Bees Knees and Barmy Armies - Origins of the Words and Phrases we Use Every Day. Harry Oliver
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For my wife, Joanna, the world’s
finest fork chaser.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Food and Drink
2 Military
3 Animals and Nature
4 Sports and Games
5 Politics
6 Sartorial Matters
7 Business and Money
8 False Friends
9 Law and Order
10 Ancient Times
11 Mind and Body
12 Places
13 Work
14 Biblical
15 Nautical
16 Science and Technology
17 Across the Pond
18 Weather
19 Arts and Entertainment
20 Religion and Superstition
21 Medicine
22 Miscellaneous…
Index
Also by Harry Oliver
Copyright
First and foremost, a huge thanks to Steve Burdett for his invaluable research, hard work and advice. Second place goes to my wonderful wife Joanna, without whom I’d probably have taken about a hundred times longer to write this book. You are simply smashing.
Thanks to Graeme Andrew of Envy Design, who has once again put together a marvellous cover design. Mike Mosedale’s illustrations are as wonderful and subtle as ever – I wouldn’t want anyone else’s cartoons in my books. Thanks again, Mike.
Thanks also to Clive Hebard for your editing, and for waiting for a manuscript that was late due to unforeseen circumstances.
It seems many moons ago that I penned March Hares and Monkeys’ Uncles, which was published in 2005 and much to my delight flew up the charts. From the sales of that book it seemed that an enormous number of people have a real interest in our language, and where our everyday phrases originate. Before I knew it I was being asked to write another book on the same subject, yet I had other ideas. I was already working on one about superstitions and old wives’ tales, and was very keen to get going on another about inventions after that. The words and phrases would have to wait a while. It was a tough decision to make, but I’m glad I did.
Since 2005 I have received hundreds of emails and letters filled with corrections and additional information about the entries in March Hares, as well as hundreds of suggestions for entries that might be included in another book. I have taken all of these into account, and some of them are featured in this book. As I began my research I was nervous that I might have to scrape the barrel a bit when seeking out words and phrases to write about – after all, I’d already written a book on the same subject. How wrong I was! English is endlessly rich, and it seems I’d temporarily forgotten how overwhelming a range of phrases I’d been able to choose from in the first place. There were still plenty of rich pickings to be had.
Uncovering the true origins of everyday expressions is always a challenge. Many of them have seductive myths attached to them, and it can be hard to ascertain the truth when fiction seems so much more intriguing. I have tried to get to the bottom of every entry in this book, and often the reality of a phrase’s history can be a little drab when compared to the legend attached to it. Still, it is always fun to include both.
As always, I set out to inform but at the same time entertain, as nobody wants to nod off while reading about our idioms. There are thousands of phrases left to be written about, and I only wish I had the time and space to include them all. As things stand, I have tried to include the most diverting of them.
I have done my best to be as accurate as possible, but with such a vast subject there will always be errors. These aside, I am perpetually astonished and baffled by how much academic texts far more austere than this humble volume tend to disagree with one another on etymological issues. Finally, if there is anything in this book that you would like to comment on, I would love to hear from you. Drop me a line at [email protected]
Till next time, then!
Harry Oliver
FOOD AND DRINK
Alcohol
While most of us are familiar with the charms of alcohol, there was a time when only the fairer sex would have been well acquainted with it. The word comes from the Arabic al kohl, meaning a fine black powder used for eye make-up. Now time for the science: this powder was formed by sublimation (transforming a solid to a vapour) and then recooling back to a solid. The word entered the English language in the sixteenth century, with the definite article assumed to be part of the word, giving alcohol, which described any extremely fine powder. Subsequently it came to mean any fluid obtained through distillation. One such essence, alcohol of wine, and the spirit of any fermented liquor, became the best known of these and is the alcohol we know, love (and sometimes hate!) today.
Blowout
To have, or go on, a ‘blowout’ is to leave behind restraint and consume vast quantities of food, especially rich food of the kind you wouldn’t eat every day. Certainly most of us experience the results of a blowout over the festive period. The phrase originally described a huge indulgent feast, quite crudely illustrating the swelling of the belly. In more recent times the meaning has extended to describe throwing caution to the wind and overindulging in other things, such as alcohol.
Different Kettle of Fish
‘Now that’s a different kettle of fish,’ we sometimes say when drawing a distinction between one matter and another. But we may be unaware that the phrase ‘kettle of fish’ has been around for centuries, and that when preceded by adjectives such as ‘fine’, ‘nice’ or ‘pretty’, the phrase was once used ironically to mean an awful mess. It seems that ‘different kettle’ grew out of ‘fine kettle’. But why kettles, and why fish?
In the eighteenth century, long before the days of Russell and Hobbs, a kettle was any vessel used for boiling things up in, so it wasn’t considered odd to fill a kettle with fish, especially if you lived near the River Tweed, close to the border between England and Scotland. Aristocrats used to hold picnics there, a practice commented upon by Thomas Newte in his Tour of England and Scotland in 1785: ‘It is customary for the gentlemen who live near the Tweed to entertain their neighbours and friends with a Fête champêtre, which they call giving “a kettle of fish”. Tents or marquees are pitched near the flowery banks of the river … a fire is kindled, and live salmon thrown into boiling kettles.’ So it seems there were many fine kettles of fish to be had back then, and we can only assume that,