Why do we say that?

Words, phrases, expressions, idioms, slang: The English language contains some strange things, which we usually say without any thought to the term's origin.

Sometimes history is hidden within a single word.

Biographical

• Jacquard
  Joseph Jacquard (1752-1834) was the son of a silk weaver from Lyon, France. He followed his father in the weaving trade, but went bankrupt. In 1790 he restored a 50 year old loom designed by another Frenchman named Jacques de Vaucasan, and from this experience Jacquard developed an interest in mechanized weaving. After the French Revolution, Jacquard returned to his experiments. In 1801, he created a loom that used a stack of punched cards to direct the pattern of the warp. The material so created was increasingly intricate, and could be woven without any skill at all, thus leading sabotage. Under control of the French government, Jacquard was given a royalty on every loom sold. By 1812, there were 11,000 Jacquard looms in France. By 1820 the loom was the center of Britain's textile industry. Jacquard died a very wealthy man and his name has been forever attached to cloth of intricate design. In the latter 19th century, Charles Babbage adapted the punch-card system to speed the calculation of the Census, which was the forerunner of the calculator and modern computer programming.
  
  
• Martinet
  Jean Martinet was a 17th century French army officer who demanded strict observation to all forms of military discipline. The name martinet now refers to anyone who lays unrelenting stress on rigid adherence to details, to forms, codes and methods. The term is derogatory.
  
  

Business

• Buy a pig in a poke and Let the cat out of the bag
  In medieval markets a farmer might sell a baby pig wrapped up in a bag or poke (related to our word 'pocket'). Buying merchandise, sight unseen, was a risky business, hence our expression to "never buy a pig in a poke." After all, what if the farmer is a cheat and that isn't a pig in there at all. You might unwrapped your purchase only to "let the cat out of the bag" -- thus revealing something hidden.
  
  
• Chalk me up another one and put another on my tab
  Tavern terms relating to how the barkeep tracked a customer's bill for the evening. If the bartender kept his records on the wall behind the bar, he'd put a chalk mark up for each customer's drink, hence "chalk me up another one." Another method of reckoning was the barkeep making on mark on his shirt cuff or another place. This was the "tab" that was due at the end of the evening.
  
  
• Lock, stock & barrel
  When muskets and rifles were hand-made, each was a unique work of a particular craftsman. When later standards allowed for interchangeable parts, it was possible to repair a damaged weapon by purchasing the part needed -- the firing mechanism (lock), the wooden frame (stock) or the metal firing tube (barrel). Of course, one could always purchase a new weapon in its entirety -- lock, stock and barrel.
  
  
• Loose woman and Round-heeled woman
  In the days when all women, of whatever social station, wore corsets and tight lacing was a fashion necessity, a woman engaged in "personal entrepeneurship" would find the repeated lacing and unlacing of her corset to be a hindrance. More likely, between "professional engagements" she would lace her corset just enough to be functional. Hence, her morals were considered comparable to her corset lacing.
  
  A Round-heeled woman is another reference to a professional woman, engaged in particular to walking the streets in search of clientele -- the result of which was the wearing down of her shoes, especially at the heels.
  
  
• Mind your Ps & Qs
  The term comes from taverns and public houses, used when telling the worker behind the bar to keep track of the "pints" and "quarts" and never mind the customers' private business.
  
  
• Upper-case & lower-case letters
  In the days when all printed type was hand-set, the individual letters were cast in lead and separated into compartments within two large cases. The capital letters were in the case above and the small letters in the case below, hence the upper-case and the lower-case.
  
  

Domesticity

• Carrot and stick
  There are two possible derivations for this term. One is the simple way to get a donkey to move forward, by dangling a tempting carrot on the end of a stick just out of the donkey's reach. Thus the animal would move ever forward in quest of the unobtainable -- at least until the journey's end.
  The other meaning is more brutal in application -- to offer a carrot as a reward for compliance or a beating with a stick for refusal.
  
  
• Chairman of the board
  During the colonial period, even well-to-do families had little furniture. There was usually one good chair -- always for the family patriarch -- while the rest of the family either sat on benches or stood. The table was in many cases one or two wide boards set up on trestles at either end. Should a distinguished visitor be a guest for dinner, he would be offered the only chair and permitted to preside over the meal. Thus he became the 'chair man of the board.' The title is still reserved today for the person responsible to preside over business meetings.
  
  
• Room and board
  The room is obvious -- its a place to sleep. But what about board? The term refers to the early practice of eating at a table made up of one or two wide plants laid across trestles at either end with benches along each side. In this sense, then, board refers to meals. Similarly a "boarder" is someone living in a home with others not of his/her family and taking meals with them.
  
  
• Spinster
  Elizabethan England shifted its economy to one of wool export. In particular, the English shipped spun yarn to Flanders to be woven into tapestries. But the Industrial Revolution was still centuries away and all spinning was done by hand, on either a drop spindle or a spinning wheel. A tax of thirty pounds spun yarn per year was levied on each household -- a considerable hardship for the housewife who had to spin all the thread to clothe her own family. The solution was to have an unmarried female relative living with the family. She received room and board in return for handling the extra spinning and other household chores. If she married, she'd have her own family to mind, the yarn tax to fill, and another spinster to find to help her out.
  
  
• Threshhold
  When every edifice was drafty and cold, from peasant house to noble castle, the floor was lined with reeds or thresh into which bones and refuse were thrown. When it got too filthy, another layer was placed on top. The thresh 'hold' was the plank across the bottom of the doorway that kept the thresh inside.
  
  
• Throw the baby out with bath water
  In the days before indoor plumbing and a fastidious adherence to Cleanliness is next to Godliness, bathing was an infrequent affair. Many families, both in the colonies and in their countries of origin, faced the arduous task of heating water over a fire or on the stove and filling a metal tub (definitely not a comfy six-foot long stretch-out-and-relax model). There was a strict order of protocol as to who bathed when. The family patriarch went first, followed by the sons, then the wife, the daughters, and lastly the baby. The bath water was not changed between each bather, so by the time it was the baby's turn the water was murky enough to loose the little darling. While we use the expression now to mean don't throw out the good with the bad, there was a time when bathing practices presented a real risk to infants.
  
  
• Well-heeled
  Akin to the term "round-heeled", well-heeled meant the person could afford good shoes, new enough not to be worn at the heel.
  
  

Legal

• By hook or by crook.
  Although it now means by any means necessary, it was originally a medieval term covering the rules for gathering firewood in the royal forest. Peasants could pick up anything on the ground and pull down any dead limbs that could be loosened with a billhook or a shepherd's crook (i.e. no axes, saws, etc.)
  
  
• Might as well hang for a sheep as a lamb.
  When the penalty for stealing was death, regardless of the value of stolen item, a thief might as well hang for a large crime than a small one.
  
  
• Sixteen will get you twenty and Jailbait
  A slang term for the legal perils of having sexual relations with minors, commonly called statuatory rape. In particular, if the girl is sixteen or under, her non-minor boyfriend could expect to get a sentence of up to twenty years.
  
  Similarly, the term jailbait refers to a sexually attractive, but minor female who could lead a man into such legal jeopardy.
  
  
• Rule of thumb
  In the days when a husband could legally beat his wife, the law offered some minor protections to the women, in that the stick used could be no thicker than the man's thumb. We now use the term to mean any customary rule or action.
  
  
• The third degree
  This term comes from the Spanish Inquisition. A person could be denounced to the Inquisitors by two anonyous witnesses. The accused was presumed guilty and all efforts of the Inquisitors were to extract confession and repentence. The more vigorously the accused denied the charges, the more guilty he was assumed to be.
  There were some rules, but not many since the overwhelming belief was that the Roman Catholic Church must be purged of all heresy. Accused heretics could be imprisoned for years, during which they were tortured. Supposedly torture could only be used once, but it could be continued. Also forms of torture applied by the Church could not draw blood, as this would violate Canon Law -- hence, heretics were burned. Children and the elderly could expect mild suffering. Pregnant women were exempt from torture, but only until the baby was born.
  There were three degrees of torture approved by the Church. Those methods used in the first degree, were mild and many people managed to survive the experience without confessing. Those who did confess could expect mild penance.
  When the torture was racheted up to the second degree, almost everyone confessed and the sentence was usually death or life imprisonment.
  The third degree, then, used the most extreme methods of torture. The accused either confessed or died in the process. If he didn't die in the process, he did soon after at the stake.

Literary

• Achilles heel
  When the great Greek warrior Achilles was a baby, his mother had dipped him in the River Styx, holding him by the heel. Thus Achilles was believed to be impervious to all weapons, except for the unprotected heel. Achilles died during the Trojan War when an arrow fired by Prince Paris pierced his heel. Now the term Achilles heel means any weakness or vulnerability.
  
  
• Harpie
  From Greek legend, harpies were female demons, winged, fierce and shrieking. In the tale of Jason and the Argonauts, harpies defended a temple full of food from Jason and his starving men. In modern terms, we use the word 'harpie' for any obnoxious female with a fierce temper and shrill voice.
  
  
• Mentor
  Mentor is a character from Homer's Odyssey, the teacher and advisor of Odysseus' son Telemachus. The term is now applied to any person who guides the progress of another.
  
  
• Odyssey
  Our term for a long journey -- one of epic proportions -- comes from Homer's tale of Oddyseus, the king of Ithaca. Oddyseus was one of the original suitors for the hand of Helen. When she married Menelaus, Oddyseus suggested that all the suitors swear loyalty to Menelaus. When Helen ran off with Paris of Troy all the kings of Greece were summoned to get her back. Thus began Oddyseus' long journey -- first ten years of war at Troy, and then another ten years trying to get home to Ithaca.
  
  
• Trojan horse
  After 10 years of fruitless seige before the walls of Troy and the loss of the greatest heroes on both sides of the conflict, the Greeks finally entered the city by following a plan laid out by Odysseus. The Greeks built a giant wooden horse and then took to their ships, sailing only a little way out of sight. The Trojans believed the horse to be a gift and dragged it into the city, while they spent the night partying over the Greek retreat. Greek soldiers slipped from the belly of the horse after the Trojans were asleep, opened the gate and the waiting warriors sacked the city.
  
  The most common use of the term today involves deceptive computer code, the opening of one program only to find that hidden code has installed itself within the computer.
  
  

Military

• Bought the farm
  A World War One euphemism for dead, arising from a monetary benefit paid if a soldier was killed. The money was usually enough to allow the dead soldier's family to pay off the mortgage and thus "buy the farm."
  
  
• Three on a match
  It is still considered "bad luck" to for three people to light cigarettes on a single match. A superstition now, but one based on a very genuine precaution from World War One. The match is struck and an enemy sniper sees it. As the second man lights, the sniper takes aim. It is the third man in the matchlight who is killed.
  
  

Nautical

• Learn the ropes
  A primary requirement for all sailors, and most especially the junior officers (midshipmen) -- to know all the ropes, lines, sails, rigging that made a sailing ship functional. We now use the terms to mean any basic knowledge in a craft or area of learning.
  
  
• Three sheets to the wind
  A 'sheet' on a sailing ship was not a piece of sail canvas, but rather a rope that attached the sail to the mast and boom. Generally the sail was attached by four such sheets. If a sail was loosed by three of its lines, it would luff and flutter uselessly in the wind. Thus a sailer who was "three sheets to the wind" was one who was stone staggering drunk.
  
  
• Three square meals
  The shape refers to the plate and not to what is on it. On a pitching, rolling navy vessel the mess tables had a rim to keep plates from sliding off and a square plate would stay put much better than would a round one.
  
  
• Toe the line
  To get the crew into an orderly formation, it was common on wooden navy vessels to have the men stand with their toes aligned along the planks on the deck. To toe the line is to keep within the established order.
  
  

Recreation

• Curse of Scotland
  The Nine of Diamonds resembles the coat-of-arms of the Scottish House of Dalrymple. In 1692, Lord Dalrymple conspired with England's King William III and Clan Campbell to massacre the MacDonalds of Glencoe. Jacobites (those who favored restoration of the Stuarts to the throne) left their mark in the nickname of one card.
  
  
• Dead man's hand
  James Butler Hickok, more commonly called "Wild Bill", was a reknowned gunslinger and gambler. On August 2, 1876 he sat in a Deadwood saloon, playing poker. He was holding two pair, aces and eights, when Jack McCall shot him point blank in the back of the head.
  
  His last fatal hand of cards has carried the name "dead man's hand" ever since, although many mistake the final hand as four aces plus one.
  
  
• Saved by the bell
  Generally considered a boxing term, where a fighter just missed being knocked out by the bell that ends the round. We now use it to mean any situation where salvation arrives in the nick of time.
  
  
• Up to scratch
  Another boxing term, but far older. Before the orderly rules with rings, rounds, and bells, a mark would be made in the dirt and the two fighters would square off toe to toe. Being "up to scratch" meant ability to fight another bout after being knocked down.
  
  

Social Customs

Weddings:
• the best man
  There was a time in the distant past when marriages were more like abductions. In fact, many marriages were exactly that -- a vigorous young man stealing a valuable bride from her family and dragging her before his tribal chief (or later the local priest) for a forced vow and an even more forcible consumation. Even when the bride was willing, there was a chance that she had chosen a bridegroom against her father's wishes.
  In either case, the groom would be wise to have his men about him, his groomsmen, and by his side "his best man" -- the one most handy with a sword to defend the bridal prize from her angry clan's demands that she be returned untouched.
  
  
• carrying the bride over the threshhold
  Since many early marriagies were not the wish of the bride, it was often necessary for the groom to force her into his house -- literally carrying her over the threshhold.
  And what you may ask is a threshhold? When every edifice was drafty and cold, from peasant house to noble castle, the floor was lined with reeds or thresh into which bones and refuse were thrown. When it got too filthy, another layer was placed on top. The thresh 'hold' was the plank across the bottom of the doorway that kept the thresh inside.
  
  
Funerals:
• One for the road
  The custom of allowing a condemned man a free drink at every tavern passed on the way to the gallows. Enough pubs and he would scarce know that he was going to his death.
  
  
• Saved by the bell
  It has supposed by some that this term refers to the fear of premature burial. 19th century inventions improved on the classic coffin with the addition of a bell above the grave. The idea was that should an unfortunate awake interred, he could pull a string from within his coffin and ring the bell, thus alerting -- well, it was hoped that someone would be nearby to hear the bell and start digging. Thus, such a one would have been saved by the bell.
  
  
• widows weeds (wearing black)
  Wearing black to a funeral is a western European custom born out of a fear that the spirit of the dead would follow the mourners home from the cemetery. All in black, though, and with most funerals conducted in the early evening, it was believed that the dead would not be able to see the living as they made their way home.
  By the 19th century, strict social customs dictated how long a family should wear mourning clothes. All black for widows for one year, then grey with black trim for another year, then gradually back to normal clothes. She was expected to remain unmarried for two years. Widowers and children remained in mourning a shorter time and widowers could marry within one year of the wife's death.
  
  
Odds and Ends:
• Paint the town red
  To answer this one we have to begin with a simpler question, "Why are barns red?" Barns are red because barns are big and in the early 19th century the cheapest, most plentiful and durable paint came in only one color -- red. To protect the wood as best as possible, barns were painted red. The custom prevails to this day, although one will find the occasional blue, yellow, or other colored barn in the countryside.
  As for the term, which we now use to mean "have a wild time," the story told in upstate New York is that a presidential whistle-stop tour was planned to pass through the little town of Clinton Mills. The mayor thought the front street looked a bit run-down, so to honor their distinguished, if brief guest, he ordered all the buildings repainted. Of course, the only color available in quantity was red.
  
  

Technology

• Computer bug / De-bug the computer
  Both terms come from the same event. One of the military's earliest computers ENIAC, was giving erroneous readings as well as sparking. Captain Grace Hopper investigated and tweezed out a moth that had become caught in a relay. She taped the moth into the log book, noting "I de-bugged the computer." The rest you know.
  
  
• Sabotage
  To create complex patterns was part of the weaver's art, but during the Industrial Revolution the demand for intricate patterns was so great that Joseph Jacquard invented a loom with a stack of punched cards which allowed only certain pins through to draw up the weft to form the pattern. This may have been the origin of "computerized systems," but at the time the highly skilled weavers put out of work by the new machinery rebelled. In France, they threw their wooden shoes, called sabots into the looms, thus sabotaging the equipment.
  
  

Transportation

• I'm stumped and I'll be there with bells on.
  Early roads were not paved, except in larger cities. When roads were cleared, this generally meant little more than cutting down all the trees level with the road's surface, but a few good rainstorms and the road's surface would erode below the level of the stumps. Any carriage travelling the road ran the risk of being snagged on a protruding stump, leaving the passengers stranded or stumped until help could arrive.
  
  Most carriages were drawn by one or more horses, often adorned with decorative bells. When such a carriage encountered a difficulty, such as being caught on a stump or loosing a wheel, its occupants were obliged to wait until help arrived -- usually in the form of another traveler. If the efforts were successful and the carriage able to continue its journey it was only right to give the rescuer something for effort: the carriage's bells were a common gift.
  
  So, to arrive "with bells on" means that you foresee no difficulties in making the journey and expect your carriage to still have its bells when you reach your destination.