That’s How The Cookie Crumbles

When life happens and you can’t change or control the outcome, you have no other option than to accept the outcome and live with the results.  At this point, people will sometimes tell you that’s the way the cookie crumbles.  The British may say such is life while the French may say c’est la vie, but for most of us, we say that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

While some don’t worry sweat the small stuff like cookies crumbling, some are so focused on getting to the cause or causes that they devote serious research to the subject.  Such was the case back in 2003 when a PhD student from Loughborough University decided it was high time the mystery was solved.  Thanks to his work being published in the Institute of Physics journal “Measurement, Science, and Technology” others who pondered the same question were now able to read the data in Qasim Saleem’s research paper, “A Novel Application Of Speckle Interferometry For The Measurement Of Strain Distributions In Semi-Sweet Biscuits.”

So while bakers have known the answer for generations, since 2003, scientists have also been privy to that answer.  And no, I’m not pranking you, dear reader.

It was on April 5, 1990 that the Spokane Chronicle announced that a Girl Scout in Bend, Oregon had been the victim of a con artist.  A counterfeit $5 bill was passed to the Girl Scout who had been selling cookies outside a local K-Mart store the previous Sunday.  The article was entitled, “That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles” … a rather mean headline for such a story in light of the fact that this story was about an unethical adult victimizing a child.

The Girl Scouts seem to have gotten more than just a little attention with that headline for other related stories.  The Bryan Times reported on January 24, 1984 that in Tennessee they would expected to collect sales taxes on the cookies they were selling and to remit the amount collected beginning in 1985.  In previous years, the Girl Scouts had failed to collected sales taxes on cookie sales.  As with the story in 1990, the story in 1984 was entitled, “That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles.”

And in the Tuscaloosa News in Alabama, a little news story tucked into the April 10, 1969 edition mentioned that in Detroit (Michigan), after already having spent thirteen months in jail awaiting trial, Fred Jackson would continue to cool his heels in jail because he couldn’t post the $10,000 USD bond required to make bail.  Because of overcrowded dockets and undermanned courtrooms, Fred Jackson’s trial had been postponed five times.  Finally, it was reported that the trial was slated for the following Monday.  Charged with having stolen five boxes of cookies, the article was entitled, “That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles.”

You’d imagine that the word cookies has been around nearly as long as cookies have been, but you’d mistaken if you believe that.  You see, the Dutch word for a little cake is koekje (pronounced the way you’d pronounce cookie in English) and the word was adopted by the British in 1703.   And you’d imagine that shortly after the word was incorporated into English, that the phrase would show up shortly thereafter.  But it seems that the crumbliness of cookies wasn’t a topic of discussion among most people in the 18th century.

In the fiction book “The Knute Rockne Kid” by Frank J. Bruno, the expression is used in the dialogue in Chapter 48 that recounts a situation that happened in the hospital on December 11, 1948.  In this part of the book, Mario Calvino (the protagonist of the novel) and Norm Cooper (the antagonist that eventually becomes his friend) are talking.

Tears were flowing down my cheeks.
“Come on, sap.  What are you feeling miserable about?”
“I feel like it’s all my fault.”
“Again, Mario, you’re full of shit.  All you did was pass the ball and place it where it was supposed to be.  I caught it and ran for the touchdown.  What else were you supposed to do?  What else was I supposed to do?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s right.  We both did the right thing.  It’s just the way the cookie crumbles.”
As he was talking, I noticed, or imagined that I noticed, his jaw moved mechanically and stiffly, like the jaw of a ventriloquist’s dummy.  It dawned on me that Norm was using a massive amount of willpower to retain his composure.  He was showing to me that he was a human being with great character and courage.

However, this book was published in 2015, and the use of the expression in this book doesn’t necessarily prove that it was in use in 1948.

The good news is that on November 17, 1958 a country & western song recorded by Johnnie and Jack for the RCA Victor label was making ripples according to Billboard magazine was entitled, “Poison Love.”  On the B side was “That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles.”

So we know that fans of country & western music were familiar with the idiom in the fifties.

Slightly more than thirty years earlier, in 1927, American actor, playwright, screenwriter, and producer, Edward Bartlett Cormack (19 March 1898 – 26 September 1942) wrote a play entitled, “The Racket” that was also made into a film by the same name the following year.  The movie was one of the first to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1929 back when it was still called “Best Picture, Production.”

SIDE NOTE:  The play and movie were banned in Chicago because of the portrayal of a corrupt police force, a corrupt city government, and the gangsters who controlled both the police force and the city government.  Keep in mind that during this time period, Al Capone and his organization were an integral part of Chicago’s workings.

The movie used more idioms than Carter has little liver pills, and that’s the way the cookie crumbles slipped in alongside others like ‘his goose is cooked‘ and ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’

At this point, the trail went cold, and Idiomation was unable to find an earlier published version of this idiom.  However, because it was used in “The Racket” in 1928, it was expected that the moving picture audience would understand what was meant.  Idiomation therefore pegs the idiom to sometime in the early 1920s or late 1910s.

Idiomation would have loved to pinpoint the very first published version of this idiom, but as the saying goes, sometimes that’s how the cookie crumbles.

When Hell Freezes Over

If you say that something will happen when hell freezes over, you mean that it will never happen. 

For example, when the Eagles broke up in 1980, the band members stated the band play together again “when Hell freezes over.”  Well, Hell hadn’t frozen over by the time 1994 rolled around however, in 1994, the Eagles — consisting of Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Don Felder, and Timothy Schmit — regrouped and released a live album entitled, “Hell Freezes Over.”

Of course, the Eagles were premature with their announcement about Hell as the U.S. Weather Station in Hell, Michigan can attest to the fact that in all the years the government has been tracking the weather in Hell, it only froze over once and that was in 2004 — 10 years after the Eagles‘ live album.

Back on October 27, 1928 the Afro American newspaper published in Baltimore, a story written by William Pickens reporting on Oscar DePriest who was allegedly forced to quit the race for Congress in Chicago was published.  The article read in part: 

“If he were guilty and afraid, he would agree to quit under condition that the indictment be dropped. But to their surprise, when they went to him and said:  “Now, won’t you withdraw?” — he replied:  “You go to hell, and when hell freezes over so you can skate around on it, bring me proof of that and maybe I’ll think about quitting.”

The man has more plain courage than any other politician I have ever met.  He laid all his cards on the table at a meeting in Chicago on October 14 … He told just how he stood, frankly stated his opposition to some of the most powerful leaders: said in bold but brief outline what he would do as Congressman and what he wouldn’t.

Back on November 23, 1863 during the Civil War, 2nd Lieutenant, Richard B. Dobbins from Company D of the 7th Tennessee Cavalry Battalion was captured at Pulaski, Tennessee.  Records show that he was sent to Camp Chase (OH). Was asked when he was going to take the oath, and his reply was, “When Hell freezes over.”   He was released by special order of President Lincoln, April 23, 1864.

While the earliest recorded version of “when Hell freezes over” appears to be 1864, the manner in which it was used implies that it was a common saying among those in the southern states.  It is not unreasonable to believe that the expression dates back at least to the 1850s if not farther back.

Shotgun Wedding

Rumour has it that Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII had a shotgun wedding in 1532.  And records show that it’s very likely that William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had a shotgun wedding as their daughter, Susanna, was christened just 6 months after their wedding.

On October 30, 1667, it was recorded in Plymouth Colony court records that America’s first shotgun wedding was between Mary Alden and Thomas Delano, the son of Philip Delanoye, one of the original settlers of Duxbury, Massachusetts.  The groom was fined ten pounds “for having carnal copulation with his now wife before marriage.”  The judge who meted out punishment was John Alden, Thomas’s father-in-law and neighbour.

And then there’s the story of one William Marion who, along with John Cameron, went on a trip to Kansas in May 1872 to visit Marion’s in-laws. After a few days, Marion returned home alone to Nebraska. Eleven years passed and a boy allegedly wearing clothing identified as Cameron’s was found walking about. Marion was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to be executed for murder.

Though he was given a new trial due to lack of sentencing by a jury, a new jury convicted him as well and he was allegedly killed on March 25, 1887 by firing squad.  Oddly enough though, in 1891, four years after the execution, Cameron turned up alive and well.  He explained that he had run away to Mexico to avoid a shotgun wedding. Marion was pardoned six years later in 1897.

The New York Times ran a review on February 23, 1928 of a play entitled “Rope” by David Wallace and T.S. Stribling, and based on a novel by T.S. Stribling.  The reviewer, J. Brooks Atkinson reported that the duo had “fashioned a stirring melodrama Rope mounted at the Biltmore last evening.”  Mr. Atkinson referenced mischief makers, furtive meetings, loose gossip and a shotgun wedding among other things.  All in all, it would appear that the play was a great success in the reviewer’s eyes … or so he told the readers of the New York Times.

A year later, the Los Angeles Times ran an article on February 16, 1929 with the headline:  “Nevada Wrestling Match Rivals Shotgun Wedding.”

The Chicago Daily Tribune ran an article on February 20, 1937 with the headline:  “Charges Shotgun Wedding in Plea for Annulment.”  The story told was of one Charles F. Lyons, 20 years old, of 211 West Jackson Boulevard who claimed  his marriage to Miss Elizabeth Enright, 21 years old, of 3918 Flournoy Street was a shotgun wedding that began with the father of the bride kidnapping the groom and taking him to wed his daughter.  He filed suit in Superior Court to have the marriage annulled.

By the time WWII was underway, shotgun wedding also had a political meaning as shown by an article that ran in the Tuscaloosa News on April 9, 1943 entitled “Background of Peace” that dealt with WWII and the arrival of a Mr. Wilson in Paris in 1918.  It was a reprint from the Chicago Daily Tribune and read in part:

The guaranty was a note signed by Great Britain, France and Italy before the armistice accepting the fourteen points and supplemental conditions as a specific formula for the peace.  It was a sort of shotgun wedding, inasmuch as Lloyd George and Clemenceau had been told that Mr. Wilson might go to congress for a separate peace on that formula if they undertook to disappoint the hopes they had raised.  Shotgun or not, the diplomatic rites had been solemnized and the pledge was holy.

It would appear that the phrase shotgun wedding is an Americanism from sometime in the early to mid-1920s, being used with ease by newspapermen and playwrights by the time 1928 came around.

Sunday Driver

When you’re in a vehicle following another that is holding up traffic because it appears to be driven aimlessly, with no destination in mind and very slowly, the driver of that vehicle is said to be a Sunday driver.

The Norwalk (Connecticut) Hour newspaper published an article on July 20, 1933 entitled, “Saturday Driver Worse Than Sunday.”  The article read in part:

Saturday, not Sunday, is the most dangerous day to operate an automobile on the highways of the state, statistics collected by the State Motor Vehicle Department show.  For long years, the “Sunday driver” has borne the blame of his fellow drivers as the cause of the most of the week end crashes.  Has the “Sunday driver” started driving Saturday since the depression?

Sunday drivers have been the bane of travellers around the world for a number of decades it would appear. In a letter to the Editor of the New York Times, J. Martin Haas wrote the following on October 12, 1932:

It has been my custom for a number of years to take my family each Sunday on little trips on the suburban roads surrounding New York City.  My observations made on these drives lead me to believe that the crying need is not for more traffic regulations but for education, if possible, of the so-called “Sunday driver” than which there is no greater menace.

Four years earlier on March 11, 1928, another New York Times reader wrote the Editor on the subject of the Sunday driver.  In his letter he stated:

The “Sunday driver” is, in fact, often a nuisance and sometimes a danger on the road. When father and the family pile into their Sunday-go-to-country car for the weekly outing, whoever drives –and it’s just as likely to be mother or daughter as father or son — may lack the calm assurance required.

A tongue-in-cheek piece was published in the Los Angeles Times on May 10, 1927 entitled “Traffic Rules for the Sunday Driver.”  It began with this:

On account of only taking out your car on Sundays, you are entitled to a lot of special privileges.  For one thing, you can drive anywhere on the road you please.  This entitles you to select your own ditch.

In 1898, Alexander Winton started selling the first commercially successful gasoline cars in the US.  By the end of 1899, he had sold 22 cars.  With only 22 cars on the roads entering the 20th century, Sunday drivers didn’t appear to be a concern to other drivers. 

By 1903, one could purchase a gas Oldsmobile for $650, a Stanley steam Runabout for $650, a Cadillac for $750, the first model A Ford for $750, and a Baker electric Runabout for $850.  Ten years later in 1913, Henry Ford began making his cars on assembly lines. 

This made the motor car more affordable to the average American.  Ford began paying his loyal employees $5 per day and the price of Ford cars dropped down to $290 per car.  That year, 250,000 Ford cars were sold!

With 97,225,000 Americans in the US in 1913, that meant that 1 in about 400 Americans owned a Ford vehicle.  As car manufacturing increased, so did the number of car owners. 

On July 18, 1917 the Chicago Daily Tribune carried a story about a William Butterfield Sunday entitled “Billy Sunday Hits Trail to Court; Driver Is Fined.”  The 96 word news bite read in part:

For violating a traffic ordinance, Motorcycle Officer Frank Ervin took Sunday and his car to police headquarters The case was booked in the name of William Butterfield Sunday.  He was fined and Sunday promised to pay more attention to traffic rules in the future.

Perhaps this is where the term “Sunday driver” originated however that is only conjecture on the part of Idiomation.

While the earliest published reference to a Sunday driver that Idiomation could find dated back to 1928, based on how the term was used in the New York Times letters to the Editor, it appears to have been a relatively new term that was entering the American jargon with great ease.  Somewhere in the 15 years between 1913 and 1928, the annoying and dangerous “Sunday driver” was born.