by Albert Jack
Being Tarred With The Same Brush is to be part of a group regarded as all having the same faults and weaknesses but, by inference, often unfairly. The expression is an old farming term, which derives from the practice of treating the sores of an entire flock of sheep. The sores could be coated by a brush dipped in tar. The same brush would be used on all of the stricken sheep but never on a healthy animal for fear of passing the infection on, in which case all infected sheep were ‘tarred with the same brush’.
If a person is Never Going To Set The Thames Alight they are unlikely ever to do anything impressive or notable, usually in respect of either their work or studies. Many believe the allusion here is to the river Thames but the root of our expression is actually a ‘temse’. During the 1700s farmers used a tool called a temse, which was a sieve given to labourers or farmhands during the harvest months. Hard-grafting farm boys would joke with each other they had worked so fast their temse had caught fire. Equally, lazy scallywags would ‘never be able to set their temse alight’.
Being On Tenterhooks means being under great stress or tension while waiting for a result or outcome. It has been suggested the phrase stems from tent hooks, which are used to hold a canvas under great tension, keeping it watertight, but its origin is far older. In bygone days newly produced cloth would be attached to hooks and stretched across large frames known as ‘tenters’, coming from the Latin word ‘tendere’, meaning ‘to stretch out’. Anyone, or anything, stretched to the limit later became known as being ‘on tenterhooks’.
8: THE BIBLE
The Apple Of One’s Eye is somebody (usually a child) who is regarded as precious and irreplaceable. Over a thousand years ago, the pupil of the eye was known as the ‘apple’. The modern word, pupil, is Latin and did not form part of the English language until the 1500s. Sight was regarded as the most valued of all the senses and therefore the ‘apple’ was precious and irreplaceable. King Alfred, in the late ninth century, actually linked the two and applied it to somebody he was affectionate towards, but it is not known who. The first recorded reference is in the Bible: Deuteronomy 32:10 says, ‘He kept him as the apple of his eye,’ suggesting he watched over him to ensure his safety.
At The Eleventh Hour indicates something has occurred at the very last moment. First used in the Bible (Matthew 20:9), the phrase can be traced to the parable of the labourers and the practice of a 12-hour working day. In the vineyards the very last of the day’s labourers would be taken on during the eleventh hour (around 5pm) in an effort to finish the day’s scheduled work on time.
To have Feet Of Clay suggests a real weakness in something (or someone) otherwise considered strong and infallible. This is a Biblical phrase and comes from a story in the Book of Daniel 2:31–5. Daniel describes a ‘great statue’ in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, which had a head of gold, breast and arms of silver, stomach and thighs of brass, legs of iron and feet of iron mixed with clay. But iron doesn’t mix easily with clay, leaving a great weakness in an otherwise mighty monument that is not obvious to the eye.
Having a Fly In The Ointment is an expression used to describe a tiny thing that is hindering the outcome of something altogether much larger and more important. Thousands of years ago, before doctors, apothecaries (an early version of chemists) dealt with all medical treatment, and their sought-after potions and ointments would be dispensed from large vats. These vats could treat a vast number of people but a single fly or other insect found floating in them was thought to spoil the whole amount. The earliest reference to this phrase can be found in the Bible, in Ecclesiastes (10:1), which includes the phrase ‘Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour.’
To be made a Scapegoat is to take responsibility for, and be blamed for, another’s mistakes. This phrase dates back to an ancient Hebrew ritual for the Day Of Atonement set out by Moses himself in his Laws Of Moses. He decided that two goats should be taken to the altar of the tabernacle where the high priest would draw lots for the Lord and for Azazel (a desert demon). The goat selected as the Lord’s would then be sacrificed and, by confession, the high priest would transfer all of his, and his people’s, sins on to the second goat. The lucky mammal would then be sent into the wilderness, taking all the sins with it. If only it were that easy these days.
The Final Straw is a small insignificant event producing a situation that is intolerable overall. It has a Biblical origin and an old proverb states, ‘It is the last straw that breaks the laden camel’s back’, which means that one small thing may bring about a catastrophe in the greater scheme of events. In the 17th and 18th centuries the expression in England used to be ‘the last feather that breaks the horse’s back’ but Charles Dickens rescued the old proverb in his novel Dombey And Son in 1848. It caught on so successfully that it is ‘last straws’ and not ‘last feathers’ we talk about today.
To Separate The Wheat From The Chaff means to divide the valuable from the worthless. It is easy to see how, during a harvest, it is important to thresh corn to separate the grain from the husk. But the answer to how it became a popular and widely used expression can be found in the Bible and the suggestion that the ‘wheat’ are those loyal to Christ, and the ‘chaff’ are those who have rejected his ideals. Luke 3:17 has a passage including the line ‘His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff in his fire.’
A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing is a person who appears pleasant and friendly but carries a hidden menace. This expression can be found in another of Aesop’s fables, dating back 1,400 years. In one of his stories a wolf wraps himself up in a sheep’s fleece and sneaks past the shepherd into the paddock. Once inside he immediately eats one of the lambs before his deception can be discovered. But the actual origin can be found in the Bible: Matthew 7:15 says, ‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing. Inwardly they are ravening wolves.’
9: PEOPLE AND PLACES
The Blurb is the curious name given to a short, written promotional sales pitch. Loosely speaking it is a rough but positive general explanation. The American comedy writer Gelet Burgess invented a comic book in 1907, which featured a Miss Belinda Blurb on the cover. The publication was to be given away at a book festival and Belinda was a parody of the type of artwork often found on the jackets of more serious novels at the time. When later asked what the name meant, Burgess described it as ‘self praise and making a noise like a publisher’. A simple example of inspired alliteration, the phrase caught on immediately.
As Bold As Brass is applied to anyone with the courage of their conviction and not afraid to be seen either succeeding or failing. It is recorded that the phrase dates back to the late 1770s and refers to a London magistrate called Brass Crosby. At that time it was illegal for the workings of Parliament to be published for public knowledge. However, one London printer produced a pamphlet revealing some of the proceedings and was immediately arrested. He was brought before Brass Crosby’s court and the magistrate, in tune with public opinion, let the printer off. Crosby was immediately arrested for treason and himself thrown in jail. But such was the public outcry in support of the magistrate that Brass was released and he became something of a hero. His brave stand against authority was widely reported, leading to the term ‘as bold as brass’ passing into common parlance.
To Stage A Boycott means withdrawing from social or commercial arrangements, either as a protest or punishment. The phrase is one of remarkably few to emanate from southern Ireland. In the 1870s Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, an Englishman, was working as a land agent for Lord Earne at Loughmask in County Mayo. In September 1880 a campaign, organised by the Irish Land League, was calling for a reform of the system of landholding, and protesting tenants demanded Captain Boycott initiate a substantial reduction in their rents. Boycott refused, even ordering anyone in arrears be evicted, whereupon Charles Parnell, the President of the Land League, made a speech calling for everybo
dy in the local community, not only Boycott’s tenants, to refuse to have anything to do with the unpopular agent.
The result was that labourers refused to work for him, shop and innkeepers declined to serve either him or his family and even the postal staff refused to deliver his letters. Boycott had to go to the expense of having his food brought in, under guard, from great distances away, and of employing 50 labourers from as far away as Ulster for the harvest, all protected by 900 guard. This action by the locals was so successful and aroused so much passion (it was even reported in The Times during November 1880) that the Land League called upon all Irish men and women to treat similar landlords, or their agents, like ‘Boycott’. Within weeks the phrase was adopted by newspapers around Europe and subsequently worldwide. By the time the captain died in 1887, after returning to England, his name had become a standard part of the English language.
A Cock And Bull story is likely to be untrue and without any real facts supporting it. Some suggest the phrase originates from old fables in which animals speak to each other, but there is a much more reliable source. Stony Stratford is a Buckinghamshire town located almost directly halfway between London and Birmingham and Oxford and Cambridge respectively. During the great coaching era of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the town was an important and thriving stop-over point for travellers, tradesmen and mail coaches. The two main coaching inns were called The Cock and The Bull and both became known throughout the country as the centre of all news travelling either on foot or by horse. The competing inns established a rivalry as to which could produce the most exciting and scurrilous travellers’ tales to be passed on to the major cities and as a result many unbelievable stories were dismissed as ‘Cock and Bull’ tales.
Codswallop means that something is worthless, rubbish or nonsense. Wallop is Australian slang for beer or ale. In 1875 Australian inventor Hiram Codd developed the first bottle with a lid which kept sparkling water fizzy until it was opened, but Aussie beer drinkers were unimpressed by the new craze of drinking fizzy water, which they regarded as rubbish, and dismissed it as ‘Codd’s Wallop’.
If something is Too Dicey it is considered to be risky or dubious and should be treated with great caution. The BBC’s Antiques Roadshow suggested an origin for this phrase in May 1999 when a presenter was given an antique map to value. He explained to the owner that there was once a crooked map-seller who, in the 1800s, used old and worn map plates to print new copies on to old paper and sell them on as original antiques. The map seller was called Mr Dicey and when he was caught and punished the phrase entered the language as a byword for anything that could not be relied upon.
The Full Monty means the whole lot–the maximum available. There are several suggestions for its origin but the earliest can be traced back to the turn of the century. In 1904 the tailors Montague Burton (later shortened to Burtons) established their first hire shop in Chesterfield. They made it possible for men not only to hire a suit for special occasions, but also to hire a complete outfit of suit, shirt, tie, shoes and socks and those opting for the full set were known to be wearing the ‘Full Monty’. The saying re-emerged in the mid-1980s as part of the Coronation Street dictionary Street Talk. It has since been used as the title of several books and a film.
To have Hobson’s Choice is to have no choice at all. In the early 1600s Thomas Hobson owned a well-known livery stable in Cambridge. Hobson insisted on hiring out his horses strictly on a rotation basis to ensure each animal was evenly worked and nobody was allowed to select a favourite, as was common practice in other liveries at the time. The author and poet John Milton seems to be responsible for the phrase passing into wider English use as he mentions Hobson in two of his epitaphs. Milton was at Cambridge University around 1630 so it is quite possible he was one of Hobson’s customers.
The Real McCoy is the genuine article, not a fake or a copy. One story goes back to the 1890s. American welterweight boxer Kid McCoy dominated his sport during the late 19th century and was well known throughout his land. McCoy had many imitators who would earn money in boxing booths and fairgrounds all across America, challenging locals to take on the champion. In the end few people believed, and rightly so, the champion was fighting in booths. During the 1920s, long after McCoy had retired, the little boxer was having a quiet drink in a bar when a lumbering drunk picked an argument with him. McCoy’s associates warned the giant off by insisting he was provoking a champion boxer but the fat man would have none of it, challenging McCoy to prove who he was. Eventually the ageing boxer reluctantly floored the persistent drinker with a single punch and then went back to his whisky. Apparently when the man regained consciousness his first words were ‘Godammit, he is the real McCoy.’ It’s a great story, but it isn’t the origin of the expression.
Elijah McCoy was born in Colchester, Ontario, Canada, on 2 May 1844, the son of former slaves who had fled north from Kentucky. McCoy trained as a mechanical engineer in Scotland before travelling to America and settling in Detroit. In 1872 he designed an automatic lubricator for steam engines, his first of 57 patented inventions to revolutionise industry in America. Others included the ironing board and the lawn sprinkler. McCoy became famous and his popular inventions were copied all over the world, although many buyers would insist on buying only ‘the real McCoy’.
A Mickey Finn is a drink that has been drugged in one way or another, usually to render a person helpless so that a crime can be committed. Mickey Finn was the owner of both the Palm Garden Restaurant and the Lone Star Saloon located on Whiskey Row, Chicago. Neither establishment was quite what it seemed; both were havens for pickpockets and petty thieves, mostly trained by Finn himself. One of Finn’s common methods was to lace drinks with chloral hydrate (knock-out drops) and then fleece his victims before dumping them down the road. Unsurprisingly the two bars were closed down in 1903, although Finn escaped jail and found work as a barman where he sold his recipe to other unscrupulous vagabonds.
His Name Is Mud is a derogatory phrase used to describe a person who is unpopular or completely out of favour due to some act. The obvious allusion might seem to be one of someone so low in society’s opinion that they are no better than mud, but this is not the origin of the phrase. On 14 April 1865 John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in the Ford Theater, Washington DC. As he made his escape Booth broke his leg, but still managed to reach his horse and ride away. When he reached the countryside he looked for the house of Dr Samuel Mudd who treated his injury. Mudd had no idea of the events of the evening but, when he heard of the assassination the following day, he immediately informed the authorities he had seen Booth. Despite his innocence, the doctor was arrested and later convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1869 Mudd was pardoned and released from jail, but the American public never forgave him for his implied involvement in the assassination plot. It would be another hundred years before Mudd was finally declared innocent and his name cleared.
Murphy’s Law is the theory that if anything can go wrong it probably will. This phrase began to be used in 1949 at the Edwards Air Force Base test centre in California. Captain Edward A Murphy was an engineer working on Project MX981, which was a series of experiments to find out how much deceleration the human body can stand in a plane crash. One morning Murphy found a transducer had been wired up the wrong way and wasn’t working. The young engineer fixed the problem and claimed of the technician responsible ‘If there is ever a wrong way to do something, he will find it.’ During the tests the project manager kept a list of theories, or ‘laws’ as he called them, and added Murphy’s comment under the title ‘Murphy’s Law’. A little later Dr John Paul Stapp, an Air Force doctor, was involved in similar deceleration experiments and gave a press conference to reveal his team’s results. During the press session Dr Stapp recorded that the project’s excellent safety record was due to a firm belief in ‘Murphy’s Law’, which was to try and foresee anything that could go wrong and avoid it happening by advance
d planning. Over the following years aerospace manufacturers picked upon the phrase and used it widely in their advertising, leading to ‘Murphy’s Law’ becoming used all over the English-speaking world.
When we describe something as OK, we regard it as acceptable and good for use. The expression seems to have first appeared in print during 1839 in the Boston Morning Post and later popularised during the 1840 election campaign of Martin Van Buren of Kinderhook, New York. He was known as ‘Old Kinderhook’–OK for short. Twenty years later, during the American Civil War, soldiers relied on a biscuit called Orrin Kendall for rations, and a port in Haiti called Aux Cayes was famous among American sailors for its rum, known as ‘OK Rum’. But before all of this there lived a popular native American chief called Old Keokuk who signed all his treaties by using only his initials.
A Parting Shot is a final blow or withering remark that a victim has no chance of responding to. The Parthians were an ancient race living in southwest Asia. They were skilled warriors whose battle tactics included mounted archers riding away from their enemy, giving the impression of a retreat. They would then twist backwards in their saddles and fire with deadly accuracy at the pursuing enemy. The first references were made to the Parthians in English literature during the 17th century and the phrase ‘parthian shot’ became a well-known phrase for ‘parting blow’ until the early 20th century when the similarity between ‘parthian’ and ‘parting’ led to a corruption of the original phrase.