Formerly, the family 'saler' or salt cellar was an ornate silver centrepiece, placed in the middle of the table. Special or honoured guests of distinction sat above the saler - that is, between the salt and the head of the table where the host sat - while dependants and not-quite-so-important personages sat below.
4 posters
The Cat's Pyjamas
Kitkat
- Post n°76
To sit above the salt
TO SIT ABOVE THE SALT
To sit in a place of distinction at the dinner table.
Formerly, the family 'saler' or salt cellar was an ornate silver centrepiece, placed in the middle of the table. Special or honoured guests of distinction sat above the saler - that is, between the salt and the head of the table where the host sat - while dependants and not-quite-so-important personages sat below.
Whiskers
- Post n°77
Re: The Cat's Pyjamas
Kitkat wrote:TO SIT ABOVE THE SALTTo sit in a place of distinction at the dinner table.
Formerly, the family 'saler' or salt cellar was an ornate silver centrepiece, placed in the middle of the table. Special or honoured guests of distinction sat above the saler - that is, between the salt and the head of the table where the host sat - while dependants and not-quite-so-important personages sat below.
Never heard that one before. Really enjoying this thread KK. Although some of them I already knew, I still learning lots of new things from it.
Kitkat
- Post n°78
A skeleton in the closet
A SKELETON IN THE CLOSET
A domestic source of humiliation or shame which a family or individual conspires to conceal from others. Every family is said to have one, and certainly these days it seems that every public figure does too, whether it is in the form of an ex-mistress or lover, or some ancient but discreditable financial scam.
The expression seems to have been in use from the early 1800s and may have derived from the gothic horror stories popular at the time, in which murders were concealed by hiding the corpose in a cupboard, or bricking it up in a wall. In 1853, it appeared in the figurative sense in The Newcomes by William Makepeace Thackeray; And it is from these that we shall arrive at some particulars regarding the Newcome family, which will show us that they have a skeleton or two in their closets s well as their neighbours.
An apocryphal source of the phrase is a story in which a person without a single care or trouble in the world had to be found. After a long search, a squeaky-clean lady was found, but to the great surprise of all, after she had proved herself on al counts, she went upstairs and opened a closet, which contained a human skeleton.
I try and keep my trouble to myself, but every night my husband makes me kiss that skeleton,' she said. She then explained that the skeleton was that of her husband's rival, killed in a duel over her.
Kitkat
- Post n°79
To take forty winks
TO TAKE FORTY WINKS
A colloquial term for a short nap or a doze.
A colloquial term for a short nap or a doze.
Quite why shutting one eye forty times has come to mean a quick snooze is unclear, but it could have something to do with the fact that the number forty appears frequently in the scriptures and used to be thought of as a holy number.
Moses was on the Mount for forty days and forty nights; Elijah was fed by ravens for forty days; the rain of the Flood fell forty days, and another forty days passed before Noah opened the window of the ark. Christ fasted for forty days and he was seen forty days after his Ressurection.
Modern colloquialisms for a quick nap include a 'zizz' or 'to catch a few zeds' - alluding to the 'Zzz's drawn in cartoons indicating that the character is asleep. Busy people and politicians who work late into the night maintain their faculties by taking 'power naps' to recharge their batteries.
Kitkat
- Post n°80
Take a rain check
TO TAKE A RAIN CHECK
A rain check is the receipt or counterfoil of a baseball ticket that can be used at a later date if a game has been interrupted by rain. It is an American expression and the phrase retains the American spelling of 'cheque'.
The phrase is now often used figuratively, to put an invitation on hold and defer it until a dater late. It is in fact, a polite way of postponing something indefinitely, with only a minor commitment to rearrange.
Kitkat
- Post n°81
A turn-up for the books
A TURN-UP FOR THE BOOKS
A piece of luck or unexpected good fortune, or a surprising turn of events. This phrase comes from the world of betting on the horses.
The 'book' is the record of bets laid on a race and is naturally kept by a 'book'maker, commonly known as a bookie. When the horses do not run to form and the favourite does not win, it's a good day for the bookie and he can line his pockets; for him it's a 'turn-up[wards] for the books'.
Kitkat
- Post n°82
To turn the tables
TO TURN THE TABLES
To reverse a situation and put one's opponent in the predicament that one has been suffering. The saying was recorded in the early seventeenth century and was applied to the game of backgammon, the table or board on which it was played being known as 'the tables'.
The phrase may come from the old rumoured custom of reversing the table, or board, in games of chess or draughts, so that the opponents' relative positions are altogether changed - bt even then it had a figurative meaning too.
In a sermon published in 1632, an English deacon called Robert Sanderson (1587-1663), who later became the Bishop of Lincoln, said:
Whosoever thou are that does another wrong, do but turn the tables: imagine thy neighbour were now playing thy game, and thou his.
Kitkat
- Post n°83
Under the counter
UNDER THE COUNTER
This phrase originated during the Second World War, and describes a - then very common - practice among tradesmen with an eye to the main chance.
From the outbreak of the war, many items, ranging from the basics like eggs, butter, meat and jam to 'luxuries' such as petrol, silk stockings and chocolate, were rationed. Dishonest tradesmen would keep articles and foodstuffs that were in short supply out of sight or 'under the counter', for sale to favoured customers, usually at inflated prices.
This form of trading was part of the thriving wartime black market, and the term is still used today to describe any illicit trading.
Kitkat
- Post n°84
To walk the plank
TO WALK THE PLANK
To be put to the supreme test or, worse, to be about to die.
'Walking the plank' is a nautical term for a punishment involving being made to walk blindfold and with bound hands along a plank suspended over the ship's side - one eventually lands up in the drink as shark food, if not drowned first. It was a pirate custom of disposing of prisoners at sea in the seventeenth century.
The practice is probably more familiar in fiction than in fact, however, since pirates would have been unlikely to kill off captives, who could have been sold as slaves or ransomed.
In R.L. Stevenson's (1850-94) novel 'The Master of Ballantrae' (1889), James Durie and Colonel Francis Burke enlist with the pirates who capture their ship, but the brigands make their other prisoners walk the plank.
The infamous Captain Hook, in J.M. Barrie's (1860-1937) 'Peter Pan and Wendy' (1912), meanwhile, threatened to flog Wendy and the Lost Boys with a cat-o'-nine-tails ... and then make them walk the plank.
Kitkat
- Post n°85
The walls have ears
THE WALLS HAVE EARS
This is a warning to watch what you say, or what secrets you divulge, wherever you are, because someone might be listening.
In the time of Catherine de'Medici (1519-89), wife of Henry II of France, certain rooms in the Louvre Palace, Paris, were said to be constructed to conceal a network of listening tubes called auriculaires, so that what was said in one room could be clearly heard in another. This was how the suspicious queen discovered state secrets and plots.
The legend of Dionysus's ear may also have been the inspiration for the phrase. Dionsus was a tyrant of Syracuse (the Sword of Damocles) in 431-367 BC, and his so-called 'ear' was a large ear-shaped underground cave cut into rock. It was connected to another chamber in such a way that he could overhear the conversations of his prisoners.
Kitkat
- Post n°86
Where there's muck, there's brass
WHERE THERE'S MUCK, THERE'S BRASS
An encouraging phrase to make one roll up one's sleeves and get to work, otherwise a statement that where there is dirt, there is money. Feeding the soil, harvesting the crops, mining the coal may make your hands dirty, but they can produce untold riches.
The saying has come to be associated with the grimy mining and manufacturing industries of the north of England, many of which brought their owners substantial wealth following the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century.
'Brass' is in fact a Yorkshire term for 'money', and this version of the phrase originated there - but the proverb had existed with a different wording since at least 1670, when John Ray (1627-1705) recorded 'Muck and money go together' in his collection of English proverbs.
Kitkat
- Post n°87
What the dickens?
WHAT THE DICKENS?
An exclamation of surprise or disbelief, akin to 'What the devil?' The phrase is often shortened to 'What the ...?' and in these modern times, 'f**k' is sometimes substituted as the last world.
'Dickens' here is probably a euphemism - one possibly in use since the sixteenth century - for the Devil, otherwise known as Satan or the Prince of Evil, and has nothing to do with the novelist Charles Dickens (1812-70).
In Low German, its equivalent is 'De duks!', which may have become altered in English to 'dickens'.
The phrase was already in use by the time Shakespeare was writing:
"I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.":
The Merry Wives of Windsor (1600:3:2)
'To play the dickens' is an old-fashioned expression meaning to be naughty, or act like a devil.
Kitkat
- Post n°88
Re: The Cat's Pyjamas
THE CAT'S PYJAMAS
A slang phrase coined by Thomas A. Dorgan. The phrase became popular in the U.S. in the 1920s, along with the bee's knees, the cat's whiskers (possibly from the use of these in radio crystal sets). In the 1920s the word "cat" was used as a term to describe the unconventional flappers from the jazz era. This was combined with the word pyjamas (a relatively new women's fashion in the 1920s) to form a phrase used to describe something that is the best at what it does, thus making it highly sought and desirable.
A report in the New York Times of a publicity stunt by an unknown woman in 1922, in which she paraded along 5th Avenue clad in yellow silk pajamas and accompanied by four cats similarly dressed, may indicate the phrase was already current by that date, as the "cat's meow" certainly was.
So pretty much it means the same thing as phrases like "bee's knees" - something that is highly desirable.
The term "cat's pyjamas" comes from E.B. Katz, an English tailor of the late 1700's and early 1800's, who made the finest silk pyjamas for royalty and other wealthy patrons. This phrase is often likened to and/or confused with the 20's term "cat's meow".Katz's pyjamas are the cat's pyjamas.
Jamboree
- Post n°89
Re: The Cat's Pyjamas
Kitkat wrote:Katz's pyjamas are the cat's pyjamas.
Seasons greetings to all the krazy katz here, with or without the PJs. Loving this thread and loving the chat box addition.
Kitkat
- Post n°90
Re: The Cat's Pyjamas
Good to see you here, Jamboree. I hope you are having a happy Christmas too, wherever you are!
Kitkat
- Post n°91
The writing on the wall
THE WRITING ON THE WALL
This is not graffiti, but a bad sign, a portent, often foreshadowing trouble or disaster.
The metaphor is biblical in origin and comes from Daniel 5:5-31, where King Belshazzar, while he was feasting, found out about the forthcoming destruction of the Babylonian Empire through the mysterious appearance of handwriting on a wall.
The words read in Aramaic, mene, mene, tekel, upharsin: literally, 'counted, weighed, divided'. Daniel interpreted these words as, 'You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting', thereby predicting the King's downfall and that of his empire.
Indeed, Belshazzar was killed that night, and his kingdom was conquered.
Kitkat
- Post n°92
The wrong side of the tracks
THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS
To be born on the wrong side of the tracks is a disadvantage, as it was the part of town deemed to be both socially and environmentally inferior.
The expression originated in America, where railway lines ran through the centre of towns. Poor and industrial areas were often located to one side of the railroad tracks because the prevailing wind would blow smoke from the railway and smog in that direction, leaving the better-off neighbourhoods unpolluted.
The phrase is now used to refer to anyone who comes from a poor or rough background.
Kitkat
- Post n°93
To act the giddy goat
TO ACT THE GIDDY GOAT
To fool around. Goats are known for their unpredictable behaviour.
In the literal sense, 'giddy' means 'insane' or to be 'possessed by a god', but it has been used to mean 'silly' or 'foolish' since the early Middle Ages.
In Latin, 'goat' is caper; goats are noted for their frisky nature. 'To cut a caper' means to skip or leap about playfully'.
Kitkat
- Post n°94
To the bitter end
TO THE BITTER END
To the last extremity, to the final defeat, or to the death. An affliction can be borne until the bitetr end, meaning to the last stroke of bad fortune.
'Bitter end' is a mid-nineteenth-century nautical term for the end of a rope or chain secured in a vessel's chain locker. When there is no windlass (winch), such cables are fastened to bitts - that is, pairs of bollards fixed to the deck - and when the rope is let out until no more remains, the end is at the bitts: hence the 'bitter end'.
However, the phrase appears in the Old Testament in the context that we use today, and some etymologists believe that this is the true source of the expression:
Her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.
(Proverbs 5:4)
Kitkat
- Post n°95
To bone up on
TO BONE UP ON
To study intensively, to engage in serious research into a particular subject, or to revise a subject comprehensively.
Some sources suggest that the phrase is an allusion to whalebone in a corset, which sculpts the shape and stiffens the garment, as a metaphor for the gaining of 'hard knowledge'.
Other believe it came from the Victorian practice of using bone to polish leather, and that it indicated a polishing or refinement of knowledge.
However, in the nineteenth century a publishing firm owned by Henry Bohn (1976-1884) produced English translations of Greek and Latin classics that were widely used by students cramming for their exams - andit is possible that the expression 'to Bohn up' may have evolved into 'bone up'.
Kitkat
- Post n°96
The bottom line
THE BOTTOM LINE
The main point of an argument, the basic characteristic of something, the actual value of a financial deal, or the nub or truth of the matter.
The phrase itself is an accounting term, and refers to the figure at the end of a financial statement, indicating the net profit or loss of a company.
'The bottom line' gained wide currency as a phrase during the 1970s, possibly because of its frequent use by the UK Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger (1923-). He spoke of 'the bottom line' as the eventual outcome of a negotiation - ignoring the distraction of any inessential detail.
Kitkat
- Post n°97
By the skin of one's teeth
BY THE SKIN OF ONE'S TEETH
By the narrowest margin. There are several metaphors with the meaning 'only just' and many allude to body parts (for example, 'by a hair's breadth'), emphasizing the physical danger of a given situation from which one might have just escaped.
'By the skin of one's teeth' specifically is a (slightly misquoted) biblical phrase that means to have suffered 'a close shave':
My bone cleaveth to my skin, and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
Job 19:20
Job 19:20
Kitkat
- Post n°98
To carry a torch
TO CARRY A TORCH
To suffer unrequited love. Since the late 1920s,this phrase has been used to describe a long-standing emotional attachment that is either undeclared or not returned.
The torch represents the flame of undying love, and this symbolism may come from depictions of Venus, the goddess of love, holding a burning torch.
A 'torch singer is (usually) a female who sings sentimental love songs. It is thought that the expression 'torch song', in this sense, may have been coined by Broadway nightclub singer Tommy Lyman in the 1930s.
Kitkat
- Post n°99
To call off all bets
TO CALL OFF ALL BETS
A summons to cancel all wagers, deriving from the race track and the betting shops; for instance, a bookmaker may call off all bets if he suspects that a race or other contest has been rigged.
In a widening of its meaning, the phrase is used to mean rejecting a complicated or disadvantageous issue.
In African-American slang of the 1940s, however, it meant 'to die' - indeed, the most final way of calling off all bets.
Kitkat
- Post n°100
To case the joint
TO CASE THE JOINT
An American slang expression from the criminal fraternity meaning to inspect or reconnoitre a building before attempting to rob it or break into it for some other nefarious purpose.
'Joint' in this context means 'a building': an early twentieth-century colloquial Americanism for a sleazy dive where opium could be smoked or, during the Prohibition era (1920-33), where illicit spirits could be bought and drunk. The word 'joint' has since come to be generally applied disparagingly to almost any disreputable establishment.
Kitkat
- Post n°101
To cast the first stone
TO CAST THE FIRST STONE
To be first to criticize, to find fault,to start a quarrel, or to cast aspersions on someone's character. In biblical times, the barbaric custom of capital punishment was to pelt heretics, adulteresses and criminals with stones and rocks in a public place.
The phrase is from John 8:7, spoken by Jesus to the Scribes and Pharisees who brought before him a woman caught in adultery. They said that according to the law of Moses, she should be stoned to death, to which Jesus replied: 'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'
Kitkat
- Post n°102
To clear the decks
TO CLEAR THE DECKS
To remove everything not required, especially when preparing for action; hence to prepare for some task by removing the extraneous or irrelevant.
This is a nautical phrase and alludes to a sailing ship preparing for battle, when anything in the way of the guns and their crews, or that might burn or splinter, or that was not lashed down, was removed from the usually cluttered decks so that no untethered articles would roll about and injure the seamen during the battle.
This saying is used in many contexts, such as clearing the table of fod and dishes, or preparing the house to receive guests.
'Deck' appears in many commonly used phrases, among them 'to hit the deck' - to fall over, usually to escape injury - or to 'deck someone' (to hit them and knock them to the floor).
Kitkat
- Post n°103
To be in a cleft stick
TO BE IN A CLEFT STICK
A figurative phrase meaning to be in a tight place or dilemma with no room for manoeuvre, neither backwards nor forwards.
The expression may come from the verb 'to cleave', which has two directly opposite meanings: one being to stick to or adhere, and the other to split, chop or break along a grain or line of cleavage.
The first recordd use of the phrase with its figurative meaning was by the poet William Cowpeer (1731-1800) in 1782: 'We are squeezed to death, between the two sides of that sort of alternative which is commonly called a cleft stick.'
A cleft stick was often used in the eighteenth century to catch snakes. The form of torture inflicted on Ariel by the witch Sycorax in Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611) was to imprison him in the trunk of a cleft pine tree.
Kitkat
- Post n°104
Clean round the bend
CLEAN ROUND THE BEND
Completely crazy or eccentric. The phrase was described by F. Bowen in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1929 as 'an old naval term for anybody who is mad'.
In a neat play on words, the phrase has been used to advertise the lavatory cleaner Harpic since the 1930s: 'It cleans right round the bend.'
The word 'clean' is used in many different ways to describe something complete, pure, unmarked or unreserved - for instance, 'clean bowled', 'to make a clean break' or 'to make a clean breast of it'.
Kitkat
- Post n°105
To climb on the bandwagon
TO CLIMB ON THE BANDWAGON
To declare support for a popular movement or trend, usually without believing in the movement or trend.
The expression is believed to have originated in the Southern states of America, probably dating from the first presidential campaign of William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925) in 1892, when candidates for political office would parade through the streets, led by a band of musicians performing on a large horse-drawn dray.
As a publicity stunt, the local candidate would mount the wagon as it passed and ride through his constituency in an attempt to gain personal support from the voters. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bryan never won the presidency, losing to McKinley in 1896 and 1900, and to Taft in 1908.
Kitkat
- Post n°106
For the high jump
FOR THE HIGH JUMP
English slang for being in big trouble, also known these days as 'deep doo-doo' or 'deep shit'. It usually implies that dismissal or serious punishment are on the cards.
The allusion is to the hanging of a convicted criminal - the gallows being 'the high jump' - which was the former British judicial method for capital punishment.
Kitkat
- Post n°107
To have a chip on one's shoulder
TO HAVE A CHIP ON ONE'S SHOULDER
To display an inferiority complex, to perceive oneself as an underdog, to have a grievance, often unjustifiably.
The expression is believed to have originated in America in about 1840 and may allude to a game of dare, in which a man challenges another to dislodge a chip - as in piece of wood, not French fry - he carries on his shoulder.
In American parlance, a chip was also a figurative term for consequences, and so the phrase may be a warning to an adversary not to aim too high.
There is an ancient proverb, 'Hew not too high lest chips fall in thine eye.' By the late sixteenth century, this health-and-safety warning had become something of a challenge, a dare to a fearless woodcutter to look high up without regard to any falling chips of wood.
Kitkat
- Post n°108
To have a field day
TO HAVE A FIELD DAY
A figurative expression for a day or occasion or time of particular excitement, often a day away from the usual routine.
The phrase is in fact a military term for a day when troops have manoeuvres, exercises or reviews - out in the field. (The military refer to the area or sphere of operations as 'the field'.)
The term is now used more generally to mean a time of enjoyment, or making the most of things; we might say that the tabloid newspapers would 'have a field day' if they got hold of a particularly salacious story.
In the US Navy, 'a field day' is a day devoted to cleaning the ship in preparation for inspection.
Schoolchildren, meanwhile, enjoy field trips, on which they travel away from school, particularly to study geography.
Kitkat
- Post n°109
Out of the frying pan into the fire
TO JUMP OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE
To leap from one bad predicament to another which is as bad or even worse.
In English, the phrase can be traced back to about 1530 when, in the course of a religious argument, Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor and author of Utopia, said that William Tyndale (1494-1536), translator of the Bible into English, had 'featly conuayed himself out of the frying panne fayre into the fyre'.
Unfortunately, both men met a gruesome end. Sir Thomas More was hanged as a traitor in 1535 for refusing to approve the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, while Tyndale was publicly strangled and burned as a heretic in 1536.
Most languages have an equivalent phrase; the French have tomber de la poêle dans le feu - 'fall from the frying pan into the fire' - from which the English is probably translated. The ancient Greeks had, 'out of the smoke into the flame'; the Italians and Portuguese, 'to fall from the frying pan into the coals'; and the Gaelic is 'out of the cauldron into the fire'.
Kitkat
- Post n°110
To keep one's powder dry
TO KEEP ONE'S POWDER DRY
To be prepared for action, but preserve one's resources until they are really needed.
The phrase comes from a saying attributed to Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), and the powder is, of course, gunpowder, which will not ignite if wet, or even damp.
During his savage Irish campaign of 1649, Cromwell is said to have concluded a speech to his troops, who were about to cross the River Slaney before attacking Wexford, with the rousing words, 'Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your power dry.'
There is no contemporary recording of his use of this phrase, however, and it is possible that it was coined later by the soldier and historian Valentine Blacker (1738-1823) in his poem 'Oliver's Advice', which attributed the line to Cromwell.
Kitkat
- Post n°111
Kiss of death
KISS OF DEATH
This phrase derives from Judas Iscariot's kiss given to Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane before he betrayed him (Luke 23:48 and Matthew 26:49). It's also known as a 'Judas kiss', meaning an insincere act of courtesy or false affection.
In Mafia circles, a kiss from the boss may indeed be a fatal omen.
The phrase is often used today in political or business contexts, meaning that certain associations or actions may prove to be the undoing of a person or organization, or the downfall of a plan or project.
Whiskers
- Post n°113
Kiss of death
Stardust wrote:...and let's not forget Goldfinger.
or the movie (the original --- not the awful 1995 one!)
Kitkat
- Post n°114
To lie on a bed of nails
TO LIE ON A BED OF NAILS
A situation or position, usually self-inflicted, that is fraught with a multitude of difficult problems.
The phrase refers to the spiked bed of the Hindu sadhu (ascetic or holy man), on which he chooses to sleep as a mark of spiritual devotion. But while the spikes may not hurt the sadhu, they would be unbearable for most normal mortals.
The saying is sometimes used in its variant form, 'to lie on a bed of thorns'; both are used to describe painful situations that people have created for themselves.
Kitkat
- Post n°115
As mad as a hatter
AS MAD AS A HATTER
A renowned simile ever since Lewis Carroll's (1832-98) Alice in Wonderland (1865), although it can be found in W.M. Thackeray's (1811-63) Pendennis (1850) and is recorded in America as early as 1836.
The likely reason for linking hat-makers with madness is that hatters used the chemical mercurous nitrate in the making of felt hats, and its side effects can produce trembling symptoms such as those suffered in St Vitus's Dance.
It is believed that Lewis Carroll based his character on Theophilus Carter, a furniture dealer who was known locally as the 'mad hatter' because he wore a top hat and devised fanciful inventions such as an alarm-clock bed which tipped the sleeper to the floor when it was time to wake up.
It has also been suggested that the original mad hatter was Robert Crab, a seventeenth-century English eccentric who gave all his belongings to the poor and ate only dock leaves and grass.
Kitkat
- Post n°116
To make no bones
TO MAKE NO BONES
To be honest and direct without any risk that the statement may be misunderstood, but also sometimes used to mean to have no scruples about something.
One oft-cited source for this phrase is the world of gambling. Dice were often known as 'bones' because they were originally made from animal bone. Yet there is no further evidence to link the phrase to dice.
It is more likely that it has its roots in the older expression 'to find bones in something', which was used from the fifteenth century. That phrase came from the fact that finding bones in a bowl of broth was considered troublesome, so to find bones in something came to mean to take issue with it.
Kitkat
- Post n°117
Make hay while the sun shines
MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES
To act promptly when the opportunity presents itself and make use of favourable circumstances. It has a similar seize-the-day meaning to the phrases 'one today is worth two tomorrows', and, as seen on a postcard, 'there's many a lemon dries up unsqueezed.'
The phrase originated when many people worked on the land, and appeared in the sixteenth century. Before the days of the baler, cut hay was tossed about with a pitchfork before being gathered in, and then had to be left to dry in the fields, which mean that rain would spoil it.
In more recent times, it has come to be used as a justification for having fun or relaxing whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Kitkat
- Post n°118
The man on the Clapham omnibus
THE MAN ON THE CLAPHAM OMNIBUS
The man in the street. This typically ordinary person on the bus was invented by a law lord, Lord Charles Bowen (1835-94). While summing up a case for negligence, he is said to have told the jury, 'We must ask ourselves what the man on the Clapham omnibus would think.'
The phrase was first officially recorded in the law courts in 1903, when it was quoted by Sir Richard Henn Collins MR (1842-1911) in a libel case.
In Bowen's time, the omnibus was still a horse-drawn carriage and Clapham was a nondescript suburb judged to represent ordinary London.
Kitkat
- Post n°119
To move the goalposts
TO MOVE THE GOALPOSTS
A colloquial expression derived from football meaning to change the agreed conditions or rules for carrying out a plan, quite often in business when clients change their minds after work on a project has already begun.
Seen in The Guardian, 1 March 1989, about the imposition of a new railway line in Kent:
The people of Kent vote solidly for the Conservative Party ...
Why are these people, therefore, trying to move the goalposts after the football match has started?
Kitkat
- Post n°120
My giddy aunt
MY GIDDY AUNT
An exclamation of surprise, a mild oath.
It has been suggested that the expression derives from the archetypal saga of giddy-auntdom, the classic farce Charley's Aunt by Brandon Thomas (1856-1914), first performed in 1892: 'I'm Charley's aunt from Brazil -where the nuts come from.' 'Oh my sainted aunt' is another variant.
However, there seems to have been a fashion at the end of the nineteenth century for using the word 'giddy' in a hyperbolical sense and this too is significant. In Rudyard Kipling's (1865-1936) Stalky & Co (1899) we find: 'King'll have to prove his charges up to the giddy hilt.'
This specific use of 'giddy' in the phrase suggests something or someone lightheartedly or exuberantly silly; a sense of the word that dates from the sixteenth century, as in the expression to act the giddy goat.*
Although 'giddy' has been used for hundreds of years in this sense, at first it literally meant to be possessed by a god, but later shifted to its modern sense of experiencing vertigo or dizziness.
* TO ACT THE GIDDY GOAT
To fool around. Goats are known for their unpredictable behaviour.
In the literal sense, 'giddy' means 'insane' orto be 'possessed by a god', but it has been used to mean 'silly' or 'foolish' since the early Middle Ages.
In Latin, 'goat' is caper; goats are noted for their frisky nature. 'To cut a caper' means 'to skip or leap about playfully'.
Kitkat
- Post n°121
To add insult to injury
TO ADD INSULT TO INURY
To hurt, by word or deed, someone who ha already suffered an act of violence or injustice. The expression has been in use for centuries.
During the Augustan era, the so-called Golden Age of Latin literature (27 BC-AD 14), Phaedrus translated Aesop's (620-560 BC) fables into Latin verse, peppering them with anecdotes of his own.He quotes the fable about a bald man who tried to swat a fly that had bitten him on the head, but who missed the insect and instead gave his pate a sharp slap.
Whereupon the fly said, 'You wished to kill me for a mere touch. What will you do to yourself since you have added insult to injury?'
Kitkat
- Post n°122
To take an early bath
TO TAKE AN EARLY BATH
This euphemism comes from the football pitch, and means to retire early to the dressing room after being sent off by the referee, or being injured during a match (of football or rugby).
Football has been around in the UK since at least 1170 and the original game was generally bloody and brutal, but in 1863 the Football Association was establishec as a governing body of the game. In 1881, it introduced a new law stating that if a player was guilty of 'ungentlemanly behaviour', the referee could order him off the ground.
By the time club football had become firmly established in the 1920s and 1930s, and clubs had their own facilities for the players, it was customary for the players to share a bath together after the match and thus the phrase arose.
By the 1950s, radio and TV commentators of both soccer and American football in the US were using the expression.
It passed into more general use to describe any situation in which someone is obliged to pull out of the action before it is over. In America, and increasingly in this country, 'to take a bath' means to suffer any kind of defeat or serious loss, as in 'he took a bath in the stock market collapse', while the original phrase has evolved with the times into 'to take an early shower'.
Kitkat
- Post n°123
To be taken for a ride
TO BE TAKEN FOR A RIDE
This colloquial phrase can be interpreted in one of two ways. It refers either to the victim of a light-hearted joke, prank or con, or - in its sinister and probably original meaning, a completely genuine use of the phrase - to someone who is taken for a ride somewhere and does not come back in one piece, if at all.
The rival underworld gangs of major American cities in the 1920s and 1930s were virtually at war with each other, and any unfortunate who was unlucky enough to tempt the wrath of the gang leader, or Don in the case of the Mafia, would be literally taken for a ride in a limousine, ostensibly to discuss certain matters or sort out some misunderstanding. He would be very unlikely to return alive, however - or, indeed, to return at all.
Kitkat
- Post n°124
That takes the biscuit!
THAT TAKES THE BISCUIT!
An exclamation to indicate shock and surprise at some action that has gone beyond the bounds of expectation.
Specially spiced biscuits and cakes were formerly prized as small treats and were given as rewards in a variety of competitions. This phrase is thought to be a derivation of 'that takes the cake', which in the Deep South of America in the 1920s referred to a winning performance at a cake walk.
This version of the phrase may predate cake walks by several thousand years, however, as there is evidence to suggest that 'taking the cake' was synonymous with taking victory as early as the fifth century, when 'cakes' were small pyramids of grains and honey.
In The Knights, Aristotle (384-322 BC) wrote: 'If you surpass him in impudence, then we take the cake.'
Kitkat
- Post n°125
To talk turkey
TO TALK TURKEY
To discuss some subject frankly or seriously.
To discuss some subject frankly or seriously.
The origin of the expression is uncertain, but it is thought to date back to nineteenth-century America and may have arisen from the efforts of turkey hunters to attract their prey by making gobbling noises. The birds would then either emerge from their cover or return the call, so revealing their whereabouts.
At the turn of the last century, the turkey was considered an amusing bird, and conversations in which one 'talked turkey' were convivial. A young suitor's chat-up lines would also be called 'talking turkey', perhaps becuse in a fit of nerves he might become tongue-tied and his words would come out like gobbling noises.
Later, the meaning became more serious and related to stern admonitions.
Incidentally, turkeys do not come from Turkey, but from North America, and were brought to Spain from Mexico.
Benjamin Franklin suggested the turkey should be the emblem of the United States of America - however, the bald eagle was chosen instead.
Kitkat
- Post n°126
To throw in the sponge
TO THROW IN THE SPONGE
To throw in, or throw up, the sponge means to give up, to admit defeat. The metaphor is from prize-fighting, which predated modern boxing, and refers to a second from the boxer's corner tossing a sponge, used to refresh his contestant in between rounds, towards the centre of the ring, to signify that his man is beaten.
'To thow in the towel' also means to concede defeat in boxing, for a second might also literally throw a towel into the ring to show that the game is up.