Bud in Council Bluffs, Iowa, says when he was fishing but no one was catching anything, an acquaintance observed, We must be holding our mouths wrong. There are several versions of that expression, including You must be holding your mouth wrong or That fisherman is holding his mouth wrong, It’s all in how you hold your mouth or Are you holding your mouth right? These all reference a useless additional act that may or may not help what you’re doing. The idea of holding one’s mouth correctly to accomplish a task goes back at least as far as the 1890s. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “You’ll Never Catch Anything Unless You Hold Your Mouth Right”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Bud from Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Hey, Bud, welcome to the show.
Here’s the deal.
I was fishing, this has been the last spring, last summer. I was fishing at a local pond, and there was a guy I knew that was there. I was surprised to see him. I hadn’t seen him before, but I knew him. Not a friend, but an acquaintance. And we struck up a conversation, and the fish weren’t biting very well. And we commented about that, and he said, we must be holding our mouth wrong. He said, that’s what my dad used to say. And I said, well, I’ve heard that before, too. You know, we’re not catching fish because the fisherman is holding his mouth wrong. And so I told him, I said, hey, I’ve listened to NPR, A Way with Words, and I’ll bet they could maybe tell us where that originated from. That’s my question.
So why do fishermen say to each other, are you holding your mouth wrong? Yeah, when you’re not catching fish, the reason must be that you’re holding your mouth wrong. Have you ever heard that? Yeah, we sure have. Absolutely. Yeah, lots of different versions of it, too. Like, oh, son, it’s all in how you hold your mouth. I mean, it’s true, right? That if you’re the picture of concentration, you’re probably twisting your mouth or holding it in a certain way. Biting your lip, right, in that certain way, like scrunched up in a way. I mean, I like to juggle. I do some juggling. And any time I look at video of myself, my mouth is wide open when I’m doing it. I look like a fish. Holding your mouth in the juggling way. Yeah, I look like a fish about to bite something.
Michael Jordan, you know, the basketball player, is known for sticking his tongue out when he’s concentrating. He said that that was something that his grandfather did. So it’s basically this useless act that supposedly is going to help you accomplish what you’re trying to do. But it’s about these situations where you’re not 100 percent sure why sometimes what you’re doing works and sometimes it doesn’t. Like, why is it easy to get through international customs really fast one time, but not another time? Or why did the car start for your spouse, but not for you? Or why did this recipe work for one batch of cookies, but not for the next batch? Must have been holding the mouth wrong.
Yeah. Why did your friend catch, you know, two great big bass sitting next to you and you didn’t catch anything? And you’re using the same bait and you’re in the same boat, you know? Because you’re not holding your mouth right. The earliest use I can find is from baseball, by the way. Mooney, this is 1890, mind you. Mooney knocked an easy one to the second baseman, but the man on first did not hold his mouth right and mucked the thrown ball so that everybody kept on running.
Okay, so this goes back a ways. But I’ll tell you, Bud, there’s one from 1894 that I really like where it’s about fishing. So they’ve been using it for fishing since at least the 1890s. And this one, this guy adds another spin on it. He says, you don’t hold your mouth right, me boy. Keep your other eyes shut and they won’t recognize you. So he gets this other spin on it. Hold your other eyes shut and the fish won’t recognize you is what you got to do to get some.
Well, I’m anxious to tell my fishing acquaintance about that. Yeah. So that’s as far back as we know, and that’s what we know. But fishing definitely has some claim on it. But boy, it sure has spread into all other sorts of things. It’s just kind of an easy way to explain life’s mysteries about why there’s a little bit of chaos in the things that we do, why things sometimes just don’t go well, even though we’ve done everything right.
Well, yeah, that’s a good way to put it. That happens. That happens. All right, Bud, it’s been a delight. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. All right. Take care. 877-929-9673. Or you can talk to us on Twitter @wayword.
