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phrases

Fun Facts About English #68 – The Origins of Popular Idioms

08/28/2020 by admin

Fun Facts About English 68 Kinney Brothers Publishing

Our genteel Ms. Austen is also known for such phrases as shut up, dirt cheap, dog-tired, dinner party, and brace yourself. In fact, she is quoted 1,641 times in the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary!

Here is a list of idiomatic expressions originating with some of our favorite authors and books of old. Enjoy!

William Shakespeare

  • Break the ice – The Taming of the Shrew – This phrase means to do or say something to relieve tension, get a conversation going at the start of a gathering, or when people meet for the first time.
  • Dead as a doornail – Henry IV – In the words of the Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz, this expression means that someone or something is morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably, and reliably dead. Not just merely dead, but most sincerely dead.
  • There’s method in one’s madness – Hamlet – This means that there is a reason behind someone’s mysterious actions or words.
  • Set one’s teeth on edge – Henry IV – This phrase is often used when feeling intense discomfort or irritation, especially in response to a harsh sound like the noise of nails scratching a chalkboard.
  • Wear one’s heart upon one’s sleeve – Othello – If you wear your heart on your sleeve, you openly show your feelings or emotions rather than keeping them hidden or secret. This phrase can also be used as criticism for being too open and consequently vulnerable to disappointment.
  • The world is one’s oyster – The Merry Wives Of Windsor – Though the original context had more violent intentions (slicing one’s opponent open like an oyster), today it means you can achieve anything or go anywhere because you have the opportunity or freedom to do so.

The Christian Bible

  • By the skin of one’s teeth – Book of Job – To narrowly escape a given circumstance. In the case of Job, it was a stark description of the advanced stage of disease Satan had inflicted on him.
  • Live off the fat of the land – Book of Genesis and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck – The phrase means getting the best of everything without having to work hard for it.
  • At one’s wit’s end – Psalm 107 – This means to be so worried and exhausted by problems or difficulties that you do not know what to do next.
  • Like a lamb to the slaughter – Book of Isaiah – This phrase refers to someone who is blissfully unaware of a disaster about to befall them.
  • A fly in the ointment – Book of Ecclesiastes – This is a minor irritation that spoils the success or enjoyment of something.

Various Authors

  • Go down the rabbit hole – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865 – Lewis Carroll coined this term as the title of the first chapter in his book where Alice enters Wonderland by following a rabbit down a hole. It is often used as a metaphor for someone entering a surreal state of mind, way of thinking, or situation. The same title gave us “Mad as a hatter” with the idea that hatters, who used mercury to set their felt hats, were a bit looney-tunes.
  • I can’t do [X] to save my life – The Kellys and the O’Kellys, 1848, by Anthony Trollope – This phrase indicates someone is no good at or will inevitably fail at a given activity.
  • Fly off the handle – Thomas C. Haliburton, a Nova Scotian politician, judge, and author, coined this phrase in 1843. It means to suddenly lose one’s temper. It was inspired by the way an ax-head will fly off its handle if loose. Haliburton also coined the phrase “won’t take no for an answer.”
  • Goody Two-Shoes The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes – This 18th century Christian retelling of Cinderella begins with a poor orphan with only one shoe. She is given two shoes by a rich man as a reward for her virtue.
  • Hold a candle to – The fower cardinal vertues of a Carmelite fryar by Edward Dering (1641) – Apprentices used to hold candles so that more experienced workmen were able to see what they were doing. Someone unable to do this menial task would be of very low status. Today it describes a person or thing that is distinctly inferior to someone or something else.
  • Keep up with the Joneses – Keep Up With The Joneses by Arthur (Pop) Momand – This American phrase emerged in 1913 as the title of a comic strip in the New York Globe. It refers to emulating or not being outdone by one’s neighbors.
  • Love is blind – The Canterbury Tales, 1387, by Chaucer – This means that loving someone makes them unable or unwilling to see a person’s faults or differences.
  • Pot calling the kettle black – Don Quixote, 1605, by Cervantes – This phrase suggests that one shouldn’t accuse or criticize another of something they’re also guilty of.
  • A sight for sore eyes – A complete collection of genteel and ingenious conversation, 1738, by Jonathan Swift – This means a welcome sight; something or someone you’re glad to see.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also be interested in words that are named after notorious personalities, proverbs that are often incomplete or misconstrued, or what makes a word autological.

See the previous or next Fun Facts About English.

Donald's English Classroom

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Filed Under: Fun Facts About English Tagged With: Anthony Trollope, Arthur Momand, authors, Bible, Cervantes, Chaucer, Donald's English Classroom, Edward Dering, idiomatic expressions, John Steinbeck, Jonathan Swift, kinney brothers publishing, lewis carroll, literary origins, literary phrases, literature, origins, phrases, William Shakespeare

Fun Facts About English #58 – Why is it called that?

06/19/2020 by admin

Fun Fact About English 58 Kinney Brothers Publishing

Here are ten more words with surprising origins! A few of these words appeared in previous Fun Facts About English posts, but I thought them such swell words, they deserved a second showing!

Ampersand (&)

The ampersand (&) was included in schoolbooks as the 27th character of the English alphabet until the mid 19th century. It was understood not as a vowel or consonant, but as a useful symbol, added to the hind end of the Latin alphabet, and simply known as and. Today, when we recite the ABCs, we often say “X, Y, and Z.” Two centuries ago, children’s alphabet chants included and (&) as the last “letter.” To say “X, Y, Z, and and” was a bit awkward, so the Latin phrase per se – meaning “by or in itself “- was inserted. In recitations, it sounded like this: X, Y, Z, and per se and (&). Over time, and-per-se-and slurred into ampersand, a mondegreen that we use today.

…To Boot

There are many idiomatic phrases and words that include the word boot: to be pulled up by one’s bootstraps, to get the boot, boot camp, etc. None of these has any relationship to the “extra bit of something” when we say “…to boot.”

The boot in “to boot” goes all the way back to the Old English word bōt. It means “advantage, help,” and “to making something good or better.” Over time, it also came to mean “something extra added to a trade.” Ex. “We got a great deal on the hotel room and concert tickets to boot!”

In finance, boot is something you add to a deal to make the exchange equal. For example, if you buy a car with a trade-in and also give the dealer some money, that extra money you add is called “the boot.”

Checkmate

The history of chess goes back almost 15 centuries. The game originated in northern India in the 6th century AD and spread to Persia. When the Arabs conquered Persia, chess was taken up by the Muslim world and subsequently, through the Moorish conquest of Spain, spread to Southern Europe.

“Sheikh” (شيخ‎) is the Arabic word for “chief or head of a tribe.” Players would announce “Sheikh” when the king was in check. “Māt” (مات‎) is an Arabic adjective for “dead, helpless, or defeated.” So the king is in mate when he is ambushed, at a loss, or defeated.

Fall

English Timeline Kinney Brothers Publishing

In Old English, harvest was the season when farmers gathered their crops and prepared them for storage. The word is a derivative of hærfest, an Old Norse word that means “to gather or pluck.”

By the sixteenth century, fall, a shortened version of the phrase “fall of the leaf” was used to describe the third season of the year. During this time, autumn, a word derived from Latin and Old French, was also in common use. Fall and autumn were the preferred words as more people began leaving rural farmlands to move into larger, metropolitan cities. Without farming, the term harvest became less relevant to their lives.

Today, there is a clear preference for autumn in British English and for fall in American English, though both words can be used interchangeably in both places.

Hello

As hard as it is to imagine, before the invention of the telephone in 1876, “hello” wasn’t a proper or even casual greeting whatsoever!

In his laboratories, Thomas Alva Edison would shout “Halloo!” into the mouthpiece of his newly invented strip phonograph to test the device. “Halloo” was a word commonly used to incite hounds to the chase, or as a “call” to attract the attention of someone at a great distance, similar to “Hey!”

Alexander Graham Bell's early telephone Kinney Brothers Publishing
Alexander Graham Bell’s early telephone

Mr. Edison also equipped and supplied Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone invention, a gadget that was (basically) a permanently open line without even a bell. Mr. Edison preferred “Hello” be put in the instruction manual for “calling” the other party to the line, along with “That is all” for ending the exchange. Edison reasoned that “Hello” could be heard from a distance of 10-20 feet and was better than Bell’s nautical recommendation, “Ahoy.”

G.I.

G.I. has been interpreted as standing for garrison issue, government issue, and general infantry. The true progenitor of the abbreviation is galvanized iron.

G.I. appears in Army inventories of galvanized-iron trash cans (G.I. can) and buckets from the early twentieth century. During World War I, the meaning of G.I. was extended to include heavy artillery shells and large bombs. Around this time, G.I. was applied in the “general issue” sense with G.I. shoes, G.I. soap, and G.I. brushes. During or shortly after the war, soldiers began referring to themselves as G.I.s when the abbreviation was recorded as slang for an enlisted man.

In June 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, commonly known as the G.I. Bill. The bill provided benefits for returning World War II veterans, including funding for college, home loans, and unemployment insurance.

Cartoonist Dave Breger is credited with coining the name G.I. Joe in his weekly comic strip published in Yank magazine beginning in 1942. In 1964, U.S. toy company Hasbro debuted the military-themed G.I. Joe action figure for boys.

John Doe & Richard Roe

“John Doe” and “Richard Roe” originated during the Middle Ages! The fake names were regularly invoked in English legal instruments beginning as early as the reign of England’s King Edward III (1327–1377).

As well as legal instruments, the U.S. courts also use such names to refer to a corpse whose identity is unknown or unconfirmed. There are many variants to the names, including “John Roe,” “Jane Doe,” and “Baby Doe.”

Individuals whose real name is John or Jane Doe report difficulties and unwanted attention, such as being accused of using a pseudonym, being questioned repeatedly by airport security, or suspected of being an incognito celebrity.

Paddywhack

Paddywhack Kinney Brothers Publishing
Dried beef paddywhack.

During the Victorian era, paddywhack came to mean “a slap or a sharp blow,” in part because of its mistaken association with the word whack, an etymologically different word altogether. The original meaning of paddywhack refers to the tough neck ligament found in many four-legged animals such as sheep and cattle. Even today, this chewy and protein-rich ligament is often sold as a dried dog treat.

Red Tape

Red Tape

The idiom means “excessive bureaucracy or adherence to rules” that make conducting one’s affairs slower or more difficult. They include filling out paperwork, obtaining licenses, or having multiple people or committees approve a decision.

It’s generally believed the term originated with the Spanish administration of Charles V, King of Spain. In the early 16th century, the monarch began binding important dossiers with red twine or ribbon in an effort to give priority to particular issues and modernize the administration of his vast empire. The practice was quickly adopted by other European monarchs.

The idiom was popularized after the American Civil War when veterans’ records were tied up in pink or red binding and difficult to access.

Pipe Dream

Pipe dream originates from the 19th century and indicates the dreams experienced by opium users and the instrument they use to smoke it. Today, it refers to a fantastic hope or plan that is impossible to achieve.

The earliest known use of the idiom appeared in an 1890 issue of the Chicago Daily Tribune, referring to aerial navigation: “It has been regarded as a pipe-dream for a good many years.”

If you found this post interesting, you might also be interested in common words that were coined after notorious personalities, body parts that have unusual names, or the origins of collective nouns, such as “A murder of crows.”

See the previous or next Fun Facts About English

Donald's English Classroom

When introducing young ESL students to CVC words, Donald’s English Classroom has a variety of activities ready to download and start using today! Click here to check out all our flashcards, game sets, worksheets, and more!

Filed Under: Fun Facts About English Tagged With: ampersand, Donald's English Classroom, etymology, fall, G.I., hello, history, John Doe, kinney brothers publshing, language, linguistics, origins, paddywhack, phrases, pipe dream, red tape, Richard Roe, vocabulary, words

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