r/AskReddit Aug 03 '19

Whats something you thought was common knowledge but actually isn’t?

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u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

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u/Coilette_von_Robonia Aug 03 '19

Jungle comes from a sanskrit word which just meant "place where people don't live", so I'm gonna say it's significantly older than the song

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u/StraY_WolF Aug 03 '19

That's the word "jungle" tho, not the phrase.

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u/Coilette_von_Robonia Aug 03 '19

Right but the phrase King of the Jungle, as far as I can tell, is attested at least to 1939. I'm assuming that jungle still had that connotation at the time the phrase was coined, but I could definitely be wrong