Etymology, Part 3: Common Sayings

Entertainment, History, Mysteries 5 Minutes

TAKES THE CAKE: The phrase “takes the cake” comes from the cake walks that were popular in the late 19th century. Couples would strut around gracefully and well-attired, and the couple with the best walk would win a cake as a prize. Interestingly, cake walk was soon used to describe something that could be done very easily, and it’s very possible that from there we get the phrase “piece of cake.”

PARTING SHOT: A parting shot, which is a final insult tossed out at the end of a fight when you assume it’s over, was originally a Parthian shot. The Parthians, who lived in an ancient kingdom called Parthia, had a strategy whereby they would pretend to retreat, then their archers would fire shots from horseback. Parthian sounds enough like parting, and, coupled with the fact that not a lot of people knew who the Parthians were, the phrase was changed to parting shot.

DEAD AS A DOORNAIL: One could certainly argue that a doornail was never alive, but when a doornail is dead, it has actually been hammered through a door, with the protruding end hammered and flattened into the door so that it can never come loose or be removed or used again. The phrase “dead as a doornail” has actually been around since the 14th century, about as long as the word doornail has officially been in the English language.

DOWN TO BRASS TACKS: “There are many theories about what “down to brass tacks” means, including that brass tacks is rhyming slang for hard facts. But it’s very likely that the brass tacks being mentioned here are actual brass tacks. Merchants used to keep tacks nailed into their counters to use as guides for measuring things, so to get down to brass tacks would be you were finally done deciding what you wanted and were ready to cut some fabric and do some actual business.

IT’S GREEK TO ME: “The phrase “it’s Greek to me” is often attributed to Shakespeare, but it’s been around since well before his time. An earlier version of the phrase can be found written in Medieval Latin translations, saying “Graecum est; non potest legi,” or “it’s Greek. Cannot be read.”

SMART ALEC: “You may have presumed the Alec in “smart Alec” was just a name that sounded good preceded by the word smart, but that’s not necessarily the case. Professor Gerald Cohen suggested in his book”Studies in Slang” that the original smart Alec was Alexander Hoag, a professional thief who lived and robbed in New York City in the 1840s. Hoag was a very clever criminal who worked with his wife and two other policemen to pickpocket and rob people. He was eventually busted when he decided to stop paying the cops.

HEARD IT THRU THE GRAPEVINE: “The grapevine people hear things through is a grapevine telegraph, which was the nickname given to the means of spreading information during the Civil War as a kind of wink at an actual telegraph. The grapevine telegraph is just a person-to-person exchange of information, and much like when you play a game of telephone, it’s best to presume that the information you receive has gone through a few permutations since it was first shared.

CAT’S OUT OF THE BAG: “Farmers used to stick little suckling pigs in bags to take them to market. But if a farmer was trying to rip somebody off, they would put a cat in the bag instead. So, if the cat got out of the bag, everybody was onto their ruse, which is how we use the phrase today, just not quite so literally. (We hope.)

OUT OF WACK: “Today, “out of whack” means not quite right, but it took a long time to get there. Whack appeared in the 18th century as a word that meant to strike a blow when used as a verb. The noun whack was the blow that was whacked on something. But whack also grew to mean portion or share, especially as loot that was being split by criminals. From there, whack grew to mean an agreement, as in the agreed share of loot, but it also meant in good order. If something was behaving as it was intended to, it was “in fine whack.” Eventually the opposite fell into common usage, and something that wasn’t in good shape was “out of whack.”

KIBOSH: “Evidence of kibosh dates the word to only a few years before Charles Dickens used it in an 1836 sketch, but despite kibosh being relatively young in English its source is elusive. Another hypothesis pointed to Irish caidhp bhais, literally, coif (or cap) of death, explained as headgear a judge put on when pronouncing a death sentence, or as a covering pulled over the face of a corpse when a coffin was closed. Today, “to put the kibosh on something” is to shut it down.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: “Some people think that the phrase “between a rock and a hard place” is a kind of sloppy reference to Odysseus. But in 1921, the phrase became a popular means of describing when miners had to choose between dangerous work for little or no money or definite poverty during the Great Bankers’ Panic of 1907.

GOT UP ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED: “The generally accepted origin of the phrases “get up on the wrong side of the bed” and wake up on the wrong side of the bed is ancient Rome, where superstition was rampant. Ancient philosophers equated the right side of anything as the positive side, and the left side of anything as the sinister or negative side. The story says that Romans always exited the bed on the right side in order to start the day in contact with positive forces. If one rose on the left side of the bed, he started the day in contact with negative forces.

MAD AS A HATTER: “The expression is linked to the hat-making industry and mercury poisoning. In the 18th and 19th centuries, industrial workers used a toxic substance, mercury nitrate, as part of the process of turning the fur of small animals, such as rabbits, into felt for hats. Workplace safety standards often were lax and prolonged exposure to mercury caused employees to develop a variety of physical and mental ailments, including tremors (dubbed โ€œhatterโ€™s shakesโ€), speech problems, emotional instability and hallucinations.

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Published by NebraskaFilly

Army veteran (1976-1979), retired with entirely too much time on my hands

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144 thoughts on “Etymology, Part 3: Common Sayings”

  7. Liked by 1 person

  8. tongue in cheek…but watch and see if some left nutcase doesn’t try it…

    two percent neanderthal
    November 13, 2022 12:40 pm

    How about mail-in jury service? It is inconvenient to show up at the in person at the courthouse. Trials sometimes last for days. Why do we not adopt the mail in vote process to jury trials?
    Jurors would be selected by some online conferencing feature and observe the trial with minimal convenience. They could deliberate on the same way and send in their vote electronically.
    What could go wrong? The consequences of a given trial are insignificant when compared to selecting those who will represent us in federal and state offices.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. sunnydaze
    November 13, 2022 12:56 pm

    Registered voters in AZ: 4.1 million

    Registered voters in FL. 14.4 million

    FL has 3 1/2 times the voter universe of AZ and we knew our winners and losers an hour after the polls closed.

    Yet the trash media calls you a conspiracy theorist if you question whatโ€™s happening in AZ.

    โ€” John Cardillo (@johncardillo) November 11, 2022

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Liked by 1 person

  12. so I gotta wonder…did the left get smarter? not possible. they are arrogant and cocky. they stole these elections like they did in 2020 and we didn’t do thing one to change it.
    BUT the whole–“we caught them all” mantra…they figured out what they did and how they did it, but our side, what? let it happen again?
    is the big announcement not about 2024 at all and is it about the nat’l guard or space force or whatever announcing the mechanics of the steal?

    I am grasping at straws, because i am mad. the repubs should be screaming their butts off–in EVERY state!!!!!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. No, they didn’t get smarter – they (and by they, I mean ALL of them, regardless of party) have just been smarter than US the entire time! Altho, “smarter” is the wrong word – jaded, experienced, self-centered, power-centric…….there are many words that can be used. Because it’s not a matter of smart, IMO – the biggest difference? We truly CARE, heart and soul, and cannot imagine or ever dream of participating in, or condoning, such under-handed, devious, satanic schemes.

      Like

  13. Troublemaker10
    November 13, 2022 2:14 pm

    I live in Nevada. Oddly enough, I canceled my registration on 10/22/2022 at 7:15PM, but my status says ballot received (I just checked now). My ballot is right here on the tableโ€ฆ so who did I magically vote for? I have ALL of my screenshots. pic.twitter.com/6PczVwCQlk

    โ€” Tiffany Desiree (@TiffanyDesiree6) November 13, 2022

    Liked by 1 person

  14. We finally reached 37 with sunny skies but it is really windy! I’ve now had 3 kinds of wood peckers – Red Headed, Hairy and Downy – on the suet, and I saw a cardinal pair the other day, as well as the occasional blue bird – they go thru the safflower seeds pretty fast. Of course, the nuthatches, sparrows and finches are always around. Still no sign of LM anywhere.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. He just showed up from across the street. I was able to get the canned/dry food mixed with the wormer out for him. He’s got a pretty good belly on him and his ear looks better. That’s a relief!

        Liked by 1 person


  15. EXCERPT: โ€œAustralia appears to be one of the first countries to publish birth rates for 2021, and their December 2021 statistics show that births dropped 72% over the previous December average for the past six years. This drop in births is reportedly about 9 months after the roll-out of the COVID vaccines.

    ——————
    The belief that these experimental COVID vaccines were never designed to prevent illness, but to reduce the worldโ€™s population, is looking less and less like a โ€œconspiracy theoryโ€ every day as the facts continue to come in. The funeral industry is booming, while life and health insurance companies are suffering. (Source.)

    Could these numbers from Australia be the start of a flood of data that will come in now showing dramatic deceases in births and fertility rates following the COVID-19 vaccines? The U.S. Governmentโ€™s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) was updated yesterday, and there are now 4,546 fetal deaths recorded in VAERS following COVID-19 vaccines given to pregnant and child-bearing women. (Source.)

    Six of those fetal deaths have occurred after the newly authorized Bivalent COVID-19 boosters by Pfizer and Moderna. (Source.) Here are a few of the case write-ups from VAERS:”

    https://healthimpactnews.com/2022/australian-bureau-of-statistics-shows-72-drop-in-births-9-months-after-covid-shots-started/

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  18. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. hereโ€™s one I found that I liked.

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