Catch:
Catch 22; Most people are familiar with this modern saying and
recognise it as implying a "no win situation", one where, whatever
happens, there will almost certainly be a bad outcome. Many people will
also know that Catch 22 was the title of the 1955 novel by Joseph
Heller set on a USAAF WW2 base (in those days it was an Army Air
Force). The aircrew are on the edge of breakdown; they must be mad to
go on another mission but the fact that they realise that they must be
mad means that they must be sane at the same time. They have to
continue flying. Truly a "no win situation".
The above is as far as any reference book that I have found has ever
gone, but why did Heller call his book Catch 22? I found what I think
is the answer in, of all places, a review of a TV programme in a daily
paper. The programme was about the daylight missions flown by the USAAF
over Germany. Many of the aircraft were shot down; others were damaged
but managed to get back to England. A very few were so damaged that,
although they could still fly, they couldn't make it back to base. Such
aircraft were allowed by US military law to divert to neutral countries
like Sweden and Switzerland. Once there, the crews were interned but
they were out of the war. This near-death scenario of gross but not
fatal damage was covered by USAAF general directive number 22. Hence,
if you could fall into, or catch, the tiny area of severe but not
disastrous damage, all would be well. However the likelihood was that
you wouldn't and you'd be either shot down and possibly killed, or back
in the war. I think that this is a splendid explanation, somewhat
marred by the suggestion that Heller is said to have originally planned
to call his book "Catch 18"; he changed to "Catch 22" because Leon
Uris's novel "Mila 18" came out just before Heller's book was
published.
Chalk: I beat him by a long chalk signifies a good win over an opponent
and comes from the days before lead pencils were common. In schools,
merit marks were made with chalk; the longer the mark, the more
meritorious the receiver.
Changes: To ring the changes implies swopping things around, such as
frequently rearranging the furniture in a room. The "changes" here come
from bell ringing where it is possible to make many, many variations in
the order in which the bells are rung. Such variations are the changes.
In a 12 bell tower, to ring all possible changes would take nearly 40
years.
Cheap: If something is described as cheap at half the price, then it's
reckoned to be very cheap indeed. At first sight this seems a
contradiction in terms - surely "cheap at twice the price" would be a
better description? However, the phrase is a play on the meaning of
"cheap"; in this instance it's not related to price, but rather to
quality. Thus something that is of very poor quality could still be
thought of as "cheap", even if it were "half the price". It is said
that the saying first came into usage in the mid 19th century, when
impecunious members of the aristocracy were forced to borrow money from
high interest charging money lenders, the lenders themselves being
regarded as "cheap" individuals for so demeaning themselves by lending
money at such high rates of interest that they would still be regarded
as "cheap" even if they charged half the rate.
Cheerio: Although this is a word and not a saying I again include it
because I like its derivation. The word is a corruption of "Chair-ho"
used when a parting guest called for a sedan chair. Victoria Dennis
disagrees. In March 2005 she wrote. Very unlikely (it would after all
be the equivalent of modern Londoners using "Taxi!" to mean
"goodbye!"). The SOED gives the derivation as "Cheery" + "oh" , in
other words "Stay cheerful" which seems a lot more likely; also gives
the first known occurrence as 1910, more than a century after the
demise of the sedan chair!
Cheese: Cheesed off; this is similar to Browned off and is one of many
variations such as Brassed off: Pissed off. There is no apparent reason
for using "cheese" other than, perhaps, cheese can be seen to change
when it is going mouldy.
Chestnut: That's an old chestnut means, usually, that a joke is old and
well known. The origin here goes back to a near forgotten melodrama by
William Diamond. The play, first produced in 1816, has one of the
characters forever repeating the same joke, albeit with minor changes.
The joke concerns a cork tree. On one occasion another character,
Pablo, fed up with the same joke says; "A Chestnut. I have heard you
tell the joke 27 times and I'm sure it was a Chestnut!" The quotation
was used in real life by the American actor William Warren who, at the
time, was playing the part of Pablo. He was at a dinner party when one
of the guests started off on a well worn joke. Warren interrupted with
the quotation, much to the amusement of the other guests. As a result
the expression entered into the wider language.
Chew: To chew the fat/rag is to indulge in gossip with friends, family,
work mates etc. Originally there was apparently an element of complaint
in these exchanges. It is thought that the expressions are nautical in
origin. Sailors had to chew on salt pork when supplies were low,
complaining about the poor food as they did. The 'rag' variant is
supposed to be based on chewing pieces of rag when the chewing tobacco
had run out.
Chip: A chip on his shoulder; this saying implies that someone is
sulky, aggressive and moody. He thinks he has a grievance about
something although this grievance is probably unwarranted. The
expression is based on a mainly American schoolboy custom, about 200
years old. When two boys were arguing and itching for a fight then one
would place an actual chip of wood on his shoulder and challenge the
other to knock it off. If the challenge was taken up, then the proper
fight started.
Chips: You've had your chips means that someone's luck has run out and
that they are close to failure. The chips here are almost certainly
gaming chips or tokens. Someone who loses their chips could well be
ruined.
Although I think the above explanation is the probable origin of the
saying there is another, completely different one recorded. In this
case the chips are actual pieces of wood. The story goes that, in the
old naval dockyards, the off cuts of pieces of timber, in other words
the chips, were regarded as legitimate perks for the workers. They took
them home and used them; some say that even the woodwork of whole
houses was so built. This privilege could be revoked by the foreman or
boss, in which case the individual had had his chips.
In March 2005 Victoria Dennis commented: My husband started his working
life in Chatham Dockyard in 1980, where his mother had also worked in
the 1940s. The carpenters were entitled to the chips or chippings, as
they had been for the previous 300 years: but both my husband and my
mother-in-law agree that this was not a "privilege" but an official
perk of the job which the foreman had no right to interfere with. They
couldn't imagine any foreman trying to do such a thing, and shuddered
to think what a row there would have been if anyone had! Nor had they
ever heard "you've had your chips" in the context of dockyard
chippings, or ever connected the phrase with them. So I really don't
think this explanation is worth considering.
- the more so as you can also say "cash in one's chips" which can only
refer to gambling chips.
