Speaker Roy Tate - It's Only Words

Roy opened his talk by saying that all present were English speakers. We are lucky as this is a language that is spoken worldwide. With his tongue in his cheek he said that we should feel sorry for the French who have no name for a ”Cul de Sac” or “Entrepreneur” likewise the Indians are missing a word for “Bungalow”.

He said that a lot of the common phrases we use today came from either Shakespeare or the bible. In particular a lot of phrases come out of the King James bible. Examples being “The salt of the earth” and “The writing on the wall”.

Today we are making up a lot of new words out of brand names such as when we refer to hoovering up a mess or googling for an answer. But some of our phrases come from further back in time: -

• “Not enough room to swing a cat” and “the cats got your tongue” both refer to the use of a cat of 9 tails on sailing ships. The first meaning there wasn’t enough room to whip a miscreant and the second that having received a whipping a recipient were frequently so traumatised as to be unable to speak.
• “Let cat out of bag” is supposed to refer to the medieval practice of putting a pig in a bag at market so the buyer could take it home. Some dishonest traders switched for cat.
• “Raining cats and dogs” is again thought to be from the medieval practice of throwing dead dogs and cats into the river. When it dried up left on bank their bodies were left on the bank.
• “To break the ice” – another one from old sailing ships where a man had to get off the ship to break the ice manually to make a passage.
• “Turn a blind eye” is attributed to Nelson’s refusal to see a signal ordering him to withdraw from battle.
• “Pull out all the stops” refers to organ music where pulling out all the stops gives maximum volume.
• “Bite bullet” - when there weren’t any anaesthetics patients had to bite on something to withstand the pain of an operation.
• “Rule of thumb” was the measure of 1 inch. It is also said to refer to the maximum diameter of a rod that a man could beat his wife.
• “Pinch of salt” comes from the Romans where Pliny the Elder suggested it was an antidote to being poisoned.
• “Buttering people up” is said to come from the Indian after practice of smearing the idol with butter after their prayers.
• It won't cost you an arm and a leg” originated from the practice that artists had of charging more for a portrait where the arms and legs were shown rather than just the head.
• “Comments should be kept off the record” dates bake to  FD Roosevelt who would insist the journalist not directly report a conversation.
• “Talk until cows come home” relates to being unable to hurry a herd of cows when taking them back to their barn on a night.
• “Cut to the chase” is from silent films always a chase scene in them and if the director thought film too long he would have film cut out to get more quickly to that scene.
• “Put a sock in it” was an action in the trenches in the First World War where soldiers would do it to a comrade who was screaming in pain or terror to stop the enemy being aware of their position.
• Which finally took us “Back to square one”. This came from soccer on radio before television where  listeners had a grid in front of them to follow the match and square one was centre spot.