Fish or Cut Bait

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is David Block, and I’m calling you from Greenwich, Connecticut.

Well, welcome to the program. What can we do for you, David?

About 15 or so years ago, we were invited to a friend’s house down in an island off the west coast of Florida, and another friend of theirs and mine was invited as well.

And during the course of our vacation, we may have been fishing, but we may not have been fishing. I can’t remember that exactly.

I happened to say to my friend Mel, who was an architect and a very argumentative fellow, I might add, I happened to say to him, well, listen, let’s either fissure cut bait.

And he looked at me and said, what do you mean by that?

I said, well, let’s either stop doing what we’re doing and go on to do something else, or that’s what that means to me.

And he said, no, no, no, you’re wrong. You’re completely wrong.

I said, well, what do you think the expression means?

And he said, well, we can either fish, that is, go on fishing, or we can stop fishing, sit on the dock, and cut bait.

And I just didn’t think he had a leg to stand on.

And here you are, the jury. You can tell me what you think.

Wow, a jury of two.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay, so you’re wondering if it’s fish or cut bait, meaning to stop fishing entirely and go play checkers or something?

Well, I would say it’s either do it or stop trying to or pretending to do it and get on to the next thing. That’s how I view it.

And he obviously viewed it that you’ve got two choices. You can fish or you can go sit on the dock and cut bait.

Okay, okay.

You know what? Growing up, I always thought it was the way that you’re saying it, just fish or…

And I think this was because when I was very young and when I used to fish, my lines would get all tangled up.

And you’d cut bait.

Yeah, yeah.

So I would actually cut the line and cut the bait off because, you know, my only experience with bait was, you know, the poor little worms, you know, just sticking one little worm on the hook.

And so that’s what I always thought it was, fish or cut your line.

But this idiom means something else.

Cutting bait is what?

It’s a useful activity.

Engage in a useful activity besides fishing, right?

Yeah, but if you’re cutting bait, you’re cutting up trash fish so that you can bait your hooks or bait your traps with that, right, to catch something else?

I would agree with that, yes.

Yes, that’s what I subsequently learned, that the idea is to either fish or make yourself useful doing something and let somebody else get in front of you and fish.

Right, right.

Yeah.

What is the jury saying?

I’m a little lost here.

The jury is waffling as usual and hedging and caveating in a way that only the jury can do.

Well, I think there are two ideas here, either fish or cut bait, meaning fish or stop completely.

And then the other idea is fish or cut bait, meaning to either fish or get out of the way and go do something useful.

Productive. Yeah, I see what you’re saying.

Yeah, one way or the other, you need to be busy.

And if you don’t have it in you to do the fishing, then go cut bait so somebody else can do the fishing.

That’s the way that I always understood it.

So you lean more towards my argumentative architect friend.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I mean, that’s the way that I learned it.

But the thing is, even though one origin or the other might have been original, since both kinds of understandings of this are current, they’re both actually still operative.

Does that make sense?

So whichever way you take it is still a useful idiom.

I feel relieved to know after all these years, and I really appreciate your thoughtful input.

Well, it’s our pleasure.

We’re on the air in Alaska, and I bet there are some fishermen up there who can call us and let us know exactly what they think about fishing or cutting bait.

Hey, David, thanks a lot for calling.

Thank you, Martha, and thank you, Grant.

All right, take care.

Had a good one on the hook there, didn’t we?

We did.

We did.

We’ll be waiting with bated breath for your calls and emails.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

The email address is words@waywordradio.org.