Common Phrases

by Max Cryer

  The best-known (and possibly the earliest) purveyor of this piece of weather wisdom was Jesus of Nazareth, who may have been quoting a known Israeli proverb. He spoke in Aramaic, and his words have gone through at least four different translations since then. The Revised Standard Version of the Bible reads:

  When it is evening, you say, “It will be fair weather; for the sky is red.” And in the morning, “It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.” (Matthew 16: 2-3)

  Over the centuries this piece of wisdom became contracted into a more pithy form, and has sometimes mistakenly been attributed to sailors and shepherds. They were probably already aware of these weather factors, since the situations mentioned had a great effect on their lives, but there can be little doubt that being launched by Jesus helped make the expression famous.

  Red tape

  It has a contemporary ring but is based on historical fact. The records of Henry VIII’s negotiations with the Pope in 1527 concerning his desire to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon still exist. The ancient documents are tied together with red tape.

  The use of such tapes remained a common practice over 300 years later; bundles of legal and Government documents were tied with red tape (in fact, a reddish pink).

  The first known comment associating red tape with official obfuscation came from Oliver Cromwell in 1652. Thomas Carlyle’s edition of Cromwell’s speeches and letters contains this comment:

  In fact red tape has, to a lamentable extent, tied up the souls of men in this Parliament and the Commonwealth of England. They are becoming hacks of office.

  In 1840 Carlyle himself referred to “red tape clerks” in a speech, but Charles Dickens’ character David Copperfield (1869) probably drew more attention to the term than any prior use. After Copperfield has become a Parliamentary reporter, he writes of his daily exposure to tangled bureaucracy:

  Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl: skewered through and through with office pens and bound hand and foot with red tape.

  Robot

  It is believed that when Karel Capek first had an idea for a drama featuring mechanical men, it was his brother Josef Capek who suggested they be described by the Czechoslovakian word “robata,” meaning “drudge worker.”

  Capek’s 1921 play R.U.R. (Rossums Universal Robot Corporation) launched the word. It immediately came into common use to describe not only actual mechanical operators, but also human behavior of a repetitive and thoughtless nature. In 1942 Isaac Asimov further developed Capek’s word into “robotic.”

  Rock and roll

  Member of a high school band called Sultans of Swing, Alan Freed became a radio sports announcer in Ohio in 1942. Later moving to Cleveland and broadcasting music sessions, he specialized in playing jazz and pop. By 1951 he had become a rhythm and blues fan, calling himself Moondog and thumping his fist on a telephone book in time to the recordings he played.

  The two words “rocking” and “rolling” had been teamed in various songs, but not representing what we now identify as rock ’n roll. In the 1934 movie Transatlantic Merry Go Round the Boswell sisters sang “Rock and Roll,” referring to the motion of a ship (“rolling rocking rhythm of the sea . . . ”).There was also minimal and somewhat clandestine use of the expression as a synonym for sexual activity.

  But whether he knew that or not, Alan Freed heard the new style developing among bands and recordings, and announced that this sound was “rock ’n roll” because of the “rolling surging beat.” The term quickly became universal, eventually contracted to just “rock.”

  (A) rolling stone gathers no moss

  The term is identified with a world-famous rock group and an almost world-famous magazine. But in fact the basis of the line dates back to a slave from Iraq who was taken in servitude to Italy during the first century BC.

  Publilius Syrus won freedom because of his wit and wisdom, one piece of which said:

  People always moving, with no roots in one place, avoid responsibilities and cares.

  The thought was developed into Latin sayings such as “Planta quae saepius transfertur non coalescit” and “Saepius plantata arbor fructum profert exiguum,” to the effect that trees that are uprooted and replanted too often are unlikely to be fruitful.

  Erasmus added the concept of “rolling stones,” and in 1362 the term came into English through William Langland (attributed author of Piers Plowman), who introduced the moss:

  Selden moseth the marbelston that men ofte treden.

  (No moss grows on stone frequently trodden on.)

  Room at the top

  Born into a poor family in rural America, Daniel Webster displayed acumen at an early age and nurtured an ambition to become a lawyer. When he mentioned this ambition to others he was dissuaded, because the legal profession was said to be overcrowded. He replied (c.1805):

  There is room enough at the top.

  His determination and his intellect did not let him down. Webster not only became a lawyer admired for his oratory but also a Senator and eventually Secretary of State.

  His expression went into the vernacular and in 1957 became the title of a novel, Room at the Top by John Braine, which caused a considerable stir, followed by the 1958 movie of the same name which caused a similar stir (six Oscar nominations and two wins).

  Rose-colored glasses

  The rose has been seen as an emblem of natural beauty for millennia. And traditional wisdom in the theater profession held that a rose-pink gel over the lighting made the stage, and anyone on it, look more attractive. Adding a similar tint to glasses would seem then to make everything take on a pleasing glow (though in actuality anything green might become a muddy grey).

  The image first appears in Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown at Oxford (1861). The character Hardy when visiting Oxford finds it “a sort of Utopia” and:

  ... continued steadily to behold towers and quadrangles and chapels, and the inhabitants of the colleges, through rosecoloured spectacles.

  (Sometimes referred to as “rose-tinted spectacles” or “rose-colored glasses.”)

  (A) rough diamond

  Fairly obviously, it means a diamond before it has been cut into facets and polished. But in metaphorical use it usually refers to a person whose qualities though sterling may not be immediately ascertained because of external shortcomings.

  This use was introduced by John Dryden in his Preface to Fables Ancient and Modern (1770) in which he referred to the writing style of Chaucer as:

  . . . a rough diamond who must be polished first ere he shines.

  Royal walkabout

  For many years Queen Elizabeth II when in public kept strictly to designated places, made a stately progress along cleared paths, and spoke only to carefully positioned people.

  But in March 1970 when visiting New Zealand, the Queen alighted from her car and suddenly walked straight toward the waiting crowd, talking at random to whoever came into her space and moving among the crowd with dignified goodwill.The public was delighted. Daily Mail writer Vincent Mulchrone described the incident as a “walkabout.”

  Initial reports of this caused mild confusion in Australia. In that country walkabout is a term used to describe the aboriginal cultural practice of disappearing into the bush or desert for an unspecified time, living on ancient survival skills.

  This meaning seemed at odds with the notion of a Royal personage stepping from a gilded frame to chat to people in the street. But adding the word “royal” solved it. However because the Queen continued to do it frequently, people got used to the idea and just “walkabout” now suffices.

  Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer

  The image of Santa Claus as we know him was virtually invented in 1822 by the poet Clement C. Moore in his famous poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Moore provided Santa with eight named reindeer and that image remained stable for 117 years—until the advent of Rudolph.

  In 1939 the American chain store Montgomery Ward
was considering some Christmas advertising material written by a freelancer called Robert May in Chicago. One of his offerings was a feel-good poem, about an unglamorous reindeer with a red nose who yearned to be on Santa’s team and eventually triumphed.

  The store executives liked the poem but didn’t like the reindeer’s name: Rollo.

  Changing it to Reginald didn’t help. Robert May had a young daughter, and for no known reason she suggested Rudolph. Montgomery Ward executives said yes.

  The story of Rudolph was printed as a Christmas-purchase giveaway, and several million of them were given away. An animated movie cartoon followed and then Johnny Marks set the poem to a tune that was recorded by major star Gene Autry. The result was a sensation, and Rudolph entered international Christmas mythology.

  (A) rum go

  A puzzling, unexpected, and slightly uncomfortable situation. The term had been in use in the early 1800s, and was launched into print in 1836 by Charles Dickens in The Pickwick Papers. Sam tells Mr. Pickwick of his suspicions that a certain coach’s proprietor is not to be trusted and they are being given

  rayther a rum go.

  Sacred cow

  The term is a simple statement of fact in areas where the Hindu religion is paramount, since Hindus regard cows as indeed sacred. In America during the late 1800s,“sacred cow” became a metaphor referring to something held in unreasonably high regard by some people, and referred to cynically by others as beyond criticism.

  The metaphorical use had crept into newspapers by 1890, but without a name attached. Apparently the first attributable use was in the formidable publication The Armies Of Labor—A Chronicle of the Organized Wage Earners (Yale University Press, 1919) by political scientist and lawyer, Professor Samuel P. Orth.

  Emma Goldman, who prides herself on having received her knowledge of syndicalism “from actual contact” and not from books, says that “syndicalism repudiates and condemns the present industrial arrangement as unjust and criminal.” Edward Hamond calls the labor contract “the sacred cow” of industrial idolatry.

  In similar vein, the metaphorical use of sacred cow spread throughout the English-speaking world.

  Sally Lunn

  In the streets of Bath during the late 1700s one could buy a particular brioche-like cake with a creamy, spicy flavor. It may have been called by the French name soleil et lune, or may have been sold by a young woman called Solange Luyon/Sally Lunn (the Sally Lunn Museum prefers the latter version). Either way, William Dalmer, a local baker, secured the recipe and started making the cakes himself around 1780, promoting them by composing a song that nowadays would be called a singing commercial:

  Buy my nice Sally Lunn,

  The very best of Bunn,

  I think her the sweetest of any . . .

  The song spread far beyond Bath; the style of cakes with Sally Lunn’s name were sung about in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Sorcerer:

  The eggs and the ham

  And the strawberry jam,

  The rollicking bun

  And the gay Sally Lunn!

  Cakes called Sally Lunns are still sold in Britain and elsewhere. However, at this distance in time there is some confusion about the exact nature of the original Sally Lunn cakes, and the name has become attached to several versions.

  Salome

  She is widely perceived as the siren in the Bible who shed seven veils—but her name and veils have no biblical basis whatever. Matthew 14:6 and Mark 6:22 tell the story, describing the young woman only as Herodias’s daughter and never mentioning her style of dancing.

  In AD 94 the Roman-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus appears to have invented a name for her—Salome—and the misconception grew that her name was mentioned in the Bible.

  Eighteen hundred years later came Oscar Wilde’s play Salome (1891). Wilde apparently knew the centuries-old Babylonian legend of the goddess Ishtar venturing into the underworld, surrendering a veil-like garment (or a piece of jewelry—the versions vary) at each of the seven gates to Hades, finally arriving naked at her destination. In Wilde’s play, when Salome announces she is ready to dance, the stage directions read: “Salome dances the dance of the seven veils.” In 1905 Richard Strauss’s opera Salome followed suit, featuring evocative music for that same sequence of Salome’s “seven veils” dance.The seven veils fantasy was here to stay.

  (Being) savaged by a dead sheep

  In 1978, British Labour politician and Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey was criticized in parliamentary session by a Conservative minister, Sir Geoffrey Howe. Denis Healey’s response was to refer to the encounter as like “being savaged by a dead sheep.”

  Say it with flowers

  In the early 1920s the Society of American Florists was seeking to update their marketing.The publicity committee chairman Henry Penn approached the O’Keefe Advertising Agency. The agency’s president Major Patrick O’Keefe found a line written by Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe:

  Flowers are words even a babe can understand.

  Mr. Penn felt the line was too long, Major O’Keefe agreed, and between them they abbreviated the line to: “Say it with flowers.”

  Scientist

  One of the commonest words in the language didn’t exist until 1833. We read, write, and speak about early pioneers of science, but in their own era those people were not known as scientists. The more usual appellation was “men of science,” or even “natural philosophers” (in the sense of being examiners of nature).

  One of the most eminent of these in nineteenth-century Britain was William Whewell, who was an authority on architecture, theology, politics, astronomy, geology, mechanics and mineralogy. Whewell was a fellow of the Royal Society and President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. As well as science matters, he loved to play with language, and invented terms such as “ion” and “cathode”.

  When asked by the poet Coleridge in 1833 if there could be a word to describe people devoted to the study of science, William Whewell came up with the simple solution: scientist.The word went into universal use. So Whewell kept going and invented the word “physicist” as well.

  Screw loose

  Although the mid-nineteenth century was hardly as equipped with mechanical contrivances as the twentieth century, there were enough about to make the image of a screw being loose quite a valid image of dysfunction (streetcars, sewing machines, brick-makers, lawn mowers, yale locks . . . )

  Charles Dickens turned the literal loose screw into the metaphorical in Martin Chuzzlewit (1844) when Mark Tapley tells Mr. Martin:

  I’ve had my eye on you any time this fortnight. I see well enough there’s a screw loose in your affairs. I know’d well enough the first time I see you down at the Dragon that it must be so, sooner or later.

  Self-help

  A simple enough term (whether concerning personal growth, or a shop where you select you own purchases), but someone had to think of it. That someone appears to have been Thomas Carlyle in his philosophical satire Sartor Resartus (1833):

  Thus from poverty does the strong educe nobler wealth; thus in the destitution of the wild desert does our young Ishmael acquire for himself the highest of all possessions, that of Self-help.

  Twenty-six years later (1859, the same year as Darwin’s Origin of Species), Scottish author Samuel Smiles’ book Self Help, outlining help for those who sought personal development, became a classic bestseller. Its opening sentence was: “Heaven helps those who help themselves.”

  Sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll

  The form of hedonism later referred to as a rock’n’roll lifestyle had been burgeoning since the 1960s. The ethos was encapsulated by the title of the 1977 song “Sex, & Drugs & Rock’n’Roll” recording by the Blockheads, written by their star Ian Drury with Chaz Jankel.

  The term quickly went into the vernacular.

  She who must be obeyed

  During his childhood, novelist H. Rider Haggard had a nanny who used to threaten him with an ugly doll wh
ich was referred to as “She who must be obeyed.” In his later novel She—A History of Adventure (1887) the “She” who must be obeyed was Ayesha, an African sorceress who is immune to death (her name is a variation on an Arabic word meaning “she who lives”).

  Further use occurred when screen writer John Mortimer created the television character of Horace Rumpole, who frequently said it about his wife Hilda.

  Shop till you drop

  The expression is derived from a crucial moment in Noel Coward’s play Still Life (1936). The play tells of a couple, both married to other people, who have been having a passionate affair and are meeting to say goodbye because he has been posted to Africa.

  Their heartbreaking farewell is interrupted by a noisy gossiping acquaintance laden with parcels (originally played by actress Everley Gregg) who stumbles to their café table and flops down beside them, announcing:

  I’ve been shopping till I’m dropping.

  Coward was a master of internal rhyme, but even shorn of its present participles, the abbreviated form retained its pleasing alliteration and quickly went into popular parlance.

  Shut your face

  Obviously a way of asking (telling) someone to be quiet. There are some who believe the concept dates back to knights of old whose armor had moveable face-plates, which when shut effectively prevented speech. Even if that were correct, in the later absence of armor from normal life the term assumed a distinct air of impoliteness.