Introduction
The
English language is full of wonderful sayings, catch-phrases and
expressions. For the most part they are used without much consideration
as to their origins. Some appear self-evident; "a storm in a tea cup"
can have really only one basis, similarly "a stitch in time saves
nine", but why do we say "a square meal"? Meals aren't square, but the
expression is in almost everyday use. I spent most of my working life
as a Consultant Pathologist at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. I came to
be fascinated by the histories of the City and Hospital in which I
lived and worked. I also became greatly involved in trying to
understand some of the intricacies of a certain type of skin cancer
called malignant melanoma. The result?...over two thousand colour
slides of Bristol as it has changed over the past few decades, several
hundred slides of Frenchay Hospital since the turn of the 20th century
and dozens of scientific articles on aspects of melanoma. The
fascination also extended to bits of the English language; I kept
asking myself, when I heard an expression that appeared to be "daft" -
"why do we say that?" In 1990 I started to explore the backgrounds of
as many sayings, idioms etc. that I came across. Since some of these
are used only occasionally it took me about five years to collect a
list of 450 or so. This book is my effort at trying to unravel the
knots of origin. The first "edition" was produced personally in limited
numbers (25) in the summer of 1996. At that time it seemed that a
commercial edition of the book would appear, but this never
materialised. In the meantime more origins came to light and I produced
the next "edition" in the autumn of 1998. The index indicates the new
additions, marked *.
One thing that became clear very early on was that many had a naval or
military background. Another feature was that many are very old, often
going back centuries. Other sayings are much more recent and many of
the really modern ones last only a few years before they go out of
fashion; I have not concentrated on these latter types. Never-the-less,
some modern sayings are likely to survive and I have included those
that seem less ephemeral; "Catch 22" will probably last for a few
decades yet, if not longer.
The book is not intended to be a work of scholarship, more a source of
enjoyment for browsing, stimulation and bed-time light reading, hence
my title - "The Bedtime Browser". It is also a bit of a challenge to
the reader since I have included items about which I have not been able
to find an origin. Please let me know if you can fill the gaps. It is
arranged in alphabetical order, governed by what I regard as the most
important word in the text; e.g. a "wet blanket" is found under
"blanket" and not under "wet".
As
time passed the new additions gradually increased. By early 2000 I was
able to put an updated version on the internet as part of my main web
site, and this updating still continues. By 2007 the site attracted up
to 2000 visits per week.
