IDIOM OF THE DAY

[rufusredtail]

CHOP

not much chop   no good ; not up to much.  Australian & New Zealand informal

i The sense of chop in this expression originated in the Hindi word chap meaning 'official stamp'. Europeans in the far east extended the use of the word to cover documents such as passports to which an official stamp or impression was attached and in China it came to mean 'branded goods'. From this , in the late 19th century, chop was used to refer to something that had 'class' or had been validated as genuine or good.

[Speros]

Nail your colours to the mast

Meaning

To defiantly display one's opinions and beliefs. Also, to show one's intention to hold on to those beliefs until the end.

Origin

In 17th century nautical battles colours (flags) were struck (lowered) as a mark of submission. It was also the custom in naval warfare to direct one's cannon fire at the opponent's ship's mast, thus disabling it. If all of a ship's masts were broken the captain usually had no alternative but to surrender. If the captain decided to fight on this was marked by hoisting the colours on the remnants of the ship's rigging, i.e. by 'nailing his colours to the mast'.

[Speros]

Get the upper hand

Meaning

Take a dominant position.

Origin

Various suggestions have been made as to the origin of 'get the upper hand' (or 'take the upper hand'). Prominent amongst those is that the phrase originated in American playgrounds, in the way that children select sides for impromptu baseball games. The method is for one team captain to grab the bat at the bottom, then the other captain takes hold above the first's hand and they progress hand over hand along the bat until the top is reached - the one left holding the bat having the 'upper hand' and getting first choice of player for their team.

[rufusredtail]

MITT

get your mitts on obtain possession of. informal

i Mitt, an abbreviation of mitten, is an informal term for a person's hand that dates back to the late 19th century.

[Speros]

Up the duff

Meaning

Euphemism for pregnant. Used most commonly, although not exclusively, to describe unplanned pregnancy.

Origin

The phrase doesn't appear in print until 1941, in Sydney John Baker's Dictionary of Australian Slang:

"Duff, up the (of a woman), pregnant."

Duff isn't a common word and seems an odd choice for a colloquial phrase. It took a rather roundabout route...

As the phrase means pregnant it shouldn't come as a major surprise that for the origin we need look no further than the penis. As with many English phrases that refer to sexual activity we dive straight into a world of euphemism and there are several obscuring layers here between penis and pregnancy.

One of the numerous slang terms for the sexual organs, or more commonly specifically the penis, is pudding. This has a long history, going back to at least the 18th century, as here from Thomas D'Urfey's, Wit and mirth: or pills to purge melancholy, being a collection of ballads and songs, 1719:

"I made a request to prepare again, That I might continue in Love with the strain Of his Pudding".

A slang term for male masturbation, which leaves little to the imagination - 'pull one's pudding', has been known since at least the 19th century.

There is a related phrase for pregnancy - 'in the pudding club', and it turns out that this and 'up the duff' are essentially the same phrase. By 1890, Barrère & Leland, in their Dictionary of Slang, defined the term pudding club:

"A woman in the family way is said to be in the pudding club."

Note that in those Victorian times the definition of a euphemistic term for pregnancy relied on another euphemism.

Dough is another word for pudding and duff is an alternative form and pronunciation of dough. That was in use by 1840, as here from R. H. Dana in Before the Mast:

"To enhance the value of the Sabbath to the crew, they are allowed on that day a pudding, or, as it is called, a ‘duff’."

So, we travel this route - (up the) duff -> dough -> pudding -> penis -> pregnant.

The more recent 'bun in the oven', another slang phrase for pregnant, may originate this way too

[Speros]

As dead as a dodo

Meaning

Unambiguously and unequivocally dead.

Origin

The dodo was a flightless bird somewhat like a turkey. It was native to Mauritius; the last live specimen was seen in 1662 and they are thought to have died out completely by 1690. The extinction of the species is attributed to the introduction of domestic animals to Mauritius following the first visits to the island by the Portuguese in 1507 and the later settlement by the Dutch - although the species was thought to be then already in decline.

[Speros]

Save one's bacon

Meaning

Escape from injury; avoid harm, especially to one's body.

Origin

By bacon, we now normally mean the cured and dried meat taken from the back or sides of a pig. To the mediaeval mind, 'bacon' was meat from anywhere on the body of the animal - more akin to what we now call pork. This was the origin of the slang term 'bacon' meaning the human body. 'Saving your bacon' was simply saving your body from harm. The expression was used that way as early as the 17th century

[Speros]

Shiver my timbers

Meaning

An oath, expressing annoyance or surprise.

Origin

Those of a certain age will remember Robert Newton, rolling his eyes and yarring it up in his archetypal Hollywood pirate role - Long John Silver in the 1950 film Treasure Island.

Robert Louis Stevenson used shiver my timbers several times in the original 1883 book, for example:

"Well, he [Old Pew] is dead now and under hatches; but for two year before that, shiver my timbers, the man was starving!"

Of course, Newton made the most of such 'parrot on the shoulder' phrases and it also appears several times in the film's screenplay. Newton's version, like that of all self-respecting stage pirates, was shiver me timbers, with the occasional 'aaarh, Jim lad' thrown in.

The first appearance of the phrase in print is in Frederick Marryat's Jacob Faithful, 1834:

"I won't thrash you Tom. Shiver my timbers if I do."

One meaning of shiver, which is now largely forgotten, is 'to break into pieces'. That meaning originated at least as early as the 14th century and is recorded in several Old English texts. A more recent citation, which makes that meaning clear, is James Froude's Caesar; a sketch, 1879:

"As he crossed the hall, his statue fell, and shivered on the stones."

So, the sailor's oath shiver my timbers, is synonymous with let my boat breaks into pieces. The question is whether any real sailor used the term or whether it was just a literary invention. Well, we can't be sure, but no one has yet provided any clear evidence that it is more than Newton-style hokum.


 

[rufusredtail]

MONEY

money for jam, 1 money earned for little or no effort. 2 an easy task. British Informal

i These expressions,which date back to the early 20th century, may have originated as military slang. In 1919, the Athenaeum stated that money for jam arose as the result of the 'great use of jam in the army'.

[rufusredtail]

DIE

the die is cast, an event has happened or a decision has been taken that cannot be changed.

i This expression has its origins in Julius Caesar's remark as he was about to cross the Rubicion,as reported by the Roman historian Suetonius; jacta alea esto  'let the die be cast'.

[rufusredtail]

SPOON

Win the wooden spoon

i A wooden spoon was originally presented to the candidate coming last in the Cambridge University mathematical tripos (the final honours examination for a BA degree).

[rufusredtail]

BLIND

a blind spot   1 an area into which you cannot see. 2 an aspect of something that someone knows or cares little about.

 I These general senses appear to have developed from a mid 19th-century cricketing term for the spot of ground in front of a batsman where a ball pitched by a bowler leaves the batman undecided whether to play forward to it or back.

[smoooth2]

WET SPOT

A perfectly natural but disgusting slippery area usually associated with bed linen.

Generally frowned upon as a sleeping zone.

This expression is thought to have originated in early Biblical times when Eve supposedly said "eeeeeewwww"

Made popular by millions of couples who have said "move over .... I'm not sleeping on that ... !"

[rufusredtail]

PALE

beyond the pale

I A pale (from Latin palus meaning 'a stake') is a pointed wooden post used with others to form a fence; from this it came to refer to any fenced enclosure. So, in literal use, beyond the pale meant the area beyond a fence.The term Pale was applied to various territories under English control and especially to the area of Ireland under English jurisdiction before the 16th century.

The earliest reference(1574) to the pale in Ireland as such draws the contrast between the English Pale and the ' Wyld Irysh'; the area beyond the pale would have been regarded as dangerous and uncivilized by the English.

[rufusredtail]

Sorry chaps, no idiom,s  for a month going to Thailand to get married .