Hollis in Anchorage, Alaska, grew up on a small North Carolina farm, where her family applied the expression dyed in the wool to people with strong political or religious beliefs. The phrase originated with the idea of dyeing raw wool before spinning it into yarn. This makes the color more consistent and longer-lasting than dyeing a finished garment, which is described as dyed in the piece. Figurative uses of dyed in the wool appear in British English as early as the 1500s. British speakers have also used dyed in the grain, the old word graine coming from Latin grana, a term for the tiny, seed-like insects that yielded dyes of carmine, crimson, and vermillion. The same root survives in ingrain, as in beliefs ingrained from an early age. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Dyed in the Wool”: How Dyeing Raw Wool Before Spinning Gave Us the Phrase”
Hello.
You have A Way with Words.
Hi.
I’m Hollis in Anchorage, Alaska.
Hey, Hollis.
We’re glad to have you.
So I grew up in North Carolina, and I grew up on a small farm.
And my family often used the phrase died in the wool.
And we weren’t using it to describe the sweaters from our sheep, but people with really strong beliefs.
And so I was thinking about that phrase recently because there are a lot of strong beliefs going around these days, but I haven’t heard the phrase in a while.
And so I was wondering about about that phrase.
And is it just me?
Is it my location in Anchorage that I’m not hearing it so much anymore?
You know, I’m curious about its history and origins.
Yeah.
Died in the wool.
So when you heard it as a kid, what was being discussed?
We were often talking about people who had really strong beliefs.
Ok.
So…
Like politics or religion, that sort of thing?
Politics, religion, just really strong ideas.
One of the reasons it might be less popular, and I think the data show that it is less common to hear it or to see it, is that people don’t know whether or not it’s d I e d or d y e d.
The the fact that it’s dyed in the wool gives us some clue that it’s probably d y e d.
But Yeah.
I think that might mean that people are a little avoidant when it comes to using this.
But also, culture and a society, we’re further and further removed from everyday agriculture and the way that our goods are manufactured.
So, it might not understand the process.
Because it really is about the process of handling wool.
Did you process your own wool or make your own We did.
Yarn or sweaters when you were on the farm?
Yeah.
Yeah.
My dad shared the sheep and my mom spun the wool and we all knit.
I was wondering just what you’re saying if if it was DY Yeah.
E d.
And and I guess it’s a little confusing to me the phrase to be dyed in the wool because when you think about dying wool or adding color wool Mhmm.
I would usually use that verb differently, that the wool would be dyed itself.
Instead of dyed in the wool is a sort of unusual use of that preposition Yeah.
With the phrase.
Yeah.
So that preposition I n is more indicative of the fact that we’re talking about an uncountable substance.
That’s kind of what’s happening here.
So that d y e, the meaning of color or substance of color, What would happen is that textile workers learned very early on in the civilization…
Part of civilization and the time of civilization where we learned to process wool.
That if you added the color to the raw wool before spinning it, before making it into yarn, then your color is gonna be more permanent and more uniform.
Right.
And the other side of that, if you added it after the garments are already sewn or made or knitted, like, fully formed…
You can’t really do that anymore.
No.
It’s’ cause the color’s uneven and and it fades a lot faster.
So Yeah.
Dyed in the wool refers to that that first thing where you die…
It’s just got this big mass of unprocessed wool.
It’s clean, obviously.
Maybe you even cartered it, but you haven’t done anything else, and you apply the dye before you turned it into Before you bent it.
NYP.
Yeah.
The other side of that is dyed in the piece.
This is where you do dye the garment.
You change the color.
Like, if you’ve ever had to change I see.
The color of a dress or shoes in order to have something to wear to a dance or a wedding or something’ you didn’t wanna buy a new, that would be dying in the piece.
As early as the fifteen hundreds in British English, we see some uses of dye to the wool that are figurative where there’s talking…
Someone being imbued with traits.
So it’s not so much that they have strongly held beliefs.
It just means that their whole personality and characters is colored by whatever is that like they might be dyed in the wool, a dyed in the wool Welshman or something like that, you know.
They’re very much of their place and time or of their people and situation.
But in Britain, you used to be more likely to hear died in the grain, g r a I n e.
And it’s a strange history because it comes from the Latin word grana, which refers to the same insects that gave us the colors carmine and crimson and vermilion.
Oh.
Those insects looked like harsh small seeds, which are grana.
That’s what it means.
And it’s also where you get the word ingrained as in her beliefs were ingrained in her from a young age.
Meaning Right.
We instilled you with a bright permanent die of those beliefs.
So ingrained I didn’t know that.
Yeah.
Ingrained is actually the same as to die of a wall.
Fascinating.
As everyone says, a huge fan of the show.
Thrilled to get to chat with you and and word nerd out little bit.
Absolutely.
We hereby give you the our people certificates.
Hollis, we’re so glad you called.
Alright.
Take care.
Bye.
Have a great rest of your day.
You too.
You too.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye bye.
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