From A Phrase A Week
http://www.phrases.org.uk/a-phrase-a-week/
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth
Meaning
Don't be ungrateful when you receive a gift.
Origin
Proverbs are 'short and expressive sayings, in common use, which are recognized as conveying some accepted truth or useful advice'. This example, also often expressed as 'never look a gift horse in the mouth', is as pertinent today as it ever was.
As horses develop they grow more teeth and their existing teeth begin to change shape and project further forward. Determining a horse's age from its teeth is a specialist task, but it can be done. This incidentally is also the source of another teeth/age related phrase - long in the tooth.
The advice given in the 'don't look...' proverb is: when receiving a gift be grateful for what it is; don't imply you wished for more by assessing its value.
As with most proverbs the origin is ancient and unknown. We have some clues with this one however. The phrase was originally "don't look a given horse in the mouth" and first appears in print in 1546 in John Heywood's A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, where he gives it as:
"No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth."
Heywood is an interesting character in the development of English. He was employed at the courts of Henry VIII and Mary I as a singer, musician, and playwright. His Proverbs is a comprehensive collection of those sayings known at the time and includes many that are still with us:
- Many hands make light work
- Rome wasn't built in a day
- A good beginning makes a good ending
and so on. These were expressed in the literary language of the day, as in "would yee both eat your cake, and have your cake?", but the modern versions are their obvious descendents.
We can't attribute these to Heywood himself; he collected them from the literary works of the day and from common parlance. He can certainly be given the credit for introducing many proverbs to a wide and continuing audience, including one that Shakespeare later borrowed - All's well that ends well.
Don't be ungrateful when you receive a gift.
Origin
Proverbs are 'short and expressive sayings, in common use, which are recognized as conveying some accepted truth or useful advice'. This example, also often expressed as 'never look a gift horse in the mouth', is as pertinent today as it ever was.
As horses develop they grow more teeth and their existing teeth begin to change shape and project further forward. Determining a horse's age from its teeth is a specialist task, but it can be done. This incidentally is also the source of another teeth/age related phrase - long in the tooth.
The advice given in the 'don't look...' proverb is: when receiving a gift be grateful for what it is; don't imply you wished for more by assessing its value.
As with most proverbs the origin is ancient and unknown. We have some clues with this one however. The phrase was originally "don't look a given horse in the mouth" and first appears in print in 1546 in John Heywood's A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, where he gives it as:
"No man ought to looke a geuen hors in the mouth."
Heywood is an interesting character in the development of English. He was employed at the courts of Henry VIII and Mary I as a singer, musician, and playwright. His Proverbs is a comprehensive collection of those sayings known at the time and includes many that are still with us:
- Many hands make light work
- Rome wasn't built in a day
- A good beginning makes a good ending
and so on. These were expressed in the literary language of the day, as in "would yee both eat your cake, and have your cake?", but the modern versions are their obvious descendents.
We can't attribute these to Heywood himself; he collected them from the literary works of the day and from common parlance. He can certainly be given the credit for introducing many proverbs to a wide and continuing audience, including one that Shakespeare later borrowed - All's well that ends well.
Butterfingers
Meaning
A name playfully applied to someone who fails to catch a ball or lets something slip from their fingers.
Origin
In the week of the bicentenary of Charles Dickens' birth (7th February 1812), I thought it would be nice to include a phrase coined by him. It ought not to be too difficult to find one, after all, Dickens ranks sixth on the 'number of English words coined by an individual author' list. Passing over contenders like 'slow-coach' and 'cloak and dagger' I alighted on 'butterfingers', which several authorities say was invented by Dickens. Not quite a phrase but, as it was coined as the hyphenated 'butter-fingers', it's close enough. Dickens used the term in The Pickwick Papers (more properly calledThe Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club), 1836:
At every bad attempt at a catch, and every failure to stop the ball, he launched his personal displeasure at the head of the devoted individual in such denunciations as 'Ah, ah! - stupid' - 'Now, butter-fingers' - 'Muff' - 'Humbug' - and so forth.
It seemed as though that was all there was to say about the word/phrase but, as I usually like to add a little more, I delved further. The British Library's excellent new database of 19th century newspapers turned up a reference to 'butter-fingers' in the Yorkshire newspaperThe Leeds Intelligencer dated May 1823. Pre-Pickwick, clearly. Looking closer, it appeared that the writer was quoting from what he called 'a scarce book' - The English Housewife. Delving again, I found that the book, written by the English writer Gervase Markham in 1615, scarce as it may have been in 1823, is still available today. Markham's recipe for a good housewife was:
'First, she must be cleanly in body and garments; she must have a quick eye, a curious nose, a perfect taste, and ready ear; she must not be butter-fingered, sweet-toothed, nor faint-hearted - for the first will let everything fall; the second will consume what it should increase; and the last will lose time with too much niceness.
Markham's views aren't quite what would be accepted now, any more than his remedy for the plague - 'smell a nosegay made of the tasselled end of a ship rope', but he does at least make it clear that 'butterfingers' was in use in 1615 with the same meaning we have for it today, that is, someone likely to drop things - as if their hands were smeared with butter, like a cook's.
Many of the later examples of 'butterfingers' in print relate to the game of cricket, which was and still is the principal ball-catching game in England. The term is often used as an amiable taunt when someone fails to make an easy catch. As the word spread to other countries, notably America, it was taken into the language of the local catching game, i.e. baseball, and 'no-hoper' teams were unkindly given that name. The Salt Lake Tribune reported on such a team in May 1899:
'The Butterfingers will cross bats with the Salt Lake Juniors at Calder's Park Tuesday'.
As for Dickens, he may have missed out on 'butterfingers' but he has many other words and phrases to lay claim to, and he did write some exceedingly good books.
A name playfully applied to someone who fails to catch a ball or lets something slip from their fingers.
Origin
In the week of the bicentenary of Charles Dickens' birth (7th February 1812), I thought it would be nice to include a phrase coined by him. It ought not to be too difficult to find one, after all, Dickens ranks sixth on the 'number of English words coined by an individual author' list. Passing over contenders like 'slow-coach' and 'cloak and dagger' I alighted on 'butterfingers', which several authorities say was invented by Dickens. Not quite a phrase but, as it was coined as the hyphenated 'butter-fingers', it's close enough. Dickens used the term in The Pickwick Papers (more properly calledThe Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club), 1836:
At every bad attempt at a catch, and every failure to stop the ball, he launched his personal displeasure at the head of the devoted individual in such denunciations as 'Ah, ah! - stupid' - 'Now, butter-fingers' - 'Muff' - 'Humbug' - and so forth.
It seemed as though that was all there was to say about the word/phrase but, as I usually like to add a little more, I delved further. The British Library's excellent new database of 19th century newspapers turned up a reference to 'butter-fingers' in the Yorkshire newspaperThe Leeds Intelligencer dated May 1823. Pre-Pickwick, clearly. Looking closer, it appeared that the writer was quoting from what he called 'a scarce book' - The English Housewife. Delving again, I found that the book, written by the English writer Gervase Markham in 1615, scarce as it may have been in 1823, is still available today. Markham's recipe for a good housewife was:
'First, she must be cleanly in body and garments; she must have a quick eye, a curious nose, a perfect taste, and ready ear; she must not be butter-fingered, sweet-toothed, nor faint-hearted - for the first will let everything fall; the second will consume what it should increase; and the last will lose time with too much niceness.
Markham's views aren't quite what would be accepted now, any more than his remedy for the plague - 'smell a nosegay made of the tasselled end of a ship rope', but he does at least make it clear that 'butterfingers' was in use in 1615 with the same meaning we have for it today, that is, someone likely to drop things - as if their hands were smeared with butter, like a cook's.
Many of the later examples of 'butterfingers' in print relate to the game of cricket, which was and still is the principal ball-catching game in England. The term is often used as an amiable taunt when someone fails to make an easy catch. As the word spread to other countries, notably America, it was taken into the language of the local catching game, i.e. baseball, and 'no-hoper' teams were unkindly given that name. The Salt Lake Tribune reported on such a team in May 1899:
'The Butterfingers will cross bats with the Salt Lake Juniors at Calder's Park Tuesday'.
As for Dickens, he may have missed out on 'butterfingers' but he has many other words and phrases to lay claim to, and he did write some exceedingly good books.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
Meaning
It's better to have a lesser but certain advantage than the possibility of a greater one that may come to nothing.
Origin
This proverb refers back to mediaeval falconry where a bird in the hand (the falcon) was a valuable asset and certainly worth more than two in the bush (the prey).
The first citation of the expression in print in its currently used form is found in John Ray's A Hand-book of Proverbs, 1670, in which he lists it as:
"A [also 'one'] bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"
By how long the phrase predates Ray's publishing isn't clear, as variants of it were known for centuries before 1670. The earliest English version of the proverb is from the Bible and was translated into English in Wycliffe's version in 1382, although Latin texts have it from the 13th century:
"Ecclesiastes IX - A living dog is better than a dead lion."
Alternatives that explicitly mention birds in hand come later. The earliest of those is in Hugh Rhodes' The Boke of Nurture or Schoole of Good Maners, circa 1530:
"A byrd in hand - is worth ten flye at large."
John Heywood, the 16th century collector of proverbs, recorded another version in his ambitiously titled A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, 1546:
"Better one byrde in hande than ten in the wood."
The expression fits well into the catalogue of English proverbs, which are often warnings, especially warnings about hubris or risk taking. Some of the better known examples that warn against getting carried away by that exciting new prospect are: 'All that glitters is not gold', 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread', 'Look before you leap', 'Marry in haste, repent at leisure', 'The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley'.
The Bird in Hand was adopted as a pub name in England in the Middle Ages and many of this name still survive.
English migrants to America took the expression with them and 'bird in hand' must have been known there by 1734 as this was the year in which a small town in Pennsylvania was founded with that name.
It's better to have a lesser but certain advantage than the possibility of a greater one that may come to nothing.
Origin
This proverb refers back to mediaeval falconry where a bird in the hand (the falcon) was a valuable asset and certainly worth more than two in the bush (the prey).
The first citation of the expression in print in its currently used form is found in John Ray's A Hand-book of Proverbs, 1670, in which he lists it as:
"A [also 'one'] bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"
By how long the phrase predates Ray's publishing isn't clear, as variants of it were known for centuries before 1670. The earliest English version of the proverb is from the Bible and was translated into English in Wycliffe's version in 1382, although Latin texts have it from the 13th century:
"Ecclesiastes IX - A living dog is better than a dead lion."
Alternatives that explicitly mention birds in hand come later. The earliest of those is in Hugh Rhodes' The Boke of Nurture or Schoole of Good Maners, circa 1530:
"A byrd in hand - is worth ten flye at large."
John Heywood, the 16th century collector of proverbs, recorded another version in his ambitiously titled A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, 1546:
"Better one byrde in hande than ten in the wood."
The expression fits well into the catalogue of English proverbs, which are often warnings, especially warnings about hubris or risk taking. Some of the better known examples that warn against getting carried away by that exciting new prospect are: 'All that glitters is not gold', 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread', 'Look before you leap', 'Marry in haste, repent at leisure', 'The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley'.
The Bird in Hand was adopted as a pub name in England in the Middle Ages and many of this name still survive.
English migrants to America took the expression with them and 'bird in hand' must have been known there by 1734 as this was the year in which a small town in Pennsylvania was founded with that name.
Handle with kid gloves
Meaning
Handle a situation, or a person or an object, delicately and gingerly.
Origin
Kid gloves are, of course, gloves made from the skin of a young goat. I say 'of course' but, in fact, when they were first fashioned in the 18th century they were more often made from lambskin, as that was easier to come by. They were clearly not intended for use when you were pruning the hedge and wearing kid gloves was the sartorial equivalent of pale white skin, that is, it indicated that the wearer was rich enough to indulge in a life of genteel indoor idleness. The earliest mentions of kid gloves are from England in the 1730s and the following is a typical report of a wealthy gentleman, laid out in his 'Sunday best', from Bagnall's News, in The Ipswich Journal, December 1734:
"The Corpse of Mr. Thorp, A Distiller in Soho, who died a few Days since, said to be worth £10000 was put into his Coffin, quilted within with white Sattin; and after several yards of fine Holland [best-quality linen] were wrapt about his Body... on his Head was a Cap of the same Holland tied with a white Ribbond; he has about his Neck two Yards of Cambrick; a Cambrick Handkerchief between his Hands, on which he had a pair of white Kid Gloves: and in this manner he lay in state some Days and was afterwards buried in Buckinghamshire."
At that time, kid gloves were viewed as rather ostentatious and only suitable for the nouveau riche - much as heavy gold chains might be viewed today. In the 19th century, kid glove wearing was taken up by a notable member of the gentry, William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, the fourth Earl of Mornington, which might have been expected to establish them as a desirable accessory. The Preston Chronicle included this item in February 1837:
"Mr. Long Wellesley is, also, a man of excellent taste, though he rides in kid gloves, which Brummel used to say a man should be scouted [dismissed scornfully] for doing."
The dismissal of the gloves by the socialite and fashion authority Beau Brummell was enough to send them to the back of the 19th century chav wardrobe. Incidentally, I wasn't familiar with the word 'scouted' as meaning 'scorned' and when I looked it up I found this first usage in Samuel Palmer's Moral Essays, 1710:
"They pass the rhodomontade till they're expos'd and scouted."
That led me to 'rhodomontade', another word I didn't know, which turns out to mean 'to speak boastfully or bombastically'. All in all, Brummel clearly didn't think much of kid gloves and they continued not to be worn by 'persons of quality'.
In fact, the description 'kid-gloved' came to be used as an insult, implying a lack of manhood, as was recorded in The Leicester Chronicle in January 1842:
"This contraband system of political allusions appears to suit the taste and nerves of the cautious, gentlemanly, kid-gloved Conservatism, which cannot endure the shock of attending a public meeting."
It was only when the expression (and presumably also, the gloves) crossed the Atlantic that the negative connotations were lost and 'handling (or treating) with kid gloves' began to be used as we use it today, that is with the meaning 'delicately; carefully'. The New-York monthly magazine The Knickerbocker has the first example of the term in print, from 1849:
"Belligerent topics are not our forte and never was; neither do we handle them with kid gloves, when they fairly come in the way."
Handle a situation, or a person or an object, delicately and gingerly.
Origin
Kid gloves are, of course, gloves made from the skin of a young goat. I say 'of course' but, in fact, when they were first fashioned in the 18th century they were more often made from lambskin, as that was easier to come by. They were clearly not intended for use when you were pruning the hedge and wearing kid gloves was the sartorial equivalent of pale white skin, that is, it indicated that the wearer was rich enough to indulge in a life of genteel indoor idleness. The earliest mentions of kid gloves are from England in the 1730s and the following is a typical report of a wealthy gentleman, laid out in his 'Sunday best', from Bagnall's News, in The Ipswich Journal, December 1734:
"The Corpse of Mr. Thorp, A Distiller in Soho, who died a few Days since, said to be worth £10000 was put into his Coffin, quilted within with white Sattin; and after several yards of fine Holland [best-quality linen] were wrapt about his Body... on his Head was a Cap of the same Holland tied with a white Ribbond; he has about his Neck two Yards of Cambrick; a Cambrick Handkerchief between his Hands, on which he had a pair of white Kid Gloves: and in this manner he lay in state some Days and was afterwards buried in Buckinghamshire."
At that time, kid gloves were viewed as rather ostentatious and only suitable for the nouveau riche - much as heavy gold chains might be viewed today. In the 19th century, kid glove wearing was taken up by a notable member of the gentry, William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, the fourth Earl of Mornington, which might have been expected to establish them as a desirable accessory. The Preston Chronicle included this item in February 1837:
"Mr. Long Wellesley is, also, a man of excellent taste, though he rides in kid gloves, which Brummel used to say a man should be scouted [dismissed scornfully] for doing."
The dismissal of the gloves by the socialite and fashion authority Beau Brummell was enough to send them to the back of the 19th century chav wardrobe. Incidentally, I wasn't familiar with the word 'scouted' as meaning 'scorned' and when I looked it up I found this first usage in Samuel Palmer's Moral Essays, 1710:
"They pass the rhodomontade till they're expos'd and scouted."
That led me to 'rhodomontade', another word I didn't know, which turns out to mean 'to speak boastfully or bombastically'. All in all, Brummel clearly didn't think much of kid gloves and they continued not to be worn by 'persons of quality'.
In fact, the description 'kid-gloved' came to be used as an insult, implying a lack of manhood, as was recorded in The Leicester Chronicle in January 1842:
"This contraband system of political allusions appears to suit the taste and nerves of the cautious, gentlemanly, kid-gloved Conservatism, which cannot endure the shock of attending a public meeting."
It was only when the expression (and presumably also, the gloves) crossed the Atlantic that the negative connotations were lost and 'handling (or treating) with kid gloves' began to be used as we use it today, that is with the meaning 'delicately; carefully'. The New-York monthly magazine The Knickerbocker has the first example of the term in print, from 1849:
"Belligerent topics are not our forte and never was; neither do we handle them with kid gloves, when they fairly come in the way."
Cold turkey
Meaning
The sudden and complete withdrawal from an additive substance and/or the physiological effects of such a withdrawal. Also, predominantly in the U.S.A., plain speaking.
Origin
At this time of year you have probably had enough of cold turkey to last until next year's festivities. Nevertheless, here's another plateful.
The term 'cold turkey' is now predominantly used as the name of the drug withdrawal process. Also, by extension, it is used to refer to any abrupt termination of something we are accustomed to. To find the origin of the term we need to delve into the annals of American speech. Let's talk turkey.
The turkey looms large in the American psyche because of its link to early European colonists and is, as even Limies like me know, the centrepiece of the annual Thanksgiving meal. In the USA, and as far as I can tell nowhere else, 'plain speaking/getting down to business' is called 'talking cold turkey'. This usage dates from the early part of the 20th century, as in this example from The Des Moines Daily News, May 1914:
I've heard [Reverend Billy] Sunday give his 'Booze' sermon, and believe me that rascal can make tears flow out of a stone. And furthermore he talks "cold turkey". You know what I mean - calls a spade a spade.
The English newspaper The Daily Express introduced the phrase to an English audience in a January 1928 edition:
"She talked cold turkey about sex. 'Cold turkey' means plain truth in America."
'Talking cold turkey' meant no nonsense talking and its partner expression 'going cold turkey' meant no nonsense doing. To 'go cold turkey' was to get straight to the scene of the action - in at the deep end. An example of it in use is found in Debates: the official reports of the Canadian House of Commons, 1899:
I am told that other countries, for instance Australia, have gone cold turkey all the way. They have gone full metric and have experienced less difficulty in the implementation of their program over the long-term.
The earliest reference to 'cold turkey' in relation to drug withdrawal that I can find is from the Canadian newspaper The Daily Colonist, October 1921:
"Perhaps the most pitiful figures who have appeared before Dr. Carleton Simon are those who voluntarily surrender themselves. When they go before him, they [drug addicts] are given what is called the 'cold turkey' treatment."
In the state of drug withdrawal the addict's blood is directed to the internal organs, leaving the skin white and with goose bumps. It has been suggested that this is what is alluded to by 'cold turkey'. There's no evidence to support that view. For the source of 'cold turkey' we need look no further than the direct, no nonsense approach indicated by the earlier 'in at the deep end' meaning of the term.
The sudden and complete withdrawal from an additive substance and/or the physiological effects of such a withdrawal. Also, predominantly in the U.S.A., plain speaking.
Origin
At this time of year you have probably had enough of cold turkey to last until next year's festivities. Nevertheless, here's another plateful.
The term 'cold turkey' is now predominantly used as the name of the drug withdrawal process. Also, by extension, it is used to refer to any abrupt termination of something we are accustomed to. To find the origin of the term we need to delve into the annals of American speech. Let's talk turkey.
The turkey looms large in the American psyche because of its link to early European colonists and is, as even Limies like me know, the centrepiece of the annual Thanksgiving meal. In the USA, and as far as I can tell nowhere else, 'plain speaking/getting down to business' is called 'talking cold turkey'. This usage dates from the early part of the 20th century, as in this example from The Des Moines Daily News, May 1914:
I've heard [Reverend Billy] Sunday give his 'Booze' sermon, and believe me that rascal can make tears flow out of a stone. And furthermore he talks "cold turkey". You know what I mean - calls a spade a spade.
The English newspaper The Daily Express introduced the phrase to an English audience in a January 1928 edition:
"She talked cold turkey about sex. 'Cold turkey' means plain truth in America."
'Talking cold turkey' meant no nonsense talking and its partner expression 'going cold turkey' meant no nonsense doing. To 'go cold turkey' was to get straight to the scene of the action - in at the deep end. An example of it in use is found in Debates: the official reports of the Canadian House of Commons, 1899:
I am told that other countries, for instance Australia, have gone cold turkey all the way. They have gone full metric and have experienced less difficulty in the implementation of their program over the long-term.
The earliest reference to 'cold turkey' in relation to drug withdrawal that I can find is from the Canadian newspaper The Daily Colonist, October 1921:
"Perhaps the most pitiful figures who have appeared before Dr. Carleton Simon are those who voluntarily surrender themselves. When they go before him, they [drug addicts] are given what is called the 'cold turkey' treatment."
In the state of drug withdrawal the addict's blood is directed to the internal organs, leaving the skin white and with goose bumps. It has been suggested that this is what is alluded to by 'cold turkey'. There's no evidence to support that view. For the source of 'cold turkey' we need look no further than the direct, no nonsense approach indicated by the earlier 'in at the deep end' meaning of the term.
Nail your colours to the mast
Meaning
To defiantly display one's opinions and beliefs. Also, to show one's intention to hold on to those beliefs until the end.
Origin
In 17th century nautical battles colours (flags) were struck (lowered) as a mark of submission. It was also the custom in naval warfare to direct one's cannon fire at the opponent's ship's mast, thus disabling it. If all of a ship's masts were broken the captain usually had no alternative but to surrender. If the captain decided to fight on this was marked by hoisting the colours on the remnants of the ship's rigging, i.e. by 'nailing his colours to the mast'.
It is correct to use the English spelling, rather the the US 'nail one's colors to the mast', as the phrase originated in England. It is generally agreed that the expression was coined in reference to the exploits of the crew of the Venerable, at the Battle of Camperdown, a naval engagement that was fought between English and Dutch ships as part of the French Revolutionary Wars, in 1797.
The English fleet was led by the Venerable, the flagship of Admiral Adam Duncan. The battle didn't initially go well for the English. The mainmast of Duncan's vessel was struck and the admiral's blue squadronal standard was brought down. This could have been interpreted by the rest of the fleet as meaning that Duncan had surrendered. Step forward, horny-handed son of the sea and subsequent national hero, Jack Crawford. Crawford climbed what was left of the mast with the standard and nailed it back where it was visible to the rest of the fleet. This act proved crucial in the battle and Duncan's forces were eventually victorious. Some historians believe that the victory at Camperdown proved to be the end of the dominance of the Dutch at sea and the beginning of the period in which 'Britannia ruled the waves'. Crawford returned home to Sunderland to a hero's welcome.
The stalwart reputation of English seamen soon became part of the national consciousness. An address to the House of Commons by the playwright Richard Sheridan was reported in The Edinburgh Advertiser in January 1801:
"I have no hesitation in saying that the Maritime Law is the charter of our existence, the banner under which we all should rally; it is the flag which, imitating the example of our gallant seamen, we should nail to the mast of the nation, and go down with the vessel rather than strike it!"
The first use of the precise expression 'nail your colours to the mast' that I have found is from the English newspaper The Hereford Journal, August 1807. This reported a naval engagement between British and American ships in which the US captain surrendered without a fight, much to the disgust of his military superiors:
"You [Commodore James Barron] ought to have nailed your colours to the mast, and have fought whilst a timber remained on your ship."
Whether or not Jack Crawford was the first to 'nail his colours to the mast' we can't be completely sure, but it does look highly likely. The phrase wasn't known before his exploit and was widely used soon afterwards. Despite his heroic status, Crawford died a pauper and a drunkard and was buried in an unmarked grave. The local community raised a fund to erect a gravestone and later a commemorative statue. If you do have any doubts about Jack's role in linguistic history, it might be wise not to mention it in Sunderland.
To defiantly display one's opinions and beliefs. Also, to show one's intention to hold on to those beliefs until the end.
Origin
In 17th century nautical battles colours (flags) were struck (lowered) as a mark of submission. It was also the custom in naval warfare to direct one's cannon fire at the opponent's ship's mast, thus disabling it. If all of a ship's masts were broken the captain usually had no alternative but to surrender. If the captain decided to fight on this was marked by hoisting the colours on the remnants of the ship's rigging, i.e. by 'nailing his colours to the mast'.
It is correct to use the English spelling, rather the the US 'nail one's colors to the mast', as the phrase originated in England. It is generally agreed that the expression was coined in reference to the exploits of the crew of the Venerable, at the Battle of Camperdown, a naval engagement that was fought between English and Dutch ships as part of the French Revolutionary Wars, in 1797.
The English fleet was led by the Venerable, the flagship of Admiral Adam Duncan. The battle didn't initially go well for the English. The mainmast of Duncan's vessel was struck and the admiral's blue squadronal standard was brought down. This could have been interpreted by the rest of the fleet as meaning that Duncan had surrendered. Step forward, horny-handed son of the sea and subsequent national hero, Jack Crawford. Crawford climbed what was left of the mast with the standard and nailed it back where it was visible to the rest of the fleet. This act proved crucial in the battle and Duncan's forces were eventually victorious. Some historians believe that the victory at Camperdown proved to be the end of the dominance of the Dutch at sea and the beginning of the period in which 'Britannia ruled the waves'. Crawford returned home to Sunderland to a hero's welcome.
The stalwart reputation of English seamen soon became part of the national consciousness. An address to the House of Commons by the playwright Richard Sheridan was reported in The Edinburgh Advertiser in January 1801:
"I have no hesitation in saying that the Maritime Law is the charter of our existence, the banner under which we all should rally; it is the flag which, imitating the example of our gallant seamen, we should nail to the mast of the nation, and go down with the vessel rather than strike it!"
The first use of the precise expression 'nail your colours to the mast' that I have found is from the English newspaper The Hereford Journal, August 1807. This reported a naval engagement between British and American ships in which the US captain surrendered without a fight, much to the disgust of his military superiors:
"You [Commodore James Barron] ought to have nailed your colours to the mast, and have fought whilst a timber remained on your ship."
Whether or not Jack Crawford was the first to 'nail his colours to the mast' we can't be completely sure, but it does look highly likely. The phrase wasn't known before his exploit and was widely used soon afterwards. Despite his heroic status, Crawford died a pauper and a drunkard and was buried in an unmarked grave. The local community raised a fund to erect a gravestone and later a commemorative statue. If you do have any doubts about Jack's role in linguistic history, it might be wise not to mention it in Sunderland.
Second-guess
Meaning
1. To criticize and offer advice, with the benefit of hindsight.
2. To foresee the actions of others, before they have come to a decision themselves.
Origin
A commonly used meaning of 'to second-guess' is to criticize the actions of others, after the event. The event in questions was, and often still is, a sporting event. The term is derived as what is known as a back-formation. As back-formations loom large in etymology I'll break off to explain what they are.
New words are usually created from existing words. For example, we all know what 'fishing' means and, armed with that knowledge we could easily coin the word 'fisherman' and a phrase like 'fishing for compliments'. Sometimes though, the order that words and phrases are derived in isn't so obvious. For example, people who rob from houses have been called 'burglars' since the 13th century and it might be supposed that they got their name from being engaged in 'burglary'. However, it wasn't until the 19th century that the legal profession decided that 'that thing that burglars do' needed to be given a name and hence 'burglary' was coined as a back-formation from 'burglar'. Likewise, 'narration' and 'scavenge', which were coined centuries after 'narrator' and 'scavenger'.
The same back route was taken by the phrase 'second-guess'. The umpire in a baseball game used to be called, rather unkindly, 'the guesser'. People who were continually telling the guesser, the manager or the players what they were doing wrong were known as 'secondguessers' and were so defined in the Sporting News Record Book, 1937:
Secondguesser, one who is continually criticizing moves of players and manager.
Another meaning of 'to second-guess' is to anticipate what others might do in a particular situation. This is also of American origin but, somewhat more impressively, refers to a guess made before rather than after the event. An early example of its use comes from Broadcasting magazine, December 1941:
Do not try to second-guess or master-mind our military officials. Leave this for established military analysts and experts, who are experienced enough to await the facts before drawing conclusions.
1. To criticize and offer advice, with the benefit of hindsight.
2. To foresee the actions of others, before they have come to a decision themselves.
Origin
A commonly used meaning of 'to second-guess' is to criticize the actions of others, after the event. The event in questions was, and often still is, a sporting event. The term is derived as what is known as a back-formation. As back-formations loom large in etymology I'll break off to explain what they are.
New words are usually created from existing words. For example, we all know what 'fishing' means and, armed with that knowledge we could easily coin the word 'fisherman' and a phrase like 'fishing for compliments'. Sometimes though, the order that words and phrases are derived in isn't so obvious. For example, people who rob from houses have been called 'burglars' since the 13th century and it might be supposed that they got their name from being engaged in 'burglary'. However, it wasn't until the 19th century that the legal profession decided that 'that thing that burglars do' needed to be given a name and hence 'burglary' was coined as a back-formation from 'burglar'. Likewise, 'narration' and 'scavenge', which were coined centuries after 'narrator' and 'scavenger'.
The same back route was taken by the phrase 'second-guess'. The umpire in a baseball game used to be called, rather unkindly, 'the guesser'. People who were continually telling the guesser, the manager or the players what they were doing wrong were known as 'secondguessers' and were so defined in the Sporting News Record Book, 1937:
Secondguesser, one who is continually criticizing moves of players and manager.
Another meaning of 'to second-guess' is to anticipate what others might do in a particular situation. This is also of American origin but, somewhat more impressively, refers to a guess made before rather than after the event. An early example of its use comes from Broadcasting magazine, December 1941:
Do not try to second-guess or master-mind our military officials. Leave this for established military analysts and experts, who are experienced enough to await the facts before drawing conclusions.
Security blanket
Meaning
1. A small familiar blanket or other soft fabric item carried by a child for reassurance.
2. A form of harness for a baby's crib.
3. All-encompassing military and political security measures.
Origin
The term 'security blanket', also known as 'comfort blanket', was coined by Charles Shulz for his Peanuts cartoon strip. That's what most references will tell you. It's always a pleasure to swim against the tide and here's an opportunity. In fact, the term 'security blanket' wasn't coined by Charles Shulz for his Peanuts cartoon strip. The derivation of 'security blanket' involves a rather meandering tale, which goes like this:
Security blankets were known to Americans in the 1920s and were at that date overblankets which were clipped into babies' cribs to stop the occupants falling out. The accompanying advert is from the New York newspaper The Republican Press, November 1925, advertising fasteners for such a blanket for 59 cents.
The tale now moves on to World War II. The term 'security blanket' was then used to refer to strict security measures that were taken to keep Allied military plans from falling into the hands of the Germans. The term was coined in that context by the US military while fighting in Europe. For example, this report from the Alabama newspaper The Dothan Eagle, September 1944:
Reports being issued at Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters sometimes were as much as 48 hours behind the armies because of a security blanket thrown over the operations.
Incidentally, another article from the same page as the above is titled 'British Take Brussels', which is timely as this [28th December] is the only week of the year that the headline could be recycled. For those of a non-British persuasion, many in Britain pile their Christmas dinner plates with brussels sprouts with some enthusiasm but reject them with distaste for the rest of the year.
The emergence of the military use of 'security blanket' about twenty years after the use of the term in a domestic setting does suggest the possibility that those coining a new meaning for it were the babies that were tucked up under security blankets a generation earlier.
Now we move on another step, to the use of the expression as 'a small familiar comforter for babies and toddlers'. Now we get to Charles Shulz, right? Not quite. Shulz drew the character Linus van Pelt with a comfort blanket in the Peanuts cartoon strip in June 1954. It wasn't until 1956, in Good Grief, More Peanuts, that the item was given a name by Linus:
"This is a 'security and happiness' blanket. All little kids carry them."
By that date the term had been in use elsewhere. The November 1954 issue of the California newspaper The Daily Review included this piece by a staff writer, under the name of 'Bev':
'Security blanket. My younger child is one year old. When she finds a fuzzy blanket or a fleecy coat she presses her cheek against it and sucks her thumb.'
1. A small familiar blanket or other soft fabric item carried by a child for reassurance.
2. A form of harness for a baby's crib.
3. All-encompassing military and political security measures.
Origin
The term 'security blanket', also known as 'comfort blanket', was coined by Charles Shulz for his Peanuts cartoon strip. That's what most references will tell you. It's always a pleasure to swim against the tide and here's an opportunity. In fact, the term 'security blanket' wasn't coined by Charles Shulz for his Peanuts cartoon strip. The derivation of 'security blanket' involves a rather meandering tale, which goes like this:
Security blankets were known to Americans in the 1920s and were at that date overblankets which were clipped into babies' cribs to stop the occupants falling out. The accompanying advert is from the New York newspaper The Republican Press, November 1925, advertising fasteners for such a blanket for 59 cents.
The tale now moves on to World War II. The term 'security blanket' was then used to refer to strict security measures that were taken to keep Allied military plans from falling into the hands of the Germans. The term was coined in that context by the US military while fighting in Europe. For example, this report from the Alabama newspaper The Dothan Eagle, September 1944:
Reports being issued at Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's headquarters sometimes were as much as 48 hours behind the armies because of a security blanket thrown over the operations.
Incidentally, another article from the same page as the above is titled 'British Take Brussels', which is timely as this [28th December] is the only week of the year that the headline could be recycled. For those of a non-British persuasion, many in Britain pile their Christmas dinner plates with brussels sprouts with some enthusiasm but reject them with distaste for the rest of the year.
The emergence of the military use of 'security blanket' about twenty years after the use of the term in a domestic setting does suggest the possibility that those coining a new meaning for it were the babies that were tucked up under security blankets a generation earlier.
Now we move on another step, to the use of the expression as 'a small familiar comforter for babies and toddlers'. Now we get to Charles Shulz, right? Not quite. Shulz drew the character Linus van Pelt with a comfort blanket in the Peanuts cartoon strip in June 1954. It wasn't until 1956, in Good Grief, More Peanuts, that the item was given a name by Linus:
"This is a 'security and happiness' blanket. All little kids carry them."
By that date the term had been in use elsewhere. The November 1954 issue of the California newspaper The Daily Review included this piece by a staff writer, under the name of 'Bev':
'Security blanket. My younger child is one year old. When she finds a fuzzy blanket or a fleecy coat she presses her cheek against it and sucks her thumb.'
As different as chalk and cheese
Meaning
Two things that are very different from each other.
Origin
We have hundreds of phrases to indicate the similarity of one thing with another and similes like 'as alike as two peas in a pod' are commonplace in everyday speech. However, as far as I know, there is only one phrase that does the opposite and explicitly refers to the difference between things and that is 'as different as chalk and cheese'. This is an old expression and the earliest citation of it is in John Gower's Middle English text Confessio Amantis, 1390:
Lo, how they feignen chalk for chese.
Tourist boards in several of the chalkland areas of the UK try to place the phrase's origin in their locality and allude to vague connections between chalk and the local cheese. None of these are convincing and they clearly owe more to marketing than to etymology. So, how did the phrase come about?
There must have been a time in the development of English when we had no standard phrase to express the idea that two things were 'as different as X and Y'. When someone coined such a phrase, and that someone may well have been Gower in 1390, clearly he needed candidates for the roles of X and Y. That doesn't sound difficult, after all most things are different from most other things.
"Maybe, 'as different as a cormorant and a lamp-post'", thinks our coiner, "or 'as different as floorboards and greengrocers'". "No, 'as different as chalk and cheese' sounds better". Why? For no better reason that the fact the 'chalk' and 'cheese' are short and snappy words that alliterate. The English language is packed full of phrases that contain pairs of rhyming or alliterating words - often just because the person who coined them liked the sound of them; for example, hocus-pocus, the bee's knees, riff-raff etc.
A modern-day spin-off of 'chalk and cheese' is 'chalk and talk'. This refers to the traditional teaching method where the teacher stood at the front to address the class while writing on the blackboard with a stick of chalk (which those of a certain age will well remember). The phrase emerged in the UK in the 1930s but had a shortish run as a widely used expression as classrooms began to be equipped with whiteboards in the 1960s. 'Dry-wipe marker pen and talk' never caught on.
Two things that are very different from each other.
Origin
We have hundreds of phrases to indicate the similarity of one thing with another and similes like 'as alike as two peas in a pod' are commonplace in everyday speech. However, as far as I know, there is only one phrase that does the opposite and explicitly refers to the difference between things and that is 'as different as chalk and cheese'. This is an old expression and the earliest citation of it is in John Gower's Middle English text Confessio Amantis, 1390:
Lo, how they feignen chalk for chese.
Tourist boards in several of the chalkland areas of the UK try to place the phrase's origin in their locality and allude to vague connections between chalk and the local cheese. None of these are convincing and they clearly owe more to marketing than to etymology. So, how did the phrase come about?
There must have been a time in the development of English when we had no standard phrase to express the idea that two things were 'as different as X and Y'. When someone coined such a phrase, and that someone may well have been Gower in 1390, clearly he needed candidates for the roles of X and Y. That doesn't sound difficult, after all most things are different from most other things.
"Maybe, 'as different as a cormorant and a lamp-post'", thinks our coiner, "or 'as different as floorboards and greengrocers'". "No, 'as different as chalk and cheese' sounds better". Why? For no better reason that the fact the 'chalk' and 'cheese' are short and snappy words that alliterate. The English language is packed full of phrases that contain pairs of rhyming or alliterating words - often just because the person who coined them liked the sound of them; for example, hocus-pocus, the bee's knees, riff-raff etc.
A modern-day spin-off of 'chalk and cheese' is 'chalk and talk'. This refers to the traditional teaching method where the teacher stood at the front to address the class while writing on the blackboard with a stick of chalk (which those of a certain age will well remember). The phrase emerged in the UK in the 1930s but had a shortish run as a widely used expression as classrooms began to be equipped with whiteboards in the 1960s. 'Dry-wipe marker pen and talk' never caught on.
Weasel words
Meaning
Ambiguous or quibbling speech.
Origin
It has long been a widespread belief that weasels suck the yolks from bird's eggs, leaving only the empty shell. This belief is the basis of the term 'weasel words', used to describe statements that have had the life sucked out of them. The expression refers to words that are added to make a statement sound more legitimate and impressive but which are in fact unsubstantiated and meaningless. Examples of weasel words are 'people say that...', 'studies show that...', 'up to 50% or more...'.
There is now some doubt amongst naturalists as to whether weasels do suck eggs. The tiny mammals are certainly ferocious and, pound for pound, amongst the most dangerous predators on the planet, being easily able to kill an entire coopful of chickens that are hundreds of times their weight. They have a bad reputation with country dwellers but the egg-sucking behaviour is unproven. Whether or not they actually suck eggs, Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed they did. The Bard didn't coin the expression 'weasel words', but he came very close, when he made two references to the supposed habits of weasels:
The weazel Scot Comes sneaking, and so sucks the princoly egg. - Henry V, 1598
I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weazel sucks eggs. - As You Like It, 1600
That's as close as we get to the actual phrase in the Tudor period and it wasn't until the turn of the 20th century in the USA that the phrase 'weasel words' first occurred in print. In 1900, Stewart Chaplin published a story in The Century Illustrated Magazine entitled Stained Glass Political Platform, which contains this exchange:
"I am the chairman of your committee on platform"... "And like most platforms," continued St. John, "it contains plenty of what I call weasel words."
"And what may weasel words be?"
"Why, weasel words are words that suck all the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell."
In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, then Colonel Roosevelt, was reported in various US newspapers as saying that he liked the Republican state platform because it contained no "weasel words". In September 1916, the New York Times published a piece in which Roosevelt refuted the notion that he had stolen the phrase from Chaplin and claimed to have coined it independently in 1879:
Colonel Roosevelt, on his way here this morning from Portland, Me., told a Times reporter how he happened to use the expression "weasel words" in describing some of President Wilson's utterances months ago. After the expression had been widely quoted, somebody discovered that it had been used years ago by the writer of a magazine article in the Century Magazine, and the Colonel was charged with having plagiarized the writer.
"About thirty-seven years ago." Colonel Roosevelt said in talking of the origin of the expression. "I was going up a mountain in the Maine woods in a carriage, driven by Dave Sewall. We saw an old man along the roadside. When we passed Dave Sewall said:
"That there man can do a lot of funny things with this language of ours. He can take a word and weasel it around and suck the meat out of it like a weasel sucks the meat out of an egg, until it don't mean anything at all. The Colonel said the expression [weasel words] occurred to him when he read some of President Wilson's notes.
It is possible that [there are some good weasel words for you] Roosevelt coined the expression but, of course, his later recollections aren't any kind of proof of that. If circumstantial evidence counts for anything then Roosevelt's etymological track record might be called into account. In 1900, he described the phrase 'speak softly and carry a big stick' as a 'West African proverb'. Where he got that idea from is unclear - there's certainly no evidence to support it.
I can't finish without adding the old jest about how to tell a weasel from a stoat - 'one is weasily recognized, the other is stoatally different'.
Ambiguous or quibbling speech.
Origin
It has long been a widespread belief that weasels suck the yolks from bird's eggs, leaving only the empty shell. This belief is the basis of the term 'weasel words', used to describe statements that have had the life sucked out of them. The expression refers to words that are added to make a statement sound more legitimate and impressive but which are in fact unsubstantiated and meaningless. Examples of weasel words are 'people say that...', 'studies show that...', 'up to 50% or more...'.
There is now some doubt amongst naturalists as to whether weasels do suck eggs. The tiny mammals are certainly ferocious and, pound for pound, amongst the most dangerous predators on the planet, being easily able to kill an entire coopful of chickens that are hundreds of times their weight. They have a bad reputation with country dwellers but the egg-sucking behaviour is unproven. Whether or not they actually suck eggs, Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed they did. The Bard didn't coin the expression 'weasel words', but he came very close, when he made two references to the supposed habits of weasels:
The weazel Scot Comes sneaking, and so sucks the princoly egg. - Henry V, 1598
I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weazel sucks eggs. - As You Like It, 1600
That's as close as we get to the actual phrase in the Tudor period and it wasn't until the turn of the 20th century in the USA that the phrase 'weasel words' first occurred in print. In 1900, Stewart Chaplin published a story in The Century Illustrated Magazine entitled Stained Glass Political Platform, which contains this exchange:
"I am the chairman of your committee on platform"... "And like most platforms," continued St. John, "it contains plenty of what I call weasel words."
"And what may weasel words be?"
"Why, weasel words are words that suck all the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell."
In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, then Colonel Roosevelt, was reported in various US newspapers as saying that he liked the Republican state platform because it contained no "weasel words". In September 1916, the New York Times published a piece in which Roosevelt refuted the notion that he had stolen the phrase from Chaplin and claimed to have coined it independently in 1879:
Colonel Roosevelt, on his way here this morning from Portland, Me., told a Times reporter how he happened to use the expression "weasel words" in describing some of President Wilson's utterances months ago. After the expression had been widely quoted, somebody discovered that it had been used years ago by the writer of a magazine article in the Century Magazine, and the Colonel was charged with having plagiarized the writer.
"About thirty-seven years ago." Colonel Roosevelt said in talking of the origin of the expression. "I was going up a mountain in the Maine woods in a carriage, driven by Dave Sewall. We saw an old man along the roadside. When we passed Dave Sewall said:
"That there man can do a lot of funny things with this language of ours. He can take a word and weasel it around and suck the meat out of it like a weasel sucks the meat out of an egg, until it don't mean anything at all. The Colonel said the expression [weasel words] occurred to him when he read some of President Wilson's notes.
It is possible that [there are some good weasel words for you] Roosevelt coined the expression but, of course, his later recollections aren't any kind of proof of that. If circumstantial evidence counts for anything then Roosevelt's etymological track record might be called into account. In 1900, he described the phrase 'speak softly and carry a big stick' as a 'West African proverb'. Where he got that idea from is unclear - there's certainly no evidence to support it.
I can't finish without adding the old jest about how to tell a weasel from a stoat - 'one is weasily recognized, the other is stoatally different'.
The whole nine yards
Every now and then I feel the urge to go back to the Holy Grail of etymology - 'the whole nine yards'. I was prompted to take another look at it this week by the unveiling of the British Library Newspaper Archive. This gives online access to a vast store of British newspapers, which will eventually include the majority of all newspapers printed in Britain since the early 1700s. Just the place to try a search for an early printed example of 'the whole nine yards' n'est-ce pas? Well, yes and no.
If you aren't familiar with the search for the origin of that elusive expression, here's the story so far...
Nevertheless, the digitisation of old manuscripts provides etymologists with a gateway to sources that were previously inaccessible. The American academic Stephen Goranson recently found this piece in a newly digitised copy of Michigan's Voices: A Literary Quarterly & Arts Magazine, Fall 1962:
... real civilized living in the modern urban home - then the dog would catch on and go ki-yi-yi-ing from one to the other of the shouting pyjama clad participants - mad, mad, mad, the consequence of house, home, kids, respectability, status as a college professor and the whole nine yards, as a brush salesman who came by the house was fond of saying, ...
Also in late 1962, this passage appeared in a letter to the editor in an issue of Car Life, also now available in online format:
Your staff of testers cannot fairly appraise the Chevrolet Impala sedan, with all nine yards of goodies, against the Plymouth Savoy.
The meanings of the word 'yard' are many and varied. We have linear, square or cubic yards, also yard-arms, steelyards etc. This is the source of the variability of the many guesses at the phrase's origin. These include:
Speculation will of course continue until a definitive source for the phrase is found. I'm not holding my breath but, if an origin is found, I've no doubt that it will be as the result of a search of a digitised archive.
If you aren't familiar with the search for the origin of that elusive expression, here's the story so far...
- For reasons that aren't clear, 'the whole nine yards' provokes more speculative derivations than any other phrase. Many people are convinced they know the origin but aren't able to provide documentary evidence to support their chosen belief.
- The earliest known citation of the phrase in print is from 1962. In May 1961, the American athlete Ralph Boston broke the world long jump record with a jump of 27 feet 1/2 inch. No one had previously jumped 27 feet. This was big news at the time and surely cried out for this headline:"Boston jumps the whole nine yards"
If the phrase was in circulation before 1961, it wasn't known to that most slang-aware troop, newspaper journalists, and no one came up with that line, which is missing from all newspaper archives. The absence of the expression in print prior to the 1960s argues strongly against any of the supposed mediaeval, Victorian or even World War II origins. - The weight of circumstantial evidence is that the phrase originated in America in the early 1960s but it isn't known who coined the term.
Nevertheless, the digitisation of old manuscripts provides etymologists with a gateway to sources that were previously inaccessible. The American academic Stephen Goranson recently found this piece in a newly digitised copy of Michigan's Voices: A Literary Quarterly & Arts Magazine, Fall 1962:
... real civilized living in the modern urban home - then the dog would catch on and go ki-yi-yi-ing from one to the other of the shouting pyjama clad participants - mad, mad, mad, the consequence of house, home, kids, respectability, status as a college professor and the whole nine yards, as a brush salesman who came by the house was fond of saying, ...
Also in late 1962, this passage appeared in a letter to the editor in an issue of Car Life, also now available in online format:
Your staff of testers cannot fairly appraise the Chevrolet Impala sedan, with all nine yards of goodies, against the Plymouth Savoy.
The meanings of the word 'yard' are many and varied. We have linear, square or cubic yards, also yard-arms, steelyards etc. This is the source of the variability of the many guesses at the phrase's origin. These include:
- The nine cubic yards capacity of US concrete trucks. Widely circulated, although clearly nonsense as even the largest concrete mixers were smaller than 9 cubic yards in the 1960s.
- World War II aircraft. There are several aircraft-related theories:
- The length of US bombers' bomb racks.
- The length of the RAF Spitfire's machine gun bullet belts.
- The length of ammunition belts in ground based anti-aircraft turrets, etc.
- The amount of material used in making top quality suits. Supporters of this theory sometimes relate it to 'dressed to the nines'.
- The derivation is naval and the yards are shipyards. Another naval version is that the yards are the spars of sailing ships. The name for the spar that hold the sails is a yard. Large sailing ships had three masts, often with three yards on each. The theory goes that ships in battle can continue changing direction as new sails are unfurled. Only when the last sail, on the ninth yard, is used do the enemy know in which direction the ship is finally headed.
Speculation will of course continue until a definitive source for the phrase is found. I'm not holding my breath but, if an origin is found, I've no doubt that it will be as the result of a search of a digitised archive.
The writing is on the wall
Meaning
Imminent danger has become apparent.
Origin
'The writing is on the wall' is also sometimes expressed as 'the handwriting is on the wall' or as 'mene mene'. The first of those variations is an obvious synonym but what does 'mene mene' mean? This is a shortening of 'mene mene tekel upharsin', which is of Aramaic origin. If your Aramaic isn't that strong you can get some guidance from the Bible, Daniel 5, in the story of Belshazzar's feast. To cut a long Old Testament story short, Belshazzar was indulging in a drunken revelry and debasing sacred temple vessels by using them as wine goblets when a disembodied hand wrote 'mene mene tekel upharsin' on the palace wall.
On the face of it, and using a literal translation, this appeared meaningless. The expression seemed to mean 'two minas, a shekel and two parts' or alternatively 'numbered, weighed, divided'. None of this meant much to Belshazzar, who decided that he needed further interpretation and sent for the Jewish exile Daniel. It then became clear that the phrase was an elaborate wordplay, relying on the fact that each word can denote a different coin, and the third word can be interpreted as 'Persia'. Daniel's interpretation, as recorded in the first easily understood English version of the Bible, the King James Version, 1611, was:
And this the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This the interpretation of the thing:
MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
The point of the moral tale was that Belshazzar couldn't see the warning that was apparent to others because he was engrossed with his sinning ways.
The subtlety of the biblical wordplay is now somewhat lost on those of us that don't speak ancient Aramaic. Perhaps a flavour of the style can be conveyed by comparing it to the lyrics of the popular World War II novelty song Mairzy Doats:
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy diveya
A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe?
Literally, that's meaningless but a wartime Daniel could have translated it into its actual meaning:
Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy,
A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?
'Writing on the wall' began to be used figuratively, that is providing warnings where no actual writing or walls are involved, from the early 18th century; for example, Jonathan Swift's Miscellaneous works, 1720:
A baited Banker thus desponds,
From his own Hand foresees his Fall;
They have his Soul who have his Bonds;
'Tis like the Writing on the Wall.
Imminent danger has become apparent.
Origin
'The writing is on the wall' is also sometimes expressed as 'the handwriting is on the wall' or as 'mene mene'. The first of those variations is an obvious synonym but what does 'mene mene' mean? This is a shortening of 'mene mene tekel upharsin', which is of Aramaic origin. If your Aramaic isn't that strong you can get some guidance from the Bible, Daniel 5, in the story of Belshazzar's feast. To cut a long Old Testament story short, Belshazzar was indulging in a drunken revelry and debasing sacred temple vessels by using them as wine goblets when a disembodied hand wrote 'mene mene tekel upharsin' on the palace wall.
On the face of it, and using a literal translation, this appeared meaningless. The expression seemed to mean 'two minas, a shekel and two parts' or alternatively 'numbered, weighed, divided'. None of this meant much to Belshazzar, who decided that he needed further interpretation and sent for the Jewish exile Daniel. It then became clear that the phrase was an elaborate wordplay, relying on the fact that each word can denote a different coin, and the third word can be interpreted as 'Persia'. Daniel's interpretation, as recorded in the first easily understood English version of the Bible, the King James Version, 1611, was:
And this the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This the interpretation of the thing:
MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it.
TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.
PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.
The point of the moral tale was that Belshazzar couldn't see the warning that was apparent to others because he was engrossed with his sinning ways.
The subtlety of the biblical wordplay is now somewhat lost on those of us that don't speak ancient Aramaic. Perhaps a flavour of the style can be conveyed by comparing it to the lyrics of the popular World War II novelty song Mairzy Doats:
Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy diveya
A kiddley divey too, wooden shoe?
Literally, that's meaningless but a wartime Daniel could have translated it into its actual meaning:
Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy,
A kid'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you?
'Writing on the wall' began to be used figuratively, that is providing warnings where no actual writing or walls are involved, from the early 18th century; for example, Jonathan Swift's Miscellaneous works, 1720:
A baited Banker thus desponds,
From his own Hand foresees his Fall;
They have his Soul who have his Bonds;
'Tis like the Writing on the Wall.
Pig's ear
Meaning
As 'pig's ear' - Cockney rhyming slang for beer.
As 'in a pig's ear' - an expression of disbelief.
As 'make a pig's ear of ' - make a mess or muddle.
Origin
The Cockney rhyming slang version of 'pig's ear' is easiest to explain. It's one of the earliest examples of the form and appears in D. W. Barrett's Life & Work among Navvies, 1880:
"Now, Jack, I'm goin' to get a tiddley wink of pig's ear."
That's easy enough to decipher as "I'm going to get a drink of beer", although you would need a Cockney for an explanation of why 'tiddley wink of pig's ear' was thought to be an improvement on 'drink of beer'. 'Pig's ear' rhymes with 'beer' and that's usually enough for rhyming slang. Franklin's Dictionary of Rhyming Slang lists several alternatives for 'beer' - 'Charlie Freer', 'far and near', 'never fear', 'oh my dear', 'red steer', 'Crimea', and 'fusilier' but 'pig's ear' has always been the most popular.
The version 'in a pig's ear' is also perplexing. It originated in the USA in the 1850s as a variant of 'in a pig's eye'. Both phrases were used as expressions of incredulous disbelief and have the same meaning as 'tell it to the marines'. They may possibly be related to 'pigs might fly'. See this link for more on 'in a pig's ear'.
'Make a pig's ear' is a mid 20th century phrase and means 'completely botch something up; make a complete mess of it'. This is first found in print in a 1950 edition of the Reader's Digest:
"If you make a pig's ear of the first one, you can try the other one."
The expression derives from the old proverb 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear', which dates from the 16th century. The English clergyman Stephen Gosson published the romantic story Ephemerides in 1579 and in it referred to people who were engaged in a hopeless task:
"Seekinge too make a silke purse of a Sowes eare."
'Make a pig's ear of' alludes to what might be the result if someone did try to make something from a sow's ear - not a silk purse but a complete mess.
As 'pig's ear' - Cockney rhyming slang for beer.
As 'in a pig's ear' - an expression of disbelief.
As 'make a pig's ear of ' - make a mess or muddle.
Origin
The Cockney rhyming slang version of 'pig's ear' is easiest to explain. It's one of the earliest examples of the form and appears in D. W. Barrett's Life & Work among Navvies, 1880:
"Now, Jack, I'm goin' to get a tiddley wink of pig's ear."
That's easy enough to decipher as "I'm going to get a drink of beer", although you would need a Cockney for an explanation of why 'tiddley wink of pig's ear' was thought to be an improvement on 'drink of beer'. 'Pig's ear' rhymes with 'beer' and that's usually enough for rhyming slang. Franklin's Dictionary of Rhyming Slang lists several alternatives for 'beer' - 'Charlie Freer', 'far and near', 'never fear', 'oh my dear', 'red steer', 'Crimea', and 'fusilier' but 'pig's ear' has always been the most popular.
The version 'in a pig's ear' is also perplexing. It originated in the USA in the 1850s as a variant of 'in a pig's eye'. Both phrases were used as expressions of incredulous disbelief and have the same meaning as 'tell it to the marines'. They may possibly be related to 'pigs might fly'. See this link for more on 'in a pig's ear'.
'Make a pig's ear' is a mid 20th century phrase and means 'completely botch something up; make a complete mess of it'. This is first found in print in a 1950 edition of the Reader's Digest:
"If you make a pig's ear of the first one, you can try the other one."
The expression derives from the old proverb 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear', which dates from the 16th century. The English clergyman Stephen Gosson published the romantic story Ephemerides in 1579 and in it referred to people who were engaged in a hopeless task:
"Seekinge too make a silke purse of a Sowes eare."
'Make a pig's ear of' alludes to what might be the result if someone did try to make something from a sow's ear - not a silk purse but a complete mess.
A norange
Origin
In 1914, the Danish grammarian Otto Jespersen coined the term 'metanalysis'. That's rather a dry start to a piece on what is a lively and intriguing facet of the English language. To find out what prompted Jespersen to believe that we needed a new word, let's bring in a stage prop - the humble orange.
Many sources will tell you that oranges were originally called noranges and that 'a norange' migrated to being called 'an orange'. Well, like so much folk etymology, that's not true, but there is a germ of truth in it. There never has been a word 'norange' in English, although there very nearly was.
The climate in England doesn't qualify it as a specialist orange-growing area and the fruit were first imported there in the 14th century. Oranges originated in South-east Asia and when they arrived in Persia and Spain they were given the names 'narang' and 'naranja' respectively. As they got nearer to England, and hence nearer to requiring a name in English, they lost the 'n'. This on happened their journey through France, where they were known as 'pomme d'orenge'.
In English, the indefinite article may be 'a' or 'an', depending on whether it is followed by a word which starts with a consonant or a vowel. When the consonant is an 'n', we may run into the 'a norange'/'an orange' confusion. It was this displacement of a letter from one word to another that Jespersen took an interest in and named 'metanalysis'. Mediaeval words like 'a napperon', 'a nuncle' and 'a nadder' could easily be confused in everyday speech with 'an apron', 'an uncle' and 'an adder' - and they were. The earlier forms aren't now used.
The misaligning of word boundaries can go the other way too, with the 'n' being added rather than lost. The best-known examples of that are 'nickname' and 'newt', which were originally 'an eke-name' and 'an ewt'.
It's easy for us to see these examples now as obvious errors, but bear in mind that the changing of words based on confusion about where words start and end took place before dictionaries or even printing and reading were commonplace. When we come across new words now it is just as likely that we see them in print as to hear them spoken. If we had to rely on speech alone we might now be coining mutations like 'an erd' or 'a Niphone'.
In 1914, the Danish grammarian Otto Jespersen coined the term 'metanalysis'. That's rather a dry start to a piece on what is a lively and intriguing facet of the English language. To find out what prompted Jespersen to believe that we needed a new word, let's bring in a stage prop - the humble orange.
Many sources will tell you that oranges were originally called noranges and that 'a norange' migrated to being called 'an orange'. Well, like so much folk etymology, that's not true, but there is a germ of truth in it. There never has been a word 'norange' in English, although there very nearly was.
The climate in England doesn't qualify it as a specialist orange-growing area and the fruit were first imported there in the 14th century. Oranges originated in South-east Asia and when they arrived in Persia and Spain they were given the names 'narang' and 'naranja' respectively. As they got nearer to England, and hence nearer to requiring a name in English, they lost the 'n'. This on happened their journey through France, where they were known as 'pomme d'orenge'.
In English, the indefinite article may be 'a' or 'an', depending on whether it is followed by a word which starts with a consonant or a vowel. When the consonant is an 'n', we may run into the 'a norange'/'an orange' confusion. It was this displacement of a letter from one word to another that Jespersen took an interest in and named 'metanalysis'. Mediaeval words like 'a napperon', 'a nuncle' and 'a nadder' could easily be confused in everyday speech with 'an apron', 'an uncle' and 'an adder' - and they were. The earlier forms aren't now used.
The misaligning of word boundaries can go the other way too, with the 'n' being added rather than lost. The best-known examples of that are 'nickname' and 'newt', which were originally 'an eke-name' and 'an ewt'.
It's easy for us to see these examples now as obvious errors, but bear in mind that the changing of words based on confusion about where words start and end took place before dictionaries or even printing and reading were commonplace. When we come across new words now it is just as likely that we see them in print as to hear them spoken. If we had to rely on speech alone we might now be coining mutations like 'an erd' or 'a Niphone'.
What you see is what you get (wysiwyg)
Meaning
A computer screen display which appears on screen as it will be seen when printed on paper.
Origin
'Wysiwyg', pronounced 'whizzywig', is one of the best-known of all acronyms. It is generally supposed that the phrase 'what you see is what you get', the acronym 'wysiwyg' and the computer interface that they referred to emerged in close succession. This isn't the case; each of those elements has its own independent genesis.
Firstly, the phrase. 'What you see is what you get' is widely reported as being coined by Flip Wilson in performances as his drag character Geraldine in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In in the late 1960s and then later on The Flip Wilson Show. Wilson certainly popularized the expression but it was already in general use before he adopted it as a catchphrase. A form of the phrase had been used by advertisers in the USA since at least the 1940s to indicate a straightforward, no-fuss form of trading. An advert for a Filmo Sportster camera in The Charleston Gazette came close to 'what you see is what you get' in November 1949:
You just sight, press a button and what you see, you get!
The precise phrase came into print some years later. For instance, this text from an advert for a house sale, in The Oakland Tribune, May 1966:
"So with the exception of landscaping and decorator furnishings, what you see is what you get."
Next comes the acronym 'wysiwyg'. This is generally thought to have been coined from the phrase and in reference to the graphical computer user interfaces that were emerging from Xerox PARC in the 1970s, but it isn't known who first used the acronym in that context. The first such reference that I can find comes surprisingly late, in Byte magazine, April 1982:
'What you see is what you get' (or WYSIWYG) refers to the situation in which the display screen portrays an accurate rendition of the printed page.
However, he first citation I have found of the acronym in print comes several years earlier in a non-computer related context. In January 1972, a student business competition was organised in Victoria, Texas and an account of it published in the local newspaper the Victoria Advocate on the 23rd January. Each team of students chose a name for the dummy businesses that they were going to manage. They were clearly encouraged to use acronyms, as the names they chose were:
SPOT - Selling Products of Tomorrow
LIFE - Lets Insure Future Existence
WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get
So, unless earlier computer related citations are found - which would that seem unlikely as the first wysiwyg software didn't emerge until after 1972 - the prize for coining 'wysiwyg' goes to a bunch of Texan high school kids, not to the boffins of Palo Alto.
'What you see is what you get' later came to be used in a general context, often by individuals - like Flip Wilson's Geraldine - to describe themselves. It is shorthand for 'I may be a plain-speaking rough diamond, but I have no hidden agenda - let my reputation precede me', in the same way that people used to say 'take me as you find me'. The British entrepreneur Sir Alan Sugar is known for such an attitude and used 'What You See Is What You Get' as the title of his autobiography.
A computer screen display which appears on screen as it will be seen when printed on paper.
Origin
'Wysiwyg', pronounced 'whizzywig', is one of the best-known of all acronyms. It is generally supposed that the phrase 'what you see is what you get', the acronym 'wysiwyg' and the computer interface that they referred to emerged in close succession. This isn't the case; each of those elements has its own independent genesis.
Firstly, the phrase. 'What you see is what you get' is widely reported as being coined by Flip Wilson in performances as his drag character Geraldine in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In in the late 1960s and then later on The Flip Wilson Show. Wilson certainly popularized the expression but it was already in general use before he adopted it as a catchphrase. A form of the phrase had been used by advertisers in the USA since at least the 1940s to indicate a straightforward, no-fuss form of trading. An advert for a Filmo Sportster camera in The Charleston Gazette came close to 'what you see is what you get' in November 1949:
You just sight, press a button and what you see, you get!
The precise phrase came into print some years later. For instance, this text from an advert for a house sale, in The Oakland Tribune, May 1966:
"So with the exception of landscaping and decorator furnishings, what you see is what you get."
Next comes the acronym 'wysiwyg'. This is generally thought to have been coined from the phrase and in reference to the graphical computer user interfaces that were emerging from Xerox PARC in the 1970s, but it isn't known who first used the acronym in that context. The first such reference that I can find comes surprisingly late, in Byte magazine, April 1982:
'What you see is what you get' (or WYSIWYG) refers to the situation in which the display screen portrays an accurate rendition of the printed page.
However, he first citation I have found of the acronym in print comes several years earlier in a non-computer related context. In January 1972, a student business competition was organised in Victoria, Texas and an account of it published in the local newspaper the Victoria Advocate on the 23rd January. Each team of students chose a name for the dummy businesses that they were going to manage. They were clearly encouraged to use acronyms, as the names they chose were:
SPOT - Selling Products of Tomorrow
LIFE - Lets Insure Future Existence
WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get
So, unless earlier computer related citations are found - which would that seem unlikely as the first wysiwyg software didn't emerge until after 1972 - the prize for coining 'wysiwyg' goes to a bunch of Texan high school kids, not to the boffins of Palo Alto.
'What you see is what you get' later came to be used in a general context, often by individuals - like Flip Wilson's Geraldine - to describe themselves. It is shorthand for 'I may be a plain-speaking rough diamond, but I have no hidden agenda - let my reputation precede me', in the same way that people used to say 'take me as you find me'. The British entrepreneur Sir Alan Sugar is known for such an attitude and used 'What You See Is What You Get' as the title of his autobiography.
Double dutch
Meaning
Nonsense; gibberish - a language one cannot understand.
Origin
There are a host of phrases in English that include the word 'Dutch'; that's hardly surprising as The Netherlands is just a few miles across the sea from England. We don't have anything like as many expressions that include 'French', so why the interest in 'Dutch'? Two reasons: trade and war.
Both England and Holland (which is what most people call The Netherlands), have a vigorous and wide-ranging maritime trading tradition that dates back to the 16th century. England imported many commodities from Holland and gave them 'Dutch' names. The first of these imports was 'Dutch sauce', which we now call Hollandaise. Claudius Hollyband referred to this in the French Schoole Maister, 1573:
Will you eate of a Pike with a high dutche sauce?
Many other examples followed:
Dutch cheese - first used in 1700.
Dutch barn - 1742.
Dutch hoe - 1742.
Dutch oven - 1769.
The Anglo-Dutch wars of the 17th and 18th centuries were acrimonious even by the usual standards of war. Following the conflicts the English came to hold the Dutch in very low regard and as a consequence there are numerous English phrases which portray them in an unflattering light, often as skinflints or drunkards. The common strand in all of these disparaging 'Dutch' expressions is that anything Dutch is the opposite of what it ought to be. Examples of these expressions are:
Dutch bargain - a bargain made when one is debilitated by drink - first recorded in 1654.
Dutch defence - a legal defence in which the defendant seeks clemency by deceitfully betraying others - 1749.
Dutch comfort - cold comfort; only good because things could have been worse - 1796.
Dutch metal/Dutch gold - a cheap alloy resembling gold - 1825.
Dutch courage - brash bravery induced by drink - 1826.
Dutch treat - no treat as such; each person pays for their own expenses - 1887.
Added to that list is 'double Dutch'. The Anglo-Dutch wars were a very long time ago and we are all friends now, but at this point we can introduce another reason for the English to have held on so long to hostile stereotyping of the Dutch, that is, the link with the UK's 20th century military rivals, the Germans. 'Dutch' was originally the generic name for both Germans and, as they were formally called, Hollanders. High Dutch was the language of southern Germany and Low Dutch the language of The Netherlands.
Double Dutch is in fact a synonym for High Dutch and as such is a slur on the Germans rather than the Dutch, although the distinction may not have been apparent to the average 18th century English sailor. Charles Dibdin was the first to allude to the incomprehensibility of the language, in Collected Songs, 1790:
Why, I heard our good chaplain palaver one day,
About souls, heaven, mercy and such;
And, my timbers! what lingo he'd coil and belay,-
Why, 'twas just all as one as High Dutch.
The earliest example of 'double Dutch' that I have found is in John Davis' Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America, 1803, in which the author spoke to a colleague in Welsh:
"Mr Adams - What devil language is that? Is it double Dutch coiled against the sun?"
The coiling that was referred to in both the above citations was the winding of rope. Sailors called anti-clockwise winding 'coiling against the sun'. This was generally disparaged and an indication that 'double Dutch' was the linguistic equivalent of a badly coiled rope. Most of the early citations of 'double Dutch' are in their full form 'double Dutch coiled against the sun'. We can safely assume that what was meant by 'double Dutch' was 'Dutch that is malformed and twisted' rather than 'Dutch, twice over'.
Nonsense; gibberish - a language one cannot understand.
Origin
There are a host of phrases in English that include the word 'Dutch'; that's hardly surprising as The Netherlands is just a few miles across the sea from England. We don't have anything like as many expressions that include 'French', so why the interest in 'Dutch'? Two reasons: trade and war.
Both England and Holland (which is what most people call The Netherlands), have a vigorous and wide-ranging maritime trading tradition that dates back to the 16th century. England imported many commodities from Holland and gave them 'Dutch' names. The first of these imports was 'Dutch sauce', which we now call Hollandaise. Claudius Hollyband referred to this in the French Schoole Maister, 1573:
Will you eate of a Pike with a high dutche sauce?
Many other examples followed:
Dutch cheese - first used in 1700.
Dutch barn - 1742.
Dutch hoe - 1742.
Dutch oven - 1769.
The Anglo-Dutch wars of the 17th and 18th centuries were acrimonious even by the usual standards of war. Following the conflicts the English came to hold the Dutch in very low regard and as a consequence there are numerous English phrases which portray them in an unflattering light, often as skinflints or drunkards. The common strand in all of these disparaging 'Dutch' expressions is that anything Dutch is the opposite of what it ought to be. Examples of these expressions are:
Dutch bargain - a bargain made when one is debilitated by drink - first recorded in 1654.
Dutch defence - a legal defence in which the defendant seeks clemency by deceitfully betraying others - 1749.
Dutch comfort - cold comfort; only good because things could have been worse - 1796.
Dutch metal/Dutch gold - a cheap alloy resembling gold - 1825.
Dutch courage - brash bravery induced by drink - 1826.
Dutch treat - no treat as such; each person pays for their own expenses - 1887.
Added to that list is 'double Dutch'. The Anglo-Dutch wars were a very long time ago and we are all friends now, but at this point we can introduce another reason for the English to have held on so long to hostile stereotyping of the Dutch, that is, the link with the UK's 20th century military rivals, the Germans. 'Dutch' was originally the generic name for both Germans and, as they were formally called, Hollanders. High Dutch was the language of southern Germany and Low Dutch the language of The Netherlands.
Double Dutch is in fact a synonym for High Dutch and as such is a slur on the Germans rather than the Dutch, although the distinction may not have been apparent to the average 18th century English sailor. Charles Dibdin was the first to allude to the incomprehensibility of the language, in Collected Songs, 1790:
Why, I heard our good chaplain palaver one day,
About souls, heaven, mercy and such;
And, my timbers! what lingo he'd coil and belay,-
Why, 'twas just all as one as High Dutch.
The earliest example of 'double Dutch' that I have found is in John Davis' Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America, 1803, in which the author spoke to a colleague in Welsh:
"Mr Adams - What devil language is that? Is it double Dutch coiled against the sun?"
The coiling that was referred to in both the above citations was the winding of rope. Sailors called anti-clockwise winding 'coiling against the sun'. This was generally disparaged and an indication that 'double Dutch' was the linguistic equivalent of a badly coiled rope. Most of the early citations of 'double Dutch' are in their full form 'double Dutch coiled against the sun'. We can safely assume that what was meant by 'double Dutch' was 'Dutch that is malformed and twisted' rather than 'Dutch, twice over'.
'Jack' phrases
The origin of the many phrases that contain the name JackIf it is true, as I'm sure it is, that the phrases in a language define a culture's interests and preoccupations then the English-speaking world must be fascinated by people. English phrases frequently include names. Some of these refer to actual individuals, for example, 'Gordon Bennett!', 'Sweet Fanny Adams' and the numerous people referred to in Cockney rhyming slang, but more often than not the person referred to is imaginary. Examples of phrases that include invented names are 'the life of Riley', 'heavens to Betsy' and 'moaning Minnie'.
Jack appears in more phrases than does any other name. That might be expected as Jack is a colloquial form of John and, for the period in which the majority of these phrases were coined, John was the most common boy's name amongst English speakers. Jack was the generic name for the common man; a lad, a fellow, a chap, but also with the hint of knave or likeable rogue. 'John' appears in our phrases and sayings hardly at all and this is probably because 'Jack' was considered the more interesting character. The use of 'Jack' with the meaning of 'young rogue' dates back to the 16th century and examples are known from Nicholas Udall and others in Middle English. An early example in a form of English that is easily accessible to us now is found in Shakespeare's Taming of Shrew, circa 1616:
A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jacke.
Some well-known linguistic Jacks are:
- Jack the Lad - a self-assured young man who is a bit of a rogue. This is the archetypal Jack; young, roguish and male. See more about Jack the Lad...
- Jack Tar - sailors coated their clothes and the ropes of their ships to make them weatherproof. They even smeared their hair and beards to avoid stray wisps getting caught in the rigging. What better name for sailors than Jack Tar?
- Jack of all trades - the common man, who will turn his hand to any form of work. See more about Jack of all trades...
- Jack Robinson - in the phrase 'Before you can say Jack Robinson'. Possibly a rare example of a Jack that was a real person. See more about Jack Robinson...
- All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy - this proverbial expression has been known since 1670.
Jack was the name given to many of the sprites, imps and supernatural creatures that were imagined to have human form, for example, Jack Frost (an imp that nips our ears and toes with cold), Jack o' lantern (a fairy that lives in hedges), Jack-in-irons (a malevolent giant).
Jacks, being typically young and mischievous, feature strongly in nursery rhymes, for example, Little Jack Horner, Jack Sprat and Jack and Jill. The latter two of these pre-date their appearance in nursery rhyme. Jack Sprat was the name given to any dwarf from the 16th century onward and Jack and Jill was used as the name of any young couple as early as the 1450s.
Cockney Rhyming Slang has an association with roguish street trading and is another linguistic area where Jacks flourish. Examples are: Jack Palancing (dancing), On your Jack (Jones > alone), Jack-in-the box (pox), Jack Randle (candle).
I've not listed every man Jack as there are so many - the OED includes over hundred of them. Time to jack it in I think.
Jack appears in more phrases than does any other name. That might be expected as Jack is a colloquial form of John and, for the period in which the majority of these phrases were coined, John was the most common boy's name amongst English speakers. Jack was the generic name for the common man; a lad, a fellow, a chap, but also with the hint of knave or likeable rogue. 'John' appears in our phrases and sayings hardly at all and this is probably because 'Jack' was considered the more interesting character. The use of 'Jack' with the meaning of 'young rogue' dates back to the 16th century and examples are known from Nicholas Udall and others in Middle English. An early example in a form of English that is easily accessible to us now is found in Shakespeare's Taming of Shrew, circa 1616:
A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jacke.
Some well-known linguistic Jacks are:
- Jack the Lad - a self-assured young man who is a bit of a rogue. This is the archetypal Jack; young, roguish and male. See more about Jack the Lad...
- Jack Tar - sailors coated their clothes and the ropes of their ships to make them weatherproof. They even smeared their hair and beards to avoid stray wisps getting caught in the rigging. What better name for sailors than Jack Tar?
- Jack of all trades - the common man, who will turn his hand to any form of work. See more about Jack of all trades...
- Jack Robinson - in the phrase 'Before you can say Jack Robinson'. Possibly a rare example of a Jack that was a real person. See more about Jack Robinson...
- All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy - this proverbial expression has been known since 1670.
Jack was the name given to many of the sprites, imps and supernatural creatures that were imagined to have human form, for example, Jack Frost (an imp that nips our ears and toes with cold), Jack o' lantern (a fairy that lives in hedges), Jack-in-irons (a malevolent giant).
Jacks, being typically young and mischievous, feature strongly in nursery rhymes, for example, Little Jack Horner, Jack Sprat and Jack and Jill. The latter two of these pre-date their appearance in nursery rhyme. Jack Sprat was the name given to any dwarf from the 16th century onward and Jack and Jill was used as the name of any young couple as early as the 1450s.
Cockney Rhyming Slang has an association with roguish street trading and is another linguistic area where Jacks flourish. Examples are: Jack Palancing (dancing), On your Jack (Jones > alone), Jack-in-the box (pox), Jack Randle (candle).
I've not listed every man Jack as there are so many - the OED includes over hundred of them. Time to jack it in I think.
Pony up
Meaning
Pay money, especially a payment that is in arrears.
Origin
'Pony up' is very much an American phrase and most people in the USA will know its meaning, whereas elsewhere in the English-speaking world the expression is rarely used. In the UK we are more likely to 'stump up' and in Australia and New Zealand money is 'fronted up'. So what have ponies got to do with paying money?
A pony is of course a small horse and that meaning has been in use since the mid-1600s. The word has several other slang meanings, including:
- A small measure of alcohol (British, first documented in 1708)
- A short crib sheet or study aid (American, 1827)
- Twenty-five pounds (British slang, 1797)
- An abridged news report (American, 1877)
In the 1950s, 'pony' was also adopted as Cockney Rhyming Slang for 'rubbish; nonsense'. The full version of the rhyme is 'pony and trap' - and I'll leave it to you to figure out what 'trap' rhymes with.
The first use of 'pony up' in print that I can find is in the Connecticut publication The Rural Magazine, May 1819:
The afternoon, before the evening, the favoured gentlemen are walking rapidly into the merchant-tailors shops, and very slowly out, unless they ponied up the Spanish [the money].
It is most likely that the expression was coined in the USA, but a claim can also be made for a British origin. 'Pony up' was recorded in the UK in the 19th century, in Thomas Darlington's glossary Folk-speech of South Cheshire, 1887:
Pony, to pay. To 'pony out' = 'stump out'; a slang term.
Clearly, that is later than the American first usage, but how long it had been in vernacular use in England before Darlington recorded it is difficult to say. It is unlikely that the term migrated to Cheshire from the USA; migrations, of people and of language, were largely in the other direction at that date.
Whatever the location of the first use, it is clear from the 'pay money' meaning of 'pony up' that the pony in question is some form of currency or donation. The British 'twenty five pounds' meaning is a possibility, but seems rather too specific an amount; after all we can 'pony up' any amount. In fact, none of the numerous meanings of 'pony' appear to fit the bill and it may be that we are backing the wrong horse.
Enter stage right, a dark horse of another colour. The English quarter day of March 25th was the day that debts were settled and payments were made. The first two words of the fifth division of Psalm 119, which was always sung at Matins on the 25th day of the month, are 'Legem pone'. The term became associated with the payment of debts and was used as an allusive expression for 'payment of money; cash down'. That meaning of 'legem pone' was recorded as early as 1570 by Thomas Tusser in Hundreth Good Pointes Husbandry:
Use Legem pone to pay at thy day,
Was that the source of the term 'pony up' and should we really be spelling it 'pone up'? Well, we don't know for certain but, in a two-horse race, it seems a better place for your money than the eponymous pony.
Pay money, especially a payment that is in arrears.
Origin
'Pony up' is very much an American phrase and most people in the USA will know its meaning, whereas elsewhere in the English-speaking world the expression is rarely used. In the UK we are more likely to 'stump up' and in Australia and New Zealand money is 'fronted up'. So what have ponies got to do with paying money?
A pony is of course a small horse and that meaning has been in use since the mid-1600s. The word has several other slang meanings, including:
- A small measure of alcohol (British, first documented in 1708)
- A short crib sheet or study aid (American, 1827)
- Twenty-five pounds (British slang, 1797)
- An abridged news report (American, 1877)
In the 1950s, 'pony' was also adopted as Cockney Rhyming Slang for 'rubbish; nonsense'. The full version of the rhyme is 'pony and trap' - and I'll leave it to you to figure out what 'trap' rhymes with.
The first use of 'pony up' in print that I can find is in the Connecticut publication The Rural Magazine, May 1819:
The afternoon, before the evening, the favoured gentlemen are walking rapidly into the merchant-tailors shops, and very slowly out, unless they ponied up the Spanish [the money].
It is most likely that the expression was coined in the USA, but a claim can also be made for a British origin. 'Pony up' was recorded in the UK in the 19th century, in Thomas Darlington's glossary Folk-speech of South Cheshire, 1887:
Pony, to pay. To 'pony out' = 'stump out'; a slang term.
Clearly, that is later than the American first usage, but how long it had been in vernacular use in England before Darlington recorded it is difficult to say. It is unlikely that the term migrated to Cheshire from the USA; migrations, of people and of language, were largely in the other direction at that date.
Whatever the location of the first use, it is clear from the 'pay money' meaning of 'pony up' that the pony in question is some form of currency or donation. The British 'twenty five pounds' meaning is a possibility, but seems rather too specific an amount; after all we can 'pony up' any amount. In fact, none of the numerous meanings of 'pony' appear to fit the bill and it may be that we are backing the wrong horse.
Enter stage right, a dark horse of another colour. The English quarter day of March 25th was the day that debts were settled and payments were made. The first two words of the fifth division of Psalm 119, which was always sung at Matins on the 25th day of the month, are 'Legem pone'. The term became associated with the payment of debts and was used as an allusive expression for 'payment of money; cash down'. That meaning of 'legem pone' was recorded as early as 1570 by Thomas Tusser in Hundreth Good Pointes Husbandry:
Use Legem pone to pay at thy day,
Was that the source of the term 'pony up' and should we really be spelling it 'pone up'? Well, we don't know for certain but, in a two-horse race, it seems a better place for your money than the eponymous pony.
Fathom out
Meaning
To ascertain something; to deduce from the facts.
Origin
A fathom is one of those units of linear measurement that we learned at school (at least we did when I was at an English grammar school in the 14th century) and now can't quite remember just what length they refer to. There's the furlong (a 'furrow long', or the length of a mediaeval field - about 220 yards), the rod or pole or perch (all the same measurement - of five paces), the cubit (from the elbow to the fingertips). These peculiarly named units are matched in their imprecision by the fathom, which is the span encompassed by the outstretched arms from fingertip to fingertip - about six feet. Naturally, not everyone's arms were the same length and so the fathom wasn't an agreed distance. The woolliness over the definition of the term is illustrated in Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia, 1728:
There are three kinds of Fathoms. The first, which is that of Men of War, contains six Feet: The middling, or that of Merchant Ships, five Feet, and a half; and the small one, used in Fluyts, Flyboats, and other Fishing-vessels, only five Feet.
When we say that we fathom something now we mean that we grasp or understand it. In the Middle Ages to fathom something was, in keeping with the literal 'fingertip to fingertip' meaning of the word, to encircle it with the arms. From the 14th century onward, people who embraced each other were said to be fathoming. That meaning has now fallen out of use, which at least spares us from daily 'fathom and tell' stories in our tabloid newspapers.
'Fathoming out' refers to measuring by using the outstretched arms, a usage that dates back to at least the 16th century; for example, this piece from Richard Eden's The Decades of the Newe Worlde, 1555:
Seuen men... with theyr armes streached furthe were scarsely able too fathame them [trees] aboute.
As time went by 'to fathom' began to mean 'to get to the bottom of' or 'to take soundings about'. This probably derives from the most commonly believed derivation of 'fathoming out', which is the measuring of the depth of water beneath a ship by use of a weight fixed to a rope marked out in fathoms. This 'sounding out' was known both literally and figuratively by the early 17th century; for example, this literal usage, recorded in Sir William Brereton's Travels in Holland, 1634:
Fathoming the depth of the water over against Brill, we found it there where the buoys are placed to warn all seamen of the danger of that passage, that we had not above two feet more water than the ship drew.
Philip Massinger's comic play A New Way to Pay Old Debts, 1633, makes a figurative use of 'fathoming', that is, a usage that makes no explicit reference to distance but which moves the meaning of 'fathoming' from 'getting the measure of' to 'understanding':
The Statesman beleeues he fathomes The counsels of all Kingdomes on the earth.
Fathoms are so strongly associated with seafaring that it seems unecessary to look any further than the nautical measurement as the source of 'fathom out', especially as this form of measuring was still commonplace when the term was coined.
To ascertain something; to deduce from the facts.
Origin
A fathom is one of those units of linear measurement that we learned at school (at least we did when I was at an English grammar school in the 14th century) and now can't quite remember just what length they refer to. There's the furlong (a 'furrow long', or the length of a mediaeval field - about 220 yards), the rod or pole or perch (all the same measurement - of five paces), the cubit (from the elbow to the fingertips). These peculiarly named units are matched in their imprecision by the fathom, which is the span encompassed by the outstretched arms from fingertip to fingertip - about six feet. Naturally, not everyone's arms were the same length and so the fathom wasn't an agreed distance. The woolliness over the definition of the term is illustrated in Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia, 1728:
There are three kinds of Fathoms. The first, which is that of Men of War, contains six Feet: The middling, or that of Merchant Ships, five Feet, and a half; and the small one, used in Fluyts, Flyboats, and other Fishing-vessels, only five Feet.
When we say that we fathom something now we mean that we grasp or understand it. In the Middle Ages to fathom something was, in keeping with the literal 'fingertip to fingertip' meaning of the word, to encircle it with the arms. From the 14th century onward, people who embraced each other were said to be fathoming. That meaning has now fallen out of use, which at least spares us from daily 'fathom and tell' stories in our tabloid newspapers.
'Fathoming out' refers to measuring by using the outstretched arms, a usage that dates back to at least the 16th century; for example, this piece from Richard Eden's The Decades of the Newe Worlde, 1555:
Seuen men... with theyr armes streached furthe were scarsely able too fathame them [trees] aboute.
As time went by 'to fathom' began to mean 'to get to the bottom of' or 'to take soundings about'. This probably derives from the most commonly believed derivation of 'fathoming out', which is the measuring of the depth of water beneath a ship by use of a weight fixed to a rope marked out in fathoms. This 'sounding out' was known both literally and figuratively by the early 17th century; for example, this literal usage, recorded in Sir William Brereton's Travels in Holland, 1634:
Fathoming the depth of the water over against Brill, we found it there where the buoys are placed to warn all seamen of the danger of that passage, that we had not above two feet more water than the ship drew.
Philip Massinger's comic play A New Way to Pay Old Debts, 1633, makes a figurative use of 'fathoming', that is, a usage that makes no explicit reference to distance but which moves the meaning of 'fathoming' from 'getting the measure of' to 'understanding':
The Statesman beleeues he fathomes The counsels of all Kingdomes on the earth.
Fathoms are so strongly associated with seafaring that it seems unecessary to look any further than the nautical measurement as the source of 'fathom out', especially as this form of measuring was still commonplace when the term was coined.
If the shoe fits, wear it
Meaning
If a description applies to you, then accept it.
This expression is often used when something derogatory is said about a person who then complains to a third party. The third party, if they agree with the original negative comment, might suggest "If the shoe fits, then wear it". An example of that might be:
Jack: Just because I've missed two or three sessions, my fitness trainer says I lack motivation.
Jill: Well, if the shoe fits, wear it.
Origin
'If the shoe fits, wear it' is often shortened to 'If the shoe fits...', leaving the listener to fill in the blank. The expression is the American version of the earlier British phrase 'If the cap fits, wear it', which is also still in general use. Daniel Defoe used the earlier phrase in the satirical poem The Dyet of Poland. Defoe had the work printed in London in 1705 but, as it was a rather vehement critique of the English parliament, Defoe used the flimsy pretence that it had been printed in Dantzig and was the work of 'Angliopoloski of Lithuania'. Defoe's point in the poem was that readers are responsible for their own opinions; he (or rather Angliopoloski) may have written the poem but that any conclusions drawn from it were owned by the reader, not him:
Gentlemen, and if the Cap fits any Body let 'em wear it.
'If the cap fits' is itself a version of a yet earlier phrase 'if the cloak sitteth fit', that is, 'if the cloak fits well'. This expression dates from the 16th century and was used in print by Richard Hooker in Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, 1593:
Which cloake sitteth no lesse fit on the backe of their cause, then of the Anabaptists.
The 'cloak' version of the phrase does suggest that the later 'cap' was a variant of 'cape'.
As to 'if the shoe fits', that began being used in the late 18th century. The earliest example that I have found in print is from the US newspaper the New York Gazette & Weekly Mercury, May 1773:
Why should Mr. Vanderbeck apply a general comparison to himself? Let those whom the shoe fits wear it.
The change from cap to shoe may well have been influenced by the Cinderella story, which has a snug-fitting slipper as the primary plot device. Versions of the tale that include the 'lost slipper' scenario were well known in the USA and Europe by 1773. In 1634, Giambattista Basile, published Il Pentamerone, a popular collection of Italian folk tales. One of the stories, Cenerentola, is the basis of the Cinderella story as we now know it, complete with wicked stepmother, ugly sisters and a missing slipper.
Many expressions, for example, 'toe the line', 'get off your high horse' etc., were first used literally and their metaphorical meaning came later. 'If the shoe fits' is a rarity in that it has gone the other way - having been used for centuries in a figurative sense, its most common usage now is in shoe shop advertising slogans.
If a description applies to you, then accept it.
This expression is often used when something derogatory is said about a person who then complains to a third party. The third party, if they agree with the original negative comment, might suggest "If the shoe fits, then wear it". An example of that might be:
Jack: Just because I've missed two or three sessions, my fitness trainer says I lack motivation.
Jill: Well, if the shoe fits, wear it.
Origin
'If the shoe fits, wear it' is often shortened to 'If the shoe fits...', leaving the listener to fill in the blank. The expression is the American version of the earlier British phrase 'If the cap fits, wear it', which is also still in general use. Daniel Defoe used the earlier phrase in the satirical poem The Dyet of Poland. Defoe had the work printed in London in 1705 but, as it was a rather vehement critique of the English parliament, Defoe used the flimsy pretence that it had been printed in Dantzig and was the work of 'Angliopoloski of Lithuania'. Defoe's point in the poem was that readers are responsible for their own opinions; he (or rather Angliopoloski) may have written the poem but that any conclusions drawn from it were owned by the reader, not him:
Gentlemen, and if the Cap fits any Body let 'em wear it.
'If the cap fits' is itself a version of a yet earlier phrase 'if the cloak sitteth fit', that is, 'if the cloak fits well'. This expression dates from the 16th century and was used in print by Richard Hooker in Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, 1593:
Which cloake sitteth no lesse fit on the backe of their cause, then of the Anabaptists.
The 'cloak' version of the phrase does suggest that the later 'cap' was a variant of 'cape'.
As to 'if the shoe fits', that began being used in the late 18th century. The earliest example that I have found in print is from the US newspaper the New York Gazette & Weekly Mercury, May 1773:
Why should Mr. Vanderbeck apply a general comparison to himself? Let those whom the shoe fits wear it.
The change from cap to shoe may well have been influenced by the Cinderella story, which has a snug-fitting slipper as the primary plot device. Versions of the tale that include the 'lost slipper' scenario were well known in the USA and Europe by 1773. In 1634, Giambattista Basile, published Il Pentamerone, a popular collection of Italian folk tales. One of the stories, Cenerentola, is the basis of the Cinderella story as we now know it, complete with wicked stepmother, ugly sisters and a missing slipper.
Many expressions, for example, 'toe the line', 'get off your high horse' etc., were first used literally and their metaphorical meaning came later. 'If the shoe fits' is a rarity in that it has gone the other way - having been used for centuries in a figurative sense, its most common usage now is in shoe shop advertising slogans.
Bunny boiler
Meaning
An obsessive and dangerous female, in pursuit of a lover who has spurned her.
Origin
The expression 'bunny boiler' derives from the 1987 film Fatal Attraction, written by James Dearden and Nicholas Meyer. The plot centres around Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) obsessively pursuing her ex-lover Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas). The phrase comes from the plot device whereby Forrest, in a fit of frenzied jealousy, boils her erstwhile lover's daughter's pet rabbit. Gallagher's suspicions should have become aroused earlier, when Forrest was trying to persuade him to meet her, when she said "Bring the dog, I love animals... I'm a great cook."
At the time that the phrase first came into general use it referred to someone unable to remain rational at the end of a romantic relationship. Very quickly that usage became moderated and it came to be used, often with some degree of irony, in much less extreme situations. Any needy, possessive or even just mildly annoying woman is now liable to be described as a 'bunny boiler'.
The phrase is the modern equivalent of the woman referred to in the expression 'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned' which, in the competition for 'best-known phrases attributed to Shakespeare that were actually by someone else', runs 'music has charms to soothe the savage breast' into a close second place. Both these phrases were coined by William Congreve in 1697, in the play The Mourning Bride. For reasons that I'll leave others to explain, it is only women who are thought to become unhinged by being what is now graphically known as 'being dumped'. There's no male equivalent of 'a women scorned' or a 'bunny boiler'.
As 'bunny boiler' is a recent phrase with such a clear source we are able to trace how it has found its way into popular use. It wasn't directly from the film, as the epithet isn't used in the dialogue, nor any of the advertising blurb used to promote it. As to who coined it, that's not clear, although it may well have been Glenn Close. The first use of it in print is from an interview Close gave to the US magazine the Ladies' Home Journal, reported in the Dallas Morning News on 6th December 1990:
"There's nothing like portraying a psychopathic bunny-boiler to boost one's self-esteem, Glenn Close tells Ladies' Home Journal."
Popular phrases that have found their way into the language since the emergence of the Internet appear first in online discussion groups, blogs and online newspapers. The earliest large archive of online colloquial messages is that of USENET groups, but Bunny boiler isn't found there until 1994, nor does it appear more than once or twice in the archives of US or British newspapers before that date.
If the phrase were a commercial product then marketing people would say that it reached its target audience in 1994. It certainly saw a sudden and widespread use from then onwards and is now a commonly used phrase. Fatal Attraction was released in 1987 and Close referred to the phrase in 1990. Newly coined terms appear to spread in the community like viruses and, like flu viruses, they float around in the populace until they reach a threshold of infected cases, above which they spread rapidly. It appears that 'bunny boiler' got to that point sometime in 1994.
An obsessive and dangerous female, in pursuit of a lover who has spurned her.
Origin
The expression 'bunny boiler' derives from the 1987 film Fatal Attraction, written by James Dearden and Nicholas Meyer. The plot centres around Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) obsessively pursuing her ex-lover Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas). The phrase comes from the plot device whereby Forrest, in a fit of frenzied jealousy, boils her erstwhile lover's daughter's pet rabbit. Gallagher's suspicions should have become aroused earlier, when Forrest was trying to persuade him to meet her, when she said "Bring the dog, I love animals... I'm a great cook."
At the time that the phrase first came into general use it referred to someone unable to remain rational at the end of a romantic relationship. Very quickly that usage became moderated and it came to be used, often with some degree of irony, in much less extreme situations. Any needy, possessive or even just mildly annoying woman is now liable to be described as a 'bunny boiler'.
The phrase is the modern equivalent of the woman referred to in the expression 'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned' which, in the competition for 'best-known phrases attributed to Shakespeare that were actually by someone else', runs 'music has charms to soothe the savage breast' into a close second place. Both these phrases were coined by William Congreve in 1697, in the play The Mourning Bride. For reasons that I'll leave others to explain, it is only women who are thought to become unhinged by being what is now graphically known as 'being dumped'. There's no male equivalent of 'a women scorned' or a 'bunny boiler'.
As 'bunny boiler' is a recent phrase with such a clear source we are able to trace how it has found its way into popular use. It wasn't directly from the film, as the epithet isn't used in the dialogue, nor any of the advertising blurb used to promote it. As to who coined it, that's not clear, although it may well have been Glenn Close. The first use of it in print is from an interview Close gave to the US magazine the Ladies' Home Journal, reported in the Dallas Morning News on 6th December 1990:
"There's nothing like portraying a psychopathic bunny-boiler to boost one's self-esteem, Glenn Close tells Ladies' Home Journal."
Popular phrases that have found their way into the language since the emergence of the Internet appear first in online discussion groups, blogs and online newspapers. The earliest large archive of online colloquial messages is that of USENET groups, but Bunny boiler isn't found there until 1994, nor does it appear more than once or twice in the archives of US or British newspapers before that date.
If the phrase were a commercial product then marketing people would say that it reached its target audience in 1994. It certainly saw a sudden and widespread use from then onwards and is now a commonly used phrase. Fatal Attraction was released in 1987 and Close referred to the phrase in 1990. Newly coined terms appear to spread in the community like viruses and, like flu viruses, they float around in the populace until they reach a threshold of infected cases, above which they spread rapidly. It appears that 'bunny boiler' got to that point sometime in 1994.
May you live in interesting times
Meaning
May you experience much disorder and trouble in your life.
Origin
While purporting to be a blessing, this is in fact a curse. The expression is always used ironically, with the clear implication that 'uninteresting times', of peace and tranquillity, are more life-enhancing than interesting ones.
'May you live in interesting times' is widely reported as being of ancient Chinese origin but is neither Chinese nor ancient, being recent and western. It certainly seems to have been intended to sound oriental, in the faux-Chinese 'Confucius he say' style, but that's as near to China as it actually gets. Confucius's actual sayings are as elusive as those of his western counterpart Aesop - we have no written records from either of them.
The phrase was introduced in the 20th century in the form 'interesting age' rather than 'interesting times' and appears that way in the opening remarks made by Frederic R. Coudert at the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 1939,
Some years ago, in 1936, I had to write to a very dear and honored friend of mine, who has since died, Sir Austen Chamberlain, brother of the present Prime Minister, and I concluded my letter with a rather banal remark, "that we were living in an interesting age." Evidently he read the whole letter, because by return mail he wrote to me and concluded as follows: "Many years ago, I learned from one of our diplomats in China that one of the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy is, 'May you live in an interesting age.'" "Surely", he said, "no age has been more fraught with insecurity than our own present time." That was three years ago.
This citation has to be treated with caution as Chamberlain didn't speak Chinese and never visited China, although he was in contact with diplomats stationed there during his time as British Foreign Secretary, that is, 1924-1929. We have the 1939 citation in print, so the 'interesting age' form must be at least that old. If we are to believe Coulson's assertion, the phrase dates from before 1936 and, if we trust in Chamberlain's recollection, we can push the origin back to pre-1929.
As to the currently used 'interesting times' version, we can only date that to post WWII. In a speech to the 2nd session of the US Congress in August 1946, Senator Robert Byrd addressed a remark to Harry S. Truman:
Mr. President, there is an old Chinese curse that says, 'May you live in interesting times.'
Most generations think their times are especially troubling - now as ever. Senator Byrd probably had a better reason than many to call 1940s USA 'interesting', as it was less than a year after the US's use of atomic bombs and the surrender of Japan and Germany in WWII and only a month or two after Winston Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech, made in Fulton, Missouri, warning of the rise of Soviet power.
I hope you found that interesting.
May you experience much disorder and trouble in your life.
Origin
While purporting to be a blessing, this is in fact a curse. The expression is always used ironically, with the clear implication that 'uninteresting times', of peace and tranquillity, are more life-enhancing than interesting ones.
'May you live in interesting times' is widely reported as being of ancient Chinese origin but is neither Chinese nor ancient, being recent and western. It certainly seems to have been intended to sound oriental, in the faux-Chinese 'Confucius he say' style, but that's as near to China as it actually gets. Confucius's actual sayings are as elusive as those of his western counterpart Aesop - we have no written records from either of them.
The phrase was introduced in the 20th century in the form 'interesting age' rather than 'interesting times' and appears that way in the opening remarks made by Frederic R. Coudert at the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 1939,
Some years ago, in 1936, I had to write to a very dear and honored friend of mine, who has since died, Sir Austen Chamberlain, brother of the present Prime Minister, and I concluded my letter with a rather banal remark, "that we were living in an interesting age." Evidently he read the whole letter, because by return mail he wrote to me and concluded as follows: "Many years ago, I learned from one of our diplomats in China that one of the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy is, 'May you live in an interesting age.'" "Surely", he said, "no age has been more fraught with insecurity than our own present time." That was three years ago.
This citation has to be treated with caution as Chamberlain didn't speak Chinese and never visited China, although he was in contact with diplomats stationed there during his time as British Foreign Secretary, that is, 1924-1929. We have the 1939 citation in print, so the 'interesting age' form must be at least that old. If we are to believe Coulson's assertion, the phrase dates from before 1936 and, if we trust in Chamberlain's recollection, we can push the origin back to pre-1929.
As to the currently used 'interesting times' version, we can only date that to post WWII. In a speech to the 2nd session of the US Congress in August 1946, Senator Robert Byrd addressed a remark to Harry S. Truman:
Mr. President, there is an old Chinese curse that says, 'May you live in interesting times.'
Most generations think their times are especially troubling - now as ever. Senator Byrd probably had a better reason than many to call 1940s USA 'interesting', as it was less than a year after the US's use of atomic bombs and the surrender of Japan and Germany in WWII and only a month or two after Winston Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech, made in Fulton, Missouri, warning of the rise of Soviet power.
I hope you found that interesting.
For good measure
Meaning
As an additional extra.
Origin
'Good measure' has been part of the language since the first English-speaking 'purveyor of fyne goodes' set up shop, and it just means 'an ample or generous quantity of that which is sold by measure'.
The first instance of the expression in print is found where many other first coinages originated, in John Wyclif's Middle English translation of the Bible, circa 1384, in Luke 6:38:
Thei schulen yyue in to youre bosum a good mesure, and wel fillid, and schakun togidir, and ouerflowynge; for bi the same mesure, bi whiche ye meeten, it schal be metun ayen to you.
[They shall give into your bosom a good measure, and well-filled, and shaken together, and overflowing; for by the same measure, by which ye mete, it shall be meted again to you.]
We might expect the extended term 'in good measure' to refer to an abundance of something. In fact, its rather the reverse. 'Measured' also means 'moderate; restrained' and if a person acts 'in good measure' they are being especially temperate in their actions. As it happens, Wyclif was also one of the first to put that meaning of 'good measure' into print, in a collection of sermons known as Controversial Tracks, circa 1400, which was directed at the clergy:
Ye shulden lyue on ye puple in good mesure as Paul biddin.
[You be sustained by the people in moderation, as St. Paul bids you.]
It wasn't until much later that the use of the phrase 'good measure' returned to its original 'ample' meaning. In the 19th century people began to express the idea of things being 'thrown in for good measure', that is, added as a complimentary extra portion. In 1811, the British mathematician Patrick Kelly wrote The Universal Cambist, which was an exhaustive study of the weights and measures in use in different parts of the world and a method of converting from one to another. In the notes on Swedish measurement he included:
Corn, and other dry commodities, are measured by Tunnor. The Tunne is divided into 32 Kappar. But to every Tunna of wheat 4 Kappar are allowed for good measure.
Before long, the expression 'for good measure' began to be used figuratively, that is, in circumstances where no actual measurement was taking place. An example appears in the May 1850 edition of the American magazineLittell's Living Age, in a report of a public flogging in California:
'Give him another for good measure' - 'Hit him again' - were the sounds which greeted his ears.
'For good measure' might appear to be linked to the 'Baker's dozen', as both phrases express the notion of a little extra being added above the absolute requirement. In fact, the two phrases aren't connected, 'Baker's dozen' being much older. While the extra that was added 'for good measure' was added willingly, the extra that made up a Baker's dozen was added under threat of severe punishment. In mediaeval England, being light in the loaves was as risky as being 'light in the loafers' was prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1967 Sexual Offences Act.
As an additional extra.
Origin
'Good measure' has been part of the language since the first English-speaking 'purveyor of fyne goodes' set up shop, and it just means 'an ample or generous quantity of that which is sold by measure'.
The first instance of the expression in print is found where many other first coinages originated, in John Wyclif's Middle English translation of the Bible, circa 1384, in Luke 6:38:
Thei schulen yyue in to youre bosum a good mesure, and wel fillid, and schakun togidir, and ouerflowynge; for bi the same mesure, bi whiche ye meeten, it schal be metun ayen to you.
[They shall give into your bosom a good measure, and well-filled, and shaken together, and overflowing; for by the same measure, by which ye mete, it shall be meted again to you.]
We might expect the extended term 'in good measure' to refer to an abundance of something. In fact, its rather the reverse. 'Measured' also means 'moderate; restrained' and if a person acts 'in good measure' they are being especially temperate in their actions. As it happens, Wyclif was also one of the first to put that meaning of 'good measure' into print, in a collection of sermons known as Controversial Tracks, circa 1400, which was directed at the clergy:
Ye shulden lyue on ye puple in good mesure as Paul biddin.
[You be sustained by the people in moderation, as St. Paul bids you.]
It wasn't until much later that the use of the phrase 'good measure' returned to its original 'ample' meaning. In the 19th century people began to express the idea of things being 'thrown in for good measure', that is, added as a complimentary extra portion. In 1811, the British mathematician Patrick Kelly wrote The Universal Cambist, which was an exhaustive study of the weights and measures in use in different parts of the world and a method of converting from one to another. In the notes on Swedish measurement he included:
Corn, and other dry commodities, are measured by Tunnor. The Tunne is divided into 32 Kappar. But to every Tunna of wheat 4 Kappar are allowed for good measure.
Before long, the expression 'for good measure' began to be used figuratively, that is, in circumstances where no actual measurement was taking place. An example appears in the May 1850 edition of the American magazineLittell's Living Age, in a report of a public flogging in California:
'Give him another for good measure' - 'Hit him again' - were the sounds which greeted his ears.
'For good measure' might appear to be linked to the 'Baker's dozen', as both phrases express the notion of a little extra being added above the absolute requirement. In fact, the two phrases aren't connected, 'Baker's dozen' being much older. While the extra that was added 'for good measure' was added willingly, the extra that made up a Baker's dozen was added under threat of severe punishment. In mediaeval England, being light in the loaves was as risky as being 'light in the loafers' was prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1967 Sexual Offences Act.
Like it or lump it
Meaning
Said of an unpleasant outcome that one has no choice but to accept - one can either endure it willingly or endure it with suffering.
Origin
When we are given a fait accompli in a situation in which we would normally expect some sort of choice, we might not be too pleased about it. We may then be told to 'like it or lump it'. Had the expression been coined in the 16th century this is no doubt what Thomas Hobson would have said to his prospective customers when he offered them 'Hobson's choice'.
But how exactly do we 'lump' something? Although 'lump' is almost always used as a noun rather than a verb, there are many meanings of the verb form of 'lump' to choose from:
- To bet all of one's money on a single wager (first recorded in the 19th century)
- To make something into a lump (18th century)
- To classify various things as a group, i.e. lump them together (17th century)
- To slouch along lazily (17th century)
- To look sulky or disagreeable (16th century)
Of course, it is the last of these lumps that is the alternative to 'like it'.
'Lumping' in the sense of mooching about grumpily may well be of Irish origin and is first recorded in Richard Stanyhurst's Treatise Describing Irelande, 1577. The Dublin born Stanyhurst risked the wrath of his contemporaries by suggesting that the English rule in Ireland wasn't the source of all their troubles:
Here percase some snappish carper will snuffinglie snib me for debasing the Irish language: because that by proofe and experience we see, that the pale was neuer in more florishing estate than when it was wholie English, and neuer in woorsse plight than since it hath infranchised the Irish. But some will saie, that I shew my selfe herein as friuolous... They stand lumping and lowring, fretting and fuming.
[Note: Stanyhurst's expressive phrase 'snuffingly snib' means 'rebuke in a snorting manner'.]
[Note: see also 'Beyond the pale'.]
Soon afterwards, in 1581, Barnaby Rich used the term in Farewell to Military Profession:
She beganne to froune, lumpe, and lowre at her housebande.
Rich was a naval captain and undoubtedly English, but most of his writing related to Ireland and he moved to Dublin to write on his retirement from the Navy.
People had been lumping it for a few hundred years before anyone thought of the phrase 'like it or lump it'. A play on words between the noun and verb usages of the word lump was what brought it about. The early uses of the expression refer to things that have lumps in them, as in this example from the London magazine The Monthly Mirror, 1807, in a piece titled Rules For Punning:
Mrs. ...purposely sends a dish of tea to a lady, without sugar, of which she complains.
Mr. ...(Handing the sugar basin) - Well, ma'am, if you don't like it, you may lump it.
The English love of wordplay is long lasting, some might say chronic, and Zadie Smith made the same little joke in her novel White Teeth, 2000:
We're all English now, mate. Like it or lump it, as the rhubarb said to the custard.
The first example that I can find of the precise 'like it or lump it' wording of the expression is in Specimens, 1841, Josiah Shippey's book of morally uplifting essays, which were delivered in the form of tortured rhyming couplets, worthy of William McGonagall:
Yet his merit, though some may be ignorant of it,
And as he by it wishes each one may profit;
Imperiously forces, or like it or lump it,
Himself, honest fellow, to blow his own trumpet.
Said of an unpleasant outcome that one has no choice but to accept - one can either endure it willingly or endure it with suffering.
Origin
When we are given a fait accompli in a situation in which we would normally expect some sort of choice, we might not be too pleased about it. We may then be told to 'like it or lump it'. Had the expression been coined in the 16th century this is no doubt what Thomas Hobson would have said to his prospective customers when he offered them 'Hobson's choice'.
But how exactly do we 'lump' something? Although 'lump' is almost always used as a noun rather than a verb, there are many meanings of the verb form of 'lump' to choose from:
- To bet all of one's money on a single wager (first recorded in the 19th century)
- To make something into a lump (18th century)
- To classify various things as a group, i.e. lump them together (17th century)
- To slouch along lazily (17th century)
- To look sulky or disagreeable (16th century)
Of course, it is the last of these lumps that is the alternative to 'like it'.
'Lumping' in the sense of mooching about grumpily may well be of Irish origin and is first recorded in Richard Stanyhurst's Treatise Describing Irelande, 1577. The Dublin born Stanyhurst risked the wrath of his contemporaries by suggesting that the English rule in Ireland wasn't the source of all their troubles:
Here percase some snappish carper will snuffinglie snib me for debasing the Irish language: because that by proofe and experience we see, that the pale was neuer in more florishing estate than when it was wholie English, and neuer in woorsse plight than since it hath infranchised the Irish. But some will saie, that I shew my selfe herein as friuolous... They stand lumping and lowring, fretting and fuming.
[Note: Stanyhurst's expressive phrase 'snuffingly snib' means 'rebuke in a snorting manner'.]
[Note: see also 'Beyond the pale'.]
Soon afterwards, in 1581, Barnaby Rich used the term in Farewell to Military Profession:
She beganne to froune, lumpe, and lowre at her housebande.
Rich was a naval captain and undoubtedly English, but most of his writing related to Ireland and he moved to Dublin to write on his retirement from the Navy.
People had been lumping it for a few hundred years before anyone thought of the phrase 'like it or lump it'. A play on words between the noun and verb usages of the word lump was what brought it about. The early uses of the expression refer to things that have lumps in them, as in this example from the London magazine The Monthly Mirror, 1807, in a piece titled Rules For Punning:
Mrs. ...purposely sends a dish of tea to a lady, without sugar, of which she complains.
Mr. ...(Handing the sugar basin) - Well, ma'am, if you don't like it, you may lump it.
The English love of wordplay is long lasting, some might say chronic, and Zadie Smith made the same little joke in her novel White Teeth, 2000:
We're all English now, mate. Like it or lump it, as the rhubarb said to the custard.
The first example that I can find of the precise 'like it or lump it' wording of the expression is in Specimens, 1841, Josiah Shippey's book of morally uplifting essays, which were delivered in the form of tortured rhyming couplets, worthy of William McGonagall:
Yet his merit, though some may be ignorant of it,
And as he by it wishes each one may profit;
Imperiously forces, or like it or lump it,
Himself, honest fellow, to blow his own trumpet.
Blood, sweat and tears
Meaning
Hard work and effort in difficult circumstances.
Origin
The expression 'blood, sweat and tears' is usually said to have been coined by Sir Winston Churchill in his famous "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech in 1940, when he warned the British people of the hardships to come in fighting WWII. Each country seems to have a shortlist of people to whom they attribute colourful quotations that lack an accredited author. In the USA the sage of choice is Mark Twain; in Ireland, Oscar Wilde and in England, Winston Churchill. However, it wasn't Churchill who coined 'blood, sweat and tears' - ultimately it is has a biblical source.
The first occurrence of the expression that I can find in print is in Sermons on Various Subjects by Christmas Evans, translated from the Welsh by J. Davis, 1837:
Christ the High Priest of our profession, when he laid down his life for us on Calvary, was bathed in his own blood, sweat and tears.
Evans, a.k.a. 'The John Bunyan of Wales' (25 December 1766 - 1838) was an eccentric but widely admired preacher. We can't now be sure if it was he who coined the phrase or his translator. Either way, we can be sure that the phrase was in the language by 1837.
Christmas Evans knew the Bible by heart and was no doubt influenced in his choice of words by this passage from The King James Bible, Luke 22:44:
And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
Churchill, although no great theological scholar, borrowed 'blood, sweat and tears' for his famous wartime speech and can certainly take the credit for the popular take-up of the phrase into everyday language.
Al Cooper picked up on the phrase as the name for his new jazz-rock band in 1967. Cooper could hardly have known how apt a choice it was. The band has gone through more disagreements, sackings and changes of direction than most, with at least 140 musicians having been members at some point.
Many of the things Churchill is supposed to have said are wrongly attributed. One of the better ones that can be verified is his exchange with the socialite and politician Nancy Astor:
Astor: Winston, if I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee!
Churchill: And if I were your husband I would drink it.
My favourite Churchillism is a supposed reply to an unwelcome letter that has all the hallmarks of the man's work but is probably apocryphal:
"Dear Sir, I am in the smallest room in the house and your letter is before me. Very soon it will be behind me."
Hard work and effort in difficult circumstances.
Origin
The expression 'blood, sweat and tears' is usually said to have been coined by Sir Winston Churchill in his famous "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech in 1940, when he warned the British people of the hardships to come in fighting WWII. Each country seems to have a shortlist of people to whom they attribute colourful quotations that lack an accredited author. In the USA the sage of choice is Mark Twain; in Ireland, Oscar Wilde and in England, Winston Churchill. However, it wasn't Churchill who coined 'blood, sweat and tears' - ultimately it is has a biblical source.
The first occurrence of the expression that I can find in print is in Sermons on Various Subjects by Christmas Evans, translated from the Welsh by J. Davis, 1837:
Christ the High Priest of our profession, when he laid down his life for us on Calvary, was bathed in his own blood, sweat and tears.
Evans, a.k.a. 'The John Bunyan of Wales' (25 December 1766 - 1838) was an eccentric but widely admired preacher. We can't now be sure if it was he who coined the phrase or his translator. Either way, we can be sure that the phrase was in the language by 1837.
Christmas Evans knew the Bible by heart and was no doubt influenced in his choice of words by this passage from The King James Bible, Luke 22:44:
And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
Churchill, although no great theological scholar, borrowed 'blood, sweat and tears' for his famous wartime speech and can certainly take the credit for the popular take-up of the phrase into everyday language.
Al Cooper picked up on the phrase as the name for his new jazz-rock band in 1967. Cooper could hardly have known how apt a choice it was. The band has gone through more disagreements, sackings and changes of direction than most, with at least 140 musicians having been members at some point.
Many of the things Churchill is supposed to have said are wrongly attributed. One of the better ones that can be verified is his exchange with the socialite and politician Nancy Astor:
Astor: Winston, if I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee!
Churchill: And if I were your husband I would drink it.
My favourite Churchillism is a supposed reply to an unwelcome letter that has all the hallmarks of the man's work but is probably apocryphal:
"Dear Sir, I am in the smallest room in the house and your letter is before me. Very soon it will be behind me."
Loose cannon
Meaning
An unpredictable person or thing, liable to cause damage if not kept in check by others.
Origin
Between the 17th and 19th centuries wooden warships carried cannon as their primary offensive weapons. In order to avoid damage from their enormous recoil when fired they were mounted on rollers and secured with rope. A loose cannon was just what it sounds like, that is, a cannon that had become free of its restraints and was rolling dangerously about the deck.
As with many nautical phrases, the use of 'loose cannon' owes something to the imagination as no evidence has come to light to indicate that the phrase was used by sailors in the days that ships actually carried cannon. The imagination in question belonged to Victor Hugo who set the scene in the novel Ninety Three, 1874. A translation of the French original describes cannon being tossed about following a violent incident onboard ship:
"The carronade, hurled forward by the pitching, dashed into this knot of men, and crushed four at the first blow; then, flung back and shot out anew by the rolling, it cut in two a fifth poor fellow... The enormous cannon was left alone. She was given up to herself. She was her own mistress, and mistress of the vessel. She could do what she willed with both."
Henry Kingsley picked up this reference in his novel Number Seventeen, 1875, in which he made the first use of the term 'loose cannon' in English:
"At once, of course, the ship was in the trough of the sea, a more fearfully dangerous engine of destruction than Mr. Victor Hugo’s celebrated loose cannon."
The earliest figurative use of 'loose cannon' in print that I can find is from The Galveston Daily News, December 1889:
The negro vote in the south is a unit now mainly because it is opposed by the combined white vote. It would in no event become, as Mr. Grady once said, "a loose cannon in a storm-tossed ship."
The phrase might have dwindled into obscurity in the 20th century but for the intervention of the US president Theodore Roosevelt. William White was a noted US journalist and politician around the turn of the 20th century and was a close friend of Roosevelt. White's Autobiography, published soon after his death in 1944 contained the following reminiscence:
He [Roosevelt] said: "I don't want to be the old cannon loose on the deck in the storm".
As I suggested, nautical terms are rife with romanticism and another term in which items are imagined to be rolling about the deck of a sailing ship (incorrectly in this case) is 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'.
An unpredictable person or thing, liable to cause damage if not kept in check by others.
Origin
Between the 17th and 19th centuries wooden warships carried cannon as their primary offensive weapons. In order to avoid damage from their enormous recoil when fired they were mounted on rollers and secured with rope. A loose cannon was just what it sounds like, that is, a cannon that had become free of its restraints and was rolling dangerously about the deck.
As with many nautical phrases, the use of 'loose cannon' owes something to the imagination as no evidence has come to light to indicate that the phrase was used by sailors in the days that ships actually carried cannon. The imagination in question belonged to Victor Hugo who set the scene in the novel Ninety Three, 1874. A translation of the French original describes cannon being tossed about following a violent incident onboard ship:
"The carronade, hurled forward by the pitching, dashed into this knot of men, and crushed four at the first blow; then, flung back and shot out anew by the rolling, it cut in two a fifth poor fellow... The enormous cannon was left alone. She was given up to herself. She was her own mistress, and mistress of the vessel. She could do what she willed with both."
Henry Kingsley picked up this reference in his novel Number Seventeen, 1875, in which he made the first use of the term 'loose cannon' in English:
"At once, of course, the ship was in the trough of the sea, a more fearfully dangerous engine of destruction than Mr. Victor Hugo’s celebrated loose cannon."
The earliest figurative use of 'loose cannon' in print that I can find is from The Galveston Daily News, December 1889:
The negro vote in the south is a unit now mainly because it is opposed by the combined white vote. It would in no event become, as Mr. Grady once said, "a loose cannon in a storm-tossed ship."
The phrase might have dwindled into obscurity in the 20th century but for the intervention of the US president Theodore Roosevelt. William White was a noted US journalist and politician around the turn of the 20th century and was a close friend of Roosevelt. White's Autobiography, published soon after his death in 1944 contained the following reminiscence:
He [Roosevelt] said: "I don't want to be the old cannon loose on the deck in the storm".
As I suggested, nautical terms are rife with romanticism and another term in which items are imagined to be rolling about the deck of a sailing ship (incorrectly in this case) is 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'.
In the sticks
Meaning
In the country; especially the unsophisticated backwoods.
Origin
'Stick' is one of the older words in English. It dates from around the 10th century and was first put into print in Old English Leechdoms, 1150, with the meaning of 'a slender branch or twig of a tree when cut or broken off':
grennne sticcan hæslenne [freshly cut hazel twigs]
In the following thousand years, all manner of thin pointed objects have been called sticks - ships' masts, conductors' batons, cricket stumps, cigarettes, violin bows, French loaves, and so on. As befits such commonplace objects, sticks have made their way into many phrases - 'over the sticks' (horse racing over fences), 'between the sticks' (football goalposts), 'up sticks' (move one's tent'), 'sticks and stones may break my bones' and so on.
'In the sticks' is just a reference to an area where there are lots of twigs, i.e. the countryside. It was first an American expression but is now used throughout the English-speaking world. The earliest citation of it that I have found is from the US newspaper the Florence Times Daily, November 1897:
... he gathered from 1 1/2 acres this year 21 barrels of corn. If any man "away in the sticks" can beat this, in the language of "Philander Doesticks," we exclaim, "let him stand forward to de rear."
For a time, the phrase became specifically associated with baseball. 'The sticks' were exhibition games, played in county locations, which baseball players organised to supplement their income outside the main season. It was not allowed by the rules of the US Baseball Commission, but the rules weren't often strictly applied. The practice was referred to in the Daily Colonist, October 1921:
"Judge Landis has not yet consigned Babe Ruth to oblivion for playing in the sticks for exhibition money."
The best known reference to 'the sticks' in any newspaper was the 'Sticks Nix Hick Pix' headline in Variety, 17th July 1935. This was a famously succinct expression of the opinion that 'people in the backwoods [sticks] aren't interested [nix] in films [pix] about rural [hick] issues'. Four does seem to be just about the minimum number of words needed to express that idea.
In the country; especially the unsophisticated backwoods.
Origin
'Stick' is one of the older words in English. It dates from around the 10th century and was first put into print in Old English Leechdoms, 1150, with the meaning of 'a slender branch or twig of a tree when cut or broken off':
grennne sticcan hæslenne [freshly cut hazel twigs]
In the following thousand years, all manner of thin pointed objects have been called sticks - ships' masts, conductors' batons, cricket stumps, cigarettes, violin bows, French loaves, and so on. As befits such commonplace objects, sticks have made their way into many phrases - 'over the sticks' (horse racing over fences), 'between the sticks' (football goalposts), 'up sticks' (move one's tent'), 'sticks and stones may break my bones' and so on.
'In the sticks' is just a reference to an area where there are lots of twigs, i.e. the countryside. It was first an American expression but is now used throughout the English-speaking world. The earliest citation of it that I have found is from the US newspaper the Florence Times Daily, November 1897:
... he gathered from 1 1/2 acres this year 21 barrels of corn. If any man "away in the sticks" can beat this, in the language of "Philander Doesticks," we exclaim, "let him stand forward to de rear."
For a time, the phrase became specifically associated with baseball. 'The sticks' were exhibition games, played in county locations, which baseball players organised to supplement their income outside the main season. It was not allowed by the rules of the US Baseball Commission, but the rules weren't often strictly applied. The practice was referred to in the Daily Colonist, October 1921:
"Judge Landis has not yet consigned Babe Ruth to oblivion for playing in the sticks for exhibition money."
The best known reference to 'the sticks' in any newspaper was the 'Sticks Nix Hick Pix' headline in Variety, 17th July 1935. This was a famously succinct expression of the opinion that 'people in the backwoods [sticks] aren't interested [nix] in films [pix] about rural [hick] issues'. Four does seem to be just about the minimum number of words needed to express that idea.
Forlorn hope
Meaning
A hopeless or desperate enterprise.
Origin
Lack of hope must have been a commonplace feeling amongst the English in the 19th century as they coined a variety of phrases to express it - 'not a hope in Hell', 'some hopes', 'what a hope' etc. To that list we might add 'forlorn hope'; but that would be an incorrect addition as it turns out.
'Forlorn' derives from 'forlese', which just means 'lose', so 'forlorn hope' just means 'lost hope', which is the way it was understood in the 19th century, as it is now. That's not how it was in the 16th century, when a forlorn hope wasn't a world-weary feeling but a robust and gung-ho band of soldiers.
Each troop in the British Army had a hand-picked group of soldiers, chosen for their ferocity and indifference to risk (and occasionally by using that tried and tested army method of "I want three volunteers. That's you, you and you."). They were the army's 'attack dogs' who risked all in reckless death or glory raids on the enemy.
The Anglo-Norman terms 'avant-garde' and 'reregard', were adopted into English as 'vanguard' and 'rearguard' in the 14th century. They were the names of the forces that attacked from the front and protected the rear respectively. It seems reasonable to expect a group called the 'avant-garde' to be the first into battle but before them came the 'Forlorn Hope'. These soldiers, also called the 'forlorn boys' or 'forlorn fellows', were given little hope of survival by their peers. Lord Byron summed up the mind-set of the troop in the epic poem The Siege of Corinth, 1816:
The foremost of the fierce assault.
The bands are rank'd; the chosen van
Of Tartar and of Mussulman,
The full of hope, misnamed "forlorn,"
Who hold the thought of death in scorn,
The first mention of them in print is found in Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande, 1577:
Fortie or fiftie forlorne boies.
Soon afterwards, the method of attack was described in John Dymmok's A Treatise of Ireland, circa 1600:
Before the vantguarde marched the forelorn hope consisting of 40 shott and 20 shorte weapons, with order that they should not discharge vntil they presented theire peeces to the rebel breasts in their trenches, and that sooddenly the shorte weapons should enter the trenches pell mell.
The choice of the name 'Forlorn Hope' for a group of soldiers who had little chance of survival seems straightforward and intuitive. Again, things aren't as they seem. The term was originally Dutch and the equivalent combative groups in Holland were called the 'Verloren Hoop', literally 'lost troop'. A bit of impromptu mistranslation amongst the British military turned this into 'Forlorn Hope'. The British Navy went a step further and their wildmen were known as the 'Flowing Hope'. Added to the 'Forlorn Hope' was the 'Rearlorn Hope'. These performed the same task whenever the rearguard was called on to retreat.
Although the original meaning of 'forlorn hope' is largely lost to us now, it was still in use in 1920 when John Galsworthy wrote in The Forsyte Saga:
"And round Crum were still gathered a forlorn hope of blue-bloods with a plutocratic following".
The figurative meaning of 'forlorn hope', which describes someone in a hopeless plight but without any mention of warfare, overlapped with the original meaning for some years. In 1768, in Narrative of Travels in Patagonia, John Byron described the predicament of being forced to leave a group of his colleagues behind to certain death on an inhospitable island:
We saw them a little after, setting out upon their forlorn hope, and helping one another over a hideous tract of rocks.
As time progressed, a forlorn hope was thought of as something one experienced rather than something one belonged to. The 'rearlorn hope' took no such linguistic journey and has stayed exclusively within the army.
A hopeless or desperate enterprise.
Origin
Lack of hope must have been a commonplace feeling amongst the English in the 19th century as they coined a variety of phrases to express it - 'not a hope in Hell', 'some hopes', 'what a hope' etc. To that list we might add 'forlorn hope'; but that would be an incorrect addition as it turns out.
'Forlorn' derives from 'forlese', which just means 'lose', so 'forlorn hope' just means 'lost hope', which is the way it was understood in the 19th century, as it is now. That's not how it was in the 16th century, when a forlorn hope wasn't a world-weary feeling but a robust and gung-ho band of soldiers.
Each troop in the British Army had a hand-picked group of soldiers, chosen for their ferocity and indifference to risk (and occasionally by using that tried and tested army method of "I want three volunteers. That's you, you and you."). They were the army's 'attack dogs' who risked all in reckless death or glory raids on the enemy.
The Anglo-Norman terms 'avant-garde' and 'reregard', were adopted into English as 'vanguard' and 'rearguard' in the 14th century. They were the names of the forces that attacked from the front and protected the rear respectively. It seems reasonable to expect a group called the 'avant-garde' to be the first into battle but before them came the 'Forlorn Hope'. These soldiers, also called the 'forlorn boys' or 'forlorn fellows', were given little hope of survival by their peers. Lord Byron summed up the mind-set of the troop in the epic poem The Siege of Corinth, 1816:
The foremost of the fierce assault.
The bands are rank'd; the chosen van
Of Tartar and of Mussulman,
The full of hope, misnamed "forlorn,"
Who hold the thought of death in scorn,
The first mention of them in print is found in Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande, 1577:
Fortie or fiftie forlorne boies.
Soon afterwards, the method of attack was described in John Dymmok's A Treatise of Ireland, circa 1600:
Before the vantguarde marched the forelorn hope consisting of 40 shott and 20 shorte weapons, with order that they should not discharge vntil they presented theire peeces to the rebel breasts in their trenches, and that sooddenly the shorte weapons should enter the trenches pell mell.
The choice of the name 'Forlorn Hope' for a group of soldiers who had little chance of survival seems straightforward and intuitive. Again, things aren't as they seem. The term was originally Dutch and the equivalent combative groups in Holland were called the 'Verloren Hoop', literally 'lost troop'. A bit of impromptu mistranslation amongst the British military turned this into 'Forlorn Hope'. The British Navy went a step further and their wildmen were known as the 'Flowing Hope'. Added to the 'Forlorn Hope' was the 'Rearlorn Hope'. These performed the same task whenever the rearguard was called on to retreat.
Although the original meaning of 'forlorn hope' is largely lost to us now, it was still in use in 1920 when John Galsworthy wrote in The Forsyte Saga:
"And round Crum were still gathered a forlorn hope of blue-bloods with a plutocratic following".
The figurative meaning of 'forlorn hope', which describes someone in a hopeless plight but without any mention of warfare, overlapped with the original meaning for some years. In 1768, in Narrative of Travels in Patagonia, John Byron described the predicament of being forced to leave a group of his colleagues behind to certain death on an inhospitable island:
We saw them a little after, setting out upon their forlorn hope, and helping one another over a hideous tract of rocks.
As time progressed, a forlorn hope was thought of as something one experienced rather than something one belonged to. The 'rearlorn hope' took no such linguistic journey and has stayed exclusively within the army.
Abracadabra
Meaning
An exclamation used by conjurors when performing a trick.
Origin
When stage conjurors and magicians come to the finale of a trick and exclaim 'Abracadabra!' the implication is that a mysterious power is being summoned to perform the required magic. In our information age, in which it is possible to look up how virtually any stunt is staged, we don't take the claims of magical powers too seriously. That wasn't the case when the word abracadabra was first in common use.
Mediaeval folk believed in magic as an everyday fact and any unusual event that they couldn't explain was considered to be the result of some form of enchantment. They used the incantation 'Abracadabra' to ward off such bewitchment and as a remedy for poor health. The word was recited repeatedly, each time with the final letter being removed, until just 'a' remained. It was believed that the strength of the illness diminished as the word became shorter. The charm was also written out on paper and worn in an amulet or sewn into clothing.
No one is sure as to the origin of the strange word 'abracadabra'. It is known to have been in use in 4th century Latin but there are several theories that place the derivation before that, including:
Roman sages, notably Serenus Sammonicus, coined the word and devised the repeated word formula in the 2nd century AD.
It being related to another magical word - 'abraxas'. In the Greek system of alphabetic numerology this word is significant in that it contains letters that add up to 365, the number of days in the year.
The word is of Hebrew or Aramaic origin, being derived from the Hebrew words 'ab' (father), 'ben' (son), and 'ruach acadosch' (holy spirit) or the Aramaic for 'demon' respectively.
Sadly, none of these theories stands up to close examination and actual documentary evidence is as insubstantial as those fragments of mediaeval paper.
A reference in print to the use of the word in English that dates back to 1582 is found in Eva Rimmington Taylor's The Troublesome Voyage of Capt. Edward Fenton:
Banester sayth yt he healed 200 in one yer of an ague by hanging abracadabra about their necks.
The belief in the power of the word lasted well into the 18th century. In his Journal of the Plague Year, 1722, Daniel Defoe was saddened by the continuing superstition of the populace when faced with the threat of plague:
People deceiv'd; and this was in wearing Charms, Philters, Exorcisms, Amulets, and I know not what Preparations, to fortify the Body with them against the Plague; as if the Plague was but a kind of a Possession of an evil Spirit; and that it was to be kept off with Crossings, Signs of the Zodiac, Papers tied up with so many Knots; and certain Words, or Figures written on them, as particularly the Word Abracadabra, form'd in Triangle, or Pyramid...
How the poor People found the Insufficiency of those things, and how many of them were afterwards carried away in the Dead-Carts.
Over time, the belief in the power of 'abracadabra' receded and in the 19th century it came to mean 'fake magic'. Terms like 'legal abracadabra' were used to denote the flummoxing of juries by fast-talking lawyers. Stage conjurors then adopted it into their inventory of the 'magic' words they used to punctuate their acts and the first known usage of it in that context dates from 1819.
Some of these words, like 'hocus-pocus' (1634), 'abraxas' (1569) and 'hey presto' (1732) have a long history and a link to supernatural beliefs. Others, like hey-presto's American form 'presto changeo' (1905) and 'shazam' (1940) are pure stage patter.
Younger readers may be familiar with the 'killing curse' from the Harry Potter books - 'avada kedavra', which appears to merge 'abracadabra' and 'cadaver'. UK residents of a certain age will always prefer the 'magic' spiel of Sooty and Sweep's mentor Harry Corbett - 'Izzy, Wizzy, let's get busy'
An exclamation used by conjurors when performing a trick.
Origin
When stage conjurors and magicians come to the finale of a trick and exclaim 'Abracadabra!' the implication is that a mysterious power is being summoned to perform the required magic. In our information age, in which it is possible to look up how virtually any stunt is staged, we don't take the claims of magical powers too seriously. That wasn't the case when the word abracadabra was first in common use.
Mediaeval folk believed in magic as an everyday fact and any unusual event that they couldn't explain was considered to be the result of some form of enchantment. They used the incantation 'Abracadabra' to ward off such bewitchment and as a remedy for poor health. The word was recited repeatedly, each time with the final letter being removed, until just 'a' remained. It was believed that the strength of the illness diminished as the word became shorter. The charm was also written out on paper and worn in an amulet or sewn into clothing.
No one is sure as to the origin of the strange word 'abracadabra'. It is known to have been in use in 4th century Latin but there are several theories that place the derivation before that, including:
Roman sages, notably Serenus Sammonicus, coined the word and devised the repeated word formula in the 2nd century AD.
It being related to another magical word - 'abraxas'. In the Greek system of alphabetic numerology this word is significant in that it contains letters that add up to 365, the number of days in the year.
The word is of Hebrew or Aramaic origin, being derived from the Hebrew words 'ab' (father), 'ben' (son), and 'ruach acadosch' (holy spirit) or the Aramaic for 'demon' respectively.
Sadly, none of these theories stands up to close examination and actual documentary evidence is as insubstantial as those fragments of mediaeval paper.
A reference in print to the use of the word in English that dates back to 1582 is found in Eva Rimmington Taylor's The Troublesome Voyage of Capt. Edward Fenton:
Banester sayth yt he healed 200 in one yer of an ague by hanging abracadabra about their necks.
The belief in the power of the word lasted well into the 18th century. In his Journal of the Plague Year, 1722, Daniel Defoe was saddened by the continuing superstition of the populace when faced with the threat of plague:
People deceiv'd; and this was in wearing Charms, Philters, Exorcisms, Amulets, and I know not what Preparations, to fortify the Body with them against the Plague; as if the Plague was but a kind of a Possession of an evil Spirit; and that it was to be kept off with Crossings, Signs of the Zodiac, Papers tied up with so many Knots; and certain Words, or Figures written on them, as particularly the Word Abracadabra, form'd in Triangle, or Pyramid...
How the poor People found the Insufficiency of those things, and how many of them were afterwards carried away in the Dead-Carts.
Over time, the belief in the power of 'abracadabra' receded and in the 19th century it came to mean 'fake magic'. Terms like 'legal abracadabra' were used to denote the flummoxing of juries by fast-talking lawyers. Stage conjurors then adopted it into their inventory of the 'magic' words they used to punctuate their acts and the first known usage of it in that context dates from 1819.
Some of these words, like 'hocus-pocus' (1634), 'abraxas' (1569) and 'hey presto' (1732) have a long history and a link to supernatural beliefs. Others, like hey-presto's American form 'presto changeo' (1905) and 'shazam' (1940) are pure stage patter.
Younger readers may be familiar with the 'killing curse' from the Harry Potter books - 'avada kedavra', which appears to merge 'abracadabra' and 'cadaver'. UK residents of a certain age will always prefer the 'magic' spiel of Sooty and Sweep's mentor Harry Corbett - 'Izzy, Wizzy, let's get busy'
Between a rock and a hard place
Meaning
In difficulty, faced with a choice between two unsatisfactory options.
Origin
This phrase originated in the USA in the early part of the 20th century. It is the American manifestation of a phrase that exists in several forms in other cultures.
The dilemma of being in a position where one is faced with two equally unwelcome options appears to lie deep in the human psyche. Language always reflects people's preoccupations and there are several phrases that express this predicament. The first of these quite literally conveys the uncomfortable nature of the choice between two lemmas (propositions), i.e. 'on the horns of a dilemma'. Other phrases that compare two less than desirable alternatives are 'the lesser of two evils', 'between the devil and the deep blue sea', 'between Scylla and Charybdis', 'an offer you can't refuse' and 'Hobson's choice'.
The earliest known printed citation of 'between a rock and a hard place' is in the American Dialect Society's publication Dialect Notes V, 1921:
"To be between a rock and a hard place, ...to be bankrupt. Common in Arizona in recent panics; sporadic in California."
The 'recent panics' referred to in that citation are undoubtedly the events surrounding the so-called US Bankers' Panic of 1907. This financial crisis was especially damaging to the mining and railroad industries of the western states.
In 1917, the lack of funding precipitated by the earlier banking crisis led to a dispute between copper mining companies and mineworkers in Bisbee, Arizona. The workers, some of whom had organized in labour unions, approached the company management with a list of demands for better pay and conditions. These were refused and subsequently many workers at the Bisbee mines were forcibly deported to New Mexico.
It's tempting to surmise, given that the mineworkers were faced with a choice between harsh and underpaid work at the rock-face on the one hand and unemployment and poverty on the other, that this is the source of the phrase. The phrase began to be used frequently in US newspapers in the late 1930s, often with the alternative wording 'between a rock and a hard spot'.
A more recent example of the use of the expression, and one for which it seems gruesomely apt, is recounted in the 2010 film 127 Hours, which is based on Aron Ralston's book Between a Rock and a Hard Place. The memoir recounts the 127 hours that Ralston spent alone and trapped by a boulder in Robbers Roost, Utah, after a climbing accident in April 2003, eventually opting for the 'hard place' of freeing himself by cutting off part of his right arm.
In difficulty, faced with a choice between two unsatisfactory options.
Origin
This phrase originated in the USA in the early part of the 20th century. It is the American manifestation of a phrase that exists in several forms in other cultures.
The dilemma of being in a position where one is faced with two equally unwelcome options appears to lie deep in the human psyche. Language always reflects people's preoccupations and there are several phrases that express this predicament. The first of these quite literally conveys the uncomfortable nature of the choice between two lemmas (propositions), i.e. 'on the horns of a dilemma'. Other phrases that compare two less than desirable alternatives are 'the lesser of two evils', 'between the devil and the deep blue sea', 'between Scylla and Charybdis', 'an offer you can't refuse' and 'Hobson's choice'.
The earliest known printed citation of 'between a rock and a hard place' is in the American Dialect Society's publication Dialect Notes V, 1921:
"To be between a rock and a hard place, ...to be bankrupt. Common in Arizona in recent panics; sporadic in California."
The 'recent panics' referred to in that citation are undoubtedly the events surrounding the so-called US Bankers' Panic of 1907. This financial crisis was especially damaging to the mining and railroad industries of the western states.
In 1917, the lack of funding precipitated by the earlier banking crisis led to a dispute between copper mining companies and mineworkers in Bisbee, Arizona. The workers, some of whom had organized in labour unions, approached the company management with a list of demands for better pay and conditions. These were refused and subsequently many workers at the Bisbee mines were forcibly deported to New Mexico.
It's tempting to surmise, given that the mineworkers were faced with a choice between harsh and underpaid work at the rock-face on the one hand and unemployment and poverty on the other, that this is the source of the phrase. The phrase began to be used frequently in US newspapers in the late 1930s, often with the alternative wording 'between a rock and a hard spot'.
A more recent example of the use of the expression, and one for which it seems gruesomely apt, is recounted in the 2010 film 127 Hours, which is based on Aron Ralston's book Between a Rock and a Hard Place. The memoir recounts the 127 hours that Ralston spent alone and trapped by a boulder in Robbers Roost, Utah, after a climbing accident in April 2003, eventually opting for the 'hard place' of freeing himself by cutting off part of his right arm.
Booby prize
Meaning
A prize given to make fun of the loser in a contest or game.
Origin
A Booby is a type of gannet. 'Boobies' has also been used as a slang term for breasts since around 1935. This booby is neither of those. The word has been used to mean dunce or nincompoop since at least the late 16th century and that's the 'booby' of 'booby prize' and 'booby trap'. The word probably derives from the Spanish word 'bobo' meaning 'fool' or 'dunce'. An example of that usage, as 'bobie', comes in The Pleasant Comodie of Patient Grissill, 1599:
Let Gwenthyan see what bobie fool loves her...
It is also found, as 'booby', in Fletcher and Massinger's comic play The Custome of the Countrey, circa 1640:
Cry you great booby.
Some etymological records have it that people were labelled as boobies because they were like the seemingly dim-witted seabirds. Actually, it was the other way about. The blue-footed avians were named boobies by the 17th century sailors who first came across them in the eastern Pacific because they didn't attempt to escape when approached. Thomas Herbert recorded this apparently stupid and 'booby-like' behaviour in the travelogue Relation Travails, 1634:
One of the Saylers espying a Bird fitly called a Booby, hee mounted to the top-mast and tooke her. The foolish quality of which Bird is to sit still, not valuing danger.
The phrase 'booby prize' originated as a term of disparagement for the person with the lowest score in a contest. It was probably coined in the USA. All the early printed references to 'booby prize' originate from there - the earliest that I can find is from a student newspaper from Oberlin, Ohio, The Oberlin Review, 1881:
The gentlemen strove at skill in hemming aprons for the fair ones: the first prize was won by Mr. Jackson, the booby prize by Mr. Jones.
A prize given to make fun of the loser in a contest or game.
Origin
A Booby is a type of gannet. 'Boobies' has also been used as a slang term for breasts since around 1935. This booby is neither of those. The word has been used to mean dunce or nincompoop since at least the late 16th century and that's the 'booby' of 'booby prize' and 'booby trap'. The word probably derives from the Spanish word 'bobo' meaning 'fool' or 'dunce'. An example of that usage, as 'bobie', comes in The Pleasant Comodie of Patient Grissill, 1599:
Let Gwenthyan see what bobie fool loves her...
It is also found, as 'booby', in Fletcher and Massinger's comic play The Custome of the Countrey, circa 1640:
Cry you great booby.
Some etymological records have it that people were labelled as boobies because they were like the seemingly dim-witted seabirds. Actually, it was the other way about. The blue-footed avians were named boobies by the 17th century sailors who first came across them in the eastern Pacific because they didn't attempt to escape when approached. Thomas Herbert recorded this apparently stupid and 'booby-like' behaviour in the travelogue Relation Travails, 1634:
One of the Saylers espying a Bird fitly called a Booby, hee mounted to the top-mast and tooke her. The foolish quality of which Bird is to sit still, not valuing danger.
The phrase 'booby prize' originated as a term of disparagement for the person with the lowest score in a contest. It was probably coined in the USA. All the early printed references to 'booby prize' originate from there - the earliest that I can find is from a student newspaper from Oberlin, Ohio, The Oberlin Review, 1881:
The gentlemen strove at skill in hemming aprons for the fair ones: the first prize was won by Mr. Jackson, the booby prize by Mr. Jones.
Fair to middling
Meaning
Slightly above average.
Origin
'Fair to middling' comes to the party with two friends, fair to middlin' and fair to midland. Both of these gatecrashers derive from the original phrase, but in different ways. Fair to middlin' is just a colloquial version written in the way that the expression is often spoken, in mid-west America at least, which, as we will see, is where the expression originated.
Fair to midland is an odder fish and comes from the mispronunciation of 'middling' as 'midland'. The question is, why would anyone do that? It could be just a simple mistake, although that seems unlikely as 'fair to midland' doesn't really mean anything. More likely is that it was the result of a deliberate jokey mispronunciation, along the lines of san fairy Ann, taking the Miguel etc. This could have originated in the English Midlands. It is widely used there and the English are inveterate 'accidentally on purpose' mispronouncers - Cockney Rhyming Slang is an entire dialect built along those lines. In the case of 'fair to midland', the origin is more likely to be the USA, specifically Texas, the reference being to that state's city of Midland. The earliest printed citation of 'fair to midland' that I can find comes from The New York Times, May 1935:
Dr. William Tweddell, who is what might be called a fair-to-Midland golfer...
The current usage of the expression is predominantly American and has been boosted by the popularity of the US hard rock band that has adopted it as its name.
As to the original version of the phrase 'fair to middling', that is also of American origin. 'Middling' was and is a term used by farmers to describe the quality of farm produce, especially sheep. There were several loosely defined grades of produce: 'good', 'fair, 'middling', 'ordinary' and 'poor'.
'Middling' is an old Scots word and has been in use since at least the 15th century with the same meaning as now, that is, 'of medium or moderate size, strength, quality'. In around 1450, the Marquis of Bute wrote the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, which includes what appears to be the earliest example of 'middling' in print:
'The ynch sulde be with the thoum off midling mane nother our mikil nor our litil bot be tuyx the twa'.
I interpret that Old Scots text as meaning 'The inch should be measured with the thumb near the middle, neither at the largest point nor the smallest but between the two' but, if there are any old Scots out there who know better, I would be happy to be enlightened.
'Fair' was used in the UK from the 18th century onward to describe farm produce. An example of that usage is found in John Mortimer's farming handbook The Whole Art of Husbandry, 1707:
As you gather your Fruit, separate the fairest and biggest from the middling.
These farming terms travelled to America with the early Scottish and English settlers. Like sailors who, when they needed finer designations of direction than North, East South and West, came up with South-west, North-east etc., farmers needed a name for 'not quite fair but better than average' and they opted for 'fair to middling'. The earliest uses of the expression all come from the USA, as does this example from an 1829 edition of John Stuart Skinner's farming journal The American Farmer:
Two or three lots of good wethers [castrated rams] brought from $2.50 a 3 per head, and a few lots of fair to middling, $1.50 a 2.
Farmers didn't stop there and came up with other intermediate grades, like 'good fair'. Needing finer and finer classifications of quality, they again followed the sailors' lead and copied their 'North-north-east' style. In 1873, Beeton's Dictionary of Commerce described a delivery of cotton as:
Good fair to good saw-ginned Surat cotton.
Slightly above average.
Origin
'Fair to middling' comes to the party with two friends, fair to middlin' and fair to midland. Both of these gatecrashers derive from the original phrase, but in different ways. Fair to middlin' is just a colloquial version written in the way that the expression is often spoken, in mid-west America at least, which, as we will see, is where the expression originated.
Fair to midland is an odder fish and comes from the mispronunciation of 'middling' as 'midland'. The question is, why would anyone do that? It could be just a simple mistake, although that seems unlikely as 'fair to midland' doesn't really mean anything. More likely is that it was the result of a deliberate jokey mispronunciation, along the lines of san fairy Ann, taking the Miguel etc. This could have originated in the English Midlands. It is widely used there and the English are inveterate 'accidentally on purpose' mispronouncers - Cockney Rhyming Slang is an entire dialect built along those lines. In the case of 'fair to midland', the origin is more likely to be the USA, specifically Texas, the reference being to that state's city of Midland. The earliest printed citation of 'fair to midland' that I can find comes from The New York Times, May 1935:
Dr. William Tweddell, who is what might be called a fair-to-Midland golfer...
The current usage of the expression is predominantly American and has been boosted by the popularity of the US hard rock band that has adopted it as its name.
As to the original version of the phrase 'fair to middling', that is also of American origin. 'Middling' was and is a term used by farmers to describe the quality of farm produce, especially sheep. There were several loosely defined grades of produce: 'good', 'fair, 'middling', 'ordinary' and 'poor'.
'Middling' is an old Scots word and has been in use since at least the 15th century with the same meaning as now, that is, 'of medium or moderate size, strength, quality'. In around 1450, the Marquis of Bute wrote the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, which includes what appears to be the earliest example of 'middling' in print:
'The ynch sulde be with the thoum off midling mane nother our mikil nor our litil bot be tuyx the twa'.
I interpret that Old Scots text as meaning 'The inch should be measured with the thumb near the middle, neither at the largest point nor the smallest but between the two' but, if there are any old Scots out there who know better, I would be happy to be enlightened.
'Fair' was used in the UK from the 18th century onward to describe farm produce. An example of that usage is found in John Mortimer's farming handbook The Whole Art of Husbandry, 1707:
As you gather your Fruit, separate the fairest and biggest from the middling.
These farming terms travelled to America with the early Scottish and English settlers. Like sailors who, when they needed finer designations of direction than North, East South and West, came up with South-west, North-east etc., farmers needed a name for 'not quite fair but better than average' and they opted for 'fair to middling'. The earliest uses of the expression all come from the USA, as does this example from an 1829 edition of John Stuart Skinner's farming journal The American Farmer:
Two or three lots of good wethers [castrated rams] brought from $2.50 a 3 per head, and a few lots of fair to middling, $1.50 a 2.
Farmers didn't stop there and came up with other intermediate grades, like 'good fair'. Needing finer and finer classifications of quality, they again followed the sailors' lead and copied their 'North-north-east' style. In 1873, Beeton's Dictionary of Commerce described a delivery of cotton as:
Good fair to good saw-ginned Surat cotton.
Bean counter
Meaning
A disparaging term for an accountant, or anyone who one who is excessively concerned with statistical records or accounts.
Origin
When researching the expression 'bean counter' there is a difficulty - the term has several different meanings. The common usage these days is as a name for a rather pedantic accountant, the implication being that, while most of us are content to buy beans by the bag, fussy accountants want to know exactly how many they are paying for. Before the first hapless accountant was called a 'bean counter', the phrase was also used as the name of a place where beans were sold, especially in the USA where 'pork and bean counters' were commonplace in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Added to that, our inventive predecessors used machines to count beans - and there's no need to tell you what they called them. This variability can lead to some confusion when scanning old newspaper records and other references. Nevertheless, I'll plough on and try to sort the leguminosae from the chaff.
Bean counters, that is, 'counters where beans were sold', came first. The US newspaper the Lewiston Evening Journal referred to these in June 1907:
The Clerk, seeing himself worsted by numbers... walked over to the bean counter where he again busied himself putting up packages for the evening trade.
This was followed by bean counters, that is, 'machines that count beans', which meaning is cited in the Pennsylvania newspaper The New Castle News, March 1916:
City Registry Clerk Stanley Treser has invented a new device. It is known as the bean counter.
Then, lastly, we get to bean counters, that is, 'accountants'. The earliest reference that I can find to the use of 'bean counter' with this meaning is in the US newspaper The Fort Wayne News And Sentinel, February 1919, in an article titled The Bean Counter:
The son of Josephus has been promoted in the quartermaster's department. "I suppose," remarked the Gentleman at the Adjacent Desk "I suppose that somebody has to count the beans for Colonel Roosevelt's fighting sons."
The 'fighting sons' were the US soldiers engaged in the latter part of WWI. The story alludes to the American politician Josephus Daniels who served in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, who was himself a colonel during his military service and was a strong supporter of the US's involvement in WWI.
The phrase appears in Australia soon afterwards, either by migration from the USA or by independent coinage. An example is found in The Parliamentary Debates of the Australian House of Representatives, 1928:
It is not a bean counter's bill. There is no attempt to make any savings.
This insinuation that 'bean counters' were penny-pinching accountants who could't see the bigger picture chimes in well with the no-nonsense reputation of Australian politicians. The phrase thrived down under during the 1930/40s before becoming commonplace throughout the English-speaking world later in the 20th century.
A disparaging term for an accountant, or anyone who one who is excessively concerned with statistical records or accounts.
Origin
When researching the expression 'bean counter' there is a difficulty - the term has several different meanings. The common usage these days is as a name for a rather pedantic accountant, the implication being that, while most of us are content to buy beans by the bag, fussy accountants want to know exactly how many they are paying for. Before the first hapless accountant was called a 'bean counter', the phrase was also used as the name of a place where beans were sold, especially in the USA where 'pork and bean counters' were commonplace in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Added to that, our inventive predecessors used machines to count beans - and there's no need to tell you what they called them. This variability can lead to some confusion when scanning old newspaper records and other references. Nevertheless, I'll plough on and try to sort the leguminosae from the chaff.
Bean counters, that is, 'counters where beans were sold', came first. The US newspaper the Lewiston Evening Journal referred to these in June 1907:
The Clerk, seeing himself worsted by numbers... walked over to the bean counter where he again busied himself putting up packages for the evening trade.
This was followed by bean counters, that is, 'machines that count beans', which meaning is cited in the Pennsylvania newspaper The New Castle News, March 1916:
City Registry Clerk Stanley Treser has invented a new device. It is known as the bean counter.
Then, lastly, we get to bean counters, that is, 'accountants'. The earliest reference that I can find to the use of 'bean counter' with this meaning is in the US newspaper The Fort Wayne News And Sentinel, February 1919, in an article titled The Bean Counter:
The son of Josephus has been promoted in the quartermaster's department. "I suppose," remarked the Gentleman at the Adjacent Desk "I suppose that somebody has to count the beans for Colonel Roosevelt's fighting sons."
The 'fighting sons' were the US soldiers engaged in the latter part of WWI. The story alludes to the American politician Josephus Daniels who served in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt, who was himself a colonel during his military service and was a strong supporter of the US's involvement in WWI.
The phrase appears in Australia soon afterwards, either by migration from the USA or by independent coinage. An example is found in The Parliamentary Debates of the Australian House of Representatives, 1928:
It is not a bean counter's bill. There is no attempt to make any savings.
This insinuation that 'bean counters' were penny-pinching accountants who could't see the bigger picture chimes in well with the no-nonsense reputation of Australian politicians. The phrase thrived down under during the 1930/40s before becoming commonplace throughout the English-speaking world later in the 20th century.
Turn of phrase
Meaning
A distinctive spoken or written expression.
Origin
'Turn of phrase' is a commonplace but rather odd expression - in what sense can a phrase be 'turned'? Ladies are, or at least used to be, sometimes described as having 'well-turned' legs/thighs/ankles, but that derives from an allusion to the symmetry and precision of wood turning, which hardly seems appropriate for an abstract entity like a phrase.
What is a phrase anyway? Well, there's no exact definition and so it depends on who you ask. Had you been around in 1530 when the word 'phrase' was coined, you would have been wise not to have asked the language scholar John Palsgrave. It was he who first the word into print but, confusingly, gave two differing examples of its meaning. Palsgrave's aim was to help Englishmen to learn to speak French and to that end he published Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse, the first grammar of the French language.
Palsgrave illustrated the meaning of the word 'phrase' by giving examples of phrases in English with their French equivalents.
"Whan all is doone and sayd, pour tout potaige - a phrasis."
In that illustration he was using the meaning of the word as we now understand it, that is, 'a small group or collocation of words expressing a single notion; a common or idiomatic expression'. That 'collection of words' definition of 'phrase' is hardly unambiguous and could just as well be used for 'idiom', 'saying' or 'expression'. There are also many other linguistic terms that, while they have specialised uses, can all lay claim to being phrases - 'proverbs', 'adages', 'maxims', 'clichés' and so on. Added to that, Palsgrave gave us an entirely different definition of what Tudor gentry understood by the word 'phrase', that is, not words at all but a 'manner or style of speech or writing'. In the same French/English grammar he remarked on "The differences of phrasys betwene our tong and the frenche tong". He went on to explain "The phrasys of our tong and theyrs differeth". By that he meant, not that the English and French use different expressions (which even the most untutored student would surely have known) but that the French have a different manner and style of speaking to the English.
That 'style of speaking or writing' meaning gives us a lead in explaining how a phrase can be said to be 'turned'. Before the advent of printing the beauty of written texts was judged not only on their content but also on the quality of the writer's calligraphy - much as Japanese Haiku is appreciated today. The word 'style' derives from the tool used for writing, the stylus, and to the mediaeval mind writing style was as much about the craft of calligraphy as it was about the ideas conveyed in the text. An early handwritten example of Chaucer's Clerk's Tale, circa 1386, used 'style' with that meaning:
Therfore Petrak writeth this storie, which with heigh stile he enditeth.
So, a phrase was a style of speaking or writing, and style meant beauty of expression. We can now interpret a fine 'turn of phrase' as analogous to a skilfully-crafted piece of wood turned on a lathe. John Dryden referred to the 'turning' of words in this sense in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis, 1693:
Had I time, I cou'd enlarge on the Beautiful Turns of Words and Thoughts; which are as requisite in this, as in Heroique Poetry.
Benjamin Franklin - first with many things - appears to have been the first to use the precise expression 'turn of phrase' in his Letters, 1779:
A new version [of the Bible], in which, preserving the sense, the turn of phrase and manner of expression should be modern.
A distinctive spoken or written expression.
Origin
'Turn of phrase' is a commonplace but rather odd expression - in what sense can a phrase be 'turned'? Ladies are, or at least used to be, sometimes described as having 'well-turned' legs/thighs/ankles, but that derives from an allusion to the symmetry and precision of wood turning, which hardly seems appropriate for an abstract entity like a phrase.
What is a phrase anyway? Well, there's no exact definition and so it depends on who you ask. Had you been around in 1530 when the word 'phrase' was coined, you would have been wise not to have asked the language scholar John Palsgrave. It was he who first the word into print but, confusingly, gave two differing examples of its meaning. Palsgrave's aim was to help Englishmen to learn to speak French and to that end he published Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse, the first grammar of the French language.
Palsgrave illustrated the meaning of the word 'phrase' by giving examples of phrases in English with their French equivalents.
"Whan all is doone and sayd, pour tout potaige - a phrasis."
In that illustration he was using the meaning of the word as we now understand it, that is, 'a small group or collocation of words expressing a single notion; a common or idiomatic expression'. That 'collection of words' definition of 'phrase' is hardly unambiguous and could just as well be used for 'idiom', 'saying' or 'expression'. There are also many other linguistic terms that, while they have specialised uses, can all lay claim to being phrases - 'proverbs', 'adages', 'maxims', 'clichés' and so on. Added to that, Palsgrave gave us an entirely different definition of what Tudor gentry understood by the word 'phrase', that is, not words at all but a 'manner or style of speech or writing'. In the same French/English grammar he remarked on "The differences of phrasys betwene our tong and the frenche tong". He went on to explain "The phrasys of our tong and theyrs differeth". By that he meant, not that the English and French use different expressions (which even the most untutored student would surely have known) but that the French have a different manner and style of speaking to the English.
That 'style of speaking or writing' meaning gives us a lead in explaining how a phrase can be said to be 'turned'. Before the advent of printing the beauty of written texts was judged not only on their content but also on the quality of the writer's calligraphy - much as Japanese Haiku is appreciated today. The word 'style' derives from the tool used for writing, the stylus, and to the mediaeval mind writing style was as much about the craft of calligraphy as it was about the ideas conveyed in the text. An early handwritten example of Chaucer's Clerk's Tale, circa 1386, used 'style' with that meaning:
Therfore Petrak writeth this storie, which with heigh stile he enditeth.
So, a phrase was a style of speaking or writing, and style meant beauty of expression. We can now interpret a fine 'turn of phrase' as analogous to a skilfully-crafted piece of wood turned on a lathe. John Dryden referred to the 'turning' of words in this sense in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis, 1693:
Had I time, I cou'd enlarge on the Beautiful Turns of Words and Thoughts; which are as requisite in this, as in Heroique Poetry.
Benjamin Franklin - first with many things - appears to have been the first to use the precise expression 'turn of phrase' in his Letters, 1779:
A new version [of the Bible], in which, preserving the sense, the turn of phrase and manner of expression should be modern.
Up the pole
Meaning
Various meanings.
Origin
'Up the pole' is an odd phrase, or rather, it is an odd collection of phrases, in that it has numerous meanings. These meanings have little to do with each other and, for the most part, little to do with poles. What is difficult to explain is how and why several different meanings for the same expression were all coined in the UK just a few years apart. Of course, poles are commonplace objects and instances of the expression 'up the pole' have abounded in print for centuries - bears/beans/monkeys climbing 'up the pole', people lifting/digging/staring 'up the pole' etc. Perhaps now would be a good time to list the various figurative meanings, in date order of their coinage:
In favour or good repute; strait-laced - A. Barrère & C. G. Leland Dictionary of Slang, 1890:
"Pole, up the, thought well of by your superiors. Also applied to strict, strait-laced people, who are or like to be considered goody-goody".
These two slang meanings, which are of military origin, appear to be the first coinage of 'up the pole' but what, if any, actual pole was being referred to isn't clear.
In confusion or error - The Daily News, April 1896:
"She remonstrated with the latter, and told him he was 'up a pole' - i.e. in the wrong".
In trouble or difficulty - A. R. Marshall's Pomes from Pink 'Un, 1897:
"He heard himself alluded to as being 'up the pole'".
[Note: This book was a popular collection of poems. The Pink 'Un was a newspaper printed on pink paper - either the Sporting Times or the Financial Times.]
Drunk - Daily Telegraph, December 1897:
Plaintiff: but your little girl was frequently saying that you were 'up the poll'.
Judge: Up the what? The High Bailiff explained that the term was a slang one for being intoxicated.
This meaning is antiquated and now rarely used.
Crazy; at one's wits' end - Westmoreland Gazette, March 1904:
"Plaintiff's definition of the phrase 'up the pole' differed from that of her cousin who said it meant being drunk. Mrs. Frasier said that it meant being crazy".
This version appears to have travelled from the UK to Australia and New Zealand, where it is still commonly used. In a classic example of folk etymology, 'up the pole' has been suggested to be named after De La Pole Psychiatric Hospital, Hull, UK - after the fashion of 'doolally' being taken from Deolali sanatorium, India. Inmates who were sent there were supposed to have been sent 'up De La Pole'. Inventive guess, but De La Pole Hospital was so named in 1936.
Pregnant - James Joyce Ulysses, 1918:
"That red Carlisle girl? Is she up the pole? Better ask Seymour that".
As befits such a celebrated book as Ulysses, this is the version of the phrase that most people know. It is also the only one that appears to refer directly to any sort of pole - the alternate version of this 'pregnant' meaning are 'up the stick' and 'up the spout' leaving little doubt about what 'pole' was being referred to. All the early usages of this meaning in print come from the pens of Dublin based authors, so an Irish origin seems highly likely.
The only thing tying the versions of the phrase together is that they (apart from the first) relate to some degree of difficulty. It may be that the people coining meanings for this expression were alluding to the apparent difficulty of being stuck at the top of a real pole - but we aren't ever likely to confirm that. There was a fad for 'pole-sitting' in the early 20th century, in which participants were certainly 'up the pole' and could be said to be in some difficulty, but that comes too late for it to have been the source of this phrase.
Various meanings.
Origin
'Up the pole' is an odd phrase, or rather, it is an odd collection of phrases, in that it has numerous meanings. These meanings have little to do with each other and, for the most part, little to do with poles. What is difficult to explain is how and why several different meanings for the same expression were all coined in the UK just a few years apart. Of course, poles are commonplace objects and instances of the expression 'up the pole' have abounded in print for centuries - bears/beans/monkeys climbing 'up the pole', people lifting/digging/staring 'up the pole' etc. Perhaps now would be a good time to list the various figurative meanings, in date order of their coinage:
In favour or good repute; strait-laced - A. Barrère & C. G. Leland Dictionary of Slang, 1890:
"Pole, up the, thought well of by your superiors. Also applied to strict, strait-laced people, who are or like to be considered goody-goody".
These two slang meanings, which are of military origin, appear to be the first coinage of 'up the pole' but what, if any, actual pole was being referred to isn't clear.
In confusion or error - The Daily News, April 1896:
"She remonstrated with the latter, and told him he was 'up a pole' - i.e. in the wrong".
In trouble or difficulty - A. R. Marshall's Pomes from Pink 'Un, 1897:
"He heard himself alluded to as being 'up the pole'".
[Note: This book was a popular collection of poems. The Pink 'Un was a newspaper printed on pink paper - either the Sporting Times or the Financial Times.]
Drunk - Daily Telegraph, December 1897:
Plaintiff: but your little girl was frequently saying that you were 'up the poll'.
Judge: Up the what? The High Bailiff explained that the term was a slang one for being intoxicated.
This meaning is antiquated and now rarely used.
Crazy; at one's wits' end - Westmoreland Gazette, March 1904:
"Plaintiff's definition of the phrase 'up the pole' differed from that of her cousin who said it meant being drunk. Mrs. Frasier said that it meant being crazy".
This version appears to have travelled from the UK to Australia and New Zealand, where it is still commonly used. In a classic example of folk etymology, 'up the pole' has been suggested to be named after De La Pole Psychiatric Hospital, Hull, UK - after the fashion of 'doolally' being taken from Deolali sanatorium, India. Inmates who were sent there were supposed to have been sent 'up De La Pole'. Inventive guess, but De La Pole Hospital was so named in 1936.
Pregnant - James Joyce Ulysses, 1918:
"That red Carlisle girl? Is she up the pole? Better ask Seymour that".
As befits such a celebrated book as Ulysses, this is the version of the phrase that most people know. It is also the only one that appears to refer directly to any sort of pole - the alternate version of this 'pregnant' meaning are 'up the stick' and 'up the spout' leaving little doubt about what 'pole' was being referred to. All the early usages of this meaning in print come from the pens of Dublin based authors, so an Irish origin seems highly likely.
The only thing tying the versions of the phrase together is that they (apart from the first) relate to some degree of difficulty. It may be that the people coining meanings for this expression were alluding to the apparent difficulty of being stuck at the top of a real pole - but we aren't ever likely to confirm that. There was a fad for 'pole-sitting' in the early 20th century, in which participants were certainly 'up the pole' and could be said to be in some difficulty, but that comes too late for it to have been the source of this phrase.
Purple patch
Meaning
An overly elaborate or effusive piece of writing. Also, a period of notable success or good luck.
Origin
'Purple patches', which are also sometimes called 'purple passages' or 'purple prose', were originally a figurative reference to florid literary passages, added to a text for dramatic effect. They were the literary equivalent of adding a patch of purple material to an otherwise undecorated garment. Purple was chosen because, as well as being a distinctive colour, it was the colour reserved for emperors and other distinguished statesmen in imperial Rome. Most of the early references to 'purple patches' contain clear evidence of classical origins, many of them including Latin text.
The first person I can identify as having used 'purple patch' in print in English was no less an author than Elizabeth I. In 1598, Queen Elizabeth translated Horace's Latin textDe Arte Poetica and this was published in 1899 as part of Queen Elizabeth's Englishings:
Oft to beginnings graue and shewes of great is sowed A purple pace, one or more for vewe.
[Note: 'Purple pace' was the translation of the original 'purpureus pannus'. 'Pace' meant 'passage'.]
Many works of art and scholarship that are listed as the creation of various English monarchs weren't actually their own work, the attributions being merely a form of flattery. However, Elizabeth benefited from the Tudor notion that aristocratic women were suitable recipients of formal education and her mother, Anne Boleyn, made sure that "she wolde endewe her with the knowlege of all tounges, as Hebrue, Greeke, Latyne, Italian, Spanishe, Frenche". The queen became a noted Latin scholar and we can be assured that the translation (and wouldn't it be nice if we still used the Tudor word 'Englishing' for translations into English?) was by her own hand.
The term 'purple patch' wasn't much used again until the 18th century, at which time literary critics valued evenness of pace and style in literary works. Unevenly written texts were singled out for censure and 'purple patch' was the ideal label for a passage that stood out as overly florid. This idea was expressed forcibly in the 1704 book of literary criticism The True Tom Double:
All a Man writes should be proportion'd Even and of a piece; and one Part of the Work should not so far out-shine, as to Obscure and Darken the Other. The Purple Patches he claps upon his Course Style, make it seem much Courser than it is.
It wasn't until the 20th century that 'purple patches' were used in relation to anything other than writing. The term then came to mean 'a period of good fortune or creativity'. An early example is cited in the newspaper The Westminster Budget, October 1900:
True, it is hardly to be counted a purple patch of history, but a man must surely blame himself if he does not find something epic in the struggle. [of the common people]
Purple patches took a turn back from the figurative to the literal in the 1960s when hippies took to wearing purple velvet and patching jeans with it. 'Hendrix purple' is now a recognised shade of dye in the fashion industry.
An overly elaborate or effusive piece of writing. Also, a period of notable success or good luck.
Origin
'Purple patches', which are also sometimes called 'purple passages' or 'purple prose', were originally a figurative reference to florid literary passages, added to a text for dramatic effect. They were the literary equivalent of adding a patch of purple material to an otherwise undecorated garment. Purple was chosen because, as well as being a distinctive colour, it was the colour reserved for emperors and other distinguished statesmen in imperial Rome. Most of the early references to 'purple patches' contain clear evidence of classical origins, many of them including Latin text.
The first person I can identify as having used 'purple patch' in print in English was no less an author than Elizabeth I. In 1598, Queen Elizabeth translated Horace's Latin textDe Arte Poetica and this was published in 1899 as part of Queen Elizabeth's Englishings:
Oft to beginnings graue and shewes of great is sowed A purple pace, one or more for vewe.
[Note: 'Purple pace' was the translation of the original 'purpureus pannus'. 'Pace' meant 'passage'.]
Many works of art and scholarship that are listed as the creation of various English monarchs weren't actually their own work, the attributions being merely a form of flattery. However, Elizabeth benefited from the Tudor notion that aristocratic women were suitable recipients of formal education and her mother, Anne Boleyn, made sure that "she wolde endewe her with the knowlege of all tounges, as Hebrue, Greeke, Latyne, Italian, Spanishe, Frenche". The queen became a noted Latin scholar and we can be assured that the translation (and wouldn't it be nice if we still used the Tudor word 'Englishing' for translations into English?) was by her own hand.
The term 'purple patch' wasn't much used again until the 18th century, at which time literary critics valued evenness of pace and style in literary works. Unevenly written texts were singled out for censure and 'purple patch' was the ideal label for a passage that stood out as overly florid. This idea was expressed forcibly in the 1704 book of literary criticism The True Tom Double:
All a Man writes should be proportion'd Even and of a piece; and one Part of the Work should not so far out-shine, as to Obscure and Darken the Other. The Purple Patches he claps upon his Course Style, make it seem much Courser than it is.
It wasn't until the 20th century that 'purple patches' were used in relation to anything other than writing. The term then came to mean 'a period of good fortune or creativity'. An early example is cited in the newspaper The Westminster Budget, October 1900:
True, it is hardly to be counted a purple patch of history, but a man must surely blame himself if he does not find something epic in the struggle. [of the common people]
Purple patches took a turn back from the figurative to the literal in the 1960s when hippies took to wearing purple velvet and patching jeans with it. 'Hendrix purple' is now a recognised shade of dye in the fashion industry.
Rest on one's laurels
Meaning
To be satisfied with one's past success and to consider further effort unnecessary.
Origin
The laurels that are being referred to when someone is said to 'rest on his laurels' are the aromatically scented Laurus Nobilis trees or, more specifically, their leaves. The trees are known colloquially as Sweet Bay and are commonly grown as culinary or ornamental plants.
The origins of the phrase lie in ancient Greece, where laurel wreaths were symbols of victory and status. Of course, ancient Greece is where history and mythology were frequently mixed, so we need to tread carefully. The pre-Christian Greeks associated their god Apollo with laurel - that much is historical fact, as this image of Apollo wearing a laurel wreath on a 2nd century BC coin indicates. The reason for that association takes us into the myth of Apollo's love for the nymph Daphne, who turned into a Bay tree just as Apollo approached her (anything could happen if you were a Greek god). Undeterred, Apollo embraced the tree, cut off a branch to wear as a wreath and declared the plant sacred. Their belief in the myth caused the Greeks to present laurel wreaths to winners in the Pythian Games, which were held at Delphi in honour of Apollo every four years from the 6th century BC.
Following the decline of the Greek Empire, the use of wreaths of laurel as emblems of victory seems to have taken a long holiday and didn't re-emerge until the Middle Ages. Geoffrey Chaucer referred to laurels in that context in The Knight's Tale, circa 1385:
With laurer corouned as a conquerour
And there he lyueth in ioye and in honour .
[With laurel crowned as conqueror
There he lived in joy and honour]
A 'laureate' was originally a person crowned with a laurel wreath. We continue to call those who are especially honoured laureates although the laurel leaves are usually kept for the kitchen these days. Nevertheless, laureates benefit in other ways; Nobel Laureates get a nice medal and 10 million Swedish Krona and Poets Laureate (in the UK at least) get a useful salary and a butt of sack (barrel of sherry).
As to the phrase's meaning, to 'rest on one's laurels' isn't considered at all a praiseworthy strategy - it suggests a decline into laziness and lack of application. That's not the original meaning. When 'rest on one's laurels' or, as it was initially, 'repose on one's laurels' was coined it was invariably part of a valedictory speech for some old soldier or retiring official. An early example of that usage is found inThe Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz, 1723:
The Duke [of Orleans] was old enough to take his Repose under the Shadow of his Laurels.
Of course, the 'repose' was figurative - no one was imagining someone sleeping on a bed of laurel leaves, although the citation above could be construed as referring to laurel trees rather than laurel wreaths. No such doubts with a slightly later citation from the London-based Gentleman's Magazine, 1733, on the retirement of a schoolmaster of Westminster School:
So thou, paternal Sage, may'st now repose.
Nor seek new Laurels to adorn thy Brows.
As soon as we move into the energetic Victorian era, the meaning changes and the phrase is used with a distinctly disapproving tone. Victoria had barely gained the throne when we find this piece in the review magazine The Literary Chronicle, 1825, which praises the work of Maria Edgeworth:
We do not affect to wish she should repose on her laurels and rest satisfied; on the contrary, we believe that genius is inexhaustible... For Miss Edgeworth there must be no rest on this side the grave.
Tough audience the Victorians. We are hardly any more charitable these days. 'One-hit wonders' are sneered at and, with proper Anglo-Saxon earnestness, Anthony Burgess dismissed his fellow author Joseph Heller's inability to write a second book for 13 years following the success of Catch-22 by sniping that "Heller suffers from that fashionable American disease, writer's block".
To be satisfied with one's past success and to consider further effort unnecessary.
Origin
The laurels that are being referred to when someone is said to 'rest on his laurels' are the aromatically scented Laurus Nobilis trees or, more specifically, their leaves. The trees are known colloquially as Sweet Bay and are commonly grown as culinary or ornamental plants.
The origins of the phrase lie in ancient Greece, where laurel wreaths were symbols of victory and status. Of course, ancient Greece is where history and mythology were frequently mixed, so we need to tread carefully. The pre-Christian Greeks associated their god Apollo with laurel - that much is historical fact, as this image of Apollo wearing a laurel wreath on a 2nd century BC coin indicates. The reason for that association takes us into the myth of Apollo's love for the nymph Daphne, who turned into a Bay tree just as Apollo approached her (anything could happen if you were a Greek god). Undeterred, Apollo embraced the tree, cut off a branch to wear as a wreath and declared the plant sacred. Their belief in the myth caused the Greeks to present laurel wreaths to winners in the Pythian Games, which were held at Delphi in honour of Apollo every four years from the 6th century BC.
Following the decline of the Greek Empire, the use of wreaths of laurel as emblems of victory seems to have taken a long holiday and didn't re-emerge until the Middle Ages. Geoffrey Chaucer referred to laurels in that context in The Knight's Tale, circa 1385:
With laurer corouned as a conquerour
And there he lyueth in ioye and in honour .
[With laurel crowned as conqueror
There he lived in joy and honour]
A 'laureate' was originally a person crowned with a laurel wreath. We continue to call those who are especially honoured laureates although the laurel leaves are usually kept for the kitchen these days. Nevertheless, laureates benefit in other ways; Nobel Laureates get a nice medal and 10 million Swedish Krona and Poets Laureate (in the UK at least) get a useful salary and a butt of sack (barrel of sherry).
As to the phrase's meaning, to 'rest on one's laurels' isn't considered at all a praiseworthy strategy - it suggests a decline into laziness and lack of application. That's not the original meaning. When 'rest on one's laurels' or, as it was initially, 'repose on one's laurels' was coined it was invariably part of a valedictory speech for some old soldier or retiring official. An early example of that usage is found inThe Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz, 1723:
The Duke [of Orleans] was old enough to take his Repose under the Shadow of his Laurels.
Of course, the 'repose' was figurative - no one was imagining someone sleeping on a bed of laurel leaves, although the citation above could be construed as referring to laurel trees rather than laurel wreaths. No such doubts with a slightly later citation from the London-based Gentleman's Magazine, 1733, on the retirement of a schoolmaster of Westminster School:
So thou, paternal Sage, may'st now repose.
Nor seek new Laurels to adorn thy Brows.
As soon as we move into the energetic Victorian era, the meaning changes and the phrase is used with a distinctly disapproving tone. Victoria had barely gained the throne when we find this piece in the review magazine The Literary Chronicle, 1825, which praises the work of Maria Edgeworth:
We do not affect to wish she should repose on her laurels and rest satisfied; on the contrary, we believe that genius is inexhaustible... For Miss Edgeworth there must be no rest on this side the grave.
Tough audience the Victorians. We are hardly any more charitable these days. 'One-hit wonders' are sneered at and, with proper Anglo-Saxon earnestness, Anthony Burgess dismissed his fellow author Joseph Heller's inability to write a second book for 13 years following the success of Catch-22 by sniping that "Heller suffers from that fashionable American disease, writer's block".
Man's best friend
Meaning
An animal that performs valuable service to humans, often with reference to dogs.
Origin
'A dog is a man's best friend'? Well, if popularity is anything to go by, perhaps that's true; according to the American Kennel Club, there are more pet dogs in the USA than there are people in Britain. However, the affection that dogs are held in by many these days is a fairly recent development. How we used to think about dogs can be judged by looking at how they have been portrayed in language over the centuries.
The first linguistic oddity to do with dogs is the where the word 'dog' came from. The name was preceded by the perfectly good Anglo-Saxon word 'hound', which was also used in other European languages. 'Dog', in common with several other animal names ending in 'g', like frog, hog, pig and stag, seems to have been coined around the 13th century for reasons that no one is at all sure about.
Prior to the 18th century, dogs were kept for hunting and defence and not as pets. The only deviation from that rule was that of the derided 'lap-dog', which John Evelyn recorded in his Diary, circa 1684, as a dog fit only for ladies:
Those Lap-dogs had so in delicijs [delight] by the Ladies - are a pigmie sort of Spaniels.
Lap-dogs apart, the phrases used to refer to dogs in the 16th and 17th centuries indicate their image as vicious and disease-ridden:
Hair of the dog that bit you, first used in 1546 as a reference to rabies
Cast someone to the dogs, 1556
Dog in the manger , 1564
If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas, 1573
The dogs of war, 1601
Go to the dogs, 1619
Also, phrases that indicate the treatment of dogs show that they were considered to be of little worth:
Lead a dog's life (1528),
Not fit for a dog (1625),
As sick as a dog (1705),
The unfortunate mutts were considered so beyond the pale that dog hangings, as punishment for chasing sheep or whatever else dogs did naturally, were commonplace. The phrase 'give a dog a bad name', 1705, was originally 'give a dog a bad name and hang him'.
The language relating to canines took a turn for the better later in the 18th century. The first example in print of the term 'dog-basket' dates from 1768. The need for a name for a piece of furniture provided specifically for the comfort of dogs shows a clear turning point in attitudes towards them. This shift in outlook continued steadily and in 1823 we first find 'dog biscuits', followed in 1852 by 'dog show'. By the mid 20th century we find clear linguistic evidence that a dog was to be considered almost on a par with humanity - 'dog-sitter' (1942).
The greatest claim to fame of Warrensburg, Missouri is that it is where the phrase 'a dog is a man's best friend' originated. In 1870, a farmer shot a neighbour's dog and, in the subsequent court case where the owner sued for damages, the lawyer George Graham Vest gave a tear-jerking speech that became known as the Eulogy to a Dog:
"Gentlemen of the jury, a man's dog stands by him in prosperity and poverty, in health and sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow, and the snow drives fiercely, if only he can be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens." - And so on...
A statue of Old Drum, as the deceased beast was called, stands outside the town's courtroom. Sadly for the Warrensburg Tourist Board, the Senator Vest didn't originate the phrase, but he may have read it in a US newspaper, as it appeared in print fifty years earlier in The New-York Literary Journal, Volume 4, 1821:
The faithful dog - why should I strive
To speak his merits, while they live
In every breast, and man's best friend
Does often at his heels attend.
To paraphrase Harold Macmillan - 'Fido, you've never had it so good'.
An animal that performs valuable service to humans, often with reference to dogs.
Origin
'A dog is a man's best friend'? Well, if popularity is anything to go by, perhaps that's true; according to the American Kennel Club, there are more pet dogs in the USA than there are people in Britain. However, the affection that dogs are held in by many these days is a fairly recent development. How we used to think about dogs can be judged by looking at how they have been portrayed in language over the centuries.
The first linguistic oddity to do with dogs is the where the word 'dog' came from. The name was preceded by the perfectly good Anglo-Saxon word 'hound', which was also used in other European languages. 'Dog', in common with several other animal names ending in 'g', like frog, hog, pig and stag, seems to have been coined around the 13th century for reasons that no one is at all sure about.
Prior to the 18th century, dogs were kept for hunting and defence and not as pets. The only deviation from that rule was that of the derided 'lap-dog', which John Evelyn recorded in his Diary, circa 1684, as a dog fit only for ladies:
Those Lap-dogs had so in delicijs [delight] by the Ladies - are a pigmie sort of Spaniels.
Lap-dogs apart, the phrases used to refer to dogs in the 16th and 17th centuries indicate their image as vicious and disease-ridden:
Hair of the dog that bit you, first used in 1546 as a reference to rabies
Cast someone to the dogs, 1556
Dog in the manger , 1564
If you lie down with dogs, you will get up with fleas, 1573
The dogs of war, 1601
Go to the dogs, 1619
Also, phrases that indicate the treatment of dogs show that they were considered to be of little worth:
Lead a dog's life (1528),
Not fit for a dog (1625),
As sick as a dog (1705),
The unfortunate mutts were considered so beyond the pale that dog hangings, as punishment for chasing sheep or whatever else dogs did naturally, were commonplace. The phrase 'give a dog a bad name', 1705, was originally 'give a dog a bad name and hang him'.
The language relating to canines took a turn for the better later in the 18th century. The first example in print of the term 'dog-basket' dates from 1768. The need for a name for a piece of furniture provided specifically for the comfort of dogs shows a clear turning point in attitudes towards them. This shift in outlook continued steadily and in 1823 we first find 'dog biscuits', followed in 1852 by 'dog show'. By the mid 20th century we find clear linguistic evidence that a dog was to be considered almost on a par with humanity - 'dog-sitter' (1942).
The greatest claim to fame of Warrensburg, Missouri is that it is where the phrase 'a dog is a man's best friend' originated. In 1870, a farmer shot a neighbour's dog and, in the subsequent court case where the owner sued for damages, the lawyer George Graham Vest gave a tear-jerking speech that became known as the Eulogy to a Dog:
"Gentlemen of the jury, a man's dog stands by him in prosperity and poverty, in health and sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow, and the snow drives fiercely, if only he can be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens." - And so on...
A statue of Old Drum, as the deceased beast was called, stands outside the town's courtroom. Sadly for the Warrensburg Tourist Board, the Senator Vest didn't originate the phrase, but he may have read it in a US newspaper, as it appeared in print fifty years earlier in The New-York Literary Journal, Volume 4, 1821:
The faithful dog - why should I strive
To speak his merits, while they live
In every breast, and man's best friend
Does often at his heels attend.
To paraphrase Harold Macmillan - 'Fido, you've never had it so good'.
Jack of all trades
Meaning
A man who can turn his hand to many things.
Origin
With any phrase that includes a name, it's natural to consider whether its the name of a real person. In this case, as was the case with many other literary Jacks - Jack the Lad, Jack Robinson, Jack Sprat, Jack Horner, Jack Frost, etc, Jack of all trades was a generic term rather than a living and breathing individual. In fact, the very long list of terms that include 'Jack' exceeds that of any other name in English and this reflects the fact that, as a derivative of the common name 'John', 'Jack' has been used just to mean 'the common man'. This usage dates back to the 14th century and an example is found in John Gower's Middle English poem Confessio Amantis, 1390:
Therwhile he hath his fulle packe,
They seie, 'A good felawe is Jacke'.
We now use 'Jack of all trades, master of none' in a derogatory way. Originally, this wasn't the case and the label 'Jack of all trades' carried no negative connotation, the 'master of none' part being added later. Nevertheless, mediaeval Jacks were pretty much at the bottom of the social tree. The OED defines the generic meaning of the name Jack thusly:
Jack - A man of the common people; a lad, fellow, chap; especially a low-bred or ill-mannered fellow, a 'knave'
If 16th century commentators wanted to imply that a person was stretching their talents too thinly they resorted to the disparaging Latin term Johannes factotum ('Johnny do-it-all'). In 1592, the English writer and member of the literary establishment Robert Greene wrote a pamphlet entitled Groats-worth of Witte. In that he ventured the opinion that a new writer on the scene was:
An upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you. Beeing an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.
Sadly for Greene's ongoing reputation the 'Upstart crow' was William Shakespeare.
Various trades were populated by Jacks - lumberjacks, steeplejacks for example, and sailors were Jack-tars.
The name Jack was also added to many utilitarian objects which in some way took the place of a lad or man, for example:
Smoke-jack (a roasting spit)
Jack-plane (a basic carpenter's plane)
Jack-screw (a lifting winch)
Jack-frame (a carpenter's sawing horse)
Boot-jack (for pulling off boots)
Jack-engine (a miner's winch)
Jack-file (a coarse file)
There can't have been any trades in the Middle Ages that didn't make use of a jack of some sort. 'Jack of all trades' entered the language in 1612 when Geffray Minshull wrote of his experiences in prison in Essayes and characters of a prison and prisoners:
Some broken Cittizen, who hath plaid Jack of all trades.
The 'master of none' addition began to be added in the late 18th century. The headmaster of Charterhouse School, Martin Clifford, in a collection of notes on the poems of Dryden, circa 1677 wrote:
Your Writings are like a Jack of all Trades Shop, they have Variety, but nothing of value.
In 1770, the Gentleman's Magazine offered the opinion that "Jack at all trades, is seldom good at any."
The earliest example that I can find in print of the actual phrase 'Jack of all trades, master of none' is in Charles Lucas's Pharmacomastix, 1785:
The very Druggist, who in all other nations in Europe is but Pharmacopola, a mere drug-merchant, is with us, not only a physician and chirurgeon, but also a Galenic and Chemic apothecary; a seller of druggs, medicines, vertices, oils, paints or colours poysons, &c. a Jack of all trades, and in truth, master of none.
Maybe taking on 'all trades' wasn't wise but Jacks were often master craftsmen in their chosen trade. History books tell us that Cardinal Wolsey built Hampton Court Palace and that Charles Barry built the Houses of Parliament - don't believe it, it was Jack.
A man who can turn his hand to many things.
Origin
With any phrase that includes a name, it's natural to consider whether its the name of a real person. In this case, as was the case with many other literary Jacks - Jack the Lad, Jack Robinson, Jack Sprat, Jack Horner, Jack Frost, etc, Jack of all trades was a generic term rather than a living and breathing individual. In fact, the very long list of terms that include 'Jack' exceeds that of any other name in English and this reflects the fact that, as a derivative of the common name 'John', 'Jack' has been used just to mean 'the common man'. This usage dates back to the 14th century and an example is found in John Gower's Middle English poem Confessio Amantis, 1390:
Therwhile he hath his fulle packe,
They seie, 'A good felawe is Jacke'.
We now use 'Jack of all trades, master of none' in a derogatory way. Originally, this wasn't the case and the label 'Jack of all trades' carried no negative connotation, the 'master of none' part being added later. Nevertheless, mediaeval Jacks were pretty much at the bottom of the social tree. The OED defines the generic meaning of the name Jack thusly:
Jack - A man of the common people; a lad, fellow, chap; especially a low-bred or ill-mannered fellow, a 'knave'
If 16th century commentators wanted to imply that a person was stretching their talents too thinly they resorted to the disparaging Latin term Johannes factotum ('Johnny do-it-all'). In 1592, the English writer and member of the literary establishment Robert Greene wrote a pamphlet entitled Groats-worth of Witte. In that he ventured the opinion that a new writer on the scene was:
An upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that supposes he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you. Beeing an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.
Sadly for Greene's ongoing reputation the 'Upstart crow' was William Shakespeare.
Various trades were populated by Jacks - lumberjacks, steeplejacks for example, and sailors were Jack-tars.
The name Jack was also added to many utilitarian objects which in some way took the place of a lad or man, for example:
Smoke-jack (a roasting spit)
Jack-plane (a basic carpenter's plane)
Jack-screw (a lifting winch)
Jack-frame (a carpenter's sawing horse)
Boot-jack (for pulling off boots)
Jack-engine (a miner's winch)
Jack-file (a coarse file)
There can't have been any trades in the Middle Ages that didn't make use of a jack of some sort. 'Jack of all trades' entered the language in 1612 when Geffray Minshull wrote of his experiences in prison in Essayes and characters of a prison and prisoners:
Some broken Cittizen, who hath plaid Jack of all trades.
The 'master of none' addition began to be added in the late 18th century. The headmaster of Charterhouse School, Martin Clifford, in a collection of notes on the poems of Dryden, circa 1677 wrote:
Your Writings are like a Jack of all Trades Shop, they have Variety, but nothing of value.
In 1770, the Gentleman's Magazine offered the opinion that "Jack at all trades, is seldom good at any."
The earliest example that I can find in print of the actual phrase 'Jack of all trades, master of none' is in Charles Lucas's Pharmacomastix, 1785:
The very Druggist, who in all other nations in Europe is but Pharmacopola, a mere drug-merchant, is with us, not only a physician and chirurgeon, but also a Galenic and Chemic apothecary; a seller of druggs, medicines, vertices, oils, paints or colours poysons, &c. a Jack of all trades, and in truth, master of none.
Maybe taking on 'all trades' wasn't wise but Jacks were often master craftsmen in their chosen trade. History books tell us that Cardinal Wolsey built Hampton Court Palace and that Charles Barry built the Houses of Parliament - don't believe it, it was Jack.
As daft as a brush
Meaning
Very foolish.
Origin
On the face of it, brushes wouldn't seem to be any more daft than anything else. As the source of the expression isn't obvious, various suggestions have been put forward as to what form of brush is being referred to; for instance:
-> The phrase originated as 'as soft as a brush' and that the brush is the tail of a fox. This is plausible in that 'soft' is a northern English term for stupid and foxes tails are in fact quite soft to the touch.
-> The brushes in the expression are the boys that were employed in the 18th/19th centuries to climb inside chimneys to sweep them. The theory here, which is somewhat less plausible, is that the boys were made into idiots by being repeatedly dropped on their heads when being lowered down the chimneys.
Nevertheless, as we shall see, the 'brush' in this simile is neither of these; it is, as the dictionary would have it "A utensil consisting of a piece of wood or other suitable material, set with small tufts or bunches of bristles, hair, or the like, for sweeping or scrubbing dust and dirt from a surface.", that is - a brush. Are brushes daft? Not particularly, but then again I've never had a sensible conversation with one.
When looking for early examples of 'daft as a brush' in print we find that it first starts appearing the 1950s. An example is in William Morgan Williams's The Sociology of an English Village: Gosforth, 1956:
-> The wives of two members of a kin-group locally thought to be eccentric and extremely unsociable were pointed out by several people as 'gay queer' and 'daft as a brush'.
[Gosforth is in Cumbria, UK]
1956 seems later than I would have expected and, as the word 'daft' has always been used more often in the north of England than in other places, a scan of some north country references seems in order. Voilà. 'Daft as a brush' it is in fact predated by an earlier variant 'daft as a besom'. The earliest citation of that that I can find is a listing in William Dickinson's A glossary of the words and phrases of Cumberland, 1859:
-> Daft, without sense. "Ey, as daft as a besom."
A corroboration that the phrase originated with 'besom' rather than 'brush' version comes in another glossary, from just a few years earlier and collected in the same area - John and William Brockett's A glossary of North country words, with their etymology, 1846:
-> Fond, silly, foolish. An old Northern word. 'Fond-as-a-buzzom', remarkably silly.
The use of 'fond' to mean foolish predated our current usage, which is 'to be fond of something or someone'. That present day meaning migrated from the earlier word, which in time became to mean 'display a foolish affected for'. In Richard Rolle's Psalter, 1339, the author refers to 'fonnyd maydyns' (foolish girls). The word appears in more contemporary language in John Lyly's Euphues: the Anatomy of Wyt, 1578:
-> He that is young thinketh the old man fond.
So remember, if you are visiting the English northern counties and some old codger says that you are 'as fond as a buzzom', isn't exactly a compliment.
Very foolish.
Origin
On the face of it, brushes wouldn't seem to be any more daft than anything else. As the source of the expression isn't obvious, various suggestions have been put forward as to what form of brush is being referred to; for instance:
-> The phrase originated as 'as soft as a brush' and that the brush is the tail of a fox. This is plausible in that 'soft' is a northern English term for stupid and foxes tails are in fact quite soft to the touch.
-> The brushes in the expression are the boys that were employed in the 18th/19th centuries to climb inside chimneys to sweep them. The theory here, which is somewhat less plausible, is that the boys were made into idiots by being repeatedly dropped on their heads when being lowered down the chimneys.
Nevertheless, as we shall see, the 'brush' in this simile is neither of these; it is, as the dictionary would have it "A utensil consisting of a piece of wood or other suitable material, set with small tufts or bunches of bristles, hair, or the like, for sweeping or scrubbing dust and dirt from a surface.", that is - a brush. Are brushes daft? Not particularly, but then again I've never had a sensible conversation with one.
When looking for early examples of 'daft as a brush' in print we find that it first starts appearing the 1950s. An example is in William Morgan Williams's The Sociology of an English Village: Gosforth, 1956:
-> The wives of two members of a kin-group locally thought to be eccentric and extremely unsociable were pointed out by several people as 'gay queer' and 'daft as a brush'.
[Gosforth is in Cumbria, UK]
1956 seems later than I would have expected and, as the word 'daft' has always been used more often in the north of England than in other places, a scan of some north country references seems in order. Voilà. 'Daft as a brush' it is in fact predated by an earlier variant 'daft as a besom'. The earliest citation of that that I can find is a listing in William Dickinson's A glossary of the words and phrases of Cumberland, 1859:
-> Daft, without sense. "Ey, as daft as a besom."
A corroboration that the phrase originated with 'besom' rather than 'brush' version comes in another glossary, from just a few years earlier and collected in the same area - John and William Brockett's A glossary of North country words, with their etymology, 1846:
-> Fond, silly, foolish. An old Northern word. 'Fond-as-a-buzzom', remarkably silly.
The use of 'fond' to mean foolish predated our current usage, which is 'to be fond of something or someone'. That present day meaning migrated from the earlier word, which in time became to mean 'display a foolish affected for'. In Richard Rolle's Psalter, 1339, the author refers to 'fonnyd maydyns' (foolish girls). The word appears in more contemporary language in John Lyly's Euphues: the Anatomy of Wyt, 1578:
-> He that is young thinketh the old man fond.
So remember, if you are visiting the English northern counties and some old codger says that you are 'as fond as a buzzom', isn't exactly a compliment.
Eany, meeny, miny, mo
Meaning
The first line of a popular children's counting rhyme.
Origin
Of all of the phrases and idioms in the English language 'eeny, meenie, miny, mo' must be the one with the widest variety of spellings. I've opted for 'Eeny, meeny, miny, mo' but there are many others - 'Eenie, meenie, miney, moe', 'Eany, meany, miney, mo' and so on. Added to that, as far back as the 19th century there have been variants of the rhyme which are so dissimilar to our current version as to be scarcely recognisable - 'Hana, mana, mona, mike' (from New York) and 'Eetern, feetern, peeny, pump' (from Scotland) and many of these now have local variants and words added from other languages.
What lies behind this variability is that throughout the 19th century the rhyme spread from different parts of the UK to every playground in the English-speaking world, but by word of mouth rather than on paper. There never was an accepted definitive version, so the children who used the rhyme were very happy to substitute their own words as the mood took them.
As adults, we might be curious as to whether the words mean anything and what their origin might have been. Children appear to have no such concerns. An example comes from the Danish island of Kattegat, where a rhyme arrived during the British occupation in the Napoleonic wars:
Jeck og Jill
Vent op de hill
Og Jell kom tombling efter
...which makes as little sense in Danish as it does in English but, despite it being entirely meaningless to them, the children of Kattegat still sing it.
The best known version of the rhyme is the one that is now widely derided as insulting, especially in the USA, where the middle two lines originated:
Eena, meena, mina, mo,
Catch a nigger by the toe,
If he hollers, let him go,
Eena meena, mina, mo.
A more acceptable version has now established itself:
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,
Catch the tiger/monkey/baby by the toe.
If it hollers[USA]/screams[UK] let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo.
The rhyme is used by groups of children as a way of selecting someone to take a role that is different from the others. As difference is unwelcome to children, the formula had to be sufficiently unpredictable to be accepted as fair. A leader takes the counting role and, in the rhythm of the rhyme, points to each child in turn. The last line is often topped off with a short emphasized 'You are It!' or 'O, U, T spells out!', which all the children join in with. Sometimes the child pointed to at the end of one count is the one selected - to be 'It' in a game of hide and seek, for example. In more important choices - selecting who has to ask that grumpy man down the road for their ball back - the one pointed to last drops out and the formula is repeated several times until only one is left.
[Note: UK residents who have voted in today's referendum might notice a parallel with the 'First Past the Post' and 'Alternative Vote' systems.]
'Eeny, meeny, miny, mo' is certainly a strange line, so does it mean anything and does curiosity about its origin lead us anywhere? Well, as is so often the case in etymology, yes and no. There is a similarity between the words of the phrase and some of the numerals in pre-English Celtic and Cumbrian languages. For example, the oral tradition of the English coastal town of Yarmouth voices 'one, two, three, four' as 'ina, mina, tethera, methera'. Also, the word for 'one' in Welsh, Cornish, Irish and Breton is, respectively, 'un' (pronounced 'een'), 'ouyn', 'aon' and 'unan' - all of them sounding not unlike 'een' or 'eeny'.
The age of the phrase is uncertain. It first began to be written down in the 19th century - the scholarly journal Notes and Queries published this in the February 1855 edition:
"The following are used in the United States for the selection of a tagger...
Eeny, meeny, moany, mite,
Butter, lather, boney, strike,
Hair, bit, frost, neck,
Harrico, barrico, we, wo, wack"
This bears more than a passing resemblance to the English version recorded by Fred Jago in The Glossary of the Cornish Dialect, 1882:
Ena, mena, mona, mite,
Bascalora, bora, bite,
Hugga, bucca, bau,
Eggs, butter, cheese, bread.
Stick, stock, stone dead - OUT."
There's no doubt that the rhyme is older than the 19th century recorded versions, possibly very much older. The link to the names of numerals in ancient languages is also likely. Many farmers and fishermen on the fringes of Britain used such language for counting until quite recently and many natives of the north of England can still count from one to five in 'the old way' - 'yan, tan tehera, methera, pimp'.
Ancient Celtic counting system or Victorian nonsense verse? American in origin or English? Your best bet is to put all the available theories in a circle and repeat this rhyme - Eeny, meeny...
The first line of a popular children's counting rhyme.
Origin
Of all of the phrases and idioms in the English language 'eeny, meenie, miny, mo' must be the one with the widest variety of spellings. I've opted for 'Eeny, meeny, miny, mo' but there are many others - 'Eenie, meenie, miney, moe', 'Eany, meany, miney, mo' and so on. Added to that, as far back as the 19th century there have been variants of the rhyme which are so dissimilar to our current version as to be scarcely recognisable - 'Hana, mana, mona, mike' (from New York) and 'Eetern, feetern, peeny, pump' (from Scotland) and many of these now have local variants and words added from other languages.
What lies behind this variability is that throughout the 19th century the rhyme spread from different parts of the UK to every playground in the English-speaking world, but by word of mouth rather than on paper. There never was an accepted definitive version, so the children who used the rhyme were very happy to substitute their own words as the mood took them.
As adults, we might be curious as to whether the words mean anything and what their origin might have been. Children appear to have no such concerns. An example comes from the Danish island of Kattegat, where a rhyme arrived during the British occupation in the Napoleonic wars:
Jeck og Jill
Vent op de hill
Og Jell kom tombling efter
...which makes as little sense in Danish as it does in English but, despite it being entirely meaningless to them, the children of Kattegat still sing it.
The best known version of the rhyme is the one that is now widely derided as insulting, especially in the USA, where the middle two lines originated:
Eena, meena, mina, mo,
Catch a nigger by the toe,
If he hollers, let him go,
Eena meena, mina, mo.
A more acceptable version has now established itself:
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,
Catch the tiger/monkey/baby by the toe.
If it hollers[USA]/screams[UK] let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, mo.
The rhyme is used by groups of children as a way of selecting someone to take a role that is different from the others. As difference is unwelcome to children, the formula had to be sufficiently unpredictable to be accepted as fair. A leader takes the counting role and, in the rhythm of the rhyme, points to each child in turn. The last line is often topped off with a short emphasized 'You are It!' or 'O, U, T spells out!', which all the children join in with. Sometimes the child pointed to at the end of one count is the one selected - to be 'It' in a game of hide and seek, for example. In more important choices - selecting who has to ask that grumpy man down the road for their ball back - the one pointed to last drops out and the formula is repeated several times until only one is left.
[Note: UK residents who have voted in today's referendum might notice a parallel with the 'First Past the Post' and 'Alternative Vote' systems.]
'Eeny, meeny, miny, mo' is certainly a strange line, so does it mean anything and does curiosity about its origin lead us anywhere? Well, as is so often the case in etymology, yes and no. There is a similarity between the words of the phrase and some of the numerals in pre-English Celtic and Cumbrian languages. For example, the oral tradition of the English coastal town of Yarmouth voices 'one, two, three, four' as 'ina, mina, tethera, methera'. Also, the word for 'one' in Welsh, Cornish, Irish and Breton is, respectively, 'un' (pronounced 'een'), 'ouyn', 'aon' and 'unan' - all of them sounding not unlike 'een' or 'eeny'.
The age of the phrase is uncertain. It first began to be written down in the 19th century - the scholarly journal Notes and Queries published this in the February 1855 edition:
"The following are used in the United States for the selection of a tagger...
Eeny, meeny, moany, mite,
Butter, lather, boney, strike,
Hair, bit, frost, neck,
Harrico, barrico, we, wo, wack"
This bears more than a passing resemblance to the English version recorded by Fred Jago in The Glossary of the Cornish Dialect, 1882:
Ena, mena, mona, mite,
Bascalora, bora, bite,
Hugga, bucca, bau,
Eggs, butter, cheese, bread.
Stick, stock, stone dead - OUT."
There's no doubt that the rhyme is older than the 19th century recorded versions, possibly very much older. The link to the names of numerals in ancient languages is also likely. Many farmers and fishermen on the fringes of Britain used such language for counting until quite recently and many natives of the north of England can still count from one to five in 'the old way' - 'yan, tan tehera, methera, pimp'.
Ancient Celtic counting system or Victorian nonsense verse? American in origin or English? Your best bet is to put all the available theories in a circle and repeat this rhyme - Eeny, meeny...
Hard-hearted
Meaning
Lacking mercy; incapable of pity.
Origin
The first mention in print in English of the term 'hard-hearted' is in Geoffrey Chaucer's 1374 translation of Consolation of Philosophy, the 6th century treatise by the Roman philosopher Anicius Boethius:
Ne no tere ne wette his face, but he was so hard-herted.
The term reflects the mediaeval belief that the heart was the organ that controlled one's thoughts and feelings - there being no understanding of the functioning of the brain at that time. The belief was that the condition of the heart reflected the senses in a direct and literal way. We have retained several mediaeval expressions that we now see as entirely figurative but which were previously akin to a medical diagnosis:
- Cold-hearted
- Light-hearted
- Broken-hearted
- Half-hearted
- Hard-hearted
- Faint-hearted
- Whole-hearted
The last on that list, whole-hearted, is atypical in that it is a 19th century term and derives from a different meaning of 'hearted', i.e. 'courageous; spirited'.
The transition from literal to figurative meaning is matched by the transition in the spelling of the terms. Initially, the two words were usually written separately, then later as a hyphenated pair and finally as a single word. Someone with a 'light heart' was initially 'light hearted', later 'light-hearted' and more recently 'lighthearted' - for example:
John Palsgrave's dictionary Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse, 1530: "Lyght herted or mery, alaigre."
William Cowper's poem The Task, 1785: "He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, Cold and yet cheerful."
Wilkie Collins's novel Queen of Hearts, 1859: "Mrs. Knifton began to make jokes about it, in her lighthearted way."
The 15th century literal way of thinking (and spelling) was resurrected in the 1920s in the popular Tin-Pan Alley song Hard Hearted Hannah:
They call her Hard Hearted Hannah,
The vamp of Savannah,
The meanest gal in town;
Leather is tough, but Hannah's heart is tougher,
She's a gal who loves to see men suffer!
Of course, to be 'hearted' these days we just need a T-shirt. The 'I heart NY' message began being used in the USA in the 1980s and, in January 2011, the OED defined a new meaning of the verb heart as "To love; to be fond of: - originally with reference to logos using the symbol of a heart to denote the verb 'love'", which is as close as we can get to an acceptance that the symbol is now part of the language.
Lacking mercy; incapable of pity.
Origin
The first mention in print in English of the term 'hard-hearted' is in Geoffrey Chaucer's 1374 translation of Consolation of Philosophy, the 6th century treatise by the Roman philosopher Anicius Boethius:
Ne no tere ne wette his face, but he was so hard-herted.
The term reflects the mediaeval belief that the heart was the organ that controlled one's thoughts and feelings - there being no understanding of the functioning of the brain at that time. The belief was that the condition of the heart reflected the senses in a direct and literal way. We have retained several mediaeval expressions that we now see as entirely figurative but which were previously akin to a medical diagnosis:
- Cold-hearted
- Light-hearted
- Broken-hearted
- Half-hearted
- Hard-hearted
- Faint-hearted
- Whole-hearted
The last on that list, whole-hearted, is atypical in that it is a 19th century term and derives from a different meaning of 'hearted', i.e. 'courageous; spirited'.
The transition from literal to figurative meaning is matched by the transition in the spelling of the terms. Initially, the two words were usually written separately, then later as a hyphenated pair and finally as a single word. Someone with a 'light heart' was initially 'light hearted', later 'light-hearted' and more recently 'lighthearted' - for example:
John Palsgrave's dictionary Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse, 1530: "Lyght herted or mery, alaigre."
William Cowper's poem The Task, 1785: "He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch, Cold and yet cheerful."
Wilkie Collins's novel Queen of Hearts, 1859: "Mrs. Knifton began to make jokes about it, in her lighthearted way."
The 15th century literal way of thinking (and spelling) was resurrected in the 1920s in the popular Tin-Pan Alley song Hard Hearted Hannah:
They call her Hard Hearted Hannah,
The vamp of Savannah,
The meanest gal in town;
Leather is tough, but Hannah's heart is tougher,
She's a gal who loves to see men suffer!
Of course, to be 'hearted' these days we just need a T-shirt. The 'I heart NY' message began being used in the USA in the 1980s and, in January 2011, the OED defined a new meaning of the verb heart as "To love; to be fond of: - originally with reference to logos using the symbol of a heart to denote the verb 'love'", which is as close as we can get to an acceptance that the symbol is now part of the language.
Beat around the bush
Meaning
Prevaricate and avoid coming to the point.
Origin
The figurative meaning of the odd phrase 'beat around the bush' or, as it is usually expressed in the UK, 'beat about the bush', evolved from the earlier literal meaning. In bird hunts, some of the participants roused the birds by beating the bushes and enabling others, to use a much later phrase, to 'cut to the chase' and catch the quarry in nets. So, 'beating about the bush' was the preamble to the main event, which was the capturing of the birds. Of course, grouse hunting and other forms of hunt still use beaters today.
The phrase is old and first appears in the mediaeval poem Generydes - A Romance in Seven-line Stanzas, circa 1440:
Butt as it hath be sayde full long agoo,
Some bete the bussh and some the byrdes take.
The poem is anonymous and only exists as a single handwritten manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, the early printed versions all having disappeared. Even at that early date the author's implication was clearly that 'beting the bussh' was considered a poor substitute for getting on with it and 'taking the byydes'. If it really was said 'full long agoo' in the 15th century then the English 'beat about the bush' must be one of the oldest non-biblical phrases in the language. The earliest version that I can find that adds 'about' to 'beat the bush' is in George Gascoigne's Works, 1572:
As far as the relative global popularity of the two versions of the phrase goes, the US version, 'beat around the bush', is becoming the standard, overtaking the UK version, 'beat about the bush' around (or about, if you prefer) 1980.
Prevaricate and avoid coming to the point.
Origin
The figurative meaning of the odd phrase 'beat around the bush' or, as it is usually expressed in the UK, 'beat about the bush', evolved from the earlier literal meaning. In bird hunts, some of the participants roused the birds by beating the bushes and enabling others, to use a much later phrase, to 'cut to the chase' and catch the quarry in nets. So, 'beating about the bush' was the preamble to the main event, which was the capturing of the birds. Of course, grouse hunting and other forms of hunt still use beaters today.
The phrase is old and first appears in the mediaeval poem Generydes - A Romance in Seven-line Stanzas, circa 1440:
Butt as it hath be sayde full long agoo,
Some bete the bussh and some the byrdes take.
The poem is anonymous and only exists as a single handwritten manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, the early printed versions all having disappeared. Even at that early date the author's implication was clearly that 'beting the bussh' was considered a poor substitute for getting on with it and 'taking the byydes'. If it really was said 'full long agoo' in the 15th century then the English 'beat about the bush' must be one of the oldest non-biblical phrases in the language. The earliest version that I can find that adds 'about' to 'beat the bush' is in George Gascoigne's Works, 1572:
As far as the relative global popularity of the two versions of the phrase goes, the US version, 'beat around the bush', is becoming the standard, overtaking the UK version, 'beat about the bush' around (or about, if you prefer) 1980.
Dressed to the nines
Meaning
Dressed flamboyantly or smartly.
Origin
Nine is the most troublesome number in etymology. There are several phrases of uncertain parentage that include the word. Examples are, cloud nine, nine days' wonder and the infamous whole nine yards. We can add 'dressed to the nines' to that list.
The most frequently heard attempts to explain the phrase's derivation involve associating the number nine with clothing in some way. One theory has it that tailors used nine yards of material to make a suit (or, according to some authors, a shirt). The more material you had the more kudos you accrued, although nine yards seems generous even for a fop. Another commonly repeated explanation comes from the exquisitely smart uniforms of the 99th (Lanarkshire) Regiment of Foot, which was raised in 1824. The problem with these explanations is that they come with no evidence to support them, apart from a reference to the number nine (or 99, which seems to be stretching the cloth rather thinly). The regiment was in business in the early 19th century, which is at least the right sort of date for a phrase that became widely used in the middle of that century.
The first example of the use of the phrase that I can find in print is in Samuel Fallows' The Progressive Dictionary of the English Language, 1835. In his entry for the phrase 'to the nines' Fallows gives the example 'dressed up to the nines' and suggests that it "may perhaps" be derived from 'to thine eynes' - to the eyes. Not bad as a hypothesis, but without any evidence (and I can find none) 'may perhaps' is as far as we can go with that.
What counts against the above explanations is the prior use of the shorter phrase 'to the nine' or 'to the nines', which was used to indicate perfection, the highest standards. That was in use in the 18th century, well before 'dressed to the nines' was first used, as in this example from William Hamilton's Epistle to Ramsay, 1719:
The bonny Lines therein thou sent me,
How to the nines they did content me.
It is worth noting that the number nine has long been used as a superlative. The Nine Worthies were characters drawn from the Pagan and Jewish history and from the Bible. The Nine Worthies, usually called simply The Nine, were well-known to mediaeval scholars as the personification of all that was noble and heroic. The Poetick Miscellenies of Mr John Rawlett, 1687, provides the earliest reference to 'to the Nine' that I can find:
And Poets most who still make their address
In private to the Nine.
It is clear that 'the Nine' that Rawlett was referring to were the Nine Worthies. It is just as clear that 'dressed to the nines' is merely an extension of 'to the nine/s' and that we could equally well 'dance to the nines' or 'philosophize to the nines'. The search for the link between 'nines' and dress sense has unearthed no convincing candidates. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but I'll stick my neck out here and say, with this phrase and with the other 'nines' phrases, 'nine' doesn't refer to anything specific - it just means 'a lot'.
Dressed flamboyantly or smartly.
Origin
Nine is the most troublesome number in etymology. There are several phrases of uncertain parentage that include the word. Examples are, cloud nine, nine days' wonder and the infamous whole nine yards. We can add 'dressed to the nines' to that list.
The most frequently heard attempts to explain the phrase's derivation involve associating the number nine with clothing in some way. One theory has it that tailors used nine yards of material to make a suit (or, according to some authors, a shirt). The more material you had the more kudos you accrued, although nine yards seems generous even for a fop. Another commonly repeated explanation comes from the exquisitely smart uniforms of the 99th (Lanarkshire) Regiment of Foot, which was raised in 1824. The problem with these explanations is that they come with no evidence to support them, apart from a reference to the number nine (or 99, which seems to be stretching the cloth rather thinly). The regiment was in business in the early 19th century, which is at least the right sort of date for a phrase that became widely used in the middle of that century.
The first example of the use of the phrase that I can find in print is in Samuel Fallows' The Progressive Dictionary of the English Language, 1835. In his entry for the phrase 'to the nines' Fallows gives the example 'dressed up to the nines' and suggests that it "may perhaps" be derived from 'to thine eynes' - to the eyes. Not bad as a hypothesis, but without any evidence (and I can find none) 'may perhaps' is as far as we can go with that.
What counts against the above explanations is the prior use of the shorter phrase 'to the nine' or 'to the nines', which was used to indicate perfection, the highest standards. That was in use in the 18th century, well before 'dressed to the nines' was first used, as in this example from William Hamilton's Epistle to Ramsay, 1719:
The bonny Lines therein thou sent me,
How to the nines they did content me.
It is worth noting that the number nine has long been used as a superlative. The Nine Worthies were characters drawn from the Pagan and Jewish history and from the Bible. The Nine Worthies, usually called simply The Nine, were well-known to mediaeval scholars as the personification of all that was noble and heroic. The Poetick Miscellenies of Mr John Rawlett, 1687, provides the earliest reference to 'to the Nine' that I can find:
And Poets most who still make their address
In private to the Nine.
It is clear that 'the Nine' that Rawlett was referring to were the Nine Worthies. It is just as clear that 'dressed to the nines' is merely an extension of 'to the nine/s' and that we could equally well 'dance to the nines' or 'philosophize to the nines'. The search for the link between 'nines' and dress sense has unearthed no convincing candidates. Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but I'll stick my neck out here and say, with this phrase and with the other 'nines' phrases, 'nine' doesn't refer to anything specific - it just means 'a lot'.
