Shinola (retail company)

This article is about a brand of shoe polish. For other meanings, see Shinola (disambiguation).

A tin of Shinola.

Shinola is a brand of wax shoe polish that was available in the early- to mid-20th century. The original trademark was filed in 1929 by 2-in-1 Shinola-Bixby Corporation, New Jersey.

"You don't know shit from Shinola."

Shinola was immortalized in colloquial English by the phrase You don't (or he/she doesn't) know shit from Shinola which first became widely popular during World War II. Aside from being an amusing bit of alliteration, the phrase implies that the person being referred to is stupid or woefully ignorant. Shit and Shinola, while superficially similar in appearance, are entirely distinct in their function; only one is good for polishing shoes, and anyone who fails to distinguish one from the other must be ignorant or of low acuity. Similar expressions include doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground, doesn't know his ass from his elbow, "doesn't know his ass from left field," or Sir Henry Wood's doesn't know his brass from his woodwind. One variant, unusual in that it is as often as not used in the first person, past tense, to signify one's befuddlement or perplexity, is "didn't know whether to shit or go blind."

Further references in popular culture

• The 1992 David Lynch film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me includes a memorable demonstration of the phrase, as does the 1979 Carl Reiner film The Jerk. Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel, Gravity's Rainbow, includes a lengthy discussion of the phrase.

• In the 1954 film Salt of the Earth, a Hispanic zinc miner says that the white strikebreakers "don't know zinc from Shinola."

• More than one band has been named Shinola in reference to the shoe polish.

• In the 1992 film Basic Instinct, the phrase is used.

• On an episode of the USA TV series Good Times, Florida told James "Your friend Monty don't know shellac from Shinola".

• In the 1979 Steve Martin film The Jerk, Navin Johnson (Martin) is instructed in the difference between Shit and Shinola by his father (Richard Ward).

• The phrase "You don't know shit from Shinola" was also used in James McBride's The Color of Water by the character "Chicken Man" when he is speaking to James (McBride 149).

• An episode of The Golden Girls, entitled "The Case of the Libertine Belle," makes a reference to the phrase. Rose claims that in her hometown, she was nicknamed the "Sherlock Holmes of St. Olaf." Dorothy promptly asks, "Figured out which one was Shinola, did you, Rose?", to which Rose replies, "The hard way."

• In 2004, Madvillain, an American Hip Hop duo released the song "Figaro," which contains the lyrics "Dead bent, but don't know their neck shine from Shinola."

• Umberto Eco uses the phrase based on the traditional usage with some variation in his novel Foucault's Pendulum. One of his main characters, Belbo, writes in a computer file, "From shit, thus, I extract pure Shinola," referencing the computer's capability to quickly and efficiently turn a messy or unimpressive file into a masterpiece, as opposed to the slower use of a pen.

• Ween's 2005 album is titled "Shinola, Vol. 1"

• Dolly Parton's song titled Shinola contains the phrase "You don't know love from Shinola". In some performances, Parton ends the song with the phrase "You don't know love from shoe polish".

• In episode 4.8 of Night Court, "Contempt of Courting", after an extensive and gratuitous flow of compliments from Dan Fielding, Judge Gardner (substituting for vacationing Judge Stone) asks Mac "Is he always such a bootlicker?", and Mac replies "Shinola's Dan's favorite flavor."

• The "...shit from Shinola" phrase is comically played on in the film Raising Arizona.

• The phrase is used widely throughout many of Steven King's novels.

• kgb, the New York-based directory and information assistance company, aired a TV commercial that directly refers to Shinola. In the commercial, a woman is shown two pictures (which are facing away from the camera) and she is asked, "Which is which?" To which she responds, "The one on the right is Shinola."

• In episode 4.6 of Gravity's Rainbow, Säure Bummer asks Seaman "Pig" Bodine, "you will tell me about the American expression 'Shit from Shinola,'" from which jumping-off point Pynchon sketches how a German-speaker with no knowledge of English might interpret the English words "shit" and "Shinola."

• In the 1989-1993 TV Series "Quantum Leap," the character of Adm. Albert Calavicci (Dean Stockwell) sometimes uses the phrase, "No Shinola," as a polite substitute for the more common, "No ****."

• In the 1985 film Year of the Dragon, the character played by actor Raymond J. Barry uses the phrase while arguing with Mickey Rourke's character.

External links

• Gallery of Vintage Print Advertisements featuring Shinola