Breaking Legs

Everyone knows, I hope, that it’s bad luck to wish an actor “good luck.”  Instead you’re supposed to say, “Break a leg”—not with the intent that the actor really breaks a leg (unless you’re the understudy), but with a kind of reverse psychology that is understood to mean wishing something good.  The origin of the phrase “break a leg” is, as you might expect, obscure. 

One theory has nothing to do with the kind of legs you walk around on, but with theatrical legs—the usually black curtains that mask the backstage area.  To run onstage for a curtain call would “break” the plane of these “legs” so that the actor was visible to the audience, and thus “breaking a leg” would mean taking a well-deserved bow. 

Other theatre historians trace the phrase to the eighteenth-century actor David Garrick who allegedly was so focused during a brilliant performance as Richard III that he failed to notice that he had fractured his leg.  Thereafter, his colleagues urged him to “break a leg” in order to maintain the same level of excellence.   

Some say the term has something to do with John Wilkes Booth’s claim that he broke his leg jumping onstage after shooting Abraham Lincoln—but it does seem improbable that you would hope that an actor would assassinate a president in the course of a performance.  Still others say it had to do with Roman gladiators being urged to break their opponents’ legs, rather than killing them outright.

Since usage of the phrase can be traced only as far back as 1920, most of these theories seem specious. 

Wishing an actor bad luck is fairly universal in the theatre. The German good-luck phrase is Hals und beinbruch, which means “break both your arm and your leg.”  The origin of this phrase is allegedly in a corruption of the Yiddish Hastlohke un brokhe, which means “Good luck and be blessed.” 

The French (as well as English-speaking dancers) wish actors Merde, a much more elegant word than its English counterpart, which is “shit.”  In Spanish it’s mucha mierda, which is simply a lot of the same.  The Italians have another image for theatrical good luck, In bocca al lupo, which emphasizes the risk involved in acting by urging the player to put his head in the mouth of a wolf.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou’s head has never been in a wolf’s mouth, but he has stuck his nose into a lot of equally unsavory places.

           

            The amours of an actor named Seth

            Always left him quite out of breath.

                        He had fun with Ophelia,

                        Even more with Cordelia,

            But was stymied by Lady Macbeth. 

Sign of the Times

An intellectually voracious customer of the blog points out the great ambiguity we exhibit in deciding what to call the # symbol.  You know, it’s the thingamajig right above the 3 on most keyboards and in the lower right-hand side of most telephones.

Usually in North American it’s called the pound key. That is probably because of a nineteenth-century telegraph coding system, in which the British symbol for a pound sterling (£) was used to shift from letters mode to numbers mode.  When adopted in the United States, the £ symbol was arbitrarily changed to #. Sometimess it was still called the pound key, but it also took on the name of number sign.

But there are plenty of other names and purposes for this symbol.  It has been confused with the other meaning of “pound” and is now used following a number as an indication of weight, as in 5# of sugar.   

When it comes before a number, as in #2 pencils or Apartment #4-B, it’s a number sign. 

Outside of North America, it’s often halled a hashmark.  Twitter and other social networks have adopted this usage in their “hashtags” system of organizing messages on the same topic.

Other names and uses for the symbol include:

-Cross – English-speaking Chinese typically use this     

     nomenclature.

-Hex – Commonly used in some parts of Asia.

-Octothorp – This term was invented in the 1960s by Bell 

     Labs engineers as an inside joke.

-Sharp – A similar, though not identical symbol, is used in 

     music to indicate a key designation.  The sharp symbol 

     actually differs in the angle of the horizontal crossstrokes.

-Space – a proofreader’s symbol indicating the need for a 

     space between words or lines.

Yet more names for this useful glyph are crosshatch, fenceposts, garden gate, mesh, flash, grid, pig-pen, tic-tac-toe, scratch, hak, oof, sink, corridor, crunch, and punchmark. You’ll have to figure out for yourself what the oof, hak, sink, crunch and punchmark are used for.  They’ve got me stumped.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou is never stumped, although he is often stomped upon, unfortunately, to little effect. 

AUTOMATED TELEPHONE ANSWERING SYSTEM:

   “Thanks for calling: now before you speak,

    Please notice that this menu changed last week.

    First, if you know the number of the line

    You want, press '1' and then the '#' sign;

    This activates the direct-dialing mode,

    Then you can dial the seven-digit code.

    If you just know your party's name, you’d better

    Press a ‘2’ and then the name’s first letter.

    If you wish to hear all this repeated,

    Just say “Repeat again,” and when completed,

    Wait seven seconds, then you press the ‘4’

    And in a while you’ll hear it all once more.

    If you’re unsure of what you want, then you   

    Must press the '*' to hear a new ‘Menu.’

    If all else fails and you need help, why then

    Press '5' and then the '#' sign once again,

    When prompted, then you just say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’—”

    Oh, never mind, I hung up long ago.

Be On the Look-Out!

Today is Labor Day in the United States and Labour Day in Canada.  I’ve blogged previously about why American words like labor become labour, ending in –our, in the United Kingdom, Canada, and other British Commonwealth countries. The reason is complicated, and William the Conqueror and Noah Webster are both to blame.  Instead of writing again about Labor Day, I’ll just refer you to my previous blog at:
http://wordsgoingwild.blogspot.com/search?q=Labor+Day


Today, instead, let's consider BOLO—a term I heard on a television newscast referring to a search for a fugitive in one of the heinous crimes with lurid accounts of which ghoulish TV anchors like to regale us.  Now in my youth, I was a great fan of “Dick Tracy,” “Dragnet,” “Mister District Attorney,” “Gangbusters,” and a host of other police shows on radio, so I know that when they’re looking for a crook on the lam, police send out an APB—“All Points Bulletin,” a message intended for everyone, everywhere.   BOLO was new to me.

BOLO, it turns out, is more commonly used among police operatives, and it stands for “Be On the Look-Out,” presumably “for” someone who will then be described.  No one seems to know when police began using the acronym. 

APB, according to the On-Line Etymological Dictionary, dates to 1957 and probably originated in detective fiction, rather than actual police usage.  Some agencies also use ATL–“Attempt To Locate.”

Do not attempt to locate the Bard of Buffalo Bayou.  You might find him, and you wouldn’t want that to happen.

            There’s no need to be on the lookout
            For the thief who came to our cookout.
                        He got drunk on our beer,
                        And now he’s still here—
            Won’t someone please throw this crook out!

                       

Hardy-Hearted

An online news service reported that owing to a lack of funds, conservation officials will release into the wild some desert tortoises they have nurtured. The account went on to say that experts would determine which of the tortoises “are hearty enough to release.”

Now the primary meaning of hearty is “enthusiastically supportive, jovial, cordial, full of warmth.” How does one gauge the cordiality of a turtle? Perhaps there will be a Congeniality Contest to pick the jolliest of these hard-shell reptiles, or maybe the ones with the biggest smiles or the firmest handshakes will get the nod.

What the writer meant, I think, is hardy, the primary meaning of which is “robust, healthy, capable of withstanding adverse conditions.”

The root of hardy is Middle English hardi, which stems from Old French hardir, “to make hard,” a word of Germanic origin related to the Old English heard meaning “hard.” Hearty derives from heart, whose root is the Old English heorte, referring to the bodily organ, but also, as early as the ninth century, to the source of courage and kind feelings.

To be fair, there is a secondary meaning for hearty—“healthy and robust”— that overlaps with hardy, but prudent usage avoids such ambiguity.

Prudent usage is the furthest thing from the mind of the Bard of Buffalo Bayou.  Madcap recklessness has always been his watchword.

            Myrtle was a turtle
            Who wished she could hurtle,
            But all she could do was creep.
  
            A hare named Pierre
            Said, “Let’s race to somewhere,”
            And Pierre showed how well he could leap.

            “You just pardon my dust,”
            Myrtle answered, non-plussed--
            And she went out and purchased a Jeep.

Who Gives A Dam?

A trouble-making reader of this blog has stirred things up by sending along his thoughts about “giving a damn.”  He suggests that when Clark Gable said, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” he was really saying “I don’t give a dam.” A dam is a former Indian coin, worth perhaps 1/40^th of a rupee (or even less, by some accounts), and, therefore, not worth a great deal. 

Linguists are at odds about this. One early example of the phrase is in 1849 by Thomas Babington Macaulay, who wrote “How they settle the matter I care not, as the Duke wrote, one twopenny damn.”  As Macaulay’s biograper, G. O. Trevelyan, maintains, the Duke in question was the Duke of Wellington, who had spent time in India, and the “damn” should have been rendered “dam,” referring to the coin.

The Oxford English Dictionary, however, says such a supposition “has no basis in fact.”  It cites Oliver Goldsmith’s “I care not three damns what figure I may cut” in 1760—well before Wellington’s time in India and, in fact, prior to his very existence.   The OED suggests “damn” is derived from the Middle English phrase “not worth a kerse [curse].”

A similar dispute occurs with the phrase "tinker's damn." One school of thought says it should be a tinker's "dam"--referring, not to an Indian coin, but to a temporary clay or mud reinforcement that was used in the repair of pots and pans to hold solder in place while it solidified, and was then discarded. Most etymologists, however, believe that this was just a Victorian attempt to bowdlerize the phrase "tinker's damn"--derived from "tinker's curse," which can be cited as early as 1824.

As you might expect, the Bard of Buffalo Bayou gives neither a damn nor a dam about any of this, such discussion being far too much exertion for his Barleycorn-benumbed brain.  The following represents the highest level of mental activity of which he is capable.

                  The Duke of Wellington wrote Macaulay,

                        “I do not care a dam.”

                        But his writing was so scrawly,

                        It was a cryptogram.

                        Macaulay said to Wellington,

                        “You might as well just scram,

                        The way I read your spelling, son,

                        You do not care a damn.”
 

Left In the Lurch

I heard someone complain about being left in the lurch, meaning “put in adverse circumstances without any assistance.” I wondered if this had to do with causing someone to lose balance or to stagger around. It turns they are two entirely different kinds of lurch, that have nothing to do with each other.

The off-balance lurch is thought to derive from an 18^th-century nautical term, lee-latch, which was a term for a sudden movement of a sailing ship toward the leeside, that is, away from the wind. If the seaman at the tiller allowed a lee-latch (later, lee-lurch), the ship would lurch off-course.

To be left in the lurch, is an earlier term, probably 16^th-century, which stems from the French word lourche.   This was a now unknown game, probably similar to backgammon, in which a player could demeurer lourche, that is “become lurch,” if defeated by a score more than twice as great as his own.  Thus, to be “in a lurch,” came to mean to be “in an undesirable position, for which there is no help.”

Yet another meaning of lurch is to “loiter about furtively,” probably a variant of lurk, which derived from the Middle English lorchen. 

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou lurches with some frequency, and you can probably guess why. 

            Left in the lurch by a lad, 
            The maiden thought he was a cad, 
                        And when he departed, 
                        She felt broken-hearted, 
            And more than a little bit mad. 

            She felt that she had been had, 

            And what made her feel really bad 
                        Was she had no way to find him 
                        So that she could remind him 
           Someone soon would be calling him “Dad.”

Laying an Egg

Several news items in recent weeks recounted the activities of newsmakers who wound up with “egg on their face.”  New York’s Mayor Bloomberg got stained from including one of the Boston Marathon bomber’s names on a list of “gun victims.”  Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe was “egged” for promising elections that never occurred.  And Brad Pitt narrowly avoided egg on his face when World War Z did better at the box office than most industry speculators predicted. These instances don’t include one literal case of egg on the face—Simon Cowell, of “Britain’s Got Talent,” who was pelted with rotten eggs by a disgruntled contestant.  Apart from Cowell, what do the other egg stains mean, and why do we say it?

To have egg on one’s face means “be embarrassed” or to “be humlliated.” Most evidence suggests it’s an American phrase dating from the middle of the nineteenth century.  The poet John Ciardi (How Does A Poem Mean?) thought it originated in burlesque or vaudeville theatres, where rowdy audiences would sometimes throw rotten eggs at unpopular performers to urge them to get offstage.

Other word sleuths think the phase originated in reference to a social gaffe by a sloppy eater who got into trouble with the yellow yolk of a soft-boiled or poached egg.

One enterprising theory is that it stemmed from working farm dogs who developed the bad habit of eating eggs from hens’ nests, to the great annoyance of their owners. Pejorative references to “egg-sucking” dogs can be found in printed accounts around the turn of the century.

As for a definitive answer, the linguistic jury is still out—fearful, it seems, of getting egg on their faces.

Egg is not the only thing the Bard of Buffalo Bayou has on his face; he also sports a goofy grin, a three-day growth of stubble, and dregs of cheap Chardonnay dribbling down his chin. 

         Eggs over easy, or sunny-side up, 
         Eggs in a skillet or in an egg-cup. 
         Eggs that are scrambled, and eggs that are poached, 
         Eggs that are rotten (and can’t be approached). 
         Eggs that are soft-boiled, eggs that are deviled, 
         Raw eggs on the morning after you’ve reveled. 
         Eggs that are hard-boiled, eggs that are shirred, 
         What kind of eggs do you think are preferred? 
         My favorite’s the one that I’ve always picked: 
         The Breakfast of Champions—Eggs Benedict!

Colonel of Wisdom

Why do we pronounce colonel just like kernel?  It has to do with similar words in Italian, French, and Spanish that competed with each other for popularity in the seventeenth century.

In Italy, a colonella  was the commander of a colonella compagnia, which was a company composed of a small column of soldiers at the head of a regiment.  Colonella derived from Latin columna (“pillar”).

The French and the Spanish modified the word colonel to coronel in the sixteenth century in a process known as linguistic dissimilation, which occurs frequently with “l” and “r.” In English, coronel was the usual form, pronounced accordingly with an “r” sound.  But some erudite writers reverted to the Italian colonel, and both spellings co-existed during the sixteenth century. Eventually, the Italianate spelling won out, but the Spanish pronunciation prevailed. By 1670 the English, as they so often do, abbreviated the word to two syllables and shortened the vowel sound of the “o.”

A kernel is from the Old English cyrnel, “seed, pip,” from Proto-Germanic kurnilo, meaning the root or seed of corn. 

            A high-ranking United States colonel 
            Had an illness he felt was intolonel. 
            He consulted some docs, 
            Who said his equinox 
            No longer appeared to be volonel.

                                        
                                      §~§~§

NOT SO HIGH TEA: I see that one of our worthy charities is auctioning what purports to be an elegant social event as a fund-raiser—“high tea” with Lynn Wyatt at either her River Oaks Houston home or New York’s Carlyle Hotel.  I don’t think those folks really mean “high tea,” the meaning of which I pointed out in an earlier blog (http://wordsgoingwild.blogspot.com/search?q=high+tea). Tea, in England, is not only a drink, but also a light meal, which typically includes bread and butter, biscuits (cookies), and, if you’re lucky, cake, crumpets, or scones.  This ordinary afternoon tea differs from “high tea” (so-called at least since 1831), which is a principal meal, specifically one that includes meat, and is eaten in the late afternoon, taking the place of both afternoon tea and dinner. “High tea” might typically consist of fried eggs, sausages, baked beans on toast, and, of course, chips (fried potatotes).  I bet that’s not Mrs. Wyatt’s menu.

Baton Twirling

Twice in recent days, in journals that should know better, I’ve seen the word baton used as if it were batten, as in “baton down the hatches.”  It is useful to know the difference, especially since it is very awkward to secure a hatch with a baton, or, for that matter, to conduct a symphony orchestra with a batten.

Baton, usually pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, and rhyming with upon, can denote several things: a club or cudgel, like a billy-club; a slender, tapered rod used by an orchestra conductor; a hollow metal tube carried by a relay team; a heraldic band; or a hollow metal rod with weighted bulbs at both ends twirled by drum majors and Miss America candidates.  It’s a French word derived from the Late Latin bastum, which means “stick.” Although it may sometimes be pronounced to rhyme with fatten, especially in the case of Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana, it is not interchangeable with batten.

Batten, which does rhyme with fatten, means a thin strip of lumber used to seal or reinforce a joint, or some other similar bar or support. Its origin is Latin battuere through French batre (to “beat”) and Middle English bataunt, a “finished board.”

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou speaks softly but carries a big baton—it’s up to you to decide which kind.

            A gorgeous drum majorette

            Could twirl her baton with no sweat,

            It was tossed in the sky,

            And then caught on the fly,

            With a flourish you’d never forget.

            But one day this poor majorette

            Did something she lived to regret,

            Her baton was mislaid,

            And instead, I’m afraid,

            She twirled an old bayonet.

           

Is Your Protasis Valid?

A letter to the editor of a daily newspaper, commenting on the alleged misreading of the Second Amendment, maintained, “Every schoolchild knows that the protasis needs to be valid for the apodosis to be valid.”  I would not venture a guess about what every schoolchild may know—in fact, I shudder to think—but I have to confess to my undying shame, self-anointed grammar maven that I am, that I was not familiar with either a protasis or an apodosis until now.

The Constitutional section under discussion is “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  The first part of that sentence is the protasis, and the part following the comma is the apodosis.

A protasis is the premise of a syllogism, or the subordinate clause of a conditional sentence: “If I drink too many martinis…”  It comes originally from Greek proteinen, “to stretch out or put forward.” 

An apodosis is the conclusion of a syllogism, or the main clause of a conditional sentence: “…then I will be out of gin.”  It derives from the Greek apodidonai, “to give back or deliver.” 

The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first usage of these terms in 1638, although Webster’s puts them as early as 1568.

An earlier meaning of protasis refers to the introductory part of a classic Greek drama (the “exposition”), which is followed by the epitasis (“development”) and, ultimately the catastrophe (“resolution” or “dénouement”). (I’ve seen plays in which the catastrophe comes much earlier.)

Now as to the Second Amendment, the letter-writer’s point was that its protasis is no longer valid, i.e. a well-regulated militia is pretty much irrelevant in the era of nuclear weapons of mass destruction, intercontinental missiles, suicide bombers, and unmanned drones.  A few Tea Party members, even if armed with Uzis, wouldn’t hold out long against modern weaponry.  Ergo, the apodosis of the Second Amendment is also invalid, meaning it is perfectly OK to infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms, by registering and licensing them, limiting them, or banning some of them.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou uses his arms principally by bending their elbows to lift glasses of chilled Chardonnay to his parched lips.  You can tell how successful he is in that operation from the following: 

            If you pose a protasis, 
            And you find it’s not valid, 
            Then the egg on your face is 
            Best used in a salad. 

            But since your apodosis 
            Is also in question, 
            You may get a neurosis 
            Or at least indigestion.            

When In Laconia…

A noted reviewer writing about The Great Gatsby, the new movie version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tedious novel, stated that the word “great” in the title was intended “laconically.”  I wonder if he really meant that.  Laconic means “terse, using few words.”  It would seem that any one-word description would qualify as laconic.  In the context, I’m inclined to think the intended word was ironic (“other than, and especially opposite to, the literal meaning”) or possibly sardonic  (“derisively mocking, skeptically humorous”).

All three words have Greek origins, but from quite different sources. Laconic derives from Laconia, a region of ancient Greece of which Sparta was the capital. Spartan discipline was known for its rigorous austerity—as everyone knows who remembers the story of the boy who stole a fox and then allowed it to gnaw through his stomach rather than confess he was hiding it under his tunic.  Austerity was also the hallmark of the speech of the Laconians. They prided themselves on what they thought of as concise wit—but the rival Athenians regarded as abrupt rudeness.  Hence, laconic assumed the meaning of “brusque and terse.”

Sardonic originated with sardonion, a plant so named because it came from the island of Sardinia, and which the Greeks believed would cause facial contortions resembling derisive laughter in those who consumed it. 

Finally, ironic is from the Greek eiron, meaning “one who pretends ignorance,” a a term frequently applied to the philosopher Socrates, in describing his method of questioning.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou is fortunate in that he need not pretend ignorance, of any subject, since it comes quite naturally to him. 

            Hippocrates and Socrates

            Were the best of pals.

            They liked to dine and wine well,

            And loved both guys and gals.

             Socrates would disparage

            His shrewish wife, Xanthippe;

            Hippocrates shunned marriage,

            And often shouted, “Yippee!”

           

             Their history’s a mystery,           

             Here’s what we know of both:           

             Socrates took hemlock,

             And Hippocrates an oath.

           

             The loss of her philosopher

             Upset the former’s wife,

             For the latter, ‘twas no matter,

             In his long and happy life.

Let’s Take A Break!

Around this time of year, Americans turn their thoughts to taking a vacation, while Brits prefer to go on holiday. Holiday and vacation are used in both countries—but with nuanced differences. 

Holiday, which comes from holyday, meaning a “religious festival,” originated as early as the tenth century with the Anglo-Saxon halig daeg.  By the sixteenth century, it had changed to holiday, with a short o sound and was used to mean any day free from work.  In Henry IV, Part 1, Prince Hall observes: 
            If all the year were playing holidays, 
            To sport would be as tedious as to work; 
            But when they seldom come, they wished-for come, 
            And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

Vacation, from the Latin vacare, “to be empty,” was used from the fourteenth century to mean “rest, or freedom from work or usual activity.”  Its use today in Britain applies mostly to time off from schools and universities, and is often shortened to “vac,” as in the Christmas vac or long (summer) vac.

Holiday was generally used by Americans in the same way as their British cousins until the late nineteenth century. From about 1870, it became popular among affluent New Yorkers to flee the city in the hot summers and head for the Adirondack Mountains.  They spoke of this custom as “vacating” their city homes for their lakeside retreats, and the term vacation replaced holiday as the usual way of referring to a pleasurable break from work.  Of course holiday is still used in this country, usually to mean an officially sanctioned day off from work.

The popularity of Adirondack vacations is attributed to a clergyman named William Henry Harrison Murray, known as “Adirondack Murray,” who wrote an influential series of articles and books extolling the virtues of the upstate New York outdoors.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou has never had a vacation, primarily because he has never done an honest day’s work, from which he could take a break.  You wouldn’t call it work to create the following, would you? 
             

             If I ever took a vacation,

            I’m not certain where I would go.

            I might visit some foreign nation,

            Or possibly just Idaho.

            I’d love to view Italy’s fountains,

            Or ski up and down a tall Alp.

            Or maybe I’d climb several mountains

            With ice and snow frosting my scalp.

            Perhaps I would go to the seaside

            And sit there just sipping Martinis,

            I might even find myself beside

            Some beauties in scanty bikinis.

            I might ride a dogsled to Nome,

            Or to Mecca I’d trek on a hajj—

            Most likely I’d just stay at home

            And clean out my dirty garage.

The Schooner the Better

How about a nice schooner of ice-cold ale?  That sounds refreshing on a warm summer day—but what, you ask, is a schooner?

Originally it was a small sea-going vessel, with sails fore and aft, and one or more topsails.  The first such ship was constructed in the early 18^th century.  No one quite knows why it was called a schooner, but the prevailing story, as told by the Oxford English Dictionary, is that when one was launched, about 1713, in Gloucester, Massachusetts, a spectator cried “Oh, how she scoons!”  The ship’s builder, Captain Andrew Robinson, replied, “A scooner let her be!” Scoon is a dialectical word of Scandinavian origin that means “to skim or skip across the water.”  The h was added to the spelling of schooner somewhat later, probably by analogy to the word school. 

None of the so-called experts will hazard a definitive opinion  on how the word became applied to a glass for beer. Apparently it was first used in that sense in America in the 1870s for a tall glass approximately double the size of a regular tumbler.  Some  think it has to do with the way spirits were served in the Royal Navy, which served drinks in two measures, the smaller clipper and the double-measure schooner. The British have since adopted the term schooner as a precise measure for beer and ale, equal to 14 ounces.

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou regards 14 ounces as a “sip,” an uncounted number of which he knocks back before setting one syllable on paper. 

            A convention of hot-air ballooners 
            Hoisted a few rounds of schooners, 
            They got pretty high, 
            But not in the sky, 
            And a few of them turned into mooners.

Knowing Beans About Beans

A customer recently asked if I knew the origin of the expression “doesn’t know beans” (meaning “knows next to nothing”). You’ll have to choose from the following possibilities that vie for linguistic approval.

Some say the phrase originated in early nineetenth century American mercantile stores that stocked a variety of legume called “blue beans.” The outer skin had a bluish tint, but when it was removed, the interior was white. A popular riddle was “How many blue beans make seven white beans?” If you didn’t know the answer was seven, then you didn’t know beans!

In A Hog On Ice and Other Curious Expressions, Charles Earle Funk (yes, that Funk, onetime editor-in-chief of Funk & Wagnalls) suggests that it is likely that “not to know beans” arose from some now-forgotten story in the early nineteenth century. He thinks it may have originated from some dispute over the cowpea, which, despite its name, is related to the bean not the pea.

Another theory is that the idiom refers to Boston, known for its baked beans, where it would be the worst kind of ignorance not to know that the dish must be made of a specific variety of small white bean known as the 'pea bean.'

Finally, some linguists surmise the phrase comes from the British expression "to know how many beans make five,” meaning that one is no fool.

“Not knowing beans” gained literary stature in a verse that appeared in no less learned a journal than the Yale Literary Magazine in 1855: 
            “When our recent Tutor is heard to speak, 
            This truth one certainly gleans, 
            Whatever he knows of Euclid and Greek, 
            In Latin he don't know beans.” 

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou is known to be full of beans, and you know what that causes. 

            An old man in Brooklyn (or Queens) 
            Consumed such a big batch of beans, 
                        His toots and his honks 
                        Could be heard in the Bronx, 
            And they had to call out the Marines.

Plumb Pudding

The New York Times mentioned that someone had taken a “plumb job.” The writer probably meant a “plum” job, which would mean a job that was very desirable—especially one given as a reward.

A plumb, from the Latin plumbum (meaning the element lead), is “a lead weight on the end of a line used to establish a true vertical.”  By extension of this meaning, plumb can also be an adjective denoting “perfectly straight” (“The window frame isn’t plumb”) or an adverb meaning “without deviation, or absolutely” (“You are plumb crazy” or “I plumb forgot.”)

A plum, on the other hand, from the Latin prunum, is a purplish fruit, and,  because of its juicy sweetness, it can refer to any desirable thing.  Food companies are now trying to persuade us that the food product to which costive oldsters are partial, known for generations as a prune, should really be thought of as a dried plum, which is much more desirable.  After all, no one ever talks about handing out “prunes” as rewards. 

The only reward offered for the Bard of Buffalo Bayou is on a "Wanted" poster, followed by the words "Dead or Alive."  But someone (it must have been a vandal) has crossed out the word "alive."
 
            I think that I shall never hum 
            A tune as lovely as a plum, 
            A plum of gorgeous purple hue, 
            Upon whose skin rest pearls of dew. 

            A plum is tangy on the tongue, 
            Its many virtues go unsung, 
            I’d like to shout and beat a drum, 
            To spread the praises of the plum. 

            But juicy plums, I must agree, 
            Won’t help with regularity, 
            So if you want to go—and soon— 
            I guess you'd better have a prune.

           

Heel Thyself

Well-heeled is usually used to mean “wealthy.”  Its first appearance in print was evidently in Bound In Shallows, an 1897 novel by Eva Wilder Brodhead, in which a character says, “I ain’t so well-heeled right now.” In context, this clearly means “impecunious.”

 

The etymology of the phrase is thought to derive from the fact that good quality shoes are a prime indication of one’s prosperity, and the heel of a shoe is the first place that shows wear.  The opposite of “well-heeled” is “down at heels.” 

 

Well-heeled has at least two other meanings which precede this one.  One is “provided with a weapon,” and it was first seen in 1873 in Undeveloped West, in which J. H. Beadle wrote, “To travel long out West a man must be, in the local phrase, ‘well-heeled’.”  The context makes it clear that this means having a gun.

 

This meaning probably stems from the broader definition of well-heeled as “properly equipped,” which was first used in its literal meaning applied to the claws of fighting cocks. An 1866 account in the Dubuqe (Iowa) Daily Herald, reports that some birds "...resembled dung hill chickens thrown into the pit with their natural spurs, to meet and contend with game cocks well heeled. One stoke puts them to flight, squawking as they go; they cannot stand steel." Here, the “heel” is clearly an artificial spur with which cocks were equipped in order to fight. 

 

Well-heeled should never be confused with round-heeled, a term that dates to the 1920s and describes either an easily defeated prizefighter or a woman who readily bestows sexual favors. 

 

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou bestows no favors on anyone, especially those who are foolhardy enough to read his misbegotten screeds. 

 

            With rue my heart is laden 

            For good-time friends I had, 

            For many a round-heeled maiden 

            And many a lusty lad. 

 

            Turned prim by coy compunction, 

            The maids are matrons now, 

            And the lads can only function 

            With Viagra, they avow.