# Shoulda stood in bed **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 14, 2004, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864 "2004-08-14T20:30:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/1 "2004-08-14T20:30:04Z")
Most everyone has used or heard this term. Why stood? ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/2 "2004-08-14T20:43:56Z")
Hmmm I’ve heard should have stayed in bed ---
**Author:** ![Loopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loopus/32/15343_2.png) [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/3 "2004-08-14T20:46:31Z")
It’s supposed to be “stayed.” I don’t know if Bugs Bunny started “stood,” but I remember him saying it, obviously as a silly joke. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/4 "2004-08-14T21:11:43Z")
The phrase is attributed to Joe Jacobs, who was the promoter for boxer Max Schmeling. “I should of stood in bed” However, he is credited in most sources as saying when he was attending the 1935 World Series. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/5 "2004-08-14T21:30:34Z")
> [@](#): > > And how many can truthfully say they actually heard a to-be-famous phrase actually enter the language? I did. This was during the 1934 World Series on a cold, blustery day in Detroit. Standing behind me in the upstairs press box was Joe Jacobs, a Damon Runyon character and manager of boxer Max Schmeling. He didn’t like baseball much, but the World Series was a place to be seen. Now he was stomping his feet in the chill and drawing his topcoat tighter about him, shivering and unhappy. That’s when he muttered to me and my press-box neighbor Paul Gallico,\*\* “I shoulda stood in bed.”\*\* [Washington Post, 1998](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/longterm/general/povich/launch/history.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/6 "2004-08-14T21:33:00Z")
Hmm, I have read soemthing to the effect that it is derived from a sort of confused “tranlation” of a Yiddish or German usage. A muddled between “sttayed” and “stood”. But can I recall right now which book I read that in? Sadly no. (I have a feeling the author was named Leo Something though - and if my connection co-operates for once, I’ll have a bit of a Google. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/7 "2004-08-14T22:30:28Z")
Leo Rosten is the author who has writen extensively on Yiddish. And it’s true that Joe Jacobs was Jewish. But I think it’s more NewYorkese than Yiddish. Jacobs also gave the world the immortal “We wuz robbed.” They talked like that in the Good Old Days. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/8 "2004-08-14T22:47:17Z")
Aha - Leo Rosten was the writer I had iin mind. Of courses, this is of no matter to anyone else by now, but it does mean that Celyn will not stay awake all night trying to remember the name! 🙂 I did not know about the “We Wuz Robbed” thing either - I suppose I have only heard it in connection with British football teams, so jsutthought it may have originated in that context, football “journalists” being rather good at mangling the language. (“Game of Two Halves” and so on.) ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2004, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/9 "2004-08-14T23:53:23Z")
Maybe Joe Jacobs had a Murphy Bed. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![tygerbryght](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9a28c/32.png) [@tygerbryght](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tygerbryght)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2004, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/10 "2004-08-15T01:04:38Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > And how many can truthfully say they actually heard a to-be-famous phrase actually enter the language? I did. This was during the 1934 World Series on a cold, blustery day in Detroit. Standing behind me in the upstairs press box was Joe Jacobs, a Damon Runyon character and manager of boxer Max Schmeling. He didn’t like baseball much, but the World Series was a place to be seen. Now he was stomping his feet in the chill and drawing his topcoat tighter about him, shivering and unhappy. That’s when he muttered to me and my press-box neighbor Paul Gallico, “I shoulda stood in bed.” > > [Washington Post, 1998](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/longterm/general/povich/launch/history.htm) :eek: 😕 :smack: :o It took a minute or two before it seeped through that you weren’t claiming to have witnessed it yourself. I was just about ready to ask how old you were. 🙂 Maybe it’s time for me to start taking gingko or something? :o ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2004, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shoulda-stood-in-bed/259864/11 "2004-08-15T03:15:59Z")
I’m tempted to say this is one of those Bushism’s. But I won’t. :dubious: