Transcript of “Get Outside of Food”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, Grant. This is Nate Varnardoe. I’m calling from North Carolina.
Hi, Nate. Welcome to the show.
Hello, Nate.
Hi, Martha.
Hi, what’s up?
Growing up, my grandparents on my mom’s side lived in New Hampshire, and we would take visits up there for big holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas.
And during a meal, especially when I was younger, I may not be finishing all my food, and my grandpa Hack would always say, you better get outside of that.
And I’ve never heard anyone since, besides my immediate family, use that phrase.
And I’d like to know more about it.
To get outside of that, he meant you better eat that?
Yeah, you better get outside of that turkey.
Are you going to get outside of those mashed potatoes?
Sometimes it was a question.
Okay.
So to get outside of food means what to you mean?
Put your body on the outside of it.
In other words, put it in front of you.
I think it literally means that.
It doesn’t mean embrace it.
That was how I always interpreted it as a child.
I mean, maybe that’s not the right meaning.
Hold the entire turkey to your chest, son.
Well, I think it was more…
No, no, I think he meant my helping of whatever it was needs to be inside of my body instead of outside of it, which would then put my body on the outside of said food.
Exactly.
Once you’ve eaten it, you are technically on the outside of whatever you’ve eaten.
Exactly, yeah.
And I mean, I still use this phrase, although I’ve changed it a little sometimes.
I say you better get around that to my daughter.
But essentially, yeah, it’s the same meaning.
And I get funny looks from her and my wife.
Yeah, I think that’s pretty much it, Nate.
Get outside of that meal so that it’s inside of you.
And sometimes the expression is climb outside of that or get on the outside of.
And it’s been around, what, since the 1860s or so in both the U.K. and the United States.
You can get outside of a meal or get outside of a square meal.
I’ve seen references to you’ve got to get outside of a supper, you know, because you’re hungry and you’re looking around.
In fact, I’m looking at a newspaper from 1868 in Pennsylvania that says, there once was a conjurer who professed his ability to get into a quart bottle.
But we know a conjurer who can do a trick worth two of that.
He can get outside of a quart bottle by putting himself around the insides of it.
So it’s not like climbing into a bottle.
It’s pouring the bottle’s contents into you.
So we’re looking at 150 years history of this odd expression, meaning to eat or to drink.
Is it mainly in New England?
Or I know you said in the UK as well.
Is it still used anywhere?
Yeah, it’s current, actually.
You’ll still hear it.
It’s never been all that common.
But yeah, you still occasionally find that.
I think it’s kind of perpetuated by fiction as much as anything, because it kind of goes along with this old-fashioned mode of speech that you might find in certain kinds of novels.
Yeah, here’s a newspaper ad from 1904.
Get outside of a fish supper with hot rolls.
Mmm.
I could go for that right now.
Oh, yeah, me too.
Yeah, I was just thinking of catfish and cornbread, actually.
Got plenty of that here in North Carolina for sure.
Well, that’s fantastic and fascinating, and I can’t wait to tell my mom about it.
So thank you so much.
All right, take care.
Please do.
Bye-bye.
You’ll have a good one.
Bye-bye.
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