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Classroom Activities:
Word Funs for
English Classrooms:
Etymology of Phrases:
The
origins and histories of idioms, sayings, phrases, and other
expressions are often even more fascinating than the
etymologies of the individual words themselves. Here is a
selection of well-known expressions and how they came into
being.
1-To break the ice
(1) to
relax a tense or formal atmosphere or social situation; (2)
to make a start on some endeavor.
This
came into general use, in sense (1), in English through Lord
Byron's "Don Juan" (1823) in the lines:
And
your cold people [the British] are beyond all price,
When
once you've broken their confounded ice.
The
ice in question is metaphorically that on a river or lake in
early spring. To break the ice would be to allow boats to
pass, marking the beginning of the season's activity after
the winter freeze. In this way, this expression has been
connected to the start of enterprise for abour 400 years.
2-To throw in the towel / sponge
to
surrender; admit defeat
In
its original form, to throw up the sponge, this appears in
"The Slang Dictionary" (1860). The reference is to the
sponges used to cleanse combatants' faces at prize fights.
One contestant's manager throwing in the sponge would signal
that as that side had had enough the sponge was no longer
required. In recent years, towels have been substituted for
sponges at fights, and consequently in the expression too.
3-To make hay while the sun shines
to
take advantage of favorable circumstances; they may not
last.
This
old expression refers to the production of hay, or dried
grass. The warmth of the sun is required to dry the grass
and turn it into hay. As the sun is notoriously
unpredictable (it may be cloudy later) the message of this
aphorism is clear. The expression dates back many centuries,
and has changed little in form. John Heywood included the
following in his "All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue"
(1546):
Whan
the sunne shinth make hay.
4-To throw the book at someone
to
punish someone severely.
This
figurative book is presumably a book of rules or laws.
Originally, and still in its normal usage, this expression
meant to impose the maximum penalty. For criminals this is
likely to mean life imprisonment. Nowadays, the expression
may be used more generally, often where the punishment or
reprimand is far less extreme.
5-It's raining cats and dogs
It is
raining torrentially.
The
first known record of this phrase is in Jonathan Swift's
"Polite Conversation" (1873). But it is questionably whether
he originated this peculiar hyperbole. More than two
centuries previously, Richard Brome write a play entitled
"The City Witt" (c.1652) in which one of the characters,
Sarpego, says:
From
henceforth...
The
world shall flow with dunces...
And it
shall rain...
Dogs
and Polecats, and so forth.
6-As mad as a hatter
utterly insane
There
is a number of theories about the root of this similie.
Perhaps the most intriguing, and also plausible, was offered
in "The Journal of the American Medical Association" (vol.
155, no. 3). Mercury used to be used in the manufacture of
felt hats, so hatters, or hat makers, would come into
contact with this poisonous metal a lot. Unfortunately, the
effect of such exposure may lead to mercury poisoning, one
of the symptoms of which is insanity.
Famously, Lewis Carroll wrote about the Mad Hatter in "Alice
in Wonderland" (1865), but there is at least one earlier
reference to the expression: in "The Clockmaker" (1817) by
Thomas Haliburton.
These
days speakers of American English, who use "mad" to mean
"angry" as well as "crazy", may be heard to misuse the
expression in the former sense.
7-Without rhyme or reason
lacking in sense or justification
Rhyme
and reason are synonymous, so this expression means "without
reason". English usage dates back to the sixteenth century,
when the phrase was borrowed from the French na Ryme ne
Raison. It lives on in modern day French, too, as ni rime ni
raison.
8-Crocodile tears
hypocritical grief
It is
proverbial that crocodiles cry like a person in distress to
lure men close enough to snatch and devour them, then shed
tears over the fate of their victim. References to this
proverbial belief are found in ancient Greek and Latin
literature.
In a
book entitled "Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville"
(c.1400) it was written that:
Cokadrilles... Theise serpentes slen men, and thei eten hem
wepynge.
The
fable is found in the works of many early English writers,
including those of Shakespeare.
9-To make no bones about a matter
to
speak frankly and directly
A form
of this expression was used as early as 1459, to mean to
have no difficulty. It seems evident that the allusion is to
the actual occurrence of bones in stews or soup. Soup
without bones would offer no difficulty, and accordingly one
would have no hesitation in swallowing soup with no bones.
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