Accessibility is important. That's why we provide transcripts for the show. Click on Read More for the full transcript.
If you have any issues with the transcript, let Dan know at bunny trails pod at gmail dot com.
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. Every Wednesday we take an idiom or other turn of phrase and try
to tell the story from its entry into the English language to how it's used
today. Recently I've been fascinated with some newer idioms and I've really
enjoyed seeing how these phrases got their start in an era where so much of the
information surrounding the phrase is already readily available. One of the
phrases I came across is "hijack the thread", which in internet
parlance means taking over the comments section of one post to talk about
something off topic. And I thought, well this sounds like another phrase I've
heard, "lost the thread". So this week I want to see when we started
using the phrase "lost the thread" and if it has any ties to hijack
the thread or if maybe hijack that thread is tied to it. So Shauna, when do you
think we started using the phrase lost the thread?
Shauna: 00:58 Uh,
so I really wish that I had some wicked sewing knowledge or something so that I
could like, WOW you with my, with my history of I dunno, weaving or something.
Cause I feel.
Shauna: 01:10 YES!,
That might be beneficial, but I am going to go with like 16 hundreds maybe. Um,
but I dunno. Okay. Let's see.
Dan: 01:21 Let's
start us off. Lost the thread, means "to cease to follow the sense of what
is being said" and that's what lose the thread or lost the thread means.
Dan: 01:31 And
that's according to the Oxford English dictionary. So to start with, the key
here is, is the word "thread". And according to the Oxford English
dictionary thread itself has meant "a fine cord comprised of the fibers or
filaments of something" since the seven hundreds CE. But another
definition of thread used by the Oxford English dictionary is "that which
connects the successive points in anything, especially a narrative or train of
thought. Also the sequence of events or ideas continuing through the whole
course of anything." So we've seen thread used that way since at least the
16 hundreds, which is what you said.
Dan: 02:15 Well
a couple, a couple of examples of thread being used in this figurative way are
in James Howell's Instructions for Forrrien Travel, but they spell foreign
really weird here and.
Shauna: 02:36 I
love, how the words, The spelling of words has changed over time because some
of them it's really fast. Like really cool.
Dan: 02:42 I
can barely spell words correctly now and I always got low marks in that in
school. So it's probably, students probably don't like that at all.
Shauna: 02:50 Yeah,
I can't, I can imagine it. I just think it's cool cause like some of the vowels
had completely different sound. Um, you know, profiles than they do now.
Dan: 02:59 Yes,
very true. And there's a lot of fun etymology podcasts that cover that. Ours is
not one of them. So James Howell, in Instructions of Forrein Travel, "If
one reads, skippingly and, by snatches, and not take the thread of the story
along, it must needs puzzle and distract the memory."
Shauna: 03:17 Dude
that could be said like let's, let's bring that back. I like his whole phrase,
if one,
Dan: 03:22 I
don't know that I want to bring any of it back cause it sounds vaguely dirty
but it's not.
Dan: 03:32 All
right so another example is in 1687 in John Dryden's The Hind and the Panther,
"The matron... Then resumed the thread of her discourse, again."
Dan: 03:43 So
we saw two examples here of the figurative use of "thread" and that
figurative use actually manifest itself into two idioms. We're going to talk
about one of them today. So to pick up the thread, uh, which also at some point
is take up the thread, but those, that means to continue, uh, with or after an
interruption, uh, or a separation. And then sometimes to resume an interrupted
friendship. So to pick up the threads in this case would be to, to restart
something after an interruption, using that figurative of thread.
Shauna: 04:15 That's
really, um, that's really cool too. And it makes me think about like knitting
or whatever cause I'm like, if you lose a stitch, it's real bad and then you
have to find it again and pick it back up from there. So that's kind of what
popped into my head.
Shauna: 04:30 Well
I don't knit either, but my sister does. She's really, really good with it. And
anyway, but she's talked about it before and it sounds like it's awful.
Dan: 04:38 Well,
the other, um, the other idiom that comes out of this is to lose the thread
which we, uh, mentioned already is uh, not following this sense of what has
been said. Here, I...
Dan: 04:49 We
don't know when lost the thread started. I have, I, I spent a couple of days
looking for, uh, early attestations and the earliest I could find was March
19th, 1750. And we know the direct date because it was a letter written by the
Late Right Honorable Philip Dormer, Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield to his son
Phillip Stanhope, Esquire.
Shauna: 05:19 Ah,
very important people. There are at least sounding, sounding like they're
important.
Dan: 05:23 Well,
they definitely sounded like they were important, but the late right honorable
has very specific meanings in England. I don't know what those meanings are. I
remember watching a YouTube video on it and then remembering that that's not my
form of government, so I don't care. I can barely keep track of the form of
government in America.
Shauna: 05:41 Yeah,
me too. Uh, but I do like this concept so it's like late and right and
honorable, like each have significance. Yeah. Yeah.
Shauna: 05:49 Yeah,
yeah, yeah. But like then the right is like to the right or left of the crown
or something. I have no idea. But you know, I'm making guesses. Assumptions,
they're wide assumptions.
Dan: 05:58 This,
uh, this particular letter was published in, in volume two of these works and
the, the works were published in 1765 but this letter was written in 1750 and
he says "the secession to the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily being a point
which upon the death of the present King of Spain is likely to occasion some
disputes. Do not lose the thread of these matters, which has carried on with
great ease. But if once broken is resumed with difficulty"
Dan: 06:32 And
those are just some wise, wise words, so many things in life that once if, if
it just keeps going on, it's fine, but if it stops, you're going to have a
really hard time restarting it.
Shauna: 06:43 Yeah,
man, he's laying down some wisdom. Dope wisdom to is what is that son? Yeah,
his son. Okay.
Dan: 06:51 Yeah.
So that was the first time I saw it and he, and he just says, do not lose the
thread of these matters. So he doesn't like define it anywhere, which means
it's most likely in the common language at this point in time. We see another,
um, another example of this in the ready for this title. This is our first, uh,
amazingly long title for 2020 here in season three... The complete dictionary
of arts and sciences in which the whole circle of human learning is explained
and the difficulties attending the acquisition of every art, whether liberal or
mechanical, are removed in the most easy and familiar manner.
Shauna: 07:25 I
mean, okay, listen, I feel like if that's really what this book encompasses,
then the title has to be long because the book would be enormous.
Dan: 07:34 Yeah.
I don't think they really cover, uh, everything that we've ever learned. But
nonetheless, uh, this was written by, uh, several men. I'm just going to say a
Henry Crocker and, et al. And that'll just have to cover it.
Dan: 07:48 So
in this book, and I don't, I don't quite understand the concepts because
they're talking about, uh, Arabians, uh, meaning the Arab person and they
defined it as such, like specifically defined what they meant by Arabians and
then used Arab in there. So anyone of the Arab places, but I still don't know
what that's supposed to mean. In 1765 this was published, I should say it was
published in 1766, but it was written in 1765 and they were very clear to say
that they had written it and it didn't get published until later. I don't know
why that mattered, but it's really nonetheless, that's funny.
Dan: 08:27 Who
knows? Well, and they also were talking here in this quote, uh, about a
religion, but I'm not sure which one they're talking about there. It does
reference the Abrahamic traditions. So it could be several, it could be
Judaism, or could you be Christianity, Protestant or Catholicism? It could be,
uh, uh, Islam. So there's a whole lot of things at this could be, I don't know
which one they're talking about and frankly, I don't care. So here's the
question. "The philosophy of Abraham from whom they boast their descent by
no means proves having cultivated this science. Abraham might have been their
primogenitor and a great philosopher, but their philosophy is no necessary
consequence of this. If they had lost the thread of those most valuable truths
they had learned from Abraham, if their religion degenerated into gross
idolatry, why might not their philosophy, admitting Abraham to have taught it
to them, has been lost also in the course of time?
Dan: 09:27 Right?
I mean, it seems logical when you first read it and then you think about it and
go, well, no, hang on a second.
Dan: 09:38 So,
uh, both of those examples were in books that I found. I also looked through
the Chronicling of America's library. And the first time I saw it in print in a
newspaper was actually in the Cherokee Phoenix, and this was a July 2nd, 1828.
But I want to give a bonus a thing about this because, um, we oftentimes do not
talk enough about, uh, indigenous peoples, um, successes, especially in the
face of incredibly over whelming, uh, odds like manifest destiny in such.
Dan: 10:14 ,
This publication. Uh, the first, well, the first issue of this publication
earlier in 18, 28 of the Cherokee Phoenix, uh, and that was February 21st at
New Echota, Georgia. Uh, the Cherokee nation became the first native American
tribe with a newspaper.
Dan: 10:33 Yeah.
So it was kinda cool. And my great grandmother, uh, who lived on the Cherokee
reservation, uh, was very, uh, very proud of that heritage.
Dan: 10:42 And
so I'm sorry that I can't pronounce New Echota appropriately. I hope I did. But
nonetheless, this, uh, the newspaper also has a, a Cherokee name, but that I
also can't say that so, but it does say in English, Cherokee Phoenix. So I'm
gonna stick with that. "The disadvantages of a long sermon. A preacher had
divided his sermon into 32 sections. One of his auditory arose immediately who
being asked whether he was going, uh, and said to fetch my nightcap I foresee
we shall pass the night here. In effect, the preacher having lost the thread of
his subdivisions could never reach the end of his sermon."
Dan: 11:22 It
goes on to say that one by one, everybody left. Uh, and, and then I will pick
back up here when "a little singing boy who remained alone cried to him.
Sir, here are the keys of the church. When you have done, be so good as to lock
the gate."
Dan: 11:38 man.
That dude. And like you can imagine that one choir boy. And I mean, he's just
like, he's doing his best, but at some point he's like, I got to go home, never
mind.
Dan: 11:50 Here's
another example from Dodge city, Kansas. This is out of the Dodge city times
September 25th, 1880. And this is, uh, uh, basically talking about a gathering.
Uh, and this was, I'll just set a quick stage. Uh, this is what they say. The
democratic pow-wow Kelly's hall last night was fairly attended but lacking in
enthusiasm. And this was between two different parties because at that time we
had a Northern Democrat and a Southern Democrat party. And so this was between
the Northern and the Southern Democrats. "The stage was beautifully
decorated with a national emblems. And finally ornamented with two local
democratic luminaries, count Von Gryden and Duke de Petillion. They were the
attractive features of this evening and the audience, no doubt lost the thread
of the speeches and the profound admiration of the stage ornaments and
decoration."
Shauna: 12:42 Fantastic.
Okay. So, I mean, okay, you're two people that are representatives are so
boring or you've got some really fantastic decorations like this one of the
two, right.
Dan: 12:54 I
think it was a little bit of both is what the, uh, the guy was getting at in
fact accused because one of these guys, I think it was the Count Von Gryden I
think his brother-in-law owned the location Kelly's hall, which is actually a
Tavern. And later in the newspaper they comment on him, uh, leaving the stage
while the other guy was going on some sort of a long diatribe and sneaking
backstage to get, uh, alcohol and then coming back on stage unnoticed by the
other orator.
Shauna: 13:24 That's
awesome, Like. Okay. Sometimes you need a little break. You know, it's like,
this is going to go on a while.
Dan: 13:31 Right.
I also saw one in 1892 this is from the United States Congress and this was
from a thing that they published the select committee to investigate
representative Thomas Watson's charges of drunkenness on the floor of the
house. This is by the U S government PRinting Press, Oops... Us government
printing office. The question was posed, "how many minutes did these
interruptions usually continue?" The answer, "Sometimes for 10
minutes. If the interruptions had been confined to one point, I do not think he
would have lost the thread of his argument, but the interruptions came in almost
every phase,"
Shauna: 14:05 you
know. Okay. I that's a good point. Like, um, you know, you're trying to explain
a thing and people keep interrupting just saying that's hard. Like you're
trying to tell a story cause I'm one of those people I never get to finish the
story cause people keep asking random questions and then I forget what I was
even saying.
Dan: 14:20 Well,
uh, your home life involves a lot of loud people who like to talk and your uh,
growing up life, if I remember, um, hearing you talk about it also involved a
lot of, lot of people who like to talk.
Shauna: 14:34 I
like to talk to, I'm just not as loud as all the other people's. So a lot of
times I'd just not cause it was easier.
Dan: 14:47 young
middleist. That's nice. All right. Another example, move into the uh, 19
hundreds here and this is out of the New York Tribune out of New York,
obviously, August 13th 1905 this is from a piece called Reeds Rules at Town
Meetings by Holeman Day, "the interruption had been too much for the
foreman strain composure. Neither his cows nor his horse nor his cat had ever
broken into mar the mellifluous and continuous flow of his oratory once
started, he needed to keep going. Any Tyro who has stood before an audience and
has lost the thread of his discourse, understands how utterly blank the mind
becomes. "
Shauna: 15:28 That
is true. If you've ever like saying also, and you forgot a lyric and then you
don't remember anything that's ever been in your brain ever. Yep. The whole
thing. It's gone.
Dan: 15:38 Yup.
I have no idea. Oh no. If I even stop and think about the star Spangled banner
and the words to that while I'm singing it, I'm done. I have no idea what's
going on.
Shauna: 15:46 You
just can't done. There's no more singing in that song, it's done. It's over.
That's the end.
Dan: 15:51 I
did want to point out that, uh, there's a, I thought a lot about, uh, move on
and the dragon, uh, the little dragon plate voiced by Eddie Murphy. Yeah. I
love that guy. Neither his cows nor his own horse, nor his cat. Oh my gosh.
Yeah, he's like curse on you...
Shauna: 16:06 Dishonor,
that's what it is. Dishonor on you. Dishonor on your cow. That's exactly, I
love that. That's fantastic. That's one of my favorite movies.
Dan: 16:19 Yeah,
no, I was not a teenager when it came out. And so I don't think I really paid
much attention to it. I've seen it cause I have kids, but.
Shauna: 16:25 it's
kind of like that timeframe was sort of the start of the like sort of like girl
power, but in a positive way. That makes sense. And yeah, Christina Aguilera
was singing it and you know,
Dan: 16:37 Yeah,
I get that. That makes sense. So I don't always think about things from that
perspective.
Shauna: 16:40 Yeah,
it was different. You know, there weren't a lot of um, female role models that
also seemed like they were chill and cool and powerful.
Dan: 16:59 So
one of the maybe more head-scratching uses I saw was in a technical manual by
the U S war department. This was in 1945 this was in the dictionary of spoken
Russian. And from what I can tell by reading it, it appears to take English
words like Lose for example, and then give English phrases and the Russian
equivalents following the word. So under lose, one of the phrases is I lost the
thread, which is a phrase that seems literally to a non native speaker. Like I
can't find the sewing stuff, but I don't read or speak Russian. So I don't know
how they translated that. But I do know that the word they use for lose is the
same word in the phrase after lost the thread. So I'm just not sure if I'm
like, I dunno. I like, I like seeing how they translate idioms, how anybody
translates any of those between, because in general it doesn't work well, but
I'm just not entirely sure if the U S war department knew something super
awesome here or was just really, really bad.
Shauna: 17:59 Uh,
yeah, I, I don't know. I can, part of me thinks that you just shouldn't use
idioms in any kind of like technical manual or especially if it pertains to
war,
Shauna: 18:13 That's
true. I will say though, on the language translation piece that, um, I have
some friends who speak Spanish and um, I can understand for the most part and
uh, and then, you know, I speak English and so they can understand most of our
conversations. And so though sometimes when we send each other messages online,
then, uh, you know, trying to use that translation piece, um, if I'm not sure
what it is, especially if it has an idiom in it and then it might say something
like misplaced the yarn and I'm going, uh, I'm sure that means something. And
you gotta kind of, you know, figure out what it is and yeah, it's fun.
Shauna: 18:57 Absolutely.
Or you just ask your friend back and forth in two different languages until you
both figure it out.
Dan: 19:03 Yeah,
that seems fair. Well, in any case, this phrase has been around since the 17
hundreds as lose. The thread lost the thread and losing the thread and it
hasn't changed much and its meaning or usage, which is pretty amazing for a
phrase that's over 300 years old.
Shauna: 19:17 Yeah,
that's pretty impressive to keep the same word, the same text. Yeah, that's,
that's cool.
Shauna: 19:23 Bunny
trails is and will always be free, but we are only able to make this content
because of the awesome support of our patrons, including Pat Rowe and Mary
Lopez. Because of Pat Mary and many others. You don't have to pay a dime to
enjoy bunny trails week after week. But even though Dan and I volunteer our
time, there are still costs to making the show including hosting fees,
transcription costs, equipment maintenance, domain fees, and more. So if you
are any financially stable place and would like to support this educational art
form, we encourage you to check out the options www.patreon.com/bunnytrailspod,
or you can link to it from our website, www.bunnytrailspod.com
Dan: 20:05 So
let's move into today and how it's used now. We find a 2000 TV documentary
called losing the thread and it's, this is the synopsis I found on IMDB about
this documentary. "This is a portrait of Lorenzo, a Florentine artist who
has been re repeating the creation of the same work of art for more than 20
years; a pliant and pointed blue, yellow, red acrylic 'thread' " and
thread is in quotations. So I had to go to the artist's website to really catch
a grasp of what they were talking about here. Uh, which basically is his
website, is a portmanteau of the object of his work and his name. So it's
filorenzo.com.
Dan: 20:48 So,
In 1977, he created the filo, an object in the form of a filament or strand
made of blue, yellow and red acrylic paint punctuated by small vertical
outgrowths in the same alternating primary colors.."
Dan: 21:05 "since
its creation. The filo has remained the generative cell, central medium and
symbol, of Pezzitini's artwork. The artist's dedication to the manual execution
of the filo, his attention to the process and his interaction with the public
constitute the foundation of his artistic research."
Dan: 21:24 So
the documentary is called losing the thread. And uh, this was basically the
whole documentary was about trying to find the reason for this, which the art,
the, uh, the filmmaker kind of laments both at the very beginning of the
documentary and at the end of it, again, that he never really found out why.
But it seems like the process of telling that story is as much a why as trying
to understand the actual reasons that, that this artist used these particular,
uh, or this particular style for 20 plus years now. So once again, the artist's
website is filorenzo.com F I, L O, R E N, Z O dot com.
Dan: 22:07 There's
a song by woodpecker street, uh, this is called lose the thread and it's off
the 2006 album, bold new city. I could only find this on Spotify and I could
not find the lyrics, but I listened to the song. And so I did pull out these
lyrics, "don't go with him and lose the thread. You could be kidnapped and
left for dead".
Dan: 22:30 It
is a little intense. And the song is kind of like, I don't know, a disjointed
up beat type song. So kind of a techno ish. But um, yeah, it was just, it was
very interesting there on Spotify. So go check them out. Uh, woodpecker street.
Dan: 22:47 There's
also a 2018, uh, piece of art. Uh, this is by Kate Fitzpatrick. She's an artist
who does a variety of forms. She has a multimedia piece called losing the
thread, which uses paper with red glyphs on it, uh, and it has multiple threads
coming out of it.
Dan: 23:04 So
I went to the website and the artist's general statement about our work covers
this part and I think it covers this bit a little bit. Well too. She says
"Sign systems play a crucial part in the social construction of our
reality and we often cannot separate these systems from our own experiences. We
take understanding these signs for granted and don’t often think about how we
came to understand these signs or if others can understand the way we use them.
However, signs systems can take a form of words, images, sounds, body gestures,
and objects. All signs communicate something that we may or may not understand
based on our own culture and experiences in the world at large. My work exists
in the gap between image and text. The creation of my own glyphs and script
transfers the delay of meaning and interpretation to provide a container for
schema."
Shauna: 24:10 This
is a neat concept, um, that she uses here about the signs I observed but didn't
participate in a conversation on social media. It was a pleasant one though
where they were all discussing the emoji that has the one tier that kinda, you
can't tell if it's laughing, sort of laughing and uh, it was interesting the
different ways in which people from similar backgrounds, the same area of our
country even had different um, interpretations for what that one emoji meant.
Dan: 25:07 No,
I normally laugh until I have a coughing fit. That's, that's where mine
inevitably lead to. If I laugh and laugh and laugh.
Shauna: 25:14 Fair
enough. I don't think I've ever peed but definitely had the like laugh until I
can't breathe cause you know, like it's just all collapsing or something.
Dan: 25:21 Well,
now that we've had a conversation about pee laughing, uh, I'll close out with a
couple of usages recently. Like when the last couple of days on social media.
Dan: 25:31 @dcpetterson
- On Twitter, wrote: I've always thought the WORST POSSIBLE THING is to die
unexpectedly. To not know it's coming. To not know what comes after. To lose
the thread of all the things you cared about. When I die, please, someone, tell
me about it. Will someone promise that? I need it.
Shauna: 25:50 That's
a really cool and reminds me of this quote by Marcus Aurelius and where he
talks about essentially that it doesn't matter how old or young you are, that
you exist in the present and you can't lose something you don't have. So you'd
like, you don't lose the past or the future, you lose your present wherever
that is. And so, um, I dunno, that's kinda deep thoughts here.
Dan: 26:21 I
also saw this one a little more upbeat. Uh, this is from @tomthefanboy and this
was on a conversation thread about those who have trouble regarding attention
spans and then listening to audio books. He says,
Dan: 26:34 Oh
I rewind stuff a lot! I lose the thread sometimes but it's super easy to rewind
and replay. Especially when they chop the book into multiple files. If you hate
being read to though that's a dealbreaker. LOL
Shauna: 26:45 So
true. And I love all of the things about that. That's exactly right. I listen,
I love my like backup ten second button. I use it all the time.
Dan: 26:53 I
have found that when I'm listening to audio books, I rarely have that issue.
Although occasionally when I'm listening to a freeform podcast kind of
something that's slightly improv like ours or something that's heavily improv'd
like my brother, my brother and me. So if I'm listening to something that's
really well scripted, like a the Anthropocene reviewed, I don't have that
problem. I'm able to follow it just fine or books. I don't have any problem
with that. Right. When it gets a little conversational, then I can, sometimes
I'll feel like, wait, what? I just missed something and I have to back it up.
Shauna: 27:27 Yeah.
And then I, I kinda think in that regard it probably has something to do with
being able to, to, to drop and pick up the, that piece of it without losing too
much. But then your brain kinda has to do a double take.
Dan: 27:40 Yeah.
And if I have to ask my brain to get involved, it's going to go downhill from
there.
Dan: 27:47 That's
right. Yeah. My subconscious is fine. If my active conscious has to get
involved, I'm hosed. All right, so last one for today, uh, by user @daye_pope
Some days it's easy to lose the thread that we are making progress, healing,
discovering what we authentically want and need to feel fulfilled, but some
days you remember again that this is all really taking you to better days and
that's beautiful :')
Dan: 28:15 So
this message reminds me that we do often lose the thread of ourselves,
especially on social media. I love connecting with people from across the
world, but it is difficult to compare my life to everyone else's highlight
reels. Uh, but, and I, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who feels that
way.
Dan: 28:31 I'm
sure that that's common, a common thread. So we don't want to lose the thread
that you are important. And you matter. And we're thankful that you have chosen
to spend the last 30 minutes with us and we hope it brightens your day at least
a little bit.
Dan: 28:48 Well,
don't get sappy now. We do have a favor to ask of you. So if you're going to be
on social media anyway, help us spread the word about the show. Make a post
about what you like about bunny trails and tag it with bunny trails as a
hashtag or whatever tag that you use so that more people can find it.
Shauna: 29:06 We're
so excited to be back for a third season and it is all thanks to you. Thanks
for joining us. We'll talk to you again next week. And until then, remember...
No comments:
Post a Comment