Who Let The Cats Out‪?‬ Interesting If True

Welcome to Interesting If True, episode 21, the one where we’re finally old enough to drink!



I'm your host this week, Shea, and with me is... Aaron.



I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that adding salt is basically just sprinkling really specific, tiny, gravel on your food.



Round Table



Now that we can pull a stool up at the bar it’s time for the glorious return of the Round Table… or IP Table as the case may be until 2020 sobers up.



Being a fully grown, worldly podcast, we’ve got a few things to announce.



First, the return of the round table, which is, I think, going pretty well so far.



Second is that we’ll be recording an episode 4 More Beers this weekend, so look for that in your podcast feed soon! Updates on live shows are pending some Slack conversations but we’ll let you know as soon as we know.



Now that we’ve got a back catalog of sorts we’re also going to start properly promoting the show so make sure you give us some love on the Twitters, Facebooks, or wherever else you can! We’ll be posting fun stuff and hope to interact with all of you. Speaking of ways to interact with the show, leave us a voicemail at (513) 760–0463 and don’t forget to let us know if it’s ok to play on the air.



We’re also going to be visiting other studios and maybe, just maybe, dragging some guests back with us. More on that in the coming weeks.



With all of that out of the way, Shea, what are you drinking?



Idioms For Idiots



An idiom is a phrase that is common to a certain population. We use them every day, sometimes without even realizing that what we’re saying is nonsensical without the implied and widely accepted meaning behind it. What you might find Interesting If True (look I used the name of the podcast in a story!) is that most idioms had literal meanings back before time obscured this bit of history. I'm going to be teaching you listeners some of the origins of our favorite phrases.



Barking up the wrong tree might be the easiest to figure out without using the internet, so lets start there. Of course now it describes when someone is trying to achieve something but they're doing it in the wrong way. As you can assume it originally referred to a hunting dog literally barking up the wrong tree after its prey had moved on.



The phrase fly off the handle currently means to lose your temper suddenly and unexpectedly. This makes perfect sense because before mass production and safety standards occasionally your axe handle would come loose and fly off the handle as you were chopping wood. Makes perfect sense why we would now use the phrase as a way to describe risky behavior with unpredictable results.



An old nautical term has weaved its way into our language, feeling under the weather. Nowadays it means you’re not feeling 100% or you’ve caught a cold. But in the past when a sailor was feeling ill, he would go beneath the bow, which is the front part of the boat. This would hopefully protect him from adverse conditions, as he was literally under the bad weather that could further sicken him. Therefore, a sailor who was sick could be described as being “under the weather.”



To turn a blind eye is to refuse a known truth, you can see many examples in world wide politics. This, however, has a great story to how it came about, we can actually pinpoint who said it first and when. Horatio Nelson was a British Admiral in the late 17th century before he became a national hero, during his service he took French shot to the face and lost most of his vision in his right eye. Years later in 1801 he led an attack alongside Admiral Sir Hyde Parker in the Battle of Copenhagen. Parker communicated to Nelson at one point, via flags, that he needed to retreat and disengage. Nelson,