Have you sometimes wondered where some commonly-used English idioms came from? I have, and many of them emerge from delightful stories. One of my favourites is “turning a blind eye” to something, which means pretending not to notice it. This goes back to 1801, when the famed British Admiral Horatio Nelson, who had lost one eye, one arm and one leg in battle (which in turn led to many Britons referring to the number 111 as a “Nelson”), led a naval attack on the French under the overall command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker in the Battle of Copenhagen. In those days instructions at sea were issued through flag signals from the commander’s ship to his subordinates. With the battle going badly, Parker conveyed to Nelson, using flags, that he was ordered to disengage and retreat.
Nelson, however, was not one for withdrawing; convinced that he could prevail if he pushed onward, he was disinclined to obey the command. Nelson is said to have viewed Parker’s flags by holding the telescope to his blind eye, so he could truthfully claim not to have seen the signal—and sure enough, he went on to victory by pretending not to have received the order to retreat. Hence the expression “turning a blind eye” was born.
Another British idiom is “to read someone the riot act”, meaning to order someone to stop what they’re doing. This goes back a hundred years before Nelson, to the Riot Act passed by the British Parliament in 1714 to prevent unruly mobs from conducting lawless behaviour in the streets. At the time, the Hanoverian monarch of Britain, King George I, and his government were fearful of being overthrown by supporters of the Stuart dynasty he had replaced. The Riot Act forbade crowds of more than twelve persons from assembling; if they did so, the authorities would read them a portion of the Riot Act, upon which they were obliged to immediately disperse and depart, or be arrested and imprisoned. The Riot Act has long fallen into disuse, but its legacy remains in the language: if someone is behaving in a manner that you find inappropriate, you can “read them the riot act,” meaning be tough with them in instructing them to cease and desist.
Even earlier in history lie the origins of the expression “to spill the beans”, or to reveal a secret. This comes from Europe’s oldest democracy, ancient Greece, which decided important issues through a ballot of its citizens. Under the antique Greek voting process, citizens would vote by placing one of two coloured beans in a jar. White beans usually meant an affirmative “yes” vote to a proposal, while black or brown beans meant a negative vote. Once the voting process was over, the beans in the jar would be counted and the result declared. But if somebody knocked the jar over accidentally and spilled the beans, the votes would be revealed prematurely, and the secret of how the election was going would be known before it was supposed to be announced. Hence, “spilling the beans” became an expression for revealing confidential information, and the expression is used whenever anyone betrays a secret.
There’s less history to two more common idioms, but good stories nonetheless. Have you told people you’re feeling “under the weather”, without knowing where the term came from? The idiom is of nautical origin: when a sailor was feeling ill, especially in rough seas, he would go and rest beneath the front part of the boat, which would shield him from the worst effects of the conditions, since he would literally lie under the bad weather. That’s why a sailor who was feeling sick would be described as being “under the weather” – and the term began to be used by people who had never set foot on a boat!
And finally, if anyone accuses you of “beating around the bush”, they’re using a phrase from British game-hunting. Bird-hunters used to literally beat bushes in order to draw out the pheasants hiding there – and only then did they get to the main purpose of the hunt: shooting the birds. So “beating around the bush” means using a roundabout way to reach the real point. I’d better stop before I’m accused of the same thing!