The odd origins of some familiar idioms
When the idiom 鈥渟mall potatoes鈥� first appeared in 1836, its meaning was clear. Today, some children haven鈥檛 even heard it before.
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At the end of May, President Donald Trump tweeted that he knew about a scandal that would make Watergate 鈥淟OOK LIKE SMALL POTATOES!鈥� When my teenage children saw it, they were confused. They thought 鈥減otatoes鈥� was some sort of autocorrect. 聽
According to a totally scientific survey of my friends鈥� children, zero out of 11 kids have heard small potatoes, and, without context, cannot guess that it means 鈥渋nsignificant or unimportant.鈥澛�
Today, we love small potatoes. At my local supermarket, little fingerlings cost around four times as much per pound as larger russets. If you didn鈥檛 already know that small potatoes was disparaging, you wouldn鈥檛 be able to figure it out. When the idiom first appeared in 1836, however, its meaning was clear. Potatoes were a staple food, keeping millions of people from starvation, and it was obvious that bigger was better. 聽
English has many other idioms that have likewise lost their original context. To me, a chip on one鈥檚 shoulder is a prime example. I knew that the idiom described 鈥渁 sense of inferiority characterized by a quickness to take offence,鈥� as Cassell鈥檚 Dictionary of Slang puts it. But before I did some research, I had no idea what kind of 鈥渃hip鈥� is referred to here, or what it would be doing on anyone鈥檚 shoulder.
It turns out that in 19th-century America, a person who wanted to start a fight would put a chip of wood on his shoulder and challenge others to knock it off. Such scenes do occur in 19th-century fiction. In an 1871 novel for example, one schoolboy goads another: 鈥淟on looked around till he found a small chip, which he placed on his shoulder. 鈥� 鈥榊ou don鈥檛 dare to knock that chip off my shoulder!鈥� he said tauntingly.鈥� With this context, it鈥檚 easy to see how the idiom acquired聽its meaning.聽 聽
To get a person鈥檚 goat 鈥� to annoy or upset someone 鈥� has an even more fantastical-sounding origin. Goats are often kept with high-strung horses to calm them down. According to longtime trainer Richard Mandella, 鈥淭hey can really help a nervous horse; make a night-and-day difference.鈥� This is well attested, but now the story gets a bit dodgier 鈥� an unscrupulous competitor might steal a horse鈥檚 goat before a race, making it too upset to run well.聽
Other etymologists link the idiom instead to the U.S. Navy. The mascot of the Naval Academy is a goat, an animal often brought aboard ships. In a 1908 collection of naval terms, 鈥済ot his goat鈥� appears as slang for a successful prank, which might be taken as 鈥渁 friendly josh鈥� or make its 鈥渧ictim鈥� genuinely angry.聽
Some idioms are obvious: A needle in a haystack needs no explanation. Next week, we鈥檒l take a look at a few more of the mysterious ones.