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Expressions on Monday
Jan. 3rd, 2005 10:32 pmstripped to the buff
Buff, as we use it most frequently today, is a colour, a light yellow. But it is also the name given to a soft, undyed and unglazed leather, especially a leather made from a buffalo hide, for it was from this leather that the colour got its name. Someone, about three hundred years ago, facetiously referred to his own bare skin as his buff, perhaps because it was tanned by the sun and had the characteristic fuzzy surface of buffalo leather. The name stuck, but it now rarely used except in the phrase above, which, of course, means divested of one's clothing.
that's the ticket
It may sound a little far-fetched, but nevertheless it's true that this expression of approval had its origin in a mispronunciation of the French word etiquette. Try it yourself. Put the accent on the second syllable. You will get uh-tick'ut. Someone, perhaps a schoolboy, may have jocularly made a persistent point of such mispronunciation round the year 1800 or later in saying, "that's etiquette," that's the correct thing. From "that's uh-tick'ut," it was an easy and natural corruption to "that's the ticket," and the latter phrase acquired general use, making its bow into literature about 1838.
upside down
Strangely enough, we have had this expression only since the time of Queen Elizabeth. Before that, when one wanted to say that a thing was overturned or in a state of disorder, he said it was upsedown, or, with the same meaning, topsy-turvy. From a variety of evidence, the early form of upsedown was up so down, but nothing has yet been found that would explain this Old English usage, nor, indeed, explain the source of topsy-turvy.
>A Hog On Ice< by Charles Earle Funk
Buff, as we use it most frequently today, is a colour, a light yellow. But it is also the name given to a soft, undyed and unglazed leather, especially a leather made from a buffalo hide, for it was from this leather that the colour got its name. Someone, about three hundred years ago, facetiously referred to his own bare skin as his buff, perhaps because it was tanned by the sun and had the characteristic fuzzy surface of buffalo leather. The name stuck, but it now rarely used except in the phrase above, which, of course, means divested of one's clothing.
that's the ticket
It may sound a little far-fetched, but nevertheless it's true that this expression of approval had its origin in a mispronunciation of the French word etiquette. Try it yourself. Put the accent on the second syllable. You will get uh-tick'ut. Someone, perhaps a schoolboy, may have jocularly made a persistent point of such mispronunciation round the year 1800 or later in saying, "that's etiquette," that's the correct thing. From "that's uh-tick'ut," it was an easy and natural corruption to "that's the ticket," and the latter phrase acquired general use, making its bow into literature about 1838.
upside down
Strangely enough, we have had this expression only since the time of Queen Elizabeth. Before that, when one wanted to say that a thing was overturned or in a state of disorder, he said it was upsedown, or, with the same meaning, topsy-turvy. From a variety of evidence, the early form of upsedown was up so down, but nothing has yet been found that would explain this Old English usage, nor, indeed, explain the source of topsy-turvy.
>A Hog On Ice< by Charles Earle Funk
