When I was a kid, my parents had a few different rituals they employed before it was time for me to go to bed. Sometimes the ritual involved reading a book. Other times it involved what we called “a meeting,” which was basically my mom or dad sitting at the foot of the bed, chatting, telling stories about their childhoods, etc. During the summer, when school was out, another ritual involved the radio, if you recall my last On Music post. But whatever ritual they threw at me, the night always ended with one of them closing the door until it was open just a crack (at my request). As the door slowly shut, they’d ask, “How far should I close it?” And I’d respond back, “Just wing it!” Not sure where I picked that up, but it was my favorite phrase for some years, even if I wasn’t using it entirely correctly.
I never thought about the origin of the phrase “winging it” until I was working with the conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. His grandfather was Boris Thomashefsky, the great Yiddish theater star, and he told that Boris and the other actors often didn’t know what play they’d be performing until they got to the theater that night. With so many bits in the repertoire, they had to memorize most of their lines for every play, just in case one was put on the marquee that evening. Of course, even the great Thomashefsky couldn’t memorize every line by heart, so the actors would often glance at the script in the wings when their character had a moment off-stage. Thus: winging it.
Have an interesting story about the origin of a classic phrase you think we need to know? Slap ‘em down in the comments. I’ll leave you with the origin of am/pm, just in case you never stopped to wonder: ante meridiem in Latin is “before midday” while post meridiem is “after midday.”
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Excellent little piece. I love stuff like this.
I have heard that the meaning of the Brit phrase ‘Taking the piss’ to mean lying.
Apparently, the UK could not generate enough urine to sustain our textile industry back in mmph-mmph-iveforgotten-mmnph (you used to get a penny a pot, leading to ‘spending a penny’ to mean going for a pee. You got 2 pennies a pot if you were ginger, as they thought the urine was stronger). The lack of urine was made up with imports from Denmark.
This clearly wasn’t the most impressive trade to be in and the captains on the boats often claimed to be importing fine wine.
People would call them on it, accusing them of ‘Taking the piss’…
posted by Bob on 9-14-2007 at 4:40 am
aparently the phrase ‘having a chat’ comes from the trenches in WWI where they would sit talking to each other while picking the ticks/lice off each other – the phrase came from the ‘chatting’ sound made by the ticks when burnt off with a lit match… so i was told in Ypres some years ago!
posted by Jim on 9-14-2007 at 6:30 am
Well, anyone who has seen The Boondock Saints will be familiar with the origin of “Rule of Thumb.” Apparently it used to be legal to beat your wife with a stick, as long as it was the width of your thumb or less.
posted by LorinJuliet on 9-14-2007 at 7:06 am
Many phrases come from gunsmithing or related firearms vocabulary:
“Flash in the pan”
“Misfire”
“Lock, stock, and barrel”
There are lots more, but I have to get to work…
posted by Doc on 9-14-2007 at 7:07 am
“Balls to the wall” refers to early day fighter pilots pushing their throttle (sticks with balls on top) to the max (against the front of the side display).
posted by chris on 9-14-2007 at 7:18 am
Cool post! One of my favorite aspects of my lit classes in college was when we would come across a well-known phrase buried in its original form in a classic. Some of the more memorable ones were “the best-laid schemes of mice and men” (Robert Burns), “no man is an island” (John Donne), and Chaucer’s original mention of a “fish out of water” (actually, I think it was something to the effect of a ‘fish being waterless’) in The Canterbury Tales.
posted by Roger on 9-14-2007 at 8:05 am
Marquis–a French nobleman
marquee–a sign outside a theater
posted by Alice on 9-14-2007 at 8:25 am
these are awesome! keep ‘em coming. and… he he. thank alice… me brain is cloudy these daze. ;-)
posted by David on 9-14-2007 at 8:47 am
The phrase “minding your p’s and q’s” comes from bar maids having to remember how many Pints and Quarts their customers were ordering.
posted by Amy on 9-14-2007 at 11:52 am
I love this topic because it is just as likely to generate apocryphal stories as genuine word origins.:)
“Put your nose to the grindstone”: Millers needed to take care not to over-grind their grain and end up with scorched flour. Thus, they put their nose to the grindstone to check for a burning smell when they wanted to concentrate closely on the quality of the grain.
posted by Nick on 9-14-2007 at 1:43 pm
Amy,
I’ve heard it originated in printing. Each individual metal letter had to be placed on a printing press to form a page. However, the pieces of movable type appeared to be the mirror images of the letters they printed. So, since a lowercase P, when backward, looks like a lowercase Q and vice versa, typesetters would have had to be attentive to which one they were putting where. Hence, “mind your p’s and q’s”.
posted by Rachel on 9-14-2007 at 1:52 pm