Where Everyday Phrases Come From, Part Two Quiz

Answer: A portrait painting

Oliver Cromwell (1599 - 1658), whilst Lord Protector of England, decided that this entitled him to, amongst other things, have his portrait painted. Sir Peter Lely had his fair share of experience in this department, and so got the commission, but with the following caveat: "Mr Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it," to use the English of the day. Anyone viewing the work will agree that Sir Peter got paid.

Although the phrase "warts and all" is unlikely to have been used, it is considered the most probable of roots - certainly amongst the choices on offer here!

Answer: Avoidance of a tax contribution

Touching as the story of Dred Scott, the Virginia-born slave who unsuccessfully fought for his freedom through the courts, is, the expression predates Dred's birth in 1799. The word scot (of Scandinavian origin) means a contribution or payment, levied in 13th century England in order to fund poor relief.

The full term is "scot and lot", with the lot, or allotment, being the sum paid to the recipient of the relief within the municipality. The Church even attempted to levy "scot" on brewers, demanding a portion of their output be donated to the Church festival.

This resulted in a lot of secret drinking sessions! To "pay one's scot" is to contribute to, say, the cost of an evening out. Those avoiding any of the above were, obviously, getting off "scot free".

Answer: Yes

Once all the nice, tasty bits of a deer had been removed and served to the upper classes, one was left with the more disgusting items such as liver, entrails, heart, etc. Now called offal, they were known in the 14th and 15th centuries as numbles and umbles.

This less than appetizing mess of animal mechanics was baked in pastry, and eaten by the lower orders, who were clearly less fussy. Somehow, swallowing one's pride seems far easier than swallowing a mouthful of umble - or humble - pie, as we now term it. Yuck!

Answer: That which lies outside an enclosed area

A pale (from the Latin word palus) is a pointed wooden stake used for making fences and impaling people. It later came to mean the area enclosed by said fence, which was considered safe. The phrase "beyond the pale" first appeared in print within Sir John Harrington's lyric poem, "The History of Polindor and Flottesla", published in 1657. I won't trouble you with the quotation. Perhaps the most famous example of its use was the Pale of Dublin, or English Pale.

This was intended to keep the settlement free of the Gaelic savagery that lay over the rest of Ireland in the 14th and 15th centuries. If you refer to Dublin as `the pale`, people still recognise the expression to this day. Though having nothing to do with buckets, being beyond the pail in the smallest room is considered way beyond the pale!

Answer: Coventry

The city of Coventry (population approximately 300,00) lies in the county of Warwickshire, in the British Midlands. Now best known as the graveyard of British motor vehicle manufacturing, Coventry predates the car by hundreds of years. Sadly, much of the city's past was destroyed on the night of November the 10th, 1940, in a massive German air raid.

There are certainly two probable origins for the expression, `to be sent to Coventry`. Back in the English Civil Wars of the 1640s, troops loyal to King Charles (1600 - 1649) and known as Cavaliers, were captured at nearby Birmingham by their opposite numbers, known as Roundheads, led by Oliver Cromwell, whom we met earlier. Coventry boasted a Parliamentary prison suitable for holding recently captured Royalist soldiers, and so it was here that they were incarcerated.

Another theory stems from the fact that Coventry was a garrison town, and the locals objected to having soldiers billeted on them and generally whooping it up in the town, and so they shunned and ostracised them. No doubt many a car worker was so treated by his colleagues during the bitter industrial disputes of the 1970s, for not toeing the union line.

But Coventry is busily re-inventing itself, with new employment opportunities, and is well worth whooping it up in, without fear of being ignored.

Answer: Ropes

Avast there! as we hark back to the golden age of sailing ships. These were crewed by men who considered drunkenness an occupational hazard. The sheet referred to here is a rope or chain, used to secure the sail. Square-rigged ships generally used three sheets per sail.

Originally "three sheets in the wind", this was the upper end of the scoreboard for matelots to record their condition, with "a sheet in the wind's eye" at the other, implying a slight wobble. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894) gave Long John Silver the line "Maybe you think we were all a sheet in the wind's eye.

But I'll tell you I was sober", in "Treasure Island". But when a sail is not secured, it flaps about aimlessly, resembling movement when drunk, hence the expression we use today.

Answer: Your ordinary dog in the street

Dogs weren't always referred to as Man's Best Friend, and fed on carefully processed meat that comes in tins and packets. But it was food, in this instance food considered unfit for human consumption, that "went to the dogs" which, back in the 18th century, were mostly pretty much undomesticated and left to roam the streets.

The use of the expression to imply a declining of standards was, by this time, in popular usage. "Sirrah, they are prostitutes, and are civil to delude and destroy you; they are painted Jezabels, and they who hearken to 'em, like Jezebel of old will go to the dogs; if you dare to look at 'em, you will be tainted, and if you speak to 'em you are undone," to quote the play "Germanicus", reviewed in London in 1775. Greyhound racing has long since shaken off its once lowlife credentials, and you can bet that the dogs themselves are fed on much finer fare than old horsemeat and the like.

The hunting debate rages on, with those who claim hunting is a necessary form of pest control, and those opposed to blood sports, snapping and growling at each other. Equally contentious is the development of the Isle of Dogs, situated in a bend in the River Thames. Once the heart of the biggest port in the world and providing a home and work for thousands of Londoners, many residents feel that big business and new money have ripped the heart and soul out of their neighbourhood.

Answer: True

These endless dramas, with their constantly interweaving plots, go back to the 1930s. Famous more recent examples include the UK's "Coronation Street", Australia's "Neighbours", and the United States' Anything On Television That Isn't Baseball, Rolling News, Or Courtroom Drama.

They were originally broadcast during the daytime, when the audience was comprised almost entirely of women, who would be using soap for washing clothes, dishes, or children, at the time the show went out. Companies such as Lever Brothers and Procter & Gamble were quick to sponsor the series, ensuring product placement and a loyal following, as listeners and viewers were drawn in to `their` family.

The demise of such corporate involvement meant the writers had to move away from the safe, nuclear family world, in an attempt to hold audiences with ever grittier and more improbable storylines.

But perhaps a soap company may wish to sponsor the BBC's "Eastenders", as to this day, everyone seems to do their family washing at the local launderette!

Answer: Real elephants

In Southeast Asia, any monarch in possession of a white (albino) elephant clearly ruled - and this is still the case in Thailand and Burma - with justice, and peace, prosperity, and all manner of good things was supposedly certain to befall his kingdom. On the down side, this sacred beast (one crops up around the birth of Buddha) cannot be put to any form of practical use, and has special dietary requirements - perhaps as a mark of respect for those coming to worship it. Generating no income but racking up bills, monarchs would pass white elephants on to anyone they wanted to bankrupt.

The phrase now refers to anything worthless you may have around the house but can't get rid of, or building projects and the like that cost a fortune yet never live up to expectations.

In 1908, an area west of central London became the site for the Franco-British Exhibition and the Summer Olympics. A great deal of white marble was used, and the name White City stuck. Although used to great effect, the buildings stood empty for a long time after these events. London did it again years later in the form of a huge "white elephant" called the Millennium Dome.

Answer: Weaponry

Back when the flintlock musket was the weapon of choice for gentlemen and brigands alike, a small gunpowder charge was carried in a pan within the musket. Were this charge to flare up in an attempt to discharge the weapon, and the bullet to remain unfired, the potential target would have witnessed a "flash in the pan". Elkanah Settle had this to say in 1687; "If Cannons were so well bred in his Metaphor as only to flash in the Pan, I dare lay an even wager that Mr. Dryden durst venture to Sea." This comfortably predates the great Gold Rushes of America and Australia, where the expression was also used - along with `it didn't pan out` - when referring to spotting a glint in the prospector's pan that turned out to be anything but gold. Expert cooks will know all about flashing food in their pans without cremating it, and anyone trying to catch a lightning flash in a pan is, well, plain suicidal.