Odder Than Dick’s Hatband

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Joe Hunt in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Hi, Joe.

What’s going on in Indy?

Well, I have a phrase that I’ve never understood that my mother used to say somewhat frequently.

And the phrase is, odder than Dick’s hatband.

And that’s O-D-D-E-R.

Odder.

Odder than Dick’s hatband.

And how would she use this?

As a general descriptive.

She might use it to describe a situation that happened, and she would say, well, that was odder than Dick’s hat band.

So something crazy and unbelievable would happen, right?

Yes, right.

And she’d say, or for behavior, if I saw someone going down the street skipping, she might say, well, he’s odder than Dick’s hatband.

-huh.

Did you ever question your mother as to where she got it?

Nah, we ignored her most of the time.

Poor woman.

Aww.

I know.

And did she ever say any other form of that?

Because there are many other forms of this contrary as Dick’s hatband or twisted as Dick’s hatband.

And I’ve also heard tight as Dick’s hatband, in that case meaning drunk.

And queer, as queer as Dick’s hatband.

Yes.

That’s the earliest, actually, Grant, the earliest instance I’ve seen of this Dick’s Hatband idea is in a dictionary from 1796 where somebody talks about the expression, I’m queer as Dick’s Hatband, and it means I’m kind of out of sorts.

I don’t know what ails me.

As you can hear here, Joe, the thing is your mother was not alone.

This is a widespread expression, and it does date back several hundred years.

The book that Martha is talking about is probably Francis Grosse’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, right?

Right.

Which is a well-known work of slang.

It’s one of the earliest works that we know of.

I see.

Yeah, it’s also a book that sort of makes you want to take a shower after you read it.

There are a lot of really vulgar things in it.

You want to take a shower with a squeegee and lye soap, for sure.

But he mentions the phrase, queer is Dick’s hat man.

And the truth is, nobody knows who Dick was.

And I don’t. He didn’t live in our family.

So what we can tell you is this is a big or a junk, Joe.

This is, as we call it, an origin unknown story.

We don’t know who Dick was.

We do know the expression is widespread both in the U.K. and in the United States.

It goes back several hundred years in both places.

And there seems to be no regional component to it, meaning it’s not more common in one part of the country than another.

All right.

Well, Joe, I hope we’ve helped just a little bit.

Well, thanks a lot for calling, Joe.

Thank you so much.

Best of luck.

Thank you.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Grant, he didn’t seem sold on that expression.

I love it.

Otter and Dick’s Hat Band.

It might just be too odd, that expression.

It’s kind of opaque.

Yeah, but that’s what I like about it.

Oh, okay.

I’m going to start using it.

Well, if you’ve got a question that’s been bugging you about something that somebody used to say,

Well, that’s kind of vague, but you know what I mean.

The number to call is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD.

And don’t forget, you can always email us.

The address is words@waywordradio.org.