1

Sayings - Confessions of the Nasty Party ?

Updated: 30 Apr 2013

This year will be harder than last year. It will however,be easier than next year

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3

Sayings- Insults with Class

Updated: 23 Apr 2013

Subject: WHEN INSULTS HAD CLASS

These glorious insults are from an era before the English language

became boiled down to four-letter words.

· A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease."
· "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

· "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr

· "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill

· "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow

· "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

· "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas

· "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain

· "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde

· "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
· "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

· "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." - Stephen Bishop

· "He is a self-made man and worships his creator." - John Bright

· "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." - Irvin S. Cobb

· "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." - Samuel Johnson

· "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." - Paul Keating

· "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." - Charles, Count Talleyrand

· "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker

· "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain

· "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West

· "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." - Oscar Wilde

· "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

· "He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder

· "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx

40

5

Sayings- Cut the Mustard

Updated: 22 Apr 2013

Cut the mustard

Meaning

To succeed; to come up to expectations.

Origin

Why cutting mustard was chosen as an example of high quality is unclear. As always in such circumstances, there

are no shortage of guesses. Some of these allude to the literal difficulty of cutting mustard in its various forms; for

example:

- Mustard seed, which is hard to cut with a knife on account of its being small and shiny.
-

Mustard plants, which are tough and stringy and grow densely.
-

Culinary mustard, which is cut (diluted) and made more palatable by the addition of vinegar.
-

Dried mustard paste, which was reputedly used to coat meat and then dried to form a crust.

There is no evidence to support these derivations and they give the impression of having been retro-fitted in an

attempt at plausibility.

Another supposed explanation is that the phrase is simply a mistaken version of the military expression 'cut the

muster'. This appears believable at first sight. A little research shows it not to be so. Muster is the calling together

of soldiers, sailors, prisoners, to parade for inspection or exercise. To cut muster would be a breach of discipline;

hardly a phrase that would have been adopted with the meaning of success or excellence. This line of thought

appears to have been influenced by confusion with the term 'pass muster', which would have the correct meaning,

but which could hardly be argued to be the origin of 'cut the mustard'. The OED, which is the most complete record

of the English language, along with all of the other reference works I've checked, don't record 'cut the muster' at

all. The fact that documented examples of 'cut the mustard' are known from many years before any for 'cut the

muster' would appear to rule out the latter as the origin.

There has been an association between the heat and piquancy of mustard and the zest and energy of people's

behaviour. This dates back to at least 1672, when the term 'as keen as mustard' is first recorded. 'Up to mustard' or

just 'mustard' means up to standard in the same way as 'up to snuff'. 'Cutting' has also long been used to mean

'exhibiting', as in the phrase 'cutting a fine figure'. Unless some actual evidence is found for the other proposed

explanations, the derivation of 'cutting the mustard' as an alternative way of saying 'exhibiting one's high

standards' is by far the most likely.

Whatever the coinage, the phrase itself emerged in the USA towards the end of the 19th century. The earliest

example in print that I've found is from The Iowa State Reporter, August 1897, in a piece about the rivalry between

two Iowa towns:

Dubuque had the crowds, but Waterloo "Cut the Mustard"

The use of quotation marks and the lack of any explanation of the term in that citation imply that 'cut the mustard'

was already known to Iowa readers and earlier printed examples may yet turn up

43

7

Sayings-Cameron, Bedroom Tax is not a Tax but a Punishment and more jargon busting

Updated: 08 Mar 2013

Thursday 7 March 2013 by @coalitionfacts

Thousands of people affected by ‘bedroom tax’ unconcerned about definition of ‘tax’

After David Cameron dismissed concerns about the ‘bedroom tax’ by insisting it’s not a tax, the thousands of

disabled people who will be affected by the loss of income have highlighted that defining what a tax is doesn’t

feature too highly on their list of concerns.

Concerns have been raised about how thousands of disabled people will be affected by the housing benefit cut

backs, but the Prime Minister remains defiant.

“Look, this isn’t a tax,” insisted Mr Cameron.

“A tax is something you pay if you are working.

“This is something that takes money away from people who aren’t working, so if anything, it’s a ‘bedroom

punishment’ not a tax.”

“And I don’t mean ‘bedroom punishment’ in a way that George Osborne would appreciate.”

Bedroom tax

The meanings of numerous words have come into question in recent years as MPs attempt to bamboozle the

public by redefining the English language.

“When relating to expenses claims, what would in any other area of life be referred to as ‘fraud’ is now referred to

by MPs as an ‘oversight’,” explained one lexicographer.

“‘Necessary’ is now an action that is entirely avoidable and will inflict misery upon millions of innocent people.”

“We’re struggling to keep up!”

Below is a handy Government Jargon Buster:

DIFFICULT DECISION - A decision that will have no negative impact on the people making it, but will provide

enormous difficulty for you

INQUIRY - Something set up to investigate wrongdoing, but subsequently ignored if it doesn’t reach a conclusion

the government agrees with

EMPLOYMENT FIGURES - Flawed system to determine the number of people in employment which inexplicably

includes people who aren’t employed

TRICKLE DOWN - The unpleasant phenomenon experienced by a vagrant when Iain Duncan Smith passes by

and feels the urge to urinate

LET ME BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR ON THIS - Statement usually followed by nonsensical ramblings lacking any

kind of clarity whatsoever

RETIREMENT PLAN - The plan to make you work well into your seventies , so that the rich can have another tax

cut.

JOB CREATORS - Profiteers who generate wealth for their shareholders by exploiting their employees and

customers

THE MESS WE INHERITED - Phrase used when all other excuses have been exposed as being about as valid as

Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s passport

WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER - Phrase that attempts to create a sense of inclusivity, but in reality creates open-

mouthed disbelief

FAIR - A word used by Iain Duncan Smith to describe welfare cuts which is comparable to describing Genghis

Khan as a pacifist

EXPENSES - Something that MPs feel compelled to take even if they can afford not to. Like Anthony Worrall

Thompson at a Tesco cheese counter

SPECIAL ADVISER - Someone who assists and advises ministers on government policy, e.g. Rupert Murdoch

and Paul Dacre

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9

Sayings- Political Quotations

Updated: 20 Dec 2012

History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse.
~ Eric Alterman (born: 1960-01-14 age: 52)

If Americans and Jews are God’s chosen people, why did He hide all their oil under Muslim soil?
~ Anonymous

Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.
~ St. Augustine, Augustine of Hippo (born: 354-11-13 AD died: 430-08-28 AD at age: 75) , a pirate in City of God

The terrorist is the one with the small bomb.
~ Brendan Behan (born: 1923-02-19 died: 1964-03-20 at age: 41)

If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people.
~ Tony Benn (born: 1925-04-03 age: 87) Labour British Member of Parliament

I did not think so at first. But the US is so incredibly dependent on oil, that they wanted to secure oil in case competition on the world market becomes too hard.
~ Dr. Hans Blix (born: 1928-06-28 age: 84), head UN (United Nations) Weapons Inspector 2005-04-07

Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people — and kill them.
~ 1978 Protest Button

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases, observe it.
~ Julius Gaius Caesar (born: 100-07-13 BC died: 44-03-15 BC at age: 55)

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
~ Simon Cameron (born: 1799-03-08 died: 1889-06-29 at age: 90) US financier and politician

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.
~ President Jimmy Carter (born: 1924-10-01 age: 88) 39th president of the USA

Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.
~ Noam Chomsky (born: 1928-12-07 age: 84)

79

11

Sayings - Frankly said

Updated: 29 Oct 2012

As Benjamin Franklin said:

In wine there is wisdom,

In beer there is freedom,

In water there is bacteria.

104

13

Sayings- Him and Her

Updated: 26 Sep 2012

When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her.

David Bissonette

After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together..

Sacha Guitre

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.�

Socrates

Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them.

Anonymous

The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, "What does a woman want?"

Dumas

I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.

Sigmund Freud

'Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.'

Anonymous

'There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking.�� It's called marriage.'

Sam Kinison

'I've had bad luck with both my wives.�
The first one left me, and the second one didn't.'

James Holt McGavra

Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming�
1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,�
2. Whenever you're right, shut up.

Patrick Murra

The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once....

Nash

You know what I did before I married?�
Anything I wanted to.

Anonymous

My wife and I were happy for twenty years.�
Then we met.

Henny Youngman

A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.

Rodney Dangerfield

A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: 'Wife wanted'. Next day he received a hundred letters.�
They all said the same thing: 'You can have mine.'

Anonymous

First Guy (proudly): 'My wife's an angel!'�
Second Guy: 'You're lucky, mine's still alive.'

ANONYMOUS

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15

Sayings- Powerless ?

Updated: 09 Aug 2012

Quote of the Day

“You only have power over people as long as you don’t take every everything away from them.

But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again”

– Alexander Solzhenitsyn

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17

Sayings- Women rule the World- Bob Dylan

Updated: 14 Jul 2012

"I think women rule the world

and that no man has ever done anything

that a woman either hasn't allowed him to do

or encouraged him to do.”

― Bob Dylan

135

19

Sayings- Nothing but Trouble

Updated: 11 Jun 2012

Despite the old saying,

'Don't take your troubles to bed'.....many men still sleep with their wives!

142

21

Sayings- For June

Updated: 07 Jun 2012

"In June, as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them."
- Aldo Leopold

"On this June day the buds in my garden are almost as enchanting as the open flowers. Things in bud bring, in the heat of a June noontide, the recollection of the loveliest days of the year - those days of May when all is suggested, nothing yet fulfilled."
- Francis King

"I know well
that the June rains
just fall."
- Onitsura

"Wisteria woke me this morning,
And there was all June in the garden;
I felt them, early, warning
Lest I miss any part of the day.

Straight I walked to the trellis vine.
Wisteria touched a lifted nostril:
Feelings of beauty diffused, to entwine
My spirit with June's own aura."
- Ann McGough, Summons

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23

Sayings- A Frog in the Throat

Updated: 01 Jun 2012

A frog in the throat

Meaning

Temporary hoarseness caused by phlegm in the back of the throat.

Origin

'A frog in the throat' is an American phrase that entered the language towards the end of the 19th century. The expression doesn't have a fanciful derivation (see more on that below) but comes directly from the fact that a hoarse person sounds croaky - like a frog.

The earliest reference I can find to the expression is from How to be Man, which was an improving 'book for boys', written by the American clergyman Harvey Newcomb in 1847. Newcomb encouraged the youngsters to resist the temptation of 'improper diversions' [the nature of which I will leave to your imagination]:

Now let me beg of you to learn to say NO. If you find a 'frog in your throat,' which obstructs your utterance, go by yourself, and practise saying no, no, NO!

The expression must have been in popular use in the USA by 1894, when it was used in an advertisement as the name of a proprietary medicine for sore throats, inThe Stevens Point Journal, November 1894:

"The Taylor Bros. say that 'Frog in the Throat' will cure hoarseness. 10 cents and box."

Interestingly, a reference to the phrase was printed just four weeks later in the English newspaper The Hastings and St Leonards Observer, in an article about 'Yankee advertising'.

The Observer journalist describes how a local chemist had adopted an American advertising window display in order to sell the imported 'Frog in Your Throat' lozenges.

The display consisted of artificial frogs dressed up as English peasants and arranged in a variety of tableaux entitled 'Merrie England in Ye Olden Time'.

In order to lend some zest to the sales campaign, the advertising agents for the importers invented a back story which claimed that 'a frog in the throat' was 'an old English expression, once in common use, but now forgotten here'.

That story is as fake as the stuffed frogs - the expression is certainly American and only became widely used in England when Taylor Bros. began selling their lozenges.

That 'old English' story, which is often elaborated with the explanatory text 'in medieval times physicians thought that the secretions of a frog could help heal a sore throat', is one of the pieces of folk etymology that appear to float around the Internet and enjoy apparent immortality, despite having no basis in truth and no supporting evidence.

As a general rule, any explanation of the origin of a phrase that begins with 'In medieval times...' should be treated with suspicion.

See also: Life in the 1500s.

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25

Sayings- Strait Laced

Updated: 18 May 2012

Strait-laced

Meaning

Excessively rigid in matters of conduct;

narrow or over-precise in one's behaviour or moral judgement.

Origin
'Strait', which is often confused with its homonym 'straight', is a word that is rarely used alone but has stayed with us in expressions like 'strait and narrow', 'dire straits', 'strait-jacket' and 'straitened circumstances'.

The meaning of those phrases becomes clear when we know that 'strait' means, not 'free from curvature', but 'tight'.

That usage goes back to the 13th century and an early example of the 'tight' meaning is found in John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew de Glanville's De Proprietatibus Rerum, 1398:

A rynge that is streyghte on a fyngre and may not be take of afore mete, maye easely be take of after mete.
[De Glanville was clearly a messy eater.]

The confusion between 'straight' and 'strait' is understandable as some of the phrases above, for example 'strait and narrow', seem to make sense with the 'straight' meaning.

It may be a help with spelling to remember the 'tight' meaning and that, for example, 'strait-jackets' aren't straight jackets, they are tight jackets.

The 'straight/strait' spelling muddle has also affected the understanding of 'strait-laced'.

It might have been thought (and I have to admit that I used to think this) that the adjective referred to the straightness of the tautly stretched lacing of women's dresses.

The phrase does indeed derive from the lacing of dresses and corsets but as a result of the clothing being tight, not because the lacing was straight.

Geoffrey Chaucer made a reference to 'streyte' clothing in The Canterbury Tales Prologue, circa 1405:

Hir hosen weeren of fyn Scarlet reed Ful streyte yteyd.
[She was wearing fine, close gartered scarlet hose.]

The expression 'strait-laced' is found first in print, also in a Middle English text - John Lydgate's My Fayr Lady, circa 1430.

In the poem, for comic effect, Lydgate describes his beloved variously as 'lyke as an olivaunt [elephant] and with 'greet square shulderys brood' [great broad, square shoulders].

Whether his 'fayr lady' enjoyed the joke isn't made clear:

Hire crowpe doth the semys shrede, Whan they so streyght lasyd been.
[Her buttocks rip the seams of her clothes, which previously had been strait-laced.]

In the 16th century, 'strait-laced' began to be use figuratively to refer to people who were rigid in their beliefs and thinking.

Thomas Martin's religious tract The Marriage of Priestes, 1554, displays that usage:

He had to doe with certaine holy and straite lased heretikes, whiche denied it to be lawful for a Christian man after his baptisme to retourne to his wife.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, fashion dictated that women of quality wore exceptionally tightly laced corsets to emphasize their hourglass figures.

The impression that we now have of ladies of the prim and formal Victorian upper classes is that they were strait-laced in more ways than one.

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27

Sayings- All That Glitters is not Gold

Updated: 27 Apr 2012

All that glitters is not gold

Meaning
Not everything that is shiny and superficially attractive is valuable.

Origin
In the week of Shakespeare's birthday, it seems appropriate to include a well-known phrase that is associated with the Bard.

The original form of this phrase was 'all that glisters is not gold'. The 'glitters' version long ago superseded the original and is now almost universally used.

Shakespeare is the best-known writer to have expressed the idea that shiny things aren't necessarily precious things.

The original editions of The Merchant of Venice, 1596, have the line as 'all that glisters is not gold'. 'Glister' is usually replaced by 'glitter' in modern renditions of the play:

O hell! what have we here?
A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.
All that glitters is not gold...

Various different ways of expressing the idea that 'all that glitters/glisters is not gold' were in general circulation well before Shakespeare's day and it was a common enough notion to have been called proverbial by the 16th century.

The 12th century French theologian Alain de Lille wrote "Do not hold everything gold that shines like gold". Geoffrey Chaucer also expressed the same idea in Middle English in the poem The House of Fame, 1380 - "Hit is not al gold, that glareth".

Nevertheless, it is Shakespeare who gave us the version we now use.

The 'glitters' version of this phrase is so long established as to be perfectly acceptable - especially as 'glisters' and 'glitters' mean the same thing.

Only the most pedantic insist that 'all that glisters is not gold' is correct and that 'all that glitters is not gold', being a misquotation, however cobweb-laden, should be shunned.

John Dryden was quite happy to use 'glitters' as long ago as 1687, in his poem The Hind and the Panther:

For you may palm upon us new for old:

All, as they say, that glitters, is not gold.

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29

Sayings - "Scott" Free not Free Scots

Updated: 17 Apr 2012

Scot free

Meaning

Without incurring payment; or escaping without punishment.

Origin

Dred Scott was a black slave born in Virginia, USA in 1799.

In several celebrated court cases, right up to the USA Supreme Court in 1857, he attempted to gain his freedom.

These cases all failed but Scott was later made a free man by his 'owners', the Blow family.

Knowing this, we might feel that we don't need to look further for the origin of 'scott free'.

Many people, especially in the USA, are convinced that the phrase originated with the story of Dred Scott.

The etymology of this phrase shows the danger of trying to prove a case on circumstantial evidence alone.

In fact, the phrase isn't 'scott free', it is 'scot free' and it has nothing at all to do with Dred Scott.

Given the reputation of Scotsmen as being careful with their money we might look to Scotland for the origin of 'scot free'.

Wrong again, but at least we are in the right part of the world now.

'Scot' is a Scandinavian word for tax or payment.

It came to the UK as a form of redistributive taxation which was levied as early the 13th century as a form of municipal poor relief.

The term is a contraction of 'scot and lot'.

Scot was the tax and lot, or allotment, was the share given to the poor.

Scot as a term for tax has been used since then to mean many different types of tax.

Whatever the tax, the phrase 'scot free' just refers to not paying one's taxes.

No one likes paying tax and people have been getting off scot free since at least the 11th century.

The first collected edition of Anglo-Saxon charters was John Mitchell Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus, published in the 13th century.

In that he re-published the Charter of 1066, which included:

"Scotfre and gauelfre, on schire and on hundrede."

[This is easily translatable into modern English on knowing that a gavel was a tax or tribute and a hundred was a subdivision of a county or shire.]

An early use of the figurative version of the phrase, i.e. one where no actual scot tax was paid but in which someone escapes custody, is found John Mapley's Green Forest, 1567:

"Daniell scaped scotchfree by Gods prouidence."

An example of the current commonly used form, i.e. 'scot free', comes a few years later, in Robert Greene's Pandosto: or, The Historie of Dorastus and Fawnia, 1588:

These and the like considerations something daunted Pandosto his courage, so that hee was content rather to put up a manifest injurie with peace, then hunt after revenge, dishonor and losse; determining since Egistus had escaped scot-free, that Bellaria should pay for all at an unreasonable price

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31

Sayings- Back to Square One

Updated: 06 Apr 2012

Back to square one

Meaning

Back to the beginning, to start again.

Origin

'Back to square one' is a classic of folk etymology. Although the origin is uncertain, no uncertainty lurks in the minds of those who are sure they know how, where and when it was derived. It ranks up there with 'the whole nine yards' and 'posh' as an expression that people 'know' the origin of, when in fact they don't.

There are three widely reported suggestions as to the phrase's origin: BBC sports commentaries, board games like Snakes and Ladders and playground games like hopscotch. Let's examine them in turn:

BBC Commentaries:

Ask a group of people about the origin of 'back to square one' and it won't be long before you are told that it originated with BBC football commentaries.

Early BBC radio commentaries did try and help listeners follow the progress of football and rugby games by notionally dividing the pitch into eight rectangles.

Commentators described the play by saying which 'square' the ball was in.

The Radio Times, the BBC's listings guide, referred to the practice in an issue from January 1927.

Commentaries that used a numbering system certainly happened and prints of the pitch diagrams still exist. Recordings of early commentaries also exist, including the very first broadcast sports commentary of any kind - a rugby match, as it happens.

That commentary, and many others that followed, referred listeners to the printed maps and a second commentator called out the numbers as the ball moved from square to square.

However, at no point in any existing commentary do they use the phrase 'back to square one'.

Despite this, the BBC issued a piece in a January 2007 edition of The Radio Times that celebrated 80 years of BBC football commentary.

In this, the football commentator John Murray stated with confidence that "Radio Times' grids gave us the phrase 'back to square one'" and that "the grid system was dropped in the 1930s (not before the phrase 'back to square one' had entered everyday vocabulary)".

This confidence is despite the fact that, although it could be true, it is nothing but conjecture.

What counts against the radio commentaries being the source is:

- The 'squares' are in fact rectangles.

- Square One isn't in any sense the beginning in a football game.

All of the other seven squares - sorry, rectangles - have just as good a claim to be starting points.

- Perhaps the most damning evidence is that the phrase isn't known before 1952.

That's many years after the BBC abandoned the use of visual aids for radio sports commentaries.

Board Games:

Other sources report that the phrase refers to Snakes and Ladders or similar board games.

The earliest citation of the phrase in print is currently 1952, from theEconomic Journal:

"He has the problem of maintaining the interest of the reader who is always being sent back to square one in a sort of intellectual game of snakes and ladders."

Despite that comment, it isn't a feature of Snakes and Ladders that players are sent back to square one.

Of the many examples of such boards that exist, only a few have a snake in the first square.

For the phrase to have come from that source people must have had occasion to use it, and that appears not to be the case with Snakes and Ladders.

Hopscotch

This playground game is played on a grid of numbered squares.

The precise rules of the game vary from place to place but it usually involves players hopping from square to square, missing out the square containing their thrown stone.

They go from one to (usually) eight or ten and then back to square one.

The game's name derives from 'scotch', which was used from the 17th century to denote a line scored on the ground and, of course, hopping.

It was referred to in the 1677 edition of Robert Winstanley's satirical almanac Poor Robin:

"The time when School-boys should play at Scotch-hoppers."

Each of the above three explanations is plausible enough to gain supporters.

As is usual with phrases of uncertain origin, most people are happy to believe the first explanation they hear.

There's no real evidence to put the origin beyond reasonable doubt, and so it remains uncertain.

Whatever the source, 1952 is surprisingly late as the earliest printing for a phrase that was certainly in the spoken language much earlier than that and there are many hearsay examples from at least thirty years earlier.

Perhaps a printed source from before 1952 will yield the truth?

See also: back to the drawing board.

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33

Sayings - Going the Whole Hog

Updated: 23 Mar 2012

Go the whole hog

Meaning

To perform some act or adopt some opinion fully and thoroughly.

Origin

'Go the whole hog' is an American expression.

Whilst the word 'hog' has been in use in England since the 14th century, by the time that the phrase was coined, 'hog' had been largely superseded there by 'pig'.

No one in the UK 'went the whole hog' until the phrase migrated east from the USA in the 1830s.

The expression derives from a rather obscure satirical work by the English poet and hymn writer, William Cowper.

Written at a time when Christian authors felt no misgivings about poking fun at other religions, the piece teases Muslims over the supposed ambiguity of the restrictions against eating pork as specified in the Qur'an.

The gist of the poem is that, while sampling each part of a hog to test which part wasn't permissible to eat, the whole hog is eaten.

The Love of the World Reproved: or, Hypocrisy Detected, William Cowper, 1782:

Thus says the prophet of the Turk;
Good musselman, abstain from pork!
There is a part in every swine
No friend or follower of mine
May taste, whate'er his inclination,
On pain of excommunication.

Much controversy straight arose,
These choose the back, the belly those;
By some 'tis confidently said
He meant not to forbid the head,
While others at that doctrine rail,
And piously prefer the tail.
Thus, conscience freed from every clog,
Mahometans eat up the hog.

Cowper may have had only a loose grasp of Islamic theology, but he did influence others who later took up the phrase 'the whole hog' to mean 'the whole thing'.

'Go the whole hog' first started appearing in print in newspapers in the USA in 1827 and the earliest example that I can find is from the New York paper The Commercial Advertiser, December 28, 1827.

The use of the phrase became widespread during the United States presidential election of 1828, in which the enthusiastic supporters of Andrew Jackson were called 'whole hog' Jacksonites.

An early example of that usage is found in The Middlesex Gazette, January 1828:

Mr. Barbour, you know, was formerly the Speaker, but not being willing "to go the whole hog," as the Jacksonites have it, they would not permit him again to be elevated to that high station.

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35

Sayings- Stand and Deliver

Updated: 09 Mar 2012

Stand and deliver

Meaning

A demand for money, often associated with English highwaymen.

Origin

Highwaymen are up there with pirates as the anti-heroes of literature and B-feature films.

Their flamboyant and audacious image provides ready-made stock characters.

The image is far from the reality; pirates didn't bellow 'shiver me timbers' or desport themselves with the obligatory eye-patches, peg-legs or Johnny Depp style braids and earrings.

Likewise, as we shall see, highwaymen were often little more than what we would now call muggers, although some highwaymen did fit into the 'gentleman of the road' persona that dramatists later portrayed.

Nor was 'stand and deliver' an invention of screenwriters, but a very real threat heard by 18th century travellers.

Highway robbery was defined by the English legal system as any robbery which took place on the King's Highway.

It was viewed as a particularly serious crime because it interfered with the freedom of movement, which was considered a fundamental right.

So, why 'stand and deliver'?

The word 'stand' has been used to mean 'come to a halt' since the 16th century.

Shakespeare used it in Two Gentlemen of Verona, 1591:

"Stand sir, and throw us that you have about'ye."

The expression 'stand and deliver' must have been established in the language by 1714, as Alexander Smith included it in his reference work The History of the Lives of the Most Noted Highwaymen:

"He order'd him to Stand and Deliver."

The Old Bailey was and is England's primary criminal court and, fortunately for the etymological community, it houses an invaluable documentary resource, the largest body of text detailing the lives of the common people of England, namely The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913. That record lists an early use of the term 'stand and deliver' in the case of Robert Jackson, tried for Highway Robbery on 7th September 1720. Jackson was indicted for "Assaulting John Andrews on the High Way, putting him in Fear, and taking from him a Silver Watch value £4 10s". A witness testified:

The Prisoner clapt a Pistol to a Child's Head and said [to Andrews], G - d D - n you, stand and deliver your Money and Watch; and that he saw the Prisoner clap a Pistol to Andrews's Breast, and take his Watch; that he is sure the Prisoner is the same Person.

That's an example of the common pedestrian highwayman.

For an example of the mounted 'gentleman of the road' we need to look to "Captain" James MacLaine.

MacLaine was a notorious and prolific highwayman who specialised in robbing from the rich and famous.

The accompanying picture, helpfully entitled 'An Exact Representation of Maclaine the Highwayman Robbing Lord Eglington on Hounslow Heath on the 26th June. 1750' shows MacLaine in action.

He developed a taste for finery (most of it stolen from his victims) and text below the picture states that MacLaine was 'A tall young fellow and commonly very gay in his dress'.

He became something of a celebrity and was the model for Macheath, the antihero of John Gay's The Beggar's Operaand of Mack the Knife in Brecht's Threepenny Opera.

MacLaine was also the source of the 'Dandy Highwayman' imagery used by Adam Ant in his 1981 song Stand and Deliver.

Just in case people didn't get the idea, from the 1750s onward the 'stand and deliver' command was extended to include 'your money or your life'.

An early example, also from the proceedings of the Old Bailey, is found in the trial of James Abbot for highway robbery on 27th February 1754. Abbot's victim gave this testimony:

When we came into Hyde Park the prisoner, Abbot, came up to me, and put a pistol to my breast, and said, D - n you, deliver to me this moment, and make no noise, for if you do I will shoot you dead.

I will have your money or your life before you wag [move] a step farther.

Like most of his compatriots, Abbot came to a sticky end. The Old Bailey records show that Robert Jackson, James Abbot and James MacLaine were all hanged for their crimes.

Highway robbery cases are no longer brought to trial in the UK - armed robberies are tried as such regardless of where they are committed.

The mounted robber disappeared from English roads in the late 1820s and the last prosecution for highway robbery was heard at the Old Bailey in 1897.

These days the highwayman's best-known lines are more likely to be found in comedy skits than on the highway.

Jack Benny got good mileage out of the 'your money or your life' when he used it as a gag that played on his tight-fisted stage persona.

The gag's set-up was that a mugger approached Benny and demanded, "Your money or your life".

After a long pause, the mugger repeated the demand and Benny replied, "I'm thinking it over".

Spike Milligan also used the phrase to comic effect; his punch line was a typically surreal

"Take my life; I'm saving for my birthday".

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Sayings by JFK

Updated: 05 Mar 2012

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie --

deliberate, contrived and dishonest --

but the myth --

persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."

John F. Kennedy

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Sayings- Jack in the Box

Updated: 24 Feb 2012

Jack in the box

Meaning

A toy consisting of a box containing a figure with a spring,

which leaps up when the lid is raised.

Origin

On the face of it, a Jack-in-the-box is a harmless and amusing children's toy. 'Jack' is usually a clown figure, which pops up on a coiled spring when the box lid is opened.

The clowning purists amongst you will probably by now be muttering that they aren't clowns but augustes. You would be right of course.

Clowns have white-face make-up and usually wear pointed hats and ruffled collars.

Augustes are the red-nosed guys with oversized trousers and squirty flowers in their buttonholes.

Jack was clearly intended to be a comic figure but not everyone finds him amusing. Fear of clowns has become a widespread enough condition lately for someone to have invented a name for it - coulrophobia.

The word has no real etymological pedigree and was coined in the past twenty or so years.

The expression 'Jack in the box' existed for centuries before anyone thought of putting spring-loaded puppets inside boxes.

The first reference that is known in print is found in John Foxe's Actes & Monuments, 1563, in which he reported a comment made by Bishop Nicholas Ridley:

[There are] railyng bils against the Lords supper, terming it Iack of the boxe, the sacrament of the halter, round Robin, with like unsemely termes.

It is clear that the term was used to represent something unsavoury and insulting. Very soon afterwards there is another reference that shows the phrase to have a meaning close to those who peddled 'a pig in a poke'.

'Jack in the box' was the name given to a swindler who cheated tradesmen by substituting empty boxes for the full ones that were expected. Such a 'Jack' is found in James Cranstoun's reprinting of Satirical Poems of the time of the Reformation. An anonymous poem, entitled The Bird in the Cage, was first published in 1570:

Jak in the bokis, for all thy mokis a vengeance mot the fall!
Thy subteltie and palzardrie our fredome bringis in thrall.
[Cheat, for all of your mockery revenge must be taken! Your cunning and devious behaviour threatens our freedom.]

There is a theory that the expression derives from the story of Sir John Schorne, a celebrated 12th century pious Christian who was believed by the people of Norfolk to possess healing powers.

He was said to have caught the Devil and held him captive in his boot.

Several English church screens still contain images of Schorne with the Devil peeping out of a boot.

This was (much later) said to be the origin of the name of the toy Jack-in-the-box'.

With no real evidence that connects Schorne to the expression, and 700 years later we aren't likely to find any, coupled with the fact that the children's toy didn't emerge until the 18th century, we can reasonably discount that supposed origin and hand Sir John back to the good people of Norfolk.

'Jack in the box' was also the name given to a type of firework and this is found in John Babington's Pyrotechnia, 1635:

Another, [firework] which I call Iack in a box.

The 18th century inventors of the children's pop-up toy needed a name for it. It was a figure in a box that jumped up and gave people a fright.

What better than to do what others in various fields had already done and adopt the existing 'Jack-in-the-box' expression?

'Jack in the box' was first used as the name of the toy in the 1702 text Infernal Wanderer:

Up started every one in his seat, like a Jack in a box...

So, Jack-in-the-box was variously a religious insult, a swindler, the Devil and an incendiary device - clearly a character not to be meddled with.

Even non-coulrophobic children might do well to be wary of Jack.

He may not have been real but, as a bogeyman, he had some impressive credentials.

See also: 'Jack' phrases.

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Sayings- Butterfingers-coined by Charles Dickens

Updated: 10 Feb 2012

Butterfingers

Meaning

A name playfully applied to someone who fails to catch a ball or lets something slip from their fingers.

Origin

In the week of the bicentenary of Charles Dickens' birth (7th February 1812), I thought it would be nice to include a phrase coined by him.

It ought not to be too difficult to find one, after all, Dickens ranks sixth on the 'number of English words coined by an individual author' list.

Passing over contenders like 'slow-coach' and 'cloak and dagger' I alighted on 'butterfingers', which several authorities say was invented by Dickens.

Not quite a phrase but, as it was coined as the hyphenated 'butter-fingers', it's close enough.

Dickens used the term in The Pickwick Papers (more properly calledThe Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club), 1836:

At every bad attempt at a catch, and every failure to stop the ball, he launched his personal displeasure at the head of the devoted individual in such denunciations as 'Ah, ah! - stupid' - 'Now, butter-fingers' - 'Muff' - 'Humbug' - and so forth.

It seemed as though that was all there was to say about the word/phrase but, as I usually like to add a little more, I delved further. The British Library's excellent new database of 19th century newspapers turned up a reference to 'butter-fingers' in the Yorkshire newspaperThe Leeds Intelligencer dated May 1823.

Pre-Pickwick, clearly. Looking closer, it appeared that the writer was quoting from what he called 'a scarce book' - The English Housewife.

Delving again, I found that the book, written by the English writer Gervase Markham in 1615, scarce as it may have been in 1823, is still available today. Markham's recipe for a good housewife was:

'First, she must be cleanly in body and garments; she must have a quick eye, a curious nose, a perfect taste, and ready ear; she must not be butter-fingered, sweet-toothed, nor faint-hearted - for the first will let everything fall; the second will consume what it should increase; and the last will lose time with too much niceness.

Markham's views aren't quite what would be accepted now, any more than his remedy for the plague - 'smell a nosegay made of the tasselled end of a ship rope', but he does at least make it clear that 'butterfingers' was in use in 1615 with the same meaning we have for it today, that is, someone likely to drop things - as if their hands were smeared with butter, like a cook's.

Many of the later examples of 'butterfingers' in print relate to the game of cricket, which was and still is the principal ball-catching game in England. The term is often used as an amiable taunt when someone fails to make an easy catch. As the word spread to other countries, notably America, it was taken into the language of the local catching game, i.e. baseball, and 'no-hoper' teams were unkindly given that name. The Salt Lake Tribune reported on such a team in May 1899:

'The Butterfingers will cross bats with the Salt Lake Juniors at Calder's Park Tuesday'.

As for Dickens, he may have missed out on 'butterfingers' but he has many other words and phrases to lay claim to, and he did write some exceedingly good books.

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Sayings- EX- Scotland Yard

Updated: 04 Feb 2012

Scotland Yard

If Scotland becomes independent will it become EX-Scotland Yard ?

Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of the British capital, London.

It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard.^[1]

The Scotland Yard entrance became the public entrance to the police station.

Over time, the street and the Metropolitan Police became synonymous.

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Sayings- What Strange Superstitions tell us about the weather

Updated: 04 Feb 2012

What strange superstitions can tell us about the weather

The fables and superstitions that can predict Mother Nature

By Gaby Leslie | Yahoo! News –

This week saw groundhog Punxsutawney Phil taking centre stage among weather watchers in North America as he crept out of his hibernation hole and saw his shadow.

The last time you saw a groundhog was probably in the 1993 film starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.

But the mythical correlation is seen as a clear sign that winter will last another six weeks.

However, it’s not just the groundhog that is traditionally associated with predicting Mother Nature.

Here is a round-up of some other well-known folkloric weather tales.

Animal behaviour

Animals are believed to be able to react to the weather through some innate understanding of their surroundings and weather systems.

During the Boxing Day tsunami, it was said that animals could be seen running for higher ground well before the giant waves struck and caused havoc around the Indian Ocean.

There are a number of animals that are known to react to weather changes within a few seconds to a few minutes.

See some of them below.
• When cats clean behind their ears it’s a sign of rain to come.
• Cow lying down means wet weather to come.
• Fat rabbits in October and November – expect a long and cold winter.
• Birds flying low to the ground than usual means a storm is coming.

Old sayings

Closer to home, there are a number sayings which have evolved around the theme.
“Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight”
“Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning”
According to meteorology, dry particles in the air cause this slight redness in the sky. If this redness is in the west in the evening then dry weather is coming your way but if that same red sky is in the east in the morning, then this can be a sign of wet weather to come.

“Ring around the moon, it’s meant to rain soon”

A halo around the moon caused by refractions by ice crystals at high altitudes is a good indicator of moisture or precipitation at lower levels- meaning wet conditions lie ahead.

“Rainbow in the morning; Take this as a warning”
The saying means stormy weather to come. A rainbow in the west apparently indicates moisture in the air as most storms move from west to east.

Aching knees or toes means rain

It’s not just animals that may be able to predict the weather.

Ever felt an ache before a rainstorm? Internet medical forums are filled with people complaining that their joints start trembling before it rains.

But are these claims fact or fiction? Paul Knight, a climatologist and an instructor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, said:

"There have been no credible studies done to show that there's any relationship at all.

“While a person's joints may be sensitive to a drop in barometric pressure or increased humidity, a direct cause-and-effect relationship has never been proven.”

Here I am folks: Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil is held up before the crowds on Thursday
St Swithin’s Day

Looking at the weather too for indications of the day or weeks ahead is also woven into our folklore.

Like the groundhog, we have our own long-term predictor of the weather - St Swithin's Day. In the UK, weather-obsessed Brits observe the conditions on St Swithin’s Day which falls on 15 July to see if will be a good summer.

The general rule is that whatever the weather is like on St Swithin’s Day, it will last another 40 days –

'St. Swithin's day if thou dost rain
For forty days it will remain
St. Swithin's day if thou be fair
For forty days 'twill rain nae mair.'

The old saying suggests that if it rains on St Swithin’s Day, then it will be wet for the next 40 days.

The reverse is true on a fine St Swithin’s Day.

In the summer of 1976, a hot and sunny 15 July saw stunning weather before a storm broke out at midnight. In the 40 days proceeding, only two days of little rain fell during a heat wave.

Remember the summer of 2008 where Rihanna’s aptly smash hit ‘Umbrella’ lasted weeks in the chart? Well it rained and poured on St Swithin’s Day in most parts of the UK with it later turning out to be one of the most miserable wash-out summers ever.

More about Groundhog Day

'Groundhog Day', 1993 starring Billy Murray and Andie MacDowellCelebrated in the US and Canada, Candlemas Day 2012 will be the 126th year that Punxsutawney Phil will predict the weather.

Superstition has it, if it is sunny and Punxsutawney Phil does see his shadow, that means there will be six more weeks of winter. If it’s cloudy and the groundhog does not see his shadow, then spring will come early, according to folklore.

In total, Phil has cast a shadow 99 times indicating six more weeks of winter.

The weather-telling creature has not casted a shadow 16 times, indicating an early spring.

Unfortunately, The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club is missing nine years worth of records.

In 2011, Phil saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter.

So is Phil just as reliable as meteorologists?

It really depends on where you live as to whether he is right or wrong because last year, the southern states saw an early spring while the Midwest received record-breaking late winter snow.

According to StormFax Weather Almanac and records dating back to1887, Phil's predictions have been correct 39% of the time

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47

Sayings- Handle with Kid Gloves

Updated: 27 Jan 2012

Handle with kid gloves

Meaning

Handle a situation, or a person or an object, delicately and gingerly.

Origin

Kid gloves are, of course, gloves made from the skin of a young goat.

I say 'of course' but, in fact, when they were first fashioned in the 18th century they were more often made from lambskin, as that was easier to come by.

They were clearly not intended for use when you were pruning the hedge and wearing kid gloves was the sartorial equivalent of pale white skin, that is, it indicated that the wearer was rich enough to indulge in a life of genteel indoor idleness.

The earliest mentions of kid gloves are from England in the 1730s and the following is a typical report of a wealthy gentleman, laid out in his 'Sunday best', from Bagnall's News, in The Ipswich Journal, December 1734:

The Corpse of Mr. Thorp, A Distiller in Soho, who died a few Days since, said to be worth £10000 was put into his Coffin, quilted within with white Sattin; and after several yards of fine Holland [best-quality linen] were wrapt about his Body... on his Head was a Cap of the same Holland tied with a white Ribbond; he has about his Neck two Yards of Cambrick; a Cambrick Handkerchief between his Hands, on which he had a pair of white Kid Gloves: and in this manner he lay in state some Days and was afterwards buried in Buckinghamshire.

At that time, kid gloves were viewed as rather ostentatious and only suitable for the nouveau riche - much as heavy gold chains might be viewed today. In the 19th century, kid glove wearing was taken up by a notable member of the gentry, William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, the fourth Earl of Mornington, which might have been expected to establish them as a desirable accessory. The Preston Chronicle included this item in February 1837:

Mr. Long Wellesley is, also, a man of excellent taste, though he rides in kid gloves, which Brummel used to say a man should be scouted [dismissed scornfully] for doing.

The dismissal of the gloves by the socialite and fashion authority Beau Brummell was enough to send them to the back of the 19th century chav wardrobe. Incidentally, I wasn't familiar with the word 'scouted' as meaning 'scorned' and when I looked it up I found this first usage in Samuel Palmer's Moral Essays, 1710:

They pass the rhodomontade till they're expos'd and scouted.

That led me to 'rhodomontade', another word I didn't know, which turns out to mean 'to speak boastfully or bombastically'. All in all, Brummel clearly didn't think much of kid gloves and they continued not to be worn by 'persons of quality'.

In fact, the description 'kid-gloved' came to be used as an insult, implying a lack of manhood, as was recorded in The Leicester Chronicle in January 1842:

This contraband system of political allusions appears to suit the taste and nerves of the cautious, gentlemanly, kid-gloved Conservatism, which cannot endure the shock of attending a public meeting.

It was only when the expression (and presumably also, the gloves) crossed the Atlantic that the negative connotations were lost and 'handling (or treating) with kid gloves' began to be used as we use it today, that is with the meaning 'delicately; carefully'.

The New-York monthly magazine The Knickerbocker has the first example of the term in print, from 1849:

"Belligerent topics are not our forte and never was; neither do we handle them with kid gloves, when they fairly come in the way."

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Sayings- Eh By Gum

Updated: 13 Jan 2012

By gum

Eh by Gum -Yorkshire

Meaning

Exclamation of surprise. This is an example of a minced-oath, and is a euphemism for 'By God'.

Origin

It is known since the early 19th century, as in this example from James Kirke Paulding (a.k.a. 'Bull-Us, Hector'), 1815:

"By gum, that's jist what I want you to tell me, I swow."

It is still in use in the north of England, although would be considered archaic elsewhere.

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Sayings- What the Dickens ?

Updated: 03 Jan 2012

What the Dickens?

Dickens is a euphemism for "devil". From Shakespeare's "Merry Wives of Windsor",(Act III, Scene II).

"I cannot tell what the dickens his name is".

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Sayings- An arm and a leg

Updated: 30 Dec 2011

An arm and a leg

Meaning

A large, possibly exorbitant, amount of money.

Origin

This is one of those phrases for which it isn't difficult to come across a popular explanation.

In this case the tale that is told is that portrait painters used to charge more for larger paintings and that a head and shoulders painting was the cheapest option, followed in price by one which included arms and finally the top of the range 'legs and all' portrait.

As so often with popular etymologies, there's no truth in that story.

Painters certainly did charge more for large pictures, but there's no evidence to suggest they did so by limb count. In any case the phrase is much more recent than the painting origin would suggest.

It is in fact an American phrase, coined sometime after WWII.

The earliest citation I can find is from The Long Beach Independent, December 1949:

Food Editor Beulah Karney has more than 10 ideas for the homemaker who wants to say "Merry Christmas" and not have it cost her an arm and a leg.

'Arm' and 'leg' are used as examples of items that no one would consider selling other than at an enormous price.

It is a grim reality that, around that time, there are many US newspaper reports of servicemen who lost an arm and a leg in the recent war.

It is quite likely, although difficult to prove conclusively at this remove, that the phrase originated in reference to the high cost paid by those who suffered such amputations.

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Sayings- Nelson Mandela -Conversations with Myself

Updated: 16 Dec 2011

Nelson Mandela- Conversations with Myself

“I shall stick to our vow: never, never under any circumstances, to say anything unbecoming of the other….

The trouble, of course is that most successful men are prone to some form of vanity.

There comes a stage in their lives when they consider it permissible to be egotistic and to brag to the public at large about their unique achievements.

What a sweet euphemism for self praise the English Language has evolved! Autobiography….”

they choose to call it,

where the shortcomings of others are frequently exploited to highlight the praiseworthy accomplishments of the author

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Sayings- Weasel Words - Ambiguous or Quibbling speech

Updated: 09 Dec 2011

Weasel words

Meaning

Ambiguous or quibbling speech.

Origin

It has long been a widespread belief that weasels suck the yolks from bird's eggs, leaving only the empty shell.

This belief is the basis of the term 'weasel words', used to describe statements that have had the life sucked out of them.

The expression refers to words that are added to make a statement sound more legitimate and impressive but which are in fact unsubstantiated and meaningless.

Examples of weasel words are 'people say that...', 'studies show that...', 'up to 50% or more...'.

There is now some doubt amongst naturalists as to whether weasels do suck eggs.

The tiny mammals are certainly ferocious and, pound for pound, amongst the most dangerous predators on the planet, being easily able to kill an entire coopful of chickens that are hundreds of times their weight.

They have a bad reputation with country dwellers but the egg-sucking behaviour is unproven.

Whether or not they actually suck eggs, Shakespeare and his contemporaries believed they did.

The Bard didn't coin the expression 'weasel words', but he came very close, when he made two references to the supposed habits of weasels:

The weazel Scot Comes sneaking, and so sucks the princoly egg. - Henry V, 1598

I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weazel sucks eggs. - As You Like It, 1600

That's as close as we get to the actual phrase in the Tudor period and it wasn't until the turn of the 20th century in the USA that the phrase 'weasel words' first occurred in print.

In 1900, Stewart Chaplin published a story in The Century Illustrated Magazine entitled Stained Glass Political Platform, which contains this exchange:

"I am the chairman of your committee on platform"... "And like most platforms," continued St. John, "it contains plenty of what I call weasel words."

"And what may weasel words be?"
"Why, weasel words are words that suck all the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell."

In 1910, Theodore Roosevelt, then Colonel Roosevelt, was reported in various US newspapers as saying that he liked the Republican state platform because it contained no "weasel words".

In September 1916, the New York Times published a piece in which Roosevelt refuted the notion that he had stolen the phrase from Chaplin and claimed to have coined it independently in 1879:

Colonel Roosevelt, on his way here this morning from Portland, Me., told a Times reporter how he happened to use the expression "weasel words" in describing some of President Wilson's utterances months ago.

After the expression had been widely quoted, somebody discovered that it had been used years ago by the writer of a magazine article in the Century Magazine, and the Colonel was charged with having plagiarized the writer.

"About thirty-seven years ago." Colonel Roosevelt said in talking of the origin of the expression.

"I was going up a mountain in the Maine woods in a carriage, driven by Dave Sewall.

We saw an old man along the roadside.

When we passed Dave Sewall said:
"That there man can do a lot of funny things with this language of ours.

He can take a word and weasel it around and suck the meat out of it like a weasel sucks the meat out of an egg, until it don't mean anything at all.

The Colonel said the expression [weasel words] occurred to him when he read some of President Wilson's notes.

It is possible that [there are some good weasel words for you] Roosevelt coined the expression but, of course, his later recollections aren't any kind of proof of that.

If circumstantial evidence counts for anything then Roosevelt's etymological track record might be called into account.

In 1900, he described the phrase 'speak softly and carry a big stick' as a 'West African proverb'.

Where he got that idea from is unclear - there's certainly no evidence to support it.

I can't finish without adding the old jest about how to tell a weasel from a stoat - 'one is weasily recognized, the other is stoatally difference

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Sayings- Pig's Ear

Updated: 18 Nov 2011

Pig's ear

Meaning

As 'pig's ear' - Cockney rhyming slang for beer.
As 'in a pig's ear' - an expression of disbelief.
As 'make a pig's ear of ' - make a mess or muddle.

Origin

The Cockney rhyming slang version of 'pig's ear' is easiest to explain. It's one of the earliest examples of the form and appears in D. W. Barrett's Life & Work among Navvies, 1880:

"Now, Jack, I'm goin' to get a tiddley wink of pig's ear."

That's easy enough to decipher as "I'm going to get a drink of beer", although you would need a Cockney for an explanation of why 'tiddley wink of pig's ear' was thought to be an improvement on 'drink of beer'. 'Pig's ear' rhymes with 'beer' and that's usually enough for rhyming slang. Franklin's Dictionary of Rhyming Slang lists several alternatives for 'beer' - 'Charlie Freer', 'far and near', 'never fear', 'oh my dear', 'red steer', 'Crimea', and 'fusilier' but 'pig's ear' has always been the most popular.

The version 'in a pig's ear' is also perplexing. It originated in the USA in the 1850s as a variant of 'in a pig's eye'. Both phrases were used as expressions of incredulous disbelief and have the same meaning as 'tell it to the marines'. They may possibly be related to 'pigs might fly'. See this link for more on 'in a pig's ear'.

'Make a pig's ear' is a mid 20th century phrase and means 'completely botch something up; make a complete mess of it'. This is first found in print in a 1950 edition of the Reader's Digest:

"If you make a pig's ear of the first one, you can try the other one."

The expression derives from the old proverb 'you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear', which dates from the 16th century. The English clergyman Stephen Gosson published the romantic story Ephemerides in 1579 and in it referred to people who were engaged in a hopeless task:

"Seekinge too make a silke purse of a Sowes eare."

'Make a pig's ear of' alludes to what might be the result if someone did try to make something from a sow's ear - not a silk purse but a complete mess.

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Sayings - By the Dalai Lama

Updated: 03 Nov 2011

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered

“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money.

Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health.

And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present;

the result being that he does not live in the present or the future;

he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived “

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Sayings- A Means to an End

Updated: 27 Oct 2011

Means to an end

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In philosophy, the term means to an end refers to any action (the means) that the sole purpose of it is to achieve something else (an end).

It can be thought of as a metaphysical distinction, as no empirical information differentiates actions that are means to ends from those that are not—that are "ends in themselves."

It has been incurred that all actions are means to other ends; this is relevant when considering the meaning of life.

Immanuel Kant's theory of morality, the categorical imperative, states that it is immoral to use another person merely as a means to an end, and that people must, under all circumstances, be treated as ends in themselves.

This is in contrast to some interpretations of the utilitarian view, which allow for use of individuals as means to benefit the many.

Idiom

A means to an end is also an idiom.

It often refers to an activity (such as an undesirable job) that is not as important as the goal you hope to achieve (monetary gains for example).

For example, Mike doesn't have any professional ambitions.

For him, work is just a means to an end.

One starts something and finishes it, without that something leading into something else.

Thus, it is an end in itself

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65

Sayings- Benjamin Franklin Quotes

Updated: 20 Oct 2011

Benjamin Franklin Quotes

Here are quotes by one of America's greatest founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, and related quotations about America's founding. For more history, see Founding Fathers.

A dying man can do nothing easy.

Benjamin Franklin, after his daughter asked him to move, April 17, 1790

A fine genius in his own country is like gold in the mine.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1733

A penny saved is twopence clear.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1737

A Spoonful of Honey will catch more Flies than a Gallon of Vinegar.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1748

All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?"

Benjamin Franklin, To Colleagues at the Constitutional Convention

All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.

Benjamin Franklin, letter to Robert Morris, December 25, 1783

And as to the Cares, they are chiefly what attend the bringing up of Children; and I would ask any Man who has experienced it, if they are not the most delightful Cares in the World; and if from that Particular alone, he does not find the Bliss of a double State much greater, instead of being less than he expected.

Benjamin Franklin, Reply to a Piece of Advice, March 4, 1734/5

Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy.

Benjamin Franklin, letter to John Alleyne, August 9, 1768

But they have two other Rights; those of sitting when they please, and as long as they please, in which methinks they have the advantage of your Parliament; for they cannot be dissolved by the Breath of a Minister, or sent packing as you were the other day, when it was your earnest desire to have remained longer together.

Benjamin Franklin, letter to William Straham, August 19, 1784

Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Benjamin Franklin, Advice to a Young Tradesman, 1748

Finally, there seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by War as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating. The third by Agriculture the only honest Way; wherein Man receives a real Increase of the Seed thrown into the Ground, in a kind of continual Miracle wrought by the Hand of God in his favour, as a Reward for his innocent Life, and virtuous Industry.

Benjamin Franklin, Positions to be Examined, April 4, 1769

Have you something to do to-morrow; do it to-day.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1742

Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richards Almanack, 1749

He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.

Benjamin Franklin, from his writings, 1758

Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1735

History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly

Benjamin Franklin

History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened.

Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, Circa 1774

History will also give Occasion to expatiate on the Advantage of Civil Orders and Constitutions, how Men and their Properties are protected by joining in Societies and establishing Government; their Industry encouraged and rewarded, Arts invented, and Life made more comfortable: The Advantages of Liberty, Mischiefs of Licentiousness, Benefits arising from good Laws and a due Execution of Justice, etc. Thus may the first Principles of sound Politicks be fix'd in the Minds of Youth.

Benjamin Franklin, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, 1749

How many observe Christ's birth-day! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1743

Human Felicity is produced not so much by great Pieces of good Fortune that seldom happen, as by little Advantages that occur every Day.

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766

I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

Benjamin Franklin, The Busy-body, No. 3, February 18, 1728

If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself.

Benjamin Franklin, An Account of the Supremest Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz. The Court of the Press, September 12, 1789

In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will now and then peek out and show itself.

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

It is very imprudent to deprive America of any of her privileges. If her commerce and friendship are of any importance to you, they are to be had on no other terms than leaving her in the full enjoyment of her rights.

Benjamin Franklin, Political Observations

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1738

No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous.

Benjamin Franklin and George Whaley, Principles of Trade, 1774

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

Benjamin Franklin, letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, November 13, 1789

Remember, that Time is Money.

Benjamin Franklin, Advice to a Young Tradesman, 1748

Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday and St. Tuesday, will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them.

Benjamin Franklin, letter to Collinson, May 9, 1753

Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.

Benjamin Franklin, An Address to the Public, November 1789

Strangers are welcome because there is room enough for them all, and therefore the old Inhabitants are not jealous of them; the Laws protect them sufficiently so that they have no need of the Patronage of great Men; and every one will enjoy securely the Profits of his Industry. But if he does not bring a Fortune with him, he must work and be industrious to live.

Benjamin Franklin, Those Who Would Remove to America, February, 1784

Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1747

That wise Men have in all Ages thought Government necessary for the Good of Mankind; and, that wise Governments have always thought Religion necessary for the well ordering and well-being of Society, and accordingly have been ever careful to encourage and protect the Ministers of it, paying them the highest publick Honours, that their Doctrines might thereby meet with the greater Respect among the common People.

Benjamin Franklin, On that Odd Letter of the Drum, April 1730

The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country.

Benjamin Franklin, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, 1749

The happy State of Matrimony is, undoubtedly, the surest and most lasting Foundation of Comfort and Love; the Source of all that endearing Tenderness and Affection which arises from Relation and Affinity; the grand Point of Property; the Cause of all good Order in the World, and what alone preserves it from the utmost Confusion; and, to sum up all, the Appointment of infinite Wisdom for these great and good Purposes.

Benjamin Franklin, Rules and Maxims for Promoting Matrimonial Happiness, October 8, 1730

The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy.

Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, Circa 1774

They are of the People, and return again to mix with the People, having no more durable preeminence than the different Grains of Sand in an Hourglass. Such an Assembly cannot easily become dangerous to Liberty. They are the Servants of the People, sent together to do the People's Business, and promote the public Welfare; their Powers must be sufficient, or their Duties cannot be performed. They have no profitable Appointments, but a mere Payment of daily Wages, such as are scarcely equivalent to their Expences; so that, having no Chance for great Places, and enormous Salaries or Pensions, as in some Countries, there is no triguing or bribing for Elections.

Benjamin Franklin, letter to George Whatley, May 23, 1785

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employ'd they are best contented. For on the Days they work'd they were good-natur'd and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, etc. and in continual ill-humour.

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

To the haranguers of the populace among the ancients, succeed among the moderns your writers of political pamphlets and news-papers, and your coffee-house talkers.

Benjamin Franklin, Reply to Coffee House Orators, April 9, 1767

We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

Benjamin Franklin (attributed), at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

Where liberty dwells, there is my country.

Benjamin Franklin (attributed), letter to Benjamin Vaughn, March 14, 1783

Wish not so much to live long as to live well.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1746

Without Freedom of Thought there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as Public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech.

Benjamin Franklin, writing as Silence Dogood, No. 8, July 9, 1722

Work as if you were to live 100 Years, Pray as if you were to die To-morrow.

Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1757

[E]very Man who comes among us, and takes up a piece of Land, becomes a Citizen, and by our Constitution has a Voice in Elections, and a share in the Government of the Country.

Benjamin Franklin, letter to William Straham, August 19, 1784

[I]t is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.

Benjamin Franklin, letter to Samuel Cooper, May 1, 1777

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67

Sayings- Give up the Ghost

Updated: 11 Oct 2011

Give up the ghost

Meaning

To die, or in the case of inanimate objects, to cease working.

Origin

There are many uses of this phrase in the Bible, including this, from Miles Coverdale's Version, 1535, Acts 12:23:

Immediatly the angell of the LORDE smote him, because he gaue not God the honoure: And he was eaten vp of wormes, and gaue vp the goost.

The metaphorical use of the phrase, i.e. in relation to something not living and not able to become a ghost, is 19th century; for example, James Kirke Paulding's, Westward Ho!, 1832, includes:

"At length it gave up the ghost, and, like an over-cultivated intellect, became incurably barren."

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69

Sayings- Fathom ( it Out )

Updated: 06 Oct 2011

Fathom out

Meaning

To ascertain something; to deduce from the facts.

Origin

A fathom is one of those units of linear measurement that we learned at school (at least we did when I was at an English grammar school in the 14th century) and now can't quite remember just what length they refer to.

There's the furlong (a 'furrow long', or the length of a mediaeval field - about 220 yards), the rod or pole or perch (all the same measurement - of five paces), the cubit (from the elbow to the fingertips).

These peculiarly named units are matched in their imprecision by the fathom, which is the span encompassed by the outstretched arms from fingertip to fingertip - about six feet.

Naturally, not everyone's arms were the same length and so the fathom wasn't an agreed distance. The woolliness over the definition of the term is illustrated in Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia, 1728:

There are three kinds of Fathoms.

The first, which is that of Men of War, contains six Feet:

The middling, or that of Merchant Ships, five Feet, and a half;

and the small one, used in Fluyts, Flyboats, and other Fishing-vessels, only five Feet.

When we say that we fathom something now we mean that we grasp or understand it. In the Middle Ages to fathom something was, in keeping with the literal 'fingertip to fingertip' meaning of the word, to encircle it with the arms.

From the 14th century onward, people who embraced each other were said to be fathoming.

That meaning has now fallen out of use, which at least spares us from daily 'fathom and tell' stories in our tabloid newspapers.

'Fathoming out' refers to measuring by using the outstretched arms, a usage that dates back to at least the 16th century; for example, this piece from Richard Eden's The Decades of the Newe Worlde, 1555:

Seuen men... with theyr armes streached furthe were scarsely able too fathame them [trees] aboute.

As time went by 'to fathom' began to mean 'to get to the bottom of' or 'to take soundings about'. This probably derives from the most commonly believed derivation of 'fathoming out', which is the measuring of the depth of water beneath a ship by use of a weight fixed to a rope marked out in fathoms. This 'sounding out' was known both literally and figuratively by the early 17th century; for example, this literal usage, recorded in Sir William Brereton's Travels in Holland, 1634:

Fathoming the depth of the water over against Brill, we found it there where the buoys are placed to warn all seamen of the danger of that passage, that we had not above two feet more water than the ship drew.

Philip Massinger's comic play A New Way to Pay Old Debts, 1633, makes a figurative use of 'fathoming', that is, a usage that makes no explicit reference to distance but which moves the meaning of 'fathoming' from 'getting the measure of' to 'understanding':

The Statesman beleeues he fathomes The counsels of all Kingdomes on the earth.

Fathoms are so strongly associated with seafaring that it seems unecessary to look any further than the nautical measurement as the source of 'fathom out', especially as this form of measuring was still commonplace when the term was coined.

See also: swing the lead and other nautical phrases.

369

71

SAYINGS- "MAY YOU LIVE IN INTERESTING TIMES"

Updated: 16 Sep 2011

May you live in interesting times

Meaning

May you experience

much disorder and trouble in your life.

Origin

While purporting to be a blessing, this is in fact a curse. The expression is always used ironically, with the clear implication that 'uninteresting times', of peace and tranquillity, are more life-enhancing than interesting ones.

'May you live in interesting times' is widely reported as being of ancient Chinese origin but is neither Chinese nor ancient, being recent and western.

It certainly seems to have been intended to sound oriental, in the faux-Chinese 'Confucius he say' style, but that's as near to China as it actually gets.

Confucius's actual sayings are as elusive as those of his western counterpart Aesop - we have no written records from either of them.

The phrase was introduced in the 20th century in the form 'interesting age' rather than 'interesting times' and appears that way in the opening remarks made by Frederic R. Coudert at the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 1939,

Some years ago, in 1936, I had to write to a very dear and honored friend of mine, who has since died, Sir Austen Chamberlain, brother of the present Prime Minister, and I concluded my letter with a rather banal remark, "that we were living in an interesting age."

Evidently he read the whole letter, because by return mail he wrote to me and concluded as follows: "Many years ago, I learned from one of our diplomats in China that one of the principal Chinese curses heaped upon an enemy is, 'May you live in an interesting age.'"

"Surely", he said, "no age has been more fraught with insecurity than our own present time." That was three years ago.

This citation has to be treated with caution as Chamberlain didn't speak Chinese and never visited China, although he was in contact with diplomats stationed there during his time as British Foreign Secretary, that is, 1924-1929.

We have the 1939 citation in print, so the 'interesting age' form must be at least that old. If we are to believe Coulson's assertion, the phrase dates from before 1936 and, if we trust in Chamberlain's recollection, we can push the origin back to pre-1929.

As to the currently used 'interesting times' version, we can only date that to post WWII. In a speech to the 2nd session of the US Congress in August 1946, Senator Robert Byrd addressed a remark to Harry S. Truman:

Mr. President, there is an old Chinese curse that says, 'May you live in interesting times.'

Most generations think their times are especially troubling - now as ever.

Senator Byrd probably had a better reason than many to call 1940s USA 'interesting', as it was less than a year after the US's use of atomic bombs and the surrender of Japan and Germany in WWII and only a month or two after Winston Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech, made in Fulton, Missouri, warning of the rise of Soviet power.

I hope you found that interesting.

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73

SAYINGS - FOR GOOD MEASURE

Updated: 08 Sep 2011

For good measure

Meaning

As an additional extra.

Origin

'Good measure' has been part of the language since the first English-speaking 'purveyor of fyne goodes' set up shop, and it just means 'an ample or generous quantity of that which is sold by measure'.

The first instance of the expression in print is found where many other first coinages originated, in John Wyclif's Middle English translation of the Bible, circa 1384, in Luke 6:38:

Thei schulen yyue in to youre bosum a good mesure, and wel fillid, and schakun togidir, and ouerflowynge; for bi the same mesure, bi whiche ye meeten, it schal be metun ayen to you.
[They shall give into your bosom a good measure, and well-filled, and shaken together, and overflowing; for by the same measure, by which ye mete, it shall be meted again to you.]

We might expect the extended term 'in good measure' to refer to an abundance of something. In fact, its rather the reverse. 'Measured' also means 'moderate; restrained' and if a person acts 'in good measure' they are being especially temperate in their actions. As it happens, Wyclif was also one of the first to put that meaning of 'good measure' into print, in a collection of sermons known as Controversial Tracks, circa 1400, which was directed at the clergy:

Ye shulden lyue on ye puple in good mesure as Paul biddin.
[You be sustained by the people in moderation, as St. Paul bids you.]

It wasn't until much later that the use of the phrase 'good measure' returned to its original 'ample' meaning. In the 19th century people began to express the idea of things being 'thrown in for good measure', that is, added as a complimentary extra portion. In 1811, the British mathematician Patrick Kelly wrote The Universal Cambist, which was an exhaustive study of the weights and measures in use in different parts of the world and a method of converting from one to another. In the notes on Swedish measurement he included:

Corn, and other dry commodities, are measured by Tunnor. The Tunne is divided into 32 Kappar. But to every Tunna of wheat 4 Kappar are allowed for good measure.

Before long, the expression 'for good measure' began to be used figuratively, that is, in circumstances where no actual measurement was taking place. An example appears in the May 1850 edition of the American magazineLittell's Living Age, in a report of a public flogging in California:

'Give him another for good measure' - 'Hit him again' - were the sounds which greeted his ears.

'For good measure' might appear to be linked to the 'Baker's dozen', as both phrases express the notion of a little extra being added above the absolute requirement. In fact, the two phrases aren't connected, 'Baker's dozen' being much older. While the extra that was added 'for good measure' was added willingly, the extra that made up a Baker's dozen was added under threat of severe punishment. In mediaeval England, being light in the loaves was as risky as being 'light in the loafers' was prior to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1967 Sexual Offences Act.

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75

SAYINGS- LIKE IT OR LUMP IT

Updated: 02 Sep 2011

Like it or lump it

Meaning

Said of an unpleasant outcome that one has no choice but to accept - one can either endure it willingly or endure it with suffering.

Origin

When we are given a fait accompli in a situation in which we would normally expect some sort of choice, we might not be too pleased about it. We may then be told to 'like it or lump it'. Had the expression been coined in the 16th century this is no doubt what Thomas Hobson would have said to his prospective customers when he offered them 'Hobson's choice'.

But how exactly do we 'lump' something? Although 'lump' is almost always used as a noun rather than a verb, there are many meanings of the verb form of 'lump' to choose from:

- To bet all of one's money on a single wager (first recorded in the 19th century)
- To make something into a lump (18th century)
- To classify various things as a group, i.e. lump them together (17th century)
- To slouch along lazily (17th century)
- To look sulky or disagreeable (16th century)

Of course, it is the last of these lumps that is the alternative to 'like it'.

'Lumping' in the sense of mooching about grumpily may well be of Irish origin and is first recorded in Richard Stanyhurst's Treatise Describing Irelande, 1577. The Dublin born Stanyhurst risked the wrath of his contemporaries by suggesting that the English rule in Ireland wasn't the source of all their troubles:

Here percase some snappish carper will snuffinglie snib me for debasing the Irish language: because that by proofe and experience we see, that the pale was neuer in more florishing estate than when it was wholie English, and neuer in woorsse plight than since it hath infranchised the Irish. But some will saie, that I shew my selfe herein as friuolous... They stand lumping and lowring, fretting and fuming.

[Note: Stanyhurst's expressive phrase 'snuffingly snib' means 'rebuke in a snorting manner'.]

[Note: see also 'Beyond the pale'.]

Soon afterwards, in 1581, Barnaby Rich used the term in Farewell to Military Profession:

She beganne to froune, lumpe, and lowre at her housebande.

Rich was a naval captain and undoubtedly English, but most of his writing related to Ireland and he moved to Dublin to write on his retirement from the Navy.

People had been lumping it for a few hundred years before anyone thought of the phrase 'like it or lump it'. A play on words between the noun and verb usages of the word lump was what brought it about. The early uses of the expression refer to things that have lumps in them, as in this example from the London magazine The Monthly Mirror, 1807, in a piece titled Rules For Punning:

Mrs. ...purposely sends a dish of tea to a lady, without sugar, of which she complains.
Mr. ...(Handing the sugar basin) - Well, ma'am, if you don't like it, you may lump it.

The English love of wordplay is long lasting, some might say chronic, and Zadie Smith made the same little joke in her novel White Teeth, 2000:

We're all English now, mate. Like it or lump it, as the rhubarb said to the custard.

The first example that I can find of the precise 'like it or lump it' wording of the expression is in Specimens, 1841, Josiah Shippey's book of morally uplifting essays, which were delivered in the form of tortured rhyming couplets, worthy of William McGonagall:

Yet his merit, though some may be ignorant of it,
And as he by it wishes each one may profit;
Imperiously forces, or like it or lump it,
Himself, honest fellow, to blow his own trumpet.

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77

SAYINGS-BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS

Updated: 26 Aug 2011

Blood, sweat and tears

Meaning

Hard work and effort in difficult circumstances.

Origin

The expression 'blood, sweat and tears' is usually said to have been coined by Sir Winston Churchill in his famous "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech in 1940, when he warned the British people of the hardships to come in fighting WWII.

Each country seems to have a shortlist of people to whom they attribute colourful quotations that lack an accredited author. In the USA the sage of choice is Mark Twain; in Ireland, Oscar Wilde and in England, Winston Churchill. However, it wasn't Churchill who coined 'blood, sweat and tears' - ultimately it is has a biblical source.

The first occurrence of the expression that I can find in print is in Sermons on Various Subjects by Christmas Evans, translated from the Welsh by J. Davis, 1837:

Christ the High Priest of our profession, when he laid down his life for us on Calvary, was bathed in his own blood, sweat and tears.

Evans, a.k.a. 'The John Bunyan of Wales' (25 December 1766 - 1838) was an eccentric but widely admired preacher.

We can't now be sure if it was he who coined the phrase or his translator.

Either way, we can be sure that the phrase was in the language by 1837.

Christmas Evans knew the Bible by heart and was no doubt influenced in his choice of words by this passage from The King James Bible, Luke 22:44:

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Churchill, although no great theological scholar, borrowed 'blood, sweat and tears' for his famous wartime speech and can certainly take the credit for the popular take-up of the phrase into everyday language.

Blood, Sweat and Tears Al Cooper picked up on the phrase as the name for his new jazz-rock band in 1967.

Cooper could hardly have known how apt a choice it was.

The band has gone through more disagreements, sackings and changes of direction than most, with at least 140 musicians having been members at some point.

Many of the things Churchill is supposed to have said are wrongly attributed. One of the better ones that can be verified is his exchange with the socialite and politician Nancy Astor:

Astor: Winston, if I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee!
Churchill: And if I were your husband I would drink it.

My favourite Churchillism is a supposed reply to an unwelcome letter that has all the hallmarks of the man's work but is probably apocryphal:

"Dear Sir, I am in the smallest room in the house and your letter is before me.

Very soon it will be behind me."

584

Rights and Wrongs

Done to a turn

Meaning

Origin

Cut the mustard

Meaning

Origin

Old hat

Meaning

Origin

Thousands of people affected by ‘bedroom tax’ unconcerned about definition of ‘tax’

Bedroom tax

Quote of the Day

Revenge is a dish best served cold

Meaning

Origin

Keep it under your hat

Meaning

Origin

A Phrase A Week - Absolute power corrupts

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely

Radical - But only God is Absolute ?

Origin

Go the whole hog

Meaning

Origin

A turn up for the books

Meaning

Origin

Stand and deliver

Meaning

Origin

Cock-a-hoop

Meaning

Origin

Jack in the box

Meaning

Origin

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth

Meaning

Origin

Butterfingers

Meaning

Origin

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

Meaning

Origin

Handle with kid gloves

Meaning

Origin

Meaning

Origin

By gum

Eh by Gum -Yorkshire

Meaning

Origin

Nail your colours to the mast

Meaning

Origin

Security blanket

Meaning

Origin

An arm and a leg

Meaning

Origin

Weasel words

Meaning

Origin

It has long been a widespread belief that weasels suck the yolks from bird's eggs, leaving only the empty shell.

This belief is the basis of the term 'weasel words', used to describe statements that have had the life sucked out of them.

The expression refers to words that are added to make a statement sound more legitimate and impressive but which are in fact unsubstantiated and meaningless.

Examples of weasel words are 'people say that...', 'studies show that...', 'up to 50% or more...'.

The whole nine yards

Pig's ear

Meaning

Origin

What you see is what you get (wysiwyg)

Meaning

Origin

Double Dutch