Red Herrings & White Elephants - The Origins of the Phrases We Use Every Day. Albert Jack
reference is again a nautical one with the hook being a ship’s anchor and the sling being the cradle it rests in while at sea. To ‘sling the hook’ meant to be upping anchor and leaving harbour.
Son Of A Gun began as a dismissive, contemptuous remark, although now it has developed into a more friendly expression, often implying shock and disbelief. Back on the high seas, in the days when women were allowed to live on board the ships, unexpected pregnancy was a regular occurrence. The area behind the mid-ship gun, and behind a canvas screen, was usually where the infant was born. If paternity was uncertain, and it isn’t hard to imagine this happened more often than not, the child would be entered into the log as the ‘son of a gun’.
Another nautical phrase widely used is Spick And Span. These days it indicates something that is new, clean and tidy. Back in the ancient shipyards a ‘spick’ was a nail or tack (a spike) and a ‘span’ was a wooden chip or shaving. Newly launched ships, with wooden shavings still present and shiny nails, would be regarded as ‘all spick and span’ – brand new.
A Square Meal is used to describe a good, solid dinner. It is a nautical phrase dating back centuries. Old battleships had notoriously poor living conditions and the sailors’ diet was equally bad. Breakfast and lunch would rarely be better than bread and water but the last meal of each day would at least include meat and have some substance. Any significant meal eaten on board a ship would be served on large square wooden trays which sailors carried back to their posts. The trays were square in design to enable them to be stored away both easily and securely, hence the phrase ‘a square meal’.
These days Swing The Lead is a metaphor used to describe somebody who is avoiding work by giving the appearance of toiling, but not actually doing anything. It is a phrase with its origins in naval history. Aboard ship it was the job of a leadsman to calculate the depth of water around a coastline by dropping a lead weight attached to a measuring line at the bow end. As the easiest job on board it was usually given to a sick or injured seaman and many feigned illness in an attempt to secure such light work. The phrase came ashore and is now used to describe anybody making excuses or simply going through the motions.
A Washout is a general failure where no trace of any effort has been made. This expression has its origin in the way the old tall ships passed messages to each other. Naval signals would be read and then chalked on to a slate before being passed to the correct authorities. Once the message had been received, the slate would be washed clean so that no traces of the message would be left other than in the correct hands. This was known as a ‘washout’ and it is easy to see how the phrase spread into wider use on land.
To be Under The Weather means to feel unwell and unable to function properly, and is yet another phrase with its origin out at sea. In days gone by when a sailor was ill he would be sent below decks where he could recover. Under the decks and ‘under the weather’ his condition could begin to improve.
If we are told to Whistle For It the inference is that we are highly unlikely to get the result we want. This is another expression dating back to the early sailing ships circumnavigating the world. The belief among some sailors was that when the day was still, and the sails empty, they could summon the wind by whistling for it. Other sailors disagreed and felt whistling was the Devil’s music and instead of a gentle wind arriving a fierce storm would appear. This also explains the origin of the phrase ‘whistling in the wind’. Often, whistling would bring no change in the weather at all (no surprises there) but it did lead to yet another saying, ‘neither a fair wind nor a storm’, meaning the action altered nothing at all.
Once The Balloon Has Gone Up you know there is trouble ahead. During the First World War, observation balloons would be sent into the sky at the first suspicion of an enemy attack, in order to monitor distant enemy troop movements. To most this was a sign of impending action. During the Second World War, strong barrage balloons connected to the ground with thick steel cable were raised around English cities. The idea of these was to impede enemy aircraft, which might crash into them in the darkness or clip their wings on the steel cable. Often they also protected cities from enemy missiles, which would hit a balloon and explode before reaching its target. Their success was immeasurable but to city folk the sign of ‘the balloon going up’ meant an impending air raid. Trouble was indeed ahead.
To Beat A Hasty Retreat means to abandon something, to leave quickly and avoid the consequences of remaining in the same position. This term dates back to the time when a marching army would take its orders from the drummer. Positioned next to the commanding officer, the drummer boy would beat the orders to an army on a battlefield. At night time, or during a battle when things were not going well, the drummer would be ordered to beat a ‘retreat’ and on hearing the signal a fighting army would immediately cease battle and return to company lines as quickly as they could.
To Bite The Bullet is to carry out a task against the doer’s wishes. It means getting on with something that just ‘has to be done’. This phrase has its origins in the British Empire as the Victorians made friends around the world at the point of a gun. At the time of the Indian Mutiny, gun cartridges came in two parts with the missile part being inserted into the base and held in place by grease made of either cow or pork fat. To charge the bullets the two parts had to be bitten apart and the base filled with gunpowder before they could be fired. This task was usually left to low-ranking Hindu soldiers to whom pigs are holy animals, sacred and not to be desecrated. However they were forced, against their wishes, to ‘bite the bullet’ in times of battle.
To Chance Your Arm is to take an uncalculated risk, where the outcome is completely unknown: a blind bet, if you like. There are several suggestions for the origin of this saying, one being that military men, whose rank was displayed in the way of stripes on their sleeves, would take battlefield risks, which could equally lead to promotion or demotion, depending on the outcome. A better explanation (at least one that is more fun) dates back to Ireland as long ago as 1492. During a feud between two distinguished families, the Kildares and the Ormonds, during which Sir James Butler, the Earl of Ormond, and his family took sanctuary inside St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. The Kildares laid siege outside until Gerald Fitzpatrick, the Earl of Kildare, decided the feud had gone too far and attempted a reconciliation. But the Ormonds were suspicious of his offer of peaceful settlement and refused to leave the cathedral. As a desperate measure to prove his good intentions Fitzgerald ordered a hole to be cut into the cathedral door and then thrust his outstretched hand through, putting his arm at the mercy of those inside as it could easily have been cut off. Instead, Butler took his hand and peace was restored. It is not known if that is actually the origin of the phrase, but it should be.
To be Sent To Coventry is to become a social outcast and be ignored by everybody. But why Coventry? During the English Civil War in the mid-1600s Coventry was a strong Parliamentarian town, and Royalist soldiers, captured during the early battles in the Midlands, would be sent to nearby Coventry where they could be certain of a frosty reception. Long before the days of prison camps soldiers loyal to the King could only wander around town looking for food or work but locals would refuse to speak with them, and would even turn their backs and ignore their presence completely. Back then the only entertainment to be found was in local inns but Royalists were barred. Coventry was clearly no place for them but, short of walking back to London, and starving on the way, there was little option but to stay and scavenge. In some cases Royalist soldiers who were deemed useless or not quite committed to the cause would also be garrisoned near Coventry, assuring them of a miserable posting by way of punishment. The idea was that, as no loyalist wanted to be sent to Coventry, they might show more commitment to the King in battle and avoid the posting.
A Feather In Your Cap means you have done something well and it has been duly noted, although not rewarded by any tangible means other than by having a ‘feather placed in your cap’. Its origin seems easy to explain. Any Indian brave fighting for his tribe in America, who killed an enemy, was rewarded by having