Including the Scandinavian

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is David. I’m in Dallas, Texas.

Hey, David. Welcome.

Hi, David. How are you doing?

Well, I have a phrase that has been just bouncing around in my head. Most recently, I was watching the movie Lifeboat by Alfred Hitchcock, and the phrase is something with a sarcastic quip like, if I write it, I want the copyrights, including the Scandinavian. And it seems like I’ve heard that before more than read it. I’ve read it a couple of times. I think it was in Huttucker Proxy, as briefly mentioned. I asked some friends, some of them kind of vaguely another phrase. One of them thinks he hears it in Daffy Duck’s voice from a cartoon. But I do know it goes to at least 1944. And what’s so important about the Scandinavian rights? I did a little research, and I found out that American authors were not recognized in Scandinavian copyright law until the mid-’50s. Was it that big of a deal where there was a phrase, an inside joke in Hollywood maybe back in the day?

So the joke was, I want the copyrights including the Scandinavian.

Yes.

So Lifeboat came out in 1944. You were watching this sometime recently and came across this phrase. Did a little Googling and you’re still not completely satisfied. But I’ll tell you, David, you’re on to something. There’s a thing here. And I’m going to introduce this by way of talking a little bit about what happens when jargon leaves the place where it’s most at home. Like jargon belongs to a particular trade. There was a period in American copyright law where Europe and the European countries and the United States and Canada all had these packs where they agreed to respect each other’s copyrights. However, the Scandinavian countries weren’t a part of that. And so in the front of books for decades in the early part of the 1900s, you would find this particular expression, right of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian, reserved. And this was standard boilerplate at the front of books. This is so omnipresent in books that if you’re any kind of reader at all, you would notice it. I mean, you just kind of passively pay attention to it.

I’m going to change the subject for a second, David, but it’s perfectly on topic. Have you ever heard a comedian make a joke about the tags on mattresses?

Yes.

And the joke is, oh, something about I can’t tear the tag off or I’ll be arrested.

Yeah, that always terrifies me.

It’s totally a law. And why is that?

Well, because it’s a particular bit of legalese attached to the mattress, which actually says you, the consumer, can tear the tag off. But if you’re not the consumer, you can’t tear the tag off. You have to leave it for the buyer to take it off if they want. And it’s on there just to kind of show certain people that there’s law involved. Because actually the mattress business was kind of icky for quite a while because people would resell bug-infested mattresses with just a little new covering on it or something. In any case, it’s another one of those cases where this particular bit of jargon related to a particular convention of the law pops out at somebody who’s not really involved.

So in the front of these books, this little bit of copyright would just pop out, and you’re like, what does that mean, including the Scandinavian? It’s opaque to me. It’s just strange. Why specify Scandinavian? Why wouldn’t you say including the Libyan or the Egyptian?

Exactly.

Why wouldn’t you say that, including the Argentinian? I just like, I don’t, why the Scandinavian doesn’t make any sense to me? And so it becomes a thing where you just keep mulling it over until it’s like, it’s just funny. There’s another example that maybe is a little less common, but anybody in academia has probably encountered this. This is when somebody makes a PDF file from a digital book. And somewhere in the front or the back, there’ll be a page that will say, this page intentionally left blank. You ever seen that?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I’ve gotten it in phone bills. They say this page intentionally left blank. I thought that was for printing purposes were the odd even number of pages.

It is.

It’s something to do with that. But it’s also to let you know that there’s nothing missing, that there wasn’t supposed to be anything there. And the funny thing is, once they’ve added those words, the page is no longer blank. So then they don’t need the words. But if they took the words off, then the page would be blank and you’re back where you started.

Good point.

And so these are three cases of jargon that are needed for somebody along the way, but probably not for you. And so it pops out at you and it’s funny. So anyway, so you can find in the 1930s in movies and films and books and newspapers, people making jokes about including the Scandinavian. Anything related to any Scandinavian country, it was like the go-to cheap headline for newspaper copy desks where they just like, oh, I need a headline. Let’s just call it including the Scandinavian.

Really?

Yeah.

Very, very good to know. It ties a few loose ends up in my mind anyway.

Excellent.

David, thank you so much for calling.

Thank you.

Thanks, dude.

Bye-bye.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Grant, talking about this page intentionally left blank, it reminds me of back when I was a reporter at the Washington Post. And if the computers crashed, you got this message that said, an impossible event has just occurred.

What?

The world’s coming to an end.

I love those. Share your stories with us about jargon out of context and what it made you think. Funny is great. 877-929-9673 or email us words@waywordradio.org.