Wet Behind the Ears

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Mike from Manchester, Connecticut.

Welcome, Mike.

Welcome to the show, Mike.

Thank you very much.

I have a question and a couple of theories regarding the phrase, wet behind the ears.

Wet behind the ears meaning what?

Wet behind the ears I’ve heard used many times, basically referring to someone who’s inexperienced.

Mm—

New, never done whatever it is, that job before.

Mm—

So I’m just wondering if you have any hard evidence of its origin, that phrase.

Well, what will you accept?

What’s the currency that equals hard for you?

Well, I guess I just would like someone else’s opinion because I have my own,

Although it’s changed a couple times over the years.

Oh, let’s hear it.

Okay, let’s hear them.

Well, originally when I first heard it, I was working in a landscaping job,

And I heard the term referred to me.

And my understanding at the time was just that perhaps it means that I, you know, as a young fellow, was not used to taking care of myself.

And as such, maybe forgot to dry behind my ears or something.

Right.

And then years later, my son was born.

And I noticed that every time he would breastfeed, when he was done, we’d always had to dry right behind his ear because some of the breast milk would trickle down every single time to the spot right behind his ear.

It’s kind of odd, and I don’t know if you can even allow that sort of information on the radio, but I had suddenly an epiphany and realized, hey, I bet that’s where that phrase really comes from.

So I wanted to hear what you guys had to say about it.

Well, it’s not a bad guess, but I don’t think it’s correct.

It’s close, though.

It’s close.

Here’s the explanation that—did you ever hear of the dictionary called Funk and Wagnalls?

Yes.

All right.

Charles Earl Funk was one of those people in that dictionary name.

And his explanation was a newly born animal as a colt or a calf on which the last spot to become dry after birth is the little depression behind either ear.

So in that case, in terms of the location, obviously, it’s behind the ears.

But the idea here is that when you’re born, you are completely covered and fluid.

And it takes a while to dry it off.

And to say that you are still wet behind the ears means that you’ve only recently come into the world.

In other words, you were born yesterday or born today.

So it’s directly related to that.

I wasn’t born yesterday.

What do you think?

So that’s the last place to dry out.

Yeah, that’s what he said.

I don’t know from personal experience.

I’ve never done any experiments on newborn calves or colts.

Good.

That came out wrong, didn’t it?

Nor cats or dogs or people or anything.

Well, you know, what’s interesting is there is an earlier German version of this.

In fact, there’s an earlier version in English that’s not yet dry back of the ears,

And apparently that comes from a German expression.

Right, and I’ve seen speculation, Mike, that the English version might actually come directly from German-speaking settlers in Pennsylvania

Who brought that over with them and then, when they learned English, translated this concept into English.

I don’t know if that’s for certain, but certainly this expression is abundant in German.

On the other hand, any agricultural or pastoral nation is going to see this kind of parallel as pretty obvious, I think.

Well, I do like your explanation.

That makes sense to me.

So I guess I’ll have to replace my theories with this theory.

Well, thank you very much.

Mike, thanks for calling.

Thank you, Mike.

Bye-bye.

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