Show notes

Everybody thinks medieval pubs had cups with whistles baked into them. You blew the whistle, you got a refill. It's a great story and somebody made it up. On this episode, Mario and Twenty are joined by Myron to trace the origin, confirm the meaning, and assess the value of "wet my whistle." The whistle was never an object. It was your throat; a usage running through Beaumont and Fletcher, where you could "cut your whistle," and all the way back to Chaucer in 1386. The cup came later, invented backwards to explain a phrase people no longer understood. Mario's term for it is retroactive prop invention. Then there's the H. "Whet your whistle" shows up in Thomas Flatman's Belly God in 1674 and never leaves, because whet sounds more literate than wet — a 350-year hypercorrection that people still defend today. Also: the requirements for a proper swig, why nobody can agree on what a thumbs-up means, the dietary guidelines dropping their actual numbers, medieval life as imprisonment by civilization, and a Dictionary of Misinformation entry that will change how you sit in meetings. 0:00 The Departed, Cranberry Juice, And A Phrase We Might Have To Retire 0:44 The ATP Intro Theme 1:33 Myron's In The Building 1:58 Spoke Too Soon About The Sports Teams 8:39 The Requirements For A Proper Swig 9:24 Preferably Over 32 Ounces 11:45 Ain't Nobody Going Out For Cranberry Juice 14:03 Myron Has Been In The Store Too Long 16:41 Unveil The Origin: Chaucer, 1386 (Content Warning) 18:00 "So Was Her Jolly Whistle Well Wet" 22:25 The Northern Clerks And Tolkien's Paper On The Reeve's Tale 26:41 Rules We Enforce And Don't Follow 27:57 Text Me, Don't Call Me 29:00 Don't Read My Texts In A James Earl Jones Voice 29:08 The Thumbs-Up Problem 33:20 Emoji Etiquette In The Group Chat 34:24 Confirm The Meaning: Beaumont And Fletcher, "Cut Your Whistle" 36:39 Thomas Flatman's Belly God, 1674 37:19 Wet vs. Whet: 350 Years Of Trying To Sound Smarter 39:25 The Dietary Guidelines Dropped The Actual Numbers 43:39 Myron Amends His Take 46:07 The Myth: Cups With Whistles Baked In 47:05 Twenty: Medieval Life Was A Prison 49:10 Retroactive Prop Invention 50:56 "Am I Gonna Have To Stop Saying Wet My Whistle?" 52:43 Myron's Hit List: It Is What It Is 53:51 Why Won't You Explain Your Real Reasoning? 56:16 Capacity, And Having Your Own Stuff Going On 59:25 Using A Phrase To Avoid Confrontation 59:52 Pop Culture Impact: The Top Four 1:01:47 #1 Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade 1:02:19 The Appraisal 1:07:30 Dictionary Of Misinformation: Meeting Minutes 1:09:50 Shop, Credits, And Where To Find Us REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE Geoffrey Chaucer, The Reeve's Tale (c. 1386) · John Palsgrave, Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse (1530) · The Towneley Plays · Beaumont and Fletcher · Thomas Flatman, Belly God (1674) · Henry Fielding, Joseph Andrews (1742) · J.R.R. Tolkien, "Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale," Transactions of the Philological Society · Michael Quinion, World Wide Words · The Departed (2006) · To Have and Have Not (1944) · Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) COMMENT: Wet or whet — which are you, and are you prepared to defend it? And settle this for us: what does a thumbs-up actually mean? ATP SHOP: every phrase gets a grade. Some of them get a mug. appraisethephrase.com/shop THE BRACKET: the board is filling up. Tournament comes March 2027. Subscribe to Appraise The Phrase on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheUnderdog Appraise The Phrase official site: appraisethephrase.com Check out our other ATP produced shows: appraisethephrase.com/community Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theappraisethephraseshow Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@appraisethephrase Follow us on X/Twitter: https://x.com/TheATPShow