Recently, I was in a conversation where someone referred to a person as a "blowhard." I'm well aware of the definition, and if you ask some people, I'm also well acquainted with the affliction. However, I was curious about the words origins. What is the etymology of blowhard? I assumed it had something to do with "tooting your own horn," so to speak.
All I could dig up on-line was this:
- blowhard (n.) Look up blowhard at Dictionary.com
also blow-hard, 1840, a sailor's word (from 1790 as a nickname for a sailor), perhaps not originally primarily meaning "braggart;" from blow (v.1) + hard (adv.). An adjective sense of "boastful" appeared c.1855, and may be a separate formation leading to a modified noun use.
What's a phrase that you are interested to know the origins of? OR... what's a word or phrase whose origins you find interesting?
My oldest brother introduced me to the phrase "gotta piss like a racehorse" when I was young. Given my tiny bladder and significant drinking appetites, I've since found ample opportunity to use it. Never thought about what it meant. Then a few months ago- during the Kentucky Derby, probably? There was an NPR piece about racehorse drug culture. Yeah, it's a thing. It swings two ways: A) Racehorses are subject to all the competitive pressures that your average Tour De France cyclist experiences. Correspondingly, jockeys will try to "dope" their horses if they can get away with it. And given that a horse is much less likely to object, they've been known in the past to get pumped full of all sorts of crazy shit. 2) The nature of the race puts all sorts of weird pressures on a horse's system, which is already apparently sort of wonky. Racehorses are particularly vulnerable to something called "exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage," wherein capillaries in the airway burst, expelling blood all over the fucking place including down into their lungs and out their noses. So jockeys end up pumping all sorts of other fun drugs into their horses to curb race-related maladies, which can be potentially fatal. Like, mid-race-drop-dead fatal. To control EIPH, they've been known to use Furosemide, which draws fluid away from the lungs. Here's a breakdown that does it justice in a way I can't: http://www.thehorse.com/articles/29833/eiph-and-furosemide-use-in-racehorses-explained Furosemide is a diuretic. Takes all that water and deposits it into the horse's bladder for disposal. Side note: it's also postulated that Furosemide is in itself a performance-enhancing drug, as it allows the horse to expel all unnecessary fluid and presumably shed a few pounds right before the race. Don't know the specific science behind that claim, or if it holds up. So! A) horses are known for their prolific bladders in totally normal conditions and B) Furosemide is a strong diuretic. It all adds up to a whole lot of piss, most specifically in regards to racehorses. I'm proud of this assessment because the news piece never directly mentioned the "piss like a racehorse" thing. Just mentioned in passing that Furosemide was a diuretic and light bulbs went off in my head. I'm also proud that I can retain as much information as I did from a half-year old news piece. Don't take that for granted these days.
Another phrase coming from the derby is "get the lead out." On derby day the jockey plus all their equipment must weigh exactly 126 pounds. Some would take up the practice of putting lead weights in their suit which they would later discard on the track to make the load a little bit lighter and faster, hence the phrase.
Thank you for that, I love bits of trivia like this. Side note, did you get a postcard from me recently?
Thanks, thenewgreen, for allowing me the perfect opportunity to call Hubskiers' attention to a criminally under-appreciated old post of mine. On the etymological origins of the expression "old hat".
"Blowing smoke up your ass" has always amused me. I also love it when people accuse me of racism for calling a spade a spade. But all of that pales in comparison to the wonderful world of eggcorns I discovered when I heard someone say "Don't make me your escape goat!"
A few weeks ago, my girlfriend finished a sentence with "...nip it in the butt". It still makes me giggle.
I still like "hold me closer Tony Danza.". -Does that count as an eggcorn?
how much did you chuckle at yourself when you wrote that
That reminds me: I'd love to know the actual origins of get your goat. Such a great idiom!"Don't make me your escape goat!"
laconic
Here's Stephen Fry explaining it
I'd recommend watching the whole video though :)
I wondered about "jumping the shark" all my life until last week when Kate brought this to my attention
"Soup to nuts" What a strange phrase and its not all that common over here but its regularly used by US visitors. The first time I encountered it I miss-heard it as "Suit to nuts" and my mind reeled at what the hell it could mean. Was it related to removing defences, stripping away layers? Or was it more literal, did it mean exposing someones genitalia for exhibition by removing their suit? Sweet Jesus why would someone use a phrase like that in a business meeting... and why is everyone nodding in agreement! Turns out to be a clunky way of saying "Beginning to End" which is just disappointing.
Well here in Europe Cheese and Fruit are very common at the end of a meal but I haven't seen Nuts on offer that much. Perhaps I'm in the wrong culinary circles. As far as Americans, Doris Kearns Goodwin had a passage about Lincoln reminiscing on his childhood in "Team of rivals", how he loved listening when his fathers friends would visit and they would break out nuts and converse for hours. So they were popular at some point...
I used to be fascinated by the phrase "in the nick of time", but it turns out it has a relatively benign origin.
Quiz. "The story goes that a Dublin theatre proprietor by the name of Richard Daly made a bet that he could, within forty-eight hours, make a nonsense word known throughout the city, and that the public would supply a meaning for it. After a performance one evening, he gave his staff cards with the word 'quiz' written on them, and told them to write the word on walls around the city. The next day the strange word was the talk of the town, and within a short time it had become part of the language."
We use the phrase "daughter-in-love" sometimes. She's not "in-law" since she and my son never married, but she's the mother of my grandson, and although she and my son have been split a long time, we see a lot more of her than him, and she will always be close whanau.
I've always wondered where the term beef used as a synonym for interpersonal conflict comes from. I looked for the etymological basis for it but came up empty. Anyone out there have any ideas on this one?
It appears to be an unanswered question!
Interesting phrase, I've never heard of it before. Is it one that you find is used commonly where you are at?