Our language is always changing, some things stay, some things are forgotten forever. But the things which stay sometimes survive as insensible little phrases which we use every single day, but have no idea where they came from. This is my second article on the origin of some popular English phrases which we all know and love…

“Like Bedlam”

If a place is said to be loud and noisy and the people inside are rowdy and out of control, the place is said to be “like Bedlam”. What is ‘Bedlam’ and what is it like?

‘Bedlam’ is a corruption of the word ‘Bethlem’, that is, the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, England. A madhouse (as they were then called) for the mentally ill, by that name, had existed in London since the early 14th century. It was in this delightful institution that people suffering various mental disorders were housed, to be kept away from the general public. The inmates were housed in appalling conditions with little food, water, sanitation or care. Some were locked in cells and chained to the walls, supposedly for their own protection. There was a time, in the 17th and 18th centuries, when you could head into the Bethlem Mental Hospital to view the ‘freaks’ and for a small fee, you could borrow a poking stick (if you were unfortunate enough not to have your own walking-stick), which you could shove between the bars of the cells and poke the inmates with, to enrage them. It’s no wonder that the chaos and noise that existed in this place meant that it has stuck around in the English Language for so long. The Bethlem Royal Hospital still exists today, but you’re not allowed to go there and poke the patients anymore.

Bethlem Royal Hospital as it appears today.

“Worth Your Salt”

Something said to be ‘worth its salt’ or if someone is said to be ‘worth his salt’, it means that the person is worthy and decent. It comes from the fact that in ancient times, sodium chloride…common table-salt…was a very valuable commodity. Extracting usable, commercial quantities of pure, clean salt-crystals for use in cooking was a tricky process in those days, involving large quantities of seawater, which were slowly evaporated by the heat of the sun, leaving the salt-crystals behind, which were then collected, purified, cleaned and then declared ready for consumption. Considering how hard it was to harvest and prepare salt back then, it’s not surprising how expensive it was. It was even used as money at one point, and was probably considered as valuable as gold. It’s for this reason that something said to be ‘worth its salt’ is in a way, synonymous with the term ‘worth its weight in gold’.

“Not Enough Space to Swing a Cat”

Having ‘not enough space to swing a cat’ means to be in a confined area. The ‘cat’ refers to the Cat o’ Nine Tails, the infamous flogging-implement made famous by the Royal Navy of the 18th century. Being in a confined space meant that there wasn’t enough space for the bosun (the man who usually administered the punishment by flogging) to swing the cat to deliver enough force for each blow.

“Whipping Boy”

A ‘whipping boy’ is a person who fairly or unfairly, takes the punishment for another person’s mistakes, similar to a ‘scapegoat’ who takes the blame for another person’s mistakes. In this case, a ‘whipping-boy’ was an actual person and believe it or not…an actual job! It originated in Medieval Europe. Back then, monarchs who believed in the Divine Right of Kings, the belief that the king was appointed by God and that the king was God’s represenative on Earth and that in effect, the king WAS God, further believed that, as this was the case…the children of the king (the crown prince and other princes, that is), were therefore untouchable. Under this system of belief, the king, as God’s representative, was the ONLY person permitted to lay a hand on the king’s son. Anyone else caught striking, caning or otherwise hurting the boy, would be severely punished.

A boy, prince, son of the king or not, is bound to act up in school. In these circumstances when the schoolmaster had to maintain order, instead of caning the prince for his misdeeds, the schoolmaster instead flogged the royal whipping-boy, a boy (usually the son of a nobleman, but who could also be a servant-boy, a slave to the prince or a charity-case who was given tuition in the palace) whose job it was to take the punishment for the prince. Princes often grew up in lonely isolation, so it’s likely that the whipping-boy was his only friend. The schoolmaster whipping the prince’s only friend was seen as an effective way to encourage the prince to concentrate on his studies. Not all whipping-boys had it hard, though…for all their pain and suffering, they could be richly compensated for by their masters later on, if the prince they served ever became king. One lad, William Murray, was whipping-boy to King Charles I in his childhood. When Charles became king, he rewarded Murray handsomely for his service by making him an earl, and giving him land and a house to live in.

Ham House, which was given to William Murray, whipping-boy to Charles I, in 1626, by the king himself. Pretty nifty reward!

“Close but No Cigar!”

“Close but no Cigar” is a common English phrase meaning to almost win something or achieve something, but…not quite. But…why a cigar? Why not an apple or a pear or a bag of gold?

This phrase comes from old fairgrounds where you could go and play various fairground games like the coconut shy or the ring-toss or target-shooting…in such games, a cigar was a popular prize back in the 19th century. Participating in a fairground game and losing by just a bit, meant that you lost out on the prize of a cigar, hence the phrase ‘close, but no cigar’.

“From the Horse’s Mouth”/”Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth”

To look a gift horse in the mouth means to examine the mouth of a horse which was given to you as a present, or in today’s English, to check the quality of something that was given to you as a gift, instead of just taking it and enjoying it. Similarly, the phrase ‘from the horse’s mouth’. But what do these two phrases mean? And why horses?

They both refer to quality of product and truthfulness. In days gone by, a horse was an important animal. A horse pulled the farmer’s plough, a horse powered your cart or carriage, a horse provided you with transport on its back. Buying a horse, or recieving one as a present, was a big deal. A fact of equine life is that as horses get older, their teeth get more and more worn down. A young colt is likely to have good, solid teeth, while an older horse is likely to have teeth that have been worn down by years of chewing on hay and grass. If you went to buy a horse and the salesman said that it was only a year old, you might not believe him, and so would take the truth literally ‘from the horse’s mouth’. By opening the horse’s mouth and checking the condition of its teeth, you could determine how old it was, and therefore, the truthfulness of the salesman. Similarly, looking a gift horse in the mouth (ie: checking its teeth), shows that you’re nitpicking on something that a person gave you as a gift, instead of taking it, saying ‘thanks’ and enjoying it for what it is.

“Pay through the Nose”

To pay through the nose means to pay a big price for something. Originally, this referred to a Roman punishment, where people quite literally paid for their crimes by having their noses sliced off! Nasty!

“Eating Humble Pie”

To eat humble pie means to take yourself down a peg and let the hot air out of yourself, to lower your social standing, knock you off your pedestal and stand among the masses of humanity for a while. To experience humility. But what is ‘humble’?

‘Humble’ or ‘numble’ as it was originally called, was the jumble and mess and leftovers from the insides of a deer! In the old days, the innards of a deer were given to the servants of powerful noblemen or the servants of royal courts, to eat however they wished, while their wealthy and affluent masters could feast on the best parts of the animal. ‘Humble Pie’ is actually a stew, and not a pie at all; it’s made by cleaning the innards and organs, tossing them into a pot of water, boiling them, fishing them out, chopping them up and cooking them again with vegetables and spices. The result was a truly…fascinating dish…which was called Humble Pie. Only the lowest of the low ate humble pie, so asking someone to eat ‘humble pie’ meant that you desire them to eat the kind of food that only the lowest of the servants were allowed to consume.

“Peeping Tom”

If you’re a ‘Peeping Tom’, it means you sneak around and peep and stare and peek at people in their privacy, when you’re not supposed to! But why are you called a peeping ‘Tom’? Why not Dick? Or Harry? And who was the original ‘Peeping Tom’ who gave the phrase its name?

To find out, we need to go back several hundred years to Anglo-Saxon England and acquaint ourselves with the thoroughly unpleasant man, the Earl Leofric, Lord of Coventry…that’s the town of Coventry, in England, the same one which was bombed to pieces in WWII.

Long before the Luftwaffe flew over Coventry and bombed it to Kingdom Come and blew up Coventry’s famous cathedral, Lord Leofric and his wife, Lady Godiva, ruled Coventry in the 12th Century. Lord Leofric was a mean old bugger who taxed his peasants unmercifully, while Lady Godiva had had enough of her husband’s bullying ways and begged, bullied, argued and fought with him over and over and over again, to make him drop the taxes. In a particularly heated argument, so the legend goes, Leofric said that he’d drop the taxes if his wife would ride through Coventry…completely…butt-…-naked.

To his horror, his wife agreed.

Lady Godiva asked the good people of her city to remain indoors and to shutter their windows while she rode through the town on horseback, completely stark-staring naked, with only her long hair to cover her. Apparently, Peeping Tom, then probably just known as ‘Tom’, one of the town’s tailors, drilled a hole in the shutter of one of his front windows so that he could observe Lady Godiva in all her naked glory as she rode by. The story goes that Tom was struck dead for disobeying her ladyship’s strict command, but despite that, Lord Leofric was forced to stay true to his word…and lowered the taxes.