Touch Idioms

Several words have found themselves used in a number of phrases. We looked at 'Dutch' last time and this time it's 'touch'.

Touch and go is a game similar to tag, first seen in 1812.

Touch football, a 'safe' form of American Football (to the British) where tackling is replaced by a mere touch and is first recorded in 1933.

Touch me not is an expression first recorded in 1590, it's a put down used to deter would be suitors.

Touch screen is first seen as early as 1974.

Touch up, and I'm using this in its earliest sense of 'improvement requiring little effort' is first seen in 1872; and if used in a painting sense, dates from 1715.

Touch wood (or knock on wood) dates from at least Celtic times 2,500 years ago.

Touchdown, the main scoring method in American Football, comes from 1864 and was borrowed from rugby where it is recorded five years earlier.

Touchstone, a fine-grained black quartz used for testing gold and silver alloys, is first seen in the late 15th century.

Touched, a term meaning 'stirred emotionally', is first seen in the middle of the 14th century.

Touch Idioms

Several words have found themselves used in a number of phrases. We looked at 'word' last time and this time it's 'touch'

Touch and go is derived from a chasing game originating in the early 18th century. Note, this is not an acronym for TAG.

Touch football, where the player is considered tackled and has to cede possession, is first seen in 1933.

Touch-me-not is older than the previous two, dating from around 1590 and translated from the Latin noli-me-tangere.

Touch up, in the sense of making corrections to a painting or work of art, is seen from 1715. The sexual reference is difficult to pin down, but appears to be a 20th century adaptation of the earlier usage.

Touch screen technology may only have been popular with the coming of the first iPhone in 2007, but the technology dates back to 1965. Oddly, the phrase did not come into use until 1974, meaning for nine years the touch screen was called ....... well, we don't know.

Touch type is held to have been popularised by Frank Edward McGurrin, a court stenographer from Salt Lake City in Utah, USA. It is likely the skill had been perfected not long after the typewriter was invented in the early 17th century, but McGurrin advertised teaching the skill in 1888 and is the first written evidence as touch typing. That early typewriter would never have seen any touch typing, for the machine invented by Henry Mill was never mass produced and, more importantly, was never known as a typewrite but known as a 'machine for transcribing letters'.

Touchdown, a term synonymous with American football, was first used in 1864 but in the sport of rugby. No aircraft is known to have touched down before 1935. That is not to say they didn't land safely, just that the phrase was not used until then.