There are a lot of idioms we use day-to-day whose meanings are obscure or completely unguessable. It's one of the reasons the English language is so difficult to learn. We thought we'd clarify the origins of a few of these idioms for you.

  1. "My class was misbehaving, so I read them the riot act"

    In 1714, the original Riot Act was passed by the British parliament. It was meant to deal with civil unrest in the form of unruly crowds of a dozen or more people, and of course riots. When such occurrences took place, an officer of the law had to approach the crowd and tell them to disperse. To do so, the officer had to literally read the Riot Act.

    The act to be read out said: "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!"

    Once this was read out, the crowd had one hour to disperse, after which anyone who remained could be arrested, and the punishment was death!

    According to the BBC, the last attempted reading of the Riot Act "took place at the Battle of George Square in Glasgow, Scotland, on January 31, 1919. On that occasion, protestors fighting for shorter working hours clashed with police. During the conflict, a sheriff began to read the Act, but the sheet of paper was 'snatched out of his hand' by protestors".


  2. "He wanted to say something, but he didn't really like being in the limelight"

    This phrase is sometimes worded 'in the spotlight', in which case the meaning is perfectly clear. But what exactly is 'limelight'?

    Both terms come from the theater and refer to focusing light on an important person on stage. A limelight was a lighting device used from about 1840 until the early 1900's. The 'lime' in limelight was a chemical compound, calcium oxide, also known as quicklime. A blowpipe that burned hydrogen and oxygen to create an extremely hot flame was used to heat calcium oxide, which produced an intense white light. In 1837, limelight was used for the first time to illuminate a stage, at London’s Covent Garden. Theaters regularly utilized this powerful form of light, which could be focused into a beam to highlight specific actors or an area of the stage.



    Unfortunately, the use of limelights required that each light have someone to look after it to make adjustments as it burned. And as you might expect, this type of lighting proved to be a fire hazard.

    In 1879, Thomas Edison demonstrated the first electric light bulb, and by the early 1900's most theaters had switched from limelight to electricity, which was safer and more economical.


  3. "Be careful what you say, the walls have ears!"

    The meaning is pretty clear: be careful what you say, as people might be eavesdropping. It's possible origin? the Louvre Palace in France was believed to have had a network of listening tubes so that it was possible to hear everything that was said in different rooms. Some say that this is how Queen Catherine discovered political secrets.


  4. "He is a real 'big wig'"

    In the 18th century an important person, especially a politician, would wear a wig in public. The bigger the wig, the more important he saw himself. The phrase has come to describe any influential person.


  5. "I hate the job, but I'll just have to bite the bullet and get it done"

    If you're a fan of Western movies you probably get this reference. It refers to how first aid in those times, often during battles, could be very painful without anesthesia. Patients were made to bite down on bullets (or anything hard) to distract themselves from the pain. Now it just means to decide to do something difficult or unpleasant that you've been putting off.


  6. "She's not really upset; those are just crocodile tears"

    'Crocodile tears' are tears or expressions of sorrow that are insincere. Somehow this phrase, possibly from a 14th century book called 'The Travels of Sir John Mandeville' recounting a knight's adventures, where crocodiles shed tears while eating a man they captured, found its way into Shakespeare's work and became an idiom in the 16th century.

    Incidentally, crocodiles don't shed tears.



  7. "I don't like him; he really gets my goat"

    This expression, meaning to irritate someone, likely came about from horse racing. Sometimes thoroughbred horses would get anxious, so owners would put goats in the stalls with them to calm them down. Rival horse owners would sometimes steal these goats, upsetting the horse and making it more likely to lose.


  8. "It's bad news, but every cloud has a silver lining"

    This phrase, which suggests that a negative occurrence might have a positive aspect to it, can apparently be traced directly to a piece written in 1634 by English poet John Milton called 'Comus: A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle'. He spoke of a 'silver lining of brightness behind a gloomy cloud', and afterward ‘Milton’s clouds’ became a part of English literature, especially in the 1800’s, a time of optimism in upper class Victorian England.


  9. "I had to pull out all the stops to get it done"

    Making a very great effort to achieve something references the playing of an organ. Organ consoles have knobs called ‘stops’. With the stops pulled out, the organist can play at a much higher volume.


  10. "I had to leave all of a sudden"

    Used to describe an unexpected event that happened without forewarning, this phrase was coined by Shakespeare, and it first appeared in his 1596 play 'The Taming of the Shrew': "Is it possible That love should of a sodaine take hold?"


  11. " Boy howdy! Them pumpkins sure are big!"

    'Boy Howdy' is a term that generally makes no sense at all. It's used to describe a feeling of happiness or enjoyment, sometimes sarcastically, and can be used with an exclamation mark for added excitement.

    For example: "Don't you just love pointless staff meetings that could have been an email?" to which the reply might be: "Boy howdy, do I ever!"

    Another example: "Boy howdy am I hungry! Let's get some sardine tacos!"

    This is apparently Southern slang, as in "Boy howdy! Them pumpkins sure is big! How we gonna carry 'em all, Bubba?"



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