Sometimes there is a phrase or opinion that is overused so much that the meaning is unclear. This phrase is called a cliché. The English language is filled with truisms that are used on a daily basis. Many of them were adapted from historical events. Some clichés have become so commonplace that most people never stop to consider their source. Find out more about the origins of clichés below:
1.
“Running
amok”
is commonly used to describe wild or erratic behavior, but the phrase actually
began its life as a medical term. The saying was popularized in the 18th and
19th centuries, when European visitors to Malaysia learned of a peculiar mental
affliction that caused otherwise normal tribesmen to go on brutal and seemingly
random killing sprees.
Amok (derived from
the “Amuco,” a band of Javanese and Malay warriors who were known for their
penchant for indiscriminate violence) was initially a source of morbid
fascination for Westerners. Writing in 1772, the famed explorer Captain James
Cook noted that “to run amok is to … sally forth from the
house, kill the person or persons supposed to have injured the Amock, and any
other person that attempts to impede his passage.” Once thought to be the
result of possession by evil spirits, the phenomenon later found its way into
psychiatric manuals. It remains a diagnosable mental condition to this day.
2.
Modern
English speakers use the phrase “crocodile tears” to describe a display of false sorrow, but
the saying actually derives from a medieval belief that crocodiles shed tears
of sadness while they killed and consumed their prey.
The myth dates back as far as the 14th century and comes
from a book called The Travels of Sir
John Mandeville. Wildly popular upon its release, the work recounts a brave
knight’s adventures during his travels through Asia.
Among its many fabrications, the book includes a
description of crocodiles that notes, “These serpents slay men, and eat them
weeping, and they have no tongue.” While factually inaccurate, Mandeville’s
account of weeping reptiles later found its way into the works of Shakespeare,
and “crocodile tears” became a cliche as early as the 16th century.
3.
The
phrase “paint the town red” most likely owes its
origin to one legendary night of drunkenness. In 1837, the Marquis of Waterford
(a known lush and mischief maker) led a group of friends on a night of drinking
through the English town of Melton Mowbray.
The bender culminated in vandalism after Waterford and
his fellow revelers knocked over flowerpots, pulled knockers off of doors and
broke the windows of some of the town’s buildings. To top it all off, the mob
literally painted a tollgate, the doors of several homes, and a swan statue
with red paint.
The marquis and
his pranksters later compensated Melton for the damages, but their drunken
escapade is likely the reason for painting the town red became shorthand for a
wild night out. Another theory suggests the phrase was actually born out of the
brothels of the American West, and referred to men behaving as though their
whole town were a red-light district.
4.
The
phrase “turn a blind eye” is often used to refer
to a willful refusal to acknowledge a particular reality. It dates back to a
legendary chapter in the career of the British naval hero Horatio Nelson.
During 1801’s Battle of Copenhagen, Nelson’s ships were pitted against a large
Danish-Norwegian fleet.
When his more conservative superior officer flagged for
him to withdraw, the one-eyed Nelson supposedly brought his telescope to his
bad eye and blithely proclaimed, “I really do not see the signal.” He went on
to score a decisive victory. Some historians have since dismissed Nelson’s
famous quip as merely a battlefield myth, but the this cliche “persists to this
day.
5.
There
are several tales about the origin of “the third degree,” a saying commonly used
for long or arduous interrogations. One theory argues the phrase relates to the
various degrees of murder in the criminal code. Another credits it to Thomas F.
Byrnes, a 19th-century New York City policeman who used the pun “Third Degree
Byrnes” when describing his hardnosed questioning style.
The saying is most likely derived from the Freemasons, a
centuries-old fraternal organization whose members undergo rigorous questioning
and examinations before becoming “third degree” members, or “master masons.”
6.
These
days, angry parents might threaten to “read the riot act” to their unruly children. But in
18th-century England, the Riot Act was a very real document, and it was often
recited aloud to angry mobs. Instituted in 1715, the Riot Act gave the British
government the authority to label any group of more than twelve people a threat
to the peace.
In these circumstances, a public official would read a
small portion of the Riot Act and order the people to “disperse themselves, and
peaceably depart to their habitations.” Anyone that remained after one hour was
subject to arrest or removal by force. The law was later put to the test in
1819 during the infamous Peterloo Massacre, in which a cavalry unit attacked a
large group of protestors after they appeared to ignore a reading of the Riot
Act.
“We do not serve a distant and detached God who spouts encouraging
clichés safely from the sideline. Instead, He enters into our suffering. Jesus
did it in the incarnation and His Spirit does it in us now. God will never
leave us alone in our suffering.” (Rick Warren) [i]
[i] Sources used:
·
“10 Common Sayings with Historical Origins” by Evan Andrews
·
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/cliche
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