It is always interesting to find out the origins of phrases. We say them every day, and know exactly what they mean. But more often than not, we aren’t quite sure where they came from.
Sometimes they are happy little stories, and sometimes they are not. With the first example, I am guilty of its meaning. But I am very far from ever committing its cause.
You see, when I write, I have a tendency to beat around the bush. Sometimes, I’ll tread through four or five paragraphs on a tangent without getting around to what I really want to say. I bet a good share of you have exclaimed in frustration, “Oh for the love of god, Polly, will you stop beating around the bush?”
Well, the story behind “beating around the bush” is terrible.
It comes from medieval times when things were pretty terrible all the way around if you ask me. Those people were barbaric, at times. Like they lived in the dark ages or something.
When they amused themselves, it seems it was normally at the cost of others. Hence, the phrase, beating around the bush. A game existed, called batfowling. It consisted of going into a forest or a very shrubby area and beating birds senseless with a bat. But before whacking an innocent bird with the bat, they were “kind” enough to wake the bird up first, by stunning it with harsh light. It would render the bird blind and temporarily helpless. For the record, there was a brand of “Sensitive” batfowlers. They caught the birds in nets. Unfortunately, most used the dang bat.
Many times, though, the birds proved to be uncooperative to this game. They slept in bushes where they were invisible instead of marching forward and offering themselves as ritual sacrifices. So these evil batfowler-men used their servants or boys to help with this. They were known as beaters.
It was the beater’s job to beat those bushes to rouse flocks of sleeping birds. Then, as the stunned birds woke up and fled in panic, they would be attracted to the torch or lantern. At that point, they would be socked into unconsciousness by the batfowler. So beating around the bush wasn’t actually killing the bird, it was just moving it, eventually, toward the murderous batfowler.
The term now means that we are not quite getting to the heart of the matter, to the point.
Another thing about phrases is that they only have a singular direction. What I mean is, they don’t have a flip side. Say, when someone is feeling “under the weather” they are sick. Yet, when they get to being well again, we don’t say they are “over the weather.”
Or what about high jinks? It means someone is carrying on in a boisterous or rambunctious manner. They are in the midst of carefree antics or horseplay. But when someone is calm and serious, are they in the midst of low jinks?
Take those people who can really hold on to a secret, and not tell a soul. Are they keeping the cat in the bag?
I love a good phrase. That’s for sure. They can be so endearing. Like, “the apple of your eye.” This is an old one. King Aelfred of Wessex, in the year 885, wrote, “Poor Richard was to me as an eldest son, the apple of my eye.” You see, back then, people referred to the pupil in the eye as the “apple.” And eyesight was greatly valued back then. As it is now. But then, they didn’t have methods of treating poor vision, or eye disease. Once your eyes went bad, that was it. So they really placed a lot of value on the “apples” of their eyes. Hence, the phrase.
This reminds me just how important seeing is. Not only the ability to see with our eyes but also, our capacity to see with our hearts. To notice the good in people, when we can. To see the world, and them, with the ability to notice the positive things, the good things, those fine, fine apples.
And if we do this each and every day, that leads us to the next phrase. An apple a day.
============
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
John Lubbock
===========
Sight is a faculty; seeing is an art.
George Perkins Marsh
===========
I don’t ask for the sights in front of me to change, only the depth of my seeing.
Mary Oliver
============
