A San Antonio, Texas, woman wonders about the phrase to ask for your John Henry, meaning to ask for your signature. It’s a variant of the far more common phrase, to ask for your John Hancock, a reference to the bold signature of John Hancock, one of the original signers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “John Henry Signature”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Susan. I’m calling from San Antonio, Texas.
Hi, Susan. Welcome to the show.
I’m calling about a question I had that came up at work the other day.
I work for a restaurant and gift shop chain, and part of our duty is if we have a return, we have to sign a piece of paper saying that we help the customer.
And I said to a co-worker, there was a paper laying there, and I said, I need your John Henry on this paper.
And we were in a group, and she just said to the other person, Susan’s asking me for my John Henry.
But it made me wonder about the phrase and where it came from.
And I could have ran home and looked on Google and checked it all out, but I follow your show, so I thought, well, I’ll just ask you guys.
And here we are.
Yeah, you know, most people say put your John Hancock here.
Have you ever heard him say that?
No, you know, I haven’t.
Oh, really? Because he’s the guy with the beautiful, huge signature.
Right, right.
On the Declaration of Independence, the first guy to sign it, and he wrote in really big letters and said something to the effect of King George should be able to read that or something like that.
All right, how wonderful.
Yeah, and you see that big old signature when they have ads for the John Hancock Insurance Company, I think.
And I have seen that, yes.
Yeah, okay.
So most people say put your John Hancock there, meaning put your signature there.
But the thing is that the phrase put your John Henry there is also used by more people than just you.
It’s not just a one-off by any means.
But the John Hancock phrase is far more common.
Both of them go back to the early 20th century.
But who do you think of when you think of John Henry?
Well, immediately I thought, you know, it must be a historical figure.
And I even thought that it might be somebody that had signed either the Declaration of Independence or a document of some kind.
But then I thought, well, I’m not sure how sharp I am on my real history anymore.
Well, do you remember those folk songs about John Henry was a steel-driving man, that really strong guy who helped build the railroads back in the late 1900s?
A man ain’t nothing but a man.
Yeah, when John Henry was a little baby.
Wow, I kind of remember that.
That’s right.
Oh, there’s some really good versions of it on YouTube, I bet.
I know Woody Guthrie has covered it, and pretty much every folk singer of any note has done the version of the song.
Yeah, yeah.
So you’re not alone.
Well, that’s good to know, too.
Yeah, yeah.
Thanks, Susan.
We’re glad to have you.
Thank you, and I’ll look at that song.
Thanks very much.
Bye-bye.
Okay, bye, Susan.
Bye-bye.
Send your emails to words@waywordradio.org.
