Reader Opinions
Robert – (rake over the coals) November 7, 2023
Parents are sometimes curious. They teach you to walk and speak for later tell you “shut your mouth and sit down”.
Bob W – (call a spade a spade) November 3, 2023
Robert Burton, an English writer, used the phrase “I call a spade a spade” in his book “The Anatomy of Melancholy” (1621) to describe his plain and unadorned writing style. The phrase means to tell the truth about something, to be brutally honest, and even to go beyond honesty—not exaggerating or minimizing something; not hiding anything; putting it absolutely starkly—to tell it as it is.
The phrase has been used in various forms in literature for hundreds of years. It refers to calling a noun by its name, as in “Call a spade a spade, not a shovel.” It has no racial connotation. That is a complete falsehood; it exists only in narrow, ignorant minds. The ultimate source of this idiom is a phrase in Plutarch’s Apophthegmata Laconica: ‘τὴν σκάφην σκάφην λέγοντας (tēn skaphēn skaphēn legontas). The word σκαφη (skaphe) means “basin, or trough.” Lucian De Hist. Conscr. has τὰ σύκα σύκα, τὴν σκάφην δὲ σκάφην ὀνομάσων (ta suka suka, tēn skaphēn de skaphēn onomasōn), “calling a fig a fig, and a trough a trough”.
Jay Spence – (wrap in cotton wool) October 29, 2023
My Dad was born premature (weighed 3lb) in 1932. Back then and probably for a long time before that, they didn’t have incubators or other modern methods for keeping a prem baby alive and simply wrapped him up in cotton wool.
I believe this is where the saying comes from. An old fashioned way to treat a premature or poorly baby.
Lee Whittington – (fair and square) October 25, 2023
I believe it stems from ancient Egyptians and the concept that if the perimeter of two sets of land was, for example, 400 steps, then the land would yield the same crops. However, if one strip of land were 150×50 steps, the area would be 750. However, if your land was an equal square of 100 steps, then the area would be 1000 but same perimeter. Proclus 450c suggested that some land owners would use this strategy to make it look as though they were being generous to their neighbours by giving them land with what seemed like a longer perimeter, which gave them a reputation of being fair. When in fact, the opposite is true.
Sethuraman T – (fortune favours the bold) October 23, 2023
It’s my staunch belief that fortune only creates bold people. If one has the fortune to become bold, then automatically he will be identified as a bold person in public, or else it’s very difficult.
Salter – (take the bull by the horns) October 21, 2023
You are faced with the horns of a dilemma. You have three options. You can avoid the dilemma by going around it, but at the expense of not resolving it. You can be risky and attempt to go over the horns, but although you no longer face the dilemma, the dilemma remains. Or you can take the bull by the horns and attempt to resolve the dilemma.
Don H – (mark my words) October 11, 2023
I am not sure it is literally the first use recorded, but in 1 Samuel chapter 1 of the KJV Eli hearing Hannah’s prayer concerning her vow to God that if the Lord would give her a son (she was barren), she would dedicate this son to the service of God. Of course, Samuel the great prophet was God’s answer to her prayer, but the scriptures tell us that Eli the priest was near, and hearing the prayer “marked” her words. Later, of course, having taken note of this special prayer of great travail remembered it. That reference is what sent me on this search.
Caroline Woolnough – (pain in the neck) October 8, 2023
Harpastum, a game played in the Roman Republic which was similar to modern day rugby. Antiphanes wrote about the game “….damn it, what a pain in the neck I’ve got.” Could this be the source of the idiom?
D. Marshall Cheeks – (the devil is beating his wife) October 8, 2023
East Coast here. I remember being a little boy hearing my Grandmother and her siblings saying this when it was a sun shower. They were all originally from Pittsburgh but my Great Grandparents, their parents of course, came from Florida.
Reece – (rake over the coals) September 25, 2023
I often use this expression at work when I am explaining how certain things went that particular day at work to the other nurses. A lot of them will smile at me when I say this phrase, “raked across the coals”, because it illustrates such accuracy of how we nurses are truly treated from patients, their family members as well as our own allies such as management.
