Idioms form one of the most intriguing and colorful parts of the human language, but also one of the most infuriating for linguists. Many such expressions are decades, even hundreds of years old, and trying to accurately trace them back to their origins often proves to be an exercise in frustration.
That being said, we are going to take a look at the interesting origins behind ten popular idioms, as best we know them.
10. Bury the Hatchet
To “bury the hatchet” means to end a disagreement and become friends again. It is an expression that has been around for hundreds of years, with the earliest references found in print dating to the mid-18th century.
It refers to an even older custom by several Native American tribes who would literally bury their hatchets and other weapons after a period of war to signify that they were now at peace. Given how most Native American history was passed down through oral tradition, it really is impossible to tell exactly how long the custom or the expression has been around. However, one old legend ties it to a seminal precolonial moment in North America when the Five Nations – Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca – agreed to the Great Law of Peace and formed the Iroquois Confederacy.
According to the tale, the leaders of the tribes gathered their weapons and placed them under the roots of a giant, white pine tree, thus burying their hatchets and celebrating peace.
9. Jumping the Shark
“Jumping the shark” is a much more recent idiom than the rest on this list. It is also an experience that all television series want to avoid. It refers to a moment that marks a shift in the show, followed by a noticeable decline in quality. Usually, it is denoted by some kind of ridiculous or out-of-place event that is seen by the audience as a desperate attempt to make the series feel new and fresh again. Infamous examples include the addition of Cousin Oliver to The Brady Bunch, the death of Bobby Ewing revealed as just a dream on Dallas, or trying to replace Mulder on The X-Files with two new agents.
But then, of course, there is also the original moment, the one that literally involved jumping over a shark. In a 1977 episode of Happy Days, The Fonz water-skied off a ramp and jumped the shark, all while wearing his trademark black leather jacket. The term itself was coined in 1985 by radio personality Jon Hein, and just like that, TV history was made, although not necessarily for the better.
8. Peeping Tom
If someone is a bit of a perv who likes to sneak a peek at naughty things he’s not supposed to see, you might call him a “Peeping Tom.” But who was this Tom, anyway, and what did he see that forever marked him as the go-to degenerate?
The term comes from the legend of Lady Godiva’s naked ride. In case you need a quick refresher course, Godiva was the wife of 11th-century Anglo-Saxon nobleman Leofric, Earl of Mercia. Upon pleading with him to lower the taxes on the poor people of Coventry, Leofric told Godiva that he would do it if she rode around the town naked. His wife agreed and, during her naked ride, all the townsfolk averted their gaze out of respect for Godiva. All except for pervy ol’ Tom, of course, who couldn’t help but sneak a few quick glances. And, from then on, he was known as Peeping Tom.
It’s probably worth noting that, apart from the historical existence of Godiva and Leofric, everything else is just a legend that has evolved over the centuries. It wasn’t until hundreds of years later that Peeping Tom even appeared in the story. We have no idea if the ride ever actually happened but, if it did, it’s highly unlikely that Peeping Tom was a real person.
7. Close, but No Cigar
If you are almost successful at something but fail just short of the end goal, you might hear someone offer you these words of wisdom – “close, but no cigar.”
There is no definitive evidence that attests to the origins of this idiom. The earliest known appearance in print dates to a 1929 issue of the Long Island Daily Press. However, most people believe that the expression was slightly older than that and that it came from American carnival games sometime during the late 19th – early 20th century.
Back then, most of these games were intended for adults, not children, and they probably wouldn’t be too interested in winning a cheap stuffed toy. Therefore, grown-up rewards were on offer and cigars were among the most common prizes. Since many of those games were rigged in such a way that contestants were often on the verge of victory before falling short, the expression “close, but no cigar” was there to serve as consolation, but also to spur on the player to maybe pay and play again.
6. White Elephant
A “white elephant” is a term meant to denote a burdensome possession, one that’s often very expensive to maintain and, overall, more trouble than it is worth. It is another idiom where the exact origins are unknown. It first appeared in English print around the mid-19th century, but it is believed to have originated in Siam, today known as Thailand, where the term was quite literal.
A white elephant was a rare and sacred animal, one that kings kept at their court because it signified peace and prosperity. Therefore, it was incredibly valuable but, as you might imagine, actually taking care of one was time-consuming and expensive. If you were the king, then sure, no problem, just get your servants to do it, but if you were somebody else, then actually owning a white elephant could have ruined you financially. Although there’s no hard evidence to back this up, the story goes that some Kings of Siam intentionally gifted white elephants to people they didn’t like, in order to send them to the poorhouse.
5. Riding Shotgun
Whenever a group of people goes for a ride, they already know which is the best seat in the car – the front passenger seat. You get the best of both worlds – you get the view, the music access, and without having to actually pay attention and drive. Therefore, it is an unspoken rule of the road that passengers may vie for that position by “calling shotgun,” and those who get to sit in the front passenger seat are said to “ride shotgun.”
Riding shotgun harkens back to the days of the Wild West, back when stagecoaches had to brave the frontiers and often fell prey to outlaws, Native Americans, and even wild animals. Therefore, the position of “shotgun messenger” was invented – a guard who would ride next to the driver, armed with, you guessed it, a shotgun.
Although the practice definitely existed during the Wild West, whether or not people actually used the phrase “riding shotgun” back then is still a matter of debate. So far, the earliest printed example of the idiom was found in a 1905 novel called The Sunset Trail. But the term proved popular in westerns from early Hollywood and it became inexorably linked with the Old West.
4. Bob’s Your Uncle
“You take the first left, go straight until the intersection, make a right, and Bob’s your uncle! You’ve arrived at your destination.” In this case, “Bob’s your uncle” works as sort of an interjection that denotes how easy a task is supposed to be, like saying “piece of cake,” but it does raise one important question: who the hell is Bob?
That question is not so easily answered, though, because there are several origin stories floating around for his particular idiom. By far, the most popular one is a tale of blatant political nepotism, which claims that Bob was none other than Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at the end of the 19th century. The expression supposedly refers to his nephew, Arthur Balfour, whom he appointed to several positions he was unqualified for, including Chief Secretary for Ireland. Balfour’s critics regularly opined that he owed his entire political career to good ol’ Uncle Bob.
This is a plausible explanation, but the idiom doesn’t appear in print until decades later. Supposedly, the earliest written example was in a Scottish newspaper in 1924, in the bill for a musical revue titled Bob’s Your Uncle. Then, in the early 1930s, we have a definitive appearance in a song by music hall performer Florrie Forde. But in both cases, we have to assume that the phrase was already in common use and that they didn’t simply make it up, which means that the true origins of his idiom are still up in the air.
3. Snake Oil Salesman
Nowadays, a snake oil salesman is a person you would generally want to avoid because the term refers to a shady fraudster who is peddling some kind of quack remedy. But there was a time when this wasn’t necessarily the case. Snake oil was a genuinely useful medicine, but one man ruined it for everyone and forever changed the meaning of the phrase. And that man was Clark Stanley, the “Rattlesnake King.”
Traditional medicines made using parts harvested from snakes have been around for thousands of years. In this particular case, “snake oil” refers to an ointment made using oil from Chinese water snakes, which was brought over to America during the 19th century by the thousands of immigrants who came over from China. This kind of snake oil was the real deal. It was used to treat arthritis and bursitis and even modern tests concluded that it had therapeutic benefits because it worked as an anti-inflammatory agent. However, once the product became popular, all sorts of people started selling it, and, since there was little to no regulation back then, they could put pretty much whatever they wanted in the bottles they sold.
This changed once the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was passed, which sought to clamp down on patent medicines. It took them a while, but ten years later, they finally got around to snake oil. They took one of the most popular snake oils around – Clark Stanley’s Snake Oil Liniment.
Stanley liked to style himself the “Rattlesnake King” because he used rattlesnakes for his product since Chinese water snakes were a bit thin on the ground in Texas. At least, that’s what he claimed, but when the authorities analyzed his product, they found that it consisted mainly of mineral oil, mixed with some fatty oil and additives. There wasn’t a drop of snake oil in it.
For his deception, Clark Stanley received the draconian punishment of a $20 fine, but he destroyed confidence in the snake oil industry and gave us the term we know and use today.
2. Read Them the Riot Act
“Our Sovereign Lord the King chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God Save the King!”
We just read you the riot act. That was the actual Riot Act of 1715, or, at least, the part that had to be read out loud before allowing people a grace period of 60 minutes to disperse. If they didn’t, they were committing a felony and would be arrested.
Nowadays, to “read someone the riot act” means to give them a proper scolding or reprimand but, back then, the offense could have carried the death penalty. If this seems a little harsh, that’s because George I was the first English king from the House of Hanover. The previous dynasty, the House of Stuart, still had a lot of supporters, and several violent riots had already erupted during George’s coronation. The Riot Act was a drastic measure intended to prevent any more brutal outbursts by forbidding people from gathering in groups of 12 or more.
1. Steal My Thunder
Last, but not least, we have the phrase “to steal one’s thunder,” meaning to rob someone of praise or attention by doing or saying something that they intended to say or do. It’s nice to end on an idiom with a fair amount of certainty – we know who first said it and even when they said it, even though the phrasing is a bit murky.
This one dates back to the beginning of the 18th century. English critic and essayist John Dennis also had aspirations as a playwright, although not so much the writing talent. In 1709, he wrote and staged a new play called Appius and Virginia. The public responded with apathy, and the play soon closed down, but there was something that Dennis got right – a new kind of thunder machine.
Back then, the most common way to mimic the booming sound of thunder was for a stagehand to shake a sheet of metal, a technique that is still being used in theater today. We don’t know how John Dennis’s idea worked, but apparently, it was good enough to steal. One night, he attended a production of Macbeth at the same theater that had canceled Appius and Virginia and heard the distinct noise of his invention. At that point, he sprang up from his seat and shouted:
“That’s my thunder, by God! The villains will not play my play but they steal my thunder.”