Sunbonnet Soliloquy

By Jewell Ellen Smith

Phrases Coined Long Ago

“We catch hold of hopes... as drowning men do upon thorns, or straws.”

This is an old thought, which literally dates back almost to the year one. It is from the letters of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the famed and eloquent Roman philosopher, who was born in Spain in 4 B.C. and died in Rome by his own hand at the request of Nero in 65 A.D.

Modern writers and speakers have shortened Seneca’s declaration to the phrase “clutching at straws.”

“I swear she’s no chicken; she’s on the wrong side of thirty, if she’s a day.”

That observation is practically new -- only some 250 years old. It is from the writings of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), English satirist, dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. In the twentieth century we often say a person is getting on in years with a similar chicken phrase: “she’s no spring chicken.”

“Thou hast a crooked tongue, holding with the hound and running with the hare.”

That’s another ancient saying. One older than America. It was first written about 1440. By whom, nobody knows. Every day we use familiar phrases that have been part of our language so long we forget -- if we ever knew -- where they came from.

Consider these:

“I begin to smell a rat.” -- Cervantes, “Don Quixote.”

“To kill the goose that laid the golden egg.” -- Aesop, “Fables.”

“Two heads are better than one.” -- Homer, “Iliad.”

“Never examine the teeth of a gift horse.” -- St. Jerome (340 - 420 A.D.) quoted as a proverb. We say: “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Tom, Dick, and Harry.” -- John Adams

“Uncle Sam.” -- Unknown, editorial in Troy, N. Y. Post, 1813

“Wind bag.” -- Sophocles, (496-404 B.C.) Greek dramatist

“To hold by the apron strings.” -- English proverb. (1678)

“Birds of a feather flock together,” -- quoted by Aristotle as a proverb

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Last year I bought for 50¢ -- at a book sale held in the Enterprise, Alabama Public Library -- a volume titled THE NEW DICTIONARY OF THOUGHTS. This dictionary is no longer new, having been published some forty years ago. (That’s why the library was getting rid of it.) But in it are pages and pages of very familiar phrases, such as those mentioned above.

Too, there is a section titled “Phrases from Shakespeare.” Another portion of the book is devoted to “Familiar Expressions from the Bible.”

Just for fun, see if you can recognize which of the following twelve sayings come from the Bible, which from Shakespeare:

1. “I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.”

2. “A thorn in the flesh”

3. “In the twinkling of an eye”

4. “A wounded spirit who can bear?”

5. “The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong.”

6. “A poor lone woman.”

7. “That’s past praying for.’

8. “Seal the bargain with a holy kiss.”

9. “The livelong day.”

10. “Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care.”

11. “Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.”

12. “It was Greek to me.”

(Answer: The first five quotations are from the Bible, the last seven from Shakespeare)

The purpose of this piece is not to say one should go around using old and borrowed sayings. Rather, it is to show that our English language is rich -- exceedingly rich, in words and phrases coined long ago.

Published April 1998. Press your browser’s “Back” key to return.