Original subtitles

(FEMALE ANNOUNCER) And now we're back to "The Magic Van."

(HORN HONKS)

(STUDENTS CHATTING)

(GIRL) I wonder what she'll do today.

Good morning, students!

It's me, your whimsically kooky teacher, Ms. Dazzle.

(ALL) Good morning, Ms. Dazzle!

Who's ready to go on another wondrous learning adventure

in my Magic Van?

Heck, yeah!

Last week I rode a dinosaur.

I freed a slave.

Only one, though.

Let's find out what we'll be learning today.

Get ready to catch.

Christopher Columbus!

Ancient Egypt.

- Ow! - What does it say, Ronald?

(GUNFIRE, MAN SCREAMING)

Grammar.

It says, uh, grammar.

(GIGGLES) Delightful.

Today, class, we'll be learning

about heroic Christopher Columbus,

exotic ancient Egypt,

and the ironclad rules of grammar.

(ALL GASPING)

Hate to interrupt, Ms. Dazzle,

but the lessons we teach kids about these topics

- are wildly inaccurate. - (CRASHING)

Who in the gumdrop flip-flops are you?

Hi, I'm Adam Conover,

longtime viewer, first-time ruiner.

And this is "Adam Ruins Everything."

?

(GASPS)

?

(SCREAMS)

?

Corrected & Synced by Bakugan

Oh, this is so exciting.

I watched "The Magic Van" every day as a kid.

And as an adult.

I don't have many hobbies.

Mr. Conover, I am the magical host of the show.

So I will be teaching these children.

Now sit down and wrap it up.

Okay, class, today

we'll learn about Christopher Columbus,

the heroic explorer who discovered America

and proved the Earth was round.

Actually, Columbus was an incompetent buffoon

who never even set foot in America.

(DEFLATING)

Hush, hush.

We all know Columbus wasn't perfect.

That's an understatement.

The real story of Columbus is even worse

and weirder than you think.

All aboard the Magic Van!

Sorry, first-time driver. Let's go!

- (HORN HONKS) - Come on, guys!

Let's follow this strange adult into his van.

Listen, you bargain-basement Beakman,

if you pull that magic lever,

- I swear to... - Here we go!

(ALL) Whoa!

(HORN HONKS)

First of all, Columbus couldn't have discovered

that the Earth was round

because in his time, it was already common knowledge.

Globes for sale.

Perfectly ordinary globes for sale.

Whoa. What?

Then why did it take until 1492

for anyone to sail the ocean blue?

Simple, back then they didn't know the Americas existed.

So navigators thought there was no way

a ship could make it all the way from Europe to Asia.

So Columbus set sail because he was brave.

Nope, he set sail because he was a doofus

who was terrible at math.

Instead of trusting the experts,

Columbus believed the Earth was thousands of miles smaller

than it actually was.

Fools, all of them!

My math says the Earth is teeny tiny

and shaped like a pear.

And at the top, it has a succulent nipple.

He actually believed that?

Yes, I actually believe this.

I can sail from Europe to India in a matter of days.

That's extremely wrong.

It took years for Columbus to convince the king and queen

his plan didn't suck.

But competition in the spice trade was getting intense.

So Ferdinand and Isabella were desperate to find

a new way to get their fix.

The Earth is tiny and also a pear.

Give me money, please.

This man is an idiot.

(SNIFFING) I don't care.

Fine, give this moron the bare minimum,

90 dumb men and three dumb ships.

If you die, who cares?

Right, and that's when Columbus showed them all

- and became a hero. - But...

You know what happens to mouthy students?

They get extra credit?

I turn them into iguanas.

Say hi, Edward.

(STRAINING) Kill me.

(GULPS)

Now, children, that's the Nina, the Pinta,

and the Santa Maria,

the ships Columbus sailed to discover America.

I'm really sorry, Ms. Dazzle,

but Columbus never set foot in America.

Of all the modern-day countries Columbus made it to,

like Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic,

none of them were in the United States.

Okay, fine.

Then, uh, Columbus discovered Haiti

and the Dominican Republic.

Sure, he did.

If you don't count the quarter-million Taino people

that lived there already.

Uh, occupied. Someone lives here.

Right, I know this part.

He thought he made it to India.

Aha, this is India and these people are Indians.

I will be rich in spices and gold.

(LAUGHS) What a silly mistake.

Yes, if by "silly," you mean brutal,

and by "a mistake," you mean one of several.

The Taino treated Columbus and his crew

with the utmost hospitality.

Hug? (GROANS)

We need reinforcements!

Columbus repaid their kindness

by returning with 17 ships and 1,200 men

so he could enslave the Taino and steal their gold.

There was only one problem, they didn't have any.

You, gold. Now!

Oh, I want to help, but what is gold?

(ADAM) This infuriated Columbus.

And soon, he and his crew began to slaughter them.

(PEOPLE SCREAMING)

This is very inappropriate for me to see.

(ADAM) Columbus's regime was so senselessly brutal

that by 1542, the Taino population on the island

had fallen to 200.

(GROANS)

I can't believe it.

I had no clue that Columbus was this cruel.

But after this, he must've gone on to do great things, hmm?

Nope, this was literally all he did.

He didn't discover America

and he didn't prove the Earth was round.

He just bounced around the Caribbean,

slaughtered a bunch of innocent people,

and died thinking he had made it to India.

Hashtag, no regrets. (GROANS)

Holy crow.

Then why do we learn about this guy in school?

Oh, great question.

For centuries, Columbus was a historical footnote.

But that changed in 1828 when Washington Irving,

the author of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

and other tall tales,

wrote the first English-language biography of Columbus.

"Columbus was a murderous failure"?

That ain't gonna sell copies.

Let's say he was a brave genius who proved the Earth was round

and discovered America.

Hmm, seems believable.

And Irving's myth caught on big-time

when some new Americans were searching for a hero.

Throughout the 19th century,

a surge of Italians immigrated to America,

where they were persecuted

and treated like they didn't belong.

Dah! This is New York City. We hate pizza.

And we'll always hate pizza.

To help prove Italians were a part of the American story,

Italian-Americans latched onto Irving's version of Columbus

and promoted it like crazy.

Ay, we know a guy that knows a guy

that discovered America and is Italian.

Huh, I guess Italians are great.

This guy deserves his own holiday.

(ADAM) And that's the true story

of how an incompetent and vicious nobody

became the national hero we celebrate today.

Enough!

Mr. Conover, this is my show.

And while I suppose this information is factually accurate,

your little diversions deviate from today's lesson plan.

I am the captain now.

Ugh, no, wait!

Ah, I'll catch up with them in ancient Egypt.

(CHUCKLES) Plenty to ruin there.

Uh-oh. Whoa...

Welcome to ancient Egypt, students.

Today we'll explore the tomb of King Tut,

the greatest pharaoh of them all.

Did someone say explore?

(STUDENTS) Adam!

Ruiner, no ruining.

Lo siento, but Tutankhamun was actually

one of the least important pharaohs.

No way, pal. Tut did great things.

Hey, amigos at home,

can you name one of King Tut's accomplishments?

(CRICKETS CHIRPING)

That's right, there are none.

I'll show you on my scroll of pharaohs.

(SCROLL SCREAMING)

Tutankhamun was only nine years old

when he became pharaoh.

And since he was so young,

other people did the ruling for him.

(GRUNTS) Out of my way, baby!

Pharaoh's a big-boy job.

(ADAM) And he died at the ripe old age of 19.

There was nothing notable about his reign.

In the annals of the pharaohs, Tutankhamun was a blip.

Even his tomb was smaller and less ornate than the others.

King Tut, you're basic.

Rest in peace, or whatevs.

(SCROLL SCREAMING)

Okay, senor, if King Tut was so basic,

then why is he the most famous of all the pharaohs today.

Good question, and the answer is real weird.

I'll show you.

Whoa. Is that thing safe?

Looks like it was made in the '60s.

Oh, no. No, no, no, no...

But it's my birthday.

(ADAM) In 1798, after Napoleon invaded Egypt,

he went totally gaga for the ancient kingdoms.

He brought in scholars to document their findings

and they helped themselves to whatever they wanted,

even returning to France with a severed mummy head

for Napoleon's wife.

(NAPOLEON) Oh, Josephine will love this.

When images of the findings reached Europe,

scholars went cuckoo for these corpses.

And over the next century, hundreds of rich Europeans

started excavating Egyptian cultural sites like crazy,

pilfering thousands of priceless treasures.

Check out this sexy-ass statue.

I'm gonna put it next to my toilet.

- (MS. DAZZLE GASPS) - It gets worse.

Rich Europeans even held mummy parties

where they unwrapped the ancient remains

as a party game.

Last person to unwrap the mummy

has to grind it up and snort it.

Oh, fish sticks. This is very disturbing.

But what does it have to do with King Tut.

A lot, actually.

Because this Egyptomania fad led to the excavation

of over 30 pharaohs' tombs.

Except for one, the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Tut was so unimportant that his tomb

was pretty much ignored by grave robbers.

That's why, when Howard Carter uncovered it in 1922,

it was so well-preserved,

that over 5,000 separate items were found inside.

(PANTING)

I was in there for thousands of years.

Why did no one come back for me?

Why didn't I die?

The discovery of the tomb made international headlines.

But not because Tut was historically significant.

It was because of that ancient Egyptian bling.

A brand-new Egyptomania craze began.

And the cool kids of the Roaring '20s

went crazy for Egyptian-style clothing, makeup, and jewelry.

Basically, Egyptomania was the 1920s version

of Coachella kids wearing Native American headdresses.

This Egyptian stuff is sick.

Let's make a selfie painting.

And in the 1970s, Tut's artifacts

made a sick city museum tour in America.

Eight million people saw the exhibit.

An executive for the Metropolitan Museum of Art even said...

Mmm... (KISSING SOUNDS)

Uh, is this what sex is?

I don't know, but I hope not.

Wait.

So King Tut is only famous

because of some weird fetishization

of Egyptian culture?

Yep, and that's a shame.

Because ancient Egypt has so much more to teach us

than just mummies and tombs.

They were one of the first civilizations

to independently develop their own writing system.

They revolutionized agriculture

by developing the ox-drawn plow

and irrigation systems.

They even invented the first yearly calendar.

Huh, I love calendars.

Quit while you're ahead.

Compared to this rich history,

King Tut only deserves an honorable mention.

Huh, you didactic doofus.

Fine, King Tut was basic. Columbus was a maniac.

- Are you done? - Well, there's always more to learn.

Enough, I'm taking back my show.

A many, many children rely on me

to make learning fun.

And I'm not gonna let some basic-cable bozo stop me.

Get in the van, kids!

Well, history is a fuzzy discipline.

But you know what never changes? Grammar.

Wait, don't you want to hear about how grammar rules

are essentially pointless?

No?

(SIGHS)

Thisyou should never meet your heroes.

d punk.

We're here!

Where is here?

Is this heaven?

Not heaven, Ronald, somewhere even better.

? Welcome to the world of grammar ?

Hey, Tonya, are you still hanging out with Tyler?

Nah, he ghosted me.

I think I gotta defriend him.

(SIGHS)

? Ghost is not a verb ?

? Defriend is not a word ?

? Unless you are a fool you must follow grammar rules ?

? Proper English is the key ?

? Might I add actually ?

(CHILDREN GASPING) Hmm.

? Language is too complex ?

? To be pinned down with such strict laws of... ?

Ugh, sorry, I left my rhyming dictionary at home.

No, no, not this time.

Grammar rules are logical and exact.

Everybody loves to be corrected.

I can tell you from experience, they don't.

The fact is, while the grammar police

act like these rules were laid down by God herself,

they can change and morph over time,

just like language does.

How dare you! The rules are the rules.

She ain't listenin'.

Don't say "ain't," dear.

It's low-class.

Funny you say that.

Up until the 1800s, "ain't" was a proper contraction

of "am not," used by the upper class.

Are you attending Lady Margaret's soiree?

I won't, I shan't, I ain't.

It wasn't until the lower classes began to use it

that the word fell out of fashion

and was deemed bad English.

I ain't going either. What luck.

Now we can hang out together.

How vulgar!

I'll never use that word again.

(BOTH) Shun, shun, shun!

And now, when someone says "ain't,"

grammar nuts literally go insane.

(LAUGHS) Aha, I got you now.

You said "literally" when you meant "figuratively."

That's actually the opposite of what you meant.

It's wrong and it's always been wrong.

So be gone.

- Whoa! - Wrong again, Ms. Dazzle.

People have been using "literally"

as a hyperbolic intensifier for literally hundreds of years.

Hogwash.

Charles Dickens used it.

So did Charlotte Bronte.

Not to mention Mark Twain, James Joyce,

F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Vladimir Nabokov.

(SCREAMING)

But those are the English language's greatest writers.

Didn't they know about the rule?

The fact is, there was no documented rule

against using "literally" this way until 1909,

when author Ambrose Bierce wrote a grammar book

titled "Write It Right."

? To those who use "literally" when you mean "figuratively" ?

? It is bad enough to exaggerate ?

? But to affirm the truth of the exaggeration ?

? Is intolerable ?

Yes, I agree with this good man.

But you might not like his other rules.

? Lunch is not a noun ?

? Say luncheon ?

Well, ha-ha, that's a little old-fashioned.

? Never say pants ?

? Say trousers ?

Okay, Bierce. No one says "trousers."

? Women make a grave mistake ?

? When they misuse "aggravate" ?

Now that's too much.

You just aggravated the wrong woman.

- (GROWLS) - (SCREAMS)

Why are his grammar rules so different from mine?

Simple, the English language just doesn't have

one single definitive authority.

Yes, it does, the dictionary.

It tells you what is right and what is wrong.

And that's that.

Sorry, but dictionaries aren't the language police.

Oh, it's Anne Curzan, professor of English

at the University of Michigan.

Hi, Ms. Dazzle, the people who edit dictionaries

really like new words.

They aren't trying to keep them out of dictionaries.

They would say that what they're trying to do

is keep up with us as we change the language.

But then how am I supposed to tell who's right and wrong?

It's not about being right or wrong.

There are different but perfectly valid varieties of English.

Just take American English,

where you've got lots of varieties

such as Southern American English, Appalachian English,

African-American English, the Ocracoke brogue.

These "non-standard" varieties give us really useful tools

for communicating.

As second-person plural pronouns go,

standard American English is limited to "you"

for both singular and plural.

But "y'all" is a very handy way

of addressing a whole group all at once.

And some common words in "non-standard" English

are actually more logical than in standard English.

In Appalachian English,

you'll hear "teached" and "catched,"

which follow the rule for making past tense

with a final E-D.

Here's another example, this one from African-American English.

The word I have in mind is "hisself."

I use "hisself" all the time.

I'm sorry, but that's not right.

It should be "himself."

All these pronouns use the possessive plus "self."

But check out "hisself."

It's consistent with the rule and makes rational sense.

But sadly, when people use it,

they're often told that they're using "bad grammar."

Oh, I never thought about it that way.

So, grammar rules are meaningless?

All this is for naught?

Not at all.

It's useful to have a written standard.

It allows us to communicate

across all these different varieties of English.

At the same time, the ability to coat-switch between dialects

is a very valuable tool.

I wish our English classes would teach children

to value those differences, not stifle them.

Now you're talkin' my language.

Now it's time for the expert rap.

Hit it, Anne.

Yeah, literally nobody wants to hear that.

Later, Conover.

Oh, my. Oh, what have I done?

I've locked the children into rigid grammar rules,

spread a frivolous history of Egypt,

and glorified an incompetent, murderous loser.

I... I'm a bad teacher.

(SOBBING)

Look, there is a bright side.

I don't deserve this show or these magic powers.

I don't deserve the Magic Van.

Leave me and never come back.

(SQUEAKING)

Good-bye, students.

Adam, you can teach them better than I ever could.

(SOBBING)

Ms. Dazzle, wait!

Come on, kids, we have to show her why she is a good teacher.

All aboard Adam's magic folding bicycle.

- (BICYCLE BELL RINGS) - To the positive takeaway we go!

(CRASHING)

Sorry, I am a really bad driver.

?

Hello, we are here at The Farm LA,

"Adam Ruins Everything" 's post-production facility.

And I'm here with Anne Curzan.

Thank you for being here, Anne.

I'm so pleased to be here.

I had no idea I wanted to be a bookworm...

- (ADAM LAUGHS) - ...until I became a bookworm!

How do you wish that we taught grammar in school

differently than most people were taught it?

I wish we taught grammar more as how language works.

Part of that would be, where do languages come from?

What are the rules of school English?

- What are the rules of texting English? - Mm-hmm.

And figure out when and how to switch among them.

It's a much more empowering and fun way to teach it.

And you put those right next to each other,

school English and texting English.

All those kinds of English follow rules.

There are very intricate rules of texting.

For example, now the period is angry.

Oh, yeah, when someone writes you a text

and there's, and there's a period at the end,

they're mad, and everybody knows that.

Periods are for when you're angry.

- Everybody under 30 knows that. - Okay.

- mYes, 'cause my mom doesn't know that. - Exactly.

Because she'll, because she'll write me texts...

Period. And I'm like, why is she so mad?

That's right, and I love that example

because it is... here you've got an older generation

who doesn't know the rules. Yeah.

In the same way that younger generations are learning

the rules of academic writing

and all the power that can come with that,

some of us older folks need to learn the rules of texting

so that we can control the power

that comes with being a good texter.

My message to older folks would be, it's not chaos.

Yeah.

That I think that people think, oh, texting,

these kids don't care about punctuation.

They don't care about the written language.

But actually, they care a lot.

Should it be two exclamation marks or three?

A winky face or a smiley face?

Do we put the period or no? Mm-hmm.

That they're thinking very carefully

about what really are rhetorical choices.

Well, we'll be back in just a second

with more Anne Curzan and morright after this. Rything"

?

Hello, I'm back with Anne Curzan

talking about the English language.

So how do you feel in your daily life

if someone corrects you, right?

Like my friends used to give me a hard time

about "I am well," not "I'm good."

And that used to... it bothered me so much!

First of all, I'd like to say you can say both

"I am good" and "I am well." Yeah.

And they mean something different.

Oh! Right?

- "I am well" means I'm healthy. - Yeah.

"I'm good" means I'm in a good place.

- Like I'm good. - Yeah.

Here's a phrase that I love,

"To go grammando."

So "grammando" is a word

that was introduced by Lizzie Skurnick

in "The New York Times" Sunday magazine.

And "grammando" she defines as a noun

that is a person who corrects other people's grammar.

I think all of us have experienced it,

when someone corrects your grammar or your usage,

- it makes you want to not talk. - Yeah, yeah.

That your first reaction is to go, oh, I'm... I'm done,

because they're listening to how I'm talking

as opposed to what I'm saying.

And you'll see it in arguments online

where people are arguing about sports

or they're arguing about something.

And then when they get really angry

and they want to shut it down,

they'll say, "I don't need to listen to you

because you don't even know how to use an apostrophe."

- Oh, yeah, yeah. - Right? And game over.

That's so funny, that's like every YouTube comment

devolved into an argument about, about like

whether the person used the right version of "your."

There are certainly times as a teacher, with writing,

that you will wanna make sure that students

control standard varieties.

But the power of going grammando on someone

is something we need to wield very, very carefully.

Thank you so much for coming on the show, Anne.

And now, back to "Adam Ruins Everything."

- (CRASHING) - Oh!

Ms. Dazzle!

Ms. Dazzle is a fraud, children.

I've taught you lies and I deserve the worst.

Send me to TV jail!

All I ever wanted to do was get kids in a van

and show them something new.

Oof, not the best way to put it.

But Ms. Dazzle,

the world needs passionate teachers like you.

As a kid, watching your show

helped me get excited about learning.

And despite the fact that your listen plan

wasn't totally up to date,

your students actually learned a lot today.

They did?

I learned that Columbus was a brutal moron

who was popularized by a writer of tall tales.

I learned where grammar rules come from.

I learned I can be alone with my thoughts

for thousands of years

and that "hell" is just a word.

Behind every lesson plan, there's a deeper story

of why we teach kids the things we do.

When we peel back the layers

and learn the history behind the lesson,

that's when learning becomes fun.

And that kind of curiosity will benefit these kids

for the rest of their lives.

Oh, you're right.

There's still so much more to learn.

And we can explore it all together.

(CHILDREN CHEERING)

- Oh, I missed you too, Magic Van. - (HORN HONKS)

Thank you, Mr. Conover.

I've learned that I can always learn more.

You made me a better television witch.

Oh, what a nice hug.

I wish it was live-action.

Hi, kids. We had fun today

on "The Magic Van."

But you know what's just as important as learning?

Safety.

Remember, look both ways before crossing the street.

Always buckle your seat belt.

Don't explore ancient tombs

without your parent or guardi... ahh!

(ALL SCREAMING)

Corrected & Synced by Bakugan

Repair and Synchronization by Easy Subtitles Synchronizer 1.0.0.0