by Albert Jack
A Soap Opera has become the accepted term for a regular radio, and later TV, drama shows usually based around normal life. Each episode ends in suspense to ensure listeners and viewers return to find out what happens next. The origin of the phrase lies in America during the 1920s with a popular weekly radio programme called Amos And Andy.
As the show was always broadcast during prime time, and for family viewing, the soap manufacturers Proctor and Gamble started to advertise their products during the breaks and later sponsored the programme. Soon afterwards other similar shows (and soap manufacturers) followed suit and a critic, writing in 1938, began referring to them generally as ‘soaps’. The word ‘opera’ was then borrowed from the popular ‘horse operas’ (a term for cowboy films) of the 1930s.
On The Treadmill is another saying relating to Victorian hard labour, one the great writer Oscar Wilde was subjected to during his prison sentence in the late 1800s. Today it is used to describe exhausting, never-ending work that is usually without even acknowledgement. In Oscar’s day a treadmill was a primitive version of modern-day step machines found in every gym or fitness centre. It was a row of evenly spaced wooden planks joined at each end by a large round cog. Poor Oscar and his fellow convicts were forced to walk the treadmill all day long, akin to walking up an endless staircase but without actually leaving the bottom step. As the playwright himself said at the time, ‘If this is the way the Queen treats her prisoners, she doesn’t deserve to have any.’ Needless to say none of his clothes still fitted when he eventually left Reading Gaol. And today, in fitness centres, they all pay to do it.
When something has Gone West it is generally lost forever. Usually it is a plan, project or perhaps business deal that ‘goes west’ when something major goes wrong. There is a suggestion that the sun setting in the west may be the root of the phrase but it is more likely to be the Tyburn gibbet, a place of execution once situated near the site of Marble Arch in central London, where we uncover the secret. London’s main prisons at either Newgate or The Clink were both located on the east side of the city and a condemned man would be loaded on to a cart and taken west to meet his fate. Nobody ever returned from the journey west.
12: MUSIC, THEATRE AND
PERFORMANCE
A Blonde Bombshell is a cliché now used to describe any dynamic or attractive blonde lady, usually a singer, actress or film star but often applied to politicians or business figures. The original ‘Blonde Bombshell’ was Jean Harlow, an American actress, mistress of the one-line witticism and star of the 1933 film Bombshell. When the film was later released in the UK roducers, worried it might be perceived as a war film, changed its title to Blonde Bombshell and the phrase immediately passed into the English language.
To hope somebody Breaks A Leg is in fact a message of goodwill and good luck, usually reserved for a stage actor or musician prior to a performance. Some claim the expression originates from the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln who was shot dead in his private box at Ford’s Theater in Washington DC, on 14 April1865. His murderer John Wilkes Booth, a renowned Shakespearean actor, broke his leg jumping down on to the stage to make his escape. The claim is that the saying arose as a form of black humour in relation to that event. But in fact the phrase was known centuries before that when a measure of the success of a stage performance was the number of times an audience called the performers back to the front of the stage for applause. Each time the curtain was reopened the actors bowed or curtsied, and the more often that happened the greater the chance of ‘breaking a leg’.
That Old Chestnut is a phrase used to describe an old joke or excuse, something that has been heard many times before. The origin of the saying dates back to 1816 when the play The Broken Sword by William Diamond was staged in Covent Garden, London. One of the play’s characters, Captain Xavier, often repeats the same joke about a cork tree, with slight variations each time. At one point another character, Pablo, interrupts with the punchline and says, ‘It’s a chestnut. I have heard you tell the joke 27 times and it’s a chestnut.’ At some point later American actor William Warren was playing the part of Pablo and while he was being entertained at a society dinner one evening, another guest began to recite an old, well-known joke. Warren interrupted and said with a flourish, ‘It’s an old chestnut, that’s what it is,’ much to the amusement of everybody there. That is how the expression passed into the English language.
Putting The Dampers on something means to discourage or to tone down the enthusiasm somebody is showing for an idea. This saying has a musical origin and relates to the piano. A damper is operated by a foot pedal, which presses it against the strings to reduce the instrument’s sound. To ‘put the dampers’ on a concert performance was a phrase used to describe toning the sound of the orchestra down.
To have Egg On Your Face implies a decision or choice has been made which later turns out to be a mistake, leaving a person looking foolish. Some suggest this is a relatively recent phrase and originates in America during the election campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s. At the time it was common for opponents of a candidate to throw eggs at them in order to make them look foolish. There is, however, strong evidence to suggest the Victorian theatres hold the real origin. At the time, during the slapstick comedies of the era, the fall guy would usually have eggs broken on his forehead to make him look foolish, not unlike taking a custard pie in the face. Those crazy Victorians!
To Face The Music has two possible origins. The first is that nervous (often terrified) actors and actresses, on an opening night, would have to go out on stage at the start of their performance and quite literally ‘face the music’ (as the orchestra pit sat directly in front of the stage with the musician facing the actors). In this case ‘facing the music’ meant the actor actually went out and performed, rather than losing their bottle (their nerve). The second explanation suggests that a dishonourable military discharge would always result in the disgraced serviceman being marched off barracks to the sound of drummers playing (being ‘drummed out’), in which case he too had ‘faced the music’.
As Fit As A Fiddle is used to indicate a person or an animal is in good condition, lively and energetic. But since its origin we seem to have lost a letter along the way. Back in the days of medieval court the fittest person was thought to be the fiddler as they danced and scampered about as they played their music throughout the crowds. The phrase widely used at the time was ‘as fit as a fiddler’, which makes a lot more sense.
To indulge in Horseplay is to behave in a boisterous but friendly manner. The origin of this saying lies with the English Morris dancers. At country fairs players riding wooden hobbyhorses usually accompanied Morris dancers. These ‘horses’ were expected to engage in wild and uncontrollable antics to entertain the crowds, much as a clown does in a circus, and the ‘horseplay’ became a popular and important part of the Morris dancers’ act.
Jumping The Shark is a phrase used to describe good television shows that have run out of steam and become average at best. This has been the case with many classic comedies, which run for one series too many and standards and ratings start to fall. One of the great TV shows of the 1970s was Happy Days, featuring The Fonz, the Cunningham family and their friends. All of America and Britain seemed captivated by the show until the writing became tired, and during the last series viewers started to switch off. The final straw seems to have been a scene in which The Fonz (Henry Winkler) was waterskiing in his leather jacket and motorcycle boots and literally jumped over a shark. For many critics enough was enough and that scene marked the end for the show, though not of its well-earned cult status.
When something is On The Nose we take it to be right on time, exact and precise. The reason this phrase is used can be found in the studios of the very early live radio broadcasts where a programme producer would signal to the performers in the sound-proofed booths when they went ‘on air and live’ by touching his nose.
To Play It By Ear means to take a situation as we find it
and then adapt our actions as we have to. In other words to wait and see what happens before reacting. This is a musical expression and can be traced back to the time prior to recording equipment. In those days composers and songwriters had to craft out a piece of music on a piano, and write it down as they went along to remember how the melody went. Musicians also had to listen to one or two instruments and then pick out their parts by ear, which was known as ‘playing it by ear’. These days musicians who can play their part just by listening to a record are said to be ‘playing it by ear’, but that is a lot easier now than it used to be.
To Pull Out All The Stops implies a big, concerted effort is being made to complete a task in time. This is a simple one and alludes to the grand church organs, which used ‘stops’ to tone down the volume of the instrument. At vast gatherings, with many people present, an organist would ‘pull out the stops’ to increase the sound of his organ, enabling everybody at the back to hear it clearly.
Living The Life Of Reilly is one of the strangest sayings of all. It suggests that the person referred to lives a charmed life of ease, and anyone blessed with good fortune is considered to be doing the same. The origin of the phrase is unclear, but it could perhaps lie with the earliest recorded reference, which is found in a song called ‘My Name Is Kelly’, written by H Pearse in 1919. It was a popular music hall song and included the lines ‘Faith and my name is Kelly, Michael Kelly, but I’m living the life of Reilly just the same.’ This lyric is a reference to an earlier song performed in the music halls during the 1880s, which described a character called O’Reilly who was a working-class Irish immigrant. He always claimed to be on the verge of hitting the big time, making himself and everyone around him rich in the process.
If you ask somebody to Put A Sock In It, you are asking them to quieten down. In the early days of sound recording and radio broadcasting, the ability to control instrument volumes was severely limited, but orchestras and bands, the forerunners of the modern pop band, were in high demand. Usually the horn sections would drown out the wind instruments and strings in the enclosed studios. In an attempt to even the sound out, horn players muffled their instruments by literally stuffing a sock into the mouth of their instruments, bringing them down to the same sound level as the rest of the band.
Back To Square One means back to the beginning. The origin of the phrase is easily traced to the 1930s when commentary on football matches began to be broadcast by the BBC. The BBC’s schedule magazine, The Radio Times, devised a numbered grid system which they published enabling commentators to indicate to listeners exactly where the ball was on the pitch. Square one was the goalkeeper’s area and whenever the ball was passed back to him, signalling the start of the forward movement of the team, play was referred to as being ‘back to square one’.
When someone Steals Your Thunder they are taking credit for something that you should properly be credited for. The phrase was in regular use by 1900, especially by jealous politicians claiming their brilliant and original ideas had been stolen by another. The expression was coined in the early 1700s by the playwright and critic John Dennis, who discovered the sound of thunder could be reproduced to great effect by pummelling large tin sheets backstage at the Drury Lane Theatre in London. At a time when sound effects were virtually unheard of, his idea considerably added to the drama and drew much attention. His play, on the other hand, did not attract attention and was replaced by Macbeth in a matter of weeks. Shortly afterwards the embittered Dennis saw a performance of Macbeth and was furious to hear his thunder being reproduced without his permission. Writing a review the following day, he raged, ‘See what rascals they are. They will not run my play and yet they steal my thunder.’
13: THE USA
If we are Barking Up The Wrong Tree we have misunderstood something and are now pursuing the wrong course of action. This is a phrase of north American origin and comes from the old practice of racoon-hunting dating back to the 1800s. Racoons are nocturnal animals and hunters would roam around the forests in darkness, using dogs to pick up a scent. Frightened racoons would scurry to safety in the branches of trees but hunting dogs would stand with their paws on the base of a trunk barking. A hunter would then climb the tree for the catch, but would sometimes find the racoon nowhere to be seen. When that happened it was said the dog had been ‘barking up the wrong tree’.
Bootleggers are well known for selling items, originally alcohol, without proper permission and avoiding tax or other duties, making them cheaper and therefore popular. These days a bootlegger is better known for making copies of music or films and selling them without the artist’s or producer’s permission and without paying any royalties due. The expression was first recorded in the mid-1800s and applied to those who sold illegal liquor to Indians in the Far West. Those making the sales would ride out to the reservations with thin bottles of alcohol concealed in their riding boots and quickly became known by the authorities as ‘bootleggers’. The phrase travelled across the sea to the UK and was soon applied to anyone involved in counterfeit activity.
If we are On The Breadline we are poor and on the verge of destitution, the inference being very close to disaster. This is an American phrase, which travelled across the Atlantic in the 1870s. Around that time a celebrated bakery, run by the Fleischman family in New York, was famous for the quality and freshness of its bread. The reason was that all the bread was baked in the morning and any left over at the end of each day was given to the poor and starving for free, rather than kept for the following day’s customers. A queue, in America, is known as a line, so at the end of each day a ‘breadline’ would form outside the premises, and those on it were close to starvation.
A Bucket Shop is a place to buy cheap tickets, usually airline or theatre tickets. But, before that term was coined, such places were usually illegal brokerage houses that cheated their customers. The original ‘bucket shops’ were seedy American bars where patrons could buy cheap beer by the bucketful and these bars often cheated their customers who had no way of measuring out the amount of beer in the bucket, other than by the glass. But the time they had drunk the bucketful, customers had, more often than not, lost their senses, their bearings, the use of their legs and, more importantly for the innkeeper, count.
Someone is said to have a Chip On Their Shoulder when they are looking for an argument for no apparent reason, at least not one that is obvious to anyone else. Its origin can be found 200 years ago, in a custom used by American schoolboys to challenge each other to a fight. One would place a twig or piece of bark (a chip of wood) on his shoulder and challenge another to knock it off. If he did a fight started. Then, as now, it is a phrase used to describe someone who is spoiling for a row.
Being on Cloud Nine describes a feeling of total happiness and content, or euphoria. Between the 1930s and 1950s the American Weather Bureau divided clouds into classes numbered one to nine. The highest, cloud nine, is the cumulonimbus, which reaches 40,000ft and can appear as white mountains, even on a sunny day. During the 1950s a popular US radio show, Johnny Dollar, ran an episode during which the hero was often knocked unconscious and then transported to ‘cloud nine’ where he was revived and lived to be a hero again in other episodes. It was through that association that ‘cloud nine’ passed into the English language as a popular phrase for the peak of existence.
A Deadline is the final date or time by which a task has to be completed. Originally the deadline was a white line painted at Andersonville prisoner of war camp in America during the American Civil War. Without the use of wire and fencing Andersonville simply had marksmen placed around the perimeter and any prisoner crossing the white line was shot dead, no questions asked. Since then the phrase has been applied to newspaper writers who had to have their article submitted by a certain time before a publication went to print. If they missed the deadline their story was considered dead as it would be out of date by the following day’s print run.
To say somebody is Dressed To Kill is to suggest t
hey are smart, fashionable and set to make a romantic conquest. The origin of this phrase appears to have come from the Cambridge Tribune, an American newspaper. On 10 November 1881 an army recruit, resplendent in his new shiny uniform, was asked how he felt about his appearance. Unimpressed by either the splendour or the question, the soldier simply replied to the interviewer ‘I am dressed to kill.’
If something is described as Fair To Middling, it is generally accepted as being around average, or just above. The phrase was originally used in the American cotton industry in the mid-1800s. Commercial cotton was graded in categories ranging between inferior and fine. Average was known as ‘middling’ and just above it the grade was called ‘fair’. The term was in wide-ranging use across the water by 1837 and in October of that year the Southern Literary Messenger of Richmond, Virginia, reported the following: ‘A dinner on the Plains, Tuesday September 20th–given at the country seat of JC Jones, Esq for the officers of the Peacock and Enterprise. The viands [items of food] were fair to middling.’ In England the phrase was first listed in the Century Dictionary of 1889 as meaning ‘moderately good’.
When something is Flavour Of The Month, it is temporarily in fashion. The phrase is one of the most enduring advertising slogans of the last century and originates in the American ice cream parlours during the 1950s. To encourage customers to try different flavours and increase the sales of less popular types of ice cream, parlours would lower the price of a certain flavour for a month-long promotion. That month’s cheap ice cream would be widely promoted as ‘the flavour of the month’.