Language

The expression “the real McCoy” has been attributed to a prize fighter of the late nineties who traveled under the ring-name of “Kid McCoy.” Another fighter of lesser skill, my story went, somewhat the worse for drink and unaware that McCoy was within hearing distance, declared in a barroom that he could lick any of … Read more

The expression “off one’s base” has a literal meaning in baseball, referring to a position taken by a runner away from the bag or base he has occupied, but in the slang sense it has nothing to do with baseball. Here base pertains to that which supports a person, and the expression thus means mentally … Read more

The phrase “a long (or hard) row to hoe” means: A difficult or tedious task to perform; a dreary prospect to face. An American expression of obvious source, and there are few tasks more dispiriting to face than to start hoeing weeds from a long, long row of beans, say, or to hill a row … Read more

The expression “mad as a wet hen” means: Very, very vexed. Though, unlike a duck, a hen does not deliberately seek water in a pond and is not disposed to leave a dry shelter in search of food in the rain, this metaphor has never made good sense to me. Some of our friends have, … Read more

The phrase “to meet one’s Waterloo” means: To get one’s come-uppance; to meet defeat. Any reader of the life of Napoleon will recognize the source and the significance of the phrase. After the defeat of the “little Corsican” by the Allies in 1814 and his brief imprisonment on Elba, from which he escaped in February … Read more

The phrase “to talk a blue streak” means: To talk rapidly and, usually, interminably. We seem to have made this up from two or more other American expressions, all referring to lightning. As long ago as 1830, for instance, mail coaches, though drawn by horses, moved with such rapidity as to leave a “blue streak” … Read more

It’s all a matter of habitual practice or personal taste. That is, if one is not accustomed to a cold shower, a sudden dash of cold water on one’s naked body may be quite a shock. The very notion; “to throw cold water”, a hundred and fifty years ago, gave one the jitters, or at … Read more

Though now it is usually a business house that, under insurmountable financial difficulties, “goes to the wall,” it was, back in the sixteenth century, the adversary in a conflict that, forced to yield ground, went to the wall. The allusion is to the desperate straits of a wayfarer when set upon by ruffians in an … Read more

The phrase “tune the old cow died of” means: Any tune with which one has become thoroughly fed up, or the instrument upon which a tune is played ad nauseam, or the tedious or tiresome manner in which a tune is played. Some of the theme compositions of modern radio and television we would class … Read more

Crossing one’s heart is the most binding oath of childhood; a solemn assurance of truthfulness, usually accompanied by motions of the right hand forming a cross over the general vicinity of the testator’s heart. Probably the gesture and its binding nature were originally based upon the familiar Catholic sign of the cross. In our own … Read more

Although the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward II state that that British sovereign (1307-27) had “l couerchief de veluett” (kerchief of velvet), this material was still so rare and costly through the next two or three hundred years, so generally unfamiliar, as not to acquire any figurative application. Thus it was only about two centuries ago … Read more

The expression “to say uncle” means: To eat crow; throw in the towel or the sponge; cry quits; yield; submit. When I was a boy, one “hollered ‘cavy’” when he was licked, but we would have been the most astonished boys in the world had anyone told us we were talking Latin. That is, “cavy,” … Read more

Although it has never been determined who, during World War I, was the first to speak of a fallen British soldier, and thereafter any member of the Allied military force who died in service, as having “gone west,” the choice of the expression “to go west” does not impress us as having been out of … Read more

The expression “old hat” means: Old stuff; information, experience, condition, or the like that is familiar. A gutter interpretation of the origin, based on the pun, “frequently felt,” does not strike me as remotely plausible. In our opinion the familiarity that is implied is rather that of long usage, something to which one is as … Read more

Robert Burns, in his poem, “Earnest Cry,” used toom (“empty”) rather than “clean”, “Paint Scotland greetan owre her thrissle; Her mutchkin stoup as toom’s a whissle”, and other writers have had the whistle clear, dry, pure, or other adjective. The basic intent, however, is to indicate that, for a sweet, pure sound from a whistle … Read more

The phrase “like a bump on a log” means: Like a Stoughton bottle; stolid; unemotional; stupidly dumb. Usually any such dumb bunny is said to sit or stand like a bump on a log, meaning just to sit or stand in vacuous silence. The metaphor is American and may have referred originally to the stolid … Read more

The expression “double cross” means: Betrayal; treachery; deception by double-dealing; or, as a verb, to bamboozle; to take one to the cleaners. Like any other slang expression this may have been current for many years before it received recognition on the printed page. Its formation, however, was a natural one: the adjective double in the … Read more

The expression “to get one’s come uppance” means: To receive the fate one has merited; to get what is coming to one in the way of chastisement or rebuke. Though “come-uppance,” in the sense here used, is said to be dialectal English, we think it is American, perhaps a modification of English usage, however. Our … Read more

The term “trade last” means: A quoted compliment offered by one who heard it in exchange for a compliment; reciprocal praise; adulatory tit-for-tat. Although a contributor to American Speech (October, December, 1948) tells of a friend of seventy-odd who “has known trade last in Kansas as far back as she can remember,” the expression was … Read more

The expression “to blow one’s own horn” means: To advertise oneself; boast of one’s own abilities; brag. In England, the same self-advertising is done by “blowing one’s own trumpet,” and there is every reason to assume that this saying, or variants thereof, was the source of the American phrase. Fleming, in A Panoplie of Epistles … Read more

The saying “to nourish a snake in one’s bosom” takes us again to our old Greek friend, Aesop. The available translation tells this story under the title, “The Farmer and the Snake”: “A Farmer found in the winter a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up placed … Read more

The expression “spit and polish” means: Finical smartness or ornamentation; furbishment; trimness. But whereas in the early nineteenth century, and many years before, the British officer, naval and military, demanded such finicky smartness, as if by the application of much spittle and elbow grease with a polishing agent, by the latter half of that century … Read more

We go back to naval craft of the sixteenth century for the phrase “between wind and water”, and thence onward through the history of wooden vessels in warfare to recent times. The allusion is to that portion of the side of a ship which, especially in rough seas, is alternately above and below water, exposed … Read more

The expression “not to care a straw” means: To be completely and utterly indifferent, or to regard as of no value whatever; not to care a tinker’s dam. Stone floors were cold, back in the days when carpets or rugs had not yet come into general use, or when, as among the peasantry, none could … Read more

When we were boys we inquired as to the whereabouts of some article or person, mysteriously disappeared or vanished into thin air, we might answer, “Gone where the woodbine twineth and the whangdoodle mourneth for his firstborn.” That is, somehow we picked up the saying in southern Ohio in the 1880’s, both parts of the … Read more

The phrase “to go scot free” means: To be free of penalty, or exempt from punishment or injury. Little Pete goes scotfree if mother thinks the costly new glass candlestick was knocked on the floor by the cat. But the expression and its extended meaning are very old. Back in the twelfth century a scot … Read more

Just why a vigorous and plentiful use of cuss words is supposed by us figuratively to affect the color of the atmosphere, especially to give it a blue tone, is a matter of guesswork. The history of our language does not show how the concept arose. The association of “blue” with evil is not altogether … Read more

The phrase “to hold the bag” means: To be left in the lurch, or in an awkward or ludicrous position not of one’s own devising; to be made the scapegoat for faults committed by others; to be the victim of a mean trick. This American expression was in use, and apparently well understood, back in … Read more

The phrase “no great shakes” means: Nothing out of the ordinary in proficiency or achievement; no particular bargain; nothing of importance or consequence; nothing to write home about; no prize. Maybe, as suggested by the great Oxford English Dictionary, the ultimate source alluded to the shaking of dice, in which the turn is so often … Read more

The expression “to start from scratch” means: To begin any enterprise, investigation, search, or other activity from the very beginning, often with no precedent as a guide; to begin at the beginning; to take the first step. Actually the expression is derived from the sporting world, from a race in which scratch designates the line … Read more

The phrase “to give short shrift to” means: To cut short; to make quick work of. The literal sense appears in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Richard III, Act IV, scene 4. Lord Hastings has just been sentenced to execution by the Duke of Gloucester, shortly to be declared Richard III, and is interrupted in … Read more

The expression “in seventh heaven” means: In a state of ineffable bliss or delight; having great pleasure. This, especially in Islamic beliefs, is the heaven of heavens, in its literal sense, the abode of God and the highest angels. A similar concept prevailed among the Jews in pre-Christian times, probably acquired from Babylonian beliefs. The … Read more

The phrase “cash on the barrelhead”: Immediate payment; spot cash; payment on the nail. There is no doubt in my mind that the original scene here was the makeshift bar of the American frontier a century or more ago. The barrel itself, under improvised conditions, served as both container and counter, or, when empty, as … Read more

The expression “to be in a hole” means: To be in debt; hence, in difficulty or trouble; in a predicament; on the spot; with one’s back to the wall. The “hole” here is not the same one as that, in a poker game, in which one may have an ace in the hole, though this … Read more

The expression “to lose one’s shirt” means to lose everything one has, and, though this expression is fairly new, the concept of one’s shirt being the last thing one possesses, next to his skin, is not exactly new. Chaucer conveyed that thought when, in “The Wyf of Bathes Tale,” he wrote, “Who that holt (hold) … Read more

The phrase “touch and go” means: An uncertain, risky, or precarious state of things, a narrow escape; also, an immediate or rapid action. The expression arose in the early years of the past century, and both interpretations were in vogue from the beginning, probably because any narrow escape is averted through immediate or rapid action. … Read more

The expression “to trip the light fantastic” means: To dance. In full, the expression is “to trip the light fantastic toe.” It comes from John Milton’s “L’Allegro” (1632), from the early lines beginning: Haste thee Nymph and bring with thee Jest and youthful Jollity, and going on to: Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter … Read more

Obviously, two or more people or things occupying one boat must share equal risks, and the phrase “to be in the same boat” has thus acquired such figurative meaning; to share risks equally, to have identical obligations or involvements, to be in or live under similar conditions. Literary usage of the phrase goes back only … Read more

The expression “to take one’s Bible oath” means: To be absolutely certain; to have no shadow of doubt. Alluding to the oath that one takes as a witness in a court, in which, under certain circumstances, one places his right hand upon the Bible or holds it, or the New Testament, in his right hand … Read more

The expression “to hem and haw” means: To express hesitancy or uncertainty; sometimes to express a qualified disapproval. Actually we have made a compound verb out of two vocal sounds by which we ordinarily express such hesitance. That is, we “hem” when we clear the throat with a slight vocal effort, as if about to … Read more

Why do even those among us who loudly proclaim utter freedom from superstition feel just a bit reluctant to state that such and such calamity has never happened without immediately feeling an urge to tap on some solid piece of wood? As everyone knows, when we knock on wood it is supposed to avert evil … Read more

The expression “taken to the cleaners” means: Defrauded; despoiled; mulcted; flimflammed; stung; played for a sucker; also punished or severely defeated. This is merely a modernized form of the slang term “cleaned out,” used by some of our great-grandfathers in the early nineteenth century. The New and Comprehensive Vocabulary of the Flash Language, written in … Read more

Evidently Frederick Webb Hodge, editor of the Handbook of American Indians (1907), issued by the Smithsonian Institution and still regarded as the leading authority on Indian life and customs, did not foresee that movies, radio, and television would perpetuate, at least, among children, an interest in those first inhabitants of the continent. On the meaning … Read more

Nowadays a Tom and Jerry is a drink, one composed of brandy, rum, beaten egg, sugar, nutmeg, and hot milk or water. These components may vary somewhat, but those are the usual current ingredients in the United States. The name is derived from two characters in Pierce Egan’s Life in London; or, Days and Nights … Read more

The expression “a drop in the bucket” means: Any quantity far too small; a smithereen. The metaphor first appeared in the English translation of the Bible by John Wyclif (1382) in Isaiah ix, 15: “Lo! Jentiles as a drope of a boket, and as moment of a balaunce ben holden.” In the King James version … Read more

The term “sacred cow” means: Any personal possessions cherished by its owner, or a person held in such high esteem or of such high office as to be above criticism or attack, someone on a pedestal. This twentieth-century term could have been derived from the cow, held to be sacred in India even at the … Read more

The phrase “to scare the daylights out of somebody” means: To frighten extremely; to alarm intensely; to make one’s hair stand on end; to scare stiff. The daylights here differ from those in the common saying, “to let daylight into a person.” In that, the meaning is “light”, to make a hole in a person … Read more

The expression “to go to rack and ruin” means: To go to destruction; go to pot; go haywire; go to the dogs. In the sixteenth century, and later, men spelled by ear, rather than through knowledge of the historical background of words. In fact, many of our present-day spellings are still affected by that custom. … Read more

The phrase “right as a trivet” means: Absolutely right; right as rain; all hunkydory; all to the mustard. Inasmuch as a trivet, a stand for supporting vessels in a fireplace, was always three-legged in former times, the housewife could set it anywhere upon her hearth, certain that a pot thereon would rest securely. The expression … Read more

The expression “to get a person by the short hairs” means: to have or get a person at one’s mercy; to have or get complete mastery over; or, more moderately, to have or get a decided advantage over. The metaphor appears to be of American origin; at least the earliest instance of literary use of … Read more

The term “stool pigeon” means: An informer or telltale; a decoy used by the police to trap a wrongdoer. The term is neither new nor recent. In the literal sense of a decoy pigeon it was in use by American hunters early in the nineteenth century. And fowlers also used the term “stool-crow,” a similar … Read more

The phrase “to pull up stakes” means: To move from a place; change one’s location. This takes us back to colonial days in New England, to the time when a settler, dissatisfied for any cause with the parcel of land allotted to him, took up the boundary stakes and either returned to England or moved … Read more

The expression “old familiar stamping ground” means: A place to which one is accustomed. Back in the Revolutionary period, and probably long earlier, a stamping ground was a place known to our American forebears where horses or other animals gathered in numbers. The step was short in a transference of the term to a place … Read more

It is not at all likely that any self-respecting sailor would have ever thought of using or even dared to use such an exclamation or oath as this, but, in 1834, the sailor and novelist, Frederick Marryat, finding the necessity for an oath, in Jacob Faithful, chapter XI, that would not offend the ears of … Read more

The term “Indian giver” is the most blameworthy charge that one child can level at another, for he (or she) so charged is two-faced, without honor, faithless. To be brief, the present that Billy-B may bring to Robbie’s birthday party is one that Robbie may look at while the party is in progress, but Billy … Read more

The phrase “to change one’s tune” means: To speak or act in a different manner; to assume a different attitude; to change the subject, or, especially, to humble oneself. The school bully sings a different tune after brave Johnny, finally stirred to anger, gives him a thorough licking. And such has been the case, similarly … Read more

The group of names “Tom, Dick, and Harry” signifying any indiscriminate collection of masculine representatives of hoi polloi was a more or less haphazard choice. It probably started with names common in the sixteenth century. Thus Sir David Lyndesay, in Ane Dialog betwix Experience and ane Courteour (c. 1555), has, “Wherefore to colliers, carters and … Read more

The phrase “to put one’s shoulder to the wheel” means: To assist with might and main; to labor vigorously in behalf of a cause, project, etc. In the physical sense one put one’s shoulder to the wheel to aid his horse in pulling a cart or other vehicle out of the mud or over an … Read more

Usually the “something” is an insult or act of scorn, contempt, derision, or the like that we do not take, or intend to take, with the submission implied by recumbency, passively, that is. In fact, he who does “take it lying down” is likely to be regarded as spineless, or perhaps as a bootlicker, stooge, … Read more

The phrase “to play ball with one” means: To cooperate with one; to accept as a fellow; also, sometimes to accept as a friend or a confidant. In its literal sense the expression first alluded to the necessity for each member of a ball team, baseball or football, to cooperate with all other members in … Read more

Just what these spots were, which when knocked off gave one a victory, is a matter of guess. Apparently they were New England spots, and possibly localized still further in Vermont. At least the first printed reference leads to the latter inference. It was in an article on the breeding of Morgan horses in the … Read more

The phrase “on tick” means: On credit. Years ago, when this commercial term first came into use, it indicated a written document, a form of IOU. That is, it was just a contraction of “on ticket,” and the “ticket” was some form of note of hand, or acknowledgment of indebtedness. The contracted form came into … Read more

After long and diligent search for some American of sufficient prominence in a bygone generation to justify the continued use of his name, even to the present time, in such sayings as “to run like Sam Hill,” “What the Sam Hill,” “Who the Sam Hill,” and so on, we have come to the reluctant conclusion … Read more

“With the tail between the legs” is Fido for you. Put him up against a toy terrier half his size and his tail promptly turns down under his belly. Maybe he’ll even turn on his back, all four legs limp. Brave dog! The attitude of a cowardly or scared dog is so typical that we … Read more

The expression “to cut a big swath” was slang, back in the 1840’s. It alluded to the wide sweep of grass mowed by a scythe; hence, to the flourish made by a pompous person swaggering down the walk. In fact, the first literary use of this American slang was precisely that. It was in High … Read more

The phrase “beside the mark” is very old. In fact, it is so old that, in the original Greek, it had passed from a proverbial phrase into a single word which expressed its figurative sense. That is, in the old Athenian contests, an archer who failed to hit the mark was said to be out … Read more

The expression hocus pocus means: Flimflam; deception; deceit; nonsense; charlatanism; jugglery: sometimes corrupted to “hokey-pokey.” Probably this was originally a form of reduplication, like hodgepodge, odd-bods, shilly-shally, and many others, and was based on Latin. One explanation is given in 1656 by Thomas Ady in A Candle in the Dark; or, A Treatise Concerning the … Read more

The phrase “on Easy Street” means: Having an easy living; in comfortable circumstances; prosperous; riding on the gravy train. American slang from the close of the nineteenth century. The earliest record of this imaginary street in the Dictionary of American English takes it to George V. Hobart’s It’s Up to You (1902), in which the … Read more

The phrase “to swear like a trooper” means: To swear tremendous oaths; to use extreme profanity. Some anonymous newspaper columnist, recently, though using trouper instead of trooper, said, “This expression started and was used in church meetings as late as the 1900’s. The troupers referred to are stage actors and the saying was used to … Read more

The watering or sprinkling cart was a much more familiar vehicle on our dusty American streets a few decades ago than it is today. In fact, nowadays one sees only a motorized version of it cooling hot paved city streets in midsummer. But from the use of this former vehicle in slaking the dust of … Read more

In America it is always dust that the hated villain bites when slain in mortal combat; in England, ground or sand. However, it is merely a matter of translation, for the original picturesque phrase is to be found in Homer’s Iliad, Book II, lines 417-18. This, in the almost literal translation of William Cowper (1838), … Read more

The expression “to stick (or stand) to one’s guns” means: To persevere in one’s course despite obstacles; to hold out for, or insist on, a desired course; to maintain one’s position. Obviously, the origin is military, pertaining to any commander who is determined to maintain a present position in the face of heavy attack by … Read more

The phrase “to add insult to injury” means: To heap scorn upon one already injured. Apperson, in English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases (1929), reports that this familiar expression first appeared in Latin, iniuriae qui addideris contumeliam, “injury which is added to insult”, in the fifth book of the fables written by the Roman writer of … Read more

Since hay is the resultant of mown grass dried for fodder, and the sun is the cheapest and most available drying agency, the literal sense of the aphorism “to make hay while the sun shines” is most obvious. Its figurative intent is equivalent to “Strike while the iron is hot,” and in fact such are … Read more

The expression “to go up in the air” is said not only of balloons and aviators, but of ordinary persons, American fathers especially, who become vociferously enraged, who sputter furiously in resemblance to a skyrocket with an ignited fuse, from which the expression originated some fifty or sixty years ago. Its British equivalent is “to … Read more

Either literally or figuratively “to splice the mainbrace” required the full crew of a sailing vessel. The mainbrace is the rope by which the mainsail is trimmed. To splice this rope requires the services of the entire crew, and at the conclusion of this arduous task it became the custom in the British Navy, in … Read more

The expression “biggest frog (toad) in the puddle” means: The person of most importance in any community or group. The group or community is always a small one, otherwise the person would be a personage and “the biggest fish in the sea.” Daddy is, usually, the biggest frog in a domestic puddle, especially if he … Read more

The expression “drunk as a fiddler” means: Highly intoxicated; three sheets in the wind; squiffy; spifflicated; tanked. It would be quite an achievement to be able to prove that the “fiddler” in the case was Nero, who, somewhat shellacked himself at the time presumably, fiddled while Rome burned, during his reign back in the first … Read more

“Ish kabibble” is the usual way the expression appears. Some, however, write it as a solid word, ishkabibble, and others make it three words, ish ka bibble. Actually you may spell it as you wish, for, like the Missouri mule, it has no pride of ancestry and no hope of posterity. Its source, that is, … Read more

Originally the term “dark horse” was a racing term for a horse about which nothing was known; its abilities had been kept “in the dark”, secret, that is, until it appeared on the track. Benjamin Disraeli is credited with the first literary usage in that sense in The Young Duke (1831): “A dark horse, which … Read more

The phrase “Barmecide feast” (or banquet) comes from the “Story of the Barber’s Sixth Brother” in Arabian Nights. A poor beggar, Schacabac, without food for several days, asked for bread at the door of the rich Persian noble, Barmecide. To his amazement he was invited to the table. Servants brought golden platter after golden platter, … Read more

The phrase “gosh all hemlock” is just one of various minced oaths or exclamations by which a man who thinks he is non-profane actually says “God Almighty!” Gosh has served as a substitute for “God”, usually in “By gosh”, for more than two hundred years. Some other similar substitutes that have appeared on the American … Read more

The expression “to have the goods on one” means: To catch one with the goods, or, that is to say, to have evidence or proof of one’s guilt; to catch one red-handed. “Goods” in such usage refers to merchandise of any sort, whatever article a thief may purloin. The American expression dates from about the … Read more

The phrase “to warm the cockles of one’s heart” means: To evoke a glow of pleasure in one; to produce a feeling of friendliness, affection, sympathy, or the like in one. Considering the fact that the study of anatomy, most other studies too, for that matter, was stagnant throughout the Dark Ages, or roughly from … Read more

The expression “to be a piker” means: To be a cheap-skate, tin-horn gambler, four-flusher, etc.; to be a poor sport or small better. Although this American term is less than a hundred years old, its origin is shrouded in uncertainty. It could have been derived from a regiment, commanded by Colonel Zebulon M. Pike in … Read more

In a previous post, we repeated a couple of amusing but legendary yarns that might account for the expression “a gone coon,” but we have been reminded that the coon is but one of various specimens of animal life which, in American speech, have and are similarly “gone” or hopelessly done for. The expression “a … Read more

The expression “to pay the piper” means: To pay the fiddler; to settle the score; hence, to suffer the consequences; to take one’s punishment, face the music, or take the rap. This had the same allusion as “to pay the fiddler”; that is, to pay the musician who led a dance, and the piper was … Read more

The phrase “to make a mountain of a molehill” means: To make a great to-do over a trifle; to give something far greater importance than is justified. This is by no means a new idea. In fact, as dug up by Apperson, you will find that the witty Greek writer, Lucian (A.D. 125?-210?), used it … Read more