Origins of common sayings

[addabox]

The thread about what "I can drink you under the table" means got me thinking about a favorite topic:

Where do some of our common sayings come from originally?

Many of them date back hundreds of years, but we still say things like "He went the whole nine yards" without much thought as to what the hell that means (I've read that this one has to do with deploying all the sails on a ship, but I don't know if that's true).

I recently found out that "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" was originally an advertising slogan designed to get people to start thinking about apples as a good thing to eat, as opposed to making cider with.

I'd be interested in hearing anyone's info, questions and anecdotes about sayings, colloquialisms, rules of thumb, etc.

Maybe we can start with "rule of thumb"?

[alcimedes]

rule of thumb, iirc was back when you were allowed to beat your wife with a rod no thicker than your thumb.

the whole nine yards refers to the gunners in the (i think) b52 bombers. they bombers gun ammo came in 9 yard lengths. a harrowing trip would be one where you used "the whole nine yards".

and the one i learned today "hope against hope"

The phrase derives from the Bible (Romans 4:18 ): Saint Paul is writing about Abraham, 'Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken.'"

[Spart]

Alcimedes is probably right. Not saying that this is necessarily correct, but the UrbanDictionary.com definition of "whole nine yards" does have more to do with machine gun belts than boat sails.

[addabox]

Originally posted by alcimedes
rule of thumb, iirc was back when you were allowed to beat your wife with a rod no thicker than your thumb.

the whole nine yards refers to the gunners in the (i think) b52 bombers. they bombers gun ammo came in 9 yard lengths. a harrowing trip would be one where you used "the whole nine yards".

and the one i learned today "hope against hope"

Interesting.

Some googling suggests that the "rule of thumb" thing is somewhat controversial. Apparently no record of standards of wife beating is to be found in English case law, and the alternate explanation comes from carpentry, where the experienced woodworker could forgo measurement by relying of "the ruler of his thumb".

[addabox]

There's a lengthy article about the origins of "the whole nine yards" here.

The machine gun thing is at least a strong contender, but apparently no one has been able to pin it down for sure.

I was suprised to learn that its origins are American and farily recent (post WWII).

[stupider...likeafox]

If you ever find yourself wondering about these kind of word/phrase origins then entering "the phrase in quotes" and "etymology" into Google usually gives you some good leads.

Unfortunately, as in the case of the whole nine yards, you'll often find that there is no good answer, and in fact it's wise to treat any source that seems 100% sure of the origin with some suspicion especially as language mutates in weird ways over time e.g. "proof is in the pudding" versus "the proof of the pudding ...".

[Carol A]

Originally posted by addabox
The thread about what "I can drink you under the table" means got me thinking about a favorite topic:

Where do some of our common sayings come from originally?

Many of them date back hundreds of years, but we still say things like "He went the whole nine yards" without much thought as to what the hell that means (I've read that this one has to do with deploying all the sails on a ship, but I don't know if that's true).

I recently found out that "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" was originally an advertising slogan designed to get people to start thinking about apples as a good thing to eat, as opposed to making cider with.

I'd be interested in hearing anyone's info, questions and anecdotes about sayings, colloquialisms, rules of thumb, etc.

Maybe we can start with "rule of thumb"?

Hey! You beat me to it!!! I was gonna start this exact same thread! hahaha. (Great minds...etc.)

It's just as well *you* did, 'cause I gotta mow the lawn later; and if I had a thread going, I'd have an excuse to hang around and 'not' do my chores. heh. (I'm always looking for a reasonable excuse when it comes to mowing the lawn. )

Ouch! a rod as thick as your thumb to beat your wife? Jeez. I vaguely remember that one, now that you mention it.

And the whole nine yards? All this time I had assumed that that expression came from football. Like, if it were the fourth down and they still needed nine yards for a first down....and they decided to run or pass rather than kick? And then somebody managed to 'make' the whole nine yards for a first down. Okay. I guess that was a stupid idea for the derivation of that term. Had NO idea it had to do with ammo belts. I *really* like that explanation though. I love military stuff.

Okay, I have a couple that fascinate me. The term 'room and board' - anybody ever wondered what 'board' actually meant? Well, apparently back in England peasants carried a square, thick piece of wood, slightly hollowed-out on either side. They carried this when hired to cut crops for a landowner, and used it as a plate/bowl for meals. The front, probably deeper-side was used for the main meal. The underneath side was used for dessert. At least, that's what I read somewhere.

Then my next favorite is "sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite". In England, lots of people lived in dwellings with a thatched roof. The straw provided a haven for many insects and spiders, which would drop down into bed with people while they were sleeping - IF they didn't have a canopy over their bed!!! So, that's where the canopy beds came from - to catch spiders and other creepy-crawlies and prevent them from joining people in their blankets every night. Interesting, huh?

I LOVE this stuff.

[addabox]

Originally posted by Carol A
Hey! You beat me to it!!! I was gonna start this exact same thread! hahaha. (Great minds...etc.)

A kind of side bar to the topic are phrases that are "misheard" and take that last step into complete gibberish.

The one that comes to mind is hearing "It's a dog eat dog world" as "It's a doggy dog world".

I wouldn't be suprised if the latter gradually became the "real" saying and 100 years from now people will be specualting on the origins of such an odd turn of phrase.

It's happened before; many people are familiar with the fact that "music hath charms to sooth the savage beast" is just a misreading of "...savage breast".

[johnq]

http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p1944.htm

Buzkashi - the Afghan version of football. It is their national sport. It involves a headless carcass of a goat, a calf or a sheep, placed in the center of a circle and surrounded two teams of players on horseback. The object is to grab the carcass and bring it across a goal line or into the winner's circle.

In the so-called "First Anglo-Afghan War" (1838-42), British troops, having decided to leave after a tenuous victory eroded into a precarious stalemate. Having finalized an agreement for safe, orderly retreat, the British were ambushed in snowbound passages by fierce Ghilzai warriors killing most of the 16,000 people in the column (4,500 military personnel both British and Indian).

Dr. W. Brydon of Scunthorpe, Great Britain, was one of very few survivors, brought back with him a passion for the Afghan sport Buzkashi. He began assembling a small group of teams to play a British version (since called "Brydon" aka "foxpass") with simpler rules and of course a more civilized substitute for a dead goat. Brydon naturally chose to use a fox carcass with tail intact, since fox hunting was already popular. It was stuffed with hay and sand to make it heavy. A gaff (stick with a metal hook on it - yes, like the gaffi Sandmen used in Star Wars That's where Lucas got the name) is used to grab the carcass.

One of the rules which Buzkashi lacked, in his opinion, was requiring the entirety of the horse to pass through the depth of the goal zone. The Afghans would often contest goals in which a horse partially entered the zone and this often lead to fights and even death and often games would unravel into chaos. British sportsmen, however, could be no less violent (this riot resulted in the league headquarters being destroyed), thus the important change.

Brydon's "foxpass" required the horse to run the entire length of the zone and fully exit it, that is, one average full horse length (13 1/2 feet) which, when adding the length of the goal zone, is 9 yards.

Since you cannot score unless A completely traveling through the goal zone and B completely exiting it, one needed to do both or not score a full point ("shaqab" or "shack" as it was shortened to via slang).

|<- horse ~ | goal zone |
| 13.5 | 13.5 |
| 9 yards |

To "go the whole nine yards" is to fully enter and exit the goal zone, although the term is largely a slang term since a horse is allowed to exit at an angle (only the 13.5 feet really need to be travelled). It usually means the horse was going full speed, dead ahead.

Not doing so will only score a half point or "mah shaqab" (or "mash" in British slang). There are 24 "runs" in a game (a run is like a quarter or inning - not a point like in baseball). Half points are not carried forward to the next run, so they can be useless more often than not.

Today the game is still played in Great Britain, Wales, Scotland, Australia, South Africa and India although a red leather rugby-like ball with 2 thick straps on each end is used. Short batons with curled ends are used to grab the ball and also to hurl it to other players.

The Brighton UK Hurlers are the world champion Brydon players having won 16 World Meets which are held every 7 years.

[addabox]

Originally posted by johnq
http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p1944.htm

Buzkashi - the Afghan version of football. It is their national sport. It involves a headless carcass of a goat, a calf or a sheep, placed in the center of a circle and surrounded two teams of players on horseback. The object is to grab the carcass and bring it across a goal line or into the winner's circle.

In the so-called "First Anglo-Afghan War" (1838-42), British troops, having decided to leave after a tenuous victory eroded into a precarious stalemate. Having finalized an agreement for safe, orderly retreat, the British were ambushed in snowbound passages by fierce Ghilzai warriors killing most of the 16,000 people in the column (4,500 military personnel both British and Indian).

Dr. W. Brydon of Scunthorpe, Great Britain, was one of very few survivors, brought back with him a passion for the Afghan sport Buzkashi. He began assembling a small group of teams to play a British version (since called "Brydon" aka "foxpass") with simpler rules and of course a more civilized substitute for a dead goat. Brydon naturally chose to use a fox carcass with tail intact, since fox hunting was already popular. It was stuffed with hay and sand to make it heavy. A gaff (stick with a metal hook on it - yes, like the Sandmen used in Star Wars That's where Lucas got the name) is used to grab the carcass.

One of the rules which Buzkashi lacked, in his opinion, was requiring the entirety of the horse to pass through the depth of the goal zone. The Afghans would often contest goals in which a horse partially entered the zone and this often lead to fights and even death and often games would unravel into chaos. British sportsmen, however, could be no less violent, thus the important change.

Brydon's "foxpass" required the horse to run the entire length of the zone and fully exit it, that is, one average full horse length (13 1/2 feet) which, when adding the length of the goal zone, is 9 yards.

Since you cannot score unless A completely traveling through the goal zone and B completely exiting it, one needed to do both of lose the point ("shaqab" or "shack" as it was shortened to via slang).

|<- horse ~ | goal zone |
| 13.5 | 13.5 |
| 9 yards |

To "go the whole nine yards" is to fully enter and exit the goal zone, although the term is largely a slang term since a horse is allowed to exit at an angle (only the 13.5 feet really need to be travelled). It usually means the horse was going full speed, dead ahead.

Not doing so will only score a half point or "mah shaqab" (or "mash" in British slang). There are 24 "runs" in a game (a run is like a quarter or inning - not a point like in baseball). Half points are not carried forward to the next run, so they can be useless more often than not.

Today the game is still played in Great Britain, Wales, Scotland, Australia, South Africa and India although a leather rugby-like ball with 2 leather straps on each end is used. Short batons with curled ends are used to grab the ball and also to hurl it to other players.

The Brighton UK Hurlers are the world champion Brydon players having won 16 World Meets which are held every 7 years.

While that well may be true, it sounds like one of the hiariously convulted made up explanations on the British radio show "My Word".

[johnq]

Originally posted by addabox
While that well may be true, it sounds like one of the hiariously convulted made up explanations on the British radio show "My Word".

SHHH!

[giant]

Originally posted by Spart
Alcimedes is probably right. Not saying that this is necessarily correct, but the UrbanDictionary.com definition of "whole nine yards" does have more to do with machine gun belts than boat sails.

I hate the urban dictionary.

But as far as the whole 9 yards goes, here's what the word detective had to say:

Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of the expression "the whole nine yards"? -- Pam Goldman and the Bichons of Camelot, Livingston, NJ.


Bichons of Camelot? Bichons Frise? Fuzzy little white dogs wearing Medieval suits of armor? I think I need another cup of coffee.


OK, I'm back, and the answer to your question about the origin of "the whole nine yards" (meaning "the whole thing" or "everything") is that nobody knows for sure. There are dozens of theories about this phrase, many of them passionately held by folks who send them to me at the rate of about ten per week. Not one of these theories, unfortunately, has ever been verified.


Some of the more popular theories trace "the whole nine yards" to the amount of cloth needed to make a wedding dress or bridal train, a man's three-piece suit, a burial shroud, or other apparel. Other theories trace the phrase to the capacity of cement mixers, or assert that the "yards" actually refers to "yardarms," the spars on a large sailing ship that actually hold the sails. One theory particularly popular at the moment (judging from my mail) is that machine gun ammunition belts in World War Two fighter planes were nine yards long, so that a pilot who expended all his ammo in a dogfight would be said to have shot "the whole nine yards."


There are flaws in all these theories. "The whole nine yards" first cropped up in print in the mid-1960s, so any explanations tracing the phrase to sailing ships are unlikely to be true. "Nine yards" is not a standard amount of material in connection with any garment or cement mixer. And even if machine gun belts really were 27 feet long in WWII, why has the phrase "the whole nine yards" not been found in a single published account of that very well-documented war?


The problem here is not lack of theories that "sound good," but lack of solid, not hearsay or word-of-mouth, evidence. What we need, and I'd be thrilled to see it, is an example of "the whole nine yards" in print (preferably before the mid-1960s) that uses the phrase in reference to a specific trade or custom, not just in its modern "the whole shebang" sense.

http://www.word-detective.com/072999.html

[giant]

Originally posted by addabox
Maybe we can start with "rule of thumb"?

Rule(s) of Thumb

Dear Evan: We are wondering where the phrase "Rule of Thumb" came from. Please help! We have checked the dictionary, thesaurus, William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White's book "Elements of Style", and the internet -- to no avail. If you can tell us this information we would be grateful. -- Jan Benintendi, via the Internet.

Hereby hangs a tale (possibly even a tale and a half). The phrase "rule of thumb" is notable today, not for its real origin, but for a modern myth of its origin. Supposedly, under English common law in the 17th century, the original "rule of thumb" allowed a man to beat his wife with a switch on the condition that the switch be no thicker than his thumb. Thus, it is said, the phrase is inherently oppressive and offensive and should never be used.

Now, while I believe this story to be untrue, the general question of "hidden" offensiveness in idioms is a legitimate one. Many of our words and phrases are painfully potent reminders of attitudes and practices of the past that we find reprehensible today. On the other hand, some of our idioms have traveled so far from their nefarious origins as to have earned a reprieve. Thus, a phrase such as "indian giver" may rightly still be considered offensive today, while "gyp" has largely lost its overtones of the once-common prejudice against gypsies. There is no simple rule for deciding whether a phrase has lost its sting -- only our reasonable sensitivity and good will tempered by a healthy resistance to the shrieking paranoia so commonly found in discussions of language these days.

In this case, the issue is moot, because the "sexist origin" of this phrase is almost certainly pure invention. "Rule of thumb" probably came from the use of the thumb as a convenient measuring tool, the distance to the first knuckle usually being about one inch. Even "The Bias-Free Word Finder," the bible of the Politically Correct Language Guardians among us, considers the wife-beating theory implausible and notes that it first surfaced in a 1986 letter to the editor in "Ms." magazine. So I guess the first "rule of thumb" in these cases is "Check your sources, lest they be hokum."

http://www.word-detective.com/back-n.html

[Carol A]

Wonder what "hokum" actually means?




(This could go on forever!)

[johnq]

Originally posted by Carol A
Wonder what "hokum" actually means?




(This could go on forever!)

I think my post was the definition of hokum.

[addabox]

I tracked down hokum at great personal risk:

Hokum is a blending of "hocus pocus" and "bunkum".

Hocus Pocus is a a corruption of the Catholic mass latin for "this is my body",
hoc est corpus meum. Less educated practioners of stage magic just borrowed the sense of an empowered person saying mystical things.

Bunkum is a phonetic spelling of Buncombe, a county in North Carolina. In about 1820 Felix Walker was the a congressional representative for Buncombe. He made a lengthy yet unimportant speech at that time, continuing it despite protest because he was "determined to make a speech for Buncombe." The name came to apply to any meaningless talk.

Which of course means it is well suited for AO!

[Carol A]

Originally posted by addabox
I tracked down hokum at great personal risk:

Hokum is a blending of "hocus pocus" and "bunkum".

Hocus Pocus is a a corruption of the Catholic mass latin for "this is my body",
hoc est corpus meum. Less educated practioners of stage magic just borrowed the sense of an empowered person saying mystical things.

Bunkum is a phonetic spelling of Buncombe, a county in North Carolina. In about 1820 Felix Walker was the a congressional representative for Buncombe. He made a lengthy yet unimportant speech at that time, continuing it despite protest because he was "determined to make a speech for Buncombe." The name came to apply to any meaningless talk.

Which of course means it is well suited for AO!

This is all so interesting. We use all these terms, yet have no idea what they 'really' mean.

Thanks for looking all that up, addabox.

[addabox]

Originally posted by Carol A
This is all so interesting. We use all these terms, yet have no idea what they 'really' mean.

Thanks for looking all that up, addabox.

My pleasure, I was amazed that hokum was made out of yet two more
words with interesting histories.

[SledgeHammer]

Among all the explanations here presented for "The Whole Nine Yards" I have not seen the one I learned a couple years ago. I wish I could remember where I saw it, but alas. Anyway, my source said that the phrase's meaning of "the whole thing" was actually a change from its original meaning of "all but enough" or "close but no cigar" The origin was supposedly an American football game in which one of the teams needed to make 10 yards to score and win the game, but managed to make only 9. In the locker room after the game, the coach chided them in a sarcastic tone for making it "the whole nine yards."

I always found that explanation interesting. And speaking of the whole nine yards, there's a sequel coming out, which I'm excited about.

[pfflam]

I know that "Beyond the Pale" comes from Ireland. When Dublin was run by the oppressive English colonizers ( ) the area that surrounded it for a 20 mile perimiter was called 'the Pale'. If you went beyond that you were said to be risking life and limb among those crazy Gaelic madmen.

[addabox]

Originally posted by pfflam
I know that "Beyond the Pale" comes from Ireland. When Dublin was run by the oppressive English colonizers ( ) the area that surrounded it for a 20 mile perimiter was called 'the Pale'. If you went beyond that you were said to be risking life and limb among those crazy Gaelic madmen.

Man, I wish I could remember all of these-- it's cool to be able to rattle this stuff off at parties.

Wait-- where does "rattle something off" come from? Does it have something to do with abacuses... um, abaci... whatever?

[johnq]

I always imagined "beyond the pale" was an aviation term, as in so far away as to disappear from view - behind the sky, if you will.

That is one phrase I never bothered looking into before

It's scary how many incorrect notions we might be carrying around.

"Rattle off" is merely descriptive of saying many sounds quickly, as rattle means that. "Rattle on" and "rattle off" are similar. "Rattle on" would be a prolonged fast speaking similar to a horse race narration or auction or dictation. "Rattle off" is more a brief period of saying something quickly like if you tell someone your address or phone number.

Rattle the device and rattle the speaking style are both based on rattle being the name for any short sounds - neither is named after the other.

[Carol A]

The next two I have I'm a little hazy on. The first deals with "burning the candle at both ends".

I think what I remember being told was that when company came to visit a villager's cottage, the host lit a candle at both ends to give more light. Then when the candle started to go out, it was time for the company to leave. But I guess burning the candle at both ends was also associated with keeping later hours than usual, for company or maybe for working late on something.

The other was the phrase "done to a T". Apparently, to cook a roast in a cottage fireplace, a roast was impaled onto a metal spit and held at one end by a "T-shaped" piece of iron. The spit could be swung in toward the coals, and out again for turning sides.

[pfflam]

'Rattlin off" i always picture things falling off the back of a rattling horse cart . . . but it probably is the onomotopoetic (sp?) . . .

[addabox]

Some "red" terms:

"Red letter day" stems from the catholic church marking saint's days in red.

"Red herring" comes from the practice of dragging a red herring across a trail as part of training fox hounds to ignore non-fox scents.

"Red tape" is for the literal red tape used to bind legal documents in 18th century Britain.

[Scott]

How about a newer one, "Nuthin' nuthin'". It's shortened Jersey slang for "nothing for nothing". If you watch the movie Turk 182 on of the characters uses the full phrase in context and the meaning is obvious. If I remember it means something like My advice is worthing nothing because my involvement in this is nothing but IMO blah blah blah. I love hearing people say "nothin' nothin'".

[drewprops]

which brings us to a little "sumpin sumpin"

[HOM]

The History Channel said that "through the nose" came from when Viking raiders would go to England. If the people couldn't pay the ransom, the Vikings would slice their nostril, hence they paid their debt by paying through the nose.

Remind me not to get on the bad side of my Scandinavian family members.

[SledgeHammer]

Originally posted by Carol A
The next two I have I'm a little hazy on. The first deals with "burning the candle at both ends".

I think what I remember being told was that when company came to visit a villager's cottage, the host lit a candle at both ends to give more light. Then when the candle started to go out, it was time for the company to leave. But I guess burning the candle at both ends was also associated with keeping later hours than usual, for company or maybe for working late on something.

The other was the phrase "done to a T". Apparently, to cook a roast in a cottage fireplace, a roast was impaled onto a metal spit and held at one end by a "T-shaped" piece of iron. The spit could be swung in toward the coals, and out again for turning sides.

I always just figured that "burning the candle at both ends" meant working extra hard with the added implication that one is likely to "burn out" faster.

[Scott]

If you wanted extra light then buring a candle at both ends would give twice as much. Maybe people did that?

[bauman]

I always thought it had to do with working day and night... a candle at both ends... with all the added implications said above.

[Crusader]

I hear that the phrase "Bad hair day" was from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Is this a myth or what?

Saved by the bell was a favorite of mine. Oh those crazy Victorians and their fear of death. Edgar Allen Poe also had this fear...

[addabox]

Originally posted by Crusader
I hear that the phrase "Bad hair day" was from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Is this a myth or what?

Wow, I'm a huge Buffy fan and I had no idea.

A search suggests that at the very least the first atributable citation is from the 1992 "Buffy" movie. There are allegations that is was in use by teenagers before then, but no real way to know.

Saved by the bell was a favorite of mine. Oh those crazy Victorians and their fear of death. Edgar Allen Poe also had this fear... [/B]

Heh. For a second there, after the "Buffy" reference, I thought you were alluding to "Saved by The Bell", the TV show.

Do you know the whole story on that? I don't think it's been discussed yet.