Mark from Lewiston, Texas, remembers old cartoons where a someone would roll down the window of a car and yell at a pokey motorist, Sunday driver! But why Sunday as opposed to any other day of the week? This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Why is Sunday Driver an Insult?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, this is Mark Williams from Texas.
Where in Texas are you, Mark? It’s a big state.
Louisville, Texas.
Okay, Louisville. Welcome to the show, Mark. What can we do for you?
As a young man, cartoons used to only be on on Saturday morning. And then sometimes a show on Sunday nights would show like Walt Disney cartoons. There’s a lot of cartoons that they had like automobile gags and like old, old timey cars and just like driver safety kind of cartoons. And every once in a while, someone would do something as a mistake. And I guess another driver on the road near them would zoom past them and say, Sunday driver. I always wondered what Sunday driver, what that meant and what that where that originated from. Because I would rather do that than some of the other gestures and things that people shout in traffic.
That’s true. Those are pretty clear. We know what those mean.
Mark, you’ve been holding on to this question for a very long time. There haven’t been regular Saturday morning cartoons for decades.
Yeah, yeah. And unfortunately, a lot of the serials that were around at that time have gone out to pasture as well.
Yeah, you’re bringing back memories for me because I can picture these cartoons where somebody, you know, the window’s down and they’ve got their arm out the window and they’re shaking their fist and they’re saying, Sunday, drive. And the car is always chugging. It’s always blowing a little too much smoke and steam, right? And kind of bouncing like a jalopy.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the melt blank sound effect, right?
That’s really good.
The horns that go, huh? Like that.
The augas.
Yeah, and the expression Sunday driver is really pretty straightforward. It’s those people who drive on Sundays, you know, not like the other working stiffs who are commuting to work. So they only drive on Sundays, or they drive like it’s Sunday.
Yeah, you know, just a leisurely, you know, sort of like Mr. Magoo, just kind of leisurely driving around and, you know, don’t necessarily have a destination like the rest of us.
There was a column in a set of newspapers back in 1928 where a guy was complaining about the Sunday driver. And they described him as, the Sunday driver is he who gets razzed by all of us old veteran drivers on Sunday. He doesn’t go out during the week to practice. When he gets out into the heavy traffic on Sunday, he winds up in the ditch if he doesn’t chase other drivers there first. And it just goes on and on and on complaining about these drivers. And, of course, back in the 20s, you know, automobiles hadn’t been around all that long, you know, and you’re still trying to figure out how to work them and not end up in the ditch.
But you’re connecting to the point that I think needs to be made, which is the term Sunday driver predates automobiles. It comes from horse and carriage days.
Right.
You might, the driver of a coach or the driver of a wagon could be called a Sunday driver because they spent six days a week on the farm, and one day a week they drove to church or drove to town. And just kind of moseyed there.
Yeah, kind of moseyed.
So you have, like, the banking stagecoach passing by the little house on the prairie buggy as they’re going in.
Yeah, we go. That’s it. Exactly right.
Yeah, and the idea of Sunday, too, has historically been associated with leisure, like a Sunday poet. A Sunday golfer.
Yeah.
Somebody who just does it once in a while but not as a pro or even as a way to get good at it. Kind of like a weekend warrior, I guess, today. You know, that person who goes out and exercises once a week. Sunday Sailor is another one. And I’ve seen Sunday Architect, somebody who just dabbles in architecture but doesn’t really know what they’re doing.
I guess I’m a Sunday cook.
Sunday cook, yeah.
Thank you for a really fun question. I’m sure we’re going to ring a lot of bells out there and people are going to go, oh, yeah. Top to bottom, starting with Saturday cartoons. We all remember that one Sunday driver, don’t we?
Yes, that’s fantastic.
Thank you so much.
Take care now.
All righty.
Thanks for calling.
Bye.
Bye.
