MEANING: gone crazy
IN CONTEXT: The flies at the lake have been so bad that we’ve all gone ’round the bend.
Gone ’round the bend relates to the placement of mental hospitals. In Victorian England in the 19th century, a number of hospitals were built to house the mentally disabled. Long, straight driveways were characteristic of stately homes so that they could be viewed with envy from the front. Conversely, so that they remained unseen from the road, mental asylums were built at the end of long curved driveways. If someone was committed to an asylum, they had literally gone around the bend.
MEANING: a simplified language used to communicate between two people who do not have a common language
IN CONTEXT: I was buying a wooden carving in Africa and managed to get the deal done by speaking pidgin English with the locals.
Pidgin English originated in the late 17th century. It was developed by British traders in China as a way of doing business without having a language in common. The expression actually means “business English,” and came about because of the mispronunciation of the English word “business” by the Chinese. They pronounced it “bijin,” and this led to pidgin. The language they used was a combination of both English and Cantonese and was spoken as a second language. Over the years, the phrase pidgin English developed to mean any two languages that are pieced together to aid effective communication.
MEANING: depressed or unhappy
IN CONTEXT: Going back to work after such a good holiday made me feel down in the dumps.
Down in the dumps is an expression that has been used since the 16th century. The earliest reference is in Thomas More’s A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation in 1553. It then became widespread after its usage in The Taming of the Shrew in 1596 when Shakespeare wrote, “Why, how now, daughter Katharina in your dumps?” Where the expression actually originated is unclear, but the dumps was a common medieval term meaning “dejection” or “depression.” It was probably taken from Europe, where various languages have similar words—the German dumpf means “gloomy,” the Swedish dumpin means “melancholy,” and the Dutch dompig means “damp” or “hazy.”
MEANING: a squalid area inhabited by vagrants and derelicts
IN CONTEXT: John started drinking so regularly that we thought he was headed for skid row.
On skid row is an expression that originated in the American lumber industry of the 19th century. Large tree trunks were hauled by rolling them along tracks made of greased logs that were laid crosswise. This was known as the “skid road,” because the trunks skidded across the logs. The timber industry was booming at the time, and many men came to the logging towns to find work. The large numbers of single men created a demand for bars and brothels, which would spring up in a certain part of the town. This area also became known as skid road due to the imagery of someone slipping, or skidding, down in society when falling victim to these vices. By the 1930s, skid road had been altered to skid row, and the wider use was born.
MEANING: concisely; in a few words
IN CONTEXT: Chris was always long-winded so I told him to give me the facts in a nutshell.
In a nutshell is said to originate from an ancient story described in AD 77 by the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder. The story goes that the philosopher Cicero witnessed a copy of Homer’s epic poem The Iliad written onto a piece of parchment and enclosed into the shell of a walnut. While this is thought to be impossible, it is believed that important documents were folded and inserted into walnut shells and bound so that they were waterproof and could be taken long distances without damaging them. Shakespeare refers to the expression in his 1603 play Hamlet, which immortalized the phrase.
MEANING: to be absent from school or some obligation without permission
IN CONTEXT: It was a sunny day so Jeb decided to play hooky from work and go the beach.
Sometimes spelled “hookey,” play hooky arose during the mid-19th century when school attendance became compulsory in America. There are a number of possible explanations for the phrase. It may be a contraction of the older expression hook it, meaning “to escape or make off,” or it could be related to the slang word hook, meaning “to steal,” as in stealing a day off school. A third possibility is an association with going fishing. Missing a day from school was like “getting off the hook,” the way a fish does when it escapes, and a common pastime for children when they played hooky was to go fishing.
Wait for the Other Shoe to Drop
MEANING: to await a seemingly inevitable event
IN CONTEXT: Oscar knew his wife had saved enough money to leave him, so he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Wait for the other shoe to drop began with the American manufacturing boom in the late 19th century. In large cities like New York, apartment housing became common. These dwellings were all built with similar designs, with bedrooms typically located above one another. It was common to be awoken late at night by a neighbor removing their shoes in the apartment above. The person below would often wake when the first shoe dropped on the floor and made a loud bang. Already disturbed, the person would then wait for the inevitable noise of the other shoe hitting the floor.
MEANING: intensive questioning or interrogation
IN CONTEXT: When I met my wife’s parents, they really gave me the third degree.
The third degree comes from the Freemasons, a centuries-old fraternal organization in Britain. In Masonic lodges, there are three degrees of membership. The first is known as Entered Apprentice, the second is Fellow Craft, and the third is Master Mason. As the third degree is far more challenging than the first two degrees, the candidate is subjected to rigorous questioning and examinations before he receives the third degree of Master Mason. By the 19th century, the third degree had come to mean any kind of interrogation.
MEANING: to keep changing what you do or plan to do, often for no apparent or logical reason
IN CONTEXT: After months of chopping and changing, the company decided to go back to the original accounting system.
The expression to chop and change sprung up during the 15th century, and since it originated, the meaning has been used in the same sense that we use it today. Chop is an archaic old English word meaning “to exchange” or “change suddenly.” To chop and change meant to change suddenly and then change again. The first written example is from the 1485 Digby Mysteries—“I choppe and chaunge with symonye, and take large yiftes (gifts).”
MEANING: to explode or destroy something into tiny pieces
IN CONTEXT: There were only three boats who attacked the fleet and they were blown to smithereens within ten minutes.
Always used in the plural, blown to smithereens is of Irish origin. Smithereens derives from the Gaelic word smidirin, meaning “small or tiny fragments.” The expression was in common usage by the early 19th century and was first written in Francis Plowden’s 1803 book An Historical Review of the State of Ireland, where he wrote, “If you don’t be off directly…we will break your carriage in smithereens, and hough your cattle and burn your house.”
MEANING: something that operates in a rotational manner, such as a circular petition or letter; a sporting tournament where each player plays all others
IN CONTEXT: The organizers decided to change the tennis tournament to a round robin instead of sudden death.
Round robin stems from 17th century France, when peasant revolts were rife. Whenever the King received a petition for change, which contained a list of signatures, he would generally call in the top few people on the list, who were thought to be the ringleaders, and behead them. Still desperate to petition the King but not wanting to be killed, the peasants devised a concept they called a rond ruban (meaning “round ribbon”). It was a length of ribbon joined to form a circle, which the petitioners would sign. This disguised who had signed first and protected everyone. This practice was also adopted by sailors in the 18th century. Mutiny was a serious offence but a captain was unable to hang his entire crew, so any complaints were made by signing a circular petition. The term adapted to round robin and was first recorded in The Weekly Journal in 1730: “A Round Robin is a name given by seamen to an instrument on which they sign their names round a circle, to prevent the ringleader being discovered by it.”
MEANING: dressed in expensive or stylish clothes
IN CONTEXT: When Bob came to pick up Sue for the dance, he was dressed to kill.
Dressed to kill has its origins in a letter from the English poet John Keats to his two brothers, George and Thomas, in 1818. In it he wrote, “One chap was dressed to kill for the King in Bombastes, and he stood at the edge of the scene in the very sweat of anxiety to show himself.” The expression received wider acclaim from an 1881 interview for the American newspaper the Cambridge Tribune, when an army recruit was asked how he felt about his brand new uniform. “I am dressed to kill,” was the soldier’s simple reply.
MEANING: to travel in a car’s front passenger seat
IN CONTEXT: It was going to be a long journey so I was glad to be riding shotgun, as it was far more comfortable there than in the back seat.
Riding shotgun derives from the days of stagecoach travel. In America during the 19th century, postal express messengers became known as “shotgun messengers” because they rode up the front of the stagecoach next to the driver and carried a loaded shotgun. A shotgun is a useful weapon in close quarters in an ambush situation, as it scatters multiple lead pellets and makes it likely to at least skim the target. Stagecoaches were often confronted by armed bandits or dangerous animals such as bears, and the person riding shotgun was there for protection. The expression was in common usage by the early 20th century, but became widespread with the rise of Wild West films in the 1950s.
MEANING: a short period of time
IN CONTEXT: Don’t go anywhere Joe, I’ll be back in a jiffy.
While some people presume that the jiffy in the expression in a jiffy is a slang term, it is actually a scientific unit of time. The first technical usage of the term was by the American physical chemist, Gilbert Newton Lewis (1875–1946). He defined a jiffy as the time it takes light to travel one centimeter in a vacuum, which is approximately 33 picoseconds—a very small unit of time. Since then, a jiffy has been redefined as different measurements depending on the field of study, but in all instances it is a very small period.
MEANING: nonsense; meaningless or complicated speech or writing
IN CONTEXT: There was so much legal mumbo jumbo in the contract that I couldn’t really understand it.
The expression mumbo jumbo began with the early explorers of Africa in the 18th century. Francis Moore was one of the first Englishman to travel into the interior of the continent and in 1738 wrote the book Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa. In his book he describes how the men of one tribe, the Mundingoes, employed a legendary spirit to ensure obedience in their women. “The women are kept in the greatest subjection,” he wrote, “and the men, to render their power as complete as possible, influence their wives to give them an unlimited obedience, by all the force of fear and terror. For this purpose the Mundingoes have a kind of image eight or nine feet high, made of the bark of trees, dressed in a long coat, and crowned with a wisp of straw. This is called a Mumbo Jumbo; and whenever the men have any dispute with the women, this is sent for to determine the contest, which is almost always done in favor of the men.” It was this passage that brought the term mumbo jumbo to the masses and by the mid-1800s, the phrase had come to mean any meaningless rantings.
Warm the Cockles of Your Heart
MEANING: a feeling of affection, satisfaction or pleasure
IN CONTEXT: Looking at her baby boy for the first time warmed the cockles of her heart.
Some suggest that warm the cockles of your heart stems from the Latin cochleae cordis, meaning “ventricles of the heart,” cochleae being similar to the word “cockle.” But the likely origin dates back centuries. The heart was long considered the thinking and emotional center of the body, because of the flutters that are sometimes experienced. The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, was the first to hold this view. When a person was excited and their heart pumped faster, the rapid movement of the blood created a warming effect, so warming the heart came to mean what it does today. Then during the 17th century, anatomists likened the shape of the ventricles of the heart to the cockle, a marine mollusk, and the full expression was born.
MEANING: to ingratiate yourself to someone with flattery
IN CONTEXT: I didn’t really like the coach, but I had to butter him up because I was desperate to play on Saturday.
Butter someone up is an expression that dates back to ancient India. The Hindus always wanted to keep their gods happy so that the gods would watch over and protect them. Ghee was a clarified butter that has been used in Indian cooking for centuries, and is still in use today. The Hindus had a custom of throwing balls of ghee at the statues of their gods to butter them up. They did this to keep the gods happy generally, and also if they were seeking a particular favor.
MEANING: to take a situation in your stride, without displaying any emotional response
IN CONTEXT: Margaret didn’t even bat an eyelid when I told her I was moving out.
Always used in the negative, without batting an eyelid is another expression that derives from the linguistic world. The word “bat” comes from bate, an obsolete English word, which in turn comes from the Old French batre, meaning “to beat the wings” or “flutter.” When a person reacted to something of note without showing any surprise or emotion, to the extent that they didn’t even blink, or flutter, an eyelid, it was said that they didn’t bat an eyelid.
MEANING: a selfish or ulterior aim
IN CONTEXT: Harry claimed to be disinterested in the outcome, but I knew he had an ax to grind.
The expression an ax to grind is credited to Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of America. In his autobiography, Franklin wrote an anecdote about a man who wanted his ax ground. A blacksmith agreed to do it, but only if the man turned the grindstone himself. The man did this, but soon feigned fatigue and gave up, making the duped blacksmith finish the job for him. Franklin’s story didn’t mention the phrase, but in 1810 Charles Miner, an American congressman, published an essay entitled “Who’ll Turn Grindstone?” It detailed a similar story that was clearly based on Franklin’s account and included the expression an ax to grind.
MEANING: to discern a meaning that isn’t explicitly stated or obvious
IN CONTEXT: Finn’s girlfriend canceled their date three times, so he read between the lines and realized it was probably over.
Read between the lines is an expression that derives from the early days of cryptography in the 19th century. Cryptography involves encoding messages into seemingly innocuous text. One of the first techniques used to pass codes was to write the intended message on every second line and have an unrelated innocent message across all the lines. When read normally and in its entirety, the story was simple, made sense, and did not reveal any code, but when just the alternate lines were read, the code was deciphered.
MEANING: to encourage or urge someone, usually to do something foolish
IN CONTEXT: My brother always eggs me on to drive faster.
The phrase to egg on has linguistic origins. Originally “to edge on,” it derives from the Old Norse word eggja, meaning “to edge” or “to incite.” To eggjan, or edge, someone was to encourage them. The expression had adapted to egg on by the 1500s and was being used in its current sense by that time.
MEANING: a state of extreme happiness and contentment
IN CONTEXT: Ever since Josh bought his new house he’s been on cloud nine. I’ve never seen him so happy.
Generally preceded by “on,” cloud nine is an expression that began in the 1930s. Between that time and the 1950s, the US Weather Bureau divided clouds into nine classes. The highest class, cloud nine, was the cumulonimbus cloud. Those clouds tend to be white and fluffy in appearance and reach up to 40,000 feet. Because of their height and attractive nature, to be on cloud nine came to symbolize floating in a carefree manner. The expression became widespread because of the popular US radio adventure series Johnny Dollar. It ran from 1949 to 1962, and whenever the hero in the story was knocked unconscious, he was transported to cloud nine, where he was revived.
MEANING: an exact likeness
IN CONTEXT: Gloria is the spitting image of her mother.
While some believe “spit” is a corruption of “spirit” in this expression, spitting image is actually a contraction of “spit and image.” The saying began with the idea of someone being formed from the spit of another, so great is the similarity between them. It was as though one had been spat out of the other’s mouth—the “spit and image.” The first known written reference to this was in George Farquhar’s 1689 play Love and a Bottle, which included the line “Poor child! He’s as like his own dadda as if he were spit out of his mouth.” Spit and image had evolved to spitting image by the early 20th century.
MEANING: via informal means of communication, particularly gossip
IN CONTEXT: I heard on the grapevine that Patricia and Ernest are about to break up.
On the grapevine owes its origins to the early days of American telegraphy. Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, which was first used in 1844. The invention was widely recognized as a useful means of rapid communication, and many companies across America rushed to put up telegraph lines. In their haste, some cut corners and used trees instead of fixed telegraph poles to save money. However, the movement of the trees stretched the wire, often leaving it tangled. A notable instance of this was in California, where people likened the tangled wire to the local grapevines. The expression “on the grapevine” developed its current meaning during the American Civil War, when messages transmitted via the telegraph were sometimes unreliable.
MEANING: the entire thing, not concealing any unsavory detail
IN CONTEXT: I knew the news wasn’t going to be good, but I told him to give it to me warts and all.
Warts and all derives from Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England in the 1650s. Cromwell instructed the royalist painter, Sir Peter Lely, to paint his portrait. As was usual at the time, Lely’s style was to flatter his subject, showing them in the best possible light with all blemishes removed. Cromwell was known for being opposed to personal vanity and he issued the following instruction to Lely: “I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like I am and not flatter me at all. Remark all these roughness, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay you a farthing for it.” Lely did just that, and the portrait includes a mole above Cromwell’s eye and a large wart below his lip.
From the Wrong Side of the Tracks
MEANING: the less desirable part of town
IN CONTEXT: The gang from the wrong side of the tracks was accused of the robbery.
From the wrong side of the tracks is an American expression which dates from the 19th century. Towns and cities at the time grew up along the newly built railroads. The tracks would usually divide the towns. The more affluent residents would live upwind from the railway station, avoiding the fumes and loud noises from the trains, while the poor townsfolk would live in houses downwind. It was downwind of the station that factories were also generally built, adding to the grime of area. Upper-class people came to refer to the poor who lived in the other part of town as being from the wrong side of the tracks.
MEANING: abstaining from drinking alcohol
IN CONTEXT: Don’t offer Kate any wine, she’s on the wagon.
It has been suggested by many that on the wagon derives from when prisoners, who had had their last drink, were transported from the Old Bailey in London to the gallows on a wagon. Some even suggest that the criminals were sometimes given “one for the road,” a final drink before they were hanged. It is now widely accepted that these explanations are fanciful. The expression is actually a contraction of “on the water wagon.” In the early 20th century, water wagons were used in America to dampen dusty streets. At the time, the consumption of alcohol was high, and people who had vowed to give it up would crowd around waiting for the water wagon to arrive to quench their thirst. Some would even ride around town on the wagon drinking the water in an effort to stay away from alcohol.
MEANING: the whole thing; everything
IN CONTEXT: My new car has all the latest technology—satellite navigation, digital radio, auto-sensors—the whole kit and kaboodle.
Sometimes spelled as “caboodle,” the whole kit and kaboodle has been in existence since the late 19th century. It began as “kit and boodle,” the two words having similar meanings. The kit in the expression meant “a collection of tools or possessions that might be carried in a kit-bag.” Boodle comes from the Dutch word boedel, meaning “a group or collection, usually of people.” The phrase developed to the whole kit and kaboodle, which meant “everything in your possession.” The earliest citations of the current saying are all American, and date from 1884, when it was used in the New York newspaper, Syracuse Sunday Standard.
MEANING: to fall just short of success
IN CONTEXT: They needed three points to win the basketball game, but the ball bounced off the frame and missed. It was close, but no cigar.
Close, but no cigar is an expression with American origins. Fairgrounds and circuses were popular during the 19th century. Like today, they always had sideshows with competitions that involved hitting a hammer against a pad to make a bell ring, shooting in galleries, and throwing down moving pins. The main prize offered for winning these competitions was usually a large Havana cigar, which was much sought after at the time. Contestants who just missed out on winning heard “close, but no cigar.” The saying was used colloquially in America by the 1930s.
MEANING: have an intuitive or instinctive feeling
IN CONTEXT: They didn’t seem happy together and I had a hunch they would soon break up.
Have a hunch takes its origins from gambling in early 20th-century in America. There is a centuries-old superstition that hunchbacks are possessed by the devil, who gave them the power to foretell the future. Gamblers, who are notoriously superstitious, believed that rubbing the hump on a hunchback before placing a bet or playing a hand of cards would bring them good fortune. It is unknown whether this superstition was ever put to the test and, if so, whether it was successful, but as a result, to have a hunch came to mean what it does today.
MEANING: to be voted against; someone who is not acceptable or is outcast
IN CONTEXT: Jack applied to be a member of the club but he was blackballed because of his bad reputation.
To be blackballed derives from the London gentlemen’s clubs of the 18th century. New applications for membership were assessed by a ruling committee and then put to the members for a secret vote. Every existing member of the club had to vote, and the votes were cast by placing either a white or black ball into a container. White balls meant acceptance and black balls meant rejection. One single black ball was enough for the application to fail, and nobody ever knew which members were in opposition.