Gooseberry:
To play gooseberry now means to be an unwelcome third party at a
lovers' meeting. In the past it was used somewhat less specifically and
meant any unwanted third party. In the old days Gooseberry was one of
the many euphemisms for the Devil, who was naturally not welcome in
most company.
To
be born under a Gooseberry bush was used as a way of explaining to a
child where a new baby had come from, an explanation not often needed
these days. Why "gooseberry bush" has completely defied explanation in
my researches.
Grandfather: Grandfather clock is so called after an 1878 song by the
Connecticut composer Henry Clay Work entitled My Grandfather's Clock
(...was too tall for the shelf, so it stood 90 years on the floor).
Before that, this type of clock was known as a "long case". Although
not a "saying", the origin was sufficiently unusual as to beg
inclusion.
Grapes: To have Sour grapes means to offer an implausible excuse for
not achieving a goal; to be a little bitter about someone else's
success. This comes from one of Aesop's fables in which a fox, having
unsuccessfully tried to get at some grapes in a vineyard, went off
saying "They're as sour as crabs, anyway!" A strange answer, but
‘crabs' is likely to refer to 'crab apples'.
Grapevine: To hear something on the grapevine suggests that a rumour or
gossip has been heard through unofficial channels. This is another with
an origin in the USA. In the early days of telegraphy, companies rushed
to put up telegraph poles, some made none too well and some actually
using trees rather than poles. To some, the tangled wires resembled the
wild vines found in California, hence a Grapevine. During the US Civil
War the telegraph was used extensively, but the messages were sometime
unreliable, hence the association of rumour on the grapevine. The
phrase first appeared in print in 1852.
Grass: To grass on someone means to inform some higher authority about
possible misdemeanours. The origin here is far from clear but I have
found two possibilities. The first relates to the fact that this type
of informing is often done in a whisper. In the 1940s the singing group
the "Ink Spots" had a world wide hit with the song "Whispering Grass".
By extension whispering became known as grassing.
The other explanation relates to London slang starting with to shop
someone, derived from the concept of the Coppers' shop. Someone who
habitually informed to the police became a shopper and rhyming slang
produced a grasshopper which was then shortened to grass. You can take
your choice. It's not mentioned in 1811.
Greenhorn: A greenhorn is used to describe someone who is less than
expert at a task, an amateur, a trainee. The earliest possible origin I
have found dates from the 15th century and derives from the fact that
young oxen have green horns. The analogy is clear.
Another suggested origin goes back to the 17th and 18th centuries and
the jewellery manufacturing industry. Some items of decoration were a
bit like cameo brooches, only made from horn and inset in to silver
frames. The horn was usually decorated with a figure, often a head, and
this was impressed in the brown horn by heating the horn to a specific
temperature and shaping over a mould. Too high a temperature would
result in the horn ending up, not its original and desired brown, but
green. Such an outcome was regularly produced by the apprentices -
hence they came to be called greenhorns.
Gubbins: A load of gubbins is a saying used to describe poor quality
goods or thoughts; the dregs. The Gubbins were the wild and savage
inhabitants of an area near Brentor in Devon in the 17th century. They,
in turn, were so called after the name for the near worthless shavings
after fish had been scaled. Why the shavings were called gubbins is
another matter.
Gum: He's up a gum tree implies that someone is at a loss, in a bit of
difficulty or to be virtually stuck on some project or other. The
origin here is not clear but it is suggested that the saying may be an
allusion to the gum tree being a refuge for the opossum, an animal
which feigns death by lying still and is therefore apparently stuck up
the tree.
Gun: Son of a gun
is now an expression of light hearted familiarity but it was not always
so. In the past it was one of contempt and derision derived from the
fact that it described a special type of child, often illegitimate. In
the old days civilian women were allowed to live on naval ships; many
became pregnant and had their child on board, usually near the midship
gun behind a canvas screen. If the father was unknown, then the child
was recorded in the ship's log as A son of a Gun.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists usages of the phrase as far back as
1708, but one of the best early examples comes from RN Admiral William
Henry Smyth's 'The Sailor's Work Book', dated 1865. Smyth gives this
definition: "An epithet conveying contempt in a slight degree, and
originally applied to boys born afloat, when women were permitted to
accompany their husbands to sea; one admiral declared he literally was
thus cradled, under the breast of a gun carriage."
