Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 81. The word origin today is
couch potato. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. A couch potato is a person
who is lazy and not at all interested in physical activity and prefers to spend
time in front of a television sitting idle. Sitting doing nothing. This is what
we mean by a couch potato. All right. Let's continue.
They say the origin of the term came about due to a pun. A pun you know,
sometimes when a word can have a double meaning. I will get to that a
little later. Originally, it came from a group that was opposed to the exercise
fads of the 1970s. Yeah. Think of ... if you're old enough think of like Olivia
Newton-John with that song you know, " Let's get physical, physical. " Something
like that. There was a lot of .. you know, exercise fads at that time and they
weren't ... they were totally against this. They just liked to watch a lot of TV and
they enjoyed eating snacks and you know, they kind of made fun of that. So anyway
let's continue. They'd like to meet and watch many hours of TV. That group
called themselves the boob tubers. All right. Well this is interesting too,
because this was very common phrase at that time. You still could hear it sometimes.
Sometimes the TV, a nickname for TV is the boob tube and why do we call it the
boob tube ? Well boob means like somebody's like an idiot or a fool. And
if you watch too much TV you become like a boob. So we say it's the boob tube. You
know, it turns you into a boob if you watch too much TV. But you know they
enjoyed this. They were proud they like to call themselves the boob tubers.
All right. Let's continue here. Now the word tuber that they came up with T-U-B-E-R can
also have the meaning of plant, like a potato that grows below the ground. So
this is where the pun comes in this. For this a double meaning because we say
boob too but they call themselves tubers like people so but A tuber also has
another meaning like a potato. The term. Yeah so here we could say like a
potato that grows below ground. The term couch potato was coined by Tom
Iacino in 1973. He thought the second meaning of ... he thought of the second
meaning of tuber meaning a potato. And thought well you know, where if you are
like a tuber , where would you sit when you watch the TV ? On the couch of course.
So to sit to watch on the couch and of course... so the term couch potato was born.
This is where it came from originally. It also fit well because
people who don't exercise much and just watch many many hours of TV may end up
with a body shape that's a lot like potato. Yes. Like a potato, Now this
was later trademarked. One of his friends I think that was also in the group his
name was Robert Armstrong and he thought of an idea to trademark this. And he also
had some artistic skill so he made a lot of cartoons of this I think he sold a
lot of T-shirts with this kind of theme behind it. You know, a couch potato and I
guess people thought this was funny and he actually came out with a book. So yeah
in 1976. Yeah. I think he trademarked it and then he made money from the T-shirts
and later he came out with a book called "The Official Couch Potato Handbook" and he
made money from these royalties. So this is really how the word couch potato came
about. Okay. Anyway we have one example to just cover the way we might hear it used.
He is a real couch potato. He just comes home from work you know, each day or
every night and plants himself in front of the TV. You know, maybe he eats a lot
of snacks until it's time for bed and does nothing else. Then we could say
somebody is a couch potato. Okay. Anyway I'll hope you got it. I hope it
was informative and that you enjoyed it Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.