{"id":82615,"date":"2022-01-21T10:53:23","date_gmt":"2022-01-21T15:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=82615"},"modified":"2022-01-26T10:26:50","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T15:26:50","slug":"do-you-know-these-expressions-your-ancestors-used-part-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/do-you-know-these-expressions-your-ancestors-used-part-6.html","title":{"rendered":"Do You Know These Expressions Your Ancestors Used? (Part 6)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Introduction<\/em><\/strong><em>: In this article (Part 6), Jessica Edwards continues her discussion of the meanings and origins of idioms (figurative phrases) that our ancestors used, focusing on idioms from the colonial period. Jessica has had a lifelong interest in her family\u2019s history \u2013 especially on her father\u2019s side, which goes back to the first settlers in Pennsylvania, Jamestown and New England \u2013 and has documented and added more than 21,000 people to her family tree!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Idioms (figurative phrases) have been used throughout the centuries and may appear in what was said or written by our ancestors. Understanding these expressions will help you better understand what your ancestors were saying \u2013 and finding out the history of these sayings can be quite entertaining!<\/p>\n<p>I hope you enjoy this series, and perhaps it will allow you to better understand what your ancestors may have meant in their letters and diaries, or in newspaper articles written about them \u2013 as well as increase your knowledge and vocabulary.<\/p>\n<p>Today I\u2019m going to discuss some more idioms, featuring ones traced to colonial times.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>A hard nut to crack:<\/strong> Benjamin Franklin was responsible for this idiom. He used it in a letter in 1745: \u201cFortified towns are hard nuts to crack; and your teeth have not been accustomed to it.\u201d It describes a situation when something is difficult to figure out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Armed to the teeth:<\/strong> to describe being overly prepared or too well equipped in a situation. This idiom is equated to the era of pirates, who wanted to make sure they never ran out of ammunition in a fight, and therefore held a gun in each hand. In order to be fully prepared, they tended to keep another gun in their pocket and hold a knife in their teeth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Big wig:<\/strong> a way to describe an important person. This idiom came from the habit, in the 1700s, of wigs being worn by important people because they were fashionable \u2013 and the higher (bigger) the wig, generally, the more important\/wealthier the wearer was.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Giving someone the benefit of the doubt:<\/strong> this idiom means believing someone\u2019s story without proof even though it may seem unbelievable. Thought to be related to the phrase \u201creasonable doubt\u201d that is used in law, and was perhaps first used during the Irish treason trials in 1798. It is reported to have been earlier used in the Boston Massacre Trials of 1770, but no written evidence of this exists. The current wording of the phrase was first recorded in the late 1800s.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>He popped the question:<\/strong> an idiom that means that the person blurted out a proposal of some sort (it usually is used in the context of a marriage proposal). It dates from the\u00a0eighteenth century, when Samuel Richardson used it in his novel <em>Sir Charles Grandison<\/em> (1753): \u201cAfraid he would now, and now and now, pop the question; which he had not the courage to put.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>I\u2019ll use my pin money:<\/strong> the Oxford English Dictionary says this idiom has been used by women from colonial times forward. Farm women would sew, sell eggs, etc., to raise extra money which they would pin to the front of their aprons and use to get \u201cextras\u201d for themselves or their families.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Missed the boat:<\/strong> means you have missed out on an opportunity. Thought to have originated in the\u00a018th century,\u00a0when it was used literally to describe someone missing out on a boat\/ship journey.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Reached their last straw:<\/strong> means that someone has experienced an act to make an entire situation unbearable. This is the shortened version of the phrase \u201cThe last straw that broke the camel\u2019s back.\u201d This idiom has been used since the mid-1700s. The phrase has had many variations over the years. One version, dating back to the 1800s, states\u00a0\u201cThe last feather breaks the horse\u2019s back.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Rubbing someone the wrong way<\/strong>: during colonial times, some Americans would have their servants clean the floors by rubbing the floorboards in a specific way, because rubbing the oak slabs the wrong way would result in the formation of streaks \u2013 which ruined the floorboards and annoyed the homeowner. Nowadays this idiom means to be annoying or to bother someone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Slap on the wrist:<\/strong> describes a mild punishment, and probably came from 18th century England, as it was in this place and time that the word \u201cslap\u201d began to be used not just literally, but figuratively.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Stealing someone\u2019s thunder<\/strong>: this actually has two meanings: 1) \u201cto announce or disclose something \u2013 wittingly or unwittingly,\u201d or; 2) \u201ctaking credit for someone else\u2019s achievements.\u201d This idiom came from the dramatist John Dennis (1658-1734), who created an innovative thunder machine for his 1709 play,\u00a0<em>Appius and Virginia<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>That gets my goat:<\/strong> came from the practice of goats being used at horse racing stables, from the 1600s on, because goats were found to relax the horses. Competitors would kidnap rivals\u2019 goats in an attempt to spook the horses, thus making them lose the race. This idiom has come to be used to describe when something is very annoying.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>To break the ice:<\/strong> from the time when roads were not yet fully developed and ships were the main means of transportation and trade. During the winter, these ships might get stuck in ice that formed on lakes and other bodies of water, and so the receiving country would then send smaller ships and help the trade ships get free by breaking the ice for them. This evolved into the idiom, meaning to try to make a group feel more comfortable so as to cultivate friendship.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>More to come!<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Note on the header image:<\/em><\/strong> \u201cGenealogy\u201d logo designed and copyrighted by Mary Harrell-Sesniak.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related Articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/curiosity-killed-the-cat-or-what-your-ancestor-really-meant.html\">\u2018Curiosity Killed the Cat\u2019 or What Your Ancestor Really Meant<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/genealogy-tip-idioms-through-the-ages.html\">Genealogy Tip: Idioms through the Ages<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/do-you-know-these-expressions-your-ancestors-used-part-1.html\">Do You Know These Expressions Your Ancestors Used? (Part 1)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/do-you-know-these-expressions-your-ancestors-used-part-2.html\">Do You Know These Expressions Your Ancestors Used? (Part 2)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/do-you-know-these-expressions-your-ancestors-used-part-3.html\">Do You Know These Expressions Your Ancestors Used? (Part 3)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/do-you-know-these-expressions-your-ancestors-used-part-4.html\">Do You Know These Expressions Your Ancestors Used? (Part 4)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/do-you-know-these-expressions-your-ancestors-used-part-5.html\">Do You Know These Expressions Your Ancestors Used? (Part 5)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jessica Edwards writes about the meanings &#038; origins of idioms (figurative phrases) that our ancestors used, focusing on idioms from the colonial period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":82429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[58073,58053],"class_list":["post-82615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-genealogy-search-terms","tag-idioms"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/illustration-1024-2019-featured-graphic-genealogy-logo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82615"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82621,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82615\/revisions\/82621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}