the ancient origin of ‘to pour oil on troubled waters’
alludes to the calming effect of oil on the agitated surface of water; common knowledge since ancient times, first scientifically observed by Benjamin Franklin
Read MoreTag: nautical
between the devil and the deep blue sea
early 17th century, with ‘the Dead Sea’ and ‘the deep sea’—originated in the image of a choice between damnation (‘the Devil’) and drowning (‘the sea’)
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘the devil to pay’
refers to a person making a pact with the Devil: the heavy price has to be paid in the end—unrelated to the nautical phrase ‘the devil to pay and no pitch hot’
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘an albatross around one’s neck’
In allusion to The Tale of the Ancyent Marinere (1798), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge: the albatross killed by the mariner is hung around his neck as punishment.
Read More‘shiver my timbers’
British, 18th century—a mock oath attributed to sailors, meaning ‘may my ship’s beams be broken into pieces’—early variants used by Tobias Smollett
Read Morethe rise of the ‘pin-up girl’
‘pin-up’—US, 1941, in ‘pin-up girl’, denoting a woman being the subject of a picture that a serviceman displays on a locker-door, on a wall, etc.
Read Moreorigin of ‘to turn a blind eye’
early 19th century—shortening of ‘to turn the deaf ear and the blind eye’ and variants
Read Moremeaning and origin of ‘Mother Carey’s chicken’
probably from Latin ‘Mater Cara’ or Italian ‘Madre Cara’, ‘dear mother’, i.e. the Virgin Mary, believed by sailors to send the petrel as a harbinger of storms
Read Moreorigin of ‘all my eye and Betty Martin’
second half of the 18th century—a mere fanciful extension of ‘all my eye’—maintained in a sort of artificial life by persistent conjectures about its origin
Read Moreorigin of ‘according to Gunter’
‘according to Gunter’: correctly; reliably—early 18th century, from the name of the English mathematician Edmund Gunter (1581-1626)
Read More