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.

Buzzwords

Regular readers of my blog will already know of my fascination with words and etymologies. As we grow older with have a natural resistance to change – the old music, films, actors, et al were always better. The same is true with language. Slang terms used by younger generations become part of the language remarkably quickly and loan words from other languages pepper the English tongue. Cola, boogie, admiral, tea, yacht, orange, candy and ginger are all common enough English words but all are borrowed from other languages.

In recent years we in the United Kingdom have been treated to the introduction of various phrases introduced from the United States of America. Some arrived through business contacts and many others through the medium of television. It did occur to me that some who use the phrases would have no notion of the original meaning. For example to say “Stepping up to the plate” is, as most will know, a reference to take responsibility and a baseball term. Those who have no knowledge of this particular sport should be made aware this is where the next player takes his stance when coming in to bat. For those in the United States to hear the phrase “Walking to the crease” (or perhaps “Taking guard”) would perhaps be equally mysterious, cricket being even less popular west of the Atlantic than baseball is to the east.

This made me think about other popular phrases.

“Touch base” – another baseball analogy. For those who don’t know it’s the bit where the running chap has to get in order to be ‘safe’ and not run out. I have to say I have never felt at all safe when anyone suggests it is time we touch base. The message here is to make contact and first used in the United States around the 1970s and in the United Kingdom in the 1990s.

“Thinking outside the box” – a reference to unconventional thinking and thought to originate in a puzzle test. The aim is to connect all nine dots (three rows of three) with four straight lines and never lifting the pen from the paper nor going over the same line a second time. Answer is searchable online and I won't spoil it. Suffice to say the solution involves in drawing the lines outside the area of the ‘box’ formed by the nine dots.

“Proactive” – one of my personal hates (probably because former England cricketer turned commentator Nasser Hussain uses it incessantly) and coined in the 1930s. Here the intention was to create a word to have the opposite meaning to ‘reactive’ – ie don’t react to a situation but do something to prevent the situation ever happening.

“At the end of the day” – in the modern era has only been seen since the late 1970s or early 1980s. In the 21st century it is used as ‘in the final analysis’ when the original usage was instead of ‘eventually’. Both these alternatives are infinitely better – and I’m not the only one to loathe this phrase, for in 2008 it was voted the most irritating,

“Going forward” (also “Moving forward”) – nearly always accompanied by an equally irritating gesture and meaning ‘in the future’ or even ‘soon’, nobody seems to have any idea when it came into use (outside board meetings) or just why anyone thought it made any sense at all.

“Paradigm” (also “Paradigm shift”) – began as a scientific term. Now I fully understand the need to create words in the name of science. Imagine Sir Isaac Newton having to write about gravity for the first time and deciding upon a name for this force, what would you have come up with? The original use of “Paradigm shift” was by Thomas Kuhn in his The Structure of Scientific Revolution published in 1962. For example science showed how germs were the cause of disease when previously it was thought to be a result of “bad air” and exactly how ‘malaria’ got its name. As a buzzword it is among the newest, appearing as recently as the late 1990s.

“Push the envelope” – was not first used in Tom Wolfe’s book The Right Stuff published in 1979 but likely the reason for its popularity. The use of ‘envelope’ here is nothing to do with letters but is a mathematical envelope defined as “The locus of the ultimate intersections of consecutive curves”. In some circles the phrase is altered to “Max the envelope”, a ludicrous idea as we are all aware envelopes are called Manilla, not Max.

“Cut to the chase” – or ‘get to the point’ is thought to have come from silent film director Hal Roach. In the days when all film comedy was visual, a chase was the inevitable conclusion to a film as it made for good viewing and could be extended to fill the void left by the lack of dialogue. However there is a record of an earlier form coming from around 1880 (and well before Hollywood). Here the phrase is given as “Cut to Hecuba”. Shakespearian devotees will know this as Act II, Scene II of Hamlet, thus avoiding the long speeches and soliloquies.

“Downsizing” – first used by car manufacturers to refer to the size of the vehicles they produced and almost immediately used by them to explain why they were reducing costs by cutting numbers of employees and/or wage bills. Today, especially in the United Kingdom, it has been introduced into daily speech by the innumerable presenters of daytime television programmes who like to show us other people looking to buy their next home (and who seem obliged to use the word ‘property’ at least once in every sentence). Oddly these same presenters do not use ‘upsizing’ for those who want a bigger home but always speak of needing “More space” or “A bigger home”.

“Decluttering” – ye gods what an appalling word! It would make more sense if we had introduced ‘cluttering’ as a verb meaning ‘to make a mess or untidy’ either at the same time or earlier. Indeed instead of telling my mother “Nothing!” or “Not much!” when she asked what I had been doing in my room, I would have enjoyed saying I was “Busy cluttering, Mumsie”.

All these do bring to mind a phrase my father used a lot and one which I wish would have or maybe will catch on. On hearing some gibberish being spoken he would describe it as “Talking scribble”.

Why Do We Say That?

I was recently asked to explain a very British expression by a non-Brit who had no idea of the meaning. Of course no sooner had I explained and I was wondering why I had said it in the first place and where such a weird expression came from. Before long I had uncovered the origins of several very British comments and written the following.

Don't get shirty with me! - was how it all started, not that I had realised ever using a phrase advising the other to hold their temper. It probably shares an origin with 'keep your shirt on', meaning the same thing and maybe suggesting there was a tendency to remove one's shirt before a fight.

Bob's your uncle - an expression meaning 'as simple as that'. It is generally held to have started sson after 1887 when Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil found a nice little job for his nephew Arthur James Balfour when assigning him to the post of Secretary for Ireland. Whether this was earned or blatant nepotism, it is easy to see why some would think it was easier for him to get the job when Bob is your uncle.

A little black over Bill's mother's - suggests there's a dark cloud on the horizon and rain seems imminent. It seems many are trying to tie this down to 'Bill' Shakespeare and his mother. Yet as usage appears to be well-nigh national a more likely explanation is that William (or Bill) has been a very common name for centuries and thus any direction (be there a dark cloud present or not) would almost certainly represent the direction of a woman who had had a son of that name.

Double Dutch - is something baffling but did not originally refer to the Dutch. The similarities in the Dutch and Germany languages would have been unintelligible to the English. As German language was also refererred to as High Dutch, this was originally a slur on German or Germany.

A pig's ear - is to make a mess of, a very poor attempt. It is derived from another phrase first seen in the sixteenth century when an English clergyman by the name of Stephen Gosson wrote in the story Ephemerides that someone was "Seekinge too make a silke purse of a Sowes eare", ie engaged in a hopeless task. Thus to make a pig's ear of something was exactly the reverse, turning something useful into something utterly useless.

Like it or lump it - a very odd comment as it suggests 'like' is the opposite of 'lump' which it clearly is not. At least not today. However in the sixteenth century 'lump' was used to describe someone's sulky or moody expression. Thus while the use of 'lump' in this sense is unknown today, the phrase is still surprisingly commonplace.