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A reader, Mike Wells, has sent me the following question from Bedfordshire, England:
“Right as a trivet”:
I’ve always been convinced this is an ancient spoonerism, it’s so perfectly an inversion of “tight as a rivet”.
Rivets having been a byword for security, efficiency, etc., for millennia, it’s logical that someone along the line who enjoyed jumbling words (or did so by accident like Rev. Spooner) would have said it.
But the published derivations seem all to be plodding explanations of the stability of a 3-footed trivet.
I still say it’s simply a spoonerism—can you help?
Mike.
—Two preliminary notes:
1) The phrase (as) right as a trivet means: thoroughly or perfectly right; the earliest occurrences of this phrase that I have found are from British publications dating back to 1824 and 1828.
2) The earliest occurrence of the phrase (as) tight as a rivet that I have found is from a British publication dating back to 1841—cf., below, quotation 2.1.
The hypothesis put forward by Mike was already discussed in the late 19th century, in the following four texts:
1.1 & 1.2-: From The Spectator (London, England):
1.1-: Of Saturday 30th April 1887 [page 590, column 1]:
WORD-TWISTING.
[To the Editor of the “Spectator.”]Sir,—There are two curious instances of word-twisting which may have become accepted instead of the originals. The expression common among young men, “as right as a trivet,” does not convey much, for a trivet, or three-legged stool, is more often wrong than right, whereas the possible original, “tight as a rivet,” is forcible. Again, what is a butterfly but a flutter-by?
[…]—I am, Sir, &c., J. K.
1.2-: Of Saturday 7th May 1887 [page 621, column 1]:
WORD-TWISTING AND ETYMOLOGY.
[To the Editor of the “Spectator.”]Sir,—The instances of word-twisting hazarded by your correspondent “J. K.,” will scarcely, I think, bear examination. Passing over the fact that the transposition of initials in “tight as a rivet,” would give “right as a tivet” (not trivet), is it not plain that the rightness of a trivet consists in the well-known property of a three-legged stool always to stand steady, spite of any accidental inequality in the length of its legs,—a property not shared by a four-legged stool?
As for “butterfly,” the cognate German form, Butter-vogel, seems to forbid the notion of an anagram of “flutter-by.” The derivation of “butterfly” is uncertain. Johnson’s idea that it is “so named because it first appears in the beginning of the season for butter,” seems hardly admissible. A more likely origin is that the name comes from the colour of one species, and this is confirmed by Flügel’s interpretation of Butter-vogel,—“a large white moth.”—I am, Sir, &c., T. J. M.
1.3 & 1.4-: From Circular Notes, by ‘Rapier’, published in The Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News (London, England):
1.3-: Of Saturday 14th May 1887 [page 235, column 2]:
That usually grave journal the Spectator supplies an explanation of the common saying, “as right as a trivet.” A trivet, it is pointed out, is by no means specially “right.” Many people, perhaps, do not know what a trivet is, and will be surprised to hear that it is a three-legged stool. There is even a distinct absence of rightness about a stool which is so liable to turn over, and the Spectator believes that the proverb was made by the playful transposition of the letters before the first vowel in the second and last words; that is to say, “as right as a trivet” really means “as tight as a rivet,” that being, no doubt, an example of tightness. This may pass, at least until some shrewd man shows that it may not, but that “butter-fly” is a rearrangement of “flutter-by” is an explanation that will not be generally received.
1.4-: Of Saturday 18th June 1887 [page 390, column 1]:
I lately quoted the Spectator’s suggestion that “right as a trivet” is in fact a corruption of “tight as a rivet,” and the result has been at least a dozen letters from students of proverbs who will not have it at all. Here is the last, who dates from Montreal:—“I object to allowing the Spectator’s suggestion that the above proverb originally read as ‘tight as a rivet’ to pass unchallenged, even if you do not in your Circular Note in issue of 14th inst. Anyone can feel the force of the proverb by first sitting down on a chair on an uneven surface, and then on a trivet, or three-legged stool. The chair would be likely to upset him, while the trivet would be as firm as a rock. It is a good old proverb as it stands, and very expressive.”
Quotations 1.2 and 1.4, therefore, clearly show that the phrase (as) right as a trivet—which predates the phrase (as) tight as a rivet—is not an alteration of the latter.
Additionally, in most of the texts containing the other early occurrences of (as) tight as a rivet that I have found, this phrase means: extremely tight—with the adjective tight meaning, depending on the texts: firmly fixed; strongly attached; also: drunk.
—Note: Only in quotation 2.5, below, is the phrase (as) tight as a rivet used as a synonym of (as) right as a trivet. In quotation 2.2, below, “right and tight as a rivet” seems to mean: comprehensive and unambiguous.
These other early occurrences of (as) tight as a rivet that I have found are as follows, in chronological order:
2.1-: From Importance of many Non-Political Matters, published in Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal (London, England) of Saturday 13th March 1841 [page 57, column 2]:
Let us pass to another sort of meliorations in a small way, very beneficial and comfortable in their results, referring to changes of COSTUME. The time is still almost within recollection when […] the gentlemen […] were caparisoned with […] boots, with cream-coloured tops, or pumps, with large silver buckles over the toes, and leather inexpressibles, fresh pipeclayed, buttoned, and tied or buckled at the knees tight as a rivet.
2.2-: From Essie: A Romance in Rhyme (New York: John C. Graff, 1878), by Laura Dayton Fessenden [page 28]—the following is from a letter from M’Pherson to his friend Phil:
Some legacies, (very small)
Were left to others—to me, Phil, was given everything—all!
Titles, estates, rank, fortune, on this condition, my friend,
“That I should marry a wife,” Phil, “before four weeks should end!”
After the will had been read to my disappointed kin,
(A will right and tight as a rivet) I tell you I felt thin
Over the stern proviso.
2.3-: From Shear Wisdom, published in Wit and Wisdom (New York City, New York, USA) of Thursday 1st September 1881 [page 15, column 1]:
One is as tight as a rivet, and the other is as right as a trivet. This is the difference between a drunken and a sober man.—Hackensack Republican.
2.4-: From Picturesque Montana. A Racy Account of the Health Resort and its Surroundings, as Furnished an Eastern Exchange by a Last Summer’s Pleasure-Seeker, a correspondence by M. A. Y., dated Helena, Montana, September 1886, published in the Rocky Mountain Husbandman (Diamond City, Montana, USA) of Thursday 24th March 1887 [page 5, column 1]—the following is about the exploration of a cave:
I declined to go any further, having heard the blood-curling experience of a friend who had attempted it. In trying to pass through one of the narrow rock-rimmed openings in this gallery, she stuck fast and could neither get back nor go on through. Those below pushed manfully and those above pulled with might and main, but there she was as tight as a rivet. […] The lady was finally rescued, but very much bruised and wrenched, and for days after suffered from nervous prostration.
2.5-: From His Cousin Betty (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1888), by the British author Frances Mary Peard (1835-1923) [Vol. 3, Chapter 5, page 112]:
‘I dare say I’m not so ill as I imagine […]. The truth is, I suppose that we men get bowled over more quickly than women.’ He broke off with a laugh.
‘Yes, we’re rather helpless,’ the other assented; ‘particularly in weather like this, which takes out the starch. Oh, in a day or two you’ll be as tight as a rivet again. Sea air’s the best thing in the world, you know.’
2.6-: From The Town’s Mirror, published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio, USA) of Wednesday 23rd October 1889 [page 8, column 3]:
Zacharia Snyder, a colored man weighing about 90 pounds, and Carrie Graves, a Hill street negress who tips the scale beam at 200 pounds, visited Justice Hart’s court Saturday and asked to be joined. The ’squire was out and Justice Poe was sent for.
“Tie us tight, ’squire,” said the bride, clinging to the groom’s arm as if she feared he would get away. “I’ve had this fellow on the string for six years but never been able to land him ’till now.”
Justice Poe performed the ceremony with his accustomed grace and celerity, and as the groom stood on tiptoe to salute his wife she asked breathlessly:
“Is we marr’d, ’squire?”
“Tight as a rivet,” was the magistrate’s assurance.
2.7-: From Fashionable Luncheon & Tea Toilets, edited by Tillie May Forney, published in Table Talk (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) of September 1892 [page 334, column 1]:
One of the most admired gowns of the moment is a veritable puzzle to the observer and a vexation to the wearer; neither hooks nor buttons are visible, nor is there any opening whatever to the bodice if we except a slit several inches in length that extends from the throat midway down the bust. This is carefully corded and fastened with a small brooch as tight as a rivet.
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