Eating the Covers

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Good afternoon, this is Spence.

Hiya, Spence, where are you calling from?

From Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Hello, Milwaukee. What’s going up there?

Well, here at the museum, we’re staying real busy.

But I keep having people that are messing up at times.

And I have that old expression when they don’t follow what I tell them to do.

You know, you give them books and they eat the covers.

You’re in a museum. What kind of museum is this?

It’s a natural history museum.

Oh, fantastic. I’m imagining a place with stuffed animals and dinosaur bones and butterfly rooms, that sort of thing, no?

Exactly what we have.

So you’re saying that sometimes you’ve got to talk to your staff or your colleagues, and they’re just not getting a lesson.

So you pull out the expression, you can buy them books, and all they do is eat the covers?

You give them books, and they eat the covers.

They give them books, and they eat the covers.

And you explain it as much as you can. You put it in writing. You hand it to them. You read it to them.

And then when you go back to check what they did, you don’t even believe that they read the same thing.

Spence, how long have you been using that phrase?

You know, that goes way back.

And again, it’s at least 20 to 25 years.

It’s one of those expressions that I am an expressionful guy.

And I keep finding expressions pop up like that on a regular basis.

Do you have any idea where you got it?

Oh, no.

Yeah, I was curious if you knew where you had gotten it, because I have to tell you, I’m baffled.

I’ve been asked this before, and I’ve seen different versions of it.

Like you can give them books and give them books, and all they do is eat the covers.

Yes, yes, I’ve heard of that.

Yeah, and I just, I have tried to find the origin of this, and I just have not been able to do it.

I mean, the idea is sort of what?

Like you can lead a horse to the library, but you can’t make him read?

Yes, ma’am.

Or like they’re unappreciative, you know, like they’re just goats or something.

I mean, that’s the image I get.

They’re not treating the books as content.

They’re treating the books as fodder.

Right.

I mean, you could not have done much more to give a person the basics.

And after they’re done with being handed that,

They go and perform something totally the opposite of what you’ve just requested.

Right.

Well, let me tell you, Spence, this one is a bit of a stumper.

It does come up in a variety of different forms all over the Internet.

It shows up in newspaper archives.

I see it in a few books.

I see it in fiction and nonfiction.

But the oldest use I can find actually is kind of recent.

It’s from 1985 in a story from the Los Angeles Times where an assistant secretary of state is explaining how Congress and the media are very difficult to educate about Central America.

And his way of putting it is you buy them books and you buy them books and all they do is eat the covers.

And so he has his particular way of phrasing it.

But it’s more or less the same thing that you’re using, right?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. That is exactly.

But that’s kind of recent. But it’s not too far off from about 25 years, which is your guess, right?

Well, that’s what I was thinking, yes.

So, I mean, I don’t know that I listened to the Dear Gentleman when he spoke that, but if he did, maybe it did stick.

Yeah, it’s possible. But, you know, the way he’s using it here makes me think it was from a movie or television show.

It’s possible, right?

Oh, absolutely.

Like, think about any kind of sitcom or any kind of movie that was big in the day.

I wonder.

I wonder if it’s like maybe it’s a line in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and I’ve just forgotten about it.

You know, it could be because, you know, the thing is, Spence, I look in all these databases, but they’re woefully short on things like movie scripts and television scripts.

I don’t have a really good way to search this stuff.

And that stuff has got such a huge cultural impact on us.

Sometimes you just never know, you know, that the whole country might have picked this phrase up from one episode of Rhoda that aired in, you know, whatever, 1978.

Right, right. It almost are the smaller versions of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Right, exactly.

Everybody remembers a certain line, but some of these become a little bit more mystic after a while.

Mm-that’s true.

Yes, indeed.

But anyway, I like this expression, though. I think this is one to use. This is one to keep. This is a keeper.

Well, I believe that my fellow staff and workers will supply me with many opportunities to use this again.

Yeah, well, it sounds like you’ve got a great job there.

I’m a little bit envious.

Do you go and eat your lunch in the butterfly room,

Have a sandwich with the monarch butterflies or the swallowtails?

Well, that is one of the benefits,

Especially when it’s snowing outside and I get to sit in the tropics there

And have them flying around.

That is a delight, to say the least.

It’s beautiful.

Oh, how cool.

How cool.

And if you don’t bring enough lunch,

You just go chew on a T-Rex bone for a while, right?

Yes, we have a woolly mammoth on menu today.

Yeah, have some mammoth steaks.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Well, Spence, it’s been a delight talking with you today.

Likewise. Thank you.

All right. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Take care of yourself. Bye-bye.

Stay warm. Bye-bye.

All right. You too.

Grant, we’ll have to ask around.

I love this expression.

What’s your favorite version of it?

I think the best thing is it’s all about eating the covers.

Yeah.

So no matter how much the rest of it changes,

It’s the idea that they’re such savages that they don’t appreciate literature for its words

That they just think, well, what can I possibly do with this?

They act as if they’re goats.

And now I’m wondering if more and more people are reading electronic books, if they’re going to be chewing on the…

You buy them computers and you buy them computers and all they do is eat the keyboard.

Something like that.

Yeah, exactly.

1-877-929-9673.

And by the way, you can call that number any time of the day, even when the show is not on the air.

We have voicemail and we listen to all of it.

You can also email us at words@waywordradio.org.

Marth and I read every message also.

And you can participate, of course, in the discussion forum at waywordradio.org/discussion.