Pack
Drill: "No names no pack drill" is said by someone who knows something,
but is not prepared to say what, for fear of creating trouble. An odd
expression. The following was offered as the explanation in The Times
of Friday 19 Nov 2004:
"A soldier whose kit on parade was unsatisfactory would have his name
taken by the NCO on the orders of the inspecting officer (see Wilfred
Owen's poem Inspection), and would be put on a charge before his
company commander. The resulting penalty would, at one time, probably
have included a period of drill in full kit ("pack drill"). A good
parade was one during which no one's kit was below standard, so no
names were taken, so no pack drill would ensue. Hence the expression
implying that the fewer names named, the better.
Michael Grosvenor Myer, Cambridge"
Paid: To put paid to something is to finish it; to make it over and
done with. The background is that of counting houses; when accounts
were settled and closed the word Paid was written at the bottom. They
were over and done with; finished.
Pains: If you say that someone undertook painstaking
research, then you mean that their work was meticulous; full
of effort and detail. By elaboration the saying can
be expanded to say that the researcher went to the
effort to give him or herself pain. Why should this type of
feeling be associated with pain? Surely something
like "time consuming" research; or "meticulous" or
"extensive" but why Pain?. The logic and origin of this
saying defeats me and I can't find any sort of
explanation. I thought that painstaking may have come from a
completely different root from pain but, in spite
of painstaking research I have had no luck. There is no help
from German where the equivalent has absolutely no
connotation with pain, only of "thoroughness".
Surely some expert reader will be able to cast light.
Paint: To paint the town red is said to happen when people go out on a
spree or indulge in excessive revelry. The phrase started in the USA in
about 1880 and came to Britain about ten years later. It is said to
come from the US slang use of "paint" to mean "drink", When someone's
drunk their face and nose are flushed red, hence the analogy.
An alternative origin comes from the Wild West and alludes to revelling
cowboys who would express their exuberance by letting off shots and
saying that they would paint the town red if anybody tried to stop
them.
A different origin, not in accordance with the dates above, is found
on: Expressions & Origins which gives: "........ locates its
origin in an actual piece of drunken vandalism by the Marquis of
Waterford and a bunch of his chums who, as an aristocratic joke,
actually painted parts of the local town red in the area of Melton
Mowbray, Leicestershire, in 1837. The incident created sufficient stir
to be recorded in contemporary verse and engraving."
Pale: If someone is beyond the pale they are regarded as beyond normal
civilised behaviour; uncouth; somewhat barbarous. The Pale here was an
actual area. In medieval times both The Pale of Ireland and the Pale of
Calais existed. A Pale was the area over which the King of England had
control. It was often little more than the area immediately around a
town. All outside was regarded as full of savagery and barbarism. The
word itself comes from the Latin palus meaning "stake". By evolution
this came to mean "fence around a territory".
Pan out: If something pans out then it has a good outcome. The origin
is found in the language of gold diggers. They wash their diggings in a
water filled pan. If they have found gold then, because of its heavy
nature, it would fall to the bottom of the pan and could be washed
clean of all the other bits and pieces; it panned out.
Pan: A flash in the pan describes something which shows great initial
promise but then doesn't come up to expectations. The pan in this
instance is the one on early flintlock rifles. Sometimes only the
powder in the ignition pan would light; the propelling charge would
remain unlit and the rifle would not fire; there was truly only a flash
in the pan.
Pander: To pander to someone is to support their wishes; to act on
their behalf; to be their agent. Pander comes directly from Pandarus,
the Trojan who procured the love of Cressida for Troilus.
Parcel: If something is part and parcel of something then it is an
essential element. Part is easy to understand, but why parcel? Here the
word is used in the sense of a parcel of land. i.e. a portion, and was
used as such in the 15th century. By the 17th century the use as a
package had evolved.
Park: We are all familiar with the term "to park a car", but why Park?
Park is an area of enclosed open land, such as a city or national park.
Did the owners of horses and carriages, before the days of the car,
store their vehicles in such open areas when they went visiting in
London? Who knows, but the seeds of the modern usage can be found in
Shakespeare's "How are we parked and bounded in a Pale?" (cf: beyond
the Pale). The modern usage itself allegedly started in the USA.
Pat: To have something off pat is to have it exactly right. The saying
has been in use since the 17th century but its precise origin is not
altogether clear. The best suggestion is that it is derived from the
sense of the word a "light touch". If something only needs a light
touch to get it right then it must be almost perfect. Not very
convincing I'm afraid, but it's all that I could find. Pat in 1811
meant "apposite, or to the purpose".
Patch: "Your team's not a patch on mine" is the sort of expression that
can be heard at sporting events. It implies great superiority of one
team over the other. I can find no explanation for the use of patch in
this expression, but it may be a distortion of an older and clearer
expression 'it is but a patch on', i.e 'inferior to'. The idea is that
a patch spoils a garment. and that ‘your team's not (worth even) a
patch on mine.'
Pear shaped: To go pear shaped is an expression used to indicate that a
scheme has not been perfectly executed. The phrase seems to
have originated in British English in the late 1940s or early
1950s. I have come across several suggested origins, but the best, for
me, is related to training aircraft pilots. At some stage they are
encouraged to try to fly loops - very difficult to make perfectly
circular; often the trainee pilot's loops would go pear shaped.
Pecker:
to keep your pecker up: A phrase particular — and peculiar — to Britain
that exhorts courage and steadfastness in the face of adversity. The
Sunday Times of 30 May 2010 gave the following suggested origins.
The phrase became popular in the early 19th century, although its exact
origins remain unclear. In that era the word 'pecker' was generally
understood to refer to the mouth but a citation in The Times from
September 1945 indicates that it could also refer to the nose, with the
combination leading some etymologists to believe that the phrase is a
precursor to the boxing term, 'keep your chin up'. An altogether more
imaginative suggestion links the phrase to the ancient, and 'now mostly
illegal, Sport of cockfighting, in which the 'pecker' in question
refers to the gamecock's beak. The suggestion is that when a weary
cock's beak drooped, it was a sure sign that the bird was nearing
defeat. Such a sight would cause those who had backed the gamecock to
loudly exhort their fancy to keep his pecker up for the sake of their
money.
However, beware of using this phrase outside Britain, for 'pecker' in
US English refers to the penis!
