Nail:
To pay on the nail is to pay promptly for goods or services. The nails
in this saying were common accessories in medieval fairs; they were
long, pointed and narrow sticks with a little platform on the top
producing an overall appearance of a nail. They were stuck in the
ground and acted as the base for trade. Two traders would reach a deal
and one would pay the other by placing the money on the little platform
- they paid on the nail. Examples of more permanent nails can still be
seen outside the Corn Exchange in Bristol, but they are only examples
and not the basis of the saying, as many Bristolians believe.
To
nail a lie is to expose an untruth, but why "nail"? It is said that the
saying comes from the habit of traders nailing counterfeit coins to
shop counters for all to see and recognise.
Nail
is also used in the sense of to be caught/punished for a misdemeanour,
such as 'I'll nail you for that'. The origin here seems to come from a
few centuries ago when, in Britain, 'justice' was meted out mostly by
hanging or flogging. However there were some crimes for which you could
be 'nailed'. For these crimes you would be taken to the hangman's
gibbet and nailed through the earlobe(s) until night. You had two
options: you could either stand all day, nailed to the scaffold or else
tear your ear from the nail. Women could also be nailed through the
tongue for spreading malicious gossip.
Namby-Pamby: He's a namby-pamby describes a "wet" individual. Ambrose
Phillips (1674-1749) was so called by Henry Carey because of Phillips'
"wishy-washy" poetry addressed to Lord Carteret's children. NAMby-pAMBy
is clearly a play on AMBrose, again with a rhyming element thrown in.
Neck: If you are speaking about where you live you might say "in my
neck of the woods". Why "neck"? This is an example of a Fossil word in
which an old meaning has been preserved in only one or two special
sayings. Short shrift is another. In the case of neck, the ancestor
words in Old Breton (cnoch) and Old High German (hnack) both had a
meaning of "hill" or "summit". This sense has been lost in all other
uses of the word neck.
Neck: & crop: Brass: see Cropper and Brass
Nellie: Not on your nellie is an expression used to describe an element
of disbelief; not on your life; not on any account. Again rhyming comes
into this one; Nellie is part of Nellie Duff, rhyming slang for "puff"
which, in turn is slang for "breath"; i.e. life itself.
Nest: A Mare's nest is a "nothing"; a triviality where once was thought
to be importance. An example is "He's discovered a mare's nest". In
some parts of Scotland it is a "snake's nest"; in Cornwall a "wee's
nest" and in Devon a "blind mare's nest". It seems that Mare is only
one of several variants and happens to have become the most well known;
however, why Mare has defeated my researches. The 1811 dictionary says:
"He has found a mare's nest and is laughing at the eggs; said of one
who laughs without any apparent cause".
A
nest egg is a little saved up something or other that will hopefully
grow. The saying comes from the "trick" of putting a pottery egg into a
chicken's nest in the hope that it would encourage her to lay more. The
saying has been in use since the early 1600s.
Newt: To be as drunk as a newt is to be really drunk. Why Newt? I have
found two explanations, one suggesting that the saying came to Britain
in WW2 from the US. In this instance newt is a corruption of the Eskimo
tribe 'Iniut'. Due to their genetic makeup, these Eskimos are allegedly
more susceptible to alcohol than other races.
The second explanation goes back to the 18thC or so, when gentlemen
spent much time in gaming houses. They left their horses outside in the
care of young boys, whom they called 'newts'. They often sent these
young lads a warm-up drink or two during the long evening, only to find
them somewhat inebriated when they came to collect their horses! A nice
explanation with, sadly, no reference to it in the 1811 Dictionary of
the Vulgar Tongue - pity.
Nick: If something is done in the nick of time then it is done at just
about the last moment. For hundreds of years the score in team games
was kept by a tally man who would put a nick in a piece of wood each
time a team scored. If victory came at the last minute then the winning
nick was the nick in time.
Nincompoop: A Nincompoop is a fool. The word seems to be a made-up one.
Dr Johnson suggests a corruption of 'non compos mentis' but experts
don't all agree. It may be that the word comes from 'non compos' mixed
up with the Dutch word Poep a 'fool'.
Ninepence: If something or someone is as right as ninepence then they
are fine; well; problem free. Ninepence here is thought to be a
corruption of ninepins. When all nine pins are standing upright they
are ready for the next game; there are no problems with starting the
game.
Other uses of ninepence have largely fallen out of modern English e.g.
"he's ninepence short of a shilling". This type of saying doesn't seem
to be related to the first one.
Nip & Tuck: To race nip & tuck means much the same as
"neck & neck", but the latter suggests two racers each level
with the other, whereas nip & tuck implies a race where the
lead changes. The earliest recorded form is found in James K Paudling's
Westward Ho! (1832): 'There we were, at rip and tuck, up one tree and
down another.' perhaps the Rip came from the sense of "letting her rip"
which changed to Nip over the years. Tuck is an old slang word for 'vim
& vigour'. From the "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase
Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997)
Nines: If you're dressed to the nines then you are wearing you very
best bib and tucker; your best clothes. It is felt that the expression
started out as dressed to the eyes. In old English "eyes" would have
been "eyne" and, over the centuries this became changed to "nines".
Nitty gritty: To get down to the nitty gritty of something is to get to
its basics. The origin here is somewhat unpleasant and a little
unexpected. It seems to derive from the nits found in unclean pubic
hair plus the tiny, gritty pieces of dried faeces found in unwashed
peri-anal hair.
The Dictionary of Popular Phrases (see Appendix) says: "Let's
get down to the (real) nitty-gritty". Idiom. Meaning, 'let's get down
to the real basics of a problem or situation' (like getting down to
brass tacks).
Sheilah Graham, the Hollywood columnist, in her book Scratch an Actor
(1969) says of Steve McQueen: 'Without a formal education - Steve left
school when he was fifteen - he has invented his own vocabulary to
express what he means. . His "Let's get down to the nitty-gritty" has
gone into the American language.'
All she meant, I feel, is that McQueen popularized the term, for it is
generally held to be a Black American phrase and was talked about
before the film star came on the scene. It seems to have had a
particular vogue among Black Power campaigners c1963, and the first OED
Supp. citation is from that year. In 1963, Shirley Ellis recorded a
song 'The Nitty Gritty' to launch a new dance (like 'The Locomotion'
before it). The opening line of the record is, 'Now let's get down to
the real nitty-gritty'. Stuart Berg Flexner (Listening to America,
1982) comments: 'It may have originally referred to the grit-like nits
or small lice that are hard to get out of one's hair or scalp or to a
Black English term for the anus.'
