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this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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Fun trivia... Pulling yourself up from your bootstraps is impossible and the phrase came from an 1800s physics textbook that asked why a person can't pull themselves up that way.
It somehow got twisted to mean that it should be possible with hard work.
And for the odd duck whom fortune smiles upon, they get to proudly say they pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps while glossing over the once in a century singleton event that carved their path for them to follow.
Ironically though bootstrapping is also now a term that means to install computer systems or fabrication hardware starting with the most basic tool then using that to create the next tool needed in the install process - going from a hammer to a laser cutter is a lot of steps but it's not impossible.
I always thought it was popularized by the guy who rode a cannon ball into battle and fought a giant crocodile - barron von munchausen, from where we get the name for people who fake medical conditions- but his claim was to have saved himself from drowning by pulling himself up by his own hair. I wonder if that 1785 book why boot straps were mentioned in the textbook you mention.
“If that shit worked for the Lorax, it’ll work for you!”
Fun trivia, sometimes turn of phrases can come about differently, especially when they mean different things. Unless you can tie it together with something better than "somehow got twisted" you really shouldn't claim that's the origin.
I can assure you that I have better things to do in life than sit at a computer making up origins of common phrases
https://uselessetymology.com/2019/11/07/the-origins-of-the-phrase-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps/
There. That's the explanation rather than "somehow".