Something You Should Know
Secret Languages We All Speak & Amazing Changes in Nature You Never Knew
13 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What is the science behind the itch-scratch cycle?
Today on Something You Should Know, the strange science of itching and scratching. Then, the fascinating world of secret languages. Every family, every group, every industry has its own secret language.
I mean, the language of the stunt world. I mean, you know, you need to describe different types of camera movements. You know, we're going off sticks. means we're taking the camera off the tripod. The martini shot, the martini shot is the last shot of the day and people find it amusing and pleasing and it just enters the language.
Chapter 2: What are secret languages and where do they come from?
Also, what's the deal with bananas? Are they healthy or not? And some of the most fascinating clues in nature you may have never noticed.
So a really nice simple one is if a cloud is taller than it is wide, it's a classic sign that the atmosphere is unstable.
Chapter 3: How do secret languages reflect identity and belonging?
That makes rain showers more likely, particularly if you see them in the morning. It makes thunderstorms more likely. It makes hail more likely.
All this today on Something You Should Know.
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Listen to Vulgar History, Regency era, wherever you get podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.
So, when I tell you that we're going to start this episode by talking about itching, the fact that I just said that may have already caused you to start itching, which is part of what we're going to talk about. Hi and welcome, I'm Mike Carruthers and this is Something You Should Know. So we all know there's nothing more satisfying than scratching an itch.
Yet what's interesting is researchers have uncovered what they call the itch-scratch cycle. It's a loop where scratching might feel good for a moment, but scratching actually makes the itch come back stronger. Here's how the loop works. When you feel an itch, you scratch it, and that scratching triggers mild pain signals, which momentarily distract you from the itch. But here's the catch.
The pain signals from the scratching prompt your brain to release serotonin and other chemicals, which don't just reduce the pain, they amplify the itch. In other words, you scratch, you get serotonin, you feel itchier, so you scratch more. On top of that, there's this phenomenon of contagious itch.
Seeing, hearing, or even imagining someone scratching or being told about an itch can make you feel itchy.
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Chapter 4: What are the hidden seasonal changes in nature?
So yes, your mother was right. Don't scratch that itch. And one practical tip is that instead of scratching, try gentle rubbing or stroking around the itchy area. Some recent work suggests that soft, gentle strokes can disrupt the itch signal without triggering the whole cycle again. And that is something you should know.
When you were a kid, or maybe with your own kids, you probably had a secret language. A few strange words or phrases that only people in the family understood. Maybe it came from a mispronunciation or a family inside joke, or it's just a word that stuck. But secret languages don't just belong to kids. Every field, restaurants, retail, even podcasting, has its own private code.
It's not exactly secret, but it's meaningless to anyone outside. So where do these special languages come from, and why do we love creating them? My guest, Ben Schott, has been exploring that question, and he is the author of a book called Schott's Significa, a Miscellany of Secret Languages. Hey, Ben, welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you for having me.
So I'm obviously aware of secret languages, and I've participated with others talking secret languages, but I never thought of it so much as something to study, and yet they're everywhere.
Chapter 5: How can we interpret nature's clues throughout the seasons?
So we are surrounded by secret languages and we interact with them all the time without knowing them. So every time you go into a bar, the bartenders, the guys behind the bar, will have their own language. Every time you go to a restaurant, the kitchen and the front of house will have their own language.
Every time you interact with all sorts of groups, you are interacting with the language and you often don't see it or hear it because it's private.
So when you look at all these secret languages and the worlds in which these secret languages are used, what do you get from it?
the more I dived into any one of these worlds, the more I felt a tremendous empathy with the people involved. And it was a really interesting way, because once you get into the language, you get into the mindset, into the perspective. So for example, Starbucks, Starbucks baristas. I thought I was a perfectly polite Starbucks customer, coffee shop customer.
I am so much more respectful and polite now, knowing what they have to deal with. with the Gertrudes and the Krustys and the Touchers and the Hecklers and the TikTok guys who come in and they just shove the TikTok video and go, make me the secret menu. There is no secret menu, but TikTok creates these bizarre hack drinks.
And so realizing the language of Starbucks allowed me to really get into the mindset. And when I go in, I'm a much better customer.
So give me, because I know what you mean by bars and restaurants, but what are some of the words in, pick a language, and some of the words in that language that we might be familiar with to give us a better flavor of this?
So I'll give you an example of a world you won't be familiar with, which is the Diamond District of New York. And it's a language that a lot of it is Yiddish, there's some Hebrew, there's some Hindi, there's all sorts of different languages. And there's some English. So, for example, the word G, the G is the customer.
And one of the diamond dealers I talked to talked about the G. And then another one said, oh, well, do you know about Kitty with the G? So Kitty with the G is something they'd say to one of their colleagues. They say, hey, Kitty with the G, which means talk to the guy. Don't let him leave the shop because I've got to go and check something in the back.
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Chapter 6: What nutritional insights do experts provide about bananas?
But things like kitchen slang, I mean, it's been around for decades. So I think it's going nowhere.
Well, it's probably going nowhere because it's essential.
Chapter 7: Are bananas beneficial for health despite their sugar content?
I mean, it's fun and interesting to hear, but it also plays a real role. It's efficient.
Chapter 8: What role do bananas play in recovery after workouts?
It's shorthand. So when I was researching restaurant slang, there's kind of a universal restaurant slang. So things like 86-door, all-day, whatever, that everyone uses. And then lots of basically all... restaurants have their own slang.
So, for example, there's a restaurant in Manhattan called The Little Owl, and they have a term which is the two-hour wait face, which is when people come up with that reservation and they say, how long for the next table? And then they're told a couple of hours. And the two-hour wait face is the look of kind of stricken horror when they realize how long they have to wait for a table.
So each little restaurant has its own little slang. And I was talking to one restaurant and the general manager goes, we don't really have any slang, really. And I'm like, I bet you do. And he's like, no. And then over a course of 15, 20 minutes talking to him, he gave me five really great terms that were specific to his restaurant.
But because people use it every day, they don't think of it as real or significant or it's just normal. I mean, it's so instinctive to them. They don't think as an outsider that it's special or interesting. And I'm here to tell them that it is and to try and extract it from them and to really kind of dive in. So they then think... what they do every day is actually curious and strange and fun.
Yeah. Well, I can understand that because if it's the word you use all the time, it's not slang. It's the word you use all the time. So there's no slang about it. There's no other word that they would think to use. It would probably take a sentence or two when that one word will explain precisely.
Exactly.
In all the research you did for this, is there any little word or thing that we haven't talked about that just jumps out as like the coolest, most interesting thing that came up?
One of the things we haven't talked about, which I really enjoyed, is there's a whole sort of number of sections on hand signals and gesticulations. Because, so for example, there's the hand signals of open outcry oil traders.
Now, you may not know what that means, but when you see on TV, the guys in the pit and they're shouting and they've got their hands and they're making all these wild, odd gesticulations, that's called open outcry trading. And it's essentially disappeared. So I photographed an open outcry, an oil trader explaining how all the hand signals work.
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