Hey, it's Matt from the Future. I just listened to the episode that you just queued up. I know some of you listened with your families. You probably saw that title and you're on the fence about it a little bit.
I think this one's mostly going to work because we're mostly talking about a gigantic mistake someone made a long time ago. It'll make sense later. Okay, enjoy. All right, so I'm looking at this play and basically it's just a random clip on the Internet.
So it looks like the game is tied. It's a softball game. Seven to seven. Must be the bottom of an inning or something like that.
And bases are loaded. Batter's up. Two outs, apparently. They hit the ball and it's like a shot out to the outfield.
It's clear they're going to win because the runner on third is going to come in and score and everybody's celebrating. Okay, so it's two outs in this situation. Yeah. Okay.
The runner runs in, tags home and then everybody just loses their mind because they just won, right? And so they start jumping up and down, screaming. In baseball, this is called a walk off. Yeah, because in baseball, you take turns playing offense and you get three outs or failures for each team per inning.
So in the last inning, if the visiting team, they back first, they already got their three outs for people who don't know baseball. Now the home team who was tied or behind, they have three outs to try to tie the game or get ahead. But if they don't need all three outs to achieve that, the game ends prematurely. So that's the scenario you're describing here.
Yeah, exactly. It's not like a walkoff home run, but it's a walkoff. They hit it out of the outfield and the runner on third runs in, tags home. But yeah, and everybody runs to the center.
Yeah, let's go. Is what everybody says now, right? That's what anyway. So there are a few things in life that have as much energy as like a teenage boy screaming, let's go.
But anyway, they run to the center and they're like really excited at the pitcher's mound and all the team leaves the dugout and they run out there. Meanwhile, the coach on the opposing team just screams at his team. Hey, grab the ball, throw it first because the person that swung and hit the ball, guess so excited. They just ran out to the pitcher's mound and piled on with all of their team and calmly.
You can't do that. They grab the ball and they throw it to first and they tag first and the umpire just nonchalantly raises his hand and goes out. So the force out was still on. And the person that hit the ball never ran to first base.
They just started celebrating. Oh, no. And then they end up losing the game. Oh, it's very satisfying to watch.
I'm not going to lie. OK, we got to be conscious of the third chair here. Some people know these baseball rules for others. It's going to be as baffling as you and me watching cricket.
So I'm going to try to beat others real quick what Brady Heron is to me when we talk about cricket. In baseball, it's possible to hit a ball very, very high in the air. And if a ball gets caught in the air, the batter is out. But if there wasn't some rule in place about what happens when a ball gets hit high in the air, the runners on the bases could just try to run as fast as they can and try to get as far as they could while the balls in the air.
And nobody can do about it. Can do anything about it because it's hundreds of feet in the air or whatever. So the rule is you have to wait until a ball is caught. And when you are running the bases, you have to wait on the base so as not to exploit the height of a ball that is going to be an out, you have to wait for the ball to get caught, touch the base.
You were already on. Then you can try to advance. Yeah, it's called tagging up. Tagging up.
Yep. So nothing that happens in a baseball play actually counts. You can't record a run with two outs until the out at first base is settled or until all the force outs are settled. So a force out would be a ball caught in the air.
So if a runner scores while a ball is caught in the air with two outs, I mean, it doesn't matter. The run doesn't count even if the guy crosses the plate before the ball is caught. Or if an out at first base occurs, even if the person on third scores from third, it doesn't matter. You got to settle the out to the force outs first.
So in this scenario, the batter forgot to settle the force out even though they easily could have made it to first and be declared safe and everything would have worked out. It's just, even if that didn't make sense, I mean, I don't even know what to liken it to. It's the most basic error you could possibly make mentally in a sport, right? It's like when you see people just drop the football and start celebrating right before they cross the goal line.
Yeah, that premature celebration thing is interesting. One of my boys friends, they've been playing chess, a young kid, he's like 10 years old, right? Been playing chess and we've been talking about, hey, Mr. Destin, when you come over and play chess, I'm like, oh, it's gonna happen, buddy.
And then yesterday I just surprised him and I showed up at his house and I was like, all right, because my son was over there. I was like, it's time to play chess and his dad was like, oh, is this happening? Oh, it's happening. And so we sat down joking around and I'm sitting here thinking, okay, this kid actually plays chess.
I don't actually play chess. I'm about to get destroyed. You know the moves and that's it. I mean, I play just a little bit, but like just amongst friends, but I'm not a chess player.
And so we started playing and I make the only opening move I know that can checkmate somebody in three moves, just in case they don't know it and I can pull it on them. So I make that opening move and he makes the counter move to it and I'm like, okay, well, that's not gonna work. So I just keep playing. And then he says to my son, he said, oh, I see checkmate five moves.
He says that to my son, like he got a little cocky. What? And then I did the thing where I flipped, I was like, okay, so I flipped from my, I'm just playing around brain to you were now going to get the full force of Destin Sandlin's strategic thinking brain. Just here against you right now.
That's going to make it even more embarrassing when you lose. Exactly. And so, but it was really fun in my own brain. I'm like, oh, oh, this 10 year old is now my actual foe.
So I like turned it on and I beat him and but he did. Okay. I did. I did beat him.
Yeah. So I beat him and then he's like, I just made a mistake there. I was like, that's okay. It's okay.
And I was trying to show him where he made the mistake. And he was unwilling to take the advice or like, hey, this is the point that I flipped from this to this. And then, but he didn't want to hear it. I'm like, okay, we'll play again sometime.
But the premature celebration is a thing that that's a big problem. Why does it feel so good when you see people fail when they, when they do the premature celebration thing? What a great question. You're right though.
It does feel good. Cathartic, Carmaic. I don't know quite how I feel. I'm shot in Freudi.
I do feel something when people celebrate early and then lose. And I do seek out videos on the internet with my kids that are compilations of premature celebration fails. And I'm showing them to the kids because I want them to learn life lessons. I don't know.
Pride, I guess. I mean, it feels like there's some age old agreed upon lesson amongst all of civilization. We talked about Persia the other day. You go back to Persia.
That's like Herodotus is the historian who talks about Persian Greece and all their wars. It's like one of his main themes is pride and hubris and all of that stuff and how it'll bite you in the butt. And maybe that's it. But I think that's an insufficient explanation.
I don't know. What do you think? I don't know. I mean, the thing that makes it interesting is it's a built-in underdog story.
Like, you know, this person was going to win, but the person that was supposed to lose ended up winning. And we like underdog stories. So I think that has something to do with it. I don't know.
I really do enjoy seeing somebody go towards the finish line and they pump and start pumping their hands. Yeah, like looking at the crowd. Let's go. Let's go.
And then the person right behind them that just never lost the sight of the prize just goes into the biggest sprint of their life. And they get there four milliseconds before the celebratory. The tortoise wins. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's a really good take.
Okay. And it helps me understand better, too. It feels like you're showing up your opponent like you had dignity as a competitor until you knew you'd win and you didn't need dignity or respect anymore. Yes.
And then we see the real you come out. It's like, even though I'm still on the field, I want to show that I've defeated you this badly. And as soon as I clicked into thinking of it that way, suddenly I can think of a hundred incidents like that. I think of the Don Beebe Buffalo Bills Super Bowl situation where I mean, the Cowboys beat the Bills in that Super Bowl, but there was this little receiver from Shadron State in Nebraska.
I think that's where he played and he chased down this dude who had a free and open lane to a touchdown on a turnover. He's a wide receiver flip to playing defense because there was a turnover and he just gets down there and punches the ball free. And it was awesome. But dude was celebrating and showboating and oh, the really famous one is the snowboarding girl, right?
The snowboard cross girl in the Olympics. You see this one all the time on the internet. What happened? Yeah, it's it's a snowboard race.
The goal is just get down the mountain fast, not do goofy tricks and silly things. And so she decides that she's going to get some air and grab the board and screw around to get some cool poses and photographs to get more than a gold medal. Like let's also get famous here and do it in style. Who knows what she was thinking, right?
Well, she eats it and you can't just hop up and get momentum back on a snowboard. And so she gets passed and she loses and you watch that and there's no part of you that's like, oh, that poor girl, all that time and energy and work she put in all the investment that her parents put in. It's mean and maybe it's unsympathetic to feel that moment of judgment toward her for one moment of errant thought. But you look at it and you're like, you're trying to show up all the other girls who put in all that time and effort and whose parents invested in them and blah, blah, blah.
And you wanted to stand out and embarrass them on the field of play and instead you got embarrassed and it feels it feels both okay. And it feels like a wonderful cautionary tale to avoid making such mistakes yourself, right? I have not seen that clip. That sounds fascinating.
It's fascinating. You want me to find it? Do you need to see it? Did she end up meddling?
No, I don't think she maybe she got a bronze. Hang on a second. I'm gonna find it. All right.
So what is this? What is this video? What's her name? Lindsey Jake Kabbalas.
Jake Kabbalas. She looks like an absolutely lovely young lady. I mean, pigtails and billion dollar smile. She looks like a lovely young lady who just got caught up in the moment.
She's participated in a bunch of Olympic games since then and she has become the oldest American woman to win a medal at the Winter Olympics. So good for her. Awesome redemption stuff. But it's the 2006 Winter Olympics where the incident happened.
She grabbed her board in midair, a move known as the method, but crashed, letting Switzerland's Tanya Frieden speed pastor. She did not medal in subsequent Olympic games until 2022 when she finally got a bronze in whatever you Beijing. Did she win? She did not win.
She got a bronze. Let me see this real quick. One second. Oh, no.
Oh, no. Dude. Oh, God. Right before she falls, the announcer says this is a lack of honor for her.
Oh, this is a lack of honor for her because she was so far ahead because everybody else had fallen and then she kind of, oh, godly dude. That's amazing. But it kind of is a lack of honor, right? I don't know what I'm supposed to say.
In the world, there are things now where it just feels like there's, you're supposed to say certain things. I don't know what you're supposed to say in the sense of circumstance. Not supposed to say it. Don't float over her failure or a brutal lesson that she had to learn 17 or 18 years ago, whatever it is.
It's just a very sad thing. And in that moment, I have to agree with the announcer and the sensibilities of 2006 or whenever that happened, that it's not honorable. No, what's interesting is he said this is a lack of honor before she fell. Oh, no, she's looking around.
She's like, wow, I'm alone. And he goes, this is a lack of honor for Lindsey. I'm going to play it. Okay, that is the big question.
Wrong metal. It looks like we've got going until the start. May or Rick in the fence is not going to be able to recover in time. Very, very unfortunate for her.
This is a lack of honor for Lindsey Jackabendiz, the American power. Jack, ladies, it's down. Oh, look at that. This is the biggest freedom.
Freedom. Unbelievable. Lindsey Jackabendiz through the gold medal away in the last hundred minutes. Okay, that is the best announcer.
I mean, he goes, this is a lack of honor for Lindsey Jackabendiz. Oh, oh, she's thrown a medal. But dude, that's rough. Oh, that's rough, which is still great.
But as a viewer, no matter how much you like that kid, you don't want her to get the gold as soon as she starts doing that stuff. You wanted to go to somebody who took it seriously and showed respect to others. God, lean in. That feels like it says more about us than about them.
I don't know. I don't know. Well, okay. And that's what I was talking about a second ago.
I was like, I don't want to say no, what opinion I'm supposed to have. Because here's the thing, in the right context, ribbing people while you compete, that can be the tone of a sport. It would be so weird for me to go and play basketball with people and be like, gentlemen, time for basketball. Then shall we put on our trousers?
Great. Splendid. Who shall go first? Heads or tails?
Excellent. I shall go second then. Your ball bounce, bounce, bounce. I shall defend you.
Excellent, depending, I must say. I want to find shot. No, you just, I don't know. It's a mean physical game that involves getting right in people's business.
It's very assertive. It's off putting to some people. But basketball, it feels personal. Whoever you are, whatever part of the world you're from, every culture that has adopted basketball as a sport has figured out.
It's just a very personal sport. And you give each other crap when you play it. And it just is. But it feels weird to talk trash when you're playing tennis.
You never touch. You're not on the same side of the net. It's like, why are you running your mouth? I'm not even allowed to hit you.
You're clear over there protected by a net and a line judge. I just think different types of competition lend themselves to different kinds of interpersonal interaction and different sets of expectations of what is and isn't best practices and honorable. And to me, I mean, I'm not an I said, I've been a snowboarder for a long time. To me, that looks dishonorable in a race.
But snowboarding is a little bit more Lucy, you see. And nobody really knew what snowboarding looked like in the Olympics back then. Are we going to screw around and keep it real Mountain Dew? Red-headed Sean Shane.
Oh, it was a kid's name. I can't remember. Shane why? No, no, that's that stuff made here.
Sean White. Sean White. There you go. Yeah, he's the kid who was on like Fox News or something when he was 17 in the Olympics.
And they're like, yeah, well, congratulations. What are you going to do now? I'm gonna go have a couple cold ones. You're 17.
Mountain Dew's, bro. Mountain Dew's, bro. That's a good recovery. So I don't know.
On that one, I've allowed myself to feel super judgy about it until I was having the conversation with you and in front of other people. And now I feel a little bit more self-conscious about my judginess toward that girl. But it did rub me the wrong way. It still rubs me the wrong way.
And I'm working out why it does. But somebody dunking on somebody else and then flexing their muscles at them doesn't. Let me ask you this, if it was a large burly muscle guy, would you feel weird talking about it in front of other people? Or is it the million dollar smile and the adorable blonde pigtails that makes it difficult?
Yeah, if it was a dude who looks like me and there was no potential sub-narrative, that could be lobbed at me in the weird toxic world of the internet on such things. Yeah, I think I would feel a lot more licensed to be, you look just like me. You have the same non-haircut I have and you behave badly. Like I'm allowed to, I'm allowed to call that guy out a little bit.
It's open season. Oh, yeah. Dang it. Okay.
And maybe we have it coming. I don't know. But I'm serious, man. I've only ever seen this clip with her with her helmet on.
And I'm like, there's a girl going fast. That moves my heart. Oh, no, don't be proud girl. Oh, you okay, you had that coming.
But now that we pulled up the article together and I see some dad's little girl with a big bright smile and the blonde pigtails, all of a sudden my heart is soft toward her and I can't help it. And so I feel less judgy seeing her smiling face. This episode of No Dumb Questions is brought to you by Raycon. They make earbuds that I love.
And Destin, just forget the last thing I said, you know what, I've been given to people for gifts a lot lately and every single one of them seems to really like it and be happy? Banana Nut bread. No, it's these little jars of marmalade that you can get from the black hills and they've got this little bow on them and this gold lid and people absolutely love them. But the other thing I've been giving to people is Raycon's and they really like those also.
Have you really, how does that manifest? You gave me a silver coin. You just like, Hey, I've got something for you and you just gave me silver coins like that. You're just like, Hey guys, I got something for you.
Here you go. Yeah, well, it's more like birthday or an occasion or something like that. It's one of those things where I ordered a few of these and I just haven't sit in my office and it's kind of my go to for, you know, just an ISO gift. Hey, this is something I really enjoy and I get good use out of it.
I know that somebody else will enjoy too. And everybody I've given it to has come back and said that they use it and they like it and it does slightly reduce my gift giving creativity load, which can occupy a lot of brain space. So, you know, whatever you're into, but that's a straight up giving tip. That's great.
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I didn't have music. I didn't have my audio books. I didn't have a way to muffle out the wine of the airplane engine in the whole time. I was like, man, I missed.
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I get there until giving season. Yeah. But you could see we went fly fishing together. Yep.
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Yeah. It's just that little peak in your life knowing that that's where you do a lot of your work. You're listening and you're basically a research. That's so cool, dude.
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And this is the reason we decided to turn on mics is because I told you about the softball thing. You had another one that you were telling me about. It was named something weird. What was this?
The incident. It's a baseball incident in 1908, professional major league baseball incident. It's very much like the incident you just described in softball that happened recently. And it's famous incident.
So famous that this incident has a name. And the name of the incident is the Merkel boner. Just let that sink in. I'm actually on Wikipedia right now.
It's called Merkel's Boner. Yeah, that's that's a new way to try to soften it. I've always heard it referred to as the Merkel boner. But now I'm seeing some websites, articles written in the last four or five years, they're starting to try to update the name to Merkel's boneheaded play, which is not what it's called.
It's called the Merkel boner. Okay. There's a lot to unpack here. So yeah, go ahead.
You want to start with the name or do you want to start with what happened? Let's start with what happened. Okay, great. So it's 1908 and it's a regular season game that is being played.
Do you have the article right there? I've got the Wikipedia page up. Looks like September 23rd, 1908. Oh, so it's a late season game.
In baseball, the season wraps up right at the end of September and then you go into the playoffs. The best teams play to try to get to and win the World Series. So the Cubs, the Chicago Cubs, and the back then New York Giants. Now they play in San Francisco.
The Cubs and the Giants were in a tight race with each other to try to go and win the National League pennant, one of the two leagues, National League American League. They're trying to win the entire National League. And this game was very, very important between these two teams. Well, it gets to be the final inning and the home team needs the source and runs to win the game.
And what do you have in the article there? What do you see? It's too much to read this fast. Just keep going.
All right. So it's a notorious base running mistake according to Wikipedia by a rookie named Fred Merkel of the New York Giants. And what happened was there was a game-winning hit, a base hit. So the ball gets past the defenders and the batter makes it to first base safely.
So the force out at first is resolved, the runner scores, and the Giants win. Hooray. But there was a runner on first base named Fred Merkel. And he had to go and just casually touch second base for all of the force outs in the bottom of this inning to be resolved.
But in the hubbub of the celebration, he did not do so. And attentively, the Cubs recognize that and got the out of the force out at second base, which eliminates the run scored at the plate. And as a result, the game ended in a tie. And the Cubs won the pennant instead of the Giants winning the pennant.
And it is a day which will forever live in infamy and be referred to as the Merkel Boner. Man, we're so much cooler than because I love watching video of mistakes and baseball. It's one of my favorite things. Yeah, it's a great genre.
And obviously it predates the era of video footage simply and impossibility. But I was digging around on the Internet, I was doing some sleuthing. And I discovered that there is an audio recording that has been preserved. Really?
It's rough. But it gives you a little bit of a sense of what it might have been like to be there. I mean, if you're interested in that kind of thing, I could play it for you now. It's been only if you're interested.
Yeah, dude, pop it in or play the wax cylinder or whatever it is you got to do. I'd love to hear that. Sure, let me just pop that over here. Pop that in.
There we go. I say, dear Bonnet, please. What a wonderful day for a sporting event. Who doesn't love the Polo Grounds in September for a fine game of baseball?
Why are we playing on Polo Grounds? And why do we have weird cockney accents even though we live in New York? Well, obviously we live in an era when diversion and fun is a public matter of behavior on a weekday afternoon is just becoming acceptable socially. And so there aren't many places to play these sports.
But gradually, I anticipate these cathedrals to entertainment will pick up in popularity around the world. For now, you'll just have to repurpose the ones we have for most sports. That's a great point, Bonnet, please. One thing that I love is that here in 1908, the world is full of peace.
And I foresee that in the near future, sporting events will be the largest gatherings of humans ever assembled. Wouldn't you agree? I anticipate centuries of peace. We've finally achieved human enlightenment.
And with all of the technological advances we bask in today, I can only imagine that due to the spirit of brotherhood that permeates this great world, that we shall only use those inventions for the next hundred years to make each other better. I say, is that the rookie up to bat here? It's here at the end of the game. I was hoping we could go get a snow cone afterwards.
But what's this chap's name? I forget. Fred Merkel demonstrates a lot of promise. Nerves of steel, infinitely focused, why here's the pitch now, and a base hit for Merkel.
Well, good for him. That puts runners on the corners. This is getting interesting. Oh, this could be the end of the game here.
Looks like our fine team is going to win. And this would take us one step closer to that ever so desirable pennant. I'm sorry I got to gather myself. I don't know what to do.
Oh, look, it's the hot dog man. Hot dogs are a new thing that I enjoy. We know here. Would you like a wiener?
We would take wiener's here. I would like a thank you chap. Yep. Here you go.
Here's your nickel. Yeah. All right. All right.
Man, cheers. Cheers to baseball in September, technically. Let us knock wiener's. Yeah, here.
Let's tap them together as if they're there. Here we go. Touch. There we go.
All right. All right. These are great mustard. Mustard is wonderful.
All right. So let's get this game over and let's get back home so we can breathe cold dust or whatever it is we do at our house. My fair testicles. I must say these ballpark wiener's are especially delicious today.
No doubt made from 100% beef. Okay, whatever. All right. So we've got short-stop Al Bredwell up to bat.
I say if he hits this next pitch from Feister, then we might be done for the day. My fair bonacles. This might be it. A behind hitter.
I'm hopeful. All right. Here's the pitch in the wind up in the... Oh, he drilled it!
An apparent single into center field. Yes. And an apparent victory for the home team. Oh, there's McCormick.
Oh, there's McCormick. Charge the field with others. McCormick's running home. There is a giant 2-1 victory.
That is fantastic. I am so excited about this. This is a shout- I love being a part of the infield mob. This is the gentleman.
Pissant all of us. Who's are? Let's do what is customary in our time and let's walk across home plate, across the field and exit out center field. Don't you say?
Absolutely, as though we had stored ourselves. Let's do this. Okay. Oh, what's happening?
It looks like Cubs second-basement, Johnny Evers, is seeing an opportunity for an odd rule to be enforced. Another absurdity. This game is over. He seems to be shouting to centerfielder, Solly Hoffman.
What's he doing? He's throwing the ball. What? Unfortunately, our first-based coach, Joe McGinady, intercepted that ball and did what he should do, which is throw it to the stand.
Yes, exactly. Oh, what? His retrieve ever has apparently retrieved the ball and is marching towards his touch second base. Can't retrieve a ball once it's been hurled into the stands by a first base coach.
This is average. It appears that umpires immensely in O'Day are consulting each other. What is to consult about? Here we are in the middle of the field with our wieners.
The game is over, gentlemen. The game is over. Is it possible that Fred Merkel has made a mistake? Hold, hold, hold.
I've got the baseball rule books updated for 1908 here in my pocket. I'm searching section 208.1. Oh, dear. It's literally that section, isn't it?
It's oh, dear. What? What has happened? According to the rules, Fred Merkel's failure to touch second base does indeed result in an out-even-after-play seems to have concluded, as much as I hate to admit it, the run shall not be counted and we shan't be able to claim victory this day.
No! No! No! It's racist, it's racist!
It just hit him with your case! It's ruled Merkel out! It's second. They've undone the result!
This is an incredible boner that has been made. The worst of boners! Merkel, from now on, will only be known in history for this boner. Can you imagine?
This will be on the front page of the news tomorrow. That's the hugest boner I can even imagine! And they will be talking about this boner in future forms of media yet imagined. I cannot believe this has happened.
This is insane! Hit him, bonically. Hit the umpire! Yeah, that's uh, that's basically what happened.
It says here that the fans were so hostile to the umpire, O'Day, that the cops had to get involved to protect the umpire. This was a huge deal for the day. It looks like the umpire ever is an O'Day. Was it ever?
No, not ever. Who was that? Emsley. Emsley.
Yeah, this is like made the papers and everything. It's called Merkel's boner. So there's no question that the umpire made the correct call. So I think per the rules, the umpires made the correct call.
And this is just the way it's... Sure. Yeah. If everything happened as it is reported and as the umpires understood it, then yes, they made the correct call.
The fourth second was not resolved. Rookie Fred Merkel committed a horrible boner by retreating back to celebrate with his team and the fans before touching second base. So the game wasn't over until the fourth second is resolved. And the fans were already on the field.
I think it's interesting that the fans could just walk across the field after the game. That's interesting. So why is it called Merkel's boner? So just let's talk about the entomology.
That's study of N6. Etymology, which is word studies, right? Etymologists? Right.
Is that right? I think so. What's the deal here? So that word has clearly changed meaning.
Apparently so. I went ahead and took the risk of Googling the word boner, of Googling the phrase, boner definition. And here is what I'm getting. Definition number one, North American English vulgar slang, an erection of the penis.
Definition number two, North American English informal, a stupid mistake. Those are very, very different in terms of their application. They are. And I understand how each word only has so much real estate that it can occupy.
And if that real estate enters into the realm that boner has entered into, then you pretty much have to vacate the real estate and just give it up to the new occupant. We're just going to let boner be what boner is. And we will just retire to history, the former use, which was a stupid mistake. Have you ever heard somebody say boner as though they were talking about just messing something up?
No, I haven't. I don't think I have. I have once when I was a young man in my first job, another person who worked there came in and they're like, Matt, I just made a huge boner. What?
Yeah, come here. And what they've done. I'm doing a really good job of laughing. I'm proud of myself.
They had backed up into their own mailbox and dinged the side mirror on their new vehicle. Yeah, that was it. But for this person, who was a generation or two before me, age wise, that term in polite society was clearly still lingering around when he grew up. I was very dignified about it.
I'm not kidding. I was. I didn't giggle or crack a smile. I was like, Oh, a boner.
I have to know what this is. Sure. What happened? And I was like, Oh, that can mean a mistake.
And so then I went back to my office and on the primitive internet, so that existed back then. I was like, I hope I don't get in trouble. But I want to know. And that was the previous time I googled the phrase boner definition.
And that is when I learned that the Merkel boner was a thing because that's what came up. That's interesting. And it brings up all kinds of questions about the evolution of language. I can think of several words that have changed meanings.
In fact, in modern society, I believe it's become fashionable to weaponize the definition of words, to change words in order to almost take ground. Like, Oh, if I can make this word mean this, I can use it as a way to identify brand things. Yeah. An example of that for the sake of conversation.
And I'm very up for talking about issues like this, but that's not what we're doing here. I just want to talk about the evolution of two words, hyphenated words that were captured by two different sides of a very hot debate that I think demonstrate a tremendous wit for branding on the part of both sides, pro choice and pro life. Yeah. Notice how neither of them are against anything.
They're both positively stated. And again, the whole debate aside, they're both things that are very desirable. Choices and lives are both things that people would theoretically want. But each side would say the other is using Orwellian language and that it's not reflective of what the coined term holds itself out as representing another example I've seen recently.
I saw a person on a newscast and they used the term woke. And I don't want to tell you the person's politics. In fact, they weren't a very political person. But the newscastor did something interesting.
They said, what is the definition of the word woke to the person? And I thought to myself, Oh, wow, they just almost checkmated this person. Because this person now has to define this word that means certain things to certain groups. It doesn't matter what you say, you could twist their response to that question and make them sound bad somehow.
I would like to leave that word there because of how much meaning has been attached to that. And also let's just know that if somebody is listening to this episode roughly in chronological proximity to when we publish this little segment right here where you used the word woke is going to be interpreted by them differently than if they're listening to this in five years or 10 years because that word is going to evolve like crazy. I guarantee you it will not conjure the same emotions, the same associations, the same political alignments in five years or 10 years. Hello, by the way, to those of you who are listening at that point, looking into the future, it's nice to meet you, glad to have you here as it will for the people who are listening right now in the third chair because that word is undergoing all sorts of verbal definitional metamorphic forces under all kinds of massive pressures that are reforming that word into different things.
From my world, evangelical is a word that I have seen undergo massive strain and pressure. And I spoke a while back with one of the absolute elite rockstar geniuses in the whole world of religious taxonomy. Who fits where? What do you call it all?
How do you organize this stuff? His name is Mark Knoll. And one of the things he said when I asked him about the word evangelical is that it's just being asked to do too much right now. It can't mean all the things people need it to mean in different sectors at the same time.
And so his proposal was sometimes words need to go phalo. They just need to sit for what was that word you said? phalo? phalo like the crop rotations where you let a field you let soil sit for a while to regain its nutrients and its properties that make it fit for growth.
You can't just beat the heck out of soil and inject it with artificial nutrition all the time. At some point you just got to let the thing sit for a while. There has to be a period of rest. And he was proposing that it might be good if we could initiate a period of rest for certain words.
He just proposed this for evangelical, but I would propose it for a lot of words. I think there are words that if they mean everything they don't mean anything anymore. And it might be better to just let them sit for a while and try to be more specific in our language because more precise language makes us understand each other better and hopefully like each other better. That's interesting.
There's a word that I hear often used in political ads that is being used and you can hear it in the voice actor voicing the ad and the word is liberal. They say he's a liberal. What a funny insult. It's a funny use of the word right because you right would probably refer to yourself as someone from the liberal West.
Wouldn't you? I am definitely a liberal. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm not a leftist nor a rightist, but I'm definitely a liberal, meaning bill of rights, free mind, free market, freedom of expression, political tolerance for your opponents. Yeah. Liberal. This word was being used in a very aggressive way.
It was a label that was being, you know, I almost imagine being printed out on a one of those ink jet label makers and just put on somebody's forehead like, Oh, that's a liberal. Let's tag them with that word. And we all know that word is bad, right? Right?
Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I think words change and the weaponization of words.
I'm not a fan of it. I don't, I don't like it. But that's only one of the reasons that words change right now. That's, I think the biggest driving force we're seeing in the changing of words is languages hyper politicized right now.
The people on the far ends of the distribution who are most looking for a fight and who are the least liberal in their views. They're the least tolerant. They want to eradicate the language strongholds of their opponents and expand the language holdings of their side. In doing so, you reduce the ability to have intellectual space to freely talk about ideas for one position and you expand everything under the massive umbrella of your position.
And I hate this practice. I don't care if I agree or disagree with the politicians and political pundits behind it or not. It's a horrible practice that destroys language and weaponizes something that is supposed to be a thing we share. We might not agree on a lot of things, but we all agree on what words mean.
And it gives us a common starting point gives me hope for peace and resolution and understanding with other people when you pervert and weaponize words to gain an advantage in this dystopian Orwellian manner. You're messing with something that is perhaps the most shared thing we have in a given society, our ability to say a word and have the other person know what it means. So I'm very troubled by that. Is another one.
Fobic. Yes. Yeah. That's a stomach.
So you can just tag that on anything and you get to label anybody in a thing once you say that. You were right to call out the right leaning practice in society of trying to weaponize the word liberal as a jab against people who lean left. And honestly, I don't know that you meant to do it, but phobic, that's a club the left uses. Anything someone disagrees with they are phobic of.
But here's my biggest right with the word. That's not what it means. I mean, what's a phobia? A fear of something.
Right. Fear and hate are different words. They mean different things. I think that's interesting.
And it makes me wonder what words I may use incorrectly. And the definition that I understand the word to have is not the actual definition. There must be words in my vernacular that there has to be. And brother, that's the same way I think about theology.
I know I'm wrong about God. I just don't know where I'm wrong about God. If I knew where I was wrong, I would stop being wrong because I would want to be right and I would change it. And that's just one of the problems when you deal with abstract things is you're trying to hold the things that are true and accurate that are good representation of what that word means, what this concept means.
But we're fallible. So I know, yes, of course you're using some words wrong. Of course I am. Of course I hold wrong opinions or understandings about how things actually are.
It's just tricky when you don't happen to know which ones they are. And then when you do find out where you were wrong, well, hopefully you just change it. That's interesting. Okay.
This is all amazing and fascinating. But I have a thing happening right now. I've got sunlight here in Alabama. It's been partially cloudy and I've got a high speed camera setup that I need to go attend to because there's something really cool.