The Etymology of Hobo According to Stand-up Comics

So, as of late, I have taken to listening to comedy audiobooks.  I think this is the best way to take in a comedian's book, especially if that comedian is of the stand-up variety.

Interestingly, the two books I have most recently listened to provide an etymological history of the word "hobo."  More interestingly, these books provide two conflicting origins.

The first book was Patton Oswalt's Zombie, Spaceship, Wasteland, a fantastic book, and well worth the time.  In his essay, "Those Old Hobo Songs, They Still Speak to Us," Oswalt describes the roots of this term as follows: “'hobos' (a slang term that combines the words 'hope' and 'bowl of beans given to me for free by a woman who then initiated intercourse').”

Oswalt's essay is a pseudo-academic (or perhaps not so pseudo) analysis of a few short hobo songs.  It's immensely entertaining and impressive.  He surprisingly, but effectively, establishes an ethos of authority and delivers one of the best essays in the book.  However, his ethos is undermined by the fact that he likely pulled all that information out of his arse.  That being said, I bought his story, and as I listened I felt had been edified, gifted with a new piece of etymological knowledge that may one day come in handy if I'm ever on a game show.

Then I listened to Jim Gaffigan's new book, Dad is Fat.  In his book, Gaffigan details the difficulty of raising five kids an a two bedroom apartment in New York City.  He goes on to say, "I should mention this apartment is on the Bowery in Manhattan. For those readers not presently recovering from heroin addiction who are familiar with this area of New York City, consider this: supposedly the term hobo comes from a description of the sketchy characters who were the main inhabitants on the cross streets of HOuston and BOwery. Hey, that’s right where I live. Isn’t that cool, hip, and ironic? The tiny overcrowded apartment where I’m raising my young children is in the same location where they manufacture homeless people. Location, location, location."

Gaffigan does not set himself up as an authority like Oswalt.  He goes so far as to use a qualifier, "supposedly."  Nevertheless, I am now stuck with these conflicting reports.  What am I to do?  Ask Google of course!

The Online Etymology Dictionary furnishes the following clarification  "Hobo (n.): 1889, Western U.S., of unknown origin. Barnhart compares early 19c. English dialectal hawbuck 'lout, clumsy fellow, country bumpkin.' Or possibly from ho, boy, a workers' call on late 19c. western U.S. railroads."

This is completely different from the two aforementioned theories.  I had to search further.

The Word Detective provides some more possible origins, stating, "There’s also a suggestion that 'hobo' is short for 'hopping boxcars,' and some maintain that 'hobo' is short for Hoboken, NJ, where many rail lines converged in the 19th century, making the city a natural gathering point for vagabonds."

Wikipedia, which as far as I am concerned should always be the authority, adds, "Bill Bryson suggests in Made in America (1998) that it could either come from the railroad greeting, 'Ho, beau!' or a syllabic abbreviation of 'homeward bound.'"

Needless to say, there are a lot of different explanations for this word's source. Personally, I like the "Homeward Bound" explanation, but that seems like one of the least likely.  I like Patton's idea, but I think he made it up entirely.  It's funny and seems like the kind of thing he'd say.  I think Gaffigan's source is doubtful too.  It's more likely to be coincidental than causal.

Anyways, that's way more info than anyone needs, but it's kind of cool.

On Presidents and PowerPoints

Recently a group of junior college TESOL students arrived at our school to put into practice the pedagogical knowledge they have so far acquired at their alleged institution of higher learning.  Frankly, I don't mind the disruptions to my schedule.  Who would complain about getting an hour off from work to watch an awkward twenty-something mumble nervously in front of a group of fifty students?  It's much better than being an awkward twenty-something mumbling nervously in front of a group of fifty students, that's for sure.

I'd like to think that I, though patently nervous from time to time, and certainly awkward, engage my students in some form of learning--at least most of the time.   I try, as much as possible, to get my students talking and engaging in other language oriented tasks.  Most of the time I have some measure of success.  These student teachers on the other hand appear to have no pedagogical framework.  Of the teachers I have so far observed, I have seen two mind numbingly inane and somniferous powerpoint presentations delivered without a trace of passion, insight, or even interest.

Abraham Lincoln

George Washington

All of this griping aside, the thing that concerns me most arose about ten minutes into a presentation about American holidays.  The teacher put up a whitewashed slide with the words "Presidents Day" emblazoned in, of course, red and blue comic sans font.  Beneath this insipid heading, our unimaginative lecturer copied and pasted the portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  When she weakly asked the class if they knew who these two men were, the students correctly identified both faces and one student even exuberantly screeched the words "cherry tree."

There's nothing of great concern in this, of course.  I have no bone to pick with the student teacher for her lack of engagement or her overall ineptitude or her horrendous powerpoint aesthetics (if such a seemingly oxymoronical concept exists); I mean, we've all been there.  What I do have a problem with is the students so quickly identifying the former leaders of the United States.  But even that doesn't capture my gripe. I have a problem with my imagined reversal of the whole scenario.

Sun Yat-sen

Chiang Kai-shek

Imagine this: A Taiwanese student teacher visits my seventh grade class in Utah--I'll even grant that this visitor addresses my students in English, since the entire hypothetical situation falls apart if the teacher were to mumble softly in Chinese because, c'mon, we don't have the time to learn other languages in America--and shows them portraits of Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek.  Do you suppose that any of the students would be able to identify these men? I know I wouldn't have.  I fear that Alex Jones or some smart-aleck would make some kind of racist remark before anyone even had the chance to answer correctly. How large a group of students would we need to gather before we found a single student who could identify these men?  My hypothesis: we'd need to assemble a large enough group to have at least one Taiwanese exchange student or emigrant before we found a student who could identify them.  Hopefully, I am wrong.

One might invoke the retort that America is/was/has been the major world power for the last sixty years, and so its history is not only important to Americans but to the world, but I am not convinced that this is justifiable.  If there's anything that history has taught us/is teaching us it is that nothing happens in a closed box.  The social/political/economic/environmental dealings in China, India, Russia, Sudan, Brazil, Cambodia, and anywhere else you can point to on the globe impact the rest of us.  I'm not saying that we should memorize the presidents of every foreign nation, I'm just wondering if a little broader historical context might turn us into a more world-conscious, proactive, empathetic  and critically thinking country.  I'm also not saying we should emulate Taiwanese or any other country's education--that's a topic for another day.

To the person who raises the aforementioned retort, I would simply ask if being a world power justifies our ignorance of the rest of the world or our place in the world.  We have a plague in America, which is our naive acceptance of our perceived exceptionalism.  We believe, and are often taught, that America is the greatest country on earth and that God loves and blesses America and that everyone wants to be and American and that those who are Americans should be proud to be Americans.  We are so America-centric that we often forget that anything else exists (unless it is the "other," namely that which is to be feared: Muslims, North Koreans, etc).  What we need is consciousness.  We need to be aware of our neighbors and their histories and how they affects us today.  We need to escape our own egos and learn a little about someone else for a change.

I know there are Americans that do this, and I know that I am not entirely innocent of the biases I mention, but I believe that by expanding our understanding, and teaching our children about the world around us, we will be better equipped to take on the challenges we face as individuals and families, as a nation and as a world.

Non-Sequitur as a Coping Mechanism

In his essay, "Easy, Tiger," David Sedaris details some of the lessons he's learned studying different languages while traveling.  He says: 

The drawbacks [to programs like Pimsleur] are that they never explain anything or teach you to think for yourself.  Instead of being provided with building blocks that would allow you to construct a sentence of your own, you're left with using the hundreds or thousands of sentences that you have memorized.  That means waiting for a particular situation to arise in order to comment on it; either that, or becoming one of those weird non-sequitur people, the kind who, when asked a question about paint color, answer, "There's a bank in front of the train station," or, "Mrs. Yamada Ito has been playing tennis for fifteen years.

Now, I agree with Sedaris that people like that are weird, but I have recently contemplated the potential benefits of becoming precisely one of those people.  

We all work with people we don't like, or they are in our families or a friend of a friend or whatever.  You know someone who bugs you but they don't know they bug you and you don't want to be rude so you just let them bug you because you are nice and a little crazy.  We have all been there.  What if, when we encounter those people, instead of being annoyed or pleasant or, my personal favorite, a bumbling moron who vaguely agrees just to avoid any further communication; what if we just said something completely random, totally straight-faced, with utmost confidence and without a trace of irony.  I have been thinking random Zen-like sayings would be my choice.


For instance:

When that idiot at work comes up to me and says something like: Man, I really miss my guns.  You know, in high school I would take girls out on dates and teach them how to shoot.  Hey, I could teach you sometime, what do you say? I can reply: Sitting quietly doing nothing, spring comes, grass grows of itself.

When your weird family member comes up to me and says:  Kids are the best aren't they?  I just love my four cute little babies.  Hey, when are you going to have kids yourself?  You aren't getting any younger.  I could reply: I would rather sink to the bottom of the sea for endless eons than seek liberation through all the saints of the universe

The Pluto Files

I feel like I need to redact, or at least expound on, one of my comments in a previous post.  I said something to the effect of, "scientists aren't shaken to the core when pluto loses its planetary status."  Well, it turns out I may have been partially wrong.  Because I was spurred to curiosity by my own comment, I checked out Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson's little book, The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet.

The story of Pluto as told by Dr. Tyson is, if I may use a slightly tedious witticism, out of this world. Since its discovery, by American astronomer, Clyde W. Tombaugh in 1930, Pluto has had a special place in American culture. This is why many Americans lashed out at Tyson and his team members at the Rose Center for Earth and Space for neglecting to include Pluto in their planetary exhibition. The decision made by the Rose Center sparked an international, though according to Tyson, mainly American, controversy over the planetary status of Pluto. This debate culminated in in the IAU's 2006 resolution that defined the term "planet" and demoted Pluto to a "dwarf planet."

Letter sent to Dr. Tyson after Pluto's demotion.

The Pluto Files is a candid account of the controversy, written by the man at the center of it all.  Tyson includes several hilarious letters he received from angered, applauding, and even ambivalent schoolchildren, and he details much of the pop-cultural reaction to Pluto's demotion.  In addition he recounts many of the interactions he had with other leading scientists during the debate.  While a strong majority of scientists favored the new designation, there were several outspoken advocates of Pluto's planethood.  In short, some scientists were shaken to the core.  I think, however, that many of these scientists were reacting emotionally because they had so much personally invested in Pluto--their careers focused on it, they are somehow related to the discoverer, etc; they may not have been behaving 100% rationally.  But who behaves completely rationally all the time?  Spock.  Maybe.  I don't know.  Anyways, read The Pluto Files; it's a short and entertaining book that is informative and fun. I would definitely recommend it!

Is Creationism Child Abuse?

From Wikipedia

From Goodreads

When Michael Shermer surveyed people about their religious beliefs, asking them why they believed in God and why they thought other people believe in God, he found that people tend to invoke intellectual causes for their personal beliefs and assign emotional causes for the beliefs of others.  While this trend may not be true for all people, a majority of the people sampled exhibited this textbook attribution bias.  I am certainly guilty of this, even to the point where I can’t help but question if my reading of this book is evidence of a further bias, the confirmation bias--a prejudice in which I form an opinion and seek out information that supports my already held beliefs thus reinforcing my supposed intellectualism on the topic.  

I can partly blame Mr. Shermer for my acute neuroticism.  It was, after all, his book, The Believing Brain, that introduced me to most of the concepts that now affect my thinking.  But, I don’t think this is a bad thing.  Skepticism is a healthy attribute.

From Goodread

Shermer’s book, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design (download a free sample of the audiobook at Shermer's website) does a much better job expounding on its subtitle than it’s primary title.  It is not until the last page that Shermer reveals why Darwin matters (it’s because evolution matters, which matters because science matters, so there you go).  The entire book is dedicated to dispelling the myths surrounding both sides of the creationism vs. evolution debate.  Its longest chapter breaks down the ten best arguments for intelligent design (ID) and exposes them as unscientific religious propaganda.  Shermer argues with tact, for the most part, avoiding the hyperbole one might expect in a book of this nature.

The chapter covering ID in American public schools is particularly compelling for me because I have worked in a conservative school district where a dominant religion plays a huge role in what is taught in school.  Shermer, a proud libertarian, would want a privatized school system where parents can choose to send their kids to whatever school they want, but he lays out his defense of evolution only science classrooms since most Americans are publicly schooled.  He summarizes several court cases, and builds his defense primarily on the legal justification for evolution in the classroom.  He explains that creationism can not be understood as science when we understand what science is.

This concept of teaching ID in schools is an contentious idea for a lot of people.  This certainly isn’t helped by scholars who state, with a deliberate air of controversy, that teaching intelligent design is child abuse.  Take for instance Lawrence Krauss’ recent bigthink video, in which he says, “Somehow saying that, well, anything goes, we shouldn’t offend religious beliefs by requiring kids to know--to understand--reality; that’s child abuse.”  I think Krauss means well with this comment, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a loaded statement.  Is he really equating well meaning Christians who simply want to train up their children in the way they should go so that when they are old, they will not depart from it with people who commit the utterly heinous act of beating a child? Probably not. Maybe it’s more akin to neglect, a form of abuse in which certain necessities are withheld from children.  But this raises a question in me: is it necessary for human children to be scientifically literate?  Bill Nye (you know, the science guy) seems to think so in his bigthink video.  I tend to agree with Nye, but I can’t help but think that maybe the rhetoric is a little loaded.

Shermer and (assumably Krauss and Nye) are talking about public education.  And certainly Shermer would respect an individual’s right to teach their children whatever they want.  Richard Dawkins would not be so accommodating.  Take his 2006 BBC documentary, The Root of all Evil, in which he argues that it’s wrong to label a child according to their parents’ religion.  So, if teaching ID in schools is wrong, what about in the home?  

Recently a concerned family member showed me an op-ed piece from my hometown’s newspaper that called for stricter government regulation on homeschooling.  This author, like Krauss, drew a connection between a Biblical education (or the primary source for creationist theories) and child abuse, asking the following rhetorical questions: 

Is the right to practice one’s religion also the right to impose it upon children? Aren’t society’s legitimate interests in education adversely affected by educational practices, which fail to prepare its citizens for productive participation in a multi-cultural, scientifically oriented society? And, aren’t children’s rights violated by parents who deprive them of exposure to more than one way of conceiving of the world — by parents who teach children that the only criterion of truth is a book written two thousand years ago by men who knew far less about how the world works than the average fifth grader? In other words, isn’t there such a thing as intellectual abuse?  

My family member, a strong advocate for homeschooling was somewhat outraged by a few of the remarks and reacted with a few rhetorical questions of their own, saying:

I guess that the government (the apparent giver and taker of inalienable rights) shouldn't even give the right to parents to have children anymore unless they agree to party-line, infallible government education.  Is this the prerogative of the state? To determine WHAT children should believe and what they shouldn't believe?  Don't parents have a say?  Don't parents have the right to be wrong?  The intellectuals know so much more than parents do ... and apparently they care more too.

I wasn't sure how to respond to this.  I mean, part of my sympathizes with Krauss and Dawkins and the author of that editorial.  I think it's healthy to question things. For me, it's one thing for parents to have the right to be wrong and to teach their children to be religious, but it's another thing to homeschool children and teach that the earth is less than 10,000 years old.  Parents have the right to be wrong. Parents have the right to influence their children, of course.  But this does't mean that they are incapable of committing intellectual abuse, even unintentionally.  For me, the difference between the religious approach and the secular approach is precisely what my family member termed "infallible."  

That being said, I think, my family member misallocated the supposed infallibility.  Educators often have tendencies to support the status quo and to be pro government, this is true; however, science--be it social science, biological science, or whathaveyou--is founded on the principles of evidence, reasoning and trial and error.  There is no implied infallibility in science.  Every theory is necessarily fallible.  This is why scientists are not shaken to the core when Pluto loses its planetary status.  The evidence changes.  Even in the application of social science and educational philosophy new theories are constantly being put to the test because of changes in the evidence.  This is why standards for education change.  There is the constant hope of improvement when we acknowledge our infallibility and work towards solutions.  Public educators, more than most, are deeply aware of their fallibility--at least the public educators I worked with.  But we are trying.  I suggest that, more often, it is the religious homeschooler who believes they are infallible, not the public educator.

From Rationalwiki

Nowhere is this supposed infallibility more evident than in the evangelical movement of "young earth creationism."  These are deniers, not only of evolution, but of the earth's scientifically measured age.  They believe the bible is infallible--which doesn't make sense because most of them don't even know who wrote it, when it was written, or the historical context from which it arose, let alone how to read it in its original language (or even in the King's language; often they prefer a further bastardized translation in to 'modern English,' and they fail to comprehend that the translators of each subsequent edition are likely changing things to fit an agenda that may not align with that of the original writer's intention)--and they teach their children not to question "The Word of God."  They do not encourage open discussion of ideas; rather, they suppress curiosity and stifle thought.  

Do all homeschoolers do this? No.  But some do.  In that regard, some public educators don't foster free thinking, out of laziness, dogmatic secularism, or even personal religious beliefs.  But, they are not teaching to the established standards of the state.  They are rogue educators doing their own thing and they shouldn't be held to represent the opinions of public educators en masse.  Those homeschool teachers and public school teachers who suppose they are infallible are the ones that are guilty of intellectual abuse.  Nothing is more innocent than the curiosity of a child, and to deny a child of that innocence in the name of a supposedly infallible belief is to deny an essential element of human nature.  In other words: teaching intelligent design as an unquestionable fact is intellectual abuse.  Plain and simple.

Bright Sided

I, like Barbara Ehrenreich, do not understand America's fixation on its own perceived exceptionality. I mean, it's a nice place and all, but having lived abroad for nearly half of my adult life, I don't quite grasp the justification for calling America "The Greatest Nation on Earth." Growing up in a conservative, religious family, I went through most of my adolescence in a state of blissful, solipsistic ignorance about my country, believing that we were the freest, most blessed people on God's green (albeit somewhat smoggy) earth. I never stopped to question if this view was good or healthy or even remotely true. I just accepted it as a fact because that's what my friends said, that's what my church said, and that's what my teachers said.

America, however, is not the only free country in the world--far from it. Sure America leads the world in a number of areas, most notably militarily, and American contributions to art and science have greatly enriched humanity, but as Ehrenreich points out in this book's preface: "some of the measures by which we do lead the world should inspire embarrassment rather than pride: We have the highest percentage of our population incarcerated, and the greatest level of inequality in wealth and income. We are plagued by gun violence and racked by personal debt." Now, personally, I think Ehrenreich's comments are a little heavy-handed. America isn't perfect, but no country is perfect. (Not that that obviates us). That being said, I think the premise of this book, summarized succinctly in its subtitle, "How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America," is a topic much deserving of consideration. 

Ehrenreich begins by chronicling her diagnosis of breast cancer and the subsequent onslaught of cute, "look on the bright side" messages and mementos she received thereafter. It seems like she's making the assertion that cosmetic companies and other corporations are attempting to capitalize on the disease by selling quaint little tchotchkes and teddy bears to "raise awareness" about the issue, pointing out how these companies may be creating dependent consumers by initially donating makeup and other products that make the women feel beautiful (as though they aren't already). This is a valid concern, but it is fraught by the possibility that these companies are being genuine.

I realize at this point that I am being far too longwinded, and at this rate, this review will be a small book, so I'll just say that I think the idea behind this book is wonderful but the execution is deplorable and jump to my main criticisms of the book. For starters, c'mon, Barbara! If you don't like when self-help books use cherry picked data and relate carefully crafted personal anecdotes to sell product and so forth, then don't do that yourself. Every person she disagree with is painted in such a, dare I say negative, light that it undermines a lot of what she is trying to say. I did not appreciate her portrayals of "other" people, most notably right-wing conservatives and religious types who Ms. Ehrenreich disagrees with. Not even because I am those people, but because I am not comfortable with someone creating an "us vs them" kind of argument. I felt like this book subtly attempted to create neotribalist factions antithetical to the groups she describes, the promulgators of this corruptive brand of positive thinking. This was especially apparent in the book's conclusion, where she seemed to commit the Richard Dawkinsesque fallacy of deifying science. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with science--it's wonderful and great and everyone should be more scientifically literate, myself wholeheartedly included--but we have a big problem if your understanding of science turns you away from essential human qualities like empathy and patience. 

In conclusion, let me say this: skepticism is healthy, and I think that's part of what Ehrenreich was driving at. I stand firmly behind the belief that we should do everything we can to understand why we believe the things we believe. We should look at our most basic assumptions and challenge them from time to time. Self-reflection is good, honesty is good, and if you are lying to yourself by saying things are better than they are, or, if you are lying to others about the actual state of things, then you should check that behavior and rectify it. What we need is honesty, critical thinking, and cooperation, and that is not what I got out of this book.

YouTube: A Praise, A Peeve, A Perturbation, and A Puzzlement

I have four things to say about YouTube:

First, a formal approbation: I think YouTube is an incredible resource for entertainment, education and, most frequently, procrastination.  I spend way too much time watching the vlogbrothers talk really fast, philosophers on "The Big Think" speculate about the future, and the late Christopher Hitchens "Hitch-slap" any dogmatist that comes into his path.  I love YouTube because it makes interesting ideas accessible to anyone--not to mention it brought us the coconut fail guy and the grape lady who fell, classic.  Also, it really does help time pass when you have other, more important things to do.

But that doesn't mean I love everything about YouTube.   This brings me to my second item, a bit of a pet peeve, so bear with me: Before a few months ago I was never a YouTube junkie to the point where I subscribed to channels.  The only exception to this being my brother's channel, which unfortunately hasn't been updated in years.  Once YouTube launched its new design and layout, however, the homepage was replaced with a newsfeed similar to the one on Facebook, leaving me with a barren wall of (in internet time) antiquated videos.  I guess the change is an attempt to make YouTube more personalized to the consumer, so an algorithm provides suggestions based on calculations from your browsing history and the things you "like."  This pandering abolishes the chaotic adventure that was YouTube and replaces it with a nicely packaged product that I can just sit back and enjoy.  It seems nice, but may be the foreshadowing of dark things to come.

Which brings me to my third point, a worry: Today on Mashable I read an article, that claimed YouTube would soon roll out some paid subscription channels.  You know, there's nothing wrong with a content creator wanting to get a little compensation for their work.  Please don't misunderstand me, but it just seems like this goes against the whole ethos of YouTube.  What was once a "you make it, you share it, you watch it" website, seems to be turning into a "we create it, we sell it, you watch it" website, the type of site that may be the future of cable television.  I don't know if I have a legitimate gripe, but I am not comfortable with the way things are looking on the YouTube front.

Fourth and finally, a WTF: Today, while watching a Sixty Symbols video (which I found through the new method of browsing, searching through other people's subscriptions), I got an hour long "standard in-stream ad," which is the kind you can't skip five seconds into the ad (learn more about youtube ads here).

PS: I never watched that video.  I wrote this griping blog instead.  Let me know what you think in the comments!