A NO. a book of idioms
N
A NO. A-number-one.
Superior, first class, the best of its kind. An American nautical classification of British ancestry, both of which referred originally to sailing vessels. The British term, usually written “A 1,” was thus described in Goodrich’s Fifth School Reader (1857): “Vessels are classified according to their age, strength, and other qualities. The best class is called A, and No. 1 implies that the Swiftsure stands at the head of the best class of vessels.
a book of idioms
WILLING TO GIVE
W
illing to make a marked sacrifice. The allusion is to a punishment for certain crimes in the England of the twelfth century and later—and in America, too—by which one or both ears of him or her adjudged to be guilty were cut off. But though the punishable crimes run on back through the centuries, our present expression itself is not much more than a hundred years old. Hence, it must be left to the imagination which those various crimes—forgery, quackery, treason, adultery, and others—could have been so desirable as to make one willing to suffer such an undesirable penalty.
ONE’S EARS
TO GET IN ONE’S HAIR
To
have someone or something persistently annoy one; to become greatly irked. I doubt that this American expression was of Western origin, though its first reported appearance was in the Oregon Statesman in 1851: “I shall depend on your honor...that you won’t tell on me, cause if you did, I should have Hetty Gawkins in my hair in no time.” But there had been towns and villages in that territory for almost forty years by that time, so it is of course possible that the expression signified some annoying Oregonian factor that actually did get in one’s hair. What that annoyance may have been, we are not told. Nevertheless since body lice were then regarded as a more or less necessary evil, it is certainly within the realms of possibility that these were the pests of the early reference, literally irritating the scalp.
To
act in a manner typical of a baby; that is, to whine, coax, wheedle, shed tears, yell, howl, scream, kick, or otherwise adopt a babylike action in order to evoke sympathy, gain attention, or get one’s way; as, “He weakened when she pulled the baby act, for he couldn’t stand tears.” The expression in any of its forms is modern, but the act itself undoubtedly traces back to Eve, who was the first female determined to have her own way. But the small boy also puts on the baby act when he thinks he may gain something thereby, and perhaps occasionally his older brother, for the act is not altogether confined to the female of the species.
TO PULL THE BABY ACT
Y
ou may travel all over the United States, North South, East, or West, or in any part of Canada or England, and find almost no one who isn’t familiar with one form or another of this expression. It is hardly necessary to say that by its use we mean to raise oneself through one’s unaided efforts above one’s former cultural, social, or economic level. And yet, beyond being able to state positively that the expression cannot be more than three hundred and fifty years old, I cannot say in what English-speaking country it originated, or even whether it dates back to the time of George Washington and George the Third of England, though I am almost certain that it is considerably older. That is, I myself have not been able to turn up any printed use or record of this common expression at any date earlier than about ten years ago. It occurs on page 456 of The Beard’s Basic History of the United States (1944) by Charles A. and Mary R. Beard. Undoubtedly it has appeared earlier, but no dictionary nor other reference work has made note of it. Yet I have seen it in print several times since that date. In fact, I cannot even tell you nor hazard a guess as how old the compound word bootstrap may be. The earliest printed record, so far as I have been able to discover, is in the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary, 1894 edition; and there it appears only in the definitions of two related words- boot-hook and strap. The first definition of bootstrap to appear in any dictionary is in the 1934 Webster’s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, covering the familiar loop at the top of the boot.
TO LIFT ONESELF BY THE BOOTSTRAPS
TO PULL ONE’S LEG
To
coax, wheedle, blarney; bamboozle, delude, pull the wool over one’s eyes; befool, make fun of one. Our cousins over the seas, among whom the expression originated, use it in the latter senses; the first is an American addition, carrying the tomfoolery into downright cheating and chiseling. The Scots were apparently the first with the idea, using “draw” rather than “pull”, as in the following quotation from a rhyme written in 1867: “He preached an’ at last drew the auld body’s leg, Sae the kirk got the gatherins [the money] o’ our Aunty Meg.”
Just why one’s leg was something to be either drawn or pulled for the success of a delusion is most certain. Perhaps it had something to do with tripping a person; i.e., to catch him in an error, or to bring him into a state of confusion.
NEITHER HEAD NOR TAIL OF (A MATTER)
N
either one thing nor another; nothing definite nor positive: usually in such construction as, I can make neither head nor tail of this story. In the expression, which dates back to the seventeenth century, head means “beginning” and tail means “end”; hence, I can understand neither beginning nor end of this story.
IN ONE EAR AND
T
hrough the mind, but leaving no impression; as though a sound traveled through a tube passing through the skull leaving no evidence of passing. The notion is by no means new; probably Adam gave utterance to something similar after giving some instruction to Cain and Abel. But the earliest English record concerned a semon “upon Deuteronomie” by John Calvin which, according to his English translator, Arthur Golding in 1583, “goes in at the one eare and out at the other.” There is litle doubt but that many another sermon has shared the same reaction in the four centuries
OUT THE OTHER
TO BITE OFF MORE THAN ONE CAN CHEW
To
attempt more than once can accomplish; to try to more than one has time for, or the ability for. A very human failing; one that is often quite praiseworthy, but also one that is often quite exasperating. The former could be said of a student,for example, who, in the laudable desire to learn all he can find time to keep up with, and thus flunks several; the latter could be said of my more-than-willing yardman, Lou, who cannot say no to anyone seeking his services and, accordingly, never turns up at an appointed date. The homely American expression has been traced back some seventy-five years, but is undoubtedly much earlier. It could have had a literal beginning with a small big who took such a big mouthful as to be unable to do more than roll it around in his mouth; but more likely it started with a greedy person, say a Scotsman, who, borrowing a plug of tobacco, bit off too big a chunk to enjoy. (P.S. Lou isn’t with me anymore.)
To
TO SING A DIFFERENT TUNE
speak or act in a different manner; to assume a different attitude; to change the subject, or especially, to humble oneself. The school bully sings a different tune after brave Johnny, finally stirred to anger, gives him a thorough licking. And such has been the case, similarly expressed, for some six hundred years. Thus John Gower wrote in his Confessio Amantis (1390), “O thou, which hast desesed [disseised] The Court of France be thi wrong, Now schalt thou singe an other song.� Because the saying is so old we can assume it arose from frequent use among wandering minstrels of the Middle Ages who, traveling from court to court, found it discreet to change the wording of the songs they sang to meet the boasts of each successive baron.
SON OF A GUN
N
owadays this is likely to be respectable or nice-Nelly substitute for an epithet of the when-you-call-me-thatSmile variety, a male offspring of the female of the canine family. But it is also used as a term of affectionate regard, as between pals. In general, however, it is the opposite extreme, accompanied usually by a derogatory adjective and used as a term of contempt. It has been in the language for at least two and a half centuries, and if one is willing to accept the story of its origin given by Admiral William Henry Smyth of the British navy in The Sailor’s Word-Book, written about 1865, here it is: “An epithet conveying contempt in a slight degree, and originally applied to boys born afloat, when women were permitted to accompany their husbands to sea; one admiral declared he literally was thus cradled, under the breast of a gun carriage.”
TO CRY OVER SPILT MILK
To
grieve over that which is irretrievably lost or beyond recovery; to regret that which has been said or done. Though the actual occurrence, with high milk prices, is something over which housewives probably have wept-- or over a torn fig leaf--since the time of Eve, they never think of ones benefiting from the accident-the dog, the cat or the milkman-- just their own selfish loss. The first to give voice to this cold comfort in this manner, in print at least, was that prime humorist of the past century, Thomas C. Haliburton. In his first series of The Clockmaker; or the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville (1836), a friend says, “What’s done, Sam, can’t be helped, there is no use in crying over spilt milk.”
BLOWING ONE’S TOP
P
ossibly the “top” in this expression alluded originally to the top of a volcano, which would be shot in a thousand pieces with a tremendous noise during a violent explosion and scattered over the neighborhood with a devastating effect. “Blow” at least, has been in used in the sense of “to erupt; to go to pieces by explosion” for several centuries. Much the same effect occurs when, in modern slang, a person “blows his top.” He lets off steam in a violent explosion of temper; he shouts; he cares not a whit where or upon whom the pieces may fall. In short, he gets furious with rage. The expression is also used in a milder sense: a crazy person, that is, or a person who is befuddled by drink and acts brainless is now sometimes said to have blown his top.
W
hat started this expression, no one knows. Perhaps it was an actual incident; perhaps a real skeleton was found walled up in the closet of some country house concealing some long-hidden family shame or sorrow. At any rate, The Oxford English Dictionary says that this expression and its meaning are known to have been in use before 1845, though it was in that year that the earliest printed usage was recorded. That was by William Makepeace Thackerayin one of his contributions to the magazine, Punch. But the expression undoubtedly struck his fancy, as he used it again as the heading of Chapter LV, “Barne’s Skeleton Closet,” in The Newcomes (1855). However, the “skeleton” in Sir Barnes Newcome’s closet would not receive much consideration in an but a highly sensitive family. It was merely that he, though “the reigning prince” of the Newcome family after his father’s death, was not well received by the townfold and country gentry of Newcome, because of his own arrogance, along with a bullying attitude toward his wife. The chapter relates, in the author’s words, “Some particulars regarding the Newcome family, which will show that they have a skeleton or two in their closets, as well as their neighbors.”
SKELETON IN
THE CLOSET
The idioms in this book are used exclusively from Heavens to Betsy! by Charles Earle Funk. The images used throughout are clippings from the following LIFE magazine issues: Nov-Dec 1961 and July-Aug 1964.
Funk, Charles Earle, Litt. D. Heavens To Betsy! And Other Curious Sayings. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955. Print.
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