Rest on One’s Laurels

Hello, you have A Way with Words?

Hi, this is Elizabeth. I’m calling from Dallas by way of Philadelphia.

By way of Philadelphia? You’re in two places at once?

Yeah, yeah, two places at once. But my home is in Philadelphia, but I’m here in Dallas.

Okay.

All right.

What’s on your mind?

Well, I was recently listening to another Colin show, and I heard someone use the phrase, rest on our morals, which I’ve heard, always heard, rest on our or your laurels. And I was wondering if it’s just a one-time misuse or is it a completely different idiom? And it was really interesting because it was used in an idea of a political use, which I found really interesting.

Rest on our morals? Is that what it is?

Yeah. It was in the context of gun control in New York City. And it was sort of like, yeah, we can’t rest on our morals. Like we can’t just make laws based on what we feel it has to be for the greater good. At least that’s how I took it. But it was such a completely, you know, out of left field thing that I’ve never heard before.

Yeah.

It’s kind of creative. I mean, you’re sure they said morals?

Pretty sure. He had not a very strong accent. So it was pretty clear that he was saying M and not L. I have seen this only very, very rarely. I don’t think it’s a thing. It’s usually a mistake.

Yeah.

Yeah. That’s what I figured, that it was just a misuse. But it was such an interesting idea. I could see it being an intentional bit of wordplay.

Yeah, but it sounds like they weren’t using it with irony or anything like that, right?

Well, rest on your laurels means just to stick with what you’ve already accomplished, right? I think it’s like you’re not supposed to just rest on your old accomplishments. You should always try for more. Is that right?

Right, right. The laurels there is a reference to the ancient tradition of crowning winners with wreaths made out of fragrant laurel leaves. That’s why we have terms like poet laureate or Nobel laureate. It was an award for accomplishment. So if you’re resting on your laurels or resting with your laurels, then you’re just goofing off because you’ve already accomplished some stuff.

Yeah, I made an award-winning film in 1972. What more do you want from me? Something like that.

Yeah.

So here it doesn’t sound like, it sounds like he might have meant the wordplay. I’d have to hear the show to know for sure.

Yeah.

If you hear a phrase like that, you can always go to the egg corn database on the internet. That’s egg corn is a joking term that linguists use for phrases like that, like spreading like wildflowers instead of spreading like wildfire, that kind of thing. And I’m looking right now and I don’t see that listed there. So I think it was maybe a one-off or a two-off.

Yeah, yeah.

I don’t know. It was so interesting in the context that it was used that I was like, man, is this something that I’ve missed for all these years? Or maybe something that needs to be popularized in this political season, huh? Rest on your morals would mean just because I know I’m right, I’m going to continue to do the thing I’ve always done.

Yeah, I think that’s sort of what he was saying. Like, you can’t just decide what you’re going to do and have that be it forever.

Yeah.

You know, you have to sort of take things in context. I like it. As a bit of words, I like it. I think it works.

Yeah, I really liked it, too.

Nice.

Thanks, Elizabeth. That’s awesome. You may be popularizing it now. That was great.

Well, thank you so much. It was really awesome.

All right.

Cheers now.

Bye-bye.

Bye, Elizabeth.

Bye.

You know, by the way, that wreath, that laurel wreath, the Greek word for that is stephanos. On us. Which is where we get the name Stephanie and Stephen.

Interesting. Yes. Crowning those folks with glory.

We have talked about the Edcorn database before, but I just want to mention that. It’s E-G-G-C-O-R-N. It’s hilarious and it’s a bunch of really good natured people who run a really nice site where they just find these curiosities of language. My favorite one, favorite new one that I found, it’s in the database of course because they’ve got so many of them is Pine Comb, C-O-M-B instead of Pine Cone, C-O-N-E.

Pine comb?

Yeah, like a comb for your hair made out of pine instead of cone, C-O-N-E.

Okay.

And these are people who are honestly misunderstanding that.

I can see how that would happen.

Yeah, they think it’s pine comb because pine combs, when they spread out their, I don’t know, they’re not leaves. What are those called? Kind of like the seed.

Yeah.

But anyway, they have kind of like a serrated kind of edge. It looks kind of like a comb.

Yeah.

Okay.

A comb for a woolly mastodon or something.

Yeah.

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