“Propose a Toast” and the Wonderful Origins of Everyday Expressions (Pt. 17)

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—this time exploring the phrase “propose a toast” and others. His book, Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town Red: The Wonderful Origins of Everyday Expressions and Fun Phrases, uncovers the quirky roots behind the words we use every day. Be sure to check it out!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including yours. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorites, and up next a recurring favorite.
We continue our series about the curious origins of everyday sins.
You're to join us again, as Andrew Thompson as he

(00:31):
continues to share another slice from his Ultimate Guide to
Understanding these many Mysteries of the English Language. Here's Andrew.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
If you say pete out, you mean to dwindle, or diminish,
or come to an end. Some suggest the expression comes
from Biblical times and the apostle Peter when he strenuously
defended Christ when Christ was arrested, but by the next
morning he's supported diminished. However, the likely origin of the
phrases actually from the early days of gold mining in America.

(01:03):
Potassium nitrate non as saltpeter was a mineral ingredient in
the explosives used in mining. When all the gold in
a mine was exhausted, it was said to have petered
out because the explosives had dwindled it down until nothing
was left. The expression was used figuratively by the eighteen forties.
Pidgin English is a term meaning a simplified language used

(01:26):
to communicate between two people who don't have a common language,
and it originated in the late seventeenth century. It was
developed by British traders in China as a way of
doing business without having a common language. The expression actually
means business English and came about because of the mispronunciation
of the English word business by the Chinese. They pronounced

(01:46):
it bidgeon, and this led to pigeon. The language they
used was a combination of both English and Cantonese and
was spoken as a second language. Then Over the years,
the phrase pigeon English developed to mean any two languages
that a piece together to aid a communication. From pillar
to post means from one place to another, and it

(02:08):
dates back to a brutal form of punishment in medieval England.
Each town at the time had a whipping post and
a pillory to deal with criminals, also known as the stocks.
A pillary was a wooden frame with three holes in it.
A criminal's head and hands would be placed through the holes,
and the public would gather and throw rotten vegetables and
eggs at the man. This may last even a number

(02:29):
of days. The criminal will then be dragged to the
whipping post, where he would receive a public flogging. Originally
from pillary to post, the expression gradually evolved to pillar
to post. Pipe dreams are unrealistic hopes or plans or fantasy,
and they refer to the dreams experienced by the smokers
of opium pipes. Opium is a narcotic drug that produces

(02:53):
an hypnotic effect, and the pipe is the device that
the open is placed in. People under the influence of
opium often have vivid and fantastic hallucinations. The expression was
then used in America since the late eighteen hundreds, when
opium smoking was legal, and the phrase was first written
in eighteen ninety in an edition of the Chicago Daily

(03:15):
Tribune where they were talking about the first man made flight,
and it was said it has been regarded as a
pipe dream for a good many years. If you plug something,
that means you promote something and it owes its beginnings
to Captain Leonard Frank Plugg As Pluge a British businessman

(03:35):
and politician who was prominent in the early nineteen hundreds.
He created a broadcasting company that bought airtime from European
radio stations. He reached an agreement with the French station
Radio Normandy to produce programs and transmit them to England.
Plug partially financed Radio Normandy by receiving payments to play
and promote records, and it was from this practice that

(03:57):
Plug's name came to mean to plugs. Something point blank
means to tell directly or to refuse completely, and it
has sporting beginnings, which originated in France. Point blanc is
French for white mark the bull's eye or center of
an archery target, and a shot from distance at that
sport has to be aimed above the target to allow

(04:18):
it to drop with gravity, But a shot point blank
is close enough so that the flight of the arrow
hits the target directly without any arching. The expression then
later was widened to refer to anything done at very
close range, especially gunfire. To propose a toast is obviously
a ritual in which a drink has taken in someone's honor,
and that began as early as the twelfth century. The

(04:41):
quality of the wine at the time was not high
and varied a lot. In order to soak up some
of the acidity and improve the flavor, A piece of
spiced toast was placed in a wine jug, or small
pieces were placed in wine glasses. By the seventeenth century
in England, the practice of proposing a toast to someone emerged.
The glass would be raised as it is today, and

(05:01):
it was usually a lady who was toasted. The idea
was that she became a figurative piece of toast that
flavored the wine. To pull out all the stops means
to make every possible effort, and that stems from the
musical world. Church organs used knobs that control the airflow
through the pipes, and these knobs are known as stops.

(05:22):
When all the stops are in, the airflow was less
and the music not very loud. If there were not
many people in a congregation and the music was needed
to be heard at the back of the church, the
organists would pull out all the stops, which would increase
the volume. To pull the wool over your eyes means
to trick or deceive, and it relates the elaborate wigs
that people wore in the seventeenth century. The whigs had

(05:44):
a thick, wooly appearance, and the social standing of a
man was sometimes judged by the size of his wig.
The bigger it was, the more wealth the man was
thought to have. By wearing large wigs, men were advertising
their wealth and then became a target for petty criminals.
Wig would also be able to be pulled down more easily,
so a tactic employed by some criminals was to creep

(06:05):
up behind a man and pull the wig down over
his eyes. This would temporarily render the victim unable to see,
making him easier to rob. A purple patch is a
period of notable success or good fortune, and that expression
stems from ancient Rome. At the height of the Roman Empire, purple,
which became known as imperial purple, was a revered color

(06:27):
and was reserved for emperors and other distinguished statesmen. This
is because purple dye was greatly prized and rare. It
was obtained from the mucous secretions of a sea snail
found in the Mediterranean Sea and did not easily fail,
but became brighter with weathering in sunlight. The Roman nobleman
wore purple togres, and because they were considered exceptional people

(06:48):
to whom all was provided, purple patch later became associated
with success.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
In a job well done on the production by Greg Hangler,
and a special thanks to Andrew Thompson for his storytelling
on the origins of everyday sayings and a plug for
the book The Hair of the Dog to Paint the Town.
Read the curious origins of everyday sayings and fun phrases.
These great stories about our language and where sayings came from.

(07:16):
Here on Our American Stories, Lie Hibibe here the host
of our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're

(07:36):
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