Joshing You

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Dan Hersey calling in.

Hi, Dan. Where are you calling us from?

Traverse City, Michigan.

Welcome to the show. How can we help you, Dan?

Me and my girlfriend were having a discussion the other day, and the phrase, I’m just joshing you, came up, and, well, we have absolutely no idea where that came from.

Were you bantering, perhaps, or teasing each other?

Oh, of course, yeah. We tease each other from time to time, of course.

Okay.

So joshing as in J-O-S-H?

Honestly, it’s a phrase we’ve used here in northern Michigan for years, and I’m guessing that’s how it is spelled.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I’m just kidding you. I’m just teasing you, right?

Correct.

Okay.

And you had just, why do we use this guy’s name to talk about teasing people?

Correct.

I mean, is every guy named Josh untrustworthy, or what’s the deal?

It’s true.

Every guy named Josh is untrustworthy.

Sorry, Josh.

No, there’s an interesting story here. There’s one etymology that a lot of people give, one origin, which is fun but probably not true.

And that’s that it comes from the guy who went by the pen name of Josh Billings, who by the 1850s became a really, really well-known humorist in the United States.

He did newspaper columns that were widely published. He did books. He would do speaking tours.

His real name was Henry Shaw Wheeler, but everyone knew him as Josh or Josh Billings.

And this is probably at the earliest. It was 1850 before he became popular.

Before that, he did a wide variety of other things and was not known at all as a writer anywhere.

So that’s our problem. We have a timing issue because Josh is older than Josh Billings.

The verb to Josh has got a life. It used to mean to shout excitedly, to greet somebody with exuberance, that sort of thing.

And then kind of slowly became to tease or to banter or to goof around verbally.

And so I think what we could probably say is, though Josh is really origin unknown, probably there’s some reinforcement happening because of the humorous Josh Billings, where his widespread popularity lent a lot more life to the verb that was already running around.

Wow, that is so interesting.

Yeah. Well, it’s funny if you Google him, Josh Billings, all of his writings, since they’re so old out there, they’re a little hokey in places and a little trite in places.

But he did one of these things that was really kind of the hallmark of the era.

He didn’t become popular until he started misspelling words on purpose.

It’s kind of this fake illiteracy where he just pretended to be a folksy, kind of miseducated or maleducated individual who just kind of had wisdom from deep in the earth despite his lack of education.

And that was the way he succeeded. That’s the way he became well known.

And people just responded amazingly well to that, including Abraham Lincoln, who loved him.

Is that right?

Yeah.

No kidding.

Well, who knew there was so much history packed into one word?

Yes, you guys really cleared that up.

I can’t believe you dug in so deep to figure that out.

That’s what we do.

Dan, thank you so much for your call and best to your girlfriend.

Oh, thank you very much.

Have a good afternoon.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

I wonder if it’s reinforced, too, by jostle.

I’ve always associated Josh with jostle.

Everybody trying to get a word in edgewise means you’re kind of jostling for your place in the dialogue.

Yeah, or you’re joshing somebody.

I mean, when I think of joshing, I think of sticking my elbow out.

Yeah, and kind of jostling.

That’s funny, right?

Yeah, right, right?

I don’t know.

Maybe.

I don’t know.

I always hate it when the fun theory is probably not correct.

Which is most of the time.

Most of the time.

Usually it’s origin unknown or something really boring, and the fun theory was tacked on later just to give it some color in life.

I kind of like the fun theory about everybody named Josh is untrustworthy.

But I know it’s not true.

Don’t call us.

I mean, do call us.

There’s going to be a spike in arrest of guys named Josh.

Either that or an increase in eggings of my house.

877-929-9673.