Giving Someone the Cold Shoulder

 

Today I’m writing about something I know a little too much about: “the cold shoulder.” Not just receiving it, mind you, but apparently handing it out with the confidence of a maître d’ at a restaurant called Emotional Distance. My wife has been telling me for years, “Boy, you sure know how to give someone the cold shoulder.” And after some reflection, I have to admit she may have a point. The phrase means giving someone a deliberately chilly, unfriendly reception—ignoring them, shutting them out, or treating their presence as a clerical error in human form.

There are a few theories about where this saying came from. It appears in print in Sir Walter Scott’s writing in 1816, and some people connect it to a verse in Nehemiah that roughly translates as, “They turned their backs on you.” Which is historically interesting but also sounds like the kind of explanation that makes people suddenly need to check the oil in their automobile.

To keep things lively, here’s the fun and widely accepted explanation—the one with meat and passive aggression. Imagine it’s 1453 and you’re hosting a grand banquet. Your guests arrive ready for an evening of roasted delicacies, overflowing goblets, and the sort of witty banter that usually ends with someone challenged to a duel. Then an unwelcome visitor appears at the door. You don’t want them there, but medieval etiquette frowns on faking a plague to get them to leave.

So you let them in. Only, instead of serving them the feast everyone else is enjoying, you plop down a leftover cold shoulder of mutton. Not hot. Not fresh. Not even pretending to be hospitable. Just a slab of refrigerated resentment on a plate. Message received. They gnaw in silence, realize they are about as welcome as a hangman at a christening, and leave vowing never to return. Giving them the cold shoulder worked, which, quite frankly, is the best possible result for your hosting strategy.

Rite or Wrong, It's a Passage

 My brother is so stupid. While watching an old Western many years ago, a cowboy (wearing a white hat) was about to ride through a mountain pass with his Indian sidekick, Falling Feather. As they entered the pass, wild, savage Apaches lined the tops of the hills, ready to rain down a hail of arrows and kill our hero. But they did nothing. I asked my brother, “Why don’t they just kill him?”

“Because,” he explained, “he’s riding with Falling Feather. Indians don’t want to kill their own kind, so he has a ‘right of passage.’” As an eight-year-old kid, I learned something. Years later, when I was in high school, a black friend of mine invited me over to his house after school. We rode into a less-than-salubrious part of town—in fact, I was probably the only white kid with six city blocks. Was I scared? Heck no. I was with my black friend in a black neighborhood, so I had a “right of passage.”

Then one day I saw “rite of passage” in a book. I couldn’t believe I found such a blatant typo in a book. I told my English teacher about my discovery, half-expecting him to write to the publisher, telling them of their gross incompetence, and that I’d get extra credit on my next English paper. Once he explained that “rite of passage” wasn’t a free pass to get to the other side, I felt really stupid. Damn my brother.

But rather, “rite of passage” was something to be endured to gain acceptance into a new realm. And it turns out that it’s more than just being told that discomfort is character-building, like drinking copious amounts of alcohol to become a bona fide sailor.

The phrase actually comes from the French anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, who coined rites de passage in 1909 to describe the ceremonies that mark life’s grand transitions—birth, marriage, adulthood, and other moments when society collectively decides you are no longer who you were five minutes ago. Rite, meaning a ceremonial act or formal custom, and Passage is movement from one state or stage to another.

Van Gennep’s big insight was that these moments usually come in three parts: you leave one stage behind, wander through a confusing in-between phase, and emerge with a new title, new responsibilities, and a new outlook on life. Consider a timid farm boy who leaves home, survives some humiliating or painful trial, and comes back changed — no longer merely someone’s child, but a person with a firmer sense of self.

So when we now call some significant change in life a rite of passage, we are borrowing a serious anthropological term to dress up the chaos of becoming a more mature person.

Luckily, I never watched a movie with my brother where a priest comes into the prison to eat the final meal with a death row inmate. I would imagine the priest would be there to offer “last rites,” a general label for the final sacraments or prayers given before death. Where a rite is a formal ceremony and last means the final one before you check out of Hotel Earth. The word rite traces back to the Latin ritus, meaning a religious observance or prescribed ceremony, so last rites literally means the final sacred rituals given to someone nearing death.

My brother’s version would probably be something like “He gets to order whatever he wants for his final meal. That’s his last rights.”

Cheers, Mate, but the wine is awful

 Cheers, the word we deploy whenever a roomful of adults decides to slam fragile glassware together in the name of friendship and pretend this is a perfectly sensible tradition. The word itself comes to us by way of old ideas about face, mood, and good cheer, which means that every toast is basically a tiny public wish that everyone remain merry, upright, and not spill merlot on the upholstery. The toast “Cheers!” is a later British usage meaning something like “good health” or “let’s celebrate.” So when we say “Cheers!”, we are not just making noise before drinking; we are participating in a centuries-old custom of goodwill—part blessing, part celebration, part social agreement that for at least the next five minutes nobody will bring up politics, cholesterol, or the price of eggs.

Speaking from my Brit side, cheers can also serve as a compact little thank you, because apparently we as a people looked at the full phrase and decided it was far too exhausting. Hold the door for someone and you may get a quick “Cheers.” I once gave an employee a 20% pay raise and received the exact same “Cheers,” which was a useful reminder that in Britain, gratitude is often delivered with all the emotional fireworks of someone confirming the weather. Once, while riding the London Underground, I spotted a credit card that had slipped from a man’s pocket and was lying there on the floor like an invitation to commit some kind fraud using someone else’s name. I picked it up, handed it back to its startled owner, and he replied, “Cheers, mate.” Not just cheers, but cheers, mate—which in British terms is practically a handwritten sonnet, a bear hug, and a knighthood all rolled into two words.

Thank you aside, we say “Cheers” when offering a toast. But why have a toast at all? Well …

The tradition itself is ancient: the Greeks raised wine to the gods and to one another’s health. The Romans turned it into a formal habit, and somewhere along the way humanity decided that no gathering was complete until someone stood up, lifted a drink, and became briefly theatrical. As for why it is called a toast, that is because people once literally put toasted bread into wine to improve the flavor and absorb unpleasant sediment, which is both wonderfully inventive and a little concerning about the state of the wine. So the modern toast began as part blessing, part ceremony, and part desperate beverage repair. In other words, every wedding speech is the distant descendant of ancient ritual, Roman pageantry, and one exhausted person looking into a cup of rough wine and thinking, “You know what this needs? Bread.”

 

As for the clinking of glasses, one popular story says clinking glasses started as a way to prove nobody had poisoned the drink. Coming from the same bottle, we touch glasses and drink in unison—we either die together or have a jolly good “knees up” (a British term for a piss up.)

Perhaps more myth than fact, although that theory did give medieval dinner parties a certain sparkle. Historians tend to think the clink as a way of bringing separate cups back together to symbolize shared trust, shared celebration, and the comforting idea that we are all drinking the same thing and are therefore, at least briefly, on the same side. There is also the old notion that the sound scared away evil spirits, which I am not entirely prepared to dismiss, because some family gatherings do improve after the second round. Either way, the modern clink seems to be less about survival and more about ceremony: a tiny ringing announcement that says, “We are united in goodwill, and wish you good health.”

 

So every cheerful clink is really a little tribute to the ancients, the Romans, and the first poor soul who tasted bad wine and reached for bread.

Cheers, mates!

Our Daily Bread (with Butter)

For something made of paper, metal, and increasingly invisible numbers floating around in apps, money has collected a suspicious number of bakery terms. We talk about bread, dough, and earning a crust as though the stock market were run by a team of exhausted pastry chefs. But the logic is actually pretty simple: before money was abstract, food was not. And bread, in particular, meant survival.

That is why bread became such a natural stand-in for money. Long before it turned into American slang in the 1940s, bread already meant sustenance and, by extension, one’s livelihood. If you earned your bread, you earned the thing that kept you and your household fed. From there, English did what English always does when left unsupervised: it blurred the line between the necessity itself and the money required to get it. Eventually, bread came to mean cash, income, and the means to keep the cupboard from going empty.

 And then there is dough, which seems to have entered money slang earlier, with evidence in print from the mid-19th century. The connection is likely the same sturdy old metaphor: dough becomes bread, bread sustains life, and money is what gets you both. In other words, if bread is the finished necessity, dough is the raw material behind it. So when we say somebody has a lot of dough, we are really saying they have a great deal of the stuff that can be turned into survival, comfort, and perhaps a pastry or two. English, once again, has managed to make economics sound like lunch.

You couldn’t think of two more basic ingredients in our everyday life than bread and butter. So it’s only fitting that we use it to describe basic living. That is why we say things like, “Teaching is her bread and butter,” or “Local repairs are the shop’s bread and butter.” The phrase works because it points to what is dependable rather than flashy. It refers to the unglamorous but urgent matters of wages, rent, groceries, and all the other things that keep civilization from turning the cutthroat life of champagne and caviar.

But why do we “butter someone up?” It is a common idiom in the English language. It means to flatter someone with the intention of gaining their favor or getting something from them. This phrase has been used for centuries, with its origins dating back to ancient India. The act of throwing butter balls at statues of gods was believed to bring favor and forgiveness, leading to the phrase’s association with flattery.

“Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth” is one of those phrases we don’t question, but why would one want to put butter in one's mouth? It is one of those wonderfully old English expressions used for someone who appears meek, prim, proper, or harmless, while secretly plotting to steal your last cookie or overthrow the city council and declare themselves as mayor.

The saying is old enough to have wandered into English literature before modern spelling had settled down and before anyone thought a proverb might someday need to be fact-checked. A version appears in print in 1530 by Jehan Palsgrave: “He maketh as though butter wolde nat melte in his mouthe.”

The image seems to rest on coolness: a person is so outwardly composed, so demure, so suspiciously self-controlled, that even butter—famous for surrendering to the slightest warmth—would not melt in the mouth.

I would like to say that this blog is my bread and butter, but I don’t actually make any dough from it.

Spades and Crackers—It’s not all Black and White

 

“Call a spade a spade” means to speak plainly and directly—to say the truth without dressing it up in a tuxedo, handing it a scented candle, and insisting it is now a “communication experience.”

The expression has roots in an old Greek phrase often rendered as “to call a fig a fig and a trough a trough.” In other words, the ancients preferred people to just say the thing for what it was. Scholars connect versions of it to classical Greek writers (as far back as 120 A.D.) So no, this phrase did not begin life at the poker table or as a racial slur. It began life as the ancient-world equivalent of, “Please stop pretending the broken wagon is a transportation challenge.”

Then along came Erasmus, the great Renaissance scholar, who translated the idea from Greek into Latin and, somewhere along the way, gave us the wording that stuck: “call a spade a spade.” Translation is a mysterious art. Sometimes you get a faithful rendering of ancient wisdom; other times, a trough walks in, and a shovel walks out.

The phrase entered English in the 16th century through Nicholas Udall’s translation of Erasmus, and from there it marched cheerfully into common usage. Writers from Charles Dickens to W. Somerset Maugham later used it, which is literary proof that people have always enjoyed blunt honesty—as long as it is happening to someone else. The “spade” here is the digging tool. One later version even doubled down with “to call a spade a bloody shovel,” which suggests that subtlety had already left the building.

The phrase got an extra theatrical flourish when Oscar Wilde put it to work in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895, where he naturally managed to make blunt speech sound elegant, weaponized, and better dressed than the rest of us:

CECILY:

"Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade."

GWENDOLEN:

[Satirically.] "I am glad to say that I have never seen a spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different."

***

For years, I assumed that when people of color used the word “cracker” for a white person, it had something to do with the pale color of a Saltine. That was my neat little explanation, filed away without much thought. Then came one of those long Navy days out at sea, the kind where the air inside the shop felt close and metallic, and conversation drifted wherever it pleased just to break the sameness of the rolling waves. A handful of us were gathered in the shop talking about life, the places we came from, and the ways people saw one another. There were five white sailors in the group and one black sailor named Sly. Before long, the talk turned to race and the differences in our worlds. One of the guys leaned back, looked at Sly, and asked, “How come you guys call us crackers? Do we look like Saltines to you?”

Sly shook his head and gave the kind of smile that told you a lesson was coming, and it probably wasn’t going to be gentle. “You, stupid honkey,” he said—and in 1984, in a Navy shop in the middle of the ocean, that was just how some men talked. “It ain’t got nothing to do with what you put in your clam chowder. Back when your grandpappy owned my grandpappy, the master carried a whip. And when he wanted our attention, he cracked it. That sound—that crack—followed the man holding it. He was the cracker. And every one of those crackers was white.” He stood up. “So don’t even think about calling me “Graham” and putting me on one of your s’mores, or I’ll be the one giving you a whippin’.”

Our Fascination With Nine

 Let’s be honest—most of us don’t wake up thinking, “Today’s a great day to celebrate the number nine!” But oddly enough, when it comes to ramping up the drama in our conversations, nine is our go-to number. Maybe it’s because “on cloud eight” leaves us looking more like a snowman than in a state of utopia. And “dressed to the threes” makes you sound like you couldn’t decide what color of socks to go to for the day. So, why do we keep giving nine all the spotlights? Stay tuned, but there’s not a lot of clear-cut answers on some of them.

The phrase “on cloud nine” (meaning extremely happy or euphoric) was first coined in the early 20th century. The U.S. Weather Bureau created a cloud classification system. Cloud number 9 referred to cumulonimbus clouds—the tallest, most towering clouds, reaching high into the sky. Hence, being “on cloud nine” would suggest being at the very top—floating high above everything.

The phrase “dressed to the nines” means being dressed very stylishly or to perfection—but its origin isn’t nailed down to a single source. There are several theories to explain how it came about. Certain connections are rooted in 18^th century English heritage and used by Scottish poets. Other explanations are connected to Greek mythology including the Nine Muses and the medieval idea of the Nine Worthies—both representing ideal excellence. Another suggestion comes from the immaculate uniforms of British 99^th Lanarkshire Regiment established in 1824.

But to keep this article fun—and to make you the life of the dinner party (or at least the most stylish one at the table)—let’s go with the popular (yet totally unproven) theory that it took nine yards of fabric to craft a truly elegant, well-tailored suit. That’s a lot of material—enough for a suit, a kerchief, and maybe even matching napkins to dab your mouth after you wow everyone with your new trivia. So, when you’re dressed to the nines, you’re not just dressed to impress; you’re dressed to silence Aunt Mildred’s annual “Is that what you’re wearing?” with a single, glorious swish of your nine yards.

Some say this is also loosely connected to “the whole nine yards” (taking nine yards of cloth to make a suit) however, this phrase again has different possible origins without a concrete answer. Which is one possibility. A concrete truck holds about nine cubic yards of concrete, and emptying its contents would be giving your driveway project the whole nine yards. Some say it derives from fighter planes that carried nine-yard belts of machine-gun ammunition, and in a fierce battle, the gunners may empty the whole nine yards. Another possibility was in May 1961, American athlete Ralph Boston set a world record by jumping 27 feet 1/2 inch—the first person to surpass 27 feet (9 yards.) The achievement received widespread coverage, and a newspaper reported: “Boston goes the whole nine yards.” Regardless of where the phrase actually came from, it does translate in modern day English to mean “given everything possible or all of it.”

The proverb “a stitch in time saves nine” means that fixing a small problem early prevents it from becoming a much bigger one later. Its origin is fairly well documented compared to many other “nine” sayings. If a small tear in fabric is repaired right away (one stitch), it prevents the tear from growing—saving you from needing many more stitches (nine) later.

A “cat having nine lives” comes from the real observations of cats’ survival skills. Cats are remarkably resilient—able to survive accidents or dangers that might kill other animals. They can twist midair (righting reflex) and land on their feet and are flexible and lightweight, helping them survive falls. It’s not about counting lives—it’s a colorful way of saying cats (and certain humans) are uncannily tough and hard to kill.

Some of our other common “Nine” sayings:

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law” – owning something gives you a strong claim to it.

“Nine times out of ten” – almost always.

“Nine days’ wonder” – something that attracts attention briefly and is then forgotten.

“Nine steps ahead” – being far ahead strategically.

“Nine shades of trouble” – deeply in trouble.

“Nine kinds of crazy” – extremely chaotic or wild.

Although these phrases are difficult to pin to one source, we all use them to get our point across in a colorful way. Take your pick of which explanation you wish to use, but remember, nine is divine.

Nein! German for no. Doesn’t belong in this article—See you next time.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A SAILOR TO TALK LIKE ONE

English is basically a thrift store: we wander in looking for a perfectly normal way to say something and walk out using a phrase from 1792 that still smells faintly of timeless saltwater. A surprising number of our everyday sayings didn’t come from poets or professors—they came from sailors.

Take “learning the ropes.” Today it means getting up to speed at a new job. On a sailing ship it meant, quite literally, learning which rope did what—because pulling the wrong line could rearrange the sails, the schedule, and possibly your spine. Similarly, “batten down the hatches” isn’t just a dramatic way to say “close the windows.” Sailors nailed battens (wooden strips) over hatch covers to keep waves from turning the interior of the ship into an indoor pool with angry furniture.

Then there’s my personal favorite, “three sheets to the wind,” which is the highbrow, seaworthy way to announce you’re “drunk enough to argue with a mailbox.” Contrary to what you might expect, a “sheet” isn’t something you sleep under or forget to wash—it’s actually a rope, not a sail, used to control the sail. These sheets are tied to the lower corners of the sails, holding them steady—sort of like the nautical equivalent of a belt for your pants. If three sheets fly loose and wild, the sails flap and the boat stumbles around like it’s just been kicked out of a sailor’s bar at closing time. Trust me, after nine years in the Navy, I know exactly what that looks like—the boat, I mean. (Any resemblance to my own Saturday nights in port is purely coincidental.)

“Taken aback” also started at sea: if the wind hits the wrong side of the sails, they can be “aback,” stopping the ship short. So if you’re taken aback in a meeting, you’re basically a surprised schooner, suddenly going nowhere while everyone stares.

So the next time you’re under the weather (another sea-born phrase—sailors literally went below deck to escape rough conditions), remember: our language has barnacles. We keep these salty expressions because they’re vivid, useful, and they make ordinary life feel slightly more adventurous. After all, “I’m experiencing mild inconvenience” is accurate, but “I had to batten down the hatches” makes it sound like you’re bravely facing a storm against immense adversity—it will impress your peers.