Bees Knees and Barmy Armies - Origins of the Words and Phrases we Use Every Day. Harry Oliver

      If you’ve seen neither hide nor hair of someone or something it means you’ve seen nothing at all of them or it. This is certainly an American expression, and there a couple of stories related to its beginnings. It has been suggested that it derived from the habit of North American huntsman of saying, after a fruitless day’s hunting, that they had seen ‘neither hide nor hair’ of any prey, where ‘hide’ means the hide of prey such as deer. The expression first appeared in the nineteenth century, and examples can be found in the work of American writer Mark Twain. However, some believe it comes from an inversion of the English expression ‘hide and hair’, which dates back to the 1500s and meant all of something.

      One-horse Town

      Most of us have come across a ‘one-horse town’ – some of us live in one – for it is quite simply a very small and sleepy town where very little happens. Almost every Western movie ever made features such a town, and the expression is indeed American in origin. This vivid image was first used there in the nineteenth century to depict a community so small that a single horse would be enough to meet its needs.

      Swan Song

      A ‘swan song’ is the final act or performance someone gives before they die, or, more often and less dramatically, before they retire, leave office (if a politician or other public figure) or break up (if a band). The expression derives from the ancient belief that swans spent their lives as mute birds, and that it was only with the onset of death that they would erupt into song for the first and only time. Now, this belief is clearly hogwash, but that didn’t stop some pretty impressive names throughout the ages believing in it, and it is an idea that has been around since the Ancient Greeks. For example, Socrates explained to Plato that the swan was sacred to the god Apollo, and that its song at its death was in fact an expression of great joy that it was finally to join its master.

      And the Greeks weren’t alone. Even though records from as early as AD 77 show that people were aware it was false, the likes of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Byron and Tennyson have all referred to this romantic idea in their work. The actual phrase ‘swan song’ only came into the language in the 1830s, however, and was coined by Thomas Carlyle, after the German Schwanengesang.

      Take the Bull by the Horns

      When you decide to ‘take the bull by the horns’ you face up to difficulty and adversity directly, and with as much conviction as possible. The phrase as we know it today has been in use since late in the eighteenth century and, while not the trickiest metaphor to understand, there are a couple of theories as to its origin. And yes, they do involve bulls. Some believe that it derives from the practice whereby Spanish bullfighters, after weakening the bull, would toy with the bull by swirling their capes at them and grabbing their horns. Others believe it derives from the sport of bull running in England, which started in the thirteenth century in the court of King John and continued until it was outlawed six centuries later.

      Two Shakes of a Lamb’s Tail

      If someone tells you they’ll be back in ‘two shakes of a lamb’s tail’, I wouldn’t advise getting comfortable: it means they will be back very soon. The metaphor is a simple one – an excitable lamb shakes its tail back and forth very quickly. But why a lamb?, you may well ask. Well, that’s a good question. It would appear that it’s because of the perceived indefatigable energy of the frisky lambs, which would have been a common sight in the farm-reliant society in centuries past. In fact the phrase didn’t come into being until the nineteenth century, and nowadays it’s often shortened to ‘two shakes’.

      Some related alternatives exist, such as ‘two shakes of the dice’ and ‘three shakes of a lamb’s tail’, but they all mean the same thing and, if nothing else, provide a nice little breather when you need to buy some time for a simple task.

      Until the Cows Come Home

      ‘You can sit there and sulk until the cows come home but you will eat those greens!’ a scolding mother might tell her reluctant child. ‘Until the cows come home’ describes what feels like a very long time. The saying dates back to the sixteenth century, when the cows would spend the night grazing in the fields before returning to the milking parlour in the morning; the phrase is all the more graphic because it conjures up the leisurely pace cows take over whatever they do.