Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?

by David Feldman

  Criminals sometimes refer to their arrest as the first degree; the escorted trip to the jail as the second degree; and, of course, their questioning as the third degree.

  Why Does a Drunk Person Have Three Sheets to the Wind?

  Stuart Berg Flexner points out that whoever first coined this expression was undoubtedly a landlubber who mixed up his terminology. A “sheet” is not a sail but is the rope or chain attached to the lower corner of the sail. By shortening or extending the sheet, one can determine the angle of sail. If one loosens the sheet completely, the sail flaps and careers. If one loosens all three sheets, the ship would reel like a drunk person. Since “in the wind” had long referred to a ship out of control, three sheets to the wind, first in print in 1821, was the perfect way to describe the fool who has imbibed two too many.

  Why Do We Call the Destruction of a Person or Thing Deep-Sixing?

  Deep six is an old expression, originally meaning “a grave.” Why not deep eight? Probably six was chosen because of the custom of digging a grave six feet deep (thus the expression six feet under).

  Deep six was particularly popular among sailors, and it is likely that the reference was to six fathoms. Sailors used deep six to refer specifically to drowning victims (i.e., anyone six fathoms—thirty-six feet—down in the sea was in a literal or metaphorical grave) and also to equipment jettisoned overboard that fell down to the bottom of the sea.

  We have John Dean’s testimony during the Watergate hearings to thank for the resurgence of this expression: Dean, President Nixon’s counsel, testified that when he informed John Ehrlichman that there were incriminating documents found in Howard Hunt’s White House safe, Ehrlichman suggested that it might be prudent to deep-six them—in the potomac River.

  If We Are Euphoric, Why Are We on Cloud Nine?

  The Weather Bureau subdivides each class of clouds into nine types, so some word experts speculate that cloud nine refers to the high-flying cumulonimbus clouds that waft upward of twenty-five thousand feet above the earth. The problem with this theory is that several other clouds attain even greater heights. Wouldn’t bliss better be described by the cloud closest to the heavens?

  Others have speculated that cloud nine is a reference to the ninth heaven in Dante’s Paradise (i.e., next to God, Who resided in the tenth heaven). Neil Ewart conjectures that cloud nine is derived from cloud seven or seventh heaven. Ancient astrologers believed that seven planets governed the fate of the universe and that the seventh was where God resided. Ewart offers no convincing explanation for how cloud seven got inflated by two.

  We prefer a less lofty but more concrete explanation for this term. On the popular radio show of the early 1950s, Johnny Dollar, the eponymous hero, every episode, knocked himself unconscious. In a gimmick as central to the show as Fibber McGee’s closet or Dagwood’s sandwich, Johnny was then transported into a blissful place. Upon awakening, Johnny would regale the audience with fanciful reports of what he saw and did in paradise. Johnny called this wonderful place cloud nine. Since cloud nine did not gain popularity as a catch phrase until the 1950s, it is safe to assume that Johnny Dollar was responsible for this contribution to our lexicon.

  Why Is a Passing Fad or a Short-Lived Celebrity called a Nine-Day Wonder?

  In our Warholian times, when anyone can be a celebrity for fifteen minutes, nine days in the limelight constitutes a career. Nine whole days of success? Time to retire and enter the Hall of Fame!

  Chances are, nine was chosen as the lucky number because a novena in the Roman Catholic Church consists of nine days of special prayers, and many religious festivals of the Church traditionally lasted for nine days. A minority contingent insists that the origin of nine-day wonder lay in the proverb “A wonder lasts nine days, and then the puppy’s eyes are open.”

  The cliché certainly has a fine pedigree in literature. Chaucer says in Troilus and Cressida (1374), “Eke wonder last but nine daies….” And in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 3:

  Gloucester: That would be ten day’s wonder at the least. Clarence: That’s a day longer than a wonder lasts.

  Why Is the Pole That You Won’t Touch Somebody or Something with Always Ten Feet Long?

  In early America, ten-foot poles abounded. They were used in pole boats, flat-bottomed vessels designed to haul farm products or household goods in shallow waters. Poles were essential to navigate through swamps studded with mud bars but also were used in rivers and lakes.

  Why ten-foot poles? A long pole enabled the rivermen to push off from the shore or potential impediments and to push up when the pole boat got stuck in mud. The poles, because of their uniform length, became measuring sticks as well, handy devices to ascertain the depth of the water.

  Why Do We Call the Last Moment Before an Anticipated Event the Eleventh Hour?

  In biblical times, the typical workday was twelve hours, and hours were counted from dawn rather than from what we now call 12:00 A.M. In Matthew’s parable of the laborers in the vineyard (20:1-16), the men who were hired at the eleventh hour (with only an hour left in the day) were paid as much as those who worked all twelve hours. Thus the eleventh hour was the last opportunity to be paid.

  The same parable also contains a phrase, now omnipresent, that originally referred to these vineyard laborers: “So the last shall be first, and the first last: For many be called, but few chosen.”

  Why Is the Only Number You See Before Skidoo 23?

  Who would have thought that this breezy bit of slang has lofty roots? It does, in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. The hero of this sad novel is Sidney Carton, who is the twenty-third of a multitude executed by the guillotine.

  In the last act of the theatrical adaptation, The Only Way, an old woman sits at the foot of the guillotine, calmly counting heads as they are lopped off. The only recognition or dignity afforded Carton as he meets his fate is the old woman emotionlessly saying “twenty-three” as he is beheaded.

  “Twenty-three” quickly became a popular catchphrase among the theater community in the early twentieth century, often used to mean, “It’s time to leave while the getting is good.” Cartoonist T.A. Dorgan combined “twenty-three” with “skidoo.” Skidoo was simply a fanciful variant of “skedaddle.”

  Why Does 86 Mean That a Restaurant Item Is No Longer Available?

  Actually 86 has developed alternate meanings as well. A person not to be served alcohol (usually because the customer is already intoxicated) is referred to as an 86, and the process of ejecting said customer is often called 86ing. Sometimes 86 is used as a generic term for killing or annihilating something (e.g., “The project wasn’t cost-effective, so we 86ed it.”).

  Some etymologists have speculated that all of the meanings of 86 have a negative connotation because “6” rhymes with “nix.” We do know for sure where the expression originated: in soda fountains and lunch counters in the United States during the 1920s.

  Before fast-food stores and modern coffee shops, lunch-counter clerks would take orders from customers and, usually without writing a check, yell the order to the cook. To save time and to communicate with customers understanding what they preferred to remain secret, cooks, lunch-counter clerks, and soda jerks developed a shorthand verbal code. The term 86 had two meanings. Most often it signified that the cook was all out of that item. Less frequently it was a code for indicating that a customer should not be served (usually because the patron was a deadbeat).

  Most of today’s colorful diner lingo developed in the soda fountains and lunch counters of the 1920s. Why say “Please toast an English muffin” when “Burn the British” is available? Only a soulless clod would ask for salt and pepper; waiters with a poetic bent would ask for “Mike and Ike” instead. Occasionally the lunch-counter code was more long-hand than shorthand. “Liver and onions” became “Put out the lights and cry.”

  Soda jerks were big on numbers. Some examples:

  19: Banana split

  33: Cherry cola

  51: Hot c
hocolate

  55: Root beer

  80 or 81: Glass of water

  For some of the most popular drinks, such as water and milk, the first digit signified the beverage and the second the number of glasses. Thus 80 or 81 would indicate one glass of water; 82, two glasses of water; 85, five glasses of water, etc.

  Some of the number codes were veiled warnings from one employee to the other:

  13 (obviously an unlucky number): The boss is here. You’d better not mess around.

  95: A customer is leaving and trying to stiff us. (A 95 today becomes an 86 tomorrow.)

  99: Gulp. The boss wants to see you.

  Although remnants of the lunch-counter verbal codes still can be heard in diners and truck stops across the United States, the number code, except for 86, has largely disappeared. Now that all restaurants use checks and most cooks are away from customer earshot, the need for these colorful terms has vanished.

  Submitted by pat O’Conner of Forest Hills, New York. Thanks also to Sharon M.Burke of Los Altos, California, and to William C. Stone of Dallas, Texas.

  Law, Finance, Politics, and

  Other Disreputable Activities

  Why Do Lawyers Call Themselves Attorneys-at-Law?

  What’s the difference between an attorney and a lawyer? Probably about fifty dollars an hour.

  Several readers of the Imponderables books have pointed out the apparent redundancy in attorney-at-law. It’s getting harder and harder to find a lawyer who doesn’t prefer to be called attorney, or even better, the highfalutin attorney-at-law.

  The roots of the word attorney go back to the Indo-European ter, meaning “to turn.” The later Latin attorn meant “to turn over to another.” The earliest attorneys, then, were not necessarily lawyers, but anyone designated to take the place of another in a transaction. For example, John Ciardi quotes A Short Catechism (1553): “Our everlasting and only High Bishop, our only attorney, only mediator, only peace maker between God and man.” This quote clearly marks attorney as meaning a mediator rather than simply a lawyer.

  Up until around 1800, an attorney was anyone authorized to act for another in legal or financial matters, and to a certain extent we retain this sense today (we need not be a lawyer to retain power of attorney). So the phrase attorney-at-law was originally a useful distinction, indicating a lawyer able to represent the legal interests of others.

  Despite the contemporary interchangeability of attorney and lawyer, a useful distinction remains. Attorney should probably only be used to describe someone who actually represents the interests of a client. A professor who confines his activities to studying and teaching law should be called a lawyer. And a pretentious attorney should be called an attorney-at-law because it will make him or her happy.

  With the proliferation of title inflation in America, I’m surprised that more professions haven’t cashed in on the original meaning of attorney. Imagine shingles laden with attorney-at-accounting or attorney-at-real estate.

  Submitted by Kevin T. Jones of Baytown, Texas.

  Why Are Constantly Fighting People Said to Be at Loggerheads?

  In the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean, one can find snapping turtles called loggerheads, so named because they have big, knobby heads. But they are not responsible for this phrase. In fact, the turtles are named after the same weapons that generated at loggerheads.

  Medieval navies carried long-handled sticks with a solid ball of iron at the end. The iron end was heated and used to melt tar, which was then flung at the enemy. If the tar supply was depleted, the combatants would bash each other with the sticks.

  At loggerheads was recorded as early as 1680 in England. Its original meaning was “obstinate or ignorant blockhead,” a clearly pejorative sentiment that lives on today. People who are at loggerheads are not only feuding but also are unable and unwilling to compromise or to seek a reasonable solution to their problems.

  Why Are Optimists in the Stock Market Called Bulls and Pessimists Called Bears?

  Yes, when they attack, bears sweep their paws downward and bulls thrust their horns upward, but despite folk wisdom, this isn’t how these expressions originated. Bears was first recorded in 1709, a full five years before bulls.

  The original bears would now be called short sellers. Believing that prices would fall, speculators sold shares they didn’t own, anticipating that they could buy the stocks later at a low price. An Old English proverb, “Don’t sell the bearskin before the bear is caught,” obviously applied to the risky strategy of the speculators, so they were called bearskin jobbers, and later, simply bears.

  Optimists who bought stocks in anticipation of a price rise probably were called bulls because of the alliteration with bears and because the two animals were already linked in a then popular sport, “bear- and bull-baiting.”

  Why Does Buck Mean “a Dollar”?

  Buck has meant “male deer” since the year 1000 in England and has meant “a dollar” in America since 1856. Despite the time gap, the two meanings are closely linked. In the early eighteenth century, traders and hunters used buckskin as a basic unit of trade. Any frontiersman who possessed many buckskins was considered a wealthy man.

  How did buck come to mean specifically one dollar? In the early West, poker was the diversion of choice. A marker or counter was placed to the left of the dealer to indicate who was the next to deal. This marker was traditionally called the buck, because the first markers were buckhorn knives. But in the Old West, silver dollars (i.e., one dollar), instead of knives were used as bucks.

  The buck as poker counter yields the expression pass the buck, a favorite of politicians and bureaucrats everywhere, who usually are more than happy to evade responsibility for governing, dealing poker, or just about anything else, which was why it was so surprising to hear Harry Truman, an admitted poker player, announce, “The buck stops here.”

  Why Is the Death Penalty Called Capital Punishment?

  The capital in capital punishment has nothing to do with the seat of government. The word derives from the Latin caput, meaning “head.” The original punishment for a capital crime was the loss of one’s head. The reason the first letter of a sentence is said to be capitalized is because it is at the “head” of the sentence.

  Why Is a Police Officer Called a Cop?

  If we know when a word or expression was first used, we have the first important clue to how, where, and why it came into the language. Many stories have circulated about the origins of cop. A common explanation is that cop is an acronym for constable on patrol. Another is that cop is short for copper, the metal on the buttons worn by London’s bobbies. The only problem with either theory is that the use of the word cop predates either of the above uses. Bobbies didn’t exist until 1829, but cop was recorded in print as early as 1704.

  Cop almost certainly derives from the Latin capere (“to capture”), which was transformed into the French cap and eventually the Middle English cop. Since a police officer’s job is to capture criminals, cop is an appropriate nickname.

  Our cop, then, is simply the noun form of the verb we use all the time to mean “capture” or “take.” A furtive teenager cops a feel. And a gangster, whose subculture spread the use of the word cop in the first place, cops a plea (originally, “to confess to the cops”).

  Submitted by Venia Stanley of Albuquerque, New Mexico.

  Why Is Someone Who Surreptitiously Listens to Others’ Conversations Called an Eavesdropper?

  Eavesdropping isn’t exactly an endearing activity today, but from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, eavesdropping was a crime in England. Back then, communities were not equipped with gutter systems, so houses were surrounded by eavesdrops, spaces all around a building where water dripped from the eaves. The purpose of the eavesdrop was to allow a wide overhang so that rain fell far enough from the house to safeguard the security of the foundation.

  The first eavesdroppers were nefarious types who literally stood in the eavesdrops to overhear
private conversations. Protected from the elements by the overhang, this low-tech espionage evidently faded as sewer systems rendered eavesdrops obsolete.

  Submitted by Patricia Fox-Sheinwold of New York, New York.

  Why Do We Call a Politician’s Verbal Delaying Tactics a Filibuster?

  Our term filibuster comes directly from two Dutch words: vrij (“free”) and buit (“boot”). These two words, in English translation, yielded the word freebooter in the sixteenth century.

  The French appropriated the Dutch words and transformed them into filibustier; the Spanish modified it to filibustero, the immediate parent of our filibuster. The French and Spanish versions meant the same thing as freebooter—“a pirate.”

  But in the United States, filibuster was first used to describe adventurers who fomented revolution in the Spanish colonies of Central American and the Caribbean. These adventurers were reputed to harangue their listeners with partisan rhetoric. Was it not an appropriate analogy to so describe legislators who avoid action (or even worthwhile debate) by prolonged, blustery monologues?

  Why Do We Call a Five-Dollar Bill a Fin?

  No self-respecting gangster, let alone a heavyweight fictional one like an Edward G. Robinson character in a 1930s movie, would be caught dead saying “five dollars” when fin was available. Fin was first recorded in 1929, just in time for those wonderful 1930s gangster movies, and seems to have sprung genuinely from the lingo of the underworld.

  Fin, short for finif, has Yiddish origins and means “five.” Since the late eighteenth century, fin had been used as slang for “hand,” and the fact that there are five fingers on the human hand served as a reminder to the straight-and-narrow population to which bill fin referred.