Common Expressions Explained-50

The following expressions, except as where I have indicated I have sourced the definition and etymology from my previous writings, are taken from a little 2007 book I Didn’t Know That by Karlen Evins. I hope you will find them as interesting and illuminating as I did:

A-1
More than a steak sauce, the phase itself connotes the very best, because, by definition, it was the highest rating that could be given a ship ensured by Lloyd’s of London. Lloyd’s registry of ships and shipping was categorized by letter and number (with ships rated by letter and cargo by number). “A” meant the ship itself was perfect and “1” meant the cargo was in perfect condition.

Aftermath (From my other sources)
Aftermath is commonly and erroneously used to simply mean the period following an event, usually a disaster such as a fire, hurricane, or tornado: “In the aftermath of the tornado, many people in the neighborhood are still homeless.” Television and newspaper reporters are especially guilty of misusing this word. ‘After’ means second and ‘math’ is a mowing or harvest. So an ‘aftermath’ is a second happening, usually a disaster, following and caused by the first event. The San Francisco fire was an aftermath as it was a disaster following and caused by the earthquake of 1906.

Backseat Driver
Think backseat driver and you think of one who complains or one who thinks he can see better from the rear seat than from the front of a vehicle. But the original backseat drivers weren’t complainers. Matter of fact for what they were watching, they could see better! In the days of the early fire engines there was a job for backseat drivers. Someone needed to watch the ladder as fire engines rushed to the scene. As quick turns and abrupt stops were causes for accidents, a backseat driver was as vital a part of the fire team as the firefighters themselves.

Beyond the Pale
Pale is from the Latin word palus which was a stake or boundary marker that fenced the territory under rule by a certain nation. Paling or pickets were quite common as boundary markers in Roman times. Those believed to be beyond the bounds of social or moral decency were once literally exiled beyond the pale or beyond the confines of civilization as determined by the townspeople.

Blackball
Early social clubs in England had a practice of voting for their initiates by dropping white balls or marbles into a ballot box. Those voting against a particular candidate dropped a blackball, hence the term. While the term was first coined in the late 1700s the custom dates back to ancient Greek and Roman times. Even our word ballot refers to voting by little balls.

Cahoots
Cahoots were quite simply little cabins or kajuetes as they were called in medieval Germany. Often known to be occupied by robbers and bandits, these little cabins became planning centers for attacks. So in reality it was the goings-on inside the cabins that became known for what the cabins themselves were called. Today we use cahoots to refer to any shady partnership or less than upright scheme.

Carte Blanche
Ask for carte blanche in France and you just might receive a white sheet of paper because translated literally that is what the term means. Custom has it that a man would trust his closest subordinates with blank sheets or correspondence cards with only his name at the bottom in order that they might use them for whatever needs they might have in a time of crisis (not much different from a blank check today).

Clean as a Whistle
You might not think of a whistle as being so clean that we would use it as a measure of cleanliness, but if you ever tried to make one from a reed (as they were made originally) then you would understand the phrase. To obtain the pure wind sound derived from a reed whistle the tube must be totally free of debris – clean and dry. So to have a thing clean as a whistle today means to have it as orderly as possible, with nothing blocking the passageways.

Crocodile Tears
Those insincere tears we have come to know as crocodile tears are quite literal in origin. For you see, a crocodile does indeed cry over its meal as it eats. But the crying has nothing to do with a croc’s sense of the situation. Instead, as a crocodile eats, his food is pressed to the top of his mouth, causing pressure against the glands known as the lachrymals. These secrete a tear-like substance that flows from his eyes. From this biological active of the reptile we draw our meaning for crocodile tears.

Curmudgeon (From my other sources)
The coinage of curmudgeon is beyond interesting; it is downright fascinating. Dr. Samuel Johnson decided to write his dictionary of the English language because he thought the language was being ‘corrupted’ (after delving deeply into the subject and being astute and intellectually honest, he rejected his original conviction and came to the conclusion that language is a living, breathing, evolving entity).

As related by Bergen Evans, while Johnson was compiling material for his dictionary he received a letter suggesting that the word curmudgeon was derived from the French coeur (heart) and méchant (evil). Either the letter was unsigned or he lost it and forgot who wrote it. The suggestion, though unsupported, was plausible and in his dictionary (1755) Johnson set it down for what it was worth: “a vitious manner of pronouncing coeur méchant, Fr. an unknown correspondent.” In his New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language (1775), Dr John Ash, cribbing from Johnson, but, unfortunately for him, knowing no French entered it as “from the French coeur unknown, méchant correspondent.” This is one of history’s most amusing and notorious instances of plagiarism. The antics of authors Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin were drab and colorless by comparison.

Dead as a Doornail
What is a doornail anyway? Well, I am here to tell you. A doornail is that plate or knob upon which a door’s knocker knocks! As it never moves and is pounded upon repeatedly, we assume it’s dead. Hence the reference (some things are just too easy).

Dessert
It is the French who gave us both the word and the custom of the dessert. By definition their word desservir means to “clear the table,” which originally consisted of clearing both dishes and the tablecloth to make way for the final presentation. Most often that final course was a pastry or ice cream, but in all cases it was something sweet to end the meal. It was believed at that time that the sugar in the sweet was necessary to give a rush of energy in order that all of the foods consumed during the meal could be digested.

Dressed to the Nines
No, this does not mean that on a scale of one to ten, one is dressed almost perfectly. The expression is English in origin and was (when spoken correctly), “dressed to thy’n eyes.” (quite obviously in reference to one spiffed up from head to toe). Leave it to us to make it slang, mispronounce it a bit and make it a popular expression, even though “dressed to the nines” in and of itself makes no sense!


Earmark
[We have heard about earmarks in the past couple of years from corrupt congressmen (Are there any other kind? Yes there are – corrupt congresswomen). So let’s see where this word came from.] Long ago in England farmers found it helpful to mark the ears of their cattle and pigs to prevent thievery. Matter of fact earmarks worked so well that the law decided that one caught taking an earmarked animal or altering one to make it his own should be earmarked himself (literally!) as punishment for the crime. [I guess if it was good enough for a pig……come to think about it how about earmarking (literally!) those congress people who use earmarks as a devise for political patronage to enhance their reelection odds.]

Fiasco
By definition, fiasco is a total, foolish failure, but for its origins you have to go back to the glassblowers of Italy who created beautiful bottles. The story has it that if a bottle was noted to have a flaw it was set aside and reworked into a flask (fiasco in Italian). Not as artsy, but more practical in function was the re-created piece that was salvaged.

Getting One’s Goat
It was a common practice in the early days of horse racing to place a goat in the stall with a high-strung horse to calm him before the race. The two made good roommates, but it was also common practice for an opponent to steal his competitor’s goat in order to upset his horse before the race. Many a good racehorse was ruined by someone getting his goat!

Having a Screw Loose
It’s easy enough to conjure up the image of a machine with a screw loose, but which machine originally gave us the phrase? It was the cotton gin, the advent of which caused cotton mills to multiple at an unbelievable rate in the late 1700’s. So frequent were the breakdowns of the earlier machines that loose screws were nearly always blamed for the problem. As a result the phrase was adapted by most everyone who needed to blame something or someone for just about anything. By the early 1800’s having a screw loose became the catchphrase for something gone amiss.

Influenza
The common flu has a superstitious origin. The phrase was coined in the mid 1700’s when the first outbreak of the virus was recorded in Rome. It was believed at the time that the stars influenced such evil and contagious epidemics and influenza (the Italian word for influence) became the given name for this particular one!

Kick the Bucket
This has nothing to do with a pail being kicked out from under a man being
hanged. The phrase originated in the slaughterhouses of old, where hogs were slashed and hung (by their heels) and strung by a pulley weighted with a wooden block called a bucket. (The name was borrowed from the bucket-in-the-well concept.) Often, in the last efforts of life, the slaughtered hog was known to kick the bucket, just before it gave up the ghost.

Lame Duck
The original lame duck was a member of the British Stock Exchange who couldn’t meet his liabilities on the settlement date, and thus flew off without settling his account. From that we applied the term to our political candidates who, by way of losing an election, can’t return to the flock, even though their own party has been retained. [In recent years this term has applied to presidents serving out their term when either they are not eligible for another term or have been defeated in their bid for a second term. As with his predecessors, George W. Bush has been called a lame duck president, yet with Bush and his administration so involved, for good or ill, in the current financial crisis, he has been described as a lame duck who roared.]



Letting the Cat Out of the Bag
Back in the Middle Ages when the Muslims invaded Southern Europe, suddenly pork was declared unclean and thus became a premium on the open market. Because of strict laws forbidding such, pigs were sold undercover, stashed in bags (or pokes, which some cite to credit the expression “pig in a poke”). On occasion a cat was substituted for the more expensive pig and it wasn’t until the new owner let the cat out of the bag that the scam was revealed.

Lunatic
We get the word lunatic from the same base word that gives us lunar, which, of course, means it pertains to the moon. Lunatic was coined by the early Romans in reference to the mentally insane, as a description of one they thought was moonstruck. For centuries, man has believed that full moons have an effect on behavior. The Romans simply gave it a name and we still use it today.

One Fell Swoop (From my other sources)
At one fell swoop means all at once, as everyone realizes. As pointed out by Bergen Evans, what is not as well understood is that the word “fell” in this phrase is derived not from the past tense of “fall”, but from the noun “felon.”

In Macbeth (Act IV, scene III) when news of the murder of his wife and children by Macbeth is brought to Macduff, he exclaims, “Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?” A kite is a fierce but ignoble hawk or falcon that preys on small quarry and Macduff sees the tragedy in the metaphor of a hawk striking defenseless prey.

Sour Grapes (From other sources)
The words sour grapes leave a sour taste in my mouth – not literally in a gustatory sense of course, but with the figurative ill-tasting sensation of misconstruing what it means. Inevitably this expression is used to mean someone who whines or complains when they do not receive or achieve something they feel they are entitled to.

The expression comes from one of Aesop’s fables where a fox sees some delicious appearing grapes which are out of his reach and try as he might he can not get them. In frustration and resignation he allows as how they are probably sour. The expression really means that the claimant, unable to achieve his objective, declares that the prize was not worth his time and effort.

Three Sheets to the Wind
True the origin of this one is nautical, but no, the sheets are not sails. The sheets being referred to here are the ropes attached to the corners of the sails, which are used for lowering or extending. When all three sheets (on a vessel with three sails) are loosened, the ship will rock and reel as though without course or purpose, much like a drunk would if walking about while intoxicated.


Turn a Blind Eye (From my other sources)
Admiral Horatio Nelson is credited with having said this when willfully disobeying a signal to withdraw during a naval engagement. Tales of that sort, especially when they are about national heroes like Nelson, tend to be exaggerated or entirely fictitious. That doesn't appear to be the case here though and there's very good evidence to show that Nelson was indeed the source of this phrase.

In the naval battle of Copenhagen in 1801 Nelson led the attack of the British fleet against a joint Danish/Norwegian enemy. The British fleet of the day was commanded by Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. The two men disagreed over tactics and at one point Hyde Parker sent a signal (by the use of flags) for Nelson to disengage. Nelson was convinced he could win if he persisted and that's when he 'turned a blind eye'. In their biography Life of Nelson, published just eight years later, Clarke and M'Arthur printed what they claimed to be Nelson's actual words at the time:(Putting the glass to his blind eye) "You know, Foley, I have only one eye - and I have a right to be blind sometimes... I really do not see the signal."

Verdict
The word describing a jury’s decision at the end of a trial is one that dates back to the Middle Ages. With the introduction of the jury, it was superstitiously believe that twelve men in a group would hold some mystical power in drawing a truthful conclusion. The number twelve was considered holy both in reference to the twelve tribes of Israel and Jesus’ twelve apostles. It was the French who gave this body of twelve the name veir (true) and dit (said). Even in homicide cases today, a verdict cannot be obtained until all twelve on the jury reach an agreement. [The phrase for the examination of prospective jurors by the attorneys and the judge is called voir dire which is French for “too see, to speak.”]

Veto
One powerful little word is veto! With four little letters, the head of state has the power to cancel out laws passed by lower governing bodies. The word comes directly from Latin, its translation is literally “I forbid.” It was used in a political context as far back as the time of the Roman senate and has carried the same meaning both within and without political circles for hundreds of years.

Visa
Short for the Latin phrase carta visa, a visa is that official authorization that permits entry into another country. The original phrase means “papers seen”, which was the stamp of approval by those on border control, monitoring the visitors coming into and out of a foreign country.




Win, Place, or Show
Most folks know that the origin of “win, place, or show” dates back to the earliest racetracks, but most may not know that the phrase was so named because of the way in which the finishes were announced. As small boards were used to record the names of the winners of each horse race, and as these boards were so small that only the first two could be “placed” on the board, the titles “win” and “place” were soon coined. Shortly after, a second board was used to “show” the third winner and “win, “place”, or “show” became synonymous with first, second, and third.

Xmas
While some consider it disrespectful to substitute an X for the Christ part of Christmas, others know that the letter X was in fact the symbol used long ago for Christ. X represents the Greek letter chi, which is the initial letter of the Greek word for Christ. According to first century history, the early Greek Christians used the letter X to stand for Christ, much as they used the fish with the X in the tail to represent Jesus.

Zip Code
We refer to it every day, but how many of us knew [before they read this] that the ZIP stands for “Zone Improvement Program”? Okay, so you may have known that, but do you know what the five-digit code represents? Well, according to our reliable postal people, the first three digits indicate a district, usually a city, while the remaining two digits correspond with a local zone.