The History Channel is a great source for word origins. I was watching a program about the old west. It seems that orphaned children from the East were taken by adoption guardians who would find homes for them with families. Often siblings were split up and children given to families that would then use them as slave labor. Boys were wanted more than girls and they spent time doing manual labor and chores. Even though the adoption agreements stated that the children were to be educated some didn’t receive any education past the fourth grade. The children were taken into towns and put on stages or platforms for men and women to examine. Thus, the term “up for adoption” was used as the children were raised up above the audience.

Because of this practice and the potential abuse of children, adoption agencies were established many of which still exist today.

I am currently reading The Persian Pickle Club, a book about a group of women in Kansas. The name of their quilting group is called The Persian Pickle Club (Persian Pickle is a type of paisley fabric). The story takes place during the Depression and one of the terms used was “Root Hog or Die.” So, of course, I had to look it up to find out what it meant.

When a farmer couldn’t afford to feed his pigs anymore, he would let them loose in the woods for them to forage for their own food. The pigs or hogs had to “root” or find acorns, etc. to feed themselves or they would die. The term was used for anyone who had to do what was necessary to stay alive.

In the book, one of the women and her family had to pack of their belongings and move to California as they could no longer survive on the farm – Root Hog or Die!

No doubt you have heard the term “drink the Kool-Aid” which refers to cult like devotion to a cause. I dug deep down into my flash memory to remember this incident. The term originated after Jim Jones, the leader of a religious cult named the People’s Temple ordered his follower’s to commit suicide. In 1978, they had recently moved the Guyana. Jones made a grape drink laced with cyanide and sedatives and commanded his people to drink it. Those who did not drink were shot. A total of 914 people died including 276 children.

Although it was probably not Kool-Aid that Jones concocted, the phrase originated from this incident and Kool-Aid is the most probably brand of easy to mix drink.

Almost every state has been considered some type of revision of its voting laws to cut down on voter fraud. Some states would like to require a type of identification (such as showing a passport or driver’s license). What I didn’t realize that the term “grandfather clause” received its origins from voting laws.

Grandfather clause means that you have the right to do something even though the law or rule has changed. For instance, when I was going to college, they changed the classes that you needed to take to graduate when I was a Junior. This did not mean that I had to go back and take a bunch of new classes. No, I was grandfathered in. I was able to continue on the previous track of classes until I graduated.

The term originated in the south. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, some southern states did not want blacks voting in the election. They devised laws that either required charging a tax before you could vote, to having to be literate. What they realized was that this would also affect many whites as well. They made this laws with the provision that if your grandfather had the right the vote, you would not be subject to the new laws. It wasn’t until 1965, when President Johnson signed the Voting Right Acts that this laws were repealed.

What occupation has given us more everyday phrases used in the English language? Sailors! Here is a list of phrases that we use today:

A shot across the bows
All at sea
Batten down the hatches
Between the Devil and the deep blue sea
Broad in the beam
By and large
Chock-a-block
Close quarters
Copper-bottomed
Cut and run
Get underway
Give a wide berth
Go by the board
Hand over fist
Hard and fast
High and dry
In the offing
Know the ropes
On your beam ends
Plain sailing
Shipshape and Bristol fashion
Shake a leg
Shiver my timbers
Taken aback
Tell it to the marines
The bitter end
The cut of your jib
Three sheets to the wind

Do you know the meaning of any of these? Shiver my timbers actually means break my boat to pieces. It was a term of surprise used by sailors! Are you interested in the meanings to all of these phrases? You can find them here.

The phrase – Mum’s the Word – means to say nothing or to keep quiet. Many phrases that are used come from one author – Shakespeare. The word mum refers to saying “mmmmmm”, or humming and not saying a word.

It was used in Henry VI, Part 2:

“Seal up your lips and give no words but mum.”

The phrase “can’t hold a candle to” is often used to describe someone or something that is of inferior quality. For example:

Generic laptop memory can’t hold a candle to Kingston laptop memory.

The coin was originally phrased because an apprentice was required to hold the candle for the wiser, more experienced workmen so that they could see what they were doing. If you could not even hold a candle for the professional, you were considered not of much worth at all.

February 29th is such a strange date. It only appears once every four years. Why? We add a day to the calendar every four years because the Earth’s orbit around the Sun is not EXACTLY 365 days, it is approximately 365.25 days. Thus we add on day every four years to keep the seasons aligned.

It has been said that women are allowed to propose marriage on Leap Day. If you are born on Leap Day, you must choose your birthday as either February 28 or March 1.

The phrase “jump the shark” refers to one particular episode of the television show “Happy Days.” On September 20, 1977 an episode aired where Fonzie jumps a shark tank on water skis. Unfortunately, this episode came to be considered the point where many fans lost interest and the show was canceled shortly thereafter.

There phrase wasn’t really used until 1997 when a website appeared on the net entitled Jump The Shark. The website lists television shows and when they “jumped the shark”, i.e. when fans start to lose interest in the characters and story lines of the show.

According the jumptheshark.com, there are a few shows that have never “jumped the shark,” including:

Seinfeld
The X-Files
The Rockford Files
The Odd Couple
M*A*S*H
The Wonder Years
Quantum Leap

You can see the complete list at jumptheshark.com.

As you suspected, the origin of the phrase Catch-22 was originated in the Joseph Heller book (1961) of the same name. Heller wrote in the book:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.

“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.

Originally, Heller was going to name the book (and the phrase) Catch-18, but another book, Mila-18 by Leon Uris had just been published and Heller’s publisher felt there might be confusion with the books. It was long after the publishing of the book, that the phrase took hold in American slang.