Idioms

*********An albatross around one’s neck

Meaning

A burden which some unfortunate person has to carry.

Origin

A reference to the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in which the character who shot an albatross is obliged to carry the bird hung around his neck.

God save thee, ancient Mariner
From the fiends, that plague thee thus
Why look’st thou so ? – With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
…
Ah. well a-day. what evil looks
Had I from old and young
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

**********Pipe dream

Meaning

An unrealistic hope or fantasy.

Origin

pipe dreamThe allusion is to the dreams experienced by smokers of opium pipes. Opiates were widely used by the English literati in the 18th and 19th centuries. Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the best known users, and it would be difficult to claim that the imagery in surreal works like Kubla Khan owned nothing to opium. Lewis Carroll, although not known to be an opium user himself, makes clear allusions to drug use in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has his hero Sherlock Holmes visit an opium den – although that was for research rather than consumption.

It’s strange then that ‘pipe dream’ comes from none of these sources but has an American origin. The early references to the phrase all originate from in or around Chicago. The earliest I have found is from The Chicago Daily Tribune, December 1890:

“It [aerial navigation] has been regarded as a pipe-dream for a good many years.”

The first that associates the phrase with opium smoking is from The Fort Wayne Gazette, September 1895:

“There are things taking place every day in Chicago which are are devoid of rational explanation as the mysterious coinings of the novelist’s brain. Newspaper men hear of them, but in the rush for cold, hard facts, the ‘pipe stories’, as queer and unexplainable stories are called, are at a discount. Were it not for this the following incident, which can be verified by the word of several reputable men, would have long ago received the space and attention it merits instead of being consigned to the wastebasket as the ‘pipe dream’ of an opium devotee.”

[The piece goes on to describe an incredible story, apparently believed by the reporter, of a mystic incident in which a man foretells in detail the suicide of another man. It rather makes one wonder what the reporter had been smoking]

In his 1896 play, “Artie – A Story of the Streets and Town”, the American columnist and playwright George Ade penned this line:

“But then I was spinnin’ pipe dreams myself, tellin’ about how much I lose on the board and all that.”

It seems clear that that Ade would have expected his audience to have prior knowledge of it. He goes to no effort to explain it in the play and the meaning wouldn’t have been clear otherwise.

*********Flash in the pan

Meaning

Something which disappoints by failing to deliver anything of value, despite a showy beginning.

Origin

There’s reason to believe that this phrase derives from the Californian Gold Rush of the mid 19th century. Prospectors who panned for gold supposedly became excited when they saw something glint in the pan, only to have their hopes dashed when it proved not to be gold but a mere ‘flash in the pan’. This is an attractive and plausible notion, in part because it ties in with another phrase related to disappointment – ‘it didn’t pan out’. ‘Panning out’ can be traced to US prospectors and was used in that context by the early 20th century. For example, Paul Haworth’s Trailmakers of the Northwest, 1921:

“The Colonel had told them that a cubic foot of gravel would pan out twenty dollars in gold.”

flash in the panNevertheless, gold prospecting isn’t the origin of ‘a flash in the pan’. The phrase did have a literal meaning, i.e. it derives from a real flash in a real pan, but not a prospector’s pan. Flintlock muskets used to have small pans to hold charges of gunpowder. An attempt to fire the musket in which the gunpowder flared up without a bullet being fired was a ‘flash in the pan’.

The term has been known since the late 17th century. Elkanah Settle, in Reflections on several of Mr. Dryden’s plays 1687, had this to say:

“If Cannons were so well bred in his Metaphor as only to flash in the Pan, I dare lay an even wager that Mr. Dryden durst venture to Sea.”

************* catch-as-catch-can

1. (idiomatic) intermittent; only when possible or when the opportunity presents itself

My efforts lately have been catch-as-catch-can, not carefully planned.

* a. 1681, John Fryer, Richard Chiswell, Robert Roberts, Robert White, A New Account of East-India and Persia, in Eight Letters, Being Nine Years Travels, Begun 1672 and Finished 1681

Which being done, the Women run in the dark to catch as catch can ; and whatever Lot they light on,

*************** Wet behind the ears

Meaning

Naive.

Origin

The allusion is to the inexperience of a baby, so recently born as to be still wet.

This phrase was in circulation in the USA in the early 20th century – twenty years before it was first recorded elsewhere. The converse of the phrase – ‘dry back of the ears’, was also known in the USA from around the same date. That was recorded in the American Dialect Society’s Dialect Notes IV, 1914:

“Dry back of the ears, mature; – of persons.”

The earliest citation I can find for ‘wet behind the ears’ is from the Portsmouth Daily Times, October 1911:

“There is not much in the matter so far as the organ [the courthouse record] is concerned except it is so new that it is wet behind the ears yet”.

************** sucking hind tit

Not getting a fair share. Many female mammals have multiple rows of breasts, for example dogs. Typically the rear most pair of breasts is smaller and less developed than the rest. Hence a pup nursing from the rear most breast is likely to receive less milk than other nursing pups. Hind means rear most. Tit is slang for breast.
Since the introduction of Windows ’95, Apple Computer has been sucking hind tit.

************* Cadmean victory

A victory won at as great a cost to the victor as to the vanquished.

*************** Prosopagnosiacs’ motto

We don’t take people at face value.

Prosopagnosia is also known as face blindness, usually a result of brain injury. People suffering from it cannot recognize familiar faces, even their own.

*************** Illegitimi non carborundum

is a mock-Latin aphorism meaning “Don’t let the bastards grind you down”.

**************** Ignoratio elenchi

(also known as irrelevant conclusion[1] or irrelevant thesis) is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question. “Ignoratio elenchi” can be roughly translated by ignorance of refutation, that is, ignorance of what a refutation could logically be; “elenchi” (genitive singular of the Latin elenchus) is from the Greek ??e????, meaning an argument of disproof or refutation

***************** Ignotum per ignotius,

a Latin phrase meaning literally “the unknown by the more unknown,” is an explanation more unfamiliar than the concept which it seeks to explain.

For example, “The oven felt hot because of Fourier’s Law.” It is unlikely that a person unfamiliar with the hotness of ovens would be illuminated by a reference to the fundamental laws of physics. Of course, such a person might exist in theory, so ignotum per ignotius is not strictly a logical fallacy; it is just a criticism of an argument which is not useful in a particular context.

***************** Ignotum per æque ignotum,

meaning “the unknown by the equally unknown”, is a related form of fallacy in which one attempts to prove something unknown by deducing it from something else which is also not known to be true

*********** The Greek phrase Molon labe! (????? ?aß?; approximate Classical Greek pronunciation [mol?`?n labé], Modern Greek [mo’lon la’ve]), meaning “Come and take them” is a classical expression of defiance reportedly by King Leonidas in response to the Persian army’s demand that the Spartans surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae. It corresponds roughly to the modern equivalent English phrase “over my dead body”, “bring it on” or, most closely, “come and get it”. It is an exemplary use of a laconic phrase.

**************** A Tom Swifty (or Tom Swiftie) is a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed. Tom Swifties may be considered a type of Wellerism.

Origins

The name comes from the Tom Swift series of books (1910–1993), similar in many ways to the better-known Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series, and, like them, produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. In this series, the young scientist hero, Tom Swift, underwent adventures involving rocket ships, ray-guns and other things he had invented. A stylistic idiosyncrasy of at least some books in this series was that the author, “Victor Appleton,” went to great trouble to avoid repetition of the unadorned word “said”; elegant variation used a different quotative verb, or modifying adverbial words or phrases. Since many adverbs end in “ly” this kind of pun was originally called a Tom Swiftly, the prime example being “We must hurry,” said Tom Swiftly. At some point, this kind of humor was called a Tom Swifty, and that name is now more prevalent.

This excerpt (with emphasis added) from the 1910 novel Tom Swift and His Airship illustrates the style:

“Oh, I’m not a professor,” he said quickly. “I’m a professional balloonist, parachute jumper. Give exhibitions at county fairs. Leap for life, and all that sort of thing. I guess you mean my friend. He’s smart enough for a professor. Invented a lot of things. How much is the damage?”

“No professor?” cried Miss Perkman indignantly. “Why I understood from Miss Nestor that she called some one professor.”

“I was referring to my friend, Mr. Swift,” said Mary. “His father’s a professor, anyhow, isn’t he, Tom? I mean Mr. Swift!”

“I believe he has a degree, but he never uses it,” was the lad’s answer.

“Ha! Then I have been deceived! There is no professor present!” and the old maid drew herself up as though desirous of punishing some one. “Young ladies, for the last time, I order you to your rooms,” and, with a dramatic gesture she pointed to the scuttle through which the procession had come.

“Say something, Tom — I mean Mr. Swift,” appealed Mary Nestor, in a whisper, to our hero. “Can’t you give some sort of a lecture? The girls are just crazy to hear about the airship, and this ogress won’t let us. Say something!”

“I — I don’t know what to say,” stammered Tom.

The Tom Swifty, then, is a parody of this style with the incorporation of a pun.
[edit] Examples

* “Who left the toilet seat down?” Tom asked peevishly.
* “Pass me the shellfish,” said Tom crabbily.
* “That’s the last time I’ll stick my arm in a lion’s mouth,” the lion-tamer said off-handedly.
* “Can I go looking for the Grail again?” Tom requested.
* “I unclogged the drain with a vacuum cleaner,” said Tom succinctly.
* “I might as well be dead,” Tom croaked.
* “We just struck oil!” Tom gushed.
* “They had to amputate them both at the ankles,” said Tom defeatedly.
* “Who discovered radium?” asked Marie curiously.
* “The Battle of the Nile? A lot of fun!” said Lord Nelson disarmingly.
* “Hurry up and get to the back of the ship,” Tom said sternly.
* “Would you like to ride in my new ambulance?” asked Tom hospitably.
* “Who put the moss in the bog again?” asked Tom repeatedly.
* “A word that contains all six vowels? And I suppose you want those vowels to appear in alphabetical order?” asked Tom facetiously.
* “Charlatan! Pretender! Mountebank! Quack! Rogue!” said Tom euphoniously.
* “I’m not going to evangelize the rest of the neighborhood,” concluded Tom distractedly.
* “The robber is coming down the stairs,” said Tom condescendingly.
* “Nnnn”, Tom murmured forensically.
* “I think I’m a homosexual,” said Tom half in earnest.
* “I am the bone lord,” Tom proclaimed skulkingly.
* “I know who turned out the lights,” Tom hinted darkly.
* “I dropped my toothpaste,” said Tom crestfallenly.
* “Only one of my speakers works!” said Tom monotonously.
* “I have a split personality,” said Tom being frank.
* “It’s great to be camping,” said Tom with intent.
* “Baa,” said Tom sheepishly.
* “It’s obvious I’ve lost my job,” said Tom redundantly.
* “I can’t wait to get off this boat” said Tom assuredly.
* “Let’s take this song in cut time,” said Tom intuitively.
* “I don’t like nun’s clothing,” said Tom habitually.
* “Don’t you fire that gun at me,” Tom shot back.

As will be seen, the standard syntax is for the quoted sentence to be first, followed by the description of the act of speaking. The hypothetical speaker is usually, by convention, called “Tom” (or “he” or “she”), unless some other name is needed for the pun (as in the Marie Curie and Lord Nelson examples above).

********** Wellerisms, named for Sam Weller in Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers, make fun of established proverbs by showing that they are wrong in certain situations, often when taken literally. In this sense, wellerisms that include proverbs are a type of anti-proverb. Typically a Wellerism consists of three parts: a proverb or saying, a speaker, and an often humorously literal explanation.

Some researchers concentrated on wellerisms found in English and European languages, but Alan Dundes documented them in the Yoruba language of Nigeria (Dundes 1964), with African scholars confirming and adding to his findings (Ojoade 1980, Opata 1988, 1990). They are also found in ancient Sumerian “The fox, having urinated into the sea, said: ‘The depths of the sea are my urine!'”

A special format for Wellerisms called a Tom Swifty incorporates a punning adverb that modifies the manner in which the statement was related.
[edit] Examples

* “Everyone to his own taste,” the old woman said when she kissed her cow.
* “We’ll have to rehearse that,” said the undertaker as the coffin fell out of the car.
* A body can get used to anything, even to being hanged, as the Irishman said. (Lucy Maud Montgomery–Anne of Green Gables)
* “This week is beginning splendidly,” said one who was to be hanged on Monday.
* “Much noise and little wool,” said the Devil when he sheared a pig.
* “So I see,” said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw.