yeah. Right. So I do want to mention before we, uh, before we move to our break
real quick that there is some examples. I said wet, your whistle is W-E-T wet.
There are some examples in print of W-H-E-T your whistle whet your whistle like
that. This is usually in conjunction with the phrase wet your whistle. Even as
far back as the late 16 hundreds, which is when we really started seeing our
phrase take off too. Like in Thomas Flatmen's work Belly God, where he writes
"first whet thy whistle with some good metheglin"
Dan: 14:16 And
metheglin is a spiced mead that's usually associated with Wales. The country,
Wales not, not like the swimming kind
Dan: 14:25 And
there are many other examples of this, uh, not a whole lot, but some in these
cases it appears most of it to be somewhat an inappropriate use of the word so
they have misunderstood it or misspelled that in these, in these examples. So
copy editors who just had a fit, as I started talking about whet your whistle,
W-H-ET you are still probably right. Um, it, it is not. It is wet. Your
whistle, W-E-T wet, not whet the other way your whistle. So you're still
probably right. You can continue to be pedantic about it all you want because
you literally get paid for that.
Shauna: 15:00 Today's
show is sponsored by our patrons on Patreon. You make Bunny Trails possible.
We'd like to thank all our patrons and especially our lagomorphology interns,
Charlie Moore, Pat Rowe and Mary Halsig. Patreon.com is a subscription service
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you can get additional perks for as little as $1 a month. Features like early
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available at www.patreon.com/bunnytrailspod.
Dan: 15:39 Okay,
so a couple of examples, uh, in more modern times here, or at least more, more
times like we said in
Dan: 15:47 Wait.
Nowish. More nowish uh, so there's a song called Hungry. It's performed by, I
believe it's pronounced Kosheen. It is a, uh, electrical band, Electronica
band. And this is an upbeat song. It came out in 2001 by a moke shall
recordings. It was written by the band members, Mark Morrison, Sian Evans, and
Darren Beale. And the chorus goes, "are you hungry for a little more than
what you've had before? Are you hungry for a taste of life? Whet your appetite?
Are you hungry?"
Dan: 16:20 I
mean like I'm not really into Electronica in general as a style of music, but,
uh, I actually, I mean I liked the words. I like the lyrics. I liked the
singer's voice. Um, I kind of liked the rhythm of the song, so I'll link to it
on patreon so everybody can see or hear it. But, uh, and I'll link to their
original video. It's on youtube now via Vevo. So, uh, anyway,
Shauna: 16:43 I'll
have to listen to it because, you know, uh, just looking at the lyrics, like in
my head, this is a classic rock. Like, you know, Led Zepplin even maybe?
Shauna: 16:57 Or
even like into Aerosmith. I mean, if you want to go that route. Aerosmith would
totally do a . Are you hungry for a little more?
Dan: 17:06 Yeah,
but this is not a sexual thing at all. This is like a desire thing. This is a
being better than who you are thing. So it doesn't really fit into anything to
Aerosmith would ever do.
Dan: 17:20 So
Good Eats with Alton Brown: Whet Your Appetite. It was produced in 2008. It's a
DVD set from the Good Eats TV show and this is the synopsis they give
"Good Eats with Alton Brown is the most fun you can have watching TV while
still learning something."
Dan: 17:35 I
mean we're going to, we're going to differ on this just me and the author here,
but I'll digress and go back to it.
Dan: 17:41 "It's
cooking class meets science class meets recess. In fact, if you had this guy for
chemistry, you'd never want to leave high school."
Dan: 17:53 "Mix
in his quirky personality and random jabs at pop culture and you'd have a great
TV or as Alton would say Good Eats. This collection contains three discs,
hooked and cooked recipes, poultry pleaser recipes, and more meats recipes,
each of which contains three episodes.
Dan: 18:12 Yeah,
so it's like nine shows, I guess you can get it on Amazon. There's also a Whet
My Appetite: Catering Graphic Design. This came out in 2013 and it doesn't list
an author, but it's by Ginko Press. And this is also available on Amazon.
"For many of us, eating out is one of the supreme pleasures in life. The
experience exposes us to the talents of a legion of chefs and entrepreneurs who
find fulfillment in creating subtle and original experiences for our palates.
This consideration does not stop at taste, but extends to the other senses as
well, providing new combinations of form, color and texture that can comfort or
tantalize."
Dan: 18:46 And
then it talks about the design of restaurants a little bit in there. And uh, so
I get the idea that this is about designing restaurants, uh, everything from
the interior graphics of the Menus and the signage all the way to like how
you're actually structuring things in your restaurant. So that's what that book
is about. Cool. There's also one called Whetting the Appetite. And again, this
is all W-H-E-T Whetting The Appetite 2014. And this is by Elizabeth L. Brooks
and Lynn Townsend, who are both romance and erotica authors in their own right.
"The stories in this collection span contemporary historical steam, punk,
fantasy, scifi, and horror taking you from a modern living room to the high
seas, to Victorian London, to planets and times at the edge of imagination.
Explore relationships all along the romantic and erotic spectrums, including
the thrill of a one night stand, the fierce burn of rivalry, the heady flush of
a new romance, the intense trust of BDSM and all the pros and cons of longterm
partnerships meet characters who defy conventional gender boundaries, including
a preoperative trans male, several aliens, and a few characters whose genders
are left open to reader interpretation. Sexual orientations on display vary
nearly as widely with groupings that include male/female, male/male,
female/female and female/female/male. Not to mention those aliens. With 46
stories to choose from. There's something here for every moment and every mood.
Something to whet any appetite."
Shauna: 20:13 My
goodness. Okay, I'm really glad that you said 46 stories because I was like,
how many? Like, I mean, how did they make it all fit?
Dan: 20:18 How
did they get all of this into one book? There are 46 stories here. I, you know
what a romance and Erotica stuff is not really my bag on books, but this sounds
interesting. I might buy this book just to like pick through and find some of
these stories and just read them just to expose myself to some other things.
Hmm.
Dan: 20:47 All
right. So before we wrap up, I must really say I enjoyed the number of words I
came across that have wet the appetite as part of the definition in the Oxford
English dictionary. Okay. So here are a few of them.
Dan: 20:58 Anitpast
- something eaten before or at the start of a meal to whet the appetite. Ah, so
that when they said antipast earlier they were talking specifically something
that you eat before or at the start of that gets you ready and has it brings
you a desire for wanting more. I want more. This isn't enough. I need more.
Shauna: 21:17 I,
okay. So I think that actually is where that anti pasta dish came from, which
is just a, like I've had it mainly at I'm Italian or Greek restaurants and it's
like a specific salad mix. But it's designed to be the precursor to, to a big
meal.
Dan: 21:32 Yes.
And so that's why I think they have the same roots. I think it still comes from
the same place. Uh, but it is a specific thing now. Right. Instead of anything
that could be used. Yeah. Right. Okay.
Dan: 21:44 There's
also an antisupper and that's "a course of a meal displayed to whet the
appetite but not be eaten specifically one that is then replaced with an
identical course to be eaten." So this would be a case where you have like
this amazing looking pie when you walk into the restaurant and you're like,
your mouth starts watering and you go sit down and then you're ordering pie.
You're not getting that one of course. Cause that's just there to like that's
just there to, to whet the appetite and make you want more to have more desire
for it. But yeah, so that's the antisupper
Shauna: 22:13 like
most places like please don't hand me the one that's out of the display case
cause it's Been there since this morning? I want the one that you just took out
of the oven please. Thanks.
Dan: 22:25 So
there's another one called Aparetivo and this is got two meanings. "1. A
drink, usually alcoholic serve before a meal to stimulate the appetite" or
"2. a light savory snack served alongside a drink, usually alcoholic
typically to whet the appetite before a meal."
Shauna: 22:42 Gotcha.
Okay. So you know like alcohol, does that make most people hungrier or more
like desire, more food, the maybe care less how it tastes.
Dan: 22:55 I
don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to, I'm not an organic
chemist so I'm not sure that I can quite answer that question, but I can tell
you that almost every example of whet the appetite that I found originally was
used with alcoholic drinks.
Dan: 23:10 There
was a very strong trend. Uh, and that could just be because of the way things
were written at the time, that they were oftentimes written in joint places.
You know, where you would have light, where you would have people, where you
would have a capability to get access to food and drink and that kind of stuff.
But it could also be because alcohol was a very popular part of the lifestyle at
that point.
Shauna: 23:32 Yeah.
And that's true. I mean actually, yeah, I mean people were served wine or
whatever as the, at the beginning of their meals. That was the common common
thing.
Dan: 23:41 Okay.
And so the last one, hor d'oeuvres, "an extra dish served as a relish to
whet the appetite between the course of a meal or more generally as
commencement."
Dan: 23:50 Those
are four different things that I saw there that while I was researching whet
the appetite I found as part of the definition. Like I know I didn't find in
any of these cases where there were examples of antipast being used with whet
the appetite, but it was just in the definitions of the, the word. So it was
very interesting. So I wanted to include that because I did learn a lot more
about how we use whetting the appetite now to uh, mean bringing it about that
desire more so than originally where it was specifically food, but here in it
and it holds true even still when we're talking specifically about food as
well.
Dan: 24:25 Well
that about wraps us up for today. I'd also like to say a big thank you to those
of you who've posted reviews for the show. It's 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 you just want to chat, you can catch us on Twitter
and Instagram and occasionally even Facebook all @bunnytrailspod or you can get
links to everything we do at www.bunnytrailspod.com.
Dan: 24:49 This
is our 44th episode and we're nearing a big milestone for us and we need your
help. Is there a turn of phrase that means something important to you? Well, we
want to hear about it. You can reach out to us on social media or email us at
bunnytrailspod@gmail.com. We'd love to hear about your favorite phrase and why
you love it. The deadline to send your stuff is Sunday, May 26th. It can be
written or an audio file, or send us a message and we'll reach back out to you.
Most of all, we want to know what turns of phrase are important to you and why.
So let us know. Thanks again for joining us. We'll talk to you again next week.
And until then, remember,
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