IDIOMS: ORIGINS OF 3 POPULAR EXPRESSIONS

Idioms are expressions that have figurative meaning and they play a key role in everyday English. The classroom was filled with laughter first day we learnt about idioms in primary school. The English language teacher would say an idiom, and the students would go crazy, because of how ridiculous some of them sounded. Nevertheless, we always marvelled at how perfectly relatable others were.

We conducted a research and found 3 popular idioms and their origin for your pleasure:

1. “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride”.

This particular expression is quite straight forward and self explanatory. It is a saying which is used to refer a person who never reaches their full potential, for example someone who reaches the finals of a contest and ends up going home as a runner up rather than the first prize.

The idiom comes from an age old superstition that says it is a bad omen for a woman to serve as a brides maid more than twice because doing so could cause her never to marry.

However, the idiom gained more popularity in the 1920’s when it was used as an Ad campaign slogan by Listerine mouth wash: ” Often a bridesmaid, never a bride”. ’The campaign featured a young maiden who couldn’t find a man because of her bad breath. 

2. Turning a blind eye

This idiom means to deliberately refuse to accept the truth about something.

Although, opinions about the real origin of this idiom varies greatly, the widely accepted version goes as thus: On 2nd April 1801, Admiral Horato Nelson led the British field to battle against the Dano-Norwegian army alongside Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. A battle which would go down in history as the Battle of Copenhagen. Admiral Nelson had one bad eye. In the middle of the battle, Admiral Parker sent Nelson distress signals that they needed to fall back, However, Nelson had a different opinion and believe they could take out their enemies if they continued to advance. Nelson placed his telescope on his bad eye pretending not to see the flag signals from Parker. While he did this he uttered a comment to another soldier saying he is allowed to use his blind eye once in a while.

3. Let the cat out of the bag

The meaning of this idiom as a figurative utterance is “To unknowingly or deliberately expose a secret”.

In the primitive times, farmers often bought piglets that where tied in bags to take home from markets. These piglet “plugs” (sellers) may want to be tricky and put an animal that’s not as expensive as piglets in the bag, say a cat. Letting the cat out of the bag reveals it real content, therefore exposing the truth and the sellers trick.

Tell us in the comments what some of your favorite idioms are.