Why do we say……?

Part and parcel: the phrase, suggesting an integral part of something greater, was a legal term from the 15th century. As the use of both parts has changed over the centuries, the phrase seems to make little sense today. Part did mean ‘portion’ but parcel referred to ‘something integral with a whole’ – the idiom came into general use about 1800.

Beat around the bush: meaning to avoid or evade a particular topic, should be seen as an expression describing an act lacking the direct approach. It originates in the beaters who flushed out the birds in order to flush them out of their roosts and/or nests. The phrase first appears in the 1570s.

Under the weather: meaning to feel ill, originated at sea when sailors feeling unwell would go below decks to escape the elements – quite literally putting themselves under the weather. The phrase began to come into general use from around 1800.

A piece of cake: meaning ‘easily accomplished’ first appears around 1870. It is thought to have been derived from the awarding of cake in cakewalks (dances) in the US. In the UK, it is generally held to have been introduced from 1936 as RAF slang.

Break a leg: is to wish someone good luck, particularly in the theatre where wishing someone good luck is held to be bad luck. In the early days of the theatre the members of the troupe not performing had to remain behind the leg line – not until they crossed the line, thus breaking the leg, would they get paid. The phrase has been in use for a very long time and it is possible the idea first came about with the Ancient Greeks.

Costs an arm and a leg: or ‘expensive’, is not seen until the middle of the 20th century (although there are various unsubstantiated ideas the phrase dates from the 19th or 18th centuries). It is said to have begun as a comment about the high cost of medical care where limbs may still be amputated.

Once in a blue moon: describing a rarity, an actual ‘blue moon’ is the second full moon in a calendar month (the lunar month of 28 days being shorted than nearly all calendar months). Any blueness has nothing to do with the timing, the phenomenon is purely down to the observer. First seen in the middle of the 19th century, to have two full moons in a calendar month is not exactly that rare, indeed it has to happen on average every 33 months.

A blessing in disguise: or something which may prove rather better or more beneficial than is first apparent. It is first seen in 1746 in a work by James Hervey.

By the skin of your teeth: either barely avoiding or narrowly succeeding; it comes from the King James Version of the Bible, in Job 19:20, which reads: “My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.”

Barking up the wrong tree: pursuing a mistaken course of action, is first seen in the USA in the early 19th century. It began in reference to hunting dogs when pursuing such as raccoons, which may have left a trail to suggest they were up the tree but had escaped.

Ground Idioms

Several words have become part of the language in being used in phrases. Last time we looked at ‘moon’ and now look at ‘ground’.

To stand one’s ground is first recorded in 1707.

To ground in an electrical sense is first seen in 1870 and used in connection with telegraphy.

Grounds in the sense of ‘reason, motive’ is first seen around the end of the 11th century.

Grounds in the sense of ‘source, origin, cause’ is recorded since the end of the 14th century.

To run to ground is a fox hunting term first seen in print in 1719.

Nobody issued any ground rules before 1890, but then it referred specifically to rules laid down for a game or contest on a playing field. Not until 1953 had it been used in the more general sense.

To put on the ground in a figurative sense is first seen in the late 14th century when referring to such as a sermon or argument.

Nobody ran a ship to ground before the middle of the 15th century.

To ground, now most often something done to teenagers, first came to be used to refer to the denial of privileges in the Second World War and specifically to pilots.

Ground as in the past tense of the verb ‘to grind’ first appears in print in 1765.

Grounded, as in instruction through the basics, appears as early as 1540.

Grounds are found as a sediment in the bottom of a liquid, we often hear of coffee grounds, appears for the first time in the middle of the 14th century, well before coffee was drunk in Europe.

Grounds, as in an enclosed parcel of land, is recorded from the middle of the 15th century.

Groundhog, he who had a rather repetitive day in a film of that name, is also known as the American marmot and has been known as a groundhog since 1784.

Groundswell is an odd word, for it refers to a broad and/or deep swell of the sea and features no land at all. First seen in 1783, the figurative sense of ‘groundswell of opinion’ appears from 1817.

Ground floor will not have been popular until an upper floor became more common, hence unknown before 1600; while the figurative sense is not seen until 1864.

Ground breaking has had three distinctive phases beginning with the first sod being dug around 1650; next came the ceremonial planting or digging in 1884; and as an adjective in 1907.

Ground zero is first heard in 1946, a reference to the atomic blasts of that era.

Background appears in the 1750s to refer to that which is to the rear of the main focus of an image, earlier to that it was used, from the 1670s, in a more general sense; and in the figurative sense from 1854.

Groundless, as in ‘having no basis in fact’, is not recorded before the 1620s.

Groundling is first seen in 1620 when referring to a person attending a theatre in the pit where there was neither floor or benches (thus on the bare earth); and later came to refer to anything of bad or unsophisticated taste.

Underground originally meant ‘below the surface’; it came to mean ‘secretive’ by the 1630s; it acquired the meaning of ‘subculture’ in 1953, taken directly from those working against Nazi occupation; and the railway sense is first seen in 1887, although the mode of transport had been in use since 1834 when it was referred to as ‘underground railway’.

Groundwater, in the modern sense of a water source extracted from below ground, is only seen since 1890. Prior to that, and at least from the middle of the 15th century, groundwater was that found at the bottom of a stream.

Fairgrounds have been known since 1741.

Overground would be supposed to have appeared as the same time as ‘underground’, yet surprisingly the term does not appear in print until 1879. (I wonder where the Wombles wombled free before underground and underground were first coined?)

No vessel was to have run aground until around 1500.

Playgrounds were unknown until 1780 and initially only used to refer to the recreational area associated with a school.

Foreground is first seen in an artistic sense in the 1690s when Dryden wrote Art of Painting; the figurative sense is not seen until 1816.

Rather predictably ‘groundwork’ was first used to refer to building foundations, seen from the middle of the 15th century; the more general sense is first seen from the 1550s.

Sierra Leone Place Names Explained

Having blogged samples of my books on English place names and also examined the etymologies of the nations of the world and their respective capitals I thought it time I cast my net a little wider. As English place names share some links to other tongues it would be interesting to see if any of the elements contributing to our place names could be found elsewhere. Continuing an alphabetical tour of the world and a look at the largest of Sierra Leone's cities.

Freetown was named for the four hundred former slaves sent here from London in 1787.

Bo is a town said to be named for its generosity, and that is going to take a little explanation. When an elephant was killed near where the town is now found, many came from the surrounding area for their share. Hunters spent days cutting and carving and sharing out, doing so with the words bo-lor which, in the Mende tongue, means 'this is yours'. The term latterly also came to be translated as 'this is Bo'.

Waterloo was founded in 1819 as a settlement for liberated Africans and named after the recent battle in Belgium where Napoleon lost.

Port Loko gets its name from the Loko people, although this indigenous group refer to themselves as Landogo.

Kabala in both Limba and Fula languages meaning 'at Bala's place'.

Lunsar began as Ro-Sar which, in the local Temne language, means 'where stones are found'. This refers to the iron ore mining beginning in the colonnial era, this when the name became Lunsar.

Note the spellings of the places are English as the piece is written in English.