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Stuff You Should Know

Short Stuff: Victorian Flower Language

19 Nov 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 3.763 Unknown

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

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4.435 - 17.328 Stephen Curry

I'm Stephen Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

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17.949 - 34.986 Unknown

Visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com for your nearest Total Wines or BevMo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Hi, Kyle.

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35.006 - 45.559 Unknown

Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan, just one page, as a Google Doc, and send me the link? Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link.

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46.06 - 64.243 Evan Ratliff

But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff, here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

69.286 - 75.88 Josh

Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and that's all that needs mentioning today because it's just us, so this is short stuff.

76.802 - 88.307 Chuck

That's right. And by the way, I wanted to thank you for sending over that beautiful nosegay of wilted white roses delivered upside down with a ribbon to the left.

88.388 - 103.387 Josh

Well, may I ask where on your chest are you wearing it? Near my bodice. In the center? Right in the center, baby. Well, I guess we're good friends then. I can live with that. Although I'm not sure what I was saying with the whole thing.

104.208 - 107.192 Chuck

Yeah, I'd have to get out a decoder book or whatever.

Chapter 2: What is floriography and why was it important in the Victorian Era?

409.979 - 424.699 Josh

Red, red, red. Rose. Rose, rose. Red, red. Rose, red. Rose, red. Rose, red. Red, red, red. And then in the, I think the first edition, the word red is just repeated over and over for three pages before it just stops and a new chapter starts.

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425.18 - 435.882 Chuck

That's so hot. Yeah. All right. I need to go cool down. Should we take a break? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. All right. We'll come back and tell you about a lot of this, what these coated flowers mean right after this.

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436.584 - 444.279 Josh

If you want to know, then you're in luck. Just listen up to Josh and Chuck.

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444.48 - 461.819 Stephen Curry

Stuff you should. I'm Stephen Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

462.459 - 484.673 Unknown

Visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or BevMo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit Gentleman'sCutBourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Who would you call if the unthinkable happened? I just fell and started screaming.

485.594 - 510.075 Unknown

If you lost someone you loved in the most horrific way? I said that to y'all 22 times. The police, right? But what if the person you're supposed to go to for help is the one you're the most afraid of? This dude is the devil. He's a snake. He'll hurt you. I got you, I got you, I got you. I'm Nikki Richardson, and this is The Girlfriends Untouchable.

511.097 - 533.706 Unknown

Detective Roger Golubsky spent decades intimidating and sexually abusing Black women across Kansas City, using his police badge to scare them into silence. This is the story of a detective who seemed above the law until we came together to take him down. I told Roger Golubsky, I said, you're going to see my face till the day that you die.

536.167 - 552.893 Unknown

Listen to The Girlfriends, Untouchable, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Stuff you should know. Stuff you should know.

Chapter 3: How did coded messages through flowers originate?

752.302 - 770.206 Josh

So the context definitely mattered. But the reason why hydrangeas and peonies and almost all of the flowers had multiple meanings was not because they needed to pull double duty because we didn't have enough flowers and enough colors. If you put all those together, you have a mind-boggling number of combinations. So that wasn't it.

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770.666 - 781.242 Josh

The reason they had multiple meanings was because there were many, many different floriography books And essentially, a lot of them just assigned different meanings to different flowers.

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782.244 - 801.917 Josh

So when you gave somebody flowers, especially if there wasn't a lot of context yet, you were just hoping that you guys were working from the same book. Yeah. I mean, that's huge. I think there were 98 different guides just in the United States alone that were circulating from 1827 to 1923. Yeah.

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802.252 - 824.975 Chuck

Not helpful at all. And then I also mentioned that they were presented upside down. That also matters. If they are upside down, it basically says it's opposite day. So I guess you're trying to sort of maybe confuse if mom is looking on and sees these flowers, but it would seem like mom would know about opposite day too. Yeah. So I'm not really sure why they would do that.

825.156 - 837.507 Chuck

Maybe to throw somebody off the scent. Who knows? How the ribbon was tied also matters. Tied to the left, the symbolism is applied to the giver. It's tied to the right if it's in reference to the recipient. Right.

837.925 - 847.061 Josh

Yeah. Yeah, I know. This is how deep it gets. It could also express a lot of negative meanings. And I think that's what you were doing when you handed a bouquet upside down.

Chapter 4: Who was Lady Mary Wortley and what was her role in spreading flower language?

847.722 - 857.419 Josh

You'd have to be pretty sharp to put a bunch of mean flowers in and then hand it to the person upside down to let them know you meant the opposite.

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857.399 - 859.441 Unknown

Yeah. That's a lot of trouble to go through.

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859.702 - 883.187 Josh

Right. You could be talking about jealousy with marigolds. You could be expressing distrust with lavender. Orange Lily straight up said, I hate you. You could say, I feel deceived with snapdragons. You could declare war with a flower called a tansy, which I hadn't heard of before, but it's like a bunch of small yellow flowers together on a single stalk.

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883.893 - 891.778 Chuck

Okay, I thought that might have been a misprint pansy, but I literally looked at my computer keyboard and was like, nah, I bet that T and the P are pretty far apart.

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891.798 - 895.59 Josh

Yeah, I didn't know that that flower existed, but by goodness, it does.

896.009 - 919.266 Chuck

Also accepting also mattered. So depending on which hand you accepted the flowers with sent a message, which I guess would – I mean if you're handing them in person, you would know. But if not, you had to have it relayed back to you. If you accepted with the right hand, it was a yes. The left hand was a no. If you held the bouquet upside down after getting it, that's rejection accepted.

919.246 - 929.931 Chuck

If someone gave you wisteria, maybe like asking for a dance at a dance, you would hold it upside down with your left hand if you wanted to say no, thank you.

929.962 - 945.743 Josh

Right. Yeah, you were really saying I'm passing with that because that's a double no. Although the person giving it could be like, is that a double negative, like a yes? Is it opposite day? So you could also, as the receiver, send flowers in return too.

945.803 - 966.404 Josh

Like if somebody actually sent you flowers or a bouquet with a message and didn't physically hand it to you, you could reply with flowers yourselves. Carnations came in handy for that. If you sent a solid colored carnation, it meant yes. A yellow carnation was a big fat no. A striped carnation was letting them down a little easier, but it was still a no.

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