A woman in Council Bluffs, Iowa, says that when her mother was indicating that two things were roughly equal, she’s say they were six and one half dozen of the other. The more common version is six of one and half a dozen of the other or six of one, half a dozen of the other. Another phrase for saying two things are equivalent is a horse apiece. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Ruth from Council Bless, Iowa.
Hi, Ruth. Welcome to the show.
Welcome. What’s up?
Growing up, my mom used to always say it’s six and one half dozen of another.
And I always try to figure out what that meant.
Like if you did the math, that’s like, what, 12?
And I just never could get it, but I knew what it meant.
When she would say it, it would mean whatever you decide, it doesn’t matter because it’s all the same.
There’s no difference.
And she would say six and one-half dozen?
Yeah, yeah.
Yet I think I’ve heard it other ways, like six or one-half dozen of another, and that kind of makes more sense to me.
And it’s interesting that it got a little twisted in your mom’s rendering of it because that’s how folklore works.
It kind of becomes its own thing after a while, and we repeat what we think it is rather than going back to the original.
So the six of one and half a dozen of the other or six of one and a half dozen of another, those are two common ways to render it.
And I would say six of one or half a dozen of the other.
Six of one or not even have the or in there.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
So it’s a comma separating the two clauses.
Right.
And it’s meant that six is the same as half a dozen.
Right.
That’s right.
And there’s no real origin story for this.
There are, in some of the etymological books, there’s a story that they’ve basically, authors have basically stolen from each other that it dates to a particular work from 1836.
But that’s not true because it’s older than that.
I was going to say, it sounds older.
Yeah, it’s much older than that.
So it has nothing to do with pirates in the original.
It has nothing to do with seafaring.
It’s just an expression that kind of pops up.
The first use I found was in a political column in a newspaper.
It’s literally exactly what it sounds like, just a way of saying the same thing in two different sets of words.
That’s it.
There’s no folklore.
There’s no tale.
There’s no story.
Yeah.
Bottom line, they’re equal.
They’re equal.
Huh.
Yeah.
Well, it’s interesting.
Okay.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
We appreciate it, Ruth.
I appreciate it.
Take care.
Yeah.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
It’s the same as a phrase that we’ve talked about on the show before, a horse at peace.
Oh, yeah.
And we get lots of emails and calls about that.
From Wisconsin.
From Wisconsin, yeah.
So a horse apiece means one choice is as good as the other, or six of one, half a dozen of the other.
And I’m thinking there must be very similar expressions or similarly colorful expressions in other languages for this.
Probably.
I don’t know them.
Nothing coming to mind.
I bet our listeners do.
Yeah, I bet they do.
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