My intention for this column was to relate how someone eats his eggs to his character. I always believed that people who only eat scrambled eggs are unadventurous -- they can't fathom eating something with various textures and colors. Hard-boiled egg eaters are boring, as a hard-boiled egg lacks the fun jiggly-ness of a regular egg. People with over-easy preferences are all that scrambled and hard-boiled eaters are not: Willing to eat an exciting and unpredictable egg, they are the risk takers and high achievers of our society.
Contemplating this serious matter of an egg's relation to character, a sort of food physiognomy, I suddenly felt pretty lame. "Maggie," I exclaimed, "You are really grasping at straws now, old girl!" And as I sat there pondering egg preferences I realized that, although I knew what "grasping at straws" generally implied, I really had no idea what it meant. Formerly, I had pictured a box of drinking straws flying through the air in their multicolored glory, as I grabbed at them in bent-over Matrix style. I don't think that is what the phrase is meant to imply.
So I looked it up. It actually comes from an old proverb originating as early as Thomas More's works. It refers to a drowning man grabbing at straws (apparently the least supportive rope the proverb maker could imagine) because all options are good options in his near perishing state. So I had grasped the general meaning of the phrase, but my vision of flying soda straws was incorrect. This little mental exercise led me to contemplate other idioms the origins and definitions of which are typically unknown by the user.
I use the phrase "by and large" often, and I thought it meant "generally." Looking it up on the handy Internet, I discovered it was actually derived from nautical terms having to do nothing with "generally." (I found something about wind and sails and other sailing stuff that went way over my head). Its evolution is interesting and I would recommend looking it up.
"High and dry" is also a term that originated with sailors. Its modern use implies being stranded, and the original implication is very similar, which refers to a ship that is beached high and dry out of water.
Over Winter Break I watched "Footloose" with my sister. We were determined to bring back the phrase "jump back!", an exponentially cooler way to say "get out of here" or "no way." There is such excitement attached to the phrase that it is always accompanied by an exclamation point. The next time someone tells you he was accepted to Harvard Law School or won a million dollars in the lottery, just respond with a super enthusiastic "jump back!", and he will think you are the coolest person ever -- and may even share his lottery winnings with you.
Now let's move on to regional phrases. The "move your feet, lose your seat" versus "fives" competition has been going on since I first arrived here. You Virginians may think that "fives" is a perfectly legitimate way to claim a seat, but I think Northerners have you beat. "Fives" is not as direct, meaningful or threatening as "move your feet, lose your seat."
In middle school, whenever someone would say "move your feet, lose your seat" I would tremble with fear and skip a trip to my locker in case someone stole my prime real estate. When someone said "fives" to me during one of those early, awkward fist-time hangouts first year, I held up my hand to give them a high-five. Not only was this seat-claiming strategy misleading, but I was also exceedingly embarrassed with my hand stranded in the air, forcing me to pretend I was waving to someone across the room.
Finally, do you know what you are talking about when you say "scot free" or "tit for tat"? I didn't think so. Scot free means getting away without paying your taxes -- the word scot means tax. "Tit for tat" comes from "tip for tap," a 15th-century way to say if you hit me, I will hit you back. A tip was "a light smart blow" for 15th-century troublemakers.
Now you may feel free to use these random phrases with complete abandon. I have equipped you with both the elementary knowledge of common phrase origins as well as the critical thinking skills to analyze the meanings of over-used and under-understood expressions.
Maggie's column runs biweekly Fridays. She can be reached at jones@cavalierdaily.com.
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