Nine More Idioms Traced To Their Roots
Idioms find their way into our speech and writing, and these colorful turns of phrase can be even more interesting when you trace them back to their origins.
As mentioned in “Nine Idioms Traced To Their Origins,” I find myself using idioms all the time in my writing and everyday speech. It’s easy to take these phrases for granted, as if they’ve always meant what they mean now, but in reality, these odd turns of language often have strange and curious origins. And even more correctly, as expressed by Anatoly Liberman on the Oxford University Press’s blog:
Unless an idiom happens to be a so-called familiar quotation, its origin is usually unknown. (The origin of familiar quotations is another problem.) Somebody whips the cat, takes care of the whole nine yards, is dressed up to the nines, or, conversely, kicks the bucket. Trying to guess how those phrases came about is a worthy occupation, but, unfortunately, it seldom results in significant discoveries. Suffice it to say that every idiom, like every word, was once coined by an individual. The cleverest and the most memorable words and phrases stayed, and now they are common property, while the inventors’ names are forgotten
What is an idiom?
An idiom is “an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements (such as ‘up in the air’ for ‘undecided’) or in its grammatically atypical use of words (such as ‘give way’)” (Merriam-Webster).
And from Grammarist: “An idiom is a word, group of words, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is not easily deduced from its literal definition. Often using descriptive imagery, common idioms are words and phrases used in the English language in order to convey a concise idea and are often spoken or are considered informal or conversational. English idioms can illustrate emotion more quickly than a phrase that has a literal meaning, even when the etymology or origin of the idiomatic expression is lost. An idiom is a metaphorical figure of speech, and it is understood that it is not a use of literal language.”
Here are another nine idioms, compiled as I continue my editorial endeavors and presented here as an opportunity to ponder the dynamic and enigmatic construct that is the English language.
squared away
Interestingly, many of the idioms I’m researching have nautical or military origins, and “squared away” is among them. Its idiomatic meaning is “to put everything in order or in readiness,” according to Merriam-Webster, though that and other sources also list “to square the yards so as to sail before the wind” and “to take up a fighting stance” as definitions of the phrase. It appears the nautical reference is the earliest, from “square the yards,” which meant that “the yards, the spars that carried the sails, were to be set at right angles to the keel line from bow to stern, a state that was known as square by the braces… Squaring the yards meant that the ship sailed directly downwind” (World Wide Words). In the late 1700s, “square away” meant “to travel directly, without hesitation,” and was later used to mean “getting things in order.” In the early 1800s, in England, the phrase seems to have taken on the meaning of “getting in fighting position,” which in the US is “square off.”
“Before we take off for vacation, I have to get the house and pet sitters squared away.”