"Cat Got Your Tongue?" and the Wonderful Origins of Everyday Expressions

On this episode of Our American Stories, Andrew Thompson shares another slice of his guide to understanding the baffling mini-mysteries of the English language. The book is Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red: The Wonderful Origins of Everyday Expressions and Fun Phrases.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories and up next
we continue with our recurring series about the curious origins
of everyday scenes. Here to join us once again is
Andrew Thompson as he continues to share another slaves from
his ultimate gide to understanding these mini mysteries of the

(00:32):
English language.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
The expression has a cat got your tongue, normally said
to someone who's not saying too much, has got nautical origins.
It began in the seventeenth century, when the British Navy
used a whip called the Cat of nine Tales for
administering physical punishment aboard ships. The whip was multi tailed
and inflicting incredible pain on the victim. When sailors were flogged,

(00:57):
the pain was often so severe that it rendered the speechless,
so the Cat of nine Tales whip had taken away
the sailor's tongue. A catch twenty two situation is a
common expression to mean an impossible dilemma or no win situation,
and it began with the nineteen sixty one book of
that name by Joseph Heller. The plot of that book

(01:20):
was that it was set on a US Air Force
base during World War II, and the pilots were desperate
to be exempted from flying dangerous missions. The catch was
that the pilots had to be mad to fly another mission,
but by applying for an exemption on the grounds of insanity,
the applicant proved himself to actually be sane, so either
way he had to continue flying. Incidentally, the title of

(01:43):
the book began as Catch eighteen and went through various
numbers before Heller settled on Catch twenty two, but that
title has now become a very common expression. To be
caught red handed is to be caught in the act,
like the criminal was caught red handed coming out of
the store with stolen goods. It's occasionally used in its

(02:03):
Latin form, which is in fla grante de lecto, and
it derives from the fifteenth century in Scotland, where legislation
at the time referred to red hand in relation to
offenses where the perpetrator was caught in the act. This
stemmed from the evidentiary requirement of needing to find actual
blood on the hands of anyone accused of poaching. There

(02:25):
was actually a Scottish legal commentary from sixteen seventy four
that stated if he be not taken red hand, the
sheriff cannot proceed against him. The expression was changed to
being caught red handed by Sir Walter Scott in his
eighteen nineteen book Ivan Hoe, and that popularized the saying
to have a chip on your shoulder means you've got
an inferiority complex or a perceived grievance, and it began

(02:48):
in the school yards of America in the nineteenth century.
If two boys argued and one wanted to challenge the
other to a fight, he would place an actual chip
of wood, usually a piece of bark or a small stick,
on his shoulder and dare the other to knock it off.
If the challenge was taken up and the chip was
knocked off, a proper fight would go on. This practice
of spoiling for a fight by having a chip on

(03:10):
your shoulder soon developed into the well known expression to
say close but no cigar means to fall just short
of success, and it's an expression that as American origins.
In the fair grounds and circuses in the nineteenth century,
there were side shows with competitions that involved hitting a
hammer against a pad to make a bell, ring, shooting galleries,

(03:31):
and throwing down moving pins. The main prize offered for
winning these competitions was usually a large Havana cigar, which
was much sought after at the time. Contestants who just
missed out on winning would hear the phrase close, but
no cigar, and that saying became colloquially used in America
by the nineteen thirties. To be on cloud nine means

(03:55):
to be in a state of extreme happiness or contentment,
and it began in the nineteen thirty Between that time
in the nineteen fifties, the US Weather Bureau divided clouds
into nine classes. The highest class, Cloud nine, was the
big white, fluffy cloud, which reached up to four thousand
feet in height. Because of their height and attractive nature,

(04:16):
to be on cloud nine came to symbolize floating in
a care free manner, and that's where the expression comes from.
To have cold feet means to lose your nerves or
have doubts about a situation, and it's often used in
relation to marriage. The expression as literary beginnings. It was
first used in eighteen sixty two in the novel Seed,

(04:36):
Time and Harvest by the German writer Fritz Ruter. In
that book, a card player on a bad Streak is
scared he's going to lose all his money, but instead
of conceding defeat and walking away with dignity, he withdraws
from the game, claiming that his feet were cold, making
him unable to concentrate. So the phrase eventually came to
mean backing out of any situation through a loss of nerve.

(05:01):
To come up to scratch means to meet a required standard,
and it has its origins in the days of bare
knuckle boxing. Fines used to take place in a large
circle drawn in the dirt, which is why it's caught
a boxing ring today, and across the middle of the ring,
another line was drawn or scratched, and the boxes faced
off while standing on either side of it. If a

(05:21):
boxer was knocked down, he was given a thirty second
count to come up to scratch and present himself as
fit and willing to continue the fight. If the boxer
was unable to come up to scratch, the fight was
over and he was declared the loser. The expression couldn't
swing a cat means a small and confined space, like
you might say the apartment was nice, but it was

(05:43):
so small you couldn't swing a cat. Many believe this
expression dates from the seventeenth century and relates to the
cat and nine tails whip that were used on decks,
meaning that it was too small to swing the whip.
But it actually derives from a bizarre forms at country
festivals years ago in England, where live cats would be

(06:04):
swung around by the tail and hurled into the air
as targets for archers to hit. It was a popular spectacle,
so if a festival was crowded, it was said that
there wasn't enough room to swing a cat. A crew
cut is a closely cropped male haircut, and while many
associated with the military, where the style is common, it
actually originated with the sport of rowing. In the nineteen forties,

(06:28):
university rows at Yale and Harvard began wearing their hair
cropped very short on the back and sides, with a
slightly longer brush like top. The style was soon adopted
by other sportsmans at the university, but it was the
rowing crews who set the trend, and it was known
as the crew cut for that reason. To curry favor
means doing acts in an attempt to gain support or favor,

(06:52):
and the expression has nothing to do with Indian food,
but it evolved from the thirteen to ten French poem,
which translates as the romance of for Vel. When someone
grooms and dresses a horse, it is known as currying,
and in the poem, fora Vel was the name of
a vain and ambitious half man half horse who deceives
the leaders of the state. In order to bow to

(07:14):
for Vel and keep on his good side, the people
would stroke and groom his coat. They were currying for Vel.
Eventually this became currying favor. To cut and run means
to avoid a difficult situation by abruptly leaving, and it
derives from the seventeen hundreds from nautical world, where ankle
cables of ships were made of rope. To raise an

(07:37):
anchor took significant time and effort, especially in deep water,
so if a ship suddenly came under attack whilst anchored,
the time taken to raise the anchor could be costly,
so to save time and escape with minimal damage, the
crew would cut the anchor rope with an axe and
allow the ship to run with the wind and escape
to safety. The expression started being used figuratively by eighteen

(07:58):
sixty one. Charles Dickens used it in his novel Great expectations.
If you say to someone cut to the chase, what
you're meaning is get to the point or speed it up.
And this expression originated in the world of cinematography, specifically
the silent films of the nineteen twenties. In the early
American film industry, many silent films had long winded, romantic

(08:21):
storylines but ended up in an exciting car chase sequence.
A viewer who was bored and wanted to see the
action might say to cut to the chase, in a
plea for the projectionist to jump forward to the dramatic scene.
This has continued to modern times, where movie executives sometimes
ask for a film to be advanced to the key
scene so that they can make a quick assessment of

(08:43):
its prospects.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
A special thanks to Greg for finding that piece, and
to Andrew Thompson for sharing the stories of these phrases
and everyday sayings. And if you want to learn more
and read more, get Andrew's book. And again it's Andrew
Thimmes and the book is Hair of the Dog, to
Paint the Town Red, The curious origins of everydays and

(09:07):
fun phrases. And we love drilling down on well just
storytelling about all kinds of things, and well, why not
our language, and so much of it comes from, as
we would call it, the home country, and that's England,
you know. The great George Bernard Shaw once said England
and America are two countries separated by a common language.

(09:29):
He was being funny, of course, but the fact of
the matter is English is not just the American language,
the official American language, but now almost the official world
language because of us in our relationship with England. The
story of curious origins of everyday and fun phrases here

(09:50):
on our American stories