WHO PUT THE BUTTER IN BUTTERFLY?
David Feldman
Illustrated by Kassie Schwan
For the original Penguins—Jon Blees,
Larry Prussin, Bill Stranger, and
Kent Beyer—who taught me the
meaning of the words WAH and
BITL.
Contents
Preface
Clichés and Other Words to the Wise
Animals and Other Inhuman Words
Show Biz and All That Jazz
Euphonious Words—And They Sound Good, Too
Let’s Get Physical
Abbreviations and Other Tiny Words
Take Me Away, Please!
When Bad Things Happen to Good Words
Words About Words
By the Numbers
Law, Finance, Politics, and Other Disreputable Activities
Clothes Make the Word
Fun and Games
There’s No Place Like Other Places
Eponyms: Their Names Are Legion
Food Words for Thought
Local and Other Colors
Oddballs: Words Whose Only Deficiency Is Their Inability to Fit into Any of the Other Chapters
Bibliography
Help!!!
Searchable Terms
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by David Feldman
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Preface
When I wrote Imponderables™, I purposely omitted any questions about the origins of words and phrases. An Imponderable was a mystery that couldn’t be answered by standard reference books, and so many wonderful books about words already existed that I couldn’t believe there was a need for more.
As someone who uses words for a living, I have long wondered why I so effortlessly spew words or clichés whose origins I know nothing about. After being inundated with questions about word and phrase origins from readers of the Imponderables series and callers on talk shows, I realized I was not alone. This book is an attempt to sate your curiosity and mine.
Unlike Imponderables books, which demand original research, this project required what a teacher of mine called “book work.” I’m indebted to the many word-lovers and scholars, from Charles Earle Funk, William Safire, John Ciardi, and William and Mary Morris, to the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary, for their groundbreaking and often painstaking research. If you are interested in pursuing the fascinating field of etymology, you will find a treasure trove in the bibliography included here.
One reminder that will make this book easier to understand. You will often run into the phrase “first recorded.” Many words start as folk expressions, and it may be decades or even longer before they are committed to print. Scholars use “first recorded” to identify when a given word or phrase was first printed, without denying the possibility that the phrase was used earlier in the spoken language.
If you are itching to find out the story behind the origins of a favorite word or expression that isn’t contained here, the last page of this book will explain how to unburden yourself of the affliction and win a free autographed book as well.
But for now, chill out and keep your hat on.
Clichés and Other Words
to the Wise
Why Is Mincing Around a Subject Called Beating Around the Bush?
Medieval man may not have had the thrill of flinging Frisbees, but they had a worthy counterpart, the challenging sport of batfowling. A rare nocturnal sport, batfowling consisted of going into a forest or shrub-laden area and beating birds senseless with a bat.
Batfowlers sought sleeping birds for their prey, but being true sportsmen, they didn’t want to kill a defenseless bird. So before whacking it with the bat, they were kind enough to wake the bird up first, by stunning it with a harsh light, rendering the bird blind and temporarily helpless. “Sensitive” batfowlers caught the birds in nets rather than using the Darryl Strawberry approach.
Sometimes, though, the birds proved to be uncooperative, selfishly sleeping in bushes where they were invisible, instead of marching forward and offering themselves as ritual sacrifices. So batfowlers engaged servants or boys, known as beaters, to literally beat adjacent bushes to rouse flocks of sleeping birds. As the stunned birds awakened and fled in panic, they would be attracted to the torch or lantern and be socked into unconsciousness by the batfowler.
Although the person today who beats around the bush might not have violence on his mind, he similarly conceals or avoids the real thing that concerns him. While he might pretend to be interested in the bush, he might be more interested in the bird, or worm, lurking inside.
Why Does All Wool and a Yard Wide Mean “Genuine”?
Fraud in the marketplace is hardly a twentieth-century invention. In 1464 England passed a law regulating fraudulent practices in the selling of woolen materials. Disreputable fabric salesmen still foisted off adulterated products as “pure wool” and shortchanged customers on measurements in the late nineteenth century, for this is when this phrase was coined. All wool and a yard wide originally meant nothing more than that a customer was receiving what was promised.
Why Does Back and Fill Mean “to Vacillate”?
Back and fill always sounded more like a disco step than its actual meaning, which has a long nautical tradition. In sailing, backing means to let the wind blow sails against the mast. Filling means to let the wind blow the sails toward the bow. Backing and filling means alternating having the sails “filled” with wind and then allowing the wind to escape by hauling “back” on the stays.
Yes, backing and filling impedes the movement of the ship, but sometimes this is necessary. When tacking a ship, a navigator might want to keep the boat in the same place. If the tide is running with the ship but the wind is against her, backing and filling is the usual tactic to steady the boat, even if this results in alternating movements forward and backward. Backing and filling is also a way to let the tide take control of the movement of a boat, especially when negotiating through narrow channels or rivers where banks, wharfs, or other objects stand as dangerous obstacles.
Why Do We Say an Outlaw Is Beyond the Pale?
In the twelfth century, the Norman conquerors of England decided to set their sights on neighboring Ireland. They managed to capture much of the area around Dublin and some other coastal cities. For protection from Irish attacks, the Normans (later, the English) fenced off their property with pales (from the latin palus) or “stakes.”
The region around Dublin became known as “the pale,” and pale became a noun signifying any territory. The expression beyond the pale was originally applied to an untamed Irishman but was clearly popularized by the Rudyard Kipling story of the same name.
Why Do We Say Knock on Wood Instead of Knock on Aluminum or Knock on Naugahyde?
We live in an age where it is easier to knock on Formica or “genuine” simulated walnut paneling than real wood. But ancient civilizations didn’t have the benefit of our technology, and many of them worshiped trees. North American Indians circa 2000 B.C. venerated oak trees. Many pre-Christian European cultures also believed that guardian spirits resided in trees. Knocking on wood (i.e., on a tree), then, was an attempt to wake up the spirits and enlist their help.
Many other claimants have lined up to protest that knock on wood was their creation. Among them:
1. The Irish. Knocking on a tree was the signal to thank leprechauns for their help.
2. Christians. The argument goes that the wood referred to in the saying is the wood on the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. Knocking on wood, then, is a way of connecti
ng with Christ and recognizing his fate.
3. Jews. During the Spanish Inquisition, synagogues served as refuges as well as places of worship. Jews developed an elaborate knocking system to ensure their safe entrance and egress from synagogues. If one “knocked wood” properly, one was safe.
4. Tag players. In some variations of tag (called both “wood tag” and “tree tag”), if you touch a tree, you are “free.” The English say “touch wood” rather than “knock wood,” and tag might be the source of the English variant.
The many alternate theories of word origins inevitably lead to ethnocentrism. We assume that an expression must have been created in the same context in which we have first experienced it. Although the four explanations above are quite different, they all put a spin on the ritual of the ancients who believed that good spirits lived inside trees.
Submitted by Herbert Israel of West Palm Beach, Florida.
What Was the First Stuff to Be Cut and Dried?
Herbs. Physicians in the sixteenth century were likely to prescribe herbs as treatment for most maladies. Although they also were used as cooking ingredients, much faith was put in herbs as “modern” remedies. Physicians preferred dispensing herbs that were already cut and dried, because dry herbs are both more concentrated and more uniform in strength.
While one batch of fresh thyme might vary in potency from another, dried thyme made the dosage routine, which, come to think of it, is pretty much our definition of cut and dried today.
Why Do We Say That Someone Who Is Finally Concentrating on Serious Business Is Getting Down to Brass Tacks?
In the nineteenth century, most tacks were made of copper, but not those found in English fabric stores. Retailers placed brass tacks on the inner edges of their sales counters, exactly one yard apart. When a customer finished browsing and selected a skein of cloth or other fabric, she was literally getting down to brass tacks—ready to measure the length of fabric and pay for it.
The brass tacks later yielded to a brass rule built into the edge of counters. The ruler was obviously more accurate in measuring lengths less than one yard.
What Are Hackles and Why Do They Get Raised?
Hackles are feathers on the neck of a rooster or peacock. The expression was first recorded in 1883 by writer Edward Pennell: “I almost saw the hackles of a good old squire rise as he waved his hat and cheered.”
The origins of “raise hackles” is easy to speculate on. Much like the hairs on the back of a dog’s neck, the hackles of a rooster or peacock rise when they get agitated.
Why Does the Jig Is Up Mean “Your Game Is Over”?
This expression has nothing to do with the dance, and its roots are English (first recorded in 1592) rather than Scottish or Irish. Jig, in medieval times, was slang for “trick.” The jig’s up, a classic line delivered by hard-boiled detectives to exposed con men, has had the same meaning for four hundred years.
Which Is the Last Straw?
It’s the same straw that broke the camel’s back. Actually, last straw is a variation of Archbishop John Bramhall’s (1655): “It is the last feather that breaks the horse’s back.”
Charles Dickens probably is responsible for the spread of the cliché last straw, as it appears in Dombey and Son, his 1848 novel: “As the last straw breaks the laden camel’s back, this piece of underground information crushed the sinking spirits of Mr. Dombey.”
Why Does Knuckle Under Mean “to Submit” or “to Give In”?
Knuckle once referred to the joint of any bone, including the knee and elbow. Knuckling under originally meant “to bend down on one’s knee and kneel in submission.” The knuckles of the knees were hitting the ground and under (and supporting) the body of the supplicant.
Why Does Knuckle Down Mean “to Concentrate” or “to Work Hard”?
This time, knuckle does refer to the knuckles of the hand. This English expression is about 250 years old and originally described the game of marbles! In marbles, if a player keeps the knuckles of his hand down on the ground, he is concentrating to the fullest extent. The OED supplies the first recorded use of the expression: “Knuckle or knuckle down is a particular phrase used by lads at a play called taw [a word that now describes the fancy ‘shooter’ marble but that was the name of the game in the eighteenth century], wherein they frequently say, ‘A nuckle down to your taw,’ or fit your hand exactly in the place where your marble lies.”
Why Is a Final Effort Called Last Ditch?
Anyone who fought in a war has probably hoped that the trench he was in was the “last ditch” he would ever see. Most of us would guess that the ditch referred to in last ditch is a military trench rather than a farmer’s irrigation ditch, but few realize that this expression predates the two world wars.
The first recorded use of last ditch was in Bishop Gilbert Burnet’s memoirs, History of My Own Time, published in the early eighteenth century: “There was a sure way never to see it [Holland] lost, and that was to die in the last ditch.” The earliest use of last ditch was a literal one, signifying a last stand, a last defense against an aggressive enemy.
The first American citation was in a proclamation issued by the citizens of Westmoreland, Virginia, in 1798: “…but one additional Obligation, To Die in the Last Ditch or uphold our nation.”
Thomas Jefferson was perhaps the first to use the phrase figuratively (1821): “a government…driven to the last ditch by the universal call for liberty.”
Why Do We Say That Someone in a State of Anxiety or Suspense Is on Tenterhooks?
After fabric was woven and milled, the material used to be stretched on a frame, called a tenter, to dry the cloth evenly. The cloth was kept snugly in place by hooks (or bent nails), which were known as, appropriately enough, tenterhooks.
Tenter probably derives from the Latin tendere (“to stretch”). On tenterhooks, then, always has been a metaphor for being “on the rack.” Novelist Tobias Smollett so used tenterhooks as early as 1748: “I left him upon the tenterhooks of impatient uncertainty.”
Why Do We Say Once in a Blue Moon?
Although myths that the moon was made of green cheese, the moon was blue, and the saying once in a blue moon all appeared in the sixteenth century, there is no evidence that anybody took these ideas seriously. A sixteenth-century rhyme by William Ray and J. Barlow reeks with irony:
Yf they saye the mone is belewe
We must believe that it is true.
Most likely, the original meaning of once in a blue moon was “never.”
Yet, even twentieth-century folk insist that the moon sometimes does appear blue. Some insist that on full moons, the perimeter of the moon is blue; some claim that on crystal-clear nights, or on exceptionally foggy nights, or in areas full of volcanic ash, the moon appears blue. With all of these “blue-moon sightings,” the phrase has gradually shifted in time from meaning “never” to “very rarely.”
Although “blue moon” is now used to describe the second full moon in a calendar year, there is no evidence to indicate that this meaning existed when the phrase was coined.
Why Does Pipe Down Mean “Shut Up!”?
The original pipe in pipe down was a boatswain’s whistle, and pipe down was a signal to sailors that they were dismissed for the day and could go belowdecks. By the late nineteenth century, the tattoo signal, usually sounded immediately before “taps,” explicitly meant to quiet down. Obviously the deck was quieter once the sailors went belowdecks. Eventually the boatswain’s whistle was replaced by a bugle, but the meaning of the signal was the same.
Why Are the Elite Called the Upper Crust?
In the Middle Ages, bread was dispensed, even at formal meals, by diners tearing off chunks from a big loaf. Heaven forbid that the bread of an aristocrat might be touched by the hands of a commoner! So it became the custom to slice off the upper crust of the loaf and present it to royalty (or whoever was the most distinguished person at the table), both as a way of honoring the elite and of keeping out the potent
ial germs of the hoi polloi.
What the Heck Does Pop Goes the Weasel Mean?
After I was asked this question by a faithful reader of Imponderables, I asked a random sample of my illustrious and well-bred friends this question. None had a clue to the answer. Nor, come to think of it, did I.
Pop the Weasel, it turns out, is not the innocent children’s rhyme it appears to be. Its meaning remains elusive to us because it contains some obscure Cockney dialect.
So here, for your edification, is the annotated guide to Pop Goes the Weasel:
Up and down the City Road1
In and out the Eagle2
That’s the way the money goes
Pop3 goes the Weasel!4
Thus our children’s rhyme is the inspiring tale of a tailor who blows all of his money on booze and has to hock his equipment to eke out a living.
Has Anybody Ever Been Given Long Shrift?
How many times have you ever seen the word shrift without short preceding it? Never? Shrift is one of those words that I call an “inevitable.” As soon as you see it, you know its partner short will be alongside it, just as surely as ample will be followed by parking (was ample coined simply as a way of describing large parking lots?).
Shrift has a long history of its own; scrifan was Anglo-Saxon for “to receive confession.” Shrift is simply the noun form of shrive, which today means “confession to a priest.” We use shrive, in particular, to describe the process of giving confession and receiving absolution upon one’s deathbed, an important ritual of the Catholic faith.
Who Put the Butter in Butterfly? Page 1
