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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 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. This week I want to look at something that's not exactly an idiom, but
one I've heard in a variety of forms over the years. And executing this phrase
is something that I love in theory, but it doesn't always work out for me. So
this week we're going to look at crack of Dawn.
Shauna: 00:38 Um,
okay. Crack of Dawn. So like, I dunno, this reminds me of like eggs, you know,
in the morning like somebody went out and, I dunno, that's what they make in
the morning for breakfast. So they're like, you crack an egg. It's like the beginning
of the day, crack a Dawn. It doesn't make any sense.
Dan: 00:54 I
mean, it's definitely not something that I thought of before, but I liked the
idea. It has nothing to do with this, although breaking one's fast does have
just a little bit to do with this. So it's a, it's an interesting concept. So
the one consistent thing I see about this phrase from our online dictionaries
and etymological sites is that it entered the lexicon in the late 18 hundreds.
This is not true. Uh, and so this is why we like to independently verify
sources here on bunny trails. Uh, because the evidence clearly puts this phrase
quite a bit earlier than that. Uh, this is unfortunately a case of other people
citing other people's work. So it's, you know, we see it in the news media
sometimes to something will get reported and then in the attempt to be fast or
to not do extra work, they just report what the other reporter said.
Shauna: 01:45 Because,
you're hoping that source, that original source was, you know, you wanted them
to be right.
Dan: 01:51 And
maybe it's because you built a trust and so you didn't think to question it.
But if you don't do any of your own independent verification, then how would
you know? And so we actually verify everything that we talk about here. If it
has to do with our, our main phrase or we use wording that shows that we didn't
actually do that. Um, so I found our phrase in print, even though most of these
etymology and online dictionary sites talked about it starting in the late 18 hundreds,
I found our phrase in print as early as 1802, which means the phrase was likely
spoken, uh, or at least in spoken language as early as the late 17 hundreds or
maybe even earlier, but not the 18 hundreds. Uh, although that's probably
enough that we need to talk about why you can't believe what you read on the
internet. And instead, I just want to jump into this and, uh, and we're going
to cite our sources as we go, as we always.
Dan: 02:46 yes,
no, that's true. Abraham Lincoln did say you can't trust everything you read on
the internet. That's a famous quote of his, 100% true.
Dan: 03:03 Was
he, you asked him and then he was getting ready to go to a theater. You should
probably talk to him longer. All right. So according to dictionary.com, one of
the offenders earlier, um, crack of Dawn refers to the part of the morning when
light first appears in the sky.
Shauna: 03:21 Yeah,
see that makes sense. And I was thinking of that like physical or visual, you
know, like the crack of like a surface, you know. Um, and so then the lights
coming through, but I was trying to think if it was something different than
that. Like what would it be?
Dan: 03:36 No,
I liked the idea of cracking an egg. I, I do like that, but mostly because it
conjures images of breaking ones fast. And uh, as we will see, there is a nod
to that in a moment. But first sweet. What do you think of when you think of
the word crack? Just that word.
Dan: 03:56 That
is actually another phrase that I did run across several times while
researching this much, much later. Uh, entry into the lexicon.
Shauna: 04:05 Yeah.
So, um, okay. Side note bar. Uh, there's the movie with the dinosaurs land
before time
Shauna: 04:16 There's
this adorable little ducky plucky, I can't remember his name. And he seems that
song and it's so cute where he's like, don't step on a crack or you'll fall and
break your back. It was cute. Oh, don't put that in.
Dan: 04:31 Now
that you, now that you have said that, I do actually remember that I saw like
the first 23 of those movies, but I haven't seen the last 45. Yeah, no, I think
I saw the first two and that was it. So the Oxford English dictionary has
definitions raging from a sharp sound to a prostitute, addicted to the drug of
the same name. Oh wow. So it kind of runs in a whole variety of things about a
crack and the way it's used. It can be both a noun and a verb. But crack is a
word we inherited from the Germanic languages. Uh, other, there are similar
words also found in middle Dutch and French, although the middle Dutch makes
sense cause there's a lot of germanic there as well. But the Oxford English
dictionary says that originally, at least since the one thousands, uh, meant to
make a dry, sharp sound in breaking or to break with this characteristic sound.
So basically means crack originally could mean the sound itself or the action
you take to make the sound.
Shauna: 05:35 See,
that's so cool. I always thought crack was a great word because it sounds like
its namesake or you know, I know and I wish I could remember it, so. Okay.
Lexicographers out there. Help us please. Oh, what's the name for that is.
Dan: 06:12 Right.
So those are, that original meaning actually still holds true today. I mean,
that still is a way we use it. Uh, but it has a variety of things. So, uh, in
the 13 hundreds, it took on an additional meaning of to utter pronounce, to
tell aloud briskly. So tell him, this is where we get phrases like to crack a
joke.
Dan: 06:34 Yeah.
Like in, uh, Thomas Hocclave's letters of Cupid and he wrote, Kepe thyn owne what
men clappe or crake!
Dan: 06:44 Here's
another example. This one from the 1753 by Tobias George Smollett, which is
more in line with how we would use it today. And this is from The adventures of
Ferdinand Count Fathom He would Fane have cracked a joke upon their
extraordinary dispatch in the 18 hundreds we saw the use crack in a phrase
called crack up, which means to praise or to eulogize a person or thing. So
here's an example from 1829. This is an article in the May 28th edition of the
Kentucky and he is not the thing he has cracked up for. Now you'll notice
despite crack meaning or crack up in this case meaning, uh, to praise, it was
almost immediately paired with the negative. We're not a, which is the more
common way I have heard this phrase, or at least heard this phrase growing up
in Texas, which is where some saying someone or something is not all they're
cracked up to be. So it was always almost in always using a negative, in my
experience. And I wonder if that's a regional thing or if other of you
listeners out there, uh, also have heard it only used with like not all they're
cracked up to be.
Dan: 07:53 Right,
exactly. I wouldn't have said someone was cracked up to be positive unless I
meant to, as some sort of like colloquial play on words like, well, I'll be
darned. He really is all he's cracked up to be like that. That would be, let's
start using it. We'll make it happen. But that'd be the only, that'd be really
the only way that I would, I would think to use it is in like some sort of a
wordplay way, but I'm curious what everybody else has out there. Have you heard
crack up being used as like a positive thing without the not all, uh, kind of
thing? Uh, attributed to it?
Shauna: 08:25 Yeah.
I think I've heard people say, um, you know, like he's a crack up or even if I
heard somebody say somebody cracked up, I think I would like, maybe they're,
they're not real with it.
Dan: 08:37 Well,
there's potentially, because crack can also mean break as we'll see here. And
if you are broken, crack can also mean in the way that we use like cracking a
joke so it can go so many ways. This word has so much very good word. All
right. But let's go back to the definition. This be used at least since the 16
hundreds and likely before to break or fracture anything so that the parts
still remain in contact but do not cohere. It's just a beautiful way to define
that. So good job. Oxford English dictionary. Yes. Thank you. Here's an example
from 1605 by Bishop Joseph Hall in his work, meditations and vows, divine and
morall glasses that are once cracked are soon broken. That's true. And the
phrase break of Dawn has been used since at least the 15 hundreds. So we saw crack
of Dawn or or the word crack start being used in crack odone crack oday, crack
of day, all of those being used.
Dan: 09:38 Starting
with that first example I found in 1802, which means it was likely used before
that as well. But break of Dawn has been used since at least the 15 hundreds
and possibly before. I did not spend a just an insane amount of time looking
for a break of Dawn. Uh, but, and so, but it is likely, uh, that this is the
predominant source of the phrase, uh, because break of Dawn or morning breaking
across the skyline is a precursor, but they have been used, uh, contemporarily
ever since then. So, uh, so that's most likely the how. But, and there are
other examples that that we'll give here a little bit later. Uh, but of of
other things that it could be, but that seems like the most logical source is
to move from break of Dawn, which was a common phrase at the time to crack of
Dawn. Again, that's just how we still have to cover the when. So despite the
internet phrase blogs claiming to start in the mid to late 18 hundreds, uh, the
first example I found was 1802 and that would of course lead me to think it was
almost certainly in the lexicon for some people in the 17 hundreds. Yeah. It
was real hard to like write and publish a book the same year even so. Well, it
took them probably a whole year to like write the book.
Dan: 10:54 I'm
sure they are. They're pretty impressed by, Oh, I'll write a story and people
feel like it was before that. Oh, it was definitely before. Yes. Yes. It was a
great, that's a great site. The Gutenberg project. Anyway. Um, as far as hard
evidence goes, we know it at least was being used in 1802. So, and I found it
in that book in a book in 1802 called the Prairie scout or ag atone, the
Renegade, a romance of border life. And this was by Charles Wilkins Weber. And
this was a obviously used some slang terms and it was written in a, the way
that people would have actually spoken, uh, in this particular setting. I don't
mind or horse running when I knows a horse is in the case and can see which way
he'll take. How could anybody wore, want to thick with old scratch like she
have knowed, they had a horse waiting in the Bush. I thunk she talked to her
broomstick till the Crack o'day. Wow. Yeah. That's really hard to read cause
it's very difficult to, for me to say it like that. But this case we see crack.
O' in the O apostrophe and then day crack O'day.
Dan: 12:12 Well
yeah, exactly. So this was their way of saying they, they tuck the broomstick
until, uh, the crack of day. Meaning it happened all night long, which is
another interesting interpretation of, you know, depending on how you use crack
of day or crack of Dawn. So in Paulding's Works, Volume 6: Letters from the
South, by a Northern man, And this was, by By James Kirke Paulding This was
published by Harper in 1835. And this letter was written to a man named Frank.
This was letter 40. When mass John got de letter, he come out and say, Jerry,
keep your gray horses up in de stable. Feed them well and be ready to set out
tomorrow morning at the crack a day. All right, we got more horses, more
horses, more crack o's, more horses, more cracks of days. Yes. A whole lot of
things. Here's another example from 1839.
Dan: 13:07 And
this is out of, this is the course air volume one. This is a published out of
New York and by NP Willis in the fulfillment of our resolutions on Saturday
evening, we jumped on board that flyaway boat, the swallow a boat. Who speed is
only surpassed by the urbane hospitality of our commander, captain mcclane, and
shooting up the ever glorious old Hudson with magical swiftness. We found
ourselves at the first crack of Dawn laying off Albany. I assumed this was a
captain mcclane as in a Bruce Willis. His character in die hard.
Shauna: 13:48 It
makes sense. I mean really, and I mean you've gotta have some strong will to be
doing that stuff, so yeah.
Dan: 13:53 Yeah,
definitely. Yeah. John mcclane could do that. It's even spelled the same. It's
even spelled like that kind of mcclane
Dan: 13:59 All
right. Out of the Holly Springs Gazette, this is November 11th, 1841. And this
was written, uh, and it says this, Holly Springs, Mississippi, and it says home
affairs now for our municipal matters and city concerns, Holly Springs is fast
getting the better of the times and his imperfect truth. Looking up in several
points of view, business is becoming very busy indeed. Our merchants and
they're thrifty ones. Poor Richard's sort of men are stirring from the crack of
day until the dying of the great sun. I like that. That's like so poor.
Richard's like poor, rich, poor, rich men. Yeah. Hard workers. Also found
another example out of 1849 and this was in Los gringos or an inside view of
Mexico in California with wandering in Peru, Chile and Polynesia by Henry
Augustus wise at the famous crack of day. The next morning a sail was seen
creeping close along the mainland and in a few seconds we were springing away
in the whale boat. Most of us Sans culottes. I had to look up, I had to look up
culottes because I was like, surely it doesn't mean like the kind of ladies'
pants now, but it kind of, it was a kind of men's britches during this
timeframe.
Shauna: 15:11 Yeah.
They're like, well they started as men's pants. Yeah. And then became, I did
not know that, but I know that, yeah, that's kind of a lot of the female
fashion as actually drive from men's fashion of ye olden times.
Dan: 15:27 I
also found it in a dictionary of English etymology in E through P volume two by
Hinz lay Wedgwood. And this was, um, published by Trübner, in 1862 and it was
under the dictionary definition for two Keek, which was K E E K And then Keek
peep and teet are all used in the sense of looking narrowly and all seemed
originally derived from the representation of a sharp sound. So, uh, and it
talks about in a couple of different languages, how some of these sounds, are
made and they sound like themselves, right. Chick is also used to represent the
sound made by a hard body breaking and thence a crack or a chip. And it is perhaps
from the image of the light shining through a crack that the notion of the
peeping is derived. Thus we speak in differently of the peep of day or crack of
day.
Shauna: 16:19 Oh
yeah. That's cool. I liked that piece of day phrase that come back version of
it. It's kinda cool. Yeah.
Dan: 16:32 All
right. I'll give you, I'll give you one more example here. This is from uh, May
27th, 1869 out of the Delaware Tribune, years have passed since the December
day when just at the crack of Dawn, a small band of Arapahos that was in route
from the forks of the plat towards the South, took every hoof of stock from a
party of hunters whose camp had been for two days, some 20 miles West of the
Island or force it and his Scouts made their guy fight last fall. So again,
just another way it's being used pretty regularly and
Shauna: 17:03 yeah,
that the rest of that isn't, you know, this flourishy type of writing. So it's
just being used as a general.
Dan: 17:10 Right,
exactly. The rest of it is just kind of matter of fact. And so crack of day was
being used in this case. Matter of fact as well, we really see it in American
newspapers in the mid 18 hundreds really start to take off and instead of being
used in with writing that's written more in a slang style, we see it used with
writing that's being used in a more, um, acceptable style I suppose.
Dan: 17:35 As,
as I've already discussed, the break of Dawn has been used since the 16
hundreds and the crack of Dawn likely joined us in the late 17 hundreds. Um,
but since these phrases were used at the same time since then and have meant
the same thing, I find it logical this to be the origin of, of the phrase crack
of Dawn as crack, as a noun does have a definition. I will, I'll just point
this out because I did see somebody comment on this, and they weren't like an
expert or anything. It was just somebody positing the possibility and, and, and
it does have some merit. but crack as a noun does have a definition of the time
occupied by a crack or a shot, a moment, an instant, like in a crack. In a
moment immediately. And that's from the Oxford English dictionary.
Shauna: 18:19 Cool.
Okay. So you know, that crack of Dawn is that instant when it becomes, you
know, day.
Dan: 18:25 Right.
And that's, that's been used like that since the mid 17 hundreds, which would
have been probably prior to crack of day being used, uh, or at least, uh,
around the same timeframe. Um, so in this case, if you used that figuratively,
and we have seen numerous examples of things that we have taken and used them,
they were being used literally, but we almost immediately started using them
figuratively as well. So if used figuratively, meaning longer than an instant,
of course. Um, this could also be what some people meant when they use the
phrase. So that's another viable option. I don't have a lot of evidence to
support that, but somebody had made that claim in a comment on something that I
was reading and I thought, that's actually not, I mean, I can't disprove that.
So, and there's no reason to think it wouldn't possibly be accurate. I liked
the concept of the break of Dawn to crack of Dawn just because there's such a
natural logical flow and they've been used together at the same time to mean
the same thing for so long that it seems natural that one probably came from
the other, but also a very good point here.
Shauna: 19:30 I
like that. So you have, you know, that verb of the day, cracking open or
whatever and then it could also be a noun, the physical crack in the day.
Dan: 19:43 It
could be. I and I liked the, I liked the illusion that you had brought up about
breaking one's fast. Uh, because the break of day would be also the start of
that the moment that it begins opening. Right. And so is the end of one and the
beginning of another and breaking one's fast, uh, or breakfast as, as we would
more commonly call it now, uh, has kind of the same connotations. I do want to
add a special note about a slightly more vulgar, at least in the classical
definition of vulgar, a way that this is used a butt crack of Dawn. And I think
that it's important to mention this because I have definitely seen this a lot
in the social media research that I did to see how it's being used today.
Dan: 20:23 So
I feel the phrase has been around since the late 1980s at least, because I'm
pretty sure I heard it at school while in the, in the 80s.
Dan: 20:33 Uh,
and I'm, I know my friend Chuck used to say in the early to mid 1990s, so I
definitely think that the phrase has been around longer than I saw it in print.
But the first time I actually could find it in print. And mind you, I didn't do
a whole lot on this. Uh, but the first time I saw it was in a 2001 book.
Darkling I listen by Katherine Stucliffe, and she writes, nobody told you to
show up here at the butt crack of Dawn. Did they sarcasm, derision again? God,
she must be nuts to put herself through this. That's awesome. But as Francis
Grose taught us over 250 years ago in his work dictionary of the vulgar tongue,
they don't usually put less classy phrases in print for awhile. So who knows
when we started saying butt crack of Dawn.
Shauna: 21:18 Right.
Well I mean, so there's the other piece of that is that crack, you know, and
like bum, you know, has been associated for a while. Right. And, uh, so yeah, I
could see those being tied together pretty early on and not in print. t
Dan: 21:33 Oh,
well yeah, I suppose so. I, I think in this case it's pretty safe to say this
is just a sophomore merger of butt crack and crack of Dawn because you have
that kind of before and after like in a wheel of fortune. This might've even been
a answer in wheel of fortune, but crack of Dawn. So, but anyway, um, I, I think
let's face it here, for many of us that thought of a plumber's butt crack and
the thought of getting up at the crack of Dawn are equally unappealing. So I
could definitely see why it is continued on. And as we will see after the break
why it has been used so continuously, uh, in, uh, the social media sphere. Even
today,
Shauna: 22:16 this
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Dan: 23:01 So
I wanted to use some modern examples of how we're using crack of Dawn, but I
ran into a 1925 silent movie called crack, O'dawn, crack, and then O
apostrophe. And then Dawn. So I'll read this synopsis from allmovie.com
produced on the cheap by Harry J. Brown. This silent car racing drama starred
former male model Reed Howes and Ruth Dwyer as lovers whose feuding father's
former business partners are both dead set against the union. When the girl's
father discovers that his rivals enterprising son has built his own race car
and plans to enter the big race, the jealous manufacturer intelligence, and a
bit of sabotage. But despite perils, howes manages not only to win the race but
also reunite the partners. I will also note that Crack o'dawn was photographed
by Lee Garmes, an ace cinematographer and lighting expert who would win an
Academy award for Shanghai express seven years later.
Dan: 24:18 So
I found a song called crack of Dawn. This was written, well, I don't know when
it was written, but it was performed in 2013 at the Blacktown arts center. Uh,
and this was a written by Merriam Lieberman and performed by Marian Lieberman,
Kate Adams and Laura Goodridge and I will link to it on the Patreon so everyone
can see it. I thought it was a really interesting song. Uh, it was very pretty,
but I didn't find the lyrics and I couldn't hear them quite clear enough to
write it down, but I really didn't need to hear the lyrics to like the song. So
I wanted to include it here. There's also a crack of Dawn band based out of
Toronto. They do R and B and hip hop and you can find more of them at
crackofdawnband.com. So there's two examples of it being used recently in pop
culture. Um, I also, there are a couple of books here.
Dan: 25:08 Uh,
the first one, uh, is from 2018. It's a book of poems called crack of Dawn by
Lucy Bora and crack of Dawn is a collection of poetry and prose. And there's
some illustrations interspersed as well. Uh, the, there's basically, there's
three chapters to it. And, and so it's kind of the idea is that there's a girl
who's developed an infatuation for a biker guy, uh, whose name signifies
daybreak and, and basically reveals her feelings through these, these series of
poems and prose. And so the first chapter is about the guy that she's fallen in
love with. And the second chapter is about her divergent feelings and thoughts,
uh, and, and the types of things that one has to deal with while they're in
love. And then the third one basically has some, some memorable moments of them
after they've gotten together. Oh, that's kind of fun, right? So overall crack
of Dawn as a whole book kind of tells the story of a girl in her love life, uh,
but through poems and prose. So I thought that was really cool and I really
wanted to include that. Um, I did see another book that I had to include just
because I thought it was very interesting. The synopsis was steamy. Uh, and so
this was also called crack of Dawn. It was from 2016 it was a little earlier
and this was by Amber sky, which sounds like a suedanym.
Dan: 26:26 Here's
a, here's a little, here's the synopsis that I found on both Amazon and good
reads. She continued to examine me with eyes that were both gray and blue, deep
rivers of color that had me temporarily hypnotized. Then the elevator deemed
breaking the spell. When the door opened, she stepped and reached a handout to
hold the door. I gathered myself and joined her inside. She held out a long
slender hand with well manicured fingernails, but oddly I noticed the nails on
her middle and index fingers were cut rather short. "I'm Fiona." She
said, "I live in unit 1200" I shook her hand noticing immediately the
velvety softness of her skin. Her hand was warm and dry and her grip was firm
without being overbearing. This woman had nothing to prove and somehow that
increased my feelings of inferiority. "I'm Dawn." I said smoothly
surprising myself that I'd finally gotten the few words out without stammering.
Dan: 27:19 She
looked me up and down once more and spoke. "Hello Dawn." She cooed as
she released my hand. "Are you going all the way down?"
Dan: 27:29 Yeah.
So as you might imagine, this is an erotic story of a woman, Dawn who finds a
short but heavy session with a Fiona. The crack in the title crack of Dawn is a
play on BDSM, which apparently factors heavily into the book. And these two
women have a very enjoyable short, um, interaction series of interactions. So
yeah, so I thought it was very interesting. Sapphic 40 shades of gray or some..
Real Kinda, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Kinda yes, yes. Kind of like that.
There was also a reggae musician who goes by the stage name Cracka don, and
this is C R A C K A D O N a two words Cracka-Don. And I just, that makes me
laugh. I could not stop laughing when I saw it.
Dan: 28:19 And
I was like, is this for real? And I'm like, yes, yes, it's a reggae musician.
He actually just dropped an album on December of this past year, 2019 so last
month. And it is available on iTunes. So if you are into reggae music, you
should go check out crack a dawn, because that name just makes me laugh. All
right, let's run this up with a trip through Twitter. Uh, and I was looking
basic, I was looking for different ways that people were using the phrase now
in their interactions. And I found butt crack of Dawn and the slightly more
vulgar ass crack of Dawn were used in, well over half of the tweets that I saw.
Oh wow. So most people were commenting on crack of Dawn as a thing they didn't
want to have to deal with. Like it was always being up at. And then, you know,
one of the vulgarities associated with it.
Dan: 29:09 And
this was just, this is just common nomenclature. So I'm not sure I can even say
it's a little guarantees at this point because this is, this seems to be the
predominant way the phrase is used now is complaining about having to be up or,
or whatever. Um, but, uh, the one I felt was the most simple tweet. Uh, and
this is one that I think 19 year old me might've said every day and this is by
tweets, by Tia. She just simply says, I really need to stop staying up until
the crack of Dawn. I feel you Tia. Well that's about all the time we've got for
this week. If you have a little time, we'd love for you to keep sharing the
show with your friends on social media. So if you could go to Facebook or
Twitter and share the show link, that would help us a ton. We've pinned the
show, a link to the top of both of those feeds, so I'm hopeful there'll be easy
to find a, we're also going to put an audio gram or two out this week and
they'll have a basically a shareable short clip from the show, so feel free to
share that this week as well.
Shauna: 30:09 If
you haven't heard, we've started putting up our episodes from season three on
YouTube. It's nothing different from what you get on the podcast feed. It's
just another place for you to get the show and if that's your thing, check it
out. Thank you again to our awesome patrons for making the show possible and
thanks to you for joining us. We'll talk to you again next week. And until
then, remember, words belong to their users.
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