LANGUAGE | HISTORY
Unique Word Origins: How 8 Popular English Idioms Came to Be
From breaking the ice to burying the hatchet, these phrases reflect on human behaviors since medieval times
In my first Unique Word Origins post, I described idioms as groups of words that are used as common expressions. While these expressions are generally understood by speakers of a certain language who have lived for some time in a certain culture, they can leave others scratching their heads. Common English-language idioms in the U.S. are varied and often quirky. I found these on the nifty travel and language website, The Intrepid Guide:
Give the cold shoulder, which means to disregard someone, dates back to medieval England. Apparently at the end of a feast, a host would typically signal to their guests that it was time to head home by serving a cold shoulder of meat, such as pork, beef, or mutton.
Get the sack means to be fired from a job. This dates back to the 16th century, when it was common for a tradesman to carry his things to work in a sack that he’d leave in his boss’s office for safekeeping and retrieve at the end of his shift. But if at the end of a shift the tradesman’s work had been found lacking, the boss would hand over the sack, signaling that…
