Pete, Jack, Minnie, et al.

Last time I looked at the origins of 'even-steven' and I started thinking of other phrases with names. Here's the result of my searches, starting with ....

For Pete’s sake - which is simply an alternative to 'For Christ's sake', which could be seen as blasphemy. It is not overly clear when Pete, a reference to St Peter, began to replace the Lord.

Jack of all trades is seen from the 17th century. Almost two hundred years earlier, Jack was a term used to describe the lower classes. Perhaps this came from the French, where Jacque was used to refer to peasants - and their very basic short coat was called a "jacket". As the phrase ends "and master of none" the original inference described one with no specific skill.

Moaning Minnie is one with a rather more interesting story. Indeed, we can even date it to a specific year and a known individual. The year is 1846 and the man is Captain Claude Etienne Minie, and he introduces a soft lead bullet for use in his army's rifles. On firing, the bullet would distort and the bullet made a distinct sound as it flew through the air toward its target. Hence the moaning Minne was originally a bullet - or so one story would have us. There is also the thought of a German mortar, but there is no record of the phrase Moaning Minnie being used during World War I, the phrase only becoming popular during WWII.

Plain Jane first appears in print in the play Doing for the Best by M. Rophino Lacy in 1861. It was once thought to be a reference to Jane Eyre but, while there are some plot similarities, it has latterly been dismissed as coincidental. As a stand-alone phrase it first appears in 1912, which appears to have been coined simply because of its rhyme.

Contrary Mary is another rhyme, but this undoubtedly originated in the nursery rhyme Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. The oldest known version dates from 1744 in Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, which tends to refute suggestions this is a reference to Queen Mary or Mary, Queen of Scots who were both alive in the 16th century and no known written versions of the rhyme date from anywhere near the Tudor period.

Jack the lad is likely dateable back to the early 18th century and Jack Sheppard, a notorious thief who managed to escape from gaol no less than four times. Eventually, when imprisoned for the fifth time, he was hanged at Tyburn. This hardened criminal, he was just 22 years old at the time, had a career in crime lasting just two years.

Johnny on the spot is first recorded in the April 1896 issue of the New York Sun. In that piece, the writer speaks of how the phrase had suddenly become very popular in the New York area, but had no idea where it originated.

Jack Robinson, a figure who appears and disappears very quickly, is first referred to as such around 1700 and even has an entry in a dictionary in 1785.