A listener in Abilene, Texas, wonders about the expression that smarts! The verb to smart, meaning to sting or cause sharp pain, goes back more than a thousand years. The adjective smart, meaning intelligent, evolved from that sense of something sharp. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “That Smarts!”
Welcome to A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Ryan Collin from Abilene, Texas. How are you guys doing?
Excellent. Ryan, welcome to the show.
Doing well. What’s up, Ryan?
Thanks. Okay, so what I’m calling about is a phrase that I heard, I think both of my parents said it, and they would use the term, they would say, ow, that’s smart.
And kind of the times when I heard him use it were mostly my dad. He and I used to do a lot of woodworking when I was younger.
And most of the time that I would hear it would be times when, you know, we would be working in the garage or in the shop.
And you might, I don’t know, smash your finger with a hammer or something like that. Or maybe my mom, who’s a seamstress, would, you know, maybe stick herself with a needle or something like that.
Yeah, it’s a really, really, really old term. And I guess your confusion is why smart when we think of somebody who’s really intelligent is smart. Is that what you’re wondering about?
Yeah, and I had never really questioned it until, to be honest, until I, you know, was listening to your show. I listen pretty regularly, and I thought, you know, that’s one thing that I’ve always heard. And I mean, I’ve said it too, just inherently from hearing my parents say it.
Ryan, here’s the really interesting thing. The word smart is really, really, really old. And the original sense of it was describing something that was painful or stinging, just the kind of thing that you’re describing. The old English word smeritan meant to sting or to be sharply painful.
And over time, you can kind of see where the idea of something sort of sharp or vigorous or forceful would end up also being used to describe someone who’s intelligent or action that’s intelligent, something that’s smart. And you use the word sharp, and sharp has kind of gone through the same kind of evolution. It originally referred to something that was pointy and painful that way.
And now we can talk about, well, my co-host is very sharp.
Sure, okay.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
So how do you like that? You’re using the oldest meaning of the word.
Yeah, more than a thousand years.
That’s pretty interesting. I didn’t expect it went back that far.
But, you know, another thing I thought about since I called in about that word was another term that my dad uses. And he’ll say, you know, oh, rats.
A mild oath.
Yeah. You know, sometimes when we’d play a card game or something like that, and he’d get, you know, the wrong card or something to that extent. Oh, rats, you know.
Using rat in that way kind of as a mild oath is a very distant minced oath. So it starts out as damn, it becomes darn, it becomes drat, it becomes rats. So that’s kind of the transition pattern of that, how you get from damn to rats.
Huh, okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, that makes sense.
Okay, cool.
Ryan, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks.
Good to have you.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
It’s funny how many of those mild oaths do go back to something a little more severe.
Mm—
Yeah, like sounds.
Yeah, yeah.
God’s wounds.
God’s wounds.
It’s terrible.
Are all the different forms of Jesus Christ that become other things, right?
Jiminy.
Jiminy.
Right.
Criminently.
Criminently, yeah.
