# When did "pull oneself by one's bootstraps" flip meaning ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 7, 2018, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619 "2018-10-07T18:51:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/21 "2018-10-08T02:09:57Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > That literally made my head explode. _twitch_ _twitch, twitch_ It’s okay, it’s oooookay, breathe in, count to five, it’s going to be ooookay… ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/22 "2018-10-08T06:26:21Z")
People. Please. When a combination of words–idiom, metaphor, synecdoche, what have you–are used in a manner that is the complete opposite of the original meaning, the vast mass of us are under no obligation to stand idly by, shrug our shoulders, and say “eh, descriptivism.” ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/23 "2018-10-08T13:55:58Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > … The shift in meaning to lifting oneself up by one’s own efforts, without outside help, had occurred by 1922, when [James Joyce used it in this sense in _Ulysses_.](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps.html) [Google n-gram viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bootstraps&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cbootstraps%3B%2Cc0) shows the word bootstraps was barely used before 1900.… Well, Joyce’s usage might make sense. One can imagine using one’s own bootstraps to somehow hook onto a ladder while ascending, especially if it is crude, single-pole ladder with exposed rungs. When “_with the aid of_” is abbreviated to “_by_”, as we are wont to find ways to use fewer words, the meaning becomes distorted or even sometimes lost. > [@Enola\_Straight](#): > > “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” > Or, in modern english, > You can’t eat your cake and still have it. > > _Once something is used up…ITS GONE._ > > Yep people speak of…_and even expect_…to have their cake and eat it, too. Modern English confounds that construction, because “have” is very frequently used as a synonym for “eat”, as in “_let’s go have dinner_” or “_have another piece of cake_”. ---
**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:** [October 8, 2018, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/24 "2018-10-08T16:43:48Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > People. Please. > > When a combination of words–idiom, metaphor, synecdoche, what have you–are used in a manner that is the complete opposite of the original meaning, the vast mass of us are under no obligation to stand idly by, shrug our shoulders, and say “eh, descriptivism.” In the real world, descriptivism has one meaning: recording the language as it is used. That’s why all dictionaries for the last half century have been descriptivist. Usage guides make judgements about value and recommend when and whether to use certain words and terms, depending on the formality of speech and the audience it will reach. Dictionaries may contain usage guides, and many do. Dictionaries have one purpose: to be accurate in listing all usages and defining the differences among them. Usage guides are basically tools of etiquette. They tell you if your manners will get you looked down upon. As with all etiquette guides, they have no outside base of authority. English has no authoritative board of supervisors that rules upon correct usage. Words change meaning regularly, even to become their opposite. Age makes these reversals seem natural. Nobody today remembers that nice started out as foolish, stupid, or senseless. Thousands of common words have traveled this route. Prescriptivism started with Victorian idiots who were disturbed that the lower classes were now able to share the printed word because of mass printing techniques. They sought to freeze the language and base it on the Latin and Greek taught only in public schools (where American call private schools). It was pure snobbery then and remains pure snobbery now. Descriptivists realized that preventing actual usage from entering dictionaries was madness. The 3rd edition of the Webster’s Unabridged in 1961 added them in and simultaneously cut out many of the pejoratives that marked earlier dictionary definitions.The highbrows went insane. Yet every major dictionary since has been descriptivist. Descriptivists do not say anything goes. They first recognize that the language changes daily and cannot be held back. They further recognize that spoken language and written language are different things. They make the point that languages has a million levels, from the most formal discourse through popular culture, advertising speak, message boards, and jargon to slang, and that the dynamic between word creator and word recipient matters. All descriptivist’s hate breakage of the basic rule’s of grammar and orthography, with apostrophe’s a basic bagaboo. But that’s not usage. Proper usage has a place. Prescriptivism doesn’t. I’ve never read a prescriptivist who understands the language and its history well enough to make accurate pronouncements about English and I have shelves of books on the subject. I’ve also never read a prescriptivist who has any understanding of what descriptivism is, and TSBG just continues that streak. They get torn apart by linguists as easily as people who drop their favorite theories about time travel do here. When come back, bring descriptivism. ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/25 "2018-10-08T17:11:57Z")
I don’t think the term was being used officially in a sarcastic sense in 1947 Puerto Rico for the government program “[Operation Bootstrap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bootstrap)”: > [@](#): > > In 1947 newly elected Puerto Rican governor Luis Muñoz Marín of the Popular Democratic Party along with the United States government began Operation Bootstrap, which invested millions of dollars into Puerto Rico to industrialize the island’s economy IMO, it is unlikely that by 1947 references to computer bootstrap operations were common enough in ordinary speech to be the origin of the name of this program. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/26 "2018-10-08T17:36:41Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It was pure snobbery then and remains pure snobbery now. You say that like it’s a bad thing, guv. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/27 "2018-10-08T17:58:10Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Another example is Nimrod - a Biblical allusion to the great hunter. Obviously being called a Nimrod is a compliment, right? Well, no. Not since Bugs Bunny used the term ironically to refer to Elmer Fudd. Now it’s an insult. Too many people heard the word first from Bugs Bunny (or people repeating him) since Bugs was very popular and Biblical references have declined in frequency. Was anyone in the habit of using it to describe an actual great hunter? It’s just a sarcastic thing like Einstein or Sherlock except no one watching Bugs would have got the joke and just thought it was a word for “stupid”. ---
**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:** [October 8, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/28 "2018-10-08T18:06:43Z")
Etiquette is the science of belittling outsiders; manners are the art of making others comfortable. Prescriptivism is etiquette; descriptivism is manners. I’m all for manners. ---
**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:** [October 8, 2018, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/29 "2018-10-08T18:14:00Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Was anyone in the habit of using it to describe an actual great hunter? It’s just a sarcastic thing like Einstein or Sherlock except no one watching Bugs would have got the joke and just thought it was a word for “stupid”. [World Wide Words](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nim1.htm) has a good article on how Nimrod gradually lost its associations with great hunter and started flipping in the 1930s. IOW, an article on how the language actually works and not as those ignorant of language history imagine it to be. Note how cites include writers like John Steinbeck rather than some internet texters. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2018, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/30 "2018-10-08T21:28:37Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > … Prescriptivism started with Victorian idiots who were disturbed that the lower classes were now able to share the printed word because of mass printing techniques. They sought to freeze the language and base it on the Latin and Greek taught only in public schools (where American call private schools). It was pure snobbery then and remains pure snobbery now. > > … Proper usage has a place. Prescriptivism doesn’t. I’ve never read a prescriptivist who understands the language and its history well enough to make accurate pronouncements about English and I have shelves of books on the subject. I’ve also never read a prescriptivist who has any understanding of what descriptivism is, and TSBG just continues that streak. They get torn apart by linguists as easily as people who drop their favorite theories about time travel do here. > > When come back, bring descriptivism. We’ve had these discussions before and this is once again a bit of a digression, but you seem to have ratcheted up the rhetoric yet another notch. Among the many false premises you introduce into this straw man argument is the idea that the descriptivist vs. prescriptivist argument is somehow binary. It isn’t. It’s a vast continuum on which intelligent and knowledgeable people can disagree because they simply occupy different positions along the spectrum. There is the kind of prescriptivism that most of us remember from grade school (“never end a sentence with a preposition”) and there is the kind that seeks to stem an apparent rising tide of illiteracy arising from carelessness and ignorance, that recognizes that sometimes a mistake really is a mistake and not a precious seed of linguistic evolution. Language changes really do sometimes arise from mistakes, of course, but not usually in a good way, and it’s not a sin to recognize that language should and does follow rules and that it’s incumbent on us to know the ones that matter. I would in fact argue that those toward the side of the spectrum who are more opposed to the effects of carelessness and ignorance are actually more attuned to the history and nuances of the language. You consistently fail to acknowledge this non-binary continuum. There is a difference – to quote another poster in a long-ago discussion – between grade-school prescriptivism and grad-school prescriptivism. When Steven Pinker defends the use of “me” instead of “I” inside conjunctions (“me and Alice went to the movies”), he may be celebrated by descriptivists but he’s really engaged in “grad-school prescriptivism”. He doesn’t argue that the construction is fine because teenagers speak that way and we may as well accept it. He argues the alleged wrongness is based on the assumption that the grammatical case of pronouns inside a conjunction must agree with the case of the conjunction itself, but there is actually no such rule, and we can see corresponding usage where the grammatical number of nouns or pronouns in conjunctions doesn’t agree with the grammatical number of the conjunction. There are other examples that disprove your belief that every linguist on earth agrees with you or embraces some hypothetical descriptivist extremism. As I’ve said before, it’s not hard to find linguists who concur with well-founded prescriptive rules. This is from _Introducing Sociolinguistics_, Rajend Mesthrie, Edinburgh University Press: … sociolinguists cannot pretend that prescriptive ideas do not or should not exist. On the contrary, ideas about good and bad language are very influential in society. The British linguist, Deborah Cameron (1995b), coined the term “verbal hygiene” for the practice born of the urge to improve or clean up the language. Just as hygiene is necessary for good health, verbal hygiene is felt to be necessary for everyday language use. She points to the need to pay attention to the role of journalists, writers, editors and broadcasters in promoting an awareness of acceptable public forms of language. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Etiquette is the science of belittling outsiders; manners are the art of making others comfortable. > > Prescriptivism is etiquette; descriptivism is manners. I’m all for manners. Here again you’ve created a false premise with arbitrary and artificial definitions and moreover, with a flawed analogy that wouldn’t be valid even if the definitions were true, because the concept of “making others comfortable” is a two-way street, and someone concerned about good manners (or etiquette – I don’t care what word you use) will strive for that as the primary objective. How are the other guests at a dinner party supposed to react when one guest behaves inappropriately? In some cases the best approach would be to ignore it – or even to imitate some _faux pas_ to avoid an implicit correction – but it’s a conundrum because, though correcting the behavior would make the guest uncomfortable, the guest has already made everyone else uncomfortable. Take something like the “rules” for how one should comport oneself at the dinner table. Just like extremism in literary prescriptivism, there are undoubtedly rules one would find in Victorian books of etiquette that are just stupid because they don’t serve a purpose today, if they ever did. Others (like the handedness of knife and fork use) aren’t rules at all but arbitrary cultural conventions that basically no one cares about. But those aren’t the only rules. There are also sensible rules that serve a real purpose. The rule, for instance, about not starting to eat until everyone is served, which is also why restaurants strive to deliver courses to everyone at the same time. There is nothing more disconcerting than sitting idle while your guest(s) are stuffing their faces – especially if you’re hungry! But arbitrarily defining “prescriptivism” as equivalent to the most archaic of these dinner table rules and then dismissing it is just nonsense. And in particular, stating – as many self-indentified “descriptivists” do – that language usage cannot be deemed “wrong” if the meaning is clearly understood is precisely like saying that no behavior at the dinner table can be deemed inappropriate if the diner succeeds in stuffing his face with food. ---
**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:** [October 8, 2018, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/31 "2018-10-08T22:08:16Z")
This is the fun argument to tackle because it’s well-reasoned and nuanced and I don’t disagree with all that much of it. But, hey, this is the Internet, so en garde! When you talk about strawmen, let’s look at the one you stuffed. My posts need to be read in the context of this particular thread, the one that started with the OP saying “End of pointless ranting against the descriptivist tide.” This is sheer ignorance, and you know it. Descriptivists don’t say that anything goes, they don’t approve or disapprove: they merely say here’s the language. The language today - and for the last 40 years if the Osmonds were indeed influential, more than a generation, since well before the Internet - uses “a few bad apples” in that way. Whether you approve of the idiom or not, that fact must be accepted or else your prescriptivist ranting reduces comprehension rather than enhances it. You add to the problem when you say “it’s not a sin to recognize that language should and does follow rules.” _Language_ does not follow rules nor should it. You’re conflating language with its components. Grammar has rules and as a consequence is slow to change, for good reason. Orthography has a few rules that are often neglected in English but spelling tends to be stable over time. Punctuation has hardly any rules at all and so massive style guides are needed to explain and direct writers within a system, with the various systems showing low correlation and subject to frequent changes and updates. Usage has no rules at all, and usage is the sole topic in this thread. Usage changes daily. New meanings develop, old meanings evolve. Whether this is good or bad is fit for debate (though any conclusion other than some of it is good and some of it is bad should get you thrown out of the clubhouse) but none of it is because of descriptivism. My fight is against Internet prescriptivism, which uses descriptivism as a handy punching bag with no more awareness of what that means as a body of knowledge than they do of quantum mechanics. That’s a good fight and internet prescriptivism is something up with which I will continue to not put. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/32 "2018-10-09T00:39:38Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **eschereal** : > > Well, Joyce’s usage might make sense. This might possibly be the first instance of that sentence in the history of the English language. ---
**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:** [October 9, 2018, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/33 "2018-10-09T22:23:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > When I first heard the bootstrap expression as a kid, I pictured a guy with extremely long bootstraps, looped over pulleys at about head height. In that case, it’s not only possible to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps, it’s actually easier, due to the mechanical advantage. > > And the “bad apple” one still means exactly the same thing it always has. When one says that there are only a few bad apples, what they mean is that the bunch _is_ spoiled, but that that spoilage could have been prevented by getting rid of the bad ones to begin with. The overhead pulleys only redirect the effort, so the weight you’re pulling down equals your own (plus friction.) The mechanical advantage only comes in when the straps are looped down through another pulley on your boots and back to an overhead attachment.That way, you’re pulling a greater distance than your own rising, but only half the effort (plus friction,) in each inch of strap pulled. That’s a whole lot of bootstraps, and a lot of words, to make a nearly pointless point. The cake adage was long ago applied to adultery; you can’t have your Kate and Edith, too. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/34 "2018-10-09T23:53:21Z")
If you’re lifting up some other person by their bootstraps, you wouldn’t have any mechanical advantage. But when you’re lifting yourself, you’re moving with the load, and so have a mechanical advantage of 2. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2018, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/35 "2018-10-11T15:33:25Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > [World Wide Words](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nim1.htm) has a good article on how Nimrod gradually lost its associations with great hunter and started flipping in the 1930s. > > IOW, an article on how the language actually works and not as those ignorant of language history imagine it to be. Note how cites include writers like John Steinbeck rather than some internet texters. It doesn’t really explain how it went from “inept hunter” to “inept person”. I’m going to stick with it being Bugs Bunny’s fault. ---
**Author:** ![a\_dudes\_thought\_s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@a\_dudes\_thought\_s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/a_dudes_thought_s)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2018, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/36 "2018-10-11T16:00:58Z")
Wow you learN something new every day. ---
**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:** [October 11, 2018, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/37 "2018-10-11T16:04:29Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > It doesn’t really explain how it went from “inept hunter” to “inept person”. I’m going to stick with it being Bugs Bunny’s fault. This is cute as a joke, but won’t work as a real world explanation. Cartoon jokes were set up for instant and universal audience recognition (or as close as practical). No gagwriter would set up a joke that involves usage opposite to the audience’s understanding of a word. And in fact the cartoon usage is not “inept person” but “inept hunter,” implying that the expansion of meaning hadn’t yet taken place. > [@](#): > > From the 1930s onwards we see an increasing tendency for nimrod to be used much more in a disparaging or sarcastic way for a hunter with limited skills. Bugs Bunny, you may recall, referred to hunter Elmer Fudd as “poor little Nimrod”. Over time, nimrod shifted still further towards meaning a damn fool who shot at anything that moved and even things that didn’t. By the 1960s, this transition was pretty much complete Here’s another problem. Did Bugs ever use the term at all? A respondent at [Stack Exchange](https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/81453/in-which-cartoon-if-any-did-bugs-bunny-use-the-term-nimrod) says no: it was Daffy Duck. > [@](#): > > According to IMDb, Elmer does get called “my little Nimrod”… > > …by Daffy, in the 1948 short “What Makes Daffy Duck”. > > ``` > Elmer Fudd: How am I ever going to catch that scwewy duck? > > Daffy Duck: Precisely what I was thinking*, my little Nimrod. > > ``` > > Now granted this does not mean that this is the only instance where Elmer gets called this. I would take it as much more likely than not that the script writers re-used the insult for other shorts. > > However… we may also be looking at an instance of The Mandela Effect. The chain of reasoning would then go like this… > > ``` > I have seen a cartoon where Elmer Fudd gets called "nimrod". > Elmer was always hunting Bugs Bunny, I saw lots of such cartoons > Therefore: Bugs called Elmer "nimrod". > > ``` > > This will — of course — be invalidated the very second that someone shows an instance where Bugs too called Elmer “Nimrod”. However, a Google search on “elmer fudd nimrod site:imdb.com” reveals no other instance than from “What Makes Daffy Duck (1948)”. - This word should be “wondering.” I’ve searched through a page full of hits on Bugs and Nimrod. Bizarrely, all of them simply repeat the claim without ever mentioning a specific episode. With one exception. One definitely puts the quote into the first Bugs/Fudd cartoon, 1940’s “A Wild Hare.” Unfortunately, the whole cartoon isn’t available on YouTube. If somebody has it in their collection, please listen to it carefully and check for nimrod. Whether it’s there or not, here’s the bottom line. Bugs did not change the meaning from what it was in the 1930s. He - or Daffy - reinforced it. The change came later. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2018, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/38 "2018-10-11T16:17:58Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’ve searched through a page full of hits on Bugs and Nimrod. Bizarrely, all of them simply repeat the claim without ever mentioning a specific episode. With one exception. One definitely puts the quote into the first Bugs/Fudd cartoon, 1940’s “A Wild Hare.” Unfortunately, the whole cartoon isn’t available on YouTube. If somebody has it in their collection, please listen to it carefully and check for nimrod. On YouTube, no. But you can watch it on [Daily Motion](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4053d). No use of the word Nimrod. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2018, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/39 "2018-10-11T16:25:45Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Whether it’s there or not, here’s the bottom line. Bugs did not change the meaning from what it was in the 1930s. He - or Daffy - reinforced it. The change came later. I meant in the sense of my earlier post. Bugs used it properly but the childrens audience of the time didn’t get it and thought it meant the same thing as “ultramaroon”. So children of the 60s-70s started using it in that sense. eta: of course, if this is all a false memories of Bugs using it then that can’t be it. ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2018, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619/40 "2018-10-11T17:05:13Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > (BTW, another saying/pet peeve of mine that’s been flipped is “bad apples”. “Yes these people demonstrably did wrong, but it’s just a few bad apples”. Yes, idiot, it’s that. And the saying is “A few bad apples SPOIL THE WHOLE BUNCH”. Because they teach other apples, and taint all other apples by association. There’s no such thing as “just a few bad apples”. End of pointless ranting against the descriptivist tide.) No there is such a thing as a few bad apples. If you have a bag or a bin of apples and one or two are beginning to rot the rod will be spread to the other apples in the bag. One or two out of hundreds would be a few, and if left alone the whole bag or bin will be rotten apples. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-pull-oneself-by-ones-bootstraps-flip-meaning/822619.md?page=3)