Language

Aspirin is the most successful pharmaceutical drug ever produced. Its main ingredient is found in the bark of the willow tree and was known as a pain reliever in 1500 B.C. In 1828, the ingredient salicin was isolated. In 1897 chemist Felix Hoffman developed a synthetic form, known as acetylsalicylic acid, at the Bayer factory … Read more

If your palms sweat when you’re nervous, you can blame evolution. The inside of your hands have more sweat glands than any other part of your body. This is because tens of thousands of years ago, when our primal ancestors were threatened by savage carnivores, the quickest exit was the nearest tree. Stress caused their … Read more

Plastic surgery was first practiced in India around 600 BC when noses that had been amputated as punishment for criminals were reconstructed with skin from the forehead. The word plastic is from the ancient Greek word plastikos, which means “to mold into shape.” The plastic arts include sculpting and ceramics. The modem term “plastic surgery” … Read more

The first reference to a healer as a quack goes back into the sixteenth century. In those days it was common for dubious medicine men to travel from town to town dispensing their miracle cures from the back of a horse-drawn wagon. The quack refers to the meaningless sound of a duck, which had the … Read more

If you say a doctor has given you a clean bill of health, you’re using a nautical expression. The phrase comes from the days when sailing ships were required to obtain a document from local officials at every port of call declaring that they had not been exposed to any epidemic or infectious disease. If … Read more

Before the age of modern epidemiology, attempts to control the outbreak of a contagious disease included an arbitrary forty days of enforced confinement. New and strange diseases were often carried from abroad by ships, so a quarantine of crew and cargo helped discourage epidemics. Forty days was chosen because of its prominence in the Bible. … Read more

When the weather turned bad at sea, the constant rolling of the rough water caused a rocking motion that brought on seasickness. Those passengers affected were taken below deck, because the sway diminishes the lower you get on the ship, especially down near the keel. Those taken below deck because of seasickness were brought “under … Read more

New Year’s Eve is the night of Holy Sylvester, the Pope who converted the Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity. With the Emperor’s conversion, pagan gods fell from favor but fought back through the souls of the living. To combat their return, during the darkness of New Year’s Eve, people wandered the streets shouting to strangers, … Read more

Kwanza is a seven-day celebration beginning the day after Christmas. It was created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, chairman of African studies at California State University, and is based on an African winter harvest. Kwanza means “first fruits” in Swahili and celebrates African heritage. On each night of Kwanza, one of several candles is lit … Read more

The Chinese have tied animal names to calendar years for centuries. According to the myth, Buddha invited all the animals on Earth to visit him on New Year’s Day, but only twelve arrived. They were the rat, the ox, the tiger, the hare, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the sheep, the monkey, the rooster, … Read more

Travelling at about a thousand miles a second, or 3.6 million miles an hour, Santa covers 111 million miles in 31 hours. Within one second he must visit 500,000 homes, which is why we seldom see him. Of course he does have help, and in some cases he delivers presents before Christmas or even works … Read more

From the very beginning of Christmas traditions, January 6, the day of the Epiphany, was the official end of gift giving, and the most popular day of the celebration. Some people still celebrate the Epiphany as being more important than Christmas Day. Regardless, January 6 is the last day of the festival, and that is … Read more

The word Chanukah means “rededication.” Over 2,300 years ago, the Syrians occupying Judea were overthrown by a Jewish army led by Judah Maccabee. The Syrians had desecrated the Jerusalem Temple with their own gods. While cleaning and reclaiming the temple, the Israelites found enough oil to light the eternal lamp for only one day, but … Read more

In the sixteenth century, Germans began decorating fir trees with ribbons, flowers, apples, and colored paper. Inspired by the reflection of stars off branches in the forest, Martin Luther placed lit candles on his indoor tree. After three hundred years of candles, Edward Johnson introduced electric Christmas lights outside his Fifth Avenue home in New … Read more

The celebration of Christmas begins with Midnight Mass, and the calendar date is December 25. But every Christian knows that the reverence begins on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve comes directly from the Jewish custom of beginning religious rituals with ceremonies starting at sundown. In other words, the evening before the holy day with candles and … Read more

Early scholars believed that prophets died on an anniversary of their birth. Once they established Good Friday as either March 25 or April 6, they reasoned that Christ’s incarnation was nine months later, which would be either December 25 or January 6. The choice was not simply to comply with pagan superstitions. In 386 AD, … Read more

The ancient Germanic peoples celebrated the winter solstice with a feast day for the pagan sun god Jul. It is still the preferred Scandinavian reference to Christmas and survives in our Yule log. Fearing the sun god had disappeared during the year’s longest night, a vigil was held from dusk to dawn. The Yule log … Read more

In 1865, inspired by a horseback trip from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, Reverend Philip Brooks of Philadelphia composed a poem. He eventually showed it to Lewis Redner, the organist at the Church of the Holy Trinity, wondering if he could put the words to music. Redner was stumped, that is, until Christmas Eve, when it came … Read more

On Christmas Eve in 1817, when Father Joseph Mohr of St. Nicholas Church in Arnsdorf, Austria, found that a mouse had chewed through the bellows of his church pipe organ, he rushed to the home of music teacher Franz Gruber. The two men quickly wrote a musical piece, hoping it would save the Christmas Mass. … Read more

According to legend, the very first gifts St. Nicholas gave were to three very poor girls who needed money for their wedding dowries. On Christmas Eve they hung their stockings to dry by the fireplace. St. Nicholas slipped in at night and left gold coins in each of their stockings so they could marry the … Read more

December 21 is the day of the winter solstice, the year’s shortest day and longest night. It’s known as St. Thomas Day, commemorating the last apostle to be convinced of Christ’s resurrection. On this day a bowl of nuts and fruits is put on display to ensure prosperity in the new year, and by sharing … Read more

Xmas has its roots legitimately grounded in the Greek word for Christ, which is Xristos. In the sixteenth century, Europeans adopted the first letter from Xristos as an initial for Christ’s name. And even though the practice had been common among the early Christians, some North Americans, not understanding the Greek language, mistakenly took the … Read more

The twelve days of Christmas are the days separating December 25 and the Epiphany. Also known as the date of Christ’s baptism, which is on January 6th, the Epiphany is the legendary date that the three Wise Men visited the stable with their gifts. It was once the custom to pile up gifts on December … Read more

A dish of porridge that once ended the fast on Christmas Eve evolved into a pudding with dried fruits and spices as a tribute to the Wise Men. By the sixteenth century, the pudding had become a fruitcake, served during the parish priest’s home blessings on Twelfth Night. In 1870, after the protestant Queen Victoria … Read more

Halloween was the Celts’ most significant annual holiday. After the Romans invaded Britain, they respected and adopted a few of the Celtic practices. And during the first century AD, the two cultures began integrating their late autumn rituals. In October, the Romans celebrated Pomona, the goddess of fruit and trees. Her symbol was an apple, … Read more

As a challenge to Halloween, the Roman Catholic Church placed All Saints Day on November 1. On that day, Christians went from village to village begging for soul cakes, a mixture of bread and currants. One cake bought one prayer for the souls of the donor’s departed relatives. The phrase “shell out” as a demand … Read more

One hundred years ago, Dr. Joel Poinsett, the American ambassador to Mexico, introduced the Poinsettia plant to the rest of North America. A Mexican legend has it that two poor children had nothing to offer the baby Jesus during the Christmas festival. So on their way to church they picked some green weeds from the … Read more

During the 1880s, while in Bermuda, Mrs. Thomas Sargent became enamored with the beautiful white Bermuda trumpet lily. She took its bulbs back to Philadelphia, where it caught on among local florists. Since it blooms in spring, the flower soon became known as the “Easter lily,” and its popularity spread. The lily had been introduced … Read more

By the mid-sixteenth century the Julian calendar was out of whack with the lunar calendar by eleven full days. In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII made an eleven-day adjustment so that October 4 was followed by October 15. A system of leap years was designed to keep the calendar in line. Catholics adopted the Gregorian calendar, … Read more

To most Canadians, May 24 signals the start of gardening season. But it’s also a memory of what was once called Empire Day, when the people living on 20 percent of the Earth’s land surface owed allegiance to the British Crown. For sixty-four of its three hundred years, the Empire was presided over by Queen … Read more

The New World settlers from the Mayflower weren’t called Pilgrims until two hundred years after their 1620 arrival at Plymouth Rock. It was Daniel Webster, in a bicentennial celebration of their landing, who first described them as “Our Pilgrim Fathers.” The word comes from a Latin derivative meaning a traveller. Perager became pelegrin, then pilegrim … Read more

At the beginning of Lent, which always falls on a Wednesday, Catholics mark their foreheads with a cross made of ashes to symbolize their commitment to Christ. The ashes are from burned palm fronds used in the previous year’s celebration of Palm Sunday. In ancient times, when someone died, it was a mourning custom to … Read more

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and is the forty-day fast that precedes Easter. The forty days are an imitation of Christ’s preparation for his ministry, which reached its climax with the crucifixion and resurrection. The word Lent has no religious significance whatsoever. It comes from the Old English word Lencten, which was the Anglo-Saxon name … Read more

For five thousand years, the height of a horse has been measured in hands. Body parts were our first points of reference for measurement. For example, a foot was exactly that, the length of a Roman foot. A hand was measured with the thumb curled into the palm, a distance now standardized as four inches. … Read more

February 2 is an ancient Christian holiday celebrating Mary’s purification and is known as Candlemas Day. Christians believed that if the day dawned sunny, crop planting would have to wait because winter would last six more weeks. During the 1880s, a few friends in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, went groundhog hunting every Candlemas Day. They became known … Read more

Valentine’s Day is second only to Christmas as the largest annual card-sending holiday. One billion Valentine’s cards are sent each year. Women purchase 85 percent of all Valentine’s cards, so men receive more, but then 15 percent of women send themselves flowers on February 14. In order of popularity, the cards are sent to teachers, … Read more

A shaggy dog story usually takes forever to tell and has a clever, if not funny, ending. The joy is found within the skill and craft of the narrator. During the 1930s and ’40s a series of such jokes involving shaggy dogs circulated as a fad. A collection of these stories was published in 1946. … Read more

The expression “Barking up the wrong tree” comes from hunting raccoons. Hunters use dogs to track down the little masked bandits, who will run into underbrush and, if cornered, climb a tree. When the dogs find that tree, they park under it barking and baying until the brave human arrives with the gun. By then, … Read more

Dogs are descended from wolves and interact with humans the same as they would with other dogs within a pack. They are protective of their family or pack and instinctively attack only when hunting or frightened. This behavior can be altered in some dogs through aggressive training. Guard dogs have to learn to attack on … Read more

“A horse of a different color” is a separate issue from the business at hand and comes from horse trading. When horses are born, their official registration includes a record of their color. To make sure they were buying the horse pedigree as advertised, traders learned to check this registration. This ensured that the colt’s … Read more

The now extinct great auk of the North Atlantic was a large bird with small wings. This made it very similar in appearance to the Antarctic penguin that we know today. Because of these underdeveloped wings, the auk was called a “pin-wing”. And so in 1578, when the first description of the bird came out … Read more

When geese fly in either a V formation or a single line, they are drafting off the one in front in the same way that racecar drivers use each other to pick up speed. The lead or dominant bird, which is always a female, begins a turbulence wave that helps lift the birds behind her. … Read more

When March weather roars “in like a lion,” the adage suggests that the end of the month will leave like a lamb. This is because during early March, the constellation Leo is rising in the east, crossing the meridian on March 20. Therefore, the lion is associated with spring. At the same time the constellation … Read more

The metaphorical use of bellwether to mean a human leader dates back to the fifteenth century. Its modern use usually means a company that sets an industry standard. A wailer is in fact a castrated ram or male sheep, and a bellwether is the leader of the flock. He knows the routine, and he wears … Read more

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs show Dalmatians running with chariots. In Britain, they were used to escort carriages over hundreds of miles before standing guard while travelers stopped to eat or rest. Throughout the centuries the breed developed an affinity with horses, which is why they were a natural for early firefighters. The Dalmatians ran with the … Read more

Chickens need between twenty-four and twenty-six hours to produce one egg. After a half-hour rest, they start the process over again. Occasionally they will stop laying and rest from between three to ten days. The color of the eggs’ shells has nothing to do with their quality. Brown eggs come from hens with red feathers … Read more

Chickens have nothing to do with chicken pox. It was so named to distinguish the weaker form of the highly contagious but usually nonfatal pox from the dreaded and extremely deadly form of smallpox. Because smallpox was named first, doctors needed a timid name for its less lethal cousin. To make it clear, they chose … Read more

This colorful phrase evokes strange images of feline cruelty. In fact, it has nothing to do with cats, but the real story is at least as cruel. The “cat” is a cat-o’-nine-tails, a type of whip used to discipline sailors on old sailing ships. The cat-o’-nine-tails has one handle attached to nine thin strips of … Read more

In 1519, conquistador Hernando Cortez returned to Spain with a bird introduced to him by the Native Americans of Mexico. The peculiar bird confused all of Europe. The French thought it was from India and so named it dindon, from pouletes d’Inde. Although the Germans, Dutch, and Swedes agreed that the bird was Indian they … Read more

Living high on the hog meant originally that you ate what were regarded as the superior cuts of meat. This meant cuts on the higher parts of the animal like pork chops, hams, etc., as opposed to the belly, feet, knuckles, jowls, and the like. Someone who lives high on the hog is therefore, in … Read more

This expression evolved from the phrase “at the end of his tether.” Such a phrase would have been used to describe a dog or a horse being tied or tethered. The old phrase was meant to convey a sense of self-restraint, while the new suggests that one has reached or exceeded one’s defined boundaries.

Legend has it that whenever the French-speaking Mary, Queen of Scots, wasn’t feeling well, she would insist on a medicinal concoction made with boiled oranges. The orders the kitchen received were that Marie was malade, which is French for “sick,” leading to “Marie malade,” or marmalade. This, of course, is untrue. Marmalade is from the … Read more

Crocodiles have a nasty habit of sounding like a baby crying, which can attract naive human prey. While lying motionless in the sun, often hidden by tall grass, a crocodile waiting for lunch might leave its mouth open. This puts pressure on its tear glands, causing the illusion of crying. Like their phony human counterparts, … Read more

The Belgians are crazy about french fries. As a matter of fact, fries are their national dish, and they’ve been eating them with buckets of mussels since the mid-1800s. The French also claim inventing fries, because to “french” any food means to cut it very thin. The problem is that the Belgian claim predates the … Read more

The average lobster weighs about two pounds. But even though Shediac, New Brunswick, promotes itself as the Lobster Capital of the World, the largest lobster caught was in Nova Scotia and weighed 44.4 pounds. Before the twentieth century, eating lobster was a mark of poverty because to many people they resemble an insect. Which is … Read more

North Americans eat about half of their meals away from home, which is one big reason why fast food is so popular. 55 percent of the average diet is fast food or junk food, but at a sit-down restaurant, fried chicken is the most popular meal, followed by roast beef, spaghetti, turkey, ham, and fried … Read more

An eggplant is actually a fruit, but it is eaten like a vegetable. Originally from Southeast Asia, the eggplant was taken to Africa by the Persians. In the eighth century AD, the eggplant was introduced to Europe through Spain by the Arabs. The eggplant was given its name by Europeans in the middle of the … Read more

“The proof is in the pudding” means that the outcome is uncertain until the task is completed. The expression began as, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Pudding wasn’t always exclusively a dessert. When the expression was coined, a pudding was any food presented in a solid mass and was often a … Read more

In the 1690s the Chinese mixed together a tasty concoction of pickled fish and spices and called it ke-tsiap. By the early 1700s, the table sauce had made it to Malaysia, where it was discovered by British explorers, and by 1740, it had become an English staple. Fifty years later, North Americans added tomatoes to … Read more

A mickey is an alcoholic drink that’s been altered to incapacitate the person who drinks it. It’s become a very dangerous idea, especially for young women, but it started out innocently enough in a Chicago bar owned by a man named Mickey Finn. Around the turn of the twentieth century, Finn discovered that he could … Read more

The Germans call strawberries erdbeeren, or “earth berries”, because they grow on the ground. The Romans called strawberries fragaria, or “fragrant berries”, because of their sweet smell. So how did these delicious treats become known in English as strawberries? It’s because the climate of both Britain and Ireland is very damp, and so to grow … Read more

The sweetness in candy and sugar was called saccharon by the Greeks and saccharum by the Romans, so it’s clear where we get the word saccharine. After conquering most of the southern Mediterranean around 1000 AD, the Arabs built the first sugar refinery on the Isle of Crete, which they had renamed quandi, meaning “crystallized … Read more

Today we use “Eat, drink, and be merry” as an invitation to party, but to be merry originally meant to be content or self-satisfied. The phrase is from a parable in the Bible that tells the tale of Epicurious, a man who worked hard all his life to accumulate goods and money and believed that … Read more

Barbeque is one of the first Native American words to enter our language. The Spanish borrowed barbacoa from the Arawak people of the Caribbean. The word described the large wooden frame that the Arawak used either to dry meat or to sleep on. Around 1661, this same framework was found to be excellent for supporting … Read more

“Bottoms up” means more than “lift your drink.” When press gangs cruised dockside English taverns preying on drunks for naval duty, one of their tricks was to drop a shilling into an unsuspecting target’s pewter ale jug. When the drink was empty, the gang would tell him that he had accepted the King’s shilling and … Read more

In pious New England during the 1880s, the church convinced local councils to ban ice cream sodas on Sunday, because enjoyment of the flavored treat overshadowed the reverence of the day. The soda fountains’ response was to simply hold back the carbonated soda from the syrup, fruit, nuts, and ice cream and change the name … Read more

Legend has it that when the Russian Cossacks occupied Paris in 1815, they were notoriously rude. They demanded quick service from local restaurants and bars by shouting what the French understood to be “Bistro!” which sounds very much like a Russian word for “quickly.” The word bistro has no French root, and so the legend … Read more

Today a “cracker” is someone who breaks into your computer, but among other things, it also once meant something excellent or special. The “Jack” in Crackerjack is the sailor, and the little dog on the package is named Bingo. Trademarked in 1896, Crackerjack got lucky when Jack Norworth included it in his 1908 song “Take … Read more

Having your cake and eating it too is an idiom meaning that you want to do the impossible by disposing of or consuming something that you want to enjoy, while at the same time keeping it intact. It’s an attempt to overcome an either/or situation. It was first written down in 1562 as, “Would you … Read more

The Sweet Marie chocolate bar was inspired by a love affair. In 1893, after an evening stroll through the streets of London, Ontario, with his girlfriend Marie, author Cy Warman was so smitten that he sat down in a park and wrote a poem called “Sweet Marie.” When musician Raymond Moore read the poem he … Read more

To not know which side your bread is buttered on comes from a Yiddish folk tale describing the stupidity of the men of Chelm in Poland. The story goes that one day, when someone dropped a piece of bread, the wisest men in town gathered to ponder why it landed butter side up. After weeks … Read more

When cooked with spinach, Eggs Benedict become Eggs Florentine. When Catherine de Medici of Florence married Henry II of France, she brought with her several master cooks. Soon they were introducing France to new foods such as artichoke hearts, truffles, sweetbreads, and ice cream. When Catherine’s cooks served up dishes with the unfamiliar spinach, they … Read more

North Americans devour 1.2 billion pounds of potato chips each year, making chips our favorite snack food. In 1852 at a resort in Saratoga, New York, Cornelius Vanderbilt sent his French fries back to the kitchen, complaining that they were too thick. Chef George Blum retaliated by cutting new potatoes ridiculously thin, frying them, and … Read more

If you’re in a haze you might be groggy, but you’re more likely to be drunk because of the grog. Back in 1740, British Admiral E. Vernon changed the drinking habits of his sailors by issuing their rum ration diluted with water and lime juice to prevent scurvy, which is the origin of the label … Read more

Up until 1913, the United States Navy practised the British tradition of each sailor receiving a daily ration of rum. But that year, Secretary Joseph, or Joe, Daniels, a non-drinker, prohibited any alcohol on board any American vessel. This made coffee the strongest drink available to the disgruntled sailors, who began referring to their mugs … Read more

The first fast food restaurants were mobile wagons, and they appeared during the late 1800s. They were called diners because they resembled railroad dining cars. These special cars introduced the blue plate special during the Great Depression of the 1930s after a manufacturer invented a dish with separate, sunken compartments for potatoes, meat, and greens. … Read more

“Diehard” was coined on May 16, 1811, by a British man, Colonel Inglis, who had gathered the men of his 57th Foot Regiment just before the battle of Albuera against Napoleon. The colonel ended his address with, “Die hard my lads, die hard”, and that they did. They were victorious, but only 1 of the … Read more

A closely fought contest where the outcome is in doubt is said to be “nip and tuck.” It equates to the expression “blow for blow,” when the advantage keeps changing from one competitor to another. The answer is in the original aggressive meanings of the two words. A nip was, and still is, a bite, … Read more

“Don’t kill the messenger” was first expressed as long ago as 442 BC by Sophocles. “Kill” became “shoot” in the American West during the nineteenth century. The expression arose during a time when messages between opposing armies, such as terms for surrender, were delivered by hand. The angry reply was often the symbolic return to … Read more

Military funerals are filled with traditions, but none as ancient as firing a volley over the deceased. During the Napoleonic Wars, hostilities were ceased to clear the dead from the battlefield. When finished, the detail would fire three shots into the air as a signal that they were ready to resume the fight.

The first panic buttons were installed in bombers during the Second World War. If his plane was hit by enemy fire, a pilot could push a button that set off an alarm throughout the aircraft. The crew responded with a drill, which, in severe cases and if a crash was imminent, could lead to the … Read more

Around 1663, the word decimate began mean being destroyed through a catastrophe or severe loss. But the word originated as a disciplinary practice of the Roman army. Soldiers convicted of cowardice or mutiny were gathered into units of ten. Lots were drawn, and the loser was decimated, clubbed and stoned to death, by the remaining … Read more

The riderless horse in a military funeral was an ancient custom practised by the Romans. A soldier and his horse trained to fight as one unit in battle, making it almost impossible for the animal to have another master. If a soldier retired, so did his horse. For the same reason, if the soldier died … Read more

The English word boob, meaning “stupid” or “dunce,” first appeared in 1599. It comes from the Spanish word “bobo”, also meaning “stupid,” which came from the Latin balbus. While a booby prize is awarded to the supreme loser, it was during the First World War that the nineteenth-century booby trap changed from being a harmless … Read more

The Allied soldiers came up with the perfect synonym for “non-threatening” during the First World War. The Germans had brutal artillery, but they also had a smaller gun that stood out from the other incoming rounds by its unimpressive squeaking noise. It struck with a sound more like “pip” than “boom.” The boys in the … Read more

“Batten down the hatches” is a traditional naval order to securely cover the openings or hatches to the hold on the deck of a sailing ship. Batten is the key word and comes from the same root as the French word baton, like the one used by an orchestra conductor or in a relay race. … Read more

A “basket case” is a derogatory reference to someone considered unstable and has a very sad origin. During the First World War, because some soldiers were so badly maimed or shell-shocked that a stretcher wouldn’t hold them, they were carried off the field in wicker baskets. In 1919, after the war, the dark expression “basket … Read more

The concept of a literal “line in the sand” was first created by a lone Roman senator who rode out to meet a Macedonian king at the head of an army poised to invade Egypt, a Roman protectorate. The king balked until the senator drew a circle around him in the sand and demanded that … Read more

A boy who looks like his dad is sometimes said to be a spitting image of his father. There is another expression, “spirit and image”, but it isn’t related. At the apex of the glory that was the British Empire, just about every man was familiar with the spit and polish discipline of military life. … Read more