heat [OE] The words heat and *hot go back to the same Germanic ancestor. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen is associated with the Democratic statesman Harry S. Truman, who was president of the USA between 1945 and 1953. When he announced his retirement in 1952 he did express the sentiment, in the form if you don’t like the heat … but attributed it to one of his military advisers, Major General Harry Vaughan.