“Empty heads make weary bones,” so don’t forget what you went looking for or you’ll wind up exhausted for no reason! This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Empty Heads”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Mary from Beverly Hills, Michigan.
Hi, Mary, how you doing?
I’m fine, how are you?
Good enough, thanks for asking.
What can we help you with today?
My mother used to tell me that my grandmother would say, empty heads make weary bones. And I never knew where it came from. I never heard anybody else say it. If I’ve said it to somebody else, I’ve never heard that before. So I thought maybe you guys could help.
What was happening when she said that, and who was she saying it to?
Usually us when we were doing something dumb, like going, and I always thought it was you go into a room, you forget why you went there, so you have to go back later on, or you do a sloppy job and you have to redo it, that kind of thing.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Mary, where was your grandmother’s grandmother from?
I think they were in Perryville for quite a while, but they originally came from Germany.
Germany.
Bingo.
Okay.
I think we have an answer for you. There’s a German proverb along these lines that reflects the same idea that you’re talking about. If you forget something, you walk into another room, then you have to walk all the way back into that first room to get it, right?
Right.
And there’s a German proverb that goes, was man nicht in Kopf hat, das muss man in den Beinen haben. Which means, what you don’t have in your head, you have to have in your legs. And I think it’s the same idea there.
Yes.
So she may have…
Oh, neat.
Yeah, yeah.
I’m betting it’s a translation from German. There are also versions of this in Spanish and Italian and probably a lot of other languages in Europe. But when you said German, that made me think that that’s probably what it is.
So can you say that again, please?
Okay.
And listen for the word Kopf, like Dünkopf. It means head. Was man nicht in Kopf hat, das muss man in den Beinen haben. And Beinen is leg, like bone.
Oh, okay.
So you’re constantly walking back and forth from room to room because you haven’t been mindful of what you need when you get there.
Right.
Right, exactly.
And I’ve seen different translations of this notion in English, like use your head to save your heels, or if you don’t use your head, you’ll have to use your legs, that kind of thing.
Right.
A lot of unnecessary running around.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Forgetful head makes a weary pair of heels.
Yeah.
There’s more of that with senior moments.
Exactly.
So does that help?
That helps a lot.
Thank you so much.
Sure thing.
Take care, Mary.
Thank you.
All right.
You too.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
What did your grandmother say?
Email us, words@waywordradio.org.
Find us on Facebook and Twitter, SoundCloud, iTunes, Stitcher, and a few more places.
