The phrase "going south" to mean "becoming worse" is another one whose origin is not settled.
The most common origin attributes it to the standard orientation of maps. South is the downwards direction so things going south are going down. That would fit this type of usage: "Yesterday the stock market moved south, ending up on a loss for the day."
Another origin say that it was a euphemism used by some Native Americans for dying. "He was unconcerned that his health might go south."
This idiom always means that a situation becomes unfavorable, decreases, or takes a turn for the worse. "My luck went south."
09 December 2019
04 December 2019
Kick the Bucket, Buy the Farm and Bite the Dust
Most idioms don't make a lot of literal sense and so they often don't translate to other languages. In English, we have lots of ways of euphemistically say that someone has died. In this post, I'll consider three of them. Sometimes even the esteemed Oxford English Dictionary(OED) can't quite say definitively what the origin of a phrase might be. That's the case for the three in this post.
Why would we say that someone has "kicked the bucket" when they have died? One possible origin is that a person standing on a pail or bucket intending to commit suicide would put their head into the noose and then kick the bucket away.
Is that any more plausible than the archaic use of "bucket" as a beam from which a pig is hung by its feet prior to being slaughtered. To kick the bucket, was the term used to mean the pig's death throes.
Another origin that comes from the Catholic church is that at one time when a body had been laid out, a holy-water bucket was brought from the church and put at the feet of the corpse. When mourners came to pray they could sprinkle the body with holy water. I don't see any kicking involved in that explanation.
My favorite "kick the bucket" movie moment still comes in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
To "buy the farm" meaning to die is an American expression going back to the WWII and the Air Force. At the time the similar "buy the plot" (as in a cemetery plot) and buy the lot were also used, but the farm survived.
A military pilot with a hit plane would often attempt to crash land in a farmer's field. If the crash destroyed some crops, the government paid reimbursement to the farmer, but if it was a really bad crash that destroyed most of the crops or buildings, the government would "buy the farm."
Then again, there are older British slang expressions "buy it," "buy one" or "buy the packet" that are supposed to be references to something that one does not want to buy.
The earliest citation of the 'bite the dust" is from 1750 by the Scottish author Tobias Smollett , in his Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane: "We made two of them bite the dust, and the others betake themselves to flight."
I also found a reference to a much earlier phrase "lick the dust" that is supposed to appear in the Bible.
Samuel Butler's 19th-century translation of Homer's The Iliad contains "Grant that my sword may pierce the shirt of Hector about his heart, and that full many of his comrades may bite the dust as they fall dying round him." But this is not Homer but Butler's use of the phrase.
And these are not all the euphemistic phrases for death. But we won't get into others like "to punch your ticket" or "meet your maker."
Another source of some interesting origins is Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins by Michael Quinion
Why would we say that someone has "kicked the bucket" when they have died? One possible origin is that a person standing on a pail or bucket intending to commit suicide would put their head into the noose and then kick the bucket away.
Is that any more plausible than the archaic use of "bucket" as a beam from which a pig is hung by its feet prior to being slaughtered. To kick the bucket, was the term used to mean the pig's death throes.
Another origin that comes from the Catholic church is that at one time when a body had been laid out, a holy-water bucket was brought from the church and put at the feet of the corpse. When mourners came to pray they could sprinkle the body with holy water. I don't see any kicking involved in that explanation.
My favorite "kick the bucket" movie moment still comes in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
To "buy the farm" meaning to die is an American expression going back to the WWII and the Air Force. At the time the similar "buy the plot" (as in a cemetery plot) and buy the lot were also used, but the farm survived.
A military pilot with a hit plane would often attempt to crash land in a farmer's field. If the crash destroyed some crops, the government paid reimbursement to the farmer, but if it was a really bad crash that destroyed most of the crops or buildings, the government would "buy the farm."
Then again, there are older British slang expressions "buy it," "buy one" or "buy the packet" that are supposed to be references to something that one does not want to buy.
The earliest citation of the 'bite the dust" is from 1750 by the Scottish author Tobias Smollett , in his Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane: "We made two of them bite the dust, and the others betake themselves to flight."
I also found a reference to a much earlier phrase "lick the dust" that is supposed to appear in the Bible.
Samuel Butler's 19th-century translation of Homer's The Iliad contains "Grant that my sword may pierce the shirt of Hector about his heart, and that full many of his comrades may bite the dust as they fall dying round him." But this is not Homer but Butler's use of the phrase.
And these are not all the euphemistic phrases for death. But we won't get into others like "to punch your ticket" or "meet your maker."
Another source of some interesting origins is Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins by Michael Quinion
26 November 2019
Are You a -phile?
Are you a "bibliophile"? That is a lover of books. The suffix -phile denotes a fondness for a specified thing and comes from the Greek philos meaning "loving." A heliophile is a lover of the sun.
There are hundreds of different types of "philes" with new ones being created for new things but probably using a Greek or Latin word attached to the suffix.
A retrophile loves things from the past. "Retro" itself is fairly new being a 1960s creation 1960s from French rétro, an abbreviation of rétrograde which has a number of meanings (mostly scientific) but usually refers to something going backward or reversing.
An oenophile comes from oinos, the Greek word for wine and so an oenophile is a lover of wine. This isn't just someone who drinks a lot of wine, but rather is interested in wine production and probably collects wines.
You don't hear many people saying they are turophiles, but many people do love cheeses. Taking the Ancient Greek word for cheese, "turos," is much classier than saying you're a cheesephile or cheesehead. The true turophile (as with oenophiles) doesn't just eat up all the cubes of cheddar on the appetizer table, but knows many types of cheeses and collects favorites.
A few others:
- Cynophile - lover of dogs
- Pluviophiles have a fondness for rain (Latin pluvial for rain). A lover of rain does not just find enjoyment in the physical presence of rain, they also find joy and peace when a rainy day descends.
- Can you hear a color in caeruleaphile? These people have a strong fondness for blue.
- I know many javaphiles who love their coffee. This one is neither Latin or Greek but takes the slang word ‘java’ for coffee.
More
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/53610/15-philes-and-what-they-love
https://steemit.com/philes/
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