Idiom of the Week—“Pipe Down”

This week’s idiom comes at the suggestion of Howard Masters.  When we tell someone to “pipe down”, it is generally a less-than-respectful way of telling them to be quiet.  For instance, “As he was attempting to confirm his airline reservations on a cell phone with bad reception, Mr. Harris abruptly turned around and told the kids in the back seat to pipe down so he could hear.”  

Turns out this is one of many idioms that has a nautical origin.  On sailing ships signals were given to the crew by sounding the boatswain's (bo'sun's) pipe, a small whistle-like device used by the bosun, or the petty officer in charge of the deck. One such signal was 'piping down the hammocks' which was the signal for the crew to go below decks and retire for the night. When an officer wanted a sailor to be dismissed below he would have him 'piped down'. This usage is recorded in Royal Navy workbooks from the 18th century; for example, Gillespie's Advice to Commanders & Officers, 1798:  "At four o'clock, P.M. the hammocks should regularly be piped down."

Use of the phrase could well have derived from the fact that, if there was a disturbance onboard ship, officers could quell it by sending the crew below decks, i.e. by piping them down.  Since the deck would become suddenly quiet when the crew retired, "pipe down" came to be used as nautical slang for "be quiet" or "shut up," and by the end of the 19th century it had percolated out into its modern non-seafaring usage.  This transition from being literally “piped down” to being told to “pipe dow”n is supported by records of ship's crew's being told to 'pipe down' rather than signaled to by the use of an actual pipe; for example, this report from The Gettysburg Star And Banner, April 1850:

'I don't care what happens to me now!' wept Peter, going among the crew, with blood-shot eyes, as he put on his shirt. 'I have been flogged once, and they may do it again, if they will. 'Let them look out for me now'. 'Pipe down!' cried the Captain, and the crew slowly dispersed.

This idiom also seems to be the origin the slight variant, “pipe up”, meaning ‘to say what is on your mind’.  For instance, “Just when it appeared that the motion would carry without any objections, an unexpected voice piped up from the back of the room.”  There are no nautical origins to “pipe up” (that is, crews were not “piped up” from below deck), so it appears that as the phrase “pipe down” found its way into everyday usage, it seemed only logical that “pipe up” should come to mean just the  opposite

Idiom of the Week-"Pan out"

I.           Idiom of the Week—“Pan out”

When something “pans out”, it means that it has worked out favorably.  Conversely, when something doesn’t pan out, it means that it has turned out unfavorably.  For instance, “Peter decided that if his music career didn’t pan out, he could always go back to school.”  This expression originated in the California Gold Rush, when prospective miners began looking for gold nuggets in the riverbeds surrounding the mines.  When the prospectors saw something sparkling at the bottom of a stream, they would take a handful of mud from the riverbed and wash it in a pan to see whether the minerals included any gold.  Because gold is very dense, with a little skill the pan could be swirled at just the right speed to allow the heavier gold to settle to the bottom of the pan, while the dirt and low-density particles would wash over the side.  If the shiny material didn’t settle in the pan when everything else has been rinsed away, it was likely iron pyrites, or "fool's gold."

Uninformed people who have not read the 12/11/2009 edition of the Network Solutions Weekly Update think that there is another idiom that originated from these gold miners—“flash in the pan”.  According to their thinking, prospectors who panned for gold supposedly became excited when they saw something glint in the pan, only to have their hopes dashed when it proved not to be gold but a mere 'flash in the pan'.  This, of course, is a mistaken assumption, since we know the actual origin of this phrase comes from the late 17^th century and refers to flintlock muskets that used to have small pans to hold charges of gunpowder used to fire the bullet.  It was not uncommon at the time for a rifleman to attempt to fire his musket, and for the weapon to misfire because the gunpowder in the firing pan flared up without a bullet being fired.  Such an occurrence was literally a “flash in the pan”, and eventually became broadened to its current meaning.

Idiom of the Week—“In Spades”

When we say something is done “in spades”, we mean that it is done in abundance or to a great degree.  For instance, if more volunteers turned out to help for a project than we anticipated, we might say that people turned out “in spades”.  It's easy to believe that this expression derives from the imagery of digging with spades and that 'in spades' is just short for 'in spadefuls'. However, the spades concerned here aren't the garden tools but the suit of cards. Spades is the highest ranking suit in the game of Contract Bridge, a very popular pastime in the USA in the early 20th century, which is when and where the phrase originated.

Despite the agricultural-sounding name and the shovel-like shape, the suit of spades in cards has nothing directly to do with garden spades. Playing Cards originated in Asia and spread across Europe around the 14th century, arriving in England a little later than in Spain, Italy and Germany.  The Italian versions of early cards used the suits Cups, Swords, Coins and Batons, which, on migration to England, became Hearts, Spades, Diamonds and Clubs. The image for Spades on English and French cards looks somewhat like that of the German Acorn or Leaf suits, but its origin is revealed by its name rather than its shape. The Spanish and Italian for sword is 'espada' and 'spada' respectively, hence the suit 'Swords' became anglicized as 'Spades'.

The term “in spades” was often used prior to the 20^th century in card games, where Bridge contracts might be entered into in the minor suits of Clubs or Diamonds or, for the higher scores, 'in Hearts' or, best of all, 'in Spades'.  From here, it was a relatively short jump to apply the term “in spades” (outside of sphere of card games) to anything that was done to the highest degree or with the highest impact.  The figurative meaning, i.e. the non-cards-related 'very greatly' meaning, isn't found in print before the 1920s. The American journalist and writer Damon Runyon used the expression that way in a piece for Hearst's International magazine, in October 1929:

"I always hear the same thing about every bum on Broadway, male and female, including some I know are bums, in spades, right from taw."

It isn't possible to be sure that the figurative 'in spades' derives from Bridge, but the coincidence of the time and place of the origin of the expression and the popularity of the card game certainly does suggest a connection.

Idiom of the Week—“Warm the Cockles of your Heart”

Well, after taking some heat from Rob Newman for last week’s “lame” idiom, I am feeling a lot of pressure to come through with something especially witty today.  So here goes:

An inspirational story or nostalgic movie is often said to "warm the cockles of your heart", but where exactly are the cockles of your heart located?  The cockles of your heart are more metaphorical than physical, although the phrase can be traced back to 15th century medical beliefs. Unfortunately, the etymological path gets a little murky after that.

Under one popular theory, the phrase "cockles of your heart" is derived from the Latin description for the heart's chambers, cochleae cordis. It is believed that the word 'cockles' is a corrupted version of cochleae, most likely entering the popular vernacular as a form of slang.  The prevailing medical opinion of that day and time was that the ventricles of the human heart resembled the concentric shells of small mollusks or snails, also known as cochleae or cockles.

Another theory concerning the "cockles of your heart" dates back to the Middle Ages.  During this time, there were an abundance of small mollusks and snails whose shells were vaguely heart-shaped. In the old Irish folk song "Molly Malone," a reference is made to these edible mollusks as "cockles and mussels." It is possible that the shape of these cockle shells inspired a comparison to the chambers of the human heart. This theory sounds plausible, but the Latin root for the mollusks and the Latin root for the heart are not similar. If the phrase "cockles of your heart" did come from a comparison to mollusk shells, then it may have been a form of slang all along.

One final possibility of the origin of "warm the cockles of your heart" may be an alternative definition of "cockles." Some say the chambers of a kiln were called cockles, although that usage has apparently fallen out of common use. Under this theory, the cockles of your heart are analogous to the cold chambers of a kiln, which must be warmed to a certain temperature in order to function at its best. It could be argued that a nostalgic movie or other life-affirming experience warms the cockles of your heart in the same sense that a fire warms the "cockles" of a kiln.

There is even a theory that the French word for shell, coquille, is so close in pronunciation and meaning to "cockle" that a comparison to the shell-like chambers of the human heart was inevitable. Using foreign words in casual conversation is an age-old practice in any language, and it is possible that the phrase "cockles of your heart" may have evolved from the more affected "coquilles of your heart."

Idiom of the Week—“Kick the Bucket”

 Idiom of the Week—“Kick the Bucket”

This is a pretty common idiom, so it’s hard to believe we haven’t addressed it yet.  But I went back and checked the archives, and we haven’t explained “kick the bucket” yet, so here we go.  To “kick the bucket” means to die, and was the inspiration behind the title of the recent movie “The Bucket List”, which refers to a list of things you want to accomplish in your lifetime before you die (or, “kick the bucket”).

The link between buckets and death was made as early as 1785, when the phrase was defined in Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue as:  "To kick the bucket, to die."  As we have found with a lot of idioms, there are multiple theories as to the origin of “kick the bucket”.  Here are the two most popular:

1.        The Suicide/Execution Theory

One theory is that the phrase originates from the notion that people hanged themselves (or were hanged by a mob or posse) by standing on a bucket with a noose around their neck and then kicking the bucket away (or having it kicked away by someone else). There are no citations that relate the phrase to suicide and, in any case, why a bucket instead of, say, a chair or a crate or a rock?  This theory, although popular doesn't have a lot of evidence to support it.

2.       The Butcher Theory

         This theory has a little more historical credibility.  It seems that in 16th century England, the word “bucket” had an additional meaning (and in some parts of England, still carries this meaning.  The work “bucket” was used to refer to a beam or yoke used to hang or carry items. The term may have been introduced into English from either the French “trébuchet“, meaning a balance, or “buque“, meaning a yoke.  Many of you are probably thinking right now, “Wait a minute.  Didn’t Shakespeare use the term ‘bucket’ in reference to a yoke in his play Henry IV Part II, in 1597?”  Well, as a matter of fact he did.  Here’s the citation:  "Swifter then he that gibbets (or hangs) on the Brewers Bucket."  Over time, the wooden frame (or yoke) that was used to hang animals up by their feet for slaughter came to be called a bucket.  As you can imagine this was a rather messy affair, and it was not unusual for the animals to put up a struggle during the process.  In fact, it was pretty common for the animals to undergo a violent spasm after death and quite literally 'kick the bucket'.  It doesn’t take much imagination to see how this phrase could make the leap from being applied to slaughtered animals to being applied to expired human beings.

Idiom of the Week—How did the symbol“$” come to mean “dollars” (and, coincidentally, why is 25 cents sometimes called “Two bits”)?

      Those of you who remember typing on an actual typewriter may recall that the dollar sign originally had two vertical lines through it, not one (as in the symbol shown above).  Not surprisingly, there are multiple theories as to how this symbol came about.  Here they are for your consideration:

1.       The United States Abbreviation Theory

One of the most popular theories is that the dollar sign is derived from the initials of the United States. If you superimpose a capital "U" on a capital "S" then drop the lower part of the "U", what you end up with is a version of the dollar symbol with two strokes. This theory was endorsed by the American libertarian philosopher and staunch defender of capitalism, Ayn Rand, in her novel Atlas Shrugged. Chapter 10 is entitled the Sign of the Dollar. Rand claimed the dollar sign was the symbol not only of the currency, but also the nation, a free economy, and a free mind.

2.       The Peso Abbreviation Theory

A more widely accepted theory nowadays is that the sign owes its origins to the Spanish peso.  One version of this theory is that the standard abbreviation of "peso" was simply "P", but the plural form was a large "P" with a small "s" above it and to its right. This was simplified by retaining only the upward stroke of the "P" and superimposing the "S" upon it. Hence the symbol of the dollar.  But if the peso abbreviation theory is the correct one why is the US dollar sign sometimes written with two vertical strokes? A possible explanation is that the best known Spanish Peso coin had two pillars engraved on the reverse side to symbolize the "Pillars of Hercules" at Gibraltar and the words "Plus Ultra" indicating that beyond the Pillars of Hercules there were other lands. That coin was called the Pillar Dollar in the British colonies in North America and the two pillars may have become the two strokes in the Dollar sign.

3.       The Piece of Eight Theory

There is another version of the theory linking the sign to the Spanish peso. The peso was subdivided into eight smaller units of currency called “reals”, hence the name piece of eight. This was represented as P8 or /8/. Eventually it became customary to write the oblique strokes across the figure 8. In the past precious metal coins were sometimes split into pieces to provide small change. The use in America of the expression two bits for 25 cents is a legacy of this since if a Spanish dollar or peso or piece of eight was split into quarters each part would consist of two pieces (or “two bits”) of the original eight pieces (or “reals”).  The 8 with two strokes became a letter S with two strokes since S looks like an 8 that has been split, as when a peso was broken to provide change in reals. Eventually a further simplification was introduced by dropping one of the strokes.

Idiom of the Week—“Keep Your Nose to the Grindstone”

To “keep your nose to the grindstone” means to apply yourself conscientiously to your work.  There are two rival explanations as to the origin of this phrase. One is that it comes from the supposed habit of millers who checked that the stones used for grinding cereal weren't overheating by putting their nose to the stone in order to smell any burning. The other is that it comes from the practice of knife grinders when sharpening blades to bend over the stone, or even to lie flat on their fronts, with their faces near the grindstone in order to hold the blades against the stone.  All the evidence is against the miller's tale, most because the stones used by millers were commonly called millstones, not grindstones. The two terms were sometimes interchanged but the distinction between the two was made at least as early as 1400. 

The first known use of this phrase in print occurred in 1532 in an obscure work by John Frith:

"This Text holdeth their noses so hard to the grindstone, that it clean disfigureth their faces."

The phrase appears in print at various dates since the 16th century. It was well-enough known in rural USA in the early 20th century for this picture, taken from around 1910, which alludes to the 'holding someone's nose to the grindstone' version of the phrase, to have been staged as a joke.