Keeping an ear out is the sort of phrase that has Wyn Drabble reaching for his computer to do some research. Photo / File
COMMENT
Last week I received a text from someone who promised to "keep an ear out" for news on an issue in which we both had an interest. Well, you know me well enough by now to understand that the phrase tickled my fancy even though I'm not really sure whether I actually have a fancy.
It's the sort of phrase that gets me wondering about origins. How could such a phrase have come about? And, if I do my research and find the explanation a little dull, I can always have fun making up my own explanation.
"Keeping an ear out" suggests to me that we once had retractable ears. Now that evolution has placed our ears firmly on the outside, the phrase sounds a little quaint.
But trying to bring the expression up to date would also present issues. "My ears are external receptors already but I'll keep at least one of them on full alert for any news" lacks the pithiness of the original.
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The same goes for "keep an eye out". It suggests our eyes were once on the end of retractable stalks.
Notice, too, that both expressions use the singular. I can't help feeling that, if alertness is the name of the game, both of the available body parts should be employed.
Next I checked out "money for jam" but my searching yielded a less than satisfactory result. Apparently the phrase arose in the early 20th century as a result of the great use of jam in the army.
Why the army needed so much jam and what they used it for are two questions which are possibly best left unanswered though one suspects the involvement of scones or pikelets.
"Money for old rope" was a variant but why soldiers would put rope on their scones one shudders to think.
Staying in the military arena, I explored "bite the bullet". In times when doctors were short of anaesthetics they used to ask patients to bite down hard on a bullet to distract from the pain. This made sense but was not very interesting so I hurried on to "bury the hatchet".
I was hoping it might have been some sort of early party game – a forerunner to apple-bobbing, for example – but it turned out to be far less fun than that. Apparently it evolved in early North America when the Puritans were in conflict with the native Americans so it doesn't really bear thinking about.
With "mad as a hatter", I fell into the trap that many of you will probably fall into. I learned that it originated long before Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
In 17th century France, hat makers were often poisoned by the mercury they used in their craft. The poisoning caused them to exhibit shyness, irritability and tremors which gave them the appearance of being mad.
This raises the question of how mercury was used in millinery but I guess there are some things we just need to accept without question and hurry on to "giving the cold shoulder".
My research unearthed that this came from medieval England when it was customary to give a guest a slice of cold mutton or pork shoulder when the host felt it was time for the guest to leave. Apparently it was a "polite" way of saying, "You may leave now."
I'm sure that, in the better households, a vegetarian option would also have been offered.
These days a far simpler imperative is often used to get rid of people but this is usually delivered without meat as an accompaniment.
Luckily, space limitations mean that I am unable to offer an explanation of "rubbing someone (up) the wrong way."
Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.