Bees Knees and Barmy Armies - Origins of the Words and Phrases we Use Every Day. Harry Oliver
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either claim.
What is known is that the phrase first came into use in America in the 1920s, when there was a vast explosion of animal-inspired nonsense phrases. Other examples include ‘the cat’s pajamas’ and ‘the cat’s whiskers’, the second of which has stood the test of time better than the first. Others fell right out of use, but it is worth listing a few examples just because they are so quirky. So, next time you’re stuck for a fresh comparison, why not try ‘the cat’s miaow’, ‘the gnat’s elbow’, ‘the monkey’s eyebrows’, ‘the eel’s ankle’, ‘the elephant’s instep’, ‘the snake’s hip’ or the ‘bullfrog’s beard’.
Bête Noire
This striking phrase originated in France and is still used there and by English-speakers to describe something or someone unwanted, hated or feared. It’s best to avoid a bête noire if possible, as it translates as ‘black beast’, an image that very effectively conjures up an adversary both terrifying and hard to conquer.
Birds and the Bees
This alliterative phrase rolls off the tongue when we require a euphemism for sex. For hundreds of years the phrase was used to refer to nature in general. Then, it seems, at some point in the early twentieth century it came to mean something a little more specific, all thanks to the education system. Children needed to be told the facts of life, but in the past prudish educators did not think it proper to speak directly about the mechanics of human reproduction and so analogies were used instead. Children were told how the female bird lays eggs and how bees pollinate flowers. In this way it was hoped that they would somehow get the message about ‘the birds and the bees’ and not ask too many awkward questions.
Black Sheep
The ‘black sheep’ of a family or group of unrelated people is the one out of favour, an outsider, an oddball or a useless member. The expression originates from the eighteenth century, when the wool of a black sheep born into a herd of white sheep could not be dyed as a white sheep’s could, yet it required just as much maintenance for the shepherd, making it of little worth. The colour black, particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was also associated with wickedness and the devil.
Bolt from the Blue
A ‘bolt from the blue’ is a complete surprise. The blot is a lightning bolt and the blue is the sky. Normally we expect lightning to strike only from a very dark, stormy sky, so a bolt that shoots to earth on a clear day would come as a real surprise. Although the phrase was probably around in everyday speech some years before, it was first recorded in writing in 1837. ‘Arrestment, sudden as a bolt out of the blue, has hit strange victims,’ wrote Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle in The French Revolution.
Bull in a China Shop
The image of a bull creating havoc in a china shop is a vivid one, and this phrase perfectly describes a situation where someone goes about solving a delicate problem in too rough a manner. It has not been suggested that the phrase can be traced to a real bull in a real china shop, but we can ascertain that the phrase does not date back further than the eighteenth century, for porcelain known as china was not made before then. It first appeared in print in 1834, in Frederick Marryat’s novel Jacob Faithful. That is not to say that the British writer, who was a pal of Charles Dickens, invented the phrase. Its ultimate origin is a mystery, but one theory is that it may have been inspired by Greek writer Aesop’s fable about an ass in a potter’s shop. Needless to say, the animal knocks over a few fragile items.
Butterfly
We all know what a butterfly is, so wouldn’t a more sensible name be ‘flutterby’? After all, the little creatures appear more closely linked to fluttering than butter. It has been suggested that butterflies were originally called flutterbies, but alas that is not the case. Also posited is the theory that the name for these often beautiful winged insects goes back to medieval tales of fairies and witches disguised as butterflies that went around stealing butter when no one was looking. This too is nonsense. The word is simply an amalgamation of ‘butter’ and ‘fly’ and developed from the Old English buterflege. Yet the question remains: what do butterflies have to do with butter? They are not known for liking butter, and the most reasonable idea is that many species of butterfly have a creamy, butter-like colour.
Cat and Mouse
To play ‘cat and mouse’ with someone is to toy with them for a long time, as a cat would a mouse, with the aim of destroying them. This expression has the suffragettes (women fighting for the right to vote) in Britain at the start of the twentieth century to thank for its existence. When many of the suffragettes were arrested they would go on hunger strike – a tactic to be repeated throughout that century by other prisoners – to draw attention to their cause and embarrass the government. Various tactics were attempted by the government, including force-feeding, before it hit upon the Prisoners’ Temporary Discharge for Health Act. Passed in 1913, this law allowed the prison authorities to detain a hunger-striking suffragette for so long that she became very weak and unable to actively protest. They would then release her, but she remained effectively on probation and could be arrested and forced to serve out the rest of the sentence, should she return to health and be caught breaking the law again. This law came to be known as the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’, and so an evocative expression was born.
Cook Your Goose
The phrase, which means to destroy someone’s chances or hopes, can be traced back to a sixteenth-century event which may or may not have happened. Either way, the expression has retained currency. King Eric of Sweden had arrived to attack an enemy town. To show their contempt for the King and his small band of soldiers, the town’s burghers hung a goose from a tower and then sent a message to him that asked, in effect, ‘What do you want?’ ‘To cook your goose,’ came the reply, whereupon King Eric’s men set fire to the town, literally cooking the symbolic goose in the process.
Curiosity Killed the Cat
Not everyone is familiar with the 1980s pop band of the same name, but surely most people know that ‘curiosity killed the cat’. In fact, this proverb is related to a sixteenth-century saying, ‘Care killed the cat. A cat has nine lives, but care would wear them all out,’ at which time ‘care’ meant sorrow or worry. This warning that worry could lead you to an early grave was the accepted version of the phrase until as recently as the early twentieth century, when ‘curiosity’ rather than ‘care’ became the downfall of the cat. Whether or not ‘satisfaction brought him back’, as the saying goes, remains to be seen.
Draw in Your Horns
To ‘draw in (or pull in) your horns’ is an idiom that describes a decision to exercise self-restraint, or draw back from a previous position, in the interests of self-preservation. It is commonly used of a pragmatic response to a change in financial circumstances. The expression, thought to date back to the fourteenth century, refers to snails’ habit of retracting their horn-like eye stalks to protect them from imminent danger.
Drop like Flies
People dying or becoming ill or incapacitated one after the other in quick succession are often said to be ‘dropping like flies’. The origin of the phrase is unknown, although it is easy to imagine that whoever coined it may have been thinking of the extreme brevity of the fly’s life when drawing the comparison. It has been suggested that the expression is linked to the fairy tale The Brave Little Tailor, by the Brothers Grimm, in which a boy kills several flies with ease and makes a belt out of them, but the phrase doesn’t appear in the story.
Eager Beaver
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