Where does that come from?

I was watching a show recently, and one of the characters was reciting lines from a Shakespearean play. Another character asked if he knew that whole section by heart, which he did.

Suddenly, I sat up. Wait. Why do we say we know something by heart? Don’t we actually know it by brain? Our heart does not store the information we have memorized. So into the internet I went.

I landed back in ancient times, when people thought your actual heart was in charge of memory and emotion. That would also explain why we make hearts to represent love and for Valentine’s Day. 

So what did those people think the brain was for? Nothing. In fact, the Egyptians, who believed you were reborn in the afterlife just as you had left this one, carefully preserved the heart but threw out the brain while they did the embalming process.

To know something by heart is an idiom. Idioms are an example of figurative language that takes words that normally wouldn’t go together and shouldn’t make any sense together and gives them a meaning we all understand.

There are other idioms like “heavy heart” and “hits you in the heart” that can also trace meaning to the olden days when people thought the heart controlled emotions and even contained your soul. Both of those idioms are related to feeling bad or disappointed.

But what about saying, “Eat your heart out”? Who would want to do that? We know that it is a taunt, showing off something you’ve gained that another person does not have. But where would that come from?

Upon researching this phrase, I found that there is no one answer. In the 16th century, people would say, “Eat one’s own heart,” which meant to suffer in silence. And if you go into the Bible, you will see the phrase, “To eat one’s own flesh,” which meant someone was lazy. In the Iliad, we see that to eat one’s heart out means to experience immeasurable grief. It’s likely been an evolution through time to land where we are today.

Throughout the NCAA basketball tournaments, we would see teams give a last-ditch effort at the end of a game to overcome a deficit and move on with a win. But we know they are not leaping out of ditches, even though they may have dug themselves a hole. 

Last-ditch effort has its origins in military slang. Military personnel would dig ditches at different distances from the front lines for protection and as means of communication. To fight up to the last ditch meant going at it until the very end; “to die in the last ditch” was known as being the final group standing in a battle.

Sometimes we don’t know how something came to become a popular idiom. If you’ve ever heard someone say it was “like shooting fish in a barrel,” did it ever occur to you to wonder who exactly is putting fish in a barrel and then shooting them? You’ve already caught the fish. There’s no need to just blow them up. 

The first time this phrase was seen in print was 1931, though it’s not very clear where it originated. However, it must have been a popular phrase among people for it to be published without explanation.

And if you think shooting fish in a barrel is easy, it might be even easier to take candy from a baby. Both mean that something is simple to do, though neither is very sporting. Speaking of sports, that’s where the first indications in print were for thieving sweet treats from infants. In the late 1800s, that phrase was used to describe the ease with which various teams procured victory.

Using one idiom to seamlessly move to another, since we’re talking about robbery, let’s look at robbing someone blind. We know it means being very deceitful or severely overcharging someone, but where does the blind part come in?

This idiom has been in use since at least the mid-20th century. Some think it comes from people who would actually steal money from blind people begging in the streets. That seems…excessive. It’s also thought that the gouging done to overcharge someone means you take everything they have and hold dear, and your sight might be pretty important.

Rub someone the wrong way is another idiom. Um, no, not going there. Oh wait, it’s not bad actually! We know it as meaning you irritate someone, and it comes from the 1800s where it referred to stroking an animal’s fur the wrong direction. If we pet Chewbacca the wrong way, our cat will definitely not like that.

You could also ruffle someone’s feathers, which is similar, both in meaning and origin. But why do we say something is “for the birds,” meaning it’s pretty worthless? I like birds! Most of the time, anyway. They’re not worthless.

The phrase has been in use for over 100 years and has a gross origin. It refers to birds dipping into animal droppings to get seeds to eat. This is not something humans would do; we would see those piles as worthless, unless you used them to fertilize your garden. This may seem far-fetched, but the earlier version of the saying included a word before “for” that was a profane reference to poop.

You may think this pathway to find idioms has been a pile of poop, or maybe you found it intriguing. Don’t beat around the bush in your feelings. It’s not a big deal if you use your big mouth to give me a backhanded compliment or want to bite my head off. (Just a few more idioms to leave you wondering!)

Word of the Week: This week’s word is eclat, which means enthusiastic approval or praise, as in, “The columnist gained eclat from his informative article from some, while others wanted to string him up by his toes.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!