Let’s move away from the Navy for a while and
look at a couple of other phrases in relatively common usage.
There was a time when the removal of
somebody’s head was regarded as a method of execution for upper class people
like Royalty or Knights.
A Royal head would be removed by the use of a
sword and that was regarded as much more dignified than having your head
lopped off by an axe.
Of course the French had different ideas and
summoned Madame Guillotine to the task. We still have guillotines to this day
but now they are more commonly used on paper or sheet metal. It would have been
interesting to have someone who could lip read at these Gallic executions since
the severed head would often try to speak to the assembled crowd after being
excised from the body but, of course, with no air to drive the vocal chords...
The common person, criminal, would
have his life separated from his body by rather more bizarre ways. These were
invariably painful and long lasting as in being hung, drawn and quartered.
Death was rarely instantaneous in this type of execution unless the fellows
doing it got it wrong and then they were for the ‘high jump’.
The ‘High Jump’ does not refer to a
form of athleticism but rather to dropping somebody through a hatch at the
end of a rope. Once the neck was broken they would usually jump around for a
while until the body recognised that it was no longer getting instructions from
the brain as to what to do next—breathing springs to mind.
We still have an expression where we
say that something has ‘gone to pot’. This has nothing to do with the culinary
arts and more to do with the tradition in olden days of boiling somebody to
death in a pot. This was a time when boiling to death was a legal punishment.
On an equally vicious note, "meeting
a deadline" refers to the line drawn in the American Civil War to stop
inmates escaping - and would be shot in the head if they crossed it.
It began as a real line, drawn in the dirt or marked by a fence or rail,
restricting prisoners in Civil War camps. They were warned, "If you cross
this line, you're dead." To make ‘dead’ sure this important boundary was
not overlooked, guards and prisoners soon were calling it by its own bluntly
descriptive name, the dead line. An 1864 congressional report explains the
usage in one camp: "A railing around the inside of the stockade, and about
twenty feet from it, constitutes the 'dead line,' beyond which the prisoners
are not allowed to pass."
Today, applying a "rule of
thumb" suggests a practical approach to problem solving, but it was
actually a violent way to settle marital disputes.
A judge, Sir Francis Buller, ruled
that "a man was entitled to beat his wife with a stick provided it was no
thicker than his thumb". This
is from the Glasgow Herald dated 1886.
Experts discovered that "paying
through the nose" was originally a Viking punishment of slitting the nose
from tip to eyebrow of anyone who refused to pay tax. You would be immediately
identifiable as a tax evader by the heavy scar eventually and, no doubt, the
terrified screams initially.
Meanwhile "pulling someone's
leg" originates from a time when London was rife with "grab and
run" thieves who attacked their victims by pulling them to the ground by
their leg.
Not much changes there, then!
Perhaps you have some interesting snippets
that you could add to this.
Finding out about these words, phrases and
sayings is, to me, fascinating stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment