Volume LII

I. Red Shirting 🏃‍♂️

In the early 20th century, college football teams began a practice we still see today: holding promising recruits out of competition for a year to let them develop (aka put a little more meat on their bones) while preserving a year of eligibility.

At some schools, to make the distinction clear, players who couldn’t compete wore red jerseys at practice. And voila, the term was born.

Nowadays, redshirting is everywhere you look. In fact, some schools have embraced “academic redshirting” after finding a correlation between holding boys back a year and improved long-term outcomes.

II. Hat Trick 🎩

Most people think hockey. But this phrase started on a cricket pitch in 1858. A bowler named H.H. Stephenson took three wickets in a row and the crowd was so impressed they pooled their money and bought him a hat.

The "trick" part? That probably came from magicians pulling things out of top hats (a huge trend at the exact same time).

Cricket gave us the hat. Magic gave us the trick. Hockey just made it famous.

III. Pet the Cat Backwards 🐈

This phrase paints a vivid picture. Anyone who’s ever owned a cat knows the one universal rule: you pet with the fur, not against it. Go the wrong direction and you’ll get a twitchy tail, a sharp glare, and maybe a set of claws for your trouble.

To pet the cat backwards is to do something that irritates or provokes when it didn’t need to. Think of the coworker reheating salmon in the office microwave, or the uncle who can’t resist sharing his thoughts on the political climate at a family holiday.

It’s the small, avoidable choices that somehow make a room collectively sigh. A good Friday reminder: life runs a little smoother when you don’t go out of your way to ruffle the fur.

Keep on sending on. Forward to a friend.