Cut the Painter “I’ll cut your painter for you; that is, cut you off.” —GROSE: Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785) Nautical usage is responsible for this phrase, the metaphorical meaning of which is: to cut oneself, or be cut, away from an embarrassing attachment ; to be released from an undesirable alliance. A sailor fastens his boat by a rope fixed to the bow, which he calls a “painter.” At...

Tweedledum And Tweedledee “If there is any difference between them, it is the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee”: which means no perceptible difference at all or so trifling as to be worthless. “Tweedledum” and “Tweedledee” are words which, at one time, were used to indicate the difference in pound between a high-pitched musical instrument and a low-pitched one. Hence to tweedle is to strum the strings of a fiddle, or to...

Grasp the Nettle   Tenderhearted stroke a nettle And it stings you for your plans; Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains. —Verse written on a window in Scotland. The idiomatic meaning of the phrase “to grasp the nettle” is to act in given circumstances with courageous determination. This caption, from an old German proverb, “Though you stroke the nettle ever so kindly, it will...

The Dogs of War The origin of this phrase is found in Shakespeare’s Julius Cesar, III, i, where Mark Antony mourns over the corpse of his friend, and cries: “And Cesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge, with Ate by his side come hot from Hell, shall in these confines, with a monarch’s voice, cry ‘Havoc l’ and let slip the dogs of war.” What are these dogs of war? What is this...

A Feather in His Cap “He wore a feather in his cap, and wagged it too often.” FULLER: Church History (1655). “That’s a feather in your cap!” we are ant to say to anyone who has accomplished any great feat—or physical endurance, like swimming the Channel, scaling the Himalayas, or flying across continents; of mental prowess, like gaining a scholar-ship, composing an epic poem, or painting a sunset. When Joseph Chamberlain...

A Frankenstein Monster “The landlord and the capitalist are both finding that the steam-engine is a Frankenstein which they had better not have raised.” —SIDNEY WEBB: Fabian Essays, 38 (1889). A metaphorical Frankenstein monster is a situation —political, financial, ecclesiastical, or domestic—which has been created through folly, and which has become so potent and uncontrollable that it is now a menace to social stability. The story by the wife of Percy...

A Forlorn Hope “Before the vantguarde marched the forlorn hope.” —DYMMOK : Ireland (1660). The word “forlorn” means to be helpless, forsaken; from the Teutonic “verloren,” meaning to lose; while “hope” is not, as may be supposed, the same English word signifying an aspiration for some good thing, but derives from the Dutch “hoop,” a troop or band of men. It is akin to our word “heap.” A “forlorn hope,” therefore,...

Face the Music “It was understood that the Prime Minister himself would reply—`face the music,’ as the Opposition expressed it.”—Press Report. To “face the music” means to face boldly the con-sequences of one’s action. Music is the science of harmonised sound, as well as the art of producing it. George W. E. Russell once described it as “harmonised noise”—a true definition; for no unharmonised sound can accurately be called music. Music...