Definition: Something very easy to do

Example: After six months of weight training, a dozen all-you-can-eat buffets, and a two day fast, winning the pie eating contest was a piece of cake for Bradley.

Origin:

It is thought that this phrase may have come from contests, popular in the 1870s, where a cake was the prize. Not cash. Not cruise tickets. A cake.

A second, darker theory, is that it originates from a humiliating tradition that occurred in slave states. Pairs of slaves were made to circle a cake, and the most ‘graceful’ pair would win the baked goods. Iddy’s not sure how the heck that particular tradition came to be and he doesn’t really want to know either.

In all likelihood, it may have come to be simply from the fact that eating a piece of cake is probably one of the easiest, most joyful things most people can do.

Iddy doesn’t care about any of it. He just wants to eat that chunk of sugary delight. And the heck with the calories.

Definition: To begin before everything is ready.

Example: Joe realised too late that he had jumped the gun trying out his newly assembled bike at the store. The mechanic hadn’t put the seat on yet. The store was very good about the whole situation though. They offered to call him an ambulance.

Origin:

Exported around the English speaking world from the United States, jump the gun dates back to the 1830s. It has its roots in track and field sporting events, referring to somebody starting the race before the starter’s pistol has been fired. Blindingly obvious once pointed out, isn’t it? It was frequently quoted as ‘beat the gun’ as well, though that usage seems to have died out.

Definition: To lose your temper

Example: Ruby was going to blow her top when she saw the muddy footprints on her brand new rug.

Origin:

Blowing your top. Iddy’s an expert at this one.

There are similar idioms, meaning the same thing. Not only can you blow your top, you can also blow your stack or your lid.

All of these phrases probably date to the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s and the widespread use of steam power. Steam, unless carefully controlled and monitored, can build up great pressure very quickly, exploding out of the weakest point. Blowing your stack is very much related to this threat, as a smokestack would be a weak point.

A similar pressure threat exists with oil wells as well, and some sources argue that the idiom comes from that process instead.

Whatever the case, the phrase is a very visual one and reminds us all of Saturday Morning cartoons where  steam jets out of a character’s ears. If only Iddy was so lucky to have blown steam from just his ears. He’s gone and lost the top of his skull. Its going to take him hours to find that thing.

Definition: An extremely attractive/sexy woman, specifically a blonde one

Example: Distracted by the blonde bombshell stepping out of the salon, Joe ran his new car straight into a telephone pole.

Origin:

The ‘bombshell’ part of the idiom has been used to describe  attractive women since the mid-nineteenth century. The reason why is unclear. The ‘blonde’ bit is easier to quantify. In 1933, actress Jean Harlow became the blonde bit. Her movie ‘Bombshell’ was released in the US, but the title was changed to ‘Blonde Bombshell’ for the UK release as audiences were mistaking it for a war movie. It was accompanied by racy taglines like ‘Lovely, luscious, exotic Jean Harlow as the Blonde Bombshell of filmdom’. With a tagline like that, no wonder the phrase stuck.

Incidentally, Harlow was also referred to as the ‘platinum blonde‘, a title awarded to her by Howard Hughes’ publicity department. They had tried other titles that weren’t quite so hot. The blonde landslide. The darling cyclone. Platinum blonde is infinitely better than either of those.

She died of kidney failure at the age of just 26. Some claim her death was hastened by her weekly use of chemicals like peroxide to keep her hair that famous colour.

Definition: To sit in the front passenger seat

Example: John wanted to ride shotgun as his elderly Aunts were sitting in the back and they smelled of wee.

 Origin:

It’s a term from the Wild West, isn’t it? Everybody knows that.

Well, yes and no.

There were indeed stagecoaches criss-crossing the American southwest during the nineteenth century. And sometimes, there were indeed shotgun toting men riding alongside the driver to protect whatever they were carrying. All true.

The problem is that the phrase doesn’t seem to have been used at all at the time. In all likelihood, it was a Hollywood invention used in the hundreds of Westerns pumped out by the studios, culminating in one simply called ‘Riding Shotgun’ in 1954 (starring Randolph Scott and a very young Charles Bronson).

The phrase can still be used in the sense of literally riding along as protection, either as a bodyguard, or as armed security in armoured vans. More commonly, it is used in the harmless sense of riding beside the driver on a car journey, often claimed on the way to the car with the cry of “I call shotgun!”

Definition: The power of the police and judicial system

Example: Terry thought that nobody could catch  him for robbing the bank dressed as Mickey Mouse, but the long arm of the law tracked him down.

Origin:

The long arm of the law refers to the far reaching powers of law enforcement authorities and is a very visual phrase. Just picture those long arms reaching for you…..

Its first usage seems to have referred to royalty, coined in the sixteenth century phrase ‘Kings have long arms’.

By the nineteenth century, it was law enforcement that had  long arms in common language. In fact, the law’s arm had more than mere length. They had strength as well, described in another common phrase, less used today, ‘the strong arm of the law‘. At the end of those  long and strong arms, yet another phrase described ‘the strong hand of the law‘. This particular one seems to refer to the practise of the police laying a hand upon your shoulder when arresting you. This habit coined a fourth phrase, that of the arrest being ‘a collar‘, as often the guilty party tried to take flight and the officer grabbed the first thing available…. his collar.

So. Four phrases. All from the single idea that justice will find you, no matter where you hide.

Iddy doesn’t care about that though. He just wants to know how he’s ever going to get his arm back to the right length.

Definition: Tell a secret

Example: After three hours intensive grilling by her friends, Sharon finally broke down to spill the beans about her night out with the vicar.

Origin:

‘Spill the beans’ is one of several idioms , similarly phrased, with the same meaning. There’s ‘Spill the soup‘, ‘Spill your guts‘, or the simple and to the point command, ‘Spill!” Spill is used in the manner of letting something out. But beans? Why beans?

There is a widely discounted explanation to do with ancient Greece. Voting in some situations called for the anonymous placing of beans in an urn. White for ‘Yay‘. Black for ‘Nay‘. The vote had to be unanimous. So, if somebody knocked over the urn before voting was complete revealing even a single black one, thus ‘spilling the beans‘, the vote was ruined. Sounds excellent. However, there are two millennia between those alleged bean votes and the introduction of the phrase into language.

That first modern usage dates back to early 20th century America. Its meaning then was subtly different, more like talking out of turn and causing trouble. A bit like the wartime slogan ‘Loose lips sink ships‘.

Iddy’s still not sure why it is beans that need to be spilled. He’d prefer toffees. Or caramels.

Definition: A very important person

Example: Mr. Peabody was a big wig in town. After all, he owned most of it. 

Origin:

Its not a great stretch of the imagination to figure out how the phrase ‘big wig‘ came to be.

It owes a lot to the Sun King himself, Louis XIII. Louis was bald, or ‘follicly challenged’ as he preferred his condition to be described. So, he took to wearing wigs. His group of hangers-on in the court of Versailles took to wearing them as well. Then, the rest of the French aristocracy. Then the the rest of the upper echelon of Europe followed suit. And then the competition began. The bigger, the more extravagant the wig, the better. Decoration was widely encouraged.

Obviously, the buying and maintenance of such extraordinary constructions were an expensive business. Only the wealthiest, most influential people could afford them. As a rule of thumb; the bigger the wig, the more important the person.

On a little side note, before these piles of hairs became known as ‘wigs’, they were known by the more flowery term ‘periwigs’. Iddy thinks the world is a slightly sadder place with the shortening of the term.