Tony, a plumber and pipefitter in Escanaba, Michigan, uses dead nuts when he and his coworkers finish a pipe layout exactly where it needs to be. The nuts in that expression has nothing to do with testicles. Instead, dead is the same emphasizing adverb found in dead certain and dead even, while nuts connects to the older phrase nuts on or nuts about someone, meaning perfectly in favor of or in love with them. The expression turns up in many non-mechanical contexts from the 1880s onward. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Despite How It Sounds, “Dead Nuts” Has Nothing to Do with Testicles; It Means Something Is Lined Up Perfectly”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi there, my name’s Tony. I’m calling from Escanaba, Michigan.
Hi, Tony.
What’s up?
I’m in the construction field, do plumbing and pipe fitting. I’m actually calling about a term that my friends and I were talking and they threw out the term dead nuts. And it’s something that I’ve used, that my co-workers use, we all use in the field. And we’re all kind of laughing about it and I was kind of curious as to what that actually means. And how would you use it?
Usually, like, we’re laying out pipe or we’re doing a plumbing job or something like that. You know, we measure everything out. We cut it. We’ll land it. And usually when you got everything lined up perfectly, you know, it’s right where it needs to be. Nothing’s wrong. You know, you’d say dead nuts.
Okay. Just to get this out of the way, because I know everyone’s wondering, the nuts in this expression has nothing to do with testicles. Even though people might have dirty minds, and particularly when you’re talking about laying pipe, it has nothing to do with male genitals at all.
The other interesting thing about it is the origin of dead nuts surprisingly comes from outside the mechanical trades. It doesn’t involve plumbers or machinists or engineers of any kind. It may be a direct connection to being nuts about someone. And bear with me on this. The nuts to be nuts about someone, to be crazy for them, is about true love. And true has another meaning, which is interesting.
So if something is true, it is directly on target. It’s perfectly straight. It’s right where it needs to be. It’s unequivocally exactly what you want. So the dead in dead nuts is an adverb describing nuts, which is an adjective. So dead is the same dead we find in dead certain or dead even or dead heat. It’s an emphasizing adverb. And then the nuts just basically means to be perfectly for something, perfectly toward something, perfectly in the direction that you want, that sort of thing.
So it’s an offshoot from the older form of nuts, to be nuts on someone or to be nuts about someone or just to be nuts.
Oh, that’s awesome.
Yeah, it’s weird, right?
Very cool. Very strange connection. And my friends and I are totally immature now after hearing all that.
Trust me. So even the most mature among us went the wrong direction of that.
Stop thinking about plumbing.
Yeah, yeah. So it goes back. That’s awesome to hear. But 1880s or so, we find it again and again popping up in a huge number of contexts that have nothing whatsoever to do with any kind of mechanical trade or profession.
Oh, very awesome. But, you know, to be nuts, they used to say to be nuts on someone or on something or nuts upon rather than nuts about, like we would say today.
Really?
But it’s the same meaning, to be in love with or to be in favor of or to be obsessed with.
Oh, that’s pretty cool.
Yeah.
Heck yeah. How about that?
Perfect. Well, thanks for taking the time and talking to me.
All right. Take care.
Thanks, Tony.
Bye-bye.
Yes, ma’am.
Bye.
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