Idiom of the Week—“Mistletoe”

Usually at least once during the Christmas holidays, you will be at a party and may find someone standing under a sprig of mistletoe, and take liberty of giving them a kiss.  Strangely, this is only deemed socially acceptable during the Christmas season.  Don’t try it in July.  But why is it OK in December, but not July?  The tradition of kissing under the Mistletoe evolved from the Celtic and the Nordic people who believed that the evergreen Mistletoe had magical, medicinal, and aphrodisiac properties. Mistletoe was also considered as a symbol of Peace by the quarrelsome Norsemen and, if by chance they happened to encounter Mistletoe growing nearby, depending on their mood, they either kissed and made up with their enemies, or they put away their weapons and rested to fight another day.  According to Christmas custom, any two people who meet under a hanging of mistletoe are obliged to kiss.  The custom may be of Scandinavian origin.  It was described as early as 1820 by Washington Irving in his “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon”:

"The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens at Christmas, and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked the privilege ceases."

However, Mistletoe also played a villainous role in the Nordic Myth of Baldur. When Baldur, the Norse God, was born, his mother Frigga made all the plants, animals, and nonliving things on earth promise her that they would never harm him. She, however, forgot the Mistletoe and this oversight was used by the mischief-maker Loki to evil advantage. He made an arrow from a Mistletoe twig and tricked Baldur's blind brother into shooting it at Baldur. Baldur died and winter descended on the planet and it was only after he was restored to life by the gods that things returned to normalcy. Frigga, a surprisingly forgiving Goddess, decided no one should suffer again through the Mistletoe and so made it sacred and a symbol of happiness.

How did the plant get the name ‘Mistletoe’? 

Curiously, the Mistletoe which conjures up such romantic Christmas imagery can hardly be considered romantic on its own merits.  First of all, it is a parasite and, seriously, whoever considered a parasite romantic?  Mistletoe can only grow on the barks of other trees and get its nourishment from them and often at their expense. In Europe, it's found commonly on Apple Trees and somewhat less commonly on Oak Trees – its rare occurrence made the Oak Mistletoe even more valuable to the Ancient Celtic Druids, who cut it with a golden sickle and made it an integral part of all their various rituals. 

More significantly, the seeds of the European Mistletoe can only become capable of germinating after having passed through the digestive tracts of birds – particularly the Mistle Thrush, named for its fondness for eating mistletoe berries.  Sharp-eyed Ancients came to give the Mistletoe its name after observing how the Mistletoe plant always seemed to spring forth from the droppings of this bird.  . 'Mistle', which sounds so lovely and misty, actually means, shall we say, “droppings” in old Anglo-Saxon, and 'toe', which emerged from 'tan', means twig. As they did not know the scientific workings of such seed propagation, they deemed it a miracle and regarded the Mistletoe with awe.

Idion of the week - "Spitting Image"

To be the “spitting image” of someone is to be an exact replica, as in, “Now that Tom has gotten a little older, he is the spitting image of his dad.”  Not to get gross, but surely you’ve heard someone use this phrase, but probably haven’t given it much thought.  And if you did, it seems to be a pretty odd phrase.  There are three theories as to how it came about.  Here they are, presented in order of popularity:

·         The term "spittin' image" is a shortening of the original "spit and image," which means that you are both the stuff that your parents are made of (the spit) and you look like them, too (the image). There are many folk etymologies (fanciful stories made up to explain the usage), but this is the only one that has any basis in fact. Webster's says that one of the older uses dispenses with the image, as in "You are the very spit of your father," i.e., he might just have spit you out.   That idea, if not the exact phrase, was in circulation by the end of the 17th century, when George Farquhar used it in his comic play Love and a bottle, 1689: 

                   "Poor child! he's as like his own dadd(y) as if he were spit out of his mouth."

·      Some linguistic experts think "spit" is derived from "spirit," noting that the southern pronunciation of the letter r is sometimes indistinct. In other words, the original would have been, "She's the very spirit and image of her mother."

·      Some of the folk etymologies have the spit (expectoration) and image (a doll) used in a black magic ceremony to clone you.