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 week I want
to talk about an old phrase that I've never really liked much. You can't teach
an old dog new tricks.
Shauna: 00:23 Well,
I always took it as like referring instead of old dog, but I always thought it
was actually talking about people is how I have interpreted it. And, like once
somebody stuck in their ways like you're not going to change him. Didn't have
anything to do with tricks. Maybe I might be wrong about the meaning of this
phrase.
Dan: 00:42 So
from the Oxford English dictionary, when one is accustomed to doing things a
certain way, it's difficult to change or adapt. And I do think that there's a
little bit of truth to that. If a person is accustomed to doing something in
one way, then doing it a different way will be difficult. Especially if they
don't find a valid reason that they've bought into for making a change.
Dan: 01:06 So
they may not be emotionally invested in making a change. They, it may be a
technological solution that is different than anything they've ever used. I am
comfortable on windows PC because that is all I'd ever used in my life. And the
first time I was handed an iPad and asked to do something, I found it very
uncomfortable for me. And that's not because I'm an 'old dog' or anything, it
was simply because it was different and shortcut keys were different and I
didn't know where to find things.
Dan: 01:41 It's
like getting a new cell phone the first week you're like, AHHH, unless you
have, unless you're going from the same brand or the same brand or the same
brand name, but if you switch cell phones, it's different.
Shauna: 01:49 I
switched between Mac and, um, and uh, whatever those other products are all the
time. Terrible.
Shauna: 02:03 I
don't even know if that's true. Like I, I don't have a preference one over the
other. I don't think...
Dan: 02:14 He
was... At the risk of offending all of our apple users. Steve jobs was kind of
a jerk.
Shauna: 02:20 Maybe
not the nicest, but I do, I do like my Mac book pro for design, like graphic design
purposes. It's pretty bad ass. Wait, can I say that?
Dan: 02:28 Well
you just did. If there was a beep then you'll know you couldn't. So I guess my
point isn't an apple versus not apple debate. I don't mean that. I just use as
an example. You when you're used to doing something one way than doing it a
different way it can be difficult and that's where this, that's what this idiom
means. However, that is just the book definition of it. The realistic way that
I see it used, I think often has an element of age discrimination built-in. The
whole concept of an old dog that if you're doing, if you were older, you have
more trouble doing a thing. And I see this applied in a unfair proportion to
older people with technology. And I don't think that that's fair. I certainly
know many exceptions to that concept in my life. I had an employee, he was the
oldest person in our office and he ran most of our technology stuff, not
because he had to, but because he enjoyed it.
Dan: 03:29 He
liked staying up on it. And he was more technologically savvy than most of our
staff and equally technologically savvy with, with a few of our others who were
early adopters. I'll just say. And this man was in his late sixties so you
know, I, I don't like the phrase because it has an inherent implication of age
discrimination that I'm not a big fan of. But now I'm curious to hear what the
ladies from the vocal fry have to say because they have an entire podcast on
vocal discriminations and discriminations in words.
Dan: 04:05 I
know. So, yes. I'm, I'm very curious. So I might, we may have to ask them about
it, uh, after, after we've released this episode and see what their thoughts
are. They may even have an episode on it. All right. As, as we're going to see
here, the phrase wasn't so absolute as you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Dan: 04:22 In
fact, that wasn't even the phrase. The phrase was, it's hard to teach an old
dog new tricks or it's difficult to teach an old dog new tricks.
Dan: 04:32 Yes.
The whole concept of you can't, is really a more modern invention. So we'll,
we'll look at that here too. So the first time we see something like this in
print is in 1530 and it is talking specifically about dogs, not humans.
Shauna: 04:52 John
Fitzherbert's book, the Book of Husbandry. And he says, and it's not our exact
phrase, but it's kind of, it's the same concept, right? "The dog must learn
it when he is a welp or else it will not be for it as hard to make an old dog
to stoop." So in this case he's saying it's hard. It's hard to get a, an
older dog to do something if you hadn't...
Dan: 05:13 if
you hadn't had taught them to trick earlier, it's certainly not impossible as
we will explore in some research here in a little bit.
Dan: 05:27 The
first time we see it attested as our phrase, it's hard to teach an old dog
tricks or hard to teach an old dog new tricks is in the 16 hundreds with this
example from John Philippon in 1636 in his book Camden's remains. "It is
hard to teach an old dog tricks" and see it doesn't have new in there, but
in this case it's just any tricks. I always felt like the new would be
superfluous anyway because if you're teaching the old dog things, it wouldn't
be an old trick. It would be a new trick. So like that's already a, it just
sounds like we've, we've just added extra words for sure.
Shauna: 06:01 Well,
did we add, did we add the new, because we were saying, you know, is that that
technological piece or something like that come into play?
Dan: 06:08 No,
because even as early as 1775, we see examples of this phrase, uh, being used
with, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. In fact, here's a, a book by a
Cortez Telfair in, Town and Country Spelling Book. And this is 1775. And
basically this is a very difficult to read book because there's no formatting.
It's just a series of sentences that are phrases. So here's an example.
"He that will not work, should not eat. Too much of one thing is good for
naught. It is good to have two strings to one's bow. It is hard to teach an old
dog new tricks. Touch a galled horse on his back and he will wince." So
these are, and it's literally like a period and then it goes to the next one
and it's all on like, it's just this running lines. So it's not even like they
went to the next line on it.
Dan: 07:09 HA!
Anyway. So we see them using old dog new tricks in this case too. Uh, so it's,
it's something that we've, we've seen since the 16 hundreds used pretty
frequently as it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. Okay. In 1835, we see
"The absolute difficulty with which an old dog experiences in learning new
tricks", which was a phrase from Chambers' works in while he was in
Edinburgh.
Shauna: 07:35 Can
I say I love the 18 hundreds? Like thank you all of you who wrote, uh, this
wonderfully, uh, flowery text in the 18 hundreds.
Dan: 07:45 The
absolute difficulty with which an old dog experiences in learning new tricks,
right? Yeah. Alright. So then we also see it though we see it both in a, I
wouldn't say we don't, we don't, we wouldn't say we ever really see in a
positive way. It's always kind of built to mean a negative. Right. But, uh,
sometimes it can be more forceful than others I guess. So September 7th, 1839
and this is out of the Woodville Republican in Woodville, Mississippi are
speaking of Mr Van Buren, who is the president of the United States.
"Well, for our own part admitting Mr Van Buren to be honest, he is so
prone to error that we do not believe a wise people ought to trust him with the
management of their affairs. It is a homely but true adage that it is hard to
learn an old dog new tricks. Mr Van Buren has lived to the age of between 50
and 60 years in absolute political error. Is it not reasonable to fear that he
will end his days in like errors?".
Dan: 08:42 Yeah,
so that was a very nice way of using the phrase and then we see it later in
1893 used in the Kansas Agitator, which admittedly is seems like it's going to
be angry. The Kansas Agitator, by the way, is a newspaper that all of the
articles I read here really reminded me of today's rhetoric. So my point is
that we haven't really changed anything. We're still very rude to each other if
we're not, if we're not having to look at each other face to face when we do
it. Yeah.
Shauna: 09:12 Yup.
That's what people say. Like, oh, I can't believe people have gotten so, so
cruel. Or they're like this all the time. Like now it's Kinda always been that
way. Like have you read stuff from back in the day?
Dan: 09:22 Right.
Old newspapers have really helped me understand how mean we always have been to
each other if we're not looking at each other in the face. All right. This is
September 28th, 1893 out of Garnett, Kansas, the Kansas Agitator. "Last
week, the journal vomited all over the populist candidates for county office
and indulge in an unusual amount of billingsgate. We are not at all surprised
at this. A person who for years has been in the habit of pandering to the
lowest element of society could hardly break away from his old habits. To use a
slang phrase, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. The trouble with the
Journal's editor now is that he has the post office age so badly that it drives
him almost crazy at times and he is hardly accountable for what he says.".
Dan: 10:03 Yeah,
that's some strong words. And also very common place now where we're accusing
people of not being true to their words or you know, the things they said now
are different than what they said in the past as if people can't grow, you
know, as a human.
Dan: 10:23 I
am learning that now. All right, so from The Courier, December 19th, 1896 and
this is The Courier out of Lincoln, Nebraska, I noticed that there was a game
called you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. And this was in the comedy pages
there in that, in that particular one. So we'll notice here we say it uses the
phrase, you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. This is in the late 18 hundreds
and this is really where we're starting to see that start a come about a little
bit more we... before we've seen, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks and
we'll continue to see. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks throughout the,
even today as the phrases used. However, it's really in the late 1890s and then
early 19 hundreds that we start seeing the phrase move into a more, you can't
instead of a, it's hard.
Dan: 11:15 And
I don't know that that was an intentional change. I can't find anything that
would indicate it was an intentional change from one to the next. But I think
it was just an easy flow of the words. It's hard to teach, whereas you can't
teach, you know, it's just, especially with our harsher sound. Yeah. Yeah. So
from the conservative, uh, May 3rd, 1900, this is out of, uh, Nebraska and the
Lincoln, Nebraska as well. "I had seen too many cases where men had
reached a certain point in their professions and then they had run against a
stone wall in the shape of inability to perform greater things. Every man
should have a specialty and should not be content to know so much or to just go
so far in it. It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. But I decided that the
experiment should be tried on me."
Dan: 12:01 He
was talking about going overseas to learn something else. So now he is
backtracking things that he has said before and saying, I've decided it's going
to happen to me anyway. I'm the one who's going overseas to do this thing.
Dan: 12:15 Yeah,
I like that one because it is using the idiom as an idiom and describing
exactly what the idiom means. In the Bluegrass Blade out of Lexington,
Kentucky, August 15th, 1909 and this is from, this is a very interesting piece
because it comes from a, it comes from a lecture that F.E. DeStone MD gave
before the San Francisco materialist association. Materialists would be akin to
atheism now. It's yet it was the idea and then it's evolved and it means
something a little bit different now. But it's the idea that we are not driven
by faith or some sort of higher power, but we're driven by our biological
processes.
Dan: 13:00 And
so they shunned the, the belief in God, not so much because they thought it was
bad to believe in higher powers or things, but because it just wasn't true and
it would be problematic moving forward if we continue to have people to teach
people to believe in faith, if it meant taking away from the facts that we know
about the universe as we've learned it. And this is, this is 1909 so this is
one of the things that F.E. DeStone says and I read the first part of this
speech and then I'll, I'll hit the part with our phrase.
Dan: 13:32 "It
is with some little hesitancy that I take this platform not having done any
public speaking for over three years and also knowing the antagonism the
subject in hand usually inspires in the minds of materialists. I feel that I
have to be strictly on my good behavior to create an atmosphere of harmony
which is necessary to helpful discussion as I have no use for any established
ism. I feel that my open mindedness should incline you to meet me kindly on
those grounds acceptable to us both. And thus before I finished, we may find
that we have many things in common."
Dan: 14:06 He
goes on to say "Adults are hard to persuade from preconceived ideas and even
when convinced well more often than otherwise returned to the teachings of
their childhood. The old idiom, it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks holds
of the human bi-pod quite as much as with other animals here.".
Dan: 14:23 And
in fact, the case that he was just making is that the materialist should
fashion the education they want to do off of what the church is doing, which is
to indoctrinate, indoctrinate them with the ideas while they're young and
impressionable because it is difficult to remove someone from those ideas after
20 or 30 years of being taught that this is the way that it should work.
Dan: 14:46 I
don't know how he was received. I wasn't able to find follow up articles in any
newspapers that said how his words were received, but it was very, I found it
very interesting, uh, because as I read the beginning of his passage that he
said, it is with some little hesitancy that I take this platform. Uh, I find
that anytime I want to post on social media, I feel the exact same way. Anytime
I know the antagonism, the subject in hand usually inspires in the minds of,
in, you know, put whatever ism you want there. And he even says that, which I
use, I have no use for any established ism. Yes. And I'm like, wow, 1909, oh my
goodness. America, we have, we have changed the way we do it, but we really
haven't changed what we're doing.
Dan: 15:37 I
don't, I don't necessarily agree with his concept, uh, either of humans or dogs
for that matter that they can't learn new things. But the, the concept that
he's trying to get across with this, I think is valid. That yes, teaching
people things when they're young will help, will be helpful to them. And it's
something that they will help form them.
Dan: 16:07 Uh,
I would imagine he probably got torn to shreds. I only say that because on
Twitter it doesn't matter if you were to say, I don't really have a stand on
this. And I think that we maybe have more in common than you believe, but the
world is, is, is a complex place and truth resists simplicity.
Dan: 16:26 All
right. So this is from the Clovis News at a Clovis New Mexico, December 23rd,
1920. "It has been frequently said that you can't teach an old dog new
tricks, but a Chicago newspaper apparently thinks otherwise. A reporter for the
paper spends each day and traveling about the city accosting all sorts of
people and testing their politeness he finds means of coming in contact with
the clerk's offices, housewives and the public and the store businessmen in
their offices, public officials on duty, judges, ministers, housewives, and the
public generally."
Dan: 16:56 His
frustration was that this guy was unscrupulous and would basically was very
rude and callous and upset to sensibilities of the people. So I don't know,
does that mean he really was rude and callous or does that mean he was just not
willing to let people, uh, get along in their status quo? And so if you
challenge the status quo, you are evil and to be defeated. I don't know. I
don't know which way it is.
Shauna: 17:25 It's
interesting. I mean, he was a reporter too, so trying to do his job like that
can sometimes be unpleasant.
Dan: 17:31 Yeah,
that's true. That's fair. All right. We don't normally include art or in the
early days is only occasionally, but I do want to point everyone to the patreon
where I'm going to link to a piece of artwork from July, 1931. I'm not going to
put the picture on Patreon. I'm going to link to the website where you can find
and purchase prints of the picture cause I don't want anyone to think that I'm
trying to steal the artwork for our game. But this is called old dog new tricks
by Frederick Stanley. And it's a painting of a, uh, an older dog. It looks like
a Beagle and he is sitting, um, on one side of a, of a crate. And on the other
side is a young boy, uh, probably somewhere between 10 and 12 years of age with
a Hula Hoop in his hand and he's trying to entice the dog to jump through the
Hula Hoop. And it's very Norman Rockwell esque
Shauna: 18:21 I
was going to say the same thing yet. It's got that vibe going for sure. Sunday
evening post feel going.
Dan: 18:26 Yeah,
absolutely. So I definitely would, I would definitely say go check it out on
the Patreon and it'll be on there and it'll be free to see for everybody. I
think it's interesting to take a look at. So as we start wrapping up here, I
just want to give a couple of other examples from the out of the evening star
in Washington DC, this is February 7th, 1943 in an article called, I'm counting
on you. This is by Phyllis Deganne and it says, "Can old dog, learn new
tricks, a tender and understanding story of married life." This is a short
story that was published in the paper there.
Dan: 19:02 Yes.
I think an old dog could learn new tricks is the point they're trying to make
here. And uh, after the break, we're going to talk a little bit more about the
fact that you can in fact based on research and evidence, teach old dogs new
tricks because anyone who's ever owned dogs can tell you that. You of course
you can teach. Does the dog really like laying down in the sun beam? Yes,
probably. Do I really like laying down in the sunbeam? Yes. Yes I do. But does
that mean I can't learn new things? Well, no, of course not... Karen
Shauna: 19:34 Today's
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Dan: 20:28 A
1991 book by Ted Baer, B a e r was called how to teach your old dog new tricks.
And this is the synopsis, "A well known and highly praised dog trainer
proves that by using the humane approach when training a dog, an owner can
teach an old dog new tricks. How-to Advice plus 25 tricks in all."
Shauna: 20:48 Sweet.
Yeah, 25 tricks. I didn't know there were that many dog tricks. I mean, I know
like for those really cool dogs that like do all the jumping through hoops and
climbing up things, but like just to just an average dog can do 25 tricks.
Shauna: 21:06 Um,
my dog growing up was a Bouvier or something. The ones with the really long
hair and it's curly. He was beautiful, but he, his trick was mostly to lay on
the air conditioning vent. That's, that's Kinda what he did. And turn into
Jello when you tried to pick him up.
Dan: 21:27 Fair
enough. All right, so there's a song by Seasick Steve and it's actually also
the title of his fifth album, You can't teach an old dog new tricks. This is
kind of a blues rock vibe. It was released in May, 2011 cool. And I actually
saw it, this is probably the first time that I listened to a song and then I
went back and I restarted it. I listened to it again. I just really liked the
vibe of it. And the first time, I don't know that I listened to the lyrics as
much as they should have. So then I played it again so I could listen to
lyrics. I think you'll enjoy it. We'll put a link to it on the Patreon. These
are the words: There must be something wrong with me What it is I can't quite
see I can't seem to do nothing right. Maybe I need to change my style Been this
way for a long long while Maybe there's a few things I ought to fix. Can you
teach an old dog new tricks?
Dan: 22:28 Knowing
a little bit about your, your musical tastes. I think you would enjoy it.
Although, uh, maybe not right now while you're on your Amy Winehouse kick,.
Dan: 22:40 All
right. So in 2016, Stanley Coren who is a PhD., and also has written a lot of
books about dogs in general wrote in Psychology Daily, in which he has a
regular column called the Canine Corner that You Can Teach An Old Dog New
Tricks. And he cites an article that had just been published by the Messerli
Research Institute, part of the University of Vienna,. And I saw three or four
other things that referenced the same article. And so I'm just going to lump
them all in here because Stanley's was the only one that had like another
published, smart ish person talking about them. Everybody else was just like
their own standard websites, you know, just saying, well, they said this. So it
must be true as if every research article, ever is true, but his article
actually talks a little bit about some of that behind it too. But his point was
the overall assessment he took was "old dogs may learn more slowly,
however they will remember."
Dan: 23:33 Even
even Google has gotten into the action with this. Uh, they released a clip in
March, 2019 so earlier this year, and I'll just describe the clip. So, uh, and
I'll, and we'll post it on the Patreon on as well. We see a room that has been
ransacked presumably by Cooper, the dog, uh, the camera pans to see a large
older dog sitting in the corner in his face buried. So you can't see it right
up against the wall. So basically you know how the dog sees sometimes when
they're hiding their face. And so you can't see it.
Dan: 24:00 And
the humor, the human is saying, Cooper did you do this? And Cooper is clearly
like head pushed up against the wall. Like just trying to hide as if I don't
see you can't see me, I can't see you and none of this. And then of course it
jumps to the Google homepage and some fancy music and it's, and Google's
asking, can you teach an old dog new tricks? And the ads meant to show that you
can find anything you need on Google. But it also implies that it doesn't
matter if you're uncomfortable with a computer or the Internet. Google is easy
to use in here to help. So it kind of plays off of the literal, you know, can
you teach an old dog new tricks? But also the idiom as well. And I found it to
be a relatively clever ad.
Shauna: 24:39 This
topic actually came up for a family member of mine who had been in the same
profession for like decades and then started getting a new job. And in that new
position, the first couple of weeks were a little rough and some of the other,
uh, employees were getting frustrated, but uh, but they picked it up and once,
once they had it, they were one of the fastest, uh, fastest employees with the
computer system. But having used not used anything like that for, for decades,
you know, just doing the same thing. So I think it's just one of those people,
people forget or, you know, especially our, our generation has a tendency to
think that if you're not picking it up quickly, you're just dumb or can't get
it or something. Right.
Dan: 25:19 But
our generation is also the ones that are like, if you have to wait 30 seconds
for fries at McDonald's, you're really, really mad. Yeah.
Shauna: 25:24 Or
the, the little la loop de loop on the computer while you're waiting for it to
load. If it has to, if it spins like more than half a turn, then too long.
Dan: 25:32 I'm
just going to refresh the page. Yeah, fine. I'll do this another time. So when
I was researching this episode, I came across another phrase that I was vaguely
familiar with from my days growing up in Texas. "There's life in this old
dog yet."
Dan: 25:46 And
I won't go into much about this. It probably deserves to, uh, to be a part of
another episode, uh, that I am currently researching about old age idioms. So
that's something you can look forward to. But the Oxford English dictionary
defines there's life in this old dog yet, and its variants as "an
assertion of continuing competence, strength, et Cetera, not withstanding
evidence to the contrary." And I liked this because even though we haven't
quite explored it yet, and it doesn't really have any actual factual basis in
it, but I like to imagine the thought that this idiom cropped up as a way to
counter, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Well, there's life in this old
dog yet.
Dan: 26:28 Yeah,
exactly. So while, while these two phrases really don't have anything to do
with each other other than the fact that dog has been used as a counterpart for
a human with doglike traits it since the 12 hundreds other than that, there's
really not a whole lot of of a similarity between these two, but I do like the
idea that it might be if you were doing an idiom battle back and forth at each
other, then I think this would be a perfect response to, you can't teach an old
dog new tricks because of course you can.
Dan: 26:56 Well,
that about wraps this up for today. Thank you so much for joining us. We want
to ask two special tasks of you this week. First, would you be willing to rate
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Shauna: 27:32 Word
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appreciated. If you want to join the community and chat more about the show or
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You'll find the link to that in everything else we do at
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next week. Until then, remember,
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