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: 00:05 And
I'm Shauna Harrison. 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. Between our
weekly episodes, bonus mini episodes - which are available through Patreon -
guests spots, and specials we've discussed over a hundred idioms or other turns
of phrase. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's amazing how many
English idioms exist.
Dan: 00:29 Yeah,
it is amazing. There are way more of them, too. We find new ones every day, but
now I'm curious. 100 idioms... That does seem like a lot. Did you count them
all?
Shauna: 00:40 Uh,
no. Um, that's like a rough guesstimate. Like a, like an ish, an ish number.
But anyway, on the topic of icebergs... see I was so smooth with that one that
you didn't even notice it.
Shauna: 00:58 Dang
it. So tip of the iceberg means that we are just barely scratching the surface
of something. We're only getting started. We've got a long way to go. Taking
our first step.
Shauna: 01:11 I
was done. I'll stop. Uh, many dictionaries online have tip of the iceberg
defined as being "aware of only a small part of a much bigger thing".
And usually they're referring to something negative, like a problem or an
issue. And, uh, but in education and professional development circles this
phrase is often used to represent all sorts of concepts and um, such as how
much one person can learn about a subject. And uh, there'll be a little bit
more on that later on. So, Dan, if you were to guess, how old would you think
today's idiom is?
Dan: 01:48 Okay.
So it has to be at least older than the early 19 hundreds, because we knew it
was an iceberg that hit the Titanic, right?
Dan: 01:58 Okay.
So, and there have been icebergs for way earlier than human history, but the
phrase, the word probably would've come into existence pretty early. So 18,
seven, no, 1817.
Shauna: 02:37 It
is. It is. Um, but so we knew that we had the word for iceberg right already,
but the, the phrase tip of the iceberg I really came about at that time. So.
Shauna: 02:48 Yeah,
in early 19 hundreds. Okay. Yeah. So, uh, Oxford English dictionary, it gives
us an additional addendum to the definition for tip of the iceberg, which says
"in extended use, something of which the greater part is unknown or
unrecognized, chiefly in the tip of the iceberg and variants, the smaller
perceptible part of something, especially a difficulty, which is evidently much
larger."
Shauna: 03:23 Or
challenge. And then, uh, they even ref, they even specify "in early use,
perhaps partly motivated by awareness of the sinking of the RMS Titanic when it
was holed between the waterline in a collision with an iceberg in 1912."
Dan: 03:40 Well,
I guess if it was just the tip that was out then maybe, maybe you wouldn't have
seen it.
Shauna: 03:56 Yeah,
that's true. All right, so before we get started on the idiom though, I wanted
to take just a little tiny brief, a sidebar to talk about the Titanic, which I
thought, you know, I could sing a song cause it's a great movie and
Dan: 04:12 Oh,
I actually, no, I was, that's because I have 1. Never seen the movie Titanic,
me and three other humans on the face of the planet. And 2. I was trying to think
of a song about the Titanic and nothing was coming to mind. But then when you
said the movie, then I realized you were talking about a Celine Dion song.
Shauna: 04:32 Yeah,
I was, I was going to go back to the, to the song about the Titanic concept
because I had a history teacher in high school that totally had these random
songs about like different things that happened in history and I'm pretty sure
he just wrote them like on his own. I don't think there were any kind of, you
know, it wasn't conjunction junction or anything like that. Like he just
randomly...
Shauna: 04:54 No,
not at all. But when you said that that's what I remembered was like my high
school history teacher. He was awesome.
Dan: 05:01 I
was going to say, sounds like you had a pretty good one. Maybe. Wait, was your
high school history teacher also one of the guys from the Cutting Class
Podcast?
Dan: 05:10 Cause
their both high school teachers. That would have been really cool. I would have
given anything. Well I didn't go to high school, but if I was going to go to
high school I would have loved for it to be with those guys.
Shauna: 05:20 That's
hilarious. I loved high school. Alright, so we're not going to sing a song, but
I did want to share that. It's actually a really cool that this idiom was
popularized by that by the thing that people kind of think of first when they
hear the idiom, uh, or at least people who are familiar with the history and
have that knowledge base to pull from. Uh, but it's, it's quite possible and
likely that this is where it originated. I was with the sinking of the Titanic.
I also learned a cool little thing while I was researching, which is that the
iceberg that hit the Titanic or that the Titanic hit, uh, died itself, It
melted away only like two weeks after the Titanic sank.
Dan: 06:07 I'm
on a bunny trail off for just a moment because I'm currently in Maryland. I am
working on a rewrite of a national course for emergency managers called the
science of disasters. And today we were having the conversation about
terminology and what we, what we need to do. And somebody like the word climate
change is listed in there, but it's listed in the, in the wrong way in one of
the things. And we're not, of course we're not trying to shy away from that at
all, but the, there was a point where it used climate change where it was
talking about weather changes and climate is a longterm thing whereas weather
is a short term thing. So one, so then somebody else asked what, what about the
icebergs melting? And another person not missing a beat said "all of the
glacier water is just falling off the side of the planet. So it's not a big
deal."
Dan: 07:01 And
I thought what a great response. Like he didn't even skip a beat as he said it.
Like just so matter of fact I couldn't stop laughing about it cause I just had
the conversation like two hours ago now. But it is sad that, that it is sad
that that iceberg died. I guess if, if you could attribute, if we could
attribute life to it in the first place.
Shauna: 07:20 Yeah,
I'm not sure. I mean, the way that it was talked about in the story is...
regarding the Titanic. It sounds like it was a beast, you know, from hell or
something.
Dan: 07:33 Well,
yes, that's because as humans we like for there to be a good guy and a bad guy.
And for our narratives that makes things much easier. And so I think iceberg in
this case was the bad guy because we needed a bad guy to tell a good story. And
unfortunately the truth resist simplicity. So that's not something that we, we
don't always have a bad guy. In fact, most of the time we don't have a bad guy.
It's just people doing what they think is best. We just come from different
places.
Shauna: 08:05 Right.
So icebergs, uh, but part of that, you know, I think is also contributed to why
the phrase has been used negatively for the most part is that desire for the
iceberg to have been in the wrong, in that situation with the Titanic. So there
was another phrase using iceberg that was in use shortly before the Titanic
sank. Here is a quote from the Manchester Democrat from Manchester, Iowa, a
newspaper. Uh, this is June 14th in 1899 "Then the advertising man knows
that his vis-a-vis never advertised in his life, knows nothing about it, and he
realizes that he is up against an iceberg. He has perhaps felt when he entered
that particular store that the atmosphere was frozen hard."
Dan: 08:51 So
even in 1899, iceberg could a large immovable object or potentially a
difficulty or challenge.
Shauna: 09:01 Yeah,
it was usually used more to reference a challenge as opposed to anything else
and not even, and not necessarily negative, but also just the immensity.
Immensity? Immenseness?
Dan: 09:20 Because
dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. I'm getting off of my soapbox
now. Anyway. Go ahead.
Shauna: 09:26 Uh,
thank you. This has been dictionaries with Dan, so I'm really excited to go
through this.
Dan: 09:31 That's...
wait... No go back. Dictionaries with Dan. I'm loving this segment. I don't
know what we do. We can't just read a random word from the dictionary because
Helen Zaltzman already does that on The Allusionist Podcast. We'd have to find
some other thing for dictionaries with Dan. So listeners, if you have an idea
for what to do with dictionaries with Dan, then please let me know.
Shauna: 09:51 New
segment. I love it. I am really excited to go through this one. Most of our
phrases were kind of trying to piece together, uh, the transition or where they
started and all these things and where you or piecing together the information
that we find and with this one where we get to see just those changes in a
shorter period of time, which was kind of cool. In 1916, AJ Todd, uh, wrote in
American Journal of Sociology, "We have to recognize that after all reason
in men is only the very tip of their iceberg of mental life."
Dan: 10:25 What
are they trying to say there? Are they saying that men are deeper than reason
or reason is, I don't know what they're trying to say.
Shauna: 10:33 Well,
so this was sociology. So sociologists like to talk about the impact of
relationships and these other things that, that exist within a society, right?
So it's not just reason that dictates a human beings and their, their thoughts
or their mental life is expansive beyond not necessarily more than or deeper or
whatever.
Shauna: 10:58 Sociology
was Shauna. Oh, that also is alliterative. We're doing, we're like rocking it
today with that.
Shauna: 11:07 As
is the case for many idioms. This early usage had a quantifier added to the
phrase, uh, so in this one it was 'mental life'.
Shauna: 11:28 In
1917, The Origin of Evil by Chuck Missler. Uh, he was a doctor. Apologies,
Doctor Missler. Uh, so in this book, Dr Missler uses the scripture, ie verses
from the Christian Bible, to explore the idea of evil and its origin. He says,
"Paul wants his readers to comprehend the breadth, the length, the depth,
and the height. He lists four dimensions. These words in the Greek are: Platos,
Mekos, Bathos, and Hupsos."
Shauna: 11:59 I
just love Greek words. I wish I could speak Greek. I said that whole part just
because I wanted to do that. So we can...
Dan: 12:06 Platos
meaning breadth, Mekos meaning length, Bathos meaning deep or depths, and
hupsos meaning height or heavenly. I do not speak Greek, so I apologize if I
have mispronounced any of those words.
Shauna: 12:20 He
continues to say, "We can argue that all additional dimensions are
included in that fourth term in the broadness of the heights of heaven. We can
see the breadth, length, and depth of things, but all others are in the
spiritual realms. The word hupsos has its roots in the word 'huper' from which
we get our word 'hyper'. So it's appropriate that these additional dimensions
are called hyperspaces. What is really real? We only directly experience the
tip of the iceberg."
Dan: 12:53 This
is, this is blowing my mind that he just used the word hyperspace there in
what, 1917?
Shauna: 12:59 Yeah,
it's awesome. Ah, I love it. And he did not mean he did not mean that
physically or any kind of scientific way. He meant it, you know, spiritually.
Very cool. I thought I liked, liked that, uh, writing even if, I'm not sure I
would want to read the rest of his book.
Shauna: 13:26 So
we're this close to that event and the idiom was used in this case as an
explanation rather than with an explanation for it. And that indicates that it
was relatively, um, widely used at the time. And so it was understood by the
public. In 1938 in the Journal of Higher Education, "The president sees
the glowing sunlit tip of the iceberg. Only the alumni secretary senses the
chill of its huge and submerged segment."
Shauna: 13:52 I
dunno what was going on in that school, but my goodness, they got some problems
I think.
Dan: 14:02 I
think the point is that oftentimes secretaries of any form have a better
understanding of what is happening in the organization than the C suite level
person or supervisor that they assist.
Shauna: 14:15 Yes,
definitely. Uh, and so in this case, the author did provide that elaboration,
but I think it was used to be descriptive and kind of have that, that imagery
going. In 1942 Douglas Woodruff For Hilaire Belloc, "The iceberg of
existence is vaster, by many times in its hidden bulk, than what appears on the
mid-day ocean."
Dan: 14:42 Wow,
I don't know if I'm just in a romantic language kind of mood or if all of these
phrases or these quotes are just really well written and good.
Shauna: 14:51 Uh,
no, I've really enjoyed them. I they, I was like, man, this is so poetic. This
is like the most poetic idiom we've researched.
Shauna: 15:03 Yes.
In the evening star out of Washington, D C August 3rd, 1944 .The title of this
was Shifting Finland, "The sudden appearance of Field Marshall Baron
Mannerheim as emergency president of Finland is the visible phase of a
political and diplomatic situation, which for the most part remains obscure.
Mannerheim's presidency at this juncture, may be compared to the tip of an
iceberg, seven-eighths of which is hidden below the surface of the water
wherein it floats."
Shauna: 15:33 There
are some serious political stuff's going on in, you know, Finland 1944. Pretty
much everywhere actually at that point.
Dan: 15:43 Did
you know that Your Brain on Facts Podcast had a guest podcasts on, and I forget
the name so I apologize, but they did an episode or talked at least a little
bit about Finland not really existing because there's this conspiracy theory
that Finland doesn't actually exist.
Dan: 16:03 That's
very interesting. It has nothing to do with icebergs or the tip of an iceberg.
I just thought that was interesting cause you said there are a lot of
interesting things going on with the Finnish government and I thought, huh, or
if it's even there.
Shauna: 16:16 Mmm,
true. But I was just, uh, making that assumption cause it was 1944 so I think
there was a lot of political stuff going on everywhere.
Dan: 16:24 Ooh,
good point. Yeah. That's a timeline, especially for Europe, where they were a
smidge bit busy.
Shauna: 16:28 Yeah.
Just a little bit. So, all right. 1964. This is the Observer. July 26th,
"This..situation is illustrated by what is..called the iceberg of disease.
Above the surface is the illness we know about."
Shauna: 16:46 Sounds
very daunting. See, I'm, I'm, I'm going with this as continues to be poetic,
even if I don't know what they're talking about. So, uh, but this, at this
point, the idiom wasn't really used as, as a phrase as a whole, but the concept
was present. So they still said the iceberg of disease. So they changed the
idiom at this at this time. So you're starting to see it kind of used very
freely by authors or writers who are here, kind of adapting it for their own
use in and putting a spin on it, which we see happen once it's very firmly
established in the lexicon. 1965 just a year later, this is from the
Congressional Record from the (United States) Senate and this discussion
occurred on May 12th of 1965. And this was under the group of discussions for
senior citizen month. So May, at least it was in 1965, was senior citizen
month. Get ready for it next year. Uh, the portion of this quote comes from a
discussion, The Unmet Need. "Even before referral had completed its three
month pilot period last September, Kathleen Marrow, center director, said, 'we
have seen the tip of the iceberg that tells us there are countless other aging
people involved in a grim survival where the supportive and protective help of
the community is required.' "
Shauna: 18:13 Right?
Uh, so I thought that was an interesting thing that it was used there but also
in a, you know, official discussion. Moving down the road a little bit in 1987,
Ian Rankin in Knots and Crosses. This is a, a book that recently, uh, became
popular again. I know it was on the list for Emma Watson's reading group that's
on Goodreads and I think it was turned into a movie but I don't follow movies
very well. So could it be wrong about that. "He did some bouncing for pubs
on Lothian Road and dubious drinking-dens around Leith, but that would be the
tip of his earning iceberg. "
Shauna: 18:57 It
does. We, we like to play it a little loose and fast with our phrases in the
United States.
Dan: 19:04 Or
were you just playing, are you playing fast and loose with your phrase right
there and highlighting your points? Man, you are so meta. Oh good.
Shauna: 19:15 I'm
intentionally, so smooth. But we do it, we do that. We add extra words or we
change the order up slightly because ...
Shauna: 19:26 all
of us who use this language, most of us, I dunno, whatever. Listen, while there
may be a word or two different in those different usages, um, throughout the
hundred years, uh, the core remains the same. We still have the tip of the
iceberg. And a lot of times we do, we do that, we add extra words and we change
the idioms. But while one or two words might be different, that core remains
the same. And that's definitely the case for tip of the iceberg.
Dan: 19:50 Well,
today's show is sponsored by our patrons. According to the Oxford English
dictionary since the 13 hundreds, the word patron has meant a person standing
in a role of oversight, protection, or sponsorship to another. Patron comes
from the Latin word for father, pater, then becoming Patronus, meaning champion
or protector, then to patron, meaning one who sponsors something like a patron
of the arts. Leonardo DaVinci had patrons like Medici and Cesar Borgia. Bunny
trails has similarly awesome patrons, including Pat Rowe and Mary Lopez. If you
want to become a patron of bunny trails and get cool perks like access to
episodes, behind the scenes content, monthly mini episodes and more, you can
visit us on www.patreon.com/bunnytrailspod or you can find links to it
www.bunnytrailspod.com
Shauna: 20:43 In
May of 2002 in the magazine, Focus, "Rumours of BSE equivalents in lamb and
chicken are just the tip of the dodgy-eating iceberg."
Dan: 20:54 BSE
is an infectious disease that, um, is, uh, a prion and is stands for bovine
spongiform encephalopathy.
Dan: 21:13 Unionized
(like the labor union) and unionized (like the physicist term un-ionized) are
spelled exactly the same but mean completely different things depending on what
field you work in. That's so cool. Maybe prion (PRYon) and prion (PREon) are
like that too. I don't know.
Shauna: 21:31 Well,
fair enough. Also in 2002 is the book How Companies Lie: Why Enron Is Just the
Tip of the Iceberg. This was a book by Larry Elliott and Richard Schroth, so,
and I didn't add a synopsis because I felt like it was kinda evident what it
was, what it was about. So on that one...
Dan: 21:50 Um,
hang on. All right. I'm reading the synopsis now and apparently it is about how
to make cookies in the shape of buildings.
Dan: 22:09 I
know people say, and I've probably gone on this rant before, I know they say
you can't judge a book by its cover, but that is literally the point of book
covers is to allow you to judge it quickly. Like they bring in expert artists
to be able to put something on a book cover to help drive people to want to
open that book and read about it. You absolutely are supposed to judge a book
by its cover.
Shauna: 22:33 All
right. Next up we've got Sam. This is @Samuel_Miller on Twitter who joined
Twitter in August of 2009. His about section reads, "Law talking guy.
Tweets are not legal advice, but if you thought otherwise legal problems are
the tip of the iceberg for you."
Shauna: 22:54 Well
done Sam. In the 2009 electropop song Tip of the Iceberg by Owl City, we find
these wonderful lyrics. I'll travel the sub-zero tundra I'll brave glaciers and
frozen lakes And that's just the tip of the iceberg I'll do whatever it takes
To change
Dan: 23:15 Oh,
Oh that took a different, okay. That took a different turn. I thought they were
talking about, you know, the like proclaimers you know I walk 500 miles and
I'll walk 500 more. I thought they were saying, you know, to be with you and to
love, you know, I love whatever. Yeah, and this was just like, man I, I am, I
am just a garbage human and I am going to change I promise.
Shauna: 23:36 I
think it's great. That was again very poetic. I think maybe just using iceberg,
like brings out the poet in people, I don't know the imagery, maybe that is
what it is. In the article Stephen King Explains When He’ll Retire, this was on
Cinema Blend just last week… so mid-September 2019, we find a positive usage of
the idiom by author. It says, “Stephen King is on a bit of a tear right now.
The prolific author just published his 61st book The Institute and a movie
based on his popular 1986 novel IT is currently out in theaters with the title
IT Chapter Two and another of his titles Doctor Sleep is on the way to the big
screen. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg with his current works.”.
Shauna: 24:28 I
read that whole quote because I really like Stephen King. So, uh, also I'm
gonna say I'm good with this because the man's like almost 72 and he's still
writing. So it gives me hope that I may actually finish my own book someday.
And also there is still plenty of time for me to read all of his novels. I
could keep reading them until I'm 72 and I will probably still not have read
all of his books. So I'm like, and I won't have to reread them unless I want
to.
Shauna: 24:57 Really
amazing how often we use some of our idioms without even realizing the place
that they have in our language. A friend at work is regularly calling me out on
my use of idioms. She listens to our podcast and she's also a big word nerd.
Um, she commented on this phrase and she found humor in the fact that we were
constantly exaggerating when we're referring to mundane concerns. This is a
just kind of a typical thing that people do and in the United States or
middle-class folks do anyway. Um, but I find that this one actually works for
things on a variety of scales, big or small or things that only seem small,
Shauna: 25:39 Uh,
but, but honestly, I love watching an idiom change as we're experiencing it.
And so this one's really unique in that we are kind of a part of it's, it's
growing history.
Dan: 25:50 So
the difference between an iceberg and a glacier is that an iceberg is a piece
of a glacier that breaks off when temperatures warm up. So if it's floating in
the water, it's probably an iceberg. Whereas if it's sitting attached to a
bigger, larger thing, it's probably a glacier.
Shauna: 26:09 Yeah,
but I like it. I love science. That about wraps us up for today. Thank you so
much for joining us. We'd also like to say thanks to our listeners who've rated
us on your favorite podcasting app and left a review. If you haven't had a
chance to do that yet, there's still time, or if you've already done this, you
can do it again on your second favorite app or your third favorite app or
whatever.
Shauna: 26:35 Uh,
we'd also love for you to share it with your friends. Anybody who might be
interested in listening to a fun with words. That's the name of our podcast.
But it has fun with words.
Dan: 26:46 I
mean it might as well be though cause it is fun with words. It's actually fun
with phrases. If you want fun with words, I recommend the Lexitexture Podcast.
Shauna: 27:00 it's
nice. Yeah. So when you're thinking about these people, book lovers or writers
or just somebody you know who likes to have a little humor with their word
history cause that's all of us, right?
Dan: 27:12 Absolutely.
And we would ask that you would go and share the show on Twitter and if you
hashtag bunny trails then we will go add you to our list of people to follow.
So we will be looking for the #BunnyTrails this week. And for everybody who
tweets using that hashtag bunny trails, we will go give you a follow to help
boost your numbers. But word of mouth is still the best way to grow a podcast.
And posting on Twitter helps considerably, but also telling your friends so
your help is greatly appreciated. If you want to join the community and chat
more about the show or phrases and their stories in general, you can join the
community on Patreon. You'll find the link to that and everything else we do
www.bunnytrailspod.com. Thanks again for joining us. We'll talk to you again
next week. Until then, remember:
No comments:
Post a Comment