South Carolina - Dum Spiro Spero & Animis Opibusque Parati

Hi, I'm John Hodgman.

And I'm Janet Varney.

Welcome to eFlorobus Motto, the podcast all about celebrating the mottos and symbols of every state in the union, no matter how strange or boring.

Come on out of your Wolf Spider Burrows, because this week is all about South Carolina, a state bold enough to say, well, I have one motto when you can have two.

Plus two state drinks, two state marine mammals, too much symbolism on the state seal, and so much more.

I can say I've heard from our podcast's official movie director.

Oh, my goodness, that was a very quick turnaround.

Greg Mattola.

Greg Mattola, director of...

The director of Confess Fletch, as well as Super Bad and Adventureland and Paul and Keeping Up with the Joneses.

The Day Trippers was his first independent feature.

that launched him into the limelight.

The cream of the crop of directors in Hollywood.

Also is our official Hollywood director because his name is Greg Mattola.

Mattola.

I said, would you record a short intro for a new podcast I'm doing with Janet Varney about the motto of the United States?

And he wrote back saying, ha ha ha, of course, anything for you up to and including making your enemies disappear.

Oh,

he gets it.

So without further ado, here is Greg Mattola introducing E.

Plorobis Motto.

Hi, this is Greg Mattola, director of Confess Fletch, starring John Hamm.

Now available on Paramount Plus, Blu-ray, Major Airlines, and My Living Room by appointment.

You are listening to ePleuribus Motto with John Hodgman and Janet Varney.

And now here's Janet and John.

Thank you, Greg Mattola, for that introduction.

Let's give it up one more time for Greg Mattola.

Everybody wants to be aware of that.

What an intro.

Film director Greg Mattola, make sure you go check out Confess Fletch wherever you you see your Fletch films,

as well as all the other great work of Greg Mattola, the official feature motion picture director of our podcast, which is called ePluribus Motto, a podcast about state and commonwealth and territory mottos and districts too, because we are going to do the District of Columbia.

I think we decided last time.

You know it.

Starring Janet Varney on the other end of the line.

Hello, Janet.

And also starring John Hodgman on his end of the line.

Rounding out the cast.

John Hodgman in one of his regular cameos.

Pretend we were both doing something 80s related and we turned around not knowing the camera was there and then we realized the camera was there and we gave a loving smile.

Like, you caught me being great.

You caught us talking about mottos again.

That's right.

Ain't we a stinker?

Last week, Janet told me all about the motto and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Which, if memory serves, involve a lot of John Hodgman reassuring me that I didn't, in fact, need to be be an expert on such a key state of the Union, and I appreciated your support.

I don't remember that that was.

I think I was saying is like Virginia doesn't even matter that much.

Yeah, I do feel like that was the general thought.

It's not like they're all, I mean, you know, they're all key states.

Even Massachusetts, the keyest of states.

That's right.

High key.

Low-key, you did great.

Thank you.

Low-key the trickster, I did great.

That's right.

What I remember is that the motto of that state was sic semper tyrannis,

which is unfortunately associated with political assassination now.

Yes, indeed.

I also remember that its state slogan is Virginia is for Lovers, the most erotic of the state slogans, beating out making it in Massachusetts by a mile.

And I remember that the state slogan, Virginia is for lovers, was appropriately adopted in 1969.

Woo, woo, woo, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloom, bloom,

but...

We're leaving Virginia in the past.

Why?

Because time moves in one direction, and it's not the greatest state or even the best Commonwealth.

We got a whole other complicated,

really complicated.

This one's, I'm going to say very complicated in the Commonwealth.

It's not a Commonwealth, though.

It's a state.

It is the state of South Carolina, the Palmetto State.

The Palmetto State

State.

The first to ratify the Constitution.

And then the first to secede from the Union.

Get in early both times.

Got to be first.

Got to be first.

It was a total Confederate goodbye, as it were, to snuck right out.

Janet, what do you have?

Been to South Carolina?

I have.

I have only been once, and it was very recently.

It was last year in the fall.

I went to a wedding there, and I didn't get to spend much time there, but I will say that the time that I spent in Charleston, I found it to be very charming.

Obviously, it has a complicated history, but one of the things that I always notice when I'm in like southern states or even southeastern states is just

the kind of architecture and the kind of history.

Obviously, I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before, but that I just didn't grow up with.

I just didn't see.

And so.

How'd you get around in a horse-drawn buggy?

Obviously, I didn't know there was any, it was embarrassing for me.

I didn't know there was any other way to get around until I saw cars beeping and moving all around me in my buggy.

You want to hear my impression of riding in a lift in Charleston?

Hit me.

Because

there's some cobblestones.

Everywhere.

We got there in the evening and we were staying not terribly far from one of the universities, and then the sort of old historic neighborhood area right up at the water.

And it was so spooky.

We went there in the evening.

It was October, like the flickering gas lamps, and just the, you can feel the age of those homes.

And then, if as if you couldn't feel the age of the homes, there was also a plaque on I swear every other home telling you that it's a historic landmark, telling you the year it was was built.

In many cases, I feel like that the year was pre-1800s, and it felt very European.

It didn't feel American as much as it felt European to me and maybe French.

And it was very interesting.

And I was like, I don't want to go back to this part of the neighborhood during the day because I want to leave with this sort of creepy, spooky feeling.

Yeah, I don't know.

It has a complicated history, as does all of the places that we're talking about.

Charleston, as we'll talk about,

as a particularly complicated one.

But on the other hand, right now, it's a very open and diverse and inviting town with a terrific food scene, a beautiful city, a lot of fun.

A lot of fun gets had in Charleston.

Maybe too much fun.

Maybe too much fun.

And some ghost tours and some cobblestones.

Yeah.

And it's just charming.

I'm going to say, officially, it's charming as fuck.

It is charming as fuck.

That's the slogan of Charleston, as far as I'm concerned.

But will the slogan, proposed slogan for Charleston, make it out to South Carolina writ large?

Is South Carolina charming as fuck?

And is that its new motto?

I don't think we're here to judge the state.

We're certainly there to judge the state motto.

I don't even know what that motto is yet, John Hodgkin.

I don't even know what that is.

First of all, I'm just going to say the slogan of Charleston is charming as fuck.

Its nickname is the Holy City.

Its motto is, Edis Mores Juraqua Curat.

She guards her temples, customs, and laws, which

sounds like a Jesus and Mary chain lyric uh but

let me just reset this for a second I love Charleston I went to a wedding there as well and I'm going to tell you whose wedding I went to you ready for this

this is a big wedding Paul F.

Tompkins and J.D.

Hadad Tompkins I couldn't go the co-hosts of week of the Stay of Homkins podcast and proprietors of the essential weekend water sub stack which is a lot of fun I wish that I could have been at that wedding I was working when that wedding happened and I remember feeling deeply embittered you missed out before, during, and after.

I felt embittered based on everything I heard.

You know what we're going to do?

I think it was about 10 years ago.

Yeah.

We're going to do a reenactment.

Oh, this is going to be great.

On the on site, I assume, because I don't have any interest in seeing it reenacted at all.

On site in Charleston and Sullivan's Island, etc.

I can't wait.

But here's the thing: you want to know about the motto of South Carolina?

I do.

Are you sitting down?

And go.

Good, because I'm here to tell you there is not one but two mottos.

Two official mottos?

Two official mottos.

Can they do that?

They can do anything.

The first one is, I love this one because it sounds so dumb.

It's literally dumb spiro spiro.

Oh, no.

Dumb spiro spiro.

The D-U-M?

D-U-M.

Okay.

Spiro, as in Spiro-Agnu.

Yes.

And Spiro, as in Spirometer, which is a machine that they use to test your lung capacity if you're asthmatic like me.

I can't imagine what that translates to that would be more meaningful than what you just said.

As I breathe, I hope.

As I breathe, I hope.

Sometime.

Oh, is that the official song of South Carolina?

All I need is the air that I breathe in in Charleston.

It is now.

You can do whatever you want.

Great.

Great.

As I Breathe, I hope.

It is attributed to Theocritus, 3rd century BC, the Greek poet who wrote, While there's life, there's hope,

and only the dead have none.

Of both.

I can think of a few bed people who would disagree with that, but whatever.

That's a lovely sentiment.

And it does sound very so.

As I breathe, I hope.

Well, as I breathe and hope, it's John Hodgman.

Hello.

Oh, it's nice to see you.

It's also the motto of St.

Andrew's, the town in Scotland, for some reason.

Okay, sister city.

Perhaps.

And then it has another motto.

I can't believe it.

Meliorum lapsa locavit.

Having fallen, she has set up a better one.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I'm going to try my own translation of that because that doesn't matter.

I think that might be for the best.

We need two motto.

I mean, if you tell me that that was the first motto that slipped through somehow while everyone was asleep, and then they realized we have to do a second one because that one is not great, I guess that would explain to me why there would be two mottos.

Maliorum Lapsa Lokavit.

According to the internet, it's having fallen, she has set up a better one.

According to Google Translate, it's he placed a better lapsa.

If you trace it back,

it is an oblique reference to a very important event in South Carolinian Revolutionary War history when Colonel William Moultrie, a band of revolutionaries, held off the British for a period of time on Sullivan's Island in a fort that would then later be named after him Fort Moultrie.

And indeed, if you open up your seal book to page South Carolina,

you will see the seal of South Carolina, which has two ovals within a circle.

Two different seals.

I'm starting to suspect why.

One of them is a palmetto tree, which is associated with Fort Moultrie for reasons we'll be talking about and South Carolina in general.

And this Magellorium lapsa locavit makes reference to, we tore down one country and we built a better one, basically.

This Revolutionary War history.

Dumb Spiro Sparrow is in the other oval surrounding a portrait of the Roman goddess of peace named Spes.

But if you look at that seal, there are actually a couple of extra mottos in there.

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that.

I felt like I was seeing something different than what you were saying.

The two that I listed are the ones that are most commonly listed.

But the Melorium one is in tiny, fine print.

Tiny, fine print.

Under that palmetto.

But also around the palmetto is a ribbon surrounding 12 spears representing the other 12 colonies who are all bound together as one.

Complicated.

It says quis separabit, which is to say, who will separate us?

Quis separabit.

Which is to say, who framed Roger Rabbit.

Yeah.

yeah and then of course it also says spes right underneath that roman goddess spes for peace and then there's even a looks like so that's one two three four so far

and then there's even another one which is around underneath south carolina on that left-hand oval animus obibusqui parati which i'd completely forgotten about so let's figure out what that means and highly featured highly featured animus opibusqui parati oh prepared in and resources.

Boy, that's a lot.

I don't know why they couldn't pick one.

Of them all, the one that comes up the most is Dumb Spiro Spiro.

Which sounds like a catchphrase from a sitcom.

Oh,

Spyro, you.

Who's that?

Oh, Dumb Spiro Spiro.

Woo!

The live audience loves it.

Quis Separabit, who will separate us, obviously, makes reference to the the original 13 colonies who's going to get between us.

We, the state of ourselves, is going to separabit.

Exactly so.

I was first going to point out it's a complicated motto because it is also the motto,

the original motto of

English Northern Ireland or Ulster Northern Ireland.

Oh.

And

anti-Republican Northern Ireland.

In other words, who's going to separate us from our beautiful overlords, the British?

Right.

But when you ask the question in South Carolina, who will separate us?

The answer is, we'll do it ourselves.

Literally three days after Lincoln was elected president on November 6th, 1860, the state House of Representatives passed the, quote, resolution to call the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S.

president a hostile act.

Oh, my goodness.

The exercise of democracy was considered hostile.

And so South Carolina seceded.

We'll talk more about that in a minute.

You want to say something?

I just wanted to say that when you point out that Spess herself seems a little sus, I would say that that is also aptly represented by the fact that I feel like one of her hands is behind her back.

So I don't know what she's holding back there.

But it could be anything.

It could be anything.

And according to this, I got it wrong.

Spess is more the goddess of hope.

I hope she has something safe in that other hidden hand and not a terrible, terrible surprise.

But yes, Seth seems a little sus.

Sounds feels like she's hiding something behind her back.

And by the way, if you think that the seal is indecisive, then they went ahead and added a whole, what's called an achievement.

So when you talk about sigillography and heraldry,

sometimes the seal would be surrounded by an achievement.

It's a fuller display or depiction of extra stuff around the seal.

So around these two ovals in the full achievement of the state is a personification of liberty holding a Phrygian cap.

That's that red hat that the French revolutionaries wore.

As well as a continental soldier on the right and above the shield, a personification of fame as a form of an angel blowing a heralding horn flies from left to right.

They got a lot going on.

Very, very busy stuff.

Yeah, that's a lot.

The thing that it reminded me of when you just said that was almost seemed like I got a tattoo on my arm of this circle, and then this was in it.

And then I was like, you know, I kind of want to add to this.

And then I went and I got a second tattoo kind of next to it because I had a lot of bare skin there.

And then pretty soon, next thing I knew, I had a whole sleeve, but I can tell you what each thing represents.

Does that make it seem cooler?

Because I think sleeves are cool.

We have a very close friend that we've known since high school, Christine Connor,

who, when she was in her 20s, got a tattoo on her shoulder of some, like, I don't know, some kind of vegetation, some kind of flowers.

And by the time she was in her late 30s, she was incredibly embarrassed by it, but she didn't want to have it removed.

She

didn't want to remove the evidence of her youthful misjudgment.

So she had a new tattoo made around it, quotation marks, and turned it into.

That's the way to do it.

Simple, effective.

Shout out to Christine Connor.

Shape of the state.

What do you think South Carolina looks like?

Not got a particularly, it looks like just like a wedge.

You know what it looks like?

It looks like a piece from a Trivial Pursuit wedge.

Yeah, you know what?

It does.

A little pie slice.

A little pie slice from Trivial Pursuit.

It's kind of a triangle.

Yeah.

And the tip of the triangle on the west is pointing right into the Blue Ridge Mountains.

And then it kind of gets wider and wider as it moves across the central plateau of the state, which is the Piedmont area that goes all the way up to North Carolina.

I don't know why there are two Carolinas.

Well, I guess my guess is they're both named after King Charles II.

And since he was the second, you have to have two of them.

Oh.

Yeah.

I guess so.

Carolus is Charles in Latin.

And so the Carolinas were named for him.

And he gave them

as little prezzies to his supporters in England as presents for helping him get the throne back.

And then it widens out all the way to the Atlantic coastal plain.

Now, these lands were farmed, fished, settled, lived in, and looked after by numerous indigenous people, most notably the Cherokee, the Catawba, and along the Savannah River, the Appalachie, Uche, and Yamase.

The Savannah River is the southern border between South Carolina and Georgia, directly across the Savannah River.

You know what's there?

Tell me.

Savannah.

Mother always told me Savannah was a trap.

I will say I'm willing to update my sense of the shape of the state.

I'm willing to go shark'stooth.

Sharkstooth.

That's pretty cool.

Shark'st tooth.

Yeah, for sure.

I bet there are some great white sharks off there, off the barrier islands there.

That's what made me think of it when we started talking about that old Atlantic.

Once you get down to that old Atlantic Ocean, the Atlantic coastal plain, what's called the low country,

because it's marshland.

It's very, very low.

It's very, very low.

That's where you find Charleston.

Charleston is the biggest port in South Carolina, very important port in history.

That's where Fort Sumter was.

Now, this was a slave state, first to secede.

Remember that great, great, great dude, John C.

Calhoun, the seventh vice president of the United States and Yale man,

who didn't merely defend slavery as a, like,

a necessary evil or some of the other weasel words that

people who profited from the enslavement of humans used.

He actually said, like, no, no, this is absolutely, this is a positive good.

John C.

Calhoun literally said, yeah, well, when the Declaration of Independence was written, all men are created equal.

Here's my fun TED talk.

Turns out that's not true.

Whites are better.

The true creep, true, one of the true creeps of the creeps.

Well, I mean,

and part of it is just like, when I say human beings, I don't think of black folks as human.

I mean, like, we're not, you know, that's, there's lots of ways around that.

All of them are appalling.

The poison that spewed from John C.

Calhoun really, unfortunately, set the stage for secessionist fever in South Carolina and

centuries of white supremacy that would take root in South Carolina throughout a lot of other parts of the country, including now.

Yeah, I was going to say, some would argue the entire country.

And by the way, there's more to this history than just that.

Sullivan's Island is but one of the many, many barrier islands, the Sea Isles that dot the coast of not only South Carolina, but all the way from Cape Fear in North Carolina down to Jacksonville, Florida, the Sea Isles.

By 1861, the Union Army was able to take and occupy many of the Sea Isles, and doing so freed some 5,000 to 10,000 thousand enslaved people in the process.

This, plus the relative isolation of the islands themselves, plus the creativity and expertise of the people, particularly at weaving and rice farming, which was a West African crop that was brought to the United States by slavers and the people that they enslaved.

All of this fostered a particular community of people known as the Gullah or Geechee people,

who still live in the Sea Islands today,

alongside many resort developers, etc.

And climate change is destroying their islands, seeking to, is about to absorb their islands.

These are generations of African Americans preserving distinct and unbroken West African influences in their culture and language and foodways.

And the food in South Carolina, you go to Charleston, you're going to get a lot of this South Carolina by way of Western Africa food, specifically Carolina gold rice.

That Carolina gold rice is an African crop, as are Sea Island red peas, which are really prized right now.

Sea Island okra, sorghum, and watermelon, all of which come from West Africa.

And then also on the coast, there are a bunch of resorts and golf courses and beaches that people go to to party.

Myrtle Beach.

Myrtle Beach, sure.

Is one of them.

Have you ever been?

You have never been down to Myrtle Beach, have you?

I mean, truly just Charleston.

That's it.

Truly just Charleston.

That's it.

That's the only place I've been.

That's the name of your sitcom?

Dead.

Where a young woman from Tucson, Arizona is forced to relocate to the run a ghost store in Charleston, and it's called Truly Just Charleston.

Okay, hear me out.

That's a good pitch.

It's a good pitch, but I was going in the direction of

she still lives in Tucson, Arizona, and she does the Charleston.

It's the 1920s.

She loves to dance.

So here's the thing.

South Carolina has an official state dance.

What do you think it is?

Is it the Charleston?

It's not the Charleston.

Yeah.

Damn it.

Throat hits microphone, throves computer.

You hear a cat.

It should be.

I didn't think that that until you mentioned it should be the Charleston.

What is it?

The shag.

Ah, the shag.

The term Carolina Shag.

This is a beach dance.

This is a beach party dance.

It's associated with

the Carolina beaches.

The Carolina Shag says here is thought to have originated along Cherry Grove Beach in South Carolina during the 40s.

It's a six-count, eight-step pattern dance in a slot.

I'm sure that means something to somebody.

Eight shag dance steps are in the basic pattern.

The one and two and three and four steps should take about as much time to complete as the five-six.

Okay, great.

Moted.

And according to Bo Bryan, a Carolina shag historian.

A very Carolinian name, if I may say.

Bo Bryan, and a resident of Beaufort County.

Oh, yeah.

The Carolina Shag is a descendant of the Carolina jitterbug, and its predecessor, the little apple,

was the white version of the big apple, which was the a black dance craze in 1937

that whites took.

So

that gets us into the official state stuff of South Carolina.

From the seal onward, there's just a lot of stuff.

They really packed it in in South Carolina.

There are only a few that I feel engaged.

No, I just mean

I can't get over how complicated the seal is.

The seal is a little bit different.

I just can't get over it.

And there is a lot of state stuff.

You're right.

There's a state amphibian.

There's a state animal.

There are two state beverages, milk and tea in this case.

There are two state birds, the Carolina wren and the state wild game bird, wild turkey.

Plus a state duck, wood duck.

Wood duck.

Plus a state butterfly, eastern dug or swallowtail.

Plus a state color, indigo blue, plus multiple state dances.

There's a folk dance, there's a state waltz, the Richardson Waltz, and then there's the state dog, which is the Boykin Spaniel.

I don't know why that made me laugh.

One of our friends' brother,

I don't know if he's from South Carolina or North Carolina, or if it's just his family, but his first name is Boykin.

Okay.

Oh, first name.

Okay.

So I was drawn.

And he was a nice guy.

He let us borrow a house once.

I don't want to say that.

Shout out to Boykin.

And you know what the name of that house was?

The Charleston.

Gray Gardens.

Damn it.

Oh,

Gray Gardens, the Gray Gardens.

I knew

I knew you had been to Gray Gardens.

Thanks to Boykins.

Everything is comfortable.

Thanks to Boykin.

Thanks, Boykin.

But the Boykin Spaniel is a dog, not a person.

Okay.

It's a medium-sized spaniel, bred for hunting.

Guess what?

Wild turkeys and state ducks.

I've got to look up some of these state symbols.

I need to see some photos.

It's a very cute dog, and it's known for its jovial personality and energy, also known as the swamp poodle.

The swamp poodle.

Yeah, swamp poodle.

I would like that to be a dance.

You guys doing the swamp poodle?

Yeah, there you go.

That's a great dance.

Now, you were going to say something about the palmetto, which is the state tree.

Well, what I'm going to say is not that interesting, but I did not realize, like, in the south,

I had occasion to be sitting outside, and a large, what I would consider to be cockroach, scurried across the ground, and that, and someone said, Oh, palmetto bug.

And I said, Excuse me, what are we talking about here?

Are we or are we not talking about a large cockroach?

We're talking about a cockroach.

And they were like, Yeah, but we call them palmetto bugs.

And I said, Don't dress that up.

Don't try to dress up the cockroach.

When I hear the word palmetto, number one top association is what I guess people call cockroach.

I'm gaslit about a cockroach.

Yeah.

Well, I had always understood that the palmetto bug

is a giant cockroach that flies.

But cockroaches fly.

Not the little German cockroaches that hang around in New York City apartments.

That's what they're talking about.

It's the little German cockroaches, John.

We don't need to fly.

We get everything done on the ground.

Are you sure?

What if they just never had occasion to fly?

What if they don't want to fly?

New York apartments are notoriously small.

Maybe they're afraid they're going to bonk into something right away because they're small.

I just remember a high school trip when we went down to Florida and I'm standing around, and all of a sudden, there is a cockroach the size of a co-hog, which, as we all know, is a fifth-sized cockroach.

Yeah.

Getting up and flying at me in a parking lot.

Yeah.

Face level.

Yeah, it's not good.

I'm being told that that's a palmetto, not a cockroach.

It's a cockroach.

I don't know.

I don't have time to look this up.

Why don't one of our listeners look it up?

According to this Terminex website, which I found real quick, sometimes these big roaches, and they are big,

take what the Terminex website calls harborage in shrubs and trees, such as the palmetto tree.

Okay.

Which is a big old palm tree that you see around South Carolina.

And

as complicated as the state seal is,

One must acknowledge the state flag is a model of restraint.

Indeed.

It is a field of South Carolina indigo blue with the white outline of a palmetto tree in the center and a crescent moon in the upper left or right.

I can't remember.

I prefer to think of it as a Cheshire Cat-size smiling palmetto bug.

That crescent.

Yeah, that's right.

You only see it smile.

You don't see its disgusting, gigantic brown carapace.

Yeah.

That flag minus the palmetto tree was the flag that Moldy's Moultrie's, William Moultrie,

improvised and flew above Fort, then became Moultrie

during the Battle of Sullivan's Island, that one we talked about earlier.

And then later they added that palmetto tree in the middle, indeed, in honor again of this.

I really love this battle,

this Battle of Sullivan's Island, because the fort that William Moultrie was defending

was pretty much nothing but sand and downed palmetto trees.

They built the walls of the fort from downed palmetto trees.

And

it's not like their red coats were firing some heavy ordnance.

These were just musket balls.

Do you know what I mean?

But

it was enough to hold the day for a little while and get William Moultrie's name into

the history books.

Sure.

And get this flag made, which I think is a pretty dope flag, I got to say.

It's a very cool flag.

Again, you're absolutely right.

Exercise and restraint.

I just tried to get a look at some of the state symbols.

So I said to myself,

what website can I go that'll have every state symbol of South Carolina and have a little photo next to it?

And what I continued to find as I was lightly searching through and yet still listening to you and taking in every moment of your dulcet tones was that there are so many state symbols, many sites don't even gather them all in one place.

You have to go to multiple sites to look at the emblems,

words, odes, and concepts.

And then elsewhere you can go to the mountains and other natural, like maybe some leaves and trees, but then elsewhere you need to go to see the animals and insects.

So they're really, yeah, I'm going to have to go ahead and

stick with, there are a whole lot, a whole lot of symbols.

I mean, I'm seeing official military academy, music, opera, pecan festival, picnic cuisine, pledge to state flag, poet laureate, popular music.

Picnic cuisine.

A picnic cuisine?

Barbecue.

Barbecue.

South Caribbean cuisine.

Simply barbecue.

Barbecue, of course, is famous for its mustard-based barbecue sauce.

And don't get, if you're, you ought to be willing to stand your ground if you're going to get into a barbecue argument with a barbecue aficionado because that can be a very hot topic, can be a a big subject of debate in the barbecue community.

Have you ever had South Carolina barbecue sauce or seen it?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's very mustardy.

It's very mustardy.

I love it because I like mustard.

It's got a very sharp, mustardy flavor.

Mm-hmm.

I like a tang.

I like that mustard tang.

And I'll bet you dollar bills that that's primarily eastern South Carolina.

I bet you, just like North Carolina, the western style of barbecue has more tomatoy-based barbecue.

Maybe so.

What if I told you there was a state snack food?

Yeah, I know what that is.

What is it?

Boiled peanuts.

It sure is, buddy.

We circled that to talk about.

I had them at Paul and Jamie's wedding.

Oh, boiled peanuts.

I like a boiled peanut.

Right.

It's a green peanut.

It's not been dried.

It's a peanut that's been dry.

You dig it up right out of the ground.

And then you boil it in salted water or sometimes seasoned water.

And it gets all mushy and wet, and you just eat it with the shell right on it.

And it's and it's delic.

They're delicious, but they're very wet.

They're very wet.

Maybe I don't like boiled peanuts.

If you want to learn more about them, there are a couple of food writers from the Carolinas, Matt and Ted Lee, they're brothers.

They write and talk a lot about boiled peanuts.

And they both look like Wes Anderson characters.

So they're a lot of fun.

That sounds right.

What if I told you that there was a state spider?

Yeah, you don't need to tell me about that one.

You're talking about the Carolina wolf spider?

You know, I am.

I circled that one too.

Hey, do you know what's interesting about wolf spiders that I learned completely independently of this?

I already, I just, I had to look it up for a, for a column that I was writing for New York Times magazine, Judge John Hodgman.

I don't know.

I feel like I have a lot of respect for a wolf spider.

I want to not be scared of a wolf spider.

They're very fast movers, and I have a lot of wolf spiders in my yard.

Wow.

But I don't know.

In Los Angeles?

Mm-hmm.

Oh, my gosh.

I guess I don't know what you're going to say, so I can't wait to hear.

Well, I guess my question for you is, how do you handle the wolf spider webs?

You don't do anything because wolf spiders don't spin webs.

No, they just have their little crevasses.

Yeah, they have burrows.

Yeah, well,

my neighborhood is full of wolf spider burrows, and my yard is full of wolf spider burrows.

If Peter Parker had been bitten by a radioactive Carolina wolf spider,

depending on which version of the character you're talking about, he could crawl on walls, but he wouldn't be able to web sling.

He would have to tunnel his way under the city quickly to get from two to fro.

Yeah, he wouldn't be the web slinger.

He'd be the New York City burrower.

Yeah.

Is boiled peanuts good for you?

Yes.

Well, is it?

Thank you for that prompt, famous search engine.

People also ask,

is boiled peanuts good for you?

I feel like I've accidentally, when I pulled up these state symbols, been stepping on some of the things that you were excited to talk about.

So I don't want to bring bring anything up and ruin the surprise.

No, you have now gone through all of my prepared material.

Have I?

Okay.

Well,

I feel a little bad.

Although I will say that the state vegetable is the collared green.

Yes.

Which is delicious.

Oh, absolutely delicious.

And I will say that the state craft is sweetgrass basket weaving,

which is part of the African tradition of the Gullah Geechee people as well.

But all the rest I don't know about.

Throw some more at me.

Well, I just thought it was interesting that they have not only a marine mammal, but an official migratory marine mammal.

What's that one?

The migratory marine mammal is the northern right whale.

What?

And the marine mammal is the bottlenosed dolphin.

Why do they get to have a whale?

I don't know that there's any history of whaling out of Charleston.

I could be wrong.

I could be quite wrong.

The right whale, of course, is the state whale of Massachusetts.

which we didn't talk about.

We didn't?

No, but I had mentioned in the context of the sperm whale, which is the state whale of connecticut the right whale was called the right whale because it was the right one to kill that's right we did talk about it in context of that and these are very beautiful animals i have to say i don't like them i mean i hope they live

but i don't you know i'm i'm when you look at a sperm whale it looks like a whale looks like a child's drawing of a whale yeah You look at a right whale, it looks like someone put its mouth on upside down.

I like them.

I mean,

I hope the best for them.

I like them, but then I often wear my clothes inside out.

Its nicknames are the Palmetto State and the Rice State because of its

low country rice.

Makes sense.

Carolina Golden Rice, Swamp State, known for its swamp poodles, the Keystone of the South Atlantic seaboard,

the iodine state, because of the large percentage of iodine found in vegetation growing in the state.

Boy, the iodine lobby got lucky that year.

Big iodine.

The gemstone is the amethyst.

Did you say that?

No, I did not say that.

The amethyst.

That's nice.

That's my birthday.

That's also my birthstone.

For some reason, for whatever reason, birthstones are assigned as they are.

Do not know the reason for that.

Remember how we were talking about the wolf spider, the Carolina wolf spider?

I do.

They're pretty solitary, and the only time that wolf spiders get together is for a pretty basic need, which is to make other wolf spiders.

It is not common for them to hang out together.

And when female wolf spiders, this is according to Wikipedia, so I'm just giving this to you because I liked it.

These spiders are mostly solitary.

There's not much interaction between females.

When a female Carolina wolf spider,

when they do interact with each other, their behavior can range from merely, I didn't write this, from merely making four-leg contact

to

cannibalism.

That's a very wide range.

It's a wide range of wolf spiders.

What's the in-between?

What's the rest of the range?

I must know.

Is it five-legged contact?

Is it trading of recipes that then eventually can degenerate into full-on cannibalism?

There's another sentence.

Typically, they will make threatening motions, like extending their forelegs,

spreading their celliseri, or drumming their palpie at each other.

Ooh, drumming their palpie.

That's cool.

I guess.

Well, like a couple of wolf spiders, we're going to scurry into our burrows and think all about South Carolina has given us to work with.

And after a break, we will render our final verdict on its mottos and symbols.

E Plurivus Motto will be back after this.

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Kyla and Lunar from Freedom, Maine.

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Bulletin board, bulletin board, bulletin board.

This episode of E Pluribus Motto is sponsored by Move Managers of Charleston, South Carolina.

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Welcome back to ePlurvis Motto.

John Hodgman, we have a pile of state mottos to sift through.

Now

it's time to rank this motto.

Which motto are you going to rank?

I'm at C.

You know what I mean?

I feel so overwhelmed by what's happening.

I'm at C, like motto A, motto B, motto C.

I'm with C.

No, that's too organized for the clutter that is my thoughts.

Right.

And is boiled peanuts good for you?

I am, I feel adrift.

I feel like I'm so overwhelmed, I don't even know where to start.

And I think that's a problem.

I think it's a problem because I don't even know how to tease them apart.

If they exist on the state seal together, I feel like I have to judge all of it as just a big cluster group of a lot of stuff.

including the two mottos.

Right.

I don't know how to, I don't know how to rank just one because they've gone and pushed two mottos at me.

Four, if you count all of the other stuff that's on the seal in Latin.

We've got to rank them all.

We've got to rank them all.

Great.

Let me, I'm going to pull back up the state seal so I can, so I have a visual to be befuddled by.

South Carolina's got to pay the price.

Okay.

You picked five mottos or however many mottos?

Yeah.

Janet and I are going to rank them all and then we're going to average them.

Yeah.

You pay the price for having that many mottos.

That's right.

I would say your motto should be L-E-J Una motto.

Pick one.

But now what I consider to be of these many mottos a pretty great motto

is going to get dragged down

by these pretty lame ones.

Yeah.

I think that's entirely possible, if not likely.

So without, in no particular order, we're going to rank these

from one to ten.

What do you say, wolf spiders or boiled peanuts?

That's a great question.

I guess I would say boiled peanuts.

Boiled peanuts.

From one to ten boiled peanuts in the bag.

Because it's like a wet bag of mottos.

I'm going to rank them now.

Okay.

Spes.

I don't trust her.

Yeah, me neither.

Also, that's not a motto.

That's just a figure with one hand behind their back.

I'm going to give that a.

It sounds like a skin disease, frankly.

Yeah.

Sorry, sorry, Roman goddess of hope.

Yeah.

Spes.

I'm going to give that

two.

Yeah.

I was going to say three.

I'm willing to knock it down to two.

Oh, no, I'll give three.

All right, three's fine.

All right, Spes, you got that.

Because after all, it doesn't sound good,

but it's no different than Rhode Island is hope.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, and we love hope.

Spess, don't come at me with whatsoever is behind your back.

If you want to gently caress me with what looks like a flower in the hand that I can see, yeah, I'm up for that.

Don't come at me with whatever's behind that back.

I don't know what kind of dumb Spiro Sparrow thing she's carrying around.

Yeah.

All right, let's do a dumb Spiro sparrow.

And that's the from my breath.

As I breathe, I hope.

As I breathe, I hope.

Well, as I breathe, I hope.

I like it.

I like it a lot.

It's a lovely motto.

I'm willing to go eight.

I was going to say eight, too.

Like the legs of a wolf spider.

I mean, you got to admit, South Carolina, that's a really good score.

You picked a good motto in dumb spyrosparrow.

Yeah, what if that were the only motto is what you're asking yourself right now?

It's really fun to say.

Second of all, I think it's a really nice idea.

It's forward-thinking, it's not vengeful,

it's not

about tearing something else down to build something better, right?

It's

as far as I can tell, not about genocide or the slave trade.

Well, as I breathe,

as I breathe, I hope.

All right, how about this?

Animus

obibusque parati, prepared in mind and resources.

Too clunky.

Yeah.

It means nothing.

It means nothing.

It has nothing to do.

It doesn't feel specific.

It doesn't sound good.

What are you even talking about, South Carolina?

Like, I can't give you a zero because it's not offensive.

Yeah, I'm giving you a one.

It's just clutter.

One is what I was thinking too, Janet.

Clutter.

See what's happening here.

And here we go.

This is the last one.

Meliorum labsa locavit.

Having fallen.

No, this isn't the last one, even.

We have one more after this.

Yeah.

Good lord.

Having fallen, she has set up a better one.

No.

Not a fan.

That's as bad as the other one.

It reminds me, and it reminds me of the which one, which motto was the one that was like that?

That was like, hey, don't worry.

It was one of the first ones we did.

Hey, don't worry.

We got rid of that other civilization that was here.

Connecticut was he who transplants survives or thrives.

That felt like get out of my way, everyone who lived here before.

Another one, Meliorum Lops.

I want to give it a one.

Quis separabit.

I almost want to

mean that.

If it meant that, I'd give it a 10.

Yeah.

Separate us.

I almost want to give it a high irony score, but I cannot, in good faith, give it a high score, even ironically.

I I gotta stay low.

It is extremely ironic that this is part of your seal and one of your many mottos.

Yeah, you couldn't wait to get out.

It's like you were signing the divorce papers, even as you said, I do.

One.

Another one.

I'm giving it a one.

What do you feel about that, John Hodgman?

Yeah, I'll give that a one.

I don't like that one.

I don't like that one either.

I mean, these are all real low scores.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So I'm going to do the math.

One, two, three, four, five mottos.

Three plus eight is 11

plus three is 14.

Now I'm getting out my calculator.

Yeah.

This is very suspenseful.

14 divided by 5.

Right?

18, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 divided by 5.

The average is

2.8.

Wow, 2.8.

2.8.

Well, as I breathe, I hope got dragged dragged down to a 2.8.

Yeah.

Because he couldn't pick one good one.

Couldn't pick, you couldn't pick one.

You couldn't pick one.

I don't need to offer you a new motto.

Just settle on that good one and move on.

Yeah.

Keep the motto as simple as your beautiful flag.

With the Cheshire Cat smile of a palmetto bug hanging in midair.

It's really something that that seal and that flag couldn't be more different.

Yeah.

South Carolina is complicated, everybody.

It is.

And if if you're listening down there, you are my neighbor.

Just because I gave your state historic shit for being a slave state doesn't mean that Massachusetts is without sin.

Yes.

It is important to know history.

It is important to know nuance.

It is important, like, stuff gets complicated.

Do you know what I mean?

Yes.

But when you get lost in nuance,

You get a fucked up state seal like this one.

Yeah.

Like, how much can we put in here to explain the other stuff?

Yeah.

Sometimes you just got to cast nuance aside and remind yourself, as plain as a palmetto tree on a blue field.

Yeah.

Slavery is bad.

South Carolina, I love you.

Can't wait to get back down there.

Yeah.

Agreed.

Cross that Savannah River because I'll be coming from the Savannah side.

I guess I'll come in from the ocean.

Straight off the ocean.

I might travel.

I guess I'm gonna ride in on a northern right whale as it's headed towards massachusetts everyone i've ever met from south carolina is a goddamn delight delight i mean what work people of good conscience are doing to live in south carolina and make it better yeah you know so keep it up keep it up i'm we love i'm there for you

That's the end of this episode of E Plurbus Motto.

The show is hosted by Janet Varney along with me, John Hodgman, and it is a production of Maximum Fun.

The show was edited and produced by Julian Burrell, along with senior producer Laura Swisher.

Our music was created by Zach Burba, and ePluribus Motto artwork was provided by the wonderful Paul G.

Hammond.

We'd love to hear from you and your thoughts on Massachusetts or any of the states that we visited so far.

You can find the show on TikTok and Instagram at ePluribus Motto, and via email always at emailpluribusmato at maximumfund.org.

That again is emailploribusmoto at maximumfund.org.

One more thing, you know the photos in our episode art for each episode?

Well, they're submitted by listeners just like you.

So if you visited or live in any of our upcoming states or commonwealths, New York, Vermont, Georgia, Illinois, Tennessee are on the horizon, and you've got pics that you took from your time, that you visited Graceland or President Lincoln's home, or you took a picture of Bernie Sanders holding her baby with his signature mittens on.

Go ahead and send them right now to email Plorobistmatto at maximumfund.org, and you might just see it show up in your podcatcher when that state's episode airs.

Next time, it's Janet's turn to present the state, which state you're wondering.

Well, here's a clue:

Lady of Liberty,

standing there before me,

your torch lights the way to freedom's door

to a land without oppression.

Until then, remember our motto: all states should have only one motto.

Come on, one motto only states.

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