09.05.08

Pair o’Phrase

Posted in American vs. British, Shakespeare, myths and misconceptions, regionalisms, word history at 7:27 am by Bill Brohaugh

When discussing false origins, Everything You Know About English Is Wrong concentrates on individual words. I do take a poke at “3 sheets to the wind,” “raining cats and dogs” and a couple of other phrases that have been given false histories. For phrases, allow me to alert you to The Phrase Finder website, one of many interesting sources. There you can look up numerous phrases and their origins (and even find them grouped along such themes as “phrases from Shakespeare”), and sign up for a phrase-a-week newsletter.

Yesterday’s newsletter, for instance, pokes at “chip on your shoulder,” supposedly from placing wood chip on, yes, one’s shoulder as a dare to begin a fight. But site operator Gary Martin writes,

Anyone who might be inclined to doubt that origin can take heart from an alternative theory. This relates to working practices in the British Royal Dockyards in the 18th century. In Day and Lunn’s The History of Work and Labour Relations in the Royal Dockyards, 1999, the authors report that the standing orders of the [Royal] Navy Board for August 1739 included this ruling:

Shipwrights to be allowed to bring [chips] on their shoulders near to the dock gates, there to be inspected by officers.

The permission to remove surplus timber for firewood or building material was a substantial perk of the job for the dock workers.

In readable and interesting analysis, Martin then examines which is the actual origin of the phrase, and if you “knew” that one of the origins was right, well, everything you know about English is wrong, eh?

To read Martin’s analysis and learn the likely true origin, visit here.

By the by, the site is British, so part of the fun of the newsletter is learning about phrases that we Yanks (or at least this particular Yank) haven’t encountered before. Come a cropper? More on that anon.

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