Echoes of the Past in our Speech

Discussion in 'Linguistics' started by Billy T, Aug 9, 2009.

  1. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Languare is slow to change compared to technology - this leaves echos of the past in our speach. I am hoping others will add examples.

    When a kid living in West Virginia no one I knew had an electric refrigerator. We all had "ice boxes" and to this day I still say: "Please put the milk back in the ice box - it going to go sour if left out." etc. You don't even need to know or undestand why we say some things as we do, They just record life of an earlier era.

    Copy this list and add to it (or start one of your own).

    "icebox" (not refrigerator)
    "quick on the draw."
    "Hold your horses""
    "Dont take any wooden nickles."
    "A Mexican stand off"
    "sold down the river"
    "churing an account"
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 10, 2009
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    A device was invented in the early 17th century that remained the state of the art in its technology into the mid-19th century. Long after its obsolescence, the English language still has several figures of speech that were once descriptions of everyday events in the lives of the users of this device. Some of them are: "flash in the pan," "going off half cocked," "lock, stock and barrel."

    What was the device?
     
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  5. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know -just guessing, but bet that "Sold down the river" with meaning now of having been given a raw deal or been taken advantage of etc. comes from the days when trade was by boat and if you dumped some shoddy goods on some sucker, it was best if he was down river from you as it would be harder for him to come up river and demand his money back.

    Where does "Raw deal" come from?
     
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  7. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    The term is from the days of slavery. Since the greatest abolitionist sentiment was in the North, slaveholders in the more northerly Southern states treated their slaves somewhat more kindly than those in the extreme south (as the story goes, I'm no historian), perhaps to avoid galvanizing their opposition, or perhaps because they were softened by the nearby northern idealists. As one traveled south, one expected to encounter more cruelty among the slaveholders.

    Therefore, to sell a slave "down the river," i.e. on a boat heading down the Mississippi toward Louisiana, was considered an act of callousness.
     
  8. FreshHat Registered Senior Member

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    A person who continuously repeats a point is still accused of "sounding like a broken record".

    My 80 year old mother sometimes refers to a person, place, or thing in shoddy or rough condition as "looking like it was through the Boer War", a conflict that began thirty years before she was born (1899-1902). I take it that it must have been a turn of the century expression that my grandparents used around the house, long after it was relevant.
     
  9. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    To Fraggle R.

    Thanks for setting me straight on "sold down the river"

    I'm still thinking about your post 2 puzzle but keeping my powder dry until I can shoot my wad at you four score between the eyes.
     
  10. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Article in today's Sao Paulo paper tells that robberies of cargo in high way trucks are at all time high now. And this has increarsed jobs as most drivers now work in pairs with one "riding shotgun."
     
  11. EntropyAlwaysWins TANSTAAFL. Registered Senior Member

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  12. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Any ideas where "In one fell swoop" comes from?

    By the way, when about 12, I killed three crows with one bullet, but never two birds with one stone.

    I had use of an old field in the year I did not go to school, (I lived in Virginian’s hills, just over the state line from W.Va.) I planted corn in that field and the dam crows scratched it up. So I hid prone in the adjoining woods with my father’s rifle with a row of corn seeds on the ground in the field in direct line to (or away) from me. Protecting my planted corn seeds, I often got two crows with one bullet. (I had to pay my father 1cent per bullet so I used the bullets efficiently.)

    As part of my "home schooling,"* I had to read Robinson Crusoe. In it is briefly mentioned that their plantings were fertilized by burying fish under the seeds. You cannot imagine the pleasure I had by burying crows under my corn hills. At end of the season I got two bushels of shucked corn, which I sold to the local still owner, for a few dollars ($3 total, as I recall) He told me never to come to his hidden still. I knew about where it was and that many of the trees had tin cans with a few rocks in them tied to the drooping pine tree branches surrounding it - He said he shot first at the noise then ran away in the opposite direction. I believed him and avoided rattling his cans.
    -------------
    *It only lasted one week - too much effort for my mother with all the other things that she had to do for us to be self sufficient etc. but I learned more that year than if I had gone to school - For example, I help my father build small dam in the creek, with water wheel that turned old car generator so we could have electric light and radio a few hours every few days when the car battery was recharged, etc. Care for chickens and a few sheep, etc. fetch fire wood and collect berries etc. Ride on the harrow, breaking up dirt clods, behind the horse in the fields my father would plant and hoe weeds in them later and carry water from the creek if it got too dry. Dig worms for fishing etc. Catch and then clean the fish. -I was a busy productive little boy that year.

    Before being allowed to take his rifle to the field I had to clean it and demonstrate skill with it as well as safety - You try to shoot two wallnuts out of a tree with only three shots - I did at age 12, but it took a box of bullets.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 13, 2009
  13. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Actually there were two Boer Wars, one from 1880-1881 and the second from 1899-1902. This presented the sensation of two decades of warfare. The Second Boer War featured an astounding rate of bloodshed and the inhumane so-called "pacification" (anti-insurgency) tactics that culminated in the invention of the concentration camp for the wives and children of the African fighters. It caused many Britons to regard colonialism as barbaric and was a milestone in British history.

    Because of the tremendous need for soldiers, nearly half of the British army was unfit for duty by modern definitions. When the underlying poverty was brought out into the open the acknowledgment gave rise to the welfare reforms that characterized the 20th century.
    I can't find any reference or source for that. Do you mean "foursquare between the eyes?" I can't find that either, but at least it makes sense. "Four score" means 80.
    A phrase from the old American West. Stagecoaches had to have an armed man sitting next to the driver. In America we still say the person sitting in the right-front seat of a car is "riding shotgun." If a group of friends are preparing to ride together in a car, the first one to yell "shotgun" is supposed to be awarded the right front passenger seat, which is generally more comfortable than the back seats, and especially more than the hated center front seat, which you young people don't remember because you've grown up with bucket seats.

    Ironically the right front seat was also called the "death seat," because in the days before seat belts the passenger was more likely to be killed in a collision than the driver, who was somewhat restrained by the steering wheel.
    At least you've got the right technology. It's the flintlock rifle.
     
  14. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    To Fraggle R

    Yes probbly did mean "foursquare between the eyes?" if you have heard that too. I am not even sure what it currently means, high accuracy perhaps?

    I will not search and you are probably correct (or not even implying that the boers were brits originally) but my impression is that the boers were from the low countries of Europe, Netherlands etc. Is that wrong?
     
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I've never heard it before, but at least it makes sense. "Foursquare" simply means "extremely accurately."
    The Boers were indeed the descendants of the original Dutch settlers. Holland used to be a major colonial power and Afrikaans, the language of these people, is an offshoot of Dutch. Transvaal and the Orange Free State were independent nations founded by the colonials in the lands of the various African peoples, much like Australia and all the countries of the New World. The British invaded and fought a war against them which at the time was regarded as downright barbaric, and turned these countries into the British colony of South Africa, which eventually became independent and is now governed by people of native African ancestry.
     
  16. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Fraggle Rocker: Eye glasses & lightening rods both invented by Ben Franklin (I think) are the only devices I can think of which were invented in the early 17th century & remained state of the art until the late 19th century.

    I do not think that “Flash in the pan,” “going off half cocked,” & “lock stock & Barrel” all refer to one device.

    “Lock, stock & barrel” refers to buying all that is significant in a business. Lock implies access to the premises, Stock refers to the inventory, & barrel refers to the containers used in shipping products. “I bought him out lock, stock & barrel” was a term meaning that I now own the entire business & I am in charge of access to the premises.
     
  17. TBodillia Registered Senior Member

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    159
    Lock, stock and barrel refer to the 3 parts of a rifle. The phrase was first used in 1817 in a letter from Sir Walter Scott: "Like the High-landman’s gun, she wants stock, lock, and barrel, to put her into repair."
     
  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    See the Wikipedia article on flintlock rifles. It explains the original meaning of all these terms. It also notes that the flintlock was the state of the art in handheld firearms through the early 19th century, and was still widely used in the American Civil War simply because there were so many of them around.
     
  19. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    One in the making:

    About an hour ago a TV reporter said:

    "The FED is again telegraphing its intention to keep rates low long into 2010."

    In this internet age, does the telegraph even still exist?
     
  20. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Depends on your definition. "Telegraphy" is the electronic transmission of communication. If you recall, the first radio technology was called "wireless telegraphy." In Britain it came to be called "the wireless," rather than "the radio," as it was known in the USA.

    The telegram as a form of message is rapidly becoming extinct in most of the developed world. But it still thrives in places like Mexico, where not every household has an internet connection or even a telephone. However, telegraph companies today generally send their messages via the internet like the rest of us.

    When our bank transfers a large amount of money quickly but securely, such as for an investment transaction, we still call it a "wire transfer."
     
  21. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Hold your horses!
    Don't shoot your bolt, you've been sold a pig in a poke, but I won't let the cat out of the bag.
    I hope it wasn't cash on the nail otherwise someone would have you over a barrel.
     
  22. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    When referring to gearing, such as an automobile's final drive ratio, high numerical ratios (such as 4.56 which means 4.56 turns of the drive shaft for one revolution of the rear wheel) are referred to as "low" "short" or "granny" gears. Low numerical ratios (such as 3.08 or 2.56) are referred to as "high" gears. This all dates from antique bicycles, where the diameter of your front wheel was your gear ratio. A large diameter wheel was literally a high gear, and a small diameter wheel was a low gear. Even today, bicycle shops have charts that convert your front chainring and rear freewheel cogs into gear inches so you can understand what ratios you have. They are converting the ratios into an imaginary large wheel for comparison.

    And we still rate engines in horsepower, and the intensity of lights in candlepower.
     
  23. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Very interesting Repo Man.

    Some of the echoes of the past are so well hidden that most (I was one) do not even know we use them - "high gear" indeed is one.

    I'll add a very old one, that some may not know the origins of: "He is not worth his salt" - from the days when Roman soldiers were paid in salt (and probably earlier as salt was both essential for life and the primary way to preserve food.) Still deeply buried in our word “salary.”
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 17, 2009

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