Etymology of Words and Phrases, Part 6

TURN A BLIND EYE – The phrase “turn a blind eye”—often used to refer to a willful refusal to acknowledge a particular reality—dates back to a legendary chapter in the career of the British naval hero Horatio Nelson. During 1801’s Battle of Copenhagen, Nelson’s ships were pitted against a large Danish-Norwegian fleet. When his more conservative superior officer flagged for him to withdraw, the one-eyed Nelson supposedly brought his telescope to his bad eye and blithely proclaimed, “I really do not see the signal.” He went on to score a decisive victory. Some historians have since dismissed Nelson’s famous quip as merely a battlefield myth, but the phrase “turn a blind eye” persists to this day.

WHITE ELEPHANT – White elephants were once considered highly sacred creatures in Thailand—the animal even graced the national flag until 1917—but they were also wielded as a subtle form of punishment. According to legend, if an underling or rival angered a Siamese king, the royal might present the unfortunate man with the gift of a white elephant. While ostensibly a reward, the creatures were tremendously expensive to feed and house, and caring for one often drove the recipient into financial ruin. Whether any specific rulers actually bestowed such a passive-aggressive gift is uncertain, but the term has since come to refer to any burdensome possession—pachyderm or otherwise.

CROCODILE TEARS – Modern English speakers use the phrase “crocodile tears” to describe a display of superficial or false sorrow, but the saying actually derives from a medieval belief that crocodiles shed tears of sadness while they killed and consumed their prey. The myth dates back as far as the 14th century and comes from a book called “The Travels of Sir John Mandeville.” Wildly popular upon its release, the tome recounts a brave knight’s adventures during his supposed travels through Asia. Among its many fabrications, the book includes a description of crocodiles that notes, “These serpents sley men, and eate them weeping, and they have no tongue.” While factually inaccurate, Mandeville’s account of weeping reptiles later found its way into the works of Shakespeare, and “crocodile tears” became an idiom as early as the 16th century.

DIEHARD – While it typically refers to someone with a strong dedication to a particular set of beliefs, the term “diehard” originally had a series of much more literal meanings. In its earliest incarnation in the 1700s, the expression described condemned men who struggled the longest when they were executed by hanging. The phrase later became even more popular after 1811’s Battle of Albuera during the Napoleonic Wars. In the midst of the fight, a wounded British officer named William Inglis supposedly urged his unit forward by bellowing “Stand your ground and die hard … make the enemy pay dear for each of us!” Inglis’ 57th Regiment suffered 75 percent casualties during the battle, and went on to earn the nickname “the Die Hards.”

RESTING ON YOUR LAURELS: The idea of resting on your laurels dates back to leaders and athletic stars of ancient Greece. In Hellenic times, laurel leaves were closely tied to Apollo, the god of music, prophecy and poetry. Apollo was usually depicted with a crown of laurel leaves, and the plant eventually became a symbol of status and achievement. Victorious athletes at the ancient Pythian Games received wreaths made of laurel branches, and the Romans later adopted the practice and presented wreaths to generals who won important battles. Venerable Greeks and Romans, or “laureates,” were thus able to “rest on their laurels” by basking in the glory of past achievements. Only later did the phrase take on a negative connotation, and since the 1800s it has been used for those who are overly satisfied with past triumphs.

READ THE RIOT ACT – These days, angry parents might threaten to “read the riot act” to their unruly children. But in 18th-century England, the Riot Act was a very real document, and it was often recited aloud to angry mobs. Instituted in 1715, the Riot Act gave the British government the authority to label any group of more than 12 people a threat to the peace. In these circumstances, a public official would read a small portion of the Riot Act and order the people to “disperse themselves, and peaceably depart to their habitations.” Anyone that remained after one hour was subject to arrest or removal by force. The law was later put to the test in 1819 during the infamous Peterloo Massacre, in which a cavalry unit attacked a large group of protestors after they appeared to ignore a reading of the Riot Act.

PAINT THE TOWN RED – The phrase “paint the town red” most likely owes its origin to one legendary night of drunkenness. In 1837, the Marquis of Waterford—a known lush and mischief maker—led a group of friends on a night of drinking through the English town of Melton Mowbray. The bender culminated in vandalism after Waterford and his fellow revelers knocked over flowerpots, pulled knockers off of doors and broke the windows of some of the town’s buildings. To top it all off, the mob literally painted a tollgate, the doors of several homes and a swan statue with red paint. The marquis and his pranksters later compensated Melton for the damages, but their drunken escapade is likely the reason that “paint the town red” became shorthand for a wild night out. Still yet another theory suggests the phrase was actually born out of the brothels of the American West, and referred to men behaving as though their whole town were a red-light district.

BY AND LARGE – Many everyday phrases are nautical in origin— “taken aback,” “loose cannon” and “high and dry” all originated at sea—but perhaps the most surprising example is the common saying “by and large.” As far back as the 16th century, the word “large” was used to mean that a ship was sailing with the wind at its back. Meanwhile, the much less desirable “by,” or “full and by,” meant the vessel was traveling into the wind. Thus, for mariners, “by and large” referred to trawling the seas in any and all directions relative to the wind. Today, sailors and landlubbers alike now use the phrase as a synonym for “all things considered” or “for the most part.”

THE THIRD DEGREE – There are several tales about the origin of “the third degree,” a saying commonly used for long or arduous interrogations. One theory argues the phrase relates to the various degrees of murder in the criminal code; yet another credits it to Thomas F. Byrnes, a 19th-century New York City policeman who used the pun “Third Degree Byrnes” when describing his hardnosed questioning style. In truth, the saying is most likely derived from the Freemasons, a centuries-old fraternal organization whose members undergo rigorous questioning and examinations before becoming “third degree” members, or “master masons.

You will need to enlarge this to see details.

This one doesn’t provide any detail but the overall picture should give you an idea.

SPILL THE BEANS –

One explanation dates back to ancient Greece when people would use beans to vote anonymously. White beans were used for positive votes, and for negative votes, black beans or other dark-colored beans were used. These votes were cast in secret, so if someone knocked over the beans in the jar—whether by accident or intentionally—they “spilled the beans” and revealed the results of the votes prematurely. Eventually, in modern times, the phrase “spill the beans” came to mean “upset a previously stable situation by talking out of turn.”

DIME A DOZEN – After the dime was made in 1796, people started advertising goods for “a dime a dozen.” This meant you were getting a good deal on products, such as a dozen eggs. Over time, the idiom evolved to mean the opposite. Instead of something being a good deal, it became a phrase to describe something that’s not valuable and easily available. The first known use of it in this context is believed to have occurred in 1930. From there, people picked up on the phrase’s new meaning and started using it in that context.

Etymology of Words and Phrases, Part 5: ‘Tis the Christmas Season

CHRISTMAS CARDS -The tradition of sending Christmas cards originated in the mid-1800s when a few people began to design handmade cards to send to family and friends. A man named John Calcott Horsley is credited as being the first to actually print Christmas cards. The card depicted a family enjoying the holiday, with scenes of people performing acts of charity. The card was inscribed: “Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to You.” Some of the other cards of the era were rather bizarre!!!

CHRISTMAS GIFT! –

A greeting used on Christmas morning, with the first person saying it traditionally receiving a gift. The custom, which has been traced back to as early as 1844, is no longer observed but ‘Christmas gift!’, which used to be a far more popular Christmas greeting than ‘Merry Christmas!’, is still heard among older people.”

CHRISTMAS PICKLE – Pickle ornaments were considered a special decoration by many families in Germany where the fir tree was decorated on Christmas Eve. It was always the last ornament to be hung on the Christmas tree, with the parents hiding it in the green boughs among the other ornaments. When the children were allowed to view the tree they would begin gleefully searching for the pickle ornament. The children knew that whoever first found that special ornament would receive an extra little gift left by St. Nicholas for the most observant child.

EPIPHANY – January 6 is known in western Christian tradition as Epiphany. It goes by other names in various church traditions. In Hispanic and Latin culture, as well as some places in Europe, it is known as Three Kings’ Day. Because of differences in church calendars, mainly between the Eastern Orthodox and the western Catholic and Protestant traditions, both Christmas and Epiphany have been observed at different times in the past.

Epiphany is the climax of the Christmas Season and the Twelve Days of Christmas, which are counted from December 25th until January 5th. The day before Epiphany is the twelfth day of Christmas, and is sometimes called Twelfth Night, an occasion for feasting in some cultures. The term epiphany means to show” or “to make known” or even “to reveal.” In Western churches, it remembers the coming of the wise men bringing gifts to visit the Christ child, who by so doing “reveal” Jesus to the world as Lord and King.

GOD SPEED THE PLOUGH; PLOUGH MONDAY – God speed the plough, ‘a wish for success or prosperity,’ was originally a phrase in a 15th-century song sung by ploughmen on Plough Monday; the first Monday after the Twelfth Day, which is the end of the Christmas holidays, when farm laborers returned to the plough, soliciting ‘plough money’ to spend in celebration.

HARD CANDY CHRISTMAS – A bleak Christmas — one where the family is so low on money that everyone gets hard candy for Christmas instead of gifts. The phrase is the title of a song written by Carol Hall and sung by Dolly Parton: “Lord it’s like a hard candy Christmas.I’m barely getting through tomorrow.But still I won’t let Sorrow bring me way down.I’ll be fine and dandy.

MERRY CHRISTMAS – England of the Anglo-Saxon period and the Middle Ages was not a very happy place to be, let alone ‘merrie.’ So why the phrase “Merrie Christmas” indicating revelry and joyous spirits, as if England were one perpetual Christmastime? The answer is that the word ‘merrie’ originally meant merely ‘pleasing and delightful,’ not bubbling over with festive spirits, as it does today.

The same earlier meaning is found in the famous expression, ‘the merry month of May.'” Note: In “A Royal Duty,” Paul Burrell said the Queen preferred “Happy Christmas” because she believed “Merry Christmas” implies drunkenness.

SANTA CLAUS – Today, people around the world are familiar with the popularized depiction of Santa Claus: a chubby old gnome with a snow-colored beard, eight tiny reindeer, and an army of freckle-faced elves who leap at his beck and call.

Though commonly thought of as an American folk legend, Santa Claus owes most of his existence to old religious customs that came to this country with immigrants from Europe. Interwoven in our holiday tradition are the traditions of Spain, Germany, Italy and, above all, the Dutch Netherlands, where one of the clearest connections to the Santa tradition can be found.

Before becoming known in America as Santa Claus, this magical gift bearer was commonly referred to as “Sinter Claes” or “Sinterklass,” a Dutch language corruption of both the name and the religious title of Saint Nicholas, a fourth century bishop of the Eastern Orthodox Church. And as Dutch tradition tells it, Sinterklass doesn’t travel by sled or live at the North Pole. He also doesn’t dress up in a red velvet suit trimmed with faux polar bear fur, or manage a year-round sweatshop staffed by toy-making elves.

Making a list and checking it twice to keep an accurate record of who’s been naughty and who’s been nice throughout the year is a monumental task, even for a magical old dude like Sinterklass. So assisting him with his gift-giving enterprise is Zwarte Piet (literally “Black Peter”), a Moorish youth with an old school feathered cap on his head and 24-karat “bling” in his earlobes.

View post on imgur.com

A smiling St. Nicholas, “De Goede Sint” (“The Good Saint”), and Black Pete ride their horse and donkey as Dutch children crowd around them in this artwork by Dutch writer and illustrator, Marie “Rie” Cramer, 1929

XMAS – “The X abbreviation of ‘Xmas’ for ‘Christmas’ is neither modern nor disrespectful. The notion that it is a new and vulgar representation of the word ‘Christmas’ seems to stem from the erroneous belief that the letter ‘X’ is used to stand for the word ‘Christ’ because of its resemblance to a cross, or that the abbreviation was deliberately concocted “to take the ‘Christ’ out of Christmas.” Actually, this usage is nearly as old as Christianity itself, and its origins lie in the fact that the first letter in the Greek word for ‘Christ’ is ‘chi,’ and the Greek letter ‘chi’ is represented by a symbol similar to the letter ‘X’ in the modern Roman alphabet.

Hence ‘Xmas’ is indeed perfectly legitimate abbreviation for the word ‘Christmas’ (just as ‘Xian’ is also sometimes used as an abbreviation of the word ‘Christian’). None of this means that Christians (and others) aren’t justified in feeling slighted when people write ‘Xmas’ rather than ‘Christmas,’ but the point is that the abbreviation was not created specifically for the purpose of demeaning Christ, Christians, Christianity, or Christmas — it’s a very old artifact of a very different language.

SHOPPING DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS – American retailer H. Gordon Selfridge (1856-1947) coined this expression ” __ shopping days until Christmas” while working for Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago. Later he coined the slogan “the customer is always right” when he opened Selfridge’s in London.

Marshall Field & Company gained notoriety for a number of unique promotions and features, like the Great Tree, which was a part of the store’s Christmas celebrations. In late fall, the phrase “looking ahead to the holidays” appeared in ads, with a full Christmas promotion following after Thanksgiving. “The Store of the Christmas Spirit,” “A Gift from Field’s Means More,” and “Christmas isn’t Christmas without a day at Marshall Field & Company” were advertising lines used to promote the store during the holidays.

Families lined up to eat under the Great Tree, visit “Cozy Cloud Cottage” and admire elaborate window displays, telling the story of “Uncle Mistletoe” and “Freddy Fieldmouse” which were creations of the store’s promotion department. Notably, one of the store’s windows displayed a beautiful crêche for Christmas, in addition to the commercial promotions that were popular along State Street.

National Day of the Horse

On the National Day of the Horse, horse lovers like ourselves like to consider America’s relationship with horses and our common history. It’s popular knowledge that European colonists brought horses over to America during the 15th and 16th century to be traded with the Native Americans, hence the Thanksgiving association. While this is true, the relationship isn’t as straightforward as that; it’s a complicated one.

A 2012 study found the wild ancestor of the modern domestic horse likely originated around 160,000 years ago in Eurasia. The scientists determined that horses were first domesticated roughly 6,000 years ago somewhere in the Eurasian Steppe. Another study published in 2017 found all modern horses descend from two distinct lines: the Arabian horse and the now-extinct Turkoman horse (which was similar to the Akhal-Teke breed).

Horses spread around the world via trade, war, gifting, theft, and more. People began to selectively breed for desirable characteristics to meet their work requirements for the horses, such as speed, strength, and stamina. While people kept track of their horses’ lineage and traits for centuries, studbooks to maintain an official pedigree record didn’t come about until the 1700s. From this arose the multitude of breeds and types of horses we know today.

The Breeds of Livestock resource from Oklahoma State University lists 217 separate breeds of horses from the Abyssinian to the Zhemaichu. Meanwhile, “The Encyclopedia of the Horse” by Elwyn Hartley Edwards lists just over 150 breeds of horses, including many ancient breeds that no longer exist but are the ancestors of many breeds today. A study by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences references 784 horse breeds in the United Nations Food and Agriculture database, but most equine experts recognize approximately 200 horse breeds.

Although horses hadn’t been roaming the American plains in the years leading up to their European introduction, horses have a much longer relationship with America than previously thought.

Think millions of years, coinciding in time periods with the mighty wooly mammoth. Around 10,000 years ago, some of these wild horses crossed over the Bering land bridge that connected early America and Asia. The earliest bridles for horses were found in Eastern Europe dating back to 4000 BC, showing that the Europeans started to domesticate the wild horses around this time, using them for hunting, carrying packs and working the fields. The ancient wild horses that stayed in America became extinct but their ancestors were introduced back to the American land via the European colonists many years later.

Columbus’ second voyage was the starting point for the re-introduction, bringing Iberian horses to modern-day Mexico. Some of the Iberian horses escaped European control and became wild horses, relatives of the mustangs in the Western United States today. The first breeds of horses that were brought over were smaller, due to size constraints for the smaller ships of the time, but as time went on, larger horses such as draft horses were also imported.

After Columbus’ re-introduction, horses spread across the continent and many Native American societies developed their cultures around them. This is where problems emerge, because although they were once native to America thousands of years ago, horses are still technically a recently introduced species to the American plains. Wild horses have few predators and a perfect habitat, so they quickly grew to become a symbol of the West. However, their populations grew too quickly, and they began to compete with farmers for the natural resources that the land held.

The Bureau of Land Management currently protects the wild herds, but they have to manage the population via sterilization techniques and round-ups, a dramatic controversy for animal rights activists.

The horses we see today are all examples of selective breeding via humans over the years (with the exception of the pure desert-bred Arabian) but they’re also a shared part of our mixed Native and European histories. Horses allowed humans to travel farther and faster, instrumentally help out armies during battles, and develop the country through labor-intensive agriculture.

There are currently around 9.2 million horses in the country, consisting of many breeds such as American Quarter Horses, Paints, Appaloosas, Missouri Fox Trotters, and rarer breeds such as the Shire, Lippizan, Gotland, Caspian and Colonial Spanish Mustangs.

Oscar (above) is one of four horses who starred in Disney’s Hidalgo, the epic adventure movie based on the true story of Frank T. Hopkins and his Spanish mustang stallion, Hidalgo. Oscar is APHA registered as Impressively Better, born in 1991.

Most of the breeds in “The Encyclopedia of the Horse” are horses with existing registries that can trace bloodlines to ensure purity. In general, the number of horse breed registries is increasing as equine lovers recognize the need to compile data about rare and endangered breeds and types of horses.

PEARL HARBOR DAY DECEMBER 7

Personally, I believe they knew the attack was coming but the Military Industrial Complex and the warmongers in our government wanted to get into the war. So they allowed it to happen. Of course, there is no proof of that but…..there’s not much proof for a LOT of things!!!

National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, also referred to as Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day or Pearl Harbor Day, is observed annually in the United States on December 7, to remember and honor the 2,403 Americans who were killed in the Japanese surprise attack in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, which led to the United States declaring war on Japan the next day, thus entering World War II.

On Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service attacked the neutral United States at Naval Station Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii, killing 2,403 Americans and injuring 1,178 others. The attack sank four U.S. Navy battleships and damaged four others. It also damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, and one mine layer. Aircraft losses were 188 destroyed and 159 damaged.

Canada declared war on Japan within hours of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the first Western nation to do so. On December 8, the United States declared war on Japan and entered World War II on the side of the Allies. In a speech to Congress, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the bombing of Pearl Harbor “a date which will live in infamy.”

There are a number of Naval memorials around the US in honor of those who died at Pearl Harbor. The most well known and highly publized is the USS Arizona.

USS ARIZONA

The USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor is a marble memorial over the sunken battleship USS Arizona, which was dedicated on May 30, 1962 (“Memorial Day”), in honor of the 1,177 crew members who were killed. The memorial remembers all military personnel who were killed in the Pearl Harbor attack. Note: This site is open to the public with boat tours to the memorial provided by the US Navy from the visitors center.

USS OKLAHOMA

In the first ten minutes of the battle, eight torpedoes hit the USS Oklahoma, and she began to capsize. A ninth torpedo would hit her as she sunk in the mud. 14 Marines, and 415 sailors would give their lives. 32 men were cut out through the hull while the others were beneath the waterline. Banging could be heard for over 3 days and then there was silence.

In 1943, the Oklahoma was righted and salvaged. Unlike most of the other battleships that were recovered following Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma was too damaged to return to duty. Her wreck was eventually stripped of her remaining armament and superstructure before being sold for scrap in 1946. The hull sank in a storm in 1947, while being towed from Oahu, Hawaii, to a breakers yard in San Francisco Bay.

USS UTAH

The USS Utah Memorial, is in remembrance of a former battleship that had been converted to a target ship in 1931 (thus, at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack carried the designation of AG-16), that was sunk in the attack on December 7, 1941. A memorial to honor the crew including the 58 who died aboard USS Utah was dedicated on the northwest shore of Ford Island, near the ship’s wreck, in 1972. The ship, along with USS Arizona, was added to the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989.

USS BOWFIN

The USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park is in remembrance of an American submarine that sank 44 ships in World War II. This site is adjacent to the USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center.

The submarine is owned and operated by the Pacific Fleet Submarine Memorial Association, and is now part of the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park in Pearl Harbor, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Visitors can tour the submarine with an audio narration of life in the vessel during World War II. The park’s museum features exhibits and artifacts about submarines and the history of the United States Submarine Service, including detailed models, weapon systems, photographs, paintings, battle flags, recruiting posters, and a memorial honoring the 52 American submarines and the more than 3,500 submariners lost during World War II.

The museum’s other exhibits include a torpedo and a 40-mm quad gun, along with Poseidon C-3 and regulus I missiles. The park is located within walking distance of the visitor center for the USS Arizona Memorial and it is across the Harbor from the Battleship Missouri Memorial.

USS MISSOURI

While operating with the carriers on 11 April, the USS Missouri came under attack from a kamikaze that struck the side of the vessel below the main deck. The impact shattered the aircraft, throwing gasoline on the deck that rapidly ignited, but it was quickly suppressed by her crew. The attack caused superficial damage and the battleship remained on station.

Top left of center you can see the Kamikaze

Two crewmen were wounded on 17 April when another kamikaze clipped the stern crane and crashed in the ship’s wake. Missouri left Task Force 58 on 5 May to return to Ulithi; in the course of her operations off Okinawa, she claimed five aircraft shot down and another probable kill, along with partial credit for another six aircraft destroyed.

On 21 August, Missouri sent a contingent of 200 officers and men to Iowa, which was to debark a landing party in Tokyo to begin the process of demilitarizing Japan. Two days later, Murray was informed that Missouri would host the surrender ceremony, with the date scheduled for 31 August. The ship’s crew immediately began preparations for the event, including cleaning and painting the vessel. Missouribegan the approach to Tokyo Bay on 27 August, guided by the Japanese destroyer Hatsuzakura. That night, the ships stopped at Kamakura, where a courier brought the flag that Commodore Matthew Perry had flown during his expedition to open Japan in 1853; the flag was to be displayed during the surrender ceremony. The flotilla then entered Tokyo Bay on 29 August, and Missouri was anchored close to where Perry had anchored his own vessels some ninety-two years earlier. Poor weather delayed the ceremony until 2 September.

Japanese foreign affairs minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese Instrument of Surrender aboard the USS Missouri as General Richard K. Sutherland watches, 2 September 1945

Allied sailors and officers watch General of the Army Douglas MacArthur sign documents during the surrender ceremony aboard Missouri on 2 September 1945. The unconditional surrender of the Japanese to the Allies officially ended the Second World War.

In 1990, leading up to the 50th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Congress established the Pearl Harbor Commemorative Medal. This is also known as the Pearl Harbor Survivor’s medal and was awarded to anyone who was in the U.S. Armed Forces who was present in Hawaii on December 7, 1941 and participated in combat operations that day against the attack. The medal was also awarded to civilians who were killed or injured in the attack. A few years later, Congress amended the law to allow any person who was present in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and was involved in combat operations against Japanese military forces attacking Hawaii, to receive the award. In both instances, there was a limited time period to apply for the award, and it is no longer issued.

The battleships West Virginia and Tennessee burning after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941.

Oil burns on the waters of Pearl Harbor, near the naval air station, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

The battleship USS Arizona belches smoke as it topples over into the sea during a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Etymology of Words and Phrases, Part 4:

No country has a closer association with the language of Olde Englande than the USA. From the days of the first Puritan settlers to recent cross-Atlantic tweetings, the two countries have shared in the development of English.

Many words and phrases used in the USA have retained their Elizabethan English meanings and pronunciations that have long disappeared in England itself. There are many American phrases which are used in the USA but haven’t been adopted anywhere else. Example of this are:

BLUE PLATE SPECIAL: Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘blue plate’ as a restaurant dinner plate divided into compartments for serving several kinds of food as a single order and a main course (as of meat and vegetable) served as a single menu item.

One early citation of the phrase is in this advert for the Young Women’s Christian Association, printed in the Illinois newspaper The Decatur Daily Review, September 1924. However, it is believed that the term blue plate special first appeared on menus of the Fred Harvey chain of restaurants in 1892. These were located at stations along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. The blue plate special was designed to allow passengers to grab a quick bite to eat when the train stopped.

LEAD-PIPE CINCH: The ‘cinch’ that this expression derives from is the Spanish/Mexican word for a horse’s saddle-girth – cincha. The word is recorded in English, as ‘synch’ and later ‘cinch’ in various Canadian and US sources from the 1860s onward. From the 1880s the use was extended into a verb form and things which were tightly secured were said to be ‘cinched’ – for example, this piece from The Manitoba Daily Free Press, December 1882: “The next movement was to throw the bull, and then cinch a lasso and rope tightly around his body.”

The word cinch was also used in the USA as the name of sturdy fixing brackets, which were secure and unlikely to come loose.

The figurative use of cinch, meaning to tie-up or make certain, in non-animal contexts began around the same time. The usage was often in contexts where the rich and powerful used their status to form monopolies or indulge in insider trading in order to cheat the general public. An example of this comes from the Illinois newspaper The Morning Review, December 1889: “The briber and bribed would sit down to a game of poker and a lead-pipe cinch was nothing to the sure thing the legislators had.”

The common usage of ‘cinch’ now, that is, to mean ‘easy’ rather than ‘secure’, comes from this ‘easy money’ association. In October of 1891, The Daily Morning Republican, listed a number of ‘cinch’ superlatives to describe a punter’s certainty that his horse Firenzo would win the next day:

“The track will be heavy tomorrow, and I’ve got a copper riveted, lead pipe, copyrighted, air tight cinch. Firenzo in the mud – she swims in it.”

EIGHTY-SIXED: The term is American and originated in the restaurant trade. Both meanings loosely refer to something that was previously okay becoming not okay. The earliest known example of the expression in print is found in the journal of the American Dialect Society -American Speech, 1936: “Eighty-six, item on the menu not on hand.”

The actual origin is uncertain but is often suggested to be one of these: (1) Chumley’s Bar and restaurant at 86 Bedford Street in Greenwich Village NYC; (2) a reference to article 86 of the New York state liquor code which defines when bar patrons should be refused service; and (3) from Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York City. Item number 86 on their menu, their house steak, was often unavailable during the restaurant’s early years.

PRESTO CHANGO: Presto chango is a variant of the earlier exclamation ‘hey presto,’ which is used primarily in the USA. Before either expression was coined, conjurers and other stage performers simply said ‘presto!’ to draw attention to the culmination of a trick.

Presto is an Italian word meaning ‘quickly’ and it was used in England with that sense from the 13th century. “Hey Presto” began being used in England in the 18th century. The English writer Henry Fielding used it in 1732 in his farce The Lottery.

We go forward to the 19th century and ‘presto chango’ began being used in the USA. It took various spellings – ‘presto change’, ‘presto changeo’ and ‘presto chango’. ‘Presto! change’ is recorded in England in 1824 and it soon migrated to the USA and became ‘presto chango.’ One early US example can be found at the Pensacola Gazette & West Florida Advertiser April, 1824: “A tailor cannot drop his bodkin, a brick mason his trowel, or a grocer his cent per cent on coffee and candles; and become my Lord Coke or Hale by a presto change” Another was in the Ohio newspaper The Huron Reflector, February 1844: “Hey! presto! chango! as the juggler says – Kitty Grimes was not to be married to James Duncan after all.” Although ‘presto change’ was first used in the UK, the ‘presto chango‘ form can be said to be American – in fact, few people outside the USA would know what it meant.

Considering the debacle of an election we just experienced, I thought the following words were appropriate!!!!

CHEAT: Under medieval law a title to real estate could lapse in many ways. Property affected by such a lapse was called an “escheat” and became forfeit to the king. These cases were so numerous that some rulers employed escheators to look after their interests. Usually working on a commission basis, these fellows seized property at every opportunity. If they didn’t violate laws, they certainly trifled with justice. Because of the questionable practices of these royal agents, it became customary to call any dishonest person a cheat.”

CON MAN: Hard times following the Civil War forced criminals to resort to all sorts of tricks to gain relatively small amounts of money. One of the most common was the sale of fraudulent mining stock. Investors were reluctant to advance funds without examining property, so swindlers adopted the practice of asking a victim to make a small deposit “just as a gesture of confidence.” The full amount was to be paid only after a trip to the West on the part of the purchaser.

A swindler would take the money advanced and decamp. This type of trick became known as the “confidence game” because it worked only if the victim had confidence in the proposal. Anyone who practiced confidence games came to be called a con man. This title was applied to many types of swindlers and is now used to describe a shrewd thief who finds suckers [voters] by means of the Internet or e-mail.

FEET OF CLAY: Nebuchadnezzar II was the Babylonian king who captured Jerusalem in 587 BD, destroyed the city, and took the Hebrew people into captivity, ending the Judean kingdom. The book of Daniel tells how the young Hebrew captive explained one of the king’s strange dreams. Nebuchadnezzar had seen a giant image with a golden head, silver arms and breast, brass thighs, and iron legs. Every part was metal except the feet, which were compounded partly of iron and partly of potter’s clay.

Daniel said that his feet made the metal figure vulnerable, meaning that Babylon would be broken into pieces. Impressed by this dramatic story, English readers of the Bible seized upon the weak spot of the strange figure as a symbol of weakness in general. Today, any noted person with a vulnerable point is still said to have feet of clay.

KANGAROO COURT: When the English explorer Capt. James Cook returned from Australia in 1771, he was branded a liar. People disbelieved his reports of a strange animal that hopped about on two legs and stood as high as a man, which he reported the natives called a “kangaroo.” Many who heard his accounts doubted their truth and there was great joking about kangaroos.

When a few specimens were brought to Europe, they created a sensation. Anything marvelous or unusual was likely to be termed “kangaroo.” For example, an 1835 issue of the Gentleman’s Magazine described an eccentric horseman as holding his reins with “kangaroo attitude.” Settlers in the New World used the word to stand for any type of irregular gathering. During Reconstruction following the Civil War, a “kangaroo convention” held in Virginia made national headlines.

Criminals who adopted the odd word applied it to a “court” held by inmates of prisons. In such a proceeding, old-timers charged newcomers with such offenses as breaking into jail or being lousy and trying to scratch. Influenced by the prominence of irregular political gatherings, any extra-legal sham hearing came to be known as a kangaroo court.

SMARMY: “Smarmy,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, dates back to 1909 as an adjectival form of the word “smarm” or “smalm” which had been around for 100 years. Originally just a verb for smoothing, especially of hair, its meaning gradually moved to include the implication of a real smoothie. If you describe someone as smarmy, you dislike them because they are unpleasantly polite and flattering, usually because they want you to like them or to do something for them.

HISTORY OF SNOW GLOBES

You place the dome in your hand, turn it over and beautifully, magically the item inside is engulfed in a swirling slow-motion blizzard. Everyone can relate to them – evoking a childhood memory or nostalgia of a simpler time. The first mention of a snow globe featured a man with an umbrella displayed at the Paris Exposition of 1878. It was later suggested that the globes were created to commemorate the Tower’s inauguration.

This extremely rare LouisVuitton Eiffel Tower dome made of luggage is a whimsical example that sold for $995 in 2017.

A few years later, a Viennese man Edwin Perzy developed the same idea when researching a way to improve operating room light..He used a glass globe filled with water, hoping to create a magnifying lens by increasing refraction. To enhance the reflected light, Perzy put ground glass in the water. When it quickly sank, he tried semolina which floated slowly to the bottom of the globe. It did nothing to improve the light quality, but the snowfall inspired him to make his first snow globe: he carved a small house and inserted it into the globe.

Facsimile of Perzy’s first globe used in Citizen Kane

Mass production began in the US during the 1920s. Joseph Garaja of Pittsburgh was granted a patent in 1927, which altered how snow globes were made. His method needed the spheres to be assembled underwater, removing any trapped air. This ingenious method made it possible for the industry to go into mass production, which drastically lowered the prices of globes.

However, by the early 1960s, glass snow globes had been overtaken by plastic Hong Kong-made globes. It was soon discovered that the water in their spheres was filthy, obtained directly from their port. As a result, a Hong Kong snow globe producer got into significant trouble and was temporarily barred from entering the United States.

The “snow” in snow globes has a fascinating backstory as well. Snow was previously created in glass domes using tiny porcelain, bone chips, or ground rice. Camphor/wax, as well as meerschaum, was also used to make these snowflakes. Today, most “snow” is tiny particles or shards of white plastic. Also, the liquid hasn’t always been water; at one point, light oil was used. In addition, glycol (antifreeze) was added to help with the problem of freezing during winter shipping.

The snow globe fell out of favor in the 1970’s when it epitomized kitsch –but have evolved into something more sophisticated, intricate and valued among designers and collectors. Novelty gift manufacturers have upgraded the designs and components making them unique gift items often including beautifully modelled landscapes.

Some incorporate lights, music and motors eliminating the need for shaking. Many high-end department stores introduce a custom design every year to commemorate the Christmas season.

Snow globes have become an increasingly popular collectible for both antique and novelty globes. Actor, Corbin Bernsen may be the most prolific collector with about 8,000 – he began collecting snow globes in the ‘80’s. “There’s something that happens to a collector, this internal voice that says, ‘I want to have one of each that is in existence,’” Bernsen says.

Originally the globes were made of glass and the figures inside were made of porcelain, bone, metals, minerals, rubber or wax. The snow or “flitter” as it’s called, could have been ground rice, wax, soap, sand, bone fragments, meerschaum, metal flakes or sawdust. Producers tried everything. The base was either round or square and may have been of stone, marble, ceramic or wood. Some are quite bizarre!!!

“Snow domes are not only fascinating to look at, to hold, to play with, they are folk art,” says collector Nancy McMichael, author of Snowdomes (Abbeville Press). “They are a bridge back to an idealized past we think existed but is actually in our head. It is something we carry with us.”

Etymology, Part 3: Common Sayings

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 “hatter’s shakes”), speech problems, emotional instability and hallucinations.

The Historical Significance and Contemporary Value of Veterans Day

If you or a loved one has ever served in our nation’s military, you know that November 11 is far more than just a day off of work or school. Veterans Day, the nationally recognized holiday often confused with Memorial Day, pays tribute to all who have served in America’s Armed Forces.

Although Memorial Day also commemorates the sacrifices of our country’s service members, it is a much older holiday established in 1868 and celebrated on the last Monday in May. It pays special tribute to those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for their country, commemorating military members who have died while serving. Veteran’s Day has a different significance.

The Short History of Veterans Day

Originally called “Armistice Day,” Veterans Day was intended to serve as a time that would remind nations to always strive for peaceful relationships. Over the decades, the date took on new significance as more worldwide conflicts erupted into war. The twists and turns in the holiday’s history include:

November 11, 1918– The Allied Nations and Germany agree to put an end to World War I with an armistice on “the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.”

June 28, 1919 – WWI officially ends with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in France.

November 1919 – President Woodrow Wilson proclaims November 11 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day. Celebrations include parades and public gatherings as well as a brief cessation of business activities beginning at 11:00 a.m.

May 13, 1938 – An Act is approved in the United States that designates November 11 an annual legal holiday known as “Armistice Day.” At this time, the day is intended to honor World War I veterans.

June 1, 1954 – In the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, the 83rd Congress amends the Act of 1938 and replaces the word “Armistice” with “Veterans.” This allows November 11 to honor all veterans. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the legislation.

October 8, 1954 – President Eisenhower issues the first “Veterans Day Proclamation”

June 28, 1968 – The Uniforms Holiday Bill assigns the fourth Monday of October as Veterans Day to make it one of four three-day weekends for federal employees. Many states disapprove and continue to celebrate the holiday on November 11.

October 25, 1971 – The first Veterans Day under the new law is observed, but not without widespread resistance and confusion.

September 20, 1975 – President Gerald R. Ford signs Public Law 94-97 to return the annual observance of Veterans Day to November 11, beginning in 1978.

If November 11 falls on a Saturday or Sunday, we celebrate the holiday on the previous Friday or Monday. This policy honors the intentions of the Uniforms Holiday Bill while also respecting Americans who feel strongly about the holiday’s significance.

The Veterans Day National Ceremony commences precisely at 11:00 a.m. every November 11th at Arlington National Cemetery. A wreath is laid at the tome of the Unknowns, and celebrations continue inside the Memorial Ampitheater to thank and honor all who have served in the United States Armed Forces.

Veterans Day holds great historical and patriotic value for many in our country, and by marking the date annually, we reinforce our national values of duty, honor, selflessness, civic responsibility, and passion for our country.

The homess Marine who received an honorable burial from his fellow Marines

Lance Corporal Andrew Mauney, a former infantryman with Camp Lejeune’s 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, died in January 2015 at the age of 53. He was from Virginia and served three years in the Marines before being honorably discharged in 1983.

At the time of his death, he was homeless on the streets of Wilmington and without family. No one claimed his body, but one family, the Thompsons, took him in like one of their own. When he died, the family said they did all they could to give Mauney a proper burial, but his body wasn’t allowed to be released to them as they weren’t next of kin.

After all paths had been exhausted by The Missing in America Project to find Mauney’s relatives, it was decided that he would be laid to rest by his brothers in arms. That’s because once a Marine, always a Marine, and for veterans and active duty Marines, the term “unclaimed” is unacceptable.

“He’s our brother,” said Retired Marine Bill Holsclaw. “We don’t know him by face, we don’t know him by name, we don’t know him by actions, but we know one thing…we’ve walked in his boots and he’s walked in ours.” Mauney was laid to rest with full military honors in early November 2015.

The veteran who took an Honor Flight almost 50 years after serving in Vietnam

Jerry Snyder was 20 in 1966 when he entered the war. He lost two classmates who were close friends, four men from his unit were killed and he was significantly wounded six months into his tour. He then returned home to slurs and insults. Now at 69, Snyder was about to receive the long overdue gratitude and appreciation for his service to his country that was missing 49 years earlier.

At the Springfield-Branson National Airport, Synder and his daughter, Stephanie McKinney, were joined by 74 other war veterans and their guardians to take a journey to Washington, D.C. on one of 132 established hubs in the Honor Flight Network. (The Honor Flight gives priority to World War II, Korean, Vietnam, and terminally ill veterans who are flown to view their memorials at no cost.)

Escorted by police officers on all four sides of their charter buses, Jerry’s group began its journey at the World War II Memorial. Stops would also include the Korean War Memorial, Marine Corps Memorial and Arlington Cemetery. But the one Jerry and Stephanie were most anticipating was the Vietnam War Memorial. As her dad approached the structure, Stephanie said his demeanor changed.

“We got up to the wall, and I saw a totally different person,” she said. “He had this resolve, squared his shoulders back, and his pace sped up.” “I wasn’t sure what to expect. It’s a humbling experience,” Jerry said. “Everyone says you get closure, but if you’ve been to Vietnam and seen all of that, you don’t ever really get closure.”

The volunteers who helped a WWII widow fix up her house

Eighty-three-year-old Normena Welcome is amazed that people who don’t know her are helping make her life easier, just because she’s the widow of a World War II veteran. “She’s lives alone,” said Rob Demerski, a department manager at Home Depot in Greenfield, Massachusetts. “We were all concerned with her well being when we heard about her.”

A few months ago, Welcome attended a presentation at South Deerfield Senior Center by Upper Pioneer Valley Veterans Services. After that presentation, she mentioned to Sue Corey, program assistant at the senior center, that she desperately needed a raised toilet seat—she has problems with mobility—and wondered if UPVVS might be able to help.

Corey contacted Mark Fitzpatrick, a service officer with the Veterans Agency, and they checked out her home. They soon realized she needed more help than initially she let on. The house hadn’t been updated in four decades, so 25 volunteers, many of whom are local Home Depot employees and members of VetNet, a veteran-based, community-centered nonprofit, gathered for two days to clean and update her property.

Normena was married to Percy Welcome, one of seven brothers from Charlemont who were drafted at the same time during World War II. They all returned safely, she said. Her husband died in 1993. “This was as much for Percy as it was for Normena,” said Fitzpatrick.

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Veterans Personal Stories

Find out about veterans who are living productive lives with visual impairment or blindness.

Veterans Personal Stories

Etymology of Words and Phrases – Part 2

GABARDINE: Few movements in history have been more thrilling than the pilgrimages of the Middle Ages. Many people traveled to shrines throughout Europe and even to the Holy Land. Pilgrims continued to visit some of the shrines at enormous sacrifice of time and money. They wore an unofficial but characteristic garb: a gray cowl bearing a red cross and a broad-brimmed, stiff hat. Pilgrims carried a staff, a sack, and a gourd. They usually traveled in company with other adventurers, singing hymns as they walked and begging food from those they met.

Since a particular type of upper garment was worn by the pilgrim, it gradually came to be identified with the journey itself. A will filed in 1520 included this bequest: “Until litill Thomas Beke my gawbardyne to make him a gowne.” From the garment the term came to refer to the coarse material from which it was customarily made. Slight modifications in spelling produced gabardine – a kind of cloth that passed from the religious pilgrim’s vocabulary into general use.

RUBBER: On his second voyage to “East India,” Columbus found natives playing with a substance they called caoutchouc. It would stretch and then snap back into shape; when made into balls it would bounce. Scientists who examined the odd substance agreed that it was unlike anything known in Europe, yet they confessed themselves unable to imagine any use for it.

Small quantities of caoutchouc were brought to Europe, but it remained a curiosity for more than two centuries. Finally, someone discovered by accident that the material could be used for removing the marks of a lead pencil. Hence, bookkeepers termed it “lead-eater.”

Around 1780 Joseph Priestley experimented with a bit of caoutchouc, hoping to find some use more important than erasing errors made in ledgers. He failed and decided that it would never be of value except for rubbing out pencil marks.

Consequently, he called it “East India rubber.” Soon the nickname of the one-job substance was abbreviated to rubber. The name serves as a perpetual reminder that civilization was once at a loss as to what to do with a substance of a thousand uses.

MAP: Greek geographers of the sixth century BC developed considerable skill in making charts to guide sailors and travelers. Then the Romans extended the art by engraving scale representations of the Empire on fine marble slabs. These devices, and the more abundant clay tablets, proved to be extremely cumbersome, so someone thought of painting geographical charts upon cloth.

For this purpose, the most suitable material proved to be fine table linen, or mappa. This led to the practice of calling any flat geographical chart a map.

RECIPE: Since Latin was the universal language of medieval scholars, physicians used it in writing directions for compounding medicines. Virtually every prescription listed the ingredients in precise order and began with the Latin verb recipe, meaning “take.”

Care in measuring and blending the ingredients of a tasty dish is also essential. Therefore, when housewives began to master the art of reading and writing, they adopted the apothecary’s custom and made written lists of ingredients and steps in cookery. Inevitably, such a set of directions took the pharmaceutical name and became familiar to the household recipe.

BUDGET: Struggling with a budget is no new problem; it dates back to the days of the Roman Empire. Housewives had to be cautious in their spending and they kept money for household expenses in a little leather bulga (Latin for bag). This custom also prevailed among businessmen, who may have borrowed it from their wives or vice versa.

Centuries later, the Latin word was adopted into Middle French as bougette (“little leather bag”). When the British Chancellor of Exchequer appeared before Parliament, he carried his papers explaining the estimated revenue and expenses in a leather bag and then “opened the budget” for the coming year. Thus, budget (as it came to be pronounced) came to mean a systematic plan for expenditures, both for governments and for private individuals.

EAT ONE’S HAT: Many a man engaged in a contest of some sort has offered to eat his hat if he loses. In such a situation, a knowledge of etymology would be of great value, for the expression eat one’s hat once referred not to a Stetson or a Panama, but to a culinary product.

Napier’s famous Boke of Cookry, one of the earliest European cookbooks, gives the following directions: “Hattes are made of eggs, veal, dates, saffron, salt, and so forth.” In the hands of amateur cooks, the concoction was frequently so unpalatable that it required a strong stomach to eat it.

Even so, the early braggart who offered to eat a hatte had in mind nothing so distasteful as a felt or a straw!

FLOUR: During the Elizabethan Age, the word “flower” meant “the best,” as it does today in such expressions as “the flower of the nation’s youth.”

Millers of the period ground wheat by a crude process, then sifted the meal. Only the finest of it passed through the cloth sieve in a process called “boulting.” Reserved for tables of the nobility, this top-quality ground wheat was naturally called the “flower of wheat,” but in this context the word came to be spelled flour. The two spellings were used interchangeably until the 19th century. In Paradise Lost, Milton wrote the line, “O flours that never will in other climates grow.”

COOKING TERMS: There is at least one serious gap in European history. Her contemporaries failed to record the name of the woman who first thought of stuffing an egg. Nothing is known about her recipe, except that she was liberal with pepper. Her invention was so hot that folks who tried it were reminded of Beelzebub’s fiery furnaces. As a result, the tidbit came to be called a deviled egg.

Most other terms of cookery are prosaic by comparison. More than half were borrowed from the French – which suggest that English cooks were never very imaginative. Braise stems from French for “hot charcoal.” Toast is but slightly modified from “toaster” (“to parch with heat). Boil stems from a continental verb meaning “to make little bubbles.” Poach grew out of pocher, which meant “to pouch,” that is, to enclose an egg’s yellow in a little pouch of white.

Fry, grill, roast and baste were also adapted from French. Fricassee was taken as is from that language, but the ultimate origin is unknown.

The oldest term in cookery is probably cook, still much like Latin coquus. The Norse gave us bake, from baka (“hearth”). The Saxons contributed sear, spelled just as it is today. It originally meant to “wither with heat.” Scorch – the bane of a cook’s existence – has a long history that goes all the way back to the Old English scorkle, which started life as a term for skinning meat by searing.

Etymology of Words and Phrases

Someone posted something about etymology and it caught my interest – IIRC, I have Duchess to thank!

I decided to do an open about the subject since I have a book about it. But there is so much more in the book than I can put in one open, I expect I’ll be doing more in the future. If anyone has specific words or phrases they are curious about, let me know and I’ll include it in a future open.

First, the definition of etymology:

– The origin and historical development of a linguistic form as shown by determining its basic elements, earliest known use, and changes in form and meaning, tracing its transmission from one language to another, identifying its cognates in other languages, and reconstructing its ancestral form where possible.

– The branch of linguistics that deals with etymologies.

– That part of philology which treats of the history of words in respect both to form and to meanings, tracing them back toward their origin, and setting forth and explaining the changes they have undergone.

CURSOR

It is a Latin term for “flowing” or “running” that gave rise to the word “cursive” to describe handwriting produced in flowing style. The flow of letters that is produced when a pen is guided by skilled fingers is an impressive art. The name for this efficient and effortless writing style, in this computer age, soon was adapted and bestowed upon the small marker that moves quickly and gracefully across a computer screen. The cursor blinks until it is stimulated into action.

TO BOOT

Early computer programmers faced an obstacle: the memories of their computers were wiped clean each time the machines were turned off. To address this problem, the programmers needed to enter a short program called a “bootstrap loader” each time the machine was turned on. When the first desktops first came out, there was a “boot” disc that resided in one drive, while a data disk was in the second drive, where the work was saved. This is the portable laptop I used to take with me on business trips – note the 2 drives side-by-side.

Once this program was read, the computer could then perform more complex functions. The short program gave the machine a “bootstrap” it could then use to perform tasks; without it, the computer was useless. Over time, programmers figured out ways to design software so computers could perform this function automatically, and bootstrap loaders are now part of the basic make-up of any operating system. Pulling oneself up by the “bootstraps” is a means of restarting one’s situation. The expression lives on in the phrase to boot, which today simply means to turn it on, but reflects decades of efforts of computer programmers to make computers easier to use.

CD-ROM

As an abbreviation, this cluster of letters has come to function as a word naming a compact disc crammed with an immense amount of data, graphic material, music, or other sounds. The disc can be read and viewed and printed out, but can’t be altered, making deletion of selected portions impossible. Once the basic nature of this disc is understood, it makes complete sense that the abbreviation stands for “Compact Disc [with] Read-Only Memory.

HANDS DOWN

Plantation owners and merchant princes of colonial America took great interest in horse racing. For many generations major contests were supported largely by the wealthy. After the Civil War, promoters began bidding for attendance by the general public and racing then surged to new popularity and prominence.

Skilled jockeys made an art of timing the final spurt toward the ribbon; sometimes a fellow would be so far ahead of the field that he didn’t have to lift his hands in order to urge his mount forward. Expecting an easy victory, the backer of a horse would boast that his jockey would win hands down. Erupting from racetrack lingo about the turn of the last century, the phrase came to indicate any effortless triumph.

RAISE THE HACKLES

Medieval householders made wide use of flax, whose fibers are so tough they had to be carefully worked with a tool called the hackle. Farmers noticed that angry fowls have a way of raising the feathers on their necks. Disturbed in such a fashion, a bird looked as though someone had rumpled his feathers with a hackle. Hence by 1450, such feathers had taken the name of the combing tool.

Since visible hackles indicated anger, it was natural to say that anything causing an outburst of rage raised the hackles of the offended person.

DERBY

England has few families whose blood is a deeper shade of blue than that of the Stanleys. Descended from an aide of William the Conqueror, this family came into possession of the earldom of Derby in the 15th century. Their name entered common speech because the 12th Earl of a lover of fast horses. With no specific desire for fame, Derby established an annual race for 3 year old horses; first run in 1780, it quickly became the most noted race in England.

American sportsmen who took in the races after the Civil War were impressed by the odd hats some of the English spectators wore. They brought a few of the “Derby hats” back to the US, where a new model was developed. Made of stiff felt with a dome-shaped crown and narrow brim, the derby won the heart of the American male. By the time the first Kentucky Derby was run in 1875, the derby was standard wear for the man of parts. It is merely incidental that the hat also brought a kind of immortality to the distinguished house of Derby.

As a side note…..how did the Kentucky Derby get that name?

“The Kentucky Derby is America’s most celebrated horse race, but its inspiration comes from England.

Col. Meriwether Lewis Clark, founder of Churchill Downs, wanted to model the track’s major races after the English classics. The gold standard for Europe’s three-year-olds is the Derby at Epsom, which also stages the corresponding race for three-year-old fillies, called the Oaks.

Both the Epsom Derby and Oaks are contested at about 1 1/2 miles. And originally so were the Kentucky Derby and Oaks, in the early years since their inception in 1875. Both were eventually shortened, with the Kentucky Derby firmly established at its traditional 1 1/4-mile distance in 1896. The Oaks was subsequently held at distances ranging from 1 1/16 miles to 1 1/4 miles, finally settling at its current trip of 1 1/8 miles in 1982.

But why were the Epsom classics named the Derby and Oaks at their creation in the late 18th century? An aristocratic connection, of course!

The 12th Earl of Derby, Edward Stanley, was instrumental in the development of both. The fillies’ race was established first in 1779, and named after Stanley’s Surrey estate. Fittingly, he won that inaugural Oaks with Bridget.

That prompted the idea to create another classic, open to both colts and fillies, the following year. According to the oft-told tale, the new race’s name hung on the outcome of a coin flip. Was it to be named after the Earl of Derby, or after his friend, Sir Charles Bunbury? Luckily, the toss came up in favor of the Earl, and the first “Derby” was held at Epsom in 1780. Bunbury didn’t go home empty-handed: his Diomed triumphed in that first running.

With the Epsom Derby giving rise to so many spin-offs around the world, racing fans can be grateful for that toss of the coin. The “Kentucky Bunbury” just wouldn’t have the same ring to it.”

https://edge.twinspires.com/racing/why-is-it-named-the-kentucky-derby/

STEALING MY THUNDER

For more than two centuries, the English-speaking world has used the expression “stealing thunder” to mean the appropriation of any effective device or plan that was originated by someone else.

An obscure English dramatis was the father of the phrase. For the production of a play, John Dennis invented a new and more effective way of simulating thunder onstage. His play soon folded but shortly afterward he discovered that his thunder machine was in use for a performance of Macbeth at the same theater.

Dennis was furious!!! “See how the rascals use me?!?” he cried. “They will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder.