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218 - What is a Shibboleth? episode artwork

Dec 16, 2025 49 min

218 - What is a Shibboleth?

from No Dumb Questions Hosted by Matt Whitman and Destin Sandlin

Thanks for considering supporting on Patreon. PATREON - patreon.com/nodumbquestions NDQ EMAIL LIST - https://www.nodumbquestions.fm/email-list STUFF IN THIS EPISODE: Judges 12 Shamgar Shibboleth 100 Hz Test Tone CONNECT WITH NO DUMB QUESTIONS: Thank you for considering supporting No Dumb Questions on Patreon. Discuss this episode here NDQ Subreddit Our podcast YouTube channel Our website is nodumbquestions.fm No Dumb Questions Twitter Matt's Twitter Destin's Twitter SUBSCRIBE LINKS: Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe on Android OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELS ARE ALSO FUN: Matt's YouTube Channel (The Ten Minute Bible Hour) Destin's YouTube Channel (Smarter Every Day)

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218 - What is a Shibboleth?

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Transcript Auto-generated, may contain errors

Okay, so something happened to me and it's kind of creepy. You remember the thing, you remember this, where the AI used my voice. Yeah, and the F-15 video or whatever, it was some, yeah, not great video, but it had your voice, which was weird because the video was trash. Yeah, it was super disturbing.

I have, of course, my family, my friends, and we are drawing from an old ancient technique used to make sure that it's me when I talk to people. It's like a, it's like a challenging response. Have you heard of a shibboleth? I have.

It's a bible thing. So what I want to do is, I've just texted two of my friends from the old days. Like they know old me. Deep, deep, they know old me.

Okay? All right. I'm going to call them and I'm going to ask them if they know the word. Dude, I haven't talked to these guys.

Are you going to have to change the word now? No, I haven't talked to these guys unless. No, no, it's a different thing than that. But like, here, just, let me call them.

Sure. So I'll call my first buddy here. Call and Cliff Dog. Hello.

Just Cliff Dog. Yes. Cliff Dog, meet my buddy Matt. Hi Matt.

What's up, Cliff Dog? Nice to meet you. Cliff's great. We go way back.

Cliff's been a long time since we talked, right? Like really long time. Yes. You guys okay?

We're good. I just texted him and told him I'm about to ask him a little stressed. I wonder if he's going to get the answer. You ready?

You ready? Cliff? It's not like he's not like anybody listens to this or anything. There you go.

There you go. All right, Cliff. Here's the question. You ready?

I'm ready. What is the magic word? What is the magic word? From back in the day.

If I wanted to challenge you to see if you knew what I, you know what I mean? It's the magic word. Oh, you got to say it right. I don't know.

I have a word that I think you're talking about. Yeah. You have to say it right though. What is it?

That's right. Dang. Good job, Cliff. Yeah.

It was a close time between that and Crankshaft. I know. You're a Crankshaft? Moment of silence for Crankshaft.

Moment of silence for Crankshaft. So to be clear, you guys are doing a moment of silence for Crankshaft. I gave him a moment. It wasn't a moment of silence for Crankshaft.

Yeah. You have to do a moment of silence for Crankshaft and Cliff will tell us when the moment's over. Crankshaft. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks Cliff. You know what to do. I appreciate you.

Bye. See you. Bye. Bye.

What did I just witness? Do you have any idea what just happened? No, but I get the impression that your shibileth is shibileth. Hold on.

Just wait. There's more. Okay. Let me call another guy real quick.

All right. This is, uh, this is Steven. Are you going to ask him what your safe word is and it's going to be safe word? No, just hang tight.

All right. I'm chilling out. Mr. Steven.

Hello. What's up, buddy? How are you? I'm good.

How are you doing? Doing well. I got you on speaker with Matt Whitman. Hey, what's up, man?

Hey, Matt. How's it going, man? Things are good. Hey, uh, got a quick question from you.

Yeah. I got a quick question for you. Yeah. Yeah.

So, um, what's the word that we say when we need to make sure that's the right person we're talking to? What's the word? Uh, uh, sibileth. I don't know if you said it right, dude.

I don't know if you said it right. Shibileth. Yeah, dude. I almost stabbed you with a sword.

I got it right. I almost stabbed you with a sword. I was stabbed you with a sword. Dude, you were so close to death right now.

Hey, thanks. David. I appreciate it, buddy. Yeah.

Talk to you later. Later. Sorry. That was a weird one.

Want it? Bye. It's okay. Bye.

So your friends just tolerate this? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, what was the word they said?

Shibileth, right? Well, ironically, they said shibileth and sibileth, which are kind of the two words in question. Okay. Would you like to explain what's going on with a shibileth?

Yeah. Can I use your Bible? Yeah. Where's that?

Grab it. I don't know if this one's going to work. That's not like a real home religious library family edition. That's not yet.

That's just pictures and stuff. Okay. Yeah. Nothing's where it's supposed to be here.

I'm not using that one. I don't want to say something is a bad Bible, but that's a bad Bible. All right. You also have in here an ESV study Bible.

Oh, yeah. The rest one's going to have it. Where's it at in the Bible? Judges 12.

Judges 12. That's the shibileth part. So in judges, you remember what was going on there, right? Like this picture?

This was Israel and Judah. They were fighting, right? Kinda. I mean, are you from the tribe of Ephraim?

There you go. Yeah. So just judges, big picture. Like what's happening in that part of the Bible?

Oh, I mean, toward the beginning or toward the end? Well, everybody did what was right in their own eyes. This was before there was a king. Yeah.

And this is where, I mean, people were just doing crazy stuff. And so these judges rose up and they were judging Israel. Like they were making sure everything was right. But there was a time of upheaval.

Yeah. And I just know that there was this one time where the baddies were from Ephraim, right? Right. So they were fighting with themselves.

Right. It's kind of like a civil war, right? Kinda. Yeah.

They had a few of those. It was another one in Judges 19 that gets started with the Benjomites. So the deal with this time is that the whole Red Sea thing, Moses, the Skating Egypt and all of that, that has happened. They set up shop in Canaan.

They conquered the land. They live there, but they don't have a king. They've got 12 little tribes, kind of 13, couple more half tribes. They all have an allotment of land and they're trying to do it with no kings, but occasionally when the behavior gets bad enough, a judge rises up and the judge is more like Judge Dred than Judge Judy.

It's like a person I've ever tried that out. It's like an enforcer. It's not like a person with a gavel. They're usually militaristic.

And these are super fun stories, but there aren't a lot of good guys in Judges. Even the judges are pretty compromised characters, right? What are you talking about? They're not good.

Shambhgar is amazing. Shambhgar gets like two sentences. But Shambhgar killed thousands of people within Oxcode. If that's your two sentences, how is that going to happen?

And then you come up and say they weren't great people. He was a great person. Okay. But like Samson is a judge.

Okay. He wasn't the best. He liked the ladies. Not the wrong ladies.

He liked the wrong ladies. He liked the wrong ladies. He liked the wrong ladies. So Judge is just a very colorful, very juicy part of the Bible.

As you know, it's a chaotic part of the Bible. And Judge is 12 is where we get the Shiblet situation here. Okay. So there's a judge who's risen up named Jeptha.

There's a tough after story with Jeptha that's kind of a bummer as well. But here is kind of one of his moments of cleverness and triumph, right? You want me to just read this? Yes, just read the Bible.

I've got to pull that here. Judge, just read it to me. Judge is 12? No, go ahead.

Go ahead. How about you do? Hey, let's do what we did back in Sunday school. You pick some verses and then I'll do.

So which ones do you want? I'll read. Oh, okay. You read one through three and then you read three through six.

Okay. Yeah, let's do that. Okay, right? That sounds great.

The men of Ephraim were called to arms and they crossed to Zephan and said to Jeptha, why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites and not call us to go with you? We will burn your house over with over you with fire. Dang. That's bad.

And Jeptha said to them, I and my people had a great dispute with the Ammonites. Those are foreigners who were enemies of the Jews. And when I called you, you did not save me from their hand. And when I saw that you would not save me, I took my life in my hand and crossed over against the Ammonites.

And the Lord gave them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me? You're tracking with what's going on here dramatically? Not really.

It's kind of like Braveheart. Remember the scene where all of the nobles of the clans of Scotland degree to fight against the English? But then they get out on the battlefield and some of the snotty, smug, rich nobles. They wave a flag and they all ride off the field and they don't help William Wallace.

Whoa, they're going to let him die. Ephraim sold out all of their brothers. Ephraim to Ephraim or Ephraim? I don't know.

I didn't know what to say. They didn't show up. So they're one of the 12 tribes of Israel, right? Yeah, two of them are half tribes.

So the numbers are a little bit. Yeah, basically 12 tribes of Israel. Okay. And Ephraim, they just...

I don't know if they want to revenge or what was going on. You have to read the bigger story because they did not show up. Okay, now that you've said it in plain speak, can I read it again? Yeah, sure.

The min of Ephraim were called the arms and they crossed a zaphe on and said the jeff, though. Why did you cross over to fight against the Ammonites and did not call us to go with you? We will burn your house over with fire. And jeff, the said to them, I and my people had a great dispute with the Ammonites.

And when I called you, you did not save me from their hand. And when I saw that you would not save me, I took my life in my hand and crossed over against the Ammonites. And the Lord gave them into my hand. Why then have you come up to me this day to fight against me?

Okay, that explanation helped a lot. Thank you. He's calling BS on them. I said.

They're imagined slight. What do you call? I called. Here's the call log.

I have receipts. It's that kind of a situation. Interesting. Okay.

Go ahead. And then somebody pick it up from there. Then Jeff gathered all the men of Gilead and fought with Ephraim. And the min of Gilead struck Ephraim because they said, you are fugitives of Ephraim.

You Gileadites in the midst of Ephraim and Manasseh. These are other tribes. And the Gileadites captured the Fords of Jordan against the Ephraimites. And when any of the fugitives of Ephraim said, let me go over.

The men of Gilead said to him, are you an Ephraimite? When he said, no, they said to him, then say, Shibleth. And he said, sibleth. For he could not pronounce it right.

Then they seized him and slaughtered him at the Fords of Jordan at that time. 42,000 of the Ephraimites fell. And Jeff d'Ephra judged Israel six years. Then Jeff d'Ephra died and was buried in the city of Gilead.

Wow. So is that saying 42,000 dudes came up to this river and were like one river crossing, please? And they were like, wait a second. Are you from the tribe of Ephraim?

Yeah, no. Well, if that's true, why don't you just say Shibleth? And then if you said it wrong, wait, what was that? I said, no.

Wow. Then if you said that, he would just run you through with a sword. Yeah, that was the idea. So they get in this big fight.

Now, this is really important because right now there are people who believe in God or religious in some way, and they're like, I don't like this part of my own religious document very much. There are people who don't like it very much who are like, I don't like that part of that religious document very much. To be clear, this is awful in the Bible. This era is not really held out.

Are you saying the Bible is not commanding us to run people through with a sword if they mispronounce a word? Is that what you're saying? No, no, the whole big picture of the book of judges is basically judges is one test case in whether or not humanity can solve our own problems. Because the libertarian anarchist test case, that's what judges is.

Everybody does what's right in their own eyes. We tried having a society with one language and building to the heavens with technology that didn't solve humanity's problems. We tried having a global flood to purge the world of evil to see if we just kept only the good people. Then would it be okay?

That did not solve humanity's problems. We tried mega empires of pressing people that did not solve humanity's problems. We tried now complete anarchy, total hardcore extreme libertarianism. Everybody just handle your own business.

And it's worse than ever. So, judges is a test case in that ain't working. The reader is supposed to read this and not like it. So, whenever I think about the book of judges, I think about this meme that was sent to me from a friend of mine.

And the meme is a curig coffee maker. And it's open. And it has Apapa John's garlic sauce. And in that day, they all did what they're right in their own eyes.

But this is supposed to brave you. Do not put that in a curig. So, I always, whenever, unfortunately, whenever I think of judges now, I think of the garlic sauce going into the curig coffee maker thing. But I've never thought about judges being a libertarian test case.

Did that hurt you to say? No, I'm not an anarchist. I want there to be government. As we've discussed it other times, libertarianism is an achievement.

libertarianism is not a political philosophy. You earn the ability not to be heavily governed by behaving well and treating your neighbors well voluntarily and having a healthy fabric of society that you earn. These people had not earned it. They were mass.

So, my buddy's Cliff and Steven years ago, we went to church together and we used to talk about all this stuff. And first of all, I love both of them very much. Cliff is amazing. He's a foster dad.

He's adopted some kid. And he answered that phone call and played a lot. I know, right? He just rolled with it.

Cliff's great. I love Cliff. I was my roommate in college. We go way back.

I mean, these guys are incredible, incredible people. Which one of them made fun of us off the cuff for having a crappy podcast? That was Cliff. Yeah.

That was wonderful. And the other one kind of did. Like just, hey, can I call you for podcasts? Yeah, whatever.

Yeah. What doesn't matter. They're both absolutely right. Only your buddy's mom listens.

Yeah, that's right. And so, the interesting thing is they knew what to do because this was our joke a long time ago. We used to like say, what is the magic word? Cliff was right.

I didn't say it that way. I would say say, say, say, shibboleth. And they would always go, shibboleth. Oh, no.

That's how you set up a joke. It's kind of like, it's a really, really old, deep joke that we had. We went on this one trip together. And at some point, we caught a small frog.

And we named him Crank Chef. Naturally. And then Crank Chef died. And so it died very, very early in the trip.

And so later in the trip, we would always be talking every, like the most fun moment. This was a roller coaster. Wasn't it? Guys, you remember that frog we had?

Moment of songs for Crank Chef. Everybody would just be really quiet. So, but the point is my friends are really, really good. And that's a thing that we've said for years, shibboleth and sibboleth.

So whenever I think of that word, I think of those two guys. But I think we're using it wrong, aren't we? It's like, it's like making your password password. I know it doesn't work.

Okay. So we are using it wrong. But it's not, you're not using it for that. You guys are just having fun.

I mean, that's leftover young man humor. That's awesome that you guys have that together. And it was awesome that you could dip that they could dip back into that that easily with a phone call. And you still have the trust and you still have the memories.

I think you use it exactly right for your purposes. Got it. But but modern shibboleths. Oh, yeah.

Well, real quick, the Bible shibboleth. Okay, we'll finish that one. Yeah. Just very simply the trick is and dude, you got to understand.

I went to seminary. I went to seminary. I have nothing left from Hebrew. I use Greek, which is what the New Testament is written in.

Good students would remember things from the Hebrew stuff. I've got little shadows in my brain of this. I don't use it at all. I just use cheats on the internet when I need Hebrew stuff.

I can't do it. There's not some big iceberg of knowledge below the tip of what I'm about to tell you. This is pretty much all I got. So the letter in question at the front end of shibboleth, the word just means like a corn on the cob, like an ear of corn or a thing of wheat or something like a head of a wheat.

Really? Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't be corn because it's a new world, but like the head of wheat or something. That's what it means.

So it wasn't about. The code word. It was about how you say the code word. And in Hebrew, it's right at the end.

It's like the 3rd or 2nd to last letter in Hebrew is sin or sheen. And it looks like I said, where you buy dresses for really cheap on the internet. Yeah, I guess maybe. It looks like a crooked W.

Kind of if you can picture. Yeah. It just looks like if you took a W and you just sort of tilted it like gang sign style about 45 degrees. Not like an E.

Or if you took an E and tilted it toward being a W. Okay. Yeah. That's an easy way to picture it.

Just imagine. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You just looked at the word of the shippalith and what you're saying. I see that, but it's on the right side of the word.

It's not on the left side of the word. Yeah, so they run it the other way there in Hebrew, but they read right to left. Right to left. Yes.

Okay. So there's like one little accent mark. I don't know what it's called. Maybe that's a jot or a tittle.

I don't know. There's like a little dot that you can throw over that particular symbol and it changes how it's pronounced. I don't know how ancient that is, but it can make like a s sound or a sh sound. And so there was nothing special about the code word here in this story in Judges 12.

It wasn't like, did you hear about the wheat? It was just a word that people always screw up. Now in our culture today, I don't even want to risk it, but there are people from all over the world. We live in a global society and we all have sounds.

Our faces are good at making and sounds that are harder for us to make. I have a friend who says frustrated all the time. He's brilliant. He can't say for for for for.

It's just hard for him. So he says frustrated. He knows it's not how you say frustrated. It's just what he does.

Interesting. Everybody seems to have trouble saying vegetable and witness day. So you know, say it that way. Do you?

I do say vegetable and witness day. Witness day? It's Wednesday. I mean, except it's just literally not when you look at the spelling of it, but they just mush together.

And so every group of people has a thing they say weird when everybody else hears them say it. Yes, that's true. Fair. Yeah.

Yeah. There's words I say that probably every time I say it, you think something. There are words you say that every time you say it, I think something. So if I ran into somebody who I had a sneaking suspicion was lying to me about them being from Alabama, they sounded real northern, I might say, I need you to just pronounce a couple of cities for me.

What's that place down there south of Falkfall? Like you're going down towards Coleman and there's that, uh, yeah. But, man, I'm trying to remember what it was. Oh, what is it?

It's a LACO. And how do you say that? Uh, Lacan. Do you not know how to say that?

Lacan? That's Lacan. Okay. Yeah.

I did know it was Lacan. Yeah. You know, it was like, no, I think the one that I could get them with would be like, what's the big town? It's right in the middle of the state.

It's the huge one. It's where they did all that smelting and stuff. Birmingham. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, okay. Well, what's the, uh, what's the town that has the high school mascot?

Um, it's just south of Decatur. Oh, heart cell? Yeah. Yeah.

Where's all pronounced this town right here? We, do we? They, they, how we run you through with the sword so fast. See?

I would just cut your head off. Now that's what Dowie Man. What do we? Yeah.

Yeah. What's the big town that has the rocket place, uh, the, you know, the testing, the big town, Northern Alabama, their biggest town in Northern Alabama. That's a, yeah. Oh, Huntsville.

Okay. So you're actually from Alabama because you said Huntsville, V-U-L-L. A liar would say Huntsville. It's the moment in, well, what's the movie where the, yeah, he says I need three beers and he holds up the middle three fingers, not using the thumb or the pinky.

Dude, great reference. It's such a great moment. Do you remember what movie it is? Ah, it's, it's the, is it in glorious passage?

It is. Yeah. One of my favorite of all that, yes. So Michael Fassbender's scene when he's doing so well speaking German and with a German officer is in that club.

He's a British spy, right? Yes. And he blows it with something that simple, but it's a shibboleth. It's a shibboleth because in German, um, in you standing three beers, you hold up the thumb and the index finger in the middle finger.

Is that the three you do? I think so. Okay. I don't remember which way.

Yeah. I think you're right. Interestingly, that looks a lot like the, what did you call the letter? The letter on the letter.

No, interesting. I'm always going to be a coincidence. Yeah. I'm always going to think about that.

Yeah. Right. So the point is you can just tell and so one of the criticisms of this passage from, you know, people look at the Bible from time to time and you're like, I don't know what to do with that part. A fair criticism of this passage is why didn't the Ephraimites just repeat back whatever the gileadites had just said to them?

Say shibboleth. Okay. Shibboleth. Why wouldn't you say it the same way?

Two possible explanations. One, they just physically couldn't make that sound with their face. Possibility number two is they're like, what do you call the head of like the head of the wheat? What is the word for that again?

And they baited them with it. Either way, it's just really cool that that word from that story occupies this place in culture. So back in 2024, the war between Russia and Ukraine. Okay.

So obviously Russia invaded Ukraine. It's a bad thing. So there was a period of time where Ukraine wasn't hitting back in Russian territory. Okay.

And then finally it got so bad when Ukraine's like, it's on, like this is act, we're hitting you Russia in Russian territory. I can't remember that day. Do you? I think we got on the phone and we're like, dang, that took a turn.

Yeah, it's a thing now. So President Zelinsky for Ukraine, he made a statement that they produced for the first time a drone domestically that would be used to fight against Russia. And I don't know how to say it. It's a, okay, I'll just read this article from some Ukrainian website.

I don't know. So it says the Ukrainian army attacked the Russian army for the first time on 24 August with a new weapon. The Palian-niz-palian-nyi-tiy-dron. I don't know.

It says that whatever the Palianiz drone is a traditional Ukrainian bun. This word is difficult for Russians to pronounce. So it is used as the shibboleth. Really?

Yeah. So the name of the drone, they're like, so if you think about it, the Ukrainian people speak Russian. Yeah. But there are very specific things that are Ukrainian culture, not Russian culture.

So they're very close, but they're these really razor thin places where it's like, no, no, you don't know. You're not in on this. And so for whatever reason, they couldn't say the name of this bun, the specific pastry or whatever it is. And so they named the drone that as a way to say like, this is us.

This is our culture. You can't say this word. That's pretty powerful, isn't it? It is powerful.

I thought it was fast. And the drones were powerful. They were effective. I'm assuming you were talking about that's one of the ones that targeted like an air strip or something.

I don't know. Is that the same event or are we talking about something different? I don't know if it's a drone or a missile. Oh, it's a missile.

Oh, wow, it is big. Oh, it's a turbojet drone missile system developed by Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Let's see what the range is. 650 kilometers.

That's enough because of trouble. That is a lot. How big is the warhead that this is the missile coming out of me? Flight out to my guy system, I N S GPS.

Okay. Maybe nine her kilometers per hour. Doesn't say payload weight. I don't know.

It's a what your guess based on the size of the rocket big. That's a big one. Yeah, I don't know. And what kind of explosive does something like that deliver?

It doesn't matter. I'm sure there's several different types. It blows up. That's great.

That's what you wanted to do. Yeah, warhead. Let's see. Warhead of a few tens of kilograms.

Okay. Another analyst believes the warhead weight is 50 kilograms. That's big man. So it's interesting that they would name it after a bun.

It doesn't make any sense. It's a chibileth rocket. Yeah, it is. It's interesting.

And this is different than say places I've lived in the American West. The rectangle states. Okay. Which two were those?

That's Wyoming and Colorado. Correct. Yeah. So I've lived in both of those for real long time.

Are they rectangles? No, they're not. They've got some goofy tiny little anomalies. Or big waters?

No, no, no, no. We're talking like we thought the line was here. But then it jugs over a little bit. We're not changing it now.

You have to pin zoom way in to see the little glitches and the rectangles. But otherwise they're pretty much just parallelograms made of latitude and longitude lines. Interesting. Which makes me wonder if they're parallelograms or if there's some kind of arc.

Yeah, they are. They do arc. They've got a hook to them. Okay.

So they're very similar on a map. They look very similar on land when you're there. Wyoming and Colorado. It's Rocky Mountains.

It looks real similar. Culturally it looks very similar. But no one in Colorado if you said if you asked where do you go to see a movie, go to the movies. Yeah.

But what building is that? Here you would say the movies. So I guess you would say probably say something like a theater. A theater.

If you ask that question in Wyoming, the answer is the theater. Got it. I don't know why. They're very close.

They're very close. But it's somebody who's from there. I can tell the difference between an old school Wyoming and a Colorado one in that regard. But there's no rivalry between the two.

So it's just a funny, neighborly quirk in that regard. Is, and there's a question for you because I don't know the ground rules here, is what makes something a shibboleth that it is like the Ukraine Russia thing. There's a difference of opinion. You're on opposite sides of something and there's like some kind of deception involved or exposing the truth.

Or is it just a fancy ancient Hebrew word for regional variants in speech patterns and habits? Do you think the answer? I don't know the answer to your question. I don't know if it's only a wartime.

I guess could it be it's mostly used in wartime, isn't it? Is the password element what distinguishes a shibboleth from regional variants? I don't know. I think the shibboleth in the actual story had something to do with how you actually pronounce it.

It makes me wonder if I don't want to say that they were genetically not genetically. They were unable to do it culturally because of their upbringing. I don't know. Here, Wikipedia has a little button here next to the word shibboleth.

Let me see what it says. Shibboleth. Do you hear that? Shibboleth.

Interesting. There's a little more shibboleth than shibboleth. Shibboleth. Yeah.

It's kind of a hard to. Heart cell. Yeah. Okay.

Is this a shibboleth or not? Let me give you an example. Let's say I go out and buy a Patrick Mahomes wig. I got that little springy haircut and I put on a t-shirt that looks like something the kids would wear.

Maybe it says music band because they like bands. I grab a skateboard, sling it over my shoulder and I go to middle school to blend in. I say something like this. Hello fellow middle schoolers.

Six and or seven. Am I right? Am I weight my arms back and forth like this? Obviously, they will all know that I said the thing wrong and I will be exposed.

But we're not necessarily enemies. Does that count as a shibboleth? I don't think so. I don't know.

That's like is this person culturally in the know but a shibboleth is something different. It's like this is a regional. This is tied regionally to where the person is. Like this is a very specific subculture but I think a shibboleth in judges would have worked against the young and the old.

Okay. That's true. What you're talking about is like a culturally relevant thing. So for example, but it's in group language.

There's a very specific thing. I know that it's tied to a specific region in Kentucky. This will blow your mind. Have I told you this before?

No. I don't think so. Put your headphones on. I'm going to call another person.

Sorry I'm calling so many people. I'm just grateful that there are people in my life that trust me enough where I can just call and they answer and then they're like, yeah, I'll roll that. Okay. Let's see.

Okay. You actually know this guy. This is Alexander. Oh, he's great.

You know Alexander. Let's call Alexander. Oh, his ring is different. I don't know.

Very different. Hey, what's up, Xander? Hey, I got Matt with me. You remember Matt?

Hey, how you doing? I'm here. Whitman. Yeah.

Whitman. You remember him? Kind of an odd shaped head. I would say things like that.

I had his naturally shaped within the parameters of a normal head. I thought there's a specific word from an area going, you know, exactly where I'm going. Tell Matt just tell him the thing. You color with a crown.

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Frequently asked questions

How long is this episode of No Dumb Questions?

This episode is 49 minutes long.

When was this No Dumb Questions episode published?

This episode was published on December 16, 2025.

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Yes, a full transcript is available for this episode. You can read the complete transcript on the episode page.

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