“Brand” in “Brand New”

Hello, welcome to A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Giovanni Cruz from Dallas, Texas.

Hi, Giovanni. Welcome to the show.

Thanks. Thanks for having me. I’m a huge fan.

Oh, that’s awesome.

We’re glad to have you. What’s up?

Last year, my German exchange sister came to visit for the first time in, I think, 10 years.

And she really wanted to tour our town, our hometown that we had lived in when we were together as exchange sisters.

So we went home and we visited my parents.

And my dad has this tendency to over-exaggerate, as some people do.

And so we were driving around the town, and he kept pointing to things and going,

Oh, look at that building over there.

That’s brand new.

Oh, look at that building over there.

That building’s brand new.

And in my mind, I’m like, Dad, that building’s two, three years old.

That’s not brand new.

Brand new is like it just went up yesterday, right?

And so, but it really got me to thinking what, I know what a brand is, you know, and I know it’s, you know, I’m from Texas.

We brand cattle.

We brand our animals.

I know when something is new, but it kind of occurred to me, at what point did we start attaching brand to new and making it like something that is extra new, something that’s hot off the presses, something that just came up yesterday?

And so that was really my question.

When did we sort of attach this adjective to the word new to make it extra?

Yeah, well, there are words that involve the letters B-R-A-N-D, like brandish and firebrand, that have to do with something that’s fresh out of the fire, like a piece of wood that’s fresh out of the fire, or something that’s fresh and glowing from the furnace.

It’s sort of like Shakespeare used the term fire new to mean sort of the same thing, something that’s still glowing.

It’s so hot.

Wow, it’s pretty old.

Yeah, yeah.

So brand new is not brand new.

But the path is pretty clear here.

Also in the mid-16th century, we have brand meaning a mark made with a hot iron.

And branding of animals of livestock predates Texas and the founding of the United States.

So that same mark went on to mean it belonged to a particular farmer or rancher.

And then that idea of this mark belonging to a company or an enterprise went on to mean the brand that we have today where a company has a brand that’s usually a logo or something that’s easily recognizable.

So there’s a real path here between the fire brand, a hot burning stick, or a hot burning stick or a red hot piece of metal that can mark an animal,

And then that mark taking on the idea of representing a company,

And then going to the brands that we have today.

Right.

And that I understood, too.

It was just, it baffled me.

I’m like, at what point did we attach this brand thing to the word new?

And why is that something that we, you know, and like I said, my dad over-exaggerates,

Like, you know, something can be 10 years old in his mind as brand new.

Hey, I know that feeling.

I love that as you’re talking about your dad saying something’s new when it’s not really new,

You’re also saying he over-exaggerates.

He doesn’t just exaggerate.

He over-exaggerates.

He hyper-over-exaggerates.

We’re hyperbolic people, English speakers and particularly Americans,

But we tend to always talk about extremes, the most of something or the least of something

Or the best or the worst or the newest or the oldest.

We like the edges.

Well, we just want to make sure we’re really driving the point home.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah, absolutely.

Giovanni, thank you so much for your call.

We really appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks for answering my question.

Sure thing.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

877-929-9673.