Take Time by The Forelock The common figure of Old Father Time represents him as having a small curly lock drooping over his forehead: otherwise he is as bald as a new-born babe. Shakespeare (King John, tn. i) calls him 7 “Old Time, the clock-seller: that bald sexton, Time.” The origin of our phrase goes back to the time of Thales of Miletus (636-546 B.C.), and the underlying idea seems to...

At All Hazards When we say that we will undertake a certain venture “at all hazards,” we mean that we shall be prepared to stake. all we have on the risk of defeat and consequent total loss. Soldiers and sailors, it has been remarked in other notes, have been responsible for the introduction into our language of many words: Some of these words were coined from the faulty pronunciation, on one...

Cut Off The Nose To Spite The Face “He that smites his nose and has it not, forfeits his face to the king.” —Old proverb. To cut off the nose to spite the face is said of one who, Ito be revenged on his neighbour, materially injures himself. (Grose: Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1796). The origin of this phrase is probably based on the story of a man who, having...

Cut The Gordian Knot “His sword would have cut the Gordian Knot of hereditary right.” -BOLINGBROKE: On Parties (1735). “Cutting the Gordian knot” is ordinarily held to signify a promptitude in the determination to solve an intricate problem. As the result of a chariot race which he had won, he being the first to enter the Temple of Jupiter at Gordium, a certain peasant of Phrygia, named Gordiok, was chosen by...

The Jingo Spirit One would imagine that men have always given expression to oaths—some by heaven, others by earth and the things on the earth. Many kings and queens of history have been guilty of these stupid practices. Louis XII of France is said to have uttered as his favourite oath: “The devil take me I” Oaths commonly ascribed to certain of our English rulers are : “God’s wounds !” ;...

The Writing on The Wall “In the same hour came forth fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick, upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace.” – Daniel v.s. “The writing on the wall” is a warning of impending disaster. The great feast which Belshazzar, the last King of Babylon, gave to a thousand of his lords, his wives and concubines, while he drank impiously...

The Heel of Achilles “Hanover—the Achilles’ heel to invulnerable England.” —CARLYLE. To “bruise the heel of Achilles” is to attack a person, or a nation, at its weakest point. It used to be said of Ireland that she was “the Achilles’s heel of the British Empire,” doubtless on account of her internal dissensions and her alleged disloyalty. Invulnerability was ever the one desideratum of the gods and heroes of mythology. Many...