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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. Every Wednesday we take an idiom or other turn of phrase and try
to tell the story from its entry to the English language to how it's used
today. Shauna, do you know what CPR is?
Shauna: 00:17 I
do. I, okay, hold on. I know what it stands for. It is a cardio pulmonary
resuscitation,
Dan: 00:25 That's
Right. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation. So about 10 years ago we had memes about
CPR and humming songs to help keep practicing doing the chest compressions at
the right tempo. And uh, the most popular one was staying alive by the Bee
Gees, you know, because it's a positive message. And uh, if you were kind of
humming that in your head while you did it while you were practicing, then you,
it, it was a good hundred beat per minute type song. And at the time that's
what they were saying is, um, you know, a hundred, a hundred beats per minute.
Although I think now they just say push hard and fast in the center of the
chest. Uh, but this was back when they were trying to be very specific and
particular about a thing that um, people might never do in their whole life.
I've done it lots, but you know, as a paramedic that was sort of a thing that
sometimes we did. But if you have a morbid sense of humor, you could also have
a different song. Another one bites the dust by queen also at the same tempo.
Dan: 01:27 It
is, well I, well yes I do like that song more, but it is definitely a more
morbid song to sing. Well you're trying to keep someone alive. But if you're
not a native English speaker, the title may confuse you. Like why is another
one bites the dust a morbid depiction of trying to save someone's life? Uh, and
so we're going to help you out this week cause this week we're going to talk
about bite the dust.
Dan: 01:57 So
the Oxford English dictionary has the meaning of bite the dust as to fall in
death or to die. So the dark humor that comes from this song choice is that
you're singing, you're basically singing a song about death while you're trying
to save someone. And that would be where the dark humor of that comes from.
Like when you explain it like that, it's not funny, but in the moment or if
you're someone who has kind of a dark or what we would call twisted sense of
humor, uh, then that would be, uh, outside of the norm and that would be a a,
that would be potentially funny. Anyway, explaining jokes never goes well, the,
uh, the Oxford English dictionary also has an alternate definition of bite the
dust as to fall to the ground, especially to fall wounded or slain. And the
Cambridge dictionary points out that bite the dust can also mean to end in
failure. They use the example, "his career bit the dust when he lost his
job. "
Shauna: 02:55 All
right. So I mean, I guess still in that, in that I still even interpret that as
like basically died. Like cause but it was his career, not him, you know?
Dan: 03:04 Right,
right. Yes, absolutely. And so this is just, it is still like the death of
something, but instead of the death of a person, now it's the death of a thing.
But we don't normally say things died because we generally reserve die for a
living entity. And if it was ever living, then it can't have died. Or at least
that would be like under a literal definition. So these other definitions kind
of capture that figurative component. But as far as, as far as the ending in
failure, although, uh, there's, there's, it's easy to see because not only if
it ended in failure, it died, but it also, um, can tie back to that alternate
definition of bite the dust, the to fall to the ground or fall wounded or
slain. Because in that case, if you fall in wounded or slain, you may have
failed in your task of warring.
Dan: 04:03 We
do a word history podcast. Whew. Any idea when this phrase may have entered the
English lexicon?
Shauna: 04:11 Okay.
So I have some, some former knowledge of this, but also I, I skipped ahead in
the, in the thing, the,
Dan: 04:19 Oh,
in the show notes that are available on Patreon for all of our $1 a month or
more patrons.
Dan: 04:28 I
don't release them until after the episode. Okay. It's not like I'm like
"here everyone, here is the show notes for that was that we're going to do
in three weeks"
Dan: 04:39 All
right, so there's a case to be made that this may have been used, uh, in the
Greek as early as the seven hundreds. Uh, and we will circle back to the Greek
a little later in the show. But let's start with the first time we actually can
find evidence for our phrase in English. And that was actually in, uh, a what
was called a new dictionary, French and English. So this is a French to English
dictionary that is working through, um, how you would say something from their
native tongue and in French into English. And this is from Bassett publishing
in 1677. Cool. And do they have a French phrase that I cannot say because I
just, my tongue just does not do that. Shauna, would you do the honors please?
Dan: 05:46 Which
was better than mine. Listen, if I try and say it with any sort of like, if I
even try and say French, it just sounds like I'm making fun of someone. So I
just, I just can't, I don't, I can't do accents. I can't do foreign languages,
foreign language. I can't do world languages. So as if, as if English is the standard
or something. What a ridiculous thing. All right, so, but, but that's, so
that's right there. They, they specifically use to bite the dust in 1677 as a
phrase that this would've been the English equivalent to whatever they just
said in French.
Dan: 06:20 Yeah.
So we know that it is, was in the, the spoken lexicon at least in 1677, uh,
and, and potentially earlier. Now the next time that I found it in, in print at
all. And the first time that I saw it in a work, uh, was in a 1728 English
translation of François Fénelon's
Dan: 06:46 Thank
you High school French. And in this, uh, the translation into English said,
"not being able to reach the divine old man had lanced his darts on
several Pylians, and made them bite the dust".
Dan: 06:59 So
we see it there. I mean, it's just being used as a standard phrase at this
point, even in 1728, but that's the first time that I could find it actually
used in a publication, um, a work of, of writing. So, and, and this is always
the struggle anytime we're trying to research the history of words is that it's
very difficult to capture the history of words through a spoken medium because
so many, I mean, even if we, even if we remember things fairly well, and even
if it was a very popular phrase, uh, the thing about idioms is that as those
idioms change over time, we're only relaying the idioms as we understand it
now.
Dan: 07:40 So
when a oral tradition, we would lose potentially lose some of those, uh, some
of the stylings and the way it was actually used. So it's good to have it in
print, but one we haven't been doing print for like, you know, just too
terribly long, not in a mass consumed way that, uh, someone like you or I would
be able to research and find information about. Uh, and two, uh, it's, it's not
always, I'm not, I don't, I just established that I don't do other languages
very well. I'm learning, but it's not, it's not my thing. So, uh, I'm a researcher
so I, I can dig in and find the information, but I can't always interpret, uh,
like middle English cause I'm like, I don't know what that says. I have to call
someone who does that to help out with that. I also found another work in 17,
28, so I don't want to say, I guess I said the first time I saw it was in
François' piece, there is his translation or in the translation of François'
piece.
Dan: 08:37 But
I also want to point out that there is another book that came out also in 17,
28, uh, by GB Basile and this is called, The Pentamerone. And this was actually
a selection of several stories. And one of the things that they said in here
was, "is it for a girl to teach her father forsooth? Have done I say, and
don't drive the mustard up into my nose ;for if I lay these hands upon you,
I'll not leave a whole bone in your skin and I'll make you bite the dust."
Dan: 09:08 Okay.
First of all, child abuse is bad obviously, but uh, yeah. In this case,
they're, they're specifically using the phrase, bite the dust in that to to die
or to make them fall wounded. Uh, that's the whole purpose of this for phrase,
which is like super not cool. But also, you know, it was very clearly in the
language at this point.
Dan: 09:29 In
Tobias George Smollett’s 1749 translation of Alain René Le Sage · The
adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane where they wrote, "we made two of
them bite the dust and the others but take themselves to flight."
Dan: 09:52 Maybe
they were bird hunting or bird hunting or bird hunting. I love, I love that
interpretation. They were just bird hunting. What if, what if they were hunting
rocks that were rolling down the Hill so that nothing had to die.
Dan: 10:09 Another
example from the November 7th, 1792 edition of the Gazette of the United
States, this was out of New York and it spoke of a particular scene that had
recently happened during the French revolution. And this kind of blew my mind a
little bit, and I like, we have these historical warm holes and these
historical events that happen. And I don't know why, but for some reason in my
brain, the French revolution didn't happen at a time that we had American
newspapers, but it did, uh, it was happening along in the early days of
America, uh, after they had, you know, after the revolutionary war and such.
Dan: 10:50 But
for whatever reason, when I was reading this, uh, and I was just like, that
sounds a lot like, Oh, I had to look it up. But I'm like, is that, is something
like we're talking about the French revolution that's happening, you know, in
another country from America standpoint, but, uh, in a newspaper that I'm
reading right now on, on the library of Congress's website. So it was very interesting
to me and I thought that that was pretty cool. But, uh, so this is what the
piece says, "the palace gate leading to the terrace was obstructed by
heaps of dead, almost naked. And is if still biting the dust, their hands
grasped in rage to have fallen by the sword of the people."
Dan: 11:32 Yeah.
It has a, it has all the S' are F's in this timeframe. And so it takes my brain
a half a second to to process as I read it.
Dan: 11:44 Yeah.
Well and, and the microfilm, that was what was digitized also, you know, wasn't
in the best shape from 1792 that's actually in pretty good shape. I've seen,
I've seen more recent stuff is way worse. So this is actually, it's not too
bad.
Dan: 11:57 I
want to move into the 18 hundreds now. And uh, and this is an example of seeing
bite the dust being used as fall to the ground rather than dying here. And so
this is from Charles John Anderson in his work Lake Ngami, or, Explorations and
discoveries during four years' wanderings in the wilds of south western Africa.
Again, 1856 "in the course of a half an hour, he had twice bitten the
dust."
Dan: 12:24 Yeah.
So in this case, he's using the fallen down thing. And I, until I read this
particular one, I couldn't think of a time when I had used bite the dust or bit
the dust as to mean falling down on when I had read the original, when I read
the first definitions and that cause that was an alternate and I was like, I
can't think of a time I've used that.
Dan: 12:44 But
then reading this, uh, when, when he said he in the course of half an hour, he
had twice bitten the dust. And when I couple that with the title, uh, which the
subtitle is, is during four years wandering in the wilds of South Western
Africa and suddenly hiking came to mind and or climbing those types of things.
And then I had a flood of memories of times that I had fallen down in
specifically think about, I think I used the phrase or heard the phrase used
about me. I mean like, Oh, I bit the dust or man, I bit the dust like six times
on there. So be careful, you know, and so then suddenly I do remember having
used it in that setting and it would make total and perfect sense if somebody,
if I, even if I hadn't used it and someone had said it, I would know exactly
what they mean, which is what an idiom does. It's something that a native
speaker would, would rather intuitively understand. And a non native speaker,
speaker may not.
Shauna: 13:41 Uh,
yeah, definitely. I, I didn't until you read that passage or you know, had this
here, I didn't, didn't remember that either. But did recall like, as a kid that
there were times when either running around in the yard or like you said,
hiking or out, you know, doing things where somebody falls down and, and that,
that's the phrase that I would hear used. Oh, he bit the dust. You know.
Dan: 14:01 So
in the 1890s, Samuel Butler translated Homer's, the Iliad, uh, which contains
the line, "grant that my sword may Pierce the shirt of Hector about his
heart and that full, many of his comrades may bite the dust as they fall, dying
around him."
Dan: 14:16 So
the Illiad was written in seven, seven hundreds. And, um, this is a good
example of the differences between what are the original Greek say. And the
Greek definitely had a phrase that was close to this, uh, and it, that meant
the same thing. So are the origins of this phrase definitely at least come from
from the Greek, um, and, and potentially earlier than that, cause we, we also
saw in, in, in French, uh, but we, we, we don't know that, uh, the term was
exactly translated like that. So here's a, an example from AT Murray's
translation, which is a bit more literal from the Greek that says "fall
headlong into the dust and bite the earth."
Dan: 14:58 It
is. It is pretty close. So these are a couple of different translations of the
Iliad here. Uh, which I think goes to show that the concept of this, uh, a
falling face down to the ground upon death has been around, at least since
Homer's time in the seven hundreds. Uh, but we can't quite claim our phrase is
being from the same timeframe because you know, the translation between works.
So we know this concept's been here for sure. And if you wanted to say that
this phrase has been around, or the concept of this phrase has been around
since the seven hundreds, I think you'd be absolutely right to do so. Uh, but
we can't be confident it was in somewhat popular spoken language until the 16
hundreds, because we saw it show up in that French English dictionary in 1677.
Shauna: 15:41 This
week's episode is sponsored by our patrons. Bunny trails is and always will 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
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everyone who has been talking about the show on social media this past week,
including Rosie Chomet, Cutting Class podcast, Ad free talk radio.com, Grizzle
and fluff, Words for Granted Podcast, Lingpods, bacon dad, your brain on facts
pod, Jeremy Biltz, the Lexitexture podcast and more.
Dan: 16:49 My
next example is from 1905 and I absolutely love this example because it's an
anti president Roosevelt chant and it was targeted at the bachelors trust club
in Chicago and this is out of the Omaha daily be April 2nd, 1905 "here's
to Teddy grand trust Buster smashes new ones every day. Let beef and standard
heat his bluster, the bachelor trust has come to stay for. Here's the trust he
cannot bust. Let Cupid aid him as he may old JDR may bite the dust, but BTC has
come to stay."
Dan: 17:25 And
it, and it goes on to point out the shameful ways of the bachelors trust club
and how they love federal interference in everyone else's affairs, but they
just don't like it in their own. Ah, and I thought this was interesting because
this meant it was circulated to a wide audience, as an advertisement because
like this is out of Chicago, but it was the Omaha, Nebraska newspaper. So it
was, yeah, they pushed it out into probably everybody within the region. And
I'm sure you know across the Telo type telegram, tell a graph, tell us
something.
Dan: 18:04 Yeah.
I don't know. I man, I have learned this like six or seven times, but I still
can't. It's telegram.
Dan: 18:16 Yeah,
you send a telegram over a telegraph. I just, for whatever reason, that is not
intuitive to my brain and I have to stop and think about it.
Dan: 18:22 In
1940 as part of a marketing campaign for Pinocchio, Walt Disney studios put out
a series of newspaper strips featuring Jimminy cricket, and that was the little
cricket guy that was Pinocchio's conscience in the movie. Harriett Eager Davis
wrote the words to the strips and I'll read a small portion of this rhyming
prose from the evening star out of Washington DC. July 14th, 1940 "So fast
the lightning dash was one, the crowd looked on in wonder. They thought the war
was just an act, and never guessed their blunder. Stromboli yelling loud and
long, was running like a quitter. Those bugs had made him bite the dust, and Oh
the taste was bitter. Yet on they hopped and never stopped, their valorous
endeavor. Fleabitis! Was their battle cry, we'll cook your goose forever.
Shauna: 19:10 That
is like, okay. So I love the, the whole phrase like everything there, the way
it's written. But um, man, that's a little bit of a little bit of a message
going on there.
Dan: 19:21 Yeah.
This was interesting because this, this campaign kept going on for a while
because, and I don't know how long movies would have had a run back in the
1940s. It's not really my area of expertise. Uh, but the movie came out in
February of 1940 and these were running in the papers in July of 1940. So
they're continuing to have this, uh, trying to keep it in the public
consciousness concept going on. And I think it, it basically, it was like a series.
It wasn't, it wasn't quite like comic strips. Like we would think of them
today. There was some illustrations and those were done by Walt Disney studios.
But, uh, all of the words were written by, uh, Harriet eager Davis. And so, uh,
and it is, and they, and they credit her in, in the newspaper article, which is
weird because in the 1940s, we generally didn't credit women for their work.
Dan: 20:11 So
cool for them, I guess. Good job, Walt Disney studios for giving credit where
credit was due, although they just say the illustrations were done by Walt
Disney studios, but maybe that means cause they were done by a lot of people.
We mentioned this at the top of the show, but it's worth another mention here.
Queen has a song called another one bites the dust. It's off of the 1980 album,
the game, and it was written by the bass guitarist John deacon. The lyrics
begin.:
Dan: 20:36 Steve
walks warily down the street, With the brim pulled way down low Ain't no sound
but the sound of his feet, Machine guns ready to go Are you ready, Are you
ready for this Are you hanging on the edge of your seat Out of the doorway the
bullets rip To the sound of the beat And then he goes on to say, another one
bites the dust , another one gone, and another one gone , Another one bites the
dust .
Shauna: 20:58 yeah.
I'm going to say here, you can tell, um, that this is written by a bass
guitarist because the song doesn't start with those lyrics. It starts with,
budda dump dump dump
Dan: 21:08 Okay.
That's a good point. That's a good point. And a, a, that would be a bass
guitarist that just pointed that out to me. So
Dan: 21:20 Oh
yeah. Well that's the whole thing. Cause it's to the sound of the beat. I mean
like that's the whole, that bum bum.
Dan: 21:26 There's
another song called bite the dust. This is from the pussycat dolls and it's off
the 2005 album PCD, which I assume stands for pussycat dolls, but I don't know.
And uh, they, the lyrics here say:
Dan: 21:38 Bite
the dust Trust me, anything you can do I can do better than you Bite the dust
Some things really impossible You're no exception to rules Bite the dust How
many times I go to tell you? People need to see you Bite the dust You see, I'm
really helping you I'm keeping you from looking a fool She's got a plan to have
my man She's going to have to deal with me
Shauna: 22:08 Well,
you know, I listened to them, but it was a little bit after my angsty ragey
time of my life. So, you know, I enjoyed it. I was like, yeah, I totally
would've listened to that when I was like, you know, a teen.
Dan: 22:25 So
here's the very interesting movie that I ran across and it's a 2013 film, uh,
and it's a Russian film called bite the dust, uh, and it was, uh, screened out
of competition at the 2013 Cannes film festival. It's a touching comedy drama
with a subversive undercurrent of humorous criticism of the Russian government
and modern Russian mores. They said it was sparsely but beautifully filmed. And
this was directed by Taisia Igumentseva. "The handful of inhabitants of a
tiny and isolated contemporary Russian rural village receives the news from
state media that the 90% of humanity is about to perish due to a coronal mass
ejection. The old man of the village doesn't believe the news ("But the
president said so!" "Ah, who cares what he says. That's his job, to
say stuff!"), but nonetheless the village prepares one last party as they
await the apocalypse, a party at which all the secret thoughts and desires of
the villagers will be revealed and manifested in the belief that the end is
nigh."
Dan: 23:33 yeah,
it's an apocalyptic movie, but it really plays on the, and I don't know if the
world actually ends there. I would imagine that if it screened at Cannes, you
would not actually see that because that would not be, that would be the
motivation. It wouldn't be important. So they probably wouldn't show that and
you would never know.
Dan: 23:52 Yeah,
it's a good, it's a good one. There's also a, a, another one bites the dust,
which is a novel by Chris Marie Green. Uh, and this is a Jensen Murphy novel
and it says, uh, this is by penguin random house. Jensen Murphy is back in this
spooky sequel to Only the Good Die Young. Here's the synopsis from Penguin's
website.
Dan: 24:11 "Some
people think that ghosts are spirits that refuse to go to the other side
because they have unfinished business. Take my word—that’s true. I should know.
I’m a ghost. I was an ordinary eighties California girl, dead before my time,
until psychic Amanda Lee Minter pulled me out of the time loop where I was
reliving my death over and over. Now I’m Jensen Murphy, Ghost for Hire. I
decided to put my spooky talents to use in helping Amanda Lee track down bad
guys and killers (including my own). It’s taken time to figure out exactly how
that will work (our first case was definitely a learning experience for all
involved), so when a young woman asks Amanda Lee for help convincing her best
friend to leave a dangerously hot-tempered boyfriend, I’m ready and willing to
use our collective powers on her behalf. But some people are dangerous not only
to the living—especially when there are darker forces involved…."
Shauna: 25:05 Okay.
That's really cool. I like this concept cause usually you know, it's like the,
the angry ghost seeking retribution. But this one's more like just now I'm a
private detective,
Dan: 25:21 Yeah.
Okay. I want to take a quick look at Twitter to see how bite the dust is faring
today. Uh, and from user Scooby route 99 and respond to the planter's peanut
mascot. Mr peanut having died in the latest marketing campaign and they are
treating it like a real death in social media. So I'm gonna read his tweet, but
anytime I say the word heck, you should assume Scooby rule 99 said the F word
and this was, he's responding to this tweet by the @MrPeanut account, which now
says the estate of mr peanut. And it was a picture that says in memory of mr
peanut 1916 to 2020 "it is with heavy hearts that we confirmed that mr
peanut has died at 104 in the ultimate selfless act. He sacrificed himself to
save his friends when they needed him most. Please pay your respects with
#RIPeanut.
Dan: 26:13 Yes.
So @ScoobyRoo99's response, "How the heck did a hecking PEANUT bite the
dust? And all the brands re-tweeting this? This is almost weirder than that one
time IHOP fake changed its name."
Dan: 26:29 I
am like, listen, we are all @ScoobyRoo99 right now. Every one of us, we're all
like, what is going on? Stop it.
Dan: 26:39 Rest
in peanut. All right, so to finish up, uh, I wanna I wanna mention a new idiom
I learned about while I was researching this phrase. Um, and it was "to
throw dust in the eyes of" which according to the Oxford English
dictionary means to confuse, mislead or dupe by making blind to the actual
facts of the case.
Dan: 26:59 And
blind was in little air quotes things. Well, it wasn't air quotes. It was an
actual, uh, single quotes.
Dan: 27:04 That,
well, it wasn't even a, it wasn't like the double quote. It was a single quote.
But yeah, they, they definitely used it.
Dan: 27:10 Right.
So to make blind to the actual facts of the case. But I did air quotes, so I
said air quotes, but I did air quotes wrong cause I did it with two fingers
instead of one. Oh man. Anyway, so to use, to throw dust in the eyes of in a
sentence. I'll take this example from Benjamin Franklin circa 1767 and he
wrote, "it required a long discourse to throw dust in the eyes of common
sense."
Dan: 27:41 Uh,
yeah, Benjamin Franklin like to do most of his work in a Tavern and so I think
he and I would have got along just fine.
Dan: 27:48 Well
that's about all the time we've got this week. Thanks again to everyone for
sharing the show on Twitter or your social media outlet of choice. Keep telling
your friends and family about the show and if you're able to support our
educational show with a monthly monetary amount, please check us out on Patreon
www.patreon.com/bunnytrailspod.
Shauna: 28:06 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. It's basically one big audiogram,
and if that's your thing, you should check it out. Thanks 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,
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