Where Did It Come From And What Does It Mean?
Dictionary The English language seems to have an over abundance of strange sayings. Some of them are very interesting and make you wonder where they come from. I began to look into some of these and found that their roots are really fascinating Most of us have heard the saying, “An eye for an eye”, and most of us either know, or presume that it came from the bible. Those that do would be correct, but there is a story behind it. It happens to appear twice in the Old Testament. It was part of the legal code of ancient times. The code was called the Code of Hammurabi. Hammurabi was the sixth king of the first Amorite dynasty of Babylon. There is a column that has these ancient laws carved into them and one of the passages reads, "If a man destroy the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye." Did you ever wonder where the saying that states, “Charity begins at home” came from? Oh you never gave it much thought. To tell the truth neither did I, but the story is interesting so I will tell you. There was an English physician named Sir Thomas Browne. He was not only a doctor, but a famous writer and was also interested in the occult, among other things. He wrote a book which attempted to bring religion and science together. In the book he talked about charity and said, "But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? 'Charity begins at home,' is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own executioner." Have you ever heard the term, “A fool's paradise”? In was first recorded in the Paston Letters in 1462, but became famous when William Shakespeare used the saying in Romeo and Juliet in 1592. The sentence that contained it was, “Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself: but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.
William Shakesphere? Shakespeare was a busy guy and wrote many plays, but of course many people really think that he was Francis Bacon, or that there were really several different playwrights that wrote the plays. Anyway, He just created so many memorable lines that I thought I would list some of them for you so that you know where these sayings come from, “A dish fit for the Gods”, “A foregone conclusion”, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse”, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, “A sorry sight”, “All that glitters is not gold”, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players”, “All's well that ends well”, “As dead as a doornail”, “As pure as the driven snow”, “At one fell swoop”, “Bag and baggage”, “Discretion is the better part of valor”, “Fair play”, “Fancy free”, “Fight fire with fire”, “Forever and a day”, “Foul play”, “Good riddance”, “He will give the devil his due”, “Heart's content”, “High time”, “His beard was white as snow”, “I will wear my heart upon my sleeve”, “In a pickle”, “In stitches”, “In the twinkling of an eye”, “Lie low”, “Love is blind”, “Make your hair stand on end”, “Milk of human kindness”, “Much ado about nothing”, “Mums the word”, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be”, “Night owl”, “Now is the winter of our discontent”, “Off with his head”, “Out of the jaws of death”, “Pound of flesh”, “Primrose path”, “Send him packing”, “Short shrift”, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”, “The devil incarnate”, “The game is up”, “There's method in my madness”, “Too much of a good thing”, “Truth will out”, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”, “Vanish into thin air”, “We have seen better days”, “What a piece of work is man”, “Wild goose chase” and “Woe is me” The lines from Shakespeare listed above represent only a tiny portion of famous lines he wrote that are still in use today. I tried to list only the most famous ones.
Sailing Ship “By and large” is considered a nautical saying. It goes back to the days of sailing ships. When a wind was blowing behind a ship it was called “large”. A “large” wind was favorable to sailing ships, because they could use their biggest sails. The word “by” in nautical terms meant “in the general direction of”. In 1669 The Mariner's Magazine used the term “by and large” in this way, "Thus you see the ship handled in fair weather and foul, by and large." Another term that is famous today has its origins in the sea. The term is, “Cut and run”. It means of course to run away. It is said that it probably refers to the fact that when ships were in a hurry to get away they might have cut the anchor rope. The earlier saying was said to be either, “cut and run away”, or “cut and run off”. There are a lot of words that come from the Latin, but there are also a lot of names that do also and some of these names are products or companies. Recently Volvo was sold to the Chinese. The Latin root for the word Volvo is “I roll”. The Chinese have some very interesting sayings, but not a lot of them have come into everyday usage in the English language. Here are some of them: The study of the history of words is called Etymology. It can be quite enlightening. Many words and phrases that we attribute to places like the bible have no basis in these places at all. It is amazing how much misinformation about words and phrases is out there. |
