Why do we call the first weeks of marriage a “honeymoon”?

The custom of a “honeymoon” began over four thousand years ago in Babylon, when for a full lunar month after the wedding, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the honey-beer he could drink. It was called the “honey month.” The word honeymoon didn’t enter our language until 1546, and because few people could afford a vacation, a honeymoon didn’t mean a trip away from home until the middle of the nineteenth century.

Why do we say we have a “yen” for something that we crave?

Although a yen is also a type of Japanese currency, that meaning has nothing to do with an overwhelming urge; instead, the yen in question is from the Cantonese Chinese yin-yan. Yin means opium, and yan means craving. Brought to America in the mid-nineteenth century it entered English slang as “yen yen” and eventually just “yen,” which early in the twentieth century took the meaning of a craving for anything.

Why do we use the word neat, as in “That was a neat idea?”

The word neat, although dated, is often used to describe something pleasing. It is also used to order a shot of alcohol straight from the bottle without any mix or ice, and it’s within this context that the word became popular. The original meaning of neat was to describe anything clean or undiluted, without any impurities. This gave us the extension of meaning tidy, as in a teenager keeping a neat room, which is a neat idea.

Why is something obscene said to be “gross”?

Gross began as a prejudicial reference to those who are overweight, during the 1950s. Gross is from the Latin grossus, meaning thick or large, which in the fourteenth century gave us the word grocer for a wholesale merchant who bought and sold in large quantities. To an accountant, gross means “without deductions.” To “gross out” in the broad sense, as in being disgusted by anything crude or excessive, took hold during the 1960s.

Why are nightclothes called “pyjamas”?

In the sixteenth century, the first nightgowns appeared as loose-fitting, full-length unisex garments for warmth in bed. In the eighteenth century the negligee became a lounging garment for women while, the nightshirt with loose-fitting pants called pyjamas replaced the long gown for men. Pyjamas were modelled after harem pants and were imported from Iran, using the Persian words pae for leg garment and jama for clothing.

Why are the bundles of tissue fibres that move our bones called “muscles”?

In the average adult male body, there are forty-five pounds of bone compared to sixty-five pounds of muscle. The average female is 15 percent less. We call them muscles because when a Roman physician saw how they rippled under the skin when flexed, it reminded him of the skittering of a small mouse, or musculus, and so that’s what he called them. En route to English, the small mouse musculus became muscle.

Why is someone who has been defeated forced to say “uncle”?

Being forced to say “uncle” after losing a fight is a man thing and dates back to the late nineteenth century in the United States. In today’s terms picture a chauvinistic Republican defeating a Libertarian in some form of physical combat. To the chauvinist, the highest order of submitting to decency is believing in the state, and so to stop the beating the defeated man must cry “Uncle Sam,” which in time became “uncle.

Why when things go wrong do we say they’ve gone “haywire”?

Haywire is used on farms to hold together bales of hay. It’s tightly bound and when cut will sometimes whip around in a dangerous, erratic manner. But more than this, because haywire is often used as a temporary repair on machinery that has broken down, or to hold together any equipment that’s falling apart, it became a rural expression for things or people that aren’t functioning properly ... they’ve gone haywire.

Why do we call a large quantity “a lot”?

It takes a lot of people to play a lottery or there won’t be enough money to make the prize worthwhile. Lot is from the word lottery, a very ancient practice from a time when people cast marked pebbles into a pot and then selected a winner through a draw. To “throw in your lot” with the others meant you had joined them in the gamble. A lot, meaning a large quantity, took its meaning from the many balls or entrants in the lottery pool.

Why do we ask for “the real dope” when we want the truth?

Dope is from the Dutch word doop, meaning a thick sauce, and became a drug term from the semi-liquid form of opium smoked by drug addicts. The use of dope meaning “stupid” came from the retarded behaviour of someone under the influence of the drug. The use of “the real dope” as information came in around 1900 when gamblers checking on racehorses needed to know whether or not any of the horses were drugged or doped.

Why is something of little value called “fluff” and poor workmanship called “shoddy”?

The word shoddy is used to describe both poor workmanship and poor character, while fluff means of little value. Shoddy is derived from shode meaning “shed” or “thrown off,” and refers to the excess tossed from the good cloth during the process of weaving. This fluff is re-spun and used to make similar but cheaper wool products, which, although they look good, through time reveal their poor quality — they are fluff, of little value.

Why do we call a powerful earth-moving tractor a “bulldozer”?

“Bulldozer” is a metaphor that originated in the Deep South during Reconstruction. A “bull-dose” was a dose of the bullwhip and was used by American terrorist groups to inhibit freed black slaves from using their new mandate to vote. In 1925, when a machine appeared that could change everything in its path through sheer force, it took the name bulldozer from the bullwhip and changed the meaning of the word.

Why do we refer to a bad joke as being “corny”?

The reason a cheap joke is called “corny” comes from mail order seed catalogues from the early twentieth century. In an effort to make reading about seeds interesting, the publishers mixed in cartoons, jokes, and riddles throughout the crop and garden book. These inserts were of desperately low quality and were known as corn catalogue jokes, and were eventually simply called corny, which came to mean any failed attempt at entertainment.

How did the word carnival come to mean a self-indulgent celebration?

In the Christian calendar, Lent, a reverent and disciplined observance of Easter, begins on Ash Wednesday. In the Middle Ages the faithful were forbidden to eat meat during Lent, and so the day before Ash Wednesday became known as Fat Tuesday, when everyone would overindulge in a Mardi Gras of what was about to be forbidden. In Church Latin, carne vale literally means “farewell to meat.”

Why kind of a job is created by “featherbedding”?

About sixty years ago, when a group of railroad men complained about being unable to sleep on their hard bunks, the boss asked, “What do you want … feather beds?” At the time a feather bed was the warmest and coziest place to curl up and sleep, and so companies began calling the union practice of creating unnecessary soft jobs requiring little or no work, for members who would otherwise be laid off, “featherbedding.”

Why are a vocal restraint and a joke both called a “gag”?

The original meaning of gag was to prevent someone from speaking, either by covering the mouth or through a legal restraint such as a gag order. The jocular use of gag originated in the theatre to describe times when an actor inserted an unscripted, and often humorous, line into a play. It was called a gag because the ad lib often caused fellow actors to lose their focus and become speechless.

Why is something tasteless said to be “tawdry”?

In 672 A.D., the eventual St. Audrey entered a convent for a life of penance and prayer. As a young woman she had worn fine necklaces, a habit she now considered the cause of her terminal neck tumour, which she covered with a scarf. After her death, women honoured her by wearing fine silk St. Audrey scarves, which through time were followed by cheap imitations for the English lower classes, who pronounced “St. Audrey” as “tawdry.”

How did the word halo come to mean divinity?

The word halo is Greek and literally means “threshing floor,” because it described the circular track followed by a team of oxen while threshing golden coloured grain. The idea of the halo has pagan roots and wasn’t accepted by the Christian church until the seventh century. Its symbolism of heavenly authority is the reason monarchs wear crowns and Native chiefs wear bonnets of feathers. In religious paintings a halo suggests a sacred aura.

How did the word okay come to mean all right?

The word okay (or O.K.) is American and surfaced for the first time in the Boston Morning Post on March 23, 1839. It was a comedic use of “All Correct” and was deliberately misspelled as “Oll Korrect,” which when abbreviated becomes the letters O.K. The abbreviation caught on around Boston and New York and became a slogan for President Martin Van Buren’s campaign for re-election.

Why is a disaster called a “fiasco”?

The word fiasco is Italian for an ordinary flask or bottle and comes from the opera, where audiences would greet a false note or a bad performance with the cry “Ola fiasco.” The logic was that they had come to hear perfection but were getting a second-rate performance, and so just as a glass blower’s flawed attempt at a beautiful piece of art was discarded or assigned to be a common flask, the opera was second rate, like a fiasco.