Well, I am back from RT but not recovered. My brain is sort of unhinged at the moment, so we’re gonna talk about funny expressions today.
Sick as a dog (and I am)
There are several expressions of the form sick as a …, that date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sick as a dog is actually the oldest of them, recorded from 1705; it is probably no more than an attempt to give force to a strongly worded statement of physical unhappiness. It was attached to a dog, I would guess, because dogs often seem to have been linked to things considered unpleasant or undesirable; down the years they have had an incredibly bad press, linguistically speaking (think of dog tired, dog in the manger, dog’s breakfast, go to the dogs, dog Latin — big dictionaries have long entries about all the ways that dog has been used in a negative sense).
Happy as a clam
The saying is very definitely American, hardly known elsewhere. The fact is, we’ve lost its second half, which makes everything clear. The full expression is happy as a clam at high tide or happy as a clam at high water. Clam digging has to be done at low tide, when you stand a chance of finding them and extracting them. At high water, clams are comfortably covered in water and so able to feed, comparatively at ease and free of the risk that some hunter will rip them untimely from their sandy berths. I guess that’s a good enough definition of happy.
Isn’t it funny how things make their way into our daily lexicon? “Butt-hurt” for instance. I never used to say that, but I heard it from somebody online, describing somebody who is easily injured and takes things terribly to heart (with little or no cause), and now, I use it myself. “Oh she got herself butt-hurt over it when nobody was even talking about her.” Where do you reckon that one comes from? Well, I Googled it, but I didn’t find an origin. One guy claims “West Coast, USA”, but I don’t know how accurate that is.
One of the coolest things about the English language is the way it’s constantly evolving. You can tell when a book was written, based on the ambient slang. What new words have y’all added to your vocabulary lately? I don’t mean book words, either.
Finally, Tina Brunelle needs to email me. She won something on my last blog post.
PS - I have contests here and here. The first one runs until May 5. Second just has a couple more days left.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:01 am
*waving* Good morning, Ann! I hope you feel better soonest *sending good energy your way*
As a non-native English speaker, I have lots of fun chasing the origins of words and expressions that are so fundamentally different from my mother tongue (Spanish). For example, “right as rain” makes me smile and shake my head every time. Same with “head over heels” (really, don’t we all have our head over our heels every time we stand up?)
April 28th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Hi Ann,
I hope you feel better soon. I fear getting sick, right now especially, but I feel it coming on.
I like looking into the etymology of words - and this was a really fun post.
In college we got “sick like duck” - because a friend said he sounded like a duck while sick. [Not quite sure but I guess his voice sounded like quacking?] He’s Korean… I’m afraid my vocabulary additions are rather crude. “Fuckton” is a great unit of measurement, and “shitastic” is nice because it’s out there sarcastic. One I do not like is “chillax” - or the misuse of “real.” I’ve been using “squicky” a lot more too - though that’s more of a “real word.”
Words are fun, especially translating them. At home, we speak two languages, neither of them English. The latter, however is my best language so sometimes I try to direct translate. Which results in my dad not understanding me, and my mom laughing at me.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Hope you feel better soon!
April 28th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Butt hurt… LMAO I’ve heard it before, but it never fails to make me laugh. Other favorites of mine are “Douchebaggery” and “assholitude”
April 29th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
It was so nice to meet you at RT, Ann. Yes, I am just getting over my “sick as a dog” moment from RT. I came back ultra-fatigued. My equilibrium is now back but I can’t shake this cough for nothing. I’m downing cough syrup and lonzenges by the dozen. Let’s cross our fingers that we both feel better soon!