On this episode of Appraise The Phrase: Origins of Everyday Expressions...

Six dictionaries have no definition for "knocking on the devil's door." We found out why — and then we found the actual door.

Where does "knocking on the devil's door" come from, and what does it actually mean? Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, Oxford, Collins, dictionary.com and TheFreeDictionary all come up empty — the first phrase in six seasons of this show that no published dictionary will touch. Wiktionary's only nearby entry is "devil's doorbell," which is something else entirely.

So we went looking for the origin ourselves. There is a real devil's door: a sealed entrance on the north wall of medieval English churches, including Durham Cathedral, built to be used and then bricked shut. But the name is nowhere near as old as the door. The earliest record of anyone calling one a "devil's door" comes from an 1832 demolition in Nottinghamshire — three centuries after the doors went up, when nobody could remember what they were for and the Victorians were ready with an explanation.

Along the way: why Terrence Howard's line in Four Brothers is where most people have actually heard this phrase, how Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" swallowed the devil version whole, and why the Robert Johnson crossroads legend belongs to a different bluesman named Tommy Johnson.

Mario and Twenty are joined by cunda, Rello and angie of Circle The Block — Where Culture and Nostalgia Come Full Circle — for the phrase submitted by Coach Trav of The Mental Health Playbook. Both shows are Underdog Podcasts affiliates.

An etymology podcast on the origins of everyday expressions. Every episode we unveil the origin, confirm the meaning, and assess the value. This one graded out at a B−.
Value is in the eye of the appraiser.

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The man who coined this phrase had already been pilloried and imprisoned for writing satire people took literally. So the next time he went after Parliament, he built himself an escape hatch.

On this episode of Appraise The Phrase, Mario and Twenty unveil the origin, confirm the meaning, and assess the value of “if the shoe fits.” It starts in 1705 with Daniel Defoe — printed in London under the pretense that it came from Danzig, credited to an author who didn't exist, because the poem was a direct attack on the English Parliament. Defoe names nobody in it. He just writes that if a member recognizes himself in the satire, that recognition is the reader's act, not the writer's accusation.

Twenty's read: he invented the disclaimer.

Then the phrase crosses the Atlantic. May 1773, the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, a city weeks from tearing itself apart over the Tea Act, in the one genre where anonymity did the most work. And somewhere in that crossing, the object changes.

Also: the Cinderella theory and why it doesn't hold, the 1773 subtweet, what Google didn't bother correcting, and a Dictionary of Misinformation entry that will make you check your own vocabulary.

0:00 Green Goblin, Family Matters, And A Late Submission
1:03 The ATP Intro Theme
1:42 What's Good: LA, Venice Beach, And Morning Walks
7:02 Shout Out To Mo And The Event
8:01 Today's Phrase: If The Shoe Fits
10:25 Twenty: It Went From Positive To Negative
13:07 Mario Wrote This Episode From A Negative Place
14:27 Shout Out To Kayla And Kinara Books
15:27 Nobody Says “Wear It” Anymore
16:19 You Already Have The Shoe On
16:59 Confirm The Meaning: Four Dictionaries This Time
18:00 The Last-Minute Submission Always Wins
21:33 Which Ones Are Negative And Which Are Neutral
22:05 Twenty Picks Two Dictionaries — A First
22:53 Unveil The Origin: 1705, Daniel Defoe
23:12 The Green Goblin Problem
24:41 Printed In London, Credited To A Man Who Didn't Exist
26:09 Defoe Had Already Been Pilloried For Satire
27:13 A Legal Deniability Device
28:56 “He Invented The Disclaimer”
29:38 Have You Ever Jumped In Front Of A Bullet Nobody Fired?
31:27 You Gotta Show Me My ID In The Film
35:14 Are You Slower To Anger Now?
36:07 Why A Point Of No Return Is A Good Thing
37:28 Crashing Out, And The Flu Game Meme
38:43 May 1773: The Cap Becomes A Shoe
40:23 The Defensive Character Genre
41:26 Hugh Gaine, The Printer Who Stayed Neutral
42:46 Influence Before Influencers
43:00 The Tea Act And A City About To Break
44:41 The Original Subtweet
45:22 Twenty's Twitter Era
50:25 The Cinderella Hypothesis
52:00 Why The Case Against It Is Stronger
54:50 Google Didn't Correct The Story Either
56:33 Pop Culture Impact: The Top Four
57:30 #1 Hamilton, Cabinet Battle #1
58:37 The Appraisal
1:00:45 Dictionary Of Misinformation: The Subconscious Isn't Freudian
1:02:23 Closing Thoughts
1:02:55 Shop, Partners, And Credits

REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
Daniel Defoe, The Diet of Poland (1705) · Daniel Defoe, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702) · New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, May 1773 · Hugh Gaine, printer · Alexander McDougall writing as “Hampden,” New York Journal (1773) · Giambattista Basile, Pentamerone (1634) · Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854) · Hamilton, “Cabinet Battle #1” · Spider-Man (2002) · Family Matters

COMMENT: Have you ever gotten defensive about something nobody was actually saying about you? And settle this — is a subtweet a disclaimer or a coward move?

ATP SHOP — every phrase gets a grade. Some of them get a mug.
appraisethephrase.com/shop

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The first person to say “against the grain” was lying. Not figuratively. He was coaching other people to lie, and the phrase was the lie.

On this episode of Appraise The Phrase, Mario and Twenty are joined by Kayla, founder of Kinara Bookstore in Tulsa, to unveil the origin, confirm the meaning, and assess the value of “go against the grain.” It debuts in Shakespeare's Coriolanus around 1607, in the mouth of Sicinius — a tribune coaching Roman citizens to claim they'd been pressured into their vote, and that speaking up went against the grain. They were doing exactly what authority wanted. The first recorded figurative use of the phrase describes someone going with the grain. Mario's name for it is inverted debut.

And the carpentry story everyone repeats? Every source on earth says this comes from woodworking. Gary Martin appears to be the only person who actually checked, and none of the early citations reference wood at all — the carpentry explanation only shows up after Shakespeare. It's not what you know. It's what you can prove.

Also: why the play itself is about grain, how a phrase gets rationalized backwards, what clickbait did to writing, and Kayla on opening a bookstore in the gap left when Tulsa's only Black bookstore closed.

Value is in the eye of the appraiser.

0:00 Gladiator, Holograms, And What You Can Prove
0:51 The ATP Intro Theme
2:30 Introducing Our Guest
3:44 Kayla On Founding Kinara Bookstore In Tulsa
7:17 Who Decides What The Rules Are?
15:11 Confirm The Meaning: Merriam-Webster
18:11 Twenty Would Have Written It Differently
22:28 Unveil The Origin: 1607, Coriolanus
23:33 Our First Hologram Guest Should Be Shakespeare
23:53 Sicinius, The Tribune, And The Coached Lie
25:47 The Play Is Literally About Grain: The Corn Riot
28:34 Inverted Debut: The First Use Was Inauthentic
33:47 Kayla Does Not Fly Southwest
37:54 Every Source On Earth Says Carpentry
38:45 Gary Martin Is The Only One Who Checked
39:51 Retroactive Etymological Rationalization
42:16 Seed Oils, And Things That Sound True
44:34 What Clickbait Did To Writing
51:39 Is Any Of This Real? Clickbait Meets AI
53:20 À Rebours, Bad Religion, And Garth Brooks
55:44 Evaluative Reversal: When The Act Stops Mattering
57:36 Do You Own “Going Against The Grain”?
58:44 Building A Space For Us, By Us
1:00:40 Twenty: Save The Last Dance
1:04:23 The Phrase As A Banner People Wave
1:08:23 The Appraisal: Power
1:11:12 Speed
1:12:07 Preference, Handed To The Guest
1:13:31 Dictionary Of Misinformation
1:15:04 The Kremlin Is Not A Building
1:16:11 Where To Find Kinara Bookstore
1:17:43 Shop, Credits, And Where To Find Us

REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (c. 1607–08) · Plutarch, via North's translation · Merriam-Webster · Dictionary.com · Gary Martin, Phrase Finder · J.-K. Huysmans, À rebours (1884), published in English as Against the Grain · Bad Religion, Against the Grain (1990) · Garth Brooks, “Against the Grain,” written by Bruce Bouton, Larry Cordle and Carl Jackson · Marion Nestle, NYU · Gladiator (2000) · Training Day (2001) · Save the Last Dance (2001)

GUEST: Kayla, founder of Kinara Bookstore — Tulsa's pop-up bookstore centering Black, brown, queer and disabled readers. Instagram, Threads and TikTok @kinara.books · kinarabookstore.com

COMMENT: Have you ever actually gone against the grain, or did you just say you did? And settle this for us — open seating or assigned?

ATP SHOP — every phrase gets a grade. Some of them get a mug.
appraisethephrase.com/shop

THE BRACKET — the board keeps filling. Tournament comes March 2027.

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