Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?

by David Feldman

  Among others, John Ciardi, has found the Kid McCoy explanation too pat, as most folk etymologies are. Ciardi thinks it is more likely that this cliché is actually a reference to an excellent Scotch whisky, Mackay, which, to confuse things further, was imported into the United States just slightly before Kid McCoy hit his stride as a boxer. Mackay was a brand preferred by Scotsmen in America, and it carried a certain nineteenth-century “designer label” cachet. With typical ingenuity, entrepreneurs marketed mislabeled swill as the genuine article. The real Mackay, then, was a reference to the right stuff—genuine, imported Mackay Scotch.

  Possibly, a phrase originally created to describe the whisky was applied to the boxer.

  Who Was the Drink Tom Collins Named After?

  The exact origins of the Tom Collins is obscure, but Tom Collins, a bartender at Limmer’s Old House in London, specialized in mixing the meanest combination of gin, lemon or lime juice, sugar, and soda water on ice. Some credit the bartender for creating the drink that bears his name, but this honor is widely disputed.

  Why Is a Lightweight Automatic Machine Gun Called a Tommy Gun?

  Tommy guns were named after a John, John T. Thompson, the head of the Small Arms Division of the U.S. Army during World War I. Thompson and Navy commander John Bish worked on prototypes during the war and made many modifications after the war.

  Tommy gun eventually became a generic term for any lightweight automatic machine gun with a drum-type magazine. Although we associate tommy guns with mobsters on The Untouchables, they were also used by Allied troops during World War II.

  Was the London Bobbie Named After a Real Bobby?

  Yes—Bobby, or rather, Sir Robert, Peel, who established the London Metropolitan Police in 1829.

  Who Was the Robert That Bobby Pins Were Named After?

  Bobby pins were not named after a person, but a haircut—the short bob hairstyle popularized during the Roaring Twenties by flappers.

  Submitted by Mrs.Harold Feinstein of Skokie, Illinois.

  Food Words for Thought

  Has Anyone Ever Literally Eaten Humble Pie?

  Yes—and voluntarily, too. In the sixteenth century, huntsmen ate more than their pride when they consumed humble pie. Humble pie was originally umble pie, a pastry made out of the heart, liver, and entrails of wild animals, usually deer. After a deer hunt, while the nobility enjoyed filets of venison in the master dining rooms of their palaces, the huntsmen had to content themselves with the more “umble” offering.

  By the nineteenth century, umble became humble. James Rogers speculates that the transformation was self-conscious wordplay “on the humble station of people who ate umble pie.”

  Why Is a Bad Actor, Particularly One Who Overacts, Called a Ham?

  We figured that ham must have been created by a disillusioned director. Alfred Hitchcock once remarked that actors should be treated like cattle. Could pigs be far behind?

  Actually, ham is an abbreviation of hamfatter, a term used to describe second-rate performers who were prone to exaggerated gestures in minstrel shows during the mid-nineteenth century. Minstrels blackened their faces with burnt cork and removed their makeup with ham fat rather than the cold cream that more affluent actors could afford.

  Another theory speculates that ham is attributable to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who railed against the type of acting we now call “hammy.” The strongest argument against the Hamlet theory is that the expression was not popularized until the 1880s, a time when minstrel shows, which originated in 1842, were still popular.

  A few lexicographers have suggested that ham is a variant of amateur. This is probably how the expression ham radio operator originated. Not only is there no evidence of this adaptation, but also the nuances of how ham is used are missed. A ham isn’t necessarily technically deficient, and we have plenty of words to describe the ineptitude. But a word was needed to describe the Bert Parkses and Sammy Davis, Jr.’s, of the world, entertainers capable of quality performances and incapable of withholding nods and winks.

  Why Is the Cereal Called Grape-Nuts When It Contains Neither Grapes nor Nuts?

  C. W. Post introduced this cereal in 1898 and dubbed it Grape-Nuts because of the natural sweetness of wheat and malted barley (“sweet as grapes,” he said) and because it was as crunchy as nuts.

  Crunchy as nuts? The cereal is much crunchier than nuts unless you soak it in milk for a few months. Wouldn’t Grape-Rocks have been more appropriate?

  Why Would Anyone Who Has Ever Baked Say Something Was Easy as Pie?

  Anyone who has ever contended with making a pie crust from scratch will find this metaphor particularly inapt. But the origin of this cliché explains the conundrum. Easy as pie is a contraction of a late-nineteenth-century catch phrase, easy as EATING pie. Now that makes some sense.

  Why Do We Call That Thing in the Backyard a Barbecue?

  The first recorded use of barbecue was in 1661, clearly a borrowing from the Spanish barbacoa (meaning “framework of sticks”). Originally, a barbecue was the raised device used to roast whole animals over open fires. Now we use barbecue to refer to the cooking device, the meat so cooked, and even the sauce poured over it.

  Why Do We Call Liquor Booze?

  Both England and the United States can lay some claim to this expression. The Middle English bousen meant “to drink deeply” or “carouse.” The English used bouse to refer only to beer or ale, which is curious, since in the United States, booze usually refers to “hard” liquor.

  So we are left with the amazing coincidence that there was a Kentucky colonel distiller named Booze who sold whisky under his own name. Booze marketed his booze in glass containers in the shape of log cabins. In 1840, the colonel was blessed with a stroke of luck. General William Henry Harrison ran against Martin Van Buren by lashing out against Van Buren’s blue-blood roots. Harrison’s harping on his humble origins (“I was born in a log cabin”) not only helped elect Harrison but also proved a boon to Booze’s business.

  Where Does the Cole in Coleslaw Come from?

  Illiterate menus to the contrary, cole has nothing to do with cold. Coli means “cabbage” in Latin and sla means “salad” in Dutch. The Dutch word koolsla, appropriately enough, means cabbage salad.

  Submitted by Mrs. Harold Feinstein of Skokie, Illinois.

  Why Does Cut the Mustard Mean “to Succeed or Meet Expectations”?

  Our current cut the mustard is clearly the descendant of to be the proper mustard (“O.K.,” “genuine”) and all the mustard (“great”), two early-twentieth-century expressions. The first recorded use of cut the mustard, in 1907, is from a O. Henry short story: “I looked around and found a proposition that exactly cut the mustard.”

  Where did the earlier expressions come from? Most likely, mustard is a corruption of muster. Anyone who can cut the mustard can clearly pass muster.

  Another intriguing theory is that the cut in cut the mustard is used to mean “dilute” (as in “the street heroin was cut with flour”). Cut the mustard could refer to the necessity of diluting mustard powder with vinegar to provide relief for the palate.

  No doubt, the spread of prepared mustard in the early twentieth century hastened the popularity of all the “mustard phrases.”

  Why Do We Call a Glass of Liquor a Highball?

  Most likely, highball derived from late-nineteenth-century bartenders’ lingo that called glasses balls. Highball replaced another expression, long drink, which at first referred specifically to Scotch and soda and later applied to any whisky and soda served in a tall glass.

  For the record, Charles Earle Funk believed highball was a signal to the locomotive engineer that it was safe to bypass a station without stopping. The signal was a large ball that would be hoisted to the top of a mast to indicate that there were no passengers, freight, or connecting trains awaiting it. Funk had a harder time explaining how the expression switched from the railroads to the barroom. Funk’s best speculation was that a drunk train passenger might have
noticed the resemblance between the floating ice atop a high glass and the ball atop the train signal. Not likely.

  Why Is Someone Who Works Behind a Fountain Called a Soda Jerk?

  Around 1800, in America, drunkards were called jerkers, presumably because of their unstable gait. Beer fanciers were dubbed beer jerkers. By at least 1873, beer jerker was the title bestowed upon dispensers of suds. With the spread of soft drinks in the early twentieth century, fountain employees were honored with the appellation as well.

  Is It Ketchup or Catsup?

  It’s ketchup, even though the English sailors who brought the condiment back from Singapore in the seventeenth century didn’t have the slightest idea how the word should be spelled.

  The original ketchup was the Chinese ke-tsiap, a pickled fish sauce. The Malays stole the name (kechup) but not the base—they used mushrooms instead of fish.

  Americans added the tomatoes, and Heinz’s first major product, tomato ketchup, was launched in 1876. Since the Chinese, Malay, English, and American incarnations all began with the “ke” sound, most word purists would rather say “hopefully” indiscriminately than be caught dead spelling the word c-a-t-s-u-p.

  Why Is a Mess or Confusion Called a Pretty Kettle of Fish

  The Scots knew how to throw a picnic. No hot dogs or fried chicken for them. In the eighteenth century, the picnic season started at the beginning of the salmon run each year, and picnics were conducted along the banks of the river. Salmon was plentiful, but they didn’t have an elegant solution to the problem of how to prepare the fish. They cooked their catches in large kettles and tried to eat their hot boiled salmon with their fingers. It was a mess.

  The pretty preceding kettle of fish, then, always has been ironic. An American phrase, pretty picnic, has exactly the same meaning.

  Why Is Youth, Especially the Golden Days of Youth, Called the Salad Days?

  No, salad days are not a sale at the local salad bar. Salad days can be a synonym for “youth,” but the connotation is not only greenness and inexperience but also a peak time of life that can never be recaptured (think Summer of ’42).

  William Shakespeare coined this expression, and even explained the metaphor, in Antony and Cleopatra. Cleopatra says, in Act 1, Scene 5:

  My salad days

  when I was green in judgement: cold in blood,

  To say as I said then!

  Why Would Anyone Want to Call an Edible Substance Shoofly Pie?

  Because they are trying to shoo away flies, who are inordinately attracted to the stuff, from messing with their open pie made of a sugar and molasses filling.

  Submitted by Maurice H. Williams of Stewartstown, Pennsylvania.

  Why Do We Call Children Small Fry?

  A caller on a talk show asked why we use the same expression to describe our children and a side order at McDonald’s. Fry, or variants of it, has for centuries meant “children,” starting with the Old Norse frjo (“children of a man’s family”) and continuing in Middle English usage. What confuses the issue is that in American slang, we mix up fry with potato, and small potatoes, a pejorative term, has been around since 1831.

  Small fish are still commonly referred to as fry, and most dictionaries include “children” as one of the current definitions of fry. Interestingly, small fry is used affectionately when describing offspring, but usually disparagingly when applied to things. (“He talks like he is running IBM, but it is just a small-fry operation.”)

  Where Did the Lollipop Get Its Name?

  From the British. Lolly is English dialect for “tongue.” The pop undoubtedly comes from the lip-smacking noise of the sucker (or should we say, the licker, since sucker can refer to the “licker” or the “lickee”).

  In England, lolly has long been slang for candy. In North America, the lollipop’s place in the candy pantheon was cemented in the 1930s when Shirley Temple warbled “On the Good Ship Lollipop.”

  Why Is an Ice Cream with Syrup Called a Sundae?

  Two states vie for the honor of claiming sundae. We will probably never settle the issue. H. L. Mencken bestowed the honor upon Wisconsin in 1890. George Giffy owned an ice cream parlor in Manitowoc. Giffy’s best seller was plain vanilla ice cream, but a customer tipped off Giffy to the wonders of pouring chocolate syrup, then used primarily as a flavoring for sodas, on ice cream. Giffy saw the potential in the creation but felt that he had to justify the five cents extra he would charge for his new confection. Giffy’s solution was to sell his ice cream and syrup on Sunday only, when post-church business filled the place. Possibly to avoid blasphemy by associating his dessert with the Sabbath, or just the combination of pretension and contrarianism that drives us to call nightclubs, niteclubs, Giffy changed the spelling to sundae.

  Norfolk, Virginia, also enters a claim in the sundae sweepstakes. Norfolk had extremely restrictive blue laws that prohibited the sale of not only alcohol but of soda drinks as well. A clever fountain owner concocted the ice cream and syrup combination to circumvent the blue laws. By creating a “dry” soda (what is a sundae, after all, but an ice cream soda without the soda?) and naming it after its birthday, Sunday, he was able to stay open and peddle his wares on the Sabbath.

  Why Is a Speech Delivered Before Drinking Called a Toast?

  In the seventeenth century, long before wine coolers or Harvey Wallbangers, revelers put pieces of spiced, toasted bread in wine (or, less frequently, in ale or sherry). Soon it became de rigueur to drain a glassful when someone was saluted. One who drank all the wine thus consumed the toast as well.

  Neil Ewart reports an almost certainly apocryphal anecdote to explain the origin of toast: A gentleman eyed a beautiful woman at the public baths. Inspired, he dipped a glass into the water, held it up to public view, and drank to her health. “Whereupon a reveller, who had been enjoying more real liquor than the natural mineral water, jumped into the bath and declared that he would have nothing to do with the liquor but would have the toast…in other words, the lady herself.”

  Why Is Indecision Called Waffling?

  Despite the attempt by some etymologists to equate the confusion and equivocation of wafflers with the complex, honey-combed patterns of waffles, the evidence lies elsewhere. In Old English, the word wafian means “to wave.”

  As early as 1560, whiffle was recorded in England to describe shifts of wind direction (e.g., “to whiffle like a weather vane”). This meaning undoubtedly inspired the whiffle balls of the 1950s, whose trajectories after they were thrown were less predictable than a weather vane’s. In the 1960s, whiffle was transformed into waffle, and the perfect term to describe recalcitrant Senate subcommittee witnesses was born.

  Local and Other Colors

  Why Is a Diversion or Distraction Called a “Red Herring”?

  The cliché “neither fish nor fowl” is actually shortened from another expression, “neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring.” William and Mary Morris attribute the earlier expression to the dietary caste system of the Middle Ages. It was then believed that only the clergy were worthy of eating fish. The masses should be happy with fowl. And paupers would have to be happy with red herring. (Royalty, of course, could eat whatever they damn pleased.) Neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring, then, referred to something that wasn’t suitable for anybody.

  But why a red herring? Refrigeration was nonexistent in the Middle Ages, so paupers sun-dried and salted herring, and the fish turned dark. But those who also smoke-cured the herring found that the fish turned a bright red color. Hence, the red herring.

  Smoked herring was popular among a few other groups as well. Sailors found smoked herring the perfect food to carry on long voyages (much as American cowboys relied on beef jerky), for it would remain edible long after fresh meat or fish.

  But another, more elite group also found a valuable use for red herring: hunters. Smoked herring has a strong odor, and hunters found that it was the perfect substance to train young bloodhounds. Before dogs were expected to follow the tr
acks of foxes, hunters would drag the herring along a trail. If the hound showed talent at discerning the “herring trail,” it would advance to real chases.

  Two other groups, with more complicated motives, also used red herring to promote their purposes. Criminal fugitives in the seventeenth century would drag red herring to divert the trail of bloodhounds in pursuit. And animal-rights groups would sabotage hunting expeditions by laying red herring along the path of the fox-chasers.

  Fooling the fox became known as “faulting the hounds.” If a hound was diverted from a trail by a false clue, it would follow a real red herring. When we are distracted by a deliberately laid trap, we follow a metaphorical red herring.

  Why Is a Lucky or Special Day Called a Red-Letter Day?

  As early as the fifteenth century, ecclesiastical calendars designated religious holidays by printing them in red (and, less frequently, purple) letters. In England, saints days and feast days were printed in red in the calendar of the Book of Common Prayer, indicating that special services were provided for these days. Many calendars distributed by churches and civic organizations still print holidays, and often Sundays, in red.

  Why Is Excessive Bureaucratic Formality and Delay Called Red Tape?

  Metaphorical red tape seems to exist in any country that has a bureaucracy—that is, everywhere. But actual red tape was once the tangible symbol of a government’s exasperating tendency to prolong the simplest transaction.