What do the 1857 Indian Mutiny, a brutal punishment feared by sailors, and mercury poisoning all have in common? All of these things lie behind three common idioms.
Today, let’s take a deeper look at these idioms while exploring their surprising etymologies!
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Vocabulary
- Bite the Bullet (idiom): To endure a painful or difficult situation with courage and fortitude, often accepting the inevitable.
- After the unexpected loss, Sarah had to bite the bullet and continue working to support her family.
- Cat Got Your Tongue (idiom): A phrase used to inquire why someone is unusually quiet or not speaking.
- When the teacher asked the normally talkative boy a question, he just stared blankly, as if the cat had got his tongue.
- Mad as a Hatter (idiom): Completely crazy or insane, often used to describe someone with eccentric behavior.
- After spending hours talking to himself and wearing mismatched socks, everyone began to think that the old inventor was as mad as a hatter.
Idiom Etymologies
Something that makes Thinking in English a little different from many of my competitors and colleagues in online English content creation is my dislike of idioms.
While some of my earlier episodes did look specifically at idioms and expressions, over the past few years I have tried to focus on more professional and (in my opinion) useful ways to use descriptive English.
To be honest, I don’t use too many idioms in my English. Years of academic research and living overseas (and marrying a non-native English speaker) has made me prioritise clear communication over unclear idioms.
But, this hasn’t stopped many of you requesting episodes explaining common phrases, idioms, and expressions.
So, I’ve come up with a compromise.
This episode of Thinking in English is going to look at three relatively common English language idioms. And I will explain what they mean and how to use them.
However, the real reason I’ve chosen these idioms is because they have fascinating etymologies. The origin of these idioms involves interesting stories from the past and give me the opportunity to talk about slightly more unusual topics!
Let’s get started!
Bite the Bullet
Meaning
A few months ago, while reading about UK student loans (which are a type of loan that make absolutely no sense), I found an article in the Times with the title “Why I made the 2am call to bite the bullet on my student loan.”
In this context, the phrase “bite the bullet” means to do something that you don’t really want to do. More specifically, Cambridge Dictionary defines the word as “to force yourself to do something unpleasant or difficult, or to be brave in a difficult situation.”
In that article, the writer was discussing decisions regarding taking out and paying her study loan – something she didn’t really want to do but felt was necessary.
My grandparents used to own a really lovely home in a beautiful small village. However, the village didn’t have any shops, doctors, or other basic services that would be useful for elderly people.
So, they decided to bite the bullet, sell their home, and move into my hometown near my parents.
This year, I might need to bite the bullet and buy myself a new laptop. I hate spending money, and I’ve been stressed over my finances recently, but a laptop is such an important piece of my work life that I should probably bite the bullet and get a better one (if anyone works for Apple and wants to gift me a MacBook please reach out)!
Now we’ve got the meaning out of the way, what are the origins of this famous phrase?
There are two competing theories, both with fascinating stories.
Alternative to Pain Medication
One theory behind the origins of bite the bullet comes from 18th century medical and military practices.
The phrase is believed to have originated from the practice of having a patient bite on a bullet during surgical procedures or amputations, especially when anaesthesia was not readily available or not advanced enough.
Imagine if you required urgent surgery, but there was nothing to put you to sleep or reduce your pain. Think how excruciating, how traumatising, that experience would be.
On the battlefield, and even in clinics before modern pain killers, surgeons would need alternative treatments to help manage (or try to manage) their patient’s pain.
Early medical treatments were often incredibly painful, almost bordering on torture, and would often cause more damage or even death.
The idea behind having the patient bite on a bullet was to provide something for them to clench their teeth on, helping them endure the pain of the procedure.
Various different materials or objects were used to put in patients mouths for them to bite down on, but on the battlefield bullets from their rifles were commonly available. At the time, bullets were made from the metal lead, a softer metal that wouldn’t break the patients’ teeth as they bit down in pain.
Overtime, the phrase bite the bullet entered the language referring to doing something unpleasant but necessary!
The Indian Mutiny
The other explanation relates to one of the most controversial moments in the history of the British empire: the Indian Mutiny.
It began in Meerut after Indian solders rebelled against the British East India Company, a trading company so large that it controlled India on behalf of the British government and had a private army of 200,000 soldiers.
The mutiny quickly spread. Across the country, soldiers, civilians, and groups joined the rebellion. The city Delhi was captured in May 1857 by Indian rebels, and other cities were put under siege by British forces.
It was characterised by extreme violence and there were numerous atrocities committed. Thousands were massacred, on both sides of the conflict. The British response to mutiny was brutal, with harsh punishments.
Moreover, following the mutiny, the British government took direct control of India from the East India Company. India became a crown colony, and the era of the British Raj began.
So, how does any of this relate to the phrase bite the bullet?
The cartridges were greased with a mixture of cow and pig fat, offending both Hindu and Muslim soldiers. To load the rifle, soldiers had to bite off the end of the cartridge, and the religious beliefs of the soldiers were violated by the use of animal fat.
Some people suggest the phrase bite the bullet came from British officers forcing the soldiers to literally bite their bullets against their will.
However, the phrase was probably in use before the Indian mutiny, making this a less believable theory.
Cat Got Your Tongue
Meaning
What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?
This phrase, has the cat got your tongue, is a relatively common idiom that we use to question someone about their silence.
In the words of the Cambridge Dictionary, it is “something you say to someone when you are annoyed because they will not speak.”
Has the cat got your tongue is the equivalent of asking – “Hey! Why aren’t you saying anything?”
We use it when we are surprised or frustrated at a person’s uncharacteristic quietness or silence. Similar phrases include lost for words or speechless.
Hopefully you can see where this idiom is useful, but you are probably questioning the origins of the idiom.
Perhaps you are imaging a cat biting or clawing your tongue so you can’t speak at all.
While the actual origins of this idiom are unknown, and there is little evidence to help us, some of the theories behind cat got your tongue are fascinating!
The Cat-O’-Nine-Tails
The first theory is of nautical origins!
On board the ships of the British Empire, conditions were tough. Sailors were disciplined and punished severely if they did something wrong, and one of the most feared punishments involved the “cat-o’-nine-tails”.
“Cat-o’-nine-tails” refers to a type of whip.
The name “cat-o’-nine-tails” is derived from the nine knotted cords attached to a handle, each ending in a knot or a piece of metal. This design increased the whip’s effectiveness in delivering a more severe and painful impact.
The use of the cat-o’-nine-tails was a form of punishment, and it was often employed as a disciplinary measure aboard ships in the British Royal Navy and other navies. Sailors who committed offenses or violated rules might be subjected to floggings with the cat-o’-nine-tails as a means of maintaining discipline.
According to some people, the phrase cat got your tongue might have originated from the practice of flogging, where the victim would be left speechless or too in pain to speak afterwards.
So rather than a literal cat stopping you speaking, it would be the excruciating pain of being whipped by the feared cat-o’-nine-tails.
Other Theories
As I mentioned, the connection to the cat-o’-nine-tails has little actual evidence and there are a few other stories!
Some people suggest that the saying actually comes from the practice of cutting off people’s tongues as a punishment and then feeding them to cats.
Or, apparently, there is a similar phrase used in French which roughly translates to English as “I throw my tongue to the cat.” However, this has a slightly different context as it means “I have nothing to say” rather than “why aren’t you speaking?”
Mad as a Hatter
Meaning
Have you ever read, or watched, a version of Alice in Wonderland?
Alice in Wonderland is a fantastic and classic children’s story, featuring a character known as the mad hatter. Many people often assume that the idiom “mad as a hatter” is related to this character from Alice in Wonderland… but the story is actually much more interesting.
If you are as mad as a hatter, you are completely insane. You are crazy. You are out of your mind.
It tends to be used colloquially or light-heartedly to suggest a person is crazy. His wife threw away all of his clothes yesterday – she is as mad as a hatter. Or she is very intelligent, but as mad as a hatter.
So where does this idiom come from? The answer is mad hatter disease!
Mad Hatter Disease
A person who makes hats is known as a hatter. And in the 18th and 19th centuries, a disproportionately high number of hatters were “crazy” or “mad” or, in modern terms, “had neurological symptoms.”
Hats in the 18th and 19th century were often made using the fur of small animals like rabbits. To turn the fur into a material suitable for hats, hatters would use a chemical called mercury nitrate.
We now know that the metal mercury is poisonous. In tiny amounts, mercury will have little effect. But hatters were handling mercury nitrate constantly – every day for years.
This extensive exposure to mercury poisoned thousands of hatters and resulted in symptoms like tremors, hallucinations, instability, and difficulty speaking. It made the hatters appear mentally ill, or mad, when they were actually suffering from acute mercury poisoning.
One of the most famous “mad hatters” was Boston Corbett. Corbett, who had worked extensively in the hatting industry, is the man who killed the assassin of Abraham Lincoln in 1865.
Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while he was at the theatre, and the army (including Corbett) were sent to capture Wilkes Booth alive. However, Corbett disobeyed orders and killed Booth. Corbett also did a variety of other reckless things in his life and ended up dying in a mental asylum.
Researchers now suggest his behaviour was possibly due to suffering from mercury poisoning!
Final Thought
Today I looked at 3 different idioms with fascinating, if somewhat speculative, origins!
Bite the bullet, meaning enduring something you don’t want to do, allowed us to discuss brutal medical treatments and the Indian Mutiny.
Cat got your tongue, a query as to why someone is silent, opened the door to a look at the terrible punishments inflicted on sailors.
And mad as a hatter, a reference to a crazy person, is actually related to long term mercury poisoning!
Hopefully you found this episode useful, and most importantly interesting!
What do you think? Do you know any other idioms with interesting origins?
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Hi! In our language (hungarian) there is also “Cat got your tongue” (Elvitte a cica a nyelved =The kitten has taken away your tongue) It’s very interesting to me.