Transcript - The Curious Origins of Popular Sayings
- shinsevi20
- Feb 21, 2022
- 7 min read
Take a look at this painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
It's a bunch of illustrations depicting common sayings.
Think of it as a "Where's Waldo" for popular expressions.
Whilst many of these are in Dutch, some of them carry on over into English.
This soldier is armed to the teeth.
Over here, the world has turned upside down.
And finally, there's always a bigger fish.
We use expressions like these every day.
But have you ever wondered where they come from?
For example, why shouldn't we cry over spilt milk?
And who's going around killing two birds with one stone?
Or putting cats into bags [cats out of the bag]?
Turns out that many of our most beloved sayings have some intriguing and obscure origins, some of which are pretty dark.
Did you know that the phrase Saved by the Bell may have arisen out of fears of being buried alive, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Without further ado, let's explore the origins of popular sayings and expressions.
Don't cry over spilt milk.
The meaning of this saying is not particularly intuitive.
In plain English, it means that there's no point in worrying about things that can't be changed.
Who came up with this unusual lactose based idiom?
Well, it's not quite certain, but it was first recorded in a book of English Proverbs in 1659, where it was written as “no weeping over shed milk”.
Some had suggested that this phrase may have come from Old English folklore, and then it's all to do with fairies.
In rural areas it is said the townsfolk would leave out a glass of milk for woodland sprites.
If any of the milk was spilled, it is said that the fairies would still be able to drink it, meaning that it wasn't actually ever wasted, hence the phrase, don't cry over spilt milk.
Others have suggested a much more grounded origin.
You see, milk spoils very quickly., and so spilling any on the floor means that it already has been wasted.
It can't be recovered, so I guess there's no point in worrying about it.
Don't cry over spilt milk.
Fairies are not, the message remains the same.
“What's done is done” as Lady Macbeth once said.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away
From Gala to Granny Smith (apples), this Victorian saying encourages people to eat more fruit in order to avoid unwanted trips to the doctor's office.
The rhyme was first printed in a Welsh magazine from 1866 as “eat an apple on going to bed and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread.”
This has changed over the years from “an apple a day no doctor to pay” to “an apple a day sends the doctor away”.
The version now commonly used first appeared in 1922 and seems to have stuck.
Nutritionists would recommend to eat more than just apples in your diet to remain healthy.
There's unfortunately no correlation between the consumption of apples and the proximity of physicians as the rhyme would suggest.
But interestingly, there was a time when the word 'apple' was used to refer to any kind of fruit.
So perhaps the rhyme refers to eating fruit in general, and not just the red or green hand food that we're familiar with today.
Kill two birds with one stone
This popular phrase encapsulates the idea of achieving two goals with one action.
This saying may have come from ancient China.
In Mandarin, there's this phrase.
It translates to “one arrow double vultures”, and carries the same idea as the English one.
The expression is based on a folktale about the legendary archery skills of general Zhangsun Sheng.
In an attempt to impress his soldiers he shot a single arrow into the sky that brought down two vultures.
If that wasn't impressive enough, he achieved this feat whilst on horseback.
The first occurrence of this phrase in English is in the 1600s, where it was used by the philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
We don't know how it crossed over into English...
Thomas Hobbes was also the first to record the phrase, “the feather that broke the horse's back”, although you'll probably be familiar with the more exotic equivalent:
“the straw that broke the camel's back”.
Both expressions refer to when something reaches a tipping point, when a chain of seemingly minor events finally culminates into one big and sudden reaction, in this case, at the expense of a poor animal.
For a lot of these animal related sayings, they seem to be quite aggressive in nature, take:
beating a dead horse or grabbing a bull by the horns.
Of all the animals, it seems that someone really had a problem with cats, plenty of ways to skin a cat, letting the cat out the bag, or curiosity killed the cat, and so on.
It's perhaps reassuring to know that “cats are supposed to have nine lives” or so I've been told.
In any case, noticing how many common sayings depict violence against animals, the American animal rights organisation Peter have drafted some new animal friendly idioms that you can try out for yourself.
So instead of killing two birds with one stone, it's “feeding two birds with one scone”.
Instead of beating a dead horse, it's “feeding a fedhorse”.
And if you don't wish to grab a bull by the horns, then you may prefer to “grab a rose by its thorns”, or maybe not.
Whilst inventive, these animal friendly sayings have not been unanimously accepted.
We have to wait and see, as to whether it catches on.
Many idioms stemmed from the Bible.
In fact, there's an entire book dedicated to them, the appropriately named Book of Proverbs.
Some of these require a bit of thinking to figure out the meaning.
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries out the bones
In other words, nobody likes a grouch.
Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler, whomever is led astray by them is not wise
which is to say, drink in moderation.
On the other hand, there are plenty of Irish German and Czech proverbs that would say otherwise.
Across the book of Proverbs, there are a bunch of sayings to contradict one another.
One such instance is whether to listen to foolish people.
One says, “Do not Answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will become just like him”.
But another says, “Answer a fool according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes”.
Which one is it Bible?
Anyway, moving on.
Beyond the book of Proverbs, there's one popular saying that I'm sure you've already heard an eye for an eye.
It's the idea that if you commit a crime, your punishment ought to match it.
In this case, gouge out someone’s eye and expect to lose one for yourself.
You can find the same in the Old Testament among a large list of other biblical laws, but this phase didn't actually originate from the Bible.
Instead, it may have been copied, or even plagiarised, from a much older legal text.
You see, a very similar phrase can be found in the Babylonian code of Hammurabi, in which it is decreed that
“If a man should blind the eye of another man, they shall blind his eye”
The code of Hammurabi was written in 1750 BCE, so predates the biblical laws by 1000 or so years, in which case this saying may be the oldest proverb that is still in use today.
Speak of the devil
There are some phases which sound biblical but aren't particularly those to do with Satan.
Speak of the devil is a phrase used when someone who's been talked about coincidentally appears in the room.
The origin of this phrase goes back to an old fear that it was dangerous to talk about the devil.
Even mentioning Satan's name, like I'm doing now, could cause him to appear hence the original way of putting it,
“Speak of the devil, and he doth appear.”
This superstition faded over time, and expression became less and less impactful.
But in the early 1800s It was seen as simply unlucky.
By the end of the century, it was a saying used to discourage eavesdropping.
Nowadays, it's just part of everyday conversation, and no longer a way to summon Lucifer, at least, I hope.
On quick side note, “Speak of the devil and he does appear” has a positive equivalent
“talk of angels and the flutter of their wings.”
You may already be aware, from my other videos, that angels in the Bible are not so well... Angelic.
In the Old Testament, they're sometimes depicted as floating wheels covered in eyes.
Elsewhere as animals human hybrids, again, coated in eyes from head to toes.
At the risk of being visited by either, perhaps it's best I move on.
Saved by the Bell.
Let's continue to explore the idioms with dark origins.
Starting with Saved by the Bell, which is used when a person is rescued by something at the last moment.
Aside from being the namesake of a cheesy 80s sitcom, somebody that is to do with being buried alive.
In the 19th century, there was a mass panic over premature burial, which is to say the doctors would falsely pronounce a sleeping person dead and they would be buried, only to wake up in their own coffin.
To reassure families, inventors made a so-called safety coffin, a small string was wired inside a coffin that was attached to a bell on the surface.
If the unfortunate person somehow woke, they'd be able to ring the bow and help would swiftly arrive, hence “saved by the bell”.
This story, however, is not the only proposed origin of the phrase. Some believe that has nothing to do with premature burial at all, but instead came about from boxing slang.
In a typical boxing match, if you were losing a bout, and we're about to go down, you would hope for the bell to ring, that marked the end of the round, you could be saved by the bell to prevent a knockout.
Who knows maybe the saying doesn't have a dark origin after all.
That's more that could be said for this next idiom.
Bite the bullet
Although nowadays, this expression is about confronting difficult situations in America during the Civil War, it had a very different meaning.
The term supposedly originated in field hospitals, where wounded soldiers were taken to undergo amputations.
In a time when anaesthesia wasn’t widely available, soldiers had to clench their teeth down on something to cope with the pain of surgery.
Often it was with anything that was lying about.
In a battlefield, but that was usually spare ammunition.
I suspect they’d be visiting the dentist shortly after.
It's not just common sayings, many Nursery Rhymes are believed to have dark and disturbing origins as well.
If you'd like to learn whether “ring or roses” is about the plague, then consider watching my video on the dark side of nursery rhymes.
It goes without saying that there are many expressions out there.
Proverbs, idioms and sayings are a feature across all languages and cultures. They provide a useful way to condense big ideas into short and memorable sentences
In English in particular there are 1000s of products, perhaps helped by the fact that so many people across the world speak the language.
As a result, many of our popular sayings have these interesting and obscure origins.
But we've only managed to look at a small handful.
There's so much more to cover.